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THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY. X^^^

NOVEMBER, 1888.

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION". •

By CHARLES S. ASHLEY.

THE people of the United States are this year applying them-
selves with a concentration very rare in great masses of men
to the problem of tariff revision. It is inevitable that in a nation
of so fresh and independent a spirit the claims of 'authority and
scientific results should not receive any great recognition ; and I,
for one, rejoice that the people rely upon themselves and their
own judgment and experience, rather than on the theories, how-
ever respectable, of eminent writers. We are therefore brought
face to face with the question. What has been our experience in
the matter ? What have been the effects of protection in this
country ? It is especially interesting to examine the question
from a strictly practical point of view, because this is the chosen
battle-ground of the defenders of the existing system.

Free trade is an 'extension of the practice of our daily lives.
We each of us buy in the cheapest market what we wish to buy,
and sell our wares or our labor where we can get the most for
them. I do not make my own shoes, but employ the great length
of time which it would take me to make them in doing something
which enables me to buy several pairs and other things as well.
Instead of making my own shoes (thus, in protection phraseology,
" protecting " my own " labor "), I buy my shoes of a neighbor,
and the Government does not attempt to prevent me or to tax me
for so doing. Even my neighbor does not himself make the shoes
which he sells me. He does not undertake to protect his labor,
but buys of a wholesale house in New York, which in turn buys
of a Lynn manufacturer. The result of all these complicated
transactions going to give me a pair of shoes is, that I get them
at an equivalent orf a very moderate amount of work, instead of
by a great deal of direct exertion and personal sacrifice. So, too,

VOL. XXXIT. — 1 _

31763

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the citizens of CMcago do not attempt to raise their wheat in their
own " back yards," but send their money into distant parts and
bny it ; while, on the other hand, the farmers of whom they buy
do not attempt to make their own clothing, their furniture, or
even their own flour. They buy them at Chicago. They do not
think it good economy to expend $100 worth of their own labor
for what costs but $10 in Chicago, but wisely prefer to use it in
creating what will bring $100 in Chicago. So, too, rising in the
scale of comparison, Iowa and Kansas do not "protect" them-
selves against New York and Massachusetts, nor do they attempt
by legal means to " foster industries " which exist in the latter
States. The national Constitution, fortunately, forbids such a
course ; and, as a party, the protectionists have not yet taken it
on themselves to say that a " protection " policy would be for the
advantage of the granger States as against the manufacturing
States. But the moment we come to that imaginary line known
as the national boundary, this simple and beneficent process ceases.
The farmers of Manitoba would naturally buy their clothing,
furniture, tools and machinery, and much of their food, at Minne-
apolis and St. Paul. The merchants of those cities would like to
sell to the Manitobans, but the two Governments prevent it.
Only last year the Manitobans had a very good potato-crop, while
that of Minnesota was a failure ; and, on the other hand, fruit was
plenty in Minnesota and scarce in Manitoba. It would have been
natural to have sold American fruit in Manitoba, and to have
brought back potatoes. But no ; protection "protected" the peo-
ple of Minnesota from potatoes that year, and the Manitobans, as
they tried to imagine that their superfluous potatoes were apples
and pears, doubtless consoled themselves with the idea that they
were growing rich, because no Yankees were selling them fruit
and taking their money away.

It is useful to recur to these every-day facts of universal ex-
perience in order that we may have the great and complicated
question before us in its simplest elements. I think the homely
illustrations I have used at the outset will lend certainty and sig-
nificance to the results of a survey of the effects of protection in
the larger and vaguer field of our national life. Let the reader
keep in mind the consequences which would ensue if I did not buy
my shoes of a neighbor — the poor shoes I would have, and the
great labor with which I obtained them. Let him imagine the
result of the Chicago people attempting to raise their wheat in
their own " back yards," or of the farmers of Iowa refusing to
buy any cloths or machinery not produced in their own neigh-
borhood. Let him imagine the poverty and want which would
prevail in the frontier States if from the moment of settlement
they adopted the policy of prohibiting all these importations from

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 3

the East, by which, they save labor and build up their country.
He will then be in a position to see, by analogy, the evils which
have followed in the train of protection, even in this country of
vast extent and limitless resources. And, on the other hand, he
will not fail to see the analogy between the success of that natural
system which prevails in the United States, and is practiced by
each of us in our private capacities, and the policy of industrial
liberty which a few nations have been led to adopt.

The plain primary effect of a tariff and its main jDurxDOse, so far
as protection is concerned, is to raise the price of the article im-
ported by the amount of the duty. It may be, and to some extent
doubtless is true, as claimed, that internal competition afterward
reduces the market price. But the jjrimary effect is manifestly as
stated, if the article continues to be imported. This increase of
price necessarily is borne entirely by the consumers, except in cer-
tain special cases (as where the supply market is very small in
extent, and where prices would consequently rise very fast with
the unfettered demand of the American consumers), since we have
no means of forcing foreigners to ship goods here except at the
same rates which they would be willing to sell for if there were no
tariff. But, of course, it may be that the tariff is so high that the
imports practically cease, and the American market is supplied
by American producers, though at an enhanced cost over what
would have been necessary to pay, with the world to choose from.
In this case the consumer, of course, still pays this enhanced
price, whether or not, as the protectionist contends, he somehow
gets it back. With these few points in mind we will proceed to
determine in a few particulars, as nearly as may be what this
country has actually paid by reason of our high tariff. It is
greatly to be regretted that materials do not exist to make a com-
plete showing of what the protective features of the tariff have
cost the people without benefiting the Government; but a few
instances may serve as illustrations, and will faintly indicate the
enormous extent of that forcible transfer of wealth from buyers
to sellers which has been made by prohibitory tariffs.

The average price of steel rails in this country has for the past
twenty years been at least $15 per ton more than in England.
There has been a consumption of at least 30,000,000 tons neces-
sary to lay and repair our 156,000 miles of railway. More than
two thirds of this amount has been bought at home. The Gov-
ernment has, therefore, forcibly transferred about $300,000,000
belonging to one class of American citizens to another class, by
laying an embargo on the business of the first in favor of the
second.* In some years the demand for steel has been so great

* In the year 1887 Carnegie Brothers & Company, of Pittsburg, manufactured 192,-
998 tons of steel rails at a cost of $26.79 per ton, and sold them at an average of $37.12-^

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that rails have sold for double and even treble tlie natural cost ;
but still buyers were forced to buy in the liome markets. And
the reduction in duty from $28 to $17 per ton was accomplished
only in the teeth of vigorous protestations that it would ruin
American mills and workingmen. I say nothing of the effect of
this tax on railroad building and operation in rendering transpor-
tation scarcer and more expensive. But it is probable that a line
of railway with which I am connected would by this time have
been completed and have been paying handsomely but for the
$300,000 additional expense of construction entailed by the pro-
tection tariff.

Pig-iron enters into articles used in every house and in every
business. It is turned into plows, kettles, and stoves, as well as
into vast engines, railway material, building material, and fire-
arms. Four million and a half tons of this material were made in
the United States in 1882 and sold at an average of $22 per ton.
In 1880 the market value reached $-10, and in 1886 $17. According
to Mr. Wilkeson, this material ought to be marketable at $9 per
ton easily, and Mr. Vinton does not think its actual value much
more. But making an allowance of $12 per ton as liberal, in fact
very liberal, we may say that the people of the United States
have paid an unnatural price for this product amounting in all to
$45,000,000 in 1882 alone; and, assuming that to have been an
average year, we may place the enhanced price of pig-iron to the
American people for the past twenty years at the enormous aggre-
gate of $900,000,000.

On lumber it is difficult to make an accurate estimate. But
assuming the cut of Michigan in 1880 (4,172,000,000 feet) to have
been half the product affected, and to have been enhanced in
price to the extent of half the duty, which, in view of the enor-
mous forests of Canada, and the great value of our standing pine,
is very moderate, the tariff on lumber has cost the people of the
United States $8,000,000 per annum. One peculiarity about this
tax, or rather levy, is, that it inures to the benefit solely of a few
land-owners in Michigan and elsewhere, who were fortunate
enough to get the pine-lands when they were worth $2 per acre.

per ton; making a profit of about $1,158,000 on that item alone of their manufactures.
For the making of these rails they paid out in wages $778,075, equal to about 68 per cent
of their profits. During the same year the same firm turned out about 30,000 tons of iron
and steel beams (used in large buildings, bridges, etc.), at a cost of about $28.02 per ton,
and sold them at $66 per ton, through a trust; making a total profit of about $1,150,000,
which is 135 per cent, of the total expenses and about seven times the sum paid by them
to their labor employed on this product. The exorbitant profit thus made at the expense
of the owners and patrons of railways and buildings was rendered possible solely by the
h.igh tariff (on rails $17 per ton, or about 75 per cent; on beams, l^ cent per pound, or
about 102 per cent).— Abridged from the speech of W. L. Scott, in the House of Repre-
sentatives, May 11, 1888.

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 5

Labor does not produce the pine, nor does it gain any great pro-
portion of its market value.*

The American people are clothed very expensively. They im-
port about half their woolen goods, and pay thereon an enormous
tax to the Government, amounting in 1885-1886 to $35,600,000.
The other half of their clothing they buy of domestic manufact-
urers, and may be assumed to pay an unnaturally high price to
about the same extent. We may say, then, that in twenty years
the people have paid a bounty of about $700,000,000 to domestic
manufacturers and about the same amount in taxes to the Gov-
ernment,

The average wage of Americans is, as is well known, consid-
erably higher than that of the English ; yet Mr. Mulhall estimates
that the American works forty-nine days in the year to supply
himself with clothing, while the Englishman accomplishes the
same thing in thirty-four. This result has been brought about
by the wool tariff of 1867, which imposed a heavy duty on an
article not made or greatly added to in value by labor, wool,
and also on woolen clothing. The history of the effect of this
duty is interesting and even ludicrous. Foreign wools are needed
to mix with American wools to make good cloth. Accordingly,
when the tariff was put on wool the manufacturers found that
the people would not buy the high-priced product, but bought
foreign goods. Then they began to adulterate their woolen
goods with shoddy and cotton. But, in spite of everything, the
woolen industry was depressed, and the price of wool refused to
go up.f Some of them saw the moral; but only the other day I
was talking with one who expressed his opposition to the Mills
bill by saying, " We do not think it will hurt our business ; we know
it." On being asked if he did not think free wool and a duty of
thirty-eight per cent a fair equivalent for the present duty, he
started and clearly showed he had no accurate idea of what the

* Soon after the duty was put on pine-lumber the pine was advanced $1 per thousand
feet. Seeing this, the men at the camps in Michigan thought it was a good time to ask for
a slight increase in pay, inasmuch as the tariff was, they were assured, for their benefit.
They asked an increase from $1.50 to $1.75 per day, an increase equivalent to perhaps 5
per cent of the increased profit. Thereupon they were all dismissed. Canadians were im-
ported at $1.25 per day, and were only worked three fourths time at that. Great is "the
American system." — " Indianapolis Signal " (Labor paper).

f After the enactment of the high duty on wool in 186*7, both wool-manufacturing and
wool-growing were very much depressed, owing to the fact that the public would not buy
woolens at the enhanced prices. During this period it was very common for the commis-
sion-merchant to find that he had over-advanced to the manufacturer. The almost invari-
able result was a mortgage on the mill-property and a foreclosure. In this way A. T.
Stewart acquired mill after mill, but even he failed to make his factories pay, and he is
believed to have lost heavily by his woolen-mills. At his death his estate was burdened by
a large number of these properties. — From the paper of Rowland Hazard, woolen manu-
facturer, before the Chicago Free-Trade Conference, November 12, 1885.

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bill did provide ; but he simply bad a vague notion that he had
an illegitimate advantage which somebody was trying to take
away.

But, in addition to loss of this kind, the maintenance of the
protection system has for a number of years resulted in a heavy
surplus — a taxation of the people very far beyond the require-
ments of our Government. This surplus, therefore, must be
charged up as one of the costs which the system entails ujDon the
people. For the past seven years this annual absorption by the
Government of the annual product has been very heavy. This pres-
ent year, it seems, the House and Senate have by systematic ex-
travagance succeeded in diminishing the surplus between fifteen
and thirty millions. But it is admitted on all sides that the sur-
plus fairly amounts to a sum not less than $125,000,000 annually.
This is ten dollars per annum for every family in the United
States. The total amount of the tariff taxation is about twice
that sum. But if we view the family solely as consumers, and
not at all as the recipients of protective bounty (which is prac-
tically a correct basis),* we have to add to this cost the enhanced
prices of American products, some of which have been mentioned,
and of which the Government gets no share. This indirect tax,
of which examples have been given, is variously estimated in its
total amount. On some articles it amounts to $13 when the tariff
tax amounts to $1 ; that is to say, the consumer pays out $14 in
enhanced prices, of which only $1 reaches the Government. On
the whole, this indirect levy or transfer (it can not be called a tax)
may be estimated to amount to about five times the tariff tax.f It
amounts, therefore, to about $100 per family per annum, and, with
the superfluous element of the tariff tax, to about $110. While
this estimate is largely conjectural, no one who is aware of the
increased expensiveness of our manufacturing, and even of our
agricultural processes, will doubt that the figure is very large,
and perhaps in excess of that named. This, be it remembered, is
not a tax on property but a tax on consumption. The poor man
pays as much on sugar and rice as the rich man. The carpenter
with $2 per day pays nearly as much on clothing as Jay Gould,
rated at $30,000 a day ; and on no article of consumption or use
are the rich and poor taxed in proportion to their wealth, because
ninety-five per cent of the poor man's income is required to pay
his family's living expenses, while the rich man uses a much
smaller proportion for that purpose. J

* In 1886 W. C. Ford, E. B. Elliot, and Simon Newcomb, statistical experts, reported
to the Secretary of the Treasury their estimate of the number of persons in " protected "
industries. Their estimates vary from 4-'7 per cent to 5'2 per cent.

f I believe this is Mr. Wells's estimate.

t It is a frequently made reply to considerations like the above that, though protection

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION.

If the foregoing estimate is well founded, it is clear that very
serious effects must be found both in the general state of the peo-
ple and in that of various industries. Let us, therefore, make
some general comparisons between this country and the greatest
of those nations which have adopted a free-trade policy, and- then
survey as far as practicable the several effects of high tariffs on
the laboring, farming, and manufacturing classes. Such a com-
parison must needs be more than fair to the United States, because
they are growing rapidly in every respect, while England has
more nearly reached a stationary state.

The total wealth and annual product of this country and Eng-
land (applying that name to the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland) are given as follows : *

1870.

1880.

Total wealth.

Wealth
per capita.

Total wealth.

Wealth
per capita.

United States

$34,379,640,000
33,436,680,000

1899
1,065

$46,145,700,000
42,379,200,000

$923

England ...

1,210

1870.

1880.

Annual product.

Product
per capita.

Annual product, l^^-fp^t^.

United States

$5,098,000,000
4,613,000,000

$129
146

$6,901,200,000
5,549,000,000

$132

England

171

Thus we see that the United States are not only behind England
in wealth per capita, but in product per capita ; and, still further,
that the same relation existed in 1870, but not to the same degree
as in 1880 ; England having made a greater gain during the dec-
ade. America gained $24 per capita in wealth during the decade,
England $145 ; while the product per capita in America increased
$3, and that in England increased $25.

In wealth per capita, Mr. Mulhall ranks the nations as follows :
1. England ; 2. Holland ; then France, Denmark, Australia, United
States, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Germany. In annual earnings
per capita Australia is first ; then England, the United States,

takes from some and gives to others, yet all are Americans — " it is all in the family." This
proposition and the other great stand-by, that " foreigners pay the tariff-taxes," I find it
difficult to answer seriously. When a philosopher starts out with an inconceivable proposi-
tion, it is rather difficult to argue. But we may say, in the first place, that justice has some
place in the family as well as elsewhere. Moreover, much of what is taken from the people
is, from an economic point of view, wasted : it is used up in sustaining extravagant and .
old-fashioned processes, unfavorable locations, and the like.

* See Mulhall's " History of Prices," which is generally accepted as a work of the high-
est authority.

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Canada, Holland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Sweden,
in the order named, Mr. Mulhall also computes that the average
man in the United States works 113 days to gain his food for a
year, as compared with 114 days' work in England ; in England
he works 34 days for his clothing, here he works 49 ; house-rent
and taxes take 29 and 33 days in England, 30 and 33 days in the
United States ; and the Englishman consequently has 91 days in
the 300 left for other purposes, including savings, whereas the
American has but 75. The banking capital and deposits of Eng-
land are $125 per inhabitant ; of Australia, $150 ; of the United
States, $50. The railroads of the United States carried 270,000,000
passengers in 1882, those of England carried 752,000,000 ; and the
slight difference in railway rates is by no means an explanation
of the difference. The school attendance in England has increased
from forty per cent less per capita than ours in 1880 to about the
same. The post-office returns show a greater increase in the use
of the mails in England than here. And that faithful index of
popular condition, the criminal calendar, shows a steady decrease
for a long period, until, in 1885, there was but one conviction to
3,272 persons in England ; while America has one conviction to
930 persons, which has been about the rate for a considerable
time. And the statistics of pauperism, while not so favorable for
England, show a steady and rapid decrease for fifty years, and
the ratio of paupers to population is about one fourth what it
was in 1840. It would be interesting, had we space, to show the
greater consumption per capita of many articles in England than
in America, as of woolen clothing, sugar, and rice, the total con-
sumption of food products being about the same per capita ; and
to show the vast increase seen in England during the past forty
years. Suffice it to say that the facts indicate a greater average
of welfare in England than in this country. " There are few
questions of fact upon which the general public are more misled
by our public men than this," says Mr. Gunton, in his " Wealth
and Progress " ; " but the facts all point to the same result, viz.,
that the increase in wealth, in projDortion to population, has been
greater in England than in this country." Lastly, but most im-
portant of all to lovers of liberalism, legal equality, and popular
government, England has, during the past twenty years, grown
democratic "by leaps and bounds," and her vast wealth is cer-
tainly known to have been reaching a state of more equal distri-
bution, while we have been erecting an aristocracy of wealth.
The explanation of all this reduced to its simplest form is not dif-
ficult. England's citizens buy in enormous quantities and in the
cheapest markets, and sell in enormous quantities in the dearest
markets. The Englishman buys at $10, puts $1 worth of labor on
the material, and sells at $15. We buy at $15, put $1 worth of

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. g

labor on the material, and sell only to ourselves. The American
is not naturally slow, but he can not run with the Englishman
while his feet are fettered.

The protection system would obviously not stand for a year in
this country were it not for the belief that it results in an increase
of wages among our working-people. It is, therefore, especially
important to observe the effects of protection upon our wage-
earning class. First of all it is to be noted that great numbers of
the working-people can not, in the nature of things, be any more
subject to foreign competition under free trade than they are at
present. This applies to railroad-men, now nearly 700,000 in num-
ber ; men in the building trades, agricultural laborers, household
servants, clerks, professional men, and the like. The numbers
belonging to protected and non-protected industries stand about
as five to ninety-five, as above noted. The vast discrepancy be-
tween the two is not usually taken into account in tariff discus-
sions ; but it is instructive, as tending to show that American labor
is not in any danger of great displacement by any possible legisla-
tion or by any possible competition.

It is a startling fact, of which the application is not obvious,
that, while the protected industries have produced more million-
aires, perhaps, than any others, the wages paid to workmen in
them reach a much lower level than the usual one in wages-paid
occupations, and in some cases a most miserably low level. This
circumstance is well known, and as such was stated by a num-
ber of iron-manufacturers who united in a letter to the late Secre-
tary Manning, in reply to that of the Iron and Steel Association —
for there are manufacturers of iron who do not believe that the
tariff duty should be three or four times as high as the labor cost
of the product:* "The figures of the census show that in the
year 1879-1880 the total wages of $9,538,117 paid for mining ore,
distributed among 31,6G8 men and boys, averaged but $301 per
working year each, or less than a dollar for each working day.
Since that time wages have been again and again reduced. It is
a notorious fact that men are working in the mines for eighty
cents a day or less." So true is this that, while the cost of living
is much higher in this country than in England — for the reason
that taxes are there not levied altogether on articles consumed in
daily use — the wage-workers receive in many cases about the same
in both countries. For example, Joseph D. Weeks, special agent
for the tenth census, gives (" Statistics of Wages," pp. 112 and 119)
a table of wages paid in the iron-making business in the Cleve-
land district in England, and in " an establishment in Pennsyl-

* Letter of J. B. Sargeant and others to Hon. Daniel Manning, December 21,
1885.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EMPLOYMENT.

Keepers, per day

Keeper's helper, per day
Common laborer, per day

Cai'penter, per day

Blacksmiths, per day . . .

$1 47

1 35

1 00

1 23

1 23 and 1 00

English.

$1 61

81

75

1 05

1 13

With this we compare American and English wages in non-
protected occupations.* Mr. Wells gives from the last census the

EMPLOYMENT.

Carpenters, per week

Bricklayers, per week

Masons, per week

Locomotive-engineers, per week

English.

|!9 45

9 45

9 45

1 30 to 12 15

average pay of the railroad employes of this country as $450 per
annum ; and that of the iron- workers as $312. The difference in
the degree of skill required is not obvious, nor apparently suffi-
cient to explain the great discrepancy. Lastly, we may cite the
statistics brought together by Mr. Gunton in his " Wealth and
Progress," and comiDiled from the concurrent data and results of
Giffin, Mulhall, Levi, the United States census, and other great
authorities. The comparison is made between several countries,
none of whom have a tariff anything like as high as that of the
United States. Mr. Gunton thus states the " rise in actual wages "
in non-agricultural occupations, making the most favorable allow-
ance to France and Germany, as follows :

Wages
per week.

Increase
siace IScO.

Hours of labor
per week.

England

$7 44
5 04
3 84

$2 40
1 72
1 62

(1 87)

60

72

75

United States

About 66

These are very surprising facts, which merit careful attention.
The very idea that American workingmen are not in every way in
a better position than the English is so strange that we are natu-
rally incredulous. The fact that we have such vast quantities of
land, practically free, inviting the poorly paid to settle, would
seem to be a sure defense of high wages, and doubtless is such.
But there is an explanation, though it is probably but a partial
one, in the effects of the tariff. The cost of living has been con-
stantly rising in this country, while that in England has been f all-

* These figures are given for New York and London in the Government publication,
"Labor in Foreign Countries," pp. 635 and 1663 to 1667.

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. n

ing. The census estimate of tlie increase in the cost of living in
the United States during the thirty years ending in 1880 was 20*17
per cent, while during the same period the cost of articles of com-
mon use has fallen about twenty-four per cent. Obviously, the
effect of this would be to put the English wage-worker in a con-
stantly better position to demand better wages ; while the Ameri-
can, with his cost of living tending more and more to consume his
whole income, is in a constantly worse position to demand an in-
crease. It need not be remarked how potent a factor this is, nor
need the responsibility of the high tariff for the high prices pre-
vailing be carefully demonstrated. There is not a thing eaten or
a cloth worn which does not pay a tariff tax. The wheat is sown
after a plow taxed twenty-five per cent in actual extra cost ; and
is transported on railroads, ground up in mills, put in bags, and
sold in stores, all heavily taxed in their construction and main-
tenance by the tariff on iron. And on many articles, such as
clothing, the amount of the tax is scandalously oppressive.

This may or may not explain the failure of American wages to
rise to the same extent as English in the non-protected occupa-
tions, and, at any rate, there are other causes acting, such as the
waste of capital caused by the war, and the heavy immigration
of wage-workers. But we need a special explanation for the sin-
gular fact that wages in the protected occupations continually fall,
even while the general trend is upward. In General Lieb's recent
book on the tariff he has a comparative table of wages in twelve
unprotected and in twelve protected occupations. In the first,
wages rose in the six years following 1880 from ten to thirty-five
per cent, while wages in the protected occupations fell from five
to thirty-five per cent at the same time. These facts are well au-
thenticated and even " notorious," as remarked in the letter before
mentioned to Secretary Manning; but we seldom if ever are
shown the reason. I think this can be directly traced to the high
tariff. Take, for example, the iron-manufacturing business. In
general the American j^rices are much below the foreign price
plus the duty, and importation is impracticable. When the ojDer-
ators have this margin to work on they frequently accumulate a
considerable supply beyond the immediate demands of the mar-
ket. Then, asserting that the market is dull, they reduce wages.
The men strike, of course, and the mills close. As production
ceases, the price of iron goes up ; and, as the foreign iron can not
come in, the masters are fairly coining money out of the necessi-
ties of the public and the suffering of their own employes. In
the course of a few months the latter accept the situation and go
back to work at reduced wages. If foreign iron could come in
the moment production ceased in this country, the masters would
not be so quick to shut down as they are when they make money

12 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.

out of it ; the laborers would be on an equal footing witb the
masters. But^ as it is, the masters have both the public and their
employes " in chancery/' and have so far been able to resist the
otherwise universal tendency to advance in wages. The little cir-
cle of events which I have outlined has taken place again and
again in Pennsylvania, as the frequent strikes (more frequent, I
believe, than anywhere else in the Union) in part testify. These
circumstances can not long escape the attention of the leaders of
the laboring-people, and from the rising unpopularity of protec-
tion among them we may confidently predict that they will not
much longer be deceived.*

The depression of American agriculture is well known. In
the ten years 1850-'60 the value of American farms more than
doubled. In the following twenty years the value increased
slightly over 50 per cent. So far as the influence of the tariff is
felt in the value of farms, it might be supposed that its operation
would be very favorable in the manufacturing States. Yet even
here the percentage of increase in value for the decade 1850-60
is greater than for the twenty years following 1860. All the New
England States, save Massachusetts and Rhode Island, show a
nominal decrease in the decade 1870-'80, and, even allowing for
the 25-per-cent depreciation of greenbacks in 1870, the increase is
not great ; it does not by any means keep pace with the decade
of 1850-'60, during which there was a low tariff. The State of
Illinois should be a fair example of what has happened in purely
agricultural States. From 1850 to 1860 the increase was 412 per
cent; from 1860 to 1880 it was but 250 per cent. The census does
not show the mortgages on farms ; but, according to the statis-
tics printed in the "New York Times," ten agricultural States
have their farms mortgaged for $3,422,000,000 on a total valuation
of less than four times as much. It would be surprising if agri-
culture were not depressed. The same state of affairs exists in
American farming as existed in 1840 in English manufacturing,
when Cobden and his friends associated themselves to bring in
free wheat and to break the power of the landlords. Every tool
which farmers use, and nearly every article they consume, bears
a heavy tax, just as in Great Britain the high-tariff prices of pro-
visions made it impossible for the manufacturers to pay subsist-
ence wages to workmen. This country naturally manufactures
agricultural machinery, and would do so even under absolute free
trade, as is proved by the fact that we export it, but the duty on
iron-ore and pig-iron makes the price from 15 to 25 per cent
higher. Sugar is enhanced in price about 75 per cent by the tariff,
and clothing, furniture, and lumber are largely raised in price to

* This explanation was first made, T think, by Mr. Benjamin Reece, at the Free-Trade
Conference of 1885.

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 13

the farmer. In return, lie gets the " home market " ; but, inas-
much as he gets precisely the same for his grain, whether it is sent
to Liverpool or to Pittsburg for consumption, this does not seem
quite compensatory.

As might be expected, the manufacturing interests make a
better showing than the agricultural. Yet even in this favored
branch of business the percentage of increase in 1850 and 1860 is
greater than that between 18 GO and 1880 ; if the rate shown in the
former period had been maintained, the manufactured products
for 1880 would have been greater in value than it is shown to be
by the census by about a billion dollars. It will be observed that
these figures are based upon the products of the census years 1860
and 1880, and, as the year of 1860 was one of great depression and
that of 1880 of great prosperity, the facts are more strongly in
favor of the low-tariff period than is indicated on the face of the
figures. Thus, though the manufacturing interest is supposed to
be the particular beneficiary of j^rotection, it, too, shoulders some
of the burdens of the tariff ; and the New York " Evening Post "
publishes a list of two hundred manufacturers who favor a reduc-
tion. Some industries, such as ship-building, have been nearly
destroyed by the high tariff on everything which goes into a ship,
and while in 1860 there were twenty ship-yards about New York,
there is hardly one left. So with many manufacturers of hard-
ware, which is made altogether too expensive to be readily mar-
ketable, by reason of the high cost of the material of which it
is made.* And countless derangements and dislocations of indus-
try might be instanced as manifestly due to the tariff'. The loss
of the carrying-trade has perhaps been sufficiently dwelt upon,
but it is still somewhat startling to be brought face to face with
the fact that, while in 1860 our ocean marine equaled England's,
it at present is about seven per cent of that great country's, and
is yearly decreasing. It is calculated that nearly four billion
dollars have been paid out on American ocean freights since the
war, of which the Americans have got very little. Not only have
we lost the carrying-trade, which was rapidly falling into our

* In the "New York Times" of July 18, 1888, Mr. Frank Wilkeson makes a remark-
able showing of the effect of the tariff on iron- and steel-making. He computes that pig-
iron ought to be produced in Alabama and on the southern shore of Lake Erie at $Y per
ton cheaper than anywhere else in the woi'ld, and with no reduction of wages whatever.
(Moreover, he takes no account of natural gas.) He claims that iron is now made in Ohio
and Alabama for little more than that amount, and that the duty of $7 per ton has simply
enabled furnaces to stay in Pennsylvania, where every element of cost is very great except
the cost of labor, and that the manufacture of iron is thus unnaturally expensive and profit-
less to everybody. Pig-iron has within eight years sold for |40 per ton, and manufacturers
claim that it costs them $15. Mr. Wilkeson says, "The iron-works which will inevitably
be built on the shores of Lake Erie will bankrupt every blast-furnace and rolling-mill in
Europe." But not so long as a high tariff and combinations protect every manner of ex-
travagance.

14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hands, "but we have thus lost opportunities of export. If an
American locomotive is shipped, as many have been, to the Ar-
gentine Republic in competition with English engines, it has to
be sent in English boats via Liverpool, our people standing the
disadvantage of the additional charges, time of transport, and
interest. Under these circumstances we lose all trade except that
gained by great superiority, as in the case of locomotives. Thus
the very duty intended to benefit the iron industry reacts. It
secures the home market for the manufacturer, but destroys the
foreign market, and in times of inactivity, or when the market is
glutted by overproduction, there is no opportunity for relief by
recourse to a foreign customer. Again, if our manufacturers
wanted a machine not to be obtained in America, or raw materials
to be had here only at great expense, the Government taxes them
at a fearful rate. I am credibly informed that it is for this reason
that Mecham & Co., glass-manufacturers of Pittsburg, have re-
solved to locate in Belgium, where they can get their materials
and machines free. So with the Rochester tumbler- works, which,
I am also informed, are about to leave an illiberal country. It is
thus that we may see one reason for the existence of the great
American business colony in Europe. This country pays a pre-
mium to many industries to get out of it. Obviously, too, our
railway lines lose heavily by the diminished volume of exchanges,
just as they would if State or country tariffs were set up. They
pay thirty per cent extra for their supplies, and, by way of com-
pensation, are deprived of part of their natural trade. Turn
where we will, we find derangements, if not actual loss. Placing,
as protection does, everything upon an unnatural footing, liable
at any moment to give way, it would be irrational to expect sound
and healthy industrial growth. The hysterical fear of some of
the protectionists, that English competition and "pauper labor''
will " crush " American industry, is rather ludicrous, in view of
the history of the American and English competition. If there
has been any instance where English competition has not been
successfully met in America I do not know it. Indeed, Cobden
himself recognized that the United States were the great and only
menace to English commercial supremacy. Not to mention others,
Mr. Gladstone is quoted as saying, in a public speech : " I will say
this, that as long as America adheres to the protective system
your commercial primacy is secure. Nothing in the world can
wrest it from you while America continues to fetter her own
strong hands and arms, and with those fettered arms is content to
compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets."

That protection has any effect in fostering " trusts " has been
vehemently denied, but so have many other obvious propositions.
Protection lessens the number of possible competitors, and conse-

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION.

15

quently makes combination easier. It might be practicable to
get up a combination to control production and prices in the
United States, and yet be impracticable to form one to cover the
entire world. Of the enormous sums beyond a reasonable profit
which these concerns have taken from the people we have no
accurate knowledge, but the amount even in single cases, such as
the sugar trust, is simply vast. It is not argued here that these
combinations are criminal. But will it, on the other hand, be
argued that we are bound to " protect " them ? Are they to com-
bine to force high prices from the people, and are the people to
meekly assist in the process ?

The central idea of the protective system is to compel our peo-
ple to buy at home, while allowing them to sell abroad — thus
retaining our money at home and adding to it. This is the old
mercantile theory so popular during the middle ages. It needs
but little reflection to see that such a programme can not be in-
definitely carried on. If hundreds of millions of gold are brought
into this country, gold becomes cheap, while abroad it becomes
dear. There soon comes a time, therefore, when the gold will seek
purchases abroad in consequence of its high value there. If we
" corraled " all the gold in the world, the only thing we could do
with it would be to send it abroad and buy with it. This process
has already begun ; for, during the year 1887, and much more the
year ending June 30, 1888, the balance of international trade was
against us. Some protection organs, failing to see the meaning
of this, called for still higher tariffs. But that gold is only valu-
able as it enables our people to buy with it would seem to be axio-
matic, however much it is forgotten.

It might be inferred from the above, as it is certainly demon-
strated by experience and well understood by economists, that in
the long run imports and exports must balance each other, except
where, as in the case of England, imports are made to balance in-
comes derived from foreign investments. But if this be true, then
a tariff on imports is also a restriction on exports. Have we found
this to be true ? Not to rely on such general principles as that all
international trade is essentially barter — an exchange of product
for product — because payment in gold instead of bills of exchange
is too expensive ; because freights without return freights are too
high ; and because, as experience everywhere shows, people learn
to buy wherever they sell ; not to rely on abstract propositions,
let us appeal to the statistics of American and English exports
and imports :

Great Britain

United States

Exports.-

£245,000,000
74,000,000

-Average, 1861-18S0.

£321,000,000
74,000,000

i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Passing by sucli important facts as that we- have almost en-
tirely lost our South American trade ; that EurojDe shows an
increasing tendency to buy her grain elsewhere than here — I ap-
peal to the following interesting fact cited in one of Mr. Kurd's
speeches : In 1870, before sugar was admitted free from the Ha-
waiian Islands, our exports to them amounted to $590,000 ; and in
1883, after the sugar kings had been favored, our exports were
$3,683,460. In a few years our exports increased sixfold ; and
Americans now control both the business and the politics of the isl-
ands. There is no reason why something like the same proportion
should not hold for other countries, especially for Australia, South
America, Canada (whose trade has been most senselessly sacri-
ficed), and even for England. But supposing that our whole trade
would have increased in only half the above proportion, we find
that our exports might have been, in 1887, $2,250,000,000 instead
of $750,000,000. Had this been the case, our imports would simi-
larly have increased, and our people would have bought and sold
to an advantage of at least a billion dollars more than they have,
and would have been at least a billion dollars better off.

Heretofore we have taken a survey, necessarily rapid and in-
complete, of the strictly industrial effects of the tariff. Let us
now pass to a consideration of its general social and moral effects.
We shall find their mere enumeration a serious task. The tend-
ency to undervaluing of imports is well known, and is inevitably
inherent in the tariff system ; and on this account alone the tariff
has been said to make us "a nation of liars." Newspapers are
subsidized by its beneficiaries, and false information is systemati-
cally spread and groundless fears aroused among the ignorant.
Money is sent to districts of tariff reformers to defeat them. Each
protected industry maintains a watchful lobby at Washington in
its interest. Sham conventions are got up to affect public opinion.
In short, it is the old story of privilege maintaining itself by all
means fair and foul. Just as Bright and Cobden were denounced
as red-handed revolutionists for advocating untaxed bread for the
people, so the mildest revenue reformer is now " in favor,'' in the
words of General Alger, of Michigan (who owns several millions'
worth of protected pine), " of moving American industries to Eng-
land." Mr. Cleveland, according to other profound statesmen,
" desires to ruin American workingmen." Ludicrous as such talk
is, it has its serious side in the debasement of politics and the de-
struction of intelligent discussion. It is not indeed to be expected
that the political discussion of any subject will be remarkable for
research or breadth of view. Still, one must be surprised at the
manner in which the protection side has been defended by its
chief supporters. Mr. William McKinley, Jr., is supposed to be
the ablest and most intellectual of the champions of a high tariff,

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 17

and his speech on the Mills hill, which was carefully revised, con-
tains some interesting examples of the political and intellectual
effects of protection. In one place (p. 32) he asserts that "the
working-people of England find that competition with countries
employing cheaper labor is too oppressive to bear longer, and are
demanding to be saved from further degradation," etc. This, in
the face of the marvelous and universally admitted increase in
wages and comfort of English labor already mentioned, and also
in the face of the conspicuous fact that not a single prominent
politician in England champions protection, and that the only
protectionists are landlords whose rents are being reduced. In
the same speech (p. 27) he attacked the Administration because it
bought two thousand blankets for the army of an English firm,
when, by paying $606 more, it might have patronized an American
firm. Mr. McKinley's theory was that this money should not be
saved to the tax-payers, but should be paid, as a bounty, to the
American firm. On page 18 he said, " I would not allow a single
ton of steel to come into the United States if our own labor could
make it." If this is economic wisdom, why should not each State,
each county, take the same policy ? Mr. McKinley offers no ex-
planation, save that we have " one flag " ; but leaves to the imagi-
nation what the flag has to do with industrial success. But the
ne plus ultra doctrine is on page 13 : "I would rather have my
political economy founded on the every -day experience of the
peddler than the professor." In other words, the more we study
the subject the less we know about it. Science is a delusion and
snare for the impracticable. Ignorance alone is learned. We
should not expect to hear from Mr. McKinley that industrial
growth, like all organic growth, should be in the line of least
resistance and greatest traction, which is the opinion of a sociolo-
gist ; but we are hardly prepared for his assumption that labor
cost is identical with the rate of daily wages. I instance Mr. Mc-
Kinley's speech, because it is a type. On looking through the
other leading speeches against the Mills bill we find the same
neglect of facts, the same contempt for science, violence of asser-
tion, disregard of business principles, and coarseness of reasoning.
Nowhere do we find any account taken of the history of trade, the
prosperity of trading nations, or even the elementary fact that
English labor successfully competes with Indian and Chinese
labor five times as poorly paid. Indeed, their theory would make
this impossible, and therefore it can not be true.

Another very serious indirect effect of the high tariff is that
the surplus revenue obtained breeds profligate schemes without
number. It seems to be forgotten that the Government of the
United States was carried on during J. Q. Adams's administration
— one of the best this country has seen — for about $10,000,000 a

TOL. XXXIV. 2

i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

year. While our population has only increased five times since
then, and our area doubled in extent, the Government spends
twenty-five times as much. Extravagance has permeated every
department of Government. Perhaps $150,000,000 is wasted in
this way every yqar. Aside from this, however, we have to
notice a few of the ridiculous schemes which have been ad-
vanced to dispose of the surplus. The worst is probably the
proposal to use it to bring up the price of silver, advanced in a
congressional speech against the Mills bill.* This was devotion
to " labor " with a vengeance. Then it is proposed to use it in
educating the South, in defiance of the Constitution and of every
healthful dictate of expediency. Another proposition, likewise
well supported in Congress, has been to dig the Hennepin Canal,
which can not be soberly regarded as anything more than a local
enterprise of so poor a commercial character that no private com-
pany would think of going into it. And in the improvement of
harbors, the supporters of protection have encouraged the waste
of enough money seriously to diminish the surplus, f Governor
Foraker proposes that the Government buy land and put up pub-
lic buildings in every town of three thousand inhabitants and
over. Then there are innumerable people who want bounties and
subsidies for their enterprises. Not to speak of the extravagance
and heedlessness of our present pension legislation, we are dan-
gerously near the institution of civil pensions. Lastly, there are
schemes to spend any imaginable surplus in fortifications against
imaginary enemies and on a navy, which, amounting to nothing
with $400,000,000 put upon it since the war, might possibly amount
to something if twice that amount were expended. The surplus
has also attracted the attention of one of the Labor parties, which
thinks the Government ought to " loan '' it to " the people." Other
protection countries have had the same experience. Canada has
been given over to profligate government ever since she adopted
a protection policy. Where the Government goes on the theory
that the more money taken from the peojDle the better for every-
body, it will not be very careful of its expenditures.

One further serious effect to be apprehended, if the protection
idea obtains sway, must be mentioned. This is a demand for
State and local protection. No logic that makes it advantageous
for Kansas to protect herself against England can long resist the
conclusion that it would also be well to protect her against Penn-
sylvania. This idea would the more readily spread because it is
obvious that the tariff is a tax on the Western States for the bene-
fit of the Eastern, it being as certain as anything can well be that

* By Congressman Cheadle.

f One harbor within my knowledge has had more spent upon it by the Government
than the entire town is worth.

THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 19

tariff taxes cost Kansas SlOO where they bring lier $1. Various
efforts made by Tennessee and other States to fetter interstate
exchange by taxation of drummers, etc., have already been made,
but have happily been nullified by the Supreme Court of the
United States. Nevertheless, if the idea becomes implanted that
this is the best policy, the true way to get rich, the will of the
people will in the end prevail. The legitimate and logical out-
come of protection is a dissolution of the Union, and the establish-
ment of fifty tariffs instead of one. Although I do not believe
that any such thing will happen, it is worth while to point it out
to those who, like Mr. McKinley, are logical and thorough-going
protectionists, and believe in the speedy and permanent triumph
of their idea.

But this is not the American idea. It is not the idea of the
Declaration of Independence or of the Constitution. Our fathers
did not intend that Congress should have the power to create an
industrial aristocracy, that certain classes should be saddled on
the rest, and that American citizens should be deprived of the
manifest and inalienable right to exchange the fruits of their
labor wherever they saw fit. A more liberal spirit pervades that
document, and in an important case the Supreme Court, through
Justice Miller, has used language clearly implying that protec-
tion per se is unconstitutional.*

Si'EAKiNG of the lessons that the last twenty years of its activity had given to
the Church, the Bishop of Lichfield said, in the opening address of the last English
Church Congress : " Twenty years ago we discussed in our Congress the relations
of the Bible and science. The discussion has gone on unceasingly, and is likely
to continue for a long time to come. But its character and conditions are chang-
ing. The time of loud assertion and angry controversy is passing. Timid minds
are still staggered by the discoveries of science, but they are beginning to remem-
ber that all truth is of God. The honest doubter is no longer regarded as a crimi-
nal, but as an invalid. It is even admitted that there may be a considerable
religious element in doubt."

* Judge Story (sections 1077-1097 of his book on the Constitution) has lent the weight
of his name to the opposite view. But Judge Cooley says (" Principles of Constitutional
Law " ) : " Constitutionally, a tax can have no other basis than the raising of revenue for
public purposes, and whatever has not this basis is tyrannical and unlawful. A tax on
imports, therefore, the purpose of which is not to raise revenue, but to discourage and
indirectly prohibit some particular import for the sake of some manufacturer, may well be
questioned as merely colorable, and therefore not warranted by constitutional principles."
And in Citizens' Savings-Bank vs. Topcka, 20 Wall, 635, the court said : " There are limita-
tions" on all American legislatures " which rise out of the essential nature of all free gov-
ernment. Among these is the limitation of taxation that it can only be used in the aid of
a public object. It can not, therefore, be exercised in the aid of enterprises strictly private
for the benefit of individuals, though in a remote or collateral way the public may be bene-
fited thereby." It was decided in this case that it was illegal to tax Topeka to pay manu-
facturers to locate there.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA: HIS ANTIQUITY
AND ENVIRONMENT.

By W J McGEE,

OF THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL SCBVEY.

DURING the unlettered youtli of the race there were no writ-
ten records from which the antiquity of man can be read. So
the anthropologist on the one hand, and the geologist on the other,
have sought to construct an early human history from prehistoric
relics, and from the formations in which they are imbedded or the
fossils with which they are associated. Lubbock divided prehis-
toric time into four great epochs, viz. : 1. The Paleolithic or rough
stone epoch, during which primitive man flourished ; 2. The Neo-
lithic or polished stone epoch, during which higher development
was reached ; 3. The Bronze age ; and 4. The Iron age.* These
divisions, at first supposed to represent successive eras, are now
regarded as representing cultural phases rather than periods of
time (in fact, all are found among the present population of the
world), and they are accordingly valueless as measures of the
antiquity of man upon the globe. The geologist classifies later
geologic time as Cenozoic or the era of modern life, divides it into
Tertiary and Quaternary (or Pleistocene), and subdivides the Ter-
tiary into Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. But no part of the
geologic record, as hitherto interpreted, is more indefinite than
that of the transition from Tertiary to Quaternary, or from Plio-
cene to Pleistocene ; and this indefiniteness is especially unfor-
tunate for American anthropology, since it was about this period
that the autochthon — the primeval inhabitant of the continent —
first appeared. It is, indeed, customary to recognize the geologi-
cally recent glacial period, during which northern United States
was overspread by an ice-sheet extending southward to the thirty-
eighth parallel, as the initial episode of the Quaternary ; but it is
becoming apparent that this period is too long and too vaguely
defined to satisfy inquirers for a date of man's origin.

Recent researches in the Great Basin of western America, in
the Mississippi Valley, and in the Atlantic slope, have shown (1)
that the glacial period consisted of two epochs of humid climate
and glaciation (the later comprising two or more sub-epochs) ;
(2) that these cold and wet epochs were preceded, separated, and
followed by climatal conditions much like those of to-day; (3)
that the intervening a-glacial epoch was of considerable dura-

* " Prehistoric Times," American edition, 18V5, pp. 2, 3.

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 21

tion ; and (4) that the earlier epoch, of cold was the longer,
though the cold was the more intense and the climate more
variable during the later epoch.

The latest researches in the Atlantic slope have shown more
definitively (1) that the interval of mild climate separating the two
cold epochs was from five to ten times as long as the post-glacial
interval ; (2) that the cold epochs themselves were brief in com-
parison with the inter-glacial and post-glacial intervals ; and (3)
that the earlier and longer epoch of cold was attended by conti-
nental submergence reaching four or five hundred feet in the
la,titude of New York and extending to South Carolina, while
the land depression of the later refrigeration was but forty or
fifty feet at New York, and scarcely extended beyond the great
terminal moraine of Long Island and northern New Jersey.*

During the first epoch of cold and wet local glaciers formed in
the Rocky Mountains and in the Sierras, the Great Basin (which
these ranges bound) was flooded and the now extinct Lakes Bon-
neville and Lahontan were formed, and into the lakes great vol-
umes of sand and silt — the lower lacustral beds of Gilbert and
Russell — were swept by the flooded rivers ; at the same time the
northern ice-sheet stretched down into the Mississippi Valley as
far as the Missouri River, the land was depressed, and both glacial
and aqueo-glacial deposits were laid down ; and it was at the same
time, too, that the Atlantic coast was depressed until the high
hills overlooking New York, Philadelphia and Washington were
half submerged, and that the rivers built great deltas of gravel
and loam along the shore of the expanded ocean, while the waves
dropped shallow-water sediments all over the lowlands. With
the interglacial warmth the glaciers of the Western mountains
were melted, the lakes were dried, and river - gravels were de-
posited by the shrunken streams over and canons were cut into
the old lake-bottoms ; in the Mississippi Valley the glaciers re-
treated and the drift-plains became forest-covered ; while in the
East the land underwent re-elevation, and there was erosion of
such extent as to afford a rough measure of the duration of the
warm interval. During the later epoch of cold and wet glaciers
again formed in the Rocky Mountains and in the Sierras, Lakes
Bonneville and Lahontan were refilled — the former to overflowing
—and the upper lacustral beds were laid down within them ; the
northern ice again invaded the Mississippi Valley and formed
two or more drift-sheets, together with the peculiar glacial-mud
deposit (or loess) into which they graduate, as well as the great
terminal moraine stretching from Ohio to Dakota; and in the
East the ice again overrode the Adirondacks and the New Eng-

* "American Journal of Science" for May and June, 1888; "Seventh Annual Report
of the United States Geological Survey," 1888, p. 537 et sea.

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

land ranges, crept southward to Long Island and northern New
Jersey, and heaped up the eastern extension of the terminal mo-
raine, and, as it melted, gave origin to the Champlain deposits
of the New England rivers and to certain distinctive aqueo-
glacial gravels, of which those of the Delaware at Trenton are
the type.

The lower lacustral deposits of the Great Basin, the aqueo-
glacial deposits of the Mississippi Valley, and the ancient deltas
of the Atlantic slope are correlated, partly because (1) each attests
a great and similar climatal episode, because (2) it is evident
that each of these episodes was so extreme as to affect the entire
breadth of the continent, and because (3) there are no indications
among American geologic deposits of other episodes with which
these might be confused ; the upper lacustral beds of the Great
Basin, the upper glacial and aqueo-glacial deposits of the Missis-
sippi Valley, and the glacial deposits of the Atlantic slope, are
correlated upon similar grounds ; and the harmony among the
various records gives cumulative proof of the accuracy of each.

By these researches of the last decade the earlier conceptions
of Quaternary history are greatly expanded, and the hitherto ob-
scure relation between the Tertiary and Quaternary is made clear.
Where they contain vertebrate fossils, the earlier and even the
later of these deposits are, it is true, referred to the Pliocene by
paleontologists, while physical geologists refer the entire series
to the Quaternary; but this discrepance is one of classification
only, and in no way affects the phenomena classified.

The sequence of events made out independently in the three
widely separated regions may be depicted as in the accompanying
diagram (Fig. 1), representing the temperatures and land-altitudes

TERTIABY aUATERNAOY

DCISTENCC or MAM DOUBTFUL PALEOLITHIC MAN •

Fig. 1.— Graphic Repeesentation op Climate and Changes in Altitude op the Land.

during late Tertiary and Quaternary time. By such a chrono-
graph alone is it possible to accurately measure the antiquity of
paleolithic man. Marsh has well shown that only long seons can
be measured by plant fossils, that somewhat shorter periods may
be measured by the records of invertebrate life, and that the ver-
tebrates afford by far the most delicate of the paleontologic time-
measures ; but the swing of even the vertebrate life-pendulum is

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 23

long as compared with, that marking the transitory stages of
human development, and must give place to the still more precise
chronometer afforded by the brief and sharply defined climatal
episodes of later geologic time ; the human records of diverse
regions can only be correlated in terms of these brief episodes ;
and in ascertaining the relations of paleolithic man to the two
best known climatal episodes of the past, it is immaterial whether
these be called Tertiary or Quaternary. It is the special merit of
the graphic method that it exhibits quantitative relations (for
while verbal language is commonly qualitative, graphic language
is always quantitative) ; and in the present case it affords a means
of measuring the consistency of the evidence, and of instantly de-
tecting the inconsistent records, of human antiquity.

There are several well-authenticated discoveries of human rel-
ics in this country in geologic deposits whose places may be fixed
in the graphic time-record forming Fig. 1. Aughey records two
chipped implements from the loess of the Missouri Valley, one of
them coming from immediately beneath an elephantine vertebra ;
Miss Babbitt has found great numbers of quartz-chips in a Cham-
plain terrace of the Mississippi at Little Falls, Minnesota, which
are regarded by many archaeologists as unquestionably artificial ;
N. H. Winchell records polished stone and copper implements as
well as human bones from the same aqueo-glacial terrace of the
Mississippi near Minneapolis ; Belt several years ago found a
fossilized human skull in what appears to be the westernmost ex-
tension of the loess in Colorado ; Gilbert has shown that the geo-
logic position of an ancient hearth found in excavating a well in
northern New York indicates that it was constructed during the
closing episodes of the last glacial epoch ; a few years since
McGee discovered a chipped obsidian implement imbedded in the
upper lacustral marls of western Nevada ; McAdams notes the
finding of a stone axe in loess seventy feet beneath the surface in
Illinois ; and among the most recent and satisfactory archseologic
discoveries of this country are those of two chipped implements
of black flint found in Ohio by Dr. C. G. Metz, at Madisonville
and Lovelands respectively, in deposits of loess and aqueo-glacial
gravel which G. F. Wright has shown to represent a closing episode
of the later glacial epoch. But it is in the aqueo-glacial gravels
of the Delaware River at Trenton, which were laid down contem-
poraneously with the terminal moraine one hundred miles farther
northward, and which have been so thoroughly studied by Ab-
bott, that the most conclusive proof of the existence of glacial
man is found ; and it is here, too, that the most satisfactory evi-
dence is obtained concerning the conditions by which paleolithic
man was surrounded. It is significant that in all these cases

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the human relics were found in deposits representing the closing
episodes of the later epoch of Quaternary cold.

There are several cases in which traces of human activity
have been reported from older deposits, but in which the discov-
eries are not so well authenticated. E. g., there is Dr. Koch's
well-known record of the finding of mastodon remains in the
Osage Valley, Missouri, associated with human implements and
traces of fire, in deposits probably contemporaneous with those of
the earlier ice-sheet ; but the geologic relations have never been
clearly made out, and the verity of the discovery has always been
(perhaps unjustly) questioned. The finding of a fossilized human
bone at Natchez, Mississippi, apparently associated with an early
Quaternary fauna, is equally well known ; but the attendant cir-
cumstances were not such as to carry conviction to the minds of
contemporary students. Lewis, also, has described a paleolithic
implement from aqueo-glacial gravels at Philadelphia ; but he
did not personally witness the discovery, and was not certain that
the object came from the older (earliest glacial) and not the newer
(latest glacial) gravels. It is significant that in all these cases
the testimony is internally defective ; and, since its acceptance
would many times multiply human antiquity as established by
collateral evidence (as clearly shown in Fig. 1), it would seem
especially wise to reserve judgment upon it.

There are other cases in which human remains have been
found in such position as to indicate great antiquity measured in
years — e. g., the shell-heaps of Damariscotta River in Maine and
St. John's River in Florida, representing a fauna now extinct or
displaced ; the enormous shell-heap at San Pablo on the Bay of
San Francisco, which e^ddently represents a vast period of build-
ing ; the shell-beds and superimposed deposits of the Aleutian
Islands, which have been shown by Dall to represent at least
three thousand years of accumulation, etc. ; but in none of these
cases is it possible to reduce the historic time-units to definite
geologic time-units.

There are still other cases in which human relics have been
reported from deposits of considerable geologic age — e. g., in Cala-
veras County, California, near Golden, Colorado, etc. ; but, while
the arch^eologic evidence would seem conclusive in at least one
of these instances, it is impossible to confidently transmute the
paleontologic record of the age of the deposits into the physical
record which alone is sufficiently refined for the measure of hu-
man development ; and it would thus seem wise to reserve judg-
ment in these cases, also, with respect to the correlation of the
deposits as well as to the association of the relics.

Excluding all doubtful cases, there remains a fairly consistent
body of testimony indicating the existence of a widely distributed

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 25

human population upon the North American Continent during
the later ice epoch. The records are not equally decisive, it is
true ; the artificial character of Miss Babbitt's quartz-chips has
been questioned, and they represent a stage of culture widely dif-
ferent from that represented by Winchell's objects from the same
deposit ; it has been suggested that McAdams's axe may have
been an adventitious inclusion ; Belt's untimely death prevented
final statement of the geologic position of the Colorado skull ; the
apparently conclusive structural evidence of the antiquity of the
Nevada obsidian is opposed by its fresh aspect and modern form ;
and Gilbert's hearth was not seen by the geologist who studied
its relations. Yet, however the doubtful cases may be weighted,
the testimony is cumulative, parts of it are unimpeachable, and
the proof of the existence of glacial man seems conclusive. But
the evidence of man's existence during the earlier epoch of gla-
cial cold is not conclusive ; and the evidence of still earlier human
occupancy of the continent is not reducible to the terms of defi-
nite geologic chronology. Moreover, there is a body of negative
evidence which is worthy of consideration. The lower lacustral
deposits of the Great Basin have been as carefully explored as the
upper, but have yielded no trace of human remains ; the oldest
glacial and aqueo-glacial deposits of the Mississippi Valley have
been explored in Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio, as care-
fully as the later deposits, but (if Dr. Koch's famous find be ex-
cluded) no traces of human occupancy have been found ; and,
most significant of all, the deposits of the earlier cold epoch
throughout the District of Columbia have been scanned for years
by a dozen trained collectors and not a single object of human
manufacture has been found within them, though thousands have
been found on the surface, and though it might be shown that the
conditions for savage life were as favorable on the Potomac dur-
ing this epoch as they were on the Delaware during the later.

The various archseologic discoveries of America display strik-
ing diversity in the degree of development exhibited in the relics,
which range from the rudest " turtle-backs" to finely chipped flint,
polished stone, and even copper ; but whether this disparity indi-
cates adventitious inclusion in certain cases — and thus weakens
the chain of evidence of human antiquity^or heterogeneity in
the primitive population, can not yet be decided. Whatever in-
terpretation be placed upon the questionable cases, however, there
is convincing proof not only of man's existence, but of the definite
stage of culture called paleolithic, in the later cold epoch of the
glacial period. It is indeed obvious that the autochthon must have
found birth anterior to this epoch, but the objective evidence of
pre-paleolithic art has not been ascertained ; and, since the date of
origin of a higher culture is unknown, it can only be said that the

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

paleolithic stage began toward the close of the later cold epoch
and extended well toward the historic period, probably overlapping
far upon the neolithic stage. Thus the place of paleolithic man in
the chronograph afforded by geology is that shown in Fig. 1.

It should be pointed out that the human period of America
can not be synchronized with that of Europe, since the geologic
chronometer employed abroad is not sufficiently sensitive. It is
true that Penck * and others have recently read from the glacial
and associated deposits of the Alps a climatal record coinciding
exactly with that recognized in this country \ (save that the du-
ration of the episodes is less closely measured), and that Mortillet J
and others have inferred a definite climatal sequence from the
Conspectus of Quaternary History.

is-

^2

li

Formation of Lake
Agassiz clays and
Champlaiu depos-
its. Terminal mo-
raines and third
drift-sheet.

f Relatively short
a-glacial interval.
Erosion of river-
valleys.

Loess passing into
second drift-sheet
in central U. S.
Upper lake-beds
in the Great Ba-
sin. Moraine-bor-
dered drift in east-
ern U. S.
f Long a-glacial in-
I terval. Formation
I of medial gravels
J in Great Basin and
forest bed in Mis-
sissippi Valley.
Ercsion in eastern
U. S.

Lower lake-beds in
Great B'sin, "Gum-
bo" passing into
first drift-sheet in
Mississippi Valley,
Columbia forma-
tion in eastern U.S.

The German Alps.

Post-
glacial
period.

Last
glacial
period.

Last
inter-
glacial
period.

Erosion of valleys ;
filling up of gla-
cial lakes.
Erosion in the cen-
tral part, moraine
building at the pe-
riphery, and sedi-
mentation by ice-
fed streams with-
out the glaciated
districts.
Erosion of valleys ;
I filling up of gla-
l cial lakes ; torma-
I tion of Innsbruck
[^ coal, etc.

Northern France.

Middle "|

(sec- I Moraine - building ;

ond) j- sedimentation by
glacial I glacial streams,
period. J

f Erosion of valleys ;
filling up of gla-
First I cial lakes ; forma-
inter- J tion of old deltas
glacial I and breccias, river
period. alluvium, and lig-
nites with associ-
[ ated deposits.
First i Erosion and depo-
glacial •] sition by ice and
period. ( glacial streams.

rColdanddry. For-
' mation of red al-
luvium ; atmos-
pheric deposits.

Milder tempera-
ture ; very short
relatively. Con-
tinuation of ter-
race formation ;
retreat of glaciers
f Cold and wet. For-
I mation of ter-
I races, great ex-
tension of gla-
ciers, clearing out
of valleys, and ac-
cumulat'n of soil.

Warm and wet. Su-
perior loam, high
Ic^el alluvium,
filling up of val-
leys, and remo-
val of soil.

(Not represented.)

* " Die Vergletscherung der dcutschen Alpen," 1882, Tabelle IL

■)• "American Journal of Science," third series, xxxv, 1888, pp. 462-466.

X "La Prehistorique Antiquit6 de THomme," 1885, p. 131.

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 27

relic-bearing deposits of central France ; but, as shown in the ac-
companying table, the records are not accordant in their entirety,
and can only be reduced to common terms by juxtaposing the
earliest recognized Quaternary episode of the lowlands with one
of the episodes of the later Quaternary in the mountains. This
allocation harmonizes the evidence as to the antiquity of man on
opposite sides of the Atlantic, but runs counter to current opinion
and appears inconsistent with certain cavern phenomena, and can
therefore be set forth as only a possible one. In this as in other
cases, paleontologic correlation is incompetent if not utterly
meaningless, since the episodes dealt with were so brief that
chorologic diversity among the higher animals was unquestion-
ably more important than chronologic variation — indeed, the latest
lacustral (and relic-bearing) deposits of the Great Basin, which are
referred to the Pliocene upon paleontologic grounds,* appear to
have an older facies than the oldest relic-bearing river-deposits of
France.

11.
The chipped implements found by Aughey appear to have
been dropped on the bottom of the shallow lake or muddy swamp
within which the loess was accumulated ; since the loess itself con-
sists of glacial mud, and since the basin in which it was deposited
was bounded on the north by the Quaternary mer de glace, the cli-
mate must have been cold; and the associated elephantine re-
mains prove the association of man and mammoth. The relics
themselves throw little light upon the habits of their makers, but
suggest that they were well advanced in the fabrication of chipped
implements. If the obsidian implement from the Nevada lake-
beds was really in situ (as all appearances indicated), it must have
been dropped in a shallow and quiet bay of the saline and alkaline
lake Lahontan, and gradually buried beneath its fine mechanical
sediments and chemical precipitates ; as indicated by the asso-
ciated fossil bones and teeth, its makers must have been contem-
porary with the indigenous horse, an elk or deer, an elephant or
mastodon, the camel, a gigantic ox, and other extinct animals com-
monly referred to the later Pliocene ; but the single implement
tells little of the habits and customs of the people it rejjresents,
save that they had advanced far in the art of stone-chipping. Gil-
bert's hearth was located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario,
when it was greatly expanded by continental tilting and obstruc-
tion of its present outlet by the later Quaternary glacier, and was
buried beneath lacustral deposits when further tilting of the land
altered the position of the lake-shore ; and since the lake was con-
fined on the north and east by the wer de glace, the temperature of
the times must have been low and the surface of the water dotted

* "American Naturalist," xxi, ISST, pp. 458, 459.

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by floes and icebergs in spring-time, if not all the year round. The
hearth itself tells only that its builders knew the uses of fire, and
constructed rude fireplaces, but is silent as to their knowledge of
water-craft, as to their implements and utensils, as to whether
they were hunters or fishermen, and so as to nearly all of their
habits and customs. Miss Babbitt's quartz-chips appear (though
the geologic relations are somewhat obscure) to represent the site
of a primitive workshop or rendezvous on the banks of a river
heading in the ice-sheet a few miles or scores of miles up-stream.
The artificial origin of the chips has been disputed, and is in-
dicated by their concentration in a certain local stratum and
their absence from contiguous strata and other localities rather
than by their form — the distribution being apparently explicable
only on the hyiDothesis that they were artificially accumulated,
whether or not they were artificiaLy fabricated. The rude chips
throw no light on the habits, customs, or environment of the men

Fig. a— Margin of the later Quatebnabt Ice-Sheet in the Vallet of Delaware River.

by whom they may have been fashioned, save that, if artificial,
they exhibit the lowest known grade of culture ; but this testi-
mony of the quartz-chips is apparently antagonized by that of the
polished-stone axe and disk, the copper spear-head, etc., recorded
by N. H. Winchell from another part of the same terrace-plain.
The deposit in which the Madisonville imjjlement was found

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 29

by Metz was laid down by a turbulent ice-bearing river but a
few miles from the glacier's margin. The implement, unlike
those recorded by Aughey, McGee, and N. H. Winchell, is of
the rude type commonly called paleolithic, and thus indicates
primitive customs among its makers; but neither alone nor in
conjunction with the similar implement found by the same indi-
vidual under like conditions at Lovelands does it tell whether the
inhabitant of the ice-front in the Ohio valley was hunter, fisher-
man, or husbandman, troglodyte, nomad, or house-builder; and
only the geologic evidence suggests conditions of life approaching
those of the modern Esquimau.

When the primitive man of Trenton flourished, the later
Quaternary mer de glace covered New York and New England,
and extended far into northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The ice was from five hundred to one thousand feet in thickness
near its margin, and overflowed the highest mountains, though
they somewhat impeded its progress ; the land beneath was some-
what depressed and was tilted northward toward the ice-front;
and flooded rivers, born upon and beneath the edge of the ice-
sheet, swept into their lower courses and into the sea, glacial
mud, sand, and pebbles, while upon their surfaces floated ice-floes
laden sometimes with larger pebbles and anon with great bowl-
ders. Among these rivers was the Delaware, which was trans-
formed in its middle course from a constricted torrent rushing
swiftly over a rocky bottom (as it is to-day and as it was anterior
to the second ice-epoch) into a broad slack-water estuary, tidal
probably to the mouth of the Lehigh. This estuary found its
source at the edge of the ice, where now lies the terminal moraine
(just below Belvidere) ; and at what is now the head of tide at
Trenton it embouched into a broad, shallow bay. At the ice-
front it gathered a harvest of cobble-stones which were washed
down-stream and deposited in a series of terraces more than one
hundred feet in height and two miles or more in width, extend-
ing ten miles down the river ; the cobbles growing finer and finer
and finally passing into beds of gravel and sand. There, too, the
waters became charged with glacial mud — the rock-flour forming
the grist of the glacial mill — which was more slowly deposited
in the form of fine loam sometimes enveloping the cobbles and
abundantly intermixed with the finer gravel and sand as far south
as Philadelphia, but most abundantly above Trenton. There, also,
the river gathered sand, fine and coarse pebbles, great bowlders,
and heterogeneous debris, which were frozen into ice-floes, floated
gently down-stream, and dropped as the floes melted, equally far
southward, but most abundantly where the river embouched into
the bay and where the floes lingered longest in the slackened cur-
rent, These aqueo-glacial deposits extend continuously from the

'30

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

terminal moraine to Philadelphia. They are most conspicuous in
the great gravel terrace just south of Belvidere, gradually dimin-
ish in volume and height and even merge into the modern allu-
vium by which they are in part overlaid between Easton and
Trenton, become conspicuous again at Trenton (where they cover
an area of fully fifty square miles, and are exposed in every natu-
ral and artificial excavation below their maximum altitude in
and near the city), and finally disappear near Bristol, though the
cobbles are largely dredged from the channel to and beyond
Philadelphia. They are in part overlaid by modern alluvium,
into which they appear to merge midway between the moraine
and Trenton ; and they repose unconformably upon the greatly
eroded surface of the Columbia formation — the aqueo-glacial de-
posits of the earlier cold epoch of the Quaternary — notably at
Trenton, where they fill a basin lined with Columbia brick-clays
and gravels.

By structure, composition, and topographic relations the de-
posits tell the story, as by
their geologic relations
they fix the date, of their
origin. At Trenton the de-
posits consist of stratified
gravels more heterogene-
ous than, but otherwise
undistinguishable from,
those of the terraces into
which the terminal mo-
raine merges, interspersed
with bowlders up to one
hundred cubic feet in vol-
ume, the whole imbedded
in a matrix of sand and
loam. The entire mass is
unquestionably water-laid ;
its continuous bedding is
indicative of wave-action,
and thus of shallow waters ;
and the bowlders scattered
throughout it are evident-
ly ice-borne. Its structure
is shown in Fig. 3, repro-
duced from a photograph
taken in the extensive gravel-pit half a mile east of the depot at
Trenton. The relations of these gravels to the subjacent Colum-
bia formation are shown in Fig. 4, also reproduced from a photo-
graph taken at Chambersburg — the coarse, stratified gravels.

Fm. 3.— Abtipicial Clip

<TON Gratels.

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA.

31

bowlders, etc., representing the later deposit, and the homogene-
ous loam passing downward into coarse gravels representing the
older formation. The thickness of the deposit ranges from a
trifling veneer to forty feet or more ; and its surface, where it has
escaped erosion, forms a
plain inclined gently south-
ward from an altitude of
about forty - five feet in
north Trenton to tide-level
midway between Bristol
and Philadelphia ; this in-
clination of the deposit be-
ing the measure of the
northward tilting of the
land during the later ice
epoch.

Within the Trenton
gravels two types of im-
plement are found — viz.,
" turtle - backs " and the
rude " leaf -shaped " imple-
ments regarded by Abbott
as of Esquimau pattern.
Both types are chipped
from a peculiar argillite
which is found in the de-
posit only as (presumptive-
ly) finished implements or
as large bowlders. The im-
plements, which occur in such numbers that over twenty -five
thousand have been collected by Abbott, are seldom water-worn
though frequently weathered, while the bowlders are somewhat
worn by water and similarly weathered. It is significant that the
" turtle-back " type is found throughout the deposit from top to bot-
tom, but most abundantly in the lower half and in progressively
diminishing abundance from bottom to top of the upper half, while
the " leaf -shaped " type is found only in the upper half and in pro-
gressively increasing abundance upward ; it is also noteworthy that
both types of implement are occasionally found over contiguous
surfaces of the Columbia formation (which were above water-level
when the Trenton gravels were deposited), commonly associated
with chipped implements of higher type ; and it is equally note-
worthy that the implements of higher type occur over the surface
of the Trenton gravels but never within them, while the ruder im-
plements found within the gravels do not occur upon the gravel
surface.

32

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The geologic evidence of the environment of the celt-users of
the Delaware River is complete and intelligible : the continuity of
the deposits proves that the Trenton gravels were laid down while
the northern part of the country was occupied by ice, and while

the terminal moraine was forming ; their structure and composi-
tion prove that they were laid down in shallow floe-bearing
waters ; their distribution indicates unmistakably the geography

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA.

33

of the period ; and this physical testimony is corroborated by the
association of remains of extinct or boreal animals (mastodon,
reindeer, bison, etc.) with the human relics. So definite, indeed,
are the data, that the geography of the period may be depicted

graphically. Fig. 5 is a bird's-eye sketch of the present head of
Delaware Bay, based upon the admirable topographic surveys of
New Jersey and upon personal studies, and represents with rea-

VOL. XXXIV. — 3

34

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sonable accuracy the general features of the region ; and Fig. 6 is
a similar sketch of the region as it existed during the Trenton
gravel period, based upon the same surveys and upon the shore-
lines brought to light thereby, and probably represents the con-
figuration of the earlier period with equal fidelity.

W if! I

'mB'f

mi

Fortunately, the Delaware Bay of the later Quaternary has an
existing homologue by which conceptions of the local physiog-
raphy and the attendant biotic conditions may be rendered tan-
gible— viz., the head of Chesapeake Bay, shown in Fig. 7. This
estuary is broad and shallow, as was the Delaware estuary during

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN AMERICA. 35

the glacial period ; it is gorged in spring-time with ice-floes formed
within its own area and swept into it by its great affluent, as was
the ancient Delaware throughout a longer and more rigorous
winter ; and its bottom is a submerged terrace-plain of loam, sand,
and gravel differing from the Trenton gravel only in the less pro-
portion of ice-borne materials within it. In the shoal Susquehanna-
Chesapeake estuary grow a great variety of aquatic plants, har-
boring multitudes of minute animals, which together furnish
abundant food for fish and water-fowl, and just as it is now
among white men a far-famed fishing and hunting ground, so it
was a notable resort of the aborigines, as attested by the village
sites about its shores ; and since its shallow waters may be waded
over half its area and the simplest water-craft outlives the low
billows of its storms, the primitive spear-head and stone sinker
doubtless underlie the cartridge-shell and leaden sinker of the
present, just as the " turtle-back " of Trenton underlies the finely
chipped flint of the surface. During the later ice epoch of the
Quaternary the climate of the Delaware estuary was less tolerable
than that of the present Chesapeake estuary, but other conditions
were more favorable to concentration of piscine, avian, and human
life within and about it. There the river-breeding fishes were
stopped in their instinctive ascent toward former spawning-
grounds to increase their kind ; there the migratory birds must
have ended their vernal journey ings to nest and hatch ; there also
the flora, forced southward before the advancing ice, must have
grown mixed and varied; there the land fauna, pressed by the
northern cold and attracted by the forage and carnage, must have
lingered and multiplied ; and there primitive men must have con-
gregated and dominated over all. It is true but not surprising
that the fragile remains of fish, fowl, plants, or even human bones
have never been found in the porous and thoroughly leached
Trenton gravels, associated with the implements and the more
massive bones of mastodon, bison, and reindeer ; but the locality
was as distant from the ice-front as the arctic breeding-grounds of
to-day, and moderately mild climate is attested by the wonder-
fully abundant implements and the numerous population they
represent.

The artificial origin of the "turtle-backs" has been ques-
tioned, and their abundance has been regarded as proof of their
natural origin ; and it is therefore not a work of supererogation
to point out that the Trenton gravels are largely wrought for
railway ballast, and have been scanned by the thousand tons by
eager workmen with the hope of reward before their eyes, and to
repeat that the argillite of which the implements are fashioned
rarely occurs in the deposit in the form of natural pebbles. Of
any hundred bits of argillite selected at random from the gravel-

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bank or the collection, ten per cent to thirty per cent exhibit un-
mistakable traces of design, a somewhat larger percentage sug-
gest but do not prove design, and not more than fifty per cent
strike the student as natural, when the individual specimens are
examined separately ; and when examined collectively the corre-
spondence in form and mode of fracture between symmetric " tur-
tle-backs," " failures," " spa wis," " chips," and miscellaneous frag-
ments compels the cautious geologist to question whether any are
demonstrably or even probably natural : the series is not from
the certainly natural to the doubtfully artificial, but from the
certainly artificial to the doubtfully natural.

The " turtle-backs " tell nothing of the customs of the makers,
since their function is unknown ; whether they were sinkers for
nets, whether they were hammers or axes used either in the hand
or attached to withes or handles, whether they were used as the
holas of the Patagonians, whether they were employed in fishing
first for cutting the ice and then for eviscerating and scaling the
fish, or whether they subserved a variety of purposes, remains un-
determined. The environment read from geology indicates that
the Trenton man was a hunter or fisherman who used and lost the
primitive tools of his mysterious craft within the waters rather
than upon the land, and thus appears to materially narrow the
range of hypothesis as to his activities ; but the extravagance in
labor indicated by the vast numbers of unworn implements sug-
gests that the rapid modification in environment and occupation
accompanying the ice-invasion outran the resulting modification
in appliances, and that the implements were really invented on
land and were but ill adapted to the new conditions ; and the in-
troduction of a new type of implement during the brief epoch of
gravel deposition gives support to the suggestion.

So the margin of the cloud enveloping the beginnings of
human life in America is slowly lifting. Already there is defi-
nite and cumulative evidence of man's existence during the latest
ice epoch, with a strong presumption against an earlier origin
than the first Quaternary ice-invasion ; already it is known that
the primitive American haunted the ice front rather than the
fertile plain, and must have been hunter or fisherman ; already
his environment is so well known as to partially elucidate his
activities ; but the first traces of the autochthon yet found tell of
an intelligent being who dominated the animal world as does his
descendant, and thus the mystery of man's ultimate origin re-
mains enshrouded as darkly as ever.

HABITS OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN TORTOISE. 37

HABITS OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN TORTOISE.

Bt n. s. shaler,

PROFESSOR OF PALEONTOLOGY IN IIAEVAED UNIVERSITY.

IN a recent paper publislied in " The Popular Science Monthly "
for February, 1888, I called attention to the effect on the soil
produced by various burrowing animals. At that time I had
not seen the work done in the under-earth by the Goplierus Caro-
linus, the largest of our North American tortoises, a creature
which, on account of its peculiar habits and the geological effects
which it brings about, is worthy of an attention which it has not
received. It is a well-known fact that land-tortoises are particu-
larly abundant on the American continent. Though found else-
where, and once extremely abundant in other lands, they are now
most plentiful and of largest size in the Americas, and the Gala-
pagos Islands, off the western coast of South America. The
greater part of these creatures have the habit of spending the
most of their lives on the surface of the ground, only resorting
to the under-earth for occasional shelter or during the annual
period of rest or hibernation. The gopher, on the other hand, has
developed the habit of underground life to such a degree that it
may fairly be reckoned as an essentially subterranean form. The
greater of our Southern species, and the one to which I shall devote
this paper, dwells for the greater part of its life below the surface,
only coming occasionally from its burrows. It appears to be by
far the largest species of our vertebrates which is normally sub-
terranean in its mode of life. The region at present occupied
by this species is narrowly limited ; it includes, so far as I
have been able to find, only the southernmost part of our Gulf
States, the southern portion of South Carolina, and the seaboard
region of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Within this consid-
erable area it is limited to the regions of the sand-plains, for
in those districts alone does it find the soil suited to its peculiar
habits.

The gopher, it should be noted, is of considerable bulk, having
in adult specimens a length of fifteen inches or more, a width of
about twelve inches, and a thickness from the breast to back of
from eight to twelve inches. At first sight of the creature, it
seems as if its form was totally unfitted for underground move-
ments. Tha front of the animal is very blunt, and calculated to
oppose about the maximum of resistance to movements through
the earth. The fore-limbs are not to any degree specialized for
grappling with the earth which has to be moved to form the
burrow, and the head does not differ from that of our ordinary

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turtles and tortoises, wHch is fitted for grasping prey and not
at all specialized for use as a shovel or digging instrument.
A very slight examination of the sandy woodlands which are
principally occupied by this creature will, however, convince the
observer that the gopher, though selective processes have not
helped him in his arduous task, is by dint of sheer strength and
admirable persistency capable of doing work of singular mag-
nitude.

The traveler in Florida may notice even from the windows of
the railway-train that all over the surface of the soil in the pine-
woods lie little heaps of sand which contain about one half a
cubic foot of material which has been thrown upon the surface
since the last period of rains. Sometimes there are only a dozen
or two of these heaps to the acre, but they often amount to as
many as two hundred or more in that area. Where they are few
in number, we may remark that they are distributed in a tortu-
ous line. Where they are very plenty, these tortuous lines inter-
sect each other in such varied directions that no order in the
distribution of the hillocks is discernible. Closer observation
will show that these heaps are thrown out upon the burrows
formed by the gophers. At first it might be supposed that they
represented the points of entrance or exit of the subterranean
passages, for it seems possible that the soft sand has fallen down
over the opening so as to conceal its original position, and thus
give the accumulation the aspect of a mere heap ; but if the stu-
dent takes pains to dig down into these little mounds, he will find
that they do not communicate directly with the burrows. It is
.generally impossible to trace in the loose sand the manner in
which they have been thrust up to the surface.

A little careful searching will show the way in which these
curious mounds have been formed. Here and there, but rarely
perhaps in one amid a hundred of these mounds, we find the place
where the reptile entered the ground. This opening is at once
seen to be quite separate in character from the mounds which
first attract the eye. It consists of a clearly defined tunnel, the
sides commonly somewhat smooth and compacted by the energy
with which the body of the creature has been driven through it.
The passage inclines steeply downward, descending at the outset
at an angle of from 20° to 30°, then turning at the depth of two
or three feet to a more horizontal position. On the surface, a lit-
tle beyond this entrance, is a heap of debris, which consists of the
sand taken from the passage. A few feet in from the opening,
the passage appears to be closed by loose material which was not
ejected from the mouth of the tunnel. Although I have been un-
able to catch these tortoises at work, I have succeeded by tolerably
safe inferences in tracing their method of operation. When they

HABITS OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN TORTOISE.

39

begin the burrow, tbey endeavor at once to penetrate downward
to the level in which they obtain their food. At the outset they
manage, by frequently backing out of the passage, and thrust-
ing the earth behind them in their retreat, to clear a considerable
opening. When they have advanced a few feet in the excavation,
they cease to discharge the material excavated in their advance,
but thrust it behind them, and leave it lying in the chamber,
which it entirely closes. With this storage-room provided, the
gophers are able to advance through the earth for the distance of
some yards ; but as the earth compacted by its own weight, by the
pressure exercised through the expansion of roots, and the action'
of the rain, occupies less space than the same material loosened
in the progress of the burrow, they soon become hamj^ered in
their movements. They then turn toward the surface and con-
tinue the excavation upward until they have attained very
nearly to the open air. They then use the great strength which
they clearly possess to thrust a quantity of the burrowed material
upward until it rises above the surface in the form of a cone,
and by the space in the burrow thereby gained they are able to
go a few feet further in their tortuous line of advance, when they
must again seek to discharge a portion of the earth in the man-
ner just described. So the creature proceeds in its devious under-
ground way, coming near the surface and pushing out a portion
of the sand at intervals of from two to five feet in its path.
In this manner it appears to journey at times for a distance of
hundreds of feet before it again has occasion to come to the
open air.

For the greater portion of its journey, the path of this creat-
ure seems to lie within two or three feet of the surface, that
being the level in which it finds the roots which afford it food.
It appears, however, from the points at which they emerge in the
railway-cuts, not unlikely that they occasionally penetrate to the
depth of six feet below the top of the soil. Although they plen-
tifully occur throughout a region having a superficial area of
nearly one hundred thousand square miles, they appear to exercise
a considerable choice as to the ground they inhabit. They de-
mand, in the first place, that the water-level shall not be within a
dozen feet of the surface, and that the material they traverse
shall be a very open-textured sand. This is probably because in
the rainy season any considerable rise in the level of the ground-
water would be destructive to them ; unless they could quickly
escape from their burrows, they would be drowned. It is often
possible, through this habit, to determine in an approximate way
the depth of the Tertiary beds of clay and other indurated ma-
terials which at many points lie near the top of the sand which
envelop the surface in the Southern States. Where these beds.

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

too compact for the uses of this creature, come within a short dis-
tance of the surface, they avoid the ground.

The geological effects of this creature in the district which it
inhabits are considerable. In a region extensively occupied by
them, they turn over the earth, to the depth of some feet, with
amazing rapidity. On selected areas chosen to represent the work
done by these animals I found that the number of hillocks varied
from fifty to two hundred to the acre, and that the heaps con-
tained an average of rather more than one fourth of a cubic foot
of sand when reduced to the measure of compactness which it oc-
cupied when in its original place. I came to the conclusion
that it would be safe to estimate that in each year this soil matter
thrown up by the gophers on the surface of an acre amounted to
an average of fifty cubic feet, the greater portion of which was
uplifted from a depth of a foot or more below the surface. At
this rate they would completely overturn the soil, for the depth of
a foot or more, in about eight hundred years. In addition to the
effect produced by the process of throwing out the earth upon the
surface, these creatures accomplish a vastly greater amount of
subsoiling by continually ascending and descending in the earth,
pushing the earth behind them as they go. I am inclined to think
that they displace vertically, about the amount of a foot or more,
all the sands to the depth of about three feet in the course of less
than a century. The result is, that in the regions they occuj^y
there is no distinct soil coating whatsoever ; the thin layer of half-
decayed vegetable matter, rarely exceeding an inch or two in
thickness, lies immediately upon the sands, which are scarcely
commingled with the humus material. Although the rapid decay
of vegetation in the warm climate of the South may in part ac-
count for this peculiarity, I think that it in the main is due to the
action of these creatures. This view is supported by the observa-
tion as to the character of the soil in places where the gophers
have not done their underground work. Thus, where the ground
is too wet for their occupancy, we commonly find a thick coating
of vegetable matter and a soil which is charged with humus to a
considerable distance from the surface. The wet " hammock " or
" hummock " lands, which exist as occasional patches in the sandy
districts where these animals are plenty, apparently owe in good
part their more normal character of soil to the exemption from
the overturning of the superficial materials which these creatures
effect.

There is another important way in which these gophers have
influenced the geological conditions of the districts they inhabit.
The sands through which they make their burrows have evidently
been deposited by water-action. They were probably originally
in the stratified form, but so thoroughly have they been overturned

HABITS OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN TORTOISE. 41

to tlie depth of several feet by the burrowing of these animals
that no trace of this original structure is shown in the railway
and other cuts except where by a rare chance the section is so
deep that it penetrates below the level of their migrations. At
first sight I was greatly puzzled to find that the superficial sands
of Florida, which have evidently been deposited beneath the sea,
exhibited no trace of stratification, which is invariably brought
about in deposits formed in shallow waters subjected to a strong
current action. It was only when I came to reckon on the influ-
ence of these creatures in destroying the original planes of strati-
fication that the riddle became plain. So far as I am aware, this
is the only case in which a burrowing animal has done so much
work as practically to efface the stratification planes in a wide
field of sedimentary deposits. It appears to me likely that the
absence of fossil remains in these superficial sands of Florida
may be explained by the endless stirring of the beds which these
creatures have effected. It is evident that in their motion
through their underground ways they have exercised a very con-
siderable degree of violence. A fossil which might have re-
mained well preserved in undisturbed beds would, from repeated
contact with the strong claws of the gopher, have been broken into
fine bits, and made ready to pass into the state of solution. As is
well known, ordinary marine fossils deposited in porous sands soon
become very frail, and would certainly not resist any such rude
treatment as they must again and again have received at the
hands of these animals. The railway and cliff sections of Florida,
which afford us the only opportunities for a careful examination
of the superficial sands, are in positions where they are accessible
to the gophers. In an examination of a good many miles of these
escarpments, I found only one or two points in which a trace of
the original bedding appeared to be distinguishable. It is evi-
dently difficult to account for the unstratified as well as the
non-fossiliferous nature of this deposit in Florida without some
such explanation as that to which our study of the gophers
leads us.

To the student who wishes to ascertain the limits of evolution
under the influence of natural selection, the gophers present cer-
tain facts of great interest. It is evident, from the foregoing state-
ments, that the habits of this creature are eminently joeculiar, and
yet there are no manifest modifications of the body which fit its
peculiar needs. In shape the animal does not differ in any im-
portant Avay from our ordinary terrestrial species of Testudinafa,
which at most burrow in the earth for a little distance to secure
temporary concealment or protection from cold in the hibernating
season. All the most evident external modifications of the tor-
toise are directed to the end of securing protection against as-

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

saiilt.* The gopher is singularly exempt from the dangers en-
countered by the species which normally dwell on the surface,
and its needs are totally different from its purely terrestrial kin-
dred. How is it, then, that the form remains unchanged ? Clearly
the selectionist has to assume either that advantageous variations
do not occur, or that there is some controlling element limiting
the process of variation which absolutely prevents the accumula-
tion of these chance modifications to a profitable end. Variations
do occur in the shape of individuals. They seem to be about as
plastic as other vertebrates in this regard. Here we must throw
out the idea that the failure to produce advantageous modifications
is due to the lack of variety on which selection can work. We
are therefore reduced to the question-begging of which many
naturalists now avail themselves in considering this process, and
are compelled to say that there is a certain rigidity in the organi-
zation of the animal which prevents the accumulation of bene-
ficial variations. This explanation is substantially like that of
the doctor in Moli^re's play, who explained that " opium put peo-
ple to sleep because of its soporific virtue " ; but this does not
suffice in the present case. It is worth while to note in this con-
nection that, although the habits of the gopher have varied little
with their peculiar habit of life, they have invented, as before
noted, the very sufficient and ingenious custom by which they
discharge the surplus earth from their burrows at the least ex-
penditure of force and time. This peculiar intellectual adapta-
tion appears to me one of the most interesting features connected
with the life of this interesting animal.

To the question, sometimes raised, whether in the existing profusion of books
and newspapers, making the direct taxing of memory less necessary than for-
merly, the powers of that faculty may not be depreciated, it may be answered
that, though we no longer depend upon the memory as our only register of facts,
we still use it more than the ancients did. Our knowledge travels over an im-
measurably wider area, we have more to remember, and with continued advance-
ment of civilization a good memory becomes more needful for the work of life.
Our general intelligence and powers are improving, and memory is sharing in the
general advancement.

* The only peculiar modification of the gopher's shell which can be deemed the product
of selection with reference to its peculiar habits is the share-like projection of the plastron
or lower shell, which is directed forward, and possibly serves in a slight way to divide the
earth at the bottom of the burrow over which it crawls. My friend Mr. S. W. Garman,
who has kept one of these creatures in captivity, has observed that the animal, by tilting
the body downward at the anterior end, can project this share under the edge of a stone or
into the crevices between two boards, and exercise a considerable amount of disruptive
power by this process. If these creatures made their burrows in stony ground, it might
be possible to conceive the structure as advantageous, but as they work altogether in fine-
grained soils, I can not conceive that this curious projection is of any functional value.

EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN. 43

EVERY-DAY LIFE OF INDIAN" WOMEN.

By Captain KICHAED CAENAO TEMPLE.

ONE of the chief characteristics of Indian domestic polity is
extreme subdivision, and the tendency among all classes of
the natives of India is toward the social isolation of groups with
contracted interests, and the consequent accentuation of minute
differences in habits of life. The results of this are what is gener-
ally known as " caste," and it is caste that underlies and controls
all social matters that are peculiarly Indian. At first sight, there-
fore, under these circumstances, there can be no such thing as a
common method of life among the women of a population which
is an ill-assorted compost of wild and savage tribes of diverse ori-
gin ; -of Brahmans and orthodox Hindoos ; of heterodox Hindoos
and Brahmanists by conviction and birth ; of Buddhists, and Jains,
and Parsees ; of Mohammedans, and Jews, and Christians of long
standing ; of Aryan and Dravidian races ; of aboriginal clans of
Aryan and non- Aryan descent ; of highly cultivated communities
and completely ignorant tribes ; of whole peoples within and with-
out the pale of Oriental civilization. But, nevertheless, there ex-
ists a standard of life which is Indian, and to which all the varie-
ties of the natives of India are drawn — just as there is a life which
is Oriental in the usually restricted sense of that term, habits that
are Indo-Chinese, and manners that are European. No one sup-
poses that Norwegian and Italian ladies live exactly in the same
way, or that English and Spanish women adopt precisely the same
mode of life ; but that there is a general line of conduct which is
common to all European countries is apparent to every one who
observes mankind. So it is in India. And the overshadowing in-
fluence to which every true native of the great peninsula unknow-
ingly submits is that wielded by the modern Brahmans through
their stanch henchmen, the high-caste Hindoos. In describing,
therefore, in very general terms, the aims and habits of an ordi-
nary Brahmani, one can give a fair notion of a life which every
Indian woman, however antagonistic her creed and race, is uncon-
sciously led on by instinct, as it were, to imitate, and which is her
invariable model.

Habits of life are enormously, if not mainly, influenced by re-
ligion, and this leads me to say a few words here regarding Brah-
manism as a living and active faith, though it has been the fashion
in certain authoritative quarters to look on it as dying, if not al-
ready dead. Granting that it is not a proselytizing, in the sense of
being a missionary, religion, and granting that its fundamental the-
ory— it is only a theory and not a practice, be it remembered — is, to

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

parody a well-known saying, tliat Hindoo nascitur nonfit, still there
can be no doubt tbat it manages to make more converts by mere
assimilation than can any other religion in India by direct mis-
sionary effort. This absorption into Brahmanism is becoming,
under the pax Britannica, day by day, a more important feature
in Indian social economy. As surely as the English bring fresh
uncultured tribes under their civilizing influence, so surely do
they add to the number of the Hindoos ; as surely as the iron hand
of Anglo-Indian law, by refusing to recognize any difference be-
tween man and man, causes the upward rise in the social scale of
those that labor to good purpose, so surely is the cause of Brah-
manic orthodoxy advanced and its influence widened. I have
watched the first process myself in the case of the recruits to our
little army of Gurkhas ; the wild mountain boy, on joining his
regiment, is taught not only his drill, but also the Hindustani lan-
guage as understood in military circles, and with it his religion^
i. e., a smattering of current Hindooism. The second can be seen in
progress any day all over India, by any one who will take the
trouble to observe the career of a successful handicraftsman or
small trader. At first an " outcaste," dealing only in matters of re-
ligion with his tribal soothsayer ; as he gathers money, he sets up
a Brahman priest, and minds the orthodox gods, and at last, when
respectable and wealthy, he develops into a full-blown Hindoo ;
and then, since in all Hindooism ceremonial orthodoxy is synony-
mous with social respectability, he adopts Hindoo manners to the
full ; isolates his women, prohibits the remarriage of widows, mar-
ries off his infant children in the proper quarters, and practices the
thousand-and-one customs peculiar to his adopted religion. Of
course, in order to be able to thus attract to itself so many antag-
onistic principles of custom and belief, the modern Brahmanism
can have no hard and fast creed. It has, in fact, no creed at all,
properly so called. Nothing in the shape of " I believe in God the
Father Almighty " ; nothing like the strict Mohammedan formula
— Id ilciha ilV iUciJiu, Muliammadi-r-Rasidu'-llaJiu (there is no God
but God, Mohammed is the prophet of God). It consists rather of
a leading principle, viz., to gather together whatever items of be-
lief may come to hand, in order to develop them in a certain defi-
nite direction, under the control of its own priests, and for their
benefit ; and while the process of development is going on, it nat-
urally ingrafts its own customs on to those it already finds in ex-
istence. Herein lies its wonderful vitality and strength, its capaci-
ty for digesting anything that it gets into its maw, and its power
of resisting internal disruption. The apparently elastic network
of caste and family customs that it invariably twines round its
victims is marvelously cruel, and so unendurable that revolt after
revolt has been made against it ; but the result, so far, has been

EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN 45

only to loosen tlie meshes for a time. Slowly and surely tlie intan-
gible threads have tightened again, as by degrees the very cus-
toms created by the schismatics are adopted by its priests, and
made to conform to the general theory — all the harder to resist
because it is never formulated. The bulk of the Mohammedans
of India, being descendants of tribes converted wholesale in vari-
ous ways to Islam in days gone by, are still Hindoos in many mat-
ters of thought and custom. In fact, if we extract the profession
of faith and a few formulse, it is not at all easy to say, as regards
them, where Islam begins and Hindooism ends ; in any case Brah-
manism overshadows their lives. The Jains, at least that impor-
tant section of them known as the Saraogis, are separated from
Hindoos proper rather in sentiment than in fact ; and though
the Parsees, Jews, and Christians have greater powers of resistance
yet it would not be difficult to show how greatly the all-pervading
faith of Hindoostan has influenced them too. Many a missionary
could tell a tale of more or less ineffectual battle against the no-
tion of existence of a Christian " caste." Of course, I am not now
speaking of the tenets deliberately held by the authorized expo-
nents of the several rival creeds, but of the religious ideas of the
unintelligent masses, which are to my mind the outcome of an un-
thinking reverence for things usually held to be holy, i. e., hagiola-
try, whatever be the outward expression of faith. Of such a state
of things Brahmanism is pre-eminently adapted to take full advan-
tage, for it presents no bold front to prejudices, and bends no man
to its will, but rather puts forth its tender tentacles, gradually
draws to itself, and quietly absorbs all things.

I would not have it inferred, from what has been just said, that
I hold all the women of India to lead practically identical lives ;
that the secluded banker's daughter has much in common with
the scavenger's wife, free to go where she pleases and to speak to
whom she will .; or that the worthy spouse of the village Maulavi
would not at once flare up and feel highly insulted if told that her
life was conducted on much the same lines as that of the Pandi-
tani over the way. It would be more than erroneous, moreover, to
state that a woman of Kumaun has exactly the same views of pro-
priety as she of Mahabaleshwar, or that the grimy Panjabi has
manners similar to the oiled and carefully bathed inhabitant of
Madras. All I wish to assert is, that a special way of living un-
derlies all those differences which appear so great to the casual
observer, and that beneath the chance-tossed waves on the sur-
face there lie hidden depths of female life which are distinctly
Indian, and which can be best sounded by a study of the high-
caste Hindoo women.

I can not enter into the details of the life of orthodox Hindoo
women. Nothing more, indeed, can be done now than to indicate

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its merest outlines, in order to show of what it mainly consists,
whither it tends, and how it affects those that lead it. Hindoo ex-
clusiveness absolutely prohibits outsiders from personally observ-
ing what I am about to describe, and all that can possibly be done
by persons such as I, is to procure our facts as nearly at first hand
as practicable. Hence the necessity of explaining briefly what the
sources of my information are. Chiefly, then, I have drawn upon
matters which have come to me as the first hearer of the tale ;
partly because I am quite sure that all the facts thus learned are
straight from the mouths of trustworthy natives of India, and
partly because I should be sorry to be, by any mishap, a misinter-
preter of other people's writings. Although I shall not be wit-
tingly guided by any one of them, there are several works of
original information, more or less directly bearing on my subject,
which all who are interested in it would do well to study. Among
these are " Hindoos as they are," written, indeed, by a Christian
convert with something of the convert's proverbial asperity to-
ward the followers of the religion he has discarded, but con-
taining much that is valuable to the student ; " The Hindoo Fam-
ily " of Balram Malik, a far superior work to the last, by the well-
known Judge of the Calcutta Small Cause Court, who has treated
his subject as only he can, that is, in full sympathy with it, and, of
course, with complete knowledge ; and " The Life of a Hindoo
"Woman," by the celebrated Brahmani Ramabai, who was driven
to Christianity at last by the persecution of her co-religionists.
For Mohammedans, there are Dr. Herklot's " Quanoon-e-Islam "
and " Notes on the Indian Musalmans," by the wife of Mir Ali
Hasan, who was an Englishwoman. And then there are several
collections of folk-songs — notably Gover's from southern India,
and Grierson's from the north — which, between the lines, contain
facts about Indian women that none can gainsay. However, I
shall now confine myself to statements based, firstly, on notes sup-
plied me by natives for " Pan jab Notes and Queries," which I
have edited from the commencement ; secondly, to the late Dr.
Fallon's splendid collection of " Hindustani Proverbs," 12,500 in
number, which I commenced editing and translating in 1883 ; and,
thirdly, to the various collections of folk-songs that I have made
and published at different times within the last eight years.

An Indian woman's life in its ordinary course is divided into
two clearly defined parts, which are quite distinct, though sepa-
rated from each other only by the fateful day on which she first
goes to take up her abode within her father-in-law's family. Note
that it is not called in the Indian languages her husband's family,
for that, under the Indian family system, it can seldom be in the
case of a bride. Childhood rather than girlhood is the heyday of
the Indian woman. Free to play as she pleases, with plenty of

EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN. 47

companions, for children galore can hardly ever be wanting in a
family which all live together, from oldest to youngest ; free to
run in and out of the houses of friends, never bothered to learn
anything except what she can pick up from the women about her,
never worried with caste restrictions, never asked to do more in
the way of labor than to help in the house-work, petted by her par-
ents, spoiled by her aunts and uncles, and beloved by her brothers,
an Indian girl-child is indeed happy — as children count happiness.
And then suddenly the curtain falls. At about ten years of age
— earlier in some parts and later in others — our spoiled child is old
enough to work in earnest, and so she is packed off, sorely against
her will, to join her husband's family, entering it not as our brides
enter their future homes, at the head of the female community,
but at the bottom. Child though she still is, her childhood is now
forever past, and she is turned into a young woman, only too often
into by no means a happy one.

At this stage it is necessary to consider two matters, so far as
they affect an Indian bride, viz., the practice of infant marriage,
and what is known as the joint-family. I need hardly state that
the so-called " marriage " of infants is practiced among all classes
in every part of India, though of course there are many excep-
tions to the rule. The term " marriage," as applied to this cere-
mony by us, is, however, rather misleading. It is in reality an
irrevocable betrothal — a bargain not between the infants who are
" married," but between those who control them, being often noth-
ing else than a purely commercial contract. It arises out of the
theory that a woman is for life under tutelage, and her " marriage "
is, therefore, merely a transfer of the right over her to another
party, a transfer naturally very frequently made in return for a
pecuniary consideration. After this marriage or betrothal, the
girl usually remains with her parents, in trust for those to whom
she is to be transferred, until the home-coming or going to her
husband's house, which may be looked upon as the real marriage,
as we Europeans use the word. Until the second ceremony takes
place the child-wife is still a child to all intents and purposes,
and treated as such, and it is only after it that she in any sense
enters on the duties of female life. The family she joins is exact-
ly like that she has left, only it is that of another ; to her a vast
difference, and one which she never forgets — indeed, it is not unfre-
quently made painfully apparent to her at every step. What I
may call the regulation Indian joint-family is one composed of
the paterfamilias, all his sons and brothers, and various extrane-
ous relatives, such as nephews, cousins, and wife's kindred, for
the male part ; and all their wives, in addition to his own wife
and daughters, together with a sprinkling of the family widows,
for the female part. In this patriarchy there are grades upon

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grades, both, male and female, dependent chiefly upon age and dis-
tance by blood from the head of the family ; and as everybody is
married in India as soon as the time for it comes, the chances are
that the last-made bride is, in the nature of things, in the very
lowest place.

In the average Indian family the strictest domestic economy
is the rule of life, and the household work is done by the women
of the household, not, as with us, by paid servants. Servants there
are, of course, in all Indian families, but they are, as a rule, on a
totally different footing from the European domestic, being for
the most part independent persons with a clientele, for whom they
perform certain customary services for a customary wage. The
distribution of the daily work, down to that of the most menial
kind, lies with the materfamilias, who may be best described as
the oldest woman in the family proper under cover^,ure, for wid-
ows can have no authority. The cooking, as the work of honor,
she keeps to herself, but the house-cleaning, the washing, the care
of the children, the drawing of the water, the making of the beds,
and so on, is done by the less dignified members of the household,
as she directs ; and whatever is most menial, most disagreeable,
and the hardest work, is thrust upon the bride. She is the serv-
ant of the very servants, and must obey everybody. It is hardly,
therefore, to be wondered at that, after her previous training, it is
by no means an uncommon occurrence that she has to be forcibly
broken into her new way of life, that she is for ever sighing after
the flesh-pots of her father's house, that there are various " cus-
toms " which enable her to revisit it at stated times after the mar-
riage, and that the law is often invoked to oblige brides to return
to their husbands' families after the customary term of such vis-
its has expired.

Not only is our bride thus turned into a drudge, often unmerci-
fully overworked, but from the day she gives up her childhood to
the day of her death — it may be for sixty years — she is secluded,
and sees nothing of the world outside the walls of her family inclos-
ure. It should always, therefore, be borne in mind, when trying
to realize Indian female life, what a very important thing the do-
mestic economy is to a woman ; how largely the petty affairs of
the household loom upon her horizon. Her happiness or misery,
indeed, entirely depend on the manner in which the affairs of the
family are conducted. Now, considering that the female mind
has for centuries been mainly directed to this all-important mat-
ter, it is not astonishing to find that such questions as the proper
method of eating and drinking, and of domestic propriety gener-
ally— the intercourse, that is, which is permissible and right be-
tween the various members of the household, male and female —
have long been regulated with the utmost minuteness. To us

EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN. 49

who roam the world at will, and whose interests are often fixed
far more outside than inside onr homes, it may seem remarkable
that such infinitesimal restrictions and numberless customs as are
found in full swing in an orthodox Hindoo household should be
remembered and carried out with the exactitude demanded of the
womenkind ; but if we consider that these make up their whole
life, and that they are called upon to pay attention to nothing else,
their capacity for recollecting when to veil and unveil, whom to
address and avoid, when they must run away, and when they may
speak, ceases to be extraordinary. And regarding these customs
of social propriety, I must say that the more one studies them the
more one is impressed with their perverted ingenuity. They seem
purposely invented to make the unfortunate victim of them as
uncomfortable as possible. The Indian woman, isolated from
the outer world by custom, is again by custom isolated as far as
practicable from all the male members of that little inner world to
which she is confined. Free intercourse, even with her own hus-
band, is not permitted her while yet her youthful capabilities
for joyousness exist. No wonder, then, that absence of jollity is
a characteristic of the Indians generally, for the happy laugh-
ter of a home is denied them by custom in the most persistent
manner.

Every person belonging to the European races, an Englishman
especially, well knows how much common meals tend to social sym-
pathy ; how powerful a factor they are in promoting pleasurable
family existence, and in educating the young to good manners.
There is nothing of this sort in Indian upper-class society. There
the men and women dine strictly apart, the women greatly on the
leavings of the men, and that, too, in messes of degree, very like
those in a royal naval ship. Paterfamilias dines by himself, then
the other men together in groups, according to standing, waited
on by the women under fixed rules ; and lastly the women, when
the men have done, our poor young bride coming last of all,
obliged often to be content with the roughest of the fare.

No imported woman may have any relations with those males
who are her seniors. Every bride is such an imported woman,
and all the household which she enters, who are the seniors of her
husband, are her seniors. This at first generally includes nearly
the whole family, and must necessarily for a long while include
the major part of it. In all her life she never speaks to her hus-
band's father, uncles, or elder brothers, though dwelling under the
same roof, or, to speak more correctly, within the same inclosure,
for an Indian house is what we should call a courtyard surround-
ed by sets of apartments. On the other hand, paterfamilias has
not only never been spoken to, but technically never even seen, by
any of the younger women of his varied household, except those

VOL. XXXIV. — 4

50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

born within it, though they all dwell under his protection and at
his expense. You will perceive, therefore, that the women's lives
are contracted to within even a smaller sphere than that limited
by the boundaries of the common family dwelling.

What would seem to us to be intolerable restrictions by no
means end here. In many places it is not proper for a young
father to fondle his own children in the presence of his parents,
and highly improper for a wife to be seen holding converse, or
appearing unveiled, or sitting down before her own husband, un-
til she has become a mother.

There is another custom regarding which it is useless to pre-
tend that it does not lead to endless misery and family squabbling
— the absolute subjugation of the women to the materfamilias.
The mother-in-law is indeed an awful personage in the eyes of her
sons' wives, one against whose will and caprice it is hopeless to
rebel. I can hardly describe her power better than by noticing a
daily ceremony which symbolizes it. It really amounts to wish-
ing " good-morning," is called in upper India mc'dhd teknd, and
consists of bowing down to the ground and touching it with the
forehead. All the women, except her own daughters, perform it
daily to the materfamilias when they first see her, and a bride
must do it practically to everybody.

An Indian woman's happiness in life immensely depends on
her becoming the mother of a son. This at once raises her in the
family estimation, which is all in all to her ; insures her against
the greatest bitterness of widowhood, in case that befall her ; and
procures her domestic authority should she survive to mature
years under coverture. Materfamilias is a veritable queen in her
own little world, often coercing her husband, commanding her
sons, and ruling the rest as she pleases. From what has come
under my observation, I have long felt assured that, speak con-
temptuously of the opposite sex as they choose, lock them up as
they may, and treat them as mere breeders of sons as they will,
the natives of India are far more henpecked than they care to ad-
mit. Outside of their homes the men live a life of their own, un-
trammeled by considerations of the fair sex ; within them they
have little control, and it must be borne in mind that it is the
women that have come to be such sticklers for the continuance of
the state of things I have above endeavored to describe. The re-
marks just made apply, as above said, to the mothers of sons only.
Should a woman be so unfortunate as not merely to be barren, but
to be simply the mother of daughters, life goes much harder with
her, especially as this is so liable to bring upon her that which (if
their songs and sayings are to be trusted) the Indian women dread
more than all things except widowhood — the advent of the co-
wife. There are proverbs innumerable to show how very badly

EVERY- DAY LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN. 51

co-wives get on, but " a fairy for a co-wife is a devil " exhibits tlie
mutual relation forcibly and clearly as it usually is. And when
the rival wife brings forth the long-desired son, the barren wom-
an's cup of bitterness is full, and all her hatred towards him is, to
those who know the circumstances, well expressed in that most
sarcastic of sayings in any language, " The son of the co-wife."
No more words are wanting to the Indians to convey the expres-
sion of all uncharitableness.

As to the hard lot of the childless widow, so much has been
said elsewhere, and so often, that I do not feel inclined to enlarge
upon it, especially as enforced widowhood is not nearly so general
as is usually made out by those who would deduce a moral from
Indian manners to the glorification of the habits of Christians.
It is often not prevalent among classes who conform generally to
the customs I have been mentioning, and circumstances make it
impossible among many that are not comparatively wealthy ; but
where it is the rule nothing can be more cruel, and, I feel justified
in using the strong term, more revolting. Take the case of the
widow from infancy : shorn of all that women value anywhere in
the world, dressed in coarse clothing, deprived of her ornamenst,
compelled to fast till health breaks down, made to subsist on the
coarsest of food, kept out of what amusements come in the way of
the rest of the household, forced into being the unpaid drudge of
the family, held to be the legitimate butt of the ill-nature of all,
considered fit only to amiise the children, openly called and taught
to think herself a creature of ill-omen — this being the cause of all
the rest of her sorrows — superstition has indeed nowhere else
shown more clearly its power to pervert the reason of man. How
much the women dread widowhood is exhibited to the full in the
fact that to call a woman a widow is to offer her a dire insult, and
from her earliest childhood a girl is taught to pray that she may
die while yet the red spot of coverture remains on her forehead.
In any case the fear of widowhood overshadows the Hindoo lady's
life, even though she hate her lord.

However, it is no part of my business to tell a sensational tale,
nor do I wish to convey an impression that an Indian woman's
life is necessarily all unhappiness. Human nature in her case is
as capable of adapting itself to circumstances as elsewhere, and
since the ultimate gauge of permanent individual happiness is
suitability of temperament to immediate surroundings, many a
woman in India must be so constituted as to be quite content with
the life she is called upon to lead, and in fact to enjoy it. When
a girl is naturally sedate, yielding, and good-natured, of blunt
susceptibilities, limited aspirations, and strong religious emotions,
she will give in to her mother-in-law, avoid quarelling without
effort, follow the course of life laid down for her without demur.

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thorougUy believe it to be the only desirable life to lead, find tlie
innumerable restrictions imposed upon her not unwelcome, and
become contented with her contracted sphere ; and, if those about
her happen to be kind, be quite as happy as any girl in the world.
But the potentialities for misery involved in her surroundings are
enormous, and, where such is the case, to argue that misery is not
the frequent result would be to argue against human nature. At
all events, the purview of her life is limited to a degree which it is
difficult for us to realize. It resolves itself daily into this : the
strict performance of petty religious ceremonies, feeding, bathing,
dressing, cooking, and household drudgery, all so hedged round
with minute regulations as to make each a special occupation, and
to these must be added visiting and gossip during her afternoon
leisure. How petty that gossip must be can be inferred from the
facts already laid before you. Remember that the great majority
of these ladies are altogether uneducated, that ever since they
have been old enough to observe and think they have been shut
out from the world, that they have no knowledge of any person
or thing beyond those immediately around them except what they
can pick up from their menials, and then you will have no diffi-
culty in understanding that their interests are centered in their
jewels and ornaments, their food, their personal concerns and
troubles, the peculiarities of the members of their households, and,
lastly and chiefly, in what social ceremonies and feasts happen to
come their way, the widows being shut out from even thesa. jf a
marriage, a death, or a birth among their kindred were the only
landmarks in English ladies' lives, we should soon have these oc-
casions erected into as lengthy family ceremonies as they are in
India. If the observance of Ash- Wednesday, Shrove-Tuesday,
Candlemas, Michaelmas, Lady-day, May -day, and what not of our
standard religious and secular feasts were the main opportunities
for breaking the monotony of an imprisoned life, how carefully
they would be kept, and how anxiously looked forward to ! This
is why all the innumerable shankrdnts, ekddshis, aslithamis, ndu-
mis, and other queer fasts and feasts are so regularly attended to
in India. Indeed, female ingenuity has there long ago seized up-
on the many other opportunities for diversion afforded by occur-
rences incidental to human existence, and there are ceremonies to
be gone through on every possible excuse. No phase of life es-
capes— childhood, puberty, pregnancy, maternity, widowhood, all
come in for a share. The first tying of a rag round a boy's loins
occasions a family feast, and so does the first time his hair is cut
the first time he puts on the ja^iew, or sign of caste ; and so on all
through life. Before he is a man he has gone through sixteen sac-
raments, each a notable occasion in the eyes of his women-
folk. Babies are put through all sorts of ceremonies, on the

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 53

first, the fifth, the seventh, the fortieth, and other days after
birth. They can not even see the snn for the first time, and, of
course, can not be given a name, without a feast being held over
the fact. As to the women's special ceremonies, they are just as
numerous.

"With reference to the rough sketch I have given of what I
may term the normal state of things in India, I would again draw
attention to the fact that I am far from saying that such is the
invariable rule, or from denying that there are whole castes whose
women are not secluded, and that many are educated. I feel com-
pelled to repeat that minute and endless variation is the chief
characteristic of Indian society, in case it may still be thought
that my analysis of a high-caste Hindoo woman's life is exactly
applicable to that of every woman one meets in the roads and
fields. The fact is, there is no subject on which it is easier to speak
to generalities from isolated facts, and it is so wide and complicat-
ed that one can hardly make a broad assertion without with perfect
truth being contradicted as to the specific custom at any given
spot, I merely say that the above description is, as fairly as I can
make it, applicable to the life actually led by millions of Indian
women, and it is the style of life toward which nearly all of them
unconsciously gravitate. — Journal of the Society of Arts.

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED.*

By CHAKLES W. SMILEY.

THE primary motive of human action has always been the care
of self, this being for man Nature's first and greatest law. In
his unthinking zeal he has often followed this to a degree unneces-
sary, and consequently harmful to others. In his savage state,
and especially in his primeval condition, where he was subject,
like all the lower forms of life, to the law of the survival of the
fittest, he could not consider others' interests because they were
so antagonistic to his own. Often one of two must starve, and
each would let it be the other one ; he did not even become con-
scious that he was so acting for a very long period of time. It
was the progress from a being not human to the being called man
when sufficient intelligence had accumulated to make him con-
scious that he could live and let live. That point was also marked
by and synchronous with the acquirement of such weapons and
such skill as enabled man to procure food enough to make the
starvation of some unnecessary. Then the war for the survival

* Vice-President's address before the Economic Section of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, delivered at the Cleveland meeting, August, 1888.

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the fittest, as known to biology, ceased among men. Ever since,
so far as there has been a struggle affecting the survival of the
fittest, and that struggle continues to the present day in certain
ways, it has been of a different sort, and one which must not be
confounded with the biologic law of the survival of the fittest.
Major Powell has admirably shown how the strictly biologic
struggle has ceased in man, but he has not yet shown, as may be,
the character of that struggle, largely intellectual, which still
works out certain survivals of the fittest.

Having passed from the point where, if he survive, it must be
at the expense of others, man began to recognize and to consider
the desires of his fellows, and among others he counted not only
his fellows, but mythical and supernatural beings. Thus appeared
the greatest natural basis of religion. It is not strange, therefore,
that religion should have existed from very early times, and that
it should have taught its votaries especially to regard the needs of
others. Its mission was to teach a race whose ancestors had been
absorbed for untold ages in caring only for self, to adapt itself to
a new environment by learning to care for the wants of others.
In caring for others, the more powerful soon received superior rec-
ognition, so it came to pass that supernatural demands took pre-
cedence of the rest. When that point had become clear, men were
easily tempted to profess to represent the gods in order that they
might share the precedence. In this natural way became estab-
lished the order of duty which was taught by every religion prior
to Christianity, viz. :

1. To the gods and their representatives. 2. To self. 3. To
others.

Early Christianity must be credited with changing the order
of duty to the following : 1. To its one supernatural being. 2. To
all others equally with self.

Even under this improved system many j^eople are led to make
great personal sacrifices in the belief that thereby they are living
the noblest life possible to man ; when, in reality, as it is the object
of this paper to show, their sacrifices are either useless, or, what is
worse, grossly injurious both to themselves and to the supposed
beneficiaries.

During all the untold years in which it was a physical neces-
sity to regard self even to the injury of others, our ancestors
acquired a predisposition thereto which heredity has brought
down the stream of time. As being no longer a necessity, its prac-
tice long since became one of the recognized evils of the world.
We appl}^ to it the opprobrious epithet of selfishness. There is a
better term, and one which does not imply a moral quality, for
there may be devotion to one's own interests which should not be
so characterized. Egoism is such devotion to one's own interests ;

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 55

it may be proper and it may be improper. The term does not
imply either propriety or impropriety. Let the word self-interest
stand for justifiable egoism, and the word selfishness represent
unjustifiable egoism.

Egoism, then, was once a necessity, and, while it was a condi-
tion to existence, it was justifiable, whatever its effects on others
may have been. When things changed so as not to render ego-
ism a necessity, man was still as prone to practice it as before.
He was acting under the acquired impulses of ages. It was an
extremely difficult thing for him to repress his egoism; it was
perhaps even more difficult for him to understand that he ought
to do so. And yet the change of circumstances had produced a
change in its moral quality. From the practice of self-interest
he had passed to the practice of selfishness, and he had so passed
unconsciously, for the change was in environment and not in him.
The same act that had been a virtue was now a vice. Of course,
centuries were needed for this idea to develop and to be dissemi-
nated, but at length it came. Although the terms were not in use,
the differentiation had taken place. The terms came when needed
to exx)ress existing ideas.

Long after egoism had differentiated into self-interest and self-
ishness, came the idea of doing something for others. Man's
powers were then so limited that this was not much. Even when
he became capable he was slow to discover it and slower to act
tipon it. Heredity bound him. To loosen him was the mission
of religion. Whatever its votaries may claim as to its history
and purpose, the one great and overwhelming power that religion
has had upon the world is this — it has developed doing for others.
It has turned man's attention away from himself to those not him-
self. A most excellent term to use for this is altruism — a term
first employed only about fifty years ago by Auguste Comte to
signify devotion to others or to humanity. Percy Smith, in his
" Glossary of Terms and Phrases," defines it as " the doing to an-
other as one would be done by ; opposed to egoism."

Such terms as benevolence and charity have been generally
used to cover the idea of altruism, but in the mind of every one
benevolence and charity involve the moral quality of goodness.
It is of the greatest importance to have a word like altruism wliich
does not imply any moral quality, and which covers all we do for
others regardless of the consequences, just as egoism covers all we
do for self regardless of consequences or of moral quality.

That mankind has thus far regarded all altruism as good is
undeniably shown by the fact that neither the English nor any
other language has words to distinguish proper from improper
altruism. ^ This distinction has not been well developed. It was
early seen that the motives were of importance. If we do something

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for others, it should be with a good motive. The act was declared to
be of no subjective value unless the motive was lofty, thus: "Do
not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have
no reward of your Father which is in heaven." Calling attention
thus to motives was doubtless a great advance upon the preceding
times. This improved form of altruism was, however, indiscrimi-
nate. Nothing was said or implied, in the above precept, as to
the character of the persons to whom alms were to be given.
Nothing was hinted or thought of the ultimate effect upon the
recipient of giving alms, much less of taking steps to prevent any
from needing alms. Elsewhere the intimation was that all who
were poor should receive, as indicated by the direction " Go and
sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow
me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." " He that giveth to
the poor lendeth to the Lord." "It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God." Here the extreme of altruism was proposed,
but utterly without discrimination as to the objective effect.

Just as all people assume the moral character of benevolence
and charity, so there is a disposition to assume that all altruism is
good — in other words, to use it as a synonym. Some writers of
much prominence have not properly treated the subject of altru-
ism, and religious writers especially fail to measure its true char-
acter— that is, we see forms of altruism held up as the summum
honum ; its teachings are said to be almost or quite divine. A pro-
fessor in Johns Hopkins University has recently, in " The Congre-
gationalist" spoken of altruism as the opposite of selfishness,
which latter term he also confounds with egoism (and spells it
" egotism ")• This is very unfortunate. We shall never work out
social problems with such confusion of ideas. Seeing men in such
positions treat altruism as always a good thing, and seeing them
urge its practice without consideration or without limitation, have
prompted this attempt to distinguish between justifiable altruism
and unjustifiable altruism as carefully as moralists distinguish
between justifiable egoism (self-love or self-interest) and unjusti-
fiable egoism (selfishness). And right here the moral philoso-
phers must be alluded to. They have been so zealous to destroy
selfishness that they have urged the doing of good to others with-
out sufiiciently distinguishing between seeming good and the evil
effects thereof. They have too much determined the quality of
acts by an examination of the motives under which the acts were
performed, and too little by an examination of the effects pro-
duced. They ought long since to have studied the character of
altruism.

For eighteen hundred years the world has had an altruism
which failed to discriminate as to the object, and, as will appear

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 57

later, altruism has often been carried to injurious excess, and yet
we have had about as good general results as could be expected un-
der the circumstances. The early step from justifiable egoism to
that which discriminated was a long one. From the mind resting
on self to considering the immediate wants of others was a great
advance. From altruism performed with selfish motives to disin-
terested benevolence was another grand advance. The order of hu-
man progress doubtless required a long discipline in indiscriminate
altruism before men should learn to differentiate it by observing
its results. Again, not only man's mental progress but that of
life on the earth has been by pendulum-beats from extreme to ex-
treme, by action and reaction, until finally the golden mean of
Horace has been reached. The shield was neither silver, as pro-
tested by him who viewed it from the east, nor yet gold, as viewed
by him in the west ; but, had not each held and proclaimed his
opinion, the truth would not have been reached by either. Prog-
ress limps and goes by indirections ; but the various stej^s indi-
cated have been taken and well taken.

To Christianity, then, by far the greatest exponent of this in-
discriminate altruism, is due the great credit of having taught it,
and measurably brought the world from selfishness to disinterested
benevolence. It matters not that the race might have traversed
this path under some other banner, and that many tribes have
found it independently. "Honor to whom honor" permits this
willing recognition. Although it overlooked this newer feature,
it had enough to do for man of a more primary character.

The most intense manifestation of the altruistic spirit is in
non-resistance to evil and in utter disregard of self. How beau-
tiful seem to us those precepts pointing thereto !

" Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also. If any man sue thee at the law and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloak also. Lay not up for yourselves treas-
ures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves break through and steal. Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body
what ye shall put on. Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you
that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Give to him that asketh
thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come and
follow me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."

And yet however grandly its maxims may ring in our ears,
whatever praises we may bestow upon its advocates, and whatever
satisfaction we may express with the past, the day for this indis-

58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

criminate altruism has gone by, and we are confronted with present
duty. To-day, the only man who sells all that he has and gives to
the poor is the unfortunate one whom we shut up in the insane
asylum. To-day, the only one who takes no thought for the mor-
row is the tramp or the beggar. (The professional beggar has
even sense enough to keep a bank account.) Those extremes of
altruism, non-resistance and self-abnegation, have been discarded.
And why ? Let us now recognize the virtue in them, and under-
stand also just why they are impracticable.

The virtue of those precepts lies in their power to draw men
away from self. Read them slowly — not a selfish motive to be
found in them. They remove one the farthest possible from
thought of self. At the time when the degradation of women
was greatest, when chattel slavery was so universal that even
Saint Paul returned a runaway to his master, when political
freedom was unknown, when drunkenness and debauchery far
exceeded the present, the best thing for mankind was to hold up
this extreme of altruism as an ideal and even to declare it divine,
which it nearly was in comparison with the evils combated. So
long as no one could point out its defects, its force would be and
was very great for good. Through the self-inflicted injuries
which the early Christians caused in practicing these principles
was the tide of human selfishness checked. But the evil of these
precepts consisted in their subjective influence being excessive
(therefore injurious), and in their utter disregard of ultimate and
objective results. He who curbs his own selfish and grasping
spirit by taking no thought for the morrow, lays himself liable to
want (which is fjerhaps the lesser of the two subjective evils), but
the objective effect is more far-reaching and only evil. It acts as
an incentive to others to idleness, improvidence, and ultimate beg-
gary. He who being smitten on one cheek turns the other, culti-
vates patience and self-control, but he leaves his assailant all the
more ready to smite the next man he gets mad with. Again, the
subjective effect has good in it ; the objective effect has far-reach-
ing evil in it. If I imitate the lilies of the field, which neither toil
to make themselves a shelter nor spin themselves clothes, I may
be admired for my assurance and freedom from anxiety, but I
shall also be cut down by the first frost of adversity, and be ruth-
lessly swept out of sight by the first snow of winter. Objectively,
I shall have set a bad example to weaker minds than mine. They
will say, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die."
And the world will have paid dearly for my little exhibition of
self-culture.

He who, being sued at law for a coat by a grasping neighbor,
peaceably folds in a cloak also, may cultivate some useful feelings
in his own breast while inflicting an unwise deprivation upon him-

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED.

59

self, but the victorious plaintiff has become a meaner man, and
will bring new suits at the earliest opportunity ; if not upon this,
upon some other man whom he thinks he can browbeat, and there
are plenty of lawyers who will help him do so. He who sells all
he has and gives to the poor, may, if he is very badly eaten up
with greed for money, discipline himself in the right direction,
but in selling all he deprives himself of the means of self-sup-
port in sickness and endangers the care of his family. But all
this subjective wrong might be perpetrated to curb a grasping
spirit through the loss of property. That, however, which he had
no right to do he has done. He has pauperized the poor. The
evil inflicted upon scores, and perhaps hundreds, is in their lessen-
ing of self-respect, the cultivation of indolence, the enfeebling of
their already weak determinations, the putting further away of
that day when the poor shall be properly paid for their work, and
the fostering of that reckless spirit, " The world owes me a living,
and I am going to have it." If the next rich man does not sell
out and distribute soon enough, they will thirst for his riches —
perhaps for his blood. If some of his wealth is ill-gotten, as is
the case with many rich men, they will consider it all so. In such
soil the seeds of communism grow. The advocates of anarchy and
the haters of government are found always among the poor.

Now note this most remarkable fact — that every single precept
pointing to non-resistance and self-abnegation, while subjectively
attractive, ignores the objective and ultimate effect ; that is, they
all seem to be of benefit to the doer, but make not an iota of dis-
crimination as to the effect upon others ; while, in fact, as history
has shown, and as we are now beginning to know, both are
injured ; but the greatest harm is done to the supiDosed bene-
ficiaries.

Self-abnegation is thus as far from virtue as selfishness. The
golden mean lies between, where our egoism benefits us but does
not sting another, and where our altruism benefits others in its
ultimate effects without sapping their or our own welfare. Self-
ishness is short-sighted gratification of base impulses. Self-abne-
gation is short-sighted gratification of benevolent impulses. Both
are impulsive, both are short-sighted, and both inflict evil upon
others.

A more moderate and acceptable form of altruism goes under
the names of charity and benevolence. They are also valuable in
curbing the spirit of egoism, and have made many people, both
givers and recipients, happy for the time being. " To do good
and to distribute forget not, for with such offerings the Lord is
well pleased." Again, no discrimination is made as to the objects
of charity and of benevolence, nor as to the remote and real effects
of such action. It seems to have been thus far assumed that no

6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

discrimination need be made. The exhortations to charity and
benevolence never specify the objects minutely, while, in fact, this
should be the all-important feature. In seeming prohibition to any
suggestion of discrimination we are told that benevolence should
be universal, because the Creator " maketh his sun to rise upon
the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and
upon the unjust."' Now, in the case of sunshine and rain it would
be physically impossible to discriminate. It should also be re-
membered that the same Creator for the same reason sendeth the
lightning and the earthquake to destroy both the just and the
unjust. But, what is more to the present purpose, he starves to
death those who in summer fail to lay by a supply of food for the
winter ; he smites with disease those who are too lazy to cultivate
cleanliness ; and he visits the iniquities of fathers upon thought-
less children to the third and fourth generation. Here is a lesson
in discrimination of cause and effect not to be overshadowed by a
few platitudes about rain.

But we must turn to consider the economic effects of altruism
by means of which we are to distinguish justifiable altruism from
unjustifiable altruism. So much of description has been neces-
sitated by the newness of the subject, and even now it is to be
feared that those who have never discriminated as to doing good
to others, except as regards the purity of motive in the doer, will
feel more concerned about the integrity of the precepts that have
been dissected than about the analysis of truth. Be that as it
may — and it would be a matter of regret to offend the ancient
prejudices of any — it is to be hoped that the economic remarks to
follow will but substantiate and illustrate the principles already
laid down.

Now that we have reached the study of social, political, and
economic science, we are called upon to analyze the subject, to
define our terms carefully, to be sure that we build our sciences
on facts, and to state our conclusions clearly. And our conclu-
sions are most hopeful. They are, that in doing real and not seem-
ing good to ourselves we also benefit the race ; that in doing good
to others it is not necessary or wise that we inflict sore depriva-
tion or indignity upon ourselves ; that thrift and wisdom consist
in taking a reasonable thought for the morrow ; and that in noth-
ing so much should we take anxious thought for the morrow as
when appealed to for alms or to assist the needy.

Better that they suffer hunger to-day and be made self-respect-
ing and self-supporting to-morrow, than that they be fed to-day
and then be forgotten to-morrow. We best help others by secur-
ing them full justice, and by refraining from injuring them either
through malice or through giving them that for which they return
no equivalent.

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 61

I. Relief of the Poor. — This class does not include the sick,
the dependent children, nor the insane, but simply those who are
more or less of the time idle, who receive but small wages when
they work, and who ask, or do not ask but seem to need, financial
assistance.

So many have been willing to lend to the Lord (i. e., give to
the poor), believing that it was a safe and dividend-paying invest-
ment, that for eighteen hundred years this has been the usual
mode of relief.

Everybody knows that this has not diminished the number.
It was very unfortunately said, eighteen hundred years ago, " The
poor we have always with us," because the saying of it has helped
to make it true. Assuming that we are to have the poor always
with us, we shall do little to lessen their number. Had it been
said upon the same authority, " Under the beneficent sway of wis-
dom the poor shall cease to exist among you," as it was said, " The
wolf and the lamb shall lie down together," by this time we should
have been far nearer the realization.

Early Athens — pagan Athens, if you choose — could boast of
having no citizen in want, " nor," says the Grecian historian, " did
any disgrace the nation by begging." This should have been our
motto. With all the resources of this nation, its realization would
have been easy had the proper course been pursued. In such a
country as ours it is not necessary, but it is a shame and disgrace,
to have the poor always with us — that is, poverty which needs
relief. In the presence of millionaires, men owning but a single
cottage are poor by comparison. We ought always to have such
poor among us, but these are self-respecting and happy men.
They mtist never be confounded with those who through defect-
ive character sometimes require food, coal, or shelter to be pro-
vided for them. The latter are intended when allusion is made
to the poor.

Now, if anything of social and economic value has been demon-
strated in this century it is that giving food, coal, and money to
the poor from public funds or even by private charities pauperizes
and degrades them. Henry George says that " the poor are grow-
ing poorer." If so, to nothing is it more attributable than to the
multiplication of charities. "A city of charities and a city of
paupers " is the designation of one of our Eastern municipalities.

How charity becomes the cause of pauperism may easily be
understood. The problem has been well worked out, especially in
England. Henry Fawcett, Professor of Political Economy in the
University of Cambridge, in " Pauperism : its Causes and Reme-
dies," published in 1871, says: "Those get the largest share of
charity — not who suffer most, but — who can excite the greatest
sympathy. Hence securing charity becomes an art; begging, a

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

profession. Hypocrisy and lies are the principal tools. Those
who acquire skill in it frequently obtain greater incomes than
those who. labor.'^

A case in Washington, D. C, illustrates this : * In August, 1885,
a boy of about fourteen years was found regularly begging on
Pennsylvania Avenue. His mother, healthy and reasonably intel-
ligent, lived in a neat house on a pretty street within three blocks
of the Capitol. There was no sign of poverty or of distress about
the house, inside or out. The boy had, during the sessions of Con-
gress, sold papers at the Capitol, reaping a rich harvest. He limped
about with a crutch. People gave him five, ten, or twenty-five
cents for a paper, and asked no change. When Congress ad-
journed, he could still have supported himself well by selling
papers on Pennsylvania Avenue; but people there did not pay
over five cents for papers, as a rule. Still, they did give to beg-
gars, especially to those with crutches. It easily appeared that
the boy could make more money by begging than by selling
papers, and so he begged. Even after he had been taken into
police court twice, he returned to the street to beg. It was only
with great difficulty that the writer succeeded in stopping this
imposition upon the public — the sweet, confiding public, which is
ever seeking to give to strangers, because "some have thereby
entertained angels unawares " — yes, a public which is too lazy to
investigate the effects of its alms-giving, and which deserves to
be imposed upon.

Now, let no one express horror at the character disclosed in
this child, or rather in his mother, who was the real actor. She
was no better and no worse than the average citizen. She simply
exercised business sagacity in getting money apart from moral
considerations. So do Wall-Street brokers; so do many men
who endow colleges, build churches, and send missionaries to " the
heathen."

The solution of this economic problem is of the simplest. Make
begging unprofitable, and we never need lecture beggars about
their loss of self-respect. When the getting of something for
nothing becomes impossible, and never till then, will men cease
to endeavor to get something for nothing. When you and every
one of you completely discontinue giving alms, except to those
whose circumstances are perfectly understood, self-respect and
other moral qualities will develop in those people without even a
word being said to them upon that point. In giving to them, you
degrade society far more than they degrade it by asking. This
kind of altruism is a curse in the world. Fawcett said of it,
" England was brought nearer the brink of ruin by the old poor-

* I made the investigation of it in person, and prosecuted it in the police court before
Judge W. B. Sncll.

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 63

law thaii she ever was by a hostile army." Meanwhile we should
be self-respecting enough to admit that tramps and beggars are
not very different from many " respectable " people, after all.

Those who are interested to examine the economic results of
giving to the poor, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, will find
plenty of books on the subject. The " Encyclopsedia Britannica "
contains a good article under the heading " poor-law." See also
other encyclopaedias.

The Scotch are proverbially thrifty and economical, and yet
they have been degraded by the poor-law of 1845. In some parts
of Scotland there is ten times the poverty there is in Ireland!
That law gives more relief than England's, and the money is re-
garded as a nice gift. Those who had savings in banks trans-
ferred them to others. Careful investigation, and even the labor
test, did not quell the applications in any such manner as did the
Irish workhouse. Matters came to such a pass that the fishermen
of Wick could not get their nets mended, their former assistants
saying that they could get a living easier from the parish.

In Ireland there is very little out-door relief, the proportion of
Scotland being almost reversed — five in-door to one out-door pau-
per. In spite of Ireland's unjust land system and high rents, the
whole number of her paupers does not amount to one half those
of London alone. The Irish will submit to every privation rather
than let friends go to the workhouse, which is the legal mode of
relief, and is not a charity.

In London many people get relief who could do without it, and
consider it no disgrace. Industry, economy, temperance, and self-
restraint would enable most of them to take care of themselves if
they would. Hence the workhouse is a necessary restraint, being
uncomfortable or even disgraceful. They therefore shun it. If
they may eat without work in some other way, they will ; if not,
many of them will work. Why are these people in such condi-
tion ? It is a duty we owe to society to ascertain what are their
thoughts, what the motives that have led them to such lives. If
the result is that the vices and injustices and prodigality of the
rich have in part induced such results, let it be exposed boldly and
fearlessly. If injustice in the wage system and in land tenure is
the cause in part, let this also be proclaimed.

You will, however, be more interested in some figures from our
own experience. The Hon. Seth Low, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn N.Y.,
presented a paper in 1881 at the eighth National Conference of
Charities and Corrections in Boston which Robert Treat Paine
calls the corner-stone of relief reform. In it Mr. Low sums up his
opinion of the world's experience in giving alms (technically
called out-door relief). Of the supposed beneficiaries he says :

1. That it saps their habits of industry.

64

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

2. That it discourages habits of frugality.

3. That it encourages improvident and wretched marriages.

4. That it produces discontent.

His own conclusion as to what he had himself seen was that
" out-door relief in • the United States as elsewhere tends inevita-
bly and surely to increase pauperism." Here are some of his sta-
tistics :

In Brooklyn, during 1877, 46,350 people were relieved at a cost
of $141,207. In 1878 no money was given. This immense number
of people which had received aid were left to take care of them-
selves, or to go to almshouse or to hospital. What effect on these
institutions did refusing to give to 46,350 people have ? In 1877
and 1878 these institutions contained 1,371 people ; in 1879, 1,389
people ; in 1880, 1,199, and in 1881 only 1,171. What became of
the people that had received the $141,207, in a single year ? Mr.
Seth Low says : " Instead of Brooklyn needing, as the result of the
abolition of out-door relief, an almshouse of mammoth proportions,
we find at the end of three years an almost imperceptible increase
of sick paupers, but a steady diminution of well paupers ; and this,
too, in the face of a population in the county growing at the rate
of 18,000 per annum." At about the same time similar action was
taken in Philadelphia, with like results. Cleveland's out-door re-
lief account for six years was as follows :

1875 to 4,590 families $95,000.
ISTe to 3,094 " 85,000.

18VY to 2,386 " 70,000.

1878 to 1,568 families $32,300.

1879 to 1,550 " 22,600.

1880 to 1,200 " 17,000.

In March, 1877, was begun a system of requiring an equivalent
for the relief furnished. Work at one dollar per day was provided
every man who being able-bodied applied for assistance. The offi-
cials were thoroughly convinced that pauperism had been fostered
and increased by the old system.

Cincinnati pursued the same course, with good results, except
that it issued during ten winter weeks coal by the bushel ; but
even that was improvident and demoralizing. People who know
that a city issued coal last winter will count on getting it this
winter, and will take no other thought on the subject.

Now we know, by experiment, that the wise thing to do is to
visit all such people in July and August, and induce them to lay
by a few cents a week for winter's coal, promising it to them at
lower prices. If, thus reminded to provide for winter, they are less
sensible than the squirrel, they must in all fairness to themselves
be allowed to suffer discomfiture in winter and be taught by bit-
ter experience. He who gives to the \iOOV under such circum-
stances may be very benevolent at heart, but his influence is worse
than that of a miser who refrains from giving.

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED. 65

What, then, must we do ? Fortunately, our altruistic feelings
may be gratified in a manner not harmful to the beneficiaries.
Robert Treat Paine, of Boston, who has had large experience in
treating the poor, prescribes the following: "Whenever any fam-
ily has fallen so low as to need relief, send to them at least one
friend — a patient, true, sympathizing, firm friend— to do for them
all that a friend can do to discover and remove the causes of their
dependence, and to help them up into independent self-support
and self-respect." To which it may be added, if that friendly vis-
itor is permitted to give alms, his and their minds are diverted
from the great object — the permanent cure of poverty. It should
always be regretted when circumstances seem to demand attention
to immediate needs. Put off every possible want till the person
can himself supply it in a manly and independent way. Better a
morsel with self-respect than plenty with an enfeebled determi-
nation to fight the battle of life.

II. Orphan Asylums. — Much that has been said of giving alms
applies to the treatment of delinquent and dependent children.
Moved by the altruistic spirit, and feeling an approving con-
science as the result of trying to do good to others, the Christian
world has taken up the care of orphan asylums. Children are
gathered from the slums of cities, and sometimes from pretty good
homes, in to these herding-places. Then they are told, as I heard
from a reverend doctor, how grateful they should be to Christian-
ity for thus caring for them ; but the fact again is that, prompted
by kind motives, people thus try to do these children good with-
out looking to the results of their acts to see the consequences.

What, then, are some of these consequences ?

1. That moral corruption, brought in a little by each child,
leavens the whole lump.

2. That they are often placed under incompetent teachers to
learn book-lessons, when in fact their capacities call for manual
training instead. (Who ever knew a scholar reared in an orphan
asylum ?)

3. They are fed in the cheapest sort of a way, and clothed in a
uniform that causes them to be pointed out always in public as
objects of charity and degradation.

4. They are kept in herds and not in families, and hence subject
to rules and training necessitated by this abnormal life. Often
they are so unfit to live in families that kind-hearted people can
not adopt them.

5. Every delinquent mother and every drunken father now
knows that he and she can indulge their vices and get rid of their
children. Thousands of widowed mothers, learning that they can
marry again if not encumbered with children, are putting their
little ones in asylums. The asylum thus offers a premium to child-

VOL. XXXIT. 5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

desertion. Rich people even are living in Inxury, while their
nephews, nieces, and grandchildren are being corrupted in orphan
asylums ! The niece of a President of the United States was, not
long ago, in an asylum, while her uncle, aunt, and three cousins,
occupied the White House ! Such people often give as their excuse
that the child was too vicious, or rude, or even homely, to be re-
ceived into their families. " No one seemed to want him."

Better the humble home of a poor farmer in the West, far bet-
ter for such children as are unavoidably orphaned, than these un-
natural corrals. But this kind of orphans constitutes not over one
fifth of all. The other four fifths represent indulgence, by the asy-
lum founders and managers, toward parents and relatives who wish
to shirk resjDonsibilities imposed by Nature upon them. With
every such indulgence issues moral miasma upon society, which
festers and reproduces its kind. And all this time people with
good motives and benevolent spirits thank God that they are not
as other men are, and proceed to build additional asylums ! Better
and far better live and die among the Zuni Indians of New Mex-
ico, having never heard of Christian charity, than to die and leave
your orphan child alone in a large city of the United States ! In
the latter case he goes to an asylum, to be swallowed up in the
masses. In the former case, although he has lost his own father
and mother, he has found many fathers and many mothers, all of
whom will feel a personal interest in him and responsibility for
him, and who will share with him if need be the last pot of corn,
and will weep over his grave as if it contained their own flesh and
blood. We should need no orphan asylums if we possessed the
virtues of the Zuni.

How to set forth the economic effects of such institutions, and
to point out to society the way to make its members rear the chil-
dren to whom they have given birth, and to show the disastrous
effects of ill-considered altruism, is a task which comes within the
province of this section of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science.

III. Foundling Asylums. — Here, again, sentimentalism has
contributed money to build asylums, and even more unwisely
than in the case of the orphans. An orphan can not be com-
mitted without something being known of its parents, or their
circumstances, and without formal papers of transfer. This rou-
tine exposes many frauds, and leads managers to reject thousands
of applicants for admission. Managers like to boast of the cases
they have. rejected. With foundlings, nothing of the sort occurs.
The girl whose yieldings to temptation have made her a mother,
be she in high life or in low, the intemperate who prefer to use
their means for drink to rearing their own offspring, the society
people who have boasted that there will be no children in their

ALTRUISM ECONOMICALLY CONSIDERED, 67

families — one and all — have but to leave their offspring as naked
as little Moses was when deposited at the Nile, either in a vacant
lot or upon some handy door-gtep. Under cover of darkness all is
secret. Either a policeman, or the irate citizen whose door-step
has been invaded, quickly and safely transfers the waif to an asy-
lum. The reminders of sin and folly, as well as the burdens of the
parents, have thus been put far away. Were society organized to
encourage this very business, it were imjoossible to arrange it more
satisfactorily. But eternal shame should rest upon the weak-
minded, benevolent people who by their ill-.advised altruism cul-
tivate such degradation in society ! One tenth of the money spent
in detecting and punishing these parents for their unnatural
crimes would teach society the needed lesson. More pains than
we take to catch a murderer should be spent upon detecting these
criminals. Every foundling asylum in America should be in-
stantly disorganized.

IV. Insane Asylums. — Upon this kind of altruistic effort,
also a boast of the age, there are not sufficient data to warrant so
severe denunciation. It is proper, however, to call attention to
some suspicious circumstances :

1. The collecting and imprisoning of great masses of such peo-
ple is unnatural, and the best authorities advocate breaking up the
system by substituting homes and separate buildings.

2. To the non-medical observer it is surprising that, while rapid
progress is being made in treating many forms of disease such as
are caused by minute germs, so little knowledge is being obtained
concerning the nature, causes, and cure of insanity. With many
physicians, supported by the state in a liberal manner, why are
they not bringing forth fruit in this direction ? It is said to be
because incapable men get places through intrigues, and because
so much time is spent in routine work.

3. The number of the insane is on the increase. Some of the
immediate causes are understood. Is it not certainly of the
utmost importance that facts bearing on these points be circu-
lated, and that great effort be made to check insanity by rooting
out of society the immediate and ultimate causes ?

The altruistic work suggested by these questions can have no
unjustifiable effects. That which has been performed is more
questionable, as implied by the changes proposed, and upon further
examination may prove more unjustifiable. In any event it is
plain that doing good to those now insane may not be of half the
importance that it is to find means of preventing insanity in the
future.

V. Benevolence in Higher Education. — It used to be a
practice to give not only tuition, but even board and clothes, to
young men studying theology. It was considered that they were

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

preparing to lead lives devoted to altruistic work, and that it was
therefore desirable, in the case of young men apparently without
means, to pay their expenses in theological schools, but it worked
so badly that the plan is undergoing change. In the best schools
where funds are provided, they are now loaned, and a written obli-
gation to repay is executed. In other words, the managers of
schools of divinity found out that to give to the poor theological
student was to lend to the devil — a very different creditor from
the one they had in mind ! It was found that this money got used
at times for tobacco, for pleasure-trips, etc., while board-bills were
unpaid, and that after it was spent the beneficiaries sometimes
abandoned the life-work they had contemplated.* But even the
loan system is not working satisfactorily. The written obligation
is often lightly esteemed, and held to be not binding. The writer's
latest information is that but thirty per cent is paid back. Only
when the notes are looked after, as a successful banker looks
after his paper, will the system become truly beneficent. It will
then have ceased to be a charity. Again let it be said, do not give
something for nofJiing, but, if you really must do so, then put it
into a lottery,

VI. Gifts to Workingmen. — There is reserved for the last a
notice of the most contemptible form of altruism now known to
civilization. It has come to be the fashion for people who have
acquired money without giving an equivalent in labor and who
wish to indulge in benevolence, to build mission-chapels in out-
skirts of cities, and to furnish them with cheap appliances in or-
der to "save the souls" of the dear working-classes. Another
form this takes is in furnishing workingmen libraries and read-
ing-rooms, and even in building improved tenement-houses. In a
score of ways the rich are " doing something for the poor." Now,
all these things have the same surface appearance of charity as
throwing a dime to a beggar. But the fact is, that these people
have by class legislation or dishonesty got possession of wealth
created by the poor, and in order to quiet their little consciences,
or occasionally in order to enable them to keep up the fraud, they
dispense these charities.

Now, let it be reported to all such that the workingmen need
none of their charities. They cry out for justice, for fair wages
for a day's work, for reasonable rents, for a chance to buy house-
lots which speculators have not pushed beyond honest men's reach
— in short, for such a reorganization of legislation and custom as
will enable them to labor and to administer upon the entire fruits
of their labor, to build and furnish their own chapels if they

* There has been in government employ in Washington, the past eight years, a young
man who received such aid for two years previously. He now owns real estate in Wash-
ington, but he never preaches.

THE PROBLEM OF A FLYING-MACHINE. 69

choose, to establisli their own libraries and reading-rooms, to
build their OAvn tenement-honses, and to scorn charity as they now
have good reason to scorn such dispensers of charity.

The basing of all so-called charitable and benevolent work up-
on such principles as have been indicated, or rather the substitu-
tion of right-seeking and right-doing (which is but the simple
practice of justice), will require earnest study and a great change
in our spirit and methods. Those who in preceding years have
here listened to outlines of work adapted for this section as pre-
sented by Professor Elliott and Major Alvord should notice that
the bounds will be much enlarged if we seek to solve the problems
which shall enable us to make our altruism economically benefi-
cial. This certainly should be the case. That we should pretend
to be doing. good to all men, and yet be deceiving both ourselves
and them, while really doing harm to both, needs only to be
demonstrated to secure our condemnation. And giving alms to
show even to ourselves our good motives, or in order to indulge
our benevolent impulses, is certainly the most deceitful form of
selfishness, since it appears in the form of altruism — is evil and
only evil.

THE PROBLEM OF A FLYING-MACHINE.

Br JOSEPH LE CONTE,

PROFEPSOE OF GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY XS THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

IN "The Popular Science Monthly" for November, 1885 (vol.
xxviii, p. 1), Mr. Mather closes an excellent article on flying-
machines with the following weighty remark : " These are the
most important inventions of this class — i. e., self-raising, self-
propelling machines. It must be confessed that the results are
far from encouraging. But, there are the birds ; and they com-
pletely refute the argument of those who say that it is impossible
to make a fly ing -machine."

Now, I wish to take issue with Mr. Mather in this conclusion.
I am one of those who think that a flying-machine, in the sense
indicated above — i. e., self-raising, self-propelling — is impossible,
in spite of the testimony of the birds. Of course, it is understood
that I am speaking of true flight, like that of a bird or an insect,
and not of ballooning nor any combination of ballooning with
flying. This is sufficiently implied in the words " self-raising
and self-propelling." I wish now to give, very briefly, a reason
for my faith. I can best do so with brevity and clearness by a
series of propositions which I hope will lead us, step by stej^, to
absolute demonstration. I believe this is important, in order to
check baseless expectations and limit effort to the right direction.

70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1. Two Kinds of Impossibles. — On the very threshold of my
subject I am met by the objection that " many things far more
wonderful, and, before their realization, seemingly far more im-
possible, than flying-machines, have, nevertheless, actually come
to pass. Then why not this also ? He is a bold man that declares
anything impossible in this age of rapid progress and startling
inventions." I answer : True enough, many wonderful and appar-
ently impossible things have indeed come to pass ; and that, too,
in spite of the adverse predictions of some rash scientists. But
there are two kinds of impossibles — the seeming and the real.
The seeming impossibles we believe to be impossible, only be-
cause we do not yet understand the principles involved in the
problem, and therefore can not conceive the conditions necessary
for their successful application. Such are all the cases which
most readily occur to the mind as triumphs of science — such, for
example, as the locomotive, the telegraph, the telephone, etc. The
real impossibles, on the contrary, we know to be such, because we
see clearly through all the principles involved in the problem
and the limits of their possible application. Of this kind are the
iwohlem of a perpetual-motion machine, and of a self-supiiorting
arch of indefinite length. Now observe — that, of these two kinds
of impossibles, to the unreflecting the seeming are far the more
impossible and wonderful. In fact, to most people the real impos-
sibles do not seem impossible, or wonderful, or even difficult at
all. Hence, in every age and country we find men who waste their
lives in vain attempts to make perpetual-motion machines. So,
also, in regard to the indefinite arch. Most people do not see at
once why an arch of any length should not support itself if only
it be big and strong in proportion to its length.

Let me stop a moment to illustrate this by an anecdote, I
remember many years ago meeting a traveling agent of a Rem-
ington bridge (a wooden suspension-bridge), who had with him
for exhibition a small model which, when set up, was about
twenty feet long, and had stringers about as big as my finger.
This little model not only sustained itself, but, in addition, the
weight of a stout looker-on — " a fat and greasy citizen " — twenty
times as heavy as the bridge itself. " Now," said the plausible
agent, " if you increase the size and strength of the stringers in
proportion as you increase the length of your bridge, it is evident
that a bridge of this pattern, of any length, will not only sustain
itself, but twenty times its own weight in the form of loaded
wagons," Most of those who heard it accepted his reasoning as
irrefutable. Of course, every engineer knows that this is not
true. For, while the iveight of the bridge increases as the cuhe of
the diameter of all its parts, the strength of the stringers increases
only as the square of their diameter. In increasing the size in

THE PROBLEM OF A FLYING-MACHINE. 71

all dimensions, therefore, the weight will quickly overtake the
strength. There is a limit, therefore, beyond which it is impossible
to make an arch or suspension-bridge support itself. This fact is
so well recognized that it is unnecessary to dwell upon it. I have
brought it forward at all only because I wish to apply the prin-
ciple to other cases where it is not so well recognized.

2. Application to Walking. — Now, this principle applies not
only to bridges and arches, but to all kinds of structures, and
therefore, also, to locomotive-machines, whether natural or arti-
ficial. For example, there is a limit of size beyond which it is
impossible to make a successful walking - machine, and beyond
which, therefore, a walking animal can not exist. Beyond that
limit the supporting bones would crush beneath the weight of
the animal. It is in vain to say that we will make the bones and
muscles thick and strong in proportion to the increasing size of
the animal ; for, as the animal increases in size, its weigJit increases
as its volume or as the cube, while the strength of bones and mus-
cles increases only as the cross-section or as the square of the diam-
eter. Therefore, as the animal increases in size, a larger and
longer portion of the whole strength is consumed in the support,
and less and less is left over for motion, until, finally, the weight
overtakes the utmost strength of bones to supx)ort or muscles to
move. It is probable that the limit of an efficient walking-ma-
chine has actually been reached in the largest animals which
have walked the earth ; such, for example, as the huge dinosaurs
of the Jurassic period, recently brought to light by the researches
of Marsh and Cope. The whale has probably passed the limit,
and therefore was compelled to change its form and take to the
water, and become a swimming-machine. Or, to speak more defi-
nitely and also more truly, the whale family in times long ago,
perhaps in earliest Tertiary times, before it became a true whale
family, found it profitable, either for food or for safety, to take to
the water ; and this not only determined a change of form, but
also allowed it to attain a greater size than was compatible with
walking.

This principle explains many other things in nature which
would otherwise be inexplicable. The marvelous vivacity and
energy of insect-motion — the arrowy swiftness of flight of many
kinds of flies, the prodigious leaps of fleas, the immense weights
dragged by ants — are familiar to all. In text-books on natural
history these are given as examples of the almost inconceivable
nervous and muscular energy of insects, as compared with verte-
brates. It is often said that if our nerve- and muscle-energy were
as great as that of a flea, we might easily leap a quarter of a mile.
In that case we would have little use for railroads or for seven-
league boots, or indeed for flying-machines. Now, this is an entire

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

misconception. There is no reason to believe that our mnscnlar
energy is any whit less than that of insects — that, taking a bundle
of muscular fibers of equal cross-section, the contractile power is
any less in our case than in theirs. The explanation is easily
found in the principle above stated. These apparently wonderful
feats of insects are simply the result of their small size. Weight
fZecreases as well as increases as the volume, i. e., as the ciihe, while
strength of muscle only as the cross-section, i. e., as the square of
the diameter. Therefore, with decreasing size weight decreases
far more rapidly than strength, and therefore the ratio of strength
to size mcreases ; and therefore, finally, less and less energy is
consumed in support, and more and more is left over for motion.
If any one desires to pursue this subject further, he will find it
fully treated in a previous number (April, 1883) of " The Popular
Science Monthly,'' in an article by Delboeuf on " Dwarfs and
Giants."

3. Application to Natural Flying. — Now, this same prin-
ciple of limit applies with greatly increased force to flying. There
is a limit of size and weight of a flying animal ; and on account of
the prodigious energy required for aerial locomotion iluit limit is
very low, not much more than fifty pounds, certainly much less than
one hundred pounds. The largest flying-birds, such as the bustard,
the turkey-cock, and the condor, rise with difficulty. They are
evidently near the limit. There are, indeed, birds which are much
larger, such as the ostrich, the emu, and especially the extinct
Dinornis and Epiornis, but these are all flightless. They do not
fly, not because their wings are aborted, but, on the contrary, their
wings became aborted because they did not fly, and they did not
fly because they had grown too large. Nature could not make them
fliers, and therefore did not try. Or rather, it might perhaps be
said, she tried her best and failed. Their wings became aborted
because their size had passed the limit of possibility of flight. I
imagine that the history of their evolution was briefly something
as follows : They sprang originally from large birds of heavy
flight ; but being somewhat isolated from severe competition, on
islands with abundant food, natural selection took the direction
of size and strength for victory in contest, rather than swift-
ness of flight for escape from danger. They quickly passed the
limit of size for flight, and their wings becoming useless were
aborted.

4. Relation of Rising to Propulsion in Flight. — There is
another principle involved in flight which must now be stated.
There are two things to be considered, viz., rising and propulsion.
We have already shown that the ratio of weight to strength, and
therefore the difficulty of rising, i?icreases as the size or weight.
We now add that the resistance of the air to motion through it.

THE PROBLEM OF A FLYING-MACHINE.

73

and therefore the difficulty of propulsion of a flying animal, de-
creases in the same ratio. The one varies directly, the other
inversely, as the size.

This is a principle of very wide application, and I stop to illus-
trate it by many familiar phenomena. The floating of dust and
smoke, the suspension of clouds, the slow settling of fine sedi-
ments, are examples. As the particles become smaller, the resist-
ance of the air or water to falling through it, decreasing as the
surface, i. e., as the square of the diameter of the particle (cZ^),
while the force of motion or weight decreases as the volume, i. e.,
as the cube {d^) of the diameter — evidently the force decreases
much faster than the resistance, and therefore the ratio of force
to resistance, or the effective force of motion, becomes less and less,
until in very small particles it is a vanishing quantity. For this
reason it matters not how great the specific gravity of a substance
may be, if the particles are only small enough they will float in-
definitely in air or in water. Particles of gold may be made so
small by precipitation from solution that they will require months
to settle. Krakatoa-dust (if that be the true cause of the after-
glow and of Bishop's ring) remained suspended in the air for more
than two years. The perennial blue of the sky and of mountain-
lake water is due to suspended particles.

Now, this principle applies not only to resistance of the air to
the force of gravity in falling bodies, but also to resistance of the
air to the force of propulsion in flying bodies. As a flying animal
becomes smaller (as in the smaller birds and in insects), a larger
and larger proportion of the whole flight-energy is consumed in
propidsioii, and a less and less proportion is necessary for rising.
On the other hand, as a bird becomes larger, a progressively larger
portion of the whole flight-energy is necessary for rising, and less
and less is necessary for propulsion, until finally at the limit the
whole is necessary for rising. Beyond this, of course, flight is
impossible. This explains why large birds like the condor rise
with difficulty ; but once up they sail with ease and grace,* while
small birds and insects rise with ease, but require rapid and in-
cessant fluttering in progressing.

5. Application to a Flying-Machine. — Many readers who
have followed me thus far with entire assent will probably object
right here that, while all this may be true of flying animals, it
may not be true at least to the same extent — i. e., the limit may

* Marey has lately (" Nature," vol. xxxvii, p. 369, 1888) shown that there is still another
reason for the greater ease of flight after the bird is well on its way. In starting, the
wing, except at the very beginning of the stroke, pushes against air which is already in
motion in the same direction as the wing itself ; but in swift flight the whole stroke is
against dead air, for the air beneath the wing is continually renewed by the motion of
the bird.

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not be so low — in flying-machines. There are forces, they will say,
such as steam, electricity, explosions, etc., which are far more
powerful than muscular contraction. Especially is electricity
looked to in a vague way to do for us many wonderful things,
this of flying among the number. Now, this is again a great mis-
take. Nerve-energy acting through muscular contraction, and
supplied by the combustion of foods, such as oils, fats, starch,
sugar and fibrin, together form the most perfect and efficient
engine that we know anything of ; i, e., will do more luork with
the same iceight of machinery and fuel.

There was much loose talk a few years ago about condensing
and storing electricity in immense quantity, in small space, by the
use of Faure's battery. Millions of foot-pounds, it was said, may
be thus condensed and stored in a small box and carried about.
To the unreflecting, millions of foot-pounds seems a very large
quantity. Extravagant expectations were thus raised in the popu-
lar mind. I remember at that time talking with a very intelli-
gent gentleman on this very subject of flying-machines ; and he,
in rebuttal of my argument, suggested the use of stored elec-
tricity. " Why," said I, " there is more energy stored in a piece
of coal that may be put in the vest-pocket than can be stored in
a Faure's battery weighing three hundred pounds ! " Faure's bat-
tery is doubtless a good thing, but chiefly, like a fly-wheel, not
for increasing the amount but regulating the floiv of force. He
then suggested the enormous force of explosives, such as the
nitro-compounds. The feeding of these to the engine might, he
rightly thought, be so regulated as to supply a continuous force.
But here also lurks a fallacy, the result again of a misconception.
The force of such compounds is characterized by great intensity
rather than great quantity. The whole force is compressed into
an almost infinitely small space of time, and therefore very in-
tense. But stretch it out as a continuous force and it becomes no
greater, probably less, than that of an equal weight of burning
coal. There is probably no greater available energy in the world
than that produced by the burning of carbon and hydrogen. It
is this form of energy that we use in steam-engines ; this we find
most powerful and economical in making electricity ; this, also,
is what is used in the animal machine. The only question that
remains, then, is the relative economy of its use. Now, I think it
will be admitted on all hands that no known engine compares in
this respect with the animal body. It is acknowledged by me-
chanical engineers that the animal machine, burning hydro-
carbonaceous food, and acting through nerve and muscle, more
nearly approaches the theoretical limit of possible work than
any, even the best, steam-engines. More accurately, the animal
body is about twice as effective as the best Cornish engine.

THE PROBLEM OF A FLYING-MACHINE.

75

The reason of this -wonderful effectiveness of the animal ma-
chine is obvious. See how this machine has been gradually per-
fected throughout infinite ages, especially in birds. During the
whole geological history of the earth this machine has been stead-
ily improving in structure of skeleton, energy of muscle, and
rapidity of combustion of fuel, by struggle for life and survival
of only the swiftest, the most energetic, and the hottest-blooded,
until an almost incredible intensity is reached in birds. More-
over, in them everything is sacrificed to the supreme necessity of
flight. Viscera, skeleton, legs, head, all are made as small and
light as possible to make room for the great pectoral muscles
working the wings. Add to this the exquisite structure of the
wings and feathers, adapting them for the greatest effectiveness ;
and we must admit that a bird is an incomparable model of a
flying-machine. No machine that we may hope to devise, for
the same weight of machine, fuel, and directing brain, is half so
effective. And yet, this machine thus perfected through infinite
ages by a ruthless process of natural selection, reaches its limit of
weight at about fifty pounds ! I said, " weight of machine, fuel,
and directing brain," Here is another prodigious advantage of
the natural over the artificial machine. The flying animal is its
own engineer, the flying-machine must carry its engineer. The
directing engineer in the former (the brain) is perhaps an ounce,
in the latter it is one hmidred and fifty pounds. The limit of the
flying animal is fifty pounds. The smallest possible weight of a
flying-machine, with its necessary fuel and engineer, even without
freight or passengers, could not be less than three or four hundred
pounds.

Now, to complete the argument, put these three indisputable
facts together : 1. There is a low limit of weight, certainly not
much beyond fifty pounds, beyond which it is impossible for an
animal to fly. Nature has reached this limit, and with her utmost
effort has failed to pass it. 3. The animal machine is far more
effective than any we may hope to make ; therefore the limit of
the weight of a successful flying-machine can not be more than
fifty pounds. 3. The weight of any machine constructed for fly-
ing, including fuel and engineer, can not be less than three or four
hundred pounds. Is it not demonstrated that a true flying-ma-
chine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self -propelling , is physically
impossible ?

6. Application to a Swimming-Machine. — But is there not
a way of escape from the toils of this inexorable logic ? We
have said the limit of the weight of a flying animal is about fifty
pounds. The limit for a walking animal is much higher, probably
several tons. For a swimming animal there is no limit of iveight
and size, because the water sustains the weight, and therefore the

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whole energy may be used in propulsion alone. Now some may
think they see in this a solution of the problem. They will say,
" Why not sustain the machine by gas, so that the whole energy
may be expended in propulsion alone ? " I answer, that in pro-
portion as the balloon principle is added to the flying principle,
in the same proportion is size increased ivithout corresponding
increase in poiuer ; and therefore in the same proportion is in-
creased the resistance of the air to propulsion, and, what is worse,
in the same proportion is our machine at the mercy of winds.
But it will be objected : " See the fishes, how they swim ! They
are not at the mercy of currents. They float suspended in the
water — they dart forward against currents — they ascend cascades
and leap waterfalls ; in a word, they are largely independent of
water-currents. Now suppose we make a machine exactly the
shape of a fish, tail and all ; then, by the addition of gas, make it
the same specific gravity as the air ; then, by machinery, make it
wiggle its tail in the manner of a fish. Where is the difference ?
Why may we not make an aerial swimming-machine, if not a true
flying-machine ? " Doubtless it is in this direction that we must
seek the partial solution of the problem, not indeed of flying, but
of aerial navigation. Yet the answer to the extravagant expecta-
tions expressed above is plain. The fish — its bones, muscles, vis-
cera, brain — the materials out of which are made machine, fuel,
and engineer, are of the same specific gravity as the medium
(water) in which it swims. Now, whenever we can find materials
out of which to make our machine, fuel, and engineer, which shall
have the same specific gravity as the air, then, indeed, we may
make a successful swimming-machine which shall be independent
of winds. But so long as our materials are six or seven hundred
times (wood), or five or six thousand times (iron), as heavy as air,
we shall not succeed, because of the enormous dead space filled
with gas that we are compelled to use, which adds to the resistance
of the air and the power of the winds, without adding anything
to the power of propulsion.

Therefore, we repeat, a pure flying-machine is impossible. All
that we can expect — all that true scientists do expect — is, by skill-
ful combination of the balloon principle with the true flying prin-
ciple, to make aerial navigation possible in moderately favorable
weather — in other words, to make a locomotive hcdloon ; or, if we
choose so to call it, an aericd swimming-machine. That some-
thing really useful of this kind will eventually be made, there can
be no reasonable doubt.

SUN-POWER AND GROWTH. 77

SUN-POWER AND GROWTH.

By JULIUS STINDE.

WE know that our planet retains the position which it occu-
pies in the solar system through the force of gravitation ;
we know, furthermore, that all organic life on our earth depends
upon the warmth and the light which it receives from the sun ;
but of the intimate relation which exists between organic life and
the changes taking place on the sun we are in comparative igno-
rance, notwithstanding investigation has brought to light a num-
ber of important facts.

That the growth of plants in our zone stands in intimate rela-
tion to a rise in the temjterature of the earth is well known ; but
the fact that a force varying in intensity and influencing the
growth of the human organism proceeds from the sun is a discov-
ery as novel as it is interesting. Some phenomena, possibly refer-
able to a property of this kind, were observed during an experi-
mental investigation of the diet furnished to the inmates of the
Royal Deaf -Mute Asylum at Copenhagen.

When, some years ago, a change of diet was proposed for the
inmates of this institution, the director, the Rev. R. Malling-
Hansen, thought it desirable to obtain a clear idea of and some
definite data concerning the thriving of the children under the
system then practiced, by which the results and the value of the
new system of nourishment proposed could later on be accurately
determined. The conscientiousness of the superintendent and
pastor of the asylum would not permit the permanent substitution
of a new system of diet without first possessing some facts by which
its advantages or disadvantages would be plainly pointed out.

For this purpose the children were daily weighed and meas-
ured in groups, in which manner the total weight of the pupils
was quickly and accurately ascertained. The technical details as
well as full statistics on the subject will be found in Rev. Malling-
Hansen's work, " Periodicity in the Weight of Children and in the
Heat of the Sun " (Copenhagen, V. Trydes). These weighings pre-
sent some very interesting facts.

(Until then it had been supposed that the growth of a number
of children (of different ages) averaged the same throughout the
year, and that the increase in weight as well as in height of a
greater number of children might be registered by a straight line
slanting upward. The annotations of the weighings and measure-
ments of the Royal Deaf -Mute Asylum at Copenhagen proved,
however, that the universally accepted biological theorem is
wrong, for the weight-lines of about seventy children had no even
gradation but showed great changes during the year. During

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eacTi of the three years the greatest increase in weight took place
in the fall until the beginning of winter, then till the end of April
the increase grew less, and after this time a loss in weight was no-
ticed. At times the increase in weight of the children would cease
suddenly for a few days, and occasionally during the time when
an increase was expected a general decrease occurred. Based upon
his measurements and annotations, Malling-Hansen framed the
following rule : The weight of a boy ranging from the age of nine
to fifteen undergoes three periods annually — a maximum, a me-
dium, and a minimum period. The maximum period lasts four
and a half months, commencing in August and ending the middle
of December ; the medium stage has the same duration, from the
middle of December to the end of April. The minimum period
appears during the remaining three months, from the end of April
to the end of July. The increase in weight during the maximum
period is three times that of the medium period, and almost all
the gain of the medium period is again lost during the minimum
period. From the working of this law it follows that in changing
the diet at academies, schools, and asylums, the season should be
considered. A good diet would give less satisfactory results if
observed from April to June, than a poorer diet if noted from
August until December.

In the same manner as the increase in iveight, the increase of
groivth fluctuates, and can likewise be divided into three periods.
These periods commence and close about a fortnight before the
periods of weight, but in such a manner that the minimum period
of growth occurs at the time when the weight remains stationary,
and may at times even be coincident with important loss in
weight. Growth takes place, one might say, at the expense of
the increase of weight. Accurate observation showed that the
general growth of the trees in the garden of the institution corre-
sponded essentially with the growth of the children. The maxi-
mum period of growth upward is followed by that of increase in
circumference. The growth of the human body and the growth
of the trees are consequently influenced in the same manner by
some disposing cause. But what is this cause ?

As the fluctuations referred to above coincided strikingly with
the fluctuations of atmospheric warmth, Malling-Hansen believed
that they could be attributed to local meteorological conditions ;
and it was really shown that with a rise of temperature the
weight increased, and vice versa. It was, however, ascertained
that during the minimum period a rapid rise of temperature but
slightly affected the increase in weight, and in the same way the
decrease in temperature during the ma.ximum period influenced
the weight but little.

Furthermore, it seemed remarkable that the children should

SUN-POWER AND GROWTH. 79

lose in weight instead of gaining, with the progressive rise in
temperature in spring and in early summer, and that in fall the
opposite relation should obtain. If heat alone were the active
medium, the warmth indoors in winter would exert some influ-
ence ; this was, however, not the case. Many other observations
indicated that local changes of temperature were not the looked-
f or cause, as the fluctuations in weight of the inmates of the Royal
Asylum corresponded to those of the deaf-mute children, notwith-
standing the great difference in the location and surroundings of
these two institutions. The force, moreover, seemed not to be in-
fluenced by the seasons, but to continue invariable during frost
and heat, during sunshine and rain ; its action on the whole was
not affected by the warmth of indoors or by the cold without.

The fluctuations of the increase in weight were more regular
than those of temperature ; these fluctuations, with their great
variations and their periodicity, seemed to show that organic
growth, of both human beings and animals, is affected by some to
us as yet unknown cause. ,' This influence is partly mirrored in
the local fluctuations of temperature, and these again, of course,
are in connection with the sun.

If the inference should prove correct that increase and decrease
in weight vary with the solar radiation, the thermometric regis-
tration of places on the Continent, not exposed to sea-winds, would
coincide more accurately with the results of the weighings than
the local climatic condition of Copenhagen would render possible.

Mr Malling-Hansen undertook the task of tracing in curves
the fluctuations in temperature of different meteorological stations
recorded in the Danish Institute of Meteorology. The stations,
which are at the following places, permit a broad view, as they
are at great distances from one another : Copenhagen, "Vienna,
San Fernando, Lucknow, Tragpoor (India), Paramaribo (Guiana),
Cordova (Argentine Republic), Port Dover (Canada), and Vioi (on
the Congo).

The more these curves were compared with one another, the
more did they show a remarkable analogy between the fluctua-
tions of temperature over the whole globe, and the fluctuations
in the weight of the children at Copenhagen. And, furthermore,
the curious fact was discovered that the fluctuations in tempera-
ture in India, as well as in Copenhagen and in North and South
America, varied in a similar manner, and were analogous to the
fluctuations shown in the weight-increase of the children in ac-
cordance with the variations of temperature experienced at the
different places. All these fluctuations in the weight of the chil-
dren picture the result of an influence emanating from the sun.

All the growth on the globe, from the most minute to the
largest being, from the simplest to the most perfect organism.

8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with, all its variations and fluctuations, stands in close relation to
the sum-total of heat of the earth's atmosphere.

As, however, the warmth of the sun is influenced differently at
different places by clouds, by wind, and by damj^ness, it never reach-
es the organisms in its original condition. Notwithstanding this,
however, the fluctuations of weight-increase progress in harmony.
, Whatever it is that thus influences growth comes to us with
the speed of the sun's rays ; it varies from day to day, its intensity
is the same' at the same time throughout the globe, and it ,is not
subject to local causes, to changes by wind and by weather.^)

Malling-Hansen calls this force " energy of growth " ; he sup-
poses that it reaches the earth with the speed of the heat-rays ;
separates from these, undergoes manifold changes, and, spreading
over the whole earth, is the cause of the uniform fluctuations in
the growth of all organic life. Upon future investigations falls
the burden of proof of this assumption.

This influence of the sun-power may serve as an important
factor in testing systems of nourishment, in the arrangement of
diet-cures, and in studying the action of mineral waters. For in-
stance, what weight can be attached to an opinion formed on the
medicinal value of a mineral spring, if the test be made at a time
when the energy of growth is on the decrease, and is thus perhaps
assisting in the action of the spring, which at some other period
might prove itself only half as efficient ?

Good nourishment, a limited amount of mental effort, and as
far as possible healthful surroundings during the maximum
period of growth of girth, may tend to re-establish the right pro-
portion of stature in children who have grown too rapidly.

There is no known reason to doubt that adults gain and lose
in the same periods. If persons who are desirous of growing less
stout leave the watering-places at the end of August or earlier,
they do so at the time of weight-increase, and a careless diet will
hence, in shorter time than it would under similar circumstances
in winter, cause them to grow stouter again.

With regard to the school vacations, these should be given
from the end of June to the beginning of September, during the
two maximum periods of growth ; the bodily strength which has
been gained will aid the mental work. — Translated for tJie Popular
Science Monthly from Dalieim.

Prof. Gairdneb has called attention, in the British Medical Association, to the
need of medical students receiving more adequate instruction in physics. The
subordination of living bodies and physiological processes to all the most ele-
mentary laws of matter ; the correlation of all the physical forces ; and the medi-
cal methods involving applications of pure physics, combine to make this matter
an extremely important one. The physical laboratory will probably in a very few
years become an essential aid in the education of the physician.

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 8i

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION.

By J. K. GOODEICH.

"FTP to the age of three or four years an Ainu child is called
v-v ai-ai (baby), without regard to sex. From that age until
al)out seven, a boy is called sontak and a girl opere. From seven
until about sixteen or eighteen a lad is called heikacJii, and a maid
matkachi. After that age a maid is called sliiiventep, or woman.
From eighteen to thirty a young man is called okkaibo or okkaiyo ;
after the age of thirty a man is an Ainu — that is, " a man."

The boy is trained in fishing and hunting by his father and the
other men of the village, and at the age of about twelve accom-
panies the men in their manly vocations. The girl assists her
mother and the older females of the family in gardening and
cooking ; in cleaning, salting, and curing fish ; in spinning, weav-
ing cloth, and making clothes ; and generally in all the drudgery
of the household, for the Ainu man is as lofty in his notions that
labor is beneath his dignity as is the North Americaji Indian.

While not as demonstrative in their affection for their children,
I think the Ainu parents love their little ones quite as tenderly as
any other people ; and if Miss Bird's observation is correct, they
have one pleasant way of displaying their affection which one
does not see through the length and breadth of the empire of
Japan, and that is the kiss of affection.

There is no ceremony of any kind, nor isolation of the mother,
before the birth of a child. As the women are not allowed to offer
prayers or take any active part in religious observances, the pro-
spective mother can not ask the gods for their assistance at the
time of delivery in order -to make parturition easy ; indeed, it
would probably never enter the head of an Ainu woman to thus
interfere with the course of Nature. The father, always prefer-
ring sons, and being extremely anxious for a male heir, if he has
none already, will pray to the gods to give him a son, and offer
libations of sake to the goddess of fire, if his means admit of the
expense, or his desire is sufficiently keen to justify the extrava-
gance.

Parturition is very easy, due to the active habits of the women,
and is greatly assisted by their physical conformation, as they
have broad hips and great strength in the pelvic region. The
woman continues her daily tasks until the labor-pains actually
come on. She then retires to her hut, where she is attended by a
few of her most intimate relations, and, if it be her first baby, her
mother will doubtless officiate as midwife. As the kneeling posi-
tion which a woman assumes at the time of delivery greatly f acili-

VOL. XXXIV. — 6

82

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MOXTHLY.

tates the passage of the child through the pelvis, and tends to
expedite the after-birth, the woman in a surprisingly short time
resumes her household duties quite as if nothing unusual had
occurred. There is no ceremony of purification for the mother,
nor does she receive congratulations. On the contrary, it is the

Fig. 1.— Ainu of Yezo.*

father who is congratulated ; and when the poor mother has taken
up her drudgery once more, it is lie who remains by the fireside,
wrapped up in his good clothes, to receive the felicitations of his
relatives and friends, smoking constantly and drinking many a

* For the illustrations in this article we are indebted to "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan,"
bv Isabella L. Bird. — Editor.

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION 83

cup of sake, particularly if the baby be a boy and the heir. I was
greatly surprised to find this near approach to the couvade in this
part of the world, and this one little thing seems to separate the
Ainu further than ever from the Japanese.

The children are trained to render strictest obedience to both
parents ; and if there be several sons, the eldest, as heir, exacts
and receives implicit obedience from his younger brothers ; from
his sisters obedience comes without saying, so low is the social
position of women. Adoption obtains to quite the same extent as
among the Japanese, and the legal standing of the adopted child
seems to be as absolute as if his right were that of birth. Adop-
tion is, however, almost restricted to male children, though I was
much surprised to find that one childless couple had adopted a
little Japanese girl who was so young that she had never learned
to speak the language of her own people.

If a man have only female children he w^ill sometimes adopt
an heir, but this is not altogether necessary, since the husband of
the eldest girl will usually succeed his father-in-law ; and, in order
to thoroughly fit himself for his prospective heirship, he moves
into his wife's home and becomes a member of her family. But
if a couple be childless they will surely adopt a son, for, inasmuch
as inheritance is strictly in the male line, there must be some one
to take possession of the house and the personal property, and to
become the head of the household. Not that it is necessary to
continue the family name, for there is nothing of the kind among
the Ainu. Each person has but one name, without any prefix or
suffix to determine whose child he may be, and the name is often
given from a mere whim ; as, for example, if a baby-girl pitches
upon a dirty old pot as her favorite plaything (and this is a very
possible case, for toys are not common), the chances are that she
will very soon be designated as " The Pot " or '* The Kettle " by
the family, and eventually the name will become affixed to her.
Hence we may say that names are given to Ainu children very
much the same way that nicknames attach themselves to children
in America and Europe.

Not only are there no family names, but each person's name
dies with its owner ; the repetition of a name in different genera-
tions having nothing to do with the preservation of the memory
of an older person. Children are not named for a rich uncle or
a maiden aunt, to secure "prospects" for them. There are no
posthumous names as with the Japanese, and a dead person is
not spoken of by name if it can be avoided by any circumlo-
cution ; indeed, every effort is made to avoid all reference to
the dead.

The adoption of an heir is not often necessary, for barren wives
are sometimes sent back to their fathers ; this misfortune consti-

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

tuting one of the best reasons for absolute divorce among the
Ainu, as among savage and barbarous nations the world over.

Children are sometimes betrothed by their fathers when quite
young, and this is done without the intervention of a middle-man.
This is not usually a matter of commerce, but often occurs when
two men, during a drinking-bout, conceive a great friendship for
each other. It frequently happens, however, that two rich men,
desirous of combining the wealth of their respective families, will
betroth their children. But betrothal is not absolutely binding
upon the young people, for the veto power remains with the chil-
dren ; and if, upon reaching marriageable age, either of the prin-
cipal parties to the marriage feels any inclination to do so, he or
she will annul the betrothal contract, in which event any presents
that may have been given must be returned, or their value fully
recompensed . to the donors. It is sometimes a difficult matter for
the girl to have her own way, for there are conventionalities even
in Ainu society ; but the boy simply takes the law into his own
hands and consummates wedlock with the object of his affection,
and, when her condition betrays the fact, opposition often ceases !

At the time of betrothal, if the choice be an independent one
on the part of either the groom or bride, it is customary for the
fathers to exchange presents, of no great value, to be sure, but
sufficient to show their approval of the match. Long engage-
ments are not popular, and when once a betrothal has been ef-
fected the pair are soon married, if they are of suitable age — that is,
about eighteen or twenty for the man, and sixteen or eighteen for
the woman. It will be noticed that there is a certain doubt ex-
pressed in all matters pertaining to age, time, etc. This is because
the people have no record of time, except to mark the recurring
seasons, and do not themselves know how old they are.

When two young people are married, the wedding-feast is usu-
ally held at the house of the groom's father. The village chief (or
his representative if he can not attend in person) and all the mem-
bers of the two families attend, with the immediate relatives and
the nearest neighbors. Like all their social and religious meet-
ings, the occasion is made an excuse for saA'e-drinking — the men
drinking themselves into a state of intoxication. As they are
hard-headed fellows, and take their liquor cold (instead of heated,
as the Japanese do), the quantity of sake consumed is sometimes
enormous. To give some idea of the Ainu excessive fondness for
sake, I may mention the fact that many of the northern Ainu often
refuse to work for money -wages, and stipulate that they shall re-
ceive sake in full payment before they will commence.

The mistress of the house superintends the preparation of the
wedding-feast, and is assisted by all the assembled women in
pounding the millet and making wedding-cakes, which are boiled.

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 85

like dumplings. Tlie groom is expected to provide most of the
sake, if not all of it, as he is supposed to have engaged in manly
vocations, to have received his share of the products of hunting
and fishing, and to have accumulated enough money to buy the
ceremonial wine, or beer rather, as sake is a brewed beverage, not
a fermented or distilled liquor.

The newly married couple at once take possession of a new,
small hut, which has been erected for them. These huts are made
with a light frame of poles, the sides and roof being heavily
thatched with reeds. They are by no means warm or impervious
to the weather ; indeed, many breaks in the thatching admit of
ventilation to a degree that must lower the temperature in winter
to a point well-nigh unbearable. The first hut is usually built
upon ground belonging to the bride's father, and near his own
house ; but the location of the new hut seems to depend in a meas-
ure upon the manner of asking in marriage. If the groom or his
father asks for the bride, then, to compensate the bride's father for
the loss of his daughter, the groom goes to live on his father-in-
law's land and becomes a member of his household ; but if, on the
contrary, the application has come from the other side, and the
bride (as may sometimes be the case) or her father has asked for
the groom in marriage, then compensation is considered to be due
to li is family, and the bride goes to her husband's land, becomes a
member of her father-in-law's family, and assists in the domestic
duties of her new home. An exception to this rule may occur
when the bride's father has no sons, and asks for a husband for
his oldest daughter in order to secure an heir.

When first married an Ainu couple is considered well set up'
in housekeeping if a small hut is provided with barely sufficient
room for them to sleep on the left-hand or northern side of the
central fireplace, a tiny little platform at the eastern end,, oppo-
site the entrance and under the sacred window, and a space on the
right of the fireplace for guests, of about the same dimensions as
the sleeping-place. For furniture there will probably be some
mats to sit and sleep on, some rugs or skins for covering, a kettle,
and a few dishes in which to serve food. As the family increases —
and this is almost sure to be the case, for a childless family is un-
known unless the fault is the man's — the house is either added to,,
or (as is more frequently the case) taken down and entirely re-
built in more and more pretentious proportions, until it has its
entrance porch opening to the south, its anteroom in a western
extension, and its main apartment, sometimes thirty or forty feet
square. Near it will be a small storehouse raised on stilts,, and at
one side a little patch of garden for beans, millet, etc.

When the newly married couple take possession, a house-
warming is held. This, like every Ainu ceremony, is merely an

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

exeiise foi' safce-drinking, and, instead of bringing assistance to
the young people in their early struggles, rather tends to deplete
the none-too-plethoric purse ; for the beverage is provided by the
groom, whose resources will have been severely taxed when he
has furnished sake for the marriage-feast and the house-warm-
ing as well. At the latter feast a prayer is offered to the god-
dess of fire, by the village chief or one of the elders, invoking
her protection for the house and its inmates, and asking that
male children may be numerous and strong. This is called cli isei
nomi.

Marriages are seldom contracted between residents of different
villages, and if the Ainu kept anything like a record of blood-re-
lationship, marriage between first cousins would probably be found
the rule rather than the exception. But that inhabitants of differ-
ent villages do intermarry is proved by the fact that they have
words in their language to indicate the fact. Thus, iriiuak means
blood-relations, those who are received into the family circle and
are close together (a village is virtually a large family), while
iritak means distant relations, those who are taken away. Again,
the names of those who go from their own village to wed with
those of a distant village are changed, but whether or not this is
done according to any rule is not quite clear ; certainly there is
nothing in the new name to indicate the birthplace of the person.
With increasing facilities for traveling and temptations to wan-
der in search of employment, these marriages out of the family
circle are becoming more frequent.

Polygamy is permitted indefinitely, the number of wives being
determined by the wishes of the man himself and his ability to
secure a plurality — one can hardly say his ability to support
them, since the support of the man himself and of his family is
mainly provided by the women.

Widows are isolated for a period of three years, during which
time each lives in her own little hut, supporting herself as best
she can by doing a little gardening and by catching a few fish at
night in a semi-surreptitious way. They must wear a distinctive
cap during this period, and are not allowed to participate in any
of the ceremonies of the village. At the expiration of the three
years they doff their caps, resume their places in society, and are
once more " eligible," and, if known to be good wives and mothers,
are sought after. Old women (widows) with grown-up children
are exempted from this enforced seclusion, and are supported by
their offspring.

Adultery is strongly opposed by the Ainu, and is severely pun-
ished ; the guilty parties (unless they are young people who can
atone for their crime by marriage) being sometimes strung up by
the heels until nearly dead. "The other crimes, recognized by

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 87

general consent, were theft, incest, murder, suicide, infanticide,
disobedience to parents, and idolatry, as well as exposure of per-
son. In ancient times every village was governed by three chiefs
subservient to Sara. These chiefs never had absolute authority ;
all crimes were submitted to the judgment of as many members
of the community as cared to be present " (Batchelor).

Inasmuch as there are no family names, no village, tribal, or
national rights to be respected, there is nothing approximating to
father-right or mother-right. Or perhaps it would be more exact
to say that, inasmuch as women are only recognized as servants
throughout their whole lives, and as mothers as soon as they
have reached the proper age, the personality of the whole family
is sunk in that of the husband and father while he lives. When
he dies he is at once and absolutely forgotten (except so far as is
mentioned hereafter), and each surviving member of his family
pursues an entirely separate course, in no way concerning him-
self about the others. If a man dies and leaves a family of infant
children, the care of them devolves upon the mother until the
oldest son reaches the age of about eighteen ; then he becomes the
head of the family. Female inheritance is utterly unknown, as
would be expected in a society wherein women have no rights
at all. If a man is so unfortunate as to leave no true heir, or so
careless as not to have adopted one, his property goes to his next
younger brother, or his nearest male relative, if he have no broth-
ers either by birth or adoption.

When very sick, an Ainu wan (the women may not pray at all)
will call upon the fire-goddess, who is reckoned a great purifier,
thus: "Abe kamui, yekoingara iva en-Tcore" ("O fire-goddess, con-
descend to look upon me "). Upon the approach of death, the mas-
ter will lie close to the fire on his own side of the hearth, partly
for the sake of the warmth, but probably in a measure for any
possible benefit to be gained from propinquity to the realm of the
fire-goddess. Then the village chief and elders, and the sick
man's friends, all come to see him ; the men to pray and " drink to
the gods," while the women weep and wail in rather a noisy fash-
ion, since they are denied the comforts of religion! There are
times when the patience of the praying men becomes exhausted,
if no favorable answer is given to their petitions. Mr. Batchelor
tells of one death-scene which he witnessed when two men were
praying to the goddess of fire and another toward the sun-rising
through the eastern window ; while a fourth was looking toward
the northeast corner of the hut (which corresponds in a measure
to the latrine of Japanese houses) and swearing most vehemently
at all the gods, something after this fashion : " You fools ! why
don't you pay some attention to us ? Can't you see that this man
is in great danger ? Here we've been praying and praying for

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

him, and yet he doesn't get well. What's the matter ? Are you
deaf ? Can't you hear us ? "

When death actually takes place, and the friends are con-
vinced by the coldness of the body that there is absolutely no
hope of recovery, preparations for burial are immediately begun.
The corpse is not washed or anointed in any way, embalming be-
ing quite unknown to this people : it is dressed in its newest
clothes ; the outer garment, which reaches nearly to the feet, is
folded over the body and neatly laced up in front like a boot, and
further secured by the girdle. The feet and ankles are carefully
wrapi3ed, when possible, in white rags, and the hands and arms
are similarly covered. The man's bow and quiver and his gun
are laid by his side, and his pipe and tobacco-pouch are stuck in
his belt. With the possible exception of the smoking implements,
these articles are not interred with the corpse, but are simply
placed as insignia of its manhood during the funeral feast which
immediately takes place. For this feast, cakes made of millet-
flour, and boiled somewhat in the same manner as dumplings, are
prepared by the widow and female relatives of the deceased.
They are similar to those used at the wedding-feast. The cakes
are eaten by the men who assemble for the occasion, by whom a
great deal of salie is drunk. A small libation is offered to the
man's memory and to the gods. In doing this the men dip one
end of carved flat sticks, which they use as mustache-lifters, into
the sake and sprinkle a few drops toward the corpse, the fireplace,
the east window, the northeast corner of the house, and round in
front of them generally. The act of drinking the sake is in itself
a religious one, as they say that in " drinking to the gods " they
show their reverence ; therefore the more they drink the better,
and an occasion when all become intoxicated to absolute stupefac-
tion is by some thought to give pleasure to the gods and to be
blessed by them. As the village chief is its priest and performs
all religious ceremonies, his presence at the death-feast is essen-
tial. He conducts the ritual — if the orgies may be dignified by
that term — the men all participating, and the women acting as
servants. If for any reason the chief himself is unable to be
present, he sends a substitute.

When the cakes are eaten and the sake all drunk (and the
men sufiiciently recovered from its effects to be able to move),
the body is slung upon a pole, borne to the grave by the nearest
male relatives^ and immediately buried. No particular time is
chosen, nor is any attention paid to the situation of the grave.
This seems very strange when it is remembered that the east is
considered the sacred direction, and one would naturally suppose
that some care would be taken to place the corpse in an east and
west line, perhaps with the head slightly raised and looking

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION.

toward tlie rising sun. But such is not the case : a shallow grave
is dug, the body — rolled in a good mat — is tumbled in, a few
stones x^erhaps thrown in to prevent animals from disturbing the
remains, the dirt hastily replaced, and the corpse is left to its fate.
Sometimes the pipe and tobacco-pouch, or a small package of
tobacco, will be buried with the man, if he has been specially
fond of smoking. This fact, and the additional one that a stout
stick or club is provided to furnish the man with means of de-
fense, point to a belief in a transition state, but the Ainu has only
a hazy idea of the hereafter, and particularly as to purgatory, or
the iDassage of the soul, which is thought to be naturally immor-
tal, to the reward or punishment it is to receive in Pokna inoshiri.
" The wicked are supposed to be harassed by the evil spirits — nitne
ko.mui — in this place, but what the rewards of the righteous are
the Ainu have no idea."

It is customary to put up a short stick at the head of a grave,
the carved top of which indicates the sex of the person therein
buried. If it is a man, the toj) of the stick will be cut in the
shape of a spear-head; if a woman, it will be a rudely shaped
ball. There is nothing to correspond to a tombstone either at
the grave or in the village,
where there is no temple,
as in every Japanese vil-
lage, with memorial tab-
lets and altars to keep
alive the memory of the
deceased. Indeed, it ap-
pears to be the desire of
the Ainu to forget the
dead as soon as possible ;
their reluctance to speak
of them is an evidence of
this. In the case of women
this is absolutely so , a pos-
sible exception is men-
tioned below. In the case
of a man, his son may
oifer a small libation of
sake at his grave, and at
the i7iao raised to his memory at his former home, on the anni-
versary of his death ; and, in the case of a prominent chief, the
men will perhaps do this for two or three years — never for a
longer time. These anniversaries are really made excuses for
5a^-e-drinking rather than true testimonials of respect.

The inao spoken of above are whittled willow sticks with
pendent, curl-like shavings, offerings given to the gods (with the

Fig. 2.— Inao op the Aixu.

90

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

libations of sake) at the time of worsliip. Miss Bird (volume ii,
p. 86) gives an illustration of tliem and calls them " Aino gods."
I think this is a mistake, just as it would be a mistake to call the
images, relics, etc., in a Romish church " gods " in the sense of
being possessed of absolute power in themselves. One large inao
is always placed at the eastern end of the hut for the sun-god, and
many of them are hung all round the inside of the hut ; gener-
ally one or more are stuck into the fireplace ; and there is always
at least one at every spring of water. At least one will be placed
at the head of a man's grave ; and several will be stuck into the
ground at the rude wicket on which are impaled the skulls of
bears — these animals occupying a somewhat anomalous place in
Ainu philosophy ; at one time feared and worshiped, at another
killed and eaten.

Although the Ainu ideas of a future existence are very hazy,
yet they consider that the spirits of men are well-disj)osed toward
the living, and may be relied upon to bring good fortune to the
village and the inhabitants thereof ; hence they have no fear of the
spirits of men ; but it is very different with those of old women-
They are considered to be very malignant — witches, in fact — who
are seeking some means of working mischief. Formerly this
prejudice was more deeply rooted than at present, and, in order to
prevent the spirits of old women bewitching the place and the
people, their houses were burned down as soon as ever the corpse
was taken away for burial. This was done in order that the spirit
might have no abiding-place, and, while engaged in hunting for
its home, would be diverted from its malicious plans. This notion
corresponds with the superstitions of barbarous nations in other
parts of the world.

There does not seem to have ever been any superstition con-
nected with the fireplace, as to the manner of procuring the flame
when first kindling a fire in a new house, nor as to the necessity
of always keeping the fire alight to ward off misfortune. Char-
coal is not used, and as the wood is generally in small pieces, the
fire is easily extinguished, but this does not bring any bad luck.
The use of the Japanese hibachi (brazier) and small fire-pots is
becoming popular, but this is such a purely exotic custom as not
to deserve mention. Formerly the Ainu used the fire-drill, in all
essentials similar to that of the Esquimaux of North America ; but
for many years matches (at first imported from America and Eu-
rope, but now manufactured in enormous quantities in Japan)
have been so cheap that even the Ainu can use them.

The Ainu bear-feast has been so often described, and the
prominent features thereof so well portrayed by others, that I will
not attempt to do more than mention one or two points which
have not, I think, been given already, only repeating that the

AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 91

festival of killing and eating the bear, wliicli has been kept in
a cage since its capture when a cub, is a sort of religious affair,
and is made the occasion for much safce-drinking, and that a
curious dance is performed, in which men alone take part. The
feast is held in February or March (I do not make this statement
in absolute contradiction of what Miss Bird says, but admit that
custom may vary the time in different villages). Among the
northeastern Ainu, Kusuri, and Nemuro, the women, who are offi-
ciating as cooks and attendants, provide large vessels of wild
strawberries (which must be kept over from the preceding sum-
mer), mix the juice with water, and smear the faces of all the
people who are present, even to the alien guests. All must sub-
mit, as a token of friendliness This is a strange custom, and is
possibly done to indicate that the bear-feast resembles something
of a bloody sacrifice, for the Ainu say that the strawberry is used
because the color of its juice approaches that of blood.

I will close my rambling notes on these people by an account
of what I saw in one or two of their villages on the day of the
eclipse of the sun (August 19, 1887). First let me say that they
think an eclij)se is the effect of great sickness, which causes the
sun's face to become black, as does a human being's (sometimes)
when in a fit or on fainting away. I left the village of Horobetsu,
on the south coast of Yezo, at about two o'clock. It was evident
that the Ainu had been told of the impending disaster, for many
of them were standing outside of their huts, glancing anxiously
at the sun from time to time, and talking together in low, earnest
tones which betrayed their apprehension. When we reached the
next village, Washibetsu, the shadow of the moon had covered a
good-sized segment of the sun, and the people were greatly excited.
Many men were looking at the sun and moving their lips as if
praying, while some had brought dishes of water, and were throw-
ing the water toward the sun with their mustache-lifters and inao,
just as we would dash it in the face of a person who had fainted
away, to revive him. By the time we arrived at Mororan, the next
village, the eclipse was all over ; the excitement had pretty nearly
subsided, although a few persons were watching the sun rather
closely, as if afraid that he might have a relapse and require to be
revived again.

As I have tried not to go over ground which has been well
worked by previous observers, I have omitted many details of the
Ainu manners and customs, and it seems proper for me to give a
list of books and publications, which may be referred to by those
whose interest will have been sufficiently aroused to make them
anxious to know more of the " Hairy People of Japan " :

" Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan." In many num-
bers there are articles of more or less interest. Special attention

92

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is called to "Notes on the Ainu." By J. Batchelor. Vol. x,
part ii.

" The Japan Weekly Mail." Yokohama. This newspaper con-
tains many valuable articles on the ethnology of Japan in general,
and the Ainu in particular.

" The Language, Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature
of Japan. Viewed in the Light of Aino Studies, including a
Grammar of the Aino Language, by J. Batchelor." By Basil Hall
Chamberlain. Memoirs of the Literature College, Imperial Uni-
versity of Japan. No. 1. Tokyo, 1887.

" Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." By Isabella L. Bird. London,
1882. Two vols. The second volume contains a graphic and pictu-
resque account of the author's sojourn among the Ainu.

" The Stone Age in Japan." By John Milne. Paper published
in the "Journal of the Anthropological Society," May, 1881.

" Der Baerencultus und die Baerenf este der Ainos, mit einigen
Bemerkungen ueber die Taenze derselben." By Dr. B. Scheube.
Paper published in the " Mittheilungen der deutschen Gesellschaf t
fiir Natur- und Volkerkunde Ostasiens." December, 1880. Treats
of Ainu bear-wishop and dancing.

"Die Ainos." By Dr. B. Scheube. Paper published in the
" Mittheilungen der deutschen Gesellschaft fiir Natur- und Vol-
kerkunde Ostasiens." February, 1882.

" Ethnologische Studien iiber die Aino auf der Insel Yesso."
By Heinrich von Siebold. Berlin, 1881. Illustrated.

"Japan in Yezo." By T. W. Blakiston. Yokohama, 1883.

" Reisen und Forschungen im Amurlande." By L. von Schrenck.
Vol. iii contains much valuable information about the Ainu, gath-
ered from many sources.

THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE.

By clement MILTON HAMMOND,

IN order that one may live to near the limit in years of human
life, must he inherit some peculiar qualities ? Must he con-
form his habits to some set rules ? Must he eat and drink certain
things and abstain from certain others ? Or, does it all depend
upon a series of indeterminable accidents ?

There have been many theories, and perhaps a pageful of
facts, given to the world upon the subject during the past few
centuries, but no thorough, systematic study of these questions
has been made. All that we know about the things that seem to^
govern the length of man's life is what we have learned from
limited observation and the small number of cases that have been
imperfectly recorded in history or in medical works. It occurred

THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE.

93

to me that if accurate statistics could be collected about one
thousand men and women, over eighty years of age, living in
New England to-day, such information would form the basis of
some very interesting and very valuable conclusions. In my posi-
tion as associate editor of the " Boston Globe " I found this a com-
paratively easy task. I had five thousand blanks printed, asking
for the following information in relation to men and women over
eighty:

Name, residence, age, nationality ; whether married or single ;
general description, including size, weight, complexion, etc. ; chil-
dren, how many, ages, state of health, etc. ; habits, hours of rising,
retiring, meals, exercise, etc. ; occupations, past and present ; food
and drink, quantity, kind, etc. ; attacks of sickness if any, and
at what ages, nature of disease, etc. ; condition of teeth, hair,
beard, skin, etc., at time when seen by the correspondent ; age at
which father and mother died, and of grandfather and grand-
mother, whenever possible.

These blanks were sent to the representatives of the paper in
all parts of New England, accompanied by a letter of explanation
which cautioned them to be accurate rather than enterprising.
More than three thousand five hundred of these blanks were filled
out and returned in the course of two months, and the story that
they tell I will try to give in outline.

Every county in Massachusetts, and nearly every county in
the whole of New England, is represented in these returned blanks.
Some of these old people live on the sea-coast, some on the low-
lands of the Connecticut and its tributaries, some among the
Berkshire Hills, White and Green Mountains, some upon the
sands of Cape Cod, some among the pine-woods of Maine, and oth-
ers in the manufacturing cities and towns. The canvass has not,
of course, been complete, but it has been as complete in the cities
as in the towns and on the farms, as complete in one section as in
another, as complete among one class as among another. If these
three thousand five hundred instances prove anything — and I
think no one will dispute that they do — many of the commonly
accepted theories would be overturned, and strange facts take
their places.

In looking through these blanks, the first thing noticeable is
that few of New England's old people have remained unmarried
throughout life, the total being less than five per cent. The ratio of
immarried women to unmarried men is about three to one, and, tak-
ing married and single together, the women exceed the men by 251.
In Massachusetts the list shows that the women exceed the men
by 450 ; in the other States the men exceed the women. The
great majority of both men and women have been married only
once, usually in early life. The average number of children as a

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

result of these unions is five, and those children now living are
generally recorded in the blanks as healthy.

The fact that in Massachusetts, taking the whole population
into account, the women exceed the men by several thousand, ac-
counts in some degree for the greater number of old women, but
not, certainly, for anything like half of the excess over the men.
I attribute this excess to the fact that during the past half -century
the bulk of the population of Massachusetts has been on the sea-
board, and a large number of the men have been fishermen and
mariners. Because of the great loss of life among this class, espe-
cially before the time of steamships and during the palmy days of
the whale-fishery, the male population shrank in numbers below
the normal level, this showing most strikingly in a list of old people.

Another very peculiar thing revealed by this canvass is the
fact that five out of six of these New England old folks have a
light complexion, with blue or gray eyes, and abundant brown
hair. In stature the men are mostly tall and the women of medium
height ; in weight the men range from 100 to IGO pounds, with a
few of 200 and over, and the women from 100 to 120, with excep-
tional cases of 180 and over. Throughout life the men have been
bony and muscular, the women exactly opposite. The condition
of the hair, teeth, beard, and skin of these old people at the time
when the blanks were filled out was recorded in about 2,500 in-
stances. In nearly all the hair remains thick, the teeth are very
poor or entirely gone, the skin is only slightly wrinkled, and very
few of the men wear any beard. In many instances the corre-
spondents speak of the skin as being " fair, soft, smooth, and
moist." One case is given, that of a man of eighty-nine, from
whose mouth not a tooth has been lost. In most instances of
those not over ninety the eye-sight is still good, and in dozens of
cases it is pronounced " remarkably good."

Habits. — The information which the blanks give on the sub-
ject of habits coincides with the opinion of most people, formed
from observation, that longevity without regularity of habits is
rare. These old people, men and women alike, are put down as
early risers and retirers, almost without exception, and fully nine-
teen out of every twenty have observed this custom throughout
life, except perhaps at some short period in youth. Meals have
been eaten regularly, three each day, with dinner at noon, the
exceptions being so rare as to indicate nothing. Exercise in most
cases has been hard work up to sixty-five or seventy, and after
that period has consisted (when the regular occupation has been
given up) of walking, gardening, or both. Except in cases of
sickness these old people are as a rule as active and as fond of
constant occupation of some sort to-day as most men and women
are at thirty-five.

THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE. 95

Occupations. — One of the most significant facts gathered in
this canvass is that regarding occupations. Out of 1,000 men,
throughout life 461 have been farmers ; 92 have been carpenters ;
70, merchants; 61, mariners; 49, laborers; 42, shoemakers; 41,
manufacturers ; 23, clergymen ; 23, masons ; 16, blacksmiths ; 16,
bankers ; 12 each, iron-workers, mill-hands, physicians, and law-
yers ; and the rest are divided among nearly all the other trades
and professions. The list includes only one each of the following :
Hermit, hunter, chemist, professor, soldier, broker, auctioneer,
jockey, contractor. Nearly all, however, began life upon the farm.

Eight hundred out of twelve hundred women have been farm-
ers' wives, and all but about fifty of the remainder have been
housewives. Four women only, all unmarried, have supported
themselves through life by inherited wealth, and are now aged
respectively eighty -two, eighty - three, eighty -six, and ninety.
Three other unmarried women have been milliners, and six, one
unmarried, have been dress-makers. Seven, two unmarried, have
been nurses. Six, two unmarried, have been school-teachers.

Among the hundreds of remarkable instances which illustrate
constancy of occupation cited by the correspondents are a few that
I can not refrain from giving, because I believe that they point
to a very important fact, and at the same time make most inter-
esting reading :

Elijah Tolman, of Brockton, Mass., is eighty -five, and was a
stage-driver for thirty years. For the past seven years he has
worked in charge of a coal-office, and has been but one day from
his duties in that time.

Andrew Stetson, of Duxbury, Mass., is ninety-five, and was
constantly employed all his life making shoes until one year ago.

Aaron Farnham, of Cambridge, Mass., aged eighty-seven, sold
Bibles in Vermont for seventy years.

Daniel Bigelow, of Athol, Mass., now eighty-seven, has worked
as a farmer for seventy-seven years, and mowed grass with a
scythe for seven tons of hay the past summer.

William E. Cook, of Portsmouth, R. I., is eighty-nine, a black-
smith, and still works in his shop six days each week.

Ira Chamberlain, of Bangor, Me., aged ninety-five, worked at
the tailor's trade until his last birthday.

Thaddeus Rising, of Hatfield, Mass., is eighty, and works daily,
as he has for the past sixty years, at his trade of whip-maker.

Mrs. Jane Huntress, of Augusta, Me., ninety-two years of age,
still does her own cooking, washing, ironing, and garden-work.
Since she was fifty-five she has earned the money for and built a
fine house, going herself to the mill and selecting the lumber, and
superintending the building operations. She is one of twelve
children, all born without the aid of a physician.

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Food — Drink — Stimulants. — The blanks tell one simple story,
with so few variations as to be positively monotonous, in relation
to the food eaten by these old people. The diet has been regular
New England home-dishes of meat, vegetables, and pastry, with
breakfast early, dinner at noon, and supper late. Very few are
mentioned as small eaters or large eaters ; most are mentioned as
not particular, with good appetites through life. A half-dozen
never eat meat, and two have abstained from water. More than
two thirds have been habitual users of tea and coffee, and of the
remainder nearly all have drunk tea. Few of the men, and none
of the women, are given as users of more intoxicating beverages
than cider, and not a dozen out of all have ever used liquors to
excess. Ten of the women are mentioned as habitual smokers,
and a score as snuff -takers. Of the men, a large majority have
used tobacco — either chewing, smoking, or both. Most of the
tobacco-users have been moderate, although numbers of cases are
given where the amount consumed is enormous, and continued
constantly up to the time when the census was taken. A few
broke away from the habit after it had lasted for twenty, thirty,
or fifty years, and have now been without the narcotic for perhaps
a decade or more.

Sickness. — The record of sickness is so varied that scarcely
half a dozen cases are alike out of the whole long list, except
where there has been no illness other than the usual complaints
of infancy.

Out of 1,04:9 men, 382 never were ill since early childliood ; and
of 880 women, 286 have enjoyed the same good health. One hun-
dred and fourteen men and 171 women have had petty diseases
only, and 495 men and 402 women have been seriously ill. The
serious illness of the majority was a fever of some sort, typhoid
heading the list. The other diseases are as numerous almost as
the individuals afflicted, running from Asiatic cholera to shingles,
and the attacks have been at all periods of life. As might be sup-
posed, rheumatism is the most general complaint, usually in con-
junction with other diseases. Locality seems to have had no
influence on sickness, the same disorders appearing on high land
and on low land, on dry land and on moist land, in the interior
and by the sea-shore.

Parents and Children. — The average age reached by the
parents and grandparents, taken together, of these old people was
about sixty-five, and in few instances have both the father and
mother or the grandfathers and grandmothers died under fifty,
although in many cases — about twenty-five per cent — either the
father or the mother has died before reaching this age. Not over
one third of the children of these aged people have reached mid-
dle life, and about one half died either in infancy or before thirty.

THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE. 97

and about one fourth only are still living. The health of the lat-
ter, however, is in almost every instance put down as good. The
blanks do not tell what would, perhaps, be a valuable thing — how
many brothers and sisters the subjects had, and whether or not
they died young ; it appears, though, from the names, that few
members of the same family have survived, unless it is supposed
that the remaining members were older and have died, or enough
younger to come under the eighty-year limit.

Some Conclusions. — Perhaps it is true that only an expert or
a philosopher should draw conclusions. I pretend to be neither
one nor the other, yet I think a familiarity with the facts gath-
ered about these hundreds of old people will excuse anything on
my part that might at first thought look like presumption.
What I have tried to learn from this vast amount of information
that has been collected about these examples of long life are
these things :

What is the influence of the different occupations upon length
of life ?

Does the physical build of a person have anything to do with
the length of his life ?

Can one so regulate his habits of work, sleep, eating, drinking,
use of stimulants and narcotics, and exercise, as to prolong life ?

Is there such a thing as an inherited tendency to long or short
life?

Few of the people accounted for by this census are employees,
unless the housewives be called such, and in New England I cer-
tainly think they can not be. The occupation that claims most of
the men is farming, which means dependence on circumstances
and not on men. Of the men and women alike, throughout the
list, they are the exceptions who have not been weighted with re-
sponsibilities, but responsibilities which, by being borne without
intermission, have become fixed habit. The fact that so many of
these old people are not employes, considered in conjunction with
the fact that the great mass of mankind is made up of wage-
workers, points toward a very important conclusion. It seems
evident either that a man with the elements of long life within
him is more independent in his nature or that a spirit of inde-
pendence fostered for years tends to prolong existence. It needs
no collection of statistics to prove that, in most cases, one who
works during a long period for another has a weaker individual-
ity than he who is an employer. The brain of the wage-worker
may weigh and measure as much, and his physical strength may
be as great, as his who takes the risk of profit and loss upon him-
self, but in New England, at least, his life is not so long as the
average, and it is rare, as the statistics show, that he lives beyond
the age of eighty. This result can not, certainly, be due in any

VOL. XXXIV. — V

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

considerable degree to amount of labor, to irregularity, or in any
degree whatever to care — supposed to be so deadly in its effect —
or to want of nourishing food,

I doubt also if any well-informed person will claim that sani-
tary conditions have any influence, certainly not if he knows as
much as I do of the conditions under which the bulk of these peo-
ple whom we are considering live.

Very few instances are given where occupations were changed
except in the cases of the mariners, who have mostly become
farmers in a small way. The life of nearly all these people has
been what is usually considered a monotonous one, with regular
hours of steady labor and moderately sure returns. Few appear
to have taken many risks in life, and while most of them have
carried more than the average New-Englander's share of mental
and physical burdens, these burdens have been so evenly distrib-
uted throughout life that the strain has not been jerky. Surely
the housewife has more cares than the woman who works in a
shop or as a house-servant, and yet her cares are so similar day
after day and year after year that they become easy to bear. So
also with the farmer compared with the clerk or mill-hand. Few
in all the list have been either more or less than moderately suc-
cessful— successful above the average, to be sure, but they have
achieved neither notoriety nor wealth. They have, in fact, been
placed above the wasting worry of want, and have, on the other
hand, escaped the softening of the tissues and aimlessness of
purpose that generally accompany wealth easily and rapidly
obtained.

I have alluded to the fact that in the subjects of the census the
complexion in most instances is light. While this may be due to
the northern origin of the majority of New England people, and
have no special bearing upon the subject of longevity, it may pos-
sibly be very important as showing the effect of temperament
upon the length of life. That the sanguine temperament pre-
dominates in these people is undoubtedly a fact, and it appears
that the sanguine-nervous (judged from complexion, color of the
eyes, and general build) is most common. In theory, certainly,
this temperament is that which would most conduce to longevity.
Other facts, of the nature of these gathered in New England, from
some other locality, might offset these and disprove the theory ;
but, until these other facts are gathered, I think the theory that
people with nervous-sanguine temperaments, and the two nicely
blended, are liable to live longer than those who possess a nerv-
ous-bilious or a bilious-lymphatic temperament, with either pre-
dominating, is strong enough to work with ; and, while it does not
directly teach us how to live longer, it points to something in the
future that means a great deal to the human race.

THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE. 99

The fact that the majority of the men are bony and muscular,
and the women plump, is easily explained, I think, by the occu-
pations. In the work of the men their muscles have been brought
into play so much, and have used such a large proportion of the
nourishment taken into the system, that fat could not accumulate.
With the women the reverse has been true, especially after they
reached the age of fifty, when grown-up daughters took the hard-
est of the work from their mothers' shoulders.

In regard to food, the evidence is so uniformly one way that
those who advise a simple diet, and those who cry out against
meat, must either hold their theories to be above facts or give
them up. There is certainly nothing " simple " about the diet of
a New England farmer. It consists of salt and fresh pork and
beef and all sorts of common fish and vegetables, almost always
poorly cooked, and pies and cakes of the most indigestible sorts.
The food is " plain," truly, and gives the digestive organs an
abundance of work to do, but it is not such food as a theorist
would recommend to one who desired to live near up to the cen-
tury-mark. Tea and coffee have certainly proved that they do
not tend to shorten life, even if they do not prove that they help
to prolong it. The generally accepted theory in relation to stimu-
lants, that in excess they are not life-sustaining, receives strong
support. Tobacco appears to prove itself harmless, at least on the
temperament of these people. Whether it be a help to live long
requires other evidence.

While the farmers of New England and their wives are a
cleanly people, they are not much given to bathing. This neglect
may not have prolonged their existence or made them more
healthy, but it is to be presumed that it has not cut off many
years or caused much disease. Neither are the members of these
households well informed in relation to sanitary matters. They
know little of the unseen dampness to which the human system
is so constantly exposed, and, knowing little, care little. May not
this be an influence in favor of a prolonged existence, paradoxical
as the supposition may seem ? In Hingham, Mass., with only four
thousand inhabitants, there are eighty people over eighty years of
age, and out of these seventy-five are of light complexion. In no
other town in New England, so far as could be learned, is there
such a proportion of old people. This town is on the sea-coast,
lies very low, is without sewers, and has only recently put in a
system of water -works. From a sanitary point of view the con-
ditions here are about as unfavorable to long life as could be con-
ceived outside the crowded portions of the large cities. And in
Boston, where the sanitary conditions appear to be the worst — in
the North End and South Boston districts — the greatest number
of very old people are found.

loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

From tlie hours of retiring and rising given I judge the aver-
age length of sleep to be about eight hours, with few exceptions.
Regularity in hours of work, eating, sleeping, and everything in
fact, seems to have been rigidly observed. But is not this more
the result of the temperament than the cause of long life ? Is not
the nervous-sanguine temperament more than any other like a
balance-wheel or the pendulum of a clock ? Is it not, after all, the
great regulator of which the habits of these people are a manifesta-
tion, and to which is due their long life ? And is it not something
more than a regulator ; is it not a repairer of waste and decay, a
remedy more potent than any drug ? I will not presume to an-
swer these questions, for some of my more learned medical friends
should be much better able to do so in spite of these new facts
which I have.

Without more accurate and more complete information in rela-
tion to the ages of the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents,
and the brothers and sisters of these people in question, it is very
difficult to make any deductions pertaining to hereditary lon-
gevity. Out of all the statistics that have been gathered there
are none which are full or accurate enough to base any theory
upon, other than that a tendency to long life may be transmitted
from parents to children. To gather the necessary statistics in
relation to, say, one thousand people, from eighty to ninety, would
be extremely difficult, but it must be done before scientific think-
ers can make deductions.

In order to mention all of the really remarkable things shown
by this collection of facts, I should be obliged to make a serial of
this article. I have tried to mention those only which seemed
most interesting and important. One thing, to me, seems to stand
out above all others : that a strong vital principle, manifested out-
wardly by firm build and constant activity, has been the chief
cause of the advanced age of these people. Given a certain organi-
zation of mind and body, I think that a man may count on long
life — always barring accidents — with reasonable certainty. Such
an organization need not be put under any particular conditions
of life ; it will seek them out for itself, as a plant seeks out in the
earth and the air such elements as aid its development. There is
no reason that science can see why a raven should live longer than
a snipe, but there is a reason, nevertheless : so we can see no rea-
son why a tall, bony, muscular, light-skinned farmer should live
longer than a short, stout, dark-skinned clerk ; but I believe there
is one, and one that science may some day discover.

I have one suggestion to make : that our national Government,
when it takes the next general census, include in its statistics in-
formation about all the people in the United States above ninety,
the kind of information to be determined beforehand by the most

PROBLEMATICAL ORGANS OF SENSE. loi

eminent jDhysicians and scientific men generally in this country or
in the world. I believe that such information would be of more
value to the world, after having been properly digested, than all
the facts about the manufacture of cotton cloth, the raising of
tobacco, the production of whisky, etc., that could be collected in
a century. For do we not all desire to live long ?

PROBLEMATICAL ORGANS OF SENSE.*

By Sib JOHN LUBBOCK.

IN addition to the organs of which I have attempted in the pre-
ceding chapters to give some idea, and to those which from
their structure we may suppose to perform analogous functions,
there are others of considerable importance and complexity, which
are evidently organs of some sense, but the use and purpose of
which are still unknown.

" It is almost impossible," says Gegenbaur,f " to say what is the
physiological duty of a number of organs, which are clearly sen-
sory, and are connected with the integument. These enlargements
are generally formed by ciliated regions to which a nerve passes,
and at which it often forms enlargements. It is doubtful what
part of the surrounding medium acts on these organs, and we
have to make a somewhat far-fetched analogy to be able to re-
gard them as olfactory organs."

Among the structures of which the use is still quite uncertain
are the muciferous canals of fishes. The skin of fishes, indeed,
contains a whole series of organs of whose functions we know
little. As regards the muciferous canal, Schultze has suggested J
that it is a sense-organ adapted to receive vibrations of the water
with wave-lengths too great to be perceived as ordinary sounds.
Beard also leans to this same view. However this may be, it is
remarkably developed in many deep-sea fish.

In some cases peculiar eye-like bodies are developed in con-
nection (though not exclusively so) with the muciferous canal.
Leuckart,* by whom they were discovered, at first considered
them to be accessory eyes, but subsequent researches led him to
modify this opinion, and to regard them as luminous organs.

* From " The Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals," by Sir John Lubbock.
" International Scientific Series," vol. Ixiv, in press by D. Appleton & Co.

f " Elements of Comparative Anatomy."

X " Ueber die Sinnesorgane der Seitenlinie bei Fischen und Amphibien," " Arch, fiir mic.
Anat.," 18Y0.

* "Deber muthmassliche Nebenaugen bei einem Fische." Bericht iiber die 39 Vers.,
" Deutscher Naturforscher," Giessen, 1864.

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Ussow* has mofe recently maintained that they are eyes, and
Leydig considers them as organs which approach very nearly to
true eyes ("welche wirklichen Sehorganen sehr nahe stehen^').
Whatever doubt there may be whether they have any power of
sight, there is no longer any question but that they are luminous,
and they are especially developed in the fishes of the deep sea.

These are very peculiar. The abysses of the ocean are quite
still, and black darkness reigns. The pressure of the water is also
very great.

Hence the deep seas have a peculiar fauna of their own. Sur-
face species could not generally bear the enormous pressure, and
do not descend to any great depth. The true deep-sea forms are,
however, as yet little known. They are but seldom seen, and
when obtained are generally in a bad state of preservation. Their
tissues seem to be unusually lax, and liable to destruction. More-
over, in every living organism, besides those usually present in
the digestive organs, the blood and other fluids contain gases in
solution. These, of course, expand when the pressure is dimin-
ished, and tend to rupture the tissues. The circumstances under
which some deep-sea fish have occasionally been met with on the
surface bears this out. They are generally found to have perished
while endeavoring to swallow some prey not much smaller, or
even in some cases larger, than themselves. What, then, has hap-
pened ? During the struggle they were carried into an upf)er layer
of water. Immediately the gases within them began to expand,
and raised them higher ; the process continued, and they were car-
ried up more and more rapidly, until they reached the surface in
a dying condition, f

It is, however, but rarely that deep-sea fish are found thus float-
ing on the surface, and our knowledge of them is mainly derived
from the dredge, and especially from the specimens thus obtained
during the voyage of the Challenger.

In other respects, moreover, their conditions of life in the ocean-
depths are very peculiar. The light of the sun can not penetrate
beyond about two hundred fathoms ; deeper than this, complete
darkness prevails. Hence in many species the eyes have more or
less completely disappeared. In others, on the contrary, they are
well developed, and these may be said to be a light to themselves.
In some species there are a number of luminous organs arranged
within the area of, and in relation to, the mucif erous system ;
while in others they are variously situated. These luminous or-
gans were first mentioned by Cocco. J They have since been stud-

* " Ueber den Bau der sog. augenahnlichen Flecken einiger Knochenfische," " Bull. Soc
Imp, Moscow," 1879.

f Gunther, " Introduction to the Study of Fishes."
X "Nuovi Ann. dei Sci. Nat.," 1838.

PROBLEMATICAL ORGANS OF SENSE. 103

ied by Giinther, Leuckart, Ussow, Leydig, and Emery. Lastly,
tliey have been carefully described by Giinther, Moseley, and von
Lendenf eld, in the work on " Deep-sea Fishes/' in vol. xxvii of the
" Challenger Reports." The deep-sea fish are either silvery, pink,
or in many cases black, sometimes relieved with scarlet, and, when
the luminous organs flash out, must present a very remarkable
appearance.

We have still much to learn as to the structure and functions
of these organs, but there are cases in which their use can be sur-
mised with some probability. The light is evidently under the will
of the fish. It is easy to imagine a Photichthys (Fig. 1) swimming

Fig. l.—PtMtichthys argenteus (" Challenger Report?," vol. xxvii).

in. the black depths of the ocean, suddenly flashing out light from
its luminous organs, and thus bringing into view any prey which
may be near ; while, if danger is disclosed, the light is again at once
extinguished. It may be observed that the largest of these organs
is situated just under the eye, so that the fish is actually provided
with a bull's-eye lantern. In other cases the light may rather
serve as a defense, some having — as, for instance, in the genus
Scopelus — a pair of large ones in the tail, so that "a strong ray of
light shot forth from the stern-chaser may dazzle and frighten an
enemy." * In other cases they probably serve as lures. The " sea-
devil," or " angler " of our coasts, has on its head three long, very
flexible, reddish filaments, while all round its head are fringed'
appendages, closely resembling fronds of sea- weed. The fish con-
ceals itself at the bottom, in the sand or among sea-weed, and dan-
gles the long filaments in front of its mouth. Other little fishes,
taking them for worms, unsuspectingly approach, and themselves
fall victims.

Several species of the same family live at great depths, and
have very similar habits. A mere red filament would, however, be
invisible in the dark, and therefore useless. They have, however,
developed (Fig. 2) a luminous organ, a living " glow-lamp," at the
end of the filament, which doubtless proves a very effective lure.f

These cases, however, though very interesting, throw little
light on the use of the mucif erous system in ordinary fish, which,
I think, still remains an enigma.

* Giinther (" Challenger Reports," vol. xxvii). -f Giinther, " Study of Fishes."

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In some of the lower animals the nerves terminate on reach-
ing the skin at the base of rod-like structures similar, in many
respects, to the rods of the retina, or the auditory rods of the ear,
and of which it is very difficult to say whether they are organs of
touch or of some higher sense.

Round the margin of the common sea-anemone is a circle of
bright blue spots, or small bladders. If a section be made, there

Fig. ^.— Ceratius bispinosus ("Challenger Reports," vol. xxvii).

will be found a number of cylindrical organs, each containing a
fine thread, and terminating in a " cnidocil " ; and, secondly, fibers
very like nerve-threads, swelling from time to time with gangli-
onic expansions, and also terminating in a cnidocil. These struct-
ures, in all probability, serve as an organ of sense, but what
impressions they convey it is impossible to say.

Some jelly-fishes (Trachynemadce) have groups of long hairs
arranged in pairs at the base of the tentacles (Fig. 3), which have
been regarded as organs of touch, and it is certainly difficult to
suggest any other function for them. They are obviously sense-
hairs, but I see no reason for attributing them to the sense of
touch.

The so-called eyes of the leech, in Leydig's * opinion, which is
confirmed by Ranke,f are also developed from the supposed special
organs of touch. The latter are much more numerous, as many
as sixty being developed on the head alone. They are cylindrical
organs, lined with large nucleated refractive cells, which occupy
nearly all the interior. A special nerve penetrates each, and,
after passing some way up, appears to terminate in a free end.

I may also allude to the very varied bristles and cirrhi of
worms, with their great diversity of forms.

* " Die Augen und neue Sinnesorgane dcr Egel," " Reichert's Arch.," 1861.
f " Beit, zu der Lehre von den Uebergangs-Sinnesorganen," " Zeit. f iir wiss. Zool.,"
1875.

PROBLEMATICAL ORGANS OF SENSE. 105

Among insects and Crustacea there are a great number of pe-
culiarly formed skin appendages, for wliich it is very difficult to
suggest any probable function.

The lower antennse of the male in Gammarus, for instance,
bear a very peculiar slipper-shaped organ, situated on a short

Fig. 3.— Edge op a portion op the Mantle op Aglaura Fig. 4.— Sense-Organ op Leech (from

hemistoma, with a pair op Sense-Organs (after Herf- Carriere, after Eanke). 1, epithelium;

wig). V, velum ; k, secse-organ ; ro, layer of nettle- 2, pigment ; .3, cells ; 4, nerve. The

cells ; t, tentacle. longer axis equals -4 mm.

stalk: this was first mentioned by Milne - Edwards, and subse-
quently by other authors, especially by Leydig.* The short stalk
contains a canal, which appears to divide into radiating branches
on reaching the " slipper," which itself is marked by a series of
rings.

Among other problematical organs, I miglit refer to the remark-
able pyriform sensory organs on the antennae of Pleuromma,f the
appendages on the second thoracic leg of Scrolls, those on the
maxillipeds of Eurycopa, on the metatarsus of spiders, the finger-
shaped organ on the antennse of Polydesmus, the singular pleural
eye ( ?) of Pleuromma, and many others.

There is every reason to hope that future studies will throw
much light on these interesting structures. We may, no doubt,
expect much from the improvement in our microscopes, the use
of new reagents, and of mechanical appliances, such as the micro-
tome ; but the ultimate atoms of which matter is comi)osed are so
infinitesimally minute, that it is difficult to foresee any manner
in which we may hope for a final solution of these problems.

Loschmidt, who has since been confirmed by Stoney and Sir
W. Thomson, calculates that each of the ultimate atoms of matter

* " Zeit. fiir wiss. Zool.," 1878.

•J- Brady, " On the Copepoda of the Challenger Expedition," vol. viii.

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is at most yo-sTrVrmr of an inch, in diameter. Under these circum-
stances we can not, it would seem, hope at present for any great
increase of our knowledge of atoms by improvements in the mi-
croscope. With our present instruments we can perceive lines
ruled on glass which are ^o^^-q of an inch apart. But, owing to
the properties of light itself, the fringes due to interference begin
to produce confusion at distances of *ii\qq, and in the brightest
part of the spectrum, at little more than 90^00, they would make
the obscurity more or less complete. If, indeed, we could use the
blue rays by themselves, their waves being much shorter, the limit
of possible visibility might be extended to tts^ot ; and, as Helm-
holtz has suggested, this perhaps accounts for Stinde having
actually been able to obtain a photographic image of lines only
ro^roT of an inch apart. This, however, would appear to be the
limit, and it would seem, then, that, owing to the physical char-
acters of light, we can scarcely hope for any great improvement
so far as the mere visibility of structure is concerned, though in
other respects, no doubt, much may be hoped for. At the same
time Dallinger and Royston Pigott have shown that, as far as the
mere presence of simple objects is concerned, bodies of even small-
er dimensions can be perceived. According to the views of Helm-
holtz, the smallest particle that could be distinctly defined, when
associated with others, is about -g-gwo of an inch in diameter.
Now, it has been estimated that a particle of albumen of this size
contains 125,000,000 molecules. In the case of such a simple com-
pound as water, the number would be no less than 8,000,000,000.
Even then, if we could construct microscopes far more powerful
than any we now possess, they could not enable us to obtain by
direct vision any idea of the ultimate molecules of matter. The
smallest sphere of organic matter which could be clearly defined
with our most powerful microscopes may be, in reality, very com-
plex ; may be built up of many millions of molecules, and it fol-
lows that there may be an almost infinite number of structural
characters in organic tissues which we can at present foresee no
mode of examining.

Again, it has been shown that animals hear sounds which are
beyond the range of our hearing, and that they can perceive the
ultra-violet rays which, are invisible to our eyes.*

Now, as every ray of homogeneous light which we can perceive
at all appears to us as a distinct color, it becomes probable that
these ultra-violet rays must make themselves apparent to the ants
as a distinct and separate color (of which we can form no idea),
but as different from the rest as red is from yellow, or green from
violet. The question also arises whether white light to these
insects would differ from our white light in containing this addi-
* " Ants, Bees, and Wasps."

PROBLEMATICAL ORGANS OF SENSE.

107

tional color. At any rate, as few of tlie colors in nature are pure,
but almost all arise from the combination of rays of different
wave-lengths, and as in such cases the visible resultant would be
composed not only of the rays we see, but of these and the ultra-
violet, it would appear that the colors of objects and the general
aspect of nature must j3resent to animals a very different appear-
ance from what it does to us.

These considerations can not but raise the reflection how dif-
ferent the world may — I was going to say must — appear to other
animals from what it does to us. Sound is the sensation produced
on us when the vibrations of the air strike on the drum of our ear.
When they are few, the sound is deep ; as they increase in num-
ber, it becomes shriller and shriller ; but when they reach forty
thousand in a second they cease to be audible. Light is the effect
produced on us when waves of light strike on the eye. When four
hundred millions of millions of vibrations of ether strike the retina
in a second, they produce red, and as the number increases the
color passes into orange, then yellow, green, blue, and violet. But
between forty thousand vibrations in a second and four hundred
millions of millions we have no organ of sense capable of receiv-
ing the impression. Yet between these limits any number of sen-
sations may exist. We have five senses, and sometimes fancy that
no others are possible. But it is obvious that we can not measure
the infinite by our own narrow limitations.

Moreover, looking at the question from the other side, we find
in animals complex organs of sense, richly supplied with nerves,
but the function of which we are as yet powerless to explain.
There may be fifty other senses as different from ours as sound
is from sight ; and even within the boundaries of our own senses
there may be endless sounds which we can not hear, and colors,
as different as red from green, of which we have no conception.
These and a thousand other questions remain for solution. The
familiar world which surrounds us may be a totally different
place to other animals. To them it may be full of music which
we can not hear, of color which we can not see, of sensations which
we can not conceive. To place stuffed birds and beasts in glass
cages, to arrange insects in cabinets, and dried plants in drawers,
is merely the drudgery and preliminary of study ; to watch their
habits, to understand their relations to one another, to study their
instincts and intelligence, to ascertain their adaptations and their
relations to the forces of nature, to realize what the world ap-
pears to them — these constitute, as it seems to me at least, the
true interest of natural history, and may even give us the clew
to senses and perceptions of which at present we have no con-
ception.

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

FOUR-HANDED SINNERS: A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY.

By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.

EDMOND ABOUT used to tell a good story of a Spanish prel-
ate who studied anatomy for the special purpose of describ-
ing the fragments of a miraculous skeleton, but who was so
astounded by the discovery of a rudimentary tail-bone that he
relinquished his study in dismay, and declined to specify the
results of his investigation.

In a similar way the comparative study of human and animal
psychology would often surj^rise a close observer. There was a
time when the mere suggestion of such studies would have been
overruled by the prevalent tenet which denied the affinity of our
mental apparatus to any part of the animal organism, the attri-
bute of " reason " being reserved for the primate of the animal
kingdom, while the actions of his humble fellow-creatures were
supposed to be prompted by a blind and semi-automatic agency,
called " instinct." Intelligence, we were told, might be compared
to a " keyed instrument, from which any music it is capable of
producing may be called forth at the will of the performer," while
the modus opeTa7idi of instinct was supposed to resemble that of
a " barrel-organ, which plays with the greatest exactness a certain
number of tunes that are set upon it, but can do nothing else."
The mechanism of that living barrel-organ was, moreover, be-
lieved to act chiefly in the interest of the species, while reason
subserved the interests and momentary caprices of individuals.

The subjective motives of that view were, however, clearly
identical with the prejudice which long denied the analogies be-
tween the physical organism of men and brutes. Every step in
the progress of comparative anatomy has more plainly demon-
strated the fact that the alleged contrasts in the construction and
the functional characteristics of human and animal bodies are
mere differences of degree, and a similar conclusion must force
itself upon the unprejudiced observer of animal soul-functions.
Even our domestic birds often manifest symptoms of passions,
whims, and moral aberrations, clearly analogous to those of their
biped proprietors ; and in the higher animals those manifestations
become so unmistakable that a student of moral zoology is often
tempted to indorse the view of that school-girl who defined a
monkey as " a very small boy with a tail."

According to Arthur Schopenhauer's theory of moral evolu-
tion, the conscious prestige of our species first reveals itself in the
emotions of headstrong volition that make a little baby stamp its
feet and strike down its ^sts, " commanding violently before it

FOUR-HANDED SINNERS. 109

could form anything like a clear conception of its own wants.
. . , Untutored barbarians," lie adds, " are apt to indulge in similar
methods of self-assertion, and, in settling a controversy, prefer
menacing gestures to rational explanations."

That tendency, however, is not confined to infants and savages.
The black-faced Cynocejjhalus maurus (the "Cutch baboon "of
the New York pet-dealers) resents the slightest misunderstanding
of his desires, and, after reaching out for a glittering toy, can not
be placated by an offered tidbit, but slams down his fist with the
dogmatic emphasis of a colored revival-preacher. In his contro-
versies with his cage-mate (a female spaniel) my pet Cutch will
lay hold of the dog's tail and enforce his theories with a per-
emptory pull that never fails to provoke a rough-and-tumble
fight ; but, long after the dog has relapsed into sullen silence, her
antagonist will shake the cage with resounding blows, and every
now and then steal a look at the by-standers, to invite their at-
tention to his " best method of dealing with heretics."

Egotism has been defined as the " stout stem of which altru-
ism is the tender flower," and our Darwinian relatives can claim
a healthy share of that moral substratum. Faust-Reclit, the law
of the strong hand, is the recognized code of every monkey com-
munity. Without the slightest pretext of preliminary explana-
tions the president of a simian syndicate will snatch away the
shares of the weaker stockholders and ignore the shrieks of his
victims with the eupeptic equanimity of a retired railway nabob.
The mere sight of alien property is apt to excite the covetousness
of a privileged four-hander. My pig-tail monkey {Macacus ne-
mestrinus) can not see a dog gnaw a bone without plotting the
appropriation of the unknown dainty, and, even after a series of
vain attempts to utilize his booty, will guard his prize in the
vague hope of discovering the secret of its value. He sleeps in a
tub, but has failed to adopt the cynic tenet of attaining happiness
by a reduction of his desires ; and whenever he succeeds in pulling
the staple of his chain, his barrel gets stuffed with an accumula-
tion of miscellaneous plunder, including such objects of rather
limited utility as kite-tails, empty bottles, ice-hooks, feathers, and
potsherds. He is fond of taking an inventory of his property by
spreading his collection on an open porch, but at such moments
regards every intruder with nervous suspicion, and at the ap-
proach of a street Arab makes a determined rush to obviate a
possible depreciation of his stock.

The acquisitive energy of a monkey-swarm must be witnessed
to be credited. In the banana-gardens of the tierra caliente a
Mexican capuchin monkey will exhaust his business opportuni-
ties with the dispatch of a Cincinnati bank-cashier ; but, in his
attempt to reach the Canadian side of the hedge with a good arm-

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fill of plunder, so often falls a victim to the piirsuing dogs that
monkey-trappers frequently rent an orchard for the special pur-
pose of capturing the retreating marauders.

An equally effective method is that of the Abyssinian pet-
hunters, who decoy baboons by imitating the squeal of their
youngsters. In spite of their mischievous petulance, nearly all
the Old World species of our four-handed kinsmen are emotion-
ally sympathetic, and ever ready to rescue their v^ounded friends
at the risk of their own lives. At the cry of a captured baby-
baboon, the whole tribe of passionate four-fisters will rush in, re-
gardless of consequences, and a similar tendency of co-operation
may have given our hairy forefathers a superior chance of sur-
vival and secured their victory in their struggle for existence
against their feline rivals. Their list of original sins may have
included gluttony, covetousness, and violence of temper, but hard-
ly a penchant for wanton bloodshed. With the exception of the
fox-headed lemurs and the ultra-stupid marmosets, nearly all our
simian relatives evince symptoms of a character-trait which might
be defined as an instinctive aversion to cruelty. Menagerie monk-
eys indulge their love of gymnastics by frequent scuffles; but
the sight of a hona-fide fight awakens a chorus of shrieks express-
ing a general protest rather than an emotion of fear or even of
partisan interest, for in an open arena the stouter members of the
obstreperous community are sure to rush in and part the combat-
ants. That result, at least, forms a frequent intermezzo of the
circus-fights at the capital of Baroda (British India), where the
sport-loving prince pits all sorts of beasts and birds in single com-
bat, and often diversifies the proceedings by introducing an able-
bodied ape.

Like Buddha Sakyamuni, my Cutch baboon extends his com-
passion to all suffering fellow-creatures. Orphaned kittens or^
whining puppies straying within reach of his arm risk their lives
in his sympathetic embraces. He will hug even crippled rabbits
and half-drowned rats, and in his anxiety to relieve their ailments
will often resort to the expedient of instituting an entomological
inquest, searching their hides for vermin as a possible cause of
their distress. One of his temporary playmates, a pot-bellied young
Chacma baboon, aggravated his unpopularity by an incurable
penchant for peculation ; but the occasional penalties of his mis-
deeds were more than outweighed by the demonstrative sym-
pathy of his kinsman, who would snatch up the squealing little
monster and coddle him for hours, every now and then voicing
his protest against human methods of discipline in a shrill scream,
which his young protege never failed to accompany with an ap-
probative grunt.

In Hindostan, where three varieties of sacred monkeys enjoy

FOUR-HANDED SINNERS. in

the freedom of every town, those four-handed pensioners often
assist the police in enforcing the riot-laws by charging en masse
for the scene of every dog-fight and school-boy scuffle. They will
rescue worried cats, and, for greater security, deposit them on the
next roof, or suppress rowdyism in general, the stout Rhesus
baboon, for instance, being physically as well as morally quali-
fied to quell the aggressive disposition of the fiercest cur. On the
platform of a public warehouse the British residents of Agra, a
few years ago, witnessed a scene which put that character-trait in
even a stronger light. A little street Arab had spread his pallet
in the shade of a stack of country produce, and had just dropped
asleep, when the proprietor of the Planters' Hotel strolled up with
a pet leopard that had learned to accompany him in all his ram-
bles. A troop of tramp monkeys had taken post on the opposite
end of the shed, and, like the beggar boy, seemed to enjoy a com-
fortable siesta, but at sight of the speckled intruder the whole
gang charged along the platform like a squadron of spahis, and,
instantly forming a semicircle about the little sleeper, faced the
leopard with bristling manes, evidently resolved to defeat the sus-
pected purpose of his visit.

Our four-handed cousins apparently credit their biped kins-
men with reciprocative tendencies. Three years ago a New York
pet-dealer shipped me a bonnet-macaque to Tallulah, Ga., where
my guest happened to arrive during the temporary absence of
the regular express agent. His assistants, in trying to feed the
interesting stranger, managed to break the top of the box, and,
after taking to their heels, made matters worse by attacking the
deserter with stones and brickbats, till he evaded their missiles
on the turrets of a three-story hotel. Here a literal "steeple-
chase " was kept up for hours, with the co-operation of an ever-
increasing number of volunteers, till the approach of night
obliged me to adopt the plan of a veteran squirrel-hunter, who
offered to recapture the fugitive by a " crease-shot " — i. e., to crip-
ple him just enough to compel his surrender. The expedient led
to the desired result; but from that day our prisoner behaved
like a captive wild cat, bristling up at the approach of every vis-
itor, and wearing out his teeth in a series of desperate attempts
to break his wire chain. By dint of perseverance he at last
effected his purpose, and once more enacted a declaration of inde-
pendence ; but this time fate was too close on his heels, and, be-
fore he had run more than a hundred yards, the dogs obliged him
to take refuge in the top of a small pine-bush. On my arrival
the leader of his pursuers, a big deer-hound, was assailing that
bush with leaps that speedily threatened to make the hostile posi-
tion untenable, and was just bracing himself for another spring,
when the deserter suddenly leaped upon my shoulder, and, clasp-

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing my neck with both, arms, invoked my protection in a mumble
so expressive and persistent that I had to gratify him by stamped-
ing the dogs.

In the art of gaining allies in a perilous emergency, our four-
handed cousins can, indeed, rival the tricks of a Turkish diplo-
mat. Whenever my little Chacma incurred the displeasure of his
big relative, he would make common cause with the spaniel by
patting his back and expurgating his fur with feverish haste, and,
at the approach of the vindictive Cutch, often managed to push
his ally to the front and make him stand the brunt of the inevi-
table scuffle ; and when my negro boy-of -all-work once caught
him on the top shelf of a cupboard, he at once made a rush for
the lap of an incidental visitor, and with screams and excited
gestures urged him to treat the young African as a common
enemy.

A less pleasant character -trait was his tendency to vent his
resentments on impartial by-standers. His morbid passion for
chewing-tobacco often induced him to pick the pockets of my
mail-carrier, and, after the consequent spanking, he repeatedly
sneaked up on the porch to " take it out " of an old tabby who
made the corner of the veranda her favorite roost and submitted
to such outrages with the patience of a poor servant-girl bearing
the vicarious brunt of a family squabble. A similar display of
spite often makes existence a burden to the cage-companions of a
Hanuman ape, a chief saint of the zoological pantheon of Brahman-
ism. In Hindostan the undisputed prestige of that eupeptic demi-
god secures him a constant surfeit of tidbits, and in Western
menageries the lack of appreciation and cream-pies often provokes
him to snub his secular fellow-captives with the vindictive arro-
gance of an exiled abbot.

In the semi-human apes the concupiscent curiosity of the
genus often takes the form of abstract inquisitiveness — the root
of all heresies. A young chimpanzee, that accompanied me on my
last return trip from Antwerp, would examine the construction of
a padlock with the interest of an amateur mechanic, and once
passed a whole hour in the vain endeavor to solve the enigma of
a baby-rattle — a perforated shell inclosing a number of metal
pellets. After scrutinizing the marvel from all possible points of
view, he made a cautious attempt to open the shell with his teeth,
but the reprimand of a spectator at once made him relinquish that
plan. He then deposited the shell on a rug, and, turning it over
and over, frequently stopped to listen, as if comparing the results
of his various experiments. My Cutch baboon, too, will examine
a picture-book, page for page, and occasionally use his fingers to
verify the impression of a striking illustration — an expedient
which apparently fails to dispel the illusion of a looking-glass, for.

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON. 113

after the experience of a hundred seances, he still persists in mak-
ing a grab at the empty air behind the frame, in the obstinate
hope of corroborating the material existence of his Doppelgiinger.
After thoroughly familiarizing himself with the contents of my
sitting-room, he has ceased to overhaul my shelves ; but the intro-
duction of any novel object at once re-excites his curiosity, and
for similar reasons the wary four-handers of the South American
tropics promptly emerge from their hiding-places at sight of a
speckled dog — a zoological phenomenon too wondrous to be ignored
from motives of discretion. An unfamiliar sound, the tinkling of
a cow-bell in a new clearing, or the whirr of a buzz-saw, is equally
sure to attract the attention of the four-handed aborigines. They
will pursue the strolling bell-ringer for miles, and often stop to
compare notes in a sort of solemn whisper.

But that scientific enthusiasm of our tree-climbing cousins is
apt to be dampened by the first drop of night-dew. In daytime
the restless vigilance of the tree-man enables him to hold his own
against his wiliest foes; but after sunset the owl-eyes of the
prowling FeliclcB give them a fatal advantage, and the instinct of
night-fear may thus deeply, and perhaps indelibly, have impressed
itself upon the mental organism of our forefathers, A petted
four-hander of the bolder species, the East Indian Rhesus, for in-
stance, will contract a habit of pursuing his penchant of free
inquiry to any length, even through the door of a shooting-gallery,
which he will push wide open to ascertain the cause of the abnor-
mal detonations; but after dark the same investigator will flee
from the rustle of a dry leaf, and watch the shadow of a fluttering
curtain with the rapt expectancy of a second adventist.

Inveterate habits persist. The progress of evolution has
changed our spooks from hairy bugbears into soft-handed famil-
iars, and may yet change them into kid-gloved exquisites ; but,
with or without claws, ghosts will probably continue to appear
after sunset.

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON.

THE subject of the present sketch holds a prominent position
among American writers who have made most valuable con-
tributions to political and economic science. His essays, all in
this or related departments, are characterized by far-reaching
grasp of thought, boldness and absolute independence in discus-
sion, and the clear and direct manner in which the principle he is
seeking to develop is presented.

Edward Atkinson was born in Brookline, Mass., February
10, 1827. Having fitted for college, it became expedient for him
to go to work at an early age, and he served his time, after August

VOL. XXXIT. — 8

114 '^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

8, 1843, in a commission-liouse for the sale of domestic cotton
goods. In 1848 lie entered the service of manufacturing com-
l^anies, and from that date until 1878 was engaged as treasurer or
manager of factory corporations. In 1878 he became President of
the Boston Manufacturers' Mutual Fire-insurance Company, and
has since devoted his time largely to the study of the prevention
of fire in factories.

In one of his essays he says that he first began to think in the
Free-Soil campaign of 1848 ; that he then despised statistics, and
was under the profound conviction that every advocate of free
trade had a cloven foot. He held to these opinions until about
the beginning of the war. Being prevented from entering the
service by home duties, he devoted himself to the study of the
resources of the United States, and from the study of facts rather
than of books, and from his long experience, he became an advo-
cate of hard money, opposed to the Legal-Tender Act, and in 1866
he also became a convert to free trade, subject in its application
to such consideration as might rightly be given to branches of
industry whose course had been somewhat altered by the long
continuance of the protective system.

Besides his studies in economic science, and above them, ac-
cording to his own estimation, Mr. Atkinson is the inventor of a
form of cooking apparatus by which the process of preparing
food is greatly facilitated, while the quality of the product is cer-
tain to be improved. It comprises two ovens, one heated by a
column of water, the other heated by a column of air, the heat
being derived from common kerosene-oil lamps so arranged that
the products of the combustion of the oil can not touch the food.
Having baked twenty pounds of bread in one oven with one cent's
worth of oil, and being able either to simmer in one vessel or to
roast in the hot-air oven thirty pounds of meat at a cost of not
exceeding two cents' worth of oil, he believes that he has accom-
plished economy in domestic cookery in a way which Count Rum-
ford attempted but failed to make popular, but which might
become the common practice of all, now that kerosene-oil yields
a cheap source of heat. These inventions are not patented, but
are purposely left open for public use.

By his connection with an association of New England mill-
owners, for prevention of fires in their factories and for insurance,
he has been instrumental in raising the profession of underwriter
from a mere system of betting on the chances of loss by fire on
property, as it may happen to be at any given time, to one in
which science shall be applied at every point, both in the con-
struction and occupation of buildings, and to the prevention of
such losses, under the direction and instruction of capable officers
of insurance companies, who will consider every loss by fire an

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON. 115

obnoxious incident for which, some person, generally the owner or
occupant, shall be held responsible.

From the fruits of his studies in economic science he has sus-
tained, or perhaps first presented, the proposition that the burden
of a tax upon any commodity can be truly measured only by its
ratio to the margin of profits on a given manufacture rather than
by its ratio to the total cost of the product into which the taxed
material enters as a component. Hence a tax bearing a very small
ratio to the gross value of the product, when imposed upon some
apparently insignificant article which enters into a process of
manufacture, may entirely forbid the establishment of that branch
of industry in a country where otherwise it might have been suc-
cessfully established. He therefore opposes duties on what are
commonly but incorrectly called " raw materials," for the reason
that such duties, when imposed upon crude or partly manufactured
materials which are used in the various processes of domestic in-
dustry, not only cripple the manufacturers, but also injure the
domestic producers, even of the same materials, by restricting
their use.

He has, further, worked out and presented facts in proof of
the theory that the wages or earnings of those who are com-
monly called "the working-classes" are a result of production,
and can not be considered an antecedent to production which can
be absolutely measured and determined or agreed upon for any
considerable period before the work is undertaken, since all taxes,
profits, and wages must, in the long run, be derived from the
product itself. It follows, however, from this principle that,
under free conditions, high wages in money, or in what money
will buy, must in the end be the necessary correlative or conse-
quence of a low cost of production. In other words, the price of
labor does not measure the cost of labor, the cost of labor depend-
ing upon many other elements than the wages or earnings of those
who take part in the conversion of the cruder products of the
soil, the mine, or the forest, into the finished forms commonly
known as manufactures.

He has also maintained the proposition that under free condi-
tions of exchange the workman must of necessity, decade by
decade, secure to his own use or enjoyment an increasing share of
an increasing product, even though free exchange be limited in the
United States to its own area — the exceptions to this rule being
in countries where the free exchange of services is obstructed by
the diversion of products in the form of taxes to the support of
great standing armies, or to the payment of interest on huge na-
tional debts. In such instances, the benefits of improvement and
invention being taken up by the tax-gatherer, it may follow that
the workman is, decade by decade, becoming poorer and more in-

ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

capable of sustaining liimself in comfort and welfare. This con-
clusion— that labor receives a constantly increasing share of an
increasing product, and that capital receives a diminishing share
of an increasing product — which Mr. Atkinson has demonstrated,
is one of the most encouraging facts that have been discovered in
the progress of modern civilization. It tends to show, what we
now know to be the fact, that there is a gradual equalization in
the distribution of property, and that a larger number of persons
in this age possess a competence than in any other period of the
history of the race.

The proi^osition that the burden of a tax upon any commodity
is measured by its ratio to the margin of profit rather than to the
entire cost of the product, is vigorously presented in an article on
" The Visible and Invisible in Protection," which was published
in the " Atlantic Monthly " for February, 1872. Its truth is even
more evident in the condition of our country to-day than it was
at that time. Classifying commodities subject to taxation, as those
which are of necessary use in processes of domestic production,
and those which are of voluntary use on the part of the consumer,
the paper lays down the principle that, " in accordance with the
rule that it is fit to take, under the necessity of taxation, a small
portion of the luxury or even the comforts which men seek as the
end of their labor, rather than to impair their means of subsist-
ence, taxes should not be imposed upon articles of the first class,
but may be imposed upon those of the second class." The effect
is then considered of the taxes then and now imposed upon ar-
ticles of the first class in their relation to profits, and is gauged
by comparison with an imaginary tax upon an article in Uni-
versal use on which no tax would be tolerated, if it were imposed.
Such an article is milk, with its products, butter and cheese. Sup-
pose their price were increased by the imposition of a tax of fifty
per cent. " There would surely be controversy, bitter discussion,
and perhaps violent resistance, should such a tax be imposed ;
and yet the general cost of subsistence would be no more increased,
while the power of enlarged production would be far less re-
stricted and hampered, by a tax of fifty per cent upon dairy
products, than they are now by the tariff taxes imposed on
foreign imports of crude or partially manufactured materials.
N"or would the burden be distributed more widely. The use
of dairy products is no more universal or necessary than the use
of the articles of foreign import named in our list" (including
a number of articles of the first class) ; " and there is almost as
much luxurious consumption of dairy products as there is of for-
eign imports. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction,
that all these articles imported from other countries are as much
the product of American labor as the dairy product, or as if they

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON. 117

had been raised upon American soil by the hands of native-born
men and women, since every one of them has been or mnst be paid
for by an exchange of some domestic product for it, whether it be
cotton, oil, gold, cheese, or wooden clocks ; and the only reason
why this exchange is ever made is that we have too much of the
things made upon our own soil, and too little or none at all of
those things of foreign origin for which we make the exchange.
Production is but a leading forth ; it is but movement. We move
the cotton-seed to the soil, the cotton to the Northern mill, the
cloth to the seaboard ; then, by the steamship, we move it to
where it is more needed than by ourselves ; we move back the
tea, and the tea is but the final product of the labor of the freed-
man, the operative, and the sailor, each of whom is or may be our
countryman, and each of whom is counted as a representative of
home industry. . . .

" We once established the manufacture of furniture, so that
our mechanics, working at from $2.50 to 83 per day, yet supplied
many foreign customers ; but we have taxed the wood, the var-
nish, the oil, the paint, the tools, the food, and the fuel of these
men forty per cent on all those portions which are of foreign
origin, and thus they have lost their customers. Privation of
imports is prohibition of exports. Protection to the mechanic is
to be found only in the repeal of bad taxes."

The far-reaching nature of the evil of wrongful taxation is illus-
trated in the case of the taxation of tin plates, for which revenue
the Government has no use whatever, but by the operation of
which " we leave England and France to supply the world with
canned meats and fruits, while we only put up enough for our
own use." This result is brought about by the tax adding to the
cost of the domestic product into which the tin enters as a con-
stituent element ; " and if this increase amounts to only two or
three per cent of the value of the finished product, it amounts, as
we have proved, to a tax on the income of capital of from two
or three up to ten or twenty per cent. Hence, foreign capital
takes the business, and home labor ceases to be employed ; diver-
sity of emi^loyment is prevented ; wages are lowered, and the cost
of subsistence increased ; and all this is done in the name of pro-
tection to labor ! "

The visible in protection — what one sees, " is that we prosper
in spite of all the privations inflicted under due process of law ;
such are the boundless resources with which the Almighty has
endowed this land." The invisible, what one does not see, " is the
far greater prosperity which we might have, except for the igno-
rance of those who make these unjust laws, and in the name of
protection inflict privation. What one does not see is the prog-
ress in the arts of peace and good-will with all nations which

ii8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

might ensue if we did but realize that the ships that pass between
this land and that are like the shuttle of a loom, weaving the web
of concord among the nations, and that commerce is the most po-
tent agent of civilization."

Mr. Atkinson is what is called a self-educated man, but he
accepts the comment made by Dr. Francis Lieber on this phrase,
that one might as rightly speak of a self -laid egg. What both
gentlemen mean by this dictum doubtless is that men are inevita-
bly the creatures of the conditions among which they are placed,
over which they have no control. But, as it is usually applied,
the expression " a self-made man " means no more than that his
character and faculties have been developed independently of the
artificial aid of schools and book-lore, by hard contact with the
world and the experiences of active life ; and Mr. Atkinson would
hardly deny that he is a man of that kind. What he is, in char-
acter and modes of thought, is in the main the product of a life
spent in the factory and counting-house, combined with habits
of close, independent observation. A clew as to the turn which
his seeking takes when knowledge is to be acquired, may be
gained from the opening sentences of his paper on "Kentucky
Farms," in "Harper's Magazine" for June, 1881: "Whenever a
business man gets away from his affairs, and journeys into a far
country for even a short time, he may see many things that he
would entirely overlook if, with his mind filled with the every-
day cares of life, he passed through the very same sections in the
usual unobservant way. A pity it is that our commercial trav-
elers could not become trained observers, ready and acute as they
are in all that pertains to their work, often witty and full of good
stories. If they could learn to spend the many hours which they
are obliged to pass wearily in country taverns that are none of the
best, and are often of the worst, in reporting what they might
observe, what a resource against weariness it would be for them,
and what a benefit to all who wish to know what the resources of
this country really are, and how they could be developed ! The
business man who can write at all writes best for other business
men." To this habit of sharply observing for himself, Mr. Atkin-
son adds, as he goes on to relate, what he calls a patent method of
his own. He goes to persons — as for instance, in this case the State
geologist, in studying the resources of Kentucky — who have special
knowledge of the subject in hand, and becomes, for the time being,
their student. By such means he has accumulated a vast fund of
information about the resources of the United States, and the con-
dition of the different parts of the country, which, having made
himself familiar with the subject in hand, he can use with telling
effect whenever he has a condition to account for, or a lesson to
draw indicating a line of policy. His journey to Kentucky was

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINS OR.

119

made to obtain information about the homespun fabrics that are
made and worn by the people of the mountain-regions of that and
the adjoining States. In a discussion concerning the conditions
of transporting flour from Minneapolis to Europe, he acknowl-
edges indebtedness to twenty-six distinct sources whence he ob-
tained information, including railroad presidents, manufacturers,
editors of special journals. Government officers, and managers of
land-mortgage companies. The purpose of the discussion just
named was to prove that it was possible to supply the European
markets with breadstuff s at a very low cost, and at the same time
secure high earnings to farm-laborers, coupled with reasonable
profits to the farmers, millers, and transportation companies.
Having shown that the wages of one day's work of a good me-
chanic on the Eastern seaboard of the United States will suffice
to move his year's supply of grain and meat one thousand miles
from the Western prairie, while the skilled workman of Great
Britain may also move his year's supply of grain and meat four
or five thousand miles at a cost of two days' labor, possibly three,
he adds : " Have not the scientists who have eliminated time and
distance made the whole world one great neighborhood in which
each man may serve his neighbor ? But the masters of physical
science have only removed natural obstructions. There is work
now for the masters of political science. It now remains for
Legislatures to remove the artificial obstructions created by their
predecessors in order that each nation may serve the other. When
that is done, the interdependence of the men of all countries and
of all climes will be established, and the foundation of peace, order,
industry, good- will, and plenty among all nations will be firmly
laid."

Such is the destiny to which Mr. Atkinson, despising the petty
devices and make-shifts of politics, and looking only to what will
contribute most directly to the ultimate result, would lead us.

Mr. Atkinson is a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, of the British Association, Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American
Statistical Association, of the Political Economy Club, of the In-
ternational Statistical Institute, of the Cobden Club, and several
other bodies of like kind. He has never held any public office
except when commissioned by the President in 1887 to report
upon the status of bimetallism in Europe. He has always been
an independent in politics.

The various papers which have been written by Mr. Atkinson
are constantly referred to in economic discussions by persons who
differ with each other and who do not accept his conclusions, his
analyses of the facts of the economic life of the nation being ac-
cepted even by those who do not agree with his theories.

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

His papers on the industrial development of this country, espe-
cially during the last twenty-five years, are cited by the advocates
of both policies in the present tariff controversy. Their ability
and fairness of statement are fully admitted. Mr. Atkinson him-
self believes that the tariff question is one of the minor factors in
the industrial history of this country ; that its influence in pro-
moting certain branches of industry has been much exaggerated
on the one side, and that its burden upon consumers has been as
much exaggerated upon the other. He rejects alike the theory of
the extreme advocate of protection, that diversity of occupation
has been promoted by means of the protective system ; and, on the
other hand, he rejects the theory of the extreme free-trader that
an enormous bounty has been paid to or gained by special indus-
tries, merely because a duty has been imposed upon a foreign im-
port of like kind. He holds that while manufactures would be
established in greater variety, and would attain ultimately much
greater prosperity, if free exchange could be attained by a cau-
tious and systematic reform, on the other hand, the market for
the excess of the crude products of our soil, as well as for our
manufactures, might be vastly extended by such reform — to the
end that the United States would attain a commanding position
in the commerce of the world, even to the extent of possibly
compelling European nations to disarm. Keeping in view the
proposition that profits, wages, and taxes are alike derived from
the joint product of labor and capital, he presents the simple
formula that " a nation free from debt, subjected to the lowest
rate of taxation of any nation in the world, and without the need
of withdrawing from productive labor an enormous number of
men to be enlisted in a standing army or navy, and finally en-
dowed with greater natural resources than any other country in
proportion to the population, must be able to compass a larger
product at less cost than can be attained in any other of the so-
called manufacturing countries." He therefore advocates a grad-
ual but sure reform of the abuses which exist in the present acts
for collecting the national revenue, to be brought about with due
regard to the present condition which many branches of manu-
facture have reached during the long period in which a high tariff
has been in force."

Mr. Atkinson's essays, nearly all upon subjects of political
economy, have been published at various times since 1861 in inde-
pendent pamphlets, the reports of economical associations, and
periodicals of general circulation, such as the " Atlantic Monthly,"
" Scribner's Magazine," " The Century," " Harper's Magazine," and
the " North American " and " International Reviews." The full list
numbers more than forty titles, including the following : " Cheap
Cotton by Free Labor," 1861 ; " Is Cotton our King ? " 1862 ; " The

SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON: 121

Future Supply of Cotton/' 1864; "The Collection of Revenue/'
1866; "Free Trade and Revenue Reform/' 1871; "The Visible and
Invisible in Protection/' 1872 ; " An Easy Lesson in Money and
Banking/' 1874 ; " Argument for the Conditional Reform of the
Legal-Tender Act/' 1874 ; " Commercial Development in the First
Century of the Republic/' 1876 ; " Industrial Reconstruction/' 1878 ;
" Our National Domain " (chart), 1879 ; " American View of Ameri-
can Competition" (London), 1879 ; " Labor and Capital Allies, not
Enemies/' 1880 ; " The Fire-Engineer, the Architect, and the Un-
derwriter," 1880; "The Railroads of the United States," 1880;
" The Unlearned Professions," 1880 ; "Address on Banking," 1880 ;
" A Reply to Prof. Bonamy Price/' 1880 ; " Cotton Manufactures
of the United States/' 1880 ; " Addresses at Atlanta, Ga., at the
International Cotton Exposition," 1880, 1881 ; "What is a Bank ?"
1881 ; " Elementary Instruction in the Mechanic Arts," 1881 ; " Ad-
dress at the Annual Banquet of the Massachusetts Charitable
Association," 1881 ; "What makes the Rate of Interest?" 1881;
Address on the Right Method of preventing Fires in Mills," 1881 ;
" The Solid South," 1881 ; " The Railway and the Farmer," 1881 ;
" Kentucky Farms," 1881 ; " The Influence of Boston Capital upon
Manufactures," 1882; " Significant Aspects of the Atlanta Expo-
sition/' 1882 ; " The Rapid Spread of Communism," 1882 ; " Ad-
dress at the Opening of the Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Insti-
tute Fair," 1882 ; " Inefficiency of Economic Legislation," 1882 ;
" What makes the Rate of Wages ? " 1884 ; " Address to the Chiefs
of the Bureau of Labor Statistics," 1885 ; " The Distribution of
Products/' 1885 ; " On the Application of Science to the Produc-
tion and Consumption of Food/' 1885 ; " Prevention of " Loss by
Fire," 1885 ; " The Hours of Labor/' 1885 ; " Address on the Silver
Question," 1886 ; a series of monographs (in " Bradstreet's ") on eco-
nomic questions ; a series of articles (in " The Century ") on " Food
and Wages"; "The Margin of Profits," 1887; "Report on Bimet-
allism in Europe," 1888 ; a series of articles in " The Forum," 1888.
Of these papers, the address at Atlanta, in 1880, was characterized
by Judge E. R. Hoar as marking an " era in the history of the
country " ; and the book on the " Distribution of Products " was
pronounced by Sir Louis Mallet " epoch-making."

It has been advanced as a weak point in the theory that man has received his
qualities by inheritance from the other races, that when men manifest extraor-
dinary qualities they are such as are entirely different from those possessed by
any other creature, and peculiar. Human prodigies excel, not in the development
of animal traits and instincts, but as wonderful calculators, great moral geniuses,
or phenomenal musicians. The most wonderful instincts of the lower creatures
appear to be extinguished by the advance of reason, instead of being stimulated
by it ; and men who transcend humanity do so not in the respects in which they
have inherited most, but in those in which they have inherited least.

122

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

DOCTORS AND THE OPIUM-HABIT.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

IN the September number of " The Popular
Science Monthly," Mr. Virgil G. Eaton
makes the following statement in his article
on "How the Opium-Ilabit is acquired":
" The parties who are responsible for the
increase of the habit are the physicians who
give the prescriptions. . . . Opium effects
immediate relief, and the doctors, knowing
this, and wishing to stand well with their
patients, prescribe it more and more. Their
design is to effect a cure. The result is to
convert their patients into opium-slaves.
The doctors are to blame for so large a con-
sumption of opium, and they are the men
who need reforming " (p. 666). While there
may be exceptional cases where physicians
are responsible for a patient acquiring the
opium-habit, this charge against the entire
medical profession is unjust and misleading.
No class of men is better acquainted with
the dangers due to a prolonged use of opiates
than the medical practitioners, but it does not
follow that a knowledge of the fact should
lead any one of them to abandon the use of
this valuable anodyne in suitable cases. No
physician will question Mr. Eaton's statement
that opiates are prescribed very frequently.
If Mr. Eaton had taken the trouble to inquire
from physicians why this is so, he would
probably have ascertained that a large num-
ber of patients suffer considerably during
their sickness, and that, to alleviate these
sufferings, and give the patients the best
chances for recovering their health, opiates
arc often prescribed, and not merely because
the physician wants to " stand well with his
patient," or even to " effect a owre." Surely,
no honest practitioner would be brutal enough
to withhold an anodyne to relieve the intense
pain due to a " stone in the gall-duct " (and
if it were in Mr. Eaton's personal gall-duct),
provided the anodyne caused no other serious
injury. In this case the anodyne is not
given to " effect a cure," but to permit the
passage of the stone through the duct with
less pain to the proprietor of the duct than
were possible without the drug.

_ While putting the responsibility for the
opium-habit on the physicians, Mr. Eaton
says (p. 665), " From a conversation with a
druggist, I learned that the proprietary or
' patent ' medicines which have the larcrest
sales were those containing opiates." Wliile
Mr. Eaton's article proves his knowledge of
the practice of medicine to be very limited,
he can hardly be ignorant of the fact that
the members of the medical profession have
been and arc to this day warning their
patients and the public against the use of

all nostrums. This is done by physicians,
not for selfish purposes, as Mr. Eaton prob-
ably thinks, but because they have some
thought for the health and well-being of their
patients.

Immediately after telling us that the
doctors are the men who need reforming, Mr.
Eaton gives us two means for preventing the
opium-habit. Here we find that he does not
mention the method of reformation, but
recommends that the renewal of prescribed
medicines containing opiates, without the
consent of the physician, be prohibited. Now
this is a very good recommendation, but, as
"there is nothing new under the sun," so
this suggestion is not original. A perusal
of medical literature would demonstrate that
the medical profession, as individuals, and
through their associations, have for years
past protested and advised against renewing
prescribed medicines without the physician's
consent. They would not, however, have it
limited to opiates, but have it apply to all
medicines, for very good and not solely selfish
reasons. After such good advice from Mr.
Eaton, it is a great disappointment to find in
the second and last suggestion that again no
method of reforming the doctors is given,
but here he mentions the very good but not
always practical preventive for the opium-
habit is not to get sick. True, Mr. Eaton
does not put it in these words, but it is prac-
tically the same as to say : " Avoid sickness
by living according to "the laws of health.
If you are not sick, you will not require
medicine ; and if you don't take medicine,
you will not become a victim of the opium-
habit."

After so clearly showing that "patent"
medicines, and the druggists, who so willing-
ly refill prescriptions, are to a very great
degree responsible for the alarming increase
of the opium-habit, Mr. Eaton's charges
against the physicians are entirely out of
place. A. F. Stifkl.

Wheeling, W. Va., Avgmt, 29, 1868.

OUR ASTRONOMY CLASS.
Editor Popular Science Monthhj :

In Chapter IX of " Prince Otto," by Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson, better known to fame
as the author of " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,"
the hero goes to an appointment with the
countess, "as the bell beats /wo" in the
morning. At this hour, we are told, "a
shaving of new moon had lately arisen ; but
was still too small and too low down in
heaven to contend with the immense host of
lesser luminaries, and the rough face of the
earth was drenched with starlight."

CORRESP ONDENCE.

The object of this communication is to
nominate Mr. Stevenson for membership in
that " infant class in astronomy " to which
you have already assigned H. Rider Haggard,
Anna Bowman Dodd, Andrew Lang, Edward
King, and Tolstoi. J. Boclware Kidd.
KiCHMOND, Va., August, 19, 1888.

CALIFORNIAN PERFORATED STONES.
Editor Popular Science Monthly ;

I THINK your correspondent is in error
concerning the uses of the perforated stones
of California.* I never heard of any one
of those uses before, and all of them seem
improbable.

1. I have seen the squaws digging roots,
and never knew of their carrying a five-
pound stone around, when their own body
furnishes one hundred and fifty pounds, as a
" digging weight." In their line of business
they are no fools.

2. Each arrow and spear of the Indians
represents hours of patient labor, and any
one acquainted with thera knows how averse
they are to expending them upon any mark
other than game, much less upon rocks.
One of these stones, now in my possession,
has the eye-hole much out of the center, and
who can determine the line that hole would
describe when the stone is rolled along on
the ground ? Further, the Diggers were and
are averse to any games that do not allow
them to sit lovingly and lazily upon the
bosom of Mother Earth.

3. Pipes and pestles are the only "cy-
lindrical objects " I know of among the In-
dians, and none of these are small enough to
go through the eye-hole. It shows no evi-
dence of having been used as a die ; and
those objects show no evidence of having
been made by a die.

Now, as to their real uses. The speci-
men of which I send you an outline is a fair
sample of most of them. Weight, four and
a half pounds. The eye-hole is counter-
sunk on both sides, coming to an edge in the
center, but more sloping on the right, fitting
the thumb of the right hand, whichever side
was grasped, as both sides are very nearly
alike.

1. Indians tell me that they were used
for pounding acorns and other nuts fine
enough to be afterward ground on the me-
tate for making bread.

2. They were used for heating water and
cooking in baskets ; a stick run through the
eye-hole of the hot stone prevents it from
sinking to the bottom and burning a hole
through the basket. I once saw the Indians
cooking in a basket, but not with these stones.
The basket stands near the fire, and with
half a dozen hot stones constantly being
changed they will have the water boiling
much quicker than it can be done on a stove.

* " Popular Science Monthly " for August, p. 569.

The above information I get from the In-
dians, and it accords with the probabilities
and other evidences.

I inclose an outline of another stone
which for a long time puzzled me. It is a
flat cog-wheel one and a half inch thick.
Four of them were plowed up in an Indian
camp, the only ones I ever saw. An old
Indian the other day instantly placed the
palm of his hand flatly over the disk, and,
with his fingers among the cogs, made mo-
tions as with a hammer, and said it was
used for cracking piTiones. The pinone is the
nut of a certain pine-tree, of which the In-
dians used to gather large quantities for win-
ter use. Yours truly,

Franklin Cogswell.
Pomona, Los Angeles Co , Oal., |
August, 14, ISSS. (

CAN ANIMALS COUNT THE DATS?
Editor Popidar Science Monthly :

In looking over back numbers of " T he
Popular Science Monthly," an article in the
issue for June, 1886, entitled " What may
Animals be taught ? " attracted attention. In
the early part of the paper an instance of
animal intelligence is quoted, and remarks
thereon made by the author which, to the
thinking of many, rob our " inferior brethren "
of credit justly their due, and of faculties
evidently their own. The instance is as fol-
lows: " M. Dubuc speaks of a pointer which
had learned, after a few years, that its master
went hunting every Sunday, and therefore
that the animal had learned to count up to
seven." The author of the article says :
" This conclusion is not legitimate ; it may
even be said to be wrong. The dog distin-
guished Sunday by some features peculiar to
it, by the movements about the house, the
behavior and Sunday dress of the servants,
the dress of the master, or any one or more
of a number of things that make Sunday
different from other days of the week ; but
we may say without contradiction that it did
not count seven."

Nevertheless, facts do, to all appearance,
contradict that dogmatic assertion. For my-
self, I can not see why the conclusion is de-
nied that animals, as they come to apprehend
the advent of Sunday, have some way of
keeping count of the seven days of the week.
The following fact bears directly upon that
point : Something like half a century ago, the
writer had the care and milking of five cows
during one summer. They grazed in a past-
ure-lot many rods from the dwelling. It
was the custom to give the animals salt every
Sunday morning. They enjoyed the treat,
and it was evident that they began to expect
it. After a length of time — I can not say
how long — a curious behavior of the cattle
became conspicuous, for every Sunday morn-
ing they were found standing at the bars,
the point nearest the house, with every ap-

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pearance of mute expectation. At evei-y
other laorning, as well as at evening, they
had to be sought and brought to the bars for
milking. Some;i}nes I would forget to take
the salt with me at the stated time, when,
instead of moving off to feed after my task
was done, as they usually did, they I'emained
about the spot an hour or so, as if waiting
for their weekly rations of salt.

He-re, then, is the problem: Every Sunday
morning these cows came of their own option
to the place of milking, and where on that
day they generally got salt, and not on other
mornings. How could they do that, except
through some faculty of estimating the seven

days of the week ? If " the dog distinguished
Sunday by some features that were peculiar
to it," we can not say the same of the cows
in question. They were isolated from the
outer world, away from any thoroughfare,
and saw no one but myself from one week
to another and from one month to another.
So far as we can judge, one day was like
all days excepting Sunday, which they might
have called salt-day, had they possessed the
faculty of speech. How did they note that
cycle of time, to be there on that morning
and not on any other morning '?

A. S. Hudson, M. D.
Stockton, Cal., September 1, ISSS.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE MORALITY OF THE FUTURE.

ONE of the most interesting papers
read at the recent meeting of the
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science was one upon "Altruism
considered economicany," hy the Vice-
President of the Section of Economic
Sciences, Mr. Charles "W. Smiley. The
drift of Mr. Srailey's address, which may
be read in our present number, was to
the effect that the impulse to do good
to others at the cost of sacrifice to
one's self was one that required careful
watching and discipline, as otherwise it
would be very likely to prove more harm-
ful than beneficial. The more we study
the operation of the fundamental laws
of nature, the more clearly we see how
essential they are to all healthy living;
and how little upon the whole is gained,
and bow much is lost, in the effort to
transcend them in the name of higher
principles. Thus, self-preservation is the
first law of all animated life ; but some
have thought it worthy only of the
brute creation, and have preached in its
stead the law of self-sacrifice. Doubt-
less, as Mr. Smiley admits, there have
been times in the history of the world
when there was pressing need for the
preaching of self-sacrifice as a correct-
ive to the selfish and unscrupulous pur-
suit of personal ends ; but the time has
now come in our modern civilized com-
munities when it should be seen that the

highest service any man can render to
the community is not to devote all his
goods to feed the poor, or perform any
other signal act of self-denial, but to
practice justice and labor to strengthen
the characters of those around him.
Self-sacrifice as a principle is wanting
in logic, seeing that it implies the gain
of one through the loss of another. We
have had in the past, and still have, nu-
merous institutions that have sprung
from the idea of self-sacrifice ; and, with
a large portion of the community, it is a
fixed idea that only acts involving self-
sacrifice can have any merit. But ex-
perience is showing more and more that
those who are supposed to stand in need
of all this voluntary benevolence derive
but little real advantage from it ; that,
on the contrary, it further weakens their
already defective characters, and tends
to make their condition one of chronic
and constitutional dependence on the
assistance of others.

How is it, we may ask, that, in spite of
all that is done for the poor in the way
of charity, the demand for charity is an-
nually greater and more pressing? The
object of giving help ought to be to raise
the recipient above the need of help ;
but this result is manifestly not being
accomplished. For one charitable fund
that existed a generation ago there ex-
ist at least five to-day ; and almost every
week something new is started, look-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

125

ing to the removal, by force of charity,
of this or that form of social misery.
Every now and then some agent of this
charitable work makes a confession as
to its very general inutility; indeed,
parodoxical as it may seem, none know-
so well how little charity in any form
can do for the poor as those who are
foremost in charitable efforts, or most
immediately concerned with the actual
distribution of help. It is undeniable
that, just in proportion as the liberality
of the charitably disposed increases, the
demands upon it increase, and that, con-
versely, with the cessation of alms-giv-
ing, the need for it seems to vanish.
There are facts to illustrate both points.
We have seen it stated lately in the
Boston papers that the abounding chari-
ties of that city have drawn to it people
who consider themselves objects of char-
ity from all the surrounding country;
and, if so, we can judge what the effect
has been in the city itself in promoting
mendicancy. Only last Christmas one
of the Boston papers was calling atten-
tion, with evident satisfaction, to the
vast increase within a few years in the
number of Christmas turkeys distrib-
uted gratis to the poor; as if such an
evidence of the progressive pauperiza-
tion of the community was not more to
be deplored than the increasing liber-
ality of a few to be rejoiced over. On
the other hand, Mr. Smiley, in the ad-
dress to which we have referred, states
that the discontinuance of out - door
relief in Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Cin-
cinnati has been followed by an almost
complete disappearance of any visible
necessity for the administration of such
relief.

The morality of the future, we may
therefore safely say, will be based less
upon self-sacrifice than upon individual
culture and self-restraint, and will ex-
hibit more and more the beneficent
workings of what Mr. Spencer calls the
law of equal liberty. This, indeed, is
the only moral regime befitting the in-
dustrial and democratic stage of society.

In ages of great social inequality, when
the great tyrannize and the weak cringe
in submission, there is urgent need for
the intervention of generous spirits to
do and to dare what the victims of op-
pression can neither do nor dare for
themselves ; but with the removal of all
unjust privileges the need for such ac-
tion largely disappears. If unduly pro-
longed its effect is to make the weak
weaker, the helpless more helpless.
The time, we hold, has come now when,
broadly speaking, the best thing any
man can do is to hold himself erect, to
practice a high-minded justice in his
relations with his fellow-men, and to
eschew all modes of action calculated to
encourage others to expect that they
may reap where they have not sown.
Speaking broadly again, our present
modes of charity tend to no good. A
truer charity by far would be to vigor-
ously protect society from the vicious
and criminal class ; and, in regard to the
limited class of non-vicious paupers, to
let them understand that what they earn
they shall eat and no more. This is the
course we shall follow if we want a per-
fected society. If, on the other hand,
we are prepared to make all sacrifices,
alike of principle and of expediency, for
the sake of emotional gratification, we
shall proceed in the practice of an ever-
extending sentimental charity ; and the
poor and degraded we shall ever have
with us, and yet more abundantly.

''TnS VALUE OF THE NEXT-TO-NOTR-

iNGr
Sir Feederick Bramwell, President
of the British Association, chose as the
subject of his inaugural address the
singular reading, "The Value of the
Nest-to-Nothing; and the Civil Engi-
neer, and the Value to Science of his
Works." His purpose was to show how
the civil engineer, applying results al-
ready worked out by science, enlarging
resources and facilities and increasing
economy, had aided and stimulated sci-
ence to new researches to be utilized

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

again in his own inventions, which were
in turn to give a further impulse to sci-
entific work. A very large proportion
of the engineer's success was due to his
regarding infinitesimals ; and in respect
to this point it was appropriate for the
speaker to show how greatly infinitesi-
mals or " next-to-nothings " determine
the strength, the fitness, and the dura-
bility of works and materials. Take
the case of steel, which in times that are
not very old was dealt with and tested
in a " rule-of-thumb " fashion. It was
known to be a compound of iron and
carbon —

'•but the importance of exactness in the per-
centage was but little understood, nor was it
at all understood how the presence of com-
paratively small quantities of foreign matter
might necessitate the variation of the propor-
tions of carbon. The consequence was, that
anomalous results every now and then arose
to confound the person who had used the
steel, and, falsifying the proverb 'true as
steel,' steel became an object of distrust. Is
it too much to say that Bessemer's great in-
vention of steel made by the ' converter,' and
that Siemens' s invention of the open-hearth
process, reacted on pure science, and set sci-
entific men to investigate the laws which regu-
late the union of metals and of metalloids, and
that the labors of these scientific men have
improved the manufacture, so that steel is
now thoroughly and entirely trusted ? By
its aid engineering works are accomplished
which, without that aid, would have been
simply impossible. The Forth Bridge, the
big gun, the compound armor of the ironclad
with its steel face— all equally depend upon
the ' truth ' of steel as much as does the barely
visible hair-spring of the chronometer, which
enables the longitude of the ship in which
it is carried to be ascertained. Now, what
makes the difierence between trustworthy and
untrustworthy steel for each particular pur-
pose? Something which, until our better
sense comes to our aid, we are inclined to look
upon as ridiculously insignificant — a ' next-to-
nothing.' Setting extraneous ingredients
aside, and considering only the union of iron
and carbon, the question whether there shall
be added or deducted one tenth of one per
cent of carbon is a matter of great importance
in the resulting quality of the steel. This is
a striking practical instance of how apparent-
ly insignificant things may be of the highest
importance. The variation of this fraction of

a percentage may render your boiler-steel un-
trustworthy, may make the difference between
safety in a gun and danger in a gun, and may
render your armor-piercing projectile unable
to pierce even the thinnest wrought-iron
armor."

So the effects upon steel of adding man-
ganese— whether it shall improve or de-
teriorate the metal — are matters of rath-
er delicate calculation —

"and the effects of the addition of even the
very smallest percentages of aluminum upon
the steel with which it may be alloyed are
very striking and very peculiar, giving to the
steel alloy thus produced a very much greater
hardness, and enabling it to take a much
brighter and more silver-like polish. Fur-
ther, the one twentieth part of one per cent of
aluminum, when added to molten wrought-
iron, will reduce the fusing-point of the whole
mass some five hundred degrees, and will
render it extremely fluid."

The engineer engaged in electrical
matters is also often compelled to real-
ize the importance of the " next-to-noth-
ing," as in the case of the influence
which an extremely minute percentage
of impurity has on the electrical con-
ductivity of copper wire. This con-
ductivity is, in some cases, reduced as
much as fifty per cent, in consequence
of the admixture of that which, under
other circumstances, would be looked
upon as insignificant.

The internal strain which a great
gun may suffer in the process of oil-
hardening, by the operation of which it
may be self- ruptured months afterward,
is gauged in the most minute fractions
of an inch. The various degrees to
which a tool is tempered according to
the uses to which it is to be adapted,
all depend upon the "next-to-nothing"
differences in the temperature to which
the metal is heated. Then —

"consider the bicycles and tricycles of the
present day — machines which alford the
means of healthful exercise to thousands, and
which will probably, in a very short time,
prove of the very greatest possible use for.
military purposes. The perfection to which
these machines have been brought is almost
entirely due to strict attention to detail ; in

LITERARY NOTICES.

\z-l

the selection of the material of which the ma-
chines are made ; in the ajiplication of pure
science (in its strictest sense) to the form and
to the proportioning of the parts, and also in
the arrangement of these various parts in re-
lation the one to the other. The result is, that
the greatest possible strength is afforded with
only the least possible weight, and that fric-
tion in working has been reduced to a mini-
mum.''''

Finally, the hardly appreciable dif-
ference in the density of the air on the
upper side and the under side, of a shot
issuing from a gun is sufficient to deflect
the missile toward either side, according
to the " hand " of the rifling, to such
an extent that it has to be allowed for
in the sighting and rifling of guns de-
signed to be fired at long range. So, in
fixing long-range guns, pointing north
and south, the difference in the velocity
of the earth's rotation at the two ends
of the range has to be taken into con-
sideration.

Sir Frederick's address having begun
by showing how appKcations of science
and discoveries act and react upon and
further one another, and having illus-
trated the importance of minute details
in this mutual helping, closed with a
demonstration that engineering has a
poetical side.

The building of such a work as the
Eddystone Lighthouse, the throwing of
a long and lofty span across a navigable
river or strait, or the tunneling under
a body of water — like the English Chan-
nel, for instance — with the closer bring-
ing together of peoples that would result
from it, or the execution of a sanitary
work that will reduce disease one half
— a thing that is not unknown — afford
abundant scope for emotion and flight
of the imagination. "Whether it be these,
or the supply of pure water to every
dwelling —

" or the distribution of light or of motive pow-
er ; or whether it be in the production of the
mighty ocean-steamer, or in the spanning of
valleys, the piercing of mountains and afford-
ing the firm, secure road for the express-train ;
or whether it be the encircling the world with

telegraphs — the work of the civil engineer is
not cf the earth earthy, is not mechanical to
the exclusion of science, is not unintellectual ;
but is of a most beneficent nature, is consist-
ent with true poetical feeling, and is worthy
of the highest order of intellect."

LITERARY NOTICES.

Animal Memoirs. Part I. — Mammals. By
Samuel Lockwood. New York and Chi-
cago : Ivison, Blakeman & Co. Pp. 317.

This book is the first of a projected sc-
ries of "Readings in Natural History," in
which the author purposes to present mainly
individual portraits, or animal biographies,
in the fourfold setting of their morphology,
physiology, chorology (or geographical occu-
pancy), and origin, " but so far as possible
without technicality of treatment, and with
as little formal limning as is compatible with
clear and truthful outlines." Preference is
given, where possible, to such creatures as
the author has known with the intimacy that
attaches to pets. In accounting for the ori-
gin of the book, Prof. Lockwood describes
how his own interest in natural history be-
gan. It arose from his picking up, while he
was a very small boy, a torpid snake which
had been chilled in a severe storm. Having
taken it home, he was examining its dia-
mond-pointed scales, when it revived under
the influence of the warmth, and was at once
dispatched by an older brother. " I felt very
badly," he says, " to have it taken from me.
But a little picture of its ornamentation held
a place for a long time in my memory. The
pattern was a mosaic of pretty geometric
figures. From that time on my taste grew.
I had that day got a nibble in the lane which
led to the rich and open field of nature.
What an appetizer it proved to be ! I hun-
gered for more. My fii-st book was Gold-
smith's 'Animated Nature,' which was read
and reread with avidity. I took in every-
thing, even the wild statement that Indians
had passed safely over the Falls of Niagara
in their canoes." The key to the author's
mood is given in the sentence, " With the
imagination and judgment in healthful union,
let one enter into the mind of the animal —
that is, put himself in its place — and it will
be surprising how much of one's self can be
seen in that lowly thing." Prudence and
foresight, forecasting of the weather, mag-

12J

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nanimity, and sympathy in distress, or some-
thing that works very much like them, may
be seen in different degrees of development
in certain animals. A story of a doctor at
Long Branch, who had a hen that took a
kitten as one of her chickens, is offset by
one of a cat in the old country, which, being
given a chick partly emerged from the shell,
"began at once removing the shell in the
most tender way ; and this done, she put the
callow thing by the side of her kitten and
nestled them together " ; and was grieved
when the attempt was made to take the
chick from her. Intelligence and a kind of
scientific scrutiny were shown by the tur-
key that swallowed grasshoppers, which it
knew all about, "without stopping to think,"
but when given a large black beetle, " very
deliberately put down his head and inspected
the insect ; then stepped back quite cautious-
ly, then approached, and, stooping as before,
again gazed at it intently. Not yet satisfied,
he now walked around it with a curiously
cautious strut, keeping his eyes all this time
upon the dubious morsel. Now his move-
ment is quicker, and, becoming assured, he
seizes the insect and it is swallowed at
once." The opening chapters exhibit in va-
rious ways what is styled " the exuberance
or overflow of ' animal mind,' " in the hope
of awakening in the reader the faculty of
insight, " so that he may be to the animal
what it so often is to him — ' a discerner of
spirit.' For, is it not too apparent that in
this respect the ' dumb beasts which perish '
are often our superiors ? In divining the
mind of his master the dog rarely errs ;
and how subtle his discrimination of 'the
stranger at the gate ' ! These mental mani-
festations indicate the one maker of animals
and men. ... No pessimist ever made much
in the study of the life-histories of animals.
The student of such had better be optimist
out and out." With these animals " are all
kinds of mental manifestation — the glee-
some and the serious, the pathetic and the
sympathetic, the jocose and the morose."
The first story illustrating " animal humor "
is of a monkey in a basket-shop, which was
the pet of the men and boys, and afforded
them all manner of sport until they became
tired of it and began to play malicious tricks
upon it, when " it broke down, as if it had
concluded to drop all sport forever. Not

at all vicious, still gentle, but joyless, it be-
came chronically sad" — but recognized a
sjanpathetic voice when " the minister "
called upon it, and reposed in him all the
confidence and affection it had lost toward
other men. Another monkey, which was
kept in a cage, was suspicious and even
vicious toward strangers, but became friends
at sight with this same " minister," greatly
to the surprise of its owner — " taking his
measure at a glance." Another trait was
exhibited by Frank Buckland's monkeys,
which would care nothing for a carrot when
given to them, but would eagerly avail them-
selves of an opportunity to steal it. We arc
not willing to say that this is a human trait,
though some men seem ready to illustrate it.
The stories of dogs afford displays of intelli-
gence which must appear wonderful and al-
most incredible to all except those who are
well acquainted with dogs, to whom they will
have an air that is less novel. They show
most remarkable perceptions of what is go-
ing on, of what the family and persons
around wish, of what is intended to be
done, and apparent understanding of lan-
guage. These stories — of "animal humor"
— are largely of animals within the author's
own acquaintance. Those that follow — of
sledge-dog antics (arctic), the onithorhynchus
and its eggs, the kangaroos, coons, the coati
mundi (concerning which Prof. Lockwood has
contributed an article to the "Monthly"), the
kinkajou, rabbits, and mice — are drawn large-
ly from the observations of other writers.
In the cases of the stranger animals the dif-
ferences in their structure from that of the
ordinarily mammalian type are duly ex-
plained, the technical terms being translated
into intelligible English ; and the final chap-
ter is on " Classifying Animals."

Numbers Symbolized : An Elementary Al-
gebra. By David M. Sensenig. New
York, Boston, and Chicago. D. Appleton
& Co. Pp.315. Price, $1.26.
This volume is introductory to a more ex-
tensive and philosophical treatise with which
the author designs to follow it. In scope it
includes all subjects essential to a study of
higher arithmetic, elementary geometry, and
the elements of physics. All topics are treat-
ed in an elementary manner, with broad gen-
eralizations and discussions of general prob-
lems purposely excluded. In the earlier

LITERARY NOTICES.

29

lessons, fundamental ideas and principles
are developed inductively, and then formu-
lated into simple and concise statements ;
each definition, for example, is preceded by
a problem that asks for it, making it thus
something suggested by what has gone be-
fore, rather than an arbitrary statement, the
meaning of which is to be found out by sub-
sequent application. Further on, definitions
appear at the beginning of subjects, and
principles are deduced from the solutions
of characteristic examples. And, still later,
propositions are first enunciated and then
logically proved. Thus the pupil is led by
easy transition from the more elementary
forms of reasoning to pure mathematical
demonstration. Examples have been care-
fully selected both to be worked at sight
and for written work, while long and point-
less examples have been generally avoided.
Factorinc: is treated with considerable full-

EsSATS ON God and Man ; or, a Philo-
sophical Inquiry into the Principles
OF Religion. By the Rev. Henry Truro
Bray, Boonville, Mo. St. Louis : Nixon-
Jones Printing Company. Pp. 2*70.
Price, $2.

The author, who is an Episcopal clergy-
man, assumes that " men are everywhere
drifting away from the old beliefs " ; that
the intellect of the world has " lost all faith
in the Church of the past " ; and declares that
in his own experience he hardly ever finds a
man who believes unqualifiedly the doctrines
of the pulpit. Yet he has faith in the reality
and permanence of religion, whose essence
has been overlaid by glosses and supersti-
tion. In this book he hopes " in a measure
to lead his readers to discriminate between
the evanescent and permanent, between the
temporal and the eternal ; and to know that
while they may doubt and reject the evanes-
cent, the local, or the temporal, they should
not and may not reject the permanent, the
universal, or the eternal." He lays down as
embodying the faith of the scientific world
the propositions that " there is an infinite
intelligence whom we call God ; man is by
nature a religious being ; every religion has
in it a nucleus of truth ; no religion is exclu-
sively true, or founded upon an exclusively
divine revelation." And he attempts to show
that religion is useful and natural ; that its
VOL. XXXIV. — 9

essentials are one ; that God's revelation is
universal and continuous ; that God has been
no more mindful of one race than of another,
and is immanent in the universe, especially
in intelligences ; and " that our Bible, as the
other Bibles of the world, is, in the higher
sense, but the history of the attempts of the
people to express the impressions made on
the mind by God immanent in nature." He
further seeks to discriminate between what
is divine and what is human in religion, and
to show that man may reasonably expect a
future life.

The Constants of Nature. Part I — A Ta-
ble OF Specific Gravity for Solids
AND Liquids. By Frank Wigglesworth
Clarke. Washington : Smithsonian In-
stitution. Pp. 409.

The author published, in 18Y2, through
the Smithsonian Institution, a "Table of
Specific Gravities, Boiling-Points, and Melt-
ing-Points for Solids and Liquids," which
Prof. Henry made the first part of a work
he was contemplating under the title of
" The Constants of Nature." Other parts
were contributed by Prof. Clarke, and one
part by Prof. G. F. Becker. The present
volume is in effect a new edition of Part I,
revised, rearranged, and brought down as
nearly as possible to the date of printing.
The tables are, however, modified by the
omission of boiling and melting points, ex-
cept when those data seem essential to the
proper identification of a compound, that
want being supplied by Prof. Carnelley's
tables. The tables contain the specific gravi-
ties of 5,22Y distinct substances, and 14,465
separate determinations.

Entomology for Beginners. By A. S. Pack-
ard. New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp.
367. Price, $1.40.

This work, the author of which is an emi-
nent naturalist, is intended for the use of
young folks, fruit-growers, farmers, and gar-
deners. While amateurs and dilettant ento-
mologists may find useful hints in it, " the
needs of those who wish to make a serious
study of these animals have not been over-
looked, and it is hoped that the book will be
of some service in leading such students to
pay more attention to the modes of life,
transformations, and structure of insects than
has yet been done in this country." Promi-

I30

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nence is given to accounts of injurious in-
sects, in regard to which, besides the matter
here furnished, references are made to de-
scriptive works and reports for fuller infor-
mation. Some changes are made in classifi-
cation. Believing that some of the lower
orders, such as the " Orthoptera " and " Pseu-
do-neuroptera " are heterogeneous, unnatural
groups, which ought to be broken up into
distinct orders, sixteen orders instead of
eight are formed. Considering that there
are probably about a million species, this
number is thought not to be too many. The
general principles and descriptions are fol-
lowed by particular accounts of insects in-
jurious to agriculture, with prescriptions of
remedies against them, and information on
collecting and rearing insects, dissecting,
preserving, and microscopic mounting, and
a bibliography — " The Entomologist's Li-
brary."

Old and New Astronomy. By Richard A.
Proctor. London and New York : Long-
mans, Green & Co. In twelve monthly
parts. Pp. 64, with two Plates each.
Price, 2s. 6c?. each.

The first five parts of this work have
been received. It was the design of the au-
thor to make it the great work of his life —
the one, as he himself has said, for which
all the treatises on astronomy that he had
hitherto produced, and also his astronomical
essays and lectures, were preparatory. The
chief object of it is to present in popular
yet scientifically sound form "those views
of the heavenly bodies which are included
in what, in his last poem, Tennyson calls the
' New Astronomy ' " ; the life-histories of
worlds and suns, studies of the planets as
illustrating the stages of our own earth's
life, and of the record of the earth as illus-
trating the life-histories of the planets ; of
the sun as the one star we can examine, and
thus as telling us all we know in detail about
the nature of other suns, and of the stars as
illustrating the life of the solar system.
There are also presented points of detail in
which the astronomy of to-day differs from
the astronomy of a quarter of a century ago
— relating, among other things, to the struct-
ure of the galaxy, the sun's condition and
surroundings, the condition of the various
orders of bodies attending on the sun, the
recognition of the moon as presenting the

history of our earth's past as well as future
life, and comets and meteors. Fuller expla-
nations than the old ones are given of the
tides and the precession of the equinoxes. The
illustrations are of prime excellence, and a
large number of them original. We are not
aware whether the author had completed his
work ; but, even if he has left it unfinished,
that which is already published may be re-
garded as a valuable addition to astronomi-
cal literature, and as giving the "latest news "
on the subject.

VlERTELJAHRESSCHRIFT iJBER DIE FoRTSCHRIT-
TE AUF DEM GebIETE DEU ChKMIE DER NaH-

KCNGS- cnd Genussmittel (Quarterly Re-
view of Progress in the Chemistry of
Foods and Condiments). Edited by Drs.
A. IIilger, J. KoNiG, R. Kayser, and E.
Sell. Vol. IL 1887. Berlin : Julius
Springer. New York : B. Westermann
& Co. Pp. 692. Price, 14 marks.

The contents of this periodical, of which
we have here the four numbers of the year
stitched into one, hardly need any other de-
scription than the title. It is compactly filled
with reports, analyses, receipts, statistics, and
other matter related to the subject, given
under such headings as " Meat," " Peptone
and Meat Preparations," " Milk," " Oils,"
" Sugars," " Spices," " Fermentation - Phe-
nomena," " Water and Water-Provision,"
" Preserves and Preserving Media," " Useful
Articles," " Methods of Analysis," " Micro-
scopic Investigations," " Laws," " Litera-
ture," and others of similar character. Only
facts receive attention.

A Sketch of the Germanic Constitution,
FROM Early Times to the Dissolution
OF the Empire. By Samuel Epes Tur-
ner, Ph. D. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 185. Price, $1.25.

Though concerning only the political
changes achieved by a particular people
among the European powers, the history of
the Germanic Constitution at all epochs of
its development is of general interest — in
early times, because of the contributions
which the Germanic stock made to the blood,
language, laws, and customs of the various
states ; in later times, because of the contro-
versies and wars that turned around German
pretensions, and of the lead taken by Ger-
many in the Reformation ; and in the pres-
ent, because of the prominence that is ac-

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

corded to German thought and German poli-
cies. The " sketch " begins with the accounts
of the Germans given when they first began
to attract attention by the Roman authors,
and is continued by periods — the " Merovin-
gian," " Carlovingian," "First Feudal," " Sec-
ond Feudal," and " Reformation " periods,
the " Period of Disintegration " and the
"Period of Dissolution," ending in 1806.
The Constitution of the new empire is not
considered.

The third number of the proceedings of
the American Society for Psychical Research
(Damrell and Upham, 50 cents) opens with
a paper, by Miss Alice C. Fletcher, on the
"Supernatural among the Omaha Tribe of
Indians," embracing myths regarding the ori-
gin of woman and the entrance of death into
the world, beliefs about the fortunes of the
spirit after death, and about ghosts, together
with a variety of superstitions and legends.
This is followed by a " Criticism on ' Phan-
tasms of the Living,' " by Prof. C. S. Peirce,
with "Remarks on Prof. Peirce's Paper,"
by Edmund Gurncy, and " Mr. Peirce's Re-
joinder." In his criticism. Prof. Peirce states
sixteen conditions to which he says the thirty-
one coincidences between a visual hallucina-
tion and a death, mentioned by Messrs. Gur-
ney, Myers, and Pcdmore, ought to conform,
but one or more of which are sinned against
by every one of the thirty-one cases, and con-
cludes that " the evidence, so far as it goes,
seems to be rather unfavorable to the tele-
pathic chaiacter of the phenomena." Mr.
Gurney admits the weakness of a few cases,
defends others, and gives additional evidence
in support of some, but yields no important
point. Prof. Peirce's rejoinder deals with
the mathematical probabilities of the thirty-
one cases being accidental coincidences, and
reviews some of the cases in detail. This
discussion is followed by brief reports from
several committees. The experiments and
investigations of the Committee on Thought-
Transference had yielded little but nega-
tive results. The Committee on Experi-
mental Psychology had received five hundred
returns from a blank designed to test the
prevalence of superstition regarding sitting
down thirteen at table, beginning a voyage on
Friday, seeing the new moon over the left
shoulder, and occupying a house reputed to

be haunted. Of three hundred and nine
men, about one tenth were more or less in-
fluenced by the first three superstitions, and
of one hundred and ninety-one women about
two tenths. The form of the fourth ques-
tion is not such as to separate the respond-
ents who have a belief in the superstition
from those who have not. The Committee
on Apparitions and Haunted Houses deemed
the last part of their designation a mis-
nomer, as they had not been able to learn of
any house which was reputed to be haunted
at the present time. They reported a num-
ber of well-authenticated cases of presenti-
ments, and stated that materials for their re-
search were coming in quite freely. The
Committee on Mediumistic Phenomena re-
ported that professional materializing me-
diums could not be got to give seances under
conditions suitable to a scientific investiga-
tion, and that where non-professional me-
diums had given such seances the results
were negative. A paper by the chairman,
on " The Basis of Investigation of Medium-
istic Phenomena," was appended to the re-
port. This is followed by two papers on
hypnotism, and one on " The Consciousness
of Lost Limbs."

" The American Folk-Lore Society " has
been formed for "the study of folk-lore in
general, and in particular the collection and
publication of the folk-lore of North Amer-
ica." Its President is Prof. Child, of H.ar-
vard ; William Wells Newell, of Cambridge,
Mass., is the Secretary ; and among its other
officers are many well-known American an-
thropologists. Its medium of publication is
The Journal of American Folk-Lore (Hough-
ton, $3 a year), a quarterly magazine, the
second number of which is before us. W.
W. Newell is the general editor. This num-
ber contains ten articles, treating of Indian
myths and customs, folk-lore of the PennsyL
vania Germans, superstitions and tales of the
negroes, etc., together with departments for
notes, items, meanings of words, and titles
of articles on folk-lore in American and for-
eign journals. The field to which the jour-
nal is devoted is exceedingly interesting and
instructive, and is one in which the material
for study should be seized upon at once, for
it will soon be too late.

Part II, of Vol. IX, second series, of the
Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Philadelphia, comprises a paper by W. B.
Scott, entitled " On some New and Little-
Known Creodonts," describing Mesonyx ob-
tusidens, Hycenodon horridus, and several
other species, with three plates, and a paper
by Henry Fairfield Osborn, entitled " On the
Structure and Classification of the Mesozoic
Mammalia," with two plates, and a number
of figures in the text.

llie Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society
(Chapel Hill, N. C.) gives evidence by its
Journal that its fifth year has been one of
activity and progress, and has contributed
to the advancement of science in the South.
Fifty-five papers have been presented to the
society during the past year, dealing with
subjects in chemistry, mathematics, ichthy-
ology, entomology, meteorology, etc., a large
part of which are pubhshed in the " Journal."
Eight regular meetings were held during the
year, and three public lectures delivered.

The first number of Insect Life, a peri-
odical bulletin of the Division of Ento-
mology, United States Department of Agri-
culture, appeared in July. It will be issued
under the direction of Prof. C. V. Riley,
United States Entomologist, and is designed
to contain short papers, notes, and corre-
spondence, which it is desirable to give to
the public without delay, or which would be
too disconnected for use in the annual reports
or in the special bulletins of the division.
The present number contains a variety of
information, consisting of descriptions of
several noxious insects, notes on the habits
of others, and records of experience in using
certain insect - exterminators, all of which
promises well for the usefulness of the pe-
riodical.

In Feiets about Ireland, Mr. Alexander B.
MacDowall presents the condition of Ireland,
and the changes it has undergone, in graphic
diagrams or by curves (Edward Stanford,
London). Under this system, plates are pre-
sented showing the relative changes in popu-
lation in Ireland, England and Wales, Scot-
land, and London, by decades since 1801 ;
and the statistics, in Ireland of agriculture,
education, emigration, evictions, drunken-
ness, crime, consumption of spirits, bank
deposits, revenue, value of crops, and occu-
pations. Each plate is accompanied by a
page of letterpress, calling attention to its

significant points. The author hopes that
these diagrams may prove of some little use
in the study of the Irish question. They cer-
tainly show at a glance much that it would '
take considerable reading to learn otherwise. \

The Colloquia Lalina of Sir. Benjamin
DWoge, of the Michigan State Normal j

School (D. C. Heath & Co.), is a collection
of dialogues intended to form the basis for
exercises in conversational Latin. It is the
outgrowth of methods pursued by the au-
thor in his own classes, and most of the
dialogues have been tested by actual use.
Its purpose is to give greater interest and
life to the study, and more thoroughness.
The dialogues give the models or forms of
expression, after which conversations may
be carried on about the subjects, in Latin ;
while the notes elucidate the grammatical
and idiomatic peculiarities which come un-
der notice.

In Selected Poems from Premiere.s et
Nouvelles Meditations (D. C. Heath & Co.)
Prof. George 0. Currie has prepared a col-
lection of Lamartine's poems, with notes,
for schools and classes. The author repre-
sented is a poet of the highest merit — " the
Christian Virgil, only greater, and just as
pure and refined," in the editor's view — and
the choice gives a fair test of his quality.
Notes are appended, which are both gram-
matical and literary in character ; a sketch
of Lamartine's life is given ; and an article
by Prof. A. Williams, of Brown University,
on the " General Character of French Verse,"
adds to the value of the work as a whole.

An Iceland Fisherman, by Pierre Loti
(New York, Gottsberger), is a story by a
French author of rising fame. His real name
is Julien Viaud, and he served during the
Franco-Chinese War on a French naval ves-
sel. The adventures which befell him dur-
ing his cruisings in the Oriental seas fur-
nished him with materials for many vivid
stories and sketches, which proved very ac-
ceptable to the public. The present story,
though written among more quiet scenes at
his home near Rochefort, is marked by simi-
lar qualities. The translation is acceptably
done by Clara Cadiot.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Charles C. Evidences of the Antiquity
of Mnn in Eastern North America. Salem, Mass. :
The Salem Press. Pp. 25.

Adams, Z. B., Bradford, E. H., and "Worthington,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

133

Q. F. Boston : Report on Physical Culture in
Schools. Pp. 15.

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Proceedinss continued.

Agrriculture, United States Department of In-
sect Life. Washiugton : Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 62.

Bierbower, Austin. The Virtues and their Rea-
sons. Chicago : George Bherwood & Go. Pp. 29-t.

Black, John C. Report of the Commissioner
of Pensions for 1SS8. Washington : Government
Printing-office. Pp. 12-3.

Bowker, R R. The President's Message. 1SS7-
"With Annotations. New York : G. P. Putnam's
80ns. Pp. 33. 25 cents.

Browning, Oscar. Aspects of Education. New
York : Industrial Education Association. Pp. 48.
20 cents.

Carter, J. M. G. Synopsis of the Medical Botany
of the United States. St. Louis: George H. i'"ield.
Pp. 176.

Chamberlin, Thomas C, Madison, Wis. The
Ethical Functions of Scientific Study. Pp. 22.

Christopher. W. S. Chemical Experiments for
Medical Students. Cincinnati : Robert Clarke &
Co. Pp. 84, with Blanks. $1.

Cope, E. D. Synopsis of the Vertebrate Fauna of
the Puerco Series. Pp. 69, with Plates.

De Annas, Iluan Ignaclo. La Zoologia de Colon
y de los Primeros Kxploradores de America (The
Zoiilogy of Columbus and of the first Explorers of
America). Havana. Pp. 185.

Fernow, B. E. Report of the Division of Forestry
for 1887. Washington: Government Printicg-Office.
Pp. 156.

Foster, Michael, and others. " The Journal of
Physiology," August, 1SS8. Cambridge, England :
Scientific Instrument Company. Pp. 160, with
Plates.

Guthrie, Ossian, Chicago. The Great Lakes and
their Relations to the Lakes and Gulf Water- Way.
Pp. 31.

Hale, E. M., M. D., Chicago. Glonoin, a Heart
Remedy. Pp. 8.

Hydrographic Bureau, Naval Office. Pilot Chart
of the North Atlantic Ocean for September. Sheet.

Jewett, Rev. Edward H. The Two- Wine Theory
discussed by Eighty-six Clergymen, with a Review.
New York : E. Steiger & Co. Pp. 176.

Jordan, David Starr. A Brief Account of the
Darwinian Theory of the Order of Species. Chicago :
A. B. Lehman & Co. Pp. 63. 25 cents.

Kellogg E. L. & Co., Chicago. A Hst of most
Valuable Books on Teaching, etc. Pp. 78.

L. A. H.. Philadelphia. The Successful Pallia-
tion of Hay-Fever. Pp. 6.

Lockwood, Dr Sau-.uel. Animal Memoirs. Part
I, Mammals. New York and Chicago: Ivison,
Blakeman & Co. Pp. 317.

Monthaye. E. Krupp and De Bange. Trans-
lated bv O. E. Michaelis. New Y'ork: Thomas
Prosser&Son. Pp.217.

Michigan. Agricultural College of. Experiments
with Wheat, and with Phster, Ashes, and Salt, as a
Top-Iiressing for Meadow and Pasture-Lands.
Pp. 11.

Moore, J. S. Friendly Letters to American
Farmers and others. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 1(»1. 25 cents.

MuUer, Frank. Virginia, Definitive Determina-
tion of Coast, 1887. Pp. 13.

Nast, Thomas. The President's Message, 1887.
With Illustrations. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 38.

Nebraska, University of. University Studies.
Vol. I, No. 1. Lincoln. Pp. 66. $1.

New York Agricultural Experiment Station,
Geneva, Bulletin N03. 11 and 12, September, 1888.
Pp. 10 and 8.

I New York Academy of Natural Sciences, Annals.
Nos. 5, 6, and 7. Pp 192, with Plates.

Ohio, Report of the State Board of Health for the
Year ending October 31, 1887. Pp. 410.

" Printers' Ink."' Vol. I, No. 5. Semi-Monthly.
New York. Pp. 480.

Riley, C. V. On the Causes of Variation in Or-
ganic Bodies. Salem, Mass. : The Salem Press.
Pp. 51.

Roosevelt. Theodore. Essavs on Practical Poli-
tics. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sous. Pp. 74.
Paper, lo cents.

Roe, Edward Reynolds. God Reigns. Chicago:
Laird & Lee. Pp. 187.

Learey. James Thomas, Tuscaloosa, Ala. He-
redity. iPp. 16.

Sherwood. George & Co., Chicago. The New
Model First Reader. Pp. 96. 35 cents.

Simon. W. Manual of Chemistry. Second edi-
tion. Philadelphia : Lea Brothers & Co. Pp. 479.

Swain Free School, New Bedford, M.tss. Con-
ditions of Admission and Retention, Courses of
Study, etc., ]8St-'89. Pp. 29.

Texas, University of. School of Geology. Plan
of Instruction. Pp. 4.

United States. Reports from Consuls, May,
1S88. Pp. 196.

United States National Museum. Proceedings
continued.

Whitman, C. O., and Allis, Edward Phelps, Jr.
" Journal of Morphology," August, I8S8. Boston :
Ginn & Co.

Wine<, Frederick Howard. American Prisons, in
the Tenth United States Census. New Y'ork : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 36. 25 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Death of Ricbard A. Proctor.— Mr. Kich-
ard Anthony Proctor, the distinguished writer
and lecturer on astronomy and other subjects,
died in this city, September 12th, of yellow
fever. He had left his home at Oak Lawn,
Florida, to go to England and fulfill some
lecture engagements, and had engaged pas-
sage on one of the steamers appointed to
sail on the following Saturday. He was ap-
parently in good health, and there had been
no yellow fever at Oak Lawn ; but very soon
after reaching his hotel he complained of
being ill. A doctor was sent for. His dis-
ease rapidly developed. He was transferred
to the Willard Parker Hospital, and died
there, in less than sixty hours after he was
first taken. A portrait of Mr. Proctor and
a sketch of his life up to that time were
given in the " Monthly " for February, 1874.
His life has been a very busy one since
then. He has written incessantly, contribut-
ing to journals of every kind, on a great va-
riety of subjects, but always with the most
interest on those relating to astronomy. A
few years ago he started a periodical, first
weekly, afterward monthly, called "Knowl-

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

edge," which was devoted principally to the
popularization of science, and to which he
was himself a voluminous contributor, writ-
ing on all sorts of subjects, from " Ameri-
canisms " and " Whist " to the purposes for
which the Pyi-amids were built. He also
wrote under a variety of signatures ; in his
own name, in astronomy; as " Edward Clodd,"
on dreams and evolution ; as " Thomas Fos-
ter," on morals and other abstruse subjects ;
as " Mephisto," on chess ; and as the editor
of several departments. In his earlier life
he accomplished something in original re-
search, at which he would have gladly con-
tinued, but financial embarrassments com-
pelled him to do that which would bring
money at once — and hence the proHfic fruits
of his pen. In 1884 Mr. Proctor married,
as his second wife, Mrs. Robert C. Mallery,
of St. Joseph, Mo., where he lived till he re-
moved to Florida in 1886. He had erected
at Oak Lawn an observatory, where he was
accustomed to spend much of his time, reviv-
ing the original work of his earlier days, and
had been engaged in later years upon a book
which he had intended to make the crowning
work of his life and his most solid title to
fame, " The Old and New Astronomy." It was
to be published in twelve monthly parts, by
Longmans, Green, and Longmans, London and
New York. We are not informed whether
the manuscript of this work has been com-
pleted ; but we understand that the sixth
part is now ready for delivery. One of the
last articles he wrote was that in " Harper's
Weekly " for September 22d, on the " Moon
a Dead World (but not like our Earth)," in
which he held that the differences in the
character of the lunar and terrestrial sur-
faces are owing to differences in the extent
to which denudation has worked on the re-
spective bodies. He also left several manu-
scripts in the hands of one of the newspaper
" syndicates."

The Teaching of Physics in Schools,—

The Committee of the American Association
on the Teaching of Physics expresses the
opinion in its report that the teaching may
begin with profit in the " grammar-school,"
but decidedly opposes any general recom-
mendation that it must begin there or in the
primary school. " Here, perhaps more than
anywhere else, nearly everything depends

upon the teacher." When taught in the gram-
mar-school and by a competent teacher, it
should be done mainly by and through illus-
trative experiments, which may be of the
simplest character, involving and exhibiting
some of the fundamental principles of the
science ; and these should generally be made
by the teacher, the pupils being encouraged
to repeat, vary, and extend. The course of
study in the high-schools should be in har-
mony with the fact that the large majority
of the young people who are educated in the
public schools receive their final scholastic
training there. It is important that the
student should be made acquainted, if only
to a limited extent, with the methods of
physical investigation, and that he should be
able himself to plan and carry out an attack
upon some of the simpler problems of the
science. In a high-school course of four
years of three terms each, the study should
not begin before the third year, and should
be continued, with three hours a week of
class-teaching, for one year — text-book work
with illustrative experiments by the instruct-
or during the first two terms, and simple
laboratory exercises in the third term. A
course like this should be required as pre-
liminary to admission to all courses in col-
lege.

Ancient Egyptian Medicine. — The an-
cient Egyptians had abundant opportunities
in performing the preparatory processes for
embalming to become acquainted with the
structure and some of the functions of man's
physical system. Hence medicine flourished
among them from an early date. Medical
colleges existed in the priestly schools of
Memphis, Heliopolis, Sais, and Thebes. Two
nearly complete medical treatises of very
great antiquity are still extant, and frag-
ments of others. The Ebers papyrus, which
is written in hieratic characters resembling
those of the earlier writings of the eighteenth
dynasty (b. c. about 1550), begins, after the
conventional prefatory adjuration, with a
section on hygienic measures and simple
remedies. This is followed by a section on
the parasite Bilharzia hcematobia, which is
still common in the Nile Valley. Other dis-
eases are then treated of, including those of
the eye, which have always been among the
most serious afflictions of Egyptian life.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

135

Twenty-four prescriptions for hair-washes,
oils, depilatories, and dyes are given. Among
them is one "to stimulate the growth of
hair, prepared for Sesh, the mother of his
Majesty King of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Teta the blessed," which carries us back to
the beginning of histori c time, for Teta was
the second king of the first dynasty, and his
mother, Sesh, may have been the queen of
Menes, the founder of the empire. Under
the heading of " The Beginning of the Mys-
tery of Medicine, Knowledge of the Motions
of the Heart, and Knowledge of the Heart,"
are described the vessels " from it [the heart]
to all parts " ; " and it is the beginning of
the vessels to each organ." Concerning the
animal spirits, we are told that these vital
spirits "enter one nostril, and penetrate to
the heart through the tube which carries
them into the body-cavity " ; and " there are
four vessels going to the two ears together,
two on the right side, two on the left side,
carrying the vital spirit into the one right
ear, the breath of death into the left ear ;
that is, it enters on the right side, the breath
of death enters on the left side."

Preglacial Caye-Men in Wales. — Dr. H.

Hicks read in the British Association ac-
counts of some explorations which he had
carried on in certain Welsh caves as afford-
ing evidence of occupation by pleistocene
men and animals before the glacial beds
which occur in the area had been deposited.
It was found that, although the caverns are
now four hundred feet above the level of
the sea, the materials within them had been
disturbed by marine action since the ple-
istocene animals and man had occupied them.
At Stet Cave a small, well-worked flint flake
had been discovered beneath twenty feet of
glacial beds. It seemed clear that the con-
tents of the cavern must have been washed
out by marine action during the great sub-
mergence in mid-glacial times, and then cov-
ered by marine sand and an upper bowlder-
clay. The author believed that the flint
implements, lance-heads, and scrapers found
in the caverns were also of the same age as
the flint flake ; hence they must all have
been the work of preglacial man. Prof.
Boyd Dawkins accepted the evidence of the
antiquity of man, and fully agreed with Dr.
Eicks's conclusions. To Mr. W. Pengelly

this was a "delicious discovery," inasmuch
as he had long stood to a great extent alone
in the opinion that the nodule flint tools in
Kent's cavern were of preglacial make. The
explorations are to be continued.

Subjects for Indnstrial Training. — Mrs.
Laura Osborne Talbot thus described to the
American Association her experiences of
the effects of a little industrial teaching
upon thirty vagrant boys whom she, with
some other ladies, had induced to attend for
three years an industrial class at Howard
University one morning in the week : " We
were limited in every way, but we found
these children of the lowest kind were de-
lighted to work with tools, and some of them
have set up little carpenter-shops of their
own, and support themselves in that way.
The moral uplifting was the best result of
all, and it is not likely that these boys will
become members of our criminal class. Each
boy as he entered the class was taught in
the tailor-shop to mend his clothes, and in
the shoe-shop to mend his shoes. One lame
colored boy from the orphan asylum became
so skillful in shoemaking that he could not
only make his own shoes, but could cut up
the larger, half-worn shoes and make them
over for baby feet. All of this I term the
best kind of economy, especially in a city
like Washington.

Contents of a North Carolina Monnd. —

Mr. J. M. Spainhour has described, in the
Elisha Mitchel Scientific Society, some relics
that were discovered in the excavation of a
mound in Caldwell County, N. C. Within
the mound was found a skeleton lying upon
its face, with the head resting in a large sea-
shell, the inner surface of which was carved
with hieroglyphics. Around the neck were
large beads made of sea-shells. The arms
were extended and bent at the elbows, so as
to bring the hands within about a foot of
the head. Around each wrist was a brace-
let, composed of copper and shell beads, al-
ternating. The copper beads appeared to
have been hammered into thin sheets and
rolled around the string, a part of which
was preserved. Near the right hand was an
iron implement like a chisel or punch, not
sharp-pointed, but smaller at the end away
from the handle. The left hand was resting

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on the convex surface of a sea-shell, the
concave surface of which contained about a
hundred small beads. The shell was carved
with hieroglyphics. Two other skeletons, on
either side of this one, also had their heads
resting in the concave surfaces of shells,
which were marked with hieroglyphics. Sev-
eral other skeletons were found around and
above the principal one, which was thought
to be the remains of a chief. In another
part of the cemetery were found skeletons
of persons who had evidently been buried
alive, their limbs having been held down by
large stones placed upon them.

Sanitary PInmbiag.— Dr. Sinclair White,
recently medical ofBcer of health at Sheffield,
England, in a late sanitary report, recom-
mends, for use among the poorer and less
intelligent inhabitants of towns, the form of
multiple water-closet known as the trough-
closet or water latrine. The trough is
composed of strong glazed earthenware, in
sections, with a seat to each section. The
seats are separated by partitions. The
trough may comprise any number of sec-
tions. A pipe from a flush-tank enters one
end, and it has a connection with the sewer
at the other, a trap and inspection hole in-
tervening. Water stands in the trough to
the depth of three or four inches, and it
may be flushed automatically or by hand.

Important Archseological Monnments.—

The American Association's Committee on the
Preservation of Archaeologic Remains recom-
mended that measures be taken for the pres-
ervation of the following works ; Chaco Ca-
rion, from the forks of Escavada Canon for a
distance of eight miles up ; Canon de Chelly,
Canon del Muerto, and Walnut Caiion ; the
ruin of Fossil Creek, on the east branch of
the Rio Verde, and about fifteen miles south
of Camp Verde military reservation ; ruins in
Mancas Caiion, the Round Towers situated on
the flat valleys of the Lower Mancas, and the
Cavatc Lodges in the cinder-cone, about eight
miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona Territory.
The report continues : " Besides these groups
of ruins and dwellings, there are isolated re-
mains in the Territories of New Mexico, Ari-
zona, and Utah, numbering over forty, which
demand preservation. The Pueblos, which
are not on treaty reservations or grants, and

the old Mandan and Arickaree village on the
Port Berthold Indian reservation in Dakota,
to be preserved when they cease to be in-
habited by the Indians. Also certain burial
and village sites in Alaska." The commit-
tee— Alice C. Fletcher and T. E. Stevenson —
have caused a bill to be introduced in Con-
gress providing for a reservation in New
Mexico for the purpose of archaeological
study.

Uses of Photography in Science.— In

describing some of the applications of pho-
tography to scientific purposes, Mr. H. True-
man Wood mentions, as among the advan-
tages of the art for such uses, that it is an
absolutely unprejudiced observer. The sen-
sitive plate records, with absolute fidelity,
the image thrown upon it. The sensitive
surface further has the power of storing up
feeble impressions of light, so that an image
is produced by the long-continued impact of
vibrations too feeble to have any eifect
until they have been allowed to impinge
upon the plate for a considerable time ;
while, on the other hand, the light-rays, if
of sufiicieut energy, can produce their due
effect in a time which, to human apprecia-
tion, seems infinitely small. Again, the pho-
tographic plate is affected by rays to which
the eye is quite insensitive, and thus by its
aid we can take cognizance of, and observe,
rays beyond the limits of the visible spec-
trum, of the highest and of the lowest re-
frangibility. Thus, the photographic lens
will record the impression of an infinite
amount of detail, to reproduce which by any
other method would require immense time
and labor. The most important services
which have been rendered by photography
to science are in astronomy ; in photographs
of the moon, of the sun, and of eclipses, in
which possibly evanescent phenomena are
put on permanent record for the study of
after-years. The work of cataloguing and
charting the stars, and accurately locating
them, has been greatly aided ; has been, in
fact, set in a new aspect by means of pho-
tography. Then we have the photographs
of the nebulffi, one of which, Mr. Common's
view of the nebula in Orion, Mr. Lockyer has
declared to be one of the greatest achieve-
ments in astronomy, of a value greater than
that of all the eye-observations made during

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

137

the past two and a half centuries. In as-
tronomical spectroscopy, by which great
discoveries have been made respecting the
constitution of the heavenly bodies, photoj;-
raphy has had it all its own way. Meteor-
ologists have made use of photography in
various ways, as in application to self-re-
cording instruments of various kinds, and in
observations of cloud-forms and distances,
and of lightning. In chemistry and physics,
the best photographic work has been done
by the camera when allied with the spectro-
scope. In the biological sciences and in
medicine the applications of photography
have been many and various. Anthropology
finds a valuable aid in photography, which
reproduces and perpetuates the types and
peculiarities of races and of individuals. In
the study of natural history, probably the
most important work done by photography
lies in the direction of photo-micrography ;
and in such researches as those of Mr. Muy-
bridge and M. Marey on animal locomotion.
The value of photography in geographical
science is now so well admitted that an ex-
plorer would almost as soon think of start-
ing without a rifle as without a camera.

Time-Beckoning of Pnget- Sound In-
dians.— According to Mr. M. Eells's account
of "The Indians of Puget Sound," in the
" American Antiquarian," the Nisquallies di-
vide the year into thirteen moons, for each
of which they have separate names ; also
for the waxing and waning of the moon.
The daytime is divided into dawn, sunrise,
forenoon, noon, afternoon, sunset, and dusk,
while the night has the single division of
midnight. These Indians obtained the idea
of Sunday from another tribe, before the
English came, and after that met on Sunday,
sang, danced, prayed, and tried to purify
themselves, and throw away their bad and
make their hearts good. They also married
wives on that day. Among the Twanas Sun-
day means holy day, and the other days are
day past, two days past, etc., except Satur-
day, which means " alongside," that is, of
Sunday. March is " getting warm " ; August,
"the deer sheds its horns" ; October, ''the
grass dies " ; and November, " the grass
goes into the ground." The people are gen-
erally in debt to one another-, with obliga-
tions of many years' standing. The debts

are seldom heard of except when trouble
arises about something else, and then there
is a general turning up of old scores for ten
or fifteen years back, and of the debts of
relatives and wife's relatives. At one time,
says Mr. Eells, an old Indian living at Sea-
beck was invited to a potlatch at Skokomish ;
he accepted the invitation, but while attend-
ing the feast his house was broken into and
robbed of property of considerable value.
As he could not find the trespasser, he
claimed that the man who invited him to the
potlatch ought to pay him ; because, if the
giver of the potlatch had not induced him to
leave home, he would not have lost the arti-
cles."

An Evil of Civilization. — A curious ac-
count of the Yakutal Indians was given by
Prof. William Libbey, Jr., in the American
Association. The author mentioned the
strength of the men as contrasted with the
bent, labor-wasted bodies of the women,
their aptness in mechanical arts, their strict
idea of property, their superstitions, which
are valuable as influencing fortune. A whole
tribe got baptized to change their luck, and,
when their luck did not change, the mission-
ary had to. Their rapid decrease in num-
bers was due to changes in diet and clothing.
In their climate the canned beef and cotton
overalls of the white man proved poor sub-
stitutes for seal-fat on the inside and seal-
skin without.

Lncigen. — By the " lucigen " apparatus,
according to Mr. J. B. Hannay, a light is ob-
tained from the burning of crude oil which
exceeds in effective illuminating power any
artificial light yet invented. The working of
it depends upon the action on a powerful jet
of mixed spray, hot air, and hydrocarbon
vapor, driven by compressed air, of an aspi-
rated sheet of hot air derived from the at-
mosphere. The flame takes the shape of a
cylinder, tapering at both ends, about three
feet long by nine inches in diameter, is in-
tensely white, and is without smoke or smell.
In this form it is available for open spaces
and workshops, where a lateral diffusion of
light is wanted. Modifications are imposed
upon the apparatus to adapt it to almost
every kind of building and work where it is
desired to cast a large illumination over an

138

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

irregular space. In one form, a light of from
nine to eleven thousand candle-power, " act-
ual," is obtained, which can only be com-
pared with a conflagration. The size of the
flame is so large that the shadows it casts
are nebulous at the edges, and the volume of
light so great that the shadows are partially
illuminated by the reflections from surround-
ing objects, and the sharp contrasts and
black shadows of the electric light are
avoided. The same principle is adapted for
heating purposes in the pyrigen, which gives
a furnace free from sulphur, dust, and free
oxygen, and of an absolutely steady tempera-
ture. The advantages are claimed for luci-
gen of low cost — it being one tenth that of
gas-light of corresponding power — and ex-
treme simplicity.

Fifty Tears of Sanitary Work.— The

progress of sanitation in England during
the fifty years of the Queen's reign has been
reviewed by Captain Douglas Galton. Af-
fairs were ia a bad condition at the begin-
ning of the history, in the absence of sys-
tematic methods of counteracting the natural
accumulation and operation of projiagating
conditions of disease. Parochial adminis-
trations operated mischievously, in degrading
the habitations of the working-classes and
checking tendencies to improvement. The
window-tax had been in operation one hun-
dred and fifty years, to foster darkness and
bar out ventilation. Water-supplies and
the disposal of sewage had hardly been
thought of, except in the larger towns. The
first complete registration of vital statistics
was made in 1838. A report of the Poor-Law
Commissioners on sanitary conditions em-
bodied many recommendations and princi-
ples that have since been recognized in
legislation. It is now computed that by
means of the measures that have been made
effective, the annual saving of lives, over
the previously prevailing doath-rate, was,
during 1860-'70, 4,064 ; during 18'70-'80,
13,929; and from 1880 to 1884, 21,847.
The whole death-rate for England and Wales
has been reduced from 22-OY to 1962 per
1,000 ; of deaths by zymotic diseases, from
4-52 to 2-'7l per 1,000. The improvement
in the last point in urban districts does not,
however, appear to have kept pace with
that in rural districts. The present social

condition of the people affords other evi-
dence of general improvement. The main
feature of the legislation of the past half-
century is the recognition of the principle
that when large numbers are congregated in
communities the duty of preventing injury
from this aggregation rests on the com-
munity.

Tlje Relation of Roots to Moistnrc. — Va-
riations in plants are often produced by
differences in conditions of the environment
which are imperceptible to the observer ; so
that different plants, proceeding from seeds
of the same pod and growing close together,
are hardly ever precisely alike. Mr. H. Mar-
shall Ward has shown how variations may
be occasioned by conditions affecting the
root. The active roots are furnished with
fine hairs, which go out and draw in the
moisture. The drier the soil and the more
difficult to get moisture from it, the more
thickly set generally are the hairs. The soil
consists of innumerable fine particles, of dif-
ferent shapes, sizes, and composition, and
each of these particles is covered with a thin
layer of water, a water-blanket, which ad-
heres to it tenaciously ; although, when the
moisture-coating exceeds a certain thickness,
they will yield the surplus up quite readily.
There are spaces between these particles,
each enveloped in its water-blanket, and
these interspaces influence the quantity of
water which can be held back by the soil.
If we can suppose a soil to be perfectly dry,
the interspaces will be filled with air ; when
the soil is made moist, some of this air is
driven out as the water comes in to take its
place. If the soil is made excessively wet,
all or nearly all the air may be driven out,
though this seldom happens. The functions
of the root-hairs are chiefly to apply them-
selves in the closest manner to the surfaces
of the particles of the soil, so that the water
attached to them can pass from the soil to
the plant, and, with it, whatever dissolved
matter it may contain. Some of this matter
is oxygen dissolved from the air-bubbles,
and this oxygen is essential to the life of
the root-hairs. The effect of the deprival of
oxygen is then gradually to cause the death
of the root-hairs, then of the rootlets, the
larger roots, and so on, till the whole plant
perishes. This may take considerable time

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

139

in large plants, but the process is continually
going on ; and it is what occurs in plants
growing in an overwet soil. In an open,
well-aerated soil, on the other hand, even
though it be apparently very dry, the root-
hairs multiply and develop an astonishing
power to find and absorb water ; and a
healthy, well-rooted plant can take up water
from a soil which is to all appearance air-
dry ; whereas a plant which has not had
time to develop its root-hairs in sufficient
numbers to take in the firmly adherent water-
films from numerous particles of soil would
droop and wither. Soils are suitable for par-
ticular plants or not, according as they can
or not, under the circumstances, afford the
air at the roots that the plants need. Many
plants flourish in an open soil with plenty of
sand in it, but will not grow in a stiff, wet
soil. The heavier soil is unfavorable, not
necessarily because it does not contain the
right food-materials, but because its par-
ticles are so small, so closely packed, and so
retentive of moisture, that the root-hairs do
not obtain sufficient oxygen. Root-hairs and
roots can not grow or act unless the tem-
perature is favorable ; and a close, wet soil
may be too cold for the roots at a time
when an open, drier soil (exposed to similar
conditions as regards sunshine, etc.) would
have a degree of warmth favorable to their
growth. The opening up of stifter soils by
the various processes in use is to be regarded
as a means of letting in air, and therefore
oxygen, to the roots.

The Cost of wasting Coal.— Prof. Chan-
dler Roberts estimates the weight of the
smoke-cloud which daily hangs over London
at about fifty tons of solid carbon, and two
hundred and fifty tons of carbon in the form
of hydrocarbon and carbonic-oxide gases.
Calculated from the average result of tests
made by the Smoke Abatement Committee,
the value of coal wasted from domestic
grates reaches, upon the annual consump-
tion of five millions of people, to £2,25'7,500.
The cost of cartage on this wasted coal is
calculated to be £268,750 ; while the un-
necessary passage of about 1,500,000 horses
through the streets in drawing it adds very
seriously to the cost of street cleaning and
repairing. Then there is the cost of taking
away the extra ashes, £43,000 a year. Sum-

ming it all up, the direct and indirect cost
of the wasted coal may be set down at
£2,600,000, plus the additional loss from
the damage done to property caused by the
smoky atmosphere, estimated by Mr. Chad-
wick at £2,000,000 — the whole amounting
to £4,600,000, or $23,000,000.

Wolf-nnrsed Children. — In " An Account
of Wolves nurturing Children in their Dens,"
published in 1852, by Colonel Slceman, an
experienced officer of the Indian army, are
recorded a number of such cases as are in-
dicated in the title. In one instance, near
Sultanpoor, in 1847, a wolf was seen to leave
her den, followed by three whelps and a lit-
tle boy. The boy went on alUours, and ran
as fast as the whelps could. He was caught
with difficulty, and had to be tied to keep
him from rushing into holes and dens. He
was alarmed when grown-up persons came
near him, and tried to steal away. But if it
was a child, he would rush at it with a fierce
snarl, like a dog's, and try to bite it. He
rejected cooked meat, but seized raw meat
greedily, put it on the ground under his
hands, like a dog, and ate it with evident
pleasure. He would not let any one come
near him while he was eating, but made no
objection to a dog coming and sharing his
food with him. He died in August, 1850,
and after his death it was remembered that
he had never been known to laugh or smile.
He used signs when he wanted anything, but
very few of them except when hungry, and
then pointed to his mouth. When his food
was placed at some distance from him, he
would run to it on all-fours, but at other
times he would occasionally walk upright.
He shunned human beings, and seemed to
care for nothing but eating.

Consangnineons Marriages. — Dr. Shuttle-
worth some time ago communicated to the
British Medical Association the results of the
inquiries which he had made into the influ-
ence of consanguineous marriages on off-
spring. For want of a uniform basis for
comparison, positively accurate conclusions
are hard to reach. His opinion on the sub-
ject, generally expressed, is that "first-cousin
marriages are to some extent favorable to
the production of idiot children." Extend-
ing his inquiries to the life-histories of the

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

parents, he found that in the greater number
of cases causes of idiocy could be discovered
in addition to or independently of consanguin-
ity. This is in harmony with tlie conclusion
published by Dr. C. F. Withington, that
morbid inheritance rather than specific de-
generative tendency will account for all the
infirmities met with in the offspring of cous-
ins. We may therefore assume that "the
great danger in the intermarriage of cousins
lies in the circumstance that when there is
a neurotic inheritance, there are two certain
morbid factors to contend with rather than
a possible one." On the whole, " the bal-
ance of evidence would appear to be in favor
of the conclusion that where a close scrutiny
fails to discover any heritable weakness,
neurotic or otherwise, consanguineous mar-
riage per se is not necessarily a thing to be
prohibited."

The Senses of Aaimals.— In a lecture on
" The Sense and Senses of Animals," Sir
John Lubbock, after relating his experi-
ments in teaching his dog to read, and
another experiment from which he con-
cluded that the dog could not distinguish
color, said that he had always felt a great
longing to know how the world appeared to
the lower animals. It was still a doubtful
point whether ants were able to hear. He
had concluded, from his experiments, that
they had not the power of addressing each
other. His impression, on the whole, was
that bees and ants were not deaf, but that
they heard sounds so shrill as to be beyond
our hearing. There was no doubt about in-
sects seeing. The colors of objects must
present a very different impression upon in-
sects from that on human beings. The
world to them might be full of music which
we could not hear, colors we could not see,
and sensations which we could not feel.

The History of a New Britain Papnan.—

The Rev. George Brown, a missionary, gave
in the British Association an account of the
life-history of a native of the island of New
Britain. When a child is born to the Pap-
uan people of the country, a warm banana-
leaf is wrapped around his body, and he is
fed with the expressed juice of the cocoa-
nut ; ever after which he is left to be
" dressed in pure sunshine." On the occa-

sion of the marriage of the youth, there la
an interchange of goods and a distinct pay-
ment for the wife. Presents are also given
by the women to the bride, and by the men
to the husband — a broom to the former and
a spear to the latter — after which a stick is
given to the man. The spear means that
the husband must protect his wife, the broom
that with it she must do her household work,
and the stick is the symbol of the man's au-
thority. In case of a death, the dead person
is appealed to to come back, and is expostu-
lated with for having left his friends, and
entreated to say how his fiiends have of-
fended him. The people have a definite idea
of a future state, and of the punishment of
one offender, the niggardly man. When an
old man is about to die, he is placed upon a
litter and carried round to see the scenes
among which he has passed his life, and is
then taken back to wait his time. After
death the body is placed in a sitting posture
and taken into the public square, with the
man's weapons by his side, and the peo-
ple place offerings of goods and money be-
fore it.

The Brazilian Barrancas, — Some of the
upland regions of Brazil, especially near the
city of Barbacena, are marked by the ap-
pearance of great rugged hollows in the
sides and slopes of many of the rolling,
grass - covered hills. They are land-slips,
caused by the existence of springs, and pre-
sent an appearance picturesque in the ex-
treme. Their sides are worn into every
imaginable shape, of pinnacles, domes,
pointed towers, buttresses, and cavities, with
ravines narrow, deep, and precipitous, or
wide, open spaces, surrounded by lofty per-
pendicular walls, riven by creeks, and ready
to fall. But their great charm lies in their
color. The prevailing tint is a deep Indian
red, which, combined with the green hills
and the blue sky, bearing its glistening
white clouds, constitutes a charming combi-
nation of tones. Any one of these barran-
cas, as they are called, offers excellent op-
portunities to the geologist. In many of
them are found lying upon beds of sand-
stone, near the floor of the hollow, extensive
deposits of fine laminated clays, varying in
thickness, but frequently divided into layers
like sheets of paper, with varieties of colors,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

pink, blue, white, black, gray, orange, crim-
son, purple, and yellow, lying side by side.
Prof. Agassiz described precisely similar
formations in the valley of the Amazon.
Many of these barrancas show an upper
stratum of white or yellow quartz conglom-
erate exceedingly rich in gold ; and gold can
often be got out of the surrounding earth
from the top to the bottom of the sides, the
hill being, as it were, literally " peppered "
with the precious metal.

Mingrclian Rituals.— The people of Min-
grelia, in the Caucasus, although professedly
Christians, are, according to Freiherr von
Guttner, addicted to practices and sacrifices
that smack of heathenism. Offerings are
established for all kinds of occasions, which
every countryman can tale off on his fingers
at will. Days are set for services to insure
the protection of live-stock against disease-
The most imposing of these is in behalf of
the horse. Cakes are baked, on which is
impressed the image of a horse or horse-
shoe, and are cast into a hollow tree, drenched
with wine .and blessed by the priest, while
the participants in the sacrifice hop around
the tree and Imitate the capering and neigh-
ing of horses. In case a person has the
measles, he and his attendants are dressed
in red and the room is hung with the same
color and adorned with red flowers, while
care is taken not to irritate the demon by
using a cutting instrument or admitting a
dog. For diseases of the eye, little round
cakes are made furnished with inserted pu-
pils to resemble an eye, and then swung be-
fore the eyes of the patient. The priests
are cognizant of these oflFerings, and are
said, in fact, to get the best part of the gifts.

Melting away of the Mongolian Loess.—

The process by which caves, sink-holes, and
ravines are slowly formed in limestone has
been observed by M. Potanin as going on
rapidly in the loess of Mongolia. The loess
is moved by water, and transported from
higher to lower regions with about the same
facihty and steadiness as the shifting sands
are moved by the wind. The underground
water which filtrates through it begins by
making in it a kind of cavern ; then a cir-
cular crevice appears on the surface over
the cavern, and a cylindrical vertical hol-

low, which soon becomes a deep well, is
formed through the thickness of the up-
per layers of the formation. The whole
surface of the loess deposits is dotted with
such wells, which are very dangerous to cat-
tle. By and by the formerly cylindrical well
begins to extend in the direction in which
the underground water flows, and a narrow
ravine grows until it joins the main valley.
The ravine continually increases in width by
falls of new masses of loess, and the whole
is steadily carried " down-stream " by the
water.

now a Desert was made Prodnctive.—

Dr. G. V. Poore has told the way in which
the Landes of France have been reclaimed
and made habitable by carrying out the plans
first applied by Bremontier at about the be-
ginning of this century. By reason of the
light character of the sands of the region,
and its exposure to the powerful winds of
the Bay of Biscay, its drainage presented
special difficulties, which could not be over-
come by the ordinary resources of engineer-
ing. Recognizing that it was useless to
contend against the forces of nature, Bre-
montier determined to try to make use of
them for the accomplishment of his purpose.
Knowing the virtues of planting and pro-
moting the growth of a network of roots,
he planted a tract of the dunes with peas,
which would grow in the sand and send
their roots to a considerable depth ; and, for
more permanent effect, with the maritime
pine. The pine -seeds were sown mixed
with seeds of the common broom, whose
shrubs might serve as nurse-plants to the
infant pines, and the sowings were made in
a direction at right angles to the prevailing
wind. A screen of hurdles made of gorse
or of planks deeply driven into the sand
was placed on the windward side of the
seed-ground, and the seed-ground itself was
thatched with pine-branches and other suit-
able material. In the course of time the
brooms reached their full growth, while the
pines continued to grow, overtopped them,
and crowded them out. The maritime pines
have grown well and have proved a very
profitable tree, yielding moderately good
timber and much turpentine ; in addition
to which a good business is done in charcoal.
Thus the waste moorlands on the shores of

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Bay of Biscay have become of great
commercial value. The railway journey of
four or five hours from Bordeaux to Bayonne
is now made through a long, monotonous
pine -forest. The cultivation of the pine
improves the soil, which is gradually en-
riched and altered in quality by the dead
leaves and other vegetable debris which fall
upon it. In some places clearings have been
made in the forests and vineyards planted.

The Colorado Oil-Field.— According to
Prof. Newberry's description in the Ameri-
can Association, the oil-field recently discov-
ered in Colorado is situated in the valley of
the Arkansas, above Pueblo, about the town
of Florence. The geological formation is
middle cretaceous, the Laramie coal series
(upper cretaceous) forming the table-land on
either side of the valley, the oil-wells being
bored in the Colorado shales (middle creta-
ceous). These shales are highly carbona-
ceous, and have a thickness of about three
thousand feet. About twenty wells have been
bored, mostly to the depth of from eleven to
sixteen hundred feet ; some fourteen are
now pumping, and yield from eight hundred
to a thousand barrels per day. The oil is of
excellent quality, has a green color, and an
agreeable odor. It yields on distillation forty
per cent of excellent burning-fluid, and nearly
sixty per cent of superior lubricating oil,
which contains much more paraffine than the
oil of Pennsylvania. The average yield of
the wells is nearly sixty barrels. This is
larger than the average yield of the Penn-
sylvania wells, but there are no great "gush-
ers " or fountain-wells. The oil-field of the
Arkansas Valley is extensive, and the yield
of oil may apparently be increased indefi-
nitely. At present there is no sale for the
lubricating oil, but, when an outlet is opened
to that by way of the Gulf of Mexico, the oil
industiy may be expected to become very
important and remunerative. The source of
the oil is undoubtedly the carbonaceous mat-
ter of the Colorado black shale, from which
it is being spontaneously distilled.

Deaths by Wild Beasts in India.— Con-
ditions of peril from wild beasts and snakes
exist in India of which it is hard to form an
adequate conception in a country like ours.
The death-list from these causes has, during
the last four years, averaged more than

2'2,500. Of 22,81'7 deaths in one of these
years, 20,142 were caused by shakes, leaving
2,675 to be ascribed to wild beasts. Last
year's returns also mention 60,000 head of
cattle as killed by these agencies, of which
snakes were, however, responsible for only
2,000, while 20,000 each were ascribed to
leopards and tigers. The apathy of the na-
tives in the face of this destruction would
be astonishing to a Westerner, as would
also their remissness in clearing out places
where these nuisances abound.

NOTES.

The article on " Bird Courts of Justice "
in the last number of the "Monthly" should
have been credited to " Chambers's Journal,"
from which it was, with a few adaptations
and abbreviations, compiled.

Committees were appointed by the Ameri-
can Association at its Cleveland meeting as
fellows : Committee on Chemistrv Teaching
— W. H. Seaman, W. L. Dudley, H. W. Wi-
ley, W. 0. Atwater, and W. A. Moyes; Com-
mittee on Water Analysis— 0. C. Caldwell, J.
W. Langley, J. A. Jlyers, W. P. Mason, R.
B. Warder, and W. H. Seaman ; 'Committee
to confer concerning the Organization of a
National Chemical Societ}' — A. B. Prescott,
Alfred Springer, and Edward Hart. Dr. A.
B. Prescott was substituted for Dr. Scudder
on the Committee on indexing Chemical Lit-
erature.

In a paper read by Dr. Franz Boas be-
fore the American Association, on " The
Development of the Civilization of the North
American Indian," the legends of the various
tribes are discussed, and it is shown that,
notwithstanding their general similarity, the
mythology of each tribe is founded on a sep-
arate basis. Thus it is shown that the com-
mon culture of the tribes of the northwest
coast of America is not uniform, and the in-
fluence of one of them is more particularly
traced. Tliis culture should be analyzed
more carefully before any comparisons with
Asiatic and Polynesian tribes can be suc-
cessfully made.

Prof. B. E. Fernow, having shown in the
American Association that the prevailing
definitions of a tree — as distinguished from
a shrub — are various and inexact, proposed
this : " Trees are woody plants, the seed of
which has the inherent capacity (potential
energy) of producing naturally within their
field of distribution one main, erect axis (sin-
gle stem or trunk), not divided at or near
the ground (bearing a crown), the primary
axis continuing to grow for a number of
years more vigorously than the lateral axis,
and the lower branches dying ofi: in time."

NOTES.

143

Steps were taken at the recent meeting
of the American Association for the forma-
tion of an American Geological Society. A
constitution was adopted, under which the
society will consist of not less than a hun-
dred Fellows, and will meet annually during
the Christmas holidays, with a second meet-
ing in connection with that of the American
Association. The committee under whose
charge this action was taken, of which
President Alexander Winchell is chairman,
was continued as a committee to secure
members.

From examinations of certain waters —
one of them being a " mineral " water free
from all possible sources of contamination
— in which free ammonia was present — Prof.
E. H. S. Bailey remarked, in the American
Association, that he was inclined to consider
that that substance may be sometimes a
natural constituent, and not indicative of
any pollution, of the water.

Australian experiences prove it bad
policy to offer scalp - bounties for the de-
struction of animal pests. Such bounties
have been offered for the rabbit pest, and,
encouraged by them, a class of professional
rabbit-hunters has sprung up, who carefully
nourish the supply of their profitable game,
and see that the natural enemies of the rab-
bits, which might do a great deal to limit
their increase, are kept down.

A STUDY has been made by Prof. T. G.
Bonney of the rounding of pebbles by the
Alpine torrents and rivers. From this it
appears that pebbles are rounded with com-
parative rapidity when the descent of the
stream is rapid, and they are dashed down
rocky slopes by a roaring torrent capable of
sweeping along blocks of much greater vol-
ume ; while the rounding takes place with
comparative slowness when the descent is
gentle and the average fall of the river
is about adequate to push them along in
its bed.

The International Congress of American-
ists, which meets in Berlin October 2d to 5th,
will discuss, on the first day, questions re-
lating to the discovery of the New World,
to the history of America before the time of
Columbus, and to American geology ; the
second day, subjects of archa;ology ; the third
day, those of anthropology and ethnology ;
and the fourth day, philology and palseog-
raphy.

Comparatively little attention was given
by the medical profession to the treatment
of sprains till in 1870 or 1871, when Sir
James Paget urged the investigation of the
subject and the institution of scientific meth-
ods in the matter. Dr. Wharton Hood after-
ward published in the " Lancet " an account
of the methods followed by the professional
bone-setters of the public, which, with some

blunders, were attended with considerable
success. A full treatise on the subject has
recently been published in London by Dr.
G. W. Mansell Moulin. This author recom-
mends a treatment chiefly hydropathic, with
the avoidance of such lotions and liniments
as arnica and rhus toxicodendron ; an accu-
rately measured rest, followed by moderate
and careful movements, and suitably adapted
massage.

Parasitic fishes — extremely small beings,
shaped like an eel — have been recognized
only for a relatively short time. Ten spe-
cies have been distinguished in different seas
and oceans. They usually attach themselves
to some hollow part of the bodies of marine
animals, preferably entering the respiratory
cavities of star-fish. They have even been
found in the interior of the shells of pearl-
oysters. They do not injure the animals
with which they associate themselves, for
they do not live upon them, but upon the
minute organisms which the sea-water brings
to their cavities, so that they are really com-
mensals rather than parasites.

The property which platinum and palla-
dium display of throwing off flakes of their
substance when under the influence of a
strong electric current is due to the gases
which they have occluded. Gold exhibits it
in a less degree, and it may be that the old
experiment of exploding wires by the dis-
charge from Leyden-jar batteries depends
upon the outbursts of occluded gases. The
same property of occlusion exists in car-
bon, and has to be taken account of in the
manufacture of incandescent lamps, from
the wicks of which the gases must be driven
out previous to using, else there will be no
durability to them.

Mr. Maries, superintendent of the gar-
dens of the Maharajah of Durbunga, India,
has succeeded in reclaiming a tract of waste
saline soil, in which not even weeds would
grow, by digging down to the depth of two
feet and planting thickly at the beginning of
the rainy season with trees that had been
grown in pots. In three years the ground
was filled with roots, and to all appearances
the salt had gone. When the trees were
thinned out in 1887, the soil was found to
be in good condition. Similar experiments
have been successfully carried out in other
places. Various kinds of trees were em-
ployed in the reclaiming operations, but the
best were the Inga saman, or rain-tree, and
the Albizzia procera.

Last year's coroners' inquests in Eng-
land furnished two examples of death re-
sulting from tight-lacing. The last case was
of a young lady suffering from fatty infiltra-
tion of the heart, who died suddenly while
dressing hastily after a hearty meal. The
corset was proved to have had a close agency
in determining the fatal result.

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In a communication on injuries by light-
ning in Africa, Emin Pasha shows that in
the central regions (from latitude 2'' to 6°
north) they are of average frequency, while
further north, as at Fashoda, Khartoum, and
Berber, they are nearly unheard of. A belief
prevails among the Soudan Arabs that with
every flash of lightning a piece of meteoric
iron is thrown to the earth. They fancy that
whoever is able to secure such a piece of
iron has gained a great treasure, because
swords and knives made from it can not be
surpassed in quality, and their possession
gives immunity from danger in battle, and
protection against lightning-strokes. Sheik
Narr, chief of the Takkala Mountains, is
said to have resisted all Egyptian attacks,
and to have preserved his people's inde-
pendence, through the possession of such a
sword.

Antiptrine, an artificial alkaloid obtained
from coal-tar, is recommended by M. E. Dupuy
and M. Ossian-Bonnet as a remedy for sea-
sickness. M. Dupuy as=^erts that, adminis-
tered for three days before embarking and
during the first three days of the voyage, in
doses of three grammes a day, it prevented
sea-sickness during the voyage across the
Atlantic. M. Ossian-Bonnet usually obtained
effects in ten minutes from a dose of one
and a half gramme, and in no case had to use
more than three grauimes in two doses. When
the stomach would not hold the medicine, a
subcutaneous injection was efficient.

M. DE Chardonnet has artificially pro-
duced a substance having the apparent quali-
ties of silk. He treats the ethereal solution
of cellulose with a similar solution of per-
chloride of iron or perchloride of tin, and,
adding an alcoholic solution of tannic acid,
obtains a substance that can be drawn out
into a thread. These threads, which may be
spun into stronger cords, are supple, trans-
parent, and cylindrical or flattened ; silky to
the look and the touch ; break with a weight of
twenty-five kilogrammes per square milli-
metre ; burn without the fire extending ; are
slowly decomposed by heating ; are not acted
upon by acids and alkalies of moderate de-
grees of concentration, water, alcohol, or
ether; but arc dissolved in etherated alcohol
and acetic ether.

The Belgian Government, after experi-
ments to ascertain the best methods of mak-
ing the clotliing of its soldiers water-proof,
has adopted that of bathing the goods in
acetate of alumina, and then drying them in
the air, without wringing. The doctors have
expressed the opinion that clothing thus pre-
pared ofPors no obstacle to perspiration, and
is therefore hygienically unobjectionable.
It appears also to be determined that the
goods are not depreciated either in quality
or color by the preparation. The only se-
rious objection to the process is its cost.

While the question of the origin of the
Aryans is under discussion, Mr. G. Bertin
suggests that we may learn something of it
by looking further than we have yet done
into the roots of their languages. Even in
the oldest specimens they bear evidence of
being hybrids — in inconsistencies of syntax ;
in the promiscuous use of prepositions and
postpositions ; in having many words and
roots to express the same objects ; and in the
use of three genders. Hence the original
tongue may have been a fusion of two lan-
guages— say of Accadian or some closely re-
lated speech and some Semitic language.
The supposition is supported by the fact that
a great many resemblances have been ob-
served between Accadian and Sanskrit.

A NEW view of fetichism is taken by
Major A. B. Ellis, in his book on the "Tshi-
speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast." He
does not think it characteristic of primitive
peoples, or of races low in the scale of civil-
ization, but belitves that it is arrived at only
after considerable progress has been made
in religious ideas, when the older form of
religions becomes secondary. And " it owes
its existence to the confusion of the tangible
with the intanp,ible, of the material with the
immaterial ; to the belief in tlie indwelHng
god being gradually lost sight of, until the
power, originally believed to belong to the
god, is finally attributed to the tangible and
inanimate object itself."

Some recent comparative analyses, made
at Dundee, Scotland, of the air of sewers and
that of the close rooms of some of the well-
inhabited houses of the city, turned out to
the advantage of the sewers. That is, the
analysts found in small and ill-ventilated
houses more carbonic acid, more organic
matter, and far more micro-organisms than
in the sewer-air they examined ; so that, if
the experiments were to be taken as final
and conclusive, the inhabitants of a small
room would improve their position by living
in the atmosphere of a sewer ! The experi-
ments are, of course, not to be thus taken ;
but it is easy to conceive of cases in which
the inference would be correct. The lesson
to be drawn from it would be, not that sewer-
air is less dangerous than it is thought to
be, but an admonition of the necessity for
improving the sanitary condition of some

The Zirknitzen Lake in central Carniola,
according to Herr Putik's description, ex-
hibits remarkable phenomena of periodical
emptying and filling. A gigantic cave, called
Gilovca or Karlovca by the natives, and sit-
uated at the northwest corner of the lake,
forms an outlet for the overflow. It lies at
the foot of perpendicular rocks, and leads
to a number of subterranean lakes, five of
which Herr Putik has crossed.

F. A. VULPIAN.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION".

By JOSEPH JASTEOW, Ph.D.,

PEOFESSOE OF ESPEKLMENTAL AND COIIPAEATIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN THE t^s'IVEESITY OF
WISCONSIN.

THE saying that appearances are deceptive is an inheritance
from very ancient times. To Oriental and to Greek philos-
ophers the illusory nature of the knowledge furnished by the
senses was a frequent and a fertile theme of contemplation and
discussion. The same problem stands open to the psychologist of
to-day; but, profiting by the specialization of learning and the
advance of technical science, he can give it a more comprehensive
as well as a more practical answer. The physiological activities
underlying sense-perception are now well understood ; the experi-
mental method has extended its domain over the field of mental
phenomena ; and in every way we have become more expert in
addressing our queries to the sphinx, Nature, so as to force a reply.
To outline the position of modern psychology with reference to
this interesting problem of deception is the object of the present
essay.

In a sensation we recognize a primitive element in the acquisi-
tion of knowledge. The deprivation of a sense results in a dwarfed
and incomplete mental development. This is due, not to the mere
sense-impressions that the organ furnishes, but to the perception
and co-ordination of these by inferential processes of the higher
faculties. It is not the eye of the eagle, but the brain directing
the human eye, that gives intellectual supremacy. Physiology
recognizes this distinction as one between lower and higher brain-
centers. A man may lose his retina, or may have his optic nerve
injured, and so be blind in the ordinary sense of the word. He is
prevented from acquiring further knowledge by this avenue ; but,

TOL. XXXIV. — 10

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

unless lie become blind in early cbildbood, he will retain a good
memory for visual images, will be able to more or less clearly
imagine pictorially the appearances of objects from verbal descrip-
tions, and in the free roamings of his dream fancy will live in a
world in which blindness is unknown. On the other hand, cases
occur where, owing to the disordering of certain portions of the
finely organized cortex of the brain, the patient, though retaining
full sight and understanding, is unable to derive any meaning from
what he sees. The same group of sensations that suggest to our
minds a book, a picture, a face, and all the numerous associations
clustering about these, are as unmeaning to him as the symbols of
a cipher alijhabet. This condition is termed " psychic blindness,"
and what is there lost is not the power of vision, but of interpret-
ing, of assimilating, of reading the meaning of visual sense-im-
pressions.

In the experiences of daily life we seldom have to do with sim-
ple sensations, but with more or less complex inferences from them ;
and it is just because these inferences go on so constantly and so
unconsciously that they are so continually and so persistently
overlooked. It has probably happened to the reader that, upon
raising a pitcher of water which he was accustomed to find well
filled, the vessel has flown up in his hand in a very startling man-
ner. The source of the difficulty was the emptiness of the pitcher.
This shows that one unconsciously estimates the force necessary
to raise the vessel but only becomes conscious of this train of
inference when it happens to lead to conclusions contradictory of
the fact. The perception of distance, long thought to be as primi-
tive a factor in cognition as the impression of a color, is likewise
the result of complex inferences ; and the phenomena of the stereo-
scope furnish unending illustrations of the variety and complexity
of these unconscious reasonings. These, it must be noted, are
drawn by all persons alike ; but, like the man who was unaware
that he had been talking prose all his life until so informed, are
not recognized as such until special attention is directed to them.

The simplest type of a deception occurs when such an inference
owing to an unusual disposition of external circumstances, leads
to a conclusion which other and presumably superior testimony
shows to be false. A typical case is the observation, described
already by Aristotle, that a ball or other round object held between
two fingers crossed one over the other, will seem double. Under
ordinary circumstances a sensation of contact on the left side of
one finger and on the right side of the finger next to it (to the
right) could only be produced by the simultaneous application of
two bodies. We unconsciously make the same inference when the
fingers are crossed and thus fall into error — an error, it is impor-
tant to observe, which we do not outgrow but antagonize by

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 147

more convincing evidence. Again, the stimulation of tlie retina
is ordinarily due to the impinging upon it of light-waves emanat-
ing from an external object. Accordingly, when the retina is dis-
turbed by any excejjtional cause, such as a blow or electric shock,
we have a sensation of light projected outward into space. In
brief, we are creatures of the average ; we are adjusted for the
most probable event ; our organism has acquired the habits im-
pressed upon it by the most frequent repetitions ; and this has
induced an inherent logical necessity to interpret a new experience
by the old, an unfamiliar by the familiar. As Mr. Sully well ex-
presses it, these illusions " depend on the general mental law that
when we have to do with the unfrequent, the unimportant and
therefore unattended to, and the exceptional, we employ the ordi-
nary, the familiar, and the well known as our standard.^' Illusion
arises when the rule thus applied fails to hold ; and whether or
not we become cognizant of the illusion depends upon the ease
with which the exceptional character of the particular instance
can be recognized, or the inference to which it leads be opposed by
presumably more reliable evidence.

As our present purpose is to investigate the nature of real de-
ception, of the formation of false beliefs leading to erroneous
action, it will be well to note that even such elementary forms of
sense-deceptions as those just noted fall under this head. No one
allowed the use of his eyes will ever believe that the ball held be-
tween the crossed fingers is really double, but children often think
that a spoon half immersed in water is really bent. Primitive
peoples believed that the moon really grew smaller as it rose
above the horizon, and the ancients could count sufficiently upon
the ignorance of the people to make use of mirrors and other stage
devices for revealing the power of the gods. The ability to correct
such errors depends solely upon the possession of certain knowl-
edge, or a confidence in the existence of such knowledge.

Still confining our attention to deceptions produced by excep-
tional external arrangements, let us pass to more complex in-
stances of them. These, as so many of the types of deception, are
found in great perfection in conjuring tricks. When ink is
turned into water and water into ink ; when a duplicate coin or
other article is skillfully introduced in place of the one that has
disappeared ; when two half-dollars are rolled into one ; when a
box into which you have just placed an article is opened and found
to be empty ; when the performer drives a nail through his finger,
or when a card which you have just assured yourself is the ace of
hearts on second view becomes the king of spades — you are de-
ceived because you are unaware that the addition of a chemical
will change the color of liquids ; that the piece you now see is
different from the one you saw a moment ago ; that the one half-

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dollar is hollow and the other fits into it; that the box has a
double bottom ; that the nail has been substituted for one that
fits around the finger, and that one half of the card is printed
on flap which by falling down shows another aspect. All these
are technical devices which amuse us by the ingenuity of their
construction and provoke about the same kind of mental inter-
est as does a puzzle or an automaton. Ignorance of this tech-
nical knowledge or lack of confidence in its existence may con-
vert these devices into real deceptions by changing the mental
attitude of the spectator. However, the plausibility of such per-
formances depends so much upon their general presentation that
they seldom depend for their effectiveness solely upon the ob-
jective appearances they present. Asking the reader, then, to
remember the very great number and ingenuity of such devices,
and insisting once more that the only complete safeguard against
being deceived by them is the acquisition of the purely techni-
cal knowledge that underlies their success, I will cite in detail
a trick combining illustrations of several of the principles to be
discussed. A number of rings are collected from the audience
upon the performer's wand. He takes the rings back to the stage
and throws them upon a platter. A pistol is needed, and is handed
to the performer from behind the scenes. "With conspicuous in-
difference he hammers the precious trinkets until they fit into the
pistol. A chest is hanging on a nail at the side of the stage.
The pistol is fired at this chest, which is thereupon taken down
and placed upon a table toward the rear of the stage. The chest
is unlocked and found to contain a second chest. This is unlocked
and contains a third ; this a fourth. As the chests emerge they
are placed upon the table ; and now from the fourth chest there
comes a fifth, which the performer carries to the front of the
stage and shows to contain bonbons, around each of which is tied
one of the rings taken from the audience. The effect is indescrib-
ably startling. Now for the real modus operandi. In the hand
holding the wand are as many brass rings as are to be collected.
In walking back to the stage the genuine rings are allowed to slip
off the wand and the false rings to take their places. This excites
no suspicion, as the walking back to the stage is evidently neces-
sary, and never impresses one as part of the performance. The
pistol is not ready upon the stage, but must be gone for, and as
the assistant hands the performer the pistol, the latter hands the
assistant the true rings. The hammering of the rings is now de-
liberately undertaken, thus giving the assistant ample time to tie
the rings to the bonbons, and, while all attention is concentrated
upon the firing of the i)istol, the assistant unobtrusively pushes a
small table on to the rear of the stage. This table has a small
fringe hanging about it, certainly an insignificant detail, but none

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 149

the less worth noting. The chests are now opened, and, after hav-
ing shown the audience that the second chest comes out of the
first, the third out of the second, and so on, he can very readily
and quickly draw the last smallest chest from a groove under the
table and bring it out as though it had come out of the next larger
chest. This is opened and the trick is done. So thoroughly con-
vinced is the observer by the correctness of his first three infer-
ences that the last box came out of the one before it, that I vent-
ure to say this explanation never occurred to one in ten thousand,
and that most of the audience would have been willing to affirm
on oath that they saw the last box so emerge. The psychology of
the process, then, consists in inducing the spectator to draw the
natural logical inference, which in this case will be a wrong one.

The more closely the conditions that lead to correct inferences
in ordinary experience are imitated, the more successful will be
the illusion ; and one great principle of conjuring illusions is to
first actually do that which you afterward wish the audience to
believe you have done. Thus, when coins are caught in mid-air
and thrown into a hat, a few are really thrown in ; but the others
palmed in the hand holding the hat, and allowed to fall in when
the other hand makes the appropriate movements. Some of the
rings to be mysteriously linked together are given to the audience
for examination and found to contain no opening, the audience at
once concluding that the rings which the performer retains are
precisely like them. In general, to gain the confidence of the per-
son to be deceived is the first step alike in sleight of hand and in
criminal fraud.

As we turn from the objective to the subjective conditions of
deception, we enter the true domain of psychology ; for the most
scientific deceiver is he who emj^loys least external aids, and
counts most upon his power of captivating the intellect. Just as
we interpret appearances by the forms they most commonly as-
sume, so it is our average normal selves that interpret them. A
variation in our sense-organs or our judging powers will lead to
illusion. The effects of contrast are an apt illustration. Coming
from a dark to a light room, the light seems glaringly bright ; a
hand immersed in hot water and then in lukewarm water will
feel the latter as cold ; when accustomed to the silence of the
country the bustle of the city seems unusually noisy, and so on.
Fatigue produces similar results. Fatigue the eye for red, and it
sees white light as green ; the last mile of a long walk seems the
longest ; the last hour of a long wait, the most tedious. So long
as we recognize our unusual condition and allow for its effects, we
are not deceived ; but under the influence of emotion this power
is easily lost. The delusions of the insane are often misinterpre-
tations of abnormal sensations under the guidance of a dominant

150

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

idea. One patient, witli abnormal skin-sensibility, believes he is
made of glass or stone ; another, for similar reasons, believes he
has an invisible persecutor constantly at his side. But for the
present we will assume that the judging powers do not vary be-
yond their normal limits.

In every perception two factors contribute to the result. The
one is the nature of the object perceived, the other that of the
percipient. The effect of the first factor is well recognized, the
importance of the second factor is more apt to be overlooked.
The sunset is a different experience to the artist from what it is
to the farmer ; a piece of rocky scenery is viewed with quite dif-
ferent interests by the artist and the geologist. The things that
were attractive in childhood have lost their charm, and what was
then considered stupid, if noticed at all, has become a cherished
hobby. Even from day to day our interests change with our
moods, and our views of things brighten with the weather or the
good behavior of our digestive organs. Not only will the nature
of the impression change with the interests of the observer, but
even more, tvlietlier or not an object will be perceived at all will
depend upon the same cause. The naturalist sees what the stroller
entirely overlooks ; the sailor detects a ship in the distant horizon
where the landsman sees nothing; and this is not because the
naturalist and the sailor have keener vision, but because they
know what to look for. Whenever an impression is vague or an
observation made under poor conditions, this subjective element
comes to the front. The vague and changing outline of a cloud
is " almost in shape of a camel," or " like a weasel," or " like a
whale." Darkness, fear, any strong emotion, any difficulty in
perception show the same thing. " La nuit tons les chats sont
gris." Expectation, or expectant attention, is doubtless the most
influential of all such factors. When awaiting a friend, any indis-
tinct noise is readily converted into the rumbling
of carriage - wheels ; the mother hears in every
sound the cry of her sick child. After viewing an
object through a magnify ing-glass, we detect de-
tails with the naked eye which escaped our vision
before. When the answer in the book happens
to be wrong, nine tenths of the students will be
able to get it none the less. We can regard the
accompanying outline either as a book with the
back protruding toward us or receding from us.
Everywhere we perceive what we expect to per-
ceive, in the perception of which we have an interest. The process
that we term sensation, the evidence of the senses, is dual in char-
acter, and depends upon the eyes that see as well as upon the things
that are seen.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 151

Accordingly, the conjurer whose object it is to deceive does so
by creating an interest in some unimportant detail, while he is
performing the real trick before your eyes without your noticing
it. He looks intently at his extended right hand, involuntarily
carrying your eyes to the same spot while he is doing the trick
with the unobserved left hand. The conjuror's wand is extremely
serviceable in directing the spectator's attention to the place
where the performer desires to have it.* So, again, when engrossed
in work, we are oblivious to the knock at the door or the ringing
of the dinner-bell. An absent-minded person is one so entirely
" present-minded " to one train of thought that other impressions
are unperceived. The pickpocket is psychologist enough to know
that at the depot, the theatre, or wherever one's attention is
sharply focused in one direction, is his best opportunity for car-
rying away your watch. It is in the negative field of attention
that deception effects its purpose. Houdin gives it as one of his
rules never to announce beforehand the nature of the effect which
you intend to produce, so that the spectator may not know where
to fix his attention. He also tells us that whenever you count
" one, hvo, three," as preliminary to the disappearance of an object,
the real vanishing must take place before you say " three," for
the audience have their attention fixed upon " three," and what-
ever is done at " one " or " two " entirely escapes their notice. The
" patter " or setting of a trick is often the real art about it, be-
cause it directs or rather misdirects the attention. When per-
forming before the Arabs, Houdin produced an astounding effect
by a very simple trick. Under ordinary circumstances the trick
was announced as the changing of the weight of a chest, making
it heavy or light at will. The mechanism was simply the attach-
ing and severing of a connection with an electro-magnet. To im-
press the Arabs, he announced that he could take a man's strength
away and restore it again at a moment's notice. At one time the
man could raise the chest with ease, but the next he would not
have power enough to move it an inch. The trick succeeded as
usual, but was changed from conjuring to sorcery — the Arabs de-
claring him in league with the devil.

The art of misleading the attention is recognized as the point
of good conjuring, the analogues of the diplomacy that makes the
object of language to conceal thought ; and a host of appropriate
illustrations might be derived from this field. The little flour-

* " Again, a mere tap with the wand on any spot, at the same lime looking at it atten-
tively, will infallibly draw the eyes of a whole company in the same direction" — Houdin.
Robert Houdin, often termed " the king of the conjurers," was a man of remarkable inge-
nuity and insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valu-
able. His conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist, and a
reference to his writings will well repay the reader.

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ishes, tossing an object up in the air, " ruffling " or " springing " a
pack of cards, a little joke — all these create a favorable oppor-
tunity, a "temp," when the attention is diverted and the other
hand can reach behind the table or into the "pocket." These
points would lead us too far, and perhaps it will suffice to analyze
the points of interest in the "chest and ring trick" described
above. Here the moment for the exchange of the rings is the
'one which is least suggestive of being a part of the performance,
and therefore least attended to. The preparations for the shoot-
ing absorb the attention and allow the introduction of the small
table at the rear to pass unnoticed ; while the series of drawings
of the chests so entirely prepare the spectator for the appearance
of the last chest from the one preceding, that he actually sees the
chest emerge from where it never was.

There is, however, one important factor lacking in the con-
jurer's performance to completely illustrate the psychology of
deception. It is that the mental attitude of the observer is too
definite. He knows that he is being deceived by skill and adroit-
ness, and rather enjoys it the more he is deceived. He has
nothing at stake, and his mind rests easy without any detailed
or complete explanation of how it was done. Quite different
must have been the feeling of the spectator before the necro-
mancer of old, in whose performance was seen the evidence of
secret powers that could at a moment's notice be turned against
any one to take away good luck, bring on disease, or even trans-
form one into a beast. When magic spells and wonder-working
potions were believed in, what we would now speak of as a trick
was surrounded with a halo of awe and mystery by the sympa-
thetic attitude of the spectators. The most complete parallel to
this in modern times is presented by the physical phenomena
of spiritualism.* This is a perfect mine for illustrations of the
psychology of deception, and it is this that I will consider as the
final topic in this cursory view.

The first general principle to be borne in mind is that the me-
dium performs to spectators in doubt as to the interpretation to be
placed upon what they see, or more or less determined to see in
everything the evidence of the supernatural. This mental atti-
tude on the part of the spectators is worth more to the medium
than any facts in the performance. The difference between such
a presentation and one addressed to persons cognizant of the con-
juring element in the performance, and bent upon its detection,

* For the present purpose it is necessary to select only such spiritualistic phenomena as
have conclusively been proved to be producible by trickery, and to have been accepted as
evidences of spiritual aj^eney, without disposing of the problems of spiritualism in the least.
Personally, I believe all the phenomena explicable by the same physical and psychological
principles that have divested so many of them of their mystery.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 153

can not be exaggerated. It is this that makes all the difference be-
tween the seance swarming with miracles, any one of which com-
pletely revolutionizes the principles of science, and the tedious
dreariness of a blank sitting varied only by childish utterances
and amateurish sleight of hand. Scientific observers often report
that the very same phenomena that were utterly beyond suspicion
in the eyes of believers, are to unprejudiced eyes so apparent
" that there was really no need of any elaborate method of inves-
tigation " ; close observation was all that was required. Again,
Mr. Davies, of the English Society for Psychical Research, has
experimentally shown that, of equally good observers, the one
who is informed of the general modus operandi by which such a
phenomenon as " slate-writing " is produced, will make much less
of a marvel of it than one who is left in doubt in this regard.

With these all-powerful magicians, an expected result, and the
willingness to credit a marvel clearly in mind, let us proceed from
those instances in which they have least effect up to the point
where they form the chief factor. First come a host of conjuring
tricks performed on the stage in slightly modified forms, but which
are presented as spiritualistic. So simple a trick as scratching a
name on one's hand with a clean pen dipped in water, and then
rubbing the part with the ashes of a bit of paper containing the
name, thus causing the ashes to cling to the letters formed on the
hand and reveal the mystic name, has been offered as a proof of
spirit agency. Whenever an article disappears or rapidly changes
its place, the spiritualist is apt to see the workings of hidden spir-
its ; and over and over again have the performances of professional
conjurers been declared to be spiritual in origin in spite of all pro-
test from the conjurers themselves. Here everything depends
upon the possession of certain technical knowledge ; judging with-
out such knowledge is apt to be mere prejudice. Another very
large class of phenomena consists of those in which the performer
is placed in a position apparently inconsistent with his taking any
active part in the production of the phenomena — rope-tying tests,
cabinet seances, the appearance of a " spirit-hand " from behind a
screen, locking the performer in a cage, sewing him in a bag, and
so on. The psychologist has very little interest in these ; their so-
lution depends upon the skill with which knots can be picked,
locks unfastened, and the other devices by which security can be
simulated. The chief interest in such performances is the histor-
ical one, for these have done perhaps more than anything else
to convince believers of the truth of spiritualism. Here, where
everything depends upon the security of the fastenings (for once
free, the medium can produce messages from the spirit-land lim-
ited only by his ingenuity and boldness), it might be supposed
that all possible precautions had been taken against undoing

154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tliem ; while, as a matter of fact, tlie laxity of most investiga-
tors in this regard is well known. These performances deceive
because people overlook the technical acquisitions needed to pro-
nounce upon the possibility or impossibility of a fastening being
undone and apparently restored without detection. If manufact-
urers of safes were equally credulous, and gave equally little time
to the study of the security of locks, " a safe " would be an ironi-
cal expression indeed.

Passing next to the most interesting of spiritual manifestations,
those in which self-deception comes to the foreground, I need
hardly dwell at length upon the tilting of tables, the production
of raps by movements of which the sitters are unconscious ; for
these have been so often and so ably presented that they must now
be well understood. Suffice it to say that it has been objectively
proved that it is almost impossible not to give some indication of
one's thoughts when put upon the strain ; and that, when excited,
these indications may be palpably plain and yet remain unper-
ceived by the individual who gives them. The extreme subtlety
of these indications is met by the unusual skill of the professional
" mind-reader," who takes his clew from indications which his sub-
ject is " absolutely confident he did not give." The assurance of
sitters that they knoiv they did not move the table is equally
valueless, and here nothing but objective tests will suffice. The
most wholesome lesson to be derived from the study of these phe-
nomena is the proof that not all our intentions and actions are
under the control of consciousness, and that, under emotional or
other excitement, the value of the testimony of our consciousness
is very much weakened. Again, it is almost impossible to realize
the difficulty of accurately describing a phenomenon lying outside
the common range of observation. Not alone that the knowledge
necessary to pronounce such and such phenomenon impossible of
performance by conjuring methods is absent, but with due modesty
and most sincere intentions the readiness with which the observ-
ing powers and the memory play one false is overlooked. In the
investigation of Mr. Davies, above referred to, the sitters prepared
accounts of the " slate-writing " manifestations they had witnessed,
and described marvels that they had not seen but which they were
convinced they had seen — writing on slates utterly inaccessible by
Mr. Davies, and upon slates which they had noticed a moment be-
fore were clean. The witnesses are honest ; how do these mistakes
arise ? Simply a detail omitted here, an event out of place there,
an unconscious insertion in one place, an undue importance to a
certain point in another place — nothing of which any one need
feel ashamed; something which it requires unusual training and
a natural bent to avoid. The mistake lies in not recognizing our
liability to such error.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 155

If, however, the spectator is once convinced that he has evi-
dence of the supernatural, he soon sees it in every accident and
incident of the performance. Not only that he overlooks natural
physical explanations, but he is led to create marvels by the very
ardor of his sincerity. At a materializing seance the believer
recognizes a dear friend in a carelessly arranged drapery seen in a
dim light. Conclusive evidence of the subjective character of
such perceptions is furnished by the fact that the same appear-
ance is frequently recognized by different sitters as the spiritual
counterpart of entirely different and totally dissimilar persons.
A " spirit-photograph " is declared to be the precise image of en-
tirely unlike individuals. Each one sees what he expects to see,
what appeals to his interests the most intensely. What the un-
prejudiced observer recognizes as the flimsy, disguised form of the
medium, the believer transforms into the object of his thoughts
and longings. Only let the form be vague enough, the light dim
enough, the emotions upon a sufficient strain, and that part of per-
ception in which the external image is deficient will be readily
supplied by the subjective tendencies of each individual. In the
presence of such a mental attitude the possibilities of deception
are endless ; the performer grows bolder as his victim dispenses
with tests, and we get scientific proofs of the fourth dimension
of space, the possibility of matter passing through matter, the
laws of gravity entirely set aside. And the identically same per-
formance that would convince Prof. Zoellner of the reality of
the fourth dimension of space, would show the spiritualist the
workings of his deceased friends, would convince the theosophist
of the spiritual flight of the performer's astral body, and (it may
not be irrelevant to add) it is the same type of performance that
served and yet serves to terrify the minds of uncultivated and
superstitious savages. All depend not upon what is done, but
upon the mind of the spectator. Little by little, through neglect,
through mal-observation and lapses of memory, through an un-
willingness to mistrust the reports of an excited consciousness,
caution is abandoned, credulity enters, until mediums are actually
seen flying out of one window and into another, until the wildest
and most far-fetched fantastic explanation is preferred above a
simple one ; until the bounds of the normal are passed, real hallu-
cinations set in, conduct becomes irrational, and a state not dis-
tinguishable from insanity ensues. If this seems improbable, turn
back to the records of witchcraft persecutions and read upon what
trifling and wholly imaginary evidence thousands of innocent
lives were sacrificed ; and this not by ignorant, bloodthirsty men,
but by earnest, by eminent, by religious leaders. A child is taken
sick, is remembered to have been fondled by an old woman ;
therefore the woman has put the child under a spell and must be

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

burned. A man sees an old woman in the woods, and, on turning
about, the old woman is gone and a hare flies across his track ; he
concludes that she turned herself into a hare, and the witch test
is applied. When the personal devil was believed in, he was daily-
seen clothed in the garments that imagination had given him,
and engaged in mischievous actions of all kinds. When witchery-
was the dominant superstition, all things gave evidence of that.
With the doctrines of modern spiritualism to be supported, the
number of mediums and manifestations will be correspondingly
abundant. Create a belief in the theory, and the facts will create
themselves.

In the production of this state of mind a factor as yet unmen-
tioned plays a leading role : it is the power of mental contagion.
Error, like truth, flourishes in crowds. At the hearth of sympathy
each finds a home. The fanatical lead, the saner follow. When
a person of nervous temperament, not strongly independent in
thought and action, enters a spiritualistic circle, where he is con-
stantly surrounded by confident believers, all eager to have him
share their sacred visions and profound revelations, where the
atmosphere is replete with miracles and every chair and table
may at any instant be transformed into a proof of the supernat-
ural, is it strange that he soon becomes one of them ? — hesitat-
ingly at first, and perhaps yet restorable to his former modes of
thought by the fresh air of another and more steadfast mental
intercourse, but more and more certainly and ardently convinced
the longer he breathes the seance atmosphere. No form of con-
tagion is so insidious in its onset, so difficult to check in its
advance, so certain to leave germs that may at any moment
reveal their pernicious power, as a mental contagion — the con-
tagion of fear, of panic, of fanaticism, of lawlessness, of supersti-
tion. The story of the witchcraft persecutions, were there no
similar records to deface the pages of history, would suffice as a
standing illustration of the overwhelming power of psychic con-
tagion. To fully illustrate its importance in the production of
deception would require an essay in itself. It enters at every
stage of the process and in every type of illusion. It has least
effect when deception is carried on by external arrangements, by
skillful counterfeits of logical inferences ; its power is greatest
where the subjective factor in deception is greatest, more particu-
larly in such forms of deception as have been last described.

In this review of the types of deception, I have made no men-
tion of such devices as the gaining of one's confidence for selfish
ends, preying upon ignorance, upon fear, acting the friend while
at heart the enemy, planned connivance and skillful plotting,
together with the whole outfit of insincerity, villainy, and crime.
It is not that these are without interest or are unrelated to the

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION. 157

many types of deception described, but that they are too compli-
cated and varied to be capable of rigid analysis : the moment de-
ception becomes conscious, there must be acting and subterfuge to
maintain the appearance of sincerity. If we add this great class
of deceptions to those already enumerated, we may perhaps realize
how vast is its domain, and what a long, what a sad chapter would
be necessary to contain the history of human error.

Ethics is so closely related to psychology — right knowing to
right doing — that a brief " hcpcfdbula docet " by way of summary
may not be out of place. We find, first, a class of sense-decep-
tions which are due to the nature of sense-organs, and deceive
only so long as their true nature remains imknown. These are
neither pernicious nor difficult to correct. Next come a class of
deceptions that deceive because we are ignorant of the possibili-
ties of conjuring and pronounce upon the possibility or impossi-
bility of a certain explanation in advance of complete knowledge ;
of this I have already said enough. But most dangerous and
insidious are the deceptions in which self-deception plays the lead-
ing role. The only safeguard here is a preventive : the thorough
infusion of sound habits of thought, a full recognition of the con-
ditions under which the testimony of consciousness becomes
doubtful, an appreciation of the true value of objective scientific
evidence, and an inoculation against the evils of contagion by an
independent, unprejudiced logical schooling. When once these
evils of self-deception, fed by the fire of contagion and emotional
excitement have spread, reason has little control. As Prof.
Tyndall tells us, such " victims like to believe, and they do not like
to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence
of this frame of mind .... It [science] keeps down the weed of
superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil
unfit for cultivation." With the spread of education, with the
growth of the capacity to profit by the experiences of others,
with the recognition of the technical requisites that alone qualify
one for a judgment in such matters, with a knowledge of the pos-
sibilities of deception and of the psychological processes by
which error is propagated, the soil upon which spiritualism and
kindred delusions can flourish will be rendered unfit.

Thk French Academy of Sciences recently had a discussion about the " Canals"
of Mars. A paper by M. Fizeau remarked upon the resemblance between some
drawings of these objects and M. Nordenskiold's view of the great Icelandic glacial
crevasse in Greenland as indicating that the whole surface of Mars is covered, down
to the equator, with a glacial ice-cap. M. Janssen thought that they were rather
crackings resulting from the advanced planetary age of Mars, with excessive cool-
ing and absorption of the oceans and atmosphere, or crevasses in the rocky crust
corresponding with the furrows of the moon.

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

NEW LIGHT ON A LUNAR MYSTERY.

By GAEEETT P. SEEVISS.

EVERY possessor of a telescope knows that among the mount-
ains of the moon there are some to which the name of
" shining mountains " seems peculiarly applicable. The most cele-
brated of these is the huge extinct volcano Aristarchus, the
slopes of whose crater possess such extraordinary reflective power
that it is visible on the night-side of the moon by virtue of the
comparatively faint light received from the earth. Another fa-
mous bright mountain on the moon is Proclus, which rears its
crest high above the eastern shore of the so-called Crisian Sea.
With a telescope I have seen Proclus glittering above the brown-
ish plains surrounding it^ in the middle of a summer afternoon,
when, to the naked eye, the moon appeared as a faint silvery disk,
half blended with the blue of the sky. There are other natural
features of the moon's surface which shine with extraordinary
brightness, the most conspicuous being the systems of long " rays,"
radiating from such crater-rings as Tycho and Copernicus.

But in addition to these long-known and easily recognized ob-
jects, there have occasionally been seen upon the moon certain
bright points, which are even more curious and mysterious than
the shining mountains. The earliest observation of this kind ap-
pears to have been made by Herschel in 1783. It was repeated by
him in 1787, when he did not hesitate to report, in a communica-
tion to the Royal Society, that he had discovered three lunar vol-
canoes in a state of eruption. Astronomers have been consider-
ably puzzled ever since to account for Herschel's statement.
Nobody could question the accuracy of his observation, so far as
the power of his telescope enabled him to carry it. At the same
time, few, if any, especially in recent times, were willing to ad-
mit that that prince of telescopists had really seen volcanoes in
action upon the moon. The complete absence of any evidence that
volcanic activity did not cease upon our satellite ages upon ages
ago militated too strongly against Herschel's assertion. The gen-
eral conclusion finally was, that Herschel had been misled by the
extraordinary brightness of some of the shining mountains which
I have just described. It remained almost the only serious blot
upon Herschel's record as an observer. He had described the ap-
pearance of the supposed eruption too carefully to admit any
question as to his meaning. And yet, it seemed, a mere tyro in
astronomical observation could hardly be deceived in such a man-
ner, much less the most famous astronomer of his time.

But just now new light has been thrown upon the mystery.

NEW LIGHT ON A LUNAR MYSTERY. 159

and it comes from that center of astronomical interest, the Lick
Observatory. Prof. Holden believes that he has discovered, if not
one of the same objects described by Herschel, a phenomenon of
the same kind. It is hardly necessary to say that Prof. Holden
has not discovered a lunar volcano in action, but the extraordi-
nary appearance that he has seen sufficiently accounts for Her-
schel's mistake. It will be best to quote the Lick Observatory
director's own words from his letter on the subject to " The Ob-
servatory," an English astronomical journal :

" I have never been able to understand how Herschel, the keen-
est of observers, could have been deceived in this observation until
the night of July 15th of this year, when I was looking at the
moon with the great telescope. At the southern extremity of the
Alps, in the dark portion of the disk, not far from the terminator,
I saw an illumination of the crest of a high peak which was ex-
traordinarily and incredibly bright. . . . No part of this illumi-
nation seemed less bright than a first-magnitude star, and, taken
altogether, it was the brightest object I have ever seen in the sky.
It was apparently ten times as bright as neighboring portions of
the moon's surface. Its yellow light was tinged in places with
the purple due to the secondary spectrum of the objective ; and,
viewed as a whole, it presented the appearance of a vast conflagra-
tion— something quite foreign to the brilliant white of the rest of
the moon's surface.

" It would have required no stretch of the imagination to have
supposed it to be a tremendous eruption of a range of lunar
volcanoes. . . . Observations on this and the succeeding nights
showed that it was in fact due to a specially brilliant and favor-
able illumination of a mountain-ridge near the southern termina-
tion of the lunar Alps.

" I have now no doubt that the observation of Sir William
Herschel referred to similar appearances."

Prof. Holden then refers to a similar, though less brilliant, dis-
play that was witnessed in 1843 by Dr. Gerling, of Marburg, ap-
parently at the same spot on the moon.

I may add that there are at least two other recorded appari-
tions of this sort which were seen in that neighborhood, but evi-
dently not in exactly the same place. The first was observed by
Schroeter, the German selenographer, in 1788. He saw in the
shadow of the great range of the lunar Alps, at the eastern foot
of the mountains, a bright point, as brilliant as a fifth-magnitude
star, which disappeared after he had watched it for fifteen min-
utes. Subsequently, when the region where this light appeared
had become fully illuminated by the rising sun, Schroeter per-
ceived, where the light had been, a round shadow on the surface
of the moon, which was sometimes gray and sometimes black.

i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Notliing more was ever seen of tlie light, so far as any record
informs us, until 1865, when Grover, an English observer, caught
sight of it again, under circumstances similar to those of its
first apparition, and watched it for half an hour, when it once
more disappeared. It should be said that, in the case of Dr. Ger-
ling's observation, referred to by Prof. Holden, a " small, round,
isolated, conical mountain " was found in the place where the
light had been, on the evening following its appearance. It is
altogether probable that the gray or black spot perceived by
Schroeter was the shadow of a similar mountain, for it is well
known that some of the lunar mountains and hills are hardly
visible at all except when lateral illumination indicates their po-
sition and form by means of the shadows.

Herschel thought he had seen three active volcanoes. If
Prof. Holden's discovery accounts for one of these, it is possible
that the observations I have just described may give a clew to the
others. The phenomenon seen by Schroeter and Grover was located
fifty or sixty miles north of the point where Prof. Holden beheld
the extraordinary blaze of light last July, and at a point where
the mountains, drawing around a culminating peak, confront with
tremendous buttresses the broad level of the Mare Imbrium.

The objection has been made by Messrs. Elger and Williams,
two competent English observers, that Herschel's volcanoes can
not be identical with the glittering peaks seen by either Holden
or Gerling, because the latter were observed close to the line of
sunrise, where the morning rays touched them, while the phe-
nomena that attracted Herschel's attention were situated far
within that part of the disk where the only light came from the
earth. But Prof. Holden does not say that the illumination he
witnessed was identical in pZace with those recorded by Herschel,
but simply that it was identical in Icind. Besides, it must be re-
membered that, if these luminous appearances are due to peculiar
angles of reflection, a similar effect must be produced whether the
reflecting surfaces are presented to the sunlight or only to the
earth-shine. The difference would be simply in the degree of
brightness of the phenomena.

But while the discovery with the Lick telescope may ac-
count for Herschel's mistake, it does not clear up the mystery of
the cause of these extraordinary lights. In every case quoted
above, the illumination was evidently very much greater than
that of Aristarchus, the most brilliant of the shining mountains.
Proctor estimated that the reflective power of Aristarchus must
be equal to that of new-fallen snow. But the mountain-crest ob-
served by Prof. Holden blazed with a dazzling brilliancy that it
would be difficult to account for except upon the theory that
nearly all of the sunlight falling upon it was reflected to the ob-

iV^PF LIGHT ON- A LUNAR MYSTIJRY. i6i

server's eye. Reflection at a particular angle from vast sheets of
ice, as smooth as glass, might be suggested as the cause of such a
display, but how could ice be there without water or atmosphere ?
The suggestion that has been offered to account for the bright-
ness of Aristarchus and the " ray " systems, namely, that they
are composed of metallic dikes and masses which, for various
reasons, have escaped oxidation, is recalled by the phenomenon in
question. Upon that view we might have to assume that these
luminous points indicated the existence of tremendous crystallized
masses, with polished surfaces, throwing back the glare of the
sunshine like mirrors. But then we should not be far from the
view set forth in Richard Adams Locke's celebrated " Moon
Hoax," that some of the glittering eminences on the moon are
nothing less than enormous quartz-crystals, whose dimensions are
measured by miles instead of inches !

The fact that the apparitions of extraordinary luminosity are
confined to comparatively very small areas, and are visible only
for a short time and at long intervals, must be taken as an indi-
cation that the reflecting surfaces to which they are due must be
of such a nature, and so disposed, that they can reflect the sun's
light to us only when presented at a particular angle to our lino
of sight ; just as a piece of looking-glass, exposed to the sun at a
distance, suddenly darts a piercing ray when the eye comes within
the plane of reflection. That these surfaces are the flanks of
mountains is in the highest degree probable, and this but serves
.to heighten the impression of their extraordinary nature.

The rapid appearances and disappearances, and the long periods
of invisibility, are readily accounted for by the various librations
of the moon, whereby it presents its disk to us at a continually
varying angle, as it swims along in its " squirming orbit," under
the conflicting attractions of the sun and the earth.

The place of drawing in the formative system of education is defined by Mr,
W. Cave Thomas as that of the gymnastics of the sense of sight. It doubtless held
a similar place among the Greeks, who, taking a lesson from the success of the
formative training in their athletic games, perceived that the gymnastical system
might be applied not only to the proportionate development of the body, but also
to the joint development of all the faculties, and to that of the sense of sight, by
the practice of drawing. Instead, however, of applying so good tn example, our
systems of education tend to destroy the true proportions of the faculties by cram-
ming all sorts of knowledge into the brain. Educationists seem to forget that
their object should be to promote the power of using knowledge rather than the
aocmnulation of great stores of information. The acquisition of every new ele-
ment of knowledge is equivalent to the expenditure of a certain amount of vital
force, and every addition of new studies leads toward the verge of nervous power.
The true object of education should be, while giving the student power to utilize
any kind of knowledge, still to leave him with a working margin of vital energy.

VOL. XXXIV. — 11

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE PINE-TREE LIZARD.

Br CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D.

ON the outskirts of the quaint little village of May's Landing,
N. J., there is seen that rare object, an abandoned railroad.
Starting near this place, and running eastward for a distance of
some six miles, is a single track, laid upon a substantial road-bed
of gravel, and extending through typical Jersey pine-barrens and
cedar-SAvamps. For several years not a car has passed over the
rails, which, left to nature, have grown nutty-brown with rust,
and often concealed by luxuriant growths of false ipecac {Eu-
phorbia ipecacuanlice) , great circular mats of deep purple or pale-
green foliage, for such is the freak of the plant to vary thus in
color.

When I visited this spot late in May, 1887, the charm of the
abandoned railroad was rivaled by the beauties of the surround-
ings. The glistening snow-white sands were thickly starred with
golden Hudsonia ; the creek's banks, weighted with densest foli-
age, brilliant with sarracenia in the height of its glory, and every-
where the more modest grasses gave way to sj^arkling sun-dews.
One knew not where to turn, so crowded were the spot's enticing
features, and the rambler was likely to return empty-handed, as
is so apt to be the case where attractions are spread out in be-
wildering profusion. Wondering what novelties might be in
store as I passed the outlying traces of the village, I soon found
my progress suddenly and effectually stayed — I had reached the
tottering, crumbling trestle over Babcock's Creek. Here the gray
lizards found a most congenial home, and the peculiar locality
offered every reasonable facility for studying them. A long-
desired opjjortunity was at last mine, and birds and botany were
no longer thought of.

Pine-Tree Lizards {Sceleporus undulatus).

This pretty creature, known as the gray or pine-tree lizard
{Sceleporus undulatus), is also, in many localities, called the
' " brown swift " ; and this seems a most appropriate name, as we
read the remarks of Holbrook, De Kay, and of Alexander Wilson,
on the habits of the creature. For instance, the last named, in
his " Ornithology," expresses surprise that a sharp-shinned hawk
should have captured one, " as lightning itself seems scarce more
fleet than this little reptile." I was not p)repared, therefore, to

THE PINE-TREE LIZARD. 163

find the " swifts " on the trestle anything hut swift. It was hy
hiding, and not through speed, that they sought to escape, and it
proved comparatively easy to capture them with the unaided
hand. Often they played bo-peep merely around the timbers, and
were readily surprised, so that they ran into one hand as they
avoided the other. This proved to be the case, also, when I
searched for the lizards in the pine-woods, which were as readily
captured when up on trees as were those on the trestle.

The village boys adopted ordinarily the simple plan of using
a thread-noose placed at the end of a short stick. Dropping the
noose gently about the neck of the lizard, they lifted the creature
slightly, when its struggles at once tightened the thread and made
it a prisoner. It was a favorite pet with the children, and, when
I asked some of them if it ever bit or snapped at their fingers,
they were greatly amused. I lay stress upon this point, because
of the rather widely spread opinion that these lizards are venom-
ous. It is one with the equally absurd impression, due to igno-
rance and belittling prejudice, that all our snakes are harmful ;
but a curious feature in this case is the fact that the impression
of the lizard being venomous obtains in inverse ratio to the abun-
dance of the animal. Where exceedingly rare, the lizard is dread-
ed ; while, where abundant, as at May's Landing, it is a favorite
pet with the children.

Probably a closer study of animal life would materially reduce
the list of species supposed to be harmful by those who see but
little and know absolutely nothing about them, and put an effect-
ual check upon those who, taking advantage of the ignorance of
their audiences, assert deliberate falsehoods, because more enter-
taining than the simple truth.

As is well known, the pine-tree lizard is quite sensitive to low
temperatures. It does not make its appearance in southern New
Jersey earlier than May, nor remain abroad later than September.
Of course, this is a general statement, and only approximately
true, as all such statements must be. Perhaps there can be found
nothing more absurd in scientific literature than the frequent
ex-cathedra statements — for instance, concerning the movements
and range of our birds, as though the latter recognized any other
law than that of their own convenience and fancy.

At May's Landing I found the lizards sensitive even to the
ordinary variations of temperature of average summer days, ob-
serving that, whenever it was cloudy, they were far less abun-
dant, and actually sluggish. On the other hand, the extreme
degree of heat to which they are willing to expose themselves is
not a very high one, judging from the actions of a large number
kept in confinement.

Fifteen adult lizards were placed in an inclosure in which

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

every prominent feature of their homes was reproduced. I found
that at 120° Fahr., with the atmosphere perfectly still, they in-
variably sought shelter, clustering in one cooler and dark corner ;
but at 100° they were exceedingly active, particularly if hungry,
and made no effort to avoid the direct rays of the sun.

When exposed to a sudden transition from a very high to a
low temperature, they quickly became inert, and, as the warmth
was allowed to increase, it was instructive to see the sluggish
movements of both the lizards and the imprisoned flies give way
to more active ones, which culminated in the restored suppleness
of the reptiles being equal to the capture of the swiftly darting
insects. Forced exposure, for a period of three hours, to a tem-
perature of 135°, caused death in four instances, and brought about
a condition akin to aestivation in nine specimens thus exposed.
As the pine-tree lizards are always found in localities where there
is adequate shelter from excessively high temperature, it is not
probable that aestivation ever occurs, as it does occasionally among
some of our wild mice ; but it is interesting to note that a condi-
tion closely allied to it can be artificially produced.

The conclusion reached by both field observation and experi-
ments was, in brief, that when the temperature is such that those
forms of insect life upon which they depend become inactive, the
lizards withdraw to their shelters and likewise remain quiet if
not asleep, this period of inactivity extending over several days,
as during the prevalence of a northeast storm, or a protracted
" spell " of cool and cloudy weather. Again, experiments with a
large number in confinement showed that when kept without
food at a low temperature, they lived for many days, while a
like number starved in a short time when a high temperature
was maintained. This lizard, therefore, appears to be one origi-
nally belonging to a tropical climate, that has gradually become
adapted to a temperate and variable one.

The normal coloring of the pine-tree lizard is distinctly pro-
tective. Whether this has been gradually acquired or not, it is
certain that it now renders the animal quite inconspicuous. Par-
ticularly when it is resting upon a rough-barked tree is this true ;
and one of my first objects, in studying the species in its native
haunts, was to determine how far the markings were changeable
and under their owner's control. Many specimens were found to
be quite dark — indeed, almost black — while others were so light
that the undulating transverse bars upon the back were very dis-
tinct and discernible at a considerable distance. This difference,
I am quite sure, bore no relation to the surroundings ; and the
specimens subsequently collected and kept under daily observa-
tion for nine weeks practically retained the light or dark color-
ing they possessed, at the time of capture. In confinement many

THE PINE-TREE LIZARD. 165

individuals remained of a light color under all circumstances ;
others, that were dark when received, became light for brief
periods, but were very dark fully ninety-five per cent of the time
they were under observation.

The long and broad glistening green markings upon each side
of the abdomen are equally variable, certainly not a distinction
of sex, as suggested by Le Conte and Say, and often absent for
weeks in specimens which occasionally exhibited them in all their
brilliancy.

In no instance was there that prompt change of hue that we
see in the tree-toad {Hyla versicolor), and even more so in the
wood-frog (Rana sylvatica). The change in the latter is as abrupt
and complete as in certain fishes, and is particularly significant,
inasmuch as it is the only frog that needs protective coloring,
living as it does in woodland tracts, where it is exposed to an
abundance of enemies : and may it not be that, by its power to
adapt itself to the general color of the surroundings, it renders
itself inconspicuous to the insects upon which it preys ? If so,
the control over its color becomes doubly advantageous.

Vision in the pine-tree lizard is apparently not very acute,
although the eyes are exceedingly bright, and, when coupled with
certain movements of the head, suggest considerable intelligence.
It was found very difficult to test their visual powers, although,
once captured, these lizards became extremely tame, patient, and
obedient, and I could only infer that the sense of sight was none
of the best from the fact that when held to a mosquito-frame in
a window, upon which house-flies were walking, they missed fully
one half of those at which they snapped ; and other lizards in con-
finement, but where every possible freedom of movement was
practicable, often made many attempts to capture flies before suc-
cess crowned their efforts. If, therefore, when at large, they
depended principally upon winged insects for subsistence, their
lives would indeed be laborious ones ; but insects of sluggish
movements, ants, and small spiders, are all freely partaken of.
My friend Mr. George Pine, of Trenton, N. J., a very careful
observer, assures me that of the two insects, house-flies and
Croton-bugs, his lizards certainly preferred the latter, but were
not particularly expert in capturing them. And now, assuming
that the eye-sight of these little reptiles is not highly developed,
what of the curious " pineal eye " which they possess ? Prof.
Macloskie has recently announced in " Science " that it " is so well
developed . . . that it may probably seem to warn its owner of
the advent of daylight. It is a lenticular, glassy area of the skin
of the vertex (about a millimetre in sagittal diameter), surrounded
by a yellow border, and having a dark spot in its center. The
dark spot is opaque, caused by a mass of pigment internal to the

i66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dermis, set on the extremity of a pineal outgrowth from the
brain. The clear area around it is caused by the dermis, which is
transparent and free from the pigment which covers it internally
in other parts. The eye is covered by an escutcheon-shaped epi-
dermal shield, more transparent in the center and larger (three
by three millimetres) than the normal epidermal scales. The only
sign of degeneracy is the central cloudy mass of pigment, like a
big cataract."

I was naturally desirous of determining for myself how far it
was sensitive to light, but found the investigation beset with dif-
ficulties. Chloroformed lizards that were deprived of their eyes,
although the amputation was dexterously performed, did not
revive sufficiently to make their subsequent movements suggest-
ive ; or did sympathetic ophthalmia set in and affect the pineal
eye ?

I subsequently hit upon a plan, using very thin India-rubber
cloth, by which the eyes proper were effectually closed, and the
" eye " of the vertex left free. The lizards thus provided with a
blinding head-gear were separated from their fellows and placed
in a roomy inclosure, made up of several almost dark and very
light alternate sections, the temperature being even throughout
the lizards' range. The arrangement was, perhaps, too artificial
for a satisfactory series of observations, but it became evident at
once that the lizards recognized the difference between the dark
and light areas, and their prompt return to the latter when re-
moved from them, and again their actions when they returned,
all showed the appreciation of a difference, which I know was not
one of temperature, but beyond this I could determine nothing ;
but I recalled, at this juncture, the significant fact that in the
woods about May's Landing I noticed many lizards buried in the
fine sand and leaf -mold, their eyes closed and covered, but the
top of the head and a portion of the back, for its whole length,
exposed. The same was subsequently noted as a position fre-
quently assumed by the lizards in my Wardian cases. If, there-
fore, the " pineal eye " is sensitive to light, it is still of some use
to the creature, as it would certainly respond to a passing shadow,
and so warn the animal of the approach of a possible enemy. It
certainly would be greatly to the lizard's advantage if it had a
perfect eye in the top of its head, especially when it rests upon
the trunks of trees, and is exposed to the attacks of predatory
birds ; but the " pineal eye " is at most but a remote approach to
this. On the other hand, it was found that whenever I converged
the rays of light with a burning-glass, always so suddenly that
no thermal effect was produced, there was caused a movement of
uneasiness, a flinching, on the part of the lizard that was ex-
tremely suggestive.

THE PINE-TREE LIZARD. 167

The most superficial examination of the external ear of the
pine-tree lizard will at once lead one to infer that the animal's
hearing is acute ; and this is true. When watching the lizards
on the trestle over Babcock's Creek, at May's Landing, I was
forcibly struck with this fact. Such of them as were basking on
the timbers of the bridge were not disturbed when I approached
them with moderate care, stepping only on the cross-ties, or be-
tween them ; but if I struck the rails with my cane they instantly
took notice of it and assumed a listening attitude. I subsequently
experimented upon this point, and found that when my companion
struck the rails a smart blow, even at a distance of fifty yards,
the lizards were aware of the peculiar sound, and acted accord-
ingly, even darting out of sight with that swiftness that charac-
terizes their first few steps. I have recently learned from Rev.
John E. Peters, Sc. D., of May's Landing, that his observations
lead him to conclude that the sense of hearing is not very acute,
and that they depend principally upon that of sight for safety and
the finding of their food; but his experiments were not so ex-
tended as my own, and limited too largely to specimens in con-
finement.

It is a most interesting fact, although so very wild when
first met with, that, once captured, they instantly become tame.
Indeed, I have had them lie quietly upon -my hand, while
walking in the woods, and make no effort to escape. There
is a bare possibility that the efforts on their part to escape,
and fear, when finally captured, may produce a hypnotic con-
dition, or something like it, but this would pass by and leave
them wild. This, I think, never occurs. Once in my hand, I
have never known a pine-tree lizard to be otherwise than per-
fectly tame. But, in a large series in confinement, I found that
the sense of hearing was constantly brought into play, as shown
by their ludicrous actions when flies, shut in a thin paper box,
were placed near them. They not only heard but recognized the
noise — a very important matter, bearing as it does upon their in-
telligence. Indeed, in the woods about May's Landing I found
that the lizards were perfectly familiar with many sudden sounds
and paid no attention whatever to them. Some of these were the
sonorous croak of the bull-frog, the quick scream of the blue-jay,
the rattle of the golden-winged woodpecker, and the coarse cry of
the great-crested fly-catcher. These were all unheeded, while my
own coughing, the whistling of a single note, or the loud utterance
of a word, caused them either to assume a make-ready attitude or
to dart away. On the other hand, have these lizards any voice ?
Their actions inter se are strongly suggestive of the affirmative,
but, so far as I am able to determine, their utterances are confined
to hissing, and this I only heard when I provoked the creatures

i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by the sudden infliction of severe pain. Among a large number,
in nine weeks I never beard a voluntary biss. This, however, is
wholly negative evidence, and I am disposed to believe that an
animal possesses a voice, if its habits, in their entirety, suggest
that it has one. This perhaps unscientific method of reason-
ing arises, on my part, from the fact of having long suspected
that certain fishes and salamanders had voices, before they were
detected — my suspicions being based upon the habits, as a whole,
of these creatures. Certain snakes, too, that are now thought
only to hiss, will, I believe, be found to have a limited range of
scarcely audible utterances : so with the pine-tree lizards. I cer-
tainly have no reason to believe they talk, but possibly they may
whisper in each other's ears.

Upon several occasions I sat, unseen by them, for a long time,
very near my pen of lizards, and listened attentively, hoping to
catch some sound that was clearly a voluntary utterance of a
lizard. I only determined that one's ears, under such circum-
stances, become highly supersensitive, and a great deal is heard
at a time when, in fact, positive silence prevails. Generally, the
lizards were perfectly quiet, but at times one would move, and
then a general scuffling ensued ; but how far the noises were
attributable to their activity I can not say ; probably entirely
so. The faint, snake-like hiss, that has fairly to be squeezed out
of them, is the range of their vocal utterances, so far as I yet
know.

Concerning the breeding habits of this creature, I had no posi-
tive knowledge prior to my visit to the pine-barren regions of
southern New Jersey. I had heard the statement made that the
eggs were small, quite numerous, and deposited on the under side
of prostrate logs, and even in loose wood-piles that were con-
stantly disturbed, and that the eggs were not concealed or pro-
tected in any way. All this I knew to be false ; but where were
the eggs of the pine-tree lizard placed ? Questioning observing
residents of localities where the species abounded, I was invari-
ably informed that the eggs were laid in sand, in pits dug by
the lizards and carefully covered up. They were only discovered
by accident, no trace of their presence being noticeable. Further,
that after heavy showers the eggs were sometimes exposed, and
in this way a check was put upon the increase of the animal's
numbers. Of course, solar heat alone was relied upon to mature
the eggs. Recently, Rev. Dr. Peters has informed me that the
eggs " are said to be laid in bunches," but just what is meant by
being " bunched " I am at a loss to understand. They certainly
are not attached to each other by any agglutinating substance.
At least, the female lizards in my pens laid only dry, free eggs,
which they deposited in conical pits, one egg, the lowermost, be-

THE PINE-TREE LIZARD. i6g

ing in the bottom, then three above it, and four in the third tier.
Such was the position in two sets of eggs, while the others were
scattered over the sand in bewildering confusion. None of these
hatched, the failure to do so, inasmuch as they were fertile, being
due, I believe, to the surroundings being too dry. Probably a
certain amount of decaying vegetable matter is mingled with the
sand when the eggs are laid, and thus a moist heat is produced,
which is as necessary as it is in the case of the eggs of the alli-
gators and crocodiles.

The ova laid by my penned lizards were long, narrow, covered
with a tough skin, free from calcareous matter, and varied in
weight from twenty to twenty-four grains. At May's Landing, I
am told, the eggs are usually laid about June 1st, and hatch about
July 10th.

While the abandonment of their eggs in this apparently heart-
less manner leads to the supposition that they are indifferent to
their off sjjrings' welfare, which is true, it is somewhat interesting
to notice how very tolerant they are of the petty annoyances to
which their own or another's young subject them. My observa-
tions on this point were made from a number of young and old
confined in a roomy Wardian case, but probably what I there saw
holds good among the lizards in their native haunts. I am sure
it did among the many living on the old trestle at May's Landing.
Often a little lizard, and sometimes two, would perch upon the
head and back of an adult, and there be allowed to sit for fully an
hour. The sharp claws of these youngsters seemed at times dan-
gerously near the eyes and ears of the patient old one, but it
offered no resistance, and, when I forced such burdened lizards to
move, it was always with a deliberateness that suggested that they
were really averse to disturbing those resting upon them. Again,
adults would often rest upon each other, in what appeared to be a
most uncomfortable manner for the one beneath, often pressing
the head of the latter into the sand and completely blinding it
for the time ; yet I never saw the slightest evidence of ill-humor,
not even when they were being fed. Often it happened that some
sleepy fellow would quietly snap up the fly toward which another
lizard was cautiously crawling, yet no fight ensued. Anything
more trying than this to humanity can not be imagined, yet the
lizards took every such occurrence as a matter of course.

In running, as well as when walking about deliberately, which
they less often do, the lizard brings all four limbs equally into
play, and their gait is much like that of a cat. When progress is
suddenly arrested, they usually squat upon their hind-limbs only,
holding their head well up and elevating the body, as does a cat
or dog, by keeping the fore-limbs straight. Every attitude is sug-
gestive of intelligence, and I refer particularly to the matter, be-

I/O THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cause the differences in these respects between this lizard and the
blue-tailed skink, the only other saurian found in New Jersey, is
very marked ; the latter, as we shall see, although having less
suggestive manners, has, I believe, a greater degree of intelligence.

Blue-Tailed Skink (Eumeces fasciaius).

I have spoken of the rapid and complete submission of the
pine-tree lizard when captured. While rowing from point to
point along the rocky shores of Lake Hopatcong, Morris County,
N. J,, early in May, 1887, 1 chanced to see a beautiful "blue-tailed"
skink, an old male that was now of a uniform rich brown color,
and with a brilliantly red head. My one thought was to capture
it — but how ? I was in a profoundly cranky boat, and the water
at this point was very deep. I tried a cold douche, and the be-
wildered skink, leaping into the lake, was caught as it clumsily
swam toward shore. I placed it in a Wardian case. May 20th, and
immediately it burrowed in the thick mat of sphagnum at the bot-
tom, and for a week seldom if ever made its appearance. I could
only determine that it was alive by searching for it, and inva-
riably was bitten. It then showed a disposition to come from its
inter-sphagnian retreat, bnt remained wholly suspicious of every
sound or object that approached. Concealing myself, I watched
it carefully, and found that the shutting of a door, the crowing of
a cock near the window, and loud conversation in an adjoining
room, always frightened it ; while the singing of a canary, and of
robins in a tree near by, were not noticed. A quickly passing
shadow was particularly feared. Did it associate this with the
birds of prey that are the skink's most dangerous enemies ? Hav-
ing disappeared, it never returned by the same burrow, but, cau-
tiously peeping from a hole in an opposite corner of the case,
studied the outlook for a long time before reai3pearing. It showed
no disposition to be sociable until June 10th, when it seemed sud-
denly to gain confidence, but only to a slight degree. June 19th
it ate for the first time, and then became somewhat tamer, but
still was essentially wild, and seemed perhaps the more so because
of the contrast with the pair of lizards that were all the while its
companions. July 29th it was transferred to a roomy fernery be-
longing to a friend, where it found a close resemblance to its lake-
side home in all essential features, and immediately it became
more active ; and now, nearly four months after capture, has
become comparatively tame.

The skink, as we have seen, is exceedingly shy, irritable, and
resents the slightest interference by biting savagely, but of course
is entirely harmless. Nearly every prominent feature of the lizard

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN.

171

is represented by an opposite trait in the skink. What appeared
to be evidence of more sluggish wits than the lizard possesses, is
the fact that it did not learn to associate my presence with a
supply of food, as was true of the others, but the truth is it was
its greater fear of man that held it back, and not really a want of
cunning.

In many respects the skink recalls the snakes, and its manner
of crawling, often without making any use of the posterior limbs,
and generally keeping the body greatly bent, adds to the resem-
blance ; and so, despite its shyness and courage when captured,
evidences of intellectual strength, the skink seems lower in the
scale of intelligence than the pine-tree lizard, but they are prob-
ably their superiors ; and both are telling examples of the law of
evolution.

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN.

By M. PAUL TOPINAED.
II. — Concluded.

WE have still another question to examine before taking up
the relation between the Old World monkeys and man.
We have determined an intrinsic ascending series in the American
monkeys. Can we find a like one in the monkeys of the Eastern
Continent ?

Two stages of evolution are first determined — one which con-
cerns the tailed or ordinary monkeys, and the other comprising
the four tailless catarrhinian or anthropoid apes, among which
also two degrees are recognized — one for the gorilla, chimpanzee,
and orang, and the other for the gibbon, which is the manifest
transition between these and the tailed apes, more particularly
the semnopithecoids. To these four must be added two fossil
anthropoids — the Pliopitliecus antiquus, observed in 1837 by E.
Lartet in the Miocene of Sansan, an animal jjrobably allied to the
gibbon, and the Dryopithecus Fontani, which was found by Fon-
tan in the Miocene of Saint-Gaudens, and which is incontestably
an anthropoid, but something other than existing anthropoids.

We may also present as proof of evolution in the group of
monkeys the Mesopithecus pentelici, of which M. Gaudry has col-
lected in the Miocene of Pikermi, in Greece, specimens belonging
to twenty-five individuals. It does not fit into any of the existing
genera, but is allied by its skull to the semnoi^ithecus, and by its
limbs to the macacus. We can then suppose that it is the ances-
tor of these two by a kind of doubling of the type, such as seems
to have taken place in a considerable number of marsupial types.

M. Vogt involuntarily furnishes an argument in favor of this

172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

interior evolution. There is a gradation in the arboreal life of
monkeys. The American monkeys and the semnopithecoids do
not leave their trees ; the magots frequently come to the ground,
and are only half tree-dwellers; while the macacus and cyno-
cephalus are ground-dwellers. It is not allowable for us to be-
lieve, in view of their perfect adaptation to life on trees, that the
magots, and, with stronger reason, the macacuses and cynoceph-
aluses, correspond to an effort in a new direction — a direction by
continuing in which we could conceive that they might eventu-
ally raise themselves again to an intermittent oblique attitude,
and thus favor new adaptations.

Gratiolet, at a time when he could hardly dream of the doctrine
of evolution, from which, moreover, his religious sentiments re-
moved him, conceived the idea of parallel series among the monk-
eys of our continent, leading, for example, from the semnopithe-
cus, peculiar to Southern Asia and the neighboring islands, to the
gibbon and the orang in the same region ; from the macacus and
magot to the chimpanzee ; and from the cynocephalus to the
gorilla. Without suspecting it, Gratiolet was preparing for the
doctrine of the derivation of man from the monkey, and was as-
sociating himself with the polygenist ideas then in favor in the
anti-orthodox school.

This leads us to our last genealogical stage — the passage from
the monkey to man. I begin by describing the principal opinions
on the subject that have been in vogue or that may be sustained.
In the theory of M. Haeckel, who is monogenist for man as he is
monophyllitic for the other branches of his genealogical tree,
the tailless monkeys of the Old Continent constitute the nine-
teenth stage from the monera. They are divided into four
branches, the fourth of which is that of the anthropoids; and
this is separated into African and Asiatic branches, the latter of
which is divided in turn into three ; the third of which gives the
Pithecanthropus, or man-ape, which has already a vertical posi-
tion, but is without speech. It is his twenty-first stage, the an-
thropopithecus of M. de Mortillet, from which living man, the
twenty-second and last stage of M. Haeckel, is derived by two
branches — one for the woolly-haired negroes, and the other for
the straight-haired races, of which the Australian was the proto-
type. The place where man was thus originated by the acquisi-
tion of articulate language is fixed on M. Haeckel's map to the
southwest of India, where the hypothetical lemurian continent
may have been. The spot is marked Paradise, and is the point of
departure whence men have scattered in every direction — some
west to Africa, others east to Australasia and Melanesia, others
north to Europe and Asia, and thence by Bering Strait to
America.

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN. 173

Mr. Huxley does not express his opinion on the immediate
descent of man in any of his writings that I have read. He leaves
the reader to infer the consequences of the discussions into which
he enters, and these lead to an origin at the expense of the an-
thropoids.

Prof. Gaudry is also very reserved, but lets his opinion appear,
while he does not give it distinct form. In his scheme the series
rises, marsupials, ungulates, lemurs, and catarrhinians forming
a single group; anthropoids; and man. The anthropoid desig-
nated by him is the dryopithecus, of which he says : " The dryo-
pithecus was a monkey of a very high character, and approached
man in many particulars ; it was of nearly the same size ; in its
dentition may be recognized characteristics of the teeth of the
Australian" ("Fossiles primaires," p. 236), Further on he adds:
" If, then, it should be shown that the flints of the Beauce chalk
collected at Thenay by the Abb4 Bourgeois have been cut, the
most natural suggestion to my mind would be that they were cut
by the dryopithecus" (page 241); " unfortunately, we possess of
this dryopithecus only a lower jaw and a humerus."

Prof. Cope has an opinion, peculiar to him, that man is not
descended from the monkeys, anthropoid or other, but directly
from the lemurs. His condylarthra, the stock of nearly all the
mammalian orders, give rise especially to a branch which is
divided into three, one being represented chiefly by the genus
Anaptomorphus, and separating in turn into two branches, one of
which engenders the monkeys and anthropoids, and the other
leads directly to man. His principal reasons for this view, which
follow, show on how little our genealogies sometimes rest. Man
has, as a general rule, four tubercles or cuspids in his upper
molars. The monkeys and anthropoids have usually five tuber-
cles. The recent lemurs, the fossil Necrolemur, and the Anap-
tomorphus, have generally three tubercles. Now we sometimes
observe three tubercles in man. Prof. Cope has drawn up a long
list of the degrees of frequency of this form among the races.
The reversion is one that works toward the lemurs, and not
toward the monkeys and anthropoids.

M. Vogt's present opinion is radically different ; but the learned
professor at Geneva having at different times had nearly opposite
opinions, and having played a considerable part in the question,
we shall dwell longer with him. His first view was expressed in
1863-'64, before Darwin had formally applied to man his doctrine
of derivation by selection, and before M. Haeckel had in 18G7-'68
for the first time fully explained his genealogical tree. His second
opinion is known to me through his magnificent book on the
mammalia, which appeared in France in 1883.

In his first view, the author having exhibited the resemblances

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

between tlie antliropomorplious apes and man, and defined tlie
point from which the descent probably began, adds that it does
not result that this descent follows a single way. There are sec-
ondary types among the human races, as there are among the
monkeys. By prolonging the parallel series of Gratiolet we get
the multiple stocks of man. " All the facts together, instead of
indicating to us a common stock, a single intermediate form be-
tween the monkey and man, point to numerous parallel series
which, more or less circumscribed, must have developed them-
selves from as many parallel series of apes" (p. 626).

The second opinion appears less clearly defined than the first.
On the one side M. Vogt maintains his former ideas of polyge-
nistic simian descent, and on the other he reverses them by for-
mally denying that man is descended from the monkey. The
monkeys, he assumes, have always, as they were in the Miocene
and Pliocene ej)ochs, been cantoned in tropical climates. Essen-
tially tree-dwellers, they leap from branch to branch, and are
hardly ever displaced — not even those ground-living monkeys
that climb among the rocks. The separation between the monk-
eys of the Old and of the New Continents has always been com-
plete, there having been no communication between the two hemi-
spheres since the Eocene, or at least since the Miocene. Monkeys
not going into cold countries, they were effectually jDrevented
from approaching Bering Strait. They have, then, been but little
modified, especially in the Old Continent, where they are more
exclusively tree-dwelling. Higher types, like the laopithecus of
America and the dryopithecus of Europe, are met among them
after the Miocene, but they have undergone no further evolution
since. The fact of M. Gaudry's mesopithecus is the only one that
can be cited as in favor of any evolution.

But M. Vogt speaks here of a tendency toward a superior
organization like that of man, of an approach by different ways,
the gorilla resembling man more in its limbs, the orang in its
brain, and the chimpanzee in its skull and teeth. " No fact," he
says, " permits us to assume a single only line of evolution toward
the human organization." Passing, then, more particularly to fos-
sil species, M. Vogt insists upon his proposition that " there has
been no evolution of the simian type through the geological ages,"
and that " we can not point to any advance of this type since the
Upper Miocene."

I see nothing leading to this conclusion. As I have just shown,
there are as many probabilities of an evolution among the apes as
in any other zoological group. No series of species, it is true,
leads positively from any ape to any man. But, in paleontology,
what are exhibited to us as series of species are usually only
series of characteristics. Comparative anthropology shows us a

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN.

75

great number of characteristics forming series, proceeding from
the apes to man, and passing or not passing by the anthropoids.
M. Vogt ends with an argument that has more weight : " The in-
fantile ape is more like man than the adult ape, and their differ-
ences, characterized by the evolution of the jaws, the cranial
crests, etc., become pronounced only with age " ; and, finally, " the
conclusion results from all these facts, that man can be placed in
direct generic relation neither with recent apes nor with any of
the known fossil apes, but that the two (man and the ape) have
risen from a common stock, the characteristics of which are still
visible in the age of youth, which is nearer to the stock than the
adult being."

M. Vogt's last argument is a priori correct. Every one has
remarked the contrast between the skulls of the young and the
adult orang or gorilla. Its value rests on the admitted principle
of the parallelism of ontogeny and phylogeny, which is expressed
by saying that the forms of the young subject reproduce forms
that have existed in ancestors, and thereby indicate their filiation.
In other words, the new characteristic in progress, that which
should connect a species with a succeeding species, exists in the
adult in the highest degree, while the characteristic that belongs
to the ancestors exists in the infant when it is wanting in the
adult. As an example, we cite the pulmonary respiration of the
adult salamander and the branchial respiration of the young sala-
mander.

But it is necessary to distinguish wdiat is produced after birth
and is a fact of the growth of the body, of physiological develop-
ment by the progress of age in the individual life, from what is an
ancestral resemblance dependent on the embryological and intra-
uterine ontogeny. In the infant man, as in the young ape, the
skull is rounded in every direction, uniform, and almost without
asperities. The temporal crests and the sagittal crest, which is
only the result of the elevation and lying back of the former on
the median line, are developed on eitlier hand with age, especially
in the male, and are in relation with the strength of the muscles
that are inserted upon them. They become considerable in the
apes, and form large temporal bones in the species that have a
considerable masticatory apparatus.

The superciliary arches grow in man and in the apes with age,
and do not take so remarkable an aspect in the latter, in the an-
thropoids, for example, only because they have more ample front-
al sinuses, which is a secondary characteristic. The projection
of the jaws, also, becomes marked in both only with age ; the hu-
man infant has an orthognathous, minute face, hidden under a
skull forming a great ball, as in the orang; this face grows,
lengthens, and becomes prognathous, partly by simple augmenta-

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of volume while the skull becomes relatively diminished,
partly because the molars of the second dentition need room and
push the jaw forward.

I expect to describe hereafter how the relations between the base
of the skull and the base of the face along the naso-basilar plane
change, on either side, with the adult as compared with the infant,
the angles which craniometry marks in that part. The facial an-
gle, which I mention because it has a certain popularity, is larger
in the young ape than in the infant man. The infantile forms of
the young ape which M. Vogt speaks of are partly found in the
adult woman. They also characterize the male sex of certain
races, like the Andamans, which have for that reason been desig-
nated as infantine.

There is one characteristic implied in Prof. Vogt's argument
which seems to bear more favorably to his thesis. It is that the
young ape, the orang or chimpanzee, for example, is more intelli-
gent than the adult. This, we might say, is because it is descended
from a more intelligent ancestor than recent apes. But greater
intelligence is a rule with all young animals, as well, if we take
the circumstances into account, as with man. The brain is at that
period larger in proportion to the body ; it is in some sense virgin,
more impressionable ; it grows excessively, and asks only to ab-
sorb, to work, to turn the blood it receives to account. What is
more marvelous than the way our children learn to talk, read,
and write ? Would we adults be capable of the amount of rapid
memorizing which the mass of words and ideas inculcated into
them at that age exacts ? Young Australians are equal to Euro-
peans in the schools, and retain languages with extraordinary
facility ; but, as age comes on, their savage nature reappears, they
take off their clothes, they join their like again, and they mani-
fest no more intelligence than if they had never been among the
whites. If at our age we appear so capacious, intellectually speak-
ing, it is because we have been accumulating for many years, be-
cause we reason in great part by habit, automatically ; because
we are incessantly excited by the struggle for existence, by the
society of our likes, and by the use of language, which apes do not
possess. M. Vogt's last argument, that the young ape is more
human than the adult ape, does not, therefore, convince me.

I have mentioned the different opinions in view, positive and
negative, concerning the origin of man. Are there not other pos-
sible ones ? Although I have made many objections to M. Vogt's
theory, his uncertainty, so remarkable on the part of a man who
is usually not afraid to speak out, has made me reflect. I have
asked what could this stock be which he speaks of, common to the
ape and to man, and which is not lemuroid ? While he leaves
his readers still in suspense, it is easy to see his tendency. This

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN 177

stock started from some point in the ungulates. I liave manifested
my repugnance to supposing such an origin, which appears mon-
strous. But while this repugnance is legitimate when we have
regard to recent species — the extremities evolved from the branch
— it is less so when we go back to the trunk before the specializa-
tion of the ungulates had become as pronounced as it is now. It
must be said that nothing is impossible in nature ; that things the
least probable when we look at the outcome are realized by the
most unforeseen processes, the most tortuous roads. What selec-
tion by the hand of man has done for pigeons is found done in
nature by means the laws and mechanism of which are invisible
to us, and which we can only denominate chance.

There is one objection to the descent of man from the ape
which I have entertained, and which comes to the suyjport of M.
Vogt's thesis. As I have previously said, the primordial type
of the mammalia has four limbs, the destination of which is
already written out as far back as we can go ; all four fitted to
walking, but the fore-limbs adapted besides to serve as organs of
prehension, while the hinder ones are essentially organs of sup-
port and walking. This double specialization goes back to the
reptiles, not to speak of the dinosaurians, with which it is very
marked. Some amphibians present traces of it. With the most
ancient mammalia which are known in all their parts, like the
Phenacodus iDTimc2vus of the Lower Eocene of Wyoming Territory,
the fore-limb is well characterized as an organ of prehension and
the hinder one as for walking. The humerus is articulated with
a narrow glenoid cavity at the upper outer angle of the omoplate,
so as to permit the freest motions in different directions ; the
radius is mobile on the cubitus, around which it performs the
turning movement required by the function of the hand ; the five
fingers are spread out, the thumb is turned more on its axis as if
to permit opposition, and the hand continues in a straight line
with the forearm. On the other hand, the femur is united, as
with us, to a massive pelvis ; the articular surfaces of the knee,
the knee-pan, and the two immovable bones of the leg, are just
what the exclusive function of locomotion requires; the foot is
plantigrade, with a prominent heel and close toes, and is articu-
lated perpendicularly by its arch with the leg, as in man. With
another contemporary animal of the same bed, the Corypliodon,
of which I have only representations of the foot and hand, but
those whole, to judge by, these two organs present more resem-
blance, the foot being a little like a hand, but the differentiation
is nevertheless made.

This specialization or differentiation has reached its maximum
in man, no other animal showing it in equal degree. In the bird
the upper limb has become a wing, that is, a function of locomo-

TOL. XXXIV. — 12

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. With man alone the upper limb is exclusively a hand. The
hinder limb condenses in itself all the locomotive function which
it has till now shared within certain limits with the fore-limb, but
which has nevertheless remained directly its essential attribute.
Man thus seems to be the direct continuation of the first Eocene
mammalia ; if not of the marsupials that preceded them, the con-
firmation of a type that had been begun ; and it does not appear
very logical that his transformation should have been elffected at
the expense of a branch which appears collateral. The monkeys
have been produced by an adaptation of the hinder limb to an
arboreal life, the fore-limb remaining what it was ; this is a devia-
tion in some way from the axis of evolution, a deviation from the
primitive type. From this primitive type have been detached on
one side the ungulates through a metamorphosis of a fore-limb
adapted to prehension into a limb adapted to running, and through
a harmonic perfecting of the four limbs for the same purpose ; on
another side, the carnivores, whose four limbs have been set, to-
gether with the teeth, the jaw, and all the skull, into harmony
with the necessities to which they were subjected and the mode
of life and regimen they had adopted ; and, on the third side, the
monkeys, which, seeing the earth taken possession of by swift-
footed herbivores and bloodthirsty carnivores, have taken refuge
in the trees, or at least have flourished and maintained themselves
there, and have consequently fitted their extremities to that special
kind of life.

For men to be derived from monkeys through the disappear-
ance of the accidental adaptation of the hind-limb to a function
normally devolving on the fore-limb — that is, by returning toward
their primitive arch-ancestral type — seems strange. But it is pos-
sible, for nature does not take the shortest roads. From the car-
nivores, terrestrial animals, have descended the pinnipeds, which
by a reversionary adaptation have had their limbs atrophied,
brought near the body in the shape of paddles, and made to per-
form the part of fins. But the most probable is generally the
most simple. The hook which such an evolution of man or of
one of his precursors would have made is useless. It seems more
rational to conceive the perfect bipedal and two-handed type as
descending from a type which we have already seen marked out
in Eocene times, and constituting the fundamental original of the
mammalia. We should then have to consider the simian branch
as a collateral branch in which the evolution has not gone beyond
what is exhibited in the recent and fossil anthropoids.

This hypothesis would solve some difficulties in anthropology
that seem insurmountable. The lowest human races known to
us are so near to the higher races in proportion to the distance
that separates them from the monkeys, that we can consider the

THE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN. 179

different men as forming a relative liomogen — a species, as M. de
Quatrefages contends. The most ancient human race, that of
Neanderthal, is in the same category. Its cranial capacity — that
is, that which really characterizes man — is still considerable and
higher than in the lowest existing hnman races. Between the low-
est mean of the capacity of the skull of human races, which I put
in round numbers at eleven hundred cubic centimetres, and the
mean of the highest anthropoid species, which I estimate at five
hundred and thirty cubic centimetres, the distance is jDrodigious
when we compare it with such slight mean differences — taking
account of the relation of brain-volume to that of the body — as
have been determined between the succeeding species, genera,
families, and orders of animals. The working of such a cerebral
transformation as this calls for would require a length of time
defying all our conceptions.

Pliocene man has probably been found in America. Miocene
man is indisputable, although we have not yet been able to dem-
onstrate the fact. Now, it is in the Miocene that the monkeys
appear with their existing characteristics. Has man, then, been
constituted since they appeared ? Did the evolution choose an ani-
mal whose hind-limb was organized for a life in trees, was at once
hand and foot, when there were beside it and already previously
existing animals whose organization presented a part of the de-
sired characteristics ? There is little probability of it ; and con-
sidering, I repeat, the number of species which would have been
needed to reach the actual constitution of our brain, it seems
probable that the preparatory steps are rather taken in the Eocene
epoch at the expense of one of those condylarthra which had
already the principal morphological characteristics of man except
those relating to the brain, and which Mr. Cope has shown to be
intermediate between the marsupials and most of the recent mam-
mals. From this point could be made the differentiation corre-
sponding with different modes of life, which has given on one side
the ungulate and carnivorous branches and many others that dis-
appeared without forming a stock, and on the other side the
quadrumanous and human branches.

The human type — that is, the type that was destined to result
in the astonishing brain-development that we know, and to which
all the rest is only accessory — had then a stem of its own — a stem
which was the most central continuation of the general primitive
trunk of the mammalia. In the present order of science, the
mammalian class, as a whole, is compared to a brandling tree,
having numerous principal limbs, each terminating in efflores-
cences higher in growth. These are our most specialized groups,
the EquidcB and the ruminants among the ungulates, the lion and
the dog among the carnivores, etc. In this new system the com-

i8o THE POPULAR SCIBJYCU MONTHLY.

parison to an upward-growing tree, tlie central axis of which, put
out lateral branches, would be more just, the central stalk of it
continuing to rise like the Lombardy poplar, and giving at its
apex man.

Gentlemen, we have reached the end of our year's task. I have
explained at length the genealogy taught by M. Haeckel, and
have examined step by step the systems that have been proposed
to take its place. We have inquired whether the point of depart-
ure of the vertebrates has been from a soft-bodied worm, or from
a crustacean possessing an exterior skeleton. We have concluded
that our genealogy has passed by the ganoid fishes, to land in
what paleontologists call the labyrinthodonts, and what I have
sometimes designated as medium vertebrates. Thence the current
has carried us, not in the direction of the mammals, which, how-
ever, had already appeared in the Triassic age, but into the full
dominion of the reptiles, where we speculated concerning the
dinosauric origin of the monotremata or of some similar group.
There we met the aplacental marsupials, which we designated as
confirmed pro-mammals, and showed that, with some reserves —
of the cetaceans, for example — all the recent placental mammals,
and consequently ourselves, have issued from them. Here the
problem became complicated. To this point, except for the origin
itself of the mammals, our origin appeared clear. The lemurs
were already a cause of embarrassment. The uncertainties in-
crease respecting the immediate descent of man, although we have
at last freed ourselves from prejudices respecting it, and can dis-
cuss it coolly. Several opinions, each advanced by illustrious
authorities, confront us; I have expounded them impartially,
occasionally myself raising objections, as well as favorable argu-
ments. I have not done, and now you may say that I have some
secret preference — that you are convinced of it.

There are for me only two doctrines to be considered — one
which derives man from the primary stock of the mammals in a
direct line and without the intervention of orders, not from a
mathematical point, but from that confused mass succeeding
the marsupials, in which the differentiations are indecisive and
tend toward the ungulates or toward man ; and the other one,
which accepts the branch or the order of the primates with
all its consequences — the lemurs or prosimians at the base,
then the monkeys or simians, and man all alone at the sum-
mit.

Does one of these ennoble us more than the other ? Certainly.
The one that regards us as the dominant and central branch of
the mammalian tree, the continuation of the prototype in the
direct line, and which posits us as the crown of an evolution, the
point of departure of which is at the monera, is well calculated to

TEE LAST STAGES IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN. 181

flatter our pride. But is it true, and would not our choice of it
be a subjective one ?

All that I have told you this year and last shows that I incline
toward the other solution, and the conclusion that we are de-
scended from the monkey. One consideration to me takes the
lead of all the others. The type of the cerebral convolutions in
all the primates where it is well characterized in its ascendant
evolution is that of man ; it varies from the cebian to the pithe-
coid, from that to the anthropoid, and from the last to man only
in degree.* The develojDment to the extreme of the simian type
of the circumvolutions, and the abrupt increase in the volume of
the brain in passing from the anthropoid to man, on which I have
insisted, are, apart from the histological examination, the two
fundamental anatomical characteristics of man.f

That the foot of the monkey has a more or less opposable
thumb; that it is more or less adapted to their arboreal life;
that it should appear strange to us that the human line, after hav-
ing experienced a partial transformation of its foot, should have
resumed the original foot of its ancestors — these are details. The
cranial and facial characteristics, which are the result in man of
the considerable volume of his brain, the atrophy of the nasal
fosses, and of their numerous posterior cavities, which has brought
about the disappearance of the muzzle, the compensatory perfec-
tion of the touch and the vision, which, with the modifications
necessitated by the equilibrium of the skull, have contributed to
a bipedal attitude and an entire new series of differential charac-
teristics— are details also. That which dominates all is the cere-
bral type, already human, but in a rudimentary condition, in the
apes, as it is the same type amplified and perfected in man.

All the organs — foot, hand, teeth, thorax, pelvis, and digest-
ive tube — have been evolved in the mammals, have been trans-
formed capriciously, have taken different courses, and have been
specialized in different directions, sometimes to the same result.
One only has remained stationary, or has varied but little — the
brain — except in man. With him, or one of his ancestors among
the primates, it took a start, it grew, developed, making every-
thing bend to its needs, subordinating everything to its own life

* See P. Broca, " Anatomic comparec des circonvolutions cerebralcs," " Revue d'An-
thi-opologie," 187S, p. 385.

f According to M. Chudzinski, a competent authority on the subject, not only the type
of the circumvolutions, but the muscular and visceral anomalies found in man, plead in an
equal degree in favoi* of a simian descent. Some of the muscular anomalies even indicate
reversion toward climbing or tree-living dispositions. See the memoirs of this anatomist
in the " Revue d' Anthropologic," on "Muscular and Visceral Variations in Races," and in
the bulletins of the Societe iV AntJiropoJogie on "An Anomaly observed in the Orang."
See also his great work on the " Comparative Anatomy of the Circumvolutions," which was
published in ISTS, and reviewed in the "Revue d'Anthropologie," 1879, p. 707.

i82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

— the skull, tlie face, tlie whole body — and leaving its mark every-
where. Fishes swim, ruminants browse, carnivorous animals
hunt their prey, the monkey lives in trees, man thinks. All in
him gravitates around this characteristic. The philosopher has
rightly said, " Man is an intelligence served by organs."

We are, then, descended from monkeys, or at least everything
looks as if we were descended from them. But from what monkey,
known or unknown ? I do not know ; assuredly none of the re-
cent anthropoids has been our ancestor. From many monkeys
or only one ? I am ignorant of that also, and do not know whether
I am a monogenist or a polygenist. In the study of the human
races, I perceive arguments for and against both systems. I hope
to reach their examination in a future course. Till then I ask for
a reservation of opinion.

The subject we have been discussing is not done with ; in fact,
what I have said of my own opinion is premature. My earlier
lectures next winter will bear on the comparative morphology of
the skull, from the fish to man, especially among the mammals.
Now that our descent from monkeys is contested by persons who
are themselves partisans of our natural descent from the animals,
it is of importance that we do not concentrate our exclusive atten-
tion on the primates. We shall see what arguments comparative
craniology brings in favor of this or that genealogy or against it.
We shall thus come upon atavistic traits which we shall then be
in a situation to comprehend, upon rudimentary organs, upon
analogies, and finally upon characteristics of the evolutionary
order, or zoological ones, which I have divided in my programme
into two categories — the retrogressive and the progressive charac-
teristics. We shall thus complete the study of the cranial charac-
teristics dependent on the brain, with which I began, and shall be
able to pass to the characteristics derived from the skeleton,
among which we shall again find the application of all the pre-
ceding evolutionary data. Then only shall we be permitted to
conclude upon the place which anthropology makes for man in
nature. Whatever may be the result we reach, this place, you
may believe, will be as enviable as you could desire it to be.

I have said, in anticipation, that man is descended from the
monkey ; yes, but by a multitude of intermediaries more or less
anthropopithecoid, of which paleontology possesses no remains as
yet, but which the mind foresees, the first one having a brain like
that of Vogt's microcephalus, its followers larger brains, with
more circumvolutions, larger frontal lobes, down to the existing
type. Originally, at about the beginning of the Miocene, perhaps,
man and monkey made but one. A separation was produced, the
gap enlarged, became a crevasse, then a gulf with steeper and
steeper walls like the Colorado canons — a gulf which our friend

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS. 183

Abel Hovelacque is not in favor of, but wbich MM. Vogt and
Huxley, who are little suspected of orthodoxy, admit — a gulf
which, is growing wider every day under our very eyes ; in which
we are still permitted to perceive those lost paths, going from
one side to the other, of which Mr. Huxley speaks in the preface
to the French translation of his " Man's Place in Nature " ; but
which will soon become insuperable by the disappearance, on the
one side, of the last existing anthropoids, and, on the other side,
of the last inferior human races ; when man will be left isolated
and majestic, proudly proclaiming himself the king of creation.

We need not blush, then, for our ancestors : we were monkeys,
as before them we were reptiles, fishes, yes, even worms or crus-
taceans. But that was a long time ago, and we have grown up.
Evolution, let us say it, has lavished its favors upon us, and has
given us all the advantages in the struggle for existence. Our
rivals of yesterday are at our mercy ; we leave those which dis-
please us to perish, we create new species when we want them.
On our planet we reign, fashioning things at our will, piercing
isthmuses, going down into seas, ransacking the air, suppressing
distances, and snatching from the earth its secrets of ages. Our
aspirations, our thought, our action, have no bounds. Every-
thing pivots around us. What more can we desire ? To be god ?
That may come. Evolution has not had its last word. The an-
thropopithecus has been ; the anthropotheomorphus may be. M.
Hovelacque has tried to reconstitute the one ; why may we not
some day try to constitute the other, the man of the future ?

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS.

By Dr. HEINRICH HENSOLDT.

THIS formidable title will doubtless lead many of my readers
to apprehend that I am now going to inflict upon them one
of those abstruse and profound disquisitions on molecular physics
which are very learned and very incomprehensible. But I do not
propose to do anything of the kind. I have no desire to go into
mathematics, or to weary them with a more or less tedious reca-
pitulation of the gradual development, from crude beginnings, of
our present science of molecular dynamics, by going back to the
earliest conceptions of atoms by the Greek philosophers, or even
to the time of Dalton and Bernouilli.

I merely desire to explain, in as popular a language as the sub-
ject permits, in how far the researches of men like Helmholtz and
Sir William Thomson have modified our ideas of the ultimate
composition of matter. There will be nothing offered that is

i84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

absolutely original except certain deductions of my own which,
in my opinion, necessarily flow from the assumption that matter
is composed of indivisible and indestructible particles. I have
reason to believe that these deductions will be received with in-
terest and that they Avill throw light on and explain many things
which may have puzzled those not intimately acquainted with the
subject.

It may, indeed, be presumed that a popular exposition of the
present state of the science of molecular physics will be appreci-
ated. Everybody has heard of and knows something about the
atomic hypothesis, yet there are few who have been able to follow
the more recent researches and speculations of the foremost in-
quirers in this difficult department, because they have been com-
municated to the world in a manner in which they can only be
understood by mathematicians of the highest order. Such master-
minds are necessary, and it was perhaps fortunate for mankind
that they have hitherto confined themselves more or less exclu-
sively to original research, and not frittered away their time by
writing popular works ; but it is the duty of humbler intellects to
interpret their revelations, and give them the widest possible dis-
semination.

There is, in my opinion, no subject, outside of mathematics,
however intricate or abstruse in some of its aspects, which can not
be explained in the ordinary language of the people. What can
be clearly imagined can also be clearly expressed ; or we might as
well carry science and philosophy back to the time of Duns Scotus,
when it was considered the greatest triumph of learning to sophis-
ticate so profoundly, and hedge around with arguments an obvious
absurdity that no ordinary intellect could refute it.

I would also like to observe that in the manner in which I
shall here endeavor to place this subject before my readers I have
been largely influenced by the perusal of a recent work on molec-
ular dynamics by Lasswitz, a German physicist and philosopher,
little known as yet in this country, a profound thinker. To this
work, which can not fail to make a great impression on all cultured
minds, I am indebted for many of the similes which I intend to
make use of. Some of these similes may appear fanciful or ex-
travagant, but a little reflection will show their fitness and value
in the interpretation of some of the more difiicult problems with
which we are here confronted.

Let us imagine ourselves, on a cold and clear winter night, sud-
denly transferred from this greatest and noisiest of American
cities, hundreds of miles away, into the stillness of the country, or
into the depth of some solitary forest.

Nothing around us seems to stir ; we are far from the roar of
cities ; above us the silence of the stars, beneath us a soft carpet

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS. 185

of snow ; not a sound to be heard, not a "breatli of wind stirring
tlie branches.

And yet we know that all this is an illusion ! Those bright
points of light on the dark firmament are solar systems, whirling
through space two hundred times faster than a cannon-ball, and
under our feet the delicate snow-crystals are groups of atoms,
which tremble with billions of vibrations every second.

The outer forms of the little snow-stars appear to us fixed and
rigid like those of the bright constellations above. But from
their surfaces a pale light enters our eyes, acts on the retina, and
excites the optic nerve — an infallible proof that there is something
active even in these — and we know of only one kind of activity in
this universe, namely, that of motion.

The particles of which the snow-crystals are comjDosed are not
closely joined or cemented to each other like the stones in a wall.
They are perpetually acting and reacting on the bodies which
surround them, through the medium of an exceedingly fine sub-
stance which we term world-ether. It is the bearer of the move-
ments, the effects or modifications of which we know as light,
heat, electricity, chemical affinity, etc. ; it also keeps the particles
of the snow-crystals separate, maintains them in a state of mutual
equilibrium, and regulates their vibrations. These vibrations we
term the " mechanical cause of heat," because we are aware that
every increase of temperature is represented by an increase in the
rapidity of the vibrations.

These minute particles, of which, as we know, all bodies con-
sist, are called molecules. In solids, as, for instance, the snow-
crystals, they are arranged in a certain fixed order, and their
vibration is limited to a given space. Now, let the sun shine on
the snow.

The sun is a vast center of activity. From every point of its
surface an enoriuous number of impulses are continually acting
on the atoms of the surrounding ether, which are sent through
space in every direction, with lightning-like rapidity. The num-
ber of these impulses has been estimated at from four to eight
hundred billions per second. They give rise to a wave-like mo-
tion which traverses about two hundred thousand miles of space
per second, and requires eight minutes to reach our earth.

If these ether-waves happen to come into contact with our
optic nerve, we experience the sensation of light ; if they impinge
upon our skin, we feel warmth ; if they strike the snow, they set
its molecules, as well as the ether between them, into a livelier
state of motion. The vibration of the molecules increases in
violence, and the result is an increase in temperature in the snow.
The particles have to move further away from each other, as their
vibrations require more space — we say the heat expands the

i86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bodies. At length the vibrations become so energetic that the
fixed order in which the particles are arranged can no longer be
maintained. They begin to collide and interfere with each other ;
the whole artificial edifice of the crystal collapses. The molecules
can not regain their equilibrium — the snow has changed into
water.

In liquids the molecules move about in all directions, yet none
of them can voluntarily separate itself from the main body. Just
as in a vessel, completely filled with live eels, each individual fish
may wriggle and move about among the others, yet it can not
detach itself or swim away from them. The liquid particles are
not yet sufficiently potent or energetic to overcome the pressure
exerted upon them by their surroundings. Above the water,
even in the open vessel, they have to encounter the pressure of
the atmosphere, the molecules of which keep uj) a constant and
vigorous bombardment against the liquid particles, forcing them
down. Still, this can not prevent that here and there a favorably
situated water-molecule pushes itself between the air-molecules ;
the water evaporates. Now, if the temperature is heightened —
that is, if the vibrations of the water-molecules increase to siich
an extent that they can hold their own against the pressure of
the air — then a condition of things is brought about familiar to us
under the name of boiling. The water-particles shoot about very
rapidly; they are no longer crowded together, they force their
way through the air-molecules and disperse — the water evaporates;
we have no longer liquid but gaseous water.

In gases — as, for instance, the air, carbonic acid, etc. — the mole-
cules are in a state of vibration so violent that they fly about with
marvelous rapidity in all directions.

Now, we are in possession of information — of pretty accurate
information — respecting these molecule - movements. The re-
searches of men like the late Prof. Kingdon Clifford, Prof. Helm-
holtz, and, above all, Sir William Thomson — one of the ablest
physicists and beyond comparison the greatest living mathema-
tician as well as one of the subtlest thinkers the world has ever
produced — the researches of men like these have thrown quite a
flood of light on this important and highly interesting subject.
Nor is our information merely confined to molecular movements
and vibrations ; the dimensions of the molecules themselves have
been approximately ascertained, because, from known facts of
pressure, friction, and heat-conducting capacity, very reliable
conclusions can and have been drawn.

The air which surrounds us is a chaos of innumerable minute
solid bodies, flying rapidly about in all directions. Our skin is
perpetually bombarded by them, and it is this bombardment
which causes us to experience atmospheric resistance or press-

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS. 187

lire. These air-molecules, if closely packed (without any in-
tervening space), would only fill about -j^oir of the space taken
up by the air as it is. They rush about in this void with the
quickness of rifle-bullets. Every point of our skin is struck by
at least five thousand millions of these little bullets every second.
Their number is so great that every cubic inch of air contains no
less than twenty-one trillions of them, and the same is true of
all gases. They are so small that they are utterly beyond our
powers of perception.

The smallest object which the best and most powerful combi-
nation of lenses, as now produced, would still enable us to recog-
nize, requires a diameter of at least 4 „ (/o ,) q of an inch, but of oxy-
gen-molecules three hundred could be placed side by side before
they would cover that minute distance. Still smaller are the
molecules of hydrogen.

Now, in order to get a clear idea of this air which we inhale,
of this hail-storm of little worlds which we perpetually encounter
without apparent discomfort, let us resort to a little arithmetic
and imagination — not the imagination of the poet and romancer,
which delights in pictures of the fanciful and ideal, without tak-
ing much account of facts, but the healthy imagination of the
scientist, which moves among the sternest of all realities, and
which, if rightly exercised, becomes a potent factor in the eluci-
dation of truth.

In this glass of water I observe a little air-bubble. It has a di-
ameter of perhaps one thirtieth of an inch. Let us magnify this
tiny bubble ten million times ; let us imagine it ten million times
larger than it is now, but first let us retire to a safe distance ; for,
the moment we touch it with our magic wand, it becomes a globe
eight miles in diameter. In this globe fifty thousand billion little
bullets, of the size of No. 6 shot, are flying about in all directions
with the quickness of rifle-balls. Whenever one of these mole-
cules, these shot-grains, comes in contact with another (and this
happens about eighty million times every second), it is deflected
from its course and takes another direction, but Avithout the
slightest loss of its original speed.

It may be asked. How can we manage to exist amid such a
torrent of projectiles ? we ought to be instantly annihilated. But
we have forgotten to apply the same magnification-scale to our
own persons. Let us do so, and we become giants seven thousand
geographical miles in height. One of our feet would more than
cover the distance from Chicago to New York, and with the other
we could conveniently step across the Atlantic to Europe. Let
the whole atmosphere be magnified in the same proportion, and it
will be understood why the hail of little bullets perpetually bom-
barding our skin would not inconvenience us, for that skin would

i88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have a thickness of from six to eight miles. The bombardment
would produce no other sensation than we now experience when
a gentle breath of air fans our cheeks.

The picture which I have here jjresented is by no means the
product of a mere fantastic flight of imagination, but a con-
clusion strictly warranted by mathematical facts, and necessary
for the interpretation of the physical phenomena of nature.

But chemistry has to go yet one step further, in order to ex-
plain and render intelligible the phenomena of combination and
aflBnity. We are driven to the conclusion that molecules are not
the ultimate particles of matter, but are built up of still smaller
bodies, the atoms. Thus, for instance, in a molecule of water we
have two atoms of hydrogen united to one of oxygen, and all
chemical processes have their source in the fact that the atoms of
two or more molecules of different substances detach themselves
and reunite again in a different fashion.

Now, in order to obtain a better idea of the manner in which
the atoms are grouped in a molecule, we must look upon the latter
as a duster, the various parts of which are combined by a well-
regulated movement into a harmonious system. "We may well
resort, for comparison, to a process within our observation, though
on a far grander scale, which is admirably adapted for illustra-
tion. Let us look to our planetary system.

The planets, with the sun, represent a stable system, just as
the atoms of a molecule represent such a one. In the case of our
solar system, the mass of the planets, compared with that of the
central body, is, of course, very insignificant. A far closer resem-
blance to our molecules is therefore presented by those systems
of the stellar world in which two or more large bodies, of nearly
the same size, revolve around their common center of gravity.

This parallel between atoms and planets, molecules and solar
systems, opens before us a new and startling perspective. It
affords us a glance into that unfathomable abyss which hides the
mysteries of time and space, and holds in its dark recesses the
very secrets of existence.

Astronomical science has shown that our sun, with the ma-
jority of the fixed stars visible to us, constitutes a great star-
cluster, the diameter of which must be estimated by hundreds, if
not thousands, of billions of miles. Of such star-clusters there
exist a great many, which, in their turn again, form a still grander
system, to which we also belong, and the boundaries of which are
indicated by the outermost limits of the milky way.

How many of such galaxies may be hidden in the vastnesses
beyond, in the bosom of infinite space, we will never know, for
the light can only reach us from limited distances. Whatever
may be beyond that very farthest nebula, the pale light of which

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS. 189

lias taken fifteen thousand years to reach us, is concealed from
us forever.

But, as here in an outward and ever-enlarging scale, so in the
molecules and atoms downward, and ever diminishing in size, we
find system after system inclosed one in the other, like the ivory
balls in a Chinese puzzle, downward, ever downward, and there
is no end ! We shall never be able to exhaust the possibilities of
minuteness. The atoms of elements may consist of ether-atoms ;
indeed, the very elements themselves may not be elements in the
true sense at all, but compound bodies, as has, indeed, been very
long suspected.

Now, let us once more take our magic wand ; let us imagine
one of these tiny atoms enlarged to the size of this globe, of this
earth, on which we live. A magnification of one trillion diame-
ters would more than suffice. It would now, with its companion-
atoms, represent a planetary system, and the molecules in a gas
would stand in about the same relationship to each other as the
fixed' stars over us, which pursue their unknown courses; the
little air-bubble in the glass of water becomes a star-cluster like
the one in which our sun is situated. The circle of little bubbles
around the margin of this glass would represent such a gathering
of star-clusters as we now see before us in the milky way.

The galaxy in a glass of water ! On what does the glass rest
in which our starry firmament has gathered ? Who will take it
to his lips ? We know not ; we can not see beyond our tiny bub-
ble, and the mere fact of being able to understand that we never
can hope to look beyond it presupposes a great deal of under-
standing.

It will be worth our while to have a look around on our en-
larged atom. We live on this planet of ours, but what entitles
us to draw a line or fix a limit as to the possible or impossible in
this endless, this infinite series of worlds with which we are here
confronted ? If we could descend on to one of these atoms, our
bodies diminished in proportion, might we not, tuoidd we not, find
there another earth grouped with its companion-atoms into a
stellar system of perhaps wondrous regularity ? That world in
which a conscious being exists is determined by the hi7id of this
consciousness, and by the character of the impressions which it is
capable of receiving. We can not well think of perceptions other
than our own, because we can not go beyond the limit of our own
selves, but we can well imagine a world in which sensations like
ours may succeed each other in far greater rapidity.

We can imagine a creature which in one second, during which
we only receive at the utmost ten different impressions, is organ-
ized to receive thousands, millions, or billions. That means that
in one thousandth, one millionth, or one billionth of the time we

igo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

live, it experiences the same number of things as we do from the
cradle to the grave. Its measure of time, compared with ours,
would be infinitely smaller.

Such a being could live on an atom just as conveniently as we
live on this planet of ours. If, for instance, the quickness of its
sensations were to ours as one thousand trillions is to one, it would
experience in the time of one light- vibration — that is, in one five
hundred billionth of a second — as much as we in eight months.
The atom on which it lived would be its world ; the molecule to
which the latter belonged, its solar system ; and by the revolution
of atoms it could count its days and years. Above him, our atom-
citizen would see other similar and far-distant worlds ; for, the
molecules, perhaps all belonging to one tiny air-bubble, would
form the star-cluster of his firmament.

A magnification of ten thousand trillion diameters would en-
large the little air-bubble to the dimensions of our entire stellar
system, the star-cluster of which the limits are the outermost re-
gions of the milky way. But, great as the host of our stars may
appear to us, the firmament of our atom-inhabitant would be still
more densely crowded ; for while we, with the aid of our best tele-
scopes, can not see more than about twenty million stars, the little
air-bubble would harbor at least fifty thousand billions.

Now, you might object that, to an atom-inhabitant, the mole-
cules of a gas could not possibly appear as the fixed stars do to us,
inasmuch as these molecules experience, on an average, about
eighty million collisions in every second. However, it must not
be forgotten that we have reduced the time of life and observa-
tion of our atom-inhabitant to one thousand trillionth that of our
own. During this brief moment the relative positions of the
visible molecules — to him far-distant suns — will appear just as
unaltered, and their courses or orbits to the atom-astronomers
just as linear, as those of our fixed stars appear to us.

What is the short space of time, the trifling moment, that we
know of the life-history of the earth, compared with the eternities
which must elapse before two fixed stars approach sufficiently
close to render a collision inevitable ? Our records of human his-
tory read back only a few thousand years, and of the age of our
planet we only know that it must be measured by thousands of
centuries. Of the courses of the fixed stars we know absolutely
nothing ; we only infer from certain data that their average ve-
locity is about a hundred times greater than that of our molecules.

Thus the atom-inhabitants are about as wise as we are. The
life of the entire human race, so far as our historical records are
concerned, would, if condensed to one thousand trillionth, occupy
about the one thousand millionth part of a second — less than one
twentieth of the time which elapses, on an average, before the col-

ATOMIC WORLDS AND THEIR MOTIONS. 191

lision of two gas-molecules — time enougli for thousands and tens
of thousands of generations of living beings to rise, flourish, and
decay, before a perceptible alteration of their starry firmament
can be recorded.

It remains to fancy to picture further how those atom-inhabit-
ants imagine their world as the only world civilized and blessed
by divine ordaining, for they know as little of other worlds as we
do. Millions of their years may ;^ass — by thousands the rise and
fall of their nations, the dynasties of their rulers, the triumphs of
their philosophers and poets may be recorded — before the water-
glass with the little air-bubble, in which their planet is merely the
tiniest atom, is seized by human hands, and billions of worlds are
drawn in by human lips.

What an endless vista of life is here presented to us ! Not
enough that the vast space which surrounds us is peopled by in-
numerable worlds like ours, but untliin the latter neiv worlds are
presented in the atoms, which in their turn again may harbor
others still smaller, and so on in infinite succession.

And now the same step upward ! Let us regard our earth as
an atom, our solar system as a molecule. Of what larger body
may it, with all the galaxies and star-clusters, constitute a par-
ticle ? What a giant-world may fhat be, what creatures may in-
habit it ? Our universe, encircled by its galaxy of myriad suns, is
it but a stray bubble floating on some mighty ocean of that greater
world ? This stellar system of ours, does it perhaps, in that giant-
world, represent a molecule in some complicated organic structure
— a nerve-cell in a giant organism, perhaps a brain-particle in the
head of a Titan, whose feet rest on ground in the abysmal dis-
tances of space ?

That Titan would have a height, if his body were proportional
to ours, equal to a billion Sirius-distances ! What thoughts, what
sensations may move him, when, in his brain-cells, our suns clash
in stupendous conflict and meet their doom in universal confla-
gration ! And those Titans, whose bodies, whose terra firma is
composed of veritable oceans of star-clusters, what a starry world
may they behold above them ! On the atoms now vibrating in
our oivn brains, in the blood coursing through our veins, the des-
tinies of nations may be fulfilled, destinies on the planets, which
again are but the atoms of a higher world, destinies on the giant-
worlds, and none of the beings is aware of the existence of the
others ; each has the solid ground beneath him, and above him
the silence of the stars.

Therefore, if this thought should make us feel uneasy — the
thought that this cherished world of ours is but an atom in a
giant-world — let us take consolation in this : the giants are in no
way better situated than we are in reference to the dwarfs which

192

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

inhabit tlie world of atoms. Stars above them, tbe ground beneath
them, that is ilieir world as it is ours. That we just happen to
exist on the earth is a matter of comparative indifference. No
matter where we might be, our astronomers would always inves-
tigate the starry firmament, our chemists and physicists would
divide bodies into molecules and atoms. Everywhere the suns as
the atoms would pursue their courses in obedience to the same
laws, everywhere two sides in the triangle would be greater than
the third, and everywhere twice two seconds would make four.
That is the law for the giants and the dwarfs, the law beyond
which we shall never be able to rise.

EVOLVING THE CAMEL.

By GKANT ALLEN.

AS I sauntered to-day down the Rue dTsly, on evolutionary
thoughts intent, I met a caravan of camels, in long single
file, coming in from the desert with their bales of merchandise.
Poor, weary creatures they looked, in all conscience, their humps
shrunken to mere bags of loose skin, and their patient faces bear-
ing all too openly the marks of their long and toilsome journey
across the hill country. At their head stalked a lordly Arab in a
dirty white burnous ; drivers and attendants of lesser station fol-
lowed in the rear with a tread as stately and solemn as the camels'
own. For, dejected and foot-sore though they all were, men and
beasts had alike even so the free and firm step of the open desert.
Little Moorish children from the dark shops ensconced in the
wall ran out with childish delight and clapping of hands to see
them pass ; women with their faces muffled up to the eyes turned
timidly to give them a casual glance ; and even old Hamid Abd-
er-Rahman himself, sitting cross-legged on his bench before his
cup of coffee in the open bazaar, deigned to remove his pipe from
his mouth one moment and remark to Omar on the divan beside
him that prime dates were coming in from the oases very well
this season.

As for me, standing there in my alien garb, I rejoiced in soul
that I had seen a caravan, and could forthwith begin philosophiz-
ing on camels. " I could have played on any timbrel," says the
poet at the Zoo, " For joy that I had seen a whimbrel." And I
could have burst prosaic trammels, for joy that I had seen those
camels. Everybody knows, of course, the famous story of the
German student who evolved the camel from his own inner con-
sciousness. Now, that mode of evolving a species I hold to be
illegitimate ; you should always draw your animal from the life.

EVOLVING THE CAMEL. 193

even thougli, like the Frenchman in the same old apologue, yon
only go to the Jardin des Plantes for the model on which you base
your rhapsodical portrait. But when a man has actually been to
Africa itself, and seen a caravan in all its glory, headed by a real
live Arab in a burnous of the dirtiest, fresh from the sands and
siroccos of the desert — who, I should like to know, if not he, is
entitled to speak with authority about camels ? For here I am,
on the borders of the desert, upon whose flats I can look down (at
a safe distance) from yonder mountain-heights ; and if ever there
was a case of "adaptation to the environment," the camel has
indeed adapted himself wholly and solely to the conditions of
Sahara.

Deserts, in fact, are exacting in the matter of adaptation ; you
must obey them or die. No other environment (not even perhaps
the arctic snows) demands so much in the way of adaptiveness
from all that live in it. The plants are every one of them saline
and alkaline ; they must content themselves with sand instead of
soil, and with brackish pools instead of fresh water. The animals
are all peculiar to their habitat ; bird and insect must assume alike
the uniform gray sabelline tint of external nature everywhere
around them. Only two higher types subsist at all among those
great sand-wastes — two types specially fitted for their own excep-
tional mode of life, one plant and one animal — the date-palm and
the camel. They make Sahara. Nobody ever saw a picture of the
desert without a date-palm and a camel in the foreground. Those
two inseparable elements of the Africa of our fancy shall not be
parted even in this sober biological sketch. Nature, indeed, has
joined them together, and science shall not be permitted here to
put them asunder.

And yet, though the camel as we know him is peculiarly Saha-
ran, a product of the great African, Indian, and Bactrian deserts,
it is not to the Old World that we must look at all if we wish to
evolve the camel historically, rather than to develop him by a
priori process from the depths of our own inner consciousness. It
is America that gives us geologically the earliest evidence of the
camel's ancestors ; and it is America that still contains the greater
number of species of the camel family, in the persons of the llama,
the alpaca, the guanaco, and their allies. Prof. Cope has drawn
up the pedigree of the race for us in full detail. The Asiatic and
African camels, in fact, are mere surviving Oriental members of
a family American in origin and history, but stranded, as it were,
in a remote corner of the Old World, where they have survived the
competition of newer and higher types in virtue of their special
minor adaptations to the peculiar circumstances of their strange
habitat. Having early fitted themselves in certain outer points
to desert conditions, they have been enabled to outlive all their

TOL, XXXIV. 13

194 '^^E POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

younger and more liigUy developed competitors solely in virtue
of tkeir singular combination of desert-resisting qualities.

Now, it must at once strike everybody as a curious circum-
stance in the geography of animals that the existing cameloids
should be so strangely distributed — one group of them in the des-
ert region of Asia and Africa, the other group away across the
world among the snowy slopes of the Andes of South America.
What can be the meaning of so quaint a freak of distribution ?
Why should the two surviving cameloid tribes be thus separated
from one another by half the earth's surface, and by many deep
seas and shadowy mountains — one in the Old World and one in
the New ; one in the desert and one in the uplands ; one in the
northern hemisphere and one in the southern ? Clearly, the an-
swer suggested alike by geological facts and by analogies else-
where, is simply this : we have here, as it were, two little surviv-
ing biological islands, colonies of an ancient race which once cov-
ered both worlds alike with its numerous members. Time was
when the camels or their allies were of cosmopolitan distribution.
They ranged, no doubt, the Eocene plains of all the great conti-
nents. But they are an ancient and in many respects an undevel-
oped ungulate form, which has become extinct elsewhere in the
intermediate regions through the fierce competition of the higher
ruminants, and has lingered on only under special circumstances
in two remote corners of the world — in the deserts of Arabia and
in the Andes of Peru.

The llamas and alpacas, as the lower and less specialized type
of the two, explain best the true systematic position of the family.
For South America, as everybody knows, is in many respects a very
antique biological province. Less ancient in its life-forms than
Australia, that world of living mesozoic fossils, it yet retains in
many places the scattered remnants of its extremely old-fashioned
fauna. There is reason to believe, indeed, that the circumpolar
continent — Europe, Asia, and North America — was once for many
ages continuous, while Australia, South Africa, and the South
American peninsula formed separate islands in a wide and wind-
ing southern sea. Hence the higher life-forms developed rapidly
in the broad and varied northern land -mass, while more anti-
quated types continued to live on, uninfluenced by their compe-
tition, in the three isolated southern provinces. Of these three,
Australia alone still remains a great island ; but South Africa has
been joined to the Mediterranean world by a gradual upheaval of
the Saharan area ; while the Isthmus of Panama, still later in
date, apparently, has formed a great natural bridge by which
some of the North American land-animals have been able to in-
vade the comparatively unpeopled tropical realms of the low
southern species. In both cases, however, many of the low local

I

EVOLVING TEE CAMEL. 195

types still hold out in extreme recesses or under special climatic
and geographical conditions ; and thus the llama and alpaca have
been preserved to our time intact in the narrow belt of temperate
slope between the snow-clad Andes and the Pacific shore.

I have said that the cameloids are a very ancient type of rumi-
nants indeed : their skeleton abundantly proves this fact ; but I
will not dwell at length upon such dry points of anatomical de-
tail, because I fancy I have noticed on various occasions that the
general public does not wildly interest itself in questions of carpal
and metatarsal bones. It is not frantically enthusiastic about
distinctions of odd-toed or even-toed ungulates. What most of
us really want to know, and what the comparative anatomists as
a body still studiously neglect to tell us in plain language, is how
each animal came to obtain, not its bones which we don't see, but
its distinctive external shape and characteristics — its horns, its
tusks, its hump, or its antlers. We would rather learn a few
simple facts about the evolution of the elephant's trunk or the
peacock's tail than a whole volume of learned memoirs on the
cervical vertebrae and the carinate sternum. Those things are
doubtless very convincing in their own way, but they are not of a
sort to rouse our profound personal attention. There are, how-
ever, two other visible points about the camel-kind which clearly
mark their true position as very early ruminants indeed, and
which can yet be readily apprehended by the ordinary surface-
loving, non-anatomical intelligence. One is, that the camels as a
group antedate the development of horns or antlers ; the other is
that they still possess in full, like other animals, those canine and
incisor teeth which are partly obsolete, partly altered in shape, in
all the higher and later ruminants. Each of these peculiarities
has a meaning of its own, and points back to certain interesting
episodes in the development of the great ruminant order.

The vast mass of ruminants generally at the present day pos-
sess some form or other of horns or their equivalents. In the
giraffe, which in a few points (mostly delusive) approaches the
camels, the horns are merely blunt protuberances of bone, per-
sistent through life, and covered with a continuous hairy skin.
They show us the lowest surviving stage in the evolution of
frontal weapons. In the deer tribe, they appear at first under
much the same form, as little knobs or bosses of bone on the
forehead, underlying a fold of skin technically known as the vel-
vet ; but when the horns are fully grown, the velvet is rubbed off,
and the bone alone shows its naked material as the branching
antlers with which we are all so familiar in the Scotch red deer.
Horns of this type are shed annually, and reproduced in more
and more complex forms (representing successive ancestral stages)
with each renewal. Finally, in the great central group of the

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ruminants, represented in our day by the oxen, sheep, goats, and
antelopes, the bony core or heart of the horn is protected by a
sheath of agglutinated hair, which continues to increase by layers
during life. This last form of horn is never shed, but persists
through the whole of the animal's existence.

Historically, we know that the earliest ruminants, whose re-
mains are preserved for us in Tertiary strata, were quite hornless ;
and the gradual evolution of horns and antlers, from the simplest
to the most complex, has been traced out in full through succes-
sive geological ages by Gaudry, Boyd Dawkins, and other biolo-
gists. We can follow in detail the origin and rise of each tine
and spike from the mere boss or knob on the forehead of the an-
cestral form to the branching horns of the reindeer, the wapiti,
and the Irish elk. The camel, therefore, in its lack of horns rep-
resents for us an early undeveloped stage of the ruminant type,
when the ruminants had as yet only just diverged from the com-
mon ancestors of the horses and pigs. Darwin has shown that
horns and other familiar offensive weapons (especially when pe-
culiar to the males alone, as is the case with the antlers of stags)
have been developed in the struggle for mates, and are a necessary
result of sexual selection. But all such ornaments belong to the
higher and later stages of animal life, and are wholly wanting in
the unarmed, undecorated, ugly camel. He is, in fact, a ruminant
on which the higher types of selection have been little exercised,
though, as we shall presently see, his special adaptations for a
desert-life have been carried very far in particular directions, and
so have enabled him to hold out bravely in his own narrow and
restricted field against all more advanced and more highly spe-
cialized animals.

The teeth of the camels and of their allies the llamas tell the
same tale in a somewhat different fashion. In all the higher rumi-
nants— giraffes, deer, oxen, antelopes, and goats alike — the weapons
of offense are the horns or antlers, and the teeth have almost or
entirely ceased to be used in fighting. They have also undergone
certain profound modifications of shape and arrangement (inter-
esting only to the technical anatomists), which fit them for crop-
ping grass or other low herbage, but get rid to a great extent of
their tearing powers. On the other hand, there is one other
group of ruminants besides the camels which is destitute of horns
— the little group of musk-deer — and in these pretty, small crea-
tures the canine teeth have been developed into long protruding
tusks, which thus take the place of horns as offensive weapons,
and are used by the males in their single combats for the posses-
sion of their mates. But, in the camels and llamas, no special
fighting-weapon of any sort exists. When camels fight at all —
which is very rarely — they fight merely by simple biting. They

EVOLVING THE CAMEL.

197

remain in this respect on tlie lowest mammalian level. Their teeth
approximate rather to the type which occurs in horses and some
other outlying ungulate groups than to the type which occurs in
the true ruminants. They have always canines in both jaws ; but
these canines are not lengthened out into regular tusks, nor do
they serve to any noticeable extent as weapons of warfare. In
short, the camels by many points of their structure point back to
a time when the ancestors of the ruminants had not diverged at
all widely from the ancestors of the horse, the pig, or the hippo-
potamus, and they still retain in many particulars the early " gen-
eralized," or rather unspecialized, type of the common progenitor
of the entire group.

The llamas and alpacas may be looked upon as the best living
representatives of the camel tribe in its primitive state, before it
had begun specially to assume its camel-stage. They do not pos-'
sess the adaptive peculiarities which fit the camel for its desert
existence ; and, on the other hand, they exhibit to the full that awk-
ward, ungainly, misshapen type which so often betrays Nature's
first rough draught of an evolving order. They are, as it were,
the sketchy outline only of the perfected ruminants. Compare for
a moment the ugly, shambling, ungraceful alpaca with the red
deer, flying over the open Scotch moorland ; the gazelle, springing
lightly along the Syrian plains ; the antelope, careering across the
South African veldt ; or the chamois, leaping from crag to crag
among the frozen Alps, and you will see at once what is meant by
the difference between a specialized and a generalized type — the
difference between Nature's early attempts in a given line, and her
fully evolved and carefully molded final product.

The antelopes and deer, with their various allies, such as the
gnu, the eland, the ibex, the buffalo, the bison, the sheep, the big-
horn, and the musk-ox, represent for us the developed ruminant
types, produced by fierce competition in the struggle for life in
the great continents. Their fleetness of foot, their exquisite horns,
their agility, their grace of movement, all depend upon the exist-
ence in their native countries of highly evolved beasts of prey,
from whose fierce attacks they have had to save themselves by
speed and acuteness. To the same cause they owe also the keen-
ness of their senses, the slimness of their legs, and to some extent
also the elegance and beauty of their entire bodies. The smaller
kinds, like the gazelles, are remarkable for their vigilance, their
timidity, and their alertness, the hereditary result of ages spent
in avoiding the attacks of predatory enemies. Natural selection,
in short, has given to the advanced ruminants generally their
distinctive rapidity, lightness, and beauty of shape. To sexual
selection, on the other hand, they owe their twisted horns or
branching antlers, their dappled coats and exquisite markings.

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their ornamental manes and their proud and stately gait and car-
riage. All these points are wholly wanting in the clumsy llama
and alpaca group. Stranded remnants, as it were, of the Eocene
world, those antique creatures linger on among their mountain
valleys a perpetual milestone by whose indications we may mark
the progress since effected, under stress of selective agencies, in
the main advancing body of the higher ruminants.

On such a simple original type, defenseless and ungainly, the
camel is a specialized and adapted desert variation. The unde-
veloped llamas have no humps, and they have their two toes quite
separated in a certain awkward, ungraceful, splay-footed fashion.
In the true camels, on the other hand, the two toes are united
below by a kind of horny sole, almost to their points, which ter-
minate in a couple of small hoofs, and beneath the foot there is a
soft cushion, by which the instep bears upon the sandy soil over
whose expanses the creature is adapted to move. This padded
sole is to the camel what the solid hoof is to the horse, it fits him
exactly for the sort of ground over which his ancestors have
stalked and shambled for countless generations. And it is inter-
esting to note the similarities and differences which natural selec-
tion has brought about in the case of these two chief human
beasts of burden.

In both the foot has become adapted for scouring the open
plain only; firmness and sureness of tread have been the sole
qualities that really told, and hence, in both, the toes as such
have become practically extinct, and in their place one gets at
last a single united broad-based foot, such as gives the animal
the most secure foundation for his heavy body upon the level
ground.

Compare for a moment these two types of practically toeless
foot with the grasping hand of the forestine monkeys, the sharp
claws of the tree-haunting squirrels, the light paw of the leaping
hare, or even the slender and delicate ungulate feet of the gazelles
ajid the chamois, and you will see how wholly they have been
specialized for their work as trotters only. In the ruminants gen-
erally, as in all the great division of hoofed mammals, the extrem-
ities are calculated for support alone ; but in the horse and in the
camel this restriction of function reaches its highest practical
point, and the feet and legs exist merely as adequate and extreme-
ly stable props for the heavy framework. In the horse the solid
hoof remains as the sole surviving toe out of the original five pos-
sessed by his primitive ancestors in the American Eocene (though
the "splint-bones," well known to the veterinaries, are the last
f unctionless relics of two other toes) ; in the camel the same result
is practically attained by the union of the two toes which it still
possesses through the medium of a single horny sole, as well as by

EVOLVING THE CAMEL. igg

throwing the main weight of the body on the padded cushion un-
derneath the instep.

On the other hand, in the horse, adapted as he is by nature for
scouring open, grassy plains or hill-sides, natural selection has
favored the development of a particularly hard and solid hoof,
whose native qualities man still further exaggerates by shoeing
him with a clanking ring of iron ; while in the camel, the direct
product of desert conditions, a singular softness and pliability of
foot has rather been encouraged by the soft and shifting nature
of Saharan or Bactrian sands. For this reason, it is found prac-
tically that the horse and the camel are in any given country
mutually exclusive ; where the one thrives the other languishes.
Here, in northern Africa, outside the Atlas, camels can not be
profitably employed as beasts of burden ; the few that come here
in caravans from the desert arrive with a weary, foot-sore, dejected
look, tired of tramping with their soft-padded feet over the hard
and smooth macadamized roads which the French engineers have
substituted for the narrow, paved Moorish packways, where mules
and Arabs once transacted in their slow and lumbering fashion
all the business of Algeria and Tunis. But beyond the shallow
belt between the mountains and the sea the horse is of no avail :
his hard and unyielding hoof sinks deep into the shifting sand of
the desert, and he struggles and shuffles in helpless despair where
the light dromedary, with his loose, shambling gait, his long trot,
and his padded sole, fitting itself accurately to the sand beneath,
accomplishes with ease his hundred miles a day for a week to-
gether. On hills or rocks the camel is nowhere, on open sandy
plains he can hold his own against all comers.

It is interesting to note, indeed, how much alike in many
adaptive particulars, but especially in their awkward gait, their
tall necks, their long, shambling swing, and the powerful flanks
which bring it about, are the three chief inhabitants of the desert
or its outskirts — the camel, the giraffe, and the African ostrich.
In the last-named case, the likeness is all the more curious and
striking because one would almost have said beforehand that to
adapt a bird and a ruminant mammal to the same environment,
and to turn them out at last with many striking external resem-
blances of shape and gait, would be simply impossible ; and yet
Nature has accomplished this strange feat so perfectly that Lin-
naeus, struck by the singular analogy between the two creatures,
gave the ostrich the scientific name, which it still bears, of Struthio
camelus. Even the reduction in the number of the toes to two,
and their provision with a soft pad underneath, have been accu-
rately reproduced in the great bird. As to the giraffe, its old
name of camelopard sufficiently attests the popular appreciation
of its outer similitude to the ship of the desert. The fact is, no

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

large animal can be properly adapted for Saharan conditions (lia-
bility to attack from lions and other great beasts of prey included),
unless it combines these three attributes of a soft tread, a swift,
swinging gait, and a long neck, enabling it to reach its food above
or below, as necessitated by the height of its legs and body. Os-
triches, giraffes, and camels alike, all feed to a considerable extent
indeed on foliage of trees.

Of all these animals, however, the most purely desert-haunting
is the camel itself, and it exhibits, therefore, a few special pecul-
iarities not equally well developed in any other creature. In the
first place, desert journeys imply continued privation, or even at
times complete absence of food. Now, whenever in the animal
kingdom such a necessity frequently arises in the ordinary life-
history of a species, natural selection has provided against it by
favoring the survival of those individuals which can lay up spare
material against the period of famine in their own tissues. A
starving sheep. Prof. Huxley well remarks, is as much a carnivore
as the lion that would devour it ; it subsists strictly upon its own
fat and its own muscle, which it slowly unbuilds to use up in the
needful action of its heart, its lungs, its limbs, and its internal
organs generally. Hence, in hard times, those animals which
have the largest reserve-fund of fat at their disposal will survive
longest, and species which often encounter hard times learn or-
ganically by hereditary experience to supply such a reserve-fund
against possible contingencies. Thus the bear and the dormouse
go to sleep sleek and plump for the annual hibernation, and wake
up mere loose and baggy masses of skin and bone. The zebu
and other troj)ical oxen gather a huge hump of fat between the
shoulders in the wet months while grass is plentiful, to serve them
as a store of food during the dry season. But in the camel and
dromedary this special provision against famine reaches the high-
est point, and produces the hump or humps on the back — one in
the Arabian or African, two in the Bactrian or Indian variety.

Structurally, of course, the humps are nothing — mere lumps of
fat, collected under a convenient fold of the skin, and utterly un-
provided for in the framework of the skeleton. When the animal
is at its best and well fed, they are full and plump, standing up
on his back firm and upright ; but on a long journey they are
gradually absorbed to keep up the fires that work the heart and
legs, and in the caravan camels which arrive at the coast, the skin
hangs over, an empty bag, upon the creature's flanks, bearing wit-
ness to the scarcity of external food during the course of his long,
forced march from the interior. A starved small camel in this
state of health far more closely resembles a Peruvian llama than
any one who has only seen the fine, well-kept beasts in European
menageries or zoological gardens could readily imagine.

EVOLVING THE CAMEL. 201

But water is even scantier in the desert than food ; and against
want of water, therefore, the camel has had to provide himself,
functionally at least, if not structurally, quite as much as against
want of herbage. His stomach has accordingly acquired the power
of acting as an internal reservoir, and he can take in as much
water at the Bahrs or Wadys, where he rests for a while on his
toilsome march, as will supply his needs for four or five days
together. There are some differences in this respect, however,
between the two chief varieties of the camel. The African kind
is most abstemious, and best adapted to sandy deserts ; the Bac-
trian, a product of more varied and better-watered country, is
larger and stronger, but less patient of hunger and thirst, while
at the same time it can manage to subsist and to make its way
into somewhat rockier and more rugged country.

One other adaptive peculiarity the camel possesses which marks
it out essentially as a desert-born animal, modified for generations
by the baking expanse of Sahara or the Arabian sand- wastes. On
those scorching surfaces a horse could not lie down to rest in the
eye of the sun without scalding or excoriating his tender skin.
But all the parts of the camel's body which touch the sweltering
sand in his ordinary patient kneeling position are provided with
callosities of thickened hide, which enable him to rest on the
burning surface without danger or discomfort. The only other
desert-haunting ruminant of similar habits, the giraffe, has analo-
gous callosities for the same purpose on his breast and knees.
Such adaptive characters, however, are never a key to real rela-
tionship ; they necessarily result from mere exposure to the same
circumstances ; and hence we get the seemingly paradoxical prin-
ciple, so well enunciated by Mr. A. R. Wallace, that the more use-
ful any organ or point of structure is to its possessor, the less is
its value as a test of systematic position. Unseen little bones and
internal organs, which fail to strike the imagination of the outside
observer, are rightly used as the keys to underlying relationship
by the systematic biologist. The real affinities of the camel are
closest, indeed, not with the giraffe which so strongly resembles
it, but with the llama and alpaca, so remotely connected in outer
seeming, and so widely separated from it in space by an entire
hemisphere.

Camels, llamas, and alpacas alike, then — to sum up the conclu-
sion to which we have all along been tending — represent a very
simple and early ruminant type, unmarked by any of those higher
features induced in the ruminants of the open plains of the great
continents by the necessity for protection from the advanced car-
nivores. They recall for us in their main points of structure, as
well as in their low and undeveloped grade of intelligence, the
general characteristics of the ruminant race at the dawn of its

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

existence in the Eocene period. They have no horns or tusks or
weapons of offense, such as grow up in the savage battles of the
males among dominant races ; and their very docility and gentle-
ness of demeanor result in the last resort from this undeveloped
character of their entire class ; for non-fighting animals are always
timid, patient, and inoffensive, though often obstinate and self-
willed to a noteworthy degree, as the camel can be whenever he
chooses. Their virtues themselves thus tell against them ; they
betray the stupidity and the archaic, unprogressive character of
the whole type. The camelidce, as a group, in short, are surviving
specimens of the raw material from which, by natural and sexual
selection, the higher ruminants, in diverging lines, have been
slowly evolved through innumerable ages.

But of this antique and unspecialized type, the camel itself is
in certain ways a highly modified and peculiarly adapted desert
offshoot. Retaining still in its internal structure the marks of its
early undeveloped character, it nevertheless presents in external
configuration and functional peculiarities a remarkable instance
of special adaptation to a restricted environment. While as a
ruminant it is extremely low, as a desert animal it is at the very
top of the tree. And it is this early adaptation to a very unusual
mode of life that has enabled the camel, lowly as it is in general
organization and in intellectual grade, to hold its own successfully
against all later comers, and to preserve for us still in the great
central Eurasiafrican continent a type of life otherwise extinct
save in a single outlying and practically insulated district of the
old South American life-region. — Longman's Magazine.

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL.

By E. a. OAKES.

FROM the standpoint of primitive man it seems impossible
for him to escape the conviction of a plurality of souls or the
belief of their survival after death. Troubled by no psychical
problems, accepting all things with an unreasoning faith, the phe-
nomena of dreams, of coma attending swoons, of apoplexy, and
of kindred afflictions, are explicable only on the supposition of a
plural soul. He lies down on his rude couch, closes his eyes, and
in an instant is living over the scenes of his daily life. He visits
again far-distant hunting-grounds, renews once more the joys and
fatigues of the chase, indulges in his savage warfare, and en-
counters adventures at once weird and abnormal. The dead —
those who have for years been moldering in the earth — come back
and speak to him, and renew once more the pleasures of his social

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 203

life. His body lies immovable, life and warmth remain with, it,
his breath comes and goes, his pulse throbs as in his waking hours,
but he in the mean time has traversed leagues and leagues of for-
ests, crossed broad rivers, scalped an enemy, or killed some savage
wild beast. Upon the supposition of a dual soul, the mystery of
his sleep is at once explicable. While one soul stays and watches
over the body, the other soul has gone out to roam over the world
at will.

This explanation of dreams seems to have received wide-spread
recognition alike with the early civilized and savage races of men.
The Chinese thought that the soul in dreams went out in a nightly
ramble even to foreign lands. One day when the " spiritual man "
of T'ih Kwalee, one of the gentry, was out roaming around, a
wild beast found his body and ate it ; so, when the spirit returned,
it found only the skeleton, but fortunately near by was a beggar's
corpse, black and lame ; this he took as a substitute for his own
body, and always afterward walked with a staff.* The Japanese
believe that, if a sleeper is wakened suddenly and violently, he
will die, because his soul is then rambling at a distance, and can
not return to the body in time before it is awakened. This soul
is supposed to have form and color, and to be a small, round, black
body, and its adventures, when in the disembodied state, form a
standard subject for Japanese novels and imaginative literature. f
Pliny tells us that the soul of Hermotinus, one of the embodi-
ments of Pythagoras, was in the habit of leaving his body and
wandering into distant countries, whence it brought back numer-
ous accounts of various things which could not have been ob-
tained by any one but a person who was present. The body in
the mean time was left apparently lifeless. At last his enemies
burned the body, so that the soul on its return was, as it were,
deprived of its sheath. J St. Augustine tells the story of a man
who visited another and expounded a certain passage in Plato
which formerly he had refused to do, and afterward, when ques-
tioned why he had changed his mind, denied that he had, but
admitted that in a dream he had expounded the passage.* At the
Temple of Isis, in Alexandria, an Egyptian priest, in the presence
of Plotinus and his disciple Porphyry, drew a magical circle on
the ground, decked out with the customary astrological signs, and
then invoked from the body of Plotinus his own soul, so that he
stood face to face with it. || Goethe ^ positively asserts that he

* Du Bose, " Dragon, Image, and Demon," pp. 369, 422.
f Griffis, " The Mikado's Empire," p. 472.

X "Natural History," vol. vii, p. 53.

* "De Civitate Dei," vol. xxviii, p. IS.

I Draper, " Intellectual Development of Europe," vol. i, p. 404.
^ Elam, "A Physician's Problems," p. 3o6.

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

had a similar experience. Aristophanes * tells ns that Pisander
betook himself to a certain lake to see his own soul, which had
deserted him, evoked by Socrates.

The belief of savages in the possibility of the sonl leaving the
body during life has been widely traced. In western Africa, when
a man wakes up with a pain in his body or muscles, it is because
his spirit has wandered abroad in the night and been flogged by
some other spirit, f The Feejeeans believe that the spirit of a man
will leave the body to trouble other people when asleep, and, when
any one faints or dies, his spirit can be brought back by call-
ing after it. J Du Bose * tells us that in China often at night is
heard the weird sound of a man calling back the body of a sick
child. In the streets a cloth will be spread on the ground, with
some beans thrown on it. An old woman stands by it, and calls
the child by name : " Ah, do come back ! " A voice up-stairs re-
sponds, " Ah ! " Or the mother goes in front with a lighted lan-
tern in hand, burning paper money at every corner. The father
follows with the sick boy's clothing in his hat, crying, " My son,
come back, come back ! " An insect on the roof is caught, folded
nicely in paper, and put beside the sick boy's pillow, and thus the
lost soul is found. Sickness comes from losing his soul, and re-
covery follows its return home. Le Clerc recounts a story, cur-
rent among the Algonquins, of an old Indian chief, whose favorite
son having died, journeyed to the land of souls for his recovery.
When once there, he begged so hard for his son's soul that the
Indian Pluto finally gave it to him in the form and size of a nut,
which, by pressing between his hands, he forced into a small
leathern bag. Instructed to place the soul in the body of his son,
who thereupon would come to life, the happy father hastened
back, where he was greeted with dancing and rejoicing. Wish-
ing to take part in these festivities, he handed the boy's soul for
safe-keeping into the hands of a squaw. Tempted by a curiosity
which has proved so fatal in all religious cults, the woman opened
the bag to peep into it, when the soul escaped and returned to
the land of the dead.|| Turner "^ tells us that the soul of the chief
Puepuemai was wrapped up and carried around in a leaf. The
Ojibways describe how one of their chiefs died, but, while they
were watching the body on the third night, his shadow came back
into it, and he sat up and told them how he had traveled to the
river of Death, but had been stopped there and sent back to his
people.^ The Malays do not like to wake a sleeper, lest they
should hurt him by disturbing his body when his soul is out.

* "The Bird?'," p. 1553. || Parkman, "Jesuits of North America," p. Ixxxiii.
\ Wilson, "Western Africa," chap. xii. ^ "Samoa," p. 142.

X Williams, " Fiji and Fijians," vol. i, p. 242. ^ Tylor, " Anthropology," p. 344.

* " Dragon, Image, and Demon," p. 443.

I

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 205

Sir John Lubbock * has traced this belief in the jiower of the soul
to leave and return to the body to the inhabitants of Madagascar,
the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Mangaujas of South and the Yoru-
bans of West Africa, the Tongans, the Peruvians, and other tribes.

Frequently the soul in its mundane journeyings took the visi-
ble guise of some animal. Grimm f tells us how King Gun-
thram's soul, while he slept on his faithful follower's laj), came
out of his mouth in the form of a snake, and attempted to cross a
stream. To aid the snake, the henchman bridges the stream with
his sword, when it passes over, goes up a hill, and, after a little,
returns and enters the king's mouth. Presently the king wakes,
and relates how in a dream he had crossed an iron bridge, and
entered a mountain filled with gold. Claud Paradin, J in his
" Symbola Heroica," has a variant of this wonderful dream, ac-
companying the legend with an engraving of a sword with a small
animal — possibly a mouse — standing on the blade, and the motto
" Sic sopor irrupit." In this variant the king returns to his palace
and summons all the wise men of his kingdom to interpret the
dream, and for once in the world's history the opinions of the
savants were unanimous. A large treasure was concealed in the
hill, and its existence was thus revealed by a miracle.

Hugh Miller * illustrates the Celtic theory of dreams by a simi-
lar legend. Two young men sitting on a mossy bank overhang-
ing a small cascade, one of them, overcome by the heat of the day,
falls asleep, when his companion is surprised to see issue from his
mouth a little indistinct form scarcely larger than a humble-bee,
which disappears over the cascade. The watcher in alarm tries to
waken his companion, but, before he succeeds, the cloud-like creat-
ure returns and enters the sleeper's mouth. Then he opens his
eyes and relates a wonderful dream; how he crossed a broad
river on a bridge of silver, and found on the further shore heaps
of gold and jewels. It is more frequently the guise of a mouse
that the wandering soul delights to masquerade in, though ac-
cording to Grimm || it is the devil's brides out of whose mouths
the soul runs in the shape of a red mouse. Thus we are told that
in Thuringia a servant-girl fell asleep while her companions were
shelling nuts, when they observed a little red mouse creep out
from her parted lips and run out of the window. One of those
present then shook the sleeper, but, not succeeding in waking her,
moved her to another place. Presently the mouse ran back to
the former place, and dashed about, seeking the girl, but, not find-
ing her, it vanished, when the girl instantly died.^ A miller, cut-
ting fire- wood in the Black Forest, fell asleep over his work, when

* " Origin of Civilization," p. 214 et seq. * " Schools and Schoolmasters."

f " Teutonic Mythology," vol. iii, p. 1082. | Grimm, loc. cit.

X Chambers's " Cock of Days," vol. i, p. 276. ^ Baring-Gould, " Curious My th^,'' p. 424.

2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his man saw a mouse creep out of his mouth and run away;
every one searched for the animal, but could not find it, and the
miller never awoke.* In Bohemia it was considered dangerous to
go to sleep while thirsty, as the soul was sure to wander abroad
in search of water. Baring-Gould f tells the story of three labor-
ers, having lost their way in the woods, and, parched with thirst,
seeking in vain for water. At last one of them lay down and fell
asleep, while the others continued their search until they found a
spring. After drinking they returned to their comrade, when
they saw a little white mouse run out of his mouth, go to the
sjjring, drink, and then return to the sleeper. In German super-
stition the souls of the dead assume the forms of mice, and when
the head of a house dies it is said that even the mice of the house
abandon it, and that, in general, every apparition of mice is con-
sidered a funereal presage ; the funeral of St. Gertrude, represented
surrounded by mice, being thus accounted for. J

The position of the mouse in the folk-lore of the soul is not
quite clear. The Mojaves believe that curling upward with the
smoke from the funeral pyre the soul rises and floats eastward
to the region of the rising sun ; but, if its purity has been sullied
with crime or stained with human blood, it is transformed into a
rat and must remain four days in a rat-hole to be purified before
it can share the joys of heaven.* Mr. Ralston! tells us that in
the Nijogorod Government the Milky-Way is called the Mouse-
Path, the mouse being a well-known figure of the soul. Miss
Phipson^ says that the dormouse, from its awakening from sleep
with the return of spring, was sometimes employed in ecclesiasti-
cal art as a type of the resurrection. Per contra, Mr. Conway ^
assures us that the shudder which some nervous persons feel at
the sight of even a harmless mouse is a survival of the time when
it was believed that in this form unshriven souls or unbaptized
children haunted their former homes, and from the many
legends that report the departure of unhallowed souls in the
shape of this timid creature.

Birds vie with mice in the honor of being human soul-bearers.
The heathen Bohemians thought that the soul flew out of the
mouths of the dying in the shape of birds. Grimm % says such ideas
were common in pagan Scandinavia. In the Edda of Saemund it is
said that souls in the form of singed birds flit about the nether
world like SAvarms of flies. The Bohemians thought that bird-
shaped souls flew restlessly from tree to tree until the bodies were

* Grimm, he. cit. ^ "Animal Lore," p. 131.

•f " Curious Myths," p. 461. () " Demonology and Devil Lore," vol. i, p. 128.

% De Gubernatis, " Zoological Mythology," vol. ii, p. 67.

^ Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific Coast," vol. iii, p. 526.

I " Songs of the Russian People," p. 109. % "Teutonic Mythology," vol. ii, p. 828.

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 207

burned, wlien they liad rest. The Finns and Lithuanians and
later nearly all Indo-European people called the Milky Way the
Birds' Way — that is, the way of souls.* The Moslems say that
the souls of the faithful assume the form of snow-white birds, and
nestle under the throne of Allah between death and the resurrec-
tion.! Another account says that in the intermediate state, until
the resurrection, the souls of martyrs, according to tradition re-
ceived from Mohammed, rest in heaven in the crops of beautiful
green birds who eat of the fruits and drink of the rivers in that
charmed region. J In China on the twenty-first day of the period
of mourning for the dead three large paper birds resembling
storks are placed on high poles in front of the house of mourning.
These birds are supposed to carry the souls of the departed to
Elysium, and during the next three days prayers are addressed to
the ten kings of the Buddhist hades calling on them to hasten the
flight of the departed soul to the Hindoo paradise.* On the Bos-
porus flocks of birds about the size of a thrush fly up and down
the channel, and are never seen to rest on sea or land, and are
believed by the boatmen to be the souls of the damned, condemned
to perpetual motion. | Pliny -^ tells that it is stated in Procon-
nesus that the soul of Aristeas was seen to fly out of his mouth
under the form of a raven. The Aztecs believed that the souls of
those killed in battle, of prisoners sacrificed by the enemy, and of
women dying in childbirth, went to the sun, where they passed
four years of delightful existence. They were then turned into
birds and animated the clouds with their brilliant plumage and
harmonious voices, free to rise to the vaults of heaven or to de-
scend to earth to taste the nectar of the flowers.^ When a Kailta
dies it is thought that the soul is carried to the spirit-land by a
little bird, and, if it has been a wicked soul, it is overtaken on the
way and devoured by a hawk or other bird of prey. J Among the
Apaches the owl, the eagle, and perfectly white birds were re-
garded as possessing souls of divine origin. % The Maricopas
believe that after death they will return and live in their ancient
homes on the banks of the Colorado River, where their heads will
be turned into owls and the other parts of their bodies into differ-
ent animals. I The Icannas of Brazil think the souls of the

* Kclley, " Indo-European Folk-Lore," p. 103.
t Brewer, " Dictionary of Plirase and Fable," p. 840.

X Koran, Sale, "Preliminary Discourse," section 4 ; Alger, "Future Life," p. 201.
" Jones, " Credulities," p. 373.

I Hardwick, "Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore," p. 158.
■^ " Natural History," vol. vii, p. 53.

^ Bancroft, " Native Races," vol. iii, p. 533 ; Alger, " Future Life," p. 73 ; Eiart, " Tlie
Aztecs," p. 86. % Joaquin Miller, " Among the Modocs," p. 241.

^ Schoolcraft, " Archaeology," vol. v, p. 209.
% Bartlett, "Personal Narrative of Exploration," voL ii, p. 222.

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dead become beautiful birds feeding on luscious fruit.* Tbe
Powhatans sacredly regard small wood-birds, thinking they in-
shrine the souls of their dead, f Among the Aht tribes it is be-
lieved that the soul issued from gulls and partridges, and that
they will after death return to their original forms. J The Hurons,
according to Brebeuf, ** believed that the souls of the dead turned
to doves ; and among the cognate tribes of the Iroquois a dove
was freed over the couch of the dying at the moment the last
breath was drawn. || The Paris " Figaro" for October, 1872, gives
an account of a similar observance as happening in the Rue
Duhesme of that city. A young gypsy woman when dying was
surrounded by her companions, when a man, who appeared to be
the chief, entered the circle, carrying a bird in his hand, which he
held beneath the mouth of the dying, and freed when she ex-
pired."^

The providing the dead with passports or money with which
to lighten the journey of the soul to heaven is wide-spread. The
Greeks placed an obolus in the mouth of the corpse, as toll for
Charon, though this offering was omitted at Hermione, in Argolis,
where men thought there was a short descent to hades, and thus
avoided the fee.^ Becker % doubts if this custom was universal
among the Romans, the passages of Juvenal, vol. iii, p. 67, and
of Propertius, vol. iv, pp. 11, 7, affording no sufficient proof.
Among the Chinese, money was put into the mouth of the dead
to buy favor in the passage to heaven.^ In Washington Terri-
tory, in 1879, the mouth of a dead Twana squaw was filled with
money before burial.J At the present day, all over Europe at
Irish wakes money is placed in the hand of the dead.** In Tuh-
keim, the soul of the dead, having crossed the bridge leading out
of hell with the aid of the priests, receives a letter of recom-
mendation from them favoring its admittance into the western
heaven. ft The dead of the ancient Mexicans were furnished with
several passports, the first one enabling the soul to pass between
two mountains, which threatened to meet and crush it in their
embrace ; the second enabling it to pass the road guarded by a
big snake ; the third propitiated Xochitonal, the green crocodile ;
and the fourth insured the passage across eight deserts and over
eight hills. X\

That the soul materializes in the shape of the body it inhabited

"■' Clavigero, " llessico," vol. ii, p. 5. * "Rel. des Jesuits," 1G36, p. 4.

\ Brinton," Myths of the New World," p. 107. || Morgan, "League of the Iroquois," p. 174.

X Bancroft, " Native Races," vol. iii, p. 522. •*■ Jones, " Credulities," p. 380.

0 Tylor, "Primiuvc Culture," vol. i, p. 490. % "Gallus," Excursus xii.

% Ball, in Williams's " Middle Kingdom," vol. ii, p. 244, note.

% "American Antiquary," October, 1880, p. 53.

** Tylor, " Anthropology," p. 347. f f Du Bose, "Dragon, Image, and Demon," p. 452.

X\ Bancroft, "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 537.

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 209

•while on earth, is one of the tenets of modern spiritualism. The
Chinese believe that decapitation makes headless souls in hades.
During the T'aiping troubles as much as six hundred and sixty-
six dollars was paid for a head to be buried with a body, in order
to make a respectable appearance in the other world ! * The Aus-
tralian who has slain his enemy will cut off the right thumb of
the corpse, so that it can not throw the ghostly spear with the
mutilated hand. A West India planter, whose slaves were com-
mitting suicide in order that they might come to life in their
native land, cut off the heads and hands of the corpses, thus effect-
ually putting an end to the practice.! I^ China the souls of the
drowned are supposed to remain under water for three years, when
they seize the shadow of some passing man, pull him in, and thus
effect their own escape. Boatmen are in continual dread of these
demons, and stone pillars are erected on the spots where they
■were drowned in order to control their souls. J Damascius tells
us that, in a battle fought near Rome by Valentinian against
Attila, the slaughter on both sides was so great that none escaped,
and, when the bodies had all fallen, the souls still stood upright
and continued fighting three whole days and nights, neither in-
ferior in activity of hands or fierceness of mind to living men.
The images of the soul were seen and the clashing of their armor
heard.*

The idea of the plurality of the soul is met with in the oldest
records of man, and is universally accepted by savage tribes
to-day. The Egyptians considered man to have a soul, ha, repre-
sented by a hawk with a human head ; a shade, khehi ; a spirit
or intelligence, lihu, into which it became changed as a " being
of light " ; an existence, ka ; besides life, anJch. The soul, ba, only
revisited the body. | The Hebrews have nepesh, the animal life ;
Tuali, the human principle of life ; and nesliamah, life considered
as an inspiration of the Almighty, and from these the Rabbins
taught the threefold nature of the soul.^ The Persians divided
the soul into five parts : The ferolier, or sensation ; the hoo, intel-
ligence; the rough, imagination, volition; the akho, conscience;
and the jan, animal life. Of these, the first one alone was ac-
countable for the deeds done in the body.^ The Chinese believe
in three souls and six spirits : the latter, being animal, go down
into the earth at death, while, of the souls, one goes down into

* Williams's " Middle Kingdom," vol. ii, 244.
f Tyler, "Primitive Culture," vol. i, p. 451.

■j;. Du Bose, " Dragon, Image, and Demon," p. 454.

* Southcy, " Commonplace-Book," vol. i, p. 287.

I Birch, in Wilkinson's " Ancient Egypt," vol. iii, p. 4C.5, note.

^ Farrar, " Language," p. 188.

^ Fraser, " History of Nadir Shah " ; cf . Emerson, " Indian Myths," p. 179,

VOL. XXXIV. — 14

210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

liades, the second enters the coffin, and is laid in the grave, but
is not satisfied with its dismal abode; while the third lingers
around its old home, and with the second soul receives the wor-
ship of its posterity.* The Hindoos designate between Bralimdt-
mah, the breath of God, and jivdtmah, the breath of life.f The
Khonds of Orissa have a fourfold division of the soul, the first
soul being absorbed by the Boora, or deity, the second is reborn
into succeeding generations, the third goes out in dreams, and the
fourth dies with the body. J

Plato located in the human body three souls, the rational and
immortal soul occupying the head, the lower souls occupying
respectively the region near the heart and the abdominal region
below the diaphram, the latter subject to and connected with the
higher by being fastened to the spinal marrow or cord. Of these
lower souls, the thoracic was the seat of energy and anger, while
to the abdominal soul belonged the appetites, the desires, and the
greed of gain.* Aristotle divided the soul into the vegetative, the
perceptive, the locomotive, the impulsive, and the noetic, all but
the latter being shared with animals, while the nous was divine,
perhaps pre-existent and imperishable. || Among the Romans the
question of the plural soul is open to discussion. Ovid says:
"The shades flit round the tomb; the underworld receives the
image ; the spirit seeks the stars " {Tumulum circumvolat umhra;
orcus Jiabet manes ; spiritus astra petit). In his "Tristia"'^ he
complains that, while his immortal spirit soars aloft into the
vacant air, his shade will be wandering amid Sarmatian ghosts.
Hardonin ^ says that the Romans made a distinction between the
souls of the dead and their shades, umhrcB. The former were sup-
posed to remain on earth, while the latter were removed either to
Elysium or Tartarus, according to the character or actions of the
deceased. That the idea of a triple soul lingered in England we
know from Sir Toby Belch, in Shakespeare's " Twelfth Night,"
asking, " Shall we rouse the night-owl with a catch that will draw
three souls out of one weaver ? " Nares | says that the peripatetic
philosophy, which governed the schools in the time of the old
English dramatists, assigned to every man three souls— the vege-
tative, the animal, and the rational. In his quaint " Letters," I
Howell tells us that the embryon is animated with three souls :

* Du Bose, " Dragou, Image, and Demon," p. 81 ; 'Williams, " The Middle Kingdom,"
vol. ii, p. 243.

f Farrar, loc. cit. \ McPherson, " India," p. 91.

» Plato, "Timaeus"; Grote's "Plato," vol. iii, p. 271, 2*72; Bain, "Senses and Intel-
lect," p. 613.

II Cf. " Be Gen. et Cor.," vol. ii, p. 3 ; " Be Anima," vol. iii, p. 5.

^ Vol. iii, p. 3. 0 Plinj) " Natural History," vol. vii, p. 57, note.

% "Glossary," vol. ii, p. 817. X ^-i '^^^' •"> P- ^^-

BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 211

with that of plants, called the vegetable soul; then with the
sensitive, which all brute animals have ; and, lastly, the rational
soul is infused ; and these three in man, he adds, are like Trigonus
in Tetragono.

The Iroquois and Algonquins believed that the soul which
gave bodily life was of a vegetative character, and remained with
the corpse after death until it was released by being reborn into
another body ; while the ethereal soul, which roamed at will while
the body was asleep or in a trance, after death departed directly to
the land of spirits.* Infants were buried by the sides of paths, that
their vegetative souls might enter into the body of some mother,
and their rebirth thus be hastened, f Among the TucuUus the
medicine-man placed his hands over the breast of the dying, and
then, holding them over the head of a relative, blew through the
expanded fingers, in order that the next child born to him might
be the representative of the departed. J Certain tribes on the Pa-
cific coast believed that one of the souls had its dwelling in the
bones, and, if these were planted, they would germinate like seed,
and produce human beings.* The Choctaws believe that every
man has an outside shadow, sMlombish, and an inside shadow,
shilup, both of which survived his body.|j The Sioux believed in
three souls, one of which went to the cold world, another to the
warm world, while the third remained and watched over the
body.^ Mrs. Eastman ^ tells us that the Dakotas extended the
number of souls to four, one of which wanders through the world,
another hovers around the village where its possessor lived, the
third stays by the grave, and the fourth goes to heaven. With
certain Greenlanders one soul took the form of a shadow, the
other that of the breath. | The Feejeeans distinguished between
a man's dark spirit or shadow, which goes down to hades, and
his light spirit, the one that is reflected in water or a mirror, and
which remains when he dies. X The Malagasy say that the sain a,
or mind, vanishes at death ; the aina, or life, becomes mere air ;
while the matoatoa, or ghost, hovers around the tomb. %

* " ReL des Jesuits," 163G, p. i04.
f Ibid., 1635, p. 130,

X Waitz, " Anthropology," vol. iii, p. 95.

* Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific Coast," voL iii, p. 514.
I Brinton, " Myths of the New World," p. 251.

^ " Hist. Coll. Louisiana," vol. iii, p, 26.
^ " Legends of the Sioux," p. 129.

J Tylor, "Primitive Culture," voL i, p. 4S2; Spencer, "Principles of Sociology," voL
i, p. 191.

% Williams, "Fiji and the Fijians," vol. i, p. 241.
I Ellis, " Madagascar," vol i, 393.

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE.*

By Peof. S. p. LANGLEY.
I.

IN these days, when a man can take but a very little portion of
knowledge to be his province, it has become customary that
your president's address shall deal with some limited topic, with
which his own labors have made him familiar ; and accordingly I
have selected as my theme the history of our present views about
radiant energy, not only because of the intrinsic importance of
the subject, but because the study of this energy in the form of
radiant heat is one to which I have given special attention.

Just as the observing youth, who leaves his own household to
look abroad for himself, comes back with the report that the
world, after all, is very like his own family, so may the specialist,
when he looks out from his own department, be surprised to find
that, after all, the history of the narrowest specialty is amazingly
like that of scientific doctrine in general, and contains the same
lessons for us. To find some of the most useful ones, it is impor-
tant, however, to look with our own eyes at the very words of the
masters themselves, and to take down the dusty copy of Newton,
or Boyle, or Leslie, instead of a modern abstract ; for, strange as
it may seem, there is something of great moment in the original
that has never yet been incorporated into any encyclopaedia,
something really essential in the words of the man himself which
has not been indexed in any text-book, and never will be.

It is not for us, then, here to-day, to try —

" How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail " ;

but, on the contrary, to remark that from this index-learning,
from these histories of science and summaries of its progress, we
are apt to get wrong ideas of the very conditions on which this
progress depends. We often hear it, for instance, likened to the
march of an army toward some definite end ; but this, it has
seemed to me, is not the way science usually does move, but only
the way it seems to move in the retrospective view of the com-
piler, who probably knows almost nothing of the real confusion,
diversity, and retrograde motion of the individuals comprising
the body, and only shows us such parts of it as he, looking back-
ward from his x>resent standpoint, now sees to have been in the
right direction.

I believe this comparison of the progress of science to that of

* President's address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
at Cleveland, Ohio, August 15, 1888. Reprinted from "Science."

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 213

the army which obeys an impulse from one head has more error
than truth in it; and, though all similes are more or less mis-
leading, I would almost prefer to ask you to think rather of a
moving crowd, where the direction of the whole comes somehow
from the independent impulses of its individual members, not
wholly unlike a pack of hounds, which, in the long run, perhaps
catches its game, but where, nevertheless, when at fault, each
individual goes his own way by scent, not by sight, some running
back and some forward ; where the louder- voiced bring many to
follow them, nearly as often in a wrong path as in a right one ;
where the entire pack even has been known to move off bodily on
a false scent ; for this, if a less dignified illustration, would be one
which had the merit of having a considerable truth in it, but one
left out of sight by the writers of books.

At any rate, the actual movement has been tortuous, or often
even retrograde, to a degree of which you will get no idea from
the account in the text-book or encyclopaedia, where, in the
main, only the resultant of all these vacillating motions is given.
With rare exceptions, the backward steps — that is, the errors and
mistakes, which count in reality for nearly half, and sometimes
for more than half the whole — are left out of scientific history ;
and the reader, while he knows that mistakes have been made,
has no just idea how intimately error and truth are mingled in a
sort of chemical union, even in the work of the great discoverers,
and how it is the test of time chiefly which enables us to say
which is progress when the man himself could not. If this be a
truism, it is one which is often forgotten, and which we shall do
well to here keep before us.

This is not the occasion to review the vague speculations of
the ancient natural philosophers from Aristotle to Zeno, or to
give the opinion of the school-men on our subject. We take it up
with the immediate predecessors of Newton, among whom we
may have been prepared to expect some obscure recognition of
heat as a mode of motion, but where it has been, to me at least,
surprising, on consulting their original works, to find how general
and how clear an anticipation of our modern doctrine may be
fairly said to exist. Whether this early recognition of the atomic
and vibratory theories be a legacy from the Lucretian philosophy,
it is not necessary to here consider. The interesting fact, how-
ever it came about, is the extent to which seventeenth-century
thought is found to be occupied with views which we are apt to
think very recent.

Descartes, in 1664, commences his " Le Monde " by a treatise
on the propagation of light, and what we should now call radiant
heat, by vibrations, and further associates this view of heat as
imotion with the distinct additional conception that in the cause

214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of light and radiant heat we may expect to find something quite
different from the sense of vision or of warmth ; and he expresses
himself with the aid of the same simile of sound employed by
Draper over two hundred years later. The writings of Boyle on
the mechanical production of heat contain illustrations (like that
of the hammer driving the nail, which grows hot in proportion as
its bodily motion is arrested) which show a singularly complete
apprehension of views we are apt to think we have made our
own ; and it seems to me that any one who consults the originals
will admit that, though its full consequences have not been
wrought out till our own time, yet the fundamental idea of heat
as a mode of motion is so far from being a modern one, that it
was announced in varying forms by Newton's immediate prede-
cessors, by Descartes, by Bacon, by Hobbes, and in particular by
Boyle, while Hooke and Huygens merely continue their work,
as at first does Newton himself.

If, however, Newton found the doctrine of vibrations already,
so to speak, " in the air," we must, while recognizing that in the
history of thought the new always has its root in the old, and that
it is not given even to a Newton to create an absolutely new light,
still admit that the full dawn of our subject properly begins with
him, and admit, too, that it is a bright one, when we read in the
" Optics " such passages as these : " Do not all fixed bodies, when
heated beyond a certain degree, emit light and shine, and is not
this emission performed by the vibrating motions of their parts ? '*
And again : "Do not several sorts of rays make vibrations of sev-
eral bignesses ? " And still again : " Is not the heat conveyed by
the vibrations of a much subtler medium than air ? "

Here is the undulatory theory ; here is the connection of the
ethereal vibrations with those of the material solid ; here is " heat
as a mode of motion " ; here is the Identity of radiant heat and
light ; here is the idea of wave-lengths. What a step forward
this first one is ! And the second ? — the second is, as we now
know, backward. The second is the rejection of this, and the
adoption of the corpuscular hypothesis, with which alone the
name of Newton (a father of the undulatory theory) is, in the
minds of most, associated to-day.

Do not let us forget, however, that it was on the balancing of
arguments from the facts then known that he decided, and that
perhaps it was rather an evidence of his superiority to Huygens,
that apprehending before the latter, and equally clearly, the un-
dulatory theory, he recognized also more clearly that this theory,
as then understood, failed utterly to account for several of the
most important phenomena. With an equally judicial mind,
Huygens would perhaps have decided so too, in the face of diffi-
culties, all of which have not been cleared up even to-day.

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE.

215

These two great men, then, each looked around in the then
darkness as far as his light carried him. All beyond that was
chance to each ; and Fate willed that Newton, whose light shone
further than his rival's, found it extend just far enough to show
the entrance to the wrong way. He reaches the conclusion that
we all know ; and with the result on other men's thought that,
light being conceded to be material, heat, if af&liated to light,
must be regarded as material too, for we may see this strange
conclusion drawn from experiments of Herschel a century later.

It would seem that the result of this unhappy corpuscular
theory was more far-reaching than we commonly suppose, and
that it is hardly too much to say that the whole promising move-
ment of that age toward the true doctrine of radiant energy is not
only arrested by it, but turned the other way ; so that in this re-
spect the philosophy of fifty years later is actually further from
the truth than that of Newton's predecessors.

The immense repute of Newton as a leader, on the whole so
rightly earned, here leads astray others than his conscious disci-
ples, and, it seems to me, affects men's opinions on topics which
appear at first far removed from those he discussed. The adop-
tion of phlogiston was, as we may reasonably infer, facilitated by
it, and remotely Newton is, perhaps, also responsible in part for
the doctrine of caloric a hundred years later. After him, at any
rate, there is a great backward movement. We have a distinct
retrogression from the ideas of Bacon and Hobbes and Boyle.
Night settles in again on our subject almost as thick as in the
days of the school-men, and there seems to be hardly an important
contribution to our knowledge, in the first part of the eighteenth
century, due to a physicist.

" Physics, beware of metaphysics," said Newton — words which
physicists are apt so exclusively to quote, that it seems only due
to candor to observe that the most important step, perhaps, in the
fifty years which followed the "Optics," came from Berkeley,
who, reasoning as a metaphysician, gave us during Newton's life-
time a conception wonderfully in advance of his age. Yet the
" New Theory of Vision " was generally viewed by contemporary
philosophers as only an amusing paradox, while " coxcombs van-
quish [ed] Berkeley with a grin" ; and this contribution to science
— an exceptional if not a unique instance of a great physical gen-
eralization reached by a priori reasoning — though published in
1709, remains in advance of the popular knowledge even in these
closing years of the nineteenth century.

In the mean time a new error had risen among men — a new
truth, as it seemed to them, and a thing destined to have a strong
reflex action on the doctrine of radiant energy. It began with the
generalization of a large class of phenomena (which we now asso-

21 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ciate with the action of oxygen, then of course unknown) — a gen-
eralization useful in itself, and accompanied by an explanation
which was not in its origin objectionable. Let us consider, in
illustration, any familiar instance of oxidation, and try to look
first for what was reasonable in the eighteenth-century views of
the cause of such phenomena. A piece of dry wood has in it the
power of giving out heat and light when set on fire ; but after it
is consumed there is left of it only inert ashes, which can give
neither. Something, then, has left the wood in the process of be-
coming ashes ; virtue has gone out of it, or, as we should say, its
potential energy has gone.

This is, so far, an important observation, extending over a wide
range of phenomena, and, if it had presented itself to the prede-
cessors of Newton, it would probably have been allied to the
vibratory theories, and become proportionately fruitful. But to
his disciples, and to chemists and others who, without being per-
haps disciples, were, like all then, more or less consciously influ-
enced by the materiality of the corpuscular theory, it appeared
that this also was a material emanation, that this energy was an
actual ingredient of the wood — a crudeness of conception which
seems most strange to us, but it is not, perhaps, unaccountable in
view of the then current thought.

I have said that the progress of science is not so much that of
an army as of a crowd of searchers, and that a call in a false
direction may be responded to, not by one only, but by the whole
body. In illustration, observe that during the greater part of the
entire eighteenth century this doctrine was adopted by almost
every chemist and by most physicists. It had quite as general an
acceptance among scientific men then as the kinetic theory of
gases, for instance, has now, and, as far as time is any test of
truth, it was tested more severely than the kinetic theory has yet
been ; for it was not only the lamp and guide of chemists, and, to
a great extent, of physicists also, but it remained the time-honored
and highest generalization of chemico-physical science for over
half a century, and it was accepted not so much as a conditional
hypothesis as a final guide and a conquest for truth which should
endure always. And now where is it ? Dissipated so utterly
from men's minds that, to the unprofessional part of even an
educated audience like this, " phlogiston," once a name to conjure
with, has become an unmeaning sound.

There" is no need to insist on the application of the obvious
moral to hypotheses of our own day. I have tried to recall for a
moment all that " phlogiston " meant a little more than a hundred
years ago, partly because it seems to me that, though a chemical
conception, physics is not wholly blameless for it, but chiefly be-
cause before it quitted the world it appears to have returned to

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE.

217

physics tlie wrong in a multiplied form by generating an off-
spring especially inimical to true ideas about radiant heat, and
which is represented by a yet familiar term. I mean " caloric."

This word is still used loosely as a synonym for heat, but has
quite ceased to be the very definite and technical term it once
was. To me it has been new to find that this so familiar word
" caloric/' so far as my limited search has gone, was apparently
coined only toward the last quarter of the last century. It is not
to be found in the earliest edition of Johnson's Dictionary, and,
as far as I can learn, appears first in the corresponding French
form in the works of Fourcroy. It expressed an idea which was
the natural sequence of the phlogiston theory, and which is an-
other illustration that the evil which such theories do lives after
them.

" Caloric " first seemingly appears, then, as a new word coined
by the French chemists, and meant originally to signify the un-
known cause of the sensation heat, without any implication as to
its nature. But words, we know, though but wise men's counters,
are the money of fools ; and this one very soon came to commit
its users to an idea which was more likely to have had its origin
in the mind of a chemist at that time than of any other — the idea
of the cause of heat as a material ingredient of the hot body ;
something not, it is true, having weight, but which it would have
been only a slight extension of the conception to think might one
day be isolated by a higher chemical art, and exhibited in a tan-
gible form.

We may desire to recognize the perverted truth which usually
underlies error, and gives it currency, and be willing to believe
that even " caloric " may have had some justification for its exist-
ence ; but this error certainly seems to have been almost alto-
gether pernicious for nearly the next eighty years, and down even
to our own time. With this conception as a guide to the philoso-
phers of the last years of the eighteenth century, it is not, at any
rate, surprising if we find that at the end of a hundred years from
Newton the crowd seems to be still going constantly further and
further away from its true goal.

Although Provost gave us his most material contribution
about 1790, we have, it seems to me, on the whole, little to inter-
est us during that barren time in the history of radiant energy
called the eighteenth century — a century whose latter years are
given up, till near its very close, to bad a priori theories in our
subject, except in the work of two Americans ; for in the general
dearth, at this time, of experiments in radiant heat, it is a pleasure
to fancy Benjamin Franklin sitting down before the fire, with a
white stocking on one leg and a black one on the other, to see
which leg would burn first, and to recall again how Benjamin

2i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thompson (Count Rumf ord) not only weighed " caloric " literally
in the balance and found it wanting, but made that memorable
experiment in the Munich foundries which showed that heat
was perpetually and without limit created from motion.

It was in the last years of the century, too, that he provided
for the medal called by his name, and which, though to be given
for researches in heat and light, has, I believe, been allotted in
nearly every instance to men who, like Leslie, Mains, Davy,
Brewster, Fresnel, Melloni, Faraday, Arago, Stokes, Maxwell, and
Tyndall, have contributed toward the subject of radiant energy
in particular.

We observe that till Rumf ord's time the scientific literature of
the century scarcely considers the idea even of radiant heat, still
less of radiant energy ; so that we have been obliged here to dis-
cuss the views of its physicists about heat in general, heat and
light in most eighteenth-century minds being distinct entities.
We must remember, then, to his greater honor, that the idea of
radiant heat as a separate study has before Rumford scarcely
an existence ; all the ways for pilgrims to this special shrine of
truth being barred, like those in Bunyan's allegory, by two un-
friendly monsters who are called Phlogiston and Caloric, so that
there are few scientific j^ilgrims who do not pay them toll.

The doctrine of caloric is, however, even then recognized as a
chemical hypothesis rather than one acceptable to physicists,
some of whom still stand out for vibratory theories even through
the darkest years of the century ; and, further, we may find, on
strict search, that the old idea of heat as a mode of motion has
not so utterly died that it does not appear here and there during
the last century, not only among philosophers, but even in a popu-
lar form.

In an old English translation of Father Regnault's compilation
on physics, dated about 1730, I find the most explicit statement of
the doctrine of heat as a mode of motion. Here heat is defined
(with the aid of a simile due, I believe, to Boyle) as " any Agita-
tion whatever of the insensible parts. Thus a Nail which is drove
into the Wood by the stroke of a Hammer does not appear to be
hot, because its immediate parts have but one common Move-
ment. But should the Nail cease to drive, it would acquire a
sensible Heat, because its insensible Parts which receive the Mo-
tion of the Hammer now acquire an agitation every way rapid."
We certainly must admit that the user of this illustration had
just and clear ideas ; and the interesting point here appears to be,
that as Father Regnault's was not an original work, but a mere
compendium or popular scientific treatise of the period, we see, if
only from this instance, that the doctrine of heat as a mode of
motion was not confined to the great men of an earlier or a later

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 219

time, but formed a part of the common pabulum during the
eigliteentli century to an extent that has been singularly forgotten.

The last years of the eighteenth century were destined to see
the most remarkable experiments in heat made in the whole of
the hundred ; for the memoir of Rumf ord appeared in the " Philo-
sophical Transactions" for 1798; and in the very year 1800 ap-
peared in the same place Sir William Herschel's paper, in which
he describes how he placed a thermometer in successive colors of
the solar spectrum, finding the heat increase progressively from
the violet to the red, and increase yet more beyond the red where
there was no color or light whatever ; so that there are, he ob-
serves, invisible rays as well as visible. More than that, the first
outnumber the second ; and these dark rays are found in the very
source and fount of light itself. These dark rays can also be
obtained, he observes, from a candle or a piece of non-luminous
hot iron, and, what is very significant, they are found to pass
through glass, and to be refracted by it like luminous ones.

And now Herschel, searching for the final verity through a
series of excellent experiments, asks a question which shows that
he has truth, so to speak, in his hands — he asks himself the great
question whether heat and light be occasioned by the same or dif-
ferent rays.

Remember the importance of this (which the querist himself
fully recognized) ; remember that, after long hunting in the
.blindfold search, he has laid hands, as we now know, on Truth
herself, and then see him — let go. He decides that heat and light
are not occasioned by the same rays, and we seem to see the fugi-
tive escape from his grasp, and not to be again fairly caught till
the next generation. I hardly know more remarkable papers than
these of Herschel's in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1800,
or anything more instructive in little men's successes than in this
great man's failure, which came in the moment of success. I
would strongly recommend the reading of these remarkable
original memoirs to any physicist who knows them only at sec-
ond hand.

One more significant lesson remains, in the effect of this on the
minds of his contemporaries. Herschel's observation is to us al-
most a demonstration of the identity of radiant heat and light ;
but now, though the nineteenth century is opening, it is with the
doctrine still in the minds of most physicists, and perhaps of all
chemists, that heat is occasioned by a certain material fluid. Phlo-
giston is by this time dead or dying, but caloric is very much alive,
and never more perniciously active than now, when, for instance,
years after Herschel's observation, we find this cited as " demon-
strating the existence of caloric," which was, it seems, the way it
looked to a contemporary.

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the year 1804 appeared wliat should be a very notahle book
in the history of our subject, written by Sir John Leslie, whose
name survives perhaps in the minds of many students chiefly in
connection with the " cube/' which is still called after him. Leslie,
however, ought to be remembered as a man of original genius,
worthy to be mentioned with Herschel and Melloni ; and his, too,
is one of the books which the student may be recommended to
read, at least in part, in the original ; not so much for the writer's
instructive experiments (which will be found in our text-books)
as for his most instructive mistakes, which the text -book will
probably not mention.

He began by introducing the use of the simple instrument
which bears his name, and a new and more delicate heat-measure
(the differential thermometer) ; and with these, and concave re-
flectors of glass and metal, he commenced experiments in radiant
heat, than which, he tells us, no part of physical science then ap-
peared so dark, so dubious, and so neglected. It is interesting,
and it marks the degree of neglect he alludes to, that his first dis-
covery was that different substances have different radiating and
absorbing powers. It gives us a vivid idea of the density of pre-
vious ignorance, that it was left to the present century to demon-
strate this elementary fact, and that Leslie, in view of such dis-
coveries, says, " I was transported at the prospect of a new world
emerging to view."

Next ho shows that the radiating and absorbing powers are.
proportional, next that cold as well as heat seems to be radiated,
and next undertakes to see whether this radiant heat has any
affinity to light. He then experiments in the ability of radiant
heat to pass through a transparent glass, which transmits light
freely, and thinks he finds that none does pass. Radiant heat
with him seems to mean heat from non-luminous sources ; and
the ability or non-ability of this to pass through glass is to Leslie
and his successors a most crucial test, and its failure to do so a
proof that this heat is not affiliated to light.

Let us pause a moment here to reflect that we are apt to uncon-
sciously assume, while judging from our own present standpoint
where past error is so plain, that the false conclusion can only be
chosen by an able, earnest, conscientious seeker, after a sort of
struggle. Not so. Such a man is found welcoming the false with
rapture as very Truth herself. "What, then," says Leslie, "is
this calorific and f rigorific fluid after which we are inquiring ? It
is not light, it has no relation to ether, it bears no analogy to the
fluids, real or imaginary, of magnetism and electricity. But why
have recourse to invisible agents ? Quod petis, hie est. It is
merely the ambient AIR."

The capitals are Leslie's own, but ere we smile with superior

INFANT MORTALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 221

knowledge let us put ourselves iu liis place, and then we may
compreliend the exultation with which he announces the identity
of radiant heat and common air, for he feels that he is beginning
a daring revolt against the orthodox doctrine of caloric, and so
he is.

[ To be continued. "[

INFANT MORTALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

By J. M. FEEJsCn, M. D.

IT is a startling fact, which meets the student of vital statistics
at the outset of his investigations, that from one third to
one half of all persons born into the world die before reaching the
age of five years. Or, to face the terrible reality from another
point of view, so great are the dangers of infancy, that a child
which has completed its fifth year actually has an expectation of
life more than twelve years greater than it had at birth.

The exact proportion of deaths varies greatly in different coun-
tries and localities, at different times and under different circum-
stances. Statistics are of value only in showing average results.
In Norway, for example, the proportion dying under five is stated
by Dr. Farr to be 204:'5 per 1,000 born ; while in England it is 338 per
1,000, and in Italy 567 per 1,000. In fifty-one so-called " healthy
districts " of England and Wales, according to the same authority,
the mortality under five is 175 per 1,000 born, while in the Liver-
pool district, representing the most unfavorable sanitary con-
ditions, it is 460 per 1,000.

In the different parts of our own country, we find nearly as
great a variety as on the continent of Europe. Even in the same
latitude, the proportion varies greatly, according as city or coun-
try districts are considered. In the State of Vermont, which con-
tains no large cities, and represents essentially a rural population,
the number of deaths under five, for the year 1883, was 23*8 per
cent of the whole number of deaths ; in the State of Massachu-
setts, which embraces several large cities within its limits, for the
twelve years ending in 1884, it was 34'74 per cent ; and in the city
of New York alone, for the seven years ending in 1873, it was ex-
actly 50 per cent of the entire mortality.

The younger the child, the larger is the death-rate. According
to Dr. Jacobi, more than half of those who die under five years of
age die in the first year. Dr. Curtiss states that, in all the great
cities of North America, out of every one hundred live-born chil-
dren, about twenty-five die before the end of the first year, and
from forty to fifty before the close of the fifth year.

Death-rates like these — and the figures might be multiplied

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

indefinitely — challenge our earnest attention and demand our
careful consideration. Let us first inquire what are the diseases
which are the immediate cause of the great bulk of infant mor-
tality. These may be grouped in four main classes, namely :

(1) Tlie acute iiifectious zymotics, of which the chief are
measles, scarlet fever, small-pox, diphtheria, and whooping-cough.
These are collectively responsible for from fifteen to twenty per
cent of the deaths under five.

(2) The acute lung-diseases, chiefly bronchitis and pneumonia,
which together cause from ten to fifteen per cent of the deaths
under five. In America, more than twice as many deaths occur
from pneumonia as from bronchitis, while in England nearly the
reverse is true.

(3) Tubercular and constitutional diseases, such as consump-
tion, scrofula, meningitis, and hydrocephalus, which are responsi-
ble for from ten to fifteen per cent of the entire infant mortality.

(4) The diarrhc^al diseases, comprising infantile diarrhoea,
cholera infantum, inflammation of the bowels, dysentery, and
some others. These are the cause of at least one fourth of the
entire infant mortality the world over ; while in America cholera
infantum alone is responsible for nearly or quite one fifth.

But the problem before us is not one which can be solved by a
simple rehearsal of the names of diseases and the number of their
victims. These only show the form and manner of death, while
the ultimate causes lie far in the background.

The real questions at issue relate to those influences which are
at work upon so large a proportion of infants and young children
the world over, tending to break down in them the power of resist-
ing disease, lessen their chances of a vigorous, healthy life, and
render them unduly liable to go down to early graves. What is
the nature of these influences ? What circumstances tend to in-
crease their activity ? Under what conditions and to what extent
may they be rendered inert, or their usual dire effects be avoided ?
By what means may an unfavorable environment be changed to
a favorable one, and the vitality and longevity of the race be
thereby increased ?

In considering these questions, it must be remembered that the
causes of infant mortality are also the causes of adult mortality,
only in a less degree ; and that the health of a delicate infant is the
most sensitive measure which we possess of those influences which
are deleterious to health, either in infancy or adult life.

The first of these deleterious influences in the order of time,
and unquestionably also of importance, is heredity. A very large
proportion of all children born into the world are either weaklings
or invalids from the beginning. They are born wrong. They come
from poor stock. The influences which determine their weakness

INFANT MORTALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 223

to-day have been at work for ages upon ages. That was no sar-
casm, but the plainest statement of scientific truth, on the part
of Oliver Wendell Holmes, when, after declaring his conviction
that every disease might be cured if taken in season, he added,
significantly, that in some cases it would be necessary to begin a
hundred years before the patient was born. This is a hard world,
and no weakling ever has half a chance. " The survival of the
fittest " is a merciful provision of nature. " The strongest live
and the weakest die." A race of criminals, paupers, and idiots
deteriorates with each successive generation, and goes down to
speedy extinction. It is the robust, sturdy, clear-headed, strong-
handed toiler of to-day, whose sons and daughters will inhabit
homes of wealth and occupy positions of responsibility a few
years hence.

The effects of unfavorable heredity may be manifested in va-
rious ways. In the first place, the child may be born with the
disease already developed. Examples of this class may be seen in
hypertrophies, atrophies, and inflammations of various organs ;
in exudations, as hydrocephalus ; in infantile syphilis ; in new
growths, such as nsevus, tumors, and certain forms of cancer ; in
the pre-natal deposition of tubercles, parasites, and some inorganic
products ; in arrests of development, such as cleft-palate, hare-lip,
spina bifida, and that defective closure of the heart which pro-
duces cyanosis ; and in those unusual developments known as
monstrosities. Secondly, the disease may be transmitted, although
its manifestations are not developed at birth. This may be the
case with some of the diseases already mentioned as also occurring
in the first class, as well as with many others. Examples are seen
in scrofula, cancer, consumption, epilepsy, rheumatism, gout, in-
sanity, and the " specific " disease. Again, there may be no actual
disease, but only a tendency to disease, in the shape of an inherited
weakness of some special organ or in some particular direction.
These tendencies render their possessors unduly liable to suffer
from particular diseases, but do not make it necessary that they
should do so, provided that their environment is favorable.
Lastly, the faulty heredity may be manifest only in a general
weakness of the whole system, a lack of vigor and vitality, which
renders its possessor an easy victim to whatever malady may
attack him. This is the cause of many of the deaths which are
registered under the heads of infantile debility, diarrhoea, brain-
disease, and other common affections of infancy.

To the actual diseases, special weaknesses, and unsound consti-
tutions resulting from unfavorable heredity, add now the envi-
ronment of poverty, with its usual accompaniments of ignorance,
carelessness, and inefficiency on the part of the parents, resulting
for both parents and children in privation of food, clothing, shel-

224 ^^-^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ter, and fuel, and we begin to have some faint conception of the
perils which surround infant-life in a large proportion of cases.
Without adequate nourishment, and improperly cared for in every
respect, life is one sharp struggle with want, and it is little wonder
that want often gains the victory. In England, for the ten years
ending with 1875, an average of eighty-two deaths annually was
assigned to starvation alone. But privation and destitution exer-
cise a controlling influence over the mortality of infancy under
other names than this. What the form of death shall be is deter-
mined by various circumstances. It occurs largely from the dis-
eases of denutrition and debility, rickets, scrofula, consumption,
and other constitutional diseases.

Exposure to cold and wet, especially in the sharp vicissitudes
of our winter climate, and more particularly when this is added
to the causes already named, results in a largely increased preva-
lence of the acute lung-diseases. These are extremely fatal even
in adults, and the mortality is proportionately large in children.
Says Routh, in his work on " Infant Feeding " : "Among the most
pernicious influences among young children we may include cold.
It is a household word among us, which takes its origin from the
Registrar - General's returns, that a very cold week always in-
creases the mortality of the very young and the very aged." The
same statement is true in America, though it may be in a some-
what less degree, owing to the fact that our houses are better
pro\dded against extreme cold than are those of the English.
Throughout England, one sixth of all deaths from lung-diseases
occur under five. In London, forty-four per cent of the deaths
from pneumonia and bronchitis take place under that age. In
Massachusetts, the proportion of deaths from pneumonia under
five is thirty-four per cent. These deaths occur largely in the in-
clement portions of the year. In England, both bronchitis and
pneumonia attain their maximum in the first quarter of the year,
decline during the second quarter, reach their minimum during
the third, and begin to increase during the fourth. In Michigan,
Dr. H. B. Baker has shown that the greatest prevalence of the
acute lung-diseases is in February, and the least in August. In
Massachusetts, March has the largest number of deaths, and Au-
gust the least.

Four distinct but closely related causes combine to produce
the diarrhoeal diseases, which result in one fourth of the entire
mortality under five. These are heat, improper feeding, filth, and
overcrowding. The influence of lieat is seen in the facts that, in
our climate, the overwhelming majority of cases in these diseases
occur during the hottest months of the year ; that their prevalence
is greater in the southern portions of the temperate zone than in
the northern, and in unusually hot summers than in those whose

INFANT MORTALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 225

average temperature is less ; and, in general, that the number of
deaths from these causes is directly proportional to the elevation
of temperature, especially if it be long continued. Thus, of 3,216
deaths from the diarrhceal diseases in Vermont, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut in 1883, 2,745, or
eighty-five per cent, occurred during the months of July, August,
and September. The same States showed an increased mortality
from these causes during the unusually hot summers of 1880 and
1882. In the city of Boston, for the nine years from 1867 to 1875
inclusive, the mean temperature of the months of July and Au-
gust varied from 68*6° in 1874 to 72*3° in 1870, and averaged 70'5°.
The highest death-rate was in 1872, when the mean for the two
months was 71"9°, and for the hottest single month was 73'1° ; and
the lowest was in 1867, with a mean for the two months of 69*8°,
and for the hottest month of 70'4°. In New York, during the
month of July, 1872, the mean temperature was 79*57°, or 3'43°
higher than the average for the ten previous years. As a result,
the mortality for the quarter was the highest ever known in the
city, and that notwithstanding that the other two months were
not unusually hot.

It must be stated that, fatal as is the effect of heat upon chil-
dren under five, the proportionate mortality is still greater when
the investigation is limited to infants under one year of age. Dr.
Blackader says that a very hot summer month will triple or even
quadruple the mortality of infants under one year, though that of
children from one to five is barely doubled. During the year 1872,
in New York, nearly sixty per cent of all deaths were under one
year of age, and more than forty per cent took place in the sum-
mer quarter.

The effects of improper feeding are seen in the fact that,
whether in city or country, in hot summers or cool, only a very
small proportion of deaths from infantile diarrhoea occur among
infants who are. properly nursed upon the milk of a healthy
mother — which must be considered the only natural and proper
method of feeding young infants.

Sir Hans Sloane showed years ago that the mortality of those
properly nursed upon breast-milk was to that of those who were
bottle-fed as 19'2 to 53"9 per cent. Dr. J. Wilmarth reports that
in a country practice in Massachusetts, out of one hundred and
one children nursed wholly, or nursed and fed with nursing after
a few months to weaning-time, and who were under his observa-
tion for a series of years, there were twelve deaths from various
causes, none of them from cholera infantum ; while among nine-
teen children artificially fed, there were during the same time
eight deaths, six of them from cholera infantum. Says Messener :
"Cholera infantum attacks only those children who have been.

VOL. XXXIT. — 15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

raised without breast-milk, those who have been weaned too early
or too hastily, or those to whom, on account of the failure of the
mother's milk, other foods have been injudiciously administered.
Under other circumstances than these, children enjoy a complete
immunity."

The artificial feeding of infants often results from physical
inability on the part of the mother to nurse them, and this in-
ability in turn is the result of defective heredity. " The mother
makes the child," and the mother's weakness ofttimes results in
the death of the child, or even of the children's children.

When we turn to consider the merits of the different forms of
artificial feeding, we realize the intimate relation of improper
feeding to the next cause, namely, filth. Cow's milk, the most
common and generally advisable substitute for mother's milk,
when exposed to the air at a summer temperature, soon ferments
and develops a peculiar poison known as tyrotoxicon, which is a
most potent factor in the causation of cholera infantum. It is
also, says Prof. Lister, " a pabulum for all kinds of organisms ;
nearly all varieties of bacteria will live in it." In addition to this,
it often absorbs and becomes the carrier of various other forms of
filth, both organic and inorganic, all of which either directly or
indirectly increase the tendency to disease. These evil results
may be avoided, in a large measure at least, by the modern process
of sterilization of milk, whereby existing germs are destroyed, air
excluded, and fermentation prevented.

But filth may be introduced in other ways than in milk or food
of any kind ; and, however introduced, its effects are always dis-
astrous. Says Mr. Simon : " Nothing in medicine is more certain
than the general meaning of high diarrhoeal rates. The mucous
membrane of the intestinal canal is the excreting surface to
which nature directs all the accidental putridities which enter
us. Whether they have been breathed, or drunk, or eaten, it is
there that they settle and act. As wine gets into the head, so
these agents get into the blood. There, as their universal result,
they tend to produce diarrhoea."

In August, 1883, the health-officer of New Haven, Conn., in a
paper entitled " A Practical Argument for Sewers," reported the
following, which well illustrates the evil effects of impure air :
" There were forty-three deaths in New Haven from infantile
diarrhoea in July. The forty-three deaths occurred in thirty-two
different streets and in thirty-eight different, houses. But the
most remarkable fact is that thirty-four of the forty-three victims
were living upon streets in which there is no public sewer, and in
houses about which are still tolerated those beastly abominations
called cess-pools and privy-vaults. In most of the nine cases where
the houses had sewer connections, they were only for kitchen and

INFANT MORTALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 227

laundry purposes, and the stinking vault still maintains its posi-
tion in the back yard. Observe this fact also : a considerable ma-
jority of the population of New Haven resides upon the sewered
streets, and yet only nine out of forty -three deaths from a disease
which is chiefly caused by foul air occur among the majority ;
while thirty-four of the forty-three are among the minority, who
reside in dwellings surrounded by the fragrant companionship of
time-honored filth-pits. Any person can draw intelligent infer-
ence from the above plain facts."

The remaining important factor in the production of infantile
diarrhoea is overcrowding. This, indeed, is but the occasion of
one of the most dangerous forms of filth, in the shape of air de-
prived of its vitalizing qualities, and charged with impurities
derived from the breath and bodies of men and animals, which
is sometimes known as " crowd-poison." " It is this air," says Dr.
Richardson, " in our overcrowded towns and cities, where there
is no vegetation to revivify it, which we distinguish as something
so different from the fresh country air that streams over meadow
and forest. It is the breathing of this air that makes the child of
the town so pale and lax and feeble, as compared with the child
of the country. It is this air that renders the atmosphere of the
crowded hospital so deficient in sustaining power. It is this air
that gives to many of our public institutions, in which large
masses of our poorer, ill-clad, uncleansed masses are herded to-
gether, that ' poor-smell,^ as it is called, which is so depressing
both to the senses and to the animal power."

Cholera infantum is well known to be almost exclusively a dis-
ease of cities, and absolutely so in its epidemic form. The city of
Manchester, N. H,, contains only about one tenth of the population
of the State, yet in 1883 it furnished nearly one half of the whole
number of deaths from this disease ; while in 1885, the three cities
of Dover, Portsmouth, and Manchester, together containing less
than one sixth of the whole population, reported considerably
more than one half of the entire mortality from cholera infantum.
The State of Massachusetts contains eighteen cities and towns of
more than fifteen thousand inhabitants, while Vermont has none.
The mortality from cholera infantum in 1883 was 3'49 per 10,000
in Vermont, and 9*53 per 10,000 in Massachusetts.

According to Dr. Farr, the mortality of districts increases with
the density of their population ; not, however, in the direct pro-
portion of their densities, but as the sixth root of their densities.
But while the total mortality increases in this proportion, the
mortality imder five increases in a much greater ratio. Thus,
with a density of 166 to a square mile, the death-rate at all ages
is 16'94 per 1,000, while of those under five it is 37-8 per 1,000.
This ratio increases gradually and with considerable regularity

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with the density of the population in the districts considered,
until with a population of 65,823 to a square mile, the death-
rate for all ages reaches 38'67 per 1,000, and for those under
five, 139"52 per 1,000 — that is, while the total death-rate is in-
creased a little more than twofold, that under five was nearly-
quadrupled.

Another fruitful cause of death, and one which especially helps
to swell the mortality of infancy, is contagion, including in that
term all those influences by which disease is communicated from
one individual to another, either by direct contact or through the
atmosphere. This is the prime cause of the large class of zymotic
or germ diseases, which in their various forms carry off nearly
one third of all children dying under the age of five years. In
general terms it may be stated that, while contagion is the direct
cause of these diseases, yet their prevalence and fatality are in in-
verse proportion to the general observance of the laws of public
sanitation and private hygiene.

The depressing influences of extreme poverty, filth in all its
forms, and the overcrowding of large cities, are great promoters
of contagion, resulting in epidemics, plagues, and pestilences ;
while strict cleanliness, fresh air, pure water, and hygienic living,
tend greatly to restrict its spread and prevent these results. Tem-
perature, also, has much to do with the prevalence of zymotic dis-
eases, some of which require a certain high degree of average
temperature, while others thrive best in cold weather. Extreme
degrees of heat and cold (boiling and freezing) destroy the life of
most germs, but not of all. Thus, the first sharp frosts of autumn
cut short the progress of yellow fever, while diphtheria is some-
what more prevalent in winter than in summer. The strict isola-
tion of the sick, and careful disinfection of their surroundings,
are also essential to the limitation or prevention of contagious
diseases.

The death-rate among infants and young children is especially
influenced by the five principal acute contagious or infectious dis-
eases— namely, measles, scarlet fever, small-pox, diphtheria, and
whooping-cough. According to English life-tables, these five dis-
eases were the cause of 18*8 per cent of the entire mortality under
five for the ten years from 1860 to 1870, while the average age of
all persons dying from whooping-cough was 1'8 years, from measles
27 years, from diphtheria and scarlet fever 5'8 years, and from
small-pox 11*9 years.

This latter disease, which was formerly by far the most fatal of
the class, has of late years been shorn of its terrors by the benefi-
cent discovery of Jenner. Thus, during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, it is estimated that from seven to twelve per
cent of all deaths were caused by small-pox ; while since the gen-

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS. 229

eral introduction of vaccination the proportion has been reduced
to less than one per cent.

The next most dreaded and at present the most fatal of these
diseases is scarlet fever. In England, during the period already
named, 67 per cent of all deaths under five were due to this cause ;
while an analysis of the registration reports of Massachusetts
shows that two thirds of the deaths from this cause occur under
five years of age.

Diphtheria is especially a filth-disease as well as a contagious
disease ; while the prevalence of each member of the class varies
greatly in different localities and different years, being largely
dependent upon certain unknown epidemic influences, which as
yet have not been brought under the control of man.

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS.

By the MAEQUIS DE SAPOETA.

THE organic relations or homologies of structure, showing con-
nections of different beings with one another, which, in igno-
rance of their real bearing, were formerly made useful only for
the classification of animals and plants into natural groups, have
acquired a new significance since the doctrine of evolution has
been brought to bear ui3on questions of origin and of the progress
through time and space of living beings and their relations with
those beings whose former existence is revealed by paleontology.
The question whether there are evidences of affiliation of the
former by the latter, of a direct relationship, has received atten-
tion from students ; and, as one of the attempts to solve it,
we may mention M. Gaudry's essay on " The Links in the Ani-
mal World," in which the development of the mammalia through
geological times is investigated on the basis of the osseous frame.
A difficulty that has never been surmounted besetting the study
of the terrestrial mammalia with aerial respiration, arises out of
their power of changing their place, which, while it is limited by
geographical restrictions in the case of quadrupeds, is complete
with birds. It is easy to conceive that overlappings and general
irregularities have time and again been introduced into the com-
binations of groups of animals which any given country has suc-
cessively contained. By that fact alone, the new-comers of each
period, at points where we have not been able to observe their
ancestors in the country of their origin, have an air of having
risen suddenly and been preceded by nothing.

This is not so much the case in the vegetable kingdom, and is
least so with its most eminent representative, the tree, particularly
the forest tree or the tree that has become social. It is true that

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while we sometimes possess of fossil animals entire skeletons, and
nearly always parts on which we can justly base a classification,
we ordinarily get of the ancient trees only isolated specimens of
leaves, or more rarely of fruits and seeds. We, nevertheless, gen-
erally succeed in determining these relics, and, by comparing them
with analogous living ones, in forming conclusions, the probability
of which carries conviction. Thus, with the aid of the data fur-
nished by stratigraphy, we can not only reconstitute the forests of
former days, but can also arrange them chronologically, grasp their
mutual relations, establish their filiations, and finally explain how
they have in the past been displaced and renewed.

It is necessary to take account of the peculiarity that trees are
enrooted or fixed in the soil, so that only their seeds can leave
them and be carried away, but never to a very great distance.
This fixity is certainly one of the causes of the regularity and
relative slowness of the modifications to which arborescent vege-
tation has been subjected in the periods anterior to ours. The
new-comers of each region can never have rapidly traversed dis-
tances. It has been rather by slow steps, and by the aid of at first
partial introductions, that the flora of all the epochs has been trans-
formed. Instead of leaps, we meet with modifications aided by
time, which were worked out through a long duration before be-
coming definitive. An attentive examination of the vegetable
impressions collected over many successive levels and at points
distributed along the course formerly followed by the vegetation,
and marking its advance, should therefore enable us to recover
the partial terms of the presumed filiation of the types whose ori-
gin we are investigating.

One phenomenon has been remarked in intimate relation with
this gradual and successive substitution of plants ; it is the cool-
ing of the globe, operating insensibly, but subject to a general
movement, the progress of which, although extremely slow, has
never been arrested. Plants have pursued their migrations under
the rule of this phenomenon, moving toward the south and grad-
ually abandoning the north, beginning with the extreme north, or
the immediate environs of the pole. The discovery of numerous
vegetable fossils at different points in the arctic regions, in Spitz-
bergen, Greenland, Grinnell Land, etc., has been sufficient to give
rise to terms of comparison and demonstrate what was the char-
acter of fossil vegetation when that of Europe more or less resem-
bled the present vegetation of countries near the tropics. Hence
it has been possible to establish with fair probability not only the
general march but also the filiation of a number of plants ; and it
has been ascertained that the direct ancestors of part of our trees
originally inhabited the interior of the polar circle, while many
others, confined now to southern countries, once had European

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS.

^31

predecessors. " The forest " may be defined as an association of
trees freely grouped over a space ; or, as the vegetable kingdom
delivered to its own forces and meeting conditions favorable to its
becoming master of the soil and spreading its wealth over it.
The " virgin " forest is the forest into which man has penetrated
only in passing, or upon which he has never laid hand to attack
or modify it. It is peculiarly the forest of hot countries, or of the
intertropical zone, where everything concurs to stimulate luxuri-
ance of the vegetable kingdom. Even in temperate climates,
whose pretensions of this kind are modest, we have only to trans-
port ourselves into some region where the native forest yet exists
in all its primitive grandeur, to perceive at once the might and
majesty of the vegetable kingdom thus abandoned to itself, and
having uncontested possession of the territory. Forestal asso-
ciations interpret the influence of the climate to which they are
adapted. They change in aspect and composition according to the
latitude, and present characteristic diversities combined in a deter-
mined and successive order as we advance from the neighborhood
of the polar circle toward the south. In the review which we can
make of them, they constantly present a double aspect, as thej^
may be considered in themselves, or as with reference to their re-
lations with the past, and their bonds of kindred with anterior
vegetations. But, previous to placing ourselves at the latter point
of view, we should glance at existing plants to determine the feat-
ures of the order which now presides over their distribution.

The domain of the forest extends beyond the polar circle in
Europe and Siberia, where it reaches and even passes a little above
the seventieth degree. In America it retreats from that region
about Labrador and Hudson Bay, the polar circle being hardly
indented in the interval between Mackenzie River and Bering
Strait. But in this domain, as in those that succeed it, an essen-
tial distinction should be made between the resinous forests, con-
sisting almost exclusively of conifers, and those that are composed
of "foliage-trees." In the north, the forests of resinous trees
extend over great spaces. In central or more southerly regions,
these forests prefer the mountainous masses. Besides the coni-
fers, many foliage-trees — among them the birches, alders, aspens,
willows, and mountain-ash — penetrate within the polar circle,
and constitute a part of the arctic forests. South of the sixtieth
degree in Europe, and of a lower latitude in America, there ex-
tends a richer assemblage of varieties, but insensibly connected
with the preceding one. The birch, oak, elm, maples, ashes, and
limes are its characteristic trees, while the foliage-trees and coni-
fers of the preceding group are not excluded from it. The latter
show a tendency to graduate themselves on the slopes as they
ascend them, much as, in going from southern to northern coun-

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tries, we pass through, regions occupied by like series of vegeta-
tion. Pursuing our course from north to south, we find the beech
giving place in lower latitudes to varieties of oak ; and it is one
of the effects of this movement that other oaks appear at first in
scattered colonies, as does also the chestnut, which, aside from its
requirements as to the composition of the soil, seems to find, espe-
cially in southern Europe, the conditions normal to its forest
development. The association of foliage-trees, whose outline is
thus sketched, which would cover central Europe with a continu-
ous forest if the continent had not been taken possession of by
cultivation, is found on the southern slopes of the great mountain-
ranges, only under specially favorable conditions of altitude and
moisture. Its principal characteristics, besides the particular
grouping of species, result from the winter caducity of the leaves,
to the law of which the holly, the box, and the ivy — types also be-
longing to the next southern or Mediterranean group — are almost
the only exceptions.

The Mediterranean group touches abruptly on the preceding
one, and derives its name from the Mediterranean Sea, of which
it occupies the whole periphery. In all the regions within this
perimeter a similar forest flora covers with the same species a
soil generally hilly, under a climate dry and warm, while subject
to violent contrasts. The evergreen oaks, other oaks with semi-
persistent foliage, the laurel, olive, pomegranate, terebinths, some
of the maples, the oleander, and the carob ; numerous shrubs with
persistent leaves — laurestinuses, arbutuses, mock-privets, daphnes,
heaths, cistuses, etc. — contribute to the constitution of this assem-
blage, which is all the more striking because an astonishing rich-
ness of characteristic details is concealed in it under an apparent
uniformity. A more careful examination of the elements of which
this flora is composed is demanded if we undertake to seek their
origin. Besides the foliage-trees, the group includes conifers
which are j)eculiar to it. The pines alone cover a large extent,
one of them, the Aleppo pine, being very generally diffused, while
a number of other species have each their determined station and
place. The mountains in the interior of the region bear species
that are special to them, and it is to such scattered islands of vege-
tation that we are indebted for such choice garden-plants as the
spruces of Andalusia, Numidia, Mount Parnassus, Cephalonia,
and Cilicia. In the same category are the cedars, which, with
different names and varietal distinctions, people the ridges above
a certain level of altitude of the Taurus, Lebanon, and Atlas.
These are the mountaineer conifers, adapted to the Alpine stations
of the Mediterranean region, where the altitude permits the beech,
chestnut, maples, lindens, and birch to reappear and maintain
themselves here and there in sporadic colonies.

TEE ORIGIN OF FOREST GROUPINGS. 233

Another distinct grouping of species in the bosom of this
region is dependent on the nature of the soil. It includes the
cork-oak, the chestnut, and the maritime pine, which are limited
to the siliceous zone, and with them a whole train of plants and
shrubs which are found with striking uniformity wherever the
mineral composition of the soil is of similar character. So strict
an adaptation, so absolute a selection, could not have been the
work of a small number of centuries, but they may properly be
attributed to causes that existed in a remote past.

To complete our review of the Mediterranean forest-grouping,
we should consider, besides the dominant forms, some exception-
ally sheltered parts of the regions, and other regions in which
intermittent rigors of temperature have spared only the hardiest
types. Three elements may be distinguished in the aggregate of
about two hundred species included in the forestal vegetation of
this region: First, the principal and characteristic element, in
which plants with persistent leaves predominate, and which in-
cludes among its rarer types species in a declining condition,
which are cantoned upon the best-sheltered or most southern
points, and are transitional toward tropical types ; next, the
mountaineer element, to which altitude is favorable ; and a third
element, to which heat and moisture are agreeable. The last in-
cludes plants with deciduous leaves, which, while they can accom-
modate themselves to a cold climate, are better adapted to south-
ern temperatures, and do not grow spontaneously in the central
region ; with which corresponds a group of trees — large, not very
numerous, and usually monotypal — which deserves attention
because of what it has been in the past, and which may be said
to represent the southern prolongation of the central group, elbow-
ing into the Mediterranean region. Its members, including the
alder, the Eastern witch-elm, the hornbeam, the plane, the liquid-
ambar, the fig, vine, some ashes, lindens, and walnut, are more in
contrast with the mass of the Mediterranean plants than with the
types equivalent in order that are domiciled farther north. It
might be said of them that, while they are found associated with
the former plants, they belong naturally to the category of the
latter, as they would visibly had not the free extension of these
to the southward been arrested. This view is confirmed by the
examination of the forestal flora of a corresponding latitude in
America. The absence on that continent of any vegetable domain
equivalent to that of the Mediterranean disengages that element,
and supplies, through the plane, the liquidambar, the persimmon,
and American vines and walnuts direct from the ancient world,
a parallelism or a repetition of forms which the study of pale-
ontology helps to illustrate.

The principal elements of the Mediterranean group — hollies.

234 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

laurels, olives, myrtles, etc. — with their narrow, elongated, coria-
ceous, entire or spiny foliage, only slightly divided, do not display
the luxuriant fullness of tropical forms, but seem to lead toward
them. They touch upon them on some sides, indicating the influ-
ence of a special medium, determined by conditions of intermit-
tent heat and dryness. A peculiar feature of the Mediterranean
group, and one which may help to determine its significance, is
the capricious and uneven distribution in the interior region of
plants of the most decided characteristics, evidently outside of
the range of common species, manifesting affinities with hot coun-
try types. These species are narrowly cantoned in certain sta-
tions. The Pinus excelsa of the Himalayas is found only on a
single mountain of Macedonia ; the Algerine Thuya only in the
Atlas ; the false cork-oak in only a few specimens at a single spot ;
the carob at a few places on the littoral ; the poplar of the Eu-
phrates on the banks of the Jordan and at one point in the prov-
ince of Constantine. Numerous instances of this kind betoken
the existence of a former condition which has been more or less
changed by subsequent events, that the group has suffered from
revolutions which have displaced and partly eliminated elements
that were formerly more widely distributed. The group has been
impoverished, probably by the depreciation of some elements,
certainly by the destruction of others.

This brief review of the forestal zones from north to south is
sufficient for the study we have in view of the paleontological
origin of the principal types of trees. This origin, which is at
the best hard to determine, could not be sought with any proba-
bility, except as to those species concerning which we have data
of a character to cast light on their history in the past, their for-
mer migrations, and their career through time as well as through
space. Europe, North America, and the arctic zone furnish these
data. They are not to be found in India, China, and Australia,
for the guiding thread would be wanting there. Knowledge of
many fossils is not enough of itself to conduct to the desired end.
Vegetable impressions are useful indications, which, taken singly^
have a relative value, but rarely lead to results of a material
bearing.

Multiplied observations and discoveries, and fossil beds of un-
usual richness, to be explored at many points from north to south,
have been required to give a view of the floral past of a part of
the globe. It was also necessary that these beds, instead of be-
longing to a single period, should be frequently separated by long
intervals distributed through successive ages, so as to present the
complete picture of the series of past times. Thus a comprehen-
sive grasp has become possible of the vicissitudes through which
the vegetable kingdom has gradually undergone transformation.

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS. 235

Changes insensible at each single step have in the long run re-
sulted in modifications of the aspect of the landscape and replace-
ments of the types and species composing the floral carpet at a
given movement by forms different from them, and also from
those before -which they were themselves destined to retire at a
later period.

The impression which one feels in the midst of a deep forest is
one of perennial duration. Except man, what is there to uproot
those giants that have lived through centuries ? What action
can be conceived of that will exclude them from the ground
which they possess so completely ? The first impression would
almost make these forest masses coeval with the globe, its natural
product and spontaneous dress from the days of its youth. Such
an impression would be a mistaken one. The forests have not
been perpetuated in the same order from the beginning, but have
changed much in the course of ages. Those which we now see
have taken the place of other more ancient ones, and these substi-
tutions have occurred many times, sometimes through partial
modifications and sometimes also under such conditions that the
old order has only indirect relations with the present one, or is
even wholly foreign to it.

Since a serious mind can not suppose that at every revolution
of plant-life there has been a total destruction of the anterior ele-
ments, followed by a creation conceived anew in all its details, we
are forced to seek in the order which precedes the reason for the
existence of that which has replaced it. This view implies an
endless chain of causes and effects, of ancestral and derived forms,
stretching along, now spreading, now continuing themselves, to
spread out again, and — in what more particularly concerns the
types of the vegetable kingdom — emigrating in a determined di-
rection. This direction is found to have consisted, for plants, in a
march from north to south in search of more favorable regions
and stations better fitted to the exigencies of acquired adaptation,
as rapidly as the terrestrial temperature declined from its pris-
tine conditions, as latitudes took on their individual characteris-
tics, and as the arctic zone, which had been temperate, grew cooler
and became more and more differentiated. The polar circle was
thus constituted a barrier that became more pronounced, less ac-
cessible, and was finally closed to arboreal vegetation, while under
the operation of the same movement the present temperate zone
became cooled in an equivalent measure, was impoverished, and
gradually stripped of a considerable part of its floral wealth.
The remnants that escaped this elimination in those successive
and numerous retreats that filled the second half of the Tertiary
period still occur, scattered and dwarfed, in the southern part of
that zone, and upon points where the less sensible depression of

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

temperature lias permitted them to maintain themselves sporadi-
cally.

By regarding these considerations and this presumed march,
we succeed in determining the connection between recent and fos-
sil species, and evidences of affiliation between them. There also
exist relations not to be neglected between some recent types and
other old ones which we can not believe to be wholly lost, and
others between present forestal groupings taken separately and
those which have succeeded one another through the ages ; but
the further we go back, the more we address ourselves to a dis-
tant order of things, the less tangible are these relations found to
be. Of all the Carboniferous vegetation there remain only iso-
lated or dwarfed types, as of EquisetcB, ferns, and club-mosses.
The singular Japanese gingko, and perhaps the dammara of the
Indian Archipelago, can trace their ancestry back to that period.
A greater number of estrays have survived from the Secondary
ages ; but they are still rare — auracarias, cedars, pines, thuyas, and
a few colonies of cycads south of the equator. There has been
something vague and undetermined about the " foliage " trees since
they first appeared in the Cretaceous period ; but their evolution
and characteristic physiognomy have been tending to fix them-
selves. The magnolia, tulip-tree, plane-tree, ivy, etc., have hardly
varied since then ; but the subsequent modifications of other Eu-
ropean flora have been so frequent and profound that no collec-
tion of existing species corresponds excejjt by partial traits that
have been questioned with the Cretaceous vegetation. The cor-
respondence is somewhat closer with the vegetation of the Eocene,
especially of the later Eocene. The examination of certain floras
which are referred to this horizon has shown that vegetation has
not varied much since then, except from the impoverishment
which it has suffered by the subsequent elimination of some types,
and the addition of a number of deciduous types of later intro-
duction. Thus, a considerable proportion of forms, the ancestors
of which appeared in the Eocene, have persisted in place from
that epoch, while those which have since migrated are found in
more southerly regions.

It is in the Miocene, particularly in the later Miocene, that the
relations become manifest of the deciduous trees of southern habit
which we have spoken of as being dispersed over various points of
the Mediterranean domain — the plane-tree, the liquidambar, the
planera, the linden, the vine, some hornbeams and ashes, the date-
palm, the pomegranate, etc. ; and the lauriferous grouping of the
Canary Islands, preserved intact by means of its insular situa-
tion and of the persistency of local climatological conditions, re-
produces unchanged the picture of a mountain-forest of central
Europe, as recent discoveries have shown it to have been in the

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS. 237

later Miocene and earlier Pliocene. There are the same species,
the same mixture of laurels, hollies, olives, to which are added
recent Japanese or Caucasian forms of nuts, maples, elms, and
toward the high summits pines and firs very like those of the
higher mountains of Teneriffe, Morocco, and Asia Minor. Collec-
tions made by M. Marion in the marly sediments of Durfort,
where bones of the southern elephant were also found, and in the
tufas of Valentine, near Marseilles, show that a number of plants
now found only further south, still in the second half of the
Pliocene inhabited the hills and shore-lines of southern France.
These plants were then, therefore, at home further north than
they are now found ; and their occurrence in the Pliocene points
to a later flowing back of species, amounting to a definite retreat
in the Quaternary age.

This retreat, perfectly logical and almost regular in its opera-
tion, is connected with changes of climate, which were themselves
in relation with a progressive depression of the temperature of
the earth. It is connected also, in a parallel order of phenomena,
with the exhaustion of some races, and with the development,
by a concomitant origination, of other young and new races,
favored by the same circumstances that caused the elimination
of the races that gave way to them. Considering all the elements
of the question, we find that it is by the extension, at a given
moment, of vegetable races previously localized and realizing a
certain amount of variation, that species are constituted at the
start. Once characterized — that is, after the acquisition of a total
of characteristics, at first fleeting, then hereditarily fixed — the spe-
cies is permanent nevertheless only in a relative fashion so long
as there exist in it parts susceptible of differentiation anew. The
amplitude of the limits between which it may range through the
course of time depends on the proportion of the elements that re-
main variable to those that will not change. The morphological
oscillations of which it offers an example are thus determined
by its own tendencies to submit more or less readily to excita-
tions from without. Hence there are evident inequalities in the
specific type, sometimes running to obscure shades, sometimes
clearly cut ; the last especially after the exclusion of intermediate
forms.

There exist, in fact, fleeting species, which can not be circum-
scribed by any precise limit ; and others, fixed in their minutest
traits, that are susceptible only of insignificant variations. The
forms of the latter category, such, for example, as the sequoias of
America and the cedars of the Atlas, persist in the places of
which they have once taken possession, where some of them have
been driven back and cantoned, so that quite contrary conditions
or the intrusion of more vigorous forms have not sufficed wholly

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to exclude them. We see, from this manner of looking at things,
that the relations of the present arborescent species with those of
ancient ages are only the last consequence of a march or an an-
tagonism of long continuance, which must of necessity have left
traces. Regarding this closely, we find the indices of filiation of
the living by fossil species not wanting, but fully confirming our
interpretation ; and the genetic bonds disclose themselves to the
investigator from the moment when he consents to regard the
species as having acquired by degrees the characteristics which
it possesses, and also as susceptible of displacement by extension
or by crowding back.

The morphological connection has certainly the signification
of a relationship ; but it can and must vary according as the rela-
tionshij^ is more intimate or remote, direct and immediate, or in-
direct and collateral. We can, by the aid of a direct method,
rather led by a kind of intuition than subjected to precise rules,
found a judgment concerning the bearing of these analogical
shades. While the opportunities of observing forms nearly allied
to those that are familiar to us diminish as we go back in the
past, yet, at whatever age we place ourselves, a near resemblance
always induces the notion of a direct descent of the recent form
from the one which predicted its traits in the midst of an order
of things remote from that which has since prevailed. The
observed resemblance may also be conceived to be the more de-
cisive as the species in which it appears belongs to a more ancient
period. The indices of genetic connection may thus go far back
into the past, and as to certain types of trees little subject to vari-
ance, they are discerned in a quite remote past. In order logically
to reach precise conclusions, he who engages in such researches
should take account not only of the type, but also of the species
considered in itself, that is, of the state of race, with its particular
history, of which it is sometimes possible to follow the incidents.
So far as is possible, the type, or union of allied forms, derived
originally from the same stock, should not be confounded with
the species, or the particularized race, which, its characteristics
having been once acquired and its aptitudes determined, necessa-
rily assumes a march in harmony with the tendencies that distin-
guish it, within an area suited to it. The plane-trees, poplars,
tulip-trees, beeches, and chestnuts appear toward the middle
of the Cretaceous period, but it does not follow that existing forms
are the immediate descendants of these primitive forms, or of any
one of them taken separately. The traces of our plane-trees, the
visible ancestor of the tulip-tree, and the evident predecessors of
existing poplars, make their first distinct appearance during the
Tertiary. So do those of the beech and chestnut, the introduc-
tion of which into Europe took place through isolated individu-

THE ORIGIN OF FOREST-GROUPINGS. 239

als, distinguished by shades which were gradually effaced on
approaching modern times.

The principal requisite for tracing the presumed origins,
whether of the type at its birth, of supposed ancestors, or of the
direct antecedents of existing species, is to have in mind the
exact succession of the periods and stages, giving the relative
date of each of the determined first appearances and the order of
the constitutive elements of the march which the forms of which
we meet the traces have followed through time and space. The
succession of ages, represented by beds deposited in a constant
order, or stratigraphic geology, makes this known to us. It is
also necessary to take account of the changes that have been im-
pressed upon the whole vegetable kingdom during this long
series of periods. The changes have been too profound, and
attended by too complete renovations, for us to be able to find the
cradles of existing plants in the primitive periods.

Three great plant-periods may be distinguished, starting from
the moment when the surface of the globe first began to be cov-
ered with aerial vegetation : the primary or paleophytic period,
or cryptogamic era, which derives its name from the domination
of cryptogams; the secondary period, or mesophytic, during
which gymnosperms — conifers and cycads — obtained the predomi-
nance, while foliage-trees were still absent ; and the tertiary or
neophytic period, also called angiospermic, from the presence of
the higher plants and particularly of the foliage-trees.

The last of these periods, which began with the chalk and is
still in continuance, is characterized by the appearance and exten-
sion of the higher plants, and was also coincident with the first
signs of polar refrigeration and with the more and more marked
decrease of terrestrial temperature with increase of latitude. This
fact, at first hardly sensible, then gradually accented, exercised
an influence within the polar circle before extending its action
beyond, into the temperate zone, which was for a long time hot,
and afterward warm, while the regions around the pole were
already frozen. A remarkable relation certainly seems to exist
between the beginning and the course of the climatological de-
pression of the northern regions and the progress of vegetation,
which perfected itself in a parallel line. Indeed, it closed the en-
tire cycle of its definitive evolution by the adjunction of the an-
giosperms, the most perfect plants ; and these acquired prepon-
derance as rapidly as the cooling of the arctic regions went on.
These regions appear to have been exempt till this time from the
rigors of a cold season, and, by that fact, subtracted from the
effects of the winter rest.

It is certain that the vegetable kingdom, as soon as it had ac-
quired all the elements of which it is still composed, began to dis-

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tribute itself in. groups ordered according to the latitude ; and this
movement once started, the differences between the groups be-
came continually more accentuated by the increasing exclusion
in each of them of a part of the types which they originally con-
tained. There resulted from this a constant impoverishment of
northern countries as comj)ared with southern ones, which gained,
at least by contrast, what the former never ceased to lose. The
movement has thus tended to a differentiation by zones, and has
resulted in despoiling them, but in unequal proportions, increas-
ingly as they are removed from the tropical zone, the only one
which has been exempt from the spoliation.

Let us not forget that, parallel with this movement, working,
moreover, with an extreme slowness and in harmony with it, an-
other movement, purely organic and evolutionary, although in-
cited, if not directed, by the former, has not ceased to push to de-
velopment and to morphological differentiation various groups of
plants ; particularly of those which, relatively young and plastic,
were susceptible, by this fact, of giving birth to new forms, and,
by successive splittings, to new types. These are the angiosperms,
which, having once gained preponderance, have offered the spec-
tacle of an increasing multiplicity of races and forms. That mul-
tiplicity could only increase. The displacements resulting from
the climatic depressions have aided in it by inducing changes of
stations and opening new cantonments to races not yet fully
established. The revolutions of the surface, continental contigui-
ties, and the more or less accentuated orographic relief, have con-
stituted other factors not less active in the general push of species,
incessantly solicited to vary as they adapted themselves to the
soil of the regions into which they penetrated, as they scattered,
and as they struggled victoriously against rival species.

Such is the spectacle which the vegetation of the globe has not
ceased to present ; and the existing forests appear as the final re-
sultant and ultimate consequence of that long series of alterna-
tives which is summarized in the expression, " the struggle for
existence." — Translated for the Popular Science Montlihj from the
Revue des Deux Mondes.

The development of a new vegetation on Krakatoa is affording a rare oppor-
tunity for studying the origin of floras. The old vegetation was totally destroyed,
with all its seeds, by the great heat that prevailed during the eruption, and the
island was covered with a thick layer of cinders and pumice-stone. But in June,
1886, a new growth, of ferns and isolated plants of phanerogams, had appeared on
the shore and the mountain. The riddle of its appearance in a soil apparently so un-
promising was explained, on examination, by finding that the mineral had received
a coating of fresh-water algse, which gave it a gelatinous and hydroscopic quality,
by virtue of which a higher vegetation could gain a standing. The phanerogamic
plants are similar to those which take possession of newly-raised coral islands.

CHINESE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 241

CHINESE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

By ADELE M. FIELDE.

SEXUAL selection, which has doubtless greatly influenced the
development and advancement of certain races, has been in-
operative in China during many centuries, because, under the
prevailing usages, the contracting parties have, before espousal,
no opportunity to judge of the strength, beauty, or intelligence
of their consorts. Romantic love has no part in marriage or its
issue. This may be one of the causes of China's arrested civiliza-
tion, and of the astonishing fact that her astute people have in-
vented nothing and discovered nothing during hundreds of years.

Although polygamy is legal, it is practically so expensive and
inconvenient as to be uncommon among the masses. Under the
law, no man may have more than one wife, though he may add to
his household any number of helpmeets. The wife, brought home
with unique ceremony, may under no circumstances be super-
seded in her well-defined sphere, the penalty of an attempt to put
an ir.ferior in her place being a hundred blows. In all cases the
marriage engagement is made by the senior members of the fami-
lies concerned, and is usually made without the knowledge of the
future husband or wife.

Marriage being essential to the continuance of the line of
worshipers before the lares and penates, a man who will not
marry is reckoned guilty of filial impiety. Spinsters are unknown
and bachelors are few. The universal and intense desire for pos-
terity in the male line of descent leads to much self-sacrifice on
the part of parents, in order to secure wives for sons, and causes
them to make provident arrangements for their marriage at an
early age. Betrothals of expected infants, conditional upon their
being of different sexes, are not rare. Among the poor it is not
uncommon for a newly-born daughter to be given away, that a girl
of another clan may be taken by the mother, reared at her breast,
and bestowed upon her son in after-years. In many families there
is at least one little daughter-in-law that is being brought up in
the house of her future husband.

Parents of moderate means endeavor to provide wives for their
sons by the time they are twenty years old, while but few keep
a daughter after she is sixteen. Those who have a marriageable
son, and the means of meeting the expense of taking a daughter-
in-law, place their case in the hands of an old female friend or
of a matrimonial agent, called a go-between, who finds among her
acquaintances that which is required by her client. The parents
of the two young people do not meet for conference, and are not
usually known to each other even by name. The negotiation is

VOL. XXXIV.-

242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

conducted by the go-between, who is the sole medmm of com-
munication between the two families. When all details have
been settled, a sum of money is carried from the parents of the
groom to those of the bride, and the betrothal is completed. This
pact can under no circumstances be legally broken by either party.
Even the discovery of fraud on the jDart of the agent does not
vitiate the contract.

When the bride knows that she is to be married, she must
evince by word and manner the deej^est melancholy, and she gains
commendation and repute if her lamentations are poetical. An
acquaintance of mine, who was spoken of with approval, always,
from the time of her betrothal to that of her marriage, referred
to the latter as to her funeral. To her little brother — the only
member of a bride's family that may before the birth of her first
child visit her in her husband's house — she said, " When I am
buried, you must come frequently to burn incense at my grave."
To her elder brothers and to her sister-in-law she said, " After I
am dead, do not kill the lizards and the centipeds that may crawl
about the house, for it may be that my spirit will come back and
dwell in the vermin about my home rather than abide in the
grave into which I shall have been put." A gifted girl makes
many such allusions without instruction, while the stupid have
to be privately taught what to say when they wail their adieus to
maiden life. How much of a girl's distress is real and how much of
it is piously feigned can be guessed only by those who understand
how deeply Chinese character is affected by Chinese customs.

The vexations of a betrothal and a wedding are so great as to
have given rise to the proverb, " Don't say you have had trouble
until you shall have married off a daughter or brought home a
daughter-in-law." The sum of money paid to the bride's par-
ents is usually spent upon her marriage outfit. The smallest
dowry is a few suits of new clothing. The wealthy give hun-
dreds of garments, and sometimes one or two bondmaids, with a
field that reverts to the bride's family upon her decease.

In this, the Swatow region, the bride is always carried from
her father's house to that of her father-in-law in a sedan-chair
that is carefully closed and covered with scarlet. She is accom-
X^anied by none of her own family. The go-betweens and a mes-
senger from the house of the groom direct the bearers who carry
her trousseau with her in a procession along the streets.

Early on the morning of the wedding, the bride is bathed in
water in which twelve kinds of flowers have been steeped ; has
her hair stiffened with bandoline and wrought into a marvelous
coiffure with many golden aigrettes; is attired in gorgeous
apparel, which she puts on with an appearance of bitter unwill-
ingness, and enters the red sedan-chair weeping loudly. The

CHINESE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 243

marriage procession is headed by a man carrying a branch of a
banyan-tree, whose local name is identical in sound with another
word which means completed or perfected. It signifies the fact
that all that is necessary to legal matrimony has been done in
this case. This leader is followed by two men, each bearing a
lantern on a stalk of sugar-cane, the former being a part of the
bride's outfit, and the latter rising stage by stage to a climax
broad and flourishing, symbolizing the hope that the bride's life
may likewise widen out. The next in the file is a man carrying
over his shoulder a bamboo, the emblem of rapid increase,
having a red bundle of foot-gear on one end of it, and a red
coverlet on the other. After him come as many burden-bearers as
are necessary to carry all the red boxes containing the trousseau.

On arriving at the door of the house, the bride sees her hus-
band for the first time, and recognizes him, among those who
await her, by his rich attire. By previous arrangement, she is
first greeted by some woman reckoned lucky and prosperous, in
the hope that she will be like the one who gives her earliest wel-
come in her new home. A mistress of ceremonies that has been
engaged to see that during three days all is done according to
established usage, throws upon the door-sill some burning straw,
half extinguishes it, and leads the new-comer across it, saying :
" Now, fair young bride, the smoke bestride ;
Tliis year have joy, next year a boy."

This rite is supposed to disinfect the bride from any evil influence
to which she may have been subjected by demons or white tigers
along her route. She then immediately enters the room in which
her red bedstead has been set up, and in which her possessions are
all deposited. There she sits silent all the rest of the day, among
her red boxes, no one speaking to her, or noticing her in any way
except by bringing her food. A feast is spread in the evening for
male friends, who have been invited by card, and its preparation
occupies the whole household. After the supper, the guests are
permitted to see the bride, who is brought forward by the duenna
toward the door of the bedroom. In some cases only those who
can offer a felicitous stanza are allowed to approach the bedroom
door, and there is much rivalry in the composition of poetry to be
recited. The stanzas usually contain allusions to posterity, as in
the following translations from the vernacular :
" The bride is high-browed, fair and sweet ;
Like awls her small and sharp-toed feet.
Brought home this year with honors meet,
Next year an infant son she'll greet.''
"Fresb twigs upon the pine, new sprouts on the bamboo;

The groom brings home the bride to rule his house : his field
To her a thousand-fold its annual crop shall yield ;
And she will be a mother-in-law at thirty-two."

244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Practical jokes usually accompany the entertainment. Some-
times a guest enters disguised as an aged man, and after persuad-
ing the duenna to bring the bride close to him by a plea that his
sight is very dim, he suddenly tosses off his cap and spectacles and
appears as a hilarious youth. This creates much merriment.
Another popular joke is to leave a bundle of fire-crackers under
the bedstead, with a slow match so placed as to explode them after
midnight, and this is often accompanied by an artificial shower
falling through the roof upon the bridal couch. When the guests
depart they frequently carry with them articles which they know
the groom will require next day, and which he is bound to redeem
from them with packages of confectionery. It is said that a merry
company of the fellow-students of a groom decoyed him from his
house after his wedding-supper, and fastened him to a tree in a
copse, so that he should not be able to return home that night.
His parents finally induced them to go to release him, but when
they arrived at the copse they found he had been eaten by a tiger.
To avoid probable discomforts, the groom sometimes conceals him-
self from supper-time until after the departure of all the guests.
The fate of Ginevra would be possible to a Chinese groom, but
not to a Chinese bride.

On the second day the young pair worship the images of the
ancestors in the main room of the house, and make obeisance to
each of the senior members of the family. In the afternoon the
last presents are sent off from the groom's family to the bride's
parents. They include pork, fish, cakes, and confectionery, ac-
cording with the amount stipulated at the time of betrothal. Dur-
ing the second and third days all who choose may enter the house
and view the bride, and the crowd of spectators is sometimes large.
They say :

" We look at the new, and not at the old ;
"We all have, at home, old things to behold."

The third day is a busy one for the bride, as she must then
formally begin her domestic duties. Early in the morning she
washes clothes for herself and her husband, under the direction of
the duenna. Then this mistress of ceremonies takes her hand,
holds it upon the long handle of a ladle, and stirs up the food in a
jar, from which she is to feed and fatten pigs. She meanwhile
recites a rhyme, of which this is a close version :
" Stir up the swill, make the jar fume ;
Raise hogs that are bigger than cows.
Stir deep and long, stir into spume ;
Give thousand-weight swine to your spouse."

At noonday the bride cooks the family dinner, under the super-
intendence of her mother-in-law. In the intervals between other
occupations she begins and completes the making of a pair of

CHINESE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 245

trousers for her husband. On no account must she be assisted in
this task, or fail to accomplish it before the time for cooking the
evening meal, else bad luck may follow all her subsequent career.
Some time during the forenoon of this third day a messenger from
her mother, usually her younger brother, brings her a bottle of
hair-oil, takes dinner with her husband, and returns home accom-
panied by the duenna, who has then finished her duties.

On the fourth day the bride must rise long before daylight to
dress her hair in the complex style of a married woman, and, as
she is unaccustomed to performing this difficult work alone, she
may succeed only after many trials. She this day lays aside her
finery, and takes up all the occupations of a daughter-in-law,
serving her elders in various ways, and doing the hardest of the
housework.

If she hates her husband, and cares little for the comfort of her
parents, she may waste food, break dishes, threaten suicide, and
make herself so disagreeable that the family she has entered will
soon consider the expediency of marrying her off into another
household. If she desires to remain where she is, she strives
to please her mother-in-law. A husband who takes the part of
his wife against his mother is reckoned unfilial, and has little
peace in the home of his ancestors. If he takes the part of his
mother against his wife, the wife may be driven to suicide, and
this would furnish opportunity for her family to make an inqui-
sition financially ruinous to him. The mother and the wife, each
jealous of the man's devotion, are the members of the family who
are most likely to be unfriendly to each other. The existence of
countless families in which three or four generations of both
sexes live in apparent amity under one roof proves that the Chi-
nese have great power of self-repression.

At the end of a month the bride's mother sends her a basket
of artificial flowers, that she may make acceptable presents to her
young neighbors. No bonnets or other head-coverings are used
by youthful ladies in southern China, and flowers are worn in the
hair on all festive occasions.

At the end of four months, on a day selected as lucky by a
wizard, the bride goes to pay her first visit to her mother, unless
some event has made it mystically unsafe for her to leave her
present domicile or to enter her old one. The length of the bride's
stay in her former home varies in different villages. In some
she remains a month in her mother's house, and in others it is
considered very unlucky if she does not return the same day, be-
fore the smoke from the village chimneys indicates that supper is
being cooked. But any circumstance that renders either of the
families unclean, and therefore unpropitious to luck, prevents the
bride from having this outing. Uncleanliness is of two sorts —

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that which results from a death, and that which follows the birth
of a child. They are distinguished as that of bad fortune and
that of good fortune, the former continuing three years and the
latter one month. Were the bride to approach any unclean per-
son, she would herself incur the danger of becoming an occult
cause of calamity among her relatives. During the first few
months after marriage she must carefully guard against exposure
to any influence adverse to good luck.

A neighbor of a Chinese friend of mine had one daughter,
an only child, of whom she was passionately fond. The girl
was married off when sixteen years old. When the first four
months were nearly past, her mother's neighbor died, and her
visit to her old home had therefore to be delayed for a hundred
days. Before this period of the neighbor's daily worship of the
manes had passed, the bride's mother-in-law died, and she had
to go into mourning for three years. Just before she put off
mourning, she bore a son, and that made it necessary for her to
again delay her first visit to her mother's house. Her mother,
meanwhile, became subject to hallucinations, under which she fre-
quently saw her child entering her door. She said she could dis-
tinctly perceive her face, could discern every detail in her dress,
and could hear the jingle of her bangles. She would exclaim,
" O my child, you have come ! " but, when she clasped the vision,
she found only empty air in her arms. At last the daughter, who
had all these years been but two miles away, really came to visit
her mother. The two embraced each other and wept aloud ; and
thereafter the mother's hallucinations ceased.

After the first visit, a married daughter may go to the home
of her parents at any time, and they, after the birth of her first
child, may occasionally go to see her in her husband's house.

NATIVE LIFE IN BRITISH BORNEO.

By D. D. DALY, Assistant Eesident.*

^T^HE author gave in this paper a personal record of two explo-
-L rations which he undertook from the east and from the west
coast of North Borneo to countries and tribes in the interior, hith-
erto unvisited by the white man. Having left Sandakan, the
capital of the territory, in August, 1887, and ascending the Kina-
batangare, the largest navigable river, the first place of impor-
tance reached is Malapi, within twelve miles of the famous Go-
manton bird's-nest caves, and the depot for their product. The
nests collected here are valued at $25,000 per annum, and the

* Abridged from the author's paper before the Royal Geographical Society.

NATIVE LIFE IN BRITISH BORNEO. 247

caves bring to the North Borneo Government a yearly rental of
$9,000. One of the vaults in the caves is estimated to be nine
hundred feet high. An idea of their population may be got from
the statement that a steady column of the swifts (Callocalia) in-
habiting them has been timed by the watch to fly for three quar-
ters of an hour from one of the apertures. Passing Bod Lagit —
"which means the hill to the skies, a legend recording that it
formerly reached to the heavens, but, owing to the wickedness of
its inhabitants, had subsided to its present height of four hundred
feet " — and a hill of limestone called Chuko Besar, which con-
tains some small caves and yields a few hundred bird's-nests each
year, the explorers visited one of the owners of the Batu Timbang
caves, of which two native rajahs share the proceeds in alternate
years. They are situated on the river Quamute, a branch of the
Kinabatangare, and are difficult of access on account of rapids.
Some of the bird's-nests are of the best white description, but the
larger proportion are gray and mixed with feathers. Still further
up — three hours' climb from the Melikop branch, and eighteen
hundred and ten feet above the sea-level — are the Obang-Obang
limestone caves, which had not hitherto been visited by Euro-
peans. The first cave reached after a three hours' climb, the last
half -hour of it over slippery, moss-grown, limestone bowlders,
is the most valuable, but can be approached only by experts in
climbing. The entrance is a small hole, four feet by four feet, and
is closed by a wooden grating so as to attract attention to the
spot, as otherwise the unwary traveler might suddenly be pre-
cipitated to the depths below. Every two months this doorway
is opened, and the climbers let themselves down into the caves by
means of rattans, and gather all nests, large and small. This
makes six seasons per annum. The same periods are observed in
the collections at the Senobang caves in the Ulu Penungah. " The
seasons at Gomanton, Batu Timbang, Madai, and Segalong num-
ber two or three during the twelve months, and these are too few,
according to the Tungara tribe. They maintain that, by collecting
them frequently — say six times per annum — they procure white
nests in first-rate order, though some of these nests are young and
but half formed, and that the Sulu traders give them a higher
price in consequence. I noticed a great scarcity in swifts and a
great preponderance of bats, which might be attributed to the too
frequent collection of nests, which prevents the swifts from breed-
ing. The Obang-Obang Mountain runs north and south, and is
half a mile in length. There are seven entrances to the vaults
from the top of the range, all situated close to each other. Five
of these vaults do not contain any bird's-nests, there being no
swifts, only bats dwelling there." The only chamber that can be
entered by any one who is not an adept at climbing on rattans to

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the roof of the vault is only fifty feet high, and contains both
bats' and swifts' nests. The bats' nests are similar in form to the
swifts', but are made of moss only, which these mammalia pick
off the limestone bowlders outside.

At one stretch of the lower Kinabatangare several villages had
been abandoned some years previously on account of the ravages
of small-pox. When asked their age, many natives would answer
that they were so many years old at the time of the last epidemic
of this disease. The usual interval between the visitations was
eighteen or twenty years ; and the old men would sometimes
acknowledge to having seen the ravages of three or four epi-
demics. Another settlement had been abandoned on account of
the voracity of the crocodiles, which had mastered the art of
overturning boats and devouring their occupants. The crocodiles
are very numerous in these fresh-water rivers, and many natives
are taken by them every year. At a place further up the river, a
large one, fourteen feet long, was towed to the bank close to the
house where the author was staying. "There was much joy
manifested by the Muruts at its capture, as it had eaten a brother-
in-law of the chief. Pieces of the bones and skull were found in-
side, and brought to the house with a good deal of merriment. A
chief who has many wives has usually many brothers-in-law, and
he is obliged, in a measure, to assist or support the latter. The
loss, therefore, of a brother-in-law more or less is not only imma-
terial, but rather a merciful dispensation ; and so there was as
much joy, feasting, and congratulation as if Maharajah Oban had
been presented by one of his wives with a new baby."

" The Murut," we are informed, " does not wear any clothes,
but sports a bit of bark in front ; some strings of colored beads
encircle his head, a few charms hang around his neck ; he carries
a spear as though he feared no man, and annexes a new wife
when he is ' off with the old love.' The women and children are
much neglected,"

Where the river passed through a large uninhabited jungle-
forest, "in both banks were compressed heaps of leaves and
wooden debris from four to ten feet thick, that had been washed
down by floods. Where the river-water had washed part of the
layers away, the section of the bank presented the appearance of
a cutting in a hay-stack. These large deposits, if undisturbed,
may, after many centuries of compression, form into coal. At a
station near the Batu Timbang caves, where the traveler negoti-
ated with the rajah proprietor concerning the proceeds of the
bird's-nests, a dance was given in his honor. In the favorite fig-
ures the women, holding each other's hands, moved in one circle,
while the men, also holding hands, moved in an outside circle,
but in the opposite direction — to the sound of music composed of

NATIVE LIFE IN BRITISH BORNEO.

249

gongs tuned to different keys, and wooden drnms. The next en-
tertainment was given by a party of some twenty men and women
performing an incantation over some medicine wliich was to be
administered to the chief. " They all held palm-branches in their
hands, which they waved in graceful unison and in perfect time
to the melodious cadence of their voices. The women sang one
line, and the men took up the solemn refrain in a sort of Grego-
rian chant. They danced gracefully, holding each other's hands,
in a ring around the mysterious object of their charms ; both the
dancing and singing are continued until the sorcerer declares that
the spell has been worked over the medicine. It should be stated
that the Tamhanuahs declare that after death their souls find rest
in peace on the top of the great mountain Kinabalu, as their fore-
fathers believed before them." A curious mausoleum was visited
at Imbok. It was built of solid bilian-wood, a material of long-
lasting qualities, and the ends of the prettily ornamented and
fluted posts and beams were carved into grotesque heads of ani-
mals. It contained some thirty or forty bodies, and was sur-
rounded by fruit-trees.

At Pemengah, where a police station was established, many of
the traders were found living and keeping their stores in houses
built upon large bamboo rafts, called lanteens, which were made
fast to the banks by rattans. The people at one of the villages
near this place had never seen a white man before, and when Mr.
Daly first arrived the women and children ran away and hid them-
selves in one of the back rooms, and the men looked " nervously
suspicious." They examined his arms and chest, and were very
merry at the idea of his skin being white, " which they seemed to
think an absurd freak of nature. . . . They all smoke from morn-
ing till night, and out of pipes that have brass mouth-pieces and
large bowls, such as are used by the Dusum tribes of the west
coast. The tobacco is grown by themselves, and retains a green
color by their process of fermentation. . . . They have not yet
learned the use of guns or of gunpowder. They had not previously
seen a double-barreled breech-loader, and when I opened mine to
put in a cartridge, they exclaimed, ' Oh, it is broken ! ' I brought
down a few of the swifts that build the edible bird's-nests, and
found them to be very small, and to have a patch of white on the
back and tail. The men wear only the loin-cloth; the women
have but one garment, viz., a short petticoat, which is kept up
around the waist by coils of brass wire ; the young girls have, as
an addition, coils of brass wire from the ankle half-way up to the
knee. The cloth is woven from the thread made from the cotton-
trees, Tcapoh, that grow luxuriantly around their houses, and the
women use the same kind of spindle for making thread as is
common among the Dusums of the west coast, holding the cotton

250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the left hand and occasionally giving a twist to the spindle
with the right hand. The people know of no other minerals be-
sides coal and iron pyrites. Their houses accommodate from ten
to fifteen persons, and they do not keep pigs under their houses as
other sea-coast tribes are in the habit of doing. Their sleeping-
hours are peculiar. No bedding is used, but they sleep on mats
till about midnight, when they wake up shivering with the cold
of these inland mountains. A fire is then lighted on a large, oval-
shaped hearth, that is made of clay in the center of each house,
and all the inmates, young and old, sit round the fire until dawn
in a crouching attitude, telling long-winded stories, sometimes
nodding, and sometimes leaning against his or her neighbor with
head resting on the knees. Their chants at night-time are doleful
and monotonous in tone. For striking a light, the men carry in
their waist-belt a small bamboo prettily carved, in which some
tinder and a bit of porcelain are kept out of the rain. By holding
the tinder and the piece of broken plate in the right hand, and
striking it sharp on the side of the bamboo, the tinder is ignited."
One of the objects of the expedition was to put a stop to the
head-hunting raids between the Murut tribe and their traditional
enemies the Peluans, the latter not representing a particular tribe,
but the aborigines of the interior generally. "The Muruts are
very frank in napaing and numbering the heads they had taken ;
and I found the debit and credit account to be as follows : The
Muruts have taken twenty-six heads of Peluans, the Peluans have
taken thirty-one heads of Muruts ; balance in favor of the Peluans,
five heads, and also four Muruts who were wounded in the last
affray. Each tribe distrusts the other, and peace can be only
made by the Peluans paying a commensurate amount of blood-
money in compensation for five heads that stand against them."
Word was therefore sent to the Peluans to come down to a parley
at an appointed time, with guarantee of safe-conduct. When the
chiefs of the two sides had been brought together, " the Murut
chiefs commenced taking the oath by chopping at a stick or sap-
ling with great vigor, repeating the words of the oath with a loud
voice, until toward the end they appeared quite excited. A Murut
chief took the oath and then a Peluan, turn about, and, as each
oath takes six or seven minutes to repeat, it took a long time. The
following is a precis of the form of oath, each + denoting a chop
at the stick, until it is finally chopped into little bits : ' I follow
the Government of the British North Borneo Company +. The
Sandewar -f and the Peluan + people are now of one mind +• If
I kill a Sandewar " (if a Peluan is swearing) " man -f- when I go to
the water, may I not be able to drink + ; when I go to the jungle
may I not be able to eat +. May my father die -f, may my mother
die -|-, may my house be burned down -j-, may the paddy not grow

NATIVE LIFE IN BRITISH BORNEO. 251

in my fields +, niay a crocodile swallow me +:. may the eggs never
be hatched in my fowl-house + , may I never catch a fish when I
go fishing +, may my life be ended +. I cut this stick + as if I
was chopping my own head off +. The Great Spirit is my wit-
ness +. May this stick grow into life again + if I ever kill or
take any more heads -\-, and I follow all the customs of the British
North Borneo Company -f, and I take this oath with a sincere
heart +, and I shall pay the poll-tax of the company +."

One of the Murut chiefs " was chopping away at the stick, re-
peating the oath in a loud voice, when he came to the part ' may
my wife die ' (if ever I take another head), when he stopped short
and exclaimed with a grim smile : * I have no wife ; you Peluans
cut off her head long ago'; and the Peluans gave a shout of
laughter in which he joined, the crowd around rolling on the
grass, convulsed with merriment. This would denote that the re-
taliation in taking heads does not proceed from a spirit of affec-
tion for the departed relatives, but rather from a sense of revenge
or vendetta, engendered by a feeling that shame has been cast
upon the tribe by losing one of the family at the hands of the
enemy. Another illustration of the indifference with which the
people regard the head-hunting custom was afforded at a chief's
house where fifty-two human heads and pieces of human bones
were hanging from the rafters. The skin of some of the faces was
so well preserved that the expression could still be recognized."
Mr. Daly explained that he could not eat his evening meal in a
room where these were suspended, and asked that they be cut
down. This request the chief and his sons " cheerfully complied
with, but with a bland smile of patronizing pity at the white
man's amiable squeamishness ; and so to humor me they took
down the ghastly trophies, and, huddling them together in rattan
baskets, put them away at the back of the house ; doubtless they
were reinstated as drawing-room ornaments after my departure."

It is claimed that great improvement in the order and civiliza-
tion of the country, and in personal security, has already resulted
from the occupation by the British North Borneo Company.

The higher scientific deductions, which could not have been reached without
the aid of a faculty in which imagination had a share, are in standing contradic-
tion to the often-repeated dictum that science is void of imagination and the play
of thought. Newton, Kepler, Bacon, Helmholtz, Lyell, Owen, Darwin, and Pas-
teur, are cited by a writer in "The Lancet" as scientific investigators repre-
senting the very highest type of intellect, in which the insight and imagination of
the poet were united with the capacity for severe and sustained observation. To
represent scientific study as affording no play for emotion is false. " No poet's
fancy can equal in grandeur the two twin generalizations of science, gravitation
and evolution — the one binding together the universe of matter, the other uniting
into a harmonious whole the universe of life."

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC.

By Madame CLIiMENCE EOYER.

ALL degrees of arithmetical aptitude may be found among
tlie human races, from the genius of a Newton and a La-
place to an absolute inability to conceive the abstract notion of
number aside from concrete facts furnished by direct perception.
The savage is not deficient in the perception of the multiple. He
never confounds one tree with two, or two with three, or four ;
and is well aware of the difference between two, three, or ten men,
when he is going out to fight them. The thing that he can not
do is to abstract the idea of a number from the things to which it
is attached, and generalize it, without reference to the concrete
objects with which he has seen it associated. He may compre-
hend two, because it is associated with his two hands and his two
feet ; three, by the aid of the triads with which he is acquainted,
and of the triangle with which those objects may be arranged ;
four, from the four limbs of animals and the four corners of a
square. But his ability to form such conceptions is very lim-
ited. The first steps in learning in this direction, in savages and
children, are to distinguish the abstract notions of unity and
plurality, and in plurality, of two and three from larger plurali-
ties. The difficulty in the way of their reaching a concept of
abstract numbers is their inability to form a mental representa-
tion : four trees not being identical in the savage's thought with
four stones, he can not imagine that there is anything common
between them. Nevertheless, he can distinguish clearly enough
between four trees and three others, and the two groups will
leave quite different impressions in his mind. Four trees in a
row will also make a different impression from four trees in a
square. He is most struck with differences of distribution in
space, and derives from them his notions of differences in plu-
rality. While he is a poor arithmetician he is a good geome-
trician.

It is by the exercise of this faculty that he finds his way so
readily where he has once gone. He recognizes a wood he has
been in by the relative distances apart of the trees, their heights,
sizes, the inclination of their trunks to one another, the profile of
their masses, and their kinds. He learns the landscape by the
relief and accidents of the ground, the wave-lines of the horizon,
and a thousand details which he fixes upon his memory by a sin-
gle keen observation so clearly as to give imagination no chance
to play tricks with him. He estimates distances by the weaken-
ing of tones and the convergence of the lines and planes of the

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC.

= 53

perspective. But in all his comparisons of present and past sen-
sations, definite notions of number rarely have any part.

The inequalities in the development of the power of counting
and of arithmetical notions among the different human races
should make us cautious about accepting the accounts of those
who believe that some animals can be taught to count. It is ex-
tremely improbable, at least, that animals, however intelligent,
without language, should acquire precise ideas which human
beings succeed in apprehending only by the aid of language and
education.

The animal can distinguish relative sizes, but the measure of
quantities escapes him. Like the child and savage of inferior
development, he can only distinguish between few and many,
between unity, duality, and plurality, the various degrees of
which must inevitably be more or less confused in his percep-
tions. He knows facts, but he distinguishes them chiefly by their
order of coexistence in space, rather than of succession in time ;
and they are photographed in his brain in views of the whole, of
which, not being able to separate them from the others, he can
not distinguish the similar parts enough to count them. His
recollection of places is a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in
which, among the moving forms and successive sounds, he marks
only what moves him, what gives him pleasure or pain, what
flatters his instincts or answers to his wants, what arouses fear
or desire in him. If he should go so far as to count, it would
be only those objects which interest him with a view to his
security.

The wolf and the fox, for instance, can distinguish whether a
flock is guarded by one or two dogs, but can not tell any better
than we can how many sheep there are in the flock ; but if they
see one or two separated from the rest, they will attack them. In
the same way we can distinguish the forms of two, three, or four
poplars on the bank of a stream, while we can not tell the number
of trees in an avenue, but are always inclined to exaggerate it.

It is by this observation of lines, directions, and signs in the
whole, rather than of numbers, that the animal acquires the
faculty of recognizing roads it has passed over, and places where
it has met its prey or escaped its enemies. It can orient itself to
the horizon and measure distances, as the savage does ; and, like
him, it has the sense of the direction it ought to take to reach the
object it is in search of ; but it is reasonably certain that no cal-
culation of any number of units enters into this intelligence.
When a dog in hunting crosses a wood or a fallow ground, he is
able, by a quick apperception, to describe all the curves and all the
angles that permit him to avoid or turn the obstacles. He can
adjust his leap to the width of the ditch which he has to jump.

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and find the point where lie can pass a live hedge. This mechani-
cal instinct is exercised spontaneously in him, by virtue of exact
theorems of which he has no analytical consciousness, but which
he applies with a precision that defies the ingenuity of mathema-
ticians. Force, speed, mass, space, and time are calculated in an
equation in which the means are closely adapted to the end, with
a marvelous economy of efforts, and by the quickest if not always
the shortest way.

In his relations with man, attentive to the will of his master,
whose language he has learned to understand, partially at least,
the dog comprehends whether he must go or come, run or stop.
But he attends less to the phonetics of the words than to the in-
tonations of the voice, the direction of the glance, and the gest-
ures.

The horse knows whether he is to go to the right or left by
the energetically pronounced interjections " gee " and " haw," but
he measures the extent to which he must veer in either direction
by the pull on the bridle, so much as to turn quite round if the
pull is at once energetic and quick. If the strees is equal upon
both sides, he stops abruptly on his haunches. He learns the lan-
guage of the stable in a very short time, much less than it takes
to train the horseman. But there is no notion of numbers in it,
although the horse is very sensitive to musical rhythm.

We can not, at a glance, estimate the number of men in a regi-
ment, but we can calculate it rapidly, when we have noticed the
number in a line, the number of lines in a company, and the num-
ber of companies. We are still more incapable of distinguishing
one hundred points in rows from ninety or one hundred and
twenty, without dividing them into tens. But an animal, which
has no faculty of numerical abstraction, or of unities of different
orders, or of multiplication, would be absolutely incapable of per-
forming this operation. When small numbers of concrete things
are in question, however, the aptitude of animals to distinguish
these numbers is evident, and is, moreover, indispensable to their
existence. A wolf or a boar, which could not perceive how many
dogs were attacking it, would not know how to defend itself ; but,
if it counts them, it is by means of the tactics by which it opposes
them, and in which it follows geometrical rules ; for if four dogs
attack it, two on the right and two on the left, it retreats, facing
them, so as not to be between them, but to hold them as much as
possible in front and within reach of its tusks. But if the pack
is too numerous, the animal becomes wild, loses a clear notion of
the number of its adversaries, and bites at hazard the one which
presses closest upon it. A man in a similar situation would do
much the same.

Birds have at least a vague idea of the number of eggs in

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 255

their nests, for we can not take one out without causing in them
a disquiet that becomes greater if we remove more. But they
manifest a like distress when their eggs are only disarranged. Is
this because the geometrical arrangement of the eggs is changed ?
Five eggs or four make a symmetrical arrangement as the bird
disposes of them. But if some are taken out, and three, or two,
or one are left, the disposition is very perceptibly changed.
When the little birds have been hatched, the differences in their
size, liveliness, figure, and voice, give the mother a means of dis-
tinguishing them individually. And even the eggs are perhaps
not so indistinguishable to her as to us ; for sexual and maternal
instinct conveys special faculties in these matters. The domestic
fowl seems to be less intelligent in such things than sparrows and
other wild birds, but this is because domestication has modified
her instincts.

Cats certainly know how many kittens they have, but they
seem less affected by the loss of one of them according as more
are left. If the mother loses one of four or five, she seeks for it
a little while with considerable anxiety, and then becomes recon-
ciled to the loss. If only one is left, she becomes greatly troubled,
and, if that is taken from her, her distress appears extreme. This
may be because of the pain she suffers in her teats when the milk
ceases to be removed. When the young have become weaned, she
can witness their disappearance with apparent indifference.

Dogs have been observed on various occasions to exhibit pri-
mary numerical perceptions in the concrete. When there are a
number of them in a house, they quickly remark the absence of
one of their companions. But they are rarely troubled by it, and
make no effort to find the missing one, and they are still more
ready to take notice of the absence of one of the members of their
master's family. These traits are more easily explained by the
clear knowledge which dogs have of individualities than by
ascribing to them notions of unities as forming parts of numbers.
The unequal degrees of attachment which they show for the dif-
ferent members of the family, and for the different persons who
live in the house or visit it, proves that they make great differ-
ences between them. The idea of difference between several per-
sons involves and supports a notion of their number. But it may
lie there if wrapped up in their total perception.

Hounds pursuing a hare are troubled for an instant if they
raise another one, and will sometimes stop, as if they were uncer-
tain which one they ought to follow. Good dogs will not allow
themselves to be diverted from the scent of the first animal, which
they have already tired. When the setter pauses before a flock
of partridges, the movements of his head and eyes follow the birds
that stray to the right or left. If the flock is large, he can not

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

estimate their number, nor can the hunter. The shepherd's dog
watches his flock of sheep, and goes after the individual mem-
bers that wander from it. But if one or two of them have been
sold or carried off by a wolf during his absence, he does not
miss them.

It is wholly improbable that the so-called learned dogs, which
are said to have been taught to count, have really been lifted to
the abstract notion of numbers. They have simply been taught
to associate certain signs or words of their master with par-
ticular graphic signs, the geometrical figure of which has been
impressed upon their memory. In the same way that the horse
associates the words " gee ! " and " haw ! " with his right and his
left, and dogs associate the sound of the horn or trumpet with the
chase, they may associate with figures which are shown to them
the names as j^ronounced of those figures, but without compre-
hension of their numerical relations, and without distinguishing
them in any other way than by the difference in their shape. They
may be taught to arrange them when commanded in any particu-
lar order, without it being necessary to suppose that they have
any idea of their arithmetical significance.

"When Sir John Lubbock speculated about teaching his dog to
read, he played upon this faculty of associating vocal signs with
certain forms or figures, and even with graphic signs, figures, or
letters. The dog certainly had no comprehension of the ideographic
value of the figures which were shown him drawn upon the paste-
board ; but their shape, stamped in his memory, was associated
with the sounds that were spoken to him when they were shown
him, and with certain acts that he was to perform to obtain
caresses and rewards from his master. He thus soon learned to
pick out the cards which he had to bring to ask for drink or food
or to go out in order to have his desire satisfied. The quickest
way of teaching children to read is to show them at the same time
the image of the object and the word that designates it, so that the
two shall be associated in their minds, and they are tempted to
speak in the same way. But to appreciate the abstract sense of
the noun or the verb requires a degree of intelligence and facul-
ties of comparison which none of our domestic animals has as yet
attained.

It would, moreover, be very extraordinary to find in an animal
so far removed in organization from man as the dog a qiiasi-
identity of mental faculties, and an educability which is wanting
in entire human races. It is enough to show that between the
intellectual state of dogs and of Bushmen, Tasmanians, and Ved-
dahs, who can count only two, and then say " many," the differ-
ence is as slight as possible, and the passage insensible.

It is, moreover, evident that horses and dogs know as well as

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 257

a savage tliat they have four limbs. Foxes caught in trails will
use the most ingenious devices to extricate themselves, and will
even gnaw off one of their paws rather than be prisoners. This
requires an effort of the will contrary to the instincts, surpassing
the degree of moral energy of which most men are capable ; and,
further than this, the act demonstrates a power of applying means
to the end, which is an act of intelligence not less complicated
than the effort required for counting twenty on the fingers and
toes, as is the manner with most savages.

The faculty of abstraction and generalization is developed
exclusively by the aid of descriptive and ideological language,
which classifies things and acts under different words or auditive
images. With inferior races this faculty is weaker in prof)ortion
as their language is less analytical and less rich in abstract terms.
It is impossible to excite it in an animal, because, in the absence
of a language common to man and him, he is destitute of every
means of acquiring it. There is really no bridge between animal
and human intelligence. While our language, being descriptive
and objective, associates a sound with each visual image, the lan-
guage of the animal only expresses emotions and passions. As a
rule, it is as untranslatable to us as our language is to them. It
is only when we try to paint, describe, relate, and express ideas,
that they can not understand us, for nothing is easier than to
cause them to share our emotions, tenderness, anger, or hatred.
They understand our mimicry better than we can understand
theirs, and by mimicry we can make them understand the causes
of our emotions of a certain kind. The only condition is, that we
be dealing with species of a social nature.

When a hunting-dog sees his master with his gaiters, carrying
his game-bag and gun, he understands that he is to go with him.
He may even have acquired the habit of associating the recollec-
tion of a sound with these objects, and thus know the names by
which we designate them in the language which he hears us speak.
He may also be taught to fetch the gaiters, shoes, and game-bag
when told to do so. If, when he has brought one shoe, he is told
to fetch the other, he understands that there are two. To this
point he certainly has the notion of duality. He can not be igno-
rant, after he has executed this order several times, that the words
" the other " mean the second shoe. If, after having been trained
by an English master, he passes over to a Frenchman, he learns
that his order I'autre means the same thing. He takes no notice
of the difference in the sound of the words, because they are both
uttered with the same accentuation and intonation, and under the
impulse of the same feelings. To him human speech is a yelping,
which he interprets by the same rule as he does his own ejacula-
tions.

VOL. xxxiy. — IV

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A second unit, added to the first, is in reality the beginning of
all numeration and the foundation of arithmetic. As there are
human races that have never gone further, we need not be sur-
prised if animals stop there. But they do not stop there. They
go on from this by successive additions, while we have reached
the stage of multiplication, and have framed arbitrary systems
of numeration, and have thus made of calculation an art founded
on ideal notions. Animals, on the other hand, have a concrete
notion of numbers more highly developed than we suppose, and
perhaps more highly developed than it is with us, in proportion
as abstraction is less easy with them. We need not suppose that
the animal is destitute of all abstract notions and incapable of all
generalization. Far from it ; but the general notions being made
of resemblances and the individual notions of differences, it is
more struck than we are by individual characteristics. In this it
again approaches the child and the savage, neither of whom has
the generic notion of man. The child has the individual notion
of its mother or its nurse, whom it distinguishes from all other
persons around ; but the generic notion, composed of all the com-
mon traits of the persons around, is of slow growth. The lan-
guages of savages are, for the most part, wanting in words for
tree or animal, to comprehend the class, but have definite names
for all the trees and animals that are useful to the tribe, or which
they fear. We, therefore, may affirm that the dog has no generic
idea of man, animal, or plant, but only ideas of particular men,
particular women or children ; and that every species, whether of
animal or plant, is thought of by it as a representation of its indi-
vidual figure, with all the differences that distinguish it from the
others that it has seen. Our imagination by itself can not bring
up the idea of an animal or plant which is not a particular animal
or plant ; and any effort we may make in this direction will end in
there passing through the mind a succession of images of different
animals and plants. If the use of generic names is taken from
us, the general notion will go with it.

In the absence of articulate aud descriptive language, and
there being no object competent to serve us as a phonetic and
auditive representation, we would think directly of things by a
kind of precise interior view that permits no error or verbal soph-
ism, and not as by a kind of internal audition that tends to replace
things by their names, that makes us speak our thought within
ourselves before speaking it aloud, and which we mistake as well
as deceive others, when the interior definition which we give to the
words does not correspond with the thing defined. It is especially
difficult, in the absence of a common language between man and
the animal, to make the latter comprehend what we require from
it, and the object of the acts which we solicit it to perform. The

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 259

dog has no desire except to obey and please ns ; the trouble is in
explaining to him what we want of him.

A dog had been taught to go, when commanded, to the shed for
wood for the fireplace. The exercise amused him ; and, when he
had brought one stick, he liked nothing better than to return for
another, so that he had to be told to stop. But one time, when he
was alone and lonesome, he pulled down all the wood, stick by
stick. He had not comprehended the purpose of the act which
they made him perform, supposing it to be a sport, like the ordi-
nary carrying of a stick. Could this dog have been taught to
count by sending him for two sticks and then for three, and so on
to larger numbers ? We doubt it, because he had not even disen-
gaged from the act which he was ordered to do the general idea
that all the pieces of wood which he brought were to be burned in
the fireplace, that he was never sent for them except for that
purpose, and that he should only fetch as many as were needed.

If efforts to educate animals have been even more fruitless in
the hands of scientific investigators than of workingmen proceed-
ing without theoretical views, it is because great errors have been
committed in the analysis of human faculties, in making such
suppositions, for instance, as that arithmetical notions are more
elementary than geometrical ones. Having done this, they have
sought to teach animals, whose capability is for measuring, to
count. Having become habituated by our industrial civilization
and the economical laws of exchange to the intervention of the
idea of number in all our wants, acts, and works, we have lost
perception of the insignificant part which it has in animal life as
compared with that of the idea of size. Animals have a very
exact sense of size. They can measure time and distance better
than we can. The sparrows in our parks, when affecting the
highest degree of confidence in us, know how to keep just enough
distance from us to be able to evade us. It also seems to be dem-
onstrated that all animals have more or less of the faculty of
estimating the number of objects coexisting in space ; that is, in
a varying degree, of analyzing the similar or identical elements in
their visual or auditive perceptions, so long as the number is
small enough.

Have they also the faculty of estimating numbers as successive
repetitions of the same facts in time, or of counting the reiteration
of the same perceptions ? I was once told of a workman who was
in the habit of giving sugar every day to a dog which he met in
going to his work. The dog counted on his daily return. He
gave three pieces of sugar, one after the other, and the dog would
wait and look till it had got the third piece, when it seemed satis-
fied and did not ask for any more. It had, therefore, the notion
of these three successive facts, and could count them. I learn

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from good authority that a tame sparrow was accustomed to go
out daily from the house where it lived in freedom just before
it was time for the children to come out from school. It would
wait at the school -house door for a child of the family with
which it lived, and return perched upon its shoulder. One day
it went out but did not return, having probably fallen a prey to
a cat.

Nothing is more frequent among animals than daily acts at
fixed hours; but we have proof also that animals can measure
longer periods. A dog was used to go every Saturday evening
for his master, who came to spend Sunday at home, and went
away again on Monday. But the dog, instead of following his
master away, showed his displeasure at the parting by sulking in
a corner. Could this dog count the six days of the week during
which his master was absent ? It is more likely that his return
was foreshadowed by certain things going on in the house that
only occurred on that occasion.

Houzeau de la Haie tells of a pelican living in a fisherman's
family at Santo Domingo that was fed upon the refuse of the fish-
cleaning. Looking for its food, it went to the shore every day
and waited for the boats to come back. The fishermen rested on
Sunday, and the bird acquired so clear a notion of the return of
that day, when it had to fast, that it would not stir from the tree
on which it was accustomed to spend its time. It is not necessary
to suppose that the pelican had learned to count the six days at
the end of which its masters would not go fishing ; but, while it
really estimated daily the time when it must make its excursion
to the shore, it was informed of the return of Sunday by observa-
tion of what was going on in the house, as, for instance, by the
fishermen putting on their Sunday clothes ; in the same way as
the dog knew when its master was going to hunt by seeing him
with his gun and game-bag. In such instances, animals show
that they have the faculty of associating ideas, of observing con-
secutive facts, and establishing a correlative connection between
them — things which have been proved by abundance of other
evidence, and which demonstrate not less intelligence than ac-
quaintance with the ten signs exposing the first ten numbers, or
the use of a system of numeration to express larger numbers.

Broderip tells of an English Protestant minister's dog which
escaped every Sunday and followed its master to church. It was
shut up on one Saturday evening, but on the next week when they
went to shut it up it could not be found, and hid itself till the
service-hour on Sunday, when it appeared again at the church.
In acting thus, it had evidently reasoned out all its conduct, dis-
playing memory, foresight, and calculation. It is not likely, how-
ever, that it acted upon a count of the days, but rather on the

ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 261

knowledge tliat it liad to turn the spit on Saturday, or the day
before its master went to church.

If this period of the seven days of the week does not exceed
the intelligence of a dog, the dog should be able easily to meas-
ure periods of two or three days. Houzeau says that he tried for
three consecutive weeks to repeat the same walk with his dogs,
every two days at exactly the same hour. It would have been
enough for them to count two to determine the period. On the
twentieth day, or the tenth periodical repetition of the excursion,
although the dogs enjoyed the excursion exceedingly, he never
remarked that they anticipated it spontaneously, or had a thought
of it before witnessing his preparations to go. From this, Houzeau
concluded that dogs could not count the days. But when actions
repeated daily at fixed hours were in question, the dogs knew
when the time came. Broderip's dog and the Santo Domingo peli-
can had learned, in the course of years, that the same succession
of events took place every Sunday. It was not, therefore, by an
isolated fact, but by an aggregation of facts, that they became
aware of the return of that day ; for not only did certain things
take place regularly in the family, but Sunday noises, like the
ringing of the bells, and unusual comings and goings, occurred
in the place. After continued experience, the animals acquired
knowledge of the succession of the events, and governed their
conduct accordingly.

Houzeau also learned that some animals are capable of measur-
ing lapses of time that particularly interest them. He says that
female crocodiles abandon their eggs in the sand for ten or fifteen
days, according to the species, and return to the spot at the exact
time when they are to be hatched. It is easily conceivable that
animals have, in general, a more precise measure of periods which
concern the needs of their organic or specific life, than of the
more artificial periods to which they have become habituated
in the domesticated state or in consequence of their relations
with man, because an hereditary habit has always more force than
habits acquired by education.

Houzeau cites facts showing that some animals can count the
number of similar objects or acts, provided the numbers are not
too high. When a magpie is watched by a company of hunters,
it will not move till they go away. If they go one after another,
it can not be deceived by one of them staying behind unless there
are more than four of them. Another story of similar bearing is
that of the tramway mules at New Orleans, which are relieved
and fed after making five trips. They make their trips patiently
and quietly till the end of the fifth, when they give evident signs
that they expect their usual refreshment. The horses in the coal-
mines of Hainault make thirty trips a day, taking their places

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

again, after every trip, at the head of the train, in readiness for the
next trip ; but at the end of the thirtieth trip they turn their heads
in the opposite direction, or toward the stable.

Facts of this kind ought to be tested by most precise experi-
ments bearing upon the conditions under which they are pro-
duced, and upon different subjects. Are not the horses warned of
the end of their stint by some exterior sign, such as a change of
conductors, the departure of a squad of workmen, or the arrival
of the horses that are to take their places, or by the meal-hour ?
Is not the conclusion that they count the number of their trips
arrived at too quickly ?

It would predicate a very high degree of development to suj)-
pose that a horse could count uj^ to thirty in any given number of
hours. A man in such case would nearly always make mistakes,
unless he had some means of registering the trips as they were
completed.

It is nevertheless established that some birds and quadrupeds
are capable of counting up to four or five, and perhaps more. It
can not be disputed that the higher limit of this faculty may
vary according to species, and also to individual traits, since the
mathematical faculties of men are very great in their variations.
But we have reasons for believing that the geometrical faculty in
animals supersedes the arithmetical faculty, and that the latter
has been developed in man under the influences of industrial civili-
zation and commercial exchanges, which have, in nearly all cases,
caused the notion of numbers to be substituted for that of meas-
ure.— Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue
Scientifique.

SKETCH OF F. A. VULPIAN.

THE name of Vulpian is associated in some way or another
with most of the important physiological discoveries of the
age. It is, according to Dr. Charles Richet, because, whenever a
new experiment was published, he took it up at once, tested it, and
perfected it, toning down with his critical and judicial spirit the
exaggerations and rectifying the errors in the accounts, and,
making the general application of the newly gained fact, gave it
the right to be quoted as good physiology. Thus he cast light on
all the problems which he grappled with.

Edme Felix Alfred Vulpian was born January 5, 1826,
and died in Paris, May 18, 1887. He was the son of a distin-
guished French lawyer, and was graduated in medicine in 1854. He
was soon afterward appointed to the Museum of Natural History,
where he conducted a series of investigations on the nervous sys-

SKETCH OF F. A. VULPIAN. 263

tern ; was admitted to tlie Medical Faculty, Paris, in 18G0, with a
thesis upon secondary pneumonias, and was made one of the physi-
cians at the Salpetriere ; was appointed, in 1867, Professor of Path-
ological Anatomy ; in 1872 was transferred to the chair of Com-
parative and Experimental Pathology; and in December, 1885,
became Dean of the Medical Faculty. As professor he made it a
point to perform new experiments in his courses every year. In
fact, says Dr. Richet, all his lectures were marked by ingenious
views, novel experiments, and important bibliographical data,
to such an extent that they could be published as they were,
almost without modification ; and they constituted excellent
monographs.

The anatomy and physiology of the nervous system was his
favorite field of research. Next to Claude Bernard, says one of
his biographers, he studied with the most particular care, in the
minutest details, the nature and functions of the vaso-motor
nerves, and the laws of their contractions and dilatations, the gen-
eral effect of which on the mechanism of the functions is so
marked. His lectures on these organs, with those upon the action
of toxic substances and medicines, and upon the diseases and
physiology of the nervous system, are regarded by Dr. Richet as
works of the highest order, which gave definite shape to our
knowledge on the most important points, and as containing an
" incredible " number of precise facts that have become indis-
pensable to the practitioner. Among these labors, those upon the
action of curare, chloral, and strychnine have become classical.
The localizations of the functions of the different parts of the
cerebro-spinal apparatus, and the effects of alkaloids on these
parts, occupied him for a considerable time. He was an eminent
physician as well as a skillful physiologist ; and in this capacity
was called upon to attend, during his last illness, the Comte de
Chambord, whose disease baffled the skill of the doctors.

Dr. Charcot, in his funeral eulogy of Vulpian, said that " he
might be characterized in a single word — as a man of duty. He
was never known to retreat from a task which he had engaged to
perform. As soon as he felt his strength declining, he resigned
the much-coveted post of physician at the Hotel-Dieu, five years
before reaching the limit of age, and at the same time gave up
the civil practice which he had carried on for several years with
great success as consulting physician. This was because he wished
to employ all of his time in the service of the Academy, and we
all know how he discharged his duty in this relation. Viilpian
was more than this : he was a man of great and good heart ; a man
ready to sacrifice everything for his family ; a master adored by
his pupils ; a sure and devoted friend ; and I, who have the sad
honor of being your speaker, can not recollect without strong

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

emotion liow, in the numerous and warm competitions in which,
we were engaged with one another, Vulpian was always a loyal,
generous, and chivalrous rival.

"Although he performed high administrative functions, par-
ticularly as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, he met but few
enemies, and these, I helieve, belonged to that class of unfortunates
who can not come in contact with superiority of heart and mind
without having a kind of feeling of irritation and despite. But
we may let them pass.

" During the last few years, the condition of Vulpian's health
had gradually changed. Then I heard him repeat what he had
said to me thirty years before, just after the death of his brother,
of whom he was very fond, ' I hope to restore myself by work, a
remedy which we are fortunate to have.' Yes, work — always
work — was his supreme refuge. The last struggle was one to
which he was unequal, but yet we observed him making most cou-
rageous efforts to keep himself in the ascendant. He came to the
Faculty of Medicine daily with the same order and punctuality
that had marked the earlier part of his career, to take up and carry
on, as long as his strength permitted him, the lectures which he
had conscientiously prepared. At the Institute he performed his
difficult duties with that scrupulous zeal and distinction which we
have all been pleased to recognize."

M. Vulpian earnestly supported M. Pasteur in his late re-
searches concerning the microbes of infection, and particularly in
his investigations and exjDeriments concerning hydrophobia ; and
when it fell to him to defend the daring inoculator and his inten-
sive system of treatment against attack, he did it in the Academy
of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences with a vigor that evoked
the applause of the members of both bodies, and silenced M. Pas-
teur's adversaries for the time. Nevertheless, the intensive treat-
ment has prudently been suspended.

We have been favored with the following grateful reminis-
cence of Prof. Vulpian by one of his former students, W. W.
Skinner, M. D. (Paris), of New York : " It was seven years ago when
the pursuit of my medical studies first brought me into contact
with this truly great medical teacher. He was then Dean of the
Ecole de Mddecine of Paris, a position only obtained by the wisest
and most learned of the great corps of professors in that school,
and which confers upon the incumbent the highest honor that his
colleagues can bestow upon him. At the same time, he was Pro-
fessor of Experimental and Comparative Pathology; and his
demonstrations of the pharmacodynamic actions of the most act-
ive substances of the materia medica brought a roomful of inter-
ested students to his laboratory three times weekly during the
summer semester.

SKETCH OF F. A. VULPIAN. 265

"One Tuesday, at the nsnal hour of his demonstrations in the.
laboratory, he gave us students an agreeable surprise, and one
which we shall long remember. He had invited the renowned
Pasteur to show to the class the results of his researches in his
now world-famed methods of prophylaxis by vaccination of many
virulent diseases of the lower animals. For the short hour of the
lecture, Pasteur took chicken-cholera for his subject. He showed
the students the micrococcus which causes the disease, the man-
ner of converting it into a harmless vaccinating matter, and
finally the lesions produced in the unvaccinated fowl by the micro-
coccus. Prof. Vulpian, in his large-hearted admiration for his fel-
low-scientist, took a real pleasure in giving his class an opportu-
nity of seeing and hearing Pasteur.

" The personal appearance of Prof. Vulpian was more than
usually striking. He was above the average in stature, and
his broad but slightly stooping shoulders were surmounted by a
large, finely shaped head, which was adorned by a thick growth
of wavy, iron-gray hair. His grave and dignified mien, and the
modest air of a true savant that he constantly bore, at once com-
manded the respect and consideration that he so well merited.
His kindly disposition of character endeared him to all with
whom he came in contact ; and the generosity and absence of jeal-
ousy with which he welcomed any discovery made by another
scientist, or any honor conferred upon a colleague, was another
trait in the character of this truly estimable man.

" He lived in the rue Soufflot, that short but fine street in the
Latin Quarter of Paris which is closed at one end by the Pan-
theon, where the remains of Victor Hugo rest, and at the other
by the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg, where stands the stately
palace in which the Senate sits. In this remarkable garden of the
Luxembourg, full of fountains, statuary, flower-beds, orange-trees,
and students, the hero of this sketch was fond of walking after
dinner. Almost every evening about sundown he could be seen
strolling quietly through the garden, during half an hour, in com-
pany with a tall young man whom I supposed to be his son, and
with whom he kept up a pleasant, fatherly conversation. Then,
before the retraite sounded, which was the signal to close the gates,
he would return to his home close by, where his arduous profes-
sional work awaited him.

" During the progress of that hot debate which took place last
year in the French Academy of Medicine upon the value of Pas-
teur's method of vaccination as a means of preventing the out-
break of hydrophobia after the bite of a mad animal. Prof. Vul-
pian gave proof of his excellent judgment in medical controversy,
and of his unshaken friendship for Pasteur. In the session of
January 18, 1887, he made a warm defense of Pasteur's method.

266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and, in closing, used these memorable words: 'The glory of
Monsieur Pasteur is such that many envious teeth will be broken
upon it. Our works and our names will long be buried under
the inconstant tide of oblivion, when the name and the works of
Pasteur will still be resplendent, and will shine upon such ele-
vated heights that they will never be reached by that dismal
flood.'

" Pour months after the utterance of these enthusiastic and pro-
phetic words. Prof. Vulpian was borne to the grave. The mem-
bers of the Academy of Medicine, the Academy of Sciences, the
Faculty of Medicine, and the numerous scientific societies of Paris,
participated in the grand and imposing obsequies with which the
world-renowned savant was honored, and delegates from these
institutions pronounced well-merited eulogies over his tomb. The
numerous writings from his pen with which medical literature
has been enriched will long constitute the highest authority upon
the subjects which he investigated."

Vulpian was elected to the Academy of Sciences in the Section
of Medicine, when he took the place of Andral in 1876 ; in 1886
he was chosen perpetual secretary, to succeed M. Jamin. He was
given the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1869, and was made an
officer of that body in 1878.

The collection of M. Vulpian's publications gives only an in-
complete idea of his labors, which were divided between experi-
mental research and teaching. These works include " Des
Pneumonies Secondaires" ("Of Secondary Pneumonias," I860)-.
and " Legons sur la Physiologic G^ndrale et Comparde du Systeme
Nerveux " (" Lessons on the General and Comparative Physi-
ology of the Nervous System "). Before the short illness of which
he died, he was giving lectures on the respiratory system, and he
was about to publish an important book on the cerebral functions.

It is now manifest, says Prof. Judd, that no classification of geological pe-
riods can possibly be of world-wide application ; and that " we must be contented
to study the past history of each great area of the earth's surface independently,
and to wait patiently for the evidence which shall enable us to establish a paral-
lelism between the several records." Moreover, while attention was once pre-
dominantly given to marine deposits, " the growth of our knowledge concerning
the terrestrial floras and faunas of ancient geological periods . . . has constantly
forced upon the minds of many geologists the necessity of a duplicate classification
of geological periods, based on the study of marine and terrestrial organisms re-
spectively." One of the greatest sources of danger to the progress of geological
knowledge at tlie present day is the tendency to forget that the geological record,
although of enormous value, is exceedingly imperfect, and thus to make too hasty
generalizations on insufficient data.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

267

EDITOR'S TABLE.

A TEST OF NATIONAL MORALITY.

THE forgery of documents for the
purpose of giving fictitious sup-
port to doctrines or to territorial claims
was a device not unknown to antiquity ;
and very severe has been the condem-
nation bestowed upon it by virtuous
moderns. The fame of the "false de-
cretals " still lingers in the world ; and
respectable citizens of our own favored
time and country are found wondering
how a high spiritual authority could ever
have consented to rest its claims, even
partially, upon so thoroughly delusive a
foundation. Circumstances, however,
as has been wisely remarked, alter cases ;
and that which was very shocking when
resorted to for the establishment of
principles in which one does not believe,
may assume a very different character
when found available for promoting the
success of the political party that has
the honor of commanding the same in-
dividual's vote. The "campaign lie"
has long been known as a favorite po-
litical weapon; but nowadays political
mendacity seems, in a peculiar manner,
to affect the ancient trick of forgery.
The last two or three presidential elec-
tions have each had their distinguishing
forgeries ; but the one just concluded
brought the forger's art into a greater
prominence than ever before. Men made
lies and loved them; and other men
loved to see the lies in circulation; and
others loved to delude themselves with
the lies so made and circulated ; until it
really seeuied as if, throughout a con-
siderable portion of the community, the
one thing that everybody hated and
feared was truth.

And we are a Christian nation ! We
hold our heads very high in the world.
Our morality is not like that of the de-
caying states of the Old World, but of a
much superior type. We have no royal

courts among us to spread servility and
corruption ; our working-classes are
taught to look down with infinite con-
tempt on the "pauper labor" of even
such a country as England ; our political
institutions give every man an interest
in the state; and such government as
we have is " of the people, for the peo-
ple, by the people." The theory of our
institutiuns, indeed, is very fine, but we
are constrained to say that the practice
is very miserable. To have political
power in our hands, and then to resort,
on a large scale, to falsehood — deliber-
ate, unblushing, reiterated falsehood —
as a means of influencing elections, is
about as shameful a thing, in our opin-
ion, as the sun shines upon. But, can a
thing be politically shameful and yet not
dangerous ? Fraud and violence are close
companions. A quarrel over marked
cards is very apt to be settled with the
pistol or the knife ; and, some day, if
political fraud should happen to be just
a httle too triumphant, w^e might find
ourselves precipitated into another civil
war.

Why have we such tolerance for cam-
paign lies and liars? Why do respect-
able gentlemen, prominent in church cir-
cles, either help in the invention of such
lies or smile complacently at their cir-
culation? Why is the national con-
science so dead on this subject ? Has it
anything to do with the fact that as yet
the morality of science — the morality
that consists in the strenuous pursuit and
conscientious utterance of truth — is so
feebly recognized? We have powerful
church organizations; the whole land is
honey-combed, we may say, with socie-
ties for the promotion of a certain type
of conventional moral excellence ; but
what is being done — this, after all, is the
question on which the permanence and
prosperity of the republic depend —

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

what is being done to make honest citi-
zens ? We know lots of smooth-spoken
individuals who are very scrupulous
about various matters — much interested
perhaps in Sabbath observance; strongly
opposed to certain forms of amusement
for the young ; grieved, possibly, to think
that there are people bad enough to
hope for the salvation of unevangelized
heathen — there are plenty such ; but
where are the people who hate a lie
when they see one, and that without
regard to the question as to whose in-
terest is served by it ? Where are the
men who do not want sophistries
served up to them in their favorite
newspaper, and who are at all times
willing to allow fair weight to a fair
argument ? In this wide land there are
doubtless many thousands who have not
bowed the knee to the Baal of political
trickery, and who have not imprisoned
their souls in any narrow and arbitrary
scheme of moral doctrine ; but, com-
pared with other types, these are few
in number. We meet the man full of
church-taught scrupulosities ten times
for once that we meet a tlioroughly
open-minded, honest man. We meet
the man who is terribly afraid of doc-
trinal errors ten times for once that we
meet the man who detests the campaign
lie. Now, there is nothing to be said
against scrupulosity in conduct, nor in
favor of doctrinal errors ; but false-
hoods, the makers of falsehoods, the
willing beneficiaries and condoners of
falsehoods, and all who leave out of
their scheme of life the duty of oppos-
ing falsehoods in all their shapes and
guises can not be too strongly con-
demned.

Where is the remedy for this dan-
gerous national habit of political lying ?
It is to be sought in a reorganized na-
tional education. Instead of filling the
minds of children with fables, as to a
large extent we do, we need to cultivate
in them the sense for reality by teaching
them to know things in their properties
and relations, and natural processes in

their definiteness and certainty. In
other words, science has to take hold of
education and remodel it, until it gives
us a generation of citizens too intelligent
and with too practiced a sense for truth
to fall the easy prey that so many thou-
sands now do to the arts of the political
trickster. One may be excused for
doubting whether at this moment the
political honesty of our nation is reaUy
on the increase ; but we shall hope that
the time may come before very long
when science shall do for politics and
for morality what it has done for our
knowledge of the physical world and of
human nature, and give us a regenerated
state, the outcome of an intellectually
nobler type of manhood.

WORK AT THE LICK OBSERVATORT.
The great thirty-six-inch telescojje of
the Lick Observatory has not only more
than satisfied the most confident antici-
pations of what it would be able to do,
it has taken the astronomical world by
surprise with its revelations. It is not
too much to say that it has opened up
new vistas of creation, and given to the
eye of man so much wider and deeper a
range in the universe that, as Prof. Hol-
den, the director of the observatory, has
remarked, when looking through this
telescope the observer must view ob-
jects as if seen for the first time. Ce-
lestial phenomena present an appear-
ance, in many cases, so different from
that familiar to observers with less pow-
erful instruments that the impression
they make is entirely new.

Of course, primarily, the great size
and exquisite figuring of the giant ob-
ject-glass must have the credit for all
this, and yet much (very much more,
probably, than the general public ima-
gine) is due to the director and his able
assistants. Prof. Holden has applied the
unrivaled equipment of Mount Hamil-
ton Observatory to the observation of
the heavens in a broad-minded way
that is decidedly refreshing and encour-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

269

aging by contrast with the manner in
which the powers of some great tele-
scopes have been misappUed and frit-
tered away. There are some astrono-
mers who seem to be fearful of nothing
so much as that they may be suspected
of having done, or said, or seen some-
thing interesting. Prof. Holden does
not belong in that category, and it is
exceedingly gratifying to know that the
most powerful telescope on our planet
is in the hands of a man w^ho will use it
for the broadening of our knowledge of
the universe, even at the risk of con-
tributing to the fund of " popular " in-
formation.

The discoveries that Prof. Holden
has already announced to the world, in
the few months since the Lick telescope
was first turned upon the sky, are of
surpassing interest. We note first the
observations of nebula, and particularly
of the well-known " ring nebula " in
Lyra, one of the most attractive of celes-
tial objects even with a telescope of
moderate size. In that singular creation
Prof. Holden has discovered a marvel-
ous coexistence of rings of stars and
nebular ovals, evidently intimately re-
lated to one another in a manner that
is in the highest degree significant.
Then, too, in the nebula known as 37 H 4
in the constellation Draco, Prof. Holden
and one of his assistants, Mr. Schaeberle,
appear to have discovered a phenomenon
of an entirely new order. There a cen-
tral star is surrounded by ovals of nebular
matter which have assumed the form of a
helix, and Prof. Holden himself suggests
that this spiral or screw-shaped forma-
tion appears to have resulted from the
emanation of the nebulous stuff from a
body that was revolving around the cen-
tral star while that star itself was moving
swiftly through space. His observations
promise to make us acquainted with
other objects belonging to this same
mysterious class.

The director of the Lick Observatory
has not scorned to apply its powers to
the scrutiny of the well-worn and fa-

miliar features of the dead and barren
moon, and there too he has found some-
thing new and interesting. He believes
he has solved the mystery of Sir William
Herschel's lunar volcanoes, which that
great observer imagined he had actually
beheld in fiery eruption.

Some of the most interesting astro-
nomical discoveries of recent years re-
late to the planet Mars, and foremost
are the observations of Schiaparelli, of
Milan, on those curious features of the
planet's disk which have been called,
from their form and their apparent con-
nection with the Martian seas, " canals,"
Last summer Perrotin, of Nice, an-
nounced that one of the Martian conti-
nents named Libya had apparently been
inundated by a neighboring sea. N"ot a
few astronomers have doubted the ex-
istence of these comparatively minute
markings and changes upon Mars, be-
cause they could not see them them-
selves. But Prof. Holden and his assist-
ants turned the monster telescope upon
Mars with the most interesting results.
They confirmed the existence of Schiapa-
relli's " canals," though they did not see
any of them double (doubtless owing to
unfavorable conditions), and they found
that Libya was still there, unsubmerged.
These observations were made some
months after those of M. Perrotin ; and
Prof. Holden suggests that the partial
disappearance of Libya, which Perrotin
ascribed to an inundation, may have
been due rather to some such phenome-
non as a veil of clouds in the atmosphere
of Mars. At any rate, what were sup-
posed to be such cloud-masses have pre-
viously been observed on Mars.

We have called attention to these
various observations in order to show
in what manner the Lick telescope is
being used, as well as to indicate briefly
some of the results already attained.
We congratulate Prof. Holden and the
Hniversity of California upon the splen-
did success of this great astronomical
enterprise. The spirit of James Lick,
if it can comprehend terrestrial doings

270

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while his body hes under the pier of the
great telescope, must be moved with
gratification at the complete fulfillment
of his desire to build a telescope that
sliould surpass aU others in its achieve-
ments.

LITERARY NOTICES.

On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence
OF Animals: with Special Reference to
Insects. " International Scientific Series,"
Vol. LXIV. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart.,
M. P., F. R. S. Hew York : D. Appleton
& Co. Pp. 292. Price, $1.75.

The name of Lubbock will cause the
reader to open this volume with an eager
interest that will be amply justified. It is
an extension of the investigations recorded
by the author in his fascinating work on
" Ants, Bees, and Wasps," going further into
details of structure and function of the sense-
organs of insects, together with some discus-
sion of the intelligence displayed by higher
animals. In the first half of the book, he
gives us the results of his own observations,
combined with what other investigators have
learned as to the location of each sense in
insects, and the structure of the organs in
which each resides. He explains the pur-
pose of this part of the work as follows:
" While attempting to understand the man-
ners and customs, habits and behavior of
animals, as well as for the purpose of devis-
ing test experiments, I have found it neces-
sary to make myself acquainted, as far as
possible, with the mechanism of the senses,
and the organs by means of which sensations
are transmitted. With this object I had to
look up a great number of memoirs, in vari-
ous languages, and scattered through many
different periodicals; and it seemed to me
that it might be interesting, and save others
some of the labor I had to undergo myself,
if I were to bring together the notes I had
made, and give a list of the principal mem-
oirs consulted. I have accordingly attempt-
ed to give, very briefly, some idea of the
organs of sense, commencing in each case
with those of man himself." The list of
memoirs to which he alludes is an extended
one, occupying eight pages. He begins his
descriptions with the sense of touch, " as being
the one which is most generally distributed,

and from which the others appear to have
been in some cases developed. The senses
are not, indeed, as already mentioned, always
to be easily distinguished from one another ;
and it would seem that the same nerve may
be capable of carrying different sensations
according to the structure of the end organs."
The inner skin of insects and crustaceans
being covered with a layer of horny substance,
the sensations of insects, excepting sight, are
transmitted by means of hairs projecting
through this hard integument. The organs of
taste in insects are certain modified hairs situ-
ated either in the mouth itself, or on organs
immediately surrounding it. Experiments
which have been made seem to prove that the
sense of smell resides partly in the antennae
and partly in the palpi. " This distribution
would be manifestly advantageous. The palpi
are more suited for the examination of food ;
while the antennae are more conveniently
situated for the perception of more distant
objects." The antennae probably serve partly
as organs of touch, and some as organs of pro-
tection. The author deems it very probable
also that some of them, at least, perform still
another function, such as hearing, " while
some of these peculiar antennal organs," he
says, "though obviously organs of sense,
seem to have no special adaptation to any
sense of which we are cognizant." That in-
sects may have senses of which we are not
cognizant, he deems very probable. There
are, without doubt, causes in nature which
would produce sensations different from any
we know of on organs capable of receiving
them. For instance. Sir John has shown
elsewhere that animals hear sounds which
are beyond the range of our hearing, and can
perceive the ultra-violet rays, which are in-
visible to our eyes. Sound and light are
both produced by vibrations. The shrillest
sound audible to us results from forty thou-
sand vibrations a second, and no light that
we can see is produced by less than four hun-
dred million millions of vibrations in a second.
" But between forty thousand vibrations in a
second and four hundred million milhons we
have no organ of sense capable of receiving
the impression. Yet between these Hmits
any number of sensations may exist. We
have five senses, and sometimes fancy that
no others are possible. But it is obvious
that we can not measure the infinite by our

LITERARY NOTICES.

271

own narrow limitations, lloreover, looking
at the question from the other side, we find
in animals complex organs of sense, richly
supphed with nerves, but the function of
which we are as yet powerless to explain.
There may be fifty other senses as different
from ours as sound is from sight." It has
been thought that the antennje in all insects
are the organs of hearing, but it has since
been shown that the sense of hearing is not
confined to one spot, and indeed there is no
reason why it should be. Grasshoppers and
crickets have ears on their legs, and the
crustacean genus Mysis has ears in its tail.
Organs of sight, which are the most complex
and varied of sense-organs, are treated in
this book at greatest length. In regard to
the mode of vision by means of compound
eyes, the author supports Miiller's view that
"the picture perceived by the insect will be
a mosaic, in which the number of points
will correspond with the number of facets."
Two interesting chapters are those in which
he describes an extension of his earlier ex-
periments on the power of bees and ants to
distinguish colors, and answers the objection
that the power which he ascribes to ants
of perceiving the ultra-violet rays is not true
sight, but a sensitiveness of the skin to light.
Recognition among ants he believes is effect-
ed to a great extent by the antennae, whether
or not smell is the sense which serves for
this purpose. Along with some extraordinary
manifestations of intelligence in insects, he
tells of some interesting cases of apparent
stupidity observed by him and by M. Fabre.
The closing chapter is on the intelligence of
the dog, and is occupied mainly with an ac-
count of Sir John's application to his black
poodle "Van" of the method used in teach-
ing Laura Bridgman. The poodle apparently
learned to bringacard marked "food," "out,"
"bone," " tea," etc., according to his wants,
but when a card of a particular color, or
having one, two, or three dark bands on it,
was held up to him, and he was sent to fetch
a duplicate from among several cards, he
generally failed. The author also discusses
briefly the question, " Can animals count ? "
but has reached no definite conclusion on this
point. The mental faculties of man and the
lower animals are now being investigated as
never before. The problems relating to these
faculties are being attacked from many dif-

ferent sides, and while much valuable knowl-
edge is resulting from these labors, a great
deal of careless observation, unjustified as-
sumption, and baseless theory is being put
forth at the same time. Sir John Lubbock,
however, is a careful and patient experi-
menter and a cautious reasoner, and on every
page of his writings he shows that his object
is the attainment of truth, and not the de-
fense of pet theories.

Darwinism. By David Starr Jordan, Ph. D.
Chicago : A. B. Gehman & Co. Pp. 63.
Price, 25 cents.

Evert one who has read any of President
Jordan's popular articles on scientific sub-
jects will want a copy of this essay. In it
he sets forth, with his well-known vigor and
captivating clearness, the main features of the
Darwinian theory of the origin of species,
and gives samples of the evidence on which
this theory rests. He begins by alluding to
the variety of the forms of life on the earth,
and then calls attention to the unity which
exists in this diversity. For instance, "there
are dogs and dogs, of all sizes and styles,
yet enough alike for us to regard them as
belonging to one original species." Then
there are other dog-like animals — wolves,
coyotes, jackals, foxes — which we must re-
gard as first-cousins to the dogs. Each of
these races has still other relatives, further
removed from the dog-type, and, proceeding
thus, we have at last all animals of the
mammalian class " joined together by a
branching chain of apparent relationship — a
chain of homologies." The problem before
us is, " What is the origin of variety in life,
and how does it come that this variety is
based on essential unity ? " The author then
reviews the answers which have been given
to this problem by Linnaeus, Cuvier, La-
marck, Saint-Hi laire, Goethe, and Agassiz.
Darwin's answer to the problem follows,
and is stated partly in quotations from his
works and his letters, and is supplemented
by illustrative cases by the author. How
Darwinism explains the facts of geological
distribution, and of degeneration both of
type and of individual parts in the organism,
is next explained, and a brief accoimt of the
evidence which embryology brings to the
support of the theory of evolution, contrib-
uted by Dr. J. S. Kingsley, is here inserted.

272

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" The various attacks on the theory of de-
scent," says President Jordan, " have nearly
all centered on the question of the origin of
man." But these attacks are wholly un-
reasonable. " Our objections to recognizing
our kinship with the lower forms — if we
have any such objections — rest on reasons
outside the domain of knowledge. They do
not rest on religious grounds. . . . Looking
over the history of human thought, we see
the attempt to fasten to Christianity each
decaying behef in science. That the earth
is round, that it moves about the sun, that it
is old, that granite ever was melted — all
these beliefs, now part of our common
knowledge, have been declared contrary to
religion ; and Christian men who knew these
things to be true have suffered all manner
of evil for their sake." A short sketch of
the life of Darwin is prefixed to the essay.

Researches on Diamagnetism and Magne-
Crystallic Action. By John Tyndall,
D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 288. Price, $1.50.

The researches embodied in this volume
cover the first six years of Prof. Tyndall's
experimental work. The first investigation
of the series treats of the deportment of
crystals, and of other bodies possessing a
definite structure, in the magnetic field.
Pliicker had discovered that deportment, and
had attempted to account for it by sup-
posing new forces and new laws. Faraday
followed and corroborated Pliicker, and add-
ed one more hypothetical force. These
forces were held to be wholly distinct from
magnetism and diamagnetism. Tyndall and
Knoblauch found a much simpler way of
accounting for the phenomena observed,
which, in place of the assumption of three
new forces, required only a simple modifica-
tion of known forces, to which they gave the
name elective polarity. Prof. Tyndall's first
investigation on the subject of diamagnetic
polarity is described in the " Third Memoir "
of this volume. Supplied with more ade-
quate apparatus and material, he prosecuted
the research as recorded in the " Fourth Mem-
oir," subjecting the deportment of diamag-
netic bodies to an exhaustive comparison
with that of magnetic bodies, which showed
that the diamagnetic force had the same
claim to be called a polar force as the mag-

netic. In the " Fifth Memoir " are described
experiments made with a very delicate ap-
paratus, which proved that the theory of
diamagnetic polarity would stand the severest
tests. The application of the doctrine of
polarity to magne-ciystallic phenomena is
the subject of the "Sixth Memoir." Ap-
pended to these papers are letters by We-
ber, Faraday, and Tyndall, relating to the
investigations, together with some brief de-
scriptions of apparatus.

Journal of Morphology. Yol. II, Xo. 1.
Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 190.

This number of the " Journal " contains
five papers. The first is a brief account of
" Observations on the Structure of the Gus-
tatory Organs of the Bat ( VcspertiUo suhula-
ius),''^ by Frederick Tuckerman, M. D. This
is followed by a paper by Prof. E. D. Cope,
" On the Tritubercular Molar in Human Den-
tition." Prof. Cope has investigated the
variation in the number of tubercles form-
ing the crown of the superior true molars in
man, and has concluded that " the quadri-
tubercular type of molar crown, illustrated
by the first superior true molar of man, be-
longs to the primitive form from which all
the crest-crowned (lophodont; molars of the
hoofed placental mammals have been de-
rived ; and second, this quadritubercular type
of molar has itself been derived from a still
earlier tritubercular crown by the addition
of a cusp at the posterior internal part of
it." He says, further, that " the trituber-
cular superior molars of man constitute a
reversion to the dentition of the LcmuridcB
of the Eocene period of the family of Anap-
tomorphidce ; and, second, that this rever-
sion is principally seen among the Eski-
mos, and the Slavic, French, and American
branches of the European race." In the low-
est existing races the quadritubercular type
predominates, while the neolithic dentitions
examined are of an intermediate character,
thus showing a superior position to these
races. The third paper is by C. 0. Whit-
man, on " The Seat of Formative and Re-
generative Energy," and deals with the ques-
tion whether the cytoplasm is a passive
body, moving only as it is acted upon by
external forces and influences emanating
from the nucleus, or whether it has powers
of its own which make it capable also of au-

LITERARY NOTICES.

273

tomatic action. Prof. Henry F. Osborn pre-
sents " A Contribution to the Internal Struct-
ure of the Amphibian Brain," in which are
reported certain studies of nerve-fiber courses
and determinations of motor and sensory
nuclei. Dr, William Patten contributes a
second installment of his " Studies on the
Eyes of Arthropods," devoted to the eyes of
Acilius. Thirteen plates accompany this
number.

Index to the Literaturk of the Spectro-
scope. By Alfred Tuckerman, Ph. D.
Washington : Smithsonian Institution.
Pp. 423.

The literature of science is becoming so
voluminous that classified indexes are abso-
lutely essential to the student who would
obtain an adequate idea of what is going on
in his specialty. This index, in its own full-
ness, illustrates the fact. It is intended to
be a bibliography of the spectroscope and
spectrum analysis, and to be a list of all the
books and smaller treatises, especially con-
tributions to scientific periodicals, from the
beginning of our knowledge on the subject
till July, 18S7. The time covered by this
description is not very great, but the num-
ber and variety of the titles recorded show
how incessant has been the activity of re-
search during the period. An admirable
system of arrangement is adopted, under
which a strictly alphabetical order of the
subjects is followed. Titles have often been
repeated more than once, so as to make sure
of their being found, and a list of authors is
added.

Essays on Practical Politics. By Theo-
dore Roosevelt. New York : G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. Pp. 74. Price, 40 cents.

The two essays comprised in this volume
have appeared in " The Century," and are
now reprinted in the " Questions of the Day "
series. Prefixed to them is an introduction,
in which the author replies to the criticism
made at the first appearance of his essays,
that they offer no cure for the evils they
portray, by saying that he attempted only
to make a diagnosis of the disease, and not
to prescribe for it. He says further that,
just as many sick men demand a pleasant
medicine which will cure all their complaints
without their making any change in their
work or pleasure, or their eating and drink-
VOL. XXXIV. — 18

ing, so certain other men " expect some
scheme of reform that will at a single fell
swoop do away with every evil from which
the body politic is suffering. ... No law or
laws," he continues, " can give us good gov-
ernment ; at the utmost, they can only give
us the opportunity to ourselves get good
government." He then specifies several
things that good citizens ought to work for,
and says, " Above all, we can strive to fulfill
our own poHtical duties, as they arise, and
thereby to do each of us his part in raising
to a healthier level the moral standard of
the whole community." The first of the
essays is on " Phases of State Legislation,"
and is based mainly on Mr. Roosevelt's ex-
perience as a member for three terms of the
New York Legislature. It reveals a great
deal of viciousness and weakness, and also
gives credit for a great deal of good work.
It contains, too, a number of very amusing
incidents. The other essay describes " Ma-
chine Politics in New York City," and deals
with not only the methods of the men who
run politics for the benefit of themselves
and their followers, but also the neglect of
public duties by respectable men, which
makes the doings of political jobbers possible.

Manual of Chemistry. By W. Simon,
Ph. D., M. D. Second edition. Phila-
delphia : Lea Brothers & Co. Pp. 479.

The present edition of this manual,
while retaining the general character of the
first, embodies also a considerable number
of changes and additions. The work is
specially adapted for students of pharma-
cy and medicine. It assumes no previous
knowledge of chemistry, and hence may be
called a text-book for beginners, though it
is not suited to the needs of young pupils.
The first twenty pages are devoted to a brief
consideration of the fundamental properties
of matter, and are followed by thirty pages
on the principles of chemistry. The author
is in the habit of scattering these principles
along through his course of lectures, but in
a text-book to accompany the lectures he
prefers to collect them in one place. The
third and fourth parts of the volume are de-
voted respectively to the consideration of the
non-metallic and the metallic elements and
their compounds. Only those elements are
taken up which have a practical interest, and

274

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for the special benefit of pharmaceutical and
medical students space is given to all chemi-
cals mentioned in the " United States Phar-
macopoeia." The fifth part deals with qualita-
tive analysis, including also a chapter giving
the principal methods for volumetric de-
terminations. Organic chemistry occupies a
little over one fourth of the volume, and in
this department special prominence is given
to those substances most important in medi-
cine and pharmacy. In the closing part
physiological chemistry is treated, including
a consideration of the chemical changes
which take place in animals and plants, and
of the chemical composition of animal fluids
and tissues, with full directions for testing
urine. A notable feature of the book is
seven plates showing the colors of fifty-six
precipitates and liquids, which beginners
often have difficulty in becoming familiar
•with. There are also forty-four cuts repre-
senting apparatus.

A Synopsis of the Medical Botany of the
United States. By J. M. G. Carter,
M. D., Ph. D. St. Louis : George H. Field.
Pp. ] 76. Price, $2.

Dr. Carter has accomplished a laborious
service for the physicians of the United
States. The book consists of a list of the
species under each genus which are known
to be useful in medicine, giving their medici-
nal properties, and telling what parts of the
plant are used, and the dose. The medicinal
plants of the United States embrace about
140 orders, 620 genera, and more than 1,300
species and varieties. The botanical arrange-
ment is chiefly that of Dr. Asa Gray. The
names of introduced species are distinguished
by small capitals, and the habitat of rare
plants i3 given. The volume is supplied with
a table of orders, and indexes of generic
names and of common names of plants, and
an index of diseases.

The Journal of Physiology, Vol. IX, Nos.
2 and 3 (Cambridge (England) Scientific In-
strument Company) contains eight papers
giving the results of laboratory investiga-
tions. The first is " On the Physiology of
tlie Salivary Secretion," by J. N. Langley, of
Cambridge, and records experiments made
to determine whether the "trophic" and
" anabolic " fibers of the secretory nerves
are paralyzed by atropine at the same time

as the " secretory " fibers. This is followed
by a paper on " The Physiological Action
of Borneol," by Ralph Stockman, M. D., of
Edinburgh, and "A Note on the Cause of
the Failure of very Rapid Electrical Stimula-
tion to produce Tetanus in Muscle," by Hen-
ry Sewall, of Ann Arbor, Mich. " An Experi-
mental Investigation of Strychnine-Poison-
ing" is contributed by Robert W. Lovett,
M. D., of Boston, who concludes that the
spinal cord, upon which strychnine exercises
peculiar power, takes up more of the drug
than the other organs ; but whether or not
it is more susceptible to the drug than the
other organs we have no means of ascer-
taining. The next paper is " On the Circum-
stances which modify the Action of Caffeine
and Theine upon Voluntary Muscle," by T.
Lauder Brunton and J. Theodore Cash ; this
is followed by a report of an investigation
" On the Electrical Organ of the Skate," by
J. Burdon- Sanderson and Francis Gotch.
The remaining papers are " On the Rhythm
of the Mammalian Heart," by John A. Mc-
William, M. D., of Aberdeen, illustrated by
plates of tracings ; and " Further Researches
on the Apparent Change produced by Stimu-
lation in the Polarization of Nerve," by
George N. Stewart, of Manchester.

Prof. E. D. Cope read before the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society in January last a
paper entitled Synopsis of the Vertebrate
Fauna of the Puereo Series. The Puerco
formation rests on the Laramie in north-
western New Mexico and southwestern Colo-
rado, and was discovered by Prof. Cope in
1874, and vertebrate remains were found in
it by Mr. David Baldwin in 1880. One hun-
dred and six vertebrate species have been
found so far, which differ so much from the
fauna which preceded and followed them, as
to show that this foi-mation represents an
immense interval that had not been pre-
viously suspected. These species are de-
scribed in the present paper, and the de-
scriptions are illustrated by two plates, and
by cuts showing dentition.

University Studies is the name of a pe-
riodical published by the University of Ne-
braska, at Lincoln, the first number of which,
dated July, 1888, is before us. The price of
a single number is $1 ; yearly subscription,
$3. There is no announcement of the pur-
pose or times of publication of the journal

LITERARY NOTICES.

''7S

in this number. Its contents comprise three
papers ; " On the Transparency of the Ether,"
by D. B. Brace ; " On the Propriety of Re-
taining the Eighth Verb-Class in Sanscrit,"
by A. H. Edgren ; and " On the History of
the Auxiliary Verbs in the Romance Lan-
guages," by J. A. Fontaine. The first paper
is an investigation of the phenomena which
would occur if there were any absorption
of the light-energy of stars by the ether,
through frictional forces or imperfect elas-
ticity. The result of the author's calcula-
tions is, that the apparent finiteness of the
stellar universe can not be due to absorp-
tion, as Struve supposed ; and that, if the
universe is infinite in extent, " the average
density of distribution of self-luminous
bodies outside our own system must be ex-
ceedingly small, as otherwise the sky would
appear of a uniform brightness, approxi-
mating that of the sun."

In his Annual Report of the Division of
Forestry for 1887, the chief, Mr. B. E. Fer-
now, defines the work of the division as in
the main that of a bureau of information.
During the past year the division has dis-
tributed different circulars of information to
wood-consumers in general, to railroad man-
agers, to educational men, and to members
of the National Grange. Those, together
with a letter to the Commissioner of the
Land-OfBce on what is a timber-tree, are re-
produced in full or in substance in the report.
The pamphlet also contains statistics in re-
gard to exports and imports of wood and
wood products, from 1880 to 1887, and the
mill capacity of the country. Seeds and
seedlings, mainly of cone-bearing trees and
willows, have been distributed to some ex-
tent. Mr. Fernow thinks it is time for the
division to undertake systematic original in-
vestigations. The scientific basis of forest
management must be built up from research-
es in forest biology, timber physics, soil
physics, and soil chemistry ; its economic
basis will consist of forest statistics, tech-
nology of woods, and forest policy ; and its
practical basis will comprise knowledge of
methods of planting, managing, and harvest-
ing forests. The report contains notes on
certain species of trees, the seed of which
has been distributed from the department
during the season, telling their value and
the mode of their propagation. These notes

are followed by statements of the condition
of the forestry interests in the several States
and Territories.

The Toyo Gakugei Zasshi (" Eastern Sci-
ence Journal " ), in Japanese, is edited by a
committee consisting chiefly of professors in
the Imperial University at Tokio, Japan, and
has the large circulation, for a country like
Japan, of three thousand copies. The num-
ber which has been sent to us as a specimen
has articles on the primeval world of Japan
(accompanied by illustrations of Japanese
geology), the aborigines of Japan, the sub-
marine world, "A Great Eastern Problem,"
and "The Standard Time of Japan," with
notes and miscellanies on various subjects,
and reviews of books.

The Kitchen, a Magazine devoted to Sci-
entific Cookery in all its Branches (J. II.
Lewis, publisher, Chicago), is a monthly
magazine devoted to what the publisher
justly considers the central and predominant
interest of all housekeeping. Subjects per-
taining to cookery are presented in an un-
technical, common-sense style, and occupy
about half of each number. The rest of the
space is devoted to matters of different char-
acter, the object seeming to be, besides culti-
vating well the special field of the periodical,
to furnish a variety of reading, and make it
attractive in other directions. Price, 20 cents
each number ; 82 a year.

The character of Chemical Experiments
for Medical Students, by W. S. Christopher,
M. D. (R. Clarke, $1), has been conformed
to the limited time allowed for the study of
chemistry in most medical schools. Hence
it includes only such methods and facts as
the student will need to use in the practice
of his profession. It is a laboratory manual,
the experiments covering work with the prin-
cipal metals and acids, using Beilstein's ex-
amples. In addition, the more important
alkaloids and some organic compounds of
medical interest are considered. In physio-
logical chemistry the work deals with the
proteids and carbohydrates, the digestive
processes, blood, bile, milk, and urine. The
acid tests recently introduced for the clinical
examination of stomach contents are also
given. It is intended to be used with some
systematic treatise on chemistry.

"We have received from Thomas Prosser
& Son, the New York agents of Friedrich

276

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Krupp, a volume entitled Krupp and Be
Bange, by E. Montliai/e, captain in the Bel-
gian general staff. Its object is to show
that the Krupp system of ordnance is supe-
rior to the De Bange system, from which it
differs in material, construction, and mode
of breech-closure. The first chapter is a
discussion of various methods of preparing
steel for gun-metal ; the second compares
the construction of the Krupp and the De
Bange guns ; this is followed by an essay on
ballistic performance, and a statement of
the extent to which the European states use
the Krupp guns. The next chapter answers
the objections of the adherents of the French
gun against the Krupp, and there is a review
of the "Belgrade competition" of 1884, in
which a Krupp, a De Bange, and an Arm-
strong gun participated. An account of a
visit to the Krupp works concludes the main
part of the book, and to this is appended an
analysis by another hand of some criticisms
made upon Captain Monthaye's book. The
volume is illustrated with diagrams, views,
and a portrait of Alfred Krupp.

A decidedly vigorous pamphlet has been
contributed to the " Questions of the Day "
series, by Mr. J. S. Moore, entitled Friendly
Letters to American Farmers and Others
(Putnam, 25 cents). Its purpose is to show
the people of the country, regarded as con-
sumers, what the present tariff costs them.
The letters are strengthened by abundant
statistics, and the following specimen head-
ings will indicate their character: " What it
costs the Farmer for Lumber," " What it
costs the Farmer for Crockery, Glassware,
and Cooking Utensils," "Female Labor on
Farms and in Factories," "As to Luxuries
and Necessities," and " The Champion Tariff
Swindle of the World."

The subject of the next number of the
" Questions of the Day " series is American
Prisons in the Tenth United States Census
(Putnam, 25 cents). It is by Frederick H.
Wines, special agent of the tenth census,
and presents the numbers of inmates in the
prisons of the country, and the crimes for
which they are imprisoned, in a great variety
of aspects, such as with regard to birth-
place, age, sex, color, length of term, and
number of arrests by the police. The figures
are embodied in a discussion which includes

suggestions for the improvement of certain
State and national prison laws. An inter-
esting statement, which reverses the popular
judgment somewhat, shows the proportion
of prisoners to the number of residents from
each of twenty foreign countries. From this
it appears that the West Indies send us the
most criminals, 1 in 117, while the best
showing is made by the Austrians (includ-
ing Hungarians and Bohemians), 1 in 1,936.
The Scandinavians stand next to the Aus-
trians, and the Hollanders are third. The
Germans are eighth, with one prisoner in
949 German -born residents, the English
eleventh, French twelfth, Irish fourteenth,
1 in 350, Italians sixteenth, and Chinese
next below them, with a proportion of 1
in 199.

Two editions of the PresidenCs Message
of 1887 (Putnam, each 25 cents) have been
received. One contains annotations by R.
R. Boivker, which embrace a large number
and variety of facts and figures showing the
receipts and expenses of the Government
for a number of years, the effects of buying
bonds at a premium, what the tariff tax
amounts to on many items of the consumer's
purchases, the percentages of tax laid on
important articles at various times since
1789, the variation of wages in Europe and
different parts of this country, the amount
of wool raised in the United States, the oper-
ations of trusts, etc. The other edition is
illustrated by Thomas Nast, in his well-
known style.

The most extended and important papers
in Reports from the Consuls of the United
States, No. 93 (Department of State), are
those on " The Cost of Manufacturing Print-
Cloths in Massachusetts, Lancashire, and
Switzerland," by J. Schoenhof ; " The Prov-
ince of Kiang-su," by J. D. Kennedy ; " The
Exhibition for the Prevention of Accidents
to be held at Berlin in 1889," by F. Raine;
"The Trade of South America," by John E.
Bacon ; " The Trade and Industries of Rus-
sia," by Charlton H. Way ; and " The Re-
sources and Trade Relations of Japan," by
T. R. Jernigan.

The pamphlet on Aspects of Education,
by Oscar Browning (Industrial Education
Association, 20 cents), is a contribution to
the history of pedagogy. It discusses the

LITERARY NOTICES.

277

three modifications of educational theory —
humanism, realism, and naturalism — to one
or another of which all schemes of instruc-
tion that have taken practical form in the
last three hundred years may be referred.
The essay includes also some remarks on
the EngUsh public school.

The children will be sure to like The
New Model First Reader (Sherwood, 35
cents) for its colored pictures, which are
supplied with a liberal hand. The mode of
teaching to which it is adapted is that known
as the sentence-method. It familiarizes the
pupil with script as well as with Roman
letters.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelpliia.
Proceedings continued. Pp. 24.

Allen, John H. The Tariflf and its Evils. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 1-22. $1.

Bain, Alexander. English Composition and
Rhetoric. Enlarged edition. Part II. Emotional
Qualities of Style. New York : D. Appleton «& Co.
Pp.325. $1.40.

Baker, Henry B , M. D., Lansing, Mich. The
Causation of Cold- Weather Diseases. Pp. 15.—
Recent Advances in State Medicine. Pp. 27. The
Prevention of the Communicable Diseases. Pp. 7.

Barton, Samuel. The B.attle of the Swash and
the Capture of Canada. New York : Charles T.
Dillingham. Pp. 131. 50 cents.

Berger, Franfois. French Conversations— Idio-
matic Expressions— Proverbs. 853 Broadway, New
York. Pp. 32. 25 cents.

Brandt, Prof. H. C. G., Hamilton College. Should
the Elements of French and German be required for
Admission to all Colleges? Pp. 8. — A First Book
in German. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 87. $1.

Browning, T. B., Toronto. Chart of Elocution-
ary Drill. Pp. 83.

Calkins. Mary "Whiton. Sharing the Profits.
Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 70.

Cameron, James. Soaps and Candles. Phila-
delphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp.306. $2 2.5.

Clokey, Rev. Joseph Waddell. Dying at the
Top. Chicago : Woman's Temperance Publishing
Association. Pp. 56. 10 cents.

Coi)e, E. D. Topinard on the Latest Steps in
the Genealogy of Man. Pp. 4.

Crozier, John Beattie. Civilization and Progress.
London : Longmans & Co. Pp. 447.

Cruger, Mary. How she did it : or Comfort on
$150 a Year. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
212.

Dawson, Sir J. William. Specimens of Eozoon
Canadense and their Geological and other Relations.
Montreal : Uawson Brothers Pp. 107. 50 cents.

Evans, George, k Hand-Book of Historical and
Geographical Phthisiology. New York : D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 295. $2.

Fletcher, W. Q. " The Co-operative Index to Pe-
riodicals." Quarterly. Vol. IV, No. 3. 330 Pe.arl
Street, New York. Pp. 29. 50 cents. %1 a year.

Frieze, Henry S. The Tenth and Twelfth Books
of the Institutes of Quintilian, with Explanatory
Notes. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 294.
$1.40.

Gald6s, B. Perez. The Court of Charles IV, a
Romance of the Escorial. New York : William S.
Gottsberger. Pp. 295.

Gardner, E. C. Town and Country School
Buildings. Prospectus. New York and Chicago :
£. L. Kellogg & Co.

Gilmore, James R. The Advance-Guard of
Western Civilization. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 848. $1.50.

Goode, G. Brown. The Beginnings of American
Science. The 'third Century. Washington: Bio-
logical Society. Pp. 94.

Gouley, John W. S., M. D., New York Tnmors
from a Surgical Point of View. Pp. 32.

Hardenbrook, W. T., Chicago. The Giants of the
W'eeklies.

Henderson, Hanford, Philadelphia. Aluminum.
Pp. 22.

Higgins, Rev. H. H. On the Individuality of
Atoms and .Molecules. Pp. 32.

Holmes, Nathaniel. Realistic Idealism in Phi-
losophy itself. Boston and New York : Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. 2 vols. Pp. 521 and T'.>5. $5.

Imperial University, Tokio, Japan. Journal of
the College of Science. Vol. II, Parts 2 and 3. Pp.
188, with Plates.

Iowa, Bulletins of the State Board of Health
and the Experiment Station. Pp. 12 and 42.

James, Prof Joseph F.. Maryland Agricultural
College. An Ancient Change of the Ohio River at
Cincmnati. Pp. 6.— The Ivorydale Hill in Mill
Creek Valley. Pp. 4.

Jordan. David Starr. Manual of the Vertebrate
Animals of the Northern United States. Chicago :
A. Mclurg & Co. Pp. 375. $2.50.

Ketchum. Annie Chambers. Botany for Acade-
mies and Colleges. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Company. Pp. 192.

Kirk. Ilvland C. When Acre grows'voung. New
York : Charles T. DillinghamT Pp. 2Si. 50 cents.

Lick Observatory. Formal Reception of the
Transfer to the Board of Regents of the University
of California. Pp. 201.

Loughead, Flora Haines. Quick Cooking. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.204. $1.

Lubbock, Sir John. On the Senses. Instincts,
and Intelligence of Animals. New York: D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 292. $1.75.

Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment
Station. Bulletin No. 31. Pp. 16.

Michael. K. W. and O. E. Alfred Krupp, his
Life and Work. New York : Thomas Prosser &
Son. Pp. 72.

Michigan Agricultural College. Annual Cata-
logue. Pp, 62.

Michigan State Board of Health. Annual Re-
ports for 1886 and 1S87. Pp. 341 and 232.

Philpott, Henry J. Tariflf Charts. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp 33.

Phyfe, W. H. P. The School Pronouncer. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 326. $1.25.

Porter, Mrs. Ch.arlotte. Editor. The "Ethical
Record." Quarterly. October. 18«S. Philadelphia :
Society for Ethical 'Culture. Pp. 82. 30 cents. $1
a year.

Proctor, Richard A. Great- Circle Sailing. New
York : Longmans. Green & Co. Pp. 16.

Rilev, C. V. Insect Life. Monthly Periodical
Bulletin. Vol. I, Nos. 8 and 4. Pp. 32 each,— Bib-
liography of North American Insects. Pp. 77.
"Washington : Department of Agriculture, Division
of Entomology.

Rohd, George H.. M. D. Practical Measures for
the Restriction of Contagious and Infectious Dis-
eases. Pp. 20.

Rosenbush, H., and Iddings. Joseph P. Micro-
scopical Physiography of the Rock -making Minerals.
New York : John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 333, with 26
Plates.

Scott, Hon. William L., U. S. II. R. Speech on
the Fisheries. Pp. 10.

Stockbridge, Horace Edward, Ph. D. Rocks and

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Soils : tbelr Origin, Composition, and Characteristics.
New York : Johu Wiley & Sons. Pp. ^39.

Shepherd, Henry A. Antiquities of the State of
Ohio. Cincinnati : John C. Yorston &, Co. Pp. 189.

Shufftldt, K. W., M. I). Observations upon the
Morpholog'y of Gallus Bankiana. Pp. 34

Starr, Louis, M. D. Hygiene of the Nursery.
Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 2V2.
$1. 50.

Tuckerman. Frederick, Amherst, Mass. Two
Papers on Tania Saginata. Pp. 2 each — The Anato-
my of the Papilla Foliata of the Human Infant. Pp.
3. with Plates. — Observations on the Structure of
the Gustatory Organs of the Bat. Boston : Uinn &
Co. Pp. 6, with Plates.

Watts, Charles A. The Agnostic Annual for
1SS9. London : W. Stewart & Co. Pp. -IS.

Wells, David A. Relation of the Tariff to
"Wages. New Y'ork : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 45.

Whelpley, H. M. Chemical Lecture. Notes
from C. O. Curtman's Lectures. St. Louis. Pp. 211.

Whitlock, L. L.. Editor. "The Soul." Monthly.
Facts Publishing Company. Boston. $1.50 a year.

Williams College, Hopkins Observatory. Com-
memoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary. Pp. 82.

Winlock, William C. Bibliography of Astrono-
my for the Y'ear 1SS7. Washington : Smithsonian
Institution. Pp. U.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The International Geological Congress.

— The fourth session of the International
Geological Congress was held in London, be-
ginning September 16th, under the presi-
dency of Prof. Prestwich. The United
States was represented in the list of vice-
presidents by Prof. Frazer, of Philadelphia.
The meeting was the largest in attendance,
both of home and foreign geologists, that
has been held. It differed from the previ-
ous meetings in the point that no votes were
taken bearing upon the subjects under dis-
cussion ; but a report was adopted recom-
mending that in future the members from
the country in which the Congress meets
shall vote separately from the foreign geolo-
gists : if the two groups agree, the question
to be considered settled ; if not, deferred ;
and that votes should not be taken on ques-
tions that are purely theoretical. The clas-
sification of the Cambrian and Silurian strata
was fully discussed, and the questions of the
nature and origin of the crystalline schists,
and of the upper limit of the Tertiary sys-
tem, were considered in some detail. To the
second discussion essays were contributed
by five officers of the United States Geologi-
ical Survey, with an introduction by Major
Powell, and by Mr. Lawson, of Canada. The
committee on nomenclature and classification
has obtained reports from the committees of
the different countries, embodying their views

on the subject. It now remains to discuss
these. Another commission was appointed
under the new aspect of the subject, on
which Prof . Hall represents the United States.
Four or five sheets of the geological map of
Europe, relating to central Europe, will be
ready for publication within the next two
years, and will be given out at once, each
with its own title and index, without wait-
ing for the completion of the whole. The
Congress decided to hold its fifth meeting,
in 1S91, in Philadelphia ; and Messrs. J. Hall,
Dana, Newberry, Frazer, Gilbert, Hunt,
Marsh, and Walcott were appointed the com-
mittee of arrangements.

Interglacial Man in Ohio. — Until re-
cently it has been a question whether " in-
terglacial " man existed in the Mississippi
Valley. Dr. Abbott had even made the sug-
gestion that this race may have lived only
in the neighborhood of the sea-coast, and
had not spread so far as even to the eastern
slope of the Alleghanies. Flint implements
paleolithic in character were found in abun-
dance— the work of Indians — but none that
could be proved to be of palaeolithic age.
Some three years ago, however, genuine pa-
laeolithic flints were found by Dr. Metz at
Madisonville and Loveland, Ohio. The sites
of these discoveries have been carefully ex-
amined by the Kev. G. F. Wright, who, tak-
ing the whole configuration and geological
character of the region, with its peculiar
formations, into account, pronounces the
beds to be unquestionably virgin glacial de-
posits, in situations where there can have
been no subsequent deposition. The discov-
eries, therefore, show that in Ohio, as well as
on the Atlantic coast, man was an inhabitant
before the close of the glacial period. A
discovery of implements of quartz, situated
likewise in gravels and sands that could only
be glacial, made by Miss Babbitt at Little
Falls, Minn., is confirmed by the researches
of Mr. Warren Upham.

Our Indians and the Mongolians. — Dr.

Brinton, in a paper read at the American As-
sociation, maintained that the resemblances
alleged by various writers to exist in lan-
guage, culture, and physical appearance be-
tween American Indians and Mongolians are
not supported by recent researches. The

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

279

American languages differ entirely from any
of the Mongolian group. In culture there
are various similarities, but not more and
not other than can be pointed out between
any two groups of early civilizations, and
not one of them is evidence of intercourse.
The physical similarities relied upon to show
racial affinity begin with the color of the
skin. But no American tribe shows the
peculiar hue of the Mongol. The hair, al-
though straight in both races, differs in
color. The oblique, or Chinese eye, about
which much has been said, is by no means
usual in the American race, scarcely more so
than among the whites, and is, moreover, of
less importance than has been maintained.
The shape of the skull is markedly different.
The Mongolian head is round, that of the
Eskimo notably long, and of other tribes
mixed. The nasal index of the American
Indian approaches that of the modern Euro-
pean much closer than it does the Mongo-
lian. There are in certain tribes some gener-
al physiognomical characteristics, and that is
all — and this is of little importance.

Religions Notions of Gypsies. — The gyp-
sies' religion, says the author of " The Tran-
sylvanian Tziganes," in " Blackwood's Maga-
zine," is of the vaguest description. They
generally agree as to the existence of a God,
but it is a God whom they can fear without
loving. " God can not be good," they argue,
" else he would not make us die." The devil
they also believe in to a certain extent ; but
only as a weak, silly fellow, incapable of do-
ing much harm. A gypsy, questioned as to
whether he believed in the immortality of
the soul and the resurrection of the body,
scoffed at the idea. "How could I be so
foolish as to believe this ? " he asked, with
unconscious philosophy. " We have been
quite wretched enough, and wicked enough,
in this world already. Why should we begin
again in another ? " Sometimes their con-
fused notions of Christianity take the shape of
believing in a God, and in his Son, the young
God ; but while many are of the opinion that
the old God is dead, and that his Son now
reigns in his place, others declare that the
old God is not really dead, but has merely
abdicated in favor of the young God. Though
rarely believing in the immortality of the
soul, the Tzigane usually holds with the doc-

trine of transmigration, and often supposes
the spirit of some particular gypsy to have
passed into a bat or a bird ; further believing
that, when that animal is killed, the spirit
passes back to another new-born gypsy.
The gypsies resident in villages and hamlets
often nominally adopt the religion of the
proprietor of the soil, principally, it seems,
in order to secure the privilege of being
buried at his expense.

Effects of Cigarette-Smoking. — During
a discussion in the American Association,
Prof. W. S. Dudley described some experi-
ments which he had made on the injurious
effects of cigarette-smoking. lie showed that
they were principally due to the manner of
smoking, and not to the impurities, as is cur-
rently supposed. In smoking cigarettes, to
get the desired effect, the smoke is inhaled,
that is to say it is breathed into the lungs ;
whereas, in smoking pipes and cigars, the
smoke is simply drawn into the mouth and
then expelled. In experiments on small ani-
mals, in which they were caused to breathe
air containing cigarette-smoke, it was found
that, after a mouse had smoked one and a
fourth cigarette life was extinct. Exami-
nation of its blood showed that it had died
from the effects of the carbon monoxide
which was contained in the smoke, and not
from the nicotine and other volatile products
of the tobacco and paper. This carbon mon-
oxide is produced by the carbonic-acid gas,
which is first formed at the end of the lighted
cigarette, passing through the red-hot carbon,
while the air is excluded. The smoke of a
cigar or pipe, or a Turkish water-pipe, would
have the same effect if inhaled.

Development of the Plesiosanrns.— Piof.

H. G. Seeley exhibited in the British Asso-
ciation last year a remarkable fossil show-
ing the development of the young of the
plesiosaurus. Until this fossil had been dis-
covered and forwarded to him, he had sought
throughout the collections of Europe for
evidence on that development, but without
success. No more remarkable fossil had
ever been found, and no incident in the his-
tory of fossilization was more singular than
that which this specimen displayed. The
fossil was a series of mummies of minute
plcsiosaurs less than five inches in length.

28o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which had the substance of their flesh per-
fectly preserved, and the bones in place
within the flesh. The remains showed dif-
ferent conditions of development. This
was the only case that had ever occurred of
the mineralization of the muscular substance
and the preservation of the external form of
these animals; and so perfectly had they
kept that the circle of the eye was pre-
served and the constituent bones could be
distinguished.

Hints aboHt Local Mnseums.— The Brit-
ish Association's Committee on Provincial
Museums advises in its report that each such
institution ought to be a fully illustrated
monograph of its own district. If the en-
tire history of the district and its inhabit-
ants is represented in it, with special atten-
tion to any group of objects for which the
district is remarkable, this will be almost as
much as any local institution can accomplish.
But science is daily becoming more exacting
in its demands. Details which were thought
ample in any provincial museum twenty
years ago, would now be regarded as quite
insufficient. In order that the scientific sta-
tistics of the country may be thoroughly in-
vestigated and made known as quickly as
possible, a more business-like system of col-
lection should be adopted. The district
should be divided into sections, and a paid
collector appointed for each of them, whose
whole time should be occupied for several
years in obtaining specimens and records in
every branch of science represented in the
museum. This would require a more liberal
supply of funds for the first few years than
museums usually enjoy, but the value of the
museum would be immensely enhanced, and,
when the local collections were made tolerably
complete, the permanent income required
for maintenance would be very much less.
The town museum should be the place to
which all students and teachers of science in
the district would naturally go for assist-
ance.

The Teaching of Chemistry.— The ad-
dress of Prof. Tilden, as President of the
Chemical Section of the British Association,
was on the teaching of chemistry. In re-
viewing the present position of this instruc-
tion in England, the author thought the ap-

parent inactivity of the chemical schools was
not generally the fault of the professors, but
was chargeable in the main to the ignorance,
and partly to the indifference, of the public.
There exists as yet no intelligent feeling in
favor of learning, nor indeed in favor of any
sort of education, unless there is expectation
of direct returns in the form of obvious
practical results. That teachers ought to
engage in research at all is by no means
clear to the public and to those who are
charged with the administration of the new
institutions. A popular mistake consists in
regarding a professor as a living embodi-
ment of science — complete, infallible, mys-
terious ; whereas, in truth, he is or ought to
be only a senior student, who devotes the
greater part of Lis time to extending and
consolidating his own knowledge for the
benefit of those who come to learn of him,
not only what lies within the boundaries of
the known, but how to penetrate into the
far greater region of the unknown. More-
over, the man who has no intellectual inde-
pendence, and simply accepts other people's
views without challenge, is pretty certain to
make the stock of knowledge with which he
sets out in life do service to the end. That
one may be fitted to form a sound judgment
concerning new theories, he must be familiar
with the methods by which progress is ac-
complished. The work of investigation then
reacts beneficially upon the work of teach-
ing ; that is to say, teachers should be en-
couraged, nay, even required to investigate,
and not because their discoveries may haply
prove to be practically useful. Every teacher
who has attained eminence as a teacher, who
has drawn men after him, who has founded
a school of thought, and has left his mark
upon his generation, has been an industrious
worker in research of some kind.

A Law of Marriage Customs. — With the
view of applying direct numerical method to
anthropology, Mr. E. B. Tylor has compiled
schedules of the systems of marriage among
some three hundred and fifty peoples of the
world, so as to ascertain by means of a
'? method of adhesions " how far each rule
coexists or not with other rules, and what
have been the directions of development
from one rule to another. The barbaric
custom which forbids the husband and his

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

281

-wife's parents, though on a friendly footing,
to speak to or look at one another, or the
converse custom of the wife and her hus-
band's relatives being obliged ceremonially
to cut one another, is practiced by some sev-
enty peoples. A marked distinction is found
to lie between those peoples whose custom
is for the husband to reside with his wife's
family, and those where he removes her to
his own home. It appears that the avoid-
ance custom between the husband and the
wife's family belongs preponderantly to the
group of cases where the husband goes to
live with his wife's family. This implies a
casual connection between the customs of
avoidance and residence, suggesting as a rea-
son that the husband, being an interloper in
the wife's family, must be treated as a
stranger, or not "recognized." Other va-
rieties of the custom show similar prepon-
derant adhesions.

The American Badger. — The mammalian
fauna of the United States includes two
species of badgers — the American badger
{Taxidea americana americana) and the
Mexican badger ( T. a. berlandicri)^ the latter
being found on our southwestern border. Dr.
R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. A., says that many
writers have confounded our species with the
European badger (Mcles), though in reality
they are very distinct animals. The Ameri-
can badger is found in this country from
Texas, Iowa, and Wisconsin westward, and
used to occur much further east. Dr. Shu-
feldt had a fine one in captivity for a long
time at Fort Wingate, and has seen a num-
ber of others there, among them being the
largest that he ever saw or read about. It
was an adult male, and measured from the
tip of his nose to the tip of his tail thirty-
two inches. Badgers take a varied diet of
fruit, birds' eggs, insects, frogs, small mam-
mals, nuts, and roots. It has not been
proved that the American badger is as fond
of honey as the European species is, and
generally its tastes are far more carnivorous.
They drink a great deal of water. They
spend most of the daytime in the extensive
burrows which their enormous fore-claws en-
able them to excavate, coming out to feed
chiefly at night. It is very rare to find a
pair of them together. When one has been
chased into its burrow it sometimes reappears

in a moment or two at the entrance to inspect
its pursuer. Dr. Shufeldt has seen Indians
take advantage of this habit by running up
to the hole and killing the animal with a
pistol-shot as it showed its head. Few ani-
mals prey upon or molest the badger ; it is a
strong and determined fighter, and even the
wolf and the coyote do not care to attack
it. Prof. Elliott Coues, in his " Fur-bearing
Animals," says that "the flesh of the
badger, like that of the skunk, is eatable,
and doubtless often eaten by savage tribes,
though not to be recommended to a cultivated
palate." Dr. Shufeldt found that the speci-
mens which he skinned emitted during the
process a most rank odor. The badger
yields a valuable fur. Thousands of shaving-
brushes are said to be made annually from
the long hairs, from which also the " badger
blender" used by artists is made. The colors
of the badger pelt are blended gray, tawny,
black, and white, the colors ringed in alter-
nation on individual hairs. The gray pre-
dominates. Much remains to be observed in
regard to the more obscnre habits of the
badger.

A Phonetic Alphabet for Indian Lan-
guages.— Mr. Garrick Mallery, in preparing
the phonetic alphabet used by the Bureau of
Ethnology in recording Indian languages,
while seeking for a distinct character for
every sound, made it a fundamental rule that
the characters should be limited to those
in an ordinary font of English type — in-
cluding with the Roman alphabet other
characters and diacritical marks common in
newspaper printers' cases. The range of
characters is extended by reversing those
letters of the Roman alphabet which look
markedly different when reversed. This is
entirely convenient to the printer, and does
not occasion awkwardness in the current
script to the recorder or writer for the press,
as he has only to mark the letter intended to
be reversed, after writing it in the normal
manner, and to notify the printer accord-
ingly. In practice, the letters intended to
be reversed are marked by a cross beneath
them. The result of this scheme in practice
has solved one part of the problem of a
universal phonetic alphabet. Vocabularies
and chrestomathies of unwritten languages
have been recorded and printed, on which

282

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grammars and dictionaries have also been
prepared and printed, and from ttiem the
languages can be learned so as to be spoken
intelligibly without oral instruction.

The Storage of Life. — In an address de-
livered at the Royal Institution, London, Dr.
B. W. Eichardson discussed the conditions
of the storing or laying up of life, of which
the cases of great longevity frequently met
with are examples. He puts "hereditary
qualification" first of these conditions, and
says that the person gifted with this faculty
of storage may be of fragile and delicate
build, may even be deformed, may be of
dull or of bright intellect, may be of cleanly
or of uncleanly habit, may be placed in what
would seem the most unfavorable position
in life, and will continue to live on so as
to see all of his more fortunate neighbors
fall. The two hereditary temperaments
which are incompatible with storage of life
are the nervous and the lymphatic ; the two
which are compatible, and perhaps neces-
sary, are the sanguine and the bilious ; bet-
ter, perhaps, than any singly, would be a
mixture of the two latter. In the organism
best constituted for storage, the color of the
eyes, always an excellent test, is a light ha-
zel, the hair is dark brown, the color of the
skin is inclined to be florid, and the lips and
eyelids are of good natural red. Dr. Rich-
ardson is confident that the number of per-
sons who reach the classical threescore years
and ten in England at present is much above
what it has ever been in the history of the
country. Toward improving heredity in the
direction of longevity, the first consideration
is the selection of Uves for parentage. If
such a social miracle could be performed as
the fashion of a proper arrangement to pre-
vent the marriage of health with disease,
or, still more urgently, the intermarriage of
disease, there would soon be an important
advance in the value of life. A strong aid
to the force of heredity is the virtue of con-
tinency, or that virtue which would provide
for the limitation of the family circle to such
a degree that the resources of the family
may never be dangerously taxed by the
largeness of it. Another aid is rendered by
the art of training the body in such form
that all parts of it shall be kept in perfect
balance and in equal health. " I do not

remember," says Dr. Richardson, " any one
of fine and vigorous frame of body and
mind who, dying prematurely," did not die
from the failure of some one vital organ
almost exclusively." A weak and well-bal-
anced body is practically a stronger body
than a strong and unbalanced one, and a
body of original strength and beauty may be
made of unusually long or of unusually short
life, according as it is trained into the con-
ditions leading to the one or the other. The
storage of life is promoted also by that stoi-
cal virtue which may be summed up in the
term perfected or all-round temperance. I
include in this term not merely abstinence
from stimulating or alcoholic drinks. The
storage of life is reduced by intemperance
of speech, of action, and even of thought.
We may consider that whatever quickens
the action of the heart beyond its natural
bounds is a form of intemperance. The wild
hope or wilder despair of the money-market,
unbridled passion, and jealousy, are among
the kinds of stimulation that hasten the de-
chne of heart-power. The existence among
men of diseases which lead to physical de-
terioration, and reduce the capacity for the
storage of life, not alone in one but through
many generations, is the last subject to
which there is time to refer. The alcoholic
diseases, the scrofulous and phthisical, the
malignant or cancerous, the syphilitic, are
diseases of this order, and whoever helps
to remove them by getting at and removing
their causes is among the truest friends that
humanity ever possessed.

Protection of Wood aaginst Fire. — An

investigation has been made by Profs. Bou-
din and Doimy, of the Ghent University, at
the requisition of the Belgian Minister of
Public Works, in regard to rendering wood
uninflammable. They reported that to de-
prive wood to a considerable extent of the
property of catching and communicating fire
it is sufficient to coat it with a suitable com-
position. A practical process must not be
too expensive, nor take too much time, and
the substance used must not attack any
metal used in connection with the wood.
Two methods of treatment may be men-
tioned. One is the injection of saline solu-
tions, which appears but little applicable
except to small pieces of wood, and may be

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

283

dangerous in the case of wood of large di-
mensions. A concentrated solution of phos-
phate of ammonia, although expensive, is
undoubtedly the best substance to apply by
injection. Certain substances, notably chlo-
ride of calcium, should be rigorously ex-
cluded, because they would keep the wood
constantly damp. This method may be ap-
plied to small articles by immersion, and the
solution should be hot. In the majority of
cases, including existing structures, applying
some coating with a brush is the only prac-
ticable treatment. The wood thus coated
should present a neat appearance, should be
capable of receiving a coat of ordinary paint,
nor should either coating deteriorate within
a moderate time. The best substances for
such application are cyanide of potassium
and asbestus paint.

Tests of Eye-Sight, Band-Grip, and
Breathiug Capacity. — Some curious obser-
vations on men and women were reported
from the Anthropometric Laboratory at Man-
chester to the British Association. Of mem-
bers of the association who were tested at
the museum for keenness of eye-sight, the
men could see diamond type with their right
eye at a distance of 19"6 inches, and with
their left eye at a distance of 18'2 inches,
showing a distinct difference between right
and left. A similar difference was manifest-
ed among the women, who with their right
eye saw at a distance of 19'2 inches, and
with the left at a distance of IS'T inches.
The men averaged 41 "V years of age, and the
women were between 23 and 25 years. In
no case could one see (diamond type) more
than 34 inches with the right eye, but with
the left one could see beyond that distance.
Among 102 men and 98 women, the right
eye was equal to the left in 26 instances in
the men and 31 in the women ; in 35 in-
stances among the men and 28 among the
women the right eye could see further than
the left, and in 24 cases in the men and 28
in the women the right eye v/as worse than
the left. The strength of the squeeze showed
that it was not uncommon to find a difference
of 5 or 6, or even 10 pounds between the
squeezing power of the two hands. The aver-
age squeeze of the men was between 35 and
45 kilos, and that of the women about 25
kilos. The average weijrht of the men was

between 11 and 12 stone, and that of the
women about two stone less ; the height of
the men 08 inches, and of the women 4 inch-
es less. Speaking of the effects of stays,
which Dr. Garson said interfere with the ab-
dominal respiration, Mrs. Stokes observed that
the statistics of the stay and corset makers
and sellers of London showed that the aver-
age size of the female waist had decreased
during the last twenty-five years by two inch-
es. Concerning the breathing capacity of
some who wore no stays. Dr. Wilberforce
Smith said that one woman 59 inches in
height, whose breathing capacity, according
to the usual average, should be 100, had an
actual capacity of 135; another, whose aver-
age should be 115, had actual 158 ; a third,
average 130, actual 150 ; a fourth, average
130, actual 200; a fifth, average 162, actual
195. In one person, in feeble health, the
actual was less than the average.

The Chinese and their Limbs.— The Chi-
nese, according to the " North China Her-
ald," are opposed to having amputations
performed upon them, not because they are
afraid of the pain, but because they look
upon it as a duty to keep the body intact.
If they submit to it, they ask for the severed
member, and keep it in a box, to be buried,
in due time, with the owner. Sometimes
they will eat it, in the thought that it is
right that that which has been taken from
the body should be returned to it. So an
extracted tooth will be preserved, or ground
to powder and swallowed in water. They
also have a notion that a sick parent can
be cured by broth made from flesh cut from
a living child, and it is looked upon as a
sign of filial piety for a child to submit
himself to an operation for that purpose.
The child is supposed to be of the vital es-
sence of the parent, and it is thought that,
if a part of this essence is returned to the
fountain-head, the parent will be greatly
strengthened.

Water-Storage at River-Heads.— Mr. J.

Bailey Denton proposed, in the British Asso-
ciation, a plan for replenishing the subter-
ranean suppUes of the underground strata
by means of shafts to be sunk down to the
line of their saturation. He computes that
of the twenty-seven inches forming the mean

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

annual rainfall, about two thirds, or eighteen
inches, are evaporated from the surface,
while of the remaining third, four inches
serve to maintain the river systems, and five
inches pass away as floods and freshets. As
the amount of evaporation is nearly a con-
stant figure, and the quantity required to
maintain effectually the river system neces-
sarily remains the same under all conditions,
the amount of flood or excess of water great-
ly varies. To make good the loss of this sur-
plus water, the author proposes that when-
ever the water in the river rises above a cer-
tain datum height recognized as the gauge
of its full service, the excess shall be divert-
ed out of the river-course on to filter-beds
formed near at hand. The outlet from these
filter-beds would be steined shafts or sumps
sunk down to the water-level beneath, and
into them the filtered water would pass after
it was freed from flocculent matter. The
steined shafts would be made water-tight and
sealed against all surface contamination.

Monopolies. — In a British Association pa-
per on "The Growth of Monopoly, and its
Bearing on the Functions of the State," Prof.
H. S. Fox well pointed out that, whereas the
general expectations of Adam Smith and his
contemporaries were that the reforms they
advocated would introduce an era of free com-
petition and abolish monopoly, a century's ex-
perience had shown us that they had merely
shifted the basis on which monopoly rested,
and given it a secure seat. Liberty had not
led to equal'ty. Competition was a transi-
tional, not a permanent stage. It merely
substituted for monopoly based on privilege
monopoly based on natural selection. All
the most characteristic tendencies of the age
favor the growth of monopoly. Monopolies
thus arising were free from many of the de-
fects of the old monopolies, and presented
advantages over a state of unmitigated com-
petition. But they had their special dan-
gers, and required appropriate forms of state
control. There need be an extension of the
objects and principles of state control as
generally indicated by Adam Smith and Mill.
Whatever might be the case under a competi-
tive system, monopolies could not be wholly
self-regulating. The modern question was no
longer between laissez faire and legislation,
but between regulation and collecticism.

The Telephone Two Hnndred Years ago.

— How rare it is to discover anything that is
entirely new is freshly exemplified to us in
what Robert Hooke wrote about what has
become the telephone, as far back as 1664,
or two hundred and twenty-four years ago.
He said : " And as glasses have highly pro-
moted our seeing, so it is not improbable
but that there may be found many mechani-
cal inventions to improve our other senses,
of hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. 'Tis
not impossible to hear a whisper a furlong's
distance, it having been already done ; and
perhaps the nature of the thing would not
make it more impossible, though that fur-
long should be ten times multiplied. And
though some famous authors have affirmed
it impossible to hear through the thinnest
plate of Muscovy glass, yet I know a way by
which it is easy enough to hear one speak
through a wall a yard thick. It has not yet
been examined how far octocoustics may be
improved, nor what other ways there may
be of quickening our hearing, or conveying
sound through other bodies than the air;
for that is not the only medium. I can as-
sure the reader that I have, by the help of a
distended wire, propagated the sound to a
very considerable distance in an instant, or
with as seemingly quick a motion as that of
light ; at least, incomparably swifter than
that which at the same time was propagated
through the air; and this not only in a
straight line, or direct, but in one bended in
many angles."

The Destrnctive White Ant.— There is
something terrible in the destruction which
the white ant, or termite, is capable of in-
flicting on whatever articles of wood it at-
tacks. There is, at the South Kensington
Museum, what is left of a heavy, square
door-lintel of teak-wood, after the ants had
operated on it at St. Helena. It was re-
duced to a mere skeleton of the heart- wood,
looking like a gnarled and knotty smaller
limb. Mr. John R. Coryell relates, in the
" Scientific American," that he once, in
southern China, attempted to have a large
hard-wood chest filled with books removed.
When the men tried to lift it by the iron
handles, it all crumbled and fell to the floor,
a heap of dust and splinters ; and the books
were in the same condition. The ants are

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

285

even dangerous to metals, and a piece of
lead is exhibited at South Kensington which
has been eaten into holes by them. Only
camphor will keep them away. The destruc-
tive powers last during the whole life of the
ant, and are exercised, in nearly equal de-
gree, in the stages of larva, pupa, and per-
fect insect. The termites are extremely
productive, and, were it not that they are
vei'y easily destroyed, might soon possess
the world. One female will lay in the neigh-
borhood of thirty-one million eggs in the
course of the year. The males and females
are endowed with wings at the pairing-season,
when they sometimes fill the air in their
flight. The majority of them lose their lives
at that time, else they would multiply so as
to make other existence intolerable. The
females which are not destroyed are taken
in hand by " workers," and imprisoned in a
large cell, where they lay their eggs, at the
rate of eighty thousand a day, which are at
once taken by the " workers " to their par-
ticular cells. The female holds within her
body, when pregnant, all the eggs she is
ever going to lay, and there are thirty-one
millions of them. The effect of breeding so
enormous a mass is to swell her body so that,
when she begins to lay, she will weigh a
thousand times as much as when she took
her pairing-flight. The wood-eating termite
makes its home underground, and approaches
the object it is going to consume by tunnel-
ing to it. Usually it follows the grain of
the wood, or whatever course may be most
convenient ; and sometimes it fills the hol-
low shell from which it has eaten the sub-
stance with a packing of mud ; and thus it
happens that posts, etc., which the ant has
eaten, do not give way. In all its operations
it shows high intelligence and a genius for
contrivance.

African Roads.— According to Colonel
Sir C. W. Wilson, the roads over which the
land trade of equatorial Africa now passes
from the coast to the interior are mere foot-
paths, described by Prof. Drummond in his
book on " Tropical Africa " as being never
over a foot in breadth, beaten as hard as
adamant, and rutted beneath the level of the
forest-bed by centuries of native traffic. " As
a rule, these footpaths are marvelously di-
rect, running straight through everything.

ridge and mountain and valley, never shy-
ing at obstacles, never turning aside to
breathe. Yet within this general straight-
forwardness there is a singular eccentricity
and indirectness in detail. Although the
African footpath is, on the whole, a bee-line,
not fifty yards of it are ever straight. And
the reason is not far to seek. If a stone is
encountered, no native will ever think of
removing it. Why should he ? It is easier
to walk around it. The next man who comes
that way will do the same. . . . Whatever
the cause, it is certain that, for persistent
straightforwardness in the general, and utter
vacillation and irresolution in the particular,
the African roads are unique in engineering.
No country in the world is better supplied
with paths ; every village is connected with
some other village, every tribe with the next
tribe ; and it is possible for the traveler to
cross Africa without being once off a beaten
track."

Edncationa! Value of Phonetic Spelling.

— Mr. Isaac Pitman, in a paper on economy
in education and in wi-itmg, stated to the
British Association that a million pounds
yearly are wasted by the present method of
teaching reading in the English elementary
schools. The first occupation of children in
schools is to learn to read, and they spend, at
the lowest reckoning, eight hours a week, dur-
ing the first four years of their school-life,
in gaining a certain amount of reading power.
An equal degree of proficiency might be
gained by using phonetically printed books
during the first two years, and by reading in
the present books afterward. The cost of
teaching reading to the children in the ele-
mentary schools is about two million pounds.
One half of this sum would be saved by the
use of an alphabet containing a letter for
each sound in the language. As reading is
now taught, the sound or pronunciation of
every word has to be learned independently
of the names of the letters that compose it,
and generally in spite of the names or sounds
of the letters ; but, by the use of letters that
make up the sound of a word, certainty and
celerity in the art of reading take the place
of doubt <and difficulty. In the discussion on
this paper. Dr. J. II. Gladstone said that
children should be taught the properties and
attributes of things in nature surrounding

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

them^ before they were taught mere intricacies
of language^ so that the child should be
thoroughly educated in mind, body, and soul.
He rejoiced to find that there was a great
advance in the direction of spelling reform,
because it was now being found out that our
present system was productive of enormous
expense, difficulties, and wasted energy.

An Eyeless Child. — A girl thirteen years
of age has been exhibited by Dr. Menacho,
at the CataluSa Academy of Medical Sciences,
in whom, while the eyelids, lachrymal appa-
ratus, and orbits appeared to be well formed,
there was no eye on either side, but in its
place a simple cavity could be seen on sepa-
rating the eyelids. This cavity was invested
by the conjunctiva, which apparently rested
on some firm fibrous basis, in which move-
ments could be detected, as if there were ru-
diments of the ocular muscles. In the thick-
ness of both inferior eyelids a kind of bursa
or cyst could be felt, that on the left side
being the larger and having a whitish coat
like the sclerotic, which could be seen
through the conjunctiva posteriorly, where
it was thin and transparent. This became
tense during crying, and the child was ob-
served to press it frequently with her hands,
and then to smile. It is supposed that a
subjective sensation of light was thus pro-
duced.

NOTES.

The first part of Prof. Topinard's paper
on " The Last Stages in the Genealogy of
Man," the conclusion of which is given in
this number of the " Monthly," was pub-
lished in the October number. The re-
mainder of the paper was omitted from the
November number, in which it should regu-
larly have appeared, on account of the press-
ure of matter claiming insertion.

Prof. W. H. Flower has been chosen
President of the British Association for next
year. The meeting will be held at Newcas-
tle-on-Tyne, and the meeting for 1890 will
be held at Leeds.

LoccsTS, which are a great nuisance there,
are trapped in Cyprus by means of a screen
of canvas having at the top a strip of
smooth oil-cloth up which the insects can
not crawl. They are thus compelled to creep
along the screen and fall into holes, from
which their exit is prevented by a somewhat
similar contrivance. They are then buried.

The system has been very successful, and
gives hope that the locusts may ultimately
be exterminated. Birds are also effective in
destroying the pests. Canon Tristram tells
of an instance in which a mass of locust-
grubs so thick as to cover the ground was
entirely devoured in a very short time by a
certain species which followed them in large
flocks.

Mr. E. B. Poulton reports to the Brit-
ish Association every two years his observa-
tions upon a family of many-toed cats, of
which he has individuals down to the tenth
generation. They originated from a cat
named Punch, which had six toes on each
foot. The peculiarity appeared with more
or less modification in a large number of his
descendants, some of which had seven toes
on each foot.

According to Sir John Lubbock, about
4,500 species of wild bees are known, and
1,100 of wasps, of which 170 and 16 respect-
ively live in Britain. Their habits differ in
almost every genus, and some offer points
of great interest. The amophilla, having
built her nest, places in it as food for the
young a full - grown moth. This must be
prevented from escaping, yet must not be
killed ; the wasp paralyzes it by a series of
carefully adjusted stings, and crushes its
head, leaving it alive, but without the power
of motion. There appears to be some evi-
dence that the mother- wasp can control the
sex of the egg. Sir John mentions the death
of a queen-ant which had lived in one of his
nests since 1874, and must therefore have
been fourteen years old, much the oldest in-
sect on record.

A NEW view of the value of the study of
antliropology, as popularized in such a mu-
seum as he would design, is given by Lieu-
tenant -General Pitt - Pavers, in his address
at the British Association. He says: "It
would adapt itself more especially to the
limited time for study at the disposal of the
working "Classes, for whose education . . ,
we are all most deeply concerned. Anything
which tends to im])rcss the mind with the
slow growth and stability of human institu-
tions and industries, and their dependence
upon antiquity, must contribute to check
revolutionary ideas."

Copenhagen was visited by a blizzard at
about the same time that our Atlantic coast
was suffering from the affliction. It began
on the 10th of March and continued to the
13th, piling up the snow to fabulous heights,
and accompanied with intense cold. The
city was wholly cut off from surrounding
districts. The straits between Sweden and
the Danish islands were at the same time
covered with a tolerably thick ice. It is a
curious coincidence that in 1788 the snow
fell so deep in Scandinavia that it had not
wholly disappeared in the following June.

NOTES.

287

A RACE between bees and picceons took
place at Hamme, Westphalia, in July, 1888.
Twelve bees, Laving been rolled in flour to
mark them, and twelve pigeons belonging to
a fancier in the village, were let loose at
Ehynern, about a league away. The first
bee reached home a quarter of a minute be-
fore the first pigeon, and the rest of both
squads arrived at the same instant a few mo-
ments afterward.

One of the most obvious benefits of the
present popularity of out -door games, like
lawn - tennis, among women, is that ic will
compel attention to the provision of more
free-fitting and hygienic dress. These games
can not be played with tight-fitting and peg-
heeled shoes. Hence, looser shoes with rea-
sonable heels are worn for this game, and
are coming into more general use for ordi-
nary wear. Loose-fitting robes are also ne-
cessary in lawn-tennis, and their advantages
for other occupations are likewise becoming
apparent.

According to Prof. Oliver J. Lodge, the
two main destructive aspects of a lightning-
flash are its disruptive or expanding or ex-
ploding violence, and its heat. The heating
effect is more to be dreaded when the flash is
slow and much resisted ; the bursting effect
when conducted well, except at a few places.
A noteworthy though obvious thing is, that
the energy of the discharge must be got rid of
somehow. The question is, how best to dis-
tribute it. The disruptive result is well shown
by the effect of lightning on trees. It is as
if every cell were burst by the expansion in
the path of the discharge. The effect on con-
ductors is, however, just as marked.

Arsenic is still too freely used in goods
designed for the decoration of rooms. What
might have proved a serious epidemic if the
goods had not been removed was started re-
cently in a civil-engineering college in Eng-
land from the brilliantly colored cretonne
and muslin hangings of some of the stu-
dents' rooms. Even such colors as black
and dark blue, in which the presence of ar-
senic is not likely to be suspected, have
sometimes been found unsafe.

The order of the Rising Sun has been
conferred by the Mikado on Prof. John
Milne, of the Imperial University of Tokio,
Japan.

A CASE is reported by IT. Mallins, in
which a skin-disease was transmitted from a
cow to a family of children who used the
milk. In the cow the disease took the form
of a rash, mostly dry, all over the body.
In the children it showed itself first in small,
blister-like vesicles on the tongue and mu-
cous membrane of the mouth, followed in
three weeks by a limited number of vesicular
eruptions on various parts of the body,
which formed sores and left dark-red scars.

A SURVEY of the Nicobar Islands has
been made by Colonel Strahan, of the In-
dia Survey. The total area of the group is
618 square miles, and its culminating point
is 2,105 feet above the sea. The scenery is
of " indescribable beauty." Several rivers
are navigable by boats for some miles, of
which the Galatea, fringed with a luxuriant
tropical vegetation and presenting occasional
glimpses of distant mountains, runs through
a i-egion only sparsely inhabited, by a tribe
so utterly barbarous as to be despised by
their fellow-barbarian Nicobarese of the
coasts. The inhabitants as a rule are allied
to the Malays, of good physical development
and a reddish-brown color, are unconquer-
ably lazy, and show great talent for learning
languages.

It has been observed that pure sesquiox-
ide of iron, added in small quantities to car-
bonate of lime, communicates to it the prop-
erty of fluorescence after calcination in the
air.

The British Kegistarar-General has pub-
lished statistics bearing upon the increase
in the death-rate from cancer during thirty-
five years, and upon the geographical dis-
tribution of the disease. The increase in
England and Wales in the ten years 18*71-
'80, as compared with the decade 1851-'60,
was equal to sixty-two per cent among male
and forty-three per cent among female pa-
tients. Cancer appears to prevail most ex-
tensively in London and its environs — possi-
bly by reason of the attractions offered to
patients by its hospitals — and in Devonshire
— possibly on account of the health-resorts.

The English " Sporting and Dramatic
News," while it admits the desirability of
revising the rules of foot-ball so as to make
it less rough and dangerous, pleads for the
retention of the sport, because it is essential-
ly a poor man's game. It needs no costly
outfit, and does not call for very serious trav-
eling expenses. But for the very reason
that the bulk of foot-ballers are, compara-
tively speaking, poor men, they should be as
exempt as possible from injury, for they
can not afford to be laid up.

The process of unliming hides and skins
in tanning has been a slow and disgusting
one, consisting in soaking the skins in a bath
of manure in water, called bate. A new
method comes from Australia, and consists
simply in utilizing the power of dissolving
lime possessed by water charged with car-
bonic-acid gas. The process has been pat-
ented and applied in England. A half-hour's
soaking in the carbonic-acid bath is said to
cleanse the skins so thoroughly that after
scraping they absorb the tan with extreme
readiness, and yield a very flexible and fine-
grained leather. The inventor computes that
at least one third of the time of leather-mak-
ing is saved by his process.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A LITTLE drowsiness is natural to the
work of digestion, and may be talcen as a fair
indication of its activity; but normally it
should be no more than can be overcome by
an easy diversion. When the tendency to
sleep regularly follows a meal and is well
marked, it must be explained in some other
way — perhaps by excess of food, or some
special bodily condition. The effect of actual
sleep on digestion can not be immediately
helpful, for, during its continuance, all the
bodily operations are slower, but a good
effect may possibly follow in the greater
energy of life after a little rest. Persons
who sleep after eating should take account
of the fact in fixing the hour for the next
meal.

An English brewer, recently deceased,
Mr. Richard Berridge, has left a fund of
£200,000, or $1,000,000, to be applied to
the advancement of economic and sanitary
science.

It is remarked, in connection with the
active sanitary measures that have been set
on foot in Japan since the cholera epidemic
of 1886, that the people themselves have
come largely to appreciate the importance
of sanitation, and the work is going on
" smoothly between the authorities and the
people, without the least misunderstanding
or ill feeling."

A PIECE of dry biscuit has been found by
W. J. Russell to possess an odor which could
be perceived by a pug dog at a distance of
several inches, when hidden and covered up,
and even when its smell was disguised by
cologne-water. In every instance the dog,
when called in, was able to find the biscuit
in less than a minute.

A STORY is told in the north of England
papers of a person, v/ho, having had his right
eye destroyed and his frontal bone broken
by an explosion, and lost also the vision of
his left eye, from shock to the retina, it is
supposed, had his vision restored by lightning.
During a severe thunder-storm he remarked
that he saw light through his spectacles, and
immediately afterward experienced a pierc-
ing sensation passing from his eye to the
back of his head, after which he found that
he could see indistinctly the objects near him.
The next day he was able to walk about
the town without a guide.

The nations which still eat with the fingers
defend the practice on the ground of cleanli-
ness. A Malay gentleman regards the use
of a fork much as we should think of the use
of a borrowed tooth-pick. He is troubled by
the reflection that it has been in other
mouths, and that some lazy servant may have
neglected to wash it properly. The care of
his fingers is in his own charge, and he knows
that they are clean, and that they have never
been in any one else's mouth.

The statistics of blindness in Russia go
to show that the afBiction prevails more
widely among the Ural-Altayans, and espe-
cially among the Finnish-Mongolian stems,
than among the Aryans and Shemites, al-
though the conditions of these races, so far
as poverty is concerned, are much the same.
One eighth of all the cases are due to small-
pox, and one half only to direct eye-diseases.

It is said that the ivory produced by eight
hundred elephants is consumed every year
by a single firm only — Messrs. Rodgcrs and
Sons, cutlers, of Sheffield.

Dr. Defontaine, of the Crcuzot steel-
works, has described an affection which he
calls electric sunstroke, to which the work-
men in that factory are subject. The electric
furnace, which is essentially an arc-light of
100,000 candle-power, produces upon the
workmen all the symptoms of sunstroke.
Although protected by dark glasses, the
retina of the eye is painfully affected, the
sight is very considerably disturbed, a copi-
ous discharge of tears is kept up, headache
and sleeplessness are engendered, and the
skin of the face peels off.

It ia quite generally known that the cor-
rection which each astronomer has to make
to his observations, called his " personal
equation," represents the slight delay which
occurs after his eye observes an event and
before his hand records it. The time re-
quired for the passage of a nervous impulse
from the retina to the brain, its translation
there into terms of consciousness, the send-
ing of an efferent nervous impulse to the
hand, and the setting in motion the muscles
which move the I'ecording-instrument, differs
in difi'erent persons — hence the personal
nature of the correction. It is not so well
known, however, that the personal equation
of an observer is determined, not with refer-
ence to the actual time of the event, but with
reference to the time as observed by some
particular observer, who is taken as a stand-
ard, his equation being arbitrarily assumed
to be zero. Hence it sometimes occurs that
a personal equation is a minus quantity, but
this does not signify that the observer an-
ticipates events, it shows only that he loses
less time than the standard man with whom
he is compared.

The doctrine that cold or chill is a gen-
eral cause of such diseases as bronchitis,
pneumonia, pleurisy, and rheumatism, is dis-
puted by Dr. W. H. Ransom, of Nottingham.
While admitting that such diseases are apt
to appear during cold seasons and in cold
or temperate latitudes, he has failed to ob-
serve such a direct correspondence between
the chill and the disease as would satisfy him
of the existence of a valid relationship of
cause and effect ; and he is disposed to re-
gard the chill as a coefiBcient of the cause
rather than the primary excitant itself.

MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JANUARY, 1889.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP.

By LiETTTENAiiT-CoMMAirDEB T. A. LYONS, U. S. Navy.

THERE is an agency that pervades the earth and is peculiarly
resident in all its iron. It is magnetism. This force is akin
to electricity, though not identical with it, and the manifestations
of both are often similar.

The small steel wire, scarcely larger than a sewing-needle,
which constitutes the mariner's compass — every iron vessel, even
the huge steamship City of New York, and the earth itself — all
have certain properties in common that warrant classing them as
magnets ; and, as the ship sails the earth and is guided by the com-
pass, there is a very intimate though varying relationship between
these three that should deeply interest those who traverse the
ocean. To describe this relationship, its contentions, and the
constant struggle of each member for mastery, rather than their
amicable companionship, is the object of this article ; and it will
render our ideas of the subject clear if we begin by stating the
properties of the ordinary bar-magnet. The needle, the ship, and
the earth are but magnets of different size.

The Steel Bar-Magnet. — Fig. 1 represents a steel bar which
has been magnetized. Its centers of power are located close to
each extremity, while near the middle is a neutral ground over
which the influence of neither end predominates. If fine iron fil-
ings be sprinkled around the magnet, they will form into curved
lines emanating from each center, and eventually trending toward
a union.

These centers are called poles. The magnetism in one is oppo-
site in kind and equal in degree to that in the other ; there is a
mutual attraction between these opposite magnetisms, and this
tendency to rush across the neutral ground, and, by combining,

VOL. XXXIV. — 19

290

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

yield up every distinctive feature of tlie magnet, is successfully
opposed by the hardness of the steel bar.

The lines are called lines of magnetic force, and the area over
which their influence is felt is known as the magnetic field. If a
compass-needle, suspended by a silk thread and free to move in
any plane, be brought into this field, it will assume a direction

^ — -

n

\

yt

t

/ li \

Fig. 1.— The Steel Bab-Magnet. J\"and .S', poles ; n n, neutral ground.

parallel to the lines of force, as at e, e', e" . . . e^. The strength of
the field, and hence the force that tends to give the needle steadi-
ness and direction, varies greatly at different points — at e it is
powerful, at e'" feeble.

If two magnets similar to that of Fig. 1 be brought into prox-
imity, so that poles of the same name touch, they will repel each
other; if, on the other hand, the north pole of one be approached
to the south pole of the other, both bars, as if instinct with life.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 291

will fly into contact and cling one unto the other with the tenacity
of a hundred arms. And this intense affinity of opposite magnet-
isms is a general characteristic.

The Earth a Magnet. — Now, to show that the earth has
magnetic features entirely analogous to those of the bar-magnet,
we will examine Fig. 2. Here the parallels of latitude and meridi-
ans of longitude appear as regular curves. But from a focus at N
radiate a series of curves which take sinuous forms and finally

Fig. 2.— The Eakth a Magnet. P P, geographical poles ; N S, magnetic poles ; m m, magnetic
equator ; r v and a b, lines of equal magnetic dip ; x z and o y, lines of equal magnetic variation.

converge toward another focus at the antipodes. These foci are
the magnetic poles of the earth toward which the compass-needle
ever points, not indeed directly, but parallel to the lines of force.
These poles are not coincident with the geographical poles, but, on
the contrary, are far removed from them.

There are other, but minor, magnetic foci on the earth, just as
there are secondary poles in a bar-magnet, but so overtopped in
prominence by the two grand foci that they scarcely deserve
mention.

The lines issuing from one pole to meet again in the other are
called lines of equal variation ; that is, a compass carried along
one of them from north to south would always point at the same

292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

angle from the geographical meridian, and this angle may vary
from 1° to nearly 90° in different parts of the globe.

Thus, then, the variation may be defined as the angle between
the geographical meridian and the direction of the compass-needle.

Another set of interesting magnetic lines are those of eqnal
DIP. They gird the earth in circles concentric with the magnetic
poles, just as the parallels of latitude do the geographical poles.
There is a magnetic equator along every point of which the com-
pass-needle is horizontal. As we travel from the magnetic equator
toward the north magnetic pole, the needle begins to incline, the
north end tending downward until, when we reach the vicinity of
the pole, the needle becomes vertical.

If we travel toward the south magnetic pole, the same occurs
with the south end of the needle, now tending downward. An en-
tirely similar experience will result from carrying a small needle
through the magnetic field of the steel bar. At the neutral ground
it will be parallel to the bar, while, as we approach either end, the
dip toward the pole becomes more and more until it stands verti-
cal at the pole. And as it was stated, regarding the steel bar, that
the intensity of its magnetic field varies from point to point, so
with the earth, it also has a magnetic field which is powerful near
its poles and steadily moderates in strength as we aj^proach the
magnetic equator.

A third set of lines are those of equal intensity. They are not
drawn in Fig. 2. In general contour they follow those of equal
dip, though, in point of fact, they are not identical with them.

All these different systems of magnetic lines — variation, dip,
and intensity — have not on the earth that symmetry and regu-
larity which they would present around a steel bar ; on the con-
trary, they are often bent, looped, and turned into many a devious
path — wherefore, none can tell. The fact alone is well established,
while theories fail to account satisfactorily for the earth being an
irregular magnet.

The observations that have determined the various magnetic
features of the earth have been made with delicate instruments in
stationary observatories in every country, and also on ships-of-war
in every sea.

The magnetism of the earth is not fixed either in locality or
amount ; but the different systems of lines just described, and by
which it has been found convenient to represent this magnetism,
are ever varying — ever migratory. The hourly, daily, and other
periodic changes are all small, it is true ; but, however minute,
they are the object of inquiry at every magnetic observatory, with
the hope that in time, by the accumulation of data, a satisfactory
theory of the earth's magnetism may be deduced.

As the part of the earth's magnetism which affects the com-

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP.

293

pass-needle is tlie important factor of this article, since the needle,
as an instrument of navigation, is specially treated, it will be
necessary to dwell further on that element. It has already been
stated that poles of opposite name attract and those of the same
name repel each other. Now, on the earth, the pole nearest the
geographical north is commonly known as the north magnetic
pole, and the end of the needle pointing to it is also spoken of as
the north pole, whence repulsion would, of necessity, seem to re-
sult ; but this is an unfortunate use of terms that has grown up in
daily life. The real state of the case is, that whichever of the two
— the earth's pole, or that of the compass — we agree to designate
as north, the other, having magnetism of the opposite kind, must
be called south, and hence attraction naturally takes place. To
show the variability of this attraction in direction and amount in
various parts of the globe, we will examine Fig. 3.

FiQ. 3.— Vaeiabilitt of the Earth's Magnetic Force. P, geographical pole ; N, magnetic pole ;
m m, magnetic equator ; Z, zenith ; s t, K K, df, etc., earth's lines of magnetic force.

Let us conceive the air filled with iron particles as it is with
congealed vapor on a wintry night : they will not float about, list-
less and without form, but, like the frosty foliage on a window-
pane, will seem projected from a parent stem, shooting up and
out in graceful, wavy filaments. They are the earth's magnetic
lines of force permeating space (how far, I do not presume to say).

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and coming to a focus at the poles ; the mariner's compass is
everywhere subject to their influence, and it is this influence that
gives steadiness and direction to the needle.

At e, e', e", and e'" is a magnetic needle, represented as sus-
pended at the middle by a thread from the zenith, and assuming,
as it always will, a direction parallel to a line of force. At the
magnetic equator (m m) this line is parallel to the horizon, and so
is the needle e'" ; we go north, and the line becomes bent, so the
needle inclines as at e" ; proceeding further, the line bends more
and the needle inclines accordingly ; finally, at e it is all but ver-
tical in the vicinity of the pole. In all these cases the force or
intensity of the magnetic field steadily increases from the first
toward the last position of the needle, so that, if at e'" it be made
to oscillate, the motion will be slow, extend over a wide sweep,
and the needle will take some little time to come to rest ; at e' the
vibration will be quicker, the arc smaller, and the time less ; while
at e we will have but a few quick, jerky movements, and then a
stop, as if checked by a powerful strain.

Now, a needle dipping thus at every remove from equatorial
regions is of no value to guide a ship ; it must always be hori-
zontal, and this is practically obtained by placing a small sliding
counterpoise on the needle to overcome the downward pull of
magnetism ; it is easily adjusted with every change. In this con-
stantly horizontal direction of the needle, however, the portion of
the magnetic intensity that gives it steadiness is materially changed
— lessened and more diminished as we proceed from e'" to e.

Let the length A B aX e!" and F B at each of the other points
e", e', and e, represent the total force of the magnetic field at those
places, then the portion of this intensity that is effective in hori-
zontal planes will be represented by the length of the line A B,
which is h, h,' h" at each point, and it is readily seen that these
lengths are shorter and shorter. And the motion of the needle at
h, h' and h" successively will become slower, more sluggish and
uncertain. Thus the seeming paradox is explained that, as we
proceed from the magnetic equator toward its pole, the compass
becomes less steady and reliable, while, at the same time, the total
intensity of the magnetic field increases.

If a wooden ship with no metal other than copper in her
frame were to sail round the globe, her compass, adjusted for dip,
would experience only those magnetic phases that have already
been described as peculiar to the earth — more or less steadying
force and a variation of larger or smaller amount according to
location ; the ship herself would exert no influence whatever. But
on board an iron or steel ship, with all her metal equipment and
armament, the case is far otherwise ; there, contention — unceasing
strife — is ever active, as we shall see hereafter.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 295

The Makiner's Compass. — To relate what is known or conject-
ured regarding the origin, history, and development of the com-
pass would not be pertinent to this article, and, besides, such infor-
mation is readily accessible in any encyclopaedia ; to impart in a
general way a knowledge of its construction is more to the point,
especially in view of the object of this paper, which is to treat of
the behavior of the instrument in an iron ship ; and this kind of
knowledge is neither easily obtained nor generally free enough
from technical terms to be readily intelligible to the non-profes-
sional reader.

Like almost every other instrument, the compass has repre-
sentatives of many a type ; to explain the mechanical and mag-
netical principles of construction, however, in their general appli-
cation, it is necessary to have reference to some particular type,
and for this purpose I shall select the one that in my opinion is the
most trustworthy for steering a ship from her port of departure to
her haven of destination — the Ritchie liquid compass. This is
an American invention, Mr. E. S. Ritchie, of Boston, having many
years ago taken out a patent for a liquid compass to be used at
sea. From time to time it has been improved, until to-day, in the
seven-and-a-half -inch compass supplied our navy, is probably
realized the most accurate and complete instrument afloat. So
generally has the excellent workmanship of the manufacturer
been appreciated, that his compasses now guide the ships of many
a nation in every sea. In the wheel-house of the latest large float-
ing structure — the British steamship City of New York — will be
found a Ritchie liquid compass.

The compass and its several parts are represented in Figs, 4 to 7,
and the reference-letters in every instance pertain to the same
parts : JE' is a copper bowl, with two short arms, D, D (one
only being visible), which rest in the grooves of an outer ring,jB;
this, in turn, has two short arms, C, C, which repose in the
sockets of the binnacle, as the case for holding the compass on a
ship is called. This method of suspension, termed gimbals, allows
the bowl to swing freely in two planes, so that really it partakes
but little of the rolling and pitching motion of the ship. A slender
brass spindle known as the pivot (P, Figs. 4 and 7) is screwed into
the bottom of the bowl, and on it rests the card. The bowl is
filled with a liquid composed of nearly equal parts of pure alcohol
and distilled water, and is hermetically sealed with a plane glass
cover, which permits the card to be distinctly seen without dis-
tortion. The card (Fig. 6) consists of an outer rim {M), a central
bulb {K), and four tubes, H, H, H, H—?^\\ made of very thin
sheet-brass. The rim has double curvature — circular around the
pivot, and semi-cylindrical from the inner to the outer edge, as
shown in section in Fig. 5. The card is painted white, and has

296

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

two systems of graduation traced upon its outer edge — degrees
and points. The bulb is an air-tight ellipsoid, with a conical de-
pression on its nether surface ; in this depression is a small brass

cap {T, Fig. 7), with four
tiny set -screws {R, R) —
only two are shown, how-
ever—which press and hold
steady in place the jewel
(F) — a sapphire hollowed
out and smoothed to the
utmost degree, so that
the highly polished pivot-
point upon which it rests
may encounter the least
friction possible.

The little set-screws are
for adjusting the jewel to
the very center of the grad-
uated rim. The tubes,
which are two of one
length and two of another,
are about the diameter of
a lead -pencil ; their ex-
tremities are soldered to
the under edge of the rim,
and in addition the two
inner ones are soldered to
the bulb K; this gives the
„ „ ^^ „ rim rigidity, as of itself it

Figs. 4, 5.— United States Navy Compass. . ,-, t -, , t n ■-, -,

IS both light and flexible.
In the tubes are placed the magnets — the vital part of the
compass. These magnets are prepared with the most scrupulous

7.— United States Navt Compass.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 297

care. A quantity of the best steel wire, as thick as a knitting-
needle, is selected and cut into lengths to fit the tubes ; bundles of
these wires large enough to enter the tubes are made up and
tempered to the degree that experience has proved best for hold-
ing captive the magnetic charge. This is imparted to each
bundle between the poles of a powerful electro-magnet. Of
course, every one of the many slender wires that compose a
bundle is itself a magnet ; they lie together with their north poles
in contact, and likewise their south poles: hence repulsion — a
mutually deteriorating influence — is the result ; and indeed oft-
times a bundle of wires loses much of its magnetic strength be-
cause the steel is not of a quality and temper to resist the destruc-
tive force.

Each bundle is weighed and its magnetic strength tested, and,
in placing them on a card, due care is had to the equal distribution
of weight and force on each side of the center, for the characteristic
of symmetry is ever kept in view. The magnets, except one, are
rigidly set in the tubes, and the latter sealed ; the movable mag-
net has screws at one end for the purpose of adjusting the mag-
netic axis of the whole system to that diameter of the card which
passes through the north and south points : it would be the
imaginary dotted line {Z . . . Z) shown in Fig. 6.

The card as above described, with tubes, magnets, bulb, rim,
brass cap, and jewel all in place, weighs many ounces — a heavy
weight for the delicate force of terrestrial magnetism to turn about
on a pivot, how highly soever both this and the jewel may be
polished.

The essential principle observed in the manufacture of the
instrument is to reduce the friction on the pivot to a minimum
and increase the moving power — the strength of the magnets — to
a maximum ; and this object is greatly furthered by the introduc-
tion of the liquid : its buoyant effect upon the card reduces the
pressure of several ounces to that of a few grains.

The liquid has another advantage — it steadies the card, pre-
vents all those small oscillatory movements that characterize a
dry or air compass, while at the same time enabling the magnetic
power to cope more efficiently with its burden. The liquid must
fill the bowl completely, otherwise an air-bubble would gather
and impede the free motion of the card.

The same compass may guide a ship into all climates — polar
seas and tropical oceans ; but as every change of temperature
causes a varying expansibility of the copper bowl and the liquid
in it, the former, when filled to complete fullness, would soon
burst, were no provision made for expansion. To prevent this,
an air-tight case of thin flexible metal is placed in the bottom of
the bowl, which contracts or expands with every changing press-

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ure. Tlie alcoliol in the liquid is to guard against its freezing in
cold weather.

It has been stated that a single needle suspended by a thread
would dip more and more as one proceeded from the equator
toward the pole ; and that in the dry compass this is prevented
and the card always maintained horizontal by an adjustable
counterpoise on the needle : no such contrivance is needed in the
liquid compass ; any downward pull of the earth's magnetism is
at once met by such opposite pressure of the liquid on the rim of
the card as to neutralize it. Magnetic attraction and liquid press-
ure counterbalance, and the card remains horizontal.

On the inside of the bowl is traced a fine black line — the
lubber' s-point, or, as it has of recent years been more appropriately
designated in the navy, the keel-line {L, Fig. 4). It is this line
toward which the point of the card indicating the ship's course is
always directed. The binnacle which holds the compass is
screwed down to the deck, so that the keel-line, as its name indi-
cates, is in the vertical plane through the keel of the ship, or
in a plane parallel to that one. This plane extends from bow
to stern, and divides the ship into two equal and symmetrical
parts.

Now, let an observer look at the compass-card and keel-line
while the ship's bow swings through a portion of a circle : as each
point passes the keel-line, it will seem that the card itself is mov-
ing, but this is an illusion ; the card is still — ever pointing to the
magnetic pole, in obedience to the attraction that there exists for
the magnetism in the steel wires it carries. But it must not be
understood that this attraction is of a nature to pull the card off
its pivot : on the contrary, there is no tendency to motion of
translation, but merely of direction — to turn the magnets on their
pivot and place them parallel to the earth's lines of magnetic
force.

To illustrate this, let us examine Fig. 8 : C, (7 is a steel
arrow free to move upon a pivot Pj from the extremities of the
arrow light threads t . . .t', extend and pass over revolving wheels
at iVand 8 ; small, equal weights Q and Q' are attached to the
ends of the threads. Under the strain communicated to the
arrow by the weights, it will, of course, lie in the straight line
joining the points iVand 8.

Now, with the fingers, turn the arrow into the position C, C,
the threads will assume the positions t, t', and both weights will
be equally raised. Release the arrow suddenly, both weights will
descend, and alternately rise and fall as the arrow makes a series
of short and constantly diminishing vibrations, as shown in the
positions C", C and C, C, until it finally comes to rest and all
is still. Let us replace the arrow by a magnet, and the threads.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 299

■wheels, and weights by that mysterious agency we call magnetism,
and the oscillations of the magnet, when drawn out of parallelism
to the lines of force, will be entirely similar. Such are the efforts
of the compass to regain its normal direction
when disturbed ; and the test of a good com-
pass is the sensitive quickness with
which it will turn aside from the

j^.

,z.

M

yy/y.

y/'/!''//'','',''''''//.>'.

magnetic meridian when another
magnet is brought near, and
the celerity of its return
thereto when the in-
truder is removed.

Fig. 8 —Mechanical

Illustration of the

Magnetic Force that

GIVES THE CoMPASS-NKEDLB

Direction. The dotted parallel
lines represent the earth's mag-
netic lines of force.

The Iron Ship a Mag-
net.— It is a characteristic of
,'>;';:;<-;.'•'•'" every mass and particle of iron on the

'//''' earth's surface to acquire in varied de-

gree the terrestrial magnetism that sur-
rounds it ; and this agency enters naturally,
without effort or force : it is gently induced in the
material so congenial to it, by the mere fact of the
material quietly lying in its midst — the magnetic
field, which pervades all space. And the word iron is not here
used in a specific sense, but as a general term to include wrought-
iron, cast-iron, and steel, which are all susceptible to magnetism.

The steel rails that afford transit from seaboard to interior, the
trestle-work upon which the elevated trains traverse the metrop-
olis, the heavy castings in a foundry, the massive forgings in a
machine-shop, even the little scraps upon a neglected heap, have
one and all magnetic features that distinguish them from other
metals, and point out the common kindred among themselves.
And these features are entirely analogous to those of the steel
magnet already described — two poles, one at each end of the mass,
with a neutral belt between.

Let us conceive a metallically pure cylinder of wrought or
cast iron that has not been hammered, and let us further conceive
it entirely free from magnetism : hold it vertically, and instantly
the upper end becomes a south, and the lower a north pole (in
this latitude). Reverse it as quickly as we may, and the magnet-

mm

300

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ism also reverses, so that the upper and lower ends are still as
tliey were before — a south and a north pole respectively.

Hold it horizontally in the meridian, and the end toward the
north becomes a north pole, while that toward the south becomes
a south pole. Revolve it slowly or rapidly in azimuth, and the
foci of magnetic polarity also move with the fidelity of a shadow,
until, when the cylinder points east and west, all the side facing
the north is pervaded by north magnetism, and all facing the
south by south magnetism. Again : let us conceive the hull of a
ship to be like our cylinder of metallically pure wrought-iron, and
as susceptible of magnetic induction in its ever-changing courses
as the cylinder is when turned round. Then, as the ship steers
north (in this latitude), the bow will become the center of north
polarity, and the stern that of south polarity. As she gradually
changes course to the eastward, so will the north focus shift to
the port bow, the south focus to the starboard quarter, and the
neutral line dividing them, which while the ship headed north
was athwartship, will now become a diagonal from starboard bow
to port quarter. When the ship heads east, all the starboard side
is pervaded with south polarity, the port with north, and the neu-
tral line takes a general fore-and-aft direction. Continuing to
change course to the southward, the poles and neutral line con-
tinue their motion in the opposite direction, until at south the
conditions at north are repeated, but this time it is the stern that
is a north pole, while the bow is a south pole. At west the con-
ditions at east prevail, only that it is now the starboard side that
has north polarity, and the port side south polarity. And this
transitory induction in both the cylinder and the ideal ship is
solely due to the mild effect of the earth's magnetic field in which
they move.

Now, to consider it in connection with an actual ship. The hull
of no vessel is metallically pure, nor has it acquired shape and
stability without much hammering ; moreover, it can not be made
an abstraction from a magnetic state. By hammering in the pro-
cess of construction, it has been made as permanent and well de-
fined a magnet as the steel bar, with poles and neutral line as in
the bar, but located according to the magnetic direction in which
the ship lay on the stocks, in strict conformity to the places they
occupied in the ideal vessel just described. Therefore, it is not as
susceptible of the mild magnetic induction of the earth as the
cylinder and ideal hull, although the straining while on a passage
and the buffeting of the waves do assist the inducing tendency ;
besides, once that the induced magnetism becomes lodged, it does
not move and shift with the freedom and facility that it did in the
cylinder ; and finally, as it already finds a tenacious occupant of
the vessel in its permanent magnetism, hammered into it while

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 301

building, it must adapt itself to the greater power, and thus it is
the resultant of both we always find, and not the individuality of
either.

Time is a chief element in the acquisition and efficacy of this
induced magnetism ; for the longer a ship steers on a given course,
or lies in the same general direction, the greater will be the mag-
netic charge, and the more slowly will it move and shift with the
changing courses of the vessel.

This induced magnetism has been dwelt upon at some length
because of its prime importance to navigation.

The other magnetic qualities of a ship are comparatively stable,
but this is treacherous and changeable to a degree that necessitates
constant vigilance to prevent disaster. On the great fleet of trans-
atlantic steamers it is more likely to lead into danger than on
other routes : the ships steer a generally easterly course going to
Europe, and a westerly one coming to New York ; the magnetic
influence on the outward trip is the opposite of that returning ;
the ships run at a high rate of speed, and the induction varies on
different parts of the route, according to the intensity of the mag-
netic field passed over, the smoothness or roughness of the sea
which affects the motion of the ship, and the warmth or coolness
of the weather.

Instead of attributing the loss of vessels when approaching a
coast to the magnetic effects of fogs and land, and other improb-
able influences upon the compass, it were much more reasonable
to ascribe it to the changed conditions of her magnetism by induc-
tion during the passage, and which has not been discovered or
kept account of by frequent azimuths previous to closing in with
the land. Suddenly, a course the captain thought perfectly safe
carries the ship upon a shoal or rock, and the fault is laid upon
the compasses, whereas they but obeyed the magnetic influences
that became altered, during a long passage, from what these in-
fluences were when the ship was last swung to determine the de-
viations of her compasses.

To illustrate the varied location of the poles and neutral line
in an iron ship while building. Figs. 9 to 12 are drawn from actual
cases. Imagine the ship cut in two by a vertical fore-and-aft
plane, and both sections opened out from aft as if turned upon a
hinge joining them at the bow ; the outside of each half will then
appear as on the paper. In Fig. 9, where the ship has been built
head north, the whole upper after-body is' pervaded by south
polarity, while the lower forward portion has north polarity. In
Fig. 10, where the ship was built head south, the whole upper for-
ward body has south magnetism, and the lower after-body north
magnetism — a condition of induction the opposite of Fig. 9. In
Fig. 11, where the ship was built head northwest, we find the gen-

302

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

eral magnetic features of a ship built head north, only that now the
north magnetism predominates on the starboard side, and south
magnetism on the port side. Finally, in Fig. 12, ship's head south-
west, we have the general features of the ship's head south, but
with the neutral line taking a more horizontal trend, and the south

STARBOARD SIDE

SHIPS HEAD MAGNmC N.ff.

ship's li£AD MA5WET1C S.W.

Pigs. 9, 10, 11, and 12.— The Varied Magnetic Featuees op Iron Ships, due to the Direction
OP their Heads while building.

polarity lessened on the starboard side and increased on the port
side. And all the above is in close conformity to what theory
requires.

The means taken for discovering the permanent magnetic
character a ship has acquired in building, are a dock -survey,
shown in Figs. 13 and 14. To simplify the exj)lanation, let us
suppose the ship and dock to lie parallel to the magnetic meridian.
Stations numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., are established on the different
steps of the dock, and the distance that each is from the line A, B
and also from the ship's side is measured. A compass is taken
successively to each station, and the direction in which its needle
points is noted. Of course, if no disturbing mass were near, it

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 303

would point to the north, at every station. But an iron ship is
there : so at station 1 we find the north end of the needle repelled
from the vessel ; the same occurs at stations 3, 4, 16, and many
others from bow to keel around the forward body of the ship.
Now, only north magnetism can produce this kind of deflection :
it varies in degree at each station, and where greatest there is its
pole. Again : at stations 7, 8, 9, etc., we find the needle's north end
attracted toward the ship ; hence we have discovered the body of

26

k

28

-16

c

30

•IS

®

0

(2)

c

■®

U

22

•0

c

36

2*

2

/2

17

2,9

ffiO

■35

PiQ. 13.— Plan op a Dry-Dock with a Ship in it.

Fia. 14.— Vertical Section of Shlp and Dock through the Line D D ov Fig. 13.

south magnetism, for that alone can produce this phenomenon,
and as with the other, so here, we locate its pole where the deflec-
tion is greatest. Finally, at stations 5, 6, etc., in an irregular path
from bottom to rail we see that the needle points everywhere to
the north : this is the neutral line, A sketch of each side of the
ship is drawn on paper, and the degree of deflection at every
station is plotted by means of the measurements from the line
A, B and from the ship's side.

It has thus been shown that it is a huge magnet, the ship.

304

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that is guided around an enormous magnet, the earth, by a tiny
magnet, the needle.

The near approach of one magnet to another always excites
contention and confusion in the field they occupy, and eventually
the old, old story is told — the strongest alone survives. In order
that the powerful ship may not paralyze its little guide, great care
is taken to find a suitable place for it ; and on every voyage, cease-
lessly and without fail, a variety of observations have to be made
and corrections applied to the courses indicated by the compass,
that this may fulfill the object of its being. To explain how this
is done would involve a mass of mathematical formulae and astro-
nomical and magnetical information that would but tire the gen-
eral reader, besides being out of keeping with the character of
this article. Let it suffice to state the problem in popular phrase ;
to solve it would necessitate the use of other language.

An iron ship — frames, plating, decks, beams, stanchions, car-
lings, engines, smoke-pipes, yards, masts, shafts, armament in a
ship-of-war, and numberless other parts — is not like the steel bar,
a simple magnet, but a network of magnetic entanglement ; yet,
how complex soever this may be, for the purpose of investigation,
to the end that proper means may be devised for coping with it,
its influence may be considered as taking place in three co-ordinate
axes, namely, fore-and-aft, athwart-ships, and vertically down-
ward, with the compass-pivot as the origin. To facilitate this con-
ception, let us contemplate Fig. 15, and let T represent a bar of
iron of such quality that when held upright it becomes instantly
magnetic through the induction of terrestrial magnetism, and as
instantly has its polarity reversed upon turning it end for end ; in
other words, what, in investigations of this kind, is technically
known as soft iron.

Let this bar, supposed to be anywhere in the interior structure
of the ship, take the most general position possible, namely, in-
clined to the plane of the deck, and also to that passing vertically
through the keel.

As already stated, reciprocal action occurs between the mag-
netism of the bar and that of the compass-needle ; the upper end
of the former (in this hemisphere) attracts the north end of the
needle and repels its south end, while, at the same time, the lower
end of the bar repels the north end of the needle and attracts its
south end. The difference in distance, however, between the near
ends of the bar and needle and their remote ends, enters to such
extent that the influence of the remote only modifies, not equals,
that of the near ends ; the net result may be stated as one of ac-
tion between the near ends only.

We have thus to deal with but one kind of the bar's polarity ;
represent its force by a line of definite length, S T for example.

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 305

TMs force is resolvable into two others, the horizontal 8 H, and
the vertical 8Z; and the former is further divisible into SB,
parallel to the midship line, and B H, transverse to it.

The magnetic power of the bar is thus resolved parallel to the

three co-ordinate axes. Almost all the structural iron of the ship
— beams, knees, engines, boilers, etc. — is symmetrically arranged
with reference to the vertical plane through the keel ; so that for
a piece T, on the starboard side, we should generally find another
similarly disposed on the port side.

VOL. XXXIT. 20

3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The problem is now simplified to pairs of parallel forces, each
pair having its resultant parallel to one of the co-ordinate axes ;
and the effect of every magnetic particle, whether of permanent or
transitory magnetism, may be reduced to this condition, We may
now with facility transfer into each co-ordinate axis the sum total
of all the forces parallel to it, and concentrate the whole upon the
north point of the compass, whence the final result, that we have
reduced the entire magnetic power of the ship to that of three
imaginary magnets — one laid horizontally in the axis of X; the
second, also horizontal, in the axis of Y; and the third, vertical,
in the axis of Z.

The individual and combined effect of these three imaginary
magnets is the object of investigation ; but, before entering upon
it, it will be necessary to remark that each is not simple, but
complex, and that, recognizing this, we shall have to consider
all the component parts, leaving to every real case to determine
which of the components reduce to zero, and which are prime
factors.

The iron of a ship is of varied quality, from the " hard," which
when hammered acquires and keeps its magnetism, to the " soft,"
which has absolutely no retentive power. It occupies every con-
ceivable direction — vertical, longitudinal, transverse, and inclined
at diverse angles ; but, however varied the latter, it may be repre-
sented in the first three directions by pieces of equivalent effect.
Finally, it may be symmetrical or unsymmetrical. To cover all
the conditions of the problem, we shall choose representatives of
quality and direction, of symmetry and singularity, and let each
assert its power in the common struggle.

Fig. 16 represents the arena of these forces ; they are arrayed
in lines of attack upon the compass.

P, Q, and R, represent hard iron, whose magnetism, the result
of percussion, is of a permanent nature, like that of a steel bar;
the hull itself of the ship is an example of this kind.

c,f, and h represent vertical soft iron; it becomes magnetic
through the inductive agency of the earth's vertical force; c
might represent the smoke-pipes; /, boat-davits; and Tc, stan-
chions on the deck below that on which the compass is located.

a, e, and g represent horizontal soft iron, the first and last,
when in a longitudinal direction, and e, in a transverse direction ;
the power of this iron is derived from the inductive agency of
the horizontal force of the earth ; as examples of a may be cited
the engines, boilers, and water-tanks ; of e, a deck -beam cut amid-
ships for a hatch or any other purpose ; and of g (when below
the compass), the shaft.

6, d, and h are substitutes for an isolated mass, like T, that has
no counterpart on the opposite side, and they proclaim Ts influ-

THE GUIDING-NEEDLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 307

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ence in every direction to wliicli that extends. Soft iron, and "both,
horizontal and vertical induction, are T's characteristics.

In all cases of iron which becomes magnetic through the mild
inductive influence of terrestrial magnetism, it should be remem-
bered that this influence may be variously modified, if, indeed, not
in some instances entirely superseded, by the inductive action of a
powerful surrounding field of permanent magnetism in the hull
itself.

According to the location of the bulk of each class of iron —
the hard and the soft, the vertical, longitudinal, transverse, and
unsymmetrical — its resultant or representative, which we may
designate as a rod or a bar, will occupy a position relative to the
compass, either forward or abaft, to starboard or to port ; only
one such position for each is shown in Fig. 16 ; there are, however,
two possible positions for every rod, and four for some.

The problem has now been stated, so we will pursue it no fur-
ther, as the vein of solution would introduce trigonometrical for-
mulae.

By swinging a ship at compass-buoys, or steaming in a circle
on the open sea, the magnetic effect of the ship — that is, of the
three imaginary magnets in the axis of X, Y, Z — is brought to bear
at every point on the needle, causing it to deflect from the mag-
netic meridian by different angles at different points. These vari-
ous deflections, being serially arranged, constitute what is known
as " a table of deviations." Upon analyzing this, the numerical
strength of each imaginary magnet is obtained, and further disin-
tegration exposes to view their individual component parts. And
thus it is that from effect we seek backward to an intelligent
comprehension of the cause.

But as a ship sails the ocean she passes through ever- varying
fields of terrestrial magnetism ; also, her own magnetism is under-
going constant change, due to the wrenching and straining, the
shock of waves, and the vibrations set up by firing her battery ;
from this mutability of cause naturally results a variety in the
effect — the deviations. They are never the same.

Let a ship proceed to Havana, and she will find them different
from the series determined at New York ; at Hong-Kong they dif-
fer from those at Rio de Janeiro ; in tropical seas they are moder-
ate, in polar regions enormous ; when a ship is upright, they have
one value ; when she heels, they have another. Their varying
phases are a manifestation of the strife and su.ccessive domination
of the three magnets whose intimate relationship has been pointed
out ; now it is the ship, as when she steers a certain course for
many days and thus strengthens her forces ; again, it is the earth,
when the compass ventures into her frozen strongholds, where it
but wavers sluggishly and totters about every course ; and finally

THE GTJIDING-NEEBLE ON AN IRON SHIP. 309

comes the little needle's turn — in the genial tropics, where it can
point out steadily and safely the path to any port.

The necessity of frequent observations for determining cor-
rections to be applied to the compass is, therefore, evident.

The series of total deviations is generally divided into two
principal parts, the quadrantal and the semicircular : the first
taking its name from the fact that it arises, reaches a maximum,
and again reduces to zero, all within an angular space of 90° ; and
the second, for a similar reason, because of its origin, growth, and
decline being confined to 180° of the circle.

Frequently, means are provided for opposing the magnetism
of the ship by other powerful magnets, thus permitting the needle

4^\^

Fia. 17.— The Compensating Binnacle.

to point in its natural direction, however the ship may head.
Such a contrivance is known as a compensating binnacle, shown
in Fig. 17. Before compensation, let the needle point in the direc-
tion N' S.' A portion of this deflection is the quadrantal devi-
ation, due to the soft iron in the ship ; it is overcome by placing
two large cast-iron spheres, Q and Q,' at suitable distances from

310

THE POPULAR SCIEN^CE MONTHLY.

the compass ; tlie other portion of the deflection being due to the
hard iron (that is, the semicircular deviation), a numher of steel
bar-magnets, M, are placed in a disk, which is turned to the requi-
site angle and then raised or lowered, until the needle returns to
the magnetic meridian N 8. The magnet H, to nullify the heel-
ing deviation, is placed at a predetermined distance vertically be-
low the compass-pivot.

In considerable changes of naagnetic latitude the magnets have
to be slightly moved to counterbalance the altered condition of the
deviations, and sometimes, also, to correspond to a partial loss of
power in the magnets themselves.

HOUSE-DRAINAGE FROM VARIOUS POINTS OF VIEW.

By JOHN S. BILLINGS, M. D.,

SURGEON, TJMITED STATES AEMY,

IN the year 1596 there was published in London a pamphlet en-
titled " A new discourse of a stale subject ; called the Meta-
morphosis of Ajax. Written by Misacmos," which was followed
in the same year by a second pamphlet entitled "An Anatomy of
the Metamorpho-sed Ajax, wherein, by a tripartite method, is
plainly, openly and demonstratively declared, explained and
eliquidated by Pen, Plot, and Precept, how unsavory j^laces may
be made sweet, noisome places made wholesome, filthy places
made cleanly. Published for the common benefit of builders,
housekeepers, and house owners, by T. C, traveller, apprentise in
poetry, practiser in music," etc.

The titles of these little books were in the style of the age in
which they appeared ; but the contents were something new, for
they contain the first description and illustrations of a water-
closet which had appeared since the days of old Rome. They con-
tain a good deal more, it is true ; for the author. Sir John Har-
rington, made them the medium of a Rabelaisian satire upon
things in general, and his own times in particular, which was of
such a character that license to print was refused, and Queen
Elizabeth, who was not prudish, forbade the author from appear-
ing at court. His reasons for his device are interesting : " For
when I have found, not only in mine own poor confused cottage,
but even in the goodliest and stateliest palaces of this realm, not-
withstanding all our provisions of vaults, of sluices, of grates, of
pains of poor folks in sweeping and scouring, yet still this same
whoreson saucy stink, though he were commanded on pain of
death not to come within the gates yet would prease to the cham-
bers ; I began to conceive such a malice against all the race of

HO USE-DRAINAGE.

311

him that I vowed to be at deadly fend with them till I had
brought some of the chiefest of them to utter confusion, and con-
ferring some principles of philosophy I had read, and some con-
veyances of architecture I had seen, with some devices of others
I had heard, and some practices of mine own I had paid for, I
found out this way that is after described, and a marvellous easy
and cheap way it is.

" Here is the same, all put together ; that the workman may
see if it be well. A, the cistern ; h, the little washer ; c, the waste
pipe ; D, the seat board ; e, the pipe that comes from the cistern ;
/, the screw ; g, the
scallop shell, to cov-
er it when it is shut
down; H, the stool
pot ; i, the stopple ;
li,, the current ; I, the
sluice ; m, N, the
vault into which it
falls ; always re-
member that the
servant at noon and
at night empty it,
and leave it half a
foot deep in fair
water."

It seems a long
stride from Sir John
Harrington's pet
contrivance to the
complicated fittings
of a water-closet in
a modern city house
built under existing
regulations; but the
evolution has, upon
the whole, been
through complica- ^m. 1.

tions toward sim-
plicity, as will be seen by Fig. 2, which represents a good form of
closet of the present day, and the most important improvements
in house-drainage have been made within the last twenty years.
We can now say that, so far as the plumbing fixtures in the
dwelling-house itself are concerned, freedom from nuisance and a
sufficient degree of safety can be secured at a reasonable cost ;
provided that trustworthy workmen are employed in the con-
struction of the work, and that the apparatus is properly managed

312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and cared for. Several phrases in this sentence will bear a little
amplification.

In the first place, it must be clearly understood that the fixt-
ures and pipes which form an individual system of house-drain-
age are only a part of the apparatus required for the disposal of
offensive and dangerous refuse. Their external connections are

an important part of this system, and, according to whether these
be with cess-pools or sewers, or whether these last are isolated or
are connected with many other houses, will depend the perfection
of the results obtained. In this article the house-drains and fixt-
ures only will be considered.

Secondly, what is a " sufficient degree of safety " ? Absolute
safety can not be guaranteed by any system. If we can so
arrange the plumbing that, so far as it is concerned, the air in the
house shall be as pure and as free from specific causes of disease
as the air in the streets, it is the best that can be done. Reason-
able cost refers to that which is essential, and not to that which is

HO USE-DRAIN A GE. 313

for ornament or luxury ; it varies greatly according to the style
of house, the essential point being that it shall furnish the means
of getting rid of excreta and of water fouled by domestic use,
without danger to the health of the inmates of the house.

What, then, are the dangers to health from defective plumb-
ing ? They are due to gases or to micro-organisms coming from
defective fixtures, joints, or pipe, or from soil pollution due to
such defects. The gases in question are, for the most part, prod-
ucts of the decomposition of organic matter of animal origin, and
the types are carbonic acid, ammonia and its compounds, and sul-
phureted hydrogen. There are also produced certain effluvia, of
the precise nature of which little is known ; the most common is
that giving a faint, sweetish, peculiar odor, resembling that of
boiled turnips.

These gases and odors do not produce specific disease, but when
they are distinctly present in a house the inmates are liable to be
affected with various forms of disturbed digestion, loss of appe-
tite, slight headache, and a depressed state of vitality. How
far these are due to the gases themselves and how far to the mi-
cro-organisms present under such circumstances we do not yet
know. The majority of persons gradually become so accustomed
to their effects that they can live and work with little or no ap-
parent inconvenience in an atmosphere which is so charged with
them as to be not only offensive, but really dangerous to those
accustomed to pure air only. Plumbers, scavengers, workers in
sewers and at sewage-works, or in bone-boiling establishments,
etc., prove this ; but it must be remembered that these are sur-
vivors, and that a certain number who begin these occupations
soon find it necessary to go into some other business. Upon the
whole, the dangers from gases only in connection with house-
drainage are small, and comparatively easy to avoid, the main
thing for this purpose being a complete and constant ventilation
of the pipes.

In part the dangers are due to extremely minute particles of
living matter, most if not all of which are vegetable organisms
known as bacteria. There are many different kinds of bacteria,
and they have very different properties and powers, but those
which concern us in this connection are those which grow and
multiply in decomposing organic matters, and especially in ex-
creta. Almost without exception these bacteria belong to species
which are found in the air of streets, in all intestinal discharges,
and in all putrefying matters ; they are not only harmless under
all ordinary circumstances, but are highly useful in decomposing
dead organic matter into simple compounds available for the nu-
trition of plants. They are found in countless numbers in the
slimy, pulpy layer of decomposing matter lining the interior

314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of soil-pipes, which matter they are constantly decomposing into
gases and soluble products readily washed away. They are also
present in large quantities in sewage as it flows in the sewers.

There are a few forms of bacteria which we have good reason
to believe are the causes of certain diseases called specific. Each
of these specific diseases has a definite course, and is due to the
entrance into the body of particles of living matter derived,
directly or indirectly, from the body of a person affected with the
same disease.

We now know the particular kinds of bacteria which cause
several of these diseases, and can identify them with considerable
certainty. Those of most interest in connection with house-drain-
age are those which are supposed to cause suppuration, septicae-
mia, puerperal fever, erysipelas, intestinal irritation and diarrhoea,
typhoid fever, and sore throats and diphtheria.

These diseases are less frequent and less fatal in sewered than
in unsewered cities, and in the central sewered portion of a city
than in the unsewered suburbs. Systematic house-to-house in-
spections in cities have shown that over one half of the houses
have more or less defective and foul fixtures and leaky soil-pipe
joints, so that if specific germs are often present there should be
much more sickness than there is. As a matter of fact there is
no evidence that scarlet fever, measles, small-pox, or whooping-
cough has ever been transmitted by sewer air. There is reason to
think that in a few and exceptional cases diphtheria and typhoid
have been caused by inhaling sewer or soil-pipe air ; but the dan-
ger of incurring these diseases in this way is small as compared
with the other and usual sources of origin, although it is prob-
able that the ordinary non-specific sore throats which sewer air
tends to produce form a specially favorable site for the develop-
ment of the specific microbe of diphtheria, and that in this way
foul air is a predisposing cause of this disease. Schools are much
more dangerous than sewers as regards the propagation of diph-
theria.

The typhoid-fever bacillus is said to have been found in the
air of a sewer from an institution in which there was an epidemic
of typhoid, and there is a theoretical possibility that the disease
might thus be produced in a house by conveyance of its germs
through sewer and soil-pipe air ; but such conveyance must be
extremely rare. It should be distinctly understood that neither
the most perfect system of house-drainage nor total absence of
house-drainage will protect the inmates of the house to any con-
siderable extent from diphtheria or from typhoid.

The most dangerous micro-organisms which are commonly
found in sewer and soil-pipe air are those which produce suppura-
tion, erysipelas, or septic poisoning when they gain access to the

HO USE-DRAIN A GE. 315

interior of tlie body througli a wound of any kind ; although tliey
may be inhaled or swallowed with comparative impunity. These
are especially dangerous to new-born infants and to lying-in
women, as well as to wounded persons. From my personal expe-
rience I should say that the forms of disease most frequently pro-
duced by sewer and soil-pipe air with its contained bacteria are
slight inflammations of the throat, tonsillitis, and mild diarrhoeal
troubles.

It will be seen, therefore, that while attempts to scare peoi^le
by depicting the horrors of sewer-gas, etc., in order to prevent the
construction of sewers, to j)romote the sale of certain fixtures, or to
improve the house-inspection business are not justifiable, it is cer-
tainly true that, upon ordinary insurance principles, it is wise to
prevent as far as possible the entrance of sewer and soil-pipe air
into dwelling-houses, offices, hospitals, and public buildings ; and
that a municipality is justified in taking measures to secure such
prevention for those who are too ignorant, too indifferent, or too
helpless to do it for themselves.

To provide, in an ordinary dwelling-house, a system of pipes
and fixtures though which will quickly pass away all excreta and
water rendered foul by use in closets, sinks, wash-basins, baths,
etc., while the passage of gases and odors from the pipes into the
house is prevented, and liability to obstruction of the pipes is as
small as possible, is not now a very difficult matter under ordi-
nary circumstances.

The differences of opinion as to the best modes of doing this,
which are found in the writings of sanitarians, sanitary engineers,
plumbers, etc., and which appear so confusing to one who is not
familiar with the subject, are largely due to the fact that the
different writers and speakers consider the matter from very dif-
ferent points of view ; and it may be well, therefore, to refer to
some of these which have the greatest influence in determining
opinions.

The first point of view to be considered is that of the man who
proposes to build a house for his own family, and who wants to
know how he can secure, at a reasonable cost, a convenient and
safe system for the removal of excreta and wastes.

If he employs an architect to prepare the plans and specifica-
tions for his house, the first suggestion would naturally be that
the same architect should prepare the plans and specifications for
the plumbing. It is, however, asserted by sanitary inspectors,
physicians, plumbers, and popular writers, that architects do not,
as a rule, furnish proper plans and specifications for house-drain-
age ; that many of them are not competent to do it, and the rest
will not take the trouble ; and that to make sure of good results
an expert in this particular line must be called in.

3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first part of this charge, viz., that architects do not, as a
rule, furnish proper plans and specifications for the plumber's
work in the houses which they design, is true. They indicate
upon the floor plans the positions of sinks, bath-tubs, and water-
closets, and specify that the plumber's work must be done to the
satisfaction of the architect, possibly stating the particular form
of sink or closet that is to be furnished, especially if this has been
dictated by their clients. They do not, as a rule, show the pipe-
work in section or elevation. A proper set of working drawings
for the plumbing of a house, upon which bids are to be made and
the responsibility for plan and workmanship is to rest, and which
is to be preserved as a guide for future work in changes and re-
pairs, should be almost as minute in detail as the working draw-
ings for the stairways or carved work. These plans and sections
should show every pipe, fixture, joint, stop-cock, and trap, in their
relations to walls, timbers, floors, gas and steam pi]3es, and venti-
lating flues, and give their dimensions. From these plans and
specifications a competent plumber should be able, not only to
make out a complete list of every length and size of pipe, trap,
hanger, and fitting that he will need, but to do a considerable part
of the work in his shop and deliver it ready to put in place. It
must be admitted that such plans and specifications are rarely
prepared, and that when they are furnished they are rarely made
in the office of the architect. I do not think, however, that this
fact is due so much to the inability of architects to make such
drawings and specifications, as to the fact that they are unwilling
to take the time and trouble to prepare them unless they are
specifically demanded by their clients ; thinking that any good
plumber will be able to settle all the details of the work if the
general scheme is only indicated, and that detailed working draw-
ings are an unnecessary expense. Certainly the course of instruc-
tion in our schools for the systematic education of architects in-
cludes enough to enable the graduates of such schools to do this
kind of work, although it may be doubted whether actual prac-
tice in the preparation of such drawings and specifications is suffi-
ciently insisted on as compared with that required in the design-
ing of fagades and ornamental carving.

It is wise for the man who proposes to build a house to insist
upon having detailed drawings and specifications for the plumb-
ing-work, even if he does not employ an architect ; the cost of
obtaining them will be saved twice over in the first ten years after
the building is completed, and this independent of the influence
of the work on the health of the inmates. The drawings should
not be folded up and put away, but should be neatly framed
under glass and hung in the bath-room in a good light. The gen-
eral principles to be observed in preparing such plans to obtain

HO USE-BRAIN A GE. 317

tlie greatest freedom from nuisance, security to health, perma-
nence of satisfactory performance, and ease and cheapness of
inspection and repair, are as follows :

1. Have no more fixtures and pipes than are really necessary,
and have all the fixtures as close to the soil-pipes as possible. Do
not put fixed wash-basins in any sleeping-room, nor any fixture
in such a position that its outlet-pipe must run horizontally, or
nearly so, beneath the floor for a distance of more than ten feet
before it discharges into the soil-pipe.

2. Avoid, as far as possible, the placing of fixtures in the base-
ment or cellar of the house. In a house properly constructed
from a sanitary point of view, the basement or cellar should be
entirely given up to heating and ventilating arrangements and to
storage, and should not contain either kitchen, laundry, sinks, or
closets. All the pipes for drainage, water, gas, etc., should be
plainly visible and readily accessible on the ceilings or walls of
this lower story, and this can not be effected if kitchen-sinks or
laundry-tubs are placed on the lowest floor. This advice can not
be followed in many cases because of the expense ; but it should
be the rule for all houses costing twenty-five thousand dollars and
upward.

3. Soil-pipes should be of cast-iron, of the kind known as extra
heavy, and, for an ordinary dwelling-house, should be four inches
in diameter, weighing about thirteen pounds per foot run. If the
soil-pipe must be carried beneath the floor of the cellar or base-
ment, it should be either bedded in cement or put in a brick
trench with a removable cover. Every joint in a soil-pipe should
be so made that it will not leak when the pipe is filled with water
to a height of ten feet above the joint.

4. Provision must be made for the constant passage of a cur-
rent of air through the soil-pipe from the bottom to the top, and
it should have no dead ends. For this purpose it is necessary
that the soil-pipe should pass up through the roof and be freely
open at the top. It must not be diminished in size above the
highest fixture ; on the contrary, it is better that it should be
slightly enlarged, so that a four-inch pipe may properly be con-
nected with a five-inch pipe above the upper fixture. That part of
the soil-pipe above the upper fixture should be of as good mate-
rial and have the joints as carefully made as that below.

5. In order that a current of air shall pass through the soil-
pipe, it must have an opening connected with the air below as
well as above. Should this air which is to pass up through the
soil-pipe be taken from the sewer, or from the air of the street ?
In other words, should there be a trap in the soil-pipe between the
house and the sewer, with a fresh-air inlet between the trap and
the house, or should the trap be omitted and the sewer be venti-

318

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lated directly througli the soil-pipes to the tops of the houses ?
The reply to this is, that where there are properly constructed self-
cleansing sewers, having no cess-pool connections, and the house
connections of which are made under the control of the engineer
having charge of the sewers, it is well to omit the trap between
house and sewer, and let the latter ventilate directly through the
soil-pipes ; but exception should be made to this where the top of
a soil-pipe would be on a level with or below the windows of in-
habited rooms in a neighboring house. When the house-drains
are connected with a cess-pool, or with a sewer presenting the
characters of a cess-pool, it is safer to insert the trap ; in which
case there should always be a fresh-air opening between the
trap and the house. If the pipes and fixtures in a house are
properly arranged, and the joints are all tight, there is very
little risk to the inhabitants of the house itself in having a
direct connection with an ordinary sewer without a trap; the
danger really being to the inhabitants of neighboring houses.
On the other hand, if the trap between the sewer and the house
be properly inserted, it creates no risk of danger or nuisance in
the house to which it is applied, and costs little. The argument
that it checks discharges from the house and tends to produce
deposit in the horizontal part of the soil-pipes next to it on the

CLEANING HAND'HDLHu,

TRAP

Fig. 3.

house side, is unsound if this part of the pipe has a proper fall and
the top of the trap is six inches below the pipe ; for I have exam-
ined pipes which had been twelve years in use under such cir-
cumstances, and found no deposit worth speaking of. A proper
form of trap between house and sewer, with fresh-air inlet, is
shown in Fig 3. The question is of more importance taken in
connection with the ventilation of sewers by street openings as

HO USE-BRAINA GE. 319

affecting the comfort and health, of the community generally than
it is to the individual householder.

6. The incasing of fixtures in wood should be avoided as far
as possible. The best bath-tubs and wash-basins are those in
which the overflow is through a stand-pipe which is lifted to dis-
charge the water, thus avoiding side or end overflows. The best
closets are wash-out, short-hopper or siphon-jet closets. Every
closet should have its own cistern, and the flushing-pii)e from the
cistern should be not less than one and a half inch in diameter.
Housemaids' sinks should have a flushing rim and a separate
cistern. Fixed laundry-tubs should never be made of wood.
Urinals in a private house are usually an unnecessary nuisance ;
if put in, they must be cleansed frequently by rubbing. It is
better that fixtures should be opposite windows than against
outer walls, to avoid dark places beneath and around them, and
to prevent danger of freezing the pipes.

7. To prevent the passage of soil-pipe and sewer gases, with
their suspended micro-organisms, through the fixtures into the
house, some form of trap must be used, and this should always be
placed as close as x>ossible to the fixture which it is to guard.
The best form of trap under all ordinary circumstances is a water-
trap made by a bend in the pipe, forming what are known to all
plumbers as S or half-S traps. Such a trap, so long as it pre-
serves its water-seal, affords ample protection against both gases
and bacteria, and, in ordinary dwelling-houses, it is easily pro-
tected against the loss of its seal by evaporation or by siphonage.
If a fixture remains unused for several months, its trap will be-
come unsealed by evaporation. In the trap to the outlet-pipe
from an ordinary wash-basin this will occur in about two months
if the trap is not ventilated, and in about two weeks if it is venti-
lated. This will be referred to again in speaking of the care of
house-drainage. As regards siphonage, the proper ventilation of
the traps is a sufficient protection in all ordinary habitations of
three or four stories. The ventilation of traps is not, however,
solely for the prevention of siphonage ; it is of equal if not
greater importance to secure a current of air through all parts of
the pipes so as to promote the constant oxidation and removal of
the slime which lines all pipes devoted to house-drainage. The
immediate agents which produce this oxidation or slow burning
of the organic matter which smears the interior of the pipes are
those bacteria which are called aerobic, because they flourish best
where there is plenty of oxygen. These are Nature's scavengers ;
the great majority of them are not dangerous to health, but rather
tend to destroy or starve out the really dangerous specific forms.
They convert the soil-pipe slime into gases and soluble products,
which products are washed away by the next flush of water ; and

320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tliey should be given a fair chance to do their work by giving
them plenty of air. Where a closet is only three or four feet
from the soil-pipe, this ventilation is not necessary for keeping
the pipe clear ; but it is more than ever necessary to prevent
siphonage. It is only under such circumstances that I would use
a trap specially difficult to siphon and without ventilation ; but
such a trap should be cleansed every six months, for a tra^D which
will not siphon will collect filth.

8. Whether the work be for construction or for repair, see that
skilled workmen are employed upon it. There is little difficulty
in finding in any large city a plumber who understands his busi-
ness and takes pride in doing good work. He probably will not
compete for contracts, and his prices may be from twenty to fifty
per cent higher than some other plumbers will demand ; but it is
wisest to employ the best men, accept their advice, and not grum-
ble about their bills. A competent sanitary engineer, by which
is meant a well-educated engineer who has made a special study
of water-supply, sewerage, house-drainage, etc., will make the
best drawings and specifications, but first-class workmen are re-
quired to carry these out ; and a class of plumbers is slowly
being developed who can make plans and specifications satisfac-
torily, and whose advice as to fixtures, etc., can be relied upon,
and such men should be sought for and employed, no matter what
their prices may be.

House-drainage may also be considered from the point of view
of the man who wants to know whether the plumbing actually
in his house is in such condition that it is or is not worth while
for him to make changes or repairs in it. It may not be such a
system as he would put in if he were building a new residence ;
but he does not wish to incur more expense connected with it
than is absolutely necessary. If no offensive odors have been
perceived, and there has been no sickness in the house which
would give rise to a suspicion that the drains might be out of
order, he will usually be satisfied, and will not even take the trou-
ble to carefully examine the apparatus, and still less will he be
disposed to have it inspected and tested by an expert. If offen-
sive odors are perceived in the house, and cases of disease occur-
ring in it have roused suspicion in his mind, he will probably be
more inquisitive ; and, if the physician advises skilled inspection,
he will usually be willing to have this made. The essential
points to be determined by such an inspection are, first, whether
there is leakage from any part of the soil-pipe beneath the cellar
or basement ; second, whether there is any obstruction to the flow
of sewage to the sewer ; third, whether there is any leakage of
gas into the house from any joint or fixture ; and, fourth, whether
the soil-pipe is properly ventilated and the traps properly ar-

HO USE-DRAIN A GE. 321

ranged. There are many other details which the inspector will
examine ; but it is not the object of this paper to describe his
work. To determine the j)oints above mentioned the inspector
will wish, first, to plug the soil-pipe between the house and the
sewer, so that he can fill with water that part of the pipe beneath
the cellar-floor, and thus determine whether there are leakage and
probable soil pollution, which will necessitate the opening of the
floor to find the leak. Next, he will wish to test the vertical part
of the soil-pipe, connecting-pipes, and fixtures for gas leakage, by
blowing into the pipe from below either smoke or sulphurous-acid
gas, or by pouring in oil of peppermint from above. Often leaky
joints, damaged fixtures, etc., can be found by mere inspection ;
but often, also, some such special tests as those indicated above
are desirable. The inspector will also wish to know precisely
where all the pipes and traps of the house-drainage are, how they
are connected, and what are their sizes. If the householder can
show him a plan giving this information, it is well ; but if not, he
may have to prepare one for himself, and for this purpose to take
up floors, cut into the walls, etc.

Every house-owner should have such a plan, just as he should
have a record of title ; and every one who hires a house will act
wisely in examining such a plan before signing his lease. The
proper time for obtaining this plan is when the drainage system
is put in the house. This brings us to a brief consideration of a
fourth point of view of house-drainage, viz., that of the sanitary
authorities, or ofiicials charged with the duty of seeing that indi-
vidual premises do not become nuisances or injurious to the pub-
lic health. Most of our large cities now have regulations with
regard to house-drainage and sewer connection, based upon the
following principles, viz. : 1. That a man must so use his prop-
erty that it shall not be a source of offense or injury to others.
2. That the condition of sewers depends, to a considerable extent,
on the character and condition of the sewage discharged into
them, and that the municipality which is charged with the con-
struction and maintenance of a common system of sewers has the
right to regulate, within certain limits, what shall be turned into
them. If cess-pool overflows, and sewage from long horizontal
reaches of pipe, are turned into the sewer, it must contain putrid
sewage ; and it will be correspondingly difiicult to ventilate it and
keep it in proper condition. 3. That the arrangements for house-
drainage are intimately connected with those of house water-sup-
ply ; and that where the municipality furnishes a general water-
supply, it has the right to make regulations and inspections to
prevent waste and to see that it is properly used.

Municipal regulations for house-drainage vary somewhat in
different cities; but in general they provide that, for all new

TOL. XXXIT.— 21

322

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

work, copies of tlie plans and specifications must be filed at a
central ofiice, and be approved by some competent person ; that
the work as it progresses, or when completed, must be inspected
by a municipal officer, and that there shall be a register of those
plumbers who are considered competent to do such work.

Usually also there is provision for the inspection of the plumb-
ing of any house when there is reason to suspect that it is in a
dangerous condition, or upon the application of the owner or ten-
ant. It is common to require the ventilation of soil-pipes and
traps, the trap between the sewer and the house, and the fresh-
air inlet, and that all soil-pipes within the house, whether verti-
cal or horizontal, shall be of iron. These regulations are not
approved by certain manufacturers and patentees, who find that
they conflict with their interests ; but upon the whole it is best to
allow the municipal health authorities to settle these questions,
rather than to have them controlled by trade interests, and it is
better to have the rules uniform, and leave as little as possible to
the discretion of the officials, even though, in a few cases, this
may lead to the putting in of a trap or ventilating-pipe which is
not absolutely essential.

The first municipal Board of Health to carefully investigate
the subject of defective house-drainage, and to issue instructions
and regulations with regard to it, was the Metropolitan Board of
Health of New York city under the presidency of Prof. C. F.
Chandler, of Columbia College, from 1875 to 1883. To meet the
requirements of the board, manufacturers rapidly produced new
and improved forms of fixtures, a registration of plumbers was
established by law, and the rules and regulations of New York
city have practically been the model for those of other cities.

There is still another point of view to which brief reference
may be made, viz., that of a man who has a pecuniary interest in
certain forms of apparatus, closets, traps, etc., which he wishes to
have introduced as extensively as possible. He does not approve
of municipal or other regulations which make the use of his ap-
pliances difficult or expensive, and he will look favorably on those
rules which require the use of his apparatus or its equivalent. It
is not to be expected that he will advocate the use of new forms •
of apparatus, unless, indeed, he owns the patent for them, or has
introduced them himself ; yet this does not necessarily follow, and
still less is it to be assumed that, because a man seeks to promote
his pecuniary interests, his arguments and propositions are neces-
sarily unsound, and to be condemned.

Professional men, such as physicians, architects, and engineers,
do not, as a rule, look favorably upon the taking out of patents
connected with their special work. This is formulated in the
code of ethics of physicans in the statement that " it is derogatory

HO USE-DRAINA GE. 323

to professional character for a physician to hold a patent for any
surgical instrument or medicine." Much the same feeling exists
with regard to patenting or otherwise attempting to obtain exclu-
sive control of means for preventing disease, for supplying fresh
air or pure water, for disinfection, or for the removal of the foul
and dangerous substances necessarily produced by human beings
in daily life ; and, while the physician, the architect, or the engi-
neer may make use of patent ventilators, filters, traps, or closets,
purchasing them as manufactured articles, because they will
serve the purpose, and it is easier and cheaper to buy them than
to make original designs, yet they avoid giving certificates or rec-
ommendations in favor of any such patented article, and distrust
those who do so. I state this as a fact, without discussing the
question as to whether it is right or wrong, wise or unwise ; it
is given merely as one reason why in this paper I do not dis-
cuss the merits of particular forms of patented appliances for
house-drainage, since it is sufficient for my purj)ose to show that
convenience, cleanliness, and safety can be secured without the
use of any particular form or piece of apparatus. At the same
time it should be distinctly understood that I do not condemn all
such patents or i)atented articles. On the contrary, I believe that
the improvements which have been made in house-drainage dur-
ing the last twenty-five years have been due, to a considerable
extent, to the competition of business interests, urged on and
directed by scientific investigations made by men who would
themselves have never patented an appliance or engaged in its
manufacture.

It is to be remembered that, when a system of house-drainage
has been made satisfactory, it will not remain so unless it is prop-
erly used and looked after. Rust and grease will tend to obstruct
the pipes, the tops of lead bends will corrode, cloths and rubbish
will be thrown into the fixtures, fresh-air inlets will become
plugged by snow or mud, the open top of the soil-pipe may be
closed by accumulated ice. One of the most frequent dangers
arising from want of care is that which results from leaving the
apparatus unused for several weeks or months, as when the fam-
ily shuts up the house for the summer and goes to some health
resort. In a few weeks, sometimes in two weeks, the water in the
traps so far evaporates that they are unsealed, and then follows a
stream of air into the house, bearing with it micro-organisms which
gradually settle in the layer of fine dust which gathers on floors,
shelves, ledges over doors, gas-fixtures, etc. If, now, the family
returns and occupies the house, using only the ordinary processes
of sweeping, dusting, etc., which do not destroy the germs but
merely scatter them about, there is serious danger of sickness.
On leaving a house in this way, arrangements should be made to

324

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have every fixture in it flushed at least once a week (once in three
days is better), and, if it be necessary to move into a house which
has been for some time unoccupied, and where you are not sure
that these precautions have been observed, then thorough cleans-
ing with cloths wetted with disinfectant solutions should be em-
ployed as a matter of ordinary prudence, and this should be ap-
plied to every exposed surface.

If the system of house-drainage is properly arranged, and the
plans above referred to are at hand, its inspection is a simple
matter, and should be made at least once in three years.

Finally, the art of plumbing is not to be learned from books
or magazine articles. A man may be M. D., D. D., or LL. D., and
be densely ignorant about house-drainage, or as to whether that
of his own house is in good condition or not. Every housekeeper
ought to be familiar with the pipe plans for her own house, and
know just how to turn the water off from any given riser ; be-
yond that, the truest wisdom is to be aware of one's own igno-
rance, and to get skilled advice whenever advice is needed.

TOWN-LIFE AS A CAUSE OF DEGENERACY.*

By G. B. BAEEON, M. D.

IT may be readily supposed that the conditions of life and their
general surroundings must largely influence and materially
affect the physical or constitutional characteristics of town-dwell-
ers. At the onset, then, I venture to advance the proposition that
the "vital force" of the town -dweller is inferior to the "vital
force " of the countryman. The evidence of this is to be found in
a variety of ways. The general unfitness and incapability of the
dwellers in our large hives of industry to undergo continued vio-
lent exertion, or to sustain long endurance of fatigue, is a fact
requiring little evidence to establish ; nor can they tolerate the
withdrawal of food under sustained physical effort for any pro-
longed period as compared with the dwellers in rural districts. It
may be afiirmed also that, through the various factors at work
night and day upon the constitution of the poorer class of town-
dwellers, various forms of disease are developed, of which pulmo-
nary consumption is the most familiar, and which is doing its
fatal work in a lavish and unerring fashion. Thus it may be con-
ceded as an established fact that the townsman is, on the whole,
constitutionally dwarfed in tone, and his life, man for man, short-
er, weaker, and more uncertain than the countryman's. I hold
the opinion that the deterioration is more in physique, as implied

* Abstract of a paper read at the British Association Meeting, Bath.

TOWN-LIFE AS A CAUSE OF DEGENERACY. 325

in the loss of physical or niuscular power of the body, the attenu-
ation of muscular fiber, the loss of integrity of cell-structure, and
consequent liability to the invasion of disease, rather than in act-
ual stature of inch-measurement. The true causes of this deterio-
ration are neither very obscure nor far to seek. They are had air
and had habits. To these may be added a prolific factor operating
largely to produce degeneration of race, and that is, frequent inter-
marriage, often necessitated by religious affinities.

Taking these causes in the order in which I have placed them,
but without reference to their relative intensity, I think bad air
is a potent factor of enf eeblement. Included in the phrase " bad
air" are bad sanitation aud overcrowding. I have no doubt in my
mind that it has a powerful and never-ceasing action, paramount
and decisive, on the physical frames of young and old town-dwell-
ers, producing deterioration of physique, lowered vitality, and
constitutional decay. For over thirty years I have been hammer-
ing away at this question of " bad air " and " bad sanitation " as
the prime causes of impairment of health and race, and the more
I consider it the more I am convinced of the soundness of my con-
clusions. A great deal has been said on this subject, and it is not
difficult to adduce conclusive evidence from a large variety of re-
liable sources in proof of the deleterious effects of impure air on
the animal economy. Consumption is the best type of degener-
ative action and loss of vital energy. It stands out in bold relief
as the disease most rife wherever foul air exists. The significance
and value of fresh air were recognized by the old fathers of medi-
cine. Hippocrates was accustomed to advise a walk in fresh air
of ten or fifteen miles daily. Aretseus, Celsus, and Pliny speak of
the good effect of fresh air ; and our great English physician,
Sydenham, did the same thing. Dr. Guy found that of 104 com-
positors who worked in rooms of less than 500 cubic feet of air for
each person, 12*5 per cent had had spitting of blood ; of 115 in
rooms of from 500 to 600 cubic feet, 4*35 per cent showed signs of
consumption ; and in 100 who worked in rooms of more than COO
cubic feet capacity, less than two per cent had spit blood. Con-
sumption is only one of the long list of evils to which the town-
dweller is exposed. But it is not desirable to particularize all the
medical features of this question ; their name is legion. It may
be well to mention that the Labrador fishermen and the fishermen
of the Hebrides, with plenty of fresh air, are practically exempt
from this disease. The absence of pure air acts upon the animal
economy in much the same way as the withdrawal of light on
plants, the result being pallor and feebleness of constitutional
vigor. This effect ramifies in every direction ; the tissues of which
the human body is composed lose their tonicity and contractile
power, and even mental integrity may be more or less affected.

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The pent-up denizens of the courts and alleys of our large towns,
surrounded on every side by imperfect light, bad air, and the gen-
eral aspects of low life, necessarily degenerate in physical com-
petency, and their offspring is of a feeble type. Fortunately, one
antidote is to be found in the nomadic instincts of such offsiDring.
Better the gutter-life and street Arab gymnastics than the sickly
incapability of a pent-up cellar child. When people are huddled
together in badly ventilated hovels and narrow courts, comj)elled
to live almost without light and air, the effects are soon made clear.
The unsavory courts and slums of our large towns can not but be
productive of a lowered vital force and impoverished physique.
The fact must not be overlooked that there are two classes of
town-dwellers : one being those who dwell for a limited number
of hours in the day — that is, whose occupation keeps them in close
offices and places of business during the day, but who sleep in the
suburbs in purer atmospheric conditions ; and those who pass the
whole of their lives in bad contaminated air without the advan-
tage of a few hours' respite out of the twenty-four. It is with the
latter class that my observations deal.

The second chief factor of deterioration — viz., had liabits of life
— tells a sad story on the physical power of the town-dweller ;
probably through ignorance, but certainly indifference to the or-
dinary precepts of health is the rule of life. It is no doubt a fact
that intemperance largely exists among this class, and the inci-
dence of debauch upon them is heavier than upon those who live
under more favorable conditions. Then the various forms of im-
purity smite with devitalizing severity the offspring to the third
and fourth generations. Moreover, the general tendency of their
ailments is of the asthenic type. When we add to these conditions
of human existence the influence of imperfect feeding and mal-
nutrition, we get the state of physical degeneracy largely increased
and emphasized. In the paper alluded to great stress was laid
upon the diet of the town-dweller, as compared with that of the
countryman, as tending to degeneracy and impaired health. The
digestive capability of the former is of a lower standard, and less
capable of dealing with the ordinary articles of diet, than the
latter. Consequently, they live on such food as they can digest
without suffering — bread, fish, and meat ; above all, the last. The
sapid, tasty flesh of animals, which sits lightly upon the stomach,
gives an acce^Dtable feeling of satiety, so pleasant to experience.
Such selection is natural and intelligible, but it is fraught with
danger. I quote from the paper : " The chief diet selected by the
town -dweller begets a condition known to doctors as the uric-
acid diathesis, with its many morbid consequences. Pulmonary
phthisis and Bright's disease seem Dame Nature's means of weed-
ing out degenerating town-dwellers." Such are some of the medi-

TOWN-LIFE AS A CAUSE OF DEGENERACY. 327

cal aspects of the case. But it must not be lost sight of that there
is a large class who are not able to procure much nourishing food
of any kind, but, on the contrary, are forced by poverty to be con-
tent with less sustaining dietary, and they adopt another kind of
food, not less injurious, but in another way— a diet mainly con-
sisting of bread, tea, and such-like aliments. The time-honored
fashion so prevalent among well-to-do people, of five-o'clock tea,
may be attended with many advantages socially, but woe to
those who take tea four or five times a day, and rely upon it ali-
mentarily !

But it is not the male sex alone that we have to consider. The
factors I have briefly enumerated tell a terrible story on the lives
of mothers of this part of future England, and their offspring pay
the penalty Nature imposes upon those who fail to fulfill her laws.
Their children evidence constitutional disabilities of the frame,
which is badly and slowly developed, while their mental precocity
shows itself in a peculiar adroitness in all the arts of cunning
acquisitiveness. It is supposed by some that the efi^ects of mental
activity thus early developed interfere with the development of
the physique. No doubt the scanty necessaries of life induce a
standard of craftiness and cunning which passes muster for intel-
lect at an age which would imply precociousness and superiority,
while the country child remains in its first simplicity.

But to the important question, " Is the town-dweller degener-
ating in stature, or is he not ? " there is yet no satisfactory answer
supplied. It has been said that such a thing as a pure cockney of
the fourth generation is a rarity, and so it may be said of all other
large towns. The immigration of country-folk of both sexes into
our large towns is a well-known fact, and it is impossible to trace
how far marriage suj)plies an admixture of new blood into the
worn-out stock, and thus renovates it and becomes an antidote to
decay. Taking the best evidence we possess, we can only approxi-
mately arrive at a solution of the problem. I have said that the
degeneracy probably is more found in the loss of enduring tone
and physical vigor than in inch-measurement. The constant and
ever-recurring immigration of the strong and robust countryman
into the cities constitutes a steady counterpoise to the downward
tendency, and the balance is fairly well sustained. Hence the dif-
ficulty of solving the problem. Seven years ago, at the request of
the Anthropometric Society, I obtained the measurement of three
hundred men of various nationalities, some born in towns, some
in the country, of various occupations, of different complexions
and temperaments, and of various habits. I failed to discover
any satisfactory evidence to lead to the conclusion that in actual
inch-measurement the town-bred man was appreciably inferior to
the country-bred man. But, so far as my observation enabled me

328

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to judge, the countryman came out incontestaWy superior in tone
of muscular activity. These figures are recorded in the Anthro-
pometric Society's Transactions. Standing alone, they are of no
value ; they prove nothing, because I had no evidence at what age
town-dwelling ceased. It is in the mass of statistics that we can
find proof. Mr. Francis Galton, to whom science is so much in-
debted, has recently recorded some measurements made by him-
self in his laboratory at South Kensington on men during the
Health Exhibition, and has made a comparison with those of
Cambridge University men. Mr. Galton's inquiry extended to as
many as nine thousand persons. The relation of the two points
to a considerable advantage of the Cambridge men :

Height.

Weight.

Breathing.

Pull.

Squeeze.

68-9 in.
67-9 in.

153-6 lb.
1430 lb.

254
219

83
74

87-5

85-0

These figures appear to substantiate the statistics of the Anthro-
pometric Society : that the average well-to-do man has a higher
general physical condition than the average of a lower grade of
society ; a similar, though not so well-defined, brain-development
exists. These measurements, so far as proof of stature is con-
cerned, must be accepted with some degree of reservation. Pre-
suming that the Cambridge students were drafted from the upper
stratum of society, and from the country mainly, there is no evi-
dence that the other class were all from towns.

The tables of the Anthropometric Society, as issued by Mr.
Roberts and published in the " York Meeting Transactions," state
that the result of a comparison as to the average height and
weight of the several classes of the population distinguished as
(1) the professional classes, including town and country ; (2) the
commercial classes in towns ; (3) the laboring classes in the coun-
try ; and (4) the artisans in towns. The relative position of the
four classes stands in the order stated, Classes 1 and 2 being taller
and Classes 3 and 4 slightly shorter than the general population.
This relation is maintained throughout, and the tables afford ma-
terial for study as to the comparative effects of occupation and
town and country life on growth. Another table (No. 6) relates
to weight. Here, again, the relative position of the four classes
stands in nearly the same order. Class 1 being heavier, and Class
4 (i. e., artisans in towns) lighter than the general population ; but
Class 3 (country laborers) very nearly coincides with the general
average, and is, in general, superior in weight to Class 2 (commer-
cial classes in towns). In other words, the occupation of the coun-
try laborer places him in weight over the town tradesman, though
the latter has the advantage in height.

TOWN-LIFE AS A CAUSE OF DEGENERACY. 329

As regards tlie physical improvement or degeneracy of the
population, the report of the Anthropometric Committee at the
Southport meeting says : " Few statistics are in existence which
help to throw light on this subject. It is generally believed that
the population in the manufacturing towns of the north of Eng-
land is rapidly degenerating, but a comparison of the measure-
ments of stature and weight given in the report of the Factory
Commission, and the report to the Local Government Board of
the employment of children and young persons in factories, 1873,
show that this is not the case."

What we want is more extensive inquiries as to measurements
of persons who have lived in large towns for two or three gener-
ations, and compare them with those who have lived in the sur-
rounding country for some generations without admixture. Such
an inquiry is surrounded by difficulties, but it alone would be con-
clusive. My contention is, that it is in the loss of physique, of
muscular tonicity, vital capacity, and vital force that the degen-
eracy is to be found. Let the town-dweller of the same height
and weight go to the Grasmere sports or the Braemar gathering
and try conclusions in wrestling or games of prowess and endur-
ance with the hill-side man, and the issue will not long hang in
doubt ; the town man has no " staying power," no " muscular con-
tractile power," and he soon comes to grief. Probably no arrest
in the downward tendency of constitutional power can take place
until there is some amelioration in the conditions of life to which
town-dwellers are subjected. Development and integrity of cell-
structure, and the processes of vital organization, are next to im-
possible under such circumstances of life as those to which they are
exposed. This question is a broad one, and involves many rami-
fications. If all the circumstances connected with the so-called
" sweating system " brought out by " The Lancet " Commission
can be sustained as facts, a terribly hideous and degrading state
of things exists among those unfortunate creatures compelled by
the irony of Fate to dwell and work in the slums of our great
towns. Their life is little removed from the process of wallowing
in dirt, and abiding in squalor and poverty of the most appalling
description. They are surrounded by every circumstance of hu-
man existence calculated to debase the mind and destroy the body.
Is it possible to conceive any state of life more conducive to loss
of health and dwarfing of physical development ? These poor
creatures appear to have no qualifying or redeeming feature in
their every-day routine of life. Breathing in their insanitary
homes the reeking fumes of unhealthy surroundings, an atmos-
phere vitiated to the last degree of respiratory fitness, to which
are added unwholesome food and consequent faulty assimilation
the aggregation must inevitably result in depraved constitutional

VOL. XXXIV. — 22

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

integrity. Nor is there the faintest silver lining to this dark social
cloud. These people have not the relieving benefit of sleeping in
pure air after a day of hard work of twelve or fourteen hours' du-
ration in the disease-laden atmosphere of insanitary workshops,
but are subjected by day and by night to conditions as far removed
from the sources of health as the poles are asunder. Their daily
occupations and mode of life in the workshop are bad, and their
homes also are bad.

It may pertinently be asked. What is the remedy to hinder
further degradation of racial power, and rescue the town-dwellers
from the agencies so powerfully operating upon their physical
competency ? I fully recognize the cogency of such a question,
but I must at once admit my inability to suggest a satisfactory
answer. It may to some extent be found in adopting legislative
measures. No doubt sanitary reform is doing an excellent work.
Insanitary surroundings, overcrowding, uncleanliness, impurity,
and intemperance, must all be done away with or lessened. Edu-
cate the children in the pure air of the country, make the parents
aware of the great constitutional value of sobriety and morality,
give them all pure air and plenty of it, and away fly the pale faces,
cachexia, lowered vitality, stunted development, muscular attenu-
ation, and the imperfect elimination of functional products. —
The Lancet.

SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS.

By W. H. LAERABEE.

THE animals of the seal-kind include two groups or families
which, with a general similarity of structure, exhibit quite
distinct features in their appearance, habits, and movements.
The order to which they belong is named Pinniy)edia, from the
structure of the paws, which are webbed down to the ends of the
fingers, and in one of the families beyond them. The families are
the Pliocid(E, or true seals ; and the Otariidce, eared seals, sea-lions,
or sea-bears. Two articles of the same name but very different
qualities are derived from them and form important commercial
wares. Seal-skin from the true seal has short, bristly hairs, and
is used for trunk-covers, coats, caps, gloves, etc. ; seal-skin from
the eared seals is the soft, fine, glossy fur which the ladies prize
so highly, and which has an important place in our luxurious
winter wardrobes. These animals are carnivorous mammalia,
and breathers of the air ; while they hunt their food in the water,
they must live out of it ; hence they are found most frequently
near the water, on the rocks of the coast, or floating on cakes
of ice. In connection with the walrus, they have been aptly de-

SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS.

331

scribed by some writers as a kind of marine bears. Their bright,
intelligent-looking faces are familiar in all our zoological collec-
tions, and their sports and antics are always amusing, and never
fail to collect a crowd wherever they can be observed.

The true seals live in the northern seas. They are the main
reliance of the Eskimo for his support, and supply him with food,
light, fuel, clothes, thread,
strings, and leather. The
best-known species is the
common seal {Phoca vitu-
lina, Fig, 1), which is com-
mon in the European seas,
and is often seen in New
Brunswick and along the
New England coast. It is
brownish above and white
beneath, mottled, pied, or
marbled, and has a hand-
some hair, which is much
prized by the Indians.

The Greenland seal
{Phoca groenlandica, Fig.
a), also called, from the
very conspicuous manner
in which the fur of the
adult is colored, the harp
seal, is the animal of which the Eskimos make the most use. The
male is grayish-white with black markings, the female brownish
with black, and the young snow-white. The animals live in herds
on the floating ice along the Greenland coast, and are sometimes

carried to Labrador, New-
^^ foundland, and even to Eng-

^^~- land ; and they have re-

cently been shown, by Dr.
C. Hart Merriam ("Popu-
lar Science Monthly," vol.
xxvii, p. 140), to be very
abundant in the St. Law-
rence River as far up as
the Saguenay.

The hooded seal {Stem-
maiopus crisfatus, Fig. 3)
is distinguished from the
other species by a membra-
nous or muscular sac on the back of the head, which is penetrated
by chambers communicating with the noss, and may be inflated

Fig. 1.— The ?eal (Phoca titulina).

■The Greenland or Harp Seal (Phncc
landica).

Ui^

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with air when the nostrils are closed. The marks of distinction
between the true seals {Phocidce) and the sea-lions {Otariidce) are
very clear. The most obvious mark is the, ears : the true seals
have no external ear ; the sea-lions have ears that can be seen very
plainly. Hence is derived the scientific name of the family, which

signifies having ears, or
eared. The whole external
appearance and the struct-
ure of their limbs are also
different. The true seal has
hardly any neck ; his head
and trunk, closely connect-
ed, are short, while his loins
are of full length ; his body
_ is so round that his little
hands can hardly touch the

Fig. Z— The HoovEV St:Ai. (Sfemniafopi/s CI istatvs). ^ 1 . +1 1 1 -fli

selves are closely bound up with the body, so that hardly more
than from the wrist out is free ; and the hind-feet, connected with
the tail, are stretched out backward. The confinement of his limbs
unfits him for movement on the land, and his progress is nothing
more than a series of awkward bumps and wriggles, in which the
body is never raised from the ground. His situation is very differ-
ent in the water, where he can use his toes like the blades of a
screw-propeller, work his body to the right or left, up or down, at
pleasure, rise to the surface or dive to the bottom, and, his hands
furnishing him an excellent system of steerage, direct his move-
ments with admirable precision.

The sea-lion, having a head with pointed ears, " looking like
the head of a dog with his ears cut off," large eyes, whiskers, a
long neck, and a body raised upon its hind and fore limbs several
inches from the ground, appears upon the land more like a land
animal, while it is fully as much at home in the water as the seal.
It is much more at home on the land, where its whole body is sin-
gularly lithe and flexible, and it can run nearly as fast as a man
can, and get along better in a thick bush, can climb rocky ledges
and steep, slippery banks. Both in water and on land it assumes
a great variety of attitudes. Dr. Murie, describing its motions,
says : " At one moment the entire body presents a long, cylindrical,
tapering cone ; in another the body seems foreshortened, and the
head and neck thrust out turtle-fashion, to a length as astonish-
ing as unexpected to any visitor who may chance to be near ; at
other times the chest and abdomen become deep, and laterally flat-
tened, while the back is arched like that of a defiant cat. And so,
waking and sleeping, walking or swimming, there is a ceaseless
change of relation in the figure and proportion of the parts. This

SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 333

does not depend on mere change of attitude, but also on the un-
usually lithe and mobile nature of the entire spinal column and
ribs, furnished as these are with an abundance of cartilaginous
material and fibro-elastic ligaments."

The Otaria has generally thirty-six teeth, with canines and in-
cisors of enormous size, so that when they close upon each other
" anything that may happen to come between them is held as in a
vise," and small molars, so solid that sailors have sometimes mis-
taken them for flints. According to Mr. J, W. Clark, of Cam-
bridge, whose " Davis Lecture " on these animals at the London
Zoological Gardens condenses a mass of information about them,
" The Otaria, having caught its prey, holds it in its mouth by
means of its powerful canines and incisors, and, raising its head,
swallows it whole. When it has caught a fish too large to be thus
disposed of, it has been seen to give its head a sudden twist, so as
to break off a portion, which it swallows rapidly. It then dives
into the water, picks up the other portion, and repeats the tearing
process until the last fragment is devoured. Their food consists
of fish, mollusca, crabs, and sea-fowl, especially penguins, which
they catch in a most ingenious way. They lie motionless in the
water, with only a small portion of their nose above the surface.
This attracts the attention of the bird, which mistakes it for some-
thing eatable, and, approaching to catch it, falls a prey to the craft
of its adversary." They have also the habit of swallowing peb-
bles, of which more than twenty pounds, some of them weighing
half a pound, have been taken from one animal. The sailors say
that this is for ballast, and a story is told of a female seal that
was seen teaching her cub to swallow the pebbles ; while another
story, by an officer of the British navy, is of a sea-lion that was
seen "discharging ballast."

The breeding habits of the sea-lions, as they are described by
several authors, among them Mr. J. A. Allen, in the " Harvard
Bulletin," and Mr. H. W. Elliott, in his report on the Pribylov
group of islands, are extremely curious. They frequent solitary
islands, away from inhabited coasts, in large numbers, and are
supposed generally to return to the same place, or near it, year
after year. Here they occupy the spaces between high -water
mark and the foot of the cliffs — to which the sailors have given
the name of " rookeries " — using the beach as a playground for
the pups, and fixing their sleeping-places on the tops of the cliffs.

Only the old males or "married seals," and the full-grown
females or " mothers," are allowed upon the rookeries. The young-
seals — the young males are called " bachelors " — are left to swim
about in the water, or are allowed to retire behind the rookeries
to the uplands back of the grounds that the old seals have appro-
priated to themselves. Communication between their upland

334

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

haunts and the sea is given them by appointed paths, from
which they are not permitted to stray to either side. The rook-
eries are haunted only by a few stragglers during the winter, but
at the beginning of spring the older and chief males of the herd
visit the place as if on a tour of inspection, swimming around
cautiously, then, if all seems safe, climbing upon the rocks and
examining everything carefully. The company increases very
slowly till about the first of June ; then, if the weather has become
warm, the bull-seals come up in large numbers and select their
" claims," consisting of a plot of ground about ten feet square for
each animal, which he must defend against all comers. Desperate
fights often take place for the possession of these little plots, at the
end of which the vanquished seal withdraws humbly, while the vic-
tor quietly takes possession of his conquest. It is said, according to
Mr. Clark, " that occasionally those few males who have been van-
quished in all their encounters, and are therefore unable to obtain
a resting-place or a wife, retire together to some distant beach,
there to bury their shame, far from the society of their fellows,
where they sit together gloomily, grievously wounded in body and
in temper." The cow-seals arrive in about two weeks after their
lords have taken possession of the grounds and selected the places
for their harems, and a " universal, spasmodic, desperate fight-
ing " takes place among the bulls. As the females come up, they
are met by the " bachelors," whose duty it is to escort them to the
beach and drive them up on the rocks as fast as they make their
appearance. Some of them seem to be looking for some particular
male, and will climb upon the rocks and call out and listen. As
soon as the female has got upon the sand, the nearest male ad-
dresses her with a noise like the clucking of a hen, bows to her
and coaxes her, until he gets between her and the water, when his
manner changes and he begins to drive her up with angry growls.
He is not yet sure of her, however, for the seals in the next line
above him are on the watch to steal the most desirable prizes that
their more fortunately situated fellows have captured. They take
them in their mouths as cats do their kittens. Sometimes two seals
contend for the same female at once, and in this case she gets ter-
ribly lacerated and sometimes torn in two. When the distribution
of females has been finished, the arrangement is permanent. Each
bull-seal keeps the mastery over his twelve or fifteen wives if he
is in one of the front rows, five to nine if he is in a back row, and
allows no intrusion on his domain. One old bull is mentioned by
Mr. Elliott that had forty-five females under his charge.

The pups are born a few hours after the mothers have landed ;
each mother bringing forth one, seldom twins. The mothers show
but little fondness for their young, but can distinguish their cries
among the thousands, and each will suckle no other than her own.

SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 335

The pups begin to take to the water when they are about a month
old, clumsily at first, but soon becoming accustomed to the ele-
ment. The rookery at the Pribylov Islands is broken up during
the last days of July and the first week in August, The young
have then become able to take care of themselves, and are aban-
doned by their mothers, who give themselves up to lounging in
the waves. The "married seals," who have been constantly at
their posts and restlessly active for three months without taking
food or water, go down to the sea to feed and wash. Notwith-
standing their long fast and hard work, they are not emaciated,
but come out in good condition, having sustained life all the time
by absorption of the thick stores of fat hidden under their skins.
The mothers continue to idle, and the pups and " bachelors " to
sport and frolic, till the storms of autumn begin to come on,
when they all depart for warmer latitudes, after which they give
no account of themselves till the next spring.

Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, made out nine genera and sev-
enteen species of eared seals. He based his distinctions too often on
insignificant differences, and erred to excess. Mr. Clark recognizes
but nine species, and includes them all in the single genus Otaria.
While the true seals confine themselves to cool latitudes, the Otarise
bear warmth and appear to be sensitive to changes of temperature,
avoiding extreme cold. In the Atlantic Ocean they are found
only in the extreme southern part, beginning at the mouth of the
Rio de la Plata, and extend-
ing ihenpe all around the
coasts of South America.
They are common on the
coast of California, along
the Aleutian Islands to the
coast of Japan, and in the
Pribylov Islands, in Bering
Sea, their best-known resort.
They are found around the
coast of New Zealand, the
Auckland Islands, Tasma-
nia, and the south and east
coasts of Australia, at Ker-
guelen's Land and the Cro-
zets, and near the Cape of p^^ 4._the northern sea-bear (otaHa unma).
Good Hope. Most of the

skins found in the market are credited to the Falkland Islands,
the Cape of Good Hope, and the Pribylov Islands.

The best-known species is the northern sea-bear ( Otaria ursina,
Fig. 4), which inhabits the Pribylov Islands. It frequents those
islands in enormous numbers, their whole seal population being

336

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLV.

estimated at between five and six millions. The noise of this
multitude is described as like the booming of a cataract, so loud
as to warn vessels at sea of the proximity of land, and the smell
as almost insupportable. The animal is covered with a long, flat-
tened, moderately coarse hair, under which is a dark, long, fine,
silky fur, the valuable seal-skin fur of the market.

Steller's sea-lion ( Otaria Slelleri, Fig. 5) is a larger species, a full-
grown male measuring twelve feet in length, and occasionally six-
teen feet, and weighing a thousand pounds. It lives not only in
remote and secluded places, like the northern species, but also by
thickly inhabited coasts, where it enters the bays and rivers, and
even plays around the shipping. It is much more timid than the

SEA-LI ox S AND FUR-SEALS, 337

fur-seal — wliicli shows no fear of man — and "hurries into the water
at the first alarm, and there sits, with his head and neck raised
above the waves, roaring as loudly as possible, till the intruder
is out of sight. Its roar is described as deep and grand, like the
howling of a gale through the branches of a forest or rigging of
a ship." The species is found on both coasts of the Northern Pa-
cific Ocean, and is the animal which inhabits the " Seal Rocks " of
the harbor of San Francisco, and, protected by the law, forms one
of the attractions of the city. Its under-fur is so scanty, short,
and fine as to be of no use for clothing ; but the skin makes an
excellent leather, the intestines are used to make water -proof
frocks, the whiskers are sold to the Chinese for ornaments, and
the flesh, the blubber, the lining of the throat, the skin of the
flippers, the stomach, and some of the internal organs, are put to
valuable uses.

The southern, or Cook's sea-lion {Otaria jiihata , Fig. 6), is found
around the coasts of South America from Peru to the Rio de la
Plata. Its specific name is
derived from its possession
of a mane, or long hair cov-
ering its neck and shoulders,
which is developed only in
the male when he is fully
adult. The fur is only
sparsely developed in the
young, and disappears as
the animal grows older.

The Falkland fur-seal fig. 6.-soittheen sea-lton ( wa«a >6a/a).

( Otaria falklandica), a small

species of not more than four feet in length, inhabits the same local-
ities as the jubata. Its habits are identical with those of the north-
ern fur-seal, and its skins, with their thick and soft under-fur, are
considered more valuable than those coming from any other region.
A similar if not identical species formerly existed in the Austra-
lian and New Zealand waters, but it has been exterminated by
wasteful hunting, and a correspondent wrote to Mr. Clark a few
years ago, " I should as soon expect to meet a sea-lion on London
Bridge as on any one of the islands in Bass's Strait." But little
is known about the sea-lions of the Cape of Good Hope, which,
however, furnish sixty or seventy thousand skins annually to the
London market. A reckless system of hunting is tolerated, and
the animals are disappearing.

The capture of the seals on the Pribylov Islands is carefully
controlled by wise governmental regulations; consequently the
animals thrive and are kept up in numbers, while they are fast
disappearing in consequence of indiscriminate slaughter from all

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other quarters. The Russians established a fur company on these
islands immediately after they were discovered, which slaugh-
tered the animals recklessly for thirty years, without any regard
to the danger of exterminating them. They began to diminish
visibly about 1817, and in 1836 appeared in only one tenth of their
former numbers. Regulations were then adopted to limit the
slaughter, which have been accepted and enforced by the United
States since the islands came into our possession. Only the young
males or " bachelors " are allowed to be killed, during June, July,
September, and October, and not more than one hundred thousand
of them in each year. The " rookeries " must not be molested.
The young seals are started from their haunts near the rookeries
and driven over the country to the place of slaughter, which is
fixed at such a distance as to obviate the danger of the older ani-
mals being alarmed by the disturbance or troubled by the odors
of the slaughter. The driving is a very tedious process, and is
hard upon the seals, for they become heated very easily, when
the fur is spoiled, or get exhausted and die on the road. Four
per cent of the flock are sometimes lost in this way. The seals
are allowed to rest and cool after reaching the killing-ground,
and are then dispatched in droves of about one hundred at a time.
Only the fittest are slaughtered, all the others being allowed to
go back to the sea. One blow on the head with a club of hard
wood is generally sufiicient to kill. A knife is then thrust into
the vitals, and the carcass is laid aside till about a thousand have
been collected, when the process of skinning begins. The skins
are sent home salted, to be cured and converted into what is called
" seal-skin." " It is diflicult," says Mr. Clark, " to conceive how
that beautiful article of dress can ever be manufactured out of
the very unattractive object the skin presents at this juncture.
It is hard and unyielding as a board, and the stift', coarse hairs
cover the fur so completely that its very existence might be un-
suspected." The important point is to separate these hairs from
the fur. They used to be pulled out one by one, till it was found
that the roots of the hair were more deeply seated than those
of the fur, when a cheaper and more expeditious process was
adopted. The skins are now pared down on the wrong side till
the roots of the hairs are cut off, when they are easily brushed
away, and the fur, of varying shades of light-brown, is left in lit-
tle curls. The curls become untwisted in the dyeing, and the fur
assumes its well-known smooth appearance.

The seal colonies of the Pribylov Islands were leased by the
Government of the United States in 1870 for twenty years to the
" Alaska Commercial Company," for an annual rent of fifty thou-
sand dollars, and a tax on each skin taken. The details of the
slaughter are carefully regulated, so as to promote the well-being

SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 339

and perpetuation of the colony, and make it probable that, unless
some unforeseen disaster befalls it, it will never be less productive
than it is now.

The seals of the Greenland seas were hunted a few years ago
by fleets from Peterhead, Scotland. At present, Dundee is the
only port in Great Britain that sends out vessels to the seal and
whale fishings. Wherever the animals frequented, they were
found, like the eared seals of the Pribylov Islands, in great herds
together; but would collect in the largest number* in stormy
weather, when they would seek the places free from ice, and there
gambol lustily. The older seals, according to Mr. James Thorn-
ton, who derived his knowledge from frequent conversations with
the ship-masters, pursue their prey with great rapidity, and when
they come across a shoal of herrings, consume innumerable multi-
tudes of them. They become very drowsy when basking in shoals
on the edge of the ice with their young, and in this state are sur-
prised by the boats' crews.. Most of the victims are secured by
clubbing, as at the Pribylov Islands, but the aid of the harpoon is
sometimes called in when the old ones show fight. The Green-
landers, in hunting for seals, find a hole in the ice to which the
animal has to come up to breathe. As soon as he puts his nose
up, a harpoon is sent into it ; the surrounding ice is then broken
up and the victim is hauled in and dispatched with a club. The
harp-seal is far more idle and wary than the common seal. " It
allows itself to be approached by a small boat sufficiently near to
be struck by a harpoon with a bladder attached by a long string ;
the moment the animal is pierced he starts ofi:' and dives, bul;; the
bladder is a tell-tale, and he is followed and repeatedly struck by
an unbarbed lance until quite exhausted, when the man dispatches
and takes possession of his prize."

The West Indian seal {Monaclius tropicalis) was observed by
Columbus in 1494, and has since been noticed at scattering times,
but the traces of it had recently been nearly lost. Prof. Henry
A. Ward, when on a visit to Yucatan and the Triangles in 1886,
found several specimens of the animal, and was able to examine
it in the adult and foetal conditions. According to his account in
the " American Naturalist," the head is large and prominent, and
the whole body chunky, with the bones deeply imbedded in flesli
and fat. The eye of the adult is very dull, having over the cor-
nea a film which gives it " much the same appearance as a glass
eye or a marble that has been so much handled as to lose its pol-
ish." The whole character of the seal is one of tropical inactivity ;
and this was exemplified by the presence of a growth of minute
algse on the backs and flippers of some of the animals that made
them look green. They were never seen to raise their heads
above the line of the back, as the harbor seal is accustomed to

34°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

do. The animals showed no dread of man on the first approach,
but looked lazily at the observers, perhaps uneasily shifting their
position, and then dozing off into a restless sleep. But, as the

men drew nearer, they would rouse themselves, bark, " and un-
easily hitch themselves along a few paces." At first they offered
little resistance, but on the second day showed fight when attacked

GENIUS AND TALENT. 341

in groups. Except for a little savage conduct when in panic, tlieir
whole bearing was one of indecision. They showed but little of
the curiosity regarding a boat and its occupants which is usually
so marked among seals, and did not disport themselves in play.

The business of hunting the Greenland seals, like the whale-
fishery, has been injured by the " improvements " that have been
introduced into it. Screw-steamers may be more efficient in the
chase than the old-fashioned sailing-vessels, but they have made
the seals " wild," and have driven them further north and out of
the open waters, into regions to which these vessels can hardly
penetrate.

GENIUS AND TALENT.

By GEANT ALLEN.

LET it be granted that a vast deal of nonsense has been talked
everywhere in this oblate spheroid of ours about almost every
conceivable subject. Yet about none has a vaster amount of non-
sense been talked before the tribunal of literature than about the
famous old forensic case of Genius versus Talent. The born Gen-
ius, its sycophants and adulators continually assure us with nau-
seating persistence, arrives intuitively, by pure force of natural
insight, at such and such a magnificent result — a " Paradise Lost,"
let us say, or a Blenheim Madonna, or a theory of evolution ; while
mere Talent, poor plodding, purblind, miserable Talent (you should
always be extremely hard on Talent, with a few contemptuous
crushing epithets, if you yourself wish to be thought a man of
genius), toils after it in vain, with painful steps and slow, groping
its uncertain way to minor truths or pettier works by the feeble
rays of its own insignificant farthing rushlight. So long as Gen-
ius till lives, to be sure, and treads the solid earth, known as Gen-
ius only to an appreciative few, it does not generally receive this
grateful incense of slavish adulation in its divine nostrils to any
intoxicating or dangerous extent. Worship is rarely vouchsafed
to contemporaries. But when once the Genius is fairly dead and
buried (in Westminster Abbey or the Panthdon, as the case may
be), it undergoes forthwith its due apotheosis, and a thousand lips
cry out to it straightway in deafening chorus, " O Genius, how
beutif ul you were ; how supreme ; how grand ; how noble ; how
consummate ! O Genius, how masterly was your touch ; how in-
tense your feeling ; how cosmical your grasp ; how profound and
searching and absolute your science ! Alas, how infinitely did you
differ in your ineffable attributes from that unequal substitute
which alone we have now left among us — poor plodding, purblind,
miserable Talent ! " For it is commonly understood among the

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mesoteric worshipers of the exalted Genius that their patron is
indeed a very jealous god ; that he bears, like the Turk, no rival
next his throne ; and that he harbors in his breast a special grudge
against that inferior and groveling, but somewhat similar, deity,
mere commonplace Talent. He is known to regard himself, with
Hebrew exclusiveness, as the original and only genuine divine
entity, all others being spurious imitations.

Now, it is the misfortune of the world in this matter that the
lions have chiefly painted themselves ; and as the lion in the fable
justly anticipated, they have invariably represented themselves as
having very much the best of it. Genius, especially self-conscious
Genius, has brought copious ghee to its own image ; it has erected
an altar to itself, like the Divus Csesar, and has insisted strongly
upon the need for public recognition of its own glorious and
divine attributes. " Fall down and worship ! " says Genius, in the
imperative mood ; and forthwith a slavish world falls down and
worships. Byron, Victor Hugo, Lytton, Disraeli, have all told
us, with extreme frankness, what we ought to say and think about
them. We have been politely requested, in exquisite verse, to vex
not the poet's mind with our shallow wit, on the concise if not
very flattering ground that we can not fathom it. Genius, secure
of its own Olympic supremacy, has looked down from its airy
throne upon the blind and battling multitude below — meaning us,
of course, who are not geniuses — with a sardonic smile of mingled
contempt, beneficence, and pity. And the world, which is very
apt to accept men in the long run at their own valuation (so much
the worse for the modest), bows down in the end to self-assertive
Genius, and sees in its face all those splendid qualities which Gen-
ius itself bids it look and find there. For indeed the world is by
nature prone, after all, to the attitude of worship. It kneels read-
ily. Though it chooses the objects of its adoration in strange
places, yet it bends ^\:illing knees to the golden calf ; and to the
golden calf of success and public approbation none the less than
to those other assorted golden calves which we know as wealth,
rank, title, and position. It may cast mud at its deities when they
are young and unrecognized, to be sure — for who can see divinity
in a tweed suit ? — but as soon as the voice of the people, which is
the voice of God, has decreed them the laurel wreath of common
.praise and a guinea a line, it will immediately start a Browning
Society or a Shelley Society, or, for ought I know, a Ouida So-
ciety, too, to give the new cult its appropriate hierarchy. And,
above all, where the object of their worship is quite safely dead
and buried (for live gods at times inconveniently disclaim their
noisiest votaries), the admirers will swarm around with conta-
gious enthusiasm in their wrath against the prophets of all newer
cults, and cry aloud for the space of two hours together, " Great

GENIUS AND TALENT.

343

is Diana of the Epliesians ! " till the town-clerk comes to disperse
them.

On the other hand, if any bold iconoclast, sick of this perpetual
adulatory hero-worship, this fulsome laudation of the divine affla-
tus, ventures to hint that genius, after all, does not really differ so
much from mere talent — poor but honest and industrious talent
— that the distinction is mainly one of degree, not of kind, and
that what in its youth was simply called talent grows with time
and repute into genuine genius — the orthodox worshipers have al-
ways their thunderbolt ready forged to crush and annihilate him.
" This fellow," they say, with a toss of the head, " being in very
truth a born frog, ventures to maintain that frogs, by dint of in-
flation, can puff themselves out to the dignity of oxen, or that at
best there is but little difference of size and build between the two
species. That is just because he is a mere frog, and jealous of the
vast superiority of bovine greatness." To be sure, when the oxen
themselves were yet but young bullocks, sporting in the fields,
these same orthodox critics would have eagerly contended for
their essential f rogginess ; but now that they are full grown and
fat, and florally wreathed with sacrificial garlands, as becomes an
Apis, the orthodox have forgotten their former recalcitrancy. As
of old, the fathers stone the prophets, and the children occupy
themselves with building their sepulchres. But let that pass.
The point is, that if one tries to put the question as to the nature
of genius in its true aspect, one is at once regarded in the invidi-
ous light of a modern Zoilus.

Nevertheless, this question of genius and talent is a truly sci-
entific one, a psychological problem, one might almost say, in the
wider sense, a matter of anthropometry. It is well that it should
be discussed on scientific grounds, without any of the hysterical
and inflated verbiage with which geniuses and their biographers
have too frequently befogged it. Wherein does genius really
consist, and how does it differ from mere talent ? That, simply
put, is the net question which we have here categorically to an-
swer ; and to anticipate at once the answer forced ujDon me as a
humble observer by consideration of the facts, I find at bottom
that the two are in ultimate analysis almost identical. Genius is
talent either pushed to an exceptionally high degree, or exerted in
a very unusual direction, or linked with a rare amount of striking-
industry, or dashed with a certain peculiar vein of bizarre origi-
nality. In short, it is such talent as makes itself specially re-
marked— talent which has in it something of the unique ; while
other talent, often equally great or even greater, but lacking in
the special element of individuality, remains to the last " mere tal-
ent," and never attains to any higher level of public recognition.

The first form of these four is the one so aptly and bravely

34+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

described by Buffon, who defined genius in liis own inimitable
style as " an infinite capacity for taking pains." To the general
public, this admirable definition seems simply incomprehensible.
" What ! " they cry with one voice, " genius a capacity for taking
pains ! We wist it was something quite opposite — an inspiration,
spontaneous and unconscious. The mere plodder, we always un-
derstood or imagined, worked away at his canvas with infinite
trouble, touching and retouching till he was sick and tired of it ;
but the divine genius ! oh no, impossible ! Perish the thought !
'tis an absolute profanation. The plodder devotes himself with
painstaking care to anatomy and perspective and light-and-shade
and all the rest of it ; but the divine genius, he, great man, comes
up with a stroke of his brush intuitively, so — and behold, hi, pres-
to ! an Aphrodite or a Beatrice smiles as if by miracle before you.
The plodder may potter long over his rhymes and his epithets,
but the divine genius, with Byronic. carelessness, dashes you off
an ode or a ballad, stans pede in uno. His lofty Pegasus needs no
goading or driving ; it moves as it will of its own accord, and
leads him at last without conscious guidance to some splendid,
glorious, or dazzling conclusion. We know it is true, for have not
our Lyttons and our Hugos told us so ? "

But humble critics perceive at once that in real life things are
ordered quite otherwise. Your Michael Angelos and your Leo-
nardos think no detail of anatomy or of physics beneath their
lofty notice ; they study the human frame as if they meant to be
doctors, the laws of matter as if they meant to be engineers, the
nature of light as if they meant to be physicists, the principles of
optics as if they meant to be astronomers. They toil early and late
over local color and perspective and the chemistry of pigments ;
they perfect themselves ceaselessly upon models and drapery,
upon architecture and landscape. Of course, unusual endowments
of eye and hand are there to begin with ; but those unusual en-
dowments even will profit them nothing without arduous training
and continuous industry. Every line of the greatest and most
perfect poets bears obvious traces of . utmost care and finish in
workmanship ; every line of the noblest and most exquisite prose
bears evident marks of curious study in adjective and verb, in
rhythm and cadence. The art is, to conceal one's art ; the seeming
felicity, the apparent ease, result, not from spontaneous inspira-
tion, but from long and conscious practice in the adaptation of
means to end, and of sound to sentiment.

Indeed, one might almost reverse the ordinary estimate and say
that genius, in its most frequent form, is really talent backed up
by application. To this special class of genius belong such men
(to take a typical example) as Charles Darwin. It was not the
mere apergu of natural selection or survival of the fittest that set

GENIUS AND TALENT. 345

the seal upon Darwin's undoubted apostolate. Other men had had
that same apergu in greater or less degree before him : some of
them smaller men, no doubt, and some of them at least his peers
in grasp and ability. "Wells had had it years earlier; Patrick
Matthew had had it as a passing glimpse ; Wallace lighted upon
it almost simultaneously ; Herbert Spencer trembled more than
once with strange nearness upon the very verge of discovery.
But what Darwin did was to raise this apergu into the guiding
star and mainspring of his active life ; to work away at it early
and late ; to heap together instances pro and con j to bring out at
last after endless toil that banner of a fresh epoch, the Origin of
Species, with all its wonderful ancillary treatises. Darwin's mind,
though broad and open, a mind of singular candor and acuteness
and penetration, was not, in respect of mere general ability, very
far above the average constructive mind of the better class of
English scientific men. He had twenty contemporaries in the
Royal Society who were probably his equals in native intellect
and generalizing power. But he had no equals in industry and
systematic observation ; it was the combination of so much faculty
for hard work with so much high organizing intelligence that
enabled Darwin to produce so vast a result upon the thought of
the world and the future of science, of philosophy, and of politics.
When John Gibson was studying under Canova at Rome, a
young English sculptor of the divine genius order — the order rep-
resented in our own days by Mr. Richard Belt of funest memory
— came to cast a lordly glance in passing around the Roman stu-
dios. Gibson himself had been born an artist — not perhaps an
artist of the particular type at present exclusively admired by a
cultivated clique as supreme and intense, but still in his own way
a true and admirable academic artist. Apprenticed first to a
wood-carver and then to a stone-cutter, the Welsh working lad
determined to make himself a real sculptor. Your boy of talent
placed in such circumstances would have considered himself a
divinely gifted sculptor already, and would have begun turning
out marble nymphs and Ganymedes and Psyches as fast as his
active hands could carve them. But Gibson knew better than
that. He knew he was a genius, and he determined to behave
as such. He went to an anatomy class in Liverpool, where he
lived, and he worked with scalpel and saw among the budding
surgeons on the bones and muscles of the human frame. When
he had studied dra^ving, modeling, and the use of the chisel, as
far as England could then instruct him, he made up his mind to
go to Rome ; and to Rome he would go, he said, if he had to tramp
it on foot. To him thus employed at molding clay in Canova's
studio enter the self-taught divine genius, who has come Rome-
ward to glance casually right and left at Michael Angelos and
Vol. xxxit.— 22.*

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

antique torsos, Tdj way of a hint, but who disdains the vulgar
academic aid of masters and instructors. " I thought meanly of
him," says Gibson with charming frankness, "for he wouldn't
watch other men at work for fear of spoiling his own originality,"
The divine genius went home to England, carved out his Narcis-
sus and his Aphrodite by the light of nature, ate and drank and
died at last, nameless now and utterly forgotten. Gibson stayed
in Rome and studied ; wasted hours on the turns and folds of a
piece of drapery ; threw his whole mind into the work of the day ;
and became at last, whatever the fashion of the moment may say,
a true sculptor of immense refinement and delicacy of feeling.

This is the kind of genius that consists of high talent, backed
up and re-enforced by exceptional powers of application. It is the
kind we get, again, in such a thinker as John Stuart Mill, who
really possessed only the average intellect of your picked univer-
sity honor-man, combined with an unusual faculty for hard work,
and a trained habit of keeping his mind open judicially to every
breeze of varying opinion. It is the kind we get, again, in Ma-
caulay, who added, however, to his strictly average endowments of
intellect the special endowments of a marvelous memory, great
command of mere language, a certain ready amount of specious
brilliancy, and a singular ability for calling up and adorning con-
crete images. On the other hand, Macaulay's intellect, viewed as
intellect pure and simple, was thoroughly commonplace, banal, and
Philistine ; he had less real thinking power, less native faculty for
grasping abstract or subtle ideas, than nine out of ten ordinary
educated people. It is the kind, once more, we get in most geniuses
of practical life, political or social. Directed to statemanship,
this high general level of ability, backed up by industry, gives us
our Gladstones, our Guizots, and our Lincolns ; directed to war, it
gives us our Caesars, our Napoleons, and our Wellingtons. If any
man imagines that the great general wins battles by mere force
of innate genius, he has only to remember the constant recurrence
in the "Commentaries" of the res frumentaria, and the famous
saying that an army " fights upon its belly." A good breakfast
for his men is the chief aid to a commander's military reputation.
Did not somebody once call the mighty dictator, indeed, a " mon-
ster of diligence " ?

Very different is the sort of genius of which Thomas Carlyle
and Charles Dickens form excellent typical examples. This is
the particular species of the class on which, perhaps, the popular
ideas of the characteristics of genius are mainly founded. In
such cases, the genius really consists in large part of eccentricity
— eccentricity pushed to an extreme in certain directions, but
combined with more or less of real ability. Now, it is important
to note that genius of this sort does not necessarily imply a high

GENIUS AND TALENT. 347

order of intelligence. Dickens's intelligence, for example, was by
no means liigli ; I suppose everybody would admit at once that
you may search his works in vain for a single sentence worth
quoting as a specimen of profundity, or insight, or wisdom. Not
that I wish for a moment to run down Dickens ; on the contrarj^
I admire him immensely ; I never take up " David Copperfield "
or " Nicholas Nickleby " without standing amazed and aghast
afresh at the quaintness, the fertility, the oddity, the fun of his
inimitable creations. No other man, we feel, could do the like ;
and that is just why we appreciate Dickens. Originality, in fact,
is the special note of this particular type of genius ; and origi-
nality is therefore often spoken of by hasty thinkers as if it were
the essence of genius itself. This, however, is not strictly true,
unless we mean unduly to restrict the limits of genius. There
have been many great men — undoubtedly great — who were far
from remarkable for their originality. The solidest intellect is
often utterly wanting in brilliancy or originality. Rather is it
the truth that a marked degree of original quaintness entitles
even a second-rate man (and Dickens was, in the matter of pure
intellect, essentially second-rate) to ungrudged admission ujDon
the final roll-call of the immortals.

Many men have had grotesque and morbid imaginings. Dick-
ens had them grotesque and morbid to the point of uniqueness ;
therefore we rightly call him a genius. His gift was not a very
high or noble one ; on the contrary, it was one which, in its lesser
developments, belongs rather to the bufi:oon and the caricaturist.
But in Dickens it grew so large, and so far monopolized the whole
field of his invention, that it became in itself a title to immor-
tality. Nobody else could do anything equal to it, though many
people could do something in a somewhat similar but less pro-
foundly absurd and original vein. Such men as Mill, and Bain,
and Lewes, and Lyell, overtop Dickens intellectually by more
than half their stature. But you might get a hundred philoso-
phers and psychologists and men of science out of a given coun-
try before you got another " Martin Chuzzlewit." It is precisely
the idiosyncrasy of the man, the mixture of faculty, that is so
rare and unusual. Compound ten million human beings on the
ordinary principle of mixing together ancestral strains, and among
them all you will produce on an average half a dozen apiece of
geologists and historians, but never again a single Dickens.

Genius of this sort, then, is not necessarily at all great ; it is
only unique, and in virtue of its uniqueness for the most part in-
teresting. Not that all eccentricity and originality partake of the
nature of genius either; they must have combined with them
some considerable element of distinct cleverness, or they result
merely in an eccentric or an original, not in a genius, properly so

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

called. We have all known many eccentrics whose eccentricity
was far indeed from being either amusing or curious; it suc-
ceeded merely in making itself supremely annoying or absurd.
But the gulf that separates the mere original from the true genius
is often as narrow as the gulf that intervenes between the sublime
and the ridiculous. Everybody has met odd people, who lived by
themselves in odd rooms, who said and did odd things, and whose
veriest commonplaces had always about them some lingering
flavor of misplaced wit and half -mad imagination. Such queer
people, with their dash of insanity, have not infrequently a dash
of genius as well, only in their case the divine spark has either
never been supplied with sufficient fuel, or never blown up by the
breath of appreciation into even a struggling and tentative blaze.
Yet who shall say what tiny extra twist in a special direction
turns any one of these undiscovered cranky souls into a Dickens,
a Heine, a Rabelais, or a Cervantes ? The little additional twist
makes to us, the percipients, all the difference ; but in the brain
and mind of the man himself, how infinitesimally small must be
the peculiarity of fiber or energy that ultimately determines it !

Look, again, at such a case as Carlyle's. Hundreds of caustic,
saturnine Scotch laboring-folk have something the same quaint
power of expression, something the same dour, grim humor, some-
thing the same vehement, self-assertive egotism. In all funda-
mentals, philosophical and psychological, they are absolutely
identical with the grumbler of Chelsea; their hard Scotch Cal-
vinistic creed is just his gloomy pessimism in the rough ; their
firm belief in a lawgiver of the cosmos, who loves neither fools
nor knaves overwell, is just the crude, unelaborated form of the
Carlylese political and ethical system. Add a certain native vigor
and directness of language, derived by blood from that canny,
clever, uneducated sage, the Ecclef echan stone-mason, the " body
wha had sic names for things"; supplement it with an Edin-
burgh University training, backed up by a strong dose of con-
genial dreamy German metaphysics ; turn it loose upon the world
of London, or divert it by circumstances into the hard, underpaid
literary channel — and a Carlyle at once emerges upon you, burst-
ing forth in the full tide of his " picturesque bad style," in " Sar-
tor Resartus " and the " French Revolution." Once worked, the
trick can never be worked again ; but, while it lasts, its effect is
marvelous. The rush and go of that full tide carries us all unre-
sistingly before it : we never pause to ask for a moment, as we
whirl along helter-skelter down-stream, by what slight variations
on a familiar theme the astonishing sense of hurrying, scurrying,
clashing music, as of pent-up waters bursting their dams, has
been laboriously designed and produced in the far recesses of that
wild composer's peculiar idiosyncrasy.

GENIUS AND TALENT. 349

If we look, however, at the families of recognized geniuses, we
sometimes see, as by a flash of electric light, on what slight acci-
dents of composition these strange results ultimately depend.
" Is her sister like her ? " asked an enamored poet of a friend of
the family. " Very like her," the common-sense friend responded
cautiously; "hut I wouldn't advise you to see her just yet, or
you'd find out too soon how the trick is done.'' For very often,
the slightest exaggeration of the features in a beautiful face will
make it at once either commonplace or grotesque. The family
likeness in the plain sister suggests forthwith how readily with a
turn more of the brush or the knife that chiseled profile might
become too painfully Roman, those rich lips too obtrusively
negroid, those full eyes too prominent or too lachrymose. You
see with undue clearness in such cases the narrow line that sepa-
rates strength from coarseness, delicacy from feebleness, the
pretty from the doll-like, the stately from the hard-featured.
Even so, in the families of acknowledged geniuses you see how
slight indeed are the special points which distinguish the distin-
guished : how little the poet differs in fiber from his brother the
parson ; how near the dry argumentative cobbler comes to his son
the materialist philosopher. Bandsman Herschel had a taste for
clock-work, for mathematics, for times and seasons : his boy Will-
iam, who played the oboe in the same Hanoverian regiment, and
deserted in due course to be organist at Bath, carried the like
tastes just a step further by making a telescope and discovering
Uranus. But all his brothers and sisters were also musical, and
most of them were mechanical and astronomical as well. The
divine genius of William Herschel is just the general family
twist, developed perhaps a trifle higher, accompanied perhaps by
a somewhat profounder grasp of intellect, or merely (it may be)
encouraged and made the most of by a fortunate concurrence of
casual conditions. For who shall say what proportion the discov-
ered and acknowledged geniuses of the world's scroll bear to the un-
discovered and unacknowledged geniuses who swarm like tadpoles
in the board-schools and workshops everywhere around us ?

But what makes me above all things skeptical as to the special
and exceptional inspiration of the divine genius is a considera-
tion of the historical position of divine geniuses as we actually
find them in their own environment. Posterity, divorcing the
man from his age, knowing him for the most part as an isolated
fact alone, sees him always larger than life, like the heroic stat-
ues it erects in his honor. It forgets too often that, in order to
judge of him as a unit of humanity, we must look at him in con-
nection with his own surroundings. We are all too apt to per-
sonify, or rather to embody and individualize, all great move-
ments : to see in the Reformation nobody but^uther ; in the

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Revolution nobody but Rousseau and Robespierre and Danton ;
in the national struggle for American independence nobody but
Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin ; in tbe vast movements for
the unity of Italy and Germany nobody but Garibaldi, Mazzini,
Bismarck, and Von Moltke. But in reality, as the present age
now knows well, it is largely the movement that makes the men,
not the men that make the movement ; and this is true of ordi-
nary epochs as well as of great upheavals, of the thinker and the
writer as well as of the soldier, the statesman, and the enthusiast.
Take as a very striking example in minor matters Mark Twain.
To the English reader Mark Twain is a being more or less unique,
or at best he is known as the chief among two or three popular
competitors in the field of so-called American humor — Artemus
Ward, Josh Billings, and Orpheus C. Kerr being practically his
only considerable rivals in the European market. But whoever
knows the daily talk and the daily newspaper of Western America
knows that embryo Mark Twains grow in Illinois on every bush,
and that the raw material of the " Innocents Abroad " resounds
nightly, like the voice of the Derringer, through every saloon in
Iowa and Montana. A large style of cheap and effective homi-
cidal humor, based mainly on exaggeration and grotesque incon-
gruities, flourishes everywhere on the border-lands of American
civilization. The very infants lisp in quaint Western quips, the
blushing maidens whisper a dialect which " pans out " rich in the
peculiar wit of Poker Flat and the Silverado Squatters. Mark
Twain represents but the exceptional embodiment of this extrava-
gant ranching and mining spirit, sedulously cultivated and still fur-
ther developed by the literary habits of a professional humorist.

In literature and in political life our modern principle of the
supreme influence of the environment is now, indeed, universally
admitted; it is only in science and in philosophy (where more
than elsewhere it is emphatically true) that anybody of authority
still doubts it. We all allow that in most matters it is the wave
that makes the crest, and not the crest that makes the wave. The
old school of critics saw in Shakespeare a dramatic phoenix, soli-
tary of his kind, unequaled and unapproached around or about
him. The new school sees in him the final flower and highest
outcome of that marvelous outburst which gave us " Faustus " and
" Tamburlaine," " Jane Shore " and " Yolpone," the " Duke of Mi-
lan" and the "Duchess of Malfi." Primus inter pares he was, no
doubt, but inter pares only, not above " a vast dead level of me-
diocrity." Ford and Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson and
Massinger stood close beside the throne ; Greene and Marlowe had
prepared the way beforehand for Hamlet and Shylock and Rich-
ard III. The expansion of England in the Elizabethan age neces-
sarily produced the new drama, which showed forth as in a mir-

GENIUS AND TALENT. 351

ror " the very age and body of the time, liis form and feature,"
exactly as the romance of our own day shows forth the stir and
ferment and turmoil of the present far greater period of national
development. A great deal of what most of us take for Shake-
speare is really the necessary spirit and background of the
Elizabethan stage, as much the common product of the nation
at large and of the dramatic tradition as the modern novel or the
modern burlesque is the common product of our own civilization.

In science and philosophy, however, this general principle of
necessary development is even more demonstrably true than else-
where. There comes a crisis every now and then in the evolution
of thought, when new discoveries and new inventions are, as we
all say nowadays, '' in the air " ; when numberless workers, led up
to a certain point by previous thinkers and previous discoveries,
tremble all together on the very verge of the next great generali-
zation or the next important extension of thought or knowledge.
"He who says A must say B also," the wise French proverb
pithily puts it. Now it sometimes happens in such cases that a
number of workers co-operate so much in the new discovery, or
the new invention, or the new development, that no one man car-
ries off for himself the honors of the situation. That was the case
with the vast physical concept of the conservation of energy, by
far the vastest and most fundamental concept ever yet introduced
into our view of the material cosmos and its mode of working.
Yet that profound law was so slowly evolved by the separate
labors of many acute and suggestive thinkers, beginning with
Count Rumf ord and ending with Joule, Meyer, Helmholtz, Grove,
Clerk Maxwell, Balfour Stewart, and Tait, that no single name
will ever probably be associated with its promulgation, as the
name of Newton is associated with the law of gravitation, or as
the name of Darwin is associated with the principle of organic
evolution. More frequently, however, it happens that a particular
worker does either anticipate the others by a decided interval, or
succeeds at any rate in attracting to himself the attention of the
crowd, and in becoming, so to speak, the eponymous hero of the
new conquest. In such cases I do not say that the hero is not
really as a rule greater than the men he casts into the shade ; but
I do say that he is not as a rule as much greater as the world at
large, in its love for the sweet simplicity of hero-worship, sujj-
poses him to be. It is so hard to distribute your praise equitably
between a dozen or more of contributory geniuses ; it is so easy
to fix upon a single man and declare authoritatively in a very
loud voice, " Ipse fecit I "

Mechanical inventions show us the working of this popular
tendency in a very clear and instructive manner. Who, for ex-
ample, invented the steam-engine ? James Watt, says everybody.

352 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

with glib readiness. But those who have looked at the history of
the steam-engine know, of course, that there were steam-engines
in abundance long before Watt's, and that Watt himself worked
deliberately on the basis of Newcomen's model, Newcomen, in
turn, had improved on Papin's invention, and Papin perhaps on
De Caux's, and finally on Hero's. Now, nobody denies that Watt
was a very great engineer ; if he had never invented the double-
acting engine at all, indeed, he would have been remembered
among the mechanical geniuses of the world by his numerous
other improvements and discoveries ; but he was not so absolutely
supreme and unique as the popular fancy bas made him out to
be. Indeed, taking into consideration the date of its construction,
Newcomen's engine was a much more remarkable triumph of hu-
man ingenuity that James Watt's. But Watt introduced the final
details which rendered steam a power in the world, and with him
accordingly rest the popular suffrages as "the inventor of the
steam-engine." Similarly, who invented the locomotive ? George
Stephenson, says everybody, as before. But those who have looked
at the history of the locomotive know, of course, that both loco-
motives and railways existed in plenty before Stephenson's, and
that the Rocket was merely the most successful competitor among
many contemporary competitors for public favor. Nobody denies
George Stephenson's marvelous native engineering abilities; on
the whole, taking into consideration his humble beginnings, he
seems to me more of a heaven-born genius in his own way than
almost anybody else with whose history I am acquainted. But
the work he did upon the locomotive was adaptive and develoj)-
mental, not original and novel. The great invention did not
spring in full panoply — like Athene from the head of Zeus — out
of any one engineer's profound brain ; it grew slowly, piece by
piece, like everything else, from a hundred men's co-operating in-
telligences.

Like everything else, I say deliberately, for it is the same with
every great invention. Look at the telegraph, so hotly debated
between Morse and Wheatstone ; look at the telephone, equally
divided between Edison and Bell ; look at photography, whose
several stages owed so much successively to Wedgwood and Davy,
to Niepce and Daguerre, to Talbot and to Archer. " Great discov-
eries," says Prof. Fiske, with evident wisdom, " must always be con-
cerned with some problem of the time which many of the world's
foremost minds are just then cudgeling their active brains about."
It was so with the discovery of the differential calculus and of the
planet Neptune ; with the interpretation of the Egyptian hiero-
glyphics and of the cuneiform inscriptions ; with the undulatory
theory of light and the mechanical equivalent of heat ; with the
nebular hypothesis and with spectrum analysis. In some cases

GENIUS AND TALENT. 353

one man has borne off all the praise, while many men bore the
brunt of the labor ; in other cases the work done has been so even-
ly distributed among several laborers that even that unjust judge,
the general public, could set none as greater or less than another,
none as before or after another.

Observe, once more, a case where, at first sight, the part played
by the individual genius seems exceptionally great — I mean New-
ton's discovery of universal gravitation. Here, surely, if ever
anywhere, the genius was fully entitled to say, " Alone I did it."
Yet even here it was quite as much the crisis that made Newton
as Newton that made the crisis. Galileo's observations on the
pendulum, Torricelli's invention of the mercurial barometer, the
true theory of the common pump. Von Guericke's air-pump, Co-
pernicus's view of the solar system, Kepler's laws of motion — all
these led up, slowly but surely, by various routes, to the ultimate
and inevitable discovery of the law of gravitation. The world
had its problem then and there neatly presented to it. The Car-
tesian theory of vortices, indeed, was a premature attempt at a
metaphysical, or at least an a priori solution of the self-same diffi-
culty. All the early work of the seventeenth century led up
directly to Newton as a foregone conclusion. Newton himself
merely came, in the fullness of time, as the great, fully-equipped
mathematical and physical thinker who could not fail to advance
science by that one step, already foreshadowed and predestined
for him by the joint work of his many ^predecessors.

So it was, too, with organic evolution and with evolution in
general. In the last century De Maillet and Monboddo, from dif-
ferent sides, had caught faint glimpses (as in a glass, darkly) of
the descent of animals from common progenitors. With Buffon
the glimpse became a distinct idea; with Erasmus Darwin the
idea grew into a fully evolved and tenable hyiDothesis. Lamarck
gave it form and body ; Goethe breathed into it a wider cosmical
spirit. Even the particular notion of natural selection was hit
upon simultaneously by Wallace and Darwin ; while Spencer had
traced out the development of mind seven years before the publi-
cation of the " Origin of Species." Kant and Laplace and Lyell led
on, by many lines, to the " System of Synthetic Philosophy." Evo-
lutionism has been a growth of numberless minds, yet in the fut-
ure it will appear to the multitude at large as the work of two men,
and of two men only — Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. I
need hardly say, I hope, that no man feels more profound rever-
ence for those two mighty thinkers than I do — indeed, I dare
never trust myself to say in public how profound that reverence
really is ; we stand so near them still that those who estimate
them at their true worth only get laughed at ; but I do not think
we ought ever to forget the important part played also in their

VOL. XXXIV. — 23

354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

great revolution by so many other able thinkers and workers,
whose names will never survive into future ages.

Every now and then a great crisis occurs in the world's history
when some new advance, rendered inevitable by the slow growth
of the past, halts for a moment on the threshold of realization. A
genius is needed to make the advance ; but the genius is always
then and there forthcoming from the vast reservoir of potential
greatness forever present in all civilized countries. It is the
noble chance that brings forth the noble knight : the men lucky
enough to take the tide at its flood, lucky enough to reach matu-
rity at the very moment of the turn, achieve a visible success per-
haps somewhat disproportioned even to their real and undoubted
merit. Or rather, they throw unduly into the shade the men who
precede and the men who come after them. There are moments
when good workers can not fail to obtain wonderful results, be-
cause those results are then and there almost forced upon them
by the circumstances of science. There are moments when good
men must almost of necessity become hewers of wood and drawers
of water for the architectonic generation that will come after
them, because the last generation has built up all the materials then
available, and new stores must needs be collected before another
story can possibly be added to the whole vast fabric of scientific
thought. Every mighty outburst is followed close by an apparent
lull, a lull during which the forces at work are expending them-
selves rather upon preparation than upon actual performance,
upon providing fresh facts and hyj)otheses and suggestions rather
than upon co-ordinating and interpreting the old ones.

Hence it may often happen that certain names, popularly re-
garded as small, may really belong to greater individualities and
greater intellects than certain other names of critical and, so to
speak, nodal interest. The man who comes at the exact turning-
point ]performs in one sense a greater work than the man, however
able, who chances to light upon one of the ebb-tides or intervening
periods. Geology supplies us in our own day with an excellent
example. Lyell's name will always be held to tyjDify the evolu-
tionary impulse in geology, as Darwin's does in biology, Spencer's
in psychology, and Laplace's in astronomy. But of these four
central names, Lyell's stands distinctly on a much lower mental
level than the remaining three. On the other hand, we have now
among us a geologist of the very highest ability, a man Vv'ho has
devoted to his chosen science a breadth and profoundness of cos-
mical grasp never before associated with it — I mean, of course,
Archibald Geikie. It is impossible for any competent critic to
look at Geikie's " Text-Book of Geology " by the side of Lyell's
" Principles and Elements " without immediately recognizing the
immense difference of mental stature between the two men. I do

GENIUS AND TALENT. 355

not mean merely that Geikie's work is fuller and more all-sided
than Lyell's ; the growth of the science and the accumulation of
materials would alone suffice amjjly to account for that. But the
lucid, orderly, and masterly arrangement, the just sense of method
and proportion, the logical even development of the subject, the
judicial temper, the cosmic vision, the rare combination of pro-
found depth with perspicuous clearness, all alike place Geikie's
remarkable book on a far higher level than his famous predeces-
sor's. Yet I do not suj^pose Geikie's name will ever become as
popularly celebrated as Lyell's. The lesser man happened upon
the apter moment : he did fairly well the task he had it in hand
to do ; and the crisis itself more than sufficed to make him and his
work conspicuous forever.

Genius, then, I humbly hold, differs from " mere talent " only
in one or other out of three particulars : either it is talent of a
higher order, backed up by industry ; or it is the same talent,
made notable by opportunity ; or it is talent, often of a low
grade, redeemed by exceptional originality, or combined with
some piquant and arresting touch of quaintness, oddity, or it
may even be grotesque deformity.

This is a democratic age — an age of socialism, of co-operation,
of the revolt of the masses against the few and the privileged.
We have found out in our own time that all wealth is the creation
of the many : that Rome was not built in a day ; that the rail-
ways, roads, canals, rivers, mines, factories, warehouses, machines,
and towns of modern England, were slowly exploited by the con-
tinuous labor of thousands upon thousands of skilled workmen.
We have found out that generation after generation has helped
to build up our cathedrals and castles, our mills and looms, our
ships and steamers, our commerce and manufactures. We know
that the electric telegraph goes back at least to Gilbert's research-
es into magnetism in Queen Elizabeth's days ; that the steam-
engine goes back to the Marquis of Worcester in Charles the Sec-
ond's reign ; that ironclads and revolvers are not things of yester-
day ; that every art and every invention, though it may have its
own eponym in modern times, is the joint creation of innumerable
nameless and successive workers through a hundred generations.
The Great Man theory has broken down, and has been replaced
by a belief in Great Movements. I wish here to reclaim in the
same way on behalf of the wider democracy of talent as against
the exclusive oligarchy of genius. The language, the vocabulary,
the idiom, the eloquence, the thought of every age is molded by
a thousand unknown speakers and writers who each contributes
his own part to the grand total of the literature of the day. From
the lowest to the highest the gradation is regular, even, and con-
tinuous : there is no break ; there is no gulf ; there is no isolated

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

peak of solitary grandeur. Here and tliere individuals rise a little
above the mass, and form as a whole the body of thinkers. Here
and there individuals rise a little above the body, and form as a
whole the smaller group of men of talent. Here and there indi-
viduals rise a little above the group, often in the merest details of
their personal idiosyncrasy, and attain more or less distinctly to
the level which most of us recognize as genius. But from first to
last the various stages of intellect or of special faculty rise gradu-
ally one above the other ; the differences between the men them-
selves are minute ; it is the differences between the effects pro-
duced upon others that elevate some on so high an imaginary
pedestal above their fellows.

I know that to say all this may look invidious. I know that
the polite crowd of clubs and drawing-rooms, which can not
see the importance of a psychological question for its own sake,
apart from personalities, will read in it throughout nothing but
envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. However, on that
point I am not afraid. I don't think any man living has a pro-
founder respect than I have for the genius of Matthew Arnold,
and William Morris, and Herbert Spencer, and George Meredith.
I'm sure no man living has a more generous appreciation than I
have for the genius of Andrew Lang and Austin Dobson, of James
and Howells, of Robert Louis Stevenson and Walter Besant, I
know that genius simply swarms among us ; that in this age one
may see such men as Croll wasting, like spendthrifts, upon a soli-
tary problem of the glacial epoch, vast constructive and organ-
izing powers which in any other age would have secured them
world-wide fame and reputation ; such men as Beddoe, working
for pure love, with inexhaustible industry, through a whole life-
time, at questions which everybody else ignores and neglects ;
such men as Galton, filled to the brim with ingenuity, acuteness,
and insight, till it oozes out at their finger-ends, pouring forth in
abundance upon an unheeding world the suggestive results of
their piercing, keen, and all-sided thinking. I know that genius
is choking and strangling itself in the keen struggle for recog-
nition and consequent usefulness. But I know also that if genius
is a drug, talent is a weed in modern London ; and that talent too
deserves its due honor. Men of ability throng thick around us —
men of ability so exceptionally high that in any less richly gifted
age than ours it would be universally recognized and crowned as
genius. The commoner such talent becomes in the world the
more supereminent must be the powers, or the more peculiar the
twist, or the more marked the originality which will suffice to
raise it into the higher category. In other words, what is talent
to-day would have been genius yesterday ; what is genius to-day
will be but talent as men reckon to-morrow. — Fortnightly Review.

IN VENTIONAL GEOMETR Y.

357

mVENTIONAL GEOMETRY.

By EDWAED R. SHAW,

PRINCIPAL OF THE TONKEES HIGH-SCHOOL.

INVENTIONAL geometry is the name given to a series of care-
fully graded problems, thought out and arranged by that able
mathematical teacher, William George Spencer, the father of the
distinguished philosopher.

The little book was published in this country in 1876.* An
appreciative review in the New York "Evening Post" led the
writer to procure a copy, and then to set to work to solve the

simple problems in the order given — the purpose being to form
an impartial judgment of the value of the book for school use.
A hundred or more problems were wrought, with increasing in-
terest ; and then, to make a further test, the book was given sepa-
rately to a number of pupils, both girls and boys, each being

asked to work as many problems as he could. In each instance
the pupil became interested in the work, and wished to continue.
The remark of one girl was especially significant. " It's so differ-
ent from ordinary study," she said ; " there's something about it
that leads me on."

A class was formed after these tests, and a few months' work

* New York, D. Appletou & Co., 1876.

358

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proved the incalculable value of inventional geometry in a school
course of study ; and eleven years' experience in many classes and
in different schools confirms that judgment.

In all these classes the pleasure experienced in the study ha.s
made the work delightful both to teacher and taught ; and there
has always been a continuous interest from the beginning to the
end of the term. This pleasure and interest came, not from any

environment, not from the peculiar individuality of the class, but
because the problems are so graded and stated that the pupil's
progress becomes one of self -development — a realization of the
highest law in education.

The accompanying illustrations of the work of one class,*

* The average age was about fourteen years. The illustrations are reproductions of
drawings made by the class, though in the usual class-work the lines would be finer.

INVENTIONAL GEOMETRY.

359

wHch began the study in September of the past school year and
continued it till February, afford some suggestion of the scope of

inventional geometry. Each
pupil is equipped with a ruler,
which he uses merely as a
straight-edge, a pair of draw-
ing-compasses, and a right-
line pen. For a short period
I drawings are made with lead-
j pencil, till the pupil has ac-
quired a little manual skill ;
then the change is made to
pen, and all problems must be
drawn in ink. Neatness and
accuracy are insisted upon,
and secured.

t

><:

\

The class, having worked at their desks the problems assigned
for a lesson, come up for recitation, and are directed to put their

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

solutions -upon the blackboard. The problems admit of such
graphical representation on the board, and there are always so
many different forms of solution, that pupils delight in this bold

drawing of what they have wrought out at their desks. Explana-
tion follows the drawing, in which the pupil accounts for each
step and every point he has used in constructing. At the start

he does not see what points he may take, nor what are given. For
instance, the simple problem, " Can you place two circles to touch
each other at a particular point ? " will likely be drawn as shown

INVENTIONAL GEOMETRY.

361

in Fig. 1. The question, " Where was the particular point ? " or,
the point being marked, wliere he must make the circles touch,
brings the correct solution (Fig. 2).

Many mistakes of like nature occur in the first lessons. In
every such case the pupil must be led, by questioning, to see
what is incorrect. He should not be told or shown, but thrown
back upon himself ; for, in inventional geometry, the knowledge
is to be gained by growth and experience, through the powers he
possesses and the method of acquirement peculiar to his mind.
Occasionally the pupil is not a little baffled, and the skill of the

teacher is put to its best test to gain the solution without show-
ing or telling him. Telling or showing is the method of the
instructor— not of the teacher. The following problem (Fig. 3),
" Given a circle, and a tangent to that circle, it is required to find
the point in the circumference to which it is a tangent," is one of

362

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these difficult ones. Not many of these occur ; the author, how-
ever, has a purpose in these few. For the most part the pupil is
able by the grading to go on without questioning, as will readily
be seen by examining the problem of which Fig. 4 is the solution,
and the questions based upon it :

" Place three circles so that the circumference of each may
rest upon the centers of the other two, and find the center of
the curvilinear figure which is common to all the three cir-
cles."

" That point in an equilateral triangle which is equally distant
from each side of the triangle, and equally distant from each of
the angular points of the triangle, is called the center of the tri-
angle."

" Can you make an equilateral triangle whose sides shall be
two inches, and find the center of it ? "

" Can you place a circle in an equilateral triangle ? "

"Can you divide an equilateral triangle into six parts that
shall be equal and similar ? "

" Can you divide an equilateral triangle into three equal and
similar parts ? "

To exercise to the utmost the pupil's power to invent, problems
are given with certain restrictions : " Can you divide an angle

IN VENTIONAL GEOMETR Y.

363

into four equal angles without using more than four circles ? "'
(Fig. 5).

" Can you construct a square on a line without using any other
radius than the length of the line ? " (Figs. 6, 7, 8, and 9).

Such problems as that solved in Fig. 10, " Can you place four
octagons to meet in one point and to overlap each other to an
equal extent ? " delight the eye by beauty of form, and teach the
puftil the basis of geometrical design.

Figs. 11 and 12, solutions to " Can you fit a square inside a cir-
cle, and another outside, in such positions with regard to each
other as shall show the ratio the inner one has to the outer ? "

Y.

and " Place a hexagon inside a circle, and another outside, in such
positions with regard to each other as to show the ratio the inner
one has to the outer," illustrate one way in which comparative
area of figures is treated.

We have spoken of the pleasure a class experiences in putting
their solutions upon the blackboard, and in examining the draw-

364

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ings of each other and following the explanations. There con-
tinually come up at these times incidents of this sort : Fig. 13 is
given as a solution of " Can you raise a perpendicular to a line,
and from the end of it ? "

In his explanation the pupil points out the given line, the end
from which he is to erect the perpendicular, the point from which
as a center he sweeps each circle, why he may take that point, and

why he sweeps the circle. Another pupil discovers, before the ex-
planation is finished, that the problem can be solved with one less
circle, and there is the keenest interest while he draws and ex-
plains his way (Fig. 14).

The original and independent power acquired is shown in Figs.

J

15, 16, 17, and 18, solutions of the problem, " Can you make an oc-
tagon with one side given ? "

Spencer's " Inventional Geometry " is one of the most original

INVENTIONAL GEOMETRY.

365

and scientific contributions to scliool text-book literature ever
made. What this little book teaches simply and naturally was

356

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

taught by going over demonstrative geometry, then taking up
mechanical drawing, and adding to these personal experience.
The author has secured all this and much more. He appeals
first to the inventive faculty, seeks expression through the hand,
and brings before the eye accurate and beautiful forms of the
pupil's own constructing. The eye is trained to accuracy and
similarity of forms, invention is quickened, comparison and judg-
ment are constantly exercised, and inductive growth of mind is
directly promoted. Besides the manual skill gained in construct-
ing figures, and the power acquired to deal with original ques-

X

tions through the constant appeal to invention, the pupil gains
by his own efforts proofs of theorems really conclusive in them-
selves, though not the syllogistic form of proof belonging to the
deductive science.

In but one of a great number of schools visited has the writer
found inventional geometry used, and in that school quite out of
the design of the author. It should precede demonstrative geom-
etry, so as to give the pupil many concepts to draw upon when he
takes up syllogistic demonstration. Demonstrative geometry then
becomes an easier subject, and he is surer of what he is doing, be-
cause he has more general notions as a basis. In the school alluded

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS.

367

to, the pupils were constructing figures and then demonstrating
the questions, making the study simply supplementary to ordinary
geometry. There was little invention. Nearly all the construc-
tions were noticeable adaptations of what had been drawn for
demonstration in the de-
ductive study.

Nor have the advo-
cates of industrial train-
ing, with but one excep-
tion, so far as the writer
has been able to learn,
availed themselves of
this study, which is not
tentative, but directly
in the line of what they
urge.

Inventional geome-
try should be given a
place in every school ;
and, if it becomes a
question of time be-
tween that and demon-
strative geometry, as-
sign the time, in nearly

every instance, to the former, because it is of far greater prac-
tical value, and many times more educative.

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS.

By W. D. LE SUEUE.

"VTOT many months ago we had in a single number of a lead-
-L-^ ing English review — the " Contemporary " — no less than
two articles by able writers lamenting the disintegrating action
of science on morality and religion. The first of these was from
the pen of the eminent Belgian publicist, M. Emile de Laveleye,
and was entitled " The Future of Religion" ; the second, con-
tributed by Miss Frances Power Cobbe, dealt in a trenchant and
aggressive manner with " The Scientific Spirit of the Age." Both
writers seem to be strong anti-Darwinians ; but both attack the
Darwinian doctrine, not on scientific grounds, but on account of
its alleged incompatibility with views and sentiments which they
regard as of pre-eminent importance. The only relevant criti-
cism, however, that can be directed against a scientific doctrine
is one intended to show that it is not what it claims to be —

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tliat U is not scientific — that it lias no proper place in tlie scheme
of our acquired and organized knowledge. If a scientific opin-
ion is not established, if it is not demonstrated beyond all possi-
bility of cavil, why concern one's self about it, except to invali-
date the claims that may have been wrongly put forward on its
behalf ? To discuss its bearing on religion is merely to suggest
that it is true, but that " pity "tis 'tis true," and to offer a premium
to weak souls to try to persuade themselves that it is not true. If
a doctrine is true, and yet inconsistent with a certain theological
scheme, what is going to be done about it ? Will whole books of
lamentations nullify it ? Will it be disproved by the most dif-
fuse argumentation designed to show that, if it holds its ground,
something else will have to give way ? Of course it will hold its
ground if it is true ; and of course whatever is inconsistent with
it must give way, and the world must adapt itself as best it can
to the change.

But let us consider in detail some of the accusations brought
against modern science and its professors by the critics whose
names we have mentioned. " Darwinism," says M. de Laveleye,
" applied to social sciences, sets aside all notions of equality, and
simply glorifies the triumph of the strongest and the cleverest."
Darwinism is properly a form or phase of biological doctrine, and
as such does not glorify anything particularly. Even in the realm
to which it strictly applies there is no glorification of natural se-
lection, merely a recognition of the fact that natural selection is
an active agency in the production of results that come under
our observation. The only possible application of Darwinism to
" social sciences " would lie in a close examination of social phe-
nomena, in order to see whether there also a principle of natural
selection might be found to be at work. In this sense Darwinism
may be said to have been applied to the social sciences, and with
good results so far as our comprehension of social phenomena is
concerned. But is it a sin to understand social phenomena ? In
all other departments of observation we esteem it a great advan-
tage to get on the track of Nature's operations, to be able to follow
her secret processes ; and it is really difficult to see why we should
debar ourselves from understanding, as far as it may be given to
us to do so, the course of things in the social order. The true
Darwinian does not seek to impose a law on things — he leaves
that to his theological censors ; he is content to discover law in
things. There is simply no sense, therefore, in talking of the
Darwinian exulting in force, or glorifying "the triumph of the
strongest and the cleverest." At the same time it may be remarked
that it is hard to understand how, except by some very special
and extraordinary interposition of Providence, " the strongest and
the cleverest" are to be prevented from triumphing; and upon the

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 369

whole it seems a more natural, and indeed beneficial arrangement,
that the " strong and clever " should dominate the weak and stu-
pid, than that the weak and stupid should dominate the strong
and clever. We doubt whether Nature will wait for the approval
of the Darwinian or of any one else before giving, as a general
thing, the race to the swift, the battle to the strong, and wages to
the man who can earn them.

The Darwinian is accused by the Belgian philosopher of hold-
ing that " charity and pretended justice interfere very wrongly "
when they seek to prevent stronger races and individuals from
usurping the place of weaker ones. The Darwinian takes up no
such absurd position. He is an observer of nature, we can not
too often repeat, and not a lawgiver. As an observer of nature
he perceives that physical strength divorced from intellectual
strength is ineffectual, and, in the struggle for life, hardly to be
distinguished from weakness. He observes further that intellect-
ual acuteness divorced from moral sentiment overreaches itself,
and becomes a kind of stupidity. From multiplied observations
of this nature he forms a truer idea, probably, than any mere
a priori reasoner as to the forces which rule the world now, and
as to those which will be chiefly dominant in the future. . He is
not opposed to any charity that, in his judgment, tends to make
men better ; but he could not be a man of any sense if he were
not opposed to much that calls itself charity. As to justice, he
sees in it the exjjression of a social force, which has its origin in
the fact that society is an organism, the general life of which
reacts upon any abnormal manifestations in special members or
organs. Far from its being true that justice " stands in the way
of the application of natural laws," justice may be said to be a
striking illustration of the great natural law or axiom that the
whole is greater than the part. To abandon justice would be to
place all social order at the mercy of individual caprice ; in other
words, it would be the suicide of society.

We are next treated to an imaginative sketch of what the
world would be like in the absence of all religion : " There is no
God and no immutable type of truth and justice." Just how the
persuasion that there is no God is going to take possession of
mankind is not explained, whether through the utter breaking
down of the evidence upon which the doctrine of a Divine Being
has heretofore been believed in, or through some further progress
of philosophical speculation. One is tempted to ask, however,
what the critic really wants. Are there certain doctrines which
he wishes to shield from criticism ? If so, why not say so dis-
tinctly ? Why not say in plain terms that mankind has, in some
way difficult to explain, got possession of certain opinions or con-
victions of inestimable value, but which can no more bear exami-

VOL. XXXIV. — 24

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nation than a soap-biibMe can bear handling, and that therefore
these must, at all costs, be protected from every breath of criti-
cism ? If this is not what is meant, if, on the contrary, it is
maintained that the being of God is a luminous truth, proclaim-
ing itself in the very heart of man, why not challenge all the
philosophies of the world to assail it at their peril ? Why not
say to Darwinians and all others : " Push your researches as far
as you like ; make your most comprehensive inductions, your
widest generalizations ; construct your most daring theories : not
only will nothing impair this great central truth of Deity, but
all the truths you gather will lack significance till illuminated by
it " ? But, strictly speaking, the Darwinian theory has nothing
to do with the question as to the existence of God. It is no more
atheistic in its nature than the Newtonian theory of gravitation.
The latter substituted for the angeli redores of Kepler an all-
pervading law of matter ; and Darwinism substitutes for certain
supposed acts of spasmodic creation an orderly sequence of devel-
opment ; but neither one nor the other professes to say how the
origin of the universe should be conceived. If Darwinism has
weakened the argument for theism in certain minds, it has
strengthened it in others — witness the recent address of Mr. Bal-
four on " Positivism," before the Church Congress at Manchester.
We are threatened with the destruction of an " immutable
type of truth and justice " ; but what is the exact meaning of
these words ? If truth is the conformity of statement to fact,
how can the idea of truth ever vanish from the world? Certainly,
if such a result should ever come about, it would not be due to
the influence of any honest form of scientific thought. We do
not think any one will say that Mr. Darwin did anything in his
long lifetime to weaken respect for truth, or to make truth less
a reality in the world. We know some people whose efforts
do tend strongly in that direction ; but, for the most part, they
are not Darwinians ; they are people who can not bring them-
selves to define the terms they use, and who try to make authority
do the work of demonstration. So successful, unfortunately, are
teachers of this class, that throughout a large portion of society—
the portion in which Darwinism is very generally flouted and
scouted — a sense for truth in intellectual matters is most con-
spicuously lacking. As to an " immutable type of justice," does
any one know what that means ? Can any one conceive what an
immutable type of justice would be like ? How would it be ex-
pressed ? In an act ? We can either now conceive an act that
would serve as an immutable type of justice, or we can not : if
we can, then the type is safe ; if we can not — which we imagine
is the truth — then we must forego the hope of an immutable
type, and content ourselves with what perhaps is good enough

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 371

for us — relative justice — such justice as will serve our need from
day to day.

Another threat held out is the miserahle condition to which
human life would be reduced if faith in a future life should dis-
appear— a result that Darwinism is credited with hastening. Let
us talk seriously on this subject. If there is evidence of a con-
scious life for human beings beyond the grave, Darwinism surely
can not overthrow it. It may possibly be that heretofore the
doctrine of immortality has been taught on very insufficient
grounds, and that Darwinism has so far awakened the popular
intelligence that the insufficiency has become apparent; but, if
so, Darwinism is not to blame. It is simply a question of repair-
ing the breaches in a damaged argument. A true doctrine does
not need false supports ; on the contrary, no greater service can
be rendered to a true doctrine than to throw it back on its legiti-
mate proofs. So far, therefore, as this or any other doctrine is
true, Darwinism can only establish it the more firmly by taking
away the insecure foundations on which it may provisionally
have rested. The question is worth raising, however, whether
the invalidation of this theory of a future life — not that we see
how Darwinism as such is going to accomplish such a result —
would have so disastrous an effect as M. de Laveleye assumes
upon human hapj)iness. He imagines some one addressing the
toilers of the world, and bidding them, as " there is no compen-
sation elsewhere," to raise their heads, "too long bent to the
dust beneath the yoke of tyrants and priests." Is it possible that
so distinguished a liberal as M, de Laveleye wants to join him-
self to tyrants and x^riests in their endeavors to hold down the
working-classes by the promise or the lure of " compensation else-
where"? Compensation for what? For injustice? But if the
next world is to make amends for the injustices of this, then why
lament over what the people might do if they rose against the
holders of wealth ? At the worst they could only work injustice,
and the next world will make amends for all that. "Why should
not next-world sauce, that is found so admirably adapted for the
laboring-man goose, be equally suitable for the capitalist gan-
der ? But if it is not injustice, but merely misery, for which a
compensation is to be found in a future life, the lesson to be
learned, we presume, is that the miseries of this life are to be
endured in a patient spirit, and that no particular effort need be
made to redress them here and now. But how all this talk about
a future life tends to confuse our ideas and paralyze our activi-
ties in dealing with present interests ! Instead of trying to admin-
ister an anodyne to those who suffer by holding out promises of
future enjoyment, we should be far more disposed to tell them
that their right and duty is to make the best of this world; and

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that the best will be made of it by studying and conforming to
the conditions on which happiness depends — the conditions that
make for the general improvement of life, physical and social.
To speak plainly, it seems to us a very mean business for those
who occupy positions of vantage in this world to preach compen-
sation in another world to their less favorably situated brethren,
in order to make them contented with their lot here. The sooner
the calculations of all men are placed on a present-world basis,
the better it will be for every important human interest.

But we are told that, not infrequently, " with religion moral-
ity also disappears " ; inasmuch as " science, when reduced to
material observation, can only know what is, not what ought to
be/' What is meant by reducing science to " material observa-
tion " ? Science, we take it, observes all that can be observed ;
and we are not aware of any proposition to cut science off from
any field in which observation is possible. If science — in the
broadest sense — can not teach us what ought to be, what can ?
The fact is, that " what ought to be " depends in the most inti-
mate manner on what is ; so that, the more perfectly one knows
what is, the more clearly he discerns what ought to be. Let any
intelligent man examine himself, and say whether any sense of
obligation he has does not directly result from some knowledge
he possesses of what is. " The denial of the spirituality of the
soul," says our philosopher, " uproots all reasonable motives for
being just and honest." But supposing that one religiously re-
frains from either affirming or denying a proposition the terms
of which he can not understand, is there any obstacle to his being
just and honest ? We trow not ; and this attitude of mind, we
fancy, is that which characterizes most thinkers of the Darwinian
or evolutionist school. But why any speculative opinion on the
nature of " the soul " should stand in the way of anybody's hon-
esty, it is hard to understand. If the opinion, whatever it may
be, has been honestly arrived at, and is honestly held, that sim-
ple fact will be a guarantee to some extent for honesty in other
matters. It is not difficult to find people whose views about
" the soul " are quite unexceptionable from the orthodox point
of view, but whose daily practice is far from exemplifying a
high type of honesty and justice. " Duty without God or a
future life," we are sententiously informed, " is a very fine word,
but it has no meaning whatever." Alas! what meaning has it
with many of those who profess the strongest belief in these
doctrines ? We should like to ask M. de Laveleye and others
who talk in this fashion whether, on the strength of their own
experience, they can affirm that theological unbelievers as a class
are morally inferior to believers. The fact is, as we believe, that
the average of morality in the so-called orthodox world is very

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 373

poor, and that it will continue to be so until a new element is in-
troduced into it from the scientific study of nature, the element
of intellectual honesty. It is easy to make such statements as
that, "if all religious feeling were to melt away, a return to
primitive barbarism would be inevitable," but to prove them
might not be so easy. It may be remarked that primitive bar-
barism has always been marked by strong religious feeling as
well as by comprehensive ignorance ; and, therefore, if we suc-
ceeded in getting back to primitive barbarism, we should have
reached a fine starting-point for another religious evolution. M.
de Laveleye, however, does not expect that things will get to
this pass ; his idea is that our future civilization will be presided
over by a purified form of Christianity based upon the most ele-
vated teachings of its Founder. What the future of Darwinism
will be he does not tell us — whether it will vanish from the earth
like an exhalation, or mingle with and perchance support the new
creed. If the former is to be its destiny, we should have some
hint as to the probable manner of its going ; if the latter, it
is hard to see why it should have been made an object of
attack.

Miss Cobbe, who discusses " The Scientific Spirit of the Age,"
admits that she does it " from an adverse point of view." The
" epoch-making biography of Mr. Darwin," containing his " ad-
mirably candid avowal of the gradual extinction in his mind of
the aesthetic and religious elements," has, she thinks, " arrested not
a few science-worshipers with the query. What shall it profit a
man if he find the origin of species and know exactly how earth-
worms and sun-dews conduct themselves, if all the while he grow
blind to the loveliness of nature, deaf to music, insensible to
l^oetry, and as unable to lift his soul to the divine and eternal as
were the jDrimeval apes from whom he has descended ? " Miss
Cobbe hastens to show that, for her own part, she has not sacri-
ficed everything to science, by making a few remarks in a very
unscientific sj^irit on the effects of scientific study. It promotes,
she tells us, iDractical materialism. The student of science will —
we quote the actual words of this once highly rational and thor-
oughly liberal-minded writer — "view his mother's tears not as
expressions of her sorrow, but as solutions of muriates and car-
bonates of soda, and of phosphates of lime ; and he will reflect that
they were caused, not by his heartlessness, but by cerebral press-
ure on her lachrymal glands. When she dies, he will ' peep and
botanize ' on her grave, not with the poet's sense of the sacrile-
giousness of such ill-placed curiosity, but with the serene convic-
tion of the meritoriousness of accurate observation of the flora of
a cemetery." What are we to say of this if not that it is unmiti-
gated trash ? Is it known that home affections are less powerful

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or less sacred in scientific than in unscientific honseholds ? Is
there even ground to conjecture that such is the case ? If not,
such language as the above simply shows that Miss Cobbe, who
has written so much and so well in times past, is growing hysteri-
cal at the very period of life when we might have expected to see
her manifesting in a special degree the qualities of moderation
and self-control, of calm insight and wide sympathy.

Miss Cobbe objects to the scientific spirit that it makes much
of disease and little of sin. If so, it is simply inverting the
habit of past times, which was to make much of sin and little of
disease. And what was " sin " in the apprehension of our ecclesi-
astically-directed forefathers ? To a large extent it consisted in
what the clergy of a certain church would call " irregularity " —
some want of conformity with ecclesiastical rules and require-
ments. It was by no means always coincident with immorality. A
man might have a lively sense of " sin " in connection with some
purely ceremonial matter, and very little sense of wrong-doing
in connection with the most grievous offenses against his fellow-
man. In obedience to the "code of honor," men who regarded
themselves as pillars of church and state would prepare to commit
deliberate murder ; while they would always consider a gambling
debt as vastly more sacred than one incurred for food or clothing.
The " Christian " nations have found enormous quantities of " sin "
in heresy, and very little indeed in mutual bloodshed on the most
appalling scale. Pious monarchs have appeased their consciences
by persecuting the Jews, and pious folk generally by hunting
witches. According to popular opinion in our own day, the Divine
anger is much more quickly kindled by the parody of a religious
rite than by the most hideous villainy perpetrated by a man upon
his neighbor. Every now and again there is a story in the papers
about some boy or man struck blind or dumb for blasphemy, or
of the personal appearance of the devil among some group of rev-
elers engaged in profanely mocking a religious ceremony ! So va-
rious have been the aspects in which " sin " has presented itself,
and so little relation has it seemed to bear in any of its best recog-
nized forms with practical morality, that it is not to be wondered
at if scientific men show some impatience with so vague and un-
satisfactory a conception, and prefer to consider all conduct simply
in its bearing on intelligible human interests. As to disease, they
necessarily regard it as the great enemy, primarily, of man's
physical estate, and secondarily of his intellectual and moral con-
stitution ; and if their chief efforts are bent on its extermination,
it would be hard to say in what more useful work they could be
engaged.

The next fault that Miss Cobbe finds with the scientific spirit,
which she characterizes as " analytic, self-asserting, criticaV is

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 375

tliat it is directly opposed to tlie " synthetic, reverential, sympa-
thizing spirit of art " ; and she holds np to scorn the physicist
who can not enjoy the representation of figures suspended in the
air in defiance of the law of gravity, and the zoologist who fails
to admire cherubs without stomachs, and centaurs with a stomach
to spare. Well, if we must confess it, our sympathy in each case
is with the man of science ; and we refuse to believe, on any evi-
dence as yet tendered, that art would be less art if it condescended
to recognize the laws of the physical universe. The poet Horace
was no mean artist in his day, nor is there any reason to suppose
that he was a victim to the scientific spirit ; yet he has left on
record his distaste for all such composite and unnatural creations
as Miss Cobbe takes under her protection. He thought the
centaur and the mermaid both very ridiculous figures. " Let a
thing be what it may," he said, " but let it be simple, let it pre-
serve its unity." * The greatest sculptors the world ever saw, those
of ancient Greece, devoted themselves almost wholly to the de-
lineation of the human form in its ideal perfection ; their art may
have sought to transcend the actual, but not the ^Dossible. If
they strove to better nature, it was not by flying in the face of
natural laws, but by a happier blending of natural elements ; just
as the gardener of to-day shows us what may be realized by giv-
ing to various plants better conditions than can be commanded in
the rude competition for existence. Miss Cobbe will have it that
the scientific spirit would kill poetry. We do not believe a word
of it ; but we do believe that the scientific spirit applied to poetry
would purge it of many morbid growths and ridiculous conceits.
Some not incomj)etent judges are of the opinion that the very
poem cited by Miss Cobbe in illustration, Shelley's " Sensitive-
Plant," is overladen with imagery. The late Mr. Arnold did not
find Shelley quite " sane " enough to be a poet of the first order ;
and if representatives of the scientific spirit occasionally find
something in his verse that they can not quite reconcile with com-
mon sense, they may plead that they are only finding what a great
literary critic had already found. In lieu of such delicate fancies
as Shelley has woven into his " Sensitive-Plant," the scientific
spirit, we are told, would "describe how the garden had been
thoroughly drained and scientifically manured with guano and
sewage." This is not argument; it is hysteria running a little
toward coarseness.

But may it be claimed that science is advancing the interests
of truth ? No ; not the science of our time. We are simply
gathering facts and deducing laws, subject to rectification when
further facts shall have been gathered. But " in other days truth
was deemed something nobler than this. It was the interests

* " Denique sit quidvis, simplex duntaxat et unum." — Ars Poetica, 23.

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that lay "beMiid and beyond tlie facts, their possible bearings on
man's deepest yearnings and snblimest hopes, which gave dig-
nity and meaning to the humblest researches into rocks and
plants." A little definition would come in well here. What are
the interests that lie beyond the facts ? "What are man's deepest
yearnings ? What are his snblimest hopes ? Are his snblimest
hopes .also his best-founded and most rational hopes ? Are his
deepest yearnings at all of a practical character ? If these yearn-
ings can be appeased at all by scientific conclusions, why not by
those arrived at in our day as well as by the less correct ones
arrived at in former days ? Finally, what can science do more
than put the most rational construction on facts ? If more than
this is wanted — some surplusage of belief — it can be got from
other quarters ; science should not be held responsible for fur-
nishing it, or blamable for not furnishing it. Miss Cobbe does not
seem to be of this opinion, however. . She says that, as " Science
has repeatedly renounced all pretension to throw light in any
direction beyond the sequence of physical causes and effects, she
has . . . abandoned her claim to be man's guide to truth." But
surely, if at any time in the past Science made good her claim to
transcend the sequence of physical causes and effects, we need not
concern ourselves with her present denegation of authority in
the higher region. If a teacher has really succeeded in teaching
us the calculus, we need not trouble ourselves much if he should
at some future time take it into his head that he never knew it
himself. Supposing even that he never did know it, and that we
only worked into it by the aid of his blunders, does not our
knowledge remain ? And what, in that case, can we do better
than turn round and teach our teacher ? On the other hand,
if our teacher never knew what he thought he knew, and if we
never learned what we thought we had learned, what can we both
do better than acknowledge the true state of the case, and begin
over again, should it seem desirable ?

We are told that Darwin " has destroyed, for those who accept
his views, the possibility for a rational reverence for the dictates
of conscience." How ? By raising a doubt as to " whether the
convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the
mind of the lower animals, are of any value." We should sup-
pose that, the further back an organism could be traced, the more
authority might be attached to what seem to be its laws. Who
would not much rather trust a conscience that had a long history
behind it, one stretching back even into the brute creation, than
a brand-new article of whose genesis no satisfactory account could
be given ? Moreover, how is it that we think so little of another
man's conscience when it enjoins acts of which we disapprove ;
and that he thinks so little of ours when it enjoins acts of which

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 377

he disapproves ? It no more occurs to us to think that the Deity
has specially enlightened him on the point in question, than it
occurs to him to pay our conscientious conviction a similar com-
pliment. We get over the difficulty, not improbably, by hinting
that he is a " crank,'' and the same mode of escape is open to him
in relation to us. The criticism of conscience, as Miss Cobbe must
well know, antedates Darwin by at least three centuries. The
philosopher whose motto was " Que sais-je ?" expounded its weak-
nesses more fully than Darwin ever did; and Locke defines it
very briefly as " our own opinion of the moral rectitude or prav-
ity of our own actions." Dugald Stewart shows that the senti-
ment of the sacredness of property varies from country to coun-
try, according to the amount of labor requisite to produce articles
of value ; and that in other respects local accidents decide to a
great extent the form that moral opinion takes. Hartley ex-
plained the phenomena of conscience by association ; and, since
his day, to go no further back, the idea of conscience as a special
organ uttering the voice of the Deity has been weakening among
thinking men. The evolutionists of to-day have simply suc-
ceeded in giving a wider basis to views that were in the world
long before their time; but to say that they have in any way
lowered the dignity of man's moral nature is to state what is not
the case. Miss Cobbe is pleased to suggest that the old ideas gave
a basis for moral effort " as firm as the law of the universe itself " ;
but that henceforth our only fulcrum will be " the sand-heap of
hereditary experiences." If anything could less deserve the des-
ignation of " sand-heap " than our accumulated hereditary expe-
riences, we should like to know what it is. In the case of the
sand-heap there is an utter lack of cohesion ; in the case of heredi-
tary experiences cohesion is of their very nature. Miss Cobbe
understands this perfectly ; it is a pity she should have written as
though she did not.

We are very far, therefore, from admitting that " the scientific
spirit " has " sprung a mine under the deepest foundations of mo-
rality " ; or that it is as impossible for a man who holds the evo-
lutionary idea of the origin of conscience "to cherish a great
moral ambition as it is for a stream to rise above its source." If,
on the one hand, science moderates ambition by keeping before
the mind the limits of the possible, on the other it stimulates am-
bition by producing the conviction that certain things are not
only possible, but certain of attainment if the right means are
used. There was a time in the history of science when men were
laboring to transmute the baser metals into gold ; that particular
ambition has been abandoned with others equally chimerical ; but
it surely can not be said that science to-day discourages effort in
the field of chemistry ? Precisely so in the moral region : we no

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

longer expect to work miracles, but we do expect and hope by
wisely concerted measures to accomplish better and greater results
than were ever accomplished by the enthusiasms and fanaticisms
of the past. Miss Cobbe says that " the man of science may be
anxious to abolish vice and crime, . . . but he has no longing to
enthrone in their place a lofty virtue demanding his heart and
life's devotion. He is almost as much disturbed by extreme good-
ness as by wickedness." Is not this weak and almost meaning-
less language ? What is meant by " enthroning a lofty virtue " in
the place of vice and crime ? The phrase has a fine sound, but it
seems to be a case of prceterea nihil. What a man of science
would like to see would be a society organized and governed ac-
cording to the best knowledge of the time. He would like to see
the laws of life and health respected, justice maintained among
men, and free scope given to individual development. As to the
lofty virtue which Miss Cobbe so strongly desiderates, the scien-
tific man would like to do away with the necessity for it by a
general leveling up of human life. He believes, with Jean
Jacques Rousseau, that i)rudence is a virtue which enables us to
dispense with many others ; and that, if the human race could be
taught prudence, great reformers and missionaries might have an
easy time of it, and perhaps be enabled to practice a little of their
charity at home — an excellent starting-point, according to the
proverb. The scientific man's ideal is necessarily a prosperous
community of fairly self-sufficing individuals, not a world of
misery lightened by the angel visitations and exertions of a few
heroic souls. Some may think bis ambition a low one, but he
does not feel it to be so himself ; he does not really see how any
one who wishes well to the mass of his fellow-men can have any
different ambition.

"Another threatening evil from the side of science is the
growth of a hard and pitiless temper." So Miss Cobbe ; and this
in face of the fact that never in the history of the world was there
so much sympathy with suffering, or so ready a recognition of
the rights of humanity, as there is to-day. Reference is made to
certain vague charges brought in an anonymous book against
hospital physicians and students; but, even admitting these
charges as true in some substantial measure — and we should be
sorry to do so without further proof — no good reason can be as-
signed for charging on the scientific world at large a morbid tem-
per displayed by a few representatives of one single profession.
Compare the average practicing physician of to-day with the
Slops and Sangrados of former times, and we fancy there is no
visible falling off in humanity or any other respectable quality.
What can not be denied is that science has done a great work in
mitigating suffering and lengthening human life; and it would

SCIENCE AND ITS ACCUSERS. 379

be strange indeed if tlie ministers of these benefits were them-
selves indifferent to the very objects of their labors.

Finally, joining hands with M. de Laveleye, Miss Cobbe de-
clares that science destroys religion. The only reply to give on
this point is just this : that, if science and religion are natural
enemies, one must destroy the other ; that if they are not, if each
has its basis in nature, then neither will destroy the other ;
but, after a mutual adjustment of their claims, each will con-
firm and strengthen the other. Science is nothing else than
knowledge of the facts and laws of the universe. If religion can
not survive the acquisition of such knowledge by mankind, then
it must perish ; but we should be sorry to afiirm that its position
is so precarious. One thing is certain, Science can not go back.
She has begun a series of interpretations of the great book of
ISTature that prove to be of ever-increasing interest from year to
year. She can not stop in this career. The book has only been
fairly opened ; the true key to its hieroglyphs has just been found ;
the practical results already achieved by means of the knowledge
acquired are full of advantage in the present and of promise for
the future ; what is there to do, therefore, but to go forward ?
Men of science may, as individuals, fall into many errors. They
may fail to realize the true dignity of their calling ; they may be
unduly swayed by party spirit or by personal aims ; they may be
unworthy ministers of the truths which they deliver. But sci-
ence, what is it but truth ? And what is the scientific s^^irit but
the spirit that bows to truth ? To all who are dissatisfied with
the present currents of thought we would, therefore, say : " Criti-
cise men as much as you please. Point out their errors, their fail-
ings, intellectual and moral, with all needful severity. Hold up
the standard by which you think their lives and thoughts ought
to be governed. Criticise theories, too. Let nothing pass unchal-
lenged or unscrutinized that you are not satisfied is true. Let no
glamour of great names, no popularity of certain modes of thought,
deter you from expressing your dissent from what you do not be-
lieve. But do not put yourselves hopelessly in the wrong by
attacking science, or by abusing the scientific spirit. You will
gain nothing by it, but will merely darken your understandings,
and shut yourselves out from the light that is ready to lighten
every man that comes into the world. Science will abide. It has
its roots in the everlasting rocks, and draws its aliment from uni-
versal nature. The scientific spirit will abide, admonishing men
of their errors, and leading them into all truth. It is wise to be
reconciled to such powers as these ; even now, while you are in
the way with them, make terms of peace, and find rest to your
souls."

38o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE SUANETIANS AND THEIR HOME.*

By DOUGLAS W. FEESHFIELD.

ANEW recreation-ground is wanted for those of our country-
men who, without being travelers by profession, find
pleasure and refreshment in rough travel among primitive people,
in mountain scenery and glacier air, in that sense of adventure
and discovery which is afforded only by unknown countries or
virgin heights, and on unmapped snowy chains. To such trav-
elers— or vacation tourists — I offer the Caucasus. Here, if they
make a hobby of map construction and correction, or of any
branch of natural science, or of linguistic and ethnological
studies, they will find a field for much useful work. At any rate,
they may enjoy themselves, and while they do so they can hardly
fail to increase knowledge. The country has been brought well
within the reach of vacation tourists, of every one with a two
months' holiday.

Nineteen years ago I described the first journey of exploration
made by mountaineers, in the technical sense of that word, in the
Caucasus, the ascents of its two most famous peaks, Elbruz and
Kazbeck, and the general character of the snowy-chain that con-
nects them. In July, 1887, in the company of M. de D^chy, and
with Alpine guides, I revisited this noble chain, twice crossed
some of its greatest glaciers, climbed several of its peaks, and
penetrated many hitherto unknown recesses. In the course of
these wanderings the mazes of the central group were unraveled,
and several prographical problems which had puzzled interme-
diate travelers received their final solution.

For the moment I propose to limit myself to some notes on
the scenery and people of a single district of the Caucasus, the
mountain-girt basin of Suanetia, and one or two sketches of
travel among its glaciers and snow-fields. Suanetia is the upper
basin of the Ingur, a river which flows into the Black Sea a few
miles east of Sukkum Kaleh. It is about the size of the valley
of Aosta, forty miles long by fifteen broad. It lies between three
thousand and seven thousand feet above the sea. On its north
run the snowy ramparts of the Caucasian crest, inclosing in their
complicated ridges four great glacier basins, and sending down
more directly toward the Ingur or its tributaries many ice-
streams, such as the Adish, which would be ranked in the Alps
as glaciers of the first class. These ridges are composed of crys-
talline rocks, which show the tendency, observable in the Alps
(e. g., in the Mont Blanc and Pelvoux groups), to arrange their

* From a paper read before the Eoyal Geographical Society, March 12, 1888.

THE SUANETIANS AND THEIR HOME. 381

summits in double lines, in tlie troughs between wliicli lie vast
neves. On either flank of the rigid granites lie beds of friable
schists, whose green, rounded outlines afford a striking contrast to
the snowy precipices of the great chain on which they abut. On
the south Suanetia is fenced in by the lofty slate ridge of the
Leila, which, running parallel to the main chain, attains a height
of over twelve thousand feet, and bears very considerable glaciers
toward its western end. In this direction the river escapes, be-
tween high spurs of the two chains, through a narrow porphy-
ritic gorge, which is not at present passable for horses. On the
east a low, grassy down (eight thousand six hundred feet), only
sixteen hundred feet above the highest villages, leads into a path-
less maze of forests and flowers — the wilderness in which the
Skenes Skali, a tributary of the Rion, has its sources. Within
these ridges and gorges the inhabitants have lived for centuries,
isolated from the outer world, forgetting and forgotten.

They are first mentioned by Strabo, under the name of Soani,
as a powerful nation ; but Suaneti, as far as I could learn, is what
they now call themselves. At the last census they numbered
about twelve thousand. Over one third of the race, known from
the native prince who ruled over them as the Dadian's Suane-
tians, live on the upper Skenes Skali. They have been more or
less merged in the surrounding Mingrelian populations. The Sua-
netians are mentioned by Pliny and Procopius. Their country
was reserved by Chosroes for Persia in his treaty with Justinian.
It was converted to Christianity before the tenth century, and
covered with small chapels or churches. Seven hundred years
ago it formed part of the kingdom of Queen Thamara, the heroine
who occupies the place of Alexander or Charlemagne in Geor-
gian legend. . The Suanetians still chant ballads in her honor.
Suanetia soon fell off from the Georgian kingdom. It became,
at some time in the last century, wholly unattached. Since that
time the district has enjoyed a complete form of communal rule.
Each community is made up of several villages, originally con-
sisting each of members of the same family or gens, but now in-
cluding several families. Members of the same family can not
intermarry. Women and pasturage rights have been occasions
of many feuds and vendettas. When a woman changed hands or
husbands, the parties concerned could not always agree on the
value in cattle — the Suanetians had no money — of the lady ex-
changed. Hence arose assaults of persons and batteries of tow-
ers. The affairs of the hamlet, so far as they were not settled by
appeals to arms, were regulated by an assembly of adult males,
in which unanimity was required for a valid decision. The for-
eign relations of the Suanetians consisted, for the most part, in
predatory excursions into their neighbors' pastures. They were

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arrant sheep-stealers and cattle-lifters. Strangers met with no
hospitality. On the contrary, it was the custom to exact a pay-
ment from them for passage, and the custom still survives in
petty demands made for halting in a remote village. The Suane-
tians may fairly be described as reverted pagans. Some Chris-
tian rites — fasting in Lent, and the use of the sign of the cross —
they have doubtless preserved. But these survivals seem to me
no more to entitle them to the name of Christians than our own
midsummer-night fires constitute us sun-worshipers. The coun-
try is covered with small churches and chapels, dating probably
from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, built, unlike the houses
and towers, of regularly squared blocks of limestone; the apse
is sometimes ornamented externally with carving or an arcade of
columns in low relief. The bells, as in Corsica, are suspended from
a wooden frame outside the church. The altar-screens are ar-
ranged as in Greek churches. Long before Suanetia had obtained
home-rule, it had advanced to church disestablishment. The
priests disappeared, and their place was taken by a hereditary
caste of local elders, who superintended the village feasts and sac-
rifices. The ecclesiastical property was secularized; a village
vestry assumed its control, and kept the key of the church, which,
no longer reserved for pious uses, served principally as a treasure-
house. Inside, in heavy chests, were stored the sacred books and
images — some of them beautiful works of art — Persian silks,
strange three-sided pieces of wood, carved with old Georgian in-
scriptions, flint-headed spears and arrows, and dozens of horns of
the Caucasian tur. These things are still kept locked up, and it
is almost impossible for any stranger to see them. The priests
having been disposed of, services and sacraments naturally went
too. Marriage consisted in sewing together the garments of the
bride and bridegroom; baptism was travestied; the ancient
funeral ceremonies were revived or continued. Many graves sur-
round the churches, but others are found under particular trees.
It is obvious that tree-worship survives in Suanetia. In the cen-
ter of many hamlets there is a venerable tree or trunk — walnut,
birch, or cherry — under which stand two or three rude chairs.
Doubtless these are old places of assembly. The people are said
(on the authority of a Mingrelian priest) to venerate the heavenly
bodies. The Suanetians who carried our goods over the chain,
appeared to pray to and praise the sun directly. They do no
work on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, thus partially making up
for their shortcomings by keeping the Sabbaths of three relig-
ions.

The Suanetians had home-rule and church disestablishment
and disendowment. They had solved another pressing problem :
they had, without emigration, overcome the natural tendency of

THE SUANETIANS AND THEIR HOME. 383

the population to increase beyond the limits that their territory
would support. They had even caused it to diminish. Their
system was simple and effectual. They put a pinch of ashes, at
birth, into the mouths of all superfluous female babies. They
took a masculine view of superfluity. At the last census there
were four males to three females in the Ingur Valley.

Poetry, where it exists — above all, primitive poetry and local
ballads — often gives a nearer insight into the condition of life and
manners of a race than religious rites and beliefs. Dr. Radde has
fortunately preserved a number of very curious Suanetian bal-
lads, such as are still sung under some ancient tree, or on the
march along the mountain-path. They celebrate the golden time
of Thamara, past forays across the great chain into the lands of
the Baksan Tartars, or among the Abkasians to the west.

Under Russian rule a change is slowly coming over the peo-
ple ; schools, perhaps the only effectual civilizers, are doing their
work. Everywhere I noticed in the rising generation an absence
of the wild-animal expression which was the characteristic of the
free Suanetians twenty years ago, and which all travelers have
observed.

The Suanetians are not mainly a pastoral people. They keep
a few flocks of sheep and herds of horses. Bullocks are used to
draw sledges, and are eaten in winter. But flocks and herds are
seldom found, as among the Tartars beyond the chain, on the high
pastures, and consequently there are no paths to them. To reach
the upper glacier basins you must find and follow almost untrace-
able hunters' tracks. Pigs, the smallest breed I ever saw, and
geese wander round the homesteads, which are guarded by dogs.
The villages are surrounded by barley-fields fenced in with neat
wattling. The paths between them are pleasant, and less stony
than most Alpine mule-roads. The inhabitants have learned to
cultivate potatoes and other vegetables. They cut a certain
amount of hay on the high pastures. Sometimes they cross the
chain in summer, and let themselves out as laborers to the indo-
lent Tartars ; but there is no love lost between them. The Mus-
sulmans look on the Suanetians with contempt as pig-eaters. I
heard the Suanetians hiss " Cherkess ! " at our Kabardan Cossack ;
and the Cossack — a mild and amiable creature, the reverse of the
popular idea of a Cossack — despised and distrusted every Suane-
tian from the bottom of his soul. A race-hatred of centuries was
recognizable in its ashes.

Variety is the marked type characteristic of the Suanetians.
One village head-man, huge and bull-like, was like a figure from
an Assyrian monument. Of the three men who led our baggage-
horses from Ushkul, one wore the clothes and had something of
the air and manners of a Persian gentleman. Another was a

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

splendid, good-tempered, fair giant. Fair men with tawny heads
are common. The third was a tattered, dark, stumpy, noisy bar-
barian. The costumes and manners of the women are various.

After its natural beauties, its jDeaks and forests, what strikes
the traveler in Suanetia is the local architecture. The castellated
villages which lawlessness has produced are as prominent in his
eyes as the castles of the robber barons are to the Rhine tourist,
or the towers of San Gemignano to those who wander in Italian
by-ways. Nothing more strangely fantastic can be imagined than
these towered hamlets. Mestia alone has seventy towers, from
forty to eighty feet high, Ushkul about fifty, and two castles be-
sides. Let me try to describe, from a sketch, a street scene in
Chubiani, one of the hamlets of Ushkul, seven thousand feet
above the sea. The house is a square block, built of irregular
pieces of slate and slate-roofed. The only windows are small
holes, high uj), and unclosed. The smoke escapes through the
roof. Birch-bark torches are used at night. A wooden passage,
capable of being cut down in case of emergency, leads to the
tower of refuge. Let us enter the house : it consists of one large
ill-lighted room ; two or three rude stones form the hearth ; there
are a few rough wooden benches and stools on the earthen floor ;
in the corner is a raised wooden platform with skins and cushions,
the family couch. Groping up a dark passage, we reach the tower.
Ladders, easily removable, reach from story to story. The ladders
are short, and to gain each story one is compelled to scramble up
projecting stones left in the wall. Skulls of wild goats, and other
odds and ends, lie about on the landings. On the top story are
loop-holes for firing. These towers, unlike the churches, are built
of untrimmed black slates, generally whitewashed. At Ushkul,
however, there are two castles, one fifty the other five hundred
feet above the village (attributed, of course, to Queen Thamara),
in which the black slate has been left in its native color. In the
lower castle I found a ruined chapel. The higher castle com-
mands a view of the pass to the Upper Skenes Skali, and must
have been the defense of this entrance to the valley. M. Bus-
sanio Nichoradse, a native of Ushkul, and a schoolmaster, told
me that in ancient times all the families in a village were bound
to assist their neighbor who was building a tower, but that no
new towers had been raised, though many had been repaired, with-
in his memory. A somewhat similar custom existed in the pres-
ent generation at Chamounix.

" Savage Suanetia," the title chosen by an enthusiastic sports-
man for the most recent description of this district, although
in one sense appropriate, seems to me, so far as nature is con-
cerned, singularly unhappy. Smiling, sylvan — such are the epi-
thets that come naturally to the traveler's lips as he suddenly

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 385

emerges from the icy regions of the Caucasus into the wooded
hills, gentle sloj^es, sunny meadows, and neatly fenced barley-
fields. Compared with the warrens or stone-heaps which serve
the Tartars of the northern valleys for dwellings, even the
towered villages have at a distance a false air of civilization.
Suanetia in June, in the flower-time of the rhododendrons and
azaleas, and again in October, when the azalea-leaves are red, and
the birches golden against fresh autumn snows, must be one of
the wonders of the world. Spaciousness, sunniness, variety, are the
constant qualities of Suanetian landscapes. The great basin of
the Ingur, forty miles long by ten to fifteen broad, is broken by
no ridges that approach the snow-line, and the long, undulating,
grassy spurs that divide the glens, in place of narrowing the hori-
zon, furnish in their soft lines the most effective contrast possible
to the icy peaks and rigid precipices of Shkara and Tetnuld, of
Ushbe and the Leila. From the varied beauty of forests and flow-
ers the eyes are carried at once to the pure glaciers, which hang
like silver stairs on the green lower slopes of the snowy chain.
The atmosphere has none of the harshness of that of Switzerland
in summer. The breezes from the Black Sea bring up showers
and moisture to soften the outlines and color the distances ; the
wind from the steppe suffuses the air with an impalpable haze,
through which the great peaks glimmer like golden pillars of the
dawn.

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE.*

By Prof. S. P. LANGLEY.
II.

THE first five years of this century are notable in the history
of radiant energy, not only for the work of Leslie, and for
the observation by Wollaston, Ritter, and others, of the so-called
"chemical" rays beyond the violet, but for the appearance of
Young's papers, re-establishing the undulatory theory, which he
indeed considered in regard to light, but which was obviously
destined to affect most powerfully the theory of radiant energy
in general.

We are now in the year 1804, or over a century and a quarter
since the corpuscular theory was emitted, and during that time it
has gradually grown to be an article of faith in a sort of scientific
church, where Newton has come to be looked on as an infallible
head, and his views as dogmas, about which no doubt is to be tol-
erated ; but if we could go back to Cambridge in the year 1668,

* President's address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
at Cleveland, Ohio, August 15, 1888. Reprinted from "Science."
TOL. xxxrv. — 25

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

when the obscure young student, in no way conscious of his future
pontificate, takes his degree (standing twenty-third on the list of
graduates), we should probably find that he had already elaborated
certain novel ideas about the undulatory theory of light, which he
at any rate promulgates a few years later, and afterward, pressed
with many difficulties, altered, as we now know, to an emissive one.

Probably, if we could have heard his own statement then, he
would have told how sorely tried he was between these two opin-
ions, and, while exxDlaining to us how the wavering balance came
to lean as it did, would have admitted, with the modesty proper
to such a man, that there was a great deal to be said on either
side. We may, at any rate, be sure that it would not be from the
lips of Newton himself that we should have had this announced
as a belief which was to be part of the rule of faith to any man of
science.

But observe how, if Science and Theology look askance at each
other, it is still true that some scientific men and some theologians
have, at any rate, more in common than either is ready to admit ;
for at the beginning of this century Newton's followers, far less
tolerant than their master, have made out of this modest man
a scientific pontiff, and out of his diffident opinions a positive
dogma, till, as years go on, he comes to be cited as so infallible
that a questioning of these opinions is an offense deserving ex-
communication.

This has grown to be the state of things in 1804, when Young,
a man possessing something of Newton's own greatness, ventures
to put forward some considerations to show that the undulatory
theory may be the true one, after all. But the prevalent and
orthodox scientific faith was still that of the material nature of
light ; the undulatory hypothesis was a heresy, and Young a here-
tic. If his great researches had been reviewed by a physicist or a
brother worker, who had himself trodden the difficult path of dis-
covery, he might have been treated at least intelligently ; but,
then, as always, the camp-followers, who had never been at the
front, shouted from a safe position in the rear to the man in the
dust of the fight, that he was not proceeding according to the ap-
proved rules of tactics ; then, as always, these men stood between
the public and the investigator, and distributed praise or blame.

If you wish to hear how the scientific heretic should be rebuked
for his folly, listen to one who never made an observation, but,
having a smattering of everything books could teach about every
branch of knowledge, was judged by himself and by the public to
be the fittest interpreter to it, of the physical science of his day.
I mean Henry Brougham, the future Lord-Chancellor of England,
the universal critic, of whom it was observed that, " if he had but
known a little law, he would have known a little of everything."

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 387

He uses the then all-powerful " Edinburgh Review '* for his pul-
pit, and notices Young's great memoir as follows : " This paper
contains nothing which deserves the name either of experiment or
discovery ; and it is, in fact, destitute of every species of merit.
. . . The paper which stands first is another lecture, containing
more fancies, more blunders, more unfounded hypotheses, more
gratuitous fictions, . . . and all from the fertile yet fruitless brain
of the eternal Dr. Young. In our second number we exposed the
absurdity of this writer's ' law of interference,' as it pleases him
to call one of the most incomprehensible suppositions that we re-
member to have met with in the history of human hypotheses."

There are whole pages of it, but this is enough ; and I cite this
passage among many such at command, not only as an example
of the way the undulatory theory was treated at the beginning of
this century in the first critical journal of Europe, but as another
example of the general fact that the same thing may appear in-
trinsically absurd, or intrinsically reasonable, according to the
year of grace in which we hear of it. The great majority, even
of students of science, must take their opinions ready-made as to
science in general ; each knowing, so far as he can be said to know
anything at first hand, only that little corner which research has
made specially his own. The moral we can all draw, I think, for
ourselves.

In spite of such criticism as this, the undulatory hypothesis of
light made rapid way, and carried with it, one would now say, the
necessary inference that radiant heat was due to undulations also.
This was, however, no legitimate inference to those to whom ra-
diant heat was still a fluid ; and yet, in spite of all, the modern
doctrine now begins to make visible progress.

A marked step is taken about 1811 by a young Frenchman, De
la Roche, who deserves to be better remembered than he is, for he
clearly anticipated some of Melloni's discoveries. De la Roche
in particular shows that of two successive screens the second ab-
sorbs heat in a less ratio than the first ; whence he, before any one
else, I believe, derives the just and most important, as well as the
then most novel conception, that radiant heat is of different kinds.
He sees also that, as a body is heated more and more, there is a
gradual and continual advance not only in the amount of heat it
sends out, but in the kind, so that, as the temperature still rises,
the radiant heat becomes light by imperceptible gradations ; and
he concludes that heat and light are due to one simple agent,
which, as the temperature rises yet more, appears more and more
as light, or which, as the luminous radiation is absorbed, reappears
as heat. Very little of it, he observes, passes even transparent
screens at low temperatures, but more and more does so as the
temperature rises. All this is a truism in 1888, but it is admirably

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

new as well as true in 1811 ; and if De la Roclie had not been re-
moved by an early death, his would have not improbably been
the greatest name of the century in the history of our subject ; an
honor, however, which was in fact reserved for another.

The idea of the identity of light and radiant heat had by this
time made such progress that the attempt to polarize the latter
was made in 1818 by Berard. "We have just seen in Herschel's
case how the most sound experiment may lead to a wrong conclu-
sion, if it controverts the popular view. We now have the con-
verse of this in the fact that the zeal of those who are really in
the right way may lead to unsound and inconclusive experiment ;
for Berard experimentally established, as it was supposed, the fact
that obscure radiant heat can be polarized. So it can, but not
with such means as Berard possessed, and it was not till a dozen
years more that Forbes actually proved it. At this time, however
fairly we seem embarked on the paths of study which are followed
to-day, and while the movement of the main body of workers is in
the right direction, it is yet instructive to observe how eminent
men are still spending great and conscientious labor, their object
in which is to advance the cause, while the effect of it is to undo
the little which has been rightly done, and to mislead those who
have begun to go right.

As an instance both of this and of the superiority of modern
apparatus, we may remark — after having noticed that the ability
of obscure heat to pass through glass, if completely established,
would be a strong argument in favor of its kinship to light, and
that De la Roche and others had indicated that it would do so (in
which we now know they were right) — that at this stage, or about
1816, Sir David Brewster, the eminent physicist, made a series of
experiments which showed that it would not so pass. Ten years
later, in view of the importance of the theoretical conclusion,
Baden Powell repeated his observations with great care, and con-
firmed them, announcing that the earlier experimenters were
wrong, and that Brewster was right. Here all these years of con-
scientious work resulted in establishing, so far as it could be
established, a wholly wrong conclusion in place of a right one
already gained. It may be added that, with our present appa-
ratus, the passage of obscure radiant heat through glass could be
made convincingly evident in an experiment which need not last
a single second.

We are now arrived at a time when the modern era begins ;
and in looking back over one hundred and fifty years, from the
point of view of the experimenter himself, with his own statement
of the truth as he saw it, we find that the comparison of the prog-
ress of science to that of an army, which moves, perhaps with the
loss of occasional men, but on the whole victoriously and in one

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE, 389

direction, is singularly misleading; and I state this more con-
fidently here, because there are many in this audience who did
not get their knowledge of nature from books only, but who have
searched for the truth themselves ; and, speaking to them, may I
not say that those who have so searched know that the most honest
purpose and the most patient striving have not been guarantees
against mistakes— mistakes which were probably hailed at the
time as successes ? It was some one of the fraternity of seekers,
I am sure, who said, " Show me the investigator who has never
made a mistake, and I will show you one who has never made a
discovery."

We have seen the whole scientific body, as regards this partic-
ular science of radiant energy, moving in a mass, in a wrong
direction, for a century ; we have seen that individuals in it go
on their independent paths of error ; and we can only wonder that
an era should have come in which such a real advance is made as
in ours.

That era has been brought in by the works of many, but more
than by any other through the fact that in the year 1801 there
came into the world at Parma an infant who was born a physicist,
as another is born a poet ; nay, more ; who was born, one might
say, a devotee of one department of physics — that of radiant heat ;
being affected in his tenderest years with such a kind of preco-
cious passion for the subject as the childish Mozart showed for
music. He was ready to sacrifice everything for it ; he struggled
through untold difficulties, not for the sake of glory or worldly
profit, but for radiant heat's sake ; and when fame finally came to
him, and he had the right to speak of himself, he wrote a preface
to his collected researches, which is as remarkable as anything in
his works. In this preface he has given us, not a summary of pre-
vious memoirs on the subject, not a table of useful factors and
formulae, not anything at all that an English or American scien-
tific treatise usually begins with, but the ingenuous story of his
first love, of his boyish passion for this beloved mistress ; and all
this with a trust in us his readers which is beautiful in its child-
like confidence in our sympathy. I must abbreviate and injure
in order to quote ; but did ever a learned physical treatise and col-
lection of useful tables begin like this before ? —

" I was born at Parma, and when I got a holiday used to go
into the country the night before and go to bed early, so as to get
up before the dawn. Then I used to steal silently out of the house,
and run, with bounding heart, till I got to the top of a little hill,
where I used to set myself so as to look toward the east." There,
he tells us, he used, in the stillness of nature, to wait the rising
sun, and feel his attention rapt, less with the glorious spectacle of
the morning light itself than with the sense of the mysterious

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

heat wMch. accompanied its beams, and brought something more
necessary to our life and that of all nature than the light itself.

The idea that not only mankind, but nature, would perish
though the light continued, if this was divorced from heat, made
a profound impression, he tells us, on his childish mind. The
statement that such an idea could enter with dominating force
into the mind of a child will perhaps seem improbable to most.
It will, however, be comprehensible enough to some here, I have
no doubt.

Is there some ornithologist present who remembers a quite in-
fantile attraction which birds possessed for him above all the rest
of the animated creation ; some chemist whose earliest recollec-
tions are of the strange and quite abnormal interest he found as a
child in making experimental mixtures of every kind of accessible
household fluid and solid ; some astronomer who remembers when
a very little creature that not only the sight of the stars, but of
any work on astronomy, even if utterly beyond his childish com-
prehension, had an incomprehensible attraction for him ? I will
not add to the list. There are, at any rate, many here who will
understand and believe Melloni when he tells how this radiant
heat, commonplace to others, was wonderful to his childish
thought, and wrought a charm on it such that he could not see
wood burn in a fireplace, or look at a hot stove, without its draw-
ing his mind, not to the fire or iron itself, but to the mysterious
effluence which it sent.

This was the youth of genius ; but let not any fancy that genius
in research is to be argued from such premonitions alone, unless
it can add to them that other qualification of genius which has
caused it to be named the faculty of taking infinite pains. Mel-
loni's subsequent labors justified this last definition also ; but I
can not speak of them here, further than to say that, after going
over a large part of his work myself, with modern methods and
with better apparatus, he seems to me the man, of all great stu-
dents of our subject, who, in reference to what he accomplished,
made the fewest mistakes.

Melloni is very great as an experimenter, and owes much of
his success to the use of the newly invented thermopile, which is
partly his own. I can here, however, speak only of his results,
and of but two of these — one generally known ; the other, and the
more important, singularly little known, at least in connection
with him. The first is the full recognition of the fact, partly an-
ticipated by De la Eoche, that radiant heat is of different kinds,
that the invisible emanations differ among themselves just as
those of light do. Melloni not only established the fact, but in-
vented a felicitous term for it, which did a great deal to stamp it
on recognition — the term " thermochrose," or heat-color, which

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 391

helps lis to remember that, as the visible and apparently simple
emanation of light is found to have its colors, so radiant heat,
the invisible but apparently simple emanation, has what would
be colors to an eye that could see them. This result is well known
in connection with Melloni.

The other and the greater, which is not generally known as
Melloni's, is the generalization that heat and light are effects of
one and the same thing, and merely different manifestations of it.
I translate this important statement as closely as possible from
his own words. They are that " Liglit is merely a series of calo-
rific indications sensible to the organs of sight, or Vice Versa, the
radiations of obscure heat are veritable invisible radiations of
light." The italics and the capitals are Melloni's own. He wishes
to have no ambiguity about his announcement behind which he
may take shelter ; and he had so firm a grasp of the great prin-
ciple that, when his first attempts to observe the heat of the moon
failed, he persevered, because this principle assured him that
where there was light there must be heat. This statement was
made in 1843, and ought, I think, to insure to Melloni the honor
of being the first to distinctly announce this great principle. The
announcement passed apparently unnoticed, in spite of his ac-
knowledged authority ; and the general belief not merely in dif-
ferent entities in the spectrum, but in a material caloric, con-
tinued as strong as ever. If you want to see what a hold on life
error has, and how hard it dies, turn to the article " Heat," in the
eighth edition of the " Encyclopsedia Britannica," where you will
find the old doctrine of caloric still in possession of the field in
1853 ; and still later, in the generally excellent " English Ency-
clopaedia " (edition of 1867), the doctrine of caloric is, on the whole,
preferred to the undulatory hypothesis. It is very probable that
a searcher might find many traces of it yet lingering among us ;
so that Giant Caloric is not, perhaps, even yet quite dead, though
certainly grown so crazy, and stiff in the joints, that he can now
harm pilgrims no more.

So far as I know, no physicist of eminence reasserted Melloni's
principle till J. W. Draper, in 1872. Only sixteen years ago, or in
1872, it was almost universally believed that there were three dif-
ferent entities in the spectrum, represented by actinic, luminous,
and thermal rays. Draper remarks that a ray consists solely of
ethereal vibrations whose lost vis viva may produce either heat
or chemical change. He uses Descartes's analogy of the vibration
of the air, and sound ; but he makes no mention either of Des-
cartes or of Melloni, and speaks of the principle as leading to a
modification of views then " universally " held. Since that time
the theory has made such rapid progress that, though some of the
older men in England and on the European continent have not

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

welcomed it, its adoption among all physicists of note may l)e
said to be now universal, and a new era in our history begins
with it. I mean by the recognition that there is one radiant en-
ergy which appears to us as "actinic/' or " luminous/' or " thermal "
radiation, according to the way we observe it. Heat and light,
then, are not things in themselves, but, whether different sensa-
tions in our own bodies or different effects in other bodies, are
merely effects of this mysterious thing we call radiant energy,
without doing more in this than give a name to the ignorance
which still hangs over the ultimate cause.

I am coming down dangerously near our own time — danger-
ously for one who would be impartial in dealing with names of
those living and with controversies still burning. In such a brief
review of this century's study of radiant energy in other forms
than light, it has been necessary to pass without mention the
labors of such men as Pouillot and Becquerel in France, of Tyn-
dall in England, and of Henry in America. It has been necessary
to omit all mention of those who have advanced the knowledge of
radiant energy as light, or I should have had to speak of labors
so diverse as those of Fraunhofer, of Kirchhoff, of Fresnel, of
Stokes, of Lockyer, and many more. I have made no mention, in
the instructive history of error, of many celebrated experimental
researches ; in particular of such a problem as the measurement
of solar heat, great in importance, but apparently most simple in
solution, yet which has now been carried on from generation to
generation, each experimenter materially altering the result of
his predecessor, and where our successors will probably correct
our own results in time. I have not spoken of certain purely ex-
perimental investigations, like those of Dulong and Petit, which
have involved immense and conscientious labor, and have appar-
ently rightly earned the name of " classic " from one generation,
only to be recognized by the next as leading to wholly untrust-
worthy results, and leaving the work to be done again with new
methods, guided by new principles.

In these instances, painstaking experiments have proved in-
sufficient, less from want of skill in the investigator than from
his ignorance of principles not established in time to enable him
to interpret his experiments ; but, if there were opportunity, it
would be profitable to show how inexplicably sometimes error
flourishes, grows, and maintains an apparently healthy appear-
ance of truth, without having any root whatever. Perhaps I may
cite one instance of this last from my own experience. About
fifteen years ago it was generally believed that the earth's atmos-
phere acted exactly the part of the glass in a hot-bed, and that it
kept the planet warm by exerting a specially powerful absorption
on the infra-red rays.

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 393

I had been trained in the orthodox scientific church, of which
I am happy to be still a member ; but I had acquired perhaps an
almost undue respect, not only for her dogmas, but for her least
sayings. Accordingly, when my own experiments did not agree
with the received statement, I concluded that my experiments
must be wrong, and made them all over again, till spring, sum-
mer, autumn, and winter had passed, each season giving its own
testimony ; and this for successive years. The final conclusion
was irresistible, that the universal statement of this alleged well-
known fact (inexplicable as this might seem, in so simple a mat-
ter) was directly contradicted by experiment.

I had some natural curiosity to find how every one knew this
to be a fact ; but search only showed the same statement (that
the earth's atmosphere absorbed dark heat like glass) repeated
everywhere, with absolutely nowhere any observation or evidence
whatever to prove it, but each writer quoting from an earlier one,
till I was almost ready to believe it a dogma superior to reason,
and resting on the well-known " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod
ah omnibus, creditum est."

Finally, I appear to have found its source in the writings of
Fourier, who, alluding to De Saussure's experiments (which
showed that dark heat passed with comparative difficulty through
glass), observes that, if the earth's atmosphere were solid, it would
act as the glass does. Fourier simply takes this (in which he is
wholly wrong) for granted ; but as he is an authority on the
theory of heat, his words are repeated without criticism, first by
Poisson, then by others, and then in the text-books; and, the
statement gaining weight by age, it comes to be believed abso-
lutely, on no evidence whatever, for the next sixty years, that our
atmosphere is a powerful absorber of precisely those rays which
it most freely transmits.

The question of fact here, though important, is, I think, quite
secondary to the query it raises as to the possible unsuspected in-
fluence of mere tradition in science, when we do not recognize it
as such. Now, the Roman Church is doubtless quite logical in
believing in traditions, if these are recommended to the faithful
by an infallible guide ; but are we, who have no infallible guide,
quite safe in believing all we do, with our fond persuasion that in
the scientific body mere tradition has no weight ?

In even this brief sketch of the growth of the doctrine of ra-
diant energy, we have perhaps seen that the history of the prog-
ress of this department of science is little else than a chapter in
that larger history of human error which is still to be written,
and which, it is safe to say, would include illustrations from other
branches of science as well as my own.

But — and here I ask pardon if I speak of myself — I have been

394

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

led to review tlie labors of other searchers from this standpoint,
because I had first learned, out of j)ersonal experience, that the
most painstaking care was no guarantee of final accuracy ; that to
labor in the search for a truth with such endless pains as a man
might bestow if his own salvation were in question did not neces-
sarily bring the truth ; and because, seeking to see whether this
were the lot of other and greater men, I have found that it was,
and that, though no one was altogether forsaken of the Truth he
sought (or, on the whole review of his life as a seeker, but might
believe he had advanced her cause), yet there was no criterion by
which it could be told at the time whether, when after long wait-
ing there came in view what seemed once more her beautiful face,
it might not prove, after all, the mockery of error ; and probably
the appeal might be made to the experience of many investigators
here with the question, " Is it not so ? "

What then ? Shall we admit that truth is only to be surely
found under the guidance of an infallible church ? If there be
such a church, yes ! Let us, however, remember that the church
of science is not such a one, and be ready to face all the conse-
quences of the knowledge that her truths are put forward by her
as provisional only, and that her most faithful children are wel-
come to disprove them. What then, again ? Shall we say that
the knowledge of truth is not advancing ? It is advancing, and
never so fast as to-day ; but the steps of its advance are set on
past errors, and the new truths become such stepping-stones in
turn.

To say that what are truths to one generation are errors to the
next, or that truth and error are but different aspects of the same
thing to our poor human nature, may be to utter truisms ; but
truisms which one has verified for one's self out of a personal ex-
perience are apt to have a special value to the owner ; and these
lead, at any rate, to the natural question, " Where is then the evi-
dence that we are advancing in reality, and not in our own imagi-
nation ? "

There are many here who will no doubt heartily subscribe to
the belief that there is no absolute criterion of truth for the indi-
vidual, and admit that there is no positive guarantee that we, with
this whole generation of scientific men, may not, like our pre-
decessors, at times go the wrong way in a body, yet who believe
as certainly that science as a whole, and this branch of it in par-
ticular, is advancing with hitherto unknown rapidity. In asking
to be included in this number, let me add that to me the criterion
of this advance is not in any ratiocination, not in any a priori
truth, still less in the dictum of any authority, but in the un-
doubted observation that our doctrine of radiant energy is reach-
ing out over nature in every direction, and proving itself by the

THE HISTORY OF A DOCTRINE. 395

fact tliat tlirougli its aid nature obeys us more and more ; proving
itself by such, material evidence as is found in the practical appli-
cations of the doctrine, in the triumphs of modern photography,
in the electric lights in our streets, and in a thousand ways which
I will not pause to enumerate.

And here I might end, hoping that there may be some lessons
for us in the history of what has been said. I will venture to ask
the attention to one more, perhaps a minor one, but of a practical
character. It is that in these days, when the advantage of organi-
zation is so fully realized, when there is a well-founded hope that
by co-operation among scientific men knowledge may be more
rapidly increased, and when in the great scientific departments of
government and elsewhere there is a tendency to the formation of
the divisions of a sort of scientific army — a tendency which may
be most beneficially guided — that at such a time we should yet
remember that, however rapidly science changes, human nature
remains much the same ; and (while we are uttering truisms) let
us venture to say that there is a very great deal of this human
nature even in the scientific man, whose best type is one nearly as
unchanging as this nature itself, and one which can not always
advantageously be remodeled into a piece of even the most re-
fined bureaucratic mechanism, but will work effectively only in
certain ways, and not always at the word of command, nor always
best in regiments, nor always best under the best of discipline.

Finally, if I were asked what I thought were the next great
steps to be taken in the study of radiant heat, I should feel un-
willing to attempt to look more than a very little way in advance.
Immediately before us, however, there is one great problem wait-
ing solution. I mean the relation between temperature and radia-
tion ; for we know almost nothing of this, where knowledge would
give new insight into almost every operation of nature, nearly
every one of which is accompanied by the radiation or reception
of heat, and would enable us to answer inquiries now put to physi-
cists in vain by every department of science, from that of the
naturalist as to the enigma of the brief radiation of the glow-
worm, to that of the geologist who asks as to the number of mill-
ion years required for the cooling of a world.

When, however, we begin to go beyond the points which seem,
like this, to invite our very next steps in advance, we can not
venture to prophesy ; for we can hardly discriminate among the
unlimited possibilities which seem to open before a branch of
knowledge which deals especially with that radiant energy which
sustains, with our own being, that of all animated nature, of
which humanity is but a part. If there be any students of Nature
here, who, feeling drawn to labor in this great field of hers, still
doubt whether there is yet room, surely it may be said to them.

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" Yes, just as mucli room as ever, as mucli room as the whole
earth offered to the first man " ; for that field is simply unbounded,
and everything that has been done in the past is, I believe, as
nothing to what remains before us.

The days of hardest trial and incessant bewildering error in
which your elders have wrought seem over. You " in happier
ages born," you of the younger and the coming race, who have a
mind to enter in and possess it, may, as the last word here, be bid-
den to indulge in an equally unbounded hope.

\^Concluded.'\

GAUSS AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

WE have been favored with the following interesting letter,
giving some facts in relation to Prof. Gauss in addition to
the sketch of this distinguished mathematician which appeared
in " The Popular Science Monthly " for September, 1888, and in-
closing the appended extracts from letters by Gauss in regard to
his invention of a form of electric telegraph :

Denver, Colorado, October S4, 18S8.
De. W. J. TouMANS, New Yorh.

Dear Sir : Please allow me, as a grandson of Carl Friedrich
Gauss, the German mathematician, to thank you for the sketch
of his life and works which appeared in the September number
of "The Popular Science Monthly." I should have made this
acknowledgment long ago, and intended doing so, but for vari-
ous reasons postponed it from time to time, for which I beg your
pardon.

There are two slight errors in your article, one, at least, of
which is hardly worth mentioning. The first is in regard to the
date of Prof. Gauss's birth. " The Popular Science Monthly " arti-
cle says that he was born on April 23, 1777. In fact, however, he
was born on April 30th of that year.

The other error amounts to little, but perhaps you may think
it worth correcting. You say that he and Prof. Weber sent tele-
graphic signals from Gottingen to a neighboring town. They
were, in fact, sent only from the astronomical observatory to the
physical cabinet, which was under the direction of Prof. Weber ;
this was in 1833. The wire used was about eight thousand feet
long ; it was destroyed by a stroke of lightning in 1845. On pages
64 and 65 of "Gauss zum Gedachtniss," by W. Sartorius von
Waltershausen, there is a description of this telegraphic line. In
a work entitled, I believe, " Electricity in the Service of Man,"
there is a picture of the telegraphic apparatus used by Gauss and
Weber.

GAUSS AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 397

Inclosed herewith I send yon a translation of parts of two
letters written by Ganss in regard to the telegraph ; they will
explain themselves. I also send a copy of the original, for pos-
sibly the translation is not wholly correct. The last letter writ-
ten by Prof. Gauss was to Sir David Brewster, in relation to the
early discovery of the electric telegraph. I have tried to obtain
either the original or a copy of this letter, but thus far I have not
succeeded. I regret this all the more, for the reason that I be-
lieve it would be of interest to the public if it were published.

It may be of interest to you to know that one of Prof.
Gauss's children is still living. He is my father, and he resides
in the country a short distance from the town of Columbia, Mo,
He is now in his seventy-eighth year. His name is Eugene. An-
other son, William, came to America about 183G, and died in St.
Louis, Mo., in 1879. Gauss's youngest child, a daughter named
Theresa, resided with her father in Gottingen at the time of his
death. She herself died about twenty years ago in Europe. These
were children by his second marriage. Also, by his first mar-
riage. Gauss had two sons and one daughter. The oldest, Joseph,
became " Oberbaurath " of Hanover. He died in the city of Hano-
ver in 1873. The daughter, Minna, became the wife of Prof.
Ewald, the author of a " History of the People of Israel " and a
number of commentaries on different books of the Old Testament.
As a Hebraist he ranked as high as, I believe, if not higher than.
Gauss as a mathematician. The youngest of the children by the
first marriage, Louis, died in infancy. Ewald's wife died in 1840.
None of Gauss's descendants have exhibited remarkable talent
in any way.

I trust I have not wearied you with these family matters.
Very truly, etc., R Gauss.

P. S. — By the way, Prof. Weber is still living, and to-day is
his birthday. He is eighty-four years old.

At a meeting of the Electro-Technic Association held in Ber-
lin in 1883, Prof. W. Forster, director of the Berlin Observatory,
read the following extracts from letters written by Prof. C. F.
Gauss, of Gottingen, in relation to the early invention of the elec-
tric telegraph :

"I don't remember," writes Gauss to Olbers, on the 20th of
November of the year 1833, '" my having made any previous men-
tion to you of an astonishing piece of mechanism that we have
devised. It consists of a galvanic circuit conducted through
wires stretched through the air over the houses up to the steeple
of St. John and down again, and connecting the observatory with
the physical laboratory, which is under the direction of Weber.
The entire length of wire may be computed at about eight thou-

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sand feet. Both ends of tlie wire are connected with a multipli-
cator, the one at my end consisting of one hundred and seventy,
that in Weber's laboratory of fifty coils of wire, each wound
around a one-pound magnet suspended according to a method
which I have devised. By a simple contrivance — which I have
named a commutator — I can reverse the current instantaneously.
Carefully operating my voltaic pile, I can cause so violent a mo-
tion of the needle in the laboratory to take place that it strikes a
bell, the sound of which is audible in the adjoining room. This
serves merely as an amusement. Our aim is to display the move-
ments with the utmost accuracy. We have already made use of
this apparatus for telegraphic experiments, which have resulted
successfully in the transmission of entire words and small
phrases. This method of telegraphing has the advantage of be-
ing quite independent of either daytime or weather ; the one who
gives the signal and the one who receives it remain in their
rooms, with, if they desire it, the shutters drawn. The employ-
ment of sufficiently stout wires, I feel convinced, would enable us
to telegraph with but a single tap from Gottingen to Hanover, or
from Hanover to Bremen."

The following remarks occur in a letter written by Gauss to
H. C. Shumacher, dated August 6, 1835 : " In more propitious cir-
cumstances than mine, important applications of this method
could, no doubt, be made, enuring to the advantage of society and
exciting the wonder of the multitude. With an annual budget of
one hundred and fifty thalers for observatory and magnetic labo-
ratory together (I make this statement to you in strictest con-
fidence) no grand experiments can be made. Could thousands of
dollars be expended upon it, I believe electro-magnetic telegraphy
could be brought to a state of perfection, and made to assume
such proportions as almost to startle the imagination. The Em-
peror of Russia could transmit his orders without intermediate
stations, in a minute, from Petersburg to Odessa, even perad-
venture to Kiakhta, if a copper wire of sufficient strength were
conducted safely across and attached at both ends to powerful
batteries, and with well-trained managers at both stations. I
deem it not impossible to design an apparatus that would render
a dispatch almost as mechanically as a chime of bells plays a tune
that has been arranged for it. One hundred millions' worth of
copper wire would amply suffice for a continuous chain to reach
the antipodes ; for half the distance, a quarter as much, and so
on, in proportion to the square of the distance."

At the same meeting the following dispatch was sent to Prof.
William Weber, at Gottingen : " The Electro-Technic Association
celebrates to-day the year 1883, as the fiftieth anniversary of the
first successful operation of the electric telegraph, and salutes you

THE SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION. 399

as the still surviving associate in that great achievement. At the
same time it expresses renewed homage for Gauss, who at that
period, in conjunction with you at Gottingen, achieved so great a
result, and at the same time clearly recognized the future of this
creation."

THE SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION".

A PROTEST.

AS an indication of the present state of feeling in England
- toward the system of public education in that country, and
especially toward the abuse of examinations, we reprint the fol-
lowing vigorous protest, which is signed by over a hundred pro-
fessors and teachers, about seventy members of Parliament, and
by members of the nobility, clergymen, and others, to the total
number of four hundred. We omit the names for lack of space.
The sentiments expressed in the protest are enforced in appended
communications from Prof. Max Miiller, Mr. E. A. Freeman, and
Mr. Frederic Harrison, which it is our purpose to print next month :

We, the undersigned, wish to record our strong protest against
the dangerous mental pressure and misdirection of energies and
aims which are to be found in nearly all parts of our educa-
tional system. Alike in public elementary schools, in schools
of all grades and for all classes, and at the universities, the
same dangers are too often showing themselves under different
forms. Children — as is so frequently insisted on — are treated
by a public department, by managers and schoolmasters, as suit-
able instruments for earning Government money ; young boys of
the middle and richer classes are often trained for scholarships,
with as little regard for the future as two-year-old horses are
trained for races ; and young men of real capability at the uni-
versities are led to believe that the main purpose of education is
to enable them to win some great money prize, or take some dis-
tinguished place in an examination.

We protest emphatically against such a misdirection of educa-
tion, and against the evils that necessarily arise from it.

We wish at the outset to call the attention of parents and
teachers to the resulting physical mischief. One of the first du-
ties of a child or young person is to grow well. In the rapid
formation of new bone, muscle, and tissue of all kinds, Nature
lays on a child a very heavy tax — a tax that should absorb the
larger part of its surplus energy. It is probable that in the
course of every year some valuable young lives are lost, in cases
where this energy has been drawn away by mental overstrain

400 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from the work wliich. it lias primarily to perform, and where there
is in consequence a failure of strength to meet the sequelcB of
scarlet fever or other serious illness. Even in the great number
of cases where no strongly marked ill-effect discloses itself during
the years of youth, there are sufficient grounds for believing that
what is unsparingly taken at this period of life is taken at the
expense of future vigor and capability. It has, moreover, to be
borne in mind that mental overpressure and brain irritation, on
the one side, are likely, just as idleness and want of occupation
the other, to increase among boys peculiar physical (and moral)
dangers of a most serious character — dangers which are but little
regarded by the public, but which always exist where boys are
massed together.

We consider that, together with a general failure to keep
steadily in view the true ends of education, great examinations
and the valuable prizes attached to them are responsible for a
large part of this overstrain placed on young bodies and young
minds. Let these great prizes once exist in the education market,
and we must expect that boys and young men will train for them,
regardless of higher and more important considerations ; that par-
ents and teachers will allow themselves to join in the emulation
— a few, perhaps, of their number mentally protesting, while look-
ing on with " somber acquiescence."

By the side of the physical evils, at which we have glanced,
stand equally serious evils of an intellectual and moral kind :

1. It should be noted that under the prize-system all education
tends to be of the same type, since boys from all schools of the
same grade meet in the same competition, and all teaching tends
to be directed toward the winning of the same prizes. No more
unfortunate tendency could be imagined. The health and progress
of every great science, such as education, depend upon continual
difference, upon new ideas, and experiments carried out to give
effect to such ideas; upon the never-ending struggle between
many different forms and methods, each to excel the other. It
can not be too often repeated that uniformity means arrest of
growth and consequent decay ; diversity means life, growth, and
adaptation without limit.

2. We hold that the preponderating influence of examinations
destroys the best teaching. Under it the teacher loses his own
intelligent self-direction. He can not devote his powers to such
parts of a subject as are most real to himself, and most deeply felt
by himself (though on this depend the impressiveness of all teach-
ing and the awakening of permanent interest in those taught), as
he is constantly controlled by the sense of the coming examina-
tion, in which of course he wishes his pupils to succeed. The pu-
pil, on the other hand, allows himself to be mechanically guided

THE SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION. 401

for the sake of success. His mental sympathies become bounded
by the narrowest horizon. " What will pay " in the examination
becomes his ruling thought, and he turns away from the many
new intellectual interests, which would spring up on all sides of
one who was allowed to be in love with knowledge for its own
sake, as from luxuries that must be sternly put aside for the sake
of success in the all-important examination. To a young and
healthy mind the constant suggestiveness that accompanies work
done in every branch of knowledge, the constant opening up of
new interests, are ih.^ great stimulants to self -development, and
they should be ever spurring the student on to endeavor to know
more and to see more clearly. We hold that these life-giving in-
terests can not possibly coexist with the repressing influences of
training for great examinations.

3. The true value of difleerent kinds of education can not be
so intelligently considered and so easily measured by the public
when these great prizes are in existence. It is most undesirable
that important controversies, whether between classical and scien-
tific education, or between the various methods of teaching, should
be obscured by the serious monetary considerations that now
throw their shadow over all educational work.

We do not propose to discuss here other more subtle evils,
which appear to many of us to result from doing work simply for
the sake of an all-important examination, such as the temporary
strengthening of the rote-faculties to the neglect of the rational
faculties, the rapid forgetfulness of knowledge acquired, the cul-
tivation of a quick superficiality and power of cleverly skimming
a subject, the consequent incapacity for undertaking original
work, the desire to appear to know rather than to know, the form-
ing of judgment on great matters where judgment should come
later, the conventional treatment of a subject and loss of spon-
taneity, the dependence upon highly skilled guidance, the belief
in artifices and formulated answers, the beating out of small
quantities of gold-leaf to cover great expanses, the diffusion of
energies over many subjects for the sake of marks, and the mental
disinclination that supervenes to undertake work which is not of
a directly remunerative character, after the excitement and strain
of the race ; nor will we discuss another class of evils, that falls
less directly on the student, such as the waste of very precious
time inflicted on the teacher by the drudge-work of examinations.
It is enough now to aflBrm that the moral effect of the system,
viewed broadly, is distinctly bad. We have made of our education
a body without a soul. Our misdirected efforts result in a system
which is corruptio optimi. There is no nobler influence that can
be brought to bear upon a young student than the desire to get
knowledge for the sake of understanding the world in which he
VOL. xxxiv. — 26

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has to live, the marvelous forces among which he has to act, the
humanity of which he forms part, and thus of preparing a life of
mental activity and happiness for himself, and of enlightened use-
fulness to others ; but this influence is almost entirely set aside by
the prize system. Only too often the greater part of the knowl-
edge acquired for an examination, and the life which the student
has presently to lead, are to him as matters separated by a great
gulf, almost without connection with each other. We can not
help asking why we should thus throw away the noblest and most
enduring inducements that we possess, and put in their place
motives which, except for the desperate effort of the moment,
must be poor and imfruitful. We can find no good grounds for
believing that the simple love of knowledge for its own sake, which
at different periods of the world has acted so powerfully upon
young and ardent minds, has in itself lost any of the old sacred
fire ; nor can we for a moment admit that the boys and young-
men of higher aspirations, who would be ready to follow Knowl-
edge in a high and worthy spirit, should be sacrificed by an
ignobly conceived system to the inferior-minded — if there are
such — who can only be tempted to follow her because she means a
sum of money, the public triumph of a successful class, or the
gaining of a place. For those who can only be induced to work
for such motives, let their friends provide in some special fashion
such rewards and stimulants as they may find necessary ; but for
the higher type of boys and young men (and we believe they will
gradually prove to be far the larger number, when we have once
shaken ourselves free from the corrupting influences of the present
system) let the effort be to offer the only true kind of teaching —
the teaching of those who are in love with their subjects, and
would, if allowed, devote themselves to calling out the same feel-
ing in their pupils. At the present moment both teacher and
pupil are morally depressed and incapacitated by a system that
deliberately sets itself to appeal to the lower side of human nature.
Again and again brilliant young men, once full of early promise,
go down from the universities as the great prize-winners, and do
little or nothing in the after-years. They have lived their mental
life before they are five-and-twenty. The victory of life has
seemed to them gained, and knowledge exhausted, almost before
the threshold of either has been crossed.

It can not be too often insisted on that examination is a good
educational servant, but a bad master. It is a useful instrument
in the hand of a teacher to test his own work, and to know hovv^
far his pupils have followed and profited by his teaching. But it
necessarily exerts a fatal influence whenever it is made of such
importance that teachers simply conform to an external standard,
lose faith in themselves, sink into the position of their own text-

THE SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:

403

books, and give but little of their own personality to their work.
It is true that it is necessary to test the work of teachers ; but it is
not necessary, for the purpose of doing so, to take the whole soul
out of teaching. If examinations are to be defended on the ground
that they test the efficiency of teachers, then we reply that other
and better ways of doing this are to be found, and must be found.
We admit quite frankly that they can only be found and pursued
at the price of some trouble and experiment on the part both of
parents and those responsible for the conduct of teaching ; but if
trouble and thought and experiment are to be spared in this great
matter, we had better at once resign the hope of attaining any
moral and intellectual results of real value from what we are
doing. It has been suggested that masters and tutors might be
induced to publish regularly notes of some of their courses; it
has been suggested that some of the periodical examinations of
boys and young men by their own masters and professors should
be printed — with the questions and answers made — and sold in
some cheap form ; that parents and others interested should be in-
vited to attend viva voce examinations. It is urged that such
publicity would help to enlighten those specially interested as to
the teaching given at different schools and colleges ; and act as a
moderate and healthy stimulus both to teachers and taught, with-
out in any way producing the evil effects of the present fiercely
competitive prize-system. We can not here attempt to express
any opinion upon such proposals ; but every reasonable plan for
giving parents some acquaintance with what their sons are learn-
ing, and the methods pursued, deserve careful consideration.

In conclusion, we protest against the waste that accompanies
the mischievous exaggeration of our present systems of examina-
tion. We protest against the great endowments of schools and
universities being applied as money rewards for learning, either
in the form of scholarships or fellowships, when they might be
applied to increasing teaching-power, attracting men of high and
varied learning as teachers to the universities, endowing concur-
rent chairs so as to admit the expression of different schools of
thought on the same subjects, lowering to a certain point the fees
taken for attendance, carrying the teaching of the universities
into many different parts of the country, and assisting education
in many other direct and useful ways. We protest against the com-
mon mistake of benefactors — anxious to help education — founding
new scholarships, and thus intensifying the evil that exists, instead
of founding local chairs and local courses of teaching ; we renew
our protest against the low ideals placed before young men ; against
the highly artificial competition to which both parents and teach-
ers give their adhesion, and which destroys the real natural com-
petition of method competing against method and type against

404 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

type ; and we protest against the assigning of Government po-
sitions by competition — a system which sets an evil example
throughout the country and which does not insure the choice of
the most fit. That the Government should require a high class of
knowledge and attainment from those seeking for its appoint-
ments is reasonable ; but the difficulties which attend the selection
of candidates should not be allowed to bring upon us in wholesale
fashion (though indirectly) the great evils which result from com-
petitive examinations. It is urged — and the whole matter deserves
serious consideration — that it would be better that some system
should be sought out under which, for example, those who wished
to enter the civil service, and who reached a certain standard of
excellence required by the commissioners, should be practically
tested in such way and for such period as could be conveniently
arranged ; that the most fitting should then be selected on public
grounds by the permanent heads of departments. It is urged that
some such a course — and others are to be suggested — should be
preferred to the excessive and hurtful stimulus of special training
for the one purpose of defeating in a great educational contest
other candidates, also specially trained for the same purpose, and
to the consequent encouragement of competitive examination
throughout the whole country by the force of Government exam-
ple. Here also we desire to express no opinion of any kind upon
the suggestion given, but simply to point out how important it is
that those who are most qualified should turn their attention to
this subject with the view of discovering the best way of avoiding
both the evils that belonged to the past and those that belong to
the present.

We have only to add that what we have said as regards the
education of young men and boys necessarily applies with in-
creased force to young women and girls. It is deeply to be regret-
ted that their education is becoming simply a stale repetition of
the mistakes made in the case of men. In their instance it is to be
expected that the injuries to health and bodily vigor will be even
greater ; while the delicate perceptive powers, which they possess
in larger measure than men, are likely to sufi'er irreparable injury.
We can only hope that with the abolition of the class and prize
system there will grow up a much more delicate appreciation than
exists at present of the subtle influences, both for good and for
evil, of education ; and that the easy credulity with which this
generation has placed " book learning " before a careful training
of the senses and higher faculties may slowly give way to truer
views.

We ought to add that we sign this paper in general agreement
with the principles expressed in it, and not as individually express-
ing entire adhesion to all details. — Nineteenth Century.

SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS. 405

SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS.

THE Rev. Moses Ashley Curtis, D. J)., presents the example
of a clergyman wlio, doing hard pioneer missionary work in
the mountains of North Carolina, and caring actively and effi-
ciently for the wants of his parish, brought the botany of his
State to a full development. Making that study his pastime and
recreation, " he found pleasure in the quiet of the fields and forests,
and, without ever a thought of becoming a scientific botanist,
amassed a wealth of knowledge and won an exalted position
among the botanists of the world." His services to science have,
nevertheless, been unaccountably overlooked. Although he was
in constant co-operation with the most distinguished specialist in
the world on fungi, although he contributed more than any other
man to the knowledge of the botany of North Carolina, and par-
ticularly of its mountain-region, and was continually consulted
and relied upon for information by Dr. Gray and other American
botanists, his name does not appear in any cyclopaedia or publicly
circulated work. Our data for the present account of his career
are derived from a sketch of his botanical work prepared by Dr.
Thomas F. Wood, of Wilmington, N. C, and read by him before
the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society of the University of North
Carolina, in 1885.

Dr. Curtis was born in Stockbridge, Mass., May 11, 1808, anci^
died in Hillsborough, N. C, in 1872. He was graduated from
Williams College in 1827, and in 1830 became a tutor in the fam-
ily of Governor Dudley, at Wilmington, N. C. He returned to
Massachusetts in 1833, and spent two years in studying for the
ministry, under the Rev. William Croswell. He returned to the
South in the latter part of 1834, was married in December of that
year, and, having continued his theological studies under the Rev.
Dr. R. B. Drane, was ordained a clergyman in the Protestant
Episcopal Church in 1835. He immediately entered upon mission-
work in western North Carolina, from Charlotte to €ie mountain
country as far north as Morganton. Leaving this work at the end
of 1836, he was engaged as a teacher in the Episcopal school at
Raleigh during 1837 and 1838 and till May, 1839. During 1840
he performed missionary work about Washington, in Beaufort
County; then, in 1841, became settled in Hillsborough for six
years ; removed, in 1847, to Society Hill, S. C, where he resided
for nine years ; and returned, in 185G, to Hillsborough, which was
his home for the remainder of his life.

The first mention of Mr. Curtis's field studies in botany is as-
sociated with his residence and tutorship in Wilmington, where
he devoted his leisure hours to the examination of the flora of the

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

region. Especially on Saturdays lie made excursions among tlie
sand-hills and savannas near tlie village (it was then), close up to
Avhose borders the pine-forests reached, " abounding with a flora
rich and novel to the enthusiastic young botanist." In a little
more than two seasons he made collections of 1,031 species, equiva-
lent to about one fourth of the j)henogamous flora of the United
States as then known; most of the plants having been found
within about two miles' radius of Wilmington, with a number of
maritime species discovered at Smithville and several from Rocky
Point. The results of these studies were given to the public as
an " Enumeration of Plants growing spontaneously around Wil-
mington, North Carolina, with Remarks on some New Obscure
Species," which appeared in the " Boston Journal of Natural His-
tory," September, 3, 1834. Most of the first edition of the publica-
tion was burned ; but it was reprinted, with additions and emen-
dations. Dr. Gray mentions this work as one of the first in
America in which the names are accented ; and Dr. Darlington
commended Mr. Curtis, even at this beginning of his scientific
career, as a careful observer and sagacious botanist. At this time
the literature of American botany consisted chiefly of florulas or
local floras, of which the best known were those of New York, by
Dr. Samuel L. Mitchel and Major John le Conte ; Boston, by Dr.
Jacob Bigelow ; Washington, by Dr. J. A. Brereton ; and Lexing-
ton, Ky., by Prof. C. W. Short. In North Carolina, Prof. Elisha
-Mitchell and the Rev. Dr. L. De Schweinitz had been studying
the plants ; Mr. H. B. Croom and Dr. H. Loomis printed a cata-
logue of plants found growing in the neighborhood of Newbern, at
nearly the same time that Mr. Curtis's work saw the light; Dr.
James F. McCree, Sr., was cultivating botany at Wilmington, and,
the two having learned to co-operate with each other, added sev-
eral species to the catalogue, thirty-four in notes and a number in
the catalogue proper ; Dr. Cyrus L. Hunter had prepared a list
of plants found in Lincoln County ; while the Rev. Dr. Bachman,
Mr. H. W. Ravenel, and Mr. Leitner were looking after the plants
near their h(^mes in South Carolina and Georgia.

"If there is such a thing as a scientific instinct," says Dr.
Wood, " Mr. Curtis possessed it. He was habitually accurate in
his studies, and the results were early relied upon by his corre-
spondents. Coming into a new field of botanical study, it was
quite natural that he should have directed his attention to the
very local Dioncea muscipula. Saturday after Saturday he Avould
visit the savannas, and, lying at length ujDon the ground, would
watch its peculiarities. The popular description which he gave
of it in the 'Enumeration of Plants around Wilmington' has
been repeated for the last fifty years, and shows how greatly he
possessed the gift of accurate and entertaining description." Dr.

SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS. 407

Gray says that in this note he " corrected the account of its won-
derful action that had prevailed since the time of Linnseus, and
confirmed the statement and inferences of the first scientific de-
scriber, Ellis— namely, that this plant not only captures insects,
but consumes them, enveloping them in a mucilaginous fluid
which appears to act as a solvent." The journeys which he had
to make in pursuing his mission-work in the mountainous region
were turned to the advantage of his botanical studies. He kept a
portfolio under the cushion of his sulky, ready to receive any
specimen which he might find ; so that, when he reached the end
of his journey, he had collected a considerable number of speci-
mens to study during his leisure hours, or to mount permanently
in his herbarium. Dr. Gray acknowledged himself greatly in-
debted to him for local information concerning the flora of this
region, and said, in a paper in which he sketched the tours of the
botanists who had visited the mountains of North Carolina in
1841, that no living botanist was so well acquainted with the
vegetation of the Southern Alleghany Mountains, or had explored
that of the State so extensively, as he. A half -century after the
publication of the Wilmington catalogue, only about fifty species
had been added to Mr. Curtis's list. One of these was the true
maiden-hair fern (^rZian2^um capillus-Veneris),v^'h.ich. was found
by Mr. William M. Canby, of Wilmington, Del., in 18G7, at Hilton
Ferry. Specimens were immediately sent to Mr. Curtis, and he
improved the first opportunity to visit the locality and see the
plant in situ for himself.

Dr. Curtis's labors on the fungi began at least as early as 1846,
when he became engaged in a correspondence with Mr. H. W.
Ravenel, of South Carolina, a large collector in this department.
About two years after this he entered into correspondence with
the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, of England, concerning which we learn
that that very distinguished authority on this subject became
greatly attached to him " by reason of the ardor and accuracy
with which he pursued the investigation of new species. . . .
Correspondence between these gentlemen continued for a number
of years, and a scientific copartnership was formed which resulted
in the addition of nearly five hundred new species (besides more
than twelve hundred identified by De Schweinitz, chiefly in North
Carolina) to the list up to 1867 ; and since Dr. Curtis's death a
number of new species appeared in ' Grevillea,' under the joint
authorship of Berkeley and Curtis." This new field of study was
greatly to Dr. Curtis's liking, and he became very skillful in the
microscopic work necessary to the determination of species. He
became too devoted to it, perhaps, for his health was undermined
in consequence of the close attention he gave to it. It was a
genuine case of pure love of the work ; for the stimuli and temp-

4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tations to labor for distinction wliich exist now were wanting in
his day ; and tlius lie was led, almost unconsciously, to a very high
station among American botanists. Concerning this, he remarked
to Dr. Wood : " Nothing surprised me more than to be called a
botanist at first. Although I had accomplished the survey of the
phenogamous plants of the State, I still felt that I was compara-
tively not a botanist." Several years later than this — about 1855 —
he began to give special attention to the edible mushrooms. He
finally became a kind of missionary and propagandist of mush-
room-eating. In the catalogue of the plants of North Carolina
he had indicated one hundred and eleven species of edible fungi
known to inhabit the State ; and he had no doubt that there
were forty or fifty more, in the less explored Alpine regions. He
was accustomed to distribute basketfuls of the choicest speci-
mens among his friends, "until the divine art of mycophagy
reached a good degree of cultivation, and many of them learned
to distinguish for themselves the edible ones. Some members
of his family became especially expert in foraging for the table
among the mushrooms"; and his son used the knowledge thus
acquired in preparing the colored illustrations for the contem-
plated work on " Edible Fungi." This book was projected during
the civil war, when the food-question was a vital one in Southern
households, and was intended to make popular the use of mush-
rooms. In it. Dr. Wood affirms, the author succeeded in divesting
himself of every technicality, and indeed in describing minutely
about forty of the one hundred and eleven species in language easy
to be understood, and in an enticing manner. Illustrations and
comparisons were occasionally drawn from foreign authors. The
work failed to find a publisher.

Dr. Curtis's studies of plants embraced every feature and rela-
tion that he was able to bring under observation. " Just to name
a flower and preserve it carefully in his herbarium," says Dr.
Wood, " was to him but the beginning of his work. His earliest
records show that he studied the relation of plant-life to geologic
and climatic surroundings. The study of botanical geography
was begun and continued during his whole career as a botanist,
extending over thirty-eight years. The account he has given us
in his ' Woody Plants ' is to-day the best guide to the natural
climatological divisions of the State which has ever been given.
His studies were also directed to the numerous economic ques-
tions which met him in his intimate acquaintance with the treas-
ures of the field and forest. It was this feature of his labors
alone which brought him an audience in his adopted State, and
with this object in view he brought together the material which
he published as a part of the Geological and Natural History Sur-
vey, known best by the condensed title given to it by Prof. Em-

SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS. 409

mons as the ' Woody Plants/ This volume, of one hundred and
twenty-four pages, was printed by the State in 18G0, and at once
became a popular manual for the farmer and the woodsman, and
for amateur botanists a key to the more conspicuous trees and
shrubs useful for their fruit or timber or as ornaments. The key
devised to enable one of no botanical knowledge to determine a
given plant or shrub was founded upon the character of the fruit
and distinguished by the common name. The preface of this
little work is an introduction to the geographical distribution of
plants in the State, and shows what a thorough acquaintance he
had with the vast subject." The essay made prominent the ex-
ceptional position which North Carolina holds in respect to cli-
mate, soil, and forest products, by calling attention to the exist-
ence of a difference in elevation between the eastern and western
parts, which gives a difference of climate equivalent to ten or
twelve degrees of latitude. The work displays an accurate knowl-
edge of common names, with all the local changes which they un-
dergo. It has been liberally drawn from by subsequent writers,
not always with due acknowledgment. In "A Commentary on
the Natural History of Dr. Hawks's ' History of North Carolina,' "
published in the "University Magazine" in 1860, Dr. Curtis
corrected many errors into which the author had fallen by
accepting the exaggerated and too highly colored accounts of the
old travelers and ex^Dlorers concerning the plant-growth of the
State.

Dr. Curtis's " Catalogue of the Indigenous and Naturalized
Plants " of North Carolina was published by the State in 18G7 as
a jDart of the Geological and Natural History Survey. At the
time of its issue the author asserted that, comprising forty-eight
hundred species, it was the most extensive local list of plants ever
published in North America. It is claimed to have been the first
attempt to enumerate the cryptogamous as well as the phenoga-
mous plants ever made by any botanist in this country. It con-
sisted of one hundred and fifty-eight pages of catalogue, with no
scientific description, but a mere statement of the locality of each
plant, and was the result of twenty-five years of botanical study
over a territory of fifty thousand square miles. Pathological
mycology had only begun to be studied in Dr. Curtis's lifetime.
An incident related by Dr. Wood suggests that, had he engaged in
this branch of investigation, he might have become a master of
the subject. A group of doctors were examining some figures of
microscopic fungi in Beale's " Microscope in Practical Medicine,"
and particularly the O'idium albicans, which was supposed to be
a cause of thrush. Dr. Curtis coming in, at once recognized a
very familiar fungus, and, showing that the spores could only
find lodgment when the soil was prepared to receive them, cau-

410 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tioned his friends against forming too hasty conclusions as to the
disease-carrying properties of the fungi. Instead of being the
cause of disease, they were as likely to be its result.

Dr. Curtis had an extensive correspondence with American
and European botanists, who always recognized the part he took
in the progress of the science in this country as important. Dr.
Chapman dedicated the first edition of his " Flora of the South- '
ern States " to him. The " American Journal of Science " in 1873,
after his death, thus measured his work: "All our associate's
work was marked by ability and conscientiousness. With a just
appreciation both of the needs of science and of what he could
best do under the circumstances, when he had exhausted the fields
in xDhenogamous botany within his reach, he entered upon the in-
exhaustible ground of mycology, which had been neglected in
this country since the time of Schweinitz. In this difiicult de-
partment he investigated and published a large number of new
species, as well as determined the old ones, and amassed an ample
collection, the preservation of which is most important, compris-
ing, as it does, the specimens, drawings, and original notes which
are to authenticate his work. By his unremitting and well-di-
rected labors, filling the intervals of honored and faithful profes-
sional life, he has richly earned the gratitude of the present and
ensuing generations of botanists."

The bibliography of Dr. Curtis's writings includes " Enumera-
tion of Plants growing spontaneously around Wilmington, N. C."
(1834), twice reprinted with additions and emendations ; " New
and Rare Plants of North Carolina " (1842) ; " Contributions to
Mycology of North America" (1848); "New and Rare Plants,
chiefly of the Carolinas" (1849) ; "Contributions to Mycology of
North America" (Berkeley and Curtis, 1849); "New Fungi col-
lected by the Wilkes Exjjloring Expedition " (1851) ; " Geological
and Natural History Survey of North Carolina ; Part III, Botany,
containing a Catalogue of the Plants of the State, with Descrip-
tion and History of the Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines" (1860) ;
" A Commentary on the Natural History of Dr. Hawks's ' His-
tory of North Carolina ' " (1860) ; " Esculent Fungi " (1866) ;
"Geological and Natural History of North Carolina; Part III,
Indigenous and Naturalized Plants" (1867); "Edible Fungi of
North Carolina" (1839). The first of these works was published
in the Boston "Journal of Natural History," and the last in
the " Gardener's Chronicle," London. The others were published
either in " Silliman's Journal " or as separate publications.

COBBESP ONDENCE.

411

CORRESPONDENCE

A CORRECTION.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

MR. McGEE, in his article on " Paleo-
lithic Man ia America," in the No-
vember issue, falls into an unfortunate error
in stating that I had found twenty-five thou-
san d specimens of true paleolithic imple-
ments in the gravel. The number found is
about four hundred, and this represents
twelve years of most laborious search for
them. Happily, it is enough to establish the
fact that paleolithic man existed at the time
so graphically described in McGee's article.

The error is explained, I am sure, by the
author having in mind the number of cata-
logued specimens of the Abbott collection at
the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Mass.
This collection is not of glacial man only, but
of his immediate successor — the Eskimo ? —
and of the Delaware Indians.

Charles C. Abbott.
Tekjjton, N. J., Noveniber 27, 1S83.

RELATION OF ALTRUISM TO EGOISM.
Editor Popular Science MontJily :

Sir: Having read, with interest, Mr.
Smiley's article on " Altruism " in your No-
vember number, I venture to point out what
seem, in my view, to be his errors and mis-
taken reasonings:

At the outset, while ignoring the fact
that an intelligent and reasonable self-sacri-
fice lies at the very basis of the Christian
system, he virtually confounds it with the
extreme self-abnegation of Buddhism. There
is a fundamental difference between the two.
The latter system involves the utter renun-
ciation of individuality by an absorption in
Nirvana. This is the total annihilation of
personal identity, the abnegation of all self-
hood. For this end Buddhism demands pain-
ful and extreme penance and the denial to
all good. It aims primarily, for others, at
the removal of this life's lower evils, its phys-
ical woes and material necessities, and for
its devotee it works mainly, if not chiefly,
toward his own personal deliverance from
such ills, toward a virtual non-existence.

The Christian system is just the reverse of
this. Pre-eminently it recognizes and main-
tains the individuality of every man, disinte-
grating him from the great mass of humanity,
and making him, separately and personally,
accountable to a great Creator and a Supreme
Judge. While aiming, subordinately, at the
counteraction of this life's lesser evils, it
strikes at the greater and gigantic forms of
moral ill, lifting humanity up to a higher
spiritual plane of blessedness. Thus, by

means of self-discipline and wise sacrifice,
it promotes human good, recognizing all men
as of one great brotherhood.

Mr. Smiley then takes isolated passages
of the Bible, out of their proper connection,
unmodified and unbalanced by others, thus
giving to them a one-sided and pessimistic
meaning. Particularly does he misapprehend
the intent of Christ in his command to " take
no thought for the morrow," making it to
enjoin, as he says, " an utter disregard of
self " and a putting away of provident fore-
sight, such as characterizes every thoughtless
beggar and lazy tramp !

Now, every tyro in Greek knows that
the word {fiepifj-vija-nre) translated " take no
thought" does not refer merely to mental
action, but rather to emotional concern, that
which is accompav icd by pain and trouble,
so that Christ only interdicts that overween-
ing anxiety and distressing thoughtfulness
which many indulge, and which not only is
opposed to a simple faith in divine provi-
dence, but emasculates the heart and unfits
one for effort even toward his own good.
Thus the Teacher virtually enjoins a rightful
egoism.

Paul did not construe Christ's command
as does Mr. Smiley, for he enjoined a proper
foresight in saying that " if any provide not
for his own" (the Greek being tu>v iSlwv),
for his own private, personal, and particular
interests, " and especially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith and is
worse than an infidel." What stronger ego-
istic teaching than this could any one wish ?
This self -providence Paul implies in his com-
mand to the Roman Christians that they
should be " not slothful in business," which
is in accord with Solomon's precept, " Go to
the ant, thou sluggard." Thus, Mr. Smiley
has not had regard to the comparative teach-
ings of the Bible, as well as to the true sig-
nification of its original terms.

He affirms further that Christ's declara-
tion of a simple fact, that " the poor we have
always with us," was very ^^■u7)forttcnatcb/"
said. Now, not even assuming any divine
quality for Christ, but simply admitting him
to be a man of profound wisdom and far-
seeing philosophy, how could his statement,
contrary thereto, have lieen unfortunate ? Mr.
Smiley, however, puts this phrase about the
ever-presence of the poor as approving and
commending their condition, while indeed it
simply states an inevitable and incontroverti-
ble fact, growing more and more so, in each
successive age, not because Christian self-
denial and altruistic charity have produced
this result, but because increasing and crowd-
ing populations and social vices, especially

412

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the world's great cities, with multiplied
luxuries, present temptations to self-indul-
gence and idleness, ultimating in poverty.

If, as Mr. Smiley asserts, the benevolent
methods of relieving the poor have not dimin-
ished their number, it is evidently due not to
such altruism but to these antagonistic causes.
Can he prove that such benevolence has not
legitimately tended, in any measure whatever,
toward the checking of such evils as lead to
poverty, and to the forestalling of such cor-
ruptions as ruined the republics of Greece
and Rome as well as other great nationalities ?
Just here Mr. Sm ley does not recognize the
clear logical distinction between a mere oc-
casion and an efficient cause — between an in-
cidental result and a legitimate effect. Pro-
slavery men, both at the North and the South,
failed to make this distinction when they
declared that the anti-slavery men brought
on the rebellion, and that tlierefore they were
the culpable cause of it. No ! Slavery itself
was the cause — the abolitionist was only the
occasion. The one worked for evil, the other
for good : if evil came through the latter, it
was but incidental, not legitimate. Every
system, however excellent in itself — ^not be-
ing perfect, of necessity — implies or involves
occasional ills. Is Mr. Smiley logical in mak-
ing the incidental results of altruism, as evil,
its necessary and legitimate effects ? Is it a
causal force to human ills ? Granting, indeed,
that some among the poor have abused gifts
and become idlers, has this been the univer-
sal fact ? Has charity always made beggars
and tramps, or are such only sporadic and
exceptional cases, while, to a large extent,
social benefits and industrial results have
come from individual and organized benevo-
lences ? Docs not Mr. Smiley reason il logic-
ally and with a pessimistic spirit, taking only
a few isolated and unfavorable facts and the
worse aspects of the case from which to draw
a general deduction ?

While, indeed, his argum.ent rightly pre-
vails against a heedless and indiscriminate
benevolence, it does not appertain to careful
and systematic giving. All properly organ-
ized institutions and all thoughtful schemes
of benefit to the poor take into consideration
and aim at the improved industrial condition
and moral advancement of their beneficiaries.
Such organizations are designed and formed
to operate for the very end of rendering beg-
gary dishonorable and unprofitable, and for
inspiring the poor with industrial self-respect.
They say to the charitable man, " Do not
give promiscuously, but through the medium
of those agencies which have regard to the
elevation as well as the relief of the poor."

If, as 5Ir. Smiley assumes, the improvi-
dence and demoralization of the poor are
the legitimate cfi'ccts of charity working as
an efficient cause, then, of course, it is a
curse. But this is not the case. Rather the
primary causes are the ignorance, the illiter-
acy, the prodigality, and the lack of moral
training among the poor, as well as bad legis-

lation and tempting surroundings. To charge
all this upon a self-denying charity is logic
ally wide of the mark.

The first argument which Mr. Smiley of-
fers against orphan asylums is that "moral
corruption, brought in a little by each child,
leavens the whole lump." Here he assumes
that each child necessarily brings in more or
less corruption, and therefore he presumes
that no orphan has any inherent purity,
which is a virtual admission of a native de-
pravity such as he would, perhaps, be far
from positively asserting. As a general rule,
children are received into orphan asylums
before they are old enough to carry corrup-
tion into them. If this argument of Mr. Smi-
ley has any real force, it must equally pre-
vail against all schools, private or public,
against families and neighborhoods in which
children of different ranks and characters
come into close personal contact with each
other, and are more or less good or evil.
Would Mr. Smiley isolate these children
and segregate such communities ? Does he
not know that in all these orphan asylums
moral and Christian teaching is often more
clear, pronounced, and effective for the good
of the child than may be found in many a
school or household ? Is it not most likely
that, where one or two children may prove
corrupt, the moral tone of the many, under
right training, would tend to counteract and
correct the evil of the few ?

In his second argument against these asy-
lums Mr. Smiley assumes that only incom-
petent teachers are employed in them, and, as
if in proof of this, he asks, " Who ever knew
a scholar reared in an orphan asylum ? "
Well ! who ever heard of one reaied in a
State - prison, a factory, or a coal - mine ?
Who ever expected orphan asylums to turn
out scholars ? Was this the design of their
establishment ? But, in answer to this charge
of Mr. Smiley, it may be truthfully said that
not all, and indeed very few teachers in such
institutions are incompetent. They stand,
generally, on a par with those of our public
schools, some of them being men and wom-
en of education and refinement, who, from
pure love of children and their moral good,
devote themselves, in some cases gratuitous-
ly, to such benevolent work. Mr. Smiley can
scarcely have studied the histoiies and sta-
tistics of orphan asylums, or he would not
have charged upon them bad food, poor train-
ing, and rejection from good families, in re-
spect to all which it m.ay be shown unques-
tionably that he is sadly mistaken. Neither
would he have ignored the fact that the chil-
dren of drunken fathers and mothers are
not usually taken into orphan asylums, or, if
they ever are, then they are saved from the
horror and ruin of a drunkard's home, in
which every true philanthropist should re-
joice.

As to " foundling asylums," Mr. Smiley
is still more severe, asserting that every one
" in America should be instantly disorgan-

CORRESP ONDENCE.

413

ized " ! On what ground ? Because, he
says, " they encourage crime " ! But does
the vile man or trail girl, committing evil,
pause beforehand to deliberate how the
possible fruit of the crime is to be taken
care of ? No ! any such consequence is
not thought of ; if it were, that would be a
restraint upon immoral tendencies. But Mr.
Smiley can be shown some " foundling asy-
lums " where poor but virtuous women have
found homes for their true children, when
they have not been able to provide for these,
or have been out at labor in families and
factories, especially when their husbands
have been sick, feeble, or vicious, and there-
fore could not provide for their legitimate
children. Would Mr. Smiley deny to such
women so great a privilege '?

As to the encouragement of immoral
girls, I can point Mr. Smiley to one " found-
ling asylum," at least, in Chicago, originated
by Dr. George Shipman, a homoeopathic
physician, who assured me that only about
one in a hundred women, coming with their
babes, could be regarded as essentially crim-
inal. They were either unfortunate wives
or deceived girls, who, having received at the
asylum proper instruction, were taken into
respectable families as domestics. Rarely
did one such fall, especially as the restraint
was put upon them tnat a second lapse
v7ould forbid their return. Would Mr. Smi-
ley disorganize such an institution ? Would
he break up Mr. Miiller's great establish-
ment in Bristol, or that of Dr. Cullis in Bos-
ton, wherein many have been housed, fed,
comforted, and rightly trained, fitted for
death or for usefulness in life, and from
which so many rescued victims of poverty
and distress have gone forth into the world
to find success and honor ?

If Mr. Smiley had consulted the records
of education societies, he would have found,
what any one of its secretaries, I know,
would have told him, that scores and even
hundreds of thorough female teachers and
distinguished pulpit orators have been the
happy and successful beneficiaries of such
societies. Their statistics plainly show this.
The one sporadic case to which he refers is
an individual and marked exception to the
general rule and does not justify a broad
deduction as to the evil of those organiza-
tions. " One swallow does not make a sum-
mer," neither does one snow-flake make a
winter.

In pressing " egoism " to the exclusion of
" altruism," or to its disparagement, Mr. Smi-
ley would feed that natural selfishness which
is common, more or less, to all men, and
which, unrestrained, tends to such extremes
as bring vast misery to mankind. He thus
antagonizes that law of love which is the
rhythmic force in the moral world. A great
Teacher said, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself" — no more, no less. He here
brings altruism into juxtaposition with ego-
ism. They arc counterparts and correlatives,

each essential to the other. As in the solar
system the centripetal and centrifugal forces
keep its orbs apart and in space with equi-
librium, so these two forces of egoism and
altruism balance each other, and promote
the harmony of society. As in physical
science both the positive and negative poles
of the battery are needed for the generation
of magnetism or electricity, so these two
moral poles must be coincidently present and
work together to the production of moral
magnetism for human benefit. As in logic,
induction and deduction, according to Sir
William Hamilton, are not antagonisms, but,
if not identical, are certainly counterparts,
the one reciprocally leading to and involving
the other — so are egoism and altruism ; they
are associative and co-operative. Common
love binds them together ; common interests,
as with all human associations, bring them
into unity of thought and action for the
greatest mutual good. Once, Wendell Phil-
lips, speaking of capital and labor, said,
"They are twins — Siamese twins — bound to-
gether by a living ligament, to cut which
would be to kill both." They are interde-
pendent, vitally united. So with egoism and
altruism. They need each other for true ex-
istence and right action. Egoism alone runs
to selfisra ; altruism alone to fanaticism.
Together, they are mutually compensative —
apart, destructive. Of the two in union, the
words of Shakespeare's Portia may be predi-
cated : " It blesseth him that gives and him
that takes." That union fulfills Christ's
words : " Give and it shall be given unto
you, good measure, pressed down and shaken
together and running over, shall men give
into your bosom. For, with the same meas-
ure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured
to you again." In these words, egoism and
altruism are pronounced correlative and
compensative. Does not the patriot feel re-
warded fully when dying for his country?
Does not the martyr, though suffering phys-
ically, rejoice thus to maintain truth ? Does
not the benefactor, like a Slater or a Hand,
giving his millions for the education of an
ignorant and despised race, feel assured of
due return ? If the arguments of Mr. Smi-
ley were carried out practically to their ulti-
mate and logical results, then all such pa-
triots, martyrs, and benefactors must be
relegated to the realms of folly or forget-
fulness. Then the egoistic Alexanders and
Napoleons must have exaltations above all
Howards, Wilbcr forces, Garrisons, and Caro-
line Frys.

May it not be suggested that Mr. Smiley
has taken rather a one-sided, prejudiced, and
pessimistic view of his subject ? lias he not
failed to take note of abundant and palpable
facts controverting his positions ? What if
the altruism he condemns be banished from
society? What then would the world do
without the multitude of noble, self-sacrific-
ing men and women whose love of humanity
has led them into the deep, dark slums of

414

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

our great cities for the rescue of the perish-
ing ; who have suffered themselves to be so-
cially ostracized by teaching the black chil-
dren of the South; who have dared the
Mormon monster in his den, to extirpate the
curse of polygamy ; who have dwelt in In-
dian wigwams to civilize the savage; who,
for medical science or society, have breathed
the infections of small-pox or yellow fever ;
or who, like Livingstone and Stanley, have
penetrated the wildernesses of Africa for the
suppression of the slave-trade ? Shall it be
said to all such : " Renounce your altruism
and rest in your egoism ; self-sacrifice is not
wisdom, beneficence is not profit " ? Shall
it be said to all founders of hospitals, as
well as asylums, of colleges like Harvard,
Yale, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins, with their
scholarships, " Ye are the monuments of al-
truistic error" ? Shall it be said to benevo-
lent and moneyed men, who can not per-
sonally work for humanity: "Hoard your
money ; waste it not on charities " ? Is their
benevolence to be smothered by the smoke
of eleemosynary institutions which the ego-
istic torch would consume ?

Truthfully yours,

C. H. A. BCLK1.EY.

Howard TjNrvEESiTT, Washington, D. C.

THE WORK OF THE BUREOWING RA.T.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

In your November number there appears
an article, by Prof. N. S. Shaler, entitled
" Habits of the Great Southern Tortoise,"
which is based upon premises so manifestly
erroneous that it is difficult to understand
how the professor could have be^n led to
adopt them ; and, therefore, in the interest
of science, I take the liberty of pointing out
to him, through you, the error which he has
made. Having lived in Florida for several
years, and having during that time closely
observed the habits of the land-tortoise, or
so-called "gopher," to which the professor
refers, I know whereof I speak. The pro-
fessor is entirely mistaken in supposing that
the little mounds of sand which he describes
are made or pushed up by the tortoise, or
'■'■ gopher.''^ They are the result of the in-
dustry of quite a different animal, viz., a
species of burroiving, pouched rat, known in
eastern Florida as the " salamander."

The land- tortoise, or gopher, never bur-
rows into the earth beyond a distance of ten
OT fifteen feet, where he goes merely for con-
cealment, not for food. He never obstructs
the outlet of his burrow, but keeps it open,
so that he may readily return to the surface
of the soil to seek grass and other vegetable
matter, upon which alone he subsists. It is
true that be hibernates during the winter
months. I have caught hundreds of "go-
phers," and have shot or caught in traps doz-
ens of the " salamanders," and I am prepared
to substantiate what I have here stated in

the most indubitable manner. It is mani-
festly a physical impossibility for the tortoise
to burrow its way thousands of feet hori-
zontally under the ground, as the professor
supposes.

I can easily imagine the amusement which
Prof. Shaler's article would afford residents
of Florida, should it reach their eye. Such
inexcusable errors in scientific papers are not
calculated to bring honor to science or to the
scientist. Very respectfully,

C. C. Byrne, M. D.
Washington, D. C, Noveiriber 1, 188S.

[In a former paper, referred to at the
beginning of the article on the " Southern
Tortoise," Prof. Shaler mentioned the dis-
turbance of the soil due to burrowing ro-
dents. The second article was devoted
wholly to the work of the tortoise, but does
not seem to us to conflict with the statement
that other animals produce effects of this sort
in Florida, even exceeding in some localities
those produced by the tortoise. — Editor.]

A DOG THAT COULD COUNT.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

On page 123 of your November number
Dr. A. S. Hudson relates incidents to show
that animals may be able to count. In 1868
an Omaha printer, named Bolster, owned a
terrier bitch that could count. On being
told by her owner to climb a certain number
of steps and lie down, she obeyed, never
making a mistake, although the task given
was varied so as to test her ability. She
gave evidence of equal intelligence in other
directions, and there is no doubt that she
could actually count up to fifteen.

Yours, etc., J. D. Calhoun.

Omaha, October 24, 1888.

THE TYPE-WRITER FOR THE BLIND.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

In an interesting article on "Writing-
Machines for the Blind," published in " The
Popidar Science Monthly" for September,
I was surprised to see no mention made of
the type-writer as having been utilized for
that purpose ; and, as the author seemed
thoroughly acquainted with his subject, he
would doubtless have noticed the fact had
it ever been used.

From the readiness with which the blind
learn to manipulate the keys of the piano, it
is to be presumed they would have no diffi-
culty in managing those of the type-writer
— a process which could be still further
facilitated for them by having the letters
on the keys raised. The printing type could
be beset with sharp points, so as to prick
out the letters on the sheet instead of print-
ing them with ink, and, by using paper of
the proper thickness, a distinct raised let-

CORRESP ONDENCE.

415

tering would thus be made, which the blind
could decipher by feeling.

It is true, the printing would be re-
versed, but in spite of this the type-writer
for the blind would have advantages which,
it seems to me, no other instrument of the
kind yet invented possesses.

E. F. Andrews.

Macon, Ga., Novertiber 1, 1S3S.

[Ordinary type-writers are used by hun-
dreds of blind operators for writing to see-
ing persons. A blind person, having once
learned the arrangement of the keys, has
little difficulty ia operating the instrument.
This is one of the uses proposed for it by
the inventor of the earliest form of type-
writer, Charles Thurber, in 1843, and one
of his machines is now in existence which
had originally raised letters on the keys to
facilitate such use. In order that the pi'int-
ing shall be legible to the blind, of course
some mode of pricking or embossing the
paper would have to be employed, and the
reversing of the print, to which our corre-
spondent alludes, could easily be obviated
by reversing the type. — Editor.]

TUB EXTENSION OP THE SUFFRAGE TO

WOMEN.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

In Prof. Cope's " Relation of the Sexes
to Government," in the October number of
the " Monthly," he makes intellectual infe-
riority, physical inabilit)', and the social posi-
tion of woman the practical objections to
granting her the "privilege" of suffrage,
and favors its restriction rather than an ex-
tension.

But even if men are on the whole su-
perior to women, the difference is not so
great but that, if the same restrictive process
v/ere applied to women and men, a consider-
able minority of the women would fulfill the
conditions which a not very large majority
of the men could fulfill. Although any
system of suffrage can only be an approxi-
mation to what might be best, it is a poor
approximation indeed that will shut out a
hu-ge minority of one sex because the major-
ity of that sex fail to fulfill the qualifications
for suffrage. That is majority-rule with a
vengeance.

It is declared that " woman suffrage be-
comes government by women alone on every
occasion where a measure is carried by the
aid of woman's votes." Then government

by a successful party, whose candidate is
elected by a majority of one thousand in a
" deciding State," becomes government by
five hundred and one men ; and government
everywhere becomes government by the
smallest possible majority of the majority by
which a party elects its candidate. What
becomes of popular government ? It is fur-
ther declared that, if women vote with their
husbands, suffrage becomes a farce. It is a
very plain social fact that men who associate
much come to think alike, especially on sub-
jects that are much thought upon. Like
teacher, like student ; like father, like son.
Politics runs in families almost as much as
features do. If all who acquire their polit-
ical leanings from their constant associates
shall not vote, a very large majority of the
sons of the country must be disfranchised,
and in a generation there will be no voters
at all. And if the women of the land, by
exercising suffrage, run the danger of becom-
ing the mothers of a " generation of moral
barbarians," are the fathers of the race so
entirely different in quality from the mothers
that the transmission of a very large amount
of barbarism might not be prevented by a
wholesale restriction of the suffrage ?

Physical inability to execute the laws
when they are made, and to defend them in
a military capacity, is made a principal objec-
tion to the granting of suffrage to women.
" This consideration alone, it appears to me,
puts the propriety of female suffrage out of
the question." But only a small proportion
of men are willing to be executors of the
law, as policemen and sheriffs ; and, as for
the judicial positions, an even smaller pro-
portion is jittcd to fill them. Restriction of
the suffrage would be a good thing ; let it
be applied under the principle of immunity
from military senice, and who would be dis-
franchised ? War demands able-bodied men ;
only men that are perfectly regular in form
and sound in health can be soldiers. If im-
munity from service is to form the boundary-
line of suffrage, all the rest, a vast number,
would be shut out. This excluded list would
include perhaps the best class of voters the
nation has — the older men — because they
are exempt from military duty. But I am
sure the professor himself would be unwill-
ing to begin restriction under the principle
he has enunciated, and reduce the elders of
the nation to the condition of Gulliver's
Luggnaggian struldbritgs.

Frank Cramer.
Appleton, "Wis., Octoler 10, 18S8.

4i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE MARCH OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE.

IT is idle to be continually repeating
that this is a very wonderful age ;
but we may with good reason congratu-
late ourselves that science has now
reached a point that insures to the
human race an ever-increasing mastery
over the powers and resources of na-
ture, and that ought, with any kind of
right management, to be productive of
better modes of life from year to year,
not for the few only but for all. At the
last meeting of the British Association
an address was delivered by Mr, Preece,
President of the Section of Mechanical
Science, which, though confined to the
single subject of the recent advances in
the practical applications of electricity,
furnishes a vivid picture of the changes
which scientific knowledge generally is
woi'king in the world. Things that to
our forefathers were perfect types of
the unknowable, are to-day, as Mr.
Preece remarks, among the best-under-
stood of natural phenomena, if not in
relation to their ultimate cause, at least
in regard to the laws of their operation.
Among the various troublesome ques-
tions asked of the patriarch Job was one
as to whether he could send lightnings,
so that they might come and go at his
bidding. Of course, Job had to give it
up; but that was not because the prob-
lem was absolutely insoluble, but be-
cause he had not the scientific knowl-
edge necessary to solve it. To-day
lightnings are flying to and fro in most
complete subjection to the will of man ;
and even the free lightnings of heaven
have to a large extent been placed un-
der bonds to do him no harm. Mr.
Preece antedates, we observe, by five
years the classical experiment of Frank-
lin with the electricity of the clouds,
placing it in 1747 instead of in 1752 ; but
he is correct in stating that nearly a
century elapsed after Franklin's great
discovery before, as a working power,

electricity was fairly mastered. Natu-
rally the Church was opposed to the
study of electricity in its beginnings ; but
that study has been too fruitful of bene-
ficial results, and too victoriously success-
ful all along the line, to remain under a
ban of any kind. Churches themselves
are now protected by liglitning-rods
against random thunderbolts, just as
the clergy, in common with other class-
es, are protected by vaccination against
small-pox. On the subject of lightning-
rods, Mr. Preece's declaration that " as
long as points remain points, as long as
conductors remain conductors, as long
as the rods make proper connection with
the earth, lightning protectors will pro-
tect," is a word spoken in season; as
also is the caution he goes on to give as
to the neglect of the conditions upon
which the whole efficiency of the sys-
tem of protection against lightning de-
pends.

It would be impossible within our
limits to give anything like a satisfac-
tory summary of the very interesting
address to which we have referred. Two
or three points may, however, be sin-
gled out for notice. The electric tele-
graph may now be said to have been in
use for business purposes for half a cent-
ury. The rate of transmission at the
outset was five words a minute ; to-
day it is six hundred. Cooke and
Wheatstone required five wires for their
first needle instrument, which worked
only at the rate of four words a minute ;
whereas one wire now conveys six mes-
sages simultaneously at ten times the
speed. On the 8th of April, 1886, now
nearly three years ago, when Mr. Glad-
stone introduced his Home-Eule Bill in
the British House of Commons, no less
than 1,500,000 words were sent over
the wires from the Central Telegraph
ofilce in London. Mr. Preece seems to
approve of the purchase of the tele-
graphs by the British Government. He

EDITOR'S TABLE.

417

states that the telegraph business which,
when assumed by the Government in
1870, brought in £550,000 per annum,
now yields £2,000,000 per annum; and
that the annual number of messages has
increased from 6,000,000 to 52,000,000.
What the increase in revenue and work
done would have been had the tele-
graphs remained in private hands, it is
impossible to say. Government tele-
graphing is cheap — Qd. for a message to
any part of the United Kingdom — and
that, no doubt, tends to make it popu-
lar. Mr. Preece refers with natural
pride to the leading part Great Britain
has taken in the laying of submarine
cables. British ships, he states, have
laid 110,000 miles of cable; and British
capital to the amount of £40,000,000
has been expended in this very useful
work. The railway system of to-day
could not have reached its present de-
velopment without the aid of the tele-
graph, by means of which the whole
movement of trains is checked and con-
trolled from moment to moment. A
well-equipped signal-box on a main line
of railway is a very interesting place to
visit. To quote the words of the ad-
dress : " The signal-man is able to survey
the lines all round him by the aid of his
electric signals ; he can talk by telegraph
or telephone to his neighbors and his
station-master; he learns of the motion
of the trains he is marshaling by the dif-
ferent sounds of electric bells ; he con-
trols his out-door signals by the deflec-
tion of needles or the movement of
miniature semaphores; he learns the
true working of his distant signals by
their electric repetition; machinery gov-
erns and locks every motion that he
makes, so that he can not make a mis-
take." The safety thus secured for the
traveling public is indicated by the fact
that in the whole United Kingdom the
average annual loss of life by railway
accidents in the five years ending 1887
was only sixteen, or, as Mr. Preece com-
putes it, one life to every 35,000,000
journeys made by train.
VOL. XXXIV.— 27

Great inventions have often a con-
siderable period of incubation before
they assume their proper importance
and development. Thus, nearly seventy
years elapsed between the discovery of
the electric light by Sir Humphry Davy
and its practical introduction for pur-
poses of street-lighting. Mr. Preece is
enthusiastic for the electric light, which
he contrasts in its purity and whole-
someness with "filthy gas and stinking
oil." He states that in the Central Sav-
ings-Bank, at London, the introduction
of the electric light was followed by an
appi-eciable improvement in the health
of the staff. Every year sees some in-
crease of efficiency or diminution of
cost in connection with this admirable
system of lighting. At this moment it
is beyond comparison the cheapest meth-
od of producing any given unit of light.
For the working of tram-cars or street-
railways, Mr. Preece is of opinion that
electricity is incontestably the agency
destined to be most extensively used in
the near future. In saying this he has
in view the climatic conditions of the
British Isles ; but there is good reason
to expect that experiments now being
made in this country will demonstrate
that, even where snow-storms have to
be contended with, electricity will carry
the day in the contest with horse-flesh.
The progress made in the electrolytic
extraction of metals from their ores is
shown in the fact that whereas not long
ago it was considered economical to ab-
sorb 0'85 horse-power in depositing one
pound of copper per hour, the same work
can now be done with 0"3 horse-power.
The uses, however, of electricity are al-
most beyond enumeration. We have
electric welding, electric production of
chlorine, iodine, and oxygen, electric de-
composition of poisonous gases, electric
fire-alarms and frost-alarms, electric pho-
tography, electric bells, electric clocks,
electricity as a curative agent, and elec-
tricity as a substitute for hanging. The
question as to what electricity is, or how
it may be most correctly defined, will

418

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

probably continue to furnish matter for
debate for some time to come. Mr,
Preece finds fault with those physicists
who object to recognize in electricity a
form of energy, and insists that the en-
gineer has a right to speak of electricity
as he finds it, and therefore to speak
of it as " energy." This is a dispute
into which we can not enter further
than to say that the arguments urged
by Mr. Preece do not seem to us to
touch the position of the physicists.
We are with him entirely, however,
when he says that "the engineer feels
tliat steam and electricity in his hands
have done more to economize labor, to
cheapen living, to increase wealth, to
promote international friendship, to al-
leviate suffering, to ward oflf war, to
encourage peace, than all the legislation
and all the verbosity of the politician."
It is satisfactory to think that, while
science is being railed at in certain quar-
ters, its methods are being ever more
fruitful of good to mankind. Science
is doing its part nobly in the world,
and, if moral results do not seem to
keep pace with the enlightenment of the
age, that should be a matter of special
concern to those who feel themselves
responsible for the moral interests of
the community. May it not be reason-
ably said that, if they would do their
work as well as the man of science is
doing his, an equal success would crown
their labors ? It is all doubtless a mat-
ter of the adjustment of means to end ;
and, when the right means are employed
in the moral sphere, we may expect to
see there a progress not less marked
than that which is now taking place in
theoretical and practical science.

THE ABUSE OF EXAMI2^ATI0N3.

No more timely or important docu-
ment has been given to the world, of
late years, than the protest reprinted in
our present number from the " Nine-
teenth Century," on the subject of the
sacrifice of education to examinations.
The protest in question is signed by the

leading educators of Great Britain, and
by many others eminent in science and
letters. It is re-enforced by separate ar-
ticles by England's greatest philologist,
Prof. Max Muller; her greatest historian,
Prof. Freeman; and her most brilliant
and philosophical essayist, Mr. Frederic
Harrison. All these men see clearly
that a great intellectual and moral in-
jury is being done to the nation by an
excessive use of examinations, and, gen-
erally, by an excessive stimulation of the
work of education. The universities do
their own share of mischief by offering
large pecuniary prizes as the rewards of
proficiency tested by examinations. The
Government helps on the evil cause by
making access to the public service a
simple question of " marks." Teachers
obtain their positions and schools their
grants in the same way ; while the un-
fortunate pupils are having their studies
continually interrupted in order that
some one may grub at the roots of their
growing knowledge for the purpose of
spying out how weak a thing it is, and,
in doing so, making it still weaker.

The philosophy of the whole businecs
is simple enough. So long as the intel-
lectual development of a country is fol-
lowing a simple, unforced course, educa-
tion will be pursued for the sake of the
essential benefits it brings; and edu-
cators will think chiefly, if not exclu-
sively, of the true intellectual interests
of their pupils. There will not be a fe-
verish anxiety to ascertain the precise
results achieved at a score of different
points in a course of instruction. It
will rather be taken for granted that
only those who desire to profit wUl seek
instruction, and that the result of their
studies will appear in some spontaneous
form in later days. If questions are
asked, it will be for the sake of exciting
intellectual interest, or of giving an op-
portunity for diversities of treatment of
a certain topic. It will not be done in
the spirit of the highwayman who offers
ybu the alternative of surrendering your
money or your life. But wiien once a

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

"great public interest" has been awak-
ened in education, and the Government
has " taken it up in earnest," and grants
of money become available for schools
that can earn them by passing a cer-
tain number of pupils through certain
grades, then the whole spirit of educa-
tion becomes changed. The student's
one ambition — if he has any at all — is
to pass an examination, the teacher's is
to get as many of his pupils as possible
to pass as many examinations as pos-
sible; and to these wretched ends the
whole work of the school is made sub-
servient. There is no time allowed for
reflection or for the slow gathering of
results, none for the enjoyment of what
is learned, none for the gathering of
wayside illustrations; all is hurry and
press, strain and stress, business from
the start and business to the close. The
result is, the all but complete extinc-
tion of true intellectual interests. Our
young people do not learn to love
knowledge for its own sake, for any
sense of mental enlargement that it
confers, or for any benefit that it enables
them to bestow on their fellows. They
hardly have time, indeed, to realize the
difference between what is real and vital
in knowledge and what is its mere out-
ward husk or shell; and they leave
school in thousands with intelligences
blunted rather than sharpened, and — we
grieve still more to think — with moral
sensibilities dulled rather than quickened,
by the routine to which they have been
subjected.

Some may hold that we overdraw
the picture ; but there can hardly be a
doubt in the mind of any liberally cul-
tivated man or woman tliat the evil to
which we refer, and on which the signers
of the " protest " that has given rise to
our remarks expatiate, is a very real
one. We trust sincerely that the
whole subject will receive a very thor-
ough discussion, and that, in our own
country, there will prove to be a suf-
ficient force of enlightened public opin-
ion to introduce at least some partial

reforms. More than this, in an es-
sentially state-directed system of edu-
cation, we dare not hope for.

Otte readers who have followed the
" New Chapters in the "Warfare of Sci-
ence," by Dr. Andrew D. White, as they
have appeared from time to time in the
"Monthly," will be glad to learn that
the publication of this unique series will
be resumed in the February number.
These papers are characterized by nov-
elty, pith, and scholarly research. Dr.
White has devoted several years to the
investigation of his subject, and is now
in Europe, examining the libraries and
collections of antiquities for additional
material. This research, which the au-
thor is making unusually exhaustive, can
not fail to bring out many facts and in-
cidents in the history of dogma and su-
perstition which have never before seen
the light, or have been buried in ob-
scurity for centuries. Witli such re-
sources at his command, Dr. White is
in a position to lay before his readers
some very remarkable illustrations of
the persistent dominance of delusion in
the human mind. But much more than
this superficial interest is aimed at, for
the author hopes by the publication of
these papers to start some trains of
thought among reflecting men which
shall be of permanent service alike to
Christianity and to science. The chap-
ters immediately forthcoming will treat
of the subject of " Demoniac Possessions
and Insanity."

LITERARY NOTICES.

English Composition and RnETORic. Part
II. Emotional Qualities of Style. By
Alexander Bain. New York: D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 325. Price, $1.40.

The discussion of the subject of this
volume is considerably amplified from that
given in the original work, with a more pre-
cise classification and fuller detail of exam-
ples. The subject is confessed to be beset

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with peculiar difficulties, arising from the
vague and indefinable character of the hu-
man feelings, which can not be described
directly or ace irately analyzed ; it can be
approached only by the way of wide com-
parison and illustration. The first step
taken by the author is to classify the emo-
tions common to poetry and the fine arts ;
and in this we find at the outset that the
lines are hazy and discernible only by the
aid of acquired faculties. Next to be studied
are the aids to emotional qualities, the com-
mon end of which is the evoking of emotions
of the pleasurable kind. The conditions of
treatment under which they are brought into
effect are representative force, concreteness
and objectivity, personification, harmony,
ideality, novelty and variety, plot, and re-
finement. The qualities themselves are
designated as strength or sublimity, beauty,
feeling or pathos, humor, wit, and melody;
of which melody and feeling are perhaps the
least ambiguous, while most of the others
are liable to complications that make scien-
tific precision in the language of criticism
very difficult. Under the first head are
brought the contrasted emotions of love,
tender feeling, and sociability, on the one
hand, and irascibility, malevolence, and an-
tipathy on the other. It may seem para-
doxical to enumerate the emotions of the
latter category among the promotives of
pleasure, but an analysis of the best literary
works will show tliat these darker aspects of
feeling are as essential as the shadows in a
picture. Feeling includes the varieties of
love, friendship, patriotism, compassion, re-
ligion, personified feeling, and sorrow or
pathos ; humor, the group of qualities cen-
tering in the ludicrous. When place is
given to all these qualities, there still re-
mains a region of effects not fully accounted
for — beauty ; the sense qualities ; utility,
which can hardly be divorced from the
special emotions, but stands to a certain
degree remote from any one interest ; and
imitation, which lends itself to further the
special qualities, but has also an independ-
ent charm. Next to the minute and me-
thodical treatment of the emotional qualities,
the chief peculiarity of the present work is
the line-by-line method of examining pas-
sages with a view to assigning merits and
defects. These passages occupy a consider-

able proportion of the space, and are repre-
sentative, both of the rhetorical qualities
which they illustrate, and of the classical
authors of all times, including the best-
known contemporary authors of the literary
nations. This feature, while completing the
value of the book for study, makes it also
attractive for leisurely reading.

Realistic Idealism in Philosophy itself.
By Nathaniel Holmes. Boston and New
York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. In Two
Volumes. Pp. 621 and 499. Price,

$5.

Starting with the presumption that man
aspires after and must have some theory of
himself, of the universe in which he lives,
and of life, duty, and destiny in it, the au-
thor disposes of all the ancient theories —
intuitional systems, he calls them — as vague
and not competent to stand the test of a truly
philosophical criticism. But the stream of
thought and light that poured through an-
tiquity, gathering strength from the various
ethnic sources by which it was fed, was
transmuted " into the learning and wisdom of
the Christian era, such as they have been."
Exactly how much the knowledge or culture
of the present time has been indebted to
either of the ancient systems, or how much
to those of the Christian centuries alone, it
would be difficult and perhaps unimportant
to specify. " The one most certain thing of
all is that the knowledge of nature, the in-
sight into any true theory of this universe,
or into any true wisdom in the conduct of
life in this world, or into any assurance of
life hereafter, that has been gained within
the last five hundred years, is of more worth
and value to mankind than all the rest put
together." The modern speculations of phil-
osophical theists are declared to have been
too much biased by preconceived notions
concerning biblical revelation, by influences
gi'owing out of reverence for Christian behefs
and popular opinion, or by subjection to an
established church, to be of the value that
they should be. The class of writers of
which Voltaire may be taken as a represent-
ative— being mainly literary and iconoclastic
— ^have failed to present a statement of uni-
versal philosophy or a conception of the Deity
that need detain much the critical thinker
of this century. Scientific methods deal

LITERARY NOTICES.

421

with facts as facts, and are not directly con-
cerned about a theory of God or the universe.
" Physical science is a kind of external lad-
der by which the human mind endeavors to
ascend, step by step, to the topmost height
(as it were) of all knowledge. The higher it
mounts, the more certain it is to find itself
entering into the still higher realm of the in-
ternal and metaphysical, ending only in the
universal and absolute." A metaphysical
system is likewise insufficient without the
verification of its conclusions by a thorough
science of external nature. If philosophy
has hitherto failed to furnish a satisfactory
theory, the greater is the need that it should
still endeavor to accomplish it. A condition
is that " it must be able to take up all science,
all nature, all humanity, into clear solution,
leaving nothing out, or nothing but nothing."
Of the four theories of the universe that
stand before the world for consideration, the
biblical-supernatural theory leaves philoso-
phy to become impossible and impertinent ;
the materialistic-machine theory has no room
for anything but physical science; and in
the mystical-idealistic theory — which sup-
poses that we have no certain knowledge of
external nature, but only of the ideas or
images which are formed in our minds on
sensation and sense-perception — the business
of philosophy is to make it as intelligible,
credible, and acceptable as possible. The
realistic-ideal theory, or realistic idealism,
which gives the name to the book, holds
that the real and the ideal are not two distinct
worlds, but only the two sides or aspects of
one and the same whole actuality of real es-
sence and power. "Its method is both
analytical and synthetical, is neither exclu-
sively dialectical and deductive, nor wholly
experimental and inductive, but is both at
once ; it is, in short, the universal method
of the metaphysical logic which takes up all
science into intelligible and clear solution."
It is the purpose of the work to unfold, ex-
plain, and establish this theory. The book
is a hard one to read, but the difficulty lies
in the nature of the subject, and the fullness
of the author's thought, requiring corre-
sponding fullness in expression, and not in
any defect of the workmanship. The author
Las studied the subject, and has mastery of
his thought and knowledge of what he wishes
to say.

The Tenth and Twelfth Books of the
Institutes of Qcintilian. With Ex-
planatory Notes. By Henry S. Fkieze.
New edition, revised and improved. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 294.
Price, $1.40.

The value of Quintilian in classical study
consists in the opportunity which his work
furnishes for at once getting knowledge
which has a direct bearing on professional
life, and for attaining a higher scholarship
in the Latin language. The InsiUutio Ora-
toria, or " Education of the Orator," is an
invaluable contribution both to polite litera-
ture and to liberal education, and capable of
being made practically useful to young men
in their preliminary training for public hfe.
The tenth and twelfth books are selected for
the purposes of the present text because of
the interest and importance of the topics
discussed in them : the former book relating
to the practical studies and exercises that
contribute to the formation of a good style,
and the twelfth presenting a kind of outline
of what the character and life of an orator
should be. Prof. Frieze's work in this
preparation is based most largely on the
labors of Prof. Bonnell and those German
scholars who have given most attention to
Quintilian. The present new edition has
been revised in view of the later labors of
Carl Halm and G. T. A. Kriiger; and the
notes have been amplified, with the view to
making them helpful wherever help may
seem to be needed.

Antiquities of the State of Omo. By
Henry A. Shepherd. Cincinnati : John
C. Yorston & Co. Pp. 139.

This monograph is a portion of the au-
thor's "Popular History of the State of
Ohio." It deals with the ancient inclosures,
mounds, caches, tombs, etc., located in that
State, and the objects found within them.
In Ohio alone there have been till recently
not less than ten thousand mounds and from
fifteen hundred to two thousand inclosures.
In other parts of the Mississippi Valley they
are so numerous that no attempt has ever
been made to count them all. The inclos-
ures are usually regular in outline, and vary
in size fi'om an acre or less to three hundred
and fifty or four hundred acres. Most of
them appear to have been designed for re-
ligious purposes, while others were appar-

4-22

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ently places of defense. The mounds have
been classified as sacrificial mounds, mounds
of sepulture, temple-mounds, and anomalous
mounds. To these may be added the efiigy-
mounds, of which there are only three or
four in Ohio, the most remarkable of them
being the " Great Serpent " mound. In his
descriptions of these works and the objects
found in them the author quotes frequently
from Squier and Davis, and from later ex-
plorers recognized as authorities on this
subject. Plans, diagrams, and views illus-
trate the text.

Hygiene of the Nursery. By Louis
Stabr, M. D. Philadelphia : P. Blakis-
ton, Son & Co. Pp. 212. Price, Sl-50.

The object and spirit of this book can
not be better expressed than in the follow-
ing extract from its preface :

Havin<? a firm belief in the proverb that " an
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," the
author has endeavored, in the succeeding pages, to
point out a series of hygienic rules which, if applied
to the nursling, can hardly fail to maintain good
health, give vigor to the frame, and so lessen suscep-
tibility to disease. He feels, too, that intelligent
parents are ever ready to be instructed and willing
to co-operate in the great work of preventing disease
— the highest aim of scientific medicine. While
every woman of ordinary brain-power can do much
to keep her baby well, she should recognize that
years of training and experience are necessary to
acquire the ability to put the full value upon symp-
toms, and to handle the tools of medicine. There-
fore, little or no reference has been made to drugs or
methods of medical treatment.

The first chapter, describing the normal
appearances of the infant in health, is writ-
ten with the object of hinting to the mother
when by deviations from such conditions
she may be apprised of the onset of disease,
and call in professional counsel. The last
chapter, on emergencies, is offered as a guide
in cases where immediate action will save
much pain and danger. Besides ordinary
accidents and disorders, those which occur
only at birth or soon after are treated of,
and directions for making various poultices
and plasters are given. The other chapters
tell how to manage everything that affects
the every-day life of the infant. The choice
and furnishing of a room for the nursery,
the selection of a nurse-maid, the infant's
clothing, exercise, and amusements, sleep,
bathing, and feeding, are all treated with
full details. The subject of food occupies

the most space, and recipes for preparing
quite a variety of foods are given. Through-
out the volume the directions are clear, sim-
ple, and complete, and the expectant mother
who possesses this book, with a fair share of
common sense, is well equipped for the care
of her baby.

The Virtues and their Reasons. By Aus-
tin Bierbower. Chicago : George Sher-
wood & Co. Pp. 294. Price, $1.35.

This book is designed both as a treatise
for the general reader and as a text-book of
ethics for schools. In arrangement, it fol-
lows a classification of duties which divides
them first into duties regarding others chiefly,
and those regarding self chiefly. The five
subdivisions of the former class are : kind-
ness, truth, honesty, family duties, and pub-
lic duties. Duties to self comprise self-
development, industry, self-support, self-
control, temperance, self-respect, purity, and
conscientiousness. " Moral instruction is
often excluded from the public schools,"
says the author, "on account of the different
religions represented, and the want of text-
books acceptable to them all." Hence he
has purposely adopted such a method of
treatment that " Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
and unbelievers may use this book with equal
approval." He does not go into the question
what constitutes right ; " it is enough now to
observe," he says, "that, whatever men's
opinions touching the ground of right, they
all deem those things right which are thought
best for men, and consider that course mo-
rality which will bring them most happi-
ness." Accordingly, the matter under each
head throughout the book may be described
as a statement of those things which are
thought best for men. The volume is with-
out an index.

The Advance-Guaed of Western Civiliza-
tion. By James R. Gil-more (Edmund
Kirke). New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 343. Price, $1.50.
This volume has a close relation with the
two previous historical works by the same
author — "The Eear-Guard of the Revolu-
tion " and " John Sevier as a Commonwealth-
Builder," the three together presenting, as is
remarked, a phase of Ameiican history to
which sufficient prominence has not been
given — the story of the foundation and

I

LITERARY NOTICES.

423

growth of the Tennessee commonwealth.
The title of the first volume is justified in
the fact that, but for the enterprise and
courage of the hardy pioneers who broke
their way into the woods of the Southwest
and formed settlements there, the rear of
the American colonies during the Revolution
would have been exposed to Indian attacks
in the interest of Great Britain, while such
attacks were relied upon as a part of the
scheme of subjugation. The present volume
relates to the emigration of James Robert-
son as leader of a party of three hundred
and eighty men, women, and children from
the Watauga foundation to the Cumber-
land River, the settlement of Nashville,
" the first civilized settlement in the valley
of the Mississippi," and the subsequent
fortunes of that post and the neighboring
stations, down to the conclusion of peace,
through Robertson's efforts, between the
Creeks and Chickasaws, in ]'795. Robert-
son lived till 1814, and had the privilege of
giving eminent services to the Government,
by holding the Choctaws and Chickasaws to
their allegiance against Tecumseh's efforts to
engage them in his conspiracy ; and of him
the author claims that, judging by the stand-
ard of fidelity to duty and devotion to the
good of men, there have been few greater
characters in American history.

Hand-Book of Historical and Geographi-
cal PniHisiOGRAPHY, with Special Refer-
ence to the Distribution of Consump-
tion in the United States. Compiled and
arranged by George A. Evans, M. D.,
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 295.
Price, $2.

In this volume the author has attempted
to present a sketch of the development of
our knowledge of pulmonary consumption
from the time of Hippocrates to the present
day, together with the ascertained facts re-
specting the geographical distribution of the
affection. The historical portion, which is
mostly a translation from Waldenburg's
work, gives the results of the several studies
that have been made of the subject, from
the days of the " father of medicine " down,
with summaries of observations and theories
in the order and under the names of their
authors ; closing with the present aspect of
the question as represented by Koch, and the
views of other contemporary authors. In

the chapters on geographical distribution,
the data for countries other than the United
States are compiled from Ilirscli ; and those
for the United States from the reports of the
census. In discussing the question of " local-
ity in relation to deaths " in the United States,
the country is oivided into twenty-one " re-
gions," each of which has its peculiar features
of climate, soil, topography, prevailing dis-
eases, and death-rate. The general statistics
of the United States and the principal cities,
in respect to mortality by consumption and
other diseases, and the topography and cli-
mate, and death-rate, by counties, from con-
sumption, are given separately. The etiol-
ogy of consumption is next taken up ; and
the conclusion is expressed, in the last chap-
ter that the antiseptic treatment — natural,
by living at high altitude, which is only neg-
atively antiseptic ; or artificial, by breathing
medicated air — is the best.

Botany for Academies and Colleges. By
Annie Chambers Ketchcm, A. M. Phil-
adelphia : J. B. Lippincott Company.
Pp. 324, with 250 Illustrations.

This is not a very large book, but it epit-
omizes the whole science of botany, with a
copious inventory of botanical material.
While the statements arc extremely concise,
they are intelligible, and well exhibit the
connections and relations of facts. Fol-
lowing the inductive method of Jussieu,
the author unfolds the development and
describes the structure of plants, from
the cryptogamia — "the green stain on our
door-stone" — to the highest orders, the
magnolia and the clematis, taking each
stage in the order of its evolution. " Thus,
at the outset, we see the principles upon
which differentiation is based." The proof
of the theory and the authority for the or-
der followed are indicated in a special les-
son on fossils, and this is accompanied by a
geological table showing the successive pe-
riods of organic and inorganic development
in which the predominances of the orders of
animals and plants are exhibited side by side.
Then, with the plant world thus outlined, the
physiology of the subject is taken up, and
the separate parts are studied — root, stem,
leaf, flower, fruit, tissues, and the forces
that govern them. A single deviation from
the method of Jussieu — the one usually

424

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

followed by systematic botanists — is made in
the ease of the gymnospei-ms, which are sep-
arated from the dicotyledons and made a
distinct class, coming immediately after the
cryptogams. "In nature," the author says,
" we find gymnosperms associated with the
higher cryptogams in the order of develop-
ment ; they form comjjrehensive types, includ-
ing the characters of. cryptogams, monocoty-
ledons, and dicotyledons — they are not true
dicotyledons " ; and she believes that if Jjs-
sieu had known what has been discovered
since his time, he would have favored the
change. The "Manual of Plants," forming
the second part of the volume (some 200
pages), contains lists of all the known orders
with their representative genera — a very de-
sirable feature, for few of our manuals give
them so exhaustively — with tables of abbre-
viations and etymons, or roots of botanical
terms and names of plants.

Soaps and Candles. Edited by James Cam-
eron. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son
& Co. Pp. 30(i. Price, $2.25.
Like the other technical hand-books in
the same series, this volume consists of the
articles in Cooley's "Cyclopaedia" on the
subjects to which it is devoted, with added
information from various sources. The user
of the book is assumed to have some knowl-
edge of general and analytical chemistry,
hence details of many chemical processes
are omitted. In the chapters devoted to
soaps, the materials employed are enumer-
ated, and the preliminary treatment of raw
fatty substances is described. Lye-testing
by the hydrometer and the chemistry of
saponification are touched upon, and the ap-
paratus and arrangement of the factory are
then set forth. Processes are given for
manufacturing a large number of house-
hold, toilet, medicinal, red-oil, soft, and in-
dustrial soaps, also a dozen methods of re-
covering glycerin from spent lyes. A chap-
ter on testing soaps closes this part of the
volume. In the same manner the manufact-
ure of candles is described. The volume is
illustrated with fifty-four cuts of apparatus.

Not only new but novel is Quick CooMng
(Putnam, $1), which its author calls " a book
cf culinary heresies." Its chief departure
from the established culinary creed is in
asserting that " there is no waste in the

kitchen so much to be deplored as wasted
time." Many of the recipes in the common
run of cook-books are extremely complicated,
and few women have the faintest realization
of the extravagant amount of time they con-
sume in proportion to the results achieved.
They have been made in the most random
fashion by adding one substance and manipu-
lation after another, according to the fancy
of the maker, and then slavishly followed,
without any intelligent effort to find a sim-
pler process for attaining an equivalent re-
sult. " Quick Cooking " claims to furnish,
in five, ten, or twenty minutes, dishes as
delicate and appetizing as those elaborate
affairs which one must potter over from twice
to ten times as long. This book contains
six hundred and thirty recipes, three hun-
dred and forty of which " can, severally or
in groups, be made ready for the table in
from five to fifteen minutes, and two hun-
dred and fifty of which require from fifteen
to forty minutes, or, rarely, an hour's time."
A " Black List " of thirty-nine favorite reci-
pes is appended, so called because the most
strenuous efforts have not succeeded in ma-
terially reducing the time which these dishes
require. Each of the three divisions is ar-
ranged alphabetically. The whole range of
dishes, from soups to sweetmeats, is repre-
sented. Prefixed to the recipes are some
practical suggestions of a general character,
and a table of weights and measures.

" Comfort on $150 a year " is an idea that
will provoke from many an incredulous smile,
but that this idea can be realized by intelli-
gent management is demonstrated in How
she did it, by Mary Cruger (Appleton, 50
cents). In pleasant story form is told how
Faith Arden, with a few hundred dollars and
borrowing $700 more on mortgage, buys an
acre of rocky hill-side, erects a cottage upon
it, which she supplies with furniture from
her former home, and some articles con-
structed by herself, with the aid of a handy
carpenter, and then begins housekeeping
alone. She has an income of $300 a year,
and at the end of six months finds that her
living expenses, when there arc no extra
outlays, need not exceed $150 a year, leaving
an equal sum for interest, taxes, and the re-
duction of her mortgage. This gives her a
varied fare and many comforts. A former
school-friend, with two children old enough

LITERARY NOTICES.

425

to be helpful, then joins her, contributing at
the rate of $350 a year to the expenses of
the household, and the nest quarter's account
shows a balance of |63, which is increased
to $139 for six months. The story is not a
visionary one. The author states that it is
"an actual portrayal, step by step, of her
own experience, her own wonderful success
in carrying out a long-cherished theory of
comfortable economy. The every-day life
described is not a poetically imagined affair,
but one that she has absolutely lived and
gloried in."

A second edition of the Chemical Lecture
Notes of Prof. C. 0. Curtman has been
issued, and now includes notes on the metals.
The volume is edited and published by Prof.
IT. M. Whelpley (St. Louis, $1.50), who has
extended some of the lecturer's memoranda,
and supplied a hundred cuts. Most of the
cuts are in the division of chemical physics,
which occupies about one third of the book.
The chemistry proper is a course in general
chemistry, and, although arranged for stu-
dents in pharmacy and medicine, is quite
full, more so than is generally given to these
classes of students. Prof. Curtman's notes
on organic chemistry are not included in this
volume.

Mr. IF. H. P. rhyfe, author of "How
should I pronounce ? " has now issued The
School Pronouncer, based on Webster's un-
abridged dictionary (Putnam, $1.25). Mas-
tering the 366 pages of this little text-book
implies an amount of phonetic drill which
should give the pupil a better command of
English pronunciation than the average per-
son generally has. The book is divided into
three parts, in the first of which the sounds
of the English language and the diacritical
marks used to represent them are set forth,
and extended exercises are given on the two
hundred and thirty symbols, consisting of one
or more letters, by which these sounds are
represented in English spelling ; also on the
various ways, ranging from two to eighteen,
of representing each one of the simple
sounds. The lessons in this part are in
catechetic form. The author enumerates
forty-two sounds in the language, but the dis-
tinctions which he makes between e in ermine
and u in urge, and between o in odd and
o in dog, will be regarded by many as useless

refinements. The second part comprises
drills on the elementary sounds, and seventy-
seven graded lists of twenty words each for
phonetic analysis. Part third consists of
twenty - four hundred words often mis-
pronounced, arranged alphabetically, each
word, both here and in part second, being
respellcd phonetically. Many names of per-
sons and places are included in this list.
Two appendixes treat of diacritics met with
in other books, and eight sounds found in
French and German words, but not in Eng-
lish. The volume is printed with large and
clear type throughout, and there is no
crowding of matter on its pages.

H. C. G. Brandfs First Book in German
(Alleyn & Bacon, Boston, $1) is a selection
from the same author's " Grammar," con-
taining Part I, or the accidence and syntax,
with new indexes, and Lodeman's exercises
and the complete English vocabulary. These
portions of the larger work have been put
together for use in secondary schools, in
place of some of the short grammars. The
distinguishing feature of the part of the
grammar here presented is the complete
separation of inflection and syntax. The
exercises for translating into German, by
Prof. A. Lodeman, are intended for the
double purpose of furnishing material for
translation and of assisting in the analysis
and translation of the more difficult illustra-
tions in the " Grammar." They are framed
upon the theory that examples from the
German classics are the proper kind of illus-
trations for a text-book of this order.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

" American Chemical Society, Journal." Month-
ly. New York : John Polhemus. Pp. 24. $5 a
year.

American Institute of Architects. Proceedings
of the Nineteenth Annual Convention, 1885. Pp.
124.

Besant, Walter. The Eulogy of Richard Jcfferies,
with a Portrait New York : Longmans, Green &
Co. Pp. 854. $2.

Brinton, Daniel G., INIedia, Pa. The Language of
Paleolithic Man. Pp. 16.

Cheritree, Olive E., Catskill, N. Y. Evolution.
Pp. 32.

Chester, John, M. D , D. D. Enth, the Christian
Scientist. Boston: H. U. Carter & Karrick. Pp.
343.

C^Iarke, J. M., State Hall, Albany, N. Y. Report
on Bones of Mastodon or Elophas, found in Associa-
tion with Human Relics in Attica, N. Y. Pp. S.

Comstock. John Henry, Ithaca, N. Y. An Intro-
duction to Entomology. Part I. Pp. 234. $2.

Cowles Electric Furnace Company, Lockport,
N. Y. The Alloys of Aluminum and Silicon. Pp. 69.

426

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Cooke, Martin W. The Human Mystery in
Hamlet. New York : Fords, Howard & Hul'bert
rp. 135.

Cragin, Francis W., Editor. Bulletin of the
Washburn College Laboratory of Natural History,
Topeka, Kansas. Nos. 1 to i. I'p. 212, with Plates.

Cuthbertson, Archibald. How to prevent and
cure Nervous Diseases. New York : William E.
Jenkins. Pp. OJ. 'ib cents.

Dawson. George M. Recent Observations on the
Glaciation of Biitijh Columbia and Adjacent Kegious.
Pp.4.

Fiske, John. The Critical Period of American
Historv, 17sy-lTS9. Boston and New York ; Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 36S. $2.

Gardner, E. C. Town and Country School
Buildings. New York and Chicago : E. L. Kellogg
& Co. Pp. 12s.

Hale, Edwin M., M. D., Chicago. The Cat and
its Diseases. Pp. 16.

Harland, Marion, Editor. "The Home-Maker."
Monthly. Nos. 1 and 2. New York: The Home-
Maker Company. Pp. SO each. 20 cents, $2 a year.

Hittell, John S. A Code of Morals. San Fran-
cisco : The Bancroft Company. Pp. 51.

Holbrook. M, L. Ealing for Strength. New
York : M. L. Holbrook Company. Pp. 236.

Hydrographic Office, U. S. Navy Department.
Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean. Novem-
ber, 188a. Sheet.

Iowa State Board of Health. Monthly Bulletin.
October, ISSS. Pp. 16.

Kay, David Memory; What it is and how to
improve it. New York : D. xippletun & Co. Pp.
334. $1.5J.

Keen, W. W.. M. D., Philadelphia. Three Suc-
cessful Cases of Cerebral surgery. Pp. 43.

Michigan, Agricultural College of. Experiment
Station. Bulletins Nos. 40 and 41. Pp. 3T and 8.

Mills, T. Wesley, Montreal. Squirrels: Their
Habits and Intelligence. With an Appendbc, by Dr.
B. Bell, on the Red Squirrel. Pp. 14.

Nettleship, R. L. Works of Thomas Hill Green.
Vol. III. Miscellanies and Memoir. New York :
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Ohver, Charles A., M. D., Philadelphia. Descrip-
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Choroid. Pp.6.

Parloa, Mnria. Miss Parloa's New Cook-Book.
Boston : Estes & Lam-iat. Pp. 56.

Proctor, Richard A. Old and New Astronomy.
Parts VI and VII. New York : Longmans. Green &
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Riley, Charles V. Report of the Entomologist,
Department of Agriculture. Pp. lTi». with Plates.
Insect Life. November, 1888. Pp. 44. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Office.

Rogers, James E. Thorold. The Economic In-
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Sons. Pp. 5*7.

Salomon, Otto. The Slojd in the Service of the
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Sehoppell's Modern Houses. No. 10. New York:
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Serviss, Garrett P. Astronomy vHth an Opera-
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$1.50.

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A Tax-Payer. True or False Finance. New
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Wakefield, George W.. Sioux City, la. Evolution
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Ward. Prof Lester F., Washington. Our Better
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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Fast Ocean Passages, — It was about fifty
years ago, with the introduction of iron ships
and the screw-propeller, that the era of
rapid steamboat traveling began. The pad-
dle-wheel steamer Great Western sailed
from Bristol, England, April 8, 1838, and
reached Xew York April 23d. This was wel-
comed as a great achievement, for the passage
across the Atlantic had been made in half the
time formerly required. Two years later the
Cunard steamers began to sail, the pioneer
vessel being the Unicorn, a little craft, which
made the passage from Liverpool to Boston,
via Halifax, in sixteen days. Improvements
in the new method of navigation were made in
rapid succession. In 1845 the Great Britain
— the original ocean screw-steamer — left Liv-
erpool July 26th and arrived at New York
August 10th. In May, 1851, the Pacific
crossed the Atlantic in nine days, nineteen
hours, and twenty-five minutes. The usual
time for the passage was still ten or eleven
days in 1859. It is only within the last ten
years that the speed of ocean-steamers has be-
come phenomenal and their size enormous.
The strictly modern class of steamships may
be said to have begun with the Arizona, built
in 1879, which made the Atlantic passage in
the fastest time then on record, attaining a
speed of twenty and one third statute miles
an hour. In the same year was launched
the Alaska, which in 18S2 was the first ves-
sel to cross the ocean in seven days, gaining
thereby the title of " greyhound of the At-
lantic" ; but still fleeter " ocean greyhounds "
soon appeared. The Oregon outstripped the
Alaska, running at the rate of twenty-two
miles an hour, and in 1884 was herself
eclipsed by the Umbria, making twenty-three
and a half miles an hour. Then came the
City of Rome, which made the eastward pas-
sage in six days, twenty-two hours, and
twenty-five minutes; and in February, 1887,
the Etruria came to the front with a record
of six days and nineteen hours from Liver-
pool to New York. The Umbria and the
Etruria have made several reductions on this
time, and the present best record is held by
the Etruria, which made the passage from
Queenstown to New York in September,
1888, in six days, one hour, and fifty min-
utes ; but we may expect a still further re-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

427

duction by either of these ships on her next
trip. Nearly equal speed has been made be-
tween England and Australia. At the be-
ginning of the century this passage required
eight months by sailing-vessels, and is now
made by steamers in about six weeks. The
Ormuz, launched in ISSV, was designed to
greatly reduce this time, and, although at
first not reahzing expectations, in October of
the same year she exceeded them by cover-
ing the distance between London and Ade-
laide m a trifle under twenty-four days.

Colors of Flying-Sqnkrels.— A paper
was read in the American Association, by
Mr. W. E. Taylor, on color variations of Ne-
braska flying- squirrels. The American fly-
ing-squirrel presents a range of geographi-
cal variation in size quite unparalleled in
other members of the Sciuridce. On the
other hand, the coloration is remarkably con-
stant. The local variations in color were
illustrated by descriptions and comparisons
of five specimens examined by the writer,
all collected near the Missouri River, in Ne-
braska, at different times and places. The
writer concludes : 1. That the measurements
correspond to the Northern variety, while
the colors correspond more nearly with the
Southern varieties. 2. Local variations in
color are great, these variations existing in
members of the same nest. 3. Locally, at
least, the two varieties appear to grade into
each other. 4. The degree of coloration on
some parts of different specimens does not
vary in the same rate.

Value of Experimental Psychology. —

Pointing out the advantages of the experi-
mental method of psychological investiga-
tion, combined with the introspective, Dr. J.
McK. Cattell, of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, says: "Experiment is not meant to
take the place of introspection, but is meant
to make scientific introspection possible.
The study of consciousness is, as we all
know, fraught with peculiar difficulties. It
is not easy to be at once the observer and
the observed. The eye sees not itself, and
the phenomena are both complex and tran-
sient. The best results have been obtained
when introspection has been combined with
the study of the objective manifestations of
the contents of other minds, more especially

when these have on the one hand become
fossilized, as in language, customs, art, etc.,
or, on the other hand, are relatively simple,
as in children, in savages, and in disease;
but, under circumstances the most favorable
to scientific observation, there are serious
difficulties in the way of exact observation
and measurement, and it will be found in
psychology, as elsewhere in science, that ex-
periment gives the most trustworthy and accu-
rate results. Experiment calls up the phe-
nomena to be studied when wanted, and by
keeping certain conditions constant and by
altering others gives the best chance for anal-
ysis ; above all, it enables us to photograph
the transient phenomena and subject them
to objective examination and measurement."

Continental Centers. — The orographic
centers of the several continents have been
graphically determined by M. A. de Tillo as
follows :

CONTINENTS.

Latitude.

LoDirftude (from
Greenwich).

Asia, with Europe

Africa

4.3° K.
4°N.
45° N.
14° 8.

85° E.
127° E.

North America

102° W.

South America

56° W.

These four centers form a fairly regular
quadrilateral. The longest side (92°) is the
one between the Asiatic and North American
centers. The African center is distant 82°
from the South American center. It is
worthy of remark that the distance between
the centers of the double continents is ap-
proximately the same, the center of Asia be-
ing 70° from that of Africa, while the cen-
ters of the double American continent are
separated by 73°. The geometric center of
the four continents is in the region of the
Azores and the Canaries.

The Energy in an Earthquake.— After

explaining, in the American Association, the
impossibility of calculating the intensity of
an earthquake more than approximately,
Prof. T. C. Mendenhall applied a formula to
determine the energy involved in the Japa-
nese earthquake of January 15, 1887, which
disturbed over 30,000 square miles of terri-
tory. He said: "Assuming a mass of 150
pounds per cubic feet, and taking a cubic
mile as the volume to be considered, I find
that to put it in vibration required the

428

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

expenditure of 2,500,000,000 pounds of en-
ergy. Assuming that an area of 100 miles
square with a mean depth of one mile was
thus in vibration at any one instant of time
— which is not improbable, considering the
known rate of transmission and the long
duration of the earthquake — the amount of
energy thus represented would be 25X10"12
foot-pounds. This energy might be gen-
erated by the fall under the action of grav-
ity of a cube of rock 1,000 feet on each edge,
the mass of which would be '75,000,000
tons, through a vertical distance of 166
feet." Also, assuming certain magnitudes,
"I find the energy of a cubic mile of the
Charleston earthquake, taken near enough
to the epicentrum to be disturbed as above
assumed, to be equal to 2-1,000,000,000 foot-
pounds. The speed of transmission of this
disturbance has been pretty well determined
by Newcomb and Sutton to be approxi-
mately three miles per second, so that a
cubic mile would be distributed in one third
of a second. To do this would require
130,000,000 horse-power. Assuming that
an area about the epicentrum 100 miles
square was thus disturbed, the energy would
be that of 24X10-13 foot-pounds, and the
rate of its expenditure would be that of
1,300,000,000,000 horse-power."

Gems. — The diamond became generally
employed as a finished gem in France during
the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The
art of cutting it has gradually improved and
developed, until now, two million five hun-
dred thousand carats of diamonds are annu-
ally cut in Amsterdam. The principal source
of supply has shifted from India to Brazil,
and now to South Africa, whose Cape dia-
monds at present furnish ninety-five per
cent of European supply. The quality of
these diamonds, according to Mr. Alfred
Phillips, has been purposely underestimated
by interested parties. It is true that color-
less diamonds have been found in the small-
est proportions in South Africa, but it is
equally beyond dispute that large numbers
of the whitest and most faultless diamonds
are exported from the Cape, while the mass
of the material is conspicuous, whether white
or colored, for its brilliancy. The ruby is
next highest in value, and after it comss the
sapphire, which is only another colored ruby.

Although the cheapest of the major gems,
its loss, according to Mr. Phillips, would be,
on account of its intrinsic value and unri-
valed blue color, a greater misfortune to
the art-goldsmith than that of either the
ruby or the emerald. The emerald is one of
the most beautiful, although the softest, of
the precious gems, and is easily fusible with
borax into a colorless glass. The true em-
erald occurs in crystals seldom over one inch
in length. The so-called Oriental emerald
of India is not an emerald, but a green ruby
or sapphire. The exquisite tones peculiar
to the minor gems, or those of lesser value,
establish them as a separate category when
compared with the magnificent or acknowl-
edged gems. Among them the amethyst
was worn in the middle ages as an amulet
and preservative in battle, and was distin-
guished as a pious or episcopal gem, figur-
ing wherever it was desirable to impart se-
rious beauty or dignity to the property of
the church, Then we have the chrysolites,
the topazes of various hues, and the garnets.
Oriental varieties of which ranked with gems
of a higher order rather more than a century
ago. The opal was held in the highest re-
pute in ancient times, first for its beauty,
and then because its own mythology consti-
tuted it a harbinger of love and good-v,ill.
It has lost in value in modern times, through
the influence of a silly superstition. The
selenite, or moonstone, is a gem of great beau-
ty, and admits of a great vai'iety of applica-
tions, on account of the softness of its tint,
which enables colored gems, diamonds, and
enamels to be agreeably associated with it.

About a Crocodile. — " Ubique " (Parker
Giilmore) tells, in " Land and Water," of a
crocodile which he saw in Java almost sev-
enteen feet long. " It frequented the vicinity
of a place where the village women were in
the habit of assembling to wash their clothes,
and, if report spoke truly, many were the
Malay females it had carried off. At length
it was captured by using a live dog for bait.
After being transferred from its watery
home to the commandant's garden, it was
safely secured upon the lawn by innumer-
able moorings. Our assistant surgeon ad-
ministered the saurian an immense dose of
strychnine, enough, as he said, to poison a
regiment, but it had not the slightest injuri-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

429

ous effect upon the brute. Its skin, I be-
lieve, is still to be seen at the Dutch East
Indian Museum at Amsterdam. If there is
one animal more than another detested by
the human race, it is the crocodile, and, if
possible, the hunter or sportsman hates it
more than all others combined, for it is cer-
tain to carry off his dogs sooner or later."
The call of the crocodile is described as be-
ing like the snappish bark of an aggrieved
dog.

Two Snake - Stories analyzed. — Two

American snake-stories — one about a singing
snake said to be in the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, and the other about a rattlesnake that
was said to have poisoned itself — having been
referred to Dr. Arthur Stradling for a verdict
on their credibility, he has pronounced them
both intrinsically false. No snake on earth,
he says, has any vocal apparatus, properly
so called, whatever, or is capable of produc-
ing any respiratory sound beyond a hiss or a
wheeze. But they may in the last stage of
canker give vent to a noise almost amount-
ing to a squeal, caused by forcible expiration ;
and, if they happen to have swallowed a frog
alive, he may croak audibly in the snake's
stomach. To what extent a poisonous ser-
pent's bite is noxious to itself is doubtful.
" Probably it inflicts mechanical injury only
upon its own body, or upon those of its im-
mediate congeners. ... I have seen cobras
bite and shake each other like dogs over dis-
puted rats, and I recollect a jaboia being
heavily mauled by a puff-adder under like
circumstances, with a little swelling and in-
flammation only arising in either case." Dr.
Stradling has a rattlesnake that bit itself
severely, with no more result than a little
tumefaction of the wound; and it is still
living and well.

Fading Photographs.— Common photo-
graphs, in which the dark parts consist of
finely divided silver on a film of albumen,
rarely remain unchanged in appearance for
twenty years. The white parts sooner or
later take on a sickly yellow tinge, and, when
this change has begun, the picture is doomed,
unless immediate steps are taken to preserve
it. Treatment by skillful hands with a
weak solution of mercuric chloride (corrosive
sublimate) may arrest decay, but will not

restore the clearness and freshness of the
print. A better plan is to have the picture
copied by some platinum-printing or carbon-
printing photographer who does a large
enough business to employ a skillful re-
toucher. The process of getting a good
permanent photograph from a bad fading
one is complicated, and requires skill.
Photographs in which the dark parts are
formed of platinum-black are the most du-
rable sort known. The best photographers
will furnish permanent pictures if their
sitters demand them, but such pictures are
in plain black and white — without the choco-
late tinge of the common style — unless the
carbon process with a pigment of the requisite
color is employed. The greatest enemies to
the permanence of common silver-prints are
traces of chemicals not fully washed out of
the print, dampness, and the action of sulphur
or its compounds. The last of these agencies
is the most diflicult to guard against. The
albumen with which the photograph-paper is
coated contains sulphur, and a familiar in-
stance of its action is the blackening of silver
egg-spoons. The air also, especially in cities,
contains sulphurous gases derived from
sewers, and from the burning of coal and
gas.

Warmth for the Injured.— A correspond,
ent of " The Lancet " urges the addition of
some source of artificial heat to the equip-
ment of ambulances in cold weather. " We
all know," he says, "how depressed the
system is after accidents ; how difficult it is to
restore warmth ; and if to this we add ex-
posure to a low temperature on the ground
in frosty or wet weather, any amount of
blankets can not add warmth, only retain
what little there remains in the body. One
need only picture one's meeting with an ac-
cident three or four miles from home, late
in the evening, without additional clothing,
lying for one or two hours on the damp
ground, to realize how some means of con-
veying heat to the feet and hands would be
welcomed." The writer then describes the
means which he has used, consisting of a
tin-lined copper bottle, holding a gallon and
a hall, and closed with a screw-plug. It is
of concavo-convex shape, for feet, chest, etc.
If filled with boihng water and rolled up in
a blanket, it will remain quite hot for three

43°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hours, and be fairly warm after seven
hours. Some of the hot water can be given
to the injured person to drink, with the
addition of beef-extract, spirits, cocoa, etc.
lie mentions also a particular pattern of
kerosene stable-lamp, which, if placed inside
a covered ambulance-wagon, would materially
raise the temperature of the interior.

Boys' Color-Knowledge.— Some test ex-
aminations recently made in one of the Eng-
lish board-schools indicate that too much
may have been made out of color-blindness,
and that want of instruction rather than
want of discrnuination may be at fault in
many of the cases where disability is sup-
posed to exist. Some of the pupils at the
examination in question were awkward at
first, and made great mistakes, but needed
only a little setting right to prove that they
could distinguish the colors correctly. One
boy was in the habit of calling black white
and white black ; as for the other colors, he
had never been particular to name them, or
think about them exactly, supposing it to be
a matter of little importance. Of a hundred
boys examined upon the seven principal col-
ors, not one showed any real suspicion of
color-blindness. Of two hundred boys ex-
amined in graduating and matching shades,
none found any difficulty after practicing for
about an hour ; and every one was soon
able to distinguish all the ordinary colors
without the least difficulty.

Vitality of Mierolies la Water. — Accord-
ing to Prof. Frankland's relation of experi-
ments on the vitality of various microbes in
water, great differences in behavior are ob-
servable. Of Koch's comma spirillum of
Asiatic cholera, Finkler-Prior's comma spi-
rillum of European cholera, and the Bacillus
pyocyaneus, \i\\ic\i produces the greenish-blue
coloring in abscesses, the latter exhibits
much greater vitality than either of the other
two. It lives and increases many times for
more than fifty days. Koch's comma spiril-
lum disappeared from pure water in nine
days, but flourished and increased in Lon-
don sewage ; while Tinkler's spirillum disap-
peared in less than one day. In some cases
when organisms not the natural inhabitants
of water are introduced into it, a large pro-
portion of them are at first destroyed, but a

multiplication in numbers takes place after-
ward. The Bacillus anthracis in its bacillus
form is destroyed with comparative case, but
the spores have remarkable vitality. Mr.
Arthur Downes has remarked how, in tubes
containing more than one form of microbe,
the first dominant form will gradually grow
more and more feeble until it seems to be-
come extinct and is succeeded by races of a
different kind.

The Arts of Life in Anthropology. — The

one great feature which it is desirable to
emphasize in anthropological museums, said
Lieutenaut-Gcneral Pitt-Rivers, in the British
Association, is evolution. To impress upon
the mind the continuity and historical se-
quence of the arts of life is one of the most
important lessons to be inculcated. It is
only of late j-ears that the development of
social institutions has at all entered into the
design of educational histories. The arts of
life have never formed part of any educa-
tional series. Yet, as a study of evolution,
they are the most important of all, because
in them the connecting links between the
various phases of development can be better
displayed. Laws, customs, and institutions
may, perhaps, be regarded as of greater im-
portance than the arts of life, but for anthro-
pological purposes they are of less value,
because in them, previous to the introduction
of writing, the different phases of develop-
ment, as soon as they are superseded by new
ideas, are entirely lost, and can not be re-
produced except in imagination ; whereas
in the arts of life, in which ideas are em-
bodied in material forms, the connecting
finks are in many cases preserved, and can
be replaced in their proper sequence by
means of antiquities. For this reason the
study of the arts of life ought always to
precede the study of social evolution, in
order that the student may learn to make
allowance for missing links, and to avoid
sophisms and the supposition of laws and
tendencies which have no existence in reality.
To ascertain the true causes for all the phe-
nomena of human life is the main object of
anthropological research, and it is obvious
that this is better done in those branches in
which the continuity is best preserved. In
the study of natural history existing animals
are regarded as present phases in the devel-

NOTES.

43 »

opment of species, and their value to the
biological student depends, not so much
on their being of the highest organism, as
on the paleontological sequence by which
their history is capable of being established.
In the same way existing laws, institutions,
and arts, wherever they are found in their
respective stages of perfection, are to be re-
garded simply as existing strata in the de-
velopment of human life, and their value
from an anthropological point of view, de-
pends on the faciUties they afford for study-
ing their history. The arts of life are of
paramount importance, because they admit
of being arranged in cases by means of
antiquities in the order in which they were
actually developed.

The Haman Struggle for Existence—

The Malthusian theory was the subject of
a discussion at the British Association. A
paper by Mr. Edwin Chadwick went to show
that, where wages increase, the pressure of
population on means of subsistence is dimin-
ished ; that, instead of the cost of produc-
tion of land being fixed, it is generally re-
ducible by science and machinery, while the
amount of production may be everywhere
y augmented ; and that, instead of pestilence

being a natural check on population, it does
not diminish its pressure, but serves to
weaken the population and diminish its pro-
ductive power and increase its pressure on
the means of subsistence. The author could
not descry the limits of a further advance
of prosperity in the country with a further
increase of population. Mr. Park Harrison
thought that war was not an unmixed evil
as a factor of population, and that it was
interesting to note the care we took at pres-
ent at vast expense to enable miserable
specimens of humanity to survive and in-
crease that part of the population which is
really the main element of the unemployed.
The members of society thus produced were
perfectly incapable subjects, carefully nursed,
and brought up as if they were going t oin-
herit large estates. Natural selection should
be allowed to have fair play. It was inter-
fering with the laws of nature to do so much
in the direction of perpetuating the survival
of the unfittest. Mr. W. L. Bros said that
in old times war, by the operation of the
rules that prevailed, eliminated the weakest

members of society ; but, by the system of
fighting in the nineteenth century, the soldier
should be a picked man of the community.
The population, therefore, which suffered
from war lost its best, not its worst mem-
bers. War also added largely to the dis-
proportion in the numbers of the sexes, and
meant the prevalence of many social irregu-
larities which tended to degrade the com-
munity as a whole, and to cause the survival
of a lower type. Sociologists believe that
the commercial competition of the present
day is acting very much as war used to act
in earlier days. The strong, the competent,
and the mentally and physically efficient are
succeeding in the struggle for life ; the fee-
ble in mind and body and in resources are
being eliminated by industrial competition.
It is desirable, in the interests of the health
of the community, that this competition con-
tinue. Another speaker maintained that the
children of the working classes did not, as a
rule, contribute to the lazy population of the
country. A poor man with six daughters
practically owned a fortune, because they
could become useful servants ; and if he had
three or four sons, the young men could
obtain work if capable for it. It was the
middle and higher classes who contributed
to the surplus and lazy population. This
could be seen by the large number of gen-
teel young men who every day crowded after
a vacant clerkship. Parents should not be
afraid to bring up their sons to learn a use-
ful handicraft.

NOTES.

The statistics of the Japanese Empire for
1887 show that commercial enterprise is
developing there in a remarkable degree.
The foreign trade of the country has in-
creased more than 86 per cent in ten years.
In connection with the addition of 151 miles
of railway to the 3*70 miles before built, the
pertinacity with which the Japanese insist
upon furnishing their own capital, and not
borrowing from abroad, is remarked upon.
Naval stations are building at Kune, Naga-
saki, and Tauchina Island. A system of
water-works has been completed at Yoko-
hama, while such concerns were wholly un-
known under the old system; 111 commer-
cial and industrial companies were formed
last year in Tokio, Osaka, and Kioto, having
an aggregate capital of $21,500,000; and
in ail, shares to the extent of more than
$71,000,000 taken up by the people.

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Dr. Joseph WiGGLESwoRxn, of Rainhill
Asylum, regards morality as of developmental
origin and growth. Morally insane persons
exhibit a change in their affective nature,
having their altruistic feelings greatly im-
paired or lost. Moral insanity might exist
by itself, but it is more usually a stage in the
development of intellectual insanity, show-
ing itself generally precedent to intellectual
change ; the moral faculties are often the first
to be affected when the cerebrum is the sub-
ject of slowly progressing disease. There
are also moral idiots or imbeciles — children
who, with little or no impairment of intellect,
show great deficiency or almost total absence
of the moral faculties, and are incapable of
acquiring them.

The kava-root {Piper methysticum) of the
Society and South Sea Islands is the basis
of the intoxicating drink of those regions.
Women and girls are employed to chew the
root, and, when well masticated and mixed
with saliva, it is ejected into bowls, mixed
with coca-juice, and left to ferment. Both
natives and whites of the lower classes are
very fond of it. The natives use it as some
among us do wine, under the idea that it will
help them along in important undertakings.

The Franklin Institute calls attention to
the fact that it is empowered to award a gold
medal, foxmded by the legacy of EUiott Cres-
son, of Philadelphia, which is granted either
for some discovery in the arts and sciences,
or for the invention or improvement of some
useful machine, or for some new process, or
combination of materials in manufacture, or
for ingenuity, skill, or perfection in work-
manship. It is also empowered to recom-
mend the award of a premium and medal,
founded in 1816, by John Scott, of Edinburgh,
by a legacy to the city of Philadelphia, for
rewarding ingenious men and women who
make useful inventions. The premium is not
to exceed twenty dollars, and the medal is
to be of copper, and inscribed " To the most
deserving." Full information respecting the
manner of presenting reports upon discover-
ies and inventions may be obtained by ad-
dressing the Secretary of the Franklin Insti-
tute, Philadelphia, Pa.

A TECHNICAL uuivcrsity is contemplated in
the colony of Victoria. A minute has been
issued by the Minister of Public Instruction
of the colony, on the policy of founding such
an institution, in which the evidence taken
before the Royal Commission on Technical
Instruction is largely drawn upon. The esti-
mates of cost embrace between £500,000
and £1,000,000 for founding the institution,
and a yearly endowment of £30,000.

The district of OuUiassutai in Mongolia
has been suffering for two years from an
invasion of rats, which have destroyed all
the grass of the pastures. The post-carriers
have been obliged to change their routes,
not only because of the difficulty of support-

ing relays of horses in the infested districts,
but also because the roads have been made
dangerous by innumerable burrows.

OBITUARIES.
It was recently announced that General
Nicholas Prjevalsky, the distinguished Rus-
sian explorer, had died in Central Asia, on
his way to Thibet, of typhus fever. He hart
started from St. Petersburg on the 31st of
August, in an attempt to reach Lhassa, in
Thibet. When last heard from previous to
his death he had reached Vernoje, where he
intended to equip his party. A portrait and
sketch of him will be found in the number
of this magazine for January, 1887.

Prof. Theodoi Kjirulf, who has recent-
ly died at Christiania, Norway, besides being
distinguished as a contributor to scientific
literature, was versed in poetry and music,
and a lover of the fine arts. lie was born
in Christiania in 1825 ; traveled in early life
in Norway collecting folk-lore, and in Iceland,
Tyrol, and other parts of Europe for geo-
logical study. lie became attached to the
geological department of the University of
Christiania in 1850, and a professor there,
and Director of the Geological Survey in
1866. He published works on the Silurian
basin of Christiania and the geology of south-
ern Norway, and was the author of more
popular books on scientific subjects.

James Stevenson, of the United States
Geological Survey, died July 25th. He was
born in Maysville, Ky., was business mana-
ger in the field of the Haydcn Survey, was
especially interested in American ethnology,
and was a well-informed zoologist.

Mr. William Gifford Palgrave, an emi-
nent traveler, died at Montevideo, where he
was British minister, in his sixty-third year.
He was author of a " Narrative of a Year's
Journey through Central and Eastern Ara-
bia," which was a great fund of informa-
tion respecting that little-known country.

Silas Stearns, an ichthyologist of thor-
ough and exact knowledge, died at Ashe-
ville, N. C, August 2d. He was made a
special agent in 1880 of the United States
Fish Commission and Census Bureau, in
charge of investigations of the marine indus-
tries of the Gulf of Mexico, with the fishes
of which and their economical value he was
particularly well acciuainted. According to
President Jordan, his early ambition to be-
come a naturalist "met with discouragement
in the absurd statement, made by some one
in Washington, that no successful work in
science would be possible without a classical
education," but evidently was not put down
by it.

Dr. Peter Gries, an English chemist,
died September 6th, of apoplexy. He was
best known from his discovery of the diazo
compounds.

JOHN BERNARD STALLO.

THE

POPULAR SCIEN"CE
MOJ^THLY.

FEBRUARY, 1889.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H. D.,

FOEMEELT PRESIDENT OF COENELL TTNIVERSITT,

"DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" AND INSANITY.
PART I.

OF all the triumphs won by science for humanity, none has
been farther-reaching in its good effects than the modern
treatment of the insane. But it is the result of a struggle long
and severe between two great forces. On one side have stood the
survivals of various superstitions, the metaiDhysics of various
philosophies, the theologies of various religions, the literal inter-
pretation of various sacred books, and especially of our own — all
compacted into a creed that insanity is mainly or largely demoni-
acal possession; on the other side has stood science, gradually
accumulating proofs that insanity is always the result of physical
disease.

I purpose, in this chapter and the following, to sketch, as
briefly as I may, the history of this warfare, or rather of this
evolution of truth out of error.

Nothing is more simple and natural, in the early stages of
civilization, than belief in occult, self-conscious powers of evil.
Troubles and calamities come upon man ; his ignorance of physi-
cal laws forbids him to attribute them to physical causes; he
therefore attributes them sometimes to the wrath of a good being,
but more frequently to the malice of an evil being.

Especially is this the case with diseases. The real causes of
disease are so intricate that they are reached only after ages of
scientific labor ; hence they, above all, have been attributed to the
influence of evil spirits.*

* On the general attribution of disease to demoniacal influence, see Sprenger, " History
of Medicine," jDam'w (note, for a later attitude, ii, ISO-l'ZO, 178); Calmeil, "De la Folie,"
VOL. XXXIV. — 28

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But, if ordinary diseases were likely to be attributed to dia-
bolical agency, how much, more diseases of the brain, and espe-
cially the more obscure of these ! These, indeed, seemed to the
vast majority of mankind' possible only on the theory of satanic
intervention. Any approach to a true theory of the connection
between physical causes and mental results is one of the highest
acquisitions of science.

Here and there, during the whole historic period, keen men
had obtained an inkling of the truth ; but, to the vast multitude,
down to the end of the seventeenth century, nothing was more
clear than that insanity is in many, if not in most, cases demonia-
cal possession.

Yet at a very early date, in Greece and Rome, science asserted
itself, and a beginning was made which seemed destined to bring
a large fruitage of blessings.* In the fifth century before the
Christian era, Hippocrates of Cos asserted the great truth that
all madness is simply disease of the brain, thereby beginning a
noble development of truth and mercy which lasted nearly a
thousand years. In the first century after Christ, Aretseus car-
ried these ideas yet further, observed the phenomena of insanity
with great acuteness, and reached yet more valuable results.
Near the beginning of the following century, Soranus went still
further in the same path, giving new results of research, and
strengthening scientific truth. Toward the end of the same cent-
ury, a new epoch was ushered in by Galen, under whom the same
truth was developed yet further, and the path toward merciful
treatment of the insane made yet more clear. In the third cent-
ury came Celius Aurelianus, who received this deposit of pre-
cious truth, elaborated it, and brought forth the great idea
which, had theology, citing Biblical texts, not banished it, would

Paris, 1845, i, 104, 105; Esquirol, " Des Maladies Mentales," Paris, 1838, i, 482; also
Tylor, " Primitive Culture." For a very plain and honest statement of this view in our
own sacred books, see Oort, Hooykaas, and Kuenen, " The Bible for Young People," Eng-
lish translation, v, 167, and following; also Farrar's "Life of Christ," chap. xvii. For
this idea in Greece and elsewhere, see Maury, " La Magie," etc., iii, 276, giving, among
other citations, one from book v of the " Odyssey." On the iniluence of Platonism, see
Esquirol and others, as above — the main passage cited is from the "Phaedo." For the devo-
tion of the early fathers and doctors to this idea, see citations from Eusebius, Lactantius,
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, in Tissot, " L'lma-
gination," p. 369; also Jacob (i. e., Paul Lacroix), " Croyances Populaires," p. 183. For
St. Augustine, see also his " De Civitate Dei," lib. 22, cap. viii, and his " Enarratio in
Psal.," cxxxv, 1. For the breaking away of the religious orders in Italy from the entire
supremacy of this idea, see Becavin, " L'^cole de Salerne," Paris, 1888 ; also Daremberg,
"Histoire de la Medecine." Even so late as the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther
maintained ("Table-Talk," Hazlitt's translation, London, 1872, pp. 250-256) that "Satan
produces all the maladies which afflict mankind."

* It is significant of this scientific attitude that the Greek word for superstition signi-
fies, literally, fear of gods or demons.

I^EW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

435

have saved fifteen centuries of cruelty — a truth not fully recog-
nized again till near the beginning of the present century —
the truth that insanity is brain-disease, and that the treatment of
it must be gentle and kind. In the sixth century Alexander of
Tralles presented still more fruitful researches, and taught the
world how to deal with melancholia; and, finally, in the seventh
century, this great line of scientific men, working mainly under
pagan auspices, was closed by Paul of JEgina, who, under the
protection of Caliph Omar, made still further observations and
additions to truth, but, above all, laid stress on the cure of
madness as a disease, and on the absolute necessity of mild
treatment.

Such was this great succession in the apostolate of truth;
evidently no other has ever shown itself more directly under
divine grace, illumination, and .guidance. It had given to the
world what might have been one of its greatest blessings.*

But, most unfortunately, there set into the early Church a cur-
rent of belief which was destined to bring all these noble acquisi-
tions of science and religion to naught, and, during centuries, to
inflict tortures, physical and mental, upon hundreds of thousands
of innocent men and women — a belief which held its cruel sway
for nearly eighteen centuries ; and this belief was that madness
was mainly or largely possession by the Devil.

This idea of diabolic agency in mental disease grew luxuriantly
in all the Oriental sacred literatures, and esjDecially in that of the
Jews. Such cases in the Old Testament as the evil spirit in Saul,
which we now see to have been simply melancholy, and in the
New Testament the various accounts of the casting out of devils,
through which is refracted the beautiful and simple story of that
power by which Jesus of Nazareth soothed perturbed minds by
his presence or quelled outbursts of madness by his word, give
abundant examples of this. In Greece, too, an idea akin to this
found lodgment both in the popular belief and in the philosophy
of Plato and Socrates ; f and though, as we have seen, the great
leaders in medical science had taught with more or less distinct-
ness that insanity is the result of physical disease, there was a

* For authorities regarding this development of scientific truth and mercy in antiquity,
see especially Kraft -Ebing, " Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie," Stuttgart, 1888, p. 40 and the
pages following; Trelat, " Recherches Historiques sur la Folic," Paris, 1839 ; Semelaigne,
" L'Alienation mentale dans I'Antiquite," Paris, 1869 ; Dagron, "Des Alienes," Paris, 18Y5;
also Calmeil, " De la Folic," Sprenger, and especially Isensee, " Geschichte dcr Medicin,"
Berlin, 1840.

f It is, indeed, extremely doubtful whether Plato himself or his contemporaries knew
anything of evil demons, this conception probably coming into the Greek world, as into the
Latin, with the Oriental influences that began to prevail about the time of the birth of
Christ ; but to the early Christians a demon was a demon, and Plato's, good or bad, were
pagan, and therefore devils.

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

strong popular tendency to attribute the more troublesome cases
of it to hostile spiritual influence.*

From all these sources, but especially from our sacred books
and the writings of Plato, this theory that mental disease is
caused largely or mainly by satanic influence passed into the
early Church. In the apostolic times no belief seems to have been
more firmly settled. The early Fathers and Doctors in the fol-
lowing age universally accepted it, and the apologists generally
spoke of the power of casting out devils as a leading proof of the
divine origin of the Christian religion, f

As a result of this idea, the Christian Church at an early period
in its existence virtually gave up the noble conquests of Greek
and Koman science in this field, and originated a regular disci-
pline for i)ersons supposed to be possessed, based, as was believed,
upon Scriptural theology. But, during the centuries before the-
ology and ecclesiasticism were largely developed, this discipline
was, as a rule, gentle and useful. The afflicted, when not too vio-
lent, were generally admitted to the exercises of public worship,
and a kindly system of cure was attempted, in which prominence
was given to holy water, sanctified ointments, the breath or spittle
of the priest, the touching of relics, visits to holy places, and sub-
mission to mild forms of exorcism. There can be no doubt that
many of these things, when judiciously used, in that spirit of love
and gentleness and devotion inherited by the earlier disciples
from " the Master," produced good efiiects in soothing disturbed
minds and aiding their cure.

Among the thousands of fetiches of various sorts then resorted
to may be named, as typical, the Holy Handkerchief of Besangon.
During many centuries multitudes came from far and near to be
touched by it ; for, it was argued, if touching the garments of St.
Paul, at Ephesus, had cured the diseased, how much more might
be expected of a handkerchief of the Lord himself !

With ideas of this sort was mingled a vague belief in medical

* The Greek word " epilepsy " is itself a survival of the old belief, fossilized in a word,
since its literal meaning refers to the seizure of the patient by evil spirits.

f For a striking statement of the Jewish belief in diabolical interference, see Josephiis,
" De Bello Judaico," vii, 6, iii ; also his " Antiquities," viii, Whiston's translation. On the
"devil cast out," in Mark ix, 17-29, as an undoubted case of epilepsy, see Cherullier,
" Essai sur I'Epilepsie " ; also Maury, art. " Demoniaque " in the " Encyclopedic Moderne."
In one text, at least, the popular belief is perfectly shown as confounding madness and
possession : " He hath a devil and is mad," John x, 20. Among the multitude of texts
those most relied upon were Matthew viii, 28, and Luke x, 17; and, for the use of fetiches
in driving out evil spirits, the account of the cures wrought by touching the garments of St.
Paul in Acts xix, 12. On the general subject see authorities already given, and as a typical
passage Tertullian, " ad. Scap.," ii ; for the very gross view taken by St. Basil, see Cudworth,
"Intellectual System," ii, 648; also Archdeacon Farrar's "Life of Christ." For a curious
presentation of Greek views, see Lelut, " Le Demon de Socrate," Paris, 1886 ; and, for
the transmission of these to Christianity, see same, p. 201, and following.

NUW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 437

treatment, and out of this mixture were evolved such prescriptions
as the following :

" If an elf or a goblin come, smear his forehead with this salve,
put it on his eyes, cense him with incense, and sign him frequently
with the sign of the cross/'

" For a fiend-sick man : When a devil possesses a man, or controls
him from within with disease, a spew-drink of lupin, bishopswort,
henbane, garlic. Pound these together, add ale and holy water/'

And again: "A drink for a fiend-sick man, to be drunk out of a
church-bell : Githrif e, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin, flower-de-luce,
fennel, lichen, lovage. Work up to a drink with clear ale, sing
seven masses over it, add garlic and holy water, and let the pos-
sessed sing the Beati Immacnlati ; then let him drink the dose
out of a church-bell, and let the priest sing over him the Domine
Sande Pater Omnipotens." *

Had this been the worst treatment of lunatics developed in the
theological atmosphere of the middle ages, the world would have
been spared some of the most terrible chapters in its history ; but,
unfortunately, the idea of the Satanic possession of lunatics led
to attempts to punish the indwelling demon. As this theological
theory and practice became more fully developed, and ecclesiasti-
cism more powerful to enforce it, all mildness began to change, or
to be driven into remote corners of Christendom ; the admonitions
to gentle treatment by the great pagan and Moslem physicians
were forgotten, and the treatment of lunatics tended more and
more toward severity ; more and more generally it was felt that
cruelty to madmen was punishment of the devil residing within
or acting upon them.

A few strong churchmen and laymen made efforts to resist this
tendency. As far back as the fourth century, Nemesius, Bishop of
Emesa, accepted the truth as developed by pagan physicians, and
aided them in strengthening it. In the seventh century, a Lom-
bard code embodied a similar effort. In the eighth century, one
of Charlemagne's capitularies seems to have had a like purpose.
In the ninth century, that great churchman and statesman, Ago-
bard. Archbishop of Lyons, superior to his time in this as in so
many other things, tried to make right reason prevail in this field ;
and, near the beginning of the tenth century, Regino, Abbot of
Priim, in the diocese of Treves, insisted on treating possession as
disease. But all in vain ; the current streaming most directly
from sundry texts in the Christian sacred books, and swollen by
theology, had become overwhelming, f

* See Cockayne, " Leeehdoms, Wort-cunning, and Star-Craft of Early England " (in the
Rolls Series), ii, 17*7 ; also 355, 356. For the great value of priestly saliva, see W. W.
Story's interesting essays.

f For a very thorough and interesting statement on the general subject, see Kircbhof,

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first great tributary poured into this stream, as we ap-
proach, the bloom of the middle ages, appears to have come from
the brain of Michael Psellus. Mingling scriptural texts, Platonic
philosophy, and theological views of great doctors of the Church,
with wild statements obtained from lunatics, he gave forth, about
the beginning of the twelfth century, a treatise on " The Work of
Demons." " Sacred science " was vastly enriched thereby in
various ways ; but two of his conclusions, the results of his most
profound thought, enforced by theologians and popularized by
preachers, soon took a special hold upon the thinking portion of
the people at large. The first of these, which he easily based upon
Scripture and St. Basil, was that, since all demons suffer by ma-
terial fire and brimstone, they must have material bodies ; the
second was that, since all demons are by nature cold, they
gladly seek a genial warmth by entering the bodies of men and
beasts.*

Fed by this stream of thought, and developed in the warm at-
mosphere of mediaeval devotion, the idea of demoniacal possession
as the main source of lunacy grew and blossomed and bore fruit
in noxious luxuriance.

There had, indeed, come into the middle ages an inheritance
of scientific thought. The ideas of Hippocrates, Celius Aurelianus,
Galen, and their followers, were from time to time revived ; the
Arabian physicians, the school of Salerno, such writers as Salicetus,
Guy de Chauliac, and even some of the religious orders, did some-
thing to keep scientific doctrines alive ; but the tide of theological
thought was too strong — it became dangerous even to seem to
name possible limits to diabolical power. To deny Satan was
atheism ; and perhaps nothing did so much to fasten the epithet
" atheist " upon the medical profession as the suspicion that it did
not fully acknowledge diabolical interference in mental disease.
Of this feeling we have a monument in the mediaeval proverb,
" Where there are three physicians there are two atheists." Fol-

" Beziehungen des Damonen- und Hexenwesens zur deutschen Irrenpflege," in the "AUge-
meine Zeitschrift f iir Psychiatric," Berlin, 1888, Bd. xliv, Hft. 25. For Roman Catholic
authority, see Addis and Arnold, " Catholic Dictionary," article " Emergumens." For a
brief and eloquent summary, see Kraft-Ebing, " Lehrbuch der Psychiatric," as above ; and,
for a clear view of the transition from pagan mildness in the care of the insane to severity
and cruelty under the Christian Church, see Maudsley, " The Pathology of Mind," London,
18'i'9, p. 523. See also Buchmann, "Die unfreie und die freie Kirche," Breslau, 1873, p.
251. For other citations, see Kirchhof, as above, pp. 334-336. For Bishop Nemesius, see
" Trelat," p. 48. For an admirable account of Agobard's general position in regard to this
and allied superstitions, see Reginald Lane Poole's " Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval
Thought," London, 1884.

* See Baas and Werner, cited by Kirchhof, as above ; also Lecky, " Rationalism in
Europe," i, 68, and note, New York, 1884. As to Basil's belief in the corporeality of
devils, see his " Commentary on Isaiah," cap, i.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 439

lowing in the lines of the earlier fathers, St. Anselm, Abdlard, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Vincent de Beauvais, all the great doctors in the
mediaeval Church, some of them in spite of occasional misgivings,
upheld the idea that insanity is largely or mainly demoniacal pos-
session, basing their belief steadily on the sacred Scriptures ; and
this belief was followed up in every quarter by more and more
constant citation of the text " Ye shall not suffer a witch to live."
No other text of Scripture — save, perhaps, one — has caused the
shedding of so much innocent blood.

As we look over the history of the middle ages, we do, indeed,
see another development from which one might hope much ; for
there were two great streams of influence in the Church — and
never were two powers more truly unlike each other.

On one side was the spirit of Christianity, as it proceeded from
the heart and mind of its blessed Founder, immensely powerful in
aiding the evolution of religious thought and effort, and especially
of provision for the relief of suffering by religious asylums and
tender care. Nothing better expresses this than the touching
words inscribed upon a great mediaeval hospital, " Christo in pau-
peribus suis." But on the other side was the theological theory —
proceeding, as we have seen, from the survival of ancient super-
stitions, and sustained by constant reference to the texts in our
sacred books — that many, and probably most, of the insane were
possessed by the devil or in league with him, and that the cruel
treatment of lunatics was simply punishment of the devil and his
minions. By this current of thought was gradually developed
one of the greatest masses of superstitious cruelty that has ever
disgraced humanity. At the same time the stream of Christian
endeavor, so far as the insane were concerned, was almost entirely
cut off. In all the beautiful provision during the middle ages
for the alleviation of human suffering, there was for the insane
almost no care. Some monasteries, indeed, gave them refuge. We
hear of a charitable work done for them at the London Bethlehem
Hospital in the thirteenth century, at Geneva in the fifteenth, at
Marseilles in the sixteenth, by the Black Penitents in the south of
France, by certain Franciscans in northern France, by the Alexian
Brothers on the Rhine, and by various agencies in other parts of
Europe.

Curiously enough, the only really important effort in the
Christian Church was stimulated by the Mohammedans. Certain
monks, who had much to do with them in redeeming Christian
slaves, found in the fifteenth century what John Howard found
in the eighteenth, that the Arabs and Turks made a large and
merciful provision for lunatics, such as was not seen in Christian
lands ; and this example led to better establishments in Spain and
Italy.

440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

All lionor to this work and to the men who engaged in it ; but,
as a rule, these establishments were few and poor, compared with
those for other diseases, and they usually degenerated into mad-
houses, where devils were cast out mainly by cruelty.*

The first main weapon against the indwelling Satan continued
to be the exorcism ; but, under the influence of inferences from
Scripture farther and farther fetched, and of theological reason-
ing more and more subtle, it became something very different
from the gentle procedure of earlier times, and some description
of this great weapon at the time of its highest development will
throw light on the laws which govern the growth of theological
reasoning, as well as iipon the main subject in hand.

A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was
that, according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of Satan
is pride. Pride led him to rebel — for pride he was cast down ;
therefore the first thing to do, in driving him out of a lunatic,
was to strike a fatal blow at this pride — to disgust him.

This theory was carried out logically, to the letter. The
treatises on the subject simply astound one by their wealth of
epithets — blasphemous and obscene — which it was allowable for
the exorcist to use in casting out devils. The " Treasury of Exor-
cisms " f contains hundreds of pages packed with the vilest epi-
thets which the worst imagination could invent for the purpose
of overwhelming the indwelling Satan.

Some of those decent enough to be printed in these degenerate
days ran as follows :

"Thou lustful and stupid one, . . . thou lean sow, famine-
stricken and most impure, . . . thou wrinkled beast, thou mangy
beast, thou beast of all beasts the most beastly, . . . thou mad

* For a very fall and learned, if somewhat one-sided, account of the earlier effects of
this stream of charitable thought, see Yollemer, " Des Origines de la Charite Catholique,"
Paris, 1858. It is instructive to note that, while this book is very full in regard to the
action of the Church on slavery and on provision for the widows and orphans, the sick, the
infirm, captives, and lepers, there is hardly a trace of any care for the insane. This same
want is incidentally shown by a typical example in Kriegk, " Aerzte, Heilanstalten und
Geisteskranke im mittelalterlichen Frankfurt," Frankfurt a. M., 1863, pp. 16, 17; also
Kirchhof, pp. 396, 397. On the general subject, see Semelaigne, as above, p. 214 ; also
Lecky, " Rationalism in Europe," i, 88 ; also Calmeil, 1, 116, 117. For the effect of Moslem
example in Spain and Italy, see Kraft-Ebing, as above, p. 45, note.

f " Thesaurus Exorcismorum atque Conjurationum terribilium, potentissimorum, effica-
cissimorum, cum Practica probatissima : quibus spiritus maligni, Daemones Maleficiaque
omnia de Corporibus humanis obsessis, tanquam Flagillis Fustibusque fugantur, expellun-
tur," . . . Cologne, 1626. Many of the books of the exorcists were put upon the various
indexes of the Church, but this, the richest collection of all, and including nearly all those
condemned, was not prohibited until 1709. Scarcely less startling manuals continued even
later in use ; and exorcisms adapted to every emergency may, of course, still be found in
all the Benedictionals of the Church — even the latest. As an example, see the " Manuale
Benedictionum " published by the Bishop of Passau in 1849.

NEW CHAPTERS IJV THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 441

spirit, . . . thou bestial and foolish drunkard, . . . most greedy
wolf, . . . most abominable whisperer, . . . thou sooty spirit from
Tartarus ! . . . I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor, into the in-
fernal kitchen! . . . Loathsome cobbler, . . . dingy collier, . . .
filthy sow {scrofa stercorata), . . . perfidious boar, . . . envious
crocodile, . . . malodorous drudge, . . . wounded basilisk, . . .
rust-colored asp, . . . swollen toad, . . . entangled spider, . . .
lousy swineherd {porcarie pedicose), . . . lowest of the low, . . .
cudgeled ass," etc.

But, in addition to this attempt to disgust Satan's pride with
blackguardism, there was another to scare him with tremendous
words. For this purpose, great, sounding names, from Hebrew
and Greek, of the Deity were imported, such as Acharon, Eheye,
Schemhamphora, Tetragrammaton, Homousion, Ho Theos, Atha-
natos, Ischiros, .^codes, and the like.*

Efforts were also made to drive him out with filthy and rank-
smelling drugs ; and, among those which can be mentioned in a
printed article, we may name asafoetida, sulphur, squills, etc.,
which were to be burned under his nose.

Still further to plague him, pictures of the devil were to be
spat upon, trampled under foot by people of low condition, and
sprinkled with foul compounds.

But these were merely preliminaries to the exorcism proper.
In this the most profound theological thought and sacred science
of the period culminated.

Most of its forms were childish, but some rise to almost Mil-
tonic grandeur. As an example of the latter, we may take the
following :

" By the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God hath given to
make known unto his servants those things which are shortly to
take place ; and hath signified, sending by his angel, ... I exor-
cise you, ye angels of untold perversity !

" By Him that is the faithful witness, the first-born among the
dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth, ... I exorcise you,
ye dwellers in the regions of hell !

" And by Him that loved us, and washed us of our sins in his
blood, . . . and behold, he cometh in clouds, and every eye shall
see him, and they also who pierced him ; and all the tribes of the
earth shall weep before him ; . . . and by all the wondrous signs,
terrible voices, mighty thunders, and mystic visions which St.
John beheld, I exorcise you, O angels who entice unto evil deeds,
that ye do go far away from this creature !

" By the seven golden candlesticks, . . . and by one like unto
the Son of man, standing in the midst of the candlesticks ; by

* See the Conjuratio on p. 300 of the " Thesaurus," and the general directions given on
pp. 251, 252.

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this voice, as the voice of many waters ; ... by his words, ' I am
living, who was dead ; and behold, I live forever and ever ; and I
have the keys of death and of hell,' I say unto you. Depart, O
angels that show the way to eternal perdition !

" By the door which John saw open in heaven ; by the twenty-
four thrones and the twenty-four elders, . . . and by the light-
nings and thunders and voices which proceeded out from the
throne ; ... by the sea which he saw, as it were of glass mingled
with fire, . . . and by the four living beings full of eyes before
and behind ; ... by the words which they incessantly did say,
' Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, that was, and that is,
and that is to come ' ; . . . by the angel who cried out, ' Who is
worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals ?' . . . by the
Lamb, as it were slain ; ... by the harps and by the vials of gold,
full of perfumes, I charge ye, O angels of death, to flee quickly
out of this creature ! "

Besides these, were long litanies of billingsgate, cursing, and
threatening. One of these " scourging " exorcisms runs partly as
follows :

"May Agyos strike thee, as he did Egypt, with frogs! . . .
May all the devils that are thy foes rush forth upon thee, and
drag thee down to hell ! . . . May . . . Tetragrammaton . . . drive
thee forth and stone thee, as Israel did to Achan ! . . . May the
holy one trample on thee and hang thee up in an infernal fork, as
was done to the five kings of the Amorites ! . . . May God set a
nail to your skull, and pound it in with a hammer, as Jael did unto
Sisera ! . . . May . . . Sother . . . break thy head and cut off
thy hands, as was done to the cursed Dagon ! . . . May God hang
thee in a hellish yoke, as seven men were hung by the sons of
Saul!" And so on, through five pages of close-printed Latin
curses.*

Occasionally the demon is reasoned with, as follows : " O ob-
stinate, accursed, fly ! . . . why do you stop and hold back when
you know that your strength is lost on Christ ? For it is hard for
thee to kick against the pricks ; and, verily, the longer it takes
you to go, the worse it will go with you. Begone, then, take
flight, thou venomous hisser, thou lying worm, thou begetter of
vipers ! " f

And this procedure and its results were recognized as among
the glories of the Church. As typical, we may mention an exor-
cism directed by a certain Bishop of Beauvais, which was so
effective that five devils gave up possession of a sufferer and
signed their names, each for himself and his subordinate imps, to
an agreement that the possessed should be molested no more. So,
too, the Jesuit fathers at Vienna, in 1583, gloried in the fact that
* "Thesaurus Exorcismorum," 812-81'7. f Ibid., 859.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 443

in such a contest tliey had cast out twelve thousand six hundred
and fifty-two living devils. The ecclesiastical annals of the mid-
dle ages, and, indeed, of a later period, abound in boasts of such
" mighty works." *

Such was the great result of a thousand years of theological
reasoning, by the strongest minds in Europe, upon data given in
Scripture regarding Satan and his work among men. Such were
the results and remedies arrived at by the highest development of
" sacred science."

Under the guidance of theology, always so severe against " sci-
ence falsely so called," the world had come a long way indeed from
the soothing treatment of the possessed by Him who bore among
the noblest of his titles that of " The Great Physician." The result
was natural : the treatment of the insane fell more and more into
the hands of the jailer, the torturer, and the executioner.

To go back for a moment to the beginnings of this unfortunate
development. In spite of the earlier and more kindly tendency in
the Church, the Synod of Ancyra, as early as 35 a. d,, commanded
the expulsion of possessed persons from the Church ; the Visi-
gothic Christians whipped them ; and Charlemagne, in spite of
some good enactments, imprisoned them. Men and women, whose
distempered minds might have been restored to health by gen-
tleness and skill, were driven into hopeless madness by noxious
medicines and brutality. Some few were saved as mere lunatics
— they were surrendered to general carelessness, and became sim-
ply a prey to ridicule and aimless brutality ; but vast numbers
were punished as tabernacles of Satan.

One of the least terrible of these punishments, and perhaps the
most common of all, was that of scourging demons out of the body
of a lunatic. This method commended itself even to the judgment
of so thoughtful and kindly a personage as Sir Thomas More,
and as late as the sixteenth century. But if the disease continued,
as it naturally would after such treatment, the authorities fre-
quently felt justified in driving out the demons by torture, f

Interesting monuments of this idea, so fruitful, in evil, still
exist. In the great cities of central Europe, " witch - towers,"
where witches and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool-towers,"
where the more gentle lunatics were imprisoned, may still be
seen.

* In my previous chapters— especially that on meteorology — I have quoted extensively
from the original treatises, of which a very large collection is in my possession ; but in this
chapter I have largely availed myself of the copious translations given by M. H. Dziewicki,
in his excellent article in the " Nineteenth Century " for October, 1888, entitled " Exorcizo
Te." For valuable citations on the origin and spread of exorcism, see Lecky's " European
Morals " (third English edition), i, 3Y9-385.

f For prescription of the whipping-post by Sir Thomas More, see D. H. Tuke's " His-
tory of Insanity in the British Isles," London, 1882, pp. 29, 30.

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the cathedrals, too, we still see this idea fossilized. Devils
and imps, struck into stone, clamber upon towers, prowl under
cornices, peer out from bosses of foliage, perch upon capitals,
nestle under benches, flame in windows. Above the great main
entrance, the most common of all representations still shows Satan
and his imps scowling, jeering, grinning, while taking possession
of the souls of men and scourging them with serpents, or driving
them with tridents, or dragging them with" chains, into the flaming
mouth of hell. Even in the most hidden and sacred places of the
mediaeval cathedral we still find representations of Satanic power
in which profanity and obscenity run riot. In these representa-
tions the painter and glass-stainer vied with the sculptor. Among
the early paintings on canvas a well-known example represents
the devil in the shape of a dragon, perched near the head of a
dying man, eager to seize his soul as it issues from his mouth,
and only kept off by the efforts of the attendant priest. Typical
are the colossal portrait of Satan, and a vivid picture of the devils
cast out of the possessed and entering into the swine, as shown in
the cathedral-windows of Strasburg. So, too, in the windows of
Chartres Cathedral we see a saint healing a lunatic — the saint,
with a long devil - scaring formula in Latin issuing from his
mouth ; and the lunatic, with a little detestable hobgoblin, horned,
hoofed, and tailed, issuing from liis mouth. These examples are but
typical of myriads in cathedrals and abbeys and parish churches
throughout Europe ; and all served to impress upon the popular
mind a horror of everything called diabolic, and a hatred of those
charged with it. These sermons in stones preceded the printed
book ; they were a sculptured edition of the Bible, which preceded
the pictorial editions of Luther's printed Bible.*

Satan and his imps were among the principal personages in
every popular drama, and " Hell's Mouth " was a piece of stage
scenery constantly brought into requisition. A miracle-play, with-
out a full display of the diabolic element in it, would have stood
a fair chance of being pelted from the stage, f

* I cite these instances out of a vast number which I have personally noted in visits to
various cathedrals. For striking examples of mediaeval grotesques, see Wright's " History
of Caricature and the Grotesque," London, 18'75 ; Langlais's "Stalles de la Cathedrale de
Eouen," 1838; Champfleury's "Les Sculptures Grotesques et Symboliques," Rouen, 18V9;
Viollet le Due, " Dictionnaire de 1' Architecture " ; Gailhabaud, " Sur 1' Architecture," etc.

t See Wright, " History of Caricature and the Grotesque " ; F. J. Moue, " Schauspiele
des Mittelalters," Carlsruhe, 1846; Dr. Karl Hase, "Miracle Plays and Sacred Dramas,"
Boston, 1880 (translation from the German). Examples of the miracle-plays may be found in
Mone ; in Mariott's " Collection of English Miracle-Plays," Basil, 1838 ; in Hone's " Ancient
Mysteries " ; in T. Sharp's " Dissertation on the Pageants . . . anciently performed at Cov-
entry," Coventry, 1828 ; in the publications of the Shakespearean and other societies. See
especially the *' Harrowing of Hell," a miracle-play, edited from the original now in the
British Museum, by T. 0. Halliwell, London, 1840. One of the items still preserved is a

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 445

The especial point to be noted is that from the miracle-play of
the present day Satan and his works have disappeared. The writer
of this article was unable to detect, in a representation of the
passion-play at Ober-Ammergau, in 1881, the slightest reference
to diabolic interference with the course of events as represented
from the Old Testament, or from the New, in a series of tableaux
lasting, with a slight intermission, from nine in the morning until
after four in the afternoon. With the most thorough exhibition
of miniite events relating the life of Christ, and at times with
hundreds of figures on the stage, there was not a person or a word
which recalled that main feature in the mediaeval Church plays.
The writer also made a full collection of photographs of tableaux,
of engravings of music, and of works bearing upon these repre-
sentations for twenty years before, and in none of these was there
an apparent survival of the old belief. This would certainly seem
to indicate that even the child-like faith of the Tyrolese has arrived
at a point, under modern influences, which would make a repre-
sentation of Satan and his minions incongruous ; and that, while
they believe that they believe, diabolism as a belief to be openly
professed has become a thing to provoke derision.*

Not only the popular art, but all the popular legends embodied
these ideas. The stories of the chroniclers are full of them ; the
" Lives of the Saints " abound in them ; sermons enforced them
from every pulpit. What wonder, then, that soon men and
women had vivid dreams of Satanic influence, that dread of "pos-
session " was like dread of the plague, and that this terror spread
the disease enormously, until we hear of convents, villages, and
even large districts ravaged by epidemics of diabolical possession ! f

And this terror naturally bred not only active cruelty toward
those supposed to be possessed, but cold indifference to the suffer-
ings of those acknowledged to be lunatics. As we have already
seen, while ample and beautiful provision was made for every
other form of human suffering, for this there was comparatively
little ; and, indeed, what provision was made was generally worse
than none. Of this indifference and cruelty we have a striking
monument in a single English word — a word originally significant

sum of money paid for keeping a fire burning in hell's mouth. Says Hase (as above, p. 42) :
" In wonderful satyr-like masquerade, in which neither horns, tail, nor hoofs were ever . , .
wanting, the devil prosecuted on the stage his business of fetching souls," which left the
mouths of the dying " in the form of small images."

* Speaking of the part played by Satan at Ober-Ammergau, Hase says : " Formerly,
seated on his infernal throne, surrounded by his hosts with Sin and Death, he opened the
play, . . . and . . . retained throughout a considerable part ; but he has been surrendered
to the progress of that enlightenment which even the Bavarian highlands have not been
able to escape " (p. 80).

f I shall discuss these epidemics of possession, which form a somewhat distinct class of
phenomena, in the second part of this chapter.

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of gentleness and mercy, but wliicli became significant of wild
riot and brutality and confusion — Bethlehem Hospital became
"Bedlam."

Modern art has also dwelt upon this theme, and perhaps the
most touching of all its exhibitions is the picture by a great
French master representing a tender woman bound to a column,
and exposed to the jeers, insults, and missiles of street ruffians.*

Here and there, even in the worst of times, men arose who
attempted to promote a more humane view, but with little effect.
One expositor of St. Matthew, having ventured to recall the fact
that some of the insane were spoken of in the New Testament as
madmen, and to suggest that their madness might be caused by
the moon, was answered that their madness was not caused by the
moon, but by the devil, who avails himself of the moonlight for
his work.f

One result of this idea was a mode of cure which especially
aggravated and spread mental disease — the promotion of great
religious processions. Troops of men and women, crying, howl-
ing, imploring saints, beating themselves with whips, visited vari-
ous sacred shrines, images, and places, in the hope of driving off
the powers of evil. The only result was an increase in the num-
bers of the diseased.

For hundreds of years this idea of diabolic possession was
steadily developed. It was believed that devils entered into ani-
mals ; and animals were accordingly exorcised, tried, tortured,
convicted, and executed. The great St. Ambrose tells us that a
priest, while saying mass, was troubled by the croaking of frogs
in a neighboring marsh, and that he exorcised them, and so
stopped their noise. St. Bernard, as the monkish chroniclers tell
us, mounting the pulpit to preach in his abbey, was interrupted
by a cloud of flies; straightway the saint uttered the sacred
formula of excommunication, when the flies fell dead upon the
pavement in heaps, and were cast out with shovels ! A formula
of exorcism attributed to a saint of the ninth century, and which
remained in use down to a recent period, especially declares
insects injurious to crops to be possessed of evil spirits, and
names, among the animals to be excommunicated or exorcised,
mice, moles, and serpents. The use of exorcism against cater-
pillars and grasshoppers was also common. In the thirteenth
century the Bishop of Lausanne, finding that the eels in Lake
Leman troubled the fishermen, attempted to remove the difficulty
by exorcism.

* The typical picture representing a priest's struggle with the devil is in the city gal-
lery of Rouen. The modern picture is Robert Fleury's painting in the Luxembourg Gallery
at Paris.

f See Giraldus Cambrensis, cited by Tuke, as above, p. 79.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 447

Did any one venture to deny that animals could be possessed
by Satan, lie was at once silenced by reference to the entrance of
Satan into the serpent in the garden of Eden, to the transforma-
tion of ISTebuchadnezzar, and to the casting of the devils into the
swine by the founder of Christianity himself.*

One part of this superstition most tenaciously held was the
belief that a human being could be changed into the form of an
animal. This became, indeed, a fundamental point. The most
dreaded of predatory animals in the middle ages were the wolves.
Driven from the hills and forests in the winter by hunger, they
not only devoured the flocks, but sometimes came into the villages
and seized children. From time to time men and women whose
brains were disordered dreamed that they had been changed into
various animals, and especially into wolves. Confessing this, and
often implicating others, many executions of lunatics resulted;
not to mention here the countless sane victims who, suspected of
the same impossible crime, were forced by torture into confes-
sion of it, and sent unpitied to the stake. The belief in such a
transformation pervaded all Europe, and lasted long, even in
Protestant countries ; probably no article in the witch creed had
more adherents in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cent-
uries than this. Nearly every parish in Europe had its resultant
horrors.

The Keformed Church in all its branches fully accepted the
doctrines of witchcraft and diabolic possession, and developed
them still further. No one urged their fundamental ideas more
fully than Luther. He did, indeed, reject portions of the witch-
craft folly ; but to the influence of devils he not only attributed
his maladies but his dreams, and nearly everything that thwarted
or disturbed him. The flies which lighted upon his book, the rats
which kept him awake at night, he believed to be devils; the
resistance of the Archbishop of Mayence to his ideas, he attributed
to Satan literally working in that prelate's heart ; to his disciples
he told stories of men who had been killed by rashly resisting the
devil. Insanity, he was quite sure, was caused by Satan, and he
exorcised sufferers. Against some he appears to have advised
stronger remedies ; and his horror of idiocy, as resulting from
Satanic influence, was so great that on one occasion he appears to
have advised the killing of an idiot child, as being the direct off-
spring of Satan. Yet Luther was one of the most tender and
loving of men ; in the whole range of literature there is hardly
anything more touching than his words and tributes to children.
In enforcing his ideas he laid stress especially upon the question
of St. Paul as to the bewitching of the Galatians, and, in the case

* See Menabrea, "Proces au Moyen Age contra les Animaux," Chambery, 1846, pp.
31 and followiDfr.

448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of idiocy, on the account in Genesis of the birth, of children whose
fathers were " sons of God " and whose mothers were " daughters
of men."

One idea of his was especially characteristic. The descent of
Christ into hell was a frequent topic of discussion in the Reformed
Church ; Melanchthon, with his love of Greek studies, held that
the purpose of the Saviour was to make himself known to the
great and noble men of antiquity — Plato, Socrates, and the rest ;
but Luther insisted that his purpose was to conquer Satan in a
hand-to-hand struggle.

This idea of diabolic influence pervaded his conversation, his
preaching, and his writings, and spread thence to the Lutheran
Church in general.

Calvin also held to the same theory ; and, having more power,
with less kindness of heart, than Luther, carried it out with yet
greater harshness.

Lender the influence, then, of such infallible teachings, in the
older Church and in the new, this superstition was developed more
and more into cruelty ; and, as the Biblical texts, popularized in
the sculptures and windows and mural decorations of the great
mediaeval cathedrals, had done much to develop it among the
people, so Luther's translation of the Bible, especially in the
numerous editions of it illustrated with engravings, wrought with
enormous power to spread and deepen it. In every peasant's cot-
tage some one could spell out the story of the devil bearing
Christ through the air and placing him upon the pinnacle of the
Temple, — of the woman with seven devils, — of the devils cast
into the swine. Every peasant's child could be made to under-
stand the quaint pictures in the family Bible or the catechism
which illustrated vividly all those texts. In the ideas thus deep-
ly implanted, the men who in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries struggled against this mass of folly and cruelty found
the worst barrier to right reason.*

So was the treatment of demoniacs developed by theology;
aud such was the ]3ractice enforced by ecclesiasticism for more
than a thousand years.

How an atmosphere was spread in which this belief began to
dissolve away, how its main foundations were undermined by
science, and how there gradually came in a reign of humanity,
will be related in the next chapter.

* As to the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in visiting the
town church of Wittenberg, noticed just opposite the pulpit where Luther so often
preached, a very spirited figure of an imp peering out upon the congregation. One can
but suspect that this mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favorite topic during
his sermons.

PHYSICAL TRAINING OF YOUNG CHILDREN. 449
PHYSICAL TRAINING OF YOUNG CHILDREN.

By M. FEENAN LAGEANGE.

IT would be a great mistake to apply, in the physical training
of children, the same principles as those by which gym-
nastics for adults is adapted. And as we recognize different
grades in the intellectual teaching of children, corresponding
with their different ages, so the exercises prescribed for them
should vary, to correspond with the different degrees of their
bodily development. The child's gymnastics should be quite dis-
tinct from that which is considered best suited to mature age. It
should not look to utility, but should serve an exclusively hy-
gienic end. The first object should be to give good carriage, to
aid the pupils in reaching a full maximum of growth, and see that
they are developed regularly, without deformity and without
blemishes. All these conditions are within the domain of hy-
giene. A second feature of the exercise adapted to children re-
gards the cerebral conditions which result from their being at
school. They require diversion from the mental work that is piit
upon them, and such diversion can be obtained only by giving
them the pleasure of recreation.

Hence, we have the two essential features that should be
secured in infant gymnastics — the hygienic and the recreative.

The usual school gymnastics lacks much of being irreproach-
able from the hygienic point of view. Some of the methods seem
to have been chosen rather because they were convenient of appli-
cation than on account of any hygienic value. They are not
adapted so much to the requirements of the child as to the accom-
modations of the school premises. Methods have been sought by
which they could be applied in narrow spaces, and considerable
muscular effort called out in a very short time. It may be con-
venient to collect a class of children once or twice a week and make
them perform vigorous movements, but it is hardly what their
hygiene demands. To measure out approximately the amount of
exercise that ought to be taken in a week and administer it all
at once is no more valid than it would be to give food for several
days at a single meal. The child's exercise should be as carefully
allotted to him as his food, and excessive fatigue as sedulously
avoided as indigestion. A system of giving gymnastic exercises
at too long intervals involves the dilemma that too great exertion
may be called out at each lesson, or, if the labor is moderated, too
little will be done. The child does not want intense effort at rare
intervals, but moderate exercises frequently repeated.

The fact that intense muscular effort interferes with the de-

TOL. XXXIV. — 29

450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

velopment of the growing infant in height is perhaps less well
known to hygienists and physicians than to veterinary surgeons
and trainers. It has long been observed that young horses which
are put to work too early never become as large as their fellow-
colts which are allowed to reach their full growth in the pasture.
Gymnastic apparatus, with the efforts which they necessitate,
would have on the child the same dwarfing influence as harness-
ing to the wagon or the plow upon the colt. The infant prodigies
of the circus sufficiently exemplify this fact. With all the skill
they display, they seldom exhibit well-grown, evenly developed
forms, but are usually in some way distorted ; and persons who
have begun hard work on farms or as laborers too early in life
are generally stunted. Besides being unevenly distributed in
time, these exercises are badly localized as to the different parts
of the body. All exercises with fixed apparatus — the trapeze,
the stationary bar, rings, parallel bars, slack rope, etc. — throw
the work wholly upon the upper part of the body, leaving the
muscles of the pelvis and lower limbs comparatively inactive.
This is not so much matter with city men, who have to walk a
great deal ; but is a very important consideration with children at
school, who spend most of their time sitting on benches.

In children muscular effort should be generalized, so as to
make as great a number of muscles as possible participate in it,
or at least to distribute it judiciously among the stronger mus-
cles. When each group of muscles shares in the exercise accord-
ing to its strength, the labor is less fatiguing, and we are able to
obtain the general benefit of exercise — which is the communica-
tion of the highest activity of the circulation and respiration,
without incurring the harmful results which are forms of fatigue.
This benefit is more conveniently obtained through exercise of
the legs than of the arms, because they are stronger and can bear
more work without fatigue. In such exercises, of which running
is the type, not only the legs but the pelvis, the vertebral column,
the shoulders, and the arms, all participate. Exercises in which
the work is localized, however much they may contribute to the
development of the active part in the adult, do not have that
effect in children, the volume of whose muscles is never increased
by them. They are consequently useless, while they promote
fatigue. They are liable to the further objection that they tend
to produce deformities in young children subjected to them, whose
plastic frames at their tender age yield very readily to any stress
which is put upon them, and acquire a permanent set if it is re-
peated too often. Partisans of gymnastics plead, in answer to
this objection, that their system may be and is used to correct
bodily deformities ; but the plea really strengthens the argument
against the system, for the same structure that yields to a correct-

PHYSICAL TRAINING OF YOUNG CHILDREN. 451

ive application of gymnastic exercise will yield as readily to a
distorting one. It is only wlien the frame lias become mature
and firmly set that such exercises can be applied without danger
and to advantage ; and that they are then useful when rightly
applied can not be gainsaid.

These objections do not lie against floor exercises, or light
gymnastics, which are not performed with fixed apparatus. In
these, the child bends, stretches, and shifts his arms, legs, head,
and body in various directions, at the command of the teacher, in
measured rhythm. These motions are hygienically irreproachable.
They do not exact any very intense muscular effort, or vicious
attitude of the body, or abnormal use of the limbs. But even
when performed in concert they are not recreations, and this is an
extremely important matter with pupils whose brains are working
to excess. They become exceedingly monotonous, and the child
begins to perform them reluctantly, or learns to partly evade
them. Although he can hardly escape going through the visible
motion, he can easily avoid the muscular effort without which
it is ineffective. The evasion may, it is true, be corrected by
strict vigilance on the part of the teacher; but what becomes then
of the distraction, of the mental relaxation which the pupil ought
to find in his physical training ? To compel one to the perform-
ance of the motions is no way to make him love his exercise.
In this way the pupil finds in them, not a recreation, but a lesson
additional to the others — a new burden. Now, recreation is not
only a moral want of the child, but it is an important physical
need, in so far as it furnishes a remedy for the nervous weakness
and irritability that are induced by constant constraint, and helps
to prevent disturbance of the equilibrium of the vital functions.
Both of the gymnastic systems of physical education, therefore,
lack the important essentials of being hygienic and recreative.

The prime fault of both these kinds of gymnastic exercise is
that they are artificial. They were introduced for the praise-
worthy purpose of suppljdng the want of natural exercise where
that could not be obtained ; but they have gone beyond this, and
the notion has arisen that a child can not take proper exercise
without going through an apprenticeship and being subjected to
a method : the more complicated the method, and the more diffi-
cult the apprenticeship, the better the results that are anticipated.
The elaborate gymnastics, which many regard as a kind of perfec-
tion of natural exercise, is, from the hygienic point of view, noth-
ing but a make-shift when we can get no better means, but a poor
substitute for the spontaneous gymnastics to which every child is
naturally inclined. This instinctive exercise would amply suffice
for the development of the body if the instinct was listened to
every time it speaks, but social and scholar conditions do not per-

452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mit this. The instinctive desire, repressed too often, becomes
weakened, and finally disappears. The body accommodates itself
to a sedentary life, and the insufficiency of exercise finally induces
muscular indolence and an inert habit. The teacher of gymnas-
tics would not be needed if the pupil had the privilege every day,
for a sufficient time, of a large space, and liberty to amuse himself
in it.

Why, then, erect halls and apparatus if we can have the privi-
lege of a si3acious sward or a garden with broad walks ? While
gymnastic apparatus may be useful where there is not room to
provide other means, what is to be said of heads of families hav-
ing ample spaces in the country, with all desired conditions for
natural gymnastics, who go to the trouble of constructing gym-
nasiums for their children ? The tendency to look for the best
misses its mark nowhere more sadly than in the physical educa-
tion of the child, when it prefers complicated processes to natural
methods, and neglects the best hygienic means as too simple or
insufficient. In the belief that the child can not take proper exer-
cise without apparatus, when no apparatus is at hand no exercise is
taken. He must have a special master for the exercise, and his
taking it is made to depend on the master — to such an extent, that
no one in the family thinks of the child's doing anything outside
of the regulation lessons.

Instinctive gymnastics is, from the hygienic point of view, the
best adapted to the regular development of the child. It is not
liable to any of the objections we have brought against gymnastics
with apparatus. It can not deform the body, for it is made up of
spontaneous movements, and conformed to the natural office of
each limb. It does not localize the work in a particular region of
the body, for all the limbs are instinctively invited to take their
quota of exercise; and it does not seduce the child into efforts
touching upon the limits of his strength. Instinct also invites
him to the kind of work which is best adapted to his particular
aptitudes for resisting fatigue. He has a natural disposition to
perform light but frequently recurring acts, quick motions, which
put him out of breath, while exercises with apparatus rather exact
slow and intense efforts that bring on local fatigue. Now, all
observers have noticed the wonderful facility with which a child
recovers his breath, and his impatience of local fatigue. Finally,
natural exercise, being the satisfaction of a want, is by that very
fact a pleasure ; and joy shines in the face of the child who is
playing freely.

The partisans of artificial gymnastics object to this method
that it does not give in mature age the great muscular force, the
capacity to bear fatigue, and the refined dexterity of movements —
the various athletic and acrobatic qualities, in short, that should

PHYSICAL TRAINING OF YOUNG CHILDREN 453

result from a complete physical education ; and they assume that
these superior qualities of the picked man, to be given the fullest
vigor, should be cultivated from a tender age. They fall into the
mistake, which is too often made in physical education, of not dis-
tinguishing between methods of development and perfecting pro-
cesses. The physical education of the child, up to his fifteenth
year, should have for its sole object to favor the growth of the
body in all directions, particularly in height and weight ; the per-
fecting of the structure of the organs, and the training of them by
methodical exercise to a more complete performance, should come
later on. The fourteenth year will be early enough to begin more
energetic motions for hardening the flesh and developing the
muscles. Till that age, physical education should especially aim
to remove from the child all influences that may be in the way of
the free expansion and growth of the body. Among these harm-
ful influences are two of opposite character that produce nearly
identical results — want of exercise, which makes the child emaci-
ated, and excess of work, which stunts him.

This important distinction between developing and perfecting
hygiene is well understood and observed by horse-trainers. They
give colts nourishing food, free air, and room to gambol ; and do
not begin training them for work till they have acquired bodily
growth and substance.

If natural gymnastics is enough for the animal, we may con-
clude from analogy that it would be amply sufficient for the child,
if he had the conditions of space and time that are indispensable
to the satisfaction of the instinct that impels him to exercise.
When, then, the social conditions to which the child is subjected
do not permit him to indulge in instinctive exercise, gymnastic
methods as like as possible to those which instinct suggests should
be sought for him.

The form of exercise that comes nearest to natural exercise is
playing. It is nothing else than a more or less methodical regula-
tion of the instinctive motions, such as every living being is prone
to execute spontaneously when he feels the stress of the want of
exercise. It may be called a natural exercise, for we see the
young of every species of animals playing with one another, and
may even observe their parents inciting them to play. The teach-
ing of plays, which we find in all countries and ages, originates,
we may suppose, in this tendency of the living being to educate
his progeny physically by exciting him to enjoy himself in mo-
tion. Play, in the progress of civilization, has taken various
forms, and has been subjected to methods that tend more and
more to introduce into it an artificial element. Hence, sport has
been developed from plays ; the exercises called sports are in gen-
eral simply plays that have taken a more methodical form, per-

454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mitting a greater display of muscular force, exacting more com-
plicated motions and a longer apprenticeship. It is sometimes
hard to draw a clear line between sport and play. Fencing,
equitation, and canoeing are varieties of sport. Cricket is as much
a play for children as an exercise of si)ort ; in short, in the hygi-
enic view, sports are half-way between gymnastics and play, and
are therefore more suitable to youth than to children.

Plays give the form of gymnastics most congenial to the con-
ditions of social life, for they are at the same time hygienic and
recreative, and are as well adapted to the physical requirements
of the child as^to his moral needs. Physically regarded, they de-
mand neither very intense efforts nor localized muscular contrac-
tions. Even the most complicated of them call out nothing more
than combinations of simple movements and natural attitudes;
while gymnastics necessitates abnormal combinations in the asso-
ciation of the muscles, with movements which the child, having
never practiced, has to learn laboriously. Play presents no diffi-
culties comparable to those offered by gymnastics. If the child
has not yet become adept in the game, he will play badly and lose
his part ; but he will play, and will at least gain the physical
advantages of exercise. But when he is dealing with the abnor-
mal motions or " turns " of gymnastics, if he has not yet learned
the way of executing them, or acquired the knack, which it often
takes a long time to gain, he only makes a pretense of exercising,
and his effort is limited to a fruitless tentative, without any effect-
ive activity.

Besides the support of reason and observation, the method of
exercise by playing has the sanction of acquired facts. It was the
only children's gymnastics at the beginning of this century, and
even now some nations have no other settled method of physical
exercise. The English have never taken to gymnastics with ap-
paratiis ; and the Belgians, after having tried it, are abandoning it
and returning to play. No one can question the excellence of the
results of the English method ; the vigor and endurance of Eng-
lish youth are universally recognized, and their school-games con-
stitute their whole gymnastics. — Translated for the Popular Sci-
ence Monthly from the Revue Scientifique,

The subject of mental overwork was discussed in the Anthropological Society
some time ago, in the light of the recorded observations of school-teachers. Weari-
ness of mind, it was said, is marked by irritability, as manifested in sleeplessness
and in nervous laughter ; and by fatigue, exhibiting itself in sleepiness and inca-
pacity for task-work. Headache suggests overstrain in study, defective ventilation,
or, perhaps, a too sparing diet. Sometimes the perception of particular colors is
obliterated for a time, and this may suggest an explanation of some forms of color-
blindness. In some cases a form of somnambulism was originated.

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 455

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS: IS IT
CONFISCATION ?

By APPLETON MOEGAN.

IT may be doubted whether the non-enforcement of the Interstate
Commerce law, however fortunate for the railway companies,
is not an unmixed calamity for the country. For, if the shortest
way to abolish a bad law is to vigorously enforce it, the danger is
that the slumber of so un-American and unconstitutional a meas-
ure will lead, by mere lapse of time, to its becoming an apparent
part of our governmental policy, and so, at the last, all the more
awkward to be got rid of. Had the principle of the interstate
commerce law been applied by Congress to any other industry or
industries than that of transportation, it is exceedingly doubtful if
the industries so paternally favored would have acquiesced as
patiently and good-naturedly as have the railway companies.
But there is no knowing how far the precedent may be pushed.
So long as consumers outnumber producers and purchasers out-
number sellers, if the temptation should ever arise for the con-
sumers and purchasers to decree the price at which producers
shall produce and sellers sell (that is to say, for the majority to
confiscate the property of the minority), certainly the principle of
the interstate commerce law could be cited in favor of such a con-
fiscation. (The railway companies in at least one of our Western
States have been enjoying this sort of confiscation, under what
has been called "the Iowa idea," viz., that "railways can take
care of themselves," in abject silence now for many years, thus
affording another cumulative precedent for a possible majority
programme.)

When Judge Nelson set aside the verdict of a jury, on the
ground that it " took thirteen men to rob a corporation in that
court," he was entertaining a sort of judicial cognizance of that
disposition on the part of the average " jury of the vicinage "
toward railway companies which, unchecked, would quite speedily
make railway operating a very costly amusement for investors.
But the utmost juries can do toward robbing or crippling rail-
way corporations is a very small matter compared with this latest
movement of political forces, to confiscate — under the pretext of
caring for — the interests of the people, of which the laws we are
about to glance at are the outcome. Every sovereign State in this
Union has constituted a "Board of Railway Commissioners,"
which is, and must be, political in its character, and so shifting
with the politics of the State and of its Executive ; and to these
boards is relegated the whole procedure of the railway companies.

456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and upon them is made incumbent and peremptory the duty of
"regulating" the affairs of the railways. What is, and what
must he, the result ? The average politician knows fully as little
or as much about railway management as he does about photo-
graphing the moon or applying the solar spectrum; yet, once
upon a board of railway commissioners, he is required to excogi-
tate and frame rules for an industry which not only supplies
the financial arteries of a continent, but holds the lives as well as
the credits of its citizens dependent upon the click of a telegraph
or the angle of a semaphore — an industry which adjusts at once
the most volatile and the most ponderous forces of nature to
every necessary or luxurious service of our people ! And, since
thirty-eight boards of these accomplished commissioners were not
enough, the General Government has kindly added another — not
to regulate or supervise these thirty-eight, but to act in independ-
ent chaos to their tergiversations, and to contribute to the gen-
eral value of their independent conclusions, ordinances, rules,
and codes. What must, or rather what must not, be the result,
when the country asks, as it appears to be now asking, to be
furnished with railway experts and traffic accountants at the
polls ?

When the socialist programme shall be carried out to its full,
it is understood that there is to be no inequality between the capi-
talist and the tramp. This equality, however, need not wait the
perfection of that programme. It can be achieved to-day by two
extremely simple methods. Either the tramp can go to work,
earn money, economize, and become a capitalist, or the capitalist
can divide with the tramp. But while the capitalist, for his part,
opposes no objection to the first plan, the latter appears to be the
only one the tramp will listen to. Both seem to be at present in
abeyance. But, as to those aggregations of operated capital we
call railway companies, I am not so sure but that the entering
wedge for the second plan has been inserted. Let us see.

The interstate commerce act, with its administrative commis-
sion, does its fine work by forbidding two things; namely,
"pools" and "discriminations." The State acts, with their
administrative boards, also deny these two, but add edicts as to
almost everything else: charges for service, size and cost of
equipments, ratio of salaries, etc., to be charged, made or paid by
their pupils the railway companies. I shall attempt in this paper
to show that all this tutelage can have but one logical and politi-
cal outcome ; and that outcome — confiscation ! The terminal
sounds harsh, extravagant, impossible ! But let us lead up to it
and see if it be either.

The word " discrimination " means almost everything, and can
hardly be limited to anything definitive. If I invite one of my

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 457

friends to dinner, I discriminate in his favor against any friend
whom I do not invite to dinner. If, in company with several
millions of my fellow-citizens, I vote for President Harrison, and
President Harrison invites a man who has voted for him to din-
ner, and does not invite me, he discriminates against me — me,
from whom his charter as President has come equally as from
my fellow-citizen who dines at the White House when I do not.
But, conceding, in the case of a railway company, that discrimi-
nation, otherwise innocent, may work hardship — and also conced-
ing the jurisdiction of the people over the railway company it has
chartered, to prevent hardship to themselves — have this Interstate
Commission and these boards legislated against the hardship ?
Have they not rather expended their legislation against the thing
which may or may not be a hardship, according to circumstances,
and in so doing increased the hardship, to their own damage and
expense, rather than ameliorated it ?

I. The Interstate Act. — This act directs itself to forbid (a)
discriminations and (6) pools. Now, an edict against either of
these might mean something — might even, if qualified, be pro-
ductive of good. But an edict against both is really nothing — can
not possibly amount to anything — except either an increased
hardship to all parties concerned, or else the usual affirmative to
which two negatives invariably amount. If railway companies,
can neither discriminate nor come together for consultation and
abolishment of discriminations, what is the result ? Merely the
result which would follow an attempt to abolish the mice in a
pantry by first abolishing the cat which had been put into the
pantry to abolish the mice.

The only possible pretext on which Congress, acting for the
people, could abolish pools, was that a pool was a " corner " in
transportation, by which two or more competing lines proposed
to raise the carrying-tariff in their section of country. But, as a
matter of fact, the pooling system was a contrivance io reduce
jointly the carrying-tariff in territory where two or more lines
served, and that pooling system practically and actually did re-
duce the tariffs to shippers. This I have demonstrated and
proved by figures already in the pages of " The Popular Science
Monthly." * " The pool " proper had nothing to do with this re-
duction, except that it controlled the division of tariff receipts
between the treasuries of the two or more pooling roads by a
process of exact and expert differentiation in which a question
of distance transported was only the very minor factor em-
ployed ; such items as the cost of stopping, loading, or siding, or
returning a freight-car empty to its owner, station expenses, re-
pairs to track-way, rolling-stock, clerk-hire, improbability of find-

*June, 188V, p. 147.

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

iiig load at small stations, fuel, grade, volume of traffic, cost of
domestic goods at terminals as against direct importations from
convenient ports of entry, rates of exchange, markets, first cost of
plant, location and construction of track — and a few thousand
other such items (an array which tends to make the practical
railroad man's head swim by the very enumeration, but which
are of no consequence whatever — are but the crackling of thorns
under a pot — to the politician who represents his " district " in the
Legislature or in the lobby), went into the consideration of the
question of division of tariff receipts before the pool commis-
sioner, (We may pause to ask, if reasonable rates were charged
the public for transportation by a pooling road, what concern was
it of the public's how the rates were divided when received ? If
I go into Delmonico's and pay a dollar for my luncheon, and on
the way out stop at the cigar-stand and pay a quarter of a dollar
for a cigar, what business is it of mine how the two cashiers I
have paid equate the two payments — whether they turn them in
as cash or merchandise, or itemized, or as items, or as receipts ?)
The public were not interested in the book-keeping methods of
our railway companies. They were, however, very deeply inter-
ested in the cheapening of railway tariffs ; and when, on the abo-
lition of the pool, rate wars began again and tariffs advanced
until — up to the first day of July the people had paid about $C0,-
000,000 to the companies in excess of railway tariffs of the year
before the interstate commerce law began to protect them
against railway despotism — the people then began to look about
for a possible cause. That cause was not far to seek. The rail-
ways, unable to meet and settle their differences in convention,
where each should discuss its own problems and average them
with the others, were forced to prepare each its own schedules
independently. These separate schedule-tariffs were enforced
and collected, and the Interstate Commerce Commission was able
to say triumphantly, in its first annual report, that the act had
operated directly to increase railroad earnings * in eight months
from the approval of the act.

Why should it not have so operated ? It could not have oper-
ated otherwise. That a carrier's rates should be " reasonable " had
and has been common law for four hundred years, and by repro-
nouncing it the interstate commerce law added nothing to its
force. But to be " reasonable " a carrier's rate must not be unfair
to either party. If it is unfair to the carrier — if it demands that
he perform services for less by way of remuneration than it costs
him to do the work — then the rate is certainly not " reasonable."
And so it comes about that, by declaring in one paragraph that
rates should be " reasonable " and in another that there should be

* Official edition, p. 41.

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 459

no " pool," the act did not prevent but rather conserved unrea-
sonableness ; for — since a " pool " was not a " corner/' but an at-
tempt, by co-operation and convention of railway companies, to
make rates " reasonable " — a law which does not give the rail-
ways a schedule itself, and forbids them to come together to
make one, simply means that each company shall make its rates
without consulting anybody but themselves : must work in the
dark, independent of any considerations except its own local,
presumptive, or past experiences, frictions, and financial difficul-
ties. Railways must not only make bricks without straw, but
make them at their peril; for if, upon being made, these rates
prove to be discriminate — that is not absolutely perfect and uni-
form between individuals — then the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission (and nobody knows when it may wake up and commence
operations) can send the officers to jail and hold the road in breach
of law. Clearly the only safe alternative for the road is either to
wind up business at once, or do business at a loss and pass a divi-
dend to get even, thereby placing its securities at the mercy of
the wrecker and the stock-jobber !

It follows from the above that the interstate commerce law
operates, if operated at all, to create rather than to abolish " dis-
crimination." But let us be a little more explicit. If all the
people in the United States were shippers over one railway, a
law that no one person shall be given a better or worse rate
than another might possibly prevent injustice (though, unless
it also provided that the volume of business or the length of the
haul be taken into account, it may well enough be questioned
whether it would or not). Even the non-railway intellect must
absorb such self-evident propositions as that it costs as much to
load, unload, or stop a car that has run two miles as one that has
run two hundred ; that if the car must be returned without a
load, it has not earned as much as if it had found a load back ;
that a long haul, with but one loading and one unloading, one
stoppage, and a return cargo for the car, ought reasonably to be
done for less than a short haul involving quite as much handling
without a return load, and that a railroad company ought in all
fairness to be allowed to give the shipper the benefit of the de-
creased expense to the company. But the interstate commerce law
peremptorily tells the railroad company that it must not give this
benefit to the shipper, under the pains and penalties of fine and
imprisonment, in its pleasure, for contempt of court. But let us
admit, for argument's sake, that a law providing that no shipper
shall be charged more per pound than any other would prevent
discrimination if all the shippers of freight in the United States
shipped over a single road. Clearly, if they shipped, as these
shippers do, not over one, but over some five hundred different

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

roads, such, a law would not prevent discrimination, but actually
compel it. Let us say that a shipper in New York desires to
send goods all-rail to Chicago, and that he has a choice of three
all-rail routes (as a matter of fact he has a choice of thirteen, but
we will use the lesser number). One of these all-rail routes runs by
a right of way laid out some forty years ago, under the then exist-
ing systems of engineering, climbs heavy grades, crosses the Alle-
ghany Mountains twice, and makes the trip about one thousand
miles. A second, laid out some twenty years later, has better
grades, but crosses the mountains only once. A third runs by
almost a series of bee-lines, has a grade nowhere exceeding one
per cent, and was constructed and capitalized at less than a fourth
part of the accumulated capital and indebtedness of the other
two. Now, left to themselves, can these three railways, with dif-
ferent amounts of fixed charges, interest, dividends, and operating
expenses to pay annually, carry for the same tariffs at the same
rates to the same points, and all pay expenses ? Ought they, in
justice to the investors, whose money built them (and who are
portions of the people quite as much as are the shippers over the
line or the members of State Legislatures), to make the same
rates for equivalent services ? From the standpoint of the gen-
tleman who believes that railways should meet their fixed charges,
and all other expenses — should pay their bills, that is to say, like
ordinary mortals ! — from this standpoint, I say, it would seem as if
a difference in rates to Chicago, over these three all-rail lines, was
inevitable. And so it was, up to the invention of the pooling sys-
tem : each road made its own tariff -schedules independently, and
naturally the tariff of each was different from that of the others.
But, without supposing that they were committing a crime, and
as yet unconvinced of sin, these three railways, let us say, came
together, and determined to make a single rate to Chicago for all
business received by each of the three lines ; these receipts to be
pooled and divided something upon the basis outlined above.
Even had they proceeded upon a basis of the single actual re-
ceipts to each for solicited business, there could be no difference
to the public either way ; but they chose to consider the most
complicated problem of a single tariff divided upon the items of
expenditure, outlay, and cost described above. What resulted ?
Simply that there was (as the interstate commerce law says there
shall be) no discrimination. But when the interstate commerce
law, while keeping the word of promise to the ear by saying there
should be no discrimination, broke it to the hope by saying there
should be no pool, what resulted ? Why, in the case of these
three roads, a discrimination in favor of one third against two
thirds ! For, when each of these three roads makes its own tariff,
of course, the road having the smallest fixed charges to pay makes

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 461

the lowest rates. The dwellers along that line have the advan-
tage of these low rates to which, of the other two railways, only
one can approximate ; while the third line must either go to the
other extreme, or defraud the holders of its securities. Not to
dilate unnecessarily upon the situation, the reader can see at once
that prohibiting a long and short haul discrimination upon any
one railway really increases discrimination to the whole people ;
and that, on the whole, the pooling system was the fairest system
for the whole people, as well as for the railways, that could have
been devised, for both shipper and investor : for the shipper, since
it gave him all the benefits of cheap freights ; and for the investor
in railways, because it secured to the railway built under heavy
capitalization, and laboring beneath huge operating expenses (but
serving a territory as entitled as any other, per se, to transporta-
tion facilities), a fair return upon the wealth that had been lav-
ished to build it.

The theory of the interstate commerce law was borrowed from
Europe — from England and Germany ; and, although there may
be those who admit that whatever is good enough for England or
Germany is good enough for the United States, it ought not to be
forgotten that neither of these eminent nations possess railroad
systems at all analogous to our own, or in the operation of which
anything like the same problems or conditions arise. The exist-
ence of two, let alone five or six, parallel lines is not only un-
known, but impossible, in either of those countries ; and yet the
promoters of the interstate commerce act in Congress, and apolo-
gists for it ever since, pointed and still point with pride to the fact
that the provisions of the act can not be onerous, because their
operation has been tested, without annihilating the railway inter-
est, in England and in Germany ! * As a matter of fact, there are
several hundred other practical discrepancies between American
and foreign railways; but it would swell this paper unduly to
discuss them here, and the above-mentioned alone is enough to
dispense with the plea that the interstate commerce act is a good
one for this people because its tenor has worked well across the
ocean. I might add, however, that, despotic as is the German
Government — the government of blood and iron — over all private
enterprise, at any rate it has never yet discriminated against the
enterprise of its own subjects in favor of the schemes of national
rivals. Doubtless it is unfair to charge to the framers of the inter-
state commerce act a desire to benefit Canadian railroads (notably
the Canadian Pacific Railroad) at the expense of our own rail-
ways. That such has been the paramount unpatriotic effect of

* " Much of the language used in the most important sections " (in the act) " has a set-
tled meaning, having been judicially construed either in this country or in England." —
Senator Cullom's Springfield speech.

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that act is merely a proof that its framers overlooked the conse-
quences of their hastily advised and badly considered procedure ;
were betrayed into regarding the popular hostility to railways
from a political rather than from a patriotic standpoint, and so
into the folly of precipitating a hard and fast rule upon an indus-
try as delicate in its adjustments as it is massive in its ramifica-
tions ; an industry of whose operations no single act or necessity
of our sixty millions of people is independent ; a rule so hard and
so fast that were it attempted to be enforced (as a possible anarch-
ist or socialist administration might see fit to enforce it) it would
plunge the entire commerce and credit of this continent into
chaos in twenty-four hours ! To express the consequences, were
it once literally carried into effect, the performances of the typ-
ical bull in a china-shop would be a notoriously inadequate fig-
ure (removal of a cataract from a human eye with a butcher's
cleaver, or oiling the works of a Jurgensen watch by boiling it in
axle-grease, might possibly better express the summary vicious-
ness of the process).

So much for the Federal railway statute. As to the railway
statistics of the several States, they have been comparatively
innocuous — not so much from desuetude as from the general inca-
pacity of their administrators. On the whole, their operation has
been more largely comedy than tragedy — as where the Board of
Railway Commissioners of one State have enacted that upper
berths in railway-sleepers shall not be made up before the lower
ones ; * that of another have found that if a rail way -bridge had
fallen before a train reached it, instead of after the train had passed
upon it, it would have been safer for the train ; \ or that if a bridge
had been known to be unsafe, a train would not have been run
upon it at all. J But that even State railway laws may be danger-
ous, I may note two very recent examples. The Board of Railway
Commissioners of Mississippi have recently been given increased
powers ; have now authority to specify the description and size of
station-houses which railway companies must build, and the point
and location at which they must stand ; to require the building
of union passenger depots where two or more railroads connect,
and to allot expenses of the same between the two or more com-
panies compelled to pay for erecting them. This, in all con-
science, seems to be going far enough. But the Iowa Board of
Railroad Commissioners went still further, and not only regulated
the question of accommodations, but actually furnished the rail-
way companies wiih a schedule of the prices at which they must
do the business which the people bring to them : that is to say — for
the terms are convertible — ^the prices which the people shall be

* Minnesota Board of Commissioners. f Illinois Board of Commissioners.

:}: Massachusetts Board of Commissioners.

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 463

allowed to pay the railwaj^s ! It is precisely as if the Legislature
of New York should provide upon what quality of paper, with
what size of type, or color of ink " The Popular Science Monthly "
should be printed and furnished to its readers, the Legislature
meanwhile not assuming any of the expenses or responsibilities of
the publication, paying any losses, troubling itself about any of
the risks incident thereto, or even inquiring into the facts of its
circulation, cost of manufacture, or pay-roll : for that the Missis-
sippi board even made the slightest effort to inquire — or heard any
testimony as to — the volume of business, fixed charges, earnings or
operating expenses of the companies to whom it dictated disburse-
ments, there never was the slightest idea or claim anywhere.
Indeed, it was the very gist of the ruling in some of those won-
derful "Granger" cases (so called), that any such items as the
above were "too remote"; the railway company must do busi-
ness under schedules furnished by the shippers in Legislature
assembled. Would a single powerless individual on this conti-
nent submit to such legislation as that ?

It is rather remarkable that, though the Interstate Commerce
Commission has existed almost two years at Washington, the
only decisions at all affecting the general railway situation
should come from Federal judges holding remote circuits, and that
both of these should contravene and ignore an extraordinary
tribunal created by Congress to specially oversee railways, sitting
at the capital itself. The first of these declared that a railroad
company might remain upon the earth, even though it was com-
pelled to charge more for a short than for a long haul ; * while the
other enjoins the Iowa Board of Railway Commissioners from
dictating the tariffs at which certain trunk lines shall do business
within the borders of that State, f Of this latter decision let us
hope that it will do something to relieve the delicate adjustments
of our railway systems from the lash of ward politics and unen-
lightened demagogy.

Of all the popular fallacies ever discussed, it seems to me that
the one which invokes popular prejudice against railway compa-
nies has the least actual basis of merit to stand upon. As a positive
fact, the railway is not only chartered by the people, but can only
be operated for the people's convenience. In " The Popular Sci-
ence Monthly " for May, 1888, 1 had occasion to allude to a certain
voluminous denunciation of incorporated industries as rehabili-
tating the effete institution of feudalism, which appeared to be
principally based upon the supposition that feudalism and des-
potism were convertible terms. As a matter of fact, feudalism
was not by any manner of means a despotism per se, even though

* Deady, J., United States Circuit Court for Oregon.

f Brewer, J., central division of Southern District of Iowa.

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obtaining at a date when all government was more or less des-
potic (and generally more than less). Neither did a feudal sys-
tem ever decree the prices at which its vassals should yield their
labor. Supposing a railway company to have been in operation
in the days of feudal systems, can any one imagine a law com-
pelling it to make charges irrespective of the services it ren-
dered ? And yet, in a late session of the House of Representatives
at Washington, a bill was, I am informed, introduced to forbid a
railway company from carrying oil in tanks at lesser rates than
it charged for carrying oil in barrels ! (It is immaterial that oil
in tanks can be carried with very little handling, and at an ex-
pense of labor and material very little over tha^t required to run
empty cars, while to transport it in barrels requires much hand-
ling, care, and watchfulness. Nothing in the way of detail, it ap-
pears, is material when politicians assume to legislate concerning
railway companies.) Indeed, our railway companies might well
clamor for and welcome a return to feudal systems, if they con-
sulted their own convenience — to say nothing of their fixed
charges ! Nor would a return be such a bad thing for the an-
archist or the socialist from his own standpoint. For, under feu-
dalism, the subject was not touched by the crown-taxes — the taxes
for revenue, for war-making, for internal protection. The fathers
of our common law, in tracing the origin of property to " title by
occupancy " to the garden of Eden (which Adam, at least until dif-
ferent arrangements were made, owned because he occupied it) —
to the times when King Ahab, despot as he was, dared not help
himself to Naboth's vineyard until, by ruse or device, he had di-
vested Naboth's title — never denied the general proprietary title
to the earth's surface which Mr. Henry George has selected as the
proper one. They simply set it aside as inconvenient. But, what-
ever elemental title human beings may have to the use of the
earth's surface as human beings, the railway company holds its
title to its right of way by both alienation and use. It has pur-
chased, but can only enjoy, so long as it serves the public. It is
a public trust for a public convenience only. From the moment it
ceases to serve the public and the public convenience, its fran-
chises, its titles, its real estates lapse ; and every court in Christ-
endom has so decreed and maintained. If Mr. George's system
of common proprietorship in real property were law to-day, he
could not divest a railway company so long as it performed its
functions. And yet it is over this industry, chartered only for
the public facility — and simply because under and by reason of
the immense convenience of that facility it requires enormous
capitalizations and creates immense debts — that the politician
squats, and the anarchist howls, and the communist grinds his
teeth.

THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 465

Altogether, the railroad company seems to be in the position
of Mr. Dow's Calvinist :

" You can and you can't,
You will and you won't ;
You'll be damned if you do,
And be damned if you don't ! "

Twoscore of boards, framed by consent of local politicians, shont :
" You railways must operate your trains. You must incur such
bills as we Railway and Interstate Commissioners impose upon
you, and do just as we say in everything ; but you can not collect
for your services the wherewithal to pay bills, except at such
figures as we see fit to permit you to make. We know nothing
about railroading. We are only Republicans, or Democrats, or
Prohibitionists, or Women's-Righters. But do as we say ; and if,
in the doing of it, you kill anybody, or maim anybody, or if we
hear of any defaults in payment of fixed charges, look not to us
for loving-kindness ! " This was Portia's idea of mercy to poor
Shylock. And let us admit, for argument's sake (or concede it as
certain, for that matter), that the railway company is a Shylock,
compelled by law to exact the last penny to which it is entitled.
" Cut out your pound of flesh," says Portia ; " the court awards it
and the law doth give it. But if, in the cutting, you take more or
less, by the estimation of a single hair, than just one pound, then
your goods are confiscate and your life itself is forfeit to the state "
— and in so saying, the divine Portia (who had already admitted
that the Jew asked nothing but justice, and was entitled to judg-
ment at every point in his favor) was a by no means unfair proto-
type of the modern American Legislature, which first charters rail-
way companies to exercise certain and stated functions, and then
exercises them itself, leaving to the unhappy railway companies
nothing but the responsibility and the punishment for its own blun-
ders. Under the circumstances, is it to be wondered at that, very
recently, a certain worm did, in some sort, turn ? — that a certain
railway company in the distant West, on being commanded by the
Iowa Board of Railway Commissioners to turn in to them a state-
ment of the value of its plant, replied that its plant was worth
considerably less than before the commissioners began to make
rules and regulations ; that it would continue to depreciate as long
as the commissioners kept on making them ; that any estimate
as to the aforesaid value would be mere guess-wor]i ; and that the
only certainty possible in the matter was that enough rules and
regulations from the honorable commissioners would ultimately
deprive railway plants in their jurisdiction of any value what-
ever !

There are a few things left which a railway company may
do. It may, by a late decision of the Interstate Commission, issue

VOL. XXXIT. 30

466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as many " passes " as it pleases, provided they are not used,* But
no railway company is to be allowed to escape an interstate char-
acter from any such pretext as that it operates entirely within a
single State — the commission affirmatively holding that if any par-
cel, the ultimate destination of which is outside of the State in
which it is shipped, is carried by a local road, that local road at
once, and by the act of carrying that parcel, becomes an interstate
railway, t This is Lord Coke's celebrated maxim, that it is the part
of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction — with a vengeance !

GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE.

By otto MEYER, Pii. D.

INDIANS of to-day, who are well acquainted with the history
of their race, may often think with melancholy of the olden
times, when their forefathers were the only masters of the coun-
try. Numerous and powerful tribes occupied the vast territory
between two oceans, some hunting the deer in the forests of the
East, others ruling supreme in the plains and mountains of the
West. The white man was fighting hard for his existence in small
settlements along the coast. But, whatever perfection in warfare
and in the use of their weapons the Indians had acquired by the
experience and practice of many generations, it was useless
against the rising foe, who possessed and introduced entirely new
arms and methods. And what is the result to-day ? The majority
of the tribes, and among them the most powerful ones, have been
extinguished entirely ; while others, sadly diminished in numbers,
linger here and there, and the pale-face is met everywhere.

The same feelings of melancholy must enter the mind of an
alligator of geological education, when, during a siesta in the sun,
he thinks of the good old Mesozoic times and compares them with
the pitiable present. " How beautiful were the Triassic and
Jurassic periods, when numerous and powerful orders of reptiles
were masters of the earth, when mosasaurus and other kings of
the water were hunting the animals of the ocean, when gigantic
dinosaurs reigned on the land, and pterodactyls populated the air !
That parvenu, the mammal, was existing only in small species
and struggling for an existence. But, alas ! how is it now ? Of

* Matter of Burlington and ^Fissouri River Railway Company. It is remarkable that,
of the millions of passes which four hundred railway companies find it necessary to issue
in the course of their operations, the only case in which a pass has attracted the attention
of the commission is one where the pass was never lifted.

■j- Bragg, J. Matter of Johnstown and Gloversville Railway Company, " First Annual
Report of Interstate Commerce Commission," p. 126.

GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE.

467

Post-tertiary.

Tertiary.

Cretaceous.

our nine orders of reptiles five have disappeared entirely, among
them just the most powerful ones, and only four are still in exist-
ence. Lizards, turtles, snakes, and we crocodiles have found
refuge wherever we could, and mammals are met everywhere.
And how did they succeed in thus
becoming rulers of the earth ? Sim-
ply by introducing new-fashioned
arms and methods, such as warm
blood and developed brains ; and
the most thickened bone plates and
largest spines of our ancestors
proved to be useless in the new
kind of warfare." So Alligator
Mississippiensis may meditate, and
as a furious Apache Indian sur-
prises and kills a lonely white squat-
ter, so the alligator may rush upon
and seize a strolling mammalian
dog or pig of the nearest planta-
tion.

The dinosaurs, one of the men-
tioned extinct orders of reptiles,
were animals living on the land,
some of them peaceably feeding on
plants, etc. ; others were dangerous
carnivores. In form and size they
showed differences as considerable
as are presented among the existing
mammals by the elephant and the
mouse. While the smallest known
dinosaurs were not larger than a
fox, some of them attained a size
which is almost fabulous, and a gi-
raffe or an elephant would appear
as a dwarf in comparison with these
monsters. We may obtain a gen-
eral idea of many dinosaurs if we
imagine an animal like a huge crocodile, but with a smaller
head, a longer neck, and posterior legs which are larger than the
fore-legs. These larger posterior limbs, in connection with the
long strong tail, gave to these animals somewhat the appearance
of a kangaroo. Like this latter quadruped, they were occasionally
sitting on the hind-legs and the tail, and some of them were prob-
ably also walking or hopping on their posterior legs. Instead of
starting from a crocodile, we might therefore say : Let us imagine
a huge kangaroo, where the difference between fore and hind legs.

468

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

however, is not so great, and then let us transfer this into the
reptilian system. For, while a kangaroo is a warm-blooded mam-
mal, covered with hair, the dinosaurs were cold-blooded, scaly
reptiles. The anatomy of the dinosaurs resembles that of the
lizards and crocodiles, but in many respects it reminds us of the
skeleton of birds. These bird-like features appear especially in
the pelvis and the posterior legs, and are so striking that some
scientists believe that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs ;
others think that birds and dinosaurs originated from a common
ancestor. The close relationship of these two classes of animals
will appear to us more plausible if we remember the fact that the
birds of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods resembled reptiles
much more than they do now — for instance, in their possession of
teeth. This may be said of dinosaurs in general, and we may now
contemplate some of their known representatives.

If we enter the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences
in Philadelphia, the first thing that attracts our eye is an enor-
mous skeleton found at the left side of the entrance. It
represents an animal seventeen feet high, and measuring
from head to tail twenty-four feet. It is mounted
so that it stands on its hind-legs and is
supported by its strong and long tail,
while the short anterior limbs rest upon
a structure purporting to be a reproduc-
tion of a tree of past periods. If we ex-
amine the skeleton more closely, we
find that only a few bones of the
hind-legs and the tail are naturally
found fossils, while all the other
bones are artificial casts. But most
of them are exact representations of
the original fossil bones, which
are kept under glass for the
sake of better preservation.
They were found in 1858 in

Fig 2.-HADR0SAURUB (restoration by Hawkins). the CretaCCOUS formation of

New Jersey, and the animal
has been described under the name of hadrosaurus. An exact
imitation of this skeleton exists also in the National Museum at
Washington.

The hadrosaurus is as yet the only complete mounted dinosaur
in America, and it must not be forgotten that some parts of this
skeleton were not found, but for the sake of completeness were
formed in analogy to the others. In Europe they have been more
fortunate in this respect. In the Royal Museum, at Brussels, in
Belgium, there is the mounted skeleton of a similar dinosaur, the

GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE.

469

anatomy of which is almost as well known as that of a dog or a
cat. This animal, the iguanodon, in the way it is mounted,
reaches a height of about fourteen feet, and a length of nearly
thirty feet. It also stands on the hind-legs, and is supported hy
the strong tail, which constitutes
about a third of the whole length.
The neck is erect, and the head
horizontal, as if the animal were
gazing forward. The short ante-
rior limbs, somewhat bent, are
hanging down. The hind-foot is
composed of three strong toes^
armed with claws. The fore -feet
have a long and strong spine where
we have the thumb. The name of
the animal has been chosen on ac-
count of its teeth,
which resemble re-
markably those of
the Brazilian lizard,
iguana, and indicate
that the iguanodon
was no carnivore,
but a herbivorous

animal. It is thought that this animal lived in swamps or on the
banks of rivers. It is further believed that it walked on its hind-
legs, and that it treated its assailants in the way of a bear, by em-
bracing them with its short and strong fore-legs, and piercing them
by the dagger-like spines of the fore-feet.

470

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Who were these assailants ? Probably also dinosaurs belong-
ing to the carnivorous branch of this order. One of the best
known of them is the megalosaurus, an animal of about the same
size and way of living as the iguanodon, marching or wading
mostly on its hind-legs. A carnivorous animal is characterized

Fig. 4.— Teeth of Iguanodon.

by its teeth, which must be apt to seize and lacerate its prey.
The teeth of megalosaurus were few in number, large, flattened,
of the shape of a saber, and with sharp, crenulated edges. Mega-
losaurus was a European dinosaur. One of the best-known^
American carnivorous dinosaurs of the Jurassic formation has
been called ceratosaurus, on account of a large horn on the skull.

Head of Megalosaurus, one tenth natural size (restored by Phillips).

If the reptiles mentioned heretofore, with a length of twenty-
five to thirty feet, must be called beasts of quite a respectable size,
they were by no means the giants of their order. The largest
known dinosaurs have been found in the Jurassic formation of
the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado and Wy-
oming. In the A Museum of Yale College, in New Haven, there are

GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE.

471

the vertebrae, limb-bones, etc., of the brontosaurus, which have
been found in these beds. If, according to these remains, we make
a restoration of the whole skeleton, the result is an animal of about
sixty feet in length. But this is not all. The bone of the upper
hind-leg, the femur, of the brontosaurus is smaller than six feet.

Fia. 6.— Skcll op Ceratosaurcs, one seventh natural size.

But in the same museum there is, besides other remains, the
femur of a very similar dinosaur, found in the same beds, which
is about eight feet long, and belonged to an animal the length of
which has been estimated at from eighty to a hundred feet. It has
been called atlantosaurus, on account of its size. This atlantosau-
rus must have been a beast able to sweep down an elephant with
a stroke of its tail as a crocodile would a dog. Of all the known
land-animals, living or fossil ones, it is the largest, and it is prob-
able that Nature reached a limit in producing land-animals of
this size.

If we compare with the atlantosaurus the smallest known dino-
saurs, we find an enormous difference. In the lithographic lime-
stones of Solenhofen, in Bavaria, which have yielded so many
well-preserved and interesting animals of the Jurassic formation,
a dinosaur has also been found. This animal, called compsogna-
thus, had posterior legs which were much longer than the anterior
limbs. It therefore probably walked or hopped on its hind-legs
like a kangaroo or a bird, and altogether, with its long neck and
small head, must have resembled a good deal the birds of the same
period.

The name of dinosaurs means terrible saurians (Seivo?, terrible) ;
and, indeed, the aspect of animals like the atlantosaurus and others
was probably such as to justify this name. One of the oddest-
looking creatures of this order must have been an animal called

472

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stegosaurus, the remains of wliich have also been found in the
Western Jurassic and are preserved at the Yale College Museum.
It was about twenty-five feet long. Its skull contained a brain

which is comparatively the
smallest brain which we know
in any quadruped. It was,
indeed, so small that it was
probably not sufficient to con-
trol and direct all the nerves
and muscles of the gigantic
body. At any rate, we find in
the stegosaurus that the ver-
tebrae of the sacrum contain a
cavity formed by an enlarge-
ment of the spinal canal. This
chamber is ovate in form, and
resembles the brain-case in
the skull, but it is very much
larger, being at least ten times
the size of the cavity of the
brain. Although we find in
some animals a swelling of
the spinal cord at the same
place, there is nothing known
which might be put beside the
stegosaurus in this respect,
and it is difficult to object
if somebody claims that the
animal possessed two brains
— one in his skull and the
other in his sacrum. The
stegosaurus was, according to
Marsh, protected and armed
in the following way : At the
region of the throat and low-
er part of the neck there were
small dermal plates in the
thick skin, which were regu-
larly arranged. The upper
part of the neck was shielded
by larger plates of the same
kind, which were placed in
pairs on each side. These
plates of bone increased in
size posteriorly, and covered
the back. From the sacrum

GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE.

473

to the middle of tlie tail there was only one row of large scutes.
At the end of the tail there were, as weapons of offense, several
thick spines, about a foot long, so that a stroke of this tail must
have been telling in its effects.

\

Fis. 8.— CoMPSOQNATHus (restoration by Huxley).

Fig. 9.— Foot-pf.int of BRONTczotrM, one
eightli natural size (after Hitchcock).

We have now made the acquaintance of several dinosaurs, yet
they are by no means all the members of this numerous order,
upon which already a whole literature has been published. Some
of them are known only by their foot-prints. The Triassic sand-
stone of the Connecticut Valley contains numerous impressions of
five-, four-, and three-toed dinosaurs, which at first were consid-
ered as the foot-prints of large birds. They were made when these
animals walked on the muddy shores of the Triassic ocean. The
collections of Amherst and Yale College contain each several
thousands of such impressions — a fact that gives some idea of the
abundance of reptilian life on the continent at that time. Also,
in Europe, we find that reptiles, and among them especially
dinosaurs, are the most numerous and dominating class of the
Mesozoic times — that is, during the Trias, Jura, and Cretaceous ;
so that these times are often called the age of reptiles. At the
end of the Cretaceous period, however, the reptiles decreased, and
the dinosaurs became entirely extinct — at least, we do not know of
any Tertiary dinosaur, and none exists at present.

Our knowledge of these remarkable animals is a comparatively
recent one ; of them almost nothing was known thirty years ago,
but since then discoveries have followed each other in rapid suc-
cession, and every year contributes new data. It is especially to
three American scientists that we owe most of our knowledge
about dinosaurs; they are Prof. Josei3h Leidy and Prof. E. D.
Cope, in Philadelphia, and Prof. O. C. Marsh, in New Haven.

30*

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS.

By dr. L. E. brow ski.

THE Yezidees, sometimes called " Devil-worshipers/' are one of
the lialf -dozen curious and interesting sects outside of Islam
who live in Mesopotamia. But little is known of their inner
life except to the initiated, for they resist all attempts to ques-
tion them ; and, when driven into a corner, will put off the in-
quirer with a fiction. The acceptation of these stories as true
has been the origin of mistaken conceptions concerning them.
Complete reservation of their religious precepts from strangers is
one of their most binding obligations. To make secrecy more
effective, the founder of the sect. Sheik Adi, decreed that only a
single person at a time should be initiated into the mysteries, and
designated as the person to whom the secret should be confided,
the eldest heir of the tribe of Hassan el Bassri. Previous to his
initiation this person is to be instructed in written Arabic, knowl-
edge of which is forbidden to all others of the race, under penalty
of death and loss of eternal salvation. The instruction takes
place in a room from which all other persons are excluded. The
text-book is the Koran, the only book obtainable in the country ;
but as this book contains many unflattering mentions of the
devil, whose name no Yezidee must hear or pronounce or read, a
friendly Christian is employed to procure the copy to be used and
carefully cover all places where the devil is named with wax. If
now by any accident the devil's name should be seen on the page
during the studies, the book is shut at once, with an invocation,
and thrown into the fire, and another one is procured. When the
course of instruction is comi^leted, the Koran is burned at once,
because it is a wicked, blasphemous book, which should not be
tolerated in the house of a Yezidee except under the sternest
necessity. Instead of being devil-worshipers, as they are com-
monly called, the Yezidee religion is so fortunate as to have no
devil.

By a most extraordinary accident the author obtained the
sacred book of the Yezidees, whose place of concealment is known
only to the single initiated, and was able to keep it long enough
to copy it. Previous to entering upon the analysis of its con-
tents, it will be proper to give a short account of the Yezidee
people. They belong to the Kurdish race, and claim a population
of three million souls. They are distributed in villages, residence
in cities being forbidden, a few living in the provinces of Damas-
cus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir, a greater number in the province of
Mosul and the Russian district of Erivan. They are all subject,
body and soul, to a chief who must be of the family of Sheik Adi,

THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS. 475

and who resides at Baadri, in the district of Shechan. He re-
ceives a considerable tribute from his people, and has in turn to
keep Tip the temple and grave of Sheik Adi. The present chief is
Myrza Bey, a son of Hussein Bey, who a few years ago died of
drunkenness. He was the third of eight brothers, and had no
right to the succession, but he formed a party and advanced
claims. In the contest which followed, his elder brothers fell by
his hand, and he thus made himself master of the situation. He
then managed to make his peace with the Turkish Government,
and was recognized by it. The Myr, as the chief is called, has
supreme control of all the possessions of the Yezidees. To deny
a wish expressed by him is to incur very unpleasant results in
this world, and also to bring upon one's self the consequences of
having offended the bodily descendant and representative on the
earth of the great prophet Sheik Adi. All contests are settled at
his tribunal, not by any fixed law, but according to his will and
passing mood. Bloodshedding is atoned for by pecuniary in-
demnity ; adulterous women are executed by their husbands
without further proceedings. The Turkish Government is satis-
fied to receive its tribute, and lets the internal affairs of the
people alone. It deals with the Myr, to a certain extent, as a state
within a state. The Yezidees will not serve in the Turkish army,
because their religion forbids them to mingle with the hated
Mussulmans, but escape by paying a good round commutation
fee yearly. The people are at the lowest stage of civilization, with
no hope of rising so long as Sheik Adi's rules are in force. Under
the influence of these conditions and of the prejudices of their
neighbors against them, they have become a sinister, malicious,
treacherous people. The rite of hospitality, so sacred among the
Bedouins, is unknown to them. No one can feel safe among
them. They attach no value to human life. To these ordinary
dangers are added those arising from the embarrassing etiquette
of conversational intercourse with them ; for if any one inadvert-
ently lets escape the word devil, Satan, or anything sounding like
it, he commits a mortal offense ; and to cut off his head is a God-
pleasing act, and a sacred duty of the Yezidee, the fulfillment of
which will insure him a place in paradise. Several letters are in
like manner wholly banished from the language, chiefly those
which contain the sound of a " shun " ; also the Arabic word
nallet, "Thou art damned," which was spoken by God to the fallen
angel when he pitched him into hell. Therefore all words con-
taining similar sounds are set aside, and other combinations not
belonging to any language are used in their stead.

The Yezidees in the level regions of Shechan are quiet farmers
and stock-raisers, paying their tribute to the Turkish Govern-
ment without remonstrance ; but on the Jebel Sindiia they are

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wild and indomitable^, addicted to highway robbery, in constant
antagonism with the Government, and often compelling the
officers to use force in the collection of the taxes.

The great national sanctuary of the Yezidees is " Sheik Adi,"
the supposed burial-place of the founder and prophet of the
religion. It was formerly a Chaldaic cloister, called Lalish, but
was captured by the adherents of Sheik Adi, about the middle of
the tenth century. It is in a beautiful valley, shaded with a rich
vegetation, through which flows the sacred brook Semsen, coming
down underground from Jerusalem, and here leaping from
terrace to terrace. Every Yezidee is baptized and has his wind-
ing-sheet dipped into its holy waters, in order that he may be
more sure of entering the paradise which Sheik Adi has promised
him. Here resides the great sheik, who is next to the Myr, and
whose blessing is good for the healing of diseases and for the as-
surance of a large posterity. The next place in the hierarchy is
held by Mullah Haidar, a descendant of the learned Hassan el
Bassri, and keeper of the book with the seven seals.

In one of the apartments of the temple are preserved the six
sacred brazen images. They are roughly cast figures, in the shape
of plumply developed cocks, one of which weighs more than seven
hundred pounds, while the others are smaller. They are a gift
from the dying prophet. There wer« originally seven of them,
but one has been unaccountably lost. The holy book was also
concealed for a time in Sheik Adi. This book was probably
written in fairly good Arabic, at about the end of the tenth cent-
ury, by Hassan el Bassri, Sheik Adi's disciple. It has existed
since then in only a single copy, and is divided into two parts, of
which the first contains the history of the creation, in occasional
agreement with the Biblical narrative ; and some account of the
origin of the Yezidees and their subsequent fortunes, not always
accurate, and containing many anachronisms. The second part
— which is evidently to a considerable extent of later origin, for
it shows various handwritings — explains the doctrines, precepts,
and rites. The occurrence of Chaldaic words indicates that some
Christian or ex-Christian priest or monk had something to do
with its construction. According to this curious book, darkness
prevailed before God created the heavens and the earth. He be-
came tired of hovering over the water, and made a parrot, with
which he amused himself for forty years. Then he became angry
with the bird, and trampled it to death. The mountains and val-
leys arose out of its plumage, and the sky from its breath. God
then went up, made the dry sky, and hung it to a hair of his head.
In the same way hell was made. God then created six other gods
out of his own essence, in the same way that a fire divides itself
into several flames. These six gods are the sun, the moon, morn-

THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS. 4^-jj

ing and evening twilight, tlie morning star, the other stars, and the
seven planets. Each of them made himself a mare, with which to
travel over the sky. The gods talk with one another in Knrdish,
the speech of paradise, the language of languages. The seven gods
together created the angels. It came to pass that the angel created
by the first god rose against his lord, and was cast into hell for it.
He at once set up a great lamentation, with confessions of his faults,
and wept continually for seven thousand years, filling seven great
earthen jars with his tears, till at last the all-good and merciful
God had pity on him, and took him again into paradise. This
angel afterward so excelled the others in doing good that God
loved him more than all of them. The other angels once in a
quarrel taunted him with his single sin and punishment. God
overhearing this became very angry and said : " Whoever of you
offends this little one with another word shall be accursed ; whom
God hath pardoned, the creature shall not make ashamed." He
raised this angel to be first and master of all, called him Melek-
Taus, and united him with his own person and existence, as two
flames become one. The seven jars filled with the tears which he
wept in hell are to be preserved till Sheik Adi shall return after
having completed his mission on the earth, to be used in extin-
guishing the fires of hell.

The seventh god created the various species of animals, grad-
ually, one out of the other, and finally Adam and Eve. But their
posterity could not maintain themselves. After ten thousand
years the earth destroyed them all, and then remained desolate
for ten thousand years longer. Only the genii survived. The
same thing haj^pened five times again, each god creating a human
pair in his turn. Finally the first god, with Melek-Taus, created
the last first pair. Eve a considerable time after Adam, and not
till after he had been expelled from paradise. Adam lived in
paradise, and was allowed to eat of all the fruits growing there
except of wheat.

In the course of time Melek-Taus said to God : " You have cre-
ated Adam to people the earth; but he still lives in paradise,
while the earth is uninhabited." God said : " You are right ; take
counsel about it." Melek-Taus went to Adam and moved him to
eat of the forbidden fruit, upon which his expulsion from paradise
followed as a punishment. God then determined to give Adam,
who was still alone, a companion, and made Eve from his ribs,
who bore him seventy-two pairs of twins. The Yezidees are not,
however, descended from this race, but from a son miraculously
given by God to Adam, named Shehid-ibn-Giarr, and a houri
from paradise. Their posterity, the Yezidees, do not mingle with
the children of Adam and Eve.

Shehid's eldest son was Yezdani, from whom, through his son

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Noah, also called Melek Salim, the blessing passed to his grand-
son Marge Meran, the father of the Yezidee race. The Mussul-
mans are descended from Ham, who, having detected his mother
in an intrigue, mocked her to his father. The children of Eve
and of Ham hate the children of Yezdani, because they are the
chosen people of Melek-Taus, who induced their father to eat the
forbidden fruit, thereby forfeiting paradise.

The children of Eve laughed at Noah while he was building
the ark in anticipation of the flood. When the ark struck on
Mount Sindiar, it sprung a leak. The snake swelled itself up and
stopped the hole with its tail ; but after the flood, the snakes in-
creased so fast as to do much harm to men. Noah was so vexed
at this that he seized one of them and threw it into the fire. From
its ashes arose fleas.

The history is continued, with a mixture of distorted incidents
from the Old and New Testament accounts, the life and sufferings
of Christ, stories of the Koran, and secular history. Christ, after
suffering, but not actually dying, upon the cross, was taken by
Melek-Taus into heaven, where, with him and God, he forms the
Trinity.

Yezid, who made war upon his father, the Caliph Moanzeh, al-
though he lived in reality a Mussulman, but unorthodox, is fabled
in these books to have been a great champion of the religion of
Sheik Adi, and to have possessed miraculous powers. He is said
to have ordered all the books of Islam to be brought together and
cast into the sea, and to have pronounced a curse of body and soul
against every one, except those to whom special license might be
given, who should thereafter read or write a letter of the Arabic
language. Having overcome Hussim and Hassan, the sons of
Ali, Yezid lived three hundred years at Damascus and then as-
cended to heaven. The Mohammedans obtaining possession of
Damascus again, and beginning to oppress the faithful, Yezid
was sent down to earth to protect them. This time he took the
name of Sheik Adi. He again performed many wonderful works
and effected some marvelous conversions, receiving the adhesion,
among others, of the Caliph and of Hassan el Bassri, and drove the
Christian monks from Lalish, where he established the seat of his
religion. Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, says the book of
Sheik Adi, " curse and blaspheme in the way that they are led by
their books. They are blind and hardened, and do not know that
God comes down from heaven every thousand years and punishes
blasphemers. They habitually speak of Satan, meaning thereby
our holy Melek-Taus, who is one with God. This wicked name
was invented by infamous and accursed people to shame our
august protector. It is no less sinful to let words of similar
meaning or like sound pass over the lips, such as kalian (a sting).

THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS.

479

sTiat (the Tigris), shed (to bind), nul (horseshoe), and led (a ruby).
Whoever speaks one of these words is guilty of the most heinous
blasphemy and deserves to die, and his soul shall be embodied in
a mangy dog or a beast of burden. Therefore God forbids the
reading of books, because such words are contained in them.
Neither the Bible nor the Koran originally had these blasphe-
mous passages, but they were added by evil-doers. It is also a
great sin to eat salad, because its name (in Arabic) sounds like
one of the titles of our saints."

The priestly order is hereditary, in the lines ordained by God,
and includes, after the Myr, or high-priest, the Apiars, who reside
at Sheik Adi, and dispose of their blessings for good money ; the
Meshaich, who, without having any particular ecclesiastical func-
tions, pray for the healing of diseases and break the bread at mar-
riage ceremonies ; the Kovechek, who dance at the festivals and on
other occasions ; the Kavalin, who constitute the guard of honor
to the seven holy images, make music, and attend to the collec-
tions ; and the Fakirs, who are organized as begging-monks, and
live wholly on alms. All these priests wear their beard and hair
uncut, and can marry only within their class.

The Sanjak, or Holy Standard of the Yezidees, is asserted to
have come down from King Solomon, haviiig passed from him to
the kings of their nation, and having been committed by Yezid to
the Kavalin to care for. As among them, it is consigned to the
one who will bid highest for the privileges and blessings attendant
upon having it in possession. On stated occasions the Sanjak is
carried around and exhibited to the people. The priest dips the
standard into the holy water, and, taking some of the consecrated
earth of Sheik Adi, makes of it pills as large as a hazel-nut, which
he keeps as blessed gifts for the faithful. Whoever swallows one
of these pills will be kept by the grace of Melek-Taus sound in
mind and body for a whole year. The standard, preceded by a
herald to announce its coming, is taken to the villages as they are
designated by the Myr. The privilege of entertaining it having
been sold at auction, the successful bidder makes a feast in its
honor, which is attended by the priests in their order, and by
the people, and, finally, the women and children. Offerings are
brought and laid down, and at sunset all the faithful march seven
times around the standard in honor of the seven gods, beating
their breasts and asking pardon for their sins. When all the vil-
lages in the circuit have been visited, the standard and the col-
lected offerings are brought to the temple.

Sheik Adi is the true Jerusalem, or center of the faith. At
the beginning of the autumn the Myr and the Meshaich meet
there in a cave and inquire of Melek, who appears to them,
whether a festival will be agreeable to him. If the answer is

48o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

favorable, the report is sent out, and in the course of twenty-three
days thousands of Yezidees, with their wives and children, will
have collected at Sheik Adi, bringing with them provision of a
peculiar cake, for no kind of food must be prepared there during
the pilgrimage. On the twenty-third day, the great Sheik comes
out from the cave, takes his seat upon a stone, and salutes the
people. Every person, thirty years of age and over, must bring
an offering from his live-stock, according to his means. The
Meshaich now come out of the cave and join the Emir on a high
tribune, where, with the priests of the other orders, they form the
Council of the Forty. An ox is stewed in a big kettle from morn-
ing till sundown, when at the call of the Emir a number of young
men come up, and, plunging their bared arms into the hot mess,
accompanied by ceremonial music, pull out the pieces of meat and
distribute them among the Emir and the Council. The skin and
flesh of the young men's arms may peel off to the bone, but those of
them who die are at once enrolled among the saints ; and in their
honor the hunters of Sindiar and Chartie climb to the top of the
mountain and loudly clash their shields together, or, more re-
cently, fire volleys of musketry. This ceremony is called kabaah.
Every one of the attendant faithful receives a share of the broth,
making an offering equivalent to about a sixpence in return.
After three days of the festival, the faithful are all baptized in
the waters of the holy Semsen — a stream which issues from a
cave into a broad, stone-lined basin — and after them the women
and girls receive a dip. The water for drinking is taken from a
pond into which the water flows from out of this basin. None
can be drawn from the upper part of the source. Three of the holy
images are ceremonially dipped in the brook, carefully dressed,
and arranged around the Sanjak; each of the faithful takes a
little of the sacred earth and presents his offering, and the festival
is ended.

The religious ceremony of marriage consists in the couple
going before the Sheik and eating a piece of bread which he has
broken in two. A feast is given afterward, at which the attend-
ants contribute toward a gift to the Myr, in commutation of his
sovereign rights. Weddings are not celebrated in April, or on
Wednesdays and Fridays. The relatives of a widow have a right
to give her in marriage, whether she be willing or not, to the
sixth time, after which she is at liberty ; but, if she will pay the
relatives as much as the new suitor offers, she discharges the
account, and they have no further control over her. The mar-
riage bond is dissoluble by death, by removal, by putting the wife
away on account of transgression, and, without cause, after eighty
years of it.

The priests claim the power to heal diseases through the inter-

THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS. 481

position of the saints, and by the water of the brook Semsen and
the earth of Sheik Adi. They say that Rejel-el-Senne occasion-
ally sends his plague-soldiers to vex men ; when they repent of
their sins and confess them, the saints intervene to vanquish the
pest-soldiers and drive them away.

The souls of deceased believers are supposed to go into para-
dise to dwell with the seven gods, Melek-Taus, and the saints.
Sheik Adi is the door-keeper there. The souls of unbelievers and
of sinful Yezidees go into the bodies of asses, mules, and dogs.
Upon the death of a Yezidee, his mouth is at once filled with the
holy earth of Sheik Adi. The body is buried under the direction
of a sheik and the kavalin. The body having been laid in the
grave, facing the east, some sheep's dung is scattered over it, and
the grave is filled up with earth. The women mourn, sing dirges,
beat their breasts, and tear their hair for three days ; and, if a
traveler comes along, he is entertained for the salvation of the
soul of the deceased. The mourners and their friends afterward
meet in the house of the deceased, where the Kovechek dance and
sing to Melek-Taus till they look him in the face, when they are
seized with convulsions, and fall senseless to the ground. This is
a sign that the soul of the deceased has entered paradise. The
whole winds up with a funeral feast.

If a man has an evil-disposed son, he secretly buries his wealth,
so that it shall not be wasted after his death, and marks the spot
with some sign. When he is born again, to lead a new life, as his
religion teaches him is to be the case, he will go and recover his
treasure.

New-year's-day is a great festival, and is always observed on
the first Wednesday after the vernal equinox. On this day, God
collects in paradise all the saints and their relatives, and sells the
world's coming year at auction. The highest bidder is made
Rejel-el-Senne, the ruler of the year, and has the direction of
men's fates according to his will, and the distribution of plenty
and happiness, want and disease. On the morning of the previous
day the Kochek calls from his house, imploring from Melek-
Taus blessing upon all who are within hearing of his voice. The
young people then go to the mountains and woods to gather red
shkek flowers with which to adorn the doors of their houses ; for
no house not thus ornamented can be secure from the afflictions
of the year.

The legend of Sheik Adi's call to be a prophet relates that,
as the holy man was riding over the fields one moonlight night,
in his twentieth year, there suddenly appeared rising from the
ground, in front of the tomb of Abu Rish, a vision of two camels
having legs four cubits in length, with heads like those of buffa-
loes, hair long and bristly like a thorn-bush, large round eyes

TOL. XXXIT. — 31

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

glisteniug with a greenisli luster, jet-black skins, and other feat-
ures like those of men. The tomb had become immensely large,
and had taken the shape of a minaret towering into the clouds.
It then began to shake, and Sheik Adi in his fright overturned a
water-jar that was standing by his side ; and the aj^parition,
which had turned into the shape of a handsome boy with a pea-
cock's tail, exhorted him : " Do not be afraid ; the minaret, in-
deed, will fall and destroy the earth, but you and those who hear
your word shall not be harmed, and shall rule over the ruins. I
am Melek-Taus, and have chosen you to publish the religion of
the truth over the earth." This said, he took Sheik Adi's spirit
with him into heaven, where it stayed for seven years, receiving
instruction in all truths, while the body of the saint remained
asleep by the tomb of Abu Rish. When his soul returned to it
from the sky, the water had not yet run out of the overturned
jar. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Das
Ausland.

THE DANCE OF THE LADY CRAB.

By T. H. morgan.

ABOUT the 12th of September, 1888, there was brought into
the laboratory of the United States Fish Commission a male
specimen of the lady crab {Platyonychus ocellatus), which was
placed in an aquarium with a female crab of the same species.
During the evening of the 13th, while sketching some hermit-
crabs which had previously been placed in the same tank, I was
attracted by the movements of the male Platyonychus. Without
apparent cause he was seen to rise upon the third and fourth
pairs of legs ; his large chelae were thrown above his head with
the claws open and their points touching in the middle line ; his
fifth pair of feet were held horizontally behind, and his body per-
pendicular to the floor of the aquarium, or at right angles to the
normal position, as shown in the accompanying figure. The post-
ure was ludicrous, and, when in this position he began slowly to
gyrate, his movements and attitude were the cause of much merri-
ment upon the part of the spectators. At times he balanced on
two legs of one side, again on two legs of opposite sides. Now he
advances slowly and majestically, and now he wheels in circles in
the sand on the floor of the aquarium, and now for a few moments
he stands as if transfixed in this unnatural position. An electric
light hung above and to one side of the water, which suggested
the possibility that it might be the exciting cause. It was turned
out, and still the dance went on, and the joy was unconfined. At

THE DANCE OF THE LADY CRAB.

483

last, from slieer exhaustion, lie sinks down to tlie sand in liis usual
attitude.

But now tlie female, who has all this time remained tucked
away in the sand, comes forth and begins to move about the aqua-
rium ; soon she comes near to the male crab, when instantly he
rises to his feet and begins to dance. Again and again the per-

^^5^^2^-

Dance of the Lady Crab (drawn from life by T. H. M.).

formance is repeated, and each time the approach of the female is
the signal for the male to rear high upon his hind-feet, and to reel
about the aquarium as if intoxicated.

At times, when the female approached as he danced, he was
seen to make attempts to inclose her in his great chelate arms, not

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with any violence, for the claws never snapped nor closed vio-
lently ; but she was coy, however, and refused to be won by his
advances, for the dance may have been nothing new to the lady
crab, nor half as interesting as it was to the two spectators outside
the water. Later, he too buried himself in the sand, and the per-
formance came to an end.

The next day, and the day following it, the two crabs were
watched, but without anything unusual taking place. The colors
and markings of the male and female were much the same, though
it seemed that the male had slightly more brilliant tints. To de-
termine whether or not there is any marked sexual difference, a
greater number of both sexes will have to be examined, and this
at the time when the males woo the females under perfectly nor-
mal conditions, j

Performances such as these are by no means uncommon among
the vertebrates, especially with male birds in their endeavors to
attract the female ; but I believe there are few, if any, perform-
ances of this kind on record below the vertebrates.

To any one who has watched the crabs in their natural envi-
ronments, the complex psychological development which may here
be brought into play will not be surprising ; yet, if the instinct
which leads the male to dance is the same that we see in male
birds, and if the female shows any discrimination between the
dancers, the mental development must be considerable. Darwin
has, in his " Sexual Selection," recorded among Crustacea many
instances of difference in structure, and a few cases in which the
color * of the two sexes is slightly different, but does not mention
any performance comparable to the dance of the Platyonychus.

ON" THE CAUSES OF VARIATION.f

By C. V. EILEY, Ph. D., United States Entomologist.

WHATEVER influence we may attach to environment and
external conditions, it is self-evident that they alone have
not been sufficient to induce the wonderful variety of life exist-
ing upon the globe to-day. Indeed, so far as natural selection
implies necessary utility, necessary adaptation to surroundings,
it is, as I have said, defective. We know very well that intro-
duced species from one continent to another, or from one country
to another, have proved better adapted to the changed conditions

* Prof. Coun has reported a sexual difference in color in Callinectcs.
j- From the address of the Vice-President of Section F of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, delivered at the Cleveland meeting, August, 18Ss.

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 485

than the indigenes or endemic forms. This is readily compre-
hended on two grounds : First, that species which liave, in the
course of time, experienced a greater struggle among themselves
in large areas, have an advantage over those in more limited
areas in which the struggle has been less intense ; secondly, that
species which have accommodated themselves to the changes in
life conditions which civilized man induces, have a great advantage
when, following man's migrations, they are brought into competi-
tion with species which have not yet been subjected to such con-
ditions. Again, no valid reason can be urged why, within a given
area, one species predominates over another in so far as mere
adaptation is concerned. The influences of environment alone
would tend to unify the fauna and flora of a given region. Theo-
retically, so far as climate and physical conditions are concerned,
there is no reason, through regions where these are uniform, why
a single animal should not prevail to the exclusion of all others,
providing it was vegetarian, or that the particular plant which
furnished food to such an animal should not prevail to the ex-
clusion of all others. The hickory and the blade of grass must
be considered equally adapted to the environment with the oak,
and so on all through the multifarious forms of both vegetal and
animal life : so that this diversity of form can best be explained
by some principle like natural selection, and by the interrelation
and interaction of organisms and the struggle between them for
existence. This is illustrated in many directions. To take a
striking example : no one doubts that if the larger carnivora of
Europe and Asia were introduced into Australia, the marsupials
would soon have to give way, and could survive only by the
acquisition of special functional modifications and larger intelli-
gence such as we find in our opossum. Yet it would be folly to
conclude that the marsupials are less well fitted to the physical
conditions which obtain in Australia than their introduced ex-
terminators.

From what has preceded, we are, I think, justified in rejecting
the interpretations of both extremists as to the scope and mean-
ing of natural selection. It can not be debased to the mere
expression of the universally observed fact of variability ; yet it
must be restricted, because it not only implies something to be
selected, but its promulgator limits its scope to the selection of
something that is useful. As a philosophy it considers only pro-
cesses, and leaves remote origin and cause untouched. The fol-
lowing limitations are probably justified to-day, and will help to
more exact use of the term :

1. It deals only with individual variation from whatever
cause, and should not be applied to simultaneous variation in
masses.

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

2. It deals only with variations useful to the organism in its
struggle for existence, and can exert no power in fixing the end-
less number of what, from present knowledge, we are obliged to
consider fortuitous characters. It can not perpetuate useless
organs ; nor those of a vestigiary or obsolescent character.*

Even with these restrictions, the principle is far-reaching and
profoundly important ; but it quite fails to account for many of
the most interesting manifestations of life that are obviously not
necessary or life-preserving, of which many will occur to every
one, such as, among lower organisms, many superficial details of
structure ; or, as among higher organisms, odd habits and cus-
toms, playful instincts, ethical traits, etc. Its limitations must be
narrowed. in proportion as we come to understand the other laws
of modification and the causes of variation in masses. Let us
briefly consider some of these causes.

We soon find that they admit of a certain amount of classifica-
tion, the minor divisions of which, as in all systems of classifica-
tion, more or less fully interlock or blend. They fall, however,
into two chief categories, viz., (1) external conditions or environ-
ment, which are, at bottom, physical, and (2) internal tendencies
or promptings, which are, at bottom, psychical. We shall also
realize more fully that there is good reason for the varying im-
portance which has been placed on natural selection because it
represents a broad principle, based on the outcome of both these
categories, but particularly of the latter. Its value is not a fixed
one, and must needs change with the increase of exact knowledge
of the other factors, and did in fact change in the mind of its
originator. We shall further find that there are laws of evolution
which permit of formulation and expression, and which have in-
fluenced or controlled the mode of variation, but which must not
be confounded with or included among the causes of the variation
proper, though here, again, the line between the two kinds of
factors is not always easily defined.

The conditions of organic modification may, therefore, roughly
be classed as (A) external and (B) internal, and these may be
almost indefinitely subdivided. The former class includes (])
physical and (2) chemical forces, and in a broad way may be said
to induce modification independently of natural selection, how-
ever much this may act with them as a secondary cause. Certain
prominent features of the physical forces are worthy of mention :
as light, temperature, water (stagnant, or in motion), climate (un-
der which term may be included meteorologic phenomena, as elec-
tricity, atmospheric pressure, etc.), mechanics (gravitation, wind,
stress, friction, etc.) and geographies (migration, isolation, etc.),

■""■ In the literature of evolution, those are usually termed rudimentary, but, strictly
speaking, this term should be applied only to nascent or incipient structures.

6>iV THE CAUSES OF VxVRIATION. 487

The chemical forces may be considered under the subdivisions
aquatic, atmospheric, food, and soil. In class A may also be in-
cluded (3) vital * or organic force in so far as this is concerned
with the interaction of organisms, and it is seen thus to link the
two great classes. The second class (B) includes (1) plujsiological
and (2) psychical forces. Prominent among the former, as causes
of modification, are worthy of mention those connected with gen-
esis itself: as heredity, physiological selection, sexual selection,
hybridity, primogenital selection, and what I would call sexual
differentiation, and j:)hiloprogeneity. Among the latter may be
included use and disuse, individual effort, etc. ; and last, but not
least, the emotions.

Now, with the limited definition given to natural selection, all
the forces in class A act independently of it, while the rest are
more or less fully aids to its action. Time will not permit of
much detailed consideration of the physical and chemical forces.
Nor is such consideration necessary ; for their influence, as Dar-
win well remarked, is obvious. Fundamentally, they must needs
limit and control all manifestations of life, of which indeed, on
evolutional grounds, they are the material basis. Change of phys-
ical environment may affect function first and chiefly, but this
involves change of form and structure which are integrated by
heredity. The surface of the earth and the waters upon it and
the atmosphere above it have necessarily conditioned the chief
modes of animal locomotion, as swimming, flying, crawling, and
walking, while the five great classes of vertebrates find the expla-
nation of their structure, as J, B. Steere pointed out at the Ann
Arbor meeting, in the conditions of life in water, in shallows, in
the air, on land, and on trees and rocks.

External Conditions. — By external conditions, or environ-
ment, we include all influences on organisms which act from with-
out, and in carefully considering them we shall find it difficult to
draw the line between those which are really external and inde-
pendent of any motive or inherent tendency in the organism, and
those which are not. Hence, the general term " external con-
ditions" is resolvable into various minor factors. Considering
the inffuences as a whole, we find that in the 1844 essay, or sketch,
Darwin gave more weight to them as producing variations, and
as modifying habit, than he did in the " Origin " ; yet we all know
that he felt convinced, when this work was first issued, that nat-
ural selection was the main, though not the exclusive, means of
modification. Before his death, he was again led to attach greater

* I am well aware that this term is much tabooed among a certain class of the more
materialistic evolutionists, but I use it here for want of a better, and because, as an expres-
sion of one form of manifestation of force, it has as much a classificatory value as physical
or psychical.

4.88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

importance to tliem. As late as Marcli, 1877, lie wrote to Neu-
mayr, of Vienna, that " there can not be any doubt that species
can be modified through the direct action of the environment. I
have some cause for not having more strongly insisted on this
head in my ' Origin of Species,' as most of the best facts have
been observed since its publication." He was led to this modifica-
tion of his views by Neumayr's essay on " Die Congerien," and by
Hyatt's work in showing that similar forms may be derived from
distinct lines of descent. In his correspondence with Huxley,
Darwin remarks that one point has greatly troubled him. If, as
he believed, accidental conditions produced little direct efi'ect,
" What the devil determined each yjarticular variation ? What
makes the tuft of feathers come on the cock's head, or moss on
the moss-rose ? "

It is quite plain, indeed, that subsequent to the publication of
the " Origin," and especially in 1862, in his correspondence with
Lyell, Darwin was inclined to give more power to physical con-
ditions, and, in fact, was wavering in his mind as to the force of
the different influences at work. In his letters to Hooker, in 1862,
the same tendency may be noted, and the preparation of the " Va-
riation of Animals and Plants under Domestication " led him to
believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions,
though he seemed to regret it because it lessened the glory of nat-
ural selection, and, to use his own language, " is so confoundedly
doubtful." One can plainly trace from the correspondence how,
prior to the publication of the " Origin," he more and more, as his
facts accumulated, and as the theory of natural selection grew
upon him, relegated to an inferior place the influence of environ-
ment ; while, subsequent to the publication of that work, and up
to the time of his death, the tendency seemed to be in the opposite
direction.

Many eminent workers have differed greatly from Darwin in
the influence allowed to these external conditions, and this is par-
ticularly the case with our American writers. Indeed, no one can
well study organic life, especially in its lower manifestations,
without being impressed with the great power of the environ-
ment. Joseph Le Conte speaks of the organic kingdom lying, as it
were, " passive and plastic in the molding hands of the environ-
ment." Leidy, W^yman, Clark, Packard, etc., have insisted on the
influence of physical conditions. Baird and Ridgway on geo-
graphical distribution. Whitman on concrescence, Hyatt on gravi-
tation, Cope and Ryder on mechanical stress, have all published
valuable corroborative evidence ; while many other writers have
added their views and testimony, which have been admirably con-
densed by Prof. Morse in two addresses before this association.
Allen demonstrates plainly the influence of climate and temper-

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 489

ature in directly inducing specific changes. Weismann, in his
remarkable " Studien der Descendenz - Theorie/' concludes that
differences of specific value can originate only through the direct
action of external conditions, and that allied species and genera,
and even entire families, are modified in the same direction by
similar external inducing causes. In Semper's "Animal Life"
(1877) we have the best systematized effort to bring together the
direct causes of variation, and no one who has read through its
pages can doubt the direct modifying influences of nutrition,
light, temperature, water at rest and in motion, atmosphere still
or in motion, etc., or question his conclusion that no power which
is able to act only as a selective and not as a transforming influ-
ence can ever be exclusively put forth as a causa efficiens of the
phenomena. Kolliker, in 1873, wrote : " Manifold external con-
ditions, when they operate on eggs undergoing their normal de-
velopment, on larvse or other early stages of animals, and on the
adult forms, have produced in them partly progressive and partly
regressive transformations " ; and recognized as most important
forces, nutrition, light, and heat. Indeed, the direct action of
environment must have been, as Spencer puts it, " the primordial
factor of organic evolution."

In so far as it offers evidence, entomology confirms the conclu-
sions of the writers in other dei)artments of natural history, above
referred to, and offers a host of most conclusive proofs of the
direct action of the physical and chemical factors which I have
enumerated. Justice, however, could not be done to the facts
within the limits of an address of this kind, and I pass on to some
of the other factors.

It is among what I have called the vital or organic conditions
of variation that natural selection has fullest sway, and, as they
have been so ably expounded by Darwin and others, they may be
dealt with in few words.

Interaction of Organisms. — The productions, as a whole, of
greater areas will, whenever they get an opportunity, conquer
those of lesser areas, and in this broad sense the interaction of
organisms may be said to have had no special modifying power,
however great its influence may have been, and is yet, in inducing
the survival of the fittest, or in bringing about the present geo-
graphical distribution of species. The consequences of enforced
migration and of isolation are best considered when dealing with
the physical conditions, because they must influence modification
of masses rather than of individuals, and either substitute one
type for another or remove competing or differentiating influ-
ences. But, in the more restricted sense, i. e., the interaction of
organisms occupying the same ground — the struggle for existence,
in other words, between direct competing organisms— is a prime

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Darwinian factor of modification, and a wliole volume of illustra-
tions may be drawn from entomology; for in no class is the con-
test more severe, whether with plants, or with other animals, or
with one another, than in insects. In no other field of biology,
for instance, have the physical conditions resulted in such infinite
diversity of form and habit fitted, whether for earth, air, or water,
and often for all in the same individual; so, also, in no other
field is parasitism carried to such a degree, or are the purely
adaptive structures due to this interaction so varied or so remark-
able. The entomologist who goes beyond the " dry bones " of his
science is inevitably a Darwinian.

In this category must also be included that interrelation be-
tween insects and plants which has eventuated in the so-called
carnivorous plants, and that still more wonderful interaction
between flowers and insects by which each has modified the other,
and the facts of which have been so. untiringly observed and so
well set forth by a number of writers from Sprengel's day to this,
and by none more successfully than by Darwin himself. These
are plainly inexplicable on external conditions acting on masses
alike, and are meaningless enigmas except on the theory of natural
selection, or some supra-natural and dogmatic gospel.

We are thus led, through this last, from the external to the
internal factors in evolution, or those of a physiological and
psychical nature. In these, natural selection is the key which,
so far, best unlocks their meaning, and shows how they have acted
in the formation of species and the less fundamental of the great
groups. In considering them it is hardly necessary to discuss
their relative importance as compared with the external con-
ditions, though it may be remarked that they are the factors
which have induced the great variety of adaptive forms and
minor differentiations, while the external conditions have gov-
erned the formation of the great and more comprehensive types
of structure.

Darwin was led to give more importance toward the end than
he had originally done to some of these internal factors, and es-
pecially to functionally produced modifications. In the " Descent
of Man " he says that he did not sufiiciently consider variations
" which so far as we can at present judge are neither of benefit nor
injurious ; and this I believe to be one of the greatest oversights
I have yet detected in my work." And in the sixth edition of
the " Origin " he frankly admits that he had omitted in other edi-
iions to consider properly the frequency and importance of modi-
fications due to spontaneous variability. He further refers to mor-
phologic differences, which may have become constant through
the nature of the organism and the surrounding conditions rather
.than through natural selection, since they do not affect the wel-

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 491

fare of the species. In short, Darwin's views kept pace with the
investigations of his day, and tended in the direction of restrict-
ing rather than widening the influence of natural selection. But,
as Romanes, and especially Spencer, in his " Factors of Organic
Evolution," have fully shown Darwin's position on this subject, I
may pass over the detail.

Internal Conditions. — Physiological. — Genesis itself is the
first and most fundamental of all causes of variation. The phi-
losophy of sex may, indeed, be sought in this differentiation, as
the accumulated qualities in separate entities when suddenly con-
joined or commingled inevitably lead to aggregation and hetero-
geneity— in other words, to plasticity or capacity to vary. Genesis,
as a fundamental factor in evolution, may be more intelligently
considered under some of its subordinate phases, as heredity, phys-
iological selection, sexual selection, primogenital selection, sexual
differentiation, including philoprogeneity, hybridity, etc.

Heredity, as expounded by the ablest biologists, and as ex-
emplified in life, is a puissant factor in evolution, and, though
essentially conservative, must, through the marvelous power of
atavism, tend to increase individual variability. The subject has
been too well considered by Darwin and his followers to justify
further discussion of it here. As a cause of variation, heredity
must, however, have less and less influence as we go back in the
scale of organized beings ; for it can not well come into play in
agamic or fissiparous reproduction, a fact which has given the
abiogenisists one of their strongest arguments, since it is difiicult
to understand how, for instance, the monera of to-day could have
descended without change from the primordial form.

Physiological Selection. — Physiological selection, as suggested
by Mr. Catchpool and as expounded by Romanes, is undoubtedly
a veritable factor in evolution, and, while giving us another link
in the chain of evidence as to the causes of differentiation, lessens
in but very slight degree the overwhelming force of the argument
for natural selection. It adds, rather, an important element in the
evidence therefor, and may be classed as a subordinate cause of
differentiation. Romanes's theory is based upon the argument
that differences, such as constitute varieties and species in their
commencement, would not be preserved by natural selection un-
less useful, but would be lost again by cross-breeding with forms
like the parent, and which had not varied, except upon some
hypothesis like that of physiological selection. This could not
be prevented except by migration. This difficulty is a general
one, was argued by Darwin himself, and has been felt by all Dar-
winians. The reproductive organs are extremely variable, and
sterility may occur not only between species, but between races
and varieties, and often between individuals. Physiological selec-

492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion tends to form varieties by peculiarities in the reproductive
system of individuals, which render them unfit for perfect union,
or cause them to remain more or less sterile, with other individ-
uals which have not the same peculiarities.

The exact reasons are recondite, and the whole subject difficult
of demonstration except from the results, since changes in the re-
productive organs are not easily observable. Romanes believes
this sterility to be incidental to variation, and hence one of the
chief causes of the accumulation of such variation. Wherever
there has been modification of the reproductive organs intro-
ducing incompatibility between two individuals, even where there
has been no other change or variation, we have a valid cause of
differentiation which in its consequences must be important. Com-
patibility or fertility between individuals is of the very essence of
selection. Natural selection implies that this sexual divergence is
subsequent to or coincident with divergences in other directions ;
physiological selection, that it antecedes them. To put the case
of Romanes more fully, we will suppose that among the natural
variations there occasionally occurs something to affect the repro-
ductive organs in such wise as to produce incompatibility — i. e.,
incapacity of one individual with another of the parent type to
unite, or sterility of such union, while it remains fertile with the
variation of its own kind. This theory, of course, implies variation
in the reproductive organs, or departure from the parental type, in
at least two individuals of opposite sex simultaneously, and with
this admission, for which we are justified in facts, physiological
selection will preserve many j)eculiarities which need have no
necessary connection with the exigencies of life.

The change may be in the organs of reproduction, introducing
sexual incompatibility, or it may be due to other causes, as, for
instance, the time of flowering in plants, or the season of heat in
animals. Even the element of scent becomes important here, as
my friend J. Jenner Weir has suggested, since it may influence
sexual relationship, so that the very excretions of the body, which
vary with individuals, must be allowed their part. Francis Galton
has indicated a modification of Romanes's views, viz., that the pri-
mary characteristic of a variety resides in the fact that the indi-
viduals who compose it do not care to mate with those outside
their pale. Incipient varieties are thus thrown off from the parent
stock by means of peculiarities of sexual instinct which prompt
what anthropologists call endogamy, and check exogamy or mar-
riage without the tribe or caste. This is a very good anthropologi-
cal illustration of how physiological selection may begin.

Natural selection preserves the individuals best adapted to
life-conditions by destroying the less fit. Physiological selection
may be said to preserve differences which have no necessary con-

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 493

nection with the necessities of life. Neither touches the origin of
the variation, but both express laws thereof or methods by which
it is accumulated. The inherent tendency to vary, whether in
external or adaptive structure, or internal or reproductive char-
acter, is simply an observed fact, the causes of which we are en-
deavoring to analyze.

Physiological selection is remarkably exemplified in insects,
and probably in no other class are the modifications which may be
attributed to it more easily studied ; for in no other class are the
genitalia of the male so variable or so complex. There has so far
been no attempt to homologize the different parts in the different
orders of insects, so that they have received different names ac-
cording to individual authors. Ordinarily there are two pairs of
claspers, themselves very variable, associated with sundry hooks
and tufts of hair. There are families, as in the Cecidomyidce,
among the Diptera, in which many species are almost, and others
absolutely, indistinguishable except by the differences in the male
genitalia. In all other orders there are an immense number of
forms which can only be distinguished by a careful study of those
organs. Descriptive entomology to-day, which does not take ac-
count of these organs, is in fact almost valueless, and we must
necessarily assume that, where there is differentiation of structure
in these important parts, it implies a corresponding modification
on the part of some associated female, even where no other differ-
entiated characters are to be detected, and upon Romanes's law
such must be looked upon as physiological varieties, and will be
counted good species in proportion as the differentiation involves
other observable characters or as their life-habits determine.

Sexual Selection. — The part of sexual selection in inducing
variation may next be considered. While it is evidently at the
bottom of the diversity in sex so common among many animals,
it is difficult to see how it can play any very important part in
the differentiation of species, except on the hypothesis that the
greater the differentiation between the sexes the greater the tend-
ency to vary in the offspring. In no class of organism is this
factor more notable than in insects, and volumes might be written
to record the interesting and curious facts in this class alone.
As a general rule it may be said that with insects, as with other
animals, it acts chiefly in inducing secondary sexual characteris-
tics in the male, and in simplifying the characteristics of the
female. Nowhere do we find greater contrasts between the sexes,
involving almost every organ, both colorationally and structur-
ally. Where color is affected, the greater brilliancy almost
always belongs to the male sex, as in birds. So, where song or
sound is employed to attract, the sound-organs are either peculiar
to, or most highly developed in, the males. As in higher animals,

494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

also, so in insects, we find offensive organs highly developed in
the male, and either lacking or but partially developed in the
female, wherever the struggle for the possession of the female is
by force or strength. It has evolved scent-organs in the various
parts of the body, causing modification, especially in the Lepi-
doptera, of either the membrane of the wing or the scaly cover-
ing ; it has induced profound modification in the structure of the
legs, whether the anterior, middle, or posterior pair, and whether
in the whole number or some part of it, or in its covering. The
subject has been so fully treated by Darwin, however, that it is
not necessary to elaborate it further in this connection. Strictly
speaking, it may be said to act in two ways, viz., by conflict of
the males for possession of the female, or by attractiveness, the
former being most conspicuous among mammals, the latter
among birds, and both coming conspicuously into play among
insects. It is rather difficult to define the limit of sexual selec-
tion as a factor in evolution, but I would not confound it with
another factor, not hitherto generally recognized, but which I
think must be all-powerful, namely, sexual differentiation.

Sexual Differentiation. — It seems evident that the mere differ-
entiation of sex in itself has been an important element in varia-
tion. The principle elaborated by Brooks as a modification of
the theory of pangenesis is a good one, and in the main the male
may be said to be the more complex and to represent the pro-
gressive, and the females the more simple and to represent the
conservative element in nature. "When the conditions of life are
favorable, the female preponderates, and exercises a conservative
influence. When the conditions are unfavorable, the males pre-
ponderate, and with their greater tendency to vary induce greater
plasticity in the species, and hence greater power of adaptation.
Sexual differentiation may, I think, be used to include many
other variations and differentiations not otherwise satisfactorily
accounted for, and to express the law of the interaction of the
sexes upon one another, inducing great differentiation entirely
apart from the struggle of the males for the possession of the
females, or the struggle for existence. Among insects, particu-
larly, though the same is true among other classes, we find many
illustrations of this that can hardly be explained by the other
forms of selection.

A few of the more notable in Hexapods may be instanced, as
the degraded form of the female in StylopidcB j in very many
Lepidoptera and Coleoptera ; in the females of the Coccidcp, in
Homoptera, etc. In most of these cases it is the female which
has been modified, without any very special modification in the
male, though it is a general rule that, in proportion as the female
is degradational and stationary, the organs which permit him to

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 495

find her, or to mate with her, and particularly the antennse, eyes,
and genitalia, are profoundly modified and complex. This is
especially noticeable in the Psychidm, where the female remains
in her case, a mere mouthless, eyeless, legless, and wingless grub,
and the male has most complex and ramose antennse and complex
genitalia. Another remarkable instance may be cited in the
Lampyridm, where we find every degree of degradation in the
female, from partial wings to no wings at all, accompanied with
increasing complexity of eyes and antennse in the male, until at
last, in the Pliengodini, the female is so larviform that she can
hardly be distinguished from the true larva. In all these cases
the female has been as profoundly modified as, and often more so
than, the male, and in the latter case a phosphorescent power has
been evolved so that the attractiveness, as in the human species,
is rather on the female side. Again, in the case of Corydalus, in
Neuroptera, the profound modification of the jaws in the male
into prehensile, sickle-shaped organs is to be explained rather on
the interaction, between the sexes, and the facility the modifica-
tion offers for union, than upon sexual selection in its proper
and restricted sense.

In this category must also be included the influence of philo-
progeneity, which has modified the female rather than the male
either in the primary sexual organs for offense or defense, as in
the sting of the aculeate Hymenoptera ; or in the secondary
sexual characters, as in the anal tufts of hair, secretory glands,
etc., of many Lepidopteraj or in modification of various other
parts of the body exhibited in various orders of insects to facili-
tate provision for their young, whether in the preservation of the
eggs or the accumulation of food for the future progeny. A
notable instance of how far this may be carried is furnished by
the female Prorvuha, where the ovipositor and the maxillse are so
profoundly modified as to make her unique in her order. Sexual
selection can have little to do with these modifications, cases of
which might be multiplied indefinitely ; nor can they be fully ex-
plained by natural selection, in the restricted sense in which we
have proposed to use it ; nor by physiological selection.

In this category might also be included modification which
has resulted in the various forms of females which obtain in the
same species, fitted whether for agamic or sexual reproduction,
and which are far more readily explained on the theory of sexual
differentiation aided by environmental influence, especially food
and temperature, than upon any other.

Hybridify.— The subject of hybridity has been fully discussed
by many, and by no one more ably than by Darwin himself.
It has generally been assumed that the hybrid of any two species
is sterile, and, in fact, hybridity has been looked upon as one of

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the best tests of specific value next to genetic incapacity. The
assumption finds its greatest support in genesis among the higher
animals, and the most thoroughly differentiated species ; but the
whole subject becomes complicated as we descend in the organic
scale, and hybrids between what naturalists generally separate as
good species are far more frequently fertile among plants and
lower animals than was formerly supposed ; while physiological
selection, as we have just seen, may render genesis impossible, or
at least prevent it, between varieties and incipient species. In
this light, hybridity becomes an important factor in the modifica-
tion of species. Unnecessary importance has been given, in my
judgment, to the fact that domestic and wild species differ in
the fertility of their crosses. It is assumed, for instance, that all
the known breeds of domestic dogs would be fertile inter se and
produce fertile crosses. It seems to me, on the very face,' a pre-
posterous proposition, and that many of the breeds of domestic
dogs are as distinct specifically, and even generically, so far as
this test is concerned, as they are in structure and other charac-
teristics. Who, for instance, has ever known or heard of a cross
between a bull-dog and a lap-dog, or between a Newfoundland
and a black-and-tan ? The difference in size alone would seem to
render such a cross, if not a physiological or a physical, at least a
practical, imj^ossibility ; so that hybridity among domestic ani-
mals tends to essentially the same result as among wild animals,
and confirms its importance as a differentiating factor.

[To be concluded.'\

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL.

By JAMES JOHONNOT.

IIST this age of wholesale educational machinery the faithful
record of any school, individual in its character, ought to be
of interest to all who seek better results in practical ability than
our present systems of instruction succeed in giving. But, when
the school departs widely from recognized standards, its record is
of double value, as calling in question' prevalent customs, and
affording a new criterion for the judgment of current methods.
The tendency of instruction is to become set in its ways. Teach-
ers follow precedent and reach formalism.

But from time to time particular individuals are found who
ask the reason of this or that practice, and call in question its
value as a means of culture. Hence arose the " teachers' insti-
tutes " in this country. They were first organized in the State of
New York, in 1846. They grew naturally out of the progress in

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL, 497

liberty of thoTigM. Time-worn methods of teacliing were broiiglit
up for discussion and judged by their results, and in the light of
reason.

Credit is surely due the founders and conductors of institutes,
in that they brought about and persisted in this habit of ques-
tioning and discussing educational jDractices and principles. This
was their special field of work. Their method was the true one,
but the laws of life and of mental development were not then
well enough understood, even by the best thinkers, to furnish safe
guidance in this difficult work.

" The new education " means a revolt against all precise, ready-
made forms, and an adoption of such methods as science may
from time to time discover and point out. The " Story of a
School " tells of the trials and triumphs of an experiment designed
to test educational principles at which I had arrived through
many years of " institute " instruction. In this constant compar-
ing, discriminating, and sifting of methods I had obtained a spe-
cial preparation for normal-school work. Herbert Spencer, in his
treatise on education, had laid a solid foundation for scien-
tific education, and Prof. E. L. Youmans had with voice and pen
succeeded in arousing among thinking people a lively interest in
the subject.

In the year 1872, through the agency of the Hon. John Mon-
teith. Superintendent of the Schools of Missouri, I received a call
to take charge of the newly established normal school at War-
rensburg in that State. In the interview with Mr. Monteith I
said suggestively to him, " You do not want me, and your board of
regents will not want my services when they learn the conditions
I shall exact." — " What may these be ? " said he, with some curi-
osity in his tone. " Entire control of the school, without inter-
ference from the superintendent or from the regents," was my
reply. Laughing, said he, " You are the very man we want," and
added, by way of caution : " You understand that liberty implies
responsibility. Give us right results, and we will trust to you for
methods." I accepted the situation, and took up my work under
circumstances singularly propitious to the experiment I was about
to make.

The first thing that engaged my attention was the preparation
of a course of study. It was an easy matter to select the required
document from the catalogue of some noted institution, or I might
have made a mosaic, adopting parts from several. A brief inspec-
tion of various catalogues showed that little thought had been
bestowed upon the order of subjects in the course. One study
might be made to take the place of any other, without the slight-
est disturbance in their relations. Of the natural order of growth
in mind, and of the corresponding sequences in the sciences,, tkey

VOL. XXXIV. — 32

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

had taken no account. To these laws I now turned for guidance,
and tried to forget that a school curriculum had ever been con- •
structed, so that custom should in no wise interfere with the free
play of philosophic principles.

The subjects were arranged in their order of dependence as
determined by comparative science. The course of study thus
worked out differed quite materially from the ordinary, in spirit
and in principles. It emerged as an organic whole, rather than
as a loose array of disconnected subjects.

The physical sciences had first place, their treatment begin-
ning with an observation of material objects and passing to a
consideration of forces and of the laws of physical relations.

Another line of study treated of man and his environment.
It began with a consideration of man as an inhabitant of the
globe, dealing with geography, and it led up through history,
literature, civil government, to mental and moral philosophy, and
later on to rhetoric, logic, and political economy.

Besides these two main lines of thought, there were two sub-
ordinate ones, dealing respectively with language as a science
and with mathematics. In our treatment of language the widest
departure from the customary was made. Latin and Greek were
excluded, as the State University already offered a much more
complete course in the classics than our school could hope to
give. But a still weightier reason constrained me in this decision.
The time at our disposal for linguistic study was needed chiefly
for constructive work in the vernacular. I determined to make
the study of English thorough ; I realized the power gained by an
accurate and easy mastery of our own tongue, and I fully appre-
ciated the aesthetic value of English literature in the cultivation
of a refined and discriminating taste.

The constructive work was so managed that familiarity with
composition preceded analysis, and the principles and rules of
language were developed out of the pupil's own work. Grammar
came out of language, not language out of grammar. The criti-
cal work of grammar and rhetoric was placed in the advanced
course along with logic.

In this spirit, and by the general method here indicated, the
whole course of study was arranged. The place occupied by each
subject was not a matter of accident, but of philosophic depend-
ence. The success of my scheme demanded intelligent and har-
monious co-operation on the part of the faculty. I needed a
:select corps of teachers, and the freedom of choice secured to me
by Mr. Monteith now proved of great importance.

For my first assistant I chose Prof. L. H. Cheney, who some
years later was accidentally killed while making an excavation
in connection with the work of a geological expedition under

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL. 499

direction of Prof. Staler, of Harvard. In years long gone by Prof.
Ch.eney had been a pupil of mine ; later we had worked together,
so that I knew well his peculiar worth and fitness for the place.

Next came Prof, and Mrs. Straight, representatives of the most
advanced thought of the time in educational philosophy. They
brought original and fruitful contribution to the work now in
progress, and henceforth were to me as my right and left hand.
At the close of his stay in Missouri, Prof. Straight was called to
the charge of a department in the Oswego Normal School. Later
he went with Colonel Parker to the C6ok County Normal School,
Illinois. He gave all the energy of an intense nature to his pro-
fession, but died in middle life, his mind a storehouse of educa-
tional material, ripe for use. Mrs. Straight's refined intelligence
and professional skill found equally ready appreciation, and she
took a high position in each of these normal schools. Since her
husband's death, she has been called to a responsible position in
one of the state schools of Japan. The remaining members of
the faculty were chosen for their fitness in special directions.
The plans of each had their recognized place in a co-ordinate
work. One of the chief defects in colleges and academies to-day
is this lack of co-ordination. Without it the scientific method in
its integrity is impossible, and instruction proceeds as though
each science were independent. Time and strength are laboriously
frittered away, with the result of chronic discouragement on the
part of both professor and students.

" I declare," said one of our most observant pupils, as he came
out from recitation one day, " the teaching in all the classes is
somehow alike ! It makes no difference whether we are in natural
science, mathematics, or language, we are going the same road,
and each lesson throws a new light upon all the others."

When the summer school at Penikese was organized, we made
prompt application for a share in the rare opportunities offered.
Only fifty students could be accommodated. Three of our teach-
ers received the appointment, and accompanied me across Buz-
zard's Bay on that eventful summer morning in 1873. Agassiz
" the mas'ter " was there, his face hopeful and inspiring. The last
and noblest experiment of his life was about to be tried, and
everything promised success. The promise was fulfilled. The
many summer schools of science, springing up all over the land,
are the direct offspring of Agassiz's realized dream ; and the
increasing recognition of the fundamental value of science by
numerous prominent schools is also largely a result of his Peni-
kese experiment. Our teachers again, the second summer, made
haste to profit by the advantages of the Penikese school, and
returned to their work in Missouri with added skill and devotion.

Our pupils represented every class of society. We opened

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with seventeen, and rapidly increased till the roll contained four
hundred names. Within the limits of this paper only the bare
outlines of our methods can be given. We began with the prop-
erties of things. The gardens and fields were open to us and fur-
nished us the objects. When familiar with these and their rela-
tions, books were brought in to extend our knowledge beyond
the limits of personal experience. The zoology and physiology
classes, under Prof. Straight, were at once engaged in laboratory
practice. They obtained their knowledge of the animal world
from direct observation ahd through actual dissections. The
neighborhood was laid under contribution for cats. Any feeling
of repugnance at first shown for the work soon passed away as
interest in the study grew eager and absorbing. The absurdity
of rote-teaching was shown by an incident in the professor's class-
room.

One day he called the attention of the class to the description
of a certain sea-animal, as given in a popular text-book. This de-
scription he asked the pupils to commit to memory, which they
proceeded to do, wondering why. One morning, only a few days
later, the table was furnished with a specimen of this same ani-
mal preserved in alcohol. Not a member of the class recognized
it. The elaborate verbal definition had given them no correct
idea of the animal, if, indeed, any image whatever had been
present in their minds.

In botany, books were unopened, except to aid in analysis.
Materials for study the students found in their walks, and the
keen delight awakened when examination revealed to them this
new world of facts left no doubt that this was the very method of
nature. The study went deeper than systematic botany, and led
to an extended investigation of life processes in the plant.

Physics was taught in the laboratory and illustrated by appa-
ratus which teachers and pupils united in making. This proved of
double value ; for, while primarily it helped to solve the problem
in physics, incidentally it constrained the pupil to test knowledge
previously gained by its practical application. The inventive
powers were also stimulated, and a long step was taken in the
development of faculty.

The teacher of geometry followed the method of Prof. Kriisi,
of Oswego. This, in essentials, is the same as that outlined by
Herbert Spencer in his work on education. It was developed in-
cidentally out of the needs of constructive art, and was carried
forward slowly, as the gradual progress of the pupil called for
further applications of its principles. It was specially gratifying
to witness the cheerful activity of pupils in this line of work, so
often dreaded and shirked, and to watch the stimulating effect of
power gained in mastering a difficult problem.

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL.

501

Drawing came in everywhere, being a mode of expression as
natural as language, and indispensable to the acquirement of
clear ideas ; pupils soon made constant use of it, though, from
lack of early training, their efforts had no pretensions to artistic
merit.

Our lessons took various forms, depending upon the object we
had in view. In the development exercises, by a series of ques-
tions quite in the Socratic spirit, we brought together the wander-
ing, disconnected ideas which the class possessed upon any sub-
ject, and directed attention to the more obvious relations. The
pupils were then left to work over the lesson, and arrange and
present it in due order. This process became a guide, and
pointed out the way for the next step in investigation. Lessons
of instruction were usually given in the form of lectures. We,
however, varied this exercise by substituting for the formal lect-
ure a more or less familiar conversation, in which, after a little,
all pupils took part.

Topical recitations included all knowledge obtained from books
or reported from investigation. Day by day pupils were called
upon to tell what they knew of given subjects in clear and con-
nected discourse. The words of the text-book were not ac-
cepted; so every lesson became a language-lesson of the most
practical kind. As a matter of fact, we found that, whenever a
new thought was clearly understood, the mind sought expression
in some form, either through constructive work, drawing, or lan-
guage, and was not content until it had clearly imparted its mean-
ing to another mind. The mental circuit was then complete.

In this reaching out after words and forms individual charac-
ter asserted itself, the imagination was awakened, the invention
quickened, and the dead monotony of the old-school recitation
disappeared completely. This training finally resulted in an un-
usual mastery of spoken language.

"Written work held a large place in our school. Our plan made
provision for at least one written exercise a day for each pupil.
As these exercises were in connection with the studies pursued at
the time, the pupils entered upon them without any consciousness
that they had begun the dreaded composition. Lessons from text-
books, and aided by books of reference, were treated topically, and
were frequently written out. Investigations in science were re-
ported in writing, and in due time the pupils came to think easily
and naturally, pen in hand.

In another regard we made a serious innovation upon custom.
The teachers were not required to correct the wearisome mass of
papers prepared daily. For this we had good reasons. The free
use of criticism is a dangerous practice. It paralyzes the imagi-
nation of the pupil, and so depresses and discourages him that

502 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

original constructive work is next to impossible. And if, as so
often happens through the training given, the critical faculty of
the pupil is developed in advance of the constructive ability, and
of the power to use language with ease and accuracy, the result is
fatal to progress in composition. The first rude efforts fall so far
short of the polish demanded by the critical spirit that the sense
of discouragement is overmastering.

There is still another view of the case that makes for the same
distrust of promiscuous criticism. The errors of the early com-
positions are soon naturally and spontaneously outgrown through
the constant effort at clearness of expression, and through the
rapidly increased power over language gained by this continuous
practice. In this way the mastery of language came incidentally,
and we avoided the stiff awkwardness of the conventional com-
position.

In the study of English we did what we could to awaken the
literary sense to. some degree in all our pupils. We knew that
each one came into the world with definite mental limitations.
The literary sense, like any other form of the artistic faculty,
seems, with rare exceptions, to require several generations of cult-
ure in a scholarly atmosphere before it attains to a fine discrimina-
tion. But we could at least make a real beginning. We could
find out the present state of their taste, and carry forward their
development by guiding their course of reading. Advantage was
taken of events to bring before them some special poem, or some
Impassioned prose composition, having relation to the event in
question. We could thus awaken a susceptibility of the soul,
that through repeated impressions would develop into an instinct-
ive sense of the beauty of true literary art-forms.

This was our aim, and quite subsidiary to this was the acqui-
sition of knowledge about literature. The history, bibliography,
and philosophy of English literature must come later instead of
usurping the first place, as is commonly the case in schools.

In language. Prof. Campbell prepared an exercise which proved
of great value. He selected about three hundred of the most pro-
ductive roots of English words, and gave them one by one to the
class. They traced these roots back to the various languages en-
tering into the English tongue, and thus acquired a broader view
of the origin and relations of English words. The study thus
bestowed upon the vernacular was further valuable as furnishing
a basis for the study of other languages.

When the student in Latin, French, or German finds that a
large number of the new words he is learning have the roots with
which he is familiar in his mother-tongue, the difficulties of his
work are greatly diminished.

Mental and moral philosophy were taken up objectively and

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL. 503

witho-ut tlie aid of books. Prof. Straight first developed the rela-
tions which knowledge sustains to mind, and the action of mind
under varying conditions. He then took up some familiar subject
and called upon the class to apply the knowledge thus far gained.
For example, a flower was brought in and analyzed according
to the laws of systematic botany. Then came introspection : what
powers of mind had been used, and in what order ? A lesson in
geometry came next, and this was followed by the other school
studies, until the list was exhausted. Next came the industries :
what mental powers are brought into play in raising a crop, in
building a house, in boiling a potato, in the making of bread ? By
this plan mental philosophy was lifted out of the fog of dreary
abstractions and set on its feet in the broad light of every-day
life.

Moral philosophy fell to my share. ISTo books were used. My
methods were quite similar to those of Prof. Straight. In a series
of discussions, extending over several weeks, the human being
was taken where Prof. Straight left him, and the relations devel-
oped that existed between him and other human beings. Needs
were shown to exist by virtue of the " constitution of things," and
deeper than this we did not attempt to go.

Human beings were seen to be ^potentially equal in needs, hence
the necessity for equality before the law, that all might have
opportunity for their natural development. Out of needs grew
rights, and out of rights duties. A study of experience soon
showed that duty assumed two phases — positive and negative.
Confucius is credited with a maxim covering the ground of nega-
tive duty — forbidding injury to your neighbor ; Jesus enunciated
a law that summarized both positive and negative duty.

Next, the principles derived from this preliminary study were
applied to the conditions which exist in school, home, and neigh-
borhood. Why should a person work ? What time should be
given to recreation ? What shall we do with the tramp ? What
with worthy but destitute men and women ? What with needy
orphans ?

The discussion was conducted almost solely by the pupils.
When it took too wide a range, the teacher quietly led it back to
the question at issue. The lesson on one occasion dealt with card-
playing. One young woman charged that it led to gambling and
bad company. To this another replied that she had often played
but never for money, nor had she the least inclination to gamble.
As for bad company, she played with her sister, who was no
worse company at the card-table than at the dinner-table. When
I found that the discussion had become a mere assertion of opin-
ion, I interposed : " You seem to disagree. Why ? " " Yes," said
one, who recalled my method of treating such cases, " we have

504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not facts enough to enable lis to form an intelligent opinion.'*
" But/' said another, " what is your opinion ? " " My opinion is
not the question. What are you to do next ? " Wait, observe,
and continue to study, was the conclusion.

Our history grew out of our geography, and, as we labored to
build up in the mind of the pupil a connected and distinct picture
of the skeleton — the mountain system of the globe — and then
clothed these gaunt outlines with the trailing robes of continental
divisions, showing also the necessary dependence of the water
systems upon the great backbone of the continents, so in history
we aimed at a unity of conception, we sought to develop an historic
sense, which, once acquired, serves as a guide through the mass of
unrelated facts filling so large a space in historical works, even of
the higher order. This kind of training is too complex for de-
scription here.

And so of our methods of discipline : they were all intricate
and intimate parts of our whole work. We had no rules, no class-
markings, no roll of honor. We rejected the whole military sys-
tem, as tending to produce mechanical, routine work. The abrupt
tone of command was not heard within our walls. Directions
were given in the form of requests. Teachers and pupils observed
toward each other the usual courtesies of social life. No pre-
mium was offered for study. We relied on the natural incentives.
Exercise of faculty is the chief source of pleasure in the young,
and we furnished abundant scope for it. The time being filled
with pleasurable occupations, calling into activity the whole na-
ture, there was less temptation to misdemeanors than in the ordi-
nary conditions of home-life.

Herbert Spencer's essay on moral education will best describe
the work as it went on in our school, subject to the imperfections
of human nature it is true, but with a result in general most
gratifying.

The school as a whole soon attained a character of its own^
derived from the aggregate of its members, and, reacting upon
them, it became a potent force in stimulating the moral growth of
individuals. This aggregate moral power was exerted for the
most part unconsciously, but it was effective, and in time reached
proportions which rendered my interference unnecessary.

An incident will here illustrate the operation of this power.
A youth entered our school who had formerly been employed as
train-boy upon the railroad. His experiences had greatly sharp-
ened wits naturally keen, and as he came among us he was plainly
seen to be an alien element. His evil propensities soon showed
themselves. He told foul stories, but could get no listeners. He
tried to pick quarrels with the younger members of the class, but
a quiet word from one of the older pupils soon put an end to

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL. 505

that ; and, finally, lie became angry and disgusted, and took him-
self away permanently. I watched this affair with much interest
as a psychological experiment, but with some anxiety lest the
moral leprosy should spread ; but the character of the school told,
and I was superfluous.

Another instance discloses something of the spirit prevailing
among our students. The use of tobacco was discouraged inci-
dentally in a variety of ways. We had a beautiful new building,
and great care was taken to preserve it free from filth of any
kind. A tobacco-stain, when observed, was removed at once with
scrubbing-brush and sand. The physiology class, too, came upon
the question of the action of tobacco upon the tissues of the body,
and, besides, there was felt to be a social discredit in its use. One
evening, while waiting for the mail at the post-office, a number of
students on the same errand gathered about, and our talk turned
on school matters. Allusion was made to our freedom from the
restraint of rules. A late comer remarked : " But you have one
rule, I understand. No one must use tobacco on the school prem-
ises." I assured him that, though I was opposed to the use of to-
bacco, I did not prohibit it. " But," I said, " no gentleman will
soil the floor of a room occupied by ladies ; and this fact, being
understood, prevents its use more effectually than a positive pro-
hibition." So powerful was the social reprobation of this filthy
habit, that forty young men, of their own will, gave up the prac-
tice. It will thus be seen that our moral training, too, was largely
incidental ; it was implicit in every detail of school-life.

As will already have been anticipated, we dispensed with all
distinctive religious services. I had carefully observed the effect
in school and college throughout a long period of years, and had
been forced to conclude that the evil results vastly outweighed
the good. I had noticed that stated Bible-reading often became
a mere lifeless form, in which many took no interest. This was
contrary to the whole spirit of my system, " Vain repetitions,"
leading to a habit of regarding words apart from thought, were
to be carefully avoided. Then, again, the teachings were dog-
matic, appealing to authority, while science regards authority as
an impertinence. Besides, the Constitution of the United States
places its whole machinery upon a strictly secular basis, and re-
ligious services in a State school are there upon sufferance. No
matter how carefully guarded, the daily performance of any re-
ligious service degenerates into formalism, and excites in the com-
munity sectarian animosities.

But, above all, I wished to place morals upon a scientific basis,
so as to furnish a safe guide to conduct, independent of the shift-
ing standards of theological belief. We, who received our ap-
pointments from the State, could not, honestly, either i)romote or

5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

attack any form of religious belief. Happily, the scientific metliod
equally forbids doing either of these things^ and, if strictly ad-
hered to, will prevent all possibility of such quarrels between
religious sects as have recently agitated Boston, and have from
time to time interrupted the work of many schools in this country.

Our position on this question occasioned wide-spread com-
ment, and, among the clergy of the more ignorant and bigoted
sects, there arose an opposition, instinctive rather than out-
spoken.

The Missionary Society voted us a Bible, and I received a for-
mal note from the secretary announcing the fact, and requesting
me to appoint a time for the presentation to take place. I had
been informed privately that, as soon as I fixed the time, a public
meeting was to be called, and an address made denouncing our
neglect of religious observances. In answer to the secretary, I
informed him that our library was richly supplied with Bibles,
but that, as a token of confidence and good-will, their gift would
be highly prized, and we would gratefully receive the promised
Bible at the president's ofiice in the normal-school building, at
such time as was most convenient to the secretary. The Bible
never came.

Prof. Campbell, of our faculty, gave testimony of considerable
significance concerning the moral atmosphere of our school. He
had been educated in a sectarian college, and had been graduated
at a theological seminary. All his prejudices were enlisted in
favor of a daily religious service. He said : " I am at a loss to
account for the uniform good feeling existing between teachers
and pupils here. No student seems disposed to annoy or vex a
teacher, and the moral tone of the school is much higher than I
have before known." At first, he had thought that the good-will
prevailing was in spite of the omission of religious services, but
a more careful study had convinced him that the system, in its
integrity, had created the moral atmosphere that pervaded the
school.

Examinations, as usually conducted, had proved fruitful of
serious evils. They gave opportunity for cram, and were often an
occasion for cheating. When formal and stated examinations are
held, on which class promotion depends, there is a strong induce-
ment to make spasmodic efforts of memory serve in place of
sound learning. We avoided these evils by a simple device.
Examinations were held at irregular intervals, and were of such
a nature that no miraculous feat of memorizing could meet our
requirements. Repetitions of text-book formulas were habitually
in disfavor, and necessarily there grew up habits of genuine study.
These reviews were found sufficient aids in. testing progress, and
we dispensed with all other examinations.

THE STORY OF A SCHOOL.

507

After some effort toward conformity to prevailing custom, we
found ourselves constrained by the guiding principles we had
adopted to devise some more genuine representation of our year's
work than is possible in "closing exercises" of the regulation
pattern. Essays upon the subjects usually chosen had no essential
relation to the student's past researches, and, being prepared for
the occasion, represented nothing in particular. Besides, they are
not uncommonly doctored by the teacher of rhetoric till they are
of doubtful originality. We finally dispensed with all special
preparation, and discarded all the spectacular features of the
ordinary commencement.

One day was given to the public. Every four weeks during
the year our pupils had been accustomed to select some subject
having close relation to their studies, and to give time and care to
the preparation of an essay upon it. These papers were preserved,
and from among them each member was required to choose and
bring one. On the last day of the term the public came in, and
those interested stayed and listened to the reading of these essays.
The truthfulness of every step was plain to all concerned, and was
thus in accord with the spirit of the school.

Our experiment came to an end. Of the various innovations
made upon custom each had justified itself. The effort to make
character the end of education had more than fulfilled expectation.
During the last year not a single case of misconduct was re-
ported to me, nor was the behavior of one of our students criti-
cised by the citizens. We had a reign of influence. The forces
that govern conduct came from a growth within of just and
kindly impulses. A watchful supervision had always been main-
tained, but into this had entered no element of espionage. The
peculiar character which the school attained, both on its mental
and moral side, was due to the several factors of influence — scien-
tific methods in study, philosophic succession of subjects, and a
never-ceasing but an apparently incidental attention to moral
training.

Through the strong personal influence of the State Super-
intendent, Hon. John Monteith, my independent position had
been maintained. I had enjoyed entire freedom in the manage-
ment of the school and in the selection of teachers. During the
three years of my stay in Missouri, educational affairs were in a
transition state. At the close of the war, the public-school sys-
tem was organized and protected by constitutional provisions.
The best results of Puritan experience for two hundred and fifty
years were incorporated in its provisions, and made secure so far
as legislative enactments could compass it. More progress was
made in the State during the few years of the so-called carpet-bag
rule than in all its previous history. A State Board of Regents,

5o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

non-partisan and largely professional, were in control throngliout
our first year. But the rebels were enfranchised, and reaction at
once set in. The State Board was abolished, and a local board
created, by its very constitution hostile to ideas.

Naturally, personal and sectarian interests would find expres-
sion. Members of the local board could see no reason for holding
the office, when their functions were restricted to paying over
money into the hands of Yankees, to be largely spent in the East
during vacation.

Of the special infl.uences that finally brought our experiments
to a close it is unnecessary to speak in detail. Suffice it to say
that our chief opponent stood before the people as a representative
of wealth, and as the most prominent supporter of all religious
enterprises. But below the sanctimonious exterior were the preda-
tory instincts of the barbarian. His betrayal of trusts, his flight
from outraged justice, his disappearance in the wilds of the Far
West, his discovery at a lonely wayside inn, on a road leading to
a mining-camp, prostrated by illness, without help, and hunted to
the grave by detectives, afford a spectacle so gloomy that even
retributive justice is shocked at the recital.

Recent experiments, introducing as we did the constructive arts
as a means of expression, have again demonstrated their educa-
tional value ; and I am persuaded that some time in the future the
scientific method, with its freedom from arbitrary restraints, its
ethical aims and accomplishment, will in its completeness take
control of our leading educational institutions.

UNDERGROUND WATERS IN ROCK TRANSFOR-
MATIONS.

By Peof. G. a. DAUBEEE.

EVIDENTLY different actions from those which engendered
the metalliferous deposits have propagated themselves
through considerable masses, and have impressed a peculiar stamp
upon them. The rocks that have been marked by such actions
exhibit at once the characteristics of the sedimentary rocks and
some of those of the eruptive rocks. While retaining the strati-
fied disposition which they owe to their sedimentary origin, they
are often studded with crystalline and anhydrous silicates, which
they would not have contained if they had continued in their nor-
mal state. These rocks, of a somewhat mixed nature, are called
metamorphic, a term given in allusion to the changes which they
have undergone since they were deposited, and to which they owe
their present appearance.

UNDERGROUND WATERS. 509

Stratified rocks have sometimes acquired these characters in
the vicinity of eruptive rocks. In several localities of the Tyrol,
the Triassic limestone in contact with melaphyre has been trans-
formed into white marble for a thickness of more than five hun-
dred metres, while pyroxene, spinel, tourmaline, and other crys-
talline minerals have been developed at the same time.

Clay schists have sufl:ered mineralogical transformations in
proximity with granitic eruptions. Even half a century ago,
De Boblaye pointed out the presence, in Brittany, of fossil shells
among the schistose rocks, which also contained, in testimony
of the heat to which they had been subjected, large crystals of
silicious minerals, as of andalusite or made, and staurotide. The
groupings of the latter species in the form of a cross have been
long remarked, and have caused the name of croisette to be given
to it. These remarkable modifications of the schists, which con-
stitute a sort of radiation around the granitic flows, extend to dis-
tances varying from a few hundred metres to three kilometres.
The heat to which the strata have been subjected by the intrusion
of the eruptive mass is undoubtedly one of the causes of it ; but
the watery emanations which accompanied the eruption of the
granite, and which are revealed to us by inclusions in the mass,
attest that water has played a no less important part in it.

There is, however, something still more remarkable than this
in the phenomena of metamorphism. Sedimentary rocks, occu-
pying whole regions, bear evidence of profound modifications,
without its being possible to discover the slightest eruptive crop-
X)ing out. One of the most common examples of this phenome-
non is that in which clay rocks have become phyllads. The rocks
of that name, although they consist essentially, like the clays, of
silicates of alumina, differ from them in their cohesion. They
refuse to mix with water. The strata of the Ardennes, the Tau-
nus, and other regions of western EurojDe, in which this miner-
alogical condition was first verified, belong to the most ancient
geological epochs ; and from that fact this crystalline texture was
for a long time regarded as exclusively appertaining to sediment-
ary deposits of a very remote age. Hence the name of transi-
tion beds which was given them. It was thought that in the sea
in which these matters were deposited, following the primitive or
crystalline beds, there continued to operate a chemical precipita-
tion of silicates which were mingled with arenaceous and calca-
reous deposits. It was subsequently recognized that this half-
crystalline condition resulted from a transformation posterior to
sedimentation.

The opinion that the mineralogical condition of these beds is
not a necessary consequence of their antiquity, receives confirma-
tion from the fact that formations in other countries, also belong-

510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing to the most ancient systems, do not participate in these crys-
talline characters, but in their argillaceous rocks are similar to
those which are found in recent formations. This is the case in
Sweden, Russia, the United States, and Canada. But it has been
observed in those places that the strata have not been strongly
dislocated as in the regions we have just been speaking of, but
have retained their original horizontality. To this circumstance
they doubtless owe their preservation. The mineralogical con-
trast between formations of the same age corresponds, therefore,
with an essential difference in their bearing.

There are countries where formations of less antiquity have
also suffered profound transformations. The Alps afford funda-
mental data on this subject. In the face of the rocks of different
ages — Carboniferous, Triassic, and Tertiary — which enter into their
composition, one is surprised at the special physiognomy which
each one of them presents as compared with what we observe in
beds of the same age in other regions, where they have remained
horizontal. A general influence has, therefore, acted upon a part
of the vast region of the Alps. It has affected rocks of every
epoch, even those of the Lower Tertiary — that is, a series of beds
many thousand metres thick — and that, although eruptive rocks
are very rare in it.

With the mineralogical changes which we have just noticed is
associated a modification of texture that depends on the same
cause. It is well known in the slates as the schistose or lami-
nated structure. The fissile rocks which it characterize,^^ have the
property of detaching themselves in thin plates — that is, of cleav-
ing in certain directions. Observations made in various countries
have demonstrated the important fact that the planes of cleavage
are quite distinct from the planes of stratification. Instead of
being parallel to the layers, they are frequently oblique, and —
what is still more conclusive — while the planes of stratification
have been bent and exhibit a variety of inclinations, the planes of
cleavage pursue a regular direction, regardless of the most pro-
nounced inflections, and remain constantly parallel to one another.
This independence shows, besides, that the planes of cleavage
were produced, not only after the beds in which they are mani-
fest were deposited, but also after they had lost their primary
horizontality. The schistose disposition, very frequent in the
most ancient f ossilif erous rocks, sometimes persists in more recent
formations, when they have been subjected to energetic disloca-
tions. In many localities of the Alps slates are quarried into the
Tertiary formation.

An important characteristic of the schistose rocks is the con-
siderable deformations which the fossils in them have received,
as is seen in the trilobites of the Angers slates. ISTot less fre-

UNDERGROUND WATERS. 511

quently, the moUuscan fossils called belemnites have been broken
up and bad tbeir segments more or less scattered.

Since the schistose structure has been found to be independent
of the stratification, the cause of a geometrical disposition so re-
markable and so general has become the subject of various hy-
potheses. It has been successively attributed to electric effects,
to terrestrial magnetism, to the heat of the globe, and to a begin-
ning of crystallization. Exact observations, however, teach us
that the cleavage of stratified beds is related on the one hand to
the actions which have deformed the fossils in the same strata,
and on the other hand to the axes of the warping and the great
lines of dislocation. The i3henomenon should most probably be
attributed to mechanical action.

The demonstration has been confirmed by some very simple
experiments. Clay under compression assumes a leafy texture ;
but, for this, it must have a certain degree of plasticity. If too
dry, it crumbles ; if too wet, the laminse, while they are formed,
are not separable. I have got more decisive results from forcing
clay to flow, in a jet, under hydraulic pressure. In this case, very
well defined leaflets are produced, and that upon bands of several
metres, in the direction of the pressure and the movement. All
of these artificially laminated pastes resemble natural schistose
rocks in their fracture. In these various flows of the plastic mass,
the neighboring particles do not advance uniformly. The differ-
ences in the velocities which they acquire cause them to slide
upon one another ; and the schistose texture, the direct conse-
quence of this sliding, is, we may readily conceive, necessarily de-
termined in reference to the direction of the flow. The deforma-
tions of fossils and the drawing out of belemnites have been
reproduced in this way, and thus experimentally explained.

We shall now consider how the fundamental facts of metamor-
phism imply the necessary action of subterranean waters. The
mineralogical modifications peculiar to the phenomena have in-
contestably taken place at a higher temperature than now pre-
vails on the surface of the globe. We base this conclusion upon
the analogies of these beds with the eruptive rocks, and especially
upon the presence of numerous anhydrous silicates, which form
one of their most remarkable features. The proper heat of the
globe decreasing from the deeper parts toward the surface, the
sediments deposited in the ocean, at the relatively low tempera-
ture that reigns there, should, when they have been covered by
other strata, acquire a higher temperature by reason of their
greater distance from the radiating surface. The superposition
of masses as heavy as are those of some of the stratified beds has
often been enough to determine, after their deposition, a consid-
erable heating up of the lower masses, especially at periods when

512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the increase of heat downward may have been at a more rapid
rate than now. Thus the regular propagation of the heat of the
globe has been competent to act upon entire formations.

There is, however, another source of heat, at once more imme-
diate and more energetic, for the transformations with which we
are occupied, although it has been long misunderstood. Heat is
engendered by the mechanical actions that have left their marks
at numerous sjDots on the crust of the globe. Instead of preserv-
ing the horizontal position which they assumed when they were
deposited, these beds have often been thrown up, folded, and con-
torted in various ways ; and the resultant dislocations are observ-
able through several thousand metres of thickness. At every
step, in the Alps, for example, in the face of escarpments where
the rock shows itself to the quick, the least observing eye is
attracted by the boldness of the inflections, and the mind pauses
stupefied before the grandeur of the. forces that have produced
such effects. Not all the labor put in play in these colossal
upthrows has been employed in actions purely mechanical. A
part of it has been transformed into heat, and it is the effects of
this heat that we have been studying.

Experience has come to confirm the last induction also. Clay
has been forced to flow either between cylinders like those of
iron-rolling mills, or under trituration in malaxating tubs, such
as are used in some brick-yards. In either case the rock is con-
siderably heated up after a very short time, without subjecting
it to any material pressure. In these operations the heating is
greater in proportion as the clayey part is harder and more resist-
ant. We have then reason to believe that in nature, when rocks
more coherent and less plastic than ordinary clay have been sub-
mitted to mechanical actions powerful enough to determine an
interior movement, even if it be of little amplitude, they will be
found in conditions still more favorable to their being heated. It
has, therefore, been enough for argillaceous masses to undergo a
lamination under the effect of dislocations in the crust of the
earth for their temperature to be notably raised.

But heat alone, however intense it may be, can not explain the
most characteristic effects of metamorphism, nor the uniformity
with which they have been produced over considerable spaces ;
for the conductivity of the rocks is extremely weak. Then, con-
trary to what would be the case were the action simply a calorific
one, the effects have not always been most energetic in the parts
in contact with the eruptive rocks. The water included in all the
rocks, whether in their pores or in combination, has of necessity
intervened as an auxiliary to the heat. The nature of the min-
erals produced, of the hydrated silicates, like chlorite, for exam-
ple, no less than the uniformity of their disposition in vast masses.

UNDERGROUND WATERS. 513

denote the intervention of this interior water. Thus, in this order
of geological phenomena, when we might have believed that heat,
accompanied by certain chemical actions, was the sole agent, sub-
terranean water has also had its part to play.

This conclusion regarding the fundamental cause of metamor-
phism, although it had been justified by observation, still needed
an experimental sanction. For that, the investigator should put
himself in circumstances as nearly as possible like those in which
Nature seems to have acted, and obtain the reproduction of char-
acteristic minerals. I have tried to realize this. The principal
difficulty in operating under the enormous pressure acquired by
the vapor of water when the temperature approaches the point
of dull redness is to find walls capable of resisting it. Water
having been placed in a glass tube, which was then sealed by a
lamp, this tube was introduced into a second tube of iron, with
very thick walls, which was also closed, but not without difficulty,
at the forge. In order to counterbalance the tension of the vapor
in the interior of the glass tube, which might cause it to burst,
care was taken to pour water outside of this tube, between its
walls and those of the iron tube. The apparatus was set upon
the dome of the furnace of a gas-factory in contact with masonry
at a dull-red heat, in a thick bed of sand, where it remained for
several weeks. Under these conditions, explosions of extreme vio-
lence took place. The most strongly resistant tubes were thrown
into the air, bursting with a noise comparable to that of a cannon-
shot. It was not possible to multiply the proofs to the extent
that was desirable ; but those that were made were sufficient to
reveal facts quite different from those which we had deduced in
laboratories under ordinary conditions.

The water acted very energetically upon the glass, which un-
derwent a complete transformation, in composition and appear-
ance. It was replaced by a white mass, quite opaque, resembling
porcelain, with swellings and blisters, the results of softening.
There had been developed, at the expense of a part of the sub-
stance, numbers of minute crystals, colorless and limpid like
rock-crystal, with which they are identical, even to small details
in the forms. These artificial crystals appeared, now isolated,
now grouped into geodes which it was impossible to distinguish,
except for the difference in dimensions, from those of nature.
Another product of the same experiments deserves no less atten-
tion. It is pyroxene, which appears in little green, brilliant, and
transparent crystals, exactly like those of the Alps. For the first
time an anhydrous silicate had been seen to be produced by the
action of water.*

* More recently, feldspar has been imitated, under similar processes, by MM. Friedel
and Sarrasin.

VOL. XXXIT. — 33

514 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The acquisition of another kind of power by water under
such conditions was exemplified by the conversion of pine-wood
into a bright and hard black substance resembling anthracite,
and consisting simply of carbon associated with small quantities
of volatile substances. It was shown, by its granulation in small
globules, to have passed, in the water, through a kind of fusion.
The reactions from which these products resulted are all the more
interesting because they were obtained with a very small quantity
of water, hardly equal to a third of the weight of the metamor-
phosed glass. Furthermore, the new products crystallized at a
temperature considerably lower than their point of fusion. It is
thus proved that water highly superheated acquires an energy
that was unknown to belong to it. It destroys combinations that
were reputed to be stable, and in the presence of which it was re-
garded as inert; and it composes others, among which are the
anhydrous silicates. The production of these silicates in the crust
of the earth escapes our observation, because it requires a tem-
perature greatly superior to that of boiling water. But it must
be going on in the depths of the rocks, where there is no lack of
imprisoned water, nor of temperatures and pressures incompara-
bly higher than those of our most potent experiments. It is hardly
necessary to say more concerning the application of these syn-
thetic results to questions concerning the metamorphic transfor-
mation of entire regions.

Other facts in nature are explained in these experiments.
First, they teach us the origin of quartz in the crust of the earth,
where it appears everywhere and in the most diverse bearings.
Have not the veinlets of this mineral, for example, which traverse
quartzites and phyllads in every direction, probably separated
themselves at the expense of the incasing rock, and in the pres-
ence of water and heat, just as the quartz was extracted from
glass ? An action of the same kind is recognizable in the metal-
liferous veins. Sometimes the temperature there is high enough
for the silicates also to be generated. The veins in which the
green emeralds of Peru are found associated with crystallized
quartz, calcite, and pyrites are evidently of aqueous formation.

Thus, by going back to ancient periods, we have seen how nu-
merous species of minerals are produced concerning whose ori-
gin the observation of facts occurring to-day can not inform us.
These numerous minerals, whether metalliferous or stony, occur-
ring in various formations, are the final result of the work of
water, which is found in some way stereotyped in them. We
have thus succeeded in discovering the intimate operations of
that liquid in laboratories which it abandoned long ago, in fis-
sures of greater or less magnitude, and in blisters or the simple
pores of the rocks. We are instructed concerning the manner in

UNDERGROUND WATERS. 515

whicL. it circulated, by vestiges of different kinds wliicli permit
lis to reconstitute the various circumstances of its course.

The external features of an organized being make its constitu-
tion known only in an incomplete manner. An adequate anatomi-
cal study must penetrate to its interior organs and tissues. Thus,
existing thermal springs, even if we take care to scrutinize in the
most careful manner the constitution of the country and the con-
ditions where they issue, do not suffice to reveal their economy
with precision. Their constantly flowing columns of water, even
when they are not accompanied with irrespirable gases, prevent
our reaching their channels of ascent. In the very exceptional
cases in which it is possible to penetrate below their orifices of
emergence, as at Bourbonne and Plombi^res, the curious facts
which we observe cause us to regret that we can not descend
lower. Nature seems to have desired to withdraw from our sight
the actual workings of subterranean waters, especially when they
are engendering minerals. Water is not more rare than heat
in the masses of the interior of the globe. Even when it does
not circulate in natural channels, it is at least present, held im-
bibed in the most compact rocks. In clays, although combined,
it is not less susceptible of acting chemically than in the free
condition. Thus, what we have obtained only with many diffi-
culties in our experiments, the action of superheated water, is
found vigorously exemplified everywhere in the interior of the
rocks, where the effective resistance to enormous pressures per-
mits the realization of more complete results than are possible
with the fragile apparatus of our laboratories.

The circumstance that heat stored in masses of so little con-
ducting power as stony substances is preserved for a very long
time, is eminently favorable to chemical combinations and to
crystallization. Nature possesses another superior advantage
over man in having extremely long lapses of time at her disposal.
The importance of this advantage, in the application in which we
are now regarding it, appears plainly from what has occurred in
the Roman masonry of Plombi^res. Besides this, reactions which
go on slowly do not require so high a temperature as those that
are of shorter duration.

The study of waters in their course and effects in ancient
epochs thus seems to complete the history and broaden the view
of their subterranean works. Here, then, a real exchange of light
takes place. The past illuminates the present as much as the
present illuminates the past. There is nothing, moreover, to
prove that phenomena of this character do not continue down to
our own days. We have a right to believe that similar actions
are still going on, but in interior regions beyond the reach of our
powers of observation. Superheated water, which betrays its ex-

^i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

istence tlirough. tliermal springs and volcanic exhalations, to all
appearance is slowly and silently engendering considerable and
permanent effects in the interior of the globe, and is giving birth
to various minerals as it did in former days.

In the same way as in our organism all the parts of the body
owe their development to the support which they receive from
the circulation of the blood, so in the crust of the earth, water, by
its incessant subterranean circulation and its predominantly chem-
ical work, accomplishes a kind of vital action which is perpetuated
through ages. May we not justly apply to these mineral ogical
and geological results, so worthy of our curiosity and derived from
a single cause, Leibnitz's favorite epigraph, In varietate unitas ? —
Translated for the Popular Science Montlily from the Revue des
Deux Mondes.

THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS.

By HAELOW gale.

AS ballads are the essence of a people's history, so holidays
are the free utterance of their character. Spontaneity is
always valuable evidence, and holidays are in their beginnings
purely spontaneous. They furnish psychically an excellent exam-
ple of reflex action. The stimuli which come to us from the outer
world of things as well as from the inner world of sensation find
three channels for the expenditure of their force, viz., thought,
feeling, and involuntary or reflex action, Man's position in the
scale of life is determined in general by the proportion in which
stimulus is distributed among these three outflows. The less of
conscious life a creature has, the nearer will it approach to the
existence of an automaton.

Now, though we can not precisely construct the psychical life
of the primitive man, yet the law of evolution enables us to pict-
ure him as exercising little reflective thought, rather dull feelings
of the bodily pain and pleasure sort, and a comparatively large
amount of reflex action ; so that stimulus, following the line of
least resistance or greatest traction, will in a majority of cases end
in reflex action. Even if the incoming sentient current does flow
on or over into feeling and even thought, the smallness of their ca-
pacity prevents much egress through these intellectual channels,
and the restricted current must again find its exit in expressive
muscular action. Let us briefly review the historical beginnings
and development of this spontaneous demonstrative life.

The primitive holiday was occasional — i. e., prompted by un-
usual events of domestic or tribal life. Births, marriages, and
deaths are almost universally celebrated by primitive man, and

THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS.

517

we must remember tliat liis feelings connected with, death are liy
no means such as ours. Though the pains of separation and loneli-
ness have come to be widely differentiated from those joyful, gen-
erous feelings connected with the beginnings of domestic life, yet
with the savage it was more fear than affection which prompted
the propitiation of the ghost of the dead, and a gift of presents for
its use in the future world. The Pacific islanders, Asiatic peoples,
African tribes, and American Indians, all, in one way or another,
feast and sacrifice on occasion of the principal family events.
Among the Karens a corpse lies in state three or four days, amid
marching around to music of pipes, singing, lamentation, and ath-
letic games. The Javanese have religious festivals for marriages,
births, circumcision, and for the dead. The Tongans celebrate
their chief's marriage by dancing, single combats, boxing, and
wrestling. On the birth, of a child the feasting, sham fighting,
night-dancing, etc., last for several days among the Samoans.*
The principal friends of newly made parents among this same
people bring presents on the third day after the birth of the child,
according to an invariable rule, by which the husband's relatives
bring pigs, canoes, and foreign property, and the wife's relatives
bring fine mats and native clothes made by the females. These
interchange their gifts and leave the parents as poor as before.
The Malagasy's ceremonies, bull-baiting, dancing, singing, beat-
ing of drums, etc., at circumcision, last a week or even months.
The Hottentots have feasts of eating, drinking, and smoking on
the admittance of youth to manhood and womanhood, and on occa-
sion of marriages and funerals. On the death of a king of the
Congos t no work must be done, the natives stay at home, while
the fields remain uncultivated for a month. A king's death
among the coast negroes, Ashantees, and Abyssinians, however,
is the signal for general lawlessness and plunder. The destruc-
tion of property, feasting, and sacrifices at an ordinary funeral
often ruin one of these families. The celebrations of the Santals
are few and simple : at admission into the family, tribe, and race ;
at marriage, divorce, cremation, and the reunion of the dead with
their departed fathers. The funeral games of the Kirghiz are
racing, wrestling, and trying to catch a coin out of a vessel of sour
milk.

Coming to higher types of men, with more social and political
coherence, the number and variety of festivals increase. They
cease to be held for domestic events alone, but are extended to
such tribal matters as, among the Abipones, councils of war, im-

* Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology," No. Ill, Table XII, p. 27, " Lowest Kaces, Xegrito
Eaces, and Jialayo-Polynesian Races."

f Spencer'3 '• Descriptive Sociology," No. IV, " African Races," Table XXIV, and
page 18.

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pending figlits, victories, birth of a chief's son, change of name
(done at funerals), arrival of distinguished visitors, or the procla-
mation of a new chief. Among the Malagasy a grand feast, accom-
panied with dancing, music, and sports, terminates the ceremony
of a treaty. The Mandans * hold a feast of the bull-fight, on which
depends the coming of their supply of buffaloes. Two feasts are
given by the Hottentots at the installation of a chief of a kraal :
one by the person installed, when the men eat all the meat and give
the broth to the women ; and the second, given by the wife, when
the women get the meat and the men the broth. The New-Zea-
landers give great feasts and Olympian games to other nations. In
their national pride to outdo each other in prodigality the collec-
tion for these feasts is begun a year before, and the extravagance
often produces a famine, so that the natives are obliged to leave
their settlements till their crops are ripe. Cannibalism is simjDly
the Fiji style of an occasional feast. Before going into war the
Tahitians offer human sacrifices ; and at the coronation of their
king there is a great religious festival in honor of the monarch,
whose girdle of red feathers identifies him with the gods. Different
districts among them challenge each other to public games, e. g.,
wrestling, boxing, foot-racing, canoe-races, spear and javelin
throwing, military and naval reviews, ball, archery, cock-fighting,
surf-swimming, kite-flying, etc., all of which are also often con-
nected with religious ceremonies or a cause of national rejoicing,
such as the return of a king or the arrival of some distinguished
visitor.

The transition from occasional to periodic festivals is through
the various harvest celebrations. The Congos have a great har-
vest feast at the ripening of the yams, and the Ashantees cele-
brate the same event with processions and sacrifices of slaves.
Sacrifices are made to the late village head of the Santals, at each
stage of rice-planting. Three great festivals are held by the
Gonds — at seed-time, at harvest, and when the mhowa flowers.
A feast is also kept at the end of a monsoon to the god of rain.
The Creeks have a religious feast of four to eight days on the
ripening of the crops. A feast of first-fruits is held in January
by the Kafiirs. At the sowing of the rice the Dyaks have three
festivals : in the midst of the cutting down of the jungle, when it
is set on fire, and the blessing of the seed before planting. At
harvest are three more : feast of the first-fruits, of the middle of
the harvest, and to secure the price of rice.

The next stage in the development of our ancestral holidays is
one of great importance. In this one primitive astronomy begins,
our calendar has its genesis, and domestic, civil, and political life
begins to assume something of that order and regularity which

* Spencer' s " Descriptive Sociology," No. VI, "American Races," page 17.

THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS, 519

inspires confidence between man and man, and gives stability to
customs and institutions.

We can hardly appreciate tlie meaning of the appearance of
the new moon to the primitive man. It was the herald of a new
season of light to dispel his natural dislike and even fear of dark-
ness. The old Hindus and the Arabs through the Syrians sacri-
ficed at new and full moons. The Tasmanians danced at full
moon. One of the earliest recorded festivals of the ancient He-
brews is that of the new moon. This event was regularly cele-
brated by the chief of the Nootka Columbians, by causing a slave
to be killed to furnish a banquet, amid songs and dancing, to the
other chiefs of lower rank. A certain phase of the moon was also
the most frequent natural periodic event to suggest the memory
of events celebrated at the last moon, and were this memory vivid
enough the savage would be moved to renew his demonstrations.
The Uaup^s laments his dead from the time of death to burial,
and follows this with an Irish wake. Then a lunar month after
death the corpse is disinterred, roasted in a pan, the remaining
black mass is powdered, mixed with drink, and drunk. The fu-
neral wake among the Abyssinians is held some months after the
funeral.

When man's memory grew stronger with his development, the
natural solar divisions of time acted as stimuli on his mind to
commemorate festival events. The ancient Peruvians feasted
each month of the year, but had their principal feasts at the sol-
stices and equinoxes. To the Sol grove, the abode of the family
gods or deceased ancestors, the Santals repair yearly, to worshijD
with dancing, music, chanting songs in memory of the founder,
and to hold sacrificial feasts of goats and fowls. Each family
danced about the tree, supposed to be the abode of its own god..
The Karens * have an annual feast of the dead at a new moon,,
when the deceased are supposed to be present, and partake of the-
food and receive addresses. Among the Kalmucks four yearly
feasts are held: (1) New-year's, lasting for several days, with
feasting and good wishes. (2) Summer festival, with wrestling,
horse-racing, etc. (3) " Consecration of the water," when bodily
and spiritual ailments of the bathers in the water were cured.
(4) " Candle festival," at beginning of winter, when lights are lit
in the temple. The most important and popular feast among the
Malagasy is the New-year, or " bathing," that being the princi-
pal part of the ceremony. Ten or fifteen thousand bullocks, how-
ever, are usually killed at this time, and sacrifices are made to the
gods and at the tombs of the king's ancestors. The funeral cere-
monies of the Todas are usually celebrated annually by feasting,

* Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology," No. V, " Asiatic Races," Table XXXVII, and
page 23.

520 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.

dancing, and slauglitering of animals. Among the Arabs there
is an invocation of the dead, and sacrifices at the tombs of the
chiefs once a year. The Eskimos hold religious feasts abont
the winter solstice and at New-year's. A yearly celebration
of a tradition of a deluge is observed by the Mandan Indians.
Among the ancient Phoenicians mourning rites were repeated
annually.

We come now to consider how the more or less artificial sub-
divisions of time came to be used for periodical celebrations, and
ultimately became fixed holidays. There appear historically ar-
bitrary days, such as the three post-natal feast-days given by the
Gond mother. On the fifth day after the birth of her child her
female friends are feasted, male friends on the twelfth, and both
together again on the thirteenth. Such an arrangement of dates
is probably determined by the physical state of the mother and
some conditioning social customs. It is by division of the lunar
month, however, that the development continues among the more
civilized peoples. A triple division in Tibet gave their original
fast-days the 9th, 19th, and 29th ; the Mongols, having fixed tem-
ples far removed, held three successive days, the 14th, 15th, and
16th ; those of the Kalmucks are the 8th, 15th, and 30th. But,
when the old Hindus, Arabs, and Syrians sacrificed at new and
full moons, the beginning was made toward the Jewish Sabbath
and our Sunday. The fourfold division of the lunar month by
full and quarter moon religious or sacrificial feast-days gave
the week and the magic number seven. With the Babylonians,
the 7th, 12th, 21st, and 28th days of the month were called days of
" sulum," or rest ; certain works being forbidden on these days.
This expression was transmitted from the older Accadians. Each
of these days was consecrated to a different god, one of whom
was the moon. Whether the Congo negroes got their frequent
Sunday by a sevenfold division of the month we can not say posi-
tively, but it is certainly very significant that every fourth day is
with them a general day of rest from work in the fields.

This process of subdivision is especially interesting to trace in
Semitic and Jewish history, for it shows the perfectly natural
rather than the supernatural origin of our " day of rest.'' The
month is the old sacred division of time common to all the Sem-
ites. The Mohammedan and Jewish calendars are still lunar. The
Semitic word " ahalla," meaning " to greet the new moon," was
used of any festal joy, and became the type of religious festivity
in general. " In the old Semitic scriptures the new moon and the
Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together." There were
the same occasional feasts which we have found in the life of
other barbarous peoples, much the same equinoctial, solstitial, and
yearly festivals, so that the jpermanent subdivisions of the lunar

THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS. 521

cycle by a ceremonial and emotional race was a most natural
progress of their enlarging life. At the middle of the tenth cent-
ury B. c, there were^, besides the annual feasts of unleavened
bread, harvest, and ingatherings, those of the new moon and the
Sabbath ; and these latter still retained their primitive character-
istics of joyful days of rest and assembly. In fact, owing to the
popular reluctance to class religious days, and particularly the
ancient Sabbath, as holidays, "' we can not refrain," with Deutsch,
" from entering a protest against the vulgar notion of the Jewish
Sabbath as being a thing of grim austerity. It was precisely the
contrary — a day of joy and delight, a feast-day, honored by fine
garments, by the best of cheer, by wine, lights, spice, and other
joys of pre-eminently bodily import." So here the same objection
should be met which was anticipated in the case of funeral cere-
monies and festivals. All primitive religious ceremonies and
days, whether they be in connection with ghost, fetich, or Nature
worship, are of this spontaneous emotional character which is the
essence of holidays. It is doubtless true that, when in the course
of the development of a religion the spontaneity lessens, and with
more expressionless feeling and calm thought the religious life of
a people crystallizes into mechanical forms and creeds, then au-
sterity and asceticism have dried up the holiday heart in church-
days ; but when the reaction comes, and the Church in fear and
horror calls us to defend her acquired prerogative, we are assured,
by such an inquiry into the origin of her days, that either the
creeds and commandments must be periodically modified to the
needs of human nature, or that mankind will find more radical
vents for its spontaneity. The founder of Christianity saw the
necessity in his day for the rebuke that " the Sabbath was made
for man and not man for the Sabbath." We to-day see that man
has made his own Sabbath ; being his own, he must not and can
not be kept from his heritage.

This suggests the question, How has the direction of holidays
come to be taken from the hands of the particix)ants ? The an-
swer is obviously found in the course of differentiation and spe-
cialization which holidays have undergone. The domestic festi-
vals, which included only relatives and friends, were at first purely
spontaneous with each individual or circle. As the ceremonies
became more elaborate and i^rolonged, the father, eldest son,
medicine-man, or chief became director, until with further elabora-
tion into fixed and regular forms of emotional expression, there
arose the beginnings of a specialized class of priesthood. When
they had obtained full control, there arose the phenomenon,
remarkable in that it continues to our own day, of the priesthood's
trying to formulate the reasons for the ceremonies and existence
of church-days, and these efforts taking on the shape of creeds

522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and commandments — whicli, liowever necessary as expedients,
touch the truth only most symbolically.

The hint has already been several times offered that holidays,
starting in the psychological way of reflex action, have had their
growth according to the law of all growth — evolution, by which
they have progressed from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity
to a definite, coherent heterogeneity. A caution must be inter-
posed here, however, before the completion of the law is pointed
out. It must not be supposed for an instant that the development
took place in such distinct stej^s as might be inferred from the
grouping of our historical references : that domestic festivals were
comjjletely or at all generally in custom before tribal or national
demonstrations came into vogue ; that only after these were cur-
rent in an occasional way were harvest festivals held ; and that not
until the moon's cycle had been quartered did the recurring solar
periods become associated with regular emotions. On the con-
trary, each of these logical periods largely overlapped the next, so
that nearly or quite all of them have been contemporaneous in
various degrees of advancement. We can only hold that, on the
whole, the growth of holidays has been according to some coher-
ent method whose outline is found to be the law of evolution.

The comjDletion of the law is that with the increase and spe-
cialization of holidays there has been a concomitant loss of emo-
tion, but that the retained emotion has undergone a like process
from homogeneity to heterogeneity. This is seen in the fact that
though the Africans and Polynesians show that holidays began
as overflows of emotion, yet on ascending through the history of
the Indians, Asiatics, Americans, and Europeans, festivals have
become less demonstrative and more varied and restricted in
their meaning. This fact gives us the key to the radical change
which has taken place in the character of our modern holidays
as compared with those of primitive man. As man became ca-
pable of quiet feeling and reflective thought, the various internal
and external stimuli were less and less forced into reflex demon-
strative action. He could experience joy and sorrow, bravery
and hospitality, reverence and worship, with an ever-lessening
muscular action. Most of all, perhaps, is the change due to the
share of stimulus which went to thought. This is first seen in the
difference between occasional and periodic holidays. The periodic
days added to the pure spontaneity of occasional days the new
intellectual element of association of ideas. Certain feelings came
to be associated with certain phases of the moon or seasons of the
year, the periodic recurrence of which revived with lessening
intensity the emotions and reflex actions of the original event.
The calendar festivals came to mean more ; though they lost in
demonstration, they gained in thought : free gladsomeness grew

THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS. 523

serious. Thus it came to pass that religion and the Church
appropriated so many of Nature's festivals ; that the Roman Sa-
turnalia became our precious Christmas, the full-moon sj^ring
equinoctial feast grew into our beautiful Easter, and the harvest
feast took the form of a Thanksgiving servipe.

These changes suggest the function and future of holidays in
the light of their origin. As shown above, the psychical growth
of man from an emotional to an intellectual creature has almost
entirely changed the function of holidays. The truest survivals
of the primitive emotional reflex-action function is seen in the
children's April-fool's-day and our modern wedding shows. But
the element of association, which was the genesis of our periodic
days, is of more lasting power. The intense rush and struggle for
existence of the modern world found less time for occasional fes-
tivals, and so needed more of the periodical reminders of events
which our fathers or our ancestors first celebrated. But we note
now an appearance of decadence which seems inevitably to await
holidays. The original cause for the day being forgotten, from
being a day of amusement, joy, and gayety, set apart in honor of
some person or in commemoration of some event, it became a con-
secrated day, a religious anniversary or national festival, until it
acquired the modern distinctive characteristic of a day of exemp-
tion from labor. To be sure, a feast always necessitated a change
from ordinary occupations, but this was only an incidental condi-
tion to the expression of emotion. This function of a " rest-day "
came into prominence, as we have noticed, with the Accadians
and Babylonians, but it naturally has only become predominant
in a pre-eminently industrial age. For the sake, then, of incul-
cating Mr. Spencer's text, " Work to live, and not live to work," if
for nothing else, holidays still have a claim to our support ; and
we as a people are not so far removed from barbarism but that
such wholesome texts and demands, even of nature, come to us
more imperatively and efficiently in the guise of custom or in the
name of religion. So, though our national holidays are fast losing
their original meaning, and though church-days, and particularly
Sunday, tend to become secularized, let us hold to them, under
whatever form or sanction, for the sake of their modern function.

Are we, then, ultimately to lose holidays ? Not to be too confi-
dently prophetic, but judging by the historical tendency, we
would answer, " Yes " and " No " — yes, as to the distinctive calen-
dar demonstrative days. With the decadence of the emotional
function, however, we found that the function of suggestion of
deep feeling and many-sided thought remained and increased.
Because our sensations mean more to us, because the thousand
and one phenomena of our daily life are arranged and related in
most delicate articulation, because emotional life will always live

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in increasing refinement, and there will ever be need of a language
of signs, so the lieiglit of specialization can only end in mak-
ing every day a holiday indeed. Not that every day will be free
from labor, or consecrated to a saint, but that the intricate world
of things, of feelings, and of thoughts in which we live, will
become so full of ever-present meaning to us that their stimuli
will find daily rather than occasional expression, with a single or
half-dozen friends instead of a multitude, with shorter hours of
labor and longer hours of health, with music rather than with
fire-crackers, with ever-thoughtful kindness instead of formal
ceremony, and finally with pure and noble daily inspiration for
living rather than a funeral pageant.

NEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY.

By T. D. CEOTHERS, M. D.

SOME years ago I examined two inmates of the Deaf and
Dumb Asylum, at Hartford, who from birth had distinct
symptoms of acute intoxication. Both were boys, aged nine and
thirteen years, who walked with a staggering gait and great mus-
cular incoordination. One had a demented grin, and nodded
continuously whenever he saw any one looking at him. The
other had a dull, vacant stare, and congested, blear-eyed appear-
ance. He was very irritable, and sensitive to observation, trem-
bling with anger from any little cause. These and many other
signs of intoxication were present, and had been noted from birth.
The parents of both were inebriates. These cases aroused my
attention, and since then I have gathered many notes and histo-
ries of similar cases.

Greatly to my surprise, I have found that these cases were not
uncommon, especially in asylums and hospitals, and also in active
life. Many of them are not so marked, and others require some pe-
culiar conditions or circumstances to bring out these symptoms.

The history of the cases I have obtained may be divided into
two classes : one, in which the symptoms of intoxication are i)res-
ent all the time ; the other, in which these symptoms only aj^pear
from some peculiar circumstances or exciting causes.

In the first class, some prominent defect, such as idiocy, imbe-
cility, and congenital deformity, is present, giving the case a dis-
tinctness irrespective of the signs of intoxication. Hence, these
symptoms of drunkenness are not separate from other defects in
observation. Thus, in a prominent family, one of the children,
an imbecile, had all the suspicious hesitancy of manner, also the
walk, of a drunkard.

NEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY. 525

In a private school for tlie feeble-minded from the wealthier
classes, three in fourteen cases had these unmistakable symptoms,
which had not attracted attention.

In the home of a former patient I found a little girl, an idiot,
whose voice and rambling utterance, with intensely red eyes and
drunken expression, pointed back to causes and conditions that
had not been noticed before. Other defects and deformities of
the face and body cover up these peculiar signs of intoxication.

These symptoms may appear after birth, or be slowly evolved
with the growth of the child, coming into prominence at or before
puberty.

Of course, all the varied phases of idiocy, imbecility, progress-
ive degeneration, and malformation go on. The presence of a spe-
cial class of symptoms, resembling intoxication so clearly, sug-
gests a distinct alcoholic causation. In the second class I have
noted, the alcoholic symptoms are not present, unless from some
exciting cause (non-alcoholic), such as anger, fear, sudden excite-
ment, etc. In this class are idiots, imbeciles, and defectives of all
degrees, who at times display distinct signs of intoxication, which
subside after a period. Often in these cases appear the common
delusions and deliriums of intoxication : also, the semi-paralysis
and stupor. Teachers and superintendents of asylums and
schools for this class realize clearly the danger of excitement on
these dements and defectives, throwing them into various states
of mania, as well as intoxication. In one instance, an imbecile
boy would become agitated and fall into a state of intoxication
if sharply watched, or excited by any cause.

In another case, an inilbecile from his birth appears intoxi-
cated when he first meets you, but quickly recovers himself, and
all these symptoms pass away. The embarrassment of meeting
strangers develops these signs of intoxication. The history of
such cases uniformly points to inebriate ancestors. The common
explanation of these symptoms is, that this pathological state re-
flects the condition of one or both parents at the time of concep-
tion, or some profound antenatal impression. To support this
view the history of the parents gives evidence, and also, in some
cases, the peculiar form of intoxication in the parent is seen in
the children. Thus, in one case the father, when intoxicated, had
a delirium of agitation, in which he moved about incessantly ; two
idiot children born to him both showed signs of intoxication and
had muscular agitation and delirium.

In another case, a woman, when intoxicated, manifested hys-
terical fear of dogs. She had an imbecile child, which almost
went into convulsions at the sight of a dog, and had all the symp-
toms of intoxication. Numerous instances are on record of pro-
found impressions on the mother's mind leaving a similar im-

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

pression on the offspring. In one instance an exceedingly nervous
lady was greatly frightened by an intoxicated soldier. She gave
birth to a boy that had all the signs of intoxication. He lived
until twelve years of age, was an imbecile, and had all the marks
of a person perpetually intoxicated; he staggered, and would
scream out from time to time, without cause or reason. Another
case is reported where the mother saw her husband stupidly in-
toxicated for the first time, and gave birth to an imbecile boy,
who was stupid and acted as his father did when poisoned with
spirits. It is often difficult to trace these peculiar symptoms,
which resemble intoxication, to a similar state in one or both
parents at the time of conception ; but in most cases the proba-
bility of such a state is greatly strengthened by general circum-
stances and various marks of alcoholic defects and deformities.
I find myself forced to conclude that these symptoms are inher-
ited as special pathological states, representing the parents at the
time of conception. Why they do not occur in all cases is not
clear, but the fact is beyond question that children of inebriates
bear marks of defective organization of almost infinite degree,
form, and variety.

Beyond this range of cases there is another class, less common,
yet with a distinct history and symptoms. Unlike the first class,
they are persons who have average brain-power, and in many in-
stances are men of genius and positive force, with a peculiar nerve-
organization. They are usually temperate men, never using alco-
hol, yet under certain circumstances, and from some particular
excitement, act and appear as if fully intoxicated.

In these cases some form of mental shock takes place, destroy-
ing the normal balance and bringing uppermost an inherited neu-
rotic defect. In some instances alcohol can not be tolerated with-
out producing nausea, vomiting, and extreme depression ; and yet
from some unknown cause, purely mental, they will suddenly ex-
hibit all the usual signs of intoxication, which pass off as quickly
as they came on.

These cases come from inebriate parents or moderate drinkers,
and have inherited some defective nerve-organization which mani-
fests itself in this way. I have collected a number of these cases
and grouped them under two heads — one of inherited toxic states,
and the other of acquired toxic states. In the first class the notes
and histories I have gathered will serve as an outline for more
exhaustive studies, and they also suggest many new fields of psy-
chological heredity not yet explored. The following are histories
of some of these cases :

First Case. — Joseph B , a farmer of fifty-four, temperate,

a man of character and wealth, who had never used any kind of
spirits, suffered from a violent shock and alarm from a runaway

NEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY. 527

horse. He was thrown out of the wagon and only slightly bruised,
but could not Avalk after. His face was red, his voice jerking and
husky, and his language silly, and he staggered with every ap-
pearance of a drunken man. He recovered, but was thought to
have used spirits. Some months after, at the funeral of his child,
all these and other marked symptoms of intoxication returned, to
the great mortification of his friends and family. A year later
another similar attack occurred from the burning of some out-
buildings on his farm. A careful inquiry made it clear that he
had not used any spirits, although he had all the signs except an
alcoholic breath. His father was an excessive user of spirits, and
his mother died of consumption, but could never tolerate the smell
or taste of alcohol. He has been gradually becoming weaker for
some years, and is now an imbecile.

Second Case. — The treasurer of a large manufactory, temper-
ate but very nervous, and a hard-working man, of forty-eight,
suddenly appeared intoxicated when accused by the president of
falsifying the books. He was unable to talk rationally, and both
appeared and walked like one who had drunk large quantities of
spirits. The next day he recovered, and fully explained, to the
satisfaction of all. He was ill for a week, with some general de-
bility and indigestion, then went to his duties, became angry, and
had a similar paroxysm. A short time after another attack came
on at his house, and the physician called it congestion of the
brain. In all these instances no evidence of having taken any
spirits could be obtained. His father was a sailor and drank
freely.

Third Case. — A merchant, of fifty-eight years, lost all his
property in a series of unfortunate speculations. He was much
depressed, and went to live with his brother-in-law, a physician.
He had been a temperate man from principle, and was in good
health up to his failure in business. One day, on the receipt of a
letter with bad news concerning some business matters, he became
to all appearance intoxicated. His brother-in-law, the physician,
made a careful examination of all the facts and surroundings, and
concluded that this was a case of what he called mind-intoxica-
tion, or drunkenness from causes other than alcohol or drugs. A
few weeks later a similar occurrence followed an exciting inter-
view with a creditor. During the two years which preceded his
death, three distinct attacks were noted, each one lasting from
two to six hours. He died suddenly from pneumonia. His an-
cestors were both moderate and excessive drinkers.

Fourth Case. — A recent one. A merchant, in good health
and temperate, while at work in his counting-room, received a
dispatch of the death of his daughter. He lay down on a sofa in
his office, and very soon became wildly intoxicated. A physician

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

made this diagnosis, although there was no odor of alcohol in the
breath. He was taken home, and remained in bed a week. Two
opinions prevailed: one, that he had drunk in his office; the
other, that it was congestion of the brain. He denied having used
spirits, but was confused about the events of the past. In this
case a similar heredity from alcoholic ancestors was present.

These cases are sufficient to illustrate the clinical fact that I
am attempting to demonstrate. I am informed by good authority
that during the late war many similar cases were noted, and were
the subject of much comment and speculation. Thus, men who
were total abstainers would, under the excitement of the battle-
field, exhibit the wild frenzy of a drunken man or be stupid and
largely unconscious of the surroundings. As an illustration, a
noted officer at Antietam came riding back from the "front,"
swaying in his saddle, and shouting parts of songs, in a marked
drunken state.

He was a total abstainer, and had not drunk any spirits, but
had been at the " front " for hours under great excitement, having
a horse shot under him. His conduct was so strange and wild
that he was ordered back, under the impression that he was in-
toxicated. Different surgeons noted this strange frenzied state
on many occasions, but in the excitement and change of battle
could not ascertain whether it came from the use of spirits or
from some mental state. On many occasions it was clear that by
no possible ordinary means could spirits be obtained, and yet men
previously temperate seemed fully intoxicated. When the battle
was over and a degree of relaxation took place, many men would
exhibit childish excitement and delirious irritability identical
with alcoholic intoxication. At other times, after a period of pro-
longed strain and excitement, when coffee was given freely, the
same inexplicable symptoms of intoxication would appear and be
termed "coffee-drunk." When these symptoms appeared at the
"front " under fire, they were termed " baUle-drunJcs." Some facts
very similar have been noticed in the navy, in the case of gun-
ners, who after a short time of exciting work would become like
drunken men and be obliged to go to their berths. This condition
has been noticed in persons who were shocked or greatly alarmed
at the time of great disasters. A railroad superintendent in-
formed me that on two occasions he had noticed instances of the
apparent intoxication of railroad-men who seemed to be at fault
through an accident. The intoxication came on after the acci-
dent ; but from a most careful inquiry he was convinced that
they had not used any sj^irits then or ever, and that their condi-
tion was unaccountable.

An incident was related to me by a gentleman, who had been
talking quietly in the cars with another man, when they were

liEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY. 529

thrown down a steep embankment. The car-side was broken in,
and both were thrown out, only a little bruised. In a few mo-
ments one was fully intoxicated. The other, the narrator, could
not understand this state or explain it in any way. From these
and other statements which I have gathered I conclude that these
cases are not infrequent, but, from want of accurate observation
and the difficulty of obtaining the facts, they are overlooked. As
far as it could be determined, I think that every case had a promi-
nent substratum of direct heredity from inebriate ancestors. In
the partial history of some of these cases some form of brain-ex-
haustion was present, and the shock or paralysis brought to light
the special pathological symptoms of alcoholic poisoning. It
would be foolish to deny that this was a special nerve and brain
defect transmitted from the parents, and only came to light from
the action of some particular cause.

In the case of a total abstainer, who, during some state of ex-
citement, manifested all the symptoms of intoxication, where be-
yond doubt he had not used any form of alcohol, and where ine-
briety existed in the ancestors, it would be, a most reasonable
conclusion to infer an origin in heredity, which burst into ac-
tivity in obedience to some unknown exciting cause. From this
point many and varied questions start up, which future observa-
tions and studies alone can determine. I think these cases are of
the same class as idiots and imbeciles, with special symptoms of
alcoholic poisoning, as a direct heredity from the parents ; any
difference being simply in the fact that these special pathological
defects are dormant, but only appear from the action of some
peculiar cause. This seemingly represents the conditions of the
parents at the time of conception or some antenatal impression.
The second class of acquired toxic states have less of mystery,
and are more common. They are of the class of men who have
been inebriates or intoxicated, and have become total abstainers,
but from the same unknown causes suddenly manifest all the old
signs of intoxication. Some factor of heredity is present, and
possibly some nerve-tracts, along which abnormal energy has
been very active in the past, may come into prominence again.
An outline of some cases will bring out these facts :

First Case. — The superintendent of a factory, a man who had
been temperate and sober for fifteen years, his conduct and char-
acter beyond all reproach, was engaged to be married, under cir-
cumstances of great promise. . The day of the wedding the bride
received a letter, warning her against him, saying that he was a
secret drinker and a bad man otherwise. This she sent to him by
the hand of her brother. After reading it, he showed all the
signs of intoxication, and went to bed. The wedding was post-
poned, and he afterward asserted so positively his innocence that

70L. XXXIV. 34

530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I was called to give an opinion. An examination indicated that
this was some condition of shock, or sudden congestion, in which
symptoms of intoxication appeared; also his assertion of not
having drunk was literally true. A history of moderate and ex-
cessive drinking was noted in his parents.

Second Case. — A clergyman, with a marked history of he-
redity. He was under my care for five months, when, one day, a
brother clergyman paid him a visit, and no doubt talked very se-
verely to him of the sin of drinking. I found him a short time
after, in bed, with all the symptoms of intoxication. He had a
childish, idiotic expression, and was in a semi-delirious state. He
remained in bed two days, and had all the appearance of one who
had suffered from alcoholic poisoning. This was the first pro-
nounced case I had seen, and could not be mistaken. The sudden
emotional excitement precipitated him into the pathological state
of intoxication.

Third Case. — This case was sent to me for an opinion as fol-
lows :

A noted temperance lecturer, formerly an inebriate, for ten
years or more had been an abstainer. One evening, while lectur-
ing, he was given a dispatch from his wife, announcing the fatal
illness of a child. He drank a glass of water, and attempted an
explanation to the audience, became confused, staggered, and acted
like a man rapidly becoming intoxicated. He was finally led from
the stage, and laughed and shouted in a maudlin way. The au-
dience supposed that he was drunk, but all the circumstances
showed clearly that no spirits had been taken.

These cases are most strikingly confirmed in many ways, and
especially in circles of temperance reformers. One man of my
acquaintance, after an eloquent lecture of an hour, during which
he most dramatically portrays the conduct and manner of an ine-
briate, will go to his room and be practically intoxicated for some
time, or until he can procure a few hours' sleep. This man has
been an inebriate, but for the past five years has been lecturing
on inebriety with great power and skill. He has been in the Pro-
hibition campaign, and lectured for months incessantly. These
phases of drunkenness are called " queer spells " by his friends,
and are guarded from observation. When the lecture is over, he
retires at once to his room, and will not be seen until next morn-
ing. In another case a man of talent and genius of a high order,
who had drunk to great excess for ten years, stopped and became
a lecturer. He told me that often the impulse to drink was so
strong that he could only resist it by having an audience and op-
portunity to talk or plead for temperance. He was really intoxi-
cated in his extravagant enthusiasm and dramatic portrayals of
the evils of drink. After the lecture was over, he was greatly

JVEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY.

531

exhausted and had all the feelings of one who had just suffered
from intoxication. The psychological student will find a rare
field of study in the temperance meetings of the day, particu-
larly where they are conducted and addressed by reformed
inebriates.

These facts are along the line of every day's observation, and
are sustained by many collateral evidences. Beyond this are still
further ranges of facts, on the same psychological field, less com-
mon and more obscure.

A pathological state has been observed, which I call uncon-
scious imitative inebriety, where persons, from the influence or
contagion of the surroundings or some unknown factor, are, to all
intents and purposes, intoxicated. Here, as elsewhere, a strong
substratum of heredity exists. I present the notes of two cases
which were sent me by accurate and very competent observers.

One, J. H , was a lawyer, a delicate, nervous man, employed in

the State Department, where a monotonous, exact range of duties
had been performed for many years. He was unable to use spirits,
from the headache it produced. Although his father was an in-
ebriate, he never could or would drink any form of alcohol. He
was a society man, and spent his evenings at the club. For sev-
eral years past it was noticed that, after an hour or more spent in
company of men who were drinking to intoxication, he would
take on their condition, and like them become intoxicated. He
would be with them hilarious or stupid, and use only coffee mod-
erately, while the others drank wine. Sometimes these states
would go so far as to make him stupid and unable to walk, and
he would need the assistance of a guide and carriage to get home.
The next morning he would have a headache. These occasions
were at first infrequent, then grew more common, until at present
he can not remain an hour in the company of any friend who is
intoxicated without appearing and acting like him. He is called
by his friends the "coffee-drunkard," for this reason. He will
be as stupid as any of them, and yet use nothing but coffee. He
would fall into this state more slowly if strangers were present,
and sometimes not at all, depending on some internal force that
prevented him from giving way. He affirmed that i\e sensation
was very pleasant, and he did not realize his own condition, but
was always conscious of enjoyment, until the party broke up and
he went home, when a feeling of misery and disgust came over him.
The physician who examined him in these states considered that
he was a perfect barometer of the mental surroundings, and that
after a certain point he gave himself up to a species of mesmeric
influence, making him do anything that the others did.

Second Case. — A wealthy farmer and strong temperance man
was elected to Congress. He formed a strong attachment for a

S3'

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hard-drinking man in the same body, and, after being in bis com-
pany for a few hours, would walk and talk like him. He would
talk foolishly, and stagger, and act identically like him ; but if
called away, he soon recovered and was as before, yet in his com-
pany he used no spirits, and only occasionally soda. This imitation
intoxication grew on him, and he seemed to fall into this state in
any drinking party where several were intoxicated. He was not
aware of his hilarity or stupidity in drinking company, and only
remembered that he could not use spirits. He was reported to
be intoxicated in the papers, and could with great difficulty make
any defense. He is still in office, but has learned to keep away
from all drinking men and state dinners where wine and intoxi-
cated and hilarious drinkers are present. A hereditary taint of
both insanity and inebriety was present in his case, I have made
another group of these cases, that brings out some facts seen in
other circles of life. They are cases of reformed men who show
signs of intoxication from the contagion of others who are intoxi-
cants. The following is an example :

A prominent military man, who had drunk moderately during
the war, and had abstained from that time on, while attending a
dinner with his old comrades, where most of them were intoxicated,
suddenly became hilarious, made a foolish speech, and settled back
in his chair in a drunken state, and was finally taken home quite
stupid. He had not drunk any spirits, and had only used coffee
and water, and yet he had all the symptoms of the others, only
his was intoxication from contagion — the favoring soil had been
prepared long ago in the army. Another case was that of a man
who had been an inebriate years ago, but had reformed. He was
recently elected to office and gave a dinner to some friends. Among
them was a physician, who has been greatly interested in these
studies. He sent me a long report, the substance of which was
this : On the occasion referred to, many of the company became
partially intoxicated, and the host, who drank nothing but water,
became hilarious, and finally stupid with them. He was put to
bed, with every sign of intoxication, but recovered, and next morn-
ing had only a confused notion of these events. The third case oc-
curred four years ago. A reformed man, of twelve years' sobriety,
went on a military excursion with a drinking company, and, al-
though he drank nothing but lemonade, became as much intoxi-
cated as the others. This event was the subject of much comment
and loss to him, socially and otherwise, although he protested, and
others confirmed his statements, that he did not take any spirits
at this time.

In these cases, as in the others mentioned, two conditions were
present : one, in which some special unknown nerve state was in-
herited, which readily reflected alcoholic states from contagions ;

NEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY. 533

the other, in which this particular alcoholic state had been ac-
quired, and more readily responded to contagious surroundings
than otherwise. In both cases, undoubtedly, heredity was present,
but in the latter some previous pathological state existed. What
form of brain and nerve defect, and what circumstances and con-
ditions combined to develop this special pathological state must
be determined in the future. Along this line are many psycho-
logical facts of great interest, that throw light on other mental
states. Thus, actors, who essay to represent insanity or inebriety,
are successful in proportion as they inherit a nervous organization
predisposing them to these affections. A single glass of spirits
may awaken a latent nerve defect, and soon after merge into in-
ebriety. So the effort to imitate the manner and conduct of an
intoxicated person may give impress and direction to an organism
that may be permanent.

An actor, greatly praised for his skill in " Hamlet," was obliged
to leave the stage, for the reason that this character was becoming
so intimately his as to suggest insanity at an early day. A man
who acted the part of a drunken man was, after a time, so com-
pletely intoxicated as to be unfit for his part. He could not use
spirits, and had to give up this part of the play, for the same rea-
son as mentioned above. A remarkable incident came to my
notice along this line. A temperance writer, of great power and
vividness of detail, said that he lived all the details of the hero he
was describing, in his own mind. When the character was intox-
icated, he had all the symptoms, and had to go to bed after writ-
ing that the hero did so. He suffered, was exhausted, had pain,
mental agony, was joyous, happy, contented, and lived over every
event which he described. This man was strictly temperate, but
had a drunken father, from whom he inherited a peculiar nervous
organization, that gave him power to realize the toxic state from
alcohol and throw himself into it more perfectly.

He says that it would impair his health to write more on this
theme, for he would be intoxicated most of the time while writing.
Many of these states may be termed emotional trance states, and
in some future time will be the subject of some very curious and
wonderful psychological discoveries. Those who observe inebri-
ates carefully, find them literally encyclopaedias of psychological
fact, that can not be understood by any present knowledge of the
subject. For instance, reformed men, or those who have recently
stopped the use of spirits, can not safely listen to a recital of the
sufferings and struggles of others to become temperate, without
taking on some form of mental shock that is fatal to their own
resolutions. The more vivid and accurate the struggles of a
drunkard are described, the more certainly the will of the hearer
is weakened and rendered impotent to help itself. Temperance

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lecturers, who hope, by painting the horrors of drink so viv-
idly, to deter any one in the audience from falling in that
way, are deceived, and produce the very effect they seek to
remedy.

In the same way, the sight of an intoxicated man produces a
dangerous form of excitement in the mind of the reformer, and if
this should last some time it would react in the same condition.
I have emhodied many of these curious facts in a paper, with the
title of " Mental Contagion in Inebriety," published in the " Alien-
ist and Neurologist " of October, 1884. In this brief glance of the
subject I have endeavored to bring out the fact that states of in-
toxication are found in inebriates and defectives that are marked
inheritances from parents. The organism has received a positive
permanent impression, from which it never recovers. Also, that
this pathological state of acute poisoning from alcohol may be
covered up by other defects, and only come out from the applica-
tion of some peculiar exciting cause.' I have called attention to. a
class of cases, that, from some exciting cause, suddenly become
to all appearance intoxicated, although they have not used spirits.
An inherited predisposition to this form of defect, from inebriate
ancestors, is ]3resent in these cases. Also a class of men who have
been total abstainers for a long time, who, under similar condi-
tions of excitement, appear intoxicated.

I have described a class of cases where the intoxication was
purely from mental contagion, appearing in persons who have been
previously drunk, but were temperate at this time. Undoubtedly,
conditions of heredity, unknown at present, control and govern
this condition. It will be clear from this outline -grouping of
facts : (1) that symptoms of alcoholic poisoning can not be trusted
as evidence of the immediate use of alcohol ; (2) that the excessive
use of alcohol leaves a permanent defect or impress on the brain,
which will go down into the future Avith great certainty. It may
be concealed for a lifetime in the child of a drinking parent, but
at any moment may come to the surface, from the application of
its special exciting cause ; or it may appear in some other form
of defect that can be traced back to the injury from the toxic
action of alcohol. In brief, the range of facts that open up from
this point are truly bewildering, and their discovery and the
laws which govern them is the great future realm for inves-
tigation.

This grouijing of general facts which I have presented, like a
preliminary survey in a new country, are merely landmarks for
other and more accurate studies.

This is the field into which specialists press forward with in-
creasing enthusiasm, confident that behind all this mystery of
drink-craving will be found a majestic order of forces coming

COMMENTS ON THE '^ SACRIFICE OF EDUCATIONr 535

from unknown causes, moving in unknown orbits and about un-
known centers ; also, with equal confidence, that, not far away,
inebriety and its evils will be understood, treated, and prevented,
as positively as any other disease.

COMMENTS cm THE "SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION."

Peof. F. max MtJLLEE.

CONSIDERING that nearly forty years ago I did my best to
prove the necessity of examinations for admission to the civil
service, it will be believed that I did not sign the foregoing pro-
test with a light heart. Before the Indian civil service had been
thrown open, and before Sir Charles Trevelyan had carried his
reform of the civil service in England, I was allowed by the
then editor of the " Times " to publish several letters signed " La
Carriere Ouverte," in which I said all that could be said against
appointments by patronage and in favor of examinations.

Nor should I wish to withdraw now any of the arguments
which I then advanced. I hold as strongly as ever that appoint-
ment by patronage is too much for human nature. But I believe
the time has come to examine the examinations, to improve them,
and to reduce, if possible, the evil which, in addition to much
real good, they have produced. The present system of perpetual
examination, in spite of all the good which it has done, stands
self -condemned, so far as our public schools and universities are
concerned, by two facts which can not be contested ; viz., (1) the
number of men who, after having spent six years at a public
school, fail to pass the matriculation examination in college, or
the little-go examination in the university ; (2) the number of
men who, after having taken a degree at Oxford or Cambridge,
can not pass the civil-service examinations without spending a
year or two with a crammer. These facts speak for themselves.
I wish, indeed, that I had time to go fully into the subject, but I
have not at present, and I must be satisfied with giving my
general impressions, and saying what is uppermost in my mind.

From what I have seen at Oxford and elsewhere, all real joy
in study seems to me to have been destroyed by the examinations
as now conducted. Young men imagine that all their work has
but one object — to enable them to pass the examinations. Every
book they have to read, even to the number of pages, is pre-
scribed. No choice is allowed ; no time is left to look either
right or left. What is the result ? The required number of
pages is got up under compulsion, therefore grudgingly, and
after the examination is over what has been got up is got rid of

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

again like a heavy and useless burden. Nothing is converted in
succum et sanguinem. The only thing that seems to remain is
an intellectual nausea — a dislike of the food swallowed under
compulsion.

The mischief done is, I believe, most serious. It will poison
the best blood of England, if it has not done so already.

It is the best men who suffer most from the system of per-
petual examination. The lazy majority has, I believe, been bene-
fited by it, but the vigor of the really clever and ambitious boys
has been systematically deadened. Formerly some of my clever
young friends were what is called idle at Oxford, but during
their hours of idleness, which mostly meant discursive reading
and thinking, they grew into something, they became different
from others. Now, my young friends seem all alike, all equally
excellent, but so excellent that you can hardly tell one from the
other. What is the result ?

We have excellent members of Parliament, excellent judges,
excellent bishops, excellent generals : but if we want to know
Who is Who ! we must often consult a Red-Book. England is
losing its intellectual athletes who were a head and shoulders
taller than the rest, and used to be looked up to as born leaders of
men. And if history teaches anything, it teaches us that no
country remains great without really great men, without a few
men different from the rest.

I am asked what remedy there is. In the university there is, I
believe, a remedy. Let there be two sets of examinations, one for
clever and studious men who promise to take high honors, another
for the many. For the latter the examinations might remain
what they are now. Only the degrees might be given, not in the
name of the university, but in the name of the different colleges.
For the former there should be a real matriculation examination
held by the university, not, as now, by the colleges ; and then,
after three or four years, a final examination might follow for
real academic honors, allowing great latitude in the subjects of
examination.

Much depends in all this on the examiners. In England most
examiners are young men, in Germany they are invariably old.
The professores ordinarii, who alone examine for academic de-
grees in German universities, try to find out what candidates
have learned and know ; our young examiners seem chiefly bent
on finding out what candidates do not know. Add to this that
in some cases, though rarely, examiners are actually the same
persons who have crammed their examinees, and it may be im-
agined how human nature is tried in that process, and what the
result must be.

With regard to the civil service, I know no substitute for

COMMENTS OjV THE '^SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:' 537

competitive examinations. Competitive examinations, liowever,
might be toned down to a minimum, and a year of probation
might possibly be substituted for the final and decisive examina-
tion. I say possibly, for, as is well known, we have always to
think of " Take care of Dowb."

Two things seem to me necessary : (1) A careful supervision of
examiners. If the examinations are to remain in the hands of
the youngest members of the university, their report should
always be made, first of all, to the respective faculties, and after-
ward only, when approved by the faculty, to the vice-chancellor.
The necessity of this has been shown by recent experiences in
India and elsewhere. (3) A gradual change of comx3etitive into
qualifying examinations.

Many years ago we wanted to have examinations for the sake
of schools and universities ; we now seem to have schools and
universities simply and solely for the sake of examinations.

Prof. EDWAED A. FEEEMAN.

Of the working of the fashionable fancy for endless examina-
tions, I can speak from direct knowledge only in my own univer-
sity. Coming back to Oxford, after many years of non-residence,
I was perhaps better able to compare what is and what was than
either those who have never known anything but the present sys-
tem or those who have seen the present system grow up. Just
now it seems to be understood that examinations are the chief
end of life, at any rate of university life ; they would seem to be
thought to have an opus operatum merit for both the examiner
and the examined. The object seems to be to multiply exami-
nations as much as possible, to split them up — what is called to
" specialize " them — to the extreme point. A man is not, as of
old, wholly plucked or wholly passed ; with the ingenuity of Ital-
ian tyrants, a piece of him is plucked or passed, while the rest of
him is kept for the sport of another day. The end steadily kept
in view would seem to be that examinations should never cease,
that therefore nothing should really be learned, that examina-
tions should follow so fast on one another as just to give time to
forget the matter of one examination before the next comes on.
The thing has grown to such a height that names can not be
found for some of the endless schools, they have to be marked by
numbers and letters. The gravest personages will be seen debat-
ing with the gravest countenances over some peddling change in
" Group A 1," seemingly without the faintest feeling of the gro-
tesque nature of their employment, or of the rediidio ad absur-
dum of the whole system which is implied in such a nomencla-
ture, if nomenclature it can be called. The Oxford undergradu-

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

called responsions, the exercise for the now perhaps forgotten
status of Generalis Sopliista, is now grotesquely performed on
lads not yet members of the university. In natural science, above
all, examinations and examiners multiply daily. The luxury, to
be sure, is a costly one ; it sometimes costs fifty or sixty pounds
to examine a single man ; but the thing must be done, under pain
of loss of character. For in the matter of what is now called
"science" — a word which used to have another meaning — the
many are in the hands of the few. A proposal for a new exami-
nation in any other branch is canvassed, perhaps thrown out,
because men have some notion what it means. But " science " is
shrouded in mystery. A new -ology is invented ; not a dozen
persons in the university know what the ology is about ; but no
one dares to oppose a fresh examination in it, for fear of being
called retrograde, obscurantist, opponent of the march of intel-
lect, any other anathema with which the Holy Office of " science "
may be ready. And so the thing goes on merrily ; everybody is
examining or being examined, save during the short intervals
allowed for forgetfulness between one examination and another.

Now what has come of all this ? Simply the degradation of
university learning and teaching into a trade. Each undergradu-
ate seems to do a sum to find out what form of examination may
be most profitable to choose — profitable, that is, not to the under-
standing but to the pocket. I was not a little surprised when,
after my return to Oxford, I heard the words "the pecuniary
value of a first class." Such words were assuredly never heard in
my younger days. A man was rejoiced to get as high a class as
he could, both because of the credit of the thing itself and as an
augury of a coming fellowship ; but he never reckoned the exact
value of the class in pounds, shillings, and pence. Another
phrase that startled me was that of the " tutorial profession." A
college fellow who in my day undertook, most likely for a few
years only, the further duties of a college tutor, certainly never
thought that he was entering a special " profession." But, owing
partly to the growth of examinations, partly to the new position
of college fellows which has followed on the fatal ]3ermission of
marriage, the " tutor," if he can so be called, is now altogether
another kind of person. He reaches his fullest modern develop-
ment in the " combined lecturer," of whom, as he is powerful, one
must speak delicately. To him, teaching is strictly a calling ; it
is a calling and not an office , for he is ready to practice it wher-
ever he can find employment, and he is, moreover, a mere teacher,
not discharging any of the other duties of the old college tutor.
Without being a university professor or reader, he teaches men
from various colleges, but he does nothing except teach them.
And he is strongly tempted to teach them a great deal too much.

COMMENTS ON THE '^ SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:' 539

and in the wrong way. When examination after examination
becomes the main object, there is sure to be a great deal too much
teaching, so much as to leave no time for learning on the part of
either teacher or taught. The legitimate duty of a university
teacher is to guide his pupil to the right books, the great books of
the subject in hand, and to act as a commentator on them. But
this implies that the object is, not the passing of an examination,
but the study of a subject. When the teacher's business is under-
stood to be to " get a man through " an examination — whether the
result of that examination is to be a mere pass or a first class
with its " pecuniary value " — study of the subject, study of the
great books on the subject, passes away. The teacher puts himself
in stead of the books ; the thing becomes, in j)lain words, cram.

This is the tende7icy of the modern fancy for endless examina-
tions. Of course it does not prevail equally in all subjects or with
all teachers. It can not prevail so fully with the older subjects,
where something of the better tradition of the past is still kept
up, as it does with subjects of later introduction. Every man sees
his own grievances more clearly than those of his neighbor, and
to me it seems that what is called " modern " history is the worst
off of all. It is at least worse off than " ancient " history, from
which it is so senselessly parted in a separate school, to the great
damage of both. For about " ancient " history there still clings
something of the traditions of better times, times when men read
great books with a tutor instead of filling their note-books with
the tips of a crammer. I once asked a man who came to my lect-
ures, " Have you a book ? " meaning, in my ignorance, a copy of
the author whom we were going to read. He answered, " I have a
note-book." That seems to be the net result of forty years' tink-
ering of everything, of multiplied examinations and multiplied
teaching, to drive away '' books " and to bring in " note-books."
And the professor can do nothing ; he can only work away in a
corner with a few who are still ready to toil at the text of books,
while the combined lecturer flourishes amid a whole library of
open note-books. For the professor is useful only to those who
seek for knowledge ; the combined lecturer, it is fully believed,
can guarantee " the pecuniary value of a first class."

Every examination is in itself an evil, as making men read, not
for the attainment of knowledge, but for the object of passing the
examination, perhaps of compassing its " pecuniary value." But
it may be hoping too much to hoj^e that examinations can ever be
got rid of altogether. If they must be, then, instead of being
many and piecemeal, they should be few and searching. Instead
of giving a man time to forget his various subjects one by one,
they should make it needful for him to remember his work as a
whole. In Oxford we ought to have (1) a matriculation examina-

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion ; (2) an examination for B. A. much on the lines of the old
one before tinkering began about 1849 ; (3) an examination (or
other exercise) for the degree of M. A. of as varied a kind, and, at
the same time, of as " specialised " a kind in each case as anybody
can want. The complete degree should be given only to those
who show real proficiency in some subject, the last " -ology "
counting as one. Thus only can real learning, as distinguished
from cram, at least cease to be penal. Whether it will ever reach
to a " pecuniary value," I do not presume to guess.

May I end with my own personal experience in a time now
far distant ? I have deeply to thank my Oxford undergraduate
course for causing me carefully to read several books, Aristotle's
" Ethics " at their head, which I otherwise might not have read
at all or might have read less thoroughly. But I do not thank it
at all for examining me in anything. I do not mean because I got
only a second class ; for I got the " pecuniary value " of a first
class in the shaj^e of a fellowship. What I do mean is that I read
with very little comfort or pleasure, while there was before me
the specter of an examination, deadening everything and giving
a wrong motive for one's work. When I had got my degree and
my fellowship, I said, " Now I will begin really to read." I began
in October, 1845, and I have never stopped yet.

Mr. FEEDERIC IIAEEISON.

My point in this discussion is : That, having been called in to
aid education, examination has grown and hardened into the mas-
ter of education. Education is becoming the slave of its own
creature and servant. I do not deny that examination has its
uses : I do not say that we can do without it. I say that it is a
good servant, but a bad master ; and, like good servants turned
bad masters, it is now bullying, spoiling, and humiliating edu-
cation.

Those who teach are the proper judges of what should be
taught, how it should be taught, and what are the results of
teaching. One of the methods by which they have sought to
test the results of their own teaching was by examination — one
of the methods, an instrument to be used with discretion, modera-
tion, and freedom. This expedient (a mere subordinate expedient)
has silently grown into a system ; it has perpetually enlarged its
own jurisdiction ; it has stiffened into a special profession ; it has
created a body of specialists called examiners. As a body, the
class of special examiners are younger men, of less experience,
and, except in elementary schools, of inferior learning, as com-
pared with teachers, as a class. They very soon evolve an arti-
ficial and professional skill, and set up hard, narrow, technical
tests. Their business is not to teach : but to test whether the

COMMENTS ON THE ''SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:' 541

teachers are teaching, and what the learners are learning. This
forces the learners not to attend to their own teachers, but to find
some way of satisfying the examiners. Examination papers, not
text-books, come to be the real subjects of study ; the aim of the
student is to get an insight into the mind of his examiner, not
that of his teacher ; and to master, not the subject of his study,
but that artificial skill of passing examinations. Thereupon grew
up another class of specialists — the crammers. Their business is,
not to teach, nor to test teaching ; but to enable students to pass
the tests. This soon became an art of its own, as artificial as play-
ing whist or the violin. So, in the cricket-field, having called in
professional bowlers to practice, it became necessary to call in
professional " coaches " to teach the defense of the wicket. And
in the result, education is tending to become a highly exciting
match, not so much between the players as between the " bowlers "
and the " coaches." The teachers are slowly thrust out and con-
trolled by the examiners ; they in turn are checked and dodged at
every turn by the crammers : so that learning is fast passing into
the grasp of two classes of specialists, neither of whom are teach-
ers, nor pretend to teach.

I have myself had experience both of teaching and of exam-
ining for more than thirty years, in more than one university, and
in several places of learning. Though not belonging to the special
class of examiners, I have constantly been occupied with examin-
ing, have worked much with examiners, and have had no small
experience of the practical working of the system. I need hardly
say that I regard the special examiners as a most acute, energetic,
and conscientious body of men ; and I say the same of the cram-
mers as a class. Both do their work with great ability and con-
spicuous honesty. It is not the men, it is the vicious system
which is in fault. Every teacher knows by experience that, when
he has to take his place in the examination curriculum, he has to
submit to the system, and he does his best to practice the exam-
ining " art." And when, as every teacher nowadays must, he has
to turn crammer, he tries to acquire the crammer's art— omnes
eodem cogimur. Teachers, examiners, crammers, and students, all
have to take their place in the vast examining machine, which,
like the Prussian military system, grinds out a uniform pattern.
The huge examining mill grinds continually, and grinds very fast
— unlike the mills of the gods — but the grain it casts aside ; it is
designed to grind out the husk.

I do not say that we can do without examinations : nor do I
object to all examinations, under any condition. My complaint is
confined to the incessant frequency of examinations, the growth
of the practice into a highly artificial system, the creation of a
profession of examining, and its correlative the profession of

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cramming;, the wholesale, mechanical, and hurried way in which
the examinations are held, and the subjection of teaching to ex-
amining. In sum, I complain that the trick, the easily acquired
and cheaply purchasable trick, of answering printed questions
should now so largely take the place of solid knowledge and be
officially held out as the end of study.

I shall say nothing about elementary schools. As these are
compulsory by law, supported by rates and taxes, and adminis-
tered by the state and public bodies, and, above all, teach mainly
the mere rudiments, there may be reasons for an organized system
of examination which do not apjjly to the higher education. Here
the examiners are clearly superior in learning to the teachers ;
the curriculum itself is more or less mechanical and capable of
mechanical tests ; and a certain uniformity may be inevitable,
and a certain standard of efficiency must be tested. I do not ap-
prove of our present system of examining in elementary schools.
But I desire to say nothing about it. Nor shall I say anything
about the physical effects of overpressure by examination. It is
not my subject, and I leave it to others, merely adding, as is plain,
that at least nine tenths of any overpressure on students arises
from examinations and not from simple study. ISTor shall I say
anything about official appointments. I have no special theory or
plan to suj)port. As a rule, I think people whom we trust to gov-
ern must be trusted to select capable agents. If we can not trust
them to do this, let us not trust them to govern us. If examina-
tions are required to restrain jobbery, I prefer to deal with the
jobbery face to face and by direct means, and not to pervert all
public and private education in order to checkmate the wicked
jobbers and reward the best crammed ones. Nor am I called
upon here to devise a counter-project and to suggest other tests
than examination for distinctions and prizes. The distinction and
prize system is already absurdly overdone ; and nineteen twen-
tieths of the tests are wholly needless, or rather actively mischiev-
ous. We want neither distinctions, prizes, nor tests in anything
like the profusion in which they are now poured out. Art, learn-
ing, politics, and amusement are deluged with shows, races, com-
petitions, and prizes. Life is becoming one long scramble of jDrize-
winning and pot-hunting. And examination, stereotyped into a
trade, is having the same effect on education that the betting sys-
tem has on every healthy sport. I do not deny that teachers may
usefully examine their own students as a help to their own teach-
ing. I do not say that there may not be one public and formal
examination in any prolonged educational curriculum. My plea
is against that organized, mechanical, incessant, professional ex-
amination, by which education is being distorted, and the spirit
of healthy learning is being poisoned.

COMMENTS ON THE ''SACRIFICE OF EDUCATIONS 543

Examination, like so many other things, is useful as long as it
is spontaneous, occasional, and simple. Its mischief begins when
it grows to be organized into a trade, and the be-all and end-all
of its own sphere. The less the student be " prepared," in the
technical sense, the better. The more free the examiner be to use
his own discretion with each examinee, the more likely he is to
judge him fairly. It was so once. All this is now changed in the
thirty or forty years since the examining mania set in. The myr-
iad examinations which now encompass human life have called
out an army of trained examiners who have reduced the business
to a complicated art as difficult and special as chess. Like chess-
playing, the art of examiner and examinee has been wondrously
developed by practice. The trained examinee has now learned to
play ten examination games blindfold. He can do with ease what
the most learned man of the old school could not do. Gibbon
would be plucked in the modern history school. Arthur Welles-
ley would never get into the army. And Burke would have got
low marks, through not apportioning his time to the various
questions in the paper, I seriously doubt if many of our great
scholars, our famous lawyers, historians, and men of science could
" floor " off-hand a high-class examination paper. They would not
put their knowledge in the sharp, smart, orderly, cocksure style
which so much delights the examiner. They would muddle the
relation of the shire-moot to the hundred-moot, or they would
forget the point in Smith vs. Jones, or they might differ from the
examining board as to the exact number of the isomeric amyl
alcohols now known. All this your trained examinee, well nursed
by thorough crammers, has at the tips of his fingers. He " floors "
his paper with instinctive knack — seeing at a glance how many
minutes he can give to this or that question, which question will
" pay " best — and trots out his surface information and his ten-day
memory in neat little pellets beautifully docketed off with 1, 2, 3,
(a) (/3) (7), the " five elements " of this, the '' seven periods " of this
movement, and the wonderful discovery (last month) of a new
reading by Prof. Wunderbar.

Of course, all this does not take in the examiner. He knows
that the student does not know all this, that this is not the wealth
of the student's reading, or the product of the student's native
genius. But what can he do ? His task is to set questions, and
the student's task is to answer them. If the questions on paper
are answered right, cadit qucestio. The examiner's business is not
with what the student knows, but with how many questions he
can answer, and how many marks he can score. The examiner
may see that he is not examining the students so much as the
teachers, or perhaps the crammers. All that he can positively say
is, that the candidate has been brought to the post perfectly " fit."

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The student may be writing down mere "tips" from memory;
but if be makes no slijD, and be bas been carefully crammed, tbe
examiner bas to admit that be bas got bis marks. Tbe examiner
may doubt if tbe knowledge is real, or is wortb anytbing. He
can not state tbat tbe man bas failed. If be bad time and oppor-
tunity, be could easily ascertain. But in many examinations tbere
is no viva voce allowed; in most examinations tbe public viva
voce is not tbougbt decisive, owing to nervousness, temper, acci-
dent, and various points of temperament and manner. Few exam-
iners now care to decide by viva voce ; wbicb in any case is done
in a burry and under disturbing conditions tbat destroy its value
as a real test. An examiner bas rarely tbe cbance of trying a
candidate witb a fresb paper, or of giving bim as many quiet ver-
bal questions from time to time as be migbt like. Tbere is no
time, tbere is no opportunity. There are tbe rigid rules ; the can-
didate is not accessible at the time wanted ; be can not be got into
a state perfectly composed, easy, and master of himself. A quiet
afternoon or a morning's walk would settle it all. But the clock
goes round ; the machine grinds on ; tbe list must be out in a few
hours ; the examiners can not sit disputing forever ; an average
must be struck, time is called, and down goes the candidate's
name — usually, be it said, " with the benefit of tbe doubt."

This is no fault of the examiner. His task is very difficult,
trying, and irksome. None but trained men can perform it ; and
it is wonderful how much trained men can do, and with what
patience and conscience they make up their lists. But the higher
examiner now bas to mark on an average, in a week, from 2,000
to 3,000 answers, perhaps from 4,000 to 5,000 pages of manuscript.
In this mass he has to weigh and assess each answer, and to keep
each candidate clear in his mind, throughout eight or ten sets of
papers. He is lucky if he can do this witb less than ten hours
per day of work at high pressure — reading in each hour, say, from
fifty to a hundred pages of manuscript. He can no more waste
an hour, or follow up a thought, than the cai)tain of an Atlantic
liner can linger in bis ocean-race. The huge engine revolves in-
cessantly ; the examiner's mark-sheet slowly fills up hour by hour
till it looks like a banker's ledger ; some fifty or a hundred candi-
dates get into groups, of Jones, Smith, Brown, etc., or else Nos.
7695, 7696, 7697, etc., and soon Jones, Smith, Brown are labeled
for life.

What a farce to call this examination ! Any sensible man
who wanted to engage a confidential secretary, or a literary assist-
ant, or a man to send on some responsible mission, would not trust
to a mark-sh&et so mechanical, so hurried. He would see each
candidate once or twice alone for an hour or two, talk quietly to
him, get bim to talk quietly, leave him to write a short piece, set

COMMENTS ON THE '^ SACRIFICE OF EDUCATIONS 545

him to do a piece of actual work, try liim backward and forward
in spontaneous, unexpected ways, as the quality of each candidate
seemed to suggest. He would not burden himself with more than
four or five candidates at a time. At the end of a week, a sensible
man could perfectly make up his mind which of the four or five
was the best fitted for the particular work required, and he would
almost certainly be right. Nothing of this is possible in the offi-
cial examination. The " rules " are stricter than those of a prison.
There is absolutely no " discretion." Discretion might let in the
demon of Favoritism. The candidates are often numbered and
ticketed like prisoners, to avoid the disclosure even of names.
The precise number of papers is prescribed, and their preposterous
multiplication leaves the examiner about one minute for each
page of manuscript. With one or two hundred candidates to get
through in a week or ten days, the examination is really like the
inspection of a regiment. The uniform and accoutrements must
conform to the regulation standard.

It is supposed that examiners are masters of the situation and
have a large range for a " free hand." It is not so. The exami-
ner's mind runs into grooves, and a highly skilled class have sorted
and surveyed the possible field. In each subject or book there
are only available, in practice, some few hundreds of possible
" questions." The system of publishing examination papers, and
close study of the questions over many years, have taught a body
of experts to reduce, classify, and tabulate these. So many be-
come stock questions, so many others are excluded as having been
set last year, etc. ; and in the result a skilled examinee, and still
more a skilled crammer, can pick out topics enough to make cer-
tain of passing with credit. Knowledge as such, and knowledge
to answer papers, are quite different things. Student and exami-
nee read books on quite different plans, if they wish to gain
knowledge, or if they are thinking of the examination. The
memory is entirely different. The examinee's memory is a ten-
day memory, very sharp, clear, methodical for the moment, like
the memory cultivated by a busy lawyer, full of dates, of three
different courses, of four distinct causes, of five divisions of that,
and six phases of the other. It is a memory deliberately trained
to carry a quantity of things with sharp edges, in convenient
order, for a very short period of time. The feats which the ex-
aminee can perform are like the feats of a conjurer with bottles
and knives. The examinee himself can not tell how he does it.
He acquires a diabolical knack of spotting "questions" in the
books he reads. He gains a marvelous flair for what will catch
the examiner's attention. As he studies subject after subject his
eye glances like a vulture on the " points." Examination is a sys-
tem of " points." What has no " points " can not be examined.

VOL. XXXIV. — 35

5^6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Many able and industrious students do take the trouble to acquire
this flair J some will not, or can not, acquire it. But certainly a
good many acquire it, by an outlay of labor or money, who are
neither able nor industrious at all.

A man going through the full school, college, and professional
career now passes from ten to twenty of these examinations, at
intervals perhaps of six months or a year. From the age of ten
till twenty -five he is forever in presence of the mighty mill.
The mill is to him money, success, honor, and bread and butter
for life. Distinctions and prizes mean money and honor. Suc-
cess in examinations means distinctions and prizes. And what-
ever does not mean success in examinations is not education.
Parents, governments, schools, colleges, universities, and depart-
ments combine to stimulate the competitive examination and the
mark-system. None quite like it ; but all keep up the tarantula
dance — " needs must when the devil drives." The result is that
the Frankenstein monster of Examination is becoming the master
of education. Students and parents dare not waste time in study
which does not directly help toward success in the test. One
hears of the ordinary lad at school or college, either as amusing
himself because " he is nftt going in this year," or else as " work-
ing up very hard for his examination." He is never simply study-
ing, never acquiring knowledge. He is losing all idea of study,
except as " preparation " for examination. He can not burden his
memory with what will not "pay." And a subject which carries
no " marks," or very few " marks," is almost tabooed. Books are
going out of fashion ; it is only analyses, summaries, and tables
which are studied. But published examination papers are the
real Bible of the student of to-day — nocturna versanda manu,
versanda diurna.

Next to old examination papers, the manuscript "tips" of
some famous coach form the grand text-books. One of the ablest
men I ever examined, who bitterly complained that he had failed
in a coveted distinction, was told that he had not read his books
on a given subject. " Why ! " he said, indignantly, " he had not
read the text-books ; but he had mastered a valuable volume of
' tips ' in manuscript, which was said to contain every question
which could be set in a paper." He failed through pushing the
system too far ; and a tragedy was the end.

The examination, thus made the " fountain of honor," governs
the whole course of study. If the teacher takes up a subject, not
obviously grist for the great mill, the students cease to listen, and
leave his classes. The instant he says something which sounds
like an examination "tip," every ear is erect, every pen takes
down his words. The keen student of to-day is getting like the
reporter of an evening journal : eager after matter that will tell.

COMMENTS ON THE ''SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:' 547

will make a good " answer/' capital examination " copy." The
mill governs the whole period of education, from hie, licec, hoc, to
the final launch in a profession. I know little boys of ten, in the
ego et Balhus stage, who are being ground in printed examination
papers which I could not answer myself. And big men, older
than Pitt when he governed England, or Hannibal when he com-
manded armies, are still ruining their constitutions by cramming
up " analyses " and manuscript " tips " of great " coaches." The
result is that poor little urchins in frocks are in training for some
" nursery stakes," as an old friend of mine used to call the trials
of preparatory schools. The prize school-boy who sweeps the
board on speech-day, often gets a perfect loathing for books, and
indeed for any study that is not " cramming " ; and the youth
who leaves his university, loaded with " honors," may prove to be
quite a portent of ignorance and mental babyishness. He has
learned the trick of playing with a straight bat the examiner's
most artful twisters. But he can not bear the sight of a book ;
and, like any successful speculator, he has a hearty contempt for
knowledge.

Examiners are very clever men ; but they ought not to form a
sort of Continental " Ministry of Education," controlling on one
uniform and mechanical scheme the entire field of education.
Examining is more irksome, less continuous, and worse paid
than teaching. Hence, as a rule, the professional examiners are
hardly men of the same experience, learning, and culture as the
professional teachers in the highest grades. They have not de-
voted themselves to special subjects of study ; they do not know
the peculiar difficulties and wants of the student ; they are not re-
sponsible for the interests of a given branch of learning. A body
of professional examiners, moving about from great educational
centers, tend to give a uniform and regulation character to all
learning. Our educational centers are yet in far too chaotic and
changing a stage themselves to justify them in stereotyping any
system. Knots of clever, eager, trained " experts " in the examin-
ing art are being sent about the country from Oxford and Cam-
bridge, marking, questioning, classing, and certifying right and
left, on a technical, narrow, mechanical method. They would be
far better employed in learning something useful themselves. As
it is, they dominate education, high and low. They are like the
missi dominici of a mediaeval king, or the legates a latere of a
mediseval pope. They pitch the standard and give the word.
Public schools revise their curriculum, set aside their own teach-
ers, and allow the academic visitor to reverse the order of their
own classes. The mill sets a uniform type for the university.
Colleges give way and enter for the race. One by one the public
schools have to submit, for prizes are the test; and success

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

means prizes. Next, the minor schools and private schools have
to follow suit. And at last the smallest preparatory school, where
children in nursery-frocks are crying over qui, quce, quod, has to
dance the same tarantela.

For this state of things the remedies seem to be these : Let
examinations be much fewer — they are ten times too numerous.
Let them be much more free — they are over-organized, over-regu-
lated. Give examiners more time, more discretion, more room.
The more the teachers are themselves the examiners, the better ;
the less examining becomes a profession and a special staff, the
better. Do not set examiners to test teachers as well as stu-
dents ; do not set up mechanical rules whereby to test the exam-
iner. Believe that it is possible to learn without any prize,
money, or reward in view. Trust the teacher ; trust him to teach,
trust him to examine. Trust the examiner, and do not set up a
mill. Above all, trust the student. Encourage him to study for
the sake of knowledge, for his own sake, and the public good.
Cease to present learning to him as a succession of races, where
the knowing ones may land both fame and profit. — Nineteenth
Century.

SKETCH OF JOHN" B. STALLO.

JOHN B. STALLO is among the notable examples which this
generation presents of men who, while busy in professional
and public affairs, have at the same time shown themselves mas-
ters in scientific and philosophic thought. His published essays
have given him place among the foremost thinkers and critics of
his time, while he has achieved an equal eminence in his career
of law and politics. In introducing the first of a series of his
articles which afterward resulted in the " Concepts," the late Prof.
Youmans remarked in the " Monthly " for October, 1873 : " It has
long been the honor and boast of the British bar that Mr. Justice
Grove, the author of ' The Correlation of Forces,' belonged to it ;
it is equally to the credit of the legal profession in this country
that a member of it has cultivated scientific philosophy to such
excellent purpose as is proved by the articles we are now pub-
lishing."

John Bernard Stallo is of German origin, and was born at
Sierhausen, Oldenburg, March 16, 1823. His ancestors, on both
his father's and mother's side, were schoolmasters, and all of
them persons of only moderate means. He inherited, particularly
from his father's side, a thirst for knowledge and an inclination
to scientific studies. These traits were particularly marked in

SKETCH OF JOHN B. STALLO. 549

liis uncle, Franz Joseph Stallo, who, while a prosperous book
printer and binder at Damme, made a number of useful discov-
eries in physics and mechanics. He is accredited with having
introduced peat-burning and the cultivation of buckwheat into his
district, and with having promoted the irrigation of the heaths
and the sowing of fir-seeds upon them, whereby they were trans-
formed from barren moors into profitable pine-woods. He finally,
however, began to advocate views that brought him into conflict
with the authorities, and emigrated, followed by a number of his
countrymen, in 1831, to the United States, where he attempted to
found a colony at a place to which he gave the name of Stallo-
town, in Auglaize County, Ohio. His career and the prosperity
of the colony were cut off, two years afterward, by the ravages
of the cholera.

Mr. Stallo's grandfather, an honorable old Friesian, although
he had passed his seventieth year when he became his grandson's
teacher, took a great interest in the child's development, and
rejoiced not a little when he found him, before the end of his
fourth year, able to read and to work out simple arithmetical
examples. His father gave him particular instruction in mathe-
matics, his favorite study, and took care that he should learn the
ancient languages, and French as well — which, out of resj^ect to
the old gentleman's national prejudices, had to be taught secretly
from the grandfather. In his fifteenth year, young Stallo was
sent as a free pupil to the normal school at Vechta, where he also
enjoyed the advantage of the instructions of the professors in the
gymnasium — an institution in high repute. In a short time he
had gained sufficient knowledge of the languages and mathe-
matics to fit him for entrance into the university, but his father
had not the means to send him there. The alternative was then
presented to him of continuing the chain of schoolmasters in his
family, or of emigrating to America. He chose the latter.

He came to this country in 1839, bearing letters of introduc-
tion from his father and grandfather to clergymen and teach-
ers in Cincinnati. He at once found a position in a private
school in that city, and there he composed and published his first
literary work, a German spelling and reading book, which ap-
peared without an author's name. There had been great need of
such a book in the lower school classes, and, as this one seemed
admirably adapted to its purpose, it soon became popular and
passed through many editions. It attracted the attention of the
directors of the newly founded Roman Catholic St. Xavier's Col-
lege, and they, finding also how good a mathematician the author
was, appointed Stallo Professor of the German Language, to the
duties of which post were added also those of teaching mathe-
matics and the ancient languages. Physical and chemical sci-

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ence Leing highly esteemed in this institution, and its library
being well supplied with books on those subjects, Stallo improved
his leisure hours in studying them.

In the fall of 1843 Mr. Stallo became Professor of the Higher
Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in St. John's College,
Fordham, a position which he held till 1847, when he returned
to Cincinnati and entered upon the study of the law.

He was admitted to the bar in 1849, and came rapidly into a
large j^ractice. In 1853 he was appointed by the Governor of
Ohio to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Justice Stan-
ley Matthews as judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamil-
ton County, and was elected by the people in the same year to
that oiSce for the full term. After discharging the duties of this
position for two years, with satisfaction to the bar and the pub-
lic, he resigned it in 1855, in order to continue his more lucra-
tive practice. He thus lived, an eminent and respected citizen of
Cincinnati, one of whom the German element especially was
proud, prominent in the rational discussion of all questions of
public interest, and active in all measures for advancing the pub-
lic welfare, till, in 1885, he was appointed by President Cleveland
to be the diplomatic representative of the United States at the
court of the King of Italy.

According to Koerner's " German Element in America," the
study of the higher mathematics, in which his professorial posi-
tions engaged him, led him logically to the investigation of the
German philosophy, and consequently to the cultivation of those
habits of thought which are exemplified in his principal pub-
lished works. The first fruit of these reflections appeared in the
book entitled " General Principles of the Philosophy of Nature,
with an Outline of some of its Recent Developments among the
Germans, embracing the Philosophical Systems of Schelling and
Hegel, and Oken's System of Nature," which was published in
Boston in 1848.

The credit is given to this publication, by an eminent sci-
entific author, of having marked an epoch in the education of
American thinkers. The views then expressed by the author
have been modified and in part rejected by his riper experi-
ence; but they were not the less full of suggestion and inspi-
ration, giving a new conception of nature, and opening unex-
plored vistas of thought to the student. This was at a time
when the conception of unity and organic plan in nature, though
already seen by poets like Goethe, had scarcely entered into the
minds of English-speaking students of science. The second part
of this early volume of Stallo's was not less welcome to such in-
quirers from the fact that it included brief expositions of the
philosophic views of Kant, of Fichte, and of Schelling, serving as

SKETCH OF JOHN B. STALLO.

551

an introduction to a more complete analysis of Hegel's system
than had. yet appeared in English. To all this was added a care-
fully digested summary of the physiophilosophy of Lorenz Ok-en,
a work then unknown to most English and American students,
although an authorized English translation of it appeared at about
the same time, published by the Royal Society, and its views were
already influencing the teachings of Richard Owen, of London,
then the great master in natural history.

Speaking of this work in the preface to the " Concepts," the
author says that it was written when he " was under the spell of
Hegel's ontological reveries ; at a time when I was barely of age,
and still seriously affected with the metaphysical malady which
seems to be one of the unavoidable disorders of intellectual in-
fancy. The labor expended in writing it was not, perhaps,
wholly wasted, and there are things in it of which I am not
ashamed, even at this day ; but I sincerely regret its publication,
which is in some degree atoned for, I hope, by the contents of the
present volume."

A personal friend of the author's describes the book as char-
acterized by an erroneous method, resulting from the passion for
freedom in thought and inquiry which was unconsciously its
impelling principle — a work composed "in his philosophic hey-
day, when he tried to turn his conceptions into corresponding
facts, to discover truth by creating it."

The work has, nevertheless, left its mark in scientific litera-
ture. The direction given by it, both by Stallo's own outline of
philosophy and by his introduction to the thoughts of the great
German thinkers represented in it, was soon apparent in the writ-
ings of several of the new generation of students. In none, per-
haps, is this more clearly shown than in the writings of T. Sterry
Hunt, whose papers from 1852 bear frequent evidence to the great
influence of Stallo's teachings. It is worthy of note that Dr.
Hunt's recent work — " A New Basis for Chemistry " — is dedicated
to J. B. Stallo, " citizen, jurist, and philosopher," and that the
author says in his preface that the volume in question was at
that early period a source of inspiration to him.

The results of Judge Stallo's riper thought were given in his
second and, so far, his greatest book, " The Concepts and Theories
of Modern Physics," a work which at once gave him a world-
wide reputation and placed him in the foremost rank among sci-
entific thinkers. The development of the views embodied in this
book can be traced, Ave think, in the author's occasional addresses
and his contributions to periodicals in the English and German
languages, of which we have only a few at hand ; but those few
present evident foreshadowings of what was afterward to be
given permanent form in the " Concepts.'

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

paper on " Materialism/' contributed apparently as a part of a
series of " Philosopliical Researches " to the periodical " Atlan-
tis " in 1855 ; a memorial address on Alexander von Humboldt
(1859) ; the earlier papers of the " Concepts/' which were pub-
lished in " The Popular Science Monthly" in 1873 and 1874; and a
" Reply to some Criticisms on the ' Concepts/ " in a later number.
In introducing the first of the articles in the " Monthly " (October,
1873), which was on " The Theory of the Atomic Constitution of
Matter/' the editor of this journal. Prof. E. L. Youmans, said,
"The depth and force of the criticism are only equaled by the
clearness of the conceptions and the precision and felicity of the
statement."

This work is a thoroughgoing criticism of the theories and
concepts by which modern scientific philosophy seeks to co-
ordinate the facts of physics, chemistry, and astronomy. In the
main this philosophy assumes all jjhenomena to be reducible to
mechanics, and holds that the ultimate elements at which physi-
cal analysis arrives are mass and motion ; the physical unit being
an atom, hard, inelastic, inert, and passive. Since the concept of
atoms defines them as absolutely simple, it follows that they must
of necessity be equal. Yet here chemistry at once speaks in con-
tradiction, for the atoms, or units, currently so named, differ radi-
cally in properties and characteristics. In a review of modern
theories of the phases of energy, or modes of motion, we are
shown the difficulties which attend the assumption of an ether as
the vehicle whereby radiant energy is transferred. From the in-
stantaneous propagation of gravitation through space, it is argued
that no medium whatever may be needful for its communication.
The kinetic theory of gases is next examined, which theory is
shown to involve greater difficulties than it clears up. Next in
order the author proceeds to define the conditions of true hypoth-
esis, which in his view should both accord with all known facts
and simplify them. He shows how modern theorists have neg-
lected this canon, and supposed they were explaining a fact
when they were only dwarfing it, or stating it in new terms. He
finds more difficulty in understanding an atom than the mass
which it goes to make up.

No portion of the " Concepts " is more striking than its chapter
on the relation of thought to things. We are pointed to the fal-
lacy which makes mind the measure of nature, and conceivability
the test of truth. The author demonstrates how the historical
order in which human knowledge has arisen has largely molded
scientific conceptions — for example, in its being supposed that
the solid form of matter, the first known and most familiar, is
more simple than the gaseous. And because impact is the com-
mon mode of propagating motion, ideas as to the propagation of

SKETCH OF JOHN B. ST ALL 0. 553

motion universally are curiously limited to the concej)tion of im-
pact. Although, the influence of the metaphysics of the middle
ages is nominally discarded by modern scientists, yet that influ-
ence is distinctly traced in their modern seeking after the absolute
in time, space, and motion. This, too, while it is clear that rela-
tivity is the law of both nature and thought. Judge Stallo con-
cludes his book with a caustic criticism of the theory that space
can exist in more than three dimensions. That theory he shows
to involve the attribution to space of the very properties by the
absence of which alone it is distinguishable from matter. He
avers the search for properties in space, pseudo-sphericity and
the like, to be without warrant from physics, mathematics, or
logic.

While thus subjecting modern hypotheses to radical and often
adverse criticism. Judge Stallo never for a moment drops into an
injudicial tone. Such partial and tentative value as these hy-
potheses may possess he cheerfully accords them, but he maintains
that the progress of individual sciences has far outstripped the
unifying power of a philosophy whose roots are imbedded in
ancient and discredited metaphysics. Throughout his life the
themes treated in the "Concepts"' have occupied the author's
mind, and been the objects of his study. He may in the future
present further consideration of the fundamental problems of sci-
entific philosophy, as a sequel to the " Concepts."

It was to be expected that such a volume as the " Concepts "
should have a noteworthy reception in the world of science, and
at the hands of leading reviewers. Mr. A. W. Reinhold, in the
London " Academy," commended it highly. So did " The Ameri-
can Engineer's " critic. Prof. Tait, in " Nature," and the reviewers
of the " Critic " and the " Nation," did not admire its analysis, or
deem its conclusions sound.

A close friend of Judge Stallo's, who has furnished us with an
analysis of his character — Mr. C. H. Goddard, of Marietta, Ohio —
credits him with great facility in turning from the study of one
thing to the study of another ; in learning retentively all kinds
of facts, principles, opinions, hypotheses, and words ; in analyzing
these and using the results of his analyses ; and in expression,
whether by speech or in writing ; " but only an intimate friend,"
he adds, " could appreciate the seemingly effortless impulse with
which he has done the most that he has accomplished outside of
his legal practice." He is distinguished among his friends by the
breadth of his sympathies, and this is exemplified in many per-
sonal and patriotic attachments, and acts growing out of them ; in
freedom from envy or jealousy, and in the catholicity of his aes-
thetic tastes ; but in nothing more than in his love for knowledge
and for rational freedom. Of these, his love for rational freedom

554 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is dominant. He has always been ready to leave the search for
knowledge to go to the defense of freedom of thought and action,
but never to give that up for any other consideration. This trait
has been shown publicly in his answer to Orestes A. Brownson's
attack upon the Hungarian revolutionists; in his eulogy of
Thomas Jefferson as an apostle of the rational freedom of indi-
vidual men in government ; in his speech, after the Republican
presidential nomination of 1856, when he urged his fellow-Ger-
mans to support Fremont ; in his argument against the assump-
tion that our Government is founded upon the Christian re-
ligion, as in derogation of the rights of non-Christian citizens ;
and in many other addresses and in newspaper articles and law
cases.

It was also strikingly manifested in his presiding over a pub-
lic meeting addressed by Wendell Phillips, when the orator was
made a mark for missiles, and Judge Stallo stood by his side
and bore the brunt of the assault with him. This was in 1862,
when Mr. Phillips was invited to speak in Cincinnati in favor of
emancipation. A bitter prejudice existed against him because he
had been a disunionist. Judge Stallo had been invited to intro-
duce him, but declined, because, his sympathies never having
been with Mr. Phillips, he was not the proper man to perform
that office. But when he was informed that other men whom he
had mentioned as more suitable had declined, because they were
afraid of a mob, he consented, saying, " That is enough, gentle-
men— I will be there." Mr. Phillips, after being introduced, was
at once assailed with a shower of disagreeable and dangerous mis-
siles. One of them hit Judge Stallo. " During the turmoil and
uproar," said Judge Stallo, telling the story several years after-
ward, " Mrs. Stallo, with Mrs. Schneider, sat behind a fellow who
had risen and aimed a big stone at the speaker. As he threw his
hand back to fire the stone, Mrs. Stallo, who entered heart and
soul into the spirit of the hour, and had no thought but to stand
by her friends in the stormy crisis, reached over and hit the fel-
low's wrist a hard blow, making him drop the stone and howl
with pain. He looked around to see his assailant, and Mrs. Stallo
was up and ready for him, but gentlemen hastened to her side,
and the fellow moved away." In the law case of Rothgeb vs.
Mauck and Others, Judge Stallo maintained the right of an infidel
to have a temperately worded declaration of his sentiments re-
corded upon his tombstone and admitted to the cemetery. In a
case in which certain action of the Board of Education of Cincin-
nati was involved, he opposed the enforcement of the singing of
hymns and the reading of the Bible in the public schools, be-
cause they were objected to by a part of the citizens who were
taxed to support the schools. The reading was enjoined by the

SKETCH OF JOHN B. STALLO. 555

local Superior Court, but this decision was overruled by the State
Supreme Court.

Judge Stallo's liberalitj'- has likewise been exemplified, Mr. God-
dard says, " by his political relations, by the ease Avith which he
would change from supporting to opposing, or from opposing to
supporting, one of the existing parties, or keep aloof from politi-
cal action, or help to form a new party, and yet show adhesion to
well-rooted convictions." His attitude toward politics is com-
pared in Koerner's " German Element " to that of the tangent to
the circle, which only touches it at one place ; he has entered the
political field as if from without, only on great vital questions,
but then works indefatigably in support of what he considers the
right views, by word and writing. He was a Democrat till the
contest arose over the extension of slavery into the Territories,
1854-1856, through which and through the war he ardently sup-
ported the Republican side. He co-operated with the Liberal-
Republican movement till Greeley was nominated, when, finding
his views on the tariff antagonized by the candidate, he withdrew
from its further support. He advocated the election of Tilden
and of Cleveland, in the belief that the time had come for a
change in administrative policy.

In the days of his life in Cincinnati, Judge Stallo was accus-
tomed to pass his evenings at home, in his library, in social inter-
course with his family or such friends as might call in, where he
would converse, Mr. Goddard tells us, in English, German, or
French, as his interlocutor might prefer, on whatever subject might
come up ; and with great interest on the discoveries and tendencies
in natural science and mathematics, or questions of philosophy,
or of political and social interest at home or abroad, or on history
and art and literature and men. While not all men could enjoy
his favorable opinion, of some he spoke with great reverence,
especially of Darwin, whose whole bearing toward truth and
toward other scientific men called from him the expression, " I
have many heroes, but Darwin is my saint." These conversa-
tions were often illuminated by bright flashes of wit, and illus-
trations drawn from extensive reading ; but, whatever his subject
or mood, his talk was simple and direct, and marked him versa-
tile and acute, learned and accomplished.

556

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE

THE FLYING-MACHINE PROBLEM.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

SIR : To the fjreater part of Prof. Le
Conte's article, " The Problem of a
Flying-Machine," in the November number
of " The Popular Science Monthly," I give
hearty assent, and yet I can not admit that
his premises warrant his very discouraging
conclusions. lie shows clearly that as the
animal, flying or walking, increases in size,
the ratio between power and weight grows
smaller, until finally the limit of muscular
strength is reached; or the "weight over-
takes the utmost strength of bones to support
or muscles to move." He shows that, among
mammals, this limit was probably reached
in the gigantic dinosaurs; and that the largest
flying-birds, such as the turkey-cock and con-
dor, are "evidently near the limit," and that
the ostrich and emu have passed it, and
hence arc unable to fly.

He then speaks of the wonderful efficiency
of the animal machine as a means for turn-
ing heat into work. "Nerve-energy acting
through muscular contraction, and supplied
by the combustion of foods, such as oils, fats,
starch, sugar, and fibrin, together form the
most perfect and efficient engine that we
know anything of ; i. e., will do more work
with the same weight of machinery and fuel.
... A bird is an incomparable model of a
flying-machine. No machine that we may
hope to devise, for the same weight of ma-
chine, fuel, and directing brain, is half so
effective; and yet this machine, thus perfected
through infinite ages by a ruthless process of
natural selection, reaches its limit of weight
at about fifty pounds. . . . The smallest
possible weight of a flying-machine with
necessary fuel and engineer even without
freight or passengers, could not be less than
three or four hundred pounds " ; and hence
Prof. Le Conte concludes that "since the
animal machine is far more effective than
any we may hope to make, therefore the
limit of weight of a successful flying-ma-
chine can not be more than fifty pounds,"
and that a '■Hruc flying-machine, self-raising,
self-sustaining, self -propelling, is physically
impossible.^''

Can this be so ? Is the animal machine
more effective than any we can hope to
make ? Will it necessarily " do more work
with the same weight of machinery and
fuel " ? Does the limit of weight in a flying
animal mark the limit for a flying-machine ?
At the risk of not being considered "a true
scientist " I must decidedly dissent from these
views; I can not look upon machine-flight
as a real impossibility, similar to the produc-
tion of perpetual motion or of a self-support-
ing arch of indefinite length.

Before making a comparison between the
power of birds and motors, we must get some
idea of the power exerted by the former.
How much work must a bird of given weight
actually do in order to raise himself from
the ground and fly ? It is well known that,
once in the air, the power required is very
much less than that necessary for rising.
How much less is uncertain, but in a brisk
wind an eagle, or condor, or albatross will
circle around for hours, hardly ever flapping
his wings, and seemingly the only work is
that due to muscular effort in keeping the
wings outstretched. The work done in get-
ting up is, then, the greatest the bird or
machine would be called upon to do. This
work will evidently depend upon the ratio of
the wing-surface to the weight ; with wings
only a square foot in area, the most power-
ful condor could not fly ; and the greater the
wing-surface, provided the muscles are
strong enough to manage it, the less the
power required.

This ratio has been measured on many
birds. The vulture, for example, can spread
0"82 of a square foot for each pound of
weight, and, assuming the entire weight to
be thirty pounds, the total wing-surface
woidd be 24"6 square feet.

We now have a ready means for calculat-
ing approximately the maximum power such
a bird must be able to exert. In order to
rise vertically, he must force the air down-
ward until the reaction is equal to his weight.
Calling V the velocity of the air in feet per
second. It the reaction in pounds, v) the
weight of a cubic foot of air, A the area of
wing-surface in square feet, and g the ac-
celeration due to gravity, we may make
use of the well-known formula for reaction :

Awv^

A/ — 2. , from which, sub-
\ Aio

stituting value?, we find the necessary veloci-
ty to be about twenty-three feet per second.
The work done in giving the air this velocity

Rv
would equal -— -, or three hundred and forty-
five foot-pounds per second, equivalent to
about six tenths of a horse-power. It is here
assumed that the air is driven downward in
parallel streams ; but a bird's wing would
naturally send off a part in other directions,
and consequently the power necessary would
be somewhat greater. Allowing twenty-five
per cent for this and other losses, we see
that a vulture weighing thirty pounds would
not need to exert more than three quarters
of a horse-power, and this only for a few
moments while rising.

Suppose, now, our flying - machine to
weigh six hundred pounds, or twenty times

CORRESP ONDENCE.

557

25 much, with the same ratio of wing or
propelling surface to weight ; we should
then require simply twenty times more
power, or about fifteen horse-power.

There are, I think, few engineers who
will assert such a concentration of power
impossible, even when the weight of the
man, and fuel for a considerable space of
time, are included. Indeed, Strongfellow is
said to have, years ago, built an engine and
boiler complete which gave a third of a
horse-power for a weight of twelve pounds,
or weighing only at the rate of five hun-
dred and forty pounds for fifteen horse-
power.

Prof. Le Conte shows clearly that with
birds " the ratio of weight to strength, and
therefore the difficulty of rising, increases as
the size or weight " ; but in a machine it is
well known that the above ratio decreases as
the weight; or, in other words, we can get
a hundred horse-power with a much smaller
ratio of weight to power than is possible
with a single horse-power.

Even now, using iron and steel and
steam, we can concentrate power until we
can match the energy of a bird ; but, by the
substitution of aluminum, possessing equal
strength and weighing only a third as much
as steel, why should we not hope to do much
more than that ?

Possibly as a heat-engine the animal
machine is more efficient than the best steam-
engine, although, nowadays, the " Cornish "
can hardly be accepted as a standard of ex-
cellence ; but it seems to me the problem is
one of concentration of power, rather than
economy. Surely Prof. Le Conte must be
mistaken in thinking we can not equal the
birds in this respect. He underrates the ca-
pacity of our engineers.

The size of a bird is no doubt limited by
the strength of bone and muscle, but we are
not confined within anything like such nar-
row limits. The huge dinosaur had reached
Nature's limit of size for a walking-machine ;
but compare him with man's conception —
the locomotive — weighing eighty tons and
giving out the power of more than eight hun-
dred horses ! The whale appears to mark
Nature's limit of size in marine animals.
Compare him with our ocean-steamers, indi-
cating fifteen thousand horse-power, and pro-
pelled by an instrument vastly more efficient
than anything Nature has provided !

Why, then, should we be limited in our
flying-machine to the weight or size of the
largest bird ? Surely, if we can produce in
it an equal or greater ratio of power to
weight, and can command the use of materi-
als strong enough to stand the strain, we are
not restricted as to size.

Nor are we limited in a machine to the
birds' way of flying. The leverages of the
muscles moving the wings are necessarily
short and the strains great, but no more
than in a steam-vessel are we bound down
by Nature's methods. We may very likely

be able, in some ways, to improve on her
model.

Even were we to admit Prof. Le Conte's
claim that the animal machine can " do more
work, with the same weight of machinery and
fuel," than anything " we may hope to de-
vise," our engineers need not feel discour-
aged ; for the power required in rising from
the ground is manifestly much greater than
that necessary for flight, and why should we
not be able to take advantage of this by
starting from some elevated point, and slide
down and up aerial inclines after the man-
ner of a bird ? He then apparently does not
need do a great deal of work, and why should
a properly constructed machine ?

The problem is a difficult one, but I can
not help thinking Prof. Le Conte at fault in
placing its solution among the " impos-
sibles." T. W. Mather.

New Haven, Coxn., December 6, 1SS8.

DO ANIMALS "PLAT 'POSSUM"?
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Sir : Walking by a broad ditch, I saw a
large, dark-colored snake gliding along the
bottom under the water. The crea.ture was
coming directly toward me ; but as I paused
to observe its markings it stopped, raised its
head to the surface, and remained motion-
less. Its back was marked with a pattern
of criss-cross curves of pale yellow on a
ground - tint precisely like that of water-
soaked wood. Presently I began to throw
little stones, to make it move on, but it did
not stir. Meanwhile, the circles caused by
my plashing missiles, the ripple -marks on
the sandy bottom, the similar curves on the
snake's back, and the crooked, lead-colored
neck, all combined to pass off the animal for
a water-logged stick. It would have been
difficult at that moment to have convinced
an inexperienced observer that it was a live
snake.

This effect raised the question whether
the creature was aware how nearly indis-
tinguishable it had become. It is the com-
mon opinion that animals "play 'possum " —
i. e., remain passive and apparently helpless
under attack — for the purpose of safety, while
they are entirely alert and would much pre-
fer to run away. P>ut is this theory credible
when we take into account the immense self-
control it demands? And can we credit
such a seemingly stupid animal as a snake
with sufficient intelligence to select deliber-
ately a mode of defense requiring so nice a
perception of its own appearance as well as
its surroundings? Dr. Abbott thinks that
the well-known behavior of the opossum
when attacked is due pimply to paralyzing
fear, and he supports his theory by many
careful observations. If it is true that the
opossum faints with terror in the presence
of danger, it seems probable that, in the
case of other animals, what looks like intel-
ligent dissimulation is really due to helpless

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

fright. If wo human folk arc sometimes
"too scared to move," why not the lower
animals also ? S. F. Goodrich.

Geneva, Ohio, September 5, 1S83.

INSECT FERTILIZATION OP FLOWERS.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Sir : I have been reading Mr. Grant Al-
len's very interesting article in the October
(1S88) number of "The Popular Science
Monthly," and, with your permission, I wish
to set him right on a few points. On page
732 he says : " A wandering bumble-bee, on
dinner intent, poked his long proboscis into
pea-flower number one, and, after rifling it
of its honey, covered his hairy legs and
thighs, half accidentally, with abundant pol-
len." Why /ia(/' accidentally ? The bumble-
bee knows nothing about the needs of the
pea-family, and when it carries the fertilizer
from one blossom to another it does it alto-
gether unconsciously and 2'j/w% accidentally.
Then, again, on pate 736, he'says: "Now,
in the higher plants we get exactly the same
sort of combination. ... If we take any
annual plant, like the pea, and look when
and where the flowers are produced, we shall
see that they come as soon as the plant has
attained its full growth, and when the purely
vegetative reproductive impulse is beginning
to fail." This is not true. The pea begins
to blossom at least two weeks before it "has
its full growth. Many kinds of pea-plants
will be as tall again when they begin to de-
cay as they are when they begin to bloom.
And it is not the flowers of the pea-vine that
use up its strength and cause it to decay,
but the maturing and ripening of the seed.
Of course, the pollen must strike the pistil at
the right time, or no seed is the result, but
this pollen does not come in with any refer-
ence to the needs of the plant ; it comes to
answer the needs of the seeds. Again, on
page 739, in speaking of the hybrid orchids,
he says : " Some wandering bee, visiting a
flower of the yellow orchid at this spot where
I stood, had carried away on its head gummy
pollen-masses, and then, contrary to the com-
mon habit of bees (who generally visit only
one particular species of plant at a time),
had deposited them on the stigma of a neigh-
boring brown specimen. I suppose he was
a young and inexperienced insect, who had
not yet learned to avoid the bad practice of
mixing his honeys. From this chance fer-
tilization any number of hybrids had taken
their rise," etc. It is not true that bees only
visit one species of plants on each trip. Bees
will go from the red to the black-cap rasp-
berry and gather honey from both ; and from
our sweetest and best grafted apple-trees to
the green, bitter, wild crab. Because bees
and insects do go helter-skelter among the
flowers, we are always budding and grafting,
and arc never sure of any of our fruits that
come from the seed. To prove this, let any
one take some flour and stand among the

red and black-cap raspberries where they
grow close together, when the bees are roar-
ing around them ; put some flour on a bee's
back, and then watch it go from blossom to
blossom. I think it must convince the most
skeptical of two things : First, that bees
work on different species ; and, second, that
bees know nothing, and care less, about the
good of the species.

I say it is not true that bees work on the
same species while on a trip after honey or
pollen. I claim much more than this. They
work on the flowers of different families.
To prove this, go into a garden of flowers
during a dearth of nectar and watch the
bees go from flower to flower. They will
fumble around among the petals of any
blossom that contains either pollen ornectar,
mechanically and indiscriminately.
Respectfully yours,

Mahala B. Chaddock.
Fremont, III., Noternberll, 1S83.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Mr. Cramer's condensed and categorical
criticism in your January issue, of my arti-
cle on this subject, which appeared in the
" Monthly" of last October, deserves a reply
from me, since his method is direct, and
some of the points he raises will bear fur-
ther ventilation.

First, as to the physical inability of wom-
en to take part in the execution of the
laws. This I have thought, in common with
many other men, to be a sufficient reason
why women are not adapted for taking part
in government. We are reminded, in reply,
that but a portion of the male sex are re-
quired to serve in the army, and none be-
yond the age of forty-five years in this coun-
try ; and we are told (not for the first time)
that, if we disfranchise on this account, we
must deprive of the suffrage our most
thoughtful class of voters, our older men.
This answer is no doubt an honest one, be-
cause its refutation is so easy that it would
not be brought forward by any one who can
see the situation as it is. The situation is
simply this : that in all countries, notwith-
standing the forty-five-year limit in this
one, men will be called on to do military
service, when the case requires it, as long as
they can walk and carry a gun. Moreover,
it is not chiefly as soldiers that men are
liable to do duty in the execution of the
laws. Any and all men may be called on
by the sheriff of the county to serve as posse
comitatics. Moreover, all our civil govern-
ment rests on the police and judicial system,
and not a single one of the preliminary steps
in the process can be performed by women.
Not a man could be arrested, taken to prison,
taken to the court-room, or to punishment,
without a male police. Since women can not
act in any of these capacities, nor yet as

EDITOR'S TABLE.

559

judges, it is evident that the enactment of
laws by women, to be executed by men, is
government " by women alone." It was in
this sense that I used that expression, and
not as a question of arithmetic.

Government is in fact the government of
men by men. It is men who do tilings, and,
among other things, they are the most fre-

quent law-breakers. It takes men to govern
men, and what governs the greater force will
control the lesser. It is not necessary to cut
two holes in the gate, the one for the large,
the other for the small cat. The small cat
can go through the large hole.

E. D. Cope.
PniLADELPniA, December 26, 1SS3.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

ALTRUISM AND EGOISM.

THE question of the proper balance
to be maintained between altruism
and egoism is one of much practical im-
portance. A certain view of the subject
was presented in the paper by Mr. Charles
W. Smiley, published in our November
number, and a different, to some extent
an antagonistic one, was maintained in
the letter from Prof. Bulkier, of Wash-
ington, which appeared in our number
for January. We have already expressed
a general approval of Mr. Smiley's posi-
tion; but, in view of the counter-argu-
ments of our recent correspondent, we
may perhaps be allowed a few additional
■words of explanation.

The question, as it seems to us, is not
which is the higher principle of action
— altruism or egoism — but the much
more practical one as to the extent to
which, and the circumstances under
which, one liuman being should gratui-
tously supplement by his own industry
or capacity the deficiencies in one or
both these respects of another human
being. The early Christians, we read,
had all things in common : no one said
anything was his own ; all individual
property was abolished, as completely
as P. J. Proudhon himself could have
wished. Somehow or other this state
of things did not continue long ; and
Christians of the nineteenth century
show no particular desire to revert to
this feature of the early church. We
may therefore claim that personal own-
ership of property is recognized to-day
as a good thing. If, then, any one is
called upon to part with a portion of

his goods for the benefit of others,
some adequate reason should be shown
for his doing so. It is not enough to
tell him that altruism is a virtue; for
that argument, unchecked by other
considerations, would lead to the re-
establishment of the very system of
communism upon which it has been de-
cided not to re-enter. Before he parts
with his money for alleged benevo-
lent objects, a reasonable man will re-
quire to have it demonstrated to him that
its application in the manner proposed
will cure more evil than it will, either
directly or indirectly, cause. In order
to judge the matter rightly, we should
take the case of a man who, possessing
wealth, is employing it in a prudent and
useful manner, and, so far, helping for-
ward the prosperity of the community ;
not the case of one who is squandering
large sums of money in idle ostentation
or vicious pleasures. In the latter case
the man is doing harm with his money
\ already, and possibly more harm than
would be done even by injudicious be-
nevolence. The former case, therefore,
is the only one that enables us to bring
a proper criticism to bear upon a sug-
gestion for an " altruistic " application
of wealth. The money is now being
usefully employed in the industry of the
country; and, so far as applied to the
personal expenditure of its owner, is
being used in maintaining a type of liv-
ing that simply inspires respect, chal-
lenging neither the stupid admiration
of the vulgar nor the envious regards
of the poorer classes. It is evident that
nothing short of a very satisfactory

560

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

demonstration of the superior usefulness
of the proposed end would justify the
transfer to it of capital already usefully
and worthily employed.

Now, among the points to be con-
sidered in weighing such a question, this
certainly should not be overlooked, that
the altruistic act, while it may alleviate
a given case of misfortune, tends to pro-
duce another case to replace the one
relieved. Does any one ask how ? i>y
creating an expectation in the minds of
others that their troubles will be light-
ened or removed in a similar manner,
and so causing a certain relaxation of
the effort by which a condition of help-
lessness might be averted. The proba-
bility is that not one only but several
cases calling for charitable interference
might be the result of a single stroke of
charitable effort; just as a single prize
taken in a lottery upsets scores if not
hundreds or thousanrls of minds. We
need not, however, theorize on the sub-
ject— though the theory on this occasion
is nearly as demonstrable as a propo-
sition in Euclid — for experience has
proved over and over again that sys-
tematic " charity " makes beggars. The
man, therefore, whose money is usefully
employed, and who has nothing to re-
proach himself with on the score of per-
sonal waste, will have to be satisfied
that the cases of want or vice that he
cures — admitting that he cures them —
will not be made up, or more than made
up, by others resulting more or less di-
rectly from his benevolence.

But in how many cases is real good
done to the so-called "beneficiaries" of
charity ? "We have ourselves heard the
most mournful confessions on this sub-
ject from persons who practiced altru-
ism, or Christian charity, as they would
perhai>s rather have called it, from mo-
tives of religious duty. According to
these statements, it is a comparatively
rare thing to be able to record any solid
advantage as resulting to the objects of
such charity. But, if so, must not harm
result? If we mistake not, the secre-

taries and other agents of our Young
Men's Christian Associations could tell
of hordes of shiftless, characterless creat-
ures, interspersed now and then by some
unctuous adventurer, who haunt their
rooms in the expectation of relief, and
who frequently get relief, but of whom
no good is ever afterward heard. We do
not deny that money may be expended
in such a way as to do real good to those
who need help ; we only say that it is
difficult so to expend it, and very diffi-
cult to guard against doing harm to
others by weakening the motives for
resistance to the habits that make for
pauperism. Some large charity may
seem a beautiful and admirable thing
considered in itself; but we should not
stop with this inside view. We are bound
to ask what effect it is producing on
society at large ; and if a current is seen
ever setting toward it, and virtually
" nulla vestigia retrorsum " — no steps
turned away from it— we must moder-
ate our admiration of the function it is
performing in the community.

It is common for sentimentalists to
speak of natural selection as the very
type of a " merciless law." But who
will dare to say with confidence that
natural selection is not more merciful,
on the whole, than man's vaguely al-
truistic interferences with the natural
course of things? Nature makes in-
competence and misery short-lived, and
reduces them in every way to a mini-
mum. Man steps in and accuses Nature
of cruelty ; he tries his own hand, and,
lo ! thousands and hundreds of thou-
sands are leading a languishing physical
and a depraved intellectual and moral
existence. The result is not one to be
proud of. Man should love his neigh-
bor. Truly ; but that does not mean
that he should undermine his neighbor's
independence, or that he should injure
half a dozen neighbors for the sake of
benefiting one. As we understand Mr.
Smiley, altruism is just as much in need
of being kept within the bounds of rea-
son as egoism. He would not discour-

LITERARY NOTICES.

561

age generous instincts; but lie would
oppose the idea that, because an act is
altruistic, it must be good and virtuous.
All altruism is interference, and inter-
ference needs to be justified. As we
stated at the outset, people are too much
accustomed to think of charity being
given out of a surplus that would other-
wise not be usefully employed; but that
idea tends to disguise the real nature of
the question. There is vast need for
social reform in the matter of the ex-
penditure of money ; and indeed we
know of no direction in whicb a moral
crusade is more wanted. If something
could be done to check the barbaric ex-
travagance of our wealthy classes and
the blamable extravagance of classes
that are not wealthy, much good would
be done to the whole body of society.

LITERARY NOTICES.

MEiroRy : What it is and how to improve it.
By David Kay, F. R. G. S. " Interna-
tional Education Series," Vol. VIII.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 334.
Price, $1.50.

Whatever may be the educational pro-
cess by which knowledge is gained — obser-
vation, reasoning, or passive reception of
text-books and lectures — it is retained by the
one faculty of memory. This consideration
is enough to show the great importance to
the educator of a thorough acquaintance
with the nature of this faculty and the best
means of cultivating it. On the other hand,
as Dr. W. T. Harris, the editor of this
" Series," points out, the memory, when over-
developed, may crowd and cramp the other
faculties. It is a familiar statement that
much memorizing deadens the power of
thought, and it is equally true that the pow-
ers of sense-perception, imagination, and will
may be paralyzed by the same means.
"With an overactive memory we suppose
ourselves to sec in an object what we remem-
ber to have seen in it before, and any new
features escape our superficial perception.
This is true, too, in the case of imagination,
the power which ought to be productive as
well as reproductive." Hence the problem
is not the simple one of how to strengthen
VOL. xxxiv. — 36

the memory as much as possible, but how to
train it so that it shall have its greatest
efficiency and yet not interfere with the
action of the other faculties. As to guard-
ing against an overactive memory, Dr. Harris
says : " The antidote for this baneful effect
of memory is to be sought in a method of
training that associates effects with causes,
and individuals with species ; that associates
one idea with another through its essential
relations, and not by its accidental proper-
ties. One must put thought into the act of
memory." Beginning with an examination
of the nature of memory, Mr. Kay proceeds
to point out the connection between mind
and matter in general, and especially the in-
fluence which bodily conditions have upon
mental action; he next discusses the phe-
nomena of sensation, and then describes
the formation of mental images and the un-
conscious action of the mind. The author
is convinced that much light is thi'own upon
the subject of mnemonics by the facts of
physiology. " When one performs a set of
movements," he says, " for the first time, he
may find considerable difficulty in doing so,
owing to the unadaptedness of the parts con-
cerned. These parts, however, retain certain
traces of what has taken place in them, so
that when the movements come to be per-
formed a second time the difficulty attending
them is somewhat less." Frequent repetition
increases the ease of performance. Similar-
ly sensations leave their traces on our sense-
organs ; men observe best what they have
frequently observed. RecalHng to mind an act
or sensation is so much hke the original ex-
perience that, in the author's opinion, the
same parts are concerned in the one as in
the other, and the traces made by these ex-
periences have something to do in the act of
recollection. This view is supported by the
recent theory that, in the words of Prof.
Bain, "the organ of the mind is not the
brain by itself; it is the brain, nerves,
muscles, organs of sense, viscera." Our
ideas are remembered in the same way, for
"every idea in the mind must have entered
it by some sense, and, in order to its full and
complete recall, it is believed that it must be
again projected or imaged in an organ of
sense. Even the most abstract of our ideas
are abstracts of sensations belonging to some
sense which is also concerned in the recollec-

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of them." In the concluding chapters
Mr. Kay shows that, if the foregoing is true,
" it is evident that, in order to improve the
memory, special attention must be given to
the training of the senses. This is to be
done by first training them to observe care-
fully what is before them, and then making
them recall or I'eproduce what has been pre-
sented to them, as accurately as possible.
These two are distinct. The one depends on
attention, the other on association and fre-
quently recalling what is in the mind. In
attention the great thing is to concentrate
the mind upon one thing at a time till it is
thoroughly mastered. In association we
must seek to bring together and associate
those ideas that most nearly resemble each
other and that we wish to recall each other."
The two processes of attention and associa-
tion are involved in every act of remember-
ing, and suggestions as to how they may
be made more effective form the substance
of the author's advice on how to improve the
memory. Throughout the book the author
makes prominent the bearing of his views on
education, for he deems the treatment of the
memory in the present system of education
to be wholly wrong. " Instead of the com-
munication of knowledge," he says, " being
made the means of improving the memory,
the interests of the memory are sacrificed in
order that it may be crammed with as much
knowledge as possible, without regard to the
permanent injury that may thereby be done
to it." The subject is evidently one on which
the author has studied long and read widely ;
his presentation is simple and consistent, and
his various statements are supported and
illustrated by many brief quotations from
eminent specialists in mental science.

Works of Thomas Hill Gkeen. Edited by
R. L. Nettleship. Vol. III. Jliseellanies
and Memoir. London and New York:
Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. clxi and
479. Price, $?.

Mr. GueexN led a quiet life as a tutor
and Professor of Jloral Philosophy in the
University of Oxford, seldom appearing be-
fore the public or engaging in movements
that brouglit him into prominence, but he
did much work that the world should not
let be forgotten while the improvement of
mankind and of government is sought. He
is characterized by his biographer as a man

in whom "philosophy was reconciled with
religion on the one side and politics on the
other ; ... to whom reason was faith made
articulate, and for whom both faith and
reason found their highest expression in
good citizenship." His thoughts were di-
rected toward practical measures for lilt-
ing the English masses into a higher phys-
ical and mental condition ; and the reading
of his essays shows him to have been a
man of providential foresight, looking not
to the present aspect, but to the remote,
not yet seen, result. He was born in a
small village in Yorkshire, in 1830, of Puri-
tan descent; was schooled at Kugby, where
he showed a tendency toward philosophiz-
ing; became a student at Balliol College,
Oxford, where he obtained a degree and
afterward a fellowship ; and then worked
as tutor and later (1878 to 1882) as pro-
fessor. He was one of the " recognized poli-
ticians " of the Rugby school, and was con-
sidered, in spite of his protestations to the
contrary, a " dreadful radical." In college,
he made himself felt by his fellow-students,
and showed his independence by following
his own line of reading rather than pursuing
honors and prizes. He regarded Louis Na-
poleon as a " successful brigand " ; had an
enthusiastic admiration for John Bright,
whom he described as " a great ' brick,' sim-
ple as a boy, full of fun, with a very pleasant
flow of conversation and lots of good sto-
ries"; read Wordsworth, Carlyle, Maurice,
and Fichte; failed in the candidacy for a
professorship at St. Andrews, Scotland, be-
cause he was charged with Comtism and ma-
terialism— to which he was really opposed ;
rejoiced in 1860 over the repeal of the paper-
duty, because it would secure the poeition
of the penny papers and destroy the despot-
ism of the "Times"; was comforted with
the sure prospect of Gladstone's becoming a
radical, for he. Bright, and Cobden would
"form a fine triumvirate to lead the people's
cause"; and he sympathized ardently with
the United States in the war of the rebellion,
and saw clearly what was the real issue in
the contest. In 1864 he was appointed a
member of the Royal Commission on Educa-
tion, and spent about a year, all told, in in-
dustrious personal inspections of the schools
of five counties. The remarks in his reports,
upon the condition of the schools and the

LITERARY NOTICES.

563

points iu which the middle-class schools in
particular failed to respond to the needs of
those who should attend them, are very pun-
gent, go down to the root of the matter, and
look to the final and permanent result ; and
they show that his strongest sympathies
were with the education of the middle class-
es, whom the universities were only just be-
ginning to touch. This sympathy was inti-
mately bound up with a sympathy with the
non-conformists, which was expressed in a
lecture before the Edinburgh Philosophical
Institution on " Cromwell and the English
Commonwealth." He supported electoral
reform as a means of redeeming the govern-
ment from the grasp of capitalists and
snobs, and rejoiced over the passage of the
conservative bill in 1868, as a victory in
which no party was the winner, but the
whole nation won "by a measure which
makes us for the first time one people."
What result was looked for from the en-
franchisement of the people was not the
present question. "Untie the man's legs,
and then it will be time to speculate how he
will walk." In one of his speeches he de-
fined as the idea of a true liberal pro-
gramme " the removal of all obstructions
which the law can remove to the free devel-
opment of English citizens." In a lecture
respecting the position of the political re-
formers, he described them as proceeding
" upon the principle that true political free-
dom means the power on the part of the
citizens as a body to make the most and
best of themselves, or (which is equivalent)
to contribute equally to a common good, and
that freedom of contract, freedom in all the
forms of doing what one will with one's own,
is only valuable as a means to freedom in its
positive sense. No contract, then, is valid,
which defeats the end for which alone so-
ciety enforces contracts at all — i. e., that
equal development of the faculties of all
which is the highest good for all." On this
principle ho justified interference in matters
of labor, heilth, education, the letting of
land, and the sale of alcohol. The strongest
elements in his nature " seem to have been
the sense of public duty and the sense of
religious dependence, and in the creeds of
modern liberalism and modern evangelical-
ism he found a congenial language, which
he had no difficulty in translating when he

wished into that of German metaphysics. . . .
The idea of a free personality, exercising its
freedom under conditions which it has itself
created, formed the meeting-point for his
political and religious aspirations. In the
light of this idea he interpreted to himself
the problems of history, of morality, of the-
ology." As he grew older, he found that
with many of his natural allies, liberal poli-
ticians, religious enthusiasts, scientific inves-
tigators, he could only go half-way. But,
with all modifications in his attitude, "the
ideal of Christian citizenship remained his
ideal to the end ; and, in spite of frequent
antagonism to the accredited representa-
tives of physical science, ho never relin-
quished the claim to be at one with the
true scientific spirit." The subjects of Mr.
Green's lectures, both as tutor and as Pro-
fessor in Moral Philosophy, turned largely
round certain works of Aristotle, to which
parts of Plato wei'c added. The manner of
treating these works was gradually modified,
in accordance with the methods of German
commentators and writers like Jowett and
Pattison, and became " loss literary and
more philosophical." The lectures which
he delivered during the four years of his
professorship were embodied in bis "Pro-
legomena to Ethics," which was published
after his death. A course on "Political
Obligation " and parts of other courses have
been published in the second volume of this
edition ; and that and the first volume con-
tain the collection of his philosophical works.
The present volume of " Miscellanies " con-
tains twenty-one papers, which have been
published as public addresses, as articles in
the " North British Review " and the " Acad-
emy," or through other channels. Among
the subjects are " The Force of Circum-
stances," "The Influence of Civilization on
Genius," " The Value and Influence of
Works of Fiction in Modern Times," " The
Philosophy of Aristotle," " Popular Philoso-
phy in its Relation to Life," " Caird's Phi-
losophy of Religion," " Immortality," " Chris-
tian Dogma," " The English Commonwealth,"
"Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Con-
tract," " The Grading of Secondary Schools,"
"The Elementary School System of Eng-
land," " The Work to be done by the Oxford
High School for Boys," and theological sub-
jects.

564

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ASTROXOMY WITH AN OpERA-GlASS. Bj GaR-

RETT P. Serviss. Illustrated. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 154. Price,
$1.50.

Under the above title a series of five
articles recently appeared in " The Popular
Science Monthly," describing the aspect of
the starry heavens as seen through that
most available variety of the telescope — the
opera-glass. These descriptions included di-
rections for recognizing the constellations
and the principal stars, and were illustrated
with numerous star-maps and views of the
sun and moon, while many allusions to the
history and mythology of the subject added
to the interest of the text. The articles
called forth many lively expressions of pleas-
ure, both from the newspaper press and
from individual correspondents, which is not
surprising, for the " Monthly " has seldom if
ever published a series of papers whose sci-
entific accuracy and fascinating style made
them more deserving of the name of popular
science than these. The series, rearranged
and enlarged, is now published in book form.
The volmne contains an introduction, com-
posed of matter recast from the articles in
the "Monthly," devoted to telling what a
good opera-glass is. This is followed by
four chapters, devoted respectively to the
stars of spring, summer, autumn, and winter,
and a chapter on " The Moon, the Planets,
and the Sun," the accounts of the planets
bcdng new. Throughout the work, and in
some parts on almost every page, new mat-
ter has been introduced, intended to make
the subject clearer and more interesting to
the reader, and to render the book enjoyable
and useful reading to those who may not
care to follow out, opera-glass in hand, the
directions and descriptions contained in it.
Accounts of additional stars, star-groups, and
other objects have been inserted, also fresh
references to star-lore, as well as to advances
in our knowledge of the heavens made since
the series appeared in the magazine. The
radiant points of some of the principal me-
teor-showers have been indicated ; also the
places in the heavens of the points known
as the solstices and equinoxes. Additional
descriptions have also been introduced of
the revolution of the heavens and its effect
upon the places of the constellations at dif-
ferent seasons and different hours. New

matter has been added on the history of the
Pleiades ; about Sirius and Procyon, and
their strange companion - stars ; and about
star-clusters. All the illustrations of the
article on " The Stars of Spring " were re-
drawn and re-engraved for the book, and sev-
eral new ones have been added in this chapter
and in that on " The Moon, the Planets, and
the Sun." The volume is printed in large,
clear type, on fine paper, and is bound in a
notably tasteful and appropriate style.

Microscopical Physiography of the Rock-
making Minerals. By H. Rosenbusch.
Translated and abridged by Joseph P.
Iddings. New York: John Wiley &
Sons. Pp. 333, Price, $5.
This work is described by the translator
as containing all that is necessary for an ac-
curate and complete determination of the
rock-making minerals. In the first part of
the volume the optical properties of min-
erals are described, with some account of
their morphological characters, their phe-
nomena of cohesion and chemical properties.
In the second or descriptive part the miner-
als treated are arranged according to their
system of crystallization, being divided into
two groups, isotropic and anisotropic miner-
als. The former group comprises amorphous
substances and those belonging to the iso-
metric system; the latter group is subdi-
vided into minerals with one optic axis
(tetragonal and hexagonal systems), and
those with two optic axes (orthorhombic,
monoclinic, and triclinic systems). There
are, besides these, a few crypto-crystalline
substances, which are placed under the head
of aggregates. Each section in the first
part, and each species in the second, is pre-
ceded by a list of the literature of the sub-
ject. Twenty-six plates of photo-micro-
graphs and one hundred and twenty-one
woodcuts illustrate the text.

Town and Country School Buildings. By
E. C. Gardner. New York and Chicago :
E. L. Kellogg k Co. Pp. 129. Price,
$2.50,

The aim of this work is to aid improve-
ment in a department where improvement
has been sadly needed. School-houses have
been like barns in the country, and like
warehouses in the city, rather than fit places
for children to exist and study in. The book

LITERARY NOTICES.

565

comprises a series of twenty-three designs
for school - buildings, ranging from a log-
house of one room to a brick building of
two stories and basement, and containing
eight rooms. Each design is accompanied
by a general description, in which the light-
ing, heating, ventilating, and toilet arrange-
ments receive due attention. The text is
abundantly illustrated with front and side
elevations, floor-plans, and details for doors,
fireplaces, transoms, screens, porches, win-
dows, belfries, gates, fences, etc. In all the
designs the principle that school - houses
should be attractive is insisted on, and their
porches with balustrades, the low overhang-
ing roofs, and exterior chimneys of many of
them, make the smaller ones look like dwell-
ings, while the large ones have the appear-
ance of libraries or club-houses rather than
the severe aspect usually associated with a
school-house. Attention is paid to economy
withal, especially in the designs for the
smaller buildings. The book is very hand-
somely printed and attractively bound, and
deserves a place in the library of every
school officer.

Rocks and Soils : Their Origin, Composi-
tion, and Characteristics. By Horace
E. Stockbridge. New York : John
Wiley & Sons. Pp. 239. Price, $2.50.
The object of this book is to present
what aid the science of geology can furnish
to the important art of agriculture. Some
sixty pages are devoted to a sketch of the
geological history of the earth, and an equal
space to rock composition and decomposi-
tion. In this second division, the constitu-
ents of the most important crystalline and
non-crystalline rocks are given, the disinte-
gration of rocks by internal and by external
forces is described, and the products of
such disintegration are enumerated. The
internal agencies mentioned are volcanoes,
thermal waters, rock metamorphism, and
contraction of the earth's surface mani-
fested in gradual changes of surface-level,
in mountain formation, and in earthquakes.
The external forces of disintegration are
change of temperature, mechanical and
chemical action of water, action of the air,
and of organic life. The remaining divis-
ion of the volume deals with the further
transformation of the disintegrated rock
into soils by the incorporation of organic

matter through the agency of plants and
animals, with the constituents and char-
acteristics of soils, and with the soil as re-
lated to the production of plants. Methods
of experimenting with and analyzing soils
are described here. An appendix contains
tables of percentages of the constituents
found in soils, agricultural products and
mineral fertilizers, and these are followed
by a list of authorities.

A Manual of the Vertebrate Animals
OF the Northern United States. By
David Starr Jordan. Fifth edition.
Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Pp.
375. Price, $2.50.

The object of this manual is to give to
students and collectors a ready means of
identifying the vertebrate fauna, including
marine species, of the region which it cov-
ers, and of recognizing the characters on
which the families, genera, and species of
these animals are founded. A system of
analytical keys has been employed by which
differential characters arc brought into con-
trast. The present edition is wholly rewrit-
ten, and the order of arrangement is re-
versed, the lowest forms being placed first.
The artificial characters largely used in the
first four editions of this work for the anal-
yses of the genera have been for the most
part replaced by the less obvious characters
on which classification is actually based.
The region covered by the manual has been
extended, so that it now includes the district
north and east of the Ozark Mountains,
south of the Laurcntian Hills in Canada,
north of the southern boundary of Virginia,
and east of the Missouri River. In order to
keep the boot of moderate size, all descrip-
tions have been made very concise, while
sjTionymy and generally references to au-
thority have been omitted. Prof. Jordan's
name is a sufficient guarantee of the relia-
bility of the work.

The Tariff and its Evils. By John II.

Allen. (" Questions of the Day." No.

LIII.) New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Pp. 122. Price, $1.

In this essay a ship-owner and merchant
of long experience combats the theories of
the protectionists as formulated by Senator
John Sherman in his speech to the Home
Market Club of Boston. The author natu-

566

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rally devotes his attention chiefly to the ef-
fects of our tariff on our foreign commerce
and our carrying-trade, the aspects of the
subject with which his experience has made
him most familiar. The author maintains
that what prosperity we have in this coun-
try is obtained from our natural resources
and in spite of the protective tariff rather
than because of it ; that the country is not so
prosperous but that we have among us con-
stantly a vast army of workers without
work ; and that the tariff closes to our prod-
ucts the foreign market, in which we might
make large sales. The restrictive system
has almost destroyed American shipping,
and ship-owners are now looking for contri-
butions from their fellow - citizens in the
form of subsidies to enable them to carry
on this unprofitable industry. The mill-
owners get such contributions, and the ship-
owners ask, Why should not we ? The farm-
ers, who number about half our working
population, and are more than four times as
many as the manufacturing workers, suffer
severely from a system which protects their
products about twenty per cent and taxes
them on their purchases nearly seventy per
cent. The author's positions are fortified
by numerous pertinent facts and figures.

Eating fou Strength. By M. L. IIoLBnooK,
M. D. New York : M. L. Holbrook & Co.
Pp. 23C. Price, §1,25.

This book is a popular general guide on
the subject of diet, not limited to the case of
the athlete, as might be inferred from its
title. Its language is simple, and, though
scientific reasons are given for its directions,
the volume contains nothing that the general
reader can not understand. The first hun-
dred pages arc devoted mainly to telling the
nature and value of the various classes of
food-substances which we use, much of the
information being arranged in the form of
instructive tables. A plea for simplicity in
living follows, enforced by the experience of
persons who have lived for years wholly or
mainly on fruit and vegetables. In the next
chapter, the composition and value of each
of the chief foods of the vegetable kingdom
is set forth, the section on grapes including
an account of the grape-cure. Some sug-
gestions follow concerning diet for different
ages, circumstances, and a number of speci-

fied diseases. The volume contains also sev-
eral hundred recipes for wholesome foods
and drinks, comprising soups, bread, eggs,
vegetables, puddings, cake, and even pics,
which the author says are wholesome or not
as they are well or badly made ; also the
preparation of tea, coffee, etc., with cautions
as to their use, and a variety of beverages
from fruit-juices, milk, etc.

The Peter Pvedpath Museum of McGill
University has issued a pamphlet on speci-
mens of Eozoon Ccmaden.se and their Geo-
logical and other Relations, by Sir J. William
Dawson, F. R. S. (Dawson, Montreal, 50
cents), the purpose of which is stated in
these opening lines. "Whatever may be
the ultimate decision of palasontologists as
to the nature of Eozoon, it is important that
the original specimens on which its descrip-
tion was based, and those later acquisitions
which have thrown further lij;ht on its struct-
ure and have been published in that connec-
tion, should be preserved and catalogued.
The collections made by Sir W. E. Logan
arc now for the most part in the Museum of
the Geological Survey at Ottawa, Those
accumulated by the author of these notes,
as well as duplicates preserved by Sir \V. E,
Logan, are in the Peter Eedpath Museum.
It is to these latter collections that the pres-
ent paper relates, and the object is to render
them as useful as possible for scientific pur-
poses in the future." The pamphlet is not
a catalogue, though it contains a synopsis of
the specimens to which it relates, but has
the form of a monograph, the divisions of
which are, geological relations, state of pres-
ervation, new facts and special points, notes
on peculiar specimens, replies to Mobius,
Ilahn, etc., paleozoic fossils mineralized
with silicates, phosphates, and graphite of
the Laurentian, and a summary of argu-
ments in support of the animal nature of
eozoon. A bibliography of the subject oc-
cupies six pages, and sixteen cuts illustrate
the text.

Parts II and III of Vol. II of The Jour-
nal of the ColUrjc of Science, Imperial Uni-
versity, Tokio, Japan, have been received.
Part II comprises three papers : " On the
so-called Crystalline Schists of Chichibu,"
by Prof. Bundjiro Koto, Ph. D. ; " On the
Plants of Sulphur Island," by Prof. Samuro

LITERARY NOTICES.

567

Okubo ; aud " Some New Cases of the Occur-
rence of Bothrioccphalus liguloidcs, Lt.," by
Isao Ijima, Pli. D., and Kentaro Miirata.
Five plates illustrate these papers. Part III
is wholly occupied by an account of " A
Magnetic Survey of all Japan," carried out,
by order of the President of the Imperial
University, by Prof. Cargill G. Knott, D. Sc,
and Asst. Prof. Aikitsu Tanakadate. The
paper is accompanied by maps showing lines
of equal magnetic dip, of equal magnetic hori-
zontal force, of equal magnetic total force,
and of equal magnetic declination ; also
charts of diurnal variation of declination,
and two plates representing instruments.

Ch-eat- Circle Sailing, by the late Richard
A. Proc/o?" (Longmans, 35 cents), is a pam-
phlet "indicating the shortest sea-routes and
describing maps for finding them in a few
seconds." The routes may be found by the
aid of one chart and a few lines of direc-
tions, but two charts are more convenient,
and a dozen pages of explanation and illus-
tration are given in addition. To meet the
difficulty that the true great-circle course
would often carry a ship into inconveniently
high latitudes, the author gives Mr. Towson's
method of composite sailing, which consists
in taking a great-circle course to touch the
highest latitude deemed safe, then following
this parallel to a second great-circle course
which passes through the port of arrival.
Charts for this mode of sailing, eighteen
inches in diameter, reductions of which are
given in the pamphlet, may be obtained of
the publishers.

We have received from Messrs. Thomas
Prosser & Son, New York, A Sketch of Al-
fred Krujyp, by K. W. and 0. E. Michaelis,
to which is added A Visit to the Krupp
Works at Eascn, from the French of Captain
E. Jllonthat/c. The sketch makes prominent
the sturdy character of the man in forcing
his way to success over enormous obstacles.
A portrait of Krupp and views of his works
are given.

One of the most effective contributions
to the literature of tariff reform which has
been made during the past year of active
discussion is the pamphlet on Relation of the
Tariff to Wages, by Hon. David A. Weds, in
the "Questions of the Day Series" (Putnam,
25 cents). Taking as a text a statement by

Mr. Claine about " the condition and recom-
pense of labor in Europe," Mr. Wells pro-
ceeds to show in catechetic form that the
protectionists who try to work the "pauper-
labor " scare " cither mean to deceive, or do
not know what they are talking about."
The scheme of his argument is, first, that
the position of labor is more favorable in
the United States than in Europe because of
the exemption from enormous military and
tax burdens, the abundance of fertile land
and of means of communication and trans-
portation, the diversity of soil and climate,
and the intelligence and energy of the labor-
ers in this country ; secondly, that, in pro-
portion to the work done, American laborers
do not receive more wages than European ;
next, that restrictions of markets restrict
the opportunities for labor ; then, that
wages have not been reduced heretofore by
reductions in tariff rates ; that only five or
ten per cent of the bread-winners of the
country are engaged in producing protected
articles ; and, finally, that our present tariff
policy is certain to reduce wages. The sub-
ject is presented in the clear and vigorous
style which marks all of Mr. Wells's eco-
nomic writings.

The very readable character of the
pamphlet by Henry J. PJiilpoit, in the " Ques-
tions of the Day Series," makes its title,
Tariff Chats (Putnam, 25 cents), a remarka-
bly fit one. The author points out that the
tariff is a tax, and that it favors trusts. He
gives figures to show how much it raises the
prices of certain woolen, cotton, and iron
manufactures, and charges with supreme
selfishness the few who are benefited by the
tariff at the expense of the many. In a
striking table he shows that our wealth,
manufactures, wages, and various other in-
terests, advanced far more from 1850 to
1860, under a low tariff, than from 1860 to
18*70, or IB'ZO to 1880, under a high tariff.
That the high tariff is not for the farmer's
interest is shown by the much lower prices
obtained for corn and wheat now than be-
fore 1 860 ; and that the wages of the labor-
ers in protected manufactures are governed
by something else than the tariff is shown
by the very different wages paid in different
States of the Union all under the same tariff.

Sharing the Profits, a pamphlet, by Mary
W. Calkins (Ginn), is a very interesting

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

brief presentation of the subject of partici-
pation by employes in the profits of the
business in which they are engaged. In the
words of the preface, " It is an attempt to
state, in the shortest and clearest terms, the
theory of profit-sharing, to explain its meth-
ods, and to describe its results." A visit by
the author to Paris and Guise in 1886 and
to Geneva in 1887, in addition to study of
the literature of the subject, has furnished
the material for this essay. A brief state-
ment of the arguments for profit-sharing is
first given ; this is followed by descriptions
of the ways in which the practice is carried
on by a number of concerns in France and
neighboring countries ; the relation of profit-
sharing to pure co-operation, and the aid it
may give to industrial reforms, are then
pointed out, while in the last chapter cer-
tain ethical and economic objections to
profit-sharing are answered.

The Union of the Societies for Ethical
Culture began with April, 1888, the publica-
tion of a quarterly organ, called The Ethical
Record. The subscription price is $1 a
year, and the address of the publication
committee is Post-office box 772, Philadel-
phia. The purpose of the " Record " is to
present news of the ethical movement, and
articles stating the spirit and aim of ethical
culture. The third number, now before us,
contains an address by S. B. Weston, Lect-
urer of the Philadelphia Society, on " The
Final Aim of Life," in which Mr. Weston
gives reasons for discarding the ancient
Greek and the Christian views, and states,
as the modern rationalistic idea, that the
highest human purpose is " the development
of life to its fullest perfection, physically,
intellectually, morally." Another paper in
the same number is part of an essay on
"The Ethics of Insolvency," by Leo G.
Rosenblatt. There are also " A Responsive
Exercise," in use by the children's classes of
the St. Louis Society, a selected poem, sev-
eral pages of notes, and two pieces of music.

Tlie Agnostic Annual for 1889, which is
its sixth number, is edited by Charles A.
Watts (W. Stewart, London, &d.), and con-
tains eight essays and three poems. The
leading article is by Samuel Laing, and is a
criticism of the position taken by Mr. Glad-
stone in his controversy with Colonel \n"&v.

soil. Miss Constance Naden contributes a
paper on "The Atrophy of Religion," and
Mrs. E. Lynn Linton one on " Women and
Agnosticism." The other essays are " Life :
the Agnostic Definition," by Albert Sim-
mons ; " The Sublimity of Nature," by
Charles Watts; "Science and its Detract-
ors," by John Wilson ; " Agnosticism among
the Moors," by H. J. Hardwicke, M. D. ; and
" The Alonencss of Man," by G. M. McO.

Ruth, the Christian Scientist, by John
Chester, M. D., D. D. (Carter & Karrick), is a
novel with a purpose, which is to present
various theories in regard to the effects of
mind in the cure of disease. The doctrine
of "Christian Science" is put into the
mouth of one character, that of "Faith-
Healing " into that of another, while mate-
rialism is represented by a young physician,
and other characters fill in the background.

In The Human Afystery in Hamlet (Fords,
Howard, and Hulbert), Mr. Martin W. Cooke,
attempting " to say an unsaid word," main-
tains that this great tragedy, far from be-
ing a mere play-writer's happy thought,
was wrought out, under an inspiration cre-
ated by the achievements of earlier poets,
with a definite end in view. This end was
to show in the hero typical man, as he was
moved under the force of the interior spirit-
ual struggle of the passions for prevalence,
under the domination of supernatural law.
His arguments are well considered and forci-
bly presented, and are strengthened by illus-
trations from the "Electra" of Euripides
and of Sophocles, and Vergil's " Ji^neid,"
illustrations which show great resemblance
in motive and methods of treatment between
Shakespeare and the classical poets.

PUBLICATI0X3 RECEIVED.

Adams, Herbert B. Thom.is Jefferson and the
Uniye.-sity of Virginia. Washington: Government
Printing-Offlce. Pp. 308.

Allen, Grant. Force and Enerp-y: A Theory of
Dynamics. London and New "iork; Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 161 .

Atwater, W. O., Director. Storrs School Agri-
cultural Experiment Station, Mansfield, Conn. Pp. 11.

Austen, Peter T. Chemical Lecture Notes. New
York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 9S. $1.

Bliss. V. L., Detroit. Mich. Keport of the Prin-
cipal of the Detroit High School concerning Over-
work. Pp. 23.

Boehmer, George H., Smithsonian Institution.
Systematic Arrangement of the List of Foreign Cor-
respondents, July, 1S^8. Pp. 56. Additions and
Corrections to the List of Foreign Correspondents.
Pp. 32.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

569

Biiller, Sir "Walter L. Catalogue of the Collec-
tion of New Zealand Birds. London : E. A. Pether-
ick & Co. Pp. 96.

Carrington, Henrv B., TJ. S. A. Patriotic Reader.
Philadelphia: J. B. "Lippincott Company. Pp. o9o.
$1.2 J.

Cams, Paul. The Idea of God. Chicago : The

Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 26. 15 cts.

Compayro, Gabriel. Lectures on Pedagogy.

Translated by W. IL Payne. Boston : D. C. lleath

& Co. Pp. 49 L

Cook, George TT.. State Geologist. Geological
Survey of New Jersey. Final lleport. Vol. I.
Trenton. Pp. 439.

Crothers, T. H., M. D , Hartford. Conn. Inebri-
ate Asylums and their Work. Pp. 16.

Darling, Charles W., Utica, N. T. New Am-
sterdam, New Orange, New York, with Chronologi-
cal Data. Privately printed. Pp. 4:3.

Day, D.avid T. Mineral Resources of the United
States. Washington : Government Printing-Offlce.
Pp. 832.

Dewev, Melvil. Columbia College Library. An-
nual Report of the Librarian, etc. Pp. 31.

A Dreamer. The Dream of Love and Fire.
Boston : Estes & Lauriat. Pp. 42, with Plates.

Dryer, Lieutenant G. L. Annual Report of the
Hydrographer of the Navy Department. Washing-
ton: Government Printing-Offlce. Pp. 59.

Foster, Michael, nnd others. "The .Tournal of
Physiology." Vol. IX, No. 4. Cambridge, England.
Pp. 112. $5 a volume.

Grossmann, Rabbi Louis. Some Chapters on Ju-
d.aism and the Science of Religion. New York : G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.190.

Hall. Thomas Wright. A Correlation Theory of
Chemical Action and Affinity. London : Remington
&, Co. Pp. 360.

Han-is, II. R. Report of the Third Assistant
Postmaster - General. Washington : Government
Printing-office. Pp. 115.

Harvard College Observatory Annals. Detection
of New Nebulte by Photography. Pp. 5.

Hydrographic Office, Navy Department^ Pilot
Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean, December, 1S3S,
and January, 18^9.

Julien, Alexis A. The Dunyte Beds of North
Carolina. Pp. 10. Genesis of the Crystalline Iron-
Ores. Pp. 10. Volcanic Tuffs of Challis, Idaho, etc.
Pp. 10. Glaciation of Shawangunk Mountain, N. T.
Pp.8. Geologyof Gre.it Barrington, Mass. Pp.20.
Microscopical Structure of Iron Pyrites. Pp. 12.
The Sealed Flasks of ( Irystal. Pp. 14. Decay of the
Building-Stones of New York City. Pp. 32. Va-
riation of Decomposition of Iron Pyrites. Pp. 140,
with Plates.

Keen, W. W., M. D., Philadelphia. Explanatory
Trephining and Puncture of the Brain.

KonsuetzoJTs Patent Naphtha Gas. St. Peters-
burg.

Le Conte, John. Vital Statistics and the True
Coefficient of Mortality illustrated by Cancer. Pp. 19.
Lindley. Walter, M. D. Extremes in Altitude in
Southern OaUfornia. Pp. 12.

Lintner. J. A., State Entomologist. Cut-worms.
Pp. 36. The White Grub of the May Beetle. Pp. 31.
McNutt, W. F., M. D. Mineral and Thermal
Springs of California. San Francieco. Pp. 10.

Mantegazza, Paolo. Testa : A Book for Boys.
Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 258. $1.25.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Twenty-
fourth Annual Catalogue. Boston. Pp. 1S4.

Mayo, Rev. A. D. Industrial Education in the
South. Washington : Government Printing Office.
Pp. 86.

Molloy, Gerald. Gleanings in Science. London
and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. o52. $2.25.
Moss, Oscar B. Beauty, Health, and Strength for
Every Woman. Ann Arbor, Mich. Pp. 3*6.

Montelius, Oscar, Ph. D. The Civilization of
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Macmillan & Co. Pp. 214. $4.

Museum. U. S. National. Proceedings, 1SS7.
Washington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. Til,
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Nason, Frank L. Some New York Minerals and
their Locahties. Albany: C. Van Benthuysen &,
Sous. Pp. 24.

New Hampshire Medical Society. Transactions,
Session of 18S8. Concord. Pp.182.

New York Agricultural Experiment Station-
Chemical Composition of some Feeding-Stuffs. Pp.
32.

Nuttall, Zelia. A Historical Essay on a Relic of
Ancient Mexico. Pp. t2, with Three Colored Plates,
Oliver, Charles A.. Philadelphia. Double Chorio-
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Pickering. Edward C. Report of the Director of
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Pinkham, Henrv M. The Lake Superior Copper
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Pope Manufacturing Company, Boston. Colum-
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Ruskin, John. Sesame and Lilies. New York :
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Sander.s. P. Patent System for cleansing Towns
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Searle, Arthur. Atmospheric Economy of Solar
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Smith, Charles Sprague. The American Univer-
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Strauss, Charles T.. Translator. Spelin, a Uni-
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Austria. New York. Pp. 28.

Sunderiand, Rev. J. T. A Ministry in a College
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Swift, Morrison I. What shall be done with
Trusts ? Pp. 13.

Talmage, James E. First Book of Nature. Salt
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Thomas, Cyrus. Burial Mounds of the Northern
Section of the United States. Washington: Gov-
ernment Printing-office. Pp. 120.

Todd, David P. Instructions for Observing the
Total Eclipse of the Sun, January 1, 1889. Amherst,
Mass., Observatory. Pp. 14, with Plate.

" Truth-Seeker Annual and Freethinker's Alma-
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124. 25 cents.

Washburn, L. K. Was Jesus insane? New
York : Truth-Seeker Company. Pp. 20. 10 cents.

Whitman. C. O., and Allis, E. P. " Journal of
Morphology," Vol. II, No. 2. Boston : Ginn & Co.
Pp. 150, with Plates.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Faults of City Schools.— In his recent
annual report on the public instruction of
the State of New York, Superintendent Dra-
per, after mentioning the first-class appli-
ances for education employed in the cities
and larger villages of the State, the system-
atic arrangements and competent superin-
tendence found there, goes on to show
the deficiencies of the city schools as fol-
lows: "Yet school-work in great cities is
encompassed with innumerable perplexities.
The conditions of life among the people are

570

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

widely different in all localities, but these
differences are multiplied and intensified in
great and thickly settled communities. All
classes meet in public schools. The schools
are large. The grading and classification of
pupils are necessarily close and arbitrary.
Individuality disappears, and there is small
opportunity to bestow special care upon
those personal traits of character and genius
which in smaller and less mechanical schools
are developed and cultivated so advanta-
geously. The exactions and controversies of
politics, unfortunately, encroach more upon
the administration of school affairs in large
places than in small ones. The people are
farther removed from the schools, and they
manifest less interest in them because they
have less responsibility and power in man-
aging and directing them. It not infrequent-
ly happens, also, that the law leaves the
granting of appropriations for the extension
or even the maintenance of a city school
system with the Common Council, or some
board which, in cither case, was chosen
without any reference to the schools, and
which seems bound to offset its extravagances
in other directions with severe parsimony
toward the schools."

Sense of Dirc:tioa ia Insects.— Dr. H. C.

McCook has observed a very accurate sense
of direction dispLiycd by the " horse-ant "
{Formica r:ffa) of Great Britain, in laying
out roads from the ant-hills to points in the
surrounding woods. These roads or trails had
in places a v;idth of from two to four inch-
es, and were distinctly marked upon the sur-
face of the ground, which was stained a dark-
brown or black, probably by the formic acid
exuded fro:n the insects, and the leaves and
grass over whi;.h they ran were pressed down
and smoothed by the constant passing of
innumerable logs. From one large mound
three roads ran beneath the tall under-
growth with remarkable directness to differ-
ent oak-trees in which numerous aphides af-
forded a food-supply. Road No. 1 was about
sixty-five feat in length, and ran in an al-
most perf oc:ly straight lino. No. 2 was about
seventy feet long, and varied less than three
inches from a direct line measuring from the
tree to a point within two feet of the termi-
nal tree. There the trail made a detour of
about sii inches. No, 3 was a little over

one hundred feet in length. A short distance
from the nest it touched an old stump which
deflected the path at a slight angle, and fur-
ther on it crossed a foot-path where the trav-
el of the ants was much interfered with by
passing human feet. In spite of the difBeul-
tles of the track, when the entire trail was
staked off, its terminus was found to deviate
less than three feet from a straight line
drawn from the point of departure.

Anstralian Message - Sticts. — The de-
scriptions by Mr. A. W. Ilowitt in the Brit-
ish Association represent a considerable va-
riety as prevailing among the Austrahan
tribes in the use of message-sticks. Some
of them are elaborately marked, highly or-
namented, and even brightly painted. No
messenger known to be such is ever injured.
The message-stick is made by the sender and
kept by the recipient as a reminder of what
he has to do. In one tribe tlic messenger,
for friendly meetings, carries a man's kilt
and a woman's apron hung on a reed ; but
for meetings for hostile purposes, the kilt
is hung upon the point of a spear. With
a tribe in Victoria, the principal man pre-
pares a message-stick by making certain
notches upon it with a knife. The man who
is to carry it looks en, and thus learns the
connection between the marks on the stick
and the message. A notch is made at one end
to indicate the sender, and probably notches
also for those who join in sending the mes-
sage. If all the people of a tribe are in-
vited to attend a meeting, the stick is notched
from end to end ; if part only are invited,
only a portion of the stick is notched ; and
if very few people arc invited to meet or re-
fen-ed to in the verbal mcssago, then a notch
is made for cacli person as he is named to
the messenger. The messenger carries the
stick in a net-bag, and, on arriving at the
camp to which he is sent, hands it to the
head-man at some place apart from the
others, saying, "So-and-so sends you this,"
and then gives his message, referring, as he
does so, to the marks on the message-stick.
As a rule, the notches on a message-stick are
only reminders to the messenger of the mes-
sage he is instructed to deliver, and are un-
intelligible to a man to whom they have not
been explained ; but certain notches appear
to have a definite meaning, and to indicate

POPULAR MISCELLANY,

571

different classes. Mr. Howitt explained a
method for indicating member?, which fully
disposes of the idea that the paucity of
numerals in the language of the Australians
arises from any inability to conceive of
higher numbers than two, three, or four.

Modern Greek Personifications of the
San. — According to Mr. J. Theodore Bent,
the personifications of the sun among the
peasants of modern Greece compare well
with the legends of classical times. His
beauty, power, and strength endow him with
regal attributes, and he is supposed at night-
time to seek his kingdom and live in a pal-
ace, where his mother tends upon him. We
have also the sun's wife and the sun's
daughter, and can compare the Macedonian
legend of Ileliojenni with the Homeric myths
of Perse and her children, Circe and Aictes.
The sun, as messenger, may be compared
with the words of the dying Ajax. The
connection between sun-worship and that of
the prophet Elias is very marked in modern
Greece. Elias looks after rain, and is the
Greek St. Swithin. Churches to him are
always found on sites of ancient temples to
Apollo. This idea of a union between St.
Elias and a power over the elements is clearly
shown in a manuscript from Lesbos. There
is a connection between sun-worship and
St, George, noticeable not only in the isl-
ands, but in Macedonia, where a curious
swing ceremony is performed on St. George's
day in honor of the sun's bride having been
swung up to heaven on that day, and the
Kapa fires are lit.

New Medicinal Plants.— Mrs. 11. C. De
S. Abbott has published an account of the
enterprise of Mr. Thomas Christy, of Lou-
don, in investigating and introducing the act-
ive principles of valuable medicinal plants.
His operations are carried on at his estate
in Sydenham and ia the native countries of
the plants, where he has agents employed
in collecting and cultivating. One of the
most important plants lately introduced is
the Strophanihus, or arrow-poison of Africa,
from which the powerful cardiac remedy
strophantiue is extracted. The plant is a
creeper, topping the tallest trees, and bear-
ing intensely bitter seed-pods. The oily
pulp of the seeds, with which the natives

smear their arrows, causes instant death, or
stupor and foaming at the mouth, followed
by death in the animals with whose blood it
is mixed, while it dees not appear to affect
badly the flesh far from the wound. Among
other new drugs are kcrpod, good for chil-
blains ; alvelos, efficient in skin-diseases ;
and the haya poison and sassy-bark, which
produce anaesthesia of the cornea. Mrs.
Abbott suggests that a rich field of research,
to be cultivated with great advantage to the
healing art, lies in the study of the unin-
vestigated plants of our own country. It is
a field in which she is herself an earnest
laborer.

Absence of Memory and Presence of
Mind. — The sudden lapses of memory that
occasionally attack persons of strong mind
are frequently very surprising. Such lapses
have occasionally been known to come upon
public speakers without the audience seem-
ing to have been aware that the speech had
been marred. Thackeray relates that he
once lost the thread of an after-dinner speech,
and thought that he had made a fool of him-
self ; but his mother, who was within hear-
ing, was of the opposite opinion. The Rev.
Henry Ware, of Boston, lost himself in the
middle of a sermon and stopped abruptly.
He was consoled after the service by hearing
one member of the congregation remark to
another that that was the best sermon Mr.
Ware had ever preached. *' That pause was
sublime ! " A French preacher, when a simi-
lar accident befell him, remarked, " Friends, I
had forgot to say that a person much afflicted
is recommended to your immediate prayers,"
and knelt down to pray. The afflicted person
was himself, and his device wa^ successful to
the restoration of the thread of his discourse.
A famous Irish actor was once called upon to
sing his favorite song, " The Sprig of Shilla-
lah," although it was not on the bills. lie
could not recollect the beginning, and ap-
pealed to the audience: "Ladies and gentle-
men, I assure you that I have sung this song
so often that I forget the first line ! " The
audience gave him the first line, and he went
on with the song amid great applause.
Father Taylor, the " sailor's preacher," when
he once got confused, cried out : " Boys, I've
lost my nominative case ; but never mind,
we're on the way to glory ! "

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

British Gold-Mines. — The existence of
gold in the British Islands, in quantities per-
haps sufficient to pay for modest mining,
seems to be established, thereby justifying
Strabo's inclusion of the precious metals as
among their products. In Wales, gold is
found in Carmarthenshire and Merioneth-
shire. At Gogafan, in the former county, are
to be seen traces of extensive ancient (prob-
ably Roman) workings. At the Viga Cloga
Mine, an average annual return of £2,500
was realized from 1860 to 186*7, since when
the yield has declined. In this mine the
vein appears to have been more productive
as the working was extended to a greater
depth, contrary to what is generally believed
about gold-mines. From the Cambrian
Mine, 300 ounces, and from the Prince of
Wales's Mine, from 300 to 400 ounces of
gold have been extracted to the ton of ore.
Gold-fields wei-e worked in Ireland at the
close of the last century, but oi)erations
wore stopped in 1802 because the cost ex-
ceeded the profit. The attempt was re-
newed in 1840, but given up again on
account of disputes. The principal mining
sites were Ballin Valley, Ballintemple, and
Killahurler. Gold-fields lie in Lanarkshire
and Sutherlandshirc in Scotland. They
were worked with considerable profit in the
days of the Jameses. The gold-field of
southeast Sutherlandshirc covers an area of
thirty miles by twenty. The occurrence of
gold in England is rather a matter of specu-
lation ; but it exists, and can be found and
obtained. Mineral in north Cornwall has
assayed eleven ounces to the ton. Mr. J. S.
Farrer thinks that the reason no gold-mines
are at present being worked in the United
Kingdom may he " far more in the state of
the law than in that of the ground."

Children's Pnnishments.— Something can
be said in favor of most of the forms of cor-
rection— the rod, strap, tasks, confinement,
restriction to plain food, and many others —
which have been more or less employed in the
school and the family. But there is one which
on no account should be employed. Boxing
or pulling the ears, or, indeed, striking any
part of the head, is most injudicious. Not
every form of corporal punishment is so
objectionable, but in applying it judgment
should be employed. Thus, if a chastise-

ment suitable for a robust child is given to a
nervous or feeble one, it will be doubly felt,
and will be out of proportion to the offense.
Moral means of correction may be the most
suitable for sensitive children, and, in the
case of school tasks, may possess a certain
educational value. There is, however, an
important objection to such as imply con-
finement indoors, especially in cases where
the culprit is some poorly nourished young-
ster to whom fresh air is a luxury, or in
any case where the punishment is frequently
repeated.

Searching for the Canals of Mars. — In

his report at the American Association on
the aspect of Mars, as observed at the Na-
tional Observatory, Washington, Prof. A.
Hall said that while observing satellites
in April, attempts w^ere made on several
nights to see the canals, but without success,
and then it was determined to make the
trial in twilight, when the observers could
see more in detail on the surface of the
planet. But nothing like the regular canals
drawn by European observers could be seen,
although the usual reddish and dark spots
and markings were visible nearly every
night.

Japanese Mirrors. — The peculiar prop-
erty of the Japanese " magic mirrors,-' some
of which reflect the figures carved or
stamped on their hacks, was explained by
Prof. Mendenhall, at the American Associa-
tion. It has been known to the Japanese
for a thousand years, but did not receive
scientific attention till a few years ago, when
a Frenchman studied out the reason of it.
The mirrors are round metal disks with
short handles covered with bamboo and
curiously carved backs. The peculiar thing
about them is that, when a ray of light is
reflected from their surface upon a screen,
instead of a mere blotch of light there ap-
pears a reflection of the figures upon the
back of the metal. How this is accom-
plished Prof. Mendenhall explained on the
principle of the divergence of rays of light
fx-om a convex surface. It has been dis-
covered that the polished surfaces of some
of the mirrors are slightly convex. In ad-
dition to this, the smooth surface is really
irregular, though the irregularity can not be

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

S7Z

noticed with the nalied eye. When the mir-
ror is cast, the cooling process has the effect
of drawing it slightly out of shape, and the
impress of the ornamentation on the back of
the disk gives a practically indistinguishable
variation in convexity on the smooth sur-
face that is only noticed when the reflection
is cast upon a screen. The mirrors are not
made for the " magic " purpose. They are
ordinary mirrors, whose magic properties
are the result of chance, and not more than
one in a thousand possesses them. The
author conceives an application of the prin-
ciple of these mirrors to the realization of
the idea of seeing by telegraph, and suggests
that, by the use of electro-magnets and
selenium, a metal peculiarly sensitive to
light-rays, it might be possible to transfer
over hundreds or thousands of miles the
reflection of letters, or even faces.

Effects of Tile-Braining.— The influence
of tile-draining in flood and drought was
thus presented by Prof. R. C. Kedzie, in a
paper read at the American Association:
" 1. Surface ditching in conjunction with
deforesting may increase floods and contrib-
ute to droughts. 2. Tile-draining may in-
crease floods at the " break-up " in the
spring, where the waters accumulated in the
surface-soil by joint action of frost and soil
capillarity during the winter and surface
accumulation in form of snow are suddenly
set free by a rapid thaw. 3. During the
warm months tile-draining tends to mitigate
floods by taking up the excessive rainfall
and holding it in capillary form, keeping
back the sudden flow that would pass over
the surface of the soil if not absorbed by it
and escape by flood ; and also in mitigating
summer drought by increasing the capacity
of the soil to hold water in capillary form
and draw upon the subsoil water-supply
by reason of the increasing capillary power
of such soil produced by tile-draining."

International Congress of Hydrology and
Climatology. — The second triennial session
of the International Congress of Hydrology
and Climatology is to be held in Paris near
the beginning of October, 1889. The Presi-
dent of the Committee on Organization is M.
E. Renou, director of the Meteorological Ob-
servatory of the Pare de Saint-Maur. The

committee has already arranged that the fol-
lowing questions, among others, shall be dis-
cussed : Conditions to be observed in the
installation of a meteorological observatory ;
rules for weather-forecasting, and organiza-
tion of weather-announcements at sanitary
stations ; climatology of different sanitary sta-
tions ; comparison and classification of sani-
tary stations from the point of view of their
climatological conditions ; on the action of al-
titude and climates m affections of the lungs ;
programme of a course of instruction in cli-
matology. Communications should be ad-
dressed to the secretary-general, M. Dr. de
Rausc, Paris, 53 Avenue Montaigne, from
the 1st of October to the 1st of June, and at
Neris (AlHcr), from the 1st of June to the
1st of October.

Mineral Evolution.— Dr. T. Sterry Hunt
has asserted that " the transformation of
the primitive igneous material of this earth's
crust through the action of air and water,
aided by internal heat, presents a mineralogi-
cal evolution not less regular, constant, and
definite in its results than the evolution ap-
parent in the organic kingdoms." Continu-
ing the discussion of this subject in the Brit-
ish Association, he shows that the stability
of silicated species under atmospheric influ-
ence is very variable, some being readily de-
composed, and others very permanent ; the
indifference or chemical resistance, more-
over, increasing with the hardness or me-
chanical resistance. "These two qualities
vary for species of analogous constitution
directly as their condensation ; while, for
species of similar condensation and hard-
ness, the chemical indifference increases as
alumina takes the place of the ordinary pro-
toxide base, lime, magnesia, ferrous oxide,
and alkalies — a fact readily explained by
the comparative insolubility of alumina and
aluminous silicates in atmospheric waters."
Other changes less well known take place
in silicates by the subterranean action of
watery solutions, when a greater insolubility
determines the formation of certain softer
hydrated magnesian and aluminous species
by epigencsis from harder and more con-
densed species, Mr. E. A. Ridsdale has
spoken of the production and conservation
of more stable species as described by Dr.
Hunt as a gradual " selection of inert forms,"

574

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and, further, as " a survival of the most in-
ert." But, " as inertness consists in sta-
bility, and in fitness to resist alike the chemi-
cal and the mechanical agencies which de-
stroy other species, it is evident that his
phraseology is but another statement of the
formula of ' the survival of the fittest.' The
great principle of the change of the mineral
matters which existed in former conditions
of our planet, into other forms more stable
under the altered conditions of later ages, is
but an extension to the mineral kingdom of
the laws already recognized in astronomical
and biological development."

Training t'ae Emotions. — It has been
proposed to give some attention to regulating
the development of the emotions, both in
the young and in the adult public. Frances
Power Cobbe, in the "Fortnightly Review,"
maintains that emotions come to persons by
a sort of contagion far oftener than they
spring up of themselves in the human breast.
Any attempt to communicate our emotions
by command, however, tends rather to pro-
duce the opposite feelings. In order to
educate the emotions of others, we must cm-
ploy this natural agency, contagion. In or-
der to inspire a person with a given feeling,
we must exhibit the feeling in ourselves.
Parents, duly impressed with the importance
of the subject, would carefully suppress, or
at least conceal, such of their own emotions
as they would regret to see caught up by
their children. A teacher who has the re-
spect and esteem of his pupils will affect
their emotions for evil or good according as
he betrays enthusiasm or aversion for selfish
and sanguinary conquerors, according as he
justifies or condemns assassins and anarch-
ists, according as he represents science as
seeking triumphs or truths, and according as
he treats efforts for the elevation of man-
kind with levity or respect. The companions
of the )'oung have a great influence on the
development of their emotions. As regards
girls, their doubly emotional natures make it
a matter of moral life and death that their
companions should be pure and honorable-
minded. Too little precaution is taken, es-
pecially in American public schools, against
the herdiug of innocent children with others
who have been familiar with vice. As re-
gards the education of the emotions of the

community, an excessively demoralizing in-
fluence was removed when the public was
excluded from executions. Admirable ma-
chinery for the communication of noble emo-
tions through the masses is furnished by
majestic public functions and by funerals of
distinguished men. Literature has an im-
mense power to sway tlie emotions of all
educated people. The stage is another great
agency for training the emotions of the
public, and, even when it produces only
harmless merriment, its influence is whole-
some and beneficent. Music and the beauty
of nature and of art are also jiowerful levers
of the higher emotions, which it becomes us
to use for the benefit of our fellows when-
ever it is practicable to do so.

The Botanical Ontloolt. — In his address
to the Biological Section of the British Asso-
ciation, Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer, while as-
serting the importance of botany, admitted
that the outlook for systematic botany was
at present somewhat discouraging. France,
Germany, and Austria, he said, " no longer
possess anything like a school on the sub-
ject, though they still supply able and dis-
tinguished workers. That these are, how-
ever, few, may be judged from the fact that
it is difficult to fill the place of the lamented
Eichler in the direction of the Botanic Gar-
den and herbarium at Berlin. Outside of
our own country Switzerland is the most im-
portant seat of general systematic study, to
which three generations of De Candolles have
devoted themselves. The most active cen-
ters of work at the moment are, however, to
be found in our own country, in the United
States, and in Russia, And the reason is, in
each case, no doubt the same. The enor-
mous area of the earth's surface over which
each country holds sway brings to them a
vast amount of material which peremptorily
demands discussion. . . . The data of sys-
tematic botany, when properly discussed, lend
themselves to very important generalizations.
Perhaps those which are yielded by the study
of geographical distribution are of the most
general interest. The mantle of vegetation
which covers the earth, if only we could right-
ly unravel its texture, would tell us a good
deal about geological histoiy. The study of
geological distribution, rightly handled, af-
fords an independent line of attack upon the

NOTES.

575

problem of the past distribution of land and
sea. It would probably never afford suffi-
cient data for a complete independent solu-
tion of the problem ; but it must always be
extremely useful as a check upon other
methods. Here, however, we are embar-
rassed by the enormous amount of work
which has yet to bo accomplished ; and, un-
fortunately, this is not of a kind which can
be indefinitely postponed. The old terres-
trial order is fast passing away before our
eyes. Everywhere the primitive vegetation
is disappearing as more and more of the
earth's surface ij brought into cultivation,
or at any rate denuded of its forests. A
good deal, however, has been done." Mr.
Bentham and Sir Ferdinand Mueller have
given a comprehensive flora of Australia,
the first largo area of the earth's surface of
which the vegetation has been completely
worked out. Sir Joseph Hooker is busy with
the Indo-Ma!ayan ilora of Ihe British domin-
ions, and the Dutch botanists have described
the Malayan flora proper. British botanists
have begun to work the Chinese flora, and the
French that of Yunnan. Prof. Bayley Bal-
four and Dr. Schweinfurth have studied the
anomalous flora cf Socotra. The flora of
Africa has been partly studied, and of this,
that of Madagascar is the most interesting.
American botanists are still busy with their
own flora, and the Ilussians are continually
adding to our knov/ledge of the flora of North-
ern and Central Asia. The flora and fauna
of Central America have been provided for
by the munificence of two English men of
science. The flora of Brazil is under slow
examination and arrangement in Prof.
TJrban's " Flora Eraziliensis." And the
deep-sea exploring expeditions have made
known the floras of remote islands.

An Entliasiast in Science,— Prof. W.

Stanley Jevous wrote to his sister, from Mel-
bourne, Australia, April 9, 1859: "This aft-
ernoon I called at the Melbourne Observa-
tory upon the director. Prof. Neumayer, a
rather new-comer. I was introduced to a
little spare German, who received me with a
tremendous bow, to which I was obliged to
respond with interest. . . . With the great-
est enthusiasm he at once commenced a com-
plete round of his observatory, showing and
discussing with me cvei'y instrument, me-

teorological, magnetic, and astronomical, of
which, at least the two former kinds, he had
a numerous and very varied collection, all in
active use throughout the twenty-four hours.
Then he showed me many of the numerical
results, explaining the method of reducing
them, and carefully taking my direction and
name, that he might post me his published
reports, and even promising immediately to
set his assistants to work to copy out a few-
barometer readings which I required, and
had made the ostensible purpose of my visit.
. . . How delightful it is to meet this enthu-
siasm for true and highly useful things, when
one passes whole years together among those
who are enthusiastic and greedy only about
gold ! One would be willingly snubbed each
day of the year by the rich and addle-headed,
if only received so well as this by the truly
best of their race."

Nascent Species cf Plants. — Through the
discussions of the floras of the western Pa-
cific islands, collected by the Challenger Ex-
pedition, wo have for the Crst time been
enabled, says the Picv. W. T. Thiselton
Dyer, to get some idea how a tropical island
was furnished with plants, and to discrimi-
nate the littoral clement, due to the action of
oceanic currents, from the interior forest,
almost wholly due to frugivorous birds. The
recent examination of Christmas Island by
the English Admiralty has shown the pro-
cess of flora-making in another stage. The
plants collected by Mr. Lister prove to be
closely allied to those of Java. But the
effect of isolation has begun to tell ; and it
is said by Prof. Oliver that the plants can
not be for the most part exactly matched
with their congeners from Java, but yet do
not differ sufficiently to be specifically dis-
tinguished. "We have here, therefore, it
appears to me, a manifest case of nascent
species."

NOTES.

PuoF. Fredekick Tuckermax, M. D.,
of Amherst, has examined two specimens
of tape-worm {Tcenia saf/inaia) of unusual
length, sent him by Dr. John G. Stanton, of
New London. The first specimen consisted
of a long ribbon and several smaller pieces,
measuring together over 7 metres, and com-
prising 711 joints. The head and the neck-
joints were not obtained. The second worm

576

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

had 727 joints, and a length of a little more
than 8 metres. Leuckart, the distinguished
helminthologist, says, "According to Bremser
and Diesing, the famous Viennese collection
of helminths contains chains 20 to 24 feet
long, very much longer, therefore, than the
preserved specimens I have measured, which
were at most only slightly above 14 feet."
Hence, Prof. Tuckerman's two specimens, of
25 and 27^ feet are remarkable.

Mr. James Constantine Pilling has un-
dertaken the compilation of bibliographies
of various North American languages, which
are now in course of publication by the Bu-
reau of Ethnology. In preparation for this
task he visited tlie principal public libraries
of the United States, Canada, and northern
Mexico, corresponded with librarians, mis-
sionaries, and other persons interested in
the subject, and examined printed author-
ities. Every effort was made to take titles
at first hand, with the result that a very
large percentage of the books enrolled are
described from the compiler's own sight.
The bibliographies of the Eskimo and Si-
onan > languages have been issued, and that
of the Iroquois is to follow.

Bathing upon a full meal has long been
considered dangerous. The physiological
explanation of the peril is, that the blood in
digestion tends toward the alimentary tract,
leaving the brain proportionately anemic,
and the action of the heart and lungs im-
peded by a distended stomach. A cold im-
mersion at this stage naturally inducing a
tendency to syncope, and concentrating sur-
face blood still more about the central
organs, the heart finds the labor imposed
upon it too great, and finally succumbs.

The make of American salt, it is said,
has more than doubled during the last ten
years. Within the same period two new
salt regions have enjoyed a rapid develop-
ment. According to the " Saginaw Courier,"
3,944, .309 barrels of salt were made in Mich-
igan in 18S7, against 2,673,588 in 1880,
and 561,288 barrels in 1869. More salt was
made in Michigan in 1887 than had been
made in all the time previous to 1869. A
strong rival to the Onondaga district has
been developed in the Wyoming region of
western New York, where a most extensive
salt-manufacture has grown up within the
last five or six years.

There are still, according to the Rev. J.
Batchelor, prophets and prophetesses among
the Ainos, but they limit their powers to
telling the cause of illness, prescribing
medicine, using charms, and the like. The
person prophesying is supposed to sleep or
otherwise lose consciousness, and not to
know what he is uttering. The burden of
the prophecy sometimes comes out in jerks,
but more often in a kind of sing-song mono-
tone.

A DEXTEROUS management of the roller-
shades of windows may be made to go a
great way in promoting the coolness of
rooms. Let the upper window-sash be low-
ered, and the inside blind or curtain placed
outside and secured in position by passing
its tassel-cord beneath the lower sash.
Thus the window-glass is protected from the
direct rays of the sun, and is at the same
time cooled by the current of air that passes
between the blind and window. An addi-
tional merit of the plan is that it promotes
ventilation.

While the value of kindness in discipline
can hardly be overestimated, it must be ad-
mitted that suasion alone will not avail for
every instance in which a pupil's will is idle
or obstinate. Boys are well aware of this,
and are apt to look for something more as
constituting an authority worthy of obedi-
ence. Hence, it is argued by experts in
training that it is unwise, and in the end
unkind, always to spare the rod. But all
striking at random must be condemned, and
particularly such barbarity as boxing the
head and cars. Nature has furnished a
part, well cushioned, but sensitive enough,
well adapted to the exercise of chastisement,
upon which any punishment within reason
will fall harmless.

Annatto thrives in Guadeloupe at heights
of from 1,500 to 2,000 feet above the sea,
while greater heights are progressively more
unfavorable to it. The seeds are planted in
holes prepared to receive them, or in nurser-
ies, and the young plants require most care-
ful attention during the first year ; but after-
ward they grow fast and need but little care.
A few pods may be gathered in one year
after the plant has been transfen-ed from
the nurseries. Annatto bears twice a year,
the spring blossoms always yielding the
largest crop. As soon as the pods in the
bunches begin to dry and open, the bunches
are cut, packed in baskets, and carried to the
shed prepared for the purpose. The pick-
ing of the pods is very tedious.

Two French gentlemen are constructing
a terrestrial globe for the exposition of
1889, on the scale of one millionth. It will
be thirteen metres in diameter and forty me-
tres in circumference, and a kilometre will be
represented on it by a millimetre. Paris will
occupy a space of about a square centimetre.
It is believed that the contemplation of this
object, whose size is a measurable fraction of
that of the earth, will help, better than any
other existing apparatus, to convey a reali-
zation of terrestrial magnitudes and dis-
tances.

An attempt last year to cultivate the
cotton-tree near Taganrog, on the Don, in
European Russia, is said to have proved
successful.

PIERRE BELON.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MON^THLY.

HABCH, 1889.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D.,

rOEMEELT PEESIDENT OF COENELL lOTIVEESITY.

"DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" AND INSANITY.
PART II.

IN the foregoing chapter we have seen the culmination of the
old procedure regarding insanity, as it was developed under
theology and enforced by ecclesiasticism ; and we have noted how,
under the influence of Luther and Calvin, the Reformation rather
deepened than weakened the faith in the malice and power of a
personal devil. Nor was this in the reformed churches, any more
than in the old, mere matter of theory. As, in the early centuries
of Christianity, it was to their power over the enemy of mankind
in the bodies of men that the priests of the new faith especially
appealed in proof of its divine origin and nature, so now the
clergy of the rival creeds eagerly sought opportunities to estab-
lish the truth of their own doctrines and the falsehood of their
opponents' by the visible casting out of devils. True, their meth-
ods somewhat differed : where the Catholic used holy water and
consecrated wax, the Protestant was content with texts of Script-
ure and importunate prayer; but the supplementary physical
annoyance of the indwelling demon did not greatly vary. Sharp
was the competition for the unhappy objects of treatment. Each
side, of course, stoutly denied all efficacy to its adversaries' efforts,
urging that any seeming victory over Satan was due not to the
defeat but to the collusion of the fiend. As, according to the
Master himself, " no man can by Beelzebub cast out devils," the
patient was now in greater need of relief than before ; and more
VOL. sxxiv. — 37

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than one poor victim had to bear alternately Lutheran, Romish,
and perhaps Calvinistic exorcism.*

But far more serious in its consequences was another rivalry
to which in the sixteenth century the clergy of all creeds found
themselves subject. The revival of the science of medicine, under
the impulse of the new study of antiquity, suddenly bade fair to
take out of the hands of the Church the profession of which she
had enjoyed so long and so profitable a monopoly. Only one
class of diseases remained unquestionably hers — those which were
still admitted to be due to the direct personal interference of
Satan — and foremost among these was insanity, f It was surely
no wonder that an age of religious controversy and excitement
should have been exceptionally prolific in ailments of the mind ;
and to men who mutually taught the utter futility of that bap-
tismal exorcism by which the babes of their misguided neighbors
were made to renounce the Devil and his works, it ought not to
have seemed strange that his victims now became more numer-
ous. J But so simple an explanation did not satisfy these physi-
cians of souls, or, rather, they devised a simpler one : their pa-
tients, they alleged, were bewitched, and their increase was due to
the growing numbers of those human allies of Satan known as
witches.

Already, before the close of the fifteenth century. Pope Inno-
cent VIII had issued the startling bull by which he called on the
archbishops, bishops, and other clergy of Germany to join hands
with his inquisitors in rooting out these willing bond-servants of
Satan, who were said to swarm throughout all that country, and
to revel in the blackest crimes. A half-dozen popes had since re-
iterated the appeal ; and, though none of these documents touched
on the blame of witchcraft for diabolic possession, the inquisitors
charged with their execution pointed it out most clearly in their
infamous hand-book, the " Witch-Hammer," and prescribed the
special means by which possession thus caused should be met.
These teachings took firm root in religious minds everywhere ;
and, during the great age of witch-burning that followed the
Reformation — when, in Germany alone, according to the most

* For instances of this competition, see Freytag, "Aus dem. Jahrh. d. Reformation,"
pp. 359-375. The Jesuit Stengel, in his "De judiciis divinis" (Ingolstadt, 1G51), devotes a
whole chapter to an exorcism, by the great Canisius, of a spirit that had baffled Protestant
conjuration. Among the most jubilant Catholic satires of the time are those exulting in
Luther's own alleged failure as an exorcist.

f For the attitude of the Catholic clergy, the best sources are the confidential Jesuit
" Litterte Annuaj." To this day the numerous treatises on " pastoral medicine " in use in
the older Church devote themselves mainly to this sort of warfare with the devil.

\ Baptismal exorcism continued in use among the Lutherans till in the eighteenth cent-
ury, though the struggle over its abandonment had been long and sharp. See Krafft,
" Historic vom Exorcismo " (Hamburg, 1750).

N-UW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 579

moderate estimate, there perished within a single century (1550-
1650) by an excruciating death, for this imaginary crime, not less
than a hundred thousand human lives — it may well be doubted
whether any single cause so often gave rise to an outbreak of the
persecution as the alleged bewitchment of some poor mad or fool-
ish or hysterical creature. The persecution thus once under way,
it fed itself ; for, under the terrible doctrine of " excepted cases,'*
by which in the religious crimes of heresy and witchcraft there
was no limit to the use of torture, the witch was forced to confess
to accomplices, who in turn accused others, and so on to the end
of the chapter.*

The horrors of such a persecution, with the consciousness of
an ever-present devil it breathed and the panic terror of him it
inspired, could not but itself increase the insanity it claimed to
avenge. Well-authenticated, though rarer than is often believed,
were the cases where crazed women voluntarily accused them-
selves of the impossible crime ; and one of the most eminent
authorities on diseases of the mind declares that among the unfor-
tunate beings who were put to death for witchcraft he recognizes
well-marked victims of cerebral disorders ; while an equally emi-
nent authority in Germany tells us that, in a most careful study
of the original records of their trials by torture, he has often
found their answers and recorded conversations exactly like those
familiar to him in our modern lunatic asylums, and names some
forms of insanity which constantly and unmistakably appear
among those who suffered for criminal dealings with the Devil, f

The result of this wide-spread terror was naturally a steady
increase in mental disorders. A great modern authority tells us
that, although modern civilization tends to increase insanity, the
number of lunatics at present is far less than in those ages of
faith and in the Reformation period. The treatment of the " pos-
sessed," as we find it laid down in standard treatises, sanctioned
by orthodox churchmen and jurists, accounts for this abundantly.

* For a much fuller treatment of this phase of the subject, I must refer the reader to
my chapter on witchcraft. The Jesuit Stengel, professor at Ingolstadt, who (in his great
work, " De judiciis divinis ") urges, as reasons why a merciful God permits illness, his
wish to glorify himself through the miracles wrought by his Church, and his desire to test
the faith of men by letting them choose between the holy aid of the Church and the illicit
resort to medicine, declares that there is a difference between simple possession and that
brought by bewitchment, and that the latter is the more difficult to treat.

f See D. H. Tuke, " Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles," London,
18S2, p. 36; also Kirchhoff, p. 340. The forms of insanity especially mentioned arc "de-
mentia senilis " and epilepsy. A striking case of voluntary confession of witchcraft by a
woman who lived to recover from the delusion is narrated in great detail by Reginald
Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," London, 1584. It is, alas, only too likely that the
" strangeness " caused by slight and unrecognized mania led often to the accusation of witch-
craft instead of to the suspicion of possession.

58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One sort of treatment used for those accused of witchcraft will
also serve to show this — the " tortura insomnicE." Of all things
in brain-disease, calm and regular sleep is most certainly benefi-
cial ; yet, under this practice, these half -crazed creatures were
prevented, night after night and day after day, from sleeping
or even resting. In this way temporary delusion became chronic
insanity, mild cases violent, torture and death ensued, and the
" ways of God to man " were justified.*

But the most contemptible creatures in all those centuries
were the physicians who took sides with religious orthodoxy.
While we have on the side of truth a Flade sacrificing his life,
a Loos his hopes of preferment, a Bekker his position, and a Tho-
masius his ease, reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the
other side, a troop of eminently respectable doctors mixing Script-
ure, metaphysics, and pretended observations to support the " safe
side " and to deprecate interference with the existing superstition,
which seemed to them " a very safe belief to be held by the com-
mon people." f

Against one form of insanity both religions were esj^ecially
cruel. Nothing is more common in all times of religious excite-
ment than strange personal hallucinations, involving the belief,
on the part of the insane patient, that he is a divine person : in
the most striking representation of insanity that has ever been
made, Kaulbach shows, at the center of his wonderful group,
a patient drawing attention to himself as the Saviour of the
world.

Sometimes, when this form of disease took a milder hysterical
character, the subject of it was treated with reverence, and even
elevated to sainthood : such examples as St. Francis of Assisi
and St. Catherine of Siena in Italy, St. Bridget in Sweden, St.
Theresa in Spain, St. Mary Alacoque in France, and Louise Lateau
in Belgium, are typical. But more frequently such cases shocked
public feeling, and were treated with especial rigor : typical of
this is the case of Simon Marin, who in his insanity believed him-
self to be the Son of God, and was on that account burned alive at
Paris and his ashes scattered to the winds. J

* See Kirchhoff, as above.

f For names and arguments used by creatures of this sort, see Diefenbach, " Der Hex-
enwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland," pp. 342-346. A long list of
these infamous names is given on p. 345.

X As to the frequency among the insane of this form of belief, see Calmeil, ii, 25*7 ; also
Maudsley, "Pathology of Mind," pp. 201, 202, and 418-424; also Rambaud, "Histoire de
la Civilisation en France," ii, 110. For the peculiar aberrations of the saints above named
and other ecstatics, see Maudsley, as above, pp. 71, 72, and 149, 150. Maudsley's chapters
on this and cognate subjects are certainly among the most valuable contributions to modem
thought. For a discussion of the most recent case, see Warlomont, "Louise Lateau,"
Paris, 1875.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 581

The profundity of theologians and jurists constantly developed
new theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the " pos-
sessed." One such theory was that Satan could be taken into the
mouth with one's food — perhaps in the form of an insect swal-
lowed on a leaf of salad. Another theory was that' Satan entered
the body when the mouth was opened to breathe, and there are
well-authenticated cases of doctors and divines who, when casting
out evil spirits, took especial care lest the imp might jump into
their own mouths from the mouth of the patient. Another the-
ory was that the devil entered human beings during sleep ; and,
at a comparatively recent period, the King of Spain was wont to
sleep between two monks, to keep off the devil.*

The monasteries were frequent sources of that form of mental
disease which was supposed to be caused by bewitchment. From
the earliest period it is evident that monastic life tended to de-
velop insanity. Such cases as those of St. Anthony and St. Au-
gustine are typical of its effects upon the strongest minds ; but it
was especially the convents for women that became the great
breeding-beds of this disease. Among the large numbers of
women and girls thus assembled, many of them forced into con-
finement against their will, for the reason that their families
could give them no dower, subjected to the unsatisfied longings,
suspicions, bickerings, petty jealousies, envies, and hatreds, so
notorious in convent-life, mental disease was not unlikely to be de-
veloped at any moment. Hysterical excitement in nunneries took
shapes sometimes comical, but more generally tragical. Note-
worthy is it that the last x)laces where executions for witchcraft
took place were mainly in the neighborhood of great nunneries,
•and the last famous victim — of the hundreds of thousands exe-
cuted in Germany for this imaginary crime — was Sister Anna
Renata Sanger, sub-prioress of a nunnery near Wurzburg.f

The same thing was seen among young women exposed to
sundry fanatical Protestant preachers : insanity, both temporary
and permanent, was thus frequently developed among the Hugue-
nots of France, and has been thus produced in America, from the

* As to the devil's entering into the mouth while eating, see Calmeil, as above, ii, 105
106. As to the dread of Dr. Borde lest the evil spirit, when exorcised, might enter his
own body, see Tuke, as above, p. 28. As to the King of Spain, see the noted chapter in
Buckle's " History of Civilization in England."

f Among the multitude of authorities on this point, see Kirchhoff, as above, p. 337;
and, for a most striking picture of this dark side of convent-life, drawn, indeed, by a de-
voted Roman Catholic, see Manzoni's " Promessi Sposi." On Anna Renata there is a strik-
ing essay by the late Johannes Scherr, in his " Fammerschlage und Ilistoricn." On the
general subject of hysteria thus developed, see the writings of Carpenter and Tuke ; and,
as to its natural development in nunneries, see Maudsley, " Responsibility in Mental Dis-
ease," p. 9. Especial attention will be paid to this in the next chapter of this series —
"Diabolism and Hysteria."

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

days of the Salem persecution down to the " camp-meetings " of
the present time.*

At various times, from the days of St. Agobard of Lyons
through the Reformation period, protests had been made by
thoughtful men against this system. Medicine had made some
advance toward a better view, but the theological torrent had
generally overwhelmed all who supported a scientific treatment.
At last, toward the end of the sixteenth century, two men made a
beginning of a much more serious attack upon this venerable
superstition. The revival of learning and the impulse to thought
on material matters given during the " age of discovery " un-
doubtedly produced an atmosphere which made the work of these
men possible. In the year 1563, in the midst of demonstrations of
demoniacal possession by the most eminent theologians and
judges — who sat in their robes and looked wise, while women,
shrieking, praying, and blaspheming, were put to the torture — a
man arose who dared to protest effectively that some of the per-
sons thus charged might be simply insane, and this man was
John Wier, of Cleves.

His protest does not at this day strike us as particularly bold.
In his books, " De Prestigiis Deemonum " and"De Lamiis," he
did his best not to offend religious or theological susceptibilities,
but he felt obliged to tell certain truths, to call attention to the
mingled fraud and delusion of those who claimed to be bewitched,
and to point out that it was often not their accusers but the
alleged witches themselves who were really ailing, and he urged
that these be brought first of all to a physician.

His book was at once attacked by the most eminent theologi-
ans. One of the greatest men of genius of his time, John Bodin,
also wrote with especial power against it, and by a plentiful use
of Scriptural texts gained, to all appearance, a complete victory :
superstition seemed fastened upon Europe for a thousand years
more. But skepticism was in the air, and, about a quarter of a
century after the publication of Wier's book, there were pub-
lished in France the essays of a man, by no means so noble, but
of far greater genius — Michel de Montaigne. The general skepti-
cism which his work promoted among the French people did
much to strengthen an atmosphere in which the belief in witch-
craft and demoniacal possession must inevitably wither. But this
process, though real, was hidden, and the victory still seemed on
the theological side.

The development of the new truth and its struggle against the
old error still went on. In Holland, Balthazar Bekker wrote his
book against the worst forms of the superstition, and attempted
to help the scientific side by a text from the Second Epistle of St.

* This branch of the subject will be discussed more at length in a future chapter.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 583

Peter, showing that the devils had been confined by the Al-
mighty, and therefore could not be doing on earth the work
which was imputed to them. But Bekker's Protestant brethren
drove him from his pulpit, and he narrowly escaped with his life.

The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently
the worst. So it proved in this case. In the first half of the seven-
teenth century the cruelties arising from the old doctrine were
more numerous and severe than ever before. In Spain, Sweden,
Italy, and, above all, in Germany, we see constant eficorts to sup-
press the evolution of the new truth.

But, in the midst of all this reactionary rage, glimpses of
right reason began to appear. It is significant that at this very
time, when the old superstition was apparently everywhere tri-
umphant, the declaration by Poulet that he and his brother and
his cousin had, by smearing themselves with ointment, changed
themselves into wolves and devoured children, brought no severe
punishment ujDon them. The judges sent him to a mad-house.
More and more, in spite of frantic efforts from the pulpit to save
the superstition, great writers and jurists, especially in France,
began to have glimpses of the truth and courage to uphold it.
Malebranche spoke against the superstition ; Siguier led the
French courts to annul several decrees condemning sorcerers;
the great chancellor, D'Aguesseau, declared to the Parliament of
Paris that, if they wished to stop sorcery, they must stop talking
about it — that sorcerers are more to be pitied than blamed.*

But just at this time, as the eighteenth century was approach-
ing, the theological current was strengthened by a great ecclesias-
tic— the greatest theologian that France has produced, whose
influence upon religion and upon the mind of Louis XIV was
enormous — Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. There had been reason to
expect that Bossuet would at least do something to mitigate the
superstition ; for his writings show that in much, which before
his time had been ascribed to diabolic possession, he saw simple
lunacy. Unfortunately, the same adherence to the literal inter-
pretation of Scripture which led him to oppose every other scien-
tific truth developed in his time led him also to attack this : he
delivered and published two great sermons which, while showing
some progress in the form of his belief, showed none the less that
the fundamental idea of diabolic possession was still to be tena-
ciously held. "What this idea was may be seen in one typical
statement : he declared that " a single devil could turn the earth
round as easily as we turn a marble." f

* See Esquirol, "Des Maladies mentales," i, 488, 489 ; ii, 529.

f See the two sermons, " Sur les Demons " (which are virtually but two forms of the
same sermon), in Bossuet's works, edition of 1845, iii, 236 d scq. ; also Dzwiecki, in the
" Nineteenth Century," as above. On Bossuet's resistance to other scientific truths, espe-

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The theological current, thus re-enforced, seemed to become
again irresistible ; but it was only so in appearance. In spite of
it, French skepticism continued to develop ; signs of quiet change
among the mass of thinking men were appearing more and more ;
and in 1672 came one of great significance, for the Parliament of
Rouen having doomed fourteen sorcerers to be burned, their ex-
ecution was delayed for two years, evidently on account of skep-
ticism among officials ; and at length the great minister of Louis
XIV, Colbert, issued an edict checking such trials, and ordering
the convicted to be treated for madness.*

Victory seemed now to incline to the standard of science, and
in 1725 no less a personage than St. Andr^, a court physician,
dared to publish a work virtually showing " demoniacal posses-
sion"' to be lunacy, f

The French philosophy, from the time of its early develop-
ment in the eighteenth century under Montesquieu and Voltaire,
naturally strengthened the movement ; the results of ijost-mortem
examinations of the brains of the " possessed " confirmed it ; and
in 1768 we see it take form in a declaration by the Parliament of
Paris that possessed persons were to be considered as simply dis-
eased.

In England the same warfare went on. John Locke had
asserted the truth, but the theological view continued to control
public opinion. Most prominent among those who exercised
great power against the truth was John Wesley, and the great-
ness and beauty of his character made his influence in this respect
all the more unfortunate. The same servitude to the mere letter
of Scripture which led him to declare that " to give up witchcraft
is to give up the Bible and to take ground against the funda-
mental truths of theology/' controlled him in regard to insanit5^
He insisted, on the authority of the Old Testament, that bodily
diseases are sometimes caused by devils, and, upon the authority
of the New Testament, that the gods of the heathen were demons ;
he believed that dreams, while in some cases caused by bodily
conditions and passions, are shown by Scripture to be also caused
by occult powers of evil ; he cites a physician to prove that
"most lunatics are really demoniacs." In his great sermon on
" Evil Angels," he dwells upon this point especially ; resists the
idea that "possession" may be epilepsy, even though ordinary
symptoms of epilepsy be present ; protests against " giving up to
infidels such proofs of an invisible world as are to be found in
diabolic possession," and evidently believes that some who have

daily in astronomy, geology, and political economy, sec my previous chapters in " The War-
fare of Science."

* See Dagron, p. 8 ; also Rambaud, as above, ii, 155,

f For.St. Andre, see Lacroix, as above, pp. 189, 190.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 585

been made hysterical by his own preaching are " possessed of
Satan." On all this, and much more to the same effect, he insisted
•with all the power given to him by his deep religious nature, his
wonderful familiarity with the Scrij)tures, his natural acumen,
and his eloquence.*

But here, too, science continued its work. The old belief was
steadily undermined, an atmosphere favorable to the truth became
more and more developed, and the act of Parliament in 1735, which
banished the crime of witchcraft from the statute-book, was the
beginning of the end.

In Germany we see the beginnings of a similar triumph for
science. In Prussia, that sturdy old monarch, Frederick William
I, nullified the efforts of the more zealous clergy and orthodox
jurists to keep up the old doctrine in his dominions. In Austria,
the government set Dr. Antonio Haen at making careful researches
into the causes of diabolic possession. He did not think it best,
in view of the power of the Church, to dispute the possibility or
probability of such cases, but simply decided, after thorough in-
vestigation, that, out of the many cases which had been brought
to him, there was not one to support the belief in demoniacal
influence. An attempt was made to follow up this examination,
and much was done by men like Francke and Van Swieten, and
especially by the reforming emperor, Joseph II, to rescue men and
women who would otherwise have fallen victims to the prevalent
superstition. Unfortunately, Joseph had arrayed against him-
self the whole power of the Church, and most of his good efforts
seemed brought to naught. But what the noblest of the old race
of German emperors could not do suddenly, the German men of
science did gradually. Quietly and thoroughly, by proofs that
could not be gainsaid, they recovered the old scientific fact estab-
lished in pagan Greece and Rome, that madness is simply physical
disease. But they now established it on a basis that can never
again be shaken ; for, in post-mortem examinations of large num-
bers of " possessed " persons, they found evidence of brain-disease.
Typical is a case at Hamburg in 1729. An afflicted woman showed
in a high degree all the recognized characteristics of diabolic pos-
session. Exorcisms, preachings, and sanctified remedies of every
sort in vogue were tried in vain. Milder medical means were then
tried, and she so far recovered that she was allowed to take the
communion before she died. The autopsy, held in the presence of
fifteen physicians and a public notary, showed it to be simply a

* For John Locke, see Kiug's "Life of Locke," ii, 173, 174. For Wesley, out of his
almost innumerable writings bearing upon the subject, I may select the sermon on " Evil
Angels," and his " Letter to Dr. Middleton " ; and in his collected works there are many
striking statements and arguments, especially in vols, iii, vi, and ix. See also Tyerman'a
" Life of Wesley," ii, pp. 260 cl seq.

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

case of chronic meningitis. Tlie work of German men of science
in this field is noble indeed. A great succession, from Wier to
Vircliow, have erected a barrier against which all the efforts of
reactionists beat in vain.*

In America, the belief in diabolic influence had, in the early
colonial period, full control. The Mathers supported it fully, and
the Salem witchcraft horrors were among its results ; but the dis-
cussion of that folly by Calef struck it a severe blow, and a better
influence spread rapidly throughout the colonies.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the old belief in dia-
bolic possession had practically disappeared from all enlightened
countries. In Protestant Germany, where it had raged most
severely, it was, as a rule, cast out of the church formulas, cate-
chisms, and hymns, and became more and more a subject for
jocose allusion. f From force of habit, and for the sake of con-
sistency, some of the more conservative theological authorities
continued to repeat the old arguments, and there were many
who insisted upon the belief as absolutely necessary to ordi-
nary orthodoxy ; but it is evident that it had become a mere
conventionality, that men only believed that they believed it,
and now a reform seemed j)ossible in the treatment of the
insane.

But, although the old superstition had l^een discarded, the in-
evitable conservatism in theology and medicine caused many old
abuses to be continued for years after the theological basis for
them had really disappeared. There still lingered also a feeling
of indifference toward madmen, engendered by the early feeling
of hostility toward them, which sufficed to prevent for many years
any practical reforms.

What that old feeling had been, even under the most favorable
circumstances, and among the best of men, we have seen in the
fact that Sir Thomas More ordered acknowledged lunatics to be
publicly flogged ; and it will be remembered that Shakespeare
makes one of his characters refer to madmen as deserving "a
dark house and a whip." And what the old treatment was and
continued to be we know but too well. Taking Protestant Eng-
land as an example — and it was probably the most humane — we
have a chain of testimony. Toward the end of the sixteenth cent-
ury, Bethlehem Hospital was reported too loathsome for any man
to enter ; in the seventeenth century, John Evelyn found it no
better ; in the eighteenth, Hogarth's pictures and contemporary

* See Kirchhoff, pp. 181-187; also Langin, "Religion und Ilexenprozess," as above
cited.

f Luther's great hymn, " Ein' feste Burg," remained, of course, a prominent exception
to the rule ; but a popular proverb came to express the general feeling: '•'• Auf Teufel reimt
sich Zweifel." See Langin, as above, pp. 545, 546.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 587

reports show it to be essentially what it had been in those pre-
vious centuries.*

The first humane impulse of any considerable importance in
this field seems to have been aroused in America. In the year
1751 certain members of the " Society of Friends'' founded a small
hospital for the insane on better principles in Pennsylvania. To
use the language of its founders, it was intended " as a good work,
acceptable to God." Twenty years later Virginia established a
similar asylum, and gradually others appeared in other colonies.

But it was in France that mercy was to be put upon a scientific
basis, and was to lead to practical results which were to convert
the world to humanity. In this case, as in so many others, from
France was spread and popularized not only the skepticism which
destroyed the theological theory, but also the devotion which
built up the new scientific theory and endowed the world with a
new treasure of civilization.

In 1756 some physicians of the great hospital at Paris known
as the Hotel-Dieu protested that the cruelties prevailing in the
treatment of the insane were aggravating the disease ; and some
protests followed from other quarters. Little efi'ect was produced
at first ; but, just before the French Revolution, Tenon, La Roche-
foucauld-Liancourt, and others took up the subject, and in 1791 a
commission was appointed to undertake a reform.

By great good fortune, the man selected to lead in the move-
ment was one who had already thrown his heart into it — Jean
Baptiste Pinel. In 1792 Pinel was made physician at Bicetre, one
of the most extensive lunatic asylums in France ; and to the work
there imposed upon him he gave all his powers. Little was heard
of him at first. The most terrible scenes of the French Revolution

* On Sir Thomas More and the condition of Bedlam, see Tuke, "History of the Insane
in the British Isles," pp. 63-73. One of the passages of Shakespeare is in "As you Like
It," Act iii, scene 2. As to the survival of indifference to the sufferings of the insane so
long after the belief which caused it had generally disappeared, see some excellent remarks
in Maudsley's "Responsibility in Mental Disease," London, 1885, pp. 10-12.

The older English practice is thus quaintly described by Richai'd Carew (in his " Survey
of Cornwall," London, 1602, 1769): "In our forefathers' daies, when devotion as much
exceeded knowledge, as knowledge now commeth short of devotion, there were many bows-
sening places, for curing of mad men, and amongst the rest, one at Altcrnunne in this Hun-
dred, called S. Nunnespoole, which Saints Altar (it may be) . . . gave name to the church.
. . . The watter running from S. Nunnes well, fell into a square and close walled plot,
which might bee filled at what depth they listed. Vpon this wall was the frantickc person
set to stand, his backe towards the poolo, and from thence with a sudden blow in the brest,
tumbled headlong into the pond ; where a strong fellowe, provided for the nonce, tooke
him, and tossed him vp and downe, alongst and athwart the water, vntill the patient, by
forgoing his strength, had somewhat forgot his fury. Then was hee conveyed to the
Church, and certain Masses sung over him ; vpon which handling, if his right wits returned,
S. Nunne had the thanks ; but if there appeared small amendment, he was bowssened
againe, and againe, while there remayncd in him any hope of life, for recouery."

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were drawing nigh ; but lie labored on, modestly and devotedly,
apparently without a thought of the great political storm raging
about him.

His first step was to throw overboard the whole theological
doctrine of " possession," and to discard utterly the idea that in-
sanity is the result of any subtle spiritual influence. He simply
put in practice the theory that lunacy is the result of bodily dis-

It is a curious matter for reflection that, but for this sway of
the destructive philosophy of the eighteenth century, and of the
Terrorists during the French Revolution, Pinel's blessed work
would in all probability have been thwarted, and he himself ex-
communicated for heresy and driven from his position. Doubt-
less the same efforts would have been put forth against him which
the Church, a little earlier, had put forth against inoculation as a
remedy for small-pox ; but, just at that time, the great church-
men had other things to think of besides crushing this particular
heretic : they were too much occupied in keeping their own heads
from the guillotine to give attention to what was passing in the
head of Pinel. He was allowed to work in peace, and in a short
time the reign of diabolism at Bicetre was ended. What the
exorcisms and fetiches and prayers and processions, and drinking
of holy water, and ringing of bells, had been unable to accomplish
during eighteen hundred years, he achieved in a few months.
His method was simple : For the brutality and cruelty which had
prevailed up to that time, he substituted kindness and gentleness.
The possessed were taken out of their dungeons, given sunny
rooms for habitation, and allowed the liberty of pleasant ground
for exercise. Chains were thrown aside. At the same time the
mental power of each patient was developed by its fitting exer-
cise, and disease was met with remedies sanctioned by experi-
ment, observation, and reason. Thus was gained one of the great-
est, though one of the least known, triumphs of modern science
and humanity.

The results obtained by Pinel had an instant effect, not only
throughout France but throughout Europe : the news spread
from hospital to hospital; at his death, Esquirol took up his
work ; and, in the place of the old training of judges, torturers,
and executioners by theology to carry out its ideas in cruelty,
there was now trained a school of physicians to develop science in
this field and carry out its decrees in mercy.*

A similar evolution of better science and practice took place
in England. In spite of the coldness, and even hostility, of the

* For the services of Tenon and his associates, and also for the work of Pinel, see espe-
cially Esquirol, "Des Maladies mentales," Paris, 1838, i, 35; and, for the general subject
and the condition of the hospitals at this period, see Dagron, as above.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 589

greater men in the Established Church, and notwithstanding the
Scriptural demonstrations of Wesley that the majority of the
insane were possessed of devils, the scientific method steadily
gathered strength. In 1750 the condition of the insane began to
attract especial attention; it was found that mad-houses were
swayed by ideas utterly indefensible, and that the practices en-
gendered by these ideas were monstrous. As a rule, the patients
were immured in cells, and in many cases were chained to the
walls; in others, flogging and starvation played leading parts,
and in some cases the patients were killed. Naturally enough,
John Howard declared in 1789 that he found in Constantinople a
better insane asylum than the great St. Luke's Hospital in Lon-
don. Well might he do so ; for, ever since Caliph Omar had pro-
tected and encouraged the scientific investigation of insanity by
Paul of ^gina, the Moslem treatment of the insane had been in-
finitely more merciful than the system universal throughout
Christendom.*

But in 1792— the same year in which Pinel began his great
work in France — William Tuke began a similar work in Eng-
land. There seems to have been no connection between these two
great reformers ; each seems to have arrived at his results inde-
pendently of the other, but the results arrived at were the same.
So, too, in the main, were their methods ; and in the little house
of William Tuke, at York, began a better era for England.

The name which this little asylum received is a monument,
both of the old reign of cruelty and of the new reign of humanity.
Every old name for such an asylum had been made odious and
repulsive by ages of misery. In a happy moment of inspiration
Tuke's gentle Quaker wife suggested a new name ; and, in accord-
ance with this suggestion, the place became known as a " Retreat."

From the great body of influential classes in church and state
Tuke received little aid. The influence of the theological spirit
was shown when, in that same year. Dr. Pangster published his
" Observations on Mental Disorders," and, after displaying much
ignorance as to the causes and nature of insanity, summed up by
saying piously, " Here our researches must stop, and we must
declare that ' wonderful are the works of the Lord, and his ways
past finding out.' " Such seemed to be the view of the Church at
large ; though the new " Retreat " was at one of the two great
ecclesiastical centers of England, we hear of no aid or encourage-
ment from the Archbishop of York or from his clergy. Nor was
this the worst : the indirect influence of the theological habit of
thought and ecclesiastical prestige was displayed in the "Edin-
burgh Review." That great organ of opinion, not content with
merely attacking Tuke, poured contempt upon his work as well as

* See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 110; also Trelat, as already cited.

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on that of Pinel. A few of Tuke's brother and sister Quakers seem
to have been his only reliance ; and, in a letter regarding his efforts
at that time, he says, " All men seem to desert me." *

In this atmosphere of English conservative opposition or indif-
ference the work could not grow rapidly. As late as 1815 a mem-
ber of Parliament stigmatized the insane asylums of England as
the shame of the nation ; and even as late as 1827, and in a few
cases as late as 1850, there were revivals of the old absurdity and
brutality. Down to a late period, in the hospitals of St. Luke
and Bedlam, long rows of the insane were chained to the walls of
the corridor. But Gardner at Lincoln, Donnelly at Hanwell, and
a new school of practitioners in mental disease, took up the work
of Tuke, and the victory in England was gained in practice as it
had been previously gained in theory.

There need be no controversy regarding the comparative merits
of these two benefactors of our race, Pinel and Tuke. They clearly
did their thinking and their work independently of each other,
and thereby each strengthened the other and benefited mankind.
All that remains to be said is, that while France has paid high
honors to Pinel, as to one who did much to free the world from
one of its most cruel sujjerstitions and to bring in a reign of hu-
manity over a wide empire, England has as yet made no fitting
commemoration of her great benefactor in this field. York Min-
ster holds many tombs of men, of whom some were blessings to
their fellow -beings, while some were parasites upon the body
politic ; yet, to this hour, that great temple has received no con-
secration by a monument to the man who did more to alleviate
human misery than any other who has ever entered it.

But the place of these two men in history is secure. They
stand with Grotius, Thomasius, and Beccaria — the men who, in
modern times, have done most to prevent unmerited sorrow.
They were not, indeed, called to suffer like their great compeers ;
they were not obliged to see their writings — among the most
blessed gifts of God to man — condemned, as were those of Gro-
tius and Beccaria by the Catholic Church, and those of Thoma-
sius by a large section of the Protestant Church ; they were not
obliged to flee for their lives, as were Grotius and Thomasius ;
but their effort is none the less worthy. The French Revolution,
indeed, saved Pinel, and the decay of English ecclesiasticism gave
Tuke his opportunity. But their triumphs are none the less
among the glories of our race ; for they were the first acknowl-
edged victors in a struggle of science for humanity which had
lasted nearly two thousand years.

* See D. H, Tuke, as above, pp. 116-142, and 512; also the "Edinburgh Review" for
April, 1803.

THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY. 591

THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY.

By lEA EEMSEN,

PEOFESSOE OF COEIUSTEY IN JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVEESITT.

SOME years ago, in the course of a conversation witli an emi-
nent mathematician, I asked in all seriousness whether he
could give me a definition of mathematics that would convey to
my mind even a faint idea of the object in view in mathematical
investigation. He replied, " It is impossible to give such a defi-
nition—as impossible as it is in the case of chemistry." " But,"
said I, " I think I can give a definition of chemistry which
would have some value " ; and then, with little time to think, I
suggested a definition, which elicited this remark : " I could cer-
tainly give an equally bald definition of mathematics." I have
frequently thought of this subject since, and have wondered
whether it is possible to convey to the minds of those who are
not chemists a clear idea in regard to the work chemists are
doing. The difficulties are great — as great, I suppose, as in the
case of mathematics ; for chemists are no longer engaged in the
study of familiar phenomena, but are dealing with matters which
lie far beyond the limits of ordinary observation. Still, I have
thought it worth while to make the attempt, and it has seemed to
me that I might accomplish my object best by calling attention to
a few of the most important discoveries which have recently been
made in the field of chemistry, and making such comments upon
them as may serve to indicate what relations exist between these
discoveries and the science as a whole.

Chemistry may be defined as that branch of science which has
to deal with the changes in composition which the various forms
of matter undergo. Not only has it to deal with these forms of
matter, but also with the changes — that is, the acts involved in
passing from one form to another. However bald this definition
may appear to those who do not understand the subject, it is full
of suggestion to the chemist. A chemist is sometimes spoken of
as " one whose business it is to tell what things are made of." I
accept this statement as expressing half the truth, but I attach to
the words a much deeper meaning than they are intended to con-
vey. To illustrate what I mean by this, let me take an example or
two. Suppose a chemist is given a piece of marble. On exam-
ining it he finds without much difficulty that it is made of the
forms of matter called carbon, oxygen, and calcium. He can also
tell without much difficulty in what proportions these substances
are present in the marble. He may thus tell what marble is made
of. But is that all ? May we not ask further what are the sub-

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stances carton, oxygen, and calcium made of ? It is trne we call
tliem elements or simple substances, meaning by that substances
which can not be converted into anything simpler. No matter
what influences the so-called elements are subjected to, they can
not at present be decomposed. When, therefore, a chemist, after
examining any complex substance, is able to say what simple sub-
stances are in it, he tells what it is made of. But, I repeat, is his
statement final ? Is there nothing more to learn ? Plainly the
great questions still remain to be answered : What is an element ?
Are the forms of matter which we call elements absolutely inde-
pendent of each other, or are they not in turn composed of still
subtler forms of matter which we may hope to discover in the
future ?

While it is impossible to answer these questions at present,
some discoveries have been made within the past few years which
have a direct bearing upon them. It has been shown by a Russian
chemist, Mendelejeff, and at the same time by a German, Lothar
Meyer, that the elements are related in a very remarkable way,
so closely that it is possible to arrange them all in one table, in
which they form parts of a general system. The law governing
the variations in properties of the elements is known as the jieri-
odic law. The limits of this article will not permit any detailed
explanation of this remarkable law. The main point that I wish
to emphasize is, that these so-called elements are shown to be re-
lated to one another, and it seems impossible, in the light of these
facts, to believe that they are distinct forms of matter. It seems
much more probable that they are in turn composed of subtler ele-
ments, and it has been pointed out that all the substances which
we now call elements, of which there are about seventy, can be
conceived to be made of two fundamental elements combined in
different proportions. There does not, however, appear to be any
immediate prospect of discovering these fundamental substances,
though we can not, of course, tell what a day may bring forth.
While the prospect in this direction is not promising, it appears
clear that there are other elements of the same order as those now
known yet to be discovered. When Mendelejeff first arranged the
known elements in his table, he found that the table was not com-
plete, and it became necessary to leave certain places vacant in
order to secure a perfectly systematic arrangement. It was as if
an incomplete skeleton of some great animal were found. On put-
ting the parts together, the finder would discover that something
is wanting to complete the whole, but nevertheless he would recog-
nize the relations between the parts before him. He would also
be able to tell what the general properties of the missing parts
must be. So here, the discoverer of the periodic law recognized
that the system was incomplete. He pointed out the gaps, and

THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY. 593

prophesied the discovery of elements then nnknown which would
fill these gaps. Not only this, but he boldly ventured to describe
some of these unknown elements in detail. At first no one was in-
clined to give serious consideration to the predictions ; certainly
no one dreamed that they would soon prove to be among the most
brilliant predictions ever recorded in the annals of science. With-
in a few years all three of the elements predicted by Mendelejeff
were discovered— the last one about two years ago. The first one
was discovered in France, and was hence called gallium ; the sec-
ond, discovered in Norway, is known as scandium ; and the third,
recently discovered in Germany, is the baby element germanium.
The descriptions given by Mendelejeff, eighteen years ago, are
found to agree marvelously well with the facts. These discoveries
have directed the attention of all chemists to the periodic law,
and have lent a new interest to the discovery of new elements.
There are undoubtedly others still undiscovered. Let us hope
that the next one may come to light in the New World, and that
we may thus have our own particular element, as France and Nor-
way and Germany have theirs.

It is obvious from what I have already said that, to tell what
things are made of, is not so simple a matter as it might at first
appear. The best answer we can give, in any case, is lamentably
incomplete. But there is another side to the subject, one of fasci-
nating interest. Let me eiideavor to illustrate this by means of
another example. It has long been known that there are two sub-
stances, called respectively glucose and levulose, which are made
of the same elements, viz., carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in ex-
actly the same proportion by weight. Notwithstanding the fact
that these two substances have exactly the same composition, they
have markedly different properties. Chemistry abounds in simi-
lar examples. To account for these facts, chemists suppose that
the parts of which the two substances are made up are arranged
differently. An immense amount of work has been done during
the past half -century with the object of reaching conclusions con-
cerning what is called the constitution of chemical compounds,
and the results reached in this field have been brilliant in the
highest degree. By methods of the most refined character the
chemist of to-day is enabled to enter into the innermost recesses
of compounds, and trace out the connections which exist between
the constituent parts. Many of the most complex compounds
found in nature have thus been studied, their constitution deter-
mined, and methods have in many cases been devised by which
the substances found in nature can be built up in the. chemical
laboratory without the intervention of the life process. Among
recent achievements in this direction I may mention indigo. This
is remarkably complex, and for a long time it had baffled all
VOL. xxxiF. — 38

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

efforts to determine its constitution ; but, finally, that prince of ex-
perimenters, Baeyer, of Munich, succeeded, and indigo is to-day
manufactured from inert matter ; and, though this manufactured
article can not yet successfully compete with that obtained from
the plant, it is, in my opinion, simply a question of time when the
occupation of the plant will be gone.

The subject of the constitution or structure of chemical com-
pounds at present receives more attention from working chemists
than any other, and this has been the case ever since chemistry
came to be a science. Great progress has been made, particularly
within the past twenty or thirty years. In this field, as in that of
the elements, to which I have already referred, wonderful predic-
tions have been made and verified. Let me here quote a passage
from an address by that eminent physiologist and philosopher
Eniil Du Bois-Reymond. He says : " I know of no more astonish-
ing production of the human mind than structural chemistry. To
develop, from that which appears to the five senses as quality and
transformation of matter, such a doctrine as that of the relations
between the hydrocarbons, could scarcely have been easier than
to develop the mechanics of the planetary system from the motion
of luminous points ; and Strecker's prediction of the synthesis of
creatine, which was afterward verified by Volhard, although in a
less exalted sphere, was in fact no smaller achievement than the
discovery of Neptune."

Of late, attempts have been made to go still further into the
subject of structure, and to get some clew as to what we may call
the actual shape of the minutest particles of which all forms of
matter are believed to be made up. According to the prevailing
theory, every kind of matter is made up of certain minute par-
ticles called molecules, and these molecules are conceived to be
made up of still smaller particles called atoms. This theory is not
merely a wild suggestion of dreamers, but it is forced upon us
after a profound study of an immense number of facts. It is
found that the facts can be explained only on this assumption. In
chemical compounds it is believed that the atoms of elements are
united with one another to form the molecules, and that the com-
pounds are made up of these molecules, which are moving around
freely in the case of a gas, less so in a liquid, and held together in
solids. Now, the problem of the chemist is to determine how the
atoms are arranged in the molecule — or to determine what con-
nections exist between the atoms, without reference to the actual
arrangement in space. When we consider that the atoms and
molecules are almost infinitely small — so small, indeed, that we
are told that the smallest particle of matter visible with the help
of a good microscope must contain from sixty to one hundred mill-
ions of molecules — it does seem in the highest degree presump-

THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY. 595

tuous to make any statement in regard to the way in which the
atoms are connected in the molecules. Yet this is just what the
chemist of to-day does, and the results accomplished by working
in the way referred to fully justify him. Let no one to whom the
facts are unknown accuse him of indulging in useless speculation.
Chemical hypotheses are for the use of chemists ; and so long as
they are helpful, so long as they lead to a clearer and clearer recog-
nition of the great truths of our subject, so long as they lead us
on to work, and the science grows in consequence, it is not perti-
nent to remark that there may possibly be a flaw somewhere. If
there are flaws in chemical hypotheses, they will be recognized by
chemists themselves sooner than by others. Let no one think
that science has nothing to do with the realm beyond the senses.
Without the aid of the imagination there could be no science.
However important they are, facts alone could not constitute a
science. It is necessary that the relations between these facts
should be discerned, and this can not be done except by the aid of
the imagination, Tliere have been few bolder flights than those
which pertain to matters of science. The greatest genius is he
who sees furthest beyond the facts, and with the aid of his imagi-
nation is able to bring together into a harmonious whole those
facts which seem least connected. But, it must be remembered, it
is the imagination of the thoroughly trained mind, kept in sub-
jection by profound knowledge, that leads to great results.

I have said that of late attempts have been made to learn some-
thing of the shape of molecules. Within a few months a remark-
able paper, written by Prof. Wislicenus, of the University of
Leipsic, has appeared, in which the actual arrangement of atoms
in the molecules is seriously and brilliantly discussed. I can not
even touch upon the contents of that paper. Suffice it to say that
chemists generally are profoundly interested in the arguments of
Wislicenus, and the subject is now under active discussion. To
me it appears that the views put forward are well worthy of most
serious consideration. What the outcome will be, none can pre-
dict ; but, at all events, the fact is significant that chemistry has
reached a stage when such a subject can be discussed.

Another subject which is coming to the front in chemistry is
that which I had in mind at the beginning of this article when I
said, " I accejjt this statement as expressing half the truth," It
is unquestionably the chemist's business to tell what things are
made of, but the other half of the truth is this : it is also his busi-
ness to study the chemical act itself. In any given case he must
not be satisfied when he has learned that when two substances,
A and B, are brought together, they combine to form the new
substance, A B, He must study that act of combination, and
learn all he can about it. As these acts in most cases take place

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

almost instantaneously, this kind of study is exceedingly difficult.
Nevertheless, some progress has been made within the last few
years, and the number of chemists who are taking up work in
this field is rapidly increasing. They are investigating such mat-
ters as the speed of chemical action, the influence of mass upon
chemical reactions, and the relations between the phenomena of
heat and electricity and chemical action. The best results have
come from Russia, Sweden, and France. This branch is frequently
referred to as physical chemistry. A number of books treating
the subject have recently appeared, and a journal devoted exclu-
sively to it has been started within the past year.

Now that . I have begun to tell of the achievements of chemis-
try, I would fain continue ; but, rather than run the risk of weary-
ing my readers, I will turn at once to another subject, which I
would gladly discuss at some length, but which I shall have to
dismiss in a few words. I think I hear the remark : " This is all
very well, but I thought chemistry was a practical science. What
is the good of all these refined investigations on the nature of the
elements and the constitution of chemical compounds ? Can not
the chemist find something more practical to work on ? " These
questions are constantly asked, and it is clear to me that they
need answers. I take it that by the word practical is meant some-
thing which has a direct bearing upon our every-day lives. A
practical investigation is one that leads to the establishment of
some new industry, or it is one which leads to the discovery of
some substance which can be used by man. My practical brother,
then, has no sympathy with the kind of work I have been speaking
of, but demands that the work should be of such character as to
lead directly to results which can be utilized at once by mankind.
It can not be denied that there is much that is reasonable in this
demand. It is right that the results of scientific work should be
made available, and that they should be utilized to the fullest
extent for the improvement of man's condition. It is impossible
to overestimate what we owe to chemistry, and we may confi-
dently expect even greater gifts in the future than those which
we have already received. Every year some new application of
chemical discoveries is made. To whom do we owe the possibility
of these applications ? My answer is distinctly : We owe it to
those chemists who are engaged in investigations in the field of
pure science. Everything that tends to the perfection of the sci-
ence of chemistry is of value in connection with the applications
of chemical truths. The most refined investigation on the most
abstruse chemical subject may furnish a link in a chain of argu-
ment— may be the one thing needed to lead to a most important
generalization. The interests of the chemical industries and of
the pure science of chemistry are identical. I do not ask that my

THE CHEMISTRY OF TO-DAY. 597

assertion be accepted as final evidence on this point, I ask atten-
tion to the important fact that the seat of the great new chemical
industries of the world is that country in which the greatest atten-
tion is paid to pure chemistry. As the result of much experience
in Germany, it has been found that those chemists who are best
versed in the pure science are the best fitted to go into the great
factories and conduct the chemical operations. Even in the tech-
nical schools in Germany the subject of chemistry is taught just
as it is in the universities, in such a way as to give the student as
much as possible of the pure science. If my practical brother
could make a tour of the great laboratories of the world, whether
in universities or in polytechnic schools, he would find that the
subjects under investigation in ninety-nine out of a hundred of
them are such as he would regard as in a high degree unpractical ;
and yet I say the experience of the world has shown that, where
the most of this unpractical work is done, there the most practical
results are reached. The testimony of chemists is unanimous on
this point. We are therefore led to the conclusion that the most
unpractical work is the most practical — a conclusion which I am
sure will stand the test of the closest examination.

But I do not think that this last argument is needed to justify
the abstract chemical work of which I have been speaking. Man
can be improved in other ways than by ministering to his daily
bodily needs. He has higher needs, and some of these are minis-
tered to by enlarging the world of ideas. Every discovery is an ad-
dition to the world's stock of knowledge, and we are all gainers
by these discoveries. The gain is not as tangible as the material
ones, but it is none the less valuable. Is not the world better off
for its books, its works of art ? Take them away. Imagine the
result ! So it is with the results of scientific work. By the aid of
this work we are advancing toward clearer conceptions of the uni-
verse and our position in it. Stop the work, and intellectual death
must necessarily follow. The work must go on entirely independ-
ently of the question whether the results can be utilized at once
or not. We need more light ! Let us work for this.

Prof. Lodge, assuming that light is an electrical disturbance, reasons that all
our present systems of making light artificially are wasteful and defective. We
want only a particular range of oscillations, but to obtain them we have to pro-
duce all the inferior ones leading up to them. The force thus expended is thrown
away. With his energy properly directed, a boy turning a handle could produce
as much real light as we get with all our present expenditure. The waste is worse
when we get light by combustion than with the electric lights, for then the air as
well as the fuel is consumed, and the low heat-rays that are thrown out cause
inconvenience as well as being wasteful. The light of glow-worms and of phos-
phorescence is produced without waste. We must learn to obtain light with
equal economy.

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

GLASS-MAKING.

By C. HANFORD HENDERSON,

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE PHILADELPHIA MANCAL TRAINING SCHOuL.

I.— A PANE OF GLASS.

C^ CARLYLE ! " exclaimed Emerson, in his diary, at the time
^^ " Sartor Resartus " was being republished in America, " the
merit of glass is not to be seen, but to be seen through ; but every
crystal and lamina of the Carlyle glass shows."

With admirable precision this defines the proper function of a
pane of glass. Decorative art, in casting about for new fields of
conquest, has too frequently induced a contrary feeling ; but, after
all, a window-pane at its best is something to be seen through
and not to be seen. It is our means of looking out upon the
world and letting the sun look in upon us. The more perfectly,
then, it fulfills its function, the less evidence will it bear of its
evolution from such dull things as sand and lime and soda-cake.
Our window-pane is transparent in all things save its own his-
tory. It gives no hint of what it is made of, or how it is made.
It is, indeed, easier to look through it than it is to look into it.
If one look in the right direction, however — and in America this
means toward Pittsburgh — he will see, in the cluster of glass-facto-
ries which have gravitated toward the natural gas of that neigh-
borhood, a side of industrial activity possessing much interest.
The brilliant pane of glass itself tells no stories, but the white-hot
furnaces and pots of molten metal, the active, hurried figures, and
the movements of rare dexterity that one sees at these places, are
far more communicative.

They can well afford to publish their achievements, for about
few of its material products can the nineteenth century boast
with so much show of justice as about its window-glass. It is
true that past ages have produced quite as remarkable technical
results in other departments of industry, but in this one product,
at least, the present decade appears to be unique. Not even China
and Egypt, which have a standing claim of priority on all the
arts and sciences, dispute with the modern glass-maker. His tri-
umphs are without rival.

Contrary legends are afloat, but they can be chased into no
fact: There is, for instance, a story current about the Queen of
Sheba and the wise King Solomon that quite puts into the shade
even the deceitfulness of riches. It is related by some gossipy
chronicler that, at the time of the famous visit, the royal audience
was so arranged that the queen and her suite in approaching were
obliged to pass over a floor of glass under which were flowing

GLASS-MAKING.

599

water and fishes swimming. For the legend has it that the wisest
of men was decidedly curious. The Paul Prys of Jerusalem
declared that the queenly visitor labored under the disadvantage
of a deformed foot. The ingenuity of the monarch, it is said,
suggested the device of the simulated stream, thinking that the
lady's anxiety for her draperies would disclose to the court of
Israel whether rumor had rightly reported her. But this per-
formance is probably attributable to the imagination of one some-
what later than Solomon. It hardly sounds like the author of the
" Proverbs," nor have we any record that the lady ever repaid

Sdccessivk Stages in the Manufacture op Sheet Glass.

him for his discourtesy — a bit of negative evidence that is almost
conclusive. But at that time so inhospitable a scheme, even if
seriously entertained, could scarcely have been carried out. The
hundred and twenty talents of gold and the very great store of
spices and precious stones, which to the queen's presence in Jeru-
salem added their tribute of admiration for wisdom, could not
have purchased in any of the marts of the ancient world a plate
of glass sufficiently large and sufficiently clear to have made such
a deception possible.

The glass-blowers of the olden times undoubtedly produced
some fine results in color, which can scarcely be equaled in the
present. They had already attained, in the fabrication of rare

6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and curious forms, a considerable fame before the days of the
Roman supremacy; but the magnificent sheet of glass through
which we of a morning study the signs of the weather, or glance
at the too tempting displays in the shop-windows, is a luxury
which we must admit to be peculiar to our own times. It might
gain for us the title of the " age of glass," had not the age already
been devoted successively to the genius of iron, of steel, and of
electricity.

There is also observable a marked difference in the spirit in
which the earlier and the later artisans worked. While glass was
still a product of some rarity, its manufacture naturally occupied
a place among the fine arts rather than among the more common
industries. The early glass-makers, in consequence, busied them-
selves more with the production of the costly and the beautiful
than in any attempt to bring glass in its manifold applications
within the reach of the poor. Later workers, on the other hand,
have shown the influence of democratic institutions. They have
found their greatest pleasure, as well as their greatest profit, in
the production of wares of such utility and cheapness that their
market includes even the very poorest. As a result of this en-
larged production, the history of glass shows a marked increase
in quality and a marked decrease in price. The interest aroused
by this progress is not only technical and commercial, but, in the
case of window-glass, in a still wider sense social and economic.
In filling the windows of our houses with transparency, the glass-
maker has been a public benefactor. His benefaction is the
greater, since the material he supplies is now at the disposal of
even those of limited means. We hardly appreciate the full sig-
nificance of cheap window-glass. It lengthens the day to the
dimensions assigned by Nature, and permits one to enjoy the
sunshine of out-door life without exposure to the inclemencies of
the weather. These are substantial contributions to the public
health and well-being. At no previous time, we believe, could
the dwellers in northern climes introduce into their homes so
many square feet of sunlight for so little money.

It is the purpose of the present article to offer a brief glimpse
of some of the processes involved in the metamorphosis of the
crude materials into a serviceable pane of glass. As the opera-
tions are actually carried out in the arts, the attention of the on-
looker is constantly distracted by the flame and glare of the
furnaces, the passing and repassing of red-hot glass, the clouds of
steam, and puffs of dust and smoke. He comes away from the
factory with an impression limited to the more spectacular feat-
ures of the process. Of necessity he is quite oblivious of a
hundred details of which it is very necessary that the glass-maker
should be distinctly sensible. In making this visit by deputy, it

GLASS-MAKING. 601

is proposed that little more shall be seen than falls to the lot of
the flesh-and-blood visitor. It is, perhaps, wiser that the uncertain
light and the steam and smoke shall be permitted to cover with
their convenient mantle those technical details that would fail to
attract general interest. In such matters it is uncomfortable to
have your guide too knowing if he insists on sharing all his
knowledge with you.

To define glass physically would be a sui^erfluous task.
Every one is informed of its hardness and solidity. A series of
annoying accidents has demonstrated beyond doubt its exceeding
brittleness. The ragged-edged splinters that result from such
occasions suggest that the solid is amorphous, or without regular
crystalline form.

To define the material chemically may be less unnecessary. It
is a mixture of different silicates — that is to say, of mixtures of
silicic acid with the bases soda, potash, lime, magnesia, alumina,
iron, and lead. Considering that we are to be non-technical, this is
rather a formidable list, but it must not be thought that any one
glass contains all of these ingredients. Every true glass consists
of at least two metallic bases united with the silicic acid, and
generally, by virtue of the impurities of the crude material, traces
of several more. So we have grown into the habit of designating
the different kinds of glass by the names of the two predominant
bases. Window glass, for instance, is known as a lime-soda
glass ; table crystal as a lead-potassium glass, and so on through
the list. This system of nomenclature is open to the objection
that the name of the product and its composition do not corre-
spond in all the glass-producing countries, but these technical
discrepancies seem unavoidable. The physical properties of the
glass follow very closely its chemical constitution. Many of the
silicates employed in glass-making are entirely infusible alone,
but, when given suitable associates, are quite manageable. The
weight of the glass is also directly dependent upon the metallic
bases with which the silica is combined. Crystal is made heavy
by the lead present, while window glass, having only light bases
in its make-up, has a correspondingly small weight. It is little
more than two and a half times as heavy as water. Each chemi-
cal change has its physical counterpart.

In spite, however, of the relative cheapness of glassware, we
have still a pane of glass for the rich and another for the poor.
Both products, the plate and the sheet glass, have essentially the
same composition, but they differ very much in the purity of the
crude materials used, and in the method of fabrication. Of recent
years the improvements in the manufacture of sheet glass have
been so marked that it is now frequently introduced into build-
ings of the better class in place of the more expensive plate. On

6o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

GLASS-MAKING. 603

the other hand, the processes of maiiufacture by which the latter
glass is produced have been so far perfected that its use is now
permitted to many who would hitherto have thought themselves
unable to afford it.

A third form of window glass, the so-called crown glass, must
also be mentioned for the sake of completeness, though it has
little commercial importance, and less in America than in Eng-
land. Both sheet and crown glass owe their origin to the blow-
er's breath. Though they are less brilliant than the plate, their
methods of fabrication are much toore interesting, since they in-
volve a far greater amount of manual dexterity on the part of
the artisans. It is, indeed, difficult to know which to admire the
more, the chemistry or the physics of the operation ; the nicety
with which the glass-maker regulates the proportions of his
charge so as to produce this beautifully clear substance, or the
skill with which he subsequently handles the finished glass ard
adapts it to our uses.

Sheet glass forms the window-pane of the multitude. The
possibility of making it of excellent quality and in large sizes
is due almost entirely to the substitution of gaseous for solid
fuel. No other among our numerous American industries has
been so benefited by the utilization of natural gas. European
sheet glass was up to this time unquestionably superior to our
own. A larger experience and more approved furnaces made it
possible for the foreign manufacturers, and particularly those of
France and Belgium, to solve with greater success the knotty
problems connected with glass-making. In many places they had
already substituted gas for coal, and obtained the happiest results.
With the advent of natural gas the position of the American pro-
ducer was suddenly changed. He had at his command the most
desirable of fuels, and one that was at the same time very cheap
and almost totally free from sulphur. As a result, he soon equaled
and now surpasses his transatlantic rivals.

But the manufacture of window glass is essentially difficult.
Even when the troublesome question of fuel has been satisfacto-
rily settled, there remain many other substantial difficulties which
must be met and conquered. From the mixing of the crude ma-
terials to the annealing of the finished product, the glass-maker
must be alert and intelligent. It is a very easy matter simply to
make glass. Sand, metallic bases, and heat are the only elements
needed. But to make good glass — glass that is clear, transparent,
colorless ; that simulates the purest water of a mountain-stream —
this requires skill and patience. From beginning to end the pro-
cess is one of painstaking and delicate manipulation.

In the genesis of a pane of glass, the first step is naturally the
provision of such stuff as it is made of. While glass is theoreti-

i

604 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cally a definite chemical compound, the proportions in which the
ingredients of the " batcli" are mixed vary in every establishment.
Sand is the basis of the operation. It is the commercial repre-
sentative of silicic acid. With this are mixed lime and alkali
(either carbonate or sulphate of soda, or both) in sufficient quan-
tity to furnish an easily fusible mass that, on solidifying, shall be
both clear and transparent. There is very wide range in the
choice of materials. The purest grades have the disadvantage of
costliness, while the inferior glass has the equal disadvantage of
commanding but an indifferent price. Between these two consid-
erations swings the balance of expediency.

When the batch has been made up, it is melted in large clay
crucibles, or glass pots, as they are commonly called.
The manufacture of the pots is the most tedious and
exacting process connected with glass-making. It is
one of the few industrial opera-
tions in which machinery has
not been able to supersede man.
A mixture of raw and burned
fire-clay is employed. It is
necessary that this should be
A ^^^^ ^y prepared with the greatest care.

I ) ^^"""^"-^/^ Once a day for at least four

'-'' weeks the mass must be turned

The Operation OP " Marveb:ng." ^ it- t , , •,

and worked, m order to get it
free from air and give it the proper toughness. For this knead-
ing process no tool has been found equal to the bare foot. There
are a warmth and an elasticity about it that better than any-
thing else develop the required plasticity in the clay. Bare-
footed men, pacing up and down in lead -lined troughs, pre-
sent a very primitive industrial picture. The impression is not
removed when one goes up-stairs and watches the transformation
of this much -worked material into crucibles. The hand here
occupies the place that the foot does below- stairs'. By equally
slow stages the crucible is built up. First the bottom is formed,
a circular slab about four inches thick and some forty inches in
diameter ; then the sides are gradually raised, a little addition
being made each day, until at the end of about six weeks the
work is completed, and a heavy, tub-shaped crucible is the result.
Meanwhile the incompleted walls are kept constantly covered
with damp cloths to prevent premature hardening. The temper-
ature and humidity of the work-room are also objects of unremit-
ting attention. But, though the crucible has now taken form, and
its material been under treatment for more than ten weeks, it is
not yet ready for the trial by fire. Several months must pass be-
fore it is considered sufficiently dried to withstand even a prelimi-

GLASS-MAKING. 605

nary heating. When the time conies, this is done very cautiously
in a little furnace specially constructed for the purpose. Here the
temperature is gradually raised to that of the melting furnace.
The transfer from the one to the other is accomplished as rapidly
as possible. The interior of the crucible is then glazed with a lit-
tle molten glass, and the vessel is ready to lend itself to the trans-
formation of the oj^aque into the transparent. After a variable
term of servitude, whose length is totally unpredictable, the cruci-
ble finally succumbs to the combined attacks of heat and chemical
action, and must be replaced by a fresh one.

When gas is used as the fuel, the melting furnace is a very
simple affair. It consists of a plain rectangular floor or hearth,
which supports from eight to ten crucibles, two abreast. On each
side of the furnace there is a series of round openings giving ac-
cess to each pot. Arches at the end permit the admission of the
fresh crucibles and the removal of the exhausted ones. The chim-
ney is placed in the center, the gas being admitted at each end.
The air necessary for combustion is first heated by passing through
chambers in the base of the furnace. It will not be necessary to
go into any further details of construction, for if one will simply
imagine a white-hot apartment, perhaps forty feet long, eight feet
wide, and six feet high, with ten crucibles of molten glass stand-
ing two abreast on the floor, and half as many openings on each
side, he will have a sufficiently vivid picture of the melting fur-
nace of a glass-factory. The batch is introduced into the cruci-
bles in small quantities at a time, and then patiently coaxed into
a proper degree of fluidity. When the last portion is added, a
decolorizing agent goes with it, for, however pure the crude ma-
terials may be, there is always sufficient iron present to give the
glass a greenish cast. Arsenic is a favorite bleaching agent. It
acts by converting the iron into a higher oxide. In some estab-
lishments the peroxide of manganese is used for this purpose, but
the least excess gives the glass a pinkish color, and it is also
thought to make its transparency less durable.

Style dominates even so apparently an unmodifiable thing as
window glass. Some years ago a slight excess of manganese was
employed intentionally. It was thought that the mistress of the
house — or her daughters — looked the prettier when seen through
rose-colored window-panes. This decidedly pink glass may still
be seen in not a few of the older houses in our Eastern cities. Its
use is occasionally revived by some emergency.

This completes the chemistry of the process ; the remaining
operations are purely physical.

After the contents of the crucibles have become thoroughly
fused, the temperature of the melting furnace is gradually re-
duced, so that the molten glass shall become less liquid, and thus

6o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ready for the process of gathering. The impurities floating on
the surface of the " metal " are first removed by skimming, much
as the housewife does with her preserves. When the crucible was
originally put into the furnace a fire-clay ring was placed in the
bottom of it, and now floats on the bath. By removing all the
scum from the interior of this ring the gatherer always has a
clear surface from which to draw. The blow-pipe which he uses
is simply a wrought-iron pipe about five feet long. It is provided
at one end with a mouth-piece and wooden handle ; the other end
is thickened and somewhat flared, after the manner of a trumpet.
This is dipped into the molten metal, and when withdrawn brings

Ckown Glass in Decorative Work.

with it a small lump of glass. By a dexterous turn of the pipe
this plastic mass is formed into the shape of a symmetrical oval.
The dipping process.is several times repeated until a considerable
mass of glass adheres to the end of the pipe. When window glass
of double thickness is to be made, at least four or five gatherings
are necessary. It is at the final dip that the gatherer's greatest
skill is called into requisition. It is a pleasure to watch him as
he seemingly toys with his blow-pipe. But each little movement
is done with a purpose. The mass of glass on the end of his pipe
is the result of successive gatherings, and must now be brought
into a state of perfect homogeneity. To accomplish this, the last
glass added is made to completely overlap the whole mass. The
ball is then brought almost to a liquid condition, and seems ready
to fall from the pipe. In less skillful hands, it would certainly
come to grief. By a quick turn of the implement, however, the

GLASS-MAKING. 607

gatherer throws the fold of glass into a spiral form, and so works
it to the end of the mass. This leaves a perfectly clear and semi-
plastic ball. The pipe is now withdrawn from the furnace and
taken to an open wooden mold, or trough, where the glass is
formed into a pear-shaped mass. The mold is kept constantly
wet, to prevent its burning. The water, in contact with the red-
hot glass, assumes the spheroidal condition, and looks like so
many globules of mercury. The gatherer's duty is now at an
end, and he returns to the melting furnace to repeat the opera-
tions of gathering until the crucibles are emptied of their con-
tents. The blow-pipe and its red-hot burden, meanwhile, have
been taken in charge by the blower.

AtTACIUNU the '■ PONTT.'

On the continent of Europe the same furnace is generally
used for both melting and blowing, but in England and America
it has been found more advantageous to employ separate furnaces.
They are very similar in construction. The blowing furnaces
have, however, somewhat larger side-openings, and the gas, in-
stead of being introduced at the ends, is burned directly under
the openings, or blow-holes. The furnace simply provides an in-
tensely hot chamber for controlling the temperature of the glass
under manipulation. On each side of the furnace, and directly in
front of the blow-holes, there is a wide platform built over a cel-
lar, or pit, perhaps ten feet deep. Long openings in this platform
run at right angles to the furnace, and permit the blower, when
occasion demands, to swing his pipe and its burden in the pit
beneath.

The sheet-glass factories of Pittsburgh are equipped as thor-
oughly as any in the world. The division of labor is everywhere
carried to the extreme. Each man
knows how to do a particular thing,
and does it. The blower, for instance, ' "
into whose hands the red-hot ball of

T T . , T . , . Forming the "Nose."

glass has just been consigned, is sup-
posed to know little or nothing about the other operations involved
in glass-making. He begins at a certain point, and leaves off at a
certain point. The skill with which he effects his part in the many
transformations required in the genesis of a pane of glass is, how-
ever, the most attractive in a process nowhere devoid of interest.

His first act is to grasp the pipe, and, with the ball of glass
still resting in the wooden mold, blow through the mouth-piece

-3

6o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

until a large bubble of air is formed in the midst of the mass ;
then, with alternate blowing and manipulating, he so increases
the size of the bubble that the ball of glass assumes a shape not
unlike that of the large carboys used in the transportation of

Casting Plate Glass.

acids. He now transfers himself and his work to the platform in
front of the furnace. Sometimes blowing, sometimes swinging
his pipe in the pit beneath him, and sometimes reheating the glass
in the blowing furnace in front of him, the blower gradually ex-
tends the dimensions of the bubble of air until the ungainly car-

GLASS-MAKING. . 609

boy, with its disproportionately thick bottom, has been replaced
by a beautifully symmetrical figure, the shape of an enormous
test-tube. But it occasionally happens that the glass flows a little
too freely, and there is danger of the sides of the tube becoming
too thin. To avoid this result, the blower throws his tube into
the air whenever he finds that the glass is too liquid, and thus
permits it to settle back upon itself. As the tube by this time is
about five feet long, in addition to the length of the pipe, itself ,
one can readily fancy that this apparently playful toss requires
both skill and muscle. It is a fine sight to watch the graceful
ease with which these brawny fellows accomplish it.

When the tube has been formed to the satisfaction of the
blower — and it requires a surprisingly short time for the whole
operation — he allows it to become comparatively cool. He then
thrusts the rounded end into the furnace, blows into the mouth-
piece of his pipe, and quickly covers the opening with his hand.
Presently, a slight report is heard, like a mild explosion. The
confined air, expanding with the increasing temperature, has
blown a hole in the end of the softened tube. Resting his pipe on
a convenient support, and still keeping the glass in the furnace,
the blower gradually rotates the tube. Under the influence of
centrifugal force, the hole grows larger and larger, until the tube
becomes an open cylinder. It is then quickly withdrawn from
the furnace and permitted to depend into the pit beneath the
platform. When the plastic edge passes to a cherry heat, the cyl-
inder may be taken away without danger of getting out of shape.

The blower's part is now finished. After a moment's rest, he
has another pipe in his hand, and is repeating his heavy labor.
His wages are considerably larger than the salary of many a
learned professor or divine, but the service for which they are
paid is of such a kind that it makes a man grow old very early.
The severe muscular exertion, and the high temperature at which
it is performed, are not conducive to either health or longevity.
There may be exceptions, but as a rule there are few constitu-
tions that can withstand for any length of time the quickly alter-
nating heat and chills to which the glass-blower is daily subject.

The cylinder just laid aside is now cold. As soon as the neck
and its attached blow-pipe are separated from it, a red-hot iron is
passed along the interior surface from end to end. A piece of
cold iron applied to any part of the heated line makes a complete
longitudinal crack. We have now before us a perfect cylinder,
open at both ends, and cracked from end to end. It has only to
be ironed out into a flat sheet to be ready for service as a pane of
glass.

The ironing process is carried out in a separate building, in
what is known as the laying-in furnace. The ease with which it

TOL. XXXIT. — 39

6io 'THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is accomplished is one of the triumphs of modern glass-making.
In this department particularly, the merits of natural gas are each
day more apparent. The hearth of the laying-in furnace is circu-
lar, and is divided into a number of sectors by fire-clay bridges.
It is made movable about a vertical axis. As it rotates, the dif-
ferent sectors of the hearth pass through as many separate com-
partments of the furnace, the temperature of which may be varied
at pleasure. The first compartment, the laying-in oven, is only
moderately warm, and permits the glass cylinder to become grad-
ually heated. It is then carried by a partial rotation of the
hearth into the next compartment, the laying-out oven, where the
heat is sufficient to make the glass plastic. A large, flat stone
occupies each hearth-section and forms the ironing-board upon
which the cylinders of glass are to be smoothed. In the laying-
out oven, the crack in the cylinder is brought uppermost. Under
the influence of the heat the glass gradually unfolds, until it lies
open on the stone like a sheet of rumpled paper. In the succeed-
ing compartment — the flattening oven — the plastic sheet is made
perfectly smooth and flat by means of a moist block of wood on
the end of a long iron rod. The cylinder has now disappeared,
and in its place there is a pane of red-hot glass. One more turn
of the hearth carries the glass into the compartment known as the
dumb oven, where it gradually cools. It is then brought, by a
final movement of the hearth, to the entrance of the annealing
leer. One whole rotation has now been accomplished, and the cir-
cuit is complete. Meanwhile other cylinders have been put into
the furnace and are in different stages of the flattening process.

The operation of the furnace is continuous, and speedily trans-
forms the cylinder into a smooth sheet. But still it is not ready
for use. Were the glass removed to the air immediately, it would
be much too brittle for service. It must first go through the pro-
cess of annealing, or gradual cooling, before it can possess any
durability. In the improved " rod leer " the hot glass is received
at one end of a long brick chamber, and in thirty or forty min-
utes it is automatically discharged at the other end, nearly or
quite cold. Where gas is used, the glass, just as it comes from
the leer, is beautifully clear and brilliant. It could scarcely be
more so had it been washed with hot water and dried with linen
— the process, we believe, by which madam, our hostess, secures
such a glittering display on her table. The sheets are at once cut
into proper sizes and stored away in suitable wooden frames.
The process of manufacture is completed, and only the service of
the glazier is needed to put the pane in place, and so inaugurate
its luminous mission.

Strange fancies attend the visitor as he wanders through the
silent warehouse. He loses himself amid the possible pictures

GLASS-MAKING.

6ii

which, these window-panes are destined to confront. Perhaps the
old fable of the wind and the sun comes back to him. The cloak
that the one in all its fury could not tear off is gladly thrown
aside when the other exerts its power. The same with our pane
of glass. It is to repel the rougher storms and winds, yielding
passage only to the gentler elements. Sunshine and moonlight
are to filter through it, and back of it pleasant fireside pictures
are to group themselves. But the imagination is not always so
obliging; darker possibilities obtrude themselves as well. The
shuddering forms of want and wretchedness are also there, and
the solitary dreamer is glad to turn away from them all, and pass
out of the open door back again into the world of reality.

RoTABT Grinding Machine tor Platb Glass.

The manufacture of crown glass possesses considerable histor-
ical interest, but little beyond that. Within the past few years it
has been brought into some prominence again from its growing
use in decorative windows. It possesses, it is true, a brilliancy
much superior to that of sheet glass, but the small size and un-
equal thickness of the pane obtainable do not permit it to com-
pete successfully with the generous dimensions and remarkable
uniformity of the glass now dominant. In mode of fabrication
the crown glass proceeds precisely as the sheet up to the time of
blowing; at this point the two processes diverge. The ball of
semi-plastic glass on the end of the blow-pipe is fashioned into the
shape of a cone, as the result of successive rollings on a table of
metal or stone, known as the " marver." The process itself goes
under the name of " marvering." The apex of the cone forms the
so-called "bullion-point." By blowing into the mouth-piece of
his pipe, the blower expands the glass into a small globe. This is
subsequently enlarged, care being taken that the bullion-point is
always kept in line with the pipe. The globe of glass is then

6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

flattened into something the shape of an enormous decanter. The
bottom is very flat, and has the bullion-point exactly in the cen-
ter. The pipe and its ungainly burden are now permitted to rest
horizontally on two iron supports. In the mean time a second
workman has gathered a small lump of glass on the end of his
iron rod, or " ponty," and by pressing it against an iron point
forms it into the shape of a tiny cup. This is fitted over the bull-
ion-point of the glass, and, as they are both hot, soon becomes
firmly attached to it. The glass has now two handles, but one of
these, the blow-pipe, is speedily separated from it by means of a
sharp blow. The open neck which is thus exposed is known, in
the glass-maker's parlance, as the " nose." It gives its name to
the furnace where it is subsequently reheated. During this oper-
ation the ponty is constantly and rapidly revolved. The nose
gradually expands under the combined action of heat and centrif-
ugal force. The oj)ening grows larger and larger until the glass
assumes the shape of a typical crown. This appearance, however,
remains but an instant. One sees in its place a brilliant circular
plate of glass whose shape is only maintained by continuing the
rotation of the ponty until the plate, or table, as it is now called,
can be placed upon a flat support. The ponty is then detached
from the bullion-point by means of shears. The mark that is left
is known as the bull's-eye. The tables vary in size from a few
inches in diameter up to six feet, but this latter dimension is ex-
treme. After annealing they are cut into panes by means of a
diamond. The loss involved in the operation more than counter-
balances the admirable brilliancy of the material. At the present
time, the circular tables, just as they come from the annealing
oven, are being used in decorative windows with the most excel-
lent effect. Frequently the glass is tinted, or else it is left color-
less itself, and the bull's-eye is either shaded or opalescent.

The window-pane of the rich is commonly plate glass. Of
the three varieties, this is by far the most desirable in every-
thing except, it must be added, the price. Though similar in com-
position to the sheet and the crown glass, its fabrication is carried
out upon a totally different principle. Instead of being, like them,
the result of the blower's breath, the plate glass is cast into a flat
sheet and then ground and polished, a process of manufacture
which at once accounts for its expensiveness. The best practice
to be seen anywhere in America, if not in the world, is at Creigh-
ton, some twenty miles north of Pittsburgh. It is near the well-
known natural-gas district of Tarentum. There are a number of
large establishments in this country where plate glass is manu-
factured, but the Creighton plant enjoys the reputation of pos-
sessing the most favorable economic conditions as well as the best
equipment.

GLASS-MA KING, 6 1 3

In the selection of the crude materials great care is taken to
secure purity. Tlie melting is carried out in large, open pots, the
furnaces differing in their construction from those already de-
scribed only in their greater size, and in the substitution of iron
doors lined with tiles for the customary gathering-holes. When
the melting is completed, the door nearest the pot to be emptied is
opened, and a two-pronged fork, mounted on wheels, is inserted
into the furnace. The prongs fit into depressions in the sides of
the melting-pot, and thus secure it in a firm grasp. The pot
of molten metal is then removed from the furnace and carried
on a low truck to the casting table. At Creighton, the casting
house, containing furnaces, tables, and annealing ovens, is 650 by
160 feet, about four times as large as the famous halle of Saint-
Gobain in France, and nearly double the size of the British casting
house at Ravenshead. The capacity of the American works has re-
cently been greatly increased, and several new plants established in
different sections of the natural-gas territory. The casting tables,
the most important pieces of apparatus in a plate-glass works, are
nineteen feet long, fourteen feet wide, and seven inches thick.
Each is provided with an iron roller, thirty inches in diameter and
fifteen feet long. Strips of iron on each side of the table afford a
bearing for the rollers and determine the thickness of the plate of
glass to be cast. The rough plate is commonly nine sixteenths of
an inch in thickness ; after polishing, it is reduced to six or seven
sixteenths. The casting tables are mounted on wheels and run on
a track that reaches every furnace and annealing oven in the
building. The table having been wheeled as near as possible to
the melting furnace, the pot of molten glass is lifted by means of
a crane, and its contents quickly poured on the table. The heavy
iron roller is then passed from end to end, spreading the glass into
a layer of uniform thickness. The whole operation of casting
scarcely occupies more time than it takes to describe it. Each
movement is made with almost nervous rapidity. Few industries
offer such fine scenic display as the pouring of the molten glass.
One feels like crying Encore ! it is so very brilliant.

In contact with the cold metal of the table, the glass cools rap-
idly. As soon as possible, the door of the annealing oven is
opened, and the plate of glass introduced. The floor of the oven
is on the same level as the casting table, so that the transfer can
be conveniently and quickly made. When, after several days, the
glass is taken out of the oven, its surface is found to be decidedly
rough and uneven. A small quantity is used in this condition for
sky-lights and other purposes where strength is required without
transparency. It is known in the market as rough plate. The
greater part of the glass, however, is ground, smoothed, and pol-
ished before it leaves the establishment. The work of the " hall

6i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

men"' ends with the production of the rough plate. Its next
guardians bear the name of " grinders." These confer upon the
glass the property of transparency. The grinding is accomplished
by means of rotary grinding machines, the abrading material
being common river-sand, dredged from the Alleghany. Several
million bushels are annually required for this purpose. The
plates are firmly fixed on rotary platforms by means of plaster of
Paris, and rotating disks are so arranged that they cover the entire
surface of the plate at each rotation of the platform. Small jets
of water keep the grinding-sand constantly wet. But such treat-
ment only removes the rough exterior ; the smoothing is accom-
plished by means of emery, finer and finer grades being used as
the process proceeds. The final polish is given by means of rouge
(carefully calcined sulphate of iron), which leaves the glass per-
fectly smooth and ready for use.

Many doubtless remember the time — not so very long distant
— when such a thing as American plate glass was totally un-
known. It all came from France. But we have discovered — much
to our satisfaction — that quite as good plate glass can be made at
home as can be brought from across the water. Some, not as cau-
tious as ourselves, say that the home product is the superior.
Certainly the demand for it increases about as rapidly as new
factories can be built to supply it. The joint product of the two
Creighton plants is nearly two hundred and fifty thousand square
feet per month, or about seventy acres of plate glass a year ! It
takes some eleven hundred hands to turn out such a product as
this, and its value is reckoned in the hundred thousands. Nat-
ural gas is used everywhere throughout both works, displacing,
perhaps six thousand bushels of coal daily. Among other duties,
it supplies steam for engines of probably not less than three
thousand aggregate horse-power. The new factory, some miles to
the east of Creighton, will have a capacity, when completed, of
three hundred thousand square feet of glass a month. We should
hesitate to introduce so many figures, remembering the general
aversion to statistics ; but they will present, better than anything
else, a just conception of the magnitude of the operations con-
nected with a large factory, and will perhaps dispel the notion —
if such exist — that we are still largely dependent upon French
dexterity for our supply of plate glass.

Such, in brief, is an outline of the three processes by which a
pane of glass may be produced. Each day it becomes more per-
fect, until now there seems little further to hope for, unless it be
that the glass might lose some of its readiness to break into pieces
on the least provocation. Our windows are already as large as we
care to have them, and so clear that, every once in a while, some
unlucky soul ignores the fact that the window has any glass in it.

SOUTH SLAVIC MOON-MYTHS. 615

STich flattery as this encourages the glass-maker, in a double
sense, to renew his efforts. It assures him of a continued de-
mand, and also that his window-pane has fulfilled its highest
function — in having been seen through, without being seen.

SOUTH SLAVIC MOON-MYTHS.

By Db. FEIEDEICH S. KEAUSS.

THE South Slavic peoples have a number of popular songs re-
citing with many variations the theme of the wedding of the
sun or the moon with the morning star or dawn. The relatives of
these luminaries also play a part in the wedding processions, and
appear variously as the nuptial dignitaries — Saint John, the thun-
derer Elias, and the holy Virgin Mary. The story runs along so
plausibly that one can not tell by reasoning what is signified by
the invocation of these higher beings ; in other words, with all its
clearness it is quite obscure. But the learned mythologist easily
does away with all difiiculties, and applies his artificial explana-
tions with the greatest satisfaction. Parallels are easily drawn
from Grecian, Roman, Indian, Germanic, or Lithuanian mythol-
ogy, and the thing is done. The stereotyped conclusion of the
mythologists is drawn to the effect that a people that entertains
such speculations must have formerly had a high degree of cult-
ure, and have been of equal birth with the oldest civilized nations.

The answer to such talk is, that the stories of these sun and
moon weddings have no support in the faith of the people, and
are in no wise consonant with their other national and religious
notions. Certain fables are indeed appealed to, that tell how the
youth, in searoh of his ever-vanishing love, inquires in turn of the
wind-mother, the sun-mother, and the moon-mother. But, to ac-
cept these in explanation, we have to pass off as specifically Slavic
what is really and confessedly an all-world story, and in which
there is, therefore, nothing significant of the South Slavic super-
stition.

It is not necessary to believe that there is any illusion in the
matter. While the popular thinking is often illogical and takes
poetry for truth, real misapprehension exists only among individ-
uals, and the popular mind takes a fixed direction. Examination
of the songs in which these moon-marriages are mentioned will
show that they are exclusively lyrics or short songs, such as are
sung by the processions at the bringing of the bride from the
parental home, or which greet her as she enters the house of her
spouse. The significance of the part played in them by the stars is
explained by the popular custom of giving to the wedding-guests.

6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

particularly to those who have anything to do with the ceremo-
nies, pet names by which they are called till the affair is over. A
stereotyped name for the bride is Danica (the morning star), and
for the groom Sunce (the sun) or Mjesec (the moon). The prin-
cipal groomsman is addressed as Saint John ; the god-father as
Elias ; the first bridesmaid as Mary ; and the other guests usually
receive names of flowers. The three chief personages after the
bridal pair have generally the stereotyped name and a newly bor-
rowed pet name. Evidently a poetical expression rules in these
affairs, by which the figurative characterizations of the higher
spheres of the sky have been adapted to the transferred names.
Among the more than a hundred songs of this kind we cite one
from B. Petranovic's collection of Servian popular songs, which
relates how the suitor wakened the passion of his sweetheart :

" The morning star said angrily to the moon,
Where have you tarried, my bright moon, so long?
Where have you tarried, where have you idled the time?
Where I tarried I idled no time :
We were eating for you a supper of sweets ;
We saw for you a maid as handsome as pearl ;
Her hair was fragrant with sweet-smelling blossoms —
Oh, would that the flowers were for me !
Then jealous anger possessed the morning star.
And she speeded in rage over the clear sky."

The poetic imagery is, I think, perfectly comprehensible. It is of
common application in popular verse. Let us recollect that every
literature of the kind has only a comparatively limited stock of
comparisons and figures, and that it is, therefore, obliged to make
a narrow means suffice for all occasions. It does not readily waste
its poetical material, and it is turned from its course only when
the occasion is an extraordinary one. Metaphors drawn from the
stars are still in full vigor, but find their complete adaptation
only in poetry. But there is not a trace of mythological mys-
ticism in it.

It may be observed, in explanation of the popular faith about
the moon, that the people regard its regularly recurring decrease
and increase wholly according to the apparently good or ill work-
ing of its phases upon the fortunes of man and the world. Of the
phenomena themselves they have no settled opinion, although
some incline to accept a fable which is peculiar to the Croats on
the Steiermark border as a popular myth. I prefer to regard it
as a part of the apocryphal folk-lore of the middle ages, or per-
haps as of German origin. Saint Elias, as the national saint, lord
of the highest mountains, lends it his name only to save the trivial
story from ridicule. It runs :

The holy Elias once had a long leisure-spell, and went out

SOUTH SLAVIC MOON-MYTHS. 617

•walking. Coining to a small bay, lie sat down and rested tliere
for three days, till, getting hungry, he began to catch crabs and
eat them. He relished them so well as to eat up nearly all there
were. But God would not let this come to pass, and therefore
raised a great wind that took the saint up into the air. He trav-
eled through space for three days, and reached the moon in the
night. Here the saint was punished by having to look down into
the sea all the night long and see the crabs grow. Then so great
hunger came upon Elias that he bit off piece after piece from the
moon and swallowed them ; and if God the Lord had not been
gracious enough to order the moon to increase, the saint would
have died of hunger after eating it, and have fallen to the earth
and been broken into a thousand pieces. Yet God spared him
and transplanted him to the moon ; else he would have eaten up
all the crabs in the sea, and at another time would have had
only empty disappointment. Thus the moon decreases and in-
creases according as the saint eats or fasts.

If we divest the fable of its unessentials, which may be set to
the account of some unknown poet, there is left a feature of in-
ternational folk-lore, viz., that sins have to be expiated in the
moon. As in German superstition, so also in that of the South
Slavs, the man in the moon is a desecrator of the holy Sabbath
rest. Sometimes he is a wood-cutter, sometimes a blacksmith.
The story reads that a wood-cutter, having stolen some wood in
the forest on Sunday, was condemned to be a wood-destroyer
in the moon for all eternity. He can be seen at full moon, some-
times with an axe in his hand, sometimes with a bundle of sticks
on his back.

Another version tells that there was once a blacksmith who
knew how to make skeleton keys with which one could open any
lock, and, because he did this on Sundays and holidays, was con-
demned to work forever in the moon. It may be in deference to
the conception of the ghost of Frau Mictlwoch, who was punished
for desecrating a holy day by spinning, that a spinner is some-
times substituted for a man in the moon. The Swabians also find
a spinner there.

A maiden was accustomed to spin late on Saturday in the
moonlight. At one time the new moon on the eve of Sunday
drew her up to itself, and since then she has sat in the moon and
spun. And now, when the " gossamer days " set in late in the sum-
mer, the white threads float around in the air. These threads are
the spinnings of the lunar spinner.

The moon is especially a weird avenger of human arrogance,
and has its humors, according to which things go well or ill with
it. In its waxing it has a special force and a certain good-will
for the earth and its inhabitants, while in its wane it is friendly

6i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to no one. The good woman must not do any sewing in the de-
crease of the moon, for the stitches will not hold ; farming-tools
must not be left in the field, because, it is believed, if they are,
crops will not again thrive there. If an unbaptized child is ex-
posed to the moonlight, it will lose its luck for its whole life. If
one points at the moon with the finger he will suffer from swell-
ings around the nail ; and whoever spits at the moon will lose all
his teeth. These beliefs, too, are international. The same is the
case with the religious notions about the new moon. Sorceries of
every kind, to be successful, must be performed on Sunday night
of the new moon. The hair must be cut only in the increase of the
moon, otherwise there is danger of getting headache. If a person
returning home in the evening sees the full moon, he ought to
take some money out of his purse, and utter an incantation that
will make it increase a hundred times during the month.

The moon is also supposed to have an influence over animals
and plants. Cucumbers become very large by lying three nights
in moonshine. Trees, of which it is intended to make timber for
a house, must be felled only in the full moon, else some one in the
family will die very soon. Sheep must be sheared in the increase
of the moon, for the wool is then longest and most durable. Swine
should be slaughtered at the same season, when they are at their
fattest and in the most healthy condition.

What Tacitus says of the Germans, that they believe that cer-
tain things are best undertaken in the new moon or before its full,
is also applicable to the South Slavic superstitions. In both Ger-
man and South Slavic popular lore, the moon is only a fetich, and
South Slavic belief at least affords no ground for the supposition
that it is honored as a divinity ; and I have no hesitation in de-
claring that the finely drawn speculations of Slavic mythologists
respecting the moon are only learned but vain dreams.

We may remark, in conclusion, that peasants are wont to pre-
dict the approaching phases of the weather from the color of the
moon. They have the belief that the moon is like a sponge, and
can instantly absorb the clouds, and as quickly let them loose
again to darken the sky. If the moon shines silvery clear, fine
weather is at hand ; if it looks reddish, there will be wind ; and a
pale moon is a sign of impending rain. Some believe that if the
horn of the new moon shows a little spot, the weather at full moon
will be foul ; if there is no spot, it will be fair till the end of the
month. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Das
Ausland.

Peof. Nehring believes that the dog is descended from various still- surviving
species of wolves and jackals. It is not particularly difficult, he says, to tame
jackals, and many attempts to domesticate wolves have been made in recent
times.

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 619

COMPETITION- AND THE TRUSTS.

By GEOEGE ILES.

LAST aiitiimn I happened to spend a few days in the heart
of the Adirondacks, in a small village some fourteen miles
from the nearest railroad-station. During the stage-coach jour-
ney I found that two of my fellow-passengers were commercial
travelers. It was somewhat surprising to find them invading so
remote an outpost of civilization, a hamlet at best, both expensive
and troublesome of access. During my stay there, scarcely a day
passed that did not bring the shop-keepers a traveling salesman
from Albany, Boston, or New York. About a month before my
visit, the principal merchant in the one straggling street of the
place had been called upon one morning by no fewer than four
solicitors of his trade. Could there be any better illustration of
modern commercial competition than this penetration of the wil-
derness of northern New York by men who brought to the tents
and cottages of a minor health-resort the latest fashions in dry-
goods and millinery, the most recent products of mill, refinery,
and cannery, romances fresh from the press ? And, conjoined
with the very palpable benefits of competitive enterprise, were not
its wastes and burdens as clearly exemplified ? While that far-
away village was much advantaged by the keen rivalry to supply
its wants, the efforts to secure its business were certainly not ade-
quately repaid.

Fifty years ago so small a village, instead of several stores,
would have had but one or two ; their stocks chiefly bought from
local makers of cloth, plows, stoves, and wooden-ware. Near by
we would have had a shoemaker's shop, and perhaps, if the place
were not too small, a tailor's as well. Twice a year the country
store-keeper would go to the nearest large trade-center, New
York, St. Louis, or New Orleans, and buy goods enough for the
entire business of six months. Railroads and the development of
steam manufacturing have changed all this. Small local cloth-
weavers, stove-founders, and so on, have disappeared, for produc-
tion is no longer profitable unless conducted on a vast scale. A
cotton-mill now employs a thousand operatives instead of a hun-
dred, while to build, equip, and launch a modern foundry demands
the capital of a millionaire. The price of a staple article such as
paper is now quoted to hundredths of a cent, and so slender have
profit-margins become that in certain gigantic industries they
consist solely in what a generation ago were deemed waste prod-
ucts. Many Northwestern flour-mills now find their dividend in
the bran which used to be thrown away. From cotton-seed, until

620 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

recent years accounted worthless, does tlie Soiitliern planter de-
rive a goodly proportion of his gains ; and while increase of mag-
nitude in industrial concerns tends to minimize the cost of man-
agement and to promote the economies due to the division of
labor, we see a constantly growing specialization of industry. A
few years ago combs formed part of a general variety of goods
turned out by an India-rubber factory ; now two large concerns
exclusively devoted to comb-manufacture supply nearly the whole
American demand. Immense factories of wooden-ware and tin-
ware, fitted up with costly and ingenious machinery, have obliter-
ated the small local shops which used to flourish a generation ago,
and custom shoemakers and tailors are suffering from the con-
stant encroachments of manufacturers whose wares are made
wholesale at the lowest limit of cost. Low prices, due to cheap-
ened production, have created large new home markets, as, for
example, in the inexpensive pianos and reed-organs to be found
to-day in the homes of all but the poorest.

Every commercial traveler's trim sample-case bears witness to
the progress of a hundred arts and sciences employed to increase
the supply of a luxury, to make articles of every-day use better
and cheaper. Every can of peaches, every quire of paper, every
yard of cassimere, testifies to some new achievement of ingenuity
and skill. Does some alert mind in the great army of those who
earn by serving devise some new and better way of manufacture,
transportation, distribution ? Rivalry quickly imitates it through-
out the length and breadth of the land, to the general profit. In
this unceasing economization of human effort the railroads have
borne a leading part. Markets no longer mean those furnished by
groups of States ; the whole Union is now opened up to the enter-
prising manufacturer, no matter where he establishes himself ;
and the steadily decreasing freight-tariffs of the railroads are due
not only to the growth of their business and to applied science in
the details of construction and operation, but also to the economy
which attends the unification of great systems. A closely printed
page scarcely suffices to enumerate the lines operated by the Penn-
sylvania Company. From Vancouver to Montreal, a single man-
agement extends for twenty -nine hundred miles, and will soon, in
reaching the Atlantic seaboard, span the continent.

The benefits of competition in manufacture and trade are so
many and conspicuous that its losses and burdens are very apt to
be disregarded ; yet they are neither few nor insignificant. One
class of them is the creature of steam, which, applied within re-
cent decades to transportation and manufacture, has in the main
been so great a source of public advantage. Forty or fifty years
ago a weaver made cloth and a shoemaker boots for customers
within a short distance of loom or shop, so that they could pretty

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 621

accurately adjust supply to demand, and tlieir shelves were rarely
too heavily laden with wares. To-day, so rapidly have improve-
ments in steam-machinery multiplied the output of factories and
mills, that overproduction is their chronic case ; and this over-
production is in no slight measure due to a fallacy into which
sanguine men have been led by the rapid expansion of America's
railroad system. Beyond the increase of market due to new pop-
ulations attracted by this expansion, unwarranted expectations
have been entertained. The mere aggregation of the small dis-
tricts in which business was done in the past has been taken to
mean an immense enlargement of the whole national demand, as
if taking down fences were to augment the area of contiguous
farms. Railroad extension means new rivalry quite as often as
new customers. Woolens woven in Minnesota now compete in
Massachusetts and Connecticut with goods of home production.
Iron castings from Tennessee and Alabama are to-day entering
Northern markets by virtue of freight-tariffs nominal in compar-
ison with those of fifteen or twenty years ago. Now that the
whole Union is merged as a single market, calculations with re-
gard to competition are more difficult than ever before. A genera-
tion or two since under-supply was a common liability. To-day
the opposite embarrassment of overproduction is the business
man's problem as he surveys dislocations of industry as much
more severe than those of his grandfather's time as the waves of
the storm-beaten Atlantic exceed the ripples of a mill-pond. And
evil has bred after its kind. Prior to 1878 Canada had a low tar-
iff ; the protective duties enacted that year were imposed chiefly
because of overproduction in the United States. It was shown
that Canadian manufacturing interests were demoralized through
the Dominion being made a slaughter -market for the surplus
stocks of American factories and mills.

Competition's systematic underselling is chargeable with the
enormous losses which arise from adulteration. Consumers are
usually poor judges of the purity or durability of what they buy,
and the appearance of cheapness easily deceives them. When
once adulteration has lowered a price, they resist the increase of
it necessary to restore a sound standard of quality. Yet, as a rule,
the great majority of those who practice adulteration are unwill-
ing parties thereto. If a grinder of paints begins mixing sulphate
of baryta with his white leads, his competitors must do the same.
If a dealer in sirup dilutes it with glucose, in self-defense others
in the trade must practice the same deception. The low prices
brought about by such methods mean dear buying. Especially is
this the case with textile fabrics. Cottons and woolens are not
seldom deteriorated in wearing quality one half by admixtures
which only reduce the cost of production one fifth ; and greed has

622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

not hesitated to dilute and falsify the drugs employed to assuage
pain and heal the sick and wounded. With this not only the
intensity of modern competition but the width of its area has had
something to do. One of the strongest moral checks in human
nature is sympathy with suffering ; but if aggravation of suffering
be remote in place, uncertain in time, and unpublished, conscience
is apt to slumber. A druggist to-day receives from scores of fac-
tories hundreds of preparations, concerning the purity of which
he knows little or nothing. He dispenses them not to neighbors,
but to customers, who, from the necessities of the case, must be
strangers to him.

Not only in adulteration, but in other evils developed by com-
petition, is the meanest man in a trade the lawgiver in that trade.
A manufacturer or miner imports cheap Italian and Hungarian
labor, thereby reducing the standard of living among his other
work-people to the Italian and Hungarian level, and obliging his
competitors to follow his example. A few firms who introduced
child-labor into the manufacture of garments are responsible for
the shrinkage in wages which of late years has steadily overtaken
the entire seamstress class.

Adam Smith tells us that one of the elements of price is the
higgling of the market — a pregnant observation concerning one
of the grievous burdens of competition. We hear much about
the frauds perpetrated by those who make and sell goods — we
hear little concerning the frauds committed by those who buy ;
yet buyers and sellers are made of the same clay, and buyers not
seldom grudge to pay a fair profit to the men who supply them.
To illustrate : Let us suppose the firm of Robinson & Co. to be
makers of thermometers, on which they set prices as just to their
customers as to themselves. They are accustomed to sell a tenth
part of their output to a certain New-Yorker. He goes to them
one day and says that, unless they reduce their prices five per
cent, he will cease to deal with them. Although at a deduction
from the profit fairly their due, they comply, simply because to
refuse will result in larger loss than to submit. What one cus-
tomer has done others may do, so that "higgling" may for a
longer or shorter time force capable and industrious men to work
without wages. Competition may be dreaded for just as well
as for interested motives. A new rival may inflict severe loss
through overestimating the business field which he enters ;
through cutting the price of a staple below cost, and making it
what is called a " leader " ; or through downright dishonesty and
recklessness.

One of the remarkable developments of modern competition is
in the matter of its costly and pervasive methods of solicitation.
This, in the case of the commercial-traveling system, has had

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 623

effects good and evil. While it brings the latest products of met-
ropolitan taste and skill to the remotest and smallest settlements,
its services, when ignorantly and chancefully directed, as in
the case of the Adirondack village, result in waste and loss. An
agent of shrewdness and fidelity can exercise a very valuable
watchfulness over his principal's debtors, yet a system which
tends to make a " connection '' the property of an agent, trans-
ferable to a new employer, is not one to diminish the liabili-
ties and cares of business management. But the chief evil of the
oversolicitation which is so common is the undue cheapening of
credit. While it continues to be as difdcult as ever for a mer-
chant to borrow money, there is nothing easier than his getting
credit for money's worth in the form of goods. Whereas an old-
time shop-keeper, in his face-to-face transactions with a whole-
sale merchant or manufacturer, explained why he deserved credit
when he wanted it, nowadays persuading people to take credit,
even for what they do not want and may not pay for, has become
a fine art ; while the investigation of the creditability of firms is
the function of immense " commercial agencies." A step in the
direction of sound business organization has been taken by the
employment of commercial travelers to ascertain a demand be-
fore it is supplied. A manufacturer of hats or straw-goods designs
a variety of styles for an approaching season's trade, and turns
out the quantities ordered and no more. By similar methods many
importers avoid carrying large stocks of goods, and are becoming
more and more commission-merchants, or brokers, unburdened by
the rent of extensive premises and the losses incidental to buying
for chance sale.

In Great Britain, every year, more than a himdred million
dollars' worth of goods are distributed at retail at a gross cost
little exceeding five per cent. In New England the experimental
imitations of British co-operation have transacted business at an
expense one half more, 77 per cent. Retail distribution in Amer-
ica probably costs twenty per cent of the prices consumers pay,
and, because of their utter absence of organization, the outlays for
solicitation constantly grow. Conspicuous premises are leased at
enormous rents to attract chance buyers. Windows are decked
by artists whose skill is a specialty, invoking the aid of scene-
painter and stage-mechanic. Newspapers are filled with adroit
and reiterated allurements. Circulars repeat them ; hoardings re-
echo them. At home the bell-ringing army of hawkers and can-
vassers consume time which is money, and patience, which is more.
Minor articles of use or beauty are gratuitously distributed, to re-
mind us at every turn of the merits of some pill, soap, or insurance
company. Who shall measure the cost of all this to the solicited,
in distraction and annoyance ? One of the most promising fields

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for American business enterprise I believe to be the organization
of retail distribution, wbich, among other economies, can rid itself
of the expense of solicitation. We have already great bazaars
which combine the variety of a country store by assembling un-
der one roof the special departments of ordinary city warehouses :
is it not possible to organize for such marts stated circles of cus-
tomers, on whose steady trade the proprietors can rely — circles
sufficiently large for adequate support, independently of showy
premises or other advertisement ? Some such organization could
offer customers lowered prices in consideration for their agree-
ment to forego the luxury of buying at random. Some such im-
provement in retailing would make it possible to introduce certain
advantages of British co-operation among a public who prefer
individual enterprise to board-management. A buyer in Eoch-
dale or London hears from a co-operative salesman the exact
truth regarding the quality of his flannel, coffee, or gloves. The
salesman has no interest in deceit, and money is expended to the
best possible advantage. The profit which attends this replacing
an antagonism of interests by an identification has been remark-
ably exemplified in New England by the factories mutual-insur-
ance companies. These concerns insure more than four hundred
million dollars' worth of mill-property, at one fourth the cost of
non-co-operative underwriting.

Briefly to summarize them, the chief evils attendant upon com-
petition are those which grow out of ignorance concerning what
competitors are doing in a given field ; the excessive cost of solicita-
tion in its various forms and consequences ; the absence of respon-
sibility when business is in the hands of small firms ; and lastly,
the immense tax commonly included in the prices of retail sale.
It was in the business of transportation that the losses attend-
ing unrestricted competition were first severely felt, and first
sought to be remedied. Shippers, by adroitly playing one line off
against another, were able to lower rates much beyond fair lim-
its, especially when ill-considered rivalry or the profits of promo-
tion and construction had created unnecessary roads. To prevent
the recurrence of costly and sometimes ruinous tariff wars, agree-
ments as to rates were made — only to be broken whenever it suited
the interests of any one of the parties to do so. This experience
at last led to the device of the pool, an ingenious attempt to retain
the beneficial features of competition while discarding its evils.
A pool, let us say, comprises four trunk-lines connecting Chicago
and New York ; their business for a certain period prior to the
formation of the pool is ascertained to have been in the propor-
tions of thirteen, eighteen, twenty-eight, and forty-one per cent.
Freight is then apportioned in these ratios ; but if the expressed
desires of shippers would vary this allotment, it is maintained.

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 625

nevertheless, by officers of the jdooI known as " eveners." When
a second term of the organization is discussed, these shippers' pref-
erences, as growing out of the improved management or facilities
of a particular line, are given weight in a revision of ratios. Were
pooling agreements legalized so that their terms could be enforced,
Mr. Fink, the first railroad authority in America, declares that
the principal step toward settling the railroad j^roblem would be
taken. In the great work which the Interstate Railroad Commis-
sion has accomplished, not the least benefit has arisen from the
publicity it has given to complaint. It is now clearly proved that
corporations dread condemnation at the bar of public opinion,
and that they often have an unsuspected sense of responsibility
which can be directed to curtail their abuse of power.

With a home market safe from foreign competition, with the
steady swallowing of little fish by great, and the growth of these
from great to greater, it was only natural that the policy which
aimed to suppress what was deemed undue rivalry in transporta-
tion should be paralleled in manufacturing industry. Hence a few
years ago we saw associations begun to be formed among produ-
cers of iron, steel, paper, salt, and other articles of prime necessity,
all intended to regulate output and price-lists. As a rule, these
associations did not work well. They lacked the means to punish
breaches of faith to which superior facilities or management
might tempt one of the associates. Some more substantial bond
was called for if agreements were to be respected and harmony of
interests maintained. Then arose the "trust," with its organic
tie ; an industrial creation nothing short of revolutionary. In the
most approved form of " trust," such of the concerns to be affili-
ated as are not incorporated, are transformed into joint-stock
companies. Then all the companies, new and old, transfer their
property to the "trust," an unincorporated board which represents
each of the unified concerns. The trustees then exchange " trust "
certificates for the various companies' shares, usually on the basis
of a trebled or quadrupled valuation. Control is then exercised
by the board over all the operations of the industry thus organ-
ized ; one refinery or mill is enlarged, another is closed ; territory
is apportioned to each active member of the combination, output
is regulated, prices fixed. Let us mark the prize which tempts to
this apparently perilous relinquishment of direct control of its
affairs by each party to the union. We can see it best displayed
in the case of the Standard Oil Trust.

No chapter in the history of American industry is more inter-
esting than the record of the rise and progress of this "trust."
Beginning in 1870 with an inconsiderable refinery in Cleveland,
its founders took diligent heed of the fact of railroad competition :
" special " rates were then commonly granted to any shipper who

VOL. XXXIT. — 40

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

understood the profit wliicli lay in " higgling." These Ohio re-
finers handled an article whereof freight was a large element
of price ; so, making " special rates " their opportunity or cover,
they gradually succeeded in obtaining enormous rebates from
ordinary terms, not only on the oil shipped by them, but on oil
shipped by competitors. With this infamous advantage, the
growth of their operations and of their power was rapid. Not
many years elapsed before they were able to lay a pipeage system
for their oil at a cost of thirty million dollars, supplanting the
railroad system which had given them their chief impetus. In its
struggle to extend and maintain its practical monopoly, the inves-
tigations of this " trust " at Albany and Washington disclose how
the combats of swamp and jungle may be repeated in counting-
house and exchange. Violence and fraiid were employed to
further the process of pushing rivals to the wall. Clerks were
tempted to betray a competitor's confidence, workmen were bribed
to explode his stills. To-day the Standard Oil Trust refines three
fourths of the petroleum of the United States ; fortunately, its in-
terests chime with those of consumers, who therefore share in the
benefits of its high and compact organization. The field of oil
production constantly widens, bringing to market an increasing
volume of crude oil ; as the " trust " owns nearly all the transport-
ing, storage, and manufacturing facilities in the country, it finds it
best to make prices so reasonable that its sales may be the largest
possible. This " trust " possesses almost every advantage which
would inure to a state monopoly, managed by eminent ability at
work for individual gain. It enjoys the immense saving which
results from organizing the whole Union as a single market,
whose wants can be systematically ascertained, and as systemat-
ically supplied from the trade-center of each territorial division.
It reaps the gain which flows from so adjusting supply to demand
that labor can be given uniform or nearly uniform employment,
which comes from preserving credit from undue cheapening, and
thus minimizing one of the chief perplexities of business — the
estimation of risks. By unification of management, any new im-
provement in machinery or process is introduced at once into
every refinery the trust controls. Mr. Dodd, one of the Standard's
solicitors, declares its profits during 1886 to have been thirteen per
cent, a much smaller return than that popularly supposed. It is
worthy of note that the Standard people are now buying large
tracts of oil lands, presumably with intent to control the produc-
tion of oil as well as its distribution, refinement, and sale.

Incited by the success of the Standard, a great many " trusts "
have been formed, imitating its methods in endeavoring to control
the production of some leading article of trade. None of them,
however, exhibit the ability of its management, or the sensitive-

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS, 627

ness to criticism and sense of public responsibility wbich. have
marked tbe Standard's later history. These " trusts " fall in the
main into four classes — those which, like the iron and steel trust,
are fostered by a tariff which excludes foreign competition ; those
like the envelope trust, which derive an additional element of mo-
nopoly from patented machinery and processes ; those like the
gas trusts, which are of quasi-^Vi\>\\c character, and operate under
municipal franchise ; and lastly, those which, like the Standard
Oil and Cotton-seed Oil Trusts, depend solely upon aggregated
capital and unified organization for their supremacy. That low-
ering the tariff would abate the excessive gains of " trusts " of the
first-mentioned kind is proved by the sudden rise in the value of
their certificates on the defeat of a national Administration
pledged to tariff reform. In so far as abuse of patent-rights is
made auxiliary to "trust" extortion, the curtailment or forfeiture
of such rights, when so abused, becomes a subject demanding
legal redress. With respect to " trusts " exercising gi/asi-public
privileges, such as those of gas-supply, the remedy consists in
municipal control, as convincingly maintained by Prof. E. J.
James, of Philadeljihia, in his treatise on the subject.

In considering the difficult questions which the advent of
the " trusts " has created, it is necessary to discriminate between
those which treat the public fairly and those which exact the
utmost the public can be made to pay. If the Standard Oil Trust,
disgraceful though its history may be, can prove that it gathers,
transports, refines and sells petroleum cheaper than could the
competitors whose place it has taken, what can be said against it ?
Its managers have built up a Union-comprehending organization,
and are entitled to share in the results which flow from the econ-
omies they have perfected. Fairly managed, a trust is the last
term in a process which began when a machine dispossessed hand-
labor ; which advanced when steam was applied to the machine ;
which took another step when steam-machinery, operated by
massed joint-stock capital, undersold private firms. Industrial
progress has steadily marched forward along the lines dictated
by the economy of bigness over smallness, of high specialization,
of the adjustment of supply to an ascertained demand, the con-
stant substitution of knowledge of markets for ignorance regard-
ing them, the unremitting elimination of chance. To many
thousands of worthy men engaged in the rivalry with new
methods they have meant defeat and ruin. This is pathetic but
inevitable, for, when once men find out some better or cheaper
way of doing a thing, they never go back to some costlier or more
troublesome plan, no matter who suffers. Excluding then from
all combinations to be pursued and condemned those which are
controlled with fairness, we have to consider the best course to

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

adopt with the conspiracies whose aim is nothing but the arti-
ficial raising of prices and impoverishment of the public. To cite
two examples : Under " trust " control refined sugar is one half to
three quarters of a cent per pound dearer in comparison with raw
sugar than before the " trust " was formed. Raw linseed-oil, on
the establishment of a " trust/' was immediately advanced from
thirty-eight to fifty-six cents a gallon. Against such extortion
the remedy is first and chiefly competition. With capital for
profitable investment abundant and cheap, no " trust " is secure in
its control of the market. So rapidly and suddenly have the great
majority of " trusts " arisen, that competition with them has not
yet had time fully to manifest itself. To build and equip a sugar-
refinery demands a million dollars and takes a year's time. In an
industry such as that of sugar-refining, in which trust-control has
been assumed only recently, such independent competitors as
remain unincluded derive no little advantage from the " trust's "
existence. They are free from regulation of their output, and find
a ready market for all they manufacture by keeping their prices
a mere fraction below the " trust's " — a condition of things cer-
tainly attractive to competition.

To curb and punish the plunderers who, turning their talons
from their rivals, direct them upon the public, a variety of legal
remedies have been sought. The most important recent decision
affecting predatory " trusts " was that delivered by Judge Barrett
in the Supreme Court of New York, January 10, 1889, in the suit
of the people of the State against the North River Sugar-Refining
Company, to dissolve the company and declare its charter for-
feited for entering the Sugar Trust.

Judge Barrett's decision declared the charter forfeited and the
company dissolved. The grounds of his judgment were that a cor-
poration is liable to be dissolved by the abuse of its powers, or if
it has exercised privileges or franchises not conferred upon it by
law. He held that the directors of the corporations composing the
" trust " had acted illegally in abdicating their direction in favor of
the trust-board, to whom all shares of capital stock had been trans-
ferred. While corporations have no legal power to consolidate,
the " trust " was practically a consolidation, which legally had no
existence nor responsibility. He declared, further, that resting
upon the inherent right of sovereignty, franchises are granted by
the State on condition that corporate privileges shall not be
abused, shall not antagonize the safety and welfare of the com-
munity. It was held proved that the Sugar Trust had not been
formed for protection against ruinous competition, but for the
illegal purpose of artificially enhancing the cost of a necessary
article of commerce ; that the " trust," by virtue of its combined
capital and control, had power to crush any rival who, without

COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 629

equal resources, might enter the lists against it ; and that, even if
adequate competition with it were to arise, the delay incident
thereto would be sufficient for intolerable oppression of the peoj)le.
The case is to be carried to the Court of Appeals, and its fate
there will be of national interest. In the courts of Ohio, Illinois,
Louisiana, and other States, it has been decided that all combina-
tions to suppress competition, raise prices, or restrain trade, are
illegal, and it has been proposed to attack the " trusts " along the
line indicated by these decisions.

Should the illegality of " trusts" in general, as now constituted,
be maintained in courts of final appeal, the question emerges. How
can the benefits of business organization, which the " trust " in-
cludes and has introduced, be secured with at the same time
avoidance of abuse by a control practically amounting to mo-
nopoly ? It is highly probable that, if corporations are denied
the exercise of the economic and beneficial features of " trusts,"
firms attracted by the resulting advantages will establish organi-
zations substantially similar. Indeed, individual accumulations of
wealth have long since passed the point where they confer power
to control single important industries of the United States.
Clearly, then, a question of no little difficulty is before the Ameri-
can people. Ordinary competitive business has in many depart-
ments become so complex, unwieldy, and wasteful, as imperatively
to demand some such simplification as " trust " organization
offers. If that organization be denied to groups of capitalists,
the powers sought by such organization will in all likelihood,
with some delay, be exercised by individuals who will have all
the temptation to abuse their strength into which corporations
have been led in the past. Law must in the nature of things lag
behind exigency, and in this new transition of business, from com-
petition to combination, it evidently has to confront a problem
of supreme importance. In the development of the Copper Trust
we have seen how an international combination may become a
conspiracy to rob the world : a singular piece of testimony to the
obliteration of national boundaries by modern methods of loco-
motion and communication !

For " trusts " limiting their operations to the United States a
line of treatment has been suggested which has doubtless had
its origin in legal consideration of the railroad question. Since
its settlement is stoutly maintained by expert authority to consist
in frank acceptance of the " pool " and its legalization, why not,
it is asked, also legalize the " trust," surrounding its control with
all the safeguards necessary and feasible ? The State already
exercises a degree of supervision over certain gi/asi-public busi-
nesses— banking, insurance, and railroading. Its supervision may
be justly extended to the " trusts," while at the same time the

630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

levy of a just tax will make the people sharers in the advantages
of " trust " organizations. Their affairs published, their mana-
gers will have a better chance to cultivate a sense of public
responsibility than at present, when, without status, their security
threatened by attacks of all sorts, they seem intent on making
the most of an opportunity which they expect to be brief. Be-
cause less in direct legislation than in residual competition lies
the curb of extortion, this must be insured by strict enforcement
of adequate laws against conspiracy. Were " trusts " legalized, it
is said— did publicity attend their transactions — it would be both
wise and profitable for them to make the public willing parties to
their existence by employing their systematization of business to
serve the public better than unorganized competition in the past
has ever been able to do.

To this proffered solution of the " trust " question is opposed
the objection that it involves an extension of governmental pow-
ers much in advance of existing evidences of governmental effi-
ciency. Yet public control or restraint in some form is impera-
tive. Whatever truth the self -regulating theory of private enter-
prise may have had in the days before combination, vanishes at
a time when individual monopoly can levy a national tax in the
shape of extortionate profit. However reluctantly we may admit
it, more and more does exigency tend to enlarge the scope 'of
State authority. Hence greater need than ever that public-spirit-
ed effort should purify politics, and endeavor to lift it to states-
manship. When the nation has been threatened by foes without
or within, her citizens have ever given prompt response to the
call for defence. To-day she seeks protection, not from armed
invaders, but from economic oppressors. It is war again, but
war demanding in its generalship not only courage in an unpict-
uresque field, but business sagacity of the highest order.

Knowledge of geography is important, says General R. Strachey, to the states-
man, because upon it depend largely the right determination and definition of
boundaries, the lack of which has been the cause of some of the greatest dilFer-
ences between states; to the soldier, for the intelligent planning of his campaigns,
marches, and minor movements ; to the engineer, who must have exact repre-
sentations of the horizontal and vertical features with which he will have to deal,
and knowledge of the climate, rainfall, and natural productions of the country ; to
the physician, who prescribes "change" to his patients; to the merchant, for the
judicious dispatch of his wares ; and to the emigrant, for a wise selection of his
new home. Geography furnishes the key to the interpretation of many events of
the past, and materials and aids in scientific research. Meteorology is largely in-
debted to it for the advance it has recently made. Without the aid which explora-
tion has fumisbed, the generalizations of Darwin and Wallace concerning tlie origin
and distribution of species and the influence of geographical conditions could not
have been obtained.

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 631
LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER.

By benjamin EEECE.

"VTOTHING is more perplexing to the inquiring mind than a
-'-^ contemplation of the great contrasts between the harmony
and adaptation existing in the material world and the incongrui-
ties, antagonisms, and disorder which characterize the social and
moral worlds. When one realizes how successfully the inventor
and the artisan have followed the teachings of the scientist, he can
not but suspect that much of our social unrest has arisen because
our law-makers and philanthropists have not followed the teach-
ings of social philosophy.

The fact is patent that, in the material world, where man's
hand is powerless to interfere, there are perfect order and harmo-
nious development ; but in the moral and social worlds, which are
always subject to man's petty and ill-considered meddling, we
have great disorder and confusion. So marked are the incon-
gruities of social condition that the philosophic thought which
has failed to grasp the vital elements of development seems to be
divided by the extravagant superlatives of pessimistic and opti-
mistic expression. In his criticism of Mr. Herbert Spencer's essay,
" Man vs. the State," Emile de Laveleye recognizes this uncer-
tainty and want of harmony in human affairs, but fails to see
that the disparities are caused by man's interference with the
laws of his own being and development. He says : " Nature is
subject to certain laws which are invariable, as, for instance, the
law of gravitation. We may call these laws of nature, but in hu-
man institutions, which are ever varying, nothing of the sort can
exist." He fails to realize that the law of gravitation is invari-
able because man's hand is powerless to change it, but directs its
cunning to the construction of screws, levers, and inclined planes,
in order to obtain mastery over nature.

Suppose the power had rested with man to substitute human
contrivances for this unvarying law of nature, what inextricable
confusion had resulted! Suppose the citizens of the vast terri-
tory whose commerce is tributary to the Northern chain of lakes
should call upon their senators and representatives to devise ways
and means by which to conduct their foreign trade direct from
the lake ports, without first transshipping to, and thereby paying
tribute to, the cities of the Atlantic coast. A physical difficulty
at once presents itself, insomuch that the shallow-draught vessels
of the lakes are unfit for ocean service, whereas the deep-draught
vessels of the Atlantic are unable to enter the shallow waters of
the canals and harbors of the lakes. After various consultations

632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and debates, it is determined to correct this inequality of material
nature by passing a law doubling the specific gravity of water in
the lakes, so that ocean vessels drawing twenty-four feet of water
can sail upon the lakes with little more than twelve. Is it not
apparent that this single law would destroy the adjustment and
adaptation of ages ? Fish having been developed in water of
normal density could no longer live in the lakes ; the weeds and
grasses which had grown upon the bed of the lakes would be up-
rooted by the water of double weight, to float upon the surface,
and, being subjected to the sun's rays, would decompose and scat-
ter the germs of pestilence and disease. The weight of water
being doubled, it is made a little heavier than sand, so that the
farms of sandy soils in Michigan and adjoining States would float
away upon the waters of the lakes. Trees would be uprooted, the
heavier clay soils, bridges, wharves, and railroad embankments
washed away.

Then would follow an active period of legislation to neutral-
ize the evil consequences resulting from the original interfer-
ence with normal adjustments and relations. While seeking to
retain all the advantages gained to commerce by the increased
weight of water, law after law to restore the equilibrium would
be enacted, and, where harmony and universal order once held
sway, confusion worse confounded would obtain. That soils and
lands might not be washed away, laws would be passed doub-
ling their specific gravity, which would bring them nearly to the
density of stone, rendering tillage very difficult and costly, while
the seeds could no longer pierce through to the surface. In order
that railway embankments might stand and resist these waters of
such tremendous weight, the specific gravity of materials used in
their construction is also doubled, but doubling the weight doubles
the cost of handling and constructing, and the estimates of con-
tractors and engineers prove worthless. Is it not evident that the
waters of the lakes being doubled in weight leaves all other
forms of matter correspondingly light, and the selfish propensi-
ties of men are at once aroused. Those interested in shipping de-
sire water of increased specific gravity; those subject to floods
demand legislation looking to a decrease in the weight of water ;
while the much-abused doctrinaire declares that the normal ad-
justments of ages upon ages could not be disturbed without disas-
trous consequences, for one law changing the relation of water to
other forms of matter, makes necessary the passage of thousands
of intricate laws in order to restore the equilibrium so ruthlessly
destroyed, because of the vain attempt to enlarge the scope and
power of one element without the corresponding diminution and
weakening of all others.

In the contemplation of the material world, no discovery of

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 633

science has worked more marvelous changes than the generaliza-
tion known as the persistency or indestructibility of force ; yet in
the moral and social worlds its teachings are almost entirely dis-
regarded. In exerting force in any form, it must be applied to
something, and, whenever or however applied, that something
will react with a force equal to and in an opposite direction to
that which is applied. The man who lifts a hundred pounds'
weight, finds the weight pulls one hundred pounds upon his arm ;
the man who strikes a blow, receives upon his fist a shock of equal
force to that which he imposes upon the body of his antagonist :
should he miss his aim, the direct force would react in a pull
upon the shoulder, and might result in the dislocation of the
joint. One pushes against an object until red in the face, but the
redness of face and exhaustion are not caused by the direct appli-
cation of power ; it is because the object reacts in resisting or
pushing with a force just equal to that which is applied ; and, but
for this pulling and pushing in reaction, men could apply force
without expending force, could accomplish work without exert-
ing energy, both of which are contradictions of terms and ab-
surdities.

Notwithstanding this invariable law of nature, legislative
enactments are daily made providing for the exertion of social
and moral forces, without one thought of the reaction which must
inevitably follow ; and I may here say that Nihilism and political
disorders in Russia are the reaction due to laws which restrict
political rights; the agrarian troubles in Ireland are the reac-
tion due to its onerous land laws ; while our industrial unrest is
but the reaction due to legislative interference with natural in-
dustrial forces.

The mechanic in moving large bodies secures the aid of lever,
screw, or inclined plane, and is obliged to apply as much energy
as the body offers resistance. In mechanics the principle of the
correlation and conservation of forces is always acknowledged
and obeyed ; hence the unerring certainty of performance and the
stability of the vast and intricate structures of the age. When
large bodies are to be moved, physical energy is applied in the
form of great power at low speed ; where parts are to be severed,
or fracture is sought, or where molecular instead of molar energy
is desired, it is obtained by impact at high velocity, as is instanced
in the firing of projectiles against a vessel's armor-plating: the
energy applied is exhausted in penetrating the armor and gener-
ating heat, instead of imparting motion to the vessel.

In the social no less than in the material world, force is inde-
structible, and in the latter the hostile meeting of two unyielding
bodies in collision arrests the molar energy to reappear as molec-
ular with its equivalent in heat. So, if two social bodies meet and

634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arrest each, other's action entirely or in part, reaction follows in
the form of irritation, passion, and vengeance, to which the French
Revolution and other popular outbursts bear ample testimony;
and these excitations of the inner man are exactly equal to the
social forces in antagonistic equilibrium, and it is this form of
energy which now gives rise to the warring tendencies and bit-
terness of classes.

But look at our legislation. Its presumed object is to move the
whole social body upon higher planes of progress ; yet it essays to
urge forward this vast and intricate structure by the impact of
quickening laws, by the concentration of social forces into certain
lines ; and to these ill-considered attempts can we attribute the
present incoherent social state. The social organism fails to ad-
vance as a whole because power is converted into speed, and thus
applied it has torn the social body into several parts. Capitalists
and laborers, millionaires and i3aupers, moralists and criminals,
are being urged upon separate lines with varying momentum, the
acceleration of speed at the expense of power finally resulting in
urging one tenth part of the population ten paces in advance of
the masses, when, but for this transmutation of power into speed,
the whole body of the people would have advanced one step to-
gether. If the few continue this heedless progress at the expense
of the many, the separation will be more and more pronounced ;
and the wider the gap thus made, the more severe and disastrous
will be the concussion in the day of readjustment.

Through the laws of force we learn that, when individuals or
social groups pull together, the resultant is equal to the sum of
their separate effects ; but if they pull in opposition to each other,
the resultant is found in the difference of their separate effects,
and, should they be equal in power, equilibrium would ensue and
no work could be accomplished.

Yet in spite of this unvarying law of nature, relentless war is
being waged between the classes, causing social unrest and indus-
trial turmoil ; and, having been taught that in the ballot resides
the remedy for all real and fancied evils, each class clamors for
legislation, not to conserve the ends of justice, but to increase
their own power or decrease that of the opposition, and thereby
secure the object of their strife. Politicians discerning this inco-
herency of the body politic, are quick to take advantage of it by
appealing to every selfish interest, hoping thereby to gain the
honor and emoluments of place. In the mass of State and na-
tional laws daily enacted it would appear as if the American citi-
zen, or society at large, is utterly disregarded. Of laws we have a
surfeit, but they are aimed at voting groups and fail to compre-
hend the good of all : pension bills for soldiers, river and harbor
bills for river and coast constituencies, protective tariff laws for

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 635

manufacturers, labor legislation for workingmen, land grants for
railroads, interstate commerce bills for shippers, subsidies for
sliip-builders, and oleomargarine bills for farmers — and yat the
conflict rages, cries are raised against the arrogance and grinding
avarice of monopolies, while bitter complaints are made of the
domineering independence and unsteadiness of labor. Is it not
evident that, if these selfish elements continue to repel forces
which should be mutually attracted, the continued and increasing
strain must result in violent and acrimonious rupture ?

Most writers upon social science fail to grasp the fundamental
principles underlying social growth. They seize upon half truths
only, and according to their impressions they attach more or less
importance to the egoistic or individual forces of character or to
the tribal or social forces, as the case may be. Thus Mr. Leslie,
in his introduction to De Lavelaye's " Primitive Property,"
claims to see nothing but strife and contention in the universal
desire for individual property, and he urges with much spirit
that it is not strange that all should desire to possess ; but, says he,
" what needs to be explained is that such warring elements, each
desiring the same objects, should permit peaceful possession by
others." Mr. Leslie fails to realize that such contentious forces
must find some common base of action to escape from internecine
strife ; this is true not only of man, but of all gregarious animals.
Even Mr. Clifford, in his " Scientific Basis of Morality," is dis-
posed to view the social or tribal characteristics of man as the
more essential to survival ; but carried to its extreme, this submis-
sion to the wills of others results in the inaction of physical tor-
por, even as the extreme development of the individual traits of
aggression result in the inaction of equal forces in conflict. Hence
the two forces are correlated, and if they are separated by friction
this civilization will perish, as its predecessors have done.

An analysis clearly shows that in the absence of extraneous
interferences the reactive effect of individual aggression is resist-
ance and social union, for which we find many forms of ex-
pression. Individual force is made manifest in the declaration of
" I will do," " I will not do," while the reactive or social form
finds expression in " I will or will not permit to be done," In the
individual traits are found those activities which reside in pur-
pose or in free will ; in the social group we mark the modifica-
tions of environment sometimes called destiny or foreordination.
Thus each individual is at the same time acting upon others and
being acted upon by others, and, as action and reaction are equal
and opposite, the aggressive force of all individuals is just equal
to the resisting force of society in the aggregate. When these two
forces develop in the same individual, we find law-abiding, just, ■
and energetic characters ; but when separated by friction, there

636 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are injustice, bitterness, and rancor. Upon this law does the de-
velopment of society depend, and in the aggressive forces are
found the elements of progress, while in the submitting and re-
sisting forces are found the elements of stability. To the aggres-
sive features of Western civilizations is due that rapid progress
which has heretofore proved wanting in stability, while to the
well-defined social conditions of Eastern caste is due the stability
of the civilizations of the Orient, which have for ages lacked the
elements of progress. Science formulates the theory, but not
until taught by bitter experience does man seem to understand
that by union and interaction we secure a resultant equal to the
sum of our several activities, while by conflict and counteraction
forces are neutralized, or at best the resultant can be no greater
than the difference between the several effects.

The lowest races respect the rights of property among them-
selves. Mr. Darwin says of the Fuegians : " If any present was
designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it was invariably
given to the right owner." It goes without saying that from the
docks of one of our populous cities, in the midst of civilization,
no such respect for the rights of others would be observed. But,
in the state of ungovernable passion which characterizes the sav-
age, is it not evident that a disregard of the personal rights of
others would soon end in practical extermination, while by re-
specting the rights of others each gains security for his own ?

It is idle to speculate as to the occasion of this nascent trust
or confidence on which all societies rest alike in their infancy of
ungovernable violence and in the maturer developments of the
restraints and social order of our present civilization. It is true
the stinted trusts of the undeveloped limit the duties they create,
while the extended trusts of the more evolved imply the creation
of new duties coextensive with those trusts.

Let us, for illustration, suppose that two savages, in pursuit
of the same game, cross paths ; immediately they turn upon each
other; being evenly matched, neither gains the advantage, but
the game escapes, their activities being lost in the attempt to
thwart each other. With frequent repetitions they ultimately
realize that to work with is more profitable than to work against
each other, and the first step toward civilization has been taken.

It is reasonable to suppose that the first associations of men
were intermittent and capricious, the bond of union being often
severed at the will of either as personal advantage seemed to dic-
tate, and that the discernment of the permanent blessings of social
union was of slow and uncertain growth, and not until a long
period had elapsed would the trust of either be so complete as to
make treachery possible ; for this augmenting trust is of mutual
growth or dissolution, the former removing fears and stimulating

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 6^j

reciprocal confidence, the latter leading to renewed watchfulness
or inducing retaliatory aggressions.

Primitive man, being unrestricted except by the wills of others,
would find himself in an environment in which his will would be
moderated by the desires of others ; and, whether the first bond
of union had its origin in accident or experimental degrees of
association, it is evident that, so soon as the advantages of the new
conditions were experienced, the new duties involved in the new
trust were readily acknowledged and willingly performed : and this
coming together from a state of isolation, until by slow and grad-
ual growth a visible bond of union was established, must have
been a dual development, in which trusts and duties balanced, for
mutual benefits give rise to mutual obligations, and not until a
breach of duty revealed the existence of new dangers would an
enforced compliance, much less a compact, be suggested.

" Do as you would be done by " is the natural inclination of
man, and, though weakened and impaired by legislation, its many
features still endure, for upon the operation of the golden rule
does the permanency of all bonds of union rest. The dishonest
gambler is watchful of the play, expecting to be cheated ; he does
not hesitate to cheat in turn, but he holds with sacred regard the
debts of honor contracted at the table. The Texan cow-boy who
shoots his man at sight would scorn to hide himself from the fury
of an antagonist; careless in taking the lives of others, he is
equally reckless concerning his own. The Indian neither extends
to others nor hopes himself for mercy. The untrusting are un-
worthy of our confidence ; thus love begets love, confidence in-
spires confidence, and with our higher types of manhood those
superior to the law will transgress its mandates rather than vio-
late their conscience, of which class we have records of many
notable examples.

The whole history of human development is replete with the
recognition of new duties, and the primitive bonds of savage union
have been successively extended from families to tribes and clans,
thence to states, which have further united into nations, while
the final evolution points to a universal brotherhood. As pre-
viously stated, these two forces are met with everywhere — the
active and the reactive, the positive and the negative, the ag-
gressive and the permissive, the individual and the social — but
they have been separated by legislation, much as you would sepa-
rate the electricities by friction, and, as with the electricities, the
like forces are repellent, while the unlike are mutually attracted.

Let us apply this law of nature to a well-known and familiar
evil. I refer to joint-stock companies and corporations. The cor-
poration of to-day differs from those of the Elizabethan period, in
so far as such grants were then regarded as special favors, often

638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

conferred because of services to the crown, either promised or
performed ; while the joint-stock company of the present age is
adopted as an institution, without any pretense of making returns
to the state for favors received.

Every new era of material progress must be accompanied by
its moral correlative, which is implied in trust, else treachery is
sure to follow ; and only as men enlarge their confidence can
honest co-operation be extended. In the beginning of the present
century, the age was ripe for co-operation in its industrial forms ;
and it would be the distinguishing feature of our present develop-
ment, had not impatient legislation introduced the joint-stock
company as a legal substitute. At the period of history to which
we refer, the nobility still retained possession of the land, and
deemed it vulgar to engage in trade ; while the merchants had
amassed large fortunes in the commerce which had sprung up
from the daring explorations, enlightened navigation, and ener-
getic colonization which followed the discovery of the mariner's
compass. Small shops abounded ; the master-workman, journey-
man, and apprentice were friends and comrades, the apprentice
becoming journeyman and then master -workman in turn. In the
revolutionary struggles which marked the commercial age, a fair
measure of free speech had been attained ; and the scientist, being
free to give to the world his discoveries, was quickly followed by
the inventor, who applied these discoveries to the wants of man.

Is it not pertinent to inquire why, under such conditions, sci-
ence, invention, and co-operation did not flourish and develop to-
gether ; and why the scientist, the inventor, and the artisan, do
not share the profits of their joint creations and endeavors, which
profits are now largely absorbed by capital ? How is it that,
with enlarged mechanical possibilities, the small shop-owners
have been driven from the field of proprietorship ; and the mas-
ter-workman and journeyman of a hundred years ago are to be
found at the bench or lathe of the mammoth workshops of the
day, not as independent workmen, but as mere automatons, to
pull the levers which release the cranks, gears, and pulleys of the
machinery which performs the former labor of their hands ?

It is often urged, and with apparent seriousness, that in this
republic every man has a chance to become the owner of one of
these vast establishments ! What monstrous folly to claim that
every man can become the employer of a thousand men, when, by
implication, for every proprietor there must remain a thousand
men to be employed ; so, with all the vain-glorious self -congratu-
lation, it simply means that out of every struggling thousand one
may reach the goal ! Driven from so untenable a position, it is
declared that the fittest will survive, which, being a half-truth,
means nothing, for fitness has no existence apart from its environ-

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIxiL ORDER. 639

ment. A cow-boy's fitness consists of quickness of sight and dex-
terity of hand. The savage depends upon skill in hunting and
success in war. Fitness may reside in the longest purse, the low-
est cunning, or the basest treachery, according to environment.
The very fact that the possessor of wealth absorbs the profits of
discovery, of invention, and of handicraft is sufiicient reason to
demand an inquiry as to what legislation has given us so dis-
torted an environment.

The forces required for the industrial age are, first, capital, and,
second, as in every other progressive step, an extension of trust
or confidence ; or, to use another form of expression, first, the indi-
vidual forces, in which are found aggressive action or energy,
thrift and prudence, all of which are implied in capital, but in
such characters are often found wanting the true sense of justice —
hence strong individuality may exist and. still be distrusted and
itself distrusting ; second, the social forces, which are permis-
sive, fair, honest, and just, all of which are essential to confidence —
but these may all exist without energy, thrift, and prudence,
which are implied in the possession of capital. Co-operation,
then, is dependent upon a union of the social virtues which reside
in confidence, and those personal morals which are typified in
capital. Had these qualities been developed in the same indi-
vidual, no laws would have been necessary to encourage combina-
tions of capital to enter wider fields of production. The incentive to
action is the expected reward, and in this case the inducement could
•be found in the large profits which combinations made possible.

If, then, at the beginning of the present century, the rich re-
turns promised to those who would co-operate were fairly dis-
cerned, and in spite of such discernment men failed to enter into
co-operative action, it is evident that moral and not material
growth was essential to the true progress of the race, and any
law looking to the stimulation of material agencies could not but
impair and weaken the moral forces of development.

The fact that men of wealth would not combine for the carry-
ing on of great projects which promised enormous profits, is evi-
dence that they lacked confidence in each other, and to their minds
treachery would surely follow trust. Upon the other hand, we
find the artisans and mechanics then, as now, bound by the closest
ties of fraternal friendship, born of mutual dependence and mutual
trust ; but they were wanting in those individual elements of char-
acter typified in the possession of capital : hence, so far as indus-
trial pursuits were concerned, their trust and social qualities were
without avail for want of money to make their combined efforts
effective. We thus find that the rich men of that time, although
able, were unwilling to combine, while the mechanics were per-
fectly willing, but unable for want of means. It must be plain to

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

all thinking men that further moral development was absolutely
essential, and, in the absence of legislation, an energetic moral
growth would have followed a recognition of the permanent bene-
fits to be derived by this further extension of trust. The rich, by
fair dealing and strict integrity, would aim to prove their worth
and show to their fellows that with added trust they would per-
form the corresponding duties. The artisans and mechanics
would have been stimulated to energy and moved to thrift, pru-
dence, and abstemiousness, in order to secure the capital with
which to render their mutual trust available for industrial co-op-
eration ; and while ten men with ten thousand dollars became con-
vinced of each other's worth, a thousand workmen would have
saved one hundred dollars each, and in this manner in action and
reaction each class would have developed the weak sides of its
character, and, the growing integrity of the one meeting the in-
creased energy and prudence of the other, would have gradually
lessened the disparities of condition which then existed, instead
of which we now find them constantly widening, and co-operation
would have been the normal growth.

It is frequently claimed by the unthinking that co-operative
unions are unable to select proper leaders for direction, whereas
all history belies the claim. Whether in the playground, in the
feudal ages, in times of great public peril, or in popular revolu-
tions, the leader is recognized spontaneously, and the masses
have seldom failed to make a wise selection. It is true that the
co-operative concerns which have their origin in the hot-beds of
experimental legislation have generally failed. But who shall
say that failure would have resulted with the hardy plant which
has been shown to be indigenous to the soil of the present age ?

The natural evolution of material progress seemed too slow,
and legislation was called into play to hasten the day of industrial
activity. Since each class possessed one of the essential elements
of industrial progress, it is evident that two ways were open to
accelerate its growth. It could have been accomplished by pro-
viding the artisans of the age with government aid in money, in
which way the state would have provided men a substitute for
thrift, energy, and prudence ; but government has no more right
to do this than she had to furnish the rich a substitute for hon-
esty and justice, and, as limiting the liability of the one has united
dishonest elements and given additional power to the strong, so
would and so has government aid in money led to a union of the
shiftless and improvident and made still weaker those who for
want of aggressive individuality have thus far failed to assert
themselves ; for, being provided with the results of energy and
prudence, those qualities would no longer be developed in an en-
vironment which furnished them without effort or activity. We

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 641

may here say that this method has seldom found favor with
legislators.

As is usually the case, if legislation is to be invoked, it is
generally in favor of those already strong in aggressive energy,
and with these legislative aids the way is paved for the rich to
become richer and the strong to become stronger. In this case
the rich were furnished a substitute for confidence by a law which
limited the duties and the liabilities of those combining, whereas
it has been shown that in a healthy social state trusts and duties
must be coextensive.

Legislators practically declared that, while they could not
make men honest, they could establish confidence by so limiting
the liability of those combining that honesty, instead of being an
essential element of trust, would be inconsequential as an indus-
trial force, for the possible chances of loss to the investor should
be small. In this manner legislation pushed men together who
would not be drawn together by mutual confidence ; and society,
having seen fit to trust those who would not trust each other, now
complains of the insolence, injustice, and dishonesty of corj)ora-
tions! But, while denouncing corporations in unstinted terms,
there are those who still regard them as a public blessing, essential
to the times, but pray their legislators to deprive them of their
sting, much after the manner of those who, while insisting upon
the heavier waters of the lakes, would seek to legislate away the
natural and inevitable consequences of doubling their specific
gravity.

Those possessed of capital are entitled to its rewards. Those
enjoying the confidence of others are equally entitled to its bless-
ings. But, in providing the capitalist a substitute for confidence
or trust, government neutralizes the forces which reside in hon-
esty and justice, and makes inert as an industrial factor the trust
and confidence of the poor.

Is there an enterj^rise of uncertain origin or doubtful purpose,
it appears as an incorporated company. Firms upon the verge of
bankruptcy, or about to take hazardous risks, change a partner-
ship into a joint-stock company. Swindling patent-right, insur-
ance, and mining schemes all take the form of corporations ; but
if the liability of a joint-stock company is limited, it simply
means that the possible losses to society are without limit. An
incorporated company with one hundred thousand dollars' worth
of stock fails for eleven hundred thousand dollars ; the company
is liable for a hundred thousand dollars in addition to their stock,
while the trusting public is called upon to lose a million dollars.
Why, in the name of justice, should society give to corporations
unlimited chances for profit, when, in case of loss or failure, soci-
ety itself must bear the burden of all losses which exceed the

VOL. XXXIV. — 41

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

limit of liability ? If the corporation incurs debts exceeding its
liability, legislation can never make those debts less ; at best it
but relieves the stockholders, and makes the trusting public stand
the losses of the untrusting capitalist, and throws upon the shoul-
ders of the innocent the debts of the careless or dishonest.

But the indictment against the corporation does not end with
complaints of its arrogance and unjust and dishonest methods ;
but its impersonal relation to society and labor is a source of
growing irritation, and threatens to make the labor question a
most perplexing problem. In transferring the liability from the
individual to the certificates of stock, personal responsibility was
extinguished. The importance or standing of a stockholder no
longer depends upon his wisdom, his uprightness, or integrity,
but upon the amount of his stock ; and, wherever the stock is
found, there the authority and liability reside, notwithstanding
the stock may be yours to-day and mine to-morrow. Corporations
having no personality have neither moral nor social obligations,
which are, or should be, imposed on all alike ; but not only are
they thus relieved of duties, but even the legal liability is a lim-
ited one only.

Stockholders, screened behind their stock, will vote measures
toward their workmen which they would never dare to enforce as
individuals, for then they would subject themselves to the moral
condemnation which unjust and ill-considered action merits ; but
this impersonal relation of capital has introduced into our indus-
trial system a state of affairs resembling that of absentee land-
lordism in Ireland, in which the manager acts the part of " my
lord's agent."

The stockholders of a corporation may be scattered over every
portion of the country or even throughout the world, and their
interests are in the hands of managers who best show their worth
by increased dividends, and, instead of serving as connecting links
between capital and labor, they more frequently serve as severing
wedges. It is by no means infrequent that men's wages are re-
duced dimes per day to increase the earnings, while the manager's
salary is increased thousands per year as a reward for his fidelity.
In this manner cheerful loyalty is giving place to a spiritless,
sullen performance of duty. Is it any wonder that a bitterness is
being engendered against capital as such ? — for, when divested of
personality, personal contact and, therefore, personal feeling are
impossible. In the course of twenty years' experience, I have
seen cheerful compliauce grow into indifference, and that indif-
ference gradually turn into feelings of smothered hostility.

This want of personality is also debauching public morals, and
juries will render verdicts against corporations in spite of facts
and the law. Interests which should be mutuah forces which

LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 643

slionld interact, are constantly arrayed one against the other, and
the aggressions of the capitalists, who, through the medium of
trusts and other devices, ruin their competitors and control prices,
are confronted by the strong social forces made manifest in the
close unions of labor, which find expression in frequent strikes
and boycotts.

What, then, is the remedy ? Various cures have been sug-
gested, and, among others, some look to governmental control;
but this would deprive us of aggressive individuality, in the same
manner as the corporation has deprived us of the justice and hon-
esty derived from natural trust and confidence. How may we
retain the vigor and energy of individual push correlated with
honesty and justice ? Is it not plain that, with the restoration of
personal liability, dishonest elements would scatter and their com-
binations dissolve ?

It is asked, " What would then become of our great railway
systems ? " One thing is certain, although the impersonal cor-
poration might vanish, the railways would remain, and there
would be those to run them. If the persons united in the consoli-
dated lines would trust each other (and if they will not, why
should the public trust them ?), such lines would continue as at
present. If distrust should prevail, the Vanderbilts, for instance,
might withdraw their capital from the West Shore, Michigan
Central, Lake Shore, and other properties, and concentrate upon
New York Central, leaving other capitalists to similarly with-
draw from many properties, to concentrate and be responsible for
one ; and thus at one blow would be dissolved the mammoth con-
solidations which legislation has vainly aimed to check.

If, as would no doubt be threatened, our large manufacturing
establishments should close, in a very short time the workmen
would take possession, even as the liberated negro slave is now
gradually becoming owner of the lands upon which he served in
bondage. Trusts would scatter to the winds, for unfair and dis-
honest elements, no longer trusted by society, would prey upon
each other, while the honest would withdraw, to unite among
themselves. Material development might be retarded for a time,
to make way for the moral growth essential to the proper con-
duct of industrial development. With this accomplished, co-
operation would be an established institution, and the interests
of capital and labor, now in constant conflict, would be united,
and society would be rewarded by a resultant equal to the sum
of their joint effects. Thus we have seen that in the industrial,
no less than in the material, world action and reaction are oppo-
site and equal, that force can neither be created nor destroyed,
but, wiien it seems to disappear, it lives on, to reappear in new
and equivalent effects.

644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS.

By COUTTS TEOTTEK.

IT is a very trite remark that the Pacific Ocean often emphati-
cally belies its title. I can not altogether defend it ; and, in
fact, it would he unreasonable to expect consistency from so vast
an expanse of the unstable. When the grateful Magellan, escap-
ing from the wintry horrors of the region now always associated
with his name, burst into the sunshine and balmy breezes beyond,
he did not, naturally, reflect very closely on the area over which
the new name was to be ajjplied. Big generalizations are danger-
ous ; but it is not absolutely a misnomer, and those who have
known this ocean for weeks together in its more gracious moods —
whether on its vast solitudes or among its scattered island groups
— will readily admit the justness of the title.

On the morning we reached Fiji the sea was without a ripple,
and as we passed the pretty island of Mbengga, we scanned its
rich green slopes in vain for a sight of life. Primitive man and
his works do not show out prominently against tropical nature.
A slight haze veiled the great island of Viti Levu — i. e., great
Fiji ; but, as we came nearer, its grand and varied outline stood
out clearly in front of us, stretching far away to right and left.
Suva, the seat of government, has no striking features. The
houses lie scattered for a mile or two along a neck of land on one
side of a bay, at the head of which enters the Tamavua River. A
reef with a navigable opening crosses this bay, and forms a fair
harbor. But the marvelous fantastic outline of hills beyond the
bay — King David might have described them as "hopping" —
seen from the broad veranda of the Club House Hotel, was a
view of which one never tired. My expectations as regarded ho-
tel accommodation being small, I was agreeably surprised to find
a well-ordered, comfortable, two-storied house. It is true that
the chambermaid was a little black Solomon Island " boy " ; but
his views on cleanliness, and on meum and tuum, were not appre-
ciably behind those of his profession in. Europe ; and he was, be-
sides, when at home, a man-slayer and a cannibal. The only
drawback, indeed, to comfort lay in the fact that the bedrooms
were all open to the roof of corrugated zinc, and the noise of the
torrents of rain — I never saw rain like it — was deafening. But
rainy days, at that season anyhow — well, at all events, it is the
" dry season."

Boat-voyaging in those regions is not only an enjoyable, but
in Fiji almost the only mode of locomotion, though there are
horses, and the number of tracks has of late years been consid-

AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS. 645

erably extended. Organized facilities for travel do not exist ;
but the traveler's path will be smoothed if he brings introductions
to some leading official, or to one of the principal traders or plant-
ers. If he wisely cultivates the society alike of the official and of
the non-official class, he will realize more profoundly than he ever
did -before the great truth that there are two sides to every ques-
tion. To this unfortunate antagonism I shall return later. Mean-
while I recall, with mingled sensations, a voyage of a fortnight in
an open boat along the northern shores of Viti Levu, the principal
island of the group, and about eighty by fifty-five miles in extent.
The preparations for such a voyage are at all events simple. Of
personal luggage the less the better — say a change of raiment and
a mosquito-net, or " screen " as they call it in the colonies ; for
provisions, besides a tin or two of biscuits, some tea, whisky, and
tobacco, you require only an assortment of the useful but most
innutritions " ironclad " — i. e,, tinned meats, here in universal use,
and curiously in great demand among the natives, probably
owing to the little trouble they involve. Hardly a coral strand
in Fiji so romantic or remote but it may be found strewed with
the empty tins. Judging from their effect on myself, I should
cite them as a most potent cause of the decline of the native pop-
ulation !

We started punctually, Va'ka Viti* — tha.t is to say, having
been trysted on board for Saturday at daybreak, we got under
way on Monday afternoon. Indeed, only a man of exceptional
energy like my conductor could, I was assured, have performed
such a feat. Meanwhile the delay had nearly led to our spending
a night al fresco on the Rewa River, whose famous mosquitoes
would have left little of us to tell the tale. These Fijian rivers
are of great size relatively to the extent of the land, and the delta
of the Rewa forms the eastern extremity of the island. We had
intended, accordingly, entering by its southern mouth, some miles
distant from Suva, to ascend the stream some way, and thence
down another embouchure to the northern coast. As it was,
night overtook us soon after entering the river ; and, although we
at last sighted a light which indicated a house, there was much
grounding on mud-banks, and retracing of our course, and weary
hours of pulling, before we reached the desired point. My host
being on an ofiicial tour, and thoroughly acquainted with the
people and their language, there was but little difficulty about
our reception anywhere — not that any respectable traveler could
have much difficulty among these amiable people. Hospitality
here, after all, is a simple matter, for native food is plentiful, and
there is usually room for everybody, besides that the chief of the
village has often more houses than one.

* Fiji fasbion, according to Fiji notions. ■■'

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The ordinary Fijian house looks, outside, like a great oblong
hay-stack, standing on a mound raised some few feet above the
surrounding level, with a long ridge-pole extending beyond the
roof at either gable, its ends sometimes ornamented with shells.
The hay-stack has a doorway or two, with a mat suspended in it.
Houses with greater pretensions, however, have the walls prettily
latticed with reeds, and distinct from the roof, which is elabo-
rately thatched, with great projecting eaves. Inside, immense
posts, usually of vesi-wood. {Afzelia hijuga), and a very ingenious
framework, support the roof. The interior decorations of sinnet
(cocoanut fiber), always in rectilinear patterns — for they do not
affect curves — are sometimes pretty. The black, squared lintels
of the doors are the stems of tree-ferns. On a great shelf over-
head is stored the family lau, a convenient Fijian word equiva-
lent to the Italian roha. Here it comprises their fishing-gear,
huge rolls of lappa or native cloth, mats, immense pottery ves-
sels, and the like. The shelves were also handy in war-time as a
point of vantage whence you could conveniently spear your
neighbor as he entered, and before his eyes became used to the
subdued light. The floor is strewed with mats, on which you re-
cline, and is usually raised a foot or so toward one end, which
enables you to take a graceful attitude, leaning on your elbow.
Cooking is done in a little hut outside, or sometimes there is a great
fireplace on the floor, confined by four logs, the smoke finding its
way out through the lofty roof. As you enter the house, you
find the mats being swept, or fresh ones unrolled and laid down.
Your traps are brought up from the boat, and, if this happens to
have grounded half a mile from the shore, you have perhaps
yourself been carried to land by these willing giants. A few
words are exchanged with the village chief or your host for the
time being — far too few, to my mind, even for politeness. I am
told they do not expect it. If they have ceased to expect polite-
ness from English gentlemen, tant pis ! I am helpless from igno-
rance of the language, and you hardly ever meet a Fijian who
knows any English — the missionaries, in whose hands their edu-
cation has been, having, wisely or otherwise, discouraged it. The
silent seance then till supper came, and indeed after, surrounded
by those pleasant and dignified faces, for whom I was necessarily
dumb, was often very irksome. Supper, however, comes at last,
provided from the materials before mentioned, and supplemented
I^erhaps by an offering of fish or turtle. The latter sounds syba-
ritic, but it is very far from being a delicacy when badly cooked,
and still less so when not quite fresh. And there is of course, as
accompaniment, the ever-present and ready-cooked yam, or ku-
mara (sweet-potato), or dalo (an arum-root), or bread-fruit, or
cassava (manioc). I think I have arranged them approximately

AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS. 647

according to their insipidity and unsatisfying qualities. I tried
hard to appreciate these famous vegetables, whose very names
recall endless picturesque and savage associations ; but I never
succeeded, and hardly know which I disliked the least.

Sometimes we produced a root of Icava, or, as the Fijians call
it, yanggona, always a welcome gift, and handed it to our native
companions to prepare the national brew. I suppose most people
by this time know the orthodox mode of preparing this. It is
chewed, or ought to be, as in Samoa, by young and of course
pretty girls, and the masticated stuff being thrown into a bowl
and mixed with water, the woody particles are fished out with a
wisp of the fiber of vau (a malvaceous tree, Paritium sp.), and
the liquor is then carried round to each guest in order. Of course,
by the old school this mode of preparation is thought very supe-
rior to the Tongan innovation of pounding or grating the root.
Certainly, the ingredients differ somewhat, and the dash of human
secretion in the orthodox mixture possibly promotes digestion —
an effect not to be despised after a square meal of half a dozen
pounds of yam ! Even in the humblest menage the national bowl
is not prepared without some form and circumstance — elaborate
traditional motions of the hands in clearing the bowl and rinsing
the fiber, strict attention to precedence in handing the cup to the
guests (a matter in which, when Europeans were concerned, I
was in other islands sometimes consulted), and to other points of
etiquette, the transgression of which is viewed with some severity.
Thus, it is de rigueur to empty your cocoanut cup at a single
draught. On my first occasion of drinking I had neglected this
rule, for the cup was large, and the taste, as I thought, nasty.
Accordingly, on returning the cup, which you do by sending it
spinning along the floor to the master of ceremonies, the usual
quiet clapping of hands and murmur of applause which should
follow this were withheld. On discovering the cause of the silence,
I hastened to explain that I had never tasted the cup before, and
thought it so good that I could not resist prolonging the pleasure,
but I saw that my solecism was too great to be easily excused.

The kava-howl, tobacco, and family prayers exhaust the even-
ing's programme; and my companions being all asleep — why
people waste so much time in sleep in this interesting world I
never understand — I look out some suitable rafter whence to
hang my mosquito-screen, and turn in — not, for the first night
at all events, to sleep, for Mother Earth, considered as a mattress,
is hard, and deficient in spring ; but there is, anyhow, no other
impediment to sleep ; the cleanliness inside the houses is remark-
able— no fleas or other vermin bred of dirt or carelessness. Flies
and mosquitoes are supplied by Providence, and the latter have
recently been discovered to be " good for us " ; but as you listen

648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to their baffled drone outside the curtain, you feel that you can
waive your claim to such advantages.

I attended, at the Vale-ni-Bose or council-house of the prov-
ince of Ba, a half-yearly meeting of the chiefs, who assemble to
discuss the affairs of their respective districts ; and, though my
interpreter gave me only an outline of what was going on, it was
impossible not to be struck by their readiness and intelligence,
and not less by their gravity and gentlemanlike manners. Among
other incidents, some men were brought up who had tried to leave
their district without permission for another ; and the utter hu-
miliation of their look and voice, coupled with the dignity and
severity in tone and bearing of the chief's reprimand, was very
dramatic. To be sure, not very long ago he might have ordered
them to the oven !

This same Roko or high chief, a shrewd-looking man with a
refined and well-shaped head, related with much humor how, on
a certain occasion, when a missionary was coming through, and
the people were sending in offerings to him, his (the Roko's) con-
tribution was a "long pig"-^. e., a human body. He and the
missionary, he said, have met since and discussed — I mean, talked
over — this practical joke. He invited me in the evening to a
mekke — i. e., soiree musicale. The singing was a weird and curious
performance, which has a strange fascination. There were about
fifty performers, comprising, in fact, the entire party present. One
man begins alone, and after he has sung a few bars, another takes
it up in a sort of second to him ; then a few more join, till sud-
denly the whole body of voices strike in, accompanying the song
with strange, unintelligible gesticulations, turning half round
(they are all seated on the ground), and pointing at each other
with intent, meaning looks, and occasionally all clapping hands,
in absolute unison — the song ending unexpectedly and quite ab-
ruptly with one clap. The time is beaten by a man with a couple
of small sticks ; it was very intricate, and the music evidently
genuine and old, unlike anything I ever heard, and not to be ren-
dered by our notation. Yanggona followed — a serious ceremonial
brew — and I acquitted myself well, emptying the cup at a single
draught, the Eoho afterward presenting me with his own bowl,
which was considered a great compliment.

Having asked Sailosi, the provincial scribe, a very nice fellow,
whether I could see some national dancing, I was told that it
would hardly be worth my while, as there were only girls here to
dance. I, of course, protested against this " only " as not merely
ungallant but inapplicable, so far as my tastes were concerned ;
but it turned out that the scribe knew best, for the young ladies'
performance was not very interesting, and it was very long. A
few of the smaller girls, with a lali or drum, formed a group, while

AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS. 649

the rest in one or two rows kept walking slowly round them, sing-
ing in admirable time, far better than usually in church or school,
but quite monotonous as to tune. Their costume was only the
simple sulu or waist -cloth, but there were no really beautiful
figures among them. Little bonfires were made to light up the
performance, and the groups of small children tending these, or
improvising torches, which they held with the greatest gravity
and patience, was the most picturesque part of the scene. At last,
when the young ladies had evidently exhausted their repertoire,
and were beginning to repeat themselves, I slipped away, when
Sailosi followed and begged me to stay, as he had arranged for a
men's dance, and it was just coming on. Accordingly, they arrived
and took possession of the ground ; and the girls, after walking
and chanting round them for a minute or two, as if by way of
protest, gave it up and seated themselves among the spectators.
It must be admitted that the new performance was a very superior
affair. The dancers, fine stalwart fellows, gave first some of those
curious combined movements, either simultaneous and in marvel-
ous unison, or sometimes passing down a long line as if to repre-
sent the motion of a wave : then there were some capital figures,
vigorously and beautifully danced, alternate rows dancing with
regular steps in opposite directions, then setting to each other and
wheeling round. I should not venture in " Maga," or indeed else-
where, to hint that it was an improvement on a reel, but it recalled
one in many of its features, including the occasional shout.

At Naiserelangi, another town on the north coast, where a
half-yearly assemblage of chiefs was sitting, I had the good
fortune to see some very picturesque and interesting ceremonies.
These consisted of the customary offerings made by the people of
the neighborhood to the visitors who had come from other parts
of the district. Groups of these — splendid-looking fellows many
of them — sat squatting in expectation on a space near the chief's
house ; while down the various paths leading to the village pict-
uresque files of men and women came streaming on, carrying,
either in their hands or on poles slung over their shoulders,
bunches of every size of yams, or dalo, or pigs, or turtles. The
procession had certainly not been marshaled with a conscious eye
to the picturesque, and yet no artist or stage-manager could have
produced an effect more perfect as to grouping, form, and color —
the long rows of pleasant or stalwart figures ending off with little
children, each gravely carrying its little offering, a single fruit,
perhaps, or an Qgg ; while for background to the picture rose a
gently sloping hill-side, half wild, half planted, and crowned by
precipice and forest. The bearers came up and deposited their
burdens before the party of visitors, some one of these laying his
hand on each heap in token of acceptance ; and then followed a

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gentle clapping of hands, or of some other naked part, either in
unison or a sort of running fire, but in a quiet ceremonious man-
ner, as indicating formal rather than enthusiastic approval. Then
the immense heap was divided into portions by a mata ni vanua
— a hereditary official combining the duties of herald, embassador,
and master of the ceremonies — who then proclaimed the name of
the place for which each portion was destined. This is obviously
a very delicate, not to say critical, operation, and to perform the
division to the general satisfaction requires tact and discrimina-
tion of a high order. Finally, the parties representing each of the
places named stepped forward and carried off their allotted por-
tions. There is considerable feasting on these occasions, and
sometimes, with such vast piles of food, considerable waste. They
are enormous eaters, and constantly at it. One morning our share
of the offering was brought in — a turtle and a mountain of dalo,
then a little later a pig and another vast heap of dalo and yams ;
and before evening our crew of five had accounted for it all, with
the very slight assistance we could give them ; but the national
vegetables have, of course, very little substance. Sometimes one
sees fine -looking poultry and even turkeys, and one often gets
very fair fish.

The sea, indeed, in some places, teems with life. You sail
through masses of little white jelly-fish, or of a larger brown
kind, besides a magnificent species of a rich purple color. Then
there are multitudes of a diminutive flying-fish which I have not
seen elsewhere. To the usual perils of the deep must here be
added the shoals of gar -fish — a creature usually some fifteen
inches long, with a long, sharp, bony snout-^which at times take
to whizzing through the air in all directions. You can not avoid
them, for you can not tell from what direction one may be com-
ing, and the snout, if it hit you fair, would go through your face
or give a very ugly wound. One of our crew was struck and
wounded, but he only threw the fish to the bottom of the boat,
and said quietly, " I shall take it out of you for this to-night." A
woman in the neighborhood had recently been struck by one in
the breast, and died of the wound. A curious sight I saw one
day, which I could not understand. Two large fish rose together
about a yard from each other, shot straight up into the air, and
then, sheering off in opposite directions, fell into the water a long
way from each other. I asked what this meant — had they quar-
reled ? " No," said one of the sailors, " it is not that. I have seen
it before. It means a fair wind to-morrow." So next day, the
wind being the reverse of fair, they put him into the bows to
get the benefit of the water as it broke over us — hardly the way
to encourage a study of natural phenomena !

The Fijians are a grand-looking race, splendidly made, and well

AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS. 651

proportioned from head to foot — no falling away abont the calves,
or spur-like heels, as one sees in some of the finer India^n races.
Then such a carriage — broad shoulders, with the head well set on
and thrown back. The mop head of hair, composed of long, sepa-
rate spirals carefully tended and frizzed out, which is so special a
characteristic of the race that till lately it was thought a natural
peculiarity of the hair, is now unfortunately going out of fashion.
It gives a very imposing appearance to the wearer, like a gigantic
Guard's " bear-skin," but is now curtailed to the modest dimen-
sions of four to six or seven inches in length. It is often dyed to
a yellowish brown by a weekly plastering with lime, which also
stiffens it, and is very becoming, though its primary use is to de-
stroy the superabundant insect colonies. Any actor wishing to
acquire the gait of conventional majesty should come out here
and watch the ordinary Fijians walking up and down, every inch
a king, and, in quaint combination with this majestic strut, hold-
ing each other's hands like little children. In color some few are
very black, but the great majority vary from a dark bronze to
chocolat Menier ; and one is often inclined to wonder whether the
ancient use of bronze in statuary was suggested by the coloring of
some such race. Certainly in this color humanity may go naked
and not be ashamed. The costume proper is only the sidu, or
waist-cloth ; and there can be no better proof of the Fijian's nat-
ural dignity and look of breeding, than that the too frequent addi-
tion of a dirty flannel shirt does not always transform him into a
ruffian or a snob. When a black coat and trousers are superadded
— ^happily this is still very rare — as much can not be said !

The mysterious question of a general decline of these races has
often been discussed, and has been ascribed to many causes, all of
which contribute something, and some of which, as drink and
debauchery, are obvious. Hardly less so, perhaps, the going to
church in a full suit of European clothes, and sitting naked in a
draught to cool themselves afterward ! For this reckless intro-
duction of clothing, not less deleterious than unsesthetic, the more
ignorant missionary of former days has to answer, and disease
has not unfrequently been introduced, besides, in second-hand
clothing.

One hopes against hope, and against such experience as one
has, that the decline of the Fijians will be arrested. The disap-
pearance from the earth of these very fine races — for the Poly-
nesians are finer still, perhaps the finest-looking race anywhere —
is a distinct loss to the world, and not merely from a sentimental
or antiquarian point of view. The experiment of preserving such
a race has certainly never been tried before under such favorable
circumstances, for the workers have had carte blanche; but it
would not be surprising if, feeling they are fighting a losing bat-

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tie, they began now to relax tlieir exertions. It was melancholy
to look at the registers of the little towns, neatly kept by native
scribes, and to observe the gradual decrease — if fewer deaths
sometimes, then also in proportion fewer births. One noticed,
too, the hopeless resignation of the sick, suffering from compara-
tively slight ailments, but apparently not caring to live. If some-
thing more could be done in the way of giving skilled attendance
to the sick, it would be well. An attempt is being made, by giv-
ing some little training in the hospitals, but the hamlets are so
numerous, and so small and scattered, that it would be difficult
for such trained attendants to reach them all. More might, as it
seemed to me, be done in the way of sanitary supervision. The
head-man or the district chief may be " responsible," but he
may not always understand what is needed. Where sites are un-
healthy they should be changed, and far greater cleanliness in the
surroundings insisted on. (The interiors of the houses, as I have
said, are almost faultless in this respect.) Direct encouragement
might be given in some form for the rearing of children. The
possession of an illegitimate child being now a proof of a crime
which is punishable by law, such children, naturally, seldom see
the light. But what I believe is needed, above all, is some addi-
tional stimulus to exertion, some interest in life which would
strengthen their hold on it. With our accumulated experience,
our great resources, and unlimited good intentions, is the problem
beyond us ? — Abridged from BlachwoodvS Magazine.

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH.*

Bt Prof. T. G. BONNEY.

DO we know anything about the earth in the beginning of its
history — anything of those rock-masses on which, as on
foundation-stones, the great superstructure of the fossiliferous
strata must rest ? Palaeontologists, by their patient industry,
have deciphered many of the inscriptions, blurred and battered
though they be, in which the story of life is engraved on the
great stone book of Nature. Of its beginnings, indeed, we can
not yet speak. The first lines of the record are at present want-
ing— perhaps never will be recovered. But, apart from this : be-
fore the grass and herb and tree, before the " moving creature in
the water," before the " beast of the earth after his kind," there
was a land and there was a sea. Do we know anything of that
globe, as yet void of life ? Will the rocks themselves give us any

* An address delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
at the Bath meeting, September 10, 1888.

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH. 653

aid in interpreting the cryptogram which, shrouds its history, or
must we reply tliat there is neither voice nor language, and thus
accept with blind submission, or spurn with no less blind incre-
dulity, the conclusions of the physicist and the chemist ? The
secret of the earth's hot youth has doubtless been well kept ; so
well that we have often been tempted to guess idly rather than to
labor patiently. Nevertheless, we are beginning, as I believe, to
feel firm ground after long walking through a region of quick-
sands ; we are laying hold of principles of interpretation, the rela-
tive value of which we can not in all cases as yet fully apprehend
— principles which sometimes even appear to be in conflict, but
which will some day lead us to the truth. The name Cambrian
has been given to the oldest rocks in which fossils have been
found. This group forms the first chapter in the first volume,
called Pal£eozoic, of the history of living creatures. Any older
rocks are provisionally termed Archsean. These — I speak at
present of those indubitably underlying the Cambrian — exhibit
marked differences one from another. Some are indubitably the
detritus of other, and often of older, materials — slates and grits,
volcanic dust and ashes, even lava-flows. Such rocks differ but
little from the basement beds of the Cambrian ; probably they are
not much older, comparatively speaking. But in some places we
find in a like position rocks as to the origin of which it is more
difficult to decide. Often in their general aspect they resemble
sedimentary deposits, but they seldom retain any distinct indica-
tions of their original fragmental constituents. They have been
metamorphosed, the old structures have been obliterated, new
minerals have been developed, and these exhibit that peculiar
orientation, that rudely parallel arrangement which is called foli-
ation. That these rocks are older than the Cambrian can often
be demonstrated. Sometimes it can even be proved that their
present distinctive character had been assumed before the over-
lying Cambrian rocks were deposited. Such rocks, then, we may
confidently bring forward as types of the earth's foundation-
stones. I must assume what I believe few, if any, competent
workers will deny, that certain structures are distinctive of rocks
which have solidified from a state of fusion under this or that
environment ; others are distinctive of sedimentary rocks ; others,
again, whatever may be their significance, belong to rocks of the
so-called metamorphic group. Our initial difficulty is to find
examples of the oldest rocks in which the original structures are
still unmodified. Commonly they are like palimpsests, where the
primitive character can only be discerned, at best faintly, under
the more recent inscription. Here, then, is one of the best which
I possess — a Laurentian gneiss from Canada. Its structure is
characteristic of the whole group ; the crystals of mica or horn-

654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

blende are well defined, and commonly have a more or less paral-
lel arrangement ; here and there are bands in which these minerals
are more abundant than elsewhere. The quartz and the feldspar
are granular in form ; the boundaries of these minerals are not
rectilinear, but curved, wavy, or lobate ; small grains of the one
sometimes appear to be inclosed in larger grains of the other.
Though the structure of this rock has a superficial resemblance to
that of a granite of similar coarseness, it differs from it in this
respect, as we can see from the next instance, a true granite, where
the rectilinear outline of the feldspar is conspicuous. Here, then,
is one of our problems. This difference of structure is too general
to be without significance. What, then, does it mean ? Among
the agents of change known to geologists, three are admittedly of
great importance : these are water, heat, and pressure. The first
effect of pressure due to great earth-movements is to flatten some-
what the larger fragments in rocks, and to produce in those of
finer grain the structure called cleavage. This, however, is a
modification mainly mechanical. It consists in a rearrangement
of the constituent particles ; mineral changes, so far as they occur,
being quite subordinate. But in certain extreme instances the
latter are also conspicuous. From the fine mud, generally the
result of the disintegration of feldspar, a mica, usually colorless,
has been produced, which occurs in tiny flakes, often less than
one hundredth of an inch long. In this process a certain amount
of silica has been liberated, which sometimes augments pre-exist-
ing granules of quartz, sometimes consolidates independently as
micro-crystalline quartz. Simultaneously carbonaceous and fer-
ruginous constituents are converted into particles of graphite or
of iron oxide. As to the effects of pressure when it acts upon a
rock already crystalline, there are, as it seems to me, differences in
the resultant structures which are dependent upon the mode in
which pressure has acted. They are divisible into two groups ;
one indicating the result of simple direct crushing, the other of
crushing accompanied by shearing. In the former case, the rock-
mass has been so situated that any appreciable lateral movement
has been impossible ; it has yielded like a block in a crushing-
machine. In the latter, a differential lateral movement of the
particles has been possible, and it has prevailed when (as in the
case of an overthrust fault) the whole mass has not only suffered
compression, but also has traveled slowly forward. Obviously,
the two cases can not be sharply divided, for the crushing up of
a non-homogeneous rock may render some local shearing possi-
ble. Still, it is important to separate them in our minds, and we
shall find that in many cases the structure, as a whole, like the
cleavage of a slate, results from a direct crush ; while in others
the effects of shearing predominate. The latter, accordingly, ex-

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH. 655

hibit plienomena resemloling the effects of a tensile stress. Ma-
terials of a like character assume a more or less linear arrange-
ment ; the rock becomes slightly banded, and exhibits, as has
been said, a kind of flexion structure. The mass gradually as-
sumes a fragmental condition under the pressure, and its parti-
cles, as they shear and slide under the effects of thrust, behave to
some extent like those of a non-uniform mass of rock in a plastic
condition, as, for example, a slaggy glass. Illustrations of the
effects of direct crushing in a granitoid rock are common in the
Alps. Those of a shearing crush are magnificently developed near
the great overthrust faults in the northwest Highlands of Scotland.
It seems, then, to be demonstrated that by mechanical deformation,
accompanied or followed by molecular rearrangement, foliated
rocks, such as certain gneisses and certain schists, can be pro-
duced from rocks originally crystalline. But obviously there are
limits to the amount of change. To get certain results you must
have begun with rocks of a certain character. Hitherto we have
been dealing with rocks which were approximately uniform in
character, though composed of diverse materials — that is, with
rocks more or less granular in character. Suppose, now, the
original rock to have already acquired a definite structure — sup-
pose it had assumed, never mind how, a distinct mineral banding,
the layers varying in thickness from a small fraction of an inch
upward. Would this structure survive the mechanical deforma-
tion ? I can give an answer which will at any rate carry us a cer-
tain way. I can prove that subsequent pressure has frequently
failed to obliterate an earlier banded structure. In such a district
as the Alps we commonly find banded gneisses and banded schists
which have been exposed to great pressure. Exactly as in the
former case, the new divisional planes are indicated by a coating
of films of mica, by which the fissility of the rock in this direction
is increased. The mass has assumed a cleavage-foliation. I give
it this name because it is due to the same cause as ordinary cleav-
age, but is accompanied by mineral change along the planes of
division, while I term the older structure stratification-foliation,
because so frequently, if it has not been determined by a stratifica-
tion of the original constituents, it is at any rate a most extraor-
dinary imitation of such an arrangement. In many cases the new
structure is parallel with the old ; but in others, as in the " strain-
slip " cleavage of a phyllite, the newer can be seen distinctly cut-
ting across the older mineral banding. To put it briefly, I assert,
as the result of examining numbers of specimens, that, though in
certain cases the new structure is dominant, a practiced eye sel-
dom fails to detect traces of the older foliation, while in a large
number of instances it is still as definite as the stripe in a slate.
We have got, then, thus far — that pressure acting on rocks pre-

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vioiTsly crystallized can produce a foliation ; but when it has acted
in Palaeozoic or later times, the resulting structures can be iden-
tified, and these, as a rule, are distinguishable from those of the
most ancient foliated rocks, while at present we have found no
I^roof that pressure alone can produce any conspicuous mineral
banding, I am aware that this statement will be disputed, but I
venture to state, as one excuse for my temerity, that probably few
persons in Great Britain have seen more of crystalline rocks, both
in the field and with the microscope, than myself. So, while I do
not deny the possibility of a well-banded rock being due to press-
ure alone, I unhesitatingly affirm that this at present is a mere
hypothesis — a hypothesis, moreover, which is attended by some
serious difficulties. For, if we concede that, in the case of many
rocks originally granular, dynamic metamorphism has produced
a mineral banding, this is only on a very small scale ; the layers
are but a small fraction of an inch thick. No one could for a mo-
ment confuse a sheared granite from the Highlands with a Lau-
rentian gneiss from Canada or with an uninjured Hebridean
gneiss. For the former to attain to the condition of the latter,
the mass must have been brought to a condition which admitted
of great freedom of motion among the particles — almost as much,
in short, as among those of a molten rock. Clearly the dynamic
metamorphism of Palaeozoic or later ages appears to require some
supplementary agency. Can we obtain any clew to it ? I have
already mentioned the effect produced by the intrusion of large
masses of igneous rocks upon other rocks. These may be either
igneous rocks already solidified or sedimentary rocks. The former
may be passed over, as they will not materially help us. In regard
to the latter, the results of contact-metamorphism, as it is called,
as we might expect, are very various. Speaking only of the more
extreme, we find that sandstones are converted into quartzites ;
limestones become coarsely crystalline, all traces of organisms
disappearing and crystalline silicates being formed. In clayey
rocks all signs of the original sediments disappear, crystalline
silicates are formed, such as mica (especially brown) garnet, anda-
lusite, and sometimes tourmaline ; feldspar, however, is very rare.
Fair-sized grains of quartz appear, either by enlargement of origi-
nal granules or by independent crystallization of residual silica.
It is, further, important to notice that, as we approach the surface
of the intrusive mass — that is, as we enter upon the region where
the highest temperature has been longest maintained — the sec-
ondary minerals attain a larger size and are more free from adven-
titious substances — that is, they have not been obliged, as they
formed, to incorporate pre-existing constituents. The rock, indeed,
has not been melted down, but it has attained a condition where a
rather free molecular movement became possible, and a new min-

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH. 6^7

eral in crystallizing could, as it were, elbow out of tlie way the
more refractory particles. Its effects are, in brief, to consolidate
the rock, and, while causing some constituents to vanish, to in-
crease greatly the size of all the others. It follows, then, that
mineral segregation is promoted by the maintenance for some
time of a high temperature, which is almost a truism. I may add
to this that, though rocks modified by contact -metamorphism
differ from the Archsean schists, we find in them the best imita-
tions of stratification-foliation, and of other structures character-
istic of the latter. One other group of facts requires notice before
we proceed to draw our inferences from the preceding. Very com-
monly, when a stratified mass rests upon considerably older rocks,
the lower part of the former is full of fragments of the latter.
Let us restrict ourselves to basement beds of the Cambrian and
Ordovician — the first two chapters in the stone-book of life. What
can we learn from the material of its pages ? They tell us that
granitoid rocks, crystalline schists of various kinds, as well as
quartzites and phyllites, then abounded in the world. The Torri-
don sandstone of Scotland proves that much of the subjacent
Hebridean had even then acquired its present characteristics.
The Cambrian rocks of North and South Wales repeat the story,
notably near Llynfaelog in Anglesey, where the adjacent gneiss-
oid rocks from where the pebbles were derived, even if once
true granites, had assumed their present differences before the
end of the Cambrian. By the same time similar changes had
affected the crystalline rocks of the Malverns and parts of Shrop-
shire. It would be easy to quote other instances, but these may
suffice. I will only add that the frequent abundance of slightly
altered rocks in these conglomerates and grits seems significant.
Such rocks seem to have been more widely distributed— less local
—than they have been in later periods. Another curious piece of
evidence points the same way. In North America, as is well
known, there is a great group of rocks to which Sir W. Logan
gave the name of Huronian, because it was most typically devel-
oped in the vicinity of Lake Huron. Gradually great confusion
arose as to what this term really designated. But now, thanks to
our fellow-workers on the other side of the Atlantic, the fogs, gen-
erated in the laboratory, are being dispelled by the light of micro-
scopic research and the fresh air of the field. We now know that
the Huronian group in no case consists of very highly altered
rocks, though some of its members are rather more changed than
is usual with the British Cambrians, than which they are sup-
posed to be slightly older. Conglomerates are not rare in the Hu-
ronian. Some of these consist of granitoid fragments in a quartz-
ose matrix. We can not doubt that the rock was once a pebbly
sandstone. Still, the matrix, when examined with the microscope,

TOL. XXXIT. 42

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

differs from any Palaeozoic sandstone or quartzite tliat I have yet
seen. Among grains of quartz and feldspar are scattered numer-
ous flakes of mica, brown or wliite. The form of these is so regu-
lar that I conclude they have been developed, or at least completed,
in situ. Moreover, the quartz and the feldspar no longer retain
the distinctly fragmental character usual in a Palaeozoic grit, but
appear to have received secondary enlargement. A rock of frag-
mental origin to some extent has simulated or reverted to a truly
crystalline structure. In regard to the larger fragments we can
affirm that they were once granitoid rock, but in them also we
note incipient changes, such as the development of quartz and
mica from feldspar (without any indication of pressure), and there
is reason to think that these changes were anterior to the for-
mation of the pebbles. To sum up the evidence : In the oldest
gneissoid rocks we find structures different from those of granite,
but bearing some resemblance to, though on a larger scale than, the
structures of vein-granites or the surfaces of larger masses when
intrusive in sedimentary deposits. We find that pressure alone
does not produce structures like these in crystalline rocks, and
that when it gives rise to mineral banding this is only on a com-
paratively minute scale. We find that pressures acting iipon
ordinary sediments in Palaeozoic or later times do not produce
more than colorable imitations of crystalline schists. We find
that when they act upon the latter the result differs, and is gen-
erally distinguishable frojn stratification-foliation. We see that
elevation of temperature obviously facilitates changes and pro-
motes coarseness of structure. We see also that the rocks in a
crystalline series which appear to occupy the highest position
seem to be the least metamorphosed, and present the strongest re-
semblance to stratified rocks. Lastly, we see that mineral change
appears to have taken place more readily in the later Archaean
times than it ever did afterward. It seems, then, a legitimate in-
duction that in Archaean times conditions favorable to mineral
change and molecular movement — in short, to metamorphism —
were general, which in later ages have become rare and local, so
that, as a rule, these gneisses and schists represent the foundation-
stones of the earth's crust. On the other side, what evidence can
be offered ? In the first place, any number of vague or rash asser-
tions. So many of these have already come to an untimely end,
and I have spent so much time and money in attending their exe-
cutions, that I do not mean to trouble about another till its
advocates express themselves willing to let the question stand or
fall on that issue. To a geologist (especially one belonging to the
school of Lyell) it is equally difficult to conceive that there should
be a broad distinction between the metamorphic rocks of Archaean
and post- Archaean age respectively, as that the pre-Tertiary vol-

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH. 659

canic rocks should be altogether different in character from those
of Tertiary and recent times. During the periods mentioned vol-
canic rocks appear, as we should expect, to have been ejected from
beneath the earth's crust similar in composition and condition,
and to have solidified with identical environment. Hence the re-
sults, allowing for secondary changes, should still be similar. But
to assume that the environment of a rock in early Archaean times
was identical with that of similar material at a much later period
is to beg the whole question. My creed also is the uniformitarian,
but this does not bind me to follow a formula into a position
which is untenable. " The weakness and the logical defect of
unif ormitarianism " (these are Prof. Huxley's words) " is a refusal,
or at least a reluctance, to look beyond the * present order of
things,' and the being content for all time to regard the oldest
fossiliferous rocks as the ultima TJiule of our science." Now,
speaking for myself, I see no evidence since the time of these
rocks, as at present known, of any very material difference in the
condition of things on the earth's surface. The relations of sea
and land, the climate of regions, have been altered ; but because I
decline to revel in extemporized catastrophes, and because I be-
lieve that in nature order has prevailed and law has ruled, am I
therefore to stop my inquiries where life is no longer found, and
we seem approaching the first-fruits of the creative power ? Be-
cause palaeontology is perforce silent ; because the geologist can
only say, " I know no more," must I close my ear to those who
would turn the light of other sciences upon the dark places of our
own, and meet their reasoning with the exclamation, " This is not
written in the book of uniformity " ? To do this would be to
imitate the silversmiths of old, and silence the teacher by the cry,
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " What, then, does the physi-
cist tell us was the initial condition of this globe ? I will
not go into the vexed question of geological time, though, as
a geologist, I must say that we have reason to complain of Sir
W. Thomson. Years ago he reduced our credit at the bank of
time to a hundred million years. We grumbled, but submitted,
and endeavored to diminish our drafts. Now he has suddenly put
up the shutters, and declared a dividend of less than four shillings
in the pound. I trust some aggrieved shareholder will prosecute
the manager. While personally I see little hope of arriving at a
chronological scale for the age of this earth, I do not believe in its
eternity. What, then, does the physicist tell us must have been
in the beginning ? I pass to the consistentior status of Leibnitz,
when the molten globe had crusted over, and its present history
began. Rigid uniformitarian though you may be, you can not
deny that, when the very surface of the ground was at a temper-
ature of at least 1,000° Fahr., there was no rain, save of glowing

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ashes — no river, save of molten fire. Now is ending a long history
with which the uniformitarian must not reckon — of a time when
many compounds now existing were not dissolved but dissociated,
for combination under that environment was impossible. Yet
there was still law and still order — nay, the present law and order
may be said even then to have had a potential existence ; never-
theless, to the uniformitarian gnome, had such there been, every
new combination of elements would have been a new shock to his
faith, a new miracle in the earth's history. But at the times men-
tioned above, though oxygen and hydrogen could combine, water
could not yet rest upon the ruddy crust of the globe. What does
that mean ? This, that assuming the water of the ocean equiva-
lent to a spherical shell of the earth's radius and two miles thick,
the very lava-stream would consolidate under a pressure of about
310 atmospheres, equivalent to nearly 4,000 feet of average rock.
Let us pass on to a time, which, according to Sir W. Thomson,
would rather quickly arrive, when the surface of the crust had
cooled by radiation to its present temperature. Let us merely, for
illustration, take a surface temperature of 50° F. (nearly that of
London), and assume that the present rise of crust temj^erature is
1° F. for every fifty feet of descent, which is rather too rapid. If
so, 213° F. is reached at 8,100 feet, and 250° F. at 10,000 feet.
Though the latter temperature is far from high, yet we should
expect that, under such a pressure, chemical changes would occur
with much more facility than at the surface. But many Palaeo-
zoic, or even later rock-masses, can now be examined which at a
former period of their history have been buried beneath at least
10,000 feet of sediment, yet the alteration of their constituents has
been small ; only the more unstable minerals have been somewhat
modified, the more refractory are unaffected. But for a limited
period after the consistentior status, the increase of crust temper-
ature in descending would be far more rapid ; when one twenty-
fifth of the whole period from that epoch to the present had
elapsed — and this is no inconsiderable fraction — the rate of in-
crease would be one degree for every ten feet of descent. Sup-
pose, for the sake of comparison, the surface temperature as be-
fore, the boiling-point of water would be reached at 1,620 feet, and
at 10,000 feet, instead of a temperature of 250° F., we should have
one of 1,050° F. But, at the latter temperature, many rock-masses
would not be perfectly solid. According to Sorby, the steam cavi-
ties in the Ponza trachyte must have formed, and thus the rock
have been still plastic at so low a temperature as 680° F. At this
period, then, the end of the fourth year of the geological century,
structural changes in igneous and chemical changes in sediment-
ary rocks must have taken place with greater facility than in any
much later period in the world's history. Then a temperature of

THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE EARTH. 661

2,000° F., sufiBcient to melt silver — more than sufficient to melt
many lavas — would have been reached at a depth of about four
miles. It would now be necessary to descend for at least forty
miles in order to arrive at this zone. During the ninety-six years
of the century it has been changing its position in the earth's
crust, more slowly as time went on, from the one level to the
other. There is another consideration. In very early times, as
shown by Prof. Darwin and Mr. Davison, the zone in the earth's
crust at which lateral thrust ceases and tension begins must
have been situated much nearer to the surface than at present.
If now, at the end of the century, it is at the depth of five miles,
it was at the end of the fourth year at a depth of only one mile.
Then, a mass of rock, ten thousand feet below the surface, would
be nearly a mile deep in the zone of tension. Possibly this may
explain the mineral banding of much of our older granitoid rock,
already mentioned, and the coincidence of foliation with what
appears to be stratification in the later Archsean schists, as well as
the certainly common coincidence of microfoliation with bedding
in the oldest indubitable sediments. Pressure, no doubt, has al-
ways been a most important factor in the metamorphism of rocks ;
but there is, I think, at present some danger in overestimating
this, and representing a partial statement of truth as the whole
truth. Geology, like many human beings, suffered from convul-
sions in its infancy ; now, in its later years, I apprehend an attack
of pressure on the brain. The first deposits on the solidified crust
of the earth would obviously be igneous. As water condensed,
denudation would begin, and stratified deposits, mechanical and
chemical, become possible, in addition to detrital volcanic mate-
rial. But at that time the crust itself, and even stratified depos-
its, would often be kept for a considerable period at a temperature
similar to that afterward produced by the invasion of an intru-
sive mass. Thus, not only rocks of igneous origin (including vol-
canic ashes) would predominate in the lowest foundation-stones,
but also secondary changes occur more readily, and even the sedi-
ments or precipitates should be greatly metamorphosed. Strains
set up by a falling temperature would produce, in masses still
plastic, banded structures, which, under the peculiar circum-
stances, might occur in rocks now coarsely crystalline. As time
went on, true sediments would predominate over extravasated
materials, and these would be less and less affected by chemical
changes, and would more and more retain their original charac-
ter. Thus, we should expect that as we retraced the earth's course
through " the corridor of time," we should arrive at rocks which,
though crystalline in structure, were evidently in great part sedi-
mentary in origin, and should beyond them find rocks of more
coarsely crystalline texture and more dubious character, which.

662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

however, probably were in part of a like origin ; and should at
last reach coarsely crystalline rocks, in which, while occasional
sediments would be possible, the majority were originally igneous,
though modified at a very early period of their history. This
corresponds with what we find in nature, when we apply, cau-
tiously and tentatively, the principles of interpretation which
guide us in stratigraphical geology. I have stated as briefly as
possible what I believe to be facts. I have endeavored to treat
these in accordance with the principles of inductive reasoning. I
have deliberately abstained from invoking the aid of " deluges of
water, floods of fire, boiling oceans, caustic rains, or acid-laden
atmospheres," not because I hold it impossible that these can have
occurred, but because I think this epoch in the earth's history so
remote and so unlike those which followed that it is wiser to pass
it by for the present. But, unless we deny that any rocks formed
anterior to or coeval with the first beginning of life on the globe
can be preserved to the present time, or, at least, be capable of
identification — an assumption which seems to me gratuitous and
unphilosophical — then I do not see how we can avoid the conclu-
sion to which we are led by a study of the foundation-stones of
the earth's crust — namely, that these were formed under con-
ditions and modified by environments which, during later geologi-
cal epochs, must have been of very exceptional occurrence. If,
then, this conclusion accords with the results at which students
of chemistry and students of physics have independently arrived,
I do not think that we are justified in refusing to accept them
because they lack the attractive brilliancy of this or that hypothe-
sis, or do not accord with the words in which a principle, sound in
its essence, has been formulated. It is true in science, as in a yet
more sacred thing, that " the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life."

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.*

By J. M. AEMS.

THE question before the educators of our country is a practical
one, involving important and far-reaching results. Shall
science lessons be given in elementary schools ? It is a question
which can be answered affirmatively or negatively only by con-
sidering wliy and hoiv such lessons shall be given. What I have
to say on the subject will be more practical than theoretical, as
whatever views I hold are based wholly upon ten years' experience
in teaching natural science to young people from five to twenty
years of age. This being the case, my remarks must be neces-
sarily more personal than I would wish.

* Read at the "National School of Methods," Saratoga, August, 1888.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 663

Beginning to teach with no preconceived notions as to the
practical results obtainable, but with a love for the science of
Nature, and a strong desire to make our boys and girls love it
also, I soon found out that science lessons were not only helpful
in the way of awakening interest, but also invaluable in the way
of disciplining the mind. Little children came to me with un-
trained eyes, hands, and brains ; this I expected, and therefore
was not surprised ; but boys and girls from fifteen to twenty years
of age came in a worse condition, and this was unexpected. Not
only were their eyes and hands untrained, but their brains were
in a pathological condition which rendered independent thinking
impossible. The number of my ]3upils increasing, and their ages
ranging, as I have said, from five to twenty years, I had an excel-
lent opportunity for comparing the quality of work done by older
and younger pupils, also by pupils whose perceptive faculties had
been trained in early life, and those who had not received this
training. The inferences I was forced to draw from these com-
parisons set me to thinking seriously. The inaccuracy of the
observational and manual work done by older pupils, the indefi-
niteness of expression, the lack of system, and the inability to do
comparative and inferential work, were so many revelations of the
true aims of science teaching. The absolute necessity for accuracy
in every study and every department of work made accuracy the
first object to be attained in every science lesson ; the vagueness
of the oral and written statement made clear, concise expression
the second object. The want of method emphasized the need of a
simple, orderly grouping of the observations, while the painful
and fruitless attempts to make comparisons and draw inferences
showed the necessity of cultivating the power of generalizing from
specific facts.

The objects of elementary science work in this way became
clear to me. As time passed, I was convinced that the first two
aims might be realized with children of primary-school age ; the
last two, in greater or less degree, with scholars of grammar and
high school age, provided they had received the lyreparatory train-
ing of the primary school. In attempting to realize these aims I
strove to apply constantly the scientific or " natural method " of
teaching, and, though applying it far from perfectly, I could see
that in more skillful hands than my own its successful application
would result in that which was most desirable, the development of
the child.

Gradually the opinion grew and strengthened, till it has now
become a conviction, that those children who have been trained
by the " natural method," from five to thirteen years of age, do
better work at thirteen than those who have not received this
training do from fifteen to twenty years of age. Their work is

664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

better because it is marked by greater accuracy, greater ability
in mechanical execution, and stronger power of reasoning. It
proves, in brief, that the doers of it are active and creative rather
than passive and imitative.

The recognition of the truth of these statements, of the impor-
tance of the objects to be accomplished, and of the value of stud-
ies which promote their accomplishment in a pre-eminent degree,
answers the question. Why shall science lessons be given in ele-
mentary schools ?

The question. How shall these lessons be given ? is one which
demands immediate and serious consideration. Uncertainty pre-
vails in the minds of teachers, and confusion in the general mind,
on this subject. Oral and language lessons are often mistaken for
science lessons, although usually the three have distinctly differ-
ent objects. Judging from the many courses of study I have
been privileged to examine the past year, I conclude that the oral
lesson, as generaJly given, aims to interest the young: Whatever
common objects happen to be at hand are used for the purpose,
and the success of the lesson depends largely upon the animation
and versatility of the teacher and the receptivity of the class. In
order to make this oral lesson a science lesson, the objects observed
must be selected in a natural sequence ; the teacher must be logi-
cal in questioning, whether or not she be graphic in description,
while the pupils must be independent seekers for knowledge
rather than active or passive receptacles of information. I do not
say the oral lesson can not be a science lesson, but that oral les-
sons, as generally given, are not science lessons.

The language lesson aims at the use of good language, at cor-
rect grammatical construction, spelling, and punctuation. Clear,
concise expression may be one object of the language lesson, but
it must be remembered that this is not the first object of the sci-
ence lesson.

The question. How shall science lessons be given ? can best be
answered by keeping constantly in mind the aims of science work.
Whatever helps to realize these, helps to answer the question, as
the ways and means must be adapted to the end in view.

In giving observation lessons upon plants, animals, and min-
erals, which, here let me say, are elementary science lessons as
well as those that have received this name in our prescribed
courses of study, three conditions must obtain : First, the children
must be provided with specimens ; second, the school must be
under the control of the teacher ; third, the lesson must be pre-
pared by the teacher in the form of questions which lead step by
step from the simple to the more difficult. It is evident, if the
pupils are to be provided with specimens of animals, that only the
smaller and simpler ones can be used, such as the star-fish, sea-

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 665

urchin, or snail. In many of our scliools the lessons on animals
begin with the dog, cat, or bird. Ten years ago it was almost a
necessity to begin in this way ; it is not so to-day. I once began
a course of lessons with these familiar but extremely complex
animals, and noted the results with interest. Before the course
was finished, I had given up practically the four objects I aimed
to accomplish. I was so thoroughly convinced that the habit of
accurate observation could not be acquired by children with one
specimen in the hand of the teacher, or one picture hung upon the
wall, that I never repeated- the experiment. I regret now that I did
not preserve some of the written work of this class, but it seemed so
worthless, as compared with that done by children of the same age
who had begun their lessons with the simpler animals, that I did
not keep any of it for future reference. When the class numbers
fifty or sixty children, those in the back part of the school-room
can not see the bird or kitten distinctly, more or less disorder pre-
vails, and disorder always causes the premature death of science
work. If the children come to the desk to examine the specimen,
time is lost in going to and from the seat, especially by those
whose besetting weakness is laziness, while the moments for ob-
servation at the desk must be extremely brief. Close, accurate
observation of a specimen in the hand of a child develops patience,
and cultivates the habit of mental equilibrium or concentration
of mind for twenty or thirty minutes, as may seem desirable,
which is of incalculable value.

The second condition of successful science work, namely, a
well-governed school, is obviously one condition for all successful
school-work. The temptation to whisper and be disorderly, caused,
possibly, at first by the use of specimens, will soon be overcome
if the children understand that no science lesson can be given till
order is preserved. The unruly members of the class are usually
the first ones to yield, as these are generally more fond of nature
than of books. Many instances could be given, proving most
happily the invaluable aid given by science lessons to the teacher
in the discipline of lawless children.

"While the first two conditions depend for their realization
upon both teacher and pupils, the third depends wholly upon the
teacher. All preparation must be made before, not during the
lesson. The questions must be so arranged that each lesson must
be a natural growth, a development from the simple to the com-
plex. This method of questioning is the peculiar characteristic
of the true science lesson, distinguishing it from the commonly
accepted oral and language lesson. Furthermore, each lesson
should be related, so to speak, to the lessons that precede and fol-
low it. It can not exist as an isolated thing, but must form an
important part of one complete course.

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The course on animals for primary schools, as given in our
first lesson, begins with the star-fish, and takes up in succession
the following subjects : The sea-urchin ; the star-fish and sea-
urchin compared ; the earth-worm ; a bivalve shell ( Cyprina) ;
clam-shell ; oyster-shell ; clam- and oyster-shell compared ; living
snail ; snail-shell ; miscellaneous shells, including pearly nautilus ;
simple classification of shells ; lobster or crayfish ; crab ; lobster
and crab compared ; habits of crabs ; locust ; young living dragon-
fly ; beetle ; butterfly ; life-history of butterfly ; moth and life-
history ; bees and their habits ; insects in general.

This course covers twenty weeks, devoting two hours a week
to the subject. In a general way it may be stated, though of
course there is no inflexible rule in regard to time, that the first
hour is given to the observation and drawing of the specimen, the
first fifteen minutes of the second hour to a review of the obser-
vations already made, the following thirty minutes to a written
description of the specimen, and the last fifteen minutes to a talk
about the habits of the animal. If the habits are discussed before
the written work is done, the results are not as good, for the reason
that it is much easier for children to describe vaguely the habits
of animals than to give accurate, concisely stated observations.
In almost every case (excepting, perhaps, two or three animals
repugnant to many children, as, for instance, the earth-worm and
spider) the teacher will obtain the most satisfactory results by
taking structure first and habits afterward. In the primary
course no alcoholic specimens are used, but living animals when
possible and dried specimens.

The course for grammar schools begins with the horny sponge,
and includes the following subjects: Silica sponge (Geodia);
horny and silica sponge {Chalina); sponges compared; a simple
animal {Hydra); sea-anemone; coral animal (Galaxea) ; sea-
anemone and coral animal compared ; corals {Madrepore, fan
coral) ; star-fish and sea-urchin compared ; earth-worm and salt-
water worm {Nereis) compared ; clam- and oyster-shell compared ;
snail and pearly nautilus ; habits of salt- and fresh-water mollusks ;
lobster or crayfish ; crab and barnacle ; lobster ; crab and barnacle
compared ; spiders ; habits of spiders ; locust and larva ; dragon-
fly and larva ; locust and dragon-fly compared ; squash-bug and
larva ; review insects with direct or " incomplete " metamorphosis ;
butterfly and caterpillar ; beetle and grub ; fly and maggot ; bees ;
simple classification of insects.

In this course dried, alcoholic, and living specimens are used.
The course may be given in twenty weeks, or forty hours, provided
the children have gone through the primary course ; otherwise,
it can not be given, as good comparative work can only be done
after accurate observational and descriptive work.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 667

These two elementary courses lay a strong foundation for the
high-school course, and also pave the way to the intelligent study
of vertebrate life, while the three courses — primary, grammar,
and. high — furnish a valuable preparation for the advanced bio-
logical studies of our scientific schools and colleges. There has
been much discussion in our leading journals of late in regard to
the teaching of biology in the higher institutions of learning.
What to teach and how to teach it have been pressing questions.
Courses of study have been proposed which certainly have been
ideal for ideal students, but which have almost wholly over-
looked the important fact that the majority of the young men
and women who are to take these courses have never learned the
A, B, C of science work. Many professors, dissatisfied with the
poor results obtained, have recognized the chief cause, and as-
serted that " the college instructor must still regard the student
who studies under him as a school-boy whose capacity for observ-
ing and investigating natural objects has been blunted by a one-
sided course of instruction at school." * In other words, the col-
lege is forced to do preparatory work. This the college ought
never to do. Preparatory work belongs to preparatory schools.
A young man or woman at eighteen ought to be fitted to enter
upon an industrial career or upon a scientific or classical course
of study, as individual taste or necessity dictates, with hands
trained to do a little manual work well, with eyes keen-sighted
enough to see things as they are, and with brains capable of
thinking upon these things independently.

I have outlined in brief a primary and grammar-school course
upon animals. I have been aided in the preparation of these
courses by the " Guides for Science Teaching," Nos. Ill- VII, by
Prof. Alpheus Hyatt. Prof. Crosby's " Science Guide," No. XII,
and Mrs. Richards's " Guide," No. XIII, are admirable aids in
preparing a course upon our common minerals and rocks. The
" Science Guide," No. II, by ' Prof. Goodale, and the well-known
works of Prof. Gray, help in adapting the subject of botany to
young minds. The present paper is considering the natural
rather than the physical sciences, as these "are now generally
acknowledged to afford the best means of developing the powers
of observation and comparison,"

It is impossible to discuss broadly and justly the questions
why and how shall science lessons be given in elementary schools
without some knowledge of the history of the movement which
has given birth to these questions, and also some knowledge of
the present status of our schools on the general subject of science
teaching. The movement of which we speak the coming century
will surely regard as one of the really great movements of our

* See "American Naturalist," June, 1887.

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

time, so that we may pause here to sketcli briefly its origin and
growth. After an extended correspondence with superintendents
and educators of New England and the West, I may state, with
very great certainty, that Boston was the first large city in our
country to include systematic lessons upon plants, animals, and
minerals in its prescribed course of elementary instruction. This
was done in 1877-'78. The movement, however, may be said to
have had its origin in the lecture-hall of Louis Agassiz nearly a
quarter of a century before. Recognizing the educational and
practical value of the study of natural history, and imbued with
a broad, humanitarian spirit. Prof. Agassiz invited teachers
to attend his lectures before the under-graduates of Harvard.
Among those who accepted this invitation was a young woman
of whom George B. Emerson wrote, a few years later, " She is the
best teacher New England has produced." The truths spoken by
the great naturalist lived in the brain and heart of Lucretia
Crocker till she in her turn was able to inspire the youth of her
generation with a love for nature as deep as it was strong.
Twenty-five years after the Harvard lectures, Miss Crocker, as
supervisor of the public schools of Boston, with the keen judg-
ment of mature womanhood added to the enthusiasm of youth,
was advocating with persuasive power a course of elementary
instruction which included lessons upon our common plants, ani-
mals, and minerals. In 1877-'78 this course was adopted by the
school board, and Miss Crocker became supervisor of the natural
history work. Surely the inspired words of Agassiz were bearing
abundant fruit, though the voice that uttered them was then
silent. May we not trust that the harvest-time was known to the
sower of the seed ?

It soon became evident that the teachers wanted more knowl-
edge of the natural history subjects wliich they were to teach ;
and it was then that Miss Crocker found an able helper in Prof.
Alpheus Hyatt, who, in the generous spirit of his teacher. Prof.
Agassiz, threw the doors of his laboratory wide open to all who
wished to come. A " Saturday morning class " was formed. Its
members were provided abundantly with specimens for study, and
the valuable collections of the Natural History Museum, of which
Prof. Hyatt was curator, were freely used in the demonstrations.

The teachers, now as pupils, saw more clearly than ever before
the true objects of all science work, namely, the betterment of
humanity and the increase of our stock of absolute knowledge.
Fortunate indeed are those institutions of learning which num-
ber among their professors one who keeps constantly before his
pupils these high ideal aims of science ! With these aims as ulti-
mate goals, the work of student and teacher becomes more effect-
ive, because directed in definite yet ever-broadening channels.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 669

An orgarxization, known throughout New England as the
" Teachers' School of Science," had been carried on since 1871 by
the liberality of one person, Mr. John Cummings, a patron of the
Society of Natural History. The faith of Mr. Cummings in the
educational value of nature lessons was constant, as proved by
his generous contributions year after year.

In the winter of 1878-79 the pecuniary resjDonsibility of the
"■ school " was assumed by two Boston ladies, Mrs. Pauline Agas-
siz Shaw, the daughter of Prof. Agassiz, and Mrs. Augustus
Hemenway. Five hundred teachers attended this course of les-
sons upon the scientific method of teaching applied to the study
of our common plants, animals, and minerals. Nearly a hundred
thousand specimens were carried into the public schools, and the
publication of the series of " Science Guides," to which we have
referred, was begun, to aid teachers in their work. A new impe-
tus was given to the movement, and an enthusiasm created which
promised much for the future.

Eleven years have j^assed since nature lessons were embodied
in the prescribed elementary course of the Boston schools. What
is the position of these and other schools of our country on this
subject ? Do the leaders of the movement who are living to-day
feel a sense of disappointment that the results have not been
larger ? The growth, it is true, has been slow ; yet if those who
are oppressed by the truth of this statement would compare the
science work done in the schools to-day with that done ten or
twenty years ago, they would surely bend to their oars with new
courage. That work can be briefly described : the quantity was
extremely small, and the quality exceedingly poor.

We are beginning to recognize the fact that science lessons
can not exert their legitimate influence so long as they are not
included in the prescribed curriculum of study, but depend for
their life upon the option of the teacher. I have endeavored to
obtain exact information on this subject. In New England there
are eighty-seven cities and towns whose schools are jDrovided with
a superintendent.* Of these, eight include lessons on plants, ani-
mals, or minerals in their prescribed courses of study, under the
head of " Observation and Elementary Science Lessons," or of
" Plants, Animals, Minerals." Fifteen include such lessons under
the head of " Oral Instruction." Eleven take up natural objects
in connection with language and geography lessons. Five are
revising their courses of study, three of which are including ob-
servation lessons. Four have not replied to my letter of inquirj^
This leaves forty-four cities and towns whose elementary courses
do not include nature lessons.

Personal interviews and correspondence with educators in

* See "List of the School Superintendents," for June, 1S88.

670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

many Western, and Southern States leads me to say, with consid-
erable certainty, that in none of their primary and grammar
schools are science lessons required.

These facts and figures represent the work prescribed, not the
work actually done. In how many schools where these lessons
are required are they given by the scientific method ? is a ques-
tion of the first importance. In how many schools, on the other
hand, where the lessons are not required are they systematically
given by progressive teachers ? Want of sufficient data compels
me to leave these questions unanswered for the present.

The picture has another and somewhat brighter side. It may
be stated as an indisputable fact that there never has been a time
when the interest in the subject was so wide-spread. Educators
all over the country are giving it their thoughtful consideration.
The " National School of Methods " has offered an excellent op-
portunity for the past three years for obtaining valuable informa-
tion. Twenty-one States,* and probably several more, have been
represented in the natural history classes.

Teachers of primary, grammar, high, and normal schools have
testified to the educational value of nature lessons. Superintend-
ents have expressed their approval of such lessons, and shown an
earnest desire to help forward the work. This hearty interest,
especially on the part of normal-school teachers, is a guarantee
that the growth of the movement will continue to be sure, even
though it may be slow. This brings me, in conclusion, to the
brief consideration of the causes of this slow growth.

The fundamental cause lies, I believe, in our ignorance of the
true value and large possibilities of elementary science work.
This ignorance is chargeable in great measure to that one-sided
system of education which has long prevailed. Our early train-
ing, in fact, unfits us for justly appreciating the objects to be at-
tained. If the great body of teachers in our country to-day could
be made to know the full value of natural history lessons in the
mental training of the young, I for one do not believe the oft-
repeated arguments against this kind of teaching would deter
them in the least from undertaking the work. Our primary-
school teachers need to know for their own inspiration how much
they are helping the grammar-school teachers, and the grammar-
school teachers, in their turn, the high-school teachers. When
they come into possession of this knowledge, the movement will
advance with rapid strides, and the four arguments oftenest urged
will be answered by the teachers themselves.

When it is said, " The work is impracticable, because specimens

* Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michisran, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 671

can not be obtained," the teachers will reply : " Several towns
have already appropriated ten and twenty dollars for the pur-
chase of natural history collections, and these can be used a num-
ber of years. Teachers awakened to the new and beautiful reve-
lations of nature are preserving specimens at the sea-shore and in
the country. Children have collected hundreds of specimens
which have been used in class work, or have helped to form valu-
able school cabinets."

When, again, it is said, " Our teachers have not been trained
by the ' natural method ' ; how, then, can you expect them to teach
by it ? " they will answer : " We know from experience the defects
of the old methods ; is it not possible, then, for us to shun these
defects, and to teach by better, more effective methods ? The
fossilization of teachers is not in order. We must grow, for
growth is the necessity, if not the charm, of the teacher's life of
to-day."

Again, when it is said, " Too much observational work results
in lack of mental concentration and in weak power of memoriz-
ing," they will assert : " The time for considering the results of
' too much observational work ' has not yet come, nor is the dan-
ger so imminent as to concern us now. The criticism offered may
be true of much poor oral instruction which ^entertains' chil-
dren, but it can not be true of elementary science work, the very
soul of which finds verbal expression in the words individual
effort — such effort as is only possible when the mental faculties
are under control."

It is true the mission of the science lesson is not to strengthen
the memory. The studies of literature and language do this,
while the science lesson quickens the perceptive faculties and cul-
tivates the power of delicate discrimination and of just generali-
zation.

Finally, when it is urged that "*the object of this teaching is
to make naturalists of our children," they will emphasize the fact
that while the object of advanced biological teaching may be to
make specialists of those who have an aptitude for this work, the
object of elementary science work must be, always and ever, the
training of the young mind. We are just beginning to find out
that a one-sided system of education is not sufficient for our
many-sided human nature. We are not all born to be teachers,
or professors of law or medicine ; we have among us natural me-
chanics, merchants, inventors, investigators ; and a system of in-
struction which is not broad enough to train these for a life of
productive industry falls far short of what it ought to do. Edu-
cation must have its industrial and scientific as well as its classical
side, and not until it does will each child realize its own bright
possibility of a better and more enlightened humanity.

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY.

By HOKATIO HALE.

FROM the Bay of Bengal westward, through northern India,
Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Persia, Armenia, Asia Minor,
and on through Europe to its farthest bounds — and thence, in
modern times, crossing the Atlantic and spreading over both
Americas — one great linguistic family occupies a vaster space,
peopled by a larger number of famous and powerful nations, than
belong to any other ethnic kindred. But this pre-eminence of
the Indo-European stock has not always existed. There was a
period in the early history of the civilized world when the Hamito-
Semitic family was more widely diffused than any other ; and at
a later time, when the Arabian empire stretched from India to
Spain, this preponderance seemed to be restored. Even in our
day the Chinese language and literature are probably spoken and
read by a larger population than is claimed by any other race.
But there can be no question that during the last two centuries
the communities speaking languages of the first-named family, or
at least some among them, have been the dominant nations of the
globe.

In the brief term of less than a century which has elapsed
since the connections and limits of this great family have been
ascertained, various designations have been applied to it — Indo-
European, Indo-Germanic, Indo-Celtic, Aryan. The latter name,
being the least cumbrous, is gradually gaining acceptance, even
among those who dissent from the inference which its use might
seem to imply. The term " Aryan " properly belongs to the east-
ernmost group of these languages, comprising the tongues of
ancient Persia and northern India. But scholars like Penka,
Poesche, Sayce, Taylor, and others, who contest the Asiatic origin
of the Aryan race, are still willing to accept its Asiatic name.

"When it was first discovered that most European nations spoke
languages of the Aryan (or Indo-Persian) stock, the conclusion
was at once drawn that these European Aryans must look for
their ancestral home in the East. As no one doubted that all the
nations of this stock had sprung from one source, it was natural
to inquire in what place the primitive Aryan tribe had its original
seat. It was natural also to adopt the view that this seat was to
be found somewhere in that portion of central Asia to which the
traditions embodied, however vaguely, in the earliest known com-
positions of Aryan origin, the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta, seemed
to point. This region, which comprehends ancient Persia and
Bactria, has, from the earliest times of which we have any knowl-

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 673

edge, been the home of Aryan communities. The reasons for
accepting it as the peculiar seat of the race seemed conclusive to
ethnologists until a very recent date. Of late years some scholars
of high rank, both in Germany and in England, have been led to
adopt the suggestion, first made by the late eminent English phi-
lologist. Dr. Latham, that the Aryans may have been of European
origin. Their arguments were well summed up in the interesting
address delivered last year before the Section of Anthropology in
the British Association by the president of the section. Prof.
Sayce. They have since been fully considered and discussed by
Prof. Max Miiller in his recent work, "Biographies of Words,
and the Home of the Aryans." His decision is that to which the
great majority of ethnologists have long since given their assent,
namely, that the preponderant weight of argument points to an
Asiatic home for the race. Some of the grounds for this conclu-
sion will presently be shown ; but, in the first instance, it becomes
necessary to fix the locality of this primitive seat somewhat more
definitely than it is placed in Prof. Max Miiller's essay. He finds
that the Aryan home must have been " somewhere in Asia," but
declines to say more.

This conclusion, it is evident, is too indefinite for science ; nor
does it seem likely that the learned author, if he had cared to be
more precise, would have had any difficulty in drawing a much
narrower limit. The " method of elimination " is easily sufficient
for this end. From the whole of Asia we strike out at once, by
the common consent of ethnologists, its eastern third, comprising
China, Japan, and Thibet, and along with it, by like consent,
the three great southern peninsulas, the Indo-Chinese, the Indian,
and the Arabian. With Arabia the rest of the ancient Semitic
countries, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Phoenicia, will be erased from
the problem. The immense expanse of Siberia will also disap-
pear ; for, though one bold speculator has sought a frigid home
for the early Aryans in that region, he has, as might be supposed,
gained no adherents to his theory. No one proposes Asia Minor ;
and Armenia and the Caucasus seem put out of the question by
the fact that our earliest historical knowledge of those regions
shows them inhabited mainly by non-Aryan tribes.

The limits of the pristine Aryan home are thus readily and
inevitably narrowed down to those already suggested — the bounds
of ancient Persia and Bactria — that "vast plateau of Iran," as
Archdeacon Farrar has well styled it, in which the mother-
tongue of the Sanskrit and Zend was once spoken by the united
community, from whose divided septs the Vedas and the Zend-
Avesta have been bequeathed to us. In that region, as we have
every reason to believe, the Aryan race was found in its purest
condition. When, therefore, we seek to ascertain the physical
VOL. xxxiv. — 43

674 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY'.

and mental traits which properly belong to this remarkable race,
we naturally turn our attention to that Medo-Persian people, in
whom the character of the unmixed stock was first distinctly
manifested. The results of such an inquiry may yield some valu-
able fruits to ethnological science.

But before proceeding with this branch of our study it will be
necessary, if our search for the origin of the Aryan race is to be
conducted on strictly scientific lines and to be carried back to the
very germ of the race, to bear in mind the self-evident truth that
every linguistic stock must have originated in a single household.
Somewhere on earth there must have been an " Aryan family-pair,"
the progenitors of the breed ; and all the speakers of the primi-
tive Aryan tongue must once have been gathered, as has been well
said, " under one roof." In an address which I had the honor of
delivering before this section* two years ago, I endeavored to
point out the conditions under which such a household must have
been formed, and to show that it must necessarily have originated
in some isolated spot where a little brood or a pair of orphan chil-
dren, left alone at too early an age to have a comjjleted language,
could have found the means of subsistence. This must have been
in some region where severe frost is unknown, and where food
could readily be obtained by very young children all the year
round. No such spot can be found in Europe, a fact which would
make the rise of a new linguistic stock in that quarter of the globe,
under its present climatic conditions, difficult to comprehend.
But in the Aryan territory already described such a district pre-
sents itself at once in the semi-tropical belt which borders the
Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and is known in modern
geography as the Deshtistan, or " low country," of the province of
Fars — that province which has always been deemed the original
seat of the Persian people. In this coast district, as we are told
by Prof. Rawlinson, snow never falls and there is but little rain.
Heavy dews, however, occur at night, so that the mornings are
often fresh and cool. Most of the region is dry and barren ; but
along the streams there is moisture, and the fruits of the tropics
thrive. The sandy shore abounds in shell-fish and especially in
oysters. On the northern coast of the Mexican Gulf, where the
climate and other conditions are somewhat similar to those of
this Aryan belt, I have seen from my open window in midwinter,
while the magnolias were blooming near and the orange-trees
showed their belated fruit, the little children of five or six yearg
old wading at low tide in the shallow water, feeling with their
naked feet for the shell-fish and gathering them into their baskets

* The present article was read before the Section of Anthropology, in the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting in August, 1888. The "Vice-
Presidential address " referred to is published in the Proceedings of the Association for 1886.

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 675

for breakfast. As wild fruits and edible roots also abound along
this coast, affording abundant nutriment at all seasons, it is not
surprising tliat several peculiar linguistic stocks among the
American languages appear to have originated in that genial re-
gion— just as others are found under similar conditions along the
coast of California. There is, therefore, nothing improbable in
the supposition that the first Aryan family — the orphan children,
perhaps, of Semitic or Accadian fugitives from Arabia or Meso-
potamia— grew up and framed their new language on the south-
ern seaboard of Persia. As the number of their descendants in-
creased, they would naturally spread northward over the province
of Fars, and thence into the wide regions bounded by the Tigris,
the Indus, and the Oxus, which we have recognized as the primi-
tive seat of the Aryan power.

In pursuing our inquiry into the distinctive characteristics of
this race it will not be necessary to resort to many authorities.
All the important evidence has been carefully brought together
by Prof. Rawlinson in his well-known work, " The Seven Great
Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World." His lucid summa-
ries are fortified by numerous references, and his conclusions are
confirmed in the main by every writer who has treated on the
subject. As regards the physical traits of the race, he presents us
(in the third chapter of his history of the "Median Empire")
with a picture which, according to our ideas, is highly prepossess-
ing. • " The general physical character of the ancient Aryan race,"
he observes, "is best gathered from the sculptures of the Achse-
menian kings, which exhibit to us a very noble variety of the
human species — a form tall, graceful, and stately ; a physiognomy
handsome and pleasing, often somewhat resembling the Greek;
the forehead high and straight ; the nose nearly in the same line,
long and well formed, sometimes markedly aquiline; the upper
lip short, commonly shaded by a mustache ; the chin rounded and
generally covered with a curly beard. The hair evidently grew
in great plenty, and the race was proud of it." The color of the
skin can not be determined from this source ; but from other au-
thorities and from the descriptions of ancient travelers we learn
that it varied, and still varies, much as in central and southern
Europe, from a fair and almost blond hue, with blue or gray
eyes, in the northern highlands, to a clear brunette in central Per-
sia, and an almost negro swarthiness along the torrid shores of
the Persian Gulf. The Aryan complexion yields readily to cli-
matic influences, and those who think they find the primitive type
of the race solely in that small fraction of it which offers us fair
skins, blue eyes, and flaxen hair, assuredly fail to observe in an-
thropology the rules of evidence which govern inquiries in every
other branch of science.

676 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Of the moral qualities of the race, the account given by the
historian — whom no one will suspect of hostile prejudice — is not
altogether so favorable. " Among their moral characteristics/'
he tells us, " the one most obvious is their bravery " — which (we
are elsewhere told) was combined with a remarkable and persist-
ent energy. " But this valor/' he adds, " was of the merciless
kind.'* Not only did their armies (in Scriptural phrase) " dash to
pieces " the fighting men of the nations opposed to them, allowing
apparently no quarter, but the women and children suffered in-
dignities and cruelties at the hands of the savage warriors which
the pen unwillingly records. " Spoil, it would seem, was disre-
garded in comparison with insult and vengeance ; and the brutal
soldiery cared little for silver or gold, provided they could indulge
freely in that thirst for blood which man shares with the hyena
and the tiger." This inclination to cruelty, as he shows more
fully in his subsequent account of the Persians, was a marked
characteristic of the race. Their ordinary punishments were of
the most barbarous nature. They were not content with merely
putting their criminals or enemies to death, but sought out in-
geniously the methods of execution that would cause the most
protracted torture. Crucifixion, impalement, flaying alive, and
the terrible infliction of "the boat," described with revolting
minuteness by Plutarch in his life of Artaxerxes, were common
methods. Scourging and mutilation — the lopping of hands and
feet, the tearing out of eyes — were the usual " secondary punish-
ments."

This propensity to cruelty seems to be, in a certain way, con-
nected with another governing trait of the Aryan character — a
trait which, at first thought, might appear to be not merely alien
but opposed to that propensity. This trait may be described as a
constant and overwhelming sense of reverence. When we peruse
the earliest known compositions of this race, the Vedas and the
Avesta, and compare them with the Hebrew Scriptures and the
poems of Homer and Hesiod, we observe one striking difference.
With the Hebrews and Greeks religion was much, but their own
people, their national history, their laws and institutions, their
homes and their families, had a large place in their thoughts.
With the early Aryans, of the unmixed race, their gods were all
in all. Everything else, in comparison, was too insignificant to
be dwelt upon for a moment. In this great mass of their primi-
tive literature we find not a word relating to their history, except
the merest hints, thrown out incidentally and, in a manner, un-
consciously. With them man. and his interests were as nothing.
Why should not this worthless being, if he became offensive, be
treated like a noxious insect or poisonous reptile — be crushed,
impaled, flayed, or buried alive ? Thus we may see how, with this

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 677

naturally bloodthirsty people, religion, whicli in other minds has
led to the extreme of charity and self-sacrifice, might be combined
with the worst exhibitions of cruelty.

This same overpowering sense of reverence, directed toward
their earthly rulers, became an excessive servility, which made
the Aryans incapable of freedom. On this important point the
exact expressions of the historian deserve to be cited. " The feel-
ing of the Persian toward his king,"" he tells us, " is one of which
moderns can vith difiiculty form a conception. In Persia the
monarch was so much the state that patriotism itself was, as it
were, swallowed up in loyalty ; and an absolute, unquestioning
submission, not only to the deliberate will but to the merest ca-
price of the sovereign, was, by habit and education, so ingrained
into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely ever
manifested itself. In war the safety of the sovereign was the first
thought and the principal care of all. . . . Uncon^plaining acqui-
escence in all the decisions of the monarch — cheerful submission
to his will, whatever it might chance to be — characterized the
conduct of the Persians in time of peace. . . . The father, whose
innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure wanton-
ness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the crime,
felicitated him on the excellence of his archery. Unfortunates,
bastinadoed by the royal order, declared themselves delighted
because his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone
of sycophancy and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping
self-respect, tended fatally to lower and corrupt the entire charac-
ter of the people."

He who is servile to his rulers is usually tyrannical toward his
inferiors. We learn from the Greek historians what the govern-
ment of the Persian monarch and his satraps was in their day,
and modern travelers find that the lapse of twenty-five centuries
has made no change in this respect, and little in any other. So
far as history gives us information, no self-governing community
has ever been found among any purely Aryan people.

One fine trait, however, which the ancient authors ascribe to
the Persians should be recorded to their honor — their truthful-
ness. According to Herodotus, every young Persian was taught
by his preceptors three main things — " to ride, to draw the bow,
and to speak the truth. ... In the Zend-Avesta, and more espe-
cially in its earliest and purest portions," continues Prof. Rawlin-
son, "truth is strenuously inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is
' true,' ' the father of all truth,' and his worshipers are bound to
conform themselves to his image." This quality of truthfulness
is not commonly deemed to be consistent with servility ; but we
must remember that the servility of the Aryans was the fruit,
not of the timidity of conquered serfs, but of the reverence of

6/8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

brave men for their earthly deities. The Turk, who bows im-
plicitly to the vicegerent of Allah, is too prond to lie.

In intellectual capacity the people of the Iranic plateau held
but a low rank, not only in comparison with their Semitic neigh-
bors, but absolutely as a race. They had, indeed, or rather one
profound thinker among them had, excogitated a religious sys-
tem— the Zoroastrian — which is held to be of a cast consider-
ably superior to the religions of the neighboring nations ; but in
all other respects their inferiority was marked. Of the Semitic
Babylonians the historian observes that, " among the moral and
mental characteristics of the people the first place is due to their
intellectual ability. . . . Their wisdom and learning are celebrated
by the Jewish prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. The Father
of History records their valuable inventions ; and Aristotle was not
ashamed to be beholden to them for scientific data. They were
good observers of astronomical phenomena, careful recorders of
such observations, and mathematicians of no small repute." Of
the Persians, on the other hand, he remarks that "we can not
justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence."
The remains of their architecture and sculpture which have come
down to us display, he considers, a comparatively inferior artistic
ability ; and " to science," he declares, " they had contributed abso-
lutely nothing." It is deserving of note that not one of the great
in^;^entions and discoveries which have promoted the progress and
welfare of the human race seems to have been of Aryan origin.
For the alphabet, the smelting of metals, the making of glass, ship-
building, the mariner's compass, the methods of agriculture and
of textile manufactures, the laws of geometry and astronomy, the
world has been indebted to other races. We might be inclined to
ascribe the backwardness of the Aryans in these respects to the
disadvantages of their situation ; but we notice that they seem as
a race incapable of appreciating and adopting the gains of other
intellects. At the present day travelers find the Persians the
least advanced of the Oriental races. They are behind even the
Turks, and are far below the Chinese and the Japanese. They
are now, as of old, a brave, handsome, and showy race, prepossess-
ing and courtly, but are still shamefully servile, vilely cruel,
scornful of science, and fatally unprogressive.

It is a common opinion that the excellence of the Aryan lan-
guage affords evidence of high intellectual capacity in its framers.
That there is some warrant for this view may be admitted ; but
it must be remembered that the opinion arose while the science of
comparative philology was in its infancy. The wider linguistic
knowledge of our times shows it to have been a greatly exagger-
ated estimate, the product to a large extent of mere ignorance and
the conceit of race. Capacity for expression is the main test of

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 679

the excellence of a language ; and, though the Aryan speech un-
doubtedly ranks well in this quality, there are found to be many
languages in America and in Africa which decidedly surpass it.
In certain other characteristics it is anything but admirable.
Those who created and fashioned it seem to have been endowed
with a peculiar linguistic talent or language-making faculty,
which was not under the control of any logical force. What could
be more absurd than the preposterous gender-system which the
Sanskrit, the Greek, and the German have inherited from this
Aryan mother-tongue, and from whose ridiculous trammels the
speakers of all the later derived idioms in Asia and Europe have
been for centuries striving to shake themselves free ? The sense-
less superfluity of declensions and conjugations, the needless vari-
ety in the methods of forming the plural, the inordinate perplex-
ity of the irregular verbs, are only a few of the evidences to be
noted of the striking deficiency in logical and classifying power
which, amid all their unquestioned excellences, the earlier Aryan
languages everywhere betray.

But, it will naturally be asked, if the primitive Aryans were
really a people of such moderate endowments, both in intellect
and in morality, how do we explain the immense progress and
the admitted headship and mastery among the nations of the
world which their descendants have attained in Europe ? The an-
swer is ready at hand, and, indeed, almost self-evident. The peo-
ple of Europe are of mixed race. They are Aryan exactly as the
modern Peruvians are Spanish, or as the modern Egyptians are
Arab. There is good reason to believe that primeval Europe was
inhabited by tribes belonging to. various races, differing consider-
ably in character, but all of them distinguished by a love of free-
dom and a sentiment of personal independence. These traits
caused the population to be broken up into numerous petty com-
munities, each of which fell an easy prey to the Aryan invaders.
The latter were not only, as we have seen, a race of remarkably
brave and energetic warriors, but they had also the immense ad-
vantage, for an invading force, of a disposition which led them to
render implicit obedience to their rulers. It is this trait of char-
acter which in Africa has often enabled the leader of a horde to
establish his sway over a vast agglomeration of disconnected tribes.
It is evident that in such a case, as in the case of the Turkish con-
quest of Asia Minor and eastern Europe, the subdued populations
may be superior to their conquerors in every quality except in the
capacity for combined effort.

The earlier inhabitants of Europe seem to have been of three
distinct races — in the southeast Semitic, in the southwest Iberian,
in the north and center Uralian. The Semitic tribes, which peo-
pled Greece and probably a part of Italy and of the Mediterranean

68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

islands, belonged apparently to that branch which is variously-
styled Hamitic, Proto-Semitic, Libyan, and North African. Issu-
ing probably from Asia in the earliest ages, it peopled Egypt and
Barbary, and made its way even to the Canary Islands. That it
spread northward at various points across the Mediterranean there
can hardly be a doubt. Its purest modern representatives are
the Berbers, the hardy mountaineers of the Atlas range, of feat-
ures and complexion almost European, and in character possess-
ing precisely the traits which the Aryans lacked. This character
can not be better shown than by copying the concise description
given by Dr. Topinard in his "Anthropology." Of the Berber,
regarded as the type of this race, he says : " A lively sentiment of
equality, of charity, of his own dignity and of his personal lib-
erty, a great desire for activity, love of labor, economy, attach-
ment to his home, are his moral characteristics." All these traits
appear in those most famous members of the Proto-Semitic stock,
the ancient Egyptians, and with them a love of science and art
and a strong inclination for literary production. Such, appar-
ently, were the people in Greece and the adjacent islands and
coast-lands of the Mediterranean, on whom the Aryans imposed
their government and language and certain traits of their charac-
ter How large an element of the Hellenic people this aboriginal
population contributed is shown by the language. In that, as in
all mixed tongues, the grammar is mainly from one source ; it is
almost purely Aryan. But the vocabulary shows a large infusion
of words which can not possibly have come from any other
source than from a subject race thus conquered and absorbed.
Prof. Sayce, in the address already referred to, informs us that
" Mr. Wharton has found, by a careful analysis of the Greek lexi-
con, that out of twenty-seven hundred and forty primary words
only fifteen hundred can be referred with any probability to
an Indo-European origin." To what linguistic stock this non-
Aryan element in the Greek language belonged is a question
which remains for philologists to determine ; but every indication
of locality and of physical type, of moral and mental traits, and
of early Hellenic tradition embodied in the legends of ^gyptus,
Danaus, and Cadmus, points to a Proto-Semitic origin. To this
primitive race, whatever it may have been, were evidently due all
the finer and nobler qualities of the Greek character and intellect.
To their Aryan conquerors they owed, along with an increased
comeliness and grace of shape and feature, their martial energy,
their amenability to discipline, and doubtless certain barbarous
usages, such as their custom of putting to death in cold blood
their enemies taken in battle.

The Iberian race resembles the North African so closely in
physical, mental, and moral traits that, but for the total difference

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 681

between the Berber and tlie Basque languages, etbnologists would
be inclined to class them together. The Iberians, however, per-
haps from their more northern and rugged abode, seem to have
been a sturdier race, and more stubborn in maintaining their
independence or reasserting it after a defeat. They occupied
apparently the Spanish Peninsula, the greater part of France, the
British Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and probably a large portion
of Italy, where they seem to have been mingled with the Semitic
Pelasgians. The Aryan conquest, which in their case was incom-
plete, made little change in their character, except in Italy. In
the far west the Celts have always shown the genuine Iberian
character — the strong family affections, the love of home, the
cheerfulness under all troubles, the sense of personal and tribal
independence, and the jealous impatience of arbitrary power. To
these traits the Aryans added in Italy a stronger infusion than
was perhaps found anywhere else of their warlike and disciplined
energy, and of their tendency to barbarity in war and to the inflic-
tion of cruel punishments in time of peace.

When the Aryan invaders entered the northern and central
portions of Europe, they found that region occupied by tribes of
the Uralian or Finnish type. On this point, and on the general
question of the early peopling of Europe, I may cite the opinion
pronounced, after many years of study, by one of the most emi-
nent anthropologists of Europe, whose conclusions will be ad-
mitted by all to be entitled to the greatest weight — M. de Quatre-
fages. Referring in one of his recent works — "Homines Fossiles
et Homines Sauvages " — to the " Finnish group," he observes :
" This group has for European ethnogeny a very great importance.
We know to what hypotheses, to what discussions, it has given
rise. Both have been often premature, because the facts that were
needed to establish the conclusions were not yet discovered. The
* Finnish theory,' to use the expression of Latham, is certainly
wrong when it regards the whole of Europe as having been inhab-
ited, before the arrival of the Aryans, by a single race, extending
from Gibraltar to the Arctic Ocean — a race of whose existence
the Finns would be merely the evidence. It is in the right when
it admits the existence of a pre- Aryan population. This is a fact
which can not now be questioned. We may affirm, moreover, that
this population was not homogeneous ; that it numbered several
very distinct races ; that these races have not been annihilated ;
that they have borne an important part in the formation of the
existing populations, and that, in certain cases at least, they con-
stituted in them the preponderant element." It is, of course,
highly satisfactory to find that the conclusions to which linguists
have been led by philological data are thus fully confirmed by the
minute and careful studies of the physical types of European

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

raceS;, ancient and modern, which, have been pursued by this dis-
tinguished investigator for nearly half a century.

M, de Quatrefages proceeds to show the evidences of the former
extension of the Finnish race through the countries now occupied
by the Slavonic and Teutonic populations. Of one particular
tribe his opinion will astonish those ethnologists who have held
up this peculiar sept as the most primitive and typical remnant
of the Aryan race. The Lithuanians, he finds, are in the main of
Uralian origin. " Though they speak an Aryan idiom, they are
nevertheless," he affirms, "not Aryan in blood. They are the
brothers of the Esthonians, and if these are Finnish, as all the
world agrees, the others are Finnish likewise."

Among the Finns he finds two distinct types. That which
comprises the great majority of the people has a decidedly Mongol
cast. The other inclines to the Aryan type. He has no doubt
that among the so-called Finns and their congeners there has been
a strong infusion of Aryan blood ; and this admixture will suffi-
ciently explain the traces of the Aryan language which many
scholars, including Diefenbach, Weske, Cuno, and, lately. Canon
Taylor, have pointed out in the Uralian dialects. The people of
the proper Finnish type are of medium stature, sturdy and mus-
cular, with large and square heads, long, broad, and square faces,
the lower jaw strongly developed, the nose small and rather wide,
the mouth large, the complexion fair, deepening to olive gray ;
the eyes small, sometimes slightly oblique, the iris a grayish blue
or bluish gray ; the hair flaxen in hue, or sometimes of a reddish
yellow, straight and silky. In character they are serious, manly,
thoughtful, taciturn, slow in movement, both physically and men-
tally ; very conservative, disposed to live at peace with the authori-
ties ; somewhat suspicious and vindictive ; patient and resolute
under suffering ; not demonstrative, but kind and helpful to their
neighbors ; and at bottom thoroughly honest and faithful.

In all these traits, both physical and moral, we see clearly the
basis of the Slavonic type and, to a large extent, of the Teutonic ;
though here apparently there has been some admixture of another
primitive element, probably the Iberian. Over all is impressed,
and more especially, as might be expected, among the higher
classes, the influence of the Aryan conquerors, who, to use the
striking expression applied by the poet Campbell to the Normans
in England, have " high-mettled the blood " of the race. Under
this influence the Uralo- Aryan nations of northern and central
Europe, while still patient, conservative, and long-enduring, have
become capable of united action, of strenuous effort, and of a
resulting progress in thought and freedom which the Aryans
themselves, in their primitive seats, have never been able to
compass.

TEE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 683

Nothing is more certain than that the immense advance of the
European Aryans (so styled) beyond those of Asia has been due
mainly to the aboriginal races whom the Asiatic invaders over-
came by virtue of their superior organization, but whose posterity
still constitutes the main element in the population of Europe.
The simple comparison of the Iranians, ancient and modern, with
the nations of the West, affords ample evidence on this point. Of
the ancient Persians we have had a vivid portraiture from Raw-
linson. Their modern descendants are described to us by a late
traveler, Mr. Arthur Arnold, an English gentleman of keen dis-
cernment and of much experience among Oriental races. In his
recent work, " Through Persia by Caravan," he gives an account
of the government and the people, which shows them both to be
much as they were in the days of Xerxes. Of all governments
above the grade of savagery, the Persian seems to be the worst ;
and all that can be said for it is that it faithfully reflects the char-
acter of its people. The ordinary punishments are still, as in
former days, death and the bastinado ; and each of these punish-
ments is inflicted with the most ingenious refinement of cruelty.
Shortly before Mr. Arnold's arrival, the governor of Ears had
endeavored to repress crime in that province by a special exhibi-
tion of energy. " He tried," we are told, " throat-cutting, and left
the bleeding bodies exposed to the view of all comers in the public
square of Shiraz. He tried crucifixion, nailing the wretches by
the hands and feet to the walls of the town, and leaving them
under a guard of soldiers to die of exhaustion and starvation.
Finally^ he tried burial alive in pits, or cylinders of brick-work,
of depth such as to allow the criminal's head to appear above the
top ; " in which condition, we are told, " the miserable men were
in their dying hours barbarously ill-treated, on their exposed and
defenseless heads, by the rabble and soldiery of Shiraz."

Such is the race whose ancestors achieved the conquest of
Europe some two or three thousand years before the Christian
era, subduing gradually the scattered and disorganized tribes of
Semitic, Iberian, and Uralian origin. As has been already noted,
the two traits of Aryan character which, in addition to the per-
sonal valor shared by them with their opponents, especially in-
sured the success of the invaders, were their worship of hereditary
rank — a base sentiment, almost unknown to the other great races
of mankind — and their ruthless cruelty to the conquered. The
former trait gave them union and discipline, the other made them
terribly formidable. Both traits have survived to our own day
in the dominant class throughout Europe. In the feudal system,
the state of society to which these qualities gave rise attained its
highest development. A carnival of tyranny, superstition, and
cruelty prevailed for several centuries throughout the finest por-

684 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of Europe. At lengtli a change occurred. The subject races
grew in strength. Various causes conduced to this result — the
invention of gunpowder and of printing, the discovery of Amer-
ica, the advance of science, and, finally, the operation of that nat-
ural law by which oppressed populations, unless kept down by
massacre, tend to increase faster than their oppressors. At last
the struggle came to a head in France, just a hundred years ago,
when, with the destruction of the Bastile, the Iberian race in that
country regained the control of its own destinies, and the ascend-
ency of hereditary rank, with its resulting system of arbitrary,
corrupt, and cruel government, was swept away. In the British
Islands, where the oppression was less severely felt, the recon-
quest has advanced, during the past two or three centuries, by
more gradual steps — from the Great Rebellion to the Reform Bill
of 1832, when the Uralian Saxons regained a substantial equal-
ity— and thence to the later movement of the present day, when
the still earlier Iberian stratum of population is rising to the light
and to its due share in the government.

It is not, of course, to be inferred that the members of any
European aristocracy are all necessarily, or even probably, of
Aryan descent. There has, undoubtedly, been a large and often
repeated intrusion of members of other races into their ranks. In
ancient India, where the three higher castes, the Brahmans, Ksha-
triyas, and Vaisyas, claimed, and doubtless rightly, to be of Aryan
origin, it is certain that many Sudras, from the aboriginal races,
have found, from time to time, admission among them. But the
descendants of these intruders speedily became absorbed in the
caste which they had entered, and assumed all its characteristics.
When the hereditary or patrician principle was once introduced
into Europe by the Aryans — the principle that the son of a noble
was superior in political rights to the son of a commoner — a genu-
ine caste was at once established ; and this caste, while its mem-
bership has been partially changed, has, by the force of position
and of interfusion of blood, remained the same in character to our
day. Many a Norman baron was of plebeian origin, but the Nor-
man baronage was none the less an Aryan caste. The father of
Front-de-Boeuf may have been an Iberian peasant, but his chil-
dren and grandchildren became the members of a privileged aris-
tocracy, closely allied by blood and intermarriage with all the
other European aristocracies, and sharing with them the traits of
character which they had inherited from the Aryan conquerors.

If any are disposed, even in the face of the striking evidence
of India and its caste-system, to question whether the results of a
conquest made in Europe probably not less than four thousand
years ago can be so clearly e^ddent at the present day, they may
be reminded of two facts which, in different ways, will serve to

THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 685

confirm what has been said on this point. The conquest of
France, Spain, England, and other portions of Europe, by the
Romans took place about two thousand years ago. The evidences
and results of this conquest, in the languages, institutions, feat-
ures, and character of the conquered nations, are everywhere ap-
parent at the present day. No one dreams of doubting them, and
this simply because we have written and monumental evidence of
the facts. Why should we doubt that the results of a conquest
made two thousand years earlier may survive in equal vigor,
though in the nature of things no written or monumental record
of it can have come down to our time ? The memorials of it
which remain are of a different, but, to an ethnologist, not less
convincing character. One of these may be noted in the other
fact to which reference has been made. A very high authority
in comparative philology. Dr. Friedrich Mliller, in his great
work on Linguistic Science {Grundriss der Sprachivissenscliaft),
after remarking that the numerical system of the Indo-Germanic
languages rests on the decimal system, adds that the Celtic alone
shows traces of the vigesimal system, which are to be referred
to the influence of the Basque language. The Iberian Basques
reckon by digits to twenty, which is, in their language, a distinct
word, liogei (or oguei); forty is herrogei, "two hogeis"; eighty
is " four hogeis " ; and ninety-seven would be " four hogeis and
ten-seven." The Celtic has a double system. Twenty is fiche,
a corruption of the Aryan term ; for forty the Celt can say
either cethor cha, an Aryan contraction of " four-tens," or da
fichit, "two twenties." Ninety-seven is either "nine tens and
seven," or, as in the Basque, " four twenties and ten-seven." Now,
the French language, as is well known, adopts both methods, in
different parts of its ascending scale. As far as sixty it proceeds
by the decimal system ; then it abruptly changes to the vigesimal.
The Frenchman, when for ninety-seven he says " four-twenties-
ten-seven" {quatre-vingt-dix-sept), has no idea — unless he is a
philologist — that he is translating an ancient Iberian idiom into a
corrupt form of Aryan speech. If we consider what this fact
really signifies, we shall see that the whole ethnological history of
France is embodied in it. This French system of enumeration,
now in actual use, tells us that the people who employ it are
mainly of Iberian origin ; that an Aryan language in its most cor-
rupt and disintegrated form, the Celtic, was once imposed upon
them ; that this has again given place to the Latin form, which
has been further mangled and debased by the influence of a still
later Teutonic conquest ; and that through the whole of these over-
lying strata, caste imposed upon caste, the vigorous Iberian ele-
ment has forced its way to the light, and governs to this day,
in this composite population, that most striking manifestation

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the intellectual development of a race — its higher numeral
system.

It would be easy to add many other illustrations from history,
from physical traits, and from linguistic data, but they will hardly
be deemed necessary. The conclusion to which we are brought
by all the evidence is, that while the conquering energy of the
European nations is doubtless due to the infusion of Aryan blood,
their higher intellectual qualities and their love of freedom are
derived almost entirely from the earlier races, who form the main
elements in the mixed European breed. The gradual elimination
of the Aryan blood and character, with the return of these earlier
elements to ascendency, is the most impressive and important
phenomenon in the modern history of Europe, and indeed of the
civilized world. We see its results in the extension of free insti-
tutions, in the growth of science, in the multiplicity of inventions,
in the lessened barbarity of war, in the abolition of slavery, in the
increased sense of brotherhood among nations, in the diffusion of
education, in the countless societies for charity and for learning,
and in all the other evidences of material and moral progress
which distinguish our age.

THE AMERICANISTS IN" CONGRESS.

THE Seventh International Congress of Americanists met in
Berlin, on October 2d, and was opened by Honorary President
Gossler, the Prussian Minister of Worship. Although Germany,
the speaker said, " had not had any remarkable part in the dis-
covery of America, or in the earliest steps in planting European
civilization in the new quarter, it had participated in a rising de-
gree in the scientific discovery of the continent. Americanist
studies had, through the brothers Humboldt, already gained
burger-rights among us, and had consequently received faithful
care ; so that the congress finds among us a well-prepared audi-
ence, fully appreciating its aims. We understand that a quarter
which includes within itself all the zones, all earth-forms, all
degrees of civilization, must be closely examined as to its inner
relations before the important question whether the peculiar feat-
ures of the New World indicate any primary connection with the
Old can be answered. We recognize, also, that in some districts
of America history and prehistory lie far apart ; that power-
fully organized states, with elaborate constitutions and carefully
regulated religious rituals, were destroyed centuries ago, while in
the same neighborhoods numerous tribes are still living appar-
ently in a state of nature. The words that were spoken at the

THE AMERICANISTS IN CONGRESS. 687

first congress in Nancy — " not systems but facts " — liave become
the programme of the Americanists ; doubly valuable in a time
when the imagination is too ready to fly heedlessly over wide
tracts which disclose their features only to toilsome searchers.
Previous congresses have made numerous and important contri-
butions to the structure which we are raising. From meteorology,
geography, and the descriptive sciences, to comparative philology
and the history of art and religion, the various branches of knowl-
edge have offered their treasures. The circle of studies that help
to the investigation of the New "World is ever widening, and our
extended knowledge of East Asian history and literature is open-
ing to us new means of access to the last of these problems."

Minister Gossler was followed by Signor Guido Cora, who
spoke of the discovery in the Vatican archives of important
original documents of the time of Columbus.

Dr. Reiss, of Berlin, was chosen president of the congress, and
the vice-presidents were Freiherr von Audrian-Werburg, of Vi-
enna ; Cora, of Italy ; Fabi(^, of Spain ; Gaf arel, of France ; Morse,
of the United States ; Netto, of Brazil ; and Schmidt, of Copen-
hagen. At the close of this introductory meeting the president
spoke of the condition of Americanistic research and the part
which different countries had taken in it.

The first of the regular papers was by Signor Cora, and was on
the name of America. The author was not ready to pronounce
decisively upon the origin of the name, for various recent investi-
gations had left it uncertain whether it was derived from some
word of native origin or was imported. Seiior Fabid remarked
that the opinion should not be rejected that the name was derived
from Amerigo Vespucci, for it had been taken from the maps of
that traveler, which were signed with his name.* M. Gaf arel
spoke concerning the American navigation which was carried
on principally by Frenchmen, early in the sixteenth century.
The whale-fishery had brought Basques, Bretons, and Normans
through the northern seas to Canada, as was shown by many
names of points along the coast. In the discussion, M. de la
Espada tried to prove that M. Gafarel had exaggerated the part
which those discoverers, particularly the Basques, had played.
The whale-fishery was not then very extensively prosecuted ; but

* M. Jules Marcou says, in the " Bulletin of the Paris Geographical Society," that " it
is beyond question that one edition of Vespucci's letter on his third voyage has the name
Amerigo in the place of the Christian name ; nineteen editions had Albericus, and subse-
quent Italian editions had Alberico. The one with Amerigo on the title-page was published
in 1506, but M. Marcou suggests that this was never intended to be a variation of Alberico,
but rather the adaptation of Amerrique, a name already known and applied to the New
World, to Vespucci's name to distinguish him, as we say now ' Chinese Gordon,' to distin-
guish the particular Gordon by suggesting one of his greatest feats."

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the presence of the names referred to conld be explained hy
assuming that a few Basques had occasionally reached Canada in
Spanish ships. Senor Fabid announced that the Spanish Govern-
ment was contemplating the full publication, on the approaching
four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America,, of the
manuscripts in its archives by and concerning Columbus.

The antiquities of Mexico and South America were the fore-
most subjects for discussion at the second session. The relics
called agripearls were the occasion of a long debate. They were
formerly regarded as peculiar to the Old World, particularly to
Africa, but they had recently been found in all parts of America.
According to Tischler's researches, the technic of the colored
glass pearls corresponded exactly with that of the Venetian Mille-
fiori glasses, and was so essentially different from that of the an-
cient Roman glasses that they must be ascribed to the beginning
of the Renaissance. M. de la Espada agreed as to the European
origin of the pearls, and that they had been used in America as
ornaments for horses but not for men. Some ancient Mexican
mosaic decorations upon human bones were described by M. An-
dr^e as showing a high development of technic and taste. Only
eighteen pieces of this kind are known, which have been placed
in European collections. Some of them are masks worked out of
real skulls or of wood, and others are figures of animals, etc. The
mosaic is composed of small pieces of turquoise, malachite, or mus-
sel-shell, pressed into a foundation of pitch, and forming a care-
fully elaborated design, or representing in colored shadings the
forms of the human face. The Berlin Museum possesses a skull-
mask of this kind, a head of a puma, and a figure composed of the
fore-parts of two animals.

Prof. Morse presented a paper by Mr. Gushing, on the ob-
ject and methods of the Hemenway Archaeological Expedition
into southwestern Central America. The exhibition arranged by
the Berlin Museum contains the results of the excavations made
by Mrs. Hemenway on the Rio Salado in Arizona. It has been
shown that the desert which now exists in that territory was for-
merly a richly populated and cultivated region. The remains of
seven cities and of extensive canals for conducting the waters of
the Salado and another river over the land have been discovered.
The condition of the ruins indicates that this ancient, pre-Colum-
bian civilization was destroyed by an earthquake, after \,hich the
inhabitants probably emigrated to Mexico.

Senhor Netto, of Brazil, had examined a series of mounds of
elliptical ground-plan, with a head-shaped annex, in which were
found relics of a people who might be distinguished from the
present Indians chiefly by the prominence of female influence
among them. All the vases and urns, some of which were quite

THE AMERICANISTS IN CONGRESS. 689

shapely, were marked by ornaments and designs that were exclu-
sively feminine. Numerous thin sheets of earthenware, shaped
like a spherical triangle, and often carefully ornamented, perfo-
rated at the corners, appear, from the figures on the vases, to have
been worn as " fig-leaf " dresses by the women. The very gen-
eral tattooing of the women's bodies also points to their having
held a high position. Later strata furnished remains of another
race, among which this exalted position of the women was not
apparent.

Prof. Virchow discussed the present condition of knowledge
respecting nephrite and jadeite. Ddsor had assumed, at the Ar-
chseological Congress in Brussels, that all the nephrite was
derived from two stations in central Asia, and all the jadeite
from Burmah. In the mean time, two natural occurrences of
nephrite in serpentine had been observed at Zabt, in Silesia, and
one in Switzerland, besides a locality of jadeite. Further, a block
of nephrite had been found in the Bodensee, which bore plain
marks of pieces having been taken from it. Thus, these stones
had been found, and evidently worked, in Europe. M. Arzruni
had discovered that both species were subject to considerable
variations, and that, therefore, every severed specimen found
should be tested for determining its origin with respect to the
special properties of its material. The specimens sometimes ex-
hibit remarkable relations. Thus, the famous Humboldt axe and
another South American hatchet seem to be identical in sub-
stance with the European mineral, and a hatchet from Venezuela
with one from Hissarlik.

In his remarks upon the anthropological classification of the
native Americans, Prof. Virchow admitted that it would not do
to speak of a primitive race ; yet the ancient skulls are predomi-
nantly of a brachycephalic type. These forms seem to have per-
sisted in the South to the present time, but in the North there
had been a noticeable transition to long and medium forms. Herr
Fritsch suggested an archaeological division on the basis of his
studies of the hair. He distinguished two groups of people, one
with smooth or waving, moderately long, brown hair, like that of
the Polynesians, and the other with coarse, stiff hair, inclining to
deep black, like that of the Mongols. The former group includes
the Central Americans, and, generally, the ancient civilized peo-
ples of South America, and the other the northwestern tribes,
with those of single districts in the South. Even if the suppo-
sition of a Mongolian immigration in prehistoric times is admis-
sible with respect to this latter group, it can not be held, so far
as present researches show, with regard to the ancient civilized
peoples.

Herr Nehring, speaking of the domesticated animals of the

VOL. XXXIV. — 44

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ancient Peruvians, observed that the subject was scientifically
important, because all the other peoples of ancient America were
very poor in this kind of property as compared with the Peru-
vians and Bolivians and some of the Central American peoples ;
and, secondly, because the influence of domestication on the
formation of races could be better followed on these animals than
on those of the Old World. We are concerned in Peru espe-
cially with the dog, llama, alpaca, and guinea-pig. The speaker
had examined eighteen dog-mummies from ancient Peruvian
graves, and had determined that they belonged to three differ-
ent races — a shepherd's dog, a Dachshund, and a bull-dog or pug.
He believed that the "Inca-dog" was derived, not from other
South American CanidcB, but from the Mexican wolf {Lupus occi-
dentalis), perhaps through the feebler Texan variety; and that
several races had been formed from it in Peru through domes-
tication. In this Herr Nehring dissents from and contradicts
Von Tschudi's opinion that the varieties had arisen from cross-
ing with European dogs. As the dog and likewise the llama and
alpaca are undoubtedly of America, so also, in the speaker's
opinion, is the guinea-pig, notwithstanding B. Hensel and other
authors believe that it was introduced from Europe. The fact
that no remains of guinea-pigs of prehistoric age had ever been
found in Europe told against the latter view. A short discus-
sion ensued upon the cropping or amputation of the ears of
ancient American dogs, of which Seler had observed evidences
in Mexican pictures, and Nehring had found that it had been
practiced on Inca-dogs.

Herr Wittmack presented a paper upon the useful plants of
the Peruvians, which was based chiefly upon traces found in their
graves. Their bread -plant was maize, which their sculptured
works and the ornamentation of the pillars of their temples and
palaces show was held in high esteem among them. Three va-
rieties of this plant have been distinguished — Indian corn, the
pointed - grained, and the umbilicated. Besides maize, a kind
of lamb's quarters (the seeds of Chenopodium quinoa) and two
kinds of pulse were utilized, and the speaker inferred that our
bean was derived from America. Small tubers like potatoes, but
which could not be determined, and fruits of the anotto, had been
observed in the graves.

Concerning the inhabitants of Mexico at the time of the con-
quest, Herr Hartmann remarked that the reports of the conqui-
stadores left us in the dark, and we were therefore sent to the
ancient representations. His own researches indicated that Mon-
tezuma's people had the same physical race characteristics as are
exhibited by the present Dakotas, Pawnees, Comanches, etc. The
Araucanians, Patagonians, and Fuegians might likewise be re-

THE AMERICANISTS IN CONGRESS. 691

garded as related to tlie Aztecs ; in fact, lie liad often found among
them tlie peculiar, dreamy, melancholy facial expression which is
ascribed to the ancient Mexicans. In the light of the later re-
searches, Colombia, the country of the Chibchas, the third most
important people in pre-Columbian America, obtains a special
significance, because it was the region which at the time of the
discovery prevented contact between Mexican and Peruvian civili-
zations. The speaker produced linguistic evidence that the Chib-
chas, who were resident in the heart of Colombia, were not an
immemorially isolated people in the sense in which they had
formed one of the puzzles of the New World. They had near
relatives in the people of Costa Rica and northern Colombia.
People of Chibcha and Mexican origin met in Costa Rica.
According to these evidences the dispersion of the Chibcha peo-
ple may be historically conceived by assuming that originally
dwelling near Cundinamarca, they afterward spread out, and
were still later scattered by the influx of wild Brazilian tribes and
driven to the mountains, where they lost their connections. A
paper was also presented by Herr Uhle on the primitive history
and wanderings of the Chibchas.

Other papers were read by Messrs. Borsari, on the construc-
tions of the ancient Peruvians ; Miiller, on the Sambakis of Bra-
zil, a people who had a prehistoric civilization ; Von den Steinen,
on his second journey to the Xingu, in which certain conclusions,
particularly those respecting the relationship of the Tupi and the
Caribs, which he had formed in his former journey, were con-
firmed ; and on the Calendar-stone and various antiquities, statu-
ettes, and potteries of Mexico and Central America. M. Hamy
made some remarks at the close of the meeting on the falsifica-
tion of American antiquities, which had reached a great height,
and exhibited an album containing specimens of the counterfeits.
— Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Humboldt.

The importance of educating youth for the duties of citizenship is made more
obvious at every general election. As indicated by Prof. Woodward, of St. Louis,
some months ago, a course of civics in the public schools should embrace an analy-
sis of our scheme of government, national, State, and municipal, with a general
statement of the functions of each ; the necessary expenses of each of the govern-
ments, with a detail of the institutions that must be supported by taxation ; the
methods in use of levying and collecting taxes ; and the duties of citizenship — such
as the maintenance of individual independence; the contribution of one's share in
taxes to the necessary expenses of government ; participation in all measures
necessary to secure the selection of faithful and competent servants to discharge
the duties of government ; the cultivation of a proper public opinion in favor of
honesty, temperance, and the refinements of civilized life ; and the contribution of
something, small or great, to the common weal, beyond the duties specially named,
whereby the world may be the better for one's having lived in it.

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF PIERRE BELON.

'^XN 1555/' says M. Louis Grid, "Pierre Belon, of Mans, well
-L known by his travels in Italy, Greece, and tlie East, re-
vealed himself as an observer of great sagacity and as a bold
thinker. With him came at once the end of compilation and the
beginning of observation. He added to the common ti-easure of
knowledge more wealth than all his predecessors from antiquity
and all his contemporaries put together/' M. Gustave Tissandier
calls him one of the great savants of the sixteenth century, who,
like his contemporary, Bernard Palissy, would rather study facts
in the book of nature than in men's books — " a conscientious ob-
server, fascinated with the truth, we may consider him one of the
initiators of modern natural history."

Pierre Belon was born at Soulleti^re, near Mans, in 1517, and
died in 1564. His tastes for studies in natural history were devel-
oped at an early age, and were encouraged by his friend Rend de
Bellay, Bishop of Mans, with whose aid he entered upon the study
of medicine at Paris. There he formed a friendship with the poet
Ronsard. Having obtained his doctor's degree, he went, in 1540,
to Wiirtemberg, to attend the lectures of the botanist Valerius
Cordus. In company with his teacher he traveled through Ger-
many and Bohemia. The country was greatly excited over the
controversies of the Reformation ; and at Thionville, on his return
journey home, he was arrested by the Spanish occupants, under
suspicion of being a partisan of the new doctrines. He was
obliged to buy his freedom with funds that were advanced by a
learned gentleman named Dehamme, who was a great admirer of
Ronsard. Returning to Paris, he found generous protectors in
Bishop Duprat of Clermont, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Car-
dinal of Tournon. Tournon provided him with quarters in the
Abbey of Saint-Germaine, and advanced the cost of the voyages
which he desired to make for prosecuting his studies. The words
in which Belon conveyed his request for this aid at once attest
his earnestness in the pursuit of his object, and illustrate the
spirit of a time when the small were free to call upon the great
for help in such matters. " When you know," he said, " the de-
sire that I have to obtain knowledge of the things pertaining to
the material of medicines and plants, which I can not well acquire
except by a long pilgrimage, you will be pleased to command me
to go and seek them in distant regions, in the places of their
origin."

Belon left France at the beginning of 1546, and was gone be-
tween three and four years. He went to Crete and Constan-

SKETCH OF PIERRE BEL ON. 693

tinople ; then visited Lemnos, Mount Athos, Tlirace, and the
Grecian islands ; thence went to Egypt, where he made observa-
tions that have become famous at Alexandria and Cairo ; traveled
through Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople ; and
returned to France, by way of Rome, during the year 1549. To his
friend Ronsard this journey had all the adventure and impor-
tance of a general exploration of the globe, and he celebrated it
appropriately in verse, glorifying Belon as if he had been one of
the greatest of navigators.

The accounts of his observations during this great tour were
published in the remarkable book known as " The Singularities,"
the full title of which is, " Les observations de plusieurs singu-
laritds et choses mdmorables trouvdes en Gr^ce, Asie, Judde,
Egypte, Arable, etc., et autres pays estranges " (" Observations of
many Singularities and Memorable Things found in Greece, Asia,
Judea, Egypt, Arabia, and other Foreign Countries"), Paris, 1553.
It was illustrated with numerous figures of animals and birds,
etc., engraved on wood. This book abounds in novel observations
on the natural history and geography of the countries visited,
with descriptions of their monuments or ruins, and of the man-
ners and customs of their people. One of the most interesting
parts of it, according to M. Louis Crit^,* is the story of his travels
in Egypt, in which " we read with pleasure the pages which he
has devoted to the geograjjhy, ethnography, medicine, the fauna
and flora of that strange country. Very curious details are found
in his book respecting Alexandria, the manners of the Alexan-
drians, the city of Rosetta, the fishes of the Nile, the houses and
gardens of Cairo, the pyramids, " the mummy," the plants that
grow around Suez, etc. The same work contains a plan of the city
of Alexandria and views of the island of Lemnos, Mount Athos,
and Mount Sinai. Although the geometry of these cuts is ele-
mentary, they give evidence of careful observation. Belon drew
after nature, and for the first time, such animals as the ichneumon,
the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the chameleon, the hawk, the
black ibis, and several fishes. His 'Singularities,' replete with
local originalities, is remarkable for the amplitude of the informa-
tion it affords. We notice in it rigorous good faith attentive to
the discovery of the significance of facts without dissimulating in
anything." A queer description is given of the giraffe, " whose
fore-feet, when it runs, go together. It lies with its belly against
the ground, and has callosities on the chest and thighs like the
camel. It can not feed on the ground standing without spreading
its fore-legs away out, and that is very hard. Hence it is easy to
believe that it does not live in the fields, but upon the branches of
trees, having a neck so long that it can extend its head to the

* " Les Voyages de Pierre Belon." *' Revue scientifique," 18S3, No. 7.

694

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

heigM of a short pike. And having drawn it from nature, we
here present its portrait."

In 1556, King Henri II granted Belon, in recognition of his
work, a pension, which appears to have never been anything
but honorary. He was also given a residence in the Chateau de

Madrid, in the Bois de Bou-
logne, where, during the re-
maining years of his life, he
studied natural science and
wrote his celebrated books.
One evening in 1564, as he was
crossing the Bois, on the way
to visit his friend Jacques du
Breuil, he was attacked, by
highwaymen, it is supposed,
and killed, in the forty-eighth
year of his age.

The " Natural History of
Fishes " * marks Belon, accord-
ing to M. Grid, as the found-
er of modern ichthyology.
" While rectifying and enlarg-
ing what Aristotle had said,
the Mansian naturalist gave a
positive basis to icthyology by
descriptions and figures of a
considerable number of species.
In the ' Aquatilibus ' are de-
scribed a hundred and ten
fishes, of which twenty -two
are cartilaginous, seventeen fresh-water, and the rest sea fishes.
. . . The figures representing them are easily recognizable, not-
withstanding the simplicity of the style of the wood-engravings.

" His philosophical mind had a very correct appreciation of
the genera. His groupings were made with a surprisingly just
instinct. To an indefatigable activity he joined vast erudition.
He brought to the front the study of nature and of the books
that treat of it. . . . The feature that especially prepared new
bases for the science of fishes was his observations on the tho-
racic and abdominal splanchnology of those animals. He gives
with infinite sagacity correct details respecting the liver, its
shape, and the number of its lobes ; the spleen, its position, vol-

* " Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, avec le vraie pcinturc et descrip-
tion du dauphin et de plusieurs autres de son espfece," 1551, with woodcuts ; '' Nature et
diversite des poissons, avec leurs portraicts," 1553; " Dc aquatilibus libri duo, cum iconi-
bus ad vivam ipsorum effigiem quoad fieri potuit," 1553.

-Portrait op the Giraffe (after Pierre
Belon).

SKETCH OF PIERRE BEL ON.

695

nine, and size ; the gall ; the intestine, its direction and disposi-
tion ; and the pyloric appendages, which he called apophyses
ccBCOs. Long before the fine researches of Cuvier, Mierendorff,
Valenciennes, and Dnvernay, Belon first studied the conforma-
tion of the liver in more than thirty species of fishes." We copy
from this book a curious picture of a hippopotamus of the Nile
devouring a crocodile (Fig. 2). The germ of embryology appears

Fig. 2.— The Hippopotamus op the Nile (after Pierre Belon).

in a most remarkable manner in a representation, in the first of
the books named in our note, of the matrix and embryo of the
porpoise. These works, in which the genius of Belon showed
itself to be of a superior order, were followed by the book on the
" Nature of Birds," * which is described by M. Grid as an " imper-
ishable work, a fruitful source of instruction to the philosopher
and the naturalist." It was the crowning work of Belon's life, and
marks an era in the history of science, for in it was developed and
illustrated the idea of a uniform plan of structure among animals.
Belon had already in his " Fishes " and his descriptions of plants
definitely applied the distinctions of genera and species, and had
invented the binary nomenclature to take the place of the long-
drawn and often not satisfactory descriptions with which previous
authors had tried to mark these differences. More than one hun-
dred and eighty years before Linnaeus he had brought similar
plants into single groups, to which he applied common or generic
names — as Fagi, JJlmi, Fraxini, Aceres, Corni, etc. — and had then
substituted for the usual descriptive phrase a specific name, some-
times an adjective relating to an external quality, as Smilax aspera,
Smilax Icevis, Papaver corniculatum ; sometimes one of the com-
mon names of the period or of a celebrated person.

At the very beginning of his book on " Birds," Belon placed a
representation of the skeleton of a bird face to face with a human
skeleton, and marked by a common lettering the features and
parts common to both. By this, creating the comparative method,

* " Histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions et naifs pourtraicts reti-
rez du naturel, escripte en sept livres," 1555.

696

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lie opened a new pathway in science. Tlie thought of unity thus
presented for the first time by Belon is the same that was de-
clared two hundred and fifty years afterward by Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire. Belon's division of birds — into the FissiiJedes and the

Fig. 3.— Skeletons op a Bird and op Man.
AB. Birds have no teeth, but a cutting beak, strong or weak, hxrge or small, according to the matter
they have to pick to pieces and on which they live. M. Two long and narrow scapulae, one on
each side. (E. Bone called the merry-thonght. or breast-bone, found in no animal except the bird.
D. Six ribs, attached to the chest of the stomach in front, and behind to the six vertebrse of the
back. F. The two bones of the hips are long, for there are no vertebrae below the ribs. G. Six
bones of the ramp. H. The round bone of the knee. I. The sutures of the skull do not show
unless it is boiled. K. Twelve vertebroe of the neck, and six of the back. L. The two key-
bones. N. The bones of the arms or shoulders. O. The chest of the breast. P. The little bone
of the elbow. Q. The large bone of the elbow. K. The bone of the wrist, called carpus. S. The
knots and articulations, called condili. T. The pinion, called appendix, which is related to the
wing as the thumb to the band. T. The bone after the wrist called metacarpium. U. The extrem-
ity of the wintr, which is like our fingers. V. A number of bones at the end of the wing, two of
which have the form of netting-needles (or shuttles); one larger and the other smaller, which is
proportioned in the bird as in us the hollow of the hand, which is called in Greek Thenar, and in
Latin Palma. X. The large bone of the thighs, one on each side. Y. The large bone of the leg.
Z. The small bone of the leg. &. The bone given for the leg to birds, corresponding with our
heel. AA. Just as we have four {qvatre) toes on the feet, so have birds four (gvat)'e) fingers, the
hinder one of which is given in proportion as the big toe with us. BB. Four articulations in the
outer finger. CC. Three articulations in this finger. DD. Two articulations in this finger, aa
also in the hinder one.

SKETCH OF PIERRE BEL ON.

^97

Palmipedes — is precisely tliat of Cuvier which is taught in ele-
mentary books. Other correspondences of classification with the
classifications of Linnaeus and Cuvier will be found in the follow-
ing: table :

Belon's classification.

Classification of Linneeus.

Cuvier's classification.

Day and night birds of prey.

Birds having flat feet and swimming on

the water.

Birds having flat feet, etc.

Birds that build their nests on the ground.

Birds that are found everywhere.

Birds that haunt hedges, sticks, thickets,

thorns, and briers.

Accipitres.
Anseres.

Scolopeces, or Grallae.

Gallinse.

Gallinae Passeres.

Passeres.

Birds of prey.
Palmipedes.

Waders.

Gallinaceae.

GallinaceaB Passeres.

Passeres.

The main classification of birds has thus not been materially
changed since 1555. The portrait of a wren is a sxDecimen of the
ordinary illustrations in " The Birds" (Fig. 4).

Belon composed a treatise on agriculture,* in which was in-
cluded a list of exotic plants which it would be desirable to accli-
mate in France, and suggested the
foundation of an establishment
for that purpose. Something of
the kind was carried out under
Belon's direction by Rend de Bel-
lay on his estate of Touvoy, near
Mans.

Besides the works already de-
scribed, Belon published a history
of conifers f and a treatise on the
funeral monuments and sepultur-
al usages of the ancients and the
substances used by them for the
preservation of bodies. J Accord-
ing to Renouard, he translated the treatise of Dioscorides into
French. He also made a version of Theophrastus's " History of
Plants," which has been lost. The magnitude of his works indi-
cates that he had an enormous capacity for labor. His writings
on anatomy, botany, agriculture, and medicine, as measured by
M. Grid, display a rare critical faculty, and nearly all his observa-
tions overreach the horizon of his epoch.

A statue of the great naturalist was unveiled at Mans on the
9th of October, 1887, with an address by M. Grid. The portrait
we publish is a copy of the engraving that was prefixed to the
" Singularities," and represents Belon in his doctor's cap.

* " Les remonstrances sur le defaut du labour et culture des plantes, et de la connois-
sance d'icelles, contenant la mani^re d'affranchir et apprivisoir les arbrcs sauvages," 1558.

•j- " De arboribus coniferis, resiniferis, aliisque nonnuUis sempiterni f ronde virentibus,"
1553. \ "De admirabili operum antiquorum prsestantia," 1553,

Fig. 4.— The Wren (after Pierre Belon).

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE

THE GREAT SOUTHERN TORTOISE
AGAIN.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

MY object in writing to you on Novem-
ber 1, 1888, was, as I then stated, to
call the attention of Prof. Shaler to the er-
ror into which he had fallen in attributing
to the gophei- (a tortoise) the habits of the
salamander (Geomys pinetis), a small rodent.
I did not expect my remarks to be pub-
lished by you, but I did expect Prof. Sha-
ler, as of his own motion, to make through
your pages some explanation or acknowl-
edgment of his blunder ; and had you been
content to simply print my note in your
January number, I should not now feel called
upon to make further reference to the sub-
ject. The only inference to be drawn from
your editorial comments upon my note is
that you have not read Prof. Shalcr's article
on the " Habits of the Great Southern Tor-
toise," which appears in your journal for Xo-
vember, 1888, and to which my note refers !
The question is not, as you appear to sup-
pose, which animal, the gopher or the sala-
mander, produces the greater effect upon the
soil of Florida. What I wish to point out is
the fact that a reputed scientist has pub-
lished in a scientific journal an article which
ascribes to one animal habits which are im-
possible to it and which belong to a totally
different animal. He then proceeds to specu-
late, from these false premises, as to " the
limits of evolution under the influence of
natural selection"; and, naturally enough,
in his efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable,
finds himself reduced to the necessity of

"begging the question." He would have
saved himself all this trouble and perplexity
if, in describing the habits of the animal, he
had written salamander wherever the word
gopher now appears in his paper.

Very respectfully, C. C. Byrne,

Surgeon United States Army.
Wasuington, D. C, January 4, 1889.

THE WATS OF BEES.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Sir : I see that you too have copied that
"bees and pigeon race hoax," in your notes
on page 287 of the December number, when
" twelve bees, having been rolled in flour to
mark them, and twelve pigeons belonging to
a fancier in the village, were let loose about
a league away. The first bee reached home
a quarter of a minute before the first pigeon,
and the rest of both squads arrived at the
same instant, a few moments afterward."
This is a canard. Take bees three miles
from home and liberate them, and they will
rise and circle roimd. the place where they
find themselves till they mark the location ;
then they will fly away in search of food, and,
when they are loaded, will return to the spot
they left, not to their old home, three miles
or so away. Respectfully yours,

Mahala B. Chaddock.
Vermont, III., January 10, 1889.

[The item in question was translated
from "La Nature," of September 8, 1888;
a journal that is not usually careless in sci-
entific matters. — Ed.]

EDITOR'S TABLE.

WHAT MAKES SUCCESS IN LIFE.

"YTTHEN the storm of the French
VV Revolution was over, the Abbe
Sieyes, who had taken a prominent part
in it at the outset, was asked, somewhat
in derision, what he had done in that
critical time. " J''ai cecM," was his re-
ply : " I lived through it." This, indeed,
was no mean success for any actor in
that bloody drama; and the philosoph-
ical abb6 might well take a little pride
in the adroitness that had enabled him
to keep his head on his shoulders. Tak-
ing a broad view of the matter, survival

is the best test of success; but then sur-
vival may either be of the whole or of
a part only, of much or of little. The
man may survive as a living organism —
a zoological specimen — but character
may be gone, or hope, or health, or
happiness. The truly successful are they
who carry with them to the end that
which makes life worth living, who re-
tain the sense of a purpose and meaning
in life, and who do not, like James Mill,
father of John Stuart Mill, feel that, when
the freshness of youth is past, human
existence is a somewhat dreary thing.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

699

To the Tnultitude perhaps success in life
is gauged by a money scale : to be rich
is to be successful, to be poor is to be
unsuccessful; but this is far from being
a desirable standard to erect. But few-
can reap success according to this idea ;
and the rest must reap failure and dis-
contentment, A truer and better con-
ception is that the man who develops
his faculties and cultivates his disposi-
tions aright, who, amid the warfare and
vicissitudes of life, keeps his judgment
sound, his aims sincere, his temper sweet,
his domestic and social relations duly
adjusted, and who thus in a true sense
Ums through his whole career, is the
type of a successful man. The Roman
poet Horace, whose good sense strikes
us at every turn, must have had this
idea to some extent; since the thought
with which he feels he could satisfy him-
self were his existence to be suddenly
brought to a term is that expressed in
the word " Vixi," the exact equivalent
of the Ablie Sieyes's "J'ai vecu," "/
ham linedy

The education, then, that we want is
an education for life; we want to be
taught how to live, how to make the
best of ourselves, of our circumstances,
of our relations, of our environment
generally. Is this the type of education
prevalent in the present day? We fear
not. The dominant idea in most — we
might almost say in all — of our schools
is that of a purely selfish success, which
means, if realized, a quite incomplete
success, one that leaves the general life
of the man or woman essentially unblest.
What our young people need above all
things to be taught is to know them-
selves and their surroundings, and to
understand the true objects of life. They
want an education dominated by com-
mon sense and right motive ; and the
few who get such an education are not
likely to fail of success in any sense. It
is a great thing to be taught the simple
habit of verification : one who has this
will score many a point even in the
competition of the market-place. It is

a great thing to be taught, with convic-
tion, that a well-regulated life is always
worth living, and that this world is
worth doing justice to. Many are
stranded in mid-life simply because they
have not taken things seriously enough,
because they have trusted to chance
rather than to doing with their might
what their hands found to do. No time
is unsuitable for overhauling one's
scheme of life, and trying to find out
its weak places if it has any; but per-
haps the beginning of a new year offers
the greatest advantages for such a re-
view. All should aim at a true success
in life ; and a true success is within the
reach of all, if prudence but take the
helm.

COMPETITION^.

The article by Mr. George lies,
which we publish in our present num-
ber, draws attention to the economic
waste resulting from unrestricted com-
petition, and suggests the action which
the State may hereafter be compelled
to take, in the public interest, to check
the undue greed of individuals and cor-
porations. Competition, as it seems to
us, is not a thing which there is any
use in opposing or condemning. It is
simply, in the last resort, individual
self-assertion ; and as long as there are
individuals they will assert themselves.
Sometimes it occurs to a number of in-
dividuals that they can assert them-
selves— i. e., promote their own inter-
ests^more effectually by uniting their
means and their efforts than by acting
in complete independence of one an-
other: then we have combination or
co-operation ; but the consolidated body
stin has its own competitors and its
own battles to fight. From this we
gather that there are certain unneces-
sary forms or modes of competition,
and that experience points out, from
time to time, what these are ; but that
competition, in the broad sense, is as
lasting as human nature. Now, if we
differ at all from our respected con-

700

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tributor, it is -where he suggests gov-
ernmental interference to check certain
apparently unhappy results of private
enterprise. We do not see how the
Government is going to help us in the
least; and, as it happens, the inter-
ference that our contributor invokes is
actually for the purposes of restoring
competition in cases where he supposes
it to have been arbitrarily arrested. He
thinks that all trusts whose object is
eimply to raise prices by restricting
competition should come under a legis-
lative or judicial ban. To us the idea
of forcing people to compete by legisla-
tive authority, whether they wish to do
so or not, is a trifle extravagant. To
our apprehension the best thing the
State can do is to let the whole busi-
ness alone, and leave individuals to find
out for themselves under what circum-
stances competition is the only possible
regime^ and under what circumstances
co-operation will serve a better purpose.
It is not in the least likely that man-
kind at large is going to pay tribute to
any serious extent to great corporations.
Even an increase in prices is not a sure
sign that the public is suflTering, since
the consolidation that has rendered the
increase possible may have liberated a
vast amount of capital and thrown it
into more productive channels. Ex-
tremely low prices are too often the
concomitant of business disorganization
and the destruction of capital. The
regime of freedom is the one that will
suit us best. Give us freedom, and we
can take care even of the trusts. A
community that has been taught to de-
pend on private initiative, and where
legal privilege is unknown, has nothing
to fear from any quarter.

The article by Mr. J. M. Arms,
on " Natural Science in Elementary
Schools," in this number of the " Month-
ly," contains a notably clear and vigorous
statement of the worth of real science-
lessons to young pupils, together with

some practical aid for teachers in giving
such lessons, and a sketch of the growth
of the sentiment in favor of science-
teaching. This growth was undoubt-
edly aided by the attitude on the matter
taken by the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, which, at
its meeting in 1879, appointed a com-
mittee, of which the former editor of
this magazine was chairman, to con-
sider the subject of "Science-Teaching
in the Public Schools."

The report of this committee was
presented to the Association at the Bos-
ton meeting in the following year. It
was drawn up by the chairman, and
takes the ground that the quality of the
science -teaching, where there was any
in the public schools at that time, was
generally so unsatisfactory that it ought
to be entirely recast before any exten-
sion of it would be desirable. A point
to which Prof. Youmans called special
attention is, that science was being
taught by the old methods devised for
other subjects, which were entirely un-
suitable for the new study. In the
words of the report, "Through books
and teachers the pupil is filled up with
information with regard to science. Its
facts and principles are explained as far
as possible, and then left in the memory
with his other school acquisitions. He
learns the sciences much as he learns
geography and history. Only in a few
exceptional schools is he put to any
direct mental work upon the subject-
matter of science, or taught to think
for himself." The deceptive quality of
oral lessons, alluded to by Mr. Arms, is
thus pointed out in this report : " Instruc-
tion in elementary science is now," when
the pupil enters the grammar school, " to
be carried on by what is known as oral
teaching. This method, as extensively
practiced in the grammar grades of the
public schools, is everywhere growing
in favor, and we are once more told
that it is a successful revolt against
book-studies. It is chiefly applicable to
the sciences, and its cardinal idea is in-

LITERARY NOTICES.

701

strnction withont a test -book. This
looks fair, but it is deUisive. The method
does not remove the book that the pupil
may come at the phenomena, but it re-
moves the book that the teacher may
take its place. Oral teaching is class
instruction, in which information is im-
parted in a familiar manner, with the
view of awakening the interest of the
class. But, so far as real science is con-
cerned, it is doubtful if this method is
not worse than the one it replaces. , . .
The value of educational systems con-
sists simply in what they do to incite
the pupil to help himself. Mechanical
school- work can give instruction, but it
can not develop faculty, because this
depends upon self-exertion. Science, if
rightly pursued, is the most valuable
school of self-instruction. From the be-
ginning, men of science have been self-
dependent and self-reliant because self-
taught ; and it is a question whether
they have been most hindered or helped
by the schools."

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies. By
Walter Besant. New York: Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp. 384. Price, $2.
The name of the subject of this book
may not be familiar to all the readers of the
" Monthly." An insight of the quality of
the man may, however, be given by the fact
that Mr. Besant started to write his life with-
out ever having seen him, and ended by call-
ing the biography a eulogy. Mr. JefPeries
was born in 1848, and died in 1886, only
thirty-eight years old, and in only ten of
those years did he do work suitable to his
powers and fitted to bring him recognition ;
but the work of those ten years has given
hira a place among students of Nature and
masters of English writing alongside of Gil-
bert White and Thoreau. We doubt if he
has ever had a rival as an accurate describer
of Nature in her various aspects and minute
details, who could at the same time com-
mand the sympathies of the reader in what
almost runs into " cataloguing." His early
surroundings and training were most favor-
able to the cultivation of those habits of

close observation which he brought into play
in his later writings, and it was his misfor-
tune that he spent so many of his few years
in vain efforts to do what he was not fitted
for. Mr. Jefferies was born, being de-
scended from a long line of independent
farmers, at the farm-house of Coate, near
Swindon, in Wiltshire, in a country of downs
and abounding in ancient monuments. Of
the territory around the old house he knew
" every inch of ground, every tree, every
hedge," and the land of it which lies within
a circle of ten miles radius " belongs to his
writings," The family " seem to have inher-
ited, from father to son, a love of solitude and
a habit of thinking for themselves." Rich-
ard's father, who is drawn in his books as
Farmer Iden, and a man of this sort, " took
him into the fields and turned over page
after page with him of the book of Nature,
expounding, teaching, showing him how to
use his eyes, and continually reading to him
out of that gi'eat book." He early showed
an inclination to literature, and the position
as reporter on two or three of the local
newspapers enabled him to make a kind of
a living while he tried to write novels, work
for which he had none of the essential quali-
fications. The account of his life for sev-
eral years is a record of ambitious attempts,
high hopes, and bitter disappointments, as
story after story was submitted to publish-
ers and refused. His first success came in
1872. The relations of the farmer with the
agricultural laborer had become a living
question, and Jefferies, feeling that he knew
all about the subject, wrote a long letter
upon it, which was published in the " Times,"
with an accompanying " leader," and was an-
swered and commented upon in other jour-
nals. In the next year he published an arti-
cle in " Eraser's Magazine " on " The Future
of the Farmer," and that attracted attention.
It was followed by two other papers of simi-
lar character; and in 1S76, Jefferies, having
discovered his true field, began that series of
papers which, afterward published in books,
bid fair to give him a permanent place
among the most famous descriptive writers
of rural nature and of animal and plant life.
The first book, " The Gamekeeper at Home,"
secured him recognition at once, and brought
proposals from publishers. Among others,
Mr. Longmans invited him to write a book

702

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on " Shooting." He could not do it, because
he could not work up ideas that were not of
his own originating ; but the thought was the
seed of "The Badminton Library." The
character of his later books is correctly
described by Mr. Besant when he says that
in them " the whole of the country life of
the nineteenth century will be found dis-
played down to every detail. The life of the
farmer is there ; the life of the laborer ; the
life of the gamekeeper; the life of the
women who work in the fields and of those
who work at home. He revealed Nature in
her works and ways ; the flowers and the
fields ; the wild English creatures ; the hedges
and the streams; the wood and the coppice.
He told what may be seen .everywhere by
those who have eyes to see," and he began
" to write down the response of the soul to
the phenomena of Nature, to interpret the
voice of Nature speaking to the soul. ... He
draws as no other writer has done the actual
life of rural England under Queen Victoria."
The secret of the perfect execution of these
works is found in examining the note-books
which he habitually kept, recording daily ob-
servations and phenomena, a few specimens
of which are printed, and the reading of
which " is like reading an unclassified index
to the works of Nature." Jefferies was dis-
abled by illness during the last five years
and a half of his life, and had to work by
the hands of others. Yet some of his best
essays were produced during this time.
Among them were " The Red Deer," a mi-
nute account of the natural history, etc., of
these animals, to observe which he had gone
all over Exmoor on foot ; and the essay en-
titled " The Pageant of Summer," in which
he reached his highest point, but which
"was written while he was in deadly pain
and torture." He died poor, and a sub-
scription was taken among the admirers of
his writings to place his family in a com-
fortable position.

BURIAI-MODNDS OF THE NORTHERN SECTIONS

OF THF, United States. By Cyrus Thom-
as, Ph. D. Washington : Bureau of Eth-
nology. Pp. 119.

This monograph is an advance extract
from the fifth annual report of the Bureau of
Ethnology. It deals with the burial-mounds
of the Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Appa-
lachian districts, which areas are regarded

as having been occupied by different tribes.
The effigy-mounds form the distinguishing
feature of the Wisconsin district. The
works of the Illinois region are mostly
small conical tumuli, containing rude stone
or wooden vaults, and further characterized
by the scarcity of pottery vessels, the fre-
quent occurrence of pipes, the presence of
copper axes, etc. Among the peculiar feat-
ures of the works in the Ohio district are
the gi-eat circles and squares of the inclos-
ures, the long parallel earthen walls, the
so-called altars within the mounds, and the
numerous carved stone pipes. The mounds
of the Appalachian district resemble those
of the last-named area, in containing altar-
like structures and numerous stone pipes.
The peculiar features are the mode of burial,
the absence of pottery, and the numerous pol-
ished celts and engraved shells found in the
mounds. The other regions mentioned but
not treated in this monograph are the New
York, middle Mississippi, lower Mississippi,
and Gulf districts. This districting, how-
ever, is put forward as a working hypothesis
rather than as an established arrangement.
Prof. Thomas gives brief descriptions of the
leading types found in the different northern
districts mentioned, confining himself chiefly
to the explorations made by the bureau as-
sistants. These accounts are illustrated with
forty-nine cuts and six plates. He concludes,
from the results of these explorations, that
each of the tribes inhabiting one of these
northern districts had several modes of bu-
rial, differing with the social position of the
deceased ; that the custom of removing the
flesh before the final burial was quite gen-
eral, the bones of the common people being
often gathered into heaps over which mounds
were built ; that usually some religious cere-
mony in which fire played a part was per-
formed at the burial, but that there is no
evidence of human sacrifice ; that nothing
in the character or contents of the mounds
indicates that their builders had reached a
higher culture status than thai in which
some of the Indian tribes were found at the
coming of the Europeans ; that the begin-
ning of the mound-building age does not
antedate the fifth or sixth century ; and that
the custom of erecting mounds over the
dead continued in some localities into post-
Columbian times.

LITERARY NOTICES.

703

An Introduction to Entomology. By John
Henry Comstock. With many Original
Illustrations, drawn and engraved by An-
na BoTSFORD Comstock. Part I. Ithaca,
N. Y. : The Author. Price, $2.
Prof. Comstock designs that this work
shall enable students to acquire a thorough
knowledge of the elementary principles of
entomology, and to classify insects by means
of analytical keys similar to those used in
botany. As the completion of the work has
been delayed by other duties, the author has
thought best to issue this part by itself.
The first three chapters are of an introduc-
tory character. In Chapter I the general
characters and metamorphoses of insects,
which term the author restricts to the Hexa-
poda, are stated ; Chapter II is a description
of the anatomy of insects, fully illustrated ;
and Chapter III is devoted to the classifica-
tion of the Hexapoda, The remaining chap-
ters consist of descriptions of the more com-
mon or conspicuous species in each family,
together with keys by means of which the
student can readily determine to what family
any insect of which he has a specimen be-
longs. In many cases tables of genera are
also given. Much space has been devoted to
accounts of the habits and transformations
of the forms described. The needs of agri-
cultural students especially having been kept
in view, those species that are of economic
importance have been described with consid-
erable fullness. The rest of the work will
be published as soon as practicable. In ad-
dition to the systematic part, in which four
more orders — Lepidoptera, Diptera, Coleop-
tera, and Hymenoptera — remain to be de-
scribed, there are to be chapters on the
means of destroying insects or of preventing
their ravages, on the collection and preserva-
tion of entomological specimens, on entomo-
logical supplies, a classified list of entomo-
logical works, a glossary, and an introductory
chapter. This part comes in paper covers.
It is well printed, and is abundantly illus-
trated.

Gleanings in Science : A Series of Popular
Lectures on Scientific Subjects. By Ger-
ald MoLLOY, D. D., D. Sc. London and
New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 352.
Price, $2.25.

With one exception, the lectures which
make up this attractive volume were deliv-
ered before the Royal Dublin Society. In

preparing them for publication the author
has used whatever materials have come into
existence since the lectures were delivered,
so as to present the latest available infor-
mation in each case. The subjects treated
are included in the sciences of heat and elec-
tricity, except the Alpine glaciers, which are
described in a lecture delivered to a young
men's society. There are two lectures on
the modern theory of heat as illustrated by
the phenomena of latent heat, one of these
dealing with the latent heat of liquids, the
other with the latent heat of vapors. Light-
ning and thunder are treated in one lecture,
lightning-conductors in another, and the
storing of electrical energy in a third, while
the recent controversy in England on light-
ning-conductors is sketched in an appendix.
The electric light is the subject of two lect-
ures ; one telling how the electric current is
produced, the other how the current is made
to yield the light. Two lectures also are de-
voted to the sun as a store-house of energy :
one describing the immensity of the sun'a
energy, the other discussing the theories as
to its source. The treatments are thoroughly
popular, avoiding mathematics and technical
language, and, besides setting forth the pres-
ent state of the science in each case, touch
upon the history of the subjects and the
practical applications of the principles stated.
Descriptions of experiments are introduced,
which the reader is helped to realize by
many excellent illustrations. The lecture
on " The Glaciers of the Alps " is especially
fascinating, and owes part of its interest to
the quotations and cuts borrowed from Mr.
Whymper's " Scrambles among the Alps."
The whole volume, in manner as well as in
matter, reminds one of Tyndall's popular
works, and will be found very attractive
reading for any one who has an intelligent
interest in science.

The Civilization of Sweden in Heathen

Times. By Oscar Montelius, Ph. D.

Translated by Rev. F. II. Woods, B. D.

London and New York : Macmillan & Co.

Pp. 214. Price, $4.

As in most countries, the archaeological
chronology of Sweden embraces a stone, a
bronze, and an iron age. The stone age is
regarded as extending to about 1500 b. c.
In his chapter on this period the author de-
scribes a considerable variety of tools and

704

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

weapons of stone which have been dug up
in Sweden, and tells how archceologists have
proved that such articles could be made with-
out the use of metals. He sets forth also
what information these relics afford as to
the customs and habits of the people who
made them. The graves belonging to the
same period are also described. It appears
that the Swedish common people of later
times, finding these stone implements, called
them " Thor's bolts," and regarded them as
a sovereign protection against lightning-
strokes and other disasters. " Even at the
present day it is often impossible to induce
people to sell antiquities of stone, because
they believe that by so doing they lose a
protective amulet." The articles which
characterize the bronze age, extending from
about 1500 to 500 b. c, were nearly all
formed by casting ; it is only toward the
close of this period that traces of the use
of the hammer in working the metal are
found. While some effort toward ornamen-
tation appears in the relics of the stone age,
much more scope was given to this taste
when metal came into use. The works of
the earlier part of the bronze age are deco-
rated with fine spirals and zigzag lines ; those
of the later part of this period do not display
spirals of the same shape, but the ends of
rings, knife-handles, etc., are often rolled up
in spiral volutes. Prof. Montelius, in another
work, has distinguished six subdivisions of
the bronze age, but does not take space
here to state the data on which they are
based. Articles of horn, bone, wood, and
leather, belonging to this period have been
found, and even woolen clothing which had
been buried in oak-tree coffins. The iron
age is reckoned from 500 b. c. to near 1100
A. D., and is treated in four subdivisions.
The author is convinced that the arts of
working both iron and bronze were learned
by the inhabitants of Sweden by intercourse
with other nations, and not brought into the
country by any immigration of a new people.
The relics of this age which have been found
are of great variety, and many of them bear
decorative figures much more elaborate than
those on the bronze implements, and in-
clude some very pleasing designs, while in-
laying and plating with silver and gold were
also practiced. A large number of stones
bearing inscriptions in Runic letters date

from this period. A map and two hundred
and five cuts illustrate the text. Both this
work and Dr. MoUoy's " Gleanings in Sci-
ence " would be more valuable to students
if they were provided with indexes.

The Home-Maker. A Monthly Magazine.
Edited by Marion Harland. Vol. I, No.
1. October, 1888. New York : The Home
Maker Company. Price, 20 cents a num-
ber ; $2 a year.

"The Home-Maker" has an honorable
and important field, A moment's reflection
will call to mind a host of ways in which the
character of the home acts upon the comfort,
habits, health, dispositions, manners, mor-
als, and culture of the inmates — directly by
its effect upon them while at home, and
perhaps indirectly by driving them to seek
pleasure away from home. Much can be
done to improve the character of the home
by the teachings of a good magazine. A
home modeled after the pattern of "The
Home-Maker " would be a nice, comfortable,
pretty, refined place, with much leisure and
little care. Such a place would insure the
wife and mother being always happy ; would
give the children soft and pleasant surround-
ings to grow up in, and would offer to the
husband the most complete contrast to the
hard, anxious struggle of his daily business.
This magazine is adapted especially to ladies
in comfortable circumstances who wish to
know how to beautify their homes, and how
to free housekeeping of its inconveniences.
Nearly all the articles are adapted for their
guidance or entertainment. But not all.
The editor says that the masculine element
is essential to the right composition of a
home, and, beginning in the second num-
ber, this element is represented by a series
of " Talks about Photography," by Mr. Alex-
ander Black. The contents of the first num-
ber comprise editorials, an illustrated de-
scription of " Some Old Virginia Home-
steads," two stories, a charade, some poet-
ry, practical articles on "Birds and their
Care" and "Cheap Living in Cities," and
departments of house -work, fancy-work,
games, the nursery, the care of the aged,
household health, fashions, window-garden-
ing, and book notices. The third issue is
a Christmas number, and its contents are
adapted to the season. Christine Terhune
Herrick and Grace Peckham, M. D., are as-

LITERARY NOTICES.

705

sociate editors, and among the other writers
are Olive Thome Miller, Catherine Owen,
Lucy C. Lillie, Margaret E. Sangster, and
Rose Terry Cooke. The paper and printing
of the magazine are of excellent quality,
and the illustrations are numerous and have
a very pleasing effect.

Garden and Forest : a Journal of Horti-
culture, Landscape Art, and Forestry.
Conducted by Prof. Charles S. Sargent.
Published weekly. New York : The Gar-
den and Forest Publishing Company.
Price, 10 cents a number; $4 a year.
With its last number for 1888, "Gar-
den and Forest" closes its first volume,
which began with the issue for February
29th. This journal, at its first appearance,
took rank as a thoroughly competent and pro-
gressive representative of the arts to which
it is devoted, and this character has been
ably maintained. A glance at the index of
Volume I shows that an immense variety of
plants has been described, and a large num-
ber of other subjects has been treated in the
forty-four numbers that have already ap-
peared. " Garden and Forest " is not a flo-
rists' and nurserymen's trade-journal, but,
while giving the dealers in flowers and trees,
and also the fruit-growers, much scientific
information of value to them, it has an in-
terest also for the botanist, and for hira who
has the arrangement of public or private
grounds. The departments represented in
each issue are : editorials, English corre-
spondence, new or little-known plants (illus-
trated), cultural department, the forest, cor-
respondence, recent publications, and notes.
Other subjects which have been given a place
from time to time are : horticultural exhibi-
tions and conventions, entomology, and the
management of public parks. Each num-
ber contains three or four illustrations, one
being always a portrait of some unfamiliar
but valuable plant. Among the writers for
this journal besides the editor, who is Di-
rector of the Arnold Arboretum and Pro-
fessor of Arboriculture in Harvard College,
are W. G. Farlow, Sereno Watson, B. E.
Fernow, C. G. Pringle, C. C. Abbott, and
William Falconer in this country, and W.
Watson, George Nicholson, and W. Goldring
in England. It is seldom that a periodical
appears which is so well deserving of a long
and prosperous life as " Garden and Forest."
VOL. XXXIV.— 45

The most extended paper in No. 2, Vol.
II, of the Journal of Morpholoc/y^ is " On the
Development of Manicina Arcolata^'' by
Henry V. Wilson, Fellow of the Johns Hop-
kins University. It is the result of study of
these corals in the spring of 1887 at the ma-
rine laboratory of the university, which was
then stationed on the island of New Provi-
dence, Bahamas, supplemented by investiga-
tions made at the biological laboratory in
Baltimore. The text is illustrated with seven
plates. R. W. Shufeldt, M. D., contributes
two monographs: the first being "Further
Studies on Grammicolcpis Brackiusculus,
Poey," a fish of which only one specimen is
known to naturahsts; and the other being
" On the Aflinities of Aphriza Vir^ata," the
popular name of which is the surf -bird.
Both these papers deal with the osteology of
the subjects. The former is accompanied
by fourteen woodcuts and the latter by a
plate. " The Structure and Development of
the Visual Area in the Trilobite, Phacops
Rana, Green," is described by John M.
Clarke, with a plate ; and Prof. E. D. Cope
has a paper in this number entitled " On the
Relations of the Hyoid and Otic Elements
of the Skeleton in the Batrachia," with three
plates.

In Tlie Journal of Physiology, Vol. IX,
No. 4 (Cambridge, England, Scientific In-
strument Company), J. S. Haldane, M. A.,
M. B., presents a brief account of investiga-
tions on " The Elimination of Aromatic
Bodies in Fever." There is another brief
paper by Vincent D. Harris, M. D., and
Howard H. Tooth, M. D., " On the Relations
of Micro-organisms to Pancreatic (Proteo-
lytic) Digestion " ; and a " Note on the Elas-
ticity Curve of Animal Tissues," by Charles
S. Roy, M. D., F. R. S., with a plate. The
most extended paper in this number is " On
the Nature of Fibrin-Ferment," by Prof. W.
D. Halliburton, M. D., who states, as the
principal result of his researches in this di-
rection, that " the fibrin-ferment, whether it
be prepared by Schmidt's or Gamgee's meth-
od, is a globulin derived from the disintegra-
tion of the white blood-corpuscles and iden-
tical with a proteid I have previously named
cell-globulin, which is the principal proteid
contained in the cells of lymphatic glands."
This number contains also a communication
on " Some Points in the Physiology of Gland

7o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Nerves," by J. Rose Bradford, D. So. Nos.
5 and 6 form a double number, which con-
tains three papers : " On Digestion in Hydra,
with some Observations on the Structure of
the Endoderm," by M. Greenwood, with two
plates ; " On the Phenomena of Inhibition
in the MammaUan Heart," by Prof. John A.
McWilliam, M, D., with two plates ; and " On
the Normal Duration and Significance of the
' Latent Period of Excitation ' in Muscle-
Contraction," by Prof. Gerald F. Yeo, M. D.,
with cuts of tracings.

Proceedings of the United States National
Museum^ Vol. X, 1S8Y, consists of technical
descriptions of fishes, birds, etc., illustrated
with thirty -nine plates and a number of
text-figures. Appended to the volume is a
" Catalogue of the Contributions of the Sec-
tion of Graphic Arts to the Ohio Valley Cen-
tennial Exposition, Cincinnati, 1888." These
contributions represent processes of engrav-
ing and printing for pictorial purposes from
the sixteenth century to our own time, wood-
engraving in the United States, etching in
the United States, and modern photo-me-
chanical processes.

Tlie Report of the Entomologist, of the
Department of Agriculture, Prof. Charles V.
Riley, for 1887, is devoted chiefly to an arti-
cle by L. 0. Howard on the chinch-bug, giv-
ing a complete account of the species, and
an article on the codling moth by the same
writer. The use of the kerosene emulsion,
the only recently devised remedy for the
chinch-bug of any importance, is treated in
some detail in the first article. Other pa-
pers accompanying the report relate to silk-
culture, scale-insects, and other locally nox-
ious species, apiculture, etc. The report con-
tains eight plates, showing the insects treated
of, methods of fumigation, and the Cattaneo
mulberry-tree.

In Hie Cat and its Diseases, Dr. B. M.
Hale, of Chicago, has published a useful
and convenient paper on this animal of high-
ly domestic habits and the treatment which it
is entitled to receive. Brief accounts are
given of the origin and history, traits, and
varieties of the cat. Under the heading of
" Health of Cats " are discussed their food,
including grass, their drink, housing, and
the care of their fur. Several diseases are
described, and the special treatment that
should be given for each.

The report on Mineral Resources of the
United States, 1887, by David T. Day
(United States Geological Survey, 50 cents),
is the fifth of the series on this subject. It
extends the information contained in the
previous volumes to include the calendar
year 1887. The statistical tables have been
brought forward, but with this exception
only such information as is supplementary
to the previous volumes should be looked
for. The principal statistics concerning the
more important substances have already
been published in special bulletins. Prom
this report it appears that not only was the
production of iron and steel in the United
States very much larger in 1887 than in the
previous year, but we consumed virtually all
that we produced, besides many thousand
tons of old iron worked over, and imported
more than in any other year except 1880.
For several years we have consumed more
iron and steel than any of the great Euro-
pean countries. Our production of gold
shows a decrease of about two million dol-
lars from 1886, while silver shows an equal
increase. During the greater part of the
year the copper market was very dull, yet
our production shows an advance over the
highest previous figures. The output of
lead went far ahead of the largest previous
quantity. Zinc also shows an increased pro-
duction. While there was practically no
production of pure aluminum in 1887, the
amount of aluminum bronze produced has
risen from 4,000 or 5,000 pounds in 1885
to 144,764 pounds in 1887, and the amount
of ferro-aluminum from 2,500 pounds in
1886 to 42,617 in 1887. The total produc-
tion of all kinds of commercial coal shows a
marked increase, owing partly to the near-
by use of natural gas, stimulating coal to
seek more distant markets, and partly to the
advance in the iron manufacture. The re-
striction of the output of petroleum in the
Pennsylvania and New York fields was com-
pensated by the increase in the Ohio field,
with some help from West Virginia and
California. The consumption of natural gas
can be got at only approximately. The
amount of other fuel displaced by it, esti-
mated at the value of less than five million
dollars in 1885 and ten millions in 1886, had
risen to over fifteen millions in 1887. The
value of the precious stones produced in the

LITERARY NOTICES.

707

United States is not an important item, be-
ing estimated at only $88,600 in 1887. The
production of salt shows a slight advance,
while that of mineral waters appears to have
been stationary.

The chemist who would profit by A Cor-
relation Tlicory of Chemical Action and Af-
finity^ by Thomas Wright Hall, M. D. (Rem-
ington & Co., London, Ts. 6c?.), must first
learn a new dialect, for the author's strange
conceptions are made still harder to grasp
by his eccentric language. We are not cer-
tain that the present generation is prepared
to profit by this book, even if the language
were as clear as the " Dayshine," whose in-
fluence the author rates above all other
forces. " If you narrow and dwarf," says
he, " the Photothermal Force to heat and
light alone, or to cold and shade alone, or to
the petty needs and feelings of Man, or to
the ken of his workshops, of his pyrometers,
thermometers, photometers, then, indeed, is
the August Photothermal Force or Firemight
shorn of its true and boundless majesty and
value. Not so, however, if it dawn in Sci-
ence that the sidereal and the planetary
shine powers are the Giant Springs of the
Firemight which in oscillatory static balance
with each other in actual Ethero-molecular
matter, and in free Ether evolve the Quint-
essential Form and Photothermality of the
Earth — evolve the Dayshine and Nightshine
and the Shapes and colored Loveliness of
our Home, the Earth." The above sample
will show the character of the book better
than a long description.

Mr. James E. Talmage's First Book of
Nature (The Contributor Company, Salt Lake
City) is a little volume embodying a brief
description of the animal, vegetable, and
mineral kingdoms and the heavens. The
doctrine of evolution is not referred to in
its pages. The complexion of the book has
been determined by the author's desire to
show that " Nature is but another name for
the will of God as expressed in his works."
The volume is illustrated, and is adapted to
the reading of young people.

Although relating largely to the election
of 1888, True or False Finance (Putnam, 25
cents), in the " Questions of the Day Series,"
presents the subject of taxing imports on a
basis which has a permanent interest — i. e.,

as a question of raising revenue. The au-
thor starts with the proposition that a true
system of finance will enable a government
to adjust its revenue to its expenditures
without the slightest difiiculty. He then
shows how the growth of commerce has
made former tarifi' exactions enormous at the
present time, and gives the ways proposed
by protectionists for getting rid of the sur-
plus now in our treasury. The Democratic
policy is next stated, the Mills Bill is de-
scribed, and the effects it would have on the
workman, the farmer, the wool-grower, and
the country at large arc told.

No. 10 of ShoppelVs Modern Houses (Co-
operative Building Plan Association, New
York, 25 cents) has come to hand. It con-
tains designs for twenty-one dwellings and
a bank, giving in each case a perspective
view, floor-plans, and a brief description.
The cost of carrying out these designs is
stated in each case, and ranges from -$500 to
$15,000. Some general advice on building
is given and information concerning the
plans, specifications, estimates, etc., which
the " Association " is prepared to furnish to
those about to build.

Miss Parloa's New CooJc-Book (Estes &
Lauriat) comes to us in the form of a large-
paged pamphlet, crowded with recipes, brief-
ly worded and in small type. A great varie-
ty of dishes is described in each of the
divisions of soups, fish, meats, vegetables,
pies and puddings, cake, dessert, etc. Miss
Parloa's name is sufficient guarantee for the
excellence of the book.

A Code of Morals, by John 8. Hitlell
(The Bancroft Company), is a little didactic
treatise, modeled after the manuals of Epic-
tetus and Marcus Aurelius. "Standing on
the shoulders of the eminent men who wrote
those immortal books," says the author,
" making use of their labors, and striving to
appropriate the knowledge of our time and
to put myself in harmony with its spirit, I
have here tried to do for my age what they
did for theirs." The manual consists of
forty-five brief sections on separate topics,
grouped in five chapters, viz., on individual
duties, social, industrial, political, and relig-
ious duties.

Die Gegenwart (The Present) is a Ger-
man monthly, twenty-four-page periodical,
for the people, devoted to the discussion of

7o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

questions of the times, entertainment, and
instruction, published at Chicago by Th. G.
Steinke. With the January number for 1889
it entered upon its second volume. Sub-
scription price, $1 a year.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Samuel. Editor. "The Collegian." Month-
ly. January, 1&S9. Boston: New England Inter-
collegiate Press Association. Pp. 100. SO cents.
$1 a year.

Anthropological Society of Washington. " The
American .'inthropologist." 'Quarterly. Vol. II, No.
1. Washington, D. C. Pp. 9(5, $1. $3 a year.

Bartlett. John E., New "York. Plans for an
Auxiliary Supply of Pure Water, under Pressure,
to the Cities of New Yorlc and Brooklyn. Pp. 117,
with Plates and Maps.

Brinton, Daniel D., M. D., Philadelphia. The
Ta ki: The Svastica and the Cross in America.

Brown. Harold P., New York. The Compara-
livo Danger to Life of the Alternating and Continu-
ous Electrical Currents.

Chavannes, Albert, .\dair Creek, East Tenn. Vi-
tal Force and Magnetic Exchange. Pp 45.

Children's Aid Society of New York. Thirty-
sixth Annual Report. Pp. 112.

Clarke, John M. Structiuv and Development
of the Visual Area of the Trilobite Phacops rana,
Green. Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 18, with Plates.

Conklin, Benjamin Y. English Grammar and
Composition. New York, Boston, and Chicago :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 296. 75 cents.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Annual Eeport for !8iS. Part I, pp 87. Bulletin
No. 96. On the Valuation of Feeding Stuffs. Pp.

Cornell Univensity. Department of Agriculture
Bulletins III and IV of the Agricultural Experiment
Station. Pp. 20 and 16.

D.awson, N. H. E. Eeport of the Commission
of Education for lSS6-'&7. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing-office. Pp. 1170.

Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, Chapel Hill,
N. C. Journal for 18S8. Part II. Pp. 84.

Emery, Titus Salter. Inorganic Coal and Lime-
stone in an Electro-Chemical World. Pp. 137.

Empire State Association of Deaf-Mutes. Pro-
ceedings of the Twelfth Convention, Eochester,
August. 1888. Thomas J. Fox, New York, Secre-
tary. Pp. 48.

Evermann, Barton W. Birds of Carroll County,
Indiana. Pp. 30.

Eyerman, John. On the Mm-ralogy of the
French Creek Mines in Pennsylvania. Pp." 4.

Fitch. Charles H., Denver, ("ol The Fall.icy of
Free Land. Pp. 16.— Womanhood Suffrage. Pp.12.

Gill, John Systems of Education. Boston:
D. C. Heath & Co. Pp.312. $1.10.

Hall. G. Stanley. Editor " The American Journal
of Psychology." Quiirteriy. November. 1888. Bal-
timore : N. Murr.iy. Pp.192. $1.50. .$5 a year.

" Harvard Law Review." Vol. II, No. 1. Pp. 44
35 cents. $2.50 a year.

Hill, Eobert T., Universit? of Texas. Some Ee-
cent Aspects of Scientific Education. Pp 25.

Hinds, Prof. J. L. D., Lebanon, Tenn. Charles
Darwin. Pp 15.

Hinrichs, Dr. Gustavus. Tornadoes and Dereehos.
Pp. 28.

Howard, J. M., D. D., Editor. " Cumberiand
Presbyterian Review." Quarterly. Vol. L No. 1.
Nashville, Tenn. Pp. 128. 75 cents. $2.50 a year.

Illinois. University of. Agricultural Experiment
Station. Bulletin No. 8. Pp. 10.

Hunt, Mrs. Mary H. Scientific Temperance In-
struction in Schools and Colleges. Pp. 60. Boston :
W. S. Best.

Iowa Agricultural College. Experiment Station.
Bulletins Nos. 2 and 3.

Iowa State Board of Health. Semi- Annual Meet-
ing, November 29, 1688. Pp. 18.

Irelan, Willium, Jr. Eighth Annual Report of the
State Mineralogist, California. 1888. Pp. 948.

Jordan, David Starr. Eeport of the Alumni
Trustee to the Alumni of Cornell Uuiversity, June,
18S8. Pp. 13.

Laing, Samuel, A Friendly Correspondence with
Mr. Gladstone about Creeds. London : Watts & Co.
Pp. 20.

Langley, Samuel P. Eeport as Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1887-88. Washington:
Government Printing-Offlce. Pp. 121.

Laux, James B., Greensburg, Pa. The Life Im-
mortal (Poem). Pp. 12.

Lockhart, J. G. Ancient Spanish Ballads. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. I'p. 299.

M.M. " The Southern Whig." New York: Crich-
ton & Co., 221 Fulton Street. Pp. 7.

Mac Auley, Clay. The Seminole Indians of Flor-
ida. Washington : "Government Irintiiig-Offlce. Pp.
64.

Maine, Henry Sumner. International Law. New
York : Henry Holt &. Co. Pp. 233.

Malone, J. S The Self: What is it ? Louisville,
Ky. : John P. Morton & Co. Pp. l.:8. 75 cents.

"Manufacturer and Builder," Vol. XXI, No. 1.
New York. Pp. 24. 15 cents. $1 a year.

Massachusetts Agricultural College. Hatch Ex-
periment Station. Bulletin (Tuberculosis, 6. C. H.
Fernald). Pp. 20.

Mays. Thomas J.. M. D. Pulmonary Consump-
tion considered as a Neurosis. Detroit, Mich. : G. S.
Davis. I'p 63.

Mendenhall, Prof T. C, Torre Haute, Ind. On
the intensity of Earthquakes. Pp. 8.

Michigan Forestry Commission. First Eeport
of the Directors. Lansing. Pp.92.

Minnesota State Board of Health. Official Pub-
lication, Vol. IV, Nos. 9 and 10. Pp. 14.

" Modern Science Essayist." Monthly. Vol. I'
Nos. 1 and 2. Boston : New Ideal Publishing Com-
pany. 10 cents each. $1 per vol.

New York State Museum of Natural History-
Trustees' Eeport, 1887. Pp. 390, with Plates.

O'Rell, Max, and Allyn, Jack. Jonathan and his
Continent. New York: Cassell & Co. Pp. 313.
$1.50.

Packard, Alpheus S. On Certain Factors of Evo-
lution. Pp. 14.

Palmer. Charles T. Artificial Persons (Corpora-
tions). Chicago : Open Court Pubhshtng Company.
Pp. 16.

Phythian, E. L. Eeport of the Superintendent
of the United States Naval Observatory. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 24.— Chart-
ing the Sky. Pp. 4.

Piatt, James. Business. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 289.

Pohlman, Julius, Buffalo. N. Y. Cement Eock
and Gypsum Deposits in Buffalo. Pp. 4.— The Life-
History of Niagara. Pp.17.

Pope, Ealph W., and Stockbridge, George H.,
Editors. "Electric Power." Vol. I, No. 1. Month-
ly. Pp. 24. 25 cents. $3 a year.

Schultz, Carl H. Answer of Defendant in Suit
of City of Carisbad and Others vs. Cari H. Schultz.
Pp. 11.

Seymour, Mary F. "The Business Woman's
Journal." Bi-monthlj'. Vol. I, No. 1. New York :
35 Park Eow Pp. 32. 20 cents. $1 a year.

Shufeldt, R. W. On the Affinities of Aphriza
Yirgata. Pp. 32, with Plate— Further Studies of
Grammicolepis Brachiusculus, Poey. Pp. 24. Bos-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

709

ton : Ginn & Co.— Notes on Horned Mammals, etc.
Pp.8.

Sluys, A. Manual Training in Elementary Schools
for Boys. New York : Industrial Education Associ-
ation. Pp. 3T. 20 ci-nts.

Smith, D. T. The Philosophy of Memory Lou-
isville, Ky. : John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 89.

Smith, TV. H., Editor. "The Educator." Month-
ly. Vol. I, No. 1. Pp.16. Buffalo, N.Y. $1 a year.

Spaiihool'd, .\. W., Editor. " Germania." A Fort-
nightly Journal for the Study of German. Man-
chester, N. U. Bandl, Nummerl. Pp.16. 15 cents.
|3 a year.

Stevens, C. A. Living Matter : Its Cycle of
Growth and Decline in .\niinal Organism?. Norway
Lake, Me : The Laboratory Company. Pp. Iu7.

United States Commissioner of Internal Reve-
nue. Report for 1S8T-S8. Pp. 123.— ReguLitions
concerning Analysis of Foods and Drugs in the Dis-
trict of Columbia. Pp 31. Washington : Govern-
ment Printing-Offiae.

Van der Smissen, W. H., and Eraser. "W. H. The
High-School German Grammar. NewTork : D. Ap-
pletou & Co. Pp. 453. $1.50.

White, Horatio Stevens. Lessing : Ausgewahlte
Prosa und Briefe (Selected Prose jind Letters) .New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 236. $1.

Von Klein, C. H., Dayton, Ohio. Address on
Ehinology. Pp. 12.

Williams, Albert. Useful Minerals of the United
States. Washington : Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 124.

Wood, Henry. The Relations of Corporate Share-
holders to the Management, Legislation, and the Pub-
lic. Boston : W. B. Clarke & Co. Pp.10. 50 cents
a dozen ; $3.50 per 100.

Young, Charles A. A Text-Book of General
Astronomy. Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp 557. $2.40.

Calendars. Smith & Anthony Stone Company,
Boston, Mass. — The " Don't Forget It " Calendar,
Daily Record, and Blotter. New York : E. B. Treat.
Price, 20 cents. — New York : Hanover Fire Insur-
ance Co.— Gurney Hot Water Heater, Boston.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

M. Chevreul's New -Year's- Day.— M.

Chevreul, who was a hundred and two years
old on the 31st of August last, had a happy
New- Year. According to an authentic ac-
count of his present daily life, given in "La
Nature," he awakes at five o'clock in the
morning, and is served a few minutes after-
ward with a warm broth, which he takes
with a relish. While resting in bed he
reads the papers, and then receives a few-
visits, particularly one from his preparateur,
M. Arnaud. At eleven o'clock, still in bed,
he takes a plentiful breakfast of soup, meat,
and cafe au lait, with much bread and but-
ter. At one he rises, dresses, and is ready
to take the air for two hours. Conducted by
his faithful coachman, Joseph, who has been
in his service for twenty years, he often
drives to the Monceau Park ; but his favor-
ite excursion is to the Eiffel Tower. Return-
ing at five o'clock, he takes a glass of milk
and goes to bed. He dines in bed at seven

o'clock, with a good appetite, drinking noth-
ing but water. After dinner, he sleeps sound-
ly; and when M. Arnaud asks him in the
morning, as he always does, if he has en-
joyed a good night's rest, he replies that he
has never had any other kind. M. Chevreul
is living with his son, and enjoys the devoted
and intelligent care of his old servant Denise,
who has been with him for fifty years.

The instralasian Association. — The first
meeting of the Australasian Association for
the Advancement of Science was held at
Sydney, beginning August 28th, under the
presidency of Prof. Black. About eight hun-
dred and fifty members were present, and one
hundred and ten papers were sent in. One
of the topics discussed in the presidential
address was the place of chemistry in edu-
cation. The accounts of the sectional meet-
ings are scanty. We find mentioned in the
Chemical Section, the papers of Mr. Dixon,
on " The Formation of Coal," in which the
different qualities of the mineral were as-
cribed to different kinds of vegetable matter
of which it is composed ; of Mr. Smith,
on " Butterine," which was well spoken of ;
of Mr. Mingaye, on the " Discovery of Tel-
lurium in Certain Bismuth Ores" in New
South Wales ; of Mr. Edgar Hall, on " Silver
Smelting," etc., which was exceedingly well
received ; of Mr. W. Skey and Mr. Don on
" Gold " in the Australian reefs ; and of Mr.
J. H. Maiden, on the " Chemistry of Indige-
nous Australian Products." The formation
of this association was suggested in 1879,
begun in 1884, and completed at this meet-
ing, which was held in connection with the
one hundredth anniversary of the founda-
tion of the colony of New South Wales ; and
was most actively promoted by Prof. Liver-
sidge. The scheme of its organization has
been so arranged as to make it truly repre-
sentative of all the Australian colonies. Each
learned or scientific society may have one
representative in the Council for every hun-
dred of its members. The Presidents of the
Royal Societies of the several colonies are
among the vice-presidents. The presidents
of sections were all selected from other col-
onies than New South Wales, while the sec-
retaries were, of course, residents of the
place of meeting, Sydney. It is understood
that the meetings are to be held in rotation

710

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through the colonies, and the oflBcers chosen
accordingly. The meeting for 1889 is to be
held in Melbourne, with Baron Sir Ferdinand
von Miiller as president ; and the meeting
for 1890 will be in New Zealand.

Habits of the Red Squirrel.— Dr. R.

Bell, of the Canadian Geological Survey,
says that over more than one half of its
range, the chickaree, or red squirrel {Sciurus
Hudsonius, Pennant), lives chiefly on the
seeds of the black and the white spruce,
and evidently thrives on this diet. " Their
mode of obtaining a supply of cones is in-
genious. The cones grow principally at the
tops of the spruce- trees, and the largest and
finest are always to be found there. The
chickaree selects a tree which, either from
the steepness and density of its upper part
or from its leaning to one side, makes it cer-
tain that the cones, if detached, will fall to
the ground ; then he cuts off the heavily
laden twigs and lets them drop. This is
done with an impatient rapidity. Should a
person be sitting quietly under a tree while
one of these busy little creatures is at work
at the top, he will see the bunches of cones
come tumbling down in such quick succes-
sion that he might suppose half a dozen
squirrels were at work instead of only one
industrious little fellow. These bunches
seldom lodge in the branches below, but
should the squirrel on his way down (after
having cut off a satisfactory supply) notice
one of them arrested in a hopeful position
toward the extremity of a bough, he will
sometimes run out and give it a second send-
off. In climbing tall spruce-trees for obser-
vations of the surrounding country, I have
often noticed bunches of cones lodged where,
if started off a second time, they would be
certain to catch again in the thick branches
before reaching the ground. The squirrels
seem to understand the situation perfectly,
and they leave such bunches to their fate,
probably arguing that it would be easier for
them to cut off fresh ones than to trouble
themselves further about property lost be-
yond hope of profitable recovery — a piece
of wisdom which the most successful busi-
ness men have also learned to follow. The
chickaree, having thrown down a sufficient
stock for a few days' use, proceeds to carry
them, as required, to his favorite feeding-

place near by. I have occasionally noticed
a squirrel feeding with a fresh cone lying
beside the one he was actually dining off, as
if it were waiting to be attacked the moment
he got through with the first. They peel off
the scales in succession, and nibble out the
seeds with great rapidity. They leave their
stock lying about under the tree, and only
carry off one or two cones at a time. A little
drying causes the scales to gape, and so
facilitates the opening process."

Protection of Piles against the Teredo.

— A series of experiments has been made in
San Francisco Harbor on the best method of
protecting piles against the attacks of the
teredo. Five methods of preparation were
tried, viz. : Jacketing with sewer pipe and
filling the space between pile and pipe with
concrete of sand, gravel, and Portland ce-
ment ; covering with asphaltum and wire
cloth ; washing, in four coats, w ith a secret
marine cement that contained an extreme-
ly poisonous substance of great efiiciency;
washing with Portland cement and other se-
cret ingredients; and covering with burlap
and a paste of naphtha, carbon bisulphide,
limestone, kaolin, sawdust, and sulphur. The
treated piles were all barked. Besides these,
some piles in the natural condition, untreated
but covered with their bark, were driven
down. Of a number pulled for examination
after about four years, all of the treated piles
except those prepared by the first method
were hopelessly riddled by the teredo, and
only one was strong enough to be removed
without breaking, while the untreated ones
were only slightly attacked, and were practi-
cally as sound as ever. The coatings ap-
plied by the various experimenters, depend-
ing upon their adhesion to the pile, utterly
failed to afford even the protection given by
the bark. The result agrees with experi-
ments made in other places. Inclosing with
drain-pipes and packing with concrete affords
adequate protection, but the expense of the
method — thirty dollars a pile — makes it un-
available.

Bnlgarlan Wines. — It is only of recent
years that the cultivation and production of
the vine have attained any considerable pro-
portions in Bulgaria. Formerly it was looked
upon as a most unimportant industry. Now

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711

there are about 172,000 acres of land under
vine-cultivation in north and south Bulgaria.
The yield of wine per acre varies between
250 and 350 gallons, two thirds of which is
red wine and the remainder white. The
wine in some vineyards is said not to be in-
ferior to the best natural wines of other Eu-
ropean countries. In 1886 some 140,000
gallons of wines were exported from south-
ern Bulgaria to the south of France. There
they were manipulated and sold as the prod-
ucts of the country. The phylloxera made
its appearance a few years ago, but stringent
msasures were at once taken to stamp it out,
and very strict regulations are enforced to
prevent its return.

The Chemistry of an Egg-Shell.— The
shell proper of an egg is made up mostly of
earthy materials. The proportions vary ac-
cording to the food of the bird, but ninety
to ninety-seven per cent is carbonate of lime.
The remainder is composed of from two to
five per cent of animal matter and from one
to five per cent of phosphate of lime and
magnesia. Now, Mr. P. L. Simmonds asks,
where does the hen procure the carbonate of
lime with which to form the shell ? If we
confine fowls in a room, and feed them with
any of the cereal grains, excluding all sand,
dust, or earthy matter, they will go on for a
time and lay eggs, each one having a perfect
shell, made up of the same calcareous ele-
ments. Vauquelin shut up a hen for ten
days, and fed her exclusively upon oats, of
which she consumed '7,4'74 grains in weight.
During this time four eggs were laid, the
shells of which weighed nearly 409 grains ;
of this amount 276 grains were carbonate of
lime, IVi grains phosphate of Hme, and 10
grains gluten. But there is only a little car-
bonate of lime in oats, and whence could
this 409 grains of the rocky material have
been derived ? The answer to this question
opens up some of the most curious and won-
derful facts connected with animal chemis-
try. The body of a bird, like that of a man,
is but a piece of chemical apparatus, made
capable of transforming hard and fixed sub-
stances into others of a very unlike nature.
In oats there is contained phosphate of lime,
with an abundance of silica, and the stomach
and assimilating organs of the bird are made
capable of decomposing the lime-salt and

forming with the silica a silicate of lime.
This new body is itself made to undergo de-
composition, and the base is combined with
carbonic acid, forming carbonate of lime.
The carbonic acid is probably derived from
the atmosphere, or more directly perhaps
from the blood. These chemical changes
among hard inorganic bodies are certainly
wonderful when we reflect that they are
brought about in the delicate organs of a
comparatively feeble bird, under the influ-
ence of animal heat and the vital forces.
They embrace a series of decomposing and
recomposing operations which it is difficult
to imitate in the laboratory.

Fresh- Water Sponges. — The fresh-water
sponges, according to Mr. Edward Pott's
monograph, resemble in constitution and
general appearance many of the sponges of
a marine habitat, with the addition that they
have gemmules or " seed-like bodies," which
marine sponges have not. They are green,
but may be distinguished from mosses and
Confervce by the diiference between smooth,
slender threads and leaves ; by the presence
of efferent or discharging apertures; and,
with a lens, by their spicules — to which
finding the spherical gemmules adds further
confirmation. The green color varies accord-
ing to the light, and may, in dark places, or
dark parts of the sponge, be faded into
nearly white, gray, or cream color ; but some
species are never gi-een in the sunlight.
These organisms have occasionally been dis-
covered growing in water unfit for domestic
uses ; but as a rule they prefer pure water,
and in the author's experience the finest
specimens have always been found where
they were subjected to the most rapid cur-
rents. " The lower side of large, loose stones
at the ' riffs ' or shallow places in streams ;
the rocks amid the foaming water at the foot
of a mill-dam fall; the timbers of a sluice-
way, the casing of a turbine water-wheel, or
the walls of a 'tail-race' beneath an old
mill — in all these places they have been
found in great abundance and of a very lusty
growth. Of all discouraging situations it is
almost hopeless to look for them in shallow
water having a mud bottom. ... In any
body of water liable to be charged with sedi-
mentary material, the principle of natural
selection favors those growing on the lower

12

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

side of their bases of support, which protect
them from the intrusion of the heavier par-
ticles. For that reason perpendicular and
water-logged or floating timbers, submerged
stumps of trees, and branches drooping into
the water from trees or bushes along the
banks, are favorite locations. They do not
disdain more temporary support, such as
weeds and water-grasses. . . . Through the
clear water of our Northern lakes we may
often see them lying in slender lines upon
the leaves of submerged weeds, or in beauti-
ful, cushion-like masses upon the stones or
gravel." The best season for collecting them
is from July till late in November.

Geological Floras. — M. de Saporta's
views on the origin of our forest-groupings
were substantially concurred in by Prof. W.
Boyd Dawkins, in his vice-presidential ad-
dress before the Geological Section of the
British Association. Having referred to the
characteristic features of the earher floras,
much as M. de Saporta has done, and to the
antiquity of the gingko (which has descend-
ed from the Carboniferous age), he says:
" In North America the flora of the Dakota
series so closely resembles the Miocene of
Switzerland that Dr. Heer had no hesitation
in assigning it in the first instance to the Mio-
cene age. It consists of about one hundred
species, of which about one half are close-
ly allied to those now living in the forests
of North America — sassafras, tulip, plane,
willow, oak, poplar, maple, birch, together
with sequoia, the ancestor of the giant red-
wood of California. The first palms appear
also in both continents at this place in the
geological record. In the Tertiary period
there is an unbroken sequence in the floras,
as Mr. Starkie Gairdner has proved, when
they are traced over many latitudes, and
most of the types still survive at the present
day, but slightly altered. If, however. Ter-
tiary floras of difi^erent ages are met with in
one area, considerable differences are to be
seen, due to progressive alterations in the
climate and altered distribution of the land.
As the temperature of the northern hemi-
sphere became lowered, the tropical forests
were pushed nearer and nearer to the equa-
tor, and were replaced by plants of colder
habits from the northern regions, until, in
the Pleistocene age, the arctic plants were

forced far to the south of their present habi-
tat. In consequence of this, Mr. Gairdner
concludes that ' it is useless to seek in the
arctic regions for Eocene floras as we know
them in our latitudes, for during the Tertiary
period the climatic condition of the earth did
not permit their growth there. Arctic fossil
floras of temperate and, therefore, Miocene
aspect are in all probability of Eocene age,
and what has been recognized in them as a
newer or Miocene fades is due to their hav-
ing been first studied in Europe in latitudes
which only became fit for them in Miocene
times. "When stratigraphical evidence is
absent or inconclusive, this unexpected per-
sistence of plant-types or species throughout
the Tertiaries should be remembered, and the
degrees of latitude in which they are found
should be well considered before conclusions
are published respecting their relative age.'
This view is consistent with that held by the
leaders in botany — Hooker, Dyer, Saporta,
Dawson, and Asa Gray — that the north polar
region is the center of dispersal, from which
the dicotyledons spread over the northern
hemisphere."

Science and Trade-Rontes. — In the first
part of his presidential address before the
Geographical Section of the British Associa-
tion, Colonel Sir C. W. Wilson showed, by nu-
merous historical references, how the trade-
routes of the world are and have always been
governed by physiographical conditions, and
by accidents of war and human operations,
which, making one route inconvenient, have
compelled the opening of another. To cope
with these conditions, and find and possess
the best route, is one of the functions of the
scientific geographer. The discovery of the
Cape route was no mere accident, but the
result of scientific training, deep study, care-
ful preparation, and indomitable persever-
ance. Prince Henry, having determined to
find a direct route to India, invited the most
eminent men of science to instruct a number
of young men who were educated under his
own eye, and in a few years he made the
Portuguese the most scientific navigators ia
Europe. The voyage of Vasco da Gama, with
its grand commercial results, followed. For
a correct determination of the lines which
the shortened trade-routes and great mari-
time canals we are seeking to locate should

I

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

713

follow, a sound knowledge of geography and
the physic:il condition of the earth is neces-
sary ; and instruction in this direction should
form an important feature in any educational
course of commercial geography. The great
problem of the future is the inland carrying
trade, and one of the immediate commercial
questions of the day is, Wlio is to supply the
interiors of the great continents of Asia and
Africa, and other large areas not open to di-
rect sea traffic ? It is not altogether impos-
sible to foresee the lines which inland trade
must follow, and the places which must be-
come centers, or to map out the districts
which will be dependent on those places.
These questions as to a part of Central Asia
may have been partly solved by a voyage
. which Mr Wiggins made last year. Acting
upon a conviction which he had reached by
a strict method of induction, that the Gulf
Strefim passed through the straits into the
Kara Sea, and, acting with the floods of the
Obi and Yenisei, would free that sea from
ice and keep it open for navigation during a
part of each year, he sailed to Yeniseisk,
some two thousand miles up the Yenisei,
within a few hundred versts of the Chinese
frontier, and landed his goods there. The
science of commercial geography is not con-
fined to a knov/ledge of the localities in which
those products of the earth that have a com-
mercial value are to be found, and of the
best markets for them. Its higher aims are
to divine, by a combination of historical re-
trospect and scientific foresight, the chan-
nels through which commerce will flow in
the future, and the points at which new cen-
ters of trade must arise in obedience to known
laws.

Tlie Undergronnd Waters of England.—

In a paper on the underground waters in the
permeable formations of England, Mr. E. E.
De Ranee said that the remarkable drought
that that country experienced during 18S7
had brought out in strong relief the advan-
tage of public water-supplies being drawn
from underground sources, where the rain-
fall of wet periods is not only stored in the
sandstone rocks, but is delivered filtered
from organic impurity and at a constant
equable temperature. Notwithstanding the
unprecedented period of dry weather, the
public wells of Liverpool, Birkenhead, Bir-

mingham, Southport, Nottingham, South
Staffordshire, and the Staffordshire pottery-
works gave their daily supply undiminished,
while the gravitation works of the Manchester
corporation and the whole of the east Lan-
cashire towns were on short supply, and in
some instances failed altogether. The levels
taken at a well at Booking, in Essex, for
several years, showed that the water-level
was uplifted by the Essex earthquake of
April 22, 1884. This acquired level was
gradually diminishing, at a rate which would
bring back the original level by August,
1888.

Chinese Names. — The Chinaman bears his
father's name ; the woman, on marrying, takes
her husband's name and adds her father's to
it. Thus, when Miss Wang marries Mr. Ly,
while she might usually be called Mrs. Ly,
she must in formal acts sign herself Ly-
Wang. People of the lower classes have
names the character of which varies in dif-
ferent places. In Pekin, a number answers
the purpose, and we have for Mr. Chang's
sons, the elder Chang, second Chang, third
Chang, etc. At Canton they add ah and a
surname, and we have Chaug-ah-brave and
Chang ah-honest, if it is a man ; Chang-ah-
silver, Chang-ah-pearl, if it is a woman. In
Fuhkien they double the character and give
Chang-stone-stone, Chang - great - great, etc.
When a youth goes to school, his teacher se-
lects a name for him consisting of two char-
acters, such as " Five Stars," " Long Life,"
or some other fantastic designation; but
only the teacher and the other pupils can
use this surname. As soon as a young man
is married, his own friends or the friends of
his wife's family give him a name which is
used only by members of the agnatic family ;
but this custom is not very faithfully ob-
served. When a person presents himself for
the public examinations, or is seeking a po-
sition, he usually chooses a name composed
of two characters, which becomes the only
name under which he is officially known. A
person who has never been to school, is not
married, and never obtains an official posi-
tion, can only have his family name and his
regular surname, according to the custom
of the province. The school and marriage
names being of little importance, persona
may be classed, generally, according to their

1^\

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

names, as official and non-official. Those of
the latter class have only their name and sur-
name, unless they have acquired a nickname,
like Chang-dog's-eye, Wang the gimlet, etc.
Persons of the official class have three names :
the family name ; the official name, used only
officially; and the private name, used by
friends. On the death of an official person-
age, the emperor will, if he thinks best,
confer upon him a posthumous name.

Improved Gas Heating Appliances. — A

new gas heating appliance has been devised
by Mr. Thomas Fletcher, F. C. S., of War-
rington, England, who, in exhibiting it at
Liverpool, fused a large hole in a plate of
quartcr-inch-thick wrought-iron in a few sec-
ends, without preparation, and with appara-
tus which could be carried by a man up a
ladder and used in any position. There is,
therefore, no longer such a thing as a burg-
lar-proof safe, for with this invention it is
simply a question of minutes to fuse a hole
large enough for a man to enter in any
wrought-iron or steel door in existence. The
professional burglar is always ready to util-
ize the latest applications of science, and
may be expected to take this apparatus in
hand. In fact, Mr. Fletcher's furnaces, de-
signed to assist in chemical research, are used
by receivers of stolen goods to reduce plate
and jewelry to ingots. The form of this
blow-pipe which Mr. Fletcher exhibited was
noisy in action, but he stated that burglars
would probably succeed in making it silent.
A serious obstacle to their doing this, how-
ever, is that the machinery necessary for
producing the noiseless form is both costly
and large. The matter is one to which bank-
ers and safe-makers should give their atten-
tion.

Forestry In Switzerland.— The present
forestry law of Switzerland was enacted in
1876, and is applied to the mountain districts
and the hills on the plains, covering about
60 per cent of the country, of which 15-8
per cent is forest-land. The rights of pri-
vate owners are not affected except where
their woods are "protecting" woods, or
might have an influence on the climate, ava-
lanches, land-slips, etc. All woods under
official supervision have to be deraarkated,
clearings planted afresh, and new forests

created where necessary, the Government
bearing a just share of the expense. All
servitudes or easements in " protecting "
woods were to be redeemed in ten years, and
no new ones were allowed to be created.
Anything that might endanger the utility of
the forests was forbidden. Cattle were not
allowed to graze, and leaves could not be col-
lected, except in fixed spots. A two months'
course of education is prescribed to be given
to each student of forestry by the canton to
entitle it to the federal subsidy. It includes
forest surveying and measurement in detail ;
road -making, and safeguards against ava-
lanches ; study of the different kinds of tim-
ber and of noxious plants ; elementary knowl-
edge of soils and of their component parts ;
fundamental notions of the laws of climate
and meteorology ; cultivation and care of
forests ; and book-keeping and other general
branches of instruction valuable for under-
foresters. These provisions were put in op-
eration very slowly, waiting the compliance
of the cantons ; and even yet each canton pos-
sesses in a measure its own scheme of for-
estry organization.

An Aged Spider. — In the summer of 188Y
an American tarantula died, which had been
in the possession of Mr. H. C. McCook over
five years, and which he estimates was at
least seven and perhaps eight years old.
This spider, which Mr. McCook had named
" Leidy," after Dr. Joseph Leidy, from whom
he had received it, thus attained the distinc-
tion of having reached the greatest age of
any spider known to science. The fragments
of a cast skin were found near the carcass
of the tarantula, indicating that it had died
shortly after molting. " Leidy " had shed its
skin several times during its confinement.
Mr. McCook has had best success in keeping
large spiders alive by feeding them a gener-
ous supply of living insects during the sum-
mer and early autumn, and withholding food
almost entirely during the remainder of the
year. Spiders require water quite as much
as other animals. They do not become tor-
pid in winter, if kept in a room heated to
a moderate temperature. " Leidy " kept a
rug-like web spread on the ground in the
box which it inhabited, and when this be-
came soiled, by earth or food debris, it was
soon overspread with a clean layer. In this

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

715

way a thick mass of intermingled soil and
silk was formed. The only effort at nest-
building which it made was a rude burrow
against the side of the box. This burrow
was entirely destitute of silken lining, al-
though occasionally the opening would be
overspun with a thin sheet.

Origin of Archaan Graphite. — In a paper
at the British Association on the origin of
graphite in the archaean rocks, the Rev. A.
Irving points out that the occurrence of car-
bon in late rocks as the result of plant-life
is no argument to prove that the graphite of
the archaean is of similar origin. Indeed,
conditions were then so diiferent that this
mode of origin is extremely unlikely. Ele-
mentary carbon is produced in three ways :
in pig-iron, by reduction of carbonic acid by
alkali metals, and by contact action of heated
surfaces on hydrocarbons. As hydrocarbons
exist in the heads of comets, some method
of origin like the last is far more probable
than that the graphite should be phytogenic.
The author thought that Mobius's investiga-
tions disproved the organic origin of eozoon ;
the iron oxides of the American archaean
would come from the combustion of iron
vapor in oxygen, while the unfossiliferous
limestones of the archaean can be explained
on purely chemical and physical principles.

The Country Schools of New York.— The
State Superintendent of Pubhc Instruction
of New York, in his last report, draws an
unpleasant picture of the condition of the
rural schools. In them, he says, " the work
done depends almost exclusively upon the
character and capability of the teacher.
There is no ' system ' to fall back upon, no
machine which will turn out passable work,
whether or no. If the teacher is discerning
and bright and enthusiastic, results will
frequently be attained which surpass any
accomplished in the great schools ; if in-
different, the results are of no consequence.
. . . All teachers are entitled to considera-
tion, for their work is trying and exacting ;
but this is more strikingly so in the cross-
roads districts than elsewhere. Their pay
is small. . . . Their work is not confined to
a single grade ; they must meet the require-
ments of all grades and all classes. They
must lay out their own course of study, if

they have any. Text-books are frequently an-
tiquated ; there is no uniformity, even in the
same school, and frequently not in the same
class, and the teacher finds it impossible to
work improvement. The school is very
likely maintained only twenty-eight weeks in
the year, just long enough to share in the
public moneys. Attendance is irregular.
Trustees drive hard bargains, for the num.
ber of young persons who want the place is
very large. Continual change in the teach-
ers is the order of the day. The time of
employment is but for a single term, and
frequently the trustee undertakes to make it
by the day or the week, in order that he may
be free to effect a change at any time, or
that he may withhold pay, in violation of
the spirit and intent of the statute, for the
week occupied in attendance upon a teach-
ers' institute. Supervision amounts to little
or nothing, for distances are great, during a
good part of the year roads are impassable,
and it is physically impossible for the com-
missioner, with generally more than one
hundred schools under his charge, to visit
each very frequently."

The Energy in an Earthquake.— After

explaining, in the American Association,
the impossibility of calculating the intensity
of an earthquake more than approximately,
Prof. T. C. Mendcnhall applied a formula
to determine the energy involved in the Jap-
anese earthquake of January 15, 188V, which
disturbed over 30,000 square miles of terri-
tory. He said : " Assuming a mass of 150
pounds per cubic feet, and taking a cubic
mile as the volume to be considered, I find
that to put it in vibration required the ex-
penditure of 2,500,000,000 pounds of energy.
Assuming an area of 100 miles square, with
a mean depth of one mile, was thus in vibra-
tion at any one instant of time — which is not
improbable, considering the known rate of
transmission and the long duration of the
earthquake — the amount of energy thus rep-
resented would be 25 X 10-12 foot-pounds.
This energy might be generated by the fall,
under the action of gravity, of a cube of rock
1,000 feet on each edge, the mass of which
would be 75,000,000 tons, through a verti-
cal distance of 166 feet." Also, assuming
certain magnitudes, " I find the energy of
a cubic mile of the Charleston earthquake,

716

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

taken near enough to the epicentrum to be
disturbed, as above assumed, to be equal to
24,000,000,000 foot-pounds. The speed of
transmission of this disturbance has been
pretty well determined by Newcomb and
Sutton to be approximately three miles per
second, so that a cubic mile would be dis-
turbed in one third of a second. To do
this would require 130,000,000 horse-power.
Assuming that an area about the epicentrum
100 miles square was thus disturbed, the
energy would be that of 24 X 10-13 foot-
pounds, and the rate of its expenditure would
be that of 1,300,000,000,000 horse-power."

Volcanic Explosion in Japan.— The dis-
trict of Hibara Mura in Japan was visited on
July 15th with a volcanic outburst of most
singular character, which may be compared
for violence with the recent catastrophes of
Krakatoa and the Tarawera district of New
Zealand. The whole of Mount Baudai, a
peak nearly five thousand feet high, one
hundred and fifty miles north of Tokio, was
blown up, just as a steam-boiler might be,
by the explosion of the vapors accumulated
in the recesses beneath it. A number of
villages were ingulfed, with all their in-
habitants, estimated at about five hundred.
The region was inundated by torrents of
mud ; and showers of dust, which was red at
first and afterward turned gray, fell over
a wide extent of country. The catastrophe,
according to the accounts of witnesses who
survived it, was marked with the accompani-
ments of fearful earth tremors, detonations
which were said to sound like the firing off
of all the artillery in the world at once, and
a total darkening of the air for several hours.
At one point a river was dammed up by the
flow of mud, so as to form a considerable
lake. The scene of the catastrophe was
visited soon after the event by a scientific
commission appointed by the Government,
whose report has been published by Mr. W.
K. Burton, of the Imperial University. In
the view of this commission, the phenomenon
differed from usual volcanic eruptions in that
it left no traces of fire or lava. It was simply
a violent explosion of steam. That the
mountain was underlain by beds of hot water
has always been indicated by the existence
of hot springs on its slopes. The explosion
carried off all the middle part of the mount-

ain, including the central peak ; it took a
sidewise rather than a vertical direction, and
scattered its debris to a depth of from three
to thirty metres, and in one or two instances
three hundred metres, over an extent of
about sixty square kilometres. A remark-
able feature of this disbursement is the
steepness of the piles of matter in some
places.

Sacred Trees of Japan.— Not the least
engrossing element in researches into the
flora of Japan is encountered in the traces
of tree-worship here and there to be de-
tected. In Shinti the hi-no-ki, the sun or
fire tree ( Chamncyparis obiusa), is the sacred
tree of predilection ; the temples being con-
j structed exclusively of this wood, even to
I the tiles and nails, or pegs ; and from time
immemorial the sacrificial fires have been
kindled with drills made of hi-wood — whence
perhaps its name. At the great bonzeries
of Nikko, or sun-splendor, so named in the
ninth century, the shrines of the Shoguns
are surrounded by sugi-trees, the Japan
cedars {Cryptomcria Japonicd), which meas-
ure twenty feet in girth, and run to one
hundred and twenty feet in height, con-
tributing not a little to the force of the Jap-
anese saying, " If you haven't seen Nikko,
you mustn't say marvelous." The shii oak,
or Quercus cuspidata, is also chosen for the
environs of temples, perhaps because of its
dense foliage, and quantities of its acorns
are eaten at religious feasts. The beauteous
icho, the Ginglco biloba or SaHshuria adianti-
folia — also called the maidenhair-tree, from
the resemblance of its leaves to the fern of
that name — is also a sacred favorite. One
at the foot of the staircase of the great tem-
ple at Kamakura measures twenty feet roimd.
The Japanese consumed the almonds of this
tree at religious festivals. And in northern
Japan, wherever Shinto prevails, there are
hallowed trees encircled with a rice-straw
rope which bears tassels at intervals. The
Japanese are in the habit of driving nails
into the rotesu or Cycas revoluta, which
yields the Japanese sago. This, they say, at
the present day, is to push on vegetation ;
but your thoroughgoing comparative religion-
ist is bound to detect in this survival the
similar piaculum of the early Latins, records
of which can be traced to the four hundred

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

717

and twenty-third year of Rome. It is also
common among the negroes of the Guinea
coast and in Persia. The idea was to drive
the prayer into the body of the idol, the
god, the sacrosanct and worshiped tree ;
and a form of the practice survives in Brit-
tany, where saints' statues have replaced
primitive idols, and women's pins do duty
for nails. About six miles west of Tokio, at
Ilabashi, is the stump of an old yc-tree
{Cellis Willdenoioiaiia), so covered with ex-
volos that its fame must be surpassing. Mor-
sels of its decayed wood are sold to those
who have grown weary of their loves. The
force of the remedy lies in the application
of it. The tinder is boiled, the damsel is
got to drink of the charm unawares, and
immediately she goes her ways, and leaves
her charmer to sing " Joy go with her ! " The
bunches of spindles which grow on the great
bosses or tumors of the shh-aja-matsu {Pinus
Thunhergii) are still revered as the nests or
lairs of the Tcn-gu, or heavenly dog, which
inhabits mountains or lonely spots, has a
long snout, two claws on each foot and
hand, and a pair of wings.

Protective Charms.— Charms against al-
most any of the ills and dangers of life can
be obtained in Burmah from the Buddhist
priests, for a ti'ifling consideration. One of
these Wise Men will furnish a charm war-
ranted to protect the wearer against being
shot, for five or six rui^ees (between two and
three dollars). One of these charm?, ob-
tained by an English officer, consisted of a
tiny figure of Gaudama, in a sitting posture,
not much exceeding a large pea in size, carved
in ivory. In order to become proof against
sword-wounds, a medicine made by the priest
must be eaten. A specimen of this medi-
cine resembled in appearance and odor dried
leaves or bark finely powdered. Charms for
other purposes consist of curious devices
tattooed on various parts of the breast and
shoulders ; also of bits of ivory, silver, lead,
etc., inscribed with magic spells, inserted
under the skin. The Burman's faith in these
charms is very deep-rooted, and in spite of
frequent and painful proofs of their fallibil-
ity he does not seem to lose confidence in
their magical properties. The injured man
himself is generally the first to find an ex-
cuse for the failure of his tali-man to pro-

tect him. Holders of gun-charms assert con-
fidently that a gun fired at them will not go
off, or will burst, but their faith is not so
strong that they will consent to an experi-
mental test.

Dr, Jfansen's Greenland Expedition » —

Dr, Frithiof Nansen has successfully accom-
plished the experiment which we described
several months ago as about to be under-
taken, of crossing Greenland from the east-
ern to the western side, and arrived at Godt-
haab on the 3d of October last. The party
had some difficulty, owing to a southerly
drift in which they were caught, in making
a landing on the eastern coast as far north
as they desired, but finally started to cross
the inland ice from Umiavik, latitude 64° 30',
on the 15th of August. A course was at first
set toward the northwest for Christianshaab,
in Disco Bay; but much time being lost
through severe northerly snow-storms. Dr.
Nansen was compelled to turn to the west-
ward for the nearer settlement of Godt-
haab. The western coast was reached after
forty-six days' traveling, the distance from
the point of departure being 280 geographi-
cal miles. For several weeks the explorers
were at an altitude of more than 9,000 feet
above sea-level, and suffered from snow-
storms and loose snow, and a temperature of
between 40° and 50° below freezing. As
the last Danish ship of the season was not
able to wait for them to be embarked upon
it, the party will have to spend the winter
in Godthaab.

Longevity of Professional Men. — The

comparative longevity of professional men
may be accounted for by reference to the
exceptionally favorable conditions under
which they exist. While the man who is in
trade is tormented by anxiety over the un-
certainties of the morrow, and the man who
has made a fortune and retired is, unless he
has cultivated a hobby, a prey to inanition,
and liable to feel that he has no longer a
welcome place in the world, the professional
man of fifty has learned what he can do, and
has adjusted himself to a career for which
he is fitted. If he is making a fortune, his
life is full of interest and brings little trouble
or anxiety to himself. It is not his own case
that the lawyer pleads, the physician com-

718

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bats, and the parson arraigns. If he is only
moderately successful, his earnings, though
small, are safe, and he may hope that his
future will be as happy as his past. His
occupation, meanwhile, brings him consid-
eration and intelligent surroundings, and his
life is fairly and pleasantly varied. These
things all contribute to length of life.

NOTES.

The seventh annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Forestry Congress was held at Atlanta,
Ga., December 5, 6, and 7, 1888. Papers
and addresses on various subjects pertinent
to forestry in America were given. The
Congress lias for its object the creation of a
public sentiment in favor of a more rational
treatment of our forest resources. It is pro-
posed to raise a fund of ten thousand dol-
lars for carrying on the work of the Con-
gress, by creating life-memberships of one
hundred dollars each. The management of
the principal fund is to be in the hands of
the subscribers to it, who will be known as
patrons.

The programme for the second triennial
session of the International Congress of Hy-
drology and Climatology, which is to be held
in Paris in October, 1889, includes questions
upon scientific hydrology, medical hydrology,
and chmatology. The membership fee is
twelve francs.

According to Mr. Thomas T. P. Bruce
Warren, the better descriptions of India-rub-
ber, which are obtained from Brazil and Cen-
tral America, are now so eagerly sought aft-
er for the markets of the United States and
Germany that the British no longer have the
monopoly of the industry. Yankees are so
frequently at Para that they have virtually
the run of the market for the raw article
there, so that British customers have often
to take what would not pass muster for
them.

Dr. Ludwig "Wolf relates that while the
natives of Africa usually meet the white man
with suspicion and hostility, the Baluba peo-
ple at once showed his party a blind, child-
like confidence. They greeted them as for-
mer deceased chiefs and relatives of their
king Kalamba ilukenge, by whose names
they always called them. This was in pur-
suance of their belief that all distinguished
-warriors and chiefs will return to them meta-
morphosed after death.

Mr. Proctor left the manuscript of his
"Old and New Astronomy" in a more ad-
vanced state than was feared. Its comple-
tion has been undertaken by Mr. A. C. Ran-
yard, who was for some time Secretary of the
Royal Astronomical Society.

Arsenic having been recommended by
Dr. Tommasi Crudelli as a substance that
will efficiently augment the mean resistance
of the human organism to the malarious
ferment, Dr. Ricchi, medical supervisor of
Italian railways, has adopted as a tonic food-
preparation, to aid the preventive virtue of
the arsenic, the impalpable soluble powder,
made from the " sterilized " and desiccated
blood of calves, which is known in commerce
as "trefusia." Dr. Tommasi Crudelli ap-
proves the preparation, as being adapted to
the condition of systems which are not
susceptible of protection by the arsenical
treatment alone. The same physician rec-
ommends decoction of lemon as a prophy-
lactic or remedy in cases in which arsenic
and quinine have failed.

Sudden deaths are most frequent, ac-
cording to " The Lancet," when the condi-
tions of life change suddenly, or are espe-
cially liable to change — and this without
necessary reference to whether the change
effected be relatively for the better or for
the worse ; for the change may be so rap-
idly effected, in either direction, as to throw
upon the circulatory and respiratory func-
tions a strain which the organs are not able
to bear. In this way, persons with unsound
or weak hearts or weak arteries die suddenly
under rapid changes, although, if there were
no special strain consequent on the change,
it would in itself prove advantageous to them.
It may be accepted that sudden deaths are
especially likely to occur at periods of sea-
sonal change, and at times when rapid va-
riations of temperature are taking place.

Prof. H. J. Mackinder, Reader of Geog-
raphy at the University of Oxford, expresses
the opinion that the best preliminary train-
ing for a geographical specialist is a sound
grounding in general science, and, superadded
to this, an elementary knowledge of history.
He has found by experience that it is ex-
ceedingly hard to give the necessary scien-
tific knowledge to a historian.

Prof. Mackinder's courses in geography
at Oxford for 1888-'89 will include lectures
on " The Physical Geography of the Conti-
nents " ; " The Geography of the British
Isles, with Especial Reference to History " ;
and "The Historical Geography of North
America." To these will be added lectures
by Prof. Freeman on the " Historical Geog-
raphy of Europe," and by the Reader in In-
dian History on " The Geography of India."
Besides his duties at the university proper,
Prof. Mackinder last year gave one hundred
and two extension lectures on geography
and physiography at ten towns.

The operation of transplanting a part of
a nerve from a rabbit to a man has been
successfully performed in Vienna, upon Prof,
von Flcischl, of the university. The profess-
or had lost his thumb and incurred neurotoma.

NOTES.

719

and was suffering much pain. A piece, six
centimetres long, was taken from the great
nerve of a rabbit's thigh so as to include the
natural bifurcation of the main trunk. It
was secured to the stump of the nerve in the
man's arm, and the ends of the branches to
the nerve terminations that remained in the
fingers, so as to restore the interrupted com-
munication. All had gone well at the end
of two months.

An " authorized " biography of the late
Sir William Siemens has been prepared by
Dr. William Pole, of the Society of Civil
Engineers, and will soon be published in
London.

Mr. Proctor's " Knowledge " will be car-
ried on in future by W. H. Allen & Co., Lon-
don, as an illustrated magazine, with more
space devoted to physics, biology, etc., and
with controversial articles on theological and
allied questions excluded.

A NEW mole-like mammal, found in South
Australia, is described by E. C. Stirling, of
the university at Adelaide. It is a ground-
burrowing animal, outwardly somewhat like
the Cape mole, but differing from it in many
respects. It is about five inches long, has
no visible eyes, but a small pigment spot to
be seen on reflecting the skin, where the eye
should be ; no external ears, but the ear-
openings distinct and covered with fur ; the
fore-limbs short, resembling those of the
mole, with the hands folded so that only two
of the nails are visible in the natural po-
sition ; and the hinder limbs also short, with
the soles turned outward. The animal had
never been seen by any of the aborigines,
except by one old woman once.

A STATUE of Ampere was unveiled at
Lyons, his native place, October 9th. The
President of the French Republic attended
the ceremony, and M. Cornu, of the Academy
of Sciences, delivered the address.

The Copley medal of the Royal Society
for 1888 was presented to Prof. Huxley, for
his investigations into the morphology and
histology of vertebrate and invertebrate ani-
mals, and his services to biological science
generally ; the Rumford medal to Prof. Tac-
chini, for his researches in solar physics ;
and the Davy medal to Mr. Crookes, for his
researches on the electric discbarge in high
vacua. Royal medals were awarded to Baron
Ferdinand von Mueller, the Australian bota-
nist, and to Prof. Osborne Reynolds, of
Owens College, for researches in mathemati-
cal and experimental physics.

M. Marambet reports that of 3,000 con-
victs in France, examined with respect to
their habits of drunkenness or temperance,
V9 per cent of vagabonds, from 50 to 5Y per
cent of assassins and incendiaries, 53 per cent
of offenders against morals, 71 per cent of
thieves, sharpers, etc., 88 per cent of offend-

ers against the person, and 77 per cent of
offenders against property, were drunkards.
Drunkards are nearly as numerous among
youths under twenty as among adults. The
largest numbers of drunkards came from re-
gions where spirits are most largely con-
sumed.

An elaborate work on " The Viking Age,"
by M. de Chaillu, is soon to be published.
It will present the early history, manners,
and customs of the ancestors of the English-
speaking nations, illustrated from the an-
tiquities discovered in mounds, cairns, and
bogs, as well as from the ancient Sagas and
Eddas, with more than one thousand pictures.

Mexico affords a curious example of the
demoralization which irrational tariffs work.
To prevent bribery, the law imposes a sys-
tem of fines and forfeitures of which the
officers detecting irregularities are entitled to
half. Foreign shippers rarely escape fines
on their first consignments to Mexican ports,
because, unless they are experts, or consult
experts, they are very sure to have some
flaw in their papers which the sharpened eye
of the customs detective can fix upon as a
pretext for levying a fine. The absence of a
consular invoice is equivalent to the inflic-
tion of double duties, and this is often equiva-
lent to confiscation. " Insufficient declara-
tion " is punished by fines rising from ten to
one hundred per cent on the duties, accord-
ing to the nature of the offense.

The Indian system of weights and meas-
ures is described as being exceedingly con-
fusing, because of the numerous diiferent
designations of the standards, and because
the same designation may be applied to dif-
ferent standards, according as the articles
differ, or as the transactions are held at dif-
ferent places. A maund of barley is not
the same as a maund of indigo or of cotton,
and a Bombay maund is different from a
Calcutta maund. A seer is 5,040 grains,
while five seers are not five times 5,040 grains,
but five times 4,900 grains, to make them
commensurate with the Bombay maund.

At the anniversai-y meeting of the Sani-
tary Institution of Great Britain, Mr. Edwin
Chadwick, chairman, claimed credit to that
and similar institutions for a large propor-
tion of the reduction of the death-rate of
the metropolis, which had fallen to 14 in
1,000. The rate in Paris is 27, in Vienna,
30, and in St. Petersburg 40 per 1,000. Dr.
B. W. Richardson delivered an address on
" The Storage of Life as a Sanitary Study,"
by which he meant, substantially, the art of
living long.

While the summer of 1888 was unusu-
ally cool and moist in the United States and
the most of Europe, the people of Norway
endured a heat which is said to have sur-
passed the highest before observed during
this century.

720

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" The sight-seer's headache " is the name
given to an affliction from which frequenters
of picture-galleries and museums suffer. It
is a result in part of the effort of the mind
consequent upon long-continued observation,
and partly of the muscular strain involved in
that work ; but is chiefl}' produced — in suf-
ferers who are burdened with catalogues —
by the frequent movement of the eye from
the book to the object, and the incessantly
repeated readjustments of the focus of vision
which are made necessary in looking now at
one, now at the other.

The advance that has been realized in
the power of sanitation is exemplified, ac-
cording to Mr. Edwin Chadwick's review, in
the military services of the United Kingdom.
A quarter of a century ago, the death-rate in
the Guards was 20 per 1,000 ; it is now 6|
per 1,000. The death-rate in the home array
has been reduced in the same time from 17
to 8 per 1,0C0. In the Indian army the old
death-rate was 60 per 1,000; from 1879 to
1884 it was reduced to 20 per 1,000; and it
is now about 14 per 1,0U0. In the six years
from 1879 to 1884, the aggregate saving
was 16,yiO lives, the money value of which
is estimated at £1,691,000.

General Pitt Rivers has remarked that
the difference in results caused by different
methods of estimating the same skeleton by
the most famous English physical anthro-
pologist is not less than four inches. Dr.
Ijcddoe proposes as a rule to add to thrice
the length of the femur in inches 13 inches,
and one half of any excess over 19 inches
in the case of a man, reading 12^ and 17^
in the case of a woman.

A FAVORABLE report was given of the
growth and prospects of the Bridgeport
(Conn.) Scientific Society at the opening of
the lecture course of lS88-'89. The society
puts actual work and investigation by its
members foremost among its objects, while
the lectures are a secondary consideration.
It is about to be endowed with a permanent
home through the hberality of Sir. P. T. Bar-
num. Mr. IBarnum made the opening ad-
dress of the season's lectures, and having
spoken'of the benefits which science has con-
ferred upon mankind, urged prompt and full
recognition of the city's benefactors.

The origin of the experimental farm at
Rothamstead is attributed in the "Pall Mall
Gazette " to a remark made to Mr. Lawes by
Lord Dacve to the effect that bones used as
manure produced excellent results on one
farm, while on another they were compara-
tively useless. This led to the institution of
experiments w'th different fertilizers. Sir
John Lawes is arranging to put his laborato-
ry and the land on which the experiments
have been made, with £100,000 as an en-
dowment, into the hands of trustees to be
appointed by the Royal and two other socie-

ties. Thus there will be no end or interrup-
tion to the work after the death of Dr. Gil-
bert and himself.

Specimens of what may prove to be a
new species of chimpanzee have been attract-
ing attention at the London Zoological Soci-
ety's gardens. They are characterized by
being bald-headed — are possibly identical
with M. Du Chaillu's Troglodytes calvus —
and the name Anihropopithecus calvus has
been provisionally given them. Living spe-
cimens of all the three known anthropoid apes
may now be seen at the society's houses.

An expedition is projected in Norway to
be dispatched in the summer of 1890 in an
attempt to reach the north pole by way of
Franz-Josef Land. The leadership of it is
to be offered to Dr. Nansen.

The crater lakes of the volcanic Eifel have
been found by Dr. Otto Zacharias to be in-
habited by numerous species of Copepoda,
Daphrddce, Radiolaria, Jxotiers, water-mites,
and insect larvae. The largest of them, the
Laaeher See, which is about seven miles in
circumference, contains a special fauna.

Parts of the monument that was erected
in London by Sir Christopher Wren, to com-
memorate the Great Fire, are showing signs
of decay. The limestone of which it is built
is acted upon by the acids of the London at-
mosphere— an agency which had no percep-
tible existence in Wren's time, but is becom-
ing more and more obvious in large cities
and manufacturing towns.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Prof. Richard Vine Tuson, of the Royal
Veterinary College, London, died October
31, 1888. He had been Professor of Chem-
istry in the institution named for more than
twenty years ; was a " thorough chemist and
able teacher and experimenter " ; and was
the author of various scientific papers, and
editor of the new edition of Cooley's " Dic-
tionary of Receipts."

Dr. Peter Griess, a British chemist, died
at Bournemouth, Seiitembcr 6th. He was
best known as the discoverer of those re-
markable substances, the diazo-compounds.

Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Mass.,
a physician and medical writer well known
to readers of the "Monthly," died on the
1st day of January, from the effects of a
fall down-stairs resulting in concussion of
the brain. He was distinguished as a spe-
cialist in the subjects of physical culture
and degeneracy, insanity and state medicine,
heredity, hygiene, education, intemperance,
and the family institution, and particularly
of the falling off in the birth-rate among
native New England families ; on these sub-
jects he published several important works
and numerous shorter articles.

JAMES P. ESPY.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MO]^^THLY.

APRIL. 1889.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM.

Br JOSEPH JASTROW.

IN 1848, from the town of Hydeville, New York, came the some-
what startling discovery that certain knockings, the source of
which had mystified the household of one of its residents, seemed
to be intelligently guided and ready to appear at call. Communi-
cation was established by agreeing that one rap should mean
" no," and three raps " yes " ; to which was afterward added the
device of calling off the alphabet and noting at which letters the
raps occurred ; in this way the rapper revealed himself as the
spirit of a murdered peddler. Within five years the news of this
simple and childish invention had called into existence thousands
of spirit-circles, had developed wonderful "mediums," through
whose special gifts the manifestations were ascribed, had amassed
a vast store of strange testimony, and the movement had become
an epidemic ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that, in 1851, the
peculiar double raps occurring in the presence of these Fox sisters *

* Since this article was written, Margaret Fox (now Mrs. Kane) and Katie Fox (now
Mrs. Jencken) have publicly confessed that the raps to which they as children gave rise
were produced by dislocations of the toes. They have publicly shown the method of their
production, and seem earnestly desirous of retarding the growth of the movement to which
they so unintentionally gave rise. They plead for our mercy, on the ground that the move-
ment was started when they were too young to appreciate what was being done, and that,
when they realized the fraud and the encouragement they were receiving, it was too late or
too difficult to retract. It is a pity that this confession comes so late, and the more so,
that it has been made under such sensational surroundings. Had the confession been
placed in the hands of a respectable scientific body, such as the Soybert commission, a
more lasting service to mankind would have resulted. But none the less is it proper to
derive from this confession a valuable lesson for intending investigators, and a charac-
teristic proof of the moral taint in which the germs of this growth were laid and have
developed.

VOL. XXXIV. — i6

72 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were satisfactorily explained as due to the rapid partial disloca-
tion and resetting of the knee-joint, and perhaps other joints, the
raps failing to occur when the Fox sisters were placed in a posi-
tion in which the leverage necessary for this action was denied
them and being perfectly repeated, at will, by a lady gifted with
the same peculiarity. To-day spiritualists count their adherents
by millions. In 1867 there were estimated to be three millions in
America. They publish about one hundred journals, hailing
from all parts of the world (twenty-six of them appear in Amer-
ica), and the manifestations have increased in number and
variety. Spirit-forms are seen and hold converse ; they write on
slates in mysterious ways, they move tables, play musical instru-
ments, send flowers and messages, tie knots in an endless cord, and
so on ; all, however, only in the presence of " mediums."

It would seem self-evident that so momentous a conclusion
should not be accepted without the most rigid scrutiny ; that only
after every attempt to explain the phenomena by laws already
understood had failed, would recourse be had to a supernatural
origin, and only when the truth of such a theory had been re-
peatedly verified by a variety of evidence would it be definitely
accepted. The history of psychic epidemics shows too clearly that
any such logical procedure is made impossible by the white heat
of the emotional interest with which such movements always
spread. There is always a large class of people yearning for a
possession that shall be mysterious and unshared by the common
herd, anxious to embrace any such strange and novel doctrines
as spiritualism advanced, simply because of their strangeness and
novelty. Such persons find no satisfaction in investigating, but
only in believing. With such the movement began; but, as it
spread, it found its way into higher circles, securing the adher-
ence of many men and women of decided culture and intellectual
acumen, and even enrolling in its cause a few eminent representa-
tives of the world of learning. The spiritualists grew bold and
defied investigation; investigations were frequently made, and
resulted, according to the ability, impartiality, and technical fit-
ness of the investigators, about as frequently in exposure as in
conversion. The conversions were always trumpeted far and wide,
while the mediums convicted of fraudulent procedure quietly and
successfully continued their career. A prominent spiritualist
openly announces that Slade (perhaps the most famous living
medium) " now often cheats with an almost infantile audacity
and naivete, while at the same or the next seance with the same
investigators," genuine spiritualistic phenomena occur. If this
is the moral atmosphere of spiritualism, one can readily under-
stand the opinion of another disciple, that the true spirit in which
to approach its study is " an entire willingness to be deceived."

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM, 723

With tlie revival of interest fostered by the Society for Psychic
Research, the investigation of spiritualistic manifestations has
been undertaken with more of a scientific appreciation of the
problems therein involved ; and within the last few years have
appeared the results of several inquiries that deserve to register a
turning-point in the career of this mischievous superstition and
to hasten the day of its abandonment by all sensible men.

Mr. Henry Seybert, an enthusiastic spiritualist, bequeathed to
the University of Pennsylvania a sum of money, on the condition
that this university should appoint a commission to investigate
modern spiritualism. This commission has published a prelimi-
nary report.* They began with an entire willingness to accept
any conclusion warranted by facts ; and their chairman. Dr. H. H.
Furness, confessed " to a leaning in favor of the substantial truth
of spiritualism." They have examined many of the most famous
mediums, and the manifestations that have contributed most to
their fame. Their verdict, individually and collectively, is the
same regarding every medium with whom they saw anything
noteworthy : gross, intentional fraud throughout. The mediums
were treated with the utmost fairness and courtesy ; their con-
ditions were agreed to and upheld ; every one, in each kind of
manifestation, was either caught in the act of trickery, or the
trick was repeated and explained by one of the commission. This
testimony goes far to justify the substitution of "trick" for
" manifestation," of " senseless cant " for " spiritualistic explana-
tion," of " adroit conjurer " for " medium." The accumulative
force of this conclusion can only be appreciated by a reading of
the report itself. A few examples of the kind of trickery ex-
posed must here suffice, f

Dr. Slade, whose mediumship has convinced many of the most
eminent believers in spiritualism, including the famous Zollner
coterie,X produces communications on a slate held beneath a table,

* " Preliminary Report of the Commission appointed by the University of Pennsyl-
vania, to investigate Modern Spiritualism," Philadelphia, 1887, Lippincott, pp. 159. The
members of the commission are: Dr. William Pepper, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Dr. G. S. Koenig,
Prof. R. E. Thompson, Prof. G. S. Fullerton, Dr. H. H. Furness, Mr. Coleman Sellers, Dr.
J. W. White, Dr. C. B. Knerr, and Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.

\ It is often claimed that, while mercenary purposes can explain the existence of pro-
fessional mediums, the manifestations of private mediums remain as the bulwark of faith.
It is doubtless true that the method of investigating private manifestations must be a
different one, and this yet remains to be done in a careful and scientific manner. The
difficulty has always been in the unwillingness of private mediums to appear before examin-
ing bodies. It must also be remembered that amateur mediums, even when there was no
ground for suspicion, have been exposed as frauds {vide " Seybert Report," p. 122) ; and the
passion for deceiving, so characteristic of hysterical natures, is as strong as the greed for
gain. The subject merits a separate discussion.

\ This is always cited as one of the triumphs of spiritualism. As usually told, it reads
that a few eminent scientists, especially fitted to investigate such matters, were convinced

724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in answer to questions asked in writing or verbally, sometimes
openly and sometimes in folded slips of paper. It was soon dis-
covered that the character of this writing was of two kinds. The
long messages were neatly written, with the i's dotted and the Vs
crossed, and often produced unasked, or not in direct answer to a
question ; while the short ones, in answer to questions asked only
shortly beforehand, were scrawly, hardly legible, and evidently
written without the aid of the eye. The many methods of pro-
ducing the short writings were repeated by a professional presti-
digitateur much more skillfully than by Slade. The commission
distinctly saw every step in Slade's method, on one occasion or
another, but were utterly baffled by the conjurer (Mr. Harry
Kellar), who subsequently revealed his methods to Dr. Furness.
The long messages are written beforehand, on slates to be substi-
tuted for the ones given him at a favorable opportunity. At the
last seance with Dr. Slade, two prepared slates were resting against
a table behind him, and Dr. Furness kept a sharp watch upon
these slates. " Unfortunately, it was too sharp ; for one second
the medium saw me looking at them. It was enough. That de-
tected look prevented the revelation of those elaborate spirit mes-
sages. But when the seance was over, and he was signing the
receipt for his money, I passed round behind his chairand pushed
these slates with my foot, so as to make them fall over, whereupon
the writing on one of them was distinctly revealed." The medium
at once pushed back his chair, snatched the slates, hurriedly
washed them, and could with difficulty regain sufficient composure
to sign the receipt for the exorbitant payment of his services.
This is not the first time that Slade has been exposed, and it is
hoped that this verdict of the Seybert commission, " fraudulent
throughout," will be sufficient to make further exposure unneces-
sary.*

Another medium, Mrs. Patterson, gives a closely similar per-
formance. Dr. Knerr had a sitting with her, and adjusted a mirror

of the supernatural origin of Slade's performances, and one of their number (Zollner) found
the theory of their explanation in harmony with the mathematical notions of the fourth
dimension of space. Prof. G. S. Fullerton, the secretary of the Seybert commission, has
interviewed Zollner's associates, and finds that, "of the four eminent men whose names
have made famous the investigation, there is reason to believe one, Zollner, was of unsound
mind at the time, and anxious for an experimental demonstration of an already accepted
hypothesis (the fourth dimension of space) ; another, Fechner, was partly blind, and believed
because of Zollner's observations ; a third, Scheibner, was also afBicted with defective vision,
and not entirely satisfied in his own mind as to the phenomena ; and a fourth, Weber, was
advanced in age, and did not even recognize the disabilities of his associates." None knew
anything about conjuring, and, deservedly honored as these men are in their own special-
ties, they were certainly not fitted to compete with a professional like Slade.

* Another member of the commission (Mr. Coleman Sellers) says, with regard to Slade :
" The methods of this medium's operations appear to me to be perfectly transparent, and I
wish to say emphatically that I am astonished beyond expression at the confidence of this

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM.

725

about his person so as to reflect whatever was going on beneath
the table. " In the mirror I beheld a hand . . . stealthily insert
its fingers between the leaves of the slate, take out the little slip
(containing the question), unfold and again fold it, grasp the little
pencil . . . and with rapid but noiseless motion . . . write across
the slate from left to right a few lines ; then the leaves of the slate
were closed, the little pencil laid on the top," and the spirits in-
voked to please send a message.

Is it necessary to continue the catalogue of vulgar deceit : to
tell how Dr. Furness sends out sealed letters the contents of which
the spirits are to read and answer without opening, and finds the
seals tampered with and mucilage and skill used to conceal the
crime ; how he asks the same question of various mediums and
receives hopelessly contradictory answers; how he detects the
form of the medium in her assumed materializations and finds the
spirit ready to answer to any and every name in fiction or reality,
from " Olivia " of " The Talking Oak " to Shakespeare ; how a me-
dium who materializes a right hand while apparently holding his
neighbor's hand with both his own, is shown to imitate this double
grip with one hand and do the hocus-pocus with the other — in
short, how universal, how coarse, how degrading this fraud is ;
how readily it leaves its hiding-place to snatch at a cunningly
ofi'ered bait, until it becomes ridiculous ? *

Let us rather turn to another independent investigation pub-
lished by the English Society for Psychical Research (October,
1886, to May, 1887). The great English medium, whose perform-
ances as described are really miraculous, is Englinton, and his spe-
cialty is slate-writing. The late Prof. H. Carvill Lewis (of Phila-
delphia) had sittings with Englinton, and reported as follows :
He sat intently watching Englinton for an hour, and nothing hap-
pened ; fearing a blank seance, he purposely diverted his attention.
The moment he looked away, the manifestations began, and he
could see " the medium look down intently toward his knees and

man in his ability to deceive, and at the recklessness of the risks which he assumes in the
most barefaced manner. The only reason of our having any so-called ' manifestations,'
under the circumstances, was because of the fact that the committee had agreed in advance
to be entirely passive, and to acquiesce in every condition imposed."

Mrs. Sidgwick, an able English observer, detected the fraudulent character of Slade's
performances from the beginning. She points out five important grounds of suspicion :
" His conjurer-like way of trying to distract one's attention, his always sitting so as to have
the right hand to manipulate the slate, the vague and general character of the communica-
tions, his compelling one to sit with one's hands in a position that makes it difiBcult to look
under the table, and his only allowing two sitters at a time."

* The barefacedness of the medium's business reaches its climax in the fact (communi-
cated to me by Dr. Furness) that a noted medium had visited a professional juggler, and,
" making no secret to him of his trickery as medium for independent slaie-writing, had pur-
chased from the juggler several other tricks with which to carry on his spiritualistic trade.^^

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the direction of the slate. I now quickly turned back my head,
when the slate was brought up against the table with a sharp
rap." He repeated the manoeuvre, with the same result, and while
the writing was going on he distinctly saw " the movement of the
central tendon in his wrist corresponding to that made by his
middle finger in the act of writing. Each movement of the ten-
don was simultaneously accompanied by the sound of a scratch
on the slate." Again, for the answer to another question, Englin-
ton requires the use of a dictionary, and leaves the room for a min-
ute ; the answer is then written just as it is given in Webster's
dictionary; but, unfortunately, a^6i*mi?ia was read for alumina.
When the slate, which closes with a spring, is to be closed, Englin-
ton suddenly sneezes ; when the writing is small and faint, he
struggles until he gets within a few inches of it ; a postage-stamp
secretly glued across the two leaves of the double slate prevents all
manifestations ; a double fee immediately causes further manifes-
tations, while a minute before such were declared impossible,
owing to the exhaustion of power ; and the writing on the slates
is identified by an expert as that of Englinton.*

Mrs. Henry Sidgwick records her experience with many medi-
ums, and supports the same verdict. She was often unable to de-
tect the exact modus operandi of the medium, but has never seen
anything which was not well within the range and strongly sug-
gestive of conjuring, and mostly of no high order of conjuring.

But all this accounts for only part of the problem. To con-
vict every medium of fraud is not a complete explanation of the
appearance which this belief now presents. It remains to account
for the great success of the movement ; for the fact that so many
have been deceived and so few have really understood ; to show
why we are to believe the Seybert commission, and not credit
the countless miracle-mongers. This is psychologically the most
interesting portion of the problem, and has recently been very
successfully treated by Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr.
Davey, of the English Society for Psychic Research.

There is a very broad-spread notion that anybody can go to a
spiritualistic seance and give a reliable opinion as to whether
what he or she has seen is explicable as conjuring or not. Espe-
cially in this country, where the right to one's opinion is regarded
as a corollary to the right of liberty, does this notion prevail. The

* If further proof be required of the degrading contriTanees to which this medium will
resort, we have it in his conviction of connivance with Mme. Blavatsky in the production of
a spurious theosophic marvel, as well as in the following evidence supplied by 3Ir. Padshah
and indorsed by Mr. Hodgson (the exposer of Mme. Blavatsky) : Mr. Padshah and a friend
had asked for Gujerati writing at a seance, but did not get it ; the former then anonymously
sent a poem in Gujerati to Englinton, and his friend (who was not initiated in the trick)
brought the same copied in every detail on a slate as the direct revelation of the spirits in
a sitting with the medium !

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 727

fact probably is, that most such claimants are about as competent
to form a trustworthy opinion on such a subject as they are to
pronounce upon the genuineness of a Syriac manuscript. The
matter is as much a technical acquisition as is the diagnos-
ticating of a disease. It is not at all to the discredit of the observ-
ing powers or the intellectual acumen of any one, to be deceived
by the performances of a conjurer, and the same holds true of the
professional part of mediumistic phenomena.* Until this homely
but salutary truth is impressed with all its importance upon all
intending investigators, there is little hope of checking the growth
of this vast superstition, f You believe that there will be an eclipse
of the moon when the astronomer predicts one, not because you
can calculate the time yourself, or even understand how the as-
tronomer does it, but because that is a technical acquisition which

* " I do not think that this unpreparedncss and inobservancy of mind, in the presence
of a conjurer, is a thing of which any one who is not familiar with the tricks ah-eady need
be ashamed." — Mr. Hodgson.

Even a conjurer can be nonplussed by a medium's performance if he have no experience
in the particular kind of sleight of hand required for the trick. This is the experience of
Mr. Harry Kellar. He at first declared himself unable to explain slate-writing as a trick,
but now can repeat the process in a variety of ways, and with far greater skill than me-
diums. Of course the spiritualists keep on citing his former testimony, and ignore his chal-
lenge to repeat by trickery any alleged spiritualistic phenomena witnessed by him three
times.

f The above view ought, perhaps, to be modified somewhat. There is a class of spir-
itualistic manifestations, to be deceived by which is a mark of weak iusi^'ht or strong
prejudice. To this class belong the materialization of departed friends. On these Dr.
Furness writes thus : " Again and again men have led round the circles the materialized
spirits of their wives and introduced them to each visitor in turn ; fathers have taken round
their daughters, and I have seen widows sob in the arms of their dead husbands. Testi-
mony such as this staggers me. Have I been smitten with color-blindness ? Before me,
as far as I can detect, stands the very medium herself, in shape, size, form, and feature
true to a line, and yet one after another, honest men and women at my side, within ten
minutes of each other, assert that she is the absolute counterpart of their nearest and
dearest friend ; nay, that she is that friend. It is as incomprehensible to me as the asser-
tion that the heavens are green, and the leaves of the trees deep blue. Can it be that the
faculty of observation and comparison is rare, and that our features are really vague and
misty to our best friends ? Is it that the medium exercises some mesmeric influence on her
visitors, who are thus made to accept the faces which she wills them to see ? Or is it, after
all, only the dim light and a fresh illustration of la nuii tous les chats sont gris ? " Add to
this the confession of an exposed medium, Mr. D. D. Home : " The first seance I held, after
it became known to the Rochester people that I was a medium, a gentleman from Chicago
recognized his daughter Lizzie in me after I had covered my small mustache with a piece
of flesh-colored cloth, and reduced the size of my face with a shawl I had purposely hung
up in the back of the cabinet." Cases where different members of a circle instantly recog-
nize in the spirit form entirely different persons are not uncommon. Here so much of the
trick depends upon the sitter that he must be a firm believer, or very simple, to be deceived.
It is this kind of manifestations with which the better class of spiritualists have least to
do ; and it is seldom that a conversion of a real investigator begins with such materializa-
tions. This preying upon the feelings of simple-minded folk is one of the greatest scandals
of the movement.

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he has learned and you have not ; and so with a thousand other
and more humble facts of daily life. Spiritualism (to a large
extent) comes under the same category ; and the Seybert commis-
sion, and these other observers who have acquainted themselves
with the possibilities of conjuring and the natural history of de-
ception, who by their training and natural gifts have fitted them-
selves as competent judges of such alleged ultra-physical facts —
these persons have the same right to our confidence and respect
as a body of chemists or physicians on a question within their
province. It is not fair to set up what you think you have seen
as overthrowing their authority ; even if you are an unprejudiced
and accurate observer who has weighed the probability of your
observations being vitiated by one or other of the many sources of
error in such observation, it is only a small fact, though of course
even that should be registered.

Whatever of seeming dogmatism there is in this view is re-
moved by the experimental demonstration furnished by Messrs.
Hodgson and Davey, that the kind and amount of mal-observation
and faulty description which an average observer will introduce
into the account of a performance such as the medium gives, is
amply sufficient to account for the divergence between his report
of the performance and what really occurred. The success of a
large class of tricks depends upon diverting the observer's atten-
tion from the points of real importance, and in leading him to
draw inferences perfectly valid under ordinary circumstances but
entirely wrong in the particular case. It must be constantly re-
membered that the judging powers are at a great disadvantage in
observing such performances, and that it is a kind of judgment in
which they have no practice. In the intercourse of daily life a
certain amount of good faith and confidence in the straightfor-
wardness of the doings of others prevents us from exercising that
close scrutiny and suspicion here necessary. We know that most
of our neighbors have not the sharpness to deceive us, and do not
live on the principle of the detective, who regards every one as
dishonest until he has proved himself honest.

Mr. Davey (who, by the way, was at one time deceived almost
into conversion by spiritualistic phenomena) is an expert amateur
conjurer, and repeats the slate- writing performances of such as
Englinton with at least equal skill. He arranged with Mr. Hodg-
son to give sittings to several ladies and gentlemen, on the con-
dition that the latter send him detailed written accounts of what
they had seen. He did not pose as a medium or accept a fee, but
simply said that he had something to show which his sitters were
to explain as best they could, and with due consideration of trick-
ery as a possible mode of explanation. The " medium " has here
a decided advantage over Mr. Davey, because he induces a mental

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 729

attitude in his sitters that entertains (however remotely) the pos-
sibility of witnessing something supernatural, and this is sufficient
to create an adjustment of the powers of observation less fitted to
detect trickery than if the performer did not announce himself
as the go-between of the supernatural. This is well illustrated in
the reports of Mr. Davey's sitters, for a few friends who were told
beforehand that they were to witness a sleight-of-hand perform-
ance, or were strongly led to believe it such, made much less of
a marvel of the performance than those who had not been thus
enlightened. It remains to add that not one of the sitters (and
they were persons of decidedly more than average intelligence
and ability) detected his modus operandi, and a large number
concluded that trickery was utterly insufficient to account for the
manifestations.

Mr. Davey's performances, as described by many of his sitters,
like the descriptions of the performances of many a medium, are
marvelous enough to demand the hypothesis of occult agency:
" Writing upon slates locked and carefully guarded by witnesses
— writing upon slates held by the witnesses firmly against the
under surface of the table — writing upon slates held by the wit-
nesses above the table — answers to questions written secretly in
locked slates — correct quotations appearing on guarded slates
from books chosen by the witnesses at random, and sometimes
mentally, the books not touched by the ' medium '',... messages
in languages unknown to the ' medium,' including a message in
German, for which only a mental request had been made, and a
letter in Japanese in a double slate locked and sealed by the wit-
ness, etc. And yet, though ' autographic ' fragments of pencil were
' heard ' weaving mysterious messages between and under and
over slates, and fragments of chalk were seen moving about
under a tumbler placed above the table in full view, none of the
sitters witnessed that best phenomenon, Mr. Davey ivriting."

It must not be supposed that the errors of mal-description and
lapse of memory thus committed are at all serious in themselves ;
on the contrary, they are mostly such as would be entirely par-
donable in ordinary matters. Mr. Hodgson places them in four
classes. In the first, the observer interpolates a fact which really
did no,t happen, but which he was led to believe had occurred.
He records that he examined the slate, when he really did not.
Or, for similar causes, he substitutes one statement for another
closely like it ; he says he examined the slate minutely, when he
really only did so hastily. Thirdly, he may transpose the order in
which the events happened, making the examination of the slate
occur at a later period than when it really took place. Lastly, he
may omit certain details which he was carefully led to consider
trivial, but which really were most important. Such slight lapses

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as these are sufiBcient to make a marvel of a clever piece of con-
juring ; add to this the increased temptations for mal-observation
afforded by the dim light and mysterious surroundings of the
medium, as well as by the sympathetic attitude of the sitters, and
the wide divergence between the miraculous narratives of spirit-
ualists and the homely deceptions which they are intended to
describe is no longer a mystery.

The conclusion thus experimentally arrived at by Messrs.
Hodgson and Davey is corroborated by other investigators. After
witnessing a seance that was simply a series of the simplest and
most glaringly evident tricks, Mrs. Sidgwick was expected to
have had all her doubts entirely removed, and was assured that
what she had seen was better than the materializations at Paris.
" Experiences like this make one feel how misleading the accounts
of some completely honest witnesses may be ; for the materiali-
zations in Paris were those which the Comte de Bullet had with
Firman, where near relatives of the count were believed con-
stantly to appear, and which are among the most wonderful
recorded in spiritualistic literature. And, after all, it appears
that these marvelous seances were no better than this miserable
personation by Haxby."

The Seybert commission finds that " with every possible desire
on the part of spiritualists to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, concerning marvelous phenomena, it is
extremely difficult to do so. Be it distinctly understood that we
do not for an instant impute willful perversion of the truth. All
that we mean is that, for two reasons, it is likely that the marvels
of spiritualism will be, by believers in them, incorrectly and
insufficiently reported. The first reason is to be found in the
mental condition of the observer; if he be excited or deeply
moved, his account can not but be affected, and essential details
will surely be distorted. For a second reason, note how hard it
is to give a truthful account of any common, every-day occur-
rence. The difficulty is increased a hundred-fold when what we
would tell partakes of the wonderful. Who can truthfully de-
scribe a juggler's trick ? Who would hesitate to affirm that a
watch, which never left the eye-sight for an instant, was broken
by the juggler on an anvil ; or that a handkerchief was burned
before our eyes ? We all know the juggler does not break the
watch, and does not burn the handkerchief. We watched most
closely the juggler's right hand, while the trick was done with
his left. The onex, minute circumstance has been omitted that
would have converted the trick into no-trick. It is likely to be
the same in the accounts of the most wonderful phenomena of
spiritualism."

If we desire a concrete instance of this omission of an impor-

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 731

tant detail, Dr. Furness will supply one. Certain highly intelli-
gent observers describe to him the doings of a Boston medium :
" There are two tables in the room of seance, at one of which sits
the medium, at the other the visitor. The visitor at his table
writes his question in pencil at the top of a long slip of paper,
and, after folding over several times the portion of the slip on
which his question is written, gums it down with mucilage and
hands it to the medium, who thereupon places on the folded and
gummed portion his left hand, and in a few minutes with his
right hand writes down answers to the concealed questions ; these
answers are marvels of pertinency, and prove beyond a cavil the
clairvoyant or spiritual powers of the medium." Dr. Furness
went to the medium, prepared his slip of paper about as described,
and thus continues : " As soon as he took his seat, and laid the
strip on his table before him, I rose and approached the table so
as to keep my paper still in sight ; the roiu of books entirely inter-
cepted my view of it. The medium instantly motioned tome to
return to my seat, and, I think, told me to do so. I obeyed, and
as I did so could not repress a profound sigh. "Why had no one
ever told me of that row of books ? "

Before passing sentence one must hear what the defendant has
to say. The usual defense consists in claiming that the conviction
of fraud in some mediums does not jjrove the absence of genuine
phenomena in others. Some even claim, as we saw, that fraud
and spirit manifestations can go hand in hand. Furthermore,
they hold that the conditions for success demanded by the me-
diums, though they make the phenomena resemble a juggler's
performance, are perfectly explicable on spiritualistic grounds.
Writing is best produced in the dark because dark is " negative,"
light " positive," and negative conditions are most favorable to
communication ; if the spirit that appears resembles the medium,
that is an effect of the materializing process ; if writing does not
occur when the slate is looked at, it is because the magnetism
of the eye is unfavorable ; and has not Dr. Slade received an
express command from the spirits forbidding him, on penalty
of cutting off all communication, to attempt to write on sealed
slates ?

In the first place, while it is not thus proved that every action
of every medium is fraudulent, it makes it more and more proba-
ble, especially as the very conditions necessary for a serious inves-
tigation are denied on fanciful grounds. The fact that scientific
examination everywhere reveals deception makes it extremely
probable that, when exposure has not taken place, it is because
there was no scientific examination. At any rate, the burden of
proof is with the claimants for supernatural manifestations, and
their case has now been so much weakened that it can no longer

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enter as a serious possibility into the minds of such as guide their
beliefs by reason. Again, their " spiritualistic " explanations are
simply violent assumptions, varying with the caprice and inge-
nuity of every medium, and evidently manufactured for the pur-
pose. Even if such explanations were consistent, they would be
possible only in that extreme sense in which any bizarre notion or
fantastic hypothesis is possible. Practically, they are impossible,
because contradictory to the fundamental tenets of science and
experience ; because they are opposed to that marvelous network
of mutually corroborating laws and observations upon which the
logic of civilization is founded. Those whose feelings are not
appealed to by the doctrines of spiritualism will never be at-
tracted to it by its logic.

A system that aims to instruct men with regard to beliefs
appealing most earnestly and deeply to the human heart, appears
in the light of scientific investigation as an empty, tottering
framework, held together by the grossest frauds, covered over
with the most vulgar sham, and embellished with the meanest
kind of deception. Let each one leave as small or as large a mar-
gin for the possibility of a genuine spiritualism as to him seems
fit, but let him realize in all its immensity the gross scandal to
which this system has given and is giving rise. Let him under-
stand that under the shelter of spiritualism men and women in all
our large cities are daily and hourly preying upon the credulity
of simple-minded folk, and obtaining money by means for which
the law provides the jail. Let him know that there is now abun-
dant evidence to make the term " medium " synonymous with
" impostor." When these facts are clearly and universally recog-
nized, we may hope to ascertain whether there is a true but small
foundation-stone hidden beneath this rubbish-heap, or whether,
like its equally pretentious predecessors, it leaves the mystery
as unsolved as it found it.

AocoBDiNG to Prof. Judd, an important change has taken place in scientific
opinion concerning the climatical relations of fauna and flora, and the distribution
of biological regions. It has been tacitly assumed that all marine organisms com-
ing from regions bordering the equator must have lived under tropical conditions ;
but deep-sea research has shown that all conditions of temperature and of light
prevail at their several depths in tropical as well as other seas ; and that many
forms which, because they came from equatorial regions, we have hitherto re-
garded as tropical, we now know to live in icy-cold water as well as in almost
utter darkness. The large size and abundant development of cephalopods, crus-
taceans, and fish, we now know to be no evidence of the presence of warmth or
life, and Sir Joseph Hooker has shown the fallacy of similar reasoning when
applied to plant-life.

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 733

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS:

HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTION WHICH THIS TERM INVOLVES.

Br JOSIAH PAKSONS COOKE, LL. D.,

KEYING PEOFESSOK OF CHEMISTEY AND MINEEALOGT \S HAEVARD UNIVEESITr.

THE intellectual force of Aristotle ruled in cliemistry even
longer than in other departments of physical science. In
mechanics and astronomy the dogmas of Aristotle were effectually
laid by Galileo early in the seventeenth century ; but his doctrine
of the four elements* — in one form or other — was accepted in
chemistry to the close of the eighteenth century. The wonderful
history of the philosophy of the great Stagirite — a philosophy
which ruled the intellectual world in physics as well as in meta-
physics for more than twenty centuries — is constantly referred to
as an illustration of the vices of speculative thought when not
based on experimental evidences ; and, undoubtedly, the aberra-
tions of many of his later disciples justify this opinion. Among
these Kepler is especially consi^icuous, for he, by applying the
doctrines in a most grotesque and absurd manner, did not a little to
bring Aristotle's philosophy of mechanics into contempt. Never-
theless, Aristotle himself was for his time an acute observer, as
his writings abundantly indicate ; and his philosophical views are
brought forward rather to justify his conclusions than as the
basis of his inferences. So it is with the doctrine of the four ele-
ments. Earth, water, air, and fire were obviously to him the
essences, or, to use a later and more descriptive word, the " sub-
stantia " of four conditions of matter. Three of these we recog-
nize as clearly as he did ; and the fourth, fire, which he regarded
as a more sublimated condition than air, and thought he actually
saw in the upward motion of flames, has its modern representative
in Mr. Crookes's fourth condition of matter.

Since Aristotle regarded motion as an attribute of inanimate
as well as of living bodies— a stone falling for the same reason
that a fish swims— and as he noticed that while water and stones
tend to fall, flame and air tend to rise, he regarded the last as
having a natural motion upward, and the first as having a natural
motion downward ; and thus to him specific levity seemed as much
a direct inference of observation as specific gravity. By this inher-
ent motion the four elements appeared to strive to separate, and
each to tend to its own place — fire taking the highest place, air the

* The doctrine of the four elements, although usually associated with Aristotle, is really
as old as Greek philosophy, and can certainly be traced back to Empedoclcs, who lived in
the second third of the fifth century before Christ — that is, a century before the time of
Aristotle.

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

next, water the next, and earth the lowest. The reasons urged in
support of these conclusions appear to us absurd enough.

By Aristotle, as by other Greek philosophers, the contrasts em-
phasized by language were regarded as fundamental distinctions
in nature, or first principles, which they made the basis of dis-
cussion, and from which they sought to deduce general truths.
Aristotle enumerates ten such principles as enunciated by the
Pythagoreans— limited and unlimited, odd and even, one and
many, right and left, male and female, rest and motion, straight
and curved, light and darkness, good and evil, square and oblong
—and from oppositions of this kind he deduced his doctrine of
the four elements.

" We seek," Aristotle writes, " the principles of sensible things,
that is, of tangible bodies. We must take, therefore, not all the
contrarieties of quality, but those only which have reference to
the touch. Thus, black and white, sweet and bitter, do not differ
as tangible qualities, and must therefore be rejected from our con-
sideration. Now, the contrarieties of quality which refer to the
touch are these : hot, cold ; dry, wet ; heavy, light ; hard, soft ;
unctuous, meager ; rough, smooth ; dense, rare." Then, after reject-
ing all but the first four of these, either because they are not act-
ive and passive qualities, or because they are combinations of the
first four, and concluding for these reasons that the four retained
must be elements, he proceeds : " Now, in four things there are six
combinations of two ; but the combinations of two opposites, as
hot and cold, must be rejected. We have, therefore, four ele-
mentary combinations which agree with the four apparently ele-
mentary bodies : fire is hot and dry ; air is hot and wet (for steam
is air) ; water is cold and wet ; earth is cold and dry."

In a similar way, by considering light as opposite to heavy,
Aristotle justifies his conclusion that levity is a quality of a body,
and that bodies are absolutely heavy or absolutely light. " Former
writers," he says, " have considered heavy and light relatively only
— taking cases where both things have weight, but one is lighter
than the other, and they imagined that in this way they defined
what was absolutely heavy and light." Fire and air, according to
Aristotle, were absolutely light, with fire the lighter of the two ;
while water and earth were absolutely heavy, with earth the
heavier of the two. In another place he writes, " Heavy and light
are, as it were, the embers or sparks of motion " ; and hence he
concluded that the tendency of light bodies to rise, like the tend-
ency of heavy bodies to fall, was an inherent quality.

Subsequently Aristotle recognized a fifth element in nature.
In his book " On the Heavens " he wrote : " The simple elements
must have simple motions ; and thus fire and air have their natu-
ral motions upward, and water and earth have their natural

J

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 735

motions downward. But, besides these motions, there is motion
in a circle, which is unnatural to these elements, but which is a
more perfect motion than the other, because a circle is a perfect
line, and a straight line is not ; and there must be something to
which this motion is natural. From this it is evident that there
is some essence of body different from those of the four elements,
more divine than those and superior to them. If things which
move in a circle move contrary to nature, it is marvelous or
rather absurd that this, the unnatural motion, should alone be
continuous and eternal ; for unnatural motions decay speedily.
And so from all this we must collect that, besides the four ele-
ments which we have here and about us, there is another removed
far off, and the more excellent in proportion as it is more distant
from us." This element was called the quinta essentia by Latin
writers, and the word quintessence in our own language frequently
brings to mind this singular conception, which, although so absurd
to us, held for ages a wonderful control over the human mind.

It is not, however, our purpose to trace the influence of the
dynamical conceptions of Aristotle on the development of physical
science, interesting and instructive as such a study would be. We
are here dealing only with the conception of an element or prin-
ciple of material bodies, also involved in this reasoning ; and it is
obvious that this early conception of an element was not that of a
definite substance — as we now understand the word substance —
that is, something subsistens per se — but rather that of the
essentia or substantia which were supposed to underlie the
external attributes of bodies, and of which these last were merely
accidents. Earth was the underlying principle of all solid bodies,
whose multifarious forms were as familiar to Aristotle as to us.
So all liquid bodies were forms of water, and all aeriform bodies
manifestations of the all-diffusive air ; and the ancients, at times
even more acute than ourselves, made distinctions between con-
ditions, both of water and air, which we know are not essential.

We know that flame is simply intensely heated gas rising in a
denser atmosphere ; but it was perfectly natural that the ancients
should regard such a startling effect as a manifestation of a fourth
condition of matter still lighter and more subtile than air, and
the conception of fire as a fundamental principle of nature once
formed, the phenomena of combustion appeared to them as direct
evidences of the escape of this principle of fire from the burning
bodies.

The famous theory of phlogiston, advanced by Becher and Stahl
during the seventeenth century, was simply a development of
these views without any essential change. Phlogiston was merely
a new name for the fourth element of Aristotle. As by Aristotle
all combustible bodies were assumed to hold the principle of fire.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

so, on the new theory, they were regarded as compounds of phlo-
giston, and, in burning, the phlogiston was supposed to escape into
the atmosphere. The ease with which such metals as zinc, iron,
lead, and tin burn under certain conditions was well known to
the chemists of that period, and hence all metals were regarded as
largely composed of phlogiston ; and when it was shown that the
oxides, then called calces, resulting from the burning, weighed
more than the metal burned, the facts were cited to prove that
phlogiston was specifically light, and therefore, when removed
from a body, added to its weight.

It has been said that the increase of weight resulting from
burning and other forms of oxidation was not recognized until
Lavoisier introduced the balance into chemical investigations at
the close of the last century ; but, although such phenomena could
not be formulated under a general principle until after the dis-
covery of oxygen in 1774 (nearly simultaneously both by Priestley
and by Scheele), the fact that the so-called calces resulting from
the burning of the metals weigh more than the metals was well
known to metallurgists from a much earlier period. Thus L^me-
ry, who died in 1715, in his well-known treatise on chemistry,
describes the increase of weight attending the calcination both of
tin and lead ; and Boerhaave, a famous Dutch physician and
chemist of the same period, thus describes the calcination of
lead : " And if, while the lead is in fusion, it be kept continually
stirring with a spatula, it turns into a red powder called minium,
or red lead, in which operation this is further observable that the
lead augments in weight."

During the eighteenth century the theory of phlogiston be-
came modified by the increasing knowledge of the definiteness of
chemical combination. Like the other constituents of a body, it
was held that the phlogiston in combustibles must be united in
definite proportions. So, moreover, when, leaving the fuel in the
process of combustion, phlogiston entered into union with the air,
it could only be absorbed by the atmosphere up to a certain limit.
Hence, a candle soon goes out if burned in a confined vessel ; be-
cause, after the air is saturated with phlogiston, no more can
escape from the combustible. Priestley called oxygen gas, when
first discovered, dephlogisticated air, because he ascribed its won-
derful power of sustaining combustion to the absence of jjhlogis-
ton, which oxygen gas could therefore absorb to a proportionally
great extent. On the other hand, hydrogen was called phlogisti-
cated air; and Cavendish, when he first isolated this exceedingly
light and combustible gas, thought he had discovered phlogiston
itself.

As has been already intimated, Aristotle's doctrine of the
chemical elements was, in some form or other, received by stu-

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 737

dents of chemistry down to the time of Lavoisier, and the aims
and practice of alchemy, which for many centuries was the only
phase of chemistry studied, were wholly in harmony with this
conception. If the metals were all manifestations of the same
underlying essence, and differed only in the accidents of external
qualities, it was reasonable to suppose that these accidents might
be changed. The alchemists were often intelligent men, and
knew as well as ourselves that " all is not gold that glitters " ; but
the resemblances to the precious metals which they sometimes
obtained by their empirical methods were sufficient to stimulate
effort. They also clearly saw that the value of the prize they
sought would vanish in their keeping the moment the secret be-
came known ; but this only led them, as it does so many manu-
facturers of the present day, to invest their processes with all
possible mystery, to conceal known facts beneath non-essentials,
and to adopt a conventional and highly figurative language for
communicating with each other, so that, even with our knowledge
of chemistry, the writings of the alchemists are for the most part
an unintelligible jargon. Still, their hopes were based on what
they regarded as sound philosophy ; and, although their efforts
were frequently exposed to ridicule on the ground of ill success,
no convincing objections were ever raised to the philosophy by
which they were guided. That the aims of the alchemists must
have appeared reasonable to thinking men is shown by the fact
that, even at a late period in the history of this apparent delusion.
Sir Isaac Newton, whose scientific sobriety can not be questioned,
devoted a great deal of time to experiments on the transmutation
of the metals.

During the two thousand years through which the doctrine of
a few elementary principles of nature prevailed, the precise form
which the elements assumed naturally varied with the general
point of view of the students at the time, although for the most
part philosophical writers adhered to the statement of Aristotle.
By many of the alchemists mercury, sulphur, and salt were re-
garded as fundamental principles, because the crude materials
under these names played such an important part in the hermetic
art. Here, however, it was not these crude materials which were
regarded as the elements of matter, but sublimated forms of these
substances, known as the mercury and sulphur of the philoso-
phers ; and for a long time the conceit was cherished that, if once
the elemental mercury and sulphur could be isolated, all metals,
and, of course, gold and silver among the number, could be manu-
factured by mixing these elements in the right proportions.
Later, when chemistry assumed a pharmaceutical character, the
elements were often said to be water, spirit, oil, salt, and earth, of
which the first three were regarded as active and the last two as
VOL. XXXIV. — 4Y

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

passive principles. These elements, again, were not definite sub-
stances, but merely classes of products obtained by distillation,
the active principles being those that passed over and the passive
principles those that remained behind in this process — a process
which at the time had become the typical process of chemistry,
and the chemists of this period are always represented in paint-
ings with a retort or alembic, as were the alchemists of an earlier
period with a furnace and crucible. This last enumeration of
elements is not so different from that of the alchemists as would
at first sight seem, for mercury was regarded as the most active
of the spirits, and sulphur as one of the oils. Moreover, the dis-
tinction between fixed and volatile oils, which dates from this
period, shows the generic character of the elements then accepted.

In his " Oedipus Chymicus," first published about the middle
of the seventeenth century, Becher, the author of the theory of
phlogiston, comes back to the elements of Aristotle, and in this he
is followed by Stahl, who elaborated the same theory a generation
later. To give an idea of the confusion of thought on this sub-
ject, even at a comparatively late period, I will quote from the
" Cours de Chimie, par M. L^mery, nouvelle Edition, Paris, 175G,"
a work which remained one of the chief authorities on chem-
istry down to the time of Lavoisier. I translate freely from the
French :

" The first element of compound bodies which we must accept
is a universal spirit, which, being universally diffused, produces
different results according as it is held in different matrices or
pores of the earth ; but as this principle is somewhat metaphysical
and can not be perceived by the senses, we must distinguish in
addition certain elements which are perceptible. I shall name
those commonly accepted.

" As chemists in analyzing different compounds have found
five kinds of substances, they have concluded that there are five
principles of material things — water, spirit, oil, salt, and earth.
Of these five there are three which are active principles — spirit,
oil, and salt ; and two passive — water and earth. The first are
called active, because, being endowed with rajDid motion, they
determine the active qualities of the products into which they
enter ; and the second are called passive, because, being at rest,
they only serve to diminish the vivacity of the active principles."

Then follows a more precise definition of the several principles
enumerated, to which in part I have already referred. After this,
L^mery remarks :

" The term principle of chemistry must not be taken in an
exact sense, for the substances to which we have given this name
are principles only relating to our knowledge, and so far as we
have been unable to go further in the division of bodies. But we

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. -j^c)

can well understand that these principles may be further divisible
into an infinity of parts, which should more properly be called
principles. We understand, then, by principles simply such sub-
stances as have been separated and divided so far as our feeble
efforts are capable of doing." Here is a glimmering of scientific
principles. And so again in this sentence :

" Some modern philosophers would persuade us that it is uncer-
tain whether the products we draw from compounds, and which
we call principles of chemistry, really exist as such in the com-
pounds. They say that fire, rarefying matter in the process of
distillation, is capable of giving an entirely different arrangement
to the parts from that which existed before, and may thus form
the salt, oil, and other products which are the results of the pro-
cess."

Ldmery himself died in 1715, so that the edition of his work
from which we quote was published over forty years after his
death, showing that in the slow progress of knowledge at that
time the life of a scientific treatise was far longer than it is now.
The editor of the new edition adds copious notes, in which he
comments on some of the absurdities of his author, plainly indi-
cating that progress toward clearer views was constantly being
made ; but, at the same time, his own remarks are equally amus-
ing, and give abundant evidence of the utter confusion of thought
which still prevailed. To appreciate how great a work Lavoisier
accomplished, it is only necessary to read a few pages (more would
be intolerable), both of this treatise of Ldmery and also of the
" New Method of Chemistry " of Boerhaave, the two great stand-
ard works on the science of the eighteenth century, both in large
quarto volumes. These are far less repulsive than the chemical
writings of the previous century, which often dwelt at great
length on illustrations of chemical processes from the relations of
the sexes. They are less mystical, and frequently describe acute
observations of phenomena ; but they are equally deficient in sci-
entific spirit, full of crudities and empiricisms of the most trivial
kind, and this at a period when the mathematical sciences had
attained much of the elegance of form of our own day. Lavoi-
sier is known to us chiefly as the discoverer of the true theory of
combustion, but he was truly the father of modern chemistry,
and his claim to our regard rests more than anything else on the
fact that he gave to the subject for the first time a definite and
rigid scientific form. It will help you to appreciate the entire
change of conception introduced by Lavoisier if I quote from
Fourcroy's " Chemical Philosophy," third edition, 1806, the follow-
ing significant passage. Fourcroy was a contemporary of Lavoi-
sier, although twelve years younger. Lavoisier, as is well known,
fell a victim of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolu-

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion in 1794. Fourcroy, more fortunate than his greater colleague,
passed through this fearful period unharmed, although he was a
member of the Constituent Assembly, and after the fall of Robes-
pierre acted as Secretary of Public Instruction. He was made
senator by Napoleon, and died full of honors in 1809, living until
the decomposition of the alkalies and alkaline earths had become
accomplished facts. As before, I translate from the French very
freely :

" Since the revolution effected in chemistry between 1774 and
1784'' (the period of Lavoisier's active scientific work) "by the
new discoveries which have entirely changed the face of the sci-
ence, many of the former erroneous and arbitrary distinctions
have been given up. The term principle is no longer used except
in a very general sense, and with the understanding that it applies
to different sorts of bodies, some of them simple and some of them
compound, depending on the nature of the materials from which
they come and on the method of analysis used. All chemists
agree to-day that if by principles or elements we understand the
original and simple bodies which constitute the primitive mole-
cules of substances, such bodies are wholly unknown, either as
regards their number or their x^roperties, and that in discussing
them we are yielding to theories as useless as those of monads or
atoms. They further agree that if we confine the word elements
to the last products of analysis which can not be subdivided by
analytical means, we must exclude from this class of bodies both
the so-called principles of the elder chemists and the four elements
of Aristotle, as many of these are compound substances, and we
must accept a very much larger number of elements than former-
ly, for we are acquainted with more than thirty substances which
can not be decomposed.

" From the results of numerous and exact analyses chemists
know, first, that all natural substances may be divided into simple
and compound substances ; secondly, that the true distinction of
primary or simple substances is ability to resist decomposition, so
that the word simple is synonymous with the word undecompos-
able ; thirdly, that by compounds we signify substances which are
susceptible of analysis, or from which we can extract materials
more simple, or of which the complexity of composition dimin-
ishes in degree as the analysis is extended ; fourthly, that although
compounds of the same class may differ greatly among themselves,
it is sufficient for comparison and gives us an exact distinction if
we divide them into binaries or compounds formed of two ele-
ments, ternaries or compounds formed of three elements, quater-
naries or compounds formed of four elements, quinaries, sextaries,
etc., according as the number of the constituent elements increases;
fifthly, that the number of the constituent principles or compo-

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 74.1

nents is not the only cause of the differences which distinguish
compounds, but that the proportions in which these elements are
united, and perhaps also the mode of their union, are other causes
of these differences.

" Thus the whole doctrine of the pretended elements, or of the
principles of things, or of their components, or of the compositions
of different orders of compounds, is now reduced to conceptions as
simple as they are precise. There are no hypotheses or useless
distinctions or erroneous abstractions in the present ideas of chem-
ists, and the obscurity which formerly reigned in this part of
the science has wholly disappeared, and at the same time we have
got rid of a source of vague and endless discussions. We have no
longer to dwell in the schools on useless questions about a primi-
tive matter and its relations ; on whether there are four, three, two,
or only a single element; on the pretended relations of the ele-
ments among themselves; on their transformation, or on the
change of one into another. All these dreams of a sham specula-
tive philosophy have vanished before the facts discovered by the
experimental method ; and the five propositions enunciated above,
as simple as they are true, are data on which we can now securely
build."

Turning, now, to Lavoisier's own " Traits dMmentaire de
Chimie," which must be regarded as the " Principia " of chemical
science, we find, for the first time in the history of the subject, a
list of twenty-five definite substances distinguished as elementary
on the sole basis that they had as yet never been analyzed. This
list is given in the first column of the table which we reproduce
in translation on the following page, on account of its very great
historical interest. Still, there is even here an obvious survival of
Aristotle and the phlogiston theory, both in what the list includes
and in what it omits. The first name on the list is caloric, and
three of the other elements are the muriatic, fluoric, and boracic
radicals, which, though not yet isolated, appear to Lavoisier so
distinctly typified and foreshadowed that he does not hesitate to
name them in this list. These radicals, it must be noticed, were
radicals which, united to oxygen, would form respectively hydro-
chloric, hydrofluoric, and boracic acid, so that in the last case only
were Lavoisier's expectations realized in the form which he ex-
pected. Indeed, the radical of muriatic acid, chlorine, was then a
well-known substance, having been discovered by Scheele in 1774,
but so little did it answer to the expected radical that it was re-
garded by Lavoisier as an oxide, and named by him " acide muri-
atique oxygdn^," and under this name appears in this very table
(translated oxidized muriatic acid). What we know as chlorine
gas was classed by Lavoisier as the fourth degree of oxidation of
his assumed muriatic radical, while muriatic acid itself was the

742

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

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THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 743

third degree of oxidation of the same radical. It was left for
Davy to demonstrate the elementary nature of chlorine and to
discover the true relations of the hydrogen acids. Lavoisier re-
garded oxygen as the universal acidifying principle, and the facts
known in his day admitted of this interpretation ; and it is inter-
esting to see how they were worked up in the table ; but when a
class of acids containing no oxygen came to be clearly recognized,
they proved a serious embarrassment to the Lavoisierian system
as it was developed by Berzelius and his associates.

With the exception of caloric and two of the radicals above
referred to, Lavoisier's list of elements includes no substance not
regarded as elementary at the present day; but the list is as
remarkable for what it omits as for what it includes. There were
then known, and had been known for a long time, two very well
marked classes of bodies called alkalies and earths which readily
combined with acids to form salts. In this respect these bodies
closely resembled the known metallic oxides, as they did also in
most cases in their general appearance, and they were classed by
Lavoisier with the oxides under the general term of " bases sali-
fiables." Still, they had never been decomposed, and, according to
the spirit of Lavoisier's philosophy, ought to have been classed
among elementary substances ; but Lavoisier's classificatory in-
stinct was altogether too acute to permit him to fall into any such
error. He enumerates these bodies, and, although he speaks doubt-
fully in regard to them, he never for a moment questions their
compound nature. In regard to the earths he says their composi-
tion is wholly unknown, implying, of course, that they were com-
pounds, and under the head of " Des Substances m^talliques " is
this significant paragraph :

" It is probable that we only know a part of the metallic sub-
stances which exist in nature. All those, for example, which
have more affinity for oxygen than for carbon can not be reduced
or brought to a metallic state, and must appear to us as oxides
which we mistake for earths. It is very probable that baryta,
which we have classed as an earth, is a case in point. When
experimented upon, it exhibits characters which closely approach
those of metallic substances. It may be, indeed, that all the sub-
stances to which we give the name of earths are only metallic
oxides that can not be reduced by the means which we use."

It will be noticed that the alkalies are not included under this
remark, for their active qualities are very different from those of
an insipid, earthy-looking, metallic oxide ; and their resemblance
to ammonia, the volatile alkali, a known compound of nitrogen,
was constantly a confusing circumstance. Lavoisier discusses the
question whether potash and soda pre-exist as such in the plants
from whose ashes they are procured, and makes the suggestion

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that they may result from the combined action of the oxygen and
nitrogen of the atmosphere on the organic materials in the process
of burning. Fourcroy goes still further. In his work on " Chemi-
cal Philosophy," to which I have referred, he writes (translation) :

" We do not understand the composition of potash. It has
been suspected that it might result from a union of lime with
nitrogen, because it is often found in vegetables mixed with this
earth ; but this theory, which I brought forward some fifteen
years ago, has not been proved by any positive fact." It is inter-
esting to go back and watch this groping in the dark for what is
now positive knowledge, but the experience may teach us many a
valuable lesson, and will at least help us to realize the intense
enthusiasm with which, on October 6, 1807, Davy saw metallic
globules running from a lump of caustic potash under the influ-
ence of the current of his new voltaic battery.

With this great achievement of Davy the formative period of
the Lavoisierian system of chemistry may be said to have closed ;
but in this connection it is amusing to notice that in a chemical
text-book studied in Harvard College by the class of 1815, and
given me by the late Hon. John G. Palfrey, of that class, the
alkalies and earths are included in the list of chemical elements,
and Davy's discovery is only briefly referred to in a note.

Immediately after Davy's short but brilliant career, the sci-
ence of chemistry took the form which it retained for nearly fifty
years — a form in which it was first studied by all the older men of
the present generation. The form was essentially that given by
Lavoisier, and its chief merit was the simplicity of the classifica-
tion, and the admirable nomenclature in which this classification
was expressed. This nomenclature, which is to a great extent still
retained, although the terms have lost most of their original sig-
nificance, was devised by Lavoisier, with the co-operation of sev-
eral of his associates, and adopted with the sanction of the French
Academy of Sciences. It was a masterly production, and very
greatly strengthened the hold which the system acquired at all
the great centers of learning. The general features of the Lavoi-
sierian system can be stated in few words.

Oxygen, which constitutes at least one half of the earth's crust,
is the common cement by which all the elementary parts are held
together. It is the universal acidifying principle, and the salifiable
bases owe their peculiar relations to the same element as well.
The elements may be divided into metals and non-metallic sub-
stances. The direct compounds of the non-metals with oxygen in
different proportions are acids, while the compounds of the metals
with oxygen are salifiable bases, and the compounds of the acids
and bases are salts ; and simple salts may still further combine
with each other to form double salts. Thus, beginning with the

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 745

elements, combination proceeded, pair and pair, until all terrestrial
products were educed. Tlie members of each class of these prod-
ucts were designated by specific names, regularly formed and
easily remembered.

Such a simple system could easily be comprehended and pre-
sented in such works as that of the late Dr. Turner, and, illus-
trated by the brilliant phenomena of combustion, had a great
charm. I can remember most distinctly the impression it made
on me as a boy, and I have heard many learned men, among oth-
ers my late colleague, Dr. Asa Gray, speak in the most glowing
terms of the impression it made on them.

Lavoisier himself regarded his system as perfectly true to na-
ture, and often affirms that he accepts no conclusion not based on
experimental evidence ; but, with the progress of knowledge, the
system soon became highly artificial. Indeed, it never would
have been formulated had not its author's vision been restricted
to the narrow field that had been cultivated in his time. As inves-
tigation extended, the class of hydrogen acids, and their products,
which Lavoisier had hidden away under a mistaken interpretation
of their constitution, assume an ever-increasing prominence ; and
the system was doomed when Berzelius felt obliged to withdraw
this class of bodies from the general scheme, and place them by
themselves in a special division, which he called the haloids. Then
after a time it appeared that the simple oxides of the elements
had neither acid nor basic properties in themselves, and only
acquired active qualities of either kind when united with water ;
and that hydrogen and not oxygen was the acidifying principle.
Moreover, multitudes of compounds were discovered in whose
production oxygen took no part whatever, and, although attempts
were made to classify these on the same general dualistic plan,
assuming that sulphur, chlorine, or one of the allied elements
might act in place of oxygen as a general binding agent in a
chemical combination, yet the attempts were obvious failures.

Before I became a teacher of chemistry, in 1849, it had already
become evident that Lavoisier's definition of a chemical element,
as a substance that could not be decomposed, must be modified ;
or, at least, that even if our actual processes of analysis could not
go beyond the substances regarded as elementary, the philosophy
could not possibly be thus restricted. Many facts previously
known but overlooked, and other facts then first discovered which
exhibited the old facts in a stronger light, all combined to show
clearly that the same chemical element might appear under the
guise of different substances. By burning a gem in oxygen gas,
Davy had proved that diamond was pure carbon ; and when it
was also shown that the iron in graphite was an accidental impu-
rity, it appeared that carbon was known under three forms, dia-

746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mond, graphite, and charcoal. Sulphur, in like manner, was
found to crystallize in two wholly incompatible forms, and under
these different phases showing such marked differences of quali-
ties that they must be regarded as distinct substances. In 1845
Schrotter proved that what had before been known as red phos-
phorus, and thought to be a lower oxide of the element, was in
fact a different condition, an allotropic form, as it was then called,
of pure phosphorus — a form which differs as widely from the
wax-like, highly combustible material that is so well known as
any two substances well could differ. A few years earlier Schon-
bein had discovered a new condition of oxygen, which he called
ozone, differing widely from ordinary oxygen gas. Now, since all
the forms of the same element yield the same products, and hence
give the same chemical reactions, it became obvious, as such facts
multiplied, that we may have different substances consisting
wholly of the same chemical element ; and hence that the chem-
ical element, whatever it might be, could not be a definite sub-
stance, as Lavoisier had defined it.

Meanwhile another class of facts became prominent, chiefly in
consequence of the investigations in organic chemistry to which
Liebig had given such great impulse in Germany. Groups of
compounds, consisting for the most part of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, came to be known, which, although having exactly the
same composition (that is, formed by the union of the same ele-
ments in the same definite proportions), had, nevertheless, utterly
different properties and relations. Such compounds are said to
be isomeric, and a good example may be found in acetic ether,
a very fragrant neutral spirit, and butyric acid, whose offensive
odor and acrid taste are only too well known in rancid butter.
But if oxygen is the acidifying principle of butyric acid, why
does it not produce the same effect as an equal constituent of
the ether ? Similar phenomena of isomerism soon became very
prominent, and forced on chemists the conviction, often against
their prejudices, that the nature of the product depended not
solely on the nature and proportions of the elements which en-
tered into its composition, but quite as much, and even more, on
the manner in which the constituents were combined.

To this phrase — the manner in which the constituents are
combined — no definite meaning was at first attached ; but the old
atomic theory, first applied in chemistry by Dalton, was soon so
modified as to give a form to the conception, and on the distinc-
tion between atoms and molecules then introduced the whole
philosophy of modern chemistry rests.

In the subdivisions of material bodies, the molecules are the
smallest masses in which the qualities of a substance inhere. A
molecule of sugar or salt is simply a very small lump of sugar or

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 747

salt in which all the qualities of sweetness or saltness are pre-
served. These molecules, however, although the elements of sub-
stances, are not the ultimate elements of matter, but on the con-
trary are themselves aggregates — often very complex aggregates
— of still smaller units which are considered to be the elemental
atoms. Of such atoms we must admit as many different kinds as
we have distinguished chemical elements, and the atoms are for
the present the ultimate limit of our analysis of matter. These
atoms are now the ideal chemical elements. Starting from the
atoms, the orders of combination are, first, the union of the atoms
to form the molecules which are the nuclei of definite substances,
then the aggregation of these molecules to form material masses.

Obviously we may conceive of the union of either similar or
of dissimilar atoms ; and while the union of unlike atoms results
in the production of molecules of compound substances, the union
of like atoms (all of oxygen or all of hydrogen, for example)
yields molecules of elementary substances. So far as the primary
structure is concerned, there is no distinction between an ele-
mentary substance like oxygen gas and a compound substance
like water. In each case the material is an aggregate of similar
molecules, and owes its physical qualities to the external relations
of its peculiar units ; but, while the molecules of oxygen gas are
each composed of two atoms of oxygen, the molecules of water
consist each of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. .

In admitting the possibility of the union of similar atoms to
form the molecules of elementary substances, the new philosophy
of chemistry differs most markedly from the old. The system of
Lavoisier was based on a conception of dualism originally sug-
gested by sexual relations; and the term elective affinity, which
was so constantly used to explain chemical changes, was a phase
of this conception. The elements of two kinds paired together to
form acids or bases, and the acids and bases paired to form salts,
and chemical changes were the consequence of the superior afi&nity
of another acid or another base for the temporary mate of a fel-
low-companion. At the time of Lavoisier, the grosser features of
these dualistic conceptions, which so disgust us in the earlier
writers on chemistry, had disappeared ; and, still later, Berzelius
attempted to place the system on a scientific basis by referring
the dualism to electrical relations. But there was an entire con-
tinuity of thought from first to last, and in this was involved the
prevailing idea that strength of chemical union depended on op-
position of qualities. But this idea, which I have no doubt many
scholars who studied chemistry under the old system still retain,
was an entire misconception.

One of the strongest combining forces known to chemistry is
that which holds together the dissimilar atoms of oxygen and

748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hydrogen in the molecules of water, and, measured by the heat
evolved, this force is nearly equaled by the force which unites
the similar atoms of nitrogen to form a molecule of nitrogen gas ;
and the great violence of many modern explosives depends upon
this circumstance.

It will now be seen that with our new philosojjhy the whole
glamour which formerly bedazzled our idea of an elementary siib-
stance, and distinguished it widely from all other substances, dis-
appears. The differences between substances depend upon the
differences between their molecules, and as great molecular differ-
ences may arise from the union of similar as from the union of
dissimilar atoms. The union of two atoms of hydrogen and one
of oxygen gives a molecule of water, the union of two atoms of
hydrogen and two of oxygen gives a molecule of peroxide of
hydrogen ; the union of two atoms of oxygen alone gives a mole-
cule of oxygen gas, the union of three atoms of oxygen a molecule
of ozone, and the difference between the last two substances is as
great and of the same sort as the difference between the first two ;
and so it is with the so-called allotropic states of other elementary
substances.

According to the modern philosophy of chemistry, the proper-
ties and relations of a substance depend fully as much upon the
manner in which the atoms are grouped in the molecules of the
substance as upon the nature of the atoms of which the molecules
consist ; and the differences between isomeric substances to which
we have referred, depend wholly on what we call the molecular
structure. The molecules, both of butyric acid and of acetic ether,
consist of four atoms of carbon, eight atoms of hydrogen, and two
of oxygen, and the chemist will show you just how these atoms
are grouped in the molecule of each substance, and how the sepa-
rate relations of these widely differing products depend on the
structure he has assigned to their respective molecules. Indeed,
the study of molecular structure — that is, of the mode of grouping
of atoms in the molecules, especially in those of the compounds of
carbon — has almost engrossed the attention of chemists for the
past twenty-five years. An immense mass of facts and theories
has been collected, and a symbolical method of representing the
structure has been adopted, which, although highly conventional,
must embody real truth, however dimly it may be now perceived ;
for the system has led to more, and more important, discoveries
than any one of the dominant systems of science of the present
day. The system has a great charm for students, and what is
called the study of organic chemistry in our colleges is wholly a
discussion of problems of this kind.

These systems of atoms that we call molecules have been fre-
quently compared to the solar system, and cited as evidence that

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 749

man occupies an intermediate position in creation, with a micro-
cosmos beneath, as far removed from the order of his perceptions
as is the macrocosmos above him. To one who realizes what must
be the complex dynamical relations as well as the order of magni-
tude of these molecular systems, the diagrams of molecular struct-
ure which may be seen in any work on organic chemistry can not
but appear as crude and childish as the figures of constellations
on a celestial globe ; and when, as frequently happens, the student
confounds the sign and the substance, one can hardly refrain from
a little good-natured laugh at the spider-leg formulse, as a noted
German chemist is in the habit of calling them. Still, these are
only the conventional forms of a good working theory, which is
a noble product of human thought and an effective means of
advancing knowledge.

For one who has followed the history of chemical thought
from the first, it is easy to discover great imperfections in our
present system. The assumption that, with more than seventy
different kinds of atoms already known, uniting in such varied
combinations to form molecules, only like molecules should ever
aggregate to form material masses, is a solecism in the very post-
ulates of the system ; and the whole question of molecular combi-
nation is one which is still in abeyance. Analogy forbids us to be-
lieve that, down to a certain limit of dimensions that we call mole-
cules, the constitution of matter is of a wholly different sort from
that which appears on subdividing the molecules. It is an equally
incredible assumption that all atoms of the same element are so
many independent creations exactly alike in every respect. Then,
as our knowledge increases, the distinctions between the chemical
elements are becoming less marked and their relations to each
other more intimate. They are beginning to appear, not as iso-
lated units, but as links in a complex network, which presents an
unbroken continuity throughout. The recent study of the rarer
earths leaves us in doubt whether we have an indefinite number of
elements, or only one under unnumbered manifestations ; and the
later results of spectrum analysis seem to indicate quite clearly
that, at the high temperatures of the sun and of the fixed stars,
many of our terrestrial elements are decomposed. From a mathe-
matical analysis of the spectra, Griinwald maintains — and supports
his conclusion by a great array of confirmatory measurements
— that the remarkable solar spectrum line called helium, and the
equally well-marked line of the sun's corona, come from two
constituents of hydrogen gas, the first of which is somewhat
heavier and the last far lighter than hydrogen gas ; and this con-
clusion, if not finally accepted, is regarded as highly probable
by men of such scientific sobriety as Liveing and Dewar, of
Cambridge, in England — men who are acknowledged as among

750 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the best authorities on spectrum analysis. I had intended, in this
connection, to discuss these last points, to which I can here only
allude, and which are every day acquiring greater and greater
importance ; but my paper is already too long, and there is abun-
dant material for another essay on the same general subject. I
have accomplished the immediate object at which I aimed, if I
have made evident that the foundations of our science are still
hidden in obscurity, and that the conception of a chemical ele-
ment is to-day just as indefinite and just as metaphysical as
it was at the time of Aristotle.

AGNOSTICISM.

By Peof. THOMAS H. HUXLEY.

WITHIN the last few months the public has received much
and varied information on the subject of agnostics, their
tenets, and even their future. Agnosticism exercised the orators
of the Church Congress at Manchester.* It has been furnished
with a set of " articles " fewer, but not less rigid, and certainly not
less consistent than the thirty-nine ; its nature has been analyzed,
and its future severely predicted by the most eloquent of that
prophetical school whose Samuel is Auguste Comte. It may still
be a question, however, whether the public is as much the wiser
as might be expected, considering all the trouble that has been
taken to enlighten it. Not only are the three accounts of the
agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one another, but I
propose to show cause for my belief that all three must be seri-
ously questioned by any one who employs the term " agnostic " in
the sense in which it was originally used. The learned principal
of King's College, who brought the topic of agnosticism before
the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the
business :

But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this article of belief,
that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of the unseen world, or of the
future, is irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies not in the fact that he
has no knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority on
which they are stated. He may prefer to call himself an agnostic ; but his real
name is an older one — he is an infidel ; that is to say, an unbeliever. The word
infidel, perhajjs, carries an unpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that it
should. It is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say
plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.

And in the course of the discussion which followed, the Bishop of

* See the " Official Report of the Church Congress held at Manchester," October, 1888,
pp. 253, 254.

AGNOSTICISM. 75 ^

Peterborougli departed so far from his customary courtesy and
self-respect as to speak of "cowardly agnosticism" (p, 2G2).

So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicitly or implicitly
concerns me, that I take upon myself to deal with it ; but, in so
doing, it must be understood that I speak for myself alone ; I am
not aware that there is any sect of Agnostics ; and if there be, I
am not its acknowledged prophet or pope. I desire to leave to
the Comtists the entire monopoly of the manufacture of imitation
ecclesiasticism.

Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr. Wace's appre-
ciation of agnosticism. The agnostic, according to his view, is a
person who says he has no means of attaining a scientific knowl-
edge of the unseen world or of^ the future ; by which somewhat
loose phraseology Dr. Wace presumably means the theological
unseen world and future. I can not think this description happy
either in form or substance, but for the present it may pass. Dr.
Wace continues, that is not "his difference from Christians."
Are there, then, any Christians who say that they know nothing
about the unseen world and the future ? I was ignorant of the
fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of a professional
theologian, and I proceed to Dr. Wace's next proposition.

The real state of the case, then, is that the agnostic " does not
believe the authority " on which " these things " are stated, which
authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned " infidel "
who is afraid to own to his right name. As " Presbyter is priest
writ large," so is " agnostic " the mere Greek equivalent for the
Latin " infidel." There is an attractive simplicity about this solu-
tion of the problem ; and it has that advantage of being some-
what offensive to the persons attacked, which is so dear to the
less refined sort of controversialist. The agnostic says, " I can not
find good evidence that so and so is true." " Ah," says his adver-
sary, seizing his opportunity, " then you declare that Jesus Christ
was untruthful, for he said so and so " ; a very telling method of
rousing prejudice. But suppose that the value of the evidence as
to what Jesus may have said and done, and as to the exact nature
and scope of his authority, is just that which the agnostic finds it
most difficult to determine ? If I venture to doubt that the Duke
of Wellington gave the command, " Up, Guards, and at 'em ! " at
Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr. Wace would accuse me of
disbelieving the duke. Yet it would be just as reasonable to do
this as to accuse any one of denying what Jesus said before the
preliminary question as to what he did say is settled.

Now, the question as to what Jesus really said and did is
strictly a scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no
other methods than those practiced by the historian and the lit-
erary critic. It is a problem of immense difficulty, which has

752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

occupied some of the best heads in Europe for the last century ;
and it is only of late years that their investigations have begun to
converge toward one conclusion.*

That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of
no use here. Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its eviden-
tial value.

" What made the Mohammedan world ? Trust and faith in
the declarations and assurances of Mohammed. And what made
the Christian world ? Trust and faith in the declarations and
assurances of Jesus Christ and his apostles" (Joe. cit, p. 253). The
triumphant tone of this imaginary catechism leads me to suspect
that its author has hardly appreciated its full import. Presuma-
bly, Dr. Wace regards Mohammed as an unbeliever, or, to use the
term which he prefers, infidel ; and considers that his assurances
have given rise to a vast delusion, which has led, and is leading,
millions of men straight to everlasting punishment. And this
being so, the " trust and faith " which have " made the Moham-
medan world," in just the same sense as they have " made the
Christian world," must be trust and faith in falsehood. No man
who has studied history, or even attended to the occurrences of
every-day life, can doubt the enormous practical value of trust
and faith ; but as little will he be inclined to deny that this prac-
tical value has not the least relation to the reality of the objects
of that trust and faith. In examples of patient constancy of faith
and of unswerving trust, the " Acta Martyrum " do not excel the
annals of Babism.

The discussion upon which we have now entered goes so thor-
oughly to the root of the whole matter ; the question of the day
is so completely, as the author of "Robert Elsmere" says, the
value of testimony, that I shall offer no apology for following it
out somewhat in detail ; and, by way of giving substance to the
argument, I shall base what I have to say upon a case, the con-
sideration of which lies strictly within the province of natural
science, and of that particular part of it known as the physiology
and pathology of the nervous system.

* Dr. Wacs tells us, " It may be asked how far we can rely on the accounts we possess
of our Lord's teaching on these subjects." And he seems to think the question appro-
priately answered by the assertion that it "ought to be regarded as settled by M. Kenan's
practical surrender of the adverse case." I thought I knew M. Kenan's works pretty well,
but I have contrived to miss this " practical " (I wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope of
that useful adjective) surrender. Ilowever, as Dr. Wace can find no difficulty in pointing
out the passage of M. Kenan's writings, by which he feels justified in making his state-
ment, I shall wait for further enlightenment, contenting myself, for the present, with re-
marking that if II. Kenan were to retract and do penance in Notre Dame to-morrow for
any contributions to Biblical criticism that may be specially his property, the main results
of that criticism, as they are set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Keuss, and Volkmar,
for example, would not be sensibly affected.

AGNOSTICISM.

753

I find, in the second Gospel (chap, v), a statement, to all appear-
ance intended to have the same evidential value as any other con-
tained in that history. It is the well-known story of the devils
who were cast out of a man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter
into a herd of swine, to the great loss and damage of the innocent
Gerasene, or Gadarene, pig-owners. There can be no doubt that
the narrator intends to convey to his readers his own conviction
that this casting out and entering in were effected by the agency
of Jesus of Nazareth ; that, by speech and action, Jesus enforced
this conviction ; nor does any inkling of the legal and moral diffi-
culties of the case manifest itself.

On the other hand, everything that I know of physiological
and pathological science leads me to entertain a very strong con-
viction that the phenomena ascribed to possession are as purely
natural as those which constitute small-pox^; everything that I
know of anthropology leads me to think that the belief in demons
and demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal
superstition, and that its persistence at the present time is pretty
much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence,
and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails.
Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the
wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanor
of evil example. Again, the study of history, and especially of
that of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, leaves
no shadow of doubt on my mind that the belief in the reality of
possession and of witchcraft, justly based, alike by Catholics and
Protestants, upon this and innumerable other passages in both
the Old and New Testaments, gave rise, through the special influ-
ence of Christian ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions
and judicial murders of thousands upon thousands of innocent
men, women, and children. And when I reflect that the record
of a plain and simple declaration upon such an occasion as this,
that the belief in witchcraft and possession is wicked nonsense,
would have rendered the long agony of mediaeval humanity im-
possible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonoring, the supposition
that such declaration was withheld out of condescension to popu-
lar error.

" Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man'' (Mark v, 8),*
are the words attributed to Jesus. If I declare, as I have no hesi-
tation in doing, that I utterly disbelieve in the existence of
" unclean spirits," and, consequently, in the possibility of their
" coming forth " out of a man, I suppose that Dr. Wace will tell me
I am disregarding the "testimony of our Lord" (Zoc. cit, p. 255).
For if these words were really used, the most resourceful of recon-
cilers can hardly venture to affirm that they are compatible with

* Here, as always, the revised version is cited.

VOL. XXXIT. — 48

754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a disbelief in " these things." As the learned and fair-minded, as
well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander remarks, in an editorial note
to the article " Demoniacs," in the " Biblical Cyclopaedia " (vol. i,
p. 6G4, note) :

.... On the lowest grounds on which our Lord and his apostles can be
placed, they mnst, at least, be regarded as honest men. Now, though honest
speech does not require that words should be used always and only in their
etymological sense, it does require that they should not be used so as to affirm
what the speaker knows to be false. While, therefore, our Lord and his apostles
might use the word SaiixoviCfo-dai, or the phrase 8aifi6viov ex^'") ^^ * popular descrip-
tion of certain diseases, without giving in to the belief which lay at the source of
such a mode of expression, they could not speak of demons entering into a man,
or being cast out of him, without pledging themselves to the belief of an actual
possession of the man by the demons (Campbell, " Prel. Diss.," vi, 1, 10). If, con-
sequently, they did not hold this belief, tijey spoke not as honest men.

The story which we are considering does not rest on the au-
thority of the second Gospel alone. The third confirms the
second, especially in the matter of commanding the unclean spirit
to come out of the man (Luke viii, 29) ; and, although the first
Gospel either gives a different version of the same story, or tells
another of like kind, the essential point remains : " If thou cast us
out, send us away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them,
Go ! " (Matthew viii, 31, 32).

If the concurrent testimony of the three synoptics, then, is
really sufficient to do away with all rational doubt as to a matter
of fact of the utmost practical and speculative importance — belief
or disbelief in which may affect, and has affected, men's lives and
their conduct toward other men in the most serious way — then I
am bound to believe that Jesus implicitly affirmed himself to pos-
sess a " knowledge of the unseen world," which afforded full con-
firmation to the belief in demons and possession current among
his contemporaries. If the story is true, the mediaeval theory of
the invisible world may be, and probably is, quite correct ; and
the witch-finders, from Sprenger to Hopkins and Mather, are
much-maligned men.

On the other hand, humanity, noting the frightful consequences
of this belief ; common sense, observing the futility of the evidence
on which it is based, in all cases that have been properly investi-
gated ; science, more and more seeing its way to inclose all the
phenomena of so-called ''possession" within the domain of pa-
thology, so far as they are not to be relegated to that of the police
— all these powerful influences concur in warning us, at our peril,
against accepting the belief without the most careful scrutiny of
the authority on which it rests.

I can discern no escape from this dilemma : either Jesus said
what he is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former

AGNOSTICISM. 755

case, it is inevitable that his authority on matters connected with
the " unseen world " should be roughly shaken ; in the latter, the
blow falls upon the authority of the synoptic gospels. If their
report on a matter of such stupendous and far-reaching practical
import as this is untrustworthy, how can we be sure of its trust-
worthiness in other cases ? The favorite " earth," in which the
hard-pressed reconciler takes refuge, that the Bible does not pro-
fess to teach science,* is stopped in this instance. For the question
of the existence of demons and of possession by them, though it
lies strictly within the province of science, is also of the deepest
moral and religious significance. If physical and mental disorders
are caused by demons, Gregory of Tours and his contemporaries
rightly considered that relics and exorcists were more useful than
doctors ; the gravest questions arise as to the legal and moral
responsibilities of persons inspired by demoniacal impulses ; and
our whole conception of the universe and of our relations to it
becomes totally different from what it would be on the contrary
hypothesis.

The theory of life of an average mediaeval Christian was as
different from that of an average nineteenth-century Englishman
as that of a West-African negro is now in these respects. The
modern world is slowly, but surely, shaking off these and other
monstrous survivals of savage delusions, and, whatever happens,
it will not return to that wallowing in the mire. Until the con-
trary is proved, I venture to doubt whether, at this present
moment, any Protestant theologian, who has a reputation to lose,
will say that he believes the Gadarene story.

The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled
the gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they,
simple souls, thought to honor by preserving such traditions of
the exercise of his authority over Satan's invisible world. This is
the dilemma. No deep scholarship, nothing but a knowledge of
the revised version (on which it is to be supposed all that mere
scholarship can do has been done), with the application thereto of
the commonest canons of common sense, is needful to enable us to
make a choice between its horns. It is hardly doubtful that the

* Does any one really mean to say that there is any internal or external criterion by
which the reader of a biblical statement, in which scientific matter is contained, is enabled
to judge whether it is to be taken au sericux or not ? Is the account of the Deluge, accepted
as true in the Xew Testament, less precise and specific than that of the call of Abraham,
also accepted as true therein ? By what mark does the story of the feeding with manna in
the wilderness, which involves some very curious scientific problems, show that it is meant
merely for edification, while the story of the inscription of the law on stone by the hand
of Jahvoh is literally true ? If the story of the Fall is not the true record of an historical
occurrence, what becomes of Pauline theology ? Yet the story of the Fall as directly con-
flicts with probability, and is as devoid of trustworthy evidence, as that of the Creation or
that of the Deluge, with which it forms an harmoniously legendary series.

756 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

story, as told in the first Gospel, is merely a version of that told in
the second and third. Nevertheless, the discrepancies are serious
and irreconcilable ; and, on this ground alone, a suspension of
judgment, at the least, is called for. But there is a great deal
more to be said. From the dawn of scientific biblical criticism
until the present day the evidence against the long - cherished
notion that the three synoptic gospels are the works of three
independent authors, each prompted by divine inspiration, has
steadily accumulated, until, at the present time, there is no visible
escape from the conclusion that each of the three is a compilation
consisting of a groundwork common to all three — the threefold
tradition ; and of a superstructure, consisting, firstly, of matter
common to it Avith one of the others, and, secondly, of matter spe-
cial to each. The use of the terms " groundwork " and " super-
structure " by no means implies that the latter must be of later
date than the former. On the contrary, some parts of it may be,
and probably are, older than some parts of the groundwork.*

The story of the Gadarene swine belongs to the groundwork ;
at least, the essential part of it, in which the belief in demoniac
possession is expressed, does ; and therefore the compilers of the
first, second, and third gospels, whoever they were, certainly ac-
cepted that belief (which, indeed, was universal among both Jews
and pagans at that time), and attributed it to Jesus.

What, then, do we know about the originator, or originators,
of this groundwork — of that threefold tradition which all three
witnesses (in Paley's phrase) agree upon — that we should allow
their mere statements to outweigh the counter-arguments of hu-
manity, of common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the
respect which all would be glad to be able to render to their
Master ?

Absolutely nothing, f There is no proof, nothing more than a
fair presumption, that any one of the gospels existed, in the state
in which we find it in the authorized version of the Bible, before
the second century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after
the events recorded. And, between that time and the date of the
oldest extant manuscripts of the Gospels, there is no telling what
additions and alterations and interpolations may have been made.
It may be said that this is all mere speculation, but it is a good

* See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject, Dr. Abbott's article on the Gos-
pels in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " ; and the remarkable monograph by Prof. Volkmar,
" Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit " (1882). Whether we agree with the con-
clusions of these writers or not, the method of critical investigation which they adopt is
unimpeachable.

f Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from behind the hedge of anon}Tnity by
a writer in a recent number of the " Quarterly Review," I repeat, without the slightest fear
of refutation, that the four Gospels, as they have come to us, are the work of unknown

AGNOSTICISM, 757

deal more. As competent scholars and honest men, our revisers
have felt compelled to point out that such things have happened
even since the date of the oldest known manuscripts. The oldest
two copies of the second Gospel end with the eighth verse of the
sixteenth chapter ; the remaining twelve verses are spurious, and
it is noteworthy that the maker of the addition has not hesitated
to introduce a speech in which Jesus promises his disciples that
" in my name shall they cast out devils."

The other passage " rejected to the margin " is still more in-
structive. It is that touching apologue, with its profound ethical
sense, of the woman taken in adultery— which, if internal evidence
were an infallible guide, might well be affirmed to be a typical ex-
ample of the teachings of Jesus. Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly,
" Most of the ancient authorities omit John vii, 53, viii, 11." Now,
let any reasonable man ask himself this question: If, after an
approximative settlement of the canon of the New Testament, and
even later than the fourth and fifth centuries, literary fabricators
had the skill and the audacity to make such additions and inter-
polations as these, what may they have done when no one had
thought of a canon ; when oral tradition, still unfixed, was regard-
ed as more valuable than such written records as may have existed
in the latter portion of the first century ? Or, to take the other
alternative, if those who gradually settled the canon did not know
of the existence of the oldest codices which have come down to
us ; or if, knowing them, they rejected their authority, what is to
be thought of their competency as critics of the text ?

People who object to free criticism of the Christian Scriptures
forget that they are what they are in virtue of very free criticism ;
unless the advocates of inspiration are prepared to affirm that the
majority of influential ecclesiastics during several centuries were
safeguarded against error. For, even granting that some books of
the period were inspired, they were certainly few among many ;
and those who selected the canonical books, unless they them-
selves were also inspired, must be regarded in the light of mere
critics, and, from the evidence they have left of their intellectual
habits, very uncritical critics. When one thinks that such deli-
cate questions as those involved fell into the hands of men like
Papias (who believed in the famous millenarian grape story) ; of
Irenseus with his "reasons" for the existence of only four Gospels ;
and of such calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian, with his
" Credo quia impossibile," the marvel is that the selection which
constitutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
objectionable matter. The apocryphal Gospels certainly deserve
to be apocryphal ; but one may suspect that a little more critical
discrimination would have enlarged the Apocrypha not incon-
siderably.

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full
and candid consideration. It may be said that critical skepticism
carried to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism ; that if
we are to altogether discredit an ancient or a modern historian,
because he has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as
well to give up paying any attention to history. It may be said,
and with great justice, that Eginhard's " Life of Charlemagne " is
none the less trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of
credulity, of lack of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth
commandment, which he has unconsciously made in the " History
of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul."
Or, to go no further back than the last number of this review,
surely that excellent lady. Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all
credence because of the myth about the second James's remains,
which she seems to have unconsciously invented.

Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man
alive whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent
were proof that he had never invented and promulgated a myth.
In the minds of all of us there are little places here and there, like
the indistinguishable spots on a rock which give foothold to moss
or stone-crop ; on which, if the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to
grow, without in the least degree affecting our accuracy or truth-
fulness elsewhere. Sir Walter Scott knew that he could not repeat
a story without, as he said, " giving it a new hat and stick."' Most
of us differ from Sir Walter only in not knowing about this tend-
ency of the mythopceic faculty to break out unnoticed. But it is
also perfectly true that the mythopceic faculty is not equally active
on all minds, nor in all regions and under all conditions of the
same mind. David Hume was certainly not so liable to tempta-
tion as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent historians who
could be mentioned ; and the most imaginative of debtors, if he
owes five pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a hundred out
of it. The rule of common sense is prima facie to trust a witness
in all matters in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his
prejudices, nor that love of the marvelous, which is inherent to a
greater or less degree in all mankind, are strongly concerned;
and, when they are involved, to require corroborative evidence in
exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing
testified.

Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably
skeptical if I say that the existence of demons who can be trans-
ferred from a man to a pig does thus contravene probability. Let
me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no a priori objection to
offer. There are physical things, such as tce^iicB and trichince,
which can be transferred from men to pigs, and vice versa, and
which do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and deadly effects

AGNOSTICISM. 759

on both. For anything I can absolutely prove to the contrary,
there may be spiritual things capable of the same transmigration^
with like effects. Moreover, I am bound to add that perfectly
truthful persons, for whom I have the greatest respect, believe in
stories about spirits of the present day, quite as improbable as
that we are considering.

So I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show
cause why these transferable devils should not exist ; nor can I
deny that, not merely the whole Roman Church, but many Wa-
cean " infidels " of no mean repute, do honestly and firmly believe
that the activity of such-like demonic beings is in full swing in
this year of grace 1880.

Nevertheless, as good Bishop Butler says, " probability is the
guide of life," and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases
in which the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have
ventured to lay down, has full force. So that, with the most en-
tire respect for many (by no means for all) of our witnesses for
the truth of demonology, ancient and modern, I conceive their
evidence on this particular matter to be ridiculously insuflScient
to warrant their conclusion.*

After what has been said I do not think that any sensible man,
unless he happen to be angry, will accuse me of " contradicting
the Lord and his apostles " if I reiterate my total disbelief in the
whole Gadarene story. But, if that story is discredited, all the
other stories of demoniac possession fall under suspicion. And if
the belief in demons and demoniac possession, which forms the
somber background of the whole picture of primitive Christianity
presented to us in the New Testament, is shaken, what is to be
said, in any case, of the uncorroborated testimony of the Gospels
with respect to " the unseen world " ?

I am not aware that I have been influenced by any more bias
in regard to the Gadarene story than I have been in dealing with
other cases of like kind the investigation of which has interested
me. I was brought up in the strictest school of evangelical ortho-
doxy ; and, when I was old enough to think for myself, I started

* Their arguments, in the long run, are always reducible to one form. Otherwise trust-
worthy witnesses affirm that such and such events took place. These events are inexplica-
ble, except the agency of " spirits " is admitted. Therefore " spirits " were the cause of
the phenomena.

And the heads of the reply are always the same. Remember Goethe's aphorism :
" AUes factische ist schon Theorie." Trustworthy witnesses are constantly deceived, or
deceive themselves, in their interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove that
the sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be caused only by the agency of .spirits ; and
there is abundant ground for believing that they may be produced in other ways.

Therefore, the utmost that can be reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is
suspension of judgment. And, on the necessity for even that suspension, reasonable men
may differ, according to their views of probability.

76o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

upon my journey of inquiry with little doubt about the general
truth of what I had been taught ; and with that feeling of the un-
pleasantness of being called an " infidel " which, we are told, is so
right and proper. Near my journey's end, I find myself in a con-
dition of something more than mere doubt about these matters.

In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil
remains which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more
and more indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close
inspection. There was something there — something which, if I
could win assurance about it, might mark a new epoch in the his-
tory of the earth ; but, study as long as I might, certainty eluded
my grasp. So has it been with me in my efforts to define the
grand figure of Jesus as it lies in the primary strata of Christian
literature. Is he the kindly, peaceful Christ depicted in the Cata-
combs ? Or is he the stern judge who frowns above the altar of
SS. Cosmas and Damianus ? Or can he be rightly represented in
the bleeding ascetic, broken down by physical pain, of too many
mediaeval pictures ? Are we to accept the Jesus of the second, or
the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, as the true Jesus ? What did he
really say and do; and how much that is attributed to him in
speech and action is the embroidery of the various parties into
which his followers tended to split themselves within twenty
years of his death, when even the threefold tradition was only
nascent ?

If any one will answer these questions for me with something
more to the point than feeble talk about the " cowardice of agnos-
ticism," I shall be deeply his debtor. Unless and until they are
satisfactorily answered, I say of agnosticism in this matter, " J'y
suis, etfy reste."

But, as we have seen, it is asserted that I have no business to
call myself an agnostic ; that if I am not a Christian I am an
infidel ; and that I ought to call myself by that name of " un-
pleasant significance." Well, I do not care much what I am
called by other people, and, if I had at my side all those who since
the Christian era have been called infidels by other folks, I could
not desire better company. If these are my ancestors, I prefer,
with the old Frank, to be with them wherever they are. But
there are several points in Dr. Wace's contention which must be
eliminated before I can even think of undertaking to carry out
his wishes. I must, for instance, know what a Christian is. Now
what is a Christian ? By whose authority is the signification of
that term defined ? Is there any doubt that the immediate fol-
lowers of Jesus, the " sect of the Nazarenes," were strictly ortho-
dox Jews, differing from other Jews not more than the Sadducees,
the Pharisees, and the Essenes differed from one another; in
fact, only in the belief that the Messiah, for whom the rest of

AGNOSTICISM. 761

their nation waited, had come ? Was not their chief, " James,
the brother of the Lord," reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee,
and Nazarene ? At the famous conference which, according to
the Acts, took place at Jerusalem, does not James declare that
" myriads " of Jews, who, by that time had become Nazarenes,
were " all zealous for the law" ? Was not the name of " Chris-
tian " first used to denote the converts to the doctrine promul-
gated by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch ? Does the subsequent
history of Christianity leave any doubt that, from this time forth,
the " little rift within the lute," caused by the new teaching devel-
oped, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew wider and wider, until
the two types of doctrine irreconcilably diverged ? Did not the
primitive Nazarenism or Ebionism develop into the Nazarenism,
and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally die out
in obscurity and condemnation as damnable heresy; while the
younger doctrine throve and pushed out its shoots into that end-
less variety of sects, of which the three strongest survivors are
the Roman and Greek Churches and modern Protestantism ?

Singular state of things! If I were to profess the doctrine
which was held by " James, the brother of the Lord," and by
every one of the " myriads " of his followers and co-religionists in
Jerusalem up to twenty or thirty years after the crucifixion
(and one knows not how much later at Pella), I should be con-
demned with unanimity as an ebionizing heretic by the Roman,
Greek, and Protestant Churches ! And, probably, this hearty and
unanimous condemnation of the creed held by those who were in
the closest personal relation with their Lord is almost the only
point upon which they would be cordially of one mind. On the
other hand — though I hardly dare imagine such a thing — I very
much fear that the " pillars " of the primitive Hierosolymitan
Church would have considered Dr. Wace an infidel. No one can
read the famous second chapter of Galatians and the book of
Revelation without seeing how narrow was even Paul's escape
from a similar fate. And, if ecclesiastical history is to be trusted,
the thirty -nine articles, be they right or wrong, diverge from the
primitive doctrine of the Nazarenes vastly more than even Paul-
ine Christianity did.

But, further than this, I have great difficulty in assuring my-
self that even James, " the brother of the Lord," and his " myri-
ads " of Nazarenes, properly represented the doctrines of their
Master. For it is constantly asserted by our modern " pillars "
that one of the chief features of the work of Jesus was the instau-
ration of religion by the abolition of what our sticklers for
articles and liturgies, with unconscious humor, call the narrow
restrictions of the law. Yet, if James knew this, how could the
bitter controversy with Paul have arisen ; and why did one or

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the other side not quote any of the various sayings of Jesus, re-
corded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the question — some-
times, apparently, in opposite directions ?

So, if I am asked to call myself an " infidel," I reply, To what
doctrine do you ask me to be faithful ? Is it that contained in
the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds ? My firm belief is that
the Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have
stopped their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious
man who propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called
Apostles' Creed ? I am pretty sure that even that would have
created a recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the j^ear 70, among
the Nazarenes of Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of
Titus. And yet if the unadulterated tradition of the teachings of
" the Nazarene " were to be found anywhere, it surely should have
been amid those not very aged disciples who may have heard
them as they were delivered.

Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demon-
strate that, if necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an
" infidel," I can not do it, even to gratify the Bishop of Peterbor-
ough and Dr. Wace. And I would appeal to the bishop, whose
native sense of humor is not the least marked of his many excel-
lent gifts and virtues, whether asking a man to call himself an
" infidel " is not rather a droll request. " Infidel " is a term of
reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty,
agree to apply to those who differ from them. If he had only
thought of it. Dr. Wace might have used the term " miscreant,"
which, with the same etymological signification, has the advan-
tage of being still more " unpleasant " to the persons to whom it
is applied. But, in the name of all that is Hibernian, I ask the
Bishop of Peterborough why should a man be expected to call
himself a " miscreant " or an " infidel " ? That St. Patrick " had
two birthdays because he was a twin " is a reasonable and intelli-
gible utterance beside that of the man who should declare himself
to be an infidel on the ground of denying his own belief. It may
be logically, if not ethically, defensible that a Christian should
call a Mohammedan an infidel, and vice versa; but, on Dr. Wace's
principles, both ought to call themselves infidels, because each
applies that term to the other.

Now I am afraid that all the Mohammedan world would agree
in reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once
visited the Hazar Mosque, the great university of Mohammedan-
ism, in Cairo, in ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with
proper authority. A swarm of angry undergraduates, as I sup-
pose I ought to call them, came buzzing about me and my guide ;
and, if I had known Arabic, I suspect that "dog of an infidel"
would have been by no means the most "unpleasant" of the

AGNOSTICISM. 763

epithets showered upon me, before I could explain and apologize
for the mistake. If I had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace's com-
pany on that occasion, the undiscriminative followers of the
Prophet would, I am afraid, have made no difference between us ;
not even if they had known that he was the head of an orthodox
Christian seminary. And I have not the smallest doubt that
even one of the learned mollahs, if his grave courtesy would have
permitted him to say anything offensive to men of another mode
of belief, would have told us that he wondered we did not find it
" very impleasant " to disbelieve in the Prophet of Islam.

From what precedes, I think it becomes sufficiently clear that
Dr. Wace's account of the origin of the name of " Agnostic " is
quite wrong. Indeed, I am bound to add that very slight effort
to discover the truth would have convinced him that, as a matter
of fact, the term arose otherwise. I am loath to go over an old
story once more ; but more than one object which I have in view
will be served by telling it a little more fully than it has yet been
told.

Looking back nearly fifty years, I see myself as a boy, whose
education had been interrupted, and who, intellectually, was left,
for some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time, I
was a voracious and omnivorous reader ; a dreamer and specu-
lator of the first water, well endowed with that splendid courage
in attacking any and every subject, which is the blessed compensa-
tion of youth and inexperience. Among the books and essays, on
all sorts of topics from metaphysics to heraldry, which I read at
this time, two left indelible impressions on my mind. One was
Guizot's "History of Civilization," the other was Sir William
Hamilton's essay "On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned,"
which I came upon, by chance, in an odd volume of the " Edin-
burgh Review." The latter was certainly strange reading for a
boy, and I could not possibly have understood a great deal of it ; *
nevertheless, I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my
mind the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and
important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for
answers ; and that the limitation of our faculties, in a great num-
ber of cases, renders real answers to such questions, not merely
actually impossible, but theoretically inconceivable.

Philosophy and history having laid hold of me in this eccen-
tric fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension
to be an expert in either subject ; but the turn for philosophical
and historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot at-
tractive to me, has not only filled many lawful leisure hours, and

* Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the matter, for, many years after-
ward, when Dean Mansell's Bampton lectures wore published, it seemed to me I already
knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker had to tell me.

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

still more sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occu-
pation, but has not unf requently disputed my proper work-time
with my liege lady. Natural Science. In this way I have found it
possible to cover a good deal of ground in the territory of phi-
losophy ; and all the more easily that I have never cared much
about A's or B's opinions, but have rather sought to know what
answer he had to give to the questions I had to put to him — that
of the limitation of possible knowledge being the chief. The
ordinary examiner, with his " State the views of So-and-so," would
have floored me at any time. If he had said, "What do you think
about any given j)roblem ? " I might have got on fairly well.

The reader who has had the patience to follow the enforced,
but unwilling, egotism of this veritable history (especially if his
studies have led him in the same direction), will now see why my
mind steadily gravitated toward the conclusions of Hume and
Kant, so well stated by the latter in a sentence, which I have
quoted elsewhere :

" The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of
pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an
organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline
for its delimitation ; and, instead of discovering truth, has only
the modest merit of preventing error." *

When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself
whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist ; a materialist or
an idealist ; a Christian or a freethinker — I found that the more
I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer ; until, at
last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with
any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in
which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in
which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had at-
tained a certain " gnosis " — had, more or less successfully, solved
the problem of existence ; while I was quite sure I had not, and
had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself
presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion. Like Dante —

" Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura," t

but, unlike Dante, I can not add —

" Che la diritta via era smarrita." |

On the contrary, I had, and have, the firmest conviction that I
never left the " verace via " — the straight road ; and that this road

* " Kritik der reinen Vernunft." Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256.
f [In the midway of this our mortal life

I found me in a gloomy wood astray.]
X [Gone from the path direct.]

AGNOSTICISM. 765

led nowliere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled
forest. And though I have found leopards and lions in the path ;
though I have made abundant acquaintance with the hungry wolf,
that with " privy paw devours apace and nothing said," as another
great poet says of the ravening beast ; and though no friendly spec-
ter has even yet offered his guidance, I was, and am, minded to go
straight on, until I either come out on the other side of the wood,
or find there is no other side to it — at least, none attainable by me.

This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a
place among the members of that reniarkable confraternity of
antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and pious memory,
the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and
theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself
with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one
sort or another ; and, however kind and friendly they might be,
I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could
not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have
beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his
tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated
companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
to be the appropriate title of " agnostic." It came into my head
as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history,
who professed to know so much about the very things of which I
was ignorant ; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it
at our society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes.
To my great satisfaction, the term took ; and when the " Spec-
tator " had stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of
respectable people, that a knowledge of its parentage might have
awakened, was, of course, completely lulled.

That is the history of the origin of the terms " agnostic " and
" agnosticism " ; and it will be observed that it does not quite
agree with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of
King's College, that " the adoption of the term agnostic is only
an attempt to shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion "
in relation to the Church and Christianity.*

The last objection (I rejoice, as much as my readers must do,
that it is the last) which I have to take to Dr. Wace's deliverance
before the Church Congress arises, I am sorry to say, on a ques-
tion of morality.

" It is, and it ought to be," authoritatively declares this official
representative of Christian ethics, " an unpleasant thing for a man
to have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ "
{I. c, p. 254).

Whether it is so, depends, I imagine, a good deal on whether

* " Report of the Church Congress," Manchester, 1888, p. 252.

766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the man was brought up in a Christian household or not. I do
not see why it should be " unpleasant " for a Mohammedan or a
Buddhist to say so. But that " it ought to be " unpleasant for any
man to say anything which he sincerely, and after due delibera-
tion, believes, is, to my mind, a proposition of the most pro-
foundly immoral character. I verily believe that the great good
which has been effected in the world by Christianity has been
largely counteracted by the pestilent doctrine on which all the
churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in their more or less
astonishing creeds is a moral offense, indeed a sin of the deepest
dye, deserving and involving the same future retribution as mur-
der and robbery. If we could only see, in one view, the torrents
of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the violations
of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from this
source along the course of the history of Christian nations, our
worst imaginations of hell would pale beside the vision.

A thousand times, no ! It ought not to be unpleasant to say
that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so con-
stantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress
of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word
or of deed, without erecting a sad concomitant of human weak-
ness into something to be admired and cherished. The bravest of
soldiers often, and very naturally, " feel it unpleasant " to go into
action ; but a court-martial which did its duty would make short
work of the officer who promulgated the doctrine that his men
ouglit to feel their duty unpleasant.

I am very well aware, as I suppose most thoughtful people are
in these times, that the process of breaking away from old beliefs
is extremely unpleasant ; and I am much disposed to think that
the encouragement, the consolation, and the peace afforded to
earnest believers in even the worst forms of Christianity are of
great practical advantage to them. What deductions must be
made from this gain on the score of the harm done to the citizen
by the ascetic other-worldliness of logical Christianity; to the
ruler, by the hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness of sectarian
bigotry ; to the legislator, by the spirit of exclusiveness and dom-
ination of those that count themselves pillars of orthodoxy ; to
the philosopher, by the restraints on the freedom of learning and
teaching which every church exercises, when it is strong enough ;
to the conscientious soul, by the introspective hunting after sins
of the mint and cummin type, the fear of theological error,
and the overpowering terror of jjossible damnation, which have
accompanied the churches like their shadow, I need not now con-
sider ; but they are assuredly not small. If agnostics lose heavily
on the one side, they gain a good deal on the other. People who
talk about the comforts of belief appear to forget its discomforts ;

AGNOSTICISM. y6j

they ignore the fact that the Christianity of the churches is some-
thing more than faith in the ideal personality of Jesus, which
they create for themselves, plus so much as can be carried into
practice, without disorganizing civil society, of the maxims of the
Sermon on the Mount. Trip in morals or in doctrine (especially
in doctrine), without due repentance or retractation, or fail to get
properly baptized before you die, and a plebiscite of the Christians
of Europe, if they were true to their creeds, would affirm your
everlasting damnation by an immense majority.

Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our ears that the
world can not get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense
in which that is as eminently as obviously true ; there is another,
in which, in my judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false,
and it seems to me that the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to
oscillate between the false and the true meanings, without being
aware of the fact.

It is quite true that the ground of every one of our actions,
and the validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of
faith, which leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe
guide in our dealings with the present and the future. From the
nature of ratiocination it is obvious that the axioms on which it
is based can not be demonstrated by ratiocination. It is also a
trite observation that, in the business of life, we constantly take
the most serious action upon evidence of an utterly insufficient
character. But it is surely plain that faith is not necessarily en-
titled to dispense with ratiocination because ratiocination can not
dispense with faith as a starting-point ; and that because we are
often obliged, by the pressure of events, to act on very bad evi-
dence, it does not follow that it is proper to act on such evidence
when the pressure is absent.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that " faith is
the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen."
In the authorized version " substance " stands for " assurance,"
and "evidence" for "the proving." The question of the exact
meaning of the two words, vTroaraaig and t?Leyxog, affords a fine
field of discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. But I
fancy we shall be not far from the mark if we take the writer to
have had in his mind the profound psychological truth that men
constantly feel certain about things for which they strongly hope,
but have no evidence, in the legal or logical sense of the word ;
and he calls this feeling " faith." I may have the most absolute
faith that a friend has not committed the crime of which he is
accused. In the early days of English history, if my friend could
have obtained a few more compurgators of like robust faith, he
would have been acquitted. At the present day, if I tendered my-
self as a witness on that score, the judge would tell me to stand

768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

down, and the youngest barrister would smile at my simplicity.
Miserable indeed is the man who has not such faith in some of
his fellow-men — only less miserable than the man who allows
himself to forget that such faith is not, strictly speaking, evi-
dence ; and when his faith is disappointed, as will happen now
and again, turns Timon and blames the universe for his own
blunders. And so, if a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of
all his hopes, the mirror of his ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any,
or all, of the Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who
shall or can forbid him ? But let him not delude himself with
the notion that his faith is evidence of the objective reality of
that in which he trusts. Such evidence is to be obtained only by
the use of the methods of science, as applied to history and to
literature, and it amounts at present to very little.

It appears that Mr. Gladstone, some time ago, asked Mr. Laing
if he could draw up a short summary of the negative creed ; a
body of negative propositions, which have so far been adopted on
the negative side as to be what the Apostles' and other accepted
creeds are on the positive ; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged
Mr. Gladstone with the desired articles — eight of them.

If any one had preferred this request to me, I should have re-
plied that, if he referred to agnostics, they have no creed ; and, by
the nature of the case, can not have any. Agnosticism, in fact, is
not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigor-
ous application of a single principle. That principle is of great
antiquity ; it is as old as Socrates ; as old as the writer who said,
" Try all things, hold fast by that which is good " ; it is the foun-
dation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom
that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that
is in him ; it is the great principle of Descartes ; it is the funda-
mental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may
be expressed : In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as
far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration.
And negatively : In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that
conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demon-
strable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man
keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the
universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for
him.

The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will
vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and accord-
ing to the general condition of science. That which is unproved
to-day may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, to-morrow.
The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow
from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only

AGNOSTICISM. 769

obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to convic-
tion. Agnostics who never fail in carrying out their principles
are, I am afraid, as rare as other people of whom the same con-
sistency can be truthfully predicated. But, if you were to meet
with such a phoenix and to tell him that you had discovered that
two and two make five, he would patiently ask you to state your
reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to agree
with you if he found them satisfactory. The apostolic injunction
to " suffer fools gladly," should be the rule of life of a true ag-=
nostic. I am deeply conscious how far I myself fall short of this
ideal, but it is my personal conception of what agnostics ought
to be.

However, as I began by stating, I speak only for myself ; and
I do not dream of anathematizing and excommunicating Mr.
Laing. But, when I consider his creed and compare it with the
Athanasian, I think I have, on the whole, a clearer conception of
the meaning of the latter. " Polarity," in Article viii, for exam-
ple, is a word about which I heard a good deal in my youth, when
" Naturphilosophie " was in fashion, and greatly did I suffer i^>^
from it. For many years past, whenever I have met with " po-
larity" anywhere but in a discussion of some purely physical
topic, such as magnetism, I have shut the book. Mr. Laing must
excuse me if the force of habit was too much for me when I read
his eighth article.

And now, what is to be said to Mr. Harrison's remarkable
deliverance " On the future of agnosticism " ? * I would that it
were not my business to say anything, for I am afraid that I can
say nothing which shall manifest my great personal respect for
this able writer, and for the zeal and energy with which he ever
and anon galvanizes the weakly frame of positivism until it looks
more than ever like John Bunyan's Pope and Pagan rolled into
one. There is a story often repeated, and I am afraid none the
less mythical on that account, of a valiant and loud-voiced cor-
poral, in command of two full privates, who, falling in with a
regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under
pain of instant annihilation by his force ; and the enemy surren-
ders accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I -read
the positivist commands to the forces of Christianity and of Sci-
ence ; only the enemy show no more signs of intending to obey
now than they have done any time these forty years.

The allocution under consideration has the papal flavor which
is wont to hang about the utterances of the pontiffs of the Church
of Comte. Mr. Harrison speaks with authority, and not as one
of the common scribes of the period. He knows not only what

* "Fortnightly Review," January, 1889.
VOL. XXXIV. — 49

770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

agnosticism is and how it has come about, but what will become
of it. The agnostic is to content himself with being the precursor
of the positivist. In his place, as a sort of navvy leveling the
ground and cleansing it of such poor stuff as Christianity, he is a
useful creature who deserves patting on the back, on condition
that he does not venture beyond his last. But let not these scien-
tific Sanballats presume that they are good enough to take part
in the building of the Temple — they are mere Samaritans, doomed
to die out in proportion as the Religion of Humanity is accepted
by mankind. Well, if that is their fate, they have time to be
cheerful. But let us hear Mr. Harrison's pronouncement of their
doom :

" Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion, an entirely
negative stage, the point reached by physicists, a purely mental
conclusion, with no relation to things social at all " (p. 154). I am
quite dazed by this declaration. Are there, then, any " conclu-
sions " that are not " purely mental " ? Is there " no relation to
things social " in " mental conclusions " which affect men's whole
conception of life ? Was that prince of agnostics, David Hume,
particularly imbued with physical science ? Supposing physical
science to be non-existent, would not the agnostic principle, ap-
plied by the philologist and the historian, lead to exactly the
same results ? Is the modern more or less complete suspension of
judgment as to the facts of the history of regal Rome, or the real
origin of the Homeric poems, anything but agnosticism in history
and in literature ? And if so, how can agnosticism be the " mere
negation of the physicist " ?

" Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion." No two
people agree as to what is meant by the term " religion " ; but if it
means, as I think it ought to mean, simply the reverence and love
for the ethical ideal, and the desire to realize that ideal in life,
which every man ought to feel — then I say agnosticism has no
more to do with it than it has to do with music or painting. If,
on the other hand, Mr. Harrison, like most people, means by " re-
ligion" theology, then, in my judgment, agnosticism can be said
to be a stage in its evolution, only as death may be said to be the
final stage in the evolution of life.

When agnostic logic is simply one of the canons of thought, agnosticism, as a
distinctive faith, will have spontaneously disappeared (p. 155).

I can but marvel that such sentences as this, and those already
quoted, should have proceeded from Mr. Harrison's pen. Does he
really mean to suggest that agnostics have a logic peculiar to them-
selves ? Will he kindly help me out of my bewilderment when I
try to think of " logic " being anything else than the canon (which,
I believe, means rule) of thought ? As to agnosticism being a dis-

AGNOSTICISM.

771

tinctive faith, I have already shown that it can not possibly be
anything of the kind ; unless perfect faith in logic is distinctive
of agnostics, which, after all, it may be.

Agnosticism as a religious philosophy _per se rests on an almost total ignoriog
of history and social evolution (p. 152).

But neither per se nor per aliud has agnosticism (if I know
anything about it) the least pretension to be a religious phi-
losophy ; so far from resting on ignorance of history, and that
social evolution of which history is the account, it is and has
been the inevitable result of the strict adherence to scientific
methods by historical investigators. Our forefathers were quite
confident about the existence of Romulus and Remus, of King
Arthur, and of Hengst and Horsa. Most of us have become
agnostics in regard to the reality of these worthies. It is a matter
of notoriety, of which Mr. Harrison, who accuses us all so freely
of ignoring history, should not be ignorant, that the critical pro-
cess which has shattered the foundations of orthodox Christian
doctrine owes its origin, not to the devotees of physical science,
but, before all, to Richard Simon, the learned French Oratorian,
just two hundred years ago. I can not find evidence that either
Simon, or any one of the great scholars and critics of the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries who have continued Simon's work,
had any particular acquaintance with physical science. I have
already pointed out that Hume was independent of it. And
certainly one of the most potent influences in the same direc-
tion, upon history in the present century, that of Grote, did not
come from the physical side. Physical science, in fact, has had
nothing directly to do with the criticism of the Gospels; it is
wholly incompetent to furnish demonstrative evidence that any
statement made in these histories is untrue. Indeed, modern
physiology can find parallels in nature for events of apparently
the most eminently supernatural kind recounted in some of those
histories.

It is a comfort to hear, upon Mr. Harrison's authority, that the
laws of physical nature show no signs of becoming " less definite,
less consistent, or less popular as time goes on" (p. 154). How a
law of nature is to become indefinite, or " inconsistent," passes my
poor powers of imagination. But with universal suffrage and the
coach-dog theory of premiership in full view ; the theory, I mean,
that the whole duty of a political chief is to look sharp for the
way the social coach is driving, and then run in front and bark
loud — as if being the leading noise-maker and guiding were the
same things — it is truly satisfactory to me to know that the laws
of nature are increasing in popularity. Looking at recent devel-
opments of the policy which is said to express the great heart of

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the people, I have had my doubts of the fact ; and my love for
my fellow-countrymen has led me to reflect with dread on what
will happen to them, if any of the laws of nature ever become so
unpopular in their eyes as to be voted down by the transcendent
authority of universal suffrage. If the legion of demons, before
they set out on their journey in the swine, had had time to hold a
meeting and to resolve unanimously, " That the law of gravitation
is oppressive and ought to be repealed," I am afraid it would have
made no sort of difference to the result, when their two thousand
unwilling porters were once launched down the steep slopes of
the fatal shore of Gennesaret.

The question of the place of religion as an element of human nature, as a force
of human society, its origin, analysis, and functions, has never been considered at
all from an agnostic point of view (p. 152).

I doubt not that Mr. Harrison knows vastly more about his-
tory than I do; in fact, he tells the public that some of my
friends and I have had no opportunity of occupying ourselves
with that subject. I do not like to contradict any statement
which Mr. Harrison makes on his own authority ; only, if I may
be true to my agnostic principles, I humbly ask how he has ob-
tained assurance on this head. I do not profess to know any-
thing about the range of Mr. Harrison's studies ; but as he has
thought it fitting to start the subject, I may venture to point out
that, on the evidence adduced, it might be equally permissible to
draw the conclusion that Mr. Harrison's absorbing labors as the
pontifex maximus of the positivist religion have not allowed him
to acquire that acquaintance with the methods and results of
physical science, or with the history of philosophy, or of philo-
logical and historical criticism, which is essential to any one who
desires to obtain a right understanding of agnosticism. Incom-
petence in philosophy, and in all branches of science except
mathematics, is the well-known mental characteristic of the
founder of Positivism. Faithfulness in disciples is an admirable
quality in itself ; the pity is that it not unf requently leads to the
imitation of the weaknesses as well as of the strength of the
master. It is only such over-faithfulness which can account for
a " strong mind really saturated with the historical sense " (p. 153)
exhibiting the extraordinary forgetfulness of the historical fact
of the existence of David Hume implied by the assertion that
it would be difficult to name a single known agnostic who has given to history
anything like the amount of thought and study which he brings to a knowledge of
the physical world (p. 153).

Whoso calls to mind, what I may venture to term, the bright
side of Christianity ; that ideal of manhood, with its strength and
its patience ; its justice and its pity for human frailty ; its help-

AGNOSTICISM. 773

fulness, to the extremity of self-sacrifice ; its ethical purity and
nobility ; which apostles have pictured, in which armies of
martyrs have placed their unshakable faith, and whence obscure
men and women, like Catherine of Sienna and John Knox, have
derived the courage to rebuke popes and kings, is not likely to
underrate the importance of the Christian faith as a factor in
human history, or to doubt that if that faith should prove to be
incompatible with our knowledge, or necessary want of knowl-
edge, some other hypostasis of men's hopes, genuine enough and
worthy enough to replace it, will arise. But that the incongruous
mixture of bad science with eviscerated papistry, out of which
Comte manufactured the positivist religion, will be the heir of
the Christian ages, I have too much respect for the humanity of
the future to believe. Charles II told his brother, " They will
not kill me, James, to make you king." And if critical science is
remorselessly destroying the historical foundations of the noblest
ideal of humanity which mankind have yet worshiped, it is
little likely to permit the pitiful reality to climb into the vacant
shrine.

That a man should determine to devote himself to the service
of humanity — including intellectual and moral self -culture under
that name ; that this should be, in the proper sense of the word,
his religion — is not only an intelligible, but, I think, a laudable
resolution. And I am greatly disposed to believe that it is the
only religion which will prove itself to be unassailably acceptable
so long as the human race endures. But when the positivist asks
me to worship " Humanity " — that is to say, to adore the general-
ized conception of men as they ever have been and probably ever
will be — I must reply that I could just as soon bow down and wor-
ship the generalized conception of a " wilderness of apes." Surely
we are not going back to the days of paganism, when individual
men were deified, and the hard good sense of a dying Vespasian
could prompt the bitter jest, " Utputo Deusfio." No divinity doth
hedge a modern man, be he even a sovereign ruler. Nor is there
any one, except a municipal magistrate, who is officially declared
worshipful. But if there is no spark of worship-worthy divinity
in the individual twigs of humanity, whence comes that godlike
splendor which the Moses of positivism fondly imagines to per-
vade the whole bush ?

I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of
the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of his-
tory. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with
the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute,
only more intelligent than the other brutes ; a blind jjrey to im-
pulses, which as often as not lead him to destruction ; a victim to
endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a

774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle. He
attains a certain degree of physical comfort, and develops a more
or less workable theory of life, in such favorable situations as the
plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, and then, for thousands and
thousands of years, struggles with varying fortunes, attended by
infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to maintain himself at
this point against the greed and the ambition of his fellow-men.
He makes a point of killing and otherwise persecuting all those
who first try to get him to move on ; and when he has moved on
a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his victims.
He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step
yet farther. Aiid the best men of the best epochs are simjjly those
who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.

That one should rejoice in the good man ; forgive the bad man ;
and pity and help all men to the best of one's ability, is surely in-
disputable. It is the glory of Judaism and of Christianity to have
proclaimed this truth, through all their aberrations. But the wor-
ship of a God who needs forgiveness and help, and deserves pity
every hour of his existence, is no better than that of any other vol-
untarily selected fetich. The Emperor Julian's project was hope-
ful, in comparison with the prospects of the new anthropolatry.

When the historian of religion in the twentieth century is
writing about the nineteenth, I foresee he will say something of
this kind :

The most curious and instructive events in the religious his-
tory of the preceding century are the rise and progress of two new
sects, called Mormons and Positivists. To the student who has
carefully considered these remarkable phenomena nothing in the
records of religious self-delusion can appear improbable.

The Mormons arose in the midst of the great Republic, which,
though comparatively insignificant at that time, in territory as in
the number of its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments
of the speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less
remarkable for the native intelligence of its population, than for
the wide extent of their information, owing to the activity of their
publishers in diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or
steal. Nor were they less noted for their perfect freedom from all
restraints in thought or speech or deed ; except, to be sure, the
beneficent and wise influence of the majority exerted, in case of
need, through an institution known as " tarring and feathering,"
the exact nature of which is now disputed.

There is a complete consensus of testimony that the founder of
Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was a low-minded, ignorant scamp,
and that he stole the " Scriptures " which he propounded ; not
being clever enough to forge even such contemptible stuff as they

AGNOSTICISM. 775

contain. Nevertheless he must have been a man of some force of
character, for a considerable number of disciples soon gathered
about him. In spite of repeated outbursts of popular hatred and
violence— during one of which persecutions, Smith was brutally-
murdered— the Mormon body steadily increased, and became a
flourishing community. But the Mormon practices being objec-
tionable to the majority, they were, more than once, without any
pretense of law, but by force of riot, arson, and murder, driven
away from the land they had occupied. Harried by these perse-
cutions, the Mormon body eventually committed itself to the
tender mercies of a desert as barren as that of Sinai ; and, after
terrible sufferings and privations, reached the oasis of Utah.
Here it grew and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and
receiving converts from, all parts of Europe, sometimes to the
number of 10,000 in a year ; until in 1880, the rich and flourishing
community numbered 110,000 souls in Utah alone, while there
were probably 30,000 or 40,000 scattered abroad elsewhere. In the
whole history of religions there is no more remarkable example
of the power of faith ; and, in this case, the founder of that faith
was indubitably a most despicable creature. It is interesting to
observe that the course taken by the great Republic and its citi-
zens runs exactly parallel with that taken by the Roman Empire
and its citizens toward the early Christians, except that the Ro-
mans had a certain legal excuse for their acts of violence, inas-
much as the Christian " sodalitia " were not licensed, and conse-
quently were, ipso facto, illegal assemblages. Until, in the latter
part of the nineteenth century, the United States Legislature
decreed the illegality of polygamy, the Mormons were wholly
within the law.

Nothing can present a greater contrast to all this than the his-
tory of the Positivists. This sect arose much about the same time
as that of the Mormons, in the upper and most instructed stratum
of the quick-witted, skeptical population of Paris. The founder,
Auguste Comte, was a teacher of mathematics, but of no eminence
in that department of knowledge, and with nothing but an ama-
teur's acquaintance with physical, chemical, and biological science.
His works are repulsive on account of the dull diffuseness of their
style, and a certain air, as of a superior person, which character-
izes them ; but, nevertheless, they contain good things here and
there. It would take too much space to reproduce in detail a sys-
tem which proposes to regulate all human life by the promulga-
tion of a gentile Leviticus. Suffice it to say that M. Comte may
be described as a syncretic, who, like the gnostics of early Church
history, attempted to combine the substance of imperfectly com-
prehended contemporary science with the form of Roman Chris-
tianity. It may be that this is the reason why his disciples were

776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

so very angry with some obscure people called Agnostics, whose
'views, if we may judge by the accounts left in the works of a
great positivist controversial writer, were very absurd.

To put the matter briefly, M. Comte, finding Christianity and
Science at daggers drawn, seems to have said to Science : " You
find Christianity rotten at the core, do you ? Well, I will scoop
out the inside of it." And to Romanism : " You find Science mere
dry light — cold and bare. Well, I will put your shell over it, and
so, as schoolboys make a specter out of a turnip and a tallow can-
dle, behold the new religion of Humanity complete ! "

Unfortunately, neither the Romanists nor the peoj^le who were
something more than amateurs in science could be got to worship
M. Comte's new idol properly. In the native country of Positiv-
ism, one distinguished man of letters and one of science, for a time,
helped to make up a roomful of the faithful, but their love soon
grew cold. In England, on the other hand, there ai)pears to be
little doubt that, in the ninth decade of the century, the multitude
of disciples reached the grand total of several score. They had
the advantage of the advocacy of one or two most eloquent and
learned apostles, and, at any rate, the sympathy of several persons
t)f light and leading — and, if they were not seen, they were heard all
over the world. On the other hand, as a sect, they labored under
the prodigious disadvantage of being refined, estimable people,
living in the midst of the worn-out civilization of the Old World ;
where any one who had tried to persecute them, as the Mormons
were persecuted, would have been instantly hanged. But the ma-
jority never dreamed of persecuting them ; on the contrary, they
were rather given to scold, and otherwise try the patience of, the
majority.

The history of these sects in the closing years of the century is
highly instructive. Mormonism . . .

But I find I have suddenly slipped off Mr. Harrison's tripod,
which I had borrowed for the occasion. The fact is, I am not
equal to the prophetical business, and ought not to have under-
taken it. — Nineteenth Century.

Something, it appears, is to be said in favor of the theory that the earth has
received and is receiving supplies of carbon from meteors and space. A meteor
that was found at Youndegin, Western Austraha, in 1854, contained carbon of a
form resembling graphite, but harder, and occurring in cubic crystals, of which
about a hundred were separated. Observations of geological strata indicate an
increase of carbon in the crust of the earth since the earliest times, for the rocks
of the older formations contain less of it than those of the carboniferous and suc-
ceeding ones. Dr. Sterry Hunt has attributed the additional supplies to carbonic-
acid gas diffused in space, and holds that the supposition that our atmosphere ever
contained the whole amount at once would involve the presence of more enormous
quantities of it than we can reasonably admit.

DOMESTICATION OF THE BUFFALO. yjj

DOMESTICATION OF THE BUFFALO.

By JOHN W. DAFOE.

ONE of the most striking results due to the building of trans-
continental railroads is the approach to extinction of the
buffalo. Its vast range once extended from Great Slave Lake to
the northeastern provinces of Mexico, and in British territory
from the Rockies to wooded highlands six hundred miles west of
Hudson's Bay. In the United States, remains of buffaloes have
been found west of the Rockies in Oregon, in the Great Salt Lake
basin, and westward as far as the Sierra Nevada. Of the species
hison, two well-defined varieties are known, the prairie and the
wood or mountain buffalo. The latter, compared with the other,
is larger, coarser-haired, straighter-horned, and excessively shy.
This shyness, together with the protection its habitat of forest
affords it, have preserved its numbers in larger proportion than
those of its congener of the prairies. Although the buffalo is sav-
age of aspect and strong of limb, yet it is much less formidable
to a hunter than the so-called tame cattle of the Texan plains. It
is an expert and fearless climber, and only a very swift horse can
overtake it, yet its stupidity and lack of courage have had not a
little to do with the sweeping destruction which has overtaken it.
As long ago as 1825, Prof. Joel A. Allen tells us, in his valuable
monograph, " The History of the American Bison," it had been
exterminated throughout the whole region east of the Mississippi,
except for a limited area lying around the sources of that river.
This extermination was utterly wanton ; buffalo-hunting was
chiefly mere sport, and often the only portion of the carcass re-
moved was the tongue, much esteemed as a tidbit. In gainful hunt-
ing, it was rarely the buffalo's meat that was sought ; its robe was
the object of its relentless pursuit. This pursuit was immensely
facilitated by the Pacific Railroads, which at the same time
opened up new markets both for robes and meat. Colonel H. I.
Dodge, author of " The Plains of the Great West," estimates that,
in the three years ending with 1874, no fewer than 5,500,000
buffaloes were slaughtered. Mr. Miller Christy, who carefully
took a census of the species last year, finds their total number to
be but 1,100 or thereabout. So wantonly have the buffaloes been
slain that their very bones have become an article of commerce.
Regina, the seat of the territorial government of the Canadian
Northwest, is built on Pile-of-Bones Creek, so called from the
vast accumulation which encumbered its banks. Throughout the
whole Western prairie region the earth is pitted with buffalo-
wallows, often deep enough to long survive cultivation. These

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wallows are due to the instinct whereby the huge brute, with a
quickness which would not be expected of it, can roll itself in
loam until it has donned a garment impervious to flies, and which
in falling away carries off loose hair. When only dry, dusty soil
is available, the buffalo will roll in that, greatly to the prejudice
of its insect parasites. Wallows thus formed, numerous enough
to testify to the comparatively recent existence of vast herds, can
be most easily seen about the time of sunrise or sunset, when the
almost horizontal solar beams throw them into shadow. In years
gone by it was not uncommon to find in the hot springs of the
Yellowstone Park, and of Banff, in the Canadian National Park,
the remains of a buffalo strayed from a herd to find death in a
scalding basin. The reckless extirpation of the buffalo has been
fraught with very serious consequences to Indian tribes north
and south of the international boundary. One of their hardships,
which has been the frequent source of complaint and rebellion,
has been the deprivation of buffalo-meat which in large areas was
the Indian's principal food. Scarcely less serious has been the
like deprivation entailed upon pioneer settlers, whose sites have
in many cases been indicated to them by the buffalo-trails. In
their migrations between north and south, and in their search for
herbage least covered with snow, the buffalo has ever marked out
the best and most feasible path.

While, as in other departments of her great natural wealth,
America has been prodigal and spendthrift, there have been sev-
eral noteworthy attempts not only to stay the threatened exter-
mination of the buffalo, but to multiply its numbers and improve
the race by crossing it with domestic cattle. It is curious how
far back experiments in this direction date. Peter Kalm, in his
" Travels in North America," says that buffaloes were domesti-
cated in Quebec in 1750, and that in Carolina they had been
crossed with domestic cattle. So docile indeed was a buffalo bull
mentioned in Schoolcraft's " History of the Indians of the United
States," that he had been yoked to the plow. Robert Wickliffe,
of Lexington, Ky., in 1843, wrote Audubon and Bachman that he
had secured quarter, half, and three-quarter crosses between the
buffalo and domestic cattle. The progeny were tame, worked in
yoke, exceeded the ox in strength, and retained the wallowing
habit. All the half-bred heifers were fertile, but the half-bred
bulls were not. Colonel George C. Thompson, of Shawnee Springs,
Ky., concurrently with Mr. Wickliffe's experiment, domesticated
a buffalo bull and three buffalo cows ; they were thoroughly
docile, hardy, and long-lived. Mr. I. W. Cunningham, of Howard
County, Neb., in 1878, recorded that both domestication and cross-
ing had been successful in the county mentioned — just as in Mr.
Wickliffe's case. However, with the horse as a competitor as a

DOMESTICATION OF THE BUFFALO.

779

draught-animal, and the ox and cow as tlieir rivals in the produc-
tion of beef and milk, buffaloes have not until recent years suffi-
ciently risen in value to warrant their domestication and breeding
being taken up systematically and on a large scale. It is their
rapid approach to extinction that has made the man of business
succeed to the curious experimenter of a decade or a century ago.

Fig. 1.— Full-Blood Buffaloes domesticated.

and recognize how much of value there is in a strain which, if
opportunity be not promptly seized, will soon be no more than
a remembrance. Regarding, then, the buffalo as an animal well
worthy conserving, what are his good and bad points ? First of
all, he is hardy, not liable to disease, and on the plains of the
American and Canadian Northwest he can forage in deep snow
and live in the open air all winter long. His meat brings nearly
as good a price as beef. His robe is worth $25 to $40 ; and his
head taxidermized, thanks to the decorative tastes of sportsmen,
fetches as much as the robe, or even more. So much for the credit
side of the account ; now for the debit. The buffalo is a strong
brute, and of a temper at times so fierce that his domestication
is a task not seldom accompanied by decided hazard. Ordinary
fences are as gossamer to a buffalo bull, especially during the
irritable years when he is past his prime and finds himself less
attractive than of yore. Still, the example of well-behaved do-
mestic cattle, with which buffaloes readily amalgamate, is very
effective. It is not, however, in mere domestication, but in cross-
breeding that the buffalo's value consists. In pairing a buffalo
bull and domestic cow the young are brought forth without any
unusual percentage of loss being sustained. The offspring com-
bines good points of sire and dam. It has nearly all its sire's
hardiness and strength, and so much of its dam's tractability as
to be well suited for draught purposes. When killed, the net

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

weight of its carcass exceeds that of a buffalo's, while the meat is
better. Such a carcass has been known to weigh as much as
1,100 pounds net. Its robe is much more valuable than the
buffalo's ; for its fur, instead of being chiefly bunched at the

Fig. 2.— Theee-quarter-Blood Buffaloes. Cross between Buffalo Bull and Half-blood
Buffalo Cow.

mane, is evenly distributed over the hide, and is much finer in
quality — its present value being from $50 to $75. A buffalo
crossed with a half-bred cow produces an animal quite as hardy
as its sire, but not quite so large. Experiments of much interest
are in progress with various strains of domestic cattle, the out-
come promising to be perhaps only less important than the origi-
nal domestication, and subsequent molding, of horses and cattle
from their primitive wild forms.

Chief among the ranches where the domestication of the buf-
falo is taking place and its crosses are being bred is that of Mr.
C. J. Jones, at Garden City, Kan. The nucleus of his herd, seven
calves and fifteen adult buffaloes, were run down by him on the
Texan plains, two to three hundred miles from Garden City. He
has crossed Texan cows with buffalo bulls, and obtained excellent
results. In November last he acquired a herd of eighty-three
animals from Mr. Samuel L. Bedson, of Stony Mountain, sixteen
miles from Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. The crosses in
this herd were from Galloway or polled Angus cattle ; they are
much superior to those from Texan strains, and are presented in
the accompanying illustrations. Mr. Bedson's herd dated from
1877, when he first corraled a buffalo bull and four heifers. These
five animals were part of the small remnant grazing in the vast
region between the Saskatchewan River and the international
boundary, the region now traversed by the Canadian Pacific
Railway. In that immense plain the slaughter of buffaloes, due
to the trafiic of the Hudson's Bay Company, had been for two

DOMESTICATION OF THE BUFFALO.

781

centuries much more active than that on American soil. In
eleven years Mr. Bedson's herd increased from five to ninety-
seven, fourteen of the number having been disposed of before the
sale to Mr. Jones. Of the eighty-three which he bought, there
are eight adult crosses, or grades as they are called, and seventeen
calves of 1888, pure and grade. It is Mr. Jones's intention thor-

FiG. 3.— Half-Blood BnFFALOES. Cross between Buffalo Bull and Domestic Cow.

oughly to test various strains with a view to ascertain which are
best adapted for grazing herds on the plains of the Northwest.
In producing a robe he has already attained what he calls a
" seal-skin buffalo," from crossing with black cattle. '

At Silver Heights, five miles from Winnipeg, Sir Donald Smith
has a small herd of buffalo-crosses presenting unique points in
beauty and docility. Elsewhere in Manitoba, in Alberta Terri-
tory, and in Minnesota, it is proposed to parallel Mr. Jones's enter-
prise of Garden City.

It has been suggested as an additional advantage of technical education that
it will afford room for the cultivation of what may be called man's instinctive in-
telligence, for which hardly any provision is made in the present systems. " While
the rational faculties and purely physical capabilities are elaborately cared for,
practically nothing is done, save in the most casual and hap-hazard way, for improv-
ing the faculties which lie upon the border-land of instinct and reason," for the
development of such powers, for example, as the exquisite adjustment and co-ordi-
nation that give the cricketer's skill in catching a passing ball, or the violinist's in
eliciting a succession of enrapturing harmonies from his instrument. Genius can
not be manufactured or conferred, but the average of the instinctive intelligence
and facility might be greatly raised by well-directed training.

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS : THEIR USES AND MANAGE-
MENT.

By E. W. SHUFELDT, M. D., C. M. Z. S.

RARELY has it been in the history of the world that a city
which has become famous as a scientific and literary cen-
ter has not, sooner or later, inaugurated, developed, and main-
tained its collection of living wild animals, its zoological gardens.
Indeed, in modern times, as of old, in large civilized communities,
it has come to be where such establishments are in existence, and
kept up to a high state of perfection and growth, that they are
the very badge denoting the presence of marked intellectual
activity along the lines we have indicated. With respect to the
instances of this in history, they are too well known to the gen-
eral reader to require enumeration here, while we are all familiar
with the names of those cities of our own day wherein such insti-
tutions are now flourishing.

In modern times, again, the enormous impulse which the bio-
logical sciences have received, the far keener appreciation on the
part of the reading public in such matters ; and the pressing ne-
cessity for such material as zoological gardens can alone supply
the morphologist, artist, and animal historian, are, we must be-
lieve, the principal forces that eventually give birth to these col-
lections.

The uses of a zoological garden to a civilized country are mani-
fold, and not easily to be overestimated. These uses are con-
siderably enhanced if it is established within easy access of large
biological museums and libraries. Sometimes it so happens, how-
ever, that in a large city where zoological gardens, museums, and
libraries exist, the former may be situated several miles from the
last two mentioned, and this is the misfortune to which we more
particularly refer, and, if it can be avoided, should be by all
means.

If properly conducted, a zoological garden sees its chief use in
being a powerful auxiliary to those more general schemes under-
taken on the part of the state for the benefit of the community at
large, in which educational ends are to be met. And in the man-
agement of such a garden, everything connected with it should
be continually bent in that direction ; the managers should ever
keep clearly before their minds this fact, that the principal object
they have in view is an educational one — that they have under
their control an engine capable of diffusing annually among the
people an incalculable store of highly useful knowledge. The
moment that such an institution sinks to the level of a purpose-

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 783

lessly arranged and heterogeneously selected collection of ani-
mals, the throngs that stream through the garden grounds will
resort there as curiosity-seekers, and will lose sight of the idea
that they are in a place and enjoying an atmosphere of culture,
refinement, and education. History goes to show that the superb
zoological gardens now maintained in London were first opened
in 1828, since which time, down to 1887, twenty-four million five
hundred and seventy-two thousand four hundred and five visitors
were entered upon the register-books of the management. An
instant's reflection will be sufficient to convince any friend of edu-
cation of the benefits that humanity has derived hence, and of
the refining influences which have through this center alone been
brought into play.

Extensive zoological gardens, in addition, open to the masses
a long chapter on the life-histories of the animals of their own
country, as well as those of foreign lands. Then by the proper
methods it becomes easy to bring the visitor face to face with
other questions intimately associated with the animals themselves :
I refer to their geographical ranges; the physical aspect of the
countries they inhabit ; and, finally, through the library and lect-
ure system, something about their natural history and structure.

People are by such means enabled to supplement their read-
ings and studies by having the very objects brought before them.
At a glance, the striking differences between the Asiatic and Afri-
can elephants are appreciated through the eye. One soon becomes
familiar with the various forms of our American deer, and has a
better realizing sense of the fact that the elk resort to the mount-
ain fastnesses as their normal haunts, while our antelope rarely
quit the plains. From school-days up, the American youth, by
such means, gains a knowledge of the forms of the magnificent
representatives of the various faunae of his land, in comparison
with which the illustrations in the text-book, although not to be
altogether despised, are inadequate.

Here the sculptor, artist, and engraver can, at their leisure,
study the noblest of animal forms under the most advantageous
of circumstances. Leopards and pumas may be caught in the
very act of a high-noon siesta, or perchance in some short and
fiery quarrel, showing all the lineaments of anger characteristic
of their race when aroused. Ornithologists may catch for their
folios the transitory tints of the glowing plumages of trogons and
toucans as they disport themselves in their large, airy cages, in a
manner to be achieved under no other conditions. Then, by the
aid of camera, brush, and pencil, tints and forms are brought
to the eye and hand of the sculptor and engraver, which in time
take on material shape in bronze and stone, and the ideas pass
into art and design, and thus culture is the gainer in the end.

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is here, again, that a thousand facts each year are brought
directly under the observation of the naturalist and specialist
in every department of biology — nidification in all its details
among birds ; all the data in connection with the breeding habits
of mammals ; and a volume of unwritten lore having reference to
the life-histories of our native reptiles and their kin.

Nor is this all, for it is at the zoological garden that the mor-
phologist, surrounded as he there is by all the conveniences that
civilization can bring, finds that priceless opportunity to carry on
his researches upon the structure of animals, in ways that he
could not do under any other circumstances ; for material is here
brought before him that, as a rule, not only admits of the investi-
gation of individual forms, but from its abundance enables him,
like Garrod in London, to draw conclusions from the anatomy
presented by whole natural groups, and thus science is an enor-
mous gainer.

It will be seen, then, from what has gone before, that not only
are great pleasure and enjoyment of a highly elevating character
brought to thousands of people annually, who have the opportu-
nity of frequenting a large zoological garden, but those ultimate
ends of all human activities — education, culture, art, and science
— are immensely benefited thereby ; and this implies a powerful
and constant operation of a good influence for all mankind.

When a city distinguished as being a scientific center, or may-
hap the national capital — and this itself may be such a city —
determines upon establishing a zoological garden within its pre-
cincts, a great deal depends upon the site which is chosen for the
purpose.

If possible, the form of the grounds should be a regular figure,
an oblong being one of the best, with a long side toward the direc-
tion whence come the prevailing winds, as this assists in secur-
ing good ventilation; and the area should include at least two
hundred to two hundred and fifty acres. The site should be
within some convenient distance of the city museums and libra-
ries ; surely not separated from these by more than three miles at
the most. Another matter of great importance is the character of
the country, which should be as diversified as possible; and the
inclosure should contain a few sizable ponds or a good, strong-
stream of water, in which event the former can be easily con-
structed artificially. Old trees in groups ; some low, level marsh-
land ; and some hills and rocky portions, are all points of extreme
natural advantage. These latter features, if marked, usually in-
sure, too, another benefit, for then hilly or broken country is likely
to be found immediately beyond the limits of the garden, which,
though conducive to the building of handsome suburban resi-
dences, is not likely to fill up entirely with houses as the city in-

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 785

creases in size ; and thus excellent ventilation is secured for all
time.

There are several highly important elements which should be
paramount in the administration of the affairs of such an institu-
tion in order to insure its highest success and most healthy growth
and usefulness. Chief among these is the matter of choice of the
persons selected to constitute the staff of such a zoological gar-
den as we have in mind. Next are the methods of confining and
exhibiting the collection of animals of the place ; the regulations
controlling its sanitation and keeping; and provision of those
steps which lead to the public and special workers deriving the
greatest amount of benefit from it, in a purely educational point
of view, incorporating here the subservience of Science in her
diverse ends and means.

In the spring of this year (1888), the Zoological Society of
London, in addition to its regular staff of officers, employed the
following persons : one superintendent, one assistant superintend-
ent, one head keeper, six keepers (first class), ten keepers (second
class), eight keepers (third class), three money-takers, one store-
keeper, one cook, one office-clerk, one prosector's assistant, one head
gardener, nineteen helpers in the menagerie, ten garden laborers,
seven artisans, two painters, six laborers, one butcher, two fire-
men, two night watchmen, and one time-keeper — making a whole
force of about eighty-five people, the duties of whom are suffi-
ciently suggested by their designations. It is hardly necessary to
say that the gentlemen composing the staff of officers should be
selected not only for their executive ability in the departments
they severally fill, but likewise for their distinction in some
branch of zoological science, and more especially vertebrate zo-
ology. Of that part of the staff which has just been enumerated
above, especial regard should be paid to the selection of the keep-
ers, who should be men fond of animals and their care, gentle
and patient, and otherwise particularly fitted for their employ-
ment.

A great deal depends upon the various methods adopted of ex-
hibiting the different mammals, birds, and reptiles in the collec-
tion, not only so far as the comfort of these is concerned, but
the amount of instruction and benefit we derive from the several
plans emj)loyed. For instance, it would hardly be considered
advisable to keep specimens of the Rocky Mountain goat {Ma-
zama) within an inclosure wherein the ground was a dead
level, and specimens of the prong-horn antelope (Antilocapra) in
another inclosure wherein a rocky hillock of some considerable
dimensions might exist : for, in the first instance, the animal would
not only be unhappy in his quarters, but would be made incapable
of exhibiting a number of his natural traits ; while a mass of rocks

VOL. XXXIV.— 50

786 THE POPULAR SCIUJVCU MONTHLY.

in the antelope inclosure would be a waste of material, and take
up room that the animals might otherwise enjoy.

Prof. Flower, the President of the London Zoological Society,
in his address on the 16th of June, 1887, to the general meet-
ing, made some excellent remarks upon this point when he said
that "the old idea of keeping animals in small, cramped cages
and dens, inherited from the Tower and traveling wild-beast shows,
still lingers in many places. We have a responsibility to our cap-
tive animals, brought from their native wilds to minister to our
pleasure and instruction, beyond that of merely supplying them
with food and shelter. The more their comfort can be studied,
and roomier their place of captivity, the more they are sur-
rounded by conditions reproducing those of their native haunts,
the happier they will be, and the more enjoyment and instruction
we shall obtain when looking at them." Then continuing, and
referring to the London gardens, he said : " Many of our newest
improvements are markedly in this direction. I may especially
mention the new inclosure for wild sheep near the lion-house in
the South Garden, with its picturesque rock-work and fall of
water, and the large aviary for herons and similar birds just com-
pleted on what used to be called the Water-Fowls' Lawn."

The writer is convinced of the truth of these words, from his
own studies of zoological gardens in this country and abroad.

Again, to show the bad effects of the overcrowding of animals.
Prof. Flower further observed, still confining himself to the Lon-
don gardens : " The primary habitation of the lions and other large
feline animals was the building on the north side of the tunnel,
which many of us may remember as a reptile-house, and which has
been lately restored as a dwelling-place for the smaller carnivora.
The council reports of the period frequently speak of the bad
accommodation it afforded to the inmates, the consequent injury
to their health, and the disagreeable effects on visitors from the
closeness of the atmosphere. In September, 1843, the terrace,
with its double row of cages beneath, was completed; and the
report of the following spring, speaking of this as ' one of the
most important works ever undertaken at the gardens,' congratu-
lates the society upon the fact that the anticipations of the
increased health of this interesting portion of the collection,
resulting from a free exposure to the external air and total
absence of artificial heat, had been fully realized. The effects of
more air and greater exercise were indeed said to have become
visible almost immediately. Animals which were emaciated and
sickly before their removal became plump and sleek in a fort-
night after, and the appetites of all were so materially increased
that they began to kill and eat each other. This, however,
led to an immediate increase in their allowance of food, since

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 787

which time, it is stated, no further accidents of the kind have
occurred/'

Very often, when birds are kept in cramped quarters, they can
not be induced to show off any of their peculiar habits, much less
take to breeding. This was well seen in the case of the herons a
year or so ago in the London gardens ; for, as soon as these birds
were transferred from their limited confines to the large new
aviary constructed for them, and inclosing natural waters, trees,
and shrubs, they resumed at once some of their more natural
habits, while the ibises built in the trees and reared their young.
Some mammals and birds bear confinement in narrow habitations
better than others ; and one can easily imagine that a sloth would
tolerate a curtailment of his liberties far better than many species
of monkeys would do, or some varieties of parrots than the free-
dom-loving sea-fowl.

At the Bishop's Gardens in Havana, Cuba, I remember very
well a large aviary, in which were confined a considerable num-
ber of wild ducks, sea-gulls, and similar birds, and it was a delight
to wateli them, as they appeared to be fully as contented as in
their native wilds, and would sport in the inclosed sheet of water,
or preen themselves on the rocks, all day long. Then, some creat-
ures bear being continually looked at better than others, while
some have such highly nervous organizations that they should be
placed only in the more secluded nooks of the garden, and even
then have the means of withdrawing from the public gaze for at
least a time. As owls never outgrow their fondness for a hollow
stump, bears their climbing-poles, parrots their swing-boughs,
and musk-rats their marsh-ways, we should make every endeavor
to bring all our ingenuity to our aid in imitating as closely as
possible in the gardens their natural conditions. The writer has
during his lifetime kept a great many animals in confinement, of
all manner of varieties, from a pocket gopher to an eagle, and
from a ring-tailed howler-monkey to a turkey-buzzard, and has
learned that, notwithstanding the creature may be abundantly
supplied with his proper food, you can kill a star-nosed mole if
you do not give him the opportunity to burrow in moist, wet
ground ; or render a porcupine utterly miserable if you do not
serve him with the stump of an old tree, some ten feet above the
ground, to stretch himself out upon.

Experience has taught us that the best way of exhibiting al-
most all kinds of reptiles, from the largest varieties of snakes and
pythons down to the most diminutive species of lizards and hylas,
is in that style of cage wherein the front and sides are formed of
large single panes of clear glass. This allows an excellent view
of the inmates, and full opportunity to watch and study their
habits. On the other hand, the alligators, as representatives of

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this class, do best in a sluggish pool, with marshy banks, and with
flat, mossy rocks and logs to bask themselves upon. Out at
West End, in New Orleans, there is a small place of this kind,
and the several large alligators I saw in it seemed to be as well
contented as though they were enjoying the peculiar advantages
of their native bayous ; and, as common as these great reptiles
are in Louisiana, those at West End always seemed to have more
or fewer people intently watching them ; and sometimes, even in
the broiling noonday sun, one might see one of the oldest and
most aristocratic residents of Royal Street stop there for a pass-
ing moment, just to "take a glance at the 'gators."

Throughout the garden the names of all the animals should
be made known to the visitors by the managers seeing to it that
the cages or other receptacles confining them are properly though
not too conspicuously labeled. An excellent form of label is a
small, water-tight, cast-iron, and painted one, with a glass-slide
front. In this the white paper slip may be kept, upon which in
plain black letters is printed the name of the animal — that is, its
m.ost common name — with its accepted technical name ; and a
brief statement giving sex and normal geographical range in
nature.

However amusing it may be, it also has its other aspects, to
see a party of some ten or a dozen people standing before a large
tank-cage containing a pair of fur-seals, and, from the absence of
a label, not a soul able to divine the name of the creatures con-
tained in it ; and perhaps, too, one or more ladies in the group
with a seal sack on.

In a country like the United States, where a number of its
finest mammals and some birds are rapidly becoming extinct, it
devolves as a solemn duty upon the management of a zoological
garden to secure a goodly representation of these for permanent
preservation. Among the mammals which now need such action
none is better known than the buffalo, though the Rocky Mount-
ain goat (Mazama), the beaver, and several species of deer stand
in the same case ; indeed, I presume the day will come to this
country when all of our larger mammals will cease to exist in a
state of nature, and we shall have to depend upon our gardens and
parks for examples of them. Of the birds, our Carolina parrot
and roseate spoonbill are conspicuous examples, and it can be
only a few years at most when both species will be extinct in this
country.

Animals in a zoological garden should be grouped, so far as
circumstances will admit, into their natural orders of the class to
which they belong. For instance, all the dogs, wolves, and foxes,
and their nearest allies, should be made to inhabit a den or dens
in the same part of the garden, and in all cases special means

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 789

should be adopted to point out the animals belonging to the coun-
try in which the garden is maintained. The system of labeling
will do much toward this if carried out as suggested on a pre-
vious page ; and if keepers and others are intelligent and oblig-
ing, as they surely should be, they can accomplish a great deal in
a few words to groups of inquiring visitors.

Many questions touching upon special details in administra-
tion— as the best means to be adopted to secure desirable acquisi-
tions to the garden, to the methods of exchange, of contracts for
food, and similar matters, and whether or not it is desirable to
make a small charge to visitors as an entrance-fee — hardly fall
within the scope of the present article to discuss.

Modern architecture and artisanship, and present-day knowl-
edge of sanitary engineering and sanitation, with our ever -in-
creasing literature upon the diseases and their treatment in the
lower animals, all leave but little to be desired for a superintend-
ent of a zoological garden to draw upon for the application of
their principles to the institution under his charge. If means be
ample, there is not the shadow of excuse why such a place may
not be made as inviting as the " gardens of the gods," and clean-
liness and purity completely carried out.

One main building always constitutes an inseparable part of a
model zoological garden, and it is devoted to the offices and study-
rooms of the staff, to the lecture-room, to the reading-room and
library, to the photographic gallery, to the laboratories and store-
rooms, and, finally, to a few spare rooms for special purposes.

The lecture-room should be properly fitted up, and made to
accommodate a large audience. Here, at certain seasons, a course
of free lectures should be delivered on some branch of zoology or
zootomy, either by some resident member of the staff, or by spe-
cialists.

No well-appointed zoological building in connection with a
garden would be complete without its reading-room and library.
In the latter should be found, in time, all the standard works that
have appeared upon the various branches of natural science, and
more particularly upon vertebrate zoology and morphology, in-
cluding, of course, such subjects as classification and geographi-
cal distribution of animals, and the reports of other zoological
gardens and societies. On the reading-tables should appear the
various authoritative zoological periodicals of the day, and bound
volumes of the same should be upon the library shelves. It is an
excellent idea to have the walls of such a room as this hung with
strong relief maps of the various parts of the world, upon which
are portrayed by clear defining lines the several regions as they
are described by zoographers, showing the natural geographical
distribution of animals. Within these areas there might be

790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

printed the names of the best-known representatives of the verte-
brate kingdom that distinguish them. Such a series of maps or
charts would be highly instructive to the visitor, useful at times
in the lecture-room, and always a convenience to others.

Few departments will be more important than the photo-
graphic gallery, and it should be under the charge of a thor-
oughly competent photographer, who should also combine in his
knowledge a familiarity with the habits of animals, and what is
required of him through his art. He can be kept constantly at
work photographing the rarer animals. Efforts should be con-
stantly made to catch them in the act of any of their peculiar
habits ; pictures should be made of their young at all stages, the
appearance of the dams at the various periods of gestation, the
nesting of the various species of birds, and so on indefinitely.
Further, he should be enabled to take photographs of special dis-
sections of the prosector, and of casts and skeletons, and similar
work. A full series of these photographs should be bound and
kept on file in the collections of the establishment, as they will be
of the very highest importance to the scientific taxidermist, artist,
engraver, zoologist, and others.

From one cause or another, a certain proportion of the animals
die every year ; and in the year 1887, in the London Gardens, for
example, there were added twenty-five hundred and twenty-five
animals of the three classes of vertebrates— quadrupeds, birds, and
reptiles ; and during the same year nine hundred and twenty-five
died. Now, these dead animals are in the majority of cases of
inestimable value, and no such material should • ever be allowed
to go to waste. It should come immediately under the charge of
the prosector, so he may promptly direct what use is to be made
of it. As a rule, it is not desirable for the garden to accumulate
an anatomical collection, though it is highly useful for the pro-
sector to have on hand preparations of certain forms ; but, in the
main, large skeletons or bodies of animals should be turned over
to the city museums. In the case of duplicates, or where animals
have died and their anatomical structure has been previously
described, they may sometimes be sold or exchanged for living
animals, or otherwise disposed of. Often small species can be at
once consigned to alcohol, for the future use of the prosectorial
department. Rare forms that are but slightly known morpho-
logically should be thoroughly described and figured, either by
the prosector or by special workers to whom such material may
be sent for the purpose. These descriptions and figures should
constitute the main feature of the published reports of the gar-
den, and they should be got out in a style as handsome as printer
and engraver can make them, and bound in a manner compatible
with their importance and value. They will not make up, how-

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 791

ever, the entire quarterly report, as in it also will appear the en-
gravings and descriptions of hitherto unfigured animals, and a
general account of the quarterly proceedings of the entire estab-
lishment, and other matters of interest.

Thus it will be seen that the prosectorial department is one
of the most important connected with the institution, and in due
time will contribute to the common stock of scientific knowledge
a mass of information of a peculiarly valuable character, and of
a kind, as a rule, not easily obtainable in any other way.

Taken, then, in its entirety, a zoological garden, such as I
have attempted to outline in this paper, has within its means to
powerfully aid, encourage, and stimulate human progress, educa-
tion, and science in an infinite variety of ways ; and such an insti-
tution stands among the very best of investments to be made
either on the part of State or city. Here are library, lecture, art,
design, and interest for the multitude, and yet how rarely does it
occur to the mind of the philanthropist to make an endowment
in such a direction ! Moneys diverted into such channels not
only are given to the cause of education and learning and art,
but to the embellishment of the city where the garden is founded,
to the interest of its people, and the perpetuation of the name of
the donor. Zoological gardens, again, even exert a far more pow-
erful influence toward luring those of certain classes and con-
ditions away from the vices of a city than does the museum or the
library ; while, with others, it leads to a greater interest and appre-
ciation of the other establishments and their advantages.

With respect to a nation as a whole that has arrived at a cer-
tain height of civilization, and can boast of a well-filled treasury,
it almost, if not quite, becomes her bounden duty to her people,
and to the common good, to endow such an institution at her
national capital, in connection with other scientific departments,
of which she is the supporter in chief. And it should be the
pride of every intelligent citizen of such a nation to see to it, as
far as he is individually able, that the capital of his country is
not backward in such matters, especially when he comes to look
about him and sees that the most distinguished and influential
nations of the earth are characterized by possessing just such
institutions at the seat of their national governments.

The International Geological Congress map of northern Germany, which is
in proof, is to be printed in twenty-four different tints for the sedimentary forma-
tions, three for the archsean, and nine for the eruptive rocks, and will consist of
forty-nine sheets. One color is taken for each group — Cretaceous, green ; Juras-
sic, blue, etc. The subdivisions are shown by various modifications of these colors.
As a rule, the lower subdivisions are shown by the darker tints.

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE DERIVATIVE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND.*

Bt G. J. ROMANES, F. E. S.

IF it is true that "the proper study of mankind is man," as-
suredly the study of nature has never before reached a terri-
tory of thought so important in all its aspects as that which in
our own generation it is for the first time approaching. After
centuries of intellectual conquest in all regions of the phenomenal
universe, man has at last begun to find that he may apply in a
new and most unexpected manner the adage of antiquity — Know
thyself. For he has begun to perceive a strong probability, if not
an actual certainty, that his own living nature is identical in kind
with the nature of all other life, and that even the most amazing
side of this his own nature — nay, the most amazing of all things
within the reach of his knowledge — the human mind itself, is but
the topmost inflorescence of one mighty growth, whose roots and
stem and many branches are sunk in the abyss of planetary time.
Therefore, with Prof. Huxley we may say : " The importance of
such an inquiry is indeed intuitively manifest. Brought face to
face with these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of
men is conscious of a certain shock, due perhaps not so much to
disgust at the aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as
to the awaking of a sudden and profound mistrust of time-honored
theories and strongly rooted prejudices regarding his own position
in nature, and his relations to the wider world of life ; while that
which remains a dim suspicion for the unthinking, becomes a vast
argument, fraught with the deepest consequences, for all who are
acquainted with the recent progress of anatomical and physio-
logical sciences." f

The problem, then, which in this generation has for the first
time been presented to human thought, is the problem of how this
thought itself has come to be. A question of the deepest impor-
tance to every system of philosophy has been raised by the study
of biology ; and it is the question whether the mind of man is
essentially the same as the mind of the lower animals, or, having
had, either wholly or in part, some other mode of origin, is essen-
tially distinct — differing not only in degree but in kind from all
other types of psychical being. And forasmuch as upon this great
and deeply interesting question opinions are still much divided —
even among those most eminent in the walks of science who agree
in accepting the principles of evolution as applied to explain the
mental constitution of the lower animals — it is evident that the

* From " Mental Evolution in Man." By George John Romanes, LL. D., F. R. S. New
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1 8S9.

f " Man's Place in Nature," p. 59.

THE DERIVATIVE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND. 793

question is neither a superficial nor an easy one. I shall, however,
endeavor to examine it with as little obscurity as possible, and
also, I need hardly say, with all the impartiality of which I am
capable.*

It will be remembered that in the introductory chapter of my
previous work f I have already briefly sketched the manner in
which I propose to treat this question. Here, therefore, it is
sufficient to remark that I began by assuming the truth of the
general theory of descent so far as the animal kingdom is con-
cerned, both with respect to bodily and to mental organization ;
but in doing this I expressly excluded the mental organization of
man, as being a department of comparative psychology with refer-
ence to which I did not feel entitled to assume the principles of
evolution. The reason why I made this special exception, I suffi-
ciently explained; and I shall therefore now proceed, without
further introduction, to a full consideration of the problem that
is before us.

First, let us consider the question on purely a priori grounds.
In accordance with our original hypothesis — upon which all nat-
uralists of any standing are nowadays agreed — the process of
organic and of mental evolution has been continuous throughout
the whole region of life and of mind, with the one exception of
the mind of man. On grounds of analogy, therefore, we should
deem it antecedently improbable that the process of evolution,
elsewhere so uniform and ubiquitous, should have been inter-
rupted at its terminal phase. And looking to the very large
extent of this analogy, the antecedent presumption which it raises
is so considerable, that in my opinion it could only be counter-
balanced by some very cogent and unmistakable facts, showing a
difference between animal and human psychology so distinctive
as to render it in the nature of the case virtually impossible that
the one could ever have graduated into the other. This I posit as
the first consideration.

Next, still restricting ourselves to an a priori view, it is unques-
tionable that human psychology, in the case of every individual
human being, presents to actual observation a process of gradual
development, or evolution, extending from infancy to manhood ;
and that in this process, which begins at a zero level of mental

* It is perhaps desirable to explain from the first that by the words " difference of
kind," as used in the above paragraph and elsewhere throughout this treatise, I mean differ-
ence of origin. This is the only real distinction that can be drawn between the terms " dif-
ference of kind " and " difference of degree " ; and I should scarcely have deemed it worth
while to give the definition, had it not been for the confused manner in which the terms
are used by some writers — e. g.. Prof. Sayce, who says, while speaking of the development
of languages from a common source, " differences of degree become in time differences of
kind " (" Introduction to the Science of Language," ii, 309).

f " Mental Evolution in Animals."

794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

life and may culminate in genius, there is nowhere and never
observable a sudden leap of progress, such as the passage from
one order of psychical being to another might reasonably be ex-
pected to show. Therefore, it is a matter of observable fact that,
whether or not human intelligence differs from animal in kind, it
certainly does admit of gradual development from a zero level.
This I posit as the second consideration.

Again, so long as it is passing through the lower phases of its
development, the human mind assuredly ascends through a scale
of mental faculties which are parallel with those that are perma-
nently presented by the psychological species of the animal king-
dom. A glance at the accompanying diagram will serve to show
in how strikingly quantitative, as well as qualitative, a manner the
development of an individual human mind follows the order of
mental evolution in the animal kingdom. And when we remember
that, at all events up to the level where this parallel ends, the
diagram is not an expression of any psychological theory, but of
well-observed and undeniable psychological fact, I think every
reasonable man must allow that, whatever the explanation of this
remarkable coincidence may be, it certainly must admit of some
explanation — i. e., can not be ascribed to mere chance. But, if so,
the only explanation available is that which is furnished by the
theory of descent. These facts, which I present as a third consid-
eration, tend still further — and, I think, most strongly— to increase
the force of antecedent presumption against any hypothesis which
supposes that the process of evolution can have been discontinuous
in the region of mind.

Lastly, it is likewise a matter of observation, as I shall fully
show in the next installment of this work, that in the history of our
race — as recorded in documents, traditions, antiquarian remains,
and flint implements — the intelligence of the race has been sub-
ject to a steady process of gradual development. The force of this
consideration lies in its proving that, if the process of mental evo-
lution was suspended between the anthropoid apes and primitive
man, it was again resumed with primitive man, and has since con-
tinued as uninterruptedly in the human species as it previously
did in the animal species. Now, upon the face of these facts, or
from a merely antecedent point of view, such appears to me, to say
the least, a highly improbable supposition. At all events, it cer-
tainly is not the kind of supposition which men of science are
disposed to regard with favor elsewhere ; for a long and arduous
experience has taught us that the most paying kind of supposition
which we can bring with us into our study of nature, is that which
recognizes in nature the principle of continuity.

Taking, then, these several a priori considerations together,
they must, in my opinion, be fairly held to make out a very strong

THE DERIVATIVE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND. 795

prima facie case in favor of the view that there has been no inter-
ruption of the developmental process in the course of psychologi-
cal history ; but that the mind of man, like the mind of animals —
and, indeed, like everything else in the domain of living nature —
has been evolved. For these considerations show, not only that
on analogical grounds any such interruption must be held as in
itself improbable ; but also that there is nothing in the constitu-
tion of the human mind incompatible with the supposition of its
having been slowly evolved, seeing that not only in the case of
every individual life, but also during the whole history of our
species, the human mind actually does undergo, and has under-
gone, the process in question.

In order to overturn so immense a presumption as is thus
erected on a priori grounds, the psychologist must fairly be
called upon to supply some very powerful considerations of an
a posteriori kind, tending to show that there is something in the
constitution of the human mind which renders it virtually impos-
sible— or at all events exceedingly difficult to imagine — that it
can have proceeded by way of genetic descent from mind of lower
orders. I shall therefore proceed to consider, as carefully and as
impartially as I can, the arguments which have been adduced in
support of this thesis.

In the introductory chapter of my previous work * I observed
that the question whether or not human intelligence has been
evolved from animal intelligence can only be dealt with scientifi-
cally by comparing the one with the other, in order to ascertain
the points wherein they agree and the points wherein they differ.
I shall, therefore, here begin by briefly stating the points of agree-
ment, and then proceed more carefully to consider all the more
important views which have hitherto been pro]30unded concern-
ing the points of difference.

If we have regard to emotions as these occur in the brute, we
can not fail to be struck by the broad fact that the area of psy-
chology which they cover is so nearly coextensive with that
which is covered by the emotional faculties of man. In my pre-
vious works I have given what I consider unquestionable evidence
of all the following emotions, which I here name in the order of
their appearance through the psychological scale — fear, surprise,
affection, pugnacity, curiosity, jealousy, anger, play, sympathy,
emulation, pride, resentment, emotion of the beautiful, grief, hate,
cruelty, benevolence, revenge, rage, shame, regret, deceitfulness,
emotion of the ludicrous, f

Now, this list exhausts all the human emotions, with the excep-
tion of those which refer to religion, moral sense, and perception

* " Mental Evolution in Animals."

f Sec "Mental Evolution in Animals," chapter on the Emotions.

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the sublime. Therefore I think we are fully entitled to con-
clude that, so far as emotions are concerned, it can not be said
that the facts of animal psychology raise any difficulties against
the theory of descent. On the contrary, the emotional life of ani-
mals is so strikingly similar to the emotional life of man — and
especially of young children — that I think the similarity ought
fairly to be taken as direct evidence of a genetic continuity be-
tween them.

And so it is with regard to instinct. Understanding this term
in the sense previously defined,* it is unquestionably true that in
man — especially during the periods of infancy and youth — sundry
well-marked instincts are presented, which have reference chiefly
to nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, and the rearing of
progeny. No one has ventured to dispute that all these instincts
are identical with those which we observe in the lower animals ;
nor, on the other hand, has any one ventured to suggest that there
is any instinct which can be said to be peculiar to man, unless the
moral and religious sentiments are taken to be of the nature of
instincts. And although it is true that instinct plays a larger
part in the psychology of many animals than it does in the psy-
chology of man, this fact is plainly of no importance in the pres-
ent connection, where we are concerned only with identity of
principle. If any one were childish enough to argue that the
mind of a man differs in kind from that of a brute because it
does not display any particular instinct— such, for example, as
the spinning of webs, the building of nests, or the incubation
of eggs— the answer of course would be that, by parity of reason-
ing, the mind of a spider must be held to differ in kind from that
of a bird. So far, then, as instincts and emotions are concerned,
the parallel before us is much too close to admit of any argument
on the opposite side.

With regard to volition more will be said in a future install-
ment of this work. Here, therefore, it is enough to say, in general
terms, that no one has seriously questioned the identity of kind
between the animal and the human will, up to the point at which
so-called freedom is supposed by some dissentients to supervene
and characterize the latter. Now, of course, if the human will
differs from the animal will in any important feature or attribute
such as this, the fact must be duly taken into account during the
course of our subsequent analysis. At present, however, we are
only engaged upon a preliminary sketch of the points of resem-

* " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 159. " The term is a generic one, comprising all
the faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to
individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed
and ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring circum-
stances by all individuals of the same species."

THE DERIVATIVE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND. 797

blance between animal and human psycliology. So far, therefore,
as we are now concerned with the will, we have only to note that
up to the point where the volitions of a man begin to surpass those
of a brute in respect of complexity, refinement, and foresight, no
one disputes identity of kind.

Lastly, the same remark applies to the faculties of intellect.*
Enormous as the difference undoubtedly is between these faculties
in the two cases, the difference is conceded not to be one of kind
ab initio. On the contrary, it is conceded that up to a certain
point— namely, as far as the highest degree of intelligence to which
an animal attains— there is not merely a similarity of kind but an
identity of correspondence. In other words, the parallel between
animal and human intelligence which is presented in the diagram
is not disputed. The question, therefore, only arises with reference
to those superadded faculties which are represented above the
level marked twenty-eight, where the upward growth of animal
intelligence ends, and the growth of distinctively human intelli-
gence begins. But even at level twenty-eight the human mind is
already in possession of many of its most useful faculties, and
these it does not afterward shed, but carries them upward with it
in the course of its further development — as we well know by ob-
serving the psychogenesis of every child. Now, it belongs to the
very essence of evolution, considered as a process, that when one
order of existence passes on to higher grades of excellence, it does
so upon the foundation already laid by the previous course of its
progress ; so that when compared with any allied order of exist-
ence which has not been carried so far in this upward course, a
more or less close parallel admits of being traced between the
two, up to the point at which the one begins to distance the other,
where all further comparison admittedly ends. Therefore, upon
the face of them, the facts of comparative psychology now before
us are, to say the least, strongly suggestive of the superadded
powers of the human intellect having been due to a process of
evolution.

Lest it should be thought that in this preliminary sketch of
the resemblances between human and brute psychology I have
been endeavoring to draw the lines with a biased hand, I will here
quote a short passage to show that I have not misrepresented the
extent to which agreement prevails among adherents of otherwise

* Of course, my opponents will not allow that this word can be properly applied to the
psychology of any brute. But I am not now using it in a qucstion-be.:;ging sense : I am
using it only to avoid the otherwise necessary expedient of coining a new term. Whatever
view we may take as to the relations between human and animal psychology, we must in
some way distinguish between the different ingredients of each, and so between the instinct,
the emotion, and the intelligence of an animal. (See " Mental Evolution in Animals," p.
335 d seq.)

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

opposite opinions. And for this purpose I select as spokesman a
distinguished naturalist, who is also an able psychologist, and to
whom, therefore, I shall afterward have occasion frequently to
refer, as on both these accounts the most competent as well as the
most representative of my opponents. In his presidential address
before the Biological Section of the British Association in 1879,
Mr. Mivart is reported to have said :

" I have no wish to ignore the marvelous powers of animals, or
the resemblance of their actions to those of man. No one can rea-
sonably deny that many of them have feelings, emotions, and
sense-perceptions similar to our own ; that they exercise volun-
tary motion, and perform actions grouped in complex ways for
definite ends ; that they to a certain extent learn by experience,
and combine perceptions and reminiscences so as to draw practical
inferences, directly apprehending objects standing in different re-
lations one to another, so that, in a sense, they may be said to
apprehend relations. They will show hesitation, ending appar-
ently, after a conflict of desires, with what looks like choice or
volition ; and such animals as the dog will not only exhibit the
most marvelous fidelity and affection, but will also manifest evi-
dent signs of shame, which may seem the outcome of incipient
moral perceptions. It is no great wonder, then, that so many per-
sons, little given to patient and careful introspection, should fail
to perceive any radical distinction between a nature thus gifted
and the intellectual nature of man."

rpi

SCIENCE AND "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE."
Bt feedekik a. feenald.

IHE doctrine known as Christian Science has gained so large
a number of followers, it promises the freedom from disease
which so many afflicted persons are longing for, it appeals to the
religious sentiments, which are so powerful to sway the mass of
mankind, and also claims a basis in science from which the world
is constantly expecting fresh surprises, that it has aroused the
interest of thousands who are trying to decide whether it is a
revelation of truth or a contagious delusion.

Christian Science was " discovered " by Mrs. Mary B. Eddy,
then of Lynn, Mass., in 1866. The leading features of her doctrine
are that " everything is Mind," that there is but one Mind, which
is God, and that " man is the idea of God." Our bodies, and the
things around us, houses and furniture, trees, rocks, and earth —
all things composed of matter — do not really exist, but are only
the ideas of mind, something like the things of a dream. Matter,

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. APRIL,

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SCIENCE AND " CHRISTIAN SCIENCES 799

being unreal, can not feel or know anything, and hence can not
be sick ; and mind, being divine, is perfect, and hence can not be
sick either. Therefore, there can be no sickness in anything, and
what we call sickness is only a belief — not a belief of the one
Divine Mind, but a belief of what she calls " mortal mind," which
is itself unreal. Hence, when the belief is destroyed, the disease
is destroyed also. She deems this theory fully verified, because,
proceeding in accordance with it, she states that she has " pre-
vented disease, preserved and restored health, healed chronic as
well as acute ailments in their severest forms, elongated shortened
limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, restored decaying bones to healthy
conditions, brought back the lost substance of the lungs, and
caused them to resume their proper functions." She asserts that
sin is an error of similar nature with disease, and yields to similar
treatment. " Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one
and the same thing in Christian Science." Death also is all a mis-
take. The doctrine is set forth very fully in Mrs. Eddy's book,
" Science and Health," of which over thirty thousand copies have
been sold. Many other books and pamphlets have been published
by the Christian Scientists, and they issue a number of periodi-
cals, the chief of which are : " The Christian Science Journal "
and "The Mental Healing Monthly," in Boston; "The Interna-
tional Magazine of Christian Science," in New York ; and " The
Mental Science Magazine" and "The Christian Metaphysician,"
in Chicago. In each of these cities there are several " schools,"
"institutes," and "universities" for the teaching of "Christian
Science," or "metaphysical healing," or the "science of spirit,"
or " Christian pneumatopathy," or essentially the same thing by
some other name ; and there are one or more such institutions in
a number of other cities.

The two parts of the name " Christian Science " indicate that
the doctrine has a mixed character. As to the genuineness of its
Christianity, the doctors of divinity are best qualified to judge ;
the religious side of the subject lies outside the domain of sci-
ence, and will not be treated here. I will only say that the garb
of religion has often been a convenient cloak for fraud and delu-
sion. But Mrs. Eddy calls her system of healing a science. If
it really has the character of a science, it will endure all the
tests that a genuine science will endure. If Christian Science is
true, not only should cures always result when its precepts are
followed, but, when a part of the theory is disregarded, failure
should be sure to result. Any mental healer who tried to cure
disease without denying that disease exists, or without denying
that matter exists, or without asserting that all mind is one,
should meet with discomfiture and defeat. In the case of a
genuine scientific doctrine, such as the law of gravitation, any

8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

operation like the erection of a tower or the calculation of the
path of a cannon-ball will result in success or failure accord-
ing as it is or is not performed in complete agreement with
this law.

Now, the Christian Scientists are continually making failures.
Patients whom they have treated for a long time still have poor
health. The healers plead that these patients have been helped
some, but the gain is doubtful ; and, besides, their theory does not
leave room for any partial successes. " The rule, and its perfect-
ness in my system, never vary," says Mrs. Eddy. There are other
patients who might have been numbered among the successes of
Christian Science if they had not unfortunately died under the
treatment. Such instances furnish frequent items for the news-
papers. " The Medical and Surgical Reporter " gives this case :
The wife of a physician in Cincinnati had a cancer. The growth
was removed, but after some months the disease reappeared, and
everything that the best medical skill of the country could do for
the patient proved in vain. She was urged to try the faith-cure,
but her husband naturally refused to allow this. When, how-
ever, it began to be whispered about that, because she was married
to a physician, she must die for want of freedom to avail herself
of all methods of cure, he could resist no longer. Under his pro-
test she went to the faith-healers, and every day they told her
that she was getting better, while she was really growing worse,
and soon died.

" The New York Herald " prints the following :

Chicago, III., February SI, 1888.— F. Benedict, late an employ^ at W. "W.
Kimball & Company's piano ware-rooms, lies dead in the La Burnham flats, a
victim to " faith-healing," and to-morrow Dr. C. R. Teed, the editor of the
Christian Science organ, " The Guiding Star," will be called upon to answer
charges of criminal malpractice in connection with the case.

From the " Boston Herald " I learn that Mrs. Lottie A. James,
of West Medford, Mass., died April 20, 1888, in childbirth, under
the treatment of her mother, who was a Christian Scientist. The
child also died. Her husband was absent. The mother was
charged with manslaughter, but the grand jury failed to indict
her. The following item appeared in the " New York Trib-
une " :

Springrfield., Mo., May 28ih. — Mrs. John Truesdale last night drowned herself
in a reservoir. Siie had acted strangely for the last two or three weeks, owing to
strict adherence to the teachings of a Christian Scientist, James Reed. He told
Mrs. Truesdale that he could teach her the science of healing by i)rayer so that
she could heal her husband, who is an engineer, but has been ill with consump-
tion for several months. Grasping at anything that promised any hope for her
husband, she visited Reed frequently, and the general opinion is that out of her
experience grew the despair that caused her to kill herself.

SCIENCE AND ''CHRISTIAN SCIENCES 801

Still anotlier case was reported in " The New York Times " :

Chicago, May 30th. — There is another unpleasant case for the faith-healers to
explain. Mrs. Mary Reiter, a young woman, came to this city from Valparaiso,
Ind., recently, suffering from pulmonary troubles, and put herself under the care
of Mrs. J. C. Barker, a Christian Scientist, for treatment. She died last night,
and the faith-healer being unable to give a death-certificate, the coroner to-day
took up the case.

Like Dr. Frog in the fable, these physicians also fail to cure
themselves. Arlo Bates writes to the " Providence Journal " that
a prominent Boston dentist was called from his bed at two o'clock
one morning to go to the relief of a lady who was suffering the
agonies of toothache. He at first declined to go, but finally went,
relieved her pain, and went again in the daytime to do something
more to the teeth. He had not taken much notice of the name
given him at his first visit, but on reaching the house the second
time his eye fell on the door-plate, and he found that he had been
called in such hot haste to relieve the pain of one who makes a
handsome income by teaching that there is no such thing as pain.
His patient was a shining light of Christian Science, but she
could not cure her own toothache !

Mr. Charles M. Barrows mentions the following cases in his
" Facts and Fictions of Mental Healing " : " About three years
ago a well-known citizen of Boston was thoroughly cured, to all
appearance, of a distressing chronic malady, and embraced the
doctrines advocated by his healer, a * Christian Scientist.' He
also became a very successful healer of others, and was so confi-
dent in his own ability to resist disease that he frequently de-
clared it was impossible for him ever to be sick. Yet within a
twelvemonth this same man, who sincerely thought he had risen
superior to all finite ills, was hurried to the grave by a haemor-
rhage of the lungs. During the past year four active mental
healers have succumbed to the fell destroyer of mortal life ; and
only last summer one of the great lights of ' Christian Science '
was prostrated with nervous exhaustion and obliged to seek medi-
cal aid."

Any theory of physics or chemistry which admitted of such
utter failures as Christian Science suffers would be pronounced,
even by its friends, unworthy the name of science. Mrs. Eddy
does not take these failures as indications that her theory needs
modifying, but throws the blame of them upon her luckless dis-
ciples. She says to her pupils, " If you fail to succeed in any case,
it is because you have not demonstrated the rule and proved the
principle." She and her theory remain infallible, but she has
avoided inconvenient tests of her own powers of late years, and
prints in her book this note : " The authoress takes no patients,

VOL. XXXIV. — 51

8o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and has no time for medical consultation." As president of
the " Massacliusetts Metaphysical College," she doubtless feels
that her time is more profitably used, and her luxurious home
on Boston's finest avenue testifies to the magnitude of the
profits.

If Mrs. Eddy can claim that failures are sufiicient proof that
the healer does not practice the right method, she must likewise
accept success as sufiicient proof that the healer does practice the
right method. Now there are several different methods. Although
she denounces as heresy any deviation from her doctrine, yet some
of her former disciples, who do not hold that every person's mind
is a part of the Divine Being, have success in healing that will
compare favorably with that of the faithful. Hence this part of
Mrs. Eddy's doctrine is of no consequence in healing. These
heretics prefer to be called " mental healers." Then there is the
faith-cure, with its "Beth-shan," in London, its conventions at
Old Orchard, Maine, and its sanctuary in Jersey City. It has also
been used somewhat in England by the Salvation Army. The
theory of the faith-curers is simply an extension of the Chris-
tian's belief in the eflicacy of prayer for the sick. They do not
assert that matter is unreal, and that nothing exists but mind,
yet they perform enough cures to show that this part also of
Mrs. Eddy's doctrine is of no consequence in the practice of
healing.

A variety of faith-healing has been practiced in the Roman
Catholic Church for hundreds of years. There is plenty of testi-
mony, as good as the Christian Scientists can furnish, that per-
sons have been healed by the aid of the prayers of priests and
bishops, by touching the bones or other relics of saints, or by
bathing in the water of sacred springs. A noted locality for such
cures at the present time is the grotto of Lourdes in France. The
Mormons are not behind the Catholics or Protestants in making
cures. One of the chief methods employed by their missionaries
in gaining converts is to pray with the sick, who often recover
and join the sect. The cures credited to the wonderful Dr. New-
ton, who flourished twenty-five to thirty years ago, as well as
those which gained Dr. Perkins's " tractors " their fame at the
close of the last century, must be counted as mental healing.
Hence, there have been successful mind-curers before Mrs, Eddy,
although their theories agreed in little or nothing with hers. In
fact, from the teachings of one of the irregular healers who pre-
ceded her, Mr. P. P. Quimby, Mrs. Eddy is charged with appro-
priating everything of importance in her system. This charge
she indignantly denies.

Moreover, cures have been effected when healer and patient
held a belief that was demonstrably false. Prince Radzivil, of

SCIENCE AND » CHRISTIAN SCIENCE."" 803

Lithuania, visiting Rome at the time of the Reformation, received
from the pope a box of precious relics. After he reached home
the relics were used by the monks for the cure of a demoniac, who
had held out against every kind of exorcism. The success was
instantaneous and complete. But the prince observed a knowing
smile on the face of the young man who had been keeper of the
relics, and upon inquiry learned to his disgust that the genuine
relics had been lost on the journey, and their place had been sup-
plied with bones of cats and dogs picked up by the road. This lot
of rubbish it was that had performed the miracle. Any one who
believed that the touch of Queen Victoria's hand could cure him
of scrofula (king's evil) would be unanimously declared out of
his tnind ; yet it was the general belief in England for seven hun-
dred years, from the reign of Edward the Confessor to that of
Queen Anne, that the touch of the royal hand could heal this dis-
ease. Historians and physicians of the time testify to the usual
success of the operation. Every one has read of the noisy antics
employed by the medicine-men among the Indians, and by the
fetich-doctors and voodoos among the negroes, for driving diseases
out of their patients. Explorers and missionaries report that sur-
prising cures often follow such treatment. No Christian Scientist
would acknowledge fellowship with these ignorant impostors, and
yet the voodoos cure disease without material means like the dis-
ciples of Mrs. Eddy.

I do not wish to be understood as giving full credit to all the
reports of cures by any of these agencies. Doubtless in many in-
stances the recovery is spontaneous ; it is effected by the healing
power of nature, and in spite of the treatment rather than by
means of it. The patients would have got well as soon or sooner
if nothing had been done for them. Moreover, in many cases
reported by persons with little medical knowledge, the disease was
not as serious, and hence the cure was not as wonderful, as is
represented. Still, there remains enough evidence to show that in
each one of the above ways real disease has been thrown off by
aid of mental influence.

Furthermore, disease has been cured, with no theory of treat-
ment whatever, by an accidental impression made on the mind. Mr.
Barrows tells the following : The wife of a wealthy Pennsylvania
farmer had been bedridden for many years, and unable to rise or
walk without help. A Baptist minister visited the family, and
the host showed him about his thrifty farm, in which he evidently
took an honest pride. " Your farm seems to be one of the best in
this section," observed the guest. " Yes, it is, sir," answered the
host, with a beaming face ; " and, what is more, it's all paid for."
Similar comments on the barns, stock, etc., brought forth assur-
ances that they, too, were " all paid for." Dinner-time came, and

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the family, with, their guest, gathered at the table. The invalid
occupied a bedroom adjoining the dining-room, in order that
when the family were at table she might hear their conversation
through the open door. The clergyman was asked to say grace,
and began thus :

" O Lord, we thank thee for the abundance now spread before
us ; we thank thee that it is all paid for — "

Here a sudden interrujDtion came from the invalid in the next
room, who, on hearing her husband's pet phrase put into a prayer,
burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Entirely forgetting
her condition, she sprang out of bed, and stood holding her sides
and shaking all over with mirth when the family rushed in.
That solemn joke cured her, leaving nothing to be paid for. The
same author tells of a New Hampshire lady who was also cured
after being bedridden for a long time. In pleasant weather her
grown-up sons used to lift their mother tenderly into a carriage,
and take her for a drive. It was their opinion, however, that her
case demanded heroic treatment, and they resolved to make the
experiment. Near the house a brook crossed the road, through
which they often drove to let the horse drink, instead of crossing
by the bridge. The ford was usually safe and easy ; but one day
the carriage was suddenly upset by some stones previously placed
in the water by the boys, and the invalid was thrown into the
middle of the stream, from which she must scramble out or
drown. She fathomed the well-meant plot, and was very angry ;
but the remedy was effectual, and her lameness was cured on the
spot. A lady in California, who had suffered much from neural-
gia and become blind, on hearing an alarm of fire regained her
sight. Accidental mental excitement caused by explosions at the
cartridge - factory in Bridgeport, Conn., has cured many cases
of intermittent fever. A physician, writing to the " Medical
News," tells of a man being cured of a chronic rheumatism, and
another of nervous exhaustion, by the earthquake - shock at
Charleston.

Hence we see that disease can be cured through the mind in a
great variety of ways. The true science of mind-cure will ex-
plain all of them, but Mrs. Eddy's doctrine does not satisfy this
condition. Moreover, hers is a complicated theory ; and experi-
ence has shown that in science, where the facts can be explained
in a simpler way, a complicated theory is likely to be false.
Furthermore, a theory which, like Mrs. Eddy's, contradicts scien-
tific laws that we see proved true every day of our lives, can not
itself be true also. If her " Science " were to become established, all
that we now know as science would have to be abandoned as incon-
sistent with it. Not only would the science of physiology, which
she directly attacks, be destroyed, but the sciences of physics.

SCIENCE AND ''CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.'' 805

cliemistry, zoology, botany, astronomy, and geology would also be
reduced to chaos, for these together with physiology are based
on observation and induction, which Mrs. Eddy declares we can
not trust. " Christian Science eschews what is termed natural
science," she says, and she condemns the use of observation
when she asserts that " it is morally wrong to examine the body
in order to ascertain if we are in health." " Putting on the full
armor of physiology, and obeying to the letter the so-called laws
of health (so the statistics show), have neither diminished sick-
ness nor lengthened life " ! On the other hand, she affirms that
" science is the watchword of our day," and calls attention to
some of its benefits ; in another place she indorses the results of
astronomy. But that she is wofully ignorant of science is shown
by such expressions as, " The angle of incidence is the reverse of
the angles in the objects reflected " ; " The blind forces called at-
traction, adhesion, and cohesion are not substances of matter " ;
" We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and the universe would
collapse."

The genuine science of mental therapeutics is a very simple
one. It has been discovered by physicians here and there at vari-
ous times, and, if not adequately developed, it at least does not
contradict the principles on which all science is based. The
theory is, that mental impressions, however produced, act through
the nervous system upon the various organs of the body so as to
stimulate or obstruct their functions as the case may be. Such
mental action is a matter of common observation. Whenever the
cheek flushes with embarrassment or pales with fear, mental influ-
ence is producing its effect on the body. Great anxiety or grief
causes loss of appetite, and may bring on an attack of dyspepsia or
any other disease to which the person is liable. Fright has turned
the hair gray in a few hours. Dr. Murchison wrote : " That jaun-
dice may have a nervous origin has long been known. There are
numerous instances on record of its being produced by severe
mental emotions, such as fits of anger, fear, shame, or great bodily
suffering,"

Dr. Durand, of New Orleans, according to the " Picayune " of
that city, recently made a test of mental influence by giving a
hundred patients a dose of sweetened water. Fifteen minutes
after, entering apparently in great excitement, he announced that
he had by mistake given a powerful emetic, and preparations
must be made accordingly. Eighty out of the hundred patients
soon fell to vomiting.

On the other hand, the tonic effects on a patient of hope, cheer-
fulness, and a determination to get well, have been frequently
commented upon, and many intelligent physicians have made
good use of such mental aids in practice. Dr. John Hunter wrote

8o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a century ago, " There is not a natural action in the body, whether
involuntary or voluntary, that may not be influenced by the
peculiar state of the mind at the time." The chief store-house of
facts of this class is Dr. D. Hack Tuke's work on " The Influence
of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease " (London, 1872),
his attention having been called to the subject in 18G9 by a news-
paper article on " The Curative Effects of a Railway Collision."
The evidence furnished by Tuke and other writers leaves no room
to doubt that mental action is a powerful agency which can be
applied in the cure of disease.

Dr. Tuke says, in the preface to his classic work : " There are
two classes of readers to whom I wish more especially to address
myself. The medical reader who, I hope, may be induced to
employ psycho-therapeutics in a more methodical way than here-
tofore, and thus copy nature in those interesting instances, occa-
sionally occurring, of sudden recovery from the spontaneous
action of some powerful moral cause, by employing the same
force designedly, instead of leaving it to mere chance. The force
is there, acting irregularly and capriciously. The question is,
whether it can not be applied and guided with skill and wisdom
by the physician. . . . ' Remember,' said Dr. Rush, in addressing
medical students, ' how many of our most useful remedies have
been discovered by quacks. Do not be afraid, therefore, of con-
versing with them, and of profiting by their ignorance and temer-
ity.'" Not only when disguised under some pretentious and
illogical quackery has the mental force been employed, but it has
already been utilized, with a full appreciation of its nature, by
physicians of high standing. Sir Humphry Davy's cure of a
case of paralysis by repeated applications of a thermometer is a
much-quoted instance.

In a paper entitled " Bodily Conditions as related to Mental
States" ("Popular Science Monthly," vol. xv, page 40), Dr. C. F.
Taylor, of New York, reports the case of a young man sent to
him from a Western city. Dr. Taylor was informed that the
patient had broken his thigh-bone two years before, that this
fracture had united, but that a year later the same bone had been
broken in another place. The regular treatment had failed to
secure a union of the second fracture. On examination. Dr. Tay-
lor found the muscles of the leg wasted and soft, with a large out-
ward bending in the middle of the bone, but he could not find
the slightest evidence that any second fracture had occurred. The
patient thought he had refractured his thigh-bone, and this im-
pression caused him quite unconsciously to withhold muscular
action in the limb so completely that a relaxed and powerless
condition was caused, which was mistaken for a broken bone. A
mere explanation of his condition was not sufiScient to enable him

SCIENCE AND ''CHRISTIAN SCIENCES 807

to relax Ms mental hold on the limb. Dr. Taylor caused the
young man to take certain exercises with his arms, of so violent a
character that they absorbed all his attention, leaving none for
his lower limbs. Within three days he gave up restraining the
injured leg, and he began to walk involuntarily. In this case it
was the mind which needed treatment. A young lady was sent
to Dr. Taylor from Albany for a supposed partial paralysis of the
left foot and ankle, which caused her to drop her toes in walking.
Her trouble proved to be entirely mental, and she was cured with-
in ten days by restoring consciousness of power in the affected
foot. He gives other cases to show that mental influence over
bodily function causes not only loss of muscular power, but also
increased muscular action simulating muscular spasm, increased
or diminished bodily sensations, and disorders in the involuntary
processes of life. His experience indicates that in such cases
treatment directed toward the mind is the only sort that can be
effective. He only alludes to " the important subject of mental
influence on actual disease " in this article. " Suflfice it here to
say," he remarks, " that, as must be inferred from the facts and
arguments already adduced, no system of therapeutics can be com-
plete which does not embrace the design of controlling psycho-
biological relations in general, and with reference to chronic dis-
eases especially."

Prof. G. Buchanan, of Glasgow, has placed on record cases of
the same nature as these described by Dr. Taylor. Still others
are related by Walter Moxon (" Contemporary Review," vol. xlviii,
p. 707) and by other writers. Animal magnetism, first brought
forward as a healing agency by Mesmer a century ago, has
since been studied scientifically under the name of hypnotism.
The work of these later investigators has established the fact
that a large number of functional diseases are benefited, and
even permanently cured, through the mind by hypnotic sug-
gestion.

Now, in view of what has been done in curing disease by the
aid of mental influence, the public has a right to demand that our
physicians shall give us the benefit of this healing agency. Men-
tal influence is a pleasant and inexpensive medicine ; it cures in
some cases where drugs fail, and it shortens the term of sickness
and lightens its pains in many other cases ; furthermore, it has no
injurious incidental effects. But the mind-cure should be taken
out of the hands of the untrained and irresponsible visionaries and
the impostors who now practice it, or it will add a terrible amount
of suffering and death to what it has already caused. These
enthusiasts, carried away by their seeming successes in a few
cases, insist that the mind-cure is the only treatment that is worth
anything in all diseases and for all persons. They know too little

8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

about the nature of disease to recognize symptoms which indicate
the fitness of this agency, too little of science in general to realize
that a means suitable to remove one condition may be entirely
inadequate or unsuitable to counteract another. Hardly a means
of healing is known but had extravagant claims and prophecies
made for it when it was first brought into use, which afterward
settled down into a very moderate compass. Take, for instance,
the transfusion of blood. The early transfusionists reasoned, in
the style of the Christian Scientists, that the blood is the life.
Take the bad blood out of a man and put new blood into him,
and you draw off his diseases and infirmities and put new life into
him. They even hoped to dispel insanity by this infusion of new
life, and some went so far as to prophesy that moral infirmities
would be cured in this way. The theory of Christian Science may
seem very beautiful to persons of a highly religious and highly
emotional nature, but it has no more connection with the cure of
disease than a rainbow has with the multiplication table. It is a
pretty fancy, and one hardly has the heart to dispel the illusion,
but it is " as false as it is fair." Many of the most sanctimonious
healers, who make the most impressive appeals to the piety of
their victims, are in the business simply for the money they can
get out of it. Others are honest, but are themselves deceived. It
is fortunate that the patients of the Christian Scientists generally
go back to the physicians when anything serious is the matter
with them, or we should see a greater slaughter than has already
occurred. About ninety-five per cent of the believers in this doc-
trine are women, and to their sensitive feelings the above may
seem like ill-natured and hasty language. But it is neither. It is
an earnest and deliberate effort to use the tests of science so as to
show how unsubstantial is this rainbow-bridge upon which they
are asked to trust their lives.

The Christian Science craze will have its day and then die out,
like the blue-glass delusion and other crazes of like character.
Already signs appear that it has reached its highest limit in the
eastern part of the country, and that its decadence has begun. It
is not occupying so much space as formerly in the newspapers ;
and it is becoming less profitable to those who practice it. A lady
and her husband who set up a Christian Science school and hospi-
tal in New York recently found themselves a thousand dollars
out at the end of the winter and gave up the business. In the
West, however, where it appeared later, the movement still main-
tains considerable vigor.

It will have done good if it compels physicians to adopt mental
healing, not as a panacea, but as an addition to the curative means
now at their command, and for occasional intelligent use. This
done, the sooner Christian Science, as a distinct mode of treat-

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 809

ment, passes away, the better for all concerned. It is one more of
th-ose wonders of which Byron wrote :

"Thus saith the preacher, 'Naught beneath the sun
Is new,' yet still from change to change we run ;
"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass !
The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas
In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare.
Till the swollen bubble bursts — and all is air ! "

— English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION.*

By C. V. RILEY, Ph. D., Ukited States Entomologist.
II. — Cwicluded.

HAVING thus summarily indicated those factors of evolution
associated with genesis and which are essentially physio-
logical, however much psychical phenomena may co-operate, we
may touch upon the more purely psychical factors or those per-
taining to the growth and use of mind, employing the term to
express those neural phenomena traceable to the medium of the
brain. Their importance in evolution increases with increasing
cephalization and complexity of nerve system. For the present
purpose, however, it is with the objective side of psychology, or
what may be called psycho-physiology, that we must deal.

PsycJiical — Use and Disuse. — Full consideration of the effect
of use and disuse involves a discussion, not only of the question
of the transmission of acquired structures, but of the influence of
individual effort and of necessity — i. e., a considerlation of .tn^
essentially Lamarckian factors in evolution. \.The occasion wiH
not permit me to do full justice to these subjects. That /unction-
ally produced modifications are inherited -^as the grea't assump-
tion upon which Lamar^ founded his theory of evolution. Majiy
able naturalists have insisted on it, and in my judgment th^re
should no longer be any doubt whatever of the fact, not only so
far as grosser structure is concerned, but brain-structure likewise.
No question is of more moment in the whole range of biology, and
especially biologic philosophy, and Spencer has well pointed out
that on the answer to it will depend largely the sciences of psy-
chology, ethics, and sociology. Weismann, Lankester, and others
deny hereditary power in such modifications, the former believ-
ing that hereditary modification can result only from changes in
the germ plasma, i. e., are virtually congenital. Natural selection,
according to this view, plays upon the germ plasma ; but I have

* From the address of the Vice-President of Section F of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, delivered at the Cleveland meeting, August, 1888.

8io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

never been quite able to comprehend how this view, even if estab-
lished, militates against the transmissibility of acquired modifi-
cation; for, whatever theory of heredity we adopt, it shows us
rather the manner of the transmission, and therefore confirms its
possibility. But the fact of such transmissibility rests neither on
embryological nor theoretical grounds. It is a fact so fully dem-
onstrated in the history of our domestic animals and the history
of agriculture, that the skepticism of some of our great naturalists
and embryologists must be attributed to that ignorance of the
farmers' commonest experiences which is, unfortunately, a too
frequent attribute of tlie city-trained investigator, Darwin in
the beginning, and while the importance of natural selection was
growing in his mind, allowed little importance to use and disuse,
for the same reason that he subordinated external agencies ; viz.,
that, in proportion as it acts on masses simultaneously, it must
diminish the importance of natural selection. Yet he allowed
more weight to it toward the end, and has furnished some of the
best evidence drawn from domestic animals of the transmission
of acquired characters affecting the dermal, muscular, osseous,
and nervous systems. Spencer has shown that inheritance of
functional modification is most easily observed and experiment-
ally proved in those parts which admit of easy observation and
comparison, as the dermal covering and the bones ; and that they
for the most part are beyond these tests in the muscular and
nervous systems. Yet he logically concludes :

" Considering that unquestionably the modification of structure
by function is a vera causa, in so far as concerns the individual ;
and considering the number of facts which so competent an ob-
server as Mr. Darwin regarded as evidence that transmission of
such modifications takes place in particular cases ; the hypothesis
that such transmission takes place in conformity with a general
law, holding of all active structures, should, I think, be regarded
as at least a good working hypothesis."

So far as entomology bears evidence, it confirms the fact that
modifications of structure due to use or disuse on the part of the
individual may be and are transmitted. These are easily ob-
served in the exo-skeleton, and, while the experimental proof is
yet limited, it is not wanting, especially in the history of apicult-
ure. Excessive use of any organ will develop or enlarge it at the
expense of other organs, just as disuse will cause a diminution or
atrophy thereof. The variation in the individual will be within
limits, but, when once the variation has set in, the tendency is
always to an increased variation in the same direction in the
descendants, especially if they continue the same use or disuse.
Here, again, however, it is difficult to separate the modification
due to individual effort, or want of effort, and the more general

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 811

modification affecting the mass of individuals of a species through
the environment ; because the environment affects function, and
function in its turn affects form and structure. The life of every
individual furnishes an excellent illustration of new action and
new uses for organs not previously used, in the striking and sud-
den employment of post-natal organs, both of respiration and
nourishment, which pre-natally had no corresponding action. Ko-
manes has argued that cessation of selection may reduce an organ
where use or disuse can have no play, as in the loss of wings in
neuter ants ; and that by the law of compensation an organ may
even be increased, as in the heads of such neuters. He enforces
the idea by exampling the blind crabs of our Kentucky caves,
where the complex eyes rapidly disappear under cessation of se-
lection, but where the persistence of the foot-stalks indicates that
economy of nutrition could have had little play ! It is difficult,
however, to draw the line between this cause and Lankester's
reversal of natural selection ; and still more difficult to say wherein
either differs from mere disuse.

Degeneration, which has been urged as the true explanation of
many of the existing forms of life, is, it seems to me, but a con-
sequence of disuse, and would, therefore, fall into the present cate-
gory, among causes of variation.

Emotion as ajfecting the Individual. — I have here considered
the factor of use and disuse as a direct cause of variation, from
the psychical rather than the physical standpoint — i. e., individual
or conscious effort as furnishing food for natural selection, among
more highly endowed animals, rather than as effort by species as
a whole necessitated by physical conditions, and inducing modifi-
cation in masses irrespective of selection. This leads us to the
consideration of mind as a factor in evolution, and we shall soon
see its importance as a fundamental cause of differentiation,
among higher organisms at least. I am not sure, even, that its
influence can be excluded from among lower animals, however
much we may have to exclude its action in so far as plants are
concerned ; for any new functional effort inducing new use may
be looked upon as conscious and intelligent as compared with use
fixed by habit and lapsed into automatic action or instinct. The
former typifies variability and progress ; the latter constancy and
stability.

Mind is a comprehensive cause of variation, and may be con-
sidered under several categories. We have, for instance, (1) the
action of the mind of the individual in willing, or in selecting
between differing alternatives that present themselves, as in the
choice of means to ends ; (2) the direct influence of the emotions
on the individual ; and (3) the influence of the emotions of the
mother on her unborn offspring.

8i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In tlie first category, the influence of mind in modifying is
chiefly confined to man. It must have acted from the time when
he first began to prepare his crude weapons of defense and offense
to the present day, when some new discovery or some new inven-
tion may alter the map of the world, revolutionize society, or give
one race or nation the advantage over another ; nor can we feel
sure that animals below man have not been modified by similar
psychical effort. In the second category, the direct influence of
the emotions on the individual, it is a psycho-physiological factor
involved in the question of use and disuse ; for if it be once ad-
mitted (and I think the tendency of modern neural science is in
the direction of establishing the fact) that strong mental effort
may be made to affect special parts of the body — i. e., that an ex-
cess of nervous force brought to play on any particular organ, or
any particular part of the organism, induces increased growth or
development of such parts ; we can understand how far desire,
especially under the spur of necessity, may be influential in in-
ducing modification. Lamarck's idea, therefore, may not be so
ridiculous as it has hitherto been supposed by many. Darwin
took no stock in this influence, and referred with some contempt
to the views of Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He thought
it strange that the author of "Les Animaux sans Vertfebres"
should have written that insects which never saw their eggs
should will them to be of particular form, which he thought
hardly less absurd than to believe that the desire to climb should
make a pediculus formed to climb hair, or a woodpecker to climb
trees.

Emotion of Mother as affecting Offspring. — There may be some
doubt about the extent of the influence of the individual mind in
inducing direct modification, for the subject is a difficult one to
deal with, and we have few exact data to draw from. Since in
human affairs we recognize the power of will in affecting purpose
and action, and in molding character, it is legitimate to infer that
when our knowledge has increased we shall recognize its effect on
function. There can be less doubt as to the third category, viz.,
influence of the mind or emotions of the mother on her unborn
offspring in inducing modification both physiological and mental.
As a cause of variation, though believed in by J. D. Hooker, as
we learn from the " Life and Letters," and by other of Darwin's
contemporaries, it was discarded by Darwin himself, his principal
reasons being that the results of observations made for him in
hospitals were adverse to any such influence. Medical men, as a
rule, also discard it as among the mere notions and superstitions
of women, and argue its impossibility on the ground that there is
no neural connection between mother and foetus. The ancients
practically recognized the influence of the imagination of the

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 813

motlier on lier offspring, and belief in it is still very prevalent
among women themselves, of all classes. Women alone are able
to speak or feel in this matter from experience, and the almost
universal belief in the influence, among those who have any ex-
perience at all, should make us hesitate to discard it too summa-
rily. From facts within my own personal knowledge I have long
believed in this influence, and the more I have been able to collect
reliable data bearing upon it, the more confirmed have I become
in the conclusion that the emotional experiences of the mother
affect the issue in varying degree, according to the intensity of
the emotion. When sudden and excessive, as in rage, fright,
repugnance, etc., or where prolonged or accumulative, as in con-
tinued brooding,, it may induce nervous disorders, and even mental
aberration, idiocy, or insanity ; or, again, physiological change, as
atrophy or increase of parts, and other peculiarities which have
relation to the form or character of the inducing mental mani-
festation or shock in the parent. Investigation of this, as of all
subtle phenomena, is attended with the difficulty of separating
the chaff of fancy from the grain of reality. The method pur-
sued by Darwin is unsatisfactory, as it dealt with normal condi-
tions which furnish no evidence and with the fanciful or notional
side of the subject. The literature of the subject is extensive and
quite interesting, and I would refer particularly to the work and
writings of Viellard, Schonfeld, Demangeon, Lucas, F^r^, and
Brown-S^quard. Two other difficulties confront the investigator :
first, the somewhat unsatisfactory state of neurology and the diffi-
culty of experimental research therein, as indicated by Vice-Presi-
dent Bowditch before this section two years ago ; secondly, the
aversion, from feelings of delicacy, on the part of the persons con-
cerned, to publicity of the more marked and striking evidence.
The phenomena of hypnotism, proving as they do that physiologi-
cal results may be induced through the imagination of the subject
acted on by the mind of the hypnotizer, are suggestive in this
connection, the work of Charcot in Paris more particularly show-
ing how powerful the action may be, and how the effects of actual
medicines may be produced by the use of imagined ones. The
mind of the hypnotized under these conditions is brought into
those exceptional and exalted conditions which are necessary in
the case of the mother to produce on her offspring the effect
which we are discussing. The recent experiments of Mr. C. T.
Hodge on the effects of stimulation on the nucleus and cell-body
and on protoplasm are also interesting here, showing, as they do,
decrease in the two former and vacuolation of the latter as the
result.

The history of science is present to tell us that common and
persistent belief, based on experience, has not infrequently been

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

met with skepticism and even ridicule on the part of scientific
men, only to be vindicated finally by more thorough and exact
knowledge. It is too often the case that, where the processes are
recondite and difficult to follow, assumption passes for knowl-
edge. The function of some of our own bodily organs yet re-
mains to be established, and we probably assume too much in re-
quiring that all nervous force must be transferred through nerve
tissue, or that there may not be protoplasmic filaments which are
not resolvable, in their finer ramifications, even with our best
microscopes. The very nature of mind and its processes puts it
beyond the reach of the scalpel of the anatomist or the physiolo-
gist, just as many psychical phenomena bafile the exact methods
of science, at least those so far employed. Leaving out of the
question the evidence of peculiar marks due to maternal emotion,
cases of which are part of the unwritten history of almost every
famil}'-, the striking cases of which I have authoritative evidence
of addition to, subtraction from, or singular modification of, ana-
tomical parts, confirm me in the belief that this is a most impor-
tant psycho-physiological cause of modification.

In the romance of "Elsie Venner," in which the heroine's
strange attributes are connected with pre-natal influence of the
mother, who died of the bite of Crotalus, Oliver Wendell Holmes
has strongly put forth this doctrine in the form of fiction. I allude
to this clever romance because of the medical knowledge of the
eminent author, and because, while admitting in the preface that
a grave scientific doctrine lies beneath some of the delineations
of character, he also affirms that he has had the most startling
confirmation of its truth. The data collected on the subject I
hope to bring together on some other more fit occasion ; and I
would take this opportunity of urging any in my hearing, or who
may read these lines, if they have had or are aware of any
authoritative and illustrative cases, to communicate them to me
with as much detail as possible.

This theory once established, its bearing on evolution as a
prime cause of variation must at once be manifest ; for it gives
not only tangibility to the Lamarckian idea of desire influencing
modification, but also a conception of how Infinite Mind in
nature may act through the finite in directing such modification.
No doubt but that there is a great deal of nonsense and superstition
mixed with the genuine, and that the idea that every little whim,
or fancy, or imagining of the mother will produce record or mark
is one of the unjustified outcroppings of the fundamental fact,
and helps to explain the difficulty of getting at the real facts and
the ease with which Darwin rejected the idea. In my judgment,
this factor acts only when, from whatever cause, and particularly
under the spur of necessity, the emotions are exceptionally inten-

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 815

sified, or the desire strongly centered in some particular object.
The conception is perfectly legitimate, for instance, that when a
species is subjected to any external modifying cause, affecting all
its members alike, the adaptive modifications which natural
selection, under such circumstances, would play upon, have their
origin in the emotions, or the influences at work on the pregnant
females, giving direction in their offspring, to the needed changes.
In this way it is probable that only those individuals born under
such conditions would be able to survive. Thus this becomes no
mere ancillary cause of variation, but one of deepest import and at
the very foundation of evolution. The female in this light ac-
quires an increased importance, and evolution finds her not only
the essential at the dawn of life upon our planet, but, in its pres-
ent highest manifestations, she is nearest by instinct, intuition,
and aspiration to the Controlling Mind which in the beginning
quickened the great womb of Nature and down through all the
ages guided the continuous stream of life to designed ends
through the womb of the individual mother.

As already remarked, the psychical factors which we have
been considering are substantially Lamarckian, and in proportion
as we consider them and get to understand the other direct causes
of variation, must we give importance to the ideas of Lamarck
and, conversely, less importance to the ideas of Darwin.

Did time permit, I should like to go into an analysis of La-
marck's " Philosophie zoologique," and show how the genius of
this illustrious French naturalist anticipated a very large part of
that which Darwin subsequently so laboriously helped to estab-
lish. I must pass the subject, however, and simply record my
surprise that one who was otherwise so honest and fair toward
other writers, was so evidently unfair in his estimate of the work
of Lamarck, as Darwin, in the " Life and Letters," is shown to
have been. It is incomprehensible, reading Lamarck with our
present knowledge, that Darwin should have found neither fact
nor ideas in a book which abounds in both, except on the theory
of a poor translation or that strange national antipathy which
has so often prevented the people of one country from doing jus-
tice to those of the other^ and which so long prejudiced the
French Academy against Darwin's own especial theories.

Darwinism assumes essential ignorance of the causes of vari-
ation, and is based on the inherent tendency thereto in the off-
spring. Lamarckism, on the contrary, recognizes in use and dis-
use, desire and the physical environment, immediate causes of
variation affecting the individual and transmitted to the offspring,
in which it may be intensified again both by inheritance and fur-
ther individual modification. Both represent important princi-
ples in evolution and co-operate to bring about the results. The

8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

theory I propose gives renewed importance to the Lamarckian
factors by showing one manner of their action not previously
urged, and it also helps us to a tangible and scientific conception
of design.

Acceleration and Retardation. — In this rapid glance at the im-
mediate causes of variation we have discussed some factors which
in some degree represent laws rather than inducing causes of
variation. This difficulty appertains to all attempts at formula-
tion of the causes of variation, and only as our actual knowledge
increases shall we be able succinctly and definitely to classify the
factors. There are, however, certain important laws which have in-
fluenced modification but in no sense can be looked upon as causes
of variation. They are laws or principles of evolution, by which
we may account for the formation of types, acting, just as natural
selection does, in differentiating rather than in originating the
variation. No one can have followed the important and suggest-
ive works of Cope and Hyatt on the subject of acceleration and
retardation and not feel that it expresses an important law of this
kind. It is, as I understand it, a factor in evolution not compa-
rable with the principle of natural selection, but complementary
thereto, much in the same way as physiological selection and
sexual selection are. It is an attempt to give expression and form
to a set of facts to which palaeontology undoubtedly points and
which ontogeny substantiates, viz., that certain types may attain
perfection in time and then retrogress and finally become extinct,
and that existing types which are dying out, or degenerating, ex-
hibit, ontogenically, the culmination of force and complexity, fol-
lowed by decadence, corresponding to the phylogenic history of
the type. We know from the " Life and Letters " that Darwin
gave up in despair the attempt to grasp the full meaning of these
particular views of our associates, and, in a letter to Hyatt, with
characteristic modesty, he attributes this inability to his own
dullness rather than to any weakness in the theory. Others have
experienced the same difiiculty, and believe, with Prof. Morse,
that the facts enumerated, as well as the facts of exact and inex-
act parallelism, are explicable on the doctrine of natural selection.
This is true, it seems to me, only on the broader, unjustified inter-
pretation of the doctrine to which I have previously alluded in
the opening of these remarks. The law of acceleration and re-
tardation may, perhaps^ be substantially stated in this wise : that
certain groups acquire some characters rapidly, while correspond-
ing groups acquire the same characters more slowly, or never ac-
quire them at all ; and this brings us to another important factor
of evolution which serves to give force to the law.

Acceleration by Primogeniture. — This has been elaborated by
Hubrecht. He argues that so long as the parent form remained

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 817

most in harmony with the surrounding conditions, it would main-
tain in the struggle for existence its characteristics against all
tendency to vary in its offspring, which is equivalent to saying
that it will remain unchanged so long as the environment remains
the same. He then shows that in organisms in which the repro-
ductive period covers many years, accelerated development by
primogeniture, i. e., as between the first born and the last born of
any pair and of their posterity, will, in time, produce differentia-
tion. The series of the first born will, in the course of time, involve
many generations at short distances from each other, whereas the
series of the last born will, on the contrary, consist of a much
smaller number of terms, each separated from its predecessor by
a more considerable distance. Any tendency to variation from
external or internal influences must needs find more numerous
occasions to act in the series of the first born, not only because
these have a more composite ancestry, but because they necessarily
become the most numerous. In other words, the chances are more
numerous for small differences among the first-born series, and, in
proportion as such differences are accumulated, intercrossing with
the series of the last born will become rarer. This law will gain
from physiological selection, and, it seems to me, throws addi-
tional light on that of acceleration and retardation. It must act
more particularly among higher animals, where the reproductive
period is lengthened, and the time between the first and last born
is great.

Saltation. — We are thus led to what have been called saltations
in evolution. Although the history of palgeontology has contin-
ually added to our knowledge of past forms, and helped to fill up
many gaps in the evolutional series, and although during the last
quarter of a century it has particularly vindicated Darwin's
prophecy that many links would yet be found, the substantial
truth remains that gaps still occur, and that progress, so far as
present knowledge indicates, has been made by occasional salta-
tions. There have been, it would seem, periods of rapid movement,
and of comparative repose or readjustment of equilibrium. Cope
concludes that "genera and higher categories have appeared in
geologic history by more or less abrupt transitions or expression-
points, rather than by uniform gradual successions."

One of Pictet's strongest points in opposition to Darwin's
theory, which struck Darwin himself with much force, was that
it ill agreed with the history of organisms with well marked and
defined forms, which seem to have existed during but a limited
period, as, for instance, the flying reptiles, the ichthyosaurus, be-
lemnites, ammonites, etc. Some authors, who have fully recog-
nized these gaps or leaps in the developmental history of animals,
yet believe them to be consistent with the theory of gradual modi-

TOL, XXXIT. 52

8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fication. It may be only one individual of many which, becomes
modified and transmits the modification to descendants ; it may be
but one species of a genus which, for similar reasons, supersedes
the rest which become extinct in time proportioned to pro-
lificacy.

There is no reason to suppose that the history of organic life
has differed in this respect from that of inorganic. We need not
discuss here the question of catastrophism and uniformitarianism
in geology However much the latter prevails at the present time,
both have doubtless operated in the past. Catastrophism would
necessarily produce gaps, or saltations, in the palseontological
record, as only the more plastic species would adapt themselves
and survive under its influence. It is not gaps due to such causes
that are here to be considered, however, but those which occur in
uniform strata. Haldeman has most suggestively remarked that
the same mineral will crystallize with three, six, or twelve angles,
but not with five or seven, and he asks. Are the facts of organic
morphism subject to less definite laws ? Cope has drawn another
illustration from inorganic forces, in the three great changes in
water, from solid, liquid, and vapor, which take place suddenly
at what may be called two expression-points of the thermometer,
the many intervening degrees involving no change, Ehythm or
wave movement would seem to be a universal attribute of matter,
whether organic or inorganic. The forces of nature are constant,
but the phenomena induced are often paroxysmal. The progress-
ive forces accumulate, while the conservative forces resist, until at
last resistance gives way with comparative suddenness. There is
every reason to believe that the life-movement, in its ascending
complexity, has shared this common law. Accumulation is pro-
portioned to the change in environment, and resistance to the age
or rigidity of the organism. The latter may be strong enough to
end in death or extinction, or it may break down, and, with com-
paratively sudden yielding and conformity to necessity, burst the
confines and begin a new series of variations and adaptations. In
either case we have breaks, because the dying or dropping out of
one type makes room for another more accommodating. Rapid
evolution, from causes already discussed, implies gaps which must
be marked according as the strength of the conservative forces and
the violence of the final accommodation are great, and "because
certain breaks are more apt to occur after long periods of stability.
The break may be induced by changes in physical environment or
without such change ; if the latter, it will more likely occur in some
individual born with a marked departure from the type that gives
it some advantage, and whose issue will in time supplant all other
individuals. In either case we shall have, palseontologically, dis-
tinct species or genera, one superposed on the other, without links.

ON THE CAUSES OF VARIATION. 819

To the imperfection of the geologic record is to he attributed, no
doubt, a large number of these gaps yet existing between types,
and many important links or branches are yet to be discovered.
Yet the views we have been considering should absolve evolution-
ists from all necessity of demonstrating the more minute grada-
tions ; because, in deposits like the Tertiary, during which we
may assume life-conditions to have remained comparatively uni-
form, these saltations take place. Saltation, or, what is probably
a truer expression, wave-movement, would indeed seem to be a
prerequisite of progress, and will account for much that is going
on even at the present day. In artificial selection by man we find
that it is at first comparatively easy to accumulate minute pecul-
iarities and variations by rigid breeding and exclusion of all devi-
ation ; but that we soon arrive at a fixed point which is maintained
at first with difficulty but with increasing ease with each genera-
tion. During these more fixed periods the potentiality for change
is doubtless increasing, until at last it is suddenly manifested in
renewed variation. Rest is followed by activity just as surely
as activity induces and requires rest.

There is a limit to development in organs, just as there is a
limit to individual mental growth. Weariness of previous effort
comes upon us when the limit of result is attained, accompanied
by great longing for change, and not infrequently with revulsion
from previous effort. The naturalist who has devoted a part of
his life to the persistent accumulation of facts and specimens, has
held the imaginative and generalizing powers in abeyance during
that period. The reserve brain -force in this direction may be
suddenly called into activity by exhaustion in the other, and the
process may perhaps be comparable to the exhaustion of the soil
for one particular crop, without lessening its fertility for some
other, the recognition of which fact is the foundation of all suc-
cessful agriculture. Excess of development, whether in body or
mind, inevitably brings about either wholesome reaction or utter
collapse.

How far the rhythmic tendency in the development of animal
life may be explained by the rapid change of climate, by migration
and the loss of record, or upon the general law that while there
has been progress of the whole, there has not necessarily been
progress of every part, it would take us too far to discuss in this
connection. I think we are safe in saying, however, that the
facts justify the belief that, in the evolution of animal life, as in
the evolution of everything else, jjrogress has often been made
by waves.

FisJce's Laiv. — With regard to what may be called Fiske's
law of correlation between brain development and infantile de-
pendency, Fiske has so admirably elaborated the subject that it

820 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

needs no further elucidation here as the principal factor in the
evolution in man, first of the family relation, then of the clan,
the tribe, and the nation. With this factor in mind, and the im-
mense superiority which anthropoid man must have had, when
brain development had once induced this fundamental community
of interest over the rest of brute creation, the gap between primi-
tive man and the higher anthropoid apes in the past, or between
the present lower races of man and the higher existing primates,
is easily explained, even if it had not been greatly exaggerated.
At the present time we may note and record the further inevitable
increase in the gap, for the lower races of man are gradually be-
coming extinct, and the higher apes can not long hold their own
or persist.

Brooks's Hypothesis. — I have already alluded to Brooks's hy-
pothesis under the head of sexual differentiation, and his work
on heredity must be so familiar to you that his views need but a
passing notice. He believes that sex differentiation means funda-
mentally a physiological division of labor, and that the male is
essentially the progressive or diversifying and the female the con-
servative agent. As organisms gradually increased in size, as the
number of cells in their bodies became greater, and as the differ-
entiation and specialization of these cells became more and more
marked, one element, the male cell, became adapted for storing up
gemmules, and, at the same time, gradually lost its unnecessary
and useless power to transmit hereditary characteristics.

The theory finds support in some of the phenomena of life, and
doubtless expresses a law not easily established, for which reason
it will not be readily accepted. It leaves entirely out of consider-
ation some of the forces at work which I have already indicated,
and in so far must be considered only a law of secondary impor-
tance. However much we may admit the general truth that the
germ-cell continues the past and the sperm-cell tends to diverge
from it, as a purely dynamic proposition, inducing variation for
natural selection to play upon, it does not in any way decrease the
overwhelming importance of the female in inducing, through
psychico-physiological influences, a needed and purposeful modi-
fication in the manner which I have already expounded.

The probable character of the lang^uage of paleolithic man is the subject of
one of Dr. Brinton's latest studies. Taking some very primitive American lan-
guages as his guide, he concludes that it was more rudimentary than any language
known to us ; that it had no grammatical form or fixed phonetic values, but de-
pended largely upon gesture, tone, and stress ; that its words often had antithetic
meanings, which could only be determined from the accent or sign ; and that the
different vowel-sounds and consonantal groups conveyed specific significance, and
were of more import than the syllables which they formed.

CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL GAS.

CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL GAS.

By Peof. JOSEPH F. JAMES, M. S.

IT is but little more than four years since there appeared, among
the economical products of Ohio and Indiana, a new force,
which has worked a sort of revolution among manufactures.
The geographies used to say Ohio was noted for wheat, corn, and
pork ; now they must add petroleum and natural gas.

Rock-oil, or petroleum, has long been known to the world at
large. So, too, has natural gas. The former was the early pio-
neer's panacea. So precious was it that it was soaked up from the
ground by blankets, and was then wrung out and preserved for
times of need. The latter was and is still dreaded by miners as
the deadly "fire-damp." It was known to the Chinese long years
ago, and wells three thousand feet deep, giving off great volumes
of the material, were not uncommon. Burning springs had been
found in Virginia in 1775, and were well known in the valley of
the Kanawha River in the early part of this century. Fredonia,
in New York State, was lighted by natural gas in 1824; while
immense quantities of the precious fuel were at a later period,
and before its great value had become recognized, wasted in the
oil regions of Pennsylvania.

Notwithstanding these facts, no one suspected that there lay,
concealed a thousand feet deep in the soil of Ohio and Indiana,
such a wonderful source of power as has been discovered. Those
who first sought for it were designated by the usual and familiar
appellations of fools and cranks, just as the originators of the
telephone, the telegraph, the locomotive, and the steam-engine
had been before them. Recent events have proved the wisdom
of the pioneers in the new field, and now portions of Ohio and
Indiana are famous the world over as reservoirs of that wonderful
product of Nature's laboratory, natural gas.

The excitement which followed the announcement of the dis-
covery of natural gas at Findlay, Ohio, was like that following
the discovery of gold in California— with this exception, that
whereas the gold-fields were to be sought for in a far-away coun-
try, the gas was to be had at our very doors. The earth had but
to be penetrated a few hundred or a thousand feet, and there was
the equivalent of a gold-mine ; at least, so it was imagined, and,
with this idea firmly implanted, every little town within a radius
of a hundred miles of Findlay, and even further away, determined
to have some of the precious fuel. Experience has demonstrated
that the thing can not be had for the asking in every locality.
It has been shown that only where certain conditions of the rocky

822 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

strata of the earth exist, is the gas likely to be present in any
quantity ; and that outside of where these conditions obtain it is
useless to expend money in sinking wells.

The busy operations thus inaugurated were watched by scien-
tific men with great interest. A new horizon for the gas was
the point which especially attracted their attention, for the fuel
came from a stratum far below those belts which had in Penn-
sylvania and Virginia produced the gas and oil. Besides, to
the geologist was promised an opportunity of increasing his
knowledge of the arrangement of certain strata beneath the sur-
face, whose course at the surface had long been known. The
geologist knew that, even when the attempt to secure gas was un-
availing there was a possibility of the dry well revealing to him
a new chapter in the story of the rocks.

The practical man, for his part, looked upon the new fuel
with an eye to its utilization. By lessening the cost of produc-
tion, it increased his profits, if indeed increased competition did
not keep the price down in proportion. A dry well was to
these men a calamity, for it brought them in nothing for their
outlay.

With a third class the new fever opened up a field of specula-
tion, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Theorists
are ever ready to thrust upon a patient world their views, even
though the chances of formulating a correct theory are small.
The origin of the gas has, therefore, formed a fruitful source of
speculation with these persons. Some of the causes assigned are
so supremely ridiculous as to deserve notice as psychological curi-
osities. Two or three of these crude theories will occupy but a
few moments.

One writer asks whether it is safe to bore the earth too much.
He assumes the earth to be a hollow sphere filled with a gaseous
substance called by us natural gas, and he thinks that tapping
these reservoirs will cause disastrous explosions, resulting from
the lighted gas coming in contact with that which is escaping.
Earthquakes, he says, are probably caused by vacuums created
by the outflowing gas. He compares the earth to a balloon floated
and kept distended by the gas in the interior, which, if exhausted,
will cause the crust to collapse, affect the motion of the e&rth in
its orbit, cause it to lose its place among the heavenly bodies, and
fall in pieces. He thinks man is too inquisitive ; he w^ants to
peer into the earth too far. But let him beware. Children should
not be allowed to handle explosives, nor should ignorant man
meddle with natural gas. " Let the matter be fully investigated
by able, God-fearing men — men who believe in the Bible as well
as geology " — and all may yet be well.

Another writer thinks that boring should be prohibited by

CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL GAS. 82

stringent laws. He, too, thinks there is a possibility of an exi^lo-
sion, though from another cause. For, did not the same craze
possess China two centuries ago ? Were not wells bored in great
numbers, and was not the escaping gas ignited ? So much so,
indeed, that finally one huge well sucked down the fiery volume
of a smaller one into its own aperture, and a violent explosion
ensued Avhich destroyed thousands of peoj^le. A similar catas-
trophe he considers imminent in Ohio and Indiana. Should such
a disaster occur, " the country along the gas-belt from Toledo
through Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky will be ripped up to the
depth of twelve or fifteen hundred feet, and flopped over like a
pancake, leaving a chasm through which the waters of Lake Erie
will come howling down, filling the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys,
and blotting them out forever " ! Promj)t action should be taken.
The Governor should call a special session of the Legislature,
and the President a special session of Congress, to enact laws to
protect the nation against " destruction from natural gas."

Another, called an experienced miner, gone wild over his
ignorance in regard to the Trenton limestone — words in every-
body's mouth — says that probably the " so-called Trenton lime-
stone is nothing but an incident found about already successful
gas-wells. It probably came out of the rift the same as other
materials. It is found in the Colorado mines, and is called by the
miners bastard quartz " ! Such geological knowledge requires no
comment.

Still another theorist has investigated the gas-wells with tele-
phones and delicate thermometers, and he announces startling
discoveries. He distinguished sounds like the boiling of rocks,
and estimated that a mile and a half or so beneath Findlay the
temperature of the earth is 3,500°. This scientist says an immense
cavity exists under Findlay, and that here the gas is stored ; that
a mile below the bottom of the cavity is a mass of roaring, seeth-
ing flame, which is gradually eating into the rocky floor of the
cavern and thinning it. Eventually the flames will reach the
gas, a terrific explosion will ensue, and Findlay and its neighbor-
hood will be blown skyward in an instant. Such are some of the
theories gravely propounded in respect to this new fuel. The
effects of the use of the fuel are almost as wonderful as the theo-
ries of its origin.

In the year 1884 the town of Findlay, Ohio, had a population
of about 4,500. In the spring of that year Dr. Charles Oesterlin,
who had for years been a firm believer in the existence of quanti-
ties of natural gas in and about the town, induced some friends to
join him in forming a stock-company to bore for gas. Work was
not begun until near the end of October, but in the course of time
a well was sunk to a depth of 1,093 feet. At this depth a reser-

824 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY/

voir of gas was tapj^ed, the like of whicli had not been dreamed
of before. A new era had opened for Findlay. The blaze from
the lighted stand-pipe shot up twenty or thirty feet in the air.
The light could be seen twenty-five or thirty miles away in all
directions. The amount of gas given off daily was estimated at
about 250,000 cubic feet. People flocked from far and near to see
the wonderful sight. Other wells were, of course, immediately
begun, the most of them being successful. In December, 1885,
the largest well of the field was drilled in, and from a depth of
1,144 feet came the gas of the great Karg well. The roar of this
could be heard two or three miles, while its light was visible
thirty-five or forty miles on all sides. Its flow was estimated at
over 12,000,000 cubic feet per day. It has proved to be Findlay 's
standing advertisement, and it has been a sign which says to
many, " Natural gas has come to stay."

The town began to grow as soon as the first well had proved a
success. From 4,500, in 1884, it had grown to 6,000 in January,
1886. In the spring of 1887 a speculative fever broke out, which
affected the whole State. From a town originally four square
miles in extent, Findlay has grown to twenty-four square miles
area. From a population of 6,000, in 1886, it had grown to 10,000
in the spring of 1887. In September of the same year the popula-
tion was estimated at from 13,000 to 18,000, and at that time it
was calculated its people would number 30,000 in the early part
of 1888. The value of real estate rose rapidly ; two, three, even
five times its previous value was given for land. Farms which
had been held at $100 per acre changed hands at $300 per acre and
over. These acres were divided into lots, and greedily bought by
speculators at so much per foot. Ileal estate to the value of over
$300,000 has changed hands in a single day.

This speculative fever caused a wonderful activity while it
lasted. The offer of plots of ground and of free gas brought an
influx of manufactories of all kinds. Seven hundred houses were
built during the first half of 1887, and as many more were under
contract to be finished before the end of the year. Glass-facto-
ries, rolling-mills, iron and steel works, furniture-factories, brick-
yards, lime-kilns, and many other branches of trade, have been
successfully established. The gas company, which had previously
to the new discovery supplied the town with artificial gas, secured
numerous wells of their own, among them the Karg well, and
established a new scale of prices. But the citizens complained
about the rates, succeeded in inducing the Legislature to allow
them to issue bonds for $60,000 to supply their own gas, and soon
so reduced the price that the gas company sold out to the city.
The rates had then been cut to only fifteen cents a month for
either a cooking or a heating stove ; it is now stated to be fur-

CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL GAS. 825

nished free of cost to the citizens {vide circular of the Chamber
of Commerce).

No sooner had Findlay added natural gas to her attractive
features than every town in the vicinity determined to seek for
the fuel. The soil of Ohio and Indiana has been bored full of
holes in this search. Many places have been successful, more
have failed ; for, as Dr. Orton says : * " Every county in the west-
ern half of Ohio, without exception, has already drilled one or
more wells to the Trenton limestone, or at least has made a vigor-
ous and determined effort to reach the new source of light and
heat. Many counties outside this limit have spent and are still
spending money lavishly in the same search. Even small villages,
that have heretofore counted themselves too poor to provide such
fundamental requirements of comfortable living as sidewalks,
street-lamps, and graveled roadways, find no trouble in raising
money enough to drill two thousand feet, or more, into the under-
lying rocks, in search for natural gas. When such towns attain
any pronounced success in their drilling, they are sometimes tem-
porarily embarrassed thereby, as there are, in many cases, no
industries established in them to which a large flow of gas can be
profitably applied."

The amount of gas given off from the numerous successful
wells in the new fields in Ohio and Indiana is incredible. Findlay
itself is estimated to possess a supply of 60,000,000 cubic feet per
day. Bowling Green has several wells which yield over 900,000
cubic feet per day. Muncie, Indiana, with seven wells, is calcu-
lated to have 6,000,000 cubic feet a day. Noblesville has one well
yielding about 2,000,000 cubic feet, and so on for a long list.
Probably at least 100,000,000 cubic feet a day would be the yield
of the wells which are now productive in this territory.

Where all this is occurring, it is a matter of vital importance
to ascertain whether the supply will be a lasting one. There is
little doubt but that it is a stored force, and, when once exhausted,
as it must rapidly be, there will be no new supply. Yet the waste
which goes on is simply appalling. Some of the wells burned for
]pionths before they were controlled or utilized. Almost every
new well, wherever found, is lighted and allowed to burn at the
rate of from 200,000 to 2,000,000 cubic feet per day, often for
weeks. It is stated \ that for several months of 1886 no less than
18,000,000 cubic feet of gas were burned in or about Findlay every
day. The Karg well alone, it is estimated, caused a loss to the
field of 150,000,000 cubic feet of this precious fuel. Now, it is
true, there is less of this wanton waste going on. Owners of wells
and others who are interested have come to see the importance

* " Ohio Geology," vol. vi, p. 117. f Ibid., p. 133.

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of husbanding this vahiable product, and there is less and less
waste every day. Indeed, it behooves all to be careful, for, with
the exhaustion of the gas, the improvements, the factories, the
towns themselves will vanish.

PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT.*

By T. F. THISELTON DYEK.

THE vast proportions which the great witchcraft movement
assumed in by-gone years explains the magic properties which
we find ascribed to so many plants in most countries. In the ne-
farious trade carried on by the representatives of this cruel system
of sorcery certain plants were largely employed for working mar-
vels, hence the mystic character which they have ever since re-
tained. It was necessary, however, that these should be plucked
at certain phases of the moon or seasons of the year, or from some
spot where the sun was supposed not to have shone on it.f Hence
Shakespeare makes one of his witches speak of " root of hemlock
digg'd i' the dark," and of " slips of yew sliver'd in the moon's
eclipse," a practice which was long kept up. The plants, too,
which formed the witches' pharmacopoeia, were generally selected
either from their legendary associations or by reason of their poi-
sonous and sojDorific qualities. Thus, two of those most frequently
used as ingredients in the mystic caldron were the vervain and
the rue, these plants having been specially credited with super-
natural virtues. The former probably derived its notoriety from
the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an honor which marked it
out, like other lightning plants, as peculiarly adapted for occult
uses. It was, moreover, among the sacred plants of the Druids,
and was only gathered by them, " when the dog-star arose, from
unsunned spots." At the same time, it is noteworthy that many
of the plants which were in repute with witches for working their
marvels were reckoned as counter-charms, a fact which is not
surprising, as materials used by wizards and others for magical
purposes have generally been regarded as equally efficacious if
employed against their charms and spells. J Although vervain,
therefore, as the " enchanters' plant," was gathered by witches to
do mischief in their incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it " hinders
witches from their will," a circumstance to which Drayton further
refers when he speaks of the vervain as " 'gainst witchcraft much
avayling." Rue, likewise, which entered so largely into magic
rites, was once much in request as an antidote against such prac-

* From " The Folk-Lore of Plants," in the press of D. Appleton & Co.
f See Moncure Conway's "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, ii, 324.
X See Friend's "Flower-Lore," ii, 529, 530.

PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT, 827

tices ; and nowadays, when worn on the person in conjunction with
agrimony, maiden-hair, broom-straw, and gronnd-ivy, it is said in
the Tyrol to confer line vision, and to point out the presence of
witches.

It is still an undecided question as to why rue should out of all
other plants have gained its wide-spread reputation with witches,
but M. Maury supi)oses that it was on account of its being a nar-
cotic and causing hallucinations. At any rate, it seems to have
acquired at an early period in England a superstitious reverence,
for, as Mr. Conway says,* " we find the missionaries sprinkling
holy water from brushes made of it, whence it was called ' herb
of grace." "

Respecting the rendezvous of witches, it may be noted that they
very frequently resorted to hills and mountains, their meetings
taking place "on the mead, on the oak sward, under the lime,
under the oak, at the pear-tree." Thus the fairy rings which are
often to be met with on the Sussex downs are known as hag-tracks,t
from the belief that " they are caused by hags and witches, who
dance there at midnight." J Their love for sequestered and ro-
mantic localities is widely illustrated on the Continent, instances
of which have been collected together by Grimm, who remarks
how " the fame of particular witch-mountains extends over wide
kingdoms." According to a tradition current in Friesland,* " no
woman is to be found at home on a Friday, because on that day
they hold their meetings and have dances on a barren heath."
Occasionally, too, they show a strong predilection for certain
trees, to apj)roach which as night-time draws near is considered
highly dangerous. The Judas-tree {Cercis siliquastrum) was one
of their favorite retreats, perhaps on account of its traditionary
association with the apostle. The* Neapolitan witches held their
tryst under a walnut-tree near Benevento,|| and at Bologna the peas-
antry tell how these evil workers hold a midnight meeting beneath
the walnut-trees on St. John's Eve. The elder-tree is another haunt
under whose branches witches are fond of lurking, and on this
account caution must be taken not to tamper with it after dark."^
Again, in the Netherlands, experienced shepherds are careful not
to let their flocks feed after sunset, for there are wicked elves that
prepare poison in certain plants — nightwort being one of these.
Nor does any man dare to sleep in a meadow or pasture after sun-
set, for, as the shepherds say, he would have everything to fear.

* "Demonology and Devil-Lore," ii, 324.

\ Grimm, "Teutonic Mythology," 1883, iii, 1051.

X Folkard's " Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics," 1884, p. 91.

* Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," iii, 19.

\ Grimm's " Teutonic Mythology," iii, 1052.
^ See Thorpe's " Northern Mythology," iii, 267.

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A Tyrolese legend* relates how a boy who had climbed a tree
"overlooked the ghastly doings of certain witches beneath its
boughs. They tore in pieces the corpse of a woman, and threw
the iDortions in the air. The boy caught one, and kept it by him ;
but the witches, on counting the pieces, found that one was miss-
ing, and so replaced it by a scrap of alder- wood, when instantly
the dead came to life again."

Similarly, also, they had their favorite flowers, one having been
the foxglove, nicknamed " witches' bells," from their decorating
their fingers with its blossoms ; while in some localities the hare-
bell is designated the "witches' thimble." On the other hand,
flowers of a yellow or greenish hue were distasteful to them.f

In the witchcraft movement it would seem that certain plants
were in requisition for particular purposes, these workers of dark-
ness having utilized the properties of herbs to special ends. A
XJlant was not indiscriminately selected, but on account of pos-
sessing some virtue as to render it suitable for any design that
the witches might have in view. Considering, too, how multi-
tudinous and varied were their actions, they had constant need of
applying to the vegetable world for materials with which to
carry out their plans. But foremost among their requirements
was the power of locomotion wherewith to enable them, with
supernatural rapidity, to travel from one locality to another. Ac-
cordingly, one of their most favorite vehicles was a besom or
broom, an implement which, it has been suggested, from its being
a type of the winds, is an appropriate utensil " in the hands of
the witches, who are wind-makers and workers in that element." X
According to the "Asiatic Register " for 1801, the Eastern as well
as the European witches "practice their spells by dancing at
midnight, and the principal instrument they use on such occa-
sions is a broom." Hence, in Hamburg, sailors, after long toiling
against a contrary wind, on meeting another ship sailing in an
opposite direction, throw an old broom before the vessel, believ-
ing thereby to reverse the wind.* As, too, in the case of vervain
and rue, the besom, although dearly loved by witches, is still
extensively used as a counter-charm against their machinations —
it being a well-known belief both in England and Germany that
no individual of this stamp can step over a besom laid inside
the threshold. Hence, also, in Westphalia, at Shrovetide, white
besoms with white handles are tied to the cows' horns ; and, in
the rites connected with the midsummer fires kept up in different
parts of the country, the besom holds a prominent place. In Bo-

* See Folkard's " Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 209. f Ibid., p. 10-1.
X See Kelly's " Indo-European Folk-Lore," pp. 225-227.

* See Hardwick's "Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore," p. 117; also Grimm's
" Teutonic Mythology," 1883, iii, 1083.

PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT. 829

hernia, for instance, the young men collect for some weeks before-
hand as many worn-out brooms as they can lay their hands on.
These, after dipping in tar, they light — running with them from
one bonfire to another — and when burned out they are placed in
the fields as charms against blight.* The large ragwort — known
in Ireland as the " fairies' horse " — has long been sought for by
witches when taking their midnight journeys. Burns, in his
" Address to the Deil," makes his witches " skim the muirs and
dizzy crags'' on "rag-bred nags" with "wicked speed." The
same legendary belief prevails in Cornwall, in connection with
the Castle Peak, a high rock to the south of the Logan stone.
Here, writes Mr. Hunt,t "many a man and woman too, now
quietly sleeping in the churchyard of St. Levan, would, had they
the power, attest to have seen the witches flying into the Castle
Peak on moonlight nights, mounted on the stems of the ragwort."
Among other plants used for a similar purpose were the bul-
rush and reed, in connection with which may be quoted the Irish
tale of the rushes and cornstalks that " turn into horses the mo-
ment you bestride them." X In Germany * witches were said to
use hay for transporting themselves through the air.

When engaged in their various occupations they often consid-
ered it expedient to escape detection by assuming invisibility, and
for this object sought the assistance of certain plants, such as the
fern-seed. In Sweden, hazel-nuts were supposed to have the
power of making invisible, and it may be remembered how, in
one of Andersen's stories, the elfin princess has the faculty of
vanishing at will by putting a wand in her mouth. || But these
were not the only plants supposed to confer invisibility, for Ger-
man folk-lore tells us how the far-famed luck-flower was endowed
with the same wonderful property ; and by the ancients the helio-
trope was credited with a similar virtue, but which Boccaccio, in
his humorous tale of Calandrino in the " Decameron," applies to
the so-called stone : " Heliotrope is a stone of such extraordinary
virtue that the bearer of it is effectually concealed from the sight
of all present." Dante, in his " Inferno," xxiv, 92, further alludes
to it:

" Amid this dread exuberance of woe
Ean naked spirits winged with horrid fear,
Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope to charm them out of view."

In the same way, the agate was said to render a person in-

* See Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," 1852, iii, 21, 13Y.

f "Popular Romances of the West of England," 1871, p. 830.
X Grimm's " Teutonic Mythology," iii, 1084.

* See Thorpe's " Northern Mythology," iii, 208, 209.

U See Yardley's "Supernatural in Romantic Fiction," 1880, pp. 131, 132.

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

visible, and to turn the swords of foes against themselves.* The
Swiss peasants aflBrm that the Ascension-Day wreaths of the
amaranth make the wearer invisible, and in the Tyrol the mistle-
toe is credited with this propertj';.

But some plants, as we have already pointed out, were cred-
ited with the magic property of revealing the presence of witches,
and of exposing them engaged in the pursuit of plying their ne-
farious calling. In this respect the St. John's wort was in great
request, and hence it was extensively worn as an amulet, espe-
cially in Germany on St. John's Eve, a time when not only
witches by common report peopled the air, but evil spirits wan-
dered about on no friendly errand. Thus the Italian name of
"devil-chaser," from the circumstance of its scaring away the
workers of darkness, by bringing their hidden deeds to light.
This, moreover, accounts for the custom so prevalent in most
European countries of decorating doorways and windows with its
blossoms on St. John's Eve.

But, in spite of plants of this kind, witches somehow or other
contrived to escape detection by the employment of the most sub-
tle charms and spells. They generally, too, took the precaution
of avoiding such plants as were antagonistic to them, displaying
a cunning ingenuity in most of their designs which it was by no
means easy to forestall. Hence in the composition of their phil-
ters and potions they infused the juices of the most deadly herbs,
such as that of the nightshade or monk's-hood ; and to add to the
potency of these baleful draughts they considered it necessary to
add as many as seven or nine of the most poisonous plants they
could obtain, such, for instance, as those enumerated by one of
the witches in Ben Jonson's " Masque of Queens/' who says :

" And I ha' been plucking plants among
Hemlock, henbane, adder's tongue ;
Nightshade, raoonwort, libbard's bane,
And twice, by the dogs, was like to be ta'en,"

Another plant used by witches in their incantations was the
sea or horned poppy, known in mediaeval times as Ficus infer-
nalis ; hence it is further noticed by Ben Jonson in the " Witches'

Song":

" Yes, I have brought to help our vows,
Horned poppy, cypress-boughs,
The fig-tree wild that grows on tombs.
And juice that from the larch-tree comes."

Then, of course, there was the wondrous moonwort {BotrycMum
lunaria), which was doubly valuable from its mystic virtue, for,

* See Fiske, " Myths and ^lythmakers," p. 44 ; also Baring-Gould's " Curious Myths of
the Middle Age?," 1877, p. 398.

PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT. 831

as Culpepper * tells us, it was believed to open locks and possess
other magic virtues. The mullein, popularly termed the hag-taper,
was also in request, and the honesty {Lunaria hiennis), "in sor-
ceries excelling," was equally employed. By Scotch witches the
woodbine was a favorite plant, f who, in effecting magical cures,
passed their patients nine times through a girth or garland of
green woodbine.

Again, a popular means emjjloyed by witches of injuring their
enemies was by the bryony. Coles, in his " Art of Simpling," for
instance, informs us how "they take likewise the roots of man-
drake, according to some, or, as I rather suppose, the roots of
briony, which simple folk take for the true mandrake, and make
thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on
whom they intend to exercise their witchcraft." And Lord
Bacon, speaking of the mandrake, says : " Some plants there are,
but rare, that have a mossie or downy root, and likewise that
have a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof
witches and impostours make an ugly image, giving it the form
of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a
broad beard down to the foot." The witchcraft literature of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contains numerous allusions
to the diabolical practice — a superstition immortalized by Shake-
speare. The mandrake, from its supposed mysterious character,
was intimately associated with witches, and Ben Jonson, in his
" Masque of Queens," makes one of the hags who has been gath-
ering this plant say :

"I last night lay all alone
On the ground, to hear the mandrake groan ;
And plucked him up, though he grew full low,
And, as I had done, the cock did crow."

We have already incidentally spoken of the vervain, St. John's
wort, elder, and rue as antagonistic to witchcraft, but to these
may be added many other well-known plants, such as the juniper,
mistletoe, and blackthorn. Indeed, the list might be greatly ex-
tended— the vegetable kingdom having supplied in most parts of
the world almost countless charms to counteract the evil designs
of these malevolent beings. In England the little pimpernel,
herb-paris, and cyclamen were formerly gathered for this pur-
pose, and the angelica was thought to be specially noisome to
witches. The snapdragon and the herb-betony had the reputa-
tion of averting the most subtle forms of witchcraft, and dill and
flax were worn as talismans against sorcery. Holly is said to be
antagonistic to witches, for, as Mr. Folkard % says, " in its name

* " British Herbal." f See Folkard's " riant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 380.
X " Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 376.

832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they see but another form of the word ' holy/ and its thorny foli-
age and blood-red berries are suggestive of the most Christian
associations." Then there is the rowan-tree or mountain-ash,
which has long been considered one of the most powerful anti-
dotes against works of darkness of every kind, probably from its
sacred associations with the worship of the Druids. Hence it is
much valued in Scotland, and the following couplet, of which
there are several versions, still embodies the popular faith :

' Eowan-tree and red thread
Put the witches to their speed."

But its fame has not been confined to any one locality, and as far
south as Cornwall the peasant, when he suspects that his cow has
been " overlooked," twists an ashen twig round its horns. Indeed,
so potent is the ash as a counter-charm to sorcery, that even the
smallest twig renders their actions impotent ; and hence, in an old
ballad entitled "Laidley Wood," in the "Northumberland Gar-
land," it is said :

" The spells were vain, the hag returned

To the queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no power

Where there is row'n-tree wood."

Hence persons carry an ashen twig in their pocket, and according
to a Yorkshire proverb —

" If your whipstick's made of row'n,
You may ride your nag through any town " ;

but, on the other hand, " Woe to the lad without a rowan-tree
gall ! " Possessed of such virtues, it is not surprising that the
mystic ash should have been held in the highest repute, in illus-
tration of which we find many an amusing anecdote. Thus
according to a Herefordshire tradition, some years ago two hogs-
heads full of money were concealed in an underground cellar
belonging to the Castle of Penyard, where they were kept by
supernatural force. A farmer, however, made up his mind to get
them out, and employed for the purpose twenty steers to draw
down the iron door of the vault. On the door being slightly
opened, a jackdaw was seen sitting on one of the casks, but the
door immediately closed with a bang — a voice being heard to say :
" Had it not heen

For your quicken-tree goad,

And your yew-tree pin,
You and your cattle

Had all been drawn in."

Another anecdote current in Yorkshire is interesting, showing
how fully superstitions of this kind are believed : * " A woman

* Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, p. 225.

PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT. 833

was lately in my shop, and in pulling out her purse brought out
also a piece of stick a few inches long. I asked her why she car-
ried that in her pocket. ' Oh/ she replied, ' I must not lose that,
or I shall be done for.' ' Why so ? ' I inquired. * Well,' she
answered, ' I carry that to keep off the witches ; while I have that
about me, they can not hurt me.' On my adding that there
were no witches nowadays, she instantly replied : ' Oh, yes ! there
are thirteen at this very time in the town, but so long as I have
my rowan-tree safe in my pocket they can not hurt me.' "

Occasionally when the dairy-maid churned for a long time
without making butter, she would stir the cream with a twig of
mountain-ash, and beat the cow with another, thus breaking the
witch's spell. But, to prevent accidents of this kind, it has long
been customary in the northern counties to make the churn-staff
of ash. For the same reason herd-boys employ an ash-twig for
driving cattle, and one may often see a mountain-ash growing
near a house. On the Continent the tree is in equal repute, and
in Norway and Denmark rowan-branches are usually put over
stable-doors to keep out witches, a similar notion prevailing in
Germany. No tree, perhaps, holds such a prominent place in
witchcraft-lore as the mountain-ash, its mystic power having
rarely failed to render fruitless the evil influence of these enemies
of mankind.

Lastly, to counteract the spell of the evil eye, from which
many innocent persons were believed to suffer in the witchcraft
period, many flowers have been in requisition among the numer-
ous charms used. Thus, the Russian maidens still hang round
the stem of the birch-tree red ribbon, the Brahmans gather rice,
and in Italy rue is in demand. The Scotch peasantry pluck twigs
of the ash, the Highland women the groundsel, and the German
folk wear the radish. In early times the ringwort was recom-
mended by Apuleius, and later on the fern was regarded as a pre-
servative against this baneful influence. The Chinese put faith
in the garlic ; and, in short, every country has its own special
plants. It would seem, too, that after a witch was dead and
buried, precautionary measures were taken to frustrate her bane-
ful influence. Thus, in Russia, aspen is laid on a witch's grave,
the dead sorceress being then prevented from riding abroad.

The first mention of a canal to unite the oceans was made — to assert its impos-
sibility— by an old Spanisb historian, P. Acosta, who said, in 1588, that "no
human power would be sutBcient to cut through the strong and impenetrable
bonds which God has put between the two oceans of mountains and iron rocks " ;
and he added, " If it were possible, it would appear to me to be very just to fear
the vengeance of Heaven for attempting to improve the works which the Creator,
in his almighty will and providence, ordered from the creation of the world."
VOL. XXXIV. — 53

834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF JAMES POLLARD ESPY.

METEOROLOGY is one of the youngest of the sciences. Most
of what is settled and systematized has been developed
within the memory of men who are still living. The contribu-
tions of Americans to research in this branch have been among
the most important. Among the earlier labors in this field none
deserve or have received wider recognition than those of Prof.
Espy. He may, indeed, be regarded with justice as the founder of
the science as at present cultivated in relation to storm predictions.

James P. Espy was born in Westmoreland County, Pa., May 9,
1785, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 24, 18G0. While he
was still an infant his father moved to the Blue Grass region of
Kentucky ; but, on finding the institution of slavery antagonistic
to the principles inherited from his Huguenot ancestry, he re-
moved after a few years to the Miami Valley in Ohio. One of his
daughters had in the mean time married a Kentuckian of Mount
Sterling, and James, remaining with this sister for the sake of the
opportunity, became, at eighteen years of age, a student in Tran-
sylvania University, at Lexington. Here he was visited in 1805
by an elder brother, who was engaged in the practice of the law
in Pennsylvania, who wrote of him : " I met my brother James,
whom I had not seen since he was an infant. I found him at the
university, where he had made considerable progress in the dead
languages and in general science. He shows an ardent desire for
knowledge, and promises to be both intelligent and useful." He
was graduated in 1808, and went to Xenia, Ohio, where he taught
school and studied law. Of this part of his career, Mrs. L. M.
Morehead, his niece, in her " Few Incidents " * of his life, says
that " his love for teaching amounted to enthusiasm, and, although
he completed his law studies, he finally abandoned the idea of
choosing the law as his profession, and determined to follow the
bent of his inclination, and become a conscientious instructor of
youth." To his latest years " he considered this a noble profes-
sion, and even in old age was fond of drawing out young students
to talk over their lessons with him, both hearing them and asking
them questions." Either before or after this — the authorities dif-
fer— he filled creditably and satisfactorily the position of principal
of the academy at Cumberland, Md., where he married Miss Mar-
garet Pollard, who afterward gave him her full sympathy and
encouragement in his meteorological researches.

In 1817 Mr. Espy became a teacher in the classical department
of the Franklin Institute, a position in which, according to the

* " A Few Incidents in the Life of Professor James P. Espy, by his Niece, Mrs. L. M.
Morehead," Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

SKETCH OF JAMES P. ESPY. 835

late Prof. A. D. Baclie, he became known as "one of the best
classical and mathematical instructors in Philadelphia, which at
that day nnmbered Dr. Wylie, Mr. Sanderson, and Mr. Crawford
among its teachers. Impressed by the researches and writings of
Dalton and of Daniell on meteorology," Prof. Bache continued, in
a eulogy before the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, " Mr.
Espy began to observe the phenomena and then to experiment
on the facts which form the groundwork of the science. As he
observed, experimented, and studied, his enthusiasm grew, and
his desire to devote himself exclusively to the increase and dif-
fusion of the science finally became so strong that he determined
to give up his school, and to rely for the means of prosecuting his
researches upon his slender savings and the success of his lect-
ures, probably the most original which have ever been delivered
on this subject. His first course was delivered before the Frank-
lin Institute of Pennsylvania, of which he had long been an active
member, and where he met kindred spirits, ready to discuss the
principles or the applications of science, and prepared to extend
their views over the whole horizon of physical and mechanical
research. As chairman of the Committee on Meteorology, Mr.
Espy had a large share in the organization of the complete sys-
tem of meteorological observations carried on by the Institute
under the auspices and within the limits of the State of Pennsyl-
vania." Mrs. Morehead quotes from the account of a friend who
visited him in Philadelphia a description of Prof. Espy's method
of pursuing his atmospheric calculations, which necessarily had
to be carried on out of doors. The high fence inclosing the small
yard was of smooth plank, painted white, while the space inclosed
was filled with vessels of water and numerous thermometers for
determining the dew-point. The white fence, when last seen by
the narrator, was so covered with figures and calculations that
not a spot remained for another sum or column. Prof. Espy's
theory of storms was first developed in successive memoirs in the
"Journal of the Franklin Institute," containing discussions of
ih.Q changes of temperature, pressure, and moisture of the air,
and of the direction and force of the wind, and other phenomena
attending remarkable storms in the United States and on the
ocean adjacent to the Atlantic and Gulf coast. " Assuming great
simplicity," says Prof. Bache, " as it was developed, and founded
on the established laws of physics, and upon ingenious and well-
directed experiments, this theory drew general attention to itself,
especially in the United States. A memoir submitted anonymously
to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia gained for
Mr. Espy the award of the Magellanic premium in the year 1836,
after a discussion remarkable for ingenuity and closeness in its
progress, and for the almost perfect unanimity of its result."

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In 1840 Prof. Espy, by invitation, visited England for the pur-
pose of explaining his theory of storms before the British Associ-
ation. He presented it, in an elaborate paper, in September, 1840,
Prof. Forbes being the presiding officer of the meeting, after
which it was subjected to a lively discussion, in which some of
the most eminent British scientific men of the day took part, some
sustaining it, and some presenting objections to it. He afterward
visited Paris, and presented a communication to the Academy of
Sciences. The committee to whom the communication was re-
ferred, consisting of MM. Arago, Pouillet, and Babinet, at the
conclusion of their report, admitted that the memoir " contains a
great number of well-observed and well-described facts. His the-
ory in the present state of science alone accounts for the phenom-
ena, and when completed, as Mr. Espy intends, by the study of
the action of electricity when it intervenes, will leave nothing to
be desired. In a word, for physical geographj'-, agriculture, navi-
gation, and meteorology, it gives us new explanations, indications
useful for ulterior researches, and redresses many accredited
errors. The committee expresses, then, the wish that Mr. Espy
may be placed by the Government of the United States in a posi-
tion to continue his important investigations, and to complete his
theory, already so remarkable, by means of all the observations
and all the experiments which the deductions even of his theory
may suggest to him in a vast country, where enlightened men are
not wanting to science, and which is, besides, the home of those
fearful storms. The work of Mr. Espy causes us to feel the neces-
sity of undertaking a retrospective examination of the numerous
documents already collected in Europe, to arrange them, and
draw from them deductions which they can furnish, and more
especially at the present period, when the diluvial rains which
have ravaged the southeast of France have directed attention to
all the possible causes of similar phenomena. Consequently, the
committee proposes to the Academy to give its approbation to the
labors of Mr. Espy, and to solicit him to continue his researches,
and especially to try to ascertain the influence which electricity
exerts in these great phenomena, of which a complete theory will
be one of the most precious acquisitions of modern science."

This report was incorporated in full in the introduction to
"The Philosophy of Storms"— "not merely," as the author says
with characteristic independence of opinion, " for the purpose of
showing the reader that I have the highest authority on my side
—for I do not submit to authority myself— but to exhibit a beau-
tiful analysis of my theory by three of the most distinguished
philosophers in Europe. As a matter of authority, however, I
should be justified in bringing forward the report to rebut au-
thority. It had been sneeringly said before a large audience, by

SKETCH OF JAMES P. ESPY. 837

a distinguished professor, that I had failed to convince men. of
science of the truth of my theory, and that I had appealed to
the people, who are incapable of judging. It became, therefore,
necessary to obtain authority against authority."

The origin of the studies iipon which the theory of storms is
based is traced in the opening paragraph of the " Philosophy " to
the result described by Dalton, that the quantity of vapor in
weight, existing at any time in a given place, could be deter-
mined by means of a thermometer and a tumbler of water cold
enough to condense on its outside a portion of the vapor in the
air. " It occurred to me at once," Prof. Espy says, " that this was
the lever with which the meteorologist was to move the world. I
immediately commenced the study and examination of atmos-
pheric phenomena, determined to discover, if possible, what con-
nection there is between rain and the quantity of vapor in the
atmosphere." Prof. Espy prefaced his paper in the British Asso-
ciation by saying that he had found, by examining simultaneous
observations in the middle of storms and all round their borders,
that the wind blows inward on all sides of a storm toward its cen-
tral parts ; toward a point if the storm is round, and toward a
line if the storm is oblong, extending through its longest diame-
ter. The theory is, in brief, that every atmospheric disturbance
begins with the ascension of air that has been rarefied by heat.
The rising mass dilates, and, as its temperature falls, precipitates
vapor in the form of clouds. Owing to the liberation of the
latent heat, the dilatation continues with the rising till the moist-
ure of the air forming the upward current is practically ex-
hausted. The heavier air flows in beneath, and, finding a dimin-
ished pressure above it, rushes upward with constantly increasing
violence. The great quantity of aqueous vapor precipitated dur-
ing this atmospheric disturbance gives rise to heavy rains. Much
of this theory still holds good ; but it has been found that the
motion of the wind in storms is rotary.

Besides his explanation and proofs of this theory. Prof. Espy
presented to the British Association a paper on " Four Fluctua-
tions of the Barometer." The theory was more fully elabo-
rated in "The Philosophy of Storms," which was published in
a large octavo volume by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, in
1841, and was re-enforced by detailed descriptions of a large
number of storms occurring on the land and the ocean, the
course of which the author had been able to follow and study
with considerable accuracy. It also contained his answers to the
citicisms which had been made against his theory in the British
Association and elsewhere by prominent men of science and rival
meteorologists. In it, furthermore, he defended his theory that
storms could be produced by large fires making local disturb-

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ances in the equilibrium of temperature, whence follow ascend-
ing currents, cloud and rain. He spent much effort in trying to
secure an experimental demonstration of this scheme, and made
unsuccessful petitions to Congress and the Legislature of Penn-
sylvania for appropriations to enable him to carry them out on
an adequate scale. The scheme was not regarded as practicable,
and he became the object of some ridicule for his enthusiasm — to
which he replied in his book with the self-possession of a man
who believes to the full in his purposes : " Gentlemen have made
their puns on this project, and had their laugh : and I am sorry
to see, by letters which I have received, that my friends and rela-
tions at a distance are much troubled by these innocent laughs ;
but let them be consoled : I have laughed too, well knowing that
those who laughed the most heartily would be most willing to
encourage the experiment as soon as they discovered they had
nothing to laugh at. As a proof that I was right in this antici-
pation, I may be permitted to say that I have lately received a
letter from a highly distinguished member of the American
Legislature,* who laughed as heartily as any one when my peti-
tion was presented them, containing many kind expressions, and
promising me, by way of amends for his levity, to avail himself
of the earliest opportunity of being better informed on the sub-
ject of my new philosophy. Such conduct as this is all I want ;
I fear not the strictest scrutiny." The same confident spirit is
exhibited in his letter to his superior in the War Department,
suggesting a second year of employment in the official study of
storms, and which is given in fac-simile on the following page.

In 1843 Prof. Espy was given a position in the War De-
partment, where he could pursue his investigations in atmos-
pheric currents and disturbances, and receive reports from dis-
tant points of observation. He instituted a service of daily
weather reports, out of which our present Signal-Service system
has grown ; and, on the basis of this enterprise, as Mrs. Morehead
relates in her book. Prof. Henry once remarked to her that
there was no question in his inind that " Prof. Espy should
be regarded as the father of the present Signal Service of the
United States, his ' Theory of Storms ' having led the way to its
establishment and present success." Prof. Henry added that the
charts now used in the service were identical (with some modi-
fications) with those that the " Old Storm King " constructed for
use in the Meteorological Bureau of the War Department when
he was at its head. A similar acknowledgment was made by
General Myer. Prof. Espy was for several years a regent of the
Smithsonian Institution, and was brought into close relations and
friendship with Prof. Henry. On the occasion of his death, Prof.

* Hon. J. J. Crittenden.

SKETCH OF JAMES P. ESPY. 839

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Baclie pronounced liis eulogy in the Board of Regents, and the
Regents passed memorial resolutions, one of which describes him
as " one of the most useful and zealous of the meteorologists co-
operating Avith the Institution, whose labors in both the increase
and diffusion of knowledge of meteorology have merited the
highest honors of science at home, and have added to the repu-
tation of our country abroad."

Prof. Espy delivered many lectures in the towns, cities,
and villages of the United States, explaining his theories and the
results of his observations. These efforts were very successful,
and, according to Prof. Bache, by their originality attracted
more attention to his views than could have been obtained in any

840 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other way. "He soon sTiowed remarkable power in explaining
his ideas. His simplicity and clearness enabled his hearers to
follow him without too great effort, and the earnestness with
which he expressed his convictions carried them away in favor
of his theory." He was also remarkably successful in gaining
the sympathy of public men, and, through them, in obtaining
from the Government continued opportunities for study, research,
and the comparison of observations. His reports to the Surgeon-
General of the Army, to Congress, and to the Secretary of the
Navy, are mentioned as among his latest efforts in this direction.

Prof. Espy is charged with the one scientific defect that,
with his deep conviction of the truth of his theory, and the en-
thusiasm it fed in him, he could not pass beyond a certain point
in its development, and for the same reasons his deductions were
often unsafe. He was not prone to examine and re-examine
premises and conclusions, but considered what had once been
passed upon by his judgment as finally settled. " Hence his views
did not make that impression uj)on cooler temperaments among
men of science to which they were entitled, obtaining more credit
among scholars and men of general reading in our country than
among scientific men, and making but little progress abroad."
But, toward the close of his life, he was induced, by the Secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, to re-examine the various parts of
his theories, and to insert in his " Fourth Report," while it was
going through the press, an account of his most mature views.

Prof. Espy thought much on subjects of mental and moral
philosophy, and after his death his relatives in Cincinnati pub-
lished his short "Treatise on the Will," which is described as
embodying some original and striking ideas.

Personally, according to Prof. Bache, " Prof. Espy was emi-
nently social, full of bonhomie and enthusiasm, easily kindling
into a glow by social mental action. In the meetings and free
discussions of a club formed for promoting research, and espe-
cially for scrutinizing the labors of its members, and of which
Sears C. Walker, Prof. Henry, Henry D. Rogers, and myself were
members, Mr, Espy found the mental stimulus that he needed,
and the criticism which he courted, the best aids and checks to
his observations, speculations, and experiments. But there was
one person who had more influence upon him than all others be-
sides, stimulating him to progress, and urging him forward in
each step with a zeal which never flagged — this was his wife."
Mrs. Morehead says that "he never seemed impatient or con-
cerned at the slow recognition of his discoveries as means of prac-
tical use in commerce or other national needs. He would say, * I
leave all this to the future, sure that its adaptation to the uses of
life must one day be seen and acknowledged.' "

CORRESP ONDENCE.

841

CORRESPONDENCE.

SILK-CULTUKE IN THE UNITED STATES.
Editor Popular Science Monthly:

Those who have watched with interest
the strugj^le to introduce the culture of silk-
into the United States, and noted the many
failures of those engaged in the work, must
feel that, if anything is to be done in silk-
culture in this country, new methods must be
tried. The old plan of urging women to un-
dertake the work in addition to whatever they
mav be doing seems in every way impractica-
ble! The " New York Tribune," in July, 1885,
in dealing with the subject, says : '• It is by no
means clear that silk-culture holds out any
trustworthy prospect to American women.
... It has been tried pretty thoroughly in
California. At Sacramento and San Jose co-
cooneries were established, but, though the
experimenters in these places had the advan-
tages of an unequaled climate and Chinese
cheap labor, they failed, and failed signally.
At intervals similar attempts have been
made in other States, but the end has always
been the same. . . . The raising of silk-
worms involves a minute and incessant labor,
such as Orientals appear to be alone thor-
oughly fitted for, and it is not at all adapted
to the capacities of American women."

Despite discouragements and failures the
Department of Agriculture at Washington
still continues to distribute silk-worm eggs,
and in the last annual report for the year
1887 it is suggested by Mr. Philip Walker,
the agent in charge, that neighbors might
save expense, and realize more for their
work, by joining together in the use of one
hibernating box, one incubator, and one sti-
fling apparatus. It is thought that the in-
terest has been more active this year in the
United States than in the year before, and
that progress has been made. The only in-
stance given, however, is that of a woman liv-
ing in Johnson County, Mo., who, assisted by
her mother and four children, tried the ex-
periment for two years, receiving for the
cocoons $77.90, which, after deducting her ex-
penses, which amounted to $20, left her $57.90
to show for the labor of six people for two
years ! Certainly not a very profitable occu-
pation, and, judging by this example alone,
not one that would offer special inducements
to any one that had the slightest idea of the
care and work required to raise even a few
ounces of eggs. To be sure, the actual time
consumed in the care of the worms could not
have been more than six weeks of each year ;
bat would not almost any other occupation
have paid better than this ?

I am indebted to Mr. Edward Atkinson
for the fact that, in the year 1886 alone, the
United States imported 16,092,583 dozen

eggs, amounting to $2,173,454, and the same
year imported 1,937,416 bushels of potatoes,
at the cost of $649,009. Now, when it is
considered that millions of dollars are ex-
pended every year for articles which might
as well be raised in this country, does it not
seem that it would be better for the Govern-
ment to help along the industries already
started here, and leave silk-culture in the
hands of those who have successfully carried
on the business for years, and who feel well
paid at receiving for their work what to an
American would seem only a mere pittance ?

Mr. John D. Cutter writes in the "Boston
Post" for November 10, 1886, as follows:
" As an amusement, silk-culture is all right ;
as a business, it is impossible, for a genera-
tion or two to come, or until we are so crowd-
ed in the struggle for life that we can do no
better for ourselves than to compete with the
Chinese for bare existence. ... No occupa-
tion of any civilized or half-civilized people
pays its laborers so little as silk-culture. It
is the very last employment of humanity this
side of starvation. The reason is patent to
any one who will look for it ; viz., in this in-
dustry the competition is with the Chinese,
and the product is of such enormous value
in proportion to its bulk and weight that
distance is no protection to the producer,
because raw silk can be carried around the
world for one per cent of its value. . . .
Silk-culture is no experiment, even in this
country; it simply don't pay a people who
want to earn more than one cent per hour."

Light and profitable as the work of rais-
ing silk-worms is said to be, there are from
the very outset risks connected with it. If
the eggs are hatched too early in the season,
there is danger of late frosts killing the mul-
berry-leaves, thereby depriving the worms of
their food ; the worms are easily affected by
changes in the atmosphere, and all through
the season there is danger of disease ; and
provided everything goes well, and one is
able to sell the cocoons, the price given for
them is small compensation for the time and
trouble expended, and if, as is so often the
case, the cocoons are pronoimced worthless,
there is nothing to show for the weeks of
incessant labor. Many other experiences
might be cited to show the absurdity of en-
couraging competition with the pauper labor
of other countries.

SIargarette W. Brooks,
Salem, Mass., December, 26, ISSS.

THE MENTAL FORCE OF WOMAN.
Editor Popv/ar Science Monthly ;

No article, perhaps, that has lately ap-
peared in print has called out a more decided
difference of opinion than the one entitled

842

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"The Relation of the Sexes to Government,"
which appeared in " The Popular Science
Monthly " for October. Especially has this
been marked in Wyoming, for it is here, I
believe, that we find the nearest approach
to a relation of both sexes with the Gov-
ernment. In the outset of his article Prof.
Cope stated that, " being free from the disa-
bilities imposed by maternity, the male could
acquire a greater mastery over his environ-
ment than the female." Now. in all obser-
vations of animal life lower than man, the
contriwy appears to be the case. We find
the female taking the most active part in
the struggle for the existence of the young,
and certainly doing as much for her own ex-
istence as the male for his. The lioness, in
providing for and protecting her young, which
in animal life represents the home, exerts a
much greater " mastery over the environ-
ment " than the male, which only for a brief
period shows a care for the female, and nei-
ther affection for nor government over the
young. The horns of the female kine in de-
fense of the calf are to be dreaded as much as
those of the male. We do not find the male
cat feeding or protecting the kittens. The hen
not only provides for and defends but also
chastises and governs her brood. In the in-
sect world we find that the female spider
eats her husband, bees kill theirs, and fe-
male ants make slaves of theirs. Coming to
man, we find that among the Indians the fe-
male does the drudgery, and also the provid-
ing, with the exception of the hunting. In
the wild Kurdish mountains we find women
doing labor that the beasts of burden fail in,
bringing great bundles of fire-wood down
those terrible mountain-sides. AVe find them
protecting their fields from the ravages of
bears, fighting and slaying them with as
much fury as the men, hindered neither by
lack of physical strength nor by maternity.
Macaulay speaks of a scene in the Scottish
Highlands where aged mothers, pregnant
wives, and tender girls are harvesting oats,
while the men bask in the sun or angle in the
streams.

Prof. Cope claims that women would be
irresponsible voters, as they can not assist in
the execution of the laws that they help make.
Does their physical nature prevent them from
doing this ? In the riots of Ireland, Canada,
and the United States does woman stand
back hindered by physical weakness from
throwing stones, beating the magistrates, or
barricading street -car lines? "Can it be
proved scientifically that man had rather
meet infuriated woman in preference to a
male antagonist ? In the pioneer days did
not woman's bullet speed as true to the mark
as man's in the protection of her home ?
Where has woman failed ? In the exhaust-
ing marches of exiles to Siberia do the facts
show that man stands the journey better
than the Russian woman ?

Again, the professor says, " The mastery
by him has accustomed her to yielding, and

to the use of methods of accomplishing her
desires other than force." This amounts to
saying that, while man is superior in force,
woman is superior in diplomacy. Now, if it
can be proved that in government the latter
is as important as the former, then will be
shown the absolute necessity for co-operation
of the two sexes in political affairs In the
garden of Eden we find, instead of Adam
choking the apple down the throat of Eve,
Eve persuading Adam to partake, and here
diplomacy wins. It can not be denied by
our most adverse opponents that during the
last half-century woman has taken posses-
sion of educational government. The teach-
ers of the United States to-day are women.
Our sex governs the schools throughout this
broad land, and we maintain this govern-
ment, not through force, but through tact or
diplomacy.

Here in Wyoming some experience with
woman suffrage has been acquired, though
in a Territory of course there can not be as
wide scope for its exercise as under State-
hood. Now, if it could be believed all over
this land that women would allow themselves
to be " loaded " into wagons by their man,
and driven to the polls to vote his ticket, as
the writer of the article in question rudely
states it, this would give a mighty impetus to
woman suffrage. But this is false. Suffrage
is not denied woman because she will vote as
man dictates, but because she will not ; and
man knows full well that force would very
quickly succumb to diplomacy. It is true
we go to the polls in carriages placed at our
disposal by the candidates, but is this any
proof of disloyalty to our convictions ? Are
the members of a choir who attend the
services of the G. A. R. in carriages provided
for them to be accused of having no patriot-
ism nor respect for the honored dead ? Is it
to be supposed that, in spite of birth, educa-
tion, or culture, we would become as ignorant
vassals to the husbands and fathers whose
love, respect, and protection we had possessed,
or that our male associates are so debased
that they would wish us to become such will-
ingly, or compel us to become so unwilling-
ly ? There are women, no doubt, who vote
as their husbands vote ; but, having been a
resident and a voter eleven years in Wyo-
ming, I have yet to find one case where a wom-
an has voted as the force of man dictated.
There are women in Wyoming who do not
vote, but it is not because their male asso-
ciates compel them to remain at home, and
they resent such an imputation. Neither is
the woman - suffrage movement condemned
by them. The majority of the women in Wy-
oming vote, and vote according to their own
preferences, and the men so desire and ex-
pect them to vote. It has been stated, rath-
er coarsely, that won;an, for the sake of re-
maining her own master politically, would be
tempted to refrain fronWf^a/ marriage. But
were this to prove true, and were woman
without a legal protector to step up to the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

843

polls to deposit her ballot in opposition to the
males, we might look more confidently for ex-
hibitions of force, and, instead of finding wom-
an submitting privately to the maltreatment
of her husband, we should see her obliged to
suffer publicly the brutality of many men.

I wish that women everywhere would
study the one argument that can be brought
against woman suffrage. It is this : Woman
may reform man. He has shown us clearly
that he will not reform himself. Now, unless
woman will interest herself in this reforma-
tion, she has no business with the ballot. So
far woman has done as well as man in the
use of the ballot ; she has done no better ;

but she can, if she will. Man has no right
to exi)ect woman to take up issues that he
ignores, nor has he any right to withhold the
suffrage for fear she will do so. But wom-
an in asking for the ballot ought to say to
man. We will make better use of it than you
have. This is the ground on which we must
demand the suffrage. Not the use of the
ballot simply to make our own importance
greater, but the ballot as it could be used to
raise politics out of its filthiness, corruption,
and ignorance, and to bring in the reign of
purity, patriotism, and intelligence.

Therkse a. Jenkins.
Cheyenne, W. T., 2>^ovember 15, lbS8.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE DEVIL-TnEORY.

IT is a somewhat melancholy thing to
reflect that, while we have a min-
istry of truth in the men who, with dis-
passionate minds, are applying them-
selves to discover the laws of nature
and the true succession and affiliation
of historical phenomena, we have also a
ministry of error devoted to opposing,
one by one, the conclusions of science,
and fostering in the minds of those to
whom it is addressed habits of false and
inconclusive reasoning. We may quote,
as an example of the first, the work of
a man like our valued contributor, Dr.
Andrew D. White, whose articles on
" Demoniacal Possession and Insanity "
in recent numbers of this magazine have
attracted so much attention. We re-
gret to have to quote as an illustration
of the second the recent utterances, on
the very same subject, of a man who
stands to-day in what but lately was,
perhaps, the most progressive pulpit of
the whole country, that of Plymouth
Church. The Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott
is a man of fine sympathies, of wide
culture, and of much moderation of
character and judgment. He is a man
to whom Ave should have been disposed
to look for steady work in the direction
of sound and reasonable views ; particu-
larly considering the vantage - ground
he occupies as successor to one who,
whatever his faults and eccentricities,

was ever looking toward the light, and
had thoroughly reconciled himself to
the leading tenets of modern science.
Instead of this, however, we find him
accepting to the fullest extent the doc-
trine of demoniacal possession, and de-
fending it by arguments of the most
sophistical character. While the ex-
President of Cornell is laboring to ban-
ish from men's minds the last vestiges
of belief in diabolic agency, the success-
or of Beecher is handling the devils of
ancient narrative with all the tenderness
and respect due to the most venerable pos-
sessions of the human race. Let us, then,
briefly examine what this prominent di-
vine has to say on the topic in question.
Dr. Abbott announces the theory
that "evil spirits exercise an influence
over mankind." He explains later that
by "evil spirits" he means "disem-
bodied spirits"; and adds that there is
" nothing unnatural " in their exercis-
ing the same kind of control over men
that masterful characters exercise over
others of weaker will. This hypothe-
sis he holds to be not only scriptural,
but more consonant than any other
with the facts of science. Charles J.
Guiteau, of repulsive memory, he con-
siders to have been a man possessed.
" What we call the impulses of our
lower nature are often," Dr. Abbott is
inclined to think, " the Avhispered sug-
gestions of fiend-like natures, watching

844

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for our fall and exultant if they can ac-
complish it." This view invests our life
with "a greater seriousness and solem-
nity than we are wont to imagine " as
attaching to it, and makes us realize
how important it is "to resist the first
yielding to one who never becomes the
possessor of a human soul except hy its
own gradual and voluntary subjection
to Ms hateful despotism.''''

We have italicized the last few words
of the last sentence for an obvious rea-
son. If any "human soul " has " grad-
ually and voluntarily subjected itself" to
evil passions, what need is there to call
in the hypothesis of diabolic agency to
account for even the worst acts of which
the man may be guilty ? What says an
apostle? "Every man is tempted when
he is drawn away of his own lust and
enticed." The logical law of parsimony
forbids us to suppose anything beyond
this. What lusts are, we know; what
devils are, we know not, nor have we
any means even of certifying ourselves
in regard to their existence. Why, then,
frame hypotheses beyond all need for
them? Moral and physical qualities,
there is reason to believe, are inherited.
Will Dr. Lyman Abbott, standing in
Plymouth pulpit, say : " No, it is a fam-
ily devil that is inlierited ; the fiend that
tormented the father pursues the son
and the grandson " ? If he will not say
that, if he admits that a given indi-
vidual may receive by inheritance a
certain moral and physical constitution,
what difficulty is there in believing that
to this source may be traced the deeds
which mark for good or for evil that
individual's life? Dr. Abbott admits
that " we can not demonstrate the in-
fluence of an invisible spirit over man " ;
but neither can we, he proceeds to say,
" demonstrate the existence of an ether
whose waves produce the phenomena of
light." The difi'erence between the two
cases, however, is very easily stated.
The devils are not required to explain
any phenomenon ; we can get on per-
fectly well without that hypothesis :

whereas, it was necessary to suppose an
ether, in order to render the phenomena
of light intelligible, by assimilating them
to those of sound, produced, as we have
discovered, by the vibrations of another
medium. We do not doubt, indeed,
that the amiable Brooklyn divine would
gladly throw the whole doctrine of
devils overboard, as not only useless
but hurtful, were it not for the sanction
which he understands it to receive from
the Scriptures. But if it is to be re-
ceived on faith, why mar the work of
faith by trying to show that it may also
be accepted on grounds of reason?
Faith is only weakened by such help ;
and reason, certainly, is not benefited
by being put to such forced labor.

Take the case of Guiteau. If he
had a devil, why did no one of the hun-
dreds of thousands of orthodox believers
throughout the country cast that devil
out ? What do we read ? " These signs
shall follow them that believe: in my
name shall they cast out devils." Did
any one so much as try to cast the devil
out of Guiteau ? The only utterance
we distinctlj'^ remember as proceed-
ing from the pulpit at the time was
a passionate demand by the eloquent
preacher of the Brooklyn Tabernacle
for the hanging of Guiteau on a gallows
as high as Haman's. If Guiteau really
had a devil, it was certainly hard on him
that the faith of the Christian world was
at so low an ebb that no one cared even
to try to relieve him of it. Who knows
what an innocent and amiable person
he might have become if the uncanny
tenant could only have been dislodged ?
The American nation, however, adopted
no such theory. Devil or no devil, they
held Guiteau responsible for his crime,
and hanged him accordingly.

Dr. Abbott talks of the "gradual
and voluntary subjection " of a human
soul to the " hateful despotism " of a
disembodied fiend. But how does this
agree with the New Testament narra-
tives ? Are the persons who are there
mentioned as having been freed from

EDITOR'S TABLE.

845

diabolic possession represented as hav-
ing deliberately and voluntarily given
themselves into the power of the fiends ?
By no means. They are represented
rather as the helpless victims of the
Evil One; and when the devils have
left them, they are in as sound a moral
condition (for aught that is hinted to
the contrary) as if they had never been
possessed. Tiiey are not told to go and
sin no more, as was the woman taken in
adultery. They are not warned, as Dr.
Abbott warns his readers, against putting
themselves, of their own free will, in the
power of the fiend. Had their subjec-
tion to evil been gradual and voluntary,
how could their corrupted and debased
moral natures have been transformed in
a moment by a word addressed not to
them, but to the indwelling devils ? The
fact that on one occasion the devils were
gratified by being allowed to enter into
a herd of swine would seem to sliow that
personal merit or demerit had nothing to
do with their choice of an abode. It is
not to be supposed that tLiose particular
swine were sinners above all the swine
that dwelt on the shores of Gennesaret.
If Dr. Abbott will therefore consider the
matter candidly, he will see that his the-
ory has the double fault of scandalizing
reason and opposing Scri'pture. Surely
it is time that, for men as intelligent and
with as liberal instincts as Dr. Abbott,
the bands of authority were broken in
matters of this kind. What do we
want with devils in nineteenth-century
thought? Can any honest man say that
we need them as a working hypothesis
for scientific purposes? Would not such
a hypothesis rather prove an obstacle to
scientific investigation by drawing atten-
tion away from the natural antecedents
of crime and insanity ? What misery has
been wrought by this doctrine in past
ages Dr. White has well shown. To-day
it is a mere wretched survival from ages
of ignorance, and one which a wise man,
if he can not afford openly to combat,
should at least studiously and conscien-
tiously ignore.

LEABKINO TO TBIKK.

In every-day life no fact is more no-
ticeable than the inability of many per-
sons to do their own thinking, even in
matters and upon lines wholly within
the range of their intelligence. They
will see a point that is suggested to
them, and will at once understand its
bearing on some matter in hand; but
they do not seem to have the faculty or
art of raising points for themselves, and
consequently their action is not as in-
telligent as it might be. If given a rule
to work by, they will apply it, not only
in season but out of season, and will
look amazed if one suggests that, under
special circumstances, they should have
varied their usual procedure. Every
employer and overseer of labor knows
to what an extent this is the case. It is
the exceptional workman who really
thinks, and who can therefore be trusted
to suit his action to circumstances. And
so in nearly every sphere of life ; a kind
of automatism seems to be the rule, and
intelligent self-direction, in the light of
present facts, more or less the exception.

One is, therefore, tempted to ask
whether, in connection with our sys-
tems of education, some gymnastic
might not be devised for the special
purpose of teaching the rising genera-
tion to think. The mere introduction
of the natural sciences into school and
college courses will not suffice; for, as
was shown in a report published in
these columns a few years ago, the
sciences may be taught with very little
intellectual result. What is needed is
to form the habit of thought in connec-
tion with everything ; and, without as-
suming to speak with authority, we can
not help inclining to the opinion that
this might be done by presenting every
object of thought as something not com-
plete in itself, but as requiring, for its
proper comprehension, to be considered
in its relations to other things. Nearly
every act of stupidity committed in
daily life arises from disregarding the

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

relations of things — in other words,
treating something or other as if it
stood apart, in no kind of dependence
on anything else. How many such
acts would be avoided by the simple
reflection that such and such a thing
must have had a cause, or that it is sure
to have a consequence ! How many, by
no more profound or acute exercise of
thought than is involved in recognizing
that a thing can not both be and not be
at the same time! How many, by some
simple consideration of time, place, or
quantity ! How many, by a mere ques-
tion as to the meaning of a word I

One of the main points in education,
therefore, ought to be, as it seems to us,
to form the habit of treating everything
as the possible subject of a great number
of questions, some of which at least must
be asked and answered before the thing
can be, in any true sense, understood.
Habit is everything, and if the habit of
asking questions, arranged under certain
categories, could once be formed, the
victory of intelligence over mental iner-
tia would be secured. It is probable
that not a little harm is done in the
education of the young by unduly ap-
pealing to the sense of wonder. Wonder
is essentially a stupid emotion ; it cer-
tainly is the one that stupid people are
most eager to gratify. The object of
wonder stands alone, challenging atten-
tion as being something out of the ordi-
nary course of things. But just in pro-
portion as wonder is excited is rational
inquiry discouraged. People do not
want to have the marvelous so explained
as to bring it into the category of nat-
ural and necessary phenomena. From
the days of Anaxagoras, who got into
trouble for propounding a physical the-
ory of the sun, down to our own time,
men have resented explanations of what
they have chosen to consider beyond or
above explanation. In lieu of wonder,
however, we may very usefully stimu-
late curiosity ; and this may be done in
a general way by representing every-
thing as leading us on, if properly con-

sidered, to views and truths beyond it-
self— as having its own "aura," as the
physicists sometimes say, of force or in-
fluence, and certain related objects with
which it maintains constant commimi-
cation.

The successful teacher will be he
who, whatever his subject may be,
knows best how to present things in
their relations; who deals not with un-
connected units, but with the vitally
connected parts of some organic system
of knowledge ; and who himself is pene-
trated by a sense of the interdependence
of the truths or propositions that form
the matter of his teaching. It ought
to be possible to make all instruction
subserve the purpose of stimulating
thought, of giving to every mind a free
activity of its own. The thinking that
is required for an intelligent direction
of the ordinary concerns of life is not
abstruse thinking ; it is, on the contrary,
in nine cases out of ten, if not in a much
larger proportion still, essentially com-
monplace thinking. We hear from
time to time much foolish disparage-
ment of theory as opposed to practice ;
but there is just this much foundation
for the popular prejudice on the sub-
ject, that brilliant theoricians are occa-
sionally apt to overlook the simpler
and more ordinary aspects of the mat-
ters with which they deal ; while plain,
plodding men, if intent on business, will
at least guard the points that most com-
monly present themselves, and will thus,
in the majority of cases, bring things
to a successful issue. Educational effort
should be most distinctly bent upon
giving every human being the habit of
asking questions as a preparation for
action. The questions need not in most
cases be asked of others : it is often
enough to raise and distinctly face them ;
then the answer comes of itself. We
have had too many examinations in
which the mind is put to a strain, and
too little work of the kind involving no
strain, but simply tending to keep the
mind in a healthy condition of activity

LITERARY NOTICES,

847

and alertness. At home as well as at
school, children should be taught to
think the thoughts that are suited to
their age and capacity ; and the neglect
of such thought as is quite within their
powers should be treated as a fault.
"We are confident that when a general
effort comes to be made for the specific
purpose of awakening intelligence, and
when, for tlie furtherance of this end,
we throw away a great quantity of the
useless lumber with which we now en-
cumber the minds of the young, the re-
sult will be a great development of good
sense and practical efficiency.

LITERARY NOTICES.

A Text-Book of General Astronomy for
Colleges and Scientific Schools. By
Charles A. Young, Ph. D., LL. D. Bos-
ton: Ginn & Co., 1888. Pp. 650. Price,
12.40.

Prof. C. A. Young's " Text-Book of Gen-
eral Astronomy for Colleges and Scientific
Schools " is a work worthy of the reputation
of its author, and creditable to the progress
of American science. Not only his long ex-
perience as a teacher is manifested in the
book, but also the character of his teaching,
which is clearly that of a man in close sym-
pathy with his students, who perceives accu-
rately the attitude of their minds toward the
subject, and knows just when and where to
lend assistance. It is no mere compilation,
but, to an uncommon extent, an original
work. In some text -books of astronomy
many things that the really earnest student
wants to know seem to have been carefully
excluded ; he gets results, but not the meth-
ods of attaining them, and he can not help
feeling that the author has kept him out of the
secret, as if it were a performance in presti-
digitation. Prof. Young's book is admirably
free from this fault. He not only explains
principles and methods with unusual dis-
tinctness, but he is careful to show the stu-
dent where to go for further or fuller infor-
mation. And when he sends the beginner
to higher works he starts him off with a clear
conception of what he is to go for, which in
itself is half the battle. Moreover, he takes
pains to point out the limitations of the sci-
ence— a thing of greater importance than

may at first sight appear. For instance,
what he says of the nature of the attraction
of gravitation is something that the ordinary
student rarely gets, but that is of the first
importance for a proper comprehension of
the subject : " We must not imagine the
word ' attract ' to mean too much. It merely
states the fact that there is a tendency for
the bodies to move toward each other, with-
out including or implying any explanation
of the fact. So far no explanation has ap-
peared which is less difficult to comprehend
than the fact itself. Whether bodies are
drawn together by some outside action, or
pushed together, or whether they themselves
can act across space with mathematical in-
telligence— in what way it is that ' attrac-
tion ' comes about is still unknown — appar-
ently as inscrutable as the very nature and
constitution of an atom of matter itself ; it
is simply a fu7idamc7ital facf" {p. 109).

The whole tone of the book is stimulating
and suggestive. It is interesting to the gen-
eral reader as well as to the student. The
chapter on " The Earth as an Astronomical
Body," for instance, is a beautiful example
of comprehensive treatment combined with
clear and succinct statement, including, with
an explanation of just those principles that
the student needs to have made plain, a
summary of the latest knowledge which in-
terests everybody. To particularize a little,
we have not seen in any work of the kind so
perspicuous and satisfactory an account of
the Foucault experiments with the pendulum
and the gyroscope as that given by Prof.
Young.

Among the little things, which are too
often entirely overlooked by writers of text-
books, but whose suggestivcness and value in
awakening the interest of the student, and
clarifying his ideas, have been recognized in
this book, we note the demonstration of the
eastward deviation of falling bodies (p. 94) ;
the explanation of how the height of the
mountains of the moon is measured (p. IIQ) ;
the ingenious proof of the moon's rotation (p.
154); and the stimulating little example on
page 123, showing how the eccentricity of
the earth's orbit may be found from the
greatest and least apparent diameters of
the sun.

As was to be expected from the author's
wide reputation and recognized authority as

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an observer of solar phenomena, the chap-
ters on the sun are among the most inter-
esting, instructive, and generally valuable
portions of the book. It is worth while to
quote two or three passages from these chap-
ters in which he sums up the latest results
of investigation and theory. After quoting
Secchi's later eruption theory of sun-spots,
and pointing out an obvious objection to it,
he remarks : " Perhaps the true explanation
may be that when an eruption occurs at any
spot the photosphere somewhere in the neigh-
borhood settles down in consequence of the
diminution of the pressure beneath, thus form-
ing a ' sink,^ so to speak, which is of course
covered by a greater depth of cooler vapors
above, and so looks dark " (p. 190).

In regard to the disputed question of the
influence of solar disturbances, as indicated
by sun-spots, upon the meteorology of the
earth, concerning which some extravagant
notions have recently been set forth. Prof.
Young says, " It is now quite certain that
whatever influence the sun-spots exert upon
terrestrial meteorology is very slight, if it
exists at all." This statement, coming from
one who ranks so high as an authority on
solar physics, must be rather discouraging
to those who have been trying to fix the re-
sponsibility for every great tornado, or other
unusually destructive storm of late years,
upon some unfortunate sun-spot.

Our author speaks with characteristic
modesty, and yet very interestingly, of the
phenomenon of " the reversing layer," first
observed by him during the solar eclipse of
18*70, and which seems to indicate the exist-
ence of a gaseous stratum or shell surround-
ing the photosphere, and not above five hun-
dred miles in thickness, to which the forma-
tion of the dark lines in the solar spectrum
is mainly due. While by no means aban-
doning his own opinion of the probable na-
ture of this phenomenon, he frankly states
the opposing view of Mr. Lockyer, and points
out how observation may be directed to set-
tle the question.

A most inspiring and encouraging state-
ment for those who may be troubled by
doubts as to whether any important discov-
eries remain to be achieved by future stu-
dents of the sun is that "among the many
thousand lines of the solar spectrum only a
few hundred are so far identified." There

are twelve elements familiar to us on the
earth, which are known to exist in the sun,
and nine others of whose existence there
the evidence is not quite conclusive. Prof.
Young does not pronounce quite so positively
as some foreign savants have done against
the validity of Dr. Henry Draper's conclu-
sion that his photographs had demonstrated
the presence of oxygen in the sun, but he re-
marks that the latest work appears to turn
the balance of evidence the other way. He
still accepts Rosetti's determination of the
effective temperature of the sun, 18,000°
Fahr., as being the most probable that has
yet been obtained.

The extraordinary mental picture that
we must form of the solar globe, as a body
in the gaseous condition and yet possessing
in its nuclear mass a consistency like that of
tar, has become familiar to readers of the
literature of science since the publication
of Prof. Young's admirable book on " The
Sun," In the present work he presents in
briefer form the same general conclusions
concerning the constitution of the sun. There
are few who will be disposed to accept by
preference the views of those who hold that
the great mass of the sun is probably liquid
instead of gaseous. The brief synopses given
of our knowledge of the nature of the visible
phenomena of the sun are exceedingly clear
and succinct. To begin with the photosphere,
which, as the reader knows, is the visible
surface of the sun, from which the splendor
of its light arises : " The photosphere is prob-
ably a shell of incandescent clouds, formed by
the condensation of the vapors which are
exposed to the cold of space.

" The photospheric clouds float in an at-
mosphere containing, still uncondensed, a
considerable quantity of the same vapors out
of which they themselves have been formed, ]ust
as in our own atmosphere the air around a
cloud is still saturated with water vapor. . . .

" The chromosphere and prominences are
composed of the permanent gases, mainly hy-
drogen and helium. , . . The appearances
are for the most part as if the chromosphere
was formed of jets of heated hydrogen as-
cending through the interspaces between the
photospheric clouds, like flames playing over
a coal-fire.

" The corona also rests on the photo-
sphere, . . . but extends to a far greater ele-

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

vation than even the prominences ever reach,
and seems to be not wholly gaseous, but to
contain, besides the hydrogen and the mys-
terious ' corouium,' dust and fog of some
sort, perhaps meteoric."

While the part of the book devoted to
the sun is so excellent, it must not be sup-
posed that the other divisions of the subject
have not received adequate attention. In
fact, one of the strong points of the work is
that it is well balanced, and the student gets
as complete a view of the science as is pos-
sible within the limited space of a school
text book. The author, in setting forth with
uncommon clearness the elementary mathe-
matics of his subject, has not ignored what
may be called its philosophical aspects. He
has, for example, given an account of the
nebular hypothesis which, notwithstanding
its brevity, can not fail to be of much use in
dissipating the fog that hangs over this
■whole subject in the minds of those who
have little knowledge of astronomy beyond
what has been vouchsafed to them in the
ordinary college curriculum. We should
have been pleased to see from Prof. Young's
pen an elementary account of George Dar-
win's remarkable theory of " tidal evolution,"
in place of the references that are given to
other popular explanations of that subject.

Recent discoveries have carried us so far
into the depths of space that there is nothing
within the circuit of astronomical knowl-
edge and investigation which appeals more
strongly to inquiring minds than the rela-
tions of the solar system to the universe
without. Such achievements in observation
as those of the Lick telescope, and the re-
cent surprising advances in astronomical
photography, promise us much light upon
the old problem of the structure of the
heavens. Prof. Young's remarks in the
present work on the distribution and mo-
tions of the stars, though brief, are fruitful
in suggestion. We quote the following pas-
sage as a particularly interesting generali-
zation : " In the solar system the central
power is supreme, and perturbations or de-
viations from the path which the centnal
power prescribes are small and transient.
In the stellar system, on the other hand, the
central force, if it exists at all (as an attrac-
tion toward the center of gravity of the
whole mass of stars), is trifling. Perturba-
VOL. xxxiv. — 54

tion prevails over regularity, and ' individu-
al.ism ' is the method of the greater system
of the stars, as solar despotism is that of
the smaller system of the planets."

This remark, which is fully justified by
all we now know of stellar motion, presents
a very different picture of the universe from
that which has sometimes been drawn for
the edification of admiring congregations, of
planets circhng around suns, and suns around
other suns, and these systems around grand-
er systems still, and finally the whole uni-
verse revolving with a stupendous orbital
sweep around the great center of all, the
throne of the Creator himself ! It appears
that things don't revolve that way.

There are many good features in the
book that we should like to point out if
space permitted. It may be remarked, by
the way, that a fine example of the author's
desire to convey practically useful informa-
tion is the italicized sentence on page 35 :
" Never turn the hands of a chronometer
backward.''''

It goes without saying that the more
mathematical parts of Prof. Young's work
are highly excellent, succinct, and clear.
Such subjects as central forces, the tides,
parallax, the equation of time, and perturba-
tions are treated in such a way as to give
the student a sure insight into the nature of
the problems involved.

The illustrations accompanying the text
are good, many being original, and some ex-
cellent ones borrowed from the author's
book on " The Sun " (published by Apple-
tons), and from other sources. Some useful
tables of elements and constants, based upon
the most recent information, close a book
which, it is not too much to say, will be
scarcely less welcome to the general reader
than to the students for whose instruction it
is intended.

Force and Energy : A Theory of Dynamics.

By Grant Allen. London and New

York : Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 16L

Price, ,f 2.25.

Mr. Allen's theory does not aim to revo-
lutionize the generally accepted ideas con-
cerning force, but is rather an attempt to
classify the known forms of force, and sys-
tematize their relations. Under the general
term power he includes forces and energies,
distinguishing them by their effects. Thus,

850

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he defines a force as a power which tends to
bring together portions of matter (and pos-
sibly of ether), while an energy has the op-
posite effect. He divides forces into four
species : gravitation, which aggregates mass-
es of matter; cohesion, which aggregates
molecules ; chemical affinity, which aggre-
gates atoms ; and " electrical affinity," which
aggregates "electrical units." An instance
of the operation of this last force is the dis-
charge of a Leyden jar, by which positive
and negative electricities are brought to-
gether. "In our present ignorance of the
subject," he says, "electrical affinity must
be placed in the same category as other
forces ; though further researches will doubt-
less enable us to give a better account of its
real nature." Of the unit on which this force
acts, the " electrical unit," he says that its
nature " is very inadequately known to us,"
but that it "must be considered for our
present purpose as in some way the analogue
of the others, though we have no sufficient
warrant for giving it any material proper-
ties." For further particulars he refers to a
chapter on " Electrical Phenomena," but dili-
gent search fails to discover such a chapter
in the book. The author divides energies on
the same principle as forces. " But owing,"
he says, " to the existence of two modes of
energy, the potential and the kinetic, it will
not be possible to assign a single definite
name to each species." An instance of the
action of a "molar energy " is afforded when
we lift a weight from the ground. Heat,
which separates molecules, is a " molecular
energy." As an instance of a " chemical en-
ergy " employed in separation, he gives the
power which effects the electrolysis of water.
Hence, if we understand Mr. Allen rightly,
the action of a current of electricity in elec-
trolysis is the action of two powers of oppo-
site kinds. For his aggregative power, or
force, " electrical affinity " must be acting
between the poles of the battery immersed
in the water, while his separative chemical
power, energy, is tearing apart the atoms of
hydrogen and oxygen. He mentions light
and intense heat as other examples of chem-
ical energy. His instance of (separative)
"electrical energy" is the friction which
produces a disunion of the positive and nega-
tive electrical units in the electrical machine.
But he adds that " as in the case of electrical

forces, our treatment of this department must
be considered purely temporary and sym-
bolical." There are two modes of energy,
the potential and the kinetic, and each of the
four species of energy may exist in either
mode. Motion has three kinds : separative,
aggregative, and continuous or neutral. Each
species of kinetic energy has a form of each
kind. The principle commonly called the
conservation of energy Mr. Allen names " the
indestructibility of power," applying the for-
mer term in accordance with his use of the
word energy, while he uses " the persistence
of force " to denote the indestructibility of
" aggregative power." In stating these prin-
ciples the author gives us another distinction
between force and energy, the former being
inherent in the particles of matter, never
passing from one unit to another, while en-
ergy may be transferred from one particle
or set of particles to another. Not only do
energies oppose forces, but one force may
" interfere " with another : thus, when a
weight is suspended by a cord, the cohesion
of the cord counteracts the force of gravita-
tion. So also energies may be " suppressed "
by forces or by other energies. " Liberating
energies " are those which release bodies
from the control of one force and bring them
under that of another.

With two short chapters on the nature of
energy and the nature of motion the author
closes the " abstract or analytic " part of his
book. In the " concrete or synthetic " part,
which follows, he describes the operations of
force and energy in the evolution of the sidere-
al system, the solar system, the earth, and or-
ganic life, closing with a general view of the
energies which the earth possesses. In an
" apology " prefixed to the volume the author
states that he has kept his theory in manu-
script for a number of years, and explains why
it is now published. " It pretends to be," he
says, " no more than a suggestion, an apergu,
an attempt at a theory : I ask for it nothing
better than honest consideration."

Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. Edited
by L. A. Selby-Bigge, M. A., Fellow and
Lecturer of University College. Macmil-
lan & Co., Clarendon Press. 1 vol., pp.
709. Price, $2.25.

This celebrated treatise is now repro-
duced in admirable style, containing, in ad-
dition to the text, the original title-pages of

LITERARY NOTICES.

851

1739 and 1740 ; the original advertisements,
and a critical index by the editor ; the latter
intended, in the language of the preface, to
" point, not loudly but unmistakably, to any
contradictions or inconsequences and ... to
any omissions of importance." This valuable
index occupies thirty pages of fine print. Al-
together, the present edition is a credit to all
who have been concerned in its preparation ;
and no inconsiderable service is done to phi-
losophy by thus calling attention again to
the great importance of Hume in the devel-
opment of philosophical thought.

The "Treatise of Human Nature" was
finished by Hume when he was scarcely
twenty-five years old ; and its final compo-
sition occurred in the village of La Fl^che,
in France, where his philosophical prede-
cessor, Descartes, was educated. The result
of its publication, in England, was, to use
the author's own language, that "it fell
dead-born from the press, without reaching
such distinction as even to excite a murmur
the zealots." It was not till his
js, Moral and Political," were pub-
lished (1741-1748), and achieved notable
success, that any measure of attention was
bestowed upon the " Treatise " ; and indeed
the significance of the latter in the history of
philosophy was not made manifest till the
world became acquainted with Kant's " Cri-
tique of Pure Reason," which was first pub-
lished at Riga in 1781.

This relation between Hume and Kant
can be studied to advantage in the Introduc-
tions to Hume's works by the late Prof. T.
H. Green, of Oxford, who was the leader of
the Hegelian coterie of that institution. These
Introductions are now accessible in a sepa-
rate volume (Longmans, Green & Co., 1885).
If Green's statements were limited to the
English experiential school, before the doc-
trine of evolution appeared as a factor in
philosophical thought, they would not stand
in so much need of correction. As they are,
however, they do need correction ; but, never-
theless, they exhibit tolerably well the true
position of Hume as the precursor of Kant.
The former marked the close of an epoch,
that of the course of thinking of which
Locke was the progenitor. To Kant's mind
Hume demonstrated the necessity of a new
point of departure and a new method. This
invests the " Treatise of Human Nature," his

most important work, with a peculiar inter-
est. To use Green's language, but with a
less wide application of the terms "old"
and " new " ; the " Treatise " and Kant's
" Critique " " taken together, form the real
bridge between the old world of philoso-
phy and the new. They are the essential
' propasdeutik,' without which no one is a
qualified student of modern philosophy."

The reader who desires to learn some-
thing more about Hume will do well to pe-
ruse the little volume entitled "Hume," of
the Blackwood series of " Philosophical
Classics for English Readers," written by
William Knight, LL. D., Professor in St.
Andrews University. This book gives both
a good biography of Hume and an outline of
his philosophy, a great deal in small com-
pass ; though, as in the case of Green's
works, the reader of Knight's volume must
be on his guard against a strong bias ad-
verse to Hume's philosophy, and indeed to
that of the English experiential school gen-
erally.

Down the Great River : Embracing an Ac-
count OF THE Discovery of the True
Source of the Mississippi, etc. By Cap-
tain Willard Glazier. Philadelphia :
Hubbard Brothers. Pp. 443-t-liii. Price,
$2.

In this book Captain Glazier relates the
story in full of his journey, in 1881, by
the aid of an Indian guide, " across coun-
try," from Brainard, Minnesota, to " Glazier
Lake," south of Itasca Lake, and his deter-
mination of it as the real source of the Mis-
sissippi River. The journey was made first
to Leech Lake, which is on one of the main
affluents of the upper Mississippi, and is the
seat of an Indian agency, and thence up a
chain of lakes and portages, through a terri-
tory of which very little if anything was
definitely known, to Itasca Lake ; around
Itasca Lake to the largest stream flowing
into it ; up that stream to " Glazier Lake,"
and around that lake till the author was sat-
isfied that nothing important was likely to
be found above it. Thence Captain Glazier
descended in canoes, through all the wind-
ings and the lakes of the main stream of the
Mississippi, and down the river *o its mouth ;
the whole of this journey being performed
in one hundred and seventeen days. He
claims that his is the only party that has thus

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

explored the whole length of the river. As
determiaed by the author, " Glazier Lake "
is in about latitude 47° ; is 1,585 feet above
the level of the sea, and is 3,184 miles from
the Gulf of Mexico. The river reaches its
highest northing at Lake Bemidji, in the
neighborhood of latitude 4*7° 30'. Captain
Glazier's claims to be the discoverer of the
true source of the Mississippi have been dis-
puted by some persons, who have affirmed
that the lake which has been named after
him was not unknown to Schoolcraft, and
that it has been visited by hunters. The
author replies to these objectors by affirm-
ing that, no matter how many persons may
have known of the existence of that body of
water, he was the first to explore it, to gauge
its dimensions, and to determine that it is
the ultimate source of the Mississippi ; and
he cites a large number of declarations of
geographers and of men versed in the his-
tory, geography, and traditions of Minnesota
which support his claims in this shape. He
represents " Glazier Lake," though its super-
ficial area is less, as being deeper and con-
taining more water than Itasca Lake. The
story of the explorer's journey is very pleas-
antly narrated, with descriptions of the nota-
ble points along the river and the more
striking scenes, and is embodied in a neat
volume which is adorned with appropriate
illustrations.

Lectures on Pedagogy : Theoretical and
Practical. By Gabriel Compatre.
Translated, with an Introduction, Notes,
and an Appendix, by W. H. Patne, A. M.
Bof5ton : D. C, Heath & Co. Pp. 491.
Although deeming that the best system
of teaching "which we make for ourselves
through study, experience, and personal re-
flection," M. Compayr^ says also that "in
order to aid the reflection and guide the ex-
perience of each novice in instruction, the
book is very far from being useless though
it do nothing more than stimulate personal
reflection. It is just in this spirit, less for
imposing doctrines than for suggesting re-
flections, that this modest volume has been
written." He divides the treatise into two
distinct parts, theoretical pedagogy and prac-
tical pedagogy. In the first part, after a
general consideration of the function and
limits of education, the author states the
general principles of both physical education

and intellectual education, and then takes up
the special culture of the various faculties,
beginning with the education of the senses.
Besides treating of the essential faculties
which are constantly being employed in
mental operations, he makes a plea for the
culture of the imagination, justifying this
tribute to its importance by a quotation from
Mr. Blackie, who says : " It is the enemy of
science only when it acts without reason —
that is, arbitrarily and whimsically ; with
reason it is often the best and the most in-
dispensable of allies." The education of
the feelings is also urged in a chapter which
leads up to the subject of moral education.
Esthetic and religious training are likewise
included in the scope of education. Under
practical pedagogy, methods of teaching and
rules of school management are treated. In
regard to the importance of method he says :
" There is nothing to be expected from a
discipline which is hesitating and groping ;
from instruction which remains incoherent
and disorderly, which fluctuates at the mercy
of circumstances and occasions, and which,
being wholly unpremeditated, allows itself
to be taken at unawares." The principal
methods of teaching to read are first de-
scribed, some advice on the teaching of writ-
ing is given, and the simultaneous teaching
of reading and writing is touched upon. The
author has a chapter on object-lessons, point-
ing out their true character, and telling how
they have been distorted by some teachers.
In dealing with the study of the mother-
tongue he points out some general princi-
ples, and tells the special use of grammar,
dictation exercises, analysis, composition,
elocution, and literary exercises in teaching
knowledge of language. The teaching of
history and of geography are treated in like
manner. His chapter on the sciences is de-
voted mainly to arithmetic and geometry,
while the physical and natural sciences are
disposed of in three pages. He seems in-
clined to rate the acquirement of facts as a
more important purpose of science-teaching
than the formation of the habit of observa-
tion ; therein, as in what few other sugges-
tions he gives on this subject, following the
French official programme of instruction.
Methods of moral and civic instruction,
and the teaching of drawing and music, are
treated in some detail. Manual labor for

LITERARY NOTICES.

boyp, agriculture, and military drill, manual
labor for girls, sewing, and domestic econ-
omy, are touched upon. The two closing
chapters deal with rewards and punish-
ments, and discipline in general. The text
is divided into paragraphs, each with a title.
Throughout the volume the author makes
evident his belief that a living, active per-
sonality is needed in addition to rules and
formulas, in order to make any system of
education effective.

Civilization and Progress. By John Beat-
tie Crozier. London and New York :
Longmans & Co. 1888. Pp. 477. Price,
$L50.

In this work there is much to commend.
The defect seems to be a failure to properly
condense and clarify the thought. Again,
there is, perhaps, too much reference to
particular men as exponents of intellectual
movements. Not that names should be neg-
lected, but more prominence is given to the
person than to the thought represented;
leading to the false impression that men
make an epoch instead of the truth that the
epoch makes men, who are only representa-
tives of the intellectual feeling of their times.
But, apart from these matters of minor criti-
cism, the book is a most excellent one, for
the reason that the author aims to show, and
succeeds in showing, the controlling factor in
any social progress " to be the material and
social conditions, and not, as so many be-
lieve, moral exhortation and appeal." This
rests on the law that " in this world things
make their own relations — that is to say,
their own morality — in spite of politicians or
priests. Now, should this turn out to be a
true law, it will not only settle speculatively
the basis on which civilization rests, but will
also furnish a practical guide for action. Its
importance, therefore, can not be overesti-
mated. For if the moral relationships of the
great masses of men — their ideals, opinions,
and habits of thought — grow directly out of
their conditions of life, it is evident that, in-
stead of sitting invoking {sic) a lofty morality
which will prove as obstinate as the fire in-
voked by the priests of Baal, it behooves us
rather to set to work resolutely to bring
about that amelioration in the material and
social conditions without which the higher
morality can not arise." This is a truly sci-

entific position to assume, and the fact that
the author takes it entitles his work to the
consideration of disciples of science. As to
the value of the idea set forth, there is much
force in the author's contention that we
ouo-ht to regard with serious attention the
question whether we can have any such thing
as equality or security in rights unless there
be substantially a social equality of power.
If power be unbalanced, the stronger will
oppress the weaker, and endeavor to per-
petuate its domination at the expense of the
latter. This process will go on till the press-
ure of the more powerful becomes unbear-
able, and provokes violent and destructive
eruptions leading to all sorts of convulsions.
Hence we must not expect any stable social
equilibrium unless there be an equaUty of
power — that is to say, of material and social
conditions.

Accessory to this central thought of Mr.
Crozier's work are many interesting criti-
cisms, historical, political, religious, and ethi-
cal. The book is worthy of careful study,
and is a genuine contribution to sociologic

In his Complete Graded Course in Eng-
lish Grammar and Composition (D. Appleton
& Co.), Mr. Benjamm C. Conklin has en-
deavored to compass with a single volume
the entire range of the usual two-hook course.
This he does by making it sufficiently ele-
mentary in the beginning to be put into
the hands of pupils in the lowest grammar
grades, and sufficiently advanced to cover
all that is required of the highest grammar
classes. The theory of the book is the grad-
ual development of the sentence ; the method
inductive. The teachings of the text are
exemplified by graded sentences, which in
themselves afford a concrete presentation of
the whole subject ; and these are accompa-
nied by questions so framed as to require
the pupil, after a study of the text, to formu-
late his own answers. Analysis and syn-
thesis are so carried along together as to
develop, with the knowledge of the structure
of the sentence, the power to use language.
Instead of giving examples of false syntax
for correction, a better way is sought of ac-
complishing the same object by presenting
exercises for filling out sentences by supply-
ing the correct forms of words in blank

'54

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spaces. But examples of false syntax are
given in an appendix, for teachers who pre-
fer them.

In the High-School German Grammar of
W. H. Van der Smissen and W. H. Fraser
(D. Appleton & Co.), while the lessons and
exercises have been made progressive as far
as possible, each separate subject is fully
treated before being dismissed. Care has
been taken that no grammatical point shall
occur in any sentence on which the pupil has
not been previously instructed, and that the
principles of past lessons as well as of the
current lesson shall appear in every exer-
cise. Supplementary lessons, designed mainly
for reference, are devoted to special cases of
grammatical usage. Those points in which
German differs from English usage, particu-
larly with regard to the prepositions and
their puzzling idioms, the use of participles
and the construction of participial clauses,
and the order of words and construction of
sentences, are explained. The vocabulary
gives such meanings of words as occur in
the exercises ; and the index is full.

American educators now have offered to
them the Systems of Education of Prof. John
Gill (Heath, $1.10). The work is a history
and criticism of the educational principles,
methods, organization, and discipline which
have been in use in England, and consists of
lectures which it became the author's duty to
prepare, as Professor of Education in the
Normal College, Cheltenham. The first man
whose ideas produced an important effect on
English education was Roger Ascham, and
his " Scholemaster," though dealing prima-
rily with classical teaching, yet contains prin-
ciples which are applicable to all school
subjects. Comenius, Milton, Locke, and Vi-
cesimus Knox are the other educationists
whose teachings have been influential in
shaping the grammar schools of England.
The Edgeworths and Pestalozzi are credited
with most strongly modifying the develop-
ment of the common school. Oberlin, Wil-
derspin, the Mayos, and Froebel are the
most prominent names in the history of in-
fants' schools. In the conduct of the ele-
mentary school, designed for pupils whose
education will not proceed far. Dr. Andrew
Bell, the founder of the monitorial system,
has the earliest place. Joseph Lancaster, a
contemporary of Bell, employed substantially

the same methods. Without displacing the
monitorial organization, there grew up after
a time what was called the intellectual sys-
tem, which made the culture of the inteUi-
gence its special aim. A further advance
in the same direction was made by David
Stow, who devised the training system, which
is here presented with especial fullness. The
book closes with a chapter on amateurs and
helpers, who, though not professional teach-
ers, have had more or less influence in de-
veloping systems of education.

In the Report of the Commissioner of
Education for 1886-'87 (Government Print-
ing-Office), the commissioner, Hon. N. H. R.
Dawson, states that the bureau has under-
taken to investigate the history of American
education, beginning with the sections of the
country whose educational history is com-
paratively unknown. Monographs on Will-
iam and Mary College and the University of
Virginia, with sketches of other Virginian
colleges, have been prepared. The com-
missioner devotes considerable space to tell-
ing the condition and needs of education in
Alaska, where he has personally made a tour
of inspection. Since his appointment, he
has simplified the organization of the bureau,
and has succeeded in hastening the publica-
tion of the annual reports. The volume con-
tains the usual information about the schools
of the country, and an index to the publica-
tions of the bureau, from 1868 to 1887, with
a list of the same.

The second of the " Contributions to
American Educational History," now being
published by the Bureau of Education, is on
Thomas Jefferson and the University of Vir-
ginia, by Prof. Herbert B. Adams, and con-
tains also authorized sketches of Hampden
Sidney, Randolph, Macon, Emory, Henry,
Roanoke, and Richmond Colleges, Washing-
ton and Lee University, and Virginia Mili-
tary Institute. Jefferson's efforts in the cause
of education, and the history of the estab-
lishment of the University of Virginia, are
given with much fullness. An interesting
chapter in the account tells how the example
of this university over sixty years ago aided
the birth of what is now called " the Harvard
idea." The record is made more valuable
by numerous illustrations, part of them, in-
cluding a portrait of Jefferson, being bor-
rowed from a recent article on Jefferson in

LITERARY NOTICES.

855

" The Century." Views of the buildings of
the other colleges described are also given.
Several special articles on the university are
contributed by various writers, viz. : " Influ-
ence of the University upon Southern Life
and Thought," and "The Writings of the
Faculty of the University, 1825-'2'7," by
William P. Trent, A. M. ; " Present Organi-
zation and Condition of the University," by
Prof. John B. Minor ; " The Elective System
of the University," by Prof. J. M. Garnett ;
and a " Bibliography of the History of the
University," by the editor.

The book on Manual Training in Ele-
mentary Schools for Boi/s, by A. SIut/s {Indns-
trial Education Association, New York, Part
I, 20 cents), will form Nos. 1 and 8 in the
series of monographs published by this asso-
ciation. The author is principal of the Nor-
mal School of Brussels, and has studied the
subject of manual training in Sweden, whither
he was sent for this purpose by the Belgian
Minister of Education. His book has been
translated for this series, with the belief that
it is the best and most accurate as well as
the most condensed treatment of the subject
that has yet appeared in any language. In
the first part of this work, now before us,
the author states the two standpoints from
which manual training is advocated, the eco-
nomic and the pedagogic, giving a somewhat
detailed view of the economic side of the
subject. An account of the schools of Naas,
and a history of instruction in manual train-
ing in the primary schools of Sweden, are
the other topics treated in this portion of
the book. There are some traces of the
translation process in the English of this
pamphlet. We note, for instance, the ex-
pression " whets the saw," and on the same
page the visitors are made to say, " We have
often assisted the pupils in their manual
work at the Naas school," where the original
phrase undoubtedly meant "to be present
at " ; and in the Gallicism " assisted at," at
the foot of the next page, the translator has
reproduced the form of the same phrase in-
stead of its meaning.

In his oration on TTie American JJniver-
siti/, delivered at Columbia College, June 2,
ISSY, Prof. Charles Sprague Smith expresses
the view that the future university of this
country must be formed in harmony with
the development of the American people;

that the last two years of the usual college
course may be taken a« the first two of the
university, relegating the present freshman
and sophomore work to a preparatory course ;
that election of courses rather than of sepa-
rate studies should be allowed in the univer-
sity, and but little or no election in the acad-
emies ; and that the scope of the university
should be twofold — to instruct the few and
to enlighten the many.

Prof. Robert T. Hill delivered before the
University of Texas, October 26, 1888, an
inaugural dissertation on Some Eecent As-
pects of Scientifc Education, in which he
points out that the introduction of the study
of the natural sciences into the modern sys-
tem of education has had a vast and be-
neficent influence on the popular mode of
thought, and of searching for truth, on the
public health, on the art of agriculture and
the mechanical arts, on our knowledge of
man, on the methods of education itself, and
on the progress of sociology. He touches
also upon the benefits of the extension of
university study into the homes of the people.

According to Secretary S. P. Langleifs
Report, the Smithsonian Institution is over-
taking the capacity of the fund to sustain
it, and is beginning to need larger resources.
New accommodations are needed for the
National Museum ; the library, now includ-
ing 250,000 volumes, and extremely valuable,
is so crowded in the Congressional Library
rooms as to be of little use ; the erection of
an astro-physical observatory is suggested.
The first part of Prof. Cope's work on the
reptiles and batrachians of North America
is in the hands of the printer. Explorations
are mentioned in Japan, the islands of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence (for remains of the
great auk). Central America, and Alaska.
A steady falling off is remarked in the rate
of addition to the quarto series of Smith-
sonian " Contributions," while the series of
" Miscellaneous Collections " grows much
more rapidly. The recent accessions to the
museum (12,000 groups or lots of specimens
since the present building was opened) in-
clude several extensive collections. The in-
creasing popularity of this department is
proved by the increase of 32,463 in one year
in the number of visitors (249,025 in 188'7-
'88). A higher standard than the average is

856

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

claimed for the clerical force of the Institu-
tion, and its excellence is attributed to the
absence of politics.

The sixth and seventh parts of Mr. Ricli-
ard A. Proctor^ s Old and New Astronomy
(Longmans, Green & Co., London and New
York) relate to the physical functions and
constitution of the sun and to the planet
Mercury. The author's method of treatment
is clear and interesting ; he is well at home
in the subject, and has endeavored to serve
it in this book as one should serve the chosen
and ultimate work of his Ufe. The publish-
ers have done their part in making the work
attractive, presenting a page of pleasant as-
pect, abundantly illustrated with figures in-
tended to make the text more easily intelli-
gible, and engraved in a style that leaves
nothing to be desired.

Several monographs have been sent us
by Dr. Alexis A. Julien — reprints of papers
read during several years past before scien-
tific societies. The one among them of the
most direct value is that on the Decay of the
Building- Stones of New York City, in which
the various stones employed in architecture
and their several qualities — particularly those
affecting their durability — are described. In
the Genesis of the Crystalline Iron Ores, the
various theories on the subject and the au-
thor's conclusions are given. — The Sealed
Flasks of Crystal calls attention to the liquid
inclosures in crystals, which are more fre-
quent than they are known to be, explains
their occurrence, and tells how to find them.
— A double paper On the Variation of De-
composition in the Iron Pyrites ; its Cause,
and its Relation to Density, besides the feat-
ures of treatment suggested, tells many
things concerning a common mineral, in a
style acceptable to the general reader. — Other
papers in the list are On the Geology of Great
JBarrington, Mass. ; Notes on the Gladation
of the Shawangunk Mountain, N. Y. ; The
Dunite Beds of North Carolina ; and the
Volcanic Tuffs of Challis, Idaho, and other
Western Localities.

According to the Report of the State
Mineralogist, W. J. Irelan, Jr., the State
Mining Bureau of California is satisfying a
want which the State has been in much need
of since the beginning of quartz or ledge
mining. It is gatliering the records of the
earliest mining ventures, collecting statistics

of present developments, studying the meth-
ods of recovery of the precious metals, ex-
amining the unexplored mineral sections,
determining the lithological structure of the
inclosing rocks, and making known to the
world the mineral resources of the State. It
has collected an extensive museum of speci-
mens, and is accumulating a valuable library
of books treating on the subjects for which
it was created. The report for 1888 treats
all of the counties of the State separately,
with all matters bearing upon their mining
interests and development ; and its nine hun-
dred and forty-nine pages are full of infor-
mation respecting the geology, mineralogy,
mines, method of working, machinery, and
results of each district.

The Reports and Bulletins of the Agri-
cultural Experiment Stations, whether exam-
ined collectively or separately, furnish infor-
mation of value, to a large extent fresh. One
from Hatch Experime)it Station of the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural College (No. 3, January,
1889) is devoted chiefly to Tuberculosis. —
The Annual Report of the Connecticut Sta-
tion for 1888 includes a paper on Fertilizers,
their analysis and value ; Bulletin No. 96 of
the same station (January, 1889) is on the
Valuation of Feeding -Stuffs. — Bulletin No. 2
(October, 1888) of the Storrs School Station,
Mansfield, Conn., records Experiments on the
Effects of Tillage -upon Soil Moisture. — Bul-
letin No. 4, of the New York Station, Geneva,
is on the Chemical Composition of some Feed-
ing - Stuffs (grasses, clovers, forage - crops,
grains, and by-products). — Bulletins Nos. 3
and 4 of Cornell University Station (Novem-
ber and December, 1888) relate to certain
insects and to the growing of corn for fod-
der and ensilage. — Bulletin No. 3 of the
University of Illiyiois Station (November,
1888) relates to Field Experiments in Oats.
— Bulletins Nos. 2 and 3 of loiva Agricult-
ural Collccje Station contain thirteen arti-
cles on " Corn-Tassels, Silks, and Blades " ;
" Characteristics of Hardy and Tender Fruit-
Trees"; "Promising New Fruits, Grasses,
Insects, and Insect Remedies," and other
subjects.

The Report of the Commissioned' of In-
ternal Revenue, Hon. Joseph S. Miller, for
the last fiscal year, deals chiefly with tobacco,
spirits, substitutes for butter, and adultera-

LITERARY NOTICES.

^S7

tions. A large increase is shown in manu-
factures of tobacco and collections there-
from, while the manufacture of spirits de-
creased during the year by 7,552,193 gallons,
the decrease being wholly in whiskies and
high-wines. A large and valuable portion of
the report deals with butter substitutes, and
the laws and regulations of different coun-
tries respecting them and adulterations. The
commissioner also publishes, as a separate
document, the Ret/idations for the Analysis
of Foods and Drugs in the District of Colum-
bia ; to which is appended a list of sub-
stances that are dangerous or that are harm-
less when present in foods. Bibliographies
accompany both pamphlets.

With the new year several new periodi-
cals have come into being and invite attention.
The Cumberland Presbyteinan Review is a
quarterly publication, devoted to theology
and the discussion of current religious, liter-
ary, and scientific topics, and questions con-
nected with church work and moral reform.
It is edited by J. M. Howard, D. D., and pub-
lished at Nashville, Tenn., by the Board of
Publication of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church. Among the articles we note those
of President A. B. Miller, on the " Physical
Basis of Moral Keform " ; Prof. Hinds, on
" Charles Darwin " ; Prof. Tigert, on " Our
Senses, how we use them, and what they tell
us " ; and T. M. Hurst, on the " Decay of
Christian Citizenship," as probably most like-
ly to interest our readers. The Collegian is a
monthly, devoted to the interests of under-
graduates, edited by Samuel Abbott, and pub-
lished at Boston under the auspices of the
Intercollegiate Press Association. It aims to
be the central organ of our four hundred and
fifty or more colleges, with their more than
one hundred and eight thousand students ;
and is to be, except for the " special paper,"
the work of undergraduates. The paper,
" A Worker in Stone," in the first number,
is a truly scientific study of Indian relics.
Another paper claiming attention is a sym-
posium, or collection of letters on " The In-
fluence of Athletics upon the Curriculum."
Germania is a fortnightly journal for the
study of the German language and litera-
ture, edited and published by A. W. Span-
hoofd, at Manchester, N. H. It will attempt
to teach the language and to acquaint its |

readers with the best of German literature
by publishing graded reading exercises and
selections from the representative authors.
Tlie Educator, W. H. Smith, editor, Buffalo,
monthly, September to June, will undertake
to give to persons in schools knowledge of
what is going on in the world ; of affairs of
the State and nation, scientific adventures
and discoveries, and the good in literature.
Pp. 16, $1 a year. Electric Power, R. W.
Pope and G. H. Stockbridge, editors (Electric
Power Publishing Company, New York), is
devoted to the interests of the electric rail-
way, and of the transmission of power by
electricity for industrial purposes. Monthly.
Pp. 24, $3 a year. The Business Woman's
Journal, Mary F. Seymour, editor and pub-
lisher. New York, is a monthly devoted to
the interests of all women, especially of those
engaged in active pursuits. It believes that
women may succeed in every sphere of life,
and will advocate the recognition of their
right to have their success acknowledged;
" will be the organ of no special reform, but
of all," and " will look at the woman's side
of every question." Pp. 24, $1 a year.

President G. Stanley HdVs American
Journal of Psychology, now in its second vol-
ume, well carries out the high purpose with
which it started. In the latest number, Prof.
Sanford gives a study of the " Personal Equa-
tion," including the history of the observa-
tions and the results of the investigations
that have been made on the subject ; Dr. W.
H. Burnhara considers the "Memory" from
the historical and experimental points of
view ; and Mrs. Putnam - Jacobi discusses
" The Place for the Study of Language in a
Curriculum of Education." In the notices in
" Psychological Literature," which include
many titles, works and papers on the nerv-
ous system are reviewed by Prof. Donald-
son, and those in the experimental field by
Prof. Jastrow. $5 a year.

The Harvard Law Review, monthly, is
published by students of the Harvard Law
School, with George R. Nutter as chief of
the editorial board. The numbers for Octo-
ber and November, 1888, contain an essay
by Mr. Samuel Williston on the " History of
the Law of Business Corporations before
ISOO," which received the prize offered by
the Harvard Law School Association — a prize
which has the promise of becoming an an-

858

TBE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

nual one, at least for several years to come.
A summary of the " Liquor Statutes of the
United States " is given by William Church
Osborn in the October number. The general
list of contributors includes several publi-
cists of national fame ; 35 cents a number,
$3.50 a year.

The Manufacturer and Builder, W. H.
Wahl, editor (Henri Gerard, publisher. New
York), now in its twenty-first year, is devoted
largely to the building trades, and whatever
relates to them, and well occupies its field,
which it makes to cover a wide range of
subjects. The number for January, 1889,
shows continued improvement. Among other
matters it has a review of progress during
1888. $1.50 a year.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Samuel. Editor. " The Collegian." Month-
ly. February. lsS9. Boston : New England Inter-
collegiate Press Association. Pp. 100. 30 cents.
$i5 a year.

Bell, Clark. The Recent Judicial Departure in
Insanity Cases. New York. Pp. 43.

Binet. Alfred. The Psychic Life of Micro-Ore-an-
isms. Chicago : Open Court Publishing Company.
Pp.121. T5 cents.

Bruce, Philip A. The Plantation Negro as a
Freeman. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
262. $1.25.

Buck. J. D., M. D. A Study of Man and the Way
to Health. Cincinnati : liobert Clarke & Co. Pp.
325. $2.50.

Buckham. T. R., Flint, Mich. The " Right and
Wrong " Test of Insanity. Pp. 4.

Burt, Stephen Smith, M. D. Exploration of the
Chest in Health and Disease. New York : D. Aji-
pleton & Co. Pp. 206. $1.50.

Canfield, William B., M. D. On the Microscopical
Examination of Urinary Sediment. Pp. 4. The
Gonococcus. Pp. 8. Baltimore.

Carpenter, William B. Nature and Man. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 483. $2.25.

Case, Thomas. Physical Realism. London and
New York : Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. SS7. $6.

Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion. First Annual Report, for 188S.

Coulter, John M.. and Rose, J. N. Revision of
North American Umbelliferae. CrawfordsvUle, Ind.
Pp. 144, with Plates.

Cram's Standard American Atlas of the World.
New York : William M. Goldthwaite, Manager.

Crooker, Joseph Henry. Jesus Brought Back.
Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Pp. 214.

Crothers, T. D., M. D. Should Inebriates be
punished by Death for Crime? Hartford, Conn.
Pp. 9.

" Current Literature " Monthly. February,
1889. New York. Pp. 186. 25 cents. %Z a year.

Davis, Eben H. The Beginner's Reading-Book.
Philadelphia : J. B. Lippiucott Company. Pp. 128.

Dawson, Sir J. William. On the Eozoic and
Palaeozoic Rocks of the Atlantic Coast of Canada, etc.
Pp. 20. Notes on BaUnus Hameri, etc. Pp. 6.

Dawson, Sir W., and G. M. On Cretaceous Plants
from Port McNeill, Vancouver Island. Pp. 2.

DonneU, E. J. Outlines of a New Science. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 68. $1.

Day, David T. Mineral Resources of the United
States. Report for 18S7. Washington : Government
Printing-office. Pp. 832.

Drummond, A. T. The Great Lake Basins of the
St. Lawrence. Pp. 40.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. The Folk-Lore of Plants.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 328. $1 50.

Eccles, R. G., M. D. Descent and Disease.
Brooklyn. Pp. 21.

Fletcher, Alfred Ewen. Sonnenschein's Cyclo-
paedia of Education. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bar-
deen. Pp. 562. $3 75.

Geological Survey U. S., Bulletin. Nos. 40 to 47.
Washington : Government Printiug-Office.

Gibson, R. J. Harvey. A Text-Book of Ele-
mentary Biology. London and New York : Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp 362. $1.75.

Gosse, Edmund. A History of Eighteenth Cent-
ury Literature. London and New Y'ork : Mac-
millan&Co. Pp.415. $1.75.

Gould, George M., M. D., Philadelphia. The
Psychological Influence of Errors of Refraction, and
their Correction. Pp 6.— Dreams, Sleep, Conscious-
ness. Pp. 24.— The Homing Instinct. Pp. 24.

Greely, A. W. Report of the Chief Signal-Officer
for 1SS7. Washington : Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 892.

Gumey Hot-Water Heater Calendar for 1889.
Illinois. Message of Richard J. Oglesby, Gov-
ernor. Pp. 28.

Illinois State University, Agricultural Experi-
ment Station. First Annual Report. Pp. 15.

Iowa Agricultural College Experiment Station.
Bulletins.

Ives, Frederic E. A New Principle in Heliochro-
my. Philadelphia. Pp. 13.

James, Prof. Joseph F. Distribution of Vernonia
in the United States. Pp. 5.

Kansas State Board of Agriculture. Sixth Bien-
nial Report (advance sheets). Pp. 57.— State His-
torical Society. Sixth Biennial Report. Pp. 128.

Kibler, Edward. The Universality of Two Tem-
peraments. Pp. 8.

Klein, Dr. Herrmann, and McClure, Edmund.
Star Atlas. New York : J. B. Young & Co. Pp. 82,
with Eighteen Plates.

Kreider, George N., M. D., Springfield, 111. How
Micro-Organisms enter the Body. Pp. 8.

Lake Forest University Catalogue, lSS8-'89.
Pp. 132.

Lewis, T. H. Effigy Mounds in Northern Illi-
nois. Pp. 3.

Mason, Levns D., M. D. Etiology of Dipsomania
and Heredity of "Alcoholic Inebriety." Pp. 21. —
Pathological Changes in Chronic Alcoholism. Pp. 8.
Fort Hamilton, L. I.

Mayo, Rev. A. D. Industrial Education in the
South. Washington : Government Printing-Offlce.
Pp. 86, with Plates.

Mills, Charles de B. The Tree of Mythology : its
Growth and Fruitage. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bar-
deen. Pp. 288.

Navy Department, U. S. Report of the Chief of
the Bureau of Steam Engineering for 1S8S. Pp. 101.
—Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean, February,
1889. — The DereUct American Schooner, W. L.
White.

New York. Report of the State Board of Chari-
ties. Pp. 60.— Committee Report on the Insane.
Pp. 251.— Report of the State Reformatoiy. Pp. 62.
Oswald, Felix L., M. D. Days and Nights in the
Tropics. Boston: D. Lothrop "Company. Pp. 186,
with Plates.

Preyer, Prof. W., and Brown, H. W. The Mind
of the Child. Part II. New Y'ork : D. Appletou &
Co. Pp.317. $1.50.

Ranch, John H., M. D., Secretary Illinois State
Board of Health. Report on Medical Education,
Medical Colleges, and the Regulation of the Practice

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

859

of Medicine in the United States and Canada. Pp.
163.

Eenton, A. Wood. Testamentary Capacity in
Mental Disease. Pp. 7.

Roh6, Geor?:e H.. M. D. The Electrolytic De-
composition of Organic Tissues. Pp. 15.

Romanes, G. J. Mental Evolution in Man. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 452. $3.

Serviss, Garrett P. Solar and Planetary Evolu-
tion. Boston: New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp.
24. 10 cents.

Shufeldt, R. W., M. D. Contributions to the
Comparative Osteology of Arctic and Subarctic
Water-Birds. Part II, pp. 26, with Plates.— The
Navajo Tanner. Pp. S, with Plates.

Smith, Charles Lee. History of Education in
North Carolina. Washington : Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. ISO, with Plates.

Smith, W. H., Editor. "The Educator." Month-
ly. Buffalo, N. Y. Pp. 16. $1 a year. 10 numbers.

Stowe, Winthrop E. Investigations concerning
Arabinose and some Related Substances. Knoxville,
Tenn. Pp. 26.

Thompson, Daniel Greenleaf. Social Progress.
London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
Pp. 161.

Thwing, Edward P., M. D. Euthanasia In Ar-
ticulo Mortis. Pp. 14.

Tuckernian, Frederick, M. D. The Gustatory
Organs of Vulpes Vulgaris. Amherst, Mass. Pp. 5.

" University (of Nebraska) Studies." Quarterly.
Lincoln, Neb. Pp. 64. $1. $3 a year.

University, State, of Iowa. Bulletin from the
Laboratories of Natural History. Vol. I, No. 1.
Iowa City. Pp. 96.

Wachsmuth. Charles, and Springer, Frank.
Studies in Crinoids. Pp. 54.

Waghorne, Rev. Arthur 0. Wild Berries and
other Edible Fruits of Labrador and Newfoundland.
St. John, Newfoundland. Pp. 11.

Wells, Benjamin W., Editor. Schiller's " Jung-
frau von Orleans" (Maid of Orleans). Boston: D.
C. Heath & Co. Pp. 224. 65 cents.

Woodhull, Victoria C. The Garden of Eden : The
Allegorical Meaning revealed. London. Pp. 64.

Wyman, Hal C, M. D. The Training of Nurses.
Philadelphia : Records, McMullin & Co. Pp. 15.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Natnral Purification of Polluted Streams.

— The growing population of the many cities
which discharge their sewage into rivers gives
increasing importance to the question how
great a degree of pollution is allowable in a
stream of given flow, the water of which is
to be used lower down for domestic or for
manufacturing purposes. Mr. Rudolph Ber-
ing says that oxidation and decomposition of
sewage matter was for a long time thought
to be the main cause for the clarification of
polluted rivers. To-day it is known to be
but a minor cause compared with dilution
and subsidence ; and if the sewage is dis-
charged in a fresh condition into a stream of
water, its destruction is in part due to fish
and other aquatic animals. Some of the ref-
use from stock-yards is disposed of, no doubt,
in this way. Most of the decomposition, or

oxidation as it is usually termed, of sewage
is effected by the myriads of microscopic
plants, microbes, or bacteria contained in
both air and water, which at once seize upon
the dead organic matter. For purifying the
sewage discharged into a river, oxidation can
be depended upon only to a limited extent,
because of the comparative slowness with
which it takes place. Subsidence of the
heavier matter tends to clarify it before it
flows many miles ; dilution with a sufiicient
quantity of clean water prevents an offen-
siveness almost at once ; but oxidation re-
quires many days under continuous aeration
of the river. From a comparison of data in
regard to the actual purification of polluted
streams we may draw the following infer-
ence : Rivers not to be used for water-sup-
plies, but to be inoffensive to communities ,
residing a few miles below, to remain fit for
ordinary manufafcturing purposes, and to sus-
tain the life of fish, may receive the sewage
from one thousand persons for at least every
one hundred and fifty to two hundred cubic
feet of minimum flow per minute, supposing
that natural subsidence of the heavier mat-
ter takes place immediately below the town
discharging the sewage. Beyond the above
limit it appears to be advisable to resort to
land or other filtration, or to chemical pre-
cipitation. But the whole subject needs
further investigation.

The Nebraska City Pontoon Bridge.—

Colonel S. N. Stewart, of Philadelphia, has
recently built a pontoon bridge for ordinary
traSic across the Missouri River, at Nebraska
City. It is 1,07-1 feet long, 24^ feet wide,
and consists of a flooring laid upon boats
which float upon the river and are securely
anchored. The city has held a franchise for
such a bridge for twelve years, but the pro-
ject has been opposed by persons interested
in steamboats plying on the river. Many
predicted that the attempt would fail, for
the Missouri River has a swift current, which
here attains about its highest velocity, and
large numbers of logs and trees are constant-
ly drifting in the stream. These, however,
are carried under the floats without doing
any damage. In the channel of the river the
bridge makes a V, pointing down stream,
which is the draw. To open the draw, the
connections at the point of the V are cast

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

off, and the current swings the two sections
apart, leaving a free opening 528 feet wide.
It is the widest draw in any bridge ever
built. The ends of the section are connected
by a sunken steel-wire cable, and the draw
is closed by winding this up on a capstan,
worked by one man. There is a pontoon
bridge across the Mississippi River at Prai-
rie du Chien, the draw of which requires a
powerful engine to close it. The bridge is
to be removed each winter when ice covers
the river. Both the pontoon bridge and
a crib-work structure 1,050 feet long which
crosses a second arm of the river were built
in twenty-eight days, at a cost of about
$18,000. For the spring floods it is pro-
posed to greatly increase the strength of the
steel anchoring cables. The bows of the
boats are to be sheathed with iron, and the
bottoms are to receive an extra planking of
oak. A railroad bridge of steel crosses the
river near the pontoon bridge. This was
built between December, ISSV, and June,
1888. • Heretofore pontoon bridges have been
little used except as a temporary expedient
for military purposes ; but their cheapness,
and the satisfactory character of the draw
and other details in the form just described,
bespeak for them a more extended use.

Somali Traits.— The Somahs, as repre-
sented by Mr. F. L. James, who has traveled
among them, are a curious people, hostile to
Europeans, treacherous, "marauding, semi-
civihzed half-castes, offshoots of the great
Galla race, alUed to the Caucasian type by
a steady influx of pure Asiatic blood. They
are Mohammedans, but the rites of their re-
ligion sit loosely upon them. Although their
trust is in Allah, they have been known to
ask where he can be found, as some of them
would like to catch him and spear him for
having laid waste their homes and killed
their wives and cattle. Yet they let off sud-
den prayers with great fervor during mo-
ments of anxiety." The hire of camels and
drivers to the traveler was ratified by an
oath that, if the man failed to keep the
terms of the contract, he would divorce his
wife. Mr. James had to engage women-
servants, because the men refused to build
their own mat-huts or do any cooking. None
of their fathers had done this, they argued,
and were they to do the work of women the

tribes through which they passed would de-
spise them. At one place the people believed
the caravan had descended from the heav-
ens, and this was confirmed when Mr. James
and the others began to smoke. " The pipe
was part of ourselves, for how else could
our mouths blow forth clouds, which would
of course bring down rain ? " The author
explained that these clouds were not " water-
bearers," but were due to plants lighted by
harmless fire -makers," and to prove this
one of the party struck a match and lit a
fresh cigarette. This caused further bewil-
derment. The match had produced light-
ning, and of course the cloud could produce
thunder ; so the travelers were " storm-
makers."

Healing of tlie Broken Bones of Birds. —

It is not often that doctors are able to ob-
serve a broken bone almost in the very act
of healthful healing, as has recently been the
privilege of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. He obtained
on the same day a red-tailed hawk and a
turkey-vulture which had been shot while
high in the air with a 0"45 caliber govern-
ment carbine ; the ball in the former case
passing clear through the chest, and in the
latter case breaking in two the radius and
the ulna. The hawk's wound could not be
discovered, and the bird was apparently
whole and vigorous. When killed and dis-
sected, three weeks afterward, it was found
that all of the costal ribs and the scapula
had been broken across, but were now sub-
stantially healed. The ribs had individually
made a good union and there was no anchy-
losis among them, and the blade of the
scapula, though not perfect, was in essen-
tially as good a condition as ever; the whole
constituting a case of " a fearful wound with
a truly magnificent recovery." The buzzard,
besides having been shot, had been kicked
about by the soldiers, " and was more dead
than alive." It had recovered, and could fly
well in about a week, when it was killed.
The union of the bones was complete and
firm, and a mass of callus was being rapidly
absorbed at the sides of the fracture, while
the bones had remained practically straight.
From this and other cases within his expe-
rience, the author is convinced that, in case
of fractures of the bones of the wings in
birds, the good unions that result with

POPULAR MISCELLANT.

861

hardly any deformity or shortening are
largely due to the material assistance af-
forded by the quills of the primary and sec-
ondary feathers, which act as splints. Were
this not the case, and if deformity ensued,
the bird would be crippled in its power of
flight, or deprived of it.

Food and Economical Plants of Abys-
sinia< — The most important of the food-
plants of Abyssinia is the taff [Poa Abyssin-
ica), a cereal bearing grains as small as a
pin's head, from which the general bread is
made. An inferior black bread is made
from a kind of millet that grows in low
grounds. Roasted flax-seed is sometimes
eaten. The flower-stock of the plantain,
cooked with milk and butter, is very tender,
has the flavor of new bread somewhat un-
derdone, and is an excellent dish. From the
leaves of the cTisete mats are made. The
eeca, an asclepiad, furnishes a tough fiber,
which is used in making cordage and twines.
Other fibers, for various uses, are furnished
by the bark of the Calotropis giganica ; and
the tender leaves newly pulled from the stipe
of the doum-palm are wound into all kinds
of matting and basket-ware. The powdered
seed of a large tree called herebera {MilcUia
ferruginea) is thrown into the water to stu-
pefy fish, and makes it more easy to catch
them. The chief articles of export are
calves' hides, salted and dried, beeswax,
ivory, tamarinds, ostrich -feathers, gutta-
percha, gum arable, mother-of-pearl, leopard-
skins, musk, honey, and tobacco.

Interest in Reading. — The primary ob-
ject of ordinary reading or study, Mr. Bal-
four holds, in his rectorial address at St.
Andrews, is the enjoyment to be obtained
by the possession and acquirement of knowl-
edge. Knowledge is most easily attained in
those subjects which we like most and take
most interest in ; and by that principle we
should be directed to the kind of reading
which we should take up. By the same
principle we should not try to read the books
on the list of the hundred or so best, merely
because they are on the list ; but when our
interest is fixed on a particular line, the list
is good to refer to for the best books bear-
ing upon it. What interests the ordinary
man at one time does not interest him at an-

other; but "his interests change with the
changes that are going on around him in the
world. He sees some natural curiosity, reads
something in the newspapers, hears of some
incident or character in history, or goes to
some place which awakens his interest and
attention, and induces him to read. If the
ordinary man, then, is to read what interests
him, he is pretty sure to read widely, and
therefore necessarily, since life is short, su-
perficially. . . . Now, can it be said, that
the man who reads hke this, with freshness
and vigor, eager to find out something, to
get light on a subject dark to him before,
will not get more knowledge, and so benefit
himself vastly more, than the man who, with
slow and painful steps, heavily plods through
a list of books, though that Ust has on it all
the masterpieees of creation ? "

Honse-top Snmmer-Resorts. — A plau to
make our house-tops useful is sketched by
Dr. Gouverneur M. Smith, in a paper on
"Wasted Sunbeams — Unused House-tops."
The Oriental has no difiiculty in the matter ;
he lives on the top of his house a consider-
able part of the year, and builds his roof
with an especial eye to that sort of occupa-
tion. Why may not we ? By pitching our
tents upon them, or by taking them as they
are, except that the roof -coverings would have
to be made more solid, we might make our
roofs comfortable sojourniug-places and in-
expensive summer health-resorts. " Roof-
ing," says the author, " can be contrived
suited to this climate, and enduring as pave-
ment. A pleasure resort might ornament
each residence, its limits bounded by the
area of the dwelling ; neighborly consent
could widen the range, turf and flowers
brightening the plan. Iron-framed and glass-
inclosed rooms or cupolas could be added,
which would prove useful during all seasons,
artificial heat tempering brumal inclemency.
If such adaptation of house-tops would be
an advantage to the affluent, who can escape
city life during the summer, how much
greater advantage would be secured to the
tenement-house districts ! . . . For the high-
er graded tenement - houses, such fresh-air
facilities would be hailed with delight by
the inmates. The proximity of open breath-
ing-places totheir rooms would endear their
humble homes. Summer moonlight even-

862

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ings could have a new aspect ; and again,
round a family lantern, groups might gather
to read, sew, or engage in games, and thus a
bome-felt pleasure could quiet restless spir-
its, craving questionable or illicit amuse-
ments. More true enjoyment might be ob-
served in such groups than on the piazzas of
fashionable resorts. Landlords could arrange
for the periodical sweeping of roofs, as well
as of the halls and stairways, and, among a
very large class of the respectable poor,
pride would stimulate to a tidy and deco-
rative care of their home parks." By a lit-
tle alteration in structure the upper stories
of houses, now stuffy places enough, could
be made light and air^, and attractive as re-
sorts or play-rooms in inclement weather.
This recalls the papers contributed by Mr.
Bunce in " Appletons' Journal " several years
ago, in which a similar utilization of the
roofs of the tall houses just then coming
into fashion, or their conversion into gar-
dens, was advised and illustrated with pleas-
ing descriptions of what might be.

Adolf Sntro's Water-Power.— Mr. Adolf
Sutro's aquarium at San Francisco, though
at a higher level than the ocean, is fed by
sea-water in sufficient quantities to furnish
a strong constant stream by the action of
natural forces only. How it is done has
been told, in the California Academy of Nat-
ural Sciences, by Mr. Theodore H. Hittell,
who indicates also what may be a new eco-
nomical power. The aquarium is on the
lee side of a jutting rock. Through this
rock, and leading out to its exposed face, is
a short tunnel, while on the face of the rock
most exposed to the rollers of the ocean is
an excavated hollow place or basin, the bot-
tom of which is several feet above high-
water mark. As the rollers come in they
dash violently against the face of the rock,
rise in mingled water and foam to a very
considerable height, and splash over into
the basin. The water thus caught in the
basin does not fall back into the ocean, but
runs through the tunnel into the aquarium
and maintains its high level. Between that
level and the level of the ocean in the cove,
where there is no rock to dash against and
no splashing, there is a fall, as indicated by
the running stream, of several feet — enough
to furnish very valuable water-power. The

principle of gaining a head of water thus
applied may obviously be made of great im-
portance at many points along the coast.
Though the main body of water to be caught
is thrown up only during high tide, there is
hardly any limit to the amount that may be
thus secured, provided the basin is large
enough and not too elevated.

Fast Railway-Trains. — Some remarkably
fast time has been made recently by trains
between London and Edinburgh, in conse-
quence of a rivalry between the Northwest-
em and the Great Northern Railways. The
journey formerly took nine hours, but last
summer the former road reduced the time to
eight hours and a half. Its rival then made
it eight hours, and, on August 6th, the Scotch
Express, on the Northwestern, covered the
distance in eight minutes less. The times of
the runs made without stopping on this trip
were: Euston to Crewe (158 miles), 2 h.
56 m. ; Crewe to Preston (52^ miles), 51m.;
Preston to Carlisle (90 miles), 1 h. 38 m. ;
Carlisle to Edinburgh (100| miles), 1 h. 45 m. ;
the average speeds attained being the high-
est yet reached. On the second day of the
accelerated service, this train, consisting of
an engine with six coaches, made the run
from Crewe to Preston in fifty minutes, and
that from Preston to Carlisle in ninety min-
utes. This is claimed as beating every pre-
vious record.

Sagacity of the Blood-honnd.— The blood-
hound is declared by Dr. Gordon Staples,
from his own somewhat wide experience, to
be one of the most sagacious of all dogs.
'■ His wisdom when quite a puppy is some-
times astonishing. When only six months
old, he will often show to his master that he
has already come to the conclusion that life
is real and earnest, and not meant merely to
romp and play in. I have had a puppy at
this age take me quite in charge, as it were,
giving himself all the airs and manners of a
dog of seven years old, and going on watch
at nightfall as serious as a sentry in an ene-
my's country. He would look up in my face
as much as to say : ' There's nobody in this
wicked world worth a thought except you
and me, master, and you don't count as far
as defense goes; if you please, I'll do the
watching for both.' As a rule, the blood-

NOTES.

863

hound is most docile and willingly affection-
ate. He can be trusted with children; so
much so, that a boy may safely do duty as
the 'hunted man ' when the hound is being
trained in hill or forest. The animal is nev-
ertheless suspicious of the motions of stran-
gers; he therefore makes a most efficient
guard either to person or to property." Both
scent and sight are remarkably well devel-
oped in the blood-hound ; the animal is beau-
tifully formed all over for hard work, but
does not excel in speed. In olden times he
was called the " slow-hound," among other
names, and when the trail was perceptible,
even to human senses, the dog was taken on
horseback to save time. Great value is put
upon the hound's up-bringing and general
treatment when not on duty. " If the creat-
ure has been reared and trained by a fool,
and under the influence of fear — if he be not
well kept, properly bedded, exercised, and
fed, and allowed the companionship of man,
he is certain to develop more or less of nerv-
ous debility, and ten to one will go wrong
at the critical moment. , . . Some people
doubt the possibility of dogs tracking a crimi-
nal through the streets and lanes and busy
thoroughfares of a crowded city. They speak
of cross-scents ; but in doing so they speak
of what they do not understand as well as —
the blood-hound does. He has got the right
scent at the right place, and, if he is the
right sort of dog, he will stick to that and
no other. Besides, it has been done over
and over again."

Diet and Disease. — Dr. A. Hunter's new
cook-book — " Culina Famulatrix Medieinse ;
or, Eeceipts in Modern Cookery, with a
Medical Commentary " — contains much plain
speaking with reference to certain dishes
which are supposed to contribute to the
increase of the business of doctors. A cer-
tain giblet-soup is described as containing
" a considerable amount of gout and scurvy."
A mock-turtle soup is pronounced " a dan-
gerous dish, and will soon bring a man to
his crutches " ; a second kind is denounced
as " a most diabolical dish, only fit for the
Sunday dinner of a rustic who is to work
the six following days in a ditch-bottom " ;
and of a third, the author observes, " there
is death in the pot." Other dishes of equally
elaborate composition, and to the lay view as

indigestible, are well spoken of; whence it
may be inferred that the author is as preju-
diced as scientific.

NOTES.

Dr. H. a. Hark, of the University of
Pennsylvania, has issued, through P. Blakis-
ton. Son & Co., Philadelphia, his essay on
" Mediastinal Disease," to which the Medi-
cal Society of London awarded the Fother-
gillian medal for 1888.

A CURIOUS story of foster relationship be-
tween a wood-duck and a hen is told by a
Mr. Palmer. The duck was hatched along
with a brood of chicks from an egg that had
been placed under the hen. It was attended
as well as her other chicks by the mother,
and reached adult age. Then, when the hen
brought out another brood of chicks, it kept
in close attendance, much to the hen's an-
noyance, and with occasional resultant fights.
Finally, the duck drove away the hen and
took exclusive care of the chicks during the
day, only giving them up at night.

A NEW oil-burning light, called from its
inventor the Doty light, is said to be well
suited for Ughting all places where brilliant
illumination, without dark shadows, is re-
quired at moderate cost and without elabo-
rate preparation. In it oil is forced by com-
pressed air through a tube which has been
formed into a double coil. The coil is heat-
ed, so that the oil is vaporized in passing
through it, and, becoming ignited at the
burner, issues in a brilliant flame. The press-
ure of the air is kept up by a few occasional
strokes upon a hand-pump. Three sizes of
the light are placed upon the market — 300,
500, and 1,000 candle-power. The inventor
claims for it numerous advantages resulting
from its being self-contained, self-generating,
and portable.

The greater prevalence of diphtheria,
small-pox, and scarlet fever in the cold sea-
sons of the year is explained by Dr. H. B.
Baker as resulting from the tendency in
those periods to catarrhal inflammations of
the respiratory tract. This is also exempli-
fied in the prevalence of influenza, bronchitis,
and tonsillitis. The cause of these forms of
inflammation may be found in the retention
of non-volatile salts in the mucous lining of
the air-passages.

The land of the salt-district in Cheshire,
England, is gradually undergoing subsidence
in consequence of the pumping up of the
brine which is produced by the solution of
the rock-salt far below the surface. As this
brine is removed, fresh water takes its place,
and this reacts upon the rocks, forming new
brine, which is pumped up in its turn. And
so the process goes on year after year, with
constant removal of the props of the earth.

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Experiments have been made by Mr.
Saunders, of the Experimental Farms, Otta-
wa, in the cultivation of grains from the
extreme north of Europe, for the purpose
of securing varieties that will ripen in the
shortest Canadian summers. Wheat from
Lake Ladoga, latitude 69°, ripened from ten
to fifteen days earlier than other varieties in
cultivation ; a difCerence sufficient to insure
its maturing soon enough to escape the ear-
liest autumn frosts. This wheat yielded
nineteen-fold, and was of satisfactory qual-
ity. Onega wheat, from latitude 62° ; bar-
ley, from latitude 66° ; and barley and rye
from latitude 67° — or from the extreme
northern limits at which cereals are grown
in Europe in a continental climate — are on
trial.

How dependent schools were, and to
some extent still are, on books as contrasted
with individual power, is illustrated in the
life of the late Prof. Thomas Hill Green.
The first time he competed for the Queen's
medal at Rugby he complained that, though
the judges liked his essay the best, they gave
the prize to another boy, " because his essay
showed more labor, i. e., came out of thirteen
books instead of his own head." In the next
competition he was successful, contrary to
his own expectation, for the subject was one
for which, he says, he had " to consult a va-
riety of forty authorities, which I never can
succeed in doing well ; I always find that, if
I cram myself with the ideas of others, my
own all vanish."

A NEW life-saving jacket — Mr. J. John-
son's "Eclipse Life-Belt" — consists of twen-
ty corrugated metal tubes joined with dura-
ble webbing, so adjusted as to give the tubes
a vertical position on the chest and back. It
has a supporting power of thirty-two pounds
in fresh water. The belt can be readily
adapted to the side of a ship's boat to ren-
der it unsinkable.

A SUFFERER from sleeplessness avers that
he has found a remedy for his trouble by
holding his breath till discomfort is felt,
and repeating the process a second and a
third time. The " Lancet," while it admits
that this method may produce the desired
effect, mentions some dangers connected
with it which would make its general adop-
tion unadvisable. Another victim of insom-
nia, regarding the afiiiction as a consequence
of mental worry and deficiency of exercise
and fresh air, advises hygienic living, mod-
eration in eating and drinking, and absti-
nence from stimulants. In dealing with
severe nervous irritation from mental or
physical work, he has found a daily rest an
almost essential prelude to sleep at night.
This advice is pronounced sensible.

M. Des Cloizeaux has become President
of the French Academy of Sciences ; and M.
Hermite has been chosen Vice-President, to
become President in turn in 1890.

The Medico - Chirurgical Society of the
Canton of Berne, Switzerland, has offered
prizes for the best and next best essays on
the question, "Up to what point is there
ground for entertaining the criticisms which
have been made from a medical point of
view on the intellectual overpressure of
children in the schools of a Swiss terri-
tory ? " Essays of a purely theoretical char-
acter, and compilations from books embody-
ing facts which the competitor has had no
means of personally examining, will not be
considered. The essays may be in French
or German.

Mr. Ill Thcrm noticed, in the course of
his explorations in British Guiana, that
tamed animals of many species — parrots,
macaws, trumpeters, monkeys, toucans,
etc. — were kept in some of the Indian vil-
lages. They take the place of currency.
These Indians, not having yet risen to the
civilization of a protective system, carry on
special occupations in their different vil-
lages : thus in one they spin, in another
make mats, in a third pottery, in a fourth
cassava-mills, etc. Some of the trading is
done by barter between the villages, and the
balances are adjusted with this living " cur-
rency."

The seventieth birthday of Prof. Von
Pettenkofer — the father of hygienic science,
as the Gci'mans call him — was celebrated in
Munich on the 3d of December, with enthu-
siastic demonstrations by the students, and
visits and testimonials from scientific and
medical men of all parts of Germany. Among
those who thus honored him were the civic
dignitaries of Munich ; the National Liberal
party ; representatives of the royal family ;
numerous scientific and medical societies and
universities at home and abroad ; the Prussian
Minister of Education ; and old pupils. The
students had a grand torchlight procession
on the evening of the 5th, which was ad-
dressed by Pettenkofer, and ended with a
shout and a song.

A COMPENDIUM of transoceanic weather
observations — from Walfisch Bay, South Af-
rica; Hatzfeldhafen, New Guinea; and the
coast of Labrador — has been pubhshed by
the " Deutsche Seewarte." The last observa-
tions were made by missionaries on the ini-
tiative of the "Seewarte." Such observa-
tions will hereafter be regularly published
in yearly volumes.

Among the more important papers in the
" Year-Book " of the Italian Meteorological
Society for 1887 are those of Ferrari on the
relations of sun-spots to earth-magnetism,
of Pagliani on the relations of cholera and
weather, and of Roster on those of the air
and health. The "Year-Book" also con-
tains a bibhography of all Italian works on
meteorology that appeared in 1886.

An Anthropological Congress is to be
held in Vienna in August.

i]sr D EX.

PAGE

Abbott, C. C. The Pine-Tree Lizard 162

" A Correction. Cor. 411

Absence of Memory and Presence of Mind. Pop. Misc 571

Abyssinia, Food and Economical Plants of. Pop. Misc 861

African Roads. Pop. Misc 285

Agnosticism. Prof. T. H. Huxley 750

Ainu Family-Life and Religion. J. K. Goodrich 81

Alcoholic Heredity, New Facts in. T. D. Crowthers, M. D 524

Allen, Grant. Evolving the Camel 192

" Genius and Talent 341

Alphabet, A Phonetic, for American Languages. Pop. Misc 281

Altruism and Egoism. Editor's Table 559

Altruism Economically Considered. C. W. Smiley 53

Altruism, Relation of, to Egoism. C. H. A. Bulkley. Cor 411

Americanists, The, in Congress 686

Andrews, E. F. The Type- Writer for the Blind. Cor 414

Animal Arithmetic. Madame CMmence Royer 252

Animals, Can they count the Days ? A. S. Hudson, M. D. Cor 123

Animals, Do they play 'Possum ? S. F. Goodrich. Cor 557

Announcement. Editor's Table 416

Ant, The Destructive White. Pop. Misc 284

Arras, J. M. Natural Science in Elementary Schools 662

Arts of Life, The, in Anthropology. Pop, Misc 430

Aryans, The, in Science and History. Horatio Hale 672

Ashley, Charles S. The Effects of Protection 1

Association, The Australasian. Pop. Misc 709

Astronomy Class, Our. Cor t 122

Atkinson, Edward, Sketch of. 113

Atomic Worlds and their Motions. Dr. Heinrich Hensoldt 1 83

Australian Message- Sticks. Pop. Misc 570

The American. Pop. Misc 281

Barrancas, The Brazilian. Pop. Misc 140

Barron, G. B., M. D. Town-Life as a Cause of Degeneracy 324

Bees, The Ways of. M. B. Chaddock. Cor 698

Belon, Pierre, Sketch of 692

Billings, J. S., M. D. House-Drainage from Various Points of View 310

Blood-hound, Sagacity of a. Pop. Misc 862

Bonney, Prof. T. G. The Foundation-Stones of the Earth 652

VOL. XXXIV. — 55

866 INDEX.

Books noticed : p^^j.

Abbott, Samuel. The Collegian 857

Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Journal of 131

AdS,ms, Prof. H. B. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. . 854

Agricultural Experiment Stations, Eeports and Bulletins 856

Allen, Grant. Force and Energy . 849

Allen, J. H. The Tariff and its Evils 565

American Society for Psychical Research, Proceedings of. 131

Bain, Alexander. English Composition and Rhetoric 419

Besant, Walter, The Eulogy of Richard Jeffries 701

Bierbower, Austin. The Virtues and their Reasons 422

Bowker, R. R., Annotator. The President's Message of 1887 276

Brandt, H. C. G. First Book in German 426

Bray, Rev. H. T. Essays on God and Man 129

Browning, Oscar. Aspects of Education 276

Calkins, M. W. Sharing the Profits 567

Cameron, James. Soaps and Candles 424

Carter, J. M. G. Synopsis of the Medical Botany of the United States. . 274

Chester, John. Ruth, the Christian Scientist 568

Christopher, W. S., M. D. Chemical Experiments for Medical Students 275

Clarke, F. W. The Constants of Nature 129

Compayr6, Gabriel. Lectures on Pedagogy 852

Comstock, J. H. Introduction to Entomology 703

Conklin, B. C. Course in English Grammar and Composition 853

Cooke, M. W. The Human Mystery in Hamlet 568

Cope, Prof. E. D. Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series 274

Crozier, J. B. Civilization and Progress 853

Cruger, Mary. How she did it 424

Currie, Prof. George O. Selected Poems from Lamartine 132

Curtman, Prof. C. O. Chemical Lecture Notes 425

Dawson, N. H. R. Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1886-87. 854
Dawson, Sir J. W. Specimens of Eozoon Canadense and their Re-
lations 666

Day, D. T. Mineral Resources of the United States 706

D'Ooge, Benjamin. Colloquia Latina 132

Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society. Journal 132

Ethical Record, The 568

Evans, G. A. Historical and Geographical Phthisiography 423

Eernow, B. E. Report of the Division of Forestry for 1887 275

Finance, True or False 707

Foster, Michael, Editor. The Journal of Physiology 705

Frieze, H. S. Institutes of Quintilian 421

Gardner, E. C. Town and Country School Buildings 564

Gill, John. Systems of Education 854

Gilmore, J. R. The Advance-Guard of Western Civilization 422

Glazier, Captain Willard. Down the Great River 857

Hale, Dr. E. M. The Cat and its Diseases 706

Hall, President G. Stanley. American Journal of Psychology 857

Hall, T. W., M. D. A Correlation Theory of Chemical Action and

Afl3nity 707

Harland, Marion, Editor. The Home-Maker 704

INDEX, 867

Books noticed : PioK

Hilger, Dr. A., and others. Vierteljahressclirift . . . der Chemie der

Nahrungs- und Genussmittel 1 30

Hill, Prof. R. T, Recent Aspects of Scientific Education 855

Hittell, J. S. A Code of Morals 707

Holbrook, M. L. Eating for Strength 566

Holmes, Nathaniel. Realistic Idealism in Philosophy itself. 420

Howard, J. M. Cumberland Presbyterian Review 857

Imperial University, Tokio, Japan, Journal of the College of Science .... 566

Irelan, Jr., W. J. Report of the State Mineralogist of California 856

Jordan, D. S. Darwinism 271

" Manual of the Vertebrate Animals of the Northern United

States 565

Julien, Dr. Alexis A. Scientific Monographs 856

Kay, David. Memory : What it is and how to improve it 561

Ketchum, A. C. Botany for Academies and Colleges 423

Langley, S. P. Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.. 855

Lewis, J. H. The Kitchen 275

Lockwood, Samuel. Animal Memoirs 127

Loti, Pierre. An Iceland Fisherman 132

Lubbock, Sir John. On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of

Animals 270

MacDowall, A. B. Facts about Ireland 132

Michaelis, K. W. and O. E. Sketch of Alfred Krupp 567

Miller, J. S. Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 856

" Report of the Regulations for the Analysis of Foods and

Drugs 857

Molloy, Gerald. Gleanings in Science 703

Montelius, Oscar. Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times 703

Monthaye, E., Krupp and De Bange. Visit to the Krupp Works at

Essen 276, 567

Moore, J. S. Friendly Letters to American Farmers and Others 276

Museum, United States National, Proceedings of the 706

Nast's Illustrations of the President's Message of 1887 276

Nathan, G. R. Harvard Law Review 857

Nebraska University Studies 274

Nettleship, R. L. Works of Thomas Hill Green, Vol. Ill 562

Newell, W. W., Editor. American Journal of Folk-Lore 131

Packard, A. S. Entomology for Beginners 129

Parloa's, Miss. New Cook-Book 707

Philpott, H. J. Tariff Chats 567

Phyfe, W. H. P. The School Pronouncer 425

Pope, R. W., and Stockbridge, G. H. Electric Power 857

Proctor, Richard A. Old and New Astronomy 130, 856

" Great-Circle Saihng 567

Quick Cooking 424

Riley, Prof. C. V., Editor. Insect Life 132

" " Report of the Entomologist 706

Roosevelt, Theodore. Essays on Practical Politics 273

Eosenbusch, H., and Iddings, J. P. Microscopical Physiography of the

Rock-making Minerals 564

868 INDEX.

Books noticed : page

Sargent, Prof. C. S., Editor. Garden and Forest 705

Selbj-Bigge, L. A. Hume's Treatise of Human Nature 850

Sensenig, David M. Numbers Symbolized 128

Serviss, Garrett P. Astronomy with an Opera-Glass 564

Seymour, M. F. The Business "Woman's Journal 857

Shepherd, H. A. Antiquities of the State of Ohio 421

Sherwood. New Model First Reader 277

Shoppell's Modern Houses 707

Simon, W. Manual of Chemistry 273

Sluys, A. Manual Training in Elementary Schools for Boys 855

Smith, 0. S. The American University 855

Smith, W. H. The Educator 857

Spanhoofd, A. W. Germania 857

Starr, Louis, M. D. Hygiene of the Nursery 422

Steinke, T. G. Die Gegenwart ^. 707

Stockbridge, H. E. Rocks and Soils 565

Talmage, J. E. First Book of Nature 707

Thomas, Cyrus. Burial-Mounds 702

Toyo Gakugei Zasshi 275

Tuckerman, Alfred. Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope 273

Turner, S. E. The Germanic Constitution 130

Tyndall, John. Diamagnetism and Magne-Crystallic Action 272

United States, Reports from Consuls 276

Van der Smissen, W, H., and Eraser, W. H, High-School German

Grammar 854

Wahl, W. H. The Manufacturer and Builder 858

Watts, C. A. The Agnostic Annual for 1889 568

Wells, D. A. Relation of the Tariff to Wages 567

Whitman, W. O., Editor, The Journal of Morphology 272, 705

Wines, F. H. American Prisons in the Tenth Census 276

Young, C. A. Text-Book of General Astronomy 847

Botanical, The, Outlook. Pop. Misc 674

Boys' Color-Knowledge. Pop. Misc 430

Bridge, The Nebraska City Pontoon. Pop. Misc 859

British Borneo, Native Life in. D. D. Daly 246

British Gold-Mines. Pop. Misc 572

Browski, Dr. L. E. The Yezidees, or Devil-Worshipers 474

Buffalo, Domestication of the. J. W. Dafoe 777

Bulkley, C. H. A. Relation of Altruism to Egoism 411

Byrne, C. C, M. D. The Work of the Burrowing Rat. Cor 414

" The Great Southern Tortoise again. Cor 698

Calhoun, J. D. A Dog that could count 414

Camel, Evolving the. Grant Allen 192

Canals of Mars, Searching for the. Pop. Misc 572

Cave-Men, Preglacial, in Wales. Pop. Misc 135

Chaddock, M. B. Insect Fertilization of Flowers. Cor 558

" The Ways of Bees. Cor 698

Charms, Protective. Pop. Misc 717

Chemistry, The, of To-Day. Prof. Ira Remsen 591

INDEX, 869

PAGE

Chemistry, The Teaching of. Pop. Misc 280

Chevreul's, M., New-Year's-Day. Pop. Misc 709

Child, An Eyeless. Pop. Misc 286

Children's Punishments. Pop. Misc 572

Chinese Marriage Customs. Adele M. Fielde 241

Chinese Names. Pop. Misc 713

Chinese, The, and their Limbs. Pop. Misc 283

Cigarette-Smoking, Effects of. Pop. Misc 279

City Schools, Faults of. Pop. Misc 569

Chmatology, Hydrology and, International Congi-ess of. Pop. Misc 573

Cogswell, Franklin. California Perforated Stones. Cor 123

Competition and the Trusts. George lies 619

Competition. Editor's Table 699

Continental Centers. Pop. Misc 427

Cooke, Josiah Parsons. The Chemical Elements 733

Cope, E. D. Woman Suffrage. Cor 558

Correction, A. C. C. Abbott. Cor 411

Correspondence 122, 411, 556, 698, 841

Cramer, Frank. The Extension of the Suffrage to Women, Cor 415

Crocodile, About a. Pop. Misc 428

Crothers, T. D., M. D. New Facts in Alcoholic Heredity 524

Curtis, Moses Ashley, Sketch of 405

Dafoe, J. W. Domestication of the Buffalo 777

Daly, D. D. Life in British Borneo 246

Daubr6e, Prof. G. A. Underground Waters in Rock Transformations 508

Deaths by Wild Beasts in India. Pop. Misc 142

Deception, The Psychology of. Prof. J. Jastrow 145

*' Demoniacal Possession " and Insanity. A. D. White 433, 577

Desert, How a, was made Productive. Pop. Misc 141

Devil-Theory, The. Editor's Table 843

Diet and Disease. Pop. Misc 862

Direction, Sense of, in Insects. Pop. Misc 570

Doctors and the Opium-Habit. A. F. Stifel. Cor 122

Doctrine, a, The History of. Prof. S. P. Langley 212, 385

Dog, A, that could count. J. D. Calhoun. Cor 414

Domestication of the Buffalo. J. W. Dafoe 777

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. Plants in Witchcraft 826

Editor's Table 124, 267, 416, 559, 698, 843

Education, The Sacrifice of. A Protest 399

Egg-Shell, The Chemistry of an. Pop. Misc 711

Elements, The Chemical. J. P. Cooke 733

Emotions, Training the. Pop. Misc 574

Energy, The, in an Earthquake. Pop. Misc 427, 715

Enthusiast, An, in Science. Pop. Misc 575

Espy, James Pollard, Sketch of 834

Evil, An, of Civilization. Pop. Misc 137 ~

Examinations, The Abuse of. Editor's Table 418

Experimental Psychology, Value of. Pop. Misc 427

870 INDEX.

PAGE

Fading Photographs. Pop. Misc 429

Fast Ocean Passages. Pop. Misc 426

Fast Railway-Trains. Pop. Misc 862

Faults of City Schools. Pop. Misc 569

Fernald, F. A. Science and " Christian Science " 798

Fielde, Adele M. Chinese Marriage Customs 241

Fiji Islands, Among tlie. Coutts Trotter 644

Floras, Geological. Pop. Misc 712

Flying- Machine, The Problem of a. Prof. Joseph Le Conte 69

Flying-Machine, The, Problem. T. W. Mather. Cor 556

Flying-Squirrels, Colors of. Pop. Misc 427

Forest-Groupings, The Origin of. Marquis de Saporta 229

Forestry in Switzerland. Pop. Misc 714

Foundation-Stones, The, of the Earth. Prof. T. G. Bonney 652

Freeman, Prof. E. A. Comments on " The Sacrifice of Education " 535

French, J. M., M. D. Infant Mortality and the Environment 221

Freshfield, D. W. The Suanetians and their Home 380

Gale, Harlow. The Origin of Holidays 516

Gas Heating Appliances, Improved. Pop. Misc 714

Gauss and the Electric Telegraph 396

Gems. Pop. Misc 428

Genealogy of Man, The Last Stages in the. M. P. Topinard 171

Genius and Talent. Grant Allen 341

Glass-Making. Prof. C. H. Henderson 598

Gold-Mines, British. Pop. Misc 572

Goodrich, J. K. Ainu Family-Life and Religion 81

Goodrich, S. F. Do Animals " play 'Possum " ? Cor 557

Graphite, Archsean, Origin of. Pop. Misc 715

Guiding-Needle, The, on an Iron Ship. T. A. Lyons, U. S. K 289

Gypsies, Religious Notions of. Pop. Misc 279

Hale, Horatio. The Aryans in Science and History 672

Hammond, Clement M. The Prolongation of Human Life 92

Harrison, Frederic. Comments on " The Sacrifice of Education " 535

Healing of the Broken Bones of Birds. Pop. Misc 860

Henderson, Prof. C. H. Glass-Making. A Pane of Glass 598

Hensoldt, Dr. Heinrich. Atomic Worlds and their Motions 183

Holidays, The Origin of. Harlow Gale 516

House-Drainage from Various Points of View. J. S. Billings, M. D 310

House-top Summer-Resorts. Pop. Misc 861

Hudson, A. S., M. D. Can Animals count the Days ? Cor 123

Human Mind, The Derivative Origin of the. G. J. Romanes 792

Huxley, Prof. Thomas H. Agnosticism 750

Hydrology and Climatology, International Congress of. Pop. Misc 573

lies, George. Competition and the Trusts 619

Indians, Our, and the Mongolians. Pop. Misc 278

Indians, Puget Sound, Time-Reckoning of. Pop. Misc 137

Industrial Training, Subjects for. Pop. Misc 135

Infant Mortality and the Environment. J. M. French 221

INDEX. 871

PAGE

Insect Fertilization of Flowers, M. B. Chaddock, Cor 558

Interglacial Man in Ohio. Pop. Misc 278

International, The, Geological Congress. Pop. Misc 278

Inventional Geometry. Edward R. Shaw 357

James, Prof. Joseph F. Curiosities of Natural Gas 821

Japanese Mirrors. Pop. Misc 572

Japan, Volcanic Explosion in. Pop. Misc 716

Jastrow, Prof. J. The Psychology of Deception 145

" The Psychology of Spiritualism 721

Jenkins, Therese A. Silk-Culture in the United States. Cor 843

Johonnot, Prof. James. The Story of a School 496

Kidd, J. B. Our Astronomy Class. Cor 122

Krauss, F. S. South Slavic Moon-Myths 615

Lady Crab, The Dance of the. T. H. Morgan 482

Lagrange, M. F. Physical Training of Young Children 449

Langley, Prof. S. P. The History of a Doctrine 212, 385

Larrabee, "W. H. Sea-Lions and Fur-Seals 330

Law as a Disturber of Social Order. Benjamin Eeece 631

Learning to Think. Editor's Table 845

Le Conte, Prof. Joseph. The Problem of a Flying-Machine 09

Le Sueur, W. D. Science and its Accusers 367

Lick Observatory, Work at the. Editor's Table 268

Life, The Storage of. Pop. Misc 282

Literary Notices 127, 270, 419, 561, 701, 847

Lizard, The Pine-Tree. C. C. Abbott 162

Loess, Melting away of the Mongolian. Pop. Misc 141

Longevity of Professional Men. Pop. Misc 717

Lubbock, Sir John. Problematical Organs of Sense 101

Lucigen. Pop. Misc 137

Lunar Mystery, New Light on a. G, P. Serviss 158

Lyons, T, A., U. S, N. The Guiding- Needle on an Iron Ship 289

McGee, W J, Paleolithic Man in America 20

Man, Paleolithic, in America. W J McGee 20

Man, The Last Stages in the Genealogy of. M. P. Topinard 171

March, The, of Practical Science, Editor's Table 416

Marriages, Consanguineous, Pop, Misc 139

Marriage Customs, A Law of. Pop, Misc 280

Mather, T. "W, The Flying-Machine Problem, Cor 556

Medicinal Plants, New, Pop, Misc 571

Medicine, Ancient Egyptian. Pop. Misc 134

Message-Sticks, Australian. Pop. Misc 670

Meyer, Otto. Giant Reptiles of a Past Age 466

Microbes, Vitality of, in Water, Pop. Misc 430

Mineral Evolution. Pop. Misc 573

Mingrelian Rituals. Pop. Misc 141

Monopolies. Pop. Misc 284

872 INDEX.

PAGB

Monuments, Important Archgeological. Pop. Misc 136

Moon-Myths, South Slavic. F. S. Krauss 615

Morality, The, of the Future. Editor's Table 124

Morgan, Appleton. The Political Control of Railways 455

Morgan, T. H. The Dance of the Lady Crab 482

Mound, Contents of a North Carolina. Pop. Misc 135

Miiller, Prof. F. Max. Comments on " The Sacrifice of Education " 535

Museums, Local, Hints about. Pop. Misc 280

Nansen's, Dr., Greenland Expedition. Pop. Misc 717

Nascent Species of Plants. Pop. Misc 575

National Morality, A Test of. Editor's Table 267

Natural Gas, Curiosities of. Prof. J. F. James 821

Natural Purification of Polluted Streams. Pop. Misc 859

Natural Science in Elementary Schools. J. M. Ames 662

" " Editorial Note 700

" Next to Nothing," The Value of the. Editor's Table 125

Notes 142, 286, 431, 575, 718, 863

Cakes, R. A. Belief about the Soul 202

Oil-Field, The Colorado. Pop. Misc 142

Oswald, Felix L., M. D. Four-Handed Sinners 108

Paleolithic Man in America. A¥ J McGee 20

Pane of Glass, A. Prof. C. IL Henderson 598

Papuan, a New Britain, The History of. Pop. Misc 140

Perforated Stones, Californian. Franklin Cogswell. Cor 123

Personifications of the Sun, Modern Greek. Pop. Misc 571

Phonetic Spelling, Educational Value of. Pop, Misc 285

Photography, Uses of, in Science. Pop. Misc 136

Physical Training of Young Children, M. F. Lagrange 449

Physics, The Teaching of, in Schools. Pop. Misc ... 134

Piles, Protection of, against the Teredo. Pop. Misc 710

Pine-Tree Lizard, The. C. C. Abbott 162

Plants, Food and Economical, of Abyssinia, Pop. Misc 861

Plants in Witchcraft. T. F. T. Dyer 826

Plants, Nascent Species of. Pop. Misc 675

Plesiosaurus, Development of the. Pop. Misc 279

Plumbing, Sanitary. Pop. Misc 136

Popular Miscellany 1S3, 278, 426, 569, 709, 859

Practical Science, The March of. Editor's Table 416

Proctor, Eichard A., Death of. Pop. Misc 133

Professional Men, Longevity of. Pop. Misc 717

Prolongation, The, of Human Life. C, M. Hammond 92

Protection of Wood against Fire. Pop, Misc 282

Protection, The Effects of. C. S. Ashley 1

Psychology, The, of Deception. Prof. J. Jastrow 145

Psychology, The, of Spiritualism, Joseph Jastrow 721

Railways, The Political Control of, Appleton Morgan 455

Rat, The Work of the Burrowing, C, C. Byrne, M. D. Cor 414

INDEX. 873

PAGE

Eeading, Interest in. Pop. Misc 861

Eeece, Benjamin. Law as a Disturber of Social Order 631

Eerasen, Prof. Ira. The Chemistry of To-Day 591

Eeptiles, Giant, of a Past Age. Otto Meyer 466

Eiley, Prof. 0. V. On the Causes of Variation 484, 809

Eomanes, G. J. The Derivative Origin of the Human Mind 792

Eoots, The Eolation of, to Moisture. Pop. Misc 138

Eoyer, Madame Clemence. Animal Arithmetic 252

Sacred Trees of Japan. Pop. Misc 716

Sacrifice, The, of Education. A Protest 399

" " Comments on. Prof .F. Max Muller and others 585

Sanitary Work, Fifty Years of. Pop. Misc 138

Saporta, The Marquis de. The Origin of Forest-Groupings 229

Sanitary Plumbing. Pop. Misc 136

School, The Story of a. Prof. James Johonnot 496

Schools, The Country, of New York. Pop. Misc 715

Science and " Christian Science." F. A. Ftrnald 798

Science and its Accusers. W. D. Le Sueur 367

Science and Trade-Eoutes. Pop. Misc 712

Sea-Lions and Fur-Seals. W. H. Larrabee 330

Sense, Problematical Organs of. Sir J. Lubbock 101

Senses, The, of Animals. Pop. Misc 140

Serviss, G. P. New Light on a Lunar Mystery 158

Shaler, Prof. N. S. Habits of the Great Southern Tortoise 87

Shufeldt, E. W., M. D. Zoological Gardens 782

Silk-Culture in the United States. T. A. Jenkins. Cor 843

Sinners, Four-Handed. F. L. Oswald, M. D 108

Smiley, C. W, Altruism Economically Considered 53

Snake-Stories, Two, analyzed. Pop. Misc 429

Somali Traits. Pop. Misc 860

Soul, Beliefs about the. E. A. Oakes 202

Spider, An Aged. Pop. Misc 714

Spiritualism, The Psychology of. Joseph Jastrow 721

Sponges, Fresh-Water. Pop. Misc 711

Squirrel, the Eed, Habits of. Pop. Misc 710

Stallo, John B., Sketch of 548

Stifel, A. F. Doctors and the Opium-Habit. Cor 122

Stinde, Julius. Sun-Power and Growth 77

Storage, The, of Life. Pop. Misc 282

Struggle for Existence, The Human. Pop. Misc 431

Suanetians, The, and their Home. D. W. Freshfield 380

Success in Life, What makes. Editor's Table 698

Suffrage, The Extension of the, to Women. Frank Cramer. Cor 415

Sun-Power and Growth. Julius Stinde 77

Sun, Modern Greek Personifications of the. Pop. Misc 571

Temple, Captain E. C. Every-day Life of Indian Women 43

Tests of Eye-Sight, Hand-Grip, and Breathing Capacity. Pop. Misc 283

Tile-Draining, Effects of. Pop. Misc 573

874 INDEX.

PAGE

Tirae-Eeckoning of Puget-Sound Indians. Pop. Misc 137

Topinard, M. Paul. The Last Stages in the Generation of Man 171

Tortoise, The Great Southern, again. 0. 0. Byrne, M. D. Cor 698

Tortoise, the Great Southern, Habits of. Prof. N. S. Shaler 37

Town Life as a Cause of Degeneracy. G. B. Barron, M. D 324

Trotter, Coutts, among the Fiji Islands 644

Type-Writer, The, for the Blind. E. F. Andrews. Cor 414

Variation, On the Causes of. Prof. C. V. Riley 484, 809

Volcanic Explosion in Japan. Pop. Misc 716

Vulpian, F. A., Sketch of 262

Warfare of Science, New Chapters in the. A. D. White 433, 577

Warmth for the Injured. Pop. Misc 429

Wasting Coal, The Cost of. Pop. Misc 139

Water-Power,. Adolf Sutro's. Pop. Misc 862

Waters, The Underground, of England. Pop. Misc 713

Water-Storage at Eiver-Heads. Pop. Misc 283

Waters, Underground, in Rock Transfoi*mations. Prof. G. A. Daubree 508

White, A. D. New Chapters in the Warfare of Science. ("Demoniacal Pos-
session " and Insanity) 433, 577

Wild Beasts, Deaths by, in India. Pop. Misc 142

Wines, Bulgarian. Pop. Misc 710

Wolf-nursed Children. Pop. Misc 1S9

Women, Indian, Every-day Life of. Captain E. C. Temple 43

Woman Suffrage. E. D. Cope Cor 558

Women, The Extension of the Suffrage to. Frank Cramer. Cor 415

Yezidees, The, or Devil- Worshipers. Dr. L. E. Browski 474

Zoological Gardens. R. W. Schufeldt, M. D 782

END OF VOL. XXXIV.

L Jiill_l_flVP s