ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS.

THE

POPULAK SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

EBITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS.

VOL. XLV.

MAY TO OCTOBER, 1894.

NEW YORK :

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

72 FIFTH AVENUE.

1894.

Copyright, 1894.
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

JOSEPH llENKV (JlLBERT.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MAY, 1894.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.
XIX.— FKOM CREATION TO EVOLUTION.
By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D., L. H. D.,

EX-PKESIDENT OF CORNELL TJNIVEBSITY.

PART III.

THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF AN EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED

NATURE.

WE have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of
mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the
idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and the
conception of a Creator in human form with human attributes,
who spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of His
throat and lips, and who shaped and placed it with His hands and
fingers.

We have seen that this view came from far ; that it existed in
the Chaldfeo-Babylonian civilization and probably in others of the
earliest date known to us ; that its main features passed thence
into the sacred books of the Hebrews and then into the early
Christian Church, by whose theologians it was developed through
the middle ages and maintained during the modern period.

But, while this idea was thus developed by a succession of
noble and thoughtful men through thousands of years, another
conception — to all appearance equally ancient — was developed,
sometimes in antagonism to it, sometimes mingled with it : the
conception of all living beings as wholly or in part the result of
a growth process — of an evolution.

This idea, in various forms, became a powerful factor in near-
ly all the greater ancient theologies and philosophies. For very

VOL. XLV. 1

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

widespread among the early peoples who attained to mncli think-
ing power was a conception that the universe arose from a watery
chaos, and that its inhabitants were produced by sea and on land
in obedience to a divine fiat.

This is clearly seen in the same records of Chaldseo-Babylonian
thought deciphered in these latter years, to which reference has
been made in previous chapters. In these we have a watery chaos
which, under divine action, brings forth the earth and its in-
habitants ; first the sea animals and then the land animals, the
latter being separated into three kinds, substantially as recorded
afterward in the Hebrew accounts. At the various stages in the
work the Chaldsean Creator pronounces it " beautif ul,"_ just as the
Hebrew Creator in our own later account pronounces it " good."

In both accounts there is placed over the whole creation a
solid, concave firmament ; in both, light is created first and the
heavenly bodies are afterward placed "for signs and for sea-
sons" ; in both the number seven is especially sacred, giving rise
to a sacred division of time and to much else. It may be added
that, with many other features in the Hebrew legends evidently
drawn from the Chaldean, the account of the creation in each is
followed by a legend regarding " the fall of man" and a deluge,
many details of which clearly passed in slightly modified form
from the Chalda^an into the Hebrew accounts.

It would have been a miracle indeed if these primitive con-
ceptions, wrought out with so much poetic vigor in that earlier
civilization on the Tigris and Euphrates, had failed to influence
the Hebrews, who, during the most plastic periods of their devel-
opment, were under the tutelage of their Chald^ean neighbors.
Since the researches of Layard, George Smith, Oppert, Schrader,
Sayce, and their compeers, there is no longer a reasonable doubt
that this ancient view of the world, elaborated if not originated
in that earlier civilization, came thence as a legacy to the He-
brews, who wrought it in a somewhat disjointed shape and in a
form mainly monotheistic into the poetic whole which forms one
of the most precious treasures of ancient thought preserved in the
book of Genesis.

Thus it was that, while the idea of a simple material creation
literally by the voice, hands, and fingers of the Creator became, as
we have already seen, the starting-point of a powerful stream of
- theological thought, and while this stream was swollen from age
to age by contributions from the fathers, doctors, and learned
divines of the Church, Catholic and Protestant, therewas poured
into it this lesser current, always discernible and at times clearly
separated from it— a current of belief in a process of evolution.

The Rev. Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, than whom no English-
speaking scholar carries more weight in a matter of this kind, has

JV^^TF CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 3

recently declared his belief that the Chaldgeo-Babylonian theory
was the undoubted source of the similar theory propounded by
the Ionic philosopher Anaximauder, in the sixth century, the
Greek thinkers deriving this view from the Babylonians through
the Phoenicians ; and he also allows that from the same source its
main features were adopted into both the accounts given in the
first of our sacred books, and in this general view the most emi-
nent Christian Assyriologists concur.

It is true that each of these sacred accounts of ours contra-
dicted the other. In that part of the first or Elohistic account
given in the first chapter of Genesis the ivaters bring forth fishes,
marine animals, and birds (Genesis, i, 30) ; but in that part of the
second or Jehovistic account given in the second chapter of Gene-
sis both the land animals and birds are declared to have been
created not out of. the water, but "out of the ground" (Genesis,
ii, 19).

The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to explain-
ing away this contradiction between these two legends as regards
the origin of birds ; but the old current of thought, strengthened
by both these accounts, arrested their attention, and, passing
through the minds of a succession of the greatest men of the
Church, influenced theological opinion deeply, if not widely, for
ages in favor of an evolution theory.

This ancient idea that the animals and man were produced by
lifeless matter at the divine command " in the beginning " was
afterward supplemented by the idea, strengthened doubtless by
Aristotle, that some of the lesser animals, especially the insects,
were produced by a sort of later evolution, being evoked after
the original creation from various sources, but chiefly from mat-
ter in a state of decay.

As typical examples of this thought we may note the view
taken by St. Basil the Great in the fourth century. Discussing
the work of creation, he declares that, at the command of God,
" the waters were gifted with productive power " ; " from slime
and muddy places frogs, flies, and gnats came into being " ; and
he finally declares that the same voice which gave this energy
and quality of productiveness to earth and water shall be simi-
larly efficacious until the end of the world.

This idea of the great father of the Eastern Church took even
stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For
St. Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text,
broke from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of
Scripture and spurned the generally received belief of a creative
process like that by which a toymaker brings into existence a
box of playthings. In his great treatise on Genesis he says : " To
suppose that God formed man from the dust with bodily hands is

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

very childish. . . . God neither formed man with bodily hands
nor did He breathe upon him with throat and lips."

Augustine then suggests the adoption of the old emanation or
evolution theory, adding that " certain very small animals may
not have been created on the fifth and sixth days, but may have
originated later from putrefying matter," and argues that, even
if this be so, God is still their creator.

He dwells upon such a potential creation as involved in the
actual creation, and speaks of animals " whose numbers the after-
time unfolded."

In his great treatise on the Trinity — the work to which he de-
voted the best thirty years of his life — we find the full growth of
this opinion. He develops at length the view that in the creation
of living beings there was something like a growth — that God is
the ultimate author, but works through secondary causes, and
finally argues that certain substances are endowed by God with
the power of producing certain classes of plants and animals.*

This idea of a development apart from the original creation
and by secondary causes was helped in its growth by a theological
exigency. More and more as the organic world was observed,
no matter how imperfectly, the vast multitude of petty animals,
winged creatures, and " creeping things " was instinctively felt to
be a strain upon the sacred narrative. More and more it became
difficult to reconcile the dignity of the Almighty with his work
in bringing each of these creatures before Adam to be named ; or
to reconcile the human limitations of Adam with his work in

* For the Chaldsean view of creation, see George Smith, Chaldasan Account of Genesis,
New York, 1876, pp. 14, 15, and 64-86 ; also Lukas, as above ; also Sayce, Religion of the
Ancient Babylonians, Hibbert Lectures for 1887, pp. 371 and elsewhere; as to the fall of
man, Tower of Babel, sacredness of the number seven, etc., see also Delitzsch, appendix to
the German translation of Smith, pp. 305 et seq. ; as to the almost exact adoption of the
Chaldsean legends into the Hebrew sacred account, see all these, as also Schrader, Die Keil-
inschriften und das Alte Testament, Giessen, 1883, early chapters; also article Babylonia
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; as to the similar approval of creation by the Creator in
both accounts, see George Smith, p. 73 ; as to the migration of the Babylonian legends to
the Hebrews, see Schrader, Whitehouse's translation, pp. 44, 45 ; as to the Chaldasan belief
in a solid firmament, while Schrader in 1883 thought it not proved, Jensen in 1890 has found
it clearly expressed — see his Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 9 et seq., also pp. 304-306, and
elsewhere. Dr. Lukas in 1893 also fully accepts this view of a Chaldaean record of a "firma-
ment " ; see Kosmologie, pp. 43, etc.

For the seven-day week among Chaldaians and rest on the seventh day, and the proof
that even the name " Sabbath " is of Chaldaean origin, see Delitzsch, Beigaben zu Smith's
Chald. Genesis, pp. 300 and 306 ; also Schrader ; for St. Basil, see Hexaemeron and Homi-
lies vii-ix ; but, for the steadfastness of Basil's view in regard to the immutability of spe-
cies, see a Catholic writer on Evolution and Faith in the Dublin Review for July, 1871, p. 13 ;
for citations of St. Augustine on Genesis, see the De Genesi, lib. ii, cap. 14, in Migne,
xxxiv, 188 ; lib. v, cap. 5 and cap. 23 ; and lib. vii, cap. 1 ; for the citations from his work
on the Trinity, see his De Trinitate, lib. iii, cap. 8 and 9, in Migne, xlii, 877, 878.

NHW CHAP TUBS ZxV THU WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 5

naming " every living creature " ; or to reconcile the dimensions
of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving all of them,
and the food of all sorts necessary for their sustenance, whether
they were admitted by twos, as stated in one scriptural account,
or by sevens, as stated in the other.

This latter subject gave especial trouble. Origen had dealt
with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than
had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete
so large a vessel as the ark by supposing that he worked upon it
during a hundred years ; and, as to the provision of food taken
into it, he declared that there was no need of a supply for more
than one day, since God could throw the animals into a deep
sleep or otherwise miraculously make one day's supply sufficient ;
he also lessened the strain on faith still more by diminishing the
number of animals taken into the ark, supporting his view upon
Augustine's theory of the later development of insects out of
carrion.

Doubtless this theological necessity was among the main
reasons which caused the theory — supported by St. Basil and St.
Augustine — to be incorporated in the seventh century by St. Isi-
dore of Seville into his great encyclopedic work which gave
materials for thought on God and Nature to so many generations.
He familiarized the theological world still further with the doc-
trine of secondary creation, giving such examples of it as that
" bees are generated from decomposed veal, beetles from horse-
flesh, grasshoppers from mules, scorpions from crabs," and, in
order to give still stronger force to the idea of such transforma-
tions, he dwells on the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, which
appears to have taken strong hold upon mediaeval thought in
science, and declares that other human beings had been changed
into animals, especially into swine, wolves, and owls.

This doctrine of after-creations went on gathering strength
until, in the twelfth century, Peter Lombard, in his theological
summary " The Sentences," so powerful in molding the thought
of the Church, emphasizes the distinction between animals which
spring from carrion and those which are created from earth and
water ; the former he holds to have been created " potentially,"
the latter " actually.'^

In the century following, this idea was taken up by St. Thomas
Aquinas and virtually received from him its final form. In the
" Summa," which remains the greatest work of mediaeval thought,
he accepts the idea that certain animals spring from the decaying
bodies of plants and animals, and declares that they are produced
by the creative word of God either actually or virtually. He
develops this view by saying, " Nothing was made by God, after
the six days of creation, absolutely new, but it was in some sense

6 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

included in the work of tlie six days"; and that "even new
species, if any appear, have existed before in certain native
properties, just as animals are produced from putrefaction."

The distinction thus developed between creation "causally"
or " potentially," and " materially " or " formally," was made
much of by commentators afterward. Cornelius a Lapide spread
it by saying that certain animals were created not " absolutely,"
but only " derivatively," and this thought was still further devel-
oped three centuries later by Augustinus Eugubinus, who tells
us that, after the first creative energy had called forth land and
water, light was made by the Almighty, the instrument of all
future creation, and that the light called everything into exist-
ence.

All this " science falsely so called," so sedulously developed
by the great minds of the Church, and yet so futile that we might
almost suppose that the great apostle, in a glow of prophetic
vision, had foreseen it in his famous condemnation, seems at this
distance very harmless indeed ; yet, to many guardians of the
" sacred deposit of doctrine " in the Church, even so slight a de-
parture from the main current of thought seemed dangerous. It
appeared to them like pressing the doctrine of secondary causes
to a perilous extent ; and about the beginning of the seventeenth
century we have the eminent Spanish Jesuit and theologian
Suarez denouncing it, and declaring St. Augustine a heretic for
his share in setting it in motion.

But there was little danger to the older idea just then ; the
main theological tendency was so strong that the world kept on
as of old ; biblical theology continued to spin its own webs out of
its own bowels, and all the lesser theological flies continued to be
entangled in them ; yet here and there stronger thinkers broke
loose from this entanglement and helped somewhat to disentangle
others.*

But while within the Church the current of evolutionary
thought was almost lost to sight, it continued in its clearer form.

* For Bede's view of the ark and the origin of insects, see his Hexaemeron, i and ii ;
for Isidore, see the Etymologise, xi, 4, and xiii, 22 ; for Peter Lombard, see Sent., lib. ii,
(Sst. XV, 4 (in Migne, cxcii, 682) ; for St. Thomas Aquinas as to the laws of Nature, see
Summa Theologica, i, Quaest. Ixvii, art. iv ; for his discussion on Avicemia's Theory of
the origin of animals, see ibid., Qusest. Ixxi, vol. i, pp. 1184 and 1185, of Migne's edit. ;
for his idea as to the word of God being the active producing principle, see ibid., i, Qutest.
Ixxi, art. i ; for his remarks on species, see ibid., i, QuEest. Ixxii, art. i ; for his ideas on the
necessity of the procreation of man, see ibid., i, Quaest. Ixxii, art. i ; for the origin of ani-
mals from putrefaction, see ibid., i, Quaest. Ixxix, art. i, 3 ; for Cornelius a Lapide on the
derivative creation of animals, see his In Genesim Comment., cap. i, cited by Mivart,
Genesis of Species, p. 282 ; for a reference to Suarez's denunciation of the view of St.
Augustine, see Huxley's Essays.

JVBW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 7

outside the Church, slowly to gain strength. On all sides, in every
field, men were making discoveries which caused the general theo-
logical view to appear more and more inadequate.

In the first half of the seventeenth century Descartes seemed
about to take for a time the leadership of human thought; his
theories, however superseded now, gave a great impulse to inves-
tigation then. His genius in promoting an evolution doctrine as
regarded the mechanical formation of the solar system was great,
and his mode of thought strengthened the current of evolutionary
doctrine generally ; but his constant dread of persecution, both
from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his
thoughts and even to supjDress them. He had watched the Gali-
leo struggle in all its stages ; he had seen his own books con-
demned by university after university under the direction of theo-
logians, and placed upon the index of prohibited books. Although
he gave new and striking arguments to prove the existence of God,
and humbled himself before the Jesuits, he was condemned by
Catholics and Protestants alike ; since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no
great thinker had been so completely abased by theological op-
pression.

Near the close of the same century another great thinker, Leib-
nitz, though not propounding any full doctrine on evolution, gave
it an impulse by suggesting a view contrary to the sacrosanct
belief in the immutability of species — that is, to the pious doc-
trine that every species in the animal kingdom now exists as it
left the hands of the Creator, the napiing process by Adam, and
the door of Noah's ark.

His punishment at the hands of the Church came a few years
later, when, in 1712, the Jesuits defeated his attempt to found an
Academy of Science at Vienna ; the imperial authorities covered
him with honors, but the priests — ruling in the confessionals and
pulpits — would not allow him the privilege of aiding his fellow-
men to ascertain God's truths revealed in Nature.

A few years after Leibnitz's death came in France a thinker
in natural science of much less influence, but who made a decided
step forward.

Early in the eighteenth century Benoist de Maillet, a man of
the world, but a wide observer and close thinker upon Nature,
began meditating especially upon the origin of animal forms, and
was led into the idea of the transformation of species and so into
a theory of evolution, which in some important respects antici-
pated modern ideas. He definitely conceived the production of
existing species by the modification of their predecessors, and he
plainly accepted one of the fundamental maxims of modern ge-
ology— that the structure of the globe must be studied in the light
of the present course of Nature.

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Unfortunately, De Maillet fell between two ranks of adversaries.
On one side, the Church authorities denounced him as a free-
thinker ; on the other, Voltaire ridiculed him as a devotee. Feel-
ing that his greatest danger was from the orthodox theologians,
De Maillet endeavored to protect himself by disguising his name
in the title of his book, and by so wording its preface and dedica-
tion that, if persecuted, he could declare it a mere sport of fancy ;
he therefore announced it as the reverie of a Hindu sage impart-
ed to a Christian missionary. But this strategy availed nothing ;
he had allowed his Hindu sage to suggest that the days of crea-
tion named in Genesis might be long periods of time, and this,
with other ideas of equally fearful import, was fatal. Though the
book was in type in 1735, it was not published till 1748— three
years after his death.

On the other hand, the heterodox theology of Voltaire was also
aroused ; and, as De Maillet had seen in the presence of fossils on
high mountains a proof that these mountains were once below the
sea, Voltaire recognized an argument for the deluge of Noah, and
ridiculed the new thinker without mercy.

Hence it is that, between these two extremes of theology, De
Maillet has received no recognition until very recently the great-
est men of science in England and France have united in giving
him his due. But his work was not lost, even in his own day ;
Robinet and Bonnet pushed forward victoriously on helpful lines.
In the second half of the eighteenth century a great barrier was
thrown across this current^the authority of Linnaeus. He was
the most eminent naturalist of his time, a wide observer, a close
thinker ; but the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had
his being was saturated with biblical theology, and this permeated
all his thinking.

He who visits the tomb of Linnaeus to-day, entering the beau-
tiful cathedral of Upsala by its southern porch, sees above it,
wrought in stone, the Hebrew legend of creation. In a series of
medallions the Almighty— in human form— accomplishes the work
of each creative day. In due order he puts in place the solid firma-
ment with the waters above it, the sun, moon, and stars within it,
the beasts, birds, and plants below it, and finishes his task by tak-
ing man out of a little hillock of " the earth beneath," and woman
out of man's side. Doubtless Linnaeus, as he went to his devo-
tions, often smiled at this childlike portrayal. Yet he was never
able to break away from the idea it embodied. At times, in face
of the difficulties which beset the orthodox theory, he ventured to
favor some slight concessions ; but what he might expect if he
sanctioned the new view he learned to his cost : warnings came
speedily both from the Catholic and Protestant sides.

At a time when the most eminent prelates of the older Church

HUW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 9

were eulogizing debauclied princes like Louis XV, and using tlie
unspeakably vile casuistry of Suarez in the education of tke priest-
hood as to the relations of men to women, the modesty of the
papal authorities was so shocked by Linnseus's proofs of a sexual
system in plants that for many years his writings were prohibited
in the Papal States and in various other parts of Europe where
clerical authority was strong enough to resist the new scientific
current. Not until 1773 did one of the more broad-minded cardi-
nals— Zelanda — succeed in gaining permission that Prof. Minasi
should discuss the Linnsean system at Rome.

And Protestantism was quite as oppressive. In a letter to
Eloius, Linna3us tells of the rebuke given to science by one of the
great Lutheran prelates of Sweden, Bishop Svedberg. From vari-
ous parts of Europe detailed statements had been sent to the Royal
Academy of Science that water had been turned into blood, and
well-meaning ecclesiastics had seen in this an indication of the
wrath of God, certainly against the regions in which these naira-
cles had occurred and possibly against the whole world. A mira-
cle of this sort appearing in Sweden, Linnaeus looked into it care-
fully and found that the reddening of the water was caused by
dense masses of minute insects. News of this explanation having
reached the bishop, he took the field against it ; he denounced this
scientific discovery as " a Satanic abyss " (abyssum SatancB), and
declared " The reddening of the water is not natural," and " when
God allows such a miracle to take place Satan endeavors, and so
do his ungodly, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to
make it signify nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnseus re-
treated ; he tells his correspondent that " it is difficult to say any-
thing in this matter," and shields himself under the statement " It
is certainly a miracle that so many millions of creatures can be so
suddenly propagated," and " it shows undoubtedly the all-wise
power of the Infinite."

The great naturalist, now grown old and worn with labors for
science, could no longer resist the contemporary theology ; he set-
tled into obedience to it, and continued to adhere to the doctrine
that all existing species had been created by the Almighty " in the
beginning," and that since " the beginning " no new species had
apj^eared.

Yet even his great authority could not resist the swelling tide ;
more and more vast became the number of species, more and more
incomprehensible under the old theory became the newly ascer-
tained facts in geographical distribution, more and more it was
felt that the universe and animated beings had come into exist-
ence by some process other than special creation, and the question
was constantly pressing, " By what process ? "

Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one man was

lo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at work on natural history who might have contributed much to-
ward an answer to this question ; this man was Buffon. His pow-
ers of research and thought were remarkable and his gift in pre-
senting results of research and thought showed genius. He had
caught the idea of an evolution in Nature and was likely to make
a great advance with it ; but he, too, was made to feel the power
of theology.

While he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the Church pet-
ted him, but when he began to deduce truths of philosophical im-
port the batteries of the Sorbonne were opened upon him ; he was
made to know that " the sacred deposit of truth committed to the
Church " was, that " in the beginning God made the heavens and
the earth " ; and that " all things were made at the beginning of
the world." For his simple statement of truths in natural science
which are to-day truisms, he was dragged forth by the theological
faculty, forced to recant publicly, and to print his recantation. In
this he announced, " I abandon everything in my book respecting
the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be con-
trary to the narrative of Moses." *

But all this triumph of the Chaldseo-Babylonian creation
legends which the Church had inherited availed but little.

About the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions
and even clear presentations of this or that part of a large evolu-
tionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most divergent
quarters. Especially remarkable were those which came from
Erasmus Darwin in England, from Maupertuis in France, from
Oken in Switzerland, and, most brilliantly of all, from Goethe in
Germany.

Two men among these thinkers must be especially mentioned —
Treviranus in Germany and Lamarck in France ; each independ-
ently of the other drew the world more completely than ever be-
fore in this direction.

From Treviranus came, in 1802, his work on biology, and in
this he gave forth the idea that from forms of life originally sim-
ple had arisen all higher organizations by gradual development ;

* For Descartes in his relation to the Copernican theory, see Saisset, Descartes et ses
Precurseurs ; also Fouillee, Descai'tes, Paris, 1893, chaps, ii and iii ; also other authorities
cited in my chapter on Astronomy; for his relation to the theory of evolution, see the Prin-
cipes de Philosophic, 3^me partie, § 45. For De Maillet, see Quatrefages, Darwin et ses
Pr6curseurs fran9ais, chap, i, citing D'Archiac, Paleontologie, Stratigraphie, vol. i ; also,
Perrier, La Philosophic zoologique avant Darwin, chap, vi ; also the admirable article, Evo-
lution, by Huxley, in Encyc. Britan. The title of De Maillet's book is, Telliamed, ou Entre-
tiens d'un Philosophe indien avec un Mispionnaire fran9ais sur la Diminution de la Mer, 1748
and 1756. For Buffon, see the authorities previously given, also the chapter on Geology in
this work. For the resistance of both Catholic and Protestant authorities to the Linnasan
system and ideas, see Alberg, Life of Linnaeus, London, 1888, pp. 143-147, and 237.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE, ii

that every living creature lias a capacity for receiving modifica-
tions of its structure from external influences ; and that no spe-
cies has become really extinct, but that it has passed into some
other species. From Lamarck came about the same time his Re-
searches, and a little later his Zoological Philosophy, which intro-
duced a new factor into the process of evolution — the action of
the animal itself in its efforts toward a development to suit new
needs — and he gave as his principal conclusions the following :

New wants in animals give rise to new organs.

The development of these organs is in proportion to their em-
ployment.

New developments may be transmitted to offspring.

His well-known examples to illustrate these views, such as that
of successive generations of giraffes lengthening their necks by
stretching them to gather high-growing foliage, and of successive
generations of kangaroos lengthening and strengthening their
hind legs by the necessity of keeping themselves erect while
jumping, provoked laughter, but the very comicality of these
illustrations aided to fasten his main conclusion into men's mem-
ories.

In both these statements, imperfect as they were, great truths
were embodied — truths which were sure to grow.

Lamarck's declaration, especially that the develo^^ment of or-
gans is in ratio to their employment, and his indications of the
reproduction in progeny of what is gained or lost in parents by
the influence of circumstances, entered as a most effective force
into the development of the evolution theory.

The next great successor in the apostolate of this idea of the
universe was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. As early as 1795 he had be-
gun to form a theory that species are various modifications of the
same type, and this theory he developed, testing it at various
stages as Nature was more and more displayed before him. It fell
to his lot to bear the brunt in a struggle against heavy odds
which lasted many years.

For the man who now took up the warfare, avowedly for sci-
ence but unconsciously for theology, was the foremost naturalist
then living — Cuvier. His scientific eminence was deserved ; the
highest honors of his own and other countries were given him,
and he bore them worthily. An Imperial Councilor under Na-
poleon ; President of the Council of Public Instruction and Chan-
cellor of the University under the restored Bourbons ; Grand
Officer of the Legion of Honor, a Peer of France, Minister of the
Interior, and President of the Council of State under Louis Phi-
lippe, he was eminent in all these capacities, and yet the dignity
given by such high administrative positions was as nothing com-
pared to his leadership in natural science. Science throughout

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the world acknowledged in Mm its chief contemporary ornament,
and to this hour his fame rightly continues. But there was in
him, as in Linneeus, a survival of certain theological ways of
looking at the universe and certain theological conceptions of a
plan of creation ; it must be said, too, that while his temperament
made him shy of new hypotheses, of which he had seen the birth
and death of so many, his environment as a great functionary of
state, honored, admired, almost adored by the greatest, not only
in the state but in the Church, his solicitude lest science should
receive some detriment by openly resisting the Church, which had
recaptured Europe after the French Revolution and had made of
its enemies its footstool — all these considerations led him to op-
pose the new theory. Amid the plaudits, then, of the foremost
churchmen and laymen he threw across the path of the evolution
doctrines the whole mass of his authority in favor of the old
theory of catastrophic changes and special creations.

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire stoutly withstood him, braving non-
recognition, ill-treatment, and ridicule. Treviranus, afar off in
his mathematical lecture room at Bremen, seemed simply for-
gotten.

But the current of evolutionary thought could not thus be
checked ; dammed up for a time, it broke out in new channels and
in ways and places least expected ; turned away from France, it
appeared especially in England ; great paleontologists and geolo-
gists arose there whose work culminated in that of Lyell. Spe-
cialists throughout all the world now became more vigorous than
ever, gathering facts and thinking upon them in a way which
caused the special creation theory to shrink more and more.
Broader and more full became these various rivulets, soon to unite
in one great stream of thought.

In 1813 Dr. Wells developed a theory of evolution by natural
selection to account for varieties in the human race ; about 1820
Dean Herbert, eminent as an authority in horticulture, avowed
his conviction that species are but fixed varieties ; in 1831 Patrick
Matthews stumbled upon and stated the main doctrine of natural
selection in evolution ; and others, here and there, in Europe and
America, caught an inkling of it.

But no one outside of a circle apparently uninfluential cared
for these things : the Church was serene ; on the continent it had
obtained reactionary control of courts, cabinets, and universities ;
in England Dean Cockburn was denouncing Mary Somerville
and the geologists to the delight of the established churchmen ;
and the Rev. Mellor Brown was doing the same thing for the
edification of dissenters.

In America the mild suggestions of Silliman and his compeers
were met by the protestations of the Andover theologians headed

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 13

"by Moses Stuart. Neither of the great Englisli universities, as a
rule, took any notice of the innovators save by sneers.

To this current of thought there was joined a new element,
when, in 1844, Robert Chambers published his Vestiges of Crea-
tion. The book was attractive and was widely read ; in Cham-
bers^s view the several series of animated beings, from the sim-
plest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, were the result
of two distinct impulses, each given once and for all time by the
Creator. The first of these was an impulse imparted to forms of
life lifting them gradually through higher grades; the second
was an impulse tending to modify organic substances in accord-
ance with external circumstances; in fact, the doctrine of the
book was evolution tempered by miracle, a stretching out of the
creative act through all time — a pious version of Lamarck.

Two results followed — one mirth-provoking, the other leading
to serious thought. As to the former, the theologians were greatly
alarmed by the book ; it was loudly insisted that it promoted
atheism. Looking back along the line of thought which has
since been developed, one feels that the Church ought to have put
up public thanksgivings for Chambers's theory and public prayers
that it might prove true. As to the serious result, it accustomed
men's minds to a belief in evolution as in some form possibly or
even probably true. In this way it was provisionally of service.

Eight years later Herbert Spencer published an essay con-
trasting the theories of creation and evolution, reasoning with
great force in favor of the latter, showing that species had un-
doubtedly been modified by circumstances; but still only few
and chosen men saw the significance of all these lines of reason-
ing which had been converging during so many years toward one
conclusion.

On July 1, 1858, there were read before the Linn^ean Society at
London two papers — one presented by Charles Darwin, the other
by Alfred Russel Wallace — and with the reading of these papers
the doctrine of evolution by natural selection was born. Then
and there a fatal breach was made in the great theological barrier
of the continued fixity of species since the creation.

The story of these papers the scientific world knows by heart :
how Charles Darwin, having been sent to the University of Cam-
bridge to fit him for the Anglican priesthood, left it in 1831 to go
upon the scientific expedition of the " Beagle " ; how for five years
he studied with wonderful vigor and acuteness the problems of
life as revealed on land and at sea — among volcanoes and coral
reefs, in forests and on the sands, from the tropics to the arctic
regions ; how, in the Cape de Verde and the Galapagos Islands,
and in Brazil, Patagonia, and Australia he interrogated Nature
with matchless persistency and skill ; how he returned un-

14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

heralded, quietly settled down to his work, and soon astonished
the world with the first published results, such as his book on
Coral Reefs, and the monograph on the Cirripedia ; and, finally,
how he presented his paper and followed it up with treatises
which make him one of the great leaders in the history of human
thought.

The scientific world realizes, too, more and more the power of
character shown by Darwin in all this great career : the faculty
of silence, the reserve of strength seen in keeping his great
thought— his idea of evolution by natural selection— under silent
study and meditation for nearly twenty years, giving no hint of
it to the world at large, but working in every field to secure
proofs or disproofs, and accumulating masses of precious material
for the solution of the questions involved.

To one man only did he reveal his thought: to Dr. Joseph
Hooker, to whom in 1844— under the seal of secrecy— he gave a
summary of his conclusions. Not until fourteen years later
occurred the event which showed him that the fullness of time
had come, the letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, to whom, in
brilliant researches during the decade from 1848 to 1858, in Brazil
and in the Malay Archipelago, the same truth of evolution by
natural selection had been revealed. Among the proofs that sci-
entific study does no injury to the more delicate shades of senti-
ment is the well-known story of this letter. "With it Wallace
sent Darwin a memoir, which he asked him to present to the Lin-
nfean Society ; on examining it, Darwin found that Wallace had
independently arrived at conclusions similar to his own— possibly
had deprived him of fame ; but Darwin was loyal to his friend,
and his friend remained ever loyal to him. He publicly presented
the paper from Wallace, and with it bis own conclusions, and the
date of this presentation— July 1, 1858— separates two epochs in
the history, not merely of natural science, but of human thought.

In the following year, 1859, came the first installment of his
thought in its fuller development— his work on The Origin of
Species. In this, one at least of the great secrets at the heart of
the evolutionary process, which had baffied the long line of inves-
tigators and philosophers from the days of Aristotle, was more
broadly revealed. The effective mechanism of evolution was
shown at work in three ascertained facts: in the struggle for
existence among organized beings ; in the survival of the fittest ;
and in heredity. These facts were presented with such wealth of
minute research, wide observation, and patient collation, with
such transparent honesty and judicial fairness, that they at once
commanded the world's attention. It was the outcome of thirty
years' work and thought by a worker and thinker of genius, but
it was yet more than that— it was the outcome, also, of the work

JVUIV CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 15

and thonglit of another man of genius fifty years before. The
book of Malthus on the Principle of Population, mainly founded
on the fact that animals increase in a geometrical ratio, and
therefore, unchecked, must encumber the earth, had been gen-
erally forgotten, and was only recalled to remembrance now and
then with a sneer. But the genius of Darwin recognized in it a
deeper meaning, and now the thought of Malthus was joined to
the new current. Meditating upon it in connection with his own
observations of the luxuriance of Nature, Darwin arrived at his
doctrine of natural selection and survival of the fittest.

As the great dogmatic barrier between the old and new views
of the universe was broken down, the flood of new thought pour-
ing over the world stimulated and nourished strong growths in
every field of research and reasoning ; edition after edition of the
book was called for ; it was translated even into Japanese and Hin-
dustani ; the stagnation of scientific thought, which Buckle only
a few years before had so deeply lamented, gave place to a wide-
spread and fruitful activity ; masses of accumulated observa-
tions, which had seemed stale and unprofitable, were made alive ;
facts formerly without meaning now found their interpretation.
Under this new influence a vast army of young men took up every
line of scientific investigation in every land. Epoch-making
books appeared in all the great nations. Spencer, Wallace, Hux-
ley, Galton, Tyndall, Tylor, Lubbock, Bagehot, Lewes, in Eng-
land, and a phalanx of strong men in Germany, Italy, France,
and America gave forth works which became authoritative in
every department of biology. If some of the older men in France
held back, overawed perhaps by the authority of Cuvier, the
younger and more vigorous pressed on.

One source of opposition in America deserves to be especially
mentioned — Louis Agassiz.

A great investigator, an inspired and inspiring teacher, a noble
man, he had received and elaborated a theory of animated crea-
tion which he could not readily change. In his heart and mind
still prevailed the atmosphere of the little Swiss parsonage in
which he was born, and his religious and moral nature, so beauti-
ful to all who knew him, was especially repelled by sundry evo-
lutionists, who, in their zeal as neophytes, made proclamations
having a decidedly irreligious if not immoral bearing. In addi-
tion to this was the direction his thinking had received from
Cuvier ; both these influences combined to prevent his acceptance
of the new view.

He was the third great man who had thrown his influence as
a barrier across the current of evolutionary thought. Linnaeus
in the second half of the eighteenth century, Cuvier in the first
half and Agassiz in the second half of the nineteenth — all made

i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tlie same effort. Each remains great ; but not all of tliem together
could arrest the current. Agassiz's strong efforts throughout the
United States, and indeed throughout Europe, to check it, really
promoted it. From the great museum which he had founded at
Cambridge, from his summer school at Penikese, from his lecture-
rooms at Harvard and Cornell, his disciples went forth full of
love and admiration for him, full of enthusiasm which he had
aroused and into fields which he had indicated ; but their powers,
which he had aroused and strengthened, were devoted to develop-
ing the truth he failed to recognize ; Shaler, Verrill, Packard,
Hartt, Wilder, Jordan, and a multitude of others, and above all
the son who bore his honored name, did justice to his memory by
applying what they had received from him to research under
inspiration of the new revelation.

Still another man deserves especial gratitude and honor in
this great progress — Edward Livingston Youmans. He was per-
haps the first in America to recognize the vast bearings of the
truths presented by Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer. He became
the apostle of these truths, sacrificing the brilliant career on
which he had entered as a public lecturer, subordinating himself
to the three leaders and giving himself to editorial drudgery in
the stimulation of research and the announcement of results.

In support of the new doctrine came a world of new proofs ;
those which Darwin himself added in regard to the cross-fertili-
zation of plants, and which he had adopted from embryology, led
the way, and these were followed by the discoveries of Wallace,
Bates, Huxley, Marsh, Cope, Leidy, Haeckel, Miiller, Gaudry,
and a multitude of others in all lands. The last theological
efforts against these men we shall study in the next chapter.*

The Royal Institution of Great Britain, in a memorial resolution to Professor
Tyndall, adopted at a general meeting, speaks of him as one " who by his brilliant
abilities and laborious researches nobly promoted the objects of the institution
and conspicuously enhanced its reputation, while at the same time he extended
scientific truth and rendered many new additions to natural knowledge practi-
cally available for the service of mankind." '

* For Agassiz's opposition to evolution, see the Essay on Classification, vol. i, 1857, as
regards Lamarck, and vol. iii, 1860, as regards Darwin; also Silliman's Journal, July, 1860;
also the Atlantic Monthly, January, 18'74; also his Life and Correspondence, vol. ii, p.
64*7 ; also Asa Gray, Scientific Papers, vol. ii, p. 484. A reminiscence of my own enables
me to appreciate his deep ethical and religious feeling. I was passing the day with him at
Nahant in 1868, consulting him regarding candidates for various scientific chairs at the
newly established Cornell University, in which he took a deep interest. As we discussed
one after another of the candidates he suddenly said : " Who is to be your Professor of
Moral Philosophy ? That is a far more important position than all the others."

THE GUESTS OF THE MAYFLOWER.

17

THE GUESTS OF THE MAYFLOWER.

By PnoF. CLAEENCE M. WEED.

"^VTO native plant has so endeared itself to the New England
J-^ heart as the mayflower. For two centuries it has been to
old and young the sweetest of spring's harbingers as it pushed its
dainty blossoms through the fallen leaves beside the lingering
snow. It has charmed those fortunate ones who have wandered
over the hills to find it, and has carried glad tidings to those com-
pelled to stay at home. It has been constantly used to carry
Cupid's message from youths to maidens — a custom which I like
to fancy may have originated when, in the infancy of Plymouth,
John Alden brought to Priscilla Mullens bunches of arbutus blos-
soms that spoke not only for themselves but also for the hand
that plucked them.

But Epigcea is a plant of decided interest in itself apart from
its associations. It was not originally designed as an emissary of

Fig. 1. — Thk Mayflower.

the goddess of love, and its beauty was primarily developed with-
out reference to the festhetic needs of the Pilgrims or their de-
scendants. Long before the Mayflower reached Plymouth or
Columbus landed at San Salvador — probably before the Indians
arrived, and possibly before the glaciers came down from the
north — the arbutus blossomed with each returning season and
carried on the cycle of her existence as tranquilly as she does to-
day. But her fragrance was by no means " wasted on the desert
air," for she received then, as now, the tributes of a host of insect
visitors that went about to do her unconscious bidding.

Although the trailing arbutus has been developing for so many
centuries, it is still in a state of transition, and appears to be
looking toward a goal which probably will not be fully reached

VOL XLV. — ;;

i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for centuries to come. Every one witli the least knowledge of the
vegetable world knows that the great majority of flowering plants
have the stamens and pistils in the same blossom, although Na-
ture generally devises some method of preventing self-pollination.
Many species, however, bear the pistillate blossoms on one plant
or part of the plant, and the staminate blossoms on another plant
or part of the plant, relying on insects or the wind to carry the
pollen from the latter to the former. But occasionally there
occurs a species whose flowers are neither wholly one nor the
other, being in a transition stage between the two. In this cate-
gory we find the mayflower.

The examination of the structure of a dozen bunches of arbu-
tus blossoms reveals a great variation in the relative conditions
and positions of the stamens and pistils. In some specimens the
anthers are completely abortive ; in others only jjartially so ; and
in others in good condition, well filled with pollen grains. Two
types of stigmas are also present : in some specimens the stigmas
as a whole are broad and more or less flattened — spread out, so to
speak — projecting at right angles to the style with the upper sur-
face moist and glutinous ; in others the stigmas are crowded into
less space and project very little horizontally ; they are drier and
less glutinous, and evidently in a partially abortive condition.
The perfect stigmas are usually associated with abortive anthers,
and vice versa, so that many of the plants are already dioecious.

If the flowers are examined with reference to the length of the
styles and filaments of the pistils and stamens, great variations
will also be found. In some the stigmas are perfect and reach
the mouth of the corolla ; no anthers, and only rudiments of fila-
ments are present. The variations I found on Blueberry Hill at
Hanover, New Hampshire, may be epitomized as follows :

1. Stigmas j:)erfect, reaching the mouth of the corolla; no
anthers, and only rudiments of filaments present (Fig. 2, a).

2. Stigmas perfect, reaching the mouth of the corolla ; anthers
present, but abortive, reaching two thirds the way to the mouth
of the corolla (Fig. 2, b).

3. Stigmas perfect, reaching half way to the mouth of the
corolla ; anthers abortive or absent, not reaching the stigmas.

4. Stigmas imperfect, anthers perfect; both reaching the-
mouth of the corolla.

5. Stigmas imperfect, anthers perfect ; both reaching two
thirds of the way from the base to the mouth of the corolla.

G. Stigmas imperfect, reaching slightly beyond the mouth of
the corolla ; anthers perfect, reaching to the mouth (Fig. 2, c).

The relative proportions of the difl^erent forms seem to vary
with the locality. The majority of specimens I have studied be-
longed either in the first or fourth category. The arbutus at Han-

THE GUESTS OF THE MAY FLOW Eh'

19

over is evidently tending strongly to a more perfect dioecism
When it finishes its task of eliminating the filaments as it has
the anthers of the stamens in many of the pistillate blossoms, and
gets rid of the superfluous pistils of the staminate blossoms, it will
accomplish its purposes of reproduction with less waste than at
present.

A plant in the condition of the arbutus may be said to be in a
certain sense at a " parting of the ways." To attain the end of
cross-fertilization — the carrying of the pollen from the stamens
of one plant to the pistils of another — two methods appear to be
open to it. It may, and in the case of many of the Blueberry
Hill specimens evidently has, become more perfectly dioecious by
aborting the stamens on some plants and the pistils on others ; or
it might become dimorphous by developing perfect sexual organs

a c

Fig. 2. — Variations ov the MAYFLOwhK.

in each blossom and having them at different heights — that is,
having the stamens in one plant reach the mouth of the corolla
and the pistil reach only half way to the mouth, while in another
having the pistil long and the stamens short. The tendency
toward dimorphism or trimorphism is shown by the varying
lengths of the styles and filaments.

The blossoms of the common asparagus of our gardens show
by their structure that they are in a transition stage somewhat
similar to that of the arbutus. The staminate blossoms have
rudimentary pistils and the pistillate blossoms rudimentary sta-
mens, and sometimes a blossom is found which has both sets of
organs in good condition — a reversion to an earlier condition of
the plant.

The partridge berry,* a plant which has to contend with
much the same external conditions as the arbutus, living in simi-
lar situations and remaining close to the ground, has adopted

* Milchclla repens.

20

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dimorphism as its metliod of securing cross-fertilization. The
beautiful white blossoms of this species open early in summer.
The stamens of some individuals are exserted, with the stigmas
below the mouth of the corolla, while in others these conditions
are reversed. Another common example of a low-growing plant
with dimorphous sexual organs is that of the familiar bluets.*
The dainty blossoms of this species are small individually, but
grow so abundantly on New England hillsides as often to color
them like a light fall of snow. A sectional view of the two forms
of flowers is shown in Fig. 3 : a represents the long-styled form
with the stamens in the lower portion of the corolla tube and the
stigma exserted, while in h the stamens are near the mouth of the
corolla and the stigma is below. These blossoms are mainly pol-
lenized by small bees and butterflies, one of the commonest New
England visitors being the meadow fritillary. \ When an insect

Fig. 3. — Long-styled A^fI) Short-styled Forms of Houstonia

sucks the nectar from the base of the corolla of the short-styled
blossom ih), it will get at a certain place on its tongue some of
the pollen from the anthers. If next it visits a long-styled blos-
som (a), it will be likely to brush some of this pollen on to the
exserted stigma, while a point near the tip of the tongue will
receive a fresh supply of pollen grains. If now it again visits a
short-styled blossom, this last-received pollen will be at the right
elevation to be deposited on the included stigma. Consequently,
cross-fertilization will almost certainly occur.

In the case of the mayflower it is evident that the structural
conditions described above will necessitate for the production of
seed the transportation of the pollen from the staminate to the
pistillate blossoms. The only agents to be called into play for
this errand are the insects and the wind. The structure of the
plant shows that under any ordinary conditions the wind would

* Houstonia ccerulea.

•j- Brenthis hellona.

THE GUESTS OF THE MAYFLOWER.

21

Fig. 4. — Orange-banded Bumblebee.

not serve the purpose, so that the insects only are left. It might
at first seem that so early in the spring as the may flower appears
there would be few insects abroad
— not enough to accomplish the
desired results. But centuries of
experience have taught the plant
that the nectar hidden beneath
her blushing petals will attract
many visitors. On Blueberry Hill
the most useful and abundant vis-
itor is the beautiful orange- banded
bumblebee.* Dozens of the large
females, which have wintered over
in some sheltered nook, are usual-
ly present, busily gathering the nectar concealed in the bases of
the corollas. Each bee stops but a few seconds at a flower, and

visits on an average three or four
bunches of blossoms a minute. After
alighting either on a flower or the
leaves, or the ground between, the bee
crawls from blossom to blossom, poking
its nose, so to speak, down under the
leaves that none shall be missed, and
often visiting a dozen heads before tak-
ing to wings again. When the wind
blows hard — a frequent occurrence on
such hilltops — Madame Bombus (these
early spring forms are all females, the
so-called queens) flies still more rarely,
crawling long distances instead. The
tongue of this bee is two fifths of an
inch long, and its tip readily reaches
the bottom of the corolla, being thrust
quickly down between the hairs. There
are generally several blossoms in a sin-
gle head, and, as a rule, each is plun-
dered before the visitor departs. I saw
one bee visit six heads in ninety sec-
onds, and another seven heads in the
same length of time. On the supposi-
tion that there were five blossoms per
head, the first bee was plundering twen-
ty flowers a minute. Supposing that
half of each hour was spent between

Fig. 5. — Bombus bifaku s.
Kind Lett.

* BornfjHs h'lfarius Cr.

22

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 6.— The Bee Flv.

the plants or going to the nest, the bee at this rate would visit
SIX hundred blossoms an hour, or six thousand in a ten-hour day,
if she should work so long. On the five acres of hilltop where
my observations were carried on I judged that at least one hun-
dred of these bees were at work each day. Supposing that they

all worked at the above ratio, the mayflower
would receive six hundred thousand daily
visits. No doubt many of the blossoms are
visited more than once each day, and the
chances are certainly very good that each
blossom will be visited at least once during
the two weeks of its existence.

Although the orange-banded bumblebee
is much the most abundant visitor, two other
related species are often seen. The common-
er of these is a large and handsome Bomhus* black, except for
two broad yellow bands — one on the thorax and the other on the
abdomen. The other, which is seldom seen, is called by entomolo-
gists Bomhus consiniilis ; the thorax and front half of the abdo-
men are yellow, with the hinder portion of the abdomen black.

By watching any one of these bees closely, one can see it stop
every few minutes to brush the pollen grains off from its tongue
and head, but no attempt appears to be made to collect the pollen
in the beautifully developed pollen baskets on the legs (Fig. 5).
These bees evidently visit the arbutus for the nectar it furnishes.
Although the bumblebees are much the most numerous and
important of the mayflower's invited guests, a few other insects
are found among the visitors. A
rather small, two-winged fly, with
a hairy, yellow body and black-
banded wings, often flashes, meteor-
like, from blossom to blossom. This
is the handsome bee fly of the genus
BomhyUus,\ one of the earliest
spring insects. It has a very long
tongue, which readily reaches the
bottom of the mayflower corollas.

I saw one of these flies stop twenty seconds at a single flower ; it
thrust its tongue down on one side of the pistil, then drew it out
and pushed it down in another place, repeating the operation four
times.

During the warmest portions of the brightest days the beauti-
ful sesia moths appear. They are sometimes called humming-
bird moths, because of their resemblance when flying toa'hum-

FiG. v. — Sesia Moth

* B. tcrricola.

f B. fmtcllus.

THE GUESTS OF THE MAYFLOWER.

23

iiiing bird, though the smaller of our species, the one I find visit-
ing the arbutus,* is more suggestive of a bumblebee. They have
long tongues, curled up when not in use, through which they suck
the nectar of flowers. Unlike most moths, which fly at dusk or
after dark, the sesias are abroad in the bright sunlight.

Occasionally one of the early spring butterflies, especially the
American tortoise-shell t and the mourning cloak, J may be seen
hovering over the blossoms.

The insect visitors so far considered are all useful to the may-
flower. They fly rapidly from head to head and plant to plant,
carrying the pollen which sticks to them from the anthers
of the staminate blossoms to the stigmas of the pistillate ones,
thus causing the fertilization of the embryos and the develop-
ment of seeds. But the surface of the
rocky hillsides where Epigc^a is most
thoroughly at home swarms with ants
of various species — wingless creatures
that dearly love the nectar of flowers.
These insects wander everywhere in
search of food, and are often seen try-
ing to get at the honey at the bottom
of the mayflower corollas. Could they
succeed, little would be left for other
visitors, and consequently the ants
would not only be of practically no
value as pollen-carriers — for rarely
would one chance to wander from a
staminate to a pistillate blossom — but they would also prevent the
visits of the useful bees and flies. The plant, however, has fenced
out these and other similar unbidden guests by an elaborate che-
vaux-de-frise, composed of hairs projecting slightly upward from
the inner surface of the corolla and the outer surface of the ovary
and style. It is easy for a bee, moth, or fly to push its slender
tongue down through these hairs to the base of the corolla, but
an ant flnds it very difiicult to force its body down till its mouth
is at the bottom.

Fro. 8. — Sectional View of May-
flower, SHOWING Hairs.

The silk spider of Madagascar spin^ g'olden-colored threads, strong enough,
according to M. Maindron, to bold a cork lieliiiet by. A single female of the
species, in tbe breeding season, gave M. Cainbone about three tiiousaiid metres of
fine silken thread in about twenty seven days. Small textures woven of these
threads are used l)y the natives for fastening flowers on sunshades and for other
light purposes.

* Hema

na

mis.

\ Aglais milberti.

I Vanessa antiopa.

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

UP THE CHIMNEY.

By frank BOLLES.

LYING flat upon my back on my bedroom floor, with my bead
in the fireplace, pillowed upon the andirons, and my gaze
directed intently up the chimney, I watched, hour by hour, the
strange domestic doings of two of my tenants. The fireplace
was so arranged, and its opening into the chimney so shaped, that
I could see much of that part of the interior of the chimney which
rose above me, leading toward the little patch of blue sky far
away. The whole of the west wall of the black flue, and a little
more than half of both the north and south walls, were visible to
me. The surface of these walls was rough, having been daubed
with mortar which formed undulations and ridges. The lower
faces of these irregularities were soft, dull black, but the parts
inclined toward the sky caught the glare of light from above
and shone as though ebonized. About eight feet above me, as I
lay in the second-story fireplace, something about the size of half
a small saucer projected like a tree fungus from the northern
wall of the flue. Its edges gleamed like silvery gelatin, and
light shone through its fabric in many places. This fabric
seemed to be made of dozens of small twigs matted and woven
together in semi-saucer form, and held firmly in place by some
translucent, gelatinous substance of a yellowish-white color.
Masses of the same substance held the shallow nest in its place
against the hard, cold wall of brick and mortar. Protruding
from the nest were the long and slender wings of a bird, which
was sitting snugly upon the structure, with her face turned di-
rectly to the bricks. The tapering wings crossed near the body,
and their tips spread like a Y, under which a short, stiff, fan-
shaped tail extended, for a part of the distance covered by the
wings. These stiff tail feathers, kept spread all the time, termi-
nated in sharp sx)ines, readily discernible. Occasionally, as I
watched, the sitting bird wriggled on her nest, and her wings
moved restlessly.

Suddenly the column of air in the chimney was thrown into
vibration, and a dull booming sound resulted. Something dark-
ened the opening of the shaft, the interrupted ligJit trembled in a
confusing way ; I was strongly inclined to get out from under,
and found it impossible to avoid closing my eyes. Simultane-
ously with these disturbing events, a bird's voice in the chimney
produced a series of rapid whistling or peeping notes, so mingled
as to render the hearer uncertain as to the number of birds mak-
ing them. A second bird had entered the chimney. Seen from
outside, he had dropped into it, and, watched by perturbed vision

UP THE CHIMNEY.

^5

from below, he had come down backward, hovering and flutter-
ing until, head toward the light, his tiny feet had caught in the
mortar and every spine in his very brief tail had been braced
against the same rough substance. Perfectly motionless, he
clung to the black wall as a tree toad sticks to a tree trunk. His
flat head, tiny beak, sooty brown coat, shining in the glare from
the sky, did not combine well into a bird ; in fact, nothing in
their weird surroundings made these tenants seem akin to birds.
They were more like bats.

Outside, the hot sunlight and hazy blue sky of early July
hung over wood and meadow, lake and distant mountain. But-
terflies fluttered and drifted in aimless flight over the sumacs, a
humming bird buzzed in the deep blue larkspur flowers, barn
swallows cut fanciful curves over the lake and back to their nest
with its nestlings; while down in the shadowy fern land the
veery's tremulous music told of coolness and comfort. How dif-
ferent this soot lined tube of brick, leading down through ever-
darkening gloom into an unknown abyss of blackness and silence I
How strange that this keen-eyed swift, which a moment ago was
speeding through highest ether at a rate which no other bird can
equal and maintain, should come back into this pit and call it his
home ! He spoke again, and once more the heavy air of the
chimney responded to his whirring wings, as he dropped a little
lower to the level of the nest, and turned his bright eyes inquir-
ingly toward his mate. Her wings now moved, and she lifted
herself away from the frail platform of glued twigs and stuck
against the bricks a few feet distant. The male, raising his wings
and keeping them moving, walked flylike to the nest and settled
upon it. Instead of facing directly toward the north wall, he sat
upon the nest at a different angle, so that his forked wings pro-
jected obliquely from the nest's edge. A moment later the female
made the air throb and boom to her powerful flight as she flew
toward and into the light.

Twenty minutes passed ; the bird on the nest was restless, and
squirmed in a way which suggested physical discomfort. Then
he gave a low call ; and a moment later darkness, hurried notes,
and the fluttering of strong wings announced the mother-bird's
return. She dropped down backward until close beside the nest,
struck and clung to the bricks, and then, using her feet almost as
well as though on level ground, gained the nest and pushed her
way upon it, fairly forcing off her mate, who seemed to have no
inclination to depart. Finally he moved, and, after a series of
short upward flights, regained the sunlight, and was seen no
more for three quarters of an hour. As the female settled herself
upon the nest, a faint " cheeping " suggested that tiny life was
stirring beneath her breast. Her position was the same which

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

she took in the first instance, her face being turned so directly
toward the north wall that her tail projected at right angles from
the nest. After seeing half a dozen exchanges in position made
by the birds, I was satisfied that one parent, which I called the
female, always sat straight npon the nest, and the other, which
for the sake of distinguishing them I called the male, always sat
obliquely.

To see only the bottom of the nest, yet to know that within it
lay young swifts which were being fed in some way by their
parents, was tantalizing. I recalled a former year, when I
wished to secure a swift's nest with its full set of eggs, and so
had kept watch of the nest ; not by climbing to the chimney top
and peering down, but by raising a small mirror, by whose aid I
had seen the reflected nest from below. The mirror served its
purpose a second time. I lashed it to the tip of a fishing rod, and
pushed the slender joint up the chimney, adding first the middle
joint and then the butt, in order to bring the glass well above the
nest. Something white was in the nest — just what, I could not at
first tell, for mortar dust had fallen into my eyes, and it was diffi-
cult to keep the glass still enough to see with my eyes blinking
and weeping. The mother-bird had been driven from the nest by
the appearance of the strange, misshapen thing which I had
forced toward her from below, and she was now making short
flights back and forth in the upper part of the chimney, produc-
ing sounds and sudden variations in light and darkness which
would surely have frightened away any but a human intruder.
Wiping my eyes and steadying the glass, I took a careful look at
the contents of the nest. The white object, or at all events its
whitest part, was an eggshell from whose opened halves a young
bird was feebly trying to escape. Without waiting to see more,
I withdrew the mirror from the chimney and removed all dis-
turbing objects, myself included, from the fireplace. My heart
rejoroached me. Had my violence driven the birds from their
nest, thus making probable the death of the young at this trying
crisis in their career ? More than fifteen minutes passed before
booming wings in the swift's grewsome nursery assured me that
a parent had returned.

These events happened on Monday, and not until the following
Saturday did I again intrude upon my batlike neighbors. Mean-
while I was not unaware of their near presence, for at all hours
of the day and night the thunder of their wings and their high-
pitched voices invaded my room. After exchanging places at
intervals of from fifteen to forty-five minutes all day long, it
seemed to my human intelligence that they might keep still at
night. But no, during evening twilight, and at ten, twelve, one,
and three o'clock, and then with tenfold energy between dawn

UP THE CHIMNEY. 27

and six in the morning, they came and went, went and came with
apparently sleepless energy. The nights were clear and dry, and
in the sky or over the white surface of the lake, insects were prob-
ably easily seen at any hour by birds accustomed to such gloom
as that of my chimney. Still it was wonderful to think of their
strength and patience, and of their knowledge of place. Many, if
not most, of us poor mortals lose our paths under the simplest
conditions, even with the sun smiling down upon us, or the stars
writing their ancient guideboards anew for us in the dark heav-
ens, toward which we will not turn for aid. These swifts, how-
ever, seem to plow through darkness or light with equal confi-
dence, cleaving the cool wind at the rate of more than a mile a
minute, seeing first the pale lake below their chimney's shadow,
then the vast peak of Chocorua, framed in its somber spruces, and
again some far range of untrodden mountains where fellow swifts
still nest in hollow tree trunks, after the ancient practice of their
family. What marvelous sense is it which brings them back
by day or by night, in sunlight or in storm, straight as thought
itself, to home and rest ?

I never have met a man who remembered having seen a swift
perch. It was formerly supposed that they had no feet, and some
people still believe the fable. In building time the birds come
spinning through the air like projectiles, and while flying thus,
snap small terminal twigs from sycamores and other brittle trees,
and carry them back to their chimneys, to be painstakingly glued
into their fragile nests. After seeing my swifts use their feet so
readily in getting to and from their nest, I shall not be much
surprised some day to see a swift alight upon some convenient
perch outside his chimney. Nevertheless, so far as is now known,
the swifts take no rest even after flying many miles with incredi-
ble speed, until their accustomed shelter is regained.

When Saturday came, I felt that it was time to see more of
my noisy tenants. In the intervening days something which
looked like a happy thought had come to me. Why should I lie
supine among the fire irons, gazing up the black chimney hole,
when, by judicious use of a few mirrors, I could bring the swifts
and their cavern within range of my writing table ? Saturday
morning the small mirror climbed the flue a second time, and was
firmly lashed in position a few inches above the nest. The lash-
ing, of course, was applied to the butt of the fishing rod, at the
point where it rested in the fireplace among andirons and tongs.
Then a narrow, old-fashioned mirror, in which somebody's great-
grandmother may have admired her pretty face in the days of
a long-forgotten honeymoon, was gently rested upon the single
stick of wood at the back of the fireplace so that its face inclined
slightly toward me. Wonderful ! — there were the shiny flue, the

28 FHE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nest, the frightened bird perching far up the shaft, and the nar-
row line of sky above her ; and there also was the small glass at
the tip of my fishing rod, and in its oval face was an image of the
inside of the shallow nest with two fat, featherless, sightless swifts
flopping about in it. Nothing could now be easier than to watch
the entire process of rearing the infant projectiles from a state of
feebleness and imbecility to that marvelous condition of grace,
speed, and intelligence at which they would, in the natural course
of events, arrive in a few brief days.

My first desire was to ascertain how they were fed. The barn
swallows, who by some freak have taken possession of a pewee's
nest just under the eaves of my cottage, feed their young with
insects which they bring bristling in their beaks. I had expected
to see the swifts bring insects to their babies, but my closest
scrutiny failed to discover anything in their beaks when they
arrived, or when they went upon the nest. Under the new con-
ditions I watched with double care and attention. At first, for
nearly an hour, the birds were too much disturbed by the glass
and fishing rod to e-ettle upon the nest. They came close to it and
chattered, but flew nervously and noisily, as though to frighten
away the intruder. After a while they grew quieter, and finally
one arrived with food. She came to the nest, mounted its edge,
and leaned toward the open-mouthed young. Then she moved
violently, and seemed to hang over the infants, to pound them,
shake them, and push them back and forth in a singularly rough
and unkind way. Seeing all these things by double reflection and
in the dim light of the chimney, I could not be certain of details,
but all that I saw reminded me of descriptions I had heard and
read, of feeding young birds by regurgitation, while nothing that
went on looked like the quiet and matter-of-fact process of drop-
ping a fly into a little bird's gaping mouth. It seemed to me that
the parent inserted her bill in the young one's throat, and then
presumably pumped into it, by the violent motions which she
made, a portion of the food previously swallowed by her. After
being fed, the young dropped back limp or satisfied into the nest,
and were promptly sat upon and hustled into a comfortable and
orderly condition. Apparently both birds joined in feeding their
offspring, for I saw first one and then the other go through this
peculiar process.

Supposing that I should have ample opportunity for several
days to watch the feeding, I did not devote myself to its study as
faithfully as I should have, had I foreseen the distressing event
which was in store for my tenants. On Saturday afternoon a
light rain fell. The faithful mother sat upon her nest while
multitudes of tiny drops floated down the chimney. They did not
fall, but seemed to sail unwillingly through the gloom, held aloft

UP THE CHIMNEY. 29

hy the ascending curi'ents of air. Each globule shone with light,
and looked almost as white as a snowflake. As they approached
the nest few seemed to touch it, but curved away from it in some
eddy of the air, and settled down into the depths of darkness
below. During the rain both birds remained in the chimney
most of the time. Sunday, July 16th, proved to be an unusually
warm day, and, what was perhaps of more moment to the swifts, a
very dry day, there seeming to be no moisture left in air or vege-
tation. About noon, while writing at my table, I heard the famil-
iar booming, whistling, and chirping in the chimney, and as I
glanced up I saw that one of the birds was coming to the nest and
the other just going off up chimney. Suddenly there was a grat-
ing sound, a sharp outcry, more booming and fluttering, and I
jumped to my feet and knelt before the glass to gain a closer view
of the chimney. The nest had vanished. Only a tiny piece of
glue adhered to the slight curve in the bricks under which the
nest had been attached. The parent bird, with ruffled plumage
and rapidly moving head, clung near the spot where her home
had been, and seemed to me to be looking with terror far down
into that horrible abyss where her young had fallen, and from
which they sent back no cry. Taking down the pointed rod, I
used the small mirror to search every part of the great chimney
cavern which could be reached, but in vain. The nest had gone
straight down without touching any fireplace, and had been lost
forever in the debris and stifling dust at the bottom of the shaft.

During the remainder of the day the birds fluttered back and
forth and lamented. They did not go more than two or three
inches below the spot where the ill-fated nest had been. At
intervals during the night I heard them moving in the chimney,
but on Monday they stayed away most of the time, even during a
heavy shower which fell late in the afternoon. Toward evening
I saw both of them perched near the site of their fallen home, and
during that night and on other days and nights the sound of their
wings occasionally came to me as a reminder of their vanished
happiness. They made no effort to rebuild in my chimney, yet
their presence in it seemed to show that they had not begun
housekeeping elsewhere. I doubt not that another summer, that
love of home which is so closely connected with birds' ability to
find a familiar spot by day or by night, even after months of ab-
sence, will bring my swifts back to their old flue.

It appears from the altitudes of the highest clouds measured at Upsala, Swe-
•den, Kevv, England, ;ind J>lue Hill, Mass., that the upper limit of ordinary clouds
in temperate latitudes is between thirteen and tit teen kilometres, or nine miles;
but it is possible that more numerous measurements may extend it to ten miles.

3°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN.

Bv Mrs. HELEN K. EDSON.

THIS is the only habitable high mountain peak east of the
Pacific ranges. Its altitude, six thousand three hundred
and thirteen feet above the sea level, tempered by its latitude,
thirty-six degrees, together with its isolation from other moun-
tains of similar height, renders it one of the most favorable
places for the observation of atmospheric conditions. The clouds
here usually float about level with the summit, though they some-
times rise as much as five hundred feet above it, or sink two

Fig. 1.

Fio. 2.

thousand feSt below ; so that it may be said to lie in the track of
the clouds.

I regret that I was not better equipped for a thorough study
of frost-forms produced by the lateral deposit of the frozen vapor
in the clouds during the severe winter of 1892-'9o, which I spent
upon the summit of Roan Mountain for the sake of an invalid
daughter. There was not a hygrometer within reach, hence the
amount of moisture in the atmosi)here at any given time can not

FROIST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN.

3»

be stated. The anemometer was frequently clogged by accumu-
lations of frost upon it. Incessant winds and flying snow dust
prevented the taking of clear photographs out of doors, and many
plates were spoiled by inexperienced handling.

The factors in the production of these frost-forms are the
frozen vapor and the wind. Their size, shape, and location are

Fig. 3.

controlled by the amount of moisture, the temperature, the direc-
tion and velocity of the wind, the shape, size, and situation of the
objects on which they are deposited, and the size and nearness of
the surrounding objects. The lower the temperature, the denser
the cloud, the swifter the wind, and the more perfect the expos-
ure, the more rapid the growth and the more profuse and elab-
orate the results.

Fig. 1 shows a six-sided wooden pillar with a deposit made in
two hours. Wind, about thirty miles an hour ; temperature, fif-
teen degrees below zero. Frost in the form of fir-tips, projecting
three quarters of an inch from the corners, and one fourth to
one half inch from the spaces intervening. A space two inches
square contained twenty-five.

Fig. 2 shows the same pillar a week later, after five days of
storm and two of sunshine. Frost-forms now 2)rojecting fourteen
inches and glazed on outside.

There is no fixed proportion between the size of the base of
the deposit and the deposit itself. It is remarkable for cohesive
strength, stiffness, and tenacious grip upon its base. In the case
of round bodies, such as trees or wires, it clasps but half the cir-
cumference, the other half being not even glazed (unless some
large object be directly to leeward), and stands out on the wind-
ward side of its support, following its curves and angles with
precision. Sometimes a tree or a grove of trees may be seen en-
tirely white on one side and green on the other.

Unless there are numerous changes in the direction of the
wind during the progress of construction, the first aggregations

32

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of particles liave the same general configuration as the finished
ornaments hundreds of times as large — six to eight inches wide
at the base and projecting twelve to sixteen inches. A slight
variation in the direction or velocity of the wind makes them
more complex and adds greatly to their beauty ; but a change of
as much as sixty degrees in the direction wrenches them from
their supports. They come away entire, and lie in heaps under
the trees like autumn leaves, and may be collected and preserved
in a cold, sheltered place until they gradually evaporate.

The process of formation is an interesting study. It is impos-
sible to follow the course of the fine particles of snow dust which
make up the most beautiful forms ; but at a temperature of
twenty-five to thirty degrees above zero the frozen moisture

Fig. 4.

comes in minute pellets of ice which may be watched with a good
microscope as they strike a chosen spot. The development of the
ice-forms is much more rapid than that of the snow- forms ; other-
wise the processes seem to be identical.

On the edges of fiat surfaces, and along the diameters of round
bodies, lines of particles are deposited as the wind rushes past the
obstruction. Then begins a twofold growth, caused by the direct

FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN.

33

application of other particles on the windward side, and by the
rebonnd to the lines already laid of those particles which are
driven violently against the surfaces between the lines. On
smooth, narrow bodies, as this process is continued, the deposits
along the sides or edges soon become so thick and long as to meet
in the middle. On rough surfaces new lines and centers of groups
are begun on all projections, however slight, and the particles re-
bound to them from the surrounding surfaces.

Fig. 3, a section of rough board, illustrates this. The devia-
tion from the perpendicular in the frost-forms on the edges is due

^^ to the fact that the board

"S ■^■■IH^^H^^I was not accurately facing

the wind.

There is, of course, a
great variety of forms pro-
duced in different storms,
all wonderful for delicacy
of design and perfection
of finish such as could
not be imitated in any

Fig.

Fig. 6.

material. Among them may be shown a branch of balsam fir
{Abies Fraseri) (Fig. 4) which bears the heavy fringe of the storm
of December 28th, when the wind blew at the rate of fifteen to
twenty-five miles an hour, and the temperature was fifteen degrees
above zero.

Fig. 5, a pillar and standpipe, shows the perfect fir-tijj pattern
of January 3d. Wind, fifteen to thirty miles an hour ; tempera-
ture, ten degrees below zero. The lower temperature and swifter
wind account mainly for the difference between this form and
the preceding one. The leeward sides of pillar and pipe are
thinly coated by the rebound of particles from the house wall.

vor. XLV. — 3

34

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. G, tlie accumulation on the tip of a blade of grass, seven
eighths of an inch long. This fragment was broken off and
brought into the house to show how all the grass was decorated
by the storm of January 6th, with wind at forty miles an hour
and temperature twenty degrees below zero. It was two inches
and three quarters tall and weighed three quarters of an ounce
avoirdupois, or more than five thousand times as much as the bit
of grass inclosed by it. It was composed of ten large feathers,
with the spaces between them filled with smaller ones — no shape-
less snow about it. The tips of twigs, ends of fence rails, etc.,
projecting toward the wind, were all similarly decorated, but on
different scales, according to their size and exposure.

Many curious and a])parently contradictory effects are pro-
duced by the rebound from one surface to another. A post which

Fu

stood twenty feet from the house, in a small court inclosed on
three sides, had a deposit on the face toward the house equal
to that on the windward side, while the other sides were bare
and dry.

Fig. 7 shows a wreath of plumes averaging six inches in
length, formed altogether upon the leeward side of a tub, by the
rebound of the vapor-laden wind from a high wall about three
feet distant. It will be seen that the rebound from the tub again
has produced a second series of forms around it on the ground,
pointing toward the tub.

The most conspicuous and noteworthy example of this resili-

FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN.

35

B

W-

FiG. 8.

ent force was exhibited at the close of the storm of January 6th
to 8th, in a recess where a north wing joins the main hotel build-
ing. The speed of the wind varied from forty to sixty miles an
hour during those three days, and the temperature was from fif-
teen to thirty degrees below zero.

Fig. 8 presents a sketch of the outlines. A B is the northwest
corner of the main building, three stories high. C is two stories
high, and E D one story.
F shows the direction of
the wind, which varied lit-
tle. A, B, D, and E had
heavy, deep cornices of
long, narrow plumes like
pampas grass, averaging
sixteen inches in length,
inclined outward from
base to tip at an angle of
thirty degrees to the plane
of the wall, and lying in
a horizontal position. The
plumes on A and E pointed
north by northwest ; those

on B, west by northwest ; all as directly toward the wind as was
allowed by the laws governing their application to the walls and
by the angles at which the wind struck the walls. Those on D,
being formed by the rebound from the high wall C and the angle
C B, pointed east, or toward C, though in all other respects simi-
lar to the others. On the weatherboards of A, B, and E the frost-
feathers were short and broad. They stood vertically, with their
bases on the edges of the boards, each row overlapping the row
above, and each row formed by the downward rebound of par-
ticles from the thick edge of the board above it. The forms on
all the upright corner boards (or facing boards) seemed to have
been made later than those on the weatherboards, since they
lay horizontally, with their tips pointing toward those on the
weatherboards, and at a right angle to them. They must have
been made by the rebound from the forms on the weatherboards,
as their direction in every instance was exactly opposite to that
of the cornice decorations on the same wall. After the first few
hours it was impossible to brave the fury of the storm to watch
the process of development, which is inferred from the results
and the proved rules by which the work is done.

The forms on the weatherboards of D hung downward, while
those on the opposite wall, B, stood upright. This must have
been due to the rotary motion of the wind after it struck the
three-story wall B and the two-story wall C, and, whirling down-

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ward and upward again from the ground, struck tlie one-story
wall D.

Fig. 9 shows a section of the wall D in the beginning of that
storm. Unfortunately, the other negatives of that group were
spoiled.

On C the deposits on cornice and weatherboards nearest D
partook of the shape and direction of those on D ; and the same

Fig. 9.

was true of those nearest B. In the space intervening, the frost
was laid on obliquely, resembling the first course of a heavy lat-
tice. All these walls, as well as all others on the mountain top
which faced the west and north, were completely covered, and
presented the appearance of exquisitely chiseled marble.

On all flat surfaces, whether curved or rectilinear in outline,
when they are suspended vertically, faced to the wind, so that it
may blow past all sides unobstructed, the frost-forms lie at an
angle of thirty degrees to the surface, with their bases to its
edges, and point accurately toward the center.

On a flat surface having a rim that projects as much as half
an inch, they are built on the inner edge of the rim, and extend
toward the center at a right angle to the rim and parallel to the
surface. When the rim is more shallow, their bases are set in
the angle where the rim joins the surface, and they stand out
from the surface at an angle of more than thirty degrees.

Fig. 10 is the lid of a cream freezer, showing frost-forms point-

FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN. 37

ing toward the center and extending parallel to the face of the
disk.

. On a tumbler, three inches and a quarter in depth and two
inches and a quarter in diameter at the top, placed with its mouth
to the wind, the result was the same. The frost-forms pointed
toward the center and were parallel to the bottom of the tumbler.
It might be worth while to find out by experiments how deep and
how wide a vessel would be required to cause them to deviate
from this rule.

Fig. 11 exhibits an iron pipe elbow, part of the deposit on
which was affected by the rebound from the longer curved side
as the wind passed through it. If a straight section of pipe be
placed so that the wind may pass through it unobstructed, the
deposit is made on the windward end, of the same thickness as the
metal ; and it appears as though that part of the pipe had been

■■ Fig. 10.

cast in the pattern prevailing in that storm, and whitened. The
outer and inner longitudinal surfaces of the pipe are left bare
and dry.

Very pretty experiments may be made with apples, chairs,
wheels, tin cans, feathers, and other objects too numerous to men-
tion.

Fig. 12 is an apple with a faithful imitation of a chrysanthe-
mum on one side. This was made at a low temperature and was
white. The most beautiful blossoms were those made of sleet, at
a temperature of twenty-five to thirty degrees above zero. They

38

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

were sometimes as large as the apples, and always had from
twelve to twenty perfectly shaped petals, from one inch to two
inches and three quarters long.

It often happens that the clouds clear away and the tempera-
ture rises a few degrees while the direction of the wind is still
unchanged. Then the outer surfaces of the frost-forms become
glazed and the softer filling is blown out. They may be taken
off entire, and need no greater care in handling than fine china.
They are thin as eggshells and translucent, and under the micro-
scope show long rows of minute cells, separated by delicate fili-
form partitions. A contrary wind unclasps their hold and the
ground is strewn with the curious wreckage. They may be kept
for many days in a cold place.

In sheltered places, a little way down on the leeward side of
the mountain, the deposits of frozen vapor are similar to the hoar-
frost seen in the lowlands, but greatly exaggerated in size and
profusion, and are usually in the form of small rosettes, set as
thickly as possible upon all surfaces of trees, rocks, or buildings.
The frost on the windows of all unoccupied rooms varies in
shape and amount according as the temperature is higher or lower.

At fifteen degrees above zero,
small fern -shaped figures are
made, about a quarter or a half
an inch long. At lower tem-
peratures they decrease in size
and increase in numbers, until.

Fig. 11.

Fig. 12.

at thirty degrees below zero, the panes are quite covered with tiny
frost ferns, twenty-five of which have been counted in a space an
inch square, every one perfect in outline. Above fifteen degrees
above zero the shape changes to something like the Hypnum
moss.

Fig. 13 represents part of a pane. The temperature fell below
fifteen degrees for a short time, allowing the accumulation of a
few of the fern-forms, and then rose rapidly to twenty-five de-
grees, with the result here shown. The moisture condenses upon
the windows of inhabited rooms just about as it does everywhere
else.

FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN.

39

I watched throughout the winter for the stellar and hexag-
onal snowflakes, but never found them while the clouds enveloped
the mountain. The particles of frozen vapor in the clouds re-
semble finely ground meal. When a cloud rises from fifteen to

\

- . 1

.#-^

. ;

■ -.? ^

'■/ ■.

Fig. 13.

twenty feet above any given place, several of these particles (usu-
ally six or eight) come down joined together like beads on a pin ;
when it rises fifty or a hundred feet, the little sticks of globules
cross and adhere to each other in falling, and reach the earth in
all the complex shapes commonly called snow crystals.

Nothing escapes the ravages of insects, not even books. One of the insect
"enemies of books" is the Lepisma saceharina, often called the silver fish,
which is marked by its luster and its activity. Prof. Westwood once named a
minute beetle, which had done much mischief to the cover of a book, Ilypothene-
mus erudites. Specimens of books damaged by insects are exhibited in the South
Kensington Museum, London. Mr. Zaehnsdorf, a bookbinder, has formed a col-
lection of the book pests which he has met in the exercise of his calling. The
Arabs are said to write sometimes the name Kahikaj.! the name of a genius who
presides over insects, on their manuscripts, in order to protect them Irom the
ravages of his subjects.

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK.

By ALFRED R. WALLACE, F. R. S.
EROSION OF LAKE BASINF.

in.

~T AKES are distributed very unequally over the various parts
-L^ of the world, and they also differ much in their position in
relation to other physical peculiarities of the surface. Most of
the great continents have a considerable number of lakes, many
of great size, situated on plateaus or in central basins ; while the
northern parts of Europe and North America are thickly strewn
with lakes of various dimensions, some on the plains, others in
subalpine valleys, others again high up among the mountains,
these latter being of small size and usually called tarns. The
three classes of lakes last mentioned occur in the greatest profu-
sion in glaciated districts, while they are almost absent elsewhere ;
and it was this peculiarity of general distribution, together with
the observation that all the valley lakes of Switzerland and of our
own country occurred in the track of the old glaciers, and in sit-
uations where the erosive power of the ice would tend to form
rock-closed basins, that appears to have led the late Sir Andrew
Ramsay to formulate his theory of ice-erosion to explain them.
He was further greatly influenced by the extreme difficulty or
inadequacy of any possible alternative theory — a difficulty which
we shall see remains as great now as at the time he wrote.

This question of the origin of the lake basins of the glaciated
regions is especially interesting on account of the extreme diver-
gence of opinion that still prevails on the subject. While the
general facts of glaciation, the extent and thickness of the old
glaciers and ice-sheets, and the work they did in distributing
huge erratics many hundred miles from their sources and in cov-
ering thousands of square miles of country with thick layers of
bowlder clay and drift, are all admitted as beyond dispute, geolo-
gists are still divided into two hostile camps when the origin of
lake basins is concerned ; and the opposing forces seem to be ap-
proximately equal. Having for many years given much attention
to this problem, which has had for me a kind of fascination, I am
convinced that the evidence in favor of glaciation has not been
set forth in all its cumulative force, while many of the arguments
against it seem to me to be either illogical or beside the point at
issue. I have also to adduce certain considerations which have
hitherto been overlooked, but which appear to me to afford very
strong if not conclusive evidence for erosion as against any alter-
native theory yet proposed. I shall, therefore, first set forth, as

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 41

fully as tlie space at my command will allow, the general evidence
in favor of the ice origin of certain classes of lakes, and the special
conditions requisite for the production of lakes by this agency.
The objections of the best authorities will then be considered and
replied to, and the extreme difficulties of the alternative theories
will be pointed out. I shall then describe certain peculiarities,
hitherto unnoticed, which clearly point to erosion, as opposed to
any form of subsidence and upheaval, in the formation of the
lakes in question. Lastly, the special case of the Lake of Geneva
will be discussed, as affording a battle ground that will be ad-
mitted to be highly favorable to the anti-glacialists, since most of
them have adduced it as being entirely beyond the powers of the
ancient glaciers to have produced.

The Different Kinds of Lakes and their Distribution. —
To clear the ground at the outset, it may be well to state that the
great plateau lakes of various parts of the world have no doubt been
formed by some kind of earth movements occurring subsequent
to the upheaval and partial denudation of the country. It is uni-
versally admitted that existing lakes can not be very ancient,
geologically speaking, since they would inevitably be filled up by
the sediment carried into them by the streams and by the wind.
Our lakes must, therefore, be quite modern features of the earth's
surface. A considerable proportion of these plateau lakes are in
regions of little rainfall, and many of them have no outlet. The
latter circumstance is a consequence of the former, since it indi-
cates that evaporation balances the inflow. This would have
favored the formation of such lakes, since it would have pre-
vented the overflow of the water from the slight hollow first
formed, and the cutting of an outlet gorge which would empty the
incipient lake. Captain Dutton, in his account of the geology of
the Grand Canon district, lays stress on this fact, " that the eleva-
tion of a platform across the track of a river rarely diverts it from
its course, for the stream saws its bed into the rocks as fast as the
obstacle rises." Scanty rainfall and great evaporation seem there-
fore to be almost essential to the formation of the larger plateau
lakes. Rarely, such lakes may have been formed in comparatively
well-watered districts, but the earth movements must in these
cases have been exceptionally rapid and extensive, and they are
accordingly found most often in countries subject to volcanic dis-
turbances. Such are the lakes of southern Italy, of Macedonia,
of Asia Minor, and perhaps those of Central Africa.

Quite distinct from these are the subalpine lakes of those
mountain groups which have been subject to extreme glaciation.
These are characteristically valley lakes, occurring in the lower
portions of the valleys which have been the beds of enormous
glaciers, their frequency, their size, and their depth bearing some

VOL. XLV. 4

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

relation to tlie form and slope of the valleys and tlie intensity of
the glaciation to which they have been subject. In our own coun-
try we have in Wales a small number of valley lakes ; in the
Lake District, where the ice-sheet can be proved to have been
much thicker and to have lasted longer, we have more numerous,
larger, and deeper lakes ; and in Scotland, still more severely gla-
ciated, the lakes are yet more numerous, many of those in the
west opening out to the sea and forming the lochs and sounds of
the western Highlands. Coming to Switzerland, which, as we
have seen, bears indications of glaciation on a most gigantic
scale, we find a grand series of valley lakes both on the north and
south, situated for the most part in the tracks of those enormous
glaciers whose former existence and great development are clearly
proved by the vast moraines of northern Italy and the traveled
blocks of Switzerland and France. In Scandinavia, where the
Ice age reigned longest and with greatest power, lakes abound in
almost all the valleys of the eastern slope, while on the west the
fiords or submerged lakes are equally characteristic.

In North America, to the south of the St. Lawrence River and
of Lakes Ontario and Erie, there are numbers of true valley lakes,
as there are also in Canada, besides innumerable others scattered
over the open country, especially in the north, where the ice-sheet
must have been thickest and have lingered longest. And in the
southern hemisphere .we have, in New Zealand, a reproduction of
these phenomena — a grand mountain range with existing glaciers,
indications that these glaciers were recently much more extensive,
a series of fine valley lakes forming a true lake district, rivaling
that of Switzerland in extent and beauty, with fiords on the south-
west coast comparable with those of Norway.

Besides these valley lakes there are two other kinds of lakes
always found in strongly glaciated regions. These are Alpine
tarns — small lakes occurring at high elevations and very often at
the heads of valleys under lofty precipices ; and small or large
plateau or low-level lakes which occur literally by thousands in
northern Canada, in Sweden, Finland, Lapland, and northwestern
Russia. The valley lakes and the Alpine tarns are admitted by all
geologists to be mostly true rock basins, while the plateau and
low-country lakes are many of them hollows in the drift with
which much of the country is covered, though rock basins are also
not infrequent.

Here, then, we see a remarkable association of lakes of various
kinds with highly glaciated regions. The question is whether
there is any relation of cause and effect in the association ; and
to determine this we must take a rapid survey of other moun-
tain regions where indications of ice action are comparative-
ly slight or altogether wanting, and see whether similar lakes

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 43

occur there also. Tlie comparison will, I think, prove very
instructive.

Spain and Portugal are pre-eminently mountainous countries,
there being a succession of distinct ranges and isolated mountain
groups from east to west and from north to south ; yet there is
not a single valley lake in the whole peninsula, and but very few
mountain tarns. Sardinia and Corsica are wholly mountainous,
but they do not appear to possess a single valley lake. Nor does
the whole range of the Apennines, though there are many large
plateau lakes in southern Italy. Farther south we have the lofty
Atlas Mountains, but giving rise to no subalpine valley lakes.
The innumerable mountains and valleys of Asia Minor have no
lakes but those of the plateaus ; neither has the grand range of
the Lebanon, a hundred miles long, and giving rise to an abun-
dance of rivers. Turning to the peninsula of India, we have the
ranges of the Ghauts, eight hundred miles long, the mountain
mass of the Neilgherries and that of Ceylon, all without such
lakes as we are seeking, though Ceylon has a few plateau lakes in
the north. The same phenomenon meets us in South Africa and
Madagascar — abundance of mountains and rivers, but no valley
lakes. In Australia, again, the whole great range of mountains
from the uplands of Victoria, through New South Wales and
Queensland to the peninsula of Cape York, has not a single true
valley lake. Turning now to the New World, we find no valley
lakes in the southern Alleghanies, while the grand mountains of
Mexico and Central America have a few plateau lakes, but none
of the class we are seeking. The extremely mountainous islands
of the West Indies — Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica — are equally defi-
cient. In South America we have on the east the two great
mountain systems of Guiana and Brazil, furrowed with valleys
and rich in mountain streams, but none of these are adorned with
lakes. And, lastly, the grand ranges of the equatorial Andes, for
ten degrees on each side of the equator, produce only a few small
lakes on the high plateaus, and a few in the great lowland river
plains — probably the sites of old river channels — but no valley
lakes in any way comparable with those of Switzerland or even
of our own insignificant mountains.

Having thus roughly surveyed the chief mountain regions of
the whole world, we find that true subalpine valley lakes — that is,
lakes in the lower parts of the valleys descending from mountain
ranges or groups, filling up those valleys for a considerable dis-
tance, usually very deep, and situated in true rock basins — that
such lakes as these are absolutely unknown anywhere but in those
mountain regions which independent evidence shows to have been
subject to enormous and long-continued glaciation. No writer
that I am acquainted with has laid sufficient stress on this really

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

marvelous fact of lake distribution. Prof. Bonney passes it by
witli the remark that there is a perfect gradation pf lakes from
the smallest tarns to those of North America and Central Africa ;
and Mr. Douglas Freshfield says that wherever on the surface
of our globe there are heights there must be hollows ; and other
writers think that lakes are general results of the process of
mountain-making. But none of these writers have apparently
even noticed the fact that glacier valley lakes have a distinctive
character which separates them broadly from the lakes of all
non-glaciated countries, and that they are totally absent from
such countries.

But besides the mountains which possess true valley lakes,
there are a number of ranges which have been glaciated yet do
not possess them, and this absence of lakes has been used as an
argument against the connection of valley lakes with glaciation.
A little examination, however, shows us that these cases greatly
strengthen our argument. Comparatively large and deep valley
lakes are the result of excessive glaciation, which has occurred
only when conditions of latitude, altitude, and moisture combined
to produce it. In regions where glaciation was of diminished in-
tensity, from whatever causes, valley lakes diminish in size and
number, till at last only tarns are found in moderately glaciated
districts. Thus, the Pyrenees were far less severely glaciated
than the Alps ; they consequently possess no large valley lakes,
but numerous small high lakes and tarns. As we go eastward in
the Alps, the diminished rain and snowfall led to less severe gla-
ciation, and we find the valley lakes diminish in size and numbers
till far east we have only tarns. The Carpathians have no valley
lakes, but many tarns. The Caucasus has no lakes and very few
tarns, and this may be partly due to the steepness of the valleys,
a feature which is, as we shall see, unfavorable to lake formation.
In the South Island of New Zealand the lakes are small in the
north, but increase in size and number as we go south where the
glaciation was more intense. These numerous facts, derived from
a survey of the chief mountains of the world, are amply suffi-
cient to show that there must be some causal connection between
glaciation and these special types of lakes. What the connection
is we shall inquire later on.

The Conditions that favor the Production of Lakes by
Ice Erosion. — Those who oppose the production of lake basins by
ice erosion often argue as if the size of the glacier was the only
factor and urge that, because there are no lake basins in one val-
ley where large glaciers have been at work, those which exist in
another valley where the glaciers were no larger, could not have
been produced by them. But this by no means follows, because
the production of a lake basin depends on a combination of

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 45

favorable conditions. In the first place it is evident that ice ero-
sion to some extent must have taken place along the whole length
of the glacier's course, and that in many cases the result might be
simply to deepen the valley all along, not quite equally, perhaps,
but with no such extreme differences as to produce a lake basin.
This would especially be the case if a valley had a considerable
downward slope, and was not very unequal in width or in the
nature of the rocks forming its floor. The first essential to lake
erosion is, therefore, a differential action, caused locally either by
increased thickness of the ice, a more open and level valley floor,
or a more easily eroded rock, or by any combination of these.

If we look at the valley lakes of our own country and of
Switzerland, the first thing that strikes us is their great length
and their situation, usually at the lower end of the valley where
it emerges from the higher mountains into comparatively low
country. Windermere is over ten miles long, Ullswater nearly
eight miles, and the larger lakes of Switzerland and North Italy
are very much longer. The first essential condition, therefore,
was a valley the lower part of which was already nearly level
for several miles, and with a considerable width to the base of the
mountain slopes. In the non-glaciated districts of our own coun-
try, the Dart and the Tamar are examples of rivers which have
cut their valleys down nearly to sea-level while still among the
hills ; and in South Wales the Wye, the Usk, and the Severn have
a similar character.

It must always be remembered that glacial erosion is produced
by the tremendous vertical pressure of the ice, by its lower strata
being thickly loaded with hard rocks frozen into its mass, and by
its slow but continuous motion. In the lower part of its course a
glacier would be most charged with rocky debris in its under
strata, since not only would it have been continually breaking off
and absorbing, as it were, fresh material during every mile of its
onward course, but more and more of its superficial moraines
would be ingulfed by crevasses or moulins, and be added to the
grinding material below. That this was so is proved by the great
quantity of stones and grit in the " till," which is thought by
Prof. James Geikie to consist, on the average, of as much stony
matter as clay, sometimes one material preponderating, some-
times the other. The same thing is indicated by the enormous
amount of debris often found on the lower parts of large glaciers.
The end of the great Tasman Glacier in New Zealand is thus com-
pletely hidden for five miles and most of the other glaciers
descending from Mount Cook have their extremities similarly
buried in debris. Dr. Diener found the Milam Glacier in the cen-
tral Himalayas completely covered with moraine rubbish; and
Mr. W. M. Conway states that the lowest twenty miles of the

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hispar Glacier (forty miles long) are " entirely covered witli a
mantle of moraine." If these glaciers extended to over a hundred
miles long, as did the Rhone Glacier when it reached the Lake of
Geneva, much of this debris would probably have found its way
to the bottom, and thus supply the necessary grinding material
and the abundant stones of the " till " found everywhere in the
tracks of the old glaciers.

Again, although ice is viscous and can slowly change its shape
to almost any extent, yet it takes a considerable time to adapt
itself to continually changing outlines of the valley bottom.
Hence, where great inequalities occur portions of the rocky floor
might be bridged over for a considerable space, and where a val-
ley had a narrow V-shaped bottom the subglacial stream might
eat away so much of the ice that the glacier might rest wholly on
the lateral slopes, and hardly touch the bottom at all. On a tol-
erably wide and level valley bottom, however, the ice would press
with its fullest intensity, and its armature of densely packed
stones and rock fragments would groove and grind the rocky
floor over every foot of its surface, and with a rate of motion
perhaps greater than that of the existing Greenland and Alaskan
glaciers, owing to the more southern latitude and therefore higher
mean temperature of the soil and the ice. At the same time sub-
glacial streams, forced onward under great hydrostatic pressure,
would insinuate themselves into every vacant groove and furrow
as each graving tool successively passed on and the one behind it
took a slightly different position ; and thus the glacial mud, the
product of the erosion, would be continually washed away, finally
escaping at the lower extremity of the glacier, or in some cases
getting embayed in rocky hollows where it might remain perma-
nently as masses of clayey " till," packed with stones and com-
pressed by the weight of the ice to the hardness of rock itself.
The continual lubrication of the whole valley floor by water
forced onward under pressure, together with the ever-changing
form of the under surface of the glacier as it slowly molded itself
to the varying contours of the rocks beneath, would greatly facili-
tate the onward motion. Owing to these changes of form and the
great upward pressure of the water in all the hollows to which it
gained access, it seems probable that at any one time not more
than half the entire bottom surface of the glacier would be in
actual contact with the rock, thus greatly reducing the friction ;
while, as the process of erosion went on, the rock surfaces would
become continually smoother and the inequalities less pro-
nounced, so that even when a rock basin had been ground out to
a considerable depth the onward motion might be almost as great
as at the beginning of the process.

If, now, we consider that the erosion I have attempted to describe

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 47

was going on during a large part of the Glacial period, under a
weight of ice varying from one to three or four thousand feet in
thickness ; that the huge grinding tool was at work day and night,
winter and summer, century after century, for whatever number of
thousands of years we give to the Glacial period ; that, as innumer-
able other facts prove, the ice moved irresistibly over hill and dale,
and up slopes far steeper than any formed by the upward slopes
of the bottom of our deepest lakes, what is there of impossible, or
even of improbable, in the belief that lake basins were produced
by such differential erosion ? To the ordinary observer it seems
impossible that a mountain valley, half a mile wide and bounded
by rocky slopes and precipices two or three thousand feet high,
can have been formed without any " convulsion of Nature," but
merely by the natural agencies he sees still in action — rain and
frost, sun and wind — and that the small, rock-encumbered stream
now flowing along its bottom can have carried away the whole
of the cubic miles of solid rock that once filled up the valley. But
the geologist knows that these apparently insignificant forces
have done the work, through their continuous action always in
one direction for thousands or even for millions of years ; and,
therefore, having before him so many proofs of the eroding
power of ice, in planed and rounded rocks, and in the grooves and
furrows which are the latest marks left by the ice tool, and bear-
ing in mind the long duration and possibly recurrent phases of
the Ice age — to be measured certainly by tens, perhaps by hun-
dreds of thousands of years — he can have little difficulty in ac-
cepting the erosion of lake basins as the most satisfactory explana-
tion of their origin.

Objections of Modern Writers considered. — Prof. Bon-
ney and many other writers ask, why lakes are so few though
all the chief valleys of the Alps were filled with ice ; and why, for
instance, there is no great lake in the Dora Baltea Valley, whose
glacier produced the great moraines of Ivrea opposite its outlet
into the plains of Italy, and which form a chain of hills fifteen
miles long and fifteen hundred feet high. The answer, in the
case of the Dora Baltea, is not difficult, since it almost certainly
has had a series of lake basins at Aosta, Verrex, and other places
where the broad, level valley is now filled with alluvial gravel.
But the more important point is the extreme narrowness of the
lower jDart of the valley above Donnas and again near its entrance
into the valley of the Po. The effect of this would be that the
great glacier, probably two thousand feet thick or more, would
move rapidly in its upper layers, carrying out its load of stones
and debris to form the terminal moraine, while the lower strata,
choked in the defiles, would move very slowly. And once out in
the open valley of the Po, then a great inlet of the warm Medi-

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

terranean Sea, the ice would rapidly melt away in the water and
in the warm, moist atmosphere, and therefore have no tendency to
erode a lake basin.

The Lake of Lugano, with its curious radiating arms, is said
to be another difficulty. But each of these arms is the outlet of a
valley or series of valleys, which were no doubt reduced to nearly
level plains by subaerial denudation before the ice began its
work. The basin of these valleys comprises about two hundred
square miles and the watershed to the north is moderately high ;
but there can be no doubt that a large overflow from the Como
Glacier poured into it ; and the difficulty seems to me to be purely
imaginary if we simply recognize the fact that an essential pre-
liminary to lake erosion is a pre-existing nearly level valley
bottom.

Another difficulty is said to be the frequent presence of islands
in the lakes; but here again the answer is easy. The islands,
always ground down to roclies moutonnees, were craggy hills in
the pre-existing valleys, and such hills existed because they had
for ages resisted the subaerial denudation which had hollowed
out the valleys. The same characters of density or toughness
that enabled them to resist ordinary denudation, enabled them
also, to some extent, to resist destruction by ice erosion ; just as
the character of the rocks which enabled ordinary denudation to
bring them down to a nearly level surface in the valley bottom,
also facilitated the ice erosion which converted the level valley
floor into a rock basin and, after the ice left it, into a lake.

Every writer brings forward the well-known fact that the
ends of glaciers pass over beds of gravel or moraine matter, with-
out destroying or even disturbing it. But there is no reason why
they should do more than compress such beds of loose material
and roughly level their surfaces. It is the old delusion of a gla-
cier acting like a scoop or plow that leads to the idea that if it
can erode rock slowly it must altogether demolish gravel or bowl-
der clay. But if we turn to the description I have given of
how a glacier erodes a rock basin and apply this to its passage
over a bed of gravel or bowlder clay, we shall see that in the lat-
ter case the erosion would be much more difficult, because each
ice-imbedded stone or rock would press into the yielding material,
which would close up instantly behind it under pressure of the
ice and thus leave no result. Where the subglacial water accu-
mulated, channels would be cut in the gravel or clay, but else-
where there would probably be no erosion at all. Some writers
maintain that the lakes were all filled up with alluvium previous
to the Glacial epoch, and that the ice cleared out this incoherent
matter ; but it is almost certain that no such clearance would
have taken place, because the glacier would pass over such a sur-

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 49

face, the stones temporarily furrowing it, while the subglacial
water would cut for itself one or more deep channels, and there
would thus be no water under pressure acting over the whole
surface of the basin, which must be so great an aid to erosion in
solid rock.

These considerations apply to the equally common objection,
that the great masses of bowlder clay left behind by the ice sheet,
and over which it must have passed, prove that it could have had
little eroding power. The product of the erosion of irregular rock
surf aces, in an undulating tract of country, where not carried
away by water, would necessarily, by the pressure of the ice, be
forced into the more or less sheltered or landlocked hollows, thus
tending to equalize the surface contours and facilitate the onward
motion of the ice. In such hollows it would be pressed and com-
pacted by the weight of the ice, but would be neither eroded nor
forced away until, by the continued process of rock erosion, it
became exposed to unequal lateral pressure, when it would be
gradually removed to some other sheltered hollow, perhaps to
again undergo the same process of removal at a later period, and
finally rest in the positions in which we find it. During the later
stages of the Ice age when, notwithstanding the onward motion
of the middle portions of the glacier, the lower portion was melt-
ing away both above and below, and the terminal ice cliff was
permanently retreating, almost the whole of the eroded matter,
except what was carried away by the subglacial torrents, would
remain behind ; and it is this final product of glacial erosion that
forms the huge deposits of bowlder clay which encumber the
surface of the lowlands in most highly glaciated countries.
When, however, the moving ice changed its direction, as it often
did, during the varying phases of the Ice age, it sometimes acted
most energetically in crushing, dragging, and contorting both the
bowlder clay and other superficial beds, often causing the wildest
confusion in the deposits and sometimes imbedding huge sheets
of Tertiary strata or chalk in the midst of the bowlder clay. But
this is a very different mode of action from that by which hard
rocks are ground down or lake basins eroded.

In reply to the continual assertions of Prof. Bonney, and of
most of the Alpine explorers, that the action of glaciers is entirely
superficial, and that they actually preserve the surfaces they cover
from denudation, a few facts may be here given. From a large
number of gaugings by Dollfus-Ausset, Dr. Penck has calculated
that the solid matter in the torrent which issues from the Aar
Glacier annually amounts to six hundred and thirty-eight cubic
metres for each square kilometre of the surface of the glacier, a
quantity sufficient to lower the bed of the glacier one metre in six-
teen hundred and sixty-six years, or one foot in five hundred and

50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

five years ; and the same writers calculate that the same amount
of erosion in a valley by water alone would require two and a
half times as long.* Other writers have made estimates less
favorable to ice as an agent of erosion ; but even if the amount
annually be but small, the cumulative effect was undoubtedly
very great in the case of the enormous glaciers of the Ice age.
The very wide areas covered with bowlder clay and drift in
North America, and its great average depth, have already been
referred to in my previous article (Popular Science Monthly,
April, 1894, p. 782) ; but a still more striking estimate has been
made of the amount of rock debris in northern Europe which can
be traced to Scandinavia. Dr. Amund Helland states that about
eight hundred thousand square miles are covered with such drift
to an average depth of one hundred and fifty feet, of which about
one hundred feet are of Scandinavian origin, the remainder being
local. The area of Scandinavia and Finland, from which this
debris has been derived, is very much less than the area over
which it is distributed, so that to produce it an amount equal to
an average thickness of two hundred and fifty-five feet must have
been removed from those countries. To this must be added the
amount which has gone into the Baltic and North Seas, and also
that which has been carried away by rain and rivers since the Ice
age passed away, and yet further, the enormous amount that still
remains on the lowlands of Scandinavia, and we shall then arrive
at an amount probably twice as great as the above estimate, that
is, something like five hundred feet as the average amount of ice
erosion of Scandinavia during the Glacial period. f Now, unless
this estimate is wildly and extravagantly erroneous — aiid Prof.
Geikie adopts it as prima facie not extravagant — we have an
amount of ice erosion so enormous as to put completely out of
court all the allegations of those who attempt to minimize it as a
mere smoothing off of sharp angles and rugged surfaces. I am
not aware that Prof. Bonney denies the Scandinavian origin of the
greater part of the northern drift, and unless he can show that its
quantity is something like a fiftieth part only of the estimate of
Dr. Helland, I can not understand how he can still maintain that
the glaciers and ice-sheets of the Ice age were agents of abrasion,
not of erosion, and that they were therefore imj)otent to grind
away the comparatively small amount of rock removed, under
the most favorable conditions, from the basins of the valley lakes
whose origin we are discussing. — Fortnightly Review.

[To be continued. '\

* Falsan, La Periode Glaciaire, p. 90.

f Fragments of Earth Lore, by James Geikie, F. R. S., 1893, p. 167.

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION. 51

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION.

By C. HANFOED HENDERSON,

PKINCIPAL OF THE NORTHEAST MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA.

I DO not know when the intellectual life is born. If we consult
our own very different and individual experiences we would
reach a variety of answers. But I shall at least express the expe-
rience of a large body of people in saying that this intellectual
birth begins when for the first time we apprehend the principle
of causation.

In any age there are but few who have attained the intellec-
tual life. The vast majority of the race are still absorbed with
the vegetative and animal functions of life. One would say that
the birth of the spirit is not yet. Even among those called en-
lightened the major part merely assent to the principle of causa-
tion. They can not be said to apprehend it as an experience of
their own intelligence. If you propound the principle to average
men and women they will unhesitatingly agree with you. It
takes no great cleverness to see that a denial would mean an im-
possible contradiction. In the sequence of events, causes are fol-
lowed by adequate and commensurate effects ; back of all effects
are adequate and commensurate causes. This does very well as
an abstract sentiment. But in the next comment which these
good people make u]3on human affairs, it is more than probable
that their denial of causation will be quite as direct and explicit
as if expressed in so many words. And this is notably the case
if the comment be upon those affairs which involve long-standing
traditions, as when the talk turns upon political or social or re-
ligious issues.

The difficulty of being consistent is a great difficulty. The
ability to be consistent is a proper test of intellectual progress.
A great advance has been made when the beliefs in one depart-
ment of thought are not entirely contradicted and neutralized by
the beliefs in another department ; when even a small residue of
positive philosophy remains ; when our science does not contra-
dict our religion, and our religion our politics, and our politics
our sociology.

How shall one attain even a moderate degree of reason ? It is
a large task to make the beliefs in any one bundle harmonize. It
is a still greater task to make the bundles themselves harmonize
with one another. In the autobiography of John Stuart Mill we
have the record of such an attempt, and I know of no book in the
language, which so stimulates one's desire to undertake a similar
task.

Turning now from the workers to their work, the same prin-

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ciple will serve as an adequate test of progress. Any branch of
knowledge becomes a science only when the relation between
cause and effect is rigidly established, and the capricious and
accidental are as rigidly eliminated. Comte found his test of
science in the power of prediction. There is no science, unless
under certain given conditions we can say precisely what will
happen. But this, I take it, is only another way of saying the
same thing : we can predict only when we have perceived the
causal relations.

The most common affairs of life have not yet been reduced in
practice to a science. Bread-making, for example, is still a black
art. You put flour and water and yeast and salt and lard to-
gether, and do certain things to it, and then trust to the gods to
make it into bread. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
Sometimes you have good bread and more often you don't. Yet
I once met a man, an ex-college professor, who said that he always
had good bread. His recipe was simple : he made the conditions
invariable and the results were likewise invariable. We have all
heard of the lady who, when her servant was out, put wood and
paper and coal together, applied a match, and then went upstairs
and prayed that she might have a fire.

Practically we do not disapprove of this condition of affairs.
For the most part, it amuses us.

But the less domestic sciences afford better illustrations of the
realization of the principle. In the hands of Kepler, for instance,
astronomy failed to be a science. With wonderful skill he ap-
plied his knowledge of conic sections to the motions of the plan-
ets. Yet he could offer no better explanation of these motions
than the suggestion that each planet was the chariot of an in-
dwelling, guiding spirit. We could predict nothing of these
imaginary charioteers, for the laws which might be presumed to
govern them were quite beyond the limits of investigation. But
with the introduction of the conception of universal gravitation,
the study of astronomy took rank as a recognized science, and its
observed phenomena were reducible to an orderly sequence of cause
and effect. It is true that gravitation itself remains as profound
a mystery as the charioteers of Kepler, and in substituting the one
for the other we have not explained the universe. But we never
hoped to do that. The superiority of gravitation lies in this, that
it is the cause of uniform and measurable effects. Under Kepler's
conception of things, the perturbations of Uranus might be as-
cribed to a little caprice on the part of the charioteer. Under
Newton's conception such a disposition of the irregularities would
be impossible. They could result only from the attraction of a
definite amount of matter acting at a definite distance. When
Adams and Leverrier had completed their calculations. Dr. Galle

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION. 53

knew exactly where to point his great telescope, and, as we all
know, it pointed to Neptune.

It was the same with geology. Sir Charles Lyell substituted
for the unimaginable cataclysms of the older geologists the slow
and simple operations of Nature's present forces. It was his
work which changed geology from a wild dream into an accurate
science, and to-day we hold this principle of causation as the
check and test of all geological speculations.

The science of chemistry was born when the principle of the
conservation of matter became established, and men stood face to
face with the necessary relation between cause and effect ; when
they realized their own inability to bring matter out of nothing-
ness, or to make it pass into nothingness again. Similarly, phys-
ics, as a science, came only with the recognition of the principles
of the conservation of energy and the correlation of forces. It is
difficult for us, standing on the vantage ground of the present, to
realize into what an abyss we should suddenly plunge if we lost
sight for one moment of these gains and passed into a world of
thought in which energy came and went and matter appeared
and disappeared. It would practically be a world of insanities.

Almost in our own generation we have seen the birth of the
science of biology, and we all remember very vividly the bitter
pain of its birth. As a branch of study, it has existed from the
very earliest days when man first began to observe animated Na-
ture ; but it remained a body of isolated facts until the work of
Darwin and Wallace established the causal relations involved in
evolution, and suggested the mode by which this process of un-
folding had been brought about.

It would be very easy to enlarge these illustrations in what we
call the " natural " sciences, but it is hardly necessary. The point
is probably established.

In those branches of inquiry which have to do with human
rather than with purely physical activities, we shall find precisely
the same thing ; but in this case their history is so complex that
the recognition of the principle of causation, and its application
to human affairs, have been correspondingly slower. Even now
it is far from comfjlete. Nevertheless, in this study of the human
spirit, we have all along been blindly trying to establish the prin-
ciple of cause and effect. In the half-science which has grown
out of this attempt, the failure has come, not from a wrong end
in mind — and this is to be particularly noted — but rather from
the establishment of fictitious causal relationships. In the com-
plex operations of the human spirit we have observed definite
results ; we have sought for causes ; we have not been wise enough
to find them ; but we have found something which we mistook
for causes, and so we have built up a system founded on false re-

54 • THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

lationsliips. The mistake is difficult to rectify. These imaginary
causes must first be swept away. The true science comes only
when the true and adequate cause is discovered.

We are witnessing to-day the rehabilitation of the sciences of
the human spirit. In all of them the reforming process is the
same. It is the mending of the old mistake ; the getting rid of
the fictitious causations, and the search for the true ones. Thus,
for example, the fertile thought in modern sociology is the grow-
ing recognition of the fact that national characteristics are the
direct outgrowth of the material conditions surrounding the na-
tion—the climate, the soil, the food. The evil of intemperance is
being met and vanquished on the same ground, not by prohibi-
tions and pledges, but by the substitution of such a rational diet
and such rational life conditions that an exhausted physical sys-
tem will no longer crave the false stimulus of intoxicants. If a
young man drinks to excess we no longer put the blame upon the
devil, although in giving up this cause we have certainly dis-
pensed with a great convenience. We put the blame nearer home.
The careful housekeeper, overbusy with much scrubbing, has had
something to do with it, if in her eager pursuit of dust she has
forgotten to provide wholesome, nutritious food for the vigorous,
healthy organisms committed to her charge. The home condi-
tions have had something to do with it if they have offered at-
tractions so meager as to be quite outweighed by the anaesthesia
of drunkenness.

This modern search after true causation is merciless in its
operation. It is a two-edged sword. It is tracing home the source
of social distempers to men and women who have hitherto been
complacently patting themselves upon the back and putting the
blame upon the world, the devil, God, Providence— in a word,
upon anything rather than upon their own ignorance.

Among the many activities concerning themselves with the
welfare of the human spirit, there is none more complex, more
difficult, or more important than that activity which we sum up
under the name of education ; but the history of its growth is
much the same history as that of the sciences, "natural" and
"human," which we have just been sketching. If it is to become
a science, it is to become one by precisely the same process as
these have done— that is to say, by the establishment within itself
of true causal relations.

In all of this, one is but the chronicler of the obvious, and says
nothing that is new. But probably the verities are mostly old.
It is only their restatement that is new. Let us be honest. Let
us acknowledge that what we most need is, not so much any fresh
accession of truth, as a more sincere and persistent effort to live
up to such measure of it as we have.

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION. 55

And yet this very obvious thing has not been done. One can
not honestly say that the education of to-day rests upon a scien-
tific basis. It seems to us absurd now that Kepler should have
referred the planetary motions to an indwelling will. But we are
doing things even more absurd in the name of education. We
observe tendencies in children: we refer them to false causes.
We desire a certain development : we set in motion the wrong
machinery. In a word, as scientists we are causationists ; as edu-
cators we are not.

Now, what is to be done about it ? Modern educators are for
the most part sincere, enthusiastic, devoted. Even to those who
teach simply for the salary, there must come occasionally an
altruistic thrill. Why then do we fail so dismally ? Why are we
all so blind ?

It is easier to ask questions than to answer them ; to de-
clare one's self a sinner than to become a saint. But the world
is old. It has met many sorrows. We ought from these to
be able to learn some lessons. We ought to be able to reach
some fertile thought capable of transforming education into a
science.

Few problems have had greater play of thought about them
than this very problem of education, and it has been thought of a
high character. The various lines which this thought has taken
are to be found in the histories of education. It is noticeable in
glancing over this curious history that all lines converge in this
one point, that each system of education which they represent is
the somewhat retarded reflection of the Zeitgeist — the belated
product of the great time-spirit of the age in which they hap-
pened to be born. Resting, as education does, upon all the
other sciences, it is inevitable that its fruition should follow
theirs. With religion and ethics and sociology and biology in a
state of incoherence and empiricism, it was manifestly impossible
for education to be rational. It was first necessary that the
foundation sciences should be reduced to order, and the sequence
of cause and efl^ect established within their own borders. This has
been done in part. It is the peculiar glory of these closing years
of the nineteenth century that they have witnessed a unification
of knowledge such as previous ages had not the power even to
dream of. These many sciences upon which education rests have
been shown to be but so many manifestations of one science, and
the phenomena which they study but the operations of one law.
And this law expresses the orderly sequence of the universe, the
inviolable following of cause and effect, the exclusion of exterior,
unmeasurable agencies, the uniform unfolding of the present out
of the past — in a word, it is the great law of evolution. The sys-
tem of education which is the proper flower and fruit of this

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

accumulated science is clearly a system whicli proceeds upon this
universal principle of development. /

We liave said that the reflection of the time-spirit which edu-
cation represents is always and necessarily a somewhat retarded
image. It follows the time-spirit. It can not precede it. But
were this all, the problem of education would be vastly easier
than at present. Fallen as we are upon a scientific age, it would
be a comfort to believe that the image of it shown in education
would surely conform to it, however slowly. But unfortunately
the plate upon which this reflection is thrown is far from free. It
bears already the deep impressions of many previous images. At
any moment our education reflects not only the living Zeit-
geist, but also, and even more clearly, the dead standards of a
long past. It is seldom that a man arises among us who has suffi-
ciently clear vision to distinguish these several images and apply
the upper one to the needs of childhood. It is comparatively easy
to refute a sophistry with a new face. It is tremendously diffi-
cult to escape the power of a sophistry to which you have been
born, and in the presence of whose illogic you have always lived.
It takes genius to escape.

But suppose now for one brief moment that we could apply a
sponge to this complex plate of ours — not from the front, for that
would remove the image we most wish to preserve ; but from the
back, removing image after image until we came to the last and
uppermost — what do you think we should remove, and what let
stand, in our current education ? I think we should erase much
and leave but little. Let us see.

The human infant is a much less complex thing than we are
wont to think. It is plastic and general; for the most part a
mere bundle of possibilities. And we stand to it in the relation
of Fate or Destiny. We have given to us a tiny organism with
little individual will or intelligence. The influences to which we
subject this organism constitute the educative process.

There are two elements to be considered. First of all, there is
wrapped up in this tiny ball of organized matter an inherent
tendency more inexorable than the predestination taught by
Calvin. We call it heredity. It is the gift, for good or ill, of
fathers and great-grandfathers, of mothers and great-grandmoth-
ers, for many generations back. The fairy godmothers who come
in the story book to every child's christening represent a scien-
tific fact. The talents they bestow, the fatal limitations they
inflict, are not by chance. They are the qualities of ancestry.

A system of education neglecting this element of heredity
neglects a determining cause, and is fundamentally unscientific.
But it is an element largely beyond the control of the teacher.
All he can do is to develop these germs, or discourage them, as

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION. 57

lieredity" seems good or bad. Even in this very moderate func-
tion lie blunders, for the most part, terribly.

The second element is the one with which we have practically
to deal. It includes all post-natal influences. In science we call
it environment.

It is a long-standing debate as to which of these elements is
the stronger. We need not enter the controversy. The balance
of present evidence seems to support that view of the matter
which gives the greater influence to environment. In this lies
the hope of the educator. We mean to get the best of the dead
great-grandmother. Mr. Fiske has pointed out that in the in-
€reased helplessness of the human infant, in its greater freedom
from inborn instincts, in the lengthening days of the plastic
period of infancy are to be found the possibilities of a far greater
individual advance.

This, then, is the problem set before us as educators — so to
shape these influences that the developing human spirit may ap-
proach perfection. It is not a new problem. It was before the
Oreeks. It was before the men of the middle ages. It has been
€onstantly before our own people. But it has never been very
satisfactorily solved.

The extent of our failure can be better realized when we re-
member that nearly all educational reforms have been forced
xipon the schools from without. They originated with men and
women who were so fortunate as to escape the pedagogical
blight. When we remember further that the men of mark in the
great world of action and creative thought have either been edu-
cated in an irregular fashion, or, if they have gone to the acade-
mies and colleges, have never taken the courses too seriously,
these facts are significant. They mean that education has too
-often been a thwarting of the sj^irit, an attempt to fit a square
plug into a round hole, a pressure, a dead weight, rather than an
unfolding. They mean, in short, that education has seldom, in
practice at least, been reduced to a science.

We fail as Ptolemy failed, as Kepler failed, as the alchemists
failed. We fail because we do not observe the true sequence of
■cause and effect in the life of the child. We shall succeed when
we abandon our educational nostrums, our tonics, our pills, our
philosopher's stones for turning ignorance into knowledge, our
short-cut methods of salvation for making bad into good. We
shall transform education into a science and educators into scien-
tists when we give up these off-hand remedies, these false views
of causal relationships, and come to recognize the simple fact that
the child is an organism, and that the processes of growth and
education must conform to the laws of organisms. We must part
■ company with that fatal duality which separates body and spirit.

VOL. XLV. 5

58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We must look upon the child as a unit. We must see in it an or-
ganism which includes both body and spirit, an integer. Then
we shall substitute true causation for false causation. To do this,
will be to follow in the footsteps of Newton, to write the Prin-
cipia for education.

To make a good telescopic lens we must have glass of a cer-
tain quality, high refractive power, freedom from flaws, perfect
transparency. Then we must carefully fashion it into a certain
prescribed form. How utterly stupid it would be for us to spend
all our time and energy upon one half of the problem — the fash-
ioning of the lens — and neglect the quality of the material ! We
can imagine no one insane enough to do such a thing. Yet in
education we are guilty of this very insanity. It is no wonder
that the result so often fails to disclose heaven.

Another illustration. Carbonic-acid gas, ammonia, and water
vapor constitute the chief food of plants. But you may surround
a plant with just such an atmosphere, and yet get little growth
if the soil be unsuitable, and the vivifying sunshine be not there
to transmute this food into vegetable fiber. I often stand in our
crowded schoolrooms with the feeling that we have provided an
atmosphere rich in the materials of knowledge — possibly over-
rich — but that we have not seen to the root of the matter in try-
ing to meliorate the life conditions of the child ; and particularly
that there is lacking the needed sunshine of a joyous, wholesome
spirit to assimilate this food, and turn it into healthful human
growth.

If a boy be up late at night ; if he be routed out of bed early
on the following morning, before the strong sleep of youth has
spent itself ; if he be flurried with little household cares, and the
inconveniences of long transportation, is it a wonder that when at
last he reaches the school, out of breath, and just in time to hear
the morning lesson, we can do little with him ? The marvel is
that we should expect to. He had much better stay at home.
Fond parents tell it of their children, and priggish children tell it
of themselves, that they have not missed a single day at school in
eight or nine or some other weary waste of years. There is no
merit in this. The question is. What spirit did they take along,
and what did the school profit them after they got there ?

The life of an organism consists of nutrition, of growth, and
of reproduction.

How often do we remember these cardinal facts in handling
the human organism ? The food of school children is of the most
haphazard character ; their growth, an accidental factor, and the
holy mystery of fatherhood and motherhood too delicate a matter
to mention to them. We err very grievously against the help-
lessness of childhood and youth in thus willfully neglecting the

CAUSE AND EFFECT IN EDUCATION. 59

known elements in their development, and turning so persistently
to imaginary and fictitious causes. We are practically denying
the principle of causation.

One may not be willing to say that the brain secretes thought
as the liver secretes bile ; but whatever theory of the origin and
nature of the human spirit we may entertain, it must be admitted
that the brain is its tool, and to have a wholesome manifestation
requires a wholesome instrument. One need not be frightened —
this is not materialism. I do not want the child to be merely a
wholesome kitten — a beautiful, soulless Antinous. Let us think of
him as a unit. When we say food, we haA^e in mind ideas as well
as oatmeal. When we say growth, we have in mind increasing
perception as well as increasing stature. When we say reproduc-
tion, we have in mind the creative activities of the artist spirit, as
well as the function of parenthood. But these things go together.
It is neither an animal nor a spirit which presents itself at our
door and submits to be educated. It is a monistic child.

We shall never have a scientific system of education so long
as we persist in considering only a part of the child's day, and
only the exterior aspect of his life. It is useless to argue that
these matters belong to the province of parents, and not of teach-
ers, for we all know that they are sadly neglected. The day
school can not succeed without the co-operation of the home. It
is rarely forthcoming. The average American parent will make
heroic sacrifices to give his children what he is pleased to call an
education. To him, this means sending them to school — five hours
out of twenty-four, five days out of seven. In this he only illus-
trates his supreme faith in machinery. Under what influences do
the children come ? With what other children do they associate ?
What happens to them for the rest of the time ?

Who asks these questions ?

Nobody.

Who knows the answers ?

Nobody.

We fail, then, so lamentably as teachers, not because we are
altogether unwise, or because our methods are altogether bad, but
very largely because we have deficient organisms to work upon.
We are stupidly trying to make bricks without straw. We are
trying to educate without employing the means by which alone
education can be accomplished.

A curious case has recently come to my notice of a little Eng-
lish girl who suddenly developed a propensity for stealing. Her
parents were naturally much mortified. The child herself was
very unhappy, for she felt keenly the withdrawal of affection on
all sides. In despair she was taken up to London, to a child spe-
cialist. He examined her carefully, inquired into her manner of

6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

life, and finally pronounced the difficulty to be anaemia. He or-
dered her to be put to bed and given as many sweets as she would
eat. In a short time the child regained her health, and with it
her normal attitude toward life.

It is not probable that all moral disorders could be cured by
so simple a prescription as sugar, but it is probable that the re-
moval of organic disorders would remove many of their concomi-
tants— moral disorders.

We close our eyes to this. The reflected image of our scientific
Zeitgeist is faint compared to the deep-set images of a dead time-
spirit. These images have their home in the traditions and super-
stitions of society. They are the reflection of ignorance, not of
knowledge. They belong to a metaphysical rather than to an ex-
perimental age.

What are some of these images ?

Baffling the clear recognition of cause and effect in the life of
the child, there still lingers, and lingers persistently, that mon-
strous fiction of a diseased imagination which men call sin. It is
the image reflected from a theological as opposed to a religious
age. It is an obstacle in very truth, for it turns us away from
causal terms to a false nomenclature and a false treatment. We
say that a boy is bad when we ought to say that his life conditions
are unfavorable ; that his parents and teachers are unwise. It is
difficult to search out the true cause of wrong action. It is easy
to call it sin. This is a stubborn image. It persists, for it has
back of it immense vested interests. We have in our midst a vast
organization which rests its whole excuse for being upon the re-
ality of sin. Its sole function is to circumvent this enemy, and
conduct man to God and heaven. It would be disorganizing to
admit that in all this it is fighting a poor human fetich, whose
shadow obscures from humanity the gracious face of the Eternal.
Yet to abandon this nightmare would simply be to return to the
pure teaching of Socrates. The monstrous entity of sin had for
him no real existence. He found in the world vast ignorance, and
he fought it. Virtue he regarded as the fruit of knowledge, and
he cultivated it.

Another hideous image comes to us from a vulgar and ascetic
age. It regards the uncovered human body as an object of
shame. With such immodest ideas of modesty we attempt the
development of an organism which we keep studiously out of
sight. Little Margaret is very picturesque in her quaint gown
and big hat. They conceal the fact that her poor little body is
stunted and undeveloped, and will but ill withstand the emotions
and functions of womanhood. Brother Jack is also a lively fig-
ure in bright kilt skirt and velvet jacket. His neck is thin, but
it is surrounded by a very broad linen collar. We look at that

ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH. 61

and find him charming. His little legs are slender as broom-
sticks, but they are in thick black hose, and the red kilt attracts
the eye. We look at that and are satisfied. He is active and
noisy. We take it for granted that he is getting on finely.
Were he in the bath-tub, we should think otherwise. Later,
Jack goes to college. He breaks down. His mother says it is
overwork. But this is not the truth. The truth is that he has
not the brain power to cope with normal intellectual tasks. The
fault is elsewhere than with the curriculum. In all this, the
image cast by prudery makes us horribly unscientific. Worse
still, it makes us hopelessly vulgar.

These are but two out of a large and bad company of images
which to-day obscure the reflection of science in education. They
make difficult the recognition of the simple fact that the child is
an organic unity ; and they make practically impossible the de-
velopment of any system of education based upon this truth. So
long as we allow this obscurity, and persist in this blindness, we
shall have no science of education, however many schoolhouses
we may build, for we shall be steadily doing violence to a princi-
ple which may not be violated — the sequence of cause and eft'ect.

ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH.

By ROBERT F. WALSH.

FEW people are aware of the important uses to which non-
edible fishes can be put, and fewer -still have any idea of the
thousands of millions of such fishes that are to be found along
the coast of the United States. What some of these uses are
will be learned from the following statement of Prof. G. Brown
Goode, in his article on American Menhaden in Part V of the
Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries
for 1887. He says : " Millions of pounds of fish not fit for human
food are allowed every year to escape from nets into the sea,
which, if saved and rightly utilized, would be worth untold sums
for fertilizers and feeding purposes. Of the fish saved and used
for fertilizers, a large portion is ill prepared." And he continues,
"A large part of that which is well made is exported to Europe,
where its value is better understood and its use is more rational
and profitable." Following these statements Prof. Goode says
that " the total loss to our agriculture from all these sources is
not capable of accurate computation, but certainly amounts to
hundreds of thousands and doubtless to millions of dollars an-
nually." But there are other uses to which these millions of
fishes can be profitably applied ; so that the value of our available

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ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH. 63

non-edible fish supply probably exceeds that of those fishes which
are used for food.

About twenty years ago a beginning was made in utilizing
non-edible fish ; but, from one cause or other — prohibitive State
legislation, want of knowledge as to the best ways of obtaining fish
products, and various other less important impediments — the in-
dustry is still far from that position of commercial and industrial
importance to which it is justly entitled. But, notwithstanding
the impediments to which I have referred, and although the
operations of the factories engaged in the utilization of non-
edible fishes are confined to the production of oil and guano
from menhaden, in the year when Prof. Goode made the estimate
above quoted over eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of
crude and dried guano was produced, and 2,426,589 gallons of oil
were obtained.

Bearing these figures in mind, and remembering that Prof.
Baird estimated that " twelve hundred million millions " of men-
haden are destroyed annually by bluefish — during four months
in the summer and fall — and that this destruction is impercep-
tible in the myriads of these fishes which abound on the coast, it
is apparent that, under favorable conditions, the value of men-
haden to the commerce of the country could easily be developed
to an extent that would at least equal the combined values of all
our food fisheries.

It would be extremely difficult to fix the time when fish was
first employed for fertilizing. We are assured, however, that long
before the advent of Europeans on this continent, the Indians
used menhaden for raising agricultural produce. The early colo-
nists imitated the natives ; and in 1632 Thomas Morton, of Vir-
ginia, wrote : " There is a fish (by some called shadds, by some
allizes) that at the spring of the yeare pass up the river to spawn
in the ponds, and are taken in such multitudes . . . that the
inhabitants doung their ground with them." Eleven years pre-
vious to Morton's record Governor Bradford tells how " in April,
1621," the colonists began to sow corn, "in which service Squanto
(an Indian) stood them in good stead, showing them both y** man-
ner how to set it and after how to dress & tend it. Also he tould
them axcepte they got fish & set with it (in these old grounds)
it would come to nothing ; and he showed them y* in y^ midle of
Aprill they should have store enough come up y' brooke by
which they begane to build, and taught them how to take it."

Still later, and just one hundred years ago, in the Transac-
tions of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and
Manufactures, instituted in the State of New York, Hon. Ezra
L'Hommedieu says: " Experiments made by using the fish called
menhaden, or mossbunkers, as a manure have succeeded beyond

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

expectation, and will likely become a source of wealth to farmers
living on such parts of the seacoasts where they can be taken
with ease and in great abundance. These fish abound with oil
and blood more than any other kind of their size. They are not
used for food, except by negroes in the West India Islands."
This is absolute proof of the recognition of the value of men-

Fio. ^. — Discharging a Cargo of Fish bv Tuavi;lino Buckets.

haden for fertilizing purposes one, two, and nearly three cen-
turies ago. But we have even stronger early testimony in the
letter of President D wight, of Yale College, who in 1804 writes:
" No manure is so cheap as this, , . . none is so rich, and few so
lasting. Its effects on vegetation are prodigious. Lands which

ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH. 65

"heretofore have scarcely yielded ten bushels of wheat by the
a,cre, are said, when, dressed with whitefish (menhaden), to have
yielded forty. . . . Such, upon the whole, have been their num-
bers, and such the ease with which they have been obtained, that
lands in the neighborhood of productive fisheries are declared to
have risen, within a few years, to three, four, and, in some cases,
to six times their former value."

I shall give only one other authoritj^ for the use of fish and
fish refuse as a fertilizer. In 1853 Mr. Ker B. Hamilton, Gov-
■ernor of Newfoundland, said : " In this island the manure uni-
versally applied to the soil is fish, consisting of the superabun-
•dant herrings and caplins in the process of decomposition, and
generally without any earthy admixture ; and the heads, bones,
and entrails of codfish." From other sources we learn that in
Norway, France, Japan, and in the British Islands, fish has been
used, in its raw state, for fertilizing purposes, whenever it was
found in great abundance.

Although we have evidence in the olden writings that the oil
obtained from various fishes was used for lighting and other
purposes, fish oil was practically unknown in commerce until
.about fifty years ago. Since then there have arisen hundreds of
purposes to which it is daily applied.

The origin of the present menhaden industry was the dis-
^30very of an old lady, named Mrs. John Bartlett, of Blue Hill,
Maine, who in 1850, when boiling some fish for her chickens, ob-
served a thin scum of oil upon the surface of the water. " Some
of this she bottled, and when on a visit to Boston soon after car-
ried samples to Mr. E. B. Phillips, one of the leading oil mer-
chants of that city, who encouraged her to bring more. The
following year the Bartlett family industriously plied their gill
nets and sent to market thirteen barrels of oil, for which they
were paid at the rate of eleven dollars per barrel." In the follow-
ing year this family made one hundred barrels. Then, the value
of menhaden oil having become recognized, many oil presses — of
a more or less imperfect construction— were established along the
coast, and the industry developed so rapidly that within twenty
years the yield of menhaden oil exceeded that of the whale (from
the American fisheries). It now exceeds the aggregate of all
the whale, seal, and cod oil made in the United States, and Prof.
Brown Goode says, " As a source of oil, the menhaden is of more
importance than any other marine animal."

The prime object of the first factories established for utilizing
menhaden was the production of oil — the residuum, or " scrap,"
as the pressed fish is called, being looked upon as a secondary
consideration. Nevertheless, this by-product was of equal worth,
and in some years has exceeded in value the output of oil. This

VOL. XLV. 6

66

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" scrap " is a much better fertilizer than the whole fish ; for the
undesirable element — the oil, which " clogged the earth and made
it unfit for tillage" — has been removed, and the " scrap " is left,
containing plant food in proportions far exceeding those of any
known natural fertilizer.

The process of extracting the oil from the menhaden is very
simple. When the fish is delivered at the factory it is imme-
diately placed in large iron tanks, containing about a foot deep of
water. Heat is then applied until the mass begins to simmer,
when the heat is turned off. In this way the fish is thoroughly
steamed, and the oil cells are more or less separated from the
flesh, so that the oil can be readily and thoroughly released in the
presses. Often, when the fish is rich in oil, a considerable quan-
tity exudes during the steaming process. This is drawn off from
the top of the simmering mass and runs in troughs to the oil tank.

After the steaming, the fish is placed in " curbs " (circular ves-
sels having perforated bottoms) and rolled to the oil presses.
Here the oil is released by hydraulic pressure, and the remainder
is simply the nitrogenous part of the fish, which is called " scrap."'

Fig. 3. — Steaming the Fish.

In the factories of the United States Menhaden Oil and Guano
Association the oil is not rectified ; it is expressed in the simple
manner that I have explained, and then shipped to the different
oil merchants and refineries of the United States and Europe.

The preparation of the scrap, or fish guano, is also very simple.
After the oil is released, the solid matter is taken to the drying'
boards — a large field covered with closely fitting grooved and
tongued flooring — upon which it is spread to dry. At Tiverton

ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH.

67

the drying field comprises nearly twenty acres. From first to
last the greatest care is taken that no foreign substance shall be-
come mixed with it. When it is sufficiently dry it is bagged for
transportation, either to the manufacturer of artificial fertilizers
or direct to the farmer. The total quantity of menhaden " scrap "
manufactured during the nineteen years from 1874 to 1892 inclu-
sive was 912,467 tons (dry and acid), and the amount made from
other non-edible fishes and waste fish in the United States is esti-

FlG. -4.— ixTEKlOK OF CuRB KoOM IN FaCTOKY, SHOWING THE IrON Ovi.lNDERS IN WIIICH

THE Scrap is Fkessed.

mated at 150,000 tons. By analysis, the average percentage of
nitrogen was found to be eight per cent in the dry scrap and six
per cent in the acid, while the acid guano contained four per cent
of phosphoric acid, and the dry seven per cent. This gives us a
total plant food (nitrogen and phosphoric acid) of 135,000 tons, or
about $31,000,000 worth at the present rate fixed by the New Eng-
land experiment stations.

The average price at which this fish guano was sold was fifteen
dollars per ton for the acid scrap and twenty-five dollars for the
dry. The guano from the Peruvian deposits which has been im-
ported into this country during the past thirty years contained
from four to eight per cent of nitrogen, with about an equal per-
centage of phosphoric acid, and millions of dollars have been paid
for it at the rate of from forty-five dollars to eighty dollars per
ton. Why such a great disproportion exists in the prices seems

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to be unanswerable, and it will seem still stranger in view of the
fact that the fishermen of Lofoden, one of the Norwegian Islands,
should readily get forty-five dollars per ton for dry scrap made
by them from cod refuse. These apparently anomalous conditions
can, however, be partially accounted for from the facts that the
Peruvian guano is sold in a finely powdered state, and perfectly
dry, and the Lofoden islanders grind their scrap after drying it
upon the rocks by the sun's heat. In this condition the nitrogen
is more quickly assimilated, and the effects more speedily appre-
ciated by the growing crops. But this process could easily be
applied to the American product, and I have no doubt but that
ground or machine desiccated fish guano will form one of the
chief features of our manufacturers as soon as favorable or rather
just legislation will enable the manufacturers to calculate upon
more certain supplies.

Mr. William Bowker, of the Massachusetts Board of Agricul-
ture, estimates that the 135,000 tons of plant food, referred to
earlier, contained more than suificient phosphoric acid and
enough nitrogen for " 3,200,000 acres of corn, of fifty bushels
each, or 7,000,000 acres of potatoes of one hundred bushels each."

Let us now glance at the figures of the menhaden oil produc-
tion. From 1874 to 1892, inclusive, the quantity of oil expressed
from menhaden amounted to over 46,000,000 gallons — about 165,-
000 tons. This was sold for prices varying according to the
abundance of the fish, from fifteen to twenty-one cents per gallon
in the seasons of 1885, 1886, and 1887, to thirty-five cents in 1879,
and forty in 1881 ; the price being thirty-two to thirty-three cents
during the past year (1893) ; so that the average price was about
tliirty cents for these 46,000,000 gallons, or $13,800,000 for the
oil product of the menhaden fisheries for nineteen years — equiva-
lent to $725,000 per annum. Add to this the average yearly value
of the acid and dry guano, as computed by Mr. Bowker, and
we find that the menhaden industry has enriched the country by
$2,360,000 annually since 1873.

The oil has been used largely in tanning leather, and as the
basis for many oil paints and varnishes, while a great deal of it is
consumed for lighting purposes in our mines and elsewhere. The
quantity of oil annually exported is also very large, and the de-
mand for it is so great that markets could readily be obtained for
teu times the quantity. These are startling facts, and facts that
deserve most studious consideration. We have been reaping over
two million dollars' worth of products from menhaden and other
nou-edible fish annually, despite repressive legislation in three of
the States in whose waters those fishes abound most plentifully;
we pay millions of dollars annually for imported fertilizers ;
we have agricultural and industrial demands for ten times the

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70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

amount we have been producing ; and we are assured beyond
question that an abundance of fish, quite equal to these demands,
swim along our shores, and that the capture of a sufficient num-
ber of them would not appreciably affect their plentifulness.
Surely the legislation that prevents the development of this
source of wealth must be at fault somewhere.

Such legislation exists in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and
Virginia ; and the conditions under which these laws were passed
deserve to be cited here. In considering these repressive enact-
ments it will be apropos first to examine the arguments urged in
favor of them. Three principal objections to the menhaden fish-
eries are made : First, that fishing for menhaden, mackerel, or
any other fish with a purse seine (the appliance now used) de-
pletes the supply of these fishes ; second, that menhaden is the
food of many of the food fishes, and the depletion or " driving
away of the shoals " of this species by seining, forces the food
fishes — mackerel, striped bass, bluefish, etc. — to seek other wa-
ters ; and, third, that the enormous captures of menhaden for
the purposes of making oil and guano prevent the procuring of
bait for our cod and other fisheries ; it being included in the
third objection that inasmuch as cod, mackerel, bluefish, and
other species are captured with menhaden bait, this latter fish is
a natural food of the food fishes. It is also claimed that the
shoals of fish are frightened by the purse seines, so much so that
they cease to frequent the shores in the same abundance. These
constitute in brief the objections to the capture of menhaden
for oil and guano, and form the basis of the reasons why the
States of Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia passed
prohibitory laws.

Let us now examine the other side of the question. Before the
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the United States
Senate, February 17, 1892, Mr. William F. Brown, of Philadel-
phia, said : " The annual value of our " (the Menhaden Associa-
tion) "product for the last twenty years has averaged $1,500,-
000, more than two thirds of which is paid to the two thousand
men employed. And when you consider that every dollar of
this — more than $25,000,000 — is a permanent clear addition to the
wealth of the nation, because the crude material is taken from
the sea; and when you have seen how generally the whole people
are interested, directly and indirectly, in our success or failure,
you will stand amazed at the recital of the persecutions and legis-
lative wrongs to which we have been subjected." Further on
Mr. Brown made a general denial of all the objections claimed by
the opponents of the menhaden industry. This statement is
backed up by the evidence of Mr. Eugene Blackford, of New
York ; of Captain Nathaniel Church and his brother Daniel T.

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33

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Church, of Tiverton, R. I. ; and by the opinions of Captain J. W.
Collins, of the United States Fish Commission, Prof. G. Brown
Goode, and many others scientifically and practically engaged
in deep-sea and coast fisheries. For instance Captain Collins
says:

" The researches and inquiries made by the Fish Commission,.
I think, show conclusively that certain species of migratory
fishes, like, for instance, the mackerel an 1 menhaden, are subject
to influences which determine their abundance outside of any-
thing that can be done by man — influences that are much more
potent than man's are." In proof of this statement both Captain
Church and Mr, Collins have drawn attention to the facts that,.
in the case of mackerel — and menhaden are, like mackerel, migra-
tory and similarly influenced — seasons of scarcity may be and are
followed by years of comparative plenty ; and a series of seasons
of scarcity may be followed by a gradual increase until an abun-
dance is reached that is very surprising.

This disposes of the claim that purse-seine fishing afl^ects the
natural scarcity or abundance of fish on the coast. Mr, Church
and Mr. R, E, Earle authoritatively deny the statements that
food fishes are taken in the nets of the menhaden steamers. And
Mr. Earle says that, when engaged, as an expert of the United
States Fish Commission, to inquire into the menhaden fisheries,.
he did not see enough food fish taken for the table of the steamer
as the result of several hauls of menhaden.

Right here it will be interesting to describe the method of
seining menhaden, showing how it is almost impossible to capture
food fishes other than migratory fishes in the purse seines. The
steamers used in the menhaden fishery average about seventy-five
tons register and have a carrying capacity of nearly one hundred
and fifty tons. Each steamer is manned by twenty to twenty-five
men, of whom sixteen are fishermen. When a school of fish is
sighted, two boats put out from the steamer, each boat containing
eight men. From one of these boats the net is " shot " — the other
holding the top and foot lines of one end. The usual length of a
purse net or seine is about eighteen hundred feet and the depth
sixty to one hundred and twenty feet. As one of the boats rows
around the school of fish, the net is thrown out from the other,
and when the circle is made, both ends of the "bottom line"
are drawn. This makes the "purse"; but it also allows the
" bottom fish," which are practically all food fishes, time to escape ;
so that as a rule no fishes except the menhaden, or whatever kind
of fishes are inclosed on the surface, are captured by the purse
seines. The top lines are then drawn, and the bag or purse com-
pleted. The contents are then towed along to the steamer, where-
they are hoisted by steam, and the seine emptied into the "hold,"

■A
<1

S
a

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It should be stated here that the meshes of every purse seine em-
ployed in the menhaden industry are two and seven eighths inches
square, so that it is practically impossible to capture any imma-
ture fishes in these nets.

Aside from the operations of the factories, menhaden are used
as bait for food fishes ; a small quantity is salted and exported to
the West Indies, where it is eaten by the negroes ; and many more
are plowed into the soil by farmers along the Atlantic coast, as
has been the custom for centuries.

The question of the menhaden being used as food by the food
fishes is practically disj)osed of by Dr. Bean, the ichthyologist of
the United States Fish Commission, who testified that, having
examined the stomachs of numbers of bluefish and other food
fishes, he failed to find any evidence of the menhaden except in
the form in which it is used as a bait for " chumming," and
only in a very few cases was it present at all. Mr. Atwood, of
Bristol County, Massachusetts, whose experience as a practical
fisherman extends back to 1810, makes the following interesting
statement :

" The great changes in our fisheries have been caused by the
bluefish. . . . When they first appeared in our bay I was living
at Long Point (Provincetown), in a little village containing some
two hundred and seventy population, engaged in the net fishery.
The bluefish affected our fishing (mackerel, menhaden, etc.) so
much that the people were obliged to leave the place. Family
after family moved away, leaving that locality, which is now a
desolate, barren, and sandy waste." Passing over the depreda-
tions of the bluefish, Mr. Atwood says, " I firmly believe there is
no necessity for the passage of any general legislative act for the
protection or regulation of our sea fish and fisheries."

J. M. Rimbaud, a famous French ichthyologist and practical
fisherman, says that the migratory fishes can not be diminished by
overfishing; but that local fishes might be exterminated by con-
stantly fishing for them. The Royal Commission apx)ointed by
Her Britannic Majesty's Government to inquire into the con-
dition of the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland, which con-
sisted of Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley, Right Hon. James Caird,
and the Right Hon. George Shaw Lefevre, after three years of
exhaustive inc^uiry reported : " We advise that all acts of Parlia-
ment which profess to regulate or restrict the modes of fishing
pursued in the open sea be repealed, and that unrestricted free-
dom of fishing be pursued hereafter." I heard Prof. Huxley state
positively, in 1883, that after many years of study of the question
he had come to the conclusion that the supply of migratory fishes,
especially the herring, was inexhaustible.

I think I have now told enough about the non-edible fish in-

PECULIAR SOUND EFFECTS. 75

diistry of the Atlantic coast to show that it is an important source
of national wealth, and I believe it will reasonably be deduced,
from what I have written, that nothing but restrictive laws in
several States prevents it from becoming of vastly greater im-
portance.

PECULIAR SOUND EFFECTS.

Br A. A. KNUDSON.

IN this article we propose to consider some of the peculiar fea-
tures and effects of sound as we meet them in our everyday
life, giving special reference to that very oft perplexing phe-
nomenon the location of various sounds. In order that these re-
marks shall not extend beyond reasonable limits in our treatment
of this broad subject, we shall confine them to sound effects as
they originate indoors, and not so much to the origin and trans-
mission of sounds in the atmosphere. The inability to determine
at once whence a sound comes, or, as is often the case, locating it
in the wrong place, occasions frequent trouble and annoyance, as
we shall show by incidents in our own experience, extending over
a number of years.

In order that those not familiar with the subject may obtain a
fair idea of the peculiar effects of sound, as we shall herein illus-
trate, let us look briefly at some of its principles. In the science
of acoustics, sound is simply vibrations or pulsations originating
from an unlimited variety of causes, varying in amplitude, pitch,
etc., passing through the intervening air, and acting upon the
organs of the ear. The phonograph gives us an excellent illustra-
tion of the composition of these vibrations, for by examining with
a magnifying glass the cylinder upon which the human voice has
been placed either in spoken words or vocal music, we find all
the vibrations which go to make up the different characteristics
of sound faithfully recorded in the indentations upon the cylin-
der, I sa,j faithfully recorded, because their correct reproduction
is a proof of this — the result being the same also if other than
vocal sounds are recorded upon the cylinder, such as music from
instruments either single or combined.

If we follow the lines made by the vibrations closely, we shall
see in the indentations deep and coarse punctures which repre-
sent the loud base notes of the male singer or speaker, while the
fine, light, and more frequent indent represent the high notes of
either a male or a female voice, and the same effect is produced
by the vibrations of sounds made by musical instruments. The
phonograph, therefore, enables us to capture, as it were, all
manner of sounds, and to give them optical expression, while

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their reproduction is tlie wonderful feature of the whole per-
formance.

I was once present by invitation of Mr. Edison to witness a.
phonograph test in his laboratory at Orange, N. J., and by way of
illustrating the power of reproduction of that instrument will
state the result as witnessed by me. Some fifteen or twenty
phonographs were placed in a semicircle in the room, all their
cylinders running, and a band of music, including a piano, sta-
tioned near the center. After the band had played a selection
from some popular opera, we examined their power of reproduc-
tion by putting on the ear tubes, and, beginning at one end of the
row in company with Mr. Edison, tried each phonograph.

It was found that while some reproduced the music not as
loud or as clearly as desired, owing probably to imperfect adjust-
ment, the most of them were remarkable for their loudness of
sound, and so clear and perfect that the sound of each instrument
such as the piano, cornet, etc., could be distinguished se/parately.
These cylinders were taken off and, after being labeled, filed away^
for future use. In the phonograph Mr. Edison has given the-
world a most useful and valuable invention ; for, beyond the fact
of its commercial value, it is a most important educator in the
science of acoustics, as we have attempted to point out.

Many illustrations may be found in electrical inventions where
the vibrating construction of sound is taken advantage of — for
instance, the musical telephones of Prof. Gray and Edison, and
such ingenious inventions as the harmonic telegraph of Gray^
and the railway induction telegraph of Phelps and Edison. All
these and many others employ the vibrating effect of sound to
accomplish the desired results.

If we look for more common illustrations we may easily find
them about us, such as the circuit breaker in the medical battery.
By manipulating the adjusting screw, changing the number of
vibrations per second, a variet}" of notes can be produced, from a
a low rattle to a high, fine tone. The ordinary " buzzer " now
common in business houses, which is largely taking the i^lace of
the electric bell, gives forth a note more or less musical according-
to the number of vibrations per second to which it is adjusted.
The wings of the humming bird as well as those of insects fur-
nish further examples of musical notes (not always welcome) by
the rapid action of their wings against the air.

It will be observed, as this question is studied, that sound
vibrations to be musical must be regular, otherwise they become
simply noise. Prof. Tyndall, in his admirable work on sounds
referring to this part of the subject, says that " a musical sound
flows smoothly and without irregularity, and this is secured by
rendering the impulses received by the tympanic membrane per-

PECULIAR SOUND EFFECTS. jj

f ectly periodic ; a periodic motion being one that repeats itself."
And, again, quoting from Tyndall : " To produce a musical tone
we must liave a body which vibrates with the unerring regularity
of a pendulum, but which can imjDart much sharper and quicker
shocks to the air. The pulses, on the contrary, which produce
noise are of irregiilar strength and recurrence." These illustra-
tions will no doubt afford a fairly clear understanding of the crea-
tion and composition of sound, and we will now consider some
of its effects.

One peculiar phase in sound effects is the sympathetic response
of objects in the vicinity of a sound or note, such as the respond-
ing vibrations of a violin string when a note on the piano is
struck with which it is in harmony.

This peculiar effect, however, is by no means confined to mu-
sical instruments, for should there be any object in a room which
by accident happens to be so placed as to be in unison or tune
~with some note of a piano, that object will respond by taking up
the vibrations of the note sounded. This responding note being
often accompanied by a disagreeable jarring sound (due to the
article touching some object while vibrating), interferes with the
harmony and is often the cause of much annoyance to ladies and
others who may be playing the piano ; besides, these foreign
sounds are so deceitful as to their location that usually they
seem to come from the piano itself, and it is generally very diffi-
cult to convince a lady that they are anywhere else, and in the
ladies' opinion a piano tuner must be sent for as soon as possible.
An instance or two which happened in my experience will illus-
trate this.

The fi-rst case happened in my own home a few years ago. My
wife and myself were in the parlor, she playing the piano. Pres-
ently she stopped and impatiently said, " There, this piano is not
right yet, and that tuner has been here three times, and this is
the note he fussed over so long" (pounding on the same), "and
it's just as bad as ever." The fact was, the last time the tuner
called he went away very mad, stating that he never had had such
a case in all his experience. Knowing all this, the remark of my
wife set me to thinking, and I asked her to pound awhile on that
bad key. Upon listening carefully about the piano the jangling
noise did really seem to come directly from it ; but determined
not to be deceived, I started on a tour of investigation, first satis-
fying myself that there were no loose objects upon the piano
itself. I began to look about the room among hric-ahrac, man-
telpiece ornaments, etc., now and then receiving such encouraging
remarks from the performer as " There is no use looking away
over there for that noise, it's right here in the piano ; don't you
hear it ?" But I said, " Never mind, keep on pounding."

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

With the sense of hearing exercised at its best, I continued the
search, but had almost given it up when, upon crossing the room
and passing under the chandelier, I thought I heard the jangle
above my head. Getting upon a chair, I listened carefully at
each one of the glass globes, and finally came to one where I could
hear the jangle quite distinctly. Upon looking at this globe care-
fully I discovered a very peculiar crack in it. This crack in
shape was almost a complete circle, but a small stem or portion
of glass at its lower edge held the piece in place, so that it was in
condition to respond to the vibrations of that note of the piano
with which it was in tune, and in this case it was the one that was
being sounded.

The accompanying sketch will give a very fair idea of the
position and shape of this piece of glass at (A). Pressing a finger
against it in order to stop its vibrating, and to be quite sure that

I had found the trouble, I asked the player
if she heard the sound then. After several
vigorous thumps she was obliged to confess
that she did not. Taking away my finger
and allowing it to vibrate as before, I asked
again, " Do you hear it now ? " The answer
this time was, " Yes, it is there yet." Re-
moving the globe, I announced the fact that
the piano was fixed, much to the astonishment of the player, who
found the statement correct. This incident illustrates how even
the practiced ear of a musician can sometimes be deceived as to
the location of sounds in music — to say nothing of the ladies, who
would be excusable under such circumstances, as their sense of
hearing is not expected to be so perfect as to detect such peculiar
phases of sound.

Another interesting feature of peculiar sound effects is illus-
trated by this incident. While this loose piece of glass would
respond and vibrate to one note of the piano, no other note would
affect it, not even the sharp or flat of the one that caused it to
respond.

If these responding objects, however, were free to vibrate with-
out touching anything, such as a violin string, there would be no
jangle, for as in the above case the edges of the broken piece of
glass touched tliat of the globe, which caused the discordant
sound, which I have termed for want of a better name the respon-
sive jangle.

Another case similar to the above occurred in a house where I
was once stopping in Nova Scotia. A piano with a bad note was
fixed by simply opening an inside shutter of a bay window at
the opposite side of a parlor from the piano. The latch of one
shutter was lightly resting against the edge of another and

PECULIAR SOUND EFFECTS. 79

caused the jangle when one particular note was struck. The
lady player had previously declared that she would send for a
tuner the next day, and laughed at my attempt to fix it by hunt-
ing about the room while she pounded. However, she did not
conceal her surprise when the trouble was removed, and admitted
that there was something about this sound business that she did
not quite understand.

In regard to locating these jangles, however, I will say that it
is not always so easy. It requires some practice before the ear
becomes capable of locating with any degree of success the direc-
tion of sounds of this kind. This was my experience with the
first piano jangle, that of the cracked globe, which was quite
diflQcult ; that of the window shutter was easier, as well as many
others which I have located since. A correct musical ear is also
an important adjunct in the case. I have often observed the
responsive jangle in concert halls, churches, etc. One church in
particular in Brooklyn that I often attended had a responsive
note high up in one of the windows which I was able to locate
from the pew where I sat. I formed a sort of secret attachment
for this jingling note, and I looked as much for it to respond
every Sunday when the organist touched the proper key as for
the audience to respond to the readings of the service.

Business called me away from home and church, and after a
lapse of four or five years after returning home one of the first
things I looked for on again attending church was my jangle.
But alas ! it was gone. During my absence inside windows had
been placed over all the windows in the church, and my jangling
friend was silenced. No doubt the cause of this jangle was some
detached piece of glass from a cracked window pane, but it was
too high up to be seen.

This locating of jangles originating from musical notes hav-
ing become somewhat of a hobby with me, being almost always
on the lookout for them, many curious instances similar to those
I have mentioned could be related, but I will give only one other,
which was the first that ever came under my notice, and which
took place several years ago.

This most peculiar case happened in a church on an Easter
Sunday. During the singing of a hymn I at once became con-
scious of an occasional discordant sound quite near where I stood
{the congregation were standing), and this jangle was so marked
that the music for me at least had no further charms. After
listening in various directions I finally located it as coming from
the mouth of an elderly lady who was singing with a good deal
of vim in the seat in front of me. The fact was, her false teeth
were loose, some of them at least, and the effect, notwithstanding
the surroundings was to me more ludicrous than inspiring. In

8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

this case it will be observed that the original sound and the
jangle both came from the same place, so that it was not so diffi-
cult to locate.

There was no mistake about it, as the old lady sang through
each verse, and at every verse the jangle appeared. She, however,
seemed totally unconscious of any discordant effect in her vocal
effort, and I have no doubt did not notice it at all.

The difficulty of locating sounds correctly may be illustrated
in one way by the advantage the ventriloquist takes of this
peculiarity, for in the exercise of his art he can speak in such
manner that his voice appears to come from an image beside him,
or from some distant place. Analogous to optical delusion, the
ventriloquist might be well termed an exponent of sound delu-
sion ; and, again, the attempt to deceive an audience as to the
source of sound by a supposed performer on the stage going
through the motions of playing upon a cornet or other musical
instrument while the real performer is behind the scenes is often
successfully practiced. I was once present at a practical test
made before an audience which will further illustrate how diffi-
cult it is to determine whence a sound comes. A gentleman
took his seat in a chair upon the platform and was blindfolded.
Another party held a snapper sounder in one hand and would
produce the snap now directly over his head, now to one side, be-
hind his back, etc. At each sound of the snapper the blindfolded
party was requested to point in the direction from which he
thought the sound proceeded. In almost every attempt he
pointed in the wrong direction.

As a result of observations which I have made among animals,
there is a wide difference between them as to the ability of dis-
tinguishing and correctly locating sound ; for instance, men and
women have not such an acute sense of quickly locating a sound
as some of the four-footed animals, such as the rabbit, mule, the
cat, and some species of dogs. It is quite probable that the
ability these animals have to move their ears about, and long ears
at that, accounts for the quickness they have for determining the
direction of a sound. I have often tried the experiment of test-
ing this sense of correctly locating sound with a cat by imitating
the squeak of a mouse by whistling through the teeth. The first
squeak or two would result in the cat springing up and, with ears
erect and moving about, listen for the next sound ; at the second
attempt the cat would as a rule look directly into my face, as
much as to say, " You can't fool me that way," would settle down
again to its nap, and no further imitation squeaks would start it
up again.

The not infrequent result of any unusual sound behind a mule
illustrates how well his sense of hearing serves him in this re-

PECULIAR SOUND EFFECTS. 81

spect. It is pretty well known that the mule does not wait to
turn his head to see if he has correctly located the sound, but will
let his heels fly first and look around afterward. The rdbhit, by
reason of his long ears in proportion to his size, has probably the
most correct sense of locating sound of all animals.

We mortals, however, not having long ears or the ability to
move those that we have, often make sad mistakes in our at-
tempts to correctly determine the source of various sounds. In
other words, the hearing facilities coupled with instinct in ani-
mals are far superior to the hearing facilities coupled even with
reason in human beings.

Among human beings, however, the Indian is probably the
most correct in his interpretation and location of sound, whether
in ascertaining the presence of a foe or in search of game his
sense of hearing in this respect through long practice attains a
much higher state of perfection than that of people in various
commercial or professional occupations. From my observations I
should say that such animals as I have mentioned would come first
on the list as the most correct locators of sound, men next, and
women last. I have already shown to some extent the difficulty
ladies have in this respect, and by way of illustrating further will
relate an incident which occurred in Brooklyn some years ago,
which will show how easily they can be mistaken should they
depend upon their first impressions. Soon after the introduction
of that very useful invention the pneumatic door check, designed
to prevent doors from slamming, one was fixed on the entrance
door of the general post office on the inside near the top. When
the door closes, as every one knows, the check emits a slight
hissing sound, due to the air in the cylinder escaping through a
small hole. (Some later designs are without this feature.) This
hiss, which is very similar to the sound often made by boys and
men through their teeth in attracting attention, but considered
rather insulting if applied to ladies, was the cause of a good deal
of trouble one day.

A lady called at the office, and no sooner had the door closed
behind her, when citt. Immediately fastening her flashing eyes
upon a clerk at the stamp window, she exclaimed : " So, you are
the one; I have found you at last!" and then bolted into the
presence of the postmaster, where she lodged a serious complaint,
viz., that she had been insulted by the aforesaid young man, and
this was not his first oif ense, for every time she had come into the
office lately "that man would go citt with his teeth." The aston-
ished postmaster immediately sent for the accused, who heard the
charge against him, but of course indignantly denied having
made any such sound through his teeth, never saw the lady be-
fore, etc., etc. Finally, after the rumpus had quieted somewhat,

VOL. XLV. — V

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an idea occurred to the postmaster, who was of a practical turn
of mind, and he asked the lady to step out to the door a moment.
Opening the door at which she entered, he let it close again, when
citt, that insulting sound again. The lady was asked if that was
the noise she heard, and she said, " Why, yes, that's it." Then
the obliging postmaster explained to her the new door check,
pointing up at the top of the door, how it worked, etc., much
to the surprise and mortification of the lady, who apologized
and soon left, muttering about the " new-fangled things men are
always getting up."

The point I wish to make in this illustration is that the lady
was completely deceived as to the location or source of this sound,
and unfortunately put it in the wrong place, viz., in an innocent
man's mouth several feet in front of her, when as a matter of fact
it came from directly over her head. Many familiar instances of
the inability of locating the source of vocal or other sounds occur
every day, but I think sufficient has been said to at least put
those on their guard who may read this article, should they meet
with any such experiences.

In conclusion, I would suggest that the first impression of the
origin or source of a sound should not be taken as absolutely cor-
rect if it is a case of importance, such as a responsive jangle pro-
duced by a musical note or accusing wrongly some innocent per-
son, as in the case of the lady and the whistling door check.
Should your piano be afilicted on one of its notes by an apparent
bad sound or jangle, before sending for a tuner investigate a little
on your own account while some one sounds the key.

If the trouble is due to a jangle in some part of the room, a
tuner, if sent for, no doubt would " fix it," but he would in all
probability tune the supposed bad string a little high or a little
low, and for the time avoid the jangle in that way, collect his fee
and depart, when the trouble would afterward reappear again as
bad as ever. I would say further that I am not aware of any
existing rules that will direct one in the correct location of sound.
We can only use our ears and common sense as occasion requires,
and if sometime errors are made they should not be wondered at,
when the deceptive nature of the phenomena of sound is con-
sidered.

The behavior of the luminiferous ether near matter has been investigated by
Prof. Oliver Lodge. The question bears upon that of whether the earth in its
motion carries the ether of space with it. Prof. Lodge moved a lump of matter
and ascertained whether the velocity of light in the space near it is atfected by
the movement. He found no such effect, and concluded that the ether slips
through a solid like wind through a grove of trees; and that the connection
between ether and matter is not mechanical.

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 83

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLI-
GATION.

By Prof. E. P. EVANS.

FOLLOWING the primitive period of tribal ethics* comes a
second stage of social and moral development, which Mr.
Maine calls the supersession of the bond of blood by the bond of
belief. Ethnocentric attraction gives way to what might be
called theocentric attraction, and a broader and more spiritual
sort of association is formed, having for its basis, not consan-
guinity, but conformity in religious conceptions. The god takes
the place of the human progenitor of the tribe, or rather grows
out of his deification in the evolution of ancestor worship, which
is probably the oldest of cults.

Nevertheless, in this case, the fundamental principle of primi-
tive society, which makes friendship coextensive with kinship, is
not abrogated, but only enlarged in its application, causing those
who worship the same deities or propitiate the same demons to
enter into fraternal relations and call themselves brethren.

The canonical prohibition of marriage between persons con-
nected merely by the artificial ties of a religious rite, such as
sponsors and baptized infants, godfathers, godmothers, and god-
children, proves how intimately the idea of ritual relationship
was associated with that of real relationship in the minds of
those who established and perpetuated this institution. This
fiction of sacramental kinship was at one time carried so far in
the papal Church as to forbid the sponsor to be joined in wed-
lock even to the parent of a godclild. Cohabitation between a
patrimis and a matrina was regarded as incest until the Council
of Trent removed the ecclesiastical bar to such unions. The fact
that they had assumed the position of spiritual parents to one in-
fant prevented them from becoming the real and lawful parents
of another infant. The importance attached to the name-day,
which in most Catholic countries quite supplants the birthday as
an anniversary, is also additional evidence of the vigor and
vitality of primitive conceptions as embodied in ecclesiastical
institutions.

Religion is, in fact, as Schelling observes, the strongest cement
of primitive society, and the influence which contributes more
than any other to the evolution and organization of the nation
and state out of the tribe. Plutarch says : " Methinks a man
should sooner find a city built in the air, without any ground to
rest upon, than that any commonwealth altogether void of re-

* See Popular Science Monthly, January, 1894,

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ligion sliould be either first established or afterward preserved
and maintained in that estate. For it is this that contains and
holds together all human society and is its main prop and stay."
Hegel expressed the same idea when he asserted that " the idea of
God forms the general foundation of a people." Herbart calls
attention to the pedagogical and disciplinary value of religion in
the early stages of man's development, since it teaches him to
subordinate present desires to future welfare, to look to the re-
mote results of his conduct, and to sacrifice momentary pleasures
here to permanent advantages hereafter.

But the ordinary experiences of life, especially in a cold
climate, are quite as effective in inculcating thrift and enforcing
the first elementary principle of domestic and political economy —
that a man can not eat his pudding and keep it too. Stress of
hunger emphasizes the necessity of laying up stores of provisions
against time of need, and teaches foresight and forehand more
directly and more forcibly than any hypothetical relation of man
to the gods could do.

Originally the tie of religion must have been identical with
the tie of relationship, and the brotherhood of belief coextensive
with the brotherhood of blood, since all members of the same
family or tribe would naturally adore the same domestic or tribal
deities. Without this acceptance of the tribal theology and tra-
ditions by every individual of the tribe, the public peace would
be constantly disturbed and the very existence of primitive so-
ciety imperiled.

With the lapse of time and the increase of intelligence, how-
ever, vague wonder and ignorant worship would give place in
more thoughtful minds to obstinate questionings, blank misgiv-
ings, and stubborn skepticisms, leading logically and inevitably
to open schisms, and resulting in the formation of new communi-
ties of faith, crystallizing around the nucleus of a vital religious
conviction. It was then proved, what all later history confirms,
that spiritual affinities have a stronger cohesive attraction than
natural affinities, and that, in every case of tension, the latter are
sure to yield and be rent asunder.

Even the founder of Christianity, who professed to proclaim a
gospel of peace on earth and good will to man, foresaw and did
not hesitate to declare that this sundering of the closest consan-
guineous connections and division of families into hostile factions
would be the necessary consequence of his teachings. He spoke
of his doctrines as a sword destined to sever the nearest ties of
natural affection and affinity, setting the son at variance against
the father, and the daughter against the mother, and converting
the members of a man's household into his bitterest foes.

The center of cohesive attraction, which binds the new com-

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 85

munity so firmly together and so relentlessly ruptures all older
associations, is the creed, or what is known in Christian theology
as the symbol, the same term that, as we have already seen, was
used by the Greeks to denote the token or pledge of hereditary
hospitality and friendship between families, which furnished a
basis for the formation of treaties of amity and commerce be-
tween tribes.

Strictly tribal religions never proselytize. Instead of seeking
to share with alien tribes the favor and protection of their gods,
they wish to monopolize whatever power and patronage may be
derived from this source as a means of rendering themselves
superior to their enemies. This was the case with the ancient
Hebrews, who never thought of sending missionaries into other
lands to make converts to Jehovah, but would have condemned
such a procedure as treasonable. It is true that Jesus, in his de-
nunciation of the Pharisees, declared that they " compass sea and
land to make one proselyte"; but this reproof referred to their
zeal as a political party in winning adherents among their own
countrymen, in order to supplant the more liberal-minded and
less rigidly ritualistic Sadducees in the Sanhedrin.

Jesus himself evidently never intended to break away from
Judaism and to become the founder of a new religion. Accord-
ing to his own statement, he was "not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel." His mission was not to destroy,
but to fulfill ; not to abrogate, but to accomplish the law. He
sought to give a spiritual interpretation to ancient precepts and
injunctions; to revivify and rehabilitate the moral sentiment,
hitherto dwarfed and deformed under the heavy burden of a per-
functory ceremonialism; and to enforce the commandments of
God free from all incrustations of the traditions of men.

Curiously, and yet naturally enough, it was out of the very
strictest sect of the Pharisees, so severely rebuked on account of
their proselytic spirit, that the great proselyte Paul came — the
man whose breadth of view and energy of purpose changed a
local reformatory movement, which seemed to have been practi-
cally suppressed by the crucifixion, into a world-wide religion, by
emancipating it from the fetters of Mosaic formalism, taking it
out of the narrow ghetto of tribalism, and imparting to it a uni-
versal character. In this bold efi^ort to turn apparent disaster
into permanent victory, by breaking through the barriers of
Judaism and preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, he met with
the most determined opposition from the near kin and personal
friends of Jesus, as well as from the principal disciples in Jeru-
salem.

To this process of development — by which Christianity, whose
"field is the world," rose out of Judaism, the special cult of a

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

privileged race — we have a parallel in the historical evolution of
Buddhism, as a religion of pure humanity aspiring to univer-
sality, out of the narrow exclusiveness of Brahmanism with its
rigorous politico-ethnological system of hereditary caste.

If, however, we go back to an earlier period, we meet with a
most striking example of the workings of these conflicting forces
in the disintegration and reconstruction of old Aryan society,
thirty centuries ago, in the highlands of Bactria. The nature of
this epoch-making movement, which took place as the result of
Zarathustra's teachings and under his leadership, and the deep
and enduring enmity it excited between people of the same blood,
are perceptible in the solemn pledge or confession of faith by
which the proselyte was received into the fellowship of the
Iranian community. ,

This remarkable document, written in the ancient Gatha dia-
lect, which is surmised to have been the vernacular of Zarathus-
tra's native j)rovince and the mother-tongue of the prophet,
begins with an abjuration of the ancestral deva worship and a
vow of devotion to the glorious and munificent Ahuramazda, and
then proceeds to a renunciation of all evil works, and especially
of those deeds of violence peculiar to nomadic freebooters : " I
choose the beneficent Armaiti (earth), the good. May she be
mine! I detest all fraud and injury done to the spirit of the
earth, and all damage and destruction to the homes of the Maz-
dayasnians. I permit the good spirits, which dwell on the earth
in the form of good animals (such as sheep and kine), to roam un-
disturbed according to their pleasure. I j)raise, besides, all offer-
ings and prayers to promote the growth of life. I will never do
harm or hurt to the habitations of the Mazdayasnians, neither
with my body nor with my soul. I forsake the devas, the wicked
and malicious workers of iniquity, the most baneful, most malig-
nant, and basest of beings. I forsake the devas and their like,
the wizards and their allies, and all creatures whatsoever of such
kind. I forsake them in thought, in word, and in deed. I for-
sake them hereby publicly, and declare that all their deceits and
lies shall be put away." After further asseverations in the same
strain, and after renouncing anew the devas, and entering into
covenant with the waters, the woods, and the living spirit of
Nature, and accepting the creed of the fire-priests, the diffusers
of light and of truth, the convert concludes by avowing himself
to be a disciple of Zarathustra, an adherent of the pure Ahuryan
religion, and a member of the righteous brotherhood. Hence-
forth he is a sworn foe of the evil-doing, ancestral deities, and a
zealous co-worker with Ahuramazda in promoting good thoughts,
good words, and good deeds — humata, hilkhta, hvarshta.

With this proclamation of a purer religion the promulgation

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 87

of a higher law of social life and a superior form of civilization
was genetically connected — namely, the sacred duty of fostering
and gladdening the spirit of the earth (personified as the goddess
or angel Armaiti), by tilling the soil and making it fruitful.
Husbandry is holiness to the Lord. In the third fargard of the
Vendidad this conception of agriculture as a sacred calling is
particularly enlarged upon and enforced. The earth is there
compared to a beautiful woman, who fails to fulfill her noblest
functions so long as she remains virgin and barren. " He who
cultivates barley cultivates righteousness, and extends the Maz-
dayasnian religion as much as though he resisted a thousand
demons, made a thousand offerings, or recited a thousand
prayers." Indeed, the best way to fight evil spirits is to redeem
the waste places which they are supposed to inhabit. The spade
and the plow are more effective than magic spells and incanta-
tions as means of exorcism. An old Avestan verse, which is
quoted in inculcation and encouragement of tillage, and may
have been sung by Iranian husbandmen as they sowed the seed
and reaped the harvest, celebrates the influence and efficacy of
their toil in discomfiting and driving out devils :

" The demons hiss when the barley's green,
The demons moan at the thrashing's sound;
The demons roar as the grist is ground,
The demons flee when the flour is seen."

[These lines have also in the original a sort of rude rhyme or
assonance peculiar to ancient poetry :

" Yadh yav6 dayat aat dafeva gis'en,
Yadh s'udhus dayat ^at daeva tus'en ;
Yadh pistro dayat aat da^va uruthen,
Yadh gundd dayat aat daeva perethen."

Vendid&d, iii, 105-108, Spiegel's ed.]

If the Mazdayasnian religion, as revealed in the Avesta, illus-
trated in a remarkable manner the Benedictine maxim laborare
est orare, it had no sympathy with the melancholy salutation
memento mori, with which the Trappist greets the members of
his silent brotherhood. As taught by the Iranian prophet and
still practiced by the modern Parsis, it is pre-eminently a religion
of thrift, and enjoins as a sacred duty the honest accumulation
and hearty enjoyment of wealth. Poverty and asceticism have
no place in its list of virtues. Voluntary abstinence from the
pleasurable things of the good creation is an act of base ingrati-
tude and treason toward the bountiful giver of them. He who
despises them is a contemner of Ahuramazda and an ally of the
devas, and contributes thus far to the triumph of evil in the
world. The righteous man should not dwell upon the idea of

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

deatli, but banish it from bis thoughts and earnestly strive after
the realization of a fuller and richer life. It is the height of
folly to suppose that mortifications of the flesh can firrther spirit-
ual growth. Whatever fosters the health of the body favors the
health of the soul ; but the emaciation of the body impoverishes
the soul. The notion which underlies what is known as " mus-
cular Christianity " pervades the entire Avesta and finds a na'ive
and pithy expression in the following text of the Vendidad,
which the tiller of the soil is directed always to bear in mind and
frequently to repeat :

" Who eateth not for naught hath strength,
No strength for robust purity,
No strength for robust husbandry,
No strength for getting robust sons.'"

[Here, too, we have a bit of old poetry passed into a proverb.
In the original the only trace of rhyme (and this we have pre-
served in the rendering) is the assonance of the second and third

lines :

" Naechis aquarentam tva,
Noit ughrani ashyam,
Noit ughram vas'tryam,
N6it ughram putroistem."

Vendidrid, iii, 112-115.

The editorial bracketing of the last line by Prof. Spiegel, as a
possible interpolation, indicates an excess of critical suspicion,
since this line not only fills out the verse, but also finishes up the
thought, rounding and completing the expression of the senti-
ment with a climax.]

In another passage Ahuramazda declares : " Verily I say unto
thee, O Spitama Zarathustra ! the man who has a wife is far
above him who begets no sons; he who has a household is far
above him who has none ; he who has children is far above the
childless man ; he who has riches is far above him who is desti-
tute of them. And of two men, the one who fills himself with
meat is filled with the good spirit {voliii maiio) much more than
he who goes hungry ; the latter is all but dead ; the former is
above him by the worth of a kid {as' ijerena) , by the worth of a
sheep, by the worth of an ox, by the worth of a man. {^As'perena,
usually rendered weight or coin, is derived from a -\- s'ljar, and
means not walking or not grown, a young animal, a kid or a
lamb. Cf. Sanskrit sp7<ar or sphur, to expand or to swell.] Such
a person can resist the onsets of As'tovidhotus (the demon of
death) ; can resist the self-moving arrow ; can resist the winter
fiend, even though thinly clad ; can resist and smite the wicked
tyrant ; can resist the assaults of the ungodly Ashemaogho (the
destroyer of purity) who does not eat." (Vend, iv, 130-141.)

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 89

According to Herodotus (i, 130), the Persian king gave prizes
to those of his subjects who had the greatest number of children.
Vigorous procreation was one of the most effectual means of
grace. It is stated in the Sad-dar that "to him who has no child,
the Chinvad bridge (leading to paradise) shall be barred. The
first question the angels who guard this narrow passage will ask
him is whether he has left in this world a likeness of himself ; if
he answers in the -negative, they will leave him standing at the
head of the bridge, full of sorrow and despair." In the same
work that contains this piece of eschatology it is also written :
" There are those who strive to pass a day without eating and
who abstain from meat ; we, too, have our strivings and abstain-
ings, namely, from evil thoughts, and evil words, and evil deeds.
Other religions prescribe fasting from bread ; ours enjoins fasting
from sin."

The Brahmans maintained that the man who died without a
son went to perdition, because there was no one to pay him the
traditional family worship ; hence the necessity of adopting a son
in case he had none of his own. The Levitical law, as we have
already seen, compelled a man to take the wife of a deceased
brother, who died childless, and raise up seed to him. In the
Persian Rivayats, or collections of traditions, similar matrimo-
nial prescriptions are given. Thus, if a man over fifteen years of
age dies childless and unmarried, his relations are to provide a
maiden with a dowry and marry her to another man. Half of
the children resulting from this union are to belong to the dead
man and half of them to his proxy, the actual husband, and she
herself is to be the dead man's wife in the next world. This kind
of wife is called satar, " adopted." Again, if a widow, who has no
children by her first husband, marries again, half of her chil-
dren by the second husband are regarded as belonging to the first
husband, and she also belongs to him in the future life ; such
a wife is called chakar, " serving." The first child of an only
daughter belongs to her parents, if they have no sons, and they
give her one third of their property in compensation. This kind
of wife is called yukan, or " only child " wife. (Dr. E. W. West,
Pahlavi Texts, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. v, p. 143.)
All these laws and customs show the vital importance attached
to the possession of male offspring and to the preservation of an
unbroken succession in the line of descent.

There are strong indications that the transition from pastoral
to agricultural life in old Aryan society preceded the transforma-
tion of religious conceptions, and that the latter grew up gradu-
ally as a means of concentrating and more completely consolidat-
ing the former. In the second fargard of the Vendidad a curious
account is given of Yima, who lived before Zarathustra and is

90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

spoken of as a king rich in herds and a man of renown in Air-
yana-Vaejo, the Eden of the race. It was this exalted personage
whom Ahuramazda is said to have first chosen to be the promul-
gator of the true faith. But Yima, the son of Vivanghant (a
name derived perhaps from vangh, to dwell or abide, and meaning
settler or dweller in fixed habitations), excused himself, on the
plea of unfitness for the prophetic office. He may have been, like
Moses, a man of deeds rather than of words, "slow of speech
and of a slow tongue." Then said Ahuramazda, " If thou wilt
not be the bearer and herald of the faith, then shalt thou in-
close my habitations and become the protector and preserver of
my settlements." Thereupon he gave him a golden plowshare
and a goad decorated with gold as insignia of his royal office.
[The word s'ufra I prefer to translate " plowshare " rather than
" sword " with Haug, or " lance " with Spiegel. It means literally
a cutting instrument. In the Avesta, plowing is called " cut-
ting the cow"; and in the Vedic hymns the phrase "cut the
cow " is equivalent to " make fertile the earth." " The soul of the
cow " {geush urvd) means the spirit of the earth or the animating
energy of Nature. In the Pahlavi translation of this passage
s'ufra is rendered h J siddk-homaiid," hay ing holes" or "sieve,"
and might therefore correspond to the Sanskrit s'urpa, "winnow-
ing tray." The Pahlavi for plowshare is sulak, and the close re-
semblance of this word to siddk, "hole," modern Persian siVdJch
and surdkh, may have led to a confusion and interchange of
terms, both of which involve the idea of piercing or perforating.]

And Yima bore sway three hundred years ; and the land " was
filled with cattle, oxen, men, dogs, birds, and red blazing fires,"
until there was no more room for them therein. Then Yima went
southward (literally, " toward the stars on the noonday path of
the sun"), and, invoking the bounteous Armaiti, touched the
earth with the golden plowshare and pierced it with the goad ;
and, in obedience to his behest, the earth expanded and became
one third larger than before. This process he repeated, accord-
ing to the Zand, after six hundred years and again after nine
hundred years, with a constantly increasing extension of the
earth, which finally became about thrice its original size, and thus
afiiorded ample space for men and kine.

It is not difficult to discover the meaning of this legend. It is
the mythical statement of the effect of agriculture in practically
enlarging the surface of the earth by increasing its capacity for
supporting animal life, and thus rendering it possible for a
greater number of persons to subsist on the products of the same
area of soil. A tract of country which would furnish precarious
food for a single hunter, or pasturage for a score of herdsmen,
would, even under rude tillage, easily supply sustenance for a

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 91

hundred husbandmen. Indeed, it has been estimated that one
acre of arable land will bring forth as much food and conse-
quently sustain as many inhabitants as two thousand acres of
hunting ground.

In the fullness of time Yima was succeeded by the man who,
like Aaron, could " speak well," and in the first Gatha we find an
address which Zarathustra delivered to his countrymen con-
gregated around the sacred fire. It begins as follows : " I will
now reveal to you who are here assembled the wise words of
Mazda, the worship of Ahura, the hymns in praise of the good
spirit, the sublime truth, which I see rising out of the sacred
flames." He then appeals to them as the " offspring of renowned
ancestors " to rouse their minds and give heed to his divine mes-
sage: "To-day, O men and women, you should choose your
creed."

After this brief exordium, he plunges at once into his subject
and offers his solution of the old and ever-puzzling problem of
good and evil, which he personifies as twin spirits, counter-work-
ers in the creation of the world, each exercising its peculiar ac-
tivity and contributing its characteristic element, and promoting
respectively the happiness and the misery of mankind. It may
also be safely asserted that, from a theistic point of view, no more
logical and satisfactory solution of the difficulty has ever been
presented. He earnestly exhorts his hearers to follow after the
good and to eschew the evil. " Choose between these two spirits,
for ye can not serve both." " Be pure and not vile." " Let us be
such as help the life of the future." " Obey, therefore, the com-
mandments which Mazda has proclaimed and enjoined upon
mankind ; for they are a snare and perdition to liars, but pros-
perity to the believer in the truth and the source of all bliss."

The whole aim of this discourse, of which these extracts suf-
fice to indicate the drift, is to persuade his hearers to renounce
or to confirm them in their renunciation of the old Aryan poly-
theism and worship of the devas, as we find it in the Vedas, and
to adopt monotheism or the adoration of the one great and good
but by no means omnipotent being, Ahuramazda. As a philo-
sophical system, his doctrine was dualistic and recognized the
existence of two original and independent principles in the uni-
verse ; as a cult, it was monotheolatrous and worshiped only one
of these powers.

It may be added that long before the close of the Vedic period
the Indo- Aryans had also begun to devote themselves to hus-
bandry, although their chief wealth still consisted in herds. The
burden of their hymns and prayers to the gods is for much cattle
and a large family of vigorous sons. The foes which they now
had mostly to contend with were the Dasyus or aborigines of

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

India. The occasional mention of Aryan enemies may be partly
reminiscences or records of an earlier time and partly references
to intertribal warfares, of which there was evidently no lack. It
must be borne in mind that all the Vedic hymns appear to have
been composed in northern India, and principally in the region
now known as the Panjab. In none of these poetical productions
do we find any distinct remembrance of a trans-Himalayan origin
or any definite allusion to a former residence outside of India.
This circumstance proves that at the time of the supposed migra-
tion from the North the ancestors of the Indo-Aryans must have
been rude barbarians, destitute not only of written records, but
also of the ability to preserve and transmit from generation to
generation traditions of great events in their own tribal or na-
tional history. The savage has a short memory for whatever lies
beyond the sphere of his individual experience.

One of Zarathustra's chief injunctions was to ''listen to the
soul of the earth," and to " succor and foster the life of Nature."
This is to be done by cultivating and fertilizing the soil ; since
the increase of its productivity augments the sum of vitality in
the world and contributes to the ascendency of the voliumano or
good mind, synonymous with vis vitalis or living force, and aids
in securing the supremacy of Ahuramazda. Instead of bowing
down in servile fear before the phenomena of Nature, the Maz-
dayasnians are directed to revere and cherish her kindly and
beneficent spirit, so that " the wilderness and the solitary place
shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as
the rose."

Angro-Mainyush and his satellites, the devas, on the other
hand, are constantly striving to resist and to thwart this purpose
and to keep the earth in her native state of virginal wildness and
ruggedness by investing her with the dread sanctities and super-
stitions of a crude polytheistic physiolatry, by assaulting and
ravaging the cultivated settlements of the Ahuryan agricult-
urists, and by fomenting and fostering the spirit of primeval sav-
agery, personified as Akemrnano, or the evil mind. In the sacred
books and traditions of both factions, and more especially in
those of the reformatory party, are frequent traces of this social
rupture and religious schism, and of the deadly hostility natu-
rally existing between nomadic hordes, that still adhere to a life
of pasturage and pillage, and men of more advanced ideas, who
dwell in fixed habitations (gaethas) and devote themselves to hus-
bandry.

I am well aware that M. James Darmesteter and other repre-
sentatives of what might be called the meteorological school of
Avestan scholars deny the historical reality of a religious schism
of the kind here described, and would reduce Zarathustra and all

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 93

the incidents of his life to a series of solar myths. It is, how-
ever, only on the theory of a religious schism that the fact that
the deities of Brahmanism are the devils of Zoroastrianism, and
vice versa, can be adequately explained. To assert that this
antagonism is the result of an " accidental selection " of gods is
no explanation at all. The religious history of mankind is not a
record of casualties or mere chapter of accidents.

Besides, we have a modern example of a similar enmity grow-
ing out of the transition from nomadic to sedentary life in the
mythology of the Dards, who are, perhaps, one of the oldest races
and most primitive jDeoples of the East, and who believe in the
existence of demons called yatsh (bad), which, like the Homeric
Cyclops (the barbarous aborigines of the Sicilian coast), are of
gigantic stature, and have only one eye, set in the middle of their
forehead. These demons haunt the mountains and the wilderness,
and are exceedingly hostile to agriculturists, whom they vex and
harm in every possible manner, stealing and destroying the crops,
and even carrying off the husbandmen to their gloomy caverns.
In this scrap of mythology we have the survival of the old strife
between barbarism and civilization, which began with man's first
efforts to improve his condition.

The barbarian is, in fact, the most uncompromising incarna-
tion and typical representative of conservatism ; and it is the
survival of the barbarian temper of mind that constantly ham-
pers progress and hinders reform in modern times. His daily life
is the dullest routine and would be unbearable, were it not the
outcome and expression of the general rigidity and sterility of his
intellect. He treads religiously in the footsteps of his forefathers,
generation after generation, the whole mass moving on bodily
and mentally in single file, as is the custom with savages. He
is the stubborn foe of all innovations, and punishes as treason
against the tribe every deviation from the beaten trail. Under
such circumstances no social transformation can be effected with-
out fierce battle and bloodshed. In the primitive history of man-
kind, as in the early physical history of the globe, great changes
are uniformly the result of great convulsions.

It is not merely the love of booty that leads nomadic tribes to
attack and lay waste the permanent settlements of husbandmen,
but the instinct of self-preservation resisting the encroachments
of a new form of social organization which imperils the old. For
this reason hunters are hostile to herdsmen, and herdsmen to
tillers of the soil ; since pasturage diminishes the extent and value
of hunting grounds, and agriculture diminishes the area of pas-
turage.

Mr. D. Mackenzie Wallace gives a striking illustration of this
antagonism in the history of the Cossacks of the Don, who, so

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ■

long as they lived by sheep-farming and marauding, prohibited
agriculture under pain of death. This severe interdict of a peace-
ful pursuit originated, not as some have supposed in the desire to
foster the warlike spirit of the people, but rather in a perception
of the fact that "the man who plowed up a bit of land infringed
thereby on his neighbor's right of pasturage." By this act he
became in a certain sense guilty of treason against pastoral
society, the very foundations of which, the green sod, he broke up
and destroyed with his plowshare. He not only restricted and
reduced the actual area of grazing, but also struck a blow at the
life of a cattle-rearing community. The practical workings of
this crude and clannish conception of patriotism are recorded, as
Mr. Wallace observes, on the pages of Byzantine annalists and
old Russian chroniclers, who describe the periodical havoc of
farmsteads committed by the nomadic tribes which from time
immemorial had roamed the vast plains north of the Black and
Caspian Seas, razing the houses, ravaging the fields, and leaving
the bodies of the husbandmen as food for vultures.

The roving Bedouins, dwellers in the desert, as their name im-
plies, despise the cultivators of the soil and call them contemptu-
ously fellahin (plowers, boors) ; and their kinsmen the Anasis
{andsi, men) hover on the borders and levy blackmail on the vil-
lages of Syria. It is also significant for the persistency of this
primitive point of view that the Arabic word for agriculture
(faldhat), should also mean " fraudulent traffic," as though the
permanent possession of a piece of land and the exclusive use or
sale of the products of the soil were in themselves swindling
operations.

These facts of to-day suffice to show the kind of opposition
which Zarathustra had to face in his efforts to establish the Ira-
nians in fixed settlements and to accustom them to the acquisition
and proper utilization of landed property. In order to accomplish
this purpose it was necessary to teach the holiness of husbandry
and to invest seedtime and harvest with the sanctity of religion.

The Mormons, after their migration to Salt Lake, where the
very existence of the community depended upon converting the
desert into a garden, inaugurated the same policy, declaring
through the mouth of their prophet that the human race could
be redeemed and paradise regained only by means of tillage and
making agriculture a sacred vocation and the pursuit of it a
prominent part of their creed.

The priests of the old deva cult, the progenitors of the Brah-
mans, on the other hand denounced Zarathustra as a schismatic
and a renegade, a contemner of the gods and blasphemer, a scorner
of ancient custom and subverter of social order. They therefore
opposed the innovation and fought for the faith of their fathers

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 95

with sucli clumsy weapons as they were most skilled in wielding,
looting the homesteads, uprooting and trampling down the green
blades of wheat and barley, which stood as representatives of the
growing heresy, and, with a logic peculiar to theological zealots
and ecclesiastical inquisitors in all ages, refuting the new doctrine
and resisting the reformatory movement by greater energy and
assiduity in the ancient and honorable calling of cattle-lifting.

As we have already seen, the duty of a man to shield and sus-
tain a tribesman against an alien under all circumstances is im-
perative. Acts of extortion, treachery, or violence, which would
be punished by death if committed against a member of the same
tribe, are regarded as indifferent or laudable when the injured
person is a foreigner. The same tendency to approve or to exten-
uate the bad conduct of " brethren " enters also more or less into
the ethics of communities or collective bodies which are held
together by the bond of belief.

All people in a low state of civilization have a strong preju-
dice against lending money on interest, and look upon all such
transactions as sinful. The same notion still i:)revails among the
lower classes of civilized nations, whose superstitions are in most
cases mere survivals of savage life. So strong is this feeling,
inculcated and consecrated by religious teachings and traditions,
that a certain stigma attaches to the money broker even in the
minds of otherwise intelligent persons. "Many lend money on
interest," says Cato, " but it is not honorable to do so. Our
ancestors enacted in their laws that the thief should restore two-
fold, but the taker of interest fourfold, from which we see how
much worse a usurer was thought to be than a thief."

In general, however, usury, like every other supposed crime,
was regarded as wrong only when applied to kindred or tribes-
men. The Jews were forbidden to " take a breed of barren metal "
from those of their own faith, but might exact it from Gentiles.
Curiously enough, in the middle ages this privilege was granted
to the Jews, not in the spirit of favoritism, but as a necessity to
sovereigns and to society and from feelings of utter scorn and
contempt. As neither government nor trade could do without
this vilely esteemed vocation, the Jews were selected to carry it
on, because they were considered a vile people incapable alike of
improvement or of deeper degradation. The state and the Church,
which felt an interest in the spiritual welfare and safety of the
Christian, were wholly indifferent to the future fate of the Jew.
That sweet saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, surnamed the honey-
flowing teacher {doctor mellifluus), urged the rulers of his day to
tolerate the Jews, not because he hated persecution, but in order
that Christians might not be constrained to imperil the salvation
of their souls by the sin of usury. The Israelitic pariahs of me-

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

diseval society rendered the same service to Christian virtue that
professional prostitutes do to female chastity. We have a strik-
ing illustration of this point of view in a decree issued in 1219,
by the German emperor Frederick III, permitting the Jews to
dwell in Nuremberg and to take a percentage for the use of
money. Inasmuch as this business, he said in justification of his
edict, is essential to the growth of commerce and the prosperity of
the city, it Avill be a lesser evil and wrong for Jews to practice
usury than for Christians, since the former are a stubborn and
stiffnecked race, and, if they persist in their perversity, as they
probably will do, are doomed to be damned anyhow.*

The Hebrew, on the other hand, heartily reciprocated the
Christian's contumely, and could hardly conceal, under the pru-
dent disguise of mock humility, his disdain for the upstart Naza-
rene. He not only deemed it a religious duty to cheat him in
money matters, but thought it perfectly right to use him as an
agent in base or criminal transactions which a good Israelite
could not conscientiously perform.

This mental and moral attitude, which even the modern He-
brew still maintains, is strikingly exemplified by the following
incident : Between 1820 and 1830 a band of burglars, numbering
over one hundred persons and consisting entirely of Jews, made
property so unsafe as to create a panic among the inhabitants of
the Prussian provinces of Posen and Brandenburg. The chief of
the band was a certain Loewenthal in Berlin, and all the members
of it were extremely devout attendants of the synagogue and
strict observers of every jot and tittle of the Levitical law. They
never broke into the houses of Jews and never stole on the Sab-
bath, since such an act would be a desecration of the sacred " day
of rest " ; but, rather than let an exceptionally favorable oppor-
tunity escape, they sometimes employed a so-called schabhesgoi
[schabbesgo'i (Sabbath-Gentile) is a Jew-German term for the
Christian attendant or servant who does for an Israelite on the
Sabbath the things which his religion forbids him to do for
himself] to commit the crime for them, and, if necessary, did
not hesitate to have some one of their own number accompany
him on his burglarious expedition a couple of thousand yards
or so, the limits of a Sabbath day's journey. In case one of the
band was suspected of any particular offense and arrested, the
surest and speediest way of clearing himself was to prove an
alibi by the testimony of two witnesses, as the law required.
But the pious Hebrew regards perjury with peculiar abhorrence,
and fears above all things to take a false oath. Shylock was

* [We have referred to this characteristic decree in The Popular Science Monthly for
December, 1891, p. 176, in illustration of another subject.]

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 97

eager to cut the heart out of his hated enemy, but he would
not lay perjury upon his soul — no, not for Venice ! The burglars
kept, therefore, in their pay two Christians, who were as ready
to forswear themselves as any Tammany Hall politician at the
polls, and who made the requisite false oaths at fixed rates.

These examples serve to show the natural tendency of man-
kind to look upon compatriots and coreligionists from a different
moral standpoint from that with which they regard persons who
are not connected with them by such ties, and to whom they not
only attribute a lower standard of right and wrong, but also act
upon it as a rule of conduct in dealing with them.

Great dissimilarity in physical characteristics intensifies the
ethical estrangement caused by differences of blood and of belief.
The more any tribes of men deviate from ourselves in form and
feature, the less we are inclined to think of them as endowed with
the same powers and passions, the same kind of sympathy and
sensibility as ourselves, or as entitled to the same rights that we
possess. A people with black skin, woolly hair, flat noses, and
countenances of a strongly prognathous character do not enlist
our kindly feelings and awaken our affections in the same man-
ner and degree as representatives of a fair-complexioned and
finely featured type would do. The schemes of European govern-
ments and of private individuals and corporations for the explo-
ration, partition, and colonization of Africa are based upon the
assumption that the Africans themselves have no claim to the
continent which they inhabit. The only African colony that has
ever been founded on principles of common justice and with a
full recognition of the rights of the natives is the Republic of
Liberia, established more than sixty years ago under the auspices
of the United States, and this was done solely for the sake of get-
ting rid of an undesirable population of free negroes at home.
All the other enterprises of this sort are morally and legally no
better than buccaneering expeditions.

The ethical maxims which we are wont to accept as axiomatic
in our mutual relations as civilized individuals and nations are
too easily set aside as inconvenient and inapplicable to our deal-
ings with the so-called lower races. The fatal facility with
which under such circumstances enlightened Europeans of the
nineteenth century may revert to primitive savagery as soon as
the outward restraints of civilization are removed is seen in the
early settlers of Australia, who did not scruple to shoot the de-
fenseless and harmless aborigines as they would any game, and
feed the carcasses to their hounds. The inoffensive and rather
feeble-bodied Negritos were treated as beasts of venery, which
could be hunted without danger and furnished plentiful supplies
of dog's meat, costing the sportsman nothing, not even a pang of

VOL. XLV. — 8

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

conscience, only tlie price of a cartridge. (Cf. Schaafhaiisen, in
The Anthropological Review, London, 1869, p. 368.)

More recent and even more revolting exemplifications of this
tendency to relapse in barbarism are the atrocities committed by
Major Barttelot, and the conduct of Mr. Jameson, of Stanley^s
Emin-Relief Expedition, who purchased a young negro girl and
gave her to a horde of cannibals in order to make sketches from
life of the manner in which she was torn in pieces and devoured.

There are also instances on record of Englishmen, Dutchmen,
and Frenchmen who in their warfare with Indians adopted from
their savage foes the custom of scalping and torturing their cap-
tives. In fact, as Waitz has shown in his Anthropolgy (iii, 174),
there is scarcely a vice of barbarous tribes which Europeans
when removed from the restrains of civilization have not prac-
ticed. In the South Sea islands they have in some cases become
anthropophagous.

Here we are suddenly brought face to face with the depressing
fact that men, who are heirs to ages of intellectual culture and
armed with all the powers and possibilities of good and evil
which modern science has put into their hands, yet relapse mor-
ally to the level of rude cave dwellers and contemporaries of the
mammoth in making their superiority of mental endowment and
material equipment minister to deeds and passions worthy of the
lowest stage of barbarism.

All emigration to wild regions is, in a greater or less degree,
atavistic in its effects, and, by loosening or removing the many
leading strings of association by which the average man is kept
in an upright position and a straightforward course, lets him fall
back and retrograde, and thus tends to bring him nearer to his
flint-chipping neolithic ancestor. It throws each individual
upon his own ethical resources by releasing him from the con-
stant though hardly conscious social pressure of an environment
which is the resultant of long periods of human progress, and by
which alone the masses of so-called civilized nations are pre-
vented from relapsing into the original condition of the race.

Happily, however, such extreme cases of moral reversion as
those of the early emigrants to Australia and the recent explorers
of Africa are only sporadic, and the ubiquity of humane and en-
lightened public opinion arising from greater frequency and
rapidity of international intercourse, and causing its immediate
influence to be felt in the remotest and roughest border lands
of savage and civilized life, will render them still rarer in the
future. The telegraph and the telephone are making it daily
more diflicult and will eventually make it impossible for the most
pushing pioneer wholly to lose communication with the advanc-
ing body of organized forces behind him, or to break away from

THE SLEEP OF MOLLUSKS. 99

the control of that community of impulses and purposes, and that
consensus of moral ideas and perceptions, which we call public
conscience. This influence is beginning to penetrate even the
darkest regions of Central Africa and to protect the unknown
barbaric tribes against the ravages of Arab slave traders and the
arbitrary authority of European adventurers. Each nation that
joins in this combined movement is doubtless seeking, first of all,
to further its own commercial and colonial interests; but it
suffices as an illustration of the prevailing spirit of the age that
the basis on which they profess to unite is the broad principle
of a common humanity.

THE SLEEP OF MOLLUSKS.

By CHARLES T. SIMPSON.

IT is probable that the sleep or dormant period which mollusks
share in common with many other organic beings is brought
on not merely by the exigencies of climate, but that it is more or
less necessary in building up the wasting physical powers. All
organized beings seem to require rest in some form or other. If
plants, whether from the tropics or temperate regions, are kept in
hothouses, they will not grow the year round, and when forced
to do so soon become sickly or die outright.

With the mollusks this sleep in many cases may be prolonged
indefinitely, often without the slightest apparent damage, and
under some conditions which seem really astonishing.

In the sea the clams ( Venus and Mya) have rest periods, dur-
ing which they sink more deeply into the mud and retreat from
the fisherman ; the tritons,' murices, and ranellas form a shelly
growth and mark their seasons of repose by a thickening of the
aperture called a varix, which is sometimes guarded by spines or
knobs. The littorinas, which are amphibious, pass most of their
time on grass or sedges at the edge of the sea in the colder re-
gions and high aloft on mangrove or other trees in the tropics,
only occasionally going into the water to moisten themselves.
Tryon tells of some West Indian species which survived over a
year in his cabinet, and of others that lived for months in the dry
air of Philadelphia, though they exhibited but little activity ; and
the writer has kept specimens of the nearly allied Tectarius alive
in his collection for nearly two years.

Most of the fresh-water species of mollusks pass a period of
hibernation in cold climates or testivation in the tropics, and
many of them are wonderfully tenacious of life when withdrawn
from the water. In June, 1850, a living pond mussel was sent to
Dr. Gray from Australia which had been kept out of water more

loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than a year, and instances of the survival of nnios without mois-
ture for long periods are not rare. While living in south Florida
I discovered a colony of unios in a small drain that ran through
the pine woods and which only contained water during the rainy
season — some three months in the year. Thousands of these
mussels were found in the channel among bulrushes, buried ver-
tically an inch or so below the surface in nearly dry soil, with
the anterior end downward, and the slightly moist, sandy banks
in many places were full of them. The colony extended some
ten or a dozen yards along this drain ; not a specimea could be
found either above or below this space, and the species was not
found in the little stream into which it emptied.

A lot of these unios were taken home and laid in the garden,
where they remained more than three months wholly unpro-
tected from the hot autumn sunlight during the dry season, and
when opened a number of them were found to be alive. Yet
ordinarily the want of water causes the UnionidcB to speedily die.
The summer of 1886 was one of the least rainfall ever known in
the upper Mississippi Valley, and many streams and ponds went
dry that had never been known to be so before. At this time I
collected in northern Illinois and Iowa, and in every instance
where the water had evaporated I found the mussels dying by
thousands, though in many cases the mud was too soft to bear
the collector. While collecting in the Indian Territory I visited
a large pond near McAllister that had just been drained, and,
although the water stood everywhere in pools, yet the UnionidcB
were apparently all dead and gaping open, and the stench was so
horrible that the struggle between duty and comfort was a severe
one. For years I have watched the dredging operations in the
Potomac at the capital, as the mud was thrown out on the flats,
and in every case the mussels were dead before it was firm enough
to be trodden on.

I do not believe in building a theory on too slight a foundation
of fact, but I am of the opinion that these unios which have been
kept dormant for lengthened periods out of water inhabited
streams or ponds that were intermittent. The instance I have
given in Florida is a good one, and the mussel Dr. Gray received
from Australia is no doubt another. The whole island is noted
for heat and long-continued droughts, and with scarcely an excep-
tion the streams and lakes go dry during the rainless season.
Even the Murray River, the largest stream in the country, and
ordinarily navigable for hundreds of miles, sometimes ceases to
flow altogether.*

* Other cases in point are known. In the spring of 1887 I collected several specimens
of Anodonta Ferussacciana in lagoons along the banks of the South Platte River near

THE SLEEP OF MOLLUSKS. loi

The ampullarias or idol shells, a noble genus of tropical pond
snails, bury themselves deeply in mud during the dry seasons.
They are remarkable for their ability to live without water, hav-
ing been kept out of it for years, and they are often brought to
foreign countries alive in mahogany logs.

Guilding first noticed that the species of the Antilles had a
double system of respiration, which was further dilated on by
Caillaud, who brought these snails alive from Egypt ; and D'Or-
bigny discovered that they had a distinct pulmonary apparatus
in addition to their gills. According to Joly, anodons and vivip-
aras survive freezing, and will reproduce on being thawed out ;
and no doubt many of the species that live in cold climates are
frozen every winter and resuscitated with the return of spring.

It is believed that all shell-bearing land mollusks either hiber-
nate or sestivate according to conditions of climate. Most of the
snails close the aperture with a membranous or coriaceous cover-
ing, consisting of lime and mucus, which is called an epiphragm.
W. G. Binney has thus described the operation: "The animal
being withdrawn into the shell, the collar is brought to a level
with the aperture and a quantity of mucus is poured out and
covers it. A small quantity of air is then emitted from the re-
spiratory foramen, which detaches the mucus from the surface of
the collar and projects it in a convex form like a bubble. At the
same moment the animal retreats farther into the shell, leaving a
vacuum between itself and the membrane, which is consequently
pressed back by the external air to a level with the aperture or
even farther, so as to form a concave surface, where, after becom-
ing desiccated and hard, it remains fixed. These operations are
nearly simultaneous, and occupy but an instant." As the winter
advances the snail withdraws deeper and deeper, shutting itself out
by other epiphragms, like a retiring army covering its front by
breastworks as it retreats, until sometimes it has made no less than
half a dozen, one within the other. With the snails such as ours,
that inhabit moist wooded districts, this protecting wall is thin
and nearly transparent, while in those of arid regions it is thicker
and often calcareous. Some of the large helices of south Europe
secrete a somewhat shelly epiphragm resembling the coating of
a turtle's Qgg, convex externally, with the edge turned in and
roughly cemented to the aperture of the shell. In this condition,
if not resuscitated by moisture, the snails will remain alive for an
indefinite period. "Woodward tells of a desert snail {Helix deser-

Brule, Nebraska, the stream at that time being at an ordinary stage of water. These were
kept in a dry shed some two weeks, and the shells became badly cracked by the dry air, yet
at the end of that time when opened they were alive. In summer the river becomes so dry
that the sand from its bed is blown about the adjoining country.

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

torum) whicli, after being ghied to a tablet for four years in the
Britisli Museum, was noticed to have discolored the paper of its
label, and on being put into warm water it revived; and Dr.
Stearns kept a Helix Vietchi from Cerros Island, Lower Cali-
fornia, alive six years without food.* Many other such cases are
known.

Strangely enough, the slugs undergo no such period of hiberna-
tion, as they only cease activity in temperate climates during the
coldest weather, and when a warm spell occurs in winter they are
thawed out into new life. It is indeed curious that these naked
fellows should be so much more hardy than their relatives, who
wear their great overcoats of shells into which they can wholly
retreat, but so it is. Binneya, a Mexican snail, whose shell is not
large enough to cover its body, attaches itself to a spot where it
sestivates and forms a parchmentlike epiphragm from the edges
of the shell to the place of attachment^ and when it returns to ac-
tivity often carries with it this queer addition to its house. Most
snails dissolve this when they awaken from their long sleep.

Nature has kindly relieved the operculated land snails from
the trouble of making this protection, and when the time for re-
tiring arrives they simply retreat into the shell and close the
door behind them. In this condition they are " not at home " to
any callers. The long winter's sleep proves disastrous to many
of the snails, and in the spring quantities of dead shells will be
found huddled together in hollow trees, under rocks, and in their
crevices, or buried beneath the leaves and ground with a few
survivors among them. Why they thus assemble together to
hibernate is difficult to tell, unless it is because " misery loves
company."

The succineas are a somewhat amphibious family of air-
breathers, and on the approach of winter often crowd together
into tussocks of grass or rushes by the edges of streams and
ponds. In eastern Colorado and western Nebraska I have count-
ed from two hundred and fifty to three hundred of them thus
tucked snugly away in a single tuft of grass. It is indeed for-
tunate for them that they are wrapped in unconsciousness during
the dreary winter of that shelterless, desolate country, with its
howling blizzards and snows drifted wildly over the prairies, and
it is marvelous that so large a proportion survives. In that dry
region water is a luxury that even a fresh-water snail can not
always afford ; hence their shells are found strewed over the
highest table lands, miles horizontally and hundreds of feet ver-
tically from moisture ; and I have gathered numbers of them in

* For an account of this, see a paper On the Vitality of Certain Land Mollusks, by R.
E. C. Stearns, Proceedings California Academy of Sciences, October 18, 18 7 5.

THE SLEEP OF MOLLUSKS. 103

winter under projecting rocks high upon the bluffs of the South
Platte River.

In the tropics the process of aestivation is analogous to hiber-
nation, but there is not so complete a cessation of the functions.
The same epiphragm is made, and the rest is taken for the same
purpose — to avoid the vicissitudes of climate ; only in this case it
is to escape drought instead of cold. And sometimes the same
gregarious habit is observed, and the snails crowd in closer than
the occupants of a cheap lodging house. On some of the west
Florida keys I have seen Helix Carpenteriana sestivating under
grass and logs in such vast numbers that one might scoop them
up by the quart ; and in the Maritime Alps I have found other
species of the land snails piled together by hundreds in hollows
of limestone cliffs during the dry season. The strophias either
cling to the stems of low bushes or lie at their roots, as do many
species of Bulimulus, often in great numbers.

The arboreal species firmly attach themselves to the bark of
the trees on which they live and on whose foliage they subsist,
and form a solid epiphragm of the consistence of sole leather.*
On the lower part of Florida and on the keys the magnificent
Ortlialicus and Liguus, the latter gaudy with bands of yellow,
brown, and green, the former a soft cream color, with markings
of jet black and brown, live often on such trees as the Jamaica
dogwood {Piscidia erytlirina) and the Bursera, which shed wholly
or in part their leaves during late winter and spring, the dry sea-
son. The sight of one of these trees without foliage, and loaded
with this strange, glittering fruit, is enough to thrill the heart
and stir the blood of any collector, and I shall never forget my
first experience with them at Cape Sable. In my eagerness to
possess the beautiful things I broke several specimens, as the epi-
phragm adhered so firmly that the shell crushed before it would
loosen, and I could only save them by cutting away the bark.

One wonders why these snails so freely expose themselves dur-
ing aestivation, when they are utterly powerless to escape from
their enemies. Many of these trees, which were full of them, were
isolated more or less and were without foliage, and every shell
could be seen hundreds of feet away. That they have enemies I
discovered afterward as I wandered broken-hearted among the
thick scrub of Key West to find quantities of fresh broken Orthal-
icus lying on the ground, but not one alive. Many of them ap-
peared as though a hole had been picked in them by birds large
enough to get out the snail and utterly ruin the shell. In this
case death came swiftly and painlessly, no doubt, while they were

* The epiphragm of Orthalicus zebra is admirably figured and described by Fischer and
Crosse in Mission Scientifique au Mexique et Am^rique Centrale.

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

wrapped in sleep. Such, is the summer repose or festivation of
the tropical tree snails. For months of bright, sunshiny weather
they cling motionless, perched aloft on their favorite trees that at
once are home and food for them, firmly attached by a leathery
epiphragm that neither sun nor rain nor wind, or anything but
themselves, can dissolve ; and on the coming of the first showers
of the rainy season they awaken to new activity and life.

-♦♦♦-

WASTE PRODUCTS: COTTON-SEED OIL.

By FREDERIC G. MATHER.

IT has been stated that if the waste products of the world had
been saved they would sustain the present population for
more than a hundred years. Foreign countries give more attention
than America to saving the waste. But as the population of the
United States increases, and as processes of manufacture are de-
veloped, discoveries are made which turn the waste of former
products into useful articles of commerce. Glycerin, wood acid,
crude petroleum, and even the fine dust from anthracite coal have
an importance to-day that they did not have formerly.

Cotton-seed oil is a most conspicuous instance of an article
once thrown aside as a nuisance. Originally it was only a by-
product in the manufacture of meal from the seed ; and even after
it was discovered that meal could be made, it was a question what
should be done with the oil.

That question has been answered in various ways. What was
garbage in 18G0 was a fertilizer in 1870, cattle food in 1880, and table
food and many things else, in 1890. A small quantity of the oil is
made in England, but it is inferior to the American article because
the seed comes from Egypt or India. The American cotton parts
with its fiber more readily. The best oil is made from seed be-
longing to the Southern upland cotton, that from the seaboard
having a darker color. The exports are chiefly from New York
and New Orleans, and the greater part goes to France, Italy, and
the Netherlands. There was a constant increase of exports be-
tween 1871 and 1884, when over 6,000,000 gallons, valued at
$3,000,000, were exported. Since 1884 the export has rapidly de-
clined, only 2,000,000 gallons, worth $1,300,000, being exported
of late years, because the demand in the United States has in-
creased.

Nine tenths of the American product enters into the composi-
tion of foods, chiefly for salad and cooking oils and for the making
of refined lard. The latter use is the most important of all.
Nearly forty years ago the oil was mixed with lard for use in cold

WASTE PRODUCTS: COTTON-SEED OIL. 105

climates so that the stiffening point would be several degrees
lower. Lard was also prepared with this oil for the Israelites,
whose religion does not permit the use of any product of the hog.
The refined lard of to-day is made of refined packer's lard, pure
dressed-beef fat, and pure refined cotton-seed oil. The consistence
of the beef fat is overcome by the oil. Three fourths of the lard
in use to-day contains from ten to twenty-five per cent of the oil,
and nearly all of it is sold as oil-lard. It has been attacked by
producers of hog lard, but investigations have shown that the
new lard is quite as wholesome as the old.

Table oil often bears the brand of olive oil when it is really
cotton-seed oil mixed with a small proportion of the olive. Some-
times the oil is taken to France and Italy and mixed there, but
more often the mixture is made in this country. So closely is
olive oil imitated, both as to taste and color, that only an expert
knows the difference. In the earlier days of making cotton-seed
oil the white oil brought a higher price than the yellow ; but to-
day the yellow oil is the more expensive. Cheaper processes of
manufacture have lowered the price and encouraged the use of
the yellow oil in making a substitute for butter.

Cotton oil ranks next to sperm oil and above lard oil for illu-
minating purposes, and it may be burned in any lamp used for
either. Mixed with petroleum, it increases the freedom of burn-
ing ; but this requires a change in the wick. As a lubricating oil
cotton-seed is useless, because it is half way between the drying
and the non-drying. For the same reason it can not be used for
paints, for wood filling, or for leather dressing. It has some use
as a substitute for vaseline and similar products. The oil enters
into the production of laundry and fancy soaps and soaps for
woolen mills. The American sardines, properly known as young
shad and herring, are put up with this oil, and the use of it ex-
tends so far that nearly all the real sardines of Europe are now
treated in the same way. The oil forms an emulsion in medicine
and a substitute for cod-liver oil. On the market the crude oil
is known as either prime, or off quality, or cooking. There are
also the white summer, the yellow winter, and the white winter.
All these, except the crude, bring an average of about fifty cents
a gallon in the wholesale market. After the oil has left the seeds,
they become food for stock in the shape of oil cake, while the
ashes from the hulls make a fertilizer for root crops.

The first attempt to extract oil from cotton seed was made in
Natchez, Miss., in 1834. The machinery of the mill was of the
most primitive kind, the pressure being given by wedges. Fail-
ure attended this effort, and also an effort in 1852 with improved
machinery. In 1855 cotton seed began to have a commercial
value. Small mills were established, and the prospects for devel-

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

oping tlie industry were good until tlie breaking out of the civil
war cut off the supply of seed. Directly after the war, in 1866,
there were only seven mills in the whole country. Three of
them were in New Orleans, one in Providence, one in Cincin-
nati, one in Memphis, and one in New York. In 1870 there
were twenty-six mills ; in 1880, forty- five ; and in 1890, two hun-
dred and twenty-five — all but two being in the Southern States,
as follows : Alabama, thirty ; Arkansas, twelve ; Florida, three ;
Georgia, thirty-nine ; Louisiana, fifteen ; Mississippi, twenty-three ;
North Carolina, twenty ; South Carolina, thirty-four ; Tennessee,
twenty; Texas, twenty-seven. The highest capacity of any of
the mills is 320 tons daily ; and for all the mills, 7,636 tons daily,
or 2,367,160 tons annually. None of them are operated on full
time, and most of them run only three or four months during the
height of the cotton season. The mills are of all sizes, and they
range from $5,000 to over $250,000 in value.

The output of cotton-seed products was valued at $600,000 in
1860, $2,205,000 in 1870, $7,691,000 in 1880, and nearly $22,000,000 in
1890. Since that date the product has fallen off. The details for
1890 were : 28,000,000 gallons of crude oil ; 17,000,000 pounds of
cotton batting ; 283,000 tons of oil cake ; 378,000 tons of hulls, ash,
soap-stock, and other by products ; and $2,853,000 of enhanced
value in refining the oil and manufacturing the soap. The
Southern States produced 2,870,417 tons of cotton seed in 1880, of
which barely one eighth was crushed in the mills. The yield of
seed during the past five years has been as high as 3,600,000 tons ;
but only one fifth of it reached the mills. The American Cotton-
seed Oil Company, formerly known as the Cotton Trust, owns the
entire capital stock of ninety-five factories, a small portion of
which are not in operation. The factories include not only crude-
oil mills, but mills for the production of fertilizers, soap, and the
other products. The total business for the year ending November
1, 1889, the best in the history of the mills, was about $25,000,000.
An improved method of crushing gave better results than for
any previous year. At first the oil was transported from the mills
in barrels, but now a great saving is effected by the use 6i tank
cars.

When the season is not dry the seed is rich in oil, and it yields
readily thirty-five or more gallons to the ton. An unfavorable
season reduces the yield to thirty-one gallons. When the seed is
well stored and properly ventilated, it will keep for a year ; it is
liable to become rancid in the hold of a vessel. If stored long in
bulk, it becomes superheated and liable to spontaneous combus-
tion. These facts prevent exportation in large quantities. The
cotton plant yields an average of nine hundred and fifty pounds
of seed to each bale of cotton. The price of seed has been as high

WASTU PRODUCTS: COTTON-SEED OIL. 107

as seventeen dollars a ton, but there is no profit to tlie millers
if tliey pay mucli over twelve dollars. A sharp competition
among them led to the forming of an association of the mills
in 1878, which was the forerunner of the American Cotton-seed
Oil Trust. The Southern States are now divided into districts,
each one supplying certain mills, and keeping a uniform price
for the seed.

The bulk of the supply is obtained from plantations immedi-
ately upon the Southern rivers, because the seed can be trans-
ported at little cost. The mills are also located upon the rivers.
Once landed at the mills, the seed is conveyed in an elevator to a
screen, or cylindrical sifter, where it is shaken until it is free from
dust and sand. Then it is blown against another screen to remove
stones, iron, and other foreign substances that might injure the
rollers. A second elevator carries the seed to the loft, where an-
other sifter separates the seed proper from the bolls or outside
hulls of the cotton bloom. No matter how close the picking may
have been, the bolls still have cotton sticking to them, and they
are dropped into a gin to remove the lint. This is known as
" crapo cotton," the only variety of linter produced in the mills.
The seed having fallen through the screen, is carried along an-
other screen or gutter directly over the gins. They drop through
holes in the screen upon the gins ; but when the box above the
gin is full the hole is closed automatically, and the screen carries
the seed forward to the next box, thus keeping all the boxes full.
The gins differ from cotton gins in having one hundred saws
instead of sixty. The saws are but half an inch apart and the
teeth are very firmly set. The problem of wholly removing the
lint, save by chemical process, has not yet been solved.

Once thoroughly separated from all foreign substances — dust,
bolls, and cotton — the seed is conveyed to the roller, a revolving
cylinder containing twenty-four knives and four back knives,
which cuts the hulls from the kernels. This process was formerly
carried on by grindstones. The hulls go upstairs, where they are
again treated to find such kernels as may still be clinging to
them, after which they are sold or used as fuel in the furnace of
the mill. Only half of them are needed for this purpose, the
other half being sold as food for cattle. The ashes of the hulls
make an excellent lye for soap or for the refining of the oil. The
kernels are conveyed to rollers, where they are crushed very fine.
They are thence removed to the heaters, being agitated all the
time so as to give an equal exposure and allow the oil to be more
readily extracted. The kernels are then placed in woolen bags
packed between horse-hair mats, backed with leather, and hav-
ing a fluted surface inside to allow the oil to escape more free-
ly. The hydraulic pressure, furnished by the oil itself instead

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of by water, is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and
fifty tons.

The bags are in the press about fifteen minutes, the oil run-
ning out and the dry kernels remaining behind in a solid cake
— the oil cake of commerce. This product is of a rich golden
color, quite dry, and of a sweet and oily taste. When used for
food it is ground to the consistence of corn meal, and it is known
as cotton-seed meal. A comparison of the number of pounds of
flesh produced by several kinds of food is as follows : Cotton-seed
cake, forty-one pounds ; bran, thirty-one pounds ; peas, twenty-
two pounds ; corn, twelve pounds ; rye, eleven pounds. The num-
ber of pounds of fat produced by the several foods are these :
Cotton-seed cake, fifty-seven pounds; bran, fifty-four pounds;
peas, fifty pounds; corn, sixty-eight pounds; rye, seventy-two
pounds ; hay, fifty pounds. It is claimed that cotton-seed cake
fed to cows gives a rich and plentiful supply of milk.

The oil, having been pumped into the oil room, is treated with
caustic soda and constantly stirred. A deposit falls to the bottom
of the kettle and the refined oil is turned off. It averages about
eighty-two per cent of the crude oil. The deposit, known as soap
stock, sells readily to soap manufacturers, or it is used by the mill
itself in the manufacture of soap. Much of it is sent to foreign
countries. The oil is occasionally refined over again to remove
wholly a slightly bitter flavor of the seed which reduces the culi-
nary value.

It will be noticed that the products of the seed are — (1) oil,
both the crude and the refined ; (2) oil cake ; (3) lint ; (4) hulls ;
(5) soap stock ; (6) glycerin. One gallon of crude cotton-seed oil
will yield three pounds and a half of glycerin, but thus far only a
small amount has been made. The use of the seed for these
several purposes has been of great benefit to the Southern States.
Their output is constantly increasing, while the supply of petro-
leum in the oil fields of Pennsylvania and elsewhere appears to
be decreasing. The world was greatly excited when petroleum
was discovered. But the discovery of cotton-seed oil has been so
gradual that the importance of it has not been realized until
lately. This brief statement of what is being done to-day with
an article that was going to waste a generation ago must lead
every student of economy to ask, " Are there not other waste
products of the present time that will be used a generation hence,
and thus not only increase the comfort of living but also decrease
the expense ? "

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CHEMISTRY. 109

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CHEMISTRY.

By M. p. E. BEKTHELOT.

CHEMISTRY is a modern science, constituted liardly a cen-
tury ago; but its theoretical problems were discussed and
its practices put in operation during all the middle ages. The
nations of antiquity were already acquainted with them, and their
origin is lost in the night of primitive religions and prehistoric
civilizations. I have described elsewhere the first rational at-
tempts to explain the chemical transformations of matter, and
purpose now to speak of the chemical industries of the ancient
world, and their transmission to the Latins of the middle ages.
The story is of interest as showing how the cultivation of the
sciences has been perpetuated in the material line by the necessi-
ties of their adaptations, through the catastrophes of invasions
and the ruin of civilization. Only the total extermination of
populations, such as was at times practiced by the Mongols and
the Tartars, could completely destroy this cultivation. But such
horrors as those perpetrated by Tamerlane have been of rare
occurrence.

From the most remote times man has applied chemical opera-
tions to his necessities, performing them for metallurgy, ceramics,
dyeing, painting, the preservation of food, medicine, and the art
of war. While gold and sometimes silver and copper existed in
the native state, and required only mechanical preparation, lead,
tin, iron, and often copper and silver, had to be extracted from
their usual minerals by very complicated artifices. The produc-
tion of alloys necessary for the fabrication of arms, money, and
jewels is also an essentially chemical art. The study of the alloys
used in goldsmiths' work gave rise to the prejudices and frauds
of alchemy, as is proved by the testimony of an Egyptian papyrus
preserved in the Leyden Museum, and of the writings of the Gre-
cian alchemists.

The art of preparing cement, pottery, and glass likewise de-
pends on chemical operations. The workmen who dyed cloths,
clothing, and tapestries in purple or other colors, an industry
practiced first in Egypt and Syria and then in all the Grecian,
Roman, and Persian world, not to speak of the extreme East, em-
ployed highly developed chemical manipulations; and the cloths
found on the mummies and in the sarcophagi attest their perfec-
tion. Pliny and Vitruvius describe in detail the production of
colors, such as cinnabar or vermilion, minium, red chalk, indigo,
black, green, and blue colors, vegetable as well as mineral, per-
formed by painters. The chemistry of alimentation, fruitful in .
resources and in frauds, was next practiced. The art was known

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of accomplishing at will those delicate fermentations which pro-
duce bread, wine, and beer, and which modify a large number of
foods ; also of falsifying wine by the addition of plaster and other
ingredients. The art of healing, seeking everywhere for resources
against diseases, had learned to transform and fabricate a large
number of mineral and vegetable products, such as sugar of
poppy, extracts of nightshades, oxide of copper, verdigris, lith-
arge, white lead, the sulphurets of arsenic and arsenious acid ;
remedies and poisons were composed at the same time, for differ-
ent purposes, by doctors and magicians. The manufacture of
arms and of inflammatory substances — petroleum, sulphur, resins,
and bitumens — had already, anciently as well as in our own time,
drawn upon the talents of inventors and given rise to formidable
applications, especially in the arts of sieges and marine battles,
previous to the invention of the Greek fire, which was in its turn
the precursor of gunpowder and of our terrible explosive matters.

This rapid review shows how far advanced in the knowledge
of chemical industries the Roman world was at the moment when
it went to pieces under the blows of the barbarians. But the
ruin of the ancient organization came about by degrees : while
high scientific study, hardly accessible to coarse minds, ceased to
be encouraged, and was gradually abandoned; while the Greek
philosophers, knocked about between the religious persecution of
the Byzantine emperors and the indifferent disdain of the Persian
sovereigns, no longer trained pupils; while the great names of
Grecian physics, mathematics, and alchemy hardly passed the
time of Justinian, it is still certain that the necessity of profes-
sions indispensable to human life, or sought out by sovereigns
and priests, could maintain and did maintain effectively most of
the chemical industries.

Proofs of various kinds can be brought up in support of these
reasonings. Some are drawn from the examination of the monu-
ments, arms, potters' and glass ware, cloths, gems and jewels, and
art objects of every kind which have come down to us. Such ex-
amination furnishes, in fact, incontestable results, provided the
dates of the objects are certain, and they have not suffered res-
toration. Respecting the date, we can not exercise too much
prudence and distrust, whether we are examining buildings or
objects in museums. The accounts and descriptions by contem-
porary historians furnish other data, but less precise, for it is
better to have the object in hand than the description. They
have the advantage, however, of giving us indications independ-
ent of the ulterior progress of the industry. We have a still
surer and more exact class of data than the chronicles in the tech-
nical treatises and works concerning arts and trades which have
come down to us, whenever those treatises have an ascertained

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CHEMISTRY. iii

date, even were it only the date of tlieir copies. This source of
facts is already known as to antiquity. It is not wanting as to the
middle ages, although it seems to have till now escaped the eru-
dite persons who have written the history of science, and it per-
mits us to reconstitute that under a new form and with a new
precision. By the aid of those documents I shall attempt to show,
concerning myself especially with chemical industries, what
knowledge, practical or theoretical, subsisted after the fall of
ancient civilization, and how the traditions of the shop main-
tained those industries, almost without new inventions, but at
least at a certain level of perfection.

The history of physical science in antiquity is very imperfectly
known to us. There existed then no methodical treatise for the
purpose of teaching, such as we have in the principal civilized
states. Hence, except as to the medical sciences, we have only
insufficient notions respecting the processes employed in the arts
and trades of the ancients. The experimental method of the mod-
erns has associated those practices into a body of doctrines, and
has shown close relations between them and the theories for which
they served as basis and confirmation. This method was almost
unknown to the ancients, at best as a general principle of scien-
tific learning. Their industries had little connection with theories,
excepting in measures of length, surface, or volume, which were
deduced immediately from geometry and in goldsmiths' receipts,
which were the origin of the theories, partly real and partly im-
aginary, of alchemy. It has been even asked if industrial formu-
las were not formerly preserved by purely oral tradition and care-
fully held back for the initiated. Some scraps of the traditional
lore may have been transcribed into the notes which have been
used in the composition of Pliny's Natural History and the works
of Vitruvius and Isidore de Seville, not without a considerable
mixture of fables and errors. But a more thorough examination
of the works that have come down to us from antiquity, a more
attentive study of the manuscripts, at first neglected because they
did not relate to literary or theological studies or to ordinary his-
torical questions, permits the affirmation that they were not so.
We are all the time discovering new and considerable documents
which show that the processes of the ancient industrials were then,
as now, inscribed in workmen's note-books or manuals intended
for the use of the tradespeople, and that they were transmitted
from hand to hand from the most remote times of ancient Egypt
and Alexandrine Egypt, to those of the Roman Empire and the
middle ages. The discovery of these note-books offers all the more
interest because the use of the precious metals with civilized peo-
ples goes back to the highest antiquity ; the technique of the ancient
goldsmiths and jewelers is not revealed to us all at once except

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by tlie examination of the objects that have come down to us. The
earliest precise and detailed texts describing their processes are
contained in an Egyptian papyrus found at Thebes, and now in
the museum at Leyden.

This papyrus is in the Greek language and dates from the third
century of the Christian era. In my translation of it, comparing
parts of it with phrases in the works of Pliny and Vitruvius on
the same subjects and with Greek alchemistic works of the fourth
and fifth centuries, I have reconstituted a whole science, ancient
alchemy, till now misunderstood and uncomprehended, because it
was founded on a mixture of real facts, profound views on the
unity of matter, and chimerical religious fancies. These prac-
tices and theories had a still larger bearing than the working
of metals. The industries of the precious metals were in fact
associated at that epoch with those of the dyeing of cloths,
the coloring of glasses, and the imitation of precious stones, all
guided by the same tinctorial ideas and executed by the same
operators.

Thus alchemy and the chimerical hope of making gold were
derived from the goldsmiths^ artifices for coloring metals. The
pretended processes of transmutation which were current during
the middle ages were in their origin only tricks for preparing
alloys of inferior standard — that is, for imitating and falsifying
the precious metals. But, by an almost invincible attraction, the
operators addicted to these practices did not hesitate to imagine
that one could pass from the imitation of gold to its effective
formation — especially if he had the aid of the supernatural pow-
ers, invoked by magical formulas.

At any rate, it was not known till now how these practices and
theories passed from Egypt, where they were flourishing toward
the end of the Roman Empire, into the West, where we find them
in full development from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
in the writings of the Latin alchemists and in the laboratories of
the goldsmiths, dyers, and makers of colored glass. Their renas-
cence was generally attributed to transla,tions of Arabian works
made at that epoch. But, without assuming to deny the part
played by the Arabian books in the renascence of the arts and sci-
ences in the West, in the period of the Crusades, it is no less cer-
tain that a continuous tradition subsisted in the professional rec-
ollections of the arts and trades from the Roman Empire till the
Carlovingian period, and later — a tradition of chemical manipu-
lations and scientific and mystical ideas. In fact, in pursuing my
studies of the history of science, I have met, in the examination
of the Latin works of the middle ages, certain technical manuals
which were related most directly with the metallurgical treatises
of the Greco-Egyptian alchemists and goldsmiths. I purpose to

ANCIENT AND MEDIJEVAL CHEMISTRY. 113

demonstrate here this correlation, which nobody has till now
pointed out.

It is known that the receipts of therapeutics and materia medica
have been preserved in a parallel way by practice, which has never
ceased, in the Receptaries and other Latin treatises ; these trea-
tises, translated from the Greek during the period of the Roman
Empire, and compiled in the first and second centuries, passed
from hand to hand, and were copied frequently during the earlier
portions of the middle ages. The transmission of the military arts
and of fire-producing formulas, particularly, was carried on from
the Greeks and Romans through the barbarous ages. In short,
the necessity of the applications has always caused the subsist-
ence of a certain experimental tradition of the arts of ancient
civilization.

The oldest technical treatises in Latin of the middle ages on
subjects in chemistry with which we are acquainted are the
Formulas for Dyeing (Compositiones ad tingendo), of which we
have a manuscript written toward the end of the eighth century,
and the Key to Painting {MajypcB clavicula), the oldest manuscript
of which is of the tenth century. The Formulas for Dyeing is
not a methodical work, but a book of receipts and documents col-
lected by a dyer for use in his art and intended to furnish him
with working processes and information concerning the origin
of his prime materials. It concerns such subjects as the color-
ing or dyeing of artificial stones for mosaic work ; gilding and
silvering and polishing them ; making of colored glass in green,
milky white, various shades of red, purple, yellow — the colors
being both deep and superficial, and often brought out by the aid
of simple varnishes ; coloring of skins in purple, green, yellow,
and various reds ; dyeing of woods, bones, and horns ; notices of
minerals, metals, and earths used in goldsmiths' work and paint-
ing. Curious ideas are set forth on the function of the sun and
of heat, peculiar to certain warm earths in the production of
minerals endowed with corresponding virtues ; while a cold earth
produces minerals of weak quality. This reminds us of the the-
ories of Aristotle on dry exhalation as opposed to moist ex-
halation in the generation of minerals — theories that made an
important figure in the middle ages. The author distinguishes a
feminine and light lead mineral as against a masculine and heavy
mineral ; a distinction like that mentioned by Pliny between
male and female antimony, the male and female blue of Theo-
phrastus, and many others. Minerals were continually likened
in the chemistry of the middle ages to living beings.

We read likewise in this work of articles developed in certain
operations, such as the extraction of mercury, lead, the roasting
of sulphur, preparations of white lead with lead and vinegar, of

VOL. XLV. 9

114 "^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

verdigris with, vinegar and copper — already described by Theo-
phrastus and Dioscorides — of cadmies, impure oxides of lead and
zinc, of burned copper {aes ustum), of litharge, of orpiment, of
artificial cinnabar, etc. The writer mentions a few alloys, such as
bronze, white copper, and gold-colored copper — a subject often
treated of by the Greek alchemists, who passed from it to the
idea of transmutation. The name of bronze (brundisium) ap-
pears for the first time. While its origin has been the subject of
controversy among philologists, the accompanying facts given in
the text show that bronze was in the beginning an alloy made at
Brundisium for the manufacture of the mirrors of which Pliny
speaks. The preparation of parchment and of varnish, the fabri-
cation of vegetable colors for the use of painters and illuminators,
and their employment on walls, wood, canvas, etc., in encaustic or
with isinglass, are the subjects of separate articles.

A group of formulas for gilding follow: gilding of glass,
wood, skins,, clothing, lead, tin, and iron ; and the preparation of
golden wires, processes for writing in golden letters (chrysogra-
phy) on parchment, paper, glass, or marble. Then come silver
foil, tin foil, and processes for reducing gold and silver to powder,
in which mercury and verdigris were employed — the powder ob-
tained by amalgamation being employed in processes for silvering
and gilding. The process has played its part in political econ-
omy ; for it has been used to assist the passage of gold and silver
from one country to another, in spite of the prohibition of the
exportation of the precious metals.

The author goes on to say : " We have described everything
relative to tinctures and decorations ; we have spoken of the sub-
stances which are employed in them — stones, minerals, salts, and
herbs ; we have shown where they are found ; whence are got
resins, oleoresins, and earths ; what are sulphur, black water, salt
waters, glue, and all the products of wild and cultivated plants,
domestic and marine ; beeswax, axunge, all fresh and acid waters ;
among woods, the pine, fir, juniper, and cypress, . . . acorns and
figs. Extracts are made of all these things with a water made of
ferirented urine and vinegar, mixed with rain water."

These enumerations and descriptions mark the nature of the
knowledge sought by the writer, and preserve the trace of ancient
treatises on drugs and medicines, similar to those of Dioscorides,
but more especially devoted to industry. Unfortunately, we
have here hardly else than titles and summary indications, such
as would figure in a dyer's scrap-book, placing one after another
indications drawn from difi^erent authors. Many of the specific
names found in the treatise are wanting in the most complete
dictionaries. The terms salt, fresh, and acid waters, water
formed of fermented urine and vinegar, deserve special notice

ANCIENT AND MEDIJEVAL CHEMISTRY. 115

because they point to the beginning of chemistry by moist pro-
cesses. They figured in Pliny and the ancient authors, to the
same purposes. The liquids are always natural ones or the re-
sults of the mixture of such, before or after spontaneous com-
bustion. There is no mention of the active liquids obtained by
distillation, which were called divine or sulphurous waters, and
held an important place with the Greco-Egyptian chemists, and
became the origin of our acids, alkalies, and other agents ; they
had not yet entered into industrial use, and are seldom met with
previous to the fourteenth century.

The group of receij^ts transmitted by the formulas for dye-
ing, passed into a more extended collection called the Key to
Painting, of which exist a manuscrip : of the tenth century in the
library of Schlestadt and one of the twelfth century, of which
an edition was published in 1847 by Mr. Way. The former
manusci-ipt is free from all Arabian influence, which has caused
the interpolation of five additional articles in the second one.
The work contains a treatise on the precious metals comprising
now a hundred articles, about half of the original work, the other
half having been lost, and a treatise on recipes for dyeing, repre-
senting principally those in the Formulas ; together with sixteen
articles on military ballistics and fireworks, forming a special
group ; articles on the hydrostatic balance and the densities of
the metals ; and industrial and magic recipes, added at the end of
the book. The treatise on the precious metals is of great inter-
est because of the striking analogies it presents with the Ley-
den Egyptian papyrus found at Thebes, and with other ancient
works. Many of the recipes are literally translated from these
ancient works ; an identity proviug indisputably the continuous
preservation of alchemic practices, including transmutation, from
Egypt down to the artisans of the Latin West. The theories
proper, on the other hand, did not reappear in the West till to-
ward the end of the twelfth century, after they had passed
through the Syrians and the Arabs. But the knowledge of the
processes themselves was never lost. This fact is demonstrated
by the study of the alloys intended to imitate and falsify gold ;
for coloring (copper) gold-color ; for fabricating gold ; for making
test gold; for rendering gold heavier; and for doubling gold.
The recipes are filled with Greek words that betray their origin.

The object for the most part is simply to make base gold, as,
for instance, by preparing an alloy of gold and silver, colored
with copper. The goldsmith, however, tried to make this pass
for pure gold. Then manufactures of complex alloys which were
made to pass for pure gold were made easier by the intervention
of mercury and sulphurets of arsenic, the use of which goes back
to the earliest times of the Roman Empire. Thus Pliny relates

ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in a few lines an experiment performed by order of Caligula for
fabricating gold with sulpburet of arsenic (or orpiment). There
was thus a whole special chemistry, now abandoned, which was
conspicuous in the practices and pretensions of the alchemists.
A patent has been obtained in our own times for an alloy of cop-
per and antimony, containing six hundredths of the latter metal,
which presents most of the apparent properties of gold and is
worked in the same manner. Alchemic gold belonged to a family
of similar alloys. Those who made it fancied besides that some
agents played the part of ferments to multiply gold and silver.
Before deceiving other people they deluded themselves. Some-
times the artisan was satisfied to use a cement or superficial
action, painting the surface of silver in gold or the surface of
copper in silver, without modifying the metals in their thickness.
This is what goldsmiths still call giving color. They would even
do no more than apply to the surface of the metal a gold-colored
varnish, prepared with the bile of animals or with certain resins,
as is still done. From these colorings the operator, led by a
mystic analogy, passed to the idea of transmutation, in the false
Democritus and in the Key to Painting. The author of the last
work concluded, for example, with the words, "You will thus ob-
tain excellent gold and fit for the test." The author added fur-
ther "Hide this sacred secret, which should be delivered to no
one nor to any prophet." The word prophet betrays the Egyp-
tian origin of the recipe. It refers to the Egyptian priests, who,
according to a passage in Clement of Alexandria on the Hermetic
books that were borne with great pomp in the processions, were

called prophets. ^ , . ,

In further proof of the Greco-Egyptam origin of goldsmiths
recipes contained in the Key to Painting is the existence m the
Latin collection of ten recipes-some of the elaborate ones-which
are phrased in precisely the same terms in the Greek papyrus
in Leyden; the former text being translated from the latter even
to the detail of certain technical expressions, which are still per-
petuated in the goldsmiths' manuals of the present. This does not
mean that the text transcribed in the Key to Painting was origi-
nally translated from the very papyrus that we possess, which
was not found till the nineteenth century at Thebes, Egypt ; but
the coincidence of the text proves that there existed books ot
secret goldsmiths' recipes transmitted from hand to hand ot tne
tradesmen, which continued through the middle ages, and ot
which the Key is an example. It was firmly believed m the time
of Diocletian that the Egyptians had the secret of enriching them-
selves by making gold and silver; and in consequence of this
belief after a revolt, the emperor ordered all their books burned.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, the formulas did not disappear.

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CHEMISTRY. 117

The title of one of the recipes in the old table, "How to mal?e
unbreakable glass," deserves to be dwelt upon, on account of the
legends and traditions that are associated with it, and which have
been perpetuated down to our own time. Unbreakable glass ap-
pears to have been really discovered under Tiberius, and gave rise
to a legend according to which its properties were amplified and
it was made malleable. Tiberius, according to Pliny, caused
the factory to be destroyed, for fear that the invention would
diminish the value of gold and silver." " If it was known," wrote
Petronius, " gold would become as cheap as mud." According to
Dion Cassius, Tiberius slew the author. Petronius, who is re-
peated by other authors, says that he was decapitated, and adds
that " if vessels of glass were not fragile they would be preferable
to vessels of gold and silver."

These stories relate evidently to the same historical fact, re-
ported by contemporaries, but disfigured by legend ; the invention
was probably suppressed for fear of its economical consequences.
It is very curious to find it mentioned in the goldsmiths' recipes
of the middle ages, as if the secret tradition had been preserved
in the shops. Some of them claimed that glass could be made
malleable and ductile and changed into a metal. A process for
making glass that will not break has been discovered in our own
times, and is announced unequivocally and in definite shape. In
truth, malleable glass was not really in question ; but even that is
not a chimera. Industrial processes for beating and molding glass,
based on the plasticity and malleability which it possesses at a
temperature near fusion, have been described in late years. An
article in the Key to Painting seems to point to a similar process.
Real properties, perceived doubtless from antiquity and preserved
as shop secrets, gave rise to the legend.

The collection bearing the name of Eraclius or Heraclius is in
two parts, of different composition and date. The first part con-
sists of two books in verse, having the character of the writing of
the end of the Carlovingian epoch, or of the ninth and tenth cen-
turies. It treats of vegetable colors, of gold leaf, of writing in
letters of gold, of gilding, of painting on glass, and of the prepara-
tion of precious stones. All the recipes are of ancient origin, a
little vague, and without novelty. A book in prose is more com-
pact and precise. It was added later by a continuator, toward the
twelfth century, for there is a discussion in it of the coloring of
Cordovan leather, and cinnabar, which is red, is called in it azure
— a translation of an Arabic word, frequent in the twelfth centu-
ry, which has given rise to all sorts of misconceptions and con-
fusion with our modern azure blue. It has the stories about mal-
leable glass ; and most of the subjects were already treated in the
Key to Painting.

ii8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Picture of Different Arts of the monk Theophilus seems to
he the work of an author who lived at the end of the eleventh
century and beginning of the twelfth. It is more exact and de-
tailed than the work of Eraclius, and is composed of two parts —
the first devoted to painting, and the second concerning the mak-
ing of objects required in worship and the construction of build-
ings devoted to it. It describes in detail the furnace for melting
glass and the manufacture of glass, the making of painted glass
and colored earthen vessels, the working of iron, the melting of
gold and silver and the working of them, enamel, the fabrication
of vessels used in worship — the chalice, monstrance, etc. — organs,
bells, cymbals, etc. The facts are curious, for they show that the
industry of glass and metals had finally concentrated around the
religious edifices. But the chemical technique is the same as that
of the other books, though savoring of more modern influences ;
it brings us directly to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
from which period monuments and writings multiply more
rapidly down into modern times. The derivation of technical
traditions from antiquity becomes less and less manifest as inter-
mediaries multiply and the arts tend to assume an original char-
acter.

The facts I have presented deserve our attention as a whole, in
view of the course and renascence of scientific traditions. Sci-
ences begin in fact with practice. The first object is to satisfy
the necessities of life and the artistic wants that awaken early in
civilizable races. But this same practice at once calls out more
general ideas, which appeared first among mankind in a mystic
form. With the Egyptians and Babylonians the same persons
were at once the priests and the men of science. Thus the chem-
ical industries were first exercised around the temples. The Book
of the Sanctuary, the Book of Hermes, and the Book of Kemi, all
synonymous denominations with the Greco-Egyptian alchemists,
represent the earliest manuals of those industries. It was the
Greeks, as in all other scientific branches, who gave these trea-
tises a revision freed from the old hieratic forms, and who tried
to draw from them a rational theory, capable in its turn, by a
similar application, of pushing the practice forward and of serv-
ing as a guide to it. But the chemical science of the Greco-
Egyptians never rid itself of the errors relative to transmission —
which were sustained by the theory of primal matter — or of the
religious and magic formulas formerly associated in the East
with every industrial operation. Yet when scientific study proper
perished with Roman civilization in the "West, the wants of life
kept up the imperishable practice of the shops with the progress
required in the time of the Greeks, and the chemical arts sub-
sisted ; while the theories, too subtile or too strong for the minds

SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT. 119

of the time, tended to disappear, or rather to return toward the
ancient superstitions. In the Key to Painting, as in the Egyptian
papyrus and the texts of Zosimus, are mentions of prayers to be
recited during the operations ; and in this way alchemy remained
intimately connected with magic in the middle ages as well as in
antiquity.

When civilization began to revive during the Latin middle
ages, toward the thirteenth century, in the midst of a new
organization, our races took up anew the taste for general ideas,
and these, in the sphere of chemistry, were sustained by practices,
or rather they obtained their support in the permanent problems
raised by them. Thus the alchemistic theories were suddenly re-
vived, with new vigor and development, and their progressive evo-
lution, while improving industry, gradually eliminated the super-
stitions of former times. Thus was finally constituted our modern
chemistry, a rational science, established on purely experimental
bases. The science was therefore born in its beginning of indus-
trial practices ; it kept course with their development during the
reign of ancient civilization ; when science went down with
civilization, practice survived and furnished science a solid
ground on which it was able to achieve a new development
when the times and the minds had become favorable. The his-
torical connection of science and practice in the history of civili-
zations is therefore manifest. There is in it a general law of the
development of the human mind. — Translated for The Popular
Science Montlily from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

-♦♦♦-

SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT.

ON the 29th of July, 1893, the little village of Harpenden, in
Hertfordshire, England, witnessed a rare ceremonial and
was stirred by unusual emotions. The presidents of the scientific
societies of England were there, with other of the most eminent
men of science in the kingdom and foreigners of like standing ;
while others, their peers, were represented by letters. Mr. Her-
bert Gardner, M. P. and Minister of Agriculture of the United
Kingdom, presided ; by his side were the Duke of Devonshire,
President of the Royal Agricultural Society ; the Duke of West-
minster, who, as chairman of the Executive Committee of the
Rothamsted Jubilee Fund, might be considered as manager of
the business for which the meeting was held ; Lord Kelvin, Presi-
dent of the Royal Society; Dr. Michael Foster; Dr. H. E. Arm-
strong, President of the Chemical Society ; Prof. Charles Stewart,
President of the Linnsean Society ; Sir J. D. Hooker ; Sir John

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Evans, Treasurer of the Royal Society and Honorary Treasurer
of the Rothamsted Jubilee Fund ; the Earl of Clarendon, Lord
Lieutenant of the County of Herts ; Sir John Lubbock, M, P.,
Trustee of the Lawes Agricultural Fund ; Mr. Ernest Clarke, Sec-
retary to the Royal Agricultural Society of England and Honor-
ary Secretary of the Rothamsted Jubilee Fund ; representatives
of the Soci^td des Agriculteurs de France ; and other men whose
names are as significant and representative. Letters were read
from the Prince of Wales, to whom is given the credit of having
originated the celebration ; Prince Christian ; the Marquis of Sal-
isbury ; Prof. Huxley ; Sir Gabriel Stokes ; M. Tisserand, Direc-
tor of Agriculture for France ; the Association of Experimental
Stations in Canada and the United States ; M. Pasteur ; M. Ddhd-
ran, and other foreigners famous in science. These distinguished
guests were assembled, and the ceremonies of the day were per-
formed, to do honor to the work of two men — plain farmers, we
might correctly call them — who had spent their lives in the study
of the best means of improving the yield and quality of agricul-
tural crops — Sir John Bennet Lawes and Mr. Joseph Henry Gilbert.

We have already given, in a sketch of J. B. Lawes, in Volume
XXVIII of The Popular Science Monthly, a brief account of the
early history of the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion.

It was established by Mr. Lawes on the estate which he en-
tered by inheritance in 1834. He had been engaged for several
years in chemical experiments, chiefly with reference to the prepa-
ration of drugs. As he wrote to a friend in 1888, he had not
thought of any connection between chemistry and agriculture till
his attention was attracted by the remark of a gentleman, who
farmed near him, that on one farm bones were invaluable for the
turnip crop, and on another farm they were useless. A quantity
of precipitated gypsum and spent animal charcoal was offered
him ; he was using much sulphuric acid in his drug experiments ;
and here he had ma*terials for applying superphosphate and
enlarging and extending to the field experiments which he had
begun with plants in pots. In 1843 Mr. Joseph Henry Gilbert
became associated with Mr. Lawes, and the experiments have
been continued since then without interruption under the joint
direction of the two. The celebration we have mentioned was
held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of this connection
and of the beginning of the real work of the Rothamsted Station.
Both men were entitled to equal honor in remembrance, and both
received it in the tributes which were offered.

Mr, Gilbert was born at Hull, August 1, 1817. His father was
the late Rev. Joseph Gilbert, and his mother was well known as
an author, under the name of Ann Taylor of Ongar. After

SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT. 121

going through school he was injured by a gunshot, by which his
health was impaired for a time, and he lost the use of one eye.
He entered the University of Glasgow, where he gave special at-
tention to chemistry and worked in the laboratory of the late
Prof. Thomas Thomson. Next he went to University College,
London, where he attended the classes of Prof. Graham and oth-
ers, and worked in the laboratory of the late Dr. Anthony Todd
Thomson. Having spent a short time in the laboratory of Prof.
Liebig, at Giessen, and received the degree of Ph. D., he returned
to University College, London, and acted as class and laboratory
assistant to Prof. Thomson in the winter and summer sessions of
1840-'41, attending other courses in the college at the same time.
After this he devoted some time to the chemistry of calico-print-
ing, dyeing, etc., in the neighborhood of Manchester. From 1843,
when he became associated with Mr. Lawes at Rothamsted as
director of the laboratory, his career has been recorded in the his-
tory of that institution ; and it is difficult to separate the work of
the two, who have co-operated harmoniously and efficiently. The
results of their investigations have been published in a series of
papers, now numbering more than a hundred, in various jour-
nals, among which may be mentioned : The Proceedings and
Transactions of the Royal Society, the Journal of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England, the Journal of the Chemical
Society, the Reports of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, the Journal of the Statistical Society, the Jour-
nal of the Society of Arts, etc. ; also in official reports and else-
where.

Dr. Gilbert was elected a member of the Chemical Society in
1841, the year of its formation, and he contributed to the first vol-
ume of its memoirs a translation of a paper on the Atomic Weight
of Carbon, by Prof. Redtenbacher and Prof. Liebig. He was
president of the society in 1882-'83. He was elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 the council of the society
awarded to him, in conjunction with Mr. Lawes, one of the royal
medals. He is also a Fellow of the Linnsean Society and of the
Royal Meteorological Society. He was President of the Chemical
Section of the British Association in 1880. He traveled consider-
ably in the United States and Canada in 1882 and 1884, studying
the conditions of the agriculture of these countries. He was ap-
pointed Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy in the Univer-
sity of Oxford in 1884, and was reappointed for a second period of
three years in 1887. He has honorary degrees from the Univer-
sities of Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He is a life governor
of University College, London, an honorary member of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England, of the Chemico-Agricultural
Society of Ulster, of the Academy of Agriculture and Forestry of

122

THi: POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Petrovskoie, and of the Royal Agricultural Society of Hanover ;
foreign member of the Royal Agricultural Academy of Sweden ;
and corresponding member of the Institute of France (Academy
of Sciences), of the Society of Agriculturists of France, of the So-
ciety for the Encouragement of National Industry, Paris, and of
the Institut Agronomique of Gorigovtsk. He is also Chevalier
du Mdrite Agricole, France, and, in conjunction with Sir J. B.
Lawes, gold-medalist of merit for agriculture, Germany.

At the celebration of July 29th, separate testimonials, read by
the Duke of Westminster, were addressed to the colleagues by the
Prince of Wales. To Mr. Gilbert the prince said, offering his
congratulations on the completion of fifty years of the joint con-
tinuous labors of the two in the cause of agricultural science :
" The nature and importance of these labors are so well known
that it is needless to dilate upon them ; but if the institution of
the various investigations has been due to Sir John Lawes, their
ultimate success has been, in a great measure, secured by your
scientific skill and unremitting industry. Moreover, by your
lectures and writings you have been a leading exponent in this
and other countries of the theoretical and practical aspects of the
researches that have been undertaken at Rothamsted. A col-
laboration such as yours with Sir John Lawes, already extending
over a period of upward of fifty years, is unexampled in the an-
nals of science. I venture to hope for an extended prolongation
of these joint labors, and trust that the names of Lawes and Gil-
bert, which for so many years have been almost inseparable, may
survive in happy conjunction for centuries to come."

The address from members of the Royal Agricultural Society
to Mr. Gilbert declared that " in the organizing and systematic
arrangement and record of the researches conducted at Rotham-
sted you have had a leading share ; and you have there set before
us a model of what all work and experimental inquiry should be.
Your investigations into the applications of chemistry to the
cultivation of crops and the feeding of live stock have been of the
highest possible importance to the practical agriculturist, and the
sincere thanks of the agricultural community at large are due
and are hereby tendered to you for the scientific skill and inde-
fatigable industry which you have brought to bear upon the con-
duct of the Rothamsted researches. The Royal Agricultural
Society of England is proud of ranking you among its honorary
members, and it desires to take this opportunity of expressing its
indebtedness to you for your ever-ready counsel and assistance,
as well as for the many admirable and exhaustive papers which,
in conjunction with Sir John Lawes, you have contributed to the

society's journal."

The Royal Society's address disclaimed any attempt m any

SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH H^JNRY GILBERT. 123

way to distinguish Mr. Gilbert's share from that of his colleague
" in the remarkable work which has, with so much skill and pa-
tience, been so long carried on, and, indeed, they know that you
would not wish that they should ; but they desire to say to you,
as they have said to him, that the society is justly proud of your
labors. They are glad to bear in mind that the society has been
the channel through which most of your more important results
have been made known, that for more than thirty years you have
been enrolled among the number of its fellows, and they believe
they can say that the society has always given you such aid and
support as lay in its power. They reflect with satisfaction that
the researches at Rothamsted have contributed in a remarkable
manner to the advancement of that branch of natural knowledge
with which they deal, and your connection with the society gives
the president and council, they venture to think, the right to feel
something like a paternal pride in the success of an undertaking
of which the jubilee marks a stage." The joint address to the
two of the Chemical Society recognized the long adherence to
the same plan of experiment as evidence of the skill displayed in
its inception and as giving to the work its peculiar value, and
continued : " While affording guidance to the agriculturist, your
researches have elicited information which will ever serve as the
foundation of a truly scientific knowledge of the correlation of
plant growth and manurial constituents of the soil, and will be
of the utmost value in all discussions of the chemistry of plant
life. Your researches on the feeding of animals, in like manner,
are not only of practical importance, but also shed much light on
the processes of animal life.'' But of even far greater value was
the example which their single-minded devotion to the cause of
scientific truth and research had afforded to the world. A con-
gratulatory address was received from the Socidtd Nationale
d' Agriculture de France.

Sir John Lawes, being called to speak, said that when two per-
sons were joined in marriage they could not part, because they
were bound by solemn ties ; but the case with respect to him-
self and Dr. Gilbert was different. Dr. Gilbert could have left
him and he could have left Dr. Gilbert at any time during their
association. Why had they not done so ? Because they had an
immense love of the work they were engaged in. Personally, he
had delighted in it from the beginning, and had given as much
time to it as he could consistently with other duties ; but Dr. Gil-
bert had made it the work of his life. He had been at work not
only when he was at home, but had spent what were called his
holidays in visiting other countries and places, in putting himself
into communication with other bodies, so that he might make his
own work more valuable to those at home.

124 ^-^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In connection with these remarks it is proper to recall what
Mr. Lawes said in 1855, thirty-nine years ago, in his speech at the
inauguration of the new laboratory building, erected by public
subscription by British agriculturists: "I should be most un-
grateful were I to omit to state how greatly I am indebted to
those gentlemen whose lives are devoted to the conduct and man-
agement of my experiments. To Dr. Gilbert, more especially, I
consider a debt of gratitude due from myself and from every
agriculturist in Great Britain. It is not every gentleman of his
attainments who would subject himself to the caprice of an indi-
vidual, or risk his reputation by following a science which has
hardly a recognized existence. For twelve years our acquaint-
ance has existed, and I hope twelve more years will find it exist-
ing." Those " twelve more years " have now increased to thirty-
eight " more years," and not the acquaintance only— the close
association, too — still exists.

Mr. Gilbert spoke, expressing his gratification at the tributes
which had been offered to him, and closed by saying that, however
many years were spared to them— and they must necessarily be
very few— he hoped they might be able to do something to extend
the general knowledge which was the best legacy they could leave
to those who would succeed them.

A portrait of Sir John Lawes, by Prof. Hubert Herkomer, rep-
resenting him as the farmer of Rothamsted, was presented to him,
and a silver salver, on which the addresses were deposited, to Dr.
Gilbert. A granite bowlder, ," turning the scales at eight tons,"
was set up in front of the laboratory, bearing the inscription, " To
commemorate the completion of fifty years of continuous experi-
ments (the first of their kind in agriculture) conducted at Roth-
amsted by Sir John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert,
A. D. MCCCXCIII." As an additional memorial, forty-four com-
plete sets of the Reports of the Rothamsted Station were present-
ed, at the expense of the nation, to leading public institutions. A
few days after the celebration Dr. Gilbert was knighted, "in rec-
ognition of his valuable researches for the promotion of agricul-
ture."

A BILL is before the British Parliament to prohibit the raising of unsightly
erections— having particular reference to advertising structures— to the harm of
the rural scenery of Great Britain and Ireland. It applies to fences, gates, posts,
hoardings, etc., and to the posting of any printed or written matter, or any picture,
so as to be in view from any highway, railway, etc.; but not to such legitimate
advertising as is intended to show that the property is to be let or is for sale, or to
publish a business that is there carried on. We have a similar law in New York
for the protection of natural scenery that might be applied to the appurtenances
of property ; but who sees to the enforcement of the law we have?

EDITOR'S TABLE.

125

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SCIENCE, ORTHODOXY, ANB RELIGION.

JUDGING by a kind of " symposi-
um " we saw lately in a San Fran-
cisco paper, the clergy of that city, or
at least some of them, seem to think it
their duty to keep a watchful eye on
the utterances of the professors of sci-
ence in the neighboring universities, in
order that they may raise a voice of
warning should anything be said that
threatens to conflict with their ideas of
theological orthodoxy. As usually hap-
pens in such cases, the men who have
fallen under the censure of these guard-
ians of the truth are two of the bright-
est ornaments of the Western scientific
world — Prof. Joseph Le Oonte, of the
University of California, and President
David Starr Jordan, of Stanford Univer-
sity. These eminent scientists had not
succeeded in " hitting it off " to tbe en-
tire satisfaction of their clerical critics,
and were consequently attacked by the
latter with no little acrimony. To off-
set this manifestation of narrow-mind-
edness, however, the Episcopalian
Church Club of San Francisco, as we
learn, gave a dinner to the incriminated
professors, at which liberal, kindly, and
rational sentiments were the order of
the day. It is to this celebration, if we
may so call it, that the discussion which
we referred to at the outset relates.
Prof. Le Conte, who contributes the first
paper, predicts that, when the religious
world has succeeded in adjusting itself
to the doctrine of evolution, as it has
already done to various geological and
astronomical theories which it once
considered very alarming and heretical,
religion will only be the stronger be-
cause more rational. Prof. David Starr
Jordan makes so bold as to say that
•' science can not demand anything less
than absolute freedom of development;
it must be free alike from the need of

premature decisions and of premature
reconciliations." He says, moreover,
that whatever be the origin of a doc-
trine or opinion, science claims the
right to set it aside if it is found to be
scientifically false or unsound. He de-
clines to accept the dictum that there
are three kinds of evolution, theistic,
agnostic, and atheistic, and that these
must be carefully distinguished. He
says there is but one kind of evolution,
and that tLie epithets in question have
no application to it, but only to individ-
uals. What he means, evidently, is
that the only kind of evolution a man
of science as such can believe in is that
which reveals itself to him as the result
of his investigations. Mr. W. T. Stead,
editor of the Review of Reviews, says
(writing from Chicago, where he was at
.the time) that " it will take a good
many banquets to evolutionists before
the Christian Church can adequately
acknowledge the debts which it owes
to tlie man (Darwin) and the school
which revivified the popular conception
of the living God."

Thus good comes out of evil. The
ecclesiastical mind would fain still im-
pose fetters upon scientific thought, but
whenever it makes any open attempt to
do so, it is sure in these days to meet
with repulse. If our religious teachers
would but believe it, there is an ample
field open to them for instructing and
benefiting mankind without making
any attempts to restrict scientific inves-
tigation or the enunciation of scientific
doctrines. It is theirs to interpret to
their fellow-men — in so far as they may
be sufficient for the task — their deepest
relations to the universe in which they
live. The hygienist may tell us how to
maintain our physical health, the soci-
ologist how to govern ourselves as mem-
bers of society, the publicist or political

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

economist how we may advance onr
own material interests or contribute to
those of the community. But there is
room for a teaching which shall in a
manner correlate all these, which shall
reveal the sacredness of every duty and
the profound significance of life. This
is the teaching which especially deserves
the name of religious, inasmuch as it
awakens in the mind of the individual
a consciousness of his relation to the
universe as a whole, and an accompany-
ing sense of universal law. Who, it
may be asked, is sufficient for these
things? Not every one assuredly who
enters on the clerical profession. It is
a vastly easier thing to denounce science
as heterodox than to minister in any
effective manner to the higher life of
one's fellows. The latter, however, is
the true function of the religious teach-
er, not the former; and it is a function
the need for which was never greater
than it is to-day. Science is advancing
with giant strides, but discontent is on
the increase. Why ? Because the es-
sential conditions of happiness are ig-
nored ; because rich and poor, however
diverse their points of view in other re-
spects, join in affirming that life con-
sists in material abundance, that char-
acter is of little account, that money
can do everything. In such a condi-
tion of things it is really surprising
that religious teachers should find time
to attack men of science for any views
whatever whicli they may promulgate,
the need heing so pressing for a mani-
festation of those moral truths which
no scientist would think of opposing,
and which in point of fact no scientific
doctrine can be said to touch. The
fields are white to the harvest, but the
really competent reapers are few. They
would be more numerous perhaps if
the needs of the time were better un-
derstood, and if men were not required
to undergo an apprenticeship to out-
worn systems of thought before betak-
ing themselves to the work of the min-
istry. We ask our religious friends

to think of this. Science can not be
arrested in its investigations, but these
need not and do not stand in the least
in the way of true religious work. Let
the scientists, therefore, occupy their
own field without molestation, and let
the clergy — those who are fit for their
high office — occupy their own field and
labor to promote higher views of the
worth and destiny of human life than
those ultra-material ones which are so
widespread to day, and which are no-
where more conspicuous than in the
churches. Then we may have peace
with progress.

A DANGEROUS CLASS.

In an article on The Unemployed,
which appered in last month's Table, we
ventured the opinion that one reason
why the number of these was so great
was that thousands of persons in the
present day were receiving an educa-
tion which they were not able afterward
to put to any satisfactory use; and from
an article by Mr. Goldwin Smith, which
fell under our eye just as our own was
finished, we were able to quote a pas-
sage strongly confirmatory of the posi-
tion we had taken. Years ago Prince
Bismarck had said the same thing in re-
gard to Germany, and we remember
how sharply a certain college president
in this country resented the idea that
college classes could by any possibility
be too large, or engineers, architects,
chemists, lawyers, doctors, etc., qualified
or semi-qualified, be in too great pro-
portion to the rest of the community.
Of course, the financial prosperity of a
college depends in a measure on the
number of students it can attract, and
we can understand why college authori-
ties might not like the idea to get abroad
that to send a boy to college is not al-
ways the wisest thing to do with him.
Still, the truth that college education
and semi- education can be overdone is
one that, in our humble opinion, is des-
tined to force itself, despite all that col-

LITERARY NOTICES.

127

lege presidents can say to the contrary,
on public attention.

As regards Germany the opinion
which, as we have said, Prince Bis-
marck expressed years ago is strongly
confirmed by Mr. "William H. Dawson's
recent work on Germany. We take the
following summary of his observations
on this question from the London Satur-
day Review :

" He draws a very gloomy picture
of the result of too many universities
and too much higher education. "We
should like to think he exaggerated here,
but we are forced to admit he does not.
Twenty-two seats of learning are yearly
' turning out studied men in thousands,'
and the unfortunate ' studied men ' are
lucky if, at the age of thirty-five, they
are earning the wages of English bank
clerks. The paternal state finds money
for universities and looks to the qualifi-
cations for the professions and the civil
service ; but that paternal state can not
provide its carefully examined would-
be lawyers and doctors and civil serv-
ants and teachers with briefs and pa-
tients and posts and pupils ; and, as a
consequence, the educated unemployed
increase mightily in numbers year by
J ear. Still more formidable are the
'breakages' — the horde of superficially
book-learned young fellows of the mid-
dle and lower middle ranks whom stu-
pidly ambitious fathers have sent to
universities (the state aiding) to fail in
examinations when they ought to be sell-
ing groceries or hoeing potatoes. These
undoubtedly form a ti'uly ' dangerous
class ' ; unfit for real intellectual efibrt,
they have just sufficient smattering of
letters, philosophy, economics, and sci-
ence to make them the readiest tools of
the agitator and the most permanent and
effective nuisances to society, against
which they have the very real griev-
ance that they are unable to serve it in
any useful way."

We have the case here very suc-
cinctly stated. These are the men who
say that "the world owes them a liv-

ing," the truth being that they have
contracted a debt both for previous liv-
ing and for education which they have
little prospect of ever being able to wipe
out. The sooner we recognize the fact
that our modern systems of education
are largely experimental, and that much
of the way we have gone may have to be
retraced, the better it will be for the
permanent peace of society. At pres-
ent we are using too much yeast of a
not very wholesome kind, and the re-
sult is an excessive and dangerous
amount of social fermentation.

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Story of the Sun. By Sir Robert S.
Ball, F. R. S. Eleven Plates and Eighty-
two Illustrations. 8vo. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 3*76. Price, $6.

This great story, draped in its simple
yet eloquent diction, will perchance recall
to the reader's mind some bygone evening
when, by the shore of a sheltered and tran-
quil lake, he may have beheld reflected in
its depths the crumbling glories of a nation's
ancient structure, intermingling with the
pinnacles of the modern edifice, devoted to
the promotion of science in its latest reaches
of infinite research. In such a scene, what
food may not one find for reflection in a
mental as well as the physical sense ! The
simile drawn may stand as reverting to cer-
tain antique theories of the sun, when con-
trasted with our nowaday ascertainable data.

Indeed, if this latest work of Sir Robert
S. Ball were presented to the student
stripped of all but the illustrations, it would,
we feel assured, be pronounced a uniformly
artistic and harmonious story without words.
In the author's preparation of the work he
gratefully acknowledges the assistance ren-
dered him by such marked names in astro-
nomical science as Prof. Pickering, of Har-
vard College Observatory ; the famous French
savant M. Flammarion ; Prof. Holden, of
Lick Observatory ; Prof. Janssen, and many
others. Even the reading of proofs was
consigned to the charge of four unquestion-
able authorities. In all these aids, the es-
sential purport of the volume, including
such pronounced care, purity of style, logic

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

al analysis, and the very latest research,
must appeal to the reader through every
line. In fact, wherever the spirit of inquiry
inducing mathematical precision is found to
supplant the imports of theory submitted on
authority, this work will doubtless find a
place ; while, as registering unerringly the
progressive steps taken to elucidate ascer-
tainable knowledge regarding our great
luminary, the scientific explorer can tread no
safer ground than that prepared by the
author.

In the opening chapters the principal
features attaching to our solar system are
submitted in detail, and it is shown that the
sun in numerous senses becomes a center,
apart from the geometrical position he occu-
pies amid our own planetary system. For
the fundamental elements of calculation
needed to determine the true character of
the sun we are indebted to the varying po-
sitions of the planets and the measurements
they afford. Remotest antiquity, and the
doctrines it taught concerning the solar sys-
tem, are then treated at length, and contrast-
ed with the advances made down to our
own time. A problem of the utmost im-
portance m all astronomical deductions — the
actual distance of the sun — is treated of
amply in the second chapter, where its lead-
ing characteristic is pointed out as involving
the indirect method of computation. This
distance becomes an abiding element in any
conclusions to be drawn regarding the mag-
nitude and nature of the solar spots, be-
sides furnishing data for all prominences
projected during a solar explosion, or as
limiting the measure of the solar corona
when expressed in miles.

The famous transits of Venus — which,
by the way, afforded formerly the most
trustworthy method of obtaining scales of
the solar system — are commented upon at
length in Chapter III, though, as the au-
thor points out, they now possess for as-
tronomers but a historical interest. In
connecting the sun's distance with the laws
governing the velocity of light, a beautiful
series of reasonings ensue, until we are in-
troduced to the methods of measurement de-
termining the sun's mass. Eclipses, and the
story of the sun's spots, are magnificently
illustrated and told with an ease and beauty
only betimes found associated with a rare

romance. Our seasons, past and present,
fall next into line for their due share of
philosophical comment and mathematical
calculation; while "the sun as a star " as-
sumes the unexpected garb of a diminishing
speck of light in fathomless space, to be
finally lost to the finite eye. In the closing
chapter, the movements of the solar system,
contemplated as a unit in space, are account-
ed by the author " one of the most daring
exploits ever performed by astronomers,"
and brings this transcendent Story of the
Sun to a close.

Factors that here and there throughout
the volume break the intensity of interest
excited in the reader are only momentarily
dwelt upon as associated with special ques-
tions, which again, in their turn, rivet the
attention. In a word, the scope of the writ-
er's inquiry, like the boundlessness of his
subject, becomes in the perusal a flood of
light. In this we are lost by the hour, and
our waking moments only seem to recall
those breathless flights in childhood's won-
derland, but, with this one and wide distinc-
tion, that our fancies only then revelled,
where now, we feast on fact.

Speeches and Addresses of William Mc-
Ki.NLEY. From his Election to Congress
TO the Present Time. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 664. With Por-
traits. Price, $2.

Governor McKinley is a politician of
whom his most zealous opponents speak with
general unqualified respect. They recognize
his earnestness and sincerity, even though
they may believe his views to be mistaken
and mischievous. The present volume con-
tains sixty-five of his speeches and address-
es, selected from several hundred delivered
in all parts of the country, by Mr. Joseph
P. Smith, Librarian of the Ohio State Li-
brary, and revised by Mr. McKinley. At-
tention is invited by the editor to the care
and ability with which Governor McKinley
has discussed the tariff. All his more im-
portant speeches are collected and presented
here, and probably embrace the most and
strongest that can be said in favor of the
doctrine of high protection. Besides, there
are speeches on Gerrymandering, the Suf-
frage, and the Elections Bill, Labor, Pen-
sions, the Public Schools, Civil-service Re-

LITERARY NOTICES,

129

form, the Currency, the Hawaiian Treaty,
Memorial Addresses on Garfield, Logan,
Grant, and Hayes ; and several occasional
addresses.

A Standard Dictionary of the English
Language. Volume I, A-L. Edited by
Isaac K. Funk, D. D., Editor in Chief ;
Francis A. March, LL. D., L. H. D., Con-
sulting Editor ; and Daniel S. Gregory,
D. D., Managing Editor. New York :
Funk & Wagnalls Company. Pp. 1060.
Price (of two-volume edition, complete),
russia, $15 ; morocco, $20.

There are more new departures in this
work than in any other English dictionary
that has appeared in the past half-century.
In the arrangement of the matter under each
word the greatest good of the greatest number
has been deferred to rather than any historical
or logical considerations. The order is, the
respclling for pronunciation, the most com-
mon present meaning, less common uses, the
original meaning if now obsolete or rare, and
last the derivation. By this procedure the
derivation and antiquated definitions, which
are not wanted one time in six that even a
comprehensive dictionary is consulted, are
not placed where one must wade through
them in order to get from the word to its
present meaning. In the respelling for pro-
nunciation the scientific alphabet devised by
the American Philological Association is
used, being supplemented by a few diacritic
marks. The main features of this alphabet
are those now adopted in all scientific nota-
tion of speech — namely, vowel sounds are rep-
resented as in Italian (or Gei-man) and con-
sonants as in English. The dictionary, while
recording all reputable usages in spelling,
takes a positive stand in favor of simplifica-
tion. The systematic spellings of chemical
terms adopted by the American Association
for the Advancement of Science are given
preference over the old forms, being used in
definitions. The moderately reformed spell-
ings jointly approved by the Philological
Society of England and the American Philo-
logical Association are inserted in the vo-
cabulary, but the words that appear thus are
defined under the common forms. The illus-
trations in the text are numerous, and besides
these there are in Volume I full-page groups
of cuts illustrating architecture, coins (an-
cient),/owZs, and horses, also colored plates

VOL. XLV. — 10

of birds, decorations (double page), ^flaffs
(double page), and gems. The movements of
many animals are illustrated from Eadweard
Muybridge's photographs. Many names of
classes have under them lists or tables of the
varieties belonging to these classes. Thus
under apple is a list of nearly three hundred
varieties, the size, form, color, quality, use,
season, and range of each being indicated
briefly. Similar though less extensive lists
are to be found under American (race), bal-
sam, blue, calendar, constellation, dog, ele-
ment, green, and many other words. The
defining for this work has been largely done
by specialists, and as a rule only a small
class of words, with which he is especially
familiar, has been submitted to each of
these collaborators. Quotations used to illus-
trate definitions are exactly located. Lists
of synonyms and antonyms are given for a
large number of words. The vocabulary is
very large ; it will contain over fifty thou-
sand more words than the six-volume Centu-
ry Dictionary. The compounding of words
has been treated systematically, special at-
tention has been given to handicraft terms,
and there are yet other notable features
which we lack space to even enumerate.
The Standard Dictionary is sure to make
many friends and they will be firm friends.

Outlines op Pedagogics. By Prof. W.
Rein. Translated by C. C. and Ida J.
Van Liew. Svracuse, N. Y. : C. W.
Bardeen. Pp. 199. $1.25.

The aim of this work is to furnish a
brief introduction to the Herbartian peda-
gogics, on whose principles it is based. It
presents the author's views as to the modern
adaptation of those principles, a very impor-
tant point ; for while every thorough stu-
dent of pedagogics must ultimately refer to
the prime foundation — the works of Herbart
himself — he can not afford to neglect the
results that more than fifty years of develop-
ment since Herbart's death have produced.
The second edition of the author's work
contained some essential additions and
changes, on account of which certain parts
of the first edition were removed to make
room for the new. The omitted parts are
restored in the translation, and all that both
editions contained has been combined. The
subject of pedagogics is divided by the au-

130

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thor into Systematic and Historical Peda-
gogics ; and Systematic into Practical and
Theoretical Pedagogics. The systematic de-
partment is surveyed in the present volume.

Addresses Historical and Patriotic, Cen-
tennial AND Quadrennial, delivered in
the Several States of the Union, July 4,
1876-1883 ; including Addresses com-
memorative of the Four Hundredth An-
niversary of the Discovery of America,
1892-1893. Edited bv Frederick Saun-
ders. New York: E. B. Treat. Pp.1048.

In this portly volume are grouped the
choicest of the great number of the elo-
quent and patriotic oi'ations delivered in the
several States of the Union during the series
of centennial and multi-centennial anniver-
saries through which we have passed since
18*76. They include many of vai'ious quali-
ties of beauty and eloquence; many well-
matured epitomes of the essential qualities
of patriotic citizenship, many lessons point-
ing out what in our history is to be admired,
and some things, perhaps, to be avoided.
The facts and sentiments embodied in them
cover the whole period of American history
from the landing of Columbus down to the
year 1893. They have been submitted to
the critical supervision of their several au-
thors. The publishers suggest that the
reading of the book will tend to inspire a
higher patriotism, and imbue the mind with
true American principles. They ought to ;
but the result will depend upon the extent
to which readers keep their minds clear
from partisan blindness, which so often leads
the best of us to the contradiction of what
is right and best for the country.

The Pottery and Porcelain of the United
States. An Historical Review of Ameri-
can Ceramic Art from the Earliest Times
to the Present Day. By Edwin Atlee
Barber. With Two Hundred and Thirty-
three Illustrations. New York : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 446. Price, $5.

The author sets out with a contradiction
of the impression, not suflBciently contro-
verted even by our own writers, that the
United States has no ceramic history. " On
the contrary," he says, " it can be shown
that the fictile art is almost as ancient in
this country as in Great Britain, and has
been developed in almost parallel, though
necessarily narrower, lines." The work is

based almost entirely upon thorough personal
investigations, with patient and systematic
research, study of the products of the pot-
teries of the United States, and consultation
with intelligent potters in the leading estab-
lishments. Care has been taken to omit
" some of the time-honored fallacies which
have been perpetrated by compilers," and to
avoid the use of statements that could not be
substantiated. Without attempting to give
the history of every pottery that is or has
been established in this country, the main
purpose of the work is to furnish an account
of such of the earlier potteries as for any
reason possess some historical interest, and
of those manufactories which, in later days,
have produced works of originality or artistic
merit. Beginning with a description of the
processes of manufacture and a list and defi-
nition of American wares and bodies, the
work treats, further, of aboriginal pottery,
early brick and tile making, early potting in
America (seventeenth century), potteries of
the eighteenth century, operations during the
first quarter of the present century, the
American china manufactory, the pottery
industry from 1825 to 1858, pottery work at
East Liverpool and Cincinnati, Ohio, and
Trenton, N. J., potteries established between
1859 and 1876; development of the ceramic
art since the centennial, tobacco pipes, orna-
mental tiles, architectural terra cotta, Ameri-
can marks and monograms, and tiles for
decorative effect. The author expresses him-
self highly gratified to be able to call the at-
tention of lovers of art to the remarkable
progress which has been made in ceramic
manufacture among us within the past fif-
teen years ; and adds that if his efforts shall
result, in any measure, in the breaking down
of that "unreasonable prejudice which has
heretofore existed against all American pro-
ductions," he shall feel that he has been
abundantly rewarded. In his chapter of Con-
cluding Eemarks he observes that " thus far
our potters have been, in a great measure,
imitative rather than inventive, and the re-
sult is that we have largely reproduced,
though in a most creditable manner, patterns
and designs, bodies, glazes, and decorations
of foreign factories. With some few excep-
tions, our commercial manufacturers have
been content to copy and imitate the prod-
ucts of foreign establishments, and have, in

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

consequence, unconsciously assisted in per-
petuating certain offenses against good
taste." The feeling that prefers articles and
designs at first hands can hardly be called
an unreasonable prejudice. Whatever it is,
originality, with equality of merit, will go
far to counteract it. It will be worth trying
as a substitute for a McKinley tariff. Mr.
Barber believes that " America, within the
next few decades, is destined to lead the
world in her ceramic manufactures." The
work is sumptuously presented by the pub-
lishers in the best style of bookmaking.

Geological Survey op New" Jersey. An-
nual Report of the State Geologist
FOR the Year 1892. By John C. Smock,
State Geologist. Trenton : The John L.
Murphy Publishing Company. Pp. SG'Z,
with Maps.

In this report are incorporated, as lead-
ing heads or parts thereof, the reports of
progress made in the various lines of inves-
tigation of the several departments of the
works of the survey, as follows : Surface
Geology ; Cretaceous and Tertiary Forma-
tions (preliminary report) ; Water-supply
and Water-power ; Artesian Wells in South-
em New Jersey ; and the Sea Dikes of the
Netherlands and the Reclamation of Low-
lands and Tidemarsh Lands. These reports
are to some extent separate and independent
of one another, although all have for their
object the elucidation of the facts of the
geological structure and physical geology of
the State, and as an ultimate end the in-
formation of the people in order to the high-
est development of the natural resources of
the State. The administrative report, intro-
ductory to the reports of the several divi-
sions, besides remarks on the topics already
mentioned, has discussions of drainage ;
natural parks and forest reservations ; the
work of the United States Geological Survey
in New Jersey ; and the geological survey
exhibit for the Columbian Exposition.

The maps represent the whole State, with
reference to its water-supply sheds, and the
special geology of parts of Monmouth and
Middlesex Counties. The treatment of all
the subjects is full, satisfactory, and adapted
to practical ends ; and the report is, as a
whole, one of the most interesting the survey
has issued.

Primer of Philosophy. By Dr. Paul Carus.
Chicago: The Open-Court Publishing
Company. Pp. 232. Price, $1.

The author seeks to present his subject
in the plainest and simplest manner he can.
His point of view is not susceptible, he says,
of being classified among any of the various
schools of recent current thought, but repre-
sents rather a critical reconciliation of rival
philosophers of the tj'pe of Kantian apriorism
and John Stuart Mill's empiricism. The
names of positivism and monism are taken
as expressing the philosophical principles
which dominate modern thought. Either is
complementary to the .other. Positivism
represents the principle that all knowledge
— scientific, philosophical, and religious — is
a description of facts ; monism is a unitary
conception of the world, presenting it as
an inseparable and indivisible entirety. It
stands upon the principle that all the differ-
ent truths are but so many different aspects
of one and the same truth. Monistic posi-
tivism or positive monism "is, and always
has been, the principle of all sound science.
The positive and monistic maxims of philoso-
phy were perhaps not sufficiently appreci-
ated in former ages, but they are growing to
be clearly understood now, and will in time
lead to the abandonment of all transcen-
dental, metaphysical, supernatural, and ag-
nostic speculations. Positive monism will
change philosophy into a systematization of
positive knowledge."

Number Work in Nature Study. By Wil-
bur S. Jackman. Chicago : W. S. Jack-
man. Pp. 198. Price, 60 cents.

In secondary schools the study of mathe-
matics demands a large share of the pupil's
attention, and little effort has been made
thus far to rescue the hours passed in solv-
ing arithmetical puzzles or algebraic enig-
mas. Even in grammar schools it is excel-
lence in arithmetic rather than in the con-
construction of language which forms the
standard of scholarship. The author of this
manual believes that much of the time spent
in mastering arithmetical processes could be
also utilized in Nature study. If the pupil
obtains material, makes his own observa-
tions and comparisons, the mechanism of
the subject will be incidental, and instead of
meaningless results or unintelligible values

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

he will gain thereby an idea of some general
law. To remedy the frequent inexactness of
beginners, it is advised that continual use
should be made of balances, weights, rulers,
and protractors, and definite quantities al-
ways required. The mathematics involved
are the four fundamental rules of arithmetic,
fractions, ratio, and percentage, and the
problems for study are sufficiently varied,
being taken from seven departments of sci-
ence.

The method is good, but several of the
subjects appear beyond the grasp of a pupil
in percentage. While interest may be
aroused in the colors of insects, the constitu-
ents of fruits, or the process of evaporation,
it is hardly possible that the ratio of the
area lying south of the mean annual isotherm
of 50° Fahr. to that lying south of the mean
annual isotherm of 40° Fahr., or calculations
of rainfall and drainage, should be more com-
prehensible or attractive to the average boy
than questions in taxation and insurance.

Plato and Platonism. By Walter Pateu.
London and New York : Macmillan «&. Co.
Pp. 256. Price, $1.V5.

However materialistic the mood of the
reader may be, these lectures are apt to take
him unawares and hold him for a time com-
pletely under their spell. He wanders amid
the groves of the Academy and listens to
Socratic dialogue until he becomes somewhat
hypnotized and is prepared to meet the Just
and the Beautiful face to face. Not that Mr.
Pater inculcates the possibility of any such
actual vision. He pronounces the theory of
the many and the one difficult doctrine and
acknowledges that, with all allowance for
poetical expression, the universals to which
Plato would introduce us are very much like
living beings.

In order to form a just or historic esti-
mate of Platonism, the conditions of its gene-
sis and growth must be examined. Mr. Pater
projects for us in vivid outline the Greek in-
tellectual life jireceding Socrates. The phi-
losophy of Plato was a protest against the
doctrine of Heraclitus. His dogma of uni-
versal change, iravra pe7, is not unlike the
modern idea of development and evolution,
but to Plato it was in the highest degree re-
pugnant. Recognizing the tendency to vary,
he considered it an evil to be corrected, and

sought in the nature of man, in culture, in
society, for an unalterable K6ai.ios. In the
Repuljlic he shows how this order may be
established in a community.

Personally, Plato is depicted not as a
rigid philosopher wrapped in speculations,
but as a keenly impressionable nature with
every sense sharpened to the external world.
This gives " an impassioned glow to his con-
ceptions," and endows his writing with the
fineness of Thackeray.

According to modern views, two radically
divergent tendencies are discoverable in
Platonism. First, the theory of ideas, that
the highest knowledge is intuitive and abso-
lute. Secondly, the dialectic method, the
endless question and answer, the weighing of
every minute grain of evidence. Mr. Pater
considers that we owe not only this method,
" a habit of tentative thinking and suspended
judgment," to Plato, but that it is straight
from his lips that the language came in
which the mind has ever since been dis-
coursing with itself.

In conclusion, if we doubt Plato's im-
mutable ideas, we may still seek for the
ideals he pictures. If we reject his com-
munistic theories, we can accept his classifi-
cation of the orders of men, the intellectual,
the executive and the productive. We may
even strive to realize his dictum that those
who come to office should not be lovers of
it ! As for his contention with the Sophists,
that is a question of to-day. Which is essen-
tial, matter or form ? Should the artist and
writer know and feel the truth himself, or
only know what others think about it ? If
we believe the former, we may go to the
Pha^drus for inspiration.

Governments and Politicians, Ancient and
Modern. By Charles Marcotte. Chi-
cago : Charles Marcotte, 175 Monroe
Street. Pp. 478. Price, $2.

The merits of this work are anything but
inconsiderable when viewed from the stand-
point of a measurable reforming medium.
More. The author's sincerity and thorough-
ness of purpose manifestly inheres between
the lines on every page. We leave it, how-
ever, to the judgment of others to say
whether the " Constitution " of this country
— as alleged — is responsible for the exist-
ence of " professional " and " unscrupulous "

LITERARY NOTICES.

133

politicians as well as the faulty results of
our "primary elections." An antagonist
worthy of the author's steel might be the
Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who declares the
" Constitution " in question to be the great-
est "fiat" that ever issued from the hands
of men. We ourselves have somehow the
impression that unscrupulous politicians
and packed primaries exist in spite of the
Constitution. Nevertheless, the volume be-
fore us tends to modify the weight that
Americans customarily attach to their non-
anyletical method of dealing with national
shortcomings and political abuses. Fur-
ther, the author places us en rcwport with the
monarchical governments of Europe, both an-
cient and modern, and strenuously argues in
favor of similar policies — or at least one
such institution — being adopted in the United
States. Notwithstanding the trenchant analy-
sis applied, as long ago as and by Lord
Bacon, to the faultiness — under specified
conditions — of the syllogistic argument, and
its invalidity as demonstrated by the late
John Stuart Mill ; still, Mr. Marcotte very
quietly settles the " divine right of mon-
archy " as follows : " The form of govern-
ment which best administei-s justice is of
divine right ; monarchy is that which best
administers justice ; therefore, monarchy is
of divine right." Evidently our author cares
very little or nothing for previous questions.
But the foregoing sample is the very
worst feature of a work the contents of
which introduce us to such excellent matter
as the story of Democracy, the Greek Re-
publics, Media and Persia, the Athenian
Commonwealth, the Roman Empire, the Great
American Republic, the Origin of the Ameri-
can People, etc. In a second edition of this
work the author's genuine good nature will
doubtless incline him to deprecate pessimism
and anticipate an epoch on this continent
when impartiality will have become a neces-
sity and human justice as natural as the law
of gravitation.

Secularism : Its Progress and Morals. By
John M. Bonham. New York : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 396. Price, $1.75.

A WORK that forces reflection of an eth-
ical nature will inevitably fill an exalted niche
within the radius of scientific activity. Such
a volume lies before us and invites the read-

er's thoughtful consideration for many good
reasons. The philosophy underlying the in-
ferences deduced in Secularism will — as far
as one can judge — have a twofold efPect.
Such as may deem it a duty to oppose the
author will indubitably have to reconsider
their own position, and those who agree with
him, will doubtless discover new data where-
with to augment their polemical outfit.

The scope of the question taken up by
Mr. Bonham is far from limited by even the
copiousness of his book, though the compre-
hensiveness of the author's design is appar-
ent throughout. The main initial purport of
the argument, as a whole, is to examine
minutely the relative force of influences bear-
ing upon beliefs theological, in the first place
through industrial results, and in the second
by such surroundings as are traceable to the
intellectual field of view. The next point
of import rendered lucid by the author's
method of reasoning is the fact that the
masses, with but few exceptions, are disin-
clined to philosophical abstractions, and that
those influences which go farthest to build
up their ethical natures are discoverable in
their occupations and the deductions sup-
plied from inductions gathered through the
physical phenomena affecting their daily
lives. This would be putting the matter
with unwarrantable brevity were we unable
or disinclined to further note the exhaustive-
ness of this engaging book. Besides the su-
periority of relative truth over the presump-
tions of supermental dicta being succinctly
treated, the history of the decline of theo-
logic anathema against ascertained knowl-
edge finds a place. The true value of au-
thority per se is justly weighed, and the
evolution and dissolution of things once
sacred are so touched as to evidence a de-
cided mastery over historical detail. The
chapters on Ethics are lengthy and full to
diffuseness in their estimate of the compara-
tive values of the scientific and theologic
theories affecting conduct, together with the
impersonal entities that frequently control
ethics. There is nothing perfunctory — no
uncertainty of tone in the treatment of secu-
lar as contrasted with ecclesiastical morality.
Idealism, realism, intuition, justice, the laws
of Nature, and the assumptions that have
signally failed to explain ultimate causes,
all receive their full quota of consideration.

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As if to crown Mr. Bonham's effort we
find in his work an entire absence of sensa-
tional effect. No temporary expedients of
argument are resorted to, and altogether its
tone is genuinely altruistic.

In the series of Correlation Papers on
the several formations of North America, now
being issued by the Geological Survey, the
third, fourth, fifth, and sixth papers have
been published as Bulletins 82 to 85. The
third paper has the special title Cretaceous,
being an examination of the formation of
this name, by Cluirles A. White. The chief
cretaceous area of the United States is an
irregular belt extending from Texas north-
ward through the region of the great plains
and continuing into western Canada. There
are also small areas in the middle and south-
ern Atlantic coast States. The next paper
is on the Eocene, by William B. Clark. The
author finds that the marine faunas of the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts permit a separation
of the Eocene as a whole from formations be-
longing to earlier and later periods with a
high degree of confidence, but that with
present evidence the lines of separation are
not sharply drawn among the marine and
fresh-water formations of the Pacific coast
and the interior region. The Neocene is dis-
cussed by William H. Dall and Gilbert D.
Harris. Besides assembling the published
material concerning its subject, the memoir
makes original contributions based on inves-
tigations by Mr. Dall. In respect to Florida
these contributions are so important that it
has seemed best to expand the chapter on
that State so as to include practically all that
is known of its geologic history. The sixth
in this series is by Israel C. Russell, on Tlie
Newark System. This system is confined to
a chain of small areas extending from North
Carolina to Massachusetts, with a continua-
tion in Nova Scotia. Each of these mono-
graphs contains a bibliography and is illus-
trated, the last one being especially well em-
bellished with colored maps, and its bibli-
ography occupying over two hundred pages.
Three recent Bulletins of the United States
Geological Survey embody physical researches
by Dr. Carl Barus. No. 92 is on The Com-
pressibility of Liquids, and embodies results
which it is hoped will throw light upon the
behavior of the liquid mass underlying the

crust of the earth, and the phenomena of
upheaval and subsidence of the crust. No.
94 deals with The Mechanism of Solid Vis-
cosity, steel and glass being the substances
taken for experiment. A paper on The Vol-
ume Thermodynamics of Liquids appears as
No. 96. The results that it contains are con-
fined to volume, pi'essure, and temperature ;
questions involving entropy and energy are
under investigation. The researches upon
which Dr. Barus is engaged were suggested
by Mr. Clarence King, who has pointed out
the importance of a deeper insight into the
volume changes of liquids and solids.

Mr. Bashford Dean, of Columbia College,
has supplemented his report on oyster culture
in France with one describing the methods
used in other countries of western Europe,
under the title Report on the European Meth-
ods of Oyster Culture. The topics treated
comprise the management of natural oyster
grounds, production of seed, rearing young
oysters, and the governmental regulation of
oyster grounds. The monograph is illus-
trated with fourteen plates. It forms part
of the Bulletin of the United States Fish
Commission for 1891.

In Volume XII of the Transactions of the
New York Academy of Sciences are papers
on Dionaea, by Bashford Dean; The North
American Species of the Genus Lespedeza,
by N. L. Britton ; Fact and Fallacy in the
Boomerang Problem, by C. H. Emerson ;
Phosphate Nodules from New Brunswick, by
W. D. Matthew, Progress of Chemistry as
depicted in Apparatus and Laboratories, by
H. C. Bolton ; The Sunapee Saibling, by J.
D. Quackenbos ; Memoir of Prof. J. S. New-
berry, by H. L. Fairchild ; Petrography of
the Gneisses of the Town of Gouverneur,
N. Y., by C. H. Smyth, Jr., and the Creta-
ceous Formation on Long Island and East-
ward, by Arthur Hollick. There is a frontis-
piece portrait of Prof. Newberry.

An extended Report on the Brown Coal
and Lignite of Texas, prepared by the State
geologist, Edwin T. Dumble, has been is-
sued. The origin, character, and modes of
using brown coal in general are stated in
considerable detail, after which the geology,
occurrence, and composition of the deposits
found in Texas are set forth. Comparisons
of the Texas product with European and
with bituminous coal follow, and a chapter

LITERARY NOTICES.

135

on the utilizing of the former completes the
volume. The text is illustrated with twenty-
five plates and thirteen figures, showing en-
gine grates and grate-bars, briquette presses,
the arrangement of certain mines, sections of
coal deposits, etc.

A fourth edition of Standard Tables for
Electric Wiremen, by the late Charles M.
Davis, revised and edited by W. D. Weaver,
has been issued (W. J. Johnston Co., New
York, $1). The new edition contains the
latest revisions of the Insurance Rules of
the Underwriters' International Electric As-
sociation, also an important section on the
calculation of alternating current wiring. A
number of the most important tables were
prepared expressly for this work, and, being
copyrighted, can not be found elsewhere.
Among these are the tables of alternating
current wiring coefficients, those on limiting
currents for exterior wiring and on the can-
dle power of arc lamps, and the table en-
abling the ones for the three standard lamp
voltages to be used for any voltage or drop,
as well as several others, including a com-
plete set of wiring tables calculated on a
uniform basis of 5 5 -watt lamps.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Reports and
Bulktius. Iowa: Bulletin No. 33, seven articles.
Pp. 80.— New York: Eleventh Annual Report.
Pp. 742. Manufacture of Cheese, Parts I, II, III,
IV. Pp. 350. Analysis of Commercial Fertilizers.
Pp. 24. Blackberries, Dewberries, and Raspber-
ries. Pp. 28. Strawberries. Pp. 24.— Ohio: Feed-
ing for Milk. Pp. 36. Purdue University. Sugar
Beets. Pp. 24. —University of Nebraska. Wheat.
Pp. 36.

Balfour, The Right Hon. Mr., M. P. Address
on Bimetallism. Pp. 21.

Bancroft, II. II., & Co., San Francisco. The
Book of the Fair. Parts VIII and IX. Pp. 40,
and $1 each.

Bok, Edward W. The Young Man in Busi-
ness. Philadelphia: The Cm-tis Publishing Com-
pany. Pp. 24. 10 cents.

Biitschli, O. E. A. Minchin, Translator. In-
vestigations on Microscopic Foams and on Pro-
toplasm. London and New York: Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 380, with 12 Plates. $6.25.

Chase-Kirchner, The, Aerodromic System of
Transportation. St. Louis. Pp. 50, with Plates.

Chidley, W. J. The World as Joy. Extract
from a Coming Book. Pp. 24.

Clark, Charles H. Practical Methods in Mi-
croscopy. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 219.
$1.60.

Coast Fishing Conference, New York, Decem-
ber, 1893. Proceedings. Pp. 40.

Davis, William Morris. Elementary Meteor-
ology. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. .35.5.

De Ccuimps, Baron Roger. Pestalozzi, his Aim
and Work. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen.
Pp. 320. 50 cents.

Evermann, B. W., and Kendall, W. C. The
Fishes of Texas and the Rio Grande Basin.
Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp.
129, with 41 Plates.

Foster, Michael, and others. Editors. The
Journal of Physiology. January, 1894. Pp. 80,
with Plates. 5s. 6d.

Gannett, Henry. The Average Elevation of
the United States. Washington: Government
Printing Office. Pp. 8, with Map.

Gibson, A. C, Assistant Geologist. Coal Meas-
ures of Blount Mountain, Alabama. Montgomery.
Pp. 8, with Map and Sections.

Glazebrook, R. I. Light: An Elementary Text-
book, Theoretical and Practical. New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 213. $1.

Greaves, John. A Treatise on Elementary
Hydrostatics. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.
204. $1.10.

Harrington, Mark. Report of the Chief of the
Weather Bureau, 1891-'92. Pp. 5:30.— Currents of
the Great Lakes. Pp. 6, with 6 Maps. Washing-
ton: Government Printing Office.

Hertz, Dr. Heinrich. Electric Waves ; being
Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action
with Finite Velocity through Space. Authorized
English translation. By TX E. Jones. New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 279. $2.50.

Huxley, T. H. Science and Christian Tradi-
tion. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 419.
$1.25.

Kemp, J. F., Columbia College. The Ore De-
posits at Franklin Furnace and Ogdensburg, N.
J. Geology and Botany of Martha's Vineyard.
Pp. 10.

Kirkpatrick, Mrs, T. J. The Peerless Cook
Book. Springfield, Ohio: Mast, Crowell & Kirk-
patrick. Pp. 320. 50 cents.

Kukala, Dr. R., and Triibner, K. Minerva.
Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt (Year Book of the
Learned World). Strasburg, 1893-'94. Pp. 861.

Laurie, S. S. The Life and Educational Works
of John Amos Comenius. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W.
Bardeen. Pp. 272. 50 cents.

LefevTC, Andre. Les Races et les Langnes
(The Races and the Languages). Paris : Felix
Alcan. Pp. .303.

Marshall. H. R. Pain,' Pleasure, and Esthet-
ics. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 334.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston.
Annual Catalogue, 1893-'94. Pp. 273.

Meriden Scientific Association, Conn. Trans-
actions. Pp. 52.

Middleton, G. A. T. Surveying and Survey-
ing Instruments. New York: Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 116. $1.25.

Natural History Society of New Brunswick,
St. John. S. W. Kain, Secretary. Pp. 55. 50
cents.

Northeast Manual Training School, Philadel-
phia. Announcements, Catalogue, etc. Pp. 38.

OOlogist, The. Monthly. Albion, N. Y.: Pp.
50. 50 cents a year.

Orcutt, Harriet E. A Modem Love Story.
Chicago: C. H. Kerr & Co. Pp. 194.

Preston, Thomas. The Theory of Heat. New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 719. $5.50.

Raymond, G. L. Art in Theory : an Introduc-
tion to the Study of Comparative .(Esthetics. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 2C6. $1.75.

Ryder, John A. Dynamical Evolution. Bos-
ton : Ginn & Co. Pp. 81.

Smith, H. I. Work in Anthropology of the
University of Michican for 1892. Ann Arbor.
Pp. 14.

Smith, Hugh M. The Fyke Nets and Fyke-
net B isheries of the United States, etc. Pp. 56,
with Plates.— Fishes of the Northera Coast of
New Jersey. Pp. 16. Washington: Government
Printing Office.

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Smithsonian Institution. Annual 'Report of the
Board of Regents to July, 1891. Pp. 713.

Sohn, C. E. Dictionary of the Active Principles
of Plants. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.
Pp. 104. $3.

Spencer, J. W., State Geologist. Geology of
Ten Counties of Northwe-tern Georgia. Atlanta.
Pp. 406, with Map.

Spencerian System of Penmanship. Common
School Course, Single Entry Bookkeeping and
Business Forms. Parts VIII, IX, and X. Ameri-
can Book Company.

Tales from Town Topics. No. 11, March, 1894.
New York: To«ti Topics Publishing Company.
Pp. 240. 50 cents.

Thorpe, T. E. Essays in Historical Chemistry.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 381. $2.25.

University Review, January, 1894. New York :
University Review Company. Pp. 74. 25 cents.

Veeder, M. A., M. D., Lyons, N. Y. The
Source of Solar Heat. Pp. 3.

Vines, S. H. A Student's Text Book of Botany.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 4:M. $2.

Walker, Francis A. Bimetallism: A Tract for
the Times. Boston. Pp. 24.

Ward, Lester F. Status of the Mind Problem.
Washington. Pp. 18.

Webb, The Rev. T. W. Celestial Objects for
Common Telescopes. Vol. I. New York: Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp. 234. $1.75.

Welcome, S. Byron. From Earth's Center.
Chicago: C. H. Kerr & Co. Pp. 274. 25 cents.

Whitman, C. O. Biological Lectures delivered
at the Marine Biological Laboratorv of Woods
Holl, 1893. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp". 242. $2.15.

Wright, G. F. Continuity of the Glacial Pe-
riod. Oberlin, Ohio. Pp. 24.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Reptilian and Amphibian Motions. — M.

Marey has extended his time-photographic
studies of locomotion to mammals, birds,
reptiles, fishes, and articulates. The pro-
cesses are rather difficult, because they have
to be applied to a great variety of move-
ments, and of methods and habits of carry-
ing them on ; but it is nearly always possi-
ble to assure satisfactory representations by
adapting the methods of working to the con-
ditions. The chief difficulty is in getting the
animal experimented upon to go at its ordi-
nary gait. This is much more easily accom-
plished with domesticated animals than with
wild ones. By comparing the types which
he has got represented, M. Marey discovered
some very interesting analogies. Thus, in
locomotion on land and on water, he was
able to follow the gradual transition between
simple " reptation " and the most compli-
cated kinds of locomotion. An eel and a viper,
put in water, advance in the same manner;
a wave with lateral inflections runs continu
ously from the head to the tail of the animal,
and the velocity of the retrograde movement

of the wave is much greater than the speed
of translation of the animal. If the animals
are set upon the ground, the mode of repta-
tion will be modified in both in the same way.
The amplitude of the undulatory movement
from one side to the other will be greater,
and will increase as the surface on which the
animal creeps is smoother. A vestige, more
or less pronounced, of the undulatory reptil-
ian movement remains with fish that have
fins and reptiles endowed with legs. In the
sea-dog, for instance, the retrograde wave
running along the whole body is very pro-
nounced. It is considerably reduced in the
salmonides, and does not appear except at
the tail in fishes the bodies of which are
more stubby. This retrograde wave is plain-
ly manifest in the gecko, but less so in some
other Uzards. The analysis of the varieties
of locomotion of the batrachians in the dif-
ferent stages of their evolution is very inter-
esting. The tadpole, for example, exhibits
in its earliest stage progression by the undu-
lation of the caudal fin ; a mixed type of
locomotion comes in with the paws ; the tail
continues to wriggle, and the hinder limbs
make the swimming motions appropriate to
them ; and the latter movements exist alone
for some time after the tail has disappeared.
These motions, which so much resemble
those of man's swimming, present the pecul-
iarity of the fore legs having no part in them,
and of the hind legs, after having been sepa-
rated so widely as to forta a right angle with
the axis of the body, approaching one an-
other till they become parallel, then bending
and spreading out again to begin a new
spring. The motions of lizards' legs are so
swift as to escape direct observation, but the
successive movements of the fore and hind
limbs can be followed in photographs taken
forty or fifty tknes a second. The normal
gait of the lizard and the gecko is the trot —
that is, their limbs move diagonally. The
great amplitude of the motions, combined
with the undulation of the axis of the body,
causes the limbs on the same side to come
very near one another, and then separate
widely in the following instant. The lizard
projects its hind foot nearly into its armpit
on the side on which the body becomes con-
cave ; an instant afterward that side becomes
convex, the fore leg is carried far forward,
and, the body forming a convex arc on that

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

137

side, the two limbs are widely separated.
Interesting observations have also been made
of the motions of insects, arachnids, etc.

Modern Survivals of Primitive Saper-
stitions. — The recently published book of
S. Baring-Gould on Strange Survivals fur-
nishes curious suggestions concerning the
origin and primary meaning of many cus-
toms and practices that have come down to
us from remote ages, and which we observe
or remark upon without a suspicion of their
significance. The superstition has gone out
of vogue in civilized lands that the saci'ifice
of a human being in its foundations is neces-
sary to the staliility of any important build-
ing. But King Theebaw, of Burmah, in our
own days, obeyed it ; and the feeling remains
among the superstitious in Europe that some
unseen power must be propitiated, or it will
some time and somehow exact its dues ; and
numerous legends prevail with reference to
gi'and structures of how the mysterious pow-
ers were propitiated in the beginning, or ex-
acted an equivalent for the neglected sacri-
fice. Only fifty years ago the people of
Halle are said to have tried to persuade the
builder of a bridge to immure a child in the
foundations in order to insure the stability
of the piei's. The designs of gable ends,
carved ridge-tiles, representations of ani-
mals, such as horses and horsemen, and the
stone balls with which houses are adorned,
all have meanings. The completion of a
building was signalized by a sacrifice origi-
nally, just as the laying of the foundations
was. Horses were held to be sacred by the
Northern i-aces, and formed, next to a man,
the worthiest sacrifice ; and if a horse's skull
was not put on the point of a gable, a horse's
head was carved. At a chieftain's death, his
horse was buried with him ; and to-day the
charger of an officer follows his coffin to the
grave. Poles, sui-mounted by branches of
leaves and flowers, protect the farmhouses
of the Black Forest from hghtning, and rep-
resent the ancient oblation of a bunch of
grain to Odin's horse; and gables often
have carvings connected with this oblation
to Odin. At Yuletide oats are thrown out
for Santa Claus's horse (the colt of Odin
having been transferred to Santa Claus), and
a person convalescent after a dangerous ill-
ness is said to have " given a feed to Death's

horse." The sheaf of corn that is fastened
to the gable in Norway and Denmark — now
an offering to the birds — was originally a
feed for Odin's horse. Formerly, the last
bundle of oats in a field was cast into the air
by the reapers, -for Odin at Yule to feed his
horse ; and a similar custom prevailed in
Devonshire, in Mr. Baring-Gould's recollec-
tion. The mediccval habit of affixing the
heads of criminals to spikes on battlements
was the survival of the offering of skulls to
Woden, and the stone balls on the gables of
manor houses and on lodge gates are the sur-
vival of the right of life and death possessed
by the lords of the manor.

"State Socialism" in New Zealand. —

At a recent meeting of the Royal Colonial.
Institute of Great Britain the Earl of Onslow
described some experiments in what was
called state socialism that had been under-
taken in New Zealand. The Government
had expended large sums in providing water
for mining purposes for working miners, and
had given the men the task of repairing
the water works, remunerating them, not in
money, but in orders for water for the pur-
pose of getting gold. It had worked a sys-
tem of settling men upon land, with advances
of money for house-building and cultivation.
In a visit to two of these settlements — one
formed by voluntary association, and the
other from the unemployed — the speaker had
found the voluntary association prosperous,
while the unemployed were calling upon the
Government to take them out of " the hole "
they had been brought into ; and he formed
the opinion that, while the Government was
not in any case without ample security for
its advances, yet only careful selection of the
land and of the men would secure success.
The colony had acquired by purchase, at the
owner's valuation, the largest estate in the
coimtry, and opened it for settlement; and
he believed that, so long as it did not unduly
saddle the colony with debt, this experiment
in the resumption of the national estate
would be likely to prove satisfactory to the
Government. The labor department in New
Zealand had been more successful than the
one abolished last May in Victoria, because
numerous country branches had been created
instead of calling all the workmen to the
central office in the capital. In the system

138

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of co-operation on Government work, the
men form themselves into gang?, the strong
with the strong and the weak with the weak,
so that the weak, although they could not
execute work rapidly, were yet not altogether
excluded from employment. Two interesting
results of the experiment of introducing labor
leaders into the Government were noted ;
when intrusted with power, they became im-
bued with a sense of responsibility, and could
successfully resist the establishment of state
charity in the guise of work or unprofitable
undertakings, and members of a revising
chamber, drawn from whatever party, would
resist measures which they believed not to
be the deliberate will of the people.

Succession of Arctic Seasons. — In his

presidential address before the Geographical
Section of the British Association, Mr. Henry
Seebohm gave a graphic description, largely
drawn from personal experience, of the suc-
cession of the seasons in the high arctic lati-
tudes. He said that the stealthy approach
of winter on the confines of the polar basin
is in strong contrast to the catastrophe which
accompanies the sudden onrush of summer.
One by one the flowers fade and go to seed,
if they have been fortunate enough to attract
by their brilliancy a bee or other suitable
pollen-bearing visitor. The birds gradually
collect into flocks, and prepare to wing their
way to southern climes. The date upon
which winter resumes its sway varies greatly
in different localities, and probably the mar-
gin between an early and a late winter is
considerable. The arrival of summer hap-
pens so late that the inexperienced traveler
may be excused for sometimes doubting
whether it really is coming at all. When
continuous night has become continuous day
without any perceptible approach to spring,
an Alpine traveler naturally asks whether he
has not reached the limit of perpetual snow.
It is true that here and there a few bare
patches are to be found on the steepest
slopes, especially if they have a southern ex-
posure. It is also true that small flocks of
little birds may be observed flitting from
one of these bare places to another; but
their appearance does not give the same con-
fidence in the arrival of summer to the arctic
naturalist as the arrival of the swallow or
the cuckoo does to his brethren in the sub-

arctic and subtropic climates. The birds seen
are only gypsy migrants that are perpetually
flitting to and fro on the confines of the frost,
continually being driven south by snow-
storms, but ever ready to take advantage of
the slightest thaw to press northward again
to their favorite arctic home. The gradual
rise in the level of the river inspires no more
confidence in the final melting away of the
snow and the disruption of the ice which
supports it. In Siberia the rivers are so
enormous that a rise of five or six feet is
scarcely perceptible. During the summer
which the author spent in the valley of the
Yenisei there were six feet of snow on the
ground. To all intents and purposes it was
midwinter, illuminated for the nonce with
what amounted to continuous daylight. Dur-
ing May there were a few signs of the pos-
sibility of some mitigation of the rigors of
winter, but these were followed by frost.
At last, when the final victory of summer
looked most hopeless, a change took place ;
the wind turned to the south, the sun retired
behind the clouds, mists obscured the land-
scape, and the snow melted " like butter upon
hot toast. . . . The effect on the great river
was magical. Its thick armor of ice cracked
with a loud noise like the rattling of thunder,
every twenty-four hours it was lifted up a
fathom above its former level, broken up,
first into ice-floes and then into pack-ice,
and marched down stream at least a hundred
miles. Even at this great speed it was more
than a fortnight before the last straggling
ice-blocks passed our post of observation on
the Arctic Circle ; but during that time the
river had risen seventy feet above its winter
level, although it was three miles wide, and
we were in the middle of a blazing hot sum-
mer, picking flowers of a hundred different
kinds, and feasting upon wild ducks' eggs of
various species. Birds abounded to an in-
credible extent."

Analysis of Volcanic Ashes. — An analysis
has been made by M. A. F. Nogues of the
ashes and volcanic sands thro^vn up by the
volcano Calbuco, in Chili, during an eruption
which began in February, 1893, and had not
ceased in December. The fine dust products
were projected to places as far off as Moutt,
Valdivia, and La Union, at distances varying
from twenty-five to one hundred and twelve

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

139

miles. They contained no vitreous grains,
but simply the minerals that constitute the
andesites of which the mass of the mountain
is composed, and in the same state as in
them. The andesite of the prehistoric erup-
tions of the region when reduced to powder
and traversed by the vapor of water gave
the same products as the ashes cast out in
1893 by the volcano. These ashes, therefore,
appear to have been derived from the tritu-
ration and pulverization of the old lavas of
the region without their having been re-
melted. The author remarks that the erup-
tion of Calbuco has given out such consider-
able quantities of watery vapor that the
usual atmospheric conditions have been ma-
terially modified by it. Rains are abnor-
mally abundant even in central and northern
Chili, with snows on the mountain chains and
the sky covered with clouds — conditions very
different from those which normally prevail
in the country.

Children's Letters. — The characteristics
of children's letters ai-e pertinently described
in the London Spectator, which says that the
writers " come straight to the point, and get
down with it, with a unanimous contempt
for self-advertisement, which shows that the
dislike to be ' drawn ' on matters nearly af-
fecting themselves, which is common to the
oldest and wisest of mankind, is fuKy shown
by their youngers and betters. The cliild is,
in this, the father of the wise man. Not
that they refuse information. The bare
facts are always at the service of the public.
They fall into ' common form,' and in a score
of letters written by very young children it
is difficult to find one in which the decorous
reticence as to self is exceeded. Their age,
very accurately stated ; the number of their
brothers and sisters, among whom the last
baby naturally takes a leading place; and,
possibly, a description of their home, limited,
as far as possible, to the information given
in their postal address, is evidently consid-
ered to be sufficient data from which to form
an idea of themselves and their surround-
ings. Then, in nearly every case, follows a
list of the household pets. Judged by the
evidence of children, the dog is in every case
the most important personage, next to the
baby, in the estimation of the nursery. His
size, accomplishments, and benevolence, his

good or bad temper, and in every case his
name, are given with a conscientious and
personal interest which is accorded to no
other animal. Apparently, there is no limit
to the number of pets which the fathers and
mothers of our race, whether English, Ameri-
can, or Anglo-Indian, set to the fancies of
their children. . . . Looking through a pile
of letters from children, mostly girls of all
ages fi'om four to thirteen, the writer finds
nearly three quarters devoted to careful ac-
counts of dogs, tame mice, a donkey, ' Joey,'
a ' ginipig,' ' rabits,' chickens, goats, and in-
numerable pigeons. There is hardly a word
about themselves or their feelings in the
whole collection, though the health, wants,
and probable sentiments of the animals are
treated at great length and with every diver-
sity of spelling. Lists of ' what the pigeons
have got ' — such as ' the f antail,' two babies
and one egg ; the ' Jocobin, two eggs,' etc. —
are followed by other lists of ' ones that have
got nobody.' Chickens are counted before
they are hatched and after; and terrible
descriptions of the results of a cock-tight,
which has made one of the combatants ' all
bloddy,' are given at great length, with ac-
counts of the illness, treatment, and burial
of other creatures. Events, such as games,
parties, or expeditions, are, as a rule, only
mentioned, without comment."

Photography of Colors. — The process of
photography of colors, discovered a few
years ago by M. Lippmann, has been con-
siderably improved, and has now been
brought to such a degree of perfection that
with it the composite colors of natural ob-
jects, such as flags, flowers, and fruits, a
multicolored parrot, and a window with
four colors, are photographically reproduced.
Li the hands of M. M. Lumiere it has
been applied successfully to chromolitho-
graphs, natural landscapes, and portraits.
The time of exposure required has been re-
duced from thirty minutes a few months ago
to from three to five minutes. While so
much has been accomplished in this art,
many requirements remain to be fulfilled :
the time of exposure to be further reduced;
accurate isochromatic plates to be obtained,
and a way found of taking proofs on paper.
The colored proofs have the property of the
old-fashioned daguerreotypes, of not being

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

clearly visible except when viewed at the
right angle. This property, however, has the
great advantage that it makes retouching of
the picture impossible. To remedy the in-
convenience arising from it, M. Lippmann
has devised an apparatus for viewing the
pictures by the aid of which the proper con-
ditions of the angle can always be obtained.

Toads and Cancers.— Toads were used
during the last century as local applications
for the cure of cancerous breasts. An ac-
count of a cure said to have been wrought
by this means is given in Martin's Natural
History, pubHshed in 1785, from a letter
from a physician to the Bishop of Carlisle.
The doctor had attended the operation for
eighteen or twenty days, and was surprised
at the result. The toad was put into a linen
bag, all but the head, and that was held to
the part. It was supposed to suck the poison
till it swelled up and died. Then other
toads were put on, and so, till the sore was
cured. Sometimes they disgorged, recov-
ered, and became lively again. Other au-
thorities, the writer said, held that the toads
did not suck the poison, although they ad-
mitted that the swelling and falling off dead
was a general consequence of the applica-
tion. Dr. Leonard G. Guthrie shows, in tlie
Lancet, that a toad can not suck, but when
injured or alarmed blows itself up to about
twice its ordinary size, and when held and
constrained for any length of time in a hot
hand, sweats profusely and would pi-obably
soon die. The efPect of the secretion when
held on the hand is to cause dryness, numb-
ness, and a tingling ; which it probably did
to the cancerous breast, giving a sort of re-
lief to the pain.

A "Sanitary" Bnilding.— Dr. W. Van

der Heyden, of Yokohama, Japan, has de-
signed a sanitary building, in which he seeks
in winter to imprison the heat-rays of the
sun, and in summer to admit the light while
excluding the excess of heat; and at the
same time to afford perfect ventilation and
security against disease germs. The walls of
the houses are made of air-tight boxes with
sides formed of panes of glass, built upon
one another, hermetically jointed with felt,
and filled with a solution of alum ; the roof
is covered with cement. "A house built in

such a way is an entirely closed hollow space,
like a box itself, without windows or doors —
no openings, and no fissures. It is practically
impermeable to air, moisture, heat, cold, dust,
microbes, and insects." At convenient in-
tervals in the walls of rough plate glass are
plates of polished glass, to be used as win-
dows for looking out. "Doors are not
wanted, because the entrance can be made
through the floor by means of a lift or stair-
case from an underground room which re-
ceives no direct light from the sun. The
walls of the underground room are made of
ordinary bricks, plastered inside, and pro-
tected outside with a thick layer of clay to
keep out moisture ; it will be better to have
these walls constructed with iron plates, as
quick conduction of heat is the requisite
here. The light for this room comes through
glass boxes let in the four corners of its
ceiling which forms the floor of the upper
room. . . . There is a nice mild diffused
light in the lower room which fully enables
one to do any laboratory work, and is suffi-
cient to read by." The walls are protected
against freezing in winter by inclosing the
whole building in a covering of window glass.
In the summer the window-glass frames are
put within the house, and furnish air cush-
ions, still further preventing the accession of
outside heat. Special arrangements are made
for the renewal of air, heated in winter and
sterilized at all times ; and as the house is
proof against the entrance of air from any
other source, all microbes, disease germs, in-
fections, and insects are efficiently kept out.
The author has tried his house, and thinks
well of it.

Temperature of the Interior of Trees.—

The experiments of M. Prinz on the varia-
tions of temperature in the interior of trees
seem to show that the sap contains large
quantities of gas, which escapes with a sound
often quite marked, and which can some-
times be heard two steps away. The mean
annual temperature of the interior of a tree
corresponds with that of the external air ;
but the monthly mean sometimes varies by
two or three degrees. It usually requires
about a day for a fluctuation of temperature
to be transmitted to the heart of a tree.
While the difference between the interior
temperature of a tree and that of the air is

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

usually only a few degrees, it is sometimes as
much as ten degrees ; when the temperature
of the air falls below the freezing point and
continues to fall, the internal temperatuie of
a tree descends to a point near that where wa-
ter of vegetation freezes and continues there
stationary. Water of vegetation freezes a few
tenths of a degree below the freezing point
of water. The absolute maximum in the in-
terior temperature of a tree trunk may be
produced a considerable time before the
maximum of the surrounding air, in conse-
quence of the direct action of the spring sun
and air on the leafless trees. During the
high summer heats the internal temperature
of trees is nearly steady at about 15° C,
with a variation of two degrees or more, even
under exceptional conditions of variation in
the temperature of the air. A large tree is
usually a little warmer than the air in the
cold months, and a little cooler than the air
in the warm months.

Anatomy and Physiology for Young Men.

— Writing to the projectors of the Quarter-
Century testimonial book to Prof. Burt G.
Wilder, Dr. Andrew D. White refers to one
point on which Prof. Wilder in the early
days was able to render a special service out-
side of his chosen field. " While the uni-
versity was in its earliest beginnings, a sort
of nebulous state, I was impressed by a re-
mark by Herbert Spencer, in his book on
Evolution, as regards the relative values of
different kinds of knowledge. He named,
among the things to be taught to young men,
human anatomy and physiology ; and his
arguments seem to me now to be absolutely
conclusive. For apart from the practical
part of these studies, they seem to form a
most stimulating beginning to study in natu-
ral history generally, not perhaps the logical
beginning but the best practical beginning,
as is shown by the fact that in all ages the
great majority of students of note in natural
science have been physicians. Under the in-
fluence of this impression I asked Prof. Wil-
der to give a course of lectures every year
to the freshman class on anatomy and physi-
ology. Various arguments might have been
used against this ; it would have been said
that, later in their course, students would
have been better prepared to appreciate the
fine points of such lectures, and the example

of all the older institutions might have been
pointed to in which such lectures, when given
at all, were generally given as a hurried
course in the senior year. But the idea of
making an impression in favor of studies in
natural science, and especially in human
anatomy and physiology, just when young men
were most awake to receive them, carried the
day with me, and hence my request to Dr.
Wilder. He acceded to it at once, and for
several years, in fact, until the pressure of
other duties drew him from this, he con-
tinued these lectures, and it turned out that
I had builded better than I knew ; not only
did the lectures produce admirable practical
results, not only did they stimulate in many
young men and women a love for natural sci-
ence and give them an idea of the best meth-
ods in its pursuit, but they made a most
happy literary impression upon the students
generally ; the professor's wonderful powers
of clear presentation in extemporaneous lec-
tures proved to be a wonderful factor in
literary as well as scientific culture. There
was another theory of mine proved to be
true by the professor ; for I had often felt
that mere talks about literature, mere writ-
ing of essays, the mere study of books of
rhetoric, were as nothing in their influence
on the plastic minds of students compared
with lectures thoroughly good in matter and
manner given in their hearing day after day.
Naturally I have always felt exceedingly
grateful to Prof. Wilder for proving that
theory true and at the same time rendering
a great service to his students and to the
university."

Preparation of Collections. — In his re-
port of the Department of Botany and For-
estry in the State Agricultural College of
Michigan, Prof. W. J. Beale gives a list of
the more common mistakes which young col-
lectors are apt to make in preparing their col-
lections, the perusal of which may give hints
of the manner in which the work should be
done. They are: The specimen is a mere
" snip " of a thing, one little top, destitute
of lower leaves, of roots, and root stalks, in-
stead of enough to fill completely a whole
sheet. In many instances the plant is pulled
into small pieces, and runners, sterile shoots,
old leaves, etc., are thrown away ; specimens
lack fruit, which is often of more importance

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than are the flowers ; if tender and young,
they are pressed too hard, or later in the sea-
son are not pressed sufficiently to make the
leaves dry flat. Too many use newspapers
for the light sheets on the driers. The
printed letters were made with oil, and such
spots can take up little moisture. Plants
are put in driers which are not thoroughly
dried by the heat of the stove or the direct
rays of the sun. The old-fashioned press
made of tight boards is a clumsy device, but
still in use. Plants are not changed two or
three times a day on the start, and all this
time kept in a warm place — hence the color
is not good ; they are too long for mounting,
and must be broken or cut ofP or cut in two
to fit the sheet of standard size. For the
proper methods, novices are referred to cer-
tain articles in botanical journals, to a chap-
ter on the subject in Gray's large text-book,
" or, better still, to hang about and worry
some good collector and see how he does it."

Bathing after Exercise. — The Lancet ob-
serves that " the popular notion of the in-
jurious effect of a cold bath taken by one
who is overheated from exercise must pos-
sess— as all such ideas have — some basis in
experience ; and yet it is falsified by the ex-
periences of athletes from the days of the
Greeks and Romans even until now, who find
in this procedure a refreshing and stimulat-
ing tonic after the exertion they have recent-
ly undergone. And, physiologically speak-
ing, a cold plunge or douche taken immedi-
ately after the physical effort, when the skin
is acting freely and there is a sense of heat
throughout the body, is as rational as in the
experience of the athlete it is beneficial. It
is paralleled by the tonic effect produced by
the cold plunge when the skin is actively
secreting after a Turkish bath, and finds its
rationale doubtless in the stimulation of the
nervous system, in the increase of internal
circulation, and also in the renewal of ac-
tivity to the cutaneous circulation after the
momentary contraction of bloodvessels due
to the cold. The popular belief, doubtless,
rests on the injurious effects which may be
induced by the bath in one who does not re-
sort to it immediately, but allows time for
the effects of fatigue to show themselves on
the muscles and nerves and for the surface
of the body to get cool. Taken then, the

bath is more likely to depress than to stimu-
late ; there is less power of reaction and
greater liability to internal inflammations.
At such a time a warm bath rather than a
cold one is more suitable and more safe. It
has been suggested, however, that the prac-
tice of indulging in a bath after violent ex-
ercise may initiate renal disease. Of this
there is no evidence. The transitory albu-
minuria observed after prolonged cold baths
may indicate the disturbance in the renal
circulation which ensues upon them ; but
these cases are in a different category from
those to which we are now alluding, nor are
we aware of any facts to prove that, even in
them, Bright's disease has been developed in
consequence of the transient departure from
the normal. Lastly, it must be I'emembered
that those indulging in athletic exercises of
all kinds are presumably sound in heart as
well as limb, and that such persons may take
with impunity and, indeed, with benefit meas-
ures which would be distinctly harmful to
the weakly."

Recreations for City Cliildren. — Struck
by the fact that the present crowding of
houses in cities is unfavorable to the free ex-
ercise of children in play such as prevailed
when man lived iu a more scattered way,
Prof. S. T. Skidmore, of Philadelphia, has
sketched a scheme for the evolution of a
new system of play. Even under the pre-
vailing conditions, the way for the develop-
ment of proper play, he beheves, is just as
open as for anything else, while its develop-
ment requires the genius of thought and
well-directed business enterprise. The au-
thor's plan rests upon the principle that
" play is the exercise of the faculties as such ;
the doing is for the sake of the doing. It is
Nature working toward her end in the child
by prompting to the free, objectless exercise
of those expansile powers which he sees at
work in adult life. If he sees the way open
and he has the needful facilities, he will imi-
tate so closely, in miniature, the activities of
the age to which he belongs, that his play
will not be a nuisance, so discordant as to be
intolerable ; but if left entirely with his own
resources, he can do nothing else than drag
forward those relics of barbaric play which
have descended to him by tradition- from
barbaric children, who copied the simple

NOTES.

143

rudenesses of tbeir own barbaric times." So
Mr. Skidmore would find his substitute in
diversion derived from pursuits, achieve-
ments, and habits of the children's elders.
" In an age of mechanic arts and commerce,
of which the great men are inventors, au-
thors, business organizers, engineers, and
self-made millionaires, with the eyes of youth
trained upon them in admiration, interested in
everything that pertains to their history, and
eager to imitate them, it is nonsense to sup-
pose that the boys can not be made to belong
to such an age in their play as exactly as the
men do in their work." The new play must
call forth the constructive faculties, and man-
ual training is held up as an element of it.

Propagation of Cholera. — The report of
the Cholera Quarantine Board at Alexandria,
Egypt, after reviewing the work of contend-
ing against the epidemic last season, ipquires
into the origin of the disease. According to
information received in Egypt, the first cases
of cholera were observed among the Yemen
pilgrims immediately on their arrival at
Mecca. It is known that cholera must have
been prevailing in the Yemen as lately as
the end of 1892. Discussions on the subject
in the past have usually been very unsatis-
factory and the conclusions very indefinite.
The serious fact remains that cholera epi-
demics among the pilgrims annually collected
at Mecca are of very frequent occurrence and
are a standing menace to Egj^pt and Europe.
Four times within the last twelve years the
disease might have been introduced by the
pilgrims into Egypt or Europe, or both, and
the experience of France and Spain has
shown how easily it might become endemic.
The endeavors of the Quarantine Board have
fortunately been successful in stamping out
cholera before the pilgrims reached Europe.

NOTES.

Boards for making coffins are exported
in large numbers from Upper Tonkin to the
province of Mongtze, in China. The trees
from which they are made are not growing
in the woods, but are deposited in what a
French writer calls tree mines — that is, they
are buried in a sandy soil at a depth of from
seven to twenty-five feet, in good preserva-
tion, and some of them more than three feet
in diameter. They probably once grew, judg-

ing from the character and position of the
trunks, in a large forest which was buried by
an earthquate or some other similar catas-
trophe. It is impossible to determine when
the event took place, for no record of such a
phenomenon is preserved ; but the time can
not have been extremely remote, for the up-
per limbs of many of the trees are still whole.
The tree is a kind of pine, very pitchy, and
therefore very durable ; whence the demand
for it.

The vibrations of a building or a bridge
may be registered by means of a bright gem
which will reflect a ray of light upon a sensi-
tive hand moved by clock work. It has re-
cently been found by Dr. Steincr, of Hunga-
ry, that the vibrations of a stone bridge while
a railroad train is passing over it at a speed
of twenty-five miles an hour are much more
extensive than had been supposed, and in
the fact this author finds a new source of
danger.

Acceding to a request of the Alpine
Club, the Government of India has author-
ized its oflicers who are in a position to make
them to institute observations of the move-
ments of glaciers in the Himalayas.

A CONSIDERABLE quantity of evidence has
been collected of a power in tobacco to de-
stroy the micro-organism of cholera. Herr
Wernicke wrapped cultures in cigars, inocu-
lated them with sterile dry and moist un-
sterilized leaves, immersed them in infusions,
and enveloped them in tobacco smoke ; and
in every case they disappeared in a few hours,
except in a five-per-cent infusion, when they
lived thirty-three days. Tarsinari found that
they were usually killed after thirty minutes'
exposure to tobacco fumes. Immunity from
cholera has been observed among workmen
in tobacco factories.

The collected works of the chemist Jean
Servais Stas are to be published as a mark
of honor to his memory, under the direction
of MM. Spring and Defaire, in three quarto
volumes of about five hundred or six hun-
dred pages each. The first volume will con-
tain the memoirs and papers relating par-
ticularly to the determination of atomic
weights ; the second, notes, reports, and lec-
tures ; and the third, posthumous works, re-
lating especially to spectroscopic researches.

Certain concretions or " coal balls "
found in the lower coal measures were the
subject of a recent paper by H. B. Stocks in
tlie Edinburgh Royal Society. They are re-
markable for the perfect condition in which
their fossil contents are preserved. Chem-
ically they consist of carbonate of lime and
iron pyrites in equal proportions. The per-
fect condition of the fossilized plant cells
and fibers indicates that decay and petrifaction
must have gone on simultaneously, and Mr.
Stocks accounts for them by supposing that
by the process of osmosis water containing

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the usual quantity of calcium sulphate in so-
lution passes through the vegetable tissues
of the plant and sets up a series of chemical
changes resulting in the formation of car-
bonate of lime and iron pyrites.

Indolence is declared a disease, and its
pathology is studied, in the Medical Record.
It is found an almost constant indication in
albuminuria and diabetes. Malarial fevers
induce it, and it is a frequent effect of dys-
pepsias and indigestions. It is a character-
istic in neurasthenia so generally that it is
usually safe to say that an indolent person is
neurasthenic to a certain extent. Hence, in
cases of chronic indolence, the counsels of a
physician are often more in place than those
of a moralist.

It has been observed that some of the
batrachians have a preference for one or the
other of the mediums in which they are
capable of existing — the triton, for instance,
and the salamander for air, while the frog
chooses either, according to the atmospheric
conditions, although their morphology points
to a descent from a common stock. The sub-
ject has been studied by M. Dissart, who,
finding that aquatic species transpire more
and respire less than land species, concludes
that an antagonism exists between the two
functions by the operation of which the habi-
tat is determined. If an aquatic species is
placed in air, its transpiration is augmented,
and it returns to the water to counteract the
increase ; while if an air species is kept in
water, its respiration diminishes and it is
obliged to return to the air in order to pre-
vent asphyxia.

The telepho'.os is the name of a new
method of electric signaling by night and
day, invented by C. V. Boughtou, of Buffalo,
N. Y. The theory of it is the production by
electricity upon a shaft of incandescent lamps
of the symbols of the Morse alphabet and
numerals, in dashes five feet long, made with
ten lighted lamps, and dots three inches
long each, made with one lighted lamp, with
unlighted intervals of five feet between each,
which would bring under the eye the com-
plete symbol at once. It is intended for use
at any points within vision between which the
laying of telegraph wires is impossible or
impracticable.

The United States Commission of Fish
and Fisheries is engaged in an inquiry, under
the direction of George F. Kunz, concerning
the locations, yield, and proper protection of
fresh-water pearl fisheries in the United
States, and in connection with it has sent out
a list of questions embracing the subjects of
the nature of the stream in which the pearl-
bearing mussels are found, kind of bottom,
character of water; geological character of
the district as to rock, soil, etc. ; general
abundance of mussels ; size, shape, and posi-
tion of the mussel beds ; local names of

mussels ; habits of mussels ; enemies and
fatalities to which mussels are exposed ; na-
ture and extent of destruction by muskrats,
hogs, freshets, etc. ; size, shape, and color of
mussels ; species of mussels in which pearls
are most common ; proportion of mussels in
which pearls occur ; sizes or other peculiari-
ties of shells in which pearls are found ; na-
ture and origin of pearls ; position in mus-
sels ; size, shape, and color of pearls ; and
relative value of pearls of different sizes,
shapes, and colors. Other questions relate
to the markets and prices for pearls, the
method, history, and statistics of the fisher-
ies, the uses made of the mussels after the
pearls are taken out, and the exhaustion and
replenishment of mussel beds.

An exceedingly full and rich herbarium
and botanical library has been given by Cap-
tain John Donnell Smith, of Baltimore, to
Johns Hopkins University, on condition that a
suitable building be providfed for it. The
flowering and lower plants of the whole world
are represented in the herbarium, which in-
cludes Kerner's collection of Austro-Hunga-
rian plants, about thirty individual collec-
tions of North American plants, more than a
dozen of Central American and Mexican,
Lebmann's and nine other collections of
South American plants, and representatives
from Egypt, Abyssinia, and other parts of
the world.

The palms are said to be the plants pos-
sessing the largest leaves. The Quaja palm
of the Amazons has leaves approaching fifty
feet in length by sixteen feet in breadth.
The leaves of some palms in Ceylon are
more than eighteen feet long and nearly as
wide, and are used by the natives for making
tents. The cocoa palm has leaves nearly
thirty feet long. In other families than the
palms, the parasol magnolia of Ceylon forms
leaves large enough to shelter fifteen or
twenty persons. One of these leaves, car-
ried to England as a specimen, measured
nearly thirty-five feet. The largest leaves
grown in temperate climates are those of the
exotic Victoria rec/ia, which sometimes
reach about seven feet in diameter.

Italian grape culturists are now making
a very nice illuminating oil from grape seeds,
from which they get a product of from ten to
fifteen per cent. It is clear, colorless, and
inodorous, and burns without smoke.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Dr. D. Scott Moncrieff, of Harvard
University, died in Eastern Siberia in August,
1893, while on a journey of exploration and
ethnological research. He left a Gilyuk vil-
lage, near the mouth of the Amur River, for
a sail in an open boat on the 11th, and his
body was found two weeks afterward on the
coast of Sakhalin.

GEKARD TROOST.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JUNE, 1894.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.
XIX.— FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION.
By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L. H.D.,

EX-PKESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVEKSITT.

PART IV.
THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY.

THE Origin of Species had come into the theological world
like a plow into an ant-hill. Everywhere those who were
thus rudely awakened from their old comfort and repose had
swarmed forth angry and confused. Reviews, sermons, books
light and heavy, came flying at the new thinker from all sides.

The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by
Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was
guilty of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that
" the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible
with the word of God " ; that it " contradicts the revealed relations
of creation to its Creator" ; that it is " inconsistent with the full-
ness of his glory " ; that it is " a dishonoring view of Nature " ;
and the bishop ended by pointing Darwin's attention to " a simpler
explanation of the presence of these strange forms among the
works of God," that cause being — " the fall of Adam." Nor did
the bishop's services end here ; at the meeting of the British As-
sociation for the Advancement of Science he again disported him-
self in the tide of popular applause. Referring to the ideas of
Darwin, who was absent on account of illness, the bishop in a
public speech congratulated himself that he was not descended
from a monkey. The reply came from Huxley, who said in sub-
stance : " If I had to choose, I would prefer to be a descendant of

VOL. XLV. — 11

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a humble monkey rather than of a man who employs his knowl-
edge and eloquence in misrepresenting those who are wearing out
their lives in the search for truth."

This shot reverberated through England, and indeed through
other countries.

The utterances of the most brilliant prelate of the Anglican
Church received a sort of antiphonal response from the leaders
of the English Catholics. In an address before the Academia,
which had been organized to combat " science falsely so called,"
Cardinal Manning declared his " abhorrence " of the new view of
Nature, and described it as " a brutal philosophy — to wit, there is
no God, and the ape is our Adam."

These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fash-
ion which prevailed for several years. One eminent clerical re-
viewer, in spite of Darwin's thirty years of quiet labor, and in
spite of the powerful summing up of his book, prefaced a diatribe
by saying that Darwin "might have been more modest had he
given some slight reason for dissenting from the views generally
entertained." Another distinguished clergyman, vice-president
of a Protestant institute to combat " dangerous " science, de-
clared Darwinism " an attempt to dethrone God," Another critic
spoke of persons accepting the Darwinian views as " under the
frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Dar-
win's argument as " a jungle of fanciful assumption." Another
spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting that " God is dead," and
declared that Darwin's work " does open violence to everything
which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures of the
methods and results of his work." Still another theological au-
thority declares : " If the Darwinian theory is true. Genesis is a
lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and
the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delu-
sion and a snare." Another, who had showji excellent qualities
as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view " a huge
imposture from the beginning."

Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most
widespread of American religious sects, declared that Darwin
" was attempting to befog and to pettifog the whole question " ;
another declared Darwin's views " the only form of infidelity
from which Christianity had anything to fear " ; another, repre-
senting the American branch of the Anglican Church, poured
contempt over Darwin as " sophistical and illogical," and then
plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of argument in the
following words : " If this hypothesis be true, then is the Bible an
unbearable fiction ; . . . then have Christians for nearly two thou-
sand years been duped by a monstrous lie, , . . Darwin requires
us to disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A lead-

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 147

ing journal representing the same cliurcli took pains to show the
evolution theory to be as contrary to the explicit declarations of
the New Testament as to those of the Old, and said : " If we have
all, men and monkeys, oysters and eagles, developed from an
original germ, then is St. Paul's grand deliverance — ' All flesh is
not the same flesh ; there is one kind of flesh of men, another of
beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds ' — untrue."

Another echo came from Australia, where Dr. Perry, Lord
Bishop of Melbourne, in a most bitter book on Science and the
Bible, declared that the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and
Huxley is " to produce in their readers a disbelief of the Bible."

Nor was the older branch of the Church to be left behind in
this chorus. Bayma, in the Catholic World, declared, " Mr. Dar-
win is, we have reason to believe, the mouthpiece or chief trump-
eter of that infidel clique whose well-known object is to do away
with all idea of a God."

Worthy of especial note as showing the determination of the
theological side at this period is the foundation of sacro-scien-
tific organizations to combat the new ideas. First to be noted is
the Academia, planned by Cardinal Wiseman. In a circular let-
ter the cardinal sounded an alarm and summed up by saying,
" Now it is for the Church, which alone possesses divine certainty
and divine discernment, to place itself at once in the front of a
movement which threatens even the fragmentary remains of
Christian belief in England." The necessary permission was ob-
tained from Rome, the Academia was founded, and the " divine
discernment" of the Church was seen in the utterances which
came from it, such as those of Cardinal Manning, which every
thoughtful Catholic would now desire to recall, and in the violent
diatribes of Dr. Laing, which only aroused laughter on all sides.
A similar effort was seen on the Protestant side ; the Victoria In-
stitute was created, and perhaps the most noted utterance which
ever came from it was the declaration of its vice-president, the
Rev. Walter Mitchell, that " Darwinism endeavors to dethrone
God." *

* For Wilberforce's article, see Quarterly Review, July, 1860. For the reply of Huxley
to the bishop's speech I have relied on the account given in Quatrefages, who had it from
Carpenter; a somewhat different version is given in the Life and Letters of Darwin. For
Cardinal Manning's attack, see Essays on Religion and Literature, London, 1865. For the
review articles, see the Quarterly already cited, and that for July, 18V4 ; also the North
British Review, May, 1860; also, F. 0. Morris's letter in the Record, reprinted at Glasgow,
18*70 ; also the Addresses of Rev. Walter Mitchell before the Victoria Institute, London,
1867 ; also Rev. B. G. Johns, Moses not Darwin, a Sermon, March 31, 1871. For the ear-
lier American attacks, see Methodist Quarterly Review, April, 1871 ; the American Church
Review, July and October, 1865, and January, 1866. For the Australian attack, see Science
and the Bible, by the Right Reverend Charles Perry, D. D., Bishop of Melbourne, London,

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In France the attack was even more violent. Fabre d'Envieu
brought out the heavy artillery of theology, and in a long series
of elaborate propositions demonstrated that any other doctrine
than that of the fixity and persistence of species is absolutely con-
trary to Scripture. The Abb(5 Desorges, a former Professor of
Theology, stigmatized Darwin as a " pedant," and evolution as
" gloomy " ; Monseigneur S(?gur, referring to Darwin and his fol-
lowers, declared : " These infamous doctrines have for their only
support the most abject passions. Their father is pride, their
mother impurity, their offspring revolutions. They come from
hell and return thither, taking with them the gross creatures who
blush not to proclaim and accept them."

In Germany the attack, if less declamatory, was no less severe.
Catholic theologians vied with Protestants in bitterness. Prof.
Michelis declared Darwin's theory "a caricature of creation."
Dr. Hagermann asserted that it " turned the Creator out of doors."
Dr. Schund insisted that " every idea of the Holy Scriptures, from
the first to the last page, stands in diametrical opposition to the
Darwinian theory"; and, "if Darwin be right in his view of the
development of man out of a brutal condition, then the Bible
teaching in regard to man is utterly annihilated." Rougemont
at Stuttgart called for a crusade against the obnoxious doctrine.
Luthardt, Professor of Theology at Leipsic, declared : " The idea of
creation belongs to religion and not to natural science ; the whole
superstructure of personal religion is built upon the doctrine of
creation " ; and he showed that the evolution theory is in direct
contradiction to Holy Writ.

But in 1863 came an event which brought serious confusion to
the theological camp : Sir Charles Lyell, the most eminent of liv-
ing geologists, a man of deeply Christian feeling and of exceed-
ingly cautious and conservative temper, who had opposed the
evolution theory of Lamarck and declared his adherence to the
idea of successive creations, then published his work on the An-
tiquity of Man, and in this and other utterances showed himself
a complete though unwilling convert to the fundamental ideas of
Darwin. The blow was serious in many ways, and especially so
in two — first, as withdrawing all foundation in fact from the
scriptural chronology, and secondly, as discrediting the creation
theory. The blow was not indeed unexpected ; in various review
articles against the Darwinian theory there had been appeals to
Lyell, at times almost piteous, " not to flinch from the truths he
had formerly proclaimed."

1869. For Bayma, see the Catholic World, xxvi, 782. For the Acaderaia, see Essays edit-
ed by Cardinal Manning, above cited ; and for the Victoria Institute, see Scientia Scienti-
arum, by a member of the Victoria Institute, London, 1865.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 149

But Lyell, like the honest man he was, yielded, unreservedly
to the mass of new proofs arrayed on the side of evolution as
against that of creation.

At the same time came Huxley's Man's Place in Nature, giv-
ing new and most cogent arguments in favor of evolution by
natural selection.

In 1871 was published Darwin's Descent of Man. Its doctrine
had indeed been anticipated by critics of his previous books, but
it none the less gave a great stir to the opposite side ; again the
opposing army trooped forth, though evidently with much less
heart than before. A few were very violent. In the Dublin Uni-
versity Magazine Mr. Darwin was charged, after the legendary
Hibernian fashion, with seeking " to displace God by the unerring
action of vagary," and as being " resolved to hunt God out of the
world." But most notable from this side of the older Church was
the elaborate answer to Darwin's book by the eminent French
Catholic physician. Dr. Constantin James. In his work. On Dar-
winism, or the Man- Ape, published at Paris in 1877, Dr. James
not only refuted Darwin scientifically but poured contempt on his
book, calling it " a fairy tale," and hesitating to take it seriously,
since a work " so fantastic and so burlesque " was, doubtless, only
a huge joke, like Erasmus's Praise of Folly, or Montesquieu's
Persian Letters. The princes of the Church were delighted. The
Cardinal Archbishop of Paris assured the author that the book
had become his "spiritual reading," and begged him to send a
copy to the Pope himself. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, acknowl-
edged the gift in a remarkable letter. He thanked his dear son,
the writer, for the book in which he "refutes so well the aber-
rations of Darwinism. ... A system," he adds, " which is repug-
nant at once to history, to the tradition of all peoples, to exact
science, to observed facts, and even to Reason herself, would
seem to need no refutation, did not alienation from God and the
leaning toward materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek a sup-
port in all this tissue of fables. . . . And, in fact, pride, after
rejecting the Creator of all things and proclaiming man inde-
pendent, wishing him to be his own king, his own priest, and his
own God — pride goes so far as to degrade man himself to the level
of the unreasoning brutes, perhaps even of lifeless matter, thus
unconsciously confirming the Divine declaration. When pride
Cometh, then cometh shame. But the corruption of this age, the
machinations of the perverse, the danger of the simple, demand
that such fancies, altogether absurd though they are, should —
since they borrow the mask of science — be refuted by true sci-
ence." Wherefore the Pope thanks Dr. James for his book, " so
opportune and so perfectly appropriate to the exigencies of our
time," and bestows on him the apostolic benediction. Nor was

150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this brief all. With it there came a second, creating the author
an officer of the Papal Order of St. Sylvester. The Cardinal
Archbishop assured the astonished physician that such a double
honor of brief and brevet was perhaps unprecedented, and sug-
gested only that in a new edition of his book he should " insist
still a little more on the relation existing between the narratives
of Genesis and the discoveries of modern science, in such fashion
as to convince the most incredulous of their perfect agreement."
The prelate urged also a more dignified title. The proofs of this
new edition were accordingly all submitted to his Eminence, and
in 1882 it appeared as Moses and Darwin : the Man of Genesis
com^Dared with the Man -Ape, or Religious Education opposed to
Atheistic. No wonder the cardinal embraced the author, thank-
ing him in the name of science and religion. " We have at last,"
he declared, " a handbook which we can safely put into the hands
of youth."

Scarcely less vigorous were the champions of English Protes-
tant orthodoxy. In an address at Liverpool, Mr. Gladstone re-
marked : " Upon the grounds of what is termed evolution God is
relieved of the labor of creation ; in the name of unchangeable
laws he is discharged from governing the world " ; and, when Her-
bert Spencer called his attention to the fact that Newton with the
doctrine of gravitation and with the science of physical astronomy
is open to the same charge, Mr. Gladstone retreated in the Con-
temporary Review under one of his characteristic clouds of words.
The Rev. Dr. Coles, in the British and Foreign Evangelical Re-
view, declared that the God of evolution is not the Christian's God.
Bangor, Dean of Chichester, in a sermon preached before the Uni-
versity of Oxford, pathetically warned the students that " those
who refuse to accept the history of the creation of our first parents
according to its obvious literal intention, and are for substituting
the modern dream of evolution in its place, cause the entire scheme
of man's salvation to collapse." Dr. Pusey also came into the fray
with most earnest appeals against the new doctrine, and the Rev.
Gavin Carlyle was most earnest on the same side. The Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge published a book by the
Rev. Mr. Birks, in which the evolution doctrine was declared to
be " flatly opposed to the fundamental doctrine of creation."
Even the London Times admitted a review of Darwin's Descent
of Man, in which it was spoken of as an " utterly unsupported
hypothesis," full of " unsubstantiated premises, cursory investi-
gations, and disintegrating speculations," and Darwin himself
was declared " reckless and unscientific." *

* For the French theological opposition to the Darwinian theory, see Pozzy, La Terra
et le Recit Biblique de la Creation, 18*74, especially pp. 353, 363 ; also, Felix Ducane,

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 151

But it was noted that this second series of attacks, on the De-
scent of Man, differed in one remarkable respect — so far as Eng-
laiid was concerned — from, those which had been made over ten
years before on the Origin of Species. While everything was
done to discredit Darwin, to pour contempt over him, and even,
of all things in the world, to make him — the gentlest of mankind,
only occupied with the scientific side of the problem — " a persecu-
tor of Christianity," while his followers were represented more
and more as charlatans or dupes, there began to be in the most
influential quarters careful avoidance of the old argument that
evolution — even by natural selection — contradicts Scripture. It
began to be felt that this was dangerous ground. The defection
of Lyell had, perhaps, more than anything else, started the ques-
tion among theologians who had preserved some equanimity,
"What if, after all, the Darwinian theory should prove to be
true ? " Recollections of the position in which the Roman Church
found itself after the establishment of the doctrines of Copernicus
and Galileo naturally came into the minds of the more thought-
ful. In Germany this consideration does not seem to have oc-
curred at quite so early a day. One eminent Lutheran clergy-
man at Magdeburg called on his hearers to choose between Dar-
win and religion ; Delitszch, in his new commentary on Genesis,
attempted to bring science back to recognize human sin as an im-
portant factor in creation ; Prof. Heinrich Ewald, while carefully
avoiding any sharp conflict between the scriptural doctrine and
evolution, comforted himself by pouring contempt over Darwin
and his followers; Christlieb, in his address before the Evangeli-
cal Alliance at New York, 1873, simply took the view that the

Etudes sur le Transformisme, 1876, especially pp. 107 to 119. As to Fabre d'Envieu, see
especially his Proposition xliii. For the Abbe Desorges, " former Professor of Philosophy
and Theology," see his Erreurs Modernes, Paris, 1878, pp. 677 and 595 to 598. For Mon"
seigneur Segur, see his La Foi devant la Science Moderne, sixth ed., Paris, 1874, pp. 23, 34,
etc. For Herbert Spencer's reply to Mr. Gladstone, see his Study of Sociology ; for the
passage in the Dublin Review, see the issue for July, 1871. For the review in the London
Times, see Nature for April 20, 1871. For Gavin Carlyle, see The Battle of Unbelief,
1870, pp. 86 and 171. For the attacks by Michelis and Hagermann, see Natur und Offen-
barung, Miinster, 1861 to 1869. For Schund, see his Darwin's Hypothese und ihr Verhalt-
niss zu Religion und Moral, Stuttgart, 1869. For Luthardt, see Fundamental Truths of
Christianity, translated by Sophia Taylor, second ed., Edinburgh, 1869. For Rougemont, see
his Der Mensch und der Aflfe, Stuttgart, 1863, translated into German. For Constantin
James, see his Mes Entretiens avec I'Empereur Don Pedro sur le Darwinisme, Paris, 1888,
where the papal briefs are printed in full. For the English attacks on Darwin's Descent of
Man, see the Edinburgh Review, July, 1871, and elsewhere ; the Dublin Review, July, 1871 ;
the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, April, 1886. See also The Scripture Doctrine
of Creation, by the Rev. T. R. Birks, London, 1873, published by the S. P. C. K. For Dr.
Pusey's attack, see his Unscience not Science, adverse to Faith, 1878; also, Darwin's Life
and Letters, vol. ii, pp. 411, 412.

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tendencies of the Darwinian theory were " toward infidelity/' but
declined to make any serious battle on biblical grounds; the
Jesuit, Father Pesch, in Holland, drew. up in Latin in due array,
after the old scholastic manner, a sort of general indictment of
evolution, of which one must say that it was interesting — as inter-
esting as the display of a troop in chain armor and with cross-
bows on a nineteenth-century battlefield.

From America there came new echoes. Among the myriad
attacks on the Darwinian theory by Catholics and Protestants
two should be especially mentioned. The first of these was by
Dr. Noah Porter, President of Yale College, an excellent scholar,
an interesting writer, a noble man, broadly tolerant, combining
in his thinking a curious mixture of radicalism and conservatism.
While giving great latitude to the evolutionary teaching in the
university under his care, he felt it his duty upon one occasion to
avow his disbelief in it ; but he was very careful not to suggest
any necessary antagonism between it and the Scriptures. He
confined himself mainly to pointing out the tendency of the evo-
lution doctrine in this form toward agnosticism and pantheism.
To those who knew and loved him and had noted the genial way
in which by wise neglect he had allowed scientific studies to flour-
ish at Yale, there was an amusing side to all this. Within a
stone's throw of his college rooms was the Museum of Paleon-
tology, in which Prof. Marsh had laid side by side, among other
evidences of the new truth, that wonderful series of specimens
showing the evolution of the horse from the earliest form of the
animal, " not larger than a fox, with five toes," through the whole
series up to his present form and size— that series which the most
eminent living exponent of the Darwinian view has declared an
absolute proof of the existence of natural selection as an agent in
evolution. In spite of the veneration and love which all Yale
men felt for President Porter, it was hardly to be expected that
these particular arguments of his would have much permanent
effect upon them when there was constantly before their eyes so
convincing a refutation.

But a far more determined and bitter opponent was the Rev.
Dr. Hodge, of Princeton; his anger toward the evolution doctrine
seemed to madden him : he declared it thoroughly " atheistic " ;
he insisted that Christians " have a right to protest against the
arraying of probabilities against the clear evidence of the Scrip-
tures " ; he even censured so orthodox a writer as the Duke of
Argyll, and declared that the Darwinian theory of natural selec-
tion is " utterly inconsistent with the Scriptures," and that " an
absent God, who does nothing, is to us no God " ; that " to ignore
design as manifested in God's creation is a theory which attempts
to dethrone God " ; that " a denial of design in Nature is virtually

^^UW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 153

a denial of God " ; and that " no teleologist can be a Darwinian."
Even more bitter was another of the leading authorities at the
same university — the Rev. Dr. Duffield. He declared war not
only against Darwin but even against men like Asa Gray, Le
Conte, and others, who had attempted to reconcile the new theory
with the Bible ; he insisted that " evolutionism and the scriptural
account of the origin of man are irreconcilable " — that the Dar-
winian theory is " in direct conflict with the teaching of the
apostle, * All scripture is given by inspiration of God '" ; he
points out, in opposition both to Darwin's Descent of Man and
Lyell's Antiquity of Man, that in the Bible "the genealogical
links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with Adam and Eve
in Eden are explicitly given." These utterances of Prof. Duffield
culminated in a declaration which deserves to be cited as showing
that a Presbyterian minister can "deal damnation round the
land " ex cathedra in a fashion quite equal to that of popes and
bishops. It is as follows : " If the development theory of the ori-
gin of man," wrote Dr. Duffield in the Princeton Review, " shall
in a little while take its place — as doubtless it will — with other
exploded scientific speculations, then they who accept it with its
proper logical consequences will in the life to come have their
portion with those who in this life ' know not God and obey not
the gospel of his Son.' "

Fortunately, at about the time when Darwin's Descent of Man
was published, there had come into Princeton University a " deus
ex machina " in the person of Dr. James McCosh. Assuming the
presidency, he at once took his stand against teachings so danger-
ous to Christianity as those of Drs. Hodge, Duffield, and their
confreres. In one of his personal confidences he has let us into
the secret of this matter. With that hard Scotch sense which
had won the applause of Thackeray in his well-known verses, he
saw that the most dangerous thing which could be done to Chris-
tianity at Princeton was to reiterate in the university pulpit,
week after week, solemn declarations that if evolution by natural
selection, or indeed evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures are
false. McCosh tells us that he saw that this was the certain
way to make the students unbelievers ; he therefore not only gave
a check to this dangerous preaching but preached an opposite
doctrine. With him began the inevitable compromise, and, in
spite of mutterings against him as a Darwinian, he carried the
day. Whatever may be thought of the general system of philoso-
phy which he has advocated, no one can deny the great service he
rendered in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and col-
leagues— so dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity.

Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the country be-
gan to take similar ground — namely, that men could be Christians

154 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and at the same time believe in the Darwinian theory. There
appeared, indeed, here and there, curious discrepancies ; thus in
1873 the Monthly Religious Magazine of Boston congratulated
its readers that the Rev. Mr. Burr had " demolished the evolution
theory, knocking the breath of life out of it and throwing it to
the dogs." This amazing performance by " the Rev. Mr. Burr "
was repeated in a different form and in a very striking way by
Bishop Keener before the QEcumenical Council of Methodism at
Washington in 1891. In what is described in the newspapers as an
" admirable speech," he refuted evolution doctrines by saying that
evolutionists had only to make a journey of twelve hours from
the place in which he was then standing and find together the bones
of the muskrat, the opossum, the coprolite, and the ichthyosau-
rus. He asserted that Agassiz — whom the good bishop, like so
many others, seemed to think an evolutionist — when he visited
these beds near Charleston, declared : " These old beds have set me
crazy ; they have destroyed the work of a lifetime " ; and the
Methodist prelate ended by saying : " Now, gentlemen, brethren,
take these facts home with you ; get down and look at them.
This is the watch that was under the steam hammer — the doc-
trine of evolution ; and this steam hammer is the wonderful de-
posit of the Ashley beds."

Exhibitions like these availed little. While the good bishop
amid vociferous applause thus made comically evident his belief
that Agassiz was a Darwinian and a coprolite an animal, scien-
tific men were recording in all parts of the world facts confirming
the dreaded theory of an evolution by natural selection. While
the Rev. Mr. Burr was so loudly praised for " chopping up Dar-
winism and throwing it to the dogs," Marsh was completing his
series leading from the five-toed ungulates to the horse ; while Dr.
Tayler Lewis at Union, and Drs. Hodge and Duffield at Prince-
ton, were showing that if evolution is true the biblical accounts
are false, the indefatigable Yale professor was showing his cre-
taceous birds, and among them Hesperornis and Ichthyornis with
teeth ; while in Germany Luthardt, Schund, and their compeers
were demonstrating that Scripture requires a belief in special and
separate creations, the Archceopteryx, showing a most remarkable
connection between birds and reptiles, was discovered ; while in
France Monseigneur Sdgur and others were indulging in diatribes
against " a certain Darwin," Gaudry and Filhol were discovering
a striking series of " missing links " among the carnivora.

In view of the proofs accumulating in favor of the new evolu-
tionary hypothesis, the change in the tone of controlling theolo-
gians was now rapid. From all sides came evidences of desire to
compromise with the theory. The strict adherents of the biblical
text pointed significantly to the texts in Genesis in which the

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 155

earth and sea were made to bring forth birds and fishes, and man
was created out of the dust of the ground. Men of broader mind
like Kingsley and Farrar, and English and American broad
churchmen generally, took ground directly in Darwin's favor.
Even Whewell took pains to show that there might be such a
thing as a Darwinian argument for design in Nature ; and the
Rev. Samuel Houghton, of the Royal Society, gave interesting
suggestions of a teleological evolution.

Both the great English universities received the new teaching
as a leaven ; at Oxford, in the very front of the High Church
party at Keble College, was elaborated a statement that the evo-
lution doctrine is " an advance in our theological thinking " ; and
Temple, Bishop of London, perhaps the most influential thinker
at present in the Anglican episcopate, accepted the new revelation
in the following words : " It seems something more majestic, more
befitting Him to whom a thousand years are as one day, thus to
impress his will once for all on his creation, and provide for all
the countless varieties by this one original impress, than by spe-
cial acts of creation to be perpetually modifying what he had pre-
viously made."

In Scotland the Duke of Argyll, head and front of the ortho-
dox party, dissenting in many respects from Darwin's full con-
clusions, made concessions which disorganized the old position.

Curiously enough, from the Roman Catholic Church, bitter as
some of its writers had been, now came argument to prove that
the Catholic faith does not prevent any one " from holding the
Darwinian theory," and especially a declaration from an author-
ity eminent among American Catholics — a declaration which has
a very curious sound, but which it would be ungracious to find
fault with — that " the doctrine of evolution is no more in oppo-
sition to the doctrine of the Catholic Church than is the Coper-
nican theory or that of Galileo."

Here and there, indeed, men of science like Dawson, Mivart,
and Wigand, in view of theological considerations, have sought
to make conditions ; but the current is too strong, and we find
eminent theologians in every country ready to accept natural
selection as at least a very important part in the mechanism of
evolution.

At the death of Darwin it was felt that there was but one
place in England where his body should be laid, and that this
place was next the grave of Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster
Abbey. The noble address of Canon Farrar at his funeral was
echoed from many pulpits in Europe and America, and theologi-
cal opposition as such was ended. Occasionally there came, it is
true, a survival of the old feeling ; the Rev. Dr. Laing referred to
the burial of Darwin in Westminster Abbey as " a proof that Eng-

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

land is no longer a Christian country," and added that this burial
was a desecration — that this honor was given him because he had
been " the chief promoter of the mock doctrine of evolution of
the species and ape descent of man " ; and this was echoed in
Scotland by the Rev. Dr. Lee, who was pleased to call Darwin
and his followers " gospelers of the gutter.^'

Still another of these belated prophets was, of all men, Thomas
Carlyle. Soured and embittered, in the same spirit which led him
to find more heroism in a marauding Viking or in one of Fred-
erick the Great's generals than in Washington, or Lincoln, or
Grant, and which caused him to see in the American civil war
only " the burning out of a foul chimney," he simply saw in Dar-
win an " apostle of dirt worship."

The last echoes of this sort of utterance reverberated between
Scotland and America. In the former country, in 1885, the Rev.
Dr. Lee issued a volume in which it was declared that, if the
Darwinian view be true, " there is no place for God " ; that " by
no method of interpretation can the language of Holy Scripture
be made wide enough to re-echo the orang-outang theory of man's
natural history " ; that " Darwinism reverses the revelation of
God " and " implies utter blasphemy against the divine and hu-
man character of our Incarnate Lord." In one of the intellectual
centers of America the editor of a periodical called The Christian
urged frantically that " the battle be set in array, and that men
find out who is on the Lord's side and who is on the side of the
Devil and the monkeys."

To the honor of the Church of England it should be recorded
that a considerable number of its truest men opposed such utter-
ances as these, and that one of them — Farrar, Archdeacon of West-
minster— made a protest worthy to be held in perpetual remem-
brance. While confessing his own inability to accept fully the
new scientific belief, he said : " We should consider it disgrace-
ful and humiliating to try to shake it by an ad captandum argu-
ment, or by a claptrap platform appeal to the unfathomable igno-
rance and unlimited arrogance of a prejudiced assembly. We
should blush to meet it with an anathema or a sneer."

All opposition had availed nothing ; Darwin's work and fame
were secure. As men looked back over his beautiful life — simple,
honest, tolerant, kindly — and thought upon the great truth he
had given to mankind, all the attacks faded into nothingness.

There were indeed some dark spots, which as time goes on
appear darker. At Trinity College, Cambridge, Whewell, the
" omniscient," author of the History of the Inductive Sciences,
refused to allow a copy of the Origin of Species to be placed in
the library. At multitudes of institutions under theological con-
trol— Catholic as well as Protestant — attempts were made to

JVBIV CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 157

stamp out or to stifle evolutionary teaching. Especially was tliis
true for a time in America, and the case of the American College
at Beyrout, where nearly all the younger professors were dis-
missed for adhering to Darwin's views, is worthy of remembrance.
The treatment of Dr. Winchell at the Vanderbilt University in
Tennessee showed the same spirit ; one of the truest of men, de-
voted to science but of deeply Christian feeling, he was driven
forth for views which centered in the Darwinian theory.

Still more striking was the case of Dr. Woodrow. He had,
about 1857, been appointed to a professorship of Natural Science
as connected with Revealed Religion, in the Presbyterian Semi-
nary at Columbia, South Carolina. He was a devoted Christian
man, and his training had led him to accept the Presbyterian
standards of faith. With great gifts for scientific study he vis-
ited Europe, made a most conscientious examination of the main
questions under /iiscussion, and adopted the chief points in the
doctrine of evolution by natural selection. A struggle soon be-
gan. A movement hostile to him grew more and more deter-
mined, and at last, in spite of the efforts made in his behalf by
the directors of the seminary and by a large and broad-minded
minority in the representative bodies controlling it, an orthodox
storm, raised by the delegates from various Presbyterian bodies,
drove him from his post. Fortunately, he was received into a
professorship at the University of South Carolina, where he has
since taught with more power than ever before.

This testimony to the faith by American provincial Protest-
antism was very properly echoed from Spanish provincial Ca-
tholicism. In the year 1878 a Spanish colonial man of science. Dr.
Chil y Marango, published a work on the Canary Islands. But
Dr. Chil had the imprudence to sketch, in his introduction, the
modern hypothesis of evolution, and to exhibit some proofs, found
in the Canary Islands, of the barbarism of primitive man. The
ecclesiastical authorities, under the lead of Bishop Urquinaona y
Bidot, at once grappled with this new idea. By a solemn act they
declared it "falsa, impia, scaiidalosa " ; all persons possessing
copies of the work were ordered to surrender them at once to the
proper ecclesiastics, and the author was placed under the major
excommunication, which, in those " fortunate isles," still means
social isolation.

But all this opposition may be reckoned among the last ex-
piring convulsions of the old theologic theory. Even from the
new Catholic University at Washington has come an utterance
in favor of the new doctrine, and in other universities in the Old
World and in the New the doctrine of evolution by natural selec-
tion has asserted its right to full and honest consideration. More
than this, it is clearly evident that the stronger men in the

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Church have, in these latter days, not only relinquished the strug-
gle against science in this field, but have determined frankly and
manfully to make an alliance with it. In two very remarkable
lectures given in 1893 at the parish church of Rochdale, Wilson,
Archdeacon of Manchester, not only accepts Darwinism as true,
but works it with great argumentative power into a higher view
of Christianity ; and what is of great significance, these sermons
were published by the same Society for the Propagation of Chris-
tian Knowledge which only a few years previously had pub-
lished the most bitter attacks against the Darwinian theory. So,
too during the year 1893, Prof. Henry Drummond, whose praise
is in all the dissenting churches, developed a similar view most
brilliantly in a series of lectures delivered before the American
Chautauqua Schools, and published in one of the most widespread
of English orthodox newspapers.

Whatever additional factors may be added to natural selec-
tion-and Darwin himself fully admitted that there might be
others— the theory of an evolution process in the formation of the
universe and of animated Nature is established, and the old theory
of direct creation is gone forever. In place of it science has given
us conceptions far more noble, and opened the way to an argu-
ment for design infinitely more beautiful than any ever devel-
oped by theology.*

* For reasons of the bitterness shown regarding the Darwinian hypothesis, see Reusch,
Bibel und Natur, vol. ii, pp. 46 et seq. For hostility in the United States toward the Dar-
winian theory, see among a multitude of writers the following: Dr. Charles Hodge of
Princeton, monograph. What is Darwinism? New York, 18Y4 ; also his Systenaatic The-
ology New York, 1872, vol. ii, part 2, Anthropology. For a laudatory notice of the Kev.
E F Burr's demolition of evolution in his book Pater Mundi, see Monthly Religious Maga-
zine Boston, May, 1873, p. 492; also The Light by which we see Light, or Nature and the
Scriptures, Vedder Lectures, 1875, Rutgers College, New York, 1875 ; also Positivism and
Evolutionism, in the American Catholic Quarterly, October, 1877, pp. 607, 619 ; and m the
same number. Professor Huxley and Evolution, by Rev. A. M. Kirsch, pp. 662, 664; The
Logic of Evolution, by Prof. Edward F. X. McSweeney, D. D., July, 1879, p. 561 ; Das
Hexaemeron und die Geologic, von P. Eirich, Pastor in Albany, N. Y., Lutherischer Con-
cordia-Verlag, St. Louis, Mo., 1878, pp. 81, 82, 84, 92-94 ; Evolutionism respecting Man
and the Bible, by John T. Duffield, of Princeton, January, 1878, Princeton Review, pp. 151
163 154 158 159, 160, 188 ; A Lecture on Evolution, before the Nineteenth Century Club
of New York' May 25, 1886, by ex-President Noah Porter, pp. 4, 26-29 ; Evolution or Not,
extract in the New York Weekly Sun, October 24, 1888, concerning the removal of Rev.
Dr James Woodrow, Professor of Natural Science in the Columbia Theological Seminary.
For the dealings of Spanish ecclesiastics with Dr. Chil and his Darwinian exposition see the
Revue d'Anthropologie, cited in the Academy for April 6, 1878; see also the Catholic
World xix, 433, A Discussion with an Infidel, directed against Dr. Louis Biichner and his
Kraft und Stoff; also in Mind and Matter, by Rev. James Tait, of Canada, p. 66; m the
third edition the author bemoans the "horrible plaudits" that "have accompanied every
effort to estabhsh man's brutal descent"; also The Church Journal, New York, May 28,
1874 For the effort in favor of a theological evolution, see Rev. Samuel Houghton, F. R. b.,

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 159

Principles of Animal Mechanics, London, 18*73, preface and p. 156 and elsewhere. For de-
tails of the persecution of Drs. Wiuchell and Woodrow, and of the Beyrout professors, with
authorities cited, see my chapter on The Fall of Man and Anthropology. For more liberal
views among various religionists regarding the Darwinian theory, and for efforts to mitigate
and adopt it to theological views, among the great mass of utterances see the following :
Charles Kingsley, Letters to Darwin, November 18, 1859, in Darwin's Life and Letters, vol.
ii, p. 82; Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin, December 24, 1859, see ibid., vol. ii, pp.
856-359; the same to Miss Gerard, January 2, 1860, see Sedgwick's Life and Letters, vol.
ii, pp. 859, 360; the same in the Spectator, London, March 24, 1860; The Rambler, March,
1860, cited by Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 30 ; The Dublin Review, May, 1860. For a
review of the Origin of Species, The Christian Examiner, Boston, May, 1860, on the Origin
of Species; Charles Kingsley to F. D. Maurice in 1863, see Kingsley's Life, vol. ii, p. 171 ;
Adam Sedgwick to Livingstone (the explorer), March 16, 1865 ; see Life and Letters of
Sedgwick, vol. ii, pp. 410-412; The Duke of Argyll, The Reign of Law, New York, pp.
16, 18, 31, 116, 11*7, 120, 159; Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., LL. D., Man in Genesis and
Geology, New York, 18Y0, pp. 48, 49, 82 ; James Freeman Clarke, a review in the Old and
New Magazine, Boston, September, 18*70, on his Steps of Belief; Canon H. P. Liddon, Ser-
mons preached before the University of Oxford, 18*71, Sermon III; St. George Mivart,
Evolution and its Consequences, Contemporary Review, January, 18*72; British and Foreign
Evangelical Review, vol. xxi, p. 18, 1872, article on The Theory of Evolution; also pp. 2,
22, 8, 9, 15 ; The Lutheran Quarterly, Gettysburg, Pa., April, 1872, article by Rev. Cyrus
Thomas, Assistant United States Geological Survey, on The Descent of Man, pp. 214, 239,
372-376; The Lutheran Quarterly, July, 1873, article. Some Assumptions against Chris-
tianity, by Rev. C. A. Stork, Baltimore, Md., pp. 325, 326 ; also in same number, see a review
of Dr. Burr's Pater Mundi, pp. 474, 475, and contrast with the review in the Andover
Review of that period ; an article in the Religious Magazine and Monthly Review, Boston,
on Religion and Evolution, by Rev. S. R. Calthrop, September, 1873, p. 200; The Popular
Science Monthly, January, 1874, article Genesis, Geology, and Evolution, by Rev. George
Henslow — this article first appeared in his book Evolution and Religion ; article by Asa
Gray, Nature, London, June 4, 1874; Materialism, by Rev. W. Streissguth, Lutheran Quar-
terly, July, 1875, originally written in German, and translated by J. G. Morris, D. D., pp.
406, 408 ; Darwinismus und Christenthum, von R. Steck, Ref. Pfarrer in Dresden, Berlin,
1875, pp. 5, 6, and 26, reprinted from the Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, and issued as a
tract by the Protestantenverein ; Oscar Peschel, Abhandlungen zur Erd- und Volkerkunde,
Leipsic, 1877, pp. 503, 504 — this article first appeared in Ausland, for January 2, 1869
(Peschel was editor of this weekly magazine) ; Rev. W. E. Adams, article in the Lutheran
Quarterly, April, 1879, on Evolution: shall it be Atheistic? John Wood, Bible Anticipa-
tions of Modern Science, 1880, pp. 18, 19, 22; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1881, Some
Postulates of the New Ethics, by Rev. C. A. Stork, D. D. ; Lutheran Quarterly, January,
1882, The Rehgion of Evolution as against the Religion of Jesus, Prof. W. H. Wynn,
Iowa State Agricultural College — this article was republished as a pamphlet ; Canon Lid-
don, prefatory note to sermon on the Recovery of St. Thomas, pp. 4, 11, 12, 13, and 26,
preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, April 23, 1882 ; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1882, Evo-
lution and the Scripture, by Rev. John A. Earnest, pp. 101, 105 ; Glimpses in the Twilight,
by Rev. F. G. Lee, D. D., Edinburgh, 1885, especially pp. 18 and 19 ; the Hibbert Lectures
for 1883, by Rev.. Charles Beard, pp. 392, 393 et seg.; F. W. Farrar, D. D., Canon of
Westminster, The History of Interpretation, being the Barrington Lectures for 1885, pp.
426, 427 ; Bishop Temple, Barrington Lectures, pp. 184-186 ; article Evolution, in the Dic-
tionary of Religion, edited by Rev. William Benham, 1887; Prof. Huxley, An Episcopal
Trilogy, Nineteenth Century, November, 1887 — this article discusses three sermons delivered
by the Bishops of Carlisle, Bedford, and Manchester, in Manchester Cathedral, during the
meeting of the British Association, September, 1887 ; these sermons were afterward pub-
lished in pamphlet form under the title. The Advance of Science ; John Fiske, Darwinism,
and other Essays, Boston, 1888 ; Harriet Mackenzie, Evolution illuminating the Bible, Lon-

i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST.

By EGBERT N. KEELY, Jr., M. D.

EVERY once in a while something happens to rouse Ameri-
cans out of that complaisant frame of mind which has
become habitual, and in which they have come to regard their
imperial domain, bounded by the Great Lakes and the Rio Grande
to the North and South, and the broad ocean to the East and
West, as a sort of little world all to themselves, whence they could
look out upon the doings beyond with a patronizing half-humor-
ous indifference, as upon things in which they had no possible
concern. A few months ago the shock was supplied by the un-
heralded supplication from a small island nation out in the Pa-
cific to be taken under the broad wing of the " bird of freedom,"
and we awoke to the fact that perhaps in spite of ourselves and
our national prejudices the logic of events had extended our zone
of political influence far beyond our supposed definitive bounda-
ries. Now comes Nicaragua, her warring factions having con-
cluded an armistice, and asks Uncle Sam to arbitrate, with sug-
gestions even of the advisability of an American protectorate;
and it is quite possible that upon a little reflection we may dis-
cover that this fussy little republic is as essentially an integral
portion of the United States of the future as if it lay between
Chicago and Denver. Possessing the most j^racticable water way
over the isthmus which divides New York from San Francisco, it
may well be that the increasing necessity of a purely American
ocean highway between these two ports must soon render inevi-
table a political predominance on our part which shall amount to
virtual sovereignty over these regions.

But for a trifling incident it would never have occurred to me
to go to Nicaragua. Excepting as an eligible site for a canal and

don, 1891, dedicated to Prof, Huxley; H. E. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cam-
bridge, The Early Narratives of Genesis, London, 1892, preface, pp. vii-ix, pp. 7, 9, 11 ;
Rev. G. M. Searle, of the Catholic University, Washington, article in the Catholic World,
November, 1892, pp. 223, 227, 229, 231. For the statement from Keble College, see Rev.
Mr. Illingworth, in Lux Mundi. For Bishop Temple, see citation in Laing. For the most
complete and admirable acceptance of the evolution theory as lifting Christian doctrine and
practice to a higher plane, with suggestions for a new theology, see two sermons by Arch-
deacon Wilson, of Manchester, S. P. C. K., London, and Young & Co., New York, 1893;
and for a characteristically lucid statement of the most recent development of evolution
doctrines, and the relations of Spencer, Weissmann, Galton, and others to them, see Lester
F. Ward's Address as President of the Biological Society, Washington, 1891; also, recent
articles in the leading English reviews. For a brilliant glorification of evolution by natural
selection as a doctrine necessary to the highest and truest view of Christianity, see Prof.
Drummond's Chautauqua Lectures, published in The British Weekly, London, from April
20 to May 11, 1893.

TOL XLV. — 12

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as the scene of Filibuster Walker's bold exploit, the country had
never been associated with my thoughts, and canals and fili-
busters were not in my line. I had perhaps an adumbration of
centipeds and scorpions and of a people in a chronic state of
revolution, which surely is not an alluring mental picture. It
happened, however, that I had made preparations to go with an
expedition for an extended tour of the West Indies, and was all
ready to depart, when at the last moment the project was indefi-
nitely postponed. Trunks and gripsacks were neatly packed and
good-byes had been duly bidden, and here I was without any des-
tination. In this perplexity a letter was handed me bearing an
unfamiliar post-mark. Hastily tearing open the envelope, I read :

"Bluefields, NiCAKACiUA, April 5, 1803.

" My Dear Old Boy : You have been wondering, no doubt, not
to have heard from me all these years, and your surprise will be
greater to hear from me out of this strange quarter of the globe.
. . . Well, my boy, I've been at work, hard at work, and, as the
world would say, I've prospered. ... I am working a very valu-
able grant, covering one hundred square miles. The bottoms are
rich in timber and the uplands abound with gold. Native help is
plentiful and can be hired for a song and sixpence, and the ma-
hogany can be floated all the way to the coast. I want a con-
genial associate, and don't know any one with whom I would
rather share my good fortune. At any rate, since I heard, by the
rarest chance, that you were on the way to the Caribbean, you
would find a run over to view the country well worth your while,
etc. H."

Here was an impulse, all that was needed — so ho! and away
for Nicaragua !

The Mosquitos. — The 10th of May, 1893, found us aboard a
little schooner from Greytown bound for Bluefields, the capital of
that singular and little-known people the Mosquito Indians.

The portion of the Caribbean littoral commonly known as the
Mosquito Coast, but more accurately called the '' Mosquito Res-
ervation," is a strip of land about two hundred miles in length
extending northward from the Rama River to the Rio Huesco,
and backward from the sea about forty miles ; the western
boundary being an astronomical line along the meridian of longi-
tude 84'^ 15'.

The so-called Mosquito Indians are by no means a homogene-
ous people. The interior river districts are inhabited by true
Indians of various tribes and languages, agricultural in their
habits — if such a thing as agriculture can be spoken of in this
land of spontaneous vegetation and perennial summer. The coast

NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST.

163

lands, whicli along their whole length are indented with a series
of shallow lagoons separating them from the main sea, are in-
habited by a mixed race in whose veins African and Indian blood
are striving for the ascendency, with a dash of white blood infused

by buccaneers and Jamaica traders of the olden times. In the
government of the community the people of the coast lands are
the predominant element, the Indians farther in the interior
being apathetic; nevertheless, the "chief," who is at the head of
the government, is a full-blooded Indian. The official language,

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and that generally spoken along the coast, is the English tongue.
The Mosquito state is an autonomy under the sovereignty of
Nicaragua, but to understand its unique position in the family of
nations it would be necessary to give an outline of its more recent
history. Such a sketch would scarcely prove of interest, and
would far exceed the limits of this article.

Bluefields, the capital and only port of the Mosquito Reserva-
tion, gets its name from a famous old pirate of the past, called
Bleevelt, the remains of whose stronghold — in an advanced state
of decay — are still seen on a high promontory at the entrance of
the harbor known as the " BlufP." The town proper lies about
six miles from the sea, and is reached by crossing a large lagoon
of such shallowness that only after much tugging, pushing, and
pulling in small boats of the lightest draught is the passenger
landed at the Government wharf. Seen from the lagoon, the
town presents a pleasant picture. Seated upon comparatively
high ground, the luscious green of the luxuriant vegetation in
which it is framed runs quite down to the water's edge, while
here and there a stately palm or cocoanut tree, its leaves nodding
lazily in the almost imperceptible breeze, gives the landscape that
calm, dreamy look so characteristic of tropical life. There is but
one street in the town (King Street) leading up from the wharf.
On this street are its few stores and trade shops. The rest of the
settlement — covering an area of two square miles — is scattered
about, wheresoever the householders willed it, without plan or
reference to streets and lanes. At the time of my visit the town
contained three horses and two carts or wagons, so it is evident
that streets would be of less use for traffic than for the sake of
symmetry, and Sambo idea of symmetry is an unknown quantity.
The houses of Bluefields, with the exception of a few native
" shacks,'' are built of lumber brought from the United States,
and are similar in style of architecture to those found in small
American villages. All buildings are erected on j)osts, and raised
two or three feet above the ground, to avoid the wet and mud of
the rainy season. The population, numbering about fifteen hun-
dred, is composed principally of the descendants of Jamaica
negroes, with a sprinkling of cross-breed Indians, Spaniards, and
negroes ; these are known as " Sambos."

Bluefields and Bananas. — Such as it is, Bluefields owes its
prosperity chiefly to American enterprise and capital. The in-
creasing demand in the States for bananas, and the proximity of
the Mosquito country to New Orleans (the journey being only
four days by steamer), induced some Americans of a speculative
turn to explore the country, with a view to supplying the demand
for the fruit. Their ventures were successful beyond expectation,
the soil and climate being peculiarly adapted for banana grow-

NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST. 165

ing, and to-day hundreds of beautiful plantations line the river
banks for many miles, producing an average of forty thousand
bunches per week, and Bluefields ships more of this fruit than
any two other ports of the world. Among the signs of American
influence is the appearance of the newspaper, a never-wanting ad-
junct to every well-regulated American embryo city. The paper,
printed in English and issued weekly, is called the Bluefields Sen-
tinel. It has quite a United States air about it, and is well pep-

FiG. 3. — The Mosquito Chief and Executive Council: 1, Robert Henry Clarence, chief ;
2, Hon. Charles Patterson, vice president and guardian; 3, Hon. J. W. Cuthbcrt, attor-
ney general and secretary to the chief ; 4, Mr. J. W. Cuthbcrt, J r. . government secretary ;
5, Mr. George Raymond, couucihnan and headman; 6, Mr. Edward McCrea, councilman
and headman.

pered with advertisements. The spiritual and educational welfare
of the community has been taken in hand by the " Moravian Mis-
sion," whose little churches and schools are scattered all over the
territory, and on Sunday the single street of Bluefields is alive
with churchgoers, who seem to be coming and going to and from
religious service all day long.

The government of the Mosquito Reservation consists of the
hereditary chief and an Executive Council, the members of the

i66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Executive Council being elected by a General Council, and the
latter in turn being appointed by the chief from among the
"head men" of the tribe and representative inhabitants of the
various districts of the country. The present chief, his Excel-
lency Robert Henry Clarence, who, as above stated, is a full-
blooded Mosquito Indian, is a handsome, intelligent, and well-
educated young man of twenty or thereabouts, with a magnifi-
cent head of glossy black hair. The other government officials
are nearly all descendants of Jamaica negroes, and perform their
duties with becoming gravity and ease, Hon. Charles Patterson,
the vice president, whose features betray some admixture of
European blood, is also the guardian of the chief during his
minority. The law of the land, by the Mosquito Constitution, is
declared to be the common and statutory law of England, so far
as the same can be made applicable and not inconsistent with local
customs and the enactments of the chief and Council. Many of
the young men who desire educational advantages better than the
local schools afford are sent to Jamaica or even to England. The
land laws are very liberal. Each head of a family is permitted to
take six hundred and forty acres on a ninety-nine years' lease, for
which he pays an annual rental of three cents an acre to the Gov-
ernment, equal to about fifteen dollars American gold. He is ex-
pected to pay, besides, the cost of surveying his " section/' but
beyond this there is no tax of whatever kind imposed, no matter
how valuable the improvements he may make. Altogether the
Mosquito people have made a considerable advance toward civil-
ized life. The missionaries have not succeeded entirely in uproot-
ing the superstitious practices among the lowest walks of the
population, and the oheah or oheaism, a system of necromancy, by
which ill luck can be averted and injuries done to your enemies,
has still a powerful hold. The periodic " big drunk " of former
times, when whole villages used to engage in wild orgies, is no
longer a popular institution, although it is possible that individu-
als do not disdain to indulge in a periodic spree. The Mosquitos
proudly and justly boast that for many years they have lived
and maintained their institutions in peace, whereas the sovereign
Re])ublic of Nicaragua is constantly riven and torn by revolutions
and strife. The state of culture described is found, however, only
in the " cities " and mission stations. Away from these and in the
jungles the people are still pure savages.

The chapter on roads in Mosquito is as brief and of the same
tenor as the chapter on snakes in Iceland. The only means of
communication are the rivers and lagoons ; beyond these all is
dense, impenetrable forest and jungle, interspersed here and there
in the more northerly portions by grassy plains called savan-
nas. The principal article of commerce, besides the banana, is

NICARAGUA AJVI) THE MOSQUITO COAST. 167

mahogany. This huge timber is cut by the Indians of the inte-
rior, and hauled and shoved toward a river in the immediate
vicinity, thence floated in rafts of two or three logs, or often as a
single tree, down to the coast. Most of the banana plantations
are on the Bluefields or Escondido River. The mouth of the
river is about a mile north of Bluefields, and the plantations begin
about twenty miles above this point and thence cover its banks in
almost unbroken continuity for some distance beyond the city of
Rama, sixty miles up stream. To facilitate the handling and
shipping of the fruit, the plantations are always close to the
banks, and vary in depth from fifty to two thousand yards.

Fig. 4. — Rama.

The steamer Hendy, an old Mississippi River boat, whose light-
ness of draught makes it well adapted for steaming about the
shallow lagoons, plies regularly between Bluefields and Rama.
Leaving the former place at seven, o'clock in the morning, the
trip to Rama begins by rounding a point of land called " Old
Bank," a place which for a short time was the home of a small
German colony. This settlement was abandoned after repeated
trials and disasters ; the unfortunate colonists being finally com-
pelled to return to their native land, greatly reduced in number
and weakened by disease, and after being harassed by the Span-
iards and Indians. At this point the boat enters the Escondido

i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

River. On each side the luxuriant and dense vegetation over-
hangs the water, a virgin jungle, whose somber shade the bright-
est sunlight fails to pierce. Flaming red herons rise and flutter
or stand in comic solemnity watching us as we pass ; gaudy
macaws flash their flaring plumage among the leaves and utter
hoarse cries as the boat wends its way; close to the shore, among
the fallen trees and snags, huge alligators, innocent as yet of a
knowledge of rifle ball or hunter, lift their ugly beaks in mute
wonder at our intrusion upon their gloomy retreat. Indeed, a
river trip is not necessary to see all this, a mile back of the town
of Bluefields is the same impenetrable jungle. A meeting with a
native tiger or jaguar is not an unusual occurrence in the out-
skirts, while in the rainy season, alligators from the lagoons are
not too timid to carry off pigs and goats from the settlements.

After about twenty miles of steaming through those dark and
gloomy channels, it is a pleasurable sensation to come upon the
first clearing and see once more a sign of human activity. On
every side are now evidences of thrift and industry. The pictur-
esque houses of the planters, built of bamboo after the pattern of
the native shacks and thatched with palm leaves, standing under
the shade of tall cocoanut trees, make an ideal picture of tropic
life. As the steamer lies to, for the purpose of landing supplies
at many of the banana plantations, an excellent opportunity is
given to study the manner of cultivation, if such it can be called.
The only implement used by the cultivators is the machete, the
universal native tool and weapon all in one ; it is a rather long
and broad knife, something between a broadsword and a cleaver
in appearance. With the aid of this implement the native first
clears the land of jungle and brush, each man being required to
cut at least one " task " (twenty square yards) per day. Although
this is only two or three hours' work, it is seldom that a native
will do more than one task in a day. The natural inclination to
work is of the faintest character. Nature has so bountifully pro-
vided all the necessaries of life that there would be no incentive
to make money were it not for the passion for gambling, and a
game of chance is the one thing the natives never seem too tired to
engage in. The brush thus cleared is burned during the diy sea-
son and the ground is now ready for the young plants or shoots.
These are " suckers " taken from older trees, and after planting
them singly at distances of about eight feet apart, nothing
further is required than occasionally to clear out the large weeds
which will crop up between them. In two years the trees mature,
reaching a height of ten to fifteen feet and bearing from one to
three bunches each.

There is no such thing as a crop or a harvest as we under-
stand the term with our northern possessions. Every day in the

NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST. 169

year is seed time, every day is harvest time. Plants in various
stages of maturity, plants in flower and in fruit and ready for
the machete, stand side by side, and there is no winter to interrupt
the process of vegetation. While the fruit is still quite green the
plant is cut down, and the bunches being removed, these are car-
ried to the river bank, where they are made into heaps and cov-
ered with the large leaves of the plant, so that the rain and sun
may not unduly hasten the ripening. Only the largest bunches
are reserved ; the others are thrown into the river and left to drift
away witli the current.

The House in a Tree. — Rama is a town of about eight hun-
dred inhabitants and, like Bluefields, is dependent chiefly upon
the banana industry for its prosperity. It is situated right on
the boundary line between the Mosquito Reservation and Nicara-
gua, and its population is a cross-breed of Spaniards and Indians.
While at Rama I heard of a mysterious individual, a white man,
who makes his home in a tree. Satisfying myself as to the sub-
stantial truth of the rumors, I determined to have a sight of the
strange house of this eccentric person.

As the river steamer Hendy was to make a trip up the Rama
River the following morning, passing the house in the tree, I ac-
cepted the invitation of Captain Tucker to accompany him. The
captain was a typical Yankee, who had lived several years on the
rivers of Nicaragua, and whose fund of information seemed inex-
haustible. He kindly offered me his guidance to the house. After
steaming several miles we came upon the " clearing " of Captain
Henry Wilderson, for such is the name of the tree-dweller ; and
here, within a hundred yards of the river, stood this remarkable
structure, its white painted sides and green window blinds making
a striking object against the dark jungle surrounding it. Imagine
a tall tree trunk nearly four feet in diameter and stripped of
branches, rising fifty feet or more straight up into the air, and
perched upon its summit this strange abode, looking for all the
world like a huge lantern. It is said that Wilderson objects to
visitors on curiosity bent, and a photographic camera pointed at
the house would be quite apt to bring forth protests from the in-
mate, backed up if necessary by force and violence. Fortunately,
on the day of our visit the captain was not at home, so our inves-
tigations were carried on without interruption. The tree upon
which the house is built is a variety called the ebo ; its wood is of
great strength and hardness, and, as it would require days of work
with an axe to fell it, Wilderson can feel quite safe on his lofty
perch. The building is about twenty-five feet square and about the
same in height. The tree runs completely through the center of the
house to the roof. The first story is occupied by the kitchen ; a sit-
ting room and bedroom, with a small piazza facing the river, take

O

tH

6"
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El

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NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST. 171

•up tlie next story ; while the third story was intended for a bath-
room and observatory. The whole is very solidly built of pine
lumber. At each corner are heavy braces of timber reaching from
the ground to the main floor, while four stout guy-ropes running
from the house and fastened to adjacent trees assure the occu-
pant additional safety against the strong winds which sometimes
rage. To reach the house it is necessary to enter an elevator
placed at the back of the tree. This is a simple contrivance, and
consists of a small platform to which is attached a rope passing
over a pulley in the kitchen. To pull one's self up requires but
little exertion, as the weight of a person is balanced by a heavy
counter-weight, which descends as the elevator rises by a hand-
over-hand pull of the passenger, and in a few moments one is
landed at the door opening into the structure. In descending, of
course, the operation is reversed. The interior is furnished in
very plain style and may be said to contain necessaries only;
there is not the slightest attempt at ornament or decoration. The
kitchen utensils are few and most of them of home manufacture ;
indeed. Nature in this country has supplied food in such form
that cooking is a matter of secondary importance, and is not re-
garded as one of the serious affairs of the household. As rain
falls almost continuously for nine months of the year, the house
is not without its supply of water. This comes from the roof and
is run into tanks conveniently placed within the house. Captain
Wilderson, who is an old Louisiana planter, built his castle in a
tree about three years ago, and it is said to have cost thirty -
five hundred dollars. The oddity is the result of a theory which
the captain has that germs of malarial fever are not as active at
an elevation as they are near the ground. Wilderson is said to
be hale and hearty, and in consequence thereof his theory has
quite a respectable local standing.

Pearl City. — Travel about the rest of the reservation is not
as easy as the trip to the banana district by the river steamer.
The lagoons along the coast are not all connected by water, and
to reach one from the other it is necessary to cut your way across
the intervening land through the jungle. The swath thus cut
with the machete may be said to answer a double purpose, as, be-
sides enabling one to make progress, it leaves a trail by which
one can return to the point of starting, thus diminishing the very
serious consequences of becoming lost. As already stated, how-
ever, traveling is nearly all done by water. The inland water com-
munication through the lagoons along the whole two hundred
miles of coast is interrupted in only two places, and the rivers
running into the interior are numerous. The native boats, which
are large dugouts, called " pitpans," are hollowed out of trunks
of the ceiba or silk-cotton tree. These trees when in bloom are a

172

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

novel spectacle. It is certainly sometliing out of the common to
see a gigantic tree, with a trunk five or six feet in diameter and
eighty or ninety feet high, and sending out limbs as long and
massive as an oak, yet hearing flowers like a rose bush. These

Fig. 6. — Gathering Bananas.

fl-Owers are rich and variegated in color, but chiefly of a bright
carnation. Viewed from beneath, they are scarcely visible ; the
fragrance is overpowering, and the ground is carpeted with their
gay leaves and delicate petals. When seen from a little distance,
the ceiba tree in bloom is one of the most splendid productions
of Nature — a huge and brilliant bouquet, requiring a whole forest
to supply the contrasting green. The wood of the ceiba is easily
worked, and, moreover, is light and buoyant and not liable to
split by exposure to the sun. It is these qualities which make it
so valuable for building the different varieties of boats required
on the coast. The boats are usually sent from the interior in a
rough and partly finished condition, being simply dug out, the
outside being left to be finished according to the taste and fancy
of the future owner. The boats are commonly fifteen or twenty
feet long and about two feet wide, but it is not unusual to meet
them of much larger dimensions, sometimes reaching even the
great length of one hundred feet. The ends rise gracefully from

NICARAGUA A.ND THE MOSQUITO COAST.

173

the water, presenting an overhanging bow and stern exactly alike
in shape. Although the natives paddle about in all kinds of seas
and weather, to the novice the boats are most frail and cranky
craft; the slightest demonstration is sufficient to careen them to
the very verge of capsizing. When such an accident does hap-
pen, the natives, who are excellent swimmers, right the boat and,
by dexterously shaking it from side to side, empty it of water, and
then, jumping in, they will pursue their journey with the utmost
complacency. They propel their canoes with large shovel-shaped
paddles, which they work for hours without signs of fatigue.

Pearl Lagoon is the sheet of water immediately north of the
lagoon of Bluefields. The two are separated by a neck of land
known as " Haulover." Pearl City, the home of the chief, is situ-
ated on the banks of Pearl Lagoon, and is about thirty-five miles
from Bluefields. Much of the journey is through dark, winding
creeks, and nowhere on the trip, until the settlement at Pearl La-

FiG. 7. — Loading Bananas.

goon is reached, can the slightest trace of civilization be seen.
Pearl City is a far prettier place than Bluefields, and is built on
a prairie or savanna of some six square miles in extent. I was
cordially received by Robert Henry Clarence, the Mosquito chief,
who placed at my disposal one of his three horses, and I had

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tlie pleasure of the company of his Excellency on a canter over
the plain. The little chief proved a furious rider, and spurred
his horse to a breakneck gait, so that I had the greatest difficulty
to keep up with him. Jumping from his horse, he disappeared
for a moment in the brush, and presently returned with some
luscious pineapples, which he peeled and, cutting lengthwise,
offered me to eat. Among the institutions at Pearl City is the
brass band of fourteen pieces. The band is under the leadership
of Mr. J. W. Cuthbert, Jr., the Secretary of the Executive Coun-
cil of the Mosquito nation. The Sambos performed for our edifi-
cation and to their own satisfaction for at least two hours. Among
the tunes were some which I recognized as having done long
service on our variety stage.

The genuine Mosquitos, although they number over six thou-
sand, are rarely met with at the coast settlements. They do not
care to observe the restrictions put upon them by the local au-
thorities in clothing themselves. Scantiness of dress is character-
istic of a true Mosquito Indian, and in the interior of the country
they can be observed in all their natural simplicity of costume.
It must be admitted that for this hot, moist climate this is not an
unreasonable state of affairs. I was fortunate in securing pictures
of a number of groups of natives, both of the true Mosquito and
of the Sambo variety, and some of these, with a picture of a
native " shack" or bamboo house, are shown in the illustrations.
Besides the banana and mahogany, the Mosquito country has
other valuable resources. In its northern portion the country
has extensive savannas covered with luxuriant grass the whole
year round, affording admirable opportunities for cattle-raising.
This business is yet in its infancy, but promises to assume respect-
able proportions. Cotton blooms wild and will bear through the
entire year ; sugar cane will produce a crop every seven months \
rice, every four months ; and oranges, lemons, limes, pineapples,
and a host of other fruit grow wild. The upper runs of the north-
ern rivers and creeks have gold-bearing sand, and it is not impos-
sible that some day the " Reserve " will take rank as a gold-pro-
ducing country.

The " amber and jade " mines of Upper Burma have been visited by Dr.
Noettlinji:, who has reported upon them to tlie Geologiosd Survey of India. The
"amber" is a fossil resin correspondin«;; with tliat called burmite, fluorescent,
looking like solidified kerosene oil, and darker and harder than ordinary amber.
The "jade" is jadeite, worked in ])it and quarry mints for forty miles along the
bank of the Uru River and on the top of a plateau at Tammaw. The industry i&
a thriving one, employing five hundred men, and ])romises well for future more
systematic and skilled development. White is the commonest color; green is-
rare; and some of the bowlders are red.

WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS. 175

WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS.

By LESTER F. WAKD.

"VTEARLY three years ago, and before the appearance of the
-^^ second volume of Weismann's Essays,* in a Critique of
Weismann,t based entirely on statements contained in the first
volume, I intimated that in my judgment he had already ad-
mitted enough to invalidate his doctrine of the non-transmissi-
bility of acquired characters where these are of a functional na-
ture. After showing from his own language that, according to
his theory, no variation would be possible later than the Protozoan
stage of development, which was a reductio ad absurdum, I pro-
ceeded to point out that, apparently from a sense of this position,
he had actually admitted the possibility that external influences
may affect the germ. One of the passages embodying such an
admission is the following :

" I believe, however, that they [hereditary variations] can be
referred to the various external influences to which the germ is
exposed before the commencement of embryonic development.
Hence we may fairly attribute to the adult organism influences
which determine the x^tiyletic development of its descendants.
For the germ cells are contained in the organism, and the ex-
ternal influences which affect them are intimately connected with
the state of the organism in which they lie hid. If it be well
nourished, the germ cells will have abundant nutriment ; and,
conversely, if it be weak and sickly, the germ cells will be arrested
in their growth. It is even possible that the effects of these influ-
ences may be more specialized ; that is to say, they may act only
upon certain parts of the germ cells." |

In the same essay, speaking of the influence of climate, he also
uses language that has a decidedly Lamarckian sound :

" It is difficult to say whether the changed climate may not
have first changed the germ, and if this were the case the accumu-
lation of effects through the action of heredity would present no
difficulty." *

Upon this, my comment was :

" I can not see why this is not conceding the whole issue. Of

* Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Prol^lems. By Dr. August Weis-
mann. Authorized Translation. Oxford: At the Clarendon Pre.ss. Vol. i, 1889; vol.
ii, 1892.

f Neo Darwinism and Neo-Lamarckism. Annual Address of the President of the Bio-
logit-al Society of Washington, delivered January 24, 1891. Proceedings, vol. vi, Washing-
ton, 1891, pp. 45-5(1.

X Essays, vol. i, pp. 103-104. # Ibid., p. 98.

1-6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

course, all modifications must first afi^ect the germ, otherwise
there could be no hereditary transmission. The only question is :
Can the climate or the environment impress changes upon the
germ ? If yes, the Neo-Lamarckian asks no more. All that he
contends for is conceded." *

In his later work on the Germ-Plasm, f Prof. Weismann says
that I am in error if I suppose that " the proof that climatic
influences are capable of modifying the germ-plasm contains all
that is required by the Neo-Lamarckian school." It is true that
climatic influences in the restricted sense are not the only ones
that Neo-Lamarckians suppose to act directly upon the germ.
They maintain that functional variations are heritable to a greater
or less degree, and make the chief distinction between these and
accidental variations, such as mutilations and other injuries. The
principal stress has hitherto been and still continues to be laid,
by both Prof. Weismann and his followers, upon the latter class,
which is therefore a waste of words and a mere show of argu-
ment calculated to deceive those who have little acquaintance
with the subject. But when it comes to modifications of form
which are brought about by the efforts and struggles of the
creature to obtain its sustenance or accomplish desired ends, the
case is wholly different. Such modifications are necessarily com-
plex and involve a harmonious adjustment of all the parts that
are brought into exercise, which, when transmitted, secures the
complete and systematic variation which species are believed to
undergo. Climatic influences are among the most important ones
against which the creature thus reacts, but the entire environ-
ment may be regarded as constantly impinging, so as to bring-
about perpetual modifications.

In the second volume of his Essays there are further conces-
sions in this same general direction. In his reply to Prof. Vines,
he is compelled to admit that variation may take place in differ-
ent forms of asexual reproduction, which is a practical abandon-
ment of his theory of the continuity — i. e., of the unalterable na-
ture— of the germ-plasm. He is apparently willing to " concede
that some amount of individual variability can be called forth by
direct influences on the germ-plasm." I Surely a discussion as to
the "amount" of such variation is a radically different thing
from a discussion as to whether it can take place at all. The
principle at issue is shifted when such an admission is made.

* Neo-Darwini.sni, etc., ]). 58.

f The Germ-Plasm : A Theory of Heredity. By August WeLsmimn. Translated by W.
Newtcm Parker and Harriet Hiiunl'eldt. New York: Cliarles Scribner's Sons, 18i)o. Con-
temporary Science Series. See p. lOS.

I Essays, vol. ii, j). '.t5.

WEI SM ANN'S CONCESSIONS. 177

But this "was only a beginning of the almost complete retreat
that he has now made in his last work on the Germ-Plasm. As
before, it seems to have been the phenomena which the vegetable
kingdom presents that most obstinately refuse to adapt them-
selves to the mechanical theory of heredity of which he is the
author. Before these facts his fundamental distinction between
the blastogenic and the somatogenic idioplasm breaks down com-
pletely, and here at least he is " compelled to assume that most,
if not all, of the cells contain all the primary constituents of the
species in a latent condition." * After carefully considering such
cases as those of Bryophyllum and Begonia, almost any part of
which may be made to grow if properly situated, he admits that
such observations " apparently prove that ' every small fragment
of the members of a plant contains the elements from which the
whole complex body can be built up, when this fragment is iso-
lated under suitable external conditions.' " f

Before passing to the major admissions of Weismann it may
be well to mention a few of the " doubtful phenomena of heredity "
which, in case they really occur, form such a stumbling block to
his system. On this side of the water one is amused at the state-
ment that " blue grains occasionally occur among the yellow ones
in cobs of the yellow-grained maize {Zea) after fertilization with
the pollen of a blue-grained species." X There is probably only
one " species " of Indian corn, but the cultivated varieties are end-
less, and every farmer's boy knows that it is of the greatest im-
portance to keep these apart, so that the ears will " fill " with the
same kind of kernels. Few American farmers would hesitate to
stake their farms on the much more than " occasional " occurrence
of different kinds of kernels on the same cob in a field where
different varieties are planted together.

As regards the numerous cases of the alleged transmission of
characters derived from one sire to the offspring of a subsequent
sire, though disposed to discredit the evidence, he nevertheless
admits their possibility to a limited extent. For he says of them :
** We may, however, at any rate suppose that this so-called ' in-
fection,' if not altogether deceptive, only occurs in rare instances,
and by no means regularly, or at most only in some cases." *

Here we have again, as in the general case above considered, a
characteristic Weismaniiian argument, shifting the point from
the qualitative to the quantitative, from the principle to the de-
gree, which reminds one very forcibly of Jack Easy's wet nurse

* The Germ-Plasm, p. 206. The Italics are his in this and all subsequent passages,
f Ibid., p. 212. The words quoted by Prof. Weismann appear to be taken from
De Vries.

X Ibid., p. 383. * Ibid., p. 385.

VOL. XLV. — 13

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Sarah, who sought to excuse the illegitimacy of her child by the
plea that " it was a very little one." In his reply to Mr. Herbert
Spencer's articles * he has made matters worse by explaining it
on the supposition that "spermatozoa occasionally reach the
ovary, and there enter into some of the immature eggs. Am-
phimixis can not proceed, as the germ-plasm of the egg is not ripe,
but the nucleus of the sperm cell continues to live in certain cir-
cumstances, and so remains till the time of a subsequent coitus
with another mate." f

It is obvious that in such a case the " subsequent coitus " need
have nothing to do with the matter ; whenever the egg was ripe
there would be nothing to prevent amphimixis taking place, fol-
lowed by all the stages of ontogeny, and we should have a case of
parthenogenesis in the mammalia. If this were possible in the
human race it would create something of a ripple in the social
world.

Prof. Weismann does not deny that certain diseases, especially
germ diseases, are hereditary aiid directly transmissible in the
first instance, and he admits that this has " definitely been proved
to occur in the case of syphilis. The father, as well as the mother,
is capable of transmitting this disease to the embryo, and the
only possible explanation of this fact is, therefore, that the spe-
cific bacteria of syphilis can be transmitted by the spermato-
zoon." X But he will not admit that this constitutes a case of the
transmission of acquired characters, undertakes to connect it with
the adaptation of the parasite to the host, and concludes :

" It will, I think, at any rate be conceded that a ' constitutional '
disease can not be taken as a proof that the processes of heredity
are therein concerned until we can determine wdiether we are
actually dealing with heredity — i. e., the transmission of a consti-
tution— and not only with a transference of microbes." *

This all seems very absurd to the average reader, and conveys
the impression that the scientific discussion of these questions has,
after all, no interest for the public, and only amounts to a useless
hair-splitting on the part of the doctors. For what matters it to
the consumptive whether his case is one of " the transmission of a
constitution" or "the transference of microbes" ? Mr. Spencer, in
the articles above referred to, has sufiiciently characterized the
reasoning which allows a microscopically visible microbe to pene-

* The Inadequacy of " Natural Selection." Contemporary Review for February, March,
and May, 1893; reprint, London, Williams & Norgate ; New York, D. Appleton & Co.,
1893, p. 69.

f The All-sufficiency of Natural Selection. A Reply to Herbert Spencer. Contemporary
Review for September and October, 1893, p. 609.

X The Germ-Plasm, p. 388. * Ibid., p. 891.

WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS. 179

trate tissues througli wliicli even biophors can not pass ; and Prof.
Weismann, in showing tliat tlie latter must break out of jail,
sliould also explain how the former are able to break into jail.
Taking all these things into account, I am constrained to repeat a
former remark, that " if the term ' acquired ' is to be any further
refined away, then discussion is useless, for it is not a mere dis-
pute about a word that interests us, but the fundamental question
whether external conditions do or do not permanently and pro-
gressively influence the development of organic beings." *

Reverting, then, to the main question as to the influence of
external conditions on the germ, I would remind the reader that
in his essay on amphimixis, originally published in 1891, Prof.
Weismann held that " a belief m the inheritance of acquired char-
acters by the highly differentiated Protozoa, as ivell as by Metazoa,
must be opposed," and imagined that " the phyletic modifications
of Protozoa arise from the germ-plasm, that is from the idioplasm
of the nucleus " ; f and he further says :

" My earlier views on unicellular organisms as the source of
individual differences, in the sense that each change called forth
in them by external influences, or by use and disuse, was supposed
to be hereditary, must therefore be dismissed to some stage less
distant from the origin of life." |

He then ascribed all variations above this early stage to am-
phimixis and sexual reproduction. In the new work he indeed
reiterates this view, and says that these processes furnish "an
inexhaustible supply of fresh combinations of individual varia-
tions which are indispensable to the process of selection." * But
he now introduces the following important qualification :

" Although the process of amphimixis is an essential condition
for the further development of the species, and for its adaptation
to new conditions of existence among the higher and more com-
plicated organisms, it is not the primary cause of hereditary vari-
ation." II

He then proceeds to explain the change that has taken place in
his mind, obviously while writing this book, admits that he had
overestimated the power of sexual reproduction to modify spe-
cies, and shows that though the general result might be changed
there could be no variation in the determinants themselves,
" which alone could gradually lead to a transformation of the
species." Not only is amphimixis incapable of modifying the de-
terminants, but it is also, and for the same reason, incapable of
increasing the number of kinds, yet on his general theory these

* Neo-Darwinism and Neo-Lamarckism, etc., p. 59.

f Essays, vol. ii, p. 192. X ^^'^^-i P- l^'^-

* The Germ-Plasm, p. 413. || Ibid., p. 414.

i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

must be enormously increased with the development of every
species. A new principle must therefore be found to explain the
observed fact. Strangely enough, he jBnds this principle to be
none other than the Lamarckian law of the effect of external con-
ditions in modifying the hereditary elements !

" Amphimixis alone could never produce a multiplication of
the determinants. The cause of hereditary variation must lie
deeper than this; it must he due to the direct effect of external in-
fluences on the biophors and determinants '"^

It is easy to see that this is a complete abandonment of his
fundamental doctrine of the immutability of the germ-plasm, and
here again he shifts the point of the argument to the quantitative*
and would have us believe that it was the same thing to say that
it possesses " great power of remaining constant." But he adds :

" We can none the less avoid assuming that the elements of the
germ-plasm — i.e., the biophors and determinants — are subject to
continual changes of composition during their almost uninter-
rupted growth, and that these very minute jfiictuations, ivhich are
imperceptible to us, are the primary cause of the greater deviations
in the determinants, which we finally observe in the form of indi-
vidual variations." f

These variations that take place in the hereditary elements he
ascribes to " the impossibility of a complete uniformity as regards
nutrition existing during growth," or to " the modifying influence
of nutrition." The following passage is as complete an admission
of the Lamarckian principle as any one need wish, while at the
same time it illustrates over again his characteristic tendency to
evade the issue by maintaining that its influence is small com-
pared to that of some other principle :

"Even though it can no longer be doubted that climatic and
other external influences are capable of producing permanent
variations in a species, owing to the fact that, after acting uni-
formly for a long period, they cause the first slight modifications
of certain determinants to increase, and gradually affect the less
changeable variants of the determinants also, the countless ma-
jority of modifications is not due to this cause, but to the processes
of selection." J

In this passage there is a curious psychological implication in
the expresssion " no longer," which obviously refers to the changes
in his own mind, that are by him projected to the world at large,
which, as a matter of fact, has from the first intuitively arrived
at the conclusion which has cost him such a great cycle of elab-
orate reasoning. This new theory of his as to the origin of varia-
tions is summed up in the following paragraph :

* The Germ-Plasm, p. 415. f Ibid., p. ill. % ^^^^-i P- ^22.

WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS. 181

" The origin of a variation is equally independent of selection
and of amphimixis, and is due to the constant recurrence of slight
inequalities of nutrition in the germ-plasm which affect every
determinant in one way or another, and differ even in the same
germ-plasm — not only in different individuals but also in different
regions. These variations are at first infinitesimal, hut may ac-
cumulate ; and, in fact, they must do so when the modified condi-
tions of nutrition which gave rise to them have lasted for several
generations. In this way deviations may occur in the structure
of single determinants or of groups of them — never, perhaps, in
all ids at once, but at any rate in several or even many of them.
A doubling of certain determinants of the germ-plasm may origi-
nate in the same way. The process of amphimixis has an impor-
tant share in the accumulation of these modified determinants, for
it may raise the minority previously existing in the two parents
to a majority by combining their halved germ-plasms. Then, and
then only, does selection begin to take place." *

After all this it is certainly surprising that he should still
cling to his former declaration that acquired characters are not
transmissible. After abandoning all his premises he still adheres
to his conclusion. Dr. J. G. Romanes, who has been one of his
most liberal critics, after characterizing the latter part of the
Germ-Plasm as " a right-about-face manoeuvre," says that his first
impulse " was to cancel all the criticisms which I had written of
the Weismannian theory," f and it really seems as though it were
time to drop this prolonged discussion. Its further continuance
must certainly be chargeable to his own course as pursued in
Chapter XIII of his Germ-Plasm, and in his reply to Mr. Spencer
in the face of these concessions. It is somewhat difficult to under-
stand how he is able to reconcile these apparently conflicting
views. That he does not limit the influence of external conditions
to the germ-plasm proper, or fertilized germ cell, is apparent from
his cheerful acceptance of Nageli's " opinion that all variations
are slowly prepared in the idioplasm in the course of generations
before they become apparent," and we must suppose him to admit
that it is the hereditary units themselves that are undergoing
these transformations. In my address before the Biological Soci-
ety I had referred to this in the following language :

" You will understand that I am speaking of variations which
take place in the germ cells and sperm cells of parental organisms
before they blend in the fertilized ovum. Most of Weismann's
argument is directed to show that the fertilized ovum itself can
not be affected by any transforming influence acting upon the

* The Germ-Plasm, p. 431.

f The Open Court, vol. vii. Chicago, September 14, 1893. Supplement, p. iii.

i82 THE POPULAR SCIEyCE MONTHLY.

motlier during the growth of the embryo. This may be true, but
it is unimportant. The time required to develop the embryo is
too short for the environment to produce any material change
however strong the tendency might be at the time in the direction
of such change. It is chiefly the uncombined sexual elements
which are admitted by all to be undergoing specific transforma-
tion." *

This is the main issue, and if admitted, the Neo-Lamarckian
asks no more. How then does Weismann evade this issue ? He
says :

" It is self-evident from the theory of heredity here propound-
ed, that only those characters are transmissible which have been
controlled — i. e., produced — by determinants of the germ, and that
consequently only those variations are hereditary which result
from the modification of several or many determinants in the
germ-plasm, and not those which have arisen subsequently in
consequence of some influence exerted upon the cells of the body.
In other words, it follows from this theory that somatogenic or
acquired characters can not he transmitted." f

From these and other statements we are obliged to infer that
while he admits the power of external influences to affect the
somatic cells at all points where they impinge, adapting the
organs of the body to the environment, and also admits that in-
equalities of nutrition (which at bottom are the same thing) mod-
ify the germ cells, he denies that these two facts have any con-
nection with each other. Obvious as it is that the species becomes
modified to suit the changing environment just as does the indi-
vidual, he attributes the former wholly to natural selection and the
latter wholly to direct adaptation. All, therefore, that is gained
by this latter process is necessarily lost, and we have a strong in-
dictment against Nature, " who," he says, " always manages with
economy." X I^ seems far more logical to argue from the econ-
omy of Nature and the parallelism of these two processes for a
causal connection between them.

But it must not be forgotten that he now makes natural
selection itself entirely dependent upon "inequalities of nutri-
tion" in the germ-plasm as its universal antecedent. Is this
then so widely different from the direct adaptation that takes
place in the somatic cells ? Let us see how narrow the distinc-
tion grows with careful analysis. He admits that alcohol affects
the germ and sperm cells by debilitating them and makes weakly
children. He would admit the same of any deleterious drug.
He would not deny that any disease that debilitates the parents

* Neo-Darwinisra and Neo-Laraarckism, etc., p. 49.
f Germ-Plasm, p. 462, % Ibid., p. 63.

WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS. 183

would have a similar effect. These agencies may he regarded
as the opposites of nutrition — i, e., as constituting part of the
"inequalities of nutrition" that affect the germ and cause it to
vary. Variations in the germ-plasm are necessarily quantita-
tive, more or less, according as nutrition is abundant or deficient,
and all qualitative differences must be due to the external in-
fluences affecting certain constituents more strongly than the
rest. How, then, does this differ from pure Lamarckism ?

When we say that an organ is strengthened by use, there is
obviously an ellipsis. What we mean is that exercise increases
nutrition and nutrition strengthens the organ. We may be even
more explicit and say that exercise causes increased circulation to
the part exercised, causing more tissue to be deposited, thus en-
larging and strengthening the organ. Lamarck, of course, under-
stood all this, but did not think it necessary to explain these ele-
mentary principles. It is the same with the influence of climate
and of the environment in general. All these agencies produce
variation by affecting nutrition. If defective nutrition can affect
the germ-plasm, why can not abundant nutrition affect it ? How
does the germ get its nutrition except in the same way that all
the other cells of the body get theirs, through the food supply ?
Is the germ " immortal " in the sense that, like spirit, it can sub-
sist indefinitely upon nothing ? If it depends upon sustenance
from the body, it must receive its nutrition from the body, and the
quantity and quality of that nutrition will vary as those of the
body vary. That they do vary he admits, and makes this the
Yeryfons et origo of hereditary variation.

But it does not seem possible to Prof. Weismann that a specific
variation of some organ or part of the body can influence the re-
productive products in precisely the same way so as to perpetuate
that variation in the progeny. That we can not understand this
may be freely admitted. It is the essence of the mystery of
heredity. We know that like produces like. If we abandon that
principle, there will be no stopping short of the opposite one, that
like produces unlike. It is the same in principle to say that
horses may produce cattle as to say that robust horses may pro-
duce feeble ones, although the robust ones may have acquired
their robustness, not formerly possessed, through proper food,
care, and treatment. And there is still no difference in the prin-
ciple if, instead of robustness, the character be some specific one,
such as a " racking" gait, which might be acquired during the life
of a single individual. Such qualities are often transmitted. So,
too, are the colors of flowers, which can be changed by adding cer-
tain ingredients to the soil, as are also certain artificially enforced
habits in plants, such as are engendered by " layering," etc. But
these are characters only feebly impressed and can not be expected

184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to persist unless carefully aided by artificial selection, yet they
must have commenced as acquired characters. Well-broken horses
and well-trained dogs transmit these qualities to their offspring,
and all domestication and cultivation of animals and plants, all
changes wrought in them by man, must have been first acquired
to some degree, and then, by intelligent selection, the degree can
easily be increased. Like produces like, and if we can not ex-
plain why, it is because we have not yet solved the problem of
heredity. The elaborate theory offered by Prof. Weismann in his
Germ-Plasm, plausible as it sometimes seems, true as it doubtless
is in many of its details, utterly fails to solve this problem. It is
altogether too rigid, too mechanical, to explain such subtle
phenomena. Nature is more flexible, more self-adjusting, more
delicate than his system contemplates, and is constantly doing
just those things which he insists can not be done.

I trust that it has been sufficiently shown, chiefly from his
own words, that in elaborating this complicated theory Prof.
Weismann, guided, as he always seems to be, by the highest re-
gard for truth, has, greatly to his credit, conceded all the essential
points in the long controversy as to the inheritance of acquired
characters. The discussion may therefore be regarded as nar-
rowed down, not so much to the relative importance of the direct
and indirect factors, as to the degree to which in any given case
the one or the other has operated in determining the observed
result.

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM.

Bt 6. FEEDEKICK WEIGHT,

PE0FES90R OF THE HAEMONY OF SCIENCE AND EEVELATION IN OBEELIN COLLEGE.

IN many respects the Ohio is one of the most remarkable rivers
in the world. Its drainage basin comprises about two hun-
dred thousand square miles on the northwestern slope of the Alle-
ghany Mountains. Its eastern tributaries rise at an elevation of
something over two thousand feet above the sea, and hence are so
situated as to carry the rainfall and the melting snows with great
rapidity into the main channel, which at Pittsburg is seven hun-
dred feet above the sea, and at Cairo, where it unites with the
Mississippi, about three hundred feet ; the descent from Pittsburg
to Cairo being about four hundred feet in a distance, as the river
runs, of nearly a thousand miles.

The whole course of the river is through sedimentary rocks,
which, though of Palaeozoic age, have been but slightly disturbed.
The elevation of the region has been so continental in its propor-
tions that the rocks have retained to a great degree their original

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM. 185

horizontal position. Through these comparatively horizontal
strata the Ohio River has worn a gorge of remarkable uniformity,
and several hundred feet in depth. Even to the ordinary observer
it is clear that this trough is one of erosion ; for the strata of rock
upon one side of the river match those upon the other as precisely
as do the two ends of a board which has been sawed apart. The
seams of sandstone, coal, and lime rock upon one side correspond
to similar seams upon the other ; while the river does not pursue
a straight course, but follows, throughout, a very tortuous chan-
nel, such as is begun by the meandering of a stream over a nearly
level surface.

The width of this rocky gorge is from a quarter of a mile,
where the rocks are peculiarly hard, to a mile or over, where they
are more easily disintegrated. For the most part, also, the tribu-
taries occupy corresponding gorges, with a width contracted to
the proportion of the individual drainage basins. At the junction
of the main stream with the tributaries there is usually an en-
largement of the gorge such as would naturally follow from the
combination of erosive forces which there occurs. These features
of the trough of the Ohio and its tributaries give character to the
scenery throughout its course. Nowhere from the decks of the
steamer does one get an extended view on either side. Every-
where the vision is circumscribed by the hills, more or less pre-
cipitous, which rise close at hand upon both the right and the
left ; while the windings of the channel are such that no very dis-
tant views are obtained either before or behind. The railroads
which connect the cities in the valley are compelled either to hug
the side of the gorge between the river and the precipitous ledges,
or to strike up some one of the tributaries, and then, after cross-
ing the country for a while, follow down another to the level of the
main stream. The land a little back from the trough of the river
is very broken and hilly, since all the affluents of any size have
eroded channels for themselves down to the depth of the princi-
pal gorge.

Above Louisville, Ky.,the large cities upon the Ohio strikingly
reveal the limitations imposed upon them by the character of the
river valley. Having begun as a cluster of houses upon the
river's bank, they have gradually spread back upon it, until
reaching the base of the rocky precipices. With the rapid
growth both of population and of improvements in later years,
Cincinnati and Pittsburg have literally overflowed their banks
and risen to the summit of the hills on either side, the inhabitants
being transported from their places of business to their residences
by long inclines up which the street cars are drawn at a steep
angle to a height of from three to five hundred feet, from which
positions extended views are given in every direction over the

VOL. XLV. 14

*-. '^

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM. 187

broken surface whose summits represent the once comparatively
level area. At Parker City, Pa., an elevator was once used to lift
foot travelers from the lower terrace to the upper terrace, two
hundred feet above.

Although flowing in so deep a trough, the present Ohio River
is considerably elevated above the ancient bottom. This is owing
to the fact that during the Glacial period such an excessive
amount of gravel was brought down from the Alleghany River
and other northern tributaries that the old channel was silted up
to a considerable depth. At Cincinnati there is more than one
hundred feet of gravel between the present river bottom and the
rock bottom. Below the mouths of the most important northern
tributaries the accumulations were much greater than this. At
Cincinnati the channel was choked with gravel from the Little
Miami to a height of one hundred and twenty feet above the
present river. Subsequently this was partly eroded away, leaving
the one-hundred-and-twenty-foot gravel terrace which is now oc-
cupied by Fourth Street.

It is fortunate for civilization that there are left along the
trough of the Ohio numerous remnants of this high-level glacial
terrace ; otherwise the cities would be even more subject to damage
from floods than they are now ; for the Ohio River is subject to
greater fluctuations of level than almost any other stream in the
world. During the flood of 1884 the water rose at Cincinnati
seventy-one feet, submerging the railroad stations and much
of the lower part of the city, but leaving that portion which
was upon the glacial terrace fifty feet above water. The cities
which were not favored with so marked a gravel terrace, or had
not taken advantage of their opportunities, were for many days
turned into miniature Venices, the lower stories of the houses
being generally submerged by the muddy torrent, and boats
being able to pass freely through all the streets.

The cause of these enormous floods along the Ohio is readily
perceived ; for, as already remarked, the slope of the streams rising
along the summit of the Alleghany Mountains and flowing into the
Ohio is so rapid that the water from the rains and melting snows
finds its way into the main trough of the river in an incredibly
short time, while the trough is so narrow in places, especially just
below Cincinnati, as greatly to impede the progress of the current.
Two or three inches of rainfall over two hundred thousand square
miles provides an enormous quantity of water, which, upon being
suddenly transferred to the river channel, turns a stream which
can sometimes be forded in dry weather into a steadily advancing
column of water one thousand miles long and from fifty to
seventy-five feet deep. It is interesting to watch from the
weather bulletins the progress of the waves that move down the

188

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Oliio upon the unusual rise of any of its upper tributaries. At
Pittsburg thousands of coal barges collect during low water to
take advantage of these waves of translation, and move forward
upon them with their valuable freight like a vast army to supply
the great cities of the Mississippi Valley with fuel. But, as with

Fig. 1. jAt~l'EK ( 'oNULii.MEKATE BoWLDEK, TllRKE FeKI IN DlAMETKK, IKuM iS'oKTH OF

Lake Huron. Found near Union, Boone County, Ky. (See Map II.) From photograph
by the author, reproduced in The Ice Age of North America, p. 328.

everything else, the best gifts of Nature are those which come in
moderation. Enough is better than more. Excessiv e floods inter-
fere with navigation as effectually as does a lack of water.

With these facts in mind, while surveying, in the year 1882,
the glacial boundary across the Mississippi Valley, I reached Cin-
cinnati, having traced the border line to the river twenty-five or
thirty miles above the city. Upon crossing to the general level of
the hills in Kentucky, I found various indubitable evidences that
the ice had extended across the trough of the Ohio, and left its
marks several miles south of the river over the northern part of
Boone County, and up to an elevation of more than five hundred
feet above low-water mark. This was along the watershed be-
tween the Licking and Ohio Rivers, which was continuous at this
height to the central part of Kentucky. Among other evidences
one of the most conspicuous was a bowlder of jasj^er conglom-
erate, three feet in diameter, found near Union, in Boone County,
which was subsequently transported to Chicago as a part of the
Ohio glacial exhibit at the Columbian Exposition. Its right to
have a place in an Ohio exhibit was due partly to the fact that it
was discovered by an Ohio man, but chiefly from the fact that, at

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM.

189

the snail's pace at which a glacier moves, this bowlder must have
been in the territory of Ohio for an enormous period of time, long
enough for even a bowlder to become naturalized. If, however,
the Canadians should claim it as a fugitive from justice, they
would have a prior right, for the ledges from which it was de-
rived are near Thessalon, in Ontario, north of Lake Huron. In
searching for bowlders in southern Ohio, I was accustomed to
hear them referred to as " niggerheads." In the progress of dis-
covery it was found that the numerous articles of that descrip-
tion which in recent times Kentucky had furnished to Canada
were in payment of a debt under which the Dominion had placed
the southern commonwealth long ages before.

It is important to note that my discovery of Canadian bowlders
on the hills of Kentucky was not the first which had been made
there. As far back as 1845 Prof. Locke had noted the post-glacial
conglomerate called Split Rock, below Woolpert's Creek, opposite

Fig. 2. — Split Rock, neae Mouth of Woolpert's Ckeek, Ky. This is part of an extensive
deposit of bowlders and gravel with some Canadian pebbles, all cemented toffether by
infiltrated carbonate of lime. From photograph by the author, reproduced in Tlie Ice Age
of North America, p. 345.

Aurora, Ind., but had regarded this as the remnants of local
strata which had been nearly worn away. In 1872 also, Mr.
Robert B. Warder had suggested that this was possibly a termi-
nal moraine. Still later Dr. Sutton, in 1876, and Prof. Cox, in
1878, had noted similar deposits near the summit of the Kentucky
hills, on Middle Creek opposite Aurora, and had attributed them
correctly to glacial action during the maximum stage of the great

190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Ice period. But because of the imperfect knowledge of the glacial
geology of the valley possessed at that time, these discoveries
attracted little attention. Various causes, however, conspired to
give a somewhat extraordinary notoriety to the facts as they
were presented at the meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science at Minneapolis in 1883. At that
time a systematic exploration of the glacial boundary had been
conducted from the Atlantic Ocean to Cincinnati, showing that
the Ohio River lay for the most part considerably south of the
farthest extension of the ice. Also attention was then first called
to the full extent to which the ice had crossed the river in that
vicinity. For a distance of nearly one hundred miles it was now
demonstrated that the ice came down to the north margin of the
trough of the river, and for much of that distance crossed it and
mounted the hills upon the opposite side, reaching at one point
fully ten miles upon the high land beyond the river. This could
not well help suggesting the formation of an ice dam at Cincin-
nati which would set the water back up the Ohio and its tribu-
taries to the level of the watershed between the Licking and the
Ohio, thus forming a narrow and tortuous lake several hundred
miles long, which would be five hundred feet deep above Cincinnati
and two hundred and fifty feet deep at Pittsburg. (See Map I.)

Finally, some of the geologists who had been engaged upon
the survey of western Pennsylvania at once came forward and
affirmed that such an obstruction as this supposed at Cincinnati
helped to explain a great number of facts respecting certain high-
level gravel terraces characterizing the Alleghany and Mononga-
hela Rivers, which were surprisingly near the level of the water
of the supposed glacial lake. At the meeting at Minneapolis
Prof. Lesley, under whose vigilant eye the recent geological sur-
vey of Pennsylvania has been conducted, declared that he had for
some time been expecting the discovery of a local obstruction to
the drainage of the Ohio River which would account for the
gravel terraces on the Alleghany and Monongahela to which
reference has been made, and now, says he, Providence has pro-
vided it, and Wright's dam clears up the whole problem, or
words to that efi'ect.

Such was the boom with which the theory of the Cincinnati
ice dam was brought before the public in 1883. During the ten
years which have since elapsed, the hypothesis has been subject
to much criticism, so that the faith of some has been shaken, and
the theory itself is thought by many to be left in rather a dam-
aged condition. The fullness with which the main facts have
been already presented makes it possible to tell the remaining
part of the story and state the present condition of the theory in
few words.

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM,

191

So complicated are the forces of Nature that one discovery is
sure to lead to another, and the man of science soon learns that
he never exhausts attainable knowledge even in respect to the
simplest subject, and the student has made little true advance-
ment if he has not acquired ability to hold his mind wide open

Map II, showinjr tlie partly filled prejilacial chauuel of the Ohio, extendiutr from Cincinnati to
the Biir Miami at Hamilton. The fic;ures show elevations above the sea.

for the reception of any and all additional facts which may mod-
ify and enlarge his theories. In the present case most interesting
additions to our knowledge of the facts were made by Prof. Jo-
seph F. James, who called attention to the breadth and depth of
the valley running northward from Cincinnati to Hamilton, on
the Great Miami River, and to the comparative narrowness and

192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shallowness of the present rocky gorge of the Ohio between Cin-
cinnati * and the mouth of the Great Miami. The relative nar-
rowness also of the latter opening between the rocky escarpments
is readily visible to the transient traveler. Mill Creek Valley be-
ing about twice as wide as that of the Ohio for fifteen or twenty
miles below the mouth of the creek ; while a low passage joins
Mill Creek at Ludlow Grove which sweeps around north of Wal-
nut Hills, and enters the Ohio through the valley of the Little
Miami — Walnut Hills, Mount Auburn, and Mount Lookout, the
principal residence portions of the city, being upon a high, rocky
pedestal completely surrounded by a depression which has at
some time been produced by river erosion.

This valley from Cincinnati to Hamilton is now filled with
gravel and clay to a great depth. Upon inquiring for the extent
to which the old channel had been filled, it was found by the
wells which had been sunk in it that the rock bottom descends
from Cincinnati to Hamilton, and is considerably lower than the
rock bottom of the present Ohio below Mill Creek. Near Ludlow
Grove the bed rock is at least sixty feet below present low water
in the Ohio. A few miles farther north, at Ivorydale, on Mill
Creek, the bed rock where reached was found to be thirty-four
feet below low-water mark in the Ohio, while there was nothing
to show that in other portions of the valley the gravel was not
still deeper. At Hamilton the bed rock was found to be at least
ninety-one feet below the bottom of the Ohio River, showing that
there is a deeply buried channel through Mill Creek Valley from
Cincinnati to Hamilton ; while, according to the inspector, Mr. C.
J. Bates, upon building the piers for the great bridge of the Cin-
cinnati Southern Railroad, which crosses the Ohio River near the
west end of the city, it was found that the rock bottom was
everywhere within a few feet of the low-water mark ; thus fully
justifying the inference of Prof. James, which can best be given
in his own words :

"... Previous to the Glacial period a barrier of land extended
from Price Hill on the north to the mouth of the Licking River
on the south, preventing the westward flow of the Ohio, and forc-
ing it north and northwest along the channels of Mill Creek and
Duck Creek. These met at Ludlow Grove (near Cummingsville)
and together continued north to Hamilton. Here entered the
Great Miami, and the united streams continued in great volume
southward to the present channel of the Ohio, at Lawrenceburg.

" At the coming on of the Glacial period a tongue of ice pro-
jecting down the valley from the north and surrounding the Cin-
cinnati Island, as we may call that high land now covered with

* See Map II.

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM, 193

suburban liomes, forced the water of the Ohio southward, over
the watershed of the Licking, possibly into what is now the Ken-
tucky River gorge. This course was pursued for an indefinite
period ; but, when the ice had retired, the river returned to its
own channel near Cincinnati. Finding, however, its outlet to the
north choked by debris of the glacier, and the former barrier of land
between Price Hill and the mouth of the Licking lowered or cut
away, it followed the line of drainage it holds at the present time.

" If the eye of savage man gazed upon the site of Cincinnati
before the age of ice, he beheld a vastly different scene from what
he would behold now. Standing on the highest point of Mount
Auburn [Walnut Hills], he looked south over a deep, rocky
gorge, through which rolled the mighty Ohio. On the west was
the rocky shore of Price Hill extending in an unbroken line north
and south to Kentucky. The Licking River entered as a tribu-
tary here. On the east was another waste of water rolling its
dark tide northward, and joining the western branch beyond the
hills of Clifton. No broad expanse of valley nor of rolling plain
lay beneath him ; no city was there, teeming with life and hum-
ming with industry ; no railroad trains were panting and puffing,
holding their way toward sites of unknown towns. But the
water swiftly, with sullen roar re-echoing from cliff to cliff', pur-
sued its journey toward its unknown grave. No steamer plowed
its waters, but dugout or canoe probably carried primitive man
from camp to camp or shore to shore. Where once the imagi-
nary savage stood are now jjalatial mansions. Where once the
waters spread their turbid tide is now a busy city of four hun-
dred thousand people. The water which was once cleft only by
the prow of frail canoe is now a highway for many floating
palaces. Where once the stream pursued its northward course,
the iron horse carries thousands daily to and from their homes in
the wide and fertile Mill Creek Valley. Never would all this
have been had not the Glacial period wrought its wondrous
change. But the ice filled the valley and forced the river from
its course. When permitted to return, the ancient channel was
so filled with debris that a new one must be cut out, leaving the
old one to 1)e utilized by man as a way for his iron servant and as
a place whereon to build his cities." *

An inspection of the general map (Map I) will show that this
ancient deflection of the Ohio by way of Hamilton is in analogy
with the course of the river in many other i)laces, as at Beaver,
Pa., and below Marietta, Ohio, and that Prof. James's discovery
of the buried channel, showing the ancient deflection by way of

* Journal of the Cincinuati Society of Natural History, July -October, 1888, pp.
100, 101.

VOL. XLV. 15

194- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hamilton, adds greatly to the significance of the ice obstruction
at that point, for it extends the distance of it about fifty miles, and
the distance covered by the ice beyond the original river bed
twenty miles.

While every attempt to calculate the chronology of the Glacial
period is necessarily but approximate, still we can get from cer-
tain data a pretty good idea of the relative periods of time occu-
pied by different stages of the advance and retreat of the ice. It
is clear that the obstruction of the Ohio near Cincinnati con-
tinued during the whole time occupied by the advance of the ice
from Hamilton to its farthest point, ten miles southwest of Cin-
cinnati— that is, during the advance of the ice front over a space
of about thirty miles and until its retreat to Cincinnati again.
The only statement approaching to definiteness which we are
warranted in making concerning the rate of this advance is that
it was probably the slowest which we should assign to any part
of the movement of the great continental ice-sheet ; for, being
near the extreme point of extension, the equilibrium of forces
must have been very nearly established, and the momentum of
the glacier from the north was constantly diminished at the front
by the increased rapidity with which a more genial climate was
melting the ice. So to speak, the glacier was here getting upon
doubtful territory and had carefully to consider every forward
step, until finally, having reached the height of the Kentucky
hills, the balance was turned, and the retreat began. It is alto-
gether probable that this close balancing of forces resulted in an
exceptionally slow movement from Hamilton to Cincinnati, caus-
ing the glacier to occupy many centuries, or even thousands of
years, in that part of the march.

Something of a measure of this time is perhaps to be found in
the erosion of the cross-cut from Cincinnati to the mouth of the
Great Miami, which must have begun as soon as the obstruction
of the valley near Hamilton first occurred. The length of this
new channel of erosion is from twelve to fifteen miles ; but how
much of the work had been previously done by the small streams
formed by the local drainage it is difficult now to calculate.
Many such questions remain to reward the labors of local investi-
gators. The general impression which I have received from a
study of the facts is that a period of several thousand years maj^
have been occupied by the ice-front in its advance from Hamilton
to the farthest point in Kentucky and its subsequent retreat to
the north side of the river.

But it is not to be supposed that this period was by any means
one of dull uniformity in the history of that region, for upon the
first formation of the dam at the bend of the old river at Hamil-
ton, raising the water to the height of the rock obstruction across

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM. 195

the present gorge of the Ohio just below Cincinnati, the river
would at once begin the process of cutting down its new channel.
A waterfall of far larger proportions than Niagara must have
been at once developed in the lower portion of this short cut, near
the junction with the Great Miami, which would steadily wear
back toward the old channel at Cincinnati, when, if the ice had
not reached so far, the water level above the dam would be speed-
ily lowered, but only to be raised again at a later time when the
advancing ice reached its farthest extent and obstructed the newer
channel. It is altogether probable, however, that this new chan-
nel below Cincinnati had not been lowered to its full extent be-
fore the maximum advance of the ice. If this were the case the
final retreat of the ice across the river would leave a rocky bar-
rier below Cincinnati, such as to maintain the water for a while
at a level much higher than that maintained at the present time.
There are some deposits up the riyer indicating that this was the
case, as, for instance, some in Teazes Valley extending from the
Kanawha River to Huntington. By reference to the first map it
will be perceived that this valley is less than seven hundred feet
above tide, but it is covered with several feet of very fine sedi-
ment, distributed evenly over the bottom of the valley, which
must have been deposited in still water during the later stages of
the Glacial period.

A glance at the first map will also show some other most inter-
esting problems of change in drainage systems caused by the Gla-
cial period which have not been adequately studied ; for example,
it will be noticed that a stream rising near Madison, Ind., pursues
a very singular course with reference to the contour lines. This
is the Muscatatuck River, which rises within less than a mile of
the Ohio River and four hundred feet above it ; but instead of
following the strike of the strata, as it naturally would, around
to Louisville, it cuts across a broad north-and-south valley of ero-
sion to join the East Branch of the White River, when both to-
gether, continuing on in a westerly course, follow a gorge several
hundred feet deep through the highest portion of the State till
they unite with the West Branch of the White River to reach the
Ohio through the Wabash. It is extremely difiicult to explain the
course of this stream, except by some such process of reasoning as
has been adopted with respect to the Ohio below Cincinnati. The
projection of the tongue of ice which extended below Madison de-
flected the drainage of a considerable region through a j^artially
formed pass across the elevated plateau to the west, while the
morainic deposits about the farthest extension of the ice lobe per-
manently obstructed the channels in that direction, so that upon
the withdrawal of the ice the Muscatatuck still continued to run
into the Ohio by way of the Wabash.

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As lias been said, the first announcement of the Cincinnati ice
dam was thought to give a natural and sufficient explanation for
certain high-level gravel terraces occurring in the upper Ohio Val-
ley. Subsequent investigations have brought to light other con-
siderations which must more or less modify the first conclusions.
It still remains true, however, that the ice dam accounts most
naturally for many of the slack- water deposits which occur in the
valley of the upper Ohio and its tributaries, while there are many
areas which are yet but inadequately explored, but which promise
important light upon the problem when the facts are all obtained.
At the same time it appears that some of the terraces in the Alle-
ghany and Monongahela Rivers are slightly higher than the ob-
struction at Cincinnati, compelling the advocates of the ice-dam
theory to suppose some very probable changes of level since the
deposition of the terraces which were at first supposed by Prof.
Lesley to be so completely explained by it.

But more important is the bearing of recent discoveries upon
the extent to which glacial gravels accumulated in the gorge of
the upper Ohio and Alleghany Rivers, as shown in the section in
the lower right-hand corner of Map. I. All along the Alleghany
and Ohio Rivers there are remnants of gravel accumulations,
from fifty to sixty feet deep, resting upon rock shelves about
three hundred feet above the present rock bottom of the Ohio.
There is now little reason to doubt that during the Glacial period
the floods of water which poured into the Alleghany and the Ohio
from all their northern tributaries brought along silt, gravel, and
bowlders enough to fill up this rocky gorge with great rapidity,
down as far probably as Wheeling. As the Alleghany River
received glacial floods and glacial debris in great quantities, while
the Monongahela did not receive any, it will be seen that the
Monongahela must have been dammed by both the silt and the
water which came down the Alleghany.

Instances in which the water of a tributary is dammed by that
of the main stream will occur to any one upon a little reflection.
"Whenever one large tributary perceptibly rises, it raises the
water level of the main stream as well above as below the junc-
tion, while a large rise in the main stream may temporarily re-
verse the current in a tributary. The Columbia River, for exam-
ple, in Oregon, is subject to very extensive floods at seasons of the
year when the Willamette is comparatively low. At such times a
current sets up stream past the city of Portland. I remember,
also, hearing, when a boy, the story of a June freshet on the
Poultney River, in Vermont, caused by a succession of thunder-
showers about its head waters. The rise in the lower part of the
stream amounted to thirty or forty feet. The thing which fixed
itself most deeply in my mind was that a milldam upon Hub-

THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM. 197

bardton Creek, which was not affected by the showers, was carried
up stream by the water which set back from the river. Thus it is
easy to see that the glacial floods which poured into the Ohio from
its northern tributaries would, during their continuance, produce
slack water in its southern tributaries.

A more permanent class of dams is produced when a super-
abundant amount of earthy debris is contributed by one tributary
of a stream. It is thus that the Chippewa River, in Wisconsin,
has brought down an excessive amount of sand and gravel into
the Mississippi, where, owing to the gentler gradient and the
slower current in the larger valley, a delta has been pushed out
across the Mississippi, ponding back the water so as to form the
enlargement known as Lake Pepin. Dr. George M. Dawson de-
scribes a more striking instance in one of the principal tributaries
of the Fraser in British Columbia, where Dead Man's Creek joins
the Thompson. Here a sufficient amount of gravel has been
brought down to silt up the main stream to a depth of four hun-
dred and fifty feet, forming Kamloop's Lake, which is eighteen
miles long and two miles wide. It is thus that the glacial silts
coming into the channel of the Ohio from its northern tributaries
have assisted the Cincinnati ice dam in the work that was laid
upon it.

On the other hand, it is clear that the Cincinnati ice dam must
in turn have assisted greatly in the silting process already re-
ferred to ; for, as far up the Ohio as slack water was produced
by the obstruction at Cincinnati, the deposition of the finer silt
must have been greatly facilitated by it. At the same time the
deposition of gravel near the mouth of the streams joining the
Ohio above Cincinnati, and the obstruction offered by the rock
strata, which have since been worn out in the new channel below
Cincinnati, combined to relieve the ice gorge there from the sup-
posed incredible hydraulic pressure which some have thought to
be fatal to the hypothesis.

In conclusion, it may be said with a fair degree of confidence
that the theory of the Cincinnati ice dam still "holds water,"
though the obstruction itself disappeared many thousand years
ago. One may readily admit that some things were at first at-
tributed to the dam which were the result of other causes. But
fresh considerations have given increased interest to the theory,
so that altogether it remains one of the most striking of all the
episodes connected with geologic history, and it is all the more
dramatic because of its probable connection with human history.
There is, therefore, ample justification for the language of Prof.
Claypole, in his paper upon the subject, read before the Geological
Society of Edinburgh in 1887, and printed in the Transactions of
that year.

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Having described the desolation sometimes produced in Switz-
erland by the bursting of glacial lakes, he remarks that to a still
greater extent the " period of conflict between the ice and the
river must have been a terrible time for the lower Ohio Valley
and its inhabitants. At times the river was dry, and at others
bank-full and overflowing. The frost of winter, by lessening the
supply, and the ice-tongue by forming a dam, combined to hold
back the water. The sun of summer, by melting the dam, and the
pressure of the accumulated water, by bursting it, combined to
let off all at once the whole of the retained store. Terrible floods
of water and ice, laden with stones, gravel, and sand, must have
poured down the river and have swept away everything in their
path — trees, animals, and man, if present.

" How many years or ages this conflict between the lake and
the dam continued it is quite impossible to say, but the quantity
of wreckage found in the valley of the lower Ohio, and even in
that of the Mississippi, below their point of junction, is sufficient
to convince us that it was no short time. ' The Age of Great
Floods ' formed a striking episode in the story of ' The Retreat
of the Ice.' Long afterward must the valley have borne the
marks of these disastrous torrents, far surpassing in intensity
anything now known on the earth. The great flood of 1884, when
the ice-laden water slowly rose seventy-one feet above low- water
mark, will long be remembered by Cincinnati and its inhabitants.
But that flood, terrible as it was, sinks into insignificance beside
the furious torrent caused by the sudden even though partial
breach of an ice dam hundreds of feet in height, and the discharge
of a body of water held behind it, and forming a lake of twenty
thousand square miles in extent.

"To the human dwellers in the Ohio Valley — for we have rea-
son to believe that the valley was in that day tenanted by man —
these floods must have proved disastrous in the extreme. It is
scarcely likely that they were often forecast. The whole popula-
tion of the bottom lands must have been repeatedly swept away ;
and it is far from being unlikely that in these and other similar
catastrophes in different parts of the world, which characterized
certain stages in the Glacial era, will be found the far-off basis on
which rest those traditions of a flood that are found among all
savage nations, especially in the north temperate zone."

Mr. W. H. Dines, an English meteorologist, is inclined to believe, from ob-
servations and experiments made with his new anemometer, that a gust sel-
dom maintains its full power for more than one or two seconds; and that the
extreme velocity occurs in lines which are roughly parallel to the direction
of the wind.

THE EYE AS AN OPTICAL INSTRUMENT. 199

THE EYE AS AN OPTICAL INSTRUMENT.

By AUSTIN FLINT, M.D., LL. D.,

PBOFESSOK OF PHTSIOLOGT IN THE BELLEVUE HOSPITAL MEDICAL COLLEGE, NEW YORK ;
VISITING PHYSICIAN TO BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.

I HAVE often wondered whether the statement, occasionally
made by physicists, that the human eye is not a perfect opti-
cal instrument, is an expression of human vanity or of an imper-
fect knowledge of the anatomy of the eye and the physiology of
vision ; and I have come to the conclusion that the latter is the
more reasonable theory. The approach to perfection in modern
telescopes and microscopes is wonderful indeed ; but as physi-
ologists have advanced the knowledge of vision, the so-called im-
perfections of the eye have been steadily disappearing ; and even
now there is much to learn. Viewed merely as an optical instru-
ment, an apparatus contained in a globe less than an inch in
diameter, in which is produced an image practically perfect in
form and color, which can be accurately adjusted almost instantly
for every distance from five inches to infinity, is movable in every
direction, has an area for the detection of the most minute details
and at the same time a sufficient appreciation of large objects, is
double, but the images in either eye exactly coinciding, enables us
to see all shades of color, estimate distance, solidity, and to some
extent the consistence of objects, the normal human eye may well
be called perfect. The more, indeed, the eye is studied in detail,
the more thoroughly does one appreciate its perfection as an op-
tical apparatus.

Were it not for a slight projection of the cornea (the transpar-
ent covering in front) the eye would have nearly the form of a
perfect globe a small fraction less than an inch in diameter. It
lies in a soft bed of fat, is held in place by little muscles and a
ligament which is so lubricated that its movements take place
with the minimum of friction. It is protected by an overhang-
ing bony arch and the eyelids, the eyelashes keeping away
dust, and the eyebrows directing away the sweat. Situated thus
in the orbit, the eyes may be moved to the extent of about
forty-five degrees ; but beyond this it is necessary to move the
head.

The accuracy of vision depends primarily upon the formation
of a perfect image upon the retina, which is a membrane, sensi-
tive to light, connected with the optic nerve. That such an image
is actually formed has been demonstrated by an instrument, the
ophthalmoscope, which enables us to look into the eye and see the
image itself. Although the image is inverted, the brain takes no
cognizance of this, and every object is appreciated in its actual

200

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

position. The image is formed in the eye in the way in which an
image is produced and thrown on a screen by a magic lantern.

When a ray of light passes obliquely from the air through
glass, water or other transparent media, it is bent, or refracted,
and the angle at which it is bent is called the index of refraction.
In passing to the retina, the rays of light pass through the
cornea, a watery liquid (the aqueous humor) surrounding the
lens, the crystalline lens, and a gelatinous liquid (the vitreous
humor) filling the posterior two thirds of the globe, all of which
have the same index of refraction. This provides that a ray of
light, having once ])assed through the cornea, is not refracted in
passing through the other transparent media, except by the curv-
atures of the crystalline, which is a double-convex lens situated
just behind the pupil. The rays of light are not reflected within
the eye itself, for the opaque parts of the globe are lined with a
black membrane (the choroid), as the tube of a microscope is
blackened for a similar purpose. Practically, the bending of the
rays of light is produced by the curved surface of the cornea and

Fig. 1. — This figure gives a general view of tlic eyeball, the outer wall of the orbit being re-
moved: 1, tendon of origin of three of the muscles of the eyeball ; 'i, the external straiglit
muscle divided and turned down so as to expose the lower straight muscle ; 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8,
muscles moving the eyeball; 9, 10, 10, muscle which raises the upper eyelid; 11, optic
nerve. (After Sappey.)

the two curved surfaces of the double-convex crystalline lens.
These three curved surfaces bring the rays from an object to a
focus exactly at the retina in a normal eye. When, however, the
eye is too long, the focus is in front of the retina unless, in near
vision, the object be brought very near the eye, and the person is
near-sighted. For ordinary vision, such persons must wear prop-

THE EYE AS AN OPTICAL INSTRUMENT.

201

erly adjusted concave glasses to carry the focus farther back.
When the eye is too short, the focus is behind the retina, and the
person is far-sighted and must wear convex glasses. The first
condition is called myopia, and the second, hypermetropia ; but
in most persons who are obliged to wear convex glasses in ad-

CHOROID

CHOROID

Fig. 2. — Diagrammatic Section of the Hitman Eye.

vanced life, the crystalline lens has become flattened and inelastic,
the diameter of the eye being unaltered. This condition is called
presbyopia, which means a defect in vision due to old age.

One of the wonderful things about the eye is the mechanism
by which a perfect image is formed. What is called the area of
distinct vision is a depression in the yellow spot of the retina,
which is probably not more than a thirty-sixth of an inch in di-
ameter. It is with this little spot that we examine minute details
of objects. If we receive the rays of light from an object upon a
double-convex lens and throw them upon a screen in a darkened
room, the image of the object appears upon the screen ; but in
order to render this image even moderately distinct it is necessary
to carefully adjust the lens, or the combination of lenses, to a cer-
tain distance, which is different for lenses of different curvatures.
In the human eye the adjustment is most accurately made, almost
instantaneously, for any desired distance, not by changing the
distance between the crystalline lens and the retina, but by chang-
ing the curvature of the crystalline lens itself. The way in

202

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whicli this is done has been known only within the last few years.
The lens is elastic, and in a quiescent, or what is called an indo-
lent condition, is compressed between the two layers of the liga-
ment which holds it in place. In this condition, when the rays
from distant objects are practically parallel as they strike the
eye, the lens is adjusted for infinite distance. When, however,
we examine a near object, by the action of a little muscle within
the eyeball the ligament is relaxed and the elastic lens becomes
more convex. This action is called accommodation, and is volun-

FiG. 3.— Visual Portion of the Ektina as seen by the Ophthalmoscope ; masfnitiod
about seven and a lialf diameters, sliowinsj the blood-vessels branching; trora the point
of entrance of the optic nerve, and the yellow spot surrounded by the dotted oval. (Alter
Loring.)

tary, though usually automatic. The fact that it is voluntary is
illustrated by the very simple experiment of looking at a distant
object through a gauze placed a few feet from the eye. When
we see the distant object distinctly, we do not see the gauze ; but
by an effort we can distinctly see the meshes of the gauze, and
then the object becomes indistinct. In some old persons the
lens not only becomes flattened, but it loses a great part of its
elasticity and the power of accommodation is nearly lost.

The changes in the curvatures of the lens in accommodation
have been actually measured. The lens itself is only about a third

THE EYE AS AN OPTICAL INSTRUMENT.

203

of an inch in diameter and its central portion is only a fourth of
an inch thick. Adjusted for infinite distance, the front curvature
has a radius of about four tenths of an inch, while for near ob-
jects the radius is only about three tenths of an inch. A curious
experiment is looking at a minute object through a pinhole in a
bit of paper or cardboard, when the object appears highly magni-
fied. This is because the nearer the object is to the eye, the
larger it appears. The shortest normal distance of distinct vision
is about five inches ; but in looking through a pinhole we can see
at a distance of less than an inch, using a very small part of the
central portion of the crystalline lens. Accommodation for very
near objects is assisted, also, by contraction of a little band of
fibers in the iris, about a fiftieth of an inch in width, immediately
surrounding the pupil.

The most wonderful thing about the formation of a perfect
image upon the retina is the mechanism of correction for form

Fig. 4. — Section of the Lens showing the Mechanism or Accommodation. The left side
of the fiscure (F) shows the lens adapted to vision at infinite distances. The rifjht side
of the figure (N) shows the lens adapted to the vision of near objects. (After Fiek.)

and color. In grinding lenses for the microscope, for example,
it is mechanically easy to make a very small convex lens with
perfectly regular curvatures — that is, each curvature being a
portion of a perfect sphere ; but in such a lens the focus of the
central portion is longer than that of the parts near the edge ;
and when an object is in focus for the center it is out of focus for
the periphery. This is a fatal objection to the use of uncorrected
lenses of high power ; but in microscopes it is corrected by com-
binations of lenses, reducing the magnifying power, however,
about one half. This is not all. When white light passes through
a simple lens it is decomposed into the colors of the spectrum.
This is called dispersion, and it surrounds the object with a fringe
of colors. The dispersion by concave lenses is exactly the oppo-
site of the dispersion by convex lenses, so that this may be cor-
rected by a combination of the two ; but when this is done with
lenses made of precisely the same material, the magnifying power

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is lost. Newton supposed that it was an impossibility to con-
struct a lens corrected for color wliich would magnify objects ;
but since the discovery (in 1753 and 1757) of different kinds of

glass having the same refractive power

CROWN_GLASS ° , ., , -, . pp J. T

but Widely different dispersive powers,

perfect lenses have been possible,
FLINT GLASS I^ ^^^ humaii eye, a practically perfect

image, with no alteration in color, is pro-

FiG. 5. — Achromatic Lens. , . . . .

duced by a mechanism which human inge-
nuity can not imitate. There is a slight error in the cornea, which
is corrected by an opposite error in the crystalline lens ; the iris
plays the part of the diaphragm of optical instruments and shuts
off the light from the borders of the crystalline lens, where the
error is greatest, particularly in near vision ; the curvatures of
the lens are not perfectly spherical, but are such that the form of
objects is not distorted ; and while such curvatures are theoretic-
ally calculable, their construction is practically impossible, as ex-
perience has shown ; different layers of the crystalline lens have
different dispersive powers; and thus a practically perfect image,
with no appreciable decomposition of white light, is formed on the
retina.

Another wonderful thing about the eye, which adapts it most
beautifully to our requirements, is the division of the sensitive
parts of the retina into a very small area for distinct vision,
which we use for reading, for example, and a large surrounding
area in which vision is indistinct. If we saw with equal distinct-
ness with all parts of the retina, the vision of minute objects
would be confused and imperfect. As it is, the area of distinct
vision is very small, probably less than one thirty-sixth of an
inch in diameter. In this area, the distance between the separate
sensitive elements is not more than one thirty-five-hundredth of
an inch ; while, if we pass from this only eight degrees, the dis-
tance is increased a hundred times. Still, in looking at any one
object in the center of distinct vision, the imperfect forms of sur-
rounding objects are appreciated, warning us, perhaps, of the ap-
proach of danger.

The mechanism of distinct and indistinct vision has been
understood only since 1876. The sensitive parts of the retina are
little rods and cones forming a layer by themselves. In 1876,
Boll discovered that in frogs kept in the dark the rods of the
retina were colored a dark purple ; but on exposure to light the
color faded, becoming first yellow and then white. Since that
time, physiologists have been carefully investigating visual pur-
ple and visual yellow. Just outside the layer of rods and cones are
the dark cells which render the greatest part of the interior of the
eye almost black. In the dark, these cells send little filaments be-

THE EYE AS JJV OPTICAL INSTRUMENT. 205

tween the rods and discharge a liquid which colors the rods alone.
When the rods are thus colored, the eye is extremely sensitive, so
that a bright light is dazzling and painful and obscures distinct
vision. This is the reason why we can not see distinctly when we
come suddenly from the dark into a full light. In a few seconds,
however, the color is bleached to a yellow and the difficulty passes
away. When, on the other hand, we pass from a bright light
into the dark, the retina has lost its sensibility from disappear-
ance of the visual purple, and we can not see at all until the pur-
ple is reproduced, as it is in the absence of light. This difference
is not due to dilatation of the pupil in the dark and contraction
under the influence of light, as is popularly supposed, for a per-
son does not see better in the dark when the pupil has been fully
dilated by belladonna.

In the little area of distinct vision there is never any visual
purple. This area we always use with sufficient light for minute
details of objects, making then the greatest use of the mechan-
ism of accommodation. The area outside of this is used for indis-
tinct vision, and as the color is then yellow instead of purple, it is
only moderately sensitive. To express the conditions in a few
words, the minute area for distinct vision is used by day, and the
area for indistinct vision, with its visual purple, is used by night.

A very curious condition is what is known as night-blindness.
Sometimes, in long tropical voyages, sailors become affected with
total blindness at night, while vision in the daytime is perfect.
The glare of the sun in the long days bleaches the visual purple
so completely that it can not be restored in a single night, and the
area of indistinct vision becomes insensible. This trouble is
purely local and is remedied by rest of the eye. If one eye be
protected by a bandage during the day, this eye will be restored
sufficiently for the next night's watch, while the unprotected eye
is as bad as ever. Snow-blindness in the arctic regions is due to
the same cause.

We receive the impression of a single object, although there
are two images — one in either eye ; but it is necessary that the
images be made upon corresponding points in the two retinae. If
the angle of vision in one eye be deviated even to a slight degree
by pressing on one globe with the finger, we see two images. One
can appreciate how exactly these points must correspond when it
is remembered that two rays of light appear as one only when the
distance between them is one thirty-five-hundredth of an inch.

In either eye there is a blind spot, and this is at the point of
penetration of the optic nerve ; but, inasmuch as this spot is in
the area of indistinct vision, and is so situated — a little within the
line of distinct vision — that an impression is never made on both
blind spots by the same object, this blindness is never appreciable,

2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the spot can be detected only by the most careful inves-
tigation.

Not the least of the wonders of the eye are connected with the
appreciation of images made upon the retina by certain parts of
the brain. It is literally true that a person may see and yet not
perceive. It has happened, in certain injuries of the brain, that
a person sees and reads the words in a book and yet does not per-
ceive their significance. This is called word-blindness. In a cer-
tain portion of the brain is a part which enables us to recognize the
fact that we see an object ; yet this object conveys no idea. There
are two of these so-called centers of vision, one on either side,
and their action is partly crossed. When the center is destroyed
on one side, the inner half of one eye and the outer half of the
other eye are blinded. Farther back in the brain, however, is a
center which enables us to perceive or understand what is seen.
"When this center is destroyed we see objects and may avoid ob-
stacles in walking, but persons, words, etc., are not recognized.
This center exists only on the left side of the brain.

An impression, however short, made upon the retina is per-
ceived. The letters on a printed page are distinctly seen when
illuminated by an electric spark, the duration of which is only
forty billionths of a second ; but the impression remains much
longer. Anything in motion appears to us in a way quite differ-
ent from the single impression that we should have from an elec-
tric spark. In a picture representing an animal in motion, as it
appears in an instantaneous photograph, the positions seems ab-
surd and like nothing we have ever seen. In looking at a horse
in action, the impressions made by the different position of the
animal run into each other, and art should represent as nearly as
possible the sum or average of these impressions. It is also true
that impressions are diffused in the retina beyond the points upon
which they are directly received. This is called irradiation ; and
the impression is diffused farther for white or light-colored than
for black or dark objects. It is well known that a white square
looks considerably larger than a dark square of exactly the same
size ; or the hands in white gloves look larger than in black gloves.

I have described, in as simple a way as possible, some won-
derful things about the eye ascertained and explained by mod-
ern investigations; but there are many interesting facts ascer-
tained which space has not permitted me to discuss, and there
still remains much that is not yet understood. The whole ques-
tion of the appreciation of colors and of color-blindness is still
wrapped in mystery. We know that some persons can not
distinguish between certain colors, but the reason of this is ob-
scure. Perfect sight can exist only when the eye is perfect. The
form and color of objects may be distorted so that an inaccurate

THE KINDERGARTEN. 207

image is formed upon the retina, and this image, however imper-
fect it may be, is what is perceived by the brain. In hearing the
case is different. The waves of sound, if they be conducted to
the internal ear, and if the nerve of hearing, with its terminations,
be normal, can not be modified in course of transmission. Sounds
are always appreciated at their exact value, except as regards in-
tensity. Enough has been said about the eye, I think, to show
that it is perfectly adapted to all requirements, and whatever de-
fects it may seem to have, viewed as an optical instrument, ren-
der it more useful to us than if these apparent defects did not
exist.

THE KINDERGARTEN A NATURAL SYSTEM OF

EDUCATION.

By JAMES L. HUGHES,

PUBLIC-SCHOOL INSPECTOR, TORONTO.

THE kindergarten is a natural system of education, because it
recognizes the natural laws of human growth, and supplies
the necessary conditions to stimulate the special powers of each
individual child. It recognizes the fact that each child has an in-
dividuality peculiarly its own, and that the greatest evil of school
life in the past has been the dwarfing of individual power. No two
children are alike, no two should be alike. All should be in uni-
son by having the same desire to live for the right, but the pow-
ers of each and the methods of using them should be his own.
The mightiest, holiest part of each individual is the quality or
power in which he difi^ers from all others. Schools generally
manufacture men and women " to pattern." Whatever the abil-
ity, general or special, possessed by the difi'erent pupils of a class,
they have all been expected to rise or fall to the same dead level.
Usually the level has been very dead. The kindergarten is
founded on the broad principle that the Creator had a special
purpose in giving life to each child, and that the school should
aid the child in becoming as nearly as possible what God meant
him to be when he first let him enter the world. The kinder-
garten insists on the proper control of each child, because uncon-
trolled spontaneity commonly leads to anarchy and unbridled
evil, but it never allows power to be destroyed by controlling it.

The kindergarten values the child more than the knowledge
to be communicated to it or acquired by it. It values knowledge
highly, but it places its highest estimate on the child, who has
power to give the only real value to knowledge. It knows that
the development of the child increases his capacity for gathering
and using knowledge. It believes that the child's powers should

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grow forever, that they grow most rapidly in early years, and that
true growth in childhood is the only basis for the highest devel-
opment of maturity. Therefore it makes the child and his uni-
versal tendencies and activities the chief study of the educator.
The highest function of the teacher is not to select the knowledge
most appropriate for children, or to decide the best plans for fix-
ing it in their minds ; his greatest study is the child and the
ways in which he educates himself in those most prolific years
before he goes to school. Some teachers claim that the teacher's
duty is to teach the child how to " go." The child was set going
long before he went to school. He was kept going before he
went to school more rapidly than he ever goes after that time.
Others say, the teacher's duty is to start the child to groiv. How
he had been growing before he went to school ! How he grew
physically ; how his mind unfolded and defined itself ; how his
spiritual nature recognized the Creator in the wondrous material
creation, and reached out to the mysteries of the unknown ! He
was ever going before he went to school, and growing because
he was going. The reason he stops growing rapidly as soon as he
goes to school is that his teachers interfere with his going. They
stop his going altogether during school hours, and the reason he
does not stop growing altogether physically, intellectually, and
spiritually is that he is fortunately not kept in school all the
time. How full of gratitude we should be for the fact that the
blighting processes of the schoolroom last but six hours of five
days in each week ! We should be even more grateful when we
remember that the school hours may become the most productive
of the day in real growth. This is a part of the revelation which
the kindergarten bears to all teachers who study it with sym-
pathetic spirit. There is no good reason why the child's develop-
ment should be checked after it goes to school. It should con-
tinue to improve with accelerated speed throughout life. Teach-
ers will do vastly better than they do now when they keep up,
after the child goes to school, the rate of advancement attained
before he goes to school. They can never hope to do this until
they study and understand the fundamental principles that under-
lie the motives of children, and guide them in the infinitely varied
activities of their childish work and play. All their activities are
in harmony with a divine purpose in the accomplishment of their
fullest development. Man can best learn how to teach from the
greatest teacher. His power and the unequaled success of his
plans can be learned by the careful and continuous study of child-
hood. The teaching profession has been learning this fact from
the kindergarten. There are several organized agencies already
in existence for recording and comparing the characteristics, the
tendencies, the habits, the activities, the capabilities, and the pro-

THE KINDERGARTEN. 209

gressive development of children in different parts of the world.
The new era has begun.

In the kindergarten the child's spontaneity is respected. He
is not guided too much. He is allowed to work out, with the ma-
terial given him, the plans, the designs, the problems, that arise
in his own mind. The kindergarten dictates plans, designs, or
problems to him only so far as may be necessary to help his mind
to recognize new conceptions. He never has a lesson in which he
is a follower or an imitator all the time. The idea that he should
produce a result similar to his neighbor's is never presented to
him. He is trained to depend on his own mind for the plan or
design, and for its execution. Nature's plan before the child goes
to school is to let him find his own problems. His greatest men-
tal power is the ability to recognize in the material world by
which he is surrounded the new things he has not seen before
and the new problems he does not understand. If he has the
privilege of growing up among the beauties of natural life, if the
trees and flowers, and birds and butterflies, and bees and crickets,
are his companions, if he has sand and stones and sticks for his
playthings, there are few of the problems of science and material
philosophy that do not present themselves to his mind. He solves
thousands of them unaided, and brings those that are too deep for
him to his mother or father, or most sympathetic older friend.
These problems are not forced upon his mind by any external
agency, they lie all around his path awaiting recognition by his
mind. The recognition comes under such conditions exactly at
the right moment, when the mind is ready to deal with the prob-
lem. No wonder that, under such conditions, knowledge is ac-
quired and mental power defined and developed so rapidly. But
when the child goes to school all these conditions are absolutely
reversed. The teacher finds the problems and brings them to the
child. Worse than this, the problems are those that suggest
themselves to the teacher's mind and not the child's. Such prob-
lems can not be appropriate for the child. The problems suitable
for one child can not be the best for other children at the same
time. No mind but the child's own can decide the character
of the problems suited to its present condition of development.
Mind-growth can be dwarfed in no other way so completely as
by the presentation of unsuitable problems. Loss of interest and
loss of power, negation instead of positivity, indifference in place
of aggressive wonderment, must follow when the child is forced
to deal with problems that are not in harmony with his mental
development.

One of the greatest improvements in school-teaching will be
the placing of the children in such conditions that they may find
their own problems. In the kindergarten this is the foundation

VOL. XLV. 16

210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

principle of mental growth. Self-activity does not mean activity
in working out the directions of a teacher or any other superior
mind ; it means the revelation or execution of the conceptions of
the child himself. The child's work should be self-expression, not
imitation, not mere responsive action in accord with the sugges-
tion of a teacher. " The children are not interested in study, and
most of them need to be forced to learn ; so it would be worse than
folly to expect them to find problems for themselves." So says
the teacher who has had no true inspiration, no clear enlighten-
ment. My dear friend, it is quite true that the children are not
interested in your i)roblems. It is true, moreover, that the few
who gratify you and their parents by paying attention to your
problems and learning your lessons usually make weak men,
lacking in originality and force. Every head boy who leaves
school with a load of prizes in his arms and a load of knowledge
in his head, and then becomes a respectable nonentity, is an un-
ripe, falling apple to set educational Newtons thinking.

The pupils do rebel against your problems ; but they do not
rebel against the problems of Nature before they go to school.
Wake up ! There are apples falling all around you. The great-
est development in school processes during the next twenty-five
years will be the introduction into the schoolroom of appropriate
material, calculated to stimulate the investigative and executive
powers of children, and thus continue the natural educational
processes that led to such rapid and definite growth before school
life began.

By reversing Nature's plan, and bringing the problems to chil-
dren, instead of allowing them to find them for themselves, teach-
ers prevent the development of the power to recognize new prob-
lems. This is the most important of all intellectual powers. The
solution of new problems is a simple matter when we can clearly
recognize them. The ability to see the things yet unseen must
precede the knowledge of the things yet unknown. The power to
see new problems should grow in strength and clearness more
rapidly than any other mental power. It can not grow unless it
has the opportunity for exercise. The greatest teacher is the one
who presents to the child the best opportunities for the recogni-
tion of new problems by his own mind, and the most perfect
facilities for expressing or representing his new conceptions in
material form. The wonderment of the child in regard to the
material world should become much more than a mental stimu-
lus ; it should ultimately become our highest, broadest, keenest
spiritual insight. We are ever in the midst of new spiritual
problems that we fail to recognize, because our wonder power was
not allowed to act up to its natural limit.

In the kindergarten, knowledge is made clear by the self-

THE KINDERGARTEN. 211

activity of the child. All growth of human power is based on the
self-activity of the individual to be developed. No thought is
ever definite until it has been consciously lived out or wrought
out. The kindergarten makes use of self-expression in the child
to define the thought already in its mind, and to reveal new
thought. There is no other way by which thought can be clearly
revealed and defined. Self-activity on the part of the child se-
cures four very important results : it enables the teacher to be
sure that the child is paying attention to its work, it reveals the
nature of the child's own conceptions, it is an accurate test of the
clearness of the thought received from the instruction of the
teacher, and it is the most productive incentive to originality.

In the kindergarten, knowledge is applied as it is gained.
The old plan of learning definitions or tables, or the names or
powers of letters, or the theoretical principles of any science as a
preparation for practical work to be done in geometry, algebra,
arithmetic, reading, or science, was not in harmony with natural
laws of growth. It is unnatural to value knowledge of any kind
for itself alone. Knowledge has no value except as it is used ;
and an assumed value based on any other foundation must be
fictitious and misleading. The child should not be interested in
knowledge that it is not required to use in some way. When it
becomes conscious of a lack of knowledge that is essential to the
accomplishment of any definite purpose in its mind, it needs no
artificial stimulus to make it give active and persistent attention.
The consciousness of necessity should precede the effort to ac-
quire. The kindergarten leads the child to define knowledge by
using it, and uses knowledge as soon as it is acquired.

The kindergarten trains the executive powers of children.
Formerly only their receptive powers were cultivated. They
were made receptacles for knowledge communicated by the
teacher, and their powers of receiving knowledge independently
were developed. When teachers had accomplished the two pur-
poses of storing the minds of their pupils and training their pow-
ers of observation, so as to qualify them for gaining knowledge
readily and accurately themselves, they were satisfied. Better
teachers were soon convinced that the accumulation of knowledge
by even the most perfect methods was not the true aim of educa-
tion, and gradually the reflective power received attention as well
as the receptive powers. The lesson that the kindergarten has for
us is that the best training of the receptive and reflective powers
is practically valueless unless the executive powers are trained
too. It will not do to leave the training of the executive powers
to the circumstances of life outside of school. The receptive pow-
ers receive a great deal of good training outside of school ; so do
the reflective powers; so, too, do the executive powers. There is

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

no reason for leaving the development of the executive powers to
the conditions outside of school that does not apply with equal
force to the culture of the receptive and reflective powers. Such
a course would do away with schools altogether. There are two
reasons that render the training of the executive powers of chil-
dren absolutely essential in a complete education : First, the re-
ceptive and reflective powers are really useful to the individual
and humanity only when they are made productive by executive
ability ; and, second, the training of the executive powers is the
only way by which the receptive and reflective powers can be
thoroughly cultivated. Nature's sequence is : Receive, reflect, use.
The first two steps must be imperfect without the third. The kin-
dergarten always completes the ascent; it never destroys the
unity of the trinity.

The kindergarten makes children creative; or it is better to
say that it preserves and utilizes their creative powers. Men and
women were not intended to be mere imitators or servile followers
of other men and women. They should be independent, original,
creative. Man can not be creative as God is creative, but the
divine in each human being gives him power to be and do what
others have never been or done. There is something for each
of us to discover and reveal; something for each to produce;
something for each to add to the helpful agencies that serve to
make man happier ; something that will aid in the realization of
the highest hopes of the heart of humanity. The kindergarten
aims from the first to develop the truly productive more than the
reproductive tendencies and talents of the child. It makes chil-
dren not merely submissive and responsive, but suggestive, in-
ventive, creative. The schools and universities will learn to do so
in due time.

The discipline of the kindergarten is natural. It is based on
love and executed by love. There is no heart whose feelings are
not purified and ennobled by the consciousness of the love of
another heart; no mind that is not aroused and stimulated to
grander efl'ort by the full sympathy of another mind. The young
heart yearns for the mother-love, and there is no other who could
make so perfect a teacher as the mother of the child to be taught,
if her education and her time were sufficient for the work. There
will come a time when noble mothers will train great daughters
and sons for humanity to a much greater extent than they do
now. As women more clearly realize their powers and their re-
sponsibilities, it will be impossible to satisfy them with the society
customs of semi-civilization. The social instinct has been terribly
degraded. The period of its ennobling is at hand, when social
unity shall in no sense be formalism. The kindergarten empha-
sizes the need of mother-love as an educational force. It does

I

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE. 213

not propose that tlie kindergarten shall be a substitute for the
mother; but it tries to provide for the little ones a beautiful
home, where they may enjoy the sympathetic affection of a true
woman's heart, and have at the same time the advantages of the
culture of a trained educator. It is only when the child's nature
opens to the light that its complete life grows ; it is only when
the child's heart is happy that its mind is free. In the true kin-
dergarten no woman can find a place whose heart is not young,
whose life is not pure, and whose aims are not unselfish. Love
is the greatest controlling force and the greatest intellectual
stimulus.

♦♦♦

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE.

Bt garkett p. seryiss.
i.— the selection and testing of a glass.

IF the pure and elevated pleasure to be derived from the pos-
session and use of a good telescope of three, four, five, or six
inches aperture were generally known, I am certain that no in-
strument of science would be more commonly found in the homes
of intelligent people. The writer, when a boy, discovered unex-
pected powers in a pocket telescope not more than fourteen inches
long when extended, and magnifying ten or twelve times. It
became his dream, which was afterward realized, to possess a
more powerful telescope, a real astronomical glass, with which he
could see the beauties of the double stars, the craters of the moon,
the spots on the sun, the belts and satellites of Jupiter, the rings
of Saturn, the extraordinary shapes of the nebulae, the crowds of
stars in the Milky Way, and the great stellar clusters. And now
he would do what he can to persuade others, who perhaps are not
aware how near at hand it lies, to look for themselves into the
wonder-world of the astronomers.

There is only one way in which you can be sure of getting a
good telescope. First, decide how large a glass you are to have,
then go to a maker of established reputation, fix upon the price
you are willing to pay — remembering that good work is never
cheap — and finally see that the instrument furnished to you
answers the proper tests for a telescope of its size. There are
telescopes and telescopes. Occasionally a rare combination of
perfect homogeneity in the material, complete harmony between
the two kinds of glass of which the objective is composed, and lens
surfaces whose curves are absolutely right, produces a telescope
whose owner would part with his last dollar sooner than with it.
Such treasures of the lens-maker's art can not, perhaps, be com-

214

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

manded at will, yet they are turned out with increasing fre-
quency, and the best artists are generally able, at all times, to
approximate so closely to perfection that any shortcoming may be
disregarded.

In what is said above I refer, of course, to the refracting tele-
scope, which is the form of instrument that I should recommend
to all amateurs in preference to the reflector. But, before pro-
ceeding further, it may be well to recall briefly the principal

Fig. 1. — Image at the Focus oy a Lens.

points of difi^erence between these two kinds of telescopes. The
purpose of a telescope of either description is, first, to form an
image of the object looked at by concentrating the rays of light
proceeding from that object at a focus. The refractor achieves
this by means of a carefully shaped lens, called the object glass,
or objective. The reflector, on the other hand, forms the image
at the focus of a concave mirror.

A very pretty little experiment, which illustrates these two
methods of forming an optical image, and, by way of corollary.

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE, 215

illustrates the essential difference between refracting and reflect-
ing telescopes, may be performed by any one who possesses a
reading glass and a magnifying hand mirror. In a room that is
not too brightly illuminated pin a sheet of white paper on the
wall opposite to a window that, by preference, should face the
north, or away from the position of the sun. Taking first the
reading glass, hold it between the window and the wall parallel
to the sheet of paper, and a foot or more distant from the latter.
By moving it to and fro a little you will be able to find a distance,
corresponding to the focal length of the lens, at which a picture
of the window is formed on the paper. This picture, or image,
will be upside down, because the rays of light cross at the focus.
By moving the glass a little closer to the wall you will cause the
picture of the window to become indistinct, while a beautiful
image of the houses, trees, or other objects of the outdoor world
beyond, will be formed upon the paper. We thus learn that the
distance of the image from the lens varies with the distance of
the object whose image is formed. In precisely a similar manner
an image is formed at the focus of the object glass of a refracting
telescope.

Take next your magnifying or concave mirror, and detaching
the sheet of paper from the wall, hold it nearly in front of the
mirror between the latter and the window. When you have
adjusted the distance to the focal length of the mirror, you will
see an image of the window projected upon the paper, and by
varying the distance, as before, you will be able to produce, at
will, pictures of nearer or more remote objects. It is in this way
that images are formed at the focus of the mirror of a reflecting
telescope. '

Now, 5^ou will have observed that the chief ajDparent difference
between these two methods of forming an image of distant ob-
jects is that in the first case the rays of light, passing through
the transparent lens, are brought to a focus on the side opposite
to that where the real object is, while in the second case the rays,
being reflected from the brilliant surface of the opaque mirror,
come to a focus on the same side as that on which the object itself
is. From this follows the most striking difference in the method
of using refracting and reflecting telescopes. In the refractor the
observer looks toward the object; in the reflector he looks away
from it. Sir William Herschel made his great discoveries with
his back to the sky. He used reflecting telescojDes. This prin-
ciple, again, can be readily illustrated by means of our simple
experiment with a reading glass and a magnifying mirror. Hold
the reading glass between the eye and a distant object with one
hand, and with the other hand place a smaller lens such as a
pocket magnifier, near the eye, and in line with the reading glass.

2l6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Move the two carefully until they are at a distance apart equal to
the sum of the focal lengths of the lenses, and you will see a
magnified image of the distant object. In other words, you have
constructed a simple refracting telescope. Then take the mag-
nifying mirror, and, turning your back to the object to be looked
at, use the small lens as before — that is to say, hold it between
your eye and the mirror, so that its distance from the latter is
equal to the sum of the focal lengths of the mirror and the lens.

Fia. 2.— Image at the Focus of a Concave Mirrok.

and you will see again a magnified image of the distant object.
This time it is a reflecting telescope that you hold in your hands.
The magnification of the image reminds us of the second pur-
pose which is subserved by a telescope. A telescope, whether re-
fracting or reflecting, consists of two essential parts, the first
being a lens, or a mirror, to form an image, and the second a
microscope, called an eyepiece, to magnify the image. The
same eyepieces will serve for either the reflector or the refractor.
But in order that the magnification may be done with effect, and

PLEASURES OE THE TELESCOPE. 217

serve to reveal what could, not be seen without it, the image itself
must be as nearly perfect as possible ; this requires that every ray
of light that forms the image shall be brought to a point in the
image precisely corresponding to that from which it emanates in
the real object. In reflectors this is effected by giving a para-
bolic form to the concave surface of the mirror. In refractors
there is a twofold difficulty to be overcome. In the first place, a
lens with spherical surfaces does not bend all the rays that pass
through it to a focus at precisely the same distance. The rays
that pass near the outer edge of the lens have a shorter focus
than that of the rays which pass near the center of the lens ; this
is called spherical aberration. A similar phenomenon occurs with
a concave mirror whose surface is spherical. In that case, as we
have seen, the difficulty is overcome by giving the mirror a para-
bolic instead of a spherical form. In an analogous way the
spherical aberration of a lens can be corrected by altering its
curves, but the second difficulty that arises with a lens is not so
easily disposed of : this is what is called chromatic aberration. It
is due to the fact that the rays belonging to different parts of
the spectrum have different degrees of refrangibility, or, in other
words, that they come to a focus at different distances from the
lens ; and this is independent of the form of the lens. The blue
rays come to a focus first, then the yellow, and finally the red. It
results from this scattering of the spectral rays along the axis of
the lens that there is no single and exact focus where all meet, and
that the image of a star, for instance, formed by an ordinary lens,
even if the spherical aberration has been corrected, appears
blurred and discolored. There is no such difficulty with a mirror,
because there is in that case no refraction of the light, and con-
sequently no sjDlitting up of the elements of the spectrum.

In order to get around the obstacle formed by chromatic aber-
ration it is necessary to make the object glass of a refractor con-
sist of two lenses, each composed of a different kind of glass.
One of the most interesting facts in the history of the telescope is
that Sir Isaac Newton could see no hope that chromatic aberra-
tion would be overcome, and accordingly turned his attention to
the improvement of the reflecting telescope and devised a form of
that instrument which still goes under his name. And even
after Chester More Hall in 1729, and John Dollond in 1757, had
shown that chromatic aberration could be nearly eliminated by
the combination of a flint-glass lens with one of crown glass,
William Herschel, who began his observations in 1774, devoted
his skill entirely to the making of reflectors, seeing no prospect of
much advance in the power of refractors.

A refracting telescope which has been freed from the effects of
chromatic aberration is called achromatic. The principle upon

VOL. XLV. — 17

2l8

IHE POPULAR SCIEJ^CE MONTHLY.

d

/

Fig. 3. — Achromatic Object Glass
a, crown glass ; 6, flint glass.

which its construction depends is that by combining lenses of
different dispersive power the dispersion of the spectral colors
can be corrected while the convergence of the rays of light toward

a focus is not destroyed. Flint
glass effects a greater dispersion
than crown glass nearly in the
ratio of three to two. The chro-
matic combination consists of a
convex lens of crown backed by
a concave, or plano-concave, lens
of flint. When these two lenses
are made of focal lengths which
are directly proportional to their
dispersions, they give a practical-
ly colorless image at their com-
mon focus. The skill of the tele-
scope-maker and the excellence
of his work depend upon his se-
lection of the glasses to be combined and his manipulation of the
curves of the lenses.

Now, the reader may ask, " Since reflectors require no correc-
tion for color dispersion, while that correction is only approxi-
mately effected by the combination of two kinds of lenses and two
kinds of glass in a refractor, why is not the reflector preferable
to the refractor ? "

The answer is, that the refractor gives more light and better
definition. It is superior in the first respect because a lens trans-
mits more light than a mirror reflects. Prof. Young has re-
marked that about eighty-two per cent of the light reaches the
eye in a good refractor, while " in a Newtonian reflector, in aver-
age condition, the percentage seldom exceeds fifty per cent, and
more frequently is lower than higher." The superiority of the
refractor in regard to definition arises from the fact that any dis-
tortion at the surface of a mirror affects the direction of a ray of
light three time as much as the same distortion would do at the
surface of a lens. And this applies equally both to permanent
errors of curvature and to temporary distortions produced by
strains and by inequality of temperature. The perfect achroma-
tism of a reflector is, of course, a great advantage, but the chro-
matic aberration of refractors is now so well corrected that their
inferiority in that respect may be disregarded. It must be ad-
mitted that reflectors are cheaper and easier to make, but, on the
other hand, they require more care, and their mirrors frequently
need resilvering, while an object glass with reasonable care never
gets seriously out of order, and will last for many a lifetime.
Enough has now, perhaps, been said about the respective

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE.

219

properties of object glasses and mirrors, but a word should be
added concerning eyepieces. Without a good eyepiece the best
telescope will not perform well. The simplest of all eyepieces is
a single double-convex lens. With such a lens the magnifying
power of the telescope is measured by the ratio of the focal length
of the objective to that of the eye lens. Suppose the first is sixty
inches and the latter half an inch ; then the magnifying power
will be a hundred and twenty diameters — i. e., the disk of a planet,
for instance, will be enlarged a hundred and twenty times along
each diameter, and its area will be enlarged the square of a hun-
dred and twenty, or fourteen thousand four hundred times. But
in reckoning magnifying power, diameter, not area, is always con-
sidered. For practical use an eyepiece composed of an ordinary
single lens is seldom advantageous, because good definition can
only be obtained in the center of the field. Lenses made accord-
ing to special formulse, however, and called solid eyepieces, give
excellent results, and for high powers are often to be preferred to
any other. The eyepieces usually furnished with telescopes are,
in their essential principles, compound microscopes, and they are
of two descriptions, " positive '' and " negative." The former gen-
erally goes under the name of its inventor, Ramsden, and the lat-
ter is named after the great Dutch astronomer, Huygens. The
Huygens eyepiece consists of two plano-convex lenses whose focal

Fig. 4. — Negative Eyepiece.

Fiu. 5. — Positive Eyepiece.

lengths are in the ratio of three to one. The smaller lens is placed
next to the eye. Both lenses have their convex surfaces toward
the object glass, and their distance apart is equal to half the sum
of their focal lengths. In this kind of eyepiece the image is
formed between the two lenses, and if the work is properly done
such an eyepiece is achromatic. It is therefore generally pre-
ferred for mere seeing purposes. In the Ramsden eyepiece two
plano-convex lenses are also used, but they are of equal focal
length, are placed at a distance apart equal to two thirds of the
focal length of either, and have their convex sides facing one an-
other. With such an eyepiece the image viewed is beyond the
farther or field lens instead of between the two lenses, and as this
fact renders it easier to adjust wires or lines for measuring pur-
poses in the focus of the eyepiece, the Ramsden construction is
used when a micrometer is to be employed. In order to ascertain

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the magnifying power which an eyepiece gives when applied to a
telescope it is necessary to know the equivalent, or combined,
focal length of the two lenses. Two simple rules, easily remem-
bered, supply the means of ascertaining this. The equivalent
focal length of a negative or Huygens eyepiece is equal to half
the focal length of the larger or field lens. The equivalent focal
length of a positive or Ramsden eyepiece is equal to three
fourths of the focal length of either of the lenses. Having ascer-
tained the equivalent focal length of the eyepiece, it is only neces-
sary to divide it into the focal length of the object glass (or mir-
ror) in order to know the magnifying power of your telescope
when that j^articular eyepiece is in use.

A first-class object glass (or mirror) will bear a magnifying
power of one hundred to the inch of aperture when the air is in
good condition—that is, if you are looking at stars. If you are
viewing the moon, or a planet, better results will always be ob-
tained with lower powers — say fifty to the inch at the most. And
under ordinary atmospheric conditions a power of from fifty
to seventy-five to the inch is far better for stars than a higher
power. With a five-inch telescope that would mean from two
hundred and fifty to three hundred and seventy-five diameters,
and such powers should only be applied for the sake of separating
very close double stars. As a general rule, the lowest power that
will distinctly show what you desire to see gives the best results.
The experienced observer never uses as high powers as the begin-
ner does. The number of eyepieces purchased with a telescope
should never be less than three — a very low power — say ten to the
inch ; a very high power, seventy-five or one hundred to the inch,
for occasional use ; and a medium power — say forty to the inch —
for general use. If you can afi:ord it, get a full battery of eye-
pieces— six or eight, or a dozen — for experience shows that difi'er-
ent objects require different powers in order to be best seen, and,
moreover, a slight change of power is frequently a great relief to
the eye.

There is one other thing of great importance to be considered
in purchasing a telescope — the mounting. If your glass is not
well mounted on a steady and easily managed stand, you might
better have spent your money for something more useful. I have
endured hours of torment while trying to see stars through a tele-
scope that was shivering in the wind and dancing to every mo-
tion of the bystanders, to say nothing of the wriggling contor-
tions caused by the application of my own fingers to the focussing
screw. The best of all stands is a solid iron pillar firmly fastened
into a brick or stone pier, sunk at least four feet in the ground,
and surmounted by a well-made equatorial bearing whose polar
axis has been carefully placed in the meridian. It can be readily

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE. 221

protected from the weather by raeans of a wooden hood or a rub-
ber sheet, while the tube of the telescope may be kept indoors,
being carried out and placed on its bearing only when observa-
tions are to be made. With such a mounting you can laugh at
the observatories with their cumbersome domes, for the best of
all observatories is the open air. But if you dislike the labor of
carrying and adjusting the tube every time it is used, and are
both fond of and able to procure luxuries, then, after all, perhaps,
you had better have the observatory, dome, draughts and all.

The next best thing in the way of a mounting is a portable
tripod stand. This may be furnished either with an equatorial
bearing for the telescope, or an altazimuth arrangement which
permits both up-and-down and horizontal motions. The latter is
cheaper than the equatorial and proportionately inferior in use-
fulness and convenience. The essential principle of the equatorial
bearing is motion about two axes placed at right angles to one
another. When the polar axis is in the meridian, and inclined at
an angle equal to the latitude of the place, the telescope can be
moved about the two axes in such a way as to point to any quar-
ter of the sky, and the motion of a star, arising from the earth's
rotation, can be followed hour after hour without disturbing the
instrument. When thus mounted, the telescope may be driven by
clockwork, or by hand with the aid of a screw geared to a handle
carrying a universal joint.

And now for testing the telescope. It has already been re-
marked that the excellence of a telescope depends upon the per-
fection of the image formed at the focus of the objective. In
what follows I have only a refractor in mind, although the same
principle would apply to a reflector. With a little practice any-
body who has a correct eye can form a fair judgment of the ex-
cellence of a telescopic image. Suppose we have our telescope
steadily mounted out of doors (if you value your peace of mind
you will not try to use a telescope pointed out of a window, espe-
cially in winter), and suppose we begin our observations with the
pole star, employing a magnifying power of sixty or seventy to
the inch. Our first object is to see if the optician has given us a
good glass. If the air is not reasonably steady we had better
postjione our experiment to another night, because we shall find
that the star as seen in the telescope flickers and " boils," and be-
haves in so extraordinary a fashion that there is no more defini-
tion in the image than there is steadiness in a bluebottle buzzing
on a window pane. But if the night is a fine one the star image
will be quiescent, and then we may note the following particulars :
The real image is a minute bright disk, about one second of arc
in diameter if we are using a four-and-a-half or five-inch tele-
scope, and surrounded by one very thin ring of light, and the

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fragments, so to speak, of one or possibly two similar rings a lit-
tle farther from the disk, and visible, jDerhaps, only by glimpses.
These " diffraction rings " arise from the undulatory nature of
light, and their distance apart as well as the diameter of the cen-
tral disk depend upon the length of the waves of light. If the
telescope is a really good one, and both object glass and eyepiece
are properly adjusted, the disk will be perfectly round, slightly
softer at the edge, but otherwise equally bright throughout ; and
the ring or rings surrounding it will be exactly concentric, and
not brighter on one side than on another. Even if our telescope
were only two inches or two inches and a half in aperture we
should at once notice a little bluish star, the mere ghost of a star
in a small telescope, hovering near the pole star. It is the cele-
brated "companion,"' but we shall see it again when we have
more time to study it. Now let us put the star out of focus by
turning the focusing screw. Suppose we turn it in such a way
that the eyepiece moves slightly outside the focus, or

Baway from the object glass. Very beautiful phenom-
ena immediately begin to make their appearance, A
slight motion outward causes the little disk to expand
^s*' ''t""^"^ perceptibly, and just as this expansion commences, a
bright-red point appears at the precise center of the
disk. But, the outward motion continuing, this red center disap-
pears, and is replaced by a blue center, which gradually expands
into a sort of flare over the middle of the disk. The disk itself
has in the mean time enlarged into a series of concentric bright
rings, graduated in luminosity with beautiful precision from cen-
ter toward circumference. The outermost ring is considerably
brighter, however, than it would be if the same gradation applied
to it as applies to the inner rings, and it is surrounded, moreover,
on its outer edge by a slight flare which tends to increase its ap-
parent width. Next let us return to the focus and then move the
eyepiece gradually inside the focal point or plane. Once more
the star disk expands into a series of circles, and, if we except
the color phenomena noticed outside the focus, these circles are
precisely like those seen before in arrangement, in size, and in
brightness. If they were not the same, we should pronounce the
telescope to be imperfect. There is one other difference, however,
besides the absence of the blue central flare, and that is a faint
reddish edging around the outer ring when the expansion inside
the focus is not carried very far. Upon continuing to move the
eyepiece inside or outside the focus we observe that the system of
rings becomes larger, while the rings themselves rapidly increase
in number, becoming at the same time individually thinner and
fainter.

By studying the appearance of the star disk when in focus and

PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE. 223

of the rings when out of focus on either side, an experienced eye
can readily detect any fault that a telescope may have. The
amateur, of course, can only learn to do this by considerable
practice. Any glaring and serious fault, however, will easily
make itself manifest. Suppose, for example, we observe that the
image of a star instead of being perfectly round is oblong, and
that a similar defect appears in the form of the rings when the
eyepiece is put out of focus. We know at once that something is
wrong ; but the trouble may lie either in the object glass, in the
eyepiece, in the eye of the observer himself, or in the adjustment
of the lenses in the tube. A careful examination of the image
and the out-of-focus circles will enable us to determine with
which of these sources of error we have to deal. If the star
image when in focus has a sort of wing on one side, and if the
rings out of focus expand eccentrically, appearing wider and
larger on one side than on the other, being at the same time
brightest on the least expanded side, then the object glass is prob-
ably not at right angles to the axis of the tube and requires read-
justment. That part of the object glass on the side where the
rings appear most expanded and faintest needs to be pushed
slightly inward. This can be effected by means of counterscrews
placed for that purpose in or around the cell. But if, after we
have got the object glass properly squared to the axis of the tube
or the line of sight, the image and the ring system in and out of
focus still appear oblong, the fault of astigmatism must exist
either in the objective, the eyepiece, or the eye. The chances are
very great that it is the eye itself that is at fault. We may be
certain of this if we find, on turning the head so as to look into
the telescope with the eye in different positions, that the oblong
image turns with the head of the observer, keeping its major axis
continually in the same relative position with respect to the eye.
The remedy then is to consult an oculist and get a pair of cylin-
drical eyeglasses. If the oblong image does not turn round with
the eye, but does turn when the eyepiece is twisted round, then
the astigmatism is in the latter. If, finally, it does not follow
either the eye or the eyepiece, it is the objective that is at fault.

But instead of being oblong, the image and the rings may be
misshapen in some other way. If they are three-cornered, it is
probable that the object glass is subjected to undue pressure in
its cell. This, if the telescope has been brought out on a cool
night from a warm room, may arise from the unequal contraction
of the metal work and the glass as they cool off. In fact, no good
star image can be got while a telescope is assuming the temj^era-
ture of the surrounding atmosphere. Even the air inclosed in
the tube is capable of making much trouble until its temperature
has sunk to the level of that outside. Half an hour at least is re-

224

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

quired for a telescope to adjust itself to out-of-door temperature,
except in the summer time, and it is better to allow an hour or two
for such adjustment in cold weather. Any irregularity in the
shape of the rings which persists after the lenses have been ac-
curately adjusted and the telescope has
properly cooled may be ascribed to im-
perfections, such as veins or spots of
unequal density in the glass forming
the objective.

Tlie spherical aberration of an object
glass may be undercorrected or over-
corrected. In the former case the cen-
tral rings inside the focus will appear
faint and the outer ones unduly strong, while outside the focus
the central rings will be too bright and the outer ones too feeble.
But if the aberration is overcorrected the central rings will be
overbright inside the focus and abnormally faint outside the
focus.

Assuming that we have a telescope in which no obvious fault
is discernible, the next thing is to test its powers in actual work.
In what is to follow I shall endeavor to describe some of the prin-
cipal objects in the heavens from which the amateur observer
may expect to derive pleasure and instruction, and which may at
the same time serve as tests of the excellence of his telescope.

Fig. 7. —The Out-of-Focus Rings
1, Correct fi,ffure ; 2 and 3
spherical aberration.

Fig. 8.— Two Views of Maes in 1892. The smaller with a three and three eitfhths inch

telescope ; the larger with a nine ineli.

No one should be deterred or discouraged in the study of celestial
objects by the apparent insignificance of his means of observation.
The accompanying pictures of the planet Mars may serve as an
indication of the fact that a small telescope is frequently capable
of doing work that appears by no means contemptible when
placed side by side with that of tlie greater instruments of the
observatories.

SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 225
SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED?

Br T. D. CEOTHEES, M.D.

MR. APPLETON MORGAN, in the Marcli number of The
Popular Science Monthly, affirms that all prohibitory liquor
laws should bo abolished. Naturally, the reader inquires for what
reasons and upon what evidence, and expects to find a grouping
of facts that will at least give some support to these claims. If,
on the contrary, the author assumes that the reader will credu-
lously accept his confident statements as facts, it is to be supposed
that such statements will be in accord with common observation,
historical facts, and experience ; if they fail in this, and are not
sustained by any general examination, it is safe to conclude that
the purpose of the paper is not to present the truth, and the author
is a partisan, having some other object to accomplish not appar-
ent in his writings.

The magnitude and intensely practical character of the ques-
tion of prohibitory laws seem to demand some examination of the
author's assertions. He begins with this : " The absolute, un-
qualified, and distinguished failure of all laws for the abolish-
ment of the traffic in liquors is speedily convincing even the
most sanguine prohibitionists of the expediency of wiping them
from every statute book in the land."

In the failure to refer to authority for this statement the
reader must examine for himself. Political records in yearly
volumes, and histories of political reform, give no evidence or
names of sanguine or other prohibitionists who are convinced of
the failure of such laws.

Governors of States where prohibition laws are in force have
without exception declared in their favor. Some have suggested
modifications and changes from the present form, but all have
affirmed their great value in securing better observance of law
and order.

In 1889 a canvass was made of the opinions of judges. Congress-
men, mayors of cities, superintendents of schools, journalists,
manufacturers, postmasters, and others in the State of Maine,
asking their opinion of the practical value of the existing pro-
hibitory laws. In one hundred and forty replies only seven ex-
pressed any doubt, the others were confident and enthusiastic.
Similar canvasses made in Vermont, Rhode Island, Kansas, Iowa,
and in States where prohibition had been tried, brought out the
same unanimous replies from equally eminent men, who were not
in any way identified with the party of prohibition.

These and other systematic inquiries have been published in
the New York Voice, a leading prohibition paper, and are cer-

TOL. XLV. — 18

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tainly entitled to credence from the fearless, independent char-
acter of the replies. Turning to the Brewers' Journal and the
Wine and Spirit Circular, which are supposed to represent those
opposed to all prohibitory laws, the statements which are pre-
sented are of such a startling character, showing the failure of
such laws, as to create doubt of their accuracy. The evidence in
both of these journals and their reports is so intensely partisan
and extreme as statements of alleged facts as to appear unfair
and doubtful.

The census reports of 1880 and 1890 show a marked decrease
of crime, pauperism, drunkenness, and arrests in all the States
where prohibition is in force. No matter how these facts are ex-
plained, they do not support the statement that prohibition is a
distinguished failure.

The author continues : " These laws never had any adequate
or logical reason for existing at all. They have had their origin
always and without exception in sparsely settled communities,
where personal liberty was so absolute that it became irksome,
where liquor was almost unknown, and its use a curiosity, and
where the only knowledge of the horrors of intoxication the vil-
lage possessed was derived from itinerant temperance orators,
who dilated upon the terrible consequences of the rum habit to a
roomful of tearful old women, none of whom knew the taste of
liquor stronger than green tea."

The first sentence of this quotation must be accepted exclu-
sively on faith, for there are no reasons for supposing that the
long lists of philosophers, reformers, and leaders who have urged
prohibitory laws were stupid, illogical, and unable to realize and
reason on a certain line of facts. The rest of the paragraph
ignores all early history of the origin of prohibitory legislation.
The author has overlooked the fact that prohibitionary laws were
enacted in Judea, Egypt, Greece, and Rome long centuries ago ;
also that Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle discussed these ques-
tions, and Homer and Herodotus declared that " prohibitory laws
would save men from becoming beasts." If the author will turn
to his copy of RoUin's Ancient History, Montesquieu's Spirit of
Laws, and Whewell's Platonic Dialogues, and his Morality and
Polity, he will find his assertions out of harmony with the facts.

Along in this connection he asserts that the New England
Puritan " no more thought of prohibiting the drinking of liquor
than the preaching eight or ten hour sermons." Here again the
facts of history are ignored. Laws were passed in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as early as 1610, prohibiting the
sale of liquor to Indians, negroes, and mulatto slaves, and earlier
than this innkeepers were prohibited from selling spirits after
nine o'clock at night, and on Sunday, or to drunken men. The

SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 227

Puritans for over a hundred years were struggling to prohibit
the sale of liquor under certain conditions, and colonial and later
laws regulating who should sell spirits, and when, and to whom,
and under what conditions, would fill a volume. Volumes of ser-
mons preached during this time will show that prohibition was a
very serious topic ; one of the reasons held was that intoxication
was due to direct Satanic influence.

The reiteration that the various statutes against the selling of
liquor are not for the general good, and do not come from a de-
mand for protection or public peace, or from cause of necessity,
or expediency, or in a community where the evil of the sales is
apparent or experienced, and that not a single proposition for the
policy of prohibition arises from demand for relief, sound like
Rev. Jasper's declarations : " The Sun he do move ; the Earth he
do stand still.''

The admission that "if laws preventing the sale of liquors
should be demanded by the users, and purchasers who desired to
be relieved of the temptation of buying it, a wise policy might
decree the prevailing of the petition," is followed by a statement
that " the non-users and non-purchasers who are in the majority,
and those who have never suffered, need protection for which
they have not asked." Any careful study will show that a large
proportion of the most enthusiastic supporters of prohibitory
laws are persons who have either suffered personally or in their
families, or socially or financially, from the evils of spirits.
Very few persons urge an unpopular cause unless from some
strong conviction based on an experience that has a personal
bearing. While any new movement always attracts a certain
class of irregulars and camp followers, they soon drop out, and
seldom continue attached to it very long. The rank and file who
are honest in their theories and proposals for relief keep on until
their ideals are realized, or some new way gives new form and
direction to their efforts.

The earliest liquor law Mr. Morgan could find grew out of
some letters appearing in a paper in 1832. At that time there
were twenty States in the Union, with a great number and va-
riety of prohibitory laws on their statute books. Many of these
States had laws enacted half a century before ; even some of the
Territories had very stringent laws regulating the liquor traffic.
The colony of Georgia for nine years was under a strong pro-
hibitory law passed by the English Parliament in 3 735. The
early laws prohibiting and restricting the sale of spirits in this
country would fill a small-sized volume, even before 1832, and
from that time on several volumes would be required to contain
them.

The statement that the State of Maine before 1832 was almost

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Arcadian in its innocence respecting the use of spirits is remark-
able. The laws concerning spirits, local option, license, and pro-
hibition, and the penalties for common drunkards, selling to
minors, soldiers, Indians, and drinking on Sunday, and where and
when liquors should be sold, passed in 1821-^24 and 1829, give
no indications of Arcadian innocence in Maine at that time.

In 1829 the first local option and literal prohibition law was
passed in Maine ; this was changed from time to time, and finally
became the famous Maine law of 1816 and 1851, which exists
to-day. In a little volume by Dr. Jewett, published in 1853, ap-
pear some harrowing accounts of the crimes and pauperism in
Maine springing directly from drunkenness, long before the fa-
mous prohibitory law was enacted. Thus there is no doubt that
the early settlers of Maine were as much addicted to, the so-called
vices of drink as any other people.

The author declares that all prohibitory liquor laws are dan-
gerous to the physical, moral, and political health of the commu-
nity ; that (1) " they increase the demand for, while deteriorating
the quality of, the supply of liquors." The censuses of 1880 and
1890, and internal revenue reports, indicate a decrease in the sale
of spirits in all the States where prohibition exists. The demand
and consumption of spirits and beer in adjoining States and cities,
not under these laws, give no indications of increased sales of spir-
its which are or may be consumed in these prohibition sections.
Individual opinions to the effect that the demand for spirits has
increased are not sustained by statistics from reliable sources.
The deterioration in the quality of the liquors is found, from
numerous analyses by chemists of the various State Boards of
Health, to be principally from water. The drugs used for color
and flavor are generally innocuous in both effect and quantity.
The quality of the liquor depends on the kind of alcohol, which is
far more likely to be dangerous in the so-called pure liquors than
the cheap combinations of the saloon keeper.

This fact has been studied by the leading chemists of France,
in several elaborate reports, in which it appears that the poisons
of liquors are due to the formation and combinations of different
alcohols, that are due to natural changes, and can only be known
to the analytical chemist and inferred by the clinician from a
study of the observed effects on the consumer. It has been re-
peatedly stated by authorities that a large part of the cheap
liquors sold are new spirits adulterated with water, and made
pleasant by flavoring substances. Hence cheap liquors from low
places may be far safer as beverages than old, expensive spirits
from the cellars and vaults of the most reliable dealers.

(2) The assertion that the law against the use of liquors
stimulates to greater violation of the law, and produces an appe-

SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 229

tite for liquor-drinking where it did not exist before, would be
easily verifiable if true ; but, upon appeal to the facts of statisti-
cal reports of criminal and health boards, there is no evidence to
sustain it.

The next assertion (3), that such laws give the visionary and
crank class in the community political balance of power, is
equally unverifiable. The author's complaint that prohibition
laws beget an exaggerated oratory, and an appetite for sweeping
statements and the cultivation of false statistics, etc., receives a
most practical illustration in his paper. His own sweeping deni-
als and allegations of facts, which are not substantiated by any
investigation, are ample proof of the danger of such literature
to the credulous and unthinking.

To say that all prohibition laws are worse than useless, that
they have not lessened the sale or consumption of liquors; that
free spirits and free sale would increase the horror of the drunk-
ard and decrease the horror of liquor ; and by making the one
a crime and nuisance, the merits of the other would come into
prominence, or, in other words, increase the severity of the pun-
ishment of the drunkard and make the sale of liquor practically
free, sounds very tropical to say the least.

The final reference to statistics showing an increased longevity
of the drinkers over the total abstainers, as a fact which appeared
in the British Medical Journal, is notoriously untrue and mis-
chievous.

Such are some of the allegations which challenge the author
for particulars and specifications, to make good his assertions.
As they are presented in a historic form, they are apparently
based on defective knowledge and incorrect statements and faulty
observations of facts, or the construction of facts, according to
some theory or purpose, irrespective of all relations or inferences.

It would seem useless to make any detailed study of statements
that are unverifiable even if true, in which no appeal to facts is
made, especially statements that will not bear the most casual
scrutiny. Reformers and their opponents who battle with each
other in a " Donnybrook-fair style," striking in all directions,
with the wildest dogmatic assertions, reckless of history, facts,
and truth, never advance any cause however meritorious.

If the prohibitionary laws are dangerous and injurious there
should be facts and data to prove it clearly, and no arguments
based on assumed facts, with crooked deductions and doubtful
statements, should ever be urged in its defense.

Leaving Mr. Morgan's strange statements, we turn to some
general considerations of the alcoholic evil, and the legislative
efforts to check and remove it.

To any one who will examine from the scientific side the vari-

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ous questions concerning the drink problem, and tlie remedies
offered, many new facts and conclusions will appear. From this
point of view, the accumulation of facts and their comparative
accuracy is required, with indifference concerning any possible
conclusions they may indicate. Wherever personal feelings and
self-interest enter into such inquiry, the value and accuracy of
the results are impaired. As in a law court, the question is
simply one of facts and their meaning. Some of the facts may
be grouped and studied !

In a general way it may be stated that the physiological ac-
tion of alcohol on the body is practically unknown. Theories of
its value as a food, as a nutrient, and as a force-producer, and its
usefulness as a beverage, when examined, are found to be unveri-
fiable or untrue. Evidence of its value in health and in modera-
tion rests on theory and superstition, and is not sustained by
appeals to facts.

The question of its value as a medicine is by no means settled.
Men eminent in science, and fully competent to decide, express
doubt, or deny its value altogether. Leading physicians and
teachers of medicine prescribe less and less spirits, and the extent
of its use in disease is becoming more limited every year.

The evidence of its value as a beverage is doubtful, to say the
least, while the disastrous effects of alcohol can not be questioned,
and the accumulated evidence of years brings this fact into in-
creasing prominence.

A historical retrospect of the legal efforts to control and re-
strict the use of spirits suggests an evolution and growth that
has not been considered before. Outside of biblical literature,
whose teachings and laws are so often quoted, a remarkable chap-
ter of legal enactments and restrictions can be traced. Beginning
with the fragmentary inscriptions found on Egyptian papyri
and monuments, and extending to the codes, philosophies, and
enactments of the greatest philosophers, rulers, and judges of
Grecian and Roman civilization, there is a continuous record of
prohibitory laws and restrictions concerning the use of spirits
and drunkenness. The laws of the Spartans were far more abso-
lute than any modern enactments, and were also remarkable for
the clear comprehension of the nature of spirits and their action
on the body. These laws were active for many years, and were
highly commended.

English history contains many records of prohibitory, restrict-
ive laws, some of which were very prominent for a time, then
fell into disuse. Laws of similar import have followed the path
of civilization from the earliest dawn and wherever spirits have
been used. They have been urged and defended by the greatest
philosophers, teachers, and leaders of civilization.

SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 231

Prohibitory laws and enactments in this country are a repeti-
tion of the reform efforts of centuries ago, only on a higher plane,
showing decided evolution and growth. The laws of those early
times were based on observation of the ill effects of spirits, and
the expediency of checking these evils. The same laws in mod-
ern times are founded on moral theories and facts which seem to
indicate no other means for relief.

In all times the sanitary evils of drink have been recognized
at first only faintly, then in an increasing ratio, down to the
present. To-day scientists and sanitarians are beginning to un-
derstand the perilous and dangerous influence of alcohol in nearly
all conditions of life.

Modern prohibitory laws appear to be founded on mixed the-
ories, and are not clear or harmonious in their workings. The
applications of these laws, from the earliest settlements of the
country down to the present time, give abundant illustrations of
this. In several States prohibitory laws have been on trial for a
quarter of a century and more, and have seemed to meet the ex-
pectations of their supporters. In others such enactments have
been abandoned after a short experiment for various complicating
reasons. Political partisanship has been so intimately concerned
with these questions that the facts are very obscure.

The assertions and denials of the practical value of prohib-
itory enactments are equally confusing. The only unbiased au-
thority from the census and internal revenue reports, in the states
where these laws are in force, points to a diminishing use of
spirits, better social and sanitary conditions, and lessened law-
lessness.

Widely different explanations of this fact are urged and de-
fended with great positiveness. High license and local option
have their warm defenders and bitter opponents. Their value in
different communities rests on the same uncertain and differently
explained facts ; often their adoption or rejection is mere caprice,
political selfishness, and the changing sentiment of the hour.

The theoretical scientific study of spirits and their effects opens
up another field that brings a wider conception to the problem.
Here the student is confronted with the same evidence of evolu-
tion. Theories urged two thousand years ago — that drunkenness
was a disease, and that spirits was an exciting cause, in some cases
merely exploding a condition which was due to influences more
remote and widely varied, or building up a morbid state which
will require the narcotism of spirits ever after — have become
demonstrable facts of modern times.

The remedies for these are restraint, control, and medical treat-
ment of the victims, by legal enactments prohibitory and coer-
cive. It is also evident that vast ranges of unknown causes and

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

conditions, which enter into the phenomena of life and living, are
the basal factors of drunkenness and inebriety. Remedies — legis-
lative, social, and medical — to be effectual must be founded on
some general knowledge of these causes. Such are some of the
general facts of the drink problem as seen to-day. Many of them
are very significant, and have a meaning which is unmistakable.

Tlie great revolutions of theories concerning alcohol and its
physiological action on the body, together with the rapid accu-
mulation of evidence contradicting all previous conceptions of its
value as a nutrient, stimulant, and beverage, are conclusive that
the facts are not all known. Countries and cities where wine and
beer and other alcoholic drinks have been used freely, without
question, are invaded by temperance and total abstinence soci-
eties. Theories of the value of spirits that have come down
unquestioned are being challenged and proof of their truth
demanded.

The French National Temperance Society, the Society against
the Abuses of Alcohol for the Rhine Provinces, the Belgian Total
Abstinence Society, the Netherland Society, the Swiss Society, the
Italian Society, the Austrian and Prussian Society, the Norwe-
gian, Russian, Danish, and numerous other societies, are urging
total abstinence theories, and denying the value of spirits in the
very centers of all spirit-drinking countries. Four international
congresses have been held in these countries during the past ten
years, in which eminent medical men have presented and defend-
ed the total abstinence side of the drink problem.

The real facts, separated from all partisan sensationalism,
agree that alcohol is a poison, a paralyzant, and narcotic, and its
defenders admit this as true, but only in large and reckless quanti-
ties. The question then turns on what quantities are safe or dan-
gerous, and what is the possible amount that can be taken within
health limits. This is similar to drawing boundary lines between
twilight and darkness, and is obviously impossible with the pres-
ent limits of our knowledge.

The evidence up to this time from the chemical laboratory,
from experiments, from hospital studies, from statistics, and other
sources, clearly proves that alcohol is a poison and is positively
dangerous to health — in what way, in what conditions, and un-
der what circumstances is yet an open question, in which differ-
ence of opinion will exist until more exhaustive experimental
studies are made. Text-books for schools and colleges and parti-
san discussions often contain statements conveying the mislead-
ing impression that the facts about alcohol are known, when, in
reality, beyond a few general principles, we are profoundly igno-
rant of its physiological action. The facts concerning its ravages
and baneful influence are too common to be called in question,

SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 233

and the statement that it is the greatest peril to modern civiliza-
tion has a basis in actual experience.

It appears to be a conclusion, which all scientific and socio-
logical progress is verifying, that a more complete knowledge of
alcohol will demand some form of prohibitory laws ; whether like
those existing at present or not it is impossible now to say. Such
laws will not depend on any sentiment or any theory, but will be
founded on demonstrated truths, and the necessity for self-preser-
vation. It will not be a question of Maine law, or whether pro-
hibition prohibits, or whether any party or society or public senti-
ment favors or opposes it. Action will be taken on the same prin-
ciple that a foul water supply is cleansed or a sanitary nuisance
removed. The questions of high or low license, local option, and
all the various schemes of partial or complete restriction, with
the vast machinery of moral forces that seek relief by the church,
the pledge, the prayer, and the temperance society, will be for-
gotten, and the evil will be dealt with in the summary way in
which enlightened communities deal with other ascertained causes
of dangerous disease.

While the average citizen may be slow to unlearn and change
his views about alcohol, he is ever quick to recognize and provide
for dangers that peril his personal interests. Show this man that
every place where spirits are sold as a beverage is a "poison
center " and every drinker is a suicidal maniac, whose presence is
dangerous to the happiness and peace of the community, and he
will at once become a practical prohibitionist. This is the direc-
tion toward which all temperance agitation is drifting.

Sanitary boards, government commissions, and hospital au-
thorities must gather the facts from very wide sources, and the
generalizations from these will supplement and sustain the labo-
ratory and hospital work and point out conclusions that will be
real advances in this field. Inebriate asylums (at present obscure
and bitterly opposed) will become very important aids in the
study of the causes of inebriety. Like prohibitory laws, they
will become a recognized necessity when the disease of inebriety
and the poison of alcohol are understood.

Beyond all theory and agitation there is another movement of
startling significance. Everywhere the moderate and excessive
drinking man is looked upon with suspicion. His capacity is
doubted, and his weakness is recognized as dangerous in all posi-
tions of trust and confidence. Corporations and companies demand
employees to be total abstainers. Railroads, manufactories, and
even retail liquor dealers of the better class require all workmen
to be temperate men. This is extending to all occupations, and
the moderate drinker is being crowded out as dangerous and un-
fit. This movement has no sentiment, but is the result of experi-

VOL. XLV. 19

234 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ence and the recognition of the danger of the use of alcohol as a
beverage. Nothing can be more absolute than these unwritten
prohibitory laws which discharge workmen seen in saloons and
refuse to employ skilled men because they use spirits in modera-
tion.

To repeal all restrictive and prohibitory laws and open the
doors for the free use of rum is to act in opposition to all the
facts or observation and experience. On the other hand, to insist
that prohibitory laws are the only measures to correct the drink
evils, or that high license and local option are equally powerful
as remedies, is to assume a knowledge of alcohol and inebriety
that has not been attained. The highest wisdom of to-day de-
mands the facts and reasons for the use of alcohol, and why it
should be literally and theoretically the cause of so much loss
and peril to the race. All hope for the future solution of these
questions must come from accurately observed facts and their
teachings, and, like the problems of the stars above us, be deter-
mined along lines of scientific inquiry.

DAIRY SCHOOLS AND DAIRY PRODUCTS.

By F. W. WOLL,

assistant pr0fes90k of agrtcultural chemistry in the university' of wisconsin.

EVERYBODY likes good butter and good cheese, but to a
large proportion of our population these very desirable arti-
cles of food would come in under the head of luxuries. Perhaps
more than ninety per cent of the butter consumed by our people
is made on farms or in private dairies ; a great deal of it is fit for
a king's table, and more and more of this kind of butter is made
every year ; still, when we consider the number of small towns in
the United States and the quality of the mass of butter which
every week is brought to the corner grocery store in each one of
these places, there to be exchanged for three cent calico or twenty-
five-cent coifee, it is evident that a large proportion of our butter
is unqualifiedly bad. As for much of the cheese sold, the trouble
lies in another direction — less in faulty methods of manufacture
than in a flooding of the market with an immature, indigestible,
sole-leather product, which some of us may know from the dining
rooms of second and third class hotels.

While we, therefore, may find fault with a large share of the
dairy products sold in the United States, we can not wonder very
much that such is the case. Not until of late years has thor-
ough, systematic instruction in their manufacture been offered
anywhere in this country. The fundamental principles of the

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236 THU POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

handling and care of milk and cream, and of the cream and but-
ter in and out of the churn, are almost unknown to thousands
of butter-makers, and more especially to the private, non-pro-
fessional ones among these, who are in the great majority. The
engineers have their mechanical colleges and their schools of
technology, the doctors have their medical schools, and the drug-
gists their pharmacy colleges, but the dairy farmers have had
practically no place where they could receive instruction in the
theory and practice of butter and cheese making. I am aware
that there have been agricultural colleges in the United States
since 1855, but as far as practical instruction in dairying is con-
cerned a good many of them might as well not have existed at all,
if I do not radically misjudge the situation. Lectures in dairying,
in which the principles of butter-making were to be taught, were
certainly included in the curricula of some of the colleges, under
the charge of the Professor of Agriculture, but this gentleman
most likely also had charge of the feeding and breeding of farm
animals, cultivation of crops, soil physics, farm management, and
other studies. It is not strange that the attention given to dairy
matters and to the manufacture of dairy products could only be
very scant under these conditions. There were so many important
problems to be taken up and discussed in relation to general agri-
cultural topics that time would not permit entering into details,
even if the professor had the inclination to do so.

This state of affairs led to the establishment of separate schools
for instruction in dairying, especially in the manufacture of but-
ter and cheese. Such schools have existed in Europe for a num-
ber of years ; here they were not introduced until four years ago,
when the Wisconsin Dairy School was founded as a separate de-
partment of the Agricultural College of the University of Wis-
consin. So spontaneous was the growth of this school, and so
rapid the adoption of the system in many other States of the
Union, that it surprised the most ardent supporters of the move-
ment.

The Wisconsin Dairy School dates from January, 1890, when
a short dairy course was arranged for students taking the winter
course in the College of Agriculture ; two out of the twenty-seven
agricultural students took this dairy course. The following year,
when the course was greatly widened and the dairy school proper
organized, seventy-two students entered, crowding the quarters of
the school to the very utmost. The Wisconsin Legislature hav-
ing in 1891 appropriated twenty-five thousand dollars for a sepa-
rate dairy-school building, the work was at once pushed forward ;
where a crop of corn was taken off the ground in September, 1891,
a neat, substantial edifice was erected, the first story of which was
ready for occupancy in January, 1892, and in March the first class

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238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of students from the new dairy school was graduated, thus secur-
ing for the university two crops from the same land within a
year. The building was finished during the summer of 1892, and
is a model in appearance and equipment. Its cost up to date with
equipment amounts to nearly forty thousand dollars. The name
of the building, Hiram Smith Hall, was given it in honor of
the veteran Wisconsin dairyman, Hon. Hiram Smith (1890), for
twelve years a regent of the University and chairman of the
Farm Committee of the Board of Regents, to whose enthusiasm
and untiring efforts the school largely owes its existence. The
building is calculated to accommodate one hundred students, and
this number was reached the first year. Last year one hundred
candidates applied for admission before December 1st, although
the school did not begin until January 4th, and later applicants
had to be turned away. Students have come from Canada and
almost every State in the Union where dairying is a leading in-
dustry: Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan have furnished their
quota ; so have Maine and California ; New Hampshire and Ne-
vada ; New York, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.

We can not here enter into a detailed description of the courses
of instruction offered in the school, but a short outline of the
same will be given. Only branches bearing directly on the science
and practice of dairying and on the manufacture of dairy prod-
ucts are taught. The policy of the governing board is to make
the instruction thoroughly practical ; at the same time the theo-
retical side is considered no less important. The professors and
instructors connected with the school are specialists in their vari-
ous branches ; the instructors in the cheese room and the cream-
ery are expert cheese and butter makers.

The instruction is given, first, by lectures ; second, by work at
the separators, the churns, and the cheese vats, as well as in the
laboratory. Lectures are given in the following branches: The
breeds and breeding of dairy cows, the feeding of dairy cows, dis-
eases of dairy cows, the chemistry of milk and its products, bac-
teriology of the dairy products, physical problems connected with
the dairy, and the care and management of the boiler and engine.
These subjects are presented to the class by different professors of
the university.

The practical work is taught in the butter and cheese room, as
well as in the laboratory. The picture of the separating room
shows the arrangement of the separators. Of these all the latest
and most improved patterns are kept, as well as of the butter ex-
tractor. It may be in order to state, for the benefit of the many
readers who never were inside of a creamery or a farm dairy, that
a cream separator or a centrifuge, as it is sometimes called, is a
machine for separating the cream from the skim milk by means of

DAIRY SCHOOLS AND DAIRY PRODUCTS. 239

centrifugal force. A strong steel bowl is made to rotate by hand-
power or steam, at a speed of five to eight thousand revolutions
per minute; by this means the heavier portion of the milk, the
skim milk, is separated from the lighter portion, the cream, and
both are collected in separate vessels.

The work in the creamery room includes the handling and
care of the cream previous to churning, the churning, and the
working and packing of the butter. In the cheese room, where
there are eight milk vats, each of a capacity of three hundred
pounds, thirty-two students may work at the same time ; the vari-
ous steps in cheese-making, from the proper handling of the milk
to the curing of the cheese, are here learned.

A most important part of the instruction is the milk testing,
which is taught in the laboratory. Farmers' boys, who previously
to their entering the school knew nothing whatever about the dif-
ferent components of milk, here learn to determine the percentage
of fat in milk, skim milk, buttermilk, whey, and cream, with
almost as great accuracy as any experienced chemist, and cer-
tainly as satisfactorily for all practical purposes. This has been
made possible by the introduction of the Babcock test for the
determination of fat in milk, a method invented nearly four years
ago by Dr. S. M. Babcock, chief chemist to the Wisconsin Experi-
ment Station. The method has won for its originator a world-
wide reputation and the gratitude of progressive dairy farmers in
this and other countries. The test, which was given to the public
without any restriction of patent, is extremely simple, and may
be made on a farm or in a creamery or cheese factory as well as
in a chemical laboratory, everywhere with equal correctness and
facility. In the dairy school the percentage of fat in milk is
determined by Babcock's test, and by a combination of the test
and the lactometer (a simple apparatus to determine the specific
gravity of milk or its weight in relation to water), adulteration
of the milk, and the extent of the same may be detected.

The course of the dairy school lasts three months — viz., Janu-
ary to March, inclusive. The expenses of the school while in
operation are very heavy ; the milk bill alone thus amounts to
eighty dollars a day during this time. In addition to this course,
dairy certificates are issued to such graduates of the school as
have shown proficiency in the operation of a creamery or a cheese
factory for one or more seasons ; candidates for such certificates
must send in reports of their work once a month to the dean
of the college; their factories are further inspected by an in-
structor of the school, to ascertain whether or not the candi-
date may be granted a certificate, and thereby given the recom-
mendation of the State Dairy School as a successful butter or
cheese maker.

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DAIRY SCHOOLS AND DAIRY PRODUCTS. 241

Dairy schools on a similar plan as the one just described have
been in operation during the past year or two at the Agricultural
Colleges of Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Iowa, and New
York (Cornell). Other States will doubtless establish similar
schools in the near future, as the demand for instruction in these
branches is steadily increasing, and students are taxing to the
utmost the capacity of the schools existing.

Only a small proportion of the milk produced in the United
States is obtained on farms situated in the direct neighborhood
of cities where the milk can be sold as such ; in all other places
it must be manufactured into butter or cheese. Where the popu-
lation of a district is not sufficient to support a butter or cheese
factory, the manufacture of dairy products, and primarily but-
ter, must take place on the farm itself. Modern invention has
greatly facilitated the work of butter-making on the farm ; by
the introduction of hand separators all apparatus for setting the
milk, either in ice tanks or in a separate milk room, in metal or
wooden vessels, may be done away with ; the cream is obtained at
once by the separator, and thus only one fifth of the quantity of
material has to be taken care of, as the skim milk may be fed
directly to calves or pigs. These hand separators are made in
various sizes to suit the requirements of different herds. They
are not very expensive, so that any farmer of moderate means can
buy them. The manufacturers claim for them, and without exag-
geration, that they will pay their cost each year over and above
any other system, with a herd of ten or more cows, on account of
the larger yield of butter obtained with them from the same
quantity of milk. In other systems of creaming a much larger
portion of the fat in the milk is left in the skim milk, which is
thus lost for butter-making.

The modern churns, which are mostly barrel-shaped or of rec-
tangular form, make churning mere play. The method of butter-
making now generally adopted is about as follows : The cream is
chuf-ned at about 5(5° to 62° Fahr,, the temperature differing some-
what with the season and the ripeness of the cream. The butter
will come after twenty to forty minutes' turning, sometimes more,
sometimes less, according to acidity, temperature, and other con-
ditions present. The buttermilk is then drawn off through a hole
near the bottom of the churn, and the butter washed in the churn,
placed on the butter worker to free it as completely as possible
from buttermilk, and then salted (one ounce of salt to one pound
of butter) ; again worked and packed in tubs, and is now ready
for shipment. Our pictures show the making of creamery and of
dairy butter.

In this country cheese is made almost entirely in factories ; as
many will know, the process employed in the making of our ordi-

DAIRY SCHOOLS AND DAIRY PRODUCTS. 243

nary Cheddar cheese is as follows : The milk is heated to 80° Fahr.,
in the cheese vat ; one to four ounces of rennet extract is then
added, according to the kind of cheese desired. The rennet coagu-
lates the milk in less than half an hour ; when the curd is firm, it
is cut into small cubes by means of cheese knives, and heated
slowly to 98° Fahr. ; after about two hours the whey is ready to
be drained off, the curd put on racks, and various operations gone
through, of no special interest to the general reader ; it is then
salted (two to three pounds of salt to one thousand pounds of
milk containing four per cent fat), put in hoops and pressed for
twenty-four hours, and finally placed in the curing room. The
more rennet is added to the milk, the quicker the cheese will cure ;
the more salt, the slower it will cure. Cheddar cheese ought to
cure at least two months before it is put on the market, but is
often sold only a couple of weeks old.

I have barely touched upon the main features in the manufac-
ture of dairy products in the preceding. While it does not take
very long to learn the important steps in their manufacture, it
requires good common sense and thorough knowledge of the com-
position and properties of dairy products and the many condi-
tions affecting the various processes, in order to become a suc-
cessful butter or cheese maker. No cast-iron rules can be laid
down in most cases, and no man can therefore make the kind
of butter and cheese that you and I like, unless he understands
his work thoroughly and uses good judgment in the discharge
of his duties.

The dairy industry of the United States can not help receiving
a grand impetus through the agency of the dairy schools ; the
quantity of dairy products will be increased through a better
selection of animals, through more liberal, systematic feeding
and better care being taken of them, and the quality of the prod-
ucts will be improved by a thorough understanding of the theory
and practice of their manufacture. The magnitude of our dairy
industry makes this educational work a most important one. The
value of the annual product of butter and cheese made on farms
or in factories in the United States in 1880, according to the tenth
census, amounted to nearly one hundred and forty million dollars.
More than eight hundred million pounds of butter and two hun-
dred and forty million pounds of cheese were made during 1880.
When it is remembered that the average annual yield of butter
per cow in the United States does not exceed one hundred and
twenty-five pounds, while single herds give three and even four
hundred pounds a year per cow — when, furthermore, the mass of
butter sells at an average of less than fifteen cents a pound, while
private parties obtain fifty cents or more a pound for their butter
— then we understand what a grand opportunity is offered to

244 ^'^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

educators for missionary work in this line. This work our dairy
schools, agricultural experiment stations, dairymen's associations,
and similar organizations are doing, and American dairying is
rapidly progressing toward a higher standard through their
agencies.

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK.

By ALFRED R. WALLACE, F. R. S.

EROSION OF LAKE BAS>m^.— {Continued.)

IV.

THERE is really only one alternative theory to that of ice ero-
sion for the origin of the class of lakes we have been dis-
cussing, viz., that they were formed before the Glacial epoch, by
earth movements of the same nature as those which are concerned
in mountain formation, that is, by lateral pressure causing folds
or flexures of the surface ; and where such flexures occurred
across a valley a lake would be the result. This is Prof. Bonney's
theory given in his paper in the Geographical Journal, and it is
also that of Desor, Forel, Favre, and other eminent geologists. It
is explained fully in the work of M. Falsan (already quoted), who
also adopts it ; and it may be considered, therefore, that if this the-
ory can be shown to be untenable that of glacial erosion will hold
the field, since there is no other that can seriously compete with it.
Prof. Bonney considers this theory completely satisfactory, and
he complains that the advocates of glacial erosion have never dis-
cussed it, intimating that they " deemed silence on this topic more
prudent than speech."

As this theory is put forward with so much confidence, and by
geologists of such high reputation, I feel bound to devote some
space to its consideration, and shall, I think, be able to show that
it breaks down on close examination.

In the first place, it does not attempt to explain that wonderful
absence of valley lakes from all the mountain regions of the
world, except those which have been highly glaciated. It is, no
doubt, true that during the time the lakes were filled with ice
instead of water, they would be preserved from filling up by the
influx of sediment ; and this may be fairly claimed as a reason
why lakes of this class should be somewhat more numerous in
glaciated regions, but it does not in any way explain their total
absence elsewhere. We are asked to believe that in the period
immediately preceding the Glacial epoch — say, in the Newer Plio-
cene period — earth movements of a nature to produce deep lakes
occurred in every mountain range without exception that was

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 245

about to be subject to severe glaciation, and not only so, but
occurred on both sides of each range, as in the Alps, or all round
a mountain range, as in our lake district, or in every part of a
complex mountain region, as in Scotland from the Frith of Clyde
to the extreme north coast — all in this very limited period of
geological time. We are further asked to believe that during the
whole period from the commencement of the Ice age to our day
such earth movements have never produced a single group of
valley lakes in any one of the countless mountain ranges and hilly
regions throughout the whole of the very much more extensive
non-glaciated regions of the globe ! This appears to me to be
simply incredible. The only way to get over the difficulty is to
suppose that earth movements of this nature occurred only at
that one period, just before the Ice age came on, and that the lakes
produced by them in all other regions have since been filled ujJ.
But is there any evidence of this ? And is it probable that all
lakes so produced in non-glaciated regions, however large and
deep they might be, and however little sediment was carried down
by their inflowing streams, should yet all have disappeared ? The
theory of the pre-glacial origin of these lakes thus rests upon a
series of highly improbable suppositions entirely unsupported by
any appeal to facts. There is, however, another diflSculty which
is perhaps even greater than those just considered. Whatever
may be the causes of the compression, elevation, folding, and other
earth movements which have led to the formation of mountain
masses, there can be no doubt that they have operated with ex-
treme slowness ; and all the evidence we have of surface move-
ments now going on show that they are so slow as to be detected
only by careful and long-continued observations. On the other
hand, the action of rivers in cutting down rocky barriers is com-
paratively rapid, especially when, as in all mountainous countries,
they carry in their waters large quantities of sediment, and during
floods bring down also abundance of sand, gravel, and large stones.
A remarkable illustration of this erosive power is afi^orded by the
river Simeto, in Sicily, which has cut a channel through solid lava
which was formed by an eruption in the year 1603. In 1828, Sir
Charles Lyell states, it had cut a ravine through this compact
blue rock from fifty to several hundred feet wide, and in some
parts from forty to fifty feet deep.* The enormous caiion of the
Colorado, from three thousand to five thousand feet deep and four
hundred miles long, which has been entirely cut through a series
of Mesozoic and Palaeozoic rocks during the latter portion of the
Tertiary period, is another example of the wonderful cutting
power of running water.

* Principles of Geology, eleventh ed., vol. i, p. 353.

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is, in fact, only on account of this powerful agency that we
do not find valley lakes abounding in every mountainous country,
since it is quite certain that earth movements of various kinds
must have been continually taking place. But if rivers have
always been able to keep their channels clear, during such move-
ments, among the mountains of the tropics and of all warm coun-
tries, some reason must be found for their inability to do so in the
Alps and in Scotland, in Cumberland, Wales, and southern New
Zealand ; and as no reason is alleged, or any proof offered, that
sufiBciently rapid and extensive earth movements actually did
occur in the subalpine valleys of these countries, we must decline
to accept such a hypothetical and unsatisfactory explanation.

Nothing is more easy, and nothing seems at first sight more
plausible, than to allege these " earth movements " to account for
any one lake whose origin may be under discussion. But it ceases
to be either easy or plausible when we consider the great number
of the lakes to be accounted for, their remarkable positions and
groupings, and their great depths. We must postulate these
movements, all about the same time, in every part of the High-
lands of Scotland, everywhere in the Lake district, and on both
sides of the Alps. Then, again, the movements must have been
of greater extent just where we can prove the glaciation to have
been most severe. It produced lakes from one hundred feet to two
hundred and seventy feet deep in Cumberland and Westmore-
land ; in Scotland, where the ice was much thicker, the lakes are
from over three hundred to over one thousand feet deep ; while in
the Alps of Switzerland and North Italy, with its vast glaciers and
ice-sheets, many are over one thousand feet, and one reaches the
enormous depth of over twenty-five hundred feet. It may be said
that the depth is in proportion to the height of the mountains ;
but in equally high mountains that have not been glaciated there
are no lakes, so this can not be the true explanation. One more
remarkable coincidence must, however, be pointed out. The two
largest Swiss lakes— those of Geneva and Constance— are situated
just where the two greatest West European rivers, the Rhone and
the Rhine, get beyond the mountain ranges ; while on the south,
one of the largest and by far the deepest of the lakes— Lake Mag-
giore— collected into its basin the glacier streams from a hundred
miles of the high Alps, extending from Monte Rosa on the west
to the peaks above San Bernardino on the east. Throughout this
great curve of snowy peaks the streams converge, with an aver-
age length of only thirty miles, to unite in a valley only six hun-
dred and forty-six feet above the sea level. No such remarkable
concentration of valleys is to be found anywhere else in the Alps,
and no other lake reaches to nearly so great a depth. On the
theory of glacial erosion we have here cause and effect ; on that

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 247

of earth movements we have another mere coincidence added to
the long series already noticed. The depth of over twenty-five
hundred feet undoubtedly seems enormous, but that depth exists
just at the point where the two great valleys which have collected
the converging streams above referred to unite together. Geolo-
gists will probably not think thirty thousand years an extrava-
gant estimate for the duration of the Glacial period, in which
case an erosion of only an inch in a year would be suflQcient.
Lago di Garda, the largest Italian lake, had a still larger catch-
ment area in glacial times but not nearly so much concentrated ;
hence, perhaps, its comparatively moderate depth of about one
thousand feet. We see, then, that on the theory of erosion, the
size, depth, and position of the chief lakes are all intelligible,
while on that of earth movements they have no meaning what-
ever, since the deep-seated agencies producing subsidence, up-
heaval, or curvature of the surface would be as likely to act in the
small as in the large valleys, and to produce deep lakes in other
places than those where, at a later epoch, the thickest glaciers
accumulated.

The Contours and Outlines of the Lakes indicate Ero-
sion RATHER than SUBMERGENCE. — While Collecting facts for
the present articles, it occurred to me that the rival theories of
lake formation — erosion and submergence — were so different in
their modes of action that they ought to produce some marked
difference in the result. There must be some criteria by which
to distinguish the two modes of origin. Under any system of
earth movements a valley bottom will simply become submerged,
and be hardly more altered than if it had been converted into a
lake by building an artificial dam in a convenient situation. We
should find, therefore, merely a submerged valley with all its
usual peculiarities. If, however, the lake basin has been formed
by glacial erosion, then some of the special valley features will
have been destroyed, and we shall have a distinct set of charac-
ters which will be tolerably constant in all lakes so formed. Now
I find that there are three such criteria by which we ought to be
able to distinguish the two classes of lakes, and the application
of these tests serves to show that most of the valley lakes of gla-
ciated countries were not formed by submergence.

The first point is that valleys in mountainous countries often
have the river channel forming a ravine for a few miles, after-
ward opening out into a flat valley, and then again closing, while
at an elevation of a hundred or a few hundred feet, at the level
of the top of the ravine, the valley walls slope back on each side,
perhaps to be again flanked by precipices. Now, if such a valley
were converted into a deep lake by any form of subsidence, these
ravines would remain under water and form submerged river

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

channels. But neither in the lakes which have been surveyed by
the Swiss Government, nor in the Atlas des Lacs Francaises of
M. Delebecque, nor in those of the German Alps by Dr. Alois
Geistbeck, nor in the lakes of our own country, can I find any in-
dications of such submerged river channels or ravines, or any
other of the varied rock features that so often occur in valleys.
Almost all these lakes present rather steeply sloping sides with
broad, rounded, or nearly level bottoms of saucer shape, such as
are certainly not characteristic of subaerial valley bottoms, but
which are exactly what we might expect as the ultimate result of
thousands of years of incessant ice grinding. The point is, not
that the lake bottoms may not in a few cases represent the con-
tours of a valley, but that they never present peculiarities of
contour which are not unfrequent in mountain valleys, and never
show submerged ravines or those jutting rocky promontories
which are so common a feature in hilly districts.

The next point is, that Alpine lake bottoms, whether large or
small, frequently consist of two or more distinct basins, a feature
which could not occur in lakes due to submergence unless there
were two or more points of flexure for each depression, a thing
highly improbable even in the larger lakes and almost impossible
in the smaller. Flexures of almost any degree of curvature are
no doubt found in the rocks forming mountain chains ; but these
flexures have been produced deep down under enormous pressure
of overlying strata, whereas the surface beds which are supposed
to have been moved to cause lakes are free to take any upward
or downward curves, and, as the source of motion is certainly
deep-seated, those curves will usually be of very gradual curva-
ture. Yet in the small lake of Annecy there are two separate
basins ; in Lake Bourget also two ; in the small lake of Aiguebel-
lette, in Savoy, there are three distinct basins of very difi'erent
depths ; and in the Lac de St. Point, about four miles long, there
are also three separate flat basins. In Switzerland the same phe-
nomenon is often found. In the Lake of Neufchatel there are
three basins separated by ridges from twenty to thirty feet above
the deeper parts. The small Lac de Joux, at the head of a high
valley in the Jura, has also three shallow basins. Lake Zurich
consists of three well-marked basins. The exceedingly irregular
Lake of Lucerne, formed by the confluence of many valleys meet-
ing at various angles hemmed in by precipitous mountains, has
eight distinct basins, mostly separated by shallows at the narrow
openings between opposing mountain ridges. This is exactly
what would result from glacier action, the grinding power of
which must always be at a maximum in the wider parts of val-
leys, where the weight of the ice could exert its full force and
the motion be least impeded. On the subsidence or curvature

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 249

theory, however, there is no reason why the greatest depth should
occur in one part rather than in another, while separate basins in
the variously diverging arms of one lake seem most improbable.
The lakes of Thun and Brienz form two basins of what was evi-
dently once a single lake. The upper or Brienz basin is enor-
mously deep, over two thousand feet, and the reason is obvious.
The combined glaciers of the Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald
Valleys entered the main valley in a direction almost opposite to
that of the Aare, piling up the ice against the great barrier of
the Rieder Grat, so that it at length flowed downward with great-
ly increased grinding power ; while lower down, toward Thun,
the valley opens widely and would thus allow the ice to spread
out with greatly diminished thickness. In our own country Loch
Lomond and Ullswater have been found to consist of several dis-
tinct basins, and in none of our lakes have any indications of
submerged river channels yet been found.

The third point of difference between lakes of erosion and
those of submersion is the most important and the most distinct-
ive, and furnishes, I think, what may be termed a diagnostic
character of lakes of erosion. In most river valleys through a
hilly or mountainous country outside of the glaciated districts,
the tributary streams entering more or less at right angles to the
main valley are seen to occupy small valleys of their own, which
usually open out for a short distance at the same level before
joining the main valley. Of course, there are also torrents which
rush down steep mountain slopes directly to the main river, but
even these have usually cut ravines more or less deeply into the
rock. Now, if in such a valley we could mark out a contour line
two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred feet above the level
of the main stream, we should see that line continually turning
up each side valley or ravine till it reached the given level at
which to cross the tributary stream, and then turning back to
the main valley. The contour line would thus form a series of
notches or loops of greater or less depth at every tributary stream
with its entering valley or deeply cut ravine, and if the main
valley were filled with water this line would mark out the mar-
gin of the lake. As an illustration of this feature we may take
the southwest coast of England, which has never been glaciated,
but which has undergone a slight recent subsidence, as indicated
by the submerged forests which occur at several places. The re-
sult of this submergence is that the lower parts of its larger river
valleys have been converted into inland tidal lakes, such as Poole
Harbor, Dartmouth Harbor, Kingsbridge River, Plymouth and
Devonport Harbors, and Carrick Road above Falmouth. The
Dart River is an excellent example of such a submerged valley,
and its outline at high-water mark is shown at (3) on the accom-

VOL. XLT. 20

4

I

I

(

Lake Forms due to Erosion (1, 2); to Submersion (3, 4).

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 251

panying cut, wliere the cliaracteristic outline of such a valley is
•well indicated, the water running up every tributary stream, as
described above. The lower section (4) shows the same feature
by means of a map of the river Tweed, near Peebles, with the
seven hundred feet contour line marked on it by a dotted line.*
If the valley were submerged to this depth the dotted line would
mark the outline of a lake, with arms running up every tributary
stream just as in the case of the river Dart. Although situated
in a glaciated district the valley here is post-glacial, all the old
river channels being deeply buried in drift.

If we now turn to the valley lakes in glaciated districts we
shall find that they have a very different contour, as shown by
the two upper outline maps on the same page : (1) showing the
upper part of Ullswater on a scale of one mile to an inch, as in
the Dart and Tweed maps ; and (2) showing the upper part of
Lake Como, taken from the Alpine Club map, on a scale of four
miles to an inch. In both of these it will be seen that the water
never forms inlets up the inflowing streams, but all of these with-
out exception form an even junction with the lake margin, just
as they would do if flowing into a river. Exactly the same fea-
ture is present in the lower portions of these two lakes, and it is
equally a characteristic of every lake in the Lake district, and of
all the Swiss and Italian lakes. On looking at the maps of any
of these lakes one can not but see that the lake surface, not the
lake hottom, represents approximately the level of the pre-glacial
valley, and that the lateral streams and torrents enter the lake in
the way they do because they could only erode their channels
down to the level of the old valley before the ice overwhelmed it.
Of course, this rule does not apply to large tributary valleys car-
rying separate glaciers, since these would be eroded by the ice
almost as deeply as the main valley.

The three features of the valley lakes of glaciated regions now
pointed out — the absence of submerged ravines or river channels
either of the main river or of tributary streams ; the basin forms
of the lake bottoms and the frequent occurrence of two or more
separate basins even in small lakes ; and the simple form of sur-
face contour of all this class of lakes, so strongly contrasting
with that of valleys known to have been recently submerged, as
well as with the contour lines of valleys in non-glaciated districts
and in those which are known to be post-glacial — seem to afford,
as nearly as the case admits, a demonstration that the lakes pre-
senting these features have been formed by erosion and not by
submergence.

* Copied from a portion of the map at page 144 of Geikie's Great Ice Age, taken from
the Ordnance Survey Map.

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In connection with this subject may be noticed the many cases
in whicli Alpine valleys present indications of having been greatly
deepened by glacial erosion, although, owing either to the slope
of the ground or the uniformity of the ice action, no lake has
been produced. In some valleys, as in that of Lauterbrunnen,
the trough between the vertical rock walls was probably partly
formed before the Ice age, but was greatly deepened by glacial
erosion, the result being that the tributary streams have not since
had time to evacuate ravines of equal depth with the main val-
ley, and therefore form a series of cascades over the lateral preci-
pices, of which the Staubbach is the finest example. In many
other cases, however, the side streams have cut wonderfully nar-
row gorges by which they enter the main vally. This work was
probably begun by a subglacial stream, and the action of the
atmosphere being shut out by the superincumbent ice and all va-
riation of temperature avoided, the torrent cut for itself a very
narrow groove, sometimes with overhanging sides, as it found
layers of somewhat softer rock to eat away ; and the upper sur-
face of the rock being ground smooth by the ice, the atmosphere
has had little effect since, and the gorge, while deepened below,
has remained as restricted above as when first eroded. Such are
the gorges of the Trient, Leuk, Pfaffers, and many others well
known to Alpine tourists. I am not aware whether such ex-
tremely narrow winding gorges, often only two or three feet be-
tween the rock walls, are to be found in countries which have
never been glaciated. I do not myself remember reading of any,
though, of course, tremendously deep ravines are common, but
these are of quite a different character. Should it be found that
these extremely narrow rock-walled gorges are peculiar to gla-
ciated districts they will afford us a means of estimating the
amount of glacial erosion in valleys where no lake basins have
been formed.

The Lake of Geneva as a Test of the Rival Theories. —
When I recently began to study this question anew, I was in-
clined to think that the largest and deepest of the Alpine lakes,
such as Geneva, Constance, Lago Maggiore, and Lago di Garda,
might perhaps have originated from a combination of earth move-
ments with ice erosion. But on further consideration it appears
that all the characteristic features of erosion are present in these
as fully as in the smaller lakes. They are situated in the largest
river valleys or in positions of greatest concentration of the gla-
cier streams ; their contours and outlines are those of eroded
basins; while all the difficulties in the way of an origin by earth
movements are as prominent in their case as in that of any other
of the lakes. I will therefore discuss, first, some of the chief ob-
jections to the erosion theory as applied to the above-named lake,

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 253

and then consider the only alternative theory that has obtained
the acceptance of modern writers.

One of the first objections made was, that the lake did not lie
in the direction of the greatest action of the glacier, which was
straight across to the Jura where the highest erratic blocks are
found. This was urged by Sir Charles Lyell, immediately after
Ramsay's paper was read, and as it has quite recently been put
forth by Prof. Bonney, it would appear to be thought to be a real
difficulty. Yet a little consideration will show that it has not the
slightest weight. No lake was eroded in the line of motion of the
central and highest part of the old glacier, because that line was
over an elevated and hilly plateau, which is even now from five
hundred to a thousand feet above the lake, and was then even
higher, since the ice-sheet certainly effected some erosion. The
greatest amount of erosion was of course in the broad and nearly
level valley of the pre-glacial Rhone, which followed the great
curve of the existing lake, and had produced so open a valley
because the rocks in thai direction to ere easily denuded. Object-
ors invariably forget or overlook the indisputable fact that the
existence of a broad, open, flat-bottomed valley in any part of a
river's course proves that the rocks were there either softer or
more friable, or more soluble, or by some combination of char-
acters more easily denuded. A number of favorable conditions
were combined to render ice erosion easy in such a valley. The
rock was, as we have shown, more easy to erode ; owing to the
low level the ice was thicker and had greater weight there than
elsewhere ; cowing to the flatness and openness of the valley the
ice moved more freely there ; owing to the long previous course
of the glacier its under surface would be heavily loaded with
rock and grit, which during its whole course would, by mere
gravitation, have been slowly working its way downward to the
lowest level; and, lastly, all the subglacial torrents would
accumulate in this lowest valley, and, as erosion went on, would,
under great hydrostatic pressure, wash away all the ground-out
material, and so facilitate erosion. To ask why the lake was
formed in the valley, where everything favored erosion, rather
than on the plateau, where everything was against it, is to make
mere verbal objections which have no relation to the conditions
that actually existed.

Another objection almost equally beside the real question is to
ask why the deepest part of the lake is near the south or convex
side, whereas a stream of water always exerts most erosive force
against the concave side.* The answer is, that ice is not water,
and that it moves so slowly as to act, in many respects, in quite a

* Falsan, La Periode Gladaire, p. 153, Fabre, Origine des Lacs Alpins, p. 4.

254 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

different manner. Its greatest action is where it is deepest — in
the middle of the ice stream — while water acts least where it is
deepest, and more forcibly at the side than in the middle. The
lake is, no doubt, deepest in the line of the old river, where the
valley was lowest ; and that may well have been nearer the
southern than the northern side of the lake.

Another frequently urged objection is, that as the glacier has
not widened the narrow valley from Martigny to Bex it could not
have eroded a lake nearly a thousand feet deep. This seems to
me a complete non sequitur. As a glacier erodes mainly by its
vertical pressure and by the completeness of its grinding arma-
ture of rock, it is clear that its grinding power laterally must
have been very much less than vertically, both on account of the
smaller pressure because it would mold itself less closely to the
ever-varying rocky protuberances, and mainly, perhaps, because
at the almost vertical sides of the valley it would have a very
small stony armature, the blocks continually working their way
downward to the bottom. Thus, much of the ice in contact with
the sides of narrow ravines might be free of stones, and would
therefore exert hardly any grinding power. It is also quite cer-
tain that the ice in this narrow valley rose to an enormous height,
and that the chief motion and also the chief erosion would be on
the lateral slopes, while the lower strata, wedged in the gorge,
would be almost stationary.

The most recent researches, according to M. Falsan, show that
the thickness of the ice has been usuallj^ underestimated. A ter-
minal moraine on the Jura at Chasseron is four thousand feet
above the sea, or twenty-seven hundred and seventy feet above
Geneva. In order that the upper surface of the ice should have
had sufficient incline to flow onward as it did, it was probably five
thousand or six thousand feet thick below Martigny and four
thousand or five thousand feet over the middle of the lake. It is
certain, at all events, that whatever thickness was necessary to
cause onward motion, that thickness could not fail to be produced,
since it is only by the onward motion to some outlet or lowland
where the ice can be melted away as fast as it is renewed that
indefinite enlargement of a glacier is avoided. The essential con-
dition for the formation of a glacier at all is that more ice
should be produced annually than is melted away. So long as
the quantity produced is on the average more than that melted,
the glaciers will increase ; and as the more extended surface of
ice, up to a certain point, by forming a refrigerator helps its own
extension, a very small permanent annual surplus may lead to an
enormous extension of the ice. Hence, if at any stage in its de-
velopment the end of a glacier remains stationary, either owing
to some obstacle in its path or to its having reached a level plain.

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 255

where it is unable to move onward, the annual surplus of ice pro-
duced will go to increase the thickness of the glacier and its
upper slope till motion is produced. The ice then flows onward
till it reaches a district warm enough to bring about an equilib-
rium between growth and dissolution. If, therefore, at any stage
in the growth of a glacier a thickness of six, seven, or even eight
thousand feet is needed to bring about this result, that thickness
will inevitably be produced. We know that the glacier of the
Rhone did move onward to the Jura and beyond it; that the
northward branch flowed on beyond Soleure till it joined the
glacier of the Rhine ; and that its southern branch carried Alpine
erratics to the country between Bourg and Lyons, two hundred
and fifty miles from its source. We know, too, that throughout
this distance it moved at the bottom as well as at the top, by the
rounded and polished rocks and beds of stiff bowlder clay which
are found in almost every part of its course.

In view, therefore, of the admitted facts, all the objections
alleged by the best authorities are entirely wanting in real force
or validity ; while the enormous size and weight of the glacier
and its long duration, as indicated by the great distance to which
it extended beyond the site of the lake, render the excavation by
it of such a basin as easy to conceive as the grinding out of a
small Alpine tarn by ice not one fourth as thick, and in a situation
where the grinding material in its lower strata would probably
be comparatively scanty.

We have now to consider the theory of Desor, adopted by M.
Favre, and set forth in the recent work of M. Falsan as being
" more precise and more acceptable " than that of Ramsay. We
are first made acquainted with a fact which I have not yet alluded
to, and which most writers on the subject either fail to notice or
attempt to explain by theories, as compared with which that of
Ramsay is simple, probable, and easy of comprehension. This fact
is, that around Geneva at the outlet of the lake, as well as at the
outlets of the other great lakes, there is spread out an old alluvium
which is always found underneath the bowlder clay and other gla-
cial deposits. This alluvium is, moreover, admitted to be formed
in every case of materials largely derived from the great Alpine
range. Now here is a fact which of itself amounts to a demon-
stration that the lakes did not exist before the Ice age ; because,
in that case all the Alpine debris would be intercepted by the
lake (as it is now intercepted), and the alluvium below the glacial
deposits would be, in the case of Geneva, that formed by the wash
from the adjacent slopes of the Jura ; while in every case it would
be local not Alpine alluvium.

Prof. James Geikie informs me that he considers the so-called
" old alluvium " to be probably only the fluvio-glacial gravels and

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sands swept out from underneath the advancing glacier, and
therefore to be no older, geologically, than the moraine matter
which overlies it. The Swiss geologists, however, do not appear
to hold this view, since they have recourse to a very remarkable
hypothesis in order to overcome what they evidently believe to be
a real difficulty in the way of the pre-glacial origin of the lake.
The suggested explanation is as follows : At the beginning of the
Ice age the glacier of the Rhone crept on down its valley past
Martigny and St. Maurice till it reached the lake ; it is then sup-
posed not to have marched on with an ice wall, say five hundred
or more feet high, but to have at once spread out like so much
soft pitch, and to have filled the lake to its present water level or
thereabouts. Then, over this great plain of ice, the subglacial
torrent of the Rhone is supposed to have flowed, carrying with it
and depositing at the end of the lake that ancient alluvium which,
somehow, has got to be accounted for ! *

Having thus filled the lake with ice instead of water, the main
body of the glacier is supposed to start afresh and to travel over
the ice, and thus obviate the imaginary difficulty of a glacier
moving up hill, though every student of glaciers now admits that
they did so, and though it is universally admitted that this very
glacier of the Rhone moved over higher, steeper, and more irregu-
lar hills on its way to the Jura and to Soleure.

Now this extraordinary theory involves two difficulties which
are passed by in silence, but which seem to entirely contravene
all that we know of the nature of glaciers, and to be entirely un-
supported by facts. The first is, the glacier ceasing to move on-
ward as a glacier, but spreading out to fill up a lake basin, as if
the lake were simply frozen to the bottom. Is this conceivable or
possible ? I think not. When glaciers come down to a fiord or to
the sea they do not spread out laterally, but move on till the water
is deep enough to buoy them up and break off icebergs, and no rea-
son is given why anything different should have happened in the
case of the great Swiss and Italian lakes, supposing they existed
before the Ice age came on. That the glacier should afterward
slide over this level plain of ice is equally inconceivable, in view
of the property of regelation of ice under pressure. Owing to
this property the glacier and the lake ice would become one mass,
and would move on together under the law of decreasing velocity
with depth. This, however, is of little importance if, as I con-
ceive, the supposition of the formation of an ice-sheet at the water
level for fifty miles in advance of the glacier is an impossible one.
The only other theory is, that the lake was filled up by alluvium
before the Ice age, and that the glacier re-excavated it. I have,

* A. Falsan, La Periode Glaciaire, pp. 135, 137.

THE ICE AGE AND ITS WORK. 257

however, already given reasons why the glacier would not have
done so, and the very existence of this ancient alluvium in the
course of the ancient glacier is a proof that it did not do so. This
theory seems now to have no supporters.

Summary of the Evidence. — As the subject here discussed
is very complex, and the argument essentially a cumulative one,
it will be well briefly to summarize its main points.

In the first place, it has been shown that the valley lakes of
highly glaciated districts form a distinct class, which are highly
characteristic if not altogether peculiar, since in none of the
mountain ranges of the tropics or of non-glaciated regions over
the whole world are any similar lakes to be found.

The special conditions favorable to the erosion of lake basins
and the mode of action of the ice-tool are then discussed, and it is
shown that these conditions have been either overlooked or ig-
nored by the opponents of the theory of ice erosion.

The objections of modern writers are then considered, and
they are shown to be founded either on mistaken ideas as to the
mode of erosion by glaciers, or on not taking into account results
of glacier action which they themselves either admit or have not
attempted to disprove.

The alternative theory — that earth movements of various
kinds led to the production of lake basins in all mountain ranges,
and that those in glaciated regions were preserved by being filled
with ice — is shown to be beset with numerous diJSiculties, physical,
geological, and geographical, which its supporters have not at-
tempted to overcome. It is also pointed out that this theory in
no way explains the occurrence of the largest and deepest lakes in
the largest river valleys, or in those valleys where there was the
greatest concentration of glaciers, a peculiarity of their distribu-
tion which points directly and unmistakably to ice erosion.

A crucial test of the two theories is then suggested, and it is
shown that both the subaqueous contours of the lake basins and
the superficial outlines of the lakes are exactly such as would
be produced by ice erosion, while they could not possibly have
been caused by submergence due to any form of earth move-
ments. It is submitted that we have here a positive criterion,
now adduced for the first time, which is absolutely fatal to any
theory of submersion.

Lastly, the special case of the Lake of Geneva is discussed, and
it is shown that the explanation put forth by the anti-glacialists
is wholly unsupported by facts and is opposed to the known laws
of glacier motion. The geologists who support it themselves fur-
nish evidence against their own theory in the ancient alluvium at
Geneva on which the glacial deposits rest, and which is admitted
to be mainly derived from the distant Alps. But as all alluvial

VOL. XLT. — 21

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

matter is necessarily intercepted by large and deep lakes, the
presence of this Alpine alluvium immediately beneath the glacial
debris at the foot of the lake indicates that the lake did not exist
in pre-glacial times, but that the river Rhone flowed from the
Alps to Geneva, carrying with it the old alluvium, consisting of
mud, sand, and gravel, which it had brought down from the
mountains. Still more conclusive, however, is the fact that the
three special features which have been shown to indicate erosion
rather than submergence are present in this lake as fully as in all
other Alpine valley lakes and unmistakably point to the glacial
origin of all of them.

On the whole, I venture to claim that the facts and considera-
tions set forth in this paper show such a number of distinct lines
of evidence, all converging to establish the theory of the ice ero-
sion of the valley lakes of highly glaciated regions — a theory first
advocated by the late Sir Andrew Ramsay — that that theory must
be held to be established, at all events provisionally, as the only
one by which the whole body of the facts can be explained and
harmonized. — Fortnightly Review.

{^Concluded.'\

♦«»

SKETCH OF GERARD TROOST.

QERARD TROOST, one of the founders and first President of
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, was born
at Bois-le-Duc, Holland, March 5, 1776, and died in Nashville,
Tenn., August 14, 1850. He attended the Universities of Leyden
and Amsterdam, devoting special attention to chemistry, geology,
and natural history ; received the degree of Doctor of Medicine
from the University of Leyden, and that of Master in Pharmacy,
in 1801, from the University of Amsterdam. He practiced his
art for a short time at Amsterdam and the Hague ; served in the
army as a private soldier, and at another time as an officer of the
first class in the medical department ; and during these periods of
service was wounded in the thigh and in the head. In 1807 he
went to Paris, under the patronage of Louis Napoleon, King of
Holland, to pursue his studies, and then he became the pupil and
associate of the Abb^ Rend Just Haiiy, author of the famous sys-
tem of crystallography. He traveled in France, Italy, Germany,
and Switzerland, and collected a valuable cabinet of minerals,
which was purchased by the King of Holland. In 1809, this
king appointed Troost to accompany, in a scientific capacity, a
naval expedition to Java. He was captured by an English priva-
teer ; confined for some time at Dunkirk ; returned to Paris ; and

SKETCH OF GERARD TROOST. 259

then made his way to la Rochelle. He took passage from a
northern port, beyond French jurisdiction, in an American ves-
sel, for New York, whence he hoped to reach the East Indies
under the protection of our flag. This vessel was captured by a
French privateer and carried to Dunkirk, where Troost was kept
a prisoner till the French became aware of his true name and
character, when he was released. He went at once to Paris. In
March, 1810, he was elected a correspondent of the Museum of
Natural History of Paris. A few days afterward he was
allowed to embark again on an American vessel for Philadel-
phia. The turn of political events in Europe, among which
was the abdication of Louis Napoleon as King of Holland and
the surrender of Java to England, caused him to abandon his
contemplated visit to the East Indies and to remain in the United
States.

In 1812 Dr. Troost participated in the foundation of the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and became its first
president. Of the origin of this society. Dr. W. S. W. Ruschen-
berger, from whose account we derive much of the material of
this sketch, says there were some young persons in Philadelphia
disposed to study the laws of creation. Occupied with their
business during the day, they were accustomed to converse con-
cerning natural phenomena when they met in the evening, with-
out appointment, at the ordinary places of resort. They very
often met at the apothecary's shop of John Speakman, of whom
Thomas Say was subsequently the business partner, at the corner
of Market and Second Streets. At one of these meetings Mr.
Speakman suggested that if the young men could be induced to
meet at stated times, where they would be secure from interrup-
tion, to communicate to one another what they might learn about
the phenomena of Nature, they would derive more pleasure and
profit than from desultory and irregular conversation. The sug-
gestion was seconded by Jacob Gilliams, and a meeting was
appointed for the next Saturday evening at Mr. Speakman's
house, for the young men and such of their friends as might be
interested in the matter : Six persons were present at the meet-
ing, January 25, 1812 ; Dr. Gerard Troost, Dr. Camillus Mac-
mahon Mann, Jacob Gilliams, John Shinn, Jr., Nicholas Parmen-
tier, and John Speakman, host. The meeting was described in
the minutes as " a meeting of gentlemen, friends of science, and
of rational disposal of leisure moments " ; and it was agreed that
the exclusive object of the society should be the cultivation of
natural science. For the furtherance of this purpose all matters
of politics and religion were rigorously excluded, even allusions
to them being forbidden. It was perhaps from this determina-
tion. Dr. Ruschenberger suggests, that " the erroneous notion

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sprang, wliicli, according to tradition, prevailed with some, that
the object of the institution was to favor religious infidelity."
The constitution of the society was agreed upon on the 17th of
March, and the name Academy of Natural Sciences was adopted
on the 21st of that month, which date was established as that of
the beginning of the institution. On that day, too, the members
agreed " to contribute to the formation of a museum of natural
history, a library of works of science, a chemical experimental
laboratory, an experimental philosophical apparatus, and every
other desirable appendage or convenience for the illustration and
advancement of natural knowledge, and for the common benefit
of all the individuals who may be admitted members of our insti-
tution." Among the first donors of minerals were Dr. Troost,
Mr. Isaac Lea, Dr. Hays, and Mr. S. Hazard. When the small
room, 121 North Second Street, hired about the 1st of April, was
occupied, the members came forward with their gifts to serve as
the nucleus of the museum and library. Among them was Dr.
Troost, with some artificial crystals, prepared by himself. On
the occasion of the election of officers, May 7, 1812, Dr. Troost
was chosen president. He held this office five years, or till
1817, when he resigned and was succeeded by William Maclure.
On the 15th of August, 1812, the collection of minerals previously
purchased from Dr. Seybert by Mr. Speakman came formally
into the possession of the society, which formed a kind of joint-
stock company to pay for it and hold it. Soon after this. Dr.
Troost delivered a course of lectures on mineralogy before the
academy.

During his residence in Philadelphia Dr. Troost was engaged
in manufactures of various kinds. In 1815 or 1816 he began the
manufacture of alum on the Magothy River, Cape Sable, Mary-
land, establishing the first alum works in the United States. In
1821 he was appointed Professor of Mineralogy in the Philadel-
phia Museum, where he delivered lectures on the subject. He
was also appointed about the same time first Professor of Chem-
istry in the College of Pharmacy, Philadelphia, a position which
he resigned, after having delivered one course of lectures, in the
succeeding year. During this period he also made geological ex-
cursions into New Jersey, New York, and elsewhere.

In 1825 Dr. Troost, with Maclure, Say, and Lesueur, joined
Robert Owen in the formation of the Communistic Society at New
Harmony, Ind. After remaining there two years, he removed
to Nashville, Tenn., in 1827. In 1828 he was elected, at the in-
stance of President Lindley, Professor of Chemistry, Geology, and
Mineralogy in the University of Nashville. In a historical sketch,
published in the catalogue of 1850, is a table of the longest terms
of official service of instructors. It is headed by President Lind-

SKETCH OF GERARD TROOST. 261

ley, twenty-six years ; and next in length of service comes Prof.
Troost, from February 9, 1828, to August 14, 1850, twenty-two
years and a half.

In 1831 he was appointed State Geologist of Tennessee, an office
which he held till it was abolished in 1839. The record of his
work in this department is preserved in his reports. The first
and second reports were not published. The third report, made
in 1835, contains the results of the geologist's investigations re-
specting the extent of the coal formations in the State. " I have
ascertained," it says, " that the places in which coal may be ex-
pected belong exclusively and entirely to that group of moun-
tains which are known by the name of Cumberland Mountains,
and are composed of Walden's Ridge, Crab Orchard Mountain,
Brimstone Mountain, and some other subordinate ridges of the
same system.'' The breadth of the formation was greatest near
the northern limit of the State, and in one part the coal was rep-
resented as deposited in horizontal strata of great extent. The
report also deals largely with marl, iron, and soils, and concludes
with the words : " In a scientific point of view my labors have
been very advantageous. I have been very fortunate in obtain-
ing organic remains which were unknown, and which eventually
will show how far our strata correspond with those on the old
continent. I have discovered parts of the American or gigantic
mastodon hitherto unknown."

The fourth report, of 1837, relates to the Ocoee district, com-
prising a part of the mountain region near the North Carolina
boundary, which Prof. Troost was directed by the State Legisla-
ture to explore. It begins with an exposition of the principles of
geology and their application to the general structure of the dis-
trict under view, for the information of the people; an admirable
specimen of exact scientific writing adapted to popular compre-
hension, explicit, lucid in style, and showing familiarity with the
subject. The character of the region is depicted in a few words :
" Commencing our reconnaissance at the most northern extremity
of the district, I found the rocks at Tallassee, on the Tennessee
River, entirely composed of grauwacke, alternating here and
there with limestone ; this is the case everywhere along the Ten-
nessee River, where I was able to approach and examine them, to
the Smoky Mountain, which forms the southeastern limit of the
district, and separates Tennessee from North Carolina. It is
almost impossible to penetrate any distance in this wild and
mountainous country ; and the apparent confusion of the rocks,
which seem at some places heaped up without order, and chang-
ing at small distances, makes the geological survey hazardous
and extremely difificult." The author calls attention to the roof-
ing slates of East Tennessee, and dwells upon the value of slates

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

generally ; regards the prospects of finding paying gold as not
promising ; but speaks of having observed at several places be-
tween the Ocoee and Hiawassee Rivers hydroxide of iron similar
to the ore used in Middle Tennessee in the blast furnaces. " It is
superfluous/' he adds, " to expatiate here on tlie importance of
iron works in a country which is not susceptible of cultivation,
where there is an inexhaustible supply of wood." He suggests in
this report a hypothesis that Lookout and Raccoon Mountains and
the Cumberland Mountains were once connected, and that the Ten-
nessee River cut a passage between them ; and he gives reasons
for believing that the old bed of the river may be found where it
enters the Sequatchy Valley. A note is added to the report, giv-
ing a list of the fossils the geologist had collected during his
survey. He believed that his collection, particularly of fossils
characterizing the mountain limestone of Tennessee, was unri-
valed. It was his desire to have them figured and described, and
published as an appendix to the work of Dr. Goldfuss on organic
remains, of which he had announced a translation — but " the
prospect of publishing it without pecuniary loss is not flattering."
The list contains nearly a hundred entries, some of which include
many species.

In his fifth report, made for 1839, Dr. Troost said that he had
traversed the State in many directions, and analyzed a large num-
ber of minerals, mineral soils, and other materials, which, though
not belonging properly to the department of the geologist, were
deemed necessary to be known as constituting sources of our na-
tional wealth. The report gives a general view of the geology of
the whole State, in which all the terms are clearly and fully ex-
plained. It deals with iron ores, timber, and water powers, and
points out the suitableness of the region of the Smoky Mountains
for grass and stock and the cultivation of potatoes and cabbage —
adding that " no country can be better calculated for the raising
of sheep," Prof. Troost insisted that iron must become one of
the principal sources of wealth of Middle and East Tennessee,
which were even more favored in the distribution of ores than
Missouri with its Iron Mountain, and " nowhere could a foundry
for a national arsenal be more judiciously situated than in our
State, the center of the Union, and therefore not liable to be
attacked by an enemy, and yet by means of its large rivers, and soon
perhaps of railroads, cannon or other arms may be transported in
a short time to any point in the Union." Descriptions of iron
ore and iron works are given with some detail. The list of or-
ganic remains is accompanied with descriptions and includes a
hundred and sixteen entries.

The ninth report, for 1847, deals chiefly with zinc ores, their
reduction, and the manufacture of zinc and brass.

SKETCH OF GERARD TROOST. 263

Of the report made in 1849 the American Journal of Science
and Arts said : " The geographical survey of Tennessee, under
Dr. Troost, is still in progress, and is bringing to light many-
additions to science, besides developing the various resources of
the State. Prof. Troost is well known for his learning, his skill,
and his enthusiasm in his investigation, and it is greatly to the
honor of Tennessee that such a savant is appreciated and his
talents are called into action. In a recent communication from
Dr. Troost he mentions that the number of the new genera and
species of Crinoidece which occur in the State of Tennessee
is really surprising. His geological report, now before the
Legislature of the State of Tennessee, contains a monograph
of Crinoidece in that State, in which sixteen new genera and
eighty-eight new species are described, illustrated by two hun-
dred and twenty figures; this number not only surpasses that
of those discovered in the other States of the Union, but per-
haps is equal to those that have been found over the whole of
Europe."

Besides his geological reports of Tennessee, Dr. Troost con-
tributed to the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture,
A Geological Survey of the Environs of Philadelphia, the terri-
tory included in which embraced a semicircular area having a
radius of fifteen miles from the center at the Rotunda in High
Street, and bounded on the east by the Delaware River. A pre-
liminary note described the paper as " an attempt to delineate the
geological positions of our environs, and to give some general
ideas of the nature and chemical constituents of our soil." Of
the pamphlet of forty pages, containing a colored map, ten pages
were devoted to the geological survey, fifteen pages to descriptions
of soils, and ten pages to their composition. Prof. Troost also
published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of Penn-
sylvania an account of the organic remains and various fossils of
Tennessee and adjacent States ; in the Bulletin of the Geological
Society of France, a memoir on the organic remains and fossils of
Tennessee ; and in Silliman's American Journal of Science and
the Arts, articles on Amber at Cape Sable, Maryland ; Minerals
of Missouri ; Coral Regions of Tennessee ; Analysis of a Meteor-
ite from Tennessee ; Meteoric Iron from Tennessee and Alabama ;
A Shower of Red Matter in Tennessee ; Three Varieties of Me-
teoric Iron ; Meteoric Iron of Murf reesboro', Tenn. ; and Krausite
and Cacorene in Tennessee. He translated Humboldt's Aspects
of Nature into Dutch. He gathered a collection of about fif-
teen thousand mineralogical and more than five thousand geologi-
cal specimens, constituting what was at the time considered the
finest cabinet belonging to a single person in the United States.
Besides the Philadelphia Academy, he was a member of the

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

American PliilosopTiical Society, the Geological Society of Penn-
sylvania, the Geological Society of France, and of other scientific
bodies in America and Europe.

A minnte adopted by the Board of Trustees of the University
of Nashville, on the occasion of the death of Prof. Troost, relates
that, " born and liberally educated in Holland, he early mani-
fested a zealous devotion to natural history and chemistry, more
especially to the then infant sciences of geology and mineralogy.
With a view to the more successful pursuit of his favorite stud-
ies he visited Paris, and was for several years the pupil of the
celebrated Haiiy. He removed to the United States about forty
years ago, and in due time became an American citizen. His
entire life was consecrated to geology and the kindred sciences,
with what ability and success his published writings and his well-
earned reputation at home and abroad may eloquently testify.
As a professor in this university during the last twenty-two
years and a State geologist of Tennessee for the most part of
that period, he won the confidence and respect of the commu-
nity by invaluable service in both capacities, as well as by the
unaffected modesty, kindness, and uniform courtesy of his de-
portment toward all men. In the various relations and stations
of life, public and private, he was without reproach and above
suspicion. Beloved, trusted, honored, venerated by all those most
intimately connected or associated with him, he could not make
an enemy — he had none."

Geography as a whole was compared by Dr. H. R. Mill, in the introduction to
his course of educational lectures of the Royal Geographical Society, to a pyra-
mid of six courses of masonry, built of blocks obtained from different quarries.
The first and fundamental course, built of material derived from pure mathemat-
ics, was mathematical geography, absolutely secure and firmly establislaed, under-
lying all the rest. Upon it, and resting on it, rose physical geography, the mate-
rial for which was brought from physics, geology, meteorology, etc , all the
determining conditions being fully known. This served as a foundation for bio-
logical geography, in which the imperfect comprehension of life introduced un-
stable and incomplete elements; but far fuller of uncertainty was the next tier of
anthropo-geography, in which the additional unknown quantity of human nature
exercised a preponderating influence, and the positive scientific facts from the
quarries of anthropology, ethnology, and economics were few and by no means
well co-ordinated. Arising from this came the layer of political geography, the
scientific basis of which was mixed up and overlaid with arbitrary, transitory,
and impracticable conditions arising from the workings of the human mind and
the limitations of nationality. Upon this was reared the final story of the pyra-
mid, commercial geography, a mass of rubble, the relation of which to its scien-
tific foundation was not yet fully made out.

COBRESP ONDENCE.

265

CORRESPONDENCE.

MISTAKES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN, ARTISTS,
AND POETS.

Editor Papular Science Monthly :

In late numbers of this journal public
attention has been called to errors in the
statement of facts or of scientific points, by
men who should have known better. But
errors of the kind you name are not confined
to a few, but are found everywhere — even
among poets and artists, as well as among
men of science.

Some years ago a French artist was em-
ployed to paint a panel on the west wall of
the room belonging to a lodge. He made a
beautiful evening landscape, having the sun
in the horizon. A little above, and toward
one side, was the fu/l moon. The shadows
of the trees in the foreground all pointed to
the moon as their source, although the whole
circle of the sun was still in view. I called
his attention to this want of conformity to
the facts — but the picture was too good to
be spoiled by corrections ; so it remained as
it was made.

There is a beautiful hymn by Seagrave,
found in many church collections, having a
part of a stanza as follows :

" Rivers to the ocean run.

Nor stay in all their course ;
Fire, ascending, seeks the sun.
Both speed them to their source^

[All the Italics in this letter are my own.]
The science contained in these lines is that
of the ancient heathen philosophy, viz., that
things heavy naturally tend downward, things
light naturally tend upward.

The attribute of intelligence thus given
to the fire has but a sorry exemplification,
seeing that all fires which burn in the night
fail to get a right start in their search for
the sun. Of course, it is meant that the fire
goes upward of its own accord — is not driven
by anything else.

A distinguished professor of physics in
an Ohio college many years ago was accus-
tomed to say in his lectures that " hot air
rises, and the cold air rushes in to fill the
vacuum." I once called his attention to the
slip. He acknowledged the error — and then
continued to speak as before, much after
the manner of the devil when he was sick
and wished to be a monk.

The same absurd statement appears in
The Popular Science Monthly for last No-
vember, page 104, in the article on the origin
of The Mississippi Valley Rainfall. We find
as follows : " They [the winds] flow as on
an inclined plane, over the colder and more
dense air toward the north, and thus restore
the equilibrium of the atmosphere that has

been disturbed. This disturbance is caused
by a continual flow of the cold and heavy
surface air from the extreme north toward
the equator, because along the tropical belt
a partial vacuum is created by the air becom-
ing heated and lighter, and in consequence
foating upward, arul the cold air rushes in to
supply that vacuum.^^ There it is.

Again, in the February number of this
year, page 466, in the article on the Physical
Conditions of the Deep Sea, occurs this pas-
sage : " The particles of water thus heated
immediately commence to rise through the su-
perjacent layers of colder water, and the colder
particles would fall to take their places.''''

On the principles of the ancient philoso-
phy these extracts are all right, but accord-
ing to the principles of modern physics they
are all wrong. Your own rebuke to such
carelessness was well deserved — let us hope
that it may produce needed reformation.
R. W. McFarland.
Columbus, Ohio, April 1, 1894.

DO ANIMALS REASON?

Editor Popular Science Monthly :

The February number of The Popular
Science Monthly has Just arrived, and I
should like to add to the article on the Psy-
chology of a Dog two illustrations.

When my father was in the navy during
the late war, bis ship, the United States bark
Pursuit, lay at St. Joseph's Bay, Florida.
There was on board a dog (half pointer)
called " Secesh " because he had been cap-
tured from the " rebs." One day the men
went on shore, taking " Secesh " with them,
but when the time came to return the dog
was nowhere to be seen, and the men were
obliged to go back without him. Half an
hour later Secesh appeared upon the beach
and, finding the boat had gone, he started to
swim for the vessel ; but before he reached
it the tide caught him and was carrying him
rapidly out to sea ; he thereupon swam back
to the shore, ti'otted rapidly up the beach
for a considerable distance, and again struck
out for the ship, this time reaching it in
safety.

Again : my grandmother was possessed of
a small dog of no particular breed. One
evening she, with my grandfather, was talk-
ing of going to visit her mother, some twenty
miles distant, on the following day. Dick,
the dog, lay on the hearth at their feet. My
grandmother remarked that they had better
shut Dick up before they started or he would
follow them. In the morning Dick was no-
where to be found, and they were obliged to

266

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

start without fastening him. They had pro-
ceeded a number of miles on their journey
when they came to a place where two roads
diverged. There at the fork of the roads
sat Dick, serenely waiting to find which road
to take. You may be sui-e he was not sent
back.

Is it not certain that these dogs must

have reasoned, and if they reasoned, is it not
logical to conclude that dogs have a mind ;
then, if they have a mind, is this mind not
immortal ? Any child may ask these ques-
tions, but what child or philosopher will give
them a satisfactory answer?

Helen Blackmer Poole.
SPBENGriBLD, Mass., January 19, 1894.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF EDUCATION.

THE article from the pen of Prof.
C. Hanford Henderson, which ap-
peared in our last number under the title
of Cause and Etfect in Education, is one
deserving of more than passing atten-
tion. The point he sought to make was
that education as an art can hardly be
said as yet to have entered on its scien-
tific stage, seeing that it is still haunted
by so many unverified a priori concep-
tions, and that the true limits and con-
ditions of successful working are still far
from being generally understood. The
general subject is one which has been
very often discussed in these columns,
but it is also one on which there always
seems to be another word to say.

Education, from one point of view,
is a debt whicli the adult generation
owes to that which is to succeed it. This
civilization to which we have attained,
these general ideas, these intellectual
resources, these moral principles, these
habits and customs of proved utility —
how are tliey to be passed on to those who
are to succeed us ? By education — that
is to say, by mental contact and moral
sympathy between those who know and
those who as yet do not know. That is
the problem in its most general aspect.
Here we may make two reasonable as-
sumptions ; the first, that all we have
learned the rising generation may also
learn ; the second, that possibly, nay
probably, it is not worth the while of
the rising generation to learn all that
we have learned. We can not teach our

children more than we know, but we
can teach them less than we know, and
so leave room for their own independent
acquisitions. It behooves us, therefore,
to sift our knowledge and whatever else
we have to impart, and consider very
carefully what is worth passing on and
what is not. Much good, we believe,
would come from a serious and earnest
facing of this question, What should I
teach or have taught to my child in its
own best interest? Things which we
ourselves have learned, perhaps with
considerable elfort or at considerable
cost in other ways, we are apt to attach
a fictitious value to, simply because they
have cost us dear ; but the spirit of vir-
tuosity should not enter into education ;
let the child become a virtuoso after his
own fashion later if circumstances lead
him to do so, but meantime let our chief
effort be to give him a free and healthy
mind in a free and healthy body.

One thing is certain : every child,
every human being, wants the full use of
his senses and other natural faculties.
Eyes were made to see with, ears to
hear with, vocal organs to speak and
sing with, and hands to feel with. Any
system of education, therefore, that is
inspired by true benevolence toward the
child will start by taking stock of his
natural endowments, so as to correct,
as far as possible, any defects that
may attach to them and provide for
their fullest development. Children are
often far from perceiving the benevo-
lent intent in the systems of education

EDITOR'S TABLE.

267

to which they are subjected ; and it is
little wonder, in general, that it should
be so. But, if an effort were being vig-
orously made to carry every natural
faculty they possessed to its perfection —
to make the eyes quick and true, the
voice sweet and full, the hearing sensi-
tive and discriminating, the bodily move-
ments vigorous and graceful, and so on
— the beneficence of the process would
impress itself even on the juvenile
mind, and thus half the battle would be
gained, for we want the children's con-
fidence before we can do them much
good. Nothing, we believe, would do
so much toward the development of the
all -important quality of self-respect as a
careful physical training. It would, on
the one hand, promote individuality, in-
asmuch as the child would be made to
feel what he or she was capable of in-
dividually, and, on the other, it would
promote a true comradeship, as it would
awaken a consciousness of that common
physical nature, with its varied powers,
of which all partake.

Here, therefore, is a part of educa-
tion about which there can be no mis-
take— a preparation for perfect living in
the physical sense — that perfect living
which economizes bothmental and moral
force, and places the individual in a
position of advantage for the accom-
plishment of all the ends of life. Un-
der a system which made due provision
for this kind of training, questions of
diet, of clothing, of exercise, of ventila-
tion, of bodily habits, and so forth,
would, of course, be carefully consid-
ered, and whatever was best in all these
respects would be suitably held up for
guidance and instruction. It is true
that there is much that is defective from
a hygienic point of view in the home
life of nearly all classes, and on that
very account it is important that true
hygienic principles should be incul-
cated, in a manner as free as possible
from pedantry, in the schools ; for if
the children can be taught simply and
clearly the conditions on which their

health and comfort depend, they will
themselves exert a wholesome influence
in the household.

What Paul said to the Athenians
might be said to-day to ourselves: We
are in all things too superstitious, and
particularly in the matter of education.
Instead of seeking as we do now to see
how much we can cram into youthful
minds, or in other words how much ot
tlie elastic force of the brain we can
destroy — for that is what it comes to in
at least a multitude of cases — we should
consider all so-called knowledge con-
traband of the childish mind until its
assimilable character has been fully
demonstrated. When we are satisfied
that it will act as food and not as the
mere stufiing of the taxidermist to bulge
out the intellectual nature into a con-
ventional shape, let us impart it, and
not before ; but do not let us give too
much even of food, remembering that
the animal which goes in search of its
own food gets the highest and best de-
velopment, the most ingeniously adapted
structure, the widest range of faculty.
The most fatal fault we can commit is
that of unduly taming and domesticat-
ing the mind, so to speak, so that it ex-
pects to be fed by others, instead of
going abroad to see what the universe
will do for it.

The more we expect from education,
the less we are apt to get from it in the
way of useful results. We form an idea
of a highly rationalized man of refined
intellectual and artistic tastes, with per-
haps a large element of moral idealism,
and generally "up to date"; and that
we set up, as Nebuchadnezzar did his
brazen image, for all the world to bow
down to. The object of education, we
think, is to produce something like that.
Well, education isn't going to do it. Men
of that kind have always been excep-
tional, nor is it education that has given
them the qualities we so much admire.
If education had done it for them, why
then, doubtless, it could do it for others ;
but what do we see ? From the same

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

form in school, perhaps from the same
household, one will rise to honor and
another sink to dishonor; one will be-
come conspicuous in society, another
will never emerge from obscurity. But
what education icill do, if we work on
natural lines, if we are not too fussy
over it, and are careful not to give it
in too lai'ge doses, will be to liberate
and more or less wisely direct a vast
amount of intellectual power which at
present we confine and almost paralyze.
Good and sensible people are often
heard groaning over the vulgar and
frivolous enjoyments which alone seem
to afford any pleasure to the multitude ;
and there is some reason for the plaint,
though the multitude may not be so
much to blame as is supposed. It is a
question of intellectual energy. The
man or woman who has much of it to
spare will not be a frequenter of the
mere spectacular drama, nor a devourer
of coarsely sensational novels. What
excuse is sometimes given by our busy
men for their very inferior taste in lit-
erary, dramatic, and other matters?
Oh, that they are so fagged out by their
day's work that they want the stimulus
of something sensational. The excuse
is worked for all that it is worth ; but
in some cases there is something in it.
As regards a much larger number, how-
ever, both of men and of women, the
trouble probably is that their intellectual
faculties were not only not strength-
ened or invigorated by their early edu-
cation, but were more or less dwarfed
and numbed. If a youth were to go
through an alleged course of athletic
training and were to come away with
dwindled muscles and a more languid
condition of body tlian he had when he
began, we could at once, on the evi-
dence of our senses, pronounce the
whole thing a fraud. The mind, unfor-
tunately, docs not admit of the same
simple measurements as the muscles,
and we can not therefore so easily de-
tect the fraud when, after from five to
ten years of schooling, a young person

steps out into the world with less of
intellectual apprehensiveness and less of
available mental vigor than he or she
had as a little child. Yet, that this has
been, and still is, a not infrequent re-
sult, who will deny ?

There are great possibilities of good
in education if we will but recognize
our proper role in the matter, and not
try to usurp the place of the one con-
summate teacher — Nature. There are
vast possibilities of evil in it if, plant-
ing ourselves on dogmas, traditions, and
classicisms, or attaching too absolute an
authority to our own generalizations,
we seek to dominate the minds whose
gradual evolution we should patiently
watch and cautiously and tenderly as-
sist. Most of us probably have more or
less teaching to do : let us remember
that, so far as this is the case, our art
is not that of the taxidermist or con-
structor of lay figures, but that we have
living tissue to deal with ; and let us
respect the mysteries of life and growth.

IS ''SOCIETY'' VULGAR?

Some weeks ago a prominent clergy-
man of this city was reported to have
expressed the opinion that the " society "
of to-day is vulgar. Reporters called
upon him to ascertain if he really had
S'lid anything so dreadful, and he was
obliged to confess that he had, and that
he really thought he had spoken the truth.
It is evident that whether he did speak
the truth or not depends on the sense we
attach to the word vulgar. If to be vul-
gar means to live plainly and without os-
tentation, then society is not vulgar, but
very much the opposite. If to be vulgar
means to take unconventional views of
things, and to estimate men and women
more according to their intellectual and
moral qualities than by the wealth they
possess and the figure they are able to
cut in the world of fashion, then to say
that society is vulgar is a cruel slander.
If to be vulgar is to be unversed in so-
cial forms, but sincere in friendship,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

269

then society deserves no such reproach.
Finally, if to be vulgar means to possess
and cultivate individuality, to study the
principles of taste, and to consider these
as more entitled to respect than the
dictates of fashion, to regard advantages
of wealth and position as held in trust
for mankind at large, and to make the
enjoyment of pleasure secondary to the
performance of duty, the accusation of
vulgarity is very much beside the mark.
The word " vulgar," as we all know,
means " appertaining to, or character-
istic of, the multitude." We have not
turned up the word in the dictionary,
for we feel sure this definition will suf-
fice. An infallible rule, therefore, for
being vulgar according to the measure
of your ability, is to keep your eye on
others, so that whatsoever they do you
may do also, irrespective of your own
judgment as to the merits of the partic-
ular act or course of action. If you be-
gin to study the right or wrong of the
thing, to consider whether what suits,
or seems to suit, others is also suitable
to you — if, in a word, you bring private
judgment and a moral or sesthetic con-
science to bear on the matter — you at
once run the risk of not being vulgar,
and that is a risk which a good many
persons do not care to run. " As well
out of the world as out of the fashion "
is the whole law and gospel of vulgarity,
seeing that it is the maxim which com-
pels people to aVmegate and set at nought
their private judgment, and act blindly
in troops at the bidding of some un-
seen and possibly very despicable master
of ceremonies.

"We begin to see now, perhaps, what
the eminent clergyman meant when he
said that " society " was viilgar. He
did not mean any of the things first
hinted at. He was thinking of the es-
sential meaning of the word. He saw,
with a clearness of vision which it
would be well if all ministers of the
gospel possessed, that luxury does not
shut out vulgarity, that so-called poHte
manners are not incompatible with it.

that even educational acquirements may
only, like varnish, bring out its grain
more distinctly. He saw that " society,"
when all is said and done, lives mainly
to eat and drink and nourish the bodily
senses ; that far from believing in and
cultivating individuality, it represses it
to the utmost ; that, instead of discuss-
ing, like citizens of a free republic, the
codes by which it is governed, it only
asks to know that they have been im-
posed by some recognized authority ;
that, in a word, it is whatever is most
commonplace, glorified by the power of
gold. So he ventured to say it was
vulgar, and, if it is not, then what is it?
It is, broadly speaking, a region of tin-
sel, of monotonous routine, of rival
vanities so alike in their expression that
one is hardly to be distinguished from
another, and of slavish imitation. The
way of escape from this City of De-
struction lies through the cultivation
of individuality and thoughtfulness for
others. As the essence of vulgarity
is to be a selfish, unreflecting slave of
fashion, so the farthest remove from it
is to be a freely thinking, judging, and
acting individual, seeking ever higher
modes of life, and desiring to communi-
cate as much of good as possible to
others. The aim of education ought to
be to rescue from vulgarity and win
over to a broad humanity — to plant the
law of reason in the mind and the law
of love in the heart.

The several psychological works of
Prof. James Sully are so widely read
and frequently cited in America that
their author needs no introduction to
the readers of the Monthly. Accoi'd-
ingly, we feel that we are making a very
welcome announcement in stating that
Prof. Sully has consented to contribute
to this magazine a series of articles em-
bodying some of the studies of mental
development in childhood that he has
been making during the past few years.
The first of these articles, under the

270

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

special title, The Age of Imagination,
will appear in our July number. It
deals with what the author calls "the
piny of imagination, the tnagic trans-
muting of things through the sheer
liveliness and wanton activity of a child's
fancy." The mind of the child is still
a little-explored country, and an exami-
nation of it under Prof. Sully's compe-
tent guidance will not only have the
charm of novelty but will also furnish
much helpful insight to all who have
the care of children.

UTEI^ARY NOTICES.

Edward Livingston Youmans, Interpreter
OF Science for the People : A Sketch
OF HIS Life, with Selections from his
Published Writings and Extracts
from his Correspondence with Spencer,
Huxley, Tyndall, and Others. By
John Fiske. New York : D. Appleton
& Co., 1894. Pp. 600. Price, $2.

Few men of this generation in America
have better deserved an enduring monument
to their memory than the late Prof. Edward
L. Youmans. Such a monument, we may
trust, is supplied by the ably written biogra-
phy by Prof. Fiske. The author was inti-
mately acquainted with him for many years,
and has produced a most interesting and
pleasing sketch of his character and career,
one marked, as might have been expected,
by ardent and enthusiastic sympathy with
his subject, yet equally characterized by
moderation and good taste. Let us first
glean a few of the biographical details fur-
nished by Mr. Fiske.

Edward Livingston Youmans was bom
in the town of Coeymans, Albany County,
N. Y., on the 3d of June, 1821. His father,
Vincent Youmans, is described as " a man
of independent character, strong convictions,
and perfect moral courage," and his mother,
Catherine Scofield, as " notable for balance
of judgment, prudence, and tact." Both
father and mother belonged to the old Puri-
tan stock of New England, and in Edward
Youmans the best and richest qualities of
that stock came to the surface — " sagacity
and penetration, broad common sense, ear-
nest purpose, veiled but not hidden by a blithe

humor, devotion to ends of practical value,
and the habit of making in the best sense
the most out of life."

A few months after Edward Youmans
was born, his father, who pursued the occu
pation of wagon-maker, removed from Coey-
mans to Greenfield, in Saratoga County.
Here and in the neighboring town of Milton,
to which he removed ten years later, five
other sons and one daughter were born, and
Edward, as the eldest child, took an active
and very willing part in looking after the
younger ones. Until his sixteenth year he
helped his father at work in summer and
attended the district school in winter. The
most wholesome feature of such schools was
an absence of overregulation. It was one
that Edward learned early to appreciate,
and he always cherished a distrust of ex-
cessive organization and a dislike to machine
methods.

At the age of thirteen the youth became
possessed of a copy of Comstock's Natural
Philosophy, and shortly set to work to repeat
some of the experiments therein described.
He next obtained a copy of Comstock's Man-
ual of Chemistry, which he studied as best
he could by himself, for his school-teacher
had no knowledge whatever of the subject.
From it he gathered the opinion, as Prof.
Fiske tells us, that, " when men have once
learned how to conduct agriculture upon
sound scientific principles, farming will be-
come one of the most wholesome and attract-
ive forms of human industry." "

Such was the youth of Edward Youmans,
such the stock from which he sprang, such
his original habitat and environment. Our
narrative up to this point presents no re-
markable features, and yet this home-bred
youth was destined to do a great work — to
be, if we may use the expression, the foster-
father of a great system of philosophy on the
North American continent, the virtual leader
of the intellectual forces that rallied under
the banner of evolution. As a man he had
these two great qualifications for practical
success : he knew a good thing when he saw
it, and what his hand found to do he did
with his might. But before he entered upon
his work as a teacher and champion of evo-
lution and general popularizer of science, he
was destined to pass through a very painful
period of his life — a period during which he

LITERARY NOTICES.

2Jl

suffered from disease of the eyes, involving
wearj months and years of sometimes par-
tial, sometimes total, blindness.

Altogether he struggled for fifteen years
with this terrible disability, dating from the
time when his eyes were first attacked in his
fifteenth year. These years, however, were
not years of idleness : when he could not see
he could listen, and his sister, who was sel-
dom far from his side, would read to him
from any book he might indicate. Between
being read to and reading for himself, when
it could be done with any safety, he vastly
increased his stores of knowledge, and par-
ticularly became so proficient in chemistry
that he was able to produce a text-book
which had immediate success, and which, in
a revised form, is holding its ground to this
day.

No sooner had he recovered a fair meas-
ure of sight than he betook himself to the
delivery of popular lectures on scientific sub-
jects ; and here he seemed to have found
his true vocation. The people heard him
gladly, and more engagements were offered
than he was able to accept. The work, how-
ever, was not without its dangers : the lec-
ture season was of course in the winter, and
in his journeyings to and fro Mr. Youmans
was frequently exposed to chills, and was
laid up more than once with severe bron-
chial and pulmonary attacks. If dangerous
to the lecturer, the work was useful to the
multitude. " Many a young man," observes
his biographer, " in many a town could trace
to Youmans and his lectures the first im-
pulse that led him to seek a university edu-
cation. In quarters innumerable his advice
gave direction to family reading in the best
treatises on astronomy, physics, chemistry,
geology, and physiology."

It was not in the lecture field, however,
that he was destined to do his most impor-
tant work. In the year 1856 he saw in a
periodical an article on Spencer's then re-
cently published Principles of Psychology.
He sent for the book, and saw, to use Prof.
Fiske's words, that " the theory expounded
in it was a long stride in the direction of a
general theory of evolution." He then read
Spencer's Social Statics, which had appeared
a few years earlier, and, as we are told,
" began to recognize Spencer's hand in the
anonymous articles in the quarterlies in

which he was then announcing and illustrat-
ing various portions or segments of his new-
ly discovered law." Finally, in the year 1860,
he was shown a copy of the circular in which
Spencer was announcing his philosophical
series. That such a man should be appeal-
ing for support, to enable him to bring out
works of so transcendent importance, sug-
gested at once to Mr. Youmans that here
was a chance for him to render service which
might be of much moment. He took what
he felt at the time to be the bold step of
writing to Spencer, and oifering to interest
himself in getting American subscribers to
the series. Mr. Spencer replied, thanking
him very warmly for the offer and for the
sympathy which his letter had expressed ;
and thus was begun a friendship of the most
sincere and enduring character between these
two eminent men. Nothing in the volume
before us is more interesting or produces a
pleasanter impression that the extracts given
from the correspondence which passed be-
tween them from this date onward to the
death of Mr. Youmans.

The result of the acquaintance thus
formed was that Spencer obtained a gratify-
ing number of subscribers to his series in
this country, and that the republication of
his works was begun by Messrs. D. Appleton
& Co., who were the publishers of Youmans'a
Chemistry and of another work which he had
produced under the title of Handbook of
Household Science. This was really the turn-
ing point in Spencer's fortunes. In one of
his letters to Youmans we find the follow-
ing passage : " The energy and self-sacri-
fice you continue to show in the advance-
ment of my scheme quite astonishes me ; and
while, in one respect, it is very gratifying to
me, yet in another it gives me a certain un-
comfortable sense of obligation, more weighty
than I like to be under." This shows the
relations that had been established between
the two men, and maljes the action which
Youmans so vigorously, we might say hero-
ically, took at a later date to help his friend
through a financial crisis entirely natural.
Such he was to Spencer all through — the one
untiring upholder of his name, defender of
his views, and good providence of his for-
tunes on this continent. Spencer and the
evolution philosophy were inseparable in his
thoughts, and for so great a cause repre-

272

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sented by so great a name no sacrifice was
too great.

We are nearly at the end of our space,
without, unfortunately, being nearly at the
end of our subject. The travels of Mr. You-
mans in England and on the continent of
Europe, sometimes in the company of Spen-
cer ; his correspondence with members of his
family in this country ; his labors in arrang-
ing for the publication of the International
Scientific Series, in connection with which he
visited Paris, Berlin, and Leipsic, and came
into personal relations with the leading sa-
vants of France and Germany ; finally, his es-
tablishment of The Popular Science Month-
ly, chiefly on the strength of a series of origi-
nal articles by Spencer, on The Study of
Sociology, would admit of extensive and in-
teresting treatment ; but for all this we must
refer our readers to the book itself. The
aim of this notice has been to indicate to
the many who knew Prof. Youmans only by
name what manner of man he was, and what
services he rendered in the cause of intellec-
tual progress. Prof. Fiske, with the skill of
an accomplished writer and the sympathy of
an intimate friend and most sincere admirer,
has given the finer as well as the broader
Imeaments of his character in a manner that
leaves little to be desired. That so energetic
a worker, with so capable a brain and so
large a heart, should have died at the com-
paratively early age of sixty-five is a matter
for profound regret, particularly as we are
compelled to attribute it to the same want of
care for his general health and over-devotion
to work which brought on, and then aggra-
vated, his early trouble with his eyes. As a
writer Prof. Youmans had a style of his own,
full of nervous force and grace — a style
ample and rich, and yet admirably precise.
Some of his essays are published as an ap-
pendix to the biography, and form most in-
teresting and instructive reading. From these
his dominant ideas^and purposes may be
gathered ; and no one can read many pages
without seeing and feeling that here was
no intellectual dilettante, but a man with
a mission, and that the lofty one of dissi-
pating ignorance and prejudice, spreading
the light of science, and preparing the
way for those "nobler modes of life" of
which seers have prophesied and poets
sung.

The Genus Salpa. A Monograph, with
Fifty-seven Plates. By William K.
Brooks, Ph. D., LL. D. With a supple-
mentary Paper by Matnard M. Metcalf.
Memoirs from the Biological Laboratory
of the Johns Hopkins University. Vol.
II. Baltimore, 1893. Price, $7.50.

This bulky quarto, with its companion
volume of fifty-seven plates, is a monu-
mental work. It is the result of years of
concentrated effort, and is a credit to Ameri-
can science.

The subject of the investigation is a
pelagic or free-swimming Ascidian, confined
to the high seas, and exceptional even in a
group whose larvae are plainly allied to ver-
tebrates, while the adults have lost nearly
every resemblance to their vertebrate allies by
the degeneration and loss of their vertebrate '
features. Salpa is aptly described by Prof.
Brooks as a transparent swimming Tunicate,
which in effect is " an enormous pharynx
which swims through the water, gulping in
great mouthfuls at each contraction of its
muscles." Happily the supply of radiolarian
and diatom food is unlimited, and hence Sal-
pae multiply in immense profusion and with
astonishing rapidity.

Salpas under favoring conditions of food,
and perhaps other physical causes not dis-
cussed by the author, reproduce both sex-
ually and asexually. Each species has two
generations in its life-cycle, known as the
solitary generation and the aggregated gen-
eration. Chamisso, the poet, novelist, and
biologist, first discovered this. The solitary
salpa is born from an egg which is carried
within the body of the aggregated salpa,
whose blood nourishes the embryo during
its development by means of a nutritive pla-
centa. On the other hand, the aggregated
or chain salpa3 are produced asexually by
budding from the body of the solitary salpa.
This placenta, as Brooks shows, contrary
to the views of some writers, has only a su-
perficial resemblance to the foetal organ of
the mammals ; it is an independent structure,
being in the salpa only of use in conveying
food to the embryo. This food has been
discovered by the author to be great placenta
cells which migrate from the body of the
chain salpa into the body cavity of the em-
bryo. Hence the embryo salpa stands in a
much more direct relation to the external
world than the mammalian embrvo.

LITERARY NOTICES.

273

Space will not permit us to further notice
the special points elaborated by the author,
the table of contents alone occupying two
crowded pages. The wotk is divided into
four parts : I. A general account of the life-
history of salpa. II. The systematic affinity
of salpa in its relation to the conditions of
primitive pelagic life ; the phylogeny of the
Tunicata ; and the ancestry of the Chordata.
III. A critical discussion of my own observa-
tions and those of other writers, on the sex-
ual and asexual development of salpa. IV.
On the eyes and subneural gland of salpa,
is by M. M. Metcalf, who, among other
points claims, contrary to Buetschli, that the
eye of salpa is not homologous with the eye
of any other chordate animal.

The general reader and biologist will be
especially interested in the views presented
in Part II. Brooks speaks of the wonderful
scarcity of pelagic life in the lagoons and
landlocked waters of the Bahamas, and ex-
plains it by the theory that the surface life
is eaten up by the animals at the bottom,
every organism swept in by the tides and
every larva born in the sounds being eaten
up by the polyps, etc., at the bottom, the
competition for food being so fierce. He
maintains that early in the Cambrian period,
or when life first began, it was pelagic, or
confined to the surface. Gradually some of
the pelagic forms, at first mmute and sim-
ple, settled at the bottom, and such a primi-
tive bottom fauna was similar to the lower
Cambrian fauna. This bottom fauna at
first entirely depended for food upon the
pelagic life at or near the surface, there be-
ing no plant life yet in existence. This
primitive bottom fauna was established
around elevated areas in water deep enough
to be beyond the influence of the shore.
He claims that the great groups of Metazoa,
or all animals above protozoans, were rapidly
established from pelagic ancestors. This, it
may be said in passing, is in direct opposi-
tion to the view generally entertained that
the pelagic fauna is derived from the shoal-
water or shore life.

After the establishment of the first bot-
tom fauna competition swiftly arose, became
very rigorous, and led to rapid evolution, and
" life on the bottom introduced many new
opportunities for divergent modification and
for the perfecting of animals." The in-
TOL. XLV. — 22

crease in size of the animals also increased
the possibilities of variation, and led to the
natural selection of those peculiarities which
increased the efficiency of different organs,
and thus proved an important factor in the
evolution of complicated organisms ; the
new modes of life — what they were, the au-
thor does not state, but they must have been
in great part the results of fixation at the
bottom, together with the operation of cur-
rents, etc. — permitting the acquisition of pro-
tective shells, or hard, supporting skeletons.
Life at the bottom also introduced the factor
of competition between blood relations, the
fiercest competitors of each kind of animal
being its closest allies, " which having the
same habits, living upon the same food, and
avoiding enemies in the same way, are con-
stantly striving to hold exclusive possession
of all the essentials to their life." Thus
the tendency of such bottom forms was to
divergent evolution of the great types of
animal life. Since then, the author claims,
" evolution has resulted in the elaboration
and divergent specialization of the types of
structure which were already established,
rather than in the production of new types."
This is all very likely, and, to continue the
train of reasoning, the next great step was
the origin of land animals, terrestrial and
fresh-water arthropods, and the third great
step was the evolution of animals, arthropod
and vertebrate, adapted for life in the air.
We may suggest that it was the Lamarckian
factors of profound and widespread changes
in the environment, such as a transfer of
the habitat of animals from the surface to
the ocean bottom which tended to increase
and diversify life forms, together with the
use and disuse of organs resulting from
enforced adaptation to the new conditions.
After all this had begun there comes in the
more passive factor of natural selection,
subordinate, though constantly at work,
which further promoted the elaboration and
specialization of organic forms.

Letters of Asa Gray. Edited by Jane
LoRiNG Grat. In Two Volumes. Bos-
ton : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Price, $4.

Dr. Gray was a delightful correspond-
ent. He wrote with the easy manner and
hearty tone that give letters then- highest
charm. In telling distant friends what he

274

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is occupied with he presents no bare outline,
but fills up his picture with a wealth of in-
teresting details. And his good-natured fun
is continually peeping out from some comer.
The first group of letters concern various
undertakings between the twenty-first and
twenty-eighth years of his life, and are most-
ly addressed to his father and mother and to
Dr. John Torrey. In them he speaks frankly
of his plans and aspirations, saying in one
place, " I am determined to persevere for a
little while yet before I give up all hopes
from science as a pursuit for life." His
journeys by stage-coach and steamboat to
various places in the State of New York and
one to Detroit are graphically described.
His account of his first journey in Europe,
given in letters home which took the form of
a journal, is also very graphic. We find in
the early pages of this chapter enthusiastic
references to twenty days of study among Sir
William Hooker's botanical collections, close-
ly followed by a description of Edinburgh
and references to lectures by the famous men
in its university. Here he does not neg-
lect to note that Dr. Hope, who lectured on
chemistry, " did not wear his gown or ruffles
at the wrist," also that the class in anatomy
" behaved shockingly, even for medical stu-
dents." In London, through his letters of
introduction and the good offices of Hooker
and his son "Joe," who were there at the
same time. Gray made many pleasant and
useful acquaintances. Busy days those
spent in the "modem Babylon" must have
been, for a bewildering number of persons
and places were visited. Proceeding to
France, Dr. Gray made the acquaintance of
Jussieu, Decaisne, Seringe, Delile, and other
botanists. He then crossed Italy and visited
parts of Austria, turned back through Switz-
erland and Germany, and finally sailed from
Hamburg for London. His journal describes
his meeting with the celebrated botanists of
all the places visited, and contains the travel-
er's impressions of the usual "sights," be-
sides notes of miscellaneous incidents of
travel. The year in Europe is followed by a
decade of work at home, in the early part of
which Dr. Gray was appointed to the Fisher
professorship in Harvard College, which he
retained for the rest of his life. The letters
of this period speak of work on Torrey and
Gray's Flora of North America, the arrange-

ments for the new labors at Harvard, and
work on various publications. One of his
first discoveries in Cambridge was that
" there's nothing like Down East for learned
women," and he gives instances. A second
trip to Europe was made in 1850-'51 ; old
friendships were revived and new ones
made. One of the new friends was Charles
Darwin, and a large part of the letters in the
next division of this collection were addressed
to him. The letters in the remaining divi-
sions tell of new publications and revisions of
old ones, the examination of collections and
single specimens from all quarters of the
globe, further journeys to Europe and else-
where, and miscellaneous matters. One of
the most valuable features of these two vol-
umes are the opinions and bits of informa-
tion about prominent botanists that are scat-
tered through them. Prof. Gray was not
oblivious to affairs of moment outside the
field of botany ; thus his letters during the
time of the civil war contain many vigorous
comments upon passing events, and we are
informed in a foot-note that he enlisted and
drilled with a company raised for service in
Massachusetts. He was then over fifty years
of age. The playful turns of thought al-
ready referred to are frequent. Now the
subject is the German feather-stuffed bed-
covering, again it is the simian ancestry im-
plied in Darwin's books, but nothing is
more dehghtful than the burlesque botanical
description of the piece of wedding cake that
he sends to the Torreys. The two volumes
contain three portraits of Dr. Gray, a picture
of him in his study, and a view of the range
of buildings in the Harvard Botanic Gar-
den. A brief autobiography prefixed to the
first volume gives an account of Gray's an-
cestry and his early years.

A Class in Geometry : Lessons in Observa-
tion AND Experiment. By George Iles.
New York and Chicago: E. L. Kellogg
& Co. Pp. 46. Illustrated. Price, 25
cents.

" Can dry bones live ? " is apt to be one's
thought in taking up a book on lines, sur-
faces, and angles. That the dry bones of
geometry can live Mr. lies proved to the
readers of The Popular Science Monthly in
November, 1890. He then told in part a
story which here is told in full. Taking an

LITERARY NOTICES.

275

informal class of three boys, lie led them to
observe their common surroundings — fields
and farms, buildings and machinery, plants
and insects — bringing out their embodiment
of laws of form and size of the widest
sweep. Breaking a live coal into fragments
on a hearthstone, his pupils saw that the
smaller a lump the sooner it cooled and
turned black; step by step they discovered
that the moon, the earth, Jupiter, and the
sun, from their relative magnitudes, are in
the same case — are but cinders, or cinders
in the making. Simple models, easy to re-
produce, served in other lessons — an inverted
wedge gradually withdrawn from immersion
in a jar half full of water became an ex-
tractor of square root; an inverted cone,
similarly treated, was employed as an ex-
tractor of cube root. A diagram, which has
only to be seen to be understood, enabled bis
class to perceive that the surface of a sphere
is equal to the curved surface of the cylinder
which incloses it, and hence is equal to th6
rectangle which the cylinder describes in be-
ing rolled round once on a plane. Mr. lies
abundantly exemplifies the inventiveness
which he recommends as an element in mak-
ing a lesson stick to a pupil's mind. On
the very threshold of Euclid he has come
upon novel and important implications of
the elementary laws of space ; he has thence
opened new paths of approach to the study
of mechanics and physics. A distinctly re-
freshing note is struck in illustrating that
not the immediate but the total indications
of geometry point the way to the constructor ;
that if calculation is to be just, it must be
directed with judgment. This little book
can be as helpful to the teacher as that other
unconventional aid, William George Spencer's
Inventional Geometry.

White's New Course in Art Instruction.
Manual for the Fifth-year Grade. New
York, etc. : American Book Company.
Pp. 112. Price, 50 cents.

White's New Course in Art Instruction
embodies the ideas of many teachers, who,
starting at different points and working
along different lines, arrived at the same
conclusions. Its aims are, first, to acquaint
pupils with the rudiments of all kinds of
drawing included under the two depart-
ments, mechanical and free hand ; secondly,

to lead pupils to feel that, while art and
love for the beautiful may be fostered by an
artistic and beautiful environment, skill and
power and quick original perception of beauty
come only through faithful and persistent
practice in drawing ; and, thirdly, to develop
a love for the beautiful in Nature and art.
The fifth year or grammar course includes
the study of measurement, geometry, writ-
ing, drawing, development, color, historic
ornament, botanical drawing, design, paper-
cutting, and model and object drawing. Each
subject is logically pursued throughout the
grade, and each subject supplements others
in the grade. The book abounds in each
department in practical directions, concisely
and perspicuously given, to which the illus-
tions, clearly and accurately drawn, are a
real help.

Symbolic Education. A Commentary on
Froebel's Mother Play. By Susan E.
Blow. New York : D. Appleton & Co.,
1894. International Education Series.
Pp. 251. Price, $1.50.

The advent of the kindergarten in the
educational system of this country has great
significance, and statistics show a steady in-
crease in kindergartens, teachers, and pupils.

Symbolic Education, by Susan E. Blow
(Appletons' International Education Series),
discusses practically the foundation of Froe-
bel's philosophy in Mother's Play and Nurs-
ery Songs.

The editor. Dr. Harris, says the kinder-
garten inspires its teachers with the true
missionary spirit, to devote themselves to the
work of unfolding the self-activity of human-
ity in its feeblest and most rudimentary stage
of growth. The teacher of advanced pupils
does not need such refinements of method to
secure profitable industry — it is the teacher
of feeble-minded adults, or of very young
children, that must have what the Germans
call a " developing method." The good
kindergartner continually follows Froebel by
directing the pupils' own efforts without
stunting them by officious help. Mothers
should take heed of the warning that over-
cultivation of verbal memory cripples alike
the power of original thinking and accurate
observation. He says that the first self-revela-
tion of the child is through play. He learns
thus what he can do — what he can do easily at

2/6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

first trial, and what by perseverance and con-
trivance. The child is naturally always out-
growing his playthings, always exhausting
the possibilities of a given object to symbol-
ize occupations and deeds of grown-up human-
' ity about him. Were the child to arrest his
development and linger contented over a doll
or hobbyhorse, the result would be lament-
able. Hence unmaking is as important as
making, destructive energy is as essential to
him as power of construction — a point often
missed by kindergartners who have not pene-
trated Froebel's inner connection. This ideal
of play material is realized in his gifts.
Play must be purified by rational insight.
From insight into the deep meaning that lies
hid in childish play, there is but a step to its
use in education. The manifold errors of
kindergartners can be avoided only by clear
insight into Froebel's aim — development of
creative activity — and his kindergarten gifts
are the practical response to the cravings of
childhood. Rousseau's idea of atomism is
criticised in contradistinction to Gliedganzes —
" member whole " — man as a self-determined
individual yet a constituent of a social whole.
This, Dr. Harris says, " is undoubtedly the
deepest and most fruitful idea in the phi-
losophy of education, and the key to the
practical work of Froebel — the source of
that symbolism which is his most original
contribution to educational science. . . .
Rousseau's significance in education lay in
opposing established institutions. He failed
to see the revelation of human nature in so-
cial combination and thus missed education's
chief aim. His Emile (Appletons') made
educators recognize the sacredness of child-
hood. Its study is necessary to explain
Pestalozzi, Froebel, etc."

Important considerations are offered in
opposition to Rousseau's suggestions con-
cerning exercising the senses and restraining
the mind's activity. To develop quick per-
ception, it is necessary not only to exercise
the senses but to increase the pupil's stock
of general ideas, and thus illuminate the
mind that uses the senses. Environment
and absorption of ideas from harmonious
surroundings follow as important in child-
education.

Pestalozzi is quoted as having struck the
keynote of educational reform : " Nature de-
velops all the powers of humanity by exer-

cising them ; they increase with use." Mis-
use is not use — not all exercising is develop-
ing. " The child that walks too soon de-
forms its legs." Exercise must be propor-
tioned to strength to increase strength. Re-
marks upon education dealing with powers
only as they become explicit are exception-
ally strong. " Notwithstanding all that has
been said and written, we still make knowl-
edge our idol, and continue to fill the child's
mind with foreign material, under the gratui-
tous assumption that at a later age he will
be able, through some magic transubstan-
tiation, to make it a vital part of his own
thought. This is like loading his stomach
with food which he can not digest under the
delusive hope that he may be able to digest
it when he is a man. . . . But glaring as are
our sins of commission they pale before our
sins of omission, for, while we are forcing
upon the child's mind knowledge which has
no roots in his experience, or calling on him
to exercise still dormant powers, we refuse
any aid to his spontaneous struggle to do and
learn and be that which his stage of devel-
opment demands."

This book is emphatically one for mothers,
as it presents the subject of early child-train-
ing in a thoroughly practical manner.

The Psychological Review. Edited by J.
McKeen Cattell and J. Mark Baldwin,
with the Co-operation of Alfred Binet,
John Dewey, H. H. Donaldson, G. S. Ful-
lerton, William James, G. T. Ladd, Hugo
Munsterberg, M. Allen Starr, Carl Stump,
and James Sully. Published bimonthly
by Macmillan & Co., New York. Pp. 112.
Price, 75 cents ; $4 a year.

The leading and principal article in the
first number of this periodical, January,
1894, is the presidential address of Prof.
George T. Ladd before the New York meet-
ing of the American Psychological Associa-
tion, in which, while the science of psychol-
ogy is confessed to be embryonic in its pres-
ent stage, it is claimed that more opportunity
is afforded on that account for students and
investigators to contribute something impor-
tant to its more stable and higher evolution.
Three classes of inquiries are suggested, em-
bracing the relation in which the statistical
and experimental investigations stand to the
total science of psychology, the relation in
which the science stands to what we call

LITERARY NOTICES.

277

philosophy, and the relation in which it
stands to conduct and to the practical wel-
fare of mankind. Following the discussion
of these questions is the speaker's expression
of the conviction that the more he studies
and teaches the science the deeper the im-
pression that it is able and destined to con-
tribute greatly to the welfare of mankind —
by contributions toward the improvement of
the art and practice of teaching ; to the sci-
ence and practice of medicine, especially in
the department of neurology ; to the diagno-
sis and treatment of the insane, the incor-
rigible, and the idiotic. " In general, why
should we not expect to see our science con-
tributing to the improved conduct and char-
acter of men in the school, in the court-
room, the prison, and the asylum," to the
work of the religious teacher and the mother ?
This address is followed by a study of the
case of John Bunyan, by Josiah Royce ;
Studies from the Harvard Psychological
Laboratory, by Hugo Munsterberg ; shorter
contributions on Arithmetic by Smell, by
Francis Galton ; The Psychology of Infant
Language, by John Dewey ; Work at the
Yale Laboratory, by E. W. Scripture ; Dis-
cussion of Works by Prof. Wundt |and Mr.
James Ward ; and notices of psychological
literature.

The Canadian Ice Age : Being Notes on the
Pleistocene Geology of Canada, with Spe-
cial Reference to the Life of the Period
and its Climatal Conditions. By Sir J.
William Dawson. Montreal: William
V. Dawson ; New York : Scientific Pub-
lishing Company. Pp. 801.

The subjects discussed in this book have
occupied the attention of the author to a
greater or less extent since 1855, and he has
published from time to time several papers
and one pamphlet — Notes on the Post-plio-
cene of Canada — upon it. The present book
is an attempt to collect in a convenient form
the large mass of information included in
the papers bearing on the histpry of the
northern half of the continent of North
America during the Ice age. Not satisfied
with undertaking to explain the widespread
and complex glacial formations of Canada
by one dominant cause, the author is con-
vinced that we must take into account the
agency of both land ice and sea-borne ice in
many forms, along with repeated and com-

plex elevations and depressions of large por-
tions of the continent. He is disposed, how-
ever, to seek for the causes of changes in
climate rather in geological and geographical
agencies than in astronomical vicissitudes.
He notes the fact that no change, even of
varietal value, has taken place in species
since the beginning of the Pleistocene period
as one of extreme significance with reference
to theories of the modification of species in
geological times. While not attempting to
extend his generalizations south of Canada,
he warns geologists in our country who in-
sist upon portentous accumulations of ice
within its territory, " that the material can not
be supplied to them from Canada. They must
establish gathering grounds within their own
territory."

First Lessons in Civil Government. By
Jesse Mact. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp.
229. Illustrated. Price, 70 cents.

The expansion in the sphere of govern-
ment in the United States has far outstripped
popular education in the duties of citizen-
ship. This undoubtedly is one of the causes
of the current failure in government, de-
plored in every State and Territory of the
Union. Hence the incalculable value of in-
struction such as Prof. Macy's, which takes
boys and girls just as they are and interests
them in the affairs of their county and State
and the nation. Our author maintains that
when a child is drawing a map of its town-
ship it readily comprehends that a township
elects officers and cares for the highways ;
so, also, when drawing a map of its county
and State it can easily understand that these
are not mere pieces of land, but that they
represent governments as well. Beginning
with the public school which a child is at-
tending, the government of the school dis-
trict is shown as linked to that of the State ;
next, the county governments are studied in
their various forms. As typical States, Prof.
Macy has selected Massachusetts, New York,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia ; the government
of each is described, and the governments of
all four are compared ; provision is made for
the study of any other State government.
Lastly, the Government of the United States
is briefly explained. Thus, with the practiced
hand of a teacher for many years successful
in this branch of education, Prof. Macy begins

278

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at the home acre, that he may the better end
by inculcating an intelligent patriotism which
regards the whole country. In his conclud-
ing chapters he passes from exposition to
appeal. He shows how much government
means in modern life, and insists, none too
strongly, on the necessity that government
be purified. He declares that millions of
citizens stand ready to die for their country
who refuse to make the daily sacrifice of
time and comfort demanded for the honest
and competent discharge of public trusts.

Civic virtue, indeed, is no mere plaint of
the moralist, it is the sole condition upon
which scientific advance can come to its
fruitage — upon which public health and
safety can be enjoyed. America, for exam-
ple, lags far behind Europe in civic engineer-
ing, simply because to extend the scope of
municipal administration would but widen
the field for ofiicial incapacity and corrup-
tion.

The Wilder Quaeter-Cextury Book : Origi-
nal Scientific Papers, dedicated to
Prof. Burt Green Wilder. By some
of his Former Students of Cornell Uni-
versity. Ithaca, N. Y. : Comstock Pub-
lishing Company. Pp. 493. Price, $5.

No more graceful tribute could well be
conceived nor ample volume designed for the
purpose intended than The Wilder Quarter-
Century Book— 1868-1893. In fact, seven-
teen of Prof. Wilder's former Cornell pu-
pils, who have since become more or less
famous in sundry scientific departments, have
Joined hands and pens in dedicating to their
worthy professor anything but a perfunctory
work. This assumes the form of a collec-
tion of papers on physiological subjects, in-
cluding vertebrate zoology and neurology.
Their dedication to Prof. Wilder, B. S., M. D.,
is declared as " a testimonial of their appre-
ciation of his unselfish devotion to the univer-
sity and in grateful remembrance of the in-
spiration of his teaching and example." The
book itself is well printed and profusely
illustrated, several excellent plates being
noticeable throughout. A finely executed
portrait of Prof. Wilder by John P. Davis,
Secretary of the Society of American Wood
Engravers, constitutes the frontispiece. The
President of the Leland Stanford Junior Uni-
versity, David Starr Jordan, LL. D., contrib-
utes the first article — Temperature and Ver-

tebite: a Study in Evolution — which dis-
cusses with clearness the relations of the
numbers of vertebrae among fishes to the
temperature of water and the character of
the struggle for existence. An essay by
John Henry Comstock, B. S., Professor of
Entomology and General Invertebrate Zoology
in Cornell University, on the application of
the theory of natural selection in the classi-
fication of animals and plants, illustrated by
a study of the evolution of insects' wings,
completes another important paper. The
Vital Equation of the Colored Race and its
Future in the United States is contributed by
Dr. RoUin Corson, B. S., and Theobald Smith,
Ph. B., M. D., Professor of Bacteriology and
Hygiene in Columbian University, Washing-
ton, D. C, treats of the Fermentation Tube,
with special reference to anaerobiosis and
gas production among bacteria. Muscular
Atrophy is considered as a symptom by Dr.
AViiliam Krauss, B. S. ; and Prof. Biggs,
M. A., M. D., of Bellevue Hospital Medical
College, invites the reader to a bacterial
study of acute cerebral and cerebro-spinal
lepto-meningitis. An interesting and im-
portant essay is that by Veranus A. Moore,
B. S., M. D., of the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, on the character of the
Flagella on the Bacillus Cholerae Suis ; while
Grant Sherman Hopkins, D. Sc, of Cornell
University, unfolds the nature of the lym-
phatics and enteric epithelium of Amia calva
The instructor of vertebrate zoology in Cor-
nell University, Pierre Augustine Fish, B. S.,
adds a highly thoughtful paper on Brain
Preservation, giving a resume of some old
and new methods.

While other essays of import go to make
up the work, the engravings of moths and
some fine plates by Anna Botsford Comstock,
B. S., natural-history artist, may, from an
art point of view, be regarded as possessing
a high order of merit. Preceding a table
showing the courses given by Prof. Wilder,
we obtain also an intimate acquaintance
with Dr. Wilder's numerous and miscellane-
ovis writings from 1861 to 1893. These in-
clude published works, essays, papers read,
and many important reviews. The volume
before us lacks nothing in completeness and
the style throughout is clear, very often fas-
cinating, and always of varying importance.
Within certain limitation, the work will

LITERARY NOTICES.

279

serve as a valuable adjunct in every student's
library.

In continuation of the arch geological
work of the late Prof. Ehen Norton Hors-
ford, his daughter, Miss Cornelia Horsford,
has published together a paper by her father
entitled Leifs House in Vindand and one
by her on Graves of the Northmen (Damrell
& Uphara, Boston). The former describes
excavations made by Prof. Horsford in Cam-
bridge on the site of a dwelling which he
identified as one built by the Norse discov-
erers of America, the latter describes similar
excavations made by his daughter on the site
of a similar dwelling near by. Among the
discoveries on these spots are parts of the
foundation walls, fireplaces, charcoal, shells
of moUusks, and the teeth and bones of a
deer. Miss Horsford has also opened two
grave mounds, but has not opened what she
thinks may be the grave of Thorbrand the
Valiant, preferring to leave this work to an
experienced archa3ologist.

An Iowa Geological Survey, apparently
the third one, was organized in 1892, and has
issued its First Annual Report. The most
extended paper in this volume is a general
account of the Geological Formations of
Iowa, by Charles R. Keyes, the Assistant
State Geologist. There is an account of
Cretaceous Deposits of Woodbury and Plym-
outh Counties, by the State Geologist, Samuel
Calvin, a Catalogue of Minerals, and papers
on Limestones and Lava Flows. Ten plates
and twenty-six cuts illustrate the text. A
bibliography of two hundred and fifty pages
included in the volume shows that its field is
not an untrodden one.

Whenever a public library is started one
of the first and most important tasks of its
managers is to make up a list of books as
the foundation of the collection. Most of
the labor of this task could be saved in
every case if a carefully made list were ob-
tainable that need only be slightly changed
so as to fit it to the requirements of the
library in question. At the Columbian Ex-
position the American Library Association
exhibited a popular library of five thousand
volumes, in which were illustrated the most
approved methods of shelving, cataloguing,
and issuing books. A catalogue of this col-
lection has been issued by the Bureau of

Education, under the title Catalog of A. L.
A. Library, and is designed to serve the pur-
pose of a list the need of which is indicated
above. The committee in charge of the
work does not claim that the A. L. A. Library
is an ideal selection, but that it is a good
working library, and that no board of trus-
tees would make a mistake in duplicating it.
The Catalog really contains two catalogues
of the books selected — one arranged accord-
ing to the Decimal system, the other accord-
ing to the Expansive system. The books in
the classes of fiction and biography are not
given in the classed catalogues, but in sepa-
rate alphabetical lists. A large proportion
of the books exhibited were given by their
publishers. The collection was to be, and
probably now has been, deposited with the
Bureau of Education at Washington, for
permanent exhibition. The selection of the
A. L. A. Library might be criticised as better
adapted to a community of students than to
the users of the ordinary popular library.
Seventy-five to eighty per cent of the cir-
culation of every popular library is fiction,
but only a fraction over fifteen per cent of
the books in this collection is fiction. Tliis
library tries to cover all fields of knowledge
fairly well, and what it shows is not so much
what the average reader would want as what
he ought to want.

The Report of S. P. Langley, Secretary
of the Sniiihsonian Mstitution, for the Year
ending June SO, 1893, presents briefly a gen-
eral account of the Institution, and in the
appendixes summaries of the reports of the
officers in charge of the National Museum,
the Bureau of Ethnology, the Bureau of In-
ternational Exchanges, the Zoological Park,
and the Astro-physical Observatory.

Several numbers of Aeronautics, a
monthly journal devoted to the subject in-
dicated by its name, have been received
since last October, when it was established
by M. N. Forney, publisher of the American
Engineer and Railroad Journal and various
engineering books (47 Cedar Street, New
York, $1 a year). It is to contain in twelve
numbers the papers presented to the Con-
gress of Aerial Navigation held during the
World's Fair, besides other articles, notes,
comments, news, etc. Among the papers
contained in the first four numbers are On
the Problem of Aerial Navigation, by the

28o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

late C. W. Hastings ; The Internal Work of
the Wind, by Prof. S. P. Langley ; and Ex-
ploration of the Upper Atmosphere, by N.
de Fonvielle. A large illustration occupies
the first page of each number — that in the
first number shows an English military bal-
loon, that in the second the Maxim flying
machine.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins.
Iowa: No. 22. Butter, Cherries, and Hoses. Pp.
£6.— New York: Nos. 67, 68, and 69. Pear Scab,
Cheese, and Vegetables grown for Exhibition.
Pp. 24, 44, and .52.— North Dakota: Weather and
Crop Service, February, 1894. Pp. l.o.— Ohio :
No. 51. Entomological Papers. Pp. 60. — Storrs.
Conn. No. 12. Ripening of Cream by Artilicial
Bacteria Cultures. Pp. 20.

Allen, Harrison, M. D. A Monograph of the
Bati of North America. Washington: United
States National Museum. Pp. 198.

Bardeen, C. W., Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y.
The Questions and Answers in Drawing given at
the Uniform Examinations of the State of New
Y'ork, since June, 1892. Pp. 25. 75 cents.

Blow, Susan E. Symbolic Education. New
York : D. Appletou & Co. Pp. 257. $1.50.

Bourland, A. M., M. D. Entolai, or this Let-
ter to those I love about Science and the Ideal.
Van Buren, Ark. : Lloyd Garrison. Pp. 396.
$1.75.

Briggs, Franklin H. Industrial Training in
Reformatory lustitutions. Syracuse, N. Y. : C.
W. Bardeen. 25 cents.

Brinton, Daniel G. Nagualism. A Study in
North American Folklore and History. Phila-
delphia: David McKay. Pp. 65. $1.

Brodbeck, Dr. Adolf. Die zehn Gebote des
Jesuiteu (The Ten Commandments of the Jesuits).
Zurich. Pp. 43.

Brooks, John Graham. Compulsory Insur-
ance in Germany, etc. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing Office. Pp. 370.

Brough, William. The Natural Law of Money.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 168. $1.

Bryant, Henry G. A Journey to the Grand
Falls of Labrador. Philadelphia: Geographical
Club. Pp. 48, with Map and Plates. 25 cents.

Chicago Manual Training School. Eleventh
Annual Catalogue. 1893-'94. Pp. .32.

Cooley, Leroy C. Laboratory Studies in Ele-
mentary Chemistry. American Book Company.
Pp. 144. 50 cents.

Dartnell, Caroline. Random Thoughts : A
Collection of Original Articles, Toronto, Ont.:
J. E. Bryant Company, Limited. Pp. 91.

Davis, W. M., King, C. F., and Collie, G. L.
The Use of Government Maps in Schools. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 65. 30 cents.

Dawson, George M. Geological Notes on
Some of the Coasts and Islands of Berin" Sea
and Vicinity. Rochester, N. Y. : Geological So-
ciety of America. Pp. 32.

Dean, Bashford. Contributions to the Mor-
phology of Cardoselache (C'ladodus). Boston:
Ginn & Co. Pp. 28, w ith Plates

Downie, James Walker. Clinical Manual for
the Study of Diseases of the Throat. New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 2(;8. $2.5'1.

Fiske, John. Edward Livingston Youmans,
Interpreter of Science for the People. Sketch of
his Life. New York: D. Appletou & Co. Pp.
597, with Two Portraits. $2.

Florida Bankers' Association. Proceedings of
the Sixth Annual Session, January 18, 1894.
Jacksonville. Pp. 61.

Fowler & Wells Company. The Value of
Phrenology. By Nelson Sizer and others. Pp.
48. 10 cents.

Gibson, Frank M. The Amateur Telesco-
pist's Handbook. New York: Longmans, Green
& Co. Pp. 1G3. $1.25.

Gingell, Julia Raymon. Aphorisms from the
Writings of Herbert Spencer, with Portrait. New
York: D. Appletou & Co. Pp. 170. $1.

Greenhill, A. G. A Treatise on Hydrostatics.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 536. $1.90.

Holbrook, M. L., M. D., New York. The
Effect of Dilute Solutions of Chromic Acid and
Acid Urine upon the Red Corpuscles of Man.
Pp. 8.

Hollick, Arthur. Additions to the Paleobot-
any of the Cretaceous Formation on Long Island.
Pp. 84.

Kelvin, Lord (Sir William Thomson). Popu-
lar Lectures and Addresses. Vol. II. Geology
and General Physics. New York: Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 599.

Kemp, J. F. Gabbros on the Western Shore
of Lake Champlain. Rochester, N. Y. : Geo-
logical Society of America. Pp. 12.

Kemp, J. F., and Hollick, Arthur. Granite at
Mounts Adam and Eve, Warwick, N. Y., and its
Contact Phenomena. Pp. 16, with Maps.

Knauff, Theodore C. Athletics for Physical
Culture. New York: J. Selwiu Tait & Sons.
Pp. 422. $2.

Louis, Henry. Handbook of Gold Milling.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 504. $3.25.

Macfarlane, Alexander, Austin, Tex. The
Principles of Elliptic and Hyperbolic Analysis.
Boston: J. S. Gushing & Co. Pp. 47.

Mackay, B. A. Explosive Gas generated
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Apparatus. Pp. 4.

McLouth, Lewis. Report of the President of
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1893. Pp. 15.

MacMillan, Conway, State Botanist, Minne-
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An-
nual. A Report of the President and Treasurer.
Pp. 77.— Annual Catalogue, 1893-'94. Pp. 273.

Miller, Olive Thome. A Bird-lover in the
West. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. Pp. 278. $1.25.

New York Academy of Sciences. Index to
Vol. VI of Aunals. Pp. 12.— Annals, Vol. VII,
Nos. 6 to 12. Pp. 320.

Nieuwenkamp, L. J. J. Bimetallism and the
Highway of Nature. Essays. Jacksonville, Fla.
Pp.33.

Phin, John. Common-Sense Currency. New
York: Industrial Publication Company. Pp.244.

Rathbun, Mary J. A New Genus and Four
New Species of Crabs from the Antilleau Region.
United States National Museum. Pp. 3.

Reigh, Runnie. Popular Frauds and Ignored
Truths. Brooklyn, N. Y. : Fulton Publishing
Company. Pp. 25.

Ribot, Th. The Physiology of Attention.
Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. Pp.
115. 25 cents.

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Salem, Mass , Public Library Bulletin, March,

1894. G. M. Jones, Librarian. Pp. 8.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

281

Sergi, Giuseppe, Editor. Eivista di Pedago-
gia e Scieiizc Afliiii (Review of Pedagogy and Re-
lated Sciences). Monthly. Rome: G. B. Paravia.
Vol. I, No. 3. Pp. 6i.

Shufeldt, R. W. Parasites of Birds. Pp. 41.
— Photographing a Live Specimen of Gambrel's
Partridge. Pp. 3, with Thr^e Plates.

Smith, Eugene A. Geological Surveys in
Alabama. Pp. 131.— The Post-Eocene Forma-
tions of the Coastal Plain of Alabama. Pp. Vi.

Smithsonian Institution. Annual Report of
the Board of Regents to July, 1892. Washing-
ton: Government Pricting Office. Pp. 811.

Stoddard, Charles Augustus. Beyond the
Rockies. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Pp.214. $1.50.

Tariff, The, etc.. Acts of 1890 and the Bill,
H. R. 4861. Washington: Senate Committee of
Finance. Pp. 890.

Tarr, Ralph S. Lake Cayuga a Rock Basin.
Rochester, N. Y. : Geological Society of America.
Pp.20.

The Technical World, Washington, D. C.
Monthly. Specimen pages . $3 a year.

Todd, Mabel Loomis. Total Eclipses of the
Sun. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Pp.244.

Tufts College Studies. No. 1. Three Papers.
Pp. 48.

University of Pennsylvania. Report on the
Department of Archasology and Palseoutology.
Pp. 29.

Ward, Lester F., Washington. Fossil Cy-
cadeaii Trunks of North America, etc. Pp. 14.

Webb, De Witt, M. D. The Shell Heaps of the
East Coast of Florida. United States National
Museum. Pp. 4, with Eight Plates.

Williams, C. T. Aerotherapeutics, or the
Treatment of Lung Diseases v Climate. New
Y'ork: Macmillan Ji Co. Pp.187. $2.

Winchel), N. H. Geological and Natural His-
tory Survey of Minnesota. Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1892. Pp. 171.

WMnslow, Arthur. The Coal Measures of
Missouri. Pp. 8. —The Art and Development of
Topographic Mapping. Pp. 8. —Geological Sur-
veys in Missouri. Pp. 16. — Lead and Zinc De-
posits of the Mississippi ValJey, etc. I'p. 8.

Wright, Carroll D Eighth Annual Report of
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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Stadies of Lakes. — Lakes, says Mr. Al-
bert P. Brigham, belong within the domain
of what is sometimes called geographical
geology. Their geographical interest is not
small. Their variety in size, from the
smallest natural ponds up to inland seas,
their diversity in shape, depth, and altitude,
and their great numbers, are facts which
strike the attention and suggest inquiry.
Studied geologically, lakes open up an im-
portant body of facts. Primeval continents
could not have progressed far in their
growth before lake-making conditions be-
gan to appear. Viewed individually, lakes
are affairs of short life. Geological forces
are always making lake basins, and such

basins are constantly being destroyed by
filling with sedimeut, or by the cutting down
of their rims ; or, the basin may remain,
while the lake is destroyed by desiccation.
On most competent authority, the numer-
ous lakes of the Scottish Highlands are but
a fraction of what have formerly existed.
The variety of forces whose action aids in
bringing lakes into being has suggested the
most convenient classification of lakes — that
is, according to their origin. Thus we have
a relatively small group of lakes of volcanic
origin, occupying old craters or valleys ob-
structed by lava. More important is the
group of orographic lakes, or those due to
deformation of the earth's crust. Here be-
long the lakes of the Great Basin. In lime-
stone countries, solution lakes are not un-
common, and this agency has been operative
in enlarging many basins due primarily to
other agencies. Landslip lakes have been
noticed by Lyell, and Gilbert records the
formation of small lakes behind landslip ter-
races. River and shore lagoons must be
named in any full classification, while gla-
ciation, in one way or another, is responsi-
ble for the existence of most lakes. Here
we have the ice-dam or temporary type, as
Agassiz and Iroquois, the kettle-hole group,
which is often made to include what Geikie
calls " Lakes of the Plains," and which he
defines as lakes that " lie in hollows of the
covering of detritus left on the surface of
country when the ice-sheets and icebergs re-
treated." Thus they differ from the kettle-
hole ponds, which are thought to have fre-
quently originated by the sliding of debris
from stranded bergs or ice masses isolated
by retreat of the main sheet. Other glacial
lakes are due to morainic dams in valleys,
and yet others are in whole or in part rock
basins, due to glacial excavation ; of these
are the lakes of New York.

The Beginnings of Speech. — Andre Le-
fevre, in his book on Races and Languages,
postulates as the origin of speech that the
animal is already in possession of the two
significant elements of language : the cry,
spontaneous and reflexive, of emotion and
need ; the cry, already intentional, of warn-
ing, menace, and appeal. From these two
sorts of cry man, endowed with a richer
vocal apparatus and less limited cerebral

282

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

faculties, has derived numerous varieties, by
prolongation, duplication, and intonation.
The cry of appeal, the germ of the demon-
strative roots, prelude to nouns of number,
sex, and distance ; the emotional cry, of which
our simple interjections are survivals, com-
bining with the demonstratives, prepares the
outlines of the proposition, and prefixes the
verb and the noun of condition and action.
Imitation, either direct or symbolical, but
necessarily only approximative, of the sounds
of Nature, or, in short, onomatopoeia, fur-
nishes the elements of attributive sorts : from
which proceed the names of objects and
special verbs and their derivatives. Analogy
and metaphor complete the vocabulary by
applying to objects of touch, sight, smell,
and taste the qualifications derived from
onomatopoeia. Then comes reason, which,
discardmg the greater part of this imwieldy
wealth, adopts a larger or smaller number of
sounds reduced to a vague or generic sense ;
and by derivation, suffixing, and composition
cause to proceed from these subroots in-
definite lineages of words, having every
manner of relationship among themselves,
from the closest to the most dubious, and
which grammar proceeds to distribute among
the I'ecoguized categories of parts of speech.

The Audnbou Monnmcut. — The Monu-
ment in memory of J. J. Audubon, erected by
the Audubon Monument Committee of the
New York Academy of Sciences, consists of
a granite base, a bluestone die, and a cross,
and is in all twenty-five feet ten inches high.
It is adorned with figures of the birds and
animals which Audubon described. In
raising the money for it. Prof. Thomas
Egleston says, at first school children took a
great interest in it individually, and many
subscriptions were received from schools as
the contributions of the children. Some
subscriptions were sent in postage stamps,
others as low as ten cents were received
from every part of the United States. After
a number of months it was found that by
this method a suftieient sum for the erection
of the monument could not be raised. It was
then proposed to ask a hundred gentlemen
in the cities near New York in which Audu-
bon had been especially interested to give a
hundred dollars each, and this plan succeed-
ed so well that the amount was raised in the

fall of 1891. The contributions for the
monument were received from almost every
part of the United States. Boston was very
liberal; Philadelphia and Baltimore made
some subscriptions ; but much the largest
part was contributed by citizens of New
York city. The small balance which re-
mains is to be invested as " the Audubon
Publication Fund," the interest of which is
to be devoted to the publication of a memoir
on some zoological or botanical topic, an-
nually, or whenever a paper suitable for
such memoir shall be presented.

Experiments with Liqnid Oxygen. — By

means of the intense cold produced in his
experiments in liquefying gases, combined
with an exhaustion not before attained. Prof.
Dewar has proved that mercury distills, as
do phosphorus and sulphur, at the ordinary
temperature when the vapor pressure is
under the millionth of an atmosphere. The
increasing indisposition showm by the chem-
ical elements to combine with one another as
the absolute zero is approached was well il-
lustrated in an experiment in which liquid
oxygen was cooled to — 200° C. On insert-
ing a glowing piece of wood into the vessel
above the liquid it refused to burst into
flame. Another interesting experiment was
that of immersing an electric pile composed
of carbon and sodium into liquid oxygen ; al-
most immediately the electric current ceased,
in consequence of the suspension of chemical
action. Absolute alcohol, run upon the sur-
face of liquid air, after rolling about in the
spheroidal state, suddenly solidifies into a
hard, transparent ice, which rattles on the
sides of the vacuum test-tube like marble.
On lifting the solid alcohol out by means of
a looped wire the application of the flame of
a Bunsen burner will not ignite it. After a
time the solid melts and falls from the
looped wire like thick sirup.

Mountains and Lakes. — The first of Sir
Douglas Freshtield's Christmas lectures be-
fore the Royal Geographical Society was on
mountains in their relation to the earth as a
whole, and more particularly the peculiar
features of snow mountains. Mountains,
however great in human eyes, the lecturer
said, were mere wrinkles on the face of the
earth. How were they made ? was a natural

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

283

question for a child to ask, but one which
men of science hesitated in answering. When
did the moraines come that rise lilie railroad
embankments among the orchards and corn-
fields of Savoyard valleys ? Was their ma-
terial excavated by the moving ice, or did
the ice serve as a sledge to transport the
rocks that fell from the peaks and ridges
around them ? The matter was one capable
of direct observation. It was not the largest
glaciers that had the greatest moraines,
but rather those that lay under lofty ridges,
and particularly those where the surround-
ing rocks were specially subject to disinte-
gration by weather. He agreed with those
who regarded glaciers as polishers rather
than diggers, and drew a distinction between
abrasion and erosion. The formation of lake
basins could be accounted for without the
agency of ice. In fact, lake basins did not
occur where they ought to, if the theory of
formation by erosion was correct. Alpine
towns occupied basins which had not been
dug out by glaciers, but preserved by a
frozen covering from being filled up by the
action of torrents. Snow and ice protected
the ground they covered from disintegration
by ice and floods. At the same time sub-
glacial torrents performed singular feats in
cutting deep and nari'ow rock channels, and
thus contributed to the soil they carried.
The color of their water was, however,
mainly due to the fineness of the particles of
the mud derived from the grinding of the
bowlders subjected to the glacier mill. In
winter the water that flowed out of a glacier
was clear. It was supplied, not as had been
supposed, by the continual melting of the ice,
but was the issue of subterranean springs in
the glacier's bed.

Running Amok. — The condition under
which the Malays run amok, as described by
Dr. Ellis, of the Government Hospital, Singa-
pore, in the Journal of Mental Science, seems
usually to be preceded by a period of mental
depression, sometimes with suspicion, and
the patient, when he breaks out, slashes at,
stabs, and sometimes mutilates all who come
in his way, irrespective of creed or nation-
ality. The weapons used are a short spear,
a Malay kris, or a chopper, and in the old
days — even now in the uncivilized parts of
the peninsula — it was the custom to have

long, forked sticks, which were used against
the man who was running amok, to stop him
and pin him to the ground. Such men, when
caught, are now tried regularly and sent to
an asylum ; but formerly little mercy was
shown them, and they were killed at once, as
though they were mad dogs. The condition
seems to resemble in many particulars the
automatic condition which is sometimes left
after an epileptic fit ; this, in some cases,
takes the form of running, or " procursive
epilepsy " ; and, if we imagine such a patient
armed with a knife and imbued with a homi-
cidal impulse, we have practically all the
conditions necessary for the Malayan patho-
logical development. The Malayan, in his
sound state, professes to have no recollection
of the assaults he has committed. The con-
dition of running amok is becoming less com-
mon than it was a few years ago.

Leaves and Rain. — Mr. E. Stahl, says
Garden and Forest, has been making a study
of leaf-forms in relation to the rainfall,
chiefly in the Botanic Gardens of Buiten-
zorg, and he says that while a large leaf-
surface partly provides for the removal of
water by transpiration, there are other dis-
tinct methods by which plants are helped to
dispose of any excess of water accumulating
upon them as speedily as possible. One of
these is the adoption of the sleeping posi-
tion by leaves, such as those of the sensitive
plant, so that when the horizontal leaves
bend upward the raindrops run off by the
base of the leaf. Most frequently, however,
excessive moisture is drained off by long
points to the leaves. These points occur on
the lobes of divided leaves, but are most re-
markable on long ovate leaves. In some
plants the prolonged midrib has the form of
a w'ide channel, but generally it is that of a
tapering and narrow point, slightly curved
ot the end. As the water trickles down the
inclined narrow points it passes from the
upper to the under surface before dropping
from the leaf, and the bent tip accelerates
this action. Stahl tested this theory by ex-
periments, and found that the leaves of Justi-
cia pida which he carefully rounded re-
tained moisture for an hour, while those
with the dropping points left on were dry in
twenty minutes or less. This rapid remova
of water from the leaf lightens its weight)

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

helps transpiration, and cleanses the surface.
In verification of this we are reminded that
after a shower the pointed leaves of the ash,
willow, etc., have had the dust quite washed
out, while rounded leaves like those of the
oak are still dirty.

Timber Testing. — From the Report of
the Division of Forestry for 1893 we learn
that the scheme of testing timbers to deter-
mine their several qualities has found gen-
eral favor in this country and in the Old
World too. The calls for special investiga-
tions into the qualities of various kinds of
timbers have been numerous, and beyond the
financial ability of the division to attend to
them all. A special demand exists for the
tests of kinds that are still more or less un-
known, they being now drawn upon to eke out
the deficiency of supply of the better-known
kinds. The collections of test material had
reached, at the time of preparing the re-
port, a total of two hundred and thirty-four
trees. A series of tests and examinations of
bled and unbled timber has been carried on
in order to ascertain whether the practice of
taking the resin from trees has any influence
on its quality. The results seem to show
that there is no determinable influence upon
the mechanical properties of the timber.
But the removal of the resin, if not carried
on with care, affects the life of the tree and
invites other destructive influences. The
turpentine industry, like the lumber indus-
try, is carried on on the " robbing system "
of taking off in the most crude and rapacious
manner what Nature has provided. It is
time, Prof. Fernow maintains, to substitute
a " management system," which shall utilize
the remaining resources more exhaustively
yet more carefully, by avoiding all unneces-
sary waste.

Madagascar Lcmnrs. — The great island
of Madagascar, with a surface extent exceed-
ing that of Italy, is, like Australia, a land by
itself, with a fauna distinct from that of
Africa. This fauna is particularly charac-
terized by the presence of numerous lemuri-
ans or maki mammals, which are also called
false monkeys, or fox-nosed monkeys, and
which occupy a corresponding place with the
monkeys of Africa. A few lemurians are
found in Africa and Malaysia, but they ap-

pear to be isolated there, and like estrays
among a fauna of different character. There
still exists on this island a singular cat called
the Cryptoprodus^ which is plantigrade (sole-
walking), while all the other cats in the
world, excepting Australia, are digitigrade
(toe-walking). Such zoological peculiarities
give this island as nearly a marked stamp of
strangeness as that by which Australia is
distinguished. To find a fauna comparable
to this we have to go back to the ancient
geological periods and question the fauna
characterizing them. We find that animals
similar to those living in Madagascar inhab-
ited the forests of France in the Eocene and
Miocene ages of the Tertiary. Vestiges of
an animal but little different from the Cryp-
toproctus of Madagascar have been found in
these formations, and the remains of tree-
living lemurians allied to the makii of
Madagascar have likewise been found in
them. Thus Madagascar yet supports a
Tertiary fauna, as Australia is still the home
of a Cretaceous fauna. The investigation of
the fossil fauna of the country becomes, in
the light of these facts, a matter of much
interest. It has hardly been begun as yet,
but has yielded some remarkable specimens.
Among them are the eggs and bones of the
largest of all the birds known — the Epior-
nis, sixteen feet high — a hippopotamus very
different from those now living, and the skull
of a great lemurian which has been described
by Mr. Forsyth Major as Meffaladapi.s niada-
gascariensis. The lemurians now living in
Madagascar are only of medium size or
small. The largest of them is the short-
tailed indri, which is but little more than three
feet high when standing erect on its hind
legs. The Meyaladapis was three times as
large, or about the size of the orang-outang
or the gorilla.

Mrs. Henicnway's Work for Science. —

Mrs. Mary Tileston Hemenway, who died in
Boston March 6th, seventy-two years of age,
was equally famous for her benevolence and
for her practical interest in promoting scien-
tific work. Possessed of a fortune now val-
ued at $15,000,000, she contributed half of
the $200,000 that were raised to save the old
South Church from destruction; projected
an institute for the encouragement of the
study of American history among young peo-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

28s

pie, of which Mr. John Fiske was for several
years a principal lecturer ; established a
school for poor whites at Wilmington, N. C. ;
contributed to the support of the Hampton
School, and founded a school at Norfolk,
Va. ; maintained sewing and cooking schools
and schools of gymnastics in Boston ; kept
the Hemenway exploring and archfeological
expeditions at work in Arizona and New
Mexico, which have borne fruit in the ad-
mirable researches of Mr. Gushing, Mr.
Bandelier, and others; and was a liberal
contributor to the funds of the American
Archaeological Institute, and patroness of
Dr. J. Walter Fewkes's Journal of American
Ethnology and Archaeology. By her will the
net income of her estate, after certain speci-
fied payments are made, is to be appropriated
for fifteen years to the support and further-
ance of the objects in which she was inter-
ested. Persons engaged in archoBological
work at her expense are to be continued in
it, as long as the results warrant it, on the
same terms. At the end of fifteen years her
collections — archajological, historical, and
educational — are to be disposed of at the
discretion of her executors. Among the
specific bequests is that of the Lowry farm,
adjoining the Hemenway farm, Virginia, to
the Hampton Institute.

Herr Lllientlial's Flying Machine. — A

communication from Prof. Du Bois-Reymond
to the Physical Society of Berlin concerning
Herr Lilienthal's experiments in aviation re-
lates that in studying the flight of birds that
gentleman perceived that flight was possible
under conditions when the wind gave a verti-
cal component. Experiments have shown
that surfaces may acquire a horizontal mo-
tion under the action of the wind alone, pro-
vided their curvature is in a relation to the
surface that corresponds exactly with that
observed in birds. Herr Lilienthal's flying
machine consists of a surface of suitable
curvature, measuring fourteen square metres,
and made of canvas stretched over a light
wooden frame. At the center is an opening
for the body of the experimenter, who keeps
the apparatus up by working his arms. The
author had seen Herr Lilieuthal fly with his
apparatus about one hundred and twenty
metres a minute at thirty metres above the
ground. With a favorable wind the experi-

menter could fly two hundred or three hun-
dred metres ; and Prof. Du Bois-Reymond had
himself flown twenty or thirty metres with it.
In the author's view the definitive solution of
the question of flying machines depends upon
three points — viz., judicious utilization of
the wind, suitable form of surface, and skill-
ful handling of the apparatus.

Odd Barometers. — Two of the oldest and
oddest forms of popular barometers, says a
writer in the London Spectator, are the leech in
a bottle and a frog on a ladder. Mr. Richard In-
wards has seen an old Spanish drawing of nine
positions of the leech, with verses describing
its attitude and behavior before difPerent
kinds of weather. Dr. Merryweather, of
Whitby, contrived an apparatus by which
one of twelve leeches confined in bottles
rang a bell when a "tempest" was expected.
When leeches were kept in every chemist's
shop, and often in private houses, their be-
havior was the subject of constant observa-
tion ; and it was generally noticed that in
still weather, dry or wet, they remained at
the bottom, but rose, often as much as twen-
ty-four hours in advance, before a change ;
and, in case of a thunderstorm, rose very
quickly to the surface, descending when it
was past. The frog barometer, used in
Germany and Switzerland, is a very simple
apparatus, consisting of a jar of water, a
frog, and a little wooden step-ladder. If the
frog comes out and sits on the steps, rain is
expected. The weather-glass dearest to the
old-fashioned cottage in the last generation
was the " old man and old woman," who
came out of their rough-cast cottage in foul
or fair weather respectively. This was al-
most the earliest of semi-scientific toys, and
depended on the contracting of a piece of
catgut fastened to a lever. The belief that
bees will not fly before a shower is probably
true, and is the rational origin of the bang-
ing of trays and iron pots with a door-key
when bees ai-e going to swarm. The insects
are supposed to take this for thunder, and
so settle close at hand, instead of swarming
at a distance. Squirting water on them with
a garden syringe often makes them settle at
once. But no such ingenious process of
rationalizing can be found for the belief that
if the insect inside cuckoo- spit lies head
upward, the summer will be dry, though the

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

increased worrying of horses by flies before
rain, ^nd the rise of the gossamer before
fine weather, are abundantly confirmed by
observation.

Habits of Birds. — Many interesting no-
tices, local and general, respecting birds are
to be found in the Abstract of the Proceed-
ings of the Linnffian Society of New York
for the year ending March 1, 1893. Frank
M. Chapman, reporting at one of the meet-
ings on the summer bird life of New York
and vicinity, said that 127 species might be
classed as summer residents, of which 108
were land birds and 19 water birds ; 22 spe-
cies might be considered abundant, 47 com-
mon, 31 tolerably common, and 27 rare.
Dr. C. S. Allen contributed at another meet-
ing an account of a breeding-place of peli-
cans on an island of Florida, a hundred and
fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, and cov-
ered with a dense growth of mangroves.
The nests were in bushes, ten or fifteen feet
from the ground, were made of sticks,
straw, dry weeds, etc., and held from one to
four eggs. The young, on emerging from
the shell, are of a size corresponding with
that of the egg, and slate-colored, from tint
of skin, with apparently scattering haii's
(casings) protecting white down ; but in a
few hours they appear to have increased to
several times the bulk of the egg, and be-
come white as soon as the down is freed
from the protective covering ; in a few days
they are as large proportionately as birds
usually are when a week or two old. The
increase in size is due, in part, to the power
the birds have of taking air into the spaces
beneath the skin which is very loose and
capable of being immensely inflated. They
remained in the nest only a few days, and
thereafter rested on the surrounding bushes.
Mr. Chapman instanced a number of cases
of protective coloration, notably that of a
flock of parrots flying into a palm tree,
whereupon they became almost indistinguish-
able from their surroundings, although not
hidden to any extent by the foliage. He de-
scribed, as illustrating the fact of the bird's
consciousness of its protective coloration,
the habit the Cuban meadow lark has of
turning its back to the observer, and also
the instance related by Mr. W. H. Hudson, in
his Argentine Ornithology, of a wounded bit-

tern which persisted in turning its breast
towaid its captor, although he endeavored to
pass around behind it. The bird, with its
slender neck pointing straight upward, could
not be distinguished from a seed stalk, ex-
cept on close scrutiny. Mr. Chapman said
that Dr. John A. Wells, of Englewood,
N. J., had recently watched a woodcock on
her nest, and was fully convinced that she
was aware of her resemblance to the sur-
roundings, for she remained perfectly quiet
and allowed of a very near approach ; but
when a fall of snow came, and Dr. Wells
again visited the sitting bird — now a very
conspicuous object — she flew before he had
approached within gunshot. The most nota-
ble example of protective mimicry is the Eu-
ropean cuckoo, which, by reason of its strik-
ing resemblance to a hawk, is able to de-
posit its eggs in the nests of other birds,
while they chatter and scold at a respect-
ful distance. Together with many other no-
tices of this kind, the Abstract of Proceed-
ings contains a paper by Tappan Adney
giving a list of bird names, etc., of the
Milicete Indians of the St. John Valley, New
Brunswick.

Measnring the Heights of Clouds. — Four
methods of measuring cloud heights have
been used at Blue Hill Observatory, Massa-
chusetts: 1. The bases of the lowest clouds
frequently float below the summit of the hill
(one hundred and twenty-six metres above
the general surface of the surrounding land),
and the altitude of the base can be ascer-
tained by walking down the side of the hill.
2. Measurements of the angular altitude of
the light reflected from clouds floating over
adjacent cities can be used for determining
the height of the clouds. 3. The shadows
of detached clouds can be seen from Blue
Hill for many miles moving across the sur-
face of the country, and, by timing the move-
ments of the shadows between points whose
distance apart is known, the velocity of the
cloud can bo ascertained. From the actual
velocity and the angular velocity of the cloud
its height can be determined. 4. Simulta-
neous angular measurements of the altitude
and direction of the same cloud-point have
been made at two stations eleven hundred
and seventy-eight metres apart. An attempt
has also been made to determine the height

NOTES,

287

of low clouds by the difference in relative
velocity between observations at the base
and summit of Blue Hill, but the difference
in height (one hundred and twenty-six me-
tres) was found too short for this purpose.
The four different methods mentioned to a
large extent supplement one another.

NOTES.

The rare instance of the coming of age
of a whole trio of triplets was celebrated re-
cently at Whitenast, near Leamington, Eng-
land. Generally, in case of triplets, the chil-
dren die soon after birth, but occasionally
they survive and reach maturity. One case
is on record of quadruplets, all of whom
were reared.

Attention has been called to the cheap-
ness of life in Italy by the light sentence
of a few years' imprisonment recently im-
posed upon a native who, in a fit of jealousy,
murdered a physician innocent of all offense.
Jealousy is practically accepted by Italian
juries as a part expiation of crime, and their
misled verdicts are styled verdicts of the
heart. Consequently, Italy heads the list of
European countries for homicides, and the
vendetta flourishes there unchecked. A story
is told of a Neapolitan who, wishing to kill
his wife, would not venture upon the act at
home, where he might be guillotined, but re-
moved to Florence, where the penalty was
imprisonment for hfe. Since then imprison-
ment has been made the penalty throughout
the country.

NovKL uses said to have been found for
aluminum are for a folding pocket scale,
one metre long ; a necktie made of metal,
frosted or otherwise ornamented, in various
shapes imitating the ordinary silk or satin
article, which is recommended for summer
wear ; and military helmets.

A LARGE trade, according to Mr. John
Wallace, is done in the shipment from Wash-
ington ports of salmon frozen solid and packed
tightly in lefrigerator cars in sawdust, with-
out ice. The cars are first reduced in tem-
perature as low as possible, and the floors
are covered with chilled sawdust. The boxes
of fish are next placed therein, any spaces
between them being filled with the cold saw-
dust. The car is then closed and sealed, and
in reasonably warm weather its contents may
be relied upon to arrive at their destination
in the most perfect condition after a passage
of eighteen days or thereabouts.

The mean cloud velocities at Blue Hill,
Mass., indicate that the entire atmosphere,
from the lowest to the highest cloud level,
moves almost twice as fast in winter as in
summer. The mean velocity of the highest

clouds in winter is more than fifty metres
per second, or a hundred miles an hour; and
the highest velocity, a hundred and three
metres per second, or two hundred and thirty
miles per hour, show that the upper currents
sometimes move with enormous rapidity.

There was a discussion once in The Popu-
lar Science Monthly regarding the position
.assumed by flamingoes in incubating — some
authors affirming that they straddled their
raised nests, their legs dangling down on
either side, and others that they disposed
of their legs in some other way. The ques-
tion seems now to be settled by Abel Chap-
man, in his book, Wild Spain, who observed
them in their nesting grounds on a low mud
island of the Andahisian marisma, " most
distinctly " from a distance of about seventy
yards — " the long red legs doubled under
their bodies, the knees projecting as far as
or beyond the tail, and their graceful necks
neatly curled away among their back feath-
ers, with their heads resting on their breasts
— all these points were unmistakable."

The Dutch, desiring to utilize their wind-
mills and at the same time place them in line
with the latest improvements in the applica-
tions of power, have offered, through the
Haarlem Society for the Encouragement of
Industry, a prize of $150 to the author of
the best essay on the production of electricity
through their agency.

A SUBSTITUTION of camcls as working
animals for horses and oxen has been going
on for a few years past in several provinces
of Russia, and they ai-e now common on
many large estates and on smaller proper-
ties. They perform all the work in farming
for which horses and oxen are used, as well
as being efficient in transportation. A camel
market has grown up at Orenburg, and the
animals bring sixty or seventy rubles, or
about thirty-five dollars, delivered at Kiev.

The Baluban tribe of Central Africa are
famous for their skill in casting and forging
iron. They construct tall cylindro-couical
furnaces of clay with tuyeres of clay and an
ingeniously devised wooden bellows. They
make arms for hunting and for war, and col-
lars and bracelets of iron. The neighboring
natives resort to them in great numbers to
exchange their o^\ti products for the manu-
factures of the Balubans.

More than three hundred species of fish
hitherto unknown to naturalists are described
by M. Leon Vaillant as inhabiting the lakes
of Borneo. Many other fish are identical with
species living in the waters of the Sunda Is-
lands and of ludo-China. As these species
never reach the sea, they furnish another
argument in favor of the theory of a former
connection of these countries.

Prof. Eugene Smith, State Geologist,
shows in a paper on the Clays of Alabama,

288

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

read before the Industrial and Scientific So-
ciety of that State, that besides its riches of
coal and iron, the State has clays of quality
suitable for the manufacture of every kind
of brick and stoneware. Tliey are not yet
developed, for want of skilled and expe-
rienced workmen, and because the world is
not acquainted with their qualities. The
different clays and their location are fully
described in the paper.

The Arago prize of the French Academy
of Sciences has been awarded to Prof. Bar-
nard and Prof. Asaph Hall.

The Geological and Natural History Sur-
vey of Minnesota has begun the publication
of bulletins embodying from time to time
such discoveries as may be made or scien-
tific contributions presented as they occur,
without waiting for the slower publication
of the formal reports. The first of the se-
ries of botanical studies, Bulletin No. 9,
contains five papers of interest in that
branch of the survey. The Bulletin will be
continued in occasional parts till a volume is
completed,

OBITUARY NOTES.

Colonel Alfred Burdon Ellis, com-
mander of the successful British expedition
against the Sofas in Africa and a valued con-
tributor to The Popular Science Monthly, died
at Teneriif e, March 5th, of African fever. He
was the only surviving son of the late Lieu-
tenant-General Sir Samuel Burdon Ellis, and
was born in 1852. He entered the British
army in 1872, and became a captain in the
First West India Regiment in 18Y9, major in
1884, and lieutenant-colonel in 1891. During
twenty-two years he saw a great deal of ac-
tive service in Africa. He served in the
Ashantee war and received a medal ; com-
manded the Houssa Constabulary in 18*78 ;
was employed in the Intelligence Depart-
ment during the Zulu war ; was the leader
of the expeditions to Tambi (Sierra Leone)
and Toniataber (Gambia) in 1892, and for
the latter received a medal with clasps ; was
civil commandant of Sekondi and Chamer on
the Gold Coast in 18Y4, district commander
of Quittah in 18*78, and of Accra in 18*79 ;
was chief officer of the troops on the Gold
Coast in 18S2 and 1S86 ; and was command-
ant in the Bahamas in 1889 to 1891, when
he was appointed to the command of the
troops in West Africa, with the local rank
of colonel. In 1892 he administered the
government of Sierra Leone. The last of
his dispatches concerning the expedition
against the Sofas Avas dated January 29,
1894. A few days after his return to Sierra
Leone from this expedition he was attacked
with fever, and was removed to Teneriffe.
He was the author of A History of the Gold
Coast, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Gold
Coast of West Africa, The Tshi-speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa,

and of the following articles in The Popular
Science Monthly : A Letter on the Lucayan
Indians, vol. xxxvi ; The Indwelling Spirits
of Men, vol. xxxvi ; On Vodu-worship, vol.
xxxviii ; Survivals from Marriage by Capture,
vol. xxxix ; On Polyandry, vol. xxxix ; The
Great Earthquake of Port Royal, vol. xl ;
Marriage and Kinship among the Ancient
Israelites, vol. xlii ; and White Slaves and
Bond Servants in the Plantations ; besides
which we have others on hand awaiting
publication.

Dr. H. C. Georges Pouchet, Professor of
Comparative Anatomy in the Museum of
Natural History, Paris, died March 29th in
that city. He was the son of the F61ix
Pouchet who distinguished himself several
years ago in the controversy respecting spon-
taneous generation, and was born in Rouen
in 1833. He became assistant naturalist
and head of the anatomical department in
1865. He was retired in 1869 in conse-
quence of the publication of some article
relating to the Museum of the School of
Agronomy, but was raised in 1875 to the po-
sition he occupied at the time of his death,
succeeding Paul Bert. He was the author
of numerous works of scientific value, among
which were his doctor's thesis on the Colora-
tion of the Epidermis and his Traite cVOste-
oiogie compare. He was also a writer in
literature of considerable productiveness and
high reputation.

Mr. William Pengelly, F. R. S., who
recently died in England, was a local geolo-
gist of mucti and excellent reputation. He
contributed greatly by the results of his per-
sonal researches to the work of Lyell,
Murchison, and others in establishing Eng-
lish geology. He continued the exploration
of Kent's Cavern, under the direction of the
British Association, through sixteen years.
Besides many other geological papers, he
prepared, in connection with Dr. Oswald
Heer, a monograph on The Lignite Forma-
tion of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire. He col-
lected and arranged the Devonian fossils of
the Pengelly Collection, now at Oxford. He
originated the Torquay Natural History So-
ciety, and in 1862 founded the Devonshire
Association for the Advancement of Science,
Literature, and Art. He was Fellow of the
Royal and Geological Societies, and an
honorary member of the Societe d' Anthro-
pologic of Paris.

Paul Jablochkoff, a distinguished Rus-
sian electrician and inventor of the electric
lamp which bears his name, died in Saratov,
Russia, early in April. He was an officer in
the Russian army, and was the first person
who succeeded in dividing the electric cur-
rent satisfactorily. His system of electric
lighting has been used in several cities of
Europe, and for a considerable time the
great thoroughfares of Paris, near the
Opera, were illuminated with his carbons.

\

\

HEINRICH UERTZ.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JULY, 1894.
THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS.

By LOGAN G. McPHEESON.

TO arrive at an understanding of that tendency toward com-
bination which is a most conspicuous phenomenon of the
industrial life of the United States, it is necessary to trace the
industrial development throughout its several stages. And as it
has been in this country that industrial activity has met with the
least hindrance, the steps of its development can be rapidly sum-
marized with approximate accuracy. Although the industrial
structures of other countries in previous centuries have had an
influence in determining the industrial forms of the United States,
the isolation of the American continent and the peculiarity of the
conditions affecting its settlement justify the consideration of its
industrial expansion as a separate growth, without reference to
the industrial status of other countries or older civilizations.

Grandfathers of to-day tell us that in their boyhood in many
parts of the country the life of each household was suihcient unto
itself. Buildings were erected, grain was raised, winnowed, and
ground; cattle were killed, their meat cured and hides tanned;
wool was clipped and spun by its members, who, in addition to
the performance of manifold other simpler functions, carried pro-
cesses of manufacture still further — the men, in the days of
winter, making the family's shoes and the women its clothes. In
doing this work the members of the family were maintaining
themselves in that condition which contrasted with barbarism.
Houses and clothing were necessary as protection against the
often inclement weather, and the possession of a regular supply
of food was only possible by the preparation and preservation of
the products of the recurring seasons. Upon the evenness of the

VOL. XLT. — 23

zgo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

temperature of the body, secured by the use of houses and cloth-
ing, and the evenness of the vital processes consequent upon
regular nutrition, depends that appreciation of the impressions
which come through the senses that leads to the clear and vigor-
ous working of the mind. But in those early days tools and
appliances were so rude and methods so crude that there was little
time for any one to spend except at the work which directly con-
cerned his bodily welfare. The duration of such tasks for men
and women was usually from daylight until dark. The self-
sufficiency of each household was forced by the conditions of life
in a sparsely settled region.

As the number of inhabitants in a certain area increased, and
communication between them became less difficult, it was found
that the production of certain articles, which involved particular
skill, particular training, or particular facilities, could, with profit
to an entire community, be left to the individuals possessing the
requisite skill, training, or facilities. For example, a man making
shoes for a considerable number of people acquired skill enabling
him to make better shoes than the man who devoted but limited
time to the making of a limited number for his own family, and
the greater the time devoted to and the greater the revenue
derived from the prosecution of a single industry the more readily
could he aif ord, from time to time, to possess himself of appliances
rendering more and better work possible with less effort, and the
better could he afford to give more time to seeking the material
best adapted for his product, which, as the quantities he used
increased, he could secure, other things equal, at decreasing cost.
And so with other functions contributing to material welfare.

When the demands upon an artisan became so great that he
could not meet them entirely by his own personal exertion he em-
ployed a man to assist him. This is the first combination — the
simplest industrial organization. Its characteristics should be
carefully noted. The efforts of both men being directed by the
employer, there is centralized control, and the joint efforts of the
two men supplying a greater demand than was possible for the
one, the field of their operations extends. And the two men, by
systematically combining their efforts, other things being equal,
accomplish more than could the two men working separately ;
wherefore, there is economy of production.

The numbers of individuals engaged in work for which there
was greatest demand increased most rapidly — every village pos-
sessing its cobblers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and weavers — and
with the further increase of population and the extension of the
area over which their products or services could be distributed,
the number of separate vocations increased. Because of the
greater number of people wanting houses it became profitable for

TEE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 291

a carpenter to make a specialty of house-building ; as furniture
was needed, another carpenter devoted his time to making chairs
and tables. Likewise the weaver .differentiated into the maker of
carpets and the maker of cloths for wear ; and as the village
grew there evolved the tinner, the harness-maker, and so on. The
followers of each vocation thrived because the members of the
community found it more economical to purchase their better
products than to make similar articles themselves. This differen-
tiation or diversification of industries heightened the contrast
between the life of the community and barbarism, or, in other
words, increased the degree of its civilization because, by reason
of the particular skill, training, and facilities of the various indi-
viduals who ministered to their various wants, the members of
the community became better housed, better clothed, better sup-
plied with the conveniences that contributed to the more rapid
and efficient performance of their work and to the comfort of
their homes.

The demand for a particular kind of work brought an increase
in the number of individuals engaged in that work by causing an
established artisan to increase the number of his employees, or by
bringing an increasing number of men into that line of industry,
some of whom continued to work separately, the direct servants
of their patrons, while others formed other organizations of em-
ployer and employee or employees. And thus arose competition,
members of a community patronizing this or that tradesman or
artisan in preference to another as the quality of his work or
merchandise, his prices or accessibility, were the more suitable.
Competition tended to secure to the members of a community a
share of the benefit of the decreasing cost of production, different
producers vying with each other to retain or increase their custom
either by bettering the quality of their articles or decreasing the
price, or both. With increasing ease of communication there was
increased competition, artisans, in the course of their work, going
more readily from one place to another, and merchantable articles
were distributed throughout an extending territory.

With increasing ease of communication and transportation
the localization of production was also affected. While many
kinds of production remained tolerably evenly diffused over exten-
sive areas, that which depended upon extremely favorable condi-
tions tended to concentrate at localities so favored. For example,,
in soil especially adapted for grazing, a farmer ceased to plant
wheat when he could obtain the wheat more cheaply by purchase-
from a distant farmer, to whom he could sell the flesh and hides
of cattle raised on his meadows. And workmen engaged in pre-
paring the products of cattle tended to concentrate near the graz-
ing regions, while millers would erect their mills near the wheat

292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fields — all classes profiting by the economy incident to production
in the especially favored localities.

With increasing demand for all kinds of products, men of
shrewdness to see and ability to grasp larger opportunities enlisted
to a greater extent the co-operation of others by the payment of
wages or the forming of partnerships. Such co-ordination afforded
means for securing in a greater degree the advantages gained by
the simpler combinations. For, as the artisan devoting his time
to one kind of work tended to acquire the skill, appliances, and
the material best adapted thereto ; as, under the simplest combi-
nation— an organization of two men — these advantages were
heightened ; he who on a larger scale directed the efforts of others
could, by careful training, develop further increase of skill, could
because of a larger revenue afford to secure appliances increasing
in number and cost, could procure greater quantities of the best
adapted material at a decreasing price, and could devote greater
energy to multiplying the consumption of his products by increas-
ing their sale in old and extending their use in new markets. And
these factors, stimulated by competition, all tend toward economy
of production, to the serving of a community increasing both
in extent and population with better articles at less expense.
Contributing to this result was not only the economy in the im-
mediate production of articles for immediate personal use and
consumption, but the economy in the production of material and
appliances used in the production of these articles.

With industrial combination and recombination an increase
of capital is required for the maintenance of the larger sphere of
operation. Such capital necessarily is obtained from the accumu-
lation of those directly in conduct of the operations or from the
accumulation of others. The first artisans, as a rule, doubtless
obtained by their own exertions the few rude tools and appliances
used in their vocations, but in the succeeding combinations funds
are contributed by partners, one or more of whom may not be
directly or actively engaged in the conduct of the business, in
which case the active partner or partners, while benefiting by the
use of the contributed capital themselves, also assume a trust, in
the ethical sense of the word, for the benefit of the others. Or
included in the capital may be the funds of widows and minors,
which those in the active conduct of the business therefore hold
in trust. When the field of operations so extends as to neces-
sitate plant and appliances more extensive than can be provided
except by contributions from the accumulations of a considerable
number of persons, there arises a new form of organization — the
corporation. The ownership of the various contributions to the
capital fund is vouched by certificates of stock. The corporation,
therefore, benefits the community as a whole, in that it commands

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 293

to a greater degree the factors that tend toward economy of pro-
duction ; in that it directs to greater advantage the efforts of a
greater number of workers ; in that it permits the attainment of
profit upon their accumulations by those that contribute to its
capital. As these stockholders may be of all ages and sexes, and
oftentimes of residence remote from the scene of operation, those
chosen to administer the capital, to conduct the operations, assume
a trust of great responsibility. It is essential that control be
centralized in their hands ; for to the utmost rendering of this
trust is necessary the most prudent administration of the capital,
the exercise of the greatest discretion in the maintenance, repair,
and renewal of the plant and appliances, the most efficient direc-
tion of the workers, and the most judicious distribution of the
product. These results can not be obtained by scattered respon-
sibility and scattered authority.

It is important to note that along with the development of
more comprehensive organizations has been the development of
the capacity to control such organizations, men of foresight and
executive ability, shrewd and resourceful in the attainment and
use of money, oftentimes gaining the control of extended opera-
tions over a considerable area that, in their absence, would have
been conducted by simpler, separate, and scattered organizations.
Not only the opportunity for increased revenue, but the ambition
of such men to exercise the power incident to the control of ex-
tended organizations, is no small factor in their formation.

The great advance in the bending of physical forces to man's
aid that began in the early half of this century has caused so
many changes in the methods of production and distribution that
it seems as though the industrial processes had undergone a radi-
cal transformation. But with the settling of the disturbed ele-
ments into definite shape it can be perceived that the seemingly
newer forms are but the more compact and comprehensive expres-
sion of the old ; that they are but successive steps in the series of
that development which tends toward the betterment of material,
economy of production, extension of distribution, and decrease of
cost. The use of steam made possible the railways, in the build-
ing and operation of which is necessary the co-operation of large
numbers of men working under centralized control, and, in connec-
tion with the multiplied uses of machinery, has brought the large
factories and mills in which great numbers of men work under
control likewise centralized. And the ease and rapidity of com-
munication and transportation afforded by the railroad and tele-
graph have tended still more to concentrate particular industries
in localities where conditions are most favorable to their prosecu-
tion. All these factors have allied in cheapening production, in
serving a community, increasing both in extent and population.

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with better articles at less expense. And they have intensified
competition, the railways bringing to a community similar prod-
ucts from factories situated remote from each other, in many
instances placing the output of each center of production of certain
merchandise in competition in all parts of the United States with
the output of each other center of production of that kind of mer-
chandise. Contributing to this result have been the efforts of the
salesmen of the different establishments, who, in the desire to
extend the sale of their products, have underbid their competitors,
who, in turn, have been obliged to lower their prices, this rivalry
usually continuing until the selling price has been lowered to
and sometimes below the actual cost of production. This compe-
tition is beneficial to a community as a whole so long as it compels
all the processes of an industry to be conducted with thrift ; and
it has been beneficial when it has forced at places the cessation of
certain production that could not withstand the pressure of com-
petition of similar production from localities more favorably
conditioned. But it has been injurious when, after forcing pro-
ducers in most favored localities to the adoption of every reason-
able economy, it has compelled them to dispose of their products
at unremunerative prices. It has been injurious when many pro-
ducers, each striving to dispose of the greatest possible output,
have placed upon the market products far in excess of the quantity
for which there is a natural and wholesome demand, thereby often-
times forcing stoppage of j^roduction, depriving men of work until
the excess is consumed, and oftentimes leading salesmen to per-
suade unwary merchants to make purchases so large that they
are crushed beneath their weight, or tempted to defraud their
creditors out of payment therefor. It has been injurious when
the strife for the disposition of products has become so fierce that
the energies of producers have been absorbed in fighting competi-
tion, to the neglect of the orderly and equitable administration of
the vital details of production ; when it has led them to make
misrepresentations as to the quality of their products ; when, in
the desire to produce cheap articles, it has led to the adulteration
of material and scrubby workmanship. It has been injurious
when it has reduced the wages of employees to a point inadequate
to the support of themselves and their families. Misrepresenta-
tion, adulteration, and inferior workmanship have often proceeded
from cupidity and lack of scruple, but unrestrained competition
feeds their noxious growth.

As with all things else, industrial competition, when carried
to the extreme, meets opposing forces that bring reaction, and, as
with all things else, the play of mutually opposing forces tends
toward equilibrium. Equilibrium between the forces that affect
industrial competition is that condition under which industrial

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 295

products are sold at prices that are fair to producers and to con-
sumers alike.

When any industry falls into the deplorable condition brought
by extreme competition, what recourse is there but for the pro-
ducers to meet and endeavor to agree upon a course that will per-
mit the attainment of remunerative prices by all ; that will lead to
the production of only so much output as, according to their com-
bined judgment, can be absorbed without strain to either producer
or consumer, to the abandonment of needless and excessive expend-
iture for solicitation, and to the sale of products only to reputable
merchants of sound credit ? Such conferences have led to compacts
of various kinds, that usually have been but of short duration.
The temptation to extend sales by a stealthy cut from the agreed
price is too strong to be resisted, and the abandonment of the
agreement quickly follows. Then more binding compacts are
made — some providing a penalty for the cutting of agreed prices ;
some providing for a division of territory in which sales can be
made by competing establishments ; some providing for the dis-
tribution of the total sales of a product in certain percentages be-
tween different establishments. All such compacts are combina-
tions in a greater or less degree of different establishments, any of
which may be owned by an individual, a firm, or a corporation,
and, with indefiniteness of meaning, have variously been desig-
nated as trusts.

They are, however, but the embryo of the trust properly so
called, which is a complete amalgamation of different interests in
the same industry. Stock is issued covering an appraised valua-
tion of the several properties to be combined, and distributed in
proportion to the owners of these properties, who surrender it to
trustees, receiving in return therefor trust certificates issued by
these trustees, who become the actual directors of the organiza-
tion. By such a combination competition between its constituent
members is removed. The concentration of management permits
economy of administration, the organization, as a whole, obtain-
ing the benefit of appliances and methods that before were peculiar
to but one or a few of its constituent elements. The interests of
the various producers are placed as a trust in the hands of the
men whose mental grasp, practical knowledge, and executive
ability enable them to direct to most efficient results the efforts
of a great number of workers, to adopt and use to greatest advan-
tage the best appliances, to obtain large quantities of the requisite
material upon the most favorable terms, to perceive and meet the
conditions of a varying market. And thus it is that the formation
of a trust is a uniting of the conditions that permit the attainment
in the highest degree of the advantages gained in smaller degree
by the first industrial differentiation which marked the beginning

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of tliat diversification which, is an accepted sign of progress. The
trust succeeds the corporation as the corporation succeeds the firm,
as the firm succeeds the individual artisan, as the individual arti-
san differentiated from the Jack-of-all-trades of the early house-
hold.

A trust may be a combination of plants and operations thereto-
fore separately conducted by corporations, corporations and firms,
or by corporations, firms, and individuals. Its essential character-
istic is the solidification of formerly diverse and opposing interests.
This may be obtained by a combination under the trust certificate
plan, or by the complete absorption of the ownership of the com-
bining elements. Thus a corporation may be absorbed in a trust
which may be transformed into a corporation, which in time may
form a constituent element of a greater trust. Under each com-
bination there is increased centralization of control and the exten-
sion of the operations in a widening field. And it sometimes
happens that one man, or a few men closely associated, hold a
controlling interest in, or predominate in the direction of, several
organizations. There are two or three firms in New York, for
example, any one of which regulates the management of two or
more railroad or other corporations.

In each sphere of development, from the growth of the plan-
etary systems out of the nebulous mass to the ascent of the living
organisms of highest endowment from the protoplasmic mass of
dull and homogeneous sensation, all progress has been along the
lines of differentiation of function and structure and co-ordina-
tion of like functions in a decreasing number of structures or
organizations, each characterized by an increasing centralization
of control of a broadening field. If the working of the industrial
forces that has led to the formation of corporations and trusts is
directly analogous to the working of forces that along other lines
has led to analogous effects, this industrial aggregation is a nat-
ural and inevitable step of industrial evolution that therefore can
not but be beneficent in its final results.

As evolution along any line is most direct when its forces are
least impeded, the industrial development of the United States
should have been most rapid, for here conditions have been more
favorable to industrial activity than among any other people at
any time in history. The American settlers were of vigorous
ancestry ; natural wealth abounds ; the climate is temperate ; and
there has been the least retardation from the evils of government,
the evils of war, and religious intolerance. From this is another
proof that the formation of trusts is a natural step of industrial
evolution, for it is in the United States that they have been of
most direct growth and have attained their greatest dimensions
and their greatest strength.

I

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 297

It has been remarked, with some show of facetiousness, that
from the trust that supplies the cradle wherein he is rocked in
infancy to the trust that furnishes the coffin wherein he is laid for
the tomb, man is housed, fed, clothed, transported, and entertained
by a trust of one description or another. And, notwithstanding
arraignment in public print and public speech, trusts thrive and
prosper. This alone might lead to the inference that they are
the product of natural forces.

But trusts are not in possession of the entire industrial field.
Not in any one line of industry is the entire production effected
by the agency of any one combination. There are even corpora-
tions, firms, and individuals engaged in the production, refining,
and distribution of oil that owe no allegiance to the Standard Oil
Company. There are refiners independent of the sugar trust, and
iron manufacturers that are not in any pool. There are trusts in the
same line of industry working in direct competition with each other,
and also with firms and individuals engaged in like production.
For example, the New York Biscuit Company, the United States
Baking Company, and a similar company operating principally
west of the Mississippi River, are three different trusts engaged in
the manufacture of products of the bakery, operating principally
each in territory separate from the other ; but at points in the ter-
ritory of either it is in direct competition with the other, and each,
in its own territory, is in competition with firms and individuals
supplying bread, biscuits, crackers, and kindred articles of con-
sumption. There are towns and villages not reached by any of
these trusts that are supplied by local bakers, and there are thou-
sands of households throughout the land producing almost en-
tirely within their own kitchens all the products of grain con-
sumed by their members. A certain similarity to this condition
is presented in each other line of industry throughout the entire
field. Combination is most marked in industries requiring ex-
pensive plants and appliances and the services of a large number
of especially trained workers in preparing a product for which
there is great and constant demand, the railways and iron and
steel and the textile industries all affording conspicuous examples
of strong combination. In the more densely populated portions
of the country there is combination to a greater or less extent in
other industries that, in more recently settled portions of the
country, are administered by smaller organizations, the three
baking companies being notable examples. A variety of causes,
more or less general, more or less particular, have affected com-
bination in the different lines of industry at different places. The
general tendency, however, is toward the formation of separate
organizations for the manufacture of an increasing variety of
specialized products, and toward the combination of the com-

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

paratively similar organizations concerned in the manufacture of
each. j)articular product into a decreasing number of organizations
characterized by increased centralization of control and the exten-
sion of their operations in a widening field. This tendency is in
exact accord with the law of evolution as defined by Herbert
Spencer, and the heterogeneous aspect presented by the different
coexistent degrees of combination in the industrial field analogous
to the heterogeneous aspect jDresented hj the various coexistent
stages of development in each sphere of evolution throughout the
universe, all phenomena of which are now believed by the deepest
thinkers to proceed in accordance with that law.

It is true, however, that in the processes of this industrial de-
velopment are phases affecting adversely the fortunes of classes
and individuals, although working to the benefit of the commu-
nity as a whole, and there have been phases entailing actual
oppression without other attendant good than the bestowal of
exiperience.

The displacement of human labor by machinery and improved
economical methods has been the cause of much outcry from
those whose earnings have been immediately affected ; but that
readjustment to meet the advanced conditions can not but be
beneficial to society as a whole perhaps needs at this time no
extended defense, and likewise with the displacement of labor
caused by the cessation of industries at particular places under
stress of competition of more favored localities.

In the first reaction from the unremunerative prices forced by
competition, a combination sufficiently powerful to do so often
raises prices of a product to a point as unreasonably high as
previous prices were unreasonably low, and this is the basis for
one of the apparently potent arguments against the toleration
of trusts — that they are oppressive to consumers. But there is
the reply, first, that the desire to obtain the increased profits
consequent upon an extending sale of the products will cause the
most enlightened managers to keep their selling prices at the
lowest point that consistent with profitable production will to
the greatest extent increase consumption. When, however, this
consideration does not prevail, there is a further check upon the
maintenance of exorbitant prices in that capital, which tends to
flow into the field in which greatest profits can be made, reduces
prices by engendering new competition. Delay in the action of
this corrective frequently has been caused by the fact that the
making of enormous profits for a time is kept secret oftentimes
by a combination engaged in an industry requiring a plant for its
operations so extensive that great capital and experienced mana-
gers are necessary to establish successful competition ; and the de-

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 299

lay has been longest when, along with these conditions, the prod-
uct has been of such a nature that the payment therefor ultimately
comes from those not concerned in its immediate purchase. But
it is a fact that in the industrial history of the last quarter cen-
tury, notwithstanding these obstacles, many a combination
strongly fortified in the maintenance of undue profit has, sooner
or later, had its power broken by the flow of new capital into its
field.

In the manufacture of steel beams and steel rails are required
plants of great value, and the services of experienced managers and
skilled workmen. The charge for beams falls upon the renters
of apartments in buildings of the construction of which the beams
are part, and the charge for rails upon the travelers and shipjDers
over the railways ; and, as the immediate purchasers of the
greatest quantities of beams and rails are often, if not generally,
not the direct owners of the property for which the purchases are
made, and therefore neither the immediate nor the remote pay-
ment comes from the pockets of the immediate purchaser, the
action of competition in efi^ecting a reduction in the prices of such
material has been subjected to extreme delay, but that it finally
effects such a reduction is shown by the fact that whereas seven
or eight years ago the beam combination was composed of but
five establishments who obtained over three cents a pound for
their product, there are now over a dozen establishments engaged
in this manufacture, and the price obtained is about one and a
half cent per pound, and likewise combination after combination
of steel rail producers that have endeavored to maintain unrea-
sonably high prices has been broken.

Another corrective of the maintenance of inordinately 'high
prices lies in the fact that a combination making one product
upon an extensive scale is prone to discover means whereby
waste, incident to that production, which could not be utilized by
the smaller producer, can be made a valuable article of commerce,
and the combination, therefore, has found it to its interest to
stimulate the consumption of its principal product by reducing
prices, in order that it may obtain the additional profit consequent
upon the increased production and sale of the subsidiary product.
For example, when a dressed-beef concern of Chicago found that
oleo oil could be made from the inside fat of cattle, it reduced the
price of beef to a narrow margin of profit, that it might increase
the sale thereof and thereby oJ3tain the increased supply of fat
for the production of oleo oil, for which there is great demand.
Other dressed-beef producers were forced to reduce the prices of
meat accordingly, the result being of great benefit to the con-
sumers of meat, who are practically the entire population.

It has also happened that the maintenance of inordinately high

300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

prices for a particular product has led to the discovery of means
whereby another product can be used in its stead, whereby the
manufacturers of the original product have been compelled either
to reduce their prices or retire from the field.

Competition, before reaching the point where the leaders in a
particular industry are forced into final combination, tends to
lower the wages of laborers in that industry ; for, as it is to the
interest of the consumer to procure that which he needs at the
lowest cost, his efforts to buy cheaper tend to force the cost of
production to the lowest notch. When this pressure for low
prices is such that it can not be met by the saving in production
gained by the use of economical methods and improved appliances,
attack is necessarily made upon the wages of the workmen. Like-
wise the efforts of the salesmen of a particular product to extend
its market in competition with other producers, force the lowest
cost of production with like results upon the wages of the work-
ingman. After competition has forced the final combination, the
wages of workingmen in but few instances have voluntarily been
increased, and sometimes they have been reduced. Those in con-
trol of the capital, desiring to recoup for past losses and to secure
the greatest returns for the future, still find it to their interest
to keep down the cost of production. From this has arisen the
cry that a main purpose of industrial aggregation is to crush the
workingmen. To retain their employees, however, even great
combinations are usually obliged to pay wages not less than can
be obtained in other fields. Such combinations must be managed
by men of the first ability, whose services can not be secured
except for high remuneration. To the efiiciency of their work is
necessary the careful training of a corps of subordinates to whom
it is to the interest of the corporation to give adequate remuner-
ation and certain tenure of position so long as they remain com-
petent. And even to laborers of the lowest grades these corpora-
tions must pay a rate of wages established by supply and demand.
It is shown by statistics that the rate of wages during the past
fifty years has steadily increased, in all except the vocations that
are being supplanted and are dying out. The rate of wages is a
matter, however, in which self-interest on either side is the prin-
cipal factor, and, whether forced by competition or actuated
entirely by selfishness, employers, as a rule, have not at any time
extended any greater compensation to their employees than they
have been obliged to. But in opposition to the tendency to force
wages down there have also grown combinations, the labor organ-
izations. These are trusts, in that the laborers in a certain field of
industry place the care of their collective interests as a trust in the
hands of the officers thereof. The theoretical justification for the
existence of labor organizations is, therefore, the same as the

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 301

theoretical justification for the existence of our democratic form
of government — that is, that the best interests of the constituent
individuals are best served by placing in the hands of their
chosen representatives certain functions which can be better per-
formed for the individuals by those representatives than they
could be performed by the individuals for themselves.

When an employer announces a rate of wages, an employee
has the right to work at that rate or not, as he may choose — that
is, he has the right to contract for his services. But if the mana-
ger of a mill, a mine, a factory, or other large establishment em-
ploying a great number of workmen engaged in the same kind
of work, announces a reduction from the established rate of
wages, what is the effect upon the individual workman if entirely
dependent upon his individual resources in the negotiations inci-
dent to this individual contract ? He may continue to work at
the reduced wages or not, as he may choose, but to seek work at
another establishment is often impracticable, especially if necessi-
tating removal to another locality. To remain without work, even
for a short time, entails ill-borne loss. The result is that a por-
tion of the employees may leave, but the majority find it prefer-
able to accept the reduction, especially those who have acquired
homes in the vicinity, and live wrapped in the web of attachment
woven by the associations of the home, the neighborhood, and the
community. The contract for a rate of wages between the em-
ployer and the individual is, therefore, one in the negotiations for
which the employer has an advantage so tremendous that his
decision is practically the mandate of a despot, and, as upon the
rate of wages practically depends the employee's subsistence, the
amount of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries he can procure for
himself and family, the employer oftentimes has greater power
over the manner of life and the happiness of his employees than
the Constitution accords to Congress and the President of the
United States. When this power is used to reduce wages, work-
ingmen have frequently but little means of knowing whether the
reduction is forced by the conditions of production and distribu-
tion, or whether it is an arbitrary attempt to swell the employer's
profits. The conditions of their lives are such that they can not
know much of the cost of plants, appliances, material, and the rela-
tion that wages bear to the cost of production or to the expense of
distribution. In any event, the strong promptings of immediate
self-interest impel them not only to resist any reduction, but to
endeavor to obtain, from time to time, an increase of wages, a
general betterment of condition ; and as individual assertion is of
little or no avail in resisting reduction or obtaining an increase,
the natural result is that the workingmen in a particular line of
industry endeavor to obtain by combined action that which they

302 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can not obtain separately, and tlins have arisen organizations of
the working-men in different lines of indnstry, and as they have
increased in number and complexity, they have tended toward
more extensive combination, with greater centralization of con-
trol— witness the Knights of Labor, the Sovereigns of Industry,
and the American Federation of Labor. But as the representa-
tives of the people, charged with the administration of the politi-
cal government, have, times without number, because of ignorance
of the working of economic law, because of cowardice in follow-
ing their convictions, because of personal greed, because of a
truckling to popular prejudice, enacted laws, sanctioned executive
action, or indulged executive neglect, that have inured to the in-
jury of the people as a whole, so also have the representatives of
workingmen, charged with the administration of labor organiza-
tions, from like causes, enacted regulations, permitted action, or
neglected to restrain action, that has worked to the direct injury
of their constituents, and tended to bring labor organizations, as
a class, into widespread obloquy. As the demagogue has often
obtained political preferment, so also have the palavering hypo-
crite and the sordid bully but too frequently been made the rep-
resentative and spokesman of labor ; and then, again, it has often
happened that well-meaning representatives of labor, after con-
ferences with employers in which they have been clearly shown
the conditions that necessitate reduction of wages, or that render
impossible an increase of wages, have been repudiated and con-
demned by their constituents when endeavoring to make such
conditions clear to them. All too often have workingmen of the
best intentions been overruled by the headstrong, who have
worked upon their credulity and prejudice until they have met
appeals to reason with unreasoning sullenness, and when minds
credulous and prejudiced have been inflamed by liquor there have
been deplorable and disastrous results. In years past the confer-
ences between the representatives of capital and the representa-
tives of labor have too often been marked on both sides by
aggressiveness, rapacity, and greed, by the absence of good faith
and calm, considerate, thorough discussion. Strikes have inured
to the injury of both capital and labor, but as strike after strike
is fought and ended the reasons for the conflicts come more
clearly to the light of publicity, and popular opinion, the basis
of all law, seizing upon the points of dispute and perceiving the
attitude of the combatants, visits with condemnation or approval
the one side or the other ; and this light of publicity, searching
out that which is unjust in the action of labor and that which is
unjust in the action of capital, can not but bring, and may now
be seen to be bringing, a healthier tone to the proceeding of one
and a greater honesty of consideration to the attitude of the

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 303

other, from whicli can not but come a more reasonable and
equitable solution of the problems that are continually pre-
sented to each.

And notwithstanding all the attacks that have been made upon
them, labor organizations survive. Like the other trusts, they are
the product of natural forces ; like the other trusts, they fulfill a
natural function. As men of greater knowledge and broader views
come to their control, the directors of great industrial organiza-
tions who want to be just toward their employees find it advan-
tageous to communicate with them through such representatives.
The situation can be gone over with them more frankly and thor-
oughly and in shorter time than would be possible with each of
the workingmen separately, or with all of them jointly, and the
report and recommendations of these representatives to the work-
ingmen can be met and received as the result of the best judgment
of competent minds acting in their behalf. It is to be hoped that
in time the perception of a common interest and a common sense
of justice between employer and employee will render the labor
organizations unnecessary. It is likewise to be hoped that advanc-
ing civilization will reach a plane whereon all political govern-
ment will be unnecessary.

An assertion that has been used with great vehemence against
industrial aggregations is that they are instruments for ensnaring
and misappropriating the funds of the weak and unwary. Con-
demnation on this ground was made of the minor industrial and
financial combinations. The cry against corporations a generation
ago was as bitter as that against the trusts of the present. It has
arisen from the fact that the multiplicity of means that have been
developed for borrowing capital, the giving of mortgages, the issue
of stock certificates and bonds of different kinds and forms, with
the attendant manipulation in stock markets, has given men with
predominating desire for personal gain opportunity for obtaining
money in excess of the needs of their business, or of the value of
the property which they can oflier as security, and complicated
methods of bookkeeping have concealed its unjustifiable applica-
tion and the misuse of profits. Instances of such defection have
been so numerous as to breed in the minds of a considerable por-
tion of the population a certain distrust of all that pertains to the
buying and selling of stocks and bonds, and this distrust in many
places with many people is so deeply rooted that the advantages
to the entire community gained by honestly and discreetly man-
aged industrial combinations are overlooked. It is the men of
largest brains and keenest wit that in the fields of finance and
industry conceive and control enterprises of magnitude, and when
this keenness of wit has been combined with lack of scruple they
have often been able to envelop the conduct of their enterprises

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in a mystery that the ordinary mind did not penetrate, under the
cloud of which they have wrested undue personal gain. The con-
version by men to their personal ownership of funds and estates
held by them as trustees was an abuse from which the common
law for centuries was inadequate to afford immunity. The devel-
opment of the ethical trust relation sustained by those in active
conduct of the great industrial organizations of this century to
those whose funds are invested therein has been more rapid than
the development of the legal safeguards for the protection of that
relation. But as every abuse is the forerunner and the cause of
its own remedy, the deleterious manipulation of stocks, bonds, and
securities of every sort must give way before a public intelligence
that tends more and more to a perception of the methods by which
it has been possible. And this intelligence will compel the em-
bodiment in legal codes of measures that will place these recently
developed trusteeships upon as clearly defined and safe a basis
as the earlier and simpler trusteeships were placed by the system
of jurisprudence and jurisdiction organized by the Earl of Not-
tingham.

It is frequently asserted that a nation's industries are in most
healthful condition when conducted by a great number of inde-
pendent producers. If carried to its logical conclusion, this im-
plies that the village artisan who employs one man to assist him
is guilty of an act of injustice. For otherwise, if A has a right to
better his condition by working for wages under the direction of
B, why should not both A and B, if they can better their condi-
tion by doing so, work for wages under the direction of C ? And
why should not scores and hundreds of men work under the direc-
tion of the master mind of Z ? It is true that whether impelled
by the desire to obtain increased profits, or by the constant de-
mand for the reduction of prices, it is the tendency of an indus-
trial combination to absorb the performance of the functions con-
tributing to the manufacture of its ultimate product, thereby
either destroying or curtailing the profits of those theretofore
engaged in the performance of those functions. For example,
but a few years ago the placing in the Northwestern markets of
coal from the Pittsburg bituminous coal field involved the mak-
ing of profits by the mine producing qoal, the agent in Pittsburg
that purchased it on commission, the firm who employed him, the
company over whose docks it was loaded in vessels at the ports of
Lake Erie, the owners of the vessels which carried it to the North-
west, the owners of the docks on which it was unloaded at the
head of the lakes, and the dealers who disposed of it in the vari-
ous Northwestern cities. The pressure of competition reducing
the possibility of separate profits has forced the combination of
these different agencies of production and distribution — for in-

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 305

stance, one man now controls what is practically one organiza-
tion, owning mines at Pittsburg, docks on Lake Erie, vessels that
ply on tlie lakes, docks at the head of the lakes, and coal yards
at St. Paul and Minneapolis. As the retail price for Pittsburg
bituminous coal at St. Paul and Minneapolis has been materially
reduced in the past ten years, it will be observed that the co-
ordination of the various functions enumerated has resulted in
immense benefit to the consumers of coal, that has extended
throughout the Northwestern States. When contributory func-
tions are absorbed by a combination, the men engaged in the
performance of those functions are not deprived of a liveli-
hood. Their services are needed in the performance of those
same functions by the combination, which must yield them
compensation in accordance with their experience and ability.
If it be the effect of this competition to force a lesser income
than accrued from the profits theretofore enjoyed, the result,
while it may to a greater or less extent be to the misfortune of
the absorbed individuals, is for the good of the community as a
whole. If the functions which they did perform can be per-
formed by the combination equally well at less expense, it would
be unjust to the consumers of the ultimate product for these indi-
viduals to continue to enjoy such profits. There is the further
consideration that in the performance of the various functions
necessary to the continuation of a great organization men of vari-
ous kinds of ability can devote their energies to the tasks for
which they are best adapted. The organization and the nation
as a whole are therefore benefited by having the best outcome of
men who, if working independently in a smaller sphere, would be
hampered by having to give a greater or less proportion of their
time to tasks for which they are less adapted.

The instinct of self-preservation, carried to its extreme in the
desire for the greatest gain with the least liability for aggression,
is apparent in the difi^erent steps of industrial combination. The
limited partnership laws in effect in many of the States contain
provisions restricting liability that, as a rule, have stood the test
of application, but there has been much irregularity on the part
of corporations that, obtaining a charter under the laws of a par-
ticular State, have gained advantages that have permitted opera-
tions in other States under the laws of which similar privileges
could not have been obtained ; and, conversely, particular States
have placed unjust restrictions upon the operation within their
jurisdiction of corporations working under charters obtained in
other States. The desire to evade responsibility, together with
the desire to evade the assault that in many localities is facilitated
by the laws arising from distrust of corporate action, has led
certain of the combinations known as trusts to adopt carefully

VOL. XLV. — 24

3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

studied and elaborate plans of organization that permit tlie great-
est freedom of operation, while reducing to a minimum the oppor-
tunity for legal attack. Such devices, to the extent that they ex-
ceed the bounds required for proper self-protection, can not long
stand before an increasing intelligence of their aims and methods.
That same intelligence, acting through the media of courts and
legislatures, must arrive at a more equitable solution of the prob-
lem of corporate rights and corporate aggression.

In the effort to extend to the greatest degree the sale of its
products, a trust now and then has adopted other measures than
the endeavor to place upon the market products of a quality and
price that will insure the largest consumption. In certain locali-
ties it has, regardless of immediate loss, placed the selling prices
of its product at a point so low that a competitor can not meet
them without loss that, if continued, will drive him from the
field. But it has happened that the resources of a competitor, or
his facilities for production, have been such that he can success-
fully defy such an onslaught. In such a case a trust has some-
times adopted another method of attack by coercing merchants
into desisting from the sale of the competitor's products under
threat of using the influence of the trust to harass and embarrass
them. Such methods, although sometimes apparently successful,
often redound to the injury of the user, for one of the first steps
of the object of the persecution is to enlist sympathy by giving
publicity to his position. When, however, an industrial organi-
zation gives a merchant who agrees to sell its products to the
exclusion of similar products of other manufacturers lower prices
than if he also handled competitors' goods, it is simply acting
upon the established principle of selling greater quantities at
lower prices than lesser quantities. If these low prices yield a
profit to the producer, and the products can be sold by the
merchants at a lower price than similar products of competing
producers, the result is that consumers are benefited by the re-
duced prices, and the profits of the merchants and manufacturers
are increased by reason of the extended consumption.

An organization controlling the shipment of large quantities
of material used in manufacture, or of a finished product, has
oftentimes been able to obtain lower rates of transportation than
its competitors because transjDortation companies have underbid
each other in the desire to obtain the extensive traffic, and the
advantage gained by means of the low rates has contributed to
the exclusion of competition. Many of the States have estab-
lished commissions to look into the administration of transporta-
tion companies, and the Interstate Commerce Act was the begin-
ning of national action in the same field. And the State and
national commissions are throwing light on the problems of trans-

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 307

portation that have been but little understood. Abuses are being
corrected, and in many instances procedure supposed to be to the
injury of the public in general is shown to flow from the action
of natural forces tending to the public good.

Much that has been evil in the conduct of trusts has been
ascribed to the working of our so-called protective tariff, and the
exclusion of foreign competition has, doubtless, been an important
factor in the over-capitalization of different plants and the water-
ing of stock that have been almost constant elements in trust for-
mation. But it is not to be inferred that an abandonment of or
a reduction in the tariff would be followed by the dissolution of
trusts. If the greatest economy of production is obtained under
a trust, which is the final combination forced by competition, will
not the renewed and intensified competition consequent upon an
abandonment of or a reduction in the tariff render the trust all
the more necessary ? The foreign competition will doubtless
hasten a reduction of undue profits, but at the same time will
tend to increase the compactness of organization and method under
which the final industrial combination is of greatest good to the
community. The three baking companies referred to on a pre-
ceding page are examples of trusts the formation and continuance
of which do not depend upon any advantages derived from the
tariff. The United States Baking Company was formed under
the pressure of competition entirely domestic. It thrives because
the operations of the constituent baking establishments are con-
ducted under centralized control, by which is obtained for each
the advantages of the best appliances and methods, the best
adapted material at the lowest cost, and the most judicious distri-
bution of the products.

As it often happens that the actions of a servant, performing
his duties quietly and efficiently to the increasing satisfaction of
his master, meet with no other recognition than the stipulated
compensation, although departure from the exact line of correct
performance, whether apparent or actual, whether the result of
ignorance, carelessness, or positive dishonesty, meets with com-
plaint, rebuke, and punishment, so it has happened that an indus-
trial combination which is but the servant of the public, so long
as its operations have been confined to the production and mar-
keting of articles for which there is a demand, of a quality and at
prices that satisfy that demand, has been permitted to continue
its functions without particular attention, receiving reward in
the profits accruing from the sale of its product. But the real or
apparent departure of such an organization from the simple per-
formance of such functions, whether the result of actual aggres-
sion or the disturbance entailed by the readjustment to changing
conditions, brings outcry that has been followed by that public

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rebuke which, has ended in legislative enactment designed to pre-
vent a continuance of the real or apparent abuse. The discharge
of employees, the reduction of wages, the raising of prices, the
decrease of production, whether justifiable or not, antagonize the
immediate interests of a greater or less proportion of the popula-
tion whose discontent often finds voice through men who, whether
sincere or guided by self-interest in their protestations, are utterly
unable to trace the ramifications of cause and eif ect throughout
the complications of the industrial and commercial web. And
such men, clothed with the power of legal enactment, have given
force to statutes that have tended to kill instead of to cure. But
it can not be denied that the desire for gain, without due regard
for justice, has led men charged with the administration of indus-
trial organizations into actions that have abundantly justified
public complaint and severe punishment, and many organizations
have been formed because of the facility for public aggression
attained by combined action and the absence of individual re-
sponsibility; and all that has been reprehensible in the acts of
such organizations, gaining a greater or less publicity, has tended
to obscure the perception of the benefits of industrial combination
as a whole.

The enumeration of the evils attendant upon combined action
leads to the perception that they did not spring into existence at
any one period of industrial development, but that they are the
outgrowth of not properly restrained actions, arising from motives
that exist in individuals, and were manifested in the actions of
individuals before the tendency toward combination became no-
ticeable, and have been manifested with increasing conspicuity at
each of the stages of combination. In other words, the vices and
virtues of aggregations of men are but the vices and virtues of
individual men, and vice and virtue alike become intensified as
they are manifested in the actions of an aggregation of men con-
trolled by leaders of whom they are characteristic. Opportunity
for dispute as to the rate of wages and the hours of labor arose
when there were first employer and employee. It is the very trad-
ing instinct to sell at the highest price and purchase at the lowest.
The mean and the crafty have ever sought to obtain money with-
out repaying it, to obtain privilege without compensation, to gain
advantage over others by fair means or foul. As it has been the
increase of intelligence and morality and accumulated experience
that has led to a wider justice between individual men, so must it
be the increase of intelligence, morality, and accumulated experi-
ence that will lead to the allotment of justice between individual
man and an aggregation of men, and between aggregation and
aggregation.

The very hugeness of the more recent industrial combinations

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 309

has raised in the minds of many a vague fear akin to that which
chiklren feel when they read of giants and genii, and politicians
have conjured with their names as nurses frighten infants with
tales of great monsters that are coming to eat them, and this not-
withstanding that the greatest effect in all fields of human effort
has been gained through organizations, characterized by combi-
nation and recombination, that, working under centralized con-
trol, have enlisted great numbers of men in the attainment of far-
reaching ends. The advantages of combined action in bodily
attack and defense led step by step through the grouping of tribes
and clans to the formation of great armies. Upholders of like
ecclesiastical doctrines have associated themselves in organiza-
tions that have sought to extend their sway by united effort.
Similar needs of similarly conditioned masses of men have caused
the growth of political governments that have combined and
recombined. With advancing civilization the soldier's calling
becomes of less and less importance ; with the growth of the
intellect ecclesiasticism loses its dominance ; and with the loosen-
ing of the shackles of paternalism the sphere of political govern-
ment recedes. Advancing humanity now demands, more than
ever before, the service of him who contributes most to that
wholesome care of the physical being which is essential to the
highest development of the mental and moral life. The artisan
and the tradesman, who were the butt of ridicule, the object of
contumely, when my lords the warriors and my lords the bish-
ops ruled the world, find that their vocations, increased and
extended by the aid of science, are of inestimable value to the
human race. The forces tending toward the highest civilization,
that through physical conflict have evolved the great nations
which abide side by side under a fuller promise of peace — that
throughout the strife between mind and mind as to the Unknown
Cause have evolved the great religious organizations that seem
more and more content to abandon useless dogmas, to join in the
promulgation of moral precepts that are common to them all and
in the ever more discreet ministration of charity — are now swirl-
ing with greatest intensity in the field of industry, evolving the
great industrial organizations, that through the mutual reaction
of one upon the other will bring that clearer knowledge by means
of which they will be made the peaceful and harmonious agents
of the higher life. And therefore, inseparable from consideration
of the causes that have led to industrial combination and the
effect of industrial organizations in the present, is speculation as
to the direction the tendency toward such combination will take
in the future, the extent to which it will involve industrial func-
tions, and the effect the organizations will have upon the individ-
ual life of the members of a community.

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Functions, the performance of which particularly depends
upon the skill and application of individuals and have little con-
nection with concrete production, will likely to a considerable
extent remain exempt from combination, although attorneys and
physicians whose pursuits depend almost exclusively upon sep-
arate individual ability and application have allied themselves in
associations through which to an extent fees are regulated and
the experience of individuals is brought to the benefit of all. A
striking example of the centralization tendency is presented by
the action of the banks in many of the larger cities during the
recent financial distress. To the clearing house, which is prima-
rily but a combination of banks for mutual benefit, which inures
also to the benefit of the public, were assigned securities belong-
ing to each of the banks holding membership therein, to be held
by the clearing house as the basis for the issue of clearing-house
certificates which were designed for the benefit both of the banks
and of the community served by them. As the property of the
different banks was placed in the hands of a committee clothed
with executive authority, this action displayed a principal char-
acteristic of the trust formation.

Consideration of the effect of industrial organizations upon
the individual lives of their members leads to analogy drawn from
the relation borne by the individuals thereof to the other great
organizations that have attended the progress of humanity. As
the true soldiers were content to find their reward and glory in the
valorous service of the militant organizations to which they be-
longed, as the sincere ministers attained the highest personal good
by the abandonment of self in the striving to uphold the precerpts
of their creeds, so it may be that the members of a great industrial
army, imbued with the feeling that their well-directed energies
contribute in the greatest possible degree to the welfare of the
nation, to all that is meant by the attainment of the highest civi-
lization, will find happiness in their work that is only equaled
by the happiness found in their homes, and will be content with
the personal credit and personal reward that may follow the exer-
cise of their ability in a field where an increasingly juster percep-
tion of each man's capacity will give the opportunity for its fullest
utilization, and where there is increasing recognition of the fact
that it is to the efforts of all the workers in a particular field that
results are due, that the credi^j in proportion to his usefulness
belongs to the private as well as to the general. The manager of
a great railway gives the best of his mental and physical energy
to the conduct of its affairs, with the consciousness that he is
thereby contributing to the welfare not only of the corporation
and its employees but of the community which it serves ; likewise
with the president of a bank or the head of a great industrial or-

THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 311

ganization. Tlie name of the organization lie serves may have
endured for long before his term of service and for long after, as
the name of the nation endures throughout many changes in the
head of its government. If a prime minister finds more than
pecuniary reward in having risen to the most important place of
service to his nation, so should a captain of industry find more
than pecuniary reward in having risen to the place of most impor-
tant service to a great industry that ministers to the welfare of a
multitude of people. If a sailor in the navy takes pride in con-
tributing his mite under his nation's flag, so should the industrial
private find satisfaction in the thought that his efi:orts are of use.
Besides the pleasure that he should find in his work, there is
the happiness man should find in his home, in wholesome recrea-
tion, and the development of his mental and moral nature. That
which is essential in the enjoyment of home does not depend upon
the place in the industrial world occupied by the head of the
family, for that there may be contentment in the cottage and
misery in the palace is proverbial. Now that wise managers
are discovering that the best work is obtained from men whose
life in its entirety is most wholesome, it may be expected that in
time the executive heads of great organizations will endeavor to
allow their fellow- workmen every reasonable facility for domestic
enjoyment, healthful recreation, and self-culture. And all the
advantages gained by industrial combinations lead to this end.
As products are cheapened their use becomes extended, so that in
time it may be expected that the humblest may possess themselves
of the clothing, food, and conveniences of habitation that minister
in greatest degree to bodily health. As men working in concert
with improved appliances and under improved methods produce
a greater and greater output in less time and with less nervous
and muscular exhaustion, it may be expected that before many
generations have passed the labor necessary to supi^ly the material
needs of the human race may be encompassed within limits of
time and exertion that will allow to all sufficient leisure and suflB.-
cient spirit for the cultivation of all that gives to life its perfect
flower. The great industrial organizations perform for all the
people what the men and women in the days of our grandfathers
did for themselves and their families. They extend the mutual
helpfulness of all the members of the nation, binding community
to community, " obtaining an advantage while conferring a boon " ;
and the increasing exchange of products between nation and
nation gives reason for belief that in generations to come, as the
individuals of different nations know and appreciate one another
more truly, there may be an extension of industrial organization
that will have the whole world for its scope, ministering to all
mankind.

312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A recapitulation and summary of cause and effect throughout
the industrial development of the United States as outlined in
the foregoing pages lead to the conclusions :

That specialization of function and co-ordination of similar
functions become more pronounced with the growth of popula-
tion and ease of communication ; that this specialization and co-
ordination is accelerated by the invention of machinery, the dis-
covery of processes whereby the production and distribution of
greater quantities of an increased variety of products are facili-
tated ; that this specialization and combination are of benefit to all
individuals of the nation in that they bring to the control of the
processes of production and distribution the men best fitted there-
for, under whose directions the efforts of great bodies of workers
are co-ordinated to the greatest advantage, and under whose di-
rection the accumulations of great numbers of people can be used
with profit to the investors and to the individuals of the whole
nation, for this specialization and co-ordination lead to the pro-
duction and distribution on an ever-extending scale and at de-
creasing expense of the i)roducts that contribute to the strength
and fitness of the buildings in which these individuals live and
work, in which they congregate for instruction, deliberation, and
recreation ; of the products that nourish and the products that
clothe the body under the varying conditions to which it is sub-
jected, thereby aiding each individual to preserve for the greatest
period that condition which permits the effective performance of
the functions dependent upon physical action.

That a powerful factor in this industrial specialization and
combination and in the diffusion of the benefits thereby attained
is the force known as competition. Increased demand causes in-
creased production by an increased number of producers, who, by
competition, are forced to lower selling prices and are thereby
forced to the discovery, invention, and adoption of appliances and
methods that decrease cost of production. Competition, still en-
croaching upon their profits, incites a combination of producers
in self-defense, but to withstand its still active force they are com-
pelled to production only in localities where conditions are most
favorable and to vest its control in men most competent to direct
it. Competition that rippled and eddied around and among the
simpler organizations of employer and employee gains increase of
force as the agencies of production combine, and rolls in mighty
waves upon a great organization, washing away and crumbling
every point of weakness, until there is left but that wall of bed
rock formed by production and distribution upon the most eco-
nomical basis that can be maintained with justice to producer
and consumer alike.

That as the conditions incident to industrial combination have

SUNSHINE THROUGH THE WOODS. 313

caused a differentiation in the ranks of producers, forming the
elements distinguished as capital and labor, the force of competi-
tion upon the producers has tended not only to reduce the profits
of capital but the wages of labor. As capitalists have combined
to protect their profits from the encroachment of competition, so
have laborers combined to protect their wages from the encroach-
ment of other laborers, the encroachment of competition acting
through the capitalists, and the encroachment of the capitalists
direct. And as the action of these labor organizations through-
out the industrial field tends to obtain and preserve to the work-
ingman a share of the benefit derived from the sale of products in
proportion to the value of the part in the production of which
his efforts have contributed, they fulfill an important function in
the attainment and maintenance of that equitable relation be-
tween the consumer and producer which constitutes industrial
equilibrium.

As the argument from every point of view goes to prove that
industrial combinations are the products of natural forces minis-
tering eventually to the highest good of the individuals of a com-
munity, of the community as a whole, and to community and
community in domestic and international relationship alike, law-
makers should have care that in the effort to rid the tree of poi-
sonous growth they do not interfere with the current of the life-
giving sap. The object of legal enactment should be the main-
tenance of justice between man and man, without hampering
beneficent activity that will be driven into proper channels by
the same forces that give it existence.

SUNSHINE THROUGH THE WOODS.

By BYRON D. HALSTED.

THE title above might suggest a forest that has been shot
through by the light of day, or some delightful dell where
the rays of the sun make every spot enchanting. Quite other-
wise, the lines to follow deal with the printing of pictures of sec-
tions of woods by means of the direct sunlight, and some of the
points of structure thus brought to view.

If any object through which the light passes unequally in its
various parts be brought close against a sensitized paper used by
photographers in printing pictures from their negatives, it is
evident that an impression will be produced. This print will be
a negative, or, in other words, the dark parts in the subject will
be light and the light parts dark. For example, the section of
papaw wood shown in Fig. 1 is a negative, while in Fig. 3 is the

VOL. XLY. 25

SH

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

positive, and corresponds closely with the wood itself in its light
and dark parts.

The first essential in getting prints of woods is to obtain uni-
formly thin sections of the wood. Tliese are not far to seek, for
Mr. R. B. Hough has become famous for his wood sections. The

Fig. 1. — Section of Papaw Wood. Negrative.

process by which he is able to obtain his beautiful sections is not
known to the writer ; but to him thanks are due for the specimens
which have been used in making the prints to illustrate this paper.
Having glanced at the two mentioned engravings and remem-
bering that very much of the fineness of detail is necessarily lost
in the engraving process, the reader is ready to consider the
method of making the prints. The sections of wood having been
secured, the only other things needful are a few " printing frames "
(one will answer) of the ordinary sort used by photographers.
Instead of the glass negative which the photographer uses and has
prepared in the dark room, a simple plain pane of glass is needed.
This is placed in the frame; upon it is put the section of wood,
and over the latter a sheet of the sensitized paper. This paper is
brought close upon the wood by means of the clamps, and the
frame is ready to be placed in the sunlight. After the print is

SUNSHINE THROUGH THE WOODS.

3>5

made, which takes only a few minutes, the time depending upon
tlie strength of the light and the porosity and translucency of the
wood, the print is subjected to the toning process, and, after wash-
ing and drying, is ready to become the negative from which the
final print is made. In order that the light may pass more readi-
ly through the negative it is soaked for a few minutes in kerosene
and wiped dry upon the surface. The negative is then placed
paper side down upon the plain glass in the printing frame, and
upon its face is brought the sensitive side of a fresh sheet of
paper, the two sheets being pressed close to each other and evenly
against the glass by the clamps, as before stated. In a very brief
])eriod a positive print is obtained, which upon removal is toned
in the usual way, and becomes a picture — the one, for example,
furnishing the subject for the engraving in Fig. 2.

What with the brief description of the manner in which solar
prints of translucent objects are made, the reader may wish to go

"v^^.

>*•,

K

'",'„f«''«^''f**?'^'

Fig. 2.— 'Section of 1'afaw Wood. Positive.

further and consider some of the differences of detail in the vari-
ous kinds of wood, for one kind of timber differs from another in
many ways. Should we, for example, turn to the Report on the
Forests of North America, in the last census, no less than four
hundred and twelve kinds of timber would be found distributed

316

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through fifty-two natural orders of plants. Sixteen of these are
heavier than water, and liave a specific gravity varying from
r3020 in the black iron wood of southern Florida to a white oak
{Quercus grisea) of New Mexico with the wood only slightly
heavier than water — namely, 1'0092 for its specific gravity. It is
interesting to note in passing that all these sixteen kinds of wood
that will sink in water are natives of southern Florida, a semi-
tropical region, and the South and West regions, none of them
growing in the Mississippi Valley or east of it.

The black ironwood above mentioned as having the heaviest
wood is in many respects a striking contrast with the giant red-
wood (Sequoia) of California, which is not only the largest of our
trees, but its wood is among the liglitest, it having a specific
gravity of only 0*2884, or about one fourth as heavy as the iron-

I'lG. 3. — Cross Section of Ash Wood.

wood, wliich latter is a small, gnarly tree of no value as building
timber.

It was said that there are four hundred and twelve species of
timber receiving treatment in the census report, and therefore
it is appropriate to show the peculiarities of the one that stands
midway of this long list as regards its specific gravity, and espe-
cially so as it is one of the more common sorts and a very valu-
able timber for many purposes — namely, the ash {Fra.rinii.s).

Fig. o shows the appearance of this wood as seen looking upon
the smooth surface of the end of a stick of timber. It is a decided-
ly porous wood, as indicated by the minute, light dots which are
arranged in a series of curved belts in the engraving.

This leads us naturally to consider somewhat in detail the
general make-up of a stem or trunk of a tree. The primary divi-
sion of the parts is into the wood and the bark. The latter is

SUNSHINE THROUGH THE WOODS. 317

shown in Figs. 1 and 2 as a substance quite different from the
wood that lies within, and is protected by it. Growth of the
stem of ordinary trees takes place in a continuous zone just be-
neath the bark, the latter being also supplied with new material,
as it may be needed to supply the same formative layer. As the
years roll on, the wood first made, while the stem was small, and

Fig. 4. — Cross Section of Tin Oak. Positive.

now situated near the center, changes its appearance by taking
on some color, the shade being determined by the kind of wood.
In some of the " precious woods," so called because of their great
value for special purposes and possibly their variety, the central
or heart wood is nearly jet black, as in the ebony. There is
usually a marked difference in the color between the latest formed
sap wood lying close under the bark and that formed many years
before and now covered by later layers.

We have come now to consider another point of structure pre-
viously hinted at and plainly shown in the negravings, namely,
the rings of wood. The tree as it enlarges from year to year
leaves in its structure the evident record of its life. Each grow-
ing season is marked by a ring of wood, and only under the most
adverse circumstances is this deposit omitted, and likewise ex-
traordinary events only can lead to the formation of two rings.
Therefore with a fair degree of certainty the age of a forest giant
can be determined by the number of annual deposits of wood in
rings around the common center.

These deposits become manifest to the naked eye, because of
the difference in structure between the spring and autumn de-
posits, speaking of course for tree growth in the temperate re-
gions. Glance at the papaw stem in Fig. 1, and it will be seen
that the lower portion includes the heartwood nearly to the cen-

3i«

1HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ter of the stem. This is determined by the shortness of the diam-
eter of the lowermost segments. It goes without further saying
that the annual rings in exogenous (outside growers) stems vary
in age from the youngest upon the outside to the oldest at the
center. The point for us to determine is the lack of uniformity
in the wood and why that lack is somewhat regular. In other
words, the woody tissue of a stem is heterogeneous only within
certain limits. Thus in the wood shown in Fig. 1 there are thirty-
nine rings, and the tree for our purpose may be considered forty
years old in round numbers. Twenty of these rings, or the older
half, show a marked color, being much darker than the super-
imposed twenty years of annual deposits. Several other things
are shown by this section, and we can well dwell upon this speci-
men, as it illustrates facts that are common to nearly all trans-

%

%

??M#,

mim^

l¥i!.

Fig. 5. — Cross Section of Pin Oak. Negative.

verse cuts of wood. The rings, for example, are not all of the same
width, those formed while the tree was passing from its fifth to
the twentieth season being the largest, but even among these
there is a wide variation. Thus, ring fifteen from the center is a
narrow one, followed by one of unusual width. For the last ten
years the rings have been more uniform and much thinner than
twenty years earlier. There may be one or more of many reasons
for a ring being unusually thin, as, for example, a short season,
one lacking in moisture or having an excess of it, injury from
frost, fires, insects, or parasitic fungi. The decrease in thickness
toward the outside of the papaw may be due to insufficient nutri-
tion, approaching old age, etc., but in this connection it must not
be overlooked that the amount of actual wood deposited may be
more in a thin ring at the fortieth year than in a comparatively
thick one at the tenth year, the surface covered being so much

SU^' SHINE THROUGH THE WOODS. 319

more extensive. It is likely that the root and leaf surface may
not increase in the same ratio as that of the cambium or growing
layer.

Let us now confine our attention to any one ring — the one, for
example, near the middle of the engraving. It is bounded upon
the inner and outer side by a dark line. Starting at the dark
inner line, the ring of wood is very porous, as shown by the multi-
tude of small holes giving a light appearance to this portion of
the ring. Farther out the wood in the ring becomes more dense,
until it ends in the almost solid outer dark band. This dense
layer is in fact the last portion of the annual ring to be formed,
and is laid down toward the end of the growing season. The next
spring a new ring begins to form just outside this dense layer,
and is often produced rapidly and with many large ducts and
vessels among the woody fibers. In short, the ring of wood in-
creases in density from the inside to the outside, and this being
followed up year after year, the most dense or autumn wood is
brought close to that which is the most porous, and the ring struc-
ture when seen in mass inevitably results.

It is not unusual for one side of a stem to grow faster than
another, and then after a few years the center is toward one side
of the middle, and the stem is called excentric. This is quite
uniformly the case with all climbing stems, and the writer has a
vivid recollection of a microscopic study of this subject of stem
eccentricty in the poison ivy, for the work was interrupted by
the swelling and closing of the eye most engaged in the task.
Fig. 1 is still a fertile subject, and gives the observer a view of
both this eccentricity and an irregularity not uncommon in
stems. For some reason — and it might have been one of many —
when the stem was about ten years old a defect developed, as
shown upon the lower right-hand side, when each succeeding ring
formed quite an angle that was gradually outgrown during the
subsequent ten years. This blemish is shown perhaps to less ad-
vantage in the positive (Fig. 2).

The points that have been brought out in the papaw stem are
also shown in the section of the ash. From what has been said it
is evident that the lower side of the picture represents the inner
side of the section. The center of the tree was where two pencils
would intersect if held with their tips to the right and left side
respectively of the lower edge of the engraving and at right an-
gles to the curvature shown by the rings of growth. The tree
from which the section used in the engraving was cut must
needs have been at least a foot in diameter, but how much more
can not be determined, for there is no means of knowing how
far it is from the outermost ring shown to the bark. This could
be determined in a general way from a knowledge of the ratio

320

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which obtains between the sap wood and the heartwood in this
species.

The ash has certain peculiarities which separate it quickly
from the papaw and naost other woods. There is, in short, almost
as much individuality in the woody tissues as in the foliage or
flowers of many trees. Note, for example, the well-marked porous

Fig. 0. — Radial Section of Pin Oak.

portions, each ring being made up of two quite distinct parts,
namely, the open vascular inner part and the dense fibrous outer
portion. This arrangement of substance is conducive to that
elasticity so characteristic of the ash, and, together with its medi-
um weight, fits it for very wide and extensive service in imple-
ments and other ways.

There is another feature of woods, and one of great value from
the artistic as well as economic standpoint, that the solar print
illustrates. It is shown in some of its beauty in Figs. 1 and 2,
while it fails quite completely in the ash — namely, the thin, radiat-
ing bands which connect the center of the ste with the periphery
and are known to botanists as the medullary rays, and to the
workers in wood as the " silver grain." Fig. 4 is here introduced
as showing this element of structure in a remarkable manner.
The section is of the pin oak, and the lower right-hand corner
represents for our purpose the center of the stem. The rings of
wood are wide, irregularly scalloped, and show the points of struc-
ture previously mentioned in a superior manner. But best of all
are the lines shot through the whole timber like rays of light (in
the negative. Fig. 5) from the center to the circumference. They
introduce another element, which up to this time has been left

SUNSHINE THROUGH THE WOODS. 321

in the background. An exogenous stem may be said to consist
of a central pith, seen best during the first years and often there-
after disappearing, and an outer ring of pitlilike substance, the
inner bark, and a series of plates connecting the two, also of the
nature of pith. These thin plates separate incompletely the wood
into wedges, and on account of them it often splits more easily
in radial lines than in others, and may crack along them in ordi-
nary drying. These thin, shiny, radiating plates of cells lying
between the ordinary tissue of the wood give to some sorts of tim-
ber its beauty and value. Oak in all its strength would be lack-
ing in much of its peculiar attractiveness were the silver grains
absent. Fig. 6 shows a radial, longitudinal section of the pin oak
with a few of these plates in view. They are usually small in
area and appear in the finished article of furniture as shining,
smooth patches, no two of the same size or shape. The beauty of
this system of radiating plates is often enhanced by a curling and
twisting, due to small knots scattered through the wood, as in-
stanced in some sorts of maple, as the so-called "bird's-eye," a
most attractive wood for finishing.

The birch is a good illustration of the wood being flecked,
as shown in Fig. 7, a sample of the river birch. This wood is

~

«» VMi

-<•

•0"

~-

—->.

r*"

""

^

^ ^itr '^^^ ~- *^

Fig. 7. — Cross Section of Kivkk Dikdii.

peculiar in the absence of any conspicuous medullary rays, and of
prominent vascular areas in the annual rings, and therefore with
the exception of the pithy patches, the wood is quite uniform
throughout ; but the coloration characteristics of the heart may
appear upon one side of the center like a radiating fan, thus
showing that the change of color is far from constant, and does
not depend upon the wood having reached a certain fixed age.
Many other sections of wood might be shown, and each in its

322

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turn would exhibit peculiarities, but the purpose of the paper it
is hoped has been attained — namely, to show engravings made
from sun prints of thin sections of wood with the various ele-
ments of structure in the proper position and of natural size.

A single enlarged view of a section of the ash is herewith
given, and both indicate the structure seen in Fig. 8 on a larger
scale, and show that pictures of such objects may well be taken

Fig. 8.— Cross Section of Ash. Magnified.

with the light passing through the object falling upon the sen-
sitized plate in the dark chamber of the camera. By a com-
parison of Figs. 8 and 3 it will be seen that the two show the
same ash wood in transverse section. In fact, a small portion of
Fig. 3 near its center was selected for the picture from which
engraving 8 was made, and this last is therefore no exception, for
it was also a catching of a picture by Sunshine through the
Wood.

In his .snV)terranean explorations from 1888 to 1893, M. Martel has found that
the temperature of natural caves is not equivalent to the mean annual tempera-
ture of the place, hut is inconstant; is not uniform in ditferent parts of the same
cave; and that the temperature of water in caverns is suhject to the same varia-
tions as tlie temperature of the air, and is sometimes very different from the tem-
perature of the air. The causes of t!ie?e variations are not well understood, but
as among them M. Martel mentions fissures admitting air from witliout; cavities
in which cold air settles; and the influence of water, which cools the air through
the evaporation of its oozings, or, when streams flow through the cave, hrings in
all the variations of the external air.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 323

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD.

I.— THE AGE OF IMAGINATION.

By JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D.,

GROTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

LONDON.

ONE of the few things we seemed to be certain of with respect
to child nature was that it is fancy-full. Childhood, we all
know, is the age for dreaming, for decking out the as yet un-
known world with the gay colors of imagination, for living a life
of play or happy make-believe. So that nothing seems more child-
like in the " Childhood of the World " than the myth-making im-
pulse, the overflow of fancy to hide the nakedness of things.

Yet even here, perhaps, we have been content with loose gen-
eralization in place of careful observation and analysis of facts.
For one thing the play of infantile imagination is probably much
less uniform than is often supposed. There seem to be matter-of-
fact children who can not rise buoyantly to a bright fancy. Mr.
Ruskin, of all men, has recently told us that when a child he was
incapable of acting a part or telling a tale ; that he never knew a
child " whose thirst for visible fact was at once so eager and so
methodic." * We may accept the report of Mr. Ruskin's memory
as proving that he did not idle away his time in day dreams, but
by long and close observation of running water and the like laid
the foundations of that fine knowledge of the appearances of Na-
ture which everywhere shines through his writings. Yet one
may be permitted to doubt whether a writer who shows not only
so rich and graceful a style but so truly poetic an invention could
have been in every respect an unimaginative child.

Perhaps the truth will turn out to be the paradox that most
children are at once matter-of-fact observers and dreamers, pass-
ing from the one to the other as the mood takes them and with a
facility which grown people may well envy. My own observa-
tions go to show that the prodigal output of fancy, the reveling
in myth and story, are often characteristic of a period of child-
hood only. We are apt to lump together such different levels
of experience and capacity under that abstraction " the child."
The wee mite of three and a half years, spending more than half
its day in trying to realize all manner of pretty, odd, startling-
fancies about animals, fairies, and the rest, is something vastly
unlike the boy of six or seven whose mind is now bent on under-
standing the make and go of machines and of that big machine
the world.

* Frjeterita, p. ^76.

3 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

So far as I can gather from inquiries sent to parents and other
observers of children, a large majority of boys and girls alike are
for a time fancy-bound, A child that did not want to play and
cared nothing for the marvels of story-land would surely be re-
garded as queer and not just what a child ought to be. Yet sup-
posing that this is the right view, there still remains the question
whether imagination always works in the same way in the child-
ish brain. This is a point about which we are beginning to know
something definite. The movements of fancy may be expected to
have as many directions as the impulsive forces of young inter-
ests, and these we know are numberless. Fairies and angels
(which are not differentiated in the child's consciousness), the
animal world, the mysterious past before the baby came, the do-
ings of the great j)eople up in the sky — these appear to be some
of the favorite haunts of the young fancy.

Science is beginning to aid us in understanding the differences
of childish imagination. For one thing it is leading us to see
that a child's whole imaginative life may be specially colored by
the preponderant vividness of certain orders of images ; that one
child may live imaginatively in a colored world, another in a
world of sounds, another rather in a world of movement. It is
easy to note in the case of certain children of the more lively and
active turn how the supreme interest of story as of play lies in
the ample range of movement and bodily activity. Robinson
Crusoe is probably for the boyish imagination more than any-
thing else the goer and the doer.*

■With this difference in the elementary composition of imagi-
nation there are others which turn on temperament, tone of feel-
ing, and preponderant directions of emotion. Imagination is
intimately bound up with the life of feeling, and will assume as
many directions as this life assumes. Hence the familiar fact
that in some children imagination broods by preference on gloomy
and terrifying objects, religious and other, whereas in others it
selects what is bright and gladsome ; that while in some cases it
has more of the poetic quality, in others it leans rather to the sci-
entific or the practical type.

Enough has been said perhaps to show that the imaginative-
ness of children is not a thing to be taken for granted as existing
in all in precisely the same way. It is eminently a variable fac-
ulty, requiring especial study in the case of each new child.

But, even waiving this fact of variability, it may, I think, be
said that we are far from understanding the precise workings
of imagination in children. We talk, for example, glibly about

r ^

* The different tendencies of children toward visual, auditory, niotpr images, etc., are
dealt with by I'. Qiieyrat, L'Imagination et ses vanetes cliez Tenfant.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 325

tlieir play, their make-believe, their illusions; but how much do
we really know of their state of mind when they act out a little
scene of domestic life or of the battlefield ? We have, I know,
many fine observations on this head. Careful observers of chil-
dren and conservers of their own childish experiences, such as
Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Jean Paul, Madame Necker, George Sand,
have told us much that is valuable ; yet I suspect that there must
be a much wider and finer investigation of children's action and
talk before we can feel quite sure that we have got at their men-
tal whereabouts, and know how they feel when, for example, they
pretend to enter the dark wood, the home of the wolf, or to talk
with their deities, the fairies.

Perhaps I have said enough to justify my plea for new obser-
vations, and for reconsideration, in the light of these, of hasty
theories. Nor need we object to a fresh survey of what is perhaps
the most delightful side of child life. I often wonder, indeed,
when I come across some precious bit of droll infantile acting, or
"of sweet child-soliloquy, how mothers can bring themselves to
lose one drop of the fresh, exhilarating draught which daily wells
up from the fount of a child's fantasy.

Nor is it merely for the sake of its inherent charm that chil-
dren's imagination deserves further study. In the early age of
the individual and of the race what we enlightened persons call
fancy has a good deal to do with the first crude attempts at un-
derstanding things. Child-thought, like primitive folk-thought,
is saturated with myth, vigorous Fantasy holding the hand of
Reason — as yet sadly rickety on his legs — and showing him
which way he should take. In the beginning of the moral life,
again, we shall see how easily the realizing force of young imagi-
nation may expose its possessor to deception by others, and to
self-deception too, with results that clearly simulate the guise of
a knowing falsehood. On the other hand, a careful following out
of the various lines of imaginative activity may show how moral
education, by vividly suggesting to the child's imagination a wor-
thy part, a praiseworthy action, may work powerfully on the un-
formed and flexible structure of a child's will, moving it duty-
ward.

The play of the young imagination meets us in the domain of
sense-observation : a child is fancying when it looks at things and
touches them, and moves among them. This may seem a paradox
at first, but in truth there is nothing paradoxical here. It is an
exploded psychological fallacy that sense and imagination are
wholly apart. No doubt, as the ancients told us, fantasy comes
of sense ; we live over again in waking and sleeping imagination
the sights and sounds of the real world. Yet it is no less true
that imagination in an active constructive form takes part in the

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

very making of what we call sense-experience. We learn to read
the visual symbol, a splash of light or color, now as a stone, now
as a pool of water, just because imagination drawing from past
experience supplies the interpretation, the group of qualities
which composes a hard, solid mass, or a soft, yielding liquid.

Children's fanciful readings of things, as when they call the
twinkling star a (blinking) eye, are but an exaggeration of what
we all do. Their imagination carries them very much further.
Thus they may attribute to the stone they see a sort of stone-soul,
and speak of it as feeling tired.

This lively way of envisaging objects is, as we know, similar to
that of primitive folk, and has something of crude Nature-poetry
in it. This tendency is abundantly illustrated in the metaphors
which play so large a part in children's talk. As everybody
knows, a child describes what he sees or hears by analogy to some-
thing he knows already. This is called by some, rather clumsily,
I think, apperceiving. For example, a small, oscillating compass
needle was called by a child a bird, on the ground of a faint like-'
ness of form and fluttering movement. M. Taine tells us of a
little girl who called the eyelids prettily eye-curtains. Distant
and unknown things, for example the moon, will naturally come
in for much of this vivid imaginative interpretation. Thus the
moon when reduced to a crescent was said by a boy of three to be
broken. American children described it ingeniously as half stuck
or half buttoned into the sky.* Similarly with sounds. The
spluttering of coals in the fire was called barking by a little girl
of four and a half years. The American children already referred
to described thunder variously as a throwing down of toys, a
shooting in of coals, and so forth.

This play of imagination in connection with apprehending
objects of sense has a strong vitalizing or personifying element.
That is to say, children, in common with uncivilized peoples, see
what we regard as lifeless and soulless as alive and conscious.
Thus a child will say a tree rustling in a cold wind " shivers."
The tree is apprehended or " apperceived " as having sensation
and behaving as the child itself behaves. Moving things come in
for most of this personifying impulse. A little girl of five, pleased
at being aide to manage her hoop, said : " Mamma, I do b'lieve
this hoop must be alive, it's so sensible ; it goes where I want
it to."

Children's fear of feathers, of which I have several instances,
and which they have in common with uncultured folk, is proba-

* These wore (.'liiliiren entering the primary school of Boston, whose ideas are described
by Dr. Stanley Hall, in an article on The Contents of Children's Minds, in the Princeton
Review.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 327

bly due to tlie iincanny look of a sort of ghost life as the light,
unsubstantial thing slowly moves of itself from the ground and
poises in mid-air. Perha]3S a dog's uneasiness at the sight of leaves
whisked in an eddy over the ground by the wind shows a degree
of the same personifying instinct. Sometimes this endowment of
things with sensation leads to a quaint manifestation of sympa-
thj'-. Miss Ingelow writes of herself when a little over two years
old and for about a year after : " I had the habit of attributing in-
telligence not only to all living creatures, the same amount and
kind of intelligence that I had myself, but even to stones and
manufactured articles. I used to feel how dull it must be for the
pebbles in the causeway to be obliged to lie still and only see what
was round about. When I walked out with a little basket for
putting flowers in I used sometimes to pick up a pebble or two
and carry them on to have a change ; then at the farthest point
of the walk turn them out, not doubting that they would be
pleased to have a new view." *

This is by no means a unique example of a childish lavishing
of pity on what we think the insentient world. Plant life seems
often to excite the feeling. Here is a quotation from a parent's
chronicle. A girl aged eight brings a quantity of fallen autumn

leaves in to her mother, who says, "Oh! how pretty, F !" to

which the girl answers : " Yes, I knew you'd love the poor things,
mother. I couldn't bear to see them dying on the ground." A
few days afterward she was found standing at a window over-
looking the garden, crying bitterly at the leaves as they fell in
considerable numbers.

This is not the place to speak of the rich endowment of the
animal world with human susceptibilities by the childish imagi-
nation. We all know how grotesquely the little humanitarian
insists on fondling pussy, or wiping her nose, and otherwise tor-
menting that long-sufi^ering quadruped, all from the kindest of
motives.

Now it may be asked whether all this analogical extension of
images to what seem to us such incongruous objects involves a
vivid and illusory apprehension of these as transformed. Is the
eyelid realized and even seen for the moment as a sort of curtain,
the curtain image blending with and transforming what is present
to the eye ? Are the pebbles actually looked at as living things
condemned to lie stiffly in one place ? It is of course hard to say,
yet I think a conjectural answer can be given. In this imagina-
tive contemplation of things the child only half observes what is
present to its eyes. One or two points of supreme interest in the
visible thing, the falling of the leaf, the hiding of the eye by the

* See her article The Historv of an Infancy. Longman's Magazine, February, 1890.

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lid, are selectively attended to ; and assimilative imagination, the
overlaying of the visual impression with an image called up by
similarity or analog}^, does the rest. In this way the actual field
of visible objects is apt to get veiled, its appearance being trans-
formed by the wizard touch of a lively childish fancy.

No doubt there are various degrees of illusion here. In its
matter-of-fact and really scrutinizing mood a child will not con-
found what is seen with what is imagined ; in this case the
analogy recalled is distinguished and used as an explanation of
what is seen — as when a child observed of a panting dog, " Dat
bow-bow like puff-puiT." On the other hand, when another little
boy aged three years and nine months, seeing the leaves falling
exclaimed, " See, mamma, the leaves is flying like dickey-birds
and little butterflies ! " it is hard not to think that the child's
fancy for the moment transformed what he saw into the pretty
pictures. And one may risk the opinion that, with the little
thinking power and controlling force of will which a child pos-
sesses, the chances are that such assimilative activity of imagi-
nation always tends in the young brain to develop a degree of
momentary illusion.

It may be added that abundant evidence goes to show that
children at first quite seriously believe that all things are alive
and feel. A child starts from himself as the model of a thing, and
mentally fashions other things like himself. He has slowly to
learn the distinction between the living and the lifeless, the sen-
tient and the insentient. No parent who has lived with his chil-
dren could, I think, doubt this. Dr. Stanley Hall's inquiries have,
among other curious results, shown that out of forty-eight little
ones just attaining the school age, twenty believed the moon and
stars to be alive, fifteen thought a doll and sixteen thought flow-
ers would suffer pain if burned. Perhaps a good many more had
a secret belief to the same effect, but through shyness and a
shrewd half-guess of the drift of the question declined to be drawn
into a categorical statement. The animism of children is apt to
get laughed at, and as soon as that begins they become reserved
and secretive of the " contents " of their minds.

There is another way in which imagination may combine with
and transform sensible objects, viz., by what is commonly called
association. Mr, Ruskin tells us that when young he associated the
name crocodile with the creature so closely that the long series of
letters took on something of the look of the lanky creature. The
same writer in his Prseterita tells of a Dr. Grant into whose thera-
peutic hands he fell when a child. "The name" he adds, "is
always associated in my mind with a brown powder — rhubarb or
the like — of a gritty or acrid nature. . . . The name always sound-
ed to me gr-r-ish and granular/'

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 329

We can most of us, perhaps, recall similar experiences, where
colors and sounds, in themselves indifferent, took on either through
analogy or association a decidedly repulsive character. How far,
one wonders, does this process of transformation of things go in
the case of imaginative children ? There is some reason to say
that it may go very far, and that, too, when there is no strong
feeling at work cementing the combined elements. A child's feel-
ing for likeness is commonly keen and subtle, and knowledge of
the real relations of things has not yet come to check the impulse
to this free, far-ranging kind of assimilation. Dickens was not,
one feels sure, the only child who saw odd resemblances in letters,
finding, for example, that the thick O and S of his primer stood
out from the rest as the easy, good-natured ones. This sort of
fanciful reading of character into things is of the very life of
childhood. Before the qualities and the connections of objects
are sufficiently known for them to be interesting in themselves,
they can only acquire interest through the combining art of child-
ish fancy. And the same is true of associated characters. A
child's ear may not dislike a grating sound, a harsh noise, as our
ear dislikes it, because of its immediate effect on the sensitive
organ. En revanche it will like and dislike sounds for a hundred
reasons unknown to us, just because the quick, strong fancy, add-
ing its life to that of the senses, gives to impressions much of
their significance and much of their value.

There is a new field of investigation which is illustrating in a
curious way this wizard influence which childish imagination
wields over the things of sense. It is well known that a certain
number of people habitually color the sounds they hear, visualiz-
ing the sound of a vowel, or of a musical tone, as having its char-
acteristic tint which they are able to describe accurately. This
" colored hearing," as it is called, is always traced back to the dimly
recalled age of childhood. Children are now beginning to be
tested, and it is found that a good proportion possess the faculty.
Thus in the researches on the Boston children already referred to
it was found that out of fifty-three, twenty-one, or nearly one
half, described the tones of certain instruments as colored. The
particular color, as also the degree of its brightness, ascribed to an
instrument, varied greatly among different children, so that, for
example, one child visualized the tone of a fife as pale or bright,
while another imaged it as dark.* It is highly probable that both
analogy and association play a part here.f As was recently sug-
gested to me by a correspondent, the classic instance of the anal-

* See the article, Contents of Children's Minds, already quoted, pp. 265, 266.
f This has been well brought out by Prof. Flournoy, of Geneva, in his volume, Des
Phenomenes de Synopsie (audition coloree), chap. ii.
VOL. XLV. — 26

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ogy between scarlet and the note of a trumpet may easily be due,
in part at least, to association of tins tone with the scarlet uniform.

I may add that I once happened to overhear a little girl of six
talking to herself about numbers in thiswise: "Two is a dark
number, forty is a white number." I questioned her, and found
that the digits had each its distinctive color, thus : " one," white ;
" two," dark ; " three," white ; " four," dark ; " five," pink, and so
on. " Nine " was pointed and dark, " eleven " dark green, showing
that some of the digits were much more distinctly visualized than
others. Just three years later I tested her again and found she
still visualized the digits, but not quite in the same way. Thus,
although " one " and " two " were white and black as before,
" three " was now gray, " four " red, " five " pink, " nine " had lost
its color, and " eleven," oddly enough, had turned from dark green
to bright yellow.

This case suggests that in early life new experiences and asso-
ciations may modify the tint and the shade of sounds. However
this be, children's colored hearing is worth noting as the most
striking example of the general tendency to supplement and to
overlay sense-impressions with vivid images. It seems reasonable
to suppose that colored hearing and other allied phenomena, as
the picturing of numbers, days of the week, etc., in a certain
scheme or diagrammatic arrangement, when they show them-
selves after childhood, are to be viewed as survivals of early fan-
ciful brain work. This fact, taken along with the known vivid-
ness of the images in colored hearing, which in certain cases
approximate to sense-perception, seems to me to confirm the view
here put forth, that children's imagination may alter the world of
sense in ways which it is hard for our older and stiff-jointed minds
to follow.

I have confined myself here to what I have called the play of
imagination, the magic transmuting of things through the sheer
liveliness and wanton activity of a child's fancy. How strong,
how vivid, how dominating such imaginative transformation
may become will of course be seen in cases where violent feeling,
and especially fear, gives preternatural intensity to the realizing
power of imagination. But this effect of emotion is too large a
subject to deal with here.

This playful transformation of the actual surroundings is, of
course, restrained in serious moments and in intercourse with
older and graver folk. There is, however, a region of child life
where it knows no check ; where the impulse to deck out the
shabby reality with what is bright and gay has it all its own way.
This region is Play. In another article, with the permission of
the editor, I hope to take up the subject of children's play, con-
sidered as an expression of their imaginative activity.

A COLONIAL WEATHER SERVICE. 331

A COLONIAL WEATHER SERVICE.

Bv ALEXANDER McADIE, M. A.

THE Signal Service was thoroughly organized as a meteoro-
logical body in November, 1870. As Americans we are
justly proud of the work accomplished by it and its immediate
successor the Weather Bureau. Toward the establishment and
success of the meteorological service the army, the navy, and civil
life contributed representative men : Myer, the soldier physician,
dubbed by his countrymen " Old Probs " ; Manry, the seaman
whose pen could trace on many pages descriptions ever pleasing
and instructive ; and Ferrel, citizen professor amid military men,
one so diffident and reserved that he carried to and from the
meetings of the National Academy, of which he was a member,
manuscripts of problems solved, which he would have liked to
make known but that a strange shyness prevented. Forecast-
ing weather changes had, however, been suggested earlier than
the date above given. It is said that the French war office, dur-
ing the siege of Sevastopol, sent to the allied fleets before the for-
tress information that a tempest was raging west of the Crimean
Peninsula. In the United States, Redfield, Espy, Coffin, Loomis,
Henry, and Lapham had argued the possibility of forecasting
weather changes if systematic simultaneous observations could
be had. Antedating all of these stands that uniquer philosopher,
the printer of Philadelphia, who had discovered, before the middle
of the eighteenth century, that " our northeast storms come from
the northwest." Before Franklin, however, came his correspond-
ent. Dr. John Lining, of Charleston, S. C, who kept a record of the
daily temperature in 1738. Thermometers had then been in use
but a few years. But the observations which were the most re-
markable of all, and which up to the present time have been
unnoticed if not indeed unknown, were made in Virginia about the
time of the Revolution. The observers were James Madison,
styled by that charming old traveler, the Marquis de Chastellux,
^' an eminent professor of mathematics " ; and Thomas Jeft'erson,
the Sage of Monticello. One was at Williamsburg, the colonial
capital, practically near the sea ; the other at Monticello, one
hundred and twenty miles west and north, practically in the
mountains.*

These two colonial gentlemen operated a weather service ; on
a small scale it is true, but the observers seem to have clearly
recognized that great underlying principle of all modern weather

* A voluminous correspondence between the two is on file in the State Department,
access to which was kindly granted b)' the Secretary of State.

A COLONIAL WEATHER SERVICE. 333

bureaus, the taking of observations simultaneously. Tliis, if
established, removes the palm of priority from Le Verrier and
France to our own country. True, no map was issued ; but a cen-
tury before either Le Verrier or the Signal Service, the principle
which makes the map possible was thought out and tried with
the best agencies at hand. Had the telegraph been in existence,
there is no telling what these acute-minded colonists would have
attempted.

Madison was by training and inclination a man of science, and
no one can disparage Jefferson's activity as an observer. It was
the practice of the latter to read his thermometer every day either
at sunrise or at nine in the morning, and at sunset or four in the
evening. Even the calls so frequently made upon him for active
service elsewhere, while interrupting the Monticello records, did
not prevent his taking observations as he journeyed. In his pri-
vate expense account * we find records of temperature, rainfall,
and weather jotted down with as much care and detail as expendi-
tures. In some pages at the end of the book, the title-page of
which reads, " The Philadelphia Newest Almanac for the Year of
our Lord 1776, being Leap Year, . . . By Timothy Telescope, Esq."
Jefferson has noted for the years 1776, 1777, and 1778 his personal
expense items and detailed systematic records of temperature and
rain. We turn the pages of this rare old diary slowly and there
are some entries on which the eye lingers, while one wonders
why these pages have not received the attention of historian and
meteorologist.

On July 4, 1776, he jotted down among his expenses :

pd. Sparhawk for a thermometer £3 /15

pd. for V pair of women's gloves /27

gave in charity 1/6

And on July 8th the same year :

pd. Sparhawk for a barometer £4 /lO

pd. 2 dinners at Smith's 18/6

Sparhawk, I surmise, was an instrument-maker, and the price
paid for the thermometer indicates an instrument of high order.
From intimations in various places one can almost believe that
the purchase of this high-priced instrument was regarded by Jef-
ferson as an act of self-indulgence. Whether it served to relieve
the mental strain incident to the doings of that ever-memorable
week, or whether he was simply eager to study the new acquisi-
tion, certain it is that the entries are more than usually frequent.

* These MSS. are in the possession of the family at Edge Hill, Va., to whom I am
indebted for manv kindnesses.

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

There, in Jefferson's own fine hand, stands the record of his obser-
vations :

HOrR. THERM. HOUR. THERM.

1776, July 1 : 9.00 a. m 81^° July 3 : 1.30 p. m 76°

7.00 p. M 82° 8.10 p. m 74°

July 2 : 6.00 a. m 78° July 4 : 6.00 a. m 68°

9.40 a. M 78° 9.00 A. M 72i°

9.00 p. M 74° 1.00 p. M 76°

July 3 : 5.30 a. M 71-|° 9.00 p. m 73^°

The fourth of July, 1776, was, then, relatively cool. I think
statements to the contrary have been made, and the day described
as hot and sweltering. More than one historian may have drawn
upon imagination in describing the weather of those first days in
July when the signers of the Declaration were gathered together
in Philadelphia. Strange that from the same hand that penned
the Declaration should come at this late date a true statement of
the weather of that period. One can not help a feeling of sur-
prise that Jefferson, with so many duties pressing, should have
found time to make these detailed observations.

The Colonial Weather Service experienced all the vicissitudes of
war. Madison writes to Jefferson somewhat pathetically as follows :

"I wish we had a barometer; but there is no possibility of
getting one here at present. The British robbed me of my ther-
mometer and barometer." This must have been a serious loss to
the colonial meteorologists, although to us there is a touch of the
ludicrous in the very idea of British soldiery relieving the college
professor of his thermometer and barometer. Perhaps the instru-
ments would have been spared could the commanding officer have
foreseen that in a few years, the war ended and the colonies inde-
pendent, this very professor was to go to England and be conse-
crated as Bishop of Virginia.

But notwithstanding interruptions, our meteorologists per-
severed, and their long -continued correspondence is full of
wherefores and luhys which even at this day are of interest and
meaning. They ascertained " by contemporaneous observations
of between five and six weeks" that "the averaged and al-
most unvaried difference of the height of mercury in the barom-
eter at these two places was 0"784: of an inch ; the pressure at
Monticello being so much the lightest — that is to say, about a
thirty-seventh of its whole weight.*

Furthermore — and this is truly remarkable — they proved in
their own words " the variations in the weight [meaning pres-
sure] of the air to be simultaneous and corresponding in these tivo
places." Many data were collected regarding the climate of A^ir-

* Notes on Virginia, second American edition, Philadelphia, November 12, 1794.

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336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ginia. The value of the work can be judged by Jefferson's state-
ments under Query 7 in his Notes on Virginia :

"Journals of observations on the quantity of rain and degree
of heat being lengthy, confused, and too minute to produce gen-
eral and distinct ideas, I have taken five years' observations, to
wit from 1772 to 1777, made in Williamsburg and its neighbor-
hood, have reduced them to an average for every month in the
year, and stated those averages in the following table, adding an
analytical view of the winds for the same period."

Then follows quite a long table of average temperatures and
wind directions of great interest to the meteorologist. Thinking
that some noteworthy differences might exist between the north-
east and northwest winds at the two stations, a second table was
constructed by reducing observations at the two places for nine
months to the " four points perpendicular to and parallel to the
coast. It may be seen that the southwest wind prevails equally
at both places, that the northeast is next to this the principal
wind toward the seacoast, and the northwest is the predominant
wind toward the mountains ; . . . the northeast wind is loaded
with vapor insomuch that the salt-makers have found that their
crystals would not shoot while that blows ; it brings a distressing
chill, and is heavy and oppressive to the spirits ; the northwest is
dry, cooling, elastic, and animating."

Even our valuable Crop Bulletin was foreshadowed by these
early workers. We find it recorded that " white frosts are fre-
quent when the thermometer is at 47° and have killed young
plants of Indian corn at 48°, and have even been known at 54°.
Black frost and even ice have been produced at .38|^°."

Finally, that much-discussed matter, change in climate, did
not escape their notice. "A change in climate," they claim, "is
taking place very sensibly." This was written in 1781. "Both
heats and colds are becoming much more moderate within mem-
ory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less
deep. They do not often lie below the mountains more than one,
two, or three days, and very rarely a week."

And then follows a very evident reference to that even then
well-known personage, the oldest inhahitant :

" The snows are remembered to have been formerly frequent,
deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me that the
earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every
year."

From snows and winds these meteorologists turned their at-
tention to rainbows, and from rainbows to water vapor and
steam. Curiously enough, it is in a letter to Jefferson, mostly
about the rainbow, that Madison gives the latest information
about a boat to be propelled by steam and which " General W

A COLONIAL WEATHER SERVICE. 337

and others have seen and approved, and is much discussed by the
well-informed ; but which I must say I feel sTceptical about''

What a contrast ! The steam navigation of that date and to-
day; from the first rude paddles of the river steamboat to the
triple screws of the transatlantic greyhounds! One naturally
asks, " Are we to-day on the verge of a still greater navigation,
that of the air ? " No modern Madison may yet write that some

General W has seen and approved, but the signs of its advent

are multiplying so rapidly that he would not say, " I feel skeptical
about it." If these two alert minds were again on earth, we can
fancy Jefferson, always so keenly alive to practical application of
knowledge, discussing the outlook as follows :

The meteorologists are exultant. In that latest instrument of
the electrical engineer, the telautograph, they see the chance for
an advance equal to that made when the first synoptic weather
map was drawn. Simultaneity of observation can be improved
upon. Instead of sending the observations in cipher twice or
thrice per day, continuous records in installments can be sent.
But even more than this, the map can be drawn in many places at
once. The map is issued daily at a score of cities in the United
States. A map is also issued daily at Brussels, Paris, London,
Zurich, Hamburg, Rome, Munich, Vienna, Chemnitz, Madrid, Al-
giers, St, Petersburg, Simla, Brisbane, Sydney, Tokio, and Cape
Town. Now one step further. Shall there ever he one great cen-
tral weather office and one great daily weather map for the tvhole
world, drawn not in one hut a hundred cities at the same moment ?
Does this seem visionary ? It is vastly less so than the actual
system in operation for the past twenty years would have seemed
to the two colonial gentlemen who more than a century ago read
their barometers and thermometers simultaneously and sj)eculated
on the possibility of propulsion by steam.

ViEwiNa exact delineation by trigonometrical measurement as the crowning
work of geography, Mr. Clements R. Markham pointed out, in a recent lecture,
that the exact mapping of the land surface of the globe is still very incomplete,
while the delineation of the bed of the ocean has hardly begun. The greatest
unknown areas lie in the polar regions Even in Europe there remains scope for
detailed survey in many countries. In Africa the unexplored has been diminish-
ing very rapidly, but considerable areas are still virgin. Asia has much new
ground to break into. The valleys of Iladramant in Arabia are almost as little
known as the antarctic regions. Lhassa has been unvisited by Englishmen for
generations, and a vast region in northwestern Thibet is still a blank on our
maps. Nepaul is little known ; Kafiristan is absolutely secluded from the Euro-
pean. The maze of mountain ranges and river valleys east of the Himalayas has
yet to be unraveled, and the whole interior of Indo China is full of opportunities
for research. Korea is yet far from being fully known. The great Malay Archi-
pelago must receive more attention.

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS.*

By L. N. BADENOCH.

IN no branch of insect work are more admirable means em-
ployed to bring about the desired ends, or is greater diversity
of method found, than in that of insect architecture. The beauty
of the buildings in many cases is incomparable, and generally
speaking the abodes attain a magnitude colossal as compared
with that of their creators. It may be exception will be taken
to the use of the word architecture to designate this portion of
the insect economy, and perhaps the term can hardly be applied
in fairness to homes which are mere tunnels and galleries bored
in the earth or in wood. But who would deny it to the exquisite
pensile nests of the English wasps, or those of many a foreign
relative, to the geometric precision exhibited within the hive of
the honey bee, or to the edifices of some ants, as will be presently
discovered ?

Among the communities which combine their operations,
there are those of which the object is simply the protection of
the individuals composing them. To these societies belong the
caterpillars of certain species of moths. The homes formed by
these larvae, though they are not elaborate, are interesting in sev-
eral minute circumstances. But they fall short in every respect
of the attractive nests fabricated by companies of insects in their
perfect state, in view not only of self-preservation, but of the
nurture and education of their young as well.

The nests of an extraordinary tree ant, CEcophyUa smarag-
dina, are cunningly wrought with leaves, united together with
web (see Fig. 1). One was observed in New South Wales in the
expedition under Captain Cook. The leaves utilized were as
broad as one's hand, and were bent and glued to each other at
their tips. How the insects manage to bring the leaves into the
required position was never ascertained, but thousands were seen
uniting their strength to hold them down, while other busy mul-
titudes were employed within in applying the gluten that was to
prevent them returning back. The observers, to satisfy them-
selves that the foliage was indeed incurvated and held in this
form by the efforts of the ants, disturbed the builders at their
work, and as soon as they were driven away the leaves sprang
up, with a force much greater than it would ^have been deemed
possible for such laborers to overcome by any combination of
strength. The more compact and elegant dwelling of (^. vires-

* Reprinted, with tlie kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., from the author's
popular work, Romance of the Insect Workl.

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS.

339

cens is made of leaves, cut and masticated until they become a
coarse pulp. Its diameter is about six inches ; it is suspended
among thickest foliage, and sustained not only by the branches
on which it hangs, but by the leaves, which are worked into
the composition, and in many parts project from its outer wall.
It may be at once distinguished from the nest of Crematogaster
by its smoothness and regularity of surface. A species of this
genus was discovered in Africa by Foxcroft, who observed that
whenever the ants were molested, they rushed out of their house

Fig. 1. — Nest of a Teee Ant (fficoPHYLLA smaragdina) from India.

in such numbers that their pattering upon the papery covering
deluded him into thinking rain was falling on the leaves above.

In the forests of Cayenne, the nests of Formica hispinosa are
remarkably like a sponge or an overgrown fungus. The down or
cottony matter enveloping the seeds in the pods of the Bortibax
ceiba is used for their construction, vegetable fibers that are too
short to convert into fabrics, but which the ants contrive to felt
and weave into a compact and uniform mass, so dexterously that
all trace of the individuality of the threads is lost. The material
much resembles amadou, and like that substance is valuable for
stopping violent discharges of blood. In size the nests generally
have a diameter of eight or nine inches. The ant itself is little
and dark, and noted for two long, sharp spines on its thorax, one
on either side ; hence its scientific name of hispinosa, from the
Latin, meaning two-spined. Popularly it has been called the
fungus ant.

34°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The true social wasps, wliicli are arranged in one large family,
the Ves2ndce, form communities whose architectural labors will
not suffer on comparison even with those of the inhabitants of
the beehive. In fact, for daintiness and delicacy the nests of
many of the Vespidc^ constitute the most beautiful examples of
insect architecture.

Not the least extraordinary of the wasps are the Icarias, a
genus that extends through most of the warmer regions of the

world, specimens having
been taken in Africa, In-
dia, China, and Austra-
lia, and in many parts of
the Asiatic Archipelago.
Like the Polistes, their
nests are attached to
leaves, stalks, or branches
by a single footstalk, com-
posed of the same pa-
pery material as the cells.
Though slender, it is hard,
tough, and solid, and the
strength with which it is
fastened to the tree or
plant is surprising, ena-
bling it to uphold con-
siderable weight. At the
end of the petiole usually
a single cell, its mouth
directed downward, is
fixed ; the rest of the nest
consists of a double se-
ries of lateral cells until
the group is complete.
Those nearest to the foot-
stalk are the largest and
most perfect, since they are finished first; toward the other ex-
tremity the cells gradually diminish in size, and at that point
they are only just begun. As a whole they are well-defined
hexagons; their color is often a rather dark yellowish brown,
preventing them from being conspicuous in spite of their curi-
ous projection. The cell masses are small, so that the socie-
ties must be restricted. Possibly each group is the work of a
single female, who confines herself to raising her own progeny
which escape as soon as they are hatched. The nests are fre-
quently numerous in the same spot, and each society may set up
a number of separate homes in the vicinity of one another. Per-

Fio. 2. — Nest of Icaria variegata.

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS. 341

haps in this genus, as among the Polistes, workers are wanting
(see Fig. 2).

The wasps hitherto considered are distinguished as manufac-
turers of paper, in general fine and thin and more or less brittle,
the weakness of which they overcome by the superposition of a
great number of leaves. There is a large class who, while they
make many kinds of papyraceous tissues, are noted for a feature
in common — the fabrication of a solid and tough paper, a veri-
table cardboard, composed of only one layer of material, at times
very thick and resisting, at others slight and supple. Of this
substance, after the manner of Vespa, the wasps usually build a
papyraceous envelope or sac for the inclosure of their combs, and
as in that genus, the covering follows closely the direction of the
plan of the cells.

The genus Chartergus, one of the important groups of the
cardboard makers, includes insects apparently similar which
practice two strangely different forms of nidification. The nests
of C. chartarius, the most common in collections, are of frequent
occurrence in tropical America. Their cardboard is white, gray,
or of a buff color, tending to yellow, very fine and of polished
smoothness ; at the same time it is strong and so solid as to be
impervious to the weather. It can not be urged sufficiently, says
Reaumur, that this kind of envelope is indeed of a veritable card-
board, as beautiful as any we know how to make. Reaumur once
showed a piece to a cardboard manufacturer, and not the slightest
suspicion of its real nature was suggested to his mind. He turned
it over and over, he examined it thoroughly by the touch, he tore
it, and after all declared it to be made by one of his own profes-
sion, mentioning manufacturers at Orleans as the probable pro-
ducers. The nests may be conical or cylindrical, they may be
straight, but more often are somewhat curved ; some are almost
globe-shaped, but these varieties are of little importance. The
length of a well-sized nest is about a foot ; the largest yet discov-
ered was in Ceylon, and measured the astonishing size of six feet.
The edifice is pendulous on trees and attached, as it were, to a
suspensory ring, which embraces the branch and is tightly im-
pasted round it, or, according to Westwood, may be large com-
pared with the latter's circumference ; but it is probably a mistake
to say that the nest ever swings freely as on a pivot. The in-
terior consists of circular concave horizontal platforms of cells,
their mouths turned downward, each tier stretching right across
like so many floors, and fastened along its entire edge to the walls.
Communication is effected by a central opening through the bot-
tom and through every tier. When the number of inhabitants
becomes very great and a fresh series of cells is added, unlike
the British wasps who add to their abodes by a preliminary in-

342

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

crease of the envelope to admit of extension, of the tiers, the CJiar-
tergi go to work on precisely the opposite plan, first forming new
cells and covering them afterward. Taking the bottom of the
nest as a starting point, they set cells over its exterior surface,
being careful to extend the circumference by a row or two to

Fig. 3. — Wasp's Nest (Chartergus apicalis), Interior and Exterior.

augment the diameter in proportion to the length, so that the
symmetry of the building may not be lost. The walls are then
lengthened to include the fresh stage, and the end is closed with
a new floor, in its turn to become the ceiling of the next tier of
cells when further enlargement is desired. No trace of the addi-
tion is visible on the outside of the envelope, which would seem
constructed at one stroke.

The other kind of nest of Chartergus is constructed on a
straight and upright branch, having no lateral twigs. Its ele-
gance can not be sufficiently admired. Composed of a few cells
only, the combs are attached to the branch by means of petioles,
or solid masses of wax, keeping the groups in a horizontal and
parallel position. They stand one over the other, sometimes to
the number of ten, separated by considerable intervals, and so
admirably upheld by the petioles that the aid of all pillars or col-
umns is dispensed with. The envelope is a spindle of a single leaf
of ligneous paper, most artistic in appearance, being marked with

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS.

343

transverse parallel tubings and goffered. The fibers of the tissue
are arranged with surprising regularity; all the zones are united
with consummate art, and meet in a long and plainly shown line ;
the paper may be also variegated with longitudinal bands of dif-
ferent colors. The vase is firmly fixed to its axis at points slightly
above and below the uppermost and lowermost combs ; at no part
is it in continuity with the combs ; there is plenty of space be-
tween the two fabrics for the wasps to pass up and down within
their home with ease. Taking advantage of the wholly lateral
position of the combs with respect to the axis, the wasps render
their building less fragile than it would otherwise have been by
placing the branch to one side of the spindle, and it saves time
and trouble, without materially impairing the support, to leave
the wood exposed at the posterior surface of the papery mass.
The opening is small and situated at the lower end (see Fig. 3).

Very extraordinary are some of the nests in the collection
of the British Museum — the works of Myrapetra scutellai^is (see

Fig. 4. — View of Exterioe of Nest of Mteapetra sctjtellabis.

Fig. 4), a mere fanciful title. These huge erections are from
Central America, and the native authorities say of one that it
is not composed of wood fibers, but of the dung of the capincha,
one of the aquatic cavies of the region. One's attention is in-
stantly attracted to the fairly conical knobs or tubercles with

344

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wliicli the surface is thickly beset, of various size, and most
pointed where they are least exposed. Their disposition is in
horizontal zones, seeming to correspond more or less with the
comb tiers. While at the top of the nest they are comparatively
few, gradually the numbers increase toward the lower end, and
on the bottom they are so numerous that one's finger can scarcely
be laid between them. Like the envelope, they are made up of
several papery layers so closely blended as to be hardly distin-
guishable, forming a substance astonishinglj'- thick, hard, and
firm, in color of a dull dark brown, and of very coarse texture.
Of what use they are it is difficult to decide ; they may be simply

Fio. 5. — View of Interior of Nest of Mtrapetra scutellaris.

freaks of Nature. Although their tips are not acute, they may
defend the abode against the attacks of tigers, jaguars, kuguars,
and other mammalia partial to honey and the grubs of the hive.
The nest always hangs low, seldom more than three or four feet
from the ground, and protection would appear much needed. It
seems hardly possible to deny that they are for the double pur-
pose of concealing and of sheltering the entrances, which are in-
visible when the nest is looked at from above. Examination re-
veals them beneath a row of the projections, which overhang
them and keep off the rains like the eaves of a house ; the pas-
sages are also intricately twisted, so as to prevent the ingress of

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS. 345

moths or other enemies of any size. It is strange that the inte-
rior surface of the nest is provided with tubercles, a circumstance
that must put the insects to the trouble of gnawing them away
each time they add a stage. Probably the same material is again
employed in establishing fresh cells and in building the new plat-
form.

A longitudinal section shows the peculiar disposition of the
combs. Just as in the spherical nests of Polyhia, the highest ones
are perfect or almost perfect spheres; but this method of con-
struction is soon found to be too laborious. A nearly globular
mass of the brown paperlike substance exists at the top — the nu-
cleus, so to speak. The first combs closely surround this, so that
they form the best parts of hollow spheres ; then come great arcs
of circles, followed in regular order by other tiers, their rotundity
becoming gradually reduced until the curve of the lower ones is
extremely shallow, exactly like the tiers of Tatua, except that
they exhibit a trifling convexity on their lower surfaces. They
are carried to the common wall and thereto affixed, small spaces
being left open here and there between their edges and the en-
velope. The solid wall at the top is of great thickness (see Fig. 5).

In the nest in the British Museum already described, a quan-
tity of brownish-red honey was found in the upper combs, but
hard and dry. Even so long ago as the beginning of the century,
Azara, a Spanish officer, who was sent out by his Government to
Paraguay to make certain investigations in that country, men-
tions that a South American wasp which he calls chiguana has
the strange habit of hoarding honey. The chiguana of Azara, it
would seem, is identical with Polyhia scutellaris. At the time of
publication Azara's statement was not believed, so opposed was
the habit that he claimed for this insect to the known actions of
wasps. He and his men ate from the chiguana's store, and it
proved deleterious. St. Hilaire, a subsequent traveler, speaks of
two South American honey wasps. The honey of one was white
and innocuous, that of the other was reddish brown and poison-
ous. The good honey was in an oval, light-colored nest of thin,
papery material, totally different from the paper of Myrapetra,
and was observed by Hilaire on a small bush near Uruguay, at a
distance of only about a foot from the ground. This wasp has
been described as lecheguana. Probably under the term leche-
guana, or chiguana, as Azara has it, the inhabitants of America
confound many wasps of similar kinds, and it is rather a generic
title for all honey wasps than for one species in particular.

VOL. XLV. — 2*7

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LATITUDE AND VERTEBRA.

A STUDY IN THE EVOLUTION OF FISHES.
Br DAVID STARE JORDAN.

IN this paj^er is given an account of a curious biological problem
and of the progress which has been made toward its solution.
The discussion may have a certain popular interest from the fact
that it is a type of many problems in the structure and distribu-
tion of animals and plants which seem to be associated with the
laws of evolution. In the light of these laws they may be more
or less perfectly solved. On any other hypothesis than that of
organic evolution the solution of the present problem, for exam-
ple, would be impossible. On the hypothesis of special creation a
solution would be not only impossible but inconceivable.

It has been known for some years that in several groups of
fishes (wrasse fishes, flounders, and "rock cod," for example) those
species which inhabit northern waters have more vertebrae than
those living in the tropics. Certain arctic flounders, for example,
have sixty vertebrae ; tropical flounders have, on the average,
thirty. The significance of this fact is the problem at issue. In
science it is assumed that all facts have significance, else they
would not exist. It becomes necessary, then, to find out first just
what the facts are in this regard.

Going through the various groups of nonmigratory marine
fishes we find that such relations are common. In almost every
group the number of vertebrte grows smaller as we approach the
equator, and grows larger again as we pass into southern latitudes.

It would be tedious to try to prove this here by statistical
tables, but the value of generalization in science depends on such
evidence. This proof I have elsewhere * given in detail. Suffice
it to say that, taking an average netful of fishes of diff^erent kinds
at different places along the coast, the variation would be evident.
At Point Barrow or Cape Farewell or North Cape a seineful of
fishes would perhaps average eighty vertebrae apiece, the body
lengthened to make room for them ; at Sitka or St. Johns or Ber-
gen, perhaps, sixty vertebrre ; at San Francisco or New York or
St. Malo, thirty-five ; at Mazatlan or Pensacola or Naples, twenty-
eight ; and at Panama or Havana or Sierra Leone, twenty-five.
Under the equator the usual number of vertebra^ in shore fishes is

* In a more technical paper on this subject entitled Relations of Temperature to Yerte-
bric among Fishes, published in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum foi'
1891, pp. 107-120. Still fuller details are given in a i)aper contained in the Wilder Quar-
ter-Centnrv Hook, 189;j.

LATITUDE AND VERTEBRA. 347

twenty-four. Outside the tropics this number is the exception.
North of Cape Cod it is virtually unknown.

The next question which arises is whether we can find other
conditions that may affect these numbers. These readily appear.
Fresh-water fishes have in general more vertebrae than salt-water
fishes of the same group. Deep-sea fishes have more vertebrae
than fishes of shallow waters. Pelagic fishes and free-swimming
fishes have more than those which live along the shores, and more
than localized or nonmigratory forms.* The extinct fishes of
earlier geological periods had more vertebrae than the correspond-
ing modern forms which are regarded as their descendants. To
each of these generalizations there are occasional partial excep-
tions, but not such as to invalidate the rule.

All these effects should be referable to the same group of
causes. They may, in fact, be combined in one statement. All
other fishes have a larger number of vertebrae than the marine
shore fishes of the tropics. The cause of the reduction in num-
bers of vertebrae must therefore be sought in conditions peculiar
to the tropical seas. If the retention of the primitive large num-
ber is in any case a phase of degeneration, the cause of such de-
generation must be sought in the colder seas, in the rivers, and
in oceanic abysses. What have these waters in common that the
coral reefs, rocky islands, and tide pools of the tropics have not ?

In this connection we are to remember that the fewer verte-
brae indicates generally the higher rank. When vertebrae are few
in number, as a rule each one is larger. Its structure is more
complicated, its appendages are larger and more useful, and the
fins with which it is connected are better developed. In other
words, the tropical fish is more intensely and compactly a fish,
with a better fish equipment, and in all ways better fitted for the
business of a fish, especially for that of a fish that stays at home.

In my view the reduction in number and increase of impor-

* This is especially true among those fishes which swim for long distances, as, for ex-
ample, many of the mackerel family. Among such there is often found a high grade of
muscular power, or even of activity, associated with a large number of vertebrae, these ver-
tebra? being individually small and little differentiated. For long-continued muscular action
of a uniform kiad there would be perhaps an advantage in the low development of the
vertebi'al column. For muscular alertness, moving short distances with great speed, the
action of a fish constantly on its guard against enemies or watching for its prey, the advan-
tage would be on the side of few vertebrae. There is often a correlation between the free-
swimming habit and slenderness and suppleness of body, which again is often dependent
on an increase in numbers of the vertebral segments. These correlations appear as a dis-
turbing element in the problem rather than as furnishing a clew to its solution. In some
groups of fresh-water fishes there is a reduction in numbers of vertebrae, not associated with
any degree of specialization of the individual bone, but correlated with simple reduction in
size of body. This is apparently a phenomenon of degeneration, a survival of dwarfs where
conditions are unfavorable to full growth.

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tance of the individual vertebrae are simply part of this work of
making a better fish. Not a better fish for man's purposes — for
Nature does not care a straw for man's purposes — but a better
fish for the purposes of a fish. The competition in the struggle
for existence is the essential cause of the change. In the center
of competition no species can afi^ord to be handicapped by a weak
backbone and redundant vertebrae. Those who are thus weighted
can not hold their own. They must change or perish.

The influence of cold, darkness, monotony, and isolation is to
limit the struggle for existence, and therefore to prevent its
changes, preserving through the conservation of heredity the
more remote ancestral conditions, even though they carry with
them disadvantages and deficiencies. The conditions most favor-
able to fish life are among the rocks and reefs of the tropical seas.
About the coral reefs is the center of fish competition. A coral
archipelago is the Paris of fishes. In such regions is the greatest
variety of surroundings, and therefore the greatest number of
possible adjustments. The struggle is between fish and fish, not
between fishes and hard conditions of life. No form is excluded
from the competition. Cold, darkness, and foul water do not
shut out competitors, nor does any evil influence sap the strength.
The heat of the tropics does not make the water hot. It is never
sultry nor laden with malaria. The influence of tropical heat on
land animals is often to destroy vitality and check self-activity.
It is not so in the sea.

From conditions otherwise favorable in arctic regions the
majority of competitors are excluded by their inability to bear
the cold. River life is life in isolation. To aquatic animals river
life has the same limitations that island life has to the animals of
the land. The oceanic islands are behind the continents in the
process of evolution. In like manner the rivers are ages behind
the seas.

Therefore the influences which serve as a whole to intensify
fish life, and tend to rid the fish of every character or structure it
can not " use in its business," are most effective along the shores
of the tropics. One j^hase of this is the reduction in numbers of
vertebrse, or, more accurately, the increase of stress on each indi-
vidual bone.

Another phase is the process of cephalization, the process by
which the head becomes empnasized and the shoulder bones and
other structures become connected with it or subordinated to it.
Still another is the reduction and change of the swim-bladder and
its utter loss of the function of lung or breathing organ which it
occupied in the ganoid ancestors of modern fishes.

Conversely, as these changes are still in operation, we sliould
find that in cold waters, deep waters, dark waters, fresh waters.

LATITUDE AND VERTEBRAE. 349

inclosed waters, and in the waters of past geological epochs, the
process would be less completed, the numbers of vertebrae would
be larger, while the individual vertebra? remain smaller, less com-
plete, and less perfectly ossified.

This, in a general way, is precisely what we do find in exam-
ining the skeletons of a large variety of fishes.

The life of the tropics, so far as fishes are concerned, offers
many analogies to the life of cities, viewed from the standpoint
of human development. In the cities in general, the conditions
of individual existence for the man are most easy, but there also
competition of life is most severe. The struggle for existence is
not a struggle with the forces and conditions of Nature. It is
not a struggle with wild beasts, unbroken forests, or stubborn
soil, but a competition between man and man for the opportunity
of living.

It is in the city where the influences which tend to moderniza-
tion and concentration of the characters of the species go on most
rapidly. It is adaptation or death to each individual in the city :
every quality not directly useful tends to become lost or atrophied.

Conversely, it is in the " backwoods," the region farthest
from human conflicts, where primitive customs, antiquated pecul-
iarities, and useless traits are longest and most persistently re-
tained. The life of the " backwoods " may be not less active or
vigorous, but it will lack specialization. It is from the unused
possibilities of the " backwoods " that the progress of the future
comes. The high specialization of favored regions unfits its sub-
jects for life under changed conditions. The loss of muscular
power is often one of the results of skeletal specialization.

The coral reef is the metropolis of the fish. The deep sea, the
arctic sea, and the isolated rivers — these are the ichthyological
backwoods.

An exception to the general rule in regard to the numbers of
vertebrae is found in the case of the eel. Eels inhabit nearly all
seas, and everywhere they have many vertebrae. The eels of the
tropics are at once more specialized and more degraded. They
are better eels than those of northern regions, but, as the eel is a
degraded type, they have gone further in the loss of structures in
which this degeneration consists.

It is not well to push this analogy too far, but perhaps we can
find in the comparison of the tropics and the cities some sugges-
tion as to the development of the eel.

In the city there is always a class which follows in no degree
the general line of development. Its members are specialized in
a wholly different way. By this means they take to themselves
a field which others have neglected, making up in low cunning
what they lack in humanity or intelligence.

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thus, among the fishes, we have in the regions of closest com-
petition this degenerate and non-fishlike type, lurking in holes
among the rocks, or creeping in the sand, thieves and scavengers
among fishes. The eels thus fill a place otherwise left unfilled.
In their way they are perfectly adapted to the lives they lead. A
multiplicity of vertebral joints is useless to the typical fish, but
to the eel, strength and suppleness are everything. No armature
of fin or scale or bone is so desirable as its power of escaping
through the smallest opening.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR BILLROTH.

PROF. CHRISTIAN THEODOR ALBERT BILLROTH, one
of the most eminent surgeons of the century, died at the
Austrian winter resort Abbazia, on the Adriatic, February 6,
1894, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He was born at Bergen,
on the island of Riigen, the son of a Swedish Lutheran pastor,
April 20, 1839 ; began the study of medicine in 1848 at Greifs-
wald, in Pomerania, and, having continued his course at Got-
tingen and Berlin, was graduated in medicine from the latter
university in 1852. He then traveled, after the manner of Ger-
man professional students, visiting the schools of Paris and
Vienna ; served for several years as an assistant in tlie clinic of
Prof, von Langenbeck, in Berlin ; qualified as Privat Docent in
the University of Berlin in 185(i ; became Professor of Surgery
at Zurich in 1858, and in 1867 at Vienna, where he spent the rest
of his professional life. He was made a member of the Austrian
Chamber of Peers in 1887.

The beginning of his career as a professor in the University
of Zurich was very modest. He had only ten pupils during his
first semester, and his private practice, he was accustomed to say,
was not enough " to pay for his morning cup of coffee." His
reputation, however, quickly grew ; students flocked to his lec-
tures ; and with the co-operation of eminent colleagues, notably
Griesinger, the British Medical Journal says, he in a few years
raised the Medical Faculty of Zurich to a prominent place among
German-speaking schools. His clinic in Vienna, the same jour-
nal observes, has been for more than twenty six years " a kind of
surgical Mecca to which scientific pilgrims from all parts of the
world have resorted in constantly increasing numbers. . . . Here
his operative triumphs were won. He excised the larynx for can-
cer in 1868; performed resection of the oesophagus; and first re-
sected the stomach in 1881 for removing cancer of the pylorus.
During the Franco-German War of 1870-'7] he served in the mili-

DEATH OF PROFESSOR BILLROTH.

351

tary hospitals at Mannlieim and Weissenburg, and obtained there
so close and realizing views of the horrors of war that he was
afterward one of the most earnest and persistent advocates of
peace. His experience there also bore fruit in an address which
he delivered in December, 1801, on the care of the wounded in
war, which led to a large appropriation by the Austrian Cham-
bers for the provision of adequate means of succor for the
wounded ; and great improvements have been made in the trans-
port of the wounded and in ambulance service generally. He was
the founder of the Rudolphin-Haus, a school for hospital nurses,
and projected a model hos-
pital in Vienna, made up of
separate and isolated dwell-
ings.

Prof. Billroth's literary ac-
tivity is pronounced im-
mense. He was the author of
about one hundred and forty
books and papers. Among
the more important of them
are the Deutsche Chirurgie,
which he prepared in connec-
tion with Liicke ; the Text-
Book of General and Special
Surgery of Billroth and Von
Pitha, published in 1883, to ''

which he contributed the sec-
tion on Scrofulosis and Tuberculosis, Injuries and Diseases of the
Breast, Instruments and Operations, Frostbites, etc. ; Nursing at
Home and in Hospital ; General Surgical Pathology and Thera-
peutics, which has been translated into nine languages ; Clinical
Surgery, or Reports of Surgical Practice between the Years 18G0
and 1876, which was translated for the Sydenham Society, London,
in 1881 ; Surgical Letters from Mannheim and Weissenburg, re-
cording the results of his experiences and observations in military
surgery ; and his papers on the management of gunshot wounds
and on the transportation of the wounded.

As an operator. Sir William MacCormac says of him that
" his knowledge and boldness were only equaled by his brilliant
execution and skill ; and what he did and his reasons for doing
it were explained to his overflowing class with a rare talent for
exposition." Mr. Clinton Dent, the translator of his Clinical Sur-
gery, credits him with uniting the two qualities of ingenuity and
boldness in devising operations with the manipulative skill, de-
cision, and tact required to carry them out. " Yet it was always
the guiding intellect rather than the manual dexterity which

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

impressed itself on the spectator. Truth to say, in actual per-
formance of an important operation Billroth showed no marked
superiority over his fellow-surgeons. He avoided any show of
brilliancy or flourish, went steadily to work, erred, if at all, on
the side of slowness, and was neither more nor less discomposed
by any complication or untoward event than any one else. The
finish of his operative work was rather the result of his immense
experience than of any remarkable aptitude. . . . From first to
last he was never a specialist, and his operative experience was
singularly varied."

Dr. A. Wolfler, of Gratz, one of his most famous pupils, thinks
that the chief power of his fame was not so much in his actual
inventions in surgery as in the larger and more general ideas in
medicine and surgery which he suggested. In the days when
bacteriology was still groping in the dark — twenty years ago — he
made successful investigations of a bacterium of wounds which
he called streptococcus. In another direction he established and
gave effect to general principles in nursing. His highest aim was
to look out for the well-being and care of sufferers. Only in his
later years did he busy himself with biological questions, and
then pursued them with indefatigable ardor and persistence. His
works are the classical text-books in Germany.

Prof. Billroth's earliest studies were in music, to which he was
devotedly attached, and he retained a strong love for the art and
its apostles. He was an excellent performer on the pianoforte
and violin, and maintained a close friendship with Johann Strauss,
Wagner, and Brahms.

THE GREAT BLUESTONE INDUSTRY.

By henry BALCU IKGKAM.

HOWEVER unhappy New York city may be in the matter of
pavements between curbs, there is one fact apparent to the
most casual observer, and that is that New York has the finest
and best sidewalk pavements of any city in the universe. This is
due to the fact that the sidewalks are largely paved with huge
flat slabs of a natural product known in the commercial marts of
New York as North or Hudson River bluestone. These slabs,
which form smooth and dry platforms for the use of pedestrians,
come from the quarries much in the same shape as they are laid
upon the walks of nearly all of the Atlantic coast and many of
the inland cities.

North River bluestone is a fine-grained compact sandstone, ex-
tremely hard and wearing upon a tool, and is made up of micro-
scopic crystals of the sharpest sand. It abounds in inexhaustible

THE GREAT BLUESTONE INDUSTRY.

353

quantities in a belt of country reaching from the Heklerberg
Mountains in Albany County, in this State, diagonally across the
southeastern portion of the State and into Pike and Wayne Coun-
ties in Pennsylvania. The bluestone belt varies in width, being
in the shape of a scalene or elongated obtuse triangle, no two
sides of which are equal. In Albany County, at Reidsville and
Dormansville, and Greene County, composing the northern ex-
tremity of the belt, the territory producing good marketable stone
is narrow, being confined to the foothills of the eastern watershed
of the Catskills and the southern slope of the Helderbergs. The
stone quarried here is gray in color, with frequent tinges of

'5rr.,

%

Fig. 1. — Bltjestone (iuARRY at West Hurley, X. Y.

greenish and light-red and brown streaks, caused by the presence
of calcite and ferric oxides. This stone is not regarded with
favor by dealers, and brings a much lower price than the dark-
blue product quarried farther down the river. The industry is
also a vanishing one here, for the top matter to be removed in the
quarries has become so heavy as the strata dip into the hills that
few quarries pay to work at the present price paid for flagging
stone. Many of the best-paying quarries of other days have been
abandoned, and in consequence the ports of New Baltimore, Cox-
sackie, Athens, and Maiden, particularly the last, have declined
very much in importance since the shipments of stone have
fallen off.

The bluestone belt follows the Hudson River until the town

354

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of Saugerties, in Ulster County, is readied, when it takes a west-
ward drift, being interrupted on the east by the older limestone
formations, and on the north by the quartzose and. conglomerate
or pudding-stone formations of the Catskills, the latter of which
undoubtedly rests on a foundation of bluestone, as it again makes
its appearance on the westward side of the range. In the town of
Saugerties the gray color of the stone disappears, and the forma-
tion takes on the deep-blue tinge whence it gets its name. Here
also the belt begins to widen, and when the broad plateau at the
foot of the Catskills, covered by the adjoining towns of Kings-

lUi. ii. — An Ulster County Monolith Size, twenty by tweiity-tour teet ; nine inches

thiek.

ton, Woodstock, Olive, Marbletown, Hurley, and Shandaken, is
reached, the quarries are distributed over a range of country at
least fifty miles broad. Here the stone varies but little in color,
touching only the shades from medium to dark blue. The pres-
ence of ferric oxides is found in all the quarries, but only in the
seams on the surface of the slabs, which have a rusty color from
the oxidation. The stone produced in Ulster County has always
commanded the largest prices, it being the best quality produced
in the entire belt.

Leaving Ulster County, the bluestone belt crosses the Catskills,
takes in a corner of Delaware and Orange Counties, and then

THiJ GREAT BLUES TONE INDUSTRY

355

crosses Sullivan Comity until the Delaware River is reached,
where quarrying is carried on all the way from Port Jervis to
Narrowsburg on both sides of the river. Very little quarrying is
done through the mountainous districts, although many quarries
have been opened with a fair profit in Delaware County along the
line of the Ulster and Delaware Railroad, The stone produced
here, as well as along the Delaware River, is of a deep-red color,
contains large quantities of ferruginous matter, is of uneven
texture, requiring more cutting, and is much inferior to the stone
<|uarried in Ulster County.

The history of the discovery and first attempt to quarry blue-
stone for the market is shrouded in uncertainty. It is known,

^

Fig. S.^Quaeetman's Home with FauBisn Banks in Eeae, West Hcblet, N. Y.

however, that a man named Moray opened a quarry at what has
since been called Moray Hill, near Kingston, as early as 1836.
His son, the late Daniel Moray, of Kingston, said that his father
was the first person to put bluestone as a product on the market,
drawing the stone to Kingston with an ox team and selling it for
window-sills and lintels. Philip Van de Bogart Lockwood was
the most prominent producer of bluestone for many years after
this, hauling the quarried product to the docks at Kingston Point,
where it was loaded on sailing vessels and taken to the New York
market. Later on, Abijali Smith built a dock and bought stone
at Wilbur, which he shipped to New York, and in the early fifties
the industry became so important that a plank road, eleven miles
in length, was built on the Ulster and Delaware turnpike through

3 56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the quarrying country, for the better trucking of stone to the
docks at Wilbur.

Some of the quarries have been veritable gold mines. One in
particular, known as the great Lawson Quarry, at West Hur-
ley, is said to have produced over four million dollars' worth of
flag and other classes of bluestone. This quarry was worked by
Lucius Lawson, now of Chattanooga, Tenn., for fully thirty years,
and in it nearly two thirds of a village of three hundred people
earned their living. The great quarry has now been abandoned,
as the top has got so heavy that it does not pay to remove it to
get at the good stone. In consequence of its abandonment, the
village of West Hurley has dwindled to less than one third its
former size, and is rapidly becoming a deserted village. Hun-
dreds of other quarries have been abandoned for similar reasons,
yet the whole bluestone district of Ulster County is thickly dotted
with new quarries, which are opened as soon as the old ones are
abandoned.

In working the quarries there is a great difference in the
thickness of the slabs taken out. The formation exists in per-
pendicular blocks of different surface dimensions which are
formed of flat plates piled up like cardboard. The top of worth-
less stone and earth is first removed by blasting with powder,
after which wedges are driven in the natural seams which sepa-
rate the plates, lifting them up, after which they are hoisted out
with derricks. In working a block the slabs may run to several
thicknesses, varying from two to ten inches. The thin slabs are
then cut up into what is known as Corporation four and five foot
flag and smaller sizes, while the heavier blocks are preserved
intact for such huge platforms as we see reaching from building
to curb line on the sidewalks of New York. Many of the blocks
worked are so small in surface area that they are unfit for flagging,
and are consequently worked up in coping, pillar caps, window
and door sills and lintels, building and bridge stone for tram-
ways. Other blocks are found suitable for curb and gutter alone,
while some quarries furnish slabs so small and thin that they are
used only for floor tiling, or for the facing of brick walls. Again,
some of the slabs, or more properly platforms, taken from the
quarries are from twenty to thirty feet square, ten inches thick,
and weigh over twenty tons. Owing to the difficulty in handling
and the danger of breakage during transportation, these platforms
are seldom taken to tide water, but are broken up at the quarries
into more convenient sizes for handling. Sometimes, however,
monoliths of tremendous size and weight have been transported
to the docks at Wilbur, the one shown in the illustration being
twenty by twenty-four feet in surface area, nine inches thick,
without a flaw, and weighing several hundredweight over twenty

THE GREAT BLUESTONE IXDUSTRY

357

tons. It was quarried at the Sawkill, in the town of Kingston, and
is said to be the largest stone ever brought to tide water. It took
eight horses to haul this monster to the docks over a stone tram-
way, and it is alleged that the side of a toUgate had to be taken
down to allow the stone to pass through. In quarrying bluestone
much stone that is practically worthless is met with. Sometimes
what looks at first glance like a fine, straight-seamed block will
be uncovered, when, at the first attempt to work it, it will break
up into small pieces like a pile of brick. These blocks are known
to quarrymen as cat faces. This formation exists in small blocks
between all good working blocks, as well as sometimes in the

H ;,_.

Flu. 4. — SHii'PiNr, Dock on Rondout Ckeek at Kingston, N. Y.

larger ones. Cat faces are worked up into blocks for street pav-
ing, many having been used in the Hudson River cities, where
they are set so the wear cuts across the grain, and have been
found to wear superior to granite block, as they never become
slippery, and furnish always a sure footing for horses. The
worthless stone of the quarries, called rubbage, is hauled to the
dumps, where immense mountains of broken stone, often one
hundred feet in height and several acres in extent, have been
built up.

The quarrying of bluestone and its allied industries furnish
employment at good* wages to a large number of people. It is
estimated that throughout the entire bluestone country — reaching
from Albany County, New York, to the Pennsylvania region on
the Delaware River — at least twenty thousand people get all or a

358

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

portion of their support from the bliiestone industry, while in
the larger cities outside the bluestone belt hundreds of stonecut-
ters are employed in dressing the stone. The wages run from a
dollar and a quarter a day for common laborers to three dollars
and a half a day for stonecutters, blacksmiths, tool makers, ex-
pert quarrymen, and other skilled labor. It would be hard to
give a correct estimate as to the exact number of people who
profit by the bluestone industry, as its influence is felt in all
branches of mercantile trade, in lines of both water and land
transportation, and, in fact, every industry throughout the district
where the stone is found. To paralyze the bluestone traffic would
mean to paralyze all branches of trade throughout that country.

Fig. 5. — Bliestone Sawino and Planing Mills at Kingston', X. Y,

The bluestone trade amounts to nea-rly three million dollars an-
nually, two thirds of which is paid out in wages.

The manner of working bluestone after it leaves the quarries
is worthy of notice. Before it is taken to the docks the stone
receives only a superficial dressing. At the docks it is piled up,
and such as is needed to fill immediate orders is sent to the cut-
ting mills. Here the large slabs are laid on huge bed planers and
planed smooth as a board. Others are sent to the saws, which con-
sist of a gang of thin strips of plate iron, running horizontally over
the surface of the stone. Under the edges of the saws, which are
toothless, is kept a supply of wet sand very sharp in grain. The
constant grinding of the saws in the sand soon cuts into the stone
and rends it into slabs or bars of the rec^uired size. Other stone

LABV MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 359

which is required to have a perfectly smooth surface is placed on
huge revolving platforms of cast iron, the surface of which is kept
covered with a thin coating of wet sand. The platform, revolving
at high speed under the stone, soon rubs it smooth as polished
metal — without the polish, however, as bluestone is not susceptible
of polish. Other stone is dressed by hand by the stonecutters,
who tool it with chisels and axes into different shapes. It is also
turned in lathes in the shape of hitching posts, columns, and other
forms, while it is susceptible of the most intricate carving, and is
used at present in many classes of sculptured work for the orna-
menting of buildings. Its extreme hardness makes it proof
against all atmospheric changes, and it will neither shell like
brownstone nor crumble like marble under the action of frost. It
disintegrates and explodes, however, with terrific force under the
action of intense heat.

The bluestone formation of New York State lying in Ulster
County belongs to the Hamilton period, while that quarried in
the other counties mentioned belongs to the Catskill group of
rocks of the Upper Devonian age. As far as the writer has been
able to learn, minerals are never found in the bluestone deposits,
except in the form of oxides. Ignorant prospectors have at times
reported the discovery of anthracite coal, which, however, has
always proved to be a worthless deposit of organic slate, which in
some localities abounds in considerable quantities. It is improba-
ble that coal will ever be found in this region, as the stone forma-
tions that lie nearest the surface are those which underlie the coal
measures of the entire country.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU AND MODERN

BACTERIOLOGY.

By .Mrs. H. M. PLUNKETT.

IN all the history of modern scientific progress there is no more
beautiful instance of the way in which the torch of knowl-
edge is passed from hand to hand as generation succeeds genera-
tion, each holder adding his increment of light to the flame, than
that to be seen in the interlinking of the work of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu and Edward Jenner with that of Pasteur and
Lister and Koch, and the multitude of illustrious seekers now
striving to reveal to us the whole world of man's microscopical
friends and enemies. It is to be noted that in each individual
case the mind that was to aid in setting forward the hand on the
dial of progress was specially gifted for its work, so that when
the new truth was presented to it, it was like the seed that fell on

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good ground and brought forth fruit a hundredfold ; while the
knowledge of the same facts — always existent — had, outside of
these illuminated intelligences, fallen on the stoniest kind of soil.

The relation of the beautiful and brilliant and witty Lady
Montagu to one of the most beneficent applications of knowledge
to the abatement and mitigation of human suffering, is at the
present time very inadequately understood. Even in this day of
boasted intelligence nine out of ten among persons who consider
themselves well informed will say, " Yes, I know Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu was the woman who introduced vaccination
into England," whereas it was inoculation for smallpox that she
had introduced. This produced a mild form of the disease, per-
fectly protective, and left no marks. Others had observed this
Oriental practice, and had brought the knowledge back to Eng-
land before her time, and here and there a venturesome individ-
ual had tried the experiment, but it was generally done in secret,
being looked upon as akin to suicide. It was Lady Mary's intel-
ligent enthusiasm that brought it into repute ; she explained the
conditions necessary to success, and set the example of having all
belonging to her subjected to it. Her only brother had died of
smallpox, and she had had it severely ; it disfigured her to the
extent of destroying a fine pair of eyebrows, resulting in impart-
ing a fierce and disagreeable expression to her eyes, in spite of
which she had won the heart and hand of an accomplished gentle-
man. Remember, this was in the first quarter of the last century,
when communication between distant lands was infrequent, and
women's books were almost unknown.

Her husband had been appointed in 1710 ambassador to the
Ottoman court, and she had accompanied him, being then twenty-
six years old. They made the journey overland through Ger-
many, Austria, Bohemia, and Bulgaria, being the first Christians
that had passed over the route since the time of the Greek emper-
ors. It occupied more than four months, and, although hospita-
bly entertained by the sovereigns in the large cities, as the repre-
sentatives of their government, there were long reaches of country
where they were obliged to use the beds and provisions that they
carried along with them. She wrote back lively and brilliant
descriptions of Eastern life in letters that to this day are " mighty
interesting reading," the arrival of each being an event in the
court coterie of her friends ; they were passed from hand to hand,
commented on, and enjoyed with a relish that the surfeited read-
ers of to-day can not know, and one of them was appointed to
exercise a potent influence on the destiny of millions of the human
race, for it was eventually to lead up to the discoveries of Jenner.
They were not printed till after her death, in 1762. The one
which at last led to the establishment and popularization of inoc-

LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 361

ulation for smallpox was written from Adrianople in 1717 to her
friend Miss Sarah Chiswell. The passage relating to inoculation
is here given entire : " Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell
yon of a thing that I am sure will make you wish yourself here.
The smallpox, so general and so fatal among us, is entirely harm-
less here by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they
give it here. There is a set of old women who make it their
business to perform the operation in the month of September,
when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to
know if any of their family has a mind to have the smallpox.
They make parties for the purpose, and when they are met — com-
monly fifteen or sixteen together — the old woman comes with a
nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks
what vein you will please to have opened. She immediately rips
open the one that you offer to her with a large needle, which
gives you no more pain than a common scratch, and puts into the
vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle, and
after, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in
this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have com-
monly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the fore-
head and in each arm and on the breast, to make the sign of the
cross ; but this has a very ill effect, all the wounds leaving little
scars, and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who
choose to have them in the legs or in that part of the arm
that is concealed. The children or young patients play together
all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health till the eighth ;
then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two
days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or
thirty in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' time
are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded
there remain running sores during their distemper, which I doubt
not is a great relief of it. Every year thousands undergo this
operation, and the French ambassador says that they take the
smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take the \ ati rs in other
countries. There is no example of any one has died in it, and you
may well believe I am very well satisfied of the sai^'^ty of t^ e
experiment since I intend to try it on my dear little oon. I am
patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into
fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of the
doctors very particularly about it if I knew any of them that I
thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable part of
their revenue for the good of mankind. But that distemper is
too beneficial to them not to expose to all their resentment the
hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if
I live to return I shall have the courage to war with them. Upon
this occasion admire the heroism in the heart of your friend.''

TOL. XLV. — 28

362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Macaulay has this eloquent passage on this disease when de-
scribing the miseries of the old times: "Smallpox was always
present, filling the churchyards with corpses, leaving in those
whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the
babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and mak-
ing the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror
to her lover." No wonder that the Lady Mary underscores the
part which says it leaves no mark — a womanly touch for which
we love her.

She had Mr. Maitland, surgeon to the embassy, procure vario-
lous matter from a suitable subject, and a very experienced old
Greek woman was employed to insert it ; she inoculated one arm
and Maitland the other ; the disease ensued in due course, with
the production of about a hundred pustules. This was the first
time that the Byzantine method was employed on an English
subject.

Mr. Montagu was attending to his ambassadorial duties at Bel-
grade at the time, and she wrote to him on March 23, 1718 : " The
boy was ingrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and
playing, very impatient for his supper ; I pray God my next may
give as good an account of him. I can not ingraft the girl ; her
nurse has not had the smallpox." Persons who have smallpox
by inoculation impart it to others just as if they had acquired the
disease in the natural manner, but we may be quite sure that the
little lady was submitted to the operation that would preserve her
beauty as soon as possible after she was weaned. Her husband
being politically promoted, they returned to England after hav-
ing lived in Turkey but little more than a year, and Dr. Maitland
at once endeavored to establish the practice in London, being
enthusiastically seconded and supported by her. Not till 1781, as
its expediency had been agitated by scientific men, was an experi-
ment sanctioned by the College of Physicians and allowed by
Government. Five persons condemned to death willingly en-
countered the danger, with the hope of life. Upon four of them
the eruption appeared on the seventh day ; the fifth was a woman
on whom it never appeared, but she confessed that she had had
the disease when an infant. Lady Mary strove so earnestly to
introduce the practice among mothers of her own rank in life
that we learn from her letters that much of her time was given
up to consultations and superintending the success of her plans.
Steele, in his Plain-Dealer of July 3, 1734, wrote of her : " It is an
obserxation of some historian that England has owed to women
the greatest blessings she has been distinguished by. In the case
we are now upon this reflection will stand justified. We are in-
debted to the reason and courage of a lady for the introduction of
this art, which gains such strength in its ])rogress that the mem-

LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 363

ory of its illustrious foundress will be rendered sacred by it to
future ages. . . . She consecrated its first effects on the persons
of her own fine children ; and has already received this glory from
it that the influence of her example has reached as high as the
blood royal. It is a godlike delight she must be conscious of
when she considers the many thousands of lives that will be saved
every year after the general establishment of the practice — a good
so lasting and so vast that none of those wide endowments and
deep foundations of public charity that have made most noise in
the world deserve at all to be compared with it." To understand
how great the deliverance was, it should be known that then it
killed one in seven of all that were born ; it caused about one
third of all the blindness in those pitiable victims, and it disfig-
ured multitudes frightfully. Mrs. Croasdale, an English lady
born early in this century, mentions in a recent book of reminis-
cences that in her childhood so many were " pitted " that a per-
son with a smooth face was notable.

Notwithstanding this eulogy from a highly intelligent source,
it is pretty certain that, like all those persons who are overmas-
teringly possessed with one idea, she was considered an unreason-
able " crank." The very friend to whom she wrote the minute
description of the process died of smallpox ; and the Lady Mary's
sister. Lady Mar, had that most precious of English aristocratic
possessions — an only son. She offered to inoculate him, and prom-
ised to take him into her own house and care for him personally
till he should be recovered ; but the sister failed to be convinced,
and the boy died in childhood of the disease.

People still remained so skeptical that Lady Mary used to
take her little daughter into houses where people had been inocu-
lated, and whose convalescence she was superintending, to prove
her own immovable conviction of it as a protective measure.

At one time such unreasonable prejudices were excited that
clergymen and physicians became violent anti-inoculators. Pam-
phlets appeared in which it was described as the outcome of
" atheism, quackery, and avarice " ; it was denounced from the pul-
pit as "an impious interference with the just and inscrutable
visitations of God" ; and Dr. Wagstaffe, of St. Bartholomew's Hos-
pital, said that " posterity would marvel that a practice employed
by a few ignorant women, among an illiterate and unthinking
people, should have so suddenly been adopted by one of the politest
nations in the world." That this was a narrow and unmerited
piece of severity is shown by the facts that these " unthinking "
people had discovered that there is a difference in the features of
the disease in different cases — hcemorrhagic, confluent, discrete,
etc. ; that those artificially produced follow closely the character
of the cases from which they are planted, each yielding " seed

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

after Ms kind"; that it is important to liave the system in a
healthy condition, which they tested by making a slight wound,
and if it healed kindly and normally, they concluded that the in-
oculation would come out all right ; they chose the most favor-
able month of the year, and they isolated, not individuals, but
parties, for, as the Turks were not a reading people, we can im-
agine that social aggregations saved them from the ennui of sick-
ness and convalescence. After the practice was introduced among
the " politest peoples," some serious disasters came from neglect-
ing the precautions that had been found absolutely essential to
oriental success. As to the " sudden " adoption : in spite of her
enthusiastic advocacy, it was not till fifty years after Lady Mary's
children were inoculated that the practice became established in
her native land, and then not till the Princess of Wales, having
had some charity children operated on to satisfy herself of its
safety, caused her sons to be inoculated, thus giving that royal
sanction so needful there to make a thing " go." Having thus
acquired the royal stamp, the College of Physicians formally in-
dorsed it. No less than eighteen individuals had died in Lord
Petrie's family alone, in the twenty-seven years preceding 1762,
and among the royal families of Europe fifteen persons had per-
ished within the compass of a single year.

The Lady Mary resided in Italy for twenty-two of the later
years of her life, returning to die of cancer in 17G2, aged seventy-
three. In the cathedral at Litchfield a cenotaph is erected to her
memory bearing this inscription :

" SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU,

WHO HAPPILY INTRODUCED FROM TURKEY
INTO THIS COUNTRY
THE SALUTARY ART
OF INOCULATING THE SMALLPOX.
CONVINCED OF ITS EFFICACY
SHE FIRST TRIED IT WITH SUCCESS
ON HER OWN CHILDREN
AND THEN RECOMMENDED THE PRACTICE OF IT
TO HER FELLOW-CITIZENS.
THUS BY HER EXAMPLE AND ADVICE
WE HAVE SOFTENED THE VIRULENCE
AND ESCAPED THE DANGER OF THIS MALIGNANT DISEASE.
TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY OF SUCH BENEVOLENCE
AND TO EXPRESS HER GRATITUDE
FOR THE BENEFIT SHE HERSELF RECEIVED
FROM THIS ALLEVIATING ART,
THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY
HENRIETTA INGE-
RELICT OF THEODORE WILLIAM INGE, ESQ.,
AND DAUGHTER OF SIR JOHN WROTTELSEY, BART.,
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1189.

The monument itself is a mural marble, representing a female
figure of Beauty weeping over the ashes of her preserver, supposed
to be inclosed in the urn inscribed with M. W. M. intertwined in

LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 365

Lady Mary's cipher. In the literary remains of the time, the
fact that she had preserved the beauty of her countrywomen is
mentioned ten times to one of the preservation of life.

Lady Mary's thoroughly intelligent account of the process
shows that in her case the new idea had fallen into a hospitable
and enlightened mind, and although she did not live to see the
fruition of her efforts in the immense amelioration of the condi-
tion of her countrymen that took place later, there was wrapped
up in the process she had naturalized the germ of a mighty fact
of biology destined to spring up and bear a myriad of those leaves
that are " for the healing of the nations." When the value of the
operation was thoroughly appreciated there came upon the scene
some enterprising doctors who established what they called " in-
oculation houses" — we should say now smallpox sanitariums —
for isolation was needed to preserve the community, as the dis-
ease communicated itself as surely through voluntary sufferers
as when it had been taken unwittingly. Here the candidate was
put through a course of medication that to-day seems nothing
less than ferocious ; and one doctor — Dimsdale — rendered himself
so conspicuous as to be knighted, and the Empress of Russia sent
for him to inoculate herself and her son Paul. The bold experi-
ment was first tried on two young gentlemen of the cadet corps, and
afterward, a second experiment was made on four more cadets, be-
fore royalty ventured. Then the exalted candidates passed safely
through it, and Dimsdale says, " the Empress and the Grand Duke
were pleased to permit several persons to be inoculated from
them, and by that condescension the prejudice which has reigned
among the inferior ranks of people that the party would suffer
from whom the infectious matter was taken was most effectually
destroyed." Dimsdale was made Baron of the Russian Empire and
physician to her Imperial Majesty, and awarded ten thousand
pounds in addition to an annuity of five hundred pounds. As up
to this time every seventh child born in the Russian Empire had
died of smallpox, the royal conduct is to be commended.

A careful sifting of all the methods and recorded experiences
of all the inoculators shows that the essential vital kernel of the
process grazed closely on Pasteur's " attenuated virus," and that
all their " cooling " and " dieting " and " strengthening " sank into
insignificance beside the one dominating point of using a benign
virus, if such a contradiction in terms is allowable. Much valu-
able knowledge in reference to inoculation was accumulated, and
some brilliant foreshadowings of modern knowledge as to the way
in which infection spreads were seen, but these discoveries were
soon to be thrown into eclipse by those of Edward Jenner.

This great benefactor of humanity was born in Berkeley, in
Gloucestershire, in 1749, and at the time of Lady Mary Montagu's

366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

death, was thirteen years old, but he already had evinced a strong
taste for natural history — had begun an orderly and well-kept
cabinet of new and original specimens, and had formed the valua^
ble habit of recording in a note-book his observations on physical
phenomena. His father had died when he was six years old, but
he was reared with great care and tenderness by an elder brother,
who, perceiving his strong natural bent, apprenticed him to a
surgeon, with whom he diligently studied and worked till he was
twenty-one, when he went to London to become the pupil of the
celebrated John Hunter, in whose family he lived for two years.
Hunter had a large private menagerie at Brompton, where he
solved for himself some important questions in physiology. Jen-
ner, filled with admiration at the large and unselfish way in which
Hunter pursued knowledge for its own sake, formed a friendship
for his great master that ceased only at Hunter's death, whose
letters to Jenner are among the most interesting extant.

While yet a surgeon's apprentice, before he went to London,
he had written in his note-book that he had heard a milkmaid
say " she could not have the smallpox as she had had cow-pox " ;
and the Duchess of Cleveland, when taunted that she might lose
her beauty, had replied, " I have no fear of that, for I have had a
disease that will save me " ; and he was familiar with the general
tradition in the dairies of Gloucestershire that those who had con-
tracted cow-pox from the cows would never have smallpox. The
thought came to him, Can this virus he inserted voluntarily in the
human subject ? He mentioned his speculations on the subject,
that was even then taking a firm hold on his mind and inexorably
marking out his role in life, to Hunter, who listened with interest,
thought they were " curious," but was too much absorbed by his
own engrossing themes to more than repeat his famous instruc-
tion, " Don't think, but try." That the new idea in biological sci-
ence that was to rescue millions from premature graves came to a
trained intelligence is further shown by the fact that, while Hun-
ter's pupil, Jenner had been employed to prepare and arrange the
valuable zoological specimens brought back by Captain Cook's first
expedition in 1771, and did the work so acceptably as to be invited
to accompany the second expedition as naturalist — an honor which
he refused, preferring to return to his country home and engage
in the practice of his profession near the brother to whom he was
devotedly attached ; and those who believe in the " destiny that
shapes our ends " will say, where he could study the mysteries of
cow-pox in its native haunts. He soon had a large practice, and
he formed a society of the medical men of his vicinity — they dis-
cussed medicine first and dined afterward — Jenner contributing
his full share both of the solid work and the fun. Hunter wrote
him, " I am very happy that some of you have wished to commu-

LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 367

nicate your ideas to eacli other." On these occasions he would
often bring forward his suspicions on the subject of the relations
of small-pox and cow-pox — a theme that was taking commanding
possession of his mind. His medical friends treated his ideas with
indifference, or brought forward instances that militated against
his theory ; called him a " dreamer " — how often " Behold this
dreamer cometli " greets advanced ideas ! — and finally they began
to consider him a bore, and threatened to expel him if he did not
cease to trot out his hobby. Meantime, while not neglecting his
practice, and while following up many lines of physiological and
pathological investigation, he continued to collect all the facts
and observations, and what other people thought counter facts,
that had a bearing on the relation between cow-pox and small-
pox ; and in 1788 carried a drawing of the cow-pox, as seen on the
hands of a milkmaid, to London, and showed it to Sir Everard
Home, the President of the College of Surgeons, to convince him
of the identity of the two diseases. Sir Everard condescended to
assure him that " it was a curious and interesting subject."

Owing to the rarity of the disease in the dairies, or to its con-
cealment, for which there was a strong motive, it was a long time
before he found an opportunity of testing his theories by experi-
ment. On the 14th of May, 1796, he took lymph from the hand of
a dairymaid who had caught the disease in milking, and inserted
it by two superficial incisions in the arms of James Phipps, a
healthy boy about eight years old. He passed through the dis-
ease in a regular and satisfactory manner, but the most anxious
time was yet to come ; it was necessary to show that the boy was
proof against the coniagium of smallpox. In the following July
this was settled, for variolous matter taken directly from the pus-
tule was inserted by several incisions, but no disease followed.
He wrote to the friend, Mr. Gardner, in whom he had always con-
fided his hopes, " You will be gratified in hearing that I have at
length accomplished what I have been so long waiting for: the
passing of the vaccine virus from one human being to another by
the ordinary mode of inoculation." After minutely detailing the
process, he adds, " I shall now pursue my experiments with re-
doubled ardor." It was now twenty-five years since he had men-
tioned his " suspicions " to Hunter, a fact to be remembered when,
afterward, he was rebuked by pompous arrogance in the person
of Dr. Ingenhousz, for too hastily rushing into print, which he
did not do till he had collected twenty-three cases, all of whom
had passed through vaccination successfully, and had been tested
subsequently by the inoculation of variolous virus and shown to
be proof against it.

This was the high tide of happiness in Jenner's life — he was
under a great degree of mental exaltation, although he maintained

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his humility and disinterestedness. In -writing of this period he
says, " While the vaccine discovery was progressive, the joy I felt
was at the prosi3ect before me of being the instrument destined to
take away from the world one of its greatest calamities."

What he really accomplished during those twenty-five years
of preparation and waiting is, succinctly, as follows :

1. He perceived that some profound modification of the effects
of the virus of smallpox occurred when it was introduced through
a puncture in the skin, instead of finding its way to the system
through the natural channels of the lungs and the stomach.

2. That cow-pox was really smallpox in cows,* but that the
disease in jDassing through the tissues of that animal underwent a
still greater modification, by which its period was lessened, and
that it became non-contagious, unless a person brought in contact
with it had some abrasion of the skin.

3. That persons who had accidentally acquired it from the cow
did not give it to others while passing through it, and were hence-
forth secure from attacks of smallpox.

It was his putting of " this and that together " that made the
great step forward : could this modified virus be inoculated suc-
cessfully into the human system as smallpox had been ; and, if
so, would it protect against smallpox ? James Phipps had fur-
nished the triumphant answer, and his other twenty-two cases
had confirmed its truth. He did not find a second opportunity for
putting his hypothesis to the test till 1798 ; he then repeated his
inoculations with the utmost care, and prepared his book for print-
ing. Before giving his work to the press, he devoted the most
solemn and conscientious care to it, reading it sentence by sen-
tence to a few of his most intimate friends and asking for their
unsparing criticism. Its title was. An Inquiry into the Causes and
Effects of the Variolse Vaccinae (Cow-pox). These friends saw in
it a great victory of the sagacity of man over one of the most fatal
of diseases, and they urged him forward in his purpose of opening
for the benefit of all " the stream of life and health he had been
permitted to discover " ; in their enthusiasm they said " he seemed
to hold in his hand one of the gates of death, with power to close
it." In addition to the great fact that constituted the vital kernel
of his discovery, he had incidentally learned much besides. He
was convinced that there were two similar-appearing diseases
affecting cows that could be imparted to man, one of which he
named " spurious," and which afforded no protection against
smallpox. He also learned that there were rare cases where per-

* An opinion confirmed by an account of experiments published in La Semaine Medicale,
December 31, 1890, made by Elternod, of Geneva ; Haccius, the Director of the Vaccine Insti-
tute of Lancy ; and of Dr. Fischer, Director of the Vaccine Institute at Carlsruhe in Germany

LAJ)Y MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 369

sons had had a second attack of smallpox, and that there were
cases where people who had acquired what they thought cow-pox
in the natural manner had been attacked by smallpox later. He
set himself to study these anomalies, and became convinced that
there is one " right," strictly limited time for taking the vaccine
virus, and that matter taken later will produce a pustule and
severe illness, but affords no protection. Also, he learned that
there is a right and a wrong way in which to insert the virus — in
short, that the operation is a nice exercise of medical art. He dis-
covered that certain eruptive diseases occurring at the same time
make the best virus inoperative, and he ascertained that there are
many circumstances that rapidly destroy the vitality of the virus
when not properly cared for. He left the fruits of all these obser-
vations embodied in a set of rules of procedure that nearly a
century of experience and medical advance has not improved upon.
Of course, he could not foresee the wonderful evolution in the
methods of the production of the virus that now puts, such a large
and safe supply into the hands of the practitioner.

We, who tranquilly enjoy the fruits of the great deliverance
from the horrible and universal plague of smallpox, see and know
so little of it as not to be able to form any just conceptions of the
monstrous proportions of the scourge when unchecked. The
average death-rate from it throughout England was such that if
applied to the present population it would give 70,000 per annum ;
in London alone before 1804 the annual deaths were 2,018 in a
population of a million; in 1890, in a population of four millions
there was just one death from smallpox. In the year 1886 there
was not a death from it in Massachusetts.

Jenner went to London in April, 1798, intending to bring out
his book and illustrate his doctrines on the spot. He was pre-
pared with a pure and efficient virus that had been already tested,
but to his surprise and chagrin, although he was known in the
highest medical circles as a man worthy of undoubted credit and
of thoroughly established scientific repute, he could not find one
individual willing to submit to the operation. His pamphlet — a
quarto of seventy pages — was published on June 21, 1798. Sel-
dom has a book appeared fraught with greater consequences to
mankind. When he went home he left some virus in the hands
of a friend — Mr. Cline — who at the end of July inserted some of
it by two punctures on the hip of a child who had hip disease,
under the notion that the counter-irritation produced by it might
cure the trouble. It made no difi^erence with the original disease,
but by a thorough inoculation afterward with smallpox virus the
child was found proof against that disease.

When the book had had time to make its due impression, with
its thoroughly wrought- out and carefully written-out series of

VOL. XLV. 29

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

twenty-three cases, the most advanced minds among doctors at
home, as well as in all the capitals of Europe, were hospitable to
the discovery and perceived the immense benefits likely to flow
from it. On the 27th of November, 1798, Jenner vaccinated two
children of a Mr. Hicks with lymph taken from a farm at Stone-
" house, this gentleman being the first private subject to allow the
experiment on his children.

Lady Ducie was the first person of rank who gave tangible
support to the practice by having her only child vaccinated. No
better comment on the better day in which we live exists through
the diffusion of knowledge by the newspaj)er press, daily record-
ing the discoveries of scientists, than the audacious attempt made
in London to supplant Jenner, which came near being successful,
and during its progress beclouded his discovery and caused him
great anxiety, notwithstanding which the story of the triumphant
adoption of the practice in all the enlightened countries of the
earth reads like a fairy tale. Monarchs honored him, decorations
and gifts were showered upon him, and, in the height of his joy,
there was not wanting the one black drop to keep him humble and
sober, in the existence of a knot of anti-vaccinationists whose
pestilent successors are not yet vanished from the face of the
earth, though very recently towns in which their influence has
ruled have been scourged with smallpox. At this juncture he
wrote to his friend Gardner : " At present I have not the most
distant doubt that any person who has once felt the influence of
perfect cow-pox matter would never be susceptible of smallpox, but
on the contrary, when the disease has been excited by the matter
of cow-pox in an imperfect condition, the specific change of the
constitution necessary to render the contagion of smallpox harm-
less is not produced ; and in this point of view there is a close
analogy between the propagation of the cow-pox and the small-
pox. Therefore, I conceive that it would be prudent, until further
inquiry has thrown every light on the subject that it is capable of
receiving, that — like those who were the objects of my experi-
ments— all should be subjected to the test of variolous matter who
have been inoculated for smallpox."

Another circumstance of a different sort at times tried Jenner's
accurate and scientific soul. He had vaccinated thousands gratui-
tously, and taught many persons to perform the operation cor-
rectly ; clergymen and noblemen and women learned to perform
the operation, strictly according to his instruction, and applied
their knowledge on thousands of the people dependent upon them
with perfect success ; but doctors, wise in their own conceit,
caused every now and again disaster, by not being careful enough
about the exact " right time " to take the lymph in the arm-to-
arm practice that had generally disseminated itself.

LADV MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 371

Still, lie had tlie satisfaction of seeing compulsory vaccination
established in many of the countries of Europe, and knew that it
was making its way among enlightened peoples everywhere, be-
fore his death in 1833, which occurred in his native rural home,
where he had returned after a short and distasteful residence in
London. Ten days before his death he got a letter, on the back
of which he wrote the following : " My opinion of vaccination is
precisely as it was when I first promulgated the discovery. It is
not in the least strengthened by any event that has happened, for
it could gain no strength. It is not in the least weakened, for if
the failures you speak of had not happened, the truth of my as-
sertions respecting the coincidences which occasioned them could
not have been made out."

In the seventy years since, evidence has accumulated as to the
inestimable value of the original discovery; wide observations
among thoroughly trained medical men have also demonstrated
the value of revaccination — after maturity — of persons who had
been vaccinated in infancy ; but the most glorious result of all
was to be the illumination of Pasteur's great scientific mind, as to
the possibility of the production of a modified virus in other dis-
eases than smallpox.

Modern science contains no more interesting chapter than the
one which shows how that, after the achromatic compound micro-
scope— magnifying close on to two thousand diameters — was put
into the hands of scientists, step by step it was shown that what
we call zymotic or " catching " diseases are caused by the living
germs of parasitic plants entering the blood, and there multiply-
ing and growing, deriving the needed sustenance from the blood
itself. Pasteur caught the idea of a modified growth from Jen-
ner's experiments, as he distinctly said in his original paper on
anthrax, read before the French Academy. That it is within the
power of man to modify plants outside the body, any one who has
tasted a native astringent crab and a delicious Baldwin apple will
believe, but it remained for a devotee of science for its own sake —
like Pasteur — to observe and experiment and think till he achieved
that " attenuated virus " which annually saves millions of animals
in Europe from the ravages of anthrax, and multitudes of men
from death by hydrophobia through the bites of wolves, dogs, and
cats. The statistics of the Pasteur Institute of Paris show that in
the five years from January 1, 1886, no less than nine thousand
four hundred and thirty-three persons were treated, of whom
fifty-eight died, or 0'61 per cent. The instrument of this merciful
exemption was a modified — i. e., attenuated — virus.

With such results, such victories of the wit of man over Na-
ture, while bacteriology is yet in its early infancy, it is no won-
der that Pasteur predicts the time when " these diseases will be

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

made to disappear from the face of the earth " ; and as a fine ex-
ample of the way in which mind kindles mind, we will cite the
way in which Pasteur's study of loebrine in silkworms, and his
formulation of the germ theory of disease, put into Lister's hand
the true key to the havoc of bacteria in wounds, and enabled him
to lay the foundation of modern antiseptic surgery which annu-
ally saves its thousands from death.

He noted that when a man broke a rib he had no " surgical
fever," but made a safe and rapid recovery, unless the bone had
penetrated the lung, when he died of pneumonia ; but that other
surgical wounds behaved very differently — that some exterior sub-
stance got into them ; and Pasteur's studies taught him what was
the element of mischief, so that we are justified in drawing out a
certified pedigree as follows :

It was Lady Mary's observation of the difference in its conse-
quences whether that which she called " matter," but which we
now know to be the infinitesimal seeds of microscopical plants,
came into the human system unconsciously through the lungs
and stomach, or whether it was deliberately inserted artificially,
of course making its way through the lymj^h-channels, that led
Jenner to ask himself whether the seeds of the disease as modified
by fjassing through the tissues of the cow might not also be in-
serted artificially. Fifty years after his death Pasteur, inaugu-
rated the science of " microscopical botany," and had convinced
himself that all the contagious diseases are the result of parasitic
growths, and in his original papers, read before the French Acad-
emy, says he was put upon thinking whether the Jennerian appli-
cation of a modified, " attenuated," less virulent virus could not
be made in other diseases by the success in vaccination, and like a
true knight of science he did not rest till he had produced and
used such a remedy, saving millions of animals annually from the
ravages of anthrax and thousands of men from hydrophobia.
Continental flocks and herds are now as regularly " inoculated "
as our children are vaccinated, but the greatest result of all is
Lister's establishment of what is known as antiseptic surgery. In
the thousand laboratories where splendid work for humanity is
to-day progressing a picture of the Lady Mary, as inspiring
genius, ought to be hung up ; and it certainly is pleasant to the
wide-awake women of the last decade of this nineteenth century
to find, as we follow the unbroken chain backward, its first link
in the delicate hand of an intelligent and courageous woman who
dared to confer a priceless benefit, at the risk of obloquy, in the
first quarter of the last.

•^^

JOSEPH NEEF: A PESTALOZZIAN PIONEER. 373
JOSEPH NEEF: A PESTALOZZIAN PIONEER.

By a. cabman.

THE Hon. George S. Boutwell, in the November number of The
Popular Science Monthly, referred to a recent article by Prof.
W. W. Aber on the Oswego State Normal School, in which is
claimed for that school the credit of introducing into this country
the Pestalozzian system of teaching. The Oswego School was
founded in 1853, and Mr. Boutwell says that from about the year
1839 this "art of teaching was taught" in the Massachusetts State
Normal Schools.

While the first schools for teachers of the Pestalozzian system
may have been in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania may yet claim the
credit of having the first Pestalozzian school for children in Amer-
ica. It was established in 1809 by Joseph Neef, at a spot then
called the Falls of the Schuylkill, some four miles from the old
city of Philadelphia, now part of Fairmount Park.

Francis Joseph Nicholas Neef was born in Soultz, Alsace,
December 6, 1770. He was educated for the Roman Catholic
priesthood, but at the age of twenty- one, when about to take
orders, he gave up the idea of entering the Church, as not being
at all suited to his tastes. He entered the French army under
Napoleon, attaining high rank therein, and in the battle of Areola
was severely wounded in the head by a spent ounce ball, which
he carried to the day of his death, a period of over fifty years.
After leaving the army he became teacher of languages in Pesta-
lozzi's celebrated school at Burgdorf, Switzerland, where he re-
mained for some years, being then sent by Pestalozzi to Paris at
the request of a philanthropic society whose attention and interest
had been at tracted to the good work being done at Burgdorf.

During Neef's stay in Paris, Mr. William Maclure, an Ameri-
can patron of education, science, and philanthropy, visited Pesta-
lozzi's school, which had by that time been moved to Yverdun.
Mr. Maclure was so favorably impressed by the rational methods
employed in this school that he conceived the generous idea of
establishing a similar institution near Philadelphia, where he was
then living. Pestalozzi recommended to him his former coadjutor,
Joseph Neef, as a man thoroughly imbued with his principles and
well fitted to introduce them into the Western world. Neef, when
approached on the subject, hesitated, for, though master of eight
languages, he was ignorant of the English. Persuaded, however,
that he could soon overcome this difficulty, he came to America,
and such was his success that within a year he published a work
of one hundred and sixty- eight pages in the English language,
with the following descriptive title : Sketch of a Plan and Method

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Education founded on an Analysis of the Human Faculties
and Natural Reason, Suitable for the Offspring of a Free People,
and for all Rational Beings. By Joseph Neef (formerly a Coad-
jutor of Pestalozzi, at his School near Berne, in Switzerland).
Philadelphia, 1808.

This work is faultless as to grammatical construction, and was
the first strictly pedagogical work published in the English lan-
guage in this country. It would interest any modern teacher who
has read the numerous pedagogical works of to-day to give this
quaint little volume a careful perusal. There are now but half a
dozen known copies in existence, one being in the State Library at
Indianapolis. Another work. Method of Teaching Children to
Read and Write, was published by him in 1813.

Neef had in the school established at the Falls of the Schuyl-
kill about one hundred pupils, most of them boarders, who were
taught physiology, botany, geology, natural history, languages,
mathematics, and other branches, without the aid of a single text-
book, a purely natural method being followed. " Neef 's boys from
the Falls," as they were known to Philadelphians, could, without
exception, after being in the school for a short time, work mentally
the most difficult examples in arithmetic, converse with equal ease
in several languages, and many who were his pujjils have said in
after years that the amount of scientific information and practical
knowledge gained while under Neef's care had always been of
incalculable benefit to them.

In 1813 he removed to Village Green, in Delaware County,
Pennsylvania. David Glasgow Farragut was one of his pupils at
this place. From here the school was moved to Louisville at the
earnest solicitation of several Kentucky patrons. In 1826, when
Robert Owen, of New Lanark, Scotland, began his famous social-
istic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, Mr. Neef took charge
of the educational department of his community. In 1828 the
community ceased to exist, and Mr. Neef removed to Cincinnati,
and later to Steuben ville, Ohio, where he engaged in his last
school. He died at New Harmony in 1853.

The following extract is taken from his book published in
1808 : " The man of refined morality feels it to be his duty not
only to be good, but also to inquire in what situation and through
what means he may be able to produce the greatest sum of good
to his fellow-creatures. It is my ambition and duty to become a
useful member of society. The education of children and the
rearing of vegetables are the only occupations for which I feel
any aptitude. I have, therefore, seriously inquired in which of
these two spheres I should produce the greatest advantage to the
society of which I may become a member, whether by clearing
and tilling some secluded spot of land, or by cultivating the

KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD, 375

pretty bewildered field of education. After mature deliberation
I became fully convinced that in the latter capacity my faculties
will be more likely to be beneficial to my fellow-creatures. These
are my reasons for appearing as a teacher, or rather educator."

Mr. Neef left no male descendants, but two married daughters
are still living in this country.

•♦•»■

KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD.

By 0. S. WHITMOKE.

AMONG the many changes that have taken place in the manu-
- facture and handling of lumber, there is none more marked
or interesting than in the method of preparing lumber for use by
getting rid of its natural or acquired moisture. For a century
and a half after sawed lumber came into use, none but natural
means were used for drying it, preparatory to its consumption in
the building and kindred arts. Even in comparatively modern
times, when sash, doors, and blinds were made by hand, and floor-
ing and ceiling were dressed and matched in the same manner, if
a person concluded to build some time in the future, the stock for
these purposes was often bought after being weather-dried as
much as possible and stored away in barns, lofts, and garrets,
where it was not seldom left for years.

There can be no denying that this stock made excellent work,
though it became not infrequently discolored from want of a cir-
culation of air, which fact became so well understood that when
at last attempts were made to shorten the drying period by arti-
ficial means, they all embodied some attempt, more or less crude,
to create a circulation, to the end that the air that had enveloped
the lumber until it had absorbed a portion of the moisture should
be thrown or forced out of the drying room or building.

The first attempts at artificial drying did not contemplate gen-
eral stock or drying lumber for shipping, the first dry-houses be-
ing usually nothing more than a one-story frame structure built
over a low cellar excavated in the side of a hill, with a slatted
floor above and a latticed cupola on the roof. A brick or tile
furnace or arch was built in the cellar, from which extended a
number of sheet-iron pipes which, while conveying the smoke to
the chimney, also acted as radiators. The furnaces were built so
as to be stoked from the outside through an arch in the wall on
the down-hill side. After the introduction of cast-iron stoves,
they were often substituted for the brick or tile furnaces, and in
some cases these in turn were superseded by wrought-iron cylin-
ders like steam-boiler shells.

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The material to "be dried was stacked upon the slatted floor in
loose piles, through which the heated air from below could circu-
late more or less freely. For years these dry -houses — they were
not then dignified by the name of kilns — were only used in con-
nection with certain manufactories for drying stock already cut
up for tubs, pails, and other wooden ware ; small boxes, chairs,
and other furniture material; turned work and Yankee-notion
stock in general ; no regular lumber stock being subjected to the
process.

Occasionally a little lumber for interior finish, where an extra
fine job was desired, was run through the dry-house for a final
drying, and later, after machine-made sash, doors, and blinds be-
gan to take the place of the old hand-made goods, being generally
made from air-dried stock, they were sometimes put through the
dry-house before being wedged and pinned.

These dry-houses contained such an element of fire risk that
they were generally built in isolated positions as close to water
as possible. Even then they were a constant menace to all sur-
rounding property as well as to their own contents. Lumber,
except in small pieces, dried in them was apt to be checked and
warped or twisted more or less, and was not at all satisfactory
save in the one feature of being free from moisture.

The fire risk at last became so great where the establishments
requiring the dry-houses were situated in towns, and the restric-
tions of underwriters so onerous, that along in the fifties some
crude attempts were made to substitute steam for the furnaces
by conducting the exhaust from the engines running the works
into the cellars.

It is not definitely known when or by whom the first attempts
were made, but it is a fact that as early as 1855 the trial was
made by a manufacturer in northern Massachusetts. But the
experiment did not prove very satisfactory, for the reason that
the steam had to be carried quite a long distance; the science of
protecting steam pipes so as to prevent condensation was not as
well understood as at the present day ; the engine was none too
large and the boiler capacity limited, and there was more or less
back pressure.

But so certain were the experimenters that they were on the
right road that they kept up the trials, though, from causes
stated, making but little attempt to use the steam during the
winter months. Success seemed near, when the panic of 1857 came
on, and the house met with reverses that stopped all further ex-
periments. Some additional attempts were made in the New
England States during the next four years, but in a rather
desultory way, when, the war of the rebellion coming on, the
inventive genius of the country seems to have been turned in

KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD. 377

other directions and the subject of drying lumber slept for
some years.

A patent was granted to Hannah and Osgood, November 27,
186G, for " an improvement in the method of drying lumber/' and
other patents followed in rapid succession, a full history of which
is shown by the records of the Patent Office. But it does not
appear that any really successful kiln was built until the year
1875, when one was erected at Stillwater, Minn., and a little later
one in Chicago, if the records are correct, for Pond and Soper,
though Turner Brothers had one built about the same time. The
dates as to when the first steam drier was put in successful opera-
tion are a little foggy, claims being made both for Stillwater,
Minn., and St. Albans, Vt.

The question of the artificial drying of hard- wood lumber has
assumed such importance that all, both manufacturers and deal-
ers, must be interested in the subject. To air-dry hard-wood lum-
ber by simple, natural means involves the loss of interest on im-
mense sums of money invested in the lumber while it is awaiting
the slow and not always satisfactory or sure process of Nature ;
while, on the other hand, it is a well-admitted fact that unscien-
tific and hence unskillful drying by artificial means often in-
volves a loss greater than the other.

The earliest attempts at the artificial drying of lumber made
no difference in the matter of varieties of wood or quality of stock.
All kinds and qualities were run in promiscuously, and all sub-
jected to the same treatment. The only theory acted upon was
that the lumber, being green or wet, must be dried in the short-
est possible time. To effect this result it was only thought neces-
sary to create as great a heat as possible within the limits of safety,
and to raise it to the maximum degree in the very shortest time,
the limit being often raised to a reckless height, not infrequently
reaching the point of actual partial carbonization to an extent
that killed the life of the lumber so treated. Often the kiln would
be hastily opened for the removal of dry stock, while it was under
full headway, with the heat up to the highest point, and green and
often frozen lumber hurried in to receive at the very outset a
blast of heat as near the point of combustion as it was possible to
raise it with any degree of safety.

This, of course, has reference more particularly to the days
of dry hot air and furnace heat, though the same was true of
the earliest attempts at steam heating. Nothing was known or
thought of the effect of thus subjecting lumber to a high temper-
ature at the very first stage of the drying process, and nothing
was known of the effect of high temperature upon different
varieties of wood or the same variety under different conditions,
whether entirely green, or partially or wholly air-dried. One

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thing only was known — that heat would drive the moisture,
whether natural or acquired, out of the lumber, if it was only ap-
plied hot enough and long enough.

The physiology of wood, or what is now known as timber
physics, was poorly understood by any one, much less by the men
who were making the experiments ; for in general they were plain
business men, with only ordinary business education, and with no
pretensions to scientific knowledge.

Thus little or nothing was known of the chemistry of woods
and absolutely nothing of the effect of heat upon the gums, juices,
or fibers. But while these men were not up in the sciences, they
possessed what perhaps in this instance stood them in as good
stead — hard common sense and quick perceptions, that permitted
them to learn rapidly by experience and by quickness of observa-
tion to note the results upon the woods of various conditions in
the course of their experiments.

Thus it was discovered, by a more or less costly experience,
that in all the long list of varieties of timber hardly any two
could be subjected to precisely similar treatment with the best
results to both ; and it was further found that difference in the
source whence the same variety came often required a variation
in treatment.

The next and perhaps the most important discovery made,
and probably at the expense of the greatest amount of spoiled
lumber, was that a temperature too high at the commencement of
the drying process produced unsatisfactory results, and often
ruined or greatly reduced the value of high-grade and costly
material. Before this fact was discovered, so uncertain had been
the process in its effects, other than in producing apparently dry
lumber, that an actual prejudice arose against submitting upper
grades to the artificial process until fairly weather-dried ; it being
found that if a portion of the moisture on and near the surface
was evaporated by the natural heat of the sun, the effect of plung-
ing the lumber at once into a high temperature when put into
the kiln was less injurious.

Investigation and experiment proved further that this was a
perfectly natural theory and one by which Nature herself worked
constantly. It was fully and satisfactorily shown that lumber
sawed and piled in the winter so as to take advantage of the first
cool, dry days of spring, not only dried in better condition, with
much less danger of sap stain, checking, and warping, but that it
actually dried more completely to the very center of the piece,
and in a shorter time. '

This was found to be especially true of thick lumber, it proving
to be a fact that, while the winter-sawed thick stuff would often,
in favorable seasons, become remarkably dry to the very center.

KILN-DRYING HARD WOOD. 379

stock of the same thickness, if sawed and piled during the months
of extremely hot weather, would have to be carried over until the
approach of another summer, the effect of the season of extremely-
damp atmosphere seeming to be to liberate the internal moisture,
which somehow appeared to be imprisoned by some (at that time)
unknown force, and which, being so liberated, was rapidly car-
ried off by the cool, dry days of the following spring.

It had probably always been known that lumber would dry,
and did dry, most rapidly during the season of high winds, but
the fact had been generally accepted without asking for a scientific
reason. But when it dawned upon the minds of the experimenters
that there must be one, it led to the further discovery that air in
motion of a low temperature would produce better results than air
of a high temperature if kept stagnant, and that the ordinary
atmosphere, with its natural temperature, if above the freezing
point and with a low degree of humidity, if kept in constant mo-
tion or circulation, would dry lumber well and rapidly without
the aid of artificial heat.

These points once definitely settled and understood, led to re-
searches that immediately led into the domain of wood chemistry
and physiology, and the experimenters and inventors became to a
degree chemists and physicists. Thus a special education was ob-
tained before they were able to say they had solved the problem
of drying lumber artificially ; fairly accurate knowledge on the
following points being gained :

1. (a) Different varieties of wood, and (6) wood of the same
variety grown in different localities, requiring radically different
treatment.

2. (a) That too high a degree of heat applied at any stage, and
(6) especially during the first, injured the lumber more or less,
according to kind, and retarded or prevented perfect drying.

3. That with a perfect circulation of air of a low degree of hu-
midity, a high temperature was not necessary to produce good
results except as to time.

4. That the results, good or bad, depended very largely upon
the chemical changes produced by heat upon the natural gums
and juices of the wood.

5. That all these points became much more pronounced in the
case of hard woods, and hence the necessity for special machinery
and arrangement of the kiln.

The calculation of tlie orbits of the newer asteroids has been greatly facili-
tated at Nice and Bordeaux, France, by astronomical photography, which makes
it possible to follow them long enough to give a sufficient number of observations
on which to base the computations.

38o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ON ACQUIRED FACIAL EXPRESSION.

By LOUIS EOBINSON.

ALTHOUGH from infancy upward we are all, whetlier we
- know it or not, close students of physiognomy, and although
a number of books, the result of much careful research, have
been published upon the scientific aspect of the subject, there are
certain facts connected with facial expression which, though often
remarked upon, have never received explanation. With two of
these — both of which bear upon the causes of acquired expression
of a more or less permanent character — I propose briefly to deal
in this article. I refer to the similarity of visage displayed by
nearly all members of certain trades and professions ; and to the
likeness which often becomes apparent on the faces of people
(generally married couples) who live together.

In addition to the bony framework, there are three chief
anatomical factors which go to make up the expression of the
face. These are the skin, the subcutaneous cushion of fat which
contains the numerous blood-vessels, and, lastly, the facial mus-
cles. The nerve supply is abundant and peculiar. The integu-
ment receives sensory branches from the fifth cranial nerve, the
blood-vessels are under the control of the sympathetic system,
and the muscles which have to do with expression receive motor
impulses from the brain via the seventh cranial or facial nerve,
first accurately described by Sir Charles Bell. It is to these
numerous slips of muscular tissue, with their controlling tele^
graphic nerve fibers, that I wish especially to direct attention.

It is, of course, obvious to all who have an elementary knowl-
edge of physiology that any movement of any part of the face is
owing to the contraction of certain muscles, and that every such
contraction must take place at the command of an impulse con-
veyed to the muscles by means of the motor nerves.

Into the historical evolutionary explanation of these move-
ments it is not my intention here to enter. Let it suffice to say
that there can be little doubt that they one and all represent some
adaptation of the bodily structures to certain physical needs (pos-
sibly long obsolete) which accompanied the emotions of which
the movements are now an index ; just as the wagging of a dog's
tail, which is now regarded as a mere sign of pleasurable excite-
ment, was in the first place of vital importance as a signal to his
comrades that game was afoot.

The connection between the muscles of expression and the
emotional centers in the brain is of a most intimate character, and
is largely independent of the will, although by strong volition
any consequent movement of the features may generally be pre-

ON ACQUIRED FACIAL EXPRESSION. 381

vented. That the association is instinctive, and not acquired
through individual or racial education, is shown by the fact that
the facial changes which accompany the sentiments of fear, ha-
tred, contempt, merriment, or mockery are practically identical
the world over.

The extreme rarity of the man who can always keep his coun-
tenance, even when his will is fully awake, is as complete a proof
of this intimate and automatic bond between the mental appara-
tus and the facial muscles as need be brought forward. Are we
not all aware of exercising a restraining effort upon our features
when we endeavor to hide our emotions ? And is not the com-
mon phrase, " He gave way to his feelings," a recognition of the
fact that the invariable instinctive tendency is, when the emotions
are stirred, to yield to those outward manifestations which are
obvious to the eye of another, and which are the results of motor
nervous impulse ?

Now, this fact is most important in the study of what may
be called " static physiognomy," which treats of the interpreta-
tion of habitual expression when the countenance is at rest. It
shows that in all probability every emotion, however slight, sends
an impulse to the appropriate muscles, although the immediate
nervous provocation may be much too faint to produce any
marked movement. That such trivial and evanescent nerve im-
pulses, although their effect may be at the time unfelt by the
subject himself and imperceptible to lookers-on, may be, if often
repeated, efficient factors in the formation of a habitual cast of
countenance, I shall presently show.

It is plain that such effects will become more perceptible when
the first rotundity of youth has disappeared. We naturally look
at a young face for a prophecy, and at an old one for a record.
But the materials from which we attempt to inform ourselves are
of a very different character in the two classes. In the one case
we see a general arrangement of features, which, according to
some utterly inscrutable law, accompanies certain traits of mental
and moral character. No satisfactory theory has ever been put
forward to account for such facts as that human beings with a
certain inherited squareness of jaw are always of a tenacious dis-
position.

But when we scrutinize an older face, we peruse the linear in-
scriptions upon its surface as we read a book of which we know
the author. Not only do such and such conformations of its lines
have a definite meaning, but we can form an opinion as to why
and when (if not lioic) they were written. The caligraphy, of
course, is not uniform in all cases, and there are various com-
plexities about it which may render an exact interpretation a
matter of difficulty. Trouble or passion, which in one instance is

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

recorded in bold characters, in another may leave scarcely a visi-
ble mark ; and it is obvious that a lean face will betray the story
of emotional experience more readily than one covered with a
mask of fat and smooth skin.

If we look at an anatomical representation of the human face
with its integument removed, we see at once that the various
groups of muscles are generally so arranged as to balance one
another. Thus there is one set of muscles for opening the eyes or
the lips, and another set for closing them ; one group raises and
another depresses the angles of the mouth, and so on. All these
muscles, even when the features are quiescent, maintain a certain
tone ; for it is found that if one part of the face is paralyzed, the
sound muscles near it draw it toward them and retain it there
even when they are at rest. If one of the muscles or groups is
stronger in proportion than its opponents, it will cause a marked
change of expression, as is plainly seen in partial paralysis. It
is a familiar fact that all muscles become larger and stronger
through exercise ; but the reason why they so increase is not such
a simple matter. The vitality of muscular, and indeed of all other
living tissue, is strangely under the influence of the nervous system.
If the nerves which supply a limb are totally destroyed, it shrinks
with extraordinary rapidity, although the main blood supply re-
mains perfect. At the same time a limb may be paralyzed as to
motion and yet undergo but little wasting, because certain nerve
fibers (called trophic, because they have to do with nutrition) are
left intact. In bedridden patients, again, in spite of a total want
of exercise, the muscles often do not shrink in any great degree.
Hence we see that nervous currents or impulses may influence the
growth of a muscle apart from actual exercise.

Let us take an instance, the too visible results of which every
one is familiar with. Persons who squint (with certain exceptions
I need not here specify) are always "far-sighted" — that is, the
convex lens of that marvelous living camera, the eye, is not quite
convex enough ; and in consequence its focus is too long to per-
mit rays from a near object to form a clear image on the retina.
If the retina could be pushed back away from the lens the diffi-
culty would be overcome ; but we can not, as in the case of an
opera glass or a photographic apparatus, lengthen the space be-
tween the lens and the spot upon which the image is to be pro-
jected to any great extent, so Nature has provided a focusing
apparatus in the crystalline lens itself. By a muscular effort the
elastic lens can be made more convex, and in this way the focus is
shortened to the required length. In long-sighted or flat-lensed
persons this is constantly being done when they are reading or
looking at some near object.

Now, it so happens that one of the little muscles which move

ON ACQUIRED FACIAL EXPRESSION. 383

tlie eyeball — i. e., the internal rectus, whicli rolls the eye inward
toward the nose — gets its nerve supply partly from the same
source as do the muscles for shortening the focus of the lens.
The latter, in far-sighted persons, are constantly being urged to
action by impulses proceeding from the brain along the nerve,
and part of the impulse invariably finds its way, owing to the
intimate relation of the parts, to the internal rectus muscle. This
muscle does not at first respond to the stimulus sufficiently to turn
the eye inward every time the lens is accommodated for near ob-
jects ; but the result of this nervous stimulation is in the long run
the same as if the internal rectus were constantly called into action
by a deliberate exercise of the will. It greatly increases in bulk
and strength, and outpulls its opponent on the outer side of the eye
(which gets its nerve supply from a different source), and so the
balance of power is destroyed and a hideous inward squint is pro-
duced.

From this we can understand the effect of a long-continued
dominant emotion on the face, even although it may exist in an
individual too well bred to allow his countenance to be easily dis-
torted by the prevailing passion. Whenever the thoughts take
their habitual direction, a stream of nervous influence from the
brain to the hidden-expression muscles is the inevitable concomi-
tant. The closest observer may not notice the least change of out-
line or the vaguest tremor of movement at the time, and the sub-
ject himself may be unwarned as to what is going on. Yet in the
course of years the muscles so stimulated assert themselves over
the others, and a permanent expression in accordance with the
mental character comes out.

Close observation of almost any face under favorable circum-
stances supports this view. While engaged in studying the phe-
nomena of sleep, I have repeatedly noticed that the apparent
placidity of the features during slumber is deceptive. Even in
dreams each fleeting emotion affects the facial muscles in some
degree, and the apparent calm on the surface covers many little
eddies and currents beneath, as one or other of them is thus pro-
voked into partial activity. When the thoughts are all-absorbing
and the owner of the face is off his guard, it does not require a
very acute observer to see how the expression follows what is in
the mind.

The other day, while traveling by train, I witnessed the part-
ing of a pair of lovers. The damsel got into the carriage where
we were seated, and until the train started there was an eloquent
interchange of glances and smiles. As we steamed off, the last
smile of parting gradually faded on the lassie's face. She shut
her eyes and leaned back, so that she did not see that she was
under observation, and at the same time the light showed her

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

countenance with, great distinctness. For the space of some
twenty minntes, during which. I was her fellow-passenger, the
dimples of that parting smile would ever and anon appear, but in
so slight a degree that, unless the opportunities for observation
had been exceptional, they would not have been noticed. The
movements of the muscles were so subtle that it was absolutely
impossible to analyze them, or even to discern them severally.
They were

"... like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place."

Yet one could gauge from moment to moment the depth, and to
some extent the nature, of her thoughts of her lover.

Let me strongly recommend all physiognomists who travel by
rail not to spend their time in the perusal of text-books, while
they have before them a row of living documents inscribed all
over with the very aphorisms of the art. The opportunities for
observation afforded by the British traveling hutch are such as to
make one forgive its manifold inconveniences. Take the instance
of the old lady who is perturbed about the safety of her ticket
and her luggage. Her totality of expression has a heavy ground-
work of care, upon which start and flicker endless additional
lines, as this or that possibility of trouble crosses her mind. It
requires some self-restraint on the part of the enthusiastic student
to refrain from making such a one the subject of physiognomical
research by hinting various moving hypotheses concerning the
perils of the journey or the fate of her numerous packages. Let
him not forget, however, that although such experiments are not
forbidden by the Vivisection Act, the methods of Parrhasius are
out of harmony with the spirit of the nineteenth Christian
century.

The incessant flow of involuntary nerve-currents to the facial
muscles doubtless accounts for the odd similarity of expression
among men of the same vocation. In many such cases the con-
ditions are so complex that it seems impossible to lay one's finger
upon the special items of environment which conduce to the fa-
cial characteristics exhibited by nearly all members of certain
trades and professions. What, for instance, is there about the
process of making shoes which evokes the unmistakable cobbler's
visage ? The portrait of Edward, the Banff naturalist, in Mr.
Smiles's book, shows the type in a marked degree. As far as
my own observation carries me, the cause must be looked for in
the last, lapstone, and wax-end of old-fashioned cordwainery;
since men who work the machines in modern boot factories, or
who do ordinary repairing, do not exhibit the expression. It ap-
pears probable that the tailor's distinctive type of face may have

ON ACQUIRED FACIAL EXPRESSION. 385

been partially created by bis babit of working bis jaws concomi-
tantly witb bis sbears. Let any one watcb a person cutting a
piece of tougb material witb scissors, and be will see tbat tbe
lower part of tbe face wags in rbytbmic and spontaneous unison
witb tbe blades. Sbepberds and farm laborers wbo join sbeep-
sbearing gangs certainly acquire a different expression wbile en-
gaged in tbis kind of work. Tbe cast of countenance by wbicb
one so easily recognizes a groom is partially explicable from tbe
fact tbat tbe muscles wbicb close tbe jaw and compress tbe lips
are always called into play wben we are asserting our will over
tbat of a borse. Nearly all jockeys and otber borsey men bave a
peculiar set of tbe moutb and cbin, but I bave been unable to dis-
tinguisb any special cbaracteristic about tbe eye or upper part of
tbe face. It is instructive to compare tbe visage of tbe ruler of
borses witb tbat of tbe ruler of men. Tbe borseman's face sbows
command in tbe moutb, tbe drill-sergeant's in tbe moutb and tbe
eye. Tbe last is undoubtedly tbe most effective instrument in ex-
acting obedience from our own species. Here we get a bint of tbe
cause of tbat want of dignity, tbat element of coarseness, wbicb is
discernible in tbe countenances of some men and women wbo bave
mucb to do witb borses. Tbe bigber and nobler metbod of ex-
pressing autbority is outweigbed by tbe lower and more animal
one.

Generally speaking, it is a strenuous contest witb minor diffi-
culties wbicb produces a tbin and rigid set of lips. It is seen al-
most invariably in housewives of tbe Martba type, wbo are " care-
ful and troubled about many tbings," and wbose souls are sbaken
to tbe center by petty worries witbin doors, and strife a outrance
witb shortcomings of tbe scullery maid or tbe cook.

Tbe compressed lip so loved (and so often misinterpreted) by
novelists is a sign of weakness ratber tban strength. It tells of
perpetual conflicts in wbicb tbe reserves are called into tbe fray.
Tbe strong will is not agitated into strenuous action by tbe small
worries of tbe bour, and tbe great occasions wbicb call for its
wbole forces are too few to produce a permanent impress of tbis
kind upon tbe features. Tbe commanding officer, assured of bis
men's obedience, does not habitually keep his lip muscles in a
state of tension. Look at tbe sea captain, tbe most absolute mon-
arch on earth. He carries authority and power in his face, but it
resides in his eye and the confident assurance of his easily set
moutb. Every spar and shaft and muscle in bis floating realm
must obey him, and be knows it. This is probably a reason why
tbe sea captain's and the engine driver's show a certain similarity
of type. The engine driver can make bis captive giant, strong as
ten thousand men, obey tbe pressure of his finger. His lips are
usually calm, like those of the statues of tbe wielder of thunder-

VOL. XLT. 30

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"bolts on Olympus. Who ever saw a man commanding a man-of-
war or driving a locomotive with the contentious lip of a school
usher ?

The typical expressions of the members of those three liberal
professions which Sir Thomas Browne says are all founded upon
the Fall of Adam are well enough recognized to have been long
the prey of the caricaturist. The several distinctive traits of
each, and the possible causes which give rise to them, are too
complex to be dealt within a single article. Speaking very gener-
ally, the cleric's face is indicative of authority (of the thin-lipped
kind) and of a dignified sense of the sanctity of his office. The
doctor's jaw and mouth are less rigid, yet tell of decision. His
eye is vigilant and sympathetic, and his whole facial aspect con-
veys the idea of a fund of untapped wisdom. The lawyer's coun-
tenance is confident and confidential, with a pouncing alertness of
the eye, and a prevailing expression of weighty perspicacity.

Of course it must be understood that in such a summary one
is dealing with the broadest generalities. Marked exceptions to
the rule for each class will be within every one's experience. I
am inclined to think that in the learned professions the facial
characteristics are much less marked than formerly. This may
partly be accounted for by the modern laxity of fashion as to
shaving the lip and chin. But also, there can be little doubt that
the custom of carrying a sort of perpetual personal trade-mark is
diminishing. Military officers no longer wear their uniform in
private life, and the doctor and lawyer have both acquired a weak-
ness to be classed, socially, as human beings.

It is noteworthy (and here my own observation has been sup-
ported by one of the most alert minds of this generation) that the
leading members of the medical and legal professions do not dis-
play the facial symbols to anything like the same extent as the
rank and file. This is especially so with regard to the expression
of the mouth, and may be due to the absence of that anxious en-
deavor to look like a wise doctor or lawyer which possesses most
ordinary practitioners in their earlier years.

The fact that two people who live long together tend to grow
alike is accounted for by unconscious mimicry reacting upon the
muscles of expression in the same way that a ruling passion does.
This tendency to facial imitation is very general — in fact, almost
universal — and may be so marked as to be easily noticed ; so that
when two people are engaged in animated conversation, the ex-
pression of the listener may often be seen to echo that of the
speaker. How " infectious " is a smile or a laugh, even when the
idea which gave rise to it in the first case is not transferred !

Several times, when talking to young people, I have suddenly
and purposely adopted some change of expression, such as the

ON ACQUIRED FACIAL EXPRESSION. 387

raising of the eyebrows ; and this, although not the least apropos
to the words spoken at the time, has instantly evoked a like
movement on the faces before me. The response was quite invol-
untary, and was a pure piece of instinctive reflex action. Why
does a yawn spread like pestilence through the room when conver-
sation flags ? I know of those who have started such an epidemic
by a little piece of acting, and not a mouth in the company (save
the guilty one) knew why it gaped. Have not we all noticed that
a man of marked individuality becomes a center of physical influ-
ence to those who wait on his words, so that his gestures, tones of
voice, and turns of phrase are reproduced ? I know a tutor whose
peculiarities of speech and carriage have been adoj^ted more or
less by every one of his pupils during the last six years, and sev-
eral of them have come to resemble him in feature. This uncon-
scious imitation of expression is very noticeable in children. Has
it occurred to many careful parents that the good looks of their
daughters may depend in no slight degree upon their choice of
nurse girls and governesses ?

For some reason which we can not fathom, the imitative fac-
ulty is so ingrained in us that what the eye perceives the brain
makes haste to reproduce without stopping to ask our permis-
sion ; and where two people live long together the facial muscles
of each are constantly receiving stimuli prompting them to mim-
icry. As in the case of the emotions, these influences may be in-
finitesimal at any given moment, and may give rise to no visible
change of expression. Yet in the course of time they tend to mold
the whole countenance, feature for feature, into an almost exact
facsimile of another. — BlackiuoocVs Magazine.

The most remarkable feature noticed by Prof. Krasnov, of Kharkov, in his
study of the distribution of plants in the island of Sakhalin, is the existence side
by side of distinct types of vegetation, due to variations, not of climate, but of
soil and relief. This, it is suggested, should be a warning against hasty conclu-
sions as to the succession in past times of distinct types of vegetation in Europe,
since it appears possible that they likewise existed side by side. In Java, which
he also visited, the similarity of the flora on the tops of the volcanoes with that
of the polar swamps stiggested to Prof. Krasnov problems as to the evolution of
polar forms from tropical prototypes.

A CASE in the Buddhist department of the Gallery of Eeligions.at the British
Museum contains an apparatus for exorcising evil spirits which is used by some
of the Buddhist sects in Japan. It consists of a brazier surrounded by a small
tray for offerings, and bouquets of artificial flowers, the whole encircled by a rope
supported on poles. Before this lighted brazier the oQicialing priest takes his
s'eat, and, reciting appropriate prayers or incantations, burns one by one a bundle
of one hundred and eight sticks. Each stick represents one of the wicked spirits
"that lead the heart of man into sin," and the exorcism of the whole batch may
be assumed to secure a certain immunity from attacks for some time.

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS.

Bt J. WILLIAM BLACK, Ph. D ,

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN OBERLIN COLLEGE.

MR. EDWARD A. FREEMAN, the eminent Englisli his-
torian, has given us a short and popular definition of his-
tory in the phrase, " History is past politics." While it is true
that history includes past politics, and that the political events of
to-day become the history of to-morrow, we must acknowledge
that the province of history is more extensive than is indicated
in this pithy phrase if we are ready to admit, as it seems we
should, that the highest end of history is ethical and social, and
not merely political.

We can not say that history is limited for its materials to
written records; nor do we agree with Morrison,* who says that
history is simply literature, and begins with the historical books
of the Old Testament.

We really commence our study of history with the first traces
of man's presence upon this earth. His bones are to us not only
of physiological but of historical importance. His tools, imple-
ments, ornaments, and relics are historical records.

Formerly history was altogether written on the artistic plan.
We find that many of the most prominent Greek and Roman
writers continually sacrificed the truth to literary finish. Since
the middle of this century our conception of history has greatly
changed. We regard history as a science, and employ scientific
methods in our treatment of historical data. Herodotus's con-
ception of history comes to us again in a new light — " to-ropia,"
meaning a learning by investigation.

The study of history conveys to us a knowledge of the intimate
connection existing between the past and the present. Much of
our material for historical investigation we find not in the past,
but in living and present things. Archaeology will demonstrate
this to us. Thanks to the recent discoveries and excavations of
the archaeologists of the Capitoline Hill, the history of Rome has
been entirely rewritten since the French Revolution. How much
new light the study of institutions in the primitive times and
among the peoples of to-day, whose development has not kept
pace with our own, throws upon the origin of the state and of
many of our own social institutions !

History brings to us a knowledge of the past to aid us in the
settlement of present problems ; and so Droysen's ideal comes to
us as the highest and best conception of history. " History," he

* Encyclopaedia Britannica, article History, by J. C. Morrison.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 389

says, "is the self-knowledge of humanity; it is the potential
knowledge of the present with reference to its development from
the past." * Thus, history is not politics, not simply the science
of government, and a story of revolutions and conquest, nor sim-
ply literature ; but is more. It is something which includes the
history of culture, of law and custom, the development of the fam-
ily, justice, the social life as well as the political life. It is an un-
folding panorama of the self-conscious development of humanity.

History has become more and more sociological in its charac-
ter, and perhaps this has caused much of the confusion which
surrounds the definition of the comparatively new term " sociol-
ogy." Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer have shown a disposi-
tion to appropriate this scientific conception of history and call it
" sociology," giving history a subordinate place under the latter.
What the true position of sociology will be in the hierarchy of
sciences time alone can settle. Perhaps we shall ultimately call
history in the scientific sense " sociology," putting it, as Comte
and Spencer do, at the head of all the sciences, or perhaps we may
make of it a philosophy of society, dealing with universal laws
and universal types, for which history, its chief adjunct, will fur-
nish the data ; or we may regard sociology in a way similar to the
popular conception of it at present, as the science which deals
with social problems.

It is, however, institutional history or historical sociology that
is so attracting the attention of scholars at the present time.
There is no study, perhaps, so attractive as the study of primitive
society, the habits and customs of savage life, the development of
culture and of moral and religious ideas; while its chief profit
lies in the solution and understanding of our own progress and
development in a continuous line from the historic past. If we
would understand the development of our modern state, we must
study the beginnings of family life and government, the evolution
of the state from the family. To deal intelligently with the
divorce problem in modern society, one must study the origin and
early history of marriage, and approach the solution of the prob-
lem from the historical point of view.

In many of our ceremonial institutions, our fashions, habits,
dress, ornamentation, opinions, notions of marriage, property, and
law we are but the slaves of the customs and traditions of the
past. It may be of interest to look at some of these habits and
customs of savage life. We might ask the question, " How is the
course of civilization traced ? " One means is through the aid
of survivals. And what do we mean by " survivals ? " " Those

* Droysen's Principles of History.

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

opinions, customs, and peculiar notions of ours which require an
explanation for their presence and which represent an older period
of culture." * The Hindu, for example, continues to use the primi-
tive fire-drill for kindling the sacred fires, although the lucifer
match is used for all other purposes. Catlin noticed a similar
custom among many Indian tribes of North America. The ancient
Eygptians continued the use of the stone knife in the religious
rite of circumcision long after the introduction of the metals.
The institution of marriage to-day offers us illustrations of cere-
monies which seem a necessary part of the institution ; and yet, if
we were asked for rational explanations of them, we should be at
a loss to explain, were we not able to appeal to the evidence of
history and call them survivals.

How can we explain the wedding cake, the bridal tour, the
storm of rice and old shoes accompanying the departure of -he
happy couple, without an appeal to the customs of the past ? The
coyness of the maiden to-day is fully equaled by that of the sav-
age maiden. It is customary with the latter to manifest opposi-
tion to entering the paths of matrimony, though that opposition
in some cases is merely feigned. This probably originated — as
most writers agree — among nations who were in the habit of cap-
turing their wives from hostile tribes, but it has lingered as a
conventional observance in cases where the change of state is not
distasteful. Marriage by capture is not uncommon, and prevails
among some of the Hindu tribes, Circassians, and the primitive
races of Australia, New Zealand, and America ; and survivals of
this custom to-day would seem to indicate traces of this institu-
tion among the early Aryan and Semitic races. The rape of the
Sabines affords a good illustration of this custom among the
early Romans.

The primitive form of marriage by capture, however, gave
way later to the ceremony of marriage by purchase, a price being
paid by the groom to the parents of his bride, and the marriage
contract being settled generally without the latter's consent. In
this second stage, where the bride was secured by a more peaceful
method, the violence accompanying the former mode of securing
a wife still lingered in the form of a survival. In turn, the cus-
tom of purchasing a bride passed from the stage of reality to the
ceremonial stage. Among the New-Zealanders a bride is only
secured after a prolonged struggle between the friends of the
groom and the friends of the bride. Among certain tribes of
India the groom is obliged to overcome a strong man who is ap-
pointed to defend the bride. A curious parallel to this is noted
among the Eskimos. The youthful candidate to matrimony is

* Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. i, chap. iii.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 391

only qualified to marry after lie has succeeded in killing a polar
bear without assistance. This is taken as an evidence of his
ability to provide for the wants of the household. In Turkey a
prominent part of the ceremony is the chasing of the bridegroom
by the guests, who strike him and hurl their slippers at him.
And what adds zest to the occasion is the fact that these on-
slaughts are usually led by the females who were disappointed
at the loss of a former lover. Another survival of marriage by
capture is discovered among the Ceylonese, where it is common
at royal marriages for the king and queen to throw perfumed
balls and squirt scented water at each other.

As stated above, even in the latter stage of marriage by pur-
chase, where the marriage contract is settled on a friendly basis,
the symbol of capture is still maintained. For example, after thS^
purchase price is agreed upon, the girl is given the privilege of
running for her independence. This is known as " bride-racing,"
and takes various forms. In one instance, the girl is mounted on
a swift horse ; she is given a good start, and then pursued by her
lover similarly mounted. If he overtakes her, she becomes his
bride. If not, the marriage is declared off. As a rule, however,
after a little exciting sport, the girl allows herself to be over-
taken.

Among other tribes, we find the symbol of capture perpetuated
in the foot race, or water chase in canoes ; or the race may be run
through a series of tents, as observed by Mr. Kennan in Siberia.
In this case all sorts of obstructions are placed in the way of the
groom by the friends of the bride, and if he be successful in run-
ning the gantlet and jumping the improvised hurdles in time to
catch the girl he becomes a Benedict. It is also a custom for the
" fair one," if she be more fleet-footed than her lover, to wait
kindly in the last tent until he joins her.

Thus it is general among uncivilized peoples to accompany
the wedding ceremony with violence of some sort. Kicking and
screaming on the part of the bride are considered an evidence of
modesty ; and the stouter her resistance and the more violent her
convulsions, the greater is she appreciated ever after by her hus-
band and her own friends. It is said even to-day that the young
girl hardest to woo is best appreciated by her lover.

Marriage among the Greeks and Romans consisted of three
acts : First, the quitting of the paternal hearth ; second, the con-
ducting of the young girl to the house of her husband, accompa-
nied by relatives and friends and preceded by the nuptial torch.
Then the act of violence survives in the following, the third part
of the ceremony ; for at this point it was the duty of the groom
to seize the bride and carry her into his house without allowing
her feet to touch the sill. Around the domestic hearth the hus-

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

band and wife now gather, offer sacrifices, say prayers, and eat of
the sacred wlieaten cake. This last performance, which still sur-
vives in our wedding-cake of to-day, was of great importance, as
it cemented and sanctified the union of the two, who were now
associated together in the same domestic circle and the same
worship.

The wedding feast is of ancient origin, and probably origi-
nated, as Westermarck points out, in the purchase stage, where
the feast was regarded as a part of the purchase price paid by
the groom ; or, in cases where the expenses were met by the par-
ents of the bride, as part compensation for the sum of money
paid for the bride. The custom of giving presents to the bride is
also interesting in its origin. In all probability it also came
from the purchase sum paid by the groom to the family of his
bride, this purchase sum degenerating into a mere present, more
or less arbitrary, which in some cases was returned to the giver ;
in others, given to the bride. In Athens, during an early period,
the dower was known, for the bride was frequently provided
with a marriage portion by her father or guardian. This led to
the giving of presents by the bridegroom to his wife. It was a
common observance for gifts to be exchanged between the bride
and groom or their guardians, and numerous instances of this are
recorded. It is a part of the ceremony in China and Jajjan ; and
Tacitus relates a similar custom among the Germans. Thus the
custom of giving the bride a good start in life with the aid of
presents is not new ; while the bridal tour, and the practice of
throwing rice and old shoes after the departing bride and groom,
are symbols of the violence that formerly accompanied the mar-
riage ceremony. Even more dangerous weapons were used
within recent times, for it is related to have been a custom among
the Irish to cast darts at the bridal party. On one occasion, how-
ever, a certain Lord Hoath lost an eye by the foolish practice, and
since that time it has become obsolete, less harmful weapons
having been substituted. The "best man" of to-day was for-
merly the chief lieutenant of the groom in the act of capturing
his bride, while we find the wedding ring in use among the an-
cient Hindus. Among the Ceylonese the latter takes a curious
form, for " the bride ties a thin cord of her own twisting round
the bridegroom's waist, and they are then husband and wife." *
This he wears through life as an emblem of the union. The cere-
mony would indicate that among these people the woman is "the
boss." This, however, is contrary to the usual custom which we
find among many other tribes, for the boxing of the bride's ears
by her husband to indicate that he is master is an important part

«

* Westermarck's The History of Human Marriage, p. 420.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 393

of some ceremonies, while it is said that in ancient Russia the
father, taking a new whip, would strike his daughter gently, and
then hand it over to the groom, indicating thereby that a change
of master had taken place.

The blood-feud or revenge offers a field of similar interest to a
student of legal and institutional history. Formerly, before the
age of judges, state prisons, and reformatory institutions, it was
the custom for an individual to take the law into his own hands.
" Self-help," says Farrer, " is for individuals the first rule of ex-
istence. But generally this deficiency in the legal protection of
life and property is made up for by a principle which lies at the
root of savage law — the principle, that is, of collective responsi-
bility, of including in the guilt of an individual all his blood re-
lations jointly or singly." * One can see upon reflection why the
avenging of murders or wrongs committed should be regarded as
a family or tribal rather than a personal affair, on account of
the powerful influence it must have in repelling crime and keep-
ing the public peace. A good illustration of blood vengeance we
have among the native Australians to-day, where it is regarded as
one's holiest duty to avenge the death of his nearest relation.
The force of public opinion compels the man to do his duty by
his relative. It is the custom among a certain Brazilian tribe for
the " murderer of a fellow-tribesman to be conducted by his rela-
tives to those of the deceased, to be by them forthwith strangled
and buried, in satisfaction of their rights ; the two families eat-
ing together for several days after the event as though for the
purpose of reconciliation." But the affair is not always so hap-
pily and permanently healed, for if the guilty one escape the
avenger slays his nearest relative. Consequently, it was a matter
of the greatest importance that the punishment should be visited
upon the real culprit, and frequently both families united in
hunting down the murderer. But more often, where the inno-
cent received the punishment due the guilty, hereditary feuds
sprang up between the tribes, and tribal warfare resulted.

The right of revenge was a recognized principle of the Jewish
law, as seen in the following quotation from Exodus : " And if any
mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound
for wound, stripe for stripe." f It was likewise a right recognized
by the law and custom of the Germans. In time the right of re-
venge gave way and certain modifications of the old institution
were made to relieve its severity. This was probably due, as Ty-
lor suggests, to the increase of population and the growth of town
life. Among the Jews the right of revenge was suspended on

* Farrer's Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 163. f Exodus, xxi, 23-25.

394 THE POPULJR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

certain festival days, and cities of refuge were established,
whither the criminal might flee and be safe ; or, as in Western
Australia, "crimes might be compounded by the criminal com-
mitting himself to the ordeal of having spears thrown at him
by all such persons as conceive themselves to have been ag-
grieved," care being taken, however, to limit the punishment in
such a way that the prisoner might escape without mortal wounds.
But the law in the interest of peace and progress soon fixed upon
a composition for the crime, known as " ivergild, or man-money."
Such was the practice of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers less than
a thousand years ago, when the wergild, or fine, of which our
judicial fines are a survival, was regarded a fitting substitute for
personal vengeance. The survival of the law of retaliation, as
expressed in the passage from Exodus, is seen in the composition
provided for each part of the body. The teeth, hair, nails, and
other parts had their peculiar value, the hair being especially
prized. For instance, the loss of the beard was estimated at
twenty shillings, while a broken thigh was worth only twelve.
The loss of a front tooth was reckoned at six shillings and a
fractured rib at three. The composition for a freeman was two
hundred shillings, or half price for the loss of a foot or hand,
five shillings for the little-finger nail, and so on. There is one
point, however, that deserves notice in this connection. The value
of a man varied according to his rank, the royal fliegn or lord
being rated as high as twelve hundred shillings. While impar-
tiality with regard to rank or wealth is the rule of justice in all
civilized communities to-day, yet in many instances it seems as
difficult for our courts and juries to overlook these factors as it
was in Anglo-Saxon law, and the big embezzler stands an infi-
nitely greater chance of escaping punishment befitting the crime
than the petty thief.

Our criminal law grew out of the old private vengeance, but
in accordance with modern ideas the state, representing the com-
munity, has become the avenger. While the older method of
family responsibility went a long way toward securing orderly
government, it has given way to the better plan of holding the
individual responsible, though the traces of the former still lin-
ger on in the ignominy which seems even in these days to attach
to the relatives of a criminal.

When we speak of the vengeance of the law, the old idea that
the law is being avenged by the punishment of the criminal is
revived; but the prevailing idea in dealing with the criminal
classes is that punishment is exacted for the benefit of society
and for the repression of crime. The public prosecutor stands in
the place of the avenger, and witnesses may be compelled by the
state to appear in the interest of the public peace. The blood-

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 395

feud, or vendetta, still lingers as a survival almost in our very
midst, in the mountain regions of our South. It is not an uncom-
mon thing to read in our papers of the perpetration of some atro-
cious crime as the result of a long-standing feud between the
Hatfields and the McCoys, the Frenchs and Eversoles, or the
Jarvises and the Kendalls. And it is surprising that often when
the law once gets its grip upon these modern savages it does not
repress them by a wholesome administration of justice. As a mat-
ter of fact, it is difficult to secure a conviction or anything more
than a very light sentence for a willful aggressor in our Southern
vendetta.

The international prize fight is a degenerate suggestion of the
old tribal champion, who was appointed to defend his country in
single combat against the representative of a hostile nation. Of
this primitive institution, the familiar stories of David and Goli-
ath, and the Horatii and the Curatii, are good illustrations. Pass-
ing now to a different branch of our subject, let us glance at a
few peculiarities of savage life with regard to dress, ornamenta-
tion, and bodily disfigurements. On these subjects Prof. Freder-
ick Starr's recent articles * in The Popular Science Monthly will
be found full of interesting and suggestive facts.

It is a matter of uncertainty how dress has developed until it
has reached its present form among civilized peoples. While it
is probable that the desire for ornamentation, which is usually
the first thought in the savage mind, led to its adoption and devel-
opment, protection and modesty also contributed ; for, as Tylor
says, it was a custom among the Andaman-Islanders to plaster
themselves with a mixture of lard and clay as a shield against
the heat and mosquitoes. Among the rudest races, and even in
the warm climates, we find clothing worn, or, as a fitting substi-
tute the body is painted, tattooed, or plastered, as described.

It was an early custom to wear a girdle about the waist, and
from this suspend skins, feathers, and other ornaments. In time
this led to the wearing of a loose robe for the covering of the
body, which is known as the southern type of dress, so common
in the Orient, notably in China, Japan, as well as in ancient
Egypt, Greece, and Rome ; while in the north, where the climate
demanded the greater protection of the body, the close-fitting gar-
ment, including jacket and trousers, at first made of skins, became
the prevailing costume. The Eskimos, for instance, have long
worn this type of dress. Skins and furs made the most durable
garments, and as a covering for our feet we have yet to find
something to supplant this inheritance of savage times. In the

* Popular Science Monthly, August, October, November, December, 1891. Articles on
Dress and Adornment.

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

absence of skins, the leaves of the forest were used for costuming,
and one is often reminded of this savage custom in the diversions
of the rural picnic party, when the leaves of the forest are woven
into primitive garlands and aprons. In Brazilian forests Nature
is especially kind to the savage, for upon the " shirt tree " is
grown the ready-made garment. All the native has to do is to
remove the bark of the tree, cut slits in it for armholes, soak and
soften the bark, and then place it upon his body. The plaiting
of mats for clothing, followed by the invention of the loom, and
the weaving of cloth are interesting processes connected with the
development of dress.

In contrasting the close-fitting garment of the northern type
with the loose-fitting or blanket type of garment in the South,
Prof. Starr is led to make the suggestion that this accounts for
the two prevailing types of dress which exist in civilized society
to-day. One of the great conservative elements in society is
woman, who stands as a useful brake upon rash and too impetuous
change. " The northern and southern types of dress once came in
conflict. The time was that of the invasions of the northern
barbarians upon imperial Rome. Both men and women, in the
ancient days of Rome, wore the southern dress. The barbarians
wore the tighter-fitting garments of their colder climate. The
southern man adopted the more convenient type, the woman did
not ; and so we see to-day our men in jackets with tight sleeves
and close-fitting trousers, while women continue to wear in a
modified form the dress of the sunny South — flowing garments,
skirts and cloaks." *

We are reminded of this southern type of dress in the spotless
robes and vestments of the priest and chorister; and it is not
difficult to see in the cap-and-gown fad, which has recently
attacked our colleges with the vigor of a prairie fire, a survival
of this classic type of dress.

A curious costume is that of the medicine man, the most unique
and important individual among savage races. His object is to
terrorize his patient by his grotesque costume, his weird move-
ments and incantations, and to kill or cure as the case may be.
Catlin gives a picture of one and describes his movements. His
body and head were covered with the skin of a yellow bear, the
head serving as a mask, a rare and conspicuous thing to begin
with. " The huge claws dangled upon his wrists and ankles. In
his right hand he shook a frightful rattle, in the other he bran-
dished his medicine spear or magic wand." \ The medicine man
ordinarily administers to his patient roots and herbs, and if these

* Popular Science Monthly, October, 1891, p. 800.
f Smithsonian Report, 1885, Part II, pp. 417-419.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 397

fail, then as a last rite lie arrays himself in his strange dress
and goes through his hocus-pocus over the dying man, with the
expectation that his mysterious and magical skill may be invoked
at this point to save the patient. In case of an adverse result,
however, he easily maintains his self-respect in the community
by the explanation that " it was the will of the Good Spirit/' An
illustration of savage logic is also interesting in this connection,
for the medicine man argues by analogy that extraordinary cases
demand extraordinary remedies. Dorman relates an incident
which seems to substantiate this. "An Indian warrior was
brought to camp after a most disastrous encounter with a grizzly
bear. The doctor compounded a medicine that ought really to
have worked wonders. It was made by boiling together a collec-
tion of miscellaneous weeds, a handful of chewing tobacco, the
heads of four rattlesnakes, and a select assortment of worn-out
moccasins. The decoction thus obtained was seasoned with a
little crude petroleum and a larger quantity of red pepper, and
the patient was directed to take a pint of the mixture every half
hour. He was a brave man, conspicuous for his fortitude under
suffering, but after taking his first dose he turned over and died
with the utmost expedition."

Savages are very fond of ornaments, and in some respects we
resemble them — with this difference, that in savage life it is the
men who are the most highly decorated. The incentive of per-
sonal adornment was, as it is now, due to the desire to make one's
self prominent or conspicuous in the eyes of others. As proud as
the schoolboy is of his medal received as a reward of merit, so
is the savage of his trophies, which he wears as a mark of his
prowess in battle, or in an encounter with some wild beast. Neck-
laces, bracelets, and earrings made of these trophies were among the
earliest ornaments worn. Teeth, claws, shells, pearls, ivory, bone,
hair, and feathers were commonly used, while the brass plates for
keyholes, sardine boxes, and other metallic objects are said to be
especially prized. On the arms circular rings of ivory, iron, or
copper were worn, and the savage delights to load himself to the
extent of physical endurance with these heavy and useless append-
ages. Schweinf urth, the African explorer, thus describes the orna-
ments of the Dinka, a Central African tribe : " The wives of some
of the wealthy are often laden with iron to such a degree that,
without exaggeration, I may affirm that I have seen several carry-
ing about with them close upon half a hundred weight of these sav-
age ornaments. The heavy rings with which the women load their
wrists and ankles clank and resound like the fetters of slaves.
. . . The favorite ornaments of the men are massive ivory rings,
which they wear round the upper part of the arm ; the rich adorn
themselves from elbows to wrists with a whole series of rings,

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

close together so as to touch." * It is said that an African prin-
cess, who had her arm covered from wrist to shoulder with these
curious bracelets, suffered so much from the heat of the sun
playing upon these rings, that she was obliged to hire a maid,
whose duty it was to attend her constantly and cool them from a
watering pot.

Thus the different parts of the body — the neck, arms, and an-
kles— which Nature has so abundantly provided for the carrying
of ornaments are utilized ; and, what is still more curious, the
savage, not satisfied with this, cuts holes in himself for the
purpose of carrying others. The most frequent mutilations are
those of the lip, cheek, nose, and ear. Some curious illustra-
tions of this custom are related by Schweinfurth. The upper lip
is pierced, and there is inserted a round-headed copper nail or a
copper plate. Among the Bongos, the women suffer a hideous
mutilation for the purpose of extending the lower lip. A hole is
bored in it, and in this a wooden plug is fitted, which is gradu-
ally enlarged until the lip is five or six times its original size.
In this way, by wearing these plugs, which are an inch in thick-
ness, the lower lip remains extended beyond the upper, though
the latter is similarly pierced and fitted with a smaller copper
plate or nail or bit of straw. The lips are similarly extended
sometimes by the insertion of circular plates of quartz, ivory, or
horn the size of a half-dollar. These cause the lips to rest in a
horizontal position, and when the wearer is in a fit of anger have
their advantages, for these cymbal-like attachments on the lips
add noise and effect to the chattering of the individual. It is
likely that the wooden or quartz plug which is so often inserted
in the lower lip was suggested by the horn of the rhinoceros.
Not content with labial adornment, they attack the nose in the
same manner, small bits of straw being fitted into each side of
the nostrils. Occasionally the cartilage between the nostrils is
pierced, and a wooden plug or copper ring is worn. This is a
common sight among Indian tribes. The ear is often pierced in
many places, sufficient to carry a half dozen rings. The slitting
and the stretching of the ear is also a common practice. Mr.
Catlin gives a picture of a chief in a Delaware tribe, " Lay-law-
she-kaw " — i. e, " He who goes up the river " — who had his ears
slit and elongated to the shoulders, through the wearing of heavy
weights in them at times. When on parade, he made use of them
as quivers, carrying in that way a bunch of quills or arrows for
the sake of ornament. Other savages use them for the carrying
of snuffboxes or knives ; and I have known a Chinaman in these
days to make use of his ear as a pocketbook, in which he carried

* Schweinfurth's The Heart of Africa, vol. i, p. 153.

SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 399

his car fare until called for by tlie conductor. Just as the dress
or bodily ornaments characterize the tribe, so does the peculiar
style of disfigurement serve as a tribal mark as well as a decora-
tion. Some file the teeth in fantastic shapes ; others bore and
stud them with brass nails. Among some African tribes it is the
custom to break off the lower jaw teeth. Sometimes they are
filed to a point for the purpose of griping the arm of an adver-
sary in wrestling or in single combat.

In tribal or family distinctions they do not stop here, for body-
painting, tattooing, gashing the face and body were used for the
purpose, while the savage can give the moderns many valuable
points on dressing the hair. " The ancient Egyptian woman had
blue hair, green eyelashes, painted teeth, and reddened cheeks,
while the modern Egyptian follows similar fashions, prolonging
the eyes by means of a drug, staining the nails brown, and paint-
ing blue stars on the chin and forehead." One does not have to
go far in our own land to find a physiognomy as artificial in its
makeup as that of the savage or Egyptian ; while the painted
face of the savage and the Indian is still kept before us in a more
grotesque and ludicrous form in the curiously painted face of the
circus clown.

Tattooing is a mode of ornamentation adopted by a great
number of savage tribes, but with the development of dress, skin
decorations cease, and as we get higher up in civilization but few
remains of these savage customs are found. Our sailors, how-
ever, have shown a considerable degree of conservatism in pre-
serving this custom.

Gashing is one of the most curious of all practices. "In
South Africa, the Nyambanas," says Lubbock, "are character-
ized by a row of pimples or warts, about the size of a pea, and ex-
tending from the upper part of the forehead to the top of the
the nose. . . . The tribal mark of the Bunns (Africa) consists of
three slashes from the crown of the head down the face toward
the mouth; the ridges of flesh stand out in bold relief. This
painful operation is performed by cutting the skin and taking
out a strip of flesh ; palm oil and wood ashes are then rubbed
into the wound, thus causing a thick ridge upon healing. . . .
The Eskimos from Mackenzie River make two openings in
their cheeks, one on each side, which they gradually enlarge,
and in which they wear an ornament of straw resembling in
form a large stud, and which may therefore be called a cheek
stud." *

I am told that now some young women occasionally submit
to a rather painful surgical operation for the removal of a piece of

* Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, chap, ii, p. 59.

400 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

flesh from the chin or cheek, the result being, upon the healing
of the wound, the appearance of a coquettish dimple.

With the progress of civilization, the tendency is to dispense
to a greater or less degree with the various forms of bodily orna-
mentation, and the most painful operations for the adornment of
the person are given up first. The piercing of the ear, however,
is still common, and continues to remind us of the customs of
savages, but perhaps the day is not far distant when the earring,
the bracelet, the superabundant finger-ring, the costly diamond
necklace, and other reminders of savage life and social inequality
may give way before the spirit of democracy which is coming to
prevail more and more in our social as well as political life. And
yet we must not underrate the importance that these facts from
savage life have played in the world's progress. The dude, as
Prof. Starr reminds us, occupies an important place in the history
of culture, for personal vanity and the desire to emphasize one's
individuality have done much toward the development of our
aesthetic senses, and as well for the arts and sciences, and for the
cultivation and satisfaction of wants outside of the mere primi-
tive needs of food and clothing.

One might go on multiplying by the hundreds illustrations of
the peculiarities of savage life, and suggesting interesting and
curious survivals, but the scope of a single short article would
not i^ermit the mention of a great variety of topics that properly
come within the field of primitive institutions and survivals.
Volumes of interesting facts have already been gathered upon
this vast and comparatively new department of study, and any
one who enters upon it will increase his respect for the advan-
tages which modern civilization has brought to us. If we exam-
ine, from the historical point of view, language, customs, my-
thology, mathematics, jurisprudence, property, folklore, morals,
religious beliefs and superstitions, we shall find "savage opin-
ion in a more or less rudimentary state, of which civilized man
still bears the traces, and over which state he represents the
greatest advance." We hear of the "freedom of the savage,"
but we need to remember that he is utterly dependent upon
Nature for his support and is a slave to his own passions. It
is estimated that it requires fifty thousand acres, or seventy-
eight square miles, for the support of one man in the primitive
hunting and fishing stage; consequently, as their numbers in-
crease they are driven to cannibalism in self-defense. But with
the progress of civilization, man increases his dominion over
Nature, and, as a rule, we find the most highly civilized countries
those where the population is densest and production greatest.
Our great World's Fair presented us with a magnificent object
lesson of man's power over Nature. The marvelous rapidity of

SKETCH OF HE IN RICH HERTZ. 401

our progress within recent years, the numerous discoveries and
inventions for shortening time and space, increasing production,
combating disease, etc., seem almost to indicate that we are
scarcely more than upon the very threshold of civilization. To
quote a short sentence from Tylor, " The unconscious evolution
of society is giving place to its conscious development, and the
reformer's path of the future must be laid out on deliberate cal-
culation from the track of the past." * If this be our under-
standing of scientific history, then we accej)t the conception of
history with which we started — that is, we agree that "history
is the self-conscious development of society."

■♦»»

SKETCH OF HEINRICH HERTZ.

By HELENE BONFORT.

WHEREVER the investigating minds of scientists are at
work promoting the insight of man into the mysteries of
Nature, wherever friends of natural philosophy are keenly alive
to the importance of this comparatively new field of study, a
field in which lie some of the most essential interests of modern
civilization, there will be sincere and deep regret over the death
of a young professor whose splendid career came to an untimely
end on the first day of this year. Prof. Heinrich Hertz, of the
University of Bonn, in Germany, died on January 1, 1894, not
yet thirty-seven years of age. For the last two years he had not
been in good health, and, though under the treatment of his capa-
ble physicians he several times rallied and seemed to be restored
to his former strength, the last winter brought a serious relapse.
A chronic and painful disease of the nose spread to the neighbor-
ing Highmore's cavity and gradually led to blood-poisoning. He
was conscious and in possession of his full mental power to the
last ; he must have been aware that recovery was hopeless, but
not a word escaped his lips that would have shown to his dear
ones whether hope or fear filled his heart. His wife and his
mother were at his bedside for many weeks, giving him their ten-
derest care, and, in spite of his continuous sufferings, there were
many hours of genial discourse. At such times they read to him,
and he gave himself up to general topics and to matters of per-
sonal interest to them, displaying even yet his wonted brightness
and cheerfulness.

Heinrich Hertz, born in Hamburg on February 22, 1857,
was the eldest son of exceptionally good and clever parents. His

* Contemporary Review (article on Primitive Society), vol. xxii, p. 72.
VOL. XLV. — .31

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

father was, at the beginning of his career, a lawyer ; in due course
of time he rose to the position of judge of the Suj)reme Court of
Appeal, and has now been for a number of years a senator of the
free city of Hamburg. The childhood of Prof. Hertz was subject
to every pure, healthful, and elevating influence that a highly
capable father and a superior mother can exercise. Both of them
gave a great part of their time to their children ; their eldest boy
especially enjoyed the advantage of their companionship in many
a holiday's ramble through the green fields and woods, and in
cozy winter nights spent in reading Homer, the German classics,
and other books.

In passing through the high-school classes of his native city,
his predilection for the study of natural science early asserted
itself. Whenever a new course of study began and a new text-
book was put into the hands of the class, the boy would devote
every leisure moment to the perusal of the volume, experimenting
frequently with apparatus made by himself, and never ceasing
until he could tell his father, " I have mastered that book." This
statement always proved to be perfectly correct. In spite of his
decided gift for natural science. Hertz chose as his vocation civil
engineering. But when, after completing his studies, he came
to take the first steps toward the practical execution of this de-
sign, he felt that his choice had been a mistake. His parents,
with a ready perception of the deeply rooted needs of his strong
and peculiar nature, whose desires they would not think of thwart-
ing, entered into his new idea, gave him their approval, and fur-
nished him with the necessary means. So he set out on a new
course of studies in mathematics and natural science. He gave
himself up to this work heart and soul, and for a number of years
knew no other object in life but unceasing and unrelenting hard
work. He studied physics at Munich and Berlin, and enjoyed the
warm regard of Prof. Helmholtz. In 1880 he became his assist-
ant, and, at his instigation, in 1883 settled down as a "Privat-
docent," or professor without salary at the University of Kiel. It
was from this time on that he made the science of electricity the
one great object of his researches, the main pursuit of his life.
The first years were filled with investigations relating to electric
discharges, etc. He busied himself, above all, with the new con-
ceptions of the inner mechanism of electric phenomena, and of
the connection between these and the phenomena of light and of
radiant heat. These conceptions, originating with Faraday and
Maxwell in England and represented in Germany by Helmholtz,
were now carried forward by Prof. Hertz.

His reputation soon spread through his native country and he
was in 1885 called to the Polytechnic School of Karlsruhe, which
for various reasons became very dear to him. One of its attrac-

SKETCH OF HE IN RICH HERTZ. 403

tions was the exceptionally fine and well-endowed laboratory of
the institution, Avhich furnished the most desirable facilities for
unlimited experimenting. At Karlsruhe Prof. Hertz found a
wife who was in every way a lovely and graceful, devoted and
highly intellectual companion to him. His life was from this
time on divided between the pursuit of his main object, the
progress of science, and home happiness ; both he and his wife
derived rare gratification from literature and the beauty of
Nature. It was from Karlsruhe that he went to Heidelberg,
there to enjoy the proudest moment of his life, in the year
1889, wlien, greeted with enthusiastic applause by most promi-
nent scientists, he stood up on the platform to tender an account
of his researches and their results. Who that saw him there, the
very picture of youthful vigor and life, could have foreboded that
those fine and penetrating eyes, to which for the first time since
our earth turned around its poles electric waves had been re-
vealed, were so soon to be closed in death !

Soon Prof. Hertz received flattering calls to the most promi-
nent universities ; he preferred the smaller town of Bonn, where
he settled down in 1890, even to Berlin, the capital, because what
he sought after was the most serious and fruitful work, not glory
and outward advantage. In Bonn he succeeded to the eminent
physicist, Prof. Clausius; this was in itself a high distinction
conferred upon so young a man as Prof. Hertz. Considered all
over Europe as one of the most prominent, he was looked up to
as one of the most promising leaders in the science of electricity.
Not only had his own country conferred high honors upon this
young and ardent worker, but the chief academies of England,
France, Italy, Austria, and Russia now crowned his efforts with
prizes, honorary memberships, and other tokens of universal
esteem and gratitude.

Up to the middle of this century the phenomena of electricity
and magnetism had been only inadequately explained by apply-
ing to them Newton's law of gravitation and asserting that, in
the same way as celestial bodies exercise power of attraction at a
distance and without the intervention of a medium, the two
kinds of material electricity were attracting and repelling each
other, while passing through space or through non-conductors.

It was the great English physicist Faraday who first sought
to carry the knowledge of electricity to a higher stage, by enter-
ing upon the study of phenomena with a mind free from precon-
ceived opinions. He put forth as the foundation on which tcv
base new theories his observations of electric and magnetic forces,,
their influence upon each other, their attractions for material
bodies, and their propagation by the transmission of the excita-
tion from one point of space to another. He questioned the

40+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

assumption of space being void, and conjectured that the ether
which transmits the luminous waves suffers modifications per-
ceived under the form of electrical and magnetic manifestations.
His discoveries, important as they were, gained due consideration
only when Faraday's great countryman. Maxwell, treated the
same subject in a purely scientific and theoretical way, publish-
ing in 18G5 his Mathematical Theory of Light. The nature and
properties of ether he left undecided, and they form to this day
dominant questions, destined, it seems, ultimately to reveal the
deepest secrets of natural science. Maxwell labored to confirm
the connection, surmised by Faraday, between light, electricity,
and magnetism ; the idea of velocity now entered the theory and
became of supreme importance. Maxwell arrived at the conclu-
sion that the velocity of electromotion in a given medium must
be identical with the velocity of light in the same medium, and
that therefore ether, being contained in all ponderable bodies,
would have to be looked upon as the conductor of electric motion
and power. Consequently the periodical motions of ether, which
our eye conceives as light, and which he figured as transversal
waves, were considered by Maxwell to be at the same time undula-
tions of electricity. These conceptions, unproved by experiment
as Maxwell left them, had merely the value of a scientific hy-
pothesis emanating from a man of rare genius. To have proved
them facts, and thereby to have united two vast and highly im-
portant domains of natural philosophy, is the lasting credit of
Prof. Hertz.

The complexity of phenomena of light and electricity and the
insufficient opportunities afforded by the laboratory for deduc-
tions of such magnitude rendered the obstacles barring the road
to exact observation well-nigh insurmountable. Many of the best
and ablest naturalists were laboring to cope with these difficul-
ties. Two English scientists of highest standing. Prof. G. F. Fitz-
gerald and Dr. O. T. Lodge, were during the eighties occupied
with experiments for the investigation and measurement of elec-
tric waves. But it was reserved for Hertz to discover and apply
with marvelous ingenuity the necessary " detector,'' a resonating
circuit with an air-gap, the resistance of which is broken down
by well-timed impulses, so that visible sparks are produced.
After an unceasing course of experiments, in which he mani-
fested indefatigable energy and a wonderful faculty of reaching
the very essence of the matter, he succeeded in deciding the ques-
tions: Is the propagation of electrical and magnetic forces in-
stantaneous ? and further : Can electrical or magnetic effects be
obtained directly from light ? The paper On very Rapid Electric
Oscillations, which was published in 1887, was the first of a
splendid series of researches which appeared in Wiedemann's

SKETCH OF HE IN RICH HERTZ. 405

Annalen between the years 1887 and 1890, and in wliicli Hertz
showed with ample experimental proof and illustration that elec-
tromagnetic actions are propagated with finite velocity through
space. These twelve epoch-making papers were afterward repub-
lished— with an introductory chapter of singular interest and
value, and a reprint of some observations on electric discharges
made by von Bezold in 1870— under the title Untersuchungen
liber die Ausbreitung der elektrischen Kraft. A translation of
this book, entitled Electric Waves, by D. E. Jones, B. Sc, with
illustrations and a preface by Lord Kelvin, has just been pub-
lished in England.

In 1889, when laying before the Congress of German Natural-
ists at Heidelberg the results of his labors. Prof. Hertz, with the
modesty characteristic of the true investigator, the utterly un-
assuming disciple of science, gave ready and graceful acknowl-
edgment to the efforts made by his predecessors or co-operators
in the work, some of whom had all but attained the results which
they aimed at and which he achieved. It is pleasant to recollect
that when he had gained the end toward which they also had
been striving, the English professors, Oliver Lodge and Fitzger-
ald, were foremost in announcing his success, and in preparing
the English-speaking world to appreciate the importance of his
discoveries. A natural bent of mind toward the questions at
issue had awakened the young professor's creative powers ; his
complete concentration upon the vital point and his intuitive per-
ceptions led him to definite results and complete success where
so many able minds had searched in vain. In the April number
of this magazine Herbert Spencer, speaking of the late Prof.
Tyndall, gives a number of traits that apply with singular force
and exactness to Prof. Hertz. Of these the first is " the scientific
use of the imagination." It may well be said that with this con-
structive imagination, as Mr. Spencer terms it, originated Prof.
. Hertz's rare success as a discoverer and as an instructor.

To find out the most effective arrangement of electrical con-
ductors and to secure the conditions which would produce the
strongest vibrations at regular intervals and in quickest succes-
sion, we might say the adjustment of his instruments was the
first part of his work. Having brought about electric undula-
tions up to several hundred millions in one second. Hertz proved
through experiment that the waves of electricity are transversal
like those of light, and that the transmission requires a certain
lapse of time. He ascertained exactly the velocity of electricity ;
it is found by multiplying the length of wave, which he measured,
by the duration of the vibration, which can be calculated, and he
found this velocity to be, as Maxwell had supposed, equal to that
of light, and, moreover, equal to the velocity of electric waves in

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

metallic wires. The grand consequence of this last discovery was
the cognizance of a new fact : that what had hitherto been con-
sidered as a current of electricity in a wire is really a movement
along the surface of the wire. Maxwell's magnetic theory of
light found further corroboration by the experimental demon-
stration of electric power as propagating from its center in waves
similar to sound. The electric undulations are subject to the same
process of reflection, refraction, absorption, etc., as the rays and
waves of light, from which they are in the end distinguished only
by their considerably greater length, measured sometimes by kilo-
metres. The crowning experiments of this course finally changed
what had hitherto been looked upon as a coincidence between two
orders of distinct phenomena into a demonstration of identity.
By gathering the electric spark in the focus of a large concave
mirror, whence it came forth in the form of a rectilinear beam,
the properties of the electric ray were shown to be identical with
those of a luminous ray, the former producing phenomena which
have heretofore been observed only in light — those of polariza-
tion. This result renders all theorizing on the matter superflu-
ous : the identity of the two powers springs from the experiment
itself ; ocular proof is produced for the proposition that light is
in its very essence an electrical phenomenon, whether it be the
light of the sun, of a candle, or of a glowworm. Suppress elec-
tricity in the universe — light would disappear. Suppress the lu-
miniferous ether — electric and magnetic forces would cease to act
through space. Even a body not casting light can be a center of
electrical action if it radiates heat. Electricity therefore pos-
sesses all Nature and even man. The eye itself is, in fact, an elec-
trical organ.

The influence of this new system of physics upon the develop-
ment of natural science and the manifold applications in practical
life of which it is capable can not easily be overrated. Only re-
cently a new application of Hertz's discovery was made by an
American, who is trying to develop photographs by the agency of
the Hertzian waves, as science has named them — that is, by elec-
tricity instead of light. Hertzian waves, Hertzian investigations,
apparatus, and methods form henceforth an essential part of all
hand and text books of electricity. The facts established by
Hertz's experiments have been molded into a mathematical form-
ula by their author, who in this purely theoretical work also has
shown himself to be a master of high genius in the realm of
abstract science. There is at present in press and will soon be
issued by T. A. Barth, at Leipsic, a comprehensive work, Princi-
ples of Mechanics in a New Connection, found among his unpub-
lished papers at the death of Prof. Hertz. Its appearance is
eagerly watched for by the scientific world.

SKETCH OF HEINRICH HERTZ. 407

However highly his own time and posterity may prize the man
of science, the great discoverer, in Prof. Hertz, his value as such
to the world at large does not surpass that of the rare purity and
greatness of his character, of the intrinsic merit which he pos-
sessed for those who knew him personally. A world-wide reputa-
tion so rapidly attained might have produced in the young man
some feeling of elation and pride, and in his colleagues somewhat
of envy. But, as Prof. Hubert Ludwig, representing the Univer-
sity of Bonn at Prof. Hertz's funeral in Hamburg, said in his
memorial speech :

" The rich harvest of fame and glory which was granted him,
and that was so fully merited as not to be tainted by a single
breath of envy or jealousy, never caused him to give up one atom
of the noble simplicity and genuine modesty which were a funda-
mental trait of his character. His modesty was a most lovable
quality in this great man, asserting itself not only in every-day
life, but also in his scientific labors, which it pervades with the
endearing charm of an amiable personality. It was coupled with
the most considerate indulgence when judging others. His ever-
ready recognition of other people's merits made it a sheer impos-
sibility to grudge him his attainments or to be his enemy.

" ' None knew him but to love him,
None named him but to praise.'

At the same time he was governed by an inflexible veracity."

He was indeed a most lovable man, and was never happier than
in giving pleasure to others. His kindness and benevolence found
expression in many ways, most of all toward those above whom
he was placed as head of his department in the university. It
was a pleasure to notice his satisfaction, when he found it in ac-
cordance with his duty, to confer a benefit or favor. And when
it was incumbent upon him to refuse or displease, he became the
director who performed his duty, and the friend who regretted
what had to be done. He was always ready to show hospitality
to scientific men who came to Bonn from other parts of Germany
or from foreign countries. Even under the restraint of a foreign
tongue (he spoke English and French with considerable fluency)
his conversation was charming. Not what he had achieved, gave
him his ascendency in scientific discourse, but what he, beyond a
thousand learned men, could achieve at any time — original and
sagacious thoughts, springing up on the spur of the moment, and
losing none of their force by being expressed in the most unpre-
tending, simple form. When entertaining friends or conversing
with his dear ones, he perfectly forgot the learned professor in
himself; he was so much at his ease, so full of fun, that none
around him could help sharing his gayety. Many of his guests.

4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

prominent men of science as well as students, will always remem-
ber with pleasure and gratitude delightful trips made with Prof.
Hertz to the Siebengebirge or evenings of genial intercourse at
his house in the Quantiusstrasse at Bonn. Absolutely devoid of
any desire to pose before the public, the professor sometimes
astonished students newly entered for his lectures by putting in
a bit of humor where they had expected abstract instruction ; but
they soon found themselves none the worse for it. Some simple
word, a casual remark made as if it were a self -understood thing,
from his lips did more toward improving the mind of his audience
than a long lecture from another. He was not a scientist incul-
cating one special branch of knowledge — he was a thinker. To be
considered an authority, even by the youngest beginner, was an
idea that never entered his mind. In the congenial atmosphere of
advanced classes, new ideas and conceptions seemed to rise in him
and flow from his lips as though there could be no easier thing in
the world. He was at his very best when propounding a problem
to this small circle, showing how he would attack it. None, how-
ever capable, but could profit by this teaching; genius itself
seemed to prompt it.

With penetrating perspicacity he took hold of his problems.
As a veritable disciple of natural science, he strove to accomplish
his ideal ends, although by means of theory, which he completely
mastered, yet not merely by theory and not for her sake only ;
what he aimed at first and last was the most accurate establish-
ment of facts. Pervaded as his strong personality was by an
absorbing love of his science, the rare harmony of his nature
kept him equally from an exaggerated enthusiasm and from pro-
saic dullness. An uncommonly great number of valuable re-
searches made at the Physical Institute at Bonn during the short
time of his leadership prove his rare capacity and untiring eager-
ness to incite young talents to the best possible application of
their faculties and so pave the way for their success in research.
But in a wider sense of the word we may call his disciples all
those physicists who are at this moment, and will be for a long
time, occupied in exploring the provinces which he was the first
to open. In this sense almost one quarter of all living physicists
call themselves Prof. Hertz's followers.

The honors paid at his funeral to the memory of this young
and ardent worker were exceptionally great. He was buried in
his native city, Hamburg, where the most widespread sympathy
for his family and the deepest regret over his loss were shown.
From Bonn, Karlsruhe, and Berlin came friends, colleagues, and
students, some of them oflficially representing their colleges.
Universities and prominent men from all parts of our globe have
sent messages of esteem and sympathy to the wife, the parents.

SKETCH OF H EI N RICH HERTZ. 409

and the University of Bonn. It may be questioned whether such
utterances of sympathy and respect, much as they tend to make
mankind feel itself as one, can offer consolation to those whose
bereavement is greater than words are able to convey. However,
what Mr. Lowell said in one of his simple and admirable memo-
rial addresses is certainly true :

" It may seem paradox, but the only alleviation of such grief
is a sense of the greatness and costliness of the sacrifice that gave
birth to it, and this sense is brought home to us by the measure
in which others appreciate our loss."

Prof. Hubert Ludwig, of Bonn, uttered the last farewell at the
grave of his friend and colleague. He expressed the sentiment of
those grieving at his bier in these final words :

" This loss is so great that we are tempted to recall the old
saying of the envy of the gods. But in this solemn hour let us
resolutely banish such temptation, and instead of rebelling against
destiny, let us at the open grave of this God-inspired investigator
bow low our heads and hearts before the inscrutable."

The importance of mountaineering from a geographical point of view, as is
shown by Mr, Edward Swift Balch, in a paper on Mountain Exploration read be-
fore the Geographical Club of Philadelphia, is hardly understood by people in
general. IIow much has been done by mountaineers from a geographical, a sci-
entific, or an artistic impulse is hardly known, and the extent of field still open
for mountain exploration and observation is not really appreciated. This field,
represented by the mountains and mountain ranges in the five continents and the
islands, covers something like one sixth of the globe. The first undoubted ascent
of a glacier-bearing peak — that of the Buet, by Jean Andr6 and Guillaume de
Luc, of Geneva, in 1Y70 — was for the scientific purpose of making some experi-
ments on the atmosphere for Jean Andre's book, Eesearches on the Modifications
of the Atmosphere. The earliest ascents in central Switzerland were made by
monks in the love of geographical exploration ; and in the greatest of these
monks, Placidus a Spescha, scientific knowledge and a love of mineralogy and
geology were added to a desire to know the boundaries and the formation of the
mountains with which he was immediately surrounded. Mont Blanc was first
ascended, with scientific ends, by the geologist De Saussure. In the record of the
contributions of mountaineering to science we have the studies of glacial phe-
nomena and the forms of water in ice and snow and clouds, made with care and
trouble by such men as Tyndall, Forbes, Agassiz, Escher von der Linth, and
Guyot, who have camped out on some occasions for weeks at a time; and the
famous expedition of 1842, when the movements of glaciers were practically first
determined, and when the investigators from Neuchatel lived on the ice for two
seasons, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, which became known as the
'• H6tel des Neuchatelois." The geology of the mountains and their botany and
zoology have been studied. They have been utilized for astronomical and for
weather ob^!ervations ; and the latest important attempt in this line is M. Jannsen's
establishment of an observatory on the summit of Mont Blanc.

410

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

TEE FOUNDER OF THE POPULAR
SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE readers of this magazine will,
we are sure, appreciate the satis-
faction with which we have lately
hailed the appearance of a biography,
done by a most competent hand, of the
late Prof. E. L. Yoiimans. This bi-
ography is one which all who were
measurably acquainted with the late
professor's work in the cause of science
felt must be given to the world. Many
biographies are not much more than
tributes to the interest which a man's
personal friends take in his character
and career ; but in the case of the late
Prof. Youmans a chapter in the history
of the intellectual development of this
country would have been missing had
his biography not been written. He
came at a critical time ; he was the
man for the crisis ; he saw his work,
and he did it. That work was prepar-
ing the public mind on this side of the
Atlantic for the reception of a new
order of ideas in science and philoso-
phy, and then transplanting those ideas
into the soil so prepared. Prof. Fiske,
whose literary skill never appeared to
greater advantage than in the produc-
tion of this biography, quotes a country
clergyman as having said to him in
1857, " There is a great intellectual
movement going on in Europe of which
scarcely anything is known or even
suspected in this country." The pro-
fessor himself adds : " Lyell's great
work on geology was published in 1830;
a quarter of a century later I do not be-
lieve there were five men in our town
who had ever heard of ' uniform itarian-
ism ' ; it was only a very bold spirit
that ventured to allude to the earth as
more than six thousand years old. Sci-
ence in general was regarded as a mis-
cellaneous collection of facts and rules.

some useful, some curious or even
pretty ; as for looking upon it as a vast
coherent body of truths concerning the
universe and its interdependent prov-
inces, few minds, indeed, had grappled
with such a conception." As late as
the year 1860 one of the most enter-
prising and liberal publishing houses in
Boston declined to republish Spencer's
essays on education. " The Americans
at that time," says Prof. Fiske again,
" were excessively provincial. There
was much intellectual eagerness, along
with very meager knowledge."

Edward L. Youmans was born in
the year 1821. We need not recite any
of the incidents of his life, which are
given in the most interesting manner
by Prof. Fiske, and were also sketched
last month in another department of
this magazine. "What we wish to point
out is that, born in what his biographer
calls a "provincial " society, he had an
intellectual eagerness which was not
satisfied with meager knowledge, nor
yet with meager scientific conceptions.
There was in him a singular and happy
union of practicality and philosophic
breadth. He was utilitarian in his
aims, but he loved a wide expanse for
his thoughts. Domestic economy was
with him a favorite field of investiga-
tion and study, but at another moment
he would take the keenest delight in
seeing the plowshare of a vigorous
criticism ripping up the clods of old
philosophical systems. He did not him-
self claim to be an original investigator
— nor does his biographer make the
claim for him in any important sense ;
but he was ever on the watch for some
enlargement of human knowledge or
some improvement in the instruments
of intellectual research. His was a
pre eminently open mind, and he loved
science because, though it might have

EDITOR'S TABLE.

411

at any given time its dark corners,
there were no corners in it that had to
be left dark, the constant effort of the
scientific worker, in every portion of
the field, being to get light and yet
more light. He loved science because
in studying it he breathed the air of
liberty and became conscious of intel-
lectual growth. No sooner had he
emerged from the cloud which a pro-
longed period of alternately partial and
total blindness had cast over his early
life, than he betook himself to the lecture
platform, and began, as his biographer
expresses it, to " interpret science for the
people." In this field he accomplished
most useful work. Possessing, as he
did, a wonderful gift of exposition, and
having the kind of mind that naturally
seized upon the most instructive and
interesting aspects of things, he was
able both to charm and to stimulate his
audiences in an unusual degree. There
was about him, too, a stamp of candor,
of liberality, of noble-mindedness that
must have exerted a powerful influence
for good upon those with whom he
came into contact. Science with him
was not a trade, it was a vocation ; and,
obeying at every moment what seemed
the highest call, he was ever ready to
listen to a higher.

The higher call came with his fir>t
serious introduction to the works of Her-
bert Spencer. Long had he been feel-
ing his way toward some more compre-
hensive scientific view than any he had
yet grasped, seeking, if haply he might
find, some common principle of inter-
pretation for the infinitely diverse phe-
nomena of the universe, when an article
in a London periodical directed his at-
tention to Spencer's Psychology. The
study of this work, which he shortly
afterward ordered from England, con-
vinced him, as his biographer has ex-
pressed it, that " the theory expounded
was a long stride in the direction of a
general theory of evolution." His inter-
est in Spencer was strengthened by a
perusal of his Social Statics and of the

valuable articles he was contributing at
the time to the English quarterlies, par-
ticularly the Westminster Keview. The
biography tells how, when he found that
Spencer had issued a programme or syl-
labus of his proposed system of philoso-
phy, and was soliciting subscriptions
thereto, Mr. Youmans wrote to him, ex-
pressing indebtedness for the advantage
he had derived from the study of what
he had already written, and offering any
assistance which it might be in his power
to render toward the success of the
forthcoming volumes. Thus was the
foundation laid of one of the most hon-
orable, interesting, and fruitful friend-
ships of which our times possess any
record. On the one side, ardent and
enthusiastic devotion to an intellectual
leader whose teaching was looked upon
as a message of transcendent importance
to the present generation ; on the other,
a quick and generous appreciation of
that devotion and of all the practical
service to which it led. Those who have
not yet read the biography, and may
wish to see in what ample terms Spen-
cer acknowledged the disinterested la-
bors of Prof. Youmans in his behalf, can
not do better than turn to the book and
read Spencer's letters. It was certainly
the opinion of the great English phi-
losopher that Prof. Youmans, by his en-
ergy and zeal, his tact and persuasive-
ness and business sagacity, almost created
a public for him in America; and, by
the help and encouragement thus afford-
ed, greatly contributed to the success of
his works in England.

Having adopted Spencer as his lead-
er, Youmans never faltered in his alle-
giance to him. It was a case of loyal
following, not of blind partisanship ; if
any fuller light had shone into our late
friend's mind, he could not have turned
away from it ; for that to which he was
supremely loyal was the truth. But, in
point of fact, he never saw anything
else in the guise of philosophy which
seemed to him to possess half the merit
or value for mankind that he discovered

412

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the theory of evolution, as expounded
by Spencer, and coupled by him with a
strong: assertion of the rights of the in-
dividual. Evolution as a world-grasp-
ing hypothesis, and "the law of equal
liberty " as the charter of individual
rights, made an absolutely irresistible
appeal to the deepest instincts of the
late Professor's nature; and it is no
wonder, therefore, that in them he
found an abiding anchorage.

"We need only mention, in passing,
the important work done by Prof. You-
mans in arranging for the publication of
the International Scientific Series, of
which over seventy volumes have now
been issued ; but it is fitting that we
should speak a little more fully on the
subject of his establishment of The
Popular Science Monthly. Even before
he became interested in Spencer he felt
that there was a great need in this coun-
try for a periodical which should be de-
voted to popularizing, not so much the
results, as the methods of science. He
was too much of a philosopher ever to
forget that what the people want, far
more than a diet of facts, is education in
correct thinking, in the right use of their
intellectual faculties. He fully believed,
with Spencer, that natural science af-
fords incomparably the best means of
discipline for the mind ; and after he
had become impressed with the impor-
tance of that writer's general scheme of
thought, he was more than ever desir-
ous of establishing a magazine that
might help in the propagation of sound
scientific views. How suddenly in the
end The Popular Science Monthly sprang
into existence, the biography will tell ;
and on what sound lines it was drawn
may be judged from the fact that in the
course of twenty-two years those lines
have never been departed from. The
Popular Science Monthly is to-day what
it was in the first year of its existence,
and what its name imports. It is not
intended for specialists, though special-
ists have made many valuable contribu-
tions to its columns. It aims to bring

before intelligent readers the best and
most interesting results of contemporary
scientific activity, and to keep science
as a power, as a method, as an inspira-
tion, as the ally of humanity in its war-
fare against evil, prominently before the
public mind. The magazine has had its
own battles to fight, and, in its earlier
years particularly, a good deal of mis-
representation to encounter. It has
been accused of liostility to particular
modes of belief, simply because it has
wished to open paths of independent
investigation in all subjects. It has,
however, outlived most of the prejudice
that at one time it excited, and to-day
is welcomed in every part of the coun-
try as one of the most useful of educa-
tional agents, as affording just that aid
to sound living and right thinking which
it was the most earnest desire of its
founder that it should afi'ord.

To some it has appeared that the
Monthly set too small value on literary
culture, and tliat its late director was
too contemptuous in his attitude toward
classical studies. In all questions of
this kind, however, a time element en-
ters. Twenty odd years ago it w^as
hard work to get any kind of proper
recognition for science in schemes of
education ; and many sophisms that
have since been exploded as to the ne-
cessity of the study of the classics for
the formation of a good literary style,
or for the right discrimination of words,
or even for the proper development of
the logical faculties, were then widely
current and aggressively asserted. It
was necessary, therefore, for a periodical
that had been started with the express
object of championing the claims of
science, to put its own case as strongly
as possible, and attack with vigor what
it considered the errors of the older
educational systems. If sometimes it
pushed its criticisms too far, that is
only what happens when any warfare
is being keenly waged. That the
founder of the Monthly was no enemy
of culture in the widest sense, all who

LITERARY NOTICES.

413

were acquainted with him are well
aware. In his youth he read even
more of literature than of science. He
had no acquaintance with the Greek or
Latin classics in the original, but he
read the best of them in translations,
and with much enjoyment. His own
literary style was a standing refutation
of the plea that, in order to write good
English, a man had to become familiar
with Greek and Latin. It had the
three great merits of accuracy, ampli-
tude, and balance, and at times was
even impressively eloquent.

Prof. Fiske has given a faithful pres-
entation of the man, and it is not our
purpose to add anything to his words of
eulogy. Of no man can it be more
truly said that his influence survives
him. As the biography makes plain, he
had a rare combination of qualities in-
tellectual and moral, and he has laid
an enduring impress, not only on the
magazine which he founded, but on mul-
titudes of minds with which he came into
contact. The reason why he accom-
plished so much and wielded so great an
influence may be found, we believe, in
that disinterestedness which was one of
his most conspicuous qualities. He was
a true apostle, because he thought more
of his cause than of himself. Had he
thought more of himself, he might have
been with us to-day ; but who shall blame
enthusiasm and devotion such as his?
It led to oversiglit in matters pertaining
to health, and that is to be regretted ;
but it stamped the man as one of the
working, fighting heroes of the nine-
teenth century, and as such this genera-
tion will honor his memory.

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Mummy. Chapters on Egyptian Fu-
neral Archeology. By E. A. Wallis
Budge. With Eighty-eight Illustrations.
New York : MacmiUan & Co. Pp. 404.
Price, $3.25.

The author of this work is acting assist-
ant keeper in the Department of Egyptian
and Assyrian Antiquities in the British

Museum. The matter of it was originally
written to form the introduction to the cata-
logue of the Egyptian collection in the Fitz-
william Museum, Cambridge, and was in-
tended to supply the informatiou necessary
for understanding the object and use of the
antiquities described therein. It is hoped
that it may likewise be of service to all per-
sons interested in the antiquities of Egypt.
It embodies the information which the ex-
perience gained from several years of service
in the British Museum has shown to be the
most needed by those who, though possessing
no special knowledge of Egyptian antiquities,
are yet greatly interested in them, or who
have formed, or are about to form, Egyptian
collections. Following up the idea that the
mummy was the most important of all ob-
jects to the Egyptian, accounts are given of
the various methods of embalming ; of the
amulets and other objects which formed the
mummy's dress ; of the various kinds of cof-
fins and sarcophagi in which he was laid ;
and also of the most important classes of
tombs hewn or built in different dynasties.
These accounts are preceded by a satisfac-
tory sketch of Egyptian history, with a list
of the dynasties and of the cartouches of the
principal kings, a list of the names, a chap-
ter on Egyptian methods of writing, the
Rosetta stone, etc., and are followed by de-
scriptions of mummies, of animals, reptiles,
birds, and fishes, and information concern-
ing Egyptian months, Egyptian and Coptic
numbers, and lists of common hieroglyphic
characters and common determinatives. In
a short space the book tells much about
Egypt in a wholly acceptable way, and it
may be regarded as one of the very best of
the popular works on the subject.

The Journal of Physiology. Edited in Co-
operation with Professors W. Ruther-
ford, J. BuRDON Sanderson, and E. A.
Schafer, in England ; H. P. Bowditch, H.
Newell Martin, H. C. Wood, and H. H.
Chittenden, in America ; and T. F. A.
Stuart, in Australia, by Michael Fos-
ter, M. D. Vols. XIV and XV. 1893.
Cambridge Engraving Comiiany, England.
Price, $6 a volume.

This is the leading journal of original
physiological research in the English lan-
guage, and is devoted to the recording and
illustration of the investigations of the most

414

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eminent experimental physiologists of Eng-
lish-speaking countries. The two volumes
contain more than thirty articles, with full
details and graphical records of experiments
continued in series and their results, relating
to the nerves and nervous action, the heart,
circulation, muscular work, digestion, the
kidneys, animal temperatures, the secretions,
mechanical action of the organs, chemical
changes in the body and in its secretions,
etc., and the chemical effects of various
agents, action of drugs, salts, and other sub-
stances on various organs and their work,
the senses and sensation, and other bodily
functions and processes. The journal is a
work of immense value to students and all
interested in investigations in this field of
research, and in the application of their re-
sults to the promotion of the health and vigor
of the body and the lengthening of life.

The Alchemical Essence and the Chemical
Element: An Episode in the Quest of
the Unchanging. By M. M. Pattison
Mum. London and New York; Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp. 94. Price, $1.60.

The essence in old-time alchemistry, when
contrasted with the element of the modern
cult, can scai'cely fail to excite an interest
bordering on romance while retaining bounds
strictly scientific in their nature.

The terse and entirely explicit volume be-
fore us presents the acceptable feature of
uniting more closely some turning points be-
tween our acquaintance with modern chemis-
try and the visionary ground occupied by our
forefathers, who long sought the unity of
Nature in the — as yet — unfound philoso-
pher's stone. When Thomas Vaughan, un-
der the worn de plume of Eugenius Phila-
lethes, wrote in the seventeenth century that
Nature did not move " by the theorie of
men, but by their practice," he pointedly
foreshadowed and it mayhap unconsciously
prophesied the achievements of modern
chemical science. In this, as in numerous
other phenomena, an inexorable though un-
seen law seems to wait upon all sincere
effort to unbosom the seci-ets of Nature.
When the anxious alchemist of a bygone age
immersed his bar of iron in a solution of
bluestone and, obtaining a deposit of copper
upon the iron surface, announced that he had
transformed the latter into the former metal,

he mistook a seeming for an absolute truth ;
or, when in boiling water he discovered a
residue of earth, and declared that he had
changed water into mud, he simply lacked
the instrumental means — the balance — to
verify a whole instead of pronouncing a half
truth. By such an experimenter, strange
occurrences were not patiently dealt with,
and a discovery was labeled prior to its
meaning being known. A lack of delicate
philosophical instruments retarded the ad-
vances of the alchemist at every step, and
that he made any progress at all was mainly
due to his incessant day and midnight vigils.
While the author of this entertaining
volume records with care material facts
governing ancient as well as modern chem-
istry, he admits the indefiniteness of the con-
ception of unity in material phenomena, and
intimates that, to at all come within I'each
of a definition of Nature's underlying es-
sence, would be to know every detail of
natural science, and indite a history of Na-
ture itself. His essay is penned " in the
hope " that such as exert their " wit and rea-
son " regarding life's problems may help to
solve Nature's questions and "those of her
students who follow the quest of the un-
changing."

Pain : Its Neuro-pathological, Diagnos-
tic, Medico-legal, and Neuro-therapeu-
Tic Relations. Illustrated. By J.
Leonard Corning, A. M., M. D. Phila-
delphia : J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp.
328. Price, $1.75.

To advance in some degree " the cause "
of medical science is the sincere desire of
the author in placing in the hands of students
and physicians the above work, which to all
intents and purposes bears upon its face the
insignia of much thought and labor. In no
special branch of medical treatment is the
practicing physician more frequently called
upon to exercise his wits than where pain is
concerned, and for its alleviation the accu-
rate diagnosis needed.

The book is divided into two parts ; the
first embracing pain in its physiological,
pathological, and clinical relations. These
are again subdivided into a definition, con-
duction, and physiology of pain. In treat-
ing of the pathology of pain no effort is
spared to render lucid neuritis, or inflam-
mation of the nerves, multiple neuritis,

LITERARY NOTICES.

415

chronic alcoholic neuritis, that of consecutive
influenza, of beriberi, and the neuritis of
leprosy. Under definite nerve areas, neu-
ralgia is dealt with exhaustively and at
length ; also, rheumatic and gouty diatheses
and the pains engendered thereby. Under
Chapter VI, the diagnostic value of pain, as
it deserves, receives that effective treatment
so characteristic throughout the book of the
author's predominant bent of mind.

Part II of the work takes up the special
therapeutics of pain, and points to the im-
portance of rest in the treatment of nervous
symptoms engendei-ed by prolonged and se-
vere pain. Apart from the internal remedies
directly or indirectly applicable in treating
pain, the author proceeds to unfold his own
methods in increasing the certainty and du-
ration of several remedies and their action
on the peripheral nerves, and goes on to ex-
patiate upon the various surgical expedients
not infrequently employed. The uses of
compressed air in conjunction with remedies
which tend to diminish the acuity of percep-
tion, including author's pain, come in for
their quota of recorded observation, while
prevention of relapse is noted fully and with
precision. The closing pages supply some
supplementary observations on torture and
the infliction of pain as a judicial punish-
ment during the middle ages in Europe.

Though cases that more properly belong
to the domain of general surgery and medi-
cine are not discussed by the author, the intri-
cacy of the whole subject of pain is never
lost sight of, and the vast array of patho-
logical conditions treated assumes a char-
acter unquestionably of interest and high
utility to the medical world.

A Student's Text-Book of Botany. By
Sydney H. Vines. (First half.) New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 430.
Price, $2.

This text-book has gi-own out of the
author's labors in revising Prof. Prantl's
Lehrbuch der Botanik, when the thought of
extending the scope of that work was sug-
gested. The extension went on till what is
essentially a new and distinct work was pro-
duced. It deserves commendation for its
thoroughness ancl the symmetry of its struc-
ture. The first part, now before us, is .de-
voted to the exposition of morphology, a

brief chapter on classification, and a descrip-
tion of the cryptogams. The province of
morphology is defined to be " the study of
the form of the body of plants, including the
development of the body, the segmentation
of the body into members, and the form and
mutual relations of the members, as also the
intimate structure (anatomy and histology of
the body and its members in so far as struc-
ture throws light upon the morphology of
any part of the body). It is an essentially
comparative study." The two systems of
classification — natural and artificial — having
been distinguished, the natural system is de-
fined as having for its object the classifica-
tion of plants according to their fundamental
relationships ; and these being established
once for all by Nature herself, it is not based
on any arbitrary principle, but depends upon
the state of our knowledge of these fun-
damental relationships. " These find their
chief expression in the structure and other
characteristics of the reproductive organs,
as well as in the peculiarities of polymor-
phism presented by the life-history. This is
more definitely true with regard to the defi-
nition of the larger groups of the vegetable
kingdom ; within these groups relationships
may be exhibited sometimes in one way and
sometimes in another, so that it is not pos-
sible to lay down any universal rules for
determining close affinities. As the investi-
gation of this subject is far from being
complete, the natural system can not be re-
garded as being perfectly evolved ; the vari-
ous general sketches which have hitherto
been given are therefore no more than ap-
proximations to the truth."

Man an Organic Community. By John H,
King. London: Williams & Norgate.
New York : U. P. Putnam's Sons. Two
vols. Pp. 32*7 4-328. Price, $4.50.

We have here an effective work involv-
ing issues of prime import, as " an exposition
of the law that the human personality in all
its phases of evolution, both co-ordinate and
discordinate, is the multiple of many sub-
personalities." In each successive chapter
the reader will discover clear conceptions
fairly elaborated, and designed to prove the
initial allegation which the author super-
adds to a law already recognized in the do-
main of science treated. By progressive

4i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

steps we are led to the pivotal idea through
a radius of reasonings, from the simpler to
the more complex forms constituting the
human personality. Through this process
the attempt is apparent to keep in a meas-
ure abreast of modern scientific research,
and supply a truer interpretation of the
meaning of human life. This, in turn, ne-
cessarily involves an ethical significance, not
so much aimed at by the author as connoted
by the reader in his perusal. Throughout
the whole field of view selected, suggestions
occur which mark a decided modification
in, if not an entire elimination of, the popu-
larly accepted idea of man's individual ex-
istence in duo. Withal, facts and ideas are
so grouped as not to identify polemics with
the object to be attained.

Among the more familiar doctrines treated
of is that the real relations of things are not
necessarily elucidated by, nor do they at all
times express, their apparent conditions, more
particularly so in the domain of natural phe-
nomena. The belief in the homogeneity of
man's personality received its primal shock
and break when the differentiation of body
and soul became an authorized concept in
the past. Then, for the first, we discover a
distinct personality expressed as attaching to
the two entities. Organism and spirit had
their distinguishing features and their sepa-
rate functions, whether in union or disjoined.
As with the mental attributes and moral
affinities, any one of which might undergo
change or be absolutely lost — as in numer-
ous cases of insanity — so, though not in so
marked a degree, a process distinct in charac-
ter, supervenes the necessary changes which
accompany growth outputs in the human
organism, either marking secedence to senil-
ity, or the progressive steps to maturity.
The human system, therefore, is no longer
the self-contained individual, but each group
of living activities within it has its special
range of duties and relations, even down to
the germ with its individualized potencies,
which wc discover only narrowly removed
from the plasma. Hence we find in the hu-
man organic co-ordination, "not only the
ruling and working subpersonalities of an
individual character," but " the associate
actions of combined and representative per-
sonalities the same as in a state; and, as in
a state one personality may be attached to

another as a check, so diverse organic at-
tributes check other organic attributes and
regulate the general equipoise by their va-
ried interactions. As with the organic, so
with the mental attributes."

Starting with the assumption that co-
ordination, or growth combination, consti-
tutes the governing principle of the human
personality differentiated under distinct sub-
personalities, the author proceeds to show
that these latter in their content are but ag-
gregates of a still lower class of differentia-
tions. From the nomad to the man, this prin-
ciple characterizes all growths. Further, while
life exists these organic co-ordinations may
separate or blend, and tissues are found to
degenerate or advance, to be repellent or to
severally work in unison. In each and every
occurring and recurring complexity, how-
ever, the earlier differentiations which marked
individual changes are never wholly for-
feited; in brief, the evolutionary principle
remains intact.

In Book I of the first volume we have
inclusive the nature and origin of the human
personality, the phylogenic stages of growth,
the phylogenic sexual forms, and the co-ordi-
nation of faculties and functions. The forms
of mental and organic co-ordination are cov-
ered by the second book under three classes
and several chapters, all of which are written
with a succinctness that sensibly diminishes
the reader's labor, and include under " normal
forms of co-ordination " the active wakeful
state, quiescent repose, the state of reverie,
somnambulism, and the induced mental and
physical states. We gather from the " forms
of co-ordinate variation " the law of varia-
bility in human personality, variations result-
ing from transference and variations through
growth. From a review of the abnormal
discordinate states, including physical abnor-
mals and discordinatious mental and organic,
we are introduced to the second volume.
This deals mainly with reversions to the
lower civilized states, the semicivilized and
barbaric states, the state of savages, and
finally animal consciousness. Here the third
and last book induces reflection on the in-
ternal and external relations of man, the
modes of self-government in the co-ordinate
personality, which betimes becomes alternate
and multiple, and the power of self and ex-
ternal suggestion. In a lucid appendix,

LITERARY NOTICES.

417

wherein the unsolved problems of life are
dealt with, we are led to a clearer apprehen-
sion of what we do not, rather than what we
do know concerning the insoluble. This, in
the light of certain — to compound a term —
scio- dogmatic allegations extant, is at least
refreshing, if not entirely novel.

Legends of the Micmacs. By the Rev.
Silas Tertius Rand. Wellesley Philo-
logical Publications. New York : Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp. 452.

These legends, which are published un-
der the direction of the Department of Com-
parative Philology of Wellesley College,
were collected by Dr. Rand during the forty
years of his service as a missionary among
the Nova Scotia Indians from whom they
are derived. The stories were related to him
in Micmac, by the native Indians, and were
then translated and written down by him in
English. The original manuscript is a vol-
ume of nine hundred quarto pages. A few
of the legends have already been published
— in the Dominion Monthly and the Ameri-
can Antiquarian ; and some have been used
and cited from in Mr. Leland's Algonkin
Legends and in Mr. William Elder's article
in the North American Review on the Ab-
origines of Nova Scotia. Dr. Rand is
quoted as saying, concerning the origin of
these stories and their relationship to Eura-
pean tales and myths : " I have never found
more than five or six Indians who could re-
late these queer stories ; and most if not all
of these are now gone. Who their original
author was, or how old they are, we have no
means of knowing. Some of them are evi-
dently of modern date, because they refer to
events that have taken place since the ad-
vent of the whites. Some of them are so
similar to some of the old European ' fairy
tales ' and ' wizard stories ' in our English
story books as to lead to the impression
that they are really one and the same." Mr.
Leland has noticed some curious coincidences
between the Norse myths and those of the
Wabanaki or northeastern Algonkins, to
which branch the Micmacs belong, and in-
clines toward an explanation of the resem-
blances by the theory of direct transmission.
Dr. Rand's biographer gives him the credit
of being the discoverer of Glooscap, a myth-
ological character which Mr. Leland calls
VOL. XLV. — 32

" the most Aryan-like of any ever evolved
from a savage mind," and with having saved
from oblivion the mythological lore of a peo-
ple that are losing with every generation
their hold on customs and manners. Prof.
Horsford, of Wellesley College, took a great
interest in the publication of this work ; and
the editing of it for publication has been
done by Helen L. Webster.

Alternating Currents : An Analytical
AND Graphical Treatment for Students
and Engineers. By Frederick Bedell,
Ph. D., and Albert Gushing Crehore,
Ph. D. New York : The W. J. Johnson
Company (Limited), 41 Park Row. Pp.
325.

As precluding the necessity for further
search after a certain class of handbooks on
alternating currents the present work, de-
signed to answer any query from the simplest
to the most complex, will amply repay a
careful perusal. A thousand and one inter-
esting comparisons recur within its pages,
and it abounds with easy solutions to tech-
nical problems. It is a consistent applica-
tion of the modern method of solving thinss
easily, and many of our educational series
are wisely adopting a similar course. As
the authors suggest, the principles underly-
ing the subject need clear elucidation, more
particularly as incessant advances in the
utilization of alternating currents and the
apparatus employed are, and with pronounced
effect, hourly coining to the front. The com-
parative newness of the theory regarding
these currents has attracted the attention of
electrical engineers from all quarters, so that
any problem one might select has already
been fully treated by known writers. Still,
nearly the whole bulk of solutions extant,
apply in most instances to special cases.
From this fact has arisen the desire to have
the subject treated generally.

The work is divided into two parts. The
first is entirely analytical in its nature, and
the second is mainly graphical. Circuits
involving resistance and self-induction are
minutely considered, and the elementary
principles establishing the equation of ener-
gy are dealt with as founded upon the ex-
periments of Faraday, Coulomb, Ohm, and
Joule. From this it is manifest that no pre-
vious knowledge of electricity or magnetism
is necessary in order to grasp the solutions

4i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

given. Throughout the second part the
same order prevails as obtains in the first,
and the treatment of problems concerning
simple circuits embracing self-induction and
resistance is extended to the like, as involve
combination circuits and their phenomena.
Then such problems are treated as include
simple and combination circuits having ca-
pacity and resistance, but void of self-induc-
tion. Also, such circuits as contain capacity,
resistance, and self-induction, together with
combined and parallel circuits.

The present is a second edition of the
work, on which much care has been bestowed
with the view of eliminating errors that un-
avoidably crept into the first issue. To-
ward the close of the first part some intensely
interesting and instructive paragraphs occur
on wave propagation in closed circuits, show-
ing the vanishing attitude of positive and
negative waves and the resulting effect, the
potential zero at middle point in the cable,
and proving that the expression for potential
may be simplified if the cable's length
should happen to be a multiple of wave
lengths. The structure of the volume is ad-
mirably suited to students, as any problem
needed may be readily found.

Art in Theory : An Introduction to the
Study of Comparative Esthetics. By
George Lansing Raymond, L. H. D.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
266, Price, %1.1^.

The essential idea, if not the sole aim of
this volume, is the application of the term
representative to all art forms, whether of
word or deed ; the representativeness to in-
clude more than the limitations hitherto
placed upon it by certain English art critics,
and such as make a further distinction be-
tween what they term presentative and rep-
resentative art. Indeed, the author's effort
is entirely legitimate, and scores an advance
upon the many imitative if not conventional
so-called art criticisms extant. It is inva-
riably refreshing to encounter any original
subtlety of sense attaching to a new or aug-
menting an old idea, and in Prof. Raymond's
book the true art of judging " Art in The-
ory" is not lacking. As the author inti-
mates, works of art are the products which
reveal the methods of the artist, whether he
desires to represent a thought or a thing —

[ to produce effects of any kind whatsoever.
A courageous and justifiable departure on
the part of Prof. Raymond is, where he
breaks away from the historico-critical meth-
od of regarding art and its mfluence as an
aesthetic factor. Duly crediting historic crit-
icism, however, for its inestimable services
in all other departments, he goes on to show
that as the arts are affected by laws of devel-
opment, more especially the higher arts,
these latter are very often distinctly noc ex-
pressive of the spirit of the age. Precisely,
and for the unfortunate reason that conven-
tionalism controls them. The historian claims
what is not true when he alleges that all art
is deserving of study. To the artist as an
artist it is not. That art which has attained
a high level of excellence is of interest to
him, and very often to him alone. Hence,
the great artists' methods are not infrequent-
ly misinterpreted in their day. The cesthetic
power that distinguished the work of an
Aristotle, a Confucius, an Angelo, or Shake-
speare had not its immediate influence for
the now manifest reason that they were
moved as much, at least, by the spirit In-
terpreting within them as by the conven-
tionalities that made demands from without.
Whether we contemplate one or more of
the twenty brilliant chapters within this vol-
ume, involving either the significance of
form in art, classicism and romanticism, the
art-impulse, taste, theories concerning beau-
ty, or any one of the many features so preg-
nant with suggestion we feel assured that
readers will acknowledge their introduction
to an author not bound by mental servitude.

An Examination of Weismannism. By G.
J. Romanes, M. A., LL. D., F. R. S. Chi-
cago : The Open Court Publishing Co.
Pp. 221. Price, $1.

The object of this volume is tersely stated
in the author's words — to separate the grain
of good science from the chaff of bad specu-
lation. This winnowing process, when closely
followed, proves to be highly interesting. Dr.
Romanes gauges his separator to meet Weis-
mann's great doctrines of the perpetual con-
tinuity and ^maltcrahle stahility of germ-
plasm, and when at last, with relentless logic,
he has sifted out every extraneous specula-
tion, and holds these theories in his grasp to
demolish them, the wise and waryWeismann

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

announces that upon further investigation he
believes that germ-plasm is universally un-
stable !

When this recantation occurred, Dr. Ro-
manes considered for a while whether he
should cancel the first two chapters of this
book already prepared for publication. He
concluded, however, to let them stand, justly
observing : " It is open to question whether
an author of any kind should suffer an elab-
orate system of theories to be published and
translated at the very time when he is him-
self engaged in producing another work show-
ing the untenable character of their basal
premises. ... At the least he should have
added notes to his Polar Bodies and Amphi-
mixis to let the reader know his change of
doctrine."

It might be supposed when these leading
features were stricken out from Prof. Weis-
mann's theories of descent and evolution, the
remainder would be characterless. But the
fanciful mechanism of heredity was retained,
the difference in mortality between the Meta-
zoa and Protozoa was emphasized, and the
instability of germ-plasm was confined to the
least possible degree, still making amphimix-
is the main cause of variation. This disturbed
Dr. Romanes more than all else. He chafed
at " a germ-plasm that is both stable and un-
stable at the same time," and writes, " It is
this half-turn to which I object, as unwar-
ranted rn logic and opposed to fact."

The subject of the inheritance of acquired
characters, associated with the name of Weis-
mann, is not taken up by the author of this
dissertation, except incidentally, but is re-
served for a future volume, when it will be
discussed as a matter of fact. The major
part of the book is devoted to a consideration
of Weismann's theories in comparison with
the hypotheses of Darwin and Galton.

According to Darwin the substance of
heredity, gemmules, may be formed anew in
each generation ; is discontinuous, and pro-
ceeds from the somatic to the germ cells, i. e.,
centripetally, whence the inheritance of ac-
quired characters is habitual.

With Galton the substance of heredity,
stirp, is mainly continuous ; proceeds from
germ cells outward to somatic cells, or cen-
trifugally. Acquired characters are rarely
inherited.

Weismann taught that the substance of

heredity, germplasm, was perpetually con-
tinuous ; proceeded from germ cells to so-
matic cells, centrifugally. Acquired charac-
ters can not be inherited.

With the modifications recently made, this
theory substantially coincides with Galton's.
Originally, Weismann held that the sphere of
germ-plasm was entirely restricted and local-
ized ; that there was no reciprocal action be-
tween it and body substance ; but afterward,
upon being confronted v^^ith the botanic phe-
nomena involved in cutting, budding, and
graft-hybridization, he allowed that germ-
plasm might be found in the nuclei of so-
matic cells, diffused in the cellular tissue of
plants.

AV rapped up also in the tenet of unalter-
able stability was the origin of hereditary in-
dividual variation, which was thus referred
to the Protozoa, amphimixis being the only
possible cause of congenital variation among
multicellular organisms.

In the germ-plasm these dogmas were
molted as follows : " The cause of hereditary
variation must lie deeper than this. It must
be due to the direct effects of external in-
fluence on the biophores and determinants ;
. . . the origin of a variation is equally inde-
pendent of selection and amphimixis, and is
due to the constant occurrence of slight in-
equalities of nutrition in the germ-plasm."

These sentences, which undo so much of
Weismann's distinctive theories, were, accord-
ing to Dr. Romanes, unnoticed by most of his
critics. It maybe added that the differentia-
tion of doctrine is thus reduced to ctntripetai
heredity, Galton and Weismann ; centrifugal
heredity, Darwm and Spencer.

Weismann's mechanism is extremely elab-
orate, including nine circles of germ-plasm :
molecules, biophores, determinants, ids,
idants, idioplasm, somatic idioplasm, morpho-
plasm, and apical plasm. Of these hypothetical
divisions Dr. Romanes would adopt the ids
and determinants, since it is a group of cells
rather than a single cell that varies in de-
scent.

Two appendices are added to the book.
The first contains an argument as to whether
a centrifugal theory, germ-plasm, is more con-
ceivable than a centripetal one, pangenesis.
Dr. Romanes concludes that one is no more
imaginable than the other ; " that, whatever
the mechanism of heredity may be, it is Lt

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

once so minute and complex that its action
is inconceivable." Appendix II is devoted to
a discussion of telegony, much of which has
appeared in this magazine. Dr. Romanes be-
lieves in centripetal heredity, and therefore
cannot agree with Mr. Spencer, whose theory
is of the centrifugal order.

Electric Waves : Being Researches on
THE Propagation of Electric Action
WITH Finite Velocity through Space.
By Dr. Heinrich Hertz. London and
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xv-f-
278. Price, $2.50.

The impossibility of reviewing in brief a
work of such transcendent importance to
electrical science as this volume undoubtedly
is, will become apparent to the reader when
we declare that the progress — exclusive of
the author's own discoveries — so concise-
ly recounted, not only embraces the names
and experiments of and from Newton and
Bernoulli and their day, down through a line
of seventy-five prominent men of genius,
but also includes with Faraday and Ampere
— of late years — Helmholtz, Lodge, Maxwell,
Siemens, and Sir W. Thomson in our own
day. The volume before us is the aijthor-
ized English translation from the German
work, by Prof. D. E. Jones, B. Sc, and in-
cludes an able preface by Lord Kelvin, Pres-
ident of the Royal Society.

Dr. Hertz was primarily induced to carry
out the experiments elucidated in this vol-
ume through the proffered prize in 1879 of
the Berlin Academy of Science, for a solu-
tion of the problem to establish by experi-
ments " any relation between electromag-
netic forces and the dielectric polarization
of insulators," which simply meant that a
force electromagnetic in itself might be ex-
erted in non-conductors by polarizations,
or that electromagnetic induction is the
cause of the polarization of a non-conductor.
The attention of the professor was first
drawn to the problem by Herr von Helm-
holtz, who promised the assistance of the
Physical Institute in Berlin if Dr. Hertz
determined upon making the research and
necessary experimentation. After many fail-
ures, and his first abandonment of the solu-
tion, he finally gives to the world the impress-
ive deductions of the original papers — now in
the form of fourteen chapters — contributed
to Wiedemann's Annalen. These are, in the

present volume, supplemented by an ample
introduction and various explanatory notes
of vast import. Proceeding from the intro-
duction, which emphasizes the experimental
and theoretical phases of the subject, we
gather from chapter to chapter the crown-
ing results embodied in such phenomena as
rapid electric oscillations, the effect of ultra-
violet light upon the electric discharge, the
action of rectilinear electric oscillations upon
a neighboring circuit, the finite velocity of
propagation of electromagnetic actions, elec-
tric radiation, the fundamental equations of
electromagnetics for bodies at rest, and
other all-important subdivisions. The work
in the aggregate represents the fervid ex-
pression of a scientific explorer, whose heart
was indubitably in his work, and who now
presents us at minimum cost a wealth of
labor and a store of new knowledge.

Romance of the Insect World. By L. N.
Badenoch. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 341. Price, $1.25.

This volume contains one of the best ef-
forts that have been made recently to put
scientific facts into an attractive form. If
one can be interested at all in the wonderful
ways of insects, this book will spur to better
acquaintance. Valuable data have been
culled from every quarter, not neglecting the
investigations of our American naturalists.
Dr. McCook, Mrs. Treat, and the Peckhams.
These are grouped under the four topics of
metamorphoses of insects, their food, home-
building, and defenses.

The transformations of insects, although
seemingly abrupt transitions, are but pro-
gressive stages toward maturity, mainly due
to the nature of an insect's skin, which does
not permit enlargement of form.

The bill of fare relished by insects ex-
ceeds in variety that demanded by the larger
members of the animal kingdom. Anytiiing
from a nettle to a fungus may be acceptable,
horn, cork, or grease being the favored diet
of some species. There is also a long list of
insects that are parasitic, and others who
breed their own cattle.

Among those who build hermit homes are
described the mining, carpenter, and mason
bees ; the wasps, making nests of clay ; the
gall-makers ; the lictor moths that carry their
curious dwellings about with them, and the

LITERARY NOTICES.

421

ingenious spiders who build trapdoors and
turrets. Social homes are those of the mason,
carpenter, and leaf-cutting ants ; of the wasps
manufacturing paper and cardboard, includ-
ing the Nectarinia that construct globular
nests with a spiral flight of stairs.

Thousands of insects possess no other de-
fense than their protective resemblances.
Other classes decoy their prey by simulating
some alluring object. Under the head of
variation of color some account is given of
the experiments in regard to larval suscepti-
bility. Brightly colored insects find protec-
tion in a nauseous taste or smell, irritating
hairs or spines, the power to discharge a
noxious fluid or inflict a sting. Insects other-
wise defenseless escape their foes by mimicry
of the behavior and appearance of distasteful
species. This curious phase of insect life is
considered at some length in the closing
chapter.

The book is well illustrated, and contains
both glossary and index.

Darwin and Hegel : with Other Philo-
sophical Stcdies. By David G. Ritchie,
M. A. London : Swan, Sonnenschein &
Co. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp.
285. Price, $1.50.

The results of the reasonings submitted
in the nine essays constituting this volume
may be regarded as having arisen from a
judicious survey of the branches of philoso-
phy treated. That on Darwin and Hegel,
as the author explains, has been selected as
the title of the work, because it emphasizes
more particularly the especial point of view,
or basic relations which form a juncture in
the criticisms under consideration. This is
certainly the pivotal essay as tending to rec-
oncile a measured acceptance of the " general
principles " arising out of Kantian criticism
which governs that idealist philosophy origi-
nating with Plato and Aristotle, with an ac-
ceptation in the fullest of the intellectual
advances made by, residing in, and betimes
overlying the historical method of treating
institutions and ideas ; as well as the theory
of natural selection and its logical outcome.

The papers now published in bulk origi-
nally appeared in Mind, are recorded in the
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, The
Annals of the American Academy of Politi-
cal and Social Science, and other periodicals.

Regard this book in whatever light acknowl-
edged scientific data may shed, evidence is
not lacking of Mr. Ritchie's logical acumen,
linked with a genuine spirit of inquiry. In
the general presentation of the author's po-
sition, these essays, if ouly cursorily read,
might seem totally isolated, whereas a care-
ful perusal reveals a well connected thought
undercui'rent. The true worth of the vol-
ume is best attested by the number of con-
siderations posited in the form of queries,
not a few of which are solved outright in
Mr. Ritchie's own way, while others remain
to be determined by the reader or the future
philosopher. Besides the main essay, form-
ing the title, we have one on Origin and
Validity, which involves a briefer paper on
Heredity as a Factor in Knowledge. The
others following are. What is Reality? On
Plato's Phffido ; What are Economic Laws ?
Locke's Theory of Property ; The Social Con-
tract Theory ; On the Conception of Sover-
eignty, and the Rights of Minorities.

In his analysis of the philosophies of
Darwin and Hegel, as applied in their social
and scientific bearings, the author intimates
that while materialism and idealism are or-
dinarily referred to as philosophically an-
tagonistic, he nevertheless endeavors to
prove that a certain " form of idealism " is
not at all incompatible with that monism of
materialistic teaching which has nowadays
become " the working hypothesis of every
scientific explorer." To Mr. Ritchie the
monism of materialism alone seems false
when posited as an absolute philosophy of
the universe. From this he is forced to in-
fer that any such doctrine will necessarily put
out of sight conditions of knowledge which
true philosophy must not ignore, though the
special sciences may. In the paper on Ori-
gin and Validity as applied to philosophy,
the cords that bind a certain class of popu-
lar dogmas presumed to determine real worth
Mr. Ritchie severs with relentless logic, and
then proceeds with marked caution to distin-
guish between the philosophical problem and
that of psychology and history. Dilating
upon what he considers most permanent in
Kant's Critical Philosophy, he proposes to
examine the relation existing between spec-
ulative metaphysics and Kant's theory of
knowledge, and supplies not a few illustra-
tions of the import attaching to the distin-

422

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

guishment in logic of questions of origin and
validity. The difference between reality as un-
derstood in ordinary belief, and as the term
is applied to science, is very definitely dealt
with in the essay on What is Reality? also
the query as to whether our feelings are more
than our thoughts, and if space is actually
occupied by the real. On the Phasdo of
Plato, the most interesting of the critical
examinations apply to the distinction that
ought to obtain between Plato's teachings as
understood by himself, and as they are sub-
sequently developed and interpreted by Aris-
totle. Comparing the arguments of the
Phjcdrus with those of the Phiedo, some
technical points arise in the mind which Mr.
Ritchie deems worthy of especial comment.
Some striking objections to the position of
Economics considered in its relation to the
sciences are concisely recounted, and in
Locke's Theory — property — the author sug-
gests an interesting study on the theories of
Hobbes and Locke in the light of events cur-
rent in their day.

When the work is considered as a factor
in modern research, each page and para-
graph may be regarded as a brief historical
and critical key to a few of the most strik-
ing questions engaging students of evolu-
tionary philosophy.

Dictionary of the Active Principles of
Plants ; Alkaloids ; Bitter Princi-
ples ; Glucosides : Their Sources, Na-
ture, AND Chemical Characteristics,
WITH Tabular Summary, Classification
OF Reactions, and Full Botanical and
General Indexes. By Charles E. Sohn,
r. I. C, r. C. S. London : Balli^re, Tin-
dall & Cox. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip-
pincott Company, 1894. Pp. vii-f 194.
Price, $3.

The present work treats of nearly six
hundred alkaloids, glucosides, and bitter prin-
ciples, and it has been prepared in order
that the details relating to these substances,
now more or less scattered through chem-
ical literature, should be so tabulated that
not only a given attribute of any substance
shall be readily found, but that there shall
be information indicating wherein such a
substance differs from, or resembles, another
of its class.

The work is arranged in three parts : The
first groups together the constituents of one
plant or of a number of botanically or chem-

ically allied plants, following as far as possi-
ble an alphabetical order. The second part
consists of a tabular summary designed for
ready reference as well as for contrasting
one compound with another for analytical
purposes. The third part is a classification
of reactions for the special use of analysts.

There is a complete botanical as well as
a general index to the volume. It is likely
to prove a convenient work for the pharma-
cologist as well as the chemist.

A Treatise on Elementary Hydrostatics
has been prepared by John A. Greaves (Mac-
millan & Co., New York, $1.10) with the
purpose of treating the subject as fully as
possible without using the calculus ; but
alternative proofs have been given Avhere
the calculus enables us either to obtain the
results more easily or to express them more
concisely. Having shown that solids may be
classified according to their behavior under
the action of forces, the author deduces the
definition of a fluid from the characteristic
behavior of all substances which we recog-
nize as fluids. The special chapter headings
are the Properties of Fluids, General Theo-
ries relating to Pressure, Center of Pressure,
Floating Bodies, The Determination of Spe-
cific Gravity, Gases, Hydrostatic Machines,
and Capillarity. In the last chapter it is
shown from experiments that the energy of a
material system depends partly on the extent
of the surfaces separating the different sub-
stances. On the assumption of the existence
of this surface energy, several well-known
capillary phenomena are deduced.

For some time past it has seemed to G.
A. T. Middlcton that a concise work upon
land surveying, in which modern instruments
and modern methods of working were de-
scribed, would be welcomed by many. The
result has been the production of a small
volume on Surveying and Snrveyinff Instru-
ments (Macmillan & Co., New York, $1.25),
the substance of which has already appeared
in a technical journal. It includes chapters
on Surveys with Chain only. Obstructions in
Chain-line and Right-angle Instruments, The
Uses of the Level, Various Forms of Level
and their Adjustments, The Uses of Angle-
measuring Instruments, The Theodolite and
other Angle-measuring Instruments, and In-
struments for ascertaining Distances.

LITERARY NOTICES.

423

Twin manuals on Heat and Light have
been prepared for the Cambridge Natural
Science Series (Macmillan & Co., New York,
$1 each), by R. T GlazebrooK% as elementary
text-books, theoretical and practical, for the
purpose of serving as aids in teaching by
experiments that may be performed by the
pupils themselves. Most of the experiments
described have been in use for some time as
a practical course for students in the Caven-
dish Laboratory. The rest of the two books
contain explanations of the theory of the
experiments and accounts of the deductions
from them, which have formed the substance
of the author's lectures to his class.

The general purpose sought by Henry
Wood in preparing the Political Economy
of Natural Law (Lee & Shepard, Boston,
$1.25) was to outline a political economy
which is natural and practical rather than
artificial and theoretical. While independ-
ent of professional methods, it aims to be
usefully suggestive to the popular mind.
The pi'esent volume, though substantially a
new work, may be regarded as a develop-
ment from a small book entitled Natural
Law in the Business World, published in
1887. A portion of the original matter in
that book has been retained, somewhat
changed in form. No attempt is made to
make people content with things as they are,
but to turn the search for improvement in a
promising direction. We are glad to see
that the author sets himself squarely in op-
position to the fallacy that the interest of
labor is naturally antagonistic to other social
elements, which he thinks justly has done
much harm.

After the Congress of Mathematics, held
in Chicago, in August, 1893, a colloquium on
Mathematics was held by Prof. Felix Klein,
of the University of Gottingen, with such
other members of the congress as chose to
participate, at the Northwestern University,
Evanston. During these coUoquia Prof. Klein
delivered daily lectures, the substance of
which was taken down and prepared for
publication by Alexander Ziwet. These lec-
tures are now published as a single volume
of Lectures on Mathematics by Macmillan &
Co., New York ($1.50). Three of these lec-
tures relate to the work of the mathemati-
cians Clebsch and Sophus Lie ; the others are
on The Real Shape of Algebraic Curves and

Surfaces, Theory of Functions and Geometrj^,
The Mathematical Character of Space Intui-
tion and the Relation of Pure Mathematics
to the Natural Sciences, The Transcendency
of the Numbers e and ir, Ideal Numbers, The
Solution of Higher Algebraic Equations,
Some Recent Advances in Hyperelliptic and
Abelian Functions, The Most Recent Re-
searches in Non-Euclidean Geometry, The
Study of Mathematics at Gottingen, and The
Development of Mathematics at the German
Universities.

Mr. Charles H. Clark has prepared his
book on Practical Methods in Microscopy
(D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, $1.60) in view
of his observation that in most of the excel-
lent current books on the microscope too
much is assumed to be known by the pupil,
or is left to be filled in by an instructor.
None of them, he says, gives to the private
worker in simple and concise language de-
tailed directions for the many processes that
he must learn in order to make practical use
of the microscope. The present book is the
outgrowth of the author's experience in the
use of the instrument in the branches of sci-
entific study pursued in the secondary schools.
So much of the mechanical construction of
the microscope is given as seems absolutely
essential to an intelligent understanding of
the instrument. The theory of polarized
light has been somewhat fully considered.

The peculiar features of the Practical
Business Bookkeeping by Double Entry (D.
C. Heath & Co., Boston, $1.55), as set forth
by the author, Manson Seavy, are classifica-
tion of the subjects treated into parts, each
forming by itself an independent whole, with
subdivisions ; full and systematic treatment,
with illustrations of recounts; omission of
discussion of theory ; the acceptance of the
forms universally adopted by the best busi-
ness men and accountants in the treatment of
business transactions ; full discussion of bills
receivable and bills payable ; and the original,
simple, and intelligible rules given for clos-
ing a ledger, which have stood the test of
many years with classes of young students.
The work is supplemented by another. The
Manual of Business Transactions, which con-
tains transactions only, in the describing of
which the student must exercise his own
judgment, and thus acquire proficiency in
the application of principles.

4H

TBE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
Journal. Second Series. Vol. X, Part I. Pp.
128, with Fifteen Plates.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports. Massachusetts : Eleventh Annual
Report, Amherst. Pp. 407.— Delaware College.
Bulletin No. 29. Ammoniacal Copper Carbonate.
Pp. 16.— Mississippi: No. 28. The Horn Ely. By
Howard Evarts Weed. Pp. 7.— North Dakota:
Weather and Crop, March, 1891 Pp. 15.— Ne-
Iraska: Alfalfa, etc. Pp. 20. The Sugar Beet.
Pp. 24. Chinch Bugs. Pp. 20.— Oregon: Insects
and Capons. Pp. 20.

American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
Proceedings, January, 1894. Pp. 157.

Astor, John Jacob. A Journey in Other
Worlds. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 476.

Ayres, Alfred. The Orthoepist. New and re-
vised edition, enlarged. New York: D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 293.

Behrens, Prof. H. A Manual of Microcheraical
Analysis. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.
246. 'Sl.50.

Binet, Alfred. The Psychic Life of Micro-
organisms. Chicago : Open Court Publishing
Company. Pp. 121. 25 cents.

Boecking, Adolf Erich. The Naudu. An
Ornithological Sketch. Scientitic Society of San
Antonio, Texas. Pp. 22.

Burns, Frank. The Crump Burial Cave.
United States National Museum. Pp. 6.

Carey, George H. How to Make and Use the
Telephone. Lynn, Mass. : Bubier Publishing
Company. Pp. 117. $1.

Chamberlain, T. C. The Horizon of Drumlin,
Osar, and Kame Formation. Pp. 14.— Nature of
the Englacial Drift of the Mississippi Basin. Pp.
14. — Drainage Feature of the Upper Ohio Basin.
Pp. 36.— The Diversity of the Glacial Period. Pp.
28.

Chanute, O. Progress in Flying Machines.
American Engineer and Railroad Journal. Pp.
308. $2..50.

Chatelain, Heli. Folk Tales of Angola. Bos-
ton and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp.
315. with Map. $3.

Columbia College, New York. Contributions
from the Geological Department. Five Papers.

Cross, Philip W. Some Mistakes of Ingersoll.
Newark, N. J. Pp. 36.

Douglas, James. Canadian Independence,
Annexation, and British Imperial Federation.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 114. 75
cents.

Di.puis, N. F. Elements of Synthetic Solid
Geometry. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp.
239.

Ferree, Barr, New York. The Chronology
of the Cathedral Churches of France. Pp. 36.
Architectural Education for America. Pp. 15.

Fijnje, J. G. W. Van Salverda. Aerial Navi-
gation. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 209.

Fletcher, W. I. Public Libraries in America.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. Pp. 169. $1.

Gerhard. William Paul. Gas Lighting and Gas
P itting. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company.
Pp. 190. ,50 cents.

Glazier, Willard. Head Waters of the Missis-
sippi. Chicago and New York : Rand, McNally
& Co. Pp. 527.

Goode, James B. The Belle of Wyandotte.
Pp. 160.— The Story of a Life. Pp. 160. Kansas
City Publishing Company. 25 cents each.

Helical Gears. A Practical Treatise. By a
Foreman Pattern-maker. New York : Macmillan
& Co. Pp. 127. $2.

Huxley, T. H. Hume, with Helps to the Study
of Berkeley. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
319. $1.25.

lies, George. A Class in Geometry. New
York and Chicago: E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 46.

Jouby, P. L. Birds of Central Mexico. United
States National Museum. Pp. 20.

Keen, W. W., M. D. Four Cases of Brain
Tumor. Philadelphia. Pp. 28.

Keyes, C. R. Coal Deposits of Iowa. Iowa
Geological Survey, Des Moines. Pp. 536.

Kidd. Beniarain. Social Evolution. New
York: Macmillan & Co. I'p. .348. $2..50.

Kinney, Abbot. The Conquest of Death. New
York. pip. 259.

Loney, S. L. Plane Trigonometry. New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.220. ^\.

MacDonald, Marshall, Commissioner. Bulletin
of the United Slates Fish Commission. Vol. VI.
1891. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Pp. 431, with Plates.

McGee, W J. The Earth, the Home of Man.

Washington, D. C. Pp. 28.

Manual Training School, WashingtoTi Univer-
sity, St. Louis. Catalogue, 1833-'94. Pp. 82.

Mills, Wesley, M. D. Hibernation and Allied
States in Animals. Montreal. Pp. 66, with Two
Plates.

Mooney, James, Washington. Book Reviews
(six in number). Pp. 18.— Recent Archseologic
Find in Arizona. Pp. 2, with Plate.

Mott, H. A. Yachts and Yachtsmen of Amer-
ica. Vol. I. New York: International Yacht
Publishing Company. Pp. 692, with Plates. $15.

Packard. R. L. Note on a Blue Mineral, sup-
posed to be Ultramarine. Pp. 2.

Price, S. F. Flora of Warren County, Ken-
tucky. Pp. 31.

Rathbun, Mary J. Descriptions of a New
Genus and Two New Species of African Fresh-
water Crabs, and of Two New Species of Crabs
from the W^estern Indian Ocean. Pp. 7.

Ribot, Th. The Diseases of the Will. Chi-
cago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Pp.
134. 75 cents.

Robinson, De Lomie W., Pierre, S. D. Meteor-
ological Conditions and Public Health. Pp. 8.

Science Progress. Monthly. J B. Farmer,
Editor. Vol. f, No 1, March, 1894 London:
The Scientific Press, Limited. Pp. 104 Half a
crown.

Scott, Dukinfleld H. An Introduction to
Structural Botany (Flowering Plants). New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 288. $1.

Scudder, S. H. Tertiary Tipulidw. Pp. 83,
with Seven Plates.

Shufeldt, R. W. Comparative OlOogy of
North American Birds Pp. 24.— Scientific Taxi-
dermy for Museums Pp. 58, with Plates. United
States National Museum.

Spencer, W. G. A Svstem of Lucid Short-
hand. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 28,
with Plates.

Stejneger, Leonhard. Description of a New
Lizard from California. Pp. 2.

Talbot, Eugene S. The Etiology of Osseous
Deformities of the Head, Face, Jaws, and Teeth.
Chicago: The W. T. Keener Co. Pp. 486, with
Plates".

Tokuno, Mr. T. Japanese Woodcutting and
Woodcut Printing. Pp. 24, with Plates. United
States National Museum.

Trelease, William. Missouri Botanical Garden.
Fifth Annual Report. Pp. 166, with Plates.

Trevert, Edward. Electrical Measurements for
Amateurs. Lynn, Mass. : Bubier Publishing Co.
Pp. 117. $1.

Trimble, Henry. The Tannins. Vol. TI.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Pp. 172. %%

True, F. W. Diagnose^ of New North Ameri-
can Mammals. Pp. 3. — Mammals of Baltistan and
the Vale of Kashmir. Pp. 16.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

425

Wadsworth, M. E. A Paper on the Michigan
Mining School, Houghton. Pp. 14.

Walsh, John H. Mathematics for Common
Schools. Part I. An Elementary Arithmetic.
Pp. 212. —Part II. Intermedipta Arithmetic. Pp.
250. 40 cents each. — Part III. Higher Arithmetic.
Pp. .348. 75 cents. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.

Ward, Lester F.. Washington. Status of the
Mind Problem. Pp. 18.

Wheeler. O. D. Indianlnnd and Wonderland.
St. Paul, Minn.: C. S. Fee (Northern Pacific Rail-
road). Pp. 105. 6 cents.

White, Charles A. The Relation of Biology to
Geological Investigation. Pp. 124. United States
National Museum.

Wilson, Thomas. Minute Stone Implements
from India. Pp. 6, with Plates. United States
National Museum.

Winchell, Alexander. Walks and Talks in the
Geological Field. Revised and edited by Fred-
erick Starr. Meadville, Pa.: Flood & Vincent.
Pp. 353.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Meeting of the Aniericaa Association. —

The forty- third meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science
will be held in Brooklyn, N. Y., August 15th
to 24th. The names of the officers were
given in The Popular Science Monthly for
October, 1893. The rooms of the Polytech-
nic Institute, the Packer Institute, the Art
Association, the Long Island Historical So-
ciety, and the Academy of Music have been
offered for the use of the association. The
meetings will be held mainly in the build-
ings of the Polytechnic and Packer Insti-
tutes. The headquarters of the association
will be at the St. George Hotel, Clark Street.
The Ladies' Reception will be given August
16th. An unusually varied and attractive
list of excursions is offered, including free
excursions to Long Branch ; Cold Spring
Harbor, Long Island, where are the Biologi-
cal Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute and
the station of the New York Fish Commis-
sion ; up the Hudson to West Point and re-
turn ; and around the harbor ; geological
excursions to sis points of interest ; miner-
alogical excursions to six points ; botanical
excursions to five points ; zoological excur-
sions to four points ; excursions for engineers
to the Navy Yard 'and the Brooklyn Bridge ;
and an excursion to the White Mountains to
attend the Congress of the American For-
estry Association. The pay excursions will
be at reduced fares. The meetings of the
associations and societies affiliated with the
General Association will be held before and

during its meetings, beginning with those
of the Geological Society of America and
the American Microscopical Society, August
13th.

Classes in Economics.— Instruction in the
Department of Economics in the School of
Applied Ethics, Plymouth, Mass., during the
session July 12 to August 15, 1894, will be de-
voted to a discussion of the relation between
economics and social progress. The idea
which underlies it is, that all phases of social
activity and living are necessarily bound to-
gether, and consequently that no problem in
which human relations are a prominent fac-
tor, whether theoretical or practical, can be
properly understood, except it be studied in
the light of some comprehensive theory of
social development. The same general pur-
pose will be recognized in the adjustment of
courses in the other departments of the
school, which include those of History of
Religious and Applied Ethics. The scheme
of lectures includes courses by Prof. H. C.
Adams, director, on the Historical Basis of
Modern Industries, Relation of Economic
Theory to Social Progress, and The Trans-
portation Problem ; by Prof. J. B. Clark, on
The Ethics and the Economics of Distribu-
tion ; by Prof. R. Mayo-Smith, on Ethnical
Basis for Social Progress in the United
States ; by President E. B. Andrews, on
Civilization and Money ; their Relation il-
lustrated by the History of Money ; by Prof.
F. H. Giddings, on The Social Functions of
Wealth ; by Prof. J. W. Jeuks, on the Re-
lation of Political and Industrial Reform;
and by Dr. E. R. L. Gould on Practical
Problems in Municipal Economy.

Tlie Benefits of Sanitation, — A paper on
The Achievements of Sanitation measured by
Vital Statistics, by George E. Willetts, of
Lansing, Mich., contains some suggestive
data bearing on the usefulness of modern
sanitation. Having sought for some com-
pilation of death-rates from a number of the
principal diseases reaching back for so long
a period as to tell a connected story concern-
ing such diseases, without being able to find
it, Mr. Willetts carefully worked out the
subject himself from selected data relating
to mortality from fevers, cholera, consump-
tion, smallpox, and all causes as recorded

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

in the death-rates of England, Sweden, the
city of London, etc. The result is a demon-
stration of the alteration for the better
that has taken place in modern times in
the rate of mortality from these causes.
Diagrams prove graphically that a marked
diminution in the death-rate has taken
place, especially in the last half century,
or since the efforts at prevention and re-
striction of infectious diseases have become
systemized. Facts are brought out in Mr.
Willetts's presentation showing that the
theory of M. Carnot, that the saving of life
from infectious diseases is only apparent,
and is made up for by an increased mortality
from certain other causes of death, is un-
tenable, for the death-rate from all causes
declined during the period under examina-
tion. The doctrine of Malthus, likewise, that
the effect of diminution of the death-rate is
to cause the population to press more closely
upon the limits of subsistence, is negatived
by the fact which appears that the rate of
pauperism has declined in England coinci-
dently with the fall of the death-rate. It
also appears that the population is increas-
ing least rapidly where good sanitary condi-
tions have prevailed. The effect of sanitary
improvement is thus seen to lie, not in the
direction of an over-production of the hu-
man race, but toward a better regulated and
governed increase.

Expansion in Public Docnments. — The

latest report of the State Mineralogist of
California furnishes an interesting object
lesson as to the manner in which literature is
prepared at the expense of the Government.
The report relates, or is supposed to relate,
to mining. The Governor of the Slate, in his
message, objected to the voluminousness of
this as well as some of the other department
repoi'ts, saying that none but the unemployed
and those directly interested and expecting
to derive personal benefit from them could
find time to read them ; intimating that too
little time was devoted by their authors to
condensing their statements ; and suggesting
that while the printing of the mineralogical
report would cost ten thousand dollars, " two
thousand dollars worth of intelligent editorial
work bestowed upon the manuscript would
have saved four times that amount in the cost
of printing, and the volume would have been

of greater value to those interested. People,"
he added, " will not read long, tedious reports,
and if it were not for the condensed state-
ments given out through the press the people
of the State generally would have very little
information in regard to our public institu-
tions." An appropriation having been made
for the purpose, the material was put into
the hands of an editor for condensation. He
found several of the articles that had been
prepared not directly related to the subject,
though possibly of scientific value and doubt-
less suitable for publication through other
channels, such as an academy of sciences, a
geographical or an ethnographical society. In
some cases the same ground was covered by
the special reports of two or more assistants ;
in other cases matter was substantially re-
peated from previous reports, while no at-
tempt had been made in either category to
prune any excrescences. The manuscript
showed no signs of having been edited, 'aside
from the mere paging of the leaves and ar-
ranging in order. In parts of the manuscript
that had been copied in the office, errors of
copyists entirely unfamiliar with mining af-
fairs had been retained without revision or
attempt to correct them. Finally, the editor
reduced the 2,307 pages of manuscript, large-
ly type-written, to about 844 pages, or 954
pages if an article on mining law, valuable
but not relating exclusively to California, is
retained ; and in doing this believes that he
has retained all the matter proper for the re-
port. This excessive expansiveness is not
found in the public documents of California
alone. We have observed it in those of the
United States in more than one department.

The Soda " Lake " of Wyoming.— As de-
scribed by H. Pemberton, Jr., and George
P. Tucker, there exists a deposit of sulphate
of soda, locally known as a " lake," about
fourteen miles southwest of Laramie, Wyo.
The deposit is composed of three of these
lakes lying within a stone's throw of one an-
other— the Big Lake, the Track Lake, and
the Red Lake — having together a total area
of about sixty-five acres. They are the prop-
erty of the Union Pacific Railroad Company,
are connected by a branch of that road with
the main line at Laramie, and are generally
known as the Union Pacific Lakes. In these
lakes the sulphate of soda occurs in two

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

427

bodies or layers. The lower part, constitut-
ing the great bulk of the deposit, is a mass
of crystals of a faint greenish color, mixed
with a considerable amount of black, slimy
mud. It is known as the " solid soda," and
is said to have a depth of some twenty or
thirty feet. Above this solid soda occurs
the superficial layer of pure white crystal-
lized sulphate of soda. This is formed by
solution in water of the upper part of the
lower body, the crystals being deposited by
evaporation or by cooling, or by the two
combined. A little rain in the spring and
autumn furnishes this water, besides which
innumerable small sluggish-flowing springs
are present in all the lakes ; but on account
of the dry air of this region the surface is
generally dry, or nearly so, and in midsum-
mer the white clouds of efflorescent sulphate
that are whirled up by the ever-blowing
winds of Wyoming can be seen for miles.
The layer of white sulphate is from three to
twelve inches in thickness. When the crys-
tals are removed, the part laid bare is soon
replenished by a new crop.

The Tea Gardens of Johorc. — Johore is
an independent kingdom — the only one now
in the Malay Peninsula — on the Strait of
Malacca, and fourteen miles from the British
colony of Singapore. It is one of the richest
native states in Asia — rich in its deposits of
tin and iron, and in its virgin forests of valu-
able tropical trees, and in the productive
capacity of its soil. The present sultan, Abu
Bakar, has experimented liberally in the de-
velopment of the native crops of tapioca,
cocoa, sago, gambler, spices, and gums, and
has introduced the cultivation of tea, coffee,
and pepper with such success that they now
form the chief products of the kingdom.
The Johore tea has been declared by experts
to be of a very superior quality. The moist
heat required by the tea plant is afforded in
such perfection by the climate of Johore that
the plants flush, or afford the fresh shoots from
which the young leaves are picked to make
our tea, all the year round. The bushes are
planted in rows about five feet apart, with a
space of about five feet between the stools.
Each bush flushes about three times a month ;
and once a year it flowers, and is then pruned.
The leaves are picked by Chinese or coolies,
who turn in their pickings twice a day, and

are paid by the piece. An industrious picker
can pick, when the flush is good, as much as
sixty pounds of green leaf a day, which will
make a little more than fourteen pounds of
dried leaves. The green leaves are carefully
" withered" in bamboo trays by experienced
Chinese operators till they are sufficiently
dried — a fact which is determined by the
touch ; they are then rolled, either by hand
rollers or rollers worked by steam, in such a
way that they are pressed and twisted with-
out losing juice. After this they are placed
in heaps upon a bench, where they are turned
over and over again by hand, to be "fer-
mented," till they lose their original green
and become blue ; thence they are removed
to a large drying chest called a sirocco, and
exposed to a heat of 260° F. Each sirocco
will hold four trays, which are placed at dif-
ferent levels. The first batch of leaf is
placed on the top tray, and after a few min-
utes is withdrawn, turned over by hand for a
while, and is then placed on the second tray,
while the first tray is filled with a new lot.
The operation is repeated until each lot has
had four treatments, when it is considered
" made." The tea is then sorted in revolv-
ing cylinders made of wire work of different
degrees of fineness. As the cylinders re-
volve, the tea in the top one works through the
meshes, according to size, into the cylinder
below it, and so on. The meshes determine
the grades, which are known as broken
orange pekoe, orange pekoe, broken pekoe,
pekoe, pekoe souchong, and souchong, in the
order of their value. More than half — per-
haps sixty per cent — of the making will be
souchong. Next come the weighing and pack-
ing. Four and a quarter pounds of green
leaf are supposed to make a pound of
"made" tea.

Early ilpine Climbing. — In prehistoric
times, says Mr. W. M. Carney, the Alps were
traversed by two or three trade roads, the
most important being that along which the
exchange in bronze and amber took place.
Italy was invaded over more than one pass in
early times. In the mediaeval period the
passes of the Alps were largely used by pil-
grims, the Great St. Bernard being their
favorite route. An interesting account is
extant of the passage of this route in winter
by Abbot Rudolf, of the Troad, in the year

428

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1128. An itinerary of the way was dra^vn
up ahoiit 1154 by Abbot Nicholas, of Thur-
giir, in Iceland. It was a kind of guidebook
for pilgrims. The climbing of mountains
has occurred sporadically from ancient times.
Hadrian climbed Etna to see the sunrise.
In the eleventh century an attempt was made
to climb the Roche Melon, but the summit
was not reached till 1358. Toward the
end of the thirteenth century Peter III of
Aragon climbed Canigon in the Pyrenees,
and saw a dragon on the top. In 1339 Pe-
trarch climbed Mont Ventoux, near Yau-
cluse, " to see what the top of a hill was
like." Charles VIII of France sent one of
his chamberlains up the wall-sided Mont
Aiguille in 1492. Leonardo da Vinci's gen-
eral scientific curiosity led him to pay atten-
tion to mountains, and he appears to have
ascended some part of Monte Rosa to a point
above the snow line. In the sixteenth cen-
tury the study of mountains advanced con-
siderably, and a group of regular mountain-
eers was almost formed at Zurich, but civil
and religious troubles blighted their enter-
prise. Conrad Gesner and Josias Simler
were their leaders. The former appears to
have been infected with the regular moun-
taineering ardor of the modern sort. Simler
published a valuable and interesting book
about the Alps, in which he gave sound,
practical advice to climbers. During the
first half of the seventeenth century moun-
tains were neglected. Dragons were still sup-
posed to linger among them, and they were
thought to be the homes of devils, against
whom outpost chapels were built.

Poat-moss Atolls. — The attention of Mr.
Conway Macmillan has been directed to ex-
amples of a peculiar and hitherto unrecord-
ed peat-moss formation observed in some of
the lakes of Minnesota. From their posi-
tion in the middle of ponds of considerable
size, he has named them sphagnum atolls.
Ballard's atoll is situated in an almost circu-
lar pond about a hundred and fifty yards
across, which is surrounded, except for a
short distance on the west, where a channel has
been cut between two low jutting bars. The
atoll appears from the surrounding hills as a
ring of green, conspicuous and sharply de-
fined, about seventy-five feet in diameter,
and having a uniform width of about ten

feet. Another atoll, Anderson's atoll, is in
a pond about fifty yards across, with high
banks, and forms a ring within a foot or
two of twenty yards in diameter and having
a breadth of about twelve inches. Both
atolls support a diversified vegetation, which
is not alike on the two. This vegetation
likewise differs from that of the pond out-
side and of the inner lagoon, and varies with
the development and desiccation of the
atoll. The origin of these formations is
ascribed by the author to a season of grad-
ual recession of the waters of the pond,
when a loose turf was formed, lining the
edges of the pond, followed by a season of
comparatively rapid increase in area and
level, when this surface became detached
from the shore. The atolls then probably
first appeared as annular floating bogs, sepa-
rated from the shoreward turf as a result
of the original zonal distribution of littoral
plants and the rise of the waters, together
with the favorable concurrence of a group
of special and necessary conditions. Some
of the apparent conditions of atoll formation
are a definite maximum size and depth of
the present pond ; considerable height and
regularity of the banks of the present pond
(whereby the zone of vegetation is protected
from violent winds) ; a regular and gentle
slope of the pond bottom from shore to cen-
ter ; a definite original character of littoral
vegetation when the pond was at a low
level ; a reduction within minimum limits of
the lateral pressure and tension of winter
ice ; and a comparatively prompt anchoring
of the atoll upon the bottom.

Dakota Climates. — The Dakotas are di-
vided, according to Dr. D. W. Robinson,
into two climatic regions by the range of
hills and highlands known as the Missouri
Divide. In the east divide country " many
of the essential characteristics of an ideal
health region are present. . . . Excessive cloud
and dampness are not present beyond what
is needed for successful agriculture. The
air is rare, pure, and exhilarating. Diseases
of an acute character are not extensively
prevalent, and outbreaks of epidemic disease
are rare and easy to control." The upper
Missouri basin, which is about three hundred
miles long, between a hundred and three
hundred miles wide, and rises from twelve

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

429

hundred to sixteen hundred feet at the Mis-
souri Valley to from eighteen hundred to
three thousand feet at the brines, " is the
sunland of Dakota. It is drier than the
east divide country." Contrary to what
might be expected in a latitude so far north,
the winters are short. The season usually
begins about the holidays ; with the excep-
tion of a few disagreeable days that come
with the late fall rains, the weather is usu-
ally delightful. At times in midwinter the
thermometer registers much below zero.
These days of low temperature invariably
follow a fall of snow, and before the bright
sunshine that is sure to come has tempered
the dry, cutting atmosphere. A very nota-
ble feature of this climate to those who
have never before spent the winter in Da-
kota is their ability to pursue their outdoor
employments on the coldest days without
unusual discomfort. A temperature that
would render outdoor pursuits impossible in
an air laden with moisture will in this dry,
sunny air be almost unnoticeable. Storms
are frequent, but not as a rule destructive
or dangerous. Probably the most disagree-
able feature of this season as well as of all
seasons in the Missouri basin are the sudden
and ofttimes extreme changes of tempera-
ture. But in the coldest weather the United
States Signal reports show that the tempera-
ture is not so low by several degrees at
Pierre or Bismarck on the Missouri River as
in the same latitudes east of the Missouri
divide. Spring begins early. The warmth
and sunshine bring this season fully a month
in advance of the damper localities in the
same latitude and many miles south in the
Mississippi. In summer the days are often
warm, but rarely oppressive. The autumn
is the most delightful season of the year,
and the year usually passes away with it.
The favorable features of Dakota for health-
seekers are that it possesses the proper
altitude ; that it has a water supply of
the very purest ; that by far the largest
number of days of all seasons are days of
sunshine ; that it has a dry, porous soil ;
that it can not for yeai's be overcrowded ;
that severe and fatal diseases do not exten-
sively prevail ; and that it has plenty of ad-
vantages for industrial pursuits, thousands
of acres of cheap productive land, and a
place where the poor and the prospective in-

valid can found a permanent home. The
disadvantages are, that there are present to
a certain degree sudden and depressing
atmospheric changes ; and that it lacks a
great variety of means for diversion, al-
though hunting, fishing, horseback riding,
and other sports can be followed almost
daily.

Miud Cures.— Why, asks Dr. A. T. Scho-
field, of Friedenheim Hospital, are not the
great therapeutic powers of the mind given
their due place and prominence in medical
treatment ? " Does any practical medical
man doubt these powers ? Is he not aware
of the ingredient ' faith ' which, if added to
his prescriptions, makes them often all-
powerful for good ? Does he not know the
value of strongly asserting that the medi-
cines will produce such and such effects as a
powerful means of securing them ? Has he
never witnessed the therapeutic value through
the mind of the dentist's waiting room in
curing toothache, or of the consultant's
spacious dining room and back numbers of
Punch, combined with the physician's august
presence in the consulting room ? And has
he not seen how much more efficacious the
very same drugs have proved when pre-
scribed in such solemn surroundings than
in his own humbler environment and less
august presence '? " Among the most valu-
able instruments of mental therapeutics is
the mantelpiece striking clock. Sir Dyce
Duckworth insists upon the great efficacy, in
cases of persistent vomiting, of giving the
liquid food in teaspoonfuls every five minutes
by the dock. Food thus given is more read-
ily i-etained, and all the more so if the clock
can be clearly observed by the patient him-
self from the bed. At the exact time the
mind, acting through the brain, enables the
stomach (perhaps by some inhibitory power
over the vomiting center in the medulla) to
retain the food. The clock has also proved
to be valuable in labor in promoting regular-
ity in the intervals between the pains, as well
as in the appointment of the hours for nurs-
ing the child. Its real value in these, as in all
cases, is truly scientific, and lies in its potent
aid toward rapidly forming accurate psycho-
physical habits or artificial reflexes in the
brain. The clock is a strong aid to sleep by
enabling a person to go to bed at exactly

43°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the same hour every night'; regularity in
this matter is a powerful hypnotic.

Effects of Wind on Soil. — Investigations
by M. J. A. Hensele show that when the
wind bears in an acute angle upon the sur-
face of a soil it produces a pressure of the air
of the soil that increases with the speed of the
wind and the increase of the angle of inci-
dence. The excess of pressure diminishes
as the strata grow deeper. The pressure de-
termined by the wind increases with the
grossness of the particles and as the struc-
ture is grumelous. The wind provokes a
diminution of richness in carbonic acid of
the air of the soil, which becomes greater
with increase of velocity. It also increases
the evaporation of water from the soil.
Wind striking the ground at an angle occa-
sions an evaporation of more unequal force
than when it blows horizontally. Richness
in moisture has much influence in retarding
evaporation, while elevation of temperature
quickens it. The wind has no direct influ-
ence on the capillary ascent of water in the
soil, but only acts indirectly by favoring
evaporation and thus provoking a movement
of water toward the surface as long as there
is much of it in the soil. The temperature
of the soil is depressed by wind in propor-
tion to its velocity and the magnitude of the
angle of incidence.

Behavior of Different Trees to Light-
ning.— The resistance of different trees to
the electric spark has been studied by M.
Jonesco Dimitrie, who placed pieces of sap-
wood of beech and oak in the way of the
spark of a Holtz electrical machine. The
spark passed through the oak after one or
two revolutions of the machine, while twelve
or twenty revolutions were required to give
it force enough to pass through the beech.
Five revolutions were sufiicient with black
poplar and willow. Ssmilar results were ob-
tained with heartwood. The presence of
water had no influence on the resistance, but
richness in fat was an important factor.
"Starchy trees," poor in fat, like the oak,
poplar, willow, maple, elm, and ash, opposed
much less resistance to the spark than " fat-
ty " trees, like the beech, chestnut, linden,
and birch. The pine, which is rich in oil
in winter and poor in it in summer, shows

a corresponding difference in behavior to-
ward the spark at those two seasons. In
the " starchy " trees the living wood was
harder to strike with the spark than the
dead wood. The bark and foliage are poor
conductors in all the trees, but this is of
little importance as compared with the con-
ducting power of the tree itself. These re-
sults are in harmony with what has been ob-
served as to the relative frequency with
which trees of these several species are
struck by lightning. The author found also
that station and soil affect the liability of
trees to be struck. The vicinity of water
augments the danger. Isolated trees seem
more liable than those which are massed.
All species of trees may be struck when the
electric tension is high.

Speech Tones. — Attention is called by
Alexander Melville Bell to the tones associ-
ated with speech as a subject deserving
scientific investigation. These tones are
generally spoken of as accents. " Thus we
say of a stranger that he has a foreign ac-
cent ; or we may define the peculiarity and
say he has an Irish, a Scotch, a French, a
German, a Western, or a Southern accent.
He may or may not add to this some distinc-
tive pronunciations affecting vowels or con-
sonants ; but independently of these he will
use in his phrases and sentences a combina-
tion of tones — a tune — which alone would
suffice to suggest the nationality of the
speaker. All national speech has its charac-
teristic tune. This is especially noticeable
in dialects of the same language. We are
but little cognizant of our own habitual
tunes, but we are at once sensible of any
marked deviation from them in the speech of
others." The author devotes a very inter-
esting paper, which he read before the Mod-
ern Language Association last December, to
the analysis of these " speech tones." He
especially discusses the tones of the Chinese
language.

Bacteria in Bntter-niaking. — In a bulle-
tin of the Storrs Agricultural Experiment
Station, Connecticut, on the Ripening of
Cream by Artificial Bacteria Cultures, the
chief object of the ripening of cream is
shown to be to produce the butter aroma.
This aroma, though very evanescent, con-

NOTES.

431

trols the price of the butter. The butter-
maker owes the aroma to the bacteria, for
by their growth the materials in the cream
are decomposed, and the compounds are
formed which produce the flavors and odors
of high-quality butter. Different species of
bacteria vary much as to the flavors which
they produce, some giving rise to good, some
to extra fine, and others to a very poor qual-
ity of butter. A majority of our common
dairy species produce good but not the
highest quality of butter. Heretofore the
butter-maker has had no means of securing
the best flavoring bacteria ; but now the bac-
teriologist can isolate and obtain in pure cul-
tures those species which produce the best-
flavored butter, and can furnish them to the
creameries to use as starters in cream ripen-
ing. This artificial ripening of cream prom-
ises much for the near future, but it has so
far been applied on only a small scale.

NOTES.

The third summer session of the School
of Applied Ethics is to be held at Plymouth,
Mass., July 12th to August 16th. A special
feature will be the attention given to the la-
bor question and allied subjects in each of
the departments. In the Department of Eco-
nomics the relation of economics to social
progress will be discussed by leading econo-
mists from diiferent universities. In the De-
partment of Ethics and History of Religion
various phases of the labor problem in the
past and present will be considered by a large
corps of able educators. The relation of
various forms of educational activity to eth-
ical and social progress will be considered at
a conference of educators and teachers, Au-
gust 5th to 11th, and opportunity will be af-
forded for free and full discussion.

A COMMITTEE has been formed in Paris,
with M. Pasteur at its head, to raise funds
for the erection of a monument to the mem-
ory of M. Charcot.

In a lecture at the Royal Institution on
the Electric Discharge through Gases, Prof.
J. J. Thomson deduced from experiments
the conclusion that the conductivity of gases
at a certain degree of rarefaction is greater
than that of any metal, and almost infinitely
greater molecule for molecule. At a higher
degree of rarefaction, however, conductivity
is diminished, and in a perfect vacuum, as
has been shown by some of Prof. De war's
experiments, it is probable that the discharge
would not pass at all. From another series
of experiments it was inferred that electric

currents will cross a high vacuum freely
though they produce no glow to indicate the
fact.

Why man can not swim without having
learned, while other animals can, is explained
by Mr. Robinson in the Nineteenth Century.
It is a question of atavism. When iu great
danger we make the defensive movements
most familiar or instinctive to us. The first
impulse of quadrupeds is to run away, and
tli.e movements of running sustain them in
the water, while man, true to his simian an-
cestors, tries to catch hold of something, and
pushes his arms up, with the sure result of
himself going down.

A CURIOUS colloidal form of gold, soluble
in water containing basic acetate of cerium,
is described by Herr Schottlander. The so-
lution is of a very intense reddish-violet color,
turning to carmine red in dilute solutions.
The color still remains distinct in a solu-
tion containing only TnnrViro of gold. These
solutions are obtained by precipitating a di-
lute solution of a salt of cerium mixed with
gold, by means of a lye of potash or soda.
The green precipitate obtained is then dis-
solved in warm dilute acetic acid. The ace-
tate of soda then gives a violet-red precipi-
tate containing all the gold iu the liquor and
a little basic acetate of cerium. On drying
this precipitate an amorphous bronze-colored
mass, soluble in water, is finally obtained.

The French Museum of Natural History
received, a few months ago, a specimen of
that rarest of birds, the Apteryx. It was
carefully kept in a warmed room and fed
with expressly chosen and prepared meats,
for it was not supposed it could thrive in a
foreign climate and among strange associa-
tions. One day in October it was gone,
and could not be found, though the whole
Jard'm des Planies was searched for it, till
early in March a dog smelled it out in one
of the ventilating holes of a row of newly
erected buildings, in the cellar of which it
had endured cold and rain and snow through
the winter, and lived on what it could pick
up. Never had it been known to be in bet-
ter condition.

Orchid culture, as we know it, according
to an article quoted in Garden and Forrest
from the Orchid Review, did not exist till
early in the last century, when, in 1731,
a dried specimen of the species Bletia vere-
cunda ijFas sent to Peter Collinson from the
Bahamas. Collinson sent the tubers to the
garden of a Mr. Wager, where they were
nursed during the winter, and produced flow-
ers in the next summer. Two of our North
American cypripediums were cultivated, per-
haps, as early as 173*7. At the end of the
century there were cultivated in English
gardens, besides several hardy species, or-
chids which had been brought home by
travelers and naval and military officers from

432

THJ^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the West Indies, China, and the Cape of
Good Hope. Our beautiful little Calopogon
pulchdlus was introduced accidentally in
some bog earth which had been taken over
to England with some plants of Dionea for
the botanist Curtis. His gardener noticed
some small, toothlike, knobby roots in the soil
and took care of them so that they flowered
in the following summer. The first orchid
was figured in 1*790 from the strongest of
these plants.

Philibert Commerson, the eminent natu-
ralist and botanist of Bougainville's scien-
tific and exploring expedition, 1766-'69,
wrote of Reaumur, the entomologist and
author of the Reaumur thermometer scale :
" Reaumur, the illustrious Reaumur, has
just died from the effects of a fall which
caused a suppuration of all the internal
parts of his head. Thus the poor insects
have become orphans for a long time, for we
other Liunasists are nothing but cruel im-
palers ; but Reaumur was their father, their
accoucheur, their nurse, their interpreter,
their all."

The results of examinations of European
statistics by M. Lagneau go to show that as
among occupations consumption is most
prevalent among persons whose callings ex-
pose them to dusts ; and next among those
whose work is sedentary ; while persons liv-
ing in the open air enjoy an almost complete
immunity. From another point of view, con-
sumption appears to increase in towns rapid-
ly with the density of the population.

Remarking upon a proposal to establish
a psychological laboratory in England, simi-
lar to the institutions of the kind that exist
" all over the Continent," the Revue Scien-
tifiqite observes that there is only one such
laboratory in France deserving the name,
and that to find really important installations
it is necessary to go to Germany or to the
United States ; and that the English in ar-
ranging their experimental establishment
will have to draw their inspiration from
these two countries.

The Geographical Club of Philadelphia
was formed in 1891, and its first stated
meeting was held February 24, 1892, when
the president, Prof. Angelo Heilprin, read
an opening address on the Present Aspects
of Geographical Study. Since then, till
January, 1894, twelve stated meetings have
been held at which important and fciterest-
ing papers have been read. The club was
incorporated in May, 1892. Its purpose is
defined to be the advancement of the sci-
ence of geography and of geographical stud-
ies and exploration, the recording of discov-
eries, the presentation of researches, and the
accumulation of works on geography. Among
the features of its history to this time are
its association, through a contribution of
funds, with the Peary Arctic Expedition of

1893, and the issue of the first number of
its Bulletin, containing an address, by Mr. E.
S. Balch, on Mountain Exploration.

The English Society for the Protection
of Birds aims at preventing the destruction
of beautiful and useful birds by influencing
public opinion, and, if possible, by promot-
ing legislation. Mr. E. H. Bayley, M. P.,
the president, referred, in his address at the
annual meeting of the society, to the whole-
sale catching and killing of birds for purposes
of sale, or for so-called sport. As an exam-
ple of abuse in sport, he instanced a case
which had been brought under his notice of
a man who went down to Devonshire from
London, and in a short time destroyed all
the kingfishers on a certain stream. The
number of members of the society has in-
creased in one year from 5,200 to 9,159.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Prof. George John Romanes, author of
the work on Animal Intelligence in the In-
ternational Scientific Series, of the books.
Mental Evolution in Animals and in Man, and
Jellyfish, Starfish, and Sea Urchins, and of
other scientific essays and treatises, died
suddenly at Oxford, England, May 23d. He
was born in Kingston, Canada, in 1848,
spent his boyhood in Europe, and was
graduated in Natural Science at Cambridge
in 1870. His first scientific writmgs of
mark are a series of papers on the Nervous
System of Medusa;. He was elected a Fel-
low of the Royal Society in 1879. He held
the appointment of Fullerian Professor of
Natural History in the Royal Institution,
London, and Rosebery Lecturer on Natural
History in the University of Edinburgh. He
was a personal friend of Charles Darwin ;
and most of his writings were in develop-
ment of Mr. Darwin's theories and the doc-
trine of evolution, or in criticism of them.

Prof. Robert Peter died at his home
near Lexington, Ky., on the 27th of April,
at the age of eighty-nine. He is well known
among the older generation of scientific men
for his chemical work in soil analyses in
connection with the various geological sur-
veys of Kentucky and Arkansas. He was
a contemporary of many of the older men
of science, and was for many years per-
sonally and oflScially associated with David
Dale Owen in his geological work. He was
the oldest medical professor in America;
and occupied the chair of Chemistry in the
Transylvania University in its earliest days.
When that school was removed to Louis-
ville and became the Kentucky School
of Medicine, he went with it. At the time
of his death he occupied, nominally, the
chair of Chemistry in the Agricultural and
Mechanical College at Lexington. He was
a native of Cornwall, England, and was
born in 1805.

W. MATTLEU WILLIAMS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

AUGUST, 1894.

THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING.

By JOHN DEWEY,

PKOrESSOB OF PHILOSOPHY IN MICHIGAN TTNIVEBSITT.

IN teacMng -undergraduates in the subject of ethics, I have been
impressed with the need of getting the discussion as near as
possible to what is going on in the minds of students themselves.
Although ethics is the most practical of the philosophic studies,
none lends itself more readily to merely technical statement and
formal discussion. It is easy to forget that we are discussing the
actual behavior, motives, and conduct of men, and substitute for
that a discussion of Kant's or Mill's or Spencer's theory of ethics.
It seems to me especially advisable to get in some contact with
the practical, and accordingly largely unconscious, theory of moral
ends and motives which actually controls thinking upon moral
subjects. One is, however, considerably embarrassed in attempt-
ing this. As any one knows w^ho has much to do with the young,
their conscious thoughts in these matters, or at least their state-
ments, are not fresher, but more conventional, than those of their
elders. They are apt to desire to say the edifying thing, and the
thing which they feel is expected of them, rather than express
their own inner feelings. Moreover, some points have been so
much discussed that any direct questioning upon them is apt to
bring forth remnants of controversies that have been heard or
read, secondhand opinions, an argumentative taking of sides,
rather than to evoke the spontaneous and native attitude. Among
other devices for eliminating or at least reducing these disturbing
factors the following method was hit upon : To ask each student
to state some typical early moral experience of his own, relating,
say, to obedience, honesty, and truthfulness, and the impression

VOL XLV. — 33

434 'J'HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

left by the outcome upon his own mind, especially the impression
as to the reason for the virtue in question. The answers brought
out a considerable mass of material, incidentally *as well as di-
rectly. Some of this seems to me to have value beyond the imme-
diate pedagogical occasion which called it forth, as furnishing a
fairly representative sample * of the motives instilled by existing
methods of moral training, and the impressions which these meth-
ods leave behind.

Nine tenths of the answers may be classified under one of the
following heads : The impression left by the mode of treatment
was that the motive for right doing is (1) found in the conse-
quences of the act ; (2) fear of being punished ; (3) simply be-
cause it is right ; (4) because right doing pleases the parent, while
wrongdoing displeases ; (5) the religious motive. In number the
religious motive predominates ; next to that comes fear of pun-
ishment. In -many cases, of course, several of these reasons were
inculcated.

1. The regard for consequences as a reason for morality takes
the form of regard either for external consequences or for in-
trinsic reactions — that is to say, upon the character of the agent
or upon those about him. A number seem to have learned the
value of obedience by observation of disagreeable results proceed-
ing from its opposite. For example, one child was told not to take
off her shoes and stockings ; she disobeyed, and had croup in the
night — whence, she remarks, she derived the idea that others knew
more than she, and that disobedience was dangerous. Another
girl was told not to wear a lawn dress to a picnic ; she disobeyed,
but a rain storm came up and faded it out. " From this and other
similar experiences I deduced the idea that obedience was wise.
Yet this was with the reservation that obedience was to be tem-
pered with discretion, as I observed that in some instances acting
upon my own judgment was justified by the outcome."

When we come to the moral motive as determined by the in-
trinsic results of the act, we are obviously approaching the ques-
tion, so mooted upon its theoretical side, of intuitionalism versus
empiricism. Nothing was said upon this point in giving out the
questions ; the students may fairly be presumed to have been un-
conscious of any such bearing in their answers, and so these may
be taken as fairly free from any bias. No one reply indicates any
distinct recognition of right or wrong prior to the commission of

* The class numbered over one hundred. About ninety replied. About twenty of the
answers were put aside, as indulging in general statements, or as bearing the stamp of
artificiality. The remaining answers represent Central Western States, particularly the
States of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. Pretty much all grades of homes are represented,
and at least three lines of descent beside native American.

THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING. 435

some particular act.* After acting, a number of persons note the
fact that they became so uncomfortable that they either owned
up or resolved not to do that sort of thing again. This experi-
ence, however, is noted only in the case of a lie told or acted.
Several expressly state that obedience and honesty (as a regard
for the property of others) appeared quite artificial, their need
being seen only after considerable instruction and some rather
crucial experiences. Obedience, in many cases, seemed quite arbi-
trary— " necessary for children," as one puts it, " but not for grown
people " ; or, as another notes, " till he got big enough so he wouldn't
have to mind " ; while a third states that obedience, as such, was
always accompanied with a certain" resentment and a desire to
have the positions reversed, so that he could do the commanding.
As for honesty, one says that it always seemed to him that any-
thing he wanted to use belonged to him ; another, that any pretty
thing which she admired was her own. One child notes that she
saved up the pennies her father had given her to take to Sunday
school, and bought a valentine with them, which she gave to him,
to surprise him. The father threw this into the fire first, and then
punished her, taking it for granted that she knew she was doing
wrong, f Not even after that, however, did she feel it was wrong,
but rather felt indignant and humiliated that her father had
treated her gift in such a way. Another child could see no wrong
in taking the pennies from a bank which she and her sister had in
common. The following instance is worth quoting in full : " Be-
fore I was four, I remember several instances in which I saw
moral delinquencies in others, which I wished to punish or did
punish, but none in myself. As to honesty, I claimed all the eggs
laid in the neighborhood as coming from my own pullet. After
being convinced of the physical impossibility of this, it was a long
time before I would believe that everything I laid hands on was
not mine. I was once driven off from a field where I was picking
berries ; this made a great impression upon me, and led to ques-
tions regarding the rights of others to be so exclusive. The ef-
fectual appeal always lay in being led to put myself in the place
of others." A number note that there was great difficulty in ap-
preciating that a fence could institute a moral barrier between
mine and thine. But as regards lying, a few report having been

* This may be due, of course, to the way in which the question was put.

f A sense of injustice seems to have been the first distinctly moral feeling aroused in
many. This, not on account of the wrong which the child did others, but of wrong suf-
fered in being punished for something which seemed perfectly innocent to the child. One
of the distinct painful impressions left on my own mind by the papers is the comparative
frequency with which parents assume that an act is consciously wrong and punish it as
such, when in the child's mind the act is simply psychological — based, I mean, upon ideas
and emotions which, under the circumstances, are natural.

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

made thoroughly imcomfortahle by its after effects in their own
emotions. The following story, trivial in itself, is not trivial in
meaning : " Once, when I had two apples, I wished to give one to
my playmate ; I knew she would expect the best one, which I also
wished for myself, so I held out the best side of the poorer one
and made her think that was the better of the two. Her belief
that I had really given her the best took away all the sweetness
from my own apple, and I decided that straightforwardness was
better." This instance, as well as others pointing in the same
direction, so far as they would justify any conclusion, fall in line
with the case reported by Professor James relative to the experi-
ence of a deaf-mute. This boy had stolen ten dollars, thinking it
a smaller sum, having previously stolen many small amounts
with no compunctions of conscience. In this case, the reaction
into himself was, so to speak, so massive and bulky that he be-
came thoroughly uncomfortable and ashamed ; was brought spon-
taneously to recognizing its badness, and kept from stealing money
in the future. This genuine meaning of the innate theory of con-
science seems accordingly, to Professor James, to mean that any
act, if it can be experienced with adequate detail and fullness,
" with all that it comports," will manifest its intrinsic quality.*

2. An astonishingly large number record that they got their
first distinct moral impressions through punishment, and of these
a considerable fraction got the idea that the chief reason for
doing right was to avoid punishment in the future. This di-
vision runs into that dealing with the religious motive, as some-
times the fear was of punishment from parent, sometimes from
God ; it also runs into the fourth head to be considered, practi-
cally if not logically, for a number record that the motive ap-
pealed to by their father was fear of punishment, while that of
their mother was love of her, and grief caused by wrongdoiilg.

A few samples tell, in different language, the almost uniform
tale of the outcome of the appeal to force. " I rebelled with feel-
ings of hatred and of desire for revenge. It seemed to me unjust,
imposed by sheer force, not reason." One tells the story of being
coaxed by older boys to steal some tobacco from his father. " I
was caught and given a whipping, no questions being asked and
no explanation given. The result was certainly a fear of punish-
ment in the future, but no moral impression. I thought my
father whipped me because he wanted the tobacco himself, and so
objected to my having any of it." Another reports that the im-
pression left by punishment was a mixture of a feeling of personal
indignity suffered — a feeling so strong as to blot out the original

* Philosophic Review, vol. i, p. G74. I can but think, however, that Professor James is
very charitable in ascribing to the ordinary intuitionalist any such reasonable view.

THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING. 437

offense — and a belief that she was punished for being detected.
Another thought she was punished because her father was the
stronger of the two ; another, that fear of liarm to self induced
people to do right things ; another tells that he longed for the age
of independence to arrive so that he might retaliate. One upon
whom fear of punishment from God was freely impressed formed
the idea that if he could put off death long enough, lying was
the best way out of some things. One child (five years old) went
in the front part of the house after she had been forbidden, and,
falling, hurt herself. She was told that this was a punishment
from God ; whence she drew the not illogical conclusion that God
was a tyrant, but that it was possible to outwit him by being
more careful next time, and not falling down. One peculiarity
of the method of inducing morality by creating fear is that some
parents, in order to prevent lying, deem it advisable to lie them-
selves ; e. g., talk about cutting off the end of the boy's tongue or
making him leave home, etc. But there is hardly any need of
multiplying incidents ; all the reports re-enforce the lesson which
moralists of pretty much all schools have agreed in teaching —
that the appeal to fear as such is morally harmful. Of course,
there are a number of cases where good results are said to have
come from punishment, but in such cases the punishment was
incidental, not the one important thing; it was the emphasis
added to an explanation.

3. Some report that they were instructed to do right " because
it is right," either as the sole reason or in connection with other
motives, such as harm to one's character, or displeasing God or
parents. A little more than one tenth of the persons report this
as a leading motive instilled. Most simply mention the fact,
with no comment as to the impression made upon them. One
remembers displeasing her mother (after she had been told that
she must do right because it was right) by asking why she must
do what was right rather than what was wrong. On the whole,
she was confused, and the basis of morality seemed to be arbi-
trary authority.

4. Such answers as the following are exceedingly common : " I
saw by mother's face that I had grieved her " ; " was made to feel
that I had shocked and pained my j^arents " ; " the motive appealed
to was giving pain to my parents, who loved me " ; "I felt ashamed
when I found I had grieved my father"; "was made to feel sorry
when my parents were made unhappy by what I did," etc. There
is a paucity of information about the attitude toward morality
left by this mode of treatment. The following, indeed, is the
only comment made in any of the reports : " Upon disobeying my
mother, I was told that I was naughty and bad, and that she
would not love me unless I was sorry and promised not to dis-

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obey again. This impressed me witli tlie necessity of obeying,
but I did not see then, and can not now, any reason for it.'^

5. We come now to tlie religious motive as the ground for
right doing. There are different kinds of answers here — appeals
to fear and love, to Bible teachings and Bible warnings, to
terror of an avenging God, and to the wounded affection of a
personal friend and Saviour; sometimes one, and sometimes
a mixture of all. Certain of the practical ones among the
parents used, indeed, not only all these appeals, but pretty
much all the foregoing mentioned as well, evidently on the
principle that it is not possible to use too many inducements
toward morality, and that if one fails, another may hold. I shall
give one or two typical quotations illustrating each method.
First, of fear: "My mother told me, 'You must tell the truth,
for God knows all about it, for he is continually watching you,
and I certainly shall find out all about it.' This caused great
fear ; we thought of God as a powerful avenger, and also believed
that he communicated with our parents about our faults." Three
or four mention that the story of Ananias and Sapphira was
used with considerable effect. Second, of Biblical authority:
" I was taught that the Bible said that these things were right
and wrong, and that it must be so. I can not remember a time
when I did not think that it was wrong to break any of the ten
commandments, because they had been given by God in the
Bible." " When I asked the reason why I should not do certain
things, I was told that it was because they were forbidden in the
Bible." Third, of love: "I was taught that Jesus looked upon
me, just as my parents did ; that he was pleased when I did right,
and grieved when I did wrong, and that he had done so much for
me that I ought to be sorry to grieve him." " I was taught that
wrong acts grieved our Lord, and that he knew about them even
if no one else did ; also that he was pleased when I did any little
act of kindness to any one." Fourth, mixed cases : " I was brought
up in a distinctly Christian home. I was made to feel that certain
things were right and their opposites wrong ; was taught that
there is a God who sees and knows everything that I do ; that he
looked upon disobedience with an eye of displeasure ; the Bible
was taught from early infancy as a text-book of morals ; was made
to feel that not only would punishment result from wrongdoing,
but that both God and my parents were hurt by my wrongdoing.
The impression left on my mind was that certain things were
right and that God was the standard ; at first fear, awe, and rev-
erence were induced, with occasional feelings of rebellion ; the
general effect was to awaken respect for the right qualities, and
to make me consider the right and wrong of things in my own
consciousness." " After the first lie which I remember, I was not

THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING. 439

punished, but was given a lecture on the words in the Revelation,
' Without are . . . whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.' I was made
to see that the habit would grow and dishonor me in the sight of
God and man, and left with the promise of a good whipping if I
ever told another. In general, I remember that I was taught
that my faults had the peculiarity of increasing at an astonish-
ing rate ; that I was a very naughty child, and that every wrong
act grieved a heavenly Father who loved me and who was ever
present to see both the good and the bad." " After lying I was
told that I got no good from it ; that teachers and friends disliked
such persons ; that my honest playmates would look down on me ;
that God was grieved with me. The room was filled with the
splendor of the setting sun, and it seemed to me that God must
be up there looking at me and seeing what a naughty girl I was.
Then I was told that God would forgive me if only I confessed,
and that in the future he would help me to be good if only I
tried."'

I am not afraid that any one will despise these incidents as
trivial. It is easy, indeed, to recall our own childhood, to look
out at what is now around us, and say that there is nothing new
here ; that all this is commonplace and just what any one would
expect. Precisely ; and in that consists its value. It all simply
brings out the most familiar kind of facts, but still facts to which
we shut our eyes, or else ordinarily dismiss as of no particular
importance, while in reality they present considerations which
are of deeper import than any other one thing which can engage
attention. Every one will admit without dispute that the ques-
tion of the moral attitude and tendencies induced in youth by the
motives for conduct habitually brought to bear is the ultimate
question in all education whatever — will admit it with a readi-
ness and cheerfulness which imply that any one who even raises
the question has a taste for moral truisms. Yet, as matter of
fact, moral education is the most haphazard of all things ; it is
assumed that the knowledge of the right reasons to be instilled
and knowledge of the methods to be used in instilling these rea-
sons " come by nature," as reading and writing came to Dogberry.
There is, if I mistake not, a disposition to resent as intrusion any
discussion of the subject which goes beyond general platitudes
into the wisdom of the motives and methods actually used. Yet
I do not see how any successful training of children as to their
conduct is possible unless the parents are first educated themselves
as to what right conduct is, and what methods are fit for bring-
ing it about. I do not see how that is to be accomplished without
a free treatment of present aims and methods.

The first thing which strikes one's attention in these answers
is the great gap existing at present between theory and practice.

440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Either prevailing theory is egregiously wrong, or else mucli of
present practice, measured by that theory, may be fairly termed
barbarous in its complete disregard of scientific principle. If
there is one thing in theory upon which all schools are agreed, it
is that conduct is not moral except as its motive is pure — except,
that is, as free from reference to personal fear of punishment and
hope of reward. The intuitionalist insists that duty must be done
for duty's sake ; the empiricist, that while consequences make the
moral criterion, yet the agent is truly moralized only in so far as
his motive is regard for the consequences which follow intrinsic-
ally from the act itself. And yet the main motive actually ap-
pealed to is the desire to avoid either actual punishment, whether
from God or from one's parent, or else the reflex into one's self of
their displeasure in the way of being grieved or hurt. The last
motive appealed to, it would seem, is that connected with the act
*. itself. Enlightenment as to the true nature of the act performed,
irrespective of the source of its imposition, irrespective of the
favor or disfavor which the act will arouse from others (save, of
course, in so far as that disfavor or favor is, through the social
structure, one of the intrinsic constituents of the act) and the
development of interest in that act for its own sake, seem to be
the last things aimed at.* It is commonly said, I know, that a
child can not understand the moral bearing of his acts, and that
therefore rather arbitrary and external motives must be appealed
to. Of this, I would say two things : First, it is true that the
child can not see in the act all that an adult sees in it. There is
not the slightest reason why he should. If he did, it would be an
entirely different act, an act having different conditions, a differ-
ent aim, and a different value. The question is whether the child
can be made to see the reason why he should perform the act, not
why some other older person should perform it. Limiting the
question in this way, it loses, I think, a large part of its force. As
for what remains, it may still be said that the ideal is to appeal
to the child's own intelligence and interest as mAich as possible.
One of the strongest impressions made upon me by the papers is
the natural strong interest of children in moral questions — not,
indeed, as consciously moral, but as questions of what to do and

* I hope I shall not be understood here as arguing for the principle of doing right be-
cause it is right. In the first place, the phrase is very ambiguous, meaning cither doing
the act for the sake of something light, in the abstract or at large, a right whose connec-
tion with the particular act is not seen ; or else doing the act for its own sake, for the
meaning which the act itself has for the agent — a principle which is the extreme opposite
of the other sense. But, in the second place, I am desirous to state the matter in terms
upon which all schools are agreed ; and I understand that (however differently they may
phrase it) all schools are agreed that an act has really moral worth only when the agent
does it because of what he sees and feels in it.

THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING. 441

what not to do. We do not have to take any position regarding
the intuitive character of moral distinctions or the a priori charac-
ter of moral laws to be sure that a child is intensely interested in
everything that concerns himself, and that what he does and how
other people react to it is a very intimate part of himself. To
decline to show the child the meaning of his acts, to hold that his
desire to know their reasons (that is, their meaning) is a sign of
depravity, is to insult his intelligence and deaden his spontaneous
interest in the whys and wherefores of life — an interest which is
the parent's strongest natural ally in moral training.

Secondly, in and so far as the child can not see the meaning
and value of his acts and value them for himself, it becomes ab-
surd to insist upon questions of morality in connection with
them. Make the widest possible allowance for the necessity that
a child perform acts, the bearing of which he can not realize for
himself, and the contradiction in the present method is only em-
phasized as long as parents impress upon the children strictly
moral considerations in connection with such acts. Surely, if
morality means (as all moralists are agreed) not simply doing-
certain acts, but doing them with certain motives and disposition,
rational training would emphasize the moral features of acts '
only when it is possible for the child to appreciate something of
their meaning, and in other cases simply manage somehow to
get the acts done without saying anything about questions of
right and wrong. To continue the present method of holding, on
one side, that a child is so irrational that he can not see for him-
self the significance of his conduct, while, on the other, with re-
gard to these self-same acts, the child is punished as a moral de-
linquent, and has urged upon him, on moral grounds, the necessity
for doing them, is the height of theoretical absurdity and of prac-
tical confusion. Present methods seem to take both the intuitive
and utilitarian positions in their extreme forms, and then attempt
the combination of both. It is virtually assumed that prior to
instruction the child knows well enough what he should and
should not do ; that his acts have a conscious moral quality from
the first ; it is also assumed, to a large extent, that only by ap-
peal to external punishments and rewards can the child be got to
see any reason for doing the right and avoiding the wrong. ISTow
these two propositions are so related that they can not possibly
both be true, while both may be false — and are both false unless
all contemporaneous tendencies in ethics are in a wrong direc-
tion.*

* There is one basis upon which both views may be logically held — total depravity. It
may then be assumed that the child knows the rigl t in advance, but can be got to do it
on'y through punishment.
VOL. XLV. — S4

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The gap between theory and practice comes out also in the great
reliance placed upon religious motives in the moral life. It is not
necessary to enter into controversial questions here. The fact is
enough that contemporary moralists, almost without exception
and including all schools, hold that the reasons and duties of the
moral life either lie within itself, or at least may be stated by
themselves without direct reference to supernatural considerations.
In running over the names of moral theorists of the present day,
of all schools, I can think of but two exceptions to this statement.
Sidgwick holds that it iniay be impossible to get a jinoX statement
of morals without postulating a supreme moral Being and Ruler,
while Martineau holds that obligation is derived from such a Be-
ing. But even Martineau holds that the fads of obligation may
be found directly in human nature ; that it is only when we de-
mand a philosophical explanation of its nature that we bring in
the reference to God. Either, then, theory is working in a very
unpractical direction, or else much of practice is going on in very
anti-scientific fashion. A readjustment is demanded.

This brings me to my final point. An influential movement of
the present times (I refer to the ethical culture movement) holds,
as I understand it, that it is possible to separate the whole matter
of the moral education of children and adults from theoretical
considerations. With their contention that education can be
(must be, I should say) separated from dogmatic theories I am
heartily at one ; but as, after all, a dogmatic theory is a contra-
diction in terms, the question is, whether such an emancipation
can be effected without a positive theory of the moral life. It is
a critical and practical question with every teacher and parent :
What reasons shall I present to my child for doing this right
act ? What motives in him shall I appeal to in order that he
may realize for himself that it is right ? What interests in him
shall I endeavor to evoke in order to create an habitual disposition
in this right direction ? I fail utterly to see how these questions
can be even approximately answered without some sort of a work-
ing theory. To give a reason to a child, to suggest to him a mo-
tive— I care not what — for doing the right thing, is to have and
use a moral theory. To point out its consequences to himself in
the ways of pains and pleasures ; to point out its reaction into his
own habits and character ; to show him how it affects the welfare
of others ; to point out what strained and abnormal relations it
sets up between him and others, and the reaction of these relations
upon his own happiness and future actions — to point to any of
these things with a view to instilling moral judgment and dis-
position is to appeal to a theory of the moral life. To suppose
that the appeal to do a thing simply because it is right does not
involve such a theory ; to suppose that the practical value of this

A FAMILY OF WATER KINGS. 443

appeal must not itself be submitted to investigation and state-
ment— to theory — strikes me as decidedly na'ive.

Here as elsewhere our greatest need is to make our theories
submit to the test of practice, to experimental verification, and,
at the same time, make our practice scientific — make it the em-
bodiment of the most reasonable ideas we can reach. The ulti-
mate test of the efiicacy of any movement or method is the equal
and continuous hold which it keeps upon both sides of this truth.

A FAMILY OF WATER KINGS.

By Peof. CLAEENCE M. WEED.

THERE is, perhaps, no way in which one can obtain a more-
vivid idea of the intensity of the struggle for existence among
organic beings than by the study of the inhabitants of a fresh-
water pond of long standing. Every inch of space in such a situ-
ation is teeming with life, both animal and vegetable, and the
chief delight of most of the animals present is to wage a ceaseless
warfare upon their weaker fellows. It is an aquatic rendition of
Edwin Arnold's aerial drama :

"... Then mai'ked lie, too,
How lizard fed on ant, and snake on liiin,
And kite on both ; and how the fish-hawk robbed
The lish-tiger of that which it had seized ;
The shrike chasinf? the biilbul, which did hunt
The jeweled butterflies ; till everywhere
Each slew a slayer and in turn was slain,
Life living upon death. So the fair show
Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy
Of mutual murder, from the worm to man.
Who himself kills his fellow."

The largest insects occurring in our fresh-water ponds are the
giant water bugs — a family of peculiar creatures, armed with im-
mense front legs fitted for grasping and clasping their victims,
and a piercing, dagger-like beak which serves both to strike the
prey and as a sucking tube to extract its juices, and which also
appears to be provided with poison glands which make more sure
the effect of every thrust.

Three species of these bugs occur in the Northern United
States. Two of them are very large and closely resemble each
other ; the third is much smaller, less than half the size of the
others. The commoner of the larger ones in the more northern
States is represented natural size in Fig. 1. It is called by ento-
mologists Belosioma americana, or the American belostoma. It is

444

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fl(i. ]. AiMKHlCAN BeLDSTOMA.

brown in color, with leathery wings overlapping each other on its
back ; thick legs, along the sides of which are fringes for swim-
ming ; and a flat, boat-shaped body which offers little resistance
to the water.

The eggs of the American belostoma are deposited on pieces
of wood or reeds along the margins of ponds, apparently where

they will be wet but not directly
in the water. They are laid in
clusters of from forty to sixty or
more in each. The eggs them-
selves are about one fifth of an
inch long, oblong-ovate in form,
with the general color brown
spotted with black ; they are light-
er colored below than above, and
there is a whitish crescent near the
top with a distinct black spot in
its apex. This crescent indicates
the margins of a little cap which
conies off when the young bugs
hatch.

Little seems to be known con-
cerning the early history of these
They probably crawl into the water soon after hatching,
and live upon such aquatic insects as they are able to catch. I
do not know just how fast they grow, but presume they become
full grown in a year. During the earlier period of their exist-
ence they have no wings ; they are then in what the naturalists
call the nymph state. Their appearance just before they become
adult is represented in Fig. 2. It will be seen that they have no
wings, but otherwise they very much re-
semble the full-grown bugs. Finally, the
skin splits open along the middle of the
back, and the insect crawls out of its old
skin clothed in a new one which is pro-
vided with wings. It now for the first
time can leave the pond where it has de-
veloped, and fly away to otlier bodies of
water.

If the front leg of a full-grown Ameri-
can belostoma be examined carefully, there
will be found on the front margin of the

long joint nearest the body a longitudinal groove for the reception
of the next joint. By this character the present species can al-
ways be distinguished from the other one, in which there is no
groove. This latter insect is called Belostoma griseus. It is usu-

bugs

— IjAst Stack ok

NVMPII.

A FAMILY OF WATER KINGS. 445

ally a little larger and darker colored than its American cousin,
and apparently is more common southward than at the North,
The life histories of the two species, so far as we know them, ap-
pear to be very similar. The eggs of the southern
form are laid in masses on sticks or other rubbish
at the margins of ponds. The general color of re-
cently laid specimens is greenish brown, with longi-
tudinal stripes of darker brown, and a faint indica-
tion of a light crescent near the top. Their bases are glued to
each other and to the stick on which they are deposited by a sort
of mucilage. An idea of the appearance of these eggs may be
obtained from Fig. o.

In South America a still larger species is found ; it is called
Belosto7na grande, or the great belostoma. Still other species
occur in Central America and Cuba, China and India, Egypt and
Africa, but none are found in northern Europe.

Wherever these bugs appear they are formidable enemies of
small fishes, frogs, and other aquatic animals. Of the Belostoma
griseus, Prof. Uhler writes : " Developing in the quiet pools, se-
creting itself beneath stones or rubbish, it watches the approach
of a mud-minnow, frog, or other small-sized tenant of the water,
when it darts with sudden rapidity upon its unprepared victim,
grasps the creature with its strong, clasping fore legs, plunges its
deadly beak deep into the flesh, and proceeds with the utmost
coolness leisurely to suck its blood. A copious supply of saliva is
poured into the wound, and no doubt aids in producing the paraly-
sis which so speedily follows its puncture in small creatures." In
the breeding ponds of the Massachusetts Fish Commissioners
these bugs destroyed so many young fish a few
years ago that the authorities had to take spe-
cial pains to catch and kill them.

In many localities these insects have lately
received the popular name electric-light bugs,
because they fly so freely to electric lights.
This indicates that in going from pond to pond
they are nocturnal.

There is another species belonging to this
family which is common throughout most of fk;. 4.— Rivek Zaitha.
the United States. It is less than half the size
of those we have been discussing, and is called by entomologists
Zaitlia fluminea, or the river zaitha ; and is also known as the
lesser water bug. It is a brown insect of the size and shape shown
in Fig. 4. Its legs are provided with fringes for swimming, and
it has a slender, sharp-pointed beak. As one would expect, it
feeds on smaller animals than do the belostomas. A few years
ago I dredged a number of these bugs out of an Ohio pond,

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

together with a great quantity of other forms of pond life, and
placed them all in glass aquaria to study their feeding habits.
The bugs seemed to feed most voraciously upon the larvae or

nymphs of dragon flies. These were
captured continually, and their juices

""^s^^s^V ^'^MVi/Mf''^^" greedily sucked out. The next most

^^^ ~ abundant victim was the common

I-

undulating backswimmer {Notonecta
undulata) shown in Fig. 5. In one
aquarium, in which a large amount
„ . ,, Tj of pond material, including half a

Fiii. o. — Lndulating Backswimmer. ^ ^ ' °

dozen zaithas, had been placed, four
of the latter were in sight at one time, each with one of these
backswimmers grasped in its front legs and the beak inserted in
the body.

Small fresh- water snails occasionally contribute to the diet of
this insatiable creature, and young mayflies are also commonly
eaten. Flying insects which fall upon the surface of the water
are sometimes caught and killed.

The giant water bugs are typical examples of the true bugs.
They belong to the group called by naturalists Heteroptera, the
members of which are characterized by having two pairs of wings,
the front pair being thickened at the base and thin at the tip, and
mouth parts fitted for sucking rather than for biting. During
their development they do not undergo so complete a series of
changes as do the caterpillars, which transform into butterflies,
but grow more like the grasshoppers, the young resembling the
adults in general appearance but having no wings. These bugs
can be dipped out of ponds and ditches almost anywhere by
means of a net, and are easily kept in aquariums, where they form
interesting objects for study.

Illustrating, in one of his juvenile lectures, the liquefaction and solidification
of gases, Prof. Dewar said that ether is evajjorated to pi'odnce, by abstraction of
heat from the gas, solid carbonic acid, whicli, though a white substance like snow,
is boiling at 80° 0. below zero. If the pressure is reduced bj the air-pump, it
boils at a lower temperature, and —110'' C. may thus be reached. This is suffi-
cient to liquefy nitrous oxide, which boils at —90° C. ; and licjuid nitrous oxide
under tiie air-pump produces cold enough to liquefy ethylene, wliich boils at
— 100° C. The last stage is to liquefy air under pressure by the cold made by
evaporating etliylene. In practice all these stages are not used, but they illustrate
the gradational method which must be employed. The lecture was illustrated by
liquid air being handed round in a flask inclosed in a vacuum jacket ; though at
a temperature of —180" C, it was boiling gently away. An idea was given of the
difference between its temperature and that of the room by dropping it on a cold
metal plate, when it assumed the spheroidal state like water on hot iron.

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME. 447

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME.

By M. G. TARDE.

"TTNTIL our own days, through that crisis of individualism
^ which has prevailed since the last century, crime has been
regarded as the most essentially individual thing in the world ;
and the notion of what might be called undivided crime was lost
among criminologists, as was that also of collective sin among
theologians. Whenever the attempts of conspirators or the ex-
ploits of a band of robbers forced the recognition of the existence
of crimes committed collectively, the criminal nebulosity was
promptly resolved into distinct individual offenses of which it was
regarded as only the sum. But now the sociological or social-
istic reaction against this great egocentric illusion is turning
attention toward the social side of acts which are mistakenly
attributed to the individual. Hence curious inquiry has been
directed to the criminality of sects — concerning which nothing is
more profound than M. Taine's labors on the psychology of the
Jacobins — and, more recently, to the criminality of mobs. These
are different species of the same genus ; the criminality of the
group ; and the study of them together may be useful and op-
portune.

The difficulty is not to find collective crimes, but to discover
crimes which are not collective, which do not involve in some de-
gree the complicity of the surrounding. So much is this so that
we may well ask whether there are any crimes really individual,
the same as we doubt whether there are any works of genius that
are not a collective result. Analyze the mental state of the most
vicious and most isolated malefactor, at the moment of his deed ;
or that of the most enthusiastic inventor at the hour of his dis-
covery ; and having subtracted from it all in the make-up of his
feverish condition which comes from education, companionship,
apprenticeship, and the accidents of life — what is left ? Very lit-
tle ; yet something, perhaps something essential, which does not
need to be isolated to be itself.

Nevertheless, it is permissible to denominate, individual crimes
any acts performed by a single person under the operation of
vague, distant, and confused influences of some indefinite and in-
determinate other one ; and we may reserve the epithet collective
for acts brought about by the immediate and direct collaboration
of a limited and precise member of coexecutants.

There are, indeed, in this sense, individual acts of genius ; or,
rather, there is the quality of individuality only in case of genius.
For, it is remarkable that while morally, collectivities are suscep-
tible of the two contrary excesses of extreme criminality and ex-

448 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

treme heroism, they are not so intellectually ; and while they may
descend to depths of folly or imbecility impossible to the individ-
ual taken by himself, elevation to the supreme display of intelli-
gence and imagination is interdicted to them. They can, morally,
fall very low or rise very high ; but intellectually they can only
fall very low. While there are collective crimes, of which the
individual alone would be incapable — assassinations and pillages
by armed bands, revolutionary fires, epidemics of venality, etc. —
there are also collective achievements of heroism in which the
individual rises above himself — charges of the legendary six hun-
dred, patriotic revolts, epidemics of martyrdom, etc. But there
are no collective acts of genius that can be contrasted with these.
What discovery, invention, or real initiative within historical
times has been due to that impersonal being, the public ? Does
one say revolutions ? Not they ; what revolutions have accom-
plished in pure destruction, the public may claim partly at least :
but what have they founded and introduced that was novel
that was not conceived and thought out before them or after
them by superior men like Luther or Napoleon ? Can any one
cite an army, however well constituted, from which an admirable
or even passable plan of campaign has sprung ? Or even a coun-
cil of war, which for the conception — I will not say the discussion
— of a military manoeuvre was worth the brain of the most ordi-
nary general in chief ? Was ever an immortal work in art, a
painting, a sculpture, an architectural design, or an epic poem,
imagined and wrought out by the collective inspiration of ten or
a hundred poets or artists ? All that is of genius is individual,
even in crime.

To what is this signal contrast due ? Why is the grand dis-
play of intelligence refused to social groups, while a large and
strong display of will and even of virtue is within their reach ?
It is because the act of most heroic virtue is a very simple matter
in itself, and differs from the act of ordinary morality only in
degree. The power of unison in human assemblages, where emo-
tions and opinions re-enforce one another rapidly by their multi-
ple contact, is surely irresistible. But the work of genius or of
talent is always complicated and differs in nature — not in degree
only — from an act of ordinary intelligence. The question in a
regular process is not, as in this, one of perceiving and recollect-
ing at random, but of dealing with known perceptions and im-
ages in new combinations. At first sight it seems that ten, a
hundred, or a thousand heads together are better fitted than one
alone to embrace all the sides of a complex question. Peoples
of all times, acting under this illusion, have looked to religious
or political assemblages for the mitigation of their troubles. In
the middle ages, councils — in modern times, states- general, par-

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME. 449

liaments — have been the panaceas demanded by suffering nmlti-
tudes. The superstition of the jury is the offspring of a similar
error, always mistaken and constantly reviving. In reality these
bodies were never simple meetings of persons, but rather cor-
porations like certain great religious orders or certain great civil
or religious organizations, that have at times responded to the
wants of the people. Still it should be observed that, even under
their corporative form, collective bodies have shown themselves
impotent to create anew. This is the case, however smoothly
working may be the mechanism in which they are adjusted and
geared. For how is it possible to match in simultaneous compli-
cation and elasticity the structure of that cerebral organism which
every one of us bears in his head ?

As long, therefore, as a well-organized brain excels the best-
constituted parliament in rapid and sure performance, in the
prompt absorption and elaboration of multiple elements, and in
the intimate solidarity of innumerable agents, it will be puerile,
however plausible it may seem a priori, to count on mass meetings
or on deliberative bodies, rather than on one man, to deliver a
country from a difficult situation. In fact, every time a nation
passes through one of those periods when it has an imperious need
of great mental capacity as well as of great heart movements, the
necessity imposes itself of a personal government, whether under
the form of a republic or of a monarchy, or under color of a par-
liament.

The preceding considerations may be of use in determining
wherein lies the responsibility of leaders for acts committed by
the groups which they direct. An assembly or association, a mob
or a sect, has no other thought than the one that inspires it ; and
it matters not that this thought, this more or less intelligent indi-
cation of an end to be pursued or of a means to be employed, is
propagated from the brain of one to the brains of all — it con-
tinues the same. The one who inspired it is therefore responsible
for its direct effects. But the emotion associated with this idea,
and which is propagated along with it, does not continue the
same as it spreads, but is intensified in a sort of mathematical
progression ; and what may have been a moderate desire or a halt-
ing opinion with the instigator — with the first whisperer of a
suspicion, for example, ventured against a category of citizens —
promptly becomes passion and conviction, hatred and fanaticism
in the fermentable mass into which the germ has fallen. The in-
tensity of emotion that moves the throng and carries it to excess,
in the good or evil it does, is therefore largely its own work, the
effect of the mutual warming up of those souls in contact by their
mutual reflection ; and it would be as unjust to impute to any
one director all the crimes to which this over-excitement may

VOL. XLV. 35

450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

carry it, as to attribute to him the whole merit of the great deeds
of patriotic exaltation and of the great acts of devotion excited
by the same fever. We may, therefore, always hold the chiefs of
a band or a riot accountable for the astuteness and dexterity it
displays in the execution of its maneuvers, robberies, and acts of
incendiarism, but not always for the violence and extent of the
evils caused by its criminal contagions. The general alone is en-
titled to credit for the plan of the campaign, but not for the
bravery of his soldiers. I do not say that this distinction is ade-
quate to simplify all the problems of responsibility raised by our
subject, but it will be well to regard it in trying to solve them.

From the intellectual as well as from other points of view,
considerable differences may be established between the various
forms of social groups. We do not include those which consist
in a simple material bringing together of people. Passers in a
thronged street, travelers meeting or thrown together on a packet
boat, in a railway carriage, or around a dinner table, silent or
without general conversation with one another, are grouped
physically, not socially. As much may be said of countrymen
congregated at a fair, as long as they do nothing but trade with
one another, seeking each his own objects, even though they be
alike, without co-operation in any common act. All that can be
said of this sort of folk is that they bear in themselves the poten-
tiality of a social group, so far as resemblances of language,
nationality, religion, class, or education may dispose them to as-
sociate more or less closely, if occasion should require. Should
an explosion of dynamite take place in the street, the vessel be in
danger of foundering, the train run off from the track, a fire
break out in the hotel, or a rumor about some forestaller spread
through the market, the associable individuals would at once be-
come associates in the pursuit of an identical purpose under the
dominion of an identical emotion.

Thus may arise spontaneously the first stage of the association
which we call the mob. By a series of intermediate steps there
is raised from this rudimentary, fugacious, and amorphous ag-
gregation, the organized, chief -led, persistent, and regular mob,
which may be called the corporation, in the widest sense of the
word. The most intense expression of the religious corporation
is the monastery ; of the lay corporation, the regiment or the
workshop. The widest expression of the two is the church or the
state. It may indeed be remarked that churches and states, re-
ligions and nations, are always tending, in their period of robust
growth, to realize the corporative type, monastic or regimental,
without, fortunately, ever quite reaching it. Their historical life
is passed in oscillating from one type to the other ; in giving the
impression by turns of a great mob, like the Barbary States, or of

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME, 451

a grand corporation, like the France of Saint Louis. It was the
same with what were called corporations under the old system of
institutions ; they were less corporations in the usual sense than
federations of shops, these last very small corporations, each in
itself authoritatively ruled by a patron. But when a common
danger prompted all the workmen of the same branch of in-
dustry to unite for a common end, such as the gaining of a suit,
just as all the citizens of a nation would unite in war time, the
federative bond was closed up at once, and a governing person-
ality was revealed. In the intervals between these unanimous
co-operations, the association confined itself, in the associated
shops, to the pursuit of a certain aesthetic or economical ideal, as
in the intervals between wars the cultivation of a certain patri-
otic ideal constitutes the national life of citizens. A modern
nation, under the prolonged action of leveling ideas, tends to be-
come again a grand complex mob, directed to a greater or less ex-
tent by national or local leaders. But the necessity for hierarch-
ical order in these enlarged societies is so imperious that by a
paradox, the more remarkable as they are more democratic, they
are often forced to become more and more military.

Between the two extreme poles which I have just marked may
be placed certain temporary groups, recruited according to a
fixed rule or subjected to a summary regulation, like the jury; or
habitual meetings for pleasure, such as a literary salon of the
eighteenth century, the court of Versailles, or a theater audience,
which, although their object and common interest are trivial, ac-
cept a rigorous etiquette and a fixed hierarchy of different sta-
tions; or scientific and literary conferences — academies — which
are rather collections of coexchangeable talents than groups of co-
laborers. Among the varieties of the species corporation may be
named conspiracies and sects, which are sometimes criminal.
Parliamentary assemblies are entitled to a place by themselves ;
they have more of the nature of mobs, complex and contradictory
mobs — double mobs, we might say, as we speak of double mon-
sters— in which a tumultuous majority is opposed by a minority
or a coalition of minorities, and in which, consequently and fortu-
nately, the evil of unanimity, that great danger of mobs, is par-
tially neutralized.

Mob or corporation, however, all the species of true association
have this identical and permanent characteristic, that they are
produced, and led to a greater or less extent, by a chief, apparent
or hidden ; most frequently hidden in the case of mobs, but always
apparent and obvious in corporations. From the moment when
a mass of men begins to vibrate with an identical tremor, takes
life and advances toward its end, it may be assumed that some
guiding spirit or leader, or a group of leaders and moving spirits.

452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

among wliicli one is the active ferment, has infected it with his
intense and perverted enthusiasm. As every shop has its director,
every convent its superior, every brigade its general, every as-
sembly its president, every fraction of an assembly its leader, so
every lively saloon has its Coryphgeus of conversation, every riot
its chief, every court its king, prince, or princelet. If a theater
audience can ever properly be regarded as constituting to a cer-
tain extent an association, it is when it applauds, because it fol-
lows, in clapping, the impulse of an initial applause ; and when
it is listening, because it yields to the suggestion of the author
as expressed by the mouth of the actor who is speaking. Every-
where, then, whether visible or not, there reigns here the distinc-
tion between leader and led, so important in fixing responsibility.
This is not saying that the wills of all are annihilated in the pres-
ence of the will of one ; this, too, suggested, the echo of external
or anterior voices of which it is only the original condensation —
is obliged, in order to impose itself on the others, to make them
concessions, and to flatter them in order to lead them. Thus it is
with the orator, who has to take care not to neglect oratorical
precautions ; with the dramatic speaker, who has constantly to
bend to the prejudices and changing tastes of his audiences ; and
with the leader who would manage his party.

Yet the conditions are various according as spontaneous or
organized assemblies are in question. In the latter a will to be
dominant must arise conformed, in a certain degree, to the tend-
encies and traditions of the prevailing wills ; but once arisen,
it executes itself with a fidelitj^ the more perfect the wiser the
organization of the body. In mobs an imperative will does not
have to conform itself to traditions that do not exist, and may
even get itself obeyed, notwithstanding its weak agreement with
the tendencies of the majority ; but, whether conformed or not, it
is always imperfectly executed, and suffers changes in imposing
itself. We can affirm that all the forms of human association are
distinguished, first, by the way in which one thought or will
among a thousand becomes the director of them under conditions
of conflict of thoughts and wills from which it comes out vic-
torious ; second, by the greater or less facility which is offered in
them for the propagation of the directing thought or will.

The objection has been made, with some force,* that the part

* A Russian economist made this objection at the Congress of Criminal Anthropology
in Brussels, in August, 1892, citing agrarian risings in his country caused by the famine.
More recently an Italian author, from whom we shall quote shortly, has made similar ob-
jections. On the other hand, I have learned, while correcting the proofs of this article,
that the thesis developed in it has been previously set forth by a distinguished Russian
writer, M. Mikhailowsky, in 1882, in a publication entitled Otechestwannia Zapiskl.

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME. 453

played "by leaders has not, in mobs at least, had the universality
and importance which we attribute to it. There are, in fact,
mobs without an apparent leader. Famine prevails in a region ;
on every side the starving masses rise, demanding bread : no chief
appears here, but spontaneous • unanimity. Let us look a little
closer. All these uprisings do not break out together ; they fol-
low one another like a powder fuse, beginning with a primary
spark. A first riot took place somewhere, in a place suffering
more and more effervescent than the others, more exploited by
agitators, apparent or secret, who gave the signal for revolt.
The outbreak was then imitated in neighboring places, and the
new agitators, thanks to their predecessors, had less to do ; and
from vicinage to vicinage, from mob to mob, their work is pro-
pagated with an increasing force that detracts correspondingly
from the efficiency of local directors; till at last, particularly
after the popular cyclone has spread beyond the bounds where
there is any reason for it, or beyond the region of scarcity, no
direction can be perceived. Strangely, indeed, to those who do
not comprehend the force of imitative enthusiasm, the spontaneity
of the uprising then becomes more complete the less motive there
is for it.

Taken in one view, all the tumultuous assemblages which pro-
ceed thus from an initial riot in intimate connection with one an-
other— a habitual phenomenon in revolutionary crises — may be
regarded as a single mob. There are thus complex mobs, as in
physics there are complex waves, chains of groups of waves. Plac-
ing ourselves at this point of view, we see that there is no mob
without leaders ; and we perceive, further, that from the first of
these compound mobs to the last the function of the secondary
leaders goes on diminishing and that of the primary leaders in-
creasing, augmented at each new tumult born of a preceding
tumult by a kind of distant contagion. Epidemics of strikes are
a proof of it ; the first that breaks out, the one therefore where
the grievances are most serious and which consequently should
be the most spontaneous of all, always leaves defined behind it
the personality of the agitators ; those that follow, often without
the shadow of a reason, have the appearance of explosions with-
out a match. It thus often happens that a mob started by a
nucleus of excited persons goes beyond them, absorbs them, and,
becoming headless, seems to have no leader. The truth is that
it has none in the same way that raised dough has no yeast. The
function of these leaders is, finally and essentially, greater and
more distinct in proportion as the mob acts with more concentra-
tion, consecutiveness, and intelligence, as it comes nearer to being
a moral person, an organized association.

It appears, then, that in every case, notwithstanding the im-

454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

portance attached to the character of its members, the association,
as a whole, is worth what its chief is worth. His character is the
factor of pre-eminent importance ; a little less, it is perhaps true,
in mobs ; but in them, on the other hand, while a bad choice of
a chief may not produce as disastrous consequences as in a cor-
porative association, the chances in favor of a good choice are
much less. Multitudes and assemblages, even parliamentary
bodies, are quick to be infatuated with a fine speaker, with any
stranger ; but the collegia of ancient Rome, the churches of the
early Christians, all corporations of every kind, when they come
to elect their prior, their bishop, or their syndic, have long been
accustomed to examine into his character ; or, if they receive him
all fitted out, as in an army, it is at the hands of an intelligent
and well-informed authority. They are less exposed to " ring
rule," for they do not live continually in a single body, but most
usually in a dispersed condition that leaves their members, freed
from the constraint of contacts, to be influenced by their own
reason. Besides, when the excellence of the chief of a body has
been recognized, he may die, but his acts will survive him ; the
founder of a religious order, canonized after his death, continues
to act in the hearts of his disciples ; and to the influence he exerts
is added that of all the abbes and reformers who succeeded him,
and whose prestige, like his, grows and is refined by distance in
time ; while the honest leaders of mobs * — for there are such —
cease to act as soon as they have disappeared, and are more easily
forgotten than replaced. Mobs obey men, living and present only,
men of physical and corporeal prestige, never phantoms of ideal
perfection, immortalized memories. As I have just mentioned in
passing, corporations in their long existence, sometimes of several
centuries, present a series of perpetual leaders, grafted, as it were,
upon one another and complementing one another ; another differ-
ence from mobs, in which there is at most a group of temporary
and simultaneous leaders who reflect and aggrandize one another.
There are other differences. The worst leaders are liable to be
chosen and endured by multitudes, and the worst suggestions of
all that are offered to be adopted. This is because, first, the most
contagious notions or ideas are those which are most intense;
and, secondly, the most intense ideas are the narrowest and most

* In a conference on Industrial Conciliation and the Function of Leaders, held at Brus-
sels in 1892, a very competent Belgian engineer, M. Weiler, illustrated the useful function
which honest leaders — that is, as he expressed it, leaders of the profession, not leaders by
profession — might fulfill in differences between employers and their workmen. He also
spoke of the little desire which workmen show in these critical moments to see " Messrs. the
politicians " come up. Why ? Because they know very well that, once come, these gentle-
men will subjugate them with or without their consent. It is a fascination they are afraid
of, but are nevertheless subject to.

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME. 455

false, striking the senses and not tlie mind, and the most intense
emotions are the most egotistical. This is why it is easier in a
mob to propagate a puerile fancy than an abstract truth, a com-
parison than a reason, faith in a man or suspicion of him than
attachment to a principle or renunciation of a prejudice ; and
why the pleasure of vilifying being more lively than the pleasure
of admiring, and the sentiment of preservation stronger than that
of duty, hootings are more easily started than bravoes, and spasms
of panic are more frequent than impulses of courage.

It has been remarked * that mobs are generally inferior in intel-
ligence and morality to the average of their members. Not only
is the social compound in this case, as it always is, dissimilar to
the elements of which it is the product or combination rather than
the sum, but it is also habitually worthless. This is true, however,
only of mobs and aggregations that resemble them. But where
the spirit of the organization {esprit de corps) rather than the
spirit of the mob prevails, it usually happens that the composite,
in which the genius of a grand organizer survives, is superior to
its existing elements. Accordingly, as a company of actors is a
corporation or a mob — that is, as it is more or less trained and or-
ganized— its members will play together better or worse than when
separately they speak monologues. In a highly disciplined body,
like the police, excellent rules for hunting criminals, hearing wit-
nesses, and drawing up processes are transmitted traditionally,
and fortify the mind of the individual in its reliance on a higher
reason. While we can say with truth, adopting a Latin proverb,
that senators are good men and the senate is an unruly beast, I
have had a hundred occasions to remark that the gendarmes,
though generally intelligent, are less so than the gendarmerie. A
general made the same remark to me while drilling his recruits.
Questioned separately concerning military maneuvers, he found
them all stupid; but when they were brought together he was
surprised to see them perform with a harmony and spirit, with an
air of collective intelligence, very superior to what they had shown
singly. The regiment, therefore, is often braver, more generous,
and more moral than the soldier. Doubtless, corporations, whether
regiments, religious orders, or sects, go further than mobs both in
mischief and in well-doing ; from the best disposed mobs to the
most criminal is a less distance than from the noblest exploits of
our armies to the worst excesses of Jacobinism, or from the Sis-
ters of St. Vincent de Paul to the Camorrists and the anarchists ;
and M. Taine, who has depicted with much vigor criminal mobs
and criminal sects, has shown that the latter were more mis-

* See, on this subject, a very interesting essay by M. Sighele, on La Folia delinquente,
which has been reviewed by M. Cherbuliez in the Revue des Deux Mondes.

456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cMevous than the former. But while mobs more frequently do
ill than good, corporations more frequently do good than ill.

When, by chance, a multitude in action appears to be better,
more heroic, and more magnanimous than the average of those
who compose it, the fact is either due to extraordinary circum-
stances, or the magnanimity is only apparent and fictitious, and is
the deep-seated result of a hidden terror. The heroism of fear is
frequent in mobs. Sometimes the beneficent conduct of a mob is
simply a survival of the custom of an ancient corporation. Is not
this the case in the spontaneous self-devotion which is sometimes
exhibited in the crowds which in cities run to put out a great fire ?
I say sometimes of them, not referring to the body of the firemen,
in whom these admirable traits are habitual and exhibited daily.
The multitude around these, following their example, perhaps
stimulated by emulation, show also a rare devotion, and confront
a danger to save a life. But when we observe that these collec-
tions of the multitude are a traditional affair, that they have their
rules and customs, that they portion out duties, that the full
buckets go round on the right and the empty ones on the left,
that their actions are combined with a customary act rather than
being spontaneous, we are brought to perceive that these mani-
festations of sympathy and of fraternal assistance have come
down from the peculiar corporative life of the communities of the
middle ages.

Instances in any number might be cited to illustrate how an
excited multitude, even when the majority of it are persons of
intelligence, has always something in it partaking both of the
puerile and the bestial : of the puerile in the mobility of its hu-
mor, in its quick passage from rage to outbursts of laughter ; of
the bestial in its brutality. It is cowardly, too, even when com-
posed of individuals of average courage. It is hard to conceive
to what extent mobs, and unorganized, undisciplined collections
of men in general, are more mobile, more forgetful, more credu-
lous, and more cruel than the greater part of their elements ; but
the proofs of the fact are abundant. In the collective mind
images succeed one another incoherently, as they do in the brain
of a sleeping or a hypnotized man ; while most of the indi-
vidual minds which compose it, and which concur in forming
that great folly called opinion, are capable of consecutiveness
and order in the arrangement of their ideas. M. Delboeuf tells
of a poor German, just arrived at Lidge, who followed the crowd
to the scene of a dynamite explosion. Some one, seeing him run
a little faster than tlie others, pointed him out as the guilty per-
son, and the whole mob was ready to cut him to pieces. Yet that
mob was composed of the best society of the place, attending a
concert; and gentlemen could be heard calling for a revolver

HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME. 457

with which to kill recklessly an unhappy man of whose nation-
ality, name, and crime they knew nothing.

When the cholera was raging in Paris in 1833, the report
spread through the city rapidly that the disease was the work of
poisoners, who, the people were brought to believe, were tamper-
ing with food, wells, and wines. Immense multitudes assembled
in the public places, and every man who was seen carrying a
bottle or a vial or a small package was in imminent danger of his
life ; the mere possession of a flask was sufficient evidence to con-
vict, in the eyes of the delirious multitude ; and many fell vic-
tims to its rage. Two persons, flying before thousands of mad-
men accusing them of having given a poisoned tart to children,
took refuge in a guardhouse ; the post was surrounded in an in-
stant, and nothing could have prevented the murder of the ac-
cused men if two ofiicers had not conceived the happy thought of
eating one of the tarts in full view of the mob. The mob burst
into laughter, and the men were saved. These follies are of all
kinds, and the mobs are of every race and every climate — Roman
mobs, charging Christians with the burning of Rome or the de-
struction of a legion, and throwing them to wild beasts ; mobs of
the middle ages, entertaining the most absurd suspicions against
the Albigenses, the Jews, or any heretic, the spread of which
was independent of proof ; German mobs of Muzer in the Refor-
mation; French mobs of Jourdan in the Reign of Terror — the
spectacle is always the same. The inconsistency of mobs is illus-
trated by what Dr. Zambuco Pasha relates of certain Eastern
villages where leprosy exists; where the populace are ready to
chase any one suspected of having leprosy, and even to execute
lynch law upon him ; yet the same populace go to chapels at-
tended by leprous persons, kiss the images they have kissed, and
take the communion from the same chalices with them.

Mobile, inconsistent, and without real traditions as mobs are,
they are, nevertheless, subject to routine ; and in this they differ
from corporations, which in their whole period of ascendency are
traditionalist and progressive, and progressive because they are
traditionalist. The power of routine over men casually brought
together was curiously illustrated to me a few years ago at the
rooms of a cure by inhalation at Mont Dord, where the three or
four hundred men assembled to take the vapors issuing from a
boiler in the middle of the apartment, having nothing to do or
say, proceeded to march in procession around the room, and al-
ways walked in the same direction — that of the hands of a watch ;
and all efforts to start them in the opposite direction failed. An
instance of the power of suggestion to start the crowd was fur-
nished in a dissecting room, where the work could be carried on
in the midst of conversation or singing. Some one would break

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the silence by singing a measure or two of an air, and then stop.
Instantly the strain would be taken up and carried on by another
student working in another part of the room. The person who
continued the song, when questioned on the subject, did not seem
aware that he had followed any definite impulse. Is there not in
this often unconscious suggestion something that casts a light on
those ideas that come up, one knows not why or how, in mobs
that come, no one knows whence, and spread with dizzy rapidity ?
An audience in a theater suggests similar remarks. While it
is the most capricious of publics, it is also the most sheeplike,
and it is as hard to foresee its caprices as to reform its habits.
Its ways of expressing approbation or blame are usually the same
in the same country ; then it must always be shown what it is
accustomed to see on the stage, no matter how artificial it may
be ; and it is not safe to show it what it is not accustomed to see
there. Still, it must be remembered that the theater audience is
a seated mob — that is, only half a mob. The real mob — that in
which electrification by contact reaches its highest point of ra-
pidity and energy — is composed of people standing and, better
yet, in motion. Yet the most effective agents of mutual sugges-
tion, especially the sight, still exist among seated spectators ; and,
no doubt, if they did not see one another, if they were witnessing
the play as prisoners in cells hear mass in little grated boxes
whence it would be impossible to look around, each of them, in-
fluenced by the action of the piece and the actors, free from all
mixture with the action of the public, would be more fully con-
trolled by his own taste, and the applause or hissing would be
much less unanimous. It rarely happens at a theater, a banquet,
or any popular manifestation, that one — even if he at heart dis-
approves the applause, the toasts, or the hurrahs — dares to with-
hold his applause, or not to raise his glass, or to keep an obstinate
silence in the midst of enthusiastic cries. At Lourdes, in the pro-
cessional and praying throng of believers, there are skeptics who,
on the morrow, thinking over all they have done to-day — the
crossing of their arms, the expressions of faith uttered by some
and repeated by all the others, and the prostrations — will jest
about them. They will, nevertheless, not laugh or protest to-day,
but will themselves kiss the ground, or pretend to, and if they do
not actually hold their arms crossed, will make the gesture of it.
They are not afraid, for there is no force in these pious throngs :
but they do not wish to be scandalized. And what, at the bottom,
is this fear of scandal except the extraordinary importance at-
tributed by the most dissenting and most independent of men to
the collective blame of a public composed of individuals, for the
personal judgment of each one of whom he would not care a
whit ? This, however, is not always sufficient to explain the

DISTRIBUTION OF GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS. 459

habitual and remarkable condescension of the unbeliever to the
fervent multitudes in which he is immersed. We must also, I
believe, assume that at the moment when a wave of mystic enthu-
siasm passes over them he takes his little part of it and finds his
heart traversed by a fugitive faith. This being admitted and
explained for pious crowds, we have a right to explain in the
same way what passes in criminal mobs, where a current of mo-
mentary ferocity sometimes crosses and denaturalizes a normal
heart.

It is a trite piece of exaggeration to glorify civil courage at
the expense of military courage, which passes for something less
rare ; but the truth there is in this trite idea is explained by what
has just been said. Civil courage consists in resisting a popular
enthusiasm, in going against a current, in uttering before an
assembly or a council a dissenting, isolated opinion, opposed to
that of the majority ; while military courage consists, generally,
in distinguishing one's self in battle, in yielding most completely
to the environing impulse, and in going further than the others
in the direction that one is urged by them. When, in an excep-
tional case, military courage requires one to resist an impulse,
when a colonel has to oppose a panic, or to restrain the incon-
siderate eagerness of troops, bravery of that kind is still more
rare, and, let us acknawledge, is more admirable than an opposi-
tion speech in the legislative chamber. — Translated for The Popu-
lar Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF GOVERNMENT PUBLICA-
TIONS.

By Peof. EDWAKD S. MOKSE.

IF there is any one portion of government machinery that
would seem to demand a readjustment it is that portion
which has to do with the distribution of public documents. I
am not aware that there is any central bureau for the judicious
distribution of the various publications of Government as there
is, for example, for the issuing of patents or the payment of
pensions. There is no government in the world more generous in
the distribution of its multifarious publications than ours. The
niggardly way in which Great Britain doles out her public docu-
ments has repeatedly excited the most adverse criticism from her
own people. Knowing, as every one does, the slightly increased
expense of printing extra copies after the first expense of compo-
sition, engraving, etc., has been provided for, it is most exasper-
ating to see a rich country like Great Britain publishing the

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

results of some important expedition, like that of the Challenger,
for example, and not printing enough copies to meet even the
hungry demand of her own special students. "We have never
erred in this respect, and in the scathing comments which this
particular English frugality has received from her own men, our
country has invariably been held up in striking contrast as an
example to imitate. With the liberality of the General Govern-
ment in this respect it is a pity that the distribution of printed
matter should not be better systematized. There are many docu-
ments that doubtless represent official reports which are circu-
lated not so much for instruction as to inform the country just
what has been done by certain bureaus, and these probably reach
the proper parties, in being sent to those prominent in govern-
mental and political matters. With these we are not concerned.
There are many other publications, however, that are issued
solely for the purposes of information and instruction in lines
of thought in which there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
students in the United States. It is obvious that if these kinds
of documents are issued to advance learning, then such copies,
as are freely distributed through the mails should go to those who
most need them. The present distribution of many of tliem is
so imperfect that it would be paralleled by the Pension Bureau
issuing a certain number of money checks to congressmen and
senators to scatter where they pleased, or to realize on them if
they were so inclined. Let me make this clearer. So far as I have
been able to ascertain, the regular edition of a public document
is nineteen hundred. From this edition fifty foreign governments,
and the larger libraries and institutions in this country are each
supposed to receive a copy. Each senator and congressman is
entitled to two copies, and probably more for the asking. It is
a common belief that many of these men dump their public
documents into the waste-paper barrel, for the janitor to realize
upon as old paper, which at one time had some value. As a
matter of fact, many of them are sold to the junk shops, where
they find their way into the secondhand book stalls ; and students
who want them are grateful for even this opportunity of secur-
ing them by purchase. It would certainly seem that a report
which is of special interest to a greater or less number of stu-
dents and writers should in some way get to them, and that
their names should be on some permanent list at headquarters,
so that when any report in their special line of thought is pub-
lished they should be among the first to receive it. Not only is
it evident that the Government publications often fall into the
wrong hands, but, worse still, hundreds of thousands of volumes
are rotting in the cellars of the Capitol and vitiating the air by
their decomposition. A committee recently appointed by the

DISTRIBUTION OF GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS. 461

House, to look into the question of fresh air has just discovered
that certain rooms in the basement of the Capitol are filled with
Government publications. In one series of vaults were one mil-
lion two hundred and fifty thousand volumes, and many of these
have been stored for thirty years. " They present a vast bulk of
decomposing vegetable matter, which is constaintly tainting the
atmosphere with impurities."

One reason of the apathy of the people in regard to the waste
of public documents is that being free they are supposed to be
valueless, and to many who receive them they have no value. In
the rural regions they are used as scrap-books by the children,
and there is hardly an attic in the land that does not contain a
few of this kind of books, mixed with the usual light truck which
ascends to the garret.

There is certainly nothing to complain of in the scientific de-
partments of the Government. The valuable contributions pub-
lished by the various scientific bureaus, have been distributed
in such a way that special students get, without much trouble,
the works needed in their studies. So far as I know, but few if
any of these drift into the wrong channels. There are special
reports of an ethnological character now and then appearing in
other departments, notably in the United States consular re-
ports, and subjects pertaining to other sciences issued from other
bureaus, and these would be priceless to certain special workers,
yet such reports are usually exhausted when application is made
for them. I have often secured Government publications of the
greatest value by overhauling a lot of stuff which some lawyer
was about to throw away. Reports that I had never heard the
existence of have come to me in this manner. Lately I had given
to me from an editor's room several shelffuls of pamphlets,
books, etc., which were on their way to destruction. Among
these were many public documents on various subjects, and
these were distributed to those whom I knew would make good
use of them. Among the letters of acknowledgment was one
from a gentleman who has made a special study of the seal-fish-
eries dispute, and has written a number of reviews on the subject.
This letter came in return for a government report containing a
lengthy legal opinion about the seal fisheries, and is as follows :
"Ever so much obliged to you for the document. I devoured it
right off, and then took it up to the Harvard Law Library, where
they were no less pleased to get it. They had never seen it nor
heard of it, and seemed to be amused at the idea of their ob-
taining it through two such outside barbarians in law matters
as you and I." This is by no means an exceptional case.

A public library of nearly forty thousand volumes in a neigh-
boring city finds it impossible to get anywhere near a complete

462 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

set of current Government reports; and yet it is plain enough
that all public libraries in the United States, no matter how small,
should be entitled to receive such publications of the Government
as bear on science, education, etc., provided they ask for them
and indicate a willingness to provide shelf room.

It is also said that documents are distributed as political
favors, and thus, during a change of administration, these cur-
rents flow in other directions. The power to scatter such docu-
ments should be entirely out of the hands of politicians, and a
central bureau should be organized whose duty it should be to
keep lists of all persons making researches in the various depart-
ments of science, law, education, etc. Senators and represent-
atives might be empowered to furnish these names, accompanied
by evidence, however, that such persons had a right to them by
virtue of their studies or occupations.

I know as a fact that many who receive these reports and
documents are actually burdened with them, and often throw
them into the waste-paper basket unopened, and there are hun-
dred of others who would like them, and would make good use of
them, and yet never get them. All this might be corrected by
some systematic way of distribution from a common center.

If I were permitted to offer suggestions upon a matter with
which I can claim but little knowledge, I would ask first that for
convenience of reference there should be published each year a
volume containing a list of all Government publications, with at
least a table of contents of each report, and if possible a brief
synopsis of the more important papers. Students would then
have an opjDortunity of finding out the material they were in quest
of. In the same volume should also be given a classified list of
the recipients of Government reports, and this list should be kept
standing for additions and subtractions. This annual report could
be printed in the most condensed form, the matter solid, the cov-
ers jDaper, etc. Such a report should find its way into every
school, college, and public library in the United States and to
every one applying for it. It should be as common as an almanac.
A list of publications of this nature might possibly show what
appears to many the disjointed character of some of the series and
lead to simplification. The Government goes on forever, yet with
every new chief of department or change of administration comes
a new series of parts or volumes, to the misery and despair of bib-
liographers. The hungry ambition of species describers might
be curbed by checking the issue of separata of one or two pages.

If it were possible to establish a separate bureau of distribu-
tion, it would lead to economy of administration, to the econom-
ical and efficacious distribution of reports, the avoidance of dupli-
cation, and consequently the placing of material where it would

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK. 463

do the most good, or at least where it would not be used to kindle
the kitchen fire.

The above suggestions refer solely to those reports which tend
to the advancement of human learning, and, printed and distrib-
uted freely as they are by the nation, should reach in every case
those who stand most in need of them.

-♦♦♦-

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK.

By J. JONES BELL.

ON the 19th of September, 1891, Sir Henry Tyler, President of
the Grand Trunk Railway Company, presided at the in-
auguration of one of the greatest engineering achievements of the
present day, bold in conception, new in design, and novel in many
of the methods adopted in its construction. Without the St.
Clair Tunnel the immense stream of traffic from the East, which
during last summer flowed to the World's Columbian Exposition
at Chicago, could not have been successfully handled.

Previous to the construction of the tunnel, connection between
the Grand Trunk Railway and the Western roads with which it
exchanges traffic was maintained by a ferry, the loaded cars being
carried across on the deck of a powerful steamer, specially built
for the purpose. Adopted for want of a better, this service was
never satisfactory. Though the swift current, where Lake Huron
pours its entire volume through a narrow outlet, prevents the
river freezing in winter, ice blocks occasionally occurred, and a
single day's interruption to traffic involved serious inconvenience
and loss. A bridge had often been suggested, but it was always
successfully opposed by the vessel interest. A larger number of
vessels, with a greater tonnage, pass up and down the St. Clair
River during the season of navigation than through the Suez
Canal in a year. A high-level bridge is impossible, and a draw
would be attended with great interruption to traffic, and danger
to vessels on account of the current. The only alternative
seemed to be a tunnel. Its completion not only affords a better
crossing, but establishes the possibility of such a work being suc-
cessfully and economically built and worked where favorable
conditions exist. The story of its construction is an interesting
one.

The tunnel is really a large iron tube, twenty feet in diameter
and six thousand and twenty-six feet long, buried under the river,
but considerable ingenuity was required to place it there. In
1884 Mr. Joseph Hobson, the chief engineer of the work, and Mr.
Hillman, his assistant, made a survey of the river, one mile be-

464

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

low the towns of Sarnia and Port Huron. Though not so narrow
as where the cars were ferried, the nature of the bed of the river
seemed to be more favorable at that point. Borings were made
to the rock, eighty-six feet below the level of the river. The
greatest depth of water was 40"47 feet. The bed of the stream
was found to consist of the following layers : two feet of common
yellow sand like that of the seashore, twelve feet of a mixture of

quicksand and blue

clay, twenty-one feet
of blue clay of an ad-
hesive and putty-like
character and increas-
ing in density, and
then the rock. In 1886
a company was organ-
ized, and in January,
1889, the work was
commenced. After va-
rious tests and experi-
ments, necessary from
the difficulty of bor-
ing through quicksand
and clay under water,
and near rock full of
fissures from which
natural gas escapes,
two great excavating
shields were started,
one on each side of the
river. Two cuttings
were made, one on the
Canada side fifty-eight
feet deep, and one on
the United States side
fifty-three feet deep,
into which the shields
were lowered ready to
begin their work. The
shield on the United
States side commenced on the 11th of July, that on the Canada
side on the 21st of September. Thej^ met on the 30th of August,
1890, after traveling six thousand feet. The work had proceeded
day and night, by the aid of the electric light, three gangs of men
having been employed, in shifts of eight hours. Each shield
averaged ten feet per day, and the most accomplished in any one
day was twenty-seven feet and ten inches.

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK.

465

\

'\>. ^

)'

W

f\

The tunnel could not have been built without this shield. The
credit of its invention appears to be due to Mr. Alfred E. Beach,
of New York, who designed it in 1868 for use in the construction
of the tunnel under Broadway. It was subsequently used in
Buffalo, Chicago, at the Hudson
River Tunnel, and other places.
The use of the shield in tunneling
was first introduced by Sir Mark
I. Brunei in 1825, and it was after-
ward employed by Mr. Greathead,
in the Thames Tunnel and other
works ; but the St. Clair shield dif-
fers in some important respects
from any before employed. It is a
cylinder of iron, twenty-one feet
and six inches in diameter and six-
teen feet long, built of steel one
inch thick, and with a sharp cut-
ting edge in front. It is divided
into twelve compartments by two
horizontal and three vertical stays.
It weighs fifty tons, and was built
on the spot, the material having
been prepared in the workshops at
Hamilton. Against the rear end
of the shield were ranged twenty-
four hydraulic rams, eight inches
in diameter and having a stroke of
twenty-four inches. These forced
the cutting edge forward into the
clay, which was then excavated
within the shield. By means of a
Worthington pump, a pressure of
five thousand pounds per square
inch, or three thousand tons in all,
could be exerted. The greatest
pressure used was seventeen hun-
dred pounds per square inch, or a
thousand and sixty tons in all. The
pressure could be exerted on any
or all of the rams so as to preserve
the true direction of the shield.
The keeping of this direction was
one of the interesting engineering feats of the work. It was done
by means of a specially made London transit, set on masonry, a
series of disks and cross-wires indicating the slightest deviation.

VOL. XLV. ."(5

l^>

I'

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466

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Observations were made every day and the results marked on a
diagram. The deviation was rarely found to exceed a quarter
of an inch, and any error was corrected by adjustment of the

hydraulic jacks. When the shields
came together they were found to be
exactly in line.

At one time it was feared the
work would have to be abandoned.
When the tunnel from the Canadian
end reached the bed of the river,,
quicksand and water caused much
trouble, but by the use of compressed
air the difficulty was surmounted.
At the line of the river on each side
a bulkhead of brick and cement was
built across the tunnel, with two air
chambers, provided with airtight
doors. The greatest atmospheric
pressure necessary to prevent an in-
road of sand and water was thirty-
seven pounds per square inch, and
under this pressure, after a short
experience, the workmen found no
^^^ difficulty in pursuing their task, in

It 1, I^^Bl ^ half-hour shifts. The use of com-

pressed air had to be resorted to at
two points.

The completed tunnel, as already
stated, is an iron tube. This tube is
built up of rings, eighteen inches in
width, one of which was put together
within the shield each time it was
moved forward. Each ring consists
of thirteen sections and a key piece,
flanged to enable them to be bolted
together. The body of the section is
two inches tliick, and the flanges are
six inches wide. Each section weighs
about one thousand pounds. The
1 )ieces were lifted and placed in posi-
tion by a revolving crane, a complete
ring being put up in about one hour.
To ease the pressure and make the joints watertight, the edges
were planed and strips of oak and tar canvas inserted. The sec-
tions were also heated and dipped in pitch. The tube being only
twenty-one feet in diameter, while the shield was twenty-one feet.

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK. 467

•and a half, the space under the tube when the shield moved for-
ward was filled with cement. The clay was allowed to settle
down on the upper part. When the shields met, the tube was
built up within them to the junction and the shells of the shields
allowed to remain. The inside of the tube is finished with a
preparation to keep it from rusting.

On Sunday, August 24, 1890, the two excavations had ap-
proached so nearly that an opening was made with an earth
auger, and the workmen talked and passed articles to each other.
The earth was soon removed, and Mr. Hobson, the chief engi-
neer, and others connected with the tunnel company, stepped
through. Six days later the shields came together and the suc-
cess of the great undertaking was assured. In its construction
about seven hundred men were employed, of more than average
intelligence, who took great interest in the work.

The actual length of the tunnel, from portal to portal, is six
thousand and twenty-six feet. Of this, two thousand three hun-
dred and ten feet is under the river, one thousand nine hundred
and eighty -two feet under dry ground on the Canada side, and
seventeen hundred and thirty-four feet under dry ground on the
United States side. The open excavation to reach the ground
level .on the Canadian side is three thousand and sixty-one feet,
and on the United States side two thousand four hundred and
sixty-six feet. The grade is one in fifty, except under the river,
where it is practically level, only sufiicient incline— one tenth per
cent — being given toward the Canadian side to provide for drain-
age. The depth of the lowest part under the mean level of the
river is 77"83 feet. The minimum depth between the top of the
tube and the bottom of the river is fifteen feet, the average being
twenty-five feet. It was necessary to place it as far down as pos-
sible in the clay, consistent with the grade, so as to overcome the
tendency of a tube filled with air to rise to the surface in water
or mud. The bottom is about nine feet above the rock which
underlies the clay. On the Canada side the bottom is sixty feet
below the surface of the ground at the portal, on the United
States side it is eight feet less. The bottom of the tunnel at its
lowest point is one hundred feet below the railway track on the
level, which indicates the total ascent and descent which trains
have to make in passing through. Ventilation is secured by the
motion of the trains, which is found to be ample for the purpose.

The trains are drawn through the tunnel by powerful locomo-
tives belonging to the tunnel company, specially built for the
purpose. They take eighteen loaded cars at a trip.

The track in the tube is supported on solid brickwork, as
shown in the accompanying cross-section. It was at first proposed
to build the tunnel wide enough for two tracks, but it was found

468

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that two single-track tunnels would be cheaper, and one of them
would sooner be available for traffic. Experience has proved that
a second tunnel will not be required for a long time. The largest
number of freight cars passed through in twenty-four hours

Via. 4. — Section of thi; Tunnel and Kivei;-i;i;i).

during the two years the tunnel has been in use was one thou-
sand and fifteen, while twenty-five hundred could be handled if
occasion required. The average number is seven hundred in

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK.

469

winter and five Imndred in summer. This is in addition to pas-
senger trains.

The estimated cost of this great work was between two and a
half and three million dollars, but its actual cost was consid-
erably less, a rather remarkable fact in connection with such
works. Owing to the great risk any contractor would have to
assume, and the large sum required to cover that risk, the work

Fig. 5. — Shield ised in the Tunnel Excavation.

was performed by the company, only the material being con-
tracted for.

The opening ceremonies were attended with much eclat, as
became the completion of such a work, uniting not simply two
towns but two nations, and rendering possible a greatly increased
international trade when the tariff barriers which now stand in
the way are removed. It was proposed to spread the banquet in
the tunnel, beneath the waters of the St. Clair, with the Governor-
General of Canada seated on one side of the international bound-
ary line and the President of the United States on the other, but
this part of the programme had to be abandoned. The banquet,
to which three hundred guests sat down, after they had passed
through and formally opened the tunnel, brought together a
greater number of notable men in the world of science, literature,
and politics than had ever before gathered in a similar manner in
Canada.

47'

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Speaking of tariff barriers recalls the fact that the sections
for the ends of the tube were made in different places — those for
the Canada end in Hamilton, and for the United States end in
Detroit — so as to avoid the payment of duty.

To Joseph Hobson, a native Canadian, is due, more than to
any other man, the successful completion of this great work. He
was its architect, designer, and builder, and though his proposals
did not, at the outset, meet with much encouragement from en-
gineers, the result fully justifies the confidence reposed in him by
Sir Henry Tyler, President of the Grand Trunk ; Sir Joseph Hick-
son, its former general manager ; and Mr. Seargeant, Sir Joseph's
successor, all of whom ably seconded Mr. Hobson. It is a fact
worthy of note that Mr. Hobson received all his professional

p.|a^U!>^..

I'll,. I'l. — E^•TKA^cli TO Tlnnkl.

training on the continent of America, never having been farther
east than the city of Quebec. He is a member of the Institutes
of Civil Engineers of England, America, and Canada, and has
established his right to rank among the first engineers of the
world.

The successful completion of the St. Clair Tunnel will doubt-
less be followed by the construction of many similar works. In
1872, when the Great Western Railway of Canada — now a part of
the Grand Trunk^ — was an independent line, tests were made for
a tunnel under the Detroit River, and a drainage tunnel excavated
for some distance. Quicksand was met, and, the shield and iron
tube not having been adopted for tunnel work, it had to be aban-
doned. The project has been revived, and if, on fuller investiga-
tion, the conditions are found favorable and the work carried out,

THE STORY OF A GREAT WORK.

471

there will be a tuiinel over twelve thousand feet long and twenty-
seven feet in diameter, to accommodate two tracks. The Michi-
gan Sonthern has also been making tests at its crossing, a short

H

distance below Sarnia, but the strata are not favorable for tunnel
construction.

One of the remarkable features in connection with the St. Clair
Tunnel is the rapidity with which it was constructed. The aver-
age advance was 455*4 feet per month. Contrast this with the
Thames Tunnel, three thousand six hundred feet long, which was
commenced in 1825 and not completed until 1843, though work

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was, it is true, suspended for a time. A curious incident, bearing
on tlie rapidity of construction, is related. A cooper, who could
not obtain work at his own trade, applied for employment, and
was put with the excavators in the shield. He was not accus-
tomed to the use of the spade or shovel, the drawknife being his
tool. It was hard work digging the tenacious clay with a spade,
the only effective tool in its removal being a long, narrow spade,
such as tile-ditchers use in England. The next day the cooper
appeared with a drawknife of semicircular form, about six inches
across, and, despite the jokes of his fellow-workmen, set to work
with it. It was soon found that he could shave away the clay
much more rapidly than it could be dug out. All the workmen
were soon provided with drawknives, and it is probable that tool
has come to stay as a means of tunneling in sticky clay.

The accompanying illustrations will give an idea of the char-
acter, progress, and appearance of the work after completion.

A PROPOSITION FOR AN ARTIFICIAL ISTHMUS.

By ERNEST A. LE SUEUR.

A STUPENDOUS scheme has recently been seriously suggested
for the utilization in British waters of the energy of ocean
currents for the purpose of distribution of power and light by
means of electricity to centers of population at distances up to
hundreds of miles from the source. This is nothing less than the
proposition to dam the Irish Channel at the Mull of Cantire, where
the distance between the Scotch and Irish shores is only fifteen
miles, and where the energy of the current from the north is, so
far as human requirements go, infinite — that is, would have to be
expressed in scores of millions of horse power.

That this proposition is being regarded with some degree of
seriousness may be gathered from the fact that a series of hydro-
graphic surveys of the bottom of the channel has been made and
charts prepared of the coasts and of the highlands on both sides
from which materials might be conveniently got for building the
dam. The report of an engineer detailed for the purpose is to the
effect that there are no engineering difficulties in the way ; by
which is meant that, given the means to proceed, it is a possible
thing to do, and is, compared, for instance, with the erection of
the Brooklyn Bridge, a piece of work requiring merely enough
brute force.

The idea is not primarily to afford a land junction for purposes
of easier communication — although, of course, if the dam were con-
structed, a railway would be laid across — but, as mentioned, to give

A PROPOSITION FOR AN ARTIFICIAL ISTHMUS. 473

an opportunity of ntilizing the tidal power. There is a continuous
flow from the north (due in the first place to the Gulf Stream),
estimated at between one and two hundred cubic miles per daj''.
If a dam were thrown across, the effect would be to turn the Irish
Sea into a bay and to bank the waters of the North Sea a number
of feet higher on the north side of the dam than the level of the
now Irish Channel on the south. From this difference of levels
an unlimited quantity of power could be drawn. One can get a
faint conception of the amount that would be on tap by compar-
ing the case with that of the utilization of the energy of the Falls
of Niagara. There is at present in course of construction at the
falls a vast scheme of power development which will supply one
hundred thousand horse power day and night all the year round.
The amount of water which this will take will be insignificant
compared with the total quantity going over the falls, which is
roughly estimated at three hundred and fifty thousand tons per
minute, and one hundred thousand horse power will be developed
by about thirteen thousand tons per minute. The total power on
the falls is thus some twenty-seven times the one hundred thou-
sand horse power. This total quantity of water amounts to about
one cubic mile every nine days, and the volume of water running-
through the Irish Channel is about one hundred and fifty cubic
miles daily. Of course, the number of feet of fall is many times
greater at Niagara than it would be at the proposed dam, but even
so the total horse power available at the dam would be more than
fifty times that of the whole of the Niagara Falls.

The site of the proposed undertaking is between the head-
lands of Antrim and Cantire. On both sides the ground is de-
scribed as high, and on the Irish side there rise several peaks
of considerable height, viz., from nine to twelve hundred feet.
These are sufficiently near the shore to be used to dig materials
from to be gravitated down to the dam, and the fact is of great
importance in connection with reducing the expense of the work
by doing away with the necessity for power for the traction of
these materials.

The channel is, as has been said, some fifteen miles in width
and of varying depth. The average depth is about three hundred
feet, and the maximum is given by Mr. Lodian, in the Electrical
Engineer of January 34th last, as four hundred and seventy-four
feet ; in many places it is as little as two hundred. The bottom
is described as of " shells, stones, and rock," which would proba-
bly hardly settle at all under the weight of the dam. The current
is six or eight miles an hour, varying somewhat at different points
in the cross-section of the channel. The total quantity of material
necessary to form the dam or isthmus would be in the neighbor-
hood of five hundred million cubic yards. One can imagine that

VOL, XLV. — 37

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this amount of material removed from the crowns of a few high
hills in the vicinity would alter the landscape considerably, and
that this alteration, together with the turning of the Irish Sea into
a landlocked bay, might confuse a person acquainted with the
locality only as it had been before the commencement of the work.
The territory to be acquired for the land work would not be ex-
pensive, as the country on both sides is almost desert.

It is proposed to construct two generating plants near the two
shores respectively, each to be used to supply the country to which
it is nearest. In order not to interfere with navigation, it is sug-
gested to enlarge the canal of Crinan and to make a cut through
the isthmus of Tarbert. To the writer it does not seem that these
means would be better than simply to cut through the dam and
provide suitable locking facilities.

One of the remarkable results which, it has been pointed out,
would flow from the construction of such an artificial isthmus is
the lowering of the level of the Irish Sea along the east coast of
Ireland, and thus rendering the marsh lands in that section capa-
ble of receiving a high degree of cultivation.

Besides the great interest that any such plan must have in itself,
from the fact of the important change in the geography of the
British Isles which it would bring about, the results that would
flow from a utilization of a j)art of the tidal power for distribution
throughout the kingdom are most impressive. Our means for the
distribution of power electrically have developed, within the past
year or two even, to an extraordinary degree. Two years ago it
was possible to transmit electricity for lighting purposes a great
number of miles from the point of generation, but it was not com-
mercially possible so to distribute electricity for power purposes.
The reason for this is that in order to have electricity in a safe
form for use in houses, mills, or car lines it must be supplied at
low voltage (or electrical pressure) ; on the other hand, if we are
not to use an utterly prohibitive weight of copper conducting wire
we must transmit at high voltage. What is done, therefore, is to
transmit at, say, ten thousand volts and transform at the consum-
ing end down to anywhere from five hundred to one hundred
volts ; the trouble is that there is no practical way of transform-
ing direct currents, and until recently the alternating could not
be used to work commercial motors. Now, however, due largely
to the work of Mr. Nikola Tesla, we have motors that operate at
very good efficiency on alternating circuits. The methods of
insulation and of polyphase transmission have, moreover, been
improved greatly within a year or two, and these have brought
up the capabilities of the wire both for carrying more current
and working at higher voltage than was before the case. In the
present state of the art it would be safe for an electrical engineer

A PROPOSITION FOR AN ARTIFICIAL ISTHMUS. 475

to contract to transmit any amount of power one hundred and
fifty miles with a total loss on the line, due to fall of voltage, or
" drop/'" and leaka.ge, of not more than twenty-five per cent, and
this without being too extravagant of copper. The voltage on
such a line would be, however, much more than that referred to
above — probably twenty-five thousand volts.

The distance from the Scotch side of the proposed line to Lon-
don by air line is three hundred and sixty-five miles, and it is
only reasonable to expect that the first decade of the twentieth
century will see things so perfected as to admit of transmission
over this distance of any desired amount of power. As it is, the
great power-consuming counties of York and Lancashire, par-
ticularly the former, would to-day be accessible from the proposed
power generators.

If we glance at the ultimate results of all this, we shall see
them to be enormously far reaching. The limit to Britain's com-
mercial greatness may be set, as things are now, at the giving out
of her coal mines. These are not by any means inexhaustible, and
the drain upon them is something awful. The amount used in
generating power alone is annually in the scores of millions of
tons, and this is over and above what is used for house-heating,
cooking, etc.

Suppose now that there comes from the north an inexhaustible
supply of electric energy — inexhaustible, that is, as regards the
driving power it draws on, and limited in practice only by Avhether
one is willing to pay the moderate price that its generation, trans-
mission, transformation, etc., cost — we should have here a solution
of the whole question of the future of the coal fields. The elec-
trical power would be sufficiently cheap for general use, and in the
great textile manufacturing districts the hum of the hundreds of
thousands of cotton and woolen spindles would be supplemented
by the lower note of the driving motors. Electric heating for
culinary purposes is pre-eminently satisfactory, not only for its
cheapness, since one can use the heat just where it is needed and
avoid the waste of ninety-five per cent of the heat employed due
to hot air going up the chimney of a cooking range and to radia-
tion to an already overhot kitchen, but also on account of its
entire cleanliness and reliability. If the price of coal should go
up at all seriously, due to prolonged strikes, or to other causes,
it would pay to use electricity for even house and store heat-
ing. In the vast iron-smelting industry it could be applied to at
least greatly reduce the amount of fuel at present used. The
only important place where it could not certainly pretty well
displace coal would be in seagoing vessels, for they can not now,
and probably never will be able to, navigate the ocean on the trol-
ley principle, and it has to be said that it looks more like the job

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of a century than of a decade to get the storage battery in shape
for transatlantic working.

But the railways would all be run by it, and arc and incan-
descent lamps would shine on the country roads and in rural
hamlets all along the distributing lines in the kingdom. The
reign of electricity would have set in, for Great Britain at least,
in a sense not realized at all as yet, though we speak of the pres-
ent as the age of electricity ; and the deadly smoke from Lon-
don, Manchester, and Liverpool chimneys would cease, with its
accompanying black and yellow fogs and consequent stagna-
tion of business and various kinds of illness. St. Paul's could
be cleaned up once for all and shine forth in its whiteness for
generations, instead of becoming again the grimy and disreput-
able-looking object that the soot from London's bituminous coal
has made it. *

It is hardly to be expected that the great work referred to will
actually be begun just yet, although it would be little more than
an even thing between the cost of this fifteen-mile dam and Man-
chester's thirty-five-mile ship canal, but it is one of the great
projects that the near future is likely to have in store, and all the
results I have foreshadowed are logical outcomes of it. The
length of time that the construction of such a work would re-
quire has been estimated at in the vicinity of three years, if prop-
erly pushed, and the cost would probably be something over one
hundred million dollars.

Considering the thing from the broad standpoint of the change
in the whole geography of the British Isles which would follow
the construction of the isthmus, several most interesting and ex-
tremely important questions arise. As to whether these have
been all carefully investigated by the projectors of the proposed
enterprise I am not aware. In the first place, what would become
of the water which at present finds a vent through the Irish Chan-
nel in case this channel were stopped? It would presumably go
by the west coast of Ireland and a small part, perhaps, up round
by the north and east of Scotland ; and the question is, would this
have a salutary effect upon the west Irish coast, and would it
withdraw a part of the Gulf Stream's benign influence from Eng-
land and the east coast of Ireland ? The result of the work might
possibly show it to have been unwise to tamper with the natural
course of a main branch of that ocean current which is known to
have such an excellent influence on the climate and temperature
of the British Isles, which, as everybody knows, are as far north
as Labrador. The possibility reminds one of the story of the
Anglophobiac American who proposed cutting a canal through
Yucatan, or some such locality, in order that the Gulf Stream
might be nipped in the bud, so to speak, and never reach England

A PROPOSITION FOR AN ARTIFICIAL ISTHMUS. 477

at all — thus turning, as lie expected, that island into an abode of
arctic snow and ice.

Another feature of the case is the fact that the daily tides
would not be the same on the two sides of the dam. To the north
one could look clear out to sea over the Atlantic Ocean ; to the
south is about three hundred miles of practically inland water
before one gets out to the open ocean coast. The tides on the
open coast are about the same height and come at about the same
times south and north ; and at present, at any given point in the
Irish. Sea, the height of the sea level at any time is determined by
the resultant of the tides from the north and south respectively.
The construction of a dam at the northern entrance would leave
the whole Irish Sea subject only to the influence of the tides from
the south, while on the north side of the dam the tide level would
be the same as that of other points on the open coast. Since,
now, it would take some time, probably several hours, for the
effect of the southern tide to reach the south side of the dam,
the tides on the two sides would be anything but synchronous.
When the tide Was at its height at the north side it would be,
perhaps, half-way up on the south, and would be high on the
south by the time a considerable recession had taken place on the
north. This variation would have a most important bearing on
the working of the power machinery at the dam, because, instead
of the difference of level between the water on the two sides being
constant, and giving therefore a constant pressure, it would vary
so as to be at ttmes greater and at times less than would be the case
if the effect alluded to did not take place. In order, therefore, to
supply an equable driving head to the dynamos, the turbine wheels
would have to be powerful enough to work up to the required ca-
pacity on the minimum difference of level. Since the power made
available by the dam would be remarkable for the vast volume of
water to be drawn on, rather than for great difference of level, the
interference of the tides in at times reducing this difference per-
haps considerably would be a matter of grave inconvenience in
the way of the successful operating of the power generators.

The system of school education, though judiciously criticised, is not regarded
in the j^aper of Prof. Glynn, of Liverpool, on excessive mental work and some of
its consequences, as being in a marked degree accountable for nervous overstrain
in childhood. The tendency to this effect is considered to be in a great measure
counteracted by the attention given to physical education and by the mental elas-
ticity natural to youth. More serious are the consequences entailed by close and
anxious application to duty of teachers and older students. As concerns the
adult population, the injurious influence of overstrain is most active in towns,
■where the tension in the struggle for existence is greater and is associated with a
desire too easily gratified.

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

RAIN-MAKING.*

By FEENANDO SANFOED,
professoe of physics, leland stanford junior university.

I SHALL ask your attention this evening to the scientific prin-
ciples wliicli are involved in the condensation of atmospheric
vapor, and to some of the attempts which have been made to pro-
duce this condensation by artificial means.

Since the change from atmospheric vapor to water involves a
change of the physical state of the same substance from a gas to
a liquid, it is important that we understand clearly the difference
between these two physical states.

Both liquids and gases are undoubtedly made of very small
particles called molecules. In a gas these molecules are not held
together by any force, but each molecule is a perfectly independ-
ent body, free to move in any direction without reference to any
other molecule, except as its motion may be interfered with by
colliding with another. Under all known conditions these gase-
ous molecules are actually in rapid motion, eadh one moving at
its own rate and in its own path, unaffected by any known force
except gravitation. Each molecule will, accordingly, move in a
straight line until it collides with another molecule. When two
molecules collide, their direction of motion will be changed ac-
cording to the angle of collision, but on account of their high
elasticity they rebound with the same force with which they col-
lide, and the sum of their motions will be practically the same as
before. Hence, no number of collisions between the molecules
themselves Avill ever bring them to rest.

If confined within solid walls, they strike against these walls
and rebound from them just as they do from each other. In do-
ing so each molecule exerts a pressure upon the wall during its
time of contact, and the sum of these pressures is the whole pres-
sure of the gas upon the walls of its containing vessel.

These walls are likewise composed of similar molecules, but
held together by some unknown force, and it is the surface layer
of these molecules which must bear the shock of the molecular
bombardment of the gas. Accordingly, the molecules of the
solid walls, while not free to be driven about from one place to
another, like the gaseous molecules, are nevertheless set in vibra-
tion ; and since they can not lie as close together while in vibra-
tion as they could at rest, the solid mass of the walls is made to
expand. By measuring the amount of this expansion we can de-

* A lecture given before the students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, March
6, 1894.

RAIN-MAKING. 479

termine the energy of the molecular bombardment. By letting
tlie vibrating molecules of the solid or the gas come in contact
Avith the parts of our skin to which certain special sense nerves
are distributed, we feel the sensation of heat, and we are accus-
tomed to say that the expansion of the solid or the gas is due to
heat. The total measure of the energy which any mass of matter
has on account of the motion of its molecules is determined by
the amount of heat — i. e., molecular motion — which it must give to
other bodies before its molecules can come to rest. The higher
the temperature of the mass — the more heat or the more molecular
motion it has.

The atmosphere is, in general, made up of two different kinds
of molecules. These molecules are, of course, very small — so
small that no possible magnifying power can ever bring them
into view. Their size is, in fact, so small as compared with the
length of a light-wave that no image of one could be produced by
reflected light. Still, there are several independent methods of
calculating their approximate size, and, since these different meth-
ods lead to fairly accordant results, we may assume that their
approximate size is known. According to Lord Kelvin's compu-
tation, if a drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth
its molecules would become larger than shot and smaller than
cricket balls, perhaps about the size of marbles. They are so
close together in the air that the number in a cubic inch is repre-
sented by the number ten raised to the twenty-third power. Be-
ing so close together, and being at the same time in raj^id motion,
they must have frequent collisions, and, according to Maxwell's
calculation, a molecule of air at ordinary temperatures would
have seven or eight hundred thousand millions of collisions in a
second of time. While these figures, both for size and number,
can convey no definite meaning to us, they may aid us in pictur-
ing to ourselves the tremendous agitation which is constantly
going on within our atmosphere or within the mass of any other
gas.

Within the body of a liquid the conditions are similar, except
that here the molecules are so close together that they can not be
said to have any free path at all, and are, accordingly, in a state
of perpetual collision. They are not, as in a solid, held to any
definite position with reference to the surrounding molecules, but
are hindered by a force called cohesion or capillarity from escap-
ing from the liquid altogether. What the nature of this force is
is not known, but it is evidently a pressure of some kind exerted
upon the molecules tending to push them closer together.

Notwithstanding this force, the molecules of the liquid are in
rapid vibration, and at the free surface of the liquid they are be-
ing continually bumped off by the molecules below them. When

48 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this happens they become free gaseous molecules, and move off in
straight lines under the impulse of the force which set them free
until they come into collision with other molecules.

At the surface of separation between water and air the condi-
tions are accordingly as follows : The surface layer of water mole-
cules is held down by the force called cohesion, but the individual
molecules of this layer are being continually bumped off by the
vibrations of the molecules below them. Some of these free
molecules are undoubtedly driven back by the bombardment of
the air molecules above them, so that they escape much more
slowly into the air than they do into a vacuum, but those which
once escape into the air are knocked about by the air molecules
and by each other until they are pretty evenly distributed
throughout the air. After a time they become so numerous in
the space above the water that, in their irregular excursions be-
tween their collisions with other molecules, they begin to strike
the surface of the water, and then, under favorable conditions,
they penetrate into the liquid and are held fast. This process
continues until finally as many molecules enter the water as es-
cape from its surface, and then, while a constant exchange is tak-
ing place between the liquid and gaseous molecules, the average
number in the space above the liquid remains constant. This
space is then said to be saturated with vapor molecules. The
number of molecules required to saturate this space ie the same
whether the space already contains air molecules or not, but, on
account of the number of water molecules which are beaten back
by the air molecules, it takes much longer for the space to become
saturated when it is already filled with air than it does when there
are no other molecules in it. The air molecules, however, hinder
the vapor molecules from striking the surface of the water as
often as they prevent them from leaving the surface, so they do
not influence the total number required to i)roduce saturation.

When the point of saturation has been reached, an increase of
temperature — i. e., an increase of the molecular vibration of the
water — causes the molecules to be driven off faster than before.
It also causes the gaseous molecules to strike the surface of the
water of tener than before. But an increase of temperature means
a corresponding increase of vibration of all the molecules ; and,
since there are very many more liquid than gaseous molecules in
the same volume, the total increase of molecular vibration corre-
sponding to a given rise of temperature will be much greater for
the liquid than for the gas, and a correspondingly greater num-
ber of molecules will be thrown off at the surface of the liquid
than will be returned to it. Accordingly, the higher the tempera-
ture, the more molecules are required to saturate the space above
the water. In fact, the amount of water vapor required to pro-

RAIN-MAKING. 48 1

duce saturation of the atmosphere under the conditions above
mentioned is more than twice as great at 80° F. as at 50° F.

On the other hand, lowering the temperature of the liquid and
vapor by a like amount lessens the number of molecules given off
from the liquid surface more rapidly than it lessens the number
striking upon the surface. Accordingly, we say that raising the
temperature increases evaporation ; lowering the temperature
increases condensation.

Now, it happens that this same force of cohesion may hold
water molecules upon the surface of most solid bodies as strongly
as upon the surface of water itself, and in many cases even more
strongly. Accordingly, if a solid body of this kind be pladed in
the atmosphere, the same exchange of water molecules will take
place between its surface and the air as between a water surface
and the air. In fact, as soon as a layer of water molecules is
formed over its surface, it becomes a water surface. According-
ly, if a solid particle be placed in an atmosphere saturated with
water vapor and the temperature be lowered, the water molecules
will accumulate upon its surface faster than they are driven off,
and we say that a precipitation of dew is taking place upon it.
The air is accordingly said to reach its dew point when it reaches
its point of saturation.

There are other substances which hold fast in a different way
the water molecules which strike upon their surface. These sub-
stances form either chemical compounds or solutions with water,
and in this way remove the water molecules from the places where
they strike to the interior of the compound or the solution. Sul-
phuric acid is a good example of this class of substances. If a
vessel of sulphuric acid be placed in a receiver filled with water
vapor, the acid holds fast all the water molecules which strike its
surface, and sends off no other water molecules to replace them.
Since all the water molecules in the receiver will in time come in
contact with the acid surface, they will ultimately all be held in
a liquid form by the acid. Accordingly, a receiver of moist air
can be changed to dry air by allowing it to stand for a sufficient
length of time over sulphuric acid.

There are very many other substances which, like sulphuric
acid, have the property of condensing the water molecules from
a space which is not saturated with them. Such substances are
said to be deliquescent, or to gather moisture from the air. Com-
mon salt and caustic potash are good examples of deliquescent
substances.

There is still another method of producing condensation. If
an inclosed space contain water vapor enough to bring it to the
point of saturation, and if the volume of the space be decreased
without changing the temperature, more molecules will strike

VOL. XLV. — 38

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

upon a given surface of the containing walls than when the vol-
ume of the gas was greater. Since the temperature remains the
same, the same number of molecules will be- driven off from a
given surface of these walls as before. There will, accordingly,
be a condensation upon the walls, which will continue until
enough gaseous molecules have been removed to make the ex-
change again even. •

These are the three known methods of changing water vapor
to the liquid form — viz., by lowering the temperature of the vapor
and the other bodies in contact with it until the point of satura-
tion has been i)assed, by compressing the vapor until there are
enough molecules in unit volume to produce saturation, and by
allowing the vapor molecules to strike upon some surface which
will immediately take them into solution or into chemical combi-
nation. I know of no other method by which water vapor, or any
other vapor, can be changed into the liquid form.

The conditions necessary for the precipitation of the aqueous
vapor from the atmosphere are, then, as follows :

(1) The air must contain enough molecules of water vapor to
more than saturate it, and must contain at the same time either
solid or liquid bodies upon which these vapor molecules may be
held fast by cohesion ; or (2) the air which does not contain enough
water vapor to saturate it may come in contact with solid or liquid
substances, which combine with or dissolve the water molecules
which strike upon them.

This latter condition can manifestly play no important part in
atmospheric precipitation. The only condition under which such
substances could cause condensation above the earth's surface
would necessitate their distribution throughout the atmosphere,
and if they were so distributed they would constantly absorb the
atmospheric vapor until, loaded down with it, they would sink to
the earth, and there would be a condition of perpetual rainfall.

For the general precipitation of atmospheric vapor we must
accordingly depend upon the condensation due to cohesion. Of
this form of condensation, dew is the simplest illustration. Dur-
ing the day the earth and the solid bodies upon its surface are
raised by the sun's radiation to a temperature higher than that
of the surrounding air. So long as this is the case the atmos-
j)heric vapor will not condense upon them, even if the air be
cooled to the point of saturation. In the night the same sub-
stances which absorbed the sun's heat fastest now radiate it fast-
est and soon become colder than the surrounding air. As soon
as they 4re cooled to the temperature of saturation of the sur-
rounding air the vapor molecules begin to condense upon their
surface.

Now, the condensation of water vapor in the air above the sur-

RAIN-MAKING. 483

face of tlie earth is dependent upon exactly tlie same conditions
as the formation of dew. It used to be thought that, as soon as
the air was cooled to or below the dew point, the molecules of
water vapor in the air would come together and form drops of
water. In 1880 Mr. John Aitken, of Scotland, began a long and
very thorough series of experiments upon the condensation of
water vapor f ron? the air, and the same line of experimentation
has been carried still further by Robert von Helmholtz and by
Richarz in Germany. These experiments have all shown that
vapor condensation within the body of the air only takes place
upon the surface of dust particles which are floating in the air.
Indeed, Robert von Helmholtz found that when the air was care-
fully^ freed from dust particles it could be cooled until it con-
tained ten times the amount of vapor necessary to saturate it
without any condensation taking place within the body of the air.
Aitken thought that he had found one exceyjtion to this, and
that in the case of a sudden shock upon the walls of the contain-
ing vessel, when the air within was oversaturated, precipitation
would take place ; but Robert von Helmholtz found that this
apparent exception was due to the dust particles given off by the
walls of the vessel at the time of the shock. Since this fact has
been experimentally established, Lord Kelvin has shown mathe-
matically that, from the known laws of surface tension in water,
it would be impossible for a globe of water consisting of only a
small number of molecules to hold together at all. The same
calculation has been made by Robert von Helmholtz by means of
a formula developed by his illustrious father. According to
these calculations, the smallest sphere of water which could hold
together at 0° C. would be '00015 millimetre or -000006 inch in
diameter. Since this is 7,500 times the diameter of a water mole-
cule as computed by Lord Kelvin, the smallest drop of water
which could be held together by cohesion at this temperature
would contain not less than four million millions of water mole-
cules. At 40° the smallest possible water sphere would have a
diameter about twice as great, and would accordingly contain
eight times as many molecules.

Aitken found that dust particles of microscopic size were
sufficient for the nuclei of condensation, and R. von Helmholtz
showed that condensation could take place upon particles so small
that it took four days for them all to settle through still air to the
lower side of a horizontal glass tube about one inch in diameter.

Aitken counted the number of these dust particles in different
samples of air by first diluting the air with two hundred times its
volume of air which had had its dust particles removed by^ being
drawn through water, and then saturating the air with water and
cooling far below its dew point, and counting the number of

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

water drops falling upon a given area until all the dust particles
were carried down. He found the number of dust particles to
vary from 34,000 per cubic inch in j^ure air taken from the top of
Ben Nevis to 88,346,000 per cubic inch in air taken from a room
near the ceiling, and nearly 500,000,000 per cubic inch in the flame
of a Bunsen burner.

The number of these dust particles in the air determines the
character of the precipitation. If the dust particles are very nu-
merous, each one becomes a nucleus for the condensation of water
vapor, but only a small quantity of water will be condensed upon
each one ; hence the formation of the fine drops which constitute
fog. If the number is smaller, as it is likely to be at a greater
distance above the earth, each nucleus may receive a larger quan-
tity of water, and a cloud may be formed. If they are few, or if
the T.total amount of condensation is great, the drops which are
formed become heavy enough to fall to the ground, and rain is
produced. If the nuclei are very few, rain may fall from an
almost cloudless sky.

It is well known that as we ascend above the earth the tem-
perature falls about one degree Fahrenheit for three hundred
feet ; consequently, while the air at the surface of the earth may
be far above the dew point, the air at a few thousand feet above
the earth may be cooled below the dew point. The height of the
clouds always indicates the distance above the eartli at which the
air is cold enough for condensation to begin. The clouds, being
made up of these little dust particles surrounded by water, are
heavier than the air, and are slowly settling toward the earth, but
as fast as the little drops settle into the warmer air, the rate of
evaporation from their surface is increased, and before they have
settled far the water has been evaporated off. Hence, at a given
time, over an area of uniform temperature, the lower surfaces of
the clouds are all at nearly the same distance above the earth.

How, then, shall rain be produced in the great unbounded at-
mosphere ? There are but two ways. Either the total quantity
of vapor in the atmosphere must be increased, or the temperature
of the air must be diminished. It is probably safe to assume that
there are, under all ordinary circumstances, a sufficient number
of dust particles in the air to form the nuclei for condensation,
so that no artificial provision need be made for these.

So far as I am aware, no enterprising rain-maker has yet pro-
posed a method of increasing the total moisture of the air to any
appreciable extent, though some of them have attempted this on
the small scale, probably in the vain hope that if they touched
the button Nature would do the rest. This, by the way, has been
the one claim upon which all these pretenders have based their
arguments. They have steadfastly and with unanimity asserted

RAIN-MAKING. 485

ttat if a little condensation could be started in one place it would
at once spread out in all directions, like the benign influence of
the little homoeopathic pill. How a rainfall started in this way
is ever to stop as long as any aqueous vapor remains in the air,
they have not condescended to tell us. This question has not, so
far as I know, ever been raised by the results of their incanta-
tions.

As a matter of fact, every drop of water taken from the air de-
creases the number of vapor molecules remaining, and, conse-
quently, lowers the temperature of the dew point. Likewise, every
free molecule which is brought to rest by striking against a solid
body, gives up its energy of motion to that body and increases
the total energy of its molecular vibration, so that a body upon
which water molecules are condensing is having its temperature
continually raised, and it must be continually giving off heat to
surrounding bodies, or it will soon be warmed above the tempera-
ture of condensation. In the case of the dust particles of the at-
mosphere, they must give off this acquired heat to the molecules
of the air which come in contact with them ; hence the condensa-
tion of moisture from the air raises the temperature of the air.
There are, accordingly, two reasons why heat must be continually
taken from the air in order to keep up condensation. The tem-
perature of the dew point is being continually lowered by the loss
of vapor molecules, and the temperature of the air is being con-
tinually raised by the amount of heat which these molecules lose
when their motion is stopped.

In the formation of rain by natural causes this continuous de-
crease of temperature is provided by ascending currents of air
which carry the water molecules upward into continually cooler
and cooler regions. These ascending currents of air may be caused
by mountain ranges which deflect upward the winds that blow
against them, by the expansion of the air over a heated area of
the earth's surface, and possibly by other agencies not yet under-
stood. In the case of our California storms, these ascending cur-
rents are usually persistent for several days, frequently moving
across the whole continent. They are marked upon our weather
maps as areas of low barometric pressure. Whenever there is an
area over which the barometric pressure is less than the normal,
it is an indication of an ascending current of air, and wherever
there is an ascending current of air there is a probability of rain-
fall, though if the air be very dry it may not be carried to a sufii-
cient height to be cooled below its dew point.

On the other hand, wherever there is an area of increased baro-
metric pressure, or of high barometer, it is an indication that there
is a descending current of air over that area ; and since air which
is settling toward the earth is continually having its temperature

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

raised, no precipitation of moisture will occur over an area of high
barometer.

The simultaneous weather observations conducted by the Gov-
ernment enable us to locate these regions of ascending and de-
scending currents, and long observation has enabled us to predict
their probable path across the continent, and it is upon these data
that the weather officers base their predictions of future weather.
Since these areas regularly travel from west to east, we in Cali-
fornia receive much shorter notice of their coming than do the
people farther east, and the weather predictions issued from our
local bureau are proportionally more liable to error than are those
issued from stations beyond the mountains.

And now as to the possibility of producing rain by artificial
means. It is never safe to say what things are possible and what
things are impossible to man. What the future may bring forth
no one can tell. At the present time, however, there is no evi-
dence to show that even the smallest local shower has been pro-
duced artificially. Further than that it is safe to say that no
method of producing artificial rain has yet been publicly pro-
posed which suggests to one familiar with the scientific principles
involved even a possibility of success. That such attempts have
received the official recognition and the financial support of Con-
gress is only another evidence of the gross ignorance of scientific
principles which is prevalent among our so-called educated men.
That some of the men who advocate these wild schemes are hon-
est in their motives can not be questioned, but that all the pro-
fessional rain-makers are conscienceless fakirs is scarcely more
questionable. That many of them are able to submit testimony
as to the efficacy of their system is equally true of every patent-
medicine fraud and electric-healing quack who has ever swindled
an ignorant public. As an illustration of the value of testimony
of this kind let me give you a local example.

I will read from the San Francisco Examiner of February 2,
1894:

HE PRODUCES RAIN AT WILL.

Highly Successful Experiments of the Visalia Rain-maker.

nEAVY SHOWERS AT PIXLEY.

He selects the Driest Section of Fresno Countj, where Rain seldom falls,
AND BY the Use of Chemicals causes Local Downpours on Two Successive
Days. — Many other Tests made.

Visalia, February 1st. — A week ago Wednesday Frank Baker, of Visalia, an
amateur rain-maker, went to Pixley for the purpose of producing rain. Before he
left he informed the Examiner correspondent that he intended to produce rain
within seven days, and he kept his word. On Tuesday and Wednesday a local
rainstorm occurred in the vicinity of Pixley amounting to OSo to 0"45 of an inch.

RAIN-MAKING. 487

Mr. Baker returned to this city this morning in jubilant spirits. He is now-
satisfied beyond a doubt that he can produce rain by means of his appliance. He
proposes to visit Pixley every two weeks, and is sanguine that he will be success-
ful in his experiments.

During the months of April and May he proposes to put forth his best efforts
in order to thoroughly drench the soil. The residents of Pixley are well pleased
with Baker's experiments, and they propose to assist him in conducting his future
operations.

THEY VOXJOH FOR HIS EFFICIENCY.

He brought back with him the following letter :

" This is to certify that it rained 0*3o to 0"4o of an inch at Pixley on the 30tli
and 31st of January. "We gentlemen here vouch for the truth of the same ; that
it is a local rain of fifteen to twenty miles in extent, and that it was brought
about by the Baker process.

" J. J. Kelly, L. E. Smith,

" Chaeles S. Peck, J. T. Austin,

" W. M. Jaokik, John W. Haepeb."

iSTow, it is not my purpose to impugn the veracity of tlie gen-
tlemen whose names are signed to this certificate. I know none
of the gentlemen. I do not question the only point in the state-
ment to which the gentlemen could possibly subscribe of their
own knowledge. You will observe that the certificate includes
three separate statements: (1) That it rained in Pixley on the
30th and 31st of January ; (2) that it was a local rain of fifteen to
twenty miles in extent ; (3) that it was brought about by the
Baker process. Manifestly, the only one of these statements to
which the gentlemen could have subscribed of their own knowl-
edge is the first.

Fortunately for the settlement of questions of this character,
we have the use of data collected by the Weather Bureau. When
I read the above article I at once wrote to Mr. Pague for the
maps issued by the Weather Bureau for January 28th to 31st inclu-
sive. He kindly forwarded them to me, and the following data
were compiled by me from them :

On the map of Sunday, January 28th, 5 P. M., an area of low
barometer is shown with its center west of Vancouver. The
weather was reported cloudy and rainy north of the Oregon line.
The weather forecast was " Rain in northern California." Twelve
hours later, Monday, January 29th, at 5 A. M., the storm was cen-
tral over northwestern Washington. I quote verbatim from the
predictions printed upon the map : "The conditions this morning
are favorable for rain over California from the Tehachapi Moun-
tains northward by Tuesday morning, and possibly will extend
southward Tuesday afternoon or night."

At 5 P. M. of the same day the map shows a storm area extend-
ing from British Columbia to southeastern California, with its

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

center near Keeler, about ninety miles east of Pixley. Here tlie
storm center remained for thirty-six hours, while the storm was
gradually breaking up over its northern part, as shown by the three
following maps, and not until the map of Wednesday morning is
there an indication of an eastward movement of the storm, while
as late as 5 p, m. of Wednesday, January 31st, rain was reported at
Keeler. During Monday and Tuesday light rains were reported
over nearly all parts of the State, and on Tuesday it rained at
Pixley.

From these data we see that the local rainfall produced by
the Baker process at Pixley was i)art of a storm which extended
over a large part of British Columbia, over Washington, Oregon,
California, Utah, Nevada., and Arizona, and which had its center
for thirty-six hours within ninety miles of Pixley, and that the
weather forecasts sent -out from San Francisco on Monday morn-
ing at five o'clock predicted rain for the region about Pixley for
Tuesday afternoon or night. As a matter of fact, it rained at
Pixley on Tuesday night, as had been predicted by Mr. Pague
thirty-six hours before.

I have referred to this special case, not because it differs in any
essential particular from other well-authenticated cases, but be-
cause one typical example which any one can verify is worth a
great amount of generalizing, and because this particular instance
has been so prominently mentioned by the press of the State.

And now I wish to say a few words about the methods of some
of the best known of the professional " rain-makers.^' For most of
the following data I am indebted to a paper read by Prof. Alex-
ander Macfarlane, of the University of Texas, before the Texas
Academy of Science.

Powders. — In 1870 Mr. Edward Powers, of Delavan, Wis., pub-
lished a collection of statistics in a volume entitled War and the
Weather. By means of these statistics he seeks to establish the
remarkable fact that battles are followed by rain. He does not
prove that battles are necessarily accompanied by rain, or that a
day of battle is followed more quickly by rain than a day of no
battle. Having, however, apparently convinced himself of the
value of his argument, he at once adopted the universal American
expedient of proving his claim, and petitioned Congress for an
appropriation to make a suitable test. Two hundred siege guns
which lie idle at the Rock Island Arsenal were to be taken to a
suitable locality in the West, and one hundred rounds to be fired
from them in each of two tests. The estimated cost of the experi-
ment was to be one hundred and sixty-one thousand dollars. He
does not tell us how the molecular vibration caused by the sound
and heat of the firing is to lessen the molecular vibration of the
air and cause the vapor molecules to come to rest.

RAIN-MAKING. 489

Probably the distinction between a scientist and a crank could
not be shown more clearly than in a comparison of the methods
of Aitken and Von Helmholtz with the methods of Powers. The
former spent years working in private and at their own expense
to find if possible some explanation of the mystery of condensa-
tion. The other wished an appropriation of one hundred and
sixty thousand dollars from the Government in order to test his
visionary hypothesis.

RuGGLES. — In 1880 Daniel Ruggles, of Fredericksburg, Ya,.,
patented a process for producing rain. The invention, as de-
scribed by Mr. Ruggles, consists of " a balloon carrying torpedoes
and cartridges charged with such explosives as nitroglycerin,
dynamite, gun cotton, gunpowder, or fulminates, and connecting
the balloon with an electrical apparatus for exploding the car-
tridges."

This is another scheme for lowering the temperature of the air
by heating it.

Dyrenforth. — It is probable that the name of Mr. Dyrenforth
is better known in connection with attempts at artificial rain-
making than that of any other man. As a result of the agitation
of Mr. Powers, Congress voted two thousand dollars to make a
preliminary test, and the inquiry fell to the scientists connected
with the Department of Agriculture. They reported that there
was no foundation for the opinion that days of battle were fol-
lowed by rain any more than days of no battle. It was then that
Mr. Dyrenforth came forward with Ruggles's plans and offered
to make some tests. Through the influence of Senator Farwell,
an additional appropriation of seven thousand dollars was placed
at his disposal for a series of j^ractical tests, which were made at
Midland, Texas, in August, 1891. A further Government appro-
priation was expended in tests at San Antonio, Texas, in Novem-
ber, 1892.

Mr. Dyrenforth's plan seems to have been to imitate as nearly
as possible the conditions of a battle. His explosives were ranged
in a line facing the advancing clouds. Shells were fired into the
air at frequent intervals. Dr. Macfarlane states that the " gen-
eral " and his lieutenant even wore cavalry boots.

In addition to these warlike demonstrations, cheap balloons
containing hydrogen and oxygen mixed in the proper proportions
for forming water were sent up, and the gases were exploded by
means of a time fuse attached to the balloon.

At the time of making the San Antonio tests, November 25,
1892, the record of the weather office in San Antonio at 8 p. m.
gave the temperature of the air at 72° F. and the temperature
of the dew point as 61° F. Dr. Macfarlane makes the following
calculations upon a cubic mile of the air under the above con-

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ditions : To cool down the cubic mile of air to the dew point wonld
require the abstraction of as much heat as would raise eighty-
eight thousand tons of water from the freezing to the boiling
point. To cool it eleven degrees more would require the abstrac-
tion of the same quantity of heat again. This would cause the
precipitation of twenty thousand tons of water, which, spread
over a square mile, would give 1"4 pound per square foot or 0'27
of an inch of rain. The amount of heat which the twenty thou-
sand tons of water vapor would give off to the particles upon
which it would condense would raise a hundred thousand tons of
water from the freezing to the boiling point, and this would also
have to be taken from the air in order to allow the condensation
to continue. According to this computation, enough heat would
have to be extracted from the air to raise two hundred and
seventy-six thousand tons of water from the freezing to the boil-
ing point in order to produce a rainfall of about a quarter of an
inch over an area of a square mile. This two hundred and sev-
enty-six thousand tons of water would cover the same area to a
depth of more than six inches. Accordingly, in order to produce
a rainfall of a quarter of an inch under the conditions mentioned,
enough heat would have to be taken from the air to heat a body
of water covering the whole area to a depth of ninety feet through
one degree Fahrenheit.

To accomplish this purpose Mr. Dyrenforth proceeded to raise
the temperature of the air still higher by means of heat-produc-
ing explosives.

Under these conditions eight balloons, a hundred and fifty
shells, and four thousand pounds of rosellite were fired off. No
rain appeared. One balloon exploded within a black rain cloud,
but failed to produce any precipitation. On the following Wednes-
day, with a clear sky, ten balloons, a hundred and seventy-five
shells, and five thousand pounds of rosellite were exploded, and
the sky remained clear. On the following night the remaining
stock of explosives were fired off, regardless of consequences, to
get rid of them.

At the time of this national fiasco, another patented plan of
rain-making was published, and it was reported that Senator Far-
well liked it even better than the concussion plan. It proposes to
send up liquefied carbonic acid and to set it free in the portion of
air from which it is desired to precipitate the rain. The carbonic
acid in vaporizing and expanding must take heat from the sur-
rounding air sufficient to set its molecules vibrating in the gase-
ous form. Unquestionably we have here the proper kind of an
agent for producing rain. The only question to be considered is
one of finance. Prof. Macfarlane estimates that one pound of car-
bonic acid in taking the gaseous form at 72° F. would take up

MILK FOR BABES. 491

enough, lieat to change sixty-eight pounds of water by one degree
Centigrade. To cool the cubic mile of air formerly considered
sufficiently to make a rainfall of a quarter of an inch would ac-
cordingly take four hundred and six million pounds of carbonic
acid. This could probably be purchased in quantities of this
magnitude at one dollar a pound, making the expense of a rain-
fall of a quarter of an inch, not counting anything but the car-
bonic acid, about six hundred thousand dollars per acre. This
would make artificial climate even more expensive than the genu-
ine California article.

I have now endeavored to give you in as brief a space as possi-
ble a simple statement of the problem of rain-making as it appears
to one with an elementary knowledge of physics, and to give a
brief statement of some of the methods of the men who, without
any scientific knowledge, have intentionally or unintentionally
imposed upon the public. The examples which I have quoted are
only the prominent ones. There are many impostors whose
names are but little known who are proposing to furnish rain to
large sections of country for a suitable financial consideration.
And it is only surprising that the number is not larger. The
business ofi^ers special inducements to men who are accustomed to
make a living by swindling their fellow-men. No capital and no
business training is required. The only thing necessary is to con-
tract to furnish rain to as many different sections of country as
possible. Then, if it rains over any of these areas, collect the pay.
If it does not rain, the experiment has cost nothing. The system
has all the advantages of the traditional gun loaded to kill if it is
a deer, but to miss if it is a calf.

I

MILK FOR BABES.

By Mbs. LOUISE E. IIOGAN,

IST the natural advance made in the study of the subject of
infant foods — methods of preparation, administration, etc. —
the process of sterilization of milk, as ordinarily an,d formerly un-
derstood, is now replaced by " Pasteurization," which is, practi-
cally speaking, the low-temperature process of the earlier method,
and specialists who comprehended the serious changes produced
in milk by high and prolonged temperature advised from the
first the lower method.

It is easy enough, by prolonged and repeated application of a
high temperature, to keep milk apparently unchanged, but the
point aimed at all along has been to devise a way by which it
might be made sterile with the least possible interference with

492

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its nutritive qualities. Investigation lias demonstrated that milk
subjected to lengthy boiling under pressure is in many ways un-
suited to the digestion of an infant. Chemical analyses have
proved what experience has shown to be the case — namely, that
milk sterilized by the higher and prolonged temperature is not
fit for administration to an infant. Dr. Henry Chapin, of New
York, has been making a study of infant feeding and of children
in the Post-graduate Hospital of that city, to which he is at-
tached, and he says, in an article recently published in the New
York Medical Journal, that partial sterilization or Pasteuriza-
tion, to the point of killing the germs only, is necessary and de-
sirable, as a high and continuous temperature produces unfavor-
able changes in the milk; the fat collects in masses, the albu-
minoids are changed, the casein is altered, and the digestive
action on the casein of sterilized milk is incomplete. Simply

sufficient heat must be applied to the milk to keep it sweet
until the next supply can be procured. Herein lay one of the
most frequent sources of trouble in the earlier days of steriliza-
tion, caused by lack of exact knowledge in this direction ; and in.
addition to this, when sterilized milk was first introduced, manj^
mothers reasoned that, being sterile, it was a perfect food, and
consequently used it without any further preparation, with the
natural result of indigestion and all its resultant ailments. It is
quite true that milk to be a perfect food must first be sterile, but
it must also be assimilable ; and to reach this point great care
must be given as well to its preparation and administration.
Notwithstanding the care exercised by boards of health, it is
impossible at any time to be sure of the purity of the milk sup-
ply ; hence the need is urgent that it be made safe by Pasteuriza-
tion, which is, in reality, simply subjecting the milk to the lower
temperature of 150° to 1G0° F., instead of 212° F., as was formerly
done, and is called thus in deference to Pasteur, who long ago
found that the ordinary germs of fermentation and bacteria

MILK FOR BABES. 493

■would be destroyed by this temperature, and recommended such, a
process for their destruction and for the preservation of foods.
Thirty years ago Liebig said that by scalding milk once a day it
could be kept indefinitely, and many a housewife, before and
since, has put the same fact into practice. The process is new
only in name — the discovery lies principally in its application —
experiment having shown that the application of 150° F. for
thirty minutes Avill destroy the Bacillus tuberculosis with cer-
tainty, and many germs that are likely to be found in reasonably
pure milk, which, Avith ordinary precaution, will remain sweet for
several days.

There is a good deal in a name, and it is to be hoped that
" Pasteurized " milk will receive as cordial a welcome as was given
to " sterilized " milk.

Generally, new ideas are received with some conservatism and
are subjected to tests in expert hands before being adopted by the
public ; but the need was great, and it is seldom indeed that any-
thing has had the benefit of so wide a trial and so immediate an
acceptance as this idea of sterilization of milk. Benevolent per-
sons opened dispensaries to give it to the poor, who, jumping to
the conclusion that it was " exactly like mothers' milk " and had
wondrously valuable qualities, failed frequently to see the true
purpose of the work. Few stopped to inquire what sterilized milk
really was, and directions given for its use were rarely followed.

The fact that milk, when subjected sujBficiently to a high tem-
perature, can be kept unchanged for an indefinite length of time,
while of interest from a scientific standpoint, is of no practical
interest to consumers, except upon long journeys, as it has been
conclusively shown that for ordinary usage Pasteurization should
be done daily. It is generally conceded that pure milk will save
much infant mortality. The fact that thousands of children —
especially infants — die every year from want of care in the prep-
aration of their food is underestimated by many. At one of the
meetings of the Philadelphia Board of Health, Dr. Shakespeare
said, in his report, that milk of poor and unwholesome quality is
originally and directly responsible for thousands of deaths annu-
ally in that city alone, not to speak of the sickness from this ori-
gin which is not fatal. To this category, he declares, certainly
belong most deaths from cholera infantum, infantile tubercu-
losis, many of the deaths from acute diarrhoea, from typhoid
fever, and some of the deaths from diphtheria and scarlet fever.

Dr. Chapin says that of six hundred infants whose cases were
studied, nearly all the troubles were acquired and not hereditary.
^' While a tendency to constitutional disease may be inherited, it
is the bad surroundings and faulty conditions of life that power-
fully predispose to illness " — poverty and ignorance being the

494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

chief sources of difficulty. He says the waste of child life in
densely populated centers, especially in New York, is enormous.
Last year the bodies of three thousand and forty-two children
under five years of age were received at the morgue and nearly
all were buried in Potter's Field, killed by poverty and ignorance,
want of jjroper diet and care. In France, out of two hundred and
fifty thousand infants dying annually, M. Rouchard, President of
the Society for the Protection of Children, says one hundred thou-
sand might be saved bj^ careful nursing. This knowledge caused
the passage of the bill forbidding the use of solid food for in-
fants under one year of age, unless advised by a physician.

In the effort to guard against the tuberculosis germ our own
Government is taking action, and the United States Department
of Agriculture, in connection with work upon the forthcoming
report upon tuberculosis, has issued a circular giving simple direc-
tions for the sterilization of milk. Dr. Salmon, in his report, com-
ments upon the danger of contagion, and says the sterilization of
milk can be satisfactorily accomplished by a very simple appara-
tus, which he describes at length. Any suitable utensil— whether
a bottle plugged with cotton or a Soxhlet stopper, a fruit jar
loosely covered, or whatever vessel may be used — is to be placed
inside of a larger one of metal containing water, the require-
ments being that the interior vessel shall be raised above the bot-
tom of the other, and that the water shall reach nearly or quite
as high as the milk. The apparatus is then heated until the water
reaches 155° F., when it is removed from the heat and kept tight-
ly covered for half an hour. The cooling after this should be
rapid, and the bottles kept in a low temperature. A hole may
be punched in the cover of the pail, a cork inserted, and a chemi-
cal thermometer put through the cork, so that the bulb dips into
the water, or a dairy thermometer may be used by removing the
lid from time to time.

An ordinary double boiler will be found to meet all the re-
quirements, using the dairy thermometer. If preferred, the Ar-
nold steamer or the Freeman Pasteurizer will be found convenient.
Dr. Chapin says that fifteen minutes' heating will be found suf-
ficient, as a rule.

The problem seems to be, in infant dietetics, to approximate
such milk to the composition of human milk. That this can be
done has been demonstrated by expert analyses, results showing
that the value of this care is not overestimated by those who
thoroughly comprehend its purpose. The casein of the milk,
being the objectionable feature for infant diet, must be treated
in such a manner as to make it digestible, supplying at the same
time the constituents required as a consequence of this treatment,
by the addition of sugar and fat.

MILK FOR BABES. 495

Clinical results point to barley water as the best diluent, as it
produces the finest curd. As a result of Dr. Chapin's study and
experiments made by Dr. Arnold Eiloart, a receipt lias been de-
vised by which a mixture of barley or wheat flour is treated with
maltine, the effect of malt upon milk being to favor its digestion
and assimilation. Dr. Judson C. Smith, who is a district visitor
for the hospital mentioned, says he has used the extract of malt
to peptonize milk for about a year, both for infants and adults,
with very satisfactory results. His method has the advantage of
simplicity. One tablespoonful of malt is added to a pint of milk,
which is heated from twenty to thirty minutes and then brought
to the boiling point, which practically Pasteurizes the milk. It is
to be diluted for administration according to the age of the infant.
Top milk should be used with the proportion of cream sufficient
to give at least four per cent after dilution; thus, twelve per
cent of cream would be required to allow for two parts of water
to one of milk, which is the dilution advised by Dr. L. Emmett
Holt in order to reduce the proteids to their normal proportion.
By careful experiment he has found that one quart of ordinary
cow's milk, allowed to stand for six hours in a common fruit or
milk jar, will give about five ounces of top milk of this strength.

The underlying truth of all the past and present agitation
concerning the purity of the milk supply and the artificial feeding
of infants is that both have been sadly neglected for many years,
with the pitiful result of a vast amount of suffering and many
useless deaths of children from one to five years of age, especially
during the hot summer months, when it is so difficult not only to
secure but also to protect the milk upon which these little ones
depend. Comparatively few people stop to consider how quickly
dangerous changes take place in this important article of food
and how readily it becomes contaminated by absorption of various
volatile substances. This is particularly true of those who have
the immediate charge of milk. It is appalling to any one under-
standing the subject and its bearings to see the carelessness that
is frequently displayed by the milkmen, maids, and nurses, all of
whom play so important a part in infant dietetics. Is it any
wonder that philanthropists, scientists, and physicians have com-
bined in solicitous effort to wake up mothers to the crying need
for a pure supply of milk and for its proper administration to
save helpless and suffering infants ? The subject is of infinite
importance, and should be kept constantly to the front. The
truths concerning it should be iterated and reiterated until satis-
factory evidence has been given that persistence in a cause like
this has been of some avail in changing existing conditions that
are a reproach to our peoi)le and a menace to our health as a nation.

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY.

By GEORGE ILES.

PROF. EDWARD B. POULTON, of Oxford, in closing liis
course of lectures at Columbia College, last February, de-
scribed the cordial reception extended liim on bis arrival in New
York. Taking a stroll through Central Park, he had walked but
a few paces when a gray squirrel ran from a tree to his feet in the
friendliest way possible. " The perfect trustfulness of the little
creature," said Prof. Poulton, " told me at once the most impor-
tant fact of its life — that here in the midst of a teeming popula-
tion it was certain of kind treatment. I inferred that a commu-
nity kind to animals must be interested in them, must be fond of
studying them in the very best place, their field of life." Nor
was the naturalist disappointed ; he found his New York audiences
enthusiastic, and his lecture room, crowded to the door, contained
less than half those who sought admission. Just as his observa-
tion of the .squirrel in the act of soliciting luncheon told him
what could never be disclosed in an inspection of the rodent, how-
ever skillfully stuffed in a museum or dissected in a laboratory,
so, as the readers of his Colors of Animals well know. Prof.
Poulton has discovered much of profound interest in natural his-
tory by keeping to the unfenced field so fruitfully scanned by the
eye of Charles Darwin. Somewhat as in the case of his great
master, his work owes its reward and derives its charm from its
inclusive breadth of outlook. Specimens of hornet clear-wing
moths might be collected for years, dissected under the micro-
scope with the utmost care, and classified with the nicest pre-
cision, without casting a single ray of light on the prime ques-
tions, What forces have molded the form and habits of this
insect, and why are its hues and markings as we find them ? Let
the moth, however, be observed in its field of life, and the agen-
cies which have made it what it is come clearly into view. Among
the insects which share its woods and meadows will be noticed a
wasp ; while this wasp neither preys upon the moth nor in any
perceptible degree competes with it, the two insects sustain to
each other a most vital relation. In its sting the wasp has so
formidable and thoroughly advertised a weapon that by closely
resembling the wasp the moth, though stingless, is able to live on
its neighbor's reputation and escape attack from the birds and
insects which otherwise would prey upon it. And so far is the
mimicry carried that when the moth is caught in the hand it
curves its body with an attitude so wasplike as seriously to strain
the nerves of its captor. How came about so elaborate a piece of
masquerade ? At first, the explanation is, there was a faint gen-

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY. ^97

eral resemblance between the moth and the wasp ; any moth in
which that resemblance was in any degree unusually marked had
therein an advantage, and tended to be in some measure left alone
by its enemies ; in thus escaping it could transmit its peculiari-
ties of form and hue to its progeny, and so on, until in the rapid
succession of insect generations, amid the equally rapid destruc-
tion of comparatively unprotected moths, the present striking
similarity was at last attained. The study of mimicry of this
type has from an unexpected quarter afforded singular confirma-
tion of the theory of natural selection ; in many cases the evidence
of transformation within comparatively recent time is distinct —
in the bee hawk moth, for example, the wings as they emerge
from the chrysalis are thinly clothed with scales of ancestral
derivation which are shaken off in the insect's first flight, with
the result that the bumblebee is the better and more gainfully
resembled.

As in the study of insects, so in that of plants — observation in
the field at every stage of growth and development is needful to
supplement the disclosures of the microscope and the dissecting
needle. Many species, of which the milkweed blossom may stand
as a type, are absolutely dependent on insects for their fertiliza-
tion. How, therefore, can they be fully known in the laboratory
and the herbarium ? There is no more remarkable adaj)tation in
Nature than that by which an orchid and the insect which con-
tinues its race conform to the outlines of each other. And hun-
dreds of flowers less consi3icuous than this orchid present per-
fumes, colors, and mechanism for attracting, seizing, and even
imprisoning their insect visitors, which might well be the work
of deliberate contrivance instead of inevitable selection from vary-
ing scents, hues, and forms of those which prove slightly more
serviceable than others. That clover, peas, and other legumes re-
ceive their nitrogen from the air has long been suspected by agri-
cultural chemists. The details of the process disclose one of the
most curious interdependencies in the realm of Nature. Prof.
Hellriegel has discovered nodules on the rootlets of the plants,
tenanted by parasitic bacteria, which, while consuming a little of
the substance of the plant, j)ay a handsome rent in the compounds
of nitrogen which they build out of the air and pass to the fibers
that harbor them. These microscopic purveyors, when bred and
sown of set purpose, yield vastly increased crops of clover, alfalfa,
peas, cow peas, beans, and lupine. Of this abundant testimony
was presented at the Columbian Exhibition in the display of the
Experiment Stations in the Agricultural Building.

Here, indeed, we come to the distinctive standpoint whence
knowledge sweeps its new horizons : its outlook upon Nature as a
whole, as a system intelligible only in the mutual interaction of

VOL. SLV. — 39

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its every part, however diverse and remote. It is a drama, not a
tableau, which the observer to-day sees spread before him ; in that
drama every actor has been molded by the part it has had to play
to maintain itself upon the stage; every rival, every parasite,
every stress of climate with all its influence on food and frame
has left its impress ; and the ever-threatened doom for irrespon-
siveness has been the extinction pronounced upon countless forms
once masters of the earth. No hue of feather or scale, no barb or
horn, no curve of beak or note of song but has served a purj^ose
in the plot or advanced the action in some life story of conflict.
When Darwin was confronted in plant or beast by an organ which
puzzled him, he was wont to ask, What use can this have had ?
And rarely was the question asked in vain. In the lunar or
weekly recurrent periods of many animal functions there ap-
peared to him a lingering registry of primordial birthplaces ;
ancestral inhabitants of seashores washed by tides being, in
alternate submergence and exposure, profoundly affected in frame
and habit.

What is true of the drama of organic life is equally true of the
theater in which that drama is enacted. The more thorough its
exploration by the geologist, the more extended in time the range
of his admissible computations, the more convincing proof does
he gather that our planet has become what it is in obedience to
forces such as make the world at sunset a little different from the
earth that faced the dawn. The hills once called eternal he knows
to be anything but changeless, for their very prominence has
made them special targets for the fury of tempests, the dividing
axe of frost. At the bidding of impulses as irresistible, impulses
hidden in the planet's core, a mountain is lifted in a valley's place,
and the threatened denudation of a continent by the work of rain
and river is silently compensated. And as Prof. Sterry Hunt was
accustomed to point out, in the very constitution of the rocks
before they bloomed with life, there was jjrefigured the struggle
soon to be illustrated in plant and fish and insect. Amid the
wealth of mineral compounds brought to birth only the stablest
could survive the ceaseless stress of impinging forces. And these
forces as they swept the lifeless globe — how decisive their after
influence on herb, and beast, and man ! Here, lifting the back-
bone of a continent, which all the storms of ages should leave a
backbone still ; there, in mid-ocean bidding an island rise from a
volcano's heart ; or decreeing a Sahara, or an Australian desert
even more forbidding, where only cactus of the hardiest should
ever fringe its dust-blown confines. In all this ever-shifting scene
of action were laid the foundations of future barrenness of crag
or fertility of plain, of that rich variety of earth sculpture in prom-
ontory and coast line which has meant so much to humankind.

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY. 499

In the history of the earth the chapter which precedes that
written by the geologist is recited by the astronomer, whose key-
note also is dynamic. The bulk, inclination, speed, and composi-
tion of the earth were all predetermined in the constitution, mass,
and motion of the nebula which flung it forth. Dr. Huggins, his
spectroscope before him, tells us that were the earth to resume a
glowing heat it would yield much the same spectrum as the sun.
Clearly, then, the scope of life on land and sea, the architecture of
the forest, the ocean and the plain, with all their throbbing life,
are what they are because the atoms which built them were pres-
ent, and in such and such proportions, in the birth-cloud. If a
blossom has tints of incomparable beauty, they are conferred by
diverse elements thence derived, whose kin aflame in an orb, a
celestial diameter away, send forth the beam needful to reveal
that beauty. Were the sun less rich in variety of fuel than it is,
the world, despite its own diversity of element, would be vastly
less a feast for the eye than that which daily we enjoy.

As in the realm of organic life the modern inter]3retation is no
longer static, so also in the sphere of Nature inorganic : it may be
that all the thrust, recoil, and interaction in the life of plant and
animal lay dormant in the simpler enginery of the atoms and
molecules which build their frames and supply their food. It was
one of the shrewd guesses of Sir Isaac Newton that the diamond
is a combustible body ; he did not suspect it to be one with coal in
substance, but he observed it to be highly refrangible, as many
combustible bodies are. His conjecture shows him to have taken
the first step toward the view of modern physicists and chemists —
namely, that properties, the modes of behavior of matter, are not
passive qualities, but are due to very real activities ; that what a
substance is depends upon how in its ultimate parts it moves ; just
as organic structure can be deduced from living function because
regarded as the creation of function, or, as in more familiar cases,
the character of a die is inferred from its impress, and the con-
struction of a machine read in the work it executes. Clausius and
Maxwell, in a theory which marks an epoch, explained the elas-
ticity of gases as manifesting the ceaseless motion of their mole-
cules, declaring that an ounce of air within a fragile jar is able to
sustain the pressure of the atmosphere around it, because the air,
though only an ounce in weight, dashes against the containing
walls with an impact forcible enough to balance the external
pressure — proof whereof consists in measuring the velocity with
which the air rushes into a vacuum. Here the significant point
is that in leaving the realm of mass-mechanics, where the tax of
friction is ever present and inexorable, we enter a sphere where
motion of the swiftest can go on forever without paying friction
the smallest levy. The elasticity of metallic springs has been

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

similarly explained as kinetic. If we swiftly turn a gyroscopic
wheel we can only change its plane of rotation by expending force,
which force is repaid when the metal is allowed to resume its origi-
nal plane of motion. It is imagined that in like manner the par-
ticles in an elastic spring move swiftly in a definite plane ; if de-
flected from that plane they oppose resistance and stand ready to
do work in returning thereto. Of kindred to the kinetic theory of
elasticity is the modern explanation that heat consists in a dis-
tinct and ceaseless molecular motion, on which motion, indeed,
depend the dimensions of masses. Take a cube of lead or iron
from summer air into an ice-house and at once the proportions of
the mass begin to shrink. And the molecules themselves, whether
of lead, iron, or other element, are imagined by Helmholtz as vor-
texes born of the ether in which without resistance they forever
whirl. As observation proves in the case of a rapidly rotated
chain, substantial rigidity can be conferred by motion sufficiently
swift. Nor are molecules without something of individuality.
We are wont to think of masses of solid iron as precisely similar,
but experience proves that one bar or shaft of iron varies from
another by all that has differenced the past history of the two. A
careful workman uses his die of strongest steel for only a short
term of service, well assured that the metal, despite its seeming
wholeness, suft'ers serious internal shocks at every blow — shocks
which, were no caution exercised, would soon reveal themselves
in fracture and ruined work. In phenomena of this type, which
every day confront the electrician and the engineer as well as the
mechanic, there seems a prophecy of the sensibility and memory
which dawn with organic life.

In the broad field of wave energy the mechanical analogies
point to the sway of a single law of motion. If a pendulum is to
be maintained in its vibrations, it must receive impulses sympa-
thetically timed — impulses related to its own period of ^wing as
decided by its length. In like manner a piano string vibrates
responsively to the note which, when struck, it sends forth ; and
a gas, such as sodium, when comparatively cool, intercepts in the
spectroscopic field precisely those waves which a glowing body of
similar gas in the flame of sun or star has radiated. A pane of
glass which transmits only the red rays of sunlight, when molten
emits the rays complementary to red, and glows as greenish blue.
Uncolored glass, which transmits light perfectly, conducts heat
badly, because' the vibrations are unlike; for the same reason
conductors of electricity — the metals, for example — are opaque.
The late Dr. Hertz, in generating electric waves intermediate in
amplitude between those of sound and light, discovered that
opaqueness is a relative term — arm a wave with appropriate di-
mensions and it has a passport through any substance whatever ;

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY. 501

a stone wall or a wooden door becomes as permeable as plate
glass to sunshine. All this lias long been suspected by the phys-
icists Avho, among equally significant facts, have noticed that an
explosive is set off less by the violence of its detonator than by
the sympathy of rhythm between the two. Dr. Lothar Meyer, in
his Modern Theories of Chemistry, discusses the ingenious theo-
ries which on kinetic principles explain many of the chief quali-
ties of matter — color, refrangibility, volatility, fusibility, and
ability to yield heat in combustion. He regards this field as that
which bears most promise for the chemical investigator, and fol-
lows Berthollet in maintaining that chemistry is but a branch of
the larger science of mechanics. In corroboration of this view a
thousand facts might be cited — a typical piece of evidence is that
adduced by Mr. Witt, who finds that the stability of the azo-ben-
zene dyes turns upon the nicety with which their acid and basic
functions balance each other.

In leaving the field of molar for that of molecular mechanics,
it has been already noted that friction need no longer be reck-
oned with ; consequences equally important result from the fact
that now masses of extreme minuteness are in play. Sir William
Thomson (Nature, vol. i. p. 551) has estimated the diameter of
molecules as at most Teoirio otttf of an inch in diameter ; cubical
molecules of this size containable in a cubic inch of space would
have a total surface of one square mile and one seventh, which
implies that in molecular mechanics superficial forces must count
for vastly more than in molar mechanics. Another result follows
from molecular minuteness of dimensions — an enormously in-
creased capacity for motion. The smaller a wheel the more
swiftly can it be rotated without being parted by centrifugal
force, and therefore the more motion can it contain. With a
molecule probably, with an atom certainly, centrifugal force has
no separating power. How great the momentum of specific molec-
ular motions will appear in computing that duo to temperature,
in the case of a pound of unfrozen water at the zero of the centi-
grade scale. According to the determinations of Lord Rayleigh,
a pound of water, in falling through one degree of temperature,
liberates heat equal to that generated were the mass to fall from
a height of fourteen hundred and two feet to the surface of the
earth. Therefore, in first becoming ice, and then falling in tem-
perature through two hundred and seventy-three degrees, it parts
with an amount of energy equal to lifting the jjound of water
some fifty-seven and one third miles from the surface of the earth,
leaving out of view, for simplicity's sake, the diminution in the
attraction of the earth as the mass is lifted. Prof. Dewar, in his
recent remarkable experiments at a temperature of 200° below
zero, has found reason to believe that at absolute zero the electri-

5C2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cal resistance of metals would disappear ; cooled to the tempera-
ture of liquid oxygen, the red oxide of mercury becomes yellow,
and both sulphur and bichromate of potash turn white.

Surprising as are the figures which denote the molecular mo-
tion due to the temperature of water, more surprising still are the
computations which declare the chemical energy in the gases
which unite to form water. Measuring the heat liberated in their
union, it is found that the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen
possess as chemic motion energy equal to lifting the masses in-
volved some eleven hundred miles from the surface of the earth.
It is imagined that the molecular motions representing tempera-
ture, chemical affinity, electrification, or other energy, coexist
without confusion, just as air sustains, in perfect order, the super-
posed harmonies of an orchestra and chorus. The extremely
rapid motion of molecules, acting at their comparatively vast sur-
faces, must immensely exalt forces which, between masses, are
but feeble. A simple model may help to make this clear. Let
two cylindrical wheels, similar in all respects and covered with
rubber, be brought into contact on a floor — they will in a slight
degree adhere ; let the wheels be swiftly turned in a direction
toward each other, and they will press each other with consider-
able force — force proportionate to their speed, which force at
high speed will exalt their weak adhesion to somewhat of the in-
tensity of cohesion as manifested between molecules. The model
can illustrate something more : as a unit it does not change its
place, albeit that its halves are in rapid motion ; were its dimen-
sions too small for microscopic view, the motion of its parts would
be undetected, and, because the motions would balance each other,
a mass built up of such pairs of molecules would be in seeming
rest.

While the chemists are busy disentangling the orbits in which
swim the atoms and molecules of the laboratory, the physicists
are equally active in endeavoring to reduce to mechanics the
various phases of energ5^ Here the first and decisive step was
taken when the revelations of form and color to the eye were ex-
plained as borne by ethereal waves, which follow one another at
a rate so prodigious as to yield the impression of rest ; which ex-
planation, indeed, had long been suggested in the phenomena of
sound where air-waves are palpably concerned. The notable
points of agreement in both spheres of action are that a medium
can transfer motion as perfectly as if the two bodies connected by
it were in immediate contact ; moreover, that the efficiency of the
medium increases as its density diminishes ; and that the me-
dium itself exacts no toll whatever, relapsing when its work is
done into the seeming rest from which its task awakened it.
With apparatus acoustic in model, the late Dr. Hertz, of Bonn,

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY. 503

demonstrated that light and electricity differ from each other
only as short waves differ from long ones ; presumably the same
medium serving as the vehicle for both. His masterly experi-
ments thus disclosed another bridge between modes of motion
which less than a century ago were accounted distinct and un-
connected.

While the establishment of the truth of the conservation of
energy justly ranks among the grandest achievements of human
thought, that truth would be rounded into satisfying complete-
ness were it proved that energy in all its forms is motion and
nothing else. The obstacle here, is that gravity does not lend
itself to any kinetic theory thus far framed. And this notwith-
standing that atomic weight is the fundamental characteristic of
matter, so that, indeed, it conditions every property of a sub-
stance— proof of which arrived in the fulfillment of the predic-
tions of Mendelejeef, who, taking this theory as his finder-thought,
foretold that scandium, gallium, and germanium would be added
to the list of chemical elements, and would be found to possess
properties which he detailed. Gravity is marked oft' from other
phases of energy by two characteristics — if it be transmitted
through space as are other modes of motion, it either travels
instantaneously, or so fast as to elude the observation of astrono-
mers competent to detect its movement were it fifty million times
as swift as light. Quite as remarkable is the fact that a mass
may be heated, electrified, magnetized, or chemically transformed
without its weight being affected in the slightest degree. This in
striking contrast with the action of heat, which modifies the color,
chemical activity, conductivity, and other properties of a sub-
stance, and its volume as well. The only analogy which gravity
bears to other forms of energy is that which it sustains to elec-
tricity and magnetism, and were these forces attractive only, the
analogy would be a close one. But let us trace what analogy
there is and we may find it helpful. In the manufacture of a
common steel magnet the palpable motion of a dynamo disap-
pears to create its attraction; the imparted dynamo motion there-
fore is imagined as continuing in full actuality in the molecules
of the magnet. When an armature is brought within the mag-
net's field it is attracted — that is, it powerfully tends to move
toward the magnet ; until that impulse is satisfied a space divides
armature and magnet. All the analogies of light and electricity,
proved to be fundamentally one with magnetism, bid us believe
that between magnet and armature a medium is actively con-
cerned in bringing both masses together ; why may not a similar,
or that identical, medium be active in bringing from a tree an
apple to the earth ? What is needed here is investigation of how
the motion of a molecule in its own orbit, or on its axis, becomes

50+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a movement of translation. A wheel, if frictionless like a mole-
cule, could revolve on its bearings forever; if it were small
enough, its motion would forever escape observation. Were it
dropped from its bearings, through however short a distance, to a
horizontal plane, part of its energy would be at once expressed in
its advancing in a line long enough for detection. The question
behind attraction and repulsion is, How shall two distant bodies
move on their axes, or in their orbits, so as to act on a chain of
intervening bodies with the effect that the two shall approach or
recede from each other ? This problem does not seem to present
insuperable difficulty to the inventiveness which has built so
many models illustrating the architecture of the molecule, show-
ing how, in all probability, the links subsist between the atoms of
an alcohol or an ether.

One after another various forms of energy once called poten-
tial have been brought into line with energy actual, have been
reasonably explained as meaning nothing more or less than mo-
tion; is it not time that old conceptions of motion should be ex-
panded so as to include the phenomena of gravity as well as all
the others once deemed to consist in mere " advantage of posi-
tion " ? Gravity can be imagined as a special molecular motion
in its propagation either instantaneous or too swift for existing
means of measurement. This supposition may be an unwelcome
one, but what is the alternative ? AVhereas the physicist of to-day
holds that the chemical energy of such an element as carbon, the
elasticity of a coiled spring or of a confined body of gas, and the
quality we call temperature, all denote real activities, nevertheless?
the lifting of a weight, into which any of these activities can bo
readily transformed, is not represented by motion at all, but by
an ultimate and unnamed something else. Whether is it better
to cherish a conception in its inherited form or to try to broaden
it as the facts demand ? For the inclusion of gravity among the
phases of veritable motion there is cumulative suggestion. When
in every other phase of energy there is either detection of motion
in what seeems rest, or an assumption of motion the validity of
which is proved in the fulfillment of the predictions to which it
leads, the hint is clear. It is that gravity, too, will be demon-
strated as motion by future means of inquiry which may as far
transcend our present resources as these surpass the methods of
the men of science who, not so very long ago, could bring forward
reasons for believing phlogiston to be a substance and electricity
to be a fluid.

The advance of knowledge thus far has been a process of iden-
tification. Heat, chemical affinity, electricity, magnetism, and all
the other forms of palpable energy are now held to differ from
one another only as do the circles, spirals, and straight lines de-

NATURE AS DRAMA AND ENGINERY.

505

scribed by the wheels and levers of the machine shop. In an ever-
extending curve the physicist has arranged a continuous series of
real activities, a wide diversity of energies once deemed " poten-
tial/' static, at perfect rest. Is it reasonable to maintain that this
curve of his, almost a full circle, does not form part of a real cir-
cle, that the small arc which yawns where gravity can fit with
the completing effect of a keystone, represents a discontinuity in
the nature of things ? Preferable, because more probable, is the
idea that the scope of kinetic explanation is universal, that the
whole scheme of physical Nature represents in its every part and
function an enginery upon whose ceaseless action hinges the
drama, ever more involved, of plant and animal and human life.

To men who knew only what had befallen themselves and
their dwelling place during a few generations, it was but natural
to repeat : " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ;
and that which is done, is that which shall be done ; and there
is no new thing under the sun." * But we of to-day are in dif-
ferent case. The astronomer, joining camera to telescope, ex-
pands the sphere of the known universe a million fold ; he dis-
covers system after system in stages of life such as our sun and
its attendant orbs have passed through in ages so distant as to
refuse conception. The geologist, deciphering the birth register
of our planet's oldest rocks, gives them a lifetime scarcely to be
distinguished from eternity. The range of time, thus broadened,
permits to the smallest arc of change a sweep wherein it becomes
a circle of profoundest transformation. The naturalist, his tasks
of mere description almost at an end, finds their chief value to lie
in their furnishing data for the new question. How did all this
diversity of life become what it is ? Ever the keynote of reply
is action and reaction, unending stimulus and response. Per-
manence is only a seeming, the truth behind it is universal plas-
ticity and change. In the organic world this passing from ap-
pearance to cause has restored soul to body, and made intelligible
for the first time both form and substance, by referring them to
the forces which mold and inform every material frame of life.
In the inorganic world it will be the same ; the force which binds
sun to planet, pebble to seashore, will yet be understood as part
of the unbroken round of all-comprehending motion.

TnE pterodactyls, it appears, are not yet all dead. Mr. E. M. Magrath says,
in the London Spectator, that a small flying lizard is still to be found on the
southwestern coast of India, of which he had some stuffed specimens — given
away, however, years ago, to a distinguished naturalist.

* Ecclesiastes, i, 0.

5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

THE NOCTURNAL MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

Br FEANK M. CHAPMAN.

"'VTO braucli of ornithology offers more attractions to tlie stu-
-L> dent of birds than the fascinating subject of migration.
Birds come and go; absent to-day, to-morrow tliey -greet us from
every tree and hedgerow. Their departure and arrival are gov-
erned by as yet unknown laws; their journeys through the path-
less sky are directed by an instinct or reason which enables them
to travel thousands of miles to a winter home, and in the spring
to return to the nest of the preceding year.

Volumes have been written to explain their mysterious appear-
ances and disappearances.

Theories almost as numerous as the essays themselves have
been advanced to account for the phenomena of migration.
From the time of Jeremiah (viii, 7) to the present day we might
cite a host of authors who have contributed to the literature of
the subject. It is not our intention, however, to review the
whole question of migration. The combined researches of orni-
thologists have placed it among the sciences, and its more promi-
nent facts are common knowledge. We desire here to call atten-
tion to but one phase of the study, and more especially to outline
some recent investigations in connection with the nocturnal mi-
grations of birds. »

From the nature of the case, our data concerning these night
flights have long been meager and unsatisfactory. Even now
our information has but reached a stage which permits us to in-
telligently direct further effort.

We know that the land birds which migrate by night include
species of more or less retiring disposition, whose comparatively
limited powers of flight would render them easy victims for birds
of prey if they ventured far from the protection of their natural
haunts during the day. Thus we find that the bush- or tree-lov-
ing thrushes, wrens, warblers, and vireos all choose the night as
the most advantageous time in which to make their long semi-
annual pilgrimage, while such bold rovers as swallows, swifts,
and hawks migrate exclusively by day.

The information we possess concerning the manner in which
the first-mentioned class of birds accomplish a journey which
leads them from boreal regions to the tropics, has been derived
from three sources : First, through the birds which are killed by
striking lighthouses or electric-light towers ; second, through
observations made at night from similar structures; and, third,
through the use of the telescope.

It has long been known that lighthouses are most destructive

THE NOCTURNAL MIGRATION OF BIRDS. s°7

to niglit-migrating birds. Probably no one artificial cause pro-
duces more disastrous results than these beacons which guide the
mariner in safety, but prove fatal obstacles in the path of aerial
voyagers.

The number of birds killed by striking lighthouses is incalcu-
lable. Over fifteen hundred have been found dead at the foot of
the Bartholdi Statue in a single morning ; while from Fire Island
(LoDg Island) light we have a record of two hundred and thirty
birds of one species — black-poll warblers — which met their fate
on the night of September 30, 1883.

Reports from numerous lighthouses show (1) a great variation
in avian mortality at different localities ; (3) that as a rule no
birds are killed during clear nights ; and (3) that comparatively
few birds strike the lights during the vernal migration. The
fact that birds follow certain routes or highways of migration in
their journeys to and from the South doubtless exjDlains their
absence or presence at a given locality ; indeed, it has been defi-
nitely ascertained that lights which are situated in known lines
of migration — as, for example, the Bartholdi Statue at the mouth
of the Hudson River Valley — prove far more destructive than
those which are placed far from the regular routes of migrating
birds.

Through- telescopic observations, to be mentioned later, we
have learned that when en route birds travel at an altitude of
from one to three miles above the earth. It is obvious, then, that
when their way is not obscured by low-hanging clouds they pass
too far above us to be attracted by terrestrial objects. It has been
noted that cloudy and especially rainy nights are most disastrous
to migrants, evidently because the formation of moisture at the
elevation at which they are flying must not only interfere with
their progress, but in veiling the earth below robs them of their
landmarks, while the condensation of this moisture into rain pre-
sents an effectual check to flight. The birds then descend to a
lower altitude, and, should the storm be very severe, they are
obliged to seek the nearest shelter, and even may be driven to
earth wet, helpless, and dying.

The influence thus shown to be exerted by meteorological con-
ditions is the best explanation of the comparatively small number
of birds killed during the spring migration, when the inf requency
of violent storms enables them to perform their journey with less
danger from exposure to the elements.

The observations of Mr. William Brewster on the migration of
birds at the Point Lepreaux (Bay of Fundy) lighthouse have
never been exceeded in interest or value by the recorded expe-
riences of any other observer of similar phenomena. Still, even
his graphic account fails to produce the sensations which possess

5o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

one when for tlie first time tlie air at niglit is actually seen to
be filled with the tiny songsters which before were known only as
timid haunters of woods and thickets.

On SejDtember 2G, 1891, it was the writer's good fortune to pass
the night with several ornithologists at the Bartholdi Statue in
observing the nocturnal flight of birds. The weather was most
favorable for our purpose. From the balcony at the base of the
statue we saw the first bird enter the rays of light thrown out by
the torch one hundred and fifty feet above us at eight o'clock.
During the two succeeding hours birds were constantly heard
and many were seen. At ten o'clock a light rain began to fall
and for three hours it rained intermittently. Almost simulta-
neously there occurred a marked increase in the number of birds
seen about the light, and within a few minutes there were hun-
dreds where before there was one, while the air was filled with
the calls and chirps of the passing host.

The birds presented a singular appearance. As they entered
the limits of the divergent rays of light they became slightly
luminous, but as their rapid wing-beats brought them into the
glare of the torch they reflected the full splendor of the light, and
resembled enormous fireflies or swarms of huge golden bees.

At eleven o'clock we climbed to the torch and continued our
observations from the balcony by which it is encircled. The
scene was impressive beyond description ; we seemed to have torn
aside the veil which shrouds the mysteries of the night, and in
the searching light reposed the secrets of Nature. As the tiny
feathered wanderers emerged from the surrounding blackness,
appeared for a moment in the brilliant halo about us, and continu-
ing their journey were swallowed up in the gloom beyond, one
marveled at the power which guided them thousands of miles
through the trackless heavens. While by far the larger number
hurried onward without pausing to inspect this strange appari-
tion, others hovered before us like humming birds before a flower,
then wheeling retreated for a short distance and returned to repeat
the performance or pass us as did the first class mentioned, while
others still, and the number was comparatively insignificant,
struck some part of the torch either slightly or with sufiicient
force to cause them to fall stunned or dying. It was evidently by
the merest accident that they struck at all ; and so far as we could
judge they were either dazzled by the rays of the light and thus
unwittingly flew directly at the glass which protects it, or came
in contact with some unilluminated part of the statue. During
the two hours we were in the torch thousands of birds passed
within sight, but less than twenty were killed.

This fact, in connection with the comparative or entire absence
of birds on clear nights, very plainly shows that conclusions based

THE NOCTURNAL MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 509

solely on these casualties may be not only misleading but erro-
neous. In otlier words, the number of birds which strike a light
is a poor index to the number which have flown by or above it in
safety.

Throughout the evening there was a more or less regular fluc-
tuation in the number of birds present; periods of abundance
were followed by periods of scarcity, and the birds passed in well-
defined flights, or loose companies, probably composed in the main
of individuals which had started together.

The birds chirped and called incessantly. • Frequently, when
few could be seen, hundreds were heard passing in the darkness ;
the air was filled with the lisping notes of warblers and the mellow
whistle of thrushes, and at no time during the night was there
perfect silence. At daybreak a few stragglers were still winging
their way southward, but before the sun rose the flights had
ceased. The only birds identified were several species of warblers
and thrushes, one red-eyed vireo, two golden-winged woodpeckers,
one catbird, one whip-poor-will, and one bobolink. The most
interesting and important results of the night's observations were,
the immediate efi^ect of rainfall in forcing birds to migrate at a
lower level, the infrequency with which they struck the torch, the
immense number which passed beyond its rays, and the constancy
with which they called and chirped as they flew.

An almost virgin field awaits the investigator who will system-
atically observe night-migrating birds with the aid of a tele-
scope. Messrs. Allen and Scott, at Princeton, and the writer,
assisted by Mr. John Tatlock, Jr., at Tenafly, New Jersey, and at
the Columbia College Observatory, have alone recorded the results
of observations of this nature. Their labors, however, were
too brief to more than show the possibilities which await more
extended effort.

A comparatively low-power glass is focused upon the moon,
the birds appearing silhouheted upon its glowing surface as they
cross the line of vision. Some idea of the multitude of feathered
forms which people the upper regions of the air at night may be
formed when it is stated that during three hours' observation at
Tenafly no less than two hundred and sixty-four birds were seen
crossing the restricted field included in the angle subtended by
the full moon. Under proper focal conditions, birds were so
plainly visible that in many instances marked character of flight
or form rendered it possible to recognize the species. Thus
ducks, snipe, and sora rail were distinguished with certainty.

The effect on the observer of this seeing of things unseen is
not a little curious, and maybe likened to the startling disclosures
which a high-power microscope presents in a drop of water.

From calculations based on an assumption that birds were not

510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

visible beyond a distance of five miles, we determined the greatest
altitude at whicli birds migrate to be three miles above the earth's
surface. Many, however, fly at a lower level ; indeed, it is not im-
probable that certain species may, with more or less regularity,
travel at a given altitude, and that this altitude may vary among
birds of different families. With little doubt thrushes and war-
blers travel at a much lower level than do ducks and geese, a cir-
cumstance which may account for the great abundance of the
first two named and the comparative absence of the last in the
vicinity of lighthoaises.

Such, in brief, are the sources and methods to which Ave owe
our knowledge of the nocturnal flight of birds. It will be evi-
dent to the most casual reader how incomplete are our data. The
time is still far distant when we can hope to conclusively account
for the many perplexing phenomena of migration, but we may be
pardoned if, in conclusion, we briefly review the bearing of our
present information.

We need not discuss here the origin of migration or the causes
which now induce birds to undertake a long and perilous journey
twice each year. Bat the power and influences which guide a bird,
in the darkness of the night, through space, and render a definite
migration possible, are subjects kindred to our inquiry and worthy
our attention.

Until we possess some exact knowledge of the distance to which
birds can see we can not estimate the aid their vision is to them
while migrating. We know, however, that the avian eye is far
more powerful than ours, and it is fair to assume that to some ex-
tent their journeys are directed by a sight which enables them to
follow mountain chains, river valleys, and coast lines, and to dis-
tinguish distant headlands or islands. At an altitude of two
miles an object would be visible ninety miles and the horizon be
separated by twice this distance. At no time, therefore, in their
journey from ISTorth to South America are birds necessarily out
of sight of land. But that they do venture beyond a jjoint where
land is visible is shown by the regular appearance of migrants
in the Bermudas, six hundred miles from our coast, while Ja-
maica, four hundred miles north of the nearest point of South
America, is a point of departure for many south-bound migrants.
Here, with neither islet, shoal, nor reef to mark the way, it is evi-
dent that sight alone would prove an insufficient guide, and they
must rely on some other sense. Primarily, this is the inherited
habit which prompts birds to fly southward in the fall and to re-
turn in the spring. But, given the impulse of direction, there is
little doubt that one of the best guides to night-flying birds is the
sense of hearing. Birds' ears are exceedingly acute. They readi-
ly detect sounds which to us are inaudible. Almost invariably

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS. 511

tliey will respond to an imitation of tlieir notes. We have seen
that when under way they constantly chirp and call, and when
we take into consideration their anral power and their abundance
in highways of migration, it is probable that at no time during
the night is a bird out of hearing of its fellow-travelers. The
line of flight once established, therefore, presumably by the older
and more experienced birds, it becomes a comparatively easy mat-
ter for the novice to join the throng.

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS.

Bv DANIEL W. HEEING, C. E.,

PEOFESSOE OF PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

A GOOD idea of the generally accepted views upon a science
in all its branches maj^ be obtained by inspecting standard
text-books on the subject, for such works are not likely to meet
with the approval of scholars, and especially of professors, if they
present views that are antiquated in form or palpably erroneous
in statement.

In thus approaching a modern text-book of physics, to a be-
ginner, or one with no i^reconceived ideas on the subject, there
would perhaps appear nothing surprising, but to an older stu-
dent, say the college alumnus of fifteen years' standing who has
not kept abreast of the science, the change would be striking.
He would probably be impressed as much by the absence of
things he had thought inseparable from the subject as by the
presence of things of which he heard little or nothing in his col-
lege course. An illustration of this may be seen in a very recent
book of the kind named.* In its general tone it is similar to that
adopted about ten years earlier in the masterly presentation of
the Principles of Physics, by Prof. Daniell, but it is less conserva-
tive than that work. A glance at the headings gives the keynote
of the whole treatment. After a brief discussion of kinematics
and dynamics, m.ass physics is further divided into work and
energy, attraction and potential, properties of matter, energy of
mass vibration, sound. Then physics of the ether has energy of
ether vibration, radiant energy, energy of ether stress, electro-
statics, energy of ether vortices, magnetism, energy of ether
flow, electro-kinetics, electro-magnetic character of radiation.

There is not an allusion to the old familiar " simple mechanical
powers " ; there is no mention of light or optics as a branch of
physics ; sound, heat, electricit}^, and magnetism are only ap-

* Barker's Advanced Physics.

512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pended as subtitles to more general terms expressing forms of
energy, and appended in a "way that would j)ermit them to be
dropped altogether without detriment to the treatment of their
phenomena. Not that the phenomena are different from what
they were in former times, but they have become much more
effectually correlated in a general scheme of energy. Such a
mode of presenting the subject might be ascribed to a mere de-
sire to break away from conventional lines, but it is in strict ac-
cord with the work and conclusions of physicists generally in the
last quarter of a century and especially within the last decade.
Physicists accept fully the mechanical theory of heat. They re-
gard the heat of a body as the aggregate kinetic energy of the mole-
cules. They accept in general the kinetic theory of gases, but are
not uniform in their views as to the extension of this theory to
lic[uids and solids. In the mechanical theory of heat, however,
the idea that all the molecules of all bodies are in motion is
fundamental. Nowadays, instead of ascribing phenomena to the
action of mysterious "forces," with j)erha.ps a force of one kind
for gravity, of another kind for thermal or electric or magnetic
effects, and treating force as a real agent bringing about changes,
it is the custom to recognize in any body or system of bodies a
certain quantum of energy of which the form or distribution is
altered by a change in the form or configuration of the body or
system of bodies. Energy is the thing studied and force is merely
the rate at which the energy of a body is altered in comparison
with the change in the position or shape of the body. The term
force is still in use for convenience and brevity, but the objectiv-
ity of force has disappeared. Force is not a real thing at all, but
energy, like matter, has an objective existence. Also, when force
was regarded as an agent, it was discussed as acting at a distance
without regard to a medium for transmitting action from one
body to another, or, as we now say, for conveying energy. But if
bodies possess and exchange energy, and energy is only perceived
by us in connection with matter, we find it proper not only to
recognize a medium throughout space, but to discuss the forms in
which energy exists in that medium, which is spoken of as ether.
The idea of such a medium is not modern. After pointing out
that the hypothesis of an ether was a device often resorted to for
the purpose of mystification as much as explanation. Maxwell
says : " Ethers were invented for the planets to swim in, to con-
stitute electric atmospheres and magnetic effluvia, to convey sen-
sations from one jiart of our bodies to another, and so on, until all
space had been filled three or four times over with ethers. It is
only when we remember the extensive and mischievous influence
on science which hypotheses about ethers used formerly to exer-
cise that we can appreciate the horror of ethers which sober-

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS. 513

minded men had during the eighteenth century. . . . The only-
ether which has survived is that which was invented by Huygens
to explain the propagation of light." *

Those ethers were working hypotheses which might be ex-
pected to give way wholly or in part to better ones constructed
for working purposes under fuller knowledge. So, too, at first,
was the luminiferous ether, which, as a hypothesis, had to be en-
dowed arbitrarily with properties suited to the phenomena it was
to account for, but the ether of modern science is accepted as
beyond question. For example, Lord Kelvin says: "... This
thing we call the luminiferous ether. That is the only substance
we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of, and
that is the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether." f
It is not necessary here to go into the evidences of its reality, but
our belief in it rests upon exactly the same kind of evidence and
just as strong evidence as does our belief in the existence of any
kind of matter. For we only infer the existence of any form of
matter from its phenomena, and the phenomena of light, heat,
magnetism, and electricity to the extent of a very large group are
not only explainable but are best explainable by the assumption
of the ether. The defect as yet in such an assumption lies in the
fact that the ether is a substance of an unfamiliar kind. It is this
want of familiarity that physicists to-day are doing their utmost
to overcome, and the more it is examined the more are they im-
pressed by the multiplicity of purposes which this one medium is
competent to serve and which it seems to be serving. The time
for doubting its existence is past — it is now only a question as to
its nature and properties ; and it is accepted as a fact, not merely
a hypothesis, that the same medium is concerned, if not a princi-
pal factor, in the phenomena of light, heat, magnetism, electricity,
and gravitation. Radiant heat and light are wave motion in
the ether, and are similar forms of energy, the only difference
being in the period of vibration. Their manifestation as energy
only occurs when the vibrations affect matter, and this, the most
difficult part of the subject, involves the relation between ether
and ordinary forms of matter. We say " ordinary forms " of
matter, because ether may or may not be considered a form of
matter.

One of the great, the primary questions of science is. What is
ether ? The question. What is light ? has found its answer, so too
has the query as to heat and as to sound ; as to electricity, not so
assuredly or so definitely, but both it and magnetism are to find
their explanation through this same medium in some way or

* Article on Ether in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

f Popular Lectures and Addresses, by Sir William Thomson, vol. i, p. 317.
VOL. XXV. — 40

514 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other. There is no longer any doubt about that, and Maxwell's
theory, which rests upon this idea fundamentally, has a strong
hold upon modern science and a hold that is growing stronger as
research advances.

We know the ether as a vehicle of energy in several forms,
and when various agencies are collected into a group of forms of
energy there is still the question, " What is energy ? " These
general problems now engaging the attention of the physicist —
viz., the ultimate nature of matter, by which the properties of
matter may be accounted for ; the nature of the ether and its
properties ; the mutual relations subsisting between matter and
ether, if they are different things ; the nature of energy, and
whence it arises, and whether it is primarily potential or kinetic —
these, in part at least, are not new problems, but they are now
approached from new directions, along new ways, and by the aid
of new light. Under each of these heads appear numerous spe-
cial questions, and along all these lines investigators are working
earnestly.

The attempt to explain the nature of ether or of matter at
once raises the question whether ether is matter. Now, of course,
a great deal depends upon the definition of terms, and it is per-
haps best to confine our attention at first to the structure of mat-
ter rather than its nature. The properties and behavior of mat-
ter as it is ordkiarily recognized are largely known, the actions
and functions of the ether are largely known, and it is only a
question of the propriety or possibility of including both in one
general view. Clerk Maxwell * regards as a proper test of a ma-
terial substance its ability to contain and transmit energy. He
then points out that energy can not exist except in connection
with matter ; that in the space between the sun and the earth, the
luminous and thermal radiations which have left the sun and
which have not reached the earth possess energy in definitely
measurable amount, and therefore this energy must belong to
matter in the interplanetary spaces. On the other hand. Prof.
Dolbear stands as an exponent of the views of others who decline
so to class the ether when he says : " If, then, the ether fills all
space, is not atomic in structure, presents no friction to bodies
moving through it, and is not subject to the law of gravitation,
it does not seem proper to call it matter." f But Prof. Dolbear
has previously announced as his criterion of matter, the posses-
sion of the property of gravitative attraction. On such grounds
we may concede each view to be correct, but we are brought at
once to the old question, " What is matter ? " It is the view of
some that, with the present limitations of intellect, it is beyond

* Matter and Motion. f Matter, Ether, and Motion.

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS. 515

our powers ever to conceive of the ultimate nature of matter. Of
the structure of matter this is not the case. Various hypotheses
have been offered regarding the structure of matter — all, save
one, have been charged with some fatal objection and have
broken down. This one, the suggestion of that powerful mind.
Lord Kelvin's, is known as the vortex-ring theory. We can not
give it here in any detail, but the gist of it is that the ether is
universal and for the most part formless, but that some parts are
differentiated from the remainder by being in motion in the shape
of vortex rings. These parts in such rotational motion are mat-
ter in the ordinary forms. A remarkable thing about it, and one
which exhibits the very spirit of modern physics, is that those
properties of ordinary matter which emphasize its stability of
form and position, especially inertia, elasticity, and rigidity, can
he a result of viotion. Yet Lord Kelvin has shown that with
ordinary matter a limp system of bodies could be made a rigid
system by merely putting them into gyroscopic rotation, and also
that elasticity itself might properly be regarded as a mode of mo-
tion. The vortex-ring theory is as yet only a speculation, but
when its adaptability to occult as well as to plainer properties of
matter are considered, we need not wonder that it has been
thought so beautiful that " it deserves to be true." At any rate
it stands in such an attitude toward modern views concerning the
structure of matter that "it is either that theory or nothing.
There is no other one that has any degree of probability at all "
(Dolbear). We can see how such a theory might reconcile con-
flicting views such as those above given concerning matter and
ether separately.

Without waiting for a decisive answer as to the nature of
ether or the structure of matter, attention is being concentrated
on the relations of one to the other, the extent to which and the
manner in which any change in either substance affects the
other ; and this examination may throw light upon the greater
question regarding the nature of the substances. Do material
bodies moving in the ether of space — for example, the earth and
its atmosphere — move through the ether, or carry with them the
ether that is distributed throughout the matter that is moving ?
Experiments of extraordinary precision by Prof. Michelson have
led him to conclude that most probably the earth carries with it
all the ether in its immediate neighborhood ; that certainly the
relative motion of the earth and the ether in it is exceedingly
small. If he can repeat his experiments and get a different re-
sult on the top of a mountain, that conclusion may be considered
established. Those conclusions were drawn from experiments in
which the earth's velocity in its orbit is involved. Prof. Lodge
has experimented for effects due to slower motion of bodies upon

5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the earth. He says : " I do not believe the ether moves. It does
not move at a five-hundredth part of the speed of the steel disks "
(used in the experiment). " I hope to go further, but my conclu-
sion so far is that such things as circular saws, fly wheels, railway
trains, and all ordinary masses of matter do not appreciably
carry the ether with them. Their motion does not seem to dis-
turb it in the least."

Among the more special questions undergoing investigation
at present by the application of physical principles is the deter-
mination of the relative motion of the heavenly bodies by spec-
troscopic methods. It is done by applying to light-waves what is
known in acoustics as Doppler's principle. The position of any
line of the spectrum depends upon the wave length, or, what
comes to the same thing in this case, the period of vibration for
the particular set of waves making the light at that line in the
spectrum. By increasing the number of waves per second that
fall upon the prism (or grating) of the spectrometer, the period is
correspondingly decreased, and conversely. Therefore, while the
rate of vibration remains constant, if the grating is moving to-
ward the source of vibration, the number of waves per second
falling upon the grating will be greater, and their period smaller,
than if the source and the grating are stationary relatively to
each other. If they are separating, the period of vibration is in-
creased. In the former case the line of the spectrum will be more
refracted, in the latter less refracted, than in a normal case.
When a spectrum line of any of the heavenly bodies has been
identified with that of any substance known to us, the spectrom-
eter gives the means of determining the motion of such heavenly
bodies as compared with the motion of the earth, by observing the
displacement of the spectrum line. That is, it is possible to de-
termine whether the earth is approaching the star or nebula or re-
ceding from it, and at what rate. This method was proposed and
attempts were made to apply it very early in the history of the
spectroscope, but the means of observation were not then suffi-
ciently fine, and only negative results were obtained. Within the
last few years, however. Prof. Huggins, Prof. Vogel, and others in
Europe have made many successful measurements of this charac-
ter, and Prof. Keeler, of the Alleghany Observatory, has greatly
extended them. These relative motions are usually reduced to
the sun, the results indicating the relative motion of the sun and
the heavenly body observed. As instances. Prof. Keeler finds
that the great nebula in Orion is receding from the sun at the
rate of eleven miles per second; and by observations between
April and August, 1890, the sun was at that time approaching the
bright star Arcturus at the rate of four miles and three tenths
per second. These serve as a fine illustration of modern methods

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS. 517

of research and the degree of precision attainable. The trust-
worthiness of the method is shown by the close agreement be-
tween its results when applied to the other planets, and the veloci-
ties computed from the known astronomical motions of the same
bodies.

It is usually thought necessary to caution students of elec-
tricity against regarding either of the hypotheses, known respect-
ively as the two-fluid and the one-fluid hypothesis, in the light of
an assured thing, and the lecturer commonly hastens to declare
that no one knows what electricity is. The declaration is as just
as the caution ; but it is not in human nature to allow such a
declaration long to stand unchallenged. The very fact that it is
possibly correct is a stimulus to investigation. Recent research
has not conclusively shown what electricity is, but it has consid-
erably shaken the foundations of the above assertion regarding it,
and some singular views have been developed that indicate light
ahead. We are learning that although the terms " electrification "
and " electric " may continue in service to express a condition of
matter or to characterize particular phenomena, yet the very name
" electricity " may probably become useless and vanish from the
vocabulary of physics, for the reason that, instead of electricity
being any object, it is probably only a mode in which the ether
makes itself manifest. One of the latest views, strongly advo-
cated, is that ether may be analyzed into two constituents, equal
and opposite, each endowed with inertia and each connected with
the other by elastic ties which are weakened or dissolved by the
presence of gross matter. The two constituents are called posi-
tive and negative electricity respectively, and of these two elec-
tricities the ether is comjDosed. Electric currents which are ob-
tained in such diversity and magnitude for commercial purposes
are in almost every case the result of electro-magnetic induction,
and are not due to the action of a battery. Yet there is no differ-
ence electrically between the currents obtained in the two ways.
Maxwell's theory, which treats electro-magnetic action as a varia-
tion of ether stress in the medium in which the conductor is situ-
ated, may be applied to the conductors of battery currents also, and
the medium surrounding the conductor in all cases is the home of
the energy transmitted (as we are in the habit of saying) along the
wire. But the energy is not transmitted by the wire ; on the con-
trary, the wire, in just so far as it is a good conductor, fails to
transmit the energy (the strain) which the action of the generator
has sent out into the surrounding medium, and which breaks
down or gives way in the conductor. " The energy of a dynamo
does not, therefore, travel to a distant motor through the wires,
but through the air. The energy of an Atlantic cable does not
travel through the wire strands, but through the insulating

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sheath. This is a singular and apparently paradoxical view, but
it is well founded " (Lodge). And even as to the power of a
wire to conduct whatever it does conduct, a special feature has
risen into considerable prominence. The most important prin-
ciple for many years in the study of electricity has been Ohm's
law, which states that the resistance of a conductor may be meas-
ured by the ratio of the electro-motive force to the current
strength. This law when first enunciated was scrutinized closely,
demurred against by some experimenters, and shown mathe-
matically to be impossible if carried to extreme applications ; it
was re-established and experimentally and mathematically proved
correct, chiefly by Kirchhoff's work ; and is now known to be in-
accurate as an expression of the effect transmitted (or resisted)
by a conductor under rapid alternations of current, so that to ex-
press the energy transmitted under such circumstances another
factor has to be taken into account besides what is usually re-
garded the resistance. This additional quality is called the im-
pedance, and the total resistance of a circuit carrying periodic
currents is made up of the ohmic resistance and the impedance.
The latter has no value when the current is steady, but has refer-
ence only to the time while the current is rising from zero to its
maximum strength. The principle of impedance was known a
good while ago, but it has only demanded the attention of elec-
tricians since the alternating currents have begun to be employed
on any considerable scale. Ohm's law is just as true as it ever
was, but the limitations of its applicability are now better recog-
nized than formerly.

A rapid succession of electric discharges sets up strains and
relaxations in a non-conducting medium, which result in the propa-
gation of waves of electro-magnetic induction through it. With
oscillations of great frequency, the waves become short enough to
be observed and measured readily, and the recent experiments of
Hertz show so many features of similarity in the laws and phe-
nomena of reflection, refraction, and speed of transmission of these
waves and of light as to sustain Maxwell's theory of the electro-
magnetic character of light.

Advances in science are often the outcome of efforts to apply
its principles in the arts. A great problem of physics which en-
gineers have to solve is to find economical means of utilizing the
energy that Nature is ready to furnish in place of the present waste-
ful ones. The inefficiency of the best steam engine is a standing
reproach to an inventive age. The reproach is to be removed not
by the improvement of the steam engine — for its limitations are
such that, in the nature of things, it can not be highly efficient —
but by the substitution of a better type of machine. Ether vibra-
tions bring us energy in the form of heat, light, or electricity, ac-

MODERN VIEWS AND PROBLEMS OF PHYSICS. 519

cording to tlieir periods and amplitudes ; but tliese, instead of being
available in any particular form, are always more or less complex.
If we could produce waves of just the rate and amplitude we de-
sire, without any others in combination, a great step would be
gained. Then we could produce light without wasting at the
same time a great amount of energy in producing heat which we
do not want. This is one of the subordinate problems awaiting
solution. If to the production of such waves as are wanted we
could add a means of recording and fixing them in their true rela-
tive proportion, we would have the solution of another great and
fascinating subordinate problem — the exact reproduction of natu-
ral scenes in color. A long step has been taken toward accom-
plishing the first of these achievements in the remarkable experi-
ments by Mr. Tesla with alternating electrical currents of high
frequency and high potential. Among the startling facts brought
out in these experiments is that although a current of electricity,
either direct or alternating, from ordinary dynamos under fifteen
hundred or two thousand volts electro-motive 'force will kill, yet
under alternations of a million to a million and a half per second
a voltage of fifty thousand produces no shock or injury. Electric
lamps light with but a single wire leading to them. Vacuum
tubes become luminous in a properly prepared room with no
wires, and it is not extravagant, in view of what has already ap-
peared, to predict a future when unlimited power will be avail-
able at every man's hand. That will be when, as Mr. Tesla says,
we are able to " hook our machinery to the machinery of Nature."
In the conclusion of his lecture before the Institution of Electrical
Engineers, London, after describing a plan by which he thinks it
would be practicable to telephone across the Atlantic, he adds :
" But such cables will not be constructed, for, ere long, intelli-
gence— transmitted without wires — will throb through the earth
like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with
the present state of knowledge and the experience gained, no at-
tempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic con-
dition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence." It
is probable that this wonder will give place to a still greater at no
distant period, by reason of successful attempts of just the kind
here mentioned. The problem is already in course of solution,
the distinguished electrician, Mr. Preece, having recently suc-
ceeded in sending telephonic messages over a circuit which was
wholly disconnected from that in which the generator was placed,
and at a distance of three miles from it.

Unquestionably one of the most powerful aids to investigation
of late has been photography. Both as a science and as an art it
has grown in precision, speed, and availability, until now it has
become a weapon of attack as well as a means of record. While

520 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

owing more itself to cliemistry than to physics, in the latter
especially has it been of assistance to the spectroscope, so that the
experimenter is not dependent upon the observations of the mo-
ment to make his comparisons. The most considerable work of
this kind has been done by Prof. Rowland within the last half-
dozen years, in making remarkably large and detailed j)hotographs
of the solar spectrum, the spectrum itself, in its perfection and
beauty, being due to the matchless gratings constructed under
Rowland's directions. Photography has proved to be an unas-
sailable recorder for all the natural sciences, and is likely to be-
come more and more firmly established as such. Disputes over
priority in discovery will become less frequent since investiga-
tions made in solitude will appeal to their photographic record as
a safe witness, impartial and indisputable.

Another subordinate problem is to determine the intensity
of sound in absolute measure. Acoustics has been studied with
reference to the energy involved less than other branches of phys-
ics, although we easily recognize some transformations of such
energy into mechanical in the phonograph and electrical in the
telephone. But most determinations of the intensity of sound
have been relative, by comparison of different sounds, or else the
same sound at different distances or in different media. They
have not been expressed in absolute units. Absolute values of
radiant energy, in the form of heat and light, have been deter-
mined, but the methods have not been sufficiently simplified to
make them readily applicable in experimenting. Temperatures
are still given in arbitrary degrees, and intensity of illumination
has no acceptable basis expressible in terms of the fundamental
quantities mass, time, and distance, although several methods
have been suggested in which the direct, subjective estimate of it
by the eye plays no part.

This brings us to a consideration of the great service rendered
to scientific investigation by an absolute system of units and
measurements. Such systems were instituted by Gauss and
Weber between the years 1834 and 1850, and their introduction
was especially fruitful in the study of electricity. The mechanic
was enabled by that means for the first time to compare the elec-
tric forces produced with the mechanical ones employed, and
gained thereby for the first time a just estimate of the former.
The adoption throughout the scientific world of the centimetre-
gramme-second absolute system for all branches of science is by
no means the least valuable outcome of the development which
electrical science has undergone since 1850, for in the possibility
of tracing back all natural phenomena to the three mechanical
units of space, mass, and time, science received new evidence for
the inherent unity and the mechanical character of all forces of

FORM AND LIFE.

521

Nature. Energy as considered in physics, apart from chemistrj^
has been classified in various forms, viz., energy of motion (trans-
lation or rotation), strain, vibration, beat, radiation, electrification,
electricity in motion, magnetization, and gravitative separation.
Those forms which are represented directly by bodies (whether
extended masses or molecules) in motion or deformation, and
which do not appeal to our special senses for recognition, consti-
tute mechanical energy. The first two named above are plainly
such, and all the others except the last have been shown to be
such indirectly ; it is generally believed that the last will be found
to be reducible to the same form, so that probably all are essen-
tially mechanical, and physicists are hoping to reduce them all to
the mechanical as the ultimate form of energy. The importance
to the physicist, therefore, of an acquaintance with the principles
of mechanics can not be overestimated : without such an acquaint-
ance his efforts to unravel the mysteries of physical science or to
gain possession of its secrets will be futile.

-♦♦♦-

FORM AND LIFE.

By M. GEOKGES POUCHET.

IN the first glance over Nature, everything living, every plant
or animal, and every part of what lives, seems to have a defi-
nite shape; and we are naturally led to regard form in organized
beings as an essential attribute of life. On the other hand, gases,
which spread out into infinity ; liquids, molding themselves on
the walls of the vessels that stop their flow ; rocks, cut into a
thousand shapes without ceasing to be the same rock — show us an
inorganic world almost wholly freed from the fatality of form.
Crystals, indeed, seem to form an excej)tion to this. They also
have limited shapes, with contours even much better defined than
those of life ; but when we bray them in a mortar, they are still
always the same body, and the same chemical species, even though
they are no longer crystals. A living being, sugar cane or beet
root, rasped or reduced to pulp, has no longer anything of itself.
It has ceased to be, and no power can, from the pulp, build the
organism back into its former shape. But we can reconstruct the
crystal, and draw it anew from its dust.

The living being, considered in itself, independently of the be-
ing from which it is derived and those which will be derived from
it, is, in its way, with some exceptions, a sort of atom, an indivisi-
ble whole. Hence that very just denomination of individual, to
designate the being endowed with life.

What we call species in speaking of plants and animals is

522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

really only the grouping made in our mind of all the living indi-
viduals exhibiting the same form, and which we believe to be all
united under a common parentage.

Yet form can not serve of itself to characterize life, for there
exist other bodies than crystals in the inorganic world which are
individuals. The planets and the rings of Saturn will at once
occur as examples. We might also range in the same category
comets and whirls of smoke, which are likewise individuals, and
cease to be by the mere fact of their division or dissociation.

Form is therefore not sufficient to characterize the living indi-
vidual. Let us see if the general features and external aspect of
organized beings will not offer us marks to distinguish them from
mineral bodies. The plane faces, the sharp edges, and the definite
angles of crystals, and the spherical contours of the heavenly
bodies, have been contrasted with the undulating surfaces, the
less geometrical and more softly defined profiles of plants and
animals. This trait is certainly not destitute of value, and the
untrained mind is rarely deceived by it. Sometimes the lapidary,
in cutting agate, uncovers delicate arborescent shapes in the trans-
parency of the gem. The illusion is vi^id, and one might fancy
he had a petrified moss under his eyes. A lens will assure him
that there is no vegetable fossil here, and will reveal an assem-
blage of crystalline needles that have nothing in common with
the delicate articulations and waving lines of a genuine moss.

Its particular stamp is so clearly impressed on each living be-
ing and on each of its parts, and it is so recognizable that it guides
the naturalist with certainty, even when he affirms, from the
smallest remnant or weakest impression, the existence on the sur-
face of the globe, in prodigiously distant times, of beings that
lived then, and with which he is unacquainted. Some of the or-
ganisms have left only traces, and he affirms that life passed there,
without knowing whether it was vegetable or animal.

The ancients, although they had not our experience in inter-
preting the true nature of fossils, never failed to recognize the
factory mark which Nature impresses on its works. Science then
gave no means of discerning in ammonites the shell of an animal
allied to the squids and cuttlefish ; but the finders had at least
the feeling that these things had lived, and, by analogy, thej'- saw
in them the bones of animals preserved in the earth.

Form is not an essential attribute of life. There exist living
beings destitute of living form, as there exist chemical substances
that do not crystallize. The microscope reveals in stagnant water
gelatinous masses that change their form and move incessantly.
"We see a part of the mass stretch out like a foot advancing. Then
the whole being seems to pass into this prolongation, which is
proportionately swelled out. Another expansion occurs at an-

FORM AND LIFE. ■ 523

other point, and the viscous drop, changing shape continually,
seems to flow along slowly. If it meets any vegetable matter, it
envelops it, and the stuff suffers a real digestion. The residue is
cast out, as it was absorbed, by any point of the surface. We
call these beings amo&bas. They are capable of multiplication
by division, and every part of them is susceptible of being indif-
ferently surface or inside, the drawing part or the part drawn,
mobile all at once. For the amoeba can choose its direction and
find more light or more darkness according to what we may call
its aspirations, since it acts, definitively, as a living being.

If we open a tan vat in the spring, we shall discover here and
there irregular golden-yellow filaments, soft and slimy. We ob-
serve them changing their place and flowing like the amoDbas.
They appear to be seeking one another in the mass of tan, for in
the summer, after a shower, they may be seen to join, then rise in
the shape of a kind of yellow cake, large and thick as the two
hands ; jbhe botanists call them rinjxomyceta, or the slimy fungus.
Detach a part of this mass, put it on a potsherd, and it will, like
the amoeba, extend branchy expansions, pass itself upon them,
stretch out and return upon itself in changing lumps, to be suc-
ceeded soon by new stretchings.

We see in these, beings without form, without organs, com-
posed solely of an opaque substance, and highly colored in the
myxomycetes, but transparent in the amoeba, a little denser than
water, with which it does not mix, a substance that moves and
feels — that is, that shares with us the higher attributes of life.
The discovery of the amoebas was at first merely a curiosity till
Dujardin and Hugo Mohl, almost at the same time, called atten-
tion to a substance entering into the composition of infusoria
and the cells of plants that had all the characteristics of the sub-
stance of the amoebas. Dujardin called it sarcode ; Hugo Mohl,
X)rotoplasma, and that name prevailed. The term, imposed as the
name of one of the constituent parts of the vegetable cell, has had
the singular fortune to become almost synonymous with matter
living or that has lived.

This amorphous substance is the basis of the organism. In
plants, it is what in some way builds up every cell, as the worm
and the mollusk produce the shell and the tube that protect them,
or as the caterpillar envelops itself with the cocoon which it draws
out from its glands. So the protoplasm molds around itself the
walls of the cell in which it is inclosed. But it is always the prime
living part, and when it disappears the cellular wall becomes only
an inert body. In animals, likewise, the Qgg, or at least its essen-
tial part, the vitellus, shows in its almost universal spherical form
the protoplasm shaped at first only by the laws of attraction and
resistance common to all "itiatter. But when the egg takes life, the

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

first signs it gives of its activity are movements comparable with
those of the amoeba. Thus, without effort, we find on different
sides life freed from form. We comprehend that it is not essen-
tially and fatally bound to form. A body may be living and still
have no definite figure. Here the problem is suggested, whether
a liquid, a bodily humor, can be living. Is the blood living, like
the substance of the nerves or the flesh of the muscles ? It is a
deep question and has not yet been answered. At any rate, science
has been led for a long time to look for the characteristic of life
somewhere else than in form.

The Aristotelians saw a movement in what we call life ; and
they gave that name to every change of state of natural bodies as
well as to their translation proper in space. Aristotle's treatise
on the Soul characterizes life by the three facts of its nourishing
itself, developing, and perishing. Growth and decline are changes,
and consequently movements; and, as we always see them closely
connected with the feeding of the plant as well as of the animal,
we find the act of feeding definitively at the basis of the movement
which is life. Moreover, do we not see during growth the parts
of which the creatures are composed changing places relatively to
one another ? Have we not here a clear, absolute distinction from
the increase of mineral bodies ?

There are, however, some parts in animals which grow by a
simple constant accretion of superadded new particles ; such as
the shells of mollusks, even when they are covered by the flesh,
like cuttlefish bone. But these forinations, although derived from
the organism, are not themselves living. They bear, if we may
say so, the stamp and seal of life so far that we can recognize
them as a product of it, but no further ; and if they grow, it is as
crystals do.

Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, gave life the most exact
definition that could be made with the knowledge of his time.
It is almost as satisfactory for us, for we, too, define life in the
same terms. It is a movement, but still not one of the appar-
ent though intimate movements to which the Christian encyclo-
pedist alludes. It is a molecular movement that escapes our eyes,
in the interior of the being, and is revealed to our senses only by
its results.

The movement that constitutes lifeisanintimate, profound, in-
visible, incessant movement, at once of combination and of decom-
position. Living matter is incessantly born and incessantly dying,
being formed and suffering destruction all at the same time.

All liquid or gaseous bodies coming in contact with a living
substance and soluble by it, penetrate it, mingle with it, and then,
carried on in the Avhirl, cease for the most part to be themselves,
are transformed, enter into new combifctions that did not exist

FORM AND LIFE. 525

outside of the being, but wbicli are in their turn destroyed and
pass into other conditions unsuitable to life, and in which they are
cast out to re-enter the inorganic world, which is enriched through
them with ammonia, carbonic acid, and oxygen. We are not ac-
quainted with the nature of this movement ; we know only that
it exists by comparing what goes in and what goes out, and these
with the intermediate term, the living substance itself. We know
that it is propagated at the same time in all the tissues and all the
organs of the being, offering in each a special modality while
retaining always the same fundamental character.

This movement is fundamental to the tissues of the living be-
ing, from the most simple of them, like the substance of the bone,
to the most complex, like that of the muscles or the brain. It is
always in the living being, whether it is growing, thriving, or
declining toward death, or is attainted with different passional,
morbid conditions that might affect it. It is always present in
the infinite variety of iDhysiological acts of which our life is made
up and which all inevitably lead to an impending molecular modi-
fication : the sensation of the retina disturbed by a light-ray, the
contraction of a muscle, and even thought. In connection with
the last, the effort has been made to reach by tortuous ways the
nature of the chemical reactions that necessarily accompany all
brain work. Whether this is reached or not, it is impossible to
conceive the operation of the nervous elements otherwise than as
a phenomenon of nutrition — that is, as a modification brought
about in the molecular movement.

But we are still unable to penetrate and discover the true na-
ture of that inner molecular movement which makes of animated
bodies a world apart from the great cosmos. What are the origin
and nature of that new energy communicated to inert matter, giv-
ing it properties or rather faculties which it had not before, and
which are additional to all those with which the chemist and
physicist are acquainted ? Let us say, further, that they are
added to these without contradicting them, as was believed for
a long time when a kind of antagonism was supposed between life
and the physico-chemical forces. Life is in no way a triumph
over these forces, and they always keep their predominance.

Vital movement is, after all, only an episodical modality of the
universal faculty which simple and compound chemical bodies
have of reacting upon one another. It requires for its manifesta-
tion, like every other reaction, definite conditions, confined within
narrow limits, of pressure, temperature, and light.

But the thing we are absolutely ignorant of is the real nature
of those inner reactions of which we can not in many cases give
the rigorous formula and still less define the thermic equivalent ;
the generic quality, as it were, of those movements, at once special

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and infinitely varied, which are going on incessantly in the parts
of living bodies. We know that the vital movement in each indi-
vidual is to come to an end at a given moment — that is death.
We have a thousand means of provoking a stoppage of it. We
can only propagate it in a certain way when we furnish it, by
means of food or generation, with the material substratum neces-
sary for its production and development. We can in like man-
ner divert it and cause it to produce monsters ; but we have no
power to make it appear where it does not exist.

Vital movement is continuous. It was formerly thought pos-
sible to suspend it ; that seeds and living beings could die for the
moment, and the former keep intact their faculty of germinating,
and the latter return to a new existence when placed in favorable
conditions. Reviving animals have excited much attention, but
little thought has till the present been directed to the supposed
suspension of life. In reality, these beings continue to live, but
extremely little. The vital movement is not suspended, but is
considerably diminished rather than retarded, like the vibration
of a sounding cord which loses in intensity till it is no longer
heard, while the finger can still feel it tremble. About forty years
ago some speculators upon public credulity publicly distributed
through all Europe, selling it very dear, a wheat which they said
had been taken from a mummy in Egypt, and which when planted
gave a prolific return. This was a simple cheat. Yet seeds are
known which have retained the germinating faculty a very long
time ; they really continue to live, carrying within themselves the
inner movement which becomes slower every day and ends with
extinction. The seed will inevitably die ; whether it be after a
few years or in a century or two makes little difference — it will die.

Vital movement is then continuous, but with incessant renew-
als, and it also has a very special character. It is propagated in-
definitely, while it continually casts off a part of the materials
which it had previously animated. That yellowed wheat which
the reaper is going to cut, the stubble of which is destined to
cover some cottage, the seed of which seems wholly devoted to the
support of the life of men, which has to our view not lived a
whole year — that wheat is eternal ; it has lived through all the
past, and may live through all the future. It has dried, but that
is only in appearance. Life has not withdrawn from it. Planted
next year, it will project a new head, and so on for thousands of
years.

We are accustomed to regard as a living being having a kind
of beginning and end the head which issues from the seed in the
spring, and which autumn will mature. The conception is wholly
arbitrary. We really know of no beginning or end to this
head. It is not even an individual in the philosophical sense of

FORM AND LIFE.

527

tlie word ; for it is connected by continuity with all the heads of
wheat that preceded it and with all those that will follow it. The
important part is the seed, or the germ which it includes, continu-
ing itself by a stem and a flower into another seed like it. The
root, the straw, the glumes are accessories — all to be abandoned
every year by the seed incessantly reviving of itself, which veri-
tably incarnates the species wheat.

The molecular movement being at the very basis of life, to
what extent does it regulate its manifestations ? Does it make its
influence felt only to maintain the external form or to exert a cer-
tain amount of command upon it ? It does command it in effect,
and all the external characteristics of the species and the individ-
ual appear to us definitely as subordinated to the conditions of
their inner chemistry. Chevreul was the first who formulated
the principle of the absolute dependence of life on the physico-
chemical laws of inert matter. The demonstration of it is fur-
nished in the manure and fertilizers by means of which we suc-
ceed in prodigiously modifying the external appearance of the
plant, to the point of rendering it almost unrecognizable. This
sprout, in a dry, arid soil, is stunted, coriaceous, and hairy ; that
other one, from the same kind of seed, growing in the shade, on a
soil constantly moist, is large, plump with water, soft and smooth.
Without more knowledge, we should see in them two distinct spe-
cies, if all the intermediate terms did not meet here and there on
grounds half dry or half shaded, to show that we are simply deal-
ing with two individuals of the same species, the molecular con-
stitution of which is not absolutely identical because of the differ-
ent conditions in which each one has lived.

It was long thought that the plant could choose by its roots
the substances in the earth useful in its support and growth. This
is not correct. The root, in contact with the extremely complex
bodies which are continually formed and unformed in the soil
around it, takes all those which the spongy terminal tissue of each
radicle can dissolve. The plant is in this case only a reagent like
any other ; it is passive, and suffers itself to be penetrated by every
substance, useful or injurious, in the quantity in which that sub-
stance is susceptible of mingling and combining with its super-
ficial tissues. By virtue of the molecular constitution of the walls
of the root, and especially of the extreme cells of their fibers, plants
absorb particular mineral principles, and these principles in their
turn, drawn into the vital molecular movement, favor it, impede
it, or modify it in some way, and at last provoke a perceptible
change in the aspect of the plant. This direct, immediate influ-
ence of molecular constitution on the forms of living beings ap-
pears to be more sharply marked in plants, but that is perhaps

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

because animals have not been so carefully studied with reference
to it. Some practices well known to horticulturists demonstrate
with a singular evidence this subordination of extreme characters
to the chemical composition of living matter — as in some of the
methods by which new varieties and colors are obtained.

With the aid of analysis and the balance, Prof. Armand Gau-
tier exhibits to us these new appearances of plants in relation to
the formation of new chemical compounds in them. This has
been done under such conditions that it can be said of every ani-
mal or vegetable hybrid that it does not represent simply the
mingling or the combination of the two forms from which it is
derived, but is still more the expression of new molecular combi-
nations giving rise to intermediate chemical combinations. We
have a right now to affirm that the blood of the mule, in its inti-
mate composition, differs as much from, the blood of the horse as
from that of the ass.

It is agreed that the different varieties of the European vine
are variations of the same species slowly modified under the influ-
ence of man. This almost indefinite variation has not only re-
sulted in advancing florescence and maturity and in differences
in the quantities of tannin, sugar, and coloring matter in the fruit
and other parts of the plant. Each of these external changes is
in some way only the expression without of certain chemical
changes. There appear to be as many kinds of coloring matters
of seeds as there are varieties of grapes, and so different that some
of them are soluble in water and some not ; some crystallize, oth-
ers remain amorphous ; some precipitate the salts of lead in blue,
and some in green. In a general way it may be affirmed, from M.
Gautier's experiments, that each variety of vine has seen arise in
it a new chemical species which would not have existed in Nature
any more than the form with which it is associated, if man had
not intervened. Man, therefore, in creating hybrids, not only
makes new forms, but also throws into Nature chemical principles
that had no place there.

The possibility of working in some species of animals the re-
markable changes which skill has impressed on the plants of our
fields and gardens can hardly be doubted. By depriving an ani-
mal of some one of the mineral principles that enter into the com-
position of its tissues, we should in all probability greatly modify
its external form.

A single experiment is known to us which has been made in
this direction by M. Chabry at the marine laboratory of Concar-
neau. He selected, as the animal to be experimented upon, the
larva of the common sea urchin. It was seen, a few hours after it
came out from the egg, as a point moving rapidly in the sea water.
Observed under the microscope, it first appeared the shape of a

FORM AND LIFE. 529

bell ; later, it took a strange shape, which was not inappropriately-
compared to a lectern. M. Chabry even designated it by the Latin
name jpluteus, which means pulpit. As the time for this change
of form approaches, there can be seen appearing in the tissues of
the young larva a kind of calcareous needles, called spicules, the
form and disposition of which are identical in all individuals of
the same species. These spicules are composed of the carbonate
of lime which the larva finds in the sea water, and which it ab-
sorbs as the roots of a plant absorb the potash contained in the
soil. This lime traverses the tissues of the larva and collects for
a time in them before settling in the half-crystalline figure of the
spicules. It may be remarked that although they present a regu-
lar arrangement in the larva, the spicules have no relation, at least
in the beginning, with the external form or the shape of the organs
of the animal.

M. Chabry asked what would happen if he tried by raising the
larvae in water destitute of lime to prevent the formation of the
spicules. The experiment was not without difficulties. It was
necessary to prepare artificially a limeless sea water. With all
the pains M. Chabry could take, in the light of the best analysis,
the larvae perished in the artificial water as soon as they were
hatched. He then tried diminishing by degrees the proportion of
lime in the natural water. This lime was the sulphate, and the
experiment was directed, in order to prevent too radically chang-
ing the water, to substituting another base for calcium. Sodium
was taken, because, it being already very abundant in the water,
the slight addition of it which it would be necessary to make to
replace the lime could not have any great influence. The results
were very plain. Without any mixture of lime in the water, the
just-hatched larvae were arrested in their development and died in
a few hours. If the elimination of calcium is not pushed to its
extreme limits, and only a fifteenth part of the already very slight
quantity contained in sea water is left, the larvae will not be for
forty hours distinguishable from those which are developed in
normal water. At the end of that time the spicules should appear
while the larva is assuming the form of the pluteus. But in water
containing only a fifteenth of the normal calcium this change is
not effected. Twenty hours later, in the sixtieth hour of their
lives, the larvae are still in the same condition, while those in nor-
mal water have spicules already branched, and their having taken
the form of the pluteus is marked both by their shape and by the
division of their intestine into distinct regions. The larvae de-
prived of lime first exhibit this modification of the intestine toward
the ninetieth hour, but they have no spicules and have not become
pluteus. Their external form has therefore been profoundly af-
fected by some change that has been introduced into the inner

VOL. XLV. 41

530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

composition of the tissues and the humors through the absence of
one of their necessary constituents. The disturbance was not suf-
ficient to cause the larvae to perish or to stop the vital movement,
but that had been diverted and had resulted in a new configura-
tion of the living being. We have made a monster by a chemical
process. No doubt a certain number of monstrosities besides those
resulting from accidents that have occurred in the course of the
development will eventually be attributed to a category of special
changes like those which M. Chabry provoked.

A recent discovery has further cast a very striking light on
that mysterious relation that connects the chemical constitution
of beings with their external form. Aside from the serpents, only
a few vertebrate animals are known that distill venom. On the
other hand, notwithstanding the deep organic differences that re-
move the fishes from the reptiles, we find a few among them — the
conger, the eel, and the sea eel — that have the appearance and
almost the form characteristic of snakes. Prof. Mosso has lately
shown that the blood of these fishes with the shape of a serpent
is poisonous, even very poisonous. Half a thimbleful of eel's blood
injected into a dog is enough to cause the animal to fall dead just
as if it had been bitten by a rattlesnake. What is the connection
between the presence of this poison in the blood of the eel and the
shape of its body ?

We may summarize in rigorously scientific language what we
have just set forth by saying, with Chevreul and Charles Robin,
that the form of living beings is a function of their molecular con-
stitution. It is a point to which Darwin and his partisans of the
transformist school have not perhaps given sufiicient attention.
Everybody now accepts these doctrines in their main features,
but they have not taken into account, at least not fully, the factor
of the influence of the medium. They have overlooked this
chemical necessity which is imposed with every change of form or
simply of color. We shall know, as M. Gautier has foreshadowed,
the limits of the possible variations of an animal species when
we learn how far it lends itself to the creation of new organic
compounds. Even when there is nothing more than an exagger-
ation of a group of determined organs, a determining modification
must be admitted in the chemistry of the individual. If media
have been able to act, as everything indicates, it has been only by
slow and progressive modification of the molecular constitution
of the being, involving inevitably in its turn the changes of ex-
ternal configuration that determine each animal or vegetable spe-
cies. The transformists show us with complete assurance verte-
brated animals descended from some inferior animal, worm, or
mollusk. Which ? Here they cease to agree, and every one's
preferences are suggested by this or that vague resemblance in

FORM AND LIFE. 531

the disposition of the internal organs. But, if this were ever so
much greater, there would still remain something to explain and
something of importance. This vertebrate has muscles, organs
of senses, viscera like the various animals from which it is sup-
posed to have proceeded. But there are, further, in it living sub-
stances of a special order, cartilage and bone, which are real
chemical species. When, how, and under what circumstances did
these substances appear which we find identical as to themselves
in all vertebrates which no other existing animals possess ? It is
not enough to show us this animal type proceeding from that
other, that organ developing itself or disappearing or changing
place and relations. We want to be told through what internal
chemical actions these organic compounds appeared ; those clear-
ly defined substances the presence of which establishes an abso-
lute distinction between vertebrate animals and the worms or
mollusks from which they are supposed to descend.

Just as the appearance of new chemical compounds hitherto
unknown was the necessary condition of the formation of new
organic types, so it seems proper to suppose that at the beginning
life on our planet aj)pertained only to amorphous masses, which,
in a prodigious succession of ages, after incommensurable periods,
in consequence of an intimate working in their substance, were
succeeded by existences the contours and dimensions of which
were gradually and progressively defined. The sense of this
necessity, doubtless, haunted M. Haeckel's imagination when he
supposed that the Batliyhius was the primordial jelly whence all
living beings were derived.

On the other hand, this idea of a simple beginning of life was
too far lost sight of by M. F. A. Pouchet and the later champions
of the doctrine of spontaneous generation. It is not shown that
the question of heterogeneity, which was so exciting thirty years
ago, can ever be answered. In any case, it can not be revived
under the form which its latest defenders have given it. Their
chief error, from which all the others have been derived, was in
wishing to overshoot the mark, in seeking to create at the bottom
of their matrass, not substance having life — a bit of sarcode or
protoplasm — but a being having a definite form. In the modern
idea of the necessities of life, form appears to us as an epiphe-
nomenon resulting from infinitely numerous and infinitely pro-
gressive circumstances. To sum it all up, form is pre-eminently
a hereditary characteristic. It can exist, we can only comprehend
it as slowly acquired by a process of modeling a thousand and a
thousand times secular. It was this form, this figure, that the
partisans of spontaneous generation thought they brought forth
in their apparatus ! The objection we raise here, very curiously,
was never made to them, and their theory was only ruined by

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

detail, by the production of facts undermiinng their experiments,
hut which did not touch the foundation of their doctrine. No one
will ever cause to appear in a vial, by combining all imaginable
elements, a microscopic animal or plant, however simple, with a
definite configuration, because that requires duration of existence
behind it. The problem to be solved is not there. The necessary
thing is to create that unknown molecular movement which alone
constitutes life and which brings on all the rest.

At the present time chemists seem to be on the point of obtain-
ing by synthesis substances similar to those of which some of the
important parts of animals and plants are made ; but we must
not nourish a chimerical hope too rapidly. There is a chasm be-
tween the end almost reached by M. Schiitzenberger and others,
and the creation of the smallest parcel of living matter. One
may make albumin like that of an egg, fibrin like that of the
blood, but he will still have inert substances, as they are. The
white of an egg is not living, although it emanated from a living
being, no more than the shell and the greater part of the yolk.
It is simply a secretion — an outthrow of the living flesh of the
hen — and which acquires from it nothing more than a composi-
tion nearly identical with it, and in any case extremely complex.
Hence the difiiculty of reproducing artificially a similar body by
the synthesis of the very numerous chemical elements that com-
pose its delicate structure. Every molecule must be there and in
its place. Even when this synthesis has been performed in his
retorts, has the chemist produced life ? Not at all ! He will be
like Prometheus in the face of his clay statue ; the fire from
heaven will be wanting — the living fire. That albumin, that
fibrin, the issue of the combination of any number whatever of
the different elements that should compose it, remain inert sub-
stances.

Yet the thought of producing living matter does not seem en-
tirely hopeless. The conditions have already necessarily been
realized on the planet, and perhaps many times. It is not impos-
sible that at the bottom of the ocean or in stagnant waters sarco-
dic masses are still taking spontaneous birth. We have no evi-
dence of it, but such a phenomenon does not appear liable to the
fundamental objection. How shall we surprise this beginning of
life ? If science shall ever succeed in achieving this great work
in its laboratories it will have accomplished the desire of the first
man of the Mosaic legend. "VVe shall know what life and death
are. The dream of the heterogenists will be realized, and man
will indeed have created life. — Translated for Tlie Popular Science
Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

ON ACCURACY IJST OBSERVATION. 533

ON ACCURACY IN OBSERVATION.*

By H. LITTLEWOOD, F. E. C, S.

THERE are many theories afloat to solve the great question of
medical education — what subjects should be taught in the
early part of the curriculum, and what left out. I do not think
it is quite such a great matter what is taught : how it is taught is
of far more importance. For I take it that there is no training
which can turn out a medical man who is up to date in every
branch of his profession, and very thankful I am that there is no
place in the world for such a prodigy. He would be very like a
historical character described in one of George Eliot's novels :
" The simplest account of him one sees reads like a laudatory
epitaph, at the end of which the Greek and Ausonian Muses
might be confidently requested to tear their hair, and Nature to
desist from any second attempt to combine so many virtues with
one set of viscera." To hear some men, and even medical men,
talking, one might almost suspect that we had found the realiza-
tion of such a description. ' The great aim and object of medical
education, and, in fact, of all education, is that it should make you
accurate observers ; and any plan or scheme of education that has
not succeeded in this has been a failure, even if, after years of study,
you can write the whole of the letters of the alphabet after your
name. You hear people talk of education, and of So-and-so going
to this or that school or university, either at home or abroad, to
finish his education. Never was there a more mistaken notion.
The word " education " should almost be used like the word " eter-
nity." It must go on as long as humanity exists. What you should
be doing at your school and university is to train yourselves to
observe things accurately, so that you may rightly interpret their
meaning. Let me tell you it is a very difficult thing to be accu-
rate. You will, I am sure, forgive me for again quoting from
George Eliot, but she has so well expressed what I want to say :
" Examine your words well, and you will find that, even when
you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the
exact truth even about your own feelings : much harder than say-
ing something fine about them which is not the exact truth." If
such is the case, we can not be too laborious and painstaking in
order to eliminate error. If your early studies in chemistry,
biology, anatomy, physiology, etc., have been rightly conducted,
you should have learned to note facts and to make careful ob-
servations ; and you will find this training invaluable when you
begin your hospital work, as also during the remainder of your

* From an address delivered before the Yorkshire Medical Society, on October 18, 1893.

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

medical lives ; for the whole art and science of medicine must be
founded on accurate observation. All careful students of medi-
cine should be good and accurate note-takers ; the practice of
sketching and making diagrams of the things you are observing
is a very valuable one to cultivate. In taking notes on your cases
acquire the habit of putting your observations on paper while
you have the patient before you ; compare the diseased or injured
part with the corresponding healthy part; and if both similar
parts are affected, you must compare them with what you have
learned to consider as a healthy ideal. If records are not made at
the time they lose somewhat of their value, even if they are made
within a few hours after the appearances observed have been de-
scribed ; but if left days or weeks — and I know this is sometimes
the case — the imagination is left to fill in the details ; and should
they be left for a much longer period, it is perfectly astonishing
what may not be described as facts, especially if the writer is
anxious to make the accounts read well. I believe this is the
reason why there is so much doubt about so-called facts ; a good
many of them are not facts at all, but merely expressions of a
very fertile imagination. There is more truth in some of the
stories of the Arabian Nights. A certain part of what has been
called the new criticism of some ancient writings and records
consists in trying to ascertain how soon after seeing these events
did the eyewitness write the records. Of course a good deal of
the value of these records depends ujion the decision of such a
point — how much and how little has the imagination taken part
in the evolution of these so-called records of well-authenticated
facts ? Then, in describing your cases, do not use language that
lends itself to exaggeration. Whenever you can put down actual
measurements and actual figures it is much better to do so.

According to the statistical tables of some operations and new
methods of treatment one finds all the cases, or a large majority
of them, classed under the heading of " cured." This is a very
unfortunate word, for it appears to have a variety of meanings ;
and what one person understands as a cure certainly would not
come up to the standard of another. I often wonder if the notes
of some of the failures have not been lost or if the cases of failure
have not been removed, because, for some reason or other, they
do not quite come within the category of the title-heading selected
for these tables. We do not find many statistical tables of fail-
ures. When one reads these accounts one wonders if they were
written for the purpose of finding out the truth, or was there
some other motive ? Macaulay, in his essay on Gladstone on
Church and State, has a passage which I think I may aptly quote
here: "It seems quite clear that an inquirer who has no wish
except to know tlie truth is more likely to arrive at the truth

ON ACCURACY IN OBSERVATION. 535

tlian an inquirer who knows that if he decides one way he
shall be rewarded, and if he decides another he shall be pun-
ished." But as students your first object must be to be accu-
rate. I will give you one or two examples of curious notes that
I have seen lately made by some students. I was reading an
account of an operation I had performed the day before, and,
finding not a single statement in the note was quite accurate, I
asked how it was that such an account had been written. The
student excused himself by saying that he had not seen the case,
but had gathered from another that I had done exactly what he
described. In another example, from some notes on two cases of
suprapubic lithotomy undertaken on the same day (and these
were written by an eyewitness), I was startled to read in both the
accounts this passage : " The peritonaeum was then opened." I
need hardly say that this statement was pure fiction. I quote
these examples to show you that I am not exaggerating ; I am
sorry to say I could multiply them. Of course you will all agree
with me that notes of this kind are infinitely worse than no notes.
Now, how is it that it is so difiicult to be accurate ? I think
accuracy means a careful training of all one's faculties, and this
is so often neglected. It is so much easier to let other people
think for us than it is to think for ourselves. A medical man
who has not acquired the faculty of thinking and interpreting for
himself has missed his vocation. I have sometimes heard stu-
dents remarking on the physical signs of a chest, that such and
such parts are dull on percussion, or that there was a cardiac
murmur heard at a certain part of the chest because Dr. B. had
said so, and not because the speaker had appreciated the differ-
ences of sound. You must learn to appreciate these things for
yourselves by trying to test them by your ideal normal standard ;
and until you have actually heard, seen, or felt them, these things
can not be said to exist as far as you are concerned. The eye
only can see what it brings with it the power of seeing. When
you first look down a microscope everything looks indistinct,
a mass of pretty coloring ; then, after training, certain details
are observed — nuclei, nucleoli, fibers, cells, etc. After carefully
studying the detailed structure of an organ you can recognize it
the next time you see it ; then, knowing the different elements of
which it is composed, you can recognize if it is a specimen of a
healthy organ or if the organ is in any way diseased. The trained
eye is able to see endless minute differences where the untrained
eye discerns nothing. Things look very hazy and indistinct in
the first gray of the early morning ; every day of your lives adds
some new facts, some new observations, and each day brings
you nearer the brightening sunshine of a more extended knowl-
edge, until some of you may be fortunate enough to realize the

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lofty ideal of Prof. Huxley : " Education promotes morality and
refinement by teaching men to discipline themselves, and by lead-
ing them to see that the highest, as it is the only permanent, con-
tent is to be attained, not by groveling in the rank and steaming
valleys of sense, but by continually striving to those high peaks
where, resting in eternal calm, reason discovers the undefined
bright ideal of the highest good — a cloud by day, a pillar of fire
by night." We do not all see the same differentiations of color
or appreciate the varieties of taste, smell, or touch, or hear to the
same extent the infinite variety of musical expression ; and it is
only by cultivating our senses that they can be improved. About
a year ago, at the Ida Hospital there were some very offensive
smells. Everybody thought there must be something wrong
with the drains, until the resident, Mr. Wilks, discovered a hor-
ribly offensive fungus. I requested him to bring some specimens
to the infirmary weekly board meeting, and I was very much in-
terested to hear what the different members would say. The first
to examine it said that " it did not smell at all " ; the second
that " it was not so bad " ; but all the other members agreed with
me that it was horribly offensive and quite accounted for the bad
smells. I mention this as an example of differences of opinion
about a fact as to whether something was or was not offensive,
and to illustrate that we do not all appreciate sensations to the
same extent. You are all of you familiar with the curious phe-
nomenon of color-blindness ; but there is a much more common
and not so easily detected form of blindness which has received
the name of " intellectual blindness." We all suffer from it more
or less ; some to such an extent as to be almost like unto an an-
cient description of some heathen gods, " who have eyes and see
not, ears and hear not, noses have they and they smell not." You
have all of you been struck with the fact that there are certain
things we see every day, yet all at once we discover something in
them we have never noticed before. I venture to predict that, if
I gave all of you a piece of paper and asked you to write down
the exact figures as they appear on the face of your watches, not
one tenth of you would put them down accurately — i. e., of course
if you have not already tried the experiment — and yet all of you
have seen your watch faces several hundreds of times. Or, if you
like to make the experiment of getting half a dozen eyewitnesses
to describe something they have seen, it is more than probable
we should find very marked differences in their descriptions. I
think you will agree with me that some of the descriptions in the
daily papers bear out this contention. You often have your mis-
takes pointed out to you before you are conscious of their exist-
ence. You must have very clear ideas of the anatomy and phys-
iology of a human being in a healthy condition before you can

ON ACCURACY IN OBSERVATION. 537

become accurate observers of disease. This knowledge can only
be obtained by diligent work in your dissecting rooms and labo-
ratories ; tliere is no royal road to it. Do not forget that you
are all disciples of William Harvey, John Hunter, and Charles
Darwin.

To sum up in one short sentence. Your observations will con-
sist in comparing your ideal standard of the normal with any
conditions you consider to be aberrations from that type. Then,
having made your observations, the next thing you have to learn
is to arrange them in their proper proportional perspective and
to rightly interpret their true significance. Given certain altered
conditions, how have they been produced ? What have been
their antecedents ? Prof. Huxley has called the interpretation of
these facts " retrospective prophecy.'^ In his book called Science
and Culture there is an interesting address entitled After the
Method of Zadig : Retrospective Prophecy as a Function of Sci-
ence; and as this method is one which you as students will
largely adopt I will venture to read to you the story of Zadig. It
is very doubtful where this philosopher lived. Babylon claims
him ; but he appears to have forsaken this city to live on the
banks of the Euphrates, where he could be alone with Nature to
investigate and unravel her mysteries.

The story is briefly this : The chief eunuch having been sent
in search of the queen's dog, which had been lost, met Zadig, who
had seen the markings on the sand left by the straying animal,
and from this was able to give almost an exact description of its
appearance. Later on the grand huntsman came the same way
looking for one of the king's horses which had been lost, and
Zadig, having noticed the marks on the sand and the disturbances
among some trees through which the animal had passed, was able
in like manner to describe it. As neither of the animals could be
found, Zadig was accused of having stolen them ; he was taken
prisoner and brought before the court, and sentenced to transpor-
tation. No sooner was the sentence passed than the missing ani-
mals were found, so the judges had to reverse their sentence, but
fined him four hundred ounces of gold for saying he had seen
that which he had not seen. After paying the fine he explained
to the court how he had been able so exactly to describe the ani-
mals ; from this his fame spread widely. The king commanded
that the gold should be returned to him ; this was done, but
three hundred and ninety-eight ounces were retained by the court
for legal expenses, etc.

You will be saying. But, after all, this method is only applied
common sense ; but let me tell you that it is a very great advance
on certain other methods which have been adopted by the so-
called wise men through the ages. It is not so long ago that

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

witches were burned because the death of some pigs was thought
to be due to witchcraft. Nowadays, probably, the cause of death
would appear in the death certificate of those pigs as swine fever ;
and many of the so-called haunted houses, by the method of Za-
dig, have been proved to be haunted, not by the ghosts of the
departed, but by bad drains. Children often adopt, quite uncon-
sciously, the method of Zadig. I had a good illustration of this
last Sunday, and I must tell you about it. Talking to a blind
child in the children's ward, I asked her if she knew who I was.
She said at once, " Yes, the doctor." I asked her how she knew
that. She answered again, " Oh, nurse always says ' Hush' when
the doctors come into the wards."

Xow, gentlemen, if you really enter into the true spirit of
medical work, you will very soon train yourselves to be accurate
observers, and from observing human beings you will soon be
tempted to investigate and delight in other natural phenomena,
to find out your own proper place in this great cosmic system, of
which you are only a unit or microcosm. There is no doubt that
a true student of Nature has provided himself with endless sources
of amusement and happiness. Some of you may remember the
lines of Longfellow on the fiftieth birthday of the great natu-
ralist Agrassiz :

"-o'

" And Xature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, ' Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee.'

"And he wandered away and away.
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
"Who sang to him night and day
The I'hymes of the universe.

"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvelous tale."

And this is the heritage of all honest students of medicine who
have built up their life's work on accurate observation.

The largest diamond in the world, the Excelsior, was discovered on the 30th
of June, 1893, in the mines of Jagersfontein, Cape Colony, by Edward Jorgansen,
inspector. It is a stone of the first water, valued at about five million dollars.
It was carried to the Cape under the special convoy of a squadron of lancers, and
shipped on a gunboat to London, where it was deposited in the Bank of England.
It weighs nine hundred and seventy-one carats and three quarters, or two hun-
dred and five grammes and a half.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS. 539

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS.

By M. LAZAEE WEILLEE.

IT is difficult to give a simple explanation of color. Physicists
declare that it is the result of a vibratory movement; and
metaphysicians who listen to them pretend to comprehend this.
Although it is not clear, this definition is nevertheless the only
one it is possible to give. There exists a vibratory movement
which is translated into heat, light, and electricity. There are
possibly also movements that determine the various psychological
23henomena — other vibrations no less confused, no less vague, no
less mysterious to our minds than the physical vibrations.

Many persons will be surprised when they are told that M. Lipp-
mann, the discoverer of photography in colors, was never engaged
in photography. He discovered in the play of luminous vibra-
tions what he was trying to define in the theory of sonorous vibra-
tions. Being charged with the exposition in his lectures at the
Sorbonne of the principles of acoustic phenomena, he sought espe-
cially to demonstrate to his students that the pitch of the sound
given out by an organ pipe depended on its length and not upon
the particular metal of which it was constructed. He was at once
struck with the results that might be drawn from this phenome-
non ; he asked if it would not be possible to transport into the
domain of light the curious property that seemed to be involved
in that of sonorous vibrations. This conception, in its elegant
simplicity, might be said to be a conception of genius. There was
nothing in it like the attempts that were made earlier in the cen-
tury to fix colors photographically. The first experiment in this
direction was made in 1810 by Prof. Seebeck, at Jena. He tried
to impress the colors of the solar spectrum on a paper covered
with a film of chloride of silver. His experiments, though not
successful, were much talked about. They were taken up again
in earnest in 1841 by Sir John Herschel. Failing with chloride-
of-silver paper, he tried bromide and iodide of silver, and natural
products, such as guaiacum root. He succeeded by some of these
processes in temporarily fixing a few colors on sensitive papers.
Such results were encouraging. We were then at the beginning
of photography. But these successes were soon surpassed by the
experiments of Edmond Becquerel, who succeeded, in 1848, in ob-
taining upon a silver plate covered with a film of violet subchlo-
ride of silver the impression of all the colors of the solar spectrum.
Unfortunately, the colors stored up in this manner vanished as
soon as the plate was exposed to the light. All attempts to pre-
serve them by means of a fixing bath failed. At every effort the
color disappeared. The impression of the spectrum colors by the

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Becqiierel process lost most of its value by its instability. The
science and experimental skill of the celebrated physicist could
not overcome this obstacle, on which all who tried to accomplish
photochromy by the method of direct impression were successively
wrecked.

The chemists ISTiepce de Saint- Victor, 1851 to 1866, Testud de
Beauregard, in 1855, and Poitevin,in 1865, tried to secure the colors
by means of chemical substances, but were never able to fix their
proofs, or to keep them perfect in the presence of light. After the
chemists came the photographers ; after the photographers, the
men with empirical methods. Then came incomplete geniuses, like
Charles Cros, reproducing the colors by superposed prints, with-
out using a direct method, or any effective one. Yet Cros was
wonderfully endowed with inventive genius. He had notions
about everything. He was one of the first persons, if not the
first, to dream of phonography. He occupied himself Avith the
transmission of images to a distance. Occasionally he satisfied
himself also with inventing things of a simpler and more positive
character, such as his famous paste, a little microscopic box of
which would afford ink enough for a whole lyceum for an entire
year.

What no one could obtain by any chemical method, M. Lipp-
mann has realized from the theory of vibratory motions. In the
soap bubbles, with which every one is familiar, colors of rare
brilliancy detach themselves from the thickness of the liquid
films, which are themselves colorless. Whenever a transparent
body is drawn out into a very thin film it appears with iridescent
hues, although it may be made of a colorless substance. The
coloration arises from the fact that the light reflected from the
two faces of the film has not passed over the same distance. In
other words, the light plays by its reflection upon the two planes
that bound the film. The result is that the light-rays cross each
other and give rise to a phenomenon which is called interference.
On closely examining the brilliant tints of the soap bubbles we
easily recognize the different colors of the spectrum.

Newton first discovered the causes of coloration, and, to render
them more tangible, he devised the experiment of " Newton's
colored rings." On an absolutely plane glass he fixed, by its
spherical face and without fastening it in any other way, a con-
vex lens ; the lens, consequently, did not touch the glass except
at one point, all the other points remaining separated from it by
sections of air which grew thicker as they were farther removed
from the point of contact. When this apparatus is illuminated
by a monochromatic light, such as the yellow light given by a
lamp burning salted alcohol, there is at once remarked a central
black spot on the glass, surrounded by concentric rings alter-

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS. 541

nately bright and dark. These rings are not equally distant from
one another ; they center at the point of contact of the two glasses.
By employing simple lights of different natures we can see the
diameters of the rings increase or diminish according to the
different wave-lengths of the lights used. It appears, therefore,
from this experiment that if we illuminate the glass with white
light we shall have the superposition of the effects obtained with
different simple lights. In such case the colors can not coincide,
and then, instead of having a system of alternately dark and
light rings, we shall have rings iridescent with all the colors of
the rainbow ; and this is precisely what is produced in the soap
bubble. The important fact in the phenomenon is that the color
varies according to the thickness of the film. In this experiment
we are dealing with natural colors, produced without the inter-
vention of any chemical action, but simply by a series of lumi-
nous phenomena which we shall shortly explain. M. Lippmann's
invention rests upon this principle.

If you blow out a soap bubble it reflects violet as it issues
from the pipe ; then, becoming larger — that is, the film becoming
thinner — it reflects blue, then green, yellow, and finally, when the
film has reached its thinnest, red. In this experiment we can
perceive what is the real origin of colors. They are only the
successive notes of the luminous gamut, as musical notes are
formed by the gamut of the scale of sounds. Newton arbitrarily
counted seven colors in the spectrum, so that he might make it
display as many colors as there are principal notes in the musical
scale.

Like sound, light is propagated by undulations through space.
This transmission of vibratory motion is carried on with great
swiftness, passing through the distance from the sun to the earth
in eight minutes. Aside from the difference in velocity, light-
waves are like sound-waves. The simple colors are for light
what musical notes are for sound. In this way Fresnel, in his
theory of undulations, explains the difference in the coloring of
the different parts of the spectrum.

Every sound is caused by a vibrating body engendering waves
which reach our ear and produce the sonorous sensation in it.
But all sounds are not identical. Every one can distinguish
an acute note from a grave note. In studying the characters of
acuteness and gravity of sound, the conclusion has been reached
from experiment that the sounds emitted by a vibrating body
are higher the more rapid the vibrations, or the more there are of
them in the same time. Each length of wave corresponds to
each sound peculiar to it, and is in inverse proportion to the
number of vibrations. Since the acute sounds result from the
more numerous waves, their waves are shorter and closer than

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

those of the grave sounds ; for they all have the same velocity of
progress, and reach lis in the same time. The melody and har-
mony are heard simultaneously, whatever the distance of the
orchestra. The exact sensation of the piece played is felt on
every side — a thing which could not take place if the high tones
of the violins and flutes were transmitted more rapidly than the
grave sounds of the violoncellos and contrabasses. It being
thus possible to assimilate simple sounds with simple colors, we
have to suppose that the number of vibrations determines the
color. A luminous point produces, to emit the various colors :
red, 497 ; orange, 528 ; yellow, 529 ; green, 601 ; blue, 648 ; indigo,
686 ; and violet, 728 trillion vibrations per second. Each color
corresponds with a luminous film of variable thickness. The
thicknesses of the several films representing the simple colors — or,
what are the same, the wave-lengths of these colors — are : red,
620; orange, 583; yellow, 551 ; green, 512; blue, 475 ; indigo, 449 ;
violet, 423 millionths of a millimetre. Eed, we thus see, corre-
sponds to the grave notes and violet to the acute notes of the
musical scale. To obtain an idea of the thickness of the films
corresponding to the different colors, we might take as a standard
for comparison a sheet of common paper, which is about a tenth
of a millimetre thick. Two hundred and fifty thicknesses of the
violet film would have to be laid upon one another to produce
this thickness, and one hundred and sixty of the red.

In order to explain the cause of the complex colors of natural
objects we may again have recourse to the properties of vibrating
motions, which, like those of the phenomena of sound, can be
placed one uj^on another. Thus, when a cord is stretched over a
sonorous box, like the string of a violoncello, we can make it all
vibrate ; its ends will be motionless, while the middle will vibrate
with the maximum amplitude. The motionless extremities are
called nodes, and the middle is a belly. We can also draw the
bow across this cord in such a manner that, while vibrating as a
whole, the two halves of the cord will each vibrate on its own ac-
count, following a law of individual vibration. Under these con-
ditions a superposition of two vibratory movements is realized —
that of the whole cord and that of the two halves vibrating sepa-
rately. There results a complex sound formed of the fundament-
al sound and the superposed harmonic. It is this superposition
that gives to the ear the sensation of the timbre of different
sounds ; the phonograph, with which everybody is acquainted, is
based on this principle. The vibrations of a single membrane
can reproduce several superposed vibratory movements, and thus
register human speech.

Most of the complex colors, such as rose, maroon, or the va-
rious tints of green, can be formed in the same manner. They

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS. 543

may result from the superposition of several simple vibrating
motions. In general, the coloring of bodies results from the
diffusion of the light-rays which illuminate them. The bodies
absorb a part of the rays and reflect others. The mingling of the
reflected rays produces on the eye the impression of a definite
tint. A cloth appears red to us because it reflects chiefly the red
light and absorbs all the other colors. If it reflects all the solar
rays as they are, it appears white to us ; if, instead of reflecting
them, it absorbs them, it appears black.

The origin of colors, therefore, we see, depends upon a phys-
ical or mechanical and not on a chemical cause. The white light
which comprises them all is only the resultant of the infinity of
the colors that exist and succeed one another in gradation from
the red to the violet. This may be easily perceived by letting a
ray of sunlight pass through a crystal cut in facets.

To comprehend fully the direction of M. Lippmann's thoughts
before hitting on the photography of colors by the application
of the theory of vibratory motions, we must say a little more con-
cerning the phenomena of interference. When two sound-waves
meet, there occurs, according to certain specific conditions, either
an amplification ,of the sound by their combination or a destruc-
tion of it by their collision. The principle of the interference of
sound was demonstrated by Colonel Napoleon Savart in 1839, by
an experiment which is not so well known as it should be. This
sagacious ofiicer placed in front of the principal wall of the citadel
in which he was garrisoned a bell which he rung by striking it
with a hammer. The bell thus became the center of a direct wave
which was propagated to the wall of the citadel and reflected
from it. In other words, the action of the sound was brought to
bear upon the wall, which sent it back to the starting point and
thus could give rise to the phenomenon of interference. Some
among the soldiers stationed along the line between the bell and
the wall observed a distinct re-enforcement of the sound ; while
others, placed exactly at the points of interference, heard nothing.

What passed in Colonel Savart's experiments is reproduced in
the same manner with light- vibrations. Just as sound added to
sound may produce either silence or amplification of the sound,
so light added to light may produce darkness or amplification of
the luminous effect. When direct light falls upon a mirror, it
meets on the way the light that was previously reflected, and
wherever the vibrations agree in direction the brightness is in-
creased, whereas it is extinguished wherever they are opposed
to one another. The space in front of the mirror will therefore
be divided into successive sections or stratifications. In some,
the light will be of its highest brightness ; in others, on the other
hand, there will be complete darkness. It can easily be deter-

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mined by calculation that tlie distance between tbe sections is
about one f our-tliousandth. of a millimetre ; and it is hence con-
ceivable that, the naked eye not being able to take in such small
intervals, the sensation is one of a uniform light. But while the
naked eye is impotent, the photographic plate is not. So M.
Lippmann thought, when he conceived the idea of utilizing the
phenomenon of interference to produce, not in the open air, but
on the sensitive photographic plate, the stratifications formed
alternately by the luminous and dark lines. By this process the
luminous impression of the object photographed will appear only
on the sections where the light is bright, while no action will
take place in the dark strata.

If, then, we seek to reproduce photographically a body of
many colors, each of these colors will find in the thin sections de-
termined by these stratifications the place corresponding to the
thickness of each of them. Red will find sections of six hundred
and twenty millionths of a millimetre, and violet sections of four
hundred and twenty-three millionths of a millimetre, to corre-
spond to the thickness of the luminous stratum producing these
colors. So with all the other simple colors, and consequently
with the constituent parts of the complex colors. In developing
the sensitive plate thus impressed, its thickness will be formed of
a series of leaves of photographic silver, separated from one
another by distances infinitely small and differing exactly accord-
ing to the color which has impressed the plate placed behind the
objective. We understand, then, that those leaves constitute
precisely the organ of reproduction of colors, without which they
would have to be colored by themselves. In practical operation
it is necessary to prevent any object in the photographic stratum
from hindering the fixation or accumulation of the colors in these
virtual sections, which are to jjroduce the colors by reflection as
the liquid films of the child's soap bubble produce them.

It is necessary, therefore, before everything else, to exclude
the ordinary bromide-gelatin or chloride-gelatin plates of com-
merce, the sensitive coating of which is the result of an emul-
sion. When examined with the microscope, this washing usu-
ally exhibits a very coarse grain derived from solid particles of
perceptible matter, which are of considerable dimensions in pro-
portion to the wave-length of a color-stratum. They obstruct
that stratum completely, deform its reflecting planes, and prevent
all communication of chromatic phenomena. These plates could
no more produce the thin strata corresponding to the colors to be
photographed than a stone sixteen feet thick can be worked
into a wall of three feet. The plates of commerce are, besides,
usually opaque and can not be traversed by the direct wave and
the reflection wave which are to produce the phenomenon of in-

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS. 545

terference. Sensitive collodion or albumen plates, wliicli have
the advantage of being continuous and transparent, are prefera-
ble. This choice of processes in sensitizing is, however, not abso-
lute. The pre-eminently important point is that the sensitive
plates have no grains, or that the grains be of negligible size —
that is, of dimensions inferior to half the length of wave that
corresponds to the color.

Without going into operative details we can easily represent
to ourselves the process employed by the inventor of the photog-
raphy of colors to render his invention practicable. The reflect-
ing face of a plane metallic mirror is covered by the usual pro-
cess of sensitizing with an impressionable stratum of albumen or
collodion and chloride or bromide of silver. If a light-ray of any
simple color is made to act upon this, it occupying, consequently,
a determined place in the gamut of simple colors, there results
that the incident rays will traverse the sensitive and transjoarent
stratum, will be reflected on the polished surface, will return
backward, and will meet on their return the rays that are coming.
There will then be formed two luminous waves — a direct wave and
a reflected wave — and these, meeting, will produce interferences.
We shall see that what is created in the projection of these lumi-
nous rays is only the repetition of what was produced in the ex-
periments of Colonel Savart by the projection of the sonorous
vibrations on a wall.

In the photography of colors the space in front of the mirror
is filled with parallel planes alternately bright and dark, in such
a way that every two of the bright planes are separated from one
another by a distance equal to half a wave-length — that is, to the
four-thousandth part of a millimetre. There results from this
the creation of a large number of these planes in the thickness of
the sensitive stratum. In short, this sensitive coating, already
very thin, is divided, as the sheet of paper we have mentioned
would be, into a number of layers infinitely thinner.

Only the brightest planes could impress the sensitive layer,
and in the course of photographic development this impression
will be revealed in a black color, while the sections corresponding
to the dark planes will not be impressed. If, then, employing the
process of ordinary photography, we dip the developed plate into
hyposulphite of soda, all the matter sensitive to light and not
changed will be dissolved in it, and there will persist on the plate
only the infinitely thin sections of reduced silver, and those at
the points where the bright planes had fixed themselves. There-
fore, the whole thickness of the photographic stratum will be
divided into sections by planes of metallic silver parallel to one
another and separated by a distance equal to half a wave-length
of the simple color which has impressed the plate. These planes,

VOL. XLT. 42

546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

then, constitute, in pairs, a thin film the thickness of which is
precisely that indicated by Newton's theory of the rings ; and
thus, according to that law, of which we cite the text, the rays
reflected upon these two films give, by interference with one
another, the sensation of the corresponding color. Furthermore,
each color produces in the plate a similar system of parallel
planes, the coexistence of which explains the photographic repro-
duction of the compound colors. The whole secret of the pho-
tography of colors lies in the enunciation of this principle.

On observing the reflection of the plate fixed and dried by the
process which we have indicated, we shall discover upon it the
direct reproduction of all the colors which have been presented
before it. The time of exposure plays an important part in the
practical execution of the experiment.

The beginnings of the experiments were very laborious. The
first effort was to photograph a spectrum, in which the red was ex-
tremely inconvenient. The chemical activity of the rays of this
color is very slow. They impress the plates so weakly as to per-
mit photographers to use red light without danger while develop-
ing their gelatinized bromide-of-silver glasses. Even those least
familiar with photography know that red objects are reproduced
in black on the positives, and that means that they have not im-
pressed the negative plates, however sensitive. While the red
shows itself very slowly on the sensitive j)late, the blue and the
violet act upon it with great energy, and completely polarize it if
the exposure is allowed to continue during the time required to
secure the impression of the red. Means, therefore, had to be
found to let the exposure to the red be continued for a long time,
to the green for a little less long, and to the blue and the violet
for a very short time. It is not hard to conceive the trouble
which these difficulties, all material, caused at the beginning of
the experiments. In fact, they were susceptible of barring the way
to every new tentative in the art of practically photographing
colors.

How should one proceed in photographing a human being or
a landscape ? A posing before the objective as many times as
there were colors could not be thought of. It would, besides, be
necessary to fix the person in the same place, to make him re-
sume the same attitudes — conditions which would make the faith-
ful reproduction of his image impossible. The assistance of a
practical photographer became necessary in this emergency.

M. Attout-Tailfer discovered that on plunging an ordinary
plate into cyanine, its sensitiveness increased for the red and di-
minished for the violet, in such a way that by successive applica-
tions it was possible to equalize the sensitiveness of the plate for
the different regions of the spectrum, and therefore for the dif-

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF COLORS. 547

ferent simple or complex colors. This is what is called isochro-
matism.

By the aid of these improvements M. Lippmann has succeeded
in fixing on his plates images of marvelous beauty. The colors
have an inconceivable brightness and delicacy of shading. They
have nothing in common with painted copies of photographs,
which simply enhance the photographic images with coloring.
The i^hotographic proofs obtained by M. Lippmann have a
strength of coloring and a richness of tone which no water-color
picture has ever attained. This is because, in his photography,
the registration of the color is combined with the accumulation
of all the colored rays.

It is not necessary to say that the learned professor in the Sor-
bonne has not sought to draw an industrial profit from his inven-
tion. It is free to all who may hereafter wish to direct their in-
vestigations that way. There remains much still to be done be-
fore all the improvements can be given to science. The problem
now is to advance from the fixation of the colors on the sensitive
plates to their reproduction on paper. Theory permits the pre-
diction that regular reflection by a metallic mirror may be replaced
before long by the diffusion of light over a dead surface. It is,
then, permissible to hope, without contradiction of the theory of
interferences, that the multiplication of proofs by simple printing
on paper is only a matter of time. It is easy to understand how
much the arts and science are interested in the progress of the
photography of colors.

While the pigmentary colors used by painters are made of
substances which light may change in the long run, interference
colors, which are produced by the vibratory movement alone, de-
pend solely on the physical and mechanical conditions of the ex-
periment, and are not subject to alteration by time. Photogra-
phy of colors will permit the faithful reproduction of the pictures
of the masters, and will also assure the reproduction of meteor-
ological phenomena which may be of considerable importance in
future studies of astronomical science. — Translated for The Popu-
lar Science Mo7ithly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

A PEAOTicAL course of instruction in psycho-pliysiology was given in Univer-
sity College, London, during the Easter terra, by Dr. L. E. Hill. The plan of the
course was to take the student methodically over the several senses, and familiarize
him with the methods by which the new branch of science known as physiological
psychology or psycho-physics determines the precise manner in which sensation
varies, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with variations of the stimulus, of
the particular portion of the sensitive surface stimulated, etc. The Athenaeum
acknowledges the backwardness of England as compared with the United States
and Germany in the systematic laboratory instruction of students in this subject.

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF WILLIAM MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

WHILE the characterization by Mr. Thomas Laurie of W.
Mattieii Williams as having been "the first who swept
aside the veil that had been hung up between scientific workers
and the toiling millions " can hardly be verified, it is an indisputa-
ble fact that he was eminently successful in presenting scientific
truths in a form acceptable to the common people and adapted to
awaken their interest ; and his presentations rarely failed to sug-
gest further thought on the subject to which they related.

Mr. Williams was born in London, February 6, 1820, and died
in London, of cerebral apoplexy, November 28, 1892. He was
taught in boyhood, at three schools of the kind that then flour-
ished, a little arithmetic, grammar, geography, and Latin, but no
science. His experiences even thus early set his mind in the train
which led him to the adoption of those views on education which
he advocated and on which he acted later in life. When four-
teen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Thomas, mathematical
and optical instrument maker at Lambeth, where he gained a
practical skill and scientific knowledge which he was able to turn
to good purpose in the several courses of scientific lectures which
formed part of the work of his mature life. Although he had to
work from seven o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night,
he continued to attend the night classes of the London Mechanics'
Institution, Southampton Buildings, now the Birkbeck Institu-
tion ; and during the whole term of his apprenticeship he attended
the biweekly lectures which were given by eminent men of the
time in their several specialties, and the classes in mathematics,
chemistry, natural philosophy, French, German, and phrenology,
and took part in the exercises and discussions of the literary soci-
eties. The programmes of those societies during the period of his
attendance upon them afford as among the subjects of papers con-
tributed by him the Relative Character of the French and Eng-
lish; Constantinople and the Turks; Dreaming, Phrenologically
Considered; the Expediencj^ of Railways becoming National
Property; the National Characteristics of the French; Direct
and Indirect Taxation; the Propriety of Discussing Political
Questions at Mechanics' Institutions ; and topics related to psy-
chology and phrenology. On coming of age he obtained posses-
sion by inheritance of a small sum of money, by the aid of which
he studied chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and made a
pedestrian tour of two years in Europe. He spent much of the
time in Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Turkey ; and, becoming
acquainted with the Turk in the last country, found him a better
man than he was generally regarded as being, and a person of

SKETCH OF WILLIAM 3IATTIEU WILLIAMS. 549

better possibilities. After his return from the Continent he was
elected a member of the Committee of Management of the London
Mechanics' Institution. He opened rooms for carrying on com-
mercially the business of an electrician, an electrical instrument
maker, and electrotyper, intending at the same time to deliver
lectures on science and travel. But as his friend Mr, John An-
gell remarks, in a memoir prefixed to his Vindication of Phrenol-
ogy, " his enthusiastic love of science and general research was
destined to become a foe to the habits and forms of attention re-
quired in successful commercial business. Many a time friends
calling on him late in the evening found him so thoroughly ab-
sorbed in pursuing the theory of some practical problem he had
succeeded in working out that he had forgotten, meantime, that
he had taken neither food nor refreshment since his morning
breakfast." He was frequently called on to lecture at institu-
tions at a distance, when he would be absent for days at a time,
chiefly on subjects connected with his European tour, among
which a favorite course with him was one of six lectures on Switz-
erland, its social and historical aspects, jphysical geography,
geology, and glacier formations.

About the year 1846 Mr. "William Ellis made an offer of one
thousand pounds sterling toward establishing a school, to be
called the Birkbeck School, on the premises of the London Me-
chanics' Institution, in which, besides the principles of the natural
sciences, the principles of social well-being, or of social and polit-
ical economy, should be regularly taught. The Committee of
Management of the institution were unfavorable to this plan, and
ignored it in their report ; whereupon a bitter controversy ensued,
in which Mr. Williams was active in opposing the course of the
committee and insisting on giving a hearing to Mr. Ellis's propo-
sition. Finally, the offer was accepted over the heads of the man-
aging committee, the project was put under the care of a special
committee, and the first Birkbeck School was established July 17,
1848, with Mr. John Riintze as head master. Many years later
Mr. Williams met one of his strongest opponents in that contro-
versy, who confessed to him : " We all thought you and your
party were wrong ; now I know that your party was right and
we were wrong."

The Birkbeck Institution was successful from the first, and
attracted the attention of George Combe, a man distinguished for
his advocacy of schemes for bettering the condition of man, and
who had become acquainted with Mr. Williams while he was
studying in Edinburgh. He determined, with the aid of money
which Mr. Ellis should furnish, to establish a similar secular
school in Edinburgh, in which phrenology should be taught in
addition to the other branches. The problem of finding a com-

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

petent and suitable teacher for such an institution presented itself
and might have occasioned considerable difficulty, had it not been
solved by Mr. Williams offering to undertake the headmastership.
It was therefore called the Williams Secular School, and was
opened in the Trades' Hall, December 4, 1848. It increased rap-
idly, and was soon removed to the larger premises which had
been occupied by Dr. R. Knox's anatomical school, where it con-
tinued "doing invaluable model-work" until Mr. Williams was
called, in 1854, to take charge of the Birmingham and Midland
Institute.

This institution was projected by a few leading men in Bir-
mingham, and was incorporated by an act of Parliament of July,
1854. Mr. Williams was invited by the Council, on the recom-
mendation of Mr. Lionel Playfair, now Lord Playfair, to become
master of the science classes. He gave an introductory lecture,
August 17th, which at once aroused interest, and was commended
by the press as the work of " a man of no ordinary ability." In
this lecture, Mr. C. J. Woodward says, in his account of the insti-
tute, " Mr. Williams pleaded for the application of science to in-
dustry, and pointed out the important future to the workman who
became a scientific man. The classes first opened at the institute
were in physics, chemistry, and physiology ; but the curriculum
soon extended, and an important novel feature in popular educa-
tion was introduced by Mr. Williams in what were so well known
in the town as the ' Institute Penny Lectures.' The first of the
series was delivered in the early part of 1856, and attracted large
audiences. The first bench was occupied by factory boys im-
mediately the doors opened, and, as intended, many who had
their interest in science aroused for the first time were led to un-
dertake the more serious and systematic courses provided at the
institute. The idea of penny lectures led, subsequently, to the
establishment of penny classes and penny readings, and did much
in the direction of popular education."

Mr. Williams was an active citizen in Birmingham, and for-
ward in every scheme for improvement and enlightenment. He
was earnest in promoting the purchase of Asten Hall ; wrote arti-
cles in the Journal urging a more liberal policy on the part of the
Town Council, especially in measures for the improvement of the
public health ; was a leader in discussions concerning education,
and advocated the introduction of object lessons and practical
illustrations in teaching. He began his career as an author in
Birmingham ; contributed frequently to the Birmingham Jour-
nal ; published a pamphlet on The Intellectual Destiny of the
Workingman, in which he advocated manual occupations ; con-
tributed to the Chemical Society a paper describing An Apparatus
for Collecting Gases over Water or Mercury ; and, having made

SKETCH OF WILLIAM MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 551

a pedestrian tour tlirongh Norway, published his book Through
Norway with a Knapsack.

While living here he became unwittingly connected with the
Orsini plot for assassinating Louis Napoleon with bombs, which
resulted in the destructive attempt of January 14, 1858. He was
introduced to Orsini, whom he describes as " a highly educated,
refined, and courteous Italian gentleman," in the fall of 1857, and
having lived in Italy and witnessed the abuses of the despotisms
with which the country was then saddled, "heartily sympathized
with his patriotic yearnings for the liberation of his country."
Orsini represented to him that the patriots were preparing for a
great effort to drive out the foreign intruders, both Austrian and
French, but that the watch ui3on them was so close that they could
not introduce or hold ordinary arms. He had therefore invented
a new form of stellar gas burner which could easily be converted
into a bomb and used as a hand grenade. The gas-burner shells
were, however, too small for a charge of ordinary gunpowder to
produce effective explosion. Mr. Williams therefore suggested
fulminate of mercury in lieu of the powder, and taught Orsini
and Fieri how to make it themselves. They also learned how to
make fulminate of silver and some other detonating compounds.
Orsini, in his final confession, said that the English chemist (Mr.
Williams) who taught him how to make the fulminate had no
knowledge of its intended purpose. This assurance was accepted
by Napoleon and the French police, who gave Mr. Williams no
further trouble than that of a few days' secret watching of his
movements in Birmingham, which was so delicately conducted
that he only discovered it accidentally. Mr. Williams's sym-
pathies with the Continental peoples who were oppressed by for-
eign despotisms were very strong, and he sometimes expressed
them vehemently in his lectures, when he would denounce the
Hapsburgs and hold up the Swiss as a pattern people.

Mr. Williams devoted considerable attention, toward the last
of his residence at Birmingham, to the chemistry and manufac-
ture of paraffin oil, for which he had patented a process of distilla-
tion from shale. Having been appointed manager of the Lees-
wood Oil Company, whose works were at Caergwile, near Wrex-
ham, Wales, he left Birmingham in 1863, carrying with him a
testimonial presented to him by students and friends of the insti-
tute. The oil-distilling process was worked with complete suc-
cess, but without jDrofit ; for the product of the newly discovered
oil wells of Pennsylvania came into the market at the time and
destroyed the sales. Mr. G. Combe Williams writes that " during
this part of his career his foresight and influence over the work-
ing class, for whose social and intellectual advancement he had
devoted so much time and energy, were clearly demonstrated, for

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while strikes and labor riots were going on in the siirroiinding
works, his men worked on, having heard the facts of the case from
him, and while the other oil-masters were almost without work-
men during the agricultural harvest season, his personal influence
was enough to keep his men at their work."

After the oil-distilling enterprise had failed, Mr. Williams went
to Sheffield as chemist to the Atlas Iron Works. He conducted
investigations on the manufacture of iron and steel, the effects of
impurities in the same, etc., the accounts of which are fully re-
ported in his book on the Manufacture of Iron and Steel. At
Sheffield he wrote and published his book on the Fuel of the Sun,
in which he assumed the existence of a universal atmosphere,
upon the amount of which the planets can condense about their
surfaces the densities of the planetary atmospheres depend. His
speculations have not been adopted by astronomers ; but the book
is said to have received some curious criticisms, and contradic-
tory— from the mathematicians, who said that " the mathematical
part of the theory was correct, but there must be something wrong
with the chemistry " ; and from the chemists, who said that " the
chemistry was all right, but there must be something wrong with
the mathematics."

In 1870 Mr. Williams moved to London, where he engaged in
lecturing at schools. In 1876 he gave what he called an object
lesson in geography, when he took his pupils through Norway.
An account of this journey is given in his book Through Norway
with Ladies. He afterward gave up teaching at schools and de-
voted his time chiefly to scientific writing, contributing Science
Notes to the Gentleman's Magazine, and papers and paragraphs
to Science Gossip, Knowledge, Iron, and other periodicals. The
more valuable series of these articles were collected and published
in the Chemistry of Cooking (published in The Popular Science
Monthly and by D. Appleton & Co.) ; Science in Short Chapters ;
A Simple Treatise on Heat ; the History of the Manufacture of
Iron and Steel ; the Philosophy of Clothing, and Shorthand for
Everybody. His uncle and adoptive father, Zachariah Watkins,
by whom he had been helped in youth, to whom he dedicated The
Fuel of the Sun, and with whom he dined every Saturday for
twenty years, dying in 1889, left him an income that assured a
comfortable support, and, as he wrote to Dr. Taylor, editor of
Hardwicke's Science Gossip, he was able to begin his life work
at the age of sixty-nine. This life work was A Vindication of
Phrenology, on which he had been engaged, collecting material,
writing, and revising, for fifty years. It was left fairly com-
pleted, and is to be published by a London house.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

553

CORRESPONDENCE.

" WEISMANN'S CONCESSIONS."
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Dear Sir: In your issue of this month
is an article by Prof. Lester F. Ward en-
titled Weisniann's Concessions. In this Prof.
Ward endeavors to show that Prof. Weis-
mann has virtually acknowledged his own
hypothesis on the inheritance of acquired
characters to be untenable. But Prof. Ward's
reasoning is vitiated by a thread of error
that runs through the whole article, viz., the
assumption that, in showing that Weismann
concedes modification of the germ-plasm by
agencies outside itself, with consequent va-
riety in inheritance, he has shown that Weis-
mann concedes the " inheritance of acquired
characters" in the sense in which this ex-
pression is used by Weismann, Romanes,
Lankester, and most other biologists of note.
By the expression " inheritance of acquired
characters," as used by Weismann and Ro-
manes, is meant the acquirement de novo of
characters by the somatoplasm of an indi-
vidual (not characters that the somatoplasm
has acquired in consequence of a modifica-
tion of the germ-plasm) which, in some way,
so modify that individual's germ-plasm that
its descendants inherit the characters that it
originally acquired. This is obviously very
different from a modification of the germ-
plasm by agencies external to it, that causes
the development of new characters in the
individuals developed from this germ-plasm

and in their descendants. This last is not
inconsistent with Weismann's theory of the
continuity of the germ-plasm, while the " in-
heritance of acquired characters " (in the
sense used by Weismann) is. Prof. Ward
also speaks of the Lamarckian law as if he
thought what is generally meant by " La-
marckianism " was different from " inherit-
ance of acquired characters " (in Weismann's
sense). He makes another obvious mistake
where he criticises Weismann's statement
on the inheritance of syphilis, and, if my
memory serves me, he makes a great deal
more out of his quotation from Romanes
than Prof. Romanes ever meant, or the con-
text of the words quoted justifies.

Weismann, while one of the clearest rea-
soners among biologists, is at times a little
hard to understand on account of his style,
and I think if Prof. Ward will reread his
works he will see that he has not done Prof.
Weismann justice.

I do not mean to pose as a supporter of
all Weismann's views, but he seems to me
to have a clearer conception of the problem
of inheritance of acquired characters and of
the nature of the proof necessary to solve it
than almost any other man. At the same
time there is hardly an author who is more
misquoted and misrepresented — he is one of
Darwin's chief rivals in this respect.

Yours very truly, F. R. Welsh.

32S Chestnut Street, PniLADELrniA,
June 9, 1894.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

MAN AND WOMAN.
"TTT"HEN men and women come to
VV saying ungracious things of one
another in a kind of hostile rivalry, the
situation is not pleasant, and bodes no
good to the coming generation. The
evil may be a limited one, yet it is, as
far as it exists, a real one, and is already
embittering and unsettling a good many
lives. Well would it be, therefore, if
some one could come forward with an
eirenicon that would still the unnatural
jarring which is a decided feature of to-
day's civilization.

It is the women today who are in
the main on tlie aggressive. In fiction
and essay they are employing their new-
found intellectual powers in demon-
strating how poor a creature is man. Ac-
cording to some, it would appear as if
man had been the great imposture of
the ages, and that a certain instinct of
preservation liad led him to deny culture
to woman, lest he should be found out,
and the bubble of liis reputation eter-
nally collapse. One recent writer, w^ho,
however, assumes a man's name, has it
that if Nature had not implanted a trou-

5 54

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

blesome amount of affection in woman's
composition, she could by her greater
force of will and character drive man
into a corner of the universe, just as the
inferior races of the past have been
driven before the superior ones — only
more so, the disparity being greater.

This is not wholesome. If men
have abused their power in the past, it
is only what holders of power, who were
also fallible mortals, might have been
expected to do ; and if women were wise,
the lesson they would learn, now that
they are more and more being placed in
the way of acquiring power themselves,
would be, if possible, not to abuse it so
much as men in their day have done.
There is little to be gained by turning
the shafts of feminine wit against men,
nor will the feminine character be im-
proved by much indulgence in the prac-
tice. Better far will be a serious effort
to rise to the level of their new oppor-
tunities and responsibilities. A man
may be a great scholar and a great fool,
and so, we venture to say. may a wom-
an. It is a much easier thing to stim-
ulate the intellect than to strengthen
and enrich the moral nature; and it
does not follow that, because women
now have access to most colleges and
universities, they are going at once to
show a higher type of cliaracter. It is
not impossible even that a reliance on
those methods of culture which have
been devised for men may tend to im-
pair in a greater or less degree those finer
intuitions which are claimed as the glory
of the female sex, and in which we are
quite prepared to declare our own firm
belief. The intellectual differences be-
tween the sexes may be less than has
hitherto been supposed ; but there are
differences nevertheless, and it is the
manifest interest of the race that these
should be developed and made promi-
nent, rather tiian weakened and ob-
scured. So greatly have tlie claims of
women been advanced within the last
half generation that it seems almost like
offering an indignity to her present state

to quote the lines of Tennyson so greatly
admired in their day :

"For woman is not undeveloped man.
But diverse; could we make berastheman,
Sweet love were slain."

Still, perhaps, there is wisdom in the
words, and, if so, it might be well to
suggest a caution lest, in the eager as-
sertion on her part of equality in all
points with man — not to say of superi-
ority to him— something of inestimable
value be, if not lost, allowed to fall into
comparative disuse, with more or less of
resulting injury.

If the human race is to endure, and
if civilization is to advance, the relations
between the sexes must not permanently
be relations of rivalry. Men and wom-
en were not made to struggle with one
another for the advantages of life, but
mutually to aid one another in reaping
those advantages. That "sweet love"
of which the poet speaks is given as
the reward of right relations between
man and woman ; and, where other
guidance is lacking, we may profitably
ask whether any given line of conduct
tends to the gaining or the sacrificing
of that rewai-d. If to the former,
then it may safely be said to be , right
conduct; if to the latter, wrong. "What
it is clear that man has to do in these
later days is to frame tohimself a higher
and completer ideal of manhood than
he has hitherto, on the whole, enter-
tained, and try to live up to it. The
awakened womanhood of the age —
when allowance has been made for all
that is hysterical and morbid and heart
less in contemporary feminine utter-
ances— summons him most clearly and
distinctly to walk henceforth on higher
levels in the strength of a nobler self-
control. Then he bas to recognize in
the fullest sense, without a particle of
reservation, that he has in woman not a
weaker shadow of himself, not a reflec-
tion of his glory nor a minister to his
pleasures, but a divinely bestowed help-
meet, to whom special powers and fac-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

555

ulties have been imparted for the in-
terpretation of truth and the beautify-
ing of life. The ancient Germans", Taci-
tus tells us, used to recognize a certain
divine power of intuition in their wom-
en, and if they did it was probably not
without cause. The phenomenon is not
an extinct one in our own day, and we
venture to say that its frequency will
wax or wane according to the respect
paid not by man only, but by woman
herself, to all in her nature that is most
distinctive of womanhood. It is far
from certain that woman always recog-
nizes what her own best gifts are ; and
there is, in our opinion, a specific danger
lest, in her new-born zeal for a mascu-
line equipment of knowledge, she rele-
gate to an inferior place that native
truth of perception which is of more
importance, we may almost say, than all
formal knowledge.

The new times call for new virtues;
and not too soon has man been awak-
ened— or rather is he being awakened,
for the process is far from complete —
from what, with acknowledgments to
Kant, we may call his " dogmatic slum-
bers." The Spliinx is at our gate again
with its everlasting riddles, and woe be-
tide us if we do not solve them ! For
this will be needed the combined wit
and wisdom of the best men and women
of the time, and by the best we mean
not those who pride themselves on
the most encyclopedic knowledge, but
those rather who with sufficient knowl-
edge to understand the world around
them can, by the exercise of the deepest
human feeling, place themselves at the
heart of the social situation, and so give
us a clew to " the master knot of human
fate." The great remedy for vain rival-
ry and stupid competition of wits is to
join hands and hearts in useful work —
in work for that universal humanity
which, though not a fit object of wor-
ship, is at least an inspiring object of
devotion.

THE MEANING OF DYNAMITE.

Mr. Auberon Herbert, in the May
number of the Contemporary Review,
discusses in a very philosophical spirit
the dynamite outrages that have been
occurring of late in Europe, and partic-
ularly in France. The dynamiter, he
says in effect, is sitnply a man who,
finding that governments are founded
on force, and that in many cases they
have no higher warrant than their ir-
resistible power for the actions they
perform, determines to get even with
them by the only means within his
reach. He has not learned " the trick
of the majority," and so can not proceed
openly to impose his will upon others.
He can not uniform a policeman and
arm him with club and pistol, so he
arms himself with a dangerous and easily
secreted explosive, and places it with
lighted fuse where, from his point of
view, it will do most good. At first
sight it might seem that Mr. Herbert is
maintaining an outrageous paradox ; but
it is not so: he is entirely serious, and,
in our opinion, he fully establishes his
thesis that over-government leads to
dynamite. He cites France as a con-
spicuous example of an over-governed
country, and cites a multitude of facts
which show how little respect, in spite
of tlie republican form of its institutions,
is paid to individual liberty, how horri-
bly the omnipresent power of govern-
ment intrudes into the daily life of the
citizens. Mr. Herbert goes on to say :

"What I have said of France might
be said, with the necessary difference,
of other European countries — each coun-
try being vexed and harassed by its
bureaucrats, and each being affected in
its own way according to the genius of
the people. But in each country the
general effect is the same. Almost every
European government is a legalized man-
ufactory of dynamiters. Vexation piled
upon vexation, restriction upon restric-
tion, burden upon burden — the dyna-
miter is slowly hammered out every-

556

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

where upon the official anvil. The more
patient submit, but the stronger and
more rebellious characters are mad-
dened, and any weapon is considered
right as the weapon of the weaker
against the stronger."

England, the writer admits, is in a
different position. " We have inherited,"
he says, "splendid traditions of volunta-
ryism, which hardly any otlier nation lias
inherited; and it is to voluntraryism, the
inspiring genius of the English char-
acter, that we must look in the future,
as we did in the past, for escape from
all difficulties. If we can not by reason,
by influence, by example, by strenuous
effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend
the bad places of civilization, we cer-
tainly can not do it by force." At the
same time England has entered, he con-
siders, on the dangerous path of paternal
and protective legislation. As jet she
has only soiled her ankles — so he ex-
presses it — where other nations have
waded deep, and it is not yet too late
" to step back from the mire and slough
which lie in front of her." The question
is, "Will she? Under the guise of social-
ism and humanitariunism, the spirit of
compulsion is in the air. The well-
meaning everywhere are longing to see
whether they are not, or can not com-
mand, a majority in order that they may
begin to wield tliat compulsive power
which it is one of the strange delusions
of the modern world that majorities
have a right to exercise in everything.
Yet if one were to propose to put any
one of these well-meaning persons under
the absolute control of another well-
meaning person, who should prescribe
for him his comings and goings, decide
for him what causes he should support,
how much money he should give in
charity and for what particular objects,
how much wealth he should accumulate
and at what point the fruits of his in-
dustry should i)ass over to the state, we
greatly fear that well-meaning person
number one would make strong objec-
tions. True, he wants, with the aid of

those who agree with liim in opinion,
to settle these points for others; but he
has never seriously considered what it
would be like to part with his own lib-
erty. Ordinary human beings require
something more than an assurance of
another person's good intentions before
they are willing to make a surrender to
iiim of any large measure of their free-
dom of action; and we imagine that
many of those who to-day advocate an
indefinite increase in the power of the
state do so under a fond impression that
their particular views and schemes, hu-
manitarian or other, will always prevail.
They, with the help of others like-mind-
ed, want to govern the world for its good.
Well, what tyranny ever professed less?
Good intentions are excellent things to
have, but when they make alliance with
the policeman's truncheon they become
committed to many devious lines of pol-
icy, and quickly assume all the odious
characteristics of tyranny.

But does not the present unchecked
action of laissez-faire, it may be asked,
threaten danger to society ? Society as
an organism, we answer, will always be
subject more or less to disturbances;
but the important thing is to see that
we do not interfere with the compen-
sating actions which, like organisms in
general when thrown out of equilibrium,
it has the power to set up. Action and
reaction in the social world, as else-
where, are equal and opposite ; and
given the fact that man's instinct is to
pursue happiness, and the further fact
that the happiness of each individual is
largely dependent on the dispositions of
others, the actions and reactions taking
place in a society not strangled by gov-
ernment control would steadily tend
toward an increase of the general wel-
fare. Public opinion is, in all free com-
munities, a powerful agent of reform;
but it would be still more powerful if it
did not so often seek to embody itself in
law. We have yet to be convinced that
the world has suffered injury by any
application of laissez-faire. Uuder that

LITERARY NOTICES.

SS7

regime things will not always be done
rightly, but neither would they always
be done rightly under any system of
tyranny, socialistic or other, that could
be invented. Laissez-faire was probably
never carried further in the history of
the world than in the early history of
the several colonial communities which
afterward combined to form these United
States; and the principles of paternalism
and protection in government were
probably never carried further than in
the management during the same period
of the French colonies to the north and
east of us. And what was the result in
either case ? The neglected colonies of
England, with their very loose system
of local government, grew strong and
vigorous and wealtliy, while the over-
protected colonies of France seemed
smitten with industrial and commercial
paralysis. In war the latter were for
the most part efficient and formidable,
because then they acted in complete sub-
mission to leaders accustomed to com-
mand ; but in peace they languished and
withered. The English colonies, the
New England ones in particular, might
be compared to vigorous youngsters full
of animal spirits, and meeting with many
a disaster through their recklessness and
impatience of control. The French ones,
on the other hand, resembled puny and
exacting nurslings always crying out for
maternal help and succor. Laissez-faire
has its drawbacks, but it means, on the
whole, wealth, vigor, resource, and ca-
pacity for recuperation. It does not
mean dynamite ; the latter, as Mr. Au-
beron Herbert has well shown, being
the natural concomitant of over-govern-
ment.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Social Evolution, By Benjamin Kidd.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 348.
Price, $2.50.

This is a work marked to a more than
usual extent by independence and originality
of thought, and one which will set a great

many persons thinking on new lines. After
a careful perusal of it, however, we are led
to doubt whether the author's own conclu-
sions are very well matured. He has caught
sight, as he believes, of some important prin-
ciples hitherto unrecognized, or but imper-
fectly recognized, in the field of social phi-
losophy, and with the eagerness natural to a
discoverer he has communicated them to the
world without waiting to determine their ex-
act scope and application. The result is
more or less of incoherence and not a little
of apparent self-contradiction iu what never-
theless is from first to last an interesting and
impressive dissertation upon a most impor-
tant subject.

Mr. Kidd's first chapter deals with The
Outlook. He believes the world to be on
the eve of great changes. " Social forces,",
he says, " new, strange, and altogether im-
measurable, have been released among us.
. . . The old bonds of society have been
loosened ; old forces are becoming extinct.
. . . The air is full of new battle cries, of the
sound of the gathering and marshaling of
new forces and the reorganization of old
ones." What is the meaning of it all ?
Science herself, Mr. Kidd tells us, " has ob-
viously no clear perception of the nature of
the social evolution we are undergoing."
Well, then, who has? If Mr. Kidd, who
claims above all things to be pursuing rigor-
ously scientific methods, why should he deny
science any share in his work ? It seems to
us that if Mr. Kidd, as a scientific man, can
forecast the future of society, it would be
only using words in their usual acceptation
to say that "science" has, iu a certain meas-
ure, solved the problem. Of coui-se, if Mr.
Kidd claimed to have a revelation from
heaven, that would be a different thing ; he
claims, on the contrary, to be an out-and-out
evolutionist, a Darwinian of the Darwinians,
and a Weismannian to boot. He tells us a
little further on that " the definition of the
laws which have shaped, and are still shap-
ing, the course of progress in human society
is the v.ork of Science, no less than it has
been her work to discover the laws which
have controlled the course of evolution
throughout life in all the lower stages." So
we have always thought ; and we have felt
sure that Science, as soon as she gathered
and sifted a suflSciency of facts, would dem-

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

onstrate to the world that the one was her
sphere quite as much as the other. It should
be needless to add that such has been the
conviction of all who have had any tincture
of social philosophy ever since the early years
of the present century, not to go further
back.

But without entering too much into criti-
cism we must endeavor briefly to set forth a
few of Mr. Kidd's leading ideas. He finds
that science is strangely at a loss respecting
the meaning and function of systems of re-
ligion in man's life and history. Well, of
course science has much to learn, else it
would not be science, but theology, or some
such privileged branch of human knowledge ;
and, having much to learn, she is as willing
to learn from Mr. Kidd as from any one else.
Mr. Kidd has reflected deeply on this ques-
tion of the significance of religious systems,
and he finds that their main, if not only,
function is to supply the lack of a rational
sanction for the conditions of progress. His
third chapter has for title There is no Ra-
tional Sanction for the Conditions of Prog-
ress, by which he means that, when men
exercise the self-control or exhibit that re-
gard for the interests of others on which
social progress depends, they act foolishly
from the individual point of view — their con-
duct has no rational sanction. Religion, how-
ever, steps in and supplies an " ultra-ration-
al" sanction, and the maintenance of that
sanction is of such importance to the life of
societies that Religion pushes Reasou aside
and condemns it to a position of inferiority
in order that her work may not be interfered
with. " There never can be," observes our
author, " such a thing as a rational religion " ;
seeing that " the essential element in all re-
ligious beliefs must apparently be the ultra-
rational sanction which they provide for so-
cial conduct." Or, as he puts it, with more
precision, " a rational religion is a scientific
impossibility, representing from the nature
of the case a contradiction in terms." Dif-
ferent civilizations are simply the varying
modes or systems of human life that have
formed around different types of religious
belief. When a religion dies the civilization
dies also. It may linger for a while by vir-
tue of the inertia of established forms, but
the soul has gone out of it, and it soon falls
into decay. Intellect the author speaks of

as a " disintegrating principle " tearing asun-
der the fabrics which instinct has woven ;
but if we ask what useful function it per-
forms, we do not get from the work before
us — which, however, doubtless owes its ori-
gin more or less to intellect — any very satis-
factory answer. It has had something to do,
he seems to admit, with our progress in the
arts and sciences ; but its services are not
acknowledged in any very liberal fashion ;
nor are we furnished with any indication of
the limits which the author thinks should be
set to the exercise of the intellect.

The author is emphatic in his assertion
that social progress can only be made through
the free action of natural selection, and he
states that "the avowed aim of socialism is
to suspend that personal rivalry and compe-
tition of life which not only is now, but has
been from the beginning of life, the funda-
mental impetus behind all progress." One
would suppose from this that he had no faith
in socialism ; and yet, in his chapter on
Modern Socialism and elsewhere, he seems
to anticipate great and beneficial results from
a vast extension of socialistic legislation.
The fact is that it is very difficult to fix with
any certainty the author's position on many
of the questions he discusses. The best
chapter in the book, to our mind, is the
one entitled Human Evolution not Primarily
Intellectual, in which he points out, we
think with truth, that " certain qualities, not
in themselves intellectual, but which con-
tribute to social efficiency, are apparently of
greater importance" than purely intellectual
ones in promoting civilization and strength-
ening the basis of national life. In a word,
the race, on the whole, is not to the smart,
but to the good, to those whose social in-
stincts are strongest and social habits the
best. The whole book is worth reading, but
it should be read in a critical spirit, other-
wise it will teach quite as much of error as
of truth.

General Scott. Great Commanders Series.
By General Marcus J. Wright. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 349.
Price, $1.50.

Born a few years after the close of the
Revolution, and living through the period of
the civil war, Winfield Scott was contempo-
rary with nearly all the important military

LITERARY NOTICES.

559

events in onr country's history. He was a
Virginian by birth, of Scotch ancestry. That
the belligerent faculty which was afterward
so valuable to his country was early devel-
oped, is shown in an anecdote of young Scott
punishing a bully who was abusing the
youth's Quaker teacher. Young Scott en-
tered the legal profession, but in 1807 one
of the incidents that foreshadowed the War
of 1812 caused him to join a troop of militia
cavalry. When a more serious incident oc-
curred a year or two later, Scott received a
commission as captain. When war was ac-
tually declared, he was made a lieutenant
colonel, although being then only twenty-five
years of age. General Wright gives a de-
tailed account of the operations of this war,
in which Scott won an enviable record for
gallantry and a promotion to a generalship.
General Scott had gained some experience
in Indian fighting during the war with Eng-
land, and saw more of the same kind of
service in the troubles with the Sacs and
Foxes, the Seminoles, and the Cherokees.
He was sent to South Carolina at the nullifi-
cation time to act in case of an outbreak.
The chief part of General Scott's reputation
was made in the round of successes consti-
tuting the war with Mexico. The siege and
capture of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro
Gordo, and the operations around the capital
city ending in Scott's triumphal entry, are
described with gratifying fullness. The rest
of the volume is occupied with minor events,
including his nominations for the presidency,
his honors, travels, administration of various
military affairs, his retirement from the
chief command of the army at the beginning
of the civil war, etc. The various contro-
versies in which a strong will and somewhat
choleric disposition involved him are not
concealed, and a wealth of anecdote illus-
trates all sides of his character. A frontis-
piece, portrait, and several maps illustrate
the chronicle.

Aphorisms from the Writings of Herbert
Spencer. Selected and arranged by
Julia Raymond Gingell. With Por-
trait. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 166. Price, $1.

" How to live ? that is the essential
question for us Not how to live in the mere
material sense only, but in the widest sense.

The general problem which comprehends
every special problem is the right ruling of
conduct in all directions, under all circum-
stances." (Education, chap, i.)

This is the first selection in the volume.
For many centuries man has been working
out the solution of the problem to which it
refers, and has made the best progress within
the past generation. Just as his empirical
knowledge of bodily hygiene has been greatly
extended by the discovery of micro-organ-
isms, so has his understanding of right con-
duct been broadened and systematized by
the doctrine of evolution. Miss Gingell has
made her book of extracts bear largely upon
the management of life. Mr. Spencer being
the chief exponent of evolution, the princi-
ples of conduct found in his writings are co-
ordinated and unified by that great luminous
truth which both lights up the past and en-
ables us to peer into the future. This col-
lection of aphorisms consists of brief, pithy
sentences and paragraphs culled from the
whole range of Mr. Spencer's writings and
grouped under such headings as education,
evolution, politics, justice, sympathy, happi-
ness, etc. It has never been any part of
Mr. Spencer's plan to prepare material that
could be used in this way. The units of his
writings are the chapters, and a passage
taken out from its context is apt to give a
misleading impression when standing alone.
Yet Miss Gingell has carried out her under-
taking with much tact, and the volume fur-
nishes a sample of Spencer's quality from
which readers may decide whether or not
they desire to read any of his connected
works.

Materials for the Study of Variation,
treated with especial regard to dis-
CONTINUITY IN THE Origin of Species. By
W. Bateson, M. a. Cambridge. London :
Macmillan k Co., 1894. Pp. 598. Price,
$6.50.

The first portion of the above title is
printed on the back of the book, and, con-
sidered under this title alone, Mr. Bateson
has made a most valuable contribution to the
study of variation. He has classified the
phenomena, so to speak, and given some new
and convenient terms to express the kinds of
variation. The phenomenon of the repeti-
tion of parts he terms merism ; numerical
and geometrical changes are called mcristic

560

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

changes ; changes in the constitution or sub-
stance he calls substantive variation, and these
various changes may be continuous or discon-
tinuous. The word Jiomceosis is substituted for
metamorphy — this term being applied to cases
such as the eye of a crustacean developing
into an antenna, or the petal of a flower into
a stamen, etc. He has systematized the
sports, freaks, and redundancies of Xature,
and has done an amazing amount of hard
work in a field to which few have been hith-
erto attracted. He has also emphasized in
the most telling way one of the most impor-
tant factors in the doctrine of natural selec-
tion— namely, variation. As to the author's
conception that the discontinuity of species
is at all sustained by this evidence, we can
not agree. His introductory pages — and there
are many of them — are as laborious reading
as similar portions of Buckle's History of
Civilization. Man's power of apprehension,
nowadays, has so far advanced that there is
no longer any necessity for iteratmg and reit-
erating self-evident propositions.

Demonstrating, as he does, sudden and
spontaneous modifications in animals, he as-
sumes, without sufficient proof, that the di-
vergent chaiacters of many species have
originated in this way. He asks, May not
■ specific differentiation have resulted from in-
dividual variation ? The answer to this would
be that if these extraordinary jumps are ever
perpetuated for a time even, like the double
operculum in Buccinum undatum, for exam-
ple, which he cites, the wildest species-maker
has never dreamed of making a separate
species of such freaks. They are hardly ac-
counted varieties.

The author says that Lamarck's view
points out that living things can in some
measure adapt themselves, both structurally
and physiologically, to new circumstances,
and that in certain cases the adaptability is
present in a high degree. He also formu-
lates Darwin's theory as showing the survival
of those adapted to the environment. " Ac-
cording to both theories, specific diversity of
form is consequent upon diversity of environ-
ment, and diversity of environment is thus
the ultimate diversity of specific form. Here,
then, we meet the difficulty that diverse en-
vironments often shade into each other in-
sensibly and form a continuous series, whereas
the specific forms of life which are subject

to them on the whole form a discontinuous
series." We should question this latter
statement. We have, for example, the two
great provinces of land and water ; we have
also marked and emphatic divergencies in
these larger provinces ; the deep, moist canon
in an arid plain, the sharp line between light
and darkness with their appropriate forms
salt and fresh water, with the intermediate
brackish water and the paucity of brackish
water forms, and these pointing to their
evident origin and subsequent adaptation ;
and rivers flowing through limy and gran-
itic regions, with examples of mud lakes, sand
lakes, and salt lakes. Indeed, the zones of
demarcation are often so narrow that the
varieties due to these selective features
struggle almost hopelessly to keep up an
existence.

Mr. Bateson seems to think that physical
environment is the only selective action in
the struggle for existence ; but to those who
have studied Darwin there are many other
features to be taken into account, of which
no mention is made. Ignoring the theory of
natural selection, but recognizing the prime
importance of variation as the essential phe-
nomenon of evolution, he says, " Variation,
in fact, is evolution." He overlooks the im-
portance of all other factors upon which the
theory of natural selection rests — inheritance,
without which the theory would fall ; the nu-
merical proportion of individuals remaining
the same, without which fact it could not be
showTi that an infinitely greater number of
individuals perish than survive.

These equally important factors are laid
aside, and he emphasizes the statement that
variation, in fact, is evolution. This is as
logical as if one should say evolution could
not exist without life, life could not exist
without oxygen (omitting certain forms of
bacilli), and hence oxygen is evolution.

He repudiates the law of Von Baer, and
says " it has been established almost entirely
by inference, and it has been demonstrated
in scarcely a single instance." Mr. Bateson
can not understand why one species of moth
differs a little in pattern from another spe-
cies. He can not understand the utility of
small differences which distinguish species.
In his regard for species he should be re-
minded of the large number of species for-
merly considered good which have merged

LITERARY NOTICES.

561

into others as varieties or subvarieties. Many
of these species, furthermore, were made by
keen observers who devoted their whole
time to mailing them, and were adepts at the
work, and yet in the light of the studies of
Baird, Coues, Allen, Ridgway, Brewer, and
others these specific distinctions have been
broken down, and many of these formerly
well-recognized species are now known as
geographical varieties.

His work is filled with a large number of
cases of deformation, atrophy, hypertrophy,
duplication of parts, etc. Varietal groups
are one thing ; double-headed monsters, su-
pernumerary digits, . etc., are quite another
thing, and no one has ever been tempted
to look in that direction for new species ; in-
deed, the collector has rarely been inclined to
save such freaks, and so Mr. Bateson's book
is all the more remarkable for presenting
such a large array of material.

After turning the last page we say to
ourselves, If such profound structural diver-
gencies can arise, how clastic the organism
must be, and how infinite must be the num-
ber of minor variations of strength, endur-
ance, color, proclivities, etc., which is all the
material the Darwinian demands to sustain
the doctrine of natural selection as an all-
sufficient cause !

Total Eclipses of the Sun. By Mabel
LooMis Todd. Columbian Knowledge Se-
ries. Number 1. Edited by Prof. David
P. Todd. Boston : Roberts Brothers
Pp. 244. Price, $1.

The opening volume of the Columbian
Knowledge Series is a remarkably pic-
turesque book. Dealing with those impress-
ive moments, of infrequent occurrence in
any one locality, when the face of Nature
seems transformed, it appeals strongly to
popular interest. Moreover, the fact that
these occasions afford rare and precious op-
portunities for valuable scientific observa-
tions makes the subject doubly attractive to
all intelligent minds. Mrs. Todd has made
excellent use of her opportunities. With rare
powers of description she tells how eclipses
occur, describes their phenomena, and re-
lates the incidents of various expeditious for
observation. A historical sketch of eclipses
from the remote past down to 1893 is given.
Considerable is told about instruments and
VOL. XLV. — 43

photographic aj-pliances used in observing
eclipses. A notably interesting feature is a
list of future total eclipses of the sun, with a
chart showing where they will be visible,
and there is a similar list and chart of past
eclipses since 1842. The proofs of the book
have passed under the scrutiny of Prof. C.
A. Young as well as that of Prof. Todd, so
that readers need have no fears of inaccura-
cies. The volume is copiously illustrated
and has an index.

Popular Lectures and Addresses. Vol. 11.
Geology and General Physics. By
Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin).
London and New York: Macmillau &
Co. Pp. 599.

The volume of Lord Kelvin's Popular
Lectures now issued completes the set of
three volumes. Among the subjects dis-
cussed in the geological papers and addresses
are geological time, geological dynamics and
climate, the doctrine of uniformity, the in-
ternal condition of the earth, and polar ice-
caps. In one of the addresses delivered
before the British Association, Lord Kelvin
has discussed the sources of available energy
in Nature, designating them briefly as tides,
food, fuel, wind, and rain, all but the first of
which are derived from the sun. There are
also addresses, more general in character,
delivered at the opening of the Bangor labo-
ratories, at the unveiling of a statue of Joule,
and at three anniversary meetings of the
Royal Society.

Public Libraries in America. By Wil-
liam I. Fletcher. Columbian Knowl-
edge Series. Boston : Roberts Brothers,
1894. Pp. 169. Illustrated. Price, $1.

Every essential fact regarding the public
libraries of America is here told in brief com-
pass by the eminent librarian of Amherst
College. The claims of the public library as
a means of refined entertainment, as a gainful
partner to the school, the workshop, and the
studio, as here set forth, are certainly weighty
enough for national conviction. To the public-
spirited men and women who either wish to
improve a library already established, or who
desire to found one, Mr. Fletcher's chapters
are indispensable. He concisely passes in re-
view the selection of books, their fit housing,
and the management of a library, this last
task now much lightened for trustees and

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CominittocH by tlic libraiy schools at Albany,
Brooklyn, and at Amherst, where Mr. Fletcher
himself ])resi(leH. In discussing library founda-
tions our author conamenda those created by
gift, yet h(! observes that an institution is
nearer the popular heart when spontaneously
built up and controlled by the community it
serves. Basing a forecast upon the recent
iiipid growth of public libraries, not only in
number but in usefulness, Mr. Fletcher ex-
pects in th(^ futuie a still further expansion
for them. In this connection a list published
last April by the Public Library of I'aterson,
N. J., is significant. This list presents works
on astronomy, selected by Prof. C. A. Young,
of Princeton, who appends brief notes to the
principal titles. Lists such as this, ampler
in range and fuller in annotation, would double
the value of every pulilic Iil)rary incorpo-
rating them in its catalogue. At one j)ole of
education are the teachers of mark who can
appraise the working literature of instruction,
at the (jtlicf pole are unnumbei-rd iii(|uirer3
at library desks who ktiow not wliat to
choose ; to bring together the trustworthy
guides and the baffled wanderers would mark
a new era in popular enlightenment, would
Jireak down another wall dividing those who
need from those who have and are willing to
give.

Pain, I'i.kasuiu:, and tI^Isthetics : An Es-
say CONCKUNING TIIK P.SY(;H0L0(JY OK PaIN

AND Plkasuue. By IIknuy Rutgers Mau-
HiiALJ., M. a. London and New York :
Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxi4-;3Gl. Price,

$3.

TiiEiiK is a certain smoothness, sobriety,
and clearness about this work of Mr. Mar-
shall that appeals with j)eculiar emphasis
alike to tlie artist and the scientist. At
once the aesthetic taste and the spirit of sci-
entific inquiry are in a large measure satis-
fied. The author, indeed, is open to admit
that this is by no means a subordinate aim
ill tlie volume under consideration. As is
plainly manifest, he comes as a peace-maker
between the artistic aspirant who miscon-
ceives or deems the teachings of science an-
tagonistic to his favorite pursuit, and the
scientific investigator who suspects artistic
predilections as either inimical to or in the
way of science. Nothing that ministers to
the melioration of that harmonious under-
standing which ought to have obtained where

it was lacking, has been kept out of sight,
and happily for two great departments of
learning, a literary link has been added to
the cliiiiii of progress. While the work, in
its seven tersely written eha])teis, treats
mainly of psychological problems, the un-
dertone, apart from the author's prominent
design, is essentially aesthetic in its tenden-
cies, a fact that forms almost im])erc(!])til)ly
a mental meeting ground for scientist and
artist. Chiefly, the latter is impelled by an
inner and perpetual voice which expressly
commands him to act. But he is primarily
a listener, an interpreter of high and noltle
promptings. As such, he can have naught
against the " jihysical discoverer," to whom,
as Tyudall has admirably put it, " imagina-
tion becomes the mightiest instrument." In
turn, the scientist is indebted beyond meas-
ure to the genius of art, and gains from it in
regions decidedly testhetic many of the joys
of life, which indirectly contribute and be-
times directly suggest his boldest flights and
most clearly conceived problems.

The book aliounds with interesting com-
parisons grouped witliiu well-defined limita-
tions. With a psychological classification of
pleasure and pain, the reader is asked to con-
template the instincts and emotions, the field
of aesthetics, the physical basis of pleasure
and pain, and algedonic icsthetics. The work
as a whole is a general as well as technical
survey of comparatively new ground.

The Law ok Psvniic Phenomena. By Thom-
son Jay Hudson. Chicago: A. C. Mc-
Clurg & Co. Pp. 40!). Price, $1.50.

Those who are interested in the outlying
parts of the field of psychology will welcome
this book. It is a treatise on hyjmotism,
mental healing, spiritism, telepathy, clairvoy-
anee, and allied subjects, by one who is con-
vinced of the reality of such manifestations
and seeks to explain them as caused by
natural, though unfamiliar workings of the
human mind. The " law " referred to in the
title is also described as a working hypothe-
sis which is expected to guide furtlicr study
of psychic phenomena. It is stated in three
propositions : First, " Man lia-^, or appears to
have, two minds, each endowed with separate
and distinct attributes and powers ; each
capable, under certain conditions, of inde-
pendent action. . . . The second proposition is.

LITERARY NOTICES.

563

that the sul)jc'Ctive mind is constantlj- amen-
able to control l»y suggestion. The third, or
subsidiary, proposition is, that the subjective
mind is incapable of inductive reasoning."
The author proceeds to discuss the various
classes of psychic phenomena on the basis of
these propositions, especial attention being
given to " psycho-therapeutics," or healing
by suggestion. Pic analyzes carefully the re-
sults obtained by the prominent investigators
of hypnotism, rejecting many of the infer-
ences of certain too enthusiastic hypnotists.
He denies that a hypnotic subject can be led
into criminal acts \>y suggestion when the
subject would not commit such acts inde-
pendently. The common principle underly-
ing the healing effect of the faith cure, mind
cure. Christian science, etc., is sought for,
and a new system of mental therapeutics is
then set forth. The author accepts the
phenomena of spiritism as realities, but de-
nies that they are produced by the agency
of the dead. In the closing chapters the
physical manifestations and the spiritual
philosophy of Christ are discussed. The book
is temperate in tone, and its style is graceful
and concise.

•
Minerva. Jahubuch der gelehrten Welt
(Minerva. Year- Book of the Lea'med
World). Edited by Dr. R. Kcklla and
K. Trubneu. Third Year: 189.3-'94.
Ftrasburg, Germany : Karl J. Triibner.
Pp.861.

The compilers profess in this, the third
year's issue of their work, to have endeav-
ored to approach still nearer to their pur-
pose, which is defined to be to fiiinish the
most authentic and complete data possible
concerning the scientific institutions of the
whole world. The accounts of many insti-
tutions have been made more complete, and
others which were wanting have been added.
Of German institutions the more important
archives have Ijcen revised and a number
of libraries not before included ; of Austrian,
the archives and the university institutes ; of
French, the provincial libraries, for which
last the special services of Ulysses Robert,
inspector-general of French libraries and
archives, are acknowledged. Other addi-
tional and fuller facts have been furnished
concerning Scandinavian and Russian insti-
tutions by Prof. Lundell, of Upsala. Assist-
ance has been given by Signor Chilovi, of

the National Central Library in Florence ;
Prof. T. E. Holland, of Oxford; Prof. J.
E. Sandys, of Cambridge; Prof. Gallic, of
Utrecht ; Prof Nicholas Murray Butler, of
New York; and others in Bucharest and
Vienna. Dr. Reinold Rost, of the India Of-
fice, London, describes the institutions of
India, and Dr. Vallers, of Cairo, the Arabian
Academy of that place. The volume contains
a list of the institutions arranged geograph-
ically ; descriptions of technical and agricul-
tural high schools, veterinary schools, acad-
emies of forestry, and other independent
scientific institutions, libraries, and archives,
arranged in alphabetical order ; statistics of
students attending the institutions ; and a
personal register. In the United States are
described twenty-eight universities and col-
leges, two technical schools, two theological
seminaries, twenty-seven libraries (not college
libraries), nineteen independent observatories,
four learned societies (in New York and Phil-
adelphia), si.x museums, and the department
institutions in Washington.

The Report for 1892, of the Board of
Control of the New York Agricultural Ex-
pcririi'nt Station notices the improvements
that were made in the property of the sta-
tion, and carries with it, in the reports of
the director and others, accounts of the re-
searches that were cariied on. These re-
searches, which were also the subject of
bulletins, concern the feeding of hens and
chickens, black knot on the plum and cherry,
spraying with fimgicides, analyses of mate-
rials used in spraying and the influence of
copper compounds in soils on vegetation,
analysis of commercial fertilizers, the manu-
facture of cheese, and diseases of the bean.
An address by Director Peter Collier on What
is the New York Agricultural Experiment
Station doing for the Fanner? is published
in the report, and conveys much information
concerning the general working of the station
and its usefulness.

Dr. Eduard Sucxh, Professor of Geology
at the L'niversity of Vienna, published a vol-
ume a few years ago on The Future of Gold,
in which he tried to show that from geologi-
cal indications we must expect in the future
a scarcity of gold and an abundance of sil-
ver, and that the extension of the gold
standard to all civilized, states is impossible.

564

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

In 1892 he published a work on the Future
of Silver^ which, translated by Robert Stein
into English, is now printed and circulated
by the Finance Committee of the United
States Senate. In this essay the author
reaches the conclusion that, assuming that
the system of metallic coinage continues to
exist, silver will become the standard metal
of the earth, and that " the question is no
longer whether silver will again become a
full-value coinage metal over the whole
earth, but what are to be the trials through
which Europe is to reach that goal."

Charles Denisonh Climates of the United
States, in colors, already well known in its
form in charts, has been revised and con-
densed in dimensions, and is now published
in a convenient little volume by the W. T.
Keener Company, Chicago. It gives in
maps, with scales of colors graphically show-
ing the intensity of the phenomena in the
different regions, the average annual cloudi-
ness, rainfall, temperature, and winds, the
elevations of different regions, and the com-
bined atmospheric humidities and seasonal
isotherms and wind indications for each of
the seasons throughout the whole United
States, excepting Alaska.

Dr. Adolf Brodbeck, of Zurich, believes
that in his little pamphlet. Die Zehn Gebote
der Jesuiten (The Ten Commandments of the
Jesuits), the truth about the Jesuits and
their relation to Christendom is said for the
first time. The authorities on which he re-
lies are the classical writings of the order.

George H. Boehner prefaces an interest-
ing study of the Prehistoric Navcd Arehitee-
ture of the North of Europe (United States
National Museum) with a brief notice of
Greek and Roman boats, the constructions
of the Germans, and such ancient boats as
have been found in England. By far the
largest part of the paper is devoted to Scan-
dinavian boats, of which a considerable
number have been found in the northern
countries. This gives opportunity to de-
scribe the situations and positions of these
boats, their surroundings, and the articles
which were found with or near them, so that
incidentally much information is conveyed
concerning Scandinavian archaeology in gen-
eral.

Christ, the Patron of all JEducaiioji, is the
title of a sermon preached by the Rev.

Charles Frederick Hoffmann before St.
John's Guild of Hobart College, on the occa-
sion of the commencement of that institu-
tion in 1893. It is published, by request of
the guild and of members of the college
faculty, by E. and J. B. Young & Co., New
York. In company with it the same house
publishes, also by request, an address de-
livered by Dr. Hoffmann on the occasion of
the laying of the corner stone of St. Stephen's
College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson. The sub-
ject is The Library of a Divine Child.

The composition of The Study of the
Biology of Ferns by the Collodion Method
was begun by George F. Atkinson after he
had been successful in applying the method
in his classes to the preparation of the very
delicate tissues of ferns, and especially to
the infiltration of prothallia without shrink-
age. He started to prepare a simple labora-
tory guide, giving directions for preparing the
various tissues, with a few illustrations, made
chiefly from preparations put up by students
in their regular work, together with some de-
scriptive matter. Gradually other features
were added, and the book grew to its present
volume of 1 34 pages, constituting a fairly full
technical manual. The first part is descrip-
tive of the life cycle of ferns, their repro-
ductive organs, parts, gi'owth, and functions.
The second part relates to methods of prep-
aration and examination. The study is pub-
lished by Macmillan & Co., New York, at the
price of $2.

The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Sec-
retary of the Michigan State Board of Health
for 1889-'90, besides the regular matter of
official routine in the first part, contains in a
second part a number of papers, abstracts,
and reports, among which are one on the Pi in-
cipal Meteorological Conditions in Michigan
in 1889 ; one on the Time of Greatest Prev-
alence of each Disease, being a study of the
causes of sickness in the State ; and one on
Dangerous Communicable Diseases in Michi-
gan in 1889, relating to diphtheria, smallpox,
measles, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, whoop-
ing-cough, pneumonia, dysentery, glandular
hydrophobia, and lump-jaw. Henry B. Baker,
Secretary, Lansing.

The Rev. T. W. WeWs very useful and
convenient work on Celestial Objects for
Common Telescopes — a fitting companion for
Mr. Serviss's Astronomy with an Opera

LITERARY NOTICES.

565

Glass — lias been revised and greatly en-
larged for the fifth edition by the Rev. T. E.
Espin, and is now published by Longmans,
Green k Co. in two volumes. Preparatory
to beginning his work on the new edition
the author invited suggestions from ama-
teurs, obtained advice from the Asti'onomical
and Statistical Society of Toronto, and re-
ceived assistance from special students of
the sun, the moon, the planets, the comets,
and meteorites. The original text has been
left unaltered as far as possible, and the new
matter added is placed in footnotes. The
catalogue of Struve has been used as a basis.
The objects have been arranged in the order
of their right ascensions in the constella-
tions.

The most important event mentioned in
the Report of the Harvard Astronomical Ob-
servatory for 1893 is the completion of the
new fireproof brick building, and the trans-
fer to it of about 13,000 stellar photo-
graphs. The entire income of the Paine
fund has become available for the use of the
obsei'vatory. Photographing celestial ob-
jects under the Henry Draper memorial con-
tinues. The most important object taken is
a new star in the constellation Norma, July
10th, which has a spectrum appearing iden-
cal with that of Nova Aurigaj. A higher
meteorological station has been established
in Peru than even Chachani. It is on the
summit of the volcano El Misti, 19,200 feet
above the sea. The latest publications of
the Annals of the Observatory received by
us are Vol. XIX, Part I, Researches ou the
Zodiacal Light and on a Photographic De-
termination of the Atmospheric Absorption ;
Vol. XXV, Comparison of Positions of the
Stars between 49° 50' and 55" 10' North
Declination, between 18*70 and 1884, by W.
A. Rogers ; Vol. XXIX, Miscellaneous Re-
searches made during the Years 1883-93 ;
Vol. XXX, Part III, Measurements of Cloud
Heights and Velocities at Blue Hill Meteoro-
logical Observatory, by H. H. Clayton and S.
P. Ferguson ; Vol. XXXI, Part II, Investi-
gations of the New England Meteorological
Society for the year 1891 ; Vol. XL, Part 11,
Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteoro-
logical Observatory in the year 1892.

It is only by degrees and with difficulty
that the study of natural science has been
able to draw away from the domination of

older subjects of instruction. The early
guides in the experimental method unavoida-
bly retained too much of the character of
text-books. In Laboratory Studies in Ele-
mentary Chemistry, prepared by Prof. LeRoy
C. Coolcy (American Book Company, 50
cents), an especial effort has been made to
secure purely experimental study, which is
something more than verifying statements
found in books. Directions for a hundred
and fifty experiments are given, and the stu-
dent is told the object of each, but not what
he is expected to see. At the close the ap-
plication to qualitative analysis of the facts
and principles learned is pointed out.

The Problem of Manfliyht is considered
by James Means (W. B. Clarke & Co., Boston,
publishers, 1 0 cents) from the point of view
that the solution is to be sought in the prin-
ciple of the soaring of birds. The author
calls attention to the fact that the feat of
safely sliding down a long and gentle in-
cline upon an aeroplane has been performed
by Otto Lilienthal, of Steglitz, Prussia, and
adds that " in order to travel long distances
in the air it is only necessary to improve the
dirigibility of the aeroplane so that the angle
of descent can be brought to a minimum."
This can be done by making repeated ex-
periments with very simple and inexpensive
mechanical contrivances called soaring ma-
chines, these to be dropped from a height.
Exijeriments with machines of this kind
should be encouraged, with regattas and large
prizes. With machines made automatic in
their steering action, flights like Lilienthal's
will be no more dangerous than football,
quite as interesting, and far less barbarous.

A preliminary study of The Derivation
of '.he Pineal Eye is published by William
A. Locey, of Lake Foyest, 111., in the Ana^
tomische Anzeiger, of Jena.

The State Library Bulletin, Legislation,
comprises a classified summary of new legis-
lation, with a subject index, which is prepared
by entries on cards made as fast as proofs or
advance copies of the session laws can be se-
cured. This index is printed at the begin-
ning of each year in order to inform legisla-
tors and other State officers what of special
value in the subject under consideration in
the publications of other States is available
in the New York State library. The refer-
ences in Bulletin No. 4, January, 1894,

;66

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cover the laws enacted in 1893 by thirty-
nine States and one Territory. In most
cases the laws arc briefly summarized as
well as cited, in order to present clearly and
concisely material for comparative study of
the most recent phases of State legislation
on all subjects of general interest. (Pub-
lished by the University of the State of New
York, Albany. Price, 20 cents.)

In a paper on the Prevention of Tuber-
culosis in Ontario, read before the Ontario
Medical Association, Dr. E. Herbert Adams
advocates such measures of administration
and education as will make sure the total
destruction of the products of expectoration,
and of the germs of the disease in every
other form.

The Journal of Social Science, No. XXXI,
January, 1894, includes more than half of
the Saratoga papers of 1893. The one oc-
cupying the first place, and probably of
widest general interest, is the tribute of Mr.
Edward B. Merrill to the life and public
service of George William Curtis. Other
papers are the report of F. B. Sanborn on
Socialism and Social Science ; a review of
recent progress in Medicine and Surgery, by
Dr. Frederick Peterson ; Compulsory Arbi-
tration, by H. L. Way land, D. D. ; three pa-
pers in the Finance Department, relating to
the silver question, bimetaUism, and The
Three Factors of Wealth; three papers in
the Social Economy Department — two of
them relating to Mutual Benefit Societies
and the Sweating System ; three papers in
the Jurisprudence Department; and The
Education of Epileptics, by Dr. L. F. Bry-
son. (Pubhshed by G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York, and Damrell & Upham, Boston.)

In planning his First Course in Science,
the author, John F. Woodhull, believing that
the study of text-books alone can not be
classed as work in science, and that illustra-
tive or object teaching can be so classed
only in part, has attempted to devise means
by which apparatus could be put into the
hands of each pupil as early as possible. A
text-book, however, is essential, and it is
given here in two separate but mutually de-
pendent volumes. One volume contains
directions to pupils for performing their ex-
periments, sufficient to prevent aimless work,
and yet not so full as to interfere with the
inductive method. The other volume, the

Text-book, is similar to the ordinary text-
book, telling how the experiments should
result, giving the pupil a correct form of
statement for the conclusions and laws
which he has learned in a practical way, and
furnishing other information. The experi-
ments are on light. On every right hand page
in the Book of Experiments is left a space
for the insertion of the pupil's own notes.
(Published by Henry Holt & Co., New York.
Price of the parts, 50 cents and 65 cents.)

Prof. Max MiiUer, replying to an accusa-
tion that his book on the Srience of Thought
was thoroughly revolutionary and opposed to
all recognized authorities in philosophy, de-
scribes it as rather evolutionary, the out-
come of that philosophical and historical
study of language which began with Leib-
nitz and has now spread and ramified so as
to overshadow nearly all sciences. The
fundamental principle of the book is that
language and thought are identical, and one
can not be without the other. The three
lectures on the subject published by the
Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago,
are regarded by the author as a kind of
preface or introduction to the larger work.
To these lectures are added in an appendix
the correspondence between Prof. Miiller and
Francis Galton, the Duke of Argyll, George
J. Romanes, and others, on Thought without
Words. The lectures are sold, bound in
paper, for 25 cents.

The papers in the fourth number of
Yolume II of the Bidlctiyi from the Labora-
tories of Naturcd His'ory of the State Uni-
versity of Iowa are technical. Mr. B. Shi-
mek's account of A Botanical Expedition to
Nicaragua has- a few features of general in-
terest, but the author's mind was too singly
fixed upon his collections to permit him to
enlarge upon them. Of the other papers,
four are upon the slime-molds and other
fungi of Nicaragua, Central America, east-
ern Iowa, and Colorado ; two relate to the
physiology of the Coleoptera ; two, by F. S.
Aby, relate to the physiology of the Domes-
tic Cat, and to observations on a case of
Leucaomia ; and A New Cycad is described
by Thomas H. McBride. (Iowa City, Iowa.
Price, 50 cents.)

The work described in the Report of the
Botanical Department of the Neiv Jersey Agri-
cultural College Experiment Station for 1892

LITERARY NOTICES,

567

relates cliiefly to fungous diseases of plants
and to weeds. One of the leading diseases
investigated has been a serious trouble among
beans, producing brown irregular pits on the
pods and seeds. This was shown to be due
to bacteria. Much attention has been given
to fruit diseases and rose troubles ; diseases
of the violet, nasturtium, and sedum have
been studied also. Under the study of weeds
the root system has been an objective point.
The great size attained by tap roots of some
weeds, and the wide extent over which other
species may spread under ground, have been
shown. The manner in which weeds pass
the winter and their agency in propagating
fungi have also been looked into.

A thoroughly practical address on Heat-
ing and Ventilation of Rfsidences, delivered
by James R. Willett to the engineering socie-
ties of the University of Illinois, has been
printed by the author. Three modes of heat-
ing— by hot water, steam, and hot air — are
described in it. Mr. Willett tells how to es-
timate the amount of radiating surface or the
sectional area of hot-air pipes required for a
house, how to determine the grate area, the
sizes of fittings, and the proper location for
all parts of a heating apparatus. There are
sixteen plates showing plans and elevations
of heating apparatus in houses. Further in-
formation is given in tables and in cuts in
the text.

In the belief that spelling would be
learned incidentally from language lessons,
the set study of this subject has been largely,
discontinued. This belief has proved erro-
neous in many cases, and a return to the old
practice is being made. The renewed de-
mand for spelling books has led to the pub-
lication of The Limited Speller, by Henry
R. Sanford, Ph. D. (Bardeen, 35 cents), de-
signed to include all the words in common
use which are frequently misspelled. The
words are arranged in one alphabetical list,
the accent is always marked, and the pro-
nunciation is indicated wherever necessary
by diacritics or respelling.

With its number for December, 1893,
JfeiB Occasions began its second volume in a
new form and with more pages (Charles H.
Kerr & Co., $1 a year). It is edited by B.
J^\ Undervcood, and is devoted to social and
industrial progress. The enlarged size was
made necessary by an arrangement to print

in the magazine the lectures of the Brooklyn
Ethical Association for the past winter. The
December number contains the first of these
lectures, on Cosmic Evolution as related to
Ethics, by Lewis G. Janes. Dr. Janes asks
the question, " Can an ethical science be for-
mulated in harmony with cosmic law suffi-
ciently rational and broad to command the
allegiance of all liberal-minded people ? " and
gives some considerations in favor of an
affirmative answer. Other topics treated in
this number of the magazine are the pardon
system, immigration as affected by the tariff,
the Eliot-Lewes marriage, and there are
briefer articles under the general head of Oc-
casions and Duties.

Many persons are looking to science for
some kind of substitute for religion, and
several attempts have been made to satisfy
this expectation. Among the latest of these
is that made by Dr. Paid Cams and em-
bodied in The Rsligion of Science (Open
Court Publishing Co., 25 and 50 cents). The
author's system imitates the form of tradi-
tional religion quite closely, while rejecting
revelation and anthropomorphism. The re-
ligion of science, he says, accepts "Enthe-
ism," and he defines this as " the view that
regards God as inseparable from the world.
He is the eternal in Nature." The authority
for conduct in his plan is the system of laws
of the universe. Its ethics is the ethics of
duty. Its conviction as to immortality is that
the soul persists — not as an individual exist-
ence— but that it becomes merged in the
"soul of mankind." Further resemblances
and differences between the new doctrine
and the old are set forth in chapters on
Mythology and Religion ; Christ antl the
Christians, a Contrast ; and The Catholicity
of the Religious Spirit.

The Atimial Report of the Chief of Engi-
neers, United States Army, 1893, Part I, is
occupied mainly with accounts of improve-
ments in rivers and harbors on which work
was done in the year ending June 30, 1893.
Operations were carried on at many places
along the Aljantic coast and the Gulf of
Mexico, from the St. Croix River in Maine to
the harbor at Brazos Santiago, Texas. The
Western rivers, the lake harbors and rivers,
and the Pacific coast also received consider-
able attention. Other work done by the
engineer corps concerned the bridging of

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

navigable waters of the Uaited States, pub-
lic works in the District of Columbia and
the Yellowstone National Park, etc.

An essay on the History of the Pliilosopliy
of Pedagogics, by Charlis W. Bennett, LL. D.,
has been published in book form (Bardeen,
50 cents). It sketches the attempts that
have been made during the past four or five
centuries to base education upon some one
principle. The educational work of the re-
ligious reformers, abstract theological educa-
tion, Jesuitism, Jansenism, pietism, realism,
humanism, and deism are passed in review,
and freedom of activity is described as the
final stage. Portraits of leaders of educa-
tional thought, from Erasmus to Froebel, are
inserted in the text.

In The Educational Labors of Henry
Barnard, by Will 8. Monroe (Bardeen, 50
cents), have been chronicled a series of efforts
for the uplifting and advancement of educa-
tion that have seldom been equaled in value.
State Superintendent of Education in Con-
necticut from 1838 to 1842 and 1851 to 1855,
holding the same office in Rhode Island from
1842 to 1849, President of the University of
Wisconsin, and later of St. John's College at
Annapolis, and United States Commissioner
of Education from 1867 to 1870, Mr. Barnard
has had many and important fields of useful-
ness. In 1855 he founded the American Jour-
nal of Education, of which thirty-one vol-
umes have been issued. Four portraits of
Mr. Barnard and a bibliogi'aphy of his writ-
ings are included in the volume.

PUBLICATIONS EEUEIVED.

Adler, Hermann, M. D. Alternating Genera-
tions. A Biological Study of Oak Galls and Gall
Plies. Translated and edited by Charles R.
Stratton. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.198,
with Plates. $3.25.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports. Connecticut: Seventeenth Annual
Report. Pp. 3.31.— Babcock Test for Cream. Pp.
240. -Michigan: Fruit, Bulletins. Pp. 135.— Bul-
letins 107 to 110. Lambs, Potatoes, Vegetables,
and the Horse. Pp. 100.— Storrs, Conn.: Sixth
Annual Report. Pp. 200.

Carnegie, Douglas. Law and Theory in Chem-
istry. New York : Longmans, Green & Co. Pp.
222. $1.50.

Cline, I. M. Climate and Health of Galves-
ton, Texas. Pp. 7.— Summer Hot Winds on the
Great Plains. Pp. 40.

Correspondence School of Technology. Cleve-
land, Ohio. Catalogue. Pp. 23.

C'ragin, Prof. F. W., Colorado Springs, Col.
Vertebrata from the Neocomian of Kansas. Pp.
4.— New and Little-known Invertebrata from the
Neocomian of Kansas. Pp. 12.

Ewing. J. A. The Steam Engine a' d other
Heat Engines. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.
400. $3.75.

Fewkes, J. Walter, Boston. Dolls of the
Tusayan Indians. Leiden. Pp. 30, with Plates.

Foley, %Villiam C. Armor Protection for
Heavy Guns in Battle Ships. Pp. 12.

Hague, Arnold. The Yellowstone Park. Pp.
24.— The Great Plains of the North. Pp. 6.

Harris, W. T. Report of the Commissioner of

Education for 180O-'91. Two Volumes. Pp. 154fi.

Holt, L. Emmett. The Care and Feeding of

Children. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp.

63. 50 cents.

Huxley, T. H. Man's Place in Nature. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 328. $1.25.

Keen, W. W., M. D. Ligation of the Common
and External Carotid Arteries and the Jugular
Vein. Pp. 3.— Operation Wounds of the Thoracic
Duct in the Neck. Pp. 10.— Removal of the Gasse-
rian Ganglion for Tic Douloureux. Pp. 14.— Oval
Hemorrhoid: Operation and Cure. Pp. 4.

Lewis, the late Henrv Carvill. Papers and
Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain
and Ireland. Edited from his unpublished man-
uscripts, with an Introduction by Henry W. Cross-
key. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp.
469.

Lockwood, Jean Boag, General Manager. The
Epitome. Monthly. May, 1894. Vol. I, No. 1.
Pp. C4. 20 cents, $2 a year.

Lonsdale, E. H. Southern Extension of the
Cretaceous in Iowa. Pp. 10.

Marine Biological Laboratory. Sixth Annual
Report for the Year 1893. Boston. Pp. 46.

Marshall, the late Arthur Milnes. Biological
Lectures and Addresses. New York: Macmillan
& Co. Pp. 366.

Mason, Otis T. The Birth of Invention. Pp.
12.— The Progress of Anthropology in 1892. Pp.
4S. Technogeography, or the Relation of the
Earth to the Industries of Mankind. Pp. 21.

Missouri. Twcuty-iifth Annual Report of the
Superintendent of the Insurance Department.
Pp. 28.

"Ormond." Suggestive Essays on Various
Subjects. Creation vs. Evolution. Chicago: The
Blakely Printing Company. Pp. 67.

Palmer, Julius A. About Mushrooms. Bos-
ton: Lee & Shepard. Pp. 100. $2.

Powell, J. W., Director. Twelfth Annual Re-
port of the United States Geological Survey.
Two Volumes. Pp. 675 and 576, with Maps and
Plates.

Shufeldt, R W., M. D. Comparative OOlogy
of North American Birds. Pp. 32.— Scicutitic
Taxidermy for Museums. Pp. 72.

Silberstein, Solomon. Six General Laws of
Nature. New York. Pp.4).

Slater, John F. Fund for the Education of
Freedmen. Proceedings of the Trustees Pp. 42.
Smithsonian Institution. List of Publications
for Sale or Exchange. Pp. 26.

Spratt, Leonidas, Jacksonville, Fla. Man in
Continuation at this Earth of a Nature cf Reality
throughout the Universe. Pp. 109.

Stewart, D. D., M. D. Tests for Serum Albu-
men in the Urine. Pp. 19.— Non-albuminous
Nephritis. P]). 27.

Stokes, Anson Phelps. Joint-Metallism. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 124.

Thompson, A. H. The Origin and Evolution
of the Human Face and the Descent of Facial Ex-
pression. Pp. 20.

Trelease, William, St. Louis. Leitneria Flori-
dana. Pp. 26, with 14 Plates.

University of the State of New Y'ork. Secre-
tary's Report. Albany. Pp. 324. 35 cents.

Ward, H. Marshall. Action of Light on Bac-
teria and Fungi. Pp. 21.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

569

Ward, Lester P., Washington. The Creta-
ceous Rim of the Blacli Hills. Pp. 16.— Neo-Dar-
winism and Neo-Lamarckism. Pp. 71.— Principes
et Methodes d'^tude de Correlation geoloc;ique
au Moyen des Plante.s fossiles (Methods of Study
of Geological Correlation by Means of Fossil
Plants). Pp. 10.

"Wheelbarrow." Articles and Discussions on
the Labor Question. Pp. 303. SI-

Wilkins, W. H.. and Vivian, Herbert. The
Green Bay Tree. New York : J. Selwin Tait &
Sons. Pp". 389. m cents.

Wright, Mabel Osgood. The Friendship of
Nature. Pp.238. 75 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Prof. William Dwiglit Wliituey.— Prof.

William Dwiglit Whitney, of Yale College,
the foremost and greatest American philolo-
gist, died Jime Tth, in the sixty-eighth year
of his age. He was born at Northampton,
Mass., in 182'7 ; was graduated from Wil-
liams College in 1 845 ; after spending three
years in the Northampton Bank, he went to
Lake Superior in 1849 as an assistant in
botany and ornithology in the United States
Geological Survey. Having begun the study
of Sanskrit, he continued it at Yale College,
under Prof. Salisbury, for one year after his
return from this work. He then studied in
Germany, under Prof. Weber, of Berlhi, and
Prof. Roth, of Tiibingen. Before he was
thirty years of age he had edited, with Prof.
Roth, the Atharda Yeda, and had become
Professor of Sanskrit in Yale College. He
prepared a series of German text-books
which have sustained an excellent reputa-
tion, and continued the publication of San-
skrit books in rapid succession, crowning the
series with a Sanskrit grammar in English
and German, and a book on the Roots, Verb
Forms, and Primary Derivatives of the San-
skrit Language, which appeared in 18Y9.
These works, says the Nation, "are based,
not on the dicta of predecessors, but upon
actual observation of the facts of the lan-
guage, which are subjected to masterly
classification and vigorously scientific in-
duction." He wrote frequent and valuable
essays on Hindu astronomy, phonetics, com-
parative grammar, and mythology ; Oriental
religions and literature, and the origin and
nature of languages ; and delivered lectures
at the Smithsonian and Lowell Institutions,
out of which grew the volume on the Life
and Growth of Language of .the International
Scientific Series and his book on Language

and the Study of Language, which have been
widely translated. Other essays were em-
bodied in the book. Oriental and Linguistic
Studies. He was an important contributor
to the Sanskrit-German Lexicon published by
the Imperial Academy of Russia, 1852-"75 ;
was a member and officer of the American
Oriental Society for fifty-one years, and its
president after 1884; was first president of
the American Philological Association and a
frequent contributor to its Transactions and
Proceedings ; was editor-in-chief of the Cen-
tury Dictionary, and was a member of nu-
merous learned societies abroad. A bio-
graphical sketch of Prof. Whitney was given,
with portrait, in The Popular Science Month-
ly for May, 1879 (Vol. XV).

Women aad Edncatioii in the South. — A

valuable circular published by the United
States Bureau of Education is that on South-
ern Women in the Recent Educational Move-
ment in the South, which has been prepared
by the Rev. A. D. Mayo, and embodies a re-
view of what he has seen and learned dur-
ing twelve years that he has been engaged
in the service of education in the South, in
which he has come in contact with every
variety of school, both races, and all classes.
The essay presents three main divisions, re-
lating respectively to Southern schools for
the education of girls ; the work of Northern
and Southern women in the superior schools
for colored youth ; and the common school ;
in all of which departments the women of
the South are becoming every year more
broadly and vitally interested. To the prin-
cipal paper are added in an appendix sev-
eral essays, originally presented as lectures
or magazine articles, bearing on the subject
of education in the South.

Canse of the Migration of Birds. — Con-
cerning the reason of birds migrating. Canon
Tristram observed in the British Association
that observation has brought to light many
facts which seem to increase the difficulties
of a satisfactory answer to the question.
The autumnal retreat from the breeding
quarters might be explained by a want of
sufficient sustenance as winter approaches in
the higher latitudes, but this will not ac-
count for the return migration in spring,
since there is no perceptible diminution of

5;

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

supplied in the winter quarters. The north-
ward movement of all the others must be
through some impulse not yet ascertained.
In many other instances it is not dependent
on the weather at the moment. This is es-
pecially the case with sea birds. Prof. New-
ton observes they can be trusted as the
almanac itself. Foul weather or fair, heat
or cold, the puffins — Fratercula arctica — re-
pair to some of their stations punctually on
a given day, as if their movements were
regulated by clockwork. In like manner,
whether the summer be cold or hot, the
swifts leave their summer home in England
about the first week in August (luly occa-
sional stragglers ever being seen after that
date. To say that migration is performed
by instinct is no explanation of the marvel-
velous faculty ; it is an evasion of the dif-
ficulty. The sense of sight can not guide
birds which travel by night, or span oceans
or continents in a single flight. In noticing
all the phenomena of migration there yet
remains a vast untilled region for the field
naturalist. What Prof. Newton terms the
sense of direction, unconsciously exercised, is
the nearest approach yet made to a solution
of the problem. He remarks how vastly
the sense of direction varies in human be-
ings, contrasting its absence in the dwellers
in towns compared with the power of the
shepherd and the countryman, and, infi-
nitely more, with the power of the savage or
the Arab.

Chemical Coustitation and Color. — A

curious side light, says Prof. James Emerson
Reynolds, seems to be thrown on the nature
of the elements by the chemico-physical dis-
cussion of the connection existing between
the constitution of certain organic com-
pounds and the colors they exhibit. We
may take it as an established fact that a
relation exists between the power which a
dissolved chemical compound possesses of
producing the color impression within our
comparatively small visual range, and the
particular mode of grouping of its constitu-
ent radicals in its molecule. Further, the re-
ality of this connection will be most freely ad-
mitted in the class of aromatic compounds —
that is, in derivatives of benzene, whose con-
stituents are so closely linked together as to
exhibit 5Mas^■-elemental persistence. If, then,

the possession of what we call color by a
compound be connected with its constitution,
may we not infer that " elements " which
exhibit distinct color, such as gold and cop-
per, in thin layers and in their soluble com-
pounds, are at least complexes analogous to
definitely decomposable substances ? This
inference, while legitimate as it stands, would
obviously acquire strength if we could show
that anything like isomerism exists among
the elements ; for identity of atomic weight
of any two chemically distinct elements
must, by all analogy with compounds, imply
dissimilarity in constitution, and therefore
definite structure, independently of any ar-
gument derived from color. Now, nickel
and cobalt are perfectly distinct elements,
as we all know, but, so far as existing evi-
dence goes, the observed differences in their
atomic weights (nickel, 58"6 ; cobalt, Z^'1)
are so small as to be within the range of the
experimental errors to which the determina-
tions were liable. Here, then, we seem to
have the required example of something like
isomerism among elements, and consequently
some evidence that these substances are
complexes of different orders ; but in the
cases of coljalt and nickel we also know that
in transparent solutions of their salts, if not
in thin layers of the metals themselves, they
exhibit strong and distinct colors — compare
the beautiful rosy tint of cobalt sulphate
with the brilliant green of the corresponding
salt of nickel. Therefore, in exhibiting
characteristically different colors, these sub-
stances afford us some further evidence of
structural differences between the matter of
which they consist, and support the conclu-
sion to which their apparent identity in
atomic weight would lead us. By means of
such side lights we may gradually acquire
sotae idea of the nature of the elements,
even if we are unable to get any clew to their
origin other than such as may be found in
Crookes's interesting speculations.

The Camphor Tree. — While camphor
was formerly produced in Sumatra, Borneo,
and other parts of the East Indies, all now
known to the trade comes from Japan and
Formosa. The camphor tree is a large ever-
green of symmetrical proportions, somewhat
resembling a linden. It bears a white flower
which ripens into a red berry. Some of the

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

571

trees are fifteen feet in diameter and live to
a great age. A group of trees in the prov-
ince of Toosa, about a century old, are esti-
mated to be equivalent to about forty thou-
sand pounds of crude camphor. The cam-
phor is extracted from chips taken from the
roots or from the stem near the root, the
wood yielding about five per cent of cam-
phor, and the root a larger proportion. The
annual export of Japan camphor averages
about five million pounds. The forests in
Japan owned by the people are now almost
denuded of timber, but the Government still
possesses large woods of camphor trees,
which, it is estimated, will maintain a full
average supply of the gum for the next
twenty-five years. Plantations of young
trees are also making and well taken care
of ; and although camphor has not hitherto
been extracted from trees less than seventy
or eighty years old, it is expected that under
the present intelligent management equally
good results may be realized in twentj'-five
or thirty years. The Japanese Department
of Forests, which has the control of these
woods, is under good management.

Constitntion of tbe Ether. — Assuming
that the elastic solid theory of the ether has
failed, Mr. R. T. Glazebrook thinks that the
properties of the ether which would lead to
the equations that represent the laws of the
transmission of light, may be found in the
labile ether of Lord Kelvin. This is an elastic
solid, or quasi solid incapable of transmitting
normal waves. Such a medium would col-
lapse unless of infinite extent, or else fixed
at its boundaries. A soap bubble affords in
two dimensions an illustration of it, the ten-
sion being independent of its dimensions.
"Waves of displacement parallel to the sur-
face of the film would not be transmitted.
But such a film in consequence of its ten-
sion has an apparent rigidity for displace-
ments normal to its surface ; it can transmit
transverse waves with a velocity which de-
pends on the tension. Now the labile ether
is a medium which has, in three dimensions,
characteristics resembling those of the two
dimensional film. Given such a medium —
and there is nothing impossible in its concep-
tion— and the main phenomena of light fol-
low as a necessary consequence. Lord Kel-
vin, again, has shown us how such a medium

might be made up of molecules, having rota-
tion in such a way that it could not be dis-
tinguished from an ordinary fluid in respect
to any rotational motion ; it would, how-
ever, resist rotational movements with a
force proportional to the twist, just the force
required. The medium has no real rigidity,
but only a quasi rigidity conferred on it by
its rotational motion. The actual periodic
displacements of such a medium may consti-
tute light. We may claim, then, with some
confidence, to have a mechanical theory of
light. But nowadays the ether has other
functions to perform, and there is another
theory to consider, which at present holds
the field. Maxwell's equations of the elec-
tro-magnetic field are practically identical
with those of the quasi-\ab\\e ether. The
symbols which oocur can have an electro-
magnetic meaning ; we speak of permeability
and inductive capacity instead of rigidity and
density, and take as our variables the electric
or magnetic displacements instead of the
actual displacement of the rotation. Still,
such a thing is not mechanical, and we have
no satisfactory mechanical theory of the
electro-magnetic field. But the theory of
the quasi-X-AhWc ether may be applied, and
gives two analogies according as we regard
the density of the medium to be analogous
to electrostatic inductive capacity or to mag-
netic permeability.

Explorations iu Thibet.— In a paper on
Recent Explorations in Thibet, Mr. E. Del-
mar Morgan said in the British Association
that the discoveries made by travelers, begin-
ning with the Schlagintweit brothers and
ending with Dr. Thorold's recent journey,
had opened out new fields of research in
hitherto inaccessible parts. They had deter-
mined the continuity of the Kuen Luen
mountain system through twenty degrees of
longitude, and made known the direction
and structure of the principal chains. They
had shown the lacustrine character of the
central plateaus, and traced almost to their
sources some of the mightiest rivers of Asia.
They had thrown light on the climatic con-
ditions of these lofty deserts, and seen an
abundance of animal life on them. Their
researches had proved the existence, in for-
mer times, of a line of flourishing oases
along the northern foot of the Kuen Luen,

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

by \\bich the Chinese silk trade passed in
the middle ages, and had brought to light
the leading gold fields of northern Thibet.

Weather and the Mind, — The psycholo-
gy of the weather is suggested by Dr. T. D.
Crothers as a pronaising subject for study.
He says, in Science : " Very few persons rec-
ognize the sources of error that come direct-
ly from atmospheric conditions on experi-
menters and observers and others. In my
own case I have been amazed at the faulty
deductions and misconceptions which were
made in damp, foggy weather, or on days in
which the air was charged with electricity
and thunderstorms were impending. What
seemed clear to me at these times appeared
later to be filled with error. An actuary in
a large insurance company is obliged to stop
work at such times, finding that he makes so
many mistakes which he is only conscious of
later that his work is useless. In a large
factory from ten to twenty per cent less
work is brought out on damp days and days
of threatening storm. The superintendent,
in receiving orders to be delivered at a cer-
tain time, takes this factor into calculation.
There is a theory among many persons in the
fire-insurance business that in states of de-
pressing atmosphere greater carelessness ex-
ists and more fires follow. Engineers of
railway locomotives have some curious theo-
ries of trouble, accidents, and increased dan-
gers in such periods, attributing them to the
machinery.-' Dr. Crothers adds that the con-
viction prevails among many active brain
workers in his circle that some very power-
ful forces coming from what is popularly
called the weather control the work and its
success of each one.

Seeking Perfection.— The Rev. J. A.

Wylie, describing his journey through cen-
tral Manchuria, speaks of a charming place,
the Lao Te Ling, near Ta Shin Ho, whore, at
the summit of a hill, " there are several fine
temples, including one, a large Buddhist
temple, in course of erection ; and in con-
nection with this there is an interesting
story. In a little house with eight leet by
six feet of accommodation, two thirds of
which is occupied by a small Kang, there
lives a Buddhist priest. His head is not
close-shaven, as the heads of other Buddhist

priests are, for since taking up his residence
in these quarters, or rather in this sentry
box, he has allowed his locks to grow. For
four years has he already been here, and an-
other three years at least remain for him to
stay. He is seeking to attain perfection,
and he must finish what he has begun. Not
until the temple is finished building will he
be at liberty to leave his post. The little
door of this priest's domicile is sealed up, so
he never even steps out into the open air;
there is only a small opening in the door or
window for an attendant to hand in his
meals. These meals are scanty and few ;
only one meal a day at noon. He drinks
great quantities of tea, however; he seems
to put no limit to his indulgence in that
beverage. In sleep he does not stretch him-
self out ; in fact, he never lies down, he only
half reclines, and, asleep or awake, he con-
stantly keeps pulling away at a rope which
connects with the temple bell, which must
never cease to ring. Travelers passing at
all hours may hear the bell sounding ; this
is part of his work of merit. While I was
with him, even although we spoke in such a
way that everything else might be forgotten,
he did not forget to pull the rope. How,
during sleep, he manages is to me the mys-
tery. He had heard long ago of the Chris-
tian religion ; some books I offered him he
refused, on the ground that before he had
purified himself by completing his task it
would be sacrilege to touch these books.
When I pressed him he accepted them, how-
ever. How earnest must this man be when
he thus denies himself ! Still it is merit, and
merit for himself, that he is endeavoring to
attain."

Coal-dust Explosions. — A strong confir-
mation of the theory that coal dust is a fre-
quent cause of explosions in coal mines is
given by the experiments made in the
AVhite Moss Colliery, Skelmersdale, and re-
corded by Mr. Henry Hall, inspector of
mines. It appears from them that the flame
from a blowing-out gunpowder shot in the
presence of dry coal dust is always found to
ignite more or less such dust and to increase
the burning and charring effects of the shot.
When a large flame, such as that of a blow-
ing-out gunpowder shot, or the flame from
the ignition of a small quantity of fire damp.

POPULAR MISCELLANY

573

traverses an atmosphere containing a very
moderate quantity of dry coal dust, the
dusty atmosphere will explode with great
violence, and the explosion will continue and
pass throughout any length of such atmos-
phere, its violence and force increasing as it
progresses. The coal dust from several seams
in certain different districts is almost as sensi-
tive to explosion as gunpowder itself, the de-
gree of sensitiveness increasing in proportion
to its high quality and freedom from impuri-
ties. In mines which are briskly ventilated
there is a greater probability of explosion,
while in such cases it is generally more severe.
One of the most important results of the ex-
periments made has been to demonstrate that
certain high " explosives " (roburite, ammon-
ite, etc.) are incapable of igniting or explod-
ing coal dust. Mr. Hall, in face of these
facts, is therefore led to urge the total abo-
lition of gunpowder from coal mines for
blasting purposes and the substitution of
certain " high explosives " — precautionary
measures which many large firms have al-
ready adopted. Apart from the danger of
using gunpowder arising from the ease with
which it starts a dust explosion, it appears
that in mere handling alone four hundred
lives have been sacrificed during the last
twenty years, while the loss of life from ex-
plosions caused by gunpowder during the same
time has been at least one half of the total loss
— viz., 4,098 persons. With regard to pre-
ventive measures, every possible effort, it is
recommended, should be made, either by
watering the dry dust or removing it to
avoid accumulation, so that any accidental
ignition of fire damp may be limited in its
effects and prevented from developing into a
sweeping explosion through the agency of
dust.

Birds of Michigan. — The Bird Fauna of
Michigan, as described by Mr. A. J. Cook in
a bulletin of the State Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, being protected by the Great
Lakes nearly surrounding the State, is very
interesting. As is shown by Dr. C. Hai't
Merriam's colored map, it embraces rep-
resentatives of three distinct faunas — viz.,
the boreal in the north, which includes the
northern peninsula and the northern part
of the southern peninsula ; the transition,
which occupies nearly all the southern penin-

sula, and reaches slightly into Indiana and
Ohio ; and the upper Souoran, which, though
mostly to the south of Michigan, reaches
into the southeastern and southwestern cor-
ners of the State. There are met in Michigan
many birds peculiar to the far north, and
others that dwell for the most part in the
States and countries to the south, even reach-
ing to and beyond the Gulf. The first are
illustrated in the Bohemian waxwing, the
spruce partridge, the Canada jay, and the
pine grosbeak ; and the summer redbird, the
mocking bird, and the cardinal redbird illus-
trate the second group. The large lakes at-
tract many birds that are usually maritime,
like the gulls and the terns ; while in south-
ern Michigan, with its prairies and wood-
lands, both widely distributed, are found the
prairie fauna, as illustrated in the pinnated
grouse, and those birds which are most at
home in the forests of Avooded areas, like
most of the thrushes and the warblers.

The Future Work of the Americau Uni-
versity.— Addressing the Pennsylvania State
Board of Agriculture on the Progress and
Practical Value of Agricultural Science, Dr.
Peter Collier gave a prominent place in
illustration to the work that has been done
in the analysis of fertilizers, whereby frauds
have been exposed, and farmers have been
pecuniarily benefited by the cheapening of
fertilizing materials and the assurance of
increased and improved crops. A further
illustration is found in the progress and prac-
tical applications of bacteriology — a word
which, together with bacteria, does not oc-
cur in the standard dictionaries of 1868 —
by means of which the causes and cures of
the most serious maladies that affect crops
have been discovered and brought within the
reach of all, and such operations as the mak-
ing of butter and cheese are facilitated. One
would not have imagined a short time ago
that physics and physiology were the sisters
of psychology, or that ethics should consort
with economics and sociology in the same
laboratory, or that a professor of institu-
tional history should commend to his pupils
biology as a minor subject. Yet all these
things have really happened. Indeed, only
since Darwin and Spencer has it been pos-
sible to discover the essential kinship of the
various branches of knowledge. Projecting

574

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the future of the American university, the
author assumes that it must become the rep-
resentative of chnamic culture. The univer-
sity should have much to do with social re-
forms, political regeneration, and correction
of errors in the treatment of criminals. Social
and political reform will be impossible with-
out moral regeneration, in which, as the work
must begin with the individual, the univer-
sity has a noble part to perform. " The
fact is, the American people need a tonic of
the most active kind. Partly as a result of
the spoils system and partly in consequence
of the unnatural industrial and political con-
ditions produced by the civil war, we have
been brought to a very low plane of public
morality. ' It is a familiar fact,' says Her-
bert Spencer, ' that the corporate conscience
is ever inferior to the individual conscience.'
Indeed, it seems to me that a nation is in
evil straits when the standard of public
morality is very much lower than the stand-
ard of private morality, and that is precise-
ly the case with the people of the United
States. Never, perhaps, has there been a
greater disparity between political and pri-
vate ethics. A double system of morality is
a dangerous possession for any nation. Our
ideal of public conduct must approximate
more nearly to our ideal of private conduct
if we would ever attain the best in the higher
life."

Remaking onr Boy^.— "Boys, as they
are made," as contemplated by F. H. Briggs,
of the State Industrial School, Rochester, in
an address concerning them, are not the boys
who have home privileges and careful, com-
petent home training, but the boys of the
slums, and of the poor and the degraded.
The question, How to remake them ? is one
that the public school should have an im-
portant part in answering. For the child-
boy, in the autlior's view, the kindergarten
should be substituted for the home and
street during the day, and one should be
established, where all will be treated with
equal consideration, in every locality where
the poor abound. " The kindergarten gives
the child the mental, physical, and moral ex-
ercise that it needs. . . . But what about
the boys who are beyond the kindergarten
age now, and about the boys who have
passed through the kindergartens ? Put

them into manual training schools. . . . What
should be the instruction in these schools?
That which in a natural way develops the
physical, mental, and moral faculties. The
workshop should form an inseparable con-
comitant of every school. Children delight
in doing. This is why the kindergarten is
so effective as an educational agent." Our
school for the boy should have drawing for
its corner stone ; and modeling should accom-
pany it, that by the test of actual contact the
correctness of the perceptions of size and
form may be tested, and the love of the
beautiful more fully gratified. Then the use
of woodworking tools — the one thing that a
boy always delights in. " It helps a boy to
find out what square means. When he can
saw to the line every time, he has a greater
respect for truth. When he habitually be-
comes exact in the use of tools the great
battle is won. Your skilled mechanic is not
usually a liar. His respect for exactness
makes him hard to the line in his speech.
These three, then, drawing, modeling, and
woodworking in its various forms, should
form the foundation upon which our remak-
ing structure should rest." And they should
add develd^ment and symmetry to the whole.
" These things lie at the very basis of all
handicraft. They enable one trained in them
to see things in new ways ; to see their
parts, their forms, their beauties ; in fact, as
training for the perceptive and conceptive
faculties they have no equal. No scheme of
education is complete that leaves music out."
Nature has a warm place in every child's
heart. It is ever presenting some new form
for contemplation ; " and as bud, leaf, flow-
er, and fruit appear they challenge the child's
attention and invite study. . . . Why has
Nature been so long a closed book to the
masses ? Why is so much that is beautiful
and ennobling denied to the famishing souls
of little children '! Why should natural
history and science wait for the high-school
or college course that the great mass of
people never reach ? "

Town Refuse as Fuel. — Experiments in
seeking to utilize the refuse of towns as
fuel have been carried so far that a plant,
known as the Livfet plant, has been set up in
Halifax, England, with which it is intended
to supply electric energy. The successful

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

575

working of the Livct furnace appears to de-
pend upon the peculiar construetiou of its
flues, which are so built as to utilize the
effect of the decreasing volume of the gases
of combustion traveling toward the chimney,
so promoting a high velocity to the air pass-
ing through the furnace bars and producing
rapid combustion with intense heat. At the
same time, the effect of this peculiarity of
construction is to cause the gases themselves
to move slowly through the flues, so that
they may part with their useful heat before
escaping into the atmosphere. The force of
draught at the furnace is such that a high
and constant temperature is obtained and
efficiency of combustion insured, while all
unpleasant odors inherent in town garl)age
are destroyed. As an example of the heat
economy effected, it is said that whereas in
previous, generators the best results ever ob-
tained have been three quarters of a pound
of water evaporated on the combustion of
one pound of refuse, in the Livet generator
over three pounds of water are evaporated
into steam for every pound of refuse con-
sumed, in spite of the fact that it is fre-
quently known to contain twenty per cent of
moisture. The temperature of the gases
just before entering the chimney is stated to
be from 300° to 400° Fahr. lower than hitherto
obtained. The progression of the gases is
partially arrested at both ends of each flue
for the purpose of permitting them to de-
posit the contained light dust in suitable
expansion chambers or pits which can be
cleaned out when desirable. This arrange-
ment serves to overcome the objectionable
dust, which in ordinary " destructors " tends
to choke the flues and impregnate the ah- of
the surrounding districts.

Uses of Driuks. — In discussing the ques-
tion whether Australia will become a wine-
drinking country. Dr. Murray Gibbs pointed
out that different nations had always,, fi'om
time immemorial, selected certain beverages
as national drinks, and that the fact that the
fruit, leaf, or grain supplying the essential
principle of the drink was not always indige-
nous to the national soil was itself a proof
that convenience was not the only factor in-
dicating the choice. Many continental na-
tions drink, of course, the wine of their
particular district, and for centuries the

Englishman's beer was made from the Eng-
lishman's barley. On the other hand, the
universal vogue of drinking decoctions made
from the Eastern shrubs tea and coffee
shows that the popularity of a beverage has
no geographical limits. The character of
the drink adopted as national must always
be largely dictated by the character of the
soil and food, and this, in turn, is dependent
upon the climate of the country. Sir Wil-
liam Roberts has said that all beverages,
alcoholic or non-alcoholic, conduce to one of
two conditions — retardation of the digestive
process or excitation of the nervous system.
The harsher climates require the stronger
foods, and these — inasmuch as time is neces-
sary for their proper assimilation — call for
checks upon a too rapid and so incomplete
digestion. Chief among these are the vege-
table acids contained in wine, and the seda-
tive properties of tea and coffee.

Occupations to aMaken Dormant Facul-
ties.— In a paper on Industrial Training in
Reformatory Institutions (published by C. W.
Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.) Mr. F. M. Briggs,
of the State Industrial School, relates a few
incidents of cases in which mental powers,
before dormant, were awakened by setting
pupils at work for which they had a taste.
"There are boys in the State Industrial School
at the present time," the author says, " vvhose
interest we could not arouse in the common
schools. Some were naturally so weak men-
tally that^ after weeks of conscientious work
on the part of the teacher, they were not
afcle to repeat from memory a four-verse
stanza of a poem for children. Others would
not apply themselves sufficiently long to learn
anything. Some of these boys were placed
in the clay-modeling and wood-carving shop.
The boys who had been regarded as almost
idiots soon began to show improvement.
The boys who had been especially trouble-
some elsewhere, in the clay work ceased to
be annoying. When a boy begins work with
clay, he seems to feel himself in the unity of
things and he becomes happy accordingly ;
and, as he sees the formless clay take shape
beneath his touch, a sense of power is born
within him which arouses and quickens him."
A boy who had been cruel, cunning, and vi-
cious, presenting no point for reaching his
nature, one day in the wood-working shop

576

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

asked his teacher to look at a molding board
he had made. " The old spirit seemed to be
gone as he showed me the result of his handi-
work ; unconsciously he had found the secret
of power." Another boy, regarded as hard-
ly more than an idiot, had been gaining in
his shop work, with his eye taking new
bi'ightness and his face clearing; and his
school work showed the effect of the shop
training. Another boy, a persistent offender
in shop and school, expressed a desire, when
decorating was introduced, to do work of that
kind. The request was granted, and " his
first effort showed his ability, and a new
manhood asserted itself within him."

Beginnings of Mountain Climbing. — The

glaciers of the Alps began to attract the at-
tention of scientific men toward the end of
the seventeenth century, but travelers mak-
ing the grand tour considered mountains
hideous. It was not, says Mr. W. M. Con-
way, till the dawn of romanticism, a hun-
dred years later, that the beauty of moun-
tains began to be recognized. The first
snow mountains to be climbed were the
Titlis in 1739. Pococke and Windham's
visit to the Chamounix followed in 17-11,
and with that the modern epoch of Alpine
exploration may be said to have begun. In
1775 an attempt was made to reach the
summit of Mont Blanc. This was repeated
in several subsequent years, till in 1786
Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard were
successful. De Saussure's famous ascent
was made in 1787. During the next half
century the prejudice against mountains and
dread of them were gradually dissolved. The
Jungfrau was climbed in 1811, the Finster-
aarhorn in 1812, and other peaks followed.
It was not till after 1850 that systematic
Alpine climbing could be said to have been
introduced. The present Mr. Justice Wil-
lis's ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 was
usually recognized as the first important
" sporting " climb. Prom that time for-
ward the exploration of the Alps advanced
rapidly. Monte Rosa was climbed in 1855,
Mont Blanc without guides and by a new
road in 1856. In 1859 the Alpine Club
was founded in London, and the ex-
ample thus set was shortly afterward fol-
lowed by foreign mountaineers. Thencefor-
ward the exploration of the Aljie advanced

rapidly, and it might now be regarded as
fairly complete, so far as the main groups
are concerned.

NOTES.

The summer meeting of the Northwest-
ern Electrical Association was to be held in
St. Paul, Minn., July 18th, 19th, and 20th.
A larger number of attendants was expected
than were present at the last meeting, in-
cluding representatives from Illinois, Iowa,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and North and South
Dakota. An excellent programme was pre-
pared, and speakers were invited from among
the most expert representatives of the pro-
fession.

The essential oils were held in high es-
teem by the ancients, but lately seem to have
been forgotten in the multitude of new dis-
coveries. The power of many of them to
destroy bacteria has, however, been demon-
strated anew by M. Chamberland, M. Cadeac,
and M. Meunier, and M. Blaizot and M.
Caldagues have found in them bactericidal
powers even greater than they had been sup-
posed to possess. The essences found by
these gentlemen to be most active are those
of cinnamon, lavender, marjoram, cloves,
geranium, vervain, and tuberose. The sim-
ple exposition of their vapors is sufficient to
destroy in an hour such microbes as those
of pus and cholera, and six minutes' exposure
effects a manifest attenuation of their activity.

The method of purification by distilla-
tion in a vacuum, which has hitherto been
little employed, except with mercury, has
been applied by Prof. G. W. Kahlbaum, of
Basle, with great success to potassium, so-
dium, selenium, tellurium, cadmium, mag-
nesium, bismuth, and thallium, while the
experiments with zinc and manganese have
so far been unsatisfactory. Judging by
spectrum analysis, an extreme degree of
purity was obtained. Thus, thirty-five ines
disappeared from the spectrum of tellurium,
showing, the author believes, the absence of
substances which modify the spectrum of the
purest metal obtainable by other processes.

Two living German princes have distin-
guished themselves by becoming practicing
physicians — Duke Karl Theodor, of the
royal house of Bavaria, having completed ii
course of study, has made a specialty of eye
diseases as they occur among the poor, and
in April, 1893, successfully performed his
two thousandth operation for cataract.
Prince Louis Ferdinand, his cousin, besides
being engaged in practice, works in the
laboratory, and has recently made the etiol-
ogy and pathology of pleurisy objects of
special clinical and bacteriological studies.
He has lately published a monograph con-
cerning twenty-three patients suffering from
pleuritis who came under his observation.

GOTTIIILF 11. E. MUHLENBERG.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MOISTTHLY.

SEPTEMBER, 1894.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD.

IL— THE IMAGINATIVE SIDE OF PLAY.

Bt JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D.,

GEOTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE ITNIVEBSITY COLLEGE,

LONDON.

CHILDREN'S play has been studied under different aspects.
One of the most attractive of these is its imaginativeness.
All play is to some extent fanciful — that is, inspired and vitalized
by fantasy; and the element of fancifulness is especially rich
and varied in the pastimes of the small people of the nursery.

Viewed on this side, child play may be described as the work-
ing out into actual visible shape of an inner fancy. In many
cases, no doubt, the actual surroundings may supply the starting
point; the child, for example, sees the sand, the shingle, and
shells, and says, Let us play keeping a shop. Yet this suggestion
by something present is accidental. The root impulse of play is
to realize a bright, pretty idea ; hence its close kinship with art as
a whole. This image is the dominating force ; it is for the time
a veritable idee fixe, and everything has to accommodate itself to
this. Since the image has to be acted out, it comes into collision
with the actual surroundings. Here is the child's opportunity.
The carpet is instantly mapped out into two hostile territories ;
the sofa-head becomes a horse, a coach, a ship, or what not, to suit
the exigency of -the play.

This stronger movement and wider range of childish imagina-
tion in play is explained by the characteristics and fundamental
impulse of play — the desire to be something, to act a part. The
child adventurer, as he personates Robinson Crusoe or other hero,
steps out of his every-day self and so out of his every-day world.

VOL. XLT. — 44

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In realizing his part lie virtually transforms his surroundings,
since they take on the look and the meaning which the part as-
signs to them. This is prettily illustrated in one of Mr. R. L.
Stevenson's child-songs. The Land of Counterpane, in which a
sick child describes the various transformations of the bed scene :

" And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bedclothes through the hills.

" And sometimes sent my ships in fleets,
All up and down among the sheets ;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about."

Who can say to how many and what strangely play purposes
that stolid, unyielding-looking object a sofa-head has been turned
by the ingenuity of the childish brain ?

The impulse to act a part meets us very early and grows out
of the imitative instinct. The very infant, if it finds an empty
cup to hand, will proceed to drink out of it.* Similarly, a boy of
two will put the stem of his father's pipe into or, if more cautious,
near his mouth, and make believe that he is smoking. A little
boy not yet two years old would spend a whole wet afternoon
" painting " the furniture with a dry end of a bit of rope. In such
cases it is evident the playing may start from a suggestion sup-
plied by the sight of an object. There is no need to suppose that
in this simple imitative play the children consciously act a part.
It is surely to misunderstand the essence of play to speak of it
as a fully conscious process of imitative acting, f A child is one
creature when it is truly at play, another when it is bent on as-
tonishing or amusing you. It seems sufficient to say that when
at play it is possessed of an idea and is working this out into
visible action. Your notice, even your laughter, if kind enough,
may bring in a new element of enjoyment, for, as we all know,
children are disposed to be little actors in the full sense, and to
aim at producing an impression. Yet your intrusion will be at
least just as likely to destroy the pleasure in so far as it is that
of pure childish pastime ; for the play instinct comes out most
distinctly, perhaps, when a child is alone, or at least self-absorbed,
and this suggests that the instinct springs out of the deepest and
least sophisticated part of its nature.

* Of course, as Preyer suggests, this drinking from an empty cup may at first be due to
a want of discriminative perception.

f M. Compayr6 seems to go too far in this direction when he tallis of the child's play
with its doll as a charming comedy of maternity. (L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de
I'Enfant, p. 274.)

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 579

The essence of play is the realizing of an imaginary situation
or action ; it is thus in a sense dramatic ; only that the child's
drama, like M. Jourdain's prose, is unconscious. In this impulse
to he something, the actual external surroundings play a greater
or less part according to the needs of the player. Sometimes there
is scarcely any adjustment of the actual objects and scene ; the
child plays out its action with purely imaginary surroundings,
including companions or playmates. Thus one mother writes of
her boy, aged two years and a half : " He amuses himself by pre-
tending things. He will fetch an imaginary cake from a corner,
rake together imaginary grass, or fight a battle with imaginary
soldiers." As a recent little work shows,* some children have
adopted permanently an invisible playmate. In such vivid real-
ization the utmost interference with actual surroundings that is
needed is change of place. Here is a pretty example of this sim-
ple imaginative play. A child of twenty months, who was ac-
customed to meet a bonne and child in the Jardin du Luxembourg,
suddenly leaves the family living room, pronouncing indifferently
well the names " Luxembourg," " bonne," and " enfant." He goes
into the next room, pretends to say " good day " to his two out-
door acquaintances, and then returns and narrates what he has
been doing. f Here the simple act of passing into an adjoining
room was enough to secure the needed realization of the encounter
in the garden. The movement into the next room is suggestive.
Primarily it meant, no doubt, that it was the child's way of realiz-
ing the out-of-door walk ; yet I suspect that there was another
motive at work. Children love to enact their little play-scenes
in some remote spot, withdrawn from notice, where imagination
suffers no let from the intrusion of mother, nurse, or other mem-
ber of the real environment. How many a thrilling, exciting play
has been carried out in a corner, especially if it be dark, or, better
still, screened off ! The fascination of curtained spaces, as those
behind the window curtains, under the table with the tablecloth
hanging low, will be fresh in the memory of all who can recall
their childhood.

A step toward a more realistic kind of play-action, in which,
as in the modern theater, imagination is propped up by strong
scenic effects, is taken when a scene is constructed, the chairs and
sofa turned into ships, carriages, a railway train, and so forth.

Yet, after all, the scene is but a very subordinate part of this
infantile play. Next to itself proudly enjoying the part of the
rider, the soldier, the engine-driver, or what not, the child wants

* The Invisible Playmate, by Canton. London, Isbister ; pp. 33 and following,
f Egger, quoted by Compayr6, L'Evolution iutellectuelle et morale de I'Enfant, pp.
149, 150.

58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a living companion. Sometliing alive there must be, or at least
something to simulate life, if only a railway engine. And here
we meet with what is perhaps the most interesting feature of
childish play — the transmutation of the most meager and least
promising things into complete living 'forms. I have already al-
luded to the sofa. How many forms of animal life, vigorous and
untiring, from the patient donkey up to the untamed horse of the
prairies, has this most inert-looking ridge served to image forth
to quick boyish perception !

The introduction of these living things seems to illustrate the
large compass of the child's realizing power. Mr. Ruskin speaks
somewhere of " the perfection of childlike imagination, the power
of making everything out of nothing. . . . The child," he adds,
" does not make a pet of a mechanical mouse that runs about the
floor. . . . The child falls in love with a quiet thing, with an ugly
one — nay, it may be with one to us totally devoid of meaning.
The hesoin de croire precedes the hesoin d'aimer."

The quotation brings us to the focus where the rays of childish
imagination seem to converge, the transformation of toys.

The fact that children make living things out of their toy
horses, dogs, and the rest is known to every observer of their ways.
To the natural, unskeptical eye the boy on his rude-carved wooden
" gee-gee," slashing the dull flanks with all a boy's glee, is realiz-
ing the joy of actual riding ; is possessed for the moment with
the glorious ideas that the stiff, least organic-looking of structures
which he strides is a very horse.

The liveliness of this realizing imagination is seen in the ex-
traordinary poverty and meagerness of the toys which to their
happy possessors are wholly satisfying. Here is a pretty picture
of child's play from a German writer :

" There sits a little charming master of three years before his
small table, busied for a whole hour in a fanciful game with shells.
He has three so-called snake-heads in his domain — a large one
and two smaller ones ; this means two calves and a cow. In a
tiny tin dish the little farmer has put all kinds of petals — that is,
the fodder for his numerous and fine cattle. When the play has
lasted a time the fodder dish transforms itself into a heavy wagon
with hay ; the little shells now become little horses, and are put
to the shaft to pull the terrible load." *

The doll takes a supreme place in this fancy-realm of play.
It is human, and satisfies higher instincts and emotions. As a
French poet says, the little girl

"Eeve le nom de m^re en ber§ant sa poupee."
* Goltz, Buch der Kindheit, pp. 4, 5.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 581

But tlie boy has liis doll-love also, and is often hardly less
faithful than the girl. Endless is the variety of role assigned to
the doll as to the tiny shell in our just-quoted description of play.
The doll is the all-important comrade in that solitude a deux of
which the child, like the adult, is so fond. Mrs, Burnett, in her
pleasant memoir of her childhood,* tells us that while sitting and
holding her doll in the armchair of the parlor she would sail
across enchanted seas to enchanted islands, meeting with all sorts
of thrilling adventures. At another time, when she wanted to
act an Indian chief, the doll just as obediently took up the part
of squaw.

Very humanly, on the whole, is the little doll-lover wont to
use her pet, even though, as George Sand reminds us, there come
moments of rage and battering. A little boy of two and a half
years asked his mother one day, " Will you give me all my pic-
ture books to show dolly ? I don't know which he will like best."
He then pointed to each in turn, and looked at the doll's face for
the answer. He made believe that it selected one, and then
gravely showed it all the pictures, saying, " Look here, dolly,"
and carefully explaining them. In this way does the child seek
to bring his mute playmate into the closest intimacy with him-
self, sharing his life to the full. The same thing is touchingly
illustrated in the fact that Laura Bridgman, when visited by
Dickens in 1842, was found to have put a tiny band over her doll's
eyes to match the band she herself had to wear. It is illustrated
further in the fact that a child is apt to insist on dolly's being
treated by others as courteously as himself, expecting them to
say good night to it on saying good night to himself, and so
forth.

Here, nobody can surely doubt, we have the clearest evidence
of play illusion. The lively imagination endows the inert wooden
thing with the warmth of life and love. How large a part is
played here by the alchemist, fancy, is known to all observers of
children's ways. The faith, the devotion, often seem to increase
as the first meretricious charms, the warm tints of the cheek and
the lips, the well-shaped nose, the dainty clothes, prematurely
fade, and the lovely toy which once kept groups of hungry-look-
ing children gazing long at the shop window is reduced to the
naked essence of a doll. A child's constancy to its doll when
thus stripped of exterior charms and degraded to the lowest social
stratum of dolldom is one of the sweetest and most humorous
things in child life.

And then, what rude, unpromising things are adopted as doll
pets ! Mrs. Burnett tells us she once saw a dirty mite sitting on

* The One I knew the Best of All.

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a step in a squalid London street, blissfully engaged in cuddling
warmly a little bundle of bay tied round tbe middle by a string.
Laura Bridgman made a " baby " of a man's large boot. In tbese
cases, surely, the hesoin d'aimer was little if any behind tbe hesoin
de croire.

Do any of us really understand this doll superstition ? Writers
with clear, long-reaching memory have tried to take us back to
childhood, and restore to us for a moment the whole undisturbed
trust, the perfect Satisfaction of love which the child brings to its
doll. Yet even the imaginative genius of a George Sand is hardly
equal, perhaps, to the feat of resuscitating the buried companion
of our early days and making it live once more before our eyes.
The truth is, the doll illusion is one of the first to pass. There
are, I believe, a few sentimental girls who make a point, when
they attain the years of enlightenment, of saving their dolls from
the general wreckage of toys. Yet I suspect that the pets, when
thus retained, are valued more for the outside charm of pretty
face and hair, and most of all of their lovely clothes, than for the
inherent worth of the doll itself — of what we may call the doll
soul, which informs it and gives it to the child its true beauty.

Yet, if we can not get inside the old doll superstition, we may
study it from the outside, and draw a helpful comparison between
it and other known forms of sweet credulity. And here we have
the curious fact that the doll exists not only for the child but for
the " Nature-man." Savages, Sir John Lubbock tells us,* like
toys such as dolls, Koah's arks, etc. The same writer remarks
that the doll is " a hybrid between the baby and the fetich, and
that it exhibits the contradictory character of its parents." Pjer-
haps the changes of mood toward the doll of which George Sand
writes illustrate the alternating preponderance of the baby and
the fetich aspect. But, as Sir John also remarks, this hybrid is
singularly unintelligible to grown-up people, and it seems the part
of modesty here to bow to one of Nature's mysteries.

The vivification of the doll is the outcome of the play impulse,
and this, as we have seen, is an imj^ulse to act out, to realize an
idea in outward show. The absorption in the idea and its out-
ward expression serves to blot out the incongruities of scene and
actors which you or I, a cold observer, would note.

How complete this play illusion may become here can be seen
in more ways than one. We perceive it in the child's jealous in-
sistence that everything shall for the time pass over from the
everyday world into the new fancy-created one. About the age
of four, writes M. Egger of his boy, " Felix is playing at being
coachman. Emile happens to return home at the moment. In

* Origin of Civilizatiop. Appendix, p. 521.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 583

announcing his brother, Felix does not say, * Emile is come ' ; he
says, ' The brother of the coachman is come.' " * Pestalozzi's little
boy, aged three years and a half, was one day playing at being
butcher, when his mother called him by his usual diminutive,
" Jacobli." He at once replied : " No, no ; you should call me
butcher now." f

The intensity of the imaginative realizing powers in play is
seen, too, in the stickling for fidelity to the original in all playful
reproduction, whether of scenes observed in everyday life or of
what has been narrated. The same little boy who showed his
picture books to dolly was, we are told, when two years and eight
months old, fond of imagining that he was Priest, his grandmam-
ma's coachman. " He drives his toy horse from the armchair as
a carriage, getting down every minute to ' let the ladies out ' or to
* go shopping.' The make-believe extends to his insisting on the
reins being held while he gets down, and so forth." The same
thing shows itself in acting out stories. The full enjoyment of
the realization depends on the faithful reproduction, the suitable
outward embodiment of the vivid detailed idea in the player's
mind. A delightful example of boyish exactitude in acting out a
story may be found in Mark Twain's picture of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn playing at being shipwrecked on a desert
island.

The following anecdote bears another kind of testimony — a
most winsome kind — to the reality of children's play : One day
two sisters said to one another, " Let us play being sisters." This
might well sound insane enough to hasty ears, but is it not really
eloquent ? To me it suggests that the girls felt they were not real-
izing their sisterhood, not enjoying all the possible sweets of it, as
they wanted to do ; perhaps there had been a quarrel and a super-
vening childish coolness, and they felt that the way to get this
vivid sense of what they were or ought to be one to the another was
by playing the part, enacting a scene in which they would come
close to one another in intense conjoint activity.

But there is still another and some will think a more conclu-
sive way of satisfying ourselves of the reality of the play illusion.
The child finds himself confronted by the unbelieving adult, who
may even be cruel enough to laugh at his play and his day
dreamings ; and this frosty aloofness, this unfeeling quizzing of
their little doings, is apt to cut the sensitive little nerves to the
quick. I have heard of children who will cry if a stranger sud-
denly enters the nursery when they are hard at play and shows
himself unsympathetic and critical. But here is a story which

* Quoted by Compayre, op. cit., p. 150.

f Do Guimps's Life of Pestalozzi (English translation), p. 41.

584. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seems to me even more conclusive on the point : " I remember "
(writes a lady) " tliat one of my children, when about four, was
playing ' shops ' with the baby. The elder one was shopman at
the time when I came into the room and kissed her. She broke
out into piteous sobs ; I could not understand why. At last she
sobbed out, ' Mother, you never kiss the man in the shop.^ For
the time being her game was spoiled." The mother's kiss,
though sweet in itself, had here wrought a sudden disillusion.

It is only right to say that this same lady adds that her chil-
dren varied considerably in this susceptibility to the play illu-
sion, and that she feels sure her second child, who is less intelli-
gent, would not have troubled about the kiss.

Play may produce not only the vivid imaginative realization
at the time, but a sort of mild permanent illusion. Sometimes it
is a toy horse, in one case communicated to me it was a funny-
looking toy lion, more frequently it is the human effigy, the doll,
which, as the result of successive acts of imaginative vivification,
gets taken up into the relation of permanent companion and pet.
Clusters of happy association envelop it, endowing it with a fixed
vitality and character. A mother once asked her boy of two
years and a half if his doll was a boy or a girl. He said at first,
"A boy," but presently correcting himself added, " I think it is a
baby." Here we have a challenging of the inner conviction by a
question, a moment of reflection, and as a result of this, the unam-
biguous confession that the doll had its place in the living human
family.

Here is a more stubborn exhibition on the part of another
boy of this lasting faith in the plaything called out by others'
skeptical attitude. " When " (writes a lady correspondent) " he

was just over two years old, L began to speak of a favorite

wooden horse (Dobbin) as if it was a real living creature. ' No
tarpenter (carpenter) made Dobbin,' he would say ; ' he is not
wooden, but kin (skin) and bones, and Dod (God) made him.' If
any one said ' it' in speaking of the horse his wrath was instantly
aroused, and he would shout indignantly : ' It ! You muttent tay
it, you mut tay lie' He imagined the horse was possessed of
every virtue, and it was strange to see what an influence this
creature of his own imagination exercised over him. If there

was anything L particularly wished not to do, his mother had

only to say, ' Dobbin would like you to do this,' and it was done
without a murmur."

There is another domain of childish activity closely bordering
on that play where we may observe a like sufi:'usion of the world
of sense by imagination. I refer to pictures and artistic repre-
sentations generally. If in the case of adults there is a half illu-
sion, a kind of oneiratic trance condition, induced by a picture or

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 585

dramatic spectacle, in the case of the less instructed child the
illusion is apt to become more complete. I have several striking-
stories about the effect of pictures on children's minds. A picture
seems very much of a toy to a child. A baby of eight or nine
months will talk to a picture as to a living thing; and some-
thing of this tendency to make a fetich of a drawing survives
much later.

A quaint anecdote is recorded in a collection of children's

thoughts recently published in America.* One day F , a boy of

four, called on a friend, Mrs. C , when she had just received a

picture, a scene in winter, in which persons were represented as

going to church, some on foot and others in sleighs. . . . F

wanted to know where they were going, and Mrs. C told

him. The next day he came and noticed the picture, and looked

at Mrs. C and then at the picture, and said, "Why, Mrs.

C , them people haven't got there yet, have they ? " What,

it may be asked, did the boy mean by his question ? Did he in
his vivid imaginative realization actually confuse the representa-
tion with the reality represented, after the manner of the sail-
ors who, visiting a theater where the actors were representing a
struggle of smugglers with a captain, took the performance to
be a reality and rushed on the stage in order to protect the cap-
tain ? There seems to be less excuse for confounding represen-
tation and reality in the case of the picture than in that of the
stage. Perhaps, however, the boy F — — was less stupid than is
here suggested. Did he, as the result of an intense realization
of the scene pictured, excogitate the idea that the picture must
at least represent something actual — that is to say, going on at
the moment ? Here is an opportunity for the mind quick to dis-
entangle childish thought.

However this be, the vivid realization of pictures by children
is a well-certified fact. Here is a story of a little boy, aged three

years and some months : " His mother had gone to the sea and L

(the child) was staying at his grandfather's. One day he was
looking at a picture of a stormy sea, and on the sea was a little
boat with an old man and a girl in it. He had heard the story of
Grace Darling and her father, and at once decided that the picture
represented them. After talking about them for some time his
thoughts turned to his mother, and he began to imagine all sorts
of things about her : ' And mamma is on de tea (sea) in a ickle
(little) boat, and de waves are dashing over it, and (with great
excitement) it will be turned over and mamma ill be drowned,
and de master (one of the names for himself) will not be dere to
tave (save) her ! ' By this time the big tears were rolling down

* The Study of Children at the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass.

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his cheeks, and he was in such an agony of grief that his grand-
mother had to take the picture from him and try to divert his
thoughts."

Here, it is pretty evident, we have to do with a degree of illu-
sion which equals if it does not surpass that of the most absorb-
ing play. We must remember that a detailed pictorial represen-
tation, especially if it is colored, gives to the eye a full present-
ment of a scene and so favors a particularly clear and vivid
imaginative realization. It is probable, too, that the abstract
mode of representation in pictorial art, as compared, say, with
that of the stage, hardly counts for the child's perception. Even
the ordinary adult, innocent of artistic aims and methods, is wont,
when gazing upon a painting, to lose all count of the picture as
such, his consciousness being focused for the intense imaginative
realization of its meaning.

I do not, of course, mean that all realization of form by the
young mind is of this illusory intensity. One striking character-
istic of children's fancy is to interpret rapidly the boldest hints
of a representation of a familiar form, more especially that of
man and of animals. All observers of imaginative children can
testify as to the quickness with which they detect the semblance
of a human or animal form in the irregular lines of a cracked
ceiling, in the veining of marble, or in the lineal design of a
carpet, not to speak of slight and imperfect pictorial sketches.
They are apt, as already remarked, to show this imaginative
facility with respect to the forms of letters. Here is an example :
The pen of a little boy, well on in his fourth year, when tracing a
letter L, happened to slip, so that the horizontal limb formed an
angle upward, thus : U,. He instantly saw the resemblance to the
bent knee of the human form, and said, " Oh, he's sitting down."
Similarly, when he made an F turn the wrong way, and then put
the correct form to the left, thus, F ^, he exclaimed, " They're
talking together." Here, it is to be presumed, illusion is less
complete, fancy amusing itself, so to speak, with the form and
making it suggestive and representative. And probably the same
applies to some of the earliest and clumsiest of children's attempts
to draw men and horses, and so forth ; only that here we have to
do with a pre-existing idea and an artistic intention to give outer
embodiment to this idea— a circumstance which tends to make
the process of imaginative realization steadier and more domi-
nant.

I have here dealt with children's play and kindred forms of
activity as the outcome of a strong bent to imaginative realiza-
tion, to the vivid, half-illusory picturing out of things. At the
same time it is to be noticed that, in the forms in which this im-
aginative impulse works itself out, we see a good deal more of the

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 587

child's mind ; we see intelligence and, to some extent, also charac-
ter. Thus, before there can be the faithful mimetic play of our
little coachman, there must have been close observation and
memory of what was observed. On the other hand, that most
useful quality of intelligence which we call resource and inven-
tion comes out clearly in all the freer and more original sorts of
play. Again, while all children are players — did not Victor
Hugo rightly make the little body-starved and mind-starved Fan-
tine conserve the play instinct ? — they exhibit many and even pro-
found differences of mind and character in their play. How un-
like the girl's passive, dreamy play — as when sitting and holding
her doll — to the more active boy's play, with its vigorous fight-
ings, its arm-aching draggings of furniture ! How different, again,
the inchoate idealess play of a stupid child with the contents of a
Noah's ark from the well-considered, finished, and varied play of
a bright, intelligent child with the same material ! Curious dif-
ferences of taste, too, and even of moral instinct reflect themselves
in the play of children. There is a quaint precocity of the prac-
tical instinct, the impulse to make one's self useful, in some chil-
dren, which is apt to come out in their play. The little boy
referred to above, who would spend a whole wet afternoon " paint-
ing " the furniture, must have had a decided bent toward useful
work. Other children are no less quaintly precocious in the mat-
ter of morals, laying down commands on their dolls, punishing
them for being naughty, and so forth — all with the appearance of
a real and earnest conscientiousness.

While the forms of imaginative activity in play are thus
selectively determined by individual aptitudes and dispositions,
they will, of course, throughout remain dependent on the special
experiences and fields of observation. Play is largely imitative of
what has been experienced by the child, seen by him, or told him
by others. The richer the surroundings, the fuller the sources of
instruction, the more elaborate and various can the play represen-
tation become. Boys' play is often an imitation of the doings of
their fathers and others — that is to say, when, as in the case of the
farmer, the engineer, or the soldier, the paternal vocation lends
itself to an interesting kind of play action. The sons of lit-
erary men do not, so far as I have heard, render their sires this
flattering attention. Possibly, now that women's occupations
also are getting differentiated, girls will be found to follow
in their play the special lines of activity of their respective
mothers.

Enough has probably been said to show how interesting a sub-
ject for study is offered us in children's play. Here, as has been
well said, we seem to catch the child in his own world, acting out
his own impulses without stimulus, guidance, or restraint from

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

others. Here, with something of the poet, the artist, of the seri-
ous man of business, too, yet being in truth none of these, he sets
about creating his own world — a world which, like those we all
create in our several fashions, bears on every feature the stamp of
the creative mind.

THE HUMMING BIRDS OF CHOCORUA.

Br FRANK BOLLES.

WHILE snow still sparkles in the frost furrows on Chocorua's
peak, the first rubythroats appear in the warm meadows
and forest glades at the south of the mountain. They love the
flowers as others of their race love them, and when apple blossoms
bless the air with perfume and visions of lovely color and form,
the humming birds revel in the orchards of the North as their
brothers delight in the rich flowers of the tropics. It is not, how-
ever, among flowers that the Chocorua rubythroats are happiest
or most frequently seen. Were some one to ask me to find a
humming bird quickly, it would make no difference what the age
of the summer or what the hour of the day, I should turn my
steps toward the forest, feeling certain that at the drinking
fountains of the yellow-breasted woodpecker, the red- capped
tapster, and loud-voiced toper of the birch wood, I should find
the rubythroats sipping their favorite drink.

About the middle of April, and again nearly six months later,
a mischievous and wary woodpecker migrates north and south
across New England. The casual observer might take him to be
a demure little downy, intent upon keeping the orchard free from
insects, and if the sly migrant was ordinarily quick in placing a
tree trunk between his black-and-white body and the observer
his identity would not be detected. On April 17, 1892, 1 noticed
one of these birds clinging to a smooth spot on the trunk of a
shagbark which grew on a warm pasture hillside in sight of
Bunker Hill and the golden dome of the Massachusetts State
House. Watching him carefully for a moment, I saw that he
was a yellow-breasted or sap-sucking woodpecker, perhaps one of
my own Chocorua neighbors, and that he was quietly sipping the
sweet sap of the shagbark which was flowing from several small
holes in the bark, drilled, no doubt, that very morning by the
traveler so serenely occupied. The sapsuckers reach northern
New Hamj)shire before the snow has wholly melted in the woods.
I have seen them at Chocorua, on May 1st, at work upon trees
which they had evidently been tapping for fully a week. From this
time until the last of September, perhaps even till the 7th or 8th
of October, they spend the greater part of their time drilling small

THE HUMMING BIRDS OF CHOCORUA. 589

holes in the bark of their favorite trees and in sipping from the
sap fountains thus opened the life blood of the doomed trees.
They do not range about through the forest tapping one tree here
and another there, but they select one, two, perhaps three groups
of trees well lighted and warmed by the sun, and make sap or-
chards of them, clinging to them many hours at a time, week after
week, and returning to them, or others close at hand, year after
year. Within a mile of my cottage at the foot of Chocorua there
are half a dozen of these drinking places of the yellow-breasted
woodpeckers, and each one of them is a focus for rubythroats.
The one which I have known longest I discovered in 1887. It
consists of a group of gray birches, springing from a single stump
and expanding into fifteen distinct trunks. When I first saw it
all the trees were living, and nearly all of them were yielding sap
from the girdles of small drills which the woodpeckers had made
in the trunks, about nine feet from the ground. In July, 1893, all
but three of the trees were dead, and of the dead trunks all except
two had been broken off by the wind at a point a few inches be-
low the drills. The surviving trees had been tapped, and were in
use by both sapsuckers and humming birds.- During 1890, 1891,
and 1892 the humming bird in attendance at this orchard was a
male of noticeably strong character. There was no mistaking him
for any chance visitor at the place. He spent all his time there,
and repelled intruders with great vigor, flying violently at them,
squeaking, humming as noisily as a swarm of bees, and returning
to his favorite perch as soon as they had been put to flight. He
often attacked the sapsuckers themselves, buzzed in their faces,
and seemed little abashed when they turned upon him, as they
sometimes did, and drove him from their midst. He also had a
habit of squeaking spitefully when he was drinking from the sap
wells, especially on his return from a bout with some other hum-
ming bird. Searching for him in July, 1893, I failed to find him,
but discovered that in his place a pair of birds seemed to have
established themselves. Of course, it is possible that my friend of
> previous years may have taken to himself a wife and have become
mild-mannered in consequence, but I find it impossible to believe in
this theory, so pronounced were the old male's temper and peculiar
ways. The new male, for example, did not use the same twigs for
perches, and he did not keep his head wagging from side to side as
the old one did with a vigor and regularity which nothing but a
pendulum ever equaled.

The new male, however, showed me a performance far more
interesting in character than any of his petulant predecessor's, and
one which establishes the Chocorua rubythroat as a musician and
a dancer. One day, while this male was drinking at the sap foun-
tains, a female arrived. The male greeted her with squeaks and

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

intense humming. She alighted on the tree near the drills, and
the male then hurled himself through the air with amazing speed,
describing a curve such as would be drawn by a violently swung
pendulum attached to a cord fifteen or eighteen feet long. The
female was at the lowest point of the arc described by her vehe-
ment admirer, and she sat perfectly motionless while he swung
past her eight times. When he moved fastest — that is, when he
approached and passed her — he produced in some unknown way
a high, clear, sweet musical note, louder even than the humming
which was incessant during his flight. In this first performance
the male moved from north to south. A few minutes later he
went through the dance a second time, describing a shorter curve
and moving east and west. Still a third time, when the female
had taken position in the midst of a few dense branches, the male
faced her, and in a short arc, the plane of which was horizontal,
flew back and forth before her. I had seen this performance once
before, in July, 1890, at another orchard, and at that time I fancied
that both birds took part in the flight, but in this case the birds
were close above me as I lay among the ferns, and there was no
difiiculty in seeing clearly all that they did. During July, 1893,
whenever I visited this orchard, which I call " No. 4," I found a
male and a female rubythroat in attendance upon it.

In July and August, 1890, while watching sapsuckers at what

1 called orchards " No. 1 " and " No. 2," I found that some wood-
peckers adopted an entirely different method of dealing with
humming birds from that practiced by others. At orchard No. 1
the woodpeckers drove away a humming bird with a marked dis-
play of anger whenever one showed itself near the large red maple
which was being tapped. At orchard No. 2, on the contrary, the
sapsuckers allowed the rubythroats to drink at drills a few inches
from their own bills, and resented only marked impertinence on
the part of their tiny visitors. At No. 1 scores of visits were
paid by humming birds every day, but they reached the drills in
a comparatively small number of instances. When they did gain
them they drank long and deeply, often perching upon the bark
and drinking while their nervous wings were motionless. At No.

2 it seemed impossible to estimate the number of humming birds
in attendance. I went so far as to shoot a male and a female
in order to feel certain that more than one pair of the tiny birds
came to the drills. Nine minutes after my second crime a third
humming bird was quietly drinking at the wells. Orchards No. 1
and No. 2 were deserted in or after 1891, their trees for the most
part being dead, or so nearly dead as to be unattractive to the sap-
suckers. A few rods from No. 2 a new orchard was observed by
me in 1892. It may be a direct continuation of No. 2, but as all
the woodpeckers at No. 2 were supposed to have been shot in 1890,

THE HUMMING BIRDS OF CHOCORUA. 591

the chances are that it is a new settlement. In July, 1893, twenty
gray birches within an area a hundred feet square had been
scarred by the woodpeckers. About half of these were dead, and
out of the entire number only four trees were newly drilled and
sap-yielding. In many ways this orchard proved to be the most
interesting I have watched. The family of sapsuckers using it
was not pugnacious, and in consequence other birds visited it
much more freely than is generally the case. Downy woodpeck-
ers occasionally sipped at its fountains ; black-and-white creeping
warblers regularly, though warily, visited its insect hoards, and
during the autumn migration of 1892 a pair of yellow-breasted
flycatchers spent many days in constant attendance upon its trees,
around which countless insects fluttered or hummed.

The four sap-yielding trees at this orchard appeared in July,
1893, to have been appropriated, subject to the prior claims of the
woodpeckers, b}"" three humming birds, a female and two males.
No one of these birds permitted either of the others or any one
of numerous filibustering humming birds to drink at its pre-
empted wells. If trespass was attempted, the most furious assault
was made upon the intruder, and the possessor was always vic-
torious. Thus, if the female at the eastern tree attempted to ap-
proach the western tree, the male on guard there drove her away ;
while if he entered upon her dominions, he was swiftly repulsed.
The details of these meetings were sometimes very extraordinary.
In one instance a visiting female persisted for nearly ten minutes
in trying to secure a foothold at the western tree. The savage little
male met her with his usual impetuous charge, but she dodged
him, and began a strange sinuous flight among the branches,
back and forth, up and down, round and through, over and under,
until the air seemed filled with pursued and pursuer, dizzily
maintaining their mysterious flight within from five to a hundred
feet of the disputed drinking place. Much of the time the female
seemed to be facing the male and flying backward slowly with
head erect ; then there would come a swift huzz-z-z, and a clear
space between the trees would be traversed by both birds with
the speed of light, a slower flight being resumed the moment foli-
age was entered. If the male paused in his pursuit, the female
drew near again to the coveted drills, and so forced him to renew
the chase. Sometimes they moved so slowly that they seemed
like bubbles or airy seed vessels wafted by the breeze, and some-
times they flew in short, ever-changing lines, so that the eye
wearied of watching them. At last the female gave up the
struggle and vanished above the neighboring tree tops.

Frequently the visitors did not come singly, but arrived two
or three together, and made combined attacks upon the drills.
Then the air would be filled with violent humming and the most

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

petulant squeaking, as the possessors hurled themselves first at
one intruder and then at another, driving them back and forth,
as though playing battlecjore and shuttlecock with them. Twice
I saw the male who defended the western tree lock bills with a
visiting female and fall almost to the ground in combat ; and
in several instances I noticed a hotly pursued visitor escape by
suddenly doubling, seizing a twig, and then hanging head down-
ward by one foot behind a cluster of leaves. As a rule, the ruby-
throat, when drinking, makes a perfectly audible humming, the
male making a sound somewhat louder and deeper than that pro-
duced by the female. It is, however, entirely within the range of
their accomplishments to hover silently, and it is not unusual for
a visitor to drink silently when successful in reaching a tree un-
seen. While I never have seen a male rubythroat drink from
the drills while perching, I have noticed the female doing so
scores of times. In fact, the female at the eastern tree perched
nearly a third of the time, sometimes on a twig from which she
could lean over and sip the sap, sometimes on the bark itself in a
position almost identical with that taken by the woodpecker.

One morning while I was watching the new orchard, a shower
came up from behind the western spurs of Chocorua. Thunder
grumbled, the sky grew dark, and the wind swished viciously
through the slender birches. I wondered what the birds and
insects would do when the rain came. From where I sat, I could
see dozens of living things, most of which were more or less de-
pendent upon the sai^suckers' orchard. There were four of the
woodpeckers themselves, three humming birds, a hermit, thrush,
two juncos, three chickadees, a least flycatcher; five or six butter-
flies representing three species ; hornets and numbers of flies, ants,
and other small insects. As the rain began, the insects, with the
exception of the hornets, vanished at once. All the birds, save one
of the woodpeckers and the rubythroats, flew out of sight. The
remaining sapsucker was a young bird, who looked stupid, and
who received the rain by ducking his head and vibrating his tail
and wings as a bird does when he bathes in a pool. But the ruby-
throats amazed me by their conduct. They sought leafless twigs
with only the weeping sky above them, and there, apparently
with joy, extended their wings to the fullest extent, spread their
tails until every feather showed its point, and then received the
pelting, pounding rain as though it were holy water. They be-
came so wet that I doubted whether they could fly. Buzz-z-z !
the vigilant male darted at an intruding female and drove her out
of sight, only to see her return again and again in the thickest of
the white drops in vain attempts to overcome his watchfulness.
It was evident that no ordinary shower could interfere with the
whirring wings of a humming bird.

THE HUMMING BIRDS OF CHOCORUA. 593

As the season of 1893 wore on, the numher of humming birds
at this orchard diminished. Late in July I saw as many as
five birds near the trees at one moment, three of them being
regular attendants and two interlopers. During the next four
weeks I was absent, but on my return I found that only the
female using the eastern tree remained, and that she was seldom
annoyed by visitors. The trees which had been used by the
other two birds had run dry, and the sapsuckers as well as their
uninvited guests had abandoned them. Of the identity of the
remaining humming bird there could be no question ; her ways
were too strongly marked to be mistaken, as, for example, her in-
variable habit of alighting upon one slightly sloping trunk when
she drank from its drills. When September drew near I watched
closely to ascertain the date of the little lady's departure, but day
after day came and went without my missing her. At last, on
September 1st, it seemed to me that she had gone. I had waited
ten or fifteen minutes by the trees and she had not come, though
the sapsuckers were busy at the drills in their accustomed places.
Before finally giving her up I thought that I would count a hun-
dred slowly and see if this form of incantation might not draw
her to her trees. When I reached "ninety-nine" and no bird
came, I concluded that the exact date of her migration had been
found, but as I said " one hundred " there was a faint hum in the
still air, and the dainty dipper appeared with her usual sprightli-
ness. On the 6th, after several light frosts had laid their chilly
touch upon the Chocorua country, I felt confident that the tiny
creature must have sought a kinder climate. Again, however,
she surprised me by appearing, after a long delay, as bright as
ever. She hummed at her regular drinking places, but seemed to
find little moisture in the wasting fountains. The trees were los-
ing vitality and becoming dry. Then she sought the dead twigs
at the tops of last year's trees and flitted back and forth among
them,, sunning herself. No perch pleased her long, and when she
wearied of them all she darted back to the drills for a brief per-
functory sip of the slow-moving sap. Her restlessness seemed
born of the season, and a symptom of that fever of migration
which was making all bird life throb more and more quickly.

Although on September 25th, when I made my last visit of the
year to the orchard, I found two sapsuckers still at work at the
drills, no humming bird was with them. How long after the 6th
the vigorous little female remained I do not know, for I was un-
able to watch the trees during the middle of the month.

Although at Chocorua I never have found a sapsuckers' or-
chard without its attendant humming birds, I am by no means sure
that in other localities where both birds occur the same interest-
ing community of interests is to be detected. During a brief

VOL, XLV. — 45

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

visit to Cape Breton in midsummer, 1893, 1 kept close watch for
sapsuckers and humming birds. Of the latter not one came under
my eyes, although common testimony was that they frequented
the country. Of the sapsuckers I found one flourishing colony <
among the alders which bordered the southwest Margaree at the
point where that swift stream emerges from Lake Ainslie. More
than a dozen alder trunks had been girdled with drills and a rich
orchard seemed to be in use. I had not long to wait at the spot,
but in the fifteen minutes which I could spare no humming birds
came to reward my silent watching.

In some parts of the country sapsuckers are roughly treated
on account of their destruction of trees. It is unquestionably
true that each family of birds kills one or more vigorous trees
each year, but generally the trees are small and of trifling value
as timber. My sapsuckers are welcome to several forest trees a
year, so long as they continue to attract and feed humming birds,
and indirectly to draw thousands of insects within easy reach of
their own bills and the more active mandibles of flycatchers, war-
blers, and vireos.

BARBERRIES: A STUDY OF USES AND ORIGINS.

By FKEDEKICK Le EOY SAEGENT.

THE common barberry (Berberis vulgaris), being so abun-
dant over the greater part of Europe, native to the soil,
and at the same time both useful and beautiful, has naturally
come to hold an important place in popular esteem. As a con-
sequence it has received, in the course of centuries, a consider-
able variety of names in the different European languages, and
some of these names, as might be expected, have undergone rather
curious transformations.

Our own name barberry is in England more commonly written
berberry. The variants barbary, barbery, and berbery were used
side by side in early modern English, as were barber e in still
earlier English and berbere in the French of that time. There
can be no doubt that these are descended from the mediaeval
Latin forms barberis and berberis, but further back than this the
13edigree is uncertain.

In the change of the terminal from beris to berry we have,
doubtless, an example of one of those transformations which are
so apt to take place whenever the foreign name of a common
object becomes incorporated into the vernacular, and the sound
of the name suggests a common word in any way descriptive of
the object. Just as the ecrevisse (crevice-dweller) of the French
became the " crayfish " of the English, from its aquatic habits.

BARBERRIES.

S9S

and the asparagus of the "botanist is the '^ sparrergrass " or
" sparrowgrass " of the marketman, so we may conclude that
the character of the barberry's fruit decided the change of name
referred to.

The first syllable of the English name is, doubtless, as un-
meaning as the corresponding part of " crayfish/' or its rival form
" crawfish." Perhaps in both these cases the lack of any signifi-

FiG. 1. — Berbeeis vulgaris. Part of a lon<j shoot, showing four spines and as many short

branches bearing leaf rosettes.

cance in the first part of the words may have favored the con-
tinuance of two forms side by side.

Various conjectures have been offered as to the origin of the
medisBval Latin harberis and herheris. Most commonly the Latin
name is said to be derived from the Arabic barbdvis or berbery s ;*
but, according to Murray and the Century Dictionary, the Arabic
form and the Persian barbari are both derivatives of the Latin.
Wittstein f suggests a derivation from the Greek berberi, a mus-
sel, from the mussel-like form of the leaves. The conjecture
which assumes the plant to have been imported into Europe

* Gray's Manual, sixth edition.

f Etym. hot. Handworterbuch, 1856.

596

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from Barbary, in Africa, does not harmonize well with what is
known of the plant's distribution.

To return, then, to the Latin form, however it may have origi-
nated, we find it giving rise to the English 'berberry in a manner
suggestive of adaptation to a new linguistic environment. By a
somewhat similar process have probably arisen from the same
original the form pejjperidge, pipperage, piperidge, and piprage,
by which the plant is popularly known in parts of England and
Ireland. The ease with which the closely similar sounds b and p
can pass one into the other, taken in connection with the obvious
resemblance of the barbery fruit to small red peppers, doubtless
gave direction here to the obscure forces which bring about the
corruption of words.

The same Latin root makes its appearance in several names
used in Germany. Thus, among those given by Adelung (1774)
are Berbeisze, Berbis, Berwitze. The name most commonly met
with in modern books is Berberitze, which, in view of the cir-
cumstance that ritzen means to scratch (apropos of the spines),

surely looks like another case of
assimilation, analogous to what we
found in English. That the Ger-
mans are fond of embodying in
their names of this plant some ref-
erence to its more or less obvi-
ous qualities or uses is sufficiently
proved by the following list gath-
ered from various lexicons : Sau-
erdorn (sour thorn), Essigdorn
(vinegar thorn), Weinschierling
(wine hemlock), Weinndglein,yf\nQ
clove), Weinduglein (wine eye),
Kreuzdorn (cross thorn), and so on.
In French, besides the older ber-
bere, and the form berberis, which
is in common use to-day, we have
epine-vineUe , which Littrd consid-
ers may have been given to the
plant either because of its clusters
of berries, resembling grapes, or
because a sort of tart berry wine is made from them, or else be-
cause of its acidity, vinette being in many provinces the name of
sorrels, sour grapes, and the like. This last supposition would
make the name a counterpart of the German Sanerdorn.

The Spanish berberis and the Italian berberi do not, of course,
call for any special explanation. Without attempting to make a
complete list of the names which have been applied to this plant.

Fig. 2.

-Berberis vulgaris. A leaf ro-
sette and flower cluster.

BARBERRIES.

597

H Sa

V

Fig. 3. — Berberis vulgaris. Vertical sec-
tion of flower : B, bract ; Sp, sepal ;
P, petal ; N, N, nectar glands ; F, fila-
ment ; A, anther ; V, valve ; So, stig-
ma; H, zone of hairs; 0, ovule.

enough have been given to show that, at least in the history of
those forms cognate with our own barberry, there are presented
not a few curious and perhaps significant analogies with the evo-
lution of a group of organic spe-
cies subjected to the diverse influ-
ences of changing environment.

Leaving now the matter of
names, let us proceed to consider
the plant itself, and, so far as may
be, something of its history.

The barberry's place in Nature
is expressed botanically by saying
that it belongs to the principal
genus of the family Berberidacece,
and is thus near of kin to our
native "twinleaf" {Jeffersonia),
" cohosh " (Caulophyllum) , and
"May apple" {Podophyllum). As
will be seen by referring to Fig. 3, the floral structure is, like
theirs, notably simple and regular, and the parts are all distinct,
thus recalling the general features to be found in the buttercup
family {Ranunculacem) and the moonseed family {Menisperma-
cece). It evidently is of the same ancestral stock as these, since
they all agree so closely in fundamental plan, despite innumer-
able differences in matters of comparatively small detail. More-
over, the intense yellow color so generally characteristic of the
tissues of Berberidacece, depending, as is well known, upon the
presence of the bitter alkaloid berberine (CaoHj^NOJ, occurs also
to some extent in the families mentioned. Hence the structural
evidences of consanguinity gain something of confirmation in
the fact that we find the same substance which renders various
species of Berberis useful for medicinal and tinctorial purposes
imparting its tonic properties and intense yellow to the "gold-
thread " ( Coptis) and " yellowroot " {Xanthorrhiza) among Ra-
nuncidacecB, and the " calumba root " (Jateorrhiza) of Menisper-
macece,.

In the old days of belief in " signatures," this yellowness of
the barberry's tissues was taken as a sure indication that here
must be a sovereign remedy for jaundice, and accordingly a de-
coction of the bark was in high repute as a specific for that dis-
ease. While this notion has, of course, long been banished to the
limbo of imaginary medicine, yet, in the modern practice, decoc-
tions, infusions, and the fluid extract of barberry bark, as well as
the isolated alkaloid berberine, have a recognized tonic value. It
is an aqueous extract prepared in India from the sliced roots and
branches of the so-called "ophthalmic barberry" {Berberis ly-

598

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cium), and otlier Himalayan species, "which constitutes the highly
valued " rusot."

Considered from the plant's standpoint, this bitter principle, so
abundantly present in its outer tissues, is doubtless to be re-
garded as a defense against gnawing animals, and as such, acces-
sory to the spines which can be eifective as a protection only
against the larger animals which feed upon leaves. Thus, as
often happens with the plants of our pharmacopoeia, the very
means adopted for its preservation becomes the object of its
being destroyed for man's use.

But the barberry has more to contend against than the
attacks of animals. As a native of regions visited by heavy
storms of snow and wind, its branch system (often eight to ten
feet in height), even though it be rid of its leaves through the
winter, must, nevertheless, be subjected to a very considerable

Fig. 4. — Berberis vulgaris. Leafless branches, showing clusters of fruit and diflTerent forms

of spines.

mechanical strain. A glance at the vegetative organs of our
plant will show with what efficiency and economy of material
this bit of engineering is accomplished.

First of all it will be noticed that there are two remarkably
different sorts of branches (compare Figs. 1 and 4). The one sort,
long, slender, and arching, are armed with the stout spines
already referred to ; while the others, originating from the axils
of these spines, remain very short, although bearing year after
year, through the summer, each a rosette of leaves. All who
have observed the effect upon our trees and shrubs of one of
those storms which load everything with snow and ice must
have seen that the plants which received least damage were
ithose in which there was either unusual stoutness of material or
else such an attitude and flexibility in the branches as enabled
them to bend readily under a load or other strain. Now, in the
branch system of the barberry bush we find all these character-

BARBERRIES. 599

istics most happily combined ; foi% thanks to the plant's economy
in making the rosette branches so short, an abundance of ma-
terial is available for the construction of those elongated ones
which are to perform the special work of mechanical support.

In the course of its first year one of these elaborately organ-
ized shoots may attain a length of two feet or even more. Dur-
ing this rapid growth only a little wood is formed, but in the
young bark there are developed about a dozen strands of tough,
elastic fiber, which show as prominent ridges at the surface.
These strands continue for a year or so to impart such strength
and elasticity to the branch that when bent downward, even to a
radius of two or three inches, it will spring back to its original
curve. After the second or third year the bark and its fibers
become brittle and weak through wear, but in the meantime the
wood within, at first so meager, has been increasing, ring upon
ring, around the central pith, so that, before the bark has ceased
to be of mechanical service, there has already been formed to
take its place a tissue possessing fully as much elasticity as
the other, and in addition remarkable toughness and durability.
These qualities are even more apparent as the wood grows older;
so much so, indeed, that it is highly valued in turnery and the
manufacture of archers' bows. Thus we see that when a storm
comes, the barberry can meet the emergency with branches which
yield gracefully so long as they are young, but with age become
most effectively resistant.

Still, a moment's consideration of the distribution of strain
will show that for all this flexibility and stoutness throughout
the length of the branches a serious dismemberment of the plant
must ensue if the place of juncture between each long branch
and its trunk be not strongly re-enforced. Now, the long branches
of the barberry arise each as a continuation of the axis of a rosette
branch. While these short branches have only a cluster of leaves
to support, they are but weak, brittle affairs, composed chiefly of
soft pith with only a sparse supply of woody fibers ; but when
the short axis comes to serve as the basal part of a long shoot,
not only does the wood increase remarkably, but even the pith
becomes hard and firm. Moreover, we find throughout the whole
plant that, whenever a branch is called upon to sustain a con-
siderable load, its base is proportionately thickened and strength-
ened, and the same is true to a marked degree of the main trunk
at its juncture with the root.

Although with us barberry bushes are for the most part
denizens of the open, in Europe they are reported as often grow-
ing at the margin of woods. When in this situation, the branches
become much more elongated, and, by using the recurved spines
as grappling hooks, they climb over the shrubbery encompassing

6oo

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

f^

Fig. 5. — Berberis aquifolium.
branches.

Leaves and

the tree trunks, and finally gain support upon the branches of
the trees themselves. Unlike ordinary vines, however, which
only injure the plants that support them, the barberry may be

of some service, as its arma-
ment of spines is well cal-
culated to repel intruders.

The great aim of all this
spread and strengthening
of branch work is of course
to secure the most advan-
tageous exposure of foliage
to light ; to the attainment
of this object the form and
arrangement of the leaves
themselves also contribute
not a little. Wherever we
find such rosettes of wedge-
shaped leaves as the bar-
berry produces, the likeli-
hood of one leaf overshad-
owing its neighbor is much
reduced, and when as in
shady localities this matter
is of special importance, it is a noteworthy fact that the leaves
commonly adapt themselves to each other so perfectly that a
cluster becomes almost equivalent to a single large shield-shaped
blade. Moreover, on the more horizontal shoots the margins of
contiguous rosettes dovetail into each other so neatly that the
result may be justly compared to a mosaic of leaves.

Another peculiarity connected with that abbreviation of the
branchlets which results in the rosette arrangement is the method
of defoliation. When the time arrives, the leaves, instead of sepa-
rating entirely, drop only the blade, while the flattened overlap-
ping leafstalks remain attached to the stem and perform the
function of bark for several years.

It will thus be seen that we have in the barberry one of those
rare cases (paralleled by certain species of orange, grapevine, and
creeper) in which an apparently simple leaf has the blade ar-
ticulated with the stalk after the manner so characteristic of the
leaflets of compound leaves (Fig. 8). Of the hundred or more
known species of Berberis, about twenty (forming the subgenus
Malionia) have compound leaves of from three to many leaflets
all plainly articulated at the base (Figs. 6 and 7), just as is also
the case with certain species of the genera Citrus and Vitis, to
which the orange and the grape respectively belong. Moreover,
throughout the .Ber^eridacecB we find almost all the species to pos-

BARBERRIES.

601

sess leaves which are obviously compound, the chief exception
being those eighty species (forming the subgenus Euberheris)
which in their leaves agree essentially with Berheris vulgaris.
In view of these facts, botanists have been led to adopt the some-
what paradoxical theory that leaves of the euberberis type are in
reality compound though unifoliolate.

The question as to how such a curious state of things could
have come about is so closely connected with what concerns the
evolution of the other vegetative organs that we shall do well to
consider them all together.

In attempting to reconstruct for ourselves the main features
of the original ancestral barberry we are much helped by the fact
that besides Berheris vulgaris, which is the only representative of
the genus in central Europe, there have been developed a mul-
titude of species in Asia and a still larger number in the two
Americas ; for it is clear that this must considerably increase the
chances of our being able to find something like the primitive
form persisting in certain living species. Guided by the principle
that evolution is for the most part attended by increase of differ-

FiG. 6.

6. BeEBERIS AQUIFOLItlM.

FlQ. 7.

Fio. 8.

Fig. 6. — Beeberis aquifoliiim. Quinquifoliolatc leaf.
Fig. Y. — Berberis trifoliata. Trifoliolate leaf.

Fig. 8. — Berberis vulgaris. Unifoliolate leaf. A indicates the point of articulation of the

leaflet.

entiation, we may fairly assume that the branch system of the
prototype differed from Berheris vulgaris in having the inter-
nodes approximately equal, thus making the lateral branches on
the one hand and the main branches on the other more nearly
of a length and all the leaves uniformly disposed in elongated
spirals.

Such a condition is indeed tolerably well exhibited in the ma-
honias, as may be seen in the " holly-leaved barberry " (Fig. 5),

6o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which is a fair example of the Malionia group. At the same time
it is worthy of note that along with the greater uniformity of the
branches is associated the possession of compound leaves having
from three to many leaflets. This fact, taken in connection with
the circumstance that almost all the other members of the family
have the leaves more or less plainly of the palmate type, makes it
probable that the ancestor of the barberries had trifoliolate leaves
not unlike those often found interspersed among the larger leaves
of the multifoliate mahonias and appearing also as the sole form
on other species of the same subgenus (compare Figs. 5 and 7).
It is significant, moreover, that the mahonias are without the
highly developed spines so characteristic of the Euherherides, but
depend for protection upon the spiny margins of their evergreen
leaflets.

Thus, whether we consider the approach toward similarity
among the branches, the approximation in the type of leaf to that
most common in the family, or the absence of specialized spines,
we are led to the conclusion that the MahonicB since they exhibit
so much less differentiation than the Euherherides, must therefore
represent more nearly the primitive features of the genus — a con-
clusion which is confirmed by such paleontological evidence as
we possess. For the five species discovered in the Tertiary for-
mation of southern France, northern Italy, and Switzerland are
all mahonias, one of them {Berberis helvetica) closely resembling
the American holly-leaved mahonia here figured, while others are
like forms living at present in China. In view of these facts we
shall probably be not far from the truth if we picture to our-
selves the ancestral Berberis as being a small bush or underbrush
resembling in a general way our evergreen holly, but having
in place of each simple leaf a compound one of three leaflets.
Almost exactly corresponding to this description is the already
mentioned Berberis (Maho7iia) trifoliata of Mexico and the adja-
cent regions.

That the ancestral home of the barberries was most probably
in the northern part of North America appears from what is known
of the geographical distribution of the species when viewed in the
light of the generalizations arrived at by Bentham, Hooker, and
Asa Gray regarding the origination of the members of the north
temperate flora. We learn from Bentham that "to the great
majority of them no primeval antiquity can be ascribed in central
or western Europe ; they appear to have come from the East, a
considerable number perhaps from western Asia, where their types
appear to be more varied, but many also must have made half the
tour of the globe. Large American genera have sent out offsets
into eastern Asia, which, gradually diminishing in number of
species and sometimes slightly modifying their character, have

BARBERRIES. 603

spread over the whole of Asia, and invaded almost every part of
Europe."* Of these latter genera Berberis is surely one.

Geologists tell us that the climate even of arctic America dur-
ing the Mesozoic era was as warm and equable as that of our
Southern States to-day. The same was true of northern Europe
and Asia, and there is good reason to believe that between the lat-
ter and America there was during Mesozoic times a continuous
land connection in high latitudes, or at least a chain of islands
uniting the two continents. Such were the conditions then under
which we may suppose a berberidaceons herb to have acquired
the shrubbiness and other characteristics which distinguish bar-
berries from the rest of the family.

As the descendants of this trifoliolated, woody form multiplied
and spread over the vast territory open to them, the modifications
which arose must have progressed along two principal lines of
development. The first to diverge was doubtless the line of pin-
nate-leaved mahonias. To explain the development of such a leaf
from the trifoliolate ancestral form, we have only to suppose the
terminal leaflet to become stalked and then divided into three, just
as we must conceive the trifoliolate leaf to have been derived in
the first i^lace from a sessile, simple-bladed one. From such tri-
chotomy of the terminal leaflet would result a five-foliolated leaf
(Fig. 6) ; but let the process be repeated with successive terminal
leaflets a sufficient number of times, and the most highly developed
mahonia leaf is readily accounted for. This view accounts, more-
over, for the curious circumstance that in these leaves there is, in
addition to the articulation between leaflet and rhachis, a trans-
verse articulation extending across the rhachis between each pair
of leaflets (Fig. 6 A). For what can this be but the representative
of that terminal articulation which was once at the base of a leaf-
let since differentiated into all those parts of the leaf now lying
above the articulation ?

Along with the multiplication of leaflets there appears to have
been a lessening of the number of leaves and some shortening of
the branches, which affected the lateral ones somewhat more than
the primary axes ; but beyond this the changes introduced con-
cerned only matters of small detail. The descendants of this new
form spread into Asia and thence into Europe, where we find some
remains of them in the deposits of the Tertiary. Subsequently, in
the course of that general lowering of temperature which culmi-
nated in the Glacial period, these pinnate-leaved species were ex-
terminated in Europe, while in Asia and America, where a more
southerly extension into warmer regions was possible, they were
able to survive and spread northward again after the retreat of

* Nat. Hist. Review, p. 370.

6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the glacier and so take up their home in the localities we find
them to-day. That such a form as Berheris trifoliata, which re-
tains so fully the primitive characteristics, should remain in
Mexico, seems to find a sufficient explanation in the fact that the
climate of this region resembles most closely that of its supposed
northern home in preglacial times ; or, in other words, we may
look upon the persistence of the original form as connected with
the continuation of similar climatic conditions during the life of
the species from the time when the genus first appeared.

While the ancestors of our modern mahonias were seeking an
asylum in lower latitudes, certain other descendants of the primi-
tive trifoliolate barberry were in all probability enabled to hold
their own much longer against the encroaching cold, by develop-
ing those adaptations to extremes of temperature which make the
various forms of euberberis so well suited to their present home.

We have already seen the advantages which come with difl^er-
entiation of the branch system when plants are to be subjected to
the storms of a severe winter. Such differentiation, however,
means not only a more efficient disposition of the mechanical ele-
ments in the stem part of the plant, but it involves a closer and
closer crowding of the leaves on the shorter branches until the
limit of crowding is reached in the rosette. Obviously trifolio-
late leaves are ill suited for such an arrangement — the lateral leaf-
lets would be so much in the way. The causes which bring about
the reduction and ffnal disappearance of parts that have become
useless or harmful to a species could not fail, therefore, to affect
these leaflets until the present unifoliolate condition was reached.
Moreover, in the absence of lateral leaflets there would be less
need for an elongated leafstalk, and we should expect, therefore,
just such an abbreviation of this organ as we actually find in a
large share of the species of euberberis. We have already noticed
how this enables Berheris vulgaris to turn its petioles to good
account, by keeping them as protective bark scales long after the
leaf blades have fallen.

It is in harmony with our conclusion that the ancestral bar-
berry was a holly-like plant, whose descendants became modified
under the influence of gradual refrigeration, to suppose that the
earlier forms of euberberis were evergreen. So far as their mi-
grations enabled them to continue living under conditions of cli-
mate favorable to the retention of leaves throughout the year,
this habit might be expected to be present. This we find is the
case with species in central Asia and in the mountainous and
temperate parts of South America. Even in a region of much
snow and ice no serious disadvantages need be feared, provided
the plant does not extend its branches far above the ground.
This will doubtless explain the presence of the evergreen mahonia

BARBERRIES.

605

undershrubs in our "Western States, as well as other apparent
exceptions among Berberides to the general principle we are now
applying.

Along with the firm texture belonging to evergreen leaves
there would naturally be retained the marginal spines which pro-
tected the mahonia ancestors from browsing animals. But with
the establishment of the rosette arrangement the leaves which
are borne by a long shoot, in virtue of their position just below
the rosettes, come to have a special importance in this protective
capacity. For, in the first i3lace, as being already fully developed
at a time when the rosette leaves are young and
tender, the old leaves can shield the newer ones
at the most critical period of their life ; and, in
the second place, given one stout, spiny leaf in
such intimate connection with the mature clus-
ter, and the need for using up material in spine-
making for the latter is much lessened. Ac-
cordingly, we find very generally throughout
the evergreen Euherberides, along with the dif-
ferentiation of the branches into long and short,
a differentiation of the leaves — those subtend-
ing the clusters being decidedly spiny, while
those of the cluster are less strongly armed. A
particularly good example of such differentia-
tion not far advanced is afforded by a species
growing in Chili (Fig. 9). In a number of cases,
such as the "box-leaved barberry" {Berljeris
huxifolia, Fig. 10), the differentiation has been
carried so far that the subtending leaf has been
completely transformed into a formidable spine,
while the rosette leaves have lost all trace of spines except at
the tip.

After the plurifoliolate and the unifoliolate types of evergreen
barberries had been evolved there was the further possibility of
developing from the latter a yet higher type which should be still
better adapted to meet the exigencies of a severe and snowy win-
ter, and at the same time safely attain a considerable height. All
this would follow from the acquirement of the deciduous habit.

In the series of forms which came to adopt the expedient of
defoliation at the approach of winter, several causes may have
conspired to bring about in the two sorts of leaves a still further
specialization of the two functions of assimilation and defense,
which, originally combined in each leaf, began, as we have seen,
to be separated more or less in the evergreen Euherberides.

As regards the subtending leaves, not only would their impor-
tance as a defense to the young rosette be sufficient to insure their

Fig. 9. — Beeberis to-
mentosa(?). Leat
rosettes subtended
by stouter spiny
leaves.

6o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

persistence fhrougli the winter, but the same reason wliicb. made
the defoliation of the rosette advantageous — namely, decrease of
the surface on which snow might lodge — would favor a reduction
of lateral spread in the persisting leaf blades. Moreover, assimila-
tion could not, of course, be carried on during the winter, and so

the green parts of the leaf could well be
spared to afford the material necessary
for making the spines firmer and longer.
Thus would finally result a purely de-
fensive organ, so much the more efficient
because having no other function to per-
form. Our common barberry exhibits es-
pecially well (Figs. 11 and 4) not only the
more highly developed spines, but the
,„ -„ intermediate stages connecting these with

Fig. 10. — Berberis buxifolia. ^ ^ ^ .

Leaf rosette aud spiue. the primitive spiuy leaf. Toward the tip

of the uppermost shoots we find slender,
one-pronged spines ; the next below these are three-pronged, while
those toward the base of the same shoot may have the prongs five
or more in number. Passing now to one of those shoots, known
as " suckers," which spring from older (mostly subterranean)
parts of the plant, we find in addition to the forms of spines
already noticed, others (Fig. 11, A-D) in which foliar character-
istics become more and more evident as we approach the base of
the shoot, where occur spiny leaves (A) essentially like what we
have assumed to be the ancestral form. In regard to the position
which these different forms occupy in relation to the ground or to
their proximate basis of support, it is worthy of note how nicely
all this accords with the theory of their having been developed
under the influence of snowy winters.

To the rosette leaves the limiting of their duration to the warm-
er part of the year would permit a much thinner texture than was
formerly necessary, and in consequence a more extended spread.
This would of course involve a corresponding weakening of the
marginal spines, but these being now so fully sujDerseded in func-
tion, might safely be reduced to such slender cilia as we now find
on the leaves of our common barberry (Fig. 8), or indeed be done
away with altogether, as not infrequently happens in the same
plant. They are clearly rudimentary organs tending to disappear.

A further consequence of the increasing severity of climate
was the need of some special means to protect the tender organs of
the bud against harmful changes of temperature. So long as
these changes were comparatively slight and one set of leaves re-
mained in place while the others were developing, the sheathing
bases of the former served as a loose protective covering which
answered every purpose. This supplementary function obviously

BARBERRIES.

60:

fell to the lot of the last-formed or uppermost leaves of the set.
As need arose for better iDrotection of the infant shoots, the sim-
I)lest way of meeting it would be to increase the efficiency of the
parts already in use by widening them as far as might be neces-
sary. As this was going on, the same fate which overtook the
lateral leaflets of the original three would now extend to the ter-
minal one of each of these upper leaves ; for with the shortening
of the stem they would be brought to lie so closely above the
others as to shade them injuriously if not reduced in size. More-
over, as being the latest to develop, they would get but a small
share of the reserve food provided for the rosette. Still, their rela-
tion to the supply of nutriment as well as their uselessness or
power for harm in the rosette would, after all, be more a matter of
degree than in the case of the lateral leaflets, since these latter
would have to lie practically in one plane and so must interfere
not onl}^ with the terminal leaflets but with each other. This may
help us to explain why, although the lateral leaflets have so en-

FiG. 11. — Bekberis vulgaris. Series of spiny leaves passing into spines.

tirely disappeared, we still find on some of the lower bud scales
traces of a blade which thus afford connecting links in our mor-
phological chain (Fig. 13).

This evolution of the bud scales must, of course, have been
closely connected with that shortening of the petiole which we
have already noticed in the typical rosette leaves as having cul-
minated in the production of persistent overlapping scales forming
an outer bark for the secondary branches ; and it would seem most
probable that the development of bud scales and bark scales pro-
ceeded side by side. Finally, as accounting further for their sim-
ilarity of form, it may be remarked that in both, the protective
function, at first merely incidental to that of mechanical support,
comes at length to be the sole use for which they are retained : in
one case it is a matter of years, in the other of generations.

6o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

For the propagation of barberries gardeners often take advan-
tage of those adventitious shoots or " suckers " before mentioned
which spring from near or beneath the surface of the ground.
These, separated from the parent and planted in suitable soil,
strike root after the manner of a willow twig and develop into a

shrub. With wild barberries,
if the main part of the shrub
happens to be fatally injured,
suckers proceeding from parts
of the root even remote from
the stem may continue to live
and thus perpetuate the stock
in the same locality.

In Nature, however, it is
upon seedlings that the chief
Fig. 12.-BERBERTSVULGABIS Transition forms dependence is placed for the

connecting foliage leat with bud scale. -^ . i: i j> j. i

continuance and spread ot the
species. Having now considered, as fully as present limits will
permit, the phenomena connected with the barberries' vegetative
life, we will next turn our attention to the special peculiarities
of flower and fruit which contribute more or less directly to the
production and care of offspring.

[To he concluded.^

COMMERCIAL POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA.

By EENEST a. LE SUEUR.

AS many of the readers of The Popular Science Monthly are
aware, there is a great engineering project on foot at Niagara
Falls, looking to the development of a part of the water power at
present running to waste over the gigantic cataract. A company,
or rather an association of companies, working for a common end,
is at present occupied at the falls with the object in view of util-
izing the power commercially.

That this situation is the finest in the world for developing
mechanical power has long been realized, but the local demands
at Niagara were comparatively trifling, and only lately have our
facilities for transmitting power over distances become suffi-
ciently developed to warrant such an undertaking as is now in
hand. The power company does not, however, look entirely to
distant points for consumers of their output ; on the contrary, a
very large amount will be used almost on the spot by manufac-
tures which are now moving to Niagara. The variety of pur-
poses to which this power will be put may be gathered from the

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 609

fact that they are as diverse as the manufacture of " mechanical "
wood pulp and the smelting of aluminum.

There are already at the falls a few establishments using
power developed by turbines, and which have been quietly at
work for years. There is a canal known as the Hydraulic Canal
on the American side, skirting the city of Niagara Falls, and ter-
minating on the cliffs, half a mile below the cataract. There are a
number of mills here which, for the most part, however, utilize
only a fraction of the total fall available, probably for the reason
that when they were built there were not in existence the high-
grade water wheels suitable for great head that are on the market
to-day.

People in general have the idea that the Niagara water power
is inexhaustible, and so it probably is, so far as human require-
ments go. There are, however, some tolerably close data on which
to figure the total horse power. The Lake Survey Board and
Mr. R. C. Reid, examining the matter independently, have come
to a very fair agreement in their conclusions on this point. From
their figures it would appear that the average flow is about 270,-
000 cubic feet per second, and this is almost exactly the same
as the almost unthinkable quantity of 1,000,000,000 pounds per
minute. A horse power of work is the equivalent of 33,000 foot
pounds per minute, and as the weight above mentioned falls
IGl feet, the horse power of the total is expressed as follows:
161 X 1,000,000,000 ^ 33,000 = close on five million.

Owing to the lack in full efficiency of even the best commer-
cial turbine wheels, we may take the limit of power that could be
developed as about 4,000,000 horse power.

The average power is not departed from to any great extent at
difl^erent sea,sons, as is the case with other water powers, because
the spring thaws and summer droughts affect hardly at all the
level of Lake Erie, from which the falls get their supply.

The system of Great Lakes above Ontario would require a
year in order to have their level reduced by three feet and a
half by even the enormous drain of a thousand million pounds of
water per minute above referred to, supposing the system to be
entirely cut off from its normal supply. A paper by Mr. R. C.
Reid before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts in March, 1885,
gives the foiling data : Total water-shed area down to Niagara,
290,000 square miles ; total lake surface, 92,000 square miles ; aver-
age rainfall in the lake district, thirty-six inches — and that we
may assume twenty inches annually of evaporation and absorp-
tion, leaving sixteen inches over the whole area finding its way to
the lakes. From the lake surface proper, there occurs evaporation
to the extent of twenty-four inches per annum. Further, in refer-
ence to the enormous storage capacity of the system, he shows

VOL. XLY. 46

f.

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 611

that " it would take six months for the full effect of a flood iu
Lake Superior to be spent at Niagara Falls." It is easy, therefore,
to understand how little fluctuation of level there can be due to
seasonal variation in rainfall. Thus we see that quite apart from
the fact of the vast volume and head available, and of there being-
no necessity for building a dam to back up the water, the situa-
tion is peculiarly favorable to the development of a constant
power all the year round.

In spite of the generally equable level of Lake Erie, there are
sometimes very considerable fluctuations, not of volume, but of
distribution, due to high winds sweeping the length of the lake
and causing a considerable banking of water at the end blown
into. Sometimes such storms have lasted for days, and have had
a very noticeable effect in increasing or diminishing the volume
going over the fall. A more serious cause of low water is an ice
jam at the head of the Niagara River. It is on record that in
March, 1847, the water practically ceased to flow, "not enough,
going over to turn a grindstone," as a local paper had it at the
time. These two circumstances do not, however, affect the even-
ness of flow to any extent worth mentioning compared with the
seasonal variations in rivers in general.

The total fall between Lakes Erie and Ontario is three hun-
dred and twenty-nine feet, and is made up as follows: From Lake
Erie to the head of the falls, seventy feet ; the falls, one hundred
and sixty-one feet, and below to Lake Ontario, ninety- eight feet.
Consequently, the total power running to waste is more than
double the five million horse power on the falls. An idea of the
proportion that this total bears to what may be called the world's
consumption of power may be had from the fact that it is com-
puted to be equal to the total of all the steam-generated jjower in
the world.

The geographical situation of the falls with respect to near-
ness to the at present great power-consuming centers is, as hinted
above, not quite all that could be desired ; but there are, neverthe-
less, several cities within reach, electrically speaking, which will
use an enormous amount. Buffalo may be said to be next door,
and Rochester is within easy reach*. In the not too distant future
we may expect to see the great electrical manufacturing works
in Schenectady operated, as is meet, by electrical power from
Niagara.

The power company has, however, made branch track connec-
tions between the territory owned by it and three important rail-
way lines which all pass within a few miles of the property.
These connections and the good freight rates which have been
contracted for in various directions, together with the cheapness
of power, will in all likelihood attract to the spot manufactures

6l2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

besides those wliicli have alread}' undertaken to go there, to an
extent that will make it the foremost power-consuming center in
the world.

The chief piece of work in connection with the power installa-
tion has been the construction of what, in almost any other situ-
ation, would be termed the tailrace. In this case the head utilized
is so great that what is ordinarily understc 3d by a tailrace would
be an artificial chasm of abysmal proportions that would almost
require illumination other than the natural to be visible to the
bottom at midday. Instead, a tunnel has been excavated, of which

Fio. 2. — Open End of Tail-kaor Tinnel.

the dimensions are so remarkable as to make it unique among
engineering exploits of the kind.

The location of the power house, on account of difficulty in
acquiring sufficient adjacent lands and rights of way and for
other reasons, is not very close to the falls. The Cataract Con-
struction Company has established itself about a mile and a half
above the American Fall, and has dug a canal of considerable
width, of a depth of twelve feet, and length fifteen hundred feet.
Along its edge for a distance of at present one hundred and forty
feet is dug a great trench or slot one hundred and sixty feet

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 613

down, with, arrangements in the form of gates in the masonry wall
separating it from the canal, by which water may be admitted to
penstocks placed vertically in the slot and supplying the turbine
wheels. A penstock, as many of our readers are aware, is a great
tube, usually, in these days, of boiler plate, of a diameter running
up, it may be, to thirteen feet, conveying water under head into
the wheel case in which the turbine revolves.

In the present instance the penstocks, which are seven and a
half feet in diameter, seem very small, considering that they each,
supply a pair of wheels of five thousand horse power, but that is
on account of tlie enormous pressure under which the wheels
work, giving a greater power for a given volume of water than
with the smaller heads more commonly used.

The turbines discharge their waste water into the tunnel above
referred to, which is no less than six thousand seven hundred feet
long, and which discharges into the chasm below the falls just
past the Suspension Bridge.

The details of this tunnel, which was excavated through three
shafts, one in the face of the cliff and two vertical ones, are as fol-
lows : Length, six thousand seven hundred feet, and sectional area
three hundred and eighty -six square feet throughout, the average
height and width being about twenty-one and nineteen feet re-
spectively. The cross-section somewhat resembles a horseshoe.
The excavation was much larger than the finished inside dimen-
sions, on account of the subsequent lining with four courses of
brick. The mouth of the tunnel has, besides, a lining on the top
and sides of iron. The work has been done most substantially
and is built to stay. The tunneling was done through strata of
limestone and shale, and harder material was met with than had
been expected in the beginning, so that the three million cubic
feet of excavation has cut a very important figure in the total
cost of the power plant. The tunnel has a grade of 07 per cent
(seven feet fall per thousand length), and runs directly under the
city of Niagara Falls to the lower river level.

The work of excavation was carried on on three benches, divid-
ing the total height of twenty-six feet about into three equal por-
tions.

The whole undertaking has been so entirely novel in many
ways that the engineers in charge have had their resources taxed
to the utmost in overcoming the various difficulties that presented
themselves during the design and construction of the power house,
electrical and hydraulic apparatus, and tunnel. The power-house
building is as yet of comparatively small proportions, but is in-
tended to be enlarged as the number of dynamos and turbines is
increased. It might be thought, and was thought at first by some
of the projectors of the scheme, that the great amount of power

6i4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that was to be developed would admit of considerable subdivision,
not only of the units of power production (each unit consisting
of a turbine and generator), but also of the ways in which the
electrical power would best be sent out to consumers.

As already mentioned, a number of manufacturing establish-
ments are locating themselves on the property owned by the Cat-
aract Construction Company, and to these it would at first sight
seem natural and best to deliver electrical power straight from
the power-house generators to their motors, seeing that this could
easily be done without much loss of voltage on the carrying line ;
and, on the other hand, for distant work, as at Buffalo and Roch-

Fio. 3. — Intekiok of Large Main Tlnnel, showing Junction of Lateral Tunnel from

JS'iA(iARA I'afer Company's Wheel I'lr.

ester, to use a high potential on the line with transformers at the
consuming end or at both ends. It has, however, been decided
not to thus take advantage of the mechanical subdivision of the
plant to use different types of generators for different kinds of
work, but to adopt as a standard one good form of machine and
use it throughout, at least until the plant is increased.

Perhaps the most remarkable coiiseciuence of this step will
be that the Pittsburg Reduction Company, which manufactures
metallic aluminum by the action of electricity upon certain com-
pounds of that metal in a state of fusion, and which expects to
use some thousands of electrical horse power when established at
the falls, will receive it in the form of an alternating current.

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 615

which will be passed into an alternating-current motor driving a
direct-current, low-voltage generator furnishing at last the de-
sired electrolyzing current. It has seemed best to submit to this
complication of apparatus in order to gain the advantage of en-
tire uniformity and interchangeability of power units in the gen-
erating plant. Of course, if the power company were to put in a
direct-current dynamo for the benefit of the Reduction Company,
all that would be necessary would be to send the current over a
wire straight to its work ; and it seems remarkable, in view of the
thousands of horse power required, that the extra expense of a
motor and dynamo to transform this quantity appears preferable.
The electrical yjower unit which has been decided on after the
most exhaustive, and presumably competent, expert examination
of the requirements of the situation, will be of a capacity for con-
tinuous work of five thousand electrical horse power (or three
thousand seven hundred kilowatts), and will be directly connect-
ed with a pair of turbines of similar power. All the generators
will be mechanically identical in construction and have parts in-
terchangeable with each other. The advantage of this, besides
the obvious one of having a single set of spare parts suffice
against the breakdown of any machine in the station, is that,
from a point of view of the electrical aspect of the case, of the
machines being able all to be put in parallel, as it is called. The
expression may not be a familiar one to some of our readers, and
the following hydraulic analogy may be of service in leading to
an understanding of what is meant by it. Let us assume that we
have several pumping engines of equal power, and that we are
using them all to pump water from one reservoir into another at a
higher level. Obviously the total amount of water pumped will
be what a single machine handles multiplied by the number of
them. Had, say, one of the pumps been weaker than the others —
had it, that is, not been strong enough to force water up to the
height that the others did — the result would be that, instead of
doing any work when put, as we may say, in parallel with the
others, it would have been unable to withstand the head, and
water would have forced itself back through it into the lower
reservoir. The same way with dynamos, or generators as they
are usually called when referring to the machinery in a power as
distinct from a lighting station. The advantage of working in par-
allel is, that if we have, say, six machines all "pumping" current
into the same mains and one breaks down, we may take it out of
circuit, and, by temporarily overloading the other five, which can
always be done for a short time with good machines, keep on sup-
plying full current to consumers. Should the power company
have decided to put in a special machine for aluminum, and other
special ones for other local work, and still more for distant work.

6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

each would have its own circuit, and, if it broke down, the whole
dependent system would be idle until repairs were completed.
One of the great aims of the company appears to be to insure the
permanence and continuousness of their power service — which is,
of course, of the utmost importance to manufacturers.

A remarkable method of construction — not, however, unique —
is employed in the generators to secure means for direct coupling
to the turbine shafts. These latter are vertical, and come up
over one hundred and forty feet out of the wheel pits from the
rotating water wheels, which make two hundred and fifty revolu-
tions per minute. In order to obtain direct driving — that is, with-
out the intervention of toothed or friction gearing, or belt or rope
driving — the revolving portions of the generator are arranged to
rotate in a horizontal instead of, as is usual, a vertical plane.

A dynamo of any type whatever consists, as is well known,
essentially of two portions, one of which possesses motion with
respect to the other, viz., the armature and the field magnets.
Since the field magnets are almost invariably much heavier and
much less compact than the armature, the latter is usually chosen
as the moving part. In the case under discussion the contrary
has been decided on, the armature being fixed and the field mag-
nets rotating. This gives certain advantages in the matter of
less complicated electrical connections and of dispensing with the
armature's rubbing collectors altogether ; it also gives the advan-
tage— much more important in this case than with smaller ma-
chines— that, since the revolving magnets are arranged on a ring
and point inward, the attraction between them and the armature
core tends toward neutralization of the strains of centrifugal
force. The greatest advantage, however, attained by this method,
and again one which is of far greater value in the present case
than in ordinary practice, is the high degree of insulation possible
with fixed armature coils and connections. The requirements that
had to be met in the way of limiting the centrifugal strains were
that the product of the sum of the weights of the revolving parts
in pounds and the square of their velocities in feet per second
should not exceed eleven hundred million. The weight of the
moving parts of each dynamo was also limited to eighty thousand
pounds, while the weight of the turbine and its shaft amounts to
seventy-two thousand pounds.

This whole weight of seventy-six tons acts in one vertical line —
i. e., that of the turbine shaft — and revolves two hundred and fifty
times per minute. It would have been very difficult to construct
thrust bearings to take up the whole of this strain, and a hydraulic
balancing piston has been resorted to for supporting it. This
device is simply a circular piston fast on the vertical turbine
shaft, set in a vertical cylinder. The supporting force consists of

►J

K

O

o

o

O

a

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2
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6i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hydraulic pressure admitted to the under side of the piston. This
pressure is derived simply from the water in the penstock sup-
plied to the turbine, and when the latter is working under full
gate — that is, is taking water to its full capacity — the pressure in
the penstock is decidedly less, just as the pressure in a water pipe
is partly relieved by the opening of a faucet. This causes the
supporting force on the under side of the piston to materially de-
crease, and a thrust bearing — that is, a bearing adapted to with-
stand either pressure or pull, so as to hold the shaft against the
tendency to end play — has to be resorted to in order to take up
the difference. As a matter of fact, the difference between the
supporting force when the flow is a minimum and that when the
gate is wide open is about two tons in the seventy-six. The way
this is handled is to arrange the area of the piston and the depth
below^ the upper water level so that at minimum flow the support-
ing pressure will be about one ton more than the total weight,
and at full gate about the same amount less. At the normal
rate of working there is very little to be taken up by the thrust
bearings.

An idea of the magnitude of the proportions of the generators
may be gathered from the fact that the designers were limited in
the size of base plates that they could use by the inability of the
railways to transport, even by especially large and powerful cars,
pieces of proportions originally designed from the factories to
he falls.

It is stated that, had it not been for the tariff restrictions im-
posed on the importation of electrical machinery, the generators
would probably have been purchased abroad. As it was, they, as
well as the motors which will operate on their circuits, are the
work of a great Pittsburg company. In the case of the turbines
the design was by a Geneva firm, and the construction mainly
done in Philadelphia. Certain of the fittings are French, and the
governors Swiss.

One of the details in the power house is a traveling crane
capable of handling pieces weighing up to fifty tons, which com-
mands every portion of the floor of the building. The presence
of this piece of apparatus is of the greatest importance in the
case of anything going wrong with one of the generators or tur-
bines. With its assistance any portion of either of these ponder-
ous pieces of mechanism which may need repair can be moved
with the greatest expedition, and a spare interchangeable part
put in its place. Frequently in an installation of heavy ma-
chinery, although perhaps much less ponderous than these in
question, a break occurs which may cause a shut-down of many
hours, when, if sufficiently powerful means of moving heavy
parts were at hand, the damaged piece could be replaced in a

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 619

comparatively short time. A traveling crane of this description,
as most of our readers are aware, consists of a long carriage hav-
ing a pair of rails on which runs the crane truck carrying the
lifting machinery. The long carriage, which is supported a suit-
able height above the floor, stretches across the width of space to
be commanded, and itself has a sideway movement on several
supporting rails which run the length of the space to be operated
over. Thus by a combination of the two movements the crane
truck commands the whole floor.

During the work of assembling the penstocks, wheel cases,
turbines, etc., at the wheel pit, a view of this great slot with its
contents was wonderfully impressive in giving an idea of the
vastness of the whole enterprise. The great depth of this long,
narrow pit, which made it impossible to see to the bottom except
with the assistance of lamps in the lower part, the mysterious-
looking pipes (the penstocks) rising vertically, new sections being
constantly added much in the same way that a stovepipe is put
together, except for the permanence given by the heavy riveted
seams, and the enormous power and flexibility of operation of the
immense traveling crane which rapidly conveyed in every direc-
tion great masses of iron and steel obedient to the turn of a switch,
made a combination of impressive efi^ects not quickly forgotten.

To obtain an idea of just what the relation to each other of
the various parts in the installation is, the reader is referred to
the sketches numbered G, 7, and 8.

It may be mentioned that, to withstand the very considerable
hydraulic pressure at the lower part of the penstocks, these tubes
are built of thicker and thicker plates from the top downward.

There has been very little criticism of the mechanical details
of construction so far referred to ; on the contrary, very little can
be said except in praise of the fertility of resource and high gen-
eral competence of the engineers who have had this work in
hand. With regard, however, to the particular design of the
generators from an electrical rather than a mechanical standpoint
much and lavish criticism, if not condemnation, has appeared in
various quarters. Whether the grounds for this criticism are
well founded or not it would be presumptuous at this time to at-
tempt to declare, but we may say that where, as in this case, one
man has had practically the entire control of the design of the
electrical apparatus, we may usually look for, rather than be sur-
prised at, a great amount of setting up of individual opinion
against the views which he may embody in practice, often a good
deal irrespective of the probably cogent reasons which may have
induced him to adopt the course in question.

Without attempting to decide between the various views
which are plentifully to hand in criticism of certain electrical

<

o
g

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 621

details in the design and proposed method of utilizing the current
of the generators, we may glance at what has been decided on,
and review the more important points raised in connection there-
with.

In the first place, the use of an alternating as opposed to a
direct current was decided on, as was to have been expected. The
development within the last year or two of alternating-current
motors has rendered possible the distribution of electricity for
power (as opposed to lighting) purposes over distances before
almost out of the question. It has been for a number of years
past possible to transmit large quantities of electrical energy for
lighting which was not suitable for running the then known
motors. The method of electrical distribution for lighting pur-
poses that is used in cities is available also for transmission to
considerable distances. It consists, as is well known, of a dynamo
supplying current at a high voltage to the street lines, and a sys-
tem of transformers each taking a portion of this current at high
voltage and giving in return a current of greater amperage or
volume and of lower voltage for house consumption, the object
being simply to avoid loss of voltage or pressure by transmit-
ting a heavy current over a light wire. As this may not be
quite clear to every reader, it may be as well to say a little more
about it.

The energy of any current is determined by and is equal to
the product of two of its properties, its volume or amperage and
its pressure or voltage. Letting C represent the amperes and V
the voltage, we have that the energy = C V. In passing any cur-
rent over any wire there is a loss of voltage determined by and
equal to the product of two things — i. e., the amperage of the cur-
rent and the resistance of the wire ; so we have loss of voltage
= C R. Now, if we have two currents — one, say, of ten amperes
and one volt, and the other of one ampere and ten volts — the
energy will be the same, or ten watts as it is called. If we pass
both through a given resistance, R, we shall have a loss of volt-
age (= CR) ten times greater in the first than in the second case.
But a given loss of voltage amounts to only one tenth as much
energy (C V) in the second case with C = one ampere as it does in
the first with C = ten amperes, so that with only one tenth the
given loss of voltage the energy lost will be only one one-hun-
dredth that lost in the first case. What it amounts to is that the
loss in passing a given amount of electrical energy through a
given resistance is proportional to the square of the current, or
amperage, and consequently inversely proportional to the square
of the pressure, or voltage.

If, therefore, current is used in a house at fifty volts and
transmitted to the house at one thousand > olts, the loss will be

62 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

only one four-liundredth as much over a given wire as it would
be if transmitted at fifty volts.

The advantage that alternating currents have over direct for
long-distance transmission is that they may easily be transformed
up or down — that is, their voltage at the generating end may be
increased (at the expense, of course, of their amperage) and re-
duced at the consuming end. In point of fact, it is frequently
and usually unnecessary to employ such devices at the generat-
ing end, for the reason that the generators themselves can work
perfectly well at the high voltage requisite to transmit. The ob-
jection to using the same high voltage on the consuming machin-
ery is simply that there is more danger of accident with numer-
ous small motors scattered in various places and in the hands of
unskilled persons than in a power station containing only two or
three highly guarded machines attended by trained operatives.

With this fact of the possibility of generating currents of a
voltage suitable for immediate transmission, it at first sight
appears strange that direct-current transmission is not a more
common thing than it is. The method of the so-called "motor
transformer," " rotary transformer," or " dynamotor," might be
adopted. A transmission plant working on this method would
operate as follows : The power station would contain preferably
several highly insulated direct-current generators, all of similar
construction, for very high potential (four thousand volts would
be easily obtained) ; these would run in series — that is, each would
add its voltage to that of the others, and there would preferably
be a spare machine to substitute for any one of the others which
might become injured. If four machines were in series, the re-
sultant current would be put to line at, say, sixteen thousand
volts, would be received at the other end by a number of motors,
also in series, which in their turn would drive low potential dyna-
mos supplying current for local use.

There are two objections to this as compared with alternating-
current transmission : One is the fact that there has grown up a
very tangible, we may almost call it, superstition against the use
of high-voltage direct-current machines of large size among very
many electricians. The reasons for this are not difficult to trace ;
prominent among them being the simple fact that no commercial
application has ever yet required such machines. The only high-
potential direct-current dynamos are those used for arc lighting,
and on account of the great subdivision of arc-lighting circuits
the units of generation are invariably small, at least by com-
parison with the ponderous machinery used in the Niagara
Falls power plant.

There is no reason why they could not be made large (in point
of fact, arc-lighting requirements are continually making demands

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA.

623

for the construction of larger and larger machines, and the re-
quirements are just as steadily being met without difficulty), and
yet this very tangible dislike of their use for power transmission
undoubtedly exists. The result is that, without undertaking con-
siderable work on new ground in the waj^ of patterns, designs,
etc, no company could obtain such machines ; and since the alter-
nating current has had practically the exclusive attention of the
laborers in the field of electrical power transmission there is no

Niaerara Kiver.

-- T'AIL RArVV

I ---??. J.UNNEL

Fig. 6. — River, Canal, Wheel Pit, and Tail-uace Tinnel.

method, tried on the large scale, for the other. The second dis-
advantage referred to is the greater cost of motor transformers
over the simple stationary ones for alternating work. In view,
however, of the fact of the proposed installation of these very
motor transformers in adapting the alternating current to the
arc lighting of Buffalo, and to the aluminum smelting works at
Niagara, it would seem that this objection could not count for
very much.

In connection with the Niagara Falls work there is the further

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

advantage which the alternating current has over the direct, and
that is what may be termed the " flexibility," commercially, of
the former. The alternating-current machines operated in paral-
lel at, say, two thousand volts, may have a portion of their cur-
rent taken from them at that voltage for use in the immediate
neighborhood and the rest transformed up for distant transmis-
sion.

The advantages of the direct-current system would be two :
First, the simpler methods of motor operation by its means, and
the availability of the current for electrochemical work and stor-
age-battery operation direct. Second, the smaller weight of cop-
per necessary on the transmitting wire, for the three reasons of
the evenness of flow, the absence of self-induction on the line,
and the absence of skin resistance in direct-current transmission.
The effects of the two latter phenomena will be discussed later.

Inventive effort has, singularly, stayed in the rut of work on
alternating-current transmission, and in attempting anything on
the scale of the Niagara Falls undertaking it would be perilous,
even had it been considered for other reasons advisable, to depart
more than necessary from usual practice.

Lately, and particularly owing to the brilliant work of a
young man, a native of Smiljan Lika, a border country of
Austria-Hungary, by name Nikola Tesla, there have been de-
vised forms of apparatus, generating as well as consuming, by
means of which alternating currents may be economically used
for operating motors. To express it very roughly, his method
amounts to arranging an armature within a magnetic ring and
causing opposite magnetic poles to revolve around the ring so as
to cause rotation of the armature.

The operation of these devices is preferably by means of a
polyphase alternating current— that is, a flow of electricity hav-
ing more than one pulsating current.

Before finally deciding on what system of transmission to use,
the Cataract Construction Company asked for plans for a system
for the purpose from a number of electrical engineering estab-
lishments. Twenty-four distinct ones were submitted, more than
one of the tendering companies having sent several different plans
to be chosen from. No individual one was, however, accepted in
toto^ but instead a design was adopted embodying such points of
value as could be assembled in one suitable type of machine, and
the Westinghouse Company received the contract for it. The
system on which the generators work is the Tesla two-phase, and
is notably peculiar on account of the low periodicity of alter-
nation.

The number of pulsations of commercial alternating currents
is usually over one hundred per second and is frequently double

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA.

625

that amount. The reasons for this high frequency are mainly
two : Tlie first, that with any given alternating-current dynamo
the number of alternations depends directly on the speed, and, as
this must usually be high in order to get as much work as pos-
sible out of the machine, the periodicity is also high. The sec-
ond reason is that in lighting work it is, of course, highly un-
desirable to employ a current of which the pulsations are so slow
as to leave the incandescent filament or the arc visibly dimmer
between separate beats, as we may call them, than during the
passage of the full current strength. In the case in hand one is
impressed with the eff^ort that has been made to steer a middle
course in the design of the generators so as to obtain a portion of

^r^-;-- Turbine shaft

(broken away).
Wheel case.

Fig. 7. — Elevation (part section) of Wheel Case, Pit, and Penstock.

the advantage of the direct current for motor work and of the
alternating for transformation. The periodicity for the first por-
tion at least of the electrical equipment is to be as low as twenty-
five per second, and this at once limits the scope of the use of the
current in the matter of electric lighting. Prof. Forbes states that
lighting by the current direct is a comparatively small portion
of the work in contemplation, and that the plant is rather to be
regarded as essentially for power distribution. The expression,
" lighting by the current direct," is used because a very impor-
tant branch of the power work will be the lighting of the city of
Buffalo. This is at present done by the ordinarj^ direct-current
arc machines operated by engines of some three thousand horse
power. In changing over to the Niagara Falls power the whole

VOL. XLV. — 47

62 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

electrical system will be untouched, but the engines will be re-
placed by motors operated by current from the falls station.

As has been justified by the importance of the subject, there
have been some quite exhaustive experiments undertaken by vari-
ous scientists to determine the frequency of alternation at which
unsteadiness of the light from both incandescent and arc lamps is
observable or at least objectionable. Several independent experi-
menters have arrived at results sufficiently satisfactory to them-
selves, but which unfortunately can not be used as reliable data,
for the reason that they are highly discrepant with each other.
One reason for this is the evident one of the difference between
different makes of lamps, but the discrepancies are of a character
not altogether to be explained on that ground. With the ordi-
nary fifty-volt filament, however, it would seem that we may
place the working rate of alternation at about thirty or over;
with arc lamps, at about fifty or over.

As above mentioned, the arc lighting will be done by making
use of the motor transformer (a motor operated by the power cur-
rent driving a dynamo generating, if we may call it so, the sec-
ondary current), but it is expected that by means of a special form
of incandescent lamp — the Bernstein, which has, indeed, been on
the market for several years — the twenty-five-period current will
be available for direct use for illumination by means of incandes-
cent lamps. It is evident that the thicker the filament the longer
will its incandescence take to die out (as well as to start up), and
a current of twenty-five pulsations, which may not be available
for the high-resistance (thin) filament, may be quite sufficiently
so for a low-resistance one, which the Bernstein lamp above men-
tioned is.

The voltage at which the first installation of generators is "to
operate is somewhat over two thousand. Considering the perfec-
tion to which European practice has been carried in the construc-
tion of alternating-current machines for much higher electrical
pressures than the above, it seems strange that this voltage should
have been decided on in a situation where one would expect the
very highest degree of perfection to be attained. It is stated,
however, that it was largely on account of the comparatively
backward condition of that branch of electrical engineering con-
struction in America that the voltage had to be placed so low.

In a case like the present one, where the power station will be
under the supervision of skilled engineers, and not merely of men
whose chief qualifications are those of sobriety and an ability to
stay awake at night, there appears no sufficient reason why the
generators should not be operated at five times the voltage named.
The fact of the armatures in these machines being fixed gives,
moreover, additional security against danger consequent on such

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 627

high voltage on account of the very much more perfect insulation
possible.

The advantage, of course, of using a very high electrical pres-
sure lies in the principle stated above of the loss in sending a
given amount of energy over a given wire being inversely pro-
portional to the square of the voltage.

By the use of step-up transformers it will, of course, be pos-
sible to transmit at any voltage that the insulation of the line
can withstand ; but if this high voltage could be reached by the
machines directly, the loss (we may liken it to a friction loss in
machinery) of efficiency in the transformers, and, even more im-
portant, the great cost of that part of the equipment, would both
be avoided.

What will be done will be to use these step-up transformers and
put current on the transmitting line at about twenty thousand
volts ; it is likely, however, that in any subsequent enlargements
of the generating plant the three original machines will be used
for local work only, and a radical change made in the direction of
an enormously higher generated voltage.

Intimately associated with this question is the problem of how
to convey current at this tremendous potential of twenty thou-
sand volts to distances. An idea of what it means may be had
from the facts that two thousand is relied on to be sufficient to
instantly kill a human being, and that the energy of a current
given up in passing through any given resistance varies as the
square of the voltage.

The chief difficulty to be met in such line construction is that
of efficiently insulating the wires. If one attempted to use a line
insulated merely as an ordinary telegraph line is, there would
be an enormous loss, amounting practically to the whole of the
transmitted current, in moist weather, by leakage over the damp
surfaces of the glass or other insulators. The remedy for this
leakage would, however, be a comparatively simple matter by
means of well-known oil-holding arrangements for the insulators
were it not for the further fact that it is imperatively necessary
not to have the two wires, the going and return ones, farther apart
than can not be avoided on account of what are known as the
effects of self-induction. The wires strung on telegraph poles
would have to be so far apart in order to insure their never, by
any possibility, coming in contact, that the self-induction losses
would make that method impracticable.

The self-induction of a circuit has the effect of retarding both
the starting up and the dying out of a current flowing in the cir-
cuit. The phenomenon gives a resemblance of the possession of a
property analogous to mechanical inertia to the current. Since
inertia, however, is a property dependent solely on the mass of a

628

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

body, and is the same for all situations or conditions of the body,
we shall see that self-induction has but a very faint likeness to it,

for self-induction is a property
of a conducting path or cir-
cuit, and not at all of the cur-
rent. To dip lightly into the
theory of the phenomenon, we
may say that the inception or
the stoppage of an electrical
flow in any conductor involves
the starting up or stoppage of
a movement in the dielectric
medium surrounding the con-
ductor. The time requisite for
this movement to start up or
stop gives a perfect analogue
to mechanical inertia. If,
now, we have a circuit consist-
ing of a wire returning on it-
self, the two halves being as
close together as they may be
without touching, we see that
a flow starting up in this wire
means a current in each half
in opposite directions. For the
present it suffices to say that
the effect above referred to of
the starting up of a movement
in the surrounding medium is
rendered less and less by the
canceling effect of the oppo-
site electrical flows the nearer
the two halves of the circuit
are brought together.

The evil effects of self-in-
duction are directly propor-
tional to the number of alter-
nations of the current in a
given time, and consequently
the twenty-five-period current
adopted for the Niagara Falls
work is highly advantageous
from this point of view.

The so-called "skin resist-
ance '■ of an alternating-current circuit is, in brief, due to the fact
that an alternating current penetrates only a short distance into

Wheel case.

Fig. 8. — Wheel Case, Shaft, and Dynamo.

POWER DEVELOPMENT AT NIAGARA. 629

the body of the metal of which the carrying wire is composed,
instead of, as in the case of a direct current, flowing across the
whole cross-section of the wire in an even manner. This also is
less serious the lower the periodicity. In the case of a lightning
flash (which is an alternating-current discharge) the periodicity is
enormously high, and it is known that in its flow over wires it
travels almost entirely through the mere surface skin of the
metal. It may be mentioned here, as having possibly a very
important bearing on work such as that under discussion, that a
most remarkable claim has recently been brought forth that bi-
metallic wires, or wires of one metal coated with a different one
on the outside, give remarkably improved results for the conduc-
tion of alternating currents over the conductivities of the two
metals in the weights used, laid together as separate wires.

The form decided on in which to construct the conveying lines
is that of a conduit or subway of large proportions. One which
has been already constructed for a length of half a mile is as fol-
lows : The walls are arched, and the width is greatest at about two
thirds of the height. The conductors are carried on insulated
brackets along the sides, spaced at intervals of thirty feet. The
subway is lined with concrete, and manholes at intervals allow of
access ; besides, there are small pieces of pipe let in at the bottoms
of the manhole ducts for the purpose of inserting such wires as
may from time to time be required to tap the line conductors.
The subway is five and a half feet high and three feet ten inches
wide. A track runs along it, and the line inspectors will make
their trips on an electrically propelled car ; heavy wire screens
the height of the subway, extending on both sides of the track,
protecting the occupants from any possible discharge from the
main conductors.

The Cataract Construction Company expect to be able to de-
liver power in Buffalo at a cost per horse power, for twenty-four
hours a day yearly, greatly below the cost of steam power as
now produced in Buffalo with coal at one dollar and a half per
ton. The generators are expected to operate at five thousand
horse power each, with an efficiency of ninety-eight per cent on
the power delivered to them by the turbines, and there will be
only three and a half per cent drop of pressure in transmitting
at twenty thousand volts to the northern part of Buffalo. This
last appears wonderful when we consider that it is less than the
drop from the generators of an electric railway system to the
motors of cars within as short a distance as half a mile, quite
apart, moreover, from the extra losses in the latter case due to
imperfect trolley contacts. It is hoped also to transmit power
before long to the Erie Canal, on which at the close of last sea-
son there was an interesting development in the line of electrical

630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

canal-boat propulsion. What else may be in store for tbe closing
years of the century in still further applications of transmitted
electrical power, notably in the displacement of steam in railroad
operation, can only be foreshadowed. Suffice it to say that the
Niagara Falls Power Company will probably soon find their in-
itial fifteen thousand horse-power equipment entirely insufficient
to meet the demands upon it.

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.*

By Dr. H. E. AEMSTEONG, F. E. S.

ENGLISH boys and girls at the present day are the victims of
excessive lesson learning, and are also falling a prey, in in-
creasing numbers year by year, to the examination-demon, which
threatens to become by far the most ruthless monster the world
has ever known either in fact or in fable. Ask any teacher who
has to do with students fresh from school his opinion of them : he
will say that in the great majority of cases they have little if any
power of helping themselves, little desire to learn about things,
little if any observing power, little desire to reason on what they
see or are called on to witness ; that they are destitute of the sense
of accuracy, and satisfied with any performance, however slov-
enly ; that, in short, they are neither inquisitive nor acquisitive,
and as they too often are idle as well, the opportunities offered
to them are blindly sacrificed. A considerable proportion un-
doubtedly are by nature mentally very feeble ; but the larger
number are by no means without ability, and are, in fact, victims
of an acquired disease. We inust find a remedy for this state of
things, or perish in the face of the terrific competition now set-
ting in. Boys and girls at school must be taught from the very
earliest moment to do and to appreciate. It is of no use our teach-
ing them merely about things, however interesting — no facts must
be taught luithout their use being taught simultaneously ; and, as
far as possible, they must be led to discover the facts for them-
selves. Instead of our placing condensed summaries in their
hands, we must lead them to use works of reference and acquire
the habit of finding out ; they must always be at work applying
their knowledge and solving problems. It is a libel on the human
race to say, as many do, that children can not think and reason,
and that they can only be taught facts ; early childhood is the
time at which these faculties are most apparent, and it is probably

* From the Presidential Address delivered at the Chemical Society (Great Britain), on
March 22, 1894.

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 631

through failure to exercise them then that they suffer atrophy.
The so-called science introduced into a few schools in answer to
the persistent demands of its advocates has been in most cases a
shallow fraud, of no value whatever educationally. Boys see
oxygen made and things burned in it, which gives them much
pleasure ; but, after all, this is but the old lesson learning in an
interesting shape, and has no superior educational effect. I would
here repeat what I have recently urged elsewhere, that in the
future all subjects must be taught scientifically at school, in order
to inculcate those habits of mind which are termed scientific
habits ; the teaching of scientific method — not the mere shibbo-
leths of some branch of natural science — must be insisted on. No
doubt some branch of chemistry, with a due modicum of physics,
etc., is the subject by means of which we may best instill the scien-
tific habits associated with experimental studies, but it must be
the true chemistry of the discoverer, not the cookery-book-receipt
pseudo-form which has so long usurped its place. Whatever be
taught, let me repeat that mere repetition work and lesson learn-
ing must give place to a system of allowing children to do things
themselves. Should we succeed in infusing the research spirit
into our teaching generally, then there will be hope that, in the
course of a generation or so, we shall cease to be the Philistines
we are at the present time ; the education given in our schools
will be worthy of being named a " liberal education" which it
never will be so long as we worship the old world classical fetich,
and allow our schools to be controlled by those who reverence this
alone, having never been instructed in a wider faith.

As regards our college courses, I see no reason to modify the
views expressed in my address to the Chemical Section of the Brit-
ish Association at Aberdeen in 1885 ; on the contrary, the experi-
ence I have since gained as a teacher and examiner has served
only to strengthen them and to convince me of the paramount
necessity of a very radical change in our system of instruction,
and I rejoice at the increasing evidence of a state of unrest both
at home and abroad. The "thorough" course of qualitative
analysis which it has long been customary to impose at a very
early period of the student's career must, I venture to think, be
relegated to near its close ; this course certainly has not the effect
of producing competent analysts, and but too often reduces those
who toil through it to the dead level of machines ; in hundreds of
cases I have seen students, as it were, hang up their intelligence
on the clothes peg outside and enter the examination room
masked with a set of analytical tables, through which alone they
allow themselves to be actuated, a^id to which they render the
blindest obedience. Qualitative analysis actually requires the full-
est exercise of the mental faculties as well as considerable manip-

632 THJiJ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ulative skill. By introducing this branch of study at too early a
period we force our students to act as machines, inasmuch as they
do not, and can not, know enough to work intelligently ; we are
but trying to make them run before they have learned to walk.
Even when the interactions on which qualitative analysis is based
are fully studied, and the equations relating thereto are conscien-
tiously written out, the result is not much better, owing to the
slight importance of so many of the interactions apart from their
technical application in analysis, and especially on account of our
ignorance of the precise nature of many of the interchanges of
which we avail ourselves: the persistent misrepresentation of
facts which such a course encourages is, in my opinion, one of its
worst features.

I believe that in the near future our students will first be set
to solve problems, each in its way a little research, and involving
much simple quantitative work ; they will thus be taught chem-
ical method, or, in other words, the art of discovery. They will
then be taken through a course of quantitative exercises with the
object of making them acquainted, by direct contact with the
facts, with the fundamental principles of our science, which are
but too rarely appreciated at the present day. After this, they
will seek to acquire proficiency in quantitative analysis and in the
art of making preparations ; and subsequently they will give
sufficient attention to the study of physical properties to enable
them to appreciate the physico-chemical methods of inquiry
which are now of such importance. The study of qualitative
analysis in detail will be left to the last, as being an eminently
technical subject. Meanwhile, by attendance at lectures, by read-
ing carefully chosen works of a kind altogether different from
the soul-destroying text-books we now possess, and especially by
the study of classical models in chemical literature, they will
have acquired what is commonly spoken of as theoretical knowl-
edge, but too often regarded by us as of secondary importance,
and which it is so difficult to make Englishmen realize means a
proper understanding of the subject. Students so trained — im-
bued from the outset, even from early school days, with the
research spirit — will at all times be observant and critical, nay,
even logical ; dogmatic teaching will cease to have any charm for
them : they will actually take deep interest in their studies— a
result devoutly to be hoped for, as nothing is more galling to
the teacher at the present day than the crass indifference of the
average student and his refusal to give attention to anything un-
less it will pay in an examination. At the close of such a course
the student will be thoroughly prepared to undertake original
investigation, distinctly with the object of exhibiting his individ-
uality and originality, and not, as at present, with the object of

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 633

acquiring for the first time an insight into the methods of the
investigator; he will thus be spared the unpleasant discovery
which the advanced student now too often makes that his early
training has unfitted him, rather than prepared him, for the task
of original inquiry.

Much to be feared, also, is the tendency to overestimate the
value of examinations, and the great work of the future will be
so to improve these that they shall have no prejudicial influence
on the student's work and in no way check the development of
original methods of teaching; we must fix our attention mainly
on the influences to which the student is to be subjected during
his career; the competent teacher will ever study his students
while they are at work, and do the best for them, provided he be
not rendered powerless by the trammels of an examination system
which heeds "results" only and not individuals.

Finally, let me say that, while sympathizing most fully with
those who advocate a complete course of study, I feel that it is
very easy to demand too much — very easy to make it impossible
for students to do justice to their work by imposing too many
subjects. Our chief desire must always be that students shall
acquire a knowledge of scientific method and the power of work-
ing independently. Certain subjects must be insisted on — for
example, mathematics and drawing — if a knowledge of these be
not acquired early it will never be acquired ; but apart from these
and a competent knowledge of the main subject, we probably
may, as a rule, be satisfied with comparatively little. Those who
have once learned to work and acquired a knowledge of scientific
method will, of their own accord, in proportion to their intelli-
gence, apply themselves also to the study of other subjects — as
many among us have done ; those who are not sufficiently intelli-
gent to do this are not, as a rule, improved by being forced to pay
attention to unpalatable studies ; on the contrary, they are, more
often than not, thereby hindered from acquiring a competent
knowledge of some one subject which does appeal to them, and
are spoiled for life in consequence. — Reprinted frovfi Nature.

The studies of Dr. R. W. Shiifelclt have led him to believe that the art of
taxidermy has had an evolutionary growth yjeculiarly its own, and that of recent
years the strong tendency in the leading museums has been to group animals, and
for a variety of purposes. The author is convinced that in the future museums
will carry this idea still further, and that the groups will be so combined as to
exhibit, besides single species, showing some of their habits and surroundings in
their natural haunts, also to a large extent faunal regions, and the animal and
plant life of various geographical areas. By such arrangements the eye will be
enabled to take in and the mind appreciate the aspect and the biologic forms of
any particular region of the United States almost at a glance.

634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ETHICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST.

Bt Prof. E. P. EVANS.

ETHNOCENTRIC geography, which caused each petty tribe
to regard itself as the center of the earth, and geocentric
astronomy, which caused mankind to regard the earth as the cen-
ter of the universe, are conceptions that have been gradually out-
grown and generally discarded — not, however, without leaving
distinct and indelible traces of themselves in human speech and
conduct. But this is not the case with anthropocentric psychol-
ogy and ethics, which treat man as a being essentially different
and inseparably set apart from all other sentient creatures, to
which he is bound by no ties of mental affinity or moral obli-
gation. Nevertheless, all these notions spring from the same
root, having their origin in man's false and overweening conceit
of himself as the member of a tribe, the inhabitant of a planet^ or
the lord of creation.

It was upon this sort of anthropocentric assumption that tele-
ologists used to build their arguments in proof of the existence
and goodness of God as shown by the evidences of beneficent de-
sign in the world. All their reasonings in support of this doctrine
were based upon the theory that the final purpose of every created
thing is the promotion of human happiness. Take away this an-
thropocentric postulate, and the whole logical structure tumbles
into a heap of unfounded and irrelevant assertions leading to lame
and impotent conclusions.

Thus Bernardin de Saint-Pierre states that garlic, being a
specific for maladies caused by marshy exhalations, grows in
swampy places, in order that the antidote may be easily accessible
to man when he becomes infected with malarious disease. Also
the fruits of spring and summer, he adds, are peculiarly juicy,
because man needs them for his refreshment in hot weather ; on
the other hand, autumn fruits, like nuts, are oily, because oil gen-
erates heat and keeps men warm in winter. It is for man's sake,
too, that in lauds where it seldom or never rains there is always
a heavy deposition of dew. If we can show that any product or
phenomenon of Nature is useful to us, we think we have dis-
covered its sufficient raison d'etre, and extol the wisdom and
kindness of the Creator ; but if anything is harmful to us we can
not imagine why it should exist. How much intellectual acute-
ness and learning have been expended to reconcile the fact that
the moon is visible only a very small part of the time, with the
theory that it was intended to illuminate the earth in the absence
of the sun, for the benefit of its inhabitants !

Gennadius, a Greek presbyter, who flourished at Constantino-

ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 635

pie about the middle of the fifth century remarks in his commen-
tary on the first chapter of Genesis, that God created the beasts of
the earth and the cattle after their kind on the same day on which
he created man, in order that these creatures might be there ready
to serve him.

But it would be superfluous to multiply examples of the influ-
ence of this anthropocentric idea as it has worked itself out in the
history of mankind. Every science has had to encounter its op-
position, and it has been a stumbling-block in the way of every
effort to enlarge human knowledge and to promote human happi-
ness. It has tended to check the progress of hygienic research
and sanitary reform ; for if man is of such exceptional impor-
tance that his conduct or misconduct can bring down epidemics
upon whole communities and vast continents as visitations of
divine wrath, whoever seeks to ward off or to stay these punish-
ments is guilty of a sacrilegious attempt to parry the blow aimed
at the wicked by the arm of the Almighty, and, by thus setting
himself in antagonism to God, becomes in fact an ally and adver-
sary of the devil. Thus vaccination was denounced, not on the
ground taken by its present opponents, that it is useless as a pre-
ventive of smallpox and a prolific source of other diseases, but on
account of its real or supposed prophylactic effectiveness, since it
impiously wrenched from the hand of the Deity one of his most
fatal weapons of retribution.

To what absurdities of presumption the anthropocentric con-
ception has paved the way is evident from the belief, once uni-
versally entertained, that the sun, moon, and stars were placed in
the firmament with express reference to man, and exerted a benign
or baleful influence upon his destiny from the cradle to the grave.
Owen Glendower's bombastic boast —

"... At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward " —

was well answered by Hotspur : " Why, so it would have done at
the same season if your mother's cat had but kittened, though
yourself had ne'er been born." And yet this fulsome brag of the
Welsh swashbuckler was only an extravagant statement of what
the captious Henry Percy and his contemporaries all held to be
virtually true. Poe embodies the same sentiment in his youthful
poem, Al Aaraaf, and would fain preserve this brighter world of
his fancy from the contagion of human evil —

"Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man."

636 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Astrology and lioroscopy, from which even the keen intellects
of Kepler and Tycho de Brahe could not disentangle themselves,
and to which the still more modern genius of Goethe paid a char-
acteristic tribute in the story of his nativity, were only this an-
thropocentric conceit masquerading as science, and leaving vestiges
of itself in such common words as " ill-starred " and " lunatic."

Comets were universally regarded as portents of disasters, sent
expressly as warnings for the reproof and reformation of man-
kind ; tempests and lightnings were feared as harbingers of
divine wrath and instruments of punishment for human transgres-
sion. According to the Rev. Increase Mather, God took the trou-
ble to eclipse the sun in August, 1673, merely to prognosticate the
death of the President of Harvard College and of two colonial
governors, all of whom "died within a twelvemonth after." This
is but a single example of the wide prevalence and general accept-
ance of a popular superstition constantly tested and easily proved
by the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter Jioc. Bayle, in his
Divers Thoughts on Comets {Pensees Diverses sur les Cometes),
ridicules the foolish pride and vanity of man, who imagines that
" he can not die without disturbing the whole course of Nature
and compelling the heavens to put themselves to fresh expense in
order to light his funeral pomp."

Not only were the fruits of the earth made to grow for human
sustenance, but the flowers of the field were supposed to bud and
blossom, putting on their gayest attire and emitting their sweetest
perfume, solely as a contribution to human happiness ; and it was
deemed one of the mysteries and mistakes of Nature, never too
much to be puzzled over and wondered at, that these things
should spring up and expend their beauty and fragrance in re-
mote places untrodden by the foot of man. Gray expresses this
feeling in the oft-quoted lines :

"Fnll many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Science has finally and effectually taken this conceit out of
man by showing that the flower blooms not for the purpose of
giving him agreeable sensations, but for its own sake, and that it
presumed to put forth sweet and beautiful blossoms long before he
appeared on the earth as a rude cave-haunting and flint-chipping
savage.

The color and odor of the plant are designed not so much to
please man as to attract insects, which promote the process of fer-
tilization and thus insure the preservation of the species. The
gratification of man's aesthetic sense and taste for the beautiful
does not enter into Nature's intentions ; and although the flower
may bloom unseen by any human eye, it does not on that ac-

• ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 637

count waste its sweetness, but fully accomplishes its mission, pro-
vided there is a bee or a bug abroad to be drawn to it. That the
fragrance and variegated petals are alluring to a vagrant insect is
a condition of far more importance in determining the fate of the
plant than that they should be charming to man.

Plants, on the other hand, which depend upon the force of the
wind for fructification, are not distinguished for beauty of color
or sweetness of odor, since these qualities, however agreeable to
man, would be wasted on the wind. This is an illustration of the
prudent economy of Nature, which never indulges in superfluities
or overburdens her products with useless attributes ; but the test
of utility which " great creating Nature " sets up in such cases is
little flattering to man, and has no reference to his tastes and sus-
ceptibilities, but is determined solely by the serviceableness of
certain qualities of the plant itself in the struggle for existence.

According to Schopenhauer, anthropocentric egoism is a fun-
damental and fatal defect in the psychological and ethical teach-
ings of both Judaism and Christianity, and has been the source
of untold misery to myriads of sentient and highly sensitive
organisms. "These religions," he says, "have unnaturally sev-
ered man from the animal world, to which he essentially belongs,
and placed him on a pinnacle apart, treating all lower creatures
as mere things; whereas Brahmanism and Buddhism insist not
only upon his kinship with all forms of animal life, but also upon
his vital connection with all animated Nature, binding him up
into intimate relationship with them by metempsychosis."

In the Hebrew cosmogony there is no continuity in the process
of creation, whereby the genesis of man is in any wi^e connected
with the genesis of the lower animals. After the Lord God, by
his fiat, had produced beasts, birds, fishes, and creeping things, he
ignored all this mass of protoplastic and organic material, and
took an entirely new departure in the production of man, whom
he formed out of the dust of the ground. Science shows him to
have been originally a little higher than the ape, out of which he
was gradually and painfully evolved ; Scripture takes him out of
his environment, severs him from his antecedents, and makes him
a little lower than the angels. Upon the being thus arbitrarily
created absolute dominion is conferred over every beast of the
earth, and every fowl of the air, which, are to be to him " for
meat." They are given over to his supreme and irresponsible
control, without the slightest injunction of kindness or the
faintest suggestion of any duties or obligations toward them.

Again, when the earth is to be renewed and replenished after
the deluge, the same principles are reiterated and the same line of
demarcation is drawn and even deepened. God blesses Noah and
his sons, bids them " be fruitful and multiply," and then adds, as

638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

regards the lower animals : " The fear of you and the dread of you
shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the
air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes
of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving-
thing that liveth shall be meat for you ; even as the green herb
have I given you all things."

This tyrannical mandate is not mitigated by any intimation of
the merciful manner in which the human autocrat should treat
the creatures thus subjected to his capricious will. On the con-
trary, the only thing that he is positively commanded to do with
reference to them is to eat them. They are to be regarded by him
simply as food, having no more rights and deserving no more
consideration as means of sating his appetite than a grain of corn
or a blade of grass.

The practical working of this decree has been summed up by
Shelley, with his wonted force and succinctness, when he says,
" The supremacy of man is, like Satan's, a supremacy of pain."
Burns regrets the fatal effect of the sovereignty thus conferred
upon the human race in destroying the mutual sympathy and
confidence which should exist between the lord of creation and
the lower animals in the lines addressed To a Mouse, on turning
her up in her Nest with the Plow, November, 1785 :

" I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal."

In the subsequent anuals of the world we have ample com-
mentaries on this primitive code written in the blood of helpless,
innocent, and confiding creatures, which, although called dumb
and incapable of recording their sufferings, yet

"... have long tradition and swift speech.
Can tell with touches and sharp-darting cries
Whole histories of timid races taught
To breathe in terror by red-handed man."

Indeed, ever since Abel's firstlings of the flock were more
acceptable than Cain's bloodless offerings of the fruits of the
fields, priests have performed the functions of butchers, convert-
ing sacred shrines into shambles in their endeavors to pander to
the gross appetites of cruel and carnivorous gods. Cain's offer-
ing was rejected, says Dr. Kitto, because "he declined to enter
into the sacrificial institution." In other words, he would not
shed the blood of beasts to gratify the Lord — a refusal which we

ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 639

can not but regard as exceedingly commendable in Adam's first-
born.

" I do not remember," observed Mrs. Jameson, " ever to have
lieard the kind and just treatment of animals enforced on Chris-
tian principles or made the subject of a sermon." George Herbert
was a man of gentle spirit and ready hand for the relief of all
forms of human distress, and in his book entitled A Priest to the
Temple, or the Country Parson, lays down rules and precepts for
the guidance of the clergyman in all relations of life, even to the
minutest circumstances and remotest contingencies incident to
parochial care. But this tender-hearted man does not deem it
necessary for the parson to take the slightest interest in animals,
and does not utter a word of counsel as to the manner in which
his parishioners should be taught their duties toward the creatures
so wholly dependent upon them. Indeed, no treatise on pastoral
theology ever touches this topic, nor is it ever made the theme of
a discourse from the pulpit, or of systematic instruction in the
Sunday school.

Neither the synagogue nor the church, neither sanhedrin nor
ecclesiastical council, has ever regarded this subject as fall-
ing within its scope, and sought to inculcate as a dogma or to
enforce by decree a proper consideration for the rights of the
lower animals. One of the chief objections urged by Celsus more
than seventeen centuries ago against Christianity was that it
"considers everything as having been created solely for man."
This stricture is indorsed by Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, who
also animadverts on the evils growing out of the anthropocentric
character of Christianity as a scheme of redemption and a system
of theodicy. " It would seem," he says, " as if the primitive Chris-
tian, by laying so much stress upon a future life in contradistinc-
tion to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of
hope, placed them at the same time out of the pale of sympathy,
and thus laid the foundation for this utter disregard of animals
in the light of our fellow-creatures. The definition of virtue
among the early Christians was the same as Paley's — that it was
good performed for the sake of insuring eternal happiness — which
of course excluded all the so-called brute creatures. Kind, lov-
ing, submissive, conscientious, much-enduring, we know them to
be ; but because we deprive them of all stake in the future,
because they have no selfish, calculated aim, these are not vir-
tues; yet if we say 'a vicious horse,' why not say 'a virtuous
horse'?"

We are ready enough, adds Dr. Arnold, to endow animals with
our bad moral qualities, but grudge them the possession of our
good ones. The Germans, whose natural and hereditary sympathy
with the brute creation is stronger than that of any other West-

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ern people, speak of horses as "fromm," pious, not in the reli-
gious, but in the primary and proper sense of the word, meaning
thereby kind and docile. The English " gentle " and the French
" gentil" which are used in the same connection, refer to good
conduct as the result of fine breeding.

Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue, to which Dr. Arnold
adverts, is essentially anthropocentric and intensely egoistic.
" Virtue," he says, " is the doing good to mankind in obedience to
the will of God, for the sake of everlasting happiness." In order
to be virtuous, according to this extremely narrow and wholly
inadequate conception of virtue, we must, in the first place, do
good to mankind, our conduct toward the brute creation not
being taken into the account ; secondly, our action must be in obe-
dience to the will of God, thus ruling out all generous impulses
originating in the spontaneous desire to do good ; thirdly, we
must have an eye single to our own supreme personal advantage —
in other words, our conduct must be utterly selfish, spring not
merely from momentary pleasure or temporary profit, but from
far-seeing calculations of the effect it may have in securing our
eternal happiness. Thus the virtuous man becomes the incarna-
tion of the intensest self-love and self-seeking, and virtue the
synonym of excessive venality. From a moral point of view,
there is no greater merit in " otherworldliness " than in worldli-
ness, and no reason why the endeavor to attain personal happi-
ness in a future life should differ in quality from the effort to
make everything minister to our personal happiness in the pres-
ent life.

" The whole subject of the brute creation," says Dr. Arnold,
" is to me one of such painful mystery that I dare not approach
it," The mental distress experienced in such cases arises from
the fact that the subject is approached from the wrong side and
surveyed from a false point of view. Traditional theology and
anthropocentric ethics are brought into conflict with the better
impulses of a broad and generous nature and the sharp antag-
onism could hardly fail to be a source of perplexity and pain.
" Charity," says Lord Bacon, " will hardly water the ground, where
it must first fill a pool " ; and of all pools the hardest to fill is that
which is dug in the dry, gravelly soil of human egotism.

Theocritus, the father of Greek idyllic poetry, represents Her-
cules as exclaiming, after he had slain the Nemean lion, " Hades
received a monster soul " ; and he saw nothing incongruous in
the spirit of the dead beast joining the company of the departed
spirits of men in the lower world. Sydney Smith says, in speak-
ing of the soul of the brute, " To this soul some have impiously
allowed immortality." Why such a belief should be deemed im-
pious it is dilficult to discover. The question which the psychol-

ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 641

ogist has to consider is not whether the doctrine is impious, but
whether it is true. No scientific opinion has ever been advanced
that has not seemed impious to some minds, and been denounced
and persecuted as such by ecclesiastical authorities.

Bishop Butler, on the contrary, in his work on The Analogy
of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course
of Nature, declares that " we can not find anything throughout
the whole analogy of Nature to afford us even the slightest pre-
sumption that animals ever lose their living powers." He admits
that his argument in support of the doctrine of a future life
proves the immortality of brutes as well as that of man, and thus
recognizes their spiritual kinship.

An eminent Scotch physician and anatomist, Dr. John Bar-
clay, in his Inquiry into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, con-
cerning Life and Organization (1825), urges the probable immor-
tality of the lower animals, which, he thinks, are " reserved, as
forming many of the accustomed links in the chain of being, and
by preserving the chain entire, contribute in the future state, as
they do here, to the general beauty and variety of the universe, a
source not only of sublime but of perpetual delight." The author
seems to infer the continued existence of the brute creation from
the fact that it forms an essential part of universal being, and
that its total disappearance would mar the perfection of the next
world, which should be more perfect than this world. He as-
sumes, however, that the lower animals are endowed with immor-
tality, not so much from psychological necessity or for their own
sake as sentient and intelligent creatures, as for man's sake, in
order that their presence may minister to his pleasure by forming
an attractive feature in the heavenly landscape. It is, therefore,
solely from anthropocentric considerations that they are granted
this lease of eternal life ; just as " the poor Indian" is represented
by the poet as looking forward to the possession of happy hunt-
ing fields after death, where he may follow with keener enjoy-
ment his favorite pursuit, and " his faithful dog shall bear him
company."

More than fifty years ago Henry Hallam made the following
observations, which are remarkable as an anticipation of the
ethical corollary to the doctrine of evolution : " Few at present,
who believe in the immortality of the human soul, would deny
the same to the elephant ; but it must be owned that the discov-
eries of zoology have pushed this to consequences which some
might not readily adopt. The spiritual being of a sponge revolts
a little our prejudices ; yet there is no resting place, and we must
admit this or be content to sink ourselves into a mass of medul-
lary fiber. Brutes have been as slowly emancipated in philos-
ophy as some classes of mankind have been in civil polity ; their

VOL. XLV. 48

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

souls, we see, were almost universally disputed to tliem at the
end of the seventeenth century, even by those who did not abso-
lutely bring them down to machinery. Even within the recollec-
tion of many, it was common to deny them any kind of reasoning
faculty, and to solve their most sagacious actions by the vague
word instinct. We have come in late years to think better of our
humble companions ; and, as usual in similar cases, the prepon-
derant bias seems rather too much of a leveling character." Dur-
ing the half century that has elapsed since these words were writ-
ten, not only has zoology made still greater progress in the direc-
tion indicated, but a new science of zoopsychology has sprung
up, in which the mental traits and moral qualities of the lower
animals have been, not merely recorded as curious and comical
anecdotes, but systematically investigated and philosophically
explained. In consequence of this radical change of view, human
society in general has become more philozoic, not upon religious
or sentimental but upon strictly scientific grounds, and devel-
oped a sympathy and solidarity with the animal world, having
its sources less in the tender and transitory emotions of the heart
than in the profound and permanent convictions of the mind.

In an essay published a few years ago in The Dublin Review
(October, 1887, p. 418), the Right Rev. John Cuthbert Hedley,
Bishop of Newport and Menevia, asserts that animals have no
rights, because they are not rational creatures and do not exist
for their own sake. " The brute creation have only one purj^ose,
and that is to minister to man, or to man's temporary abode."
This is the doctrine set forth more than six centuries ago by
Thomas Aquinas, and recently expounded by Dr. Leopold Schutz,
professor in the theological seminary at Treves, in an elaborate
work entitled The So-called Understanding of Animals or Ani-
mal Instinct. This writer treats the theory of the irrationality
of brutes as a dogma of the Church, denouncing all who hold
that the mental diiierence between man and beast is one of degree,
and not of kind, as " enemies of the Christian faith " ; whereas
those who cling to the old notion of instinctive or automatic
action in explaining the phenomena of animal intelligence are
extolled as " champions of pure truth."

If it was the Creator's intention that the lower animals should
minister to man, the divine plan has proved to be a failure, since
the number of animals which, after centuries of ejffort, he has
succeeded in bringing more or less under his dominion is ex-
tremely small. Millions of living creatures fly in the air, crawl
on the earth, dwell in the waters, and roam the fields and the
forests, over which he has no control whatever. Not one in
twenty thousand is fit for food, and of those which are edible he
does not actually eat more than one in ten thousand. In explana-

ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 643

tion of this lack of effectiveness in tlie enforcement of a divine
decree, it has been asserted that man lost his dominion over the
lower world to a great extent when he lost dominion over him-
self; but this view is wholly untenable even from a biblical
standpoint, inasmuch as the promise of universal sovereignty
was renewed after the deluge and expressed in even stronger
terms than before the fall.

Dugald Stewart admits "a certain latitude of action, which
enables the brutes to accommodate themselves in some measure
to their accidental situations." In this arrangement he sees a
design or purpose of " rendering them, in consequence of this
power of accommodation, incomparably more serviceable to our
race than they would have been if altogether subjected, like mere
matter, to the influence of regular and assignable causes." Of
the value of this power of adaptation to the animal itself in the
struggle for existence the Scotch philosopher had no conception.

In the great majority of treatises on moral science, especially
in such as base their teachings on distinctively Christian tenets,
there is seldom any allusion to man's duty toward animals. Dr.
Wayland, who has perhaps the most to say on this point, sums up
his remarks in a note apologetically appended to the body of his
work. He denies them the possession of "any moral faculty,"
and declares that in all cases " our right is paramount and must
extinguish theirs." We are to treat them kindly, feed and shelter
them adequately, and " kill them with the least possible pain."
To inflict suffering upon them for our amusement is wrong, since
it tends to harden men and render them brutal and ferocious in
temper.

Dr. Hickok takes a similar view and broadly asserts that
"neither animate nor inanimate Nature has any rights," and that
man is not bound to it " by any duties for its own sake. ... In
the light of his own worthiness as end, ... he is not permitted to
mar the face of Nature, nor wantonly and uselessly to injure any
of her products." Maliciously breaking a crystal, defacing a gem,
girdling a tree, crushing a flower, painting flaming advertisements
on rocks, and worrying and torturing animals are thus placed in
the same category as acts tending to degrade man ethically and
aesthetically, rendering him coarse and rude, and making him not
only a very disagreeable associate, but also, in the long run, "an
unsafe member of civil society." These things are considered
right or wrong solely from the standpoint of their influence upon
human elevation or degradation. " Nature possesses no product
too sacred for man. All Nature is for man, not man for it."

Man is as truly a part and product of Nature as any other ani-
mal, and this attempt to set him up on an isolated point outside
of it is philosophically false and morally pernicious. It makes

644 '^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fundamental to ethics a principle wliich once prevailed univer-
sally in politics and still survives in the legal fiction that the king
can do no wrong. Louis XIV of France firmly believed himself
to be the rightful and absolute owner of the lives and property of
his subjects. He held that his rights as monarch were paramount
and extinguished theirs, that they possessed nothing too sacred for
him, and the leading moralists and statists of his day confirmed
him in this extravagant opinion of his royal prerogatives. All the
outrages which the mad Czar, Ivan the Terrible, perpetrated on
the inhabitants of Novgorod and Moscow, man has felt and for the
most part still feels himself justified in inflicting on domestic
animals and beasts of venery.

It is only within the last century that legislators have begun
to recognize the claims of brutes to just treatment and to enact
laws for their protection. Torturing a beast, if punished at all,
was treated solely as an offense against property, like breaking a
window, barking a tree, or committing any other act known in
Scotch law as " malicious mischief." It was regarded, not as a
wrong done to the suffering animal, but as an injury done to its
owner, which could be made good by the payment of money. Not
until a little more than a hundred years ago was such an act
changed from a civil into a criminal offense, for which a simple
fine was not deemed a sufficient reparation. It was thus placed in
the category of crimes which, like arson, burglary, and murder,
are wrongs against society, for Avhich no pecuniary restitution or
compensation can make adequate atonement.

Even this legislative reform is by no means universal. The
criminal code of the German Empire still punishes with a fine of
not more than fifty thalers any person "who publicly, or in such
wise as to excite scandal, maliciously tortures or barbarously mal-
treats animals." This sort of cruelty is classified with drawing
plans of fortresses, using official stamps and seals, and putting-
royal or princely coats of arms on signs without permission, mak-
ing noises, which disturb the public peace, and playing games of
hazard on the streets or market places. The man is punished, not
because he puts the animal to pain, but because his conduct is of-
fensive to his fellow-men and wounds their sensibilities. The law
sets no limit to his cruelty, provided he may practice it in private.

Again, in all enactments regulating the transportation of live
stock our legislation is still exceedingly defective. The great ma-
jority of people have no conception of the unnecessary and almost
incredible suffering inflicted by man upon the lower animals in
merely conveying them from one place to another in order to meet
the demands of the market. It is well known that German ship-
pers of sheep to England often lose one third of their consignment
by suffocation, owing to overcrowding and imperfect ventilation.

ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 645

Beasts are still made to endure all the horrors to which slavers
were once wont to subject their cargoes of human chattels in sti-
fling holds on the notorious "middle passage."

The late Henry Bergh states that the loss on cattle by " shrink-
age " in transporting them from the Western to the Eastern por-
tion of the United States is from ten to fifteen per cent. The
average shrinkage of an ox is one hundred and twenty pounds,
and that of a sheep or hog from fifteen to twenty pounds ; and the
annual loss in money arising from this cause is estimated at more
than forty million dollars. The amount of animal suffering
which these statistics imply is fearful to contemplate. Here and
there a solitary voice is heard in our legislative halls protesting
against the horrors of this traffic, but so powerful is the lobby in-
fluence of wealthy corporations that no law can be passed to pre-
vent them. Not a word ever falls from the pulpit in rebuke of
such barbarity ; meanwhile the railroad magnates pay liberal pew
rents out of the jDrofits, and listen with complacency one day in the
week to denunciations of Jeroboam's idolatry and the wicked
deeds of Ahab and Ahaziah, as recorded in the chronicles of the
kings of Israel.

The horse, one of the noblest and most sensitive of domestic
animals, is put to all kinds of torture by docking, pricking, clip-
ping, peppering, and the use of bearing reins solely to gratify hu-
man vanity. As a reward for severe and faithful toil he is often
fed with unwholesome and insufficient fodder on the economical
principle announced by the manager of a New York tramway that
" horses are cheaper than oats." It is an actual fact, verified by
Henry Bergh, that the horses of this large corporation were fed
on a mixture of meal, gypsum, and marble dust, until the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals interfered and finally
succeeded in putting a stop to the practice.

The Americans, as a people, are notorious for the recklessness
with which they squander the products of Nature, of which their
country is so exceedingly prolific. This extravagance extends to
all departments of public, social, and domestic life. No land less
rich in material resources could have borne for any length of time
the wretched mismanagement of its finances to which the United
States has been subjected ever since and even before the close of
the civil war. There is not a government in Europe that would
not have been broken down and rendered bankrupt by the tre-
mendous and wholly unnecessary strain put upon it by crass igno-
rance of the most elementary principles of finance and demagogical
tampering with the public credit. The same wasteful spirit in-
volves also, as we have seen, immense suffering to animals on the
part of soulless and unscrupulous corporations, in which intense
greed of gain is not mitigated by the influence of individual kind-

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ness, and by wliich. horses are treated as mere machines, to be
worked to their utmost capacity at the smallest expense, and neat
cattle as so much butcher's meat to be brought to market in the
quickest and cheapest manner.

Erasmus Darwin, in his Phytologia, or the Philosophy of
Agriculture and Gardening (London, 1800), endeavors to vindi-
cate the goodness of God in permitting the destruction of the
lower by the higher animals on the ground that " more pleasur-
able sensation exists in the world, as the organic matter is taken
from a state of less irritability and less sensibility and converted
into a greater." By this arrangement, he thinks, the supreme
sum of possible happiness is secured to sentient beings. Thus it
may be disagreeable for the mouse to be caught and converted
into the flesh of the cat, for the lamb to be devoured by the wolf,
for the toad to be swallowed by the serpent, and for sheep, swine,
and kine to be served up as roasts and ragouts for man ; but in
all such cases, he argues, the pain inflicted is far less than the
amount of pleasure ultimately procured. But how is it when a
finely organized human being, with infinite capabilities of happi-
ness in its highest forms, is suddenly transmuted into the bodily
substance of a boa constrictor or a tiger ? No one will seriously
assert that the drosera, Dioncea iniuscipula, and other insectivorous
and carnivorous plants are organisms superior in sensitiveness to
those which they devour, or that this transformation of animal
into vegetable structure increases the sum of pleasurable sensation
in the world. The doctrine of evolution, which regards these
antagonisms as mere episodes in the universal struggle for exist-
ence, has forever set aside this sort of theodicy and put an end to
all teleological attempts to infer from the nature and operations
of creation the moral character of the Creator.

Seeking for a higher meteorological station among the mountains of Peru
than that of Mount Ohanchani, Prof. Bailey, of the Harvard College Observatory,
has established a station upon the top of tlio volcano El Misti, at an elevation of
nineteen thousand two hundred feet. A i)ath has been constructed by which
mules have been led to the summit, and beside the meteorological shelter a
wooden hut lias been built there. A survey of the crater has been made, and a
stone hut has been erected on the side of the mountain at a height of fifteen
thousand feet. The temperature, pressure, moisture, and velocity and direction
of the wind are recorded at the summit station by self-registering instruments.
The sheets arc changed at intervals, thus giving a record of atmospheric condi-
tions at a height hitherto unattempted. The use of beasts of burden at these
heights offers an opportunity in the future of carrying instruments and conduct-
ing experiments at altitudes Iieretofore regarded as inaccessible for these purposes.
The mountain, as seen from every direction, is an isolated sharp peak. It is,
therefore, especially suited for the study of the upper atmosphere.

THE WORK OF DUST. 647

THE WORK OF DUST.

By Dr. P. LENAED.

WHEN a beam of sunliglit enters a darkened room through a
hole in the window shutter, it can be seen along its whole
course. The light is reflected to every side, and made to reach
the eye by the dust in the air of the room. "We do not see the
sunbeam itself, but the dust which is illuminated by it ; and indi-
vidual bodies can be perceived on a closer inspection floating in
the beam. The dust may be much more plainly observed in still
air, as it settles on objects. It is extremely slow in falling to the
ground, although it consists of matter which in larger masses falls
very speedily. This we can test by collecting dust and compress-
ing it into a ball. In this process of compression a very large
part of the exposed surface which the particles presented to the
air is caused to disappear; and it was by means of this great
extent of surface that the air bore enough upon the particles to
support them against falling. The finer the dust the more ex-
tended is its surface in proportion to its mass, and the more
it is delayed in falling through the air. It may seem useless
to speak of the part played by this dust in Nature; for what
noticeable effect can this insignificant stuff bring about ? We
have, however, as can be shown, no right to regard it as a little
thing.

Dust has a very large share in nearly all the phenomena of
the earth's atmosphere. It is what makes the clear sky appear
blue ; and when we look up into the sky we see the dust in the
atmosphere illuminated by the sun. There is nothing else before
us that can permit the light to reach the eye. Light goes invis-
ible, straight through all gases, whatever their chemical compo-
sition. The dust catches it, reflects it in every direction, and so
causes the whole atmosphere to appear clear, in the same way
that it makes the sunbeam visible in the darkened room. With-
out dust there would be no blue firmament. The sky would be
as dark as or darker than we see it in the finest moonless nights.
The glowing disk of the sun would stand immediately upon this
dark background, and the same sharp contrast would prevail
upon the illuminated surface of the earth — blinding light, where
the sun's rays fall, and deep black shadows where they do not.
Only the light of the moon and the stars, which would remain
visible in the daytime, would be able to temper this contrast in
a slight degree. The illumination of the earth's surface would
be like that we see with the telescope on the lunar landscapes ;
for the moon has no atmospheric envelope that can hold floating
dust. We then owe to dust the even moderately tempered day-

6^S THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

light, adapted now to our eyes; and it is that wliich contributes
much to the beauty of our landscape scenery.

But if dust makes the sky appear clear, why is the color of the
sky blue ? Why does dust, of the different constituents of white
sunlight, reflect the blue rather than the green, yellow, and red ?
This fact is connected with the size of the dust particles. Only
the finest dust settles so slowly that it can be spread everywhere
by means of the air currents, and can be found constantly in all
strata of the atmosphere ; and special importance can be ascribed
only to these finest particles. The coarse parts soon fall to the
ground. Let us consider the fine mechanism of light, the ex-
tremely short ether waves which determine its existence. These
waves, although they are of even less than microscopic size, are
not all equally long. The shortest are those that give blue light,
while all the other colors are produced by longer waves. The
fine atmospheric dust contains many particles which are large
enough to reflect the short blue ether waves, fewer that can reflect
green and yellow, and still fewer large enough to reflect the long'
red waves. The red light, therefore, goes on almost without
hindrance, while the blue is more liable to be diverted, and thus
to reach the eye. A similar phenomenon may be observed on a
larger scale on water which is roughened with waves of different
lengths, and on which pieces of wood are floating. The pieces of
wood stand in the same relation to the water waves as the dust
particles to the ether waves. The great long waves pass the
blocks undisturbed, only rocking up and down ; while the finer
ripples of the water are turned back, as if the blocks were firm walls.
The finest dust thus appears blue. Look at the smoke that
rises from the glowing end of a cigar. It appears on a clear day,
especially in the presence of much blue light, of the most beauti-
ful sky blue. But that part of the smoke that is drawn through
the cigar, and is seen at the other end, is composed of coarser
particles, which are large enough to reflect the longest ether
waves, including all the constituents of white light. It therefore
appears whitish. The same difference is found between the dust
in the country and that in the town. There is much coarse dust
in large towns, when the sky over them is often gray, while
only the finest blue dust is carried up in the country. The dust
is also variously assorted at different heights above the surface
of the earth. The coarser dust will be found at the lower levels,
where it is produced. On mountains we have most of the dust
beneath us, while the rarefied air can sustain only the finest
floating particles. Hence the sky on high mountains is clear and
deep blue, even almost black, as if it were without dust. Only
when we look at the lower strata, toward the horizon, does the
color pass into gray.

THE WORK OF DUST. 649

Why is the sky in Italy and the tropics of a so much deeper
blue than that of western Europe ? Is the dust there finer ? It is
really so ; not that a finer quality of dust is produced there, but
because in the moist climate of the North Sea countries the dust
can not float long in the air without being charged with water
and made coarser, while in warmer countries water exists in the
air as vapor, and does not become condensed as a liquid on the
dust. Only when it is carried by the air currents into the higher
strata and is cooled there, does it thicken into clouds ? AVith
this we come to the most important function of dust in our at-
mosphere— the part which it has in the function of rain by reason
of vapors condensing upon it. It can be affirmed with certainty
that all the water which the sun causes to evaporate on the sur-
face of the sea and on the land is condensed again on dust, and
that no raindrop falls unless it had a particle of dust as its
primary nucleus.

When we speak of " vapor " we always mean water in the
gaseous condition, transparent and invisible, like all other gases
but cloudy steam, such as is seen escaping from the boiler of a
locomotive. The latter, like the clouds and fogs, is liquid water
split up into innumerable fine drops. If the walls of a steam-
boiler were of glass, we should be able to see clearly through the
part of it occupied by steam. Then we have water in the gaseous
form. But when the steam escapes from it into much colder air,
it is condensed into liquid drops. The process is precisely the
same when the vapor which the sun has drawn up in the lower
warm strata of the atmosphere is cooled on rising, and forms
clouds. It is usually said that the upper atmospheric strata are
colder than the lower, because they permit a perfect passage of
the solar rays through them, and are therefore not warmed, while
the rays, on the other hand, warm the surface of the earth, and
that warms the air. This is true, but it does not explain why the
upper strata of the air do not become warmed in the course of
time. The supposition of a cooling of these strata by space does
not afi'ord a sufficient cause, for a body which, like the air, stores
up little heat, likewise by a fixed law sends little out. Were the
atmosphere perfectly still it would, in fact, be warmed all through
from the earth's surface. But it is in constant motion, and the
heat is consequently very unevenly distributed through it. When
a column of air rises into the heights from the earth's surface, it
expands greatly, for the pressure to which it is subjected is much
less in the higher regions than below ; and whenever a gas ex-
pands it becomes colder. A quantity of heat is withdrawn from
it corresponding with the force which it spends in expanding in
pushijig itself into the surrounding region. Ascending air, there-
fore, becomes cooler, descending air warmer. Thus the fact is ex-

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

plained that by reason of the continuous motions in tlie atmos-
phere the equality of temperature, which would exist if all the
strata were equally warmed, never can come to pass.

When the rising columns of air contain a sufficient quantity
of vapor, it will at a certain height be condensed into drops and
form clouds. We say that the cooling is the cause of the con-
densation. But it is now maintained and proved by experiment
that cooling alone is not adequate to do this, and that condensa-
tion takes place only on the surface of some solid or liquid body ;
not in the free, pure air, but on the surface of the dust particles
scattered through it. Every drop of a steam-jet or a cloud is a
particle of dust covered with water. The experimental proof of
this is easily made. We fill a large flask with dustless air by
pressing ordinary air through wadding and conducting it into
the flask till all the air originally therein has been replaced with
filtered air. The wadding holds back all the dust particles. We
then let a jet of steam from a boiler into the dustless air of the
flask. It remains invisible. Not a sign of the usual cloudy ap-
pearance is perceptible. All that we observe is that the inner
walls of the flask begin to trickle ; the steam is condensed only on
them, for there is no other fixed surface. If, now, some ordinary
dusty air is blown into the flask, it at once appears to be filled
with a thick, rolling cloud. The cloud is composed of as many
drops as dust particles have been admitted. If only a little dust
is admitted, all the vapor is precipitated upon it, and so loads it
with water in a short time that it sinks in heavy drops to the
ground. It is raining in our flask. It will soon become clear,
and the vapor will be invisible as before.

Without dust there would be no condensation of water in the
air — no fog, no clouds, no rain, no snow, no showers. The only
condensing surface would be the surface of the earth itself.
Thus the trees and plants, and the walls of houses, would begin
to trickle whenever cooling began in the air. In winter all would
be covered with a thick, icy crust. All the water which we are
accustomed to see falling in rain-pours or in snow would become
visible in this way. We should at once feel on going out of
doors that our clothes were becoming wet through. Umbrellas
would be useless. The air, saturated with vapor, would penetrate
the interior of houses and deposit its water on everything in
them. In short, it is hard to conceive how different everything
would be, if dust did not oft'er its immeasurable extent of surface
everywhere to the air. To this we owe it that the condensation of
water is diverted from the surface of the earth to the higher,
cooler atmospheric strata.

Since the importance of dust in meteorological phenomena has
been recognized, experiments have been made in counting the

THE WORK OF DUST. 651

particles in tlie air. Pasteur had already begun an investigation
in tliat direction. He filtered a measured quantity of air through
gun cotton, which retained all the particles of dust. This was
then dissolved in a mixture of ether and alcohol, and the solution
was dried to a sheet of clear and transparent collodion, in which
the particles could be observed under the microscope and counted.
The chief purpose of this experiment was to secure the yeast
germs in the air. A better process for counting dust is based
on our experiment with the dustless flask, and, like that, was
devised by Mr. John Aitken, in Edinburgh. A measured quantity
of the air to be tested — say, about a hundredth part of the con-
tents of the flask— is let into it. The counting is facilitated by
this dilution. The air in the flask has been already saturated
with moisture, while it has been compressed by forcing in some
dustless air. A faucet is suddenly opened, when the air expands,
is cooled by the expansion, and the vapor settles on all the dust
particles, weights them, and causes them soon to sink to the bot-
tom. The bottom of the flask is made of a bright silver or a glass
plate, on which a network of square millimetres is scratched. On
this network as many drops of water fall as there were dust
particles, and they can be counted with a lens. The number of
dust particles in a cubic centimetre of air is — in London, for ex-
ample, even at the borders of the city, and when the wind is
blowing toward it from without — nearly a quarter of a million.
About the same number are found in the air of Paris, and half
as many at the top of the Eifl^el Tower. The air of the Alps is
very much purer. On the top of the Rhigi there were about two
hundred particles to a cubic centimetre, and a few less after a
fall of rain. In the relatively pure air of mountain tops the
breath is not condensed into a visible cloud, even in cold weather.
As we descend and approach villages whose chimney tops are
smoking, the accustomed breath clouds appear again. But a
steam jet is visible everywhere, for perfectly dustless air is not
found anywhere.

Dust is usually spoken of as something peculiar to the earth.
It is, however, present in space. Our solar system has its dust
atmosphere, although it is extremely thinly sown. Besides the
large blocks of matter, the meteoric stones, meteoric dust is in-
cessantly falling from space upon the earth. Attention was first
directed to this fact in 18G9, when a meteorite fell at Upsala, and
a shower of black dust at the same time. The dust was collected,
and exhibited the same composition as the meteorite — carbon and
iron. Since then several falls of cosmic dust of identical compo-
sition have been observed where no meteorites were seen. The
recent advance of celestial photography has furnished images of
externally faint clouds floating in space. These clouds do not

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

participate, like earthly things, in the revolution around the axis,
but remain fixed among the stars through the night. When near
enough to the earth they can be seen with the naked eye as
luminous clouds, long after sunset, till they are covered by the
earth's shadow.

The presence of dust in planetary space is not strange. In the
midst of it is the sun, the surface of which is like an immense
volcano. We can only ask how the dust clouds of the solar erup-
tions can be diffused in space, against the attraction of the sun.
An answer to this question is afforded by the electro-magnetic
theory of light, and we can rely upon it because the theory has
been confirmed by experimental demonstration. It teaches that
the lighter undulations of the ether are of an electrical nature,
and that consequently light exerts a pressure on all bodies upon
which it falls. The illuminated body is repelled from the source
of the light. We have also learned the amount of this pressure.
It is so small that the scale of the most sensitive balance is not
moved by it when the clear sunshine falls upon it from above ;
but it increases with the extent of the surface exposed to the
light. Let us now suppose a body isolated anywhere in planetary
space. It is subject to general attraction and is drawn toward
the sun. The force with which the light of the sun repels it is
slight as compared with the attraction. Let us imagine this body
divided into smaller and smaller fragments. It then offers the sun
a larger and larger surface, and in the same measure the force
increases with which all the parts collectively are repelled from
the sun. The amount of attractive force is, on the other hand,
not changed, for it depends upon the mass of the body, and that
has not been altered. It will be seen that the division of the body
has only to be carried far enough for the repulsive force ultimately
to exceed the attraction. Calculation shows that this is already
the case when the body is changed into a dust cloud of not ex-
cessive fineness. Such a dust cloud will be no longer attracted
toward the sun, but will be driven away by its light. It will be
like the comets' tails, which consist chiefly of dust, radiate from
the nuclei, and are always turned away from the sun.

Thus, even insignificant, comm^on dust has its considerable
part in the processes of Nature ; and there is as much of the won-
derful and mysterious concealed in it as in anything q\^q.— Trans-
lated for The Popular Science Monthly from Die Gartenlaube.

In tlie interest of good roads, the watering carts of Maiden, Mass., are fur-
nished with broad tires, of which the forward pair are set nearer together than
those of the rear, so that the track of the former is just inside of that of the
latter. The carts thus serve as rollers as well as for their primary purpose.

ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 653
ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION.

By STUART JENKINS.

AT the recent annual meeting of the Association of Ontario
Land Surveyors, held in the city of Toronto, the statement
was made that, if the Canadian Government determined to run
a meridian to the north pole, Canadian surveyors would carry
the work through. As a proof of the faith that is in them, they
have appointed a committee to consider and report upon the
matter.

The assertion is not as wild as it may seem, and I think it. will
prove interesting to the public to show what Canadian surveyors
have already done, and compare their methods and experience
with those of arctic explorers.

The extreme cold of the arctic regions is generally looked
upon as the principal bar to exploration in that direction, not-
withstanding the fact that men have endured its rigors for years
without injury. Take some of the cases on record. In 1743 four
seamen went ashore on the island of Spitzbergen from a Russian
vessel. A heavy storm drove the ship away before they could
rejoin her, and they were left with nothing but a gun and enough
ammuhition to kill twelve deer. That was their entire outfit, yet
they managed to live and keep their health for six years, when
three of them were rescued, the fourth having died. No properly
organized polar expedition would have to submit to the hard-
ships which they must have endured.

In 1819-20 Parry wintered on Melville Island in latitude 74°
2G'. The greatest cold was experienced in February, when the
thermometer fell to —55° F., and for fifteen hours was not above
— 54° F. The expedition was absent eighteen months, and out of
two ships' crews only one man died — of a disease in no way refer-
able to the hardships of the voyage.

Between 1853 and 1855 Dr. Kane passed two winters in Smith's
Sound in Latitude 784-°, and he records the mean temperature of
the three summer months as + 33° F., and of the nine winter
months as — 16'8° F. As to the possibility of traveling under
the conditions existing in these high latitudes, it may be consid-
ered as established by the experience of McClintock, who in 1851
reached one of the western points of Melville Island, distant from
his winter quarters three hundred and sixty miles in a direct line,
a journey which required eighty days going and returning for
its accomplishment. Among the things said to have been expe-
rienced by arctic explorers three may be mentioned : 1. That
men issuing suddenly from their shelter into a temperature of
—60° F. fell senseless. 2. That a man rushing out bare-handed

654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to extinguish a fire, when the thermometer stood a little below
— 50° F., had his fingers immediately frozen, and as it was found
impossible to restore the circulation they were amputated. 3.
That when it was extremely cold it was almost impossible to
make the wood burn. I will come to these later.

Now for the experience of a Canadian surveyor. It was my
privilege to be connected as instrument-man with a survey party
which went out to the Canadian Northwest under the command
of Mr. G. B. Abrey, D. L. S. (now engineer of Toronto Junction).
The party consisted of fourteen men all told, and was out under
canvas for twelve months, from June, 1882, to June, 1883. We
were running standard parallels, and moved camp every day.
This necessitated the employment of fourteen horses, two buck-
boards, and twelve carts, the wheeled vehicles being replaced in
winter by the same number of toboggans. Winter commenced on
the 1st of November, when snow fell to the depth of two feet and
remained. We then left the plains south of Battleford and made
our way to Fort Pitt, near which our winter work started. Our
outfit consisted of four ten-ounce duck tents, in three of which
were small sheet-iron box stoves, and in the fourth, the cook's
tent, a sheet-iron cook stove. Our winter food was composed of
pork, beans, dried apples, and bread, with tea and sugar ; to which
may be added eight hundred pounds of fresh beef, and the flesh
of one elk or wapiti and one jumping deer. When we could we
shot prairie chickens, but this was not very often.

For clothing I wore woolen underclothing, such as I now wear
in the city of Toronto, a flannel shirt, and over these caribou
breeches with long woolen stockings drawn over them, a cham-
ois-leather vest, and a small single-breasted tweed coat such as
is worn in the city before overcoats become necessary in the fall.
My feet were clothed with dufiie and moccasins, and my head
with a double, knitted, Hudson Bay tuque, which can be pulled
right down over the ears. A pair of common woolen mits com-
pleted my outfit. At no time during the winter did I wear either
overcoat or mufller. Indeed, neither the one nor the other was to
be found in the camp. Mr. Abrey's dress was nearly the counter-
part of mine, and the men wore woolen clothing altogether.

At night Mr. Abrey and I used two pairs of Hudson Bay
blankets and two buffalo skins each. The blankets we sewed up
into bags, and put one buffalo skin beneath and one over us. We
slept on folding stretchers, which was, of course, not as warm as
sleeping on the ground. Mr. Abrey, being slightly bald, wore a
woolen nightcap, but I never covered my head the winter through.
The men's sleeping outfits consisted of blankets only.

Our firewood was dry poplar sticks from one to two inches
through. This makes a good hot fire, and the colder the day the

ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 655

better it burns — that is our experience. But by no means can you
make a fire of it burn more than half an hour without rej^lenish-
ing. In consequence of this, no attempt was made to keep fires
burning at night. An hour after we were in bed the temperature
inside the tent was the same as that outside. At no time was the
temperature inside the tent raised high enough to thaw out the
ground, which would only have given rise to wet feet without
adding to our comfort.

A regular record of temperature was kept during the winter.
Our thermometer was a standard spirit one graduated to —02° F.,
and had been tested at the Toronto Observatory. The record is
on file in the Dominion Crown Lands Office. From the 1st of
November the temperature fell in a series of remarkably regular
jumps — that is, there would be three days of cold, then a few
days of slightly higher temperature, then another three days of
cold, and so on, each drop being colder than the last. This went on
with unbroken regularity until the third week in January, when
it began to rise again in the same way and with equal steadiness.

On Christmas day the weather was beautiful, still and cloud-
less, and the thermometer stood just at zero. I spent the day in
making a pair of snowshoe frames, out of white birch, which
was plentiful round the camp, my tools being an axe and an
Indian crooked knife, which is nothing but a one-handed draw
knife, shaped much like a farrier's knife. I worked all day with
the door of the tent wide open, in my shirt sleeves, and bare-
handed ; and from 9 a. m. to 3 p. m. there was no fire in the stove.
I slipped on my coat at noon when I was eating my dinner, but
took it off again immediately after. The men spent most of the
day lounging about the camp in their shirt sleeves, smoking and
skylarking.

The second week in January we received word that Mrs.
Abrey was in Battleford waiting to join us in camp. She had
come from Toronto and had traveled across the open country in
the mail sleigh from Qu'appelle to Battleford via Duck Lake and
Carleton. Mr. Abrey immediately left with two horses and cari-
oles (i. e., toboggans with raised sides of rawhide), and one half-
breed. He carried no tent. The distance to Battleford from our
camp was over a hundred miles, through an open country, with
here and there clumps of small poplar and birch.

I went on with the line, and the third day after Mr. Abrey left
us reached the shore of Frog Lake, a few years later the scene of
a horrible massacre. The next morning the cook came bustling
in with the breakfast, his shirt sleeves as usual rolled up above
his elbows.

" The bottom's dropped out of the thermometer," he said with
a laugh.

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I hurried outside, and, sure enough, the spirit had deserted the
tuhe, and lay inclosed in the bulb— that is, it was lower than — G2°
F. It was startling, but there was no getting round the fact.
The news spread through the camp, and the men came crowding
round to see the unusual phenomenon. One man ventured the
opinion that we had got to the north pole by mistake, but they
looked upon it more as a joke than anything else, and were per-
fectly satisfied, because it meant a holiday. Mr. Abrey had made
the rule that when the thermometer went below —30° F., we would
not go on the line. We afterward came to the conclusion that
there was nothing to prevent our working at much lower tem-
peratures, but the rule once established it was impossible to alter
it without creating discontent among the men. I went out that
day two miles from camp on snowshoes, just to see how it would
go, and, although it was cold at starting, I was warm enough be-
fore I got back.

The next niglit the thermometer went down to —58° F., and the
third night to — Gl° F. Now, according to all precedent, we should
have spent those three nights cowering with quaking hearts over
the stoves, and using up the cook's fat to make the fires burn.
As a matter of fact we went to bed as usual and slept without
any fires at all. Not only that, but we sufl^ered no discomfort.
The only unpleasant thing about it was turning out of one's
blankets in the morning to light the fire, and that I admit was
cold, but still nothing that a strong man could not stand with
equanimity.

But what will be thought when I state that during those three
days of extreme cold Mr. and Mrs. Abrey were on their way from
Battleford to Fort Pitt, and slept out without any tent, and ivith-
out keeping up afire through the night ? If a Canadian surveyor's
wife could do this, a Canadian surveyor can get to the north pole.

The next cold snap after this the thermometer reached — 58° F.,
but it did not touch —60° again that winter. Not once during the
winter did any of the party suffer from frostbite. I have re-
peatedly seen the men chopping bare-handed with the thermome-
ter at —25° F. ; and have myself taken observations of the North
Star when it was —35° F. It was cold undoubtedly, but it was
not as bad as taking the same observation in the mosquito season.

During the whole twelve months we were out we had not a
day's sickness among us, but everybody was decidedly fattest
and heartiest during the coldest weather. One fallacy we com-
pletely exploded — i. e., that extreme cold produces drowsiness.
We never saw any indication of it, and since then I have traveled
some thousands of miles across the ice of the Georgian Bay in
temperatures varying from +32° to —30° F., and never experienced
the slightest inclination to drowsiness. Only once in my life

ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 657

have I felt it, and that was in the middle of summer, when as a
very young man I was fool enough to try and walk fifty miles in
a day without any previous training. During the last mile or
two my companions had hard work to keej) me on my feet, and at
the end of the journey I subsided into a chair and went fast
asleep, and in that condition was carried to bed, where I slept for
twenty-four hours. I was simply " played out," and it is tliai — not
cold — which produces the drowsiness so often referred to. More
than once since then I have walked fifty miles on snowshoes and
never felt anything of the kind, but I made it a rule to stop
every four hours and brew some tea and eat a good square meal.
When this practice is followed, it is astonishing how far a man
can go without excessive fatigue. The " fatal drowsiness," as it
is so often called (which is surely a near relation of " that tired
feeling"), is nothing but Nature's final rebellion against a reck-
less overtaxing of the muscular power without renewing the
waste, which of course goes on most quickly in cold weather.

A more recent example of the staying powers of Canadian sur-
veyors is furnished by the exploration of the " Barren Lands "
and Chesterfield Inlet jast brought to a successful completion by
the Tyrrell brothers for the Dominion Geological Survey. The
party consisted of the two Tyrrells and six Indian canoemen, a
model party for exploring purposes. The total distance covered
by them in canoes from Athabasca Landing to Fort Churchill on
Hudson Bay was two thousand two hundred miles, and thence
to Winnipeg on foot or by dog train one thousand miles. Of the
two thousand two hundred miles, eight hundred and fifty was
through an entirely new country never before traveled by white
men, and five hundred miles was over the open sea of Hudson
Bay at the very worst season of the year, between the middle of
September and the middle of October. It was during this trip
down Hudson Bay that they endured the greatest hardships.
They ran out of provisions, there was no wood along the coast,
and on one occasion they were unable to land for forty-eight hours
on account of the heavy sea. None but Canadians would ever
have ventured on such a trip in canoes ; none but Indians could
have carried it through successfully. All the stirring incidents
of this daring journey have been fully published by the press
throughout the continent, and need not be recapitulated here.
They prove conclusively that the boast of the Ontario Land Sur-
veyors is based on recorded facts, of which any nation might be
proud.

In considering the record of past failures in the arctic regions
— for, in spite of the magnificent heroism displayed, they were
nothing but failures — two points stand out clear and distinct,
viz., that the pole will never be reached in ships, and that it can

VOL. XLV. 49

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

never be reached by any siicli parties as have hitherto been sent
out. The men who so freely risked their lives were not to the
manner born, and what they were called upon to endure was so
violently opposed to all their ordinary experience that they were
heavily handicapped at the very start. With the uneducated sea-
men the resulting mental depression must have been a most diffi-
cult thing to combat, thus creating a double tax on the already
strained nervous courage of their more highly educated leaders.
British seamen are fine fellows and possess in a high degree the
courage of their race, but nothing would induce a Canadian sur-
veyor to lead a gang of them into the arctic regions, or even take
them out on an ordinary bush survey. They would simply be use-
less. What are wanted are trained voyageurs who are equally at
home in canoes or on snowshoes ; and not too many of them. With
the exception of Dr. Kane's (by far the most successful), arctic
exploring parties have been too unwieldy. The one hundred and
five ill-fated souls who abandoned the Erebus and Terror starved
to death where a party like the Tyrrells' would probably have
won their way back to civilization. Had Kane been backed up
as he should have been, he would most likely have reached the
pole, and when that point is attained, as it certainly will be, it
will be over the course followed by him, and by means of dog
trains and canoes or boats.

In spite of probable criticism, I am going to sketch a plan for
reaching the north pole, drawing on my own experience and that
of Canadian surveyors and explorers. I assume at starting that
expense is simply no consideration whatever. If a feasible scheme
is put forward, I believe that there is enough enterprise, private
and governmental, among Anglo-Saxons to carry it through, even
if it cost a million.

The exploring party would be carried by steamer to the head
of summer navigation on Baffin Bay, where a depot would be
established as a base of operations. Here provisions, houses,
steam launches, sailboats, canoes, dogs and sleighs, fuel, and all
the other accessories, with the exploring party, would be landed,
and the steamer could return to winter at Upernavik or Disco.
The former place is only one thousand miles from the pole, the
distance covered on foot by the Tyrrells, in the middle of winter,
with the thermometer often at —40° F,, and without tents. A point
to be considered is, whether it would not be well to have a second
steamer built on the principle of the St. Ignace, the steam ferry
at the strait of Mackinac. This boat made an extraordinary
record on her trial trip, shearing through ice three feet thick
with the greatest ease. With such a vessel, it might be possible
to push a long way up Smith's Sound. That point could be
determined by a preliminary survey of the head of Baffin Bay.

ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 659

The main exploring party should be composed of fifteen men —
five white men and ten Indians. The white men would be made
up of three Canadian surveyors, for the scientific purposes of the
expedition ; one doctor, as a concession to popular prejudice; and
one journalist or reporter to work with pencil and camera. As
a journalist myself, I claim the right of the fourth estate to be
represented. The Indians should be picked voyageurs from the
Georgian Bay. These men are good canoemen, first-class sailors,
are used to ice traveling, and have walked on snowshoes since
they could walk at all. Above all, they are faithful workers and
reliable men.

The main depot or base would probably be situated at the
mouth of Smith's Sound, in latitude 78°. That point has been
reached more than once, and can be again. But it is not neces-
sary or expedient to push it farther than the ordinary head of
summer navigation, because it would become a permanent mete-
orological station, and would ultimately be connected with New-
foundland by cable, a distance of sixteen hundred and eighty
geographical miles. The buildings would be ordinary American
frame buildings, framed on two-by-six scantling, and sheeted
with four layers of matched boards, two outside and two in, with
heavy felt paper between the sheeting. With double windows
and double doors, such a building properly heated will defy the
cold of space. The heating would be accomplished with hard
coal and base-burners. The buildings of course would be taken
up all ready to put together, and, with the labor available from
the ship, ought to be ready for occupation in a fortnight. This
base would have a resident stafi; of officials, mechanics, and voy-
ageurs, whose duty it would be to take care of the supplies,
and back up the main exploring party by pushing forward pro-
visions and other necessaries as they advanced farther north.
Subsidiary depots should be established every hundred miles
until the pole or an open polar sea is reached. These minor
depots would be nothing but tents of stout duck, of the Northwest
tepee pattern, raised on light but strong poles of cedar, and
spiked to the ice with iron or copper spikes. They would contain
provisions, blankets, stoves, and fuel, and, as long as the main
party was out, would be connected with the head depot by regu-
lar dog service. Three or even four of these would probably be
located the first fall.

About the middle of the following April (Kane abandoned his
ship on the 20th of May) the real work of the expedition would
commence. The problem presented to the surveyors would be to
overcome the seven hundred and twenty miles separating the
main depot from the pole. At the lowest estimate there would
be five months in which to do this, necessitating an average daily

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

advance of nine miles on the straight line, to take them there and
back. As an actual fact they could travel for six or seven months
if necessary, and the going would probably be better in winter
than in summer, for snow is the traveler's friend in high lati-
tudes.

The main party, with an interpreter for communicating with
the Eskimos, would start out with sixteen dog teams carrying
tents, stoves, fuel, blankets, etc., and two big Peterboro canoes.
The fuel would have to be specially constructed. Coal is unsuit-
able and wood is too bulky. I know from personal experience
that an ordinary porous brick soaked in coal oil for twenty-four
hours will burn for over two hours, and makes a first-class torch
for spearing fish by ; and I do not see why compressed bricks
made of sawdust soaked in coal oil would not make a capital fuel.
In a properly constructed sheet-iron stove it would throw an in-
tense heat and could be lighted in an instant. In summer time,
of course, very little fire would be needed except for cooking, but
after the thermometer got below zero fires would be necessary
night and morning. The best fuel for the purpose could easily
be determined by experiment, but whatever its character it must
be compact in form and must yield the greatest possible combus-
tion for its bulk. All provisions should be packed in sealed tin
cases of a convenient size and weight for handling. They would
then suffer no injury from rain. The tents should be conical in
shape, eleven feet in diameter at the bottom, and stretched on ten
light cedar poles hinged to a ring at the top, and shod with iron
at the bottom. This is the most convenient tent made. It can be
set or struck in less than a minute, because it opens and shuts like
an umbrella. It gives the greatest floor room for the amount of
canvas. There is no large space overhead to absorb the heat.
And it offers the least resistance to the wind, and if properly
spiked can not blow down — a valuable property when the ther-
mometer is away below zero. Four such tents would accommo-
date the exploring party. The character and quantity of food
would be easily determined by the surveyors, but one article
would have to be sternly eliminated, and that is alcohol. My
allowance for sixteen men for five months would be two bottles
of brandy, and I think they would come back unopened. The
traveler's standby in cold weather is tea, and men will do more
hard work on it than they ever could accomplish on any form of
spirit. Of course, there are many minor details which need not
be enumerated here.

What difficulties the party would have to contend with above
the eighty-second parallel, of course, can not be known. Their
motto at starting would be, " Get there somehow," and there is no
doubt they would live up to it. If the theory of a Polynia or

ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 661

open polar sea is correct, tliey would take to tlie canoes and fol-
low along the west coast of Greenland as far as it may project
northward. The Tyrrells made five hundred miles over the wa-
ters of Hudson Bay in this way, and others can do the same.
In all they did, however, the surveyors would be guided by past
practical experience. If they had their choice they would proba-
bly prefer ice to water, but whatever came they would meet it
with the equanimity of brave and resourceful men. Above all
others, their training in the field has qualified them to cope with
the difficulties they are likely to encounter.

It is quite jDrobable that the pole would not be reached the
first summer. From Mount Parry to the pole is five hundred and
fifty miles. If the most northerly point of Greenland does not
reach within a hundred miles of the pole and there were no
islands visible beyond, they would scarcely trust themselves on
a trackless sea in canoes. They would then have to return and
commence the arduous task of portaging a good-sized steam
launch piecemeal from the head depot to the polar sea. The
whole freighting force of the expedition would be laid under con-
tribution, and the work pushed with unflagging vigor. The boat,
of course, would be specially constructed beforehand for the pur-
pose, and would go together and be ready for navigation in a
week. Allowing the launch a speed of six miles an hour, the
pole would be reached in four days.

The way to accomplish a task of this kind is to go at it quietly
and systematically, and stay right there until it is done. Ship
companies have always been confronted with the terrifying pos-
sibility of being cut off from all human succor. My plan renders
such a contingency impossible. The steamer would visit the
main depot every summer and then sail for Newfoundland, whence
news of the expedition would be telegraphed over the world. The
members of the expedition could thus communicate with their
friends, and the dej)ressing feeling of isolation would be obviated.
There would be no danger of running out of supplies, and the ex-
pedition could go cheerfully ahead with the assurance that their
retreat was provided for.

There are many reasons why Baflin Bay and Smith's Sound
should be chosen as the route to the north pole. To put them
shortly: 1. Greenland is the most northerly land known, and
probably extends a good deal farther than at present explored. 2.
Smith's Sound has been already traversed as far as the open sea.
3. Upernavjk is the most northerly permanent abode of civilized
man. The moral influence of this on the expedition would be
great, because it would be but a short distance from the main
depot. 4. A whisp of the Gulf Stream runs along the west coast
of Greenland as far as the seventy- eighth degree of latitude, rais-

662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing the average temperature 9° F. above tliat of the east coast,
and rendering summer navigation certain. 5. According to Rd-
clus, the January isothermal of Frog Lake, where I wintered in
1883, twists northward until it runs through upper Greenland, so
that, although the winter might be longer, it would not be more
rigorous. The same authority concludes, from various ascertained
facts, that within the Arctic Circle the summer mean increases as
you get nearer the pole, and favors the theory of an open polar
sea. It is certain that the pole of greatest cold lies southwest
from Greenland among the western islands of the polar archi-
pelago. Lastly, Disco possesses coal, the most important item in
steam navigation.

From a consideration of the foregoing points the situation re-
solves itself into a simple question of money. If the funds are
provided, the men are here who are both willing and qualified to
carry the work through, and this article has been written as an
appeal to both governments and individuals to come forward and
once for all settle the scientific questions involved in the location
of the north pole. Canada will bear her share undoubtedly, and,
what is more to the purpose, will find the men. One difficulty
which will beset the organizers of the expedition will be the
necessity of dealing with the hundreds of volunteers who, for
sentimental reasons, will move heaven and earth to get them-
selves joined to it. Most of these men will possess absolutely no
qualification for the work, and would prove nothing but so much
useless lumber. They must all be met with the same unbending
negation. Finding the north pole will be no summer picnic.
The men to accomplish it must be experienced middle-aged men,
whose muscles have been indurated and their minds fortified by
a constant acquaintance with cold, hardship, and danger, and
nowhere except among Canadian surveyors can you find men
who combine these qualities with the necessary scientific attain-
ments. Science knows no nationality, and in a matter of this
kind there should be no international jealousy. Let Anglo-
Saxons find the money, and those Anglo-Saxons best fitted for
the work will undertake it and carry it through.

There is but one more point to be noted. The next five years
will be particularly favorable for arctic exploration. We are
now approaching a minimum sun-spot period, which experience
proves is coincident with a period of mild winters. The last
minimum was in 1888, a year of extreme heat and drought fol-
lowed by a winter of unusual mildness. Going back eleven years,
the winter of ] 877-'78 was so mild that wild geese remained on
the Georgian Bay throughout the winter, and the Collingwood
steamers were plying the first week in April — a month earlier
than usual. The winter of 1882-'83, which I spent with Mr.

THE NEW MINERALOGY. 663

AT^rey in the ISTortliwest, was exceptionally severe and occurred
during a maximum period. In our daily observation of the sun
we watched the spots during the previous summer, and were
astonished at their size and number.*

I can only add that when the expedition starts I hope to be
one of the party. If it is organized on the lines I have laid down
I should set out with an absolute assurance of getting there, and,
what is of still greater importance, with an equal certainty of
getting back again.

-♦♦♦-

THE NEW MINERALOGY.

By G. perry GRIMSLEY.

MINERALOGY, as the observation of minerals, is of very
ancient date, but such observation was very crude, for the
old scholars grouped under one name a great variety of forms,
some rocks and some minerals. The earliest writer was a Greek
by the name of Theophrastus, who lived about three hundred years
before the Christian era. A few centuries later the great natu-
ralist Pliny recorded a number of personal observations. Then
followed a blank period extending into the eleventh century,
when Avicenna made his mineral classification. In this, the first
classification, all minerals were divided into four groups — stones
(= silicates), salts, inflammable bodies, and earths. In the next
six centuries the only improvement was the substitution of term
metals for earths. Through all these many years, it was the beau-
tiful in form, luster, and color of the gems which attracted the
attention of men both learned and ignorant. The question of
origin was not considered ; indeed, it was sacrilegious to think of
such a problem, since these were objects of creation, whose gene-
sis, like that of the gods, was not to be revealed to man. It was
the work of many centuries to dispel these clouds of ignorance
and superstition which blinded and hindered the advance of this
study. The only light which did appear was that of the alche-

* From a consideration of Schwabe's sun-spot table I am inclined to believe that
Parry's three voyages, extending from 1819 to 1825, were undertaken during a minimum
period. Schwabe's table, of course, only commences in 1826, but it is certain that the
minimum period must have fallen within the above years. On the first voyage Parry sailed
completely through Lancaster Sound, which he found a wide and noble channel, clear of ice,
and the color of the sea, and there is little doubt that had he possessed a fast steamer he
would have made the Northwest passage instead of being forced to winter on Melville Island.
Dr. Kane, on the contrary, was out at the close of a maximum period of exceptional length
and severity, and he experienced the lowest mean temperature on record. It was during
this very same period that the ill-fated Franklin and all with him were lost, the Erebus and
Terror being abandoned after nineteen months' imprisonment in the ice.

664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mists, those wizards who vainly searched for the lucky stone
which would transform all into gold. From the ashes of their
fires comes as a heritage the application of heat and fusion to aid
in investigation, but even the value of these was not clearly seen
for several centuries thereafter.

Behind the clouds there was a light, and the time at last came
for it to melt these away, revealing a vast new field for thought
and study in the inorganic world. Men began to look more care-
fully at the objects near them, to observe the ways of Nature, and
to attempt the solution of some of her mysteries ; then it was seen
that even in the inert stone there was a story to be read — an ever-
changing story full of historical interest, if only one could read it.

It is interesting to note through these centuries the struggles
for existence and advancement which finally brought forth, at the
beginning of our era, mineralogy as a science. In the sixteenth
century the work of Agricola laid the foundation for physical
mineralogy. In the eighteenth century Cronstedt pointed out
the distinction, so long unknown, between rocks and minerals,
based on chemical properties. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century came the work of Werner and Hauye. These men per-
fected the methods and made more accurate descriptions of min-
erals, thus becoming the founders of modern mineralogy, and
making their respective countries, Germany and France, the
centers for this study. During the present century the growth
has been as rapid as it was slow during all the preceding centu-
ries, so that at the present time its students nearly outnumber the
species.

The study of the properties of minerals — physical, chemical,
and optical — was carefully made and verified over and over again,
but the question of origin was unsettled ; in many cases it was
even impossible to conjecture. So its devotees sought a means of
revealing and proving this problem of origin, and then arose what
we may term the new mineralogy. Germany and France have
equal share in the honor of founding the science of mineralogy,
but to France belongs the credit of original active investigation
into the origin of minerals. This feature of new sciences is be-
coming quite prominent, and one would infer that there was a
very great awakening in the scientific world, for we hear of the
new astronomy, the new chemistry^ and the new geology ; but it
is not so much new science, as old science studied by new methods
brought about by the great underlying law of the universe, pro-
gression, which causes the new of to-day to become the old of
to-morrow. The new mineralogy endeavors to solve the problem
of origin by the reproduction, artificially, of the mineral using
similar agents and like conditions, as in Nature. While attemj^ts
were made to reproduce minerals early in the century and even

THE NEW MINERALOGY. 665

near the end of the preceding one, the important work has been
done since the year 1850, which date may be taken as the begin-
ning of synthetic mineralogy. Through the eighteenth century
came many suggestions on the artificial formation of minerals,
followed by the crude attempts at the reproduction of petrifac-
tions and incrustations. Unsuccessful attempts finally led to the
successful reproduction of marble by James Hall in 1801, the first
mineralogical synthesis and the beginning of experimental ge-
ology.

The first workers, as would be expected, were chemists ; among
whom Daubree stands pre-eminent. When the mineralogists
joined in the work, it was found that the conditions governing
the chemist's experiments differed from those they could apply.
It was early discovered that the forces at work in the formation
of minerals escaped the observation of the mineralogists, and,
though observed, were considered outside the domain of chemis-
try. The chemist's aim was to form a mineral like the one found
in Nature ; but the mineralogist, in addition, must use analogous
processes to. those in Nature. In the chemical sense if the arti-
ficial product had the correct chemical composition, reaction,
physical properties, such as density, boiling point, and the like,
the synthesis was complete. On the other hand, in the mineral-
ogical sense there must be also an entire agreement of the result-
ing product with the natural one morphologically. It must have
the crystal form and also the characteristic type as in Nature,
with the same optical proiDerties, in order to be perfect. Thus
the chemist could deposit copper by electrolysis, like the coj)per
found in Nature ; but this does not show the origin of copper in
Nature. His task is the easier one, for he uses his reagents at
pleasure, aiming only at the final product. In the course of time,
the chemist and mineralogist seeing their mutual needs, united
their efforts, and it is on this union that mineral synthesis as a
science rests.

The cause of the long delay in the progress of this line of
study was the idea, so firmly fixed in the minds of the old chem-
ists, that Nature worked by mysterious means and had at her dis-
posal indefinite time and enormous masses with supposed forces
out of all proportion to those used in the laboratory. Then how
was it possible in a crucible with a certain number of grammes
of matter to reproduce a crystal of the same kind and association
as those which the volcano ejected — a crucible a million times
larger and under enormous pressure and temperature ? The an-
swer seemed too clear to even admit of such a vain attempt ; they
could not see the law of proportion which existed there, but it
only needed progressive men to discover it. Even when this law
was discovered, the crude means and limited experience at hand

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

retarded them and made the progress very slow down to the mid-
dle of the present century.

At the beginning of the cycle there existed the two opposing
geological camps, the one attributing everything to fire, the other
all to water ; after long years of wrangling their union was accom-
plished through the efforts of Lyell and his followers. In addition
to this, the accumulating observations overthrew two old ideas —
namely, that a mineral can only originate in one way characteristic
to it, and a single homogeneous magma can give rise to only one
mineral. It was found that a mineral may originate under differ-
ent conditions which are determinable, and that the homogeneous
magma may at the same time give rise to different minerals. The
various mineralogists appeared to take pleasure in throwing an
envelope of mystery around the origin of minerals, and they were
regarded, even by Zirkel, as the work of a kind of vital force.

Practical difficulties deterred the progress of the study; the
crystals formed were sometimes imperfect and usually micro-
scopic. So it was almost impossible to study them before the de-
velopment of mineralogical micrography and the advent of the
mineralogical microscope. Then it was found that these minute
imperfect crystals were of more value and led to greater results
than the more beautiful cabinet specimens, for they settled the
problems of origin. Natural crystals were found to contain small
inclusions which are indices to the origin. If these are vitreous,
then the origin is vitreous, and the action of volatile agents is
wholly excluded ; if these be aqueous, the intervention of water is
indisputable. In certain minerals — as quartz, beryl, topaz — liquid
carbonic acid appears as an inclusion, giving evidence of their
formation under great pressures.

From this brief survey we see the strong prejudices of the an-
cients are disappearing ; observation and the processes of investi-
gation have acquired a remarkable precision ; materials and ap-
paratus in the laboratories have been perfected to a remarkable
degree.

Under the head of artificial minerals we exclude those acci-
dentally formed in the industrial works, as graphite on the walls
of iron furnaces, for such do not answer the question of their
origin, since the reagents and conditions remain unknown. Nev-
ertheless, the recorded observations of such products have aided
reproduction in the laboratory, and it is of interest that these ob-
servations have been noted especially by German workers, while
the home of active laboratory investigation is in France. The
Germans collected the facts, while the French co-ordinated them,
forming hypotheses and then experimenting to prove them. The
Russians followed with almost equal success ; also much impor-
tant work has been done in the laboratory by the Germans.

THE NEW MINERALOGY. 667

The practical side of a subject must always be considered, the
question of utility being a very important one. What claim has
this subject for attention and what has it accomplished ? It has
thrown light on the mode of the natural formation of minerals
and rocks. Thus even down to late time water was thought to
play an important part in the formation of a great number of
volcanic rocks and to be indispensable in the formation of the
great group of rocks termed basalt. Yet basalt and all the mod-
ern volcanic rocks have been formed by purely igneous fusion.
Again, certain minerals — as chiastolite, garnet, staurolite, and a
large number of metamorphic minerals — are always found impure
in Nature, and their exact composition was unknown until repro-
duced artificially. The majority of natural minerals are complex
combinations in which many bodies are introduced by isomor-
phous agency. Synthesis has furnished the theoretical types and
given forms which could be accurately measured and show the
true physical properties.

Mineral synthesis determines the individuals belonging to a
family and distinguishes the true isomorphism of the series in
question. The artificial reproduction of the feldspar series
proved that the two members, alhite and anortJiite, were isomor-
phous and could be united in all proportions, some new forms be-
ing found which were unknown in Nature. Other mineral types
which are suggested by, but are absent in Nature have been
formed artificially, thus completing a mineral series, making the
limits of isomorphism more clear. This was accomplished by
Ebelmen in the spinel family, showing the relation of ferrites,
chromates, and aluminates to each other; also by Foque and
Levy in the feldspar family, who formed new feldspars with
bases of lithia, barytes, strontium, and lead. This work has also
been of great assistance to geology, a science which has been
encumbered by theories and hypotheses, where observation was
in very many cases insufficient to settle definitely the doubts.
Synthesis, when applied, enlarged the field of observation and
so often furnished definite solutions. Thus the origin of granite
was one of the great problems confronting geologists. The opin-
ion that it was purely igneous prevailed in the science for the
first part of our cycle, replacing the Neptunist or aqueous theory
of Werner, but the difficulties were increased a little later when,
by means of the microscope, it was found the quartz was con-
solidated after the other minerals ; this was against the idea
of a purely igneous fusion of the granite. The upholders of this
theory then argued for an extra fusion of the quartz analogous to
sulphur. Elie de Beaumont in 1849 modified the theory by ad-
mitting the intervention of water. For proof he called attention
to the number and frequency of the minerals sublimed on the pe-

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

riphery of the massive granites. He tliouglit the water occurred
in the form of inclusions in the granite constituents, which was
proved ten years later by Sorby. From this time on there was
the new theory for a mixed origin of granite. When synthesis
was applied it was found impossible to obtain granite by purely
igneous fusion.

The new mineralogy has accomplished much and has extended
our knowledge of rocks and minerals far beyond even the dream
of its founders, so that to-day nearly all known rocks have been
formed artificially with the same minerals and under the same
associations as in Nature. Of the different mineral species but
very few remain which have not been reproduced in the labora-
tory, and each year decreases this number. The only ones which
have not been reproduced are epidote, allanite, zoisite, staurolUe,
disthene, andalusite, and tourmaline, a very small number, which
will probably be removed in the next few years. All this work
has been accomplished in a comparatively short period of time in
three countries, France, Russia, and Germany.

Thus we see the new mineralogy has given breadth to the old
and has established a better foundation on which to build, since
it has disclosed the long-hidden mystery of the origin of minerals
and rocks.

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE.*

By FLOYD DAVIS, E.M., Ph. D.,

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW MEXICO SCHOOL OF MINES.

THE day has long since passed when men expected to meet
with success without faithful effort. We now realize that
one of the fundamental principles underlying success in any field
is concentration of thought and energy in rightly directed chan-
nels. We are glad to see so many of our higher institutions of
learning, particularly the technical schools through their labora-
tory methods of instruction, training young men to concentrate
their energies. The beneficent results of such training will be
enjoyed by generations to come.

The trained intellect grasps in a comprehensive manner de-
tails which the untrained can never see ; it analyzes subjects in
all their bearings and gives wise direction to the advancement of
truth. In all scientific work, and even in the business world, the
demands are for men trained to comprehend subjects down to the
very details in a single glance. A business firm once employed a

* An address delivered at the formal opening of the New Mexico School of Mines, at
Socorro, September 5, 1893.

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 669

trained young man whose energy and grasp of affairs soon led
the management to promote him over a faithful and trusted
employee. The old clerk felt deeply hurt that the young man
should be promoted over him, and took occasion to complain of it
to the manager. Feeling that this was a case that could not be
argued, the manager asked the old clerk what was making all the
noise in front of their building. He went forward and returned
with the answer that it was a lot of wagons going by. He then
asked the clerk what they were loaded with, and again he went
out and returned, reporting that they were loaded with wheat.
The manager again sent him to ascertain how many there were,
and he returned with the answer that there were sixteen. Final-
ly he was sent to see where they were from, and he returned,
saying that they were from the city of Lucena. The manager
then asked the old clerk to be seated, and sent for the young
man, and said to him, " Will you see what is the meaning of
that rumbling noise in front ? " The young man replied : " It
is unnecessary, for I have already ascertained that it is caused
by sixteen wagons loaded with wheat. Twenty more will pass
to-morrow. They belong to Romero & Co., of Lucena, and are
on their way to Marchesa, where wheat is bringing one dollar
and twenty-five cents per bushel, while it costs only one dollar
at Lucena. The wagons carry one hundred bushels each and get
fifteen cents per bushel for hauling." The young man was then
dismissed, and the manager turning to the old clerk said, "My
friend, you see now why the young man was promoted over you."
This illustrates the tendency of our times, for we are rapidly
advancing into an age when concentration of energy and grasp
of a subject in detail in the shortest possible time are requisite
for advancement.

This is largely an era of material progress, and the training
which is needed most for the rising generation — especially here in
the West — is that which will fit it for the application of its best
efforts to the noblest piirposes of life. The prei^aration for this
work must come through our schools. Teaching here involves
three distinct processes : instruction, or the imparting of knowl-
edge ; education, or the development of the faculties ; and train-
ing, or the formation of habits of thought and work. The mas-
ter teacher has a happy combination of these three processes,
no matter whether it be in the primary grades, the college, the
university, or the technical school. In the elementary schools
instruction necessarily predominates ; in the college and univer-
sity, the educational ; while in the school of technology, the ele-
ment of training is the most important. And I believe that the
principal work of a technical school like this should be the train-
ing of young men in accurate methods of thinking and working.

670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Too many of our teachers in all grades of schools confine them-
selves too closely to the element of instruction, and many of them
fail to recognize the importance of education and training. This
is, perhaps, owing to the delicacy which the instructor's work
assumes in the educational stage. Here the teaching should be
full of suggestions and sympathetic guidance to develop the rea-
soning faculties and guard them against inaccurate and discur-
sive habits. In the technical school there is a certain amount
of preliminary instructional and educational work that must be
done, without which no real progress in thorough and systematic
training can be made. But this is a condition, I think, that is
not f uU}^ appreciated by some of our technical schools. While I
believe most thoroughly in elementary instruction and advanced
education, I fear that too many of our higher institutions of learn-
ing neglect the importance of scientific drill, discipline, and men-
tal gymnastics, on which the development and value of the mind
as an instrument for the acquisition of real knowledge so much
depend. Wrongly directed education, often so painfully acquired,
lies like rubbish in the mind ; it can not take root and quicken
into life and grow, for the means are mistaken for the end, the
working machinery is mistaken for the finished product. The
great difficulty lies in too many young men to-day being over-
taught in the hypotheses and under trained in the realities of life.
We need more practical education and training, and possibly less
speculative philosophy. This is demonstrated by the outcry that
comes to us from Germany against overeducation. But there
is certainly not too much practical education : generations will
come and pass away before there will be danger of that. Still,
this protest, coming as it does from one of the most intellectual
countries of the world, where speculative philosophy flourishes
most, will have its reaction in our leading institutions of learn-
ing, and will give us a deeper appreciation of practical education.
The present educational methods being inductive and reflect-
ive, pertain more to the realities of life and less to its graces
than the theories held half a century ago. The new education
teaches us that it is unwise to spend the best years of one's life
pursuing studies that are merely cultural, for most of us cer-
tainly have as much need of knowledge as of culture. We send
our children to school to seek for knowledge, for we know that
when they study for the love of knowledge culture will come as
an incident in the attainment of it. The thing formerly con-
sidered was only mental discipline, and the result was depression ;
while the object now is to keep the mind alert, expectant, and
enthusiastic by presenting the delights and rewards of learning.
We now teach our boys to realize the activities of their own senses,
to see that knowledge only comes to them through these avenues.

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 671

and only as it thus comes is it entitled to be considered real knowl-
edge. We now study subjects for what there is in them, so that
the knowledge gained may be a help to thought ; and the enthu-
siasm thus acquired begets new ideas. The youthful mind re-
quires something tangible to grasp, or the reasoning faculties are
slowly developed. In all scientific works, facts are used as an
index to ideas, which is not a tax upon memory, but a stimulus to
the intellect. Still " it is not for its facts, but for the significance
of its facts, that science is valuable."

The time is forever past of the old idea that the study of the
ancient classics, mathematics, and humanities is the only educa-
tion. And the once popular notion that a broadly educated man
is a sort of intellectual reservoir that can be tapped for all sorts
of miscellaneous information is equally absurd. The social con-
sideration which once attached to persons supposed to know Latin
and Greek, whether gentlemen or not, has been abandoned, and
the test of social rank now is what they are and not what they are
supposed to be.

The benefits generally claimed to come from a classical educa-
tion are that it affords an admirable intellectual training, opens
up a magnificent literature, and contributes very largely to the
right understanding of our native tongue. This is certainly all
true, but such intellectual training is derived as easily from other
sources, for when the modern languages are taught systematically
they are useful in the same way, if not in the same degree ; while
the natural and physical sciences are admitted now by our best
thinkers to be the most powerful agents in the development
of the intellect. Their literature, to the great majority of uni-
versity men is unknown ; but the scholar who has laboriously
studied for a dozen years or more over his Virgil and Sophocles
is generally but little better acquainted with ancient literature
than he who has spent a year upon adequate translations of the
famous originals. And the understanding it gives us of our own
language, which in utility means accuracj'', grace, and ease of ex-
pression, might, I dare say, be more easily attained in boyhood
through formative habits, if guided scientifically, rather than
through the endless mysteries of syntax and inflection.

The study of the classics is no longer essential, except in tradi-
tional schools. A well-known New York book merchant recently
said, when asked about the demands for works on Latin and Greek :
" We keep very few of the classics, and it doesn't pay to stock up
any more. There is absolutely no demand for them, and a per-
fectly equipped bookstore can be sustained nowadays without a
single classic on the shelves. Probably five times a year we have
a call for one, and it doesn't pay to keep a stock for these stray
demands." How many modern orators employ quotations from

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Cicero, Demosthenes, or Plato ? Probably not one in a hundred.
But formerly, when Emerson, Phillips, Holmes, Everett, and Al-
cott were on the lyceum platform, it was necessary for those who
heard them to have a knowledge of the classics to intelligently
follow them. Times have changed and the natural and physical
sciences have taken their place. These offer the greatest advan-
tage in holding the student's attention, stimulating thought, and
cultivating the spirit of true investigation ; they require the
strictest habits of observation, induce concentration, arouse en-
ergy, educate the senses, train the hand to delicate manipulation, '
quicken the faculties of reasoning and powers of judgment; and
the varied and useful information which they afford is given in
the clearest and most convincing form. When pleasure and de-
sire of learning are fostered together under these influences the
amount of knowledge gained will be proportional to the time and
opportunity for study.

In science, the student feels that rules are merely summary ex-
pressions of a number of concrete facts ; and he familiarizes him-
self with methods of proof, and accepts only that which is sus-
ceptible of proof. It is in this way that the sciences become one
of the most important means at our command for moral and in-
tellectual training. When studied in a reverential spirit they de-
velop the most intense desire for truth and inculcate an equal
hatred for all pretense and falsity and an intolerance of all dog-
matism and bigotry. They offer the same evidence for accept-
ance that they demand for conviction ; and in the facts Avhich
they discover every theory is tested by being put on trial. All
true scientific structures are builded on knowledge and not on
faith, on proof and not on current opinion, for all opinions, pre-
conceived notions, hypotheses, and even accepted doctrines are
held in abeyance until the evidence is in and has been duly
weighed. That mind and manhood are thus trained alike in a
pre-eminent degree by the systematic study of the sciences is
now beyond dispute. Many of the older classical colleges have
abandoned some of their traditions to make room for these com-
paratively modern studies, which shows how general has become
the appreciation of science as a means of intellectual and moral
training, when taught by the laboratory method.

But beyond all these acquirements is the judicial attitude of
mind which comes as a supreme characteristic of scientific study.
In his investigations the true scientist endeavors to present ab-
solute fairness toward all evidence and offers no resistance to its
conclusions. His mind thus opens itself to all the avenues of
truth, and he welcomes all the results of his investigations with
equal cordiality.

Owing to peculiarities of the eye, ear, and brain, investigators

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 673

of equal intelligence, training, and experience in tlieir conclusions
will generally differ from one another by a constant or nearly con-
stant quantity, and each will differ from the truth. This differ-
ence from the truth in each individual is his personal equation or
habitual error. Many investigators now correct their results for
this constant error, but nowhere in the realm of knowledge are
the processes for making this correction so perfectlj^ worked out
as in the physical sciences, geodesy and astronomy. A party of
astronomers was once about to be sent on service to the southern
hemisphere. Their personal equations were carefully ascertained,
when it occurred to one of them that in the hemisphere to which
they were going the apparent celestial movements would be re-
versed, and that their errors ought to be reinvestigated for stars
of apparent reverse motion. This was done, when the differences
were found to be oppositely as large as before. There was, how-
ever, one individual in the party to whom it mattered not which
way the stars moved, for he had no personal equation in either
case.

It is the duty of the scientist to sift facts from theory, and
he who is thus engaged constantly in separating what is really
known from belief or mere theory gains intellectual strength
and an appreciation for true honesty. The ability to weigh evi-
dence and distinguish between it and the flights of the imagina-
tion is the natural foundation of greatness in all scientific work ;
and in proportion to his ability to rise into this lofty realm is a
man's opinion and work entitled to authority.

The natural and physical sciences demand our attention on
account of their technical applications in the arts, and the ad-
mirable preparation which they give for all practical work when
concrete things are the objective study. The colleges that teach
pure mathematics, languages, history, and philosophy, without
their application to the affairs of mankind, do not get beyond
the threshold of education. They merely place in their students'
hands tools for work without training them in their uses, or to
appreciate the variety and beauty of their finished product. It
is certainly a high and responsible calling to instruct young men
from text-books in what has long been accepted as truth, but the
higher functions of a true education rise into the sphere of ap-
plication and original investigation ; and I believe the few in-
stitutions that strive to this end are doing more for the real
intellectual advancement of mankind than all the traditional
schools on record. Without the application of the instruments
of knowledge, the pretense and self-stultification born in the
class room often result in the dangerous and pernicious idea that
it is better to be brilliant than to be sound, better to rely on
opinion and faith than on experiment and knowledge. Too

VOL. XLV. 50

67'4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

many of our classical colleges are yearly grinding out their
grists of such intellectual chaff, for it would seem that the
higher university classical education often unfits its recipients
for anything except routine work, and they crowd into and often
dishonor the so-called learned professions, and then make their
living in questionable ways, or starve. In the great cities of Ger-
many the poor boards are constantly called upon to relieve men
of the highest classical training, because they can not make a liv-
ing in their chosen field of work, and are unfitted for the trades
and arts. Horace Greeley must have had in mind this kind of
education when he exclaimed, " Of all horned cattle, deliver me
from the college graduate ! "

The colleges that accomplish the most good turn the students'
attention to the demands of the times, and thus fit them for the
most honorable walks of life. One of the supreme advantages
that is derived from a technical education is that it does not unfit
men for labor ; but from its very method of acquirement — the
laboratory — it teaches us that labor is the highest application of
the intellect, and the only perfect means of acquiring real knowl-
edge. Nor are the rewards of scientific education to be under-
valued, and the industrial opportunities of the scientist to be
overlooked.

The wonderful progress in the development of the natural
and physical sciences has come through the agency of experi-
ment and comparison. In this, the scientific method, the student
at his home masters the text- books ; in the library and reading
room he studies the works of the best authors and investigators ;
in the lecture room he is drilled in theory and application ; and
in the laboratory he puts questions to Nature and receives her
replies; and thus develops strength in all the faculties of a true
investigator. Liebig, in chemistry, was the first to adopt teach-
ing by experiment about fifty years ago ; but other scientists, one
after another, have since adopted the laboratory method, until it
is now advocated in language, philosophy, literature, and even
law.

The exigencies of modern progress in the arts demand that
technical institutions of learning shall keep abreast of the times,
and this is especially true in regard to schools that profess to
turn out practical chemists, geologists, mining engineers, and
metallurgists, thoroughly equipped to take immediate charge of
important enterprises, or to advise as to investments in new and
untried fields. The advances which are now being made in the
practice of analytical and industrial chemistry and metallurgy,
and in nearly all allied industries, are so rapid that methods de-
scribed in text-books written for the use of students often become
obsolete by the time the books are published.

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 675

The training of tlie specialist requires the most stimulating
influences, and the process should be one of continuous and well-
directed effort. If we learn, step by step, what Nature has in
store for us, without hurry, we incur a minimum cerebral fatigue
and a maximum acquirement. A strong constitution is required
for successful work in any pursuit. The natural and physical
sciences promote this because their study begets cheerfulness;
they make life pleasant and interesting, and instead of injuring
the nervous system as many other studies do, they give it tone
and vigor in much the same way that manual exercise gives
strength to the muscular system.

I believe that in some of our technical schools which provide
for the most thorough and scholarly study of principles directed
immediately upon the useful arts, and rising in their higher
grades into original investigation and research, is to be found the
ideal education for young men. Too long have these institutions
been branded as furnishing only an inferior education to the so-
called liberal arts, because it is practical and useful. Too long
have they been regarded as furnishing only an inferior substitute
for the classics, and their graduates have been spoken of as
though they had acquired the art of livelihood at some sacrifice
of mental development and intellectual culture. It is true that
form and style may be sacrificed in the earnest, direct, and labori-
ous endeavor of students of science, but that all the essentials of
intellect and character are happily developed in these schools is
thoroughly demonstrated by the eminent success of their gradu-
ates. When measured by the only true standard of intelligence,
that of use in the world, these men will rise through their work
and power of gaining knowledge to high positions of usefulness
and influence.

The demands of the times have forced us to a high apprecia-
tion of specialization in all departments of knowledge, and he
who attempts on general attainments to cope with adv^anced prob-
lems in practice generally meets with defeat in much of his work.
A mere smattering of knowledge no longer suflices in professional
pursuits, and the proverb —

'"A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring " —

is too often realized by those who attempt work for which they
are not fitted by professional training, or by those who have scat-
tered their capacities over widely diversified fields. The weakest
individual, by concentrating his energies on a single pursuit, may
meet with success ; but the strongest, by distributing his powers
over many, may and often does fail to accomplish anything. Ber-
zelius said that he was the last general chemist, and the single

(>']6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

science of chemistry has grown to siicli enormous proportions
that no one since his day has ever attempted mastery of the
whole field. This being true, what can be said of the vast field of
all natural and physical science ? Those who attempt to cover it,
or even a goodly portion of it, can not get much beyond the no-
menclature used. The best results are always accomplished by
co-operation and differentiation in work. The material progress
of our times is due largely to the division of labor, which thus
enables each individual to perfect his own skill. In my work as a
chemist and metallurgist I am compelled to have a general work-
ing knowledge of all allied sciences, but by taking the results of
the investigations of my fellow-workers, each in his own field, I
am enabled to give more of my time to my own specialty, and
therefore to accomplish what I could not do were I "a Jack of all
trades." And it may be hoped that my investigations will in
their turn come to the aid of the sanitarian, the pathologist, and
the engineer. But more than this is required in this day of sharp
competition, for it is becoming necessary for the specialist, not
merely to confine himself to one subject, but to know more about
some particular branch of his subject than does any one else.
Those who pursue these special lines are the real investigators,
and they give us the advanced scientific knowledge which we now
enjoy.

The opportunities of the specialist are many and inviting.
Every field of technical work opens up a magnificent series of
unsolved problems, the solution of which will bring honor to the
discoverer and benefit to the world. Technical chemistry, applied
electricity, and metallurgy are yet in their infancy, but what
grand achievements they have already made ! Many of the
greatest advances in modern civilization and the comforts of life
have come through these channels. The brain and hand of the
trained scientist transform the crude materials of the three king-
doms of Nature into things of beauty for the wants of men. The
clay in the bank, the ore in the mine, the wood in the forest, by
passing through his hands, take on the form of his thoughts and
become expressions of his skill and power.

Specialization in knowledge carries innumeraJole advantages
with it. The thoroughly educated scientist is acquainted with
the ablest writers in his field, and reads and comprehends them.
He appreciates their ideas and employs their knowledge and
experience for his own purpose. If he decides that a process is
imperfect, he knows in what direction improvement is needed.
He is not misled by undetermined elements or impracticable theo-
ries, but through his knowledge of facts bases his conclusions on
substantial grounds. He is prepared for any emergency and
adapts himself quickly to his surroundings, for his scientific

SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 6jj

training enables him to apply himself in practice with the least
difficulty and to the greatest advantage. Those who are trained
in this way are always in demand, and their valuable services
bring the highest financial returns.

Finally, I advocate technical education and specialization,
because I believe that they are the most perfect means of secur-
ing good citizenship ; for when the head and the hand are prop-
erly trained, the heart will respond to the noblest dictates of
truth and virtue. But in addition to these attainments, I also
believe implicitly in the broadest and most scholarly education
in all that is useful and good. The specialist, as I have described
him, feels the need of broad scholarship for its professional util-
ity. In a court of justice an expert frequently calls into use sci-
ences that have only a remote bearing upon his profession, as
well as to present to the court the breadth of his scholarship and
his experience. In one case a chemist may in the examination of
an ore be called upon to use his knowledge of mining, metallurgy,
mineralogy, and geology ; in the examination of a drug he may
be required to have a knowledge of pharmacy, botany, materia
medica, and therapeutics ; in another case his examination of a
water may call into use a thorough knowledge of physics, pathol-
ogy, and sanitation ; while in another case of suspected criminal
poisoning, when the life of the accused may rest largely in his
hands, he is required to have a profound knowledge of the details
of toxicology, jurisprudence, and microscopy. In fine, the sci-
ences are so blended that a profound knowledge of one can only
be acquired through the instrumentality of all the others, and the
expert in the course of his professional experience will be called
upon to bring into use all the various departments of useful
human knowledge. Education for such professional service is a
knowledge of how to use the whole of one's self, to apply the fac-
ulties with which one is endowed to all practical purposes. A
liberal technical education broadens our views, removes preju-
dice, and causes us to welcome the views of others, and we no
longer consider our methods the only ones worthy of adoption.
It keeps us out of ruts and makes us desirous of being benefited
by the experiences and teachings of others. It stimulates great
mental activity, and thus leads to skill, investigation, discovery,
and improvement.

It is proposed by a M. Lotz to npply photography to the testing of bridges.
Photographs are taken from a convenient spot, of the bridge unloaded and of the
same weiglited with the heaviest burdens it is intended to carry. The difterence
in the appeai'ance of the photographs will show the extent to which the bridge
yields or sags under the loads put upon it.

678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

PARASITIC AND PREDACEOUS INSECTS.*

By C. V. EILEY, Ph. D.

THE importance to man, and especially to the horticulturist,
of the parasitic and predaceous insect enemies of such species
as injure vegetation has been recognized by almost all writers on
economic entomology. Indeed, it is a question whether the earlier
writers did not attach too much importance to them, because
while in the abstract they are all essential to keep the plant-feed-
ing species in proper check, and without them these last would
unquestionably be far more difficult to manage, yet in the long
run our worst insect enemies are not materially afi^ected by them,
and the cases where we can artificially encourage the multiplica-
tion of the beneficial species are relatively few. While fully ap-
preciating the importance of the subject, therefore, it is my pur-
pose in this paper to point out the dangers and disadvantages
resulting from false and exaggerated notions upon it.

There are but two methods by which these insect friends of
the farmer can be eff^ectually utilized and encouraged, as, for the
most part, they perform their work unseen and unheeded by him,
and are practically beyond his control. These methods consist in
the intelligent protection of those species which already exist in
a given locality, and in the introduction of desirable species which
do not already exist there.

In a few cases like this there is no reason why the farmer
should not be taught with advantage to discriminate between his
friends and his foes, and to encourage the multiplication of the
former ; but, for the most part, the nicer discrimination as to the
beneficial species, some of the most important of which are micro-
scopically small, must be left to the trained entomologist. Few
of the men practically engaged in agriculture and horticulture
can follow the more or less technical characterization of these
beneficial species, and where the discriminating knowledge is pos-
sessed it can, as just intimated, only exceptionally be turned to
practical account.

In other cases much good may be done without any special
knowledge of the beneficial forms, but as a result of a knowledge
of the special facts, which enable the farmer materially to en-
courage the multiplication of parasitic species while destroying
the plant-feeding host. Very good illustrations of this kind of
work are afforded by the rascal leaf-crumpler and the common
bag worm, both of which in the larva state live in cases, and

* Condensed from a paper read before the Association of Economic Entomologists at
Madison, Wis., August 15, 1893.

PARASITIC AND PREDACEOUS INSECTS. 679

are Tnucli affected by parasites, and neither of wliicli can survive
if the cases are plucked in winter and placed away from any trees
or shrubs, while under these circumstances the parasites will per-
fect and escape.

It is quite different with the second method of dealing with
beneficial insects which I have mentioned, for here man has an
opportunity of doing some very effective work. It is only within
comparatively recent years that the importance of this particular
phase of the subject has been fully realized. Various more or
less successful efforts have also been made, and the transmission
from one place to another of certain parasites of the plum cur-
culio ; of certain parasites of the common oyster-shell bark-louse
of the apple ; the successful colonization in France of a certain
mite which attacks the grape phylloxera ; the efforts to send
parasites of plant-lice from Europe to Australia ; the introduction
into this country of Microgaster glomeratus, a common European
parasite of the cabbage worm, and of Entedon epigonus, a com-
mon European parasite of the Hessian fly — are matters of record
in State and Government publications.

In 1887 and 1888 the now well-kuown importation of Vedalia
cardinalis from Australia and New Zealand to California to prey
upon Icerya purchasi was successfully carried out. The history
of this striking example of the beneficial results that may in ex-
ceptional cases flow from intelligent effort in this direction is
now sufficiently well known to American economic entomologists,
but anticipating that we shall have foreign delegates among us,
and that our proceedings will be published more widely than
usual, it will perhaps be wise to give the salient historical facts
in the case, even at the risk of some repetition of what has been
already published.

The fluted scale, otherwise known as the white or cottony-
cushion scale {Icerya purchasi Maskell), is one of the largest spe-
cies of its family, and up to 1883 had done immense injury to
the orange groves and to many other trees and shrubs of south-
ern California. From Australia, its original home, it had been
imported into New Zealand, South Africa, and California — the
evidence pointing to its introduction into California about 1868,
and probably upon Acacia latifolia.

In my annual report as United States Entomologist for 1886
will be found a full characterization of the species in all its stages ;
but the three characteristics which most concern the j)ractical
man and which make it one of the most diSicult species to con-
tend with are its ability to survive for long periods without food,
to thrive upon a great variety of plants, and to move about
throughout most of its life.

The injuries of this insect, notwithstanding the efforts to check

68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it, kept on increasing, and some ten years ago I felt that the work
of this particular species and of others which seriously affected
the fruit-growing interests of southern California, justified the
establishment of agencies there. Up to this time no special en-
tomological efforts have been made by the Government on behalf
of the fruit-growers of the Pacific coast. Through agents sta-
tioned— the one at Los Angeles, the other at Alameda — a course of
elaborate experiments was undertaken as to the best means of
treating the insects affecting the orange there, and more partic-
ularly this fluted or cottony-cushion scale. During the prog-
ress of these investigations, however, the fact impressed itself
upon my mind that we had here an excellent opportunity of call-
ing to our aid its own natural enemies ; for while there were at
first some doubts as to the origin of this icerya, the question was
finally settled to my satisfaction that it was of Australian origin,
that in its native home it was not a serious pest, but was kept
subdued by natural checks.

A clause in the bill appropriating for the division of ento-
mology prohibited the sending of agents abroad and prevented at
the time independent action by the Department of Agriculture ;
but with the co-operation of the Department of State an arrange-
ment was finally made by the Hon. Frank McCoppin, United
States Commissioner to the Melbourne Exposition, whereby two
agents of the Division of Entomology were sent to Australia, one
of them specially charged with the study and importation of the
natural enemies of this insect.

It was thus that Mr. Albert Koebele, in the fall of 1888, wa^
sent to Australia for this special purpose. The history of Mr.
Koebele's efforts has been detailed from time to time in Govern-
ment publications and in the press, especially that of California.
It suffices to state that a number of living enemies, both parasitic
and predaceous, were successfully imported, but that one of them
( Vedalia cardinalis) proved so effective as to throw the others
entirely into the shade and render their services really unneces-
sshYj. It has so far not been known to prey upon any other in-
sect, and it breeds with surprising rapidity, occupying less than
thirty days from the laying of the eggs until the adults again ap-
pear. These facts account for its exceptionally rapid work, for in
point of fact within a year and a half of its first introduction it
had practically cleared off the fluted scale throughout the in-
fested region. The expressions of two well-known parties may be
quoted here to illustrate the general verdict. Prof. W. A. Henry,
Director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, who
visited California in 1889, reported that the work of the vedalia
was " the finest illustration possible of the value of the depart-
ment to give the people aid in time of distress, and the distress

PARASITIC AND PREBACEOUS INSECTS. 681

•was very great indeed." Mr. William F. Channiug, of Pasadena,
son of tlie eminent Unitarian divine, wrote two years later :

" We owe to the Agricultural Department tlie rescue of our
orange culture by tlie importation of the Australian ladybird
( Vedalia cardinal is).

" The white scales were incrusting our orange trees with a
hideous lepros5^ They spread with wonderful rapidity, and would
have made citrus growth on the whole North American continent
impossible within a few years. It took the vedalia, when intro-
duced, only a few years absolutely to clean out the white scale.
The deliverance was more like a miracle than anything I have
ever seen. In the spring of 1889 I had abandoned my young
Washington navel orange trees as irrevocable. Those same trees
bore from two to three boxes of oranges apiece at the end of the
season (or winter and spring of 1890). The consequence of the
deliverance is that many hundreds of thousands of orange trees
(navels almost exclusively) have been set out in southern Cali-
fornia this last spring."

In other words, the victory over the scale was complete, and
will practically remain so. The history of the introduction of
this pest ; its spread for upward of twenty years and the discour-
agement which resulted ; the numerous experiments which were
made to overcome the insect ; and its final reduction to unimpor-
tant numbers by means of an apparently insignificant little beetle
imported for the purpose from Australia, will always remain one
of the most interesting stories in the records of practical ento-
mology.

The vedalia has since been successfully colonized at the Cape
of Good Hope and in Egypt, and has produced the same results
in each case. In Egypt the vedalia was introduced to prey upon
an allied species of icerya {I. mgypfiacum.). We hope soon to be
able to send the same insect to India, where it has recently trans-
pired that Icerya a^gyptiacuin occurs ; while recent information
received from Phra Suriya, Royal Commissioner of Siam, at Chi-
cago, would indicate that its introduction into Siam for the same
or a closely allied insect will be desirable in the near future.

In fact, the success of the experiment was so striking and so
important, and resulted in the saving to California of an indus-
try of so great a money value that it has given rise, not only in
the popular mind but in the minds of a certain class of entomolo-
gists also, to the idea that remedial work against injurious insects
should be concentrated upon this one line of action, and that our
best hope for their destruction lies with the parasitic and preda-
ceous species, not to mention fungous and bacterial diseases. From
an extreme of comparative incredulity the farmer and fruit-
grower have gone, perhaps, to the other extreme of too great

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

faith. The case of icerya and vedalia, as I have frequently
pointed out^ was exceptional and one which can not easily be re-
peated.

One of the numerous phases of the vedalia experiment is that
the wide newspaper circulation of the facts — not always most ac-
curately set forth — has brought me communications from all
parts of the world asking for supplies of the renowned little lad}^-
bird for use against injurious insects of every kind and descrip-
tion, the inquiries being made, of course, under a misapprehen-
sion of the facts.

While this California experience thus affords one of the most
striking illustrations of what may be accomplished under excep-
tional circumstances by the second method of utilizing beneficial
insects, we can hardly expect to succeed in accomplishing much
good in this direction without a full knowledge of all the ascer-
tainable facts in the case and a due appreciation of the pro-
founder laws of Nature, and particularly of the interrelations of
organisms. Year in and year out, with the conditions of life un-
changed by man's actions, the relations between the plant-feeder
and the predaceous and parasitic species of its own class remain
substantially the same, whatever the fluctuations between them
for any given year. This is a necessary result in the economy of
Nature ; for the ascendency of one or the other of the opposing
forces involves a corresponding fluctuation on the decreasing side,
and there is a necessary relation between the plant-feeder and its
enemies, which normally must be to the slight advantage of the
former, and only exceptionally to the great advantage of the lat-
ter. This law is recognized by all close students of Nature, and
has often been illustrated and insisted upon by entomologists in
particular, as the most graphic exemplifications of it occur in in-
sect life, in which fecundity is such that the balance is regained
with marvelous rapidity, even after approximate annihilation of
any particular species. But it is doubtful whether another equally
logical deduction from the prevalence of this law has been suffi-
ciently recognized by us, and this is that our artificial insecticide
methods have little or no effect upon the multiplication of an in-
jurious species except for the particular occasion which calls
them forth, and that occasions often arise when it were wiser to
refrain from the use of such insecticides and to leave the field to
the parasitic and predaceous forms.

It is generally when a particular injurious insect has reached
the zenith of its increase and has accomplished its greatest harm
that the farmer is led to bestir himself to suppress it ; and yet it
is equally true that it is just at this time that Nature is about to
relieve him in striking the balance by checks which are violent
and effective in proportion to the exceptional increase of and con-

PARASITIC AND PREDACEOUS INSECTS. 683

sequent exceptional injury done by the injurious species. Now,
the insecticide method of routing this last, under such circum-
stances, too often involves, also, the destruction of the parasitic
and predaceous species, and does more harm than good. This is
particularly true of those of our Coccidm and Aphidida^, and
those of our lepidopterous larvae, which have numerous natural
enemies of their own class, and it not only emphasizes the impor-
tance of preventive measures which we are all agreed to urge for
other cogent reasons, and which do not to the same extent destroy
the parasite ; but it affords another explanation of the reason why
the fight with insecticides must be kept up year after year, and
has little cumulative value.

But the problem of the wise encouragement and employment
of the natural enemies of injurious insects in their own class is
yet more complicated. The general laws governing the interac-
tion of organisms are such that we can only in very exceptional
cases derive benefit by interference with it. The indigenous ene-
mies of an indigenous phytophagous species will, ccEteris paribus,
be better qualified to keep it in check than some newly introduced
competitor from a foreign country, and the peculiar circumstances
must decide in each case the advisability of the introduction.
The multiplication of the foreigner will too often involve the
decrease of some indigene. If a certain phytophage is generally
disastrous in one section and innocuous in another, by virtue of
some particular enemy, it will be safe to transfer and encourage
such enemy, and this is particularly true when the phytophage is
a foreigner and has been brought over without the enemy which
subdues it in its native home. Icerya had some enemies in Cali-
fornia, presumably American ; but they were not equal to the
task of subduing it. Vedalia in the icerya's native home, Aus-
tralia, was equal to the task, and maintained the same superiority
over all others when brought to America. The genus was new to
the country, and the species had exceptionally advantageous at-
tributes. But there is very little to be hoped from the miscellane-
ous introduction of predaceous or parasitic insects for the sup-
pression of a phytophage which they do not suppress in their
native home or in the country from which they are brought.
The results of the introduction by Mr. A. D. Hopkins of Clerus
formicarius to contend with the scolytids, which were ruining
the West Virginia pines, were doubtful, for the reason that the
indigenous species of the genus were already at work in America.
Yet the experiment was safe and desirable because the European
clerus is more active and more seemingly efi^ective than our indi-
genes. The gypsy moth was evidently introduced into Massa-
chusetts without its European natural enemies, and as in some
parts of Europe it is often locally checked by such natural ene-

684 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mies, a great number of which are known, a proper study of them
and the introduction of the most effective could result in no pos-
sible harm and might be productive of lasting good.

There are two other laws which it is worth while to consider in
this connection. One is, that while a plant-feeder's natural ene-
mies are apt to cause its excessive abundance to be followed by a
corresponding decrease, yet this alternation of excessive abun-
dance and excessive scarcity will often be produced irrespective
of such natural checks. An injurious insect which has been on
the destructive march for a period of years will often come to a
sudden halt, and a period of relative and sometimes complete im-
munity from injury will follow. This may result from climatic
conditions, but more often it is a consequence of disease, debility,
and want of proper nutrition, which are necessary corollaries of
undue multiplication. Frequently, therefore, it may be inaccu-
rate and misleading to attribute the disappearance of a particular
injurious species to some parasitic or predaceous species which
has been let loose upon it, and nothing but the most accurate ob-
servation will determine the truth in such cases. The past year
furnished a very graphic illustration in point. Throughout Vir-
ginia and West Virginia, where the spruce pines have for some
years suffered so severely from the destructive work of Dendroc-
tonus frontalis, not a single living specimen of the beetle has been
found during the present year. This has been observed by every
one who has investigated the subject, and particularly by several
correspondents who have written to me : by Mr. E. A. Schwarz,
who was commissioned to investigate the facts, and by Mr. Hop-
kins, who has made the study of the sul)ject a specialty. The
clearest explanation of this sudden change is, that the species was
practically killed out by the exceptionally severe cold of last win-
ter, since such was the case with several other insects. Now, fol-
lowing so closely on the introduction by Mr. Hopkins of Clerus
formicarius, how easy it would have been to attribute the sudden
decrease to the work of the introduced clerus, had not the de-
crease been so general and extensive as absolutely to preclude any
such possibility! In like manner a certain scale-insect {Aspidio-
tus tenehricosus) had become exceedingly destructive to the soft
maples in the city of Washington last year, whereas the present
year it is almost entirely killed off, evidently by the same excep-
tional cold. Many of the affected trees were painted with white-
wash, with a view of destroying the aspidiotus, and the death of
this last might have been attributed to the treatment (and natu-
rally would be by those employing it) were it not that the same
result was equally noticeable on the trees not treated. Reports
from southern California would indicate that the red scale {As-
pidiotus aurantii) is in many orchards losing its destructiveness

PARASITIC AND PREDACEOUS INSECTS. 685

through agencies other than its insect enemies, and in this case
the facts are particularly interesting, because of the ease with
which its disapi:)earance may be attributed to some of the recent
introductions from Australia.

The other law that is worth considering in this connection is
that, as a rule, the animals and plants of what is known as the
"Old" "World — i. e., of Europe and Asia — when introduced into
North America have shown a greater power of multiplication
than the indigenous species, and in a large number of instances
have taken the place of the native forms, which have not been
able to compete with them in the struggle for existence. This
is still more true of the species introduced from the Old World,
as well as from America, into Australia, where the advantage of
the introduced forms, as compared with the indigenes, has been
in many cases still more marked.

There are some instances in which there can be no doubt what-
ever as to the good which will flow from the introduction of bene-
ficial species, and an illustration is afforded in the caprifig insect
{Blastopliaga psenes). There can be no question as to the good
which would result from the introduction of this species from
Smyrna into those sections of California where the Smyrna fig is
grown without its intervention, and there are other similar in-
stances which promise well and involve no risk. But I have said
enough to show that the successful utilization of beneficial in-
sects is by no means a simple matter, and that discriminating
knowledge is required to insure success or prevent disaster, espe-
cially in the second category dealt with in this paper. The danger
attending introductions of beneficial species by unconsciously ac-
companying them with injurious forms, or by failure to appreci-
ate the facts here set forth, is well illustrated by the introduction
to Europe of our Peronospora viticola, of the English sparrow to
America, and of the mongoose to Jamaica.

Wherever the importance of the matter leads to legislation what
are denominated " political " methods are apt either to control or
in some way influence the resulting efforts — too often with unfor-
tunate consequences. We should, as economic entomologists, be
on the alert for the special cases where the introduction or dis-
semination of beneficial species promises good results, and do our
best to encourage an intelligent public appreciation of such special
cases, while discouraging all that is of unscientific or sensational
nature, as likely to mislead and ultimately do our profession more
harm than good.

686 TBE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ASTROLOGY.

A CURIOUS book is preserved in the National Library of
France, tlie title of wliich in English wonld be New Works
of Sieur de Conac, Astrologer, Mathematician, Doctor, and For-
tune-teller, Advocate of his Majesty. Treating of the Nativity
of Men, their Inclination, and what will happen to them through
Life. Paris, 1G36. But little else is known concerning this Sieur
de Conac, except that he wrote a similar book about women.
This sage predicts that " the man who is born on Sunday, which
is the house of the sun, will be inclined to many callings, offices,
and estates, fond of serving the great, and will acquire means
according to his quality. If he is noble, he will converse with
kings, princes, marquises, barons, and grand lords, and will in-
crease his lordship in quality and make his house illustrious with
more grandeur than belongs to it, and his subjects will serve him
faithfully ; and he will acquire great fame, be subject to head-
ache, toothache, and quartan fever, will be in danger of fire, will
travel much, will be lucky in buying horses, and loved by women,
and will be married several times ; he will not get much from his
father, he will be in danger of the plague, and, according to the
course of Nature, will live sixty-three years ; he will be passion-
ate and sanguine, a little brown and a little red in complexion,
and liberal. He will travel much in foreign countries, his secrets
will be kept, he will be preserved from his companions and serv-
ants, and will make his living by many trades.

" The man born on Monday will have office and authority over
the people, will be versed in geometry, arithmetic, and geography.
If he is noble, he will receive the rank of king or prince, and will
be ambassador, nuncio, or legate ; if he is a mechanic, he will be
silversmith or goldsmith ; if he is in the Church, he will be vicar-
general, treasurer, or at least canon ; if he is a sailor, he will be
captain or master of the ship, pilot or corsair ; will be also of
phlegmatic nature, subject to catarrhs, will have cross-eyes and
toothache, flux, colic, and spleen, swelling of the legs and other
parts of the body, and will be hurt in his weak spots. He will be
fortunate on the sea, in mills and fisheries, messages, printing
offices, most so in agriculture, will be in danger of poison, he will
love widows, and will live seventy years. He will be fond of
things that come from the water, and will be sculptor, founder,
tiller, messenger, or master of fountain and fishes, and will be of
fantastic humor.

" The man who is born on Tuesday, his star being Mars, will
be hardy, arrogant, threatening everybody, wrathful, a man of
good cheer, prompt to attack and ready to meet attack with fire-

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ASTROLOGY. 687

arms or other arms, according to the kind of person it is ; his
vocation will be locksmith, furrier, smith, fabricant of all sorts
of firearms ; he will be inclined to wantonness, a lover of play,
a liar, a swearer, promising one thing and doing another, and
will have unrighteous quarrels. In station he may reach the
rank of captain, master of the camp, general of the army, cheva-
lier, or Grand Master of Malta, governor of the city, of the
castle, or military engineer, mathematician, and on account of
his valor will be welcome with princes and lords ; will live
seventy-two years, and will have only one wife and few children,
and will not be in danger of sudden death. He will be a good
surgeon, a good anatomist, provost, bowman, sergeant, baker,
cook, and violent.

" Wednesday, Mercury's day, promises a man of great mind
that he shall be a philosopher, orator, doctor, or astrologer, suc-
cessful in mechanical practice and arts, as with plants, trees,
and merchandise, and may arrive to great dignities, as of ambas-
sador, president, counselor, preacher, orator, good writer, doctor,
on good terms with pilgrims, messengers, idlers, vagabonds, coun-
terfeiters, a player with false cards, an adept in occult philosophy,
will be wicked with the wicked and good with the good ; he will
suffer from heart disease, trembling of the limbs, and gouts in
the joints; he will have three wives, the change- of whom will be
good for him ; he will have seven or eight children, and will live
about fifty years or more. He will be schoolmaster, watchmaker,
and instrument maker.

" The star of Jupiter, Thursday, influences a man to great be-
nignity, affability, honesty, discretion, and piety, and to be wel-
come with princes and kings ; he will not be troubled in the
courts', and will be rich according to his quality ; will be fortu-
nate in marriage, in the service of the prince and great lords, and
will reach the quality of nobility or some ecclesiastical dignity ;
also successful in arms, and with plants, trees, and buildings,
minerals, and herbs; and he will profit greatly in voyages, will
have a quantity of friends, and will travel in countries where he
had no thought of going. If incited by his father or mother, he
will have contracts, will be wanton, will have two wives, and
many children who will rise in position, and he will live eighty
years. He will be a profitable man, liberal, fond of honor, proud,
keen, and healthy, affable, jealous of his wives, and will have
much knowledge.

" The man who is born on Friday, under the star of Venus,
will be by nature very fond of music and of all pleasant things,
or will instruct the children of the choir, or will be chapel master,
organist, or player of musical instruments, or else a confectioner,
glover, perfumer, druggist, or tailor, or something appertaining to

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

polite exercises ; will practice embroidery and other gentle work,
will be skilled in making embellisliments for women, will marry
only once, will have more girls than boys, will love gardens and
fragrant things, precious stones, and everything that can adorn
the ladies ; will be welcome among them, and will live seventy-
two years or more. He will be a maker of musical instruments,
and a skillful dancer and musician.

"The man who is born on Saturday is apparently solitary,
melancholy, and idle, will be glad when his work is done, will
suffer in his legs and knees ; he will be avaricious, trying to
borrow and not return, will go to prison for debts, will be badly
dressed for fear of want, and will be subject to rash, gall, and
other diseases. In fortune he will have luck in finding treasures,
will be rich in inheritances ; he will live nearly a hundred years,
according to the course of Nature ; will addict himself to occult
sciences, will be fortunate in solid things like wood, iron, stones,
etc., will be fond of many evil things which I will not put down
here, there being no need to tell everything. He will be indo-
lent, weak, of bad appearance, lame, poor, ill-formed, if he is not
looked upon by the sun or by Venus.

" The whole will be according to the will of God."

Having thus made these wonderful predictions, the Sieur de
Conac does not fail to look out for himself, and we read the fol-
lowing little personal item :

" The aforesaid astrologer tells fortunes of the past and the
future, reads the disposition of persons in their physiognomy,
and sells drugs for the cure of diseases, and has other interest-
ing secrets in his line. The said mathematician lives at Chateau
Gaillard, at the end of the Pont-Neuf, near the Hotel de Nevers."

This pleasant announcement need not surprise us, for do we
not find at the end of this century — this century of progress and
light — advertisements in the papers making known to the simple

of both sexes that Madame X , the celebrated cartomancist,

predicts the future from the lines of the hand and plays the great
game ? While the cartomancists of the nineteenth century have
their clients, it would be hard to find out why an astrologer should
not have had them two centuries and a half ago. — Translated for
The Poinilar Science Monthly from the Revne Scientifiqiie.

The Government of Bengal bas been induced to impose additional limitations
upon the kinds of cases to which jury trial may be applied. It is alleged that the
juries allow personal feelings or caste prejudices to interfere with tlie discharge
of their duty. There is, furthermore, some uncertainty concerning the action of a
native jury upon such a charge as forging a receipt for taxes. It is pleaded against
this measure that sufficient evidence of the necessity for it has not been adduced,
also that it is not prudent to withdraw a privilege once granted and exercised.

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG. 689

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST
MUHLENBERG.

THE late Prof. J. M. Maisch, in his memorial oration on
Muhlenberg as a Botanist,* laid stress upon the frequency
with which his name is met in works of descriptive botany as
that of the person who first recognized as separate and scien-
tifically designated some particular genus or species. Waiving
all considerations of credit for priority or of personal fame, the
leading aim in all Muhlenberg's botanical work seems to have
been to assure the precise and accurate definition of the plant
with which he was for the moment dealing.

Names of the Muhlenberg family are conspicuous in the his-
tory of this country. Its founder in America, Pastor Heinrich
Melchior Miihlenberg, who came to Philadelphia by way of
Charleston, S. C, in 17-43, was known as the patriarch of the
Lutheran Church in the United States. His eldest son, Johann
Peter Gabriel, also a minister in his earlier life, was a major
general in the Revolutionary War, Vice-President of Pennsyl-
vania, six years a member of the House of Representatives of
the United States, a United States Senator, and an officer of the
revenue. Another son, Friedrich August, who also began his
career in the pulpit, was a member of the Continental Congress,
a member and Speaker of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and a
member of the House of Representatives of the first four Con-
gresses, during two of which he was Speaker.

The third son, Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, the
subject of the present sketch, was born in New Providence,
Montgomery County, Pa., November 17, 1753, and died in Lan-
caster, Pa., May 23, 1815. He attended schools in his native place
and in Philadelphia, whither his family removed in 1761. When he
was ten years old he was sent with his brothers to Halle, in order
to finish his academic studies and to prepare for the ministry. Ar-
rived in Holland, the brothers proceeded directly to Halle, while
young Henry set out in the care of an attendant for Einbeck,
his father's native place, where many of his relatives still lived.
Deserted on the journey by the man to whose protection he had
been confided, this boy, left without money in a strange land,
bravely pushed forward on foot and thus finally reached his des-
tination. After his visit to Einbeck he entered a school in Halle,
in which he continued about six years. He spent a longer time

* Delivered before the Pioneerverein of Philadelphia, May 6, 1886, and published ia
Dr. Fr. Hoffmann's Pharmaceutische Rundschau, June, 188G ; also separately. It is the
principal source whence we have drawn the matter of this sketch.
VOL. XLV. — 51

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the liiglier classes than was necessary, awaiting the age at
which he could be admitted to the university. This he entered
in 1769, but remained in attendance only about a year. He
returned to Pennsylvania in 1770, and was ordained by the
synod of his church and appointed assistant to his father in
the pastoral work " at Philadelphia, Barren Hill, and on the
Raritan." In 1774 he was called to be the third preacher in Phila-
delphia. The prominence of his brothers in the Revolutionary
councils exposed him to dangers from the British, as they ap-
proached the scene of his labors, and he fled, September 22, 1777,
not to return till the following year. In 1780 he became pastor
of the Lutheran church at Lancaster, where he spent the rest of
his life. Mr. Muhlenberg was married, in 1774, to Catherine,
daughter of Philip Hall, of Philadelphia. He had two sons ;
one them, Henry Augustus, won a high reputation, first as clergy-
man, and afterward in public affairs. The other son, Frederick
Augustus, became an able physician in Lancaster, Pa.

His work in botany began during his residence in the country
following his flight from Philadelphia. He resumed the study ear-
nestly after his return to the city, and became deeply interested
in the less conspicuous flowering plants and the cryptogams.
Botanists had not been idle in the study of North American
plants. Even before the time of Linnaeus Dr. J. Cornutus had
published in Paris, in 1035, his History of Canadian Plants, and
John Banister his Virginia Catalogue in London in 1688. Johann
Friedrich Gronovius, of Leyden, had brought out his Flora Vir-
ginica, with the Linnsean classification, in 1739 to 1743, of which
his son published a second edition in 1762. To this work John
Clayton, who had permanently settled in Virginia, and whose
name is preserved in Claytonia virginica — our familiar spring
beauty — was a contributor. Other botanists who had worked in
this field were Mark Catesby, with his Natural History of Canada,
Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1731-1743), and his Hortus
Britannise Americanus (1763-1767) ; Julius von Wangenheim,
with his German Description of Some North American Trees
and Shrubs, with reference to German Forests (1781) ; Humphry
Marshall, with his Arbustrum, or Catalogue of American Trees
and Shrubs (1785) ; and Walter, with his Flora Caroliniana. The
works of Linnaeus also had much matter of American origin,
communicated to him by Peter Kalm, Clayton, John Mitchell, Cad-
walader Colden, and John Bartram. Most of these works, and
others by the older European botanists, were used by Muhlenberg
in his studies.

More strictly contemporary with him were the two Michaux —
Andrd (1801-1803) and Frangois Andr^ (1805-1813) ; while in the
works of Pursh (1814), Shecut (1806), Le Conte (1811), and Bige-

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF B. E. MUHLENBERG. 691

low (1814) is incorporated matter borrowed from the results of
his researches.

It thus appears that the field of the present Atlantic Middle
States had been explored with considerable energy before Muh-
lenberg's time. New species of plants had been discovered and
additional information had been gained concerning species al-
ready known. The scientific value of these observations, attested
by the herbariums which still exist, and by what Muhlenberg
furnished for publication, is enhanced and interest is added to
them by a careful perusal of Muhlenberg's correspondence, a
part of which he kept and is now preserved by the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania. These letters— some from European
naturalists and others from American — were written in the last
sixteen years of the eighteenth century and the first and part of
the second decades of the nineteenth, and are often annotated
with Muhlenberg's remarks. Of his own letters only a few copies
are present, chiefly those which he wrote between 179] and 1794
to Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Ipswich, Mass. Further, a number of
letters from various students and note-books, botanical notices,
descriptions, and outlines in Muhlenberg's handwriting are in the
possession of his descendants, or have been handed over by them
to scientific societies.

The note-books bear witness to the earnestness with which
Muhlenberg took up and pursued his botanical studies after his
flight from Philadelphia. During the year 1778 may be found
numerous descriptions of plants like that of Eiipaforiinn purpu-
reum, trumpetseed or gravel root ; to which are added such notes
as " is probably Eupatorium {altissimum)." Doubtful remarks of
the kind abound. " Is it probably Actea ? " " It may be Azalea ? "
" Perhaps it is Convallaria ? " It is evident from such notes that
Muhlenberg had not advanced far in acquaintance with the wild
plants in the summer of 1778. In the same year he seems to have
drawn up a plan of studies by the systematic execution of
which he could hardly fail to acquire the desired knowledge. Its
most notable points are as follows : " How may I best advance
myself in the knowledge of plants ? It is winter, and there is
little to do. In winter I must select such plants as I can easily
remove. . . . Toward spring I should go out and form a chronol-
ogy of the trees, how they come out, and of the flowers, how they
appear, one after another. ... I should especially remark the
flowers and fruit ; and there are many other circumstances, but
none quite so essential.

" 1. The flower, the time, the part of the plant it stands on,
whether there are stamens, and how many ; the pollen ; whether
there are pistils, and how many ; their shape ; whether and how there
is a corolla ; its color and shape ; whether and how there is a calyx.

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

" 2. Wliat sort of a seed, and what kind of a fruit.

" 3. How the plant appears otherwise ; its root ; its stem, if it
has any ; and its leaves.

" 4. To make remarks on the occasional peculiarities of the
plant ; of my own on the smell, taste, etc., and of what others
say, of which one story in a hundred may be true.

" If I could make an herbarium in whole or in part, it would be
so much the better. I might plant the more important specimens
in my garden. A good friend, who has the knowledge and the
disposition to help me, would be of great advantage (Mr. Young,
three miles from here).

" Materials to be taken on excursions : An inkstand, with pen
and paper, and a box to carry my plants in safely. And when
possible, a microscope. Besides the box a few sheets of paper
stitched together in folio, in which to lay the plants and carry
them ; to be tied up in front."

It was not long before Muhlenberg became engaged in corre-
spondence with other botanists. Dr. Johann David Schopf, an
officer of the Hessian troops stationed in New York during the
Revolutionary War, who traveled through the Eastern States to
Florida, after the conclusion of peace, in search of medicinal
plants, became acquainted with Muhlenberg and was assisted by
him. After his return to Germany he was the occasion of a cor-
respondence between Muhlenberg and Prof. Schreber, of Er-
langen, and this was followed by exchanges of letters with other
eminent botanists in Germany, England, France, and Sweden, as
well as with Americans.

Like a true naturalist, Muhlenberg continued to exercise the
greatest care and thoroughness in observation and research. A
botanical excursion and note book of 1785 contains the following
plan of work :

" This year I shall again keep a calendar of all plants as I may
observe them, especially when in bloom. When I am quite cer-
tain, I shall set down only the Linn^ean name ; when not quite
certain, I shall make a full description. Especially shall I try to
complete the descriptions of 1789 in those kinds of plants in which
many species are most exact. As I very carefully explored this
region last year, I shall this year visit other regions, namely : 1.
The mountains on the Susquehanna, in May and July. 2. The
mountains called Chestnut Mountains, also twice, etc. I must
further call upon apothecaries and take other pains to learn the
officinal plants, their virtues and their common names. I must
this year pay particular attention to the seeds, and especially to
describe all herbs as completely and exactly as possible, especially
when I am not wholly certain. I shall give particular attention
to those of which there are many species, such as asclepias, con-

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG. 693

volvulus, serratula, aster, solidago, and all the ferns. . . . The
seed vessels and seeds are very important for the genus and
species, and I must therefore give careful attention to them." He
also indicates here as one of his purposes, besides the native
plants, to observe all the exotics, whether they need protection in
winter or are completely acclimated.

In the spring of 1791 he was able to inform Dr. Cutler that he
had collected more than eleven hundred different plants in a cir-
cuit of about three miles from Lancaster, and that he was devot-
ing himself to the collection of material concerning their medici-
nal and economical applications. In a later letter, November 8,
1791, he wrote : " I am collecting, as far as possible, all I can learn
concerning the medicinal and economical uses of our plants and
am writing it down. If the medicinal application seems to be
sufficiently confirmed from different sides, and agrees with the
character of the plant, I either try it on myself or commend it to
my friends. I raise most of the grasses in my garden, and experi-
ment how often they can be cut, and whether they are readily
eaten by horses or cattle." These grasses numbered at the begin-
ning of 1798 one hundred and fi.fty-six species, including many
introduced ones, and among them were a large number of new
species and at least one new genus. This collecting and testing
of grasses is mentioned in other letters. An exchange seems to
have been arranged with Prof. Schreber, of American plants for
foreign grasses ; and, besides mosses, grasses of New England were
obtained from Dr. Cutler, especially such as grew near the sea.

Some of these notes on the medicinal properties of plants,
Muhlenberg says, were furnished to Dr. Schopf for use in his
contemplated work on American Materia Medica. Although the
author of that work, which was published in 1787, acknowledged
indebtedness for information to several other American botanists,
he does not give Muhlenberg's name — a most ungrateful omission.
A similar case occurred in connection with an American book.
When Muhlenberg first saw a copy of Bigelow's Medical Botany,
he could not help remarking to his son, after looking through it,
" This gentleman has appropriated to himself all my explanations,
without making any acknowledgment." But he never called
public attention to this, and there were other such trespasses
which were also let pass unnoticed.

In July, 1785, Muhlenberg communicated to the American
Philosophical Society an outline of a Flora Lancastriensis (flora
of Lancaster) containing the results of his own observations on
the plants and their habits. At the same time he presented a
manuscript Calendar of Flowers. In February, 1791, he com-
municated the Index Flora Lancastriensis (Index to the Flora of
Lancaster). This was published in the third volume of the first

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

series of the Transactions of the society. It is arranged according
to the Linnsean system and contains four hundred and fifty-four
genera with nearly eleven hundred species, including both wild and
cultivated plants. Of the naming of these plants, Muhlenberg re-
marked in a note : " When I found no name in Linngeus's system,
I took a name from other recently published works, or from the
letters of Dr. Schreber, with whom I kept up a correspondence.
When I found no name in this way, I was obliged to give one
myself and to add to it N. S., till better information came from
more capable botanists." The cryptogamous plants are repre-
sented in this index by twenty-five genera with one hundred and
twenty-five species. The work, as its name implies, consists
merely of the enumeration of the species observed, without
description or indication of their habits or uses. A supplement
to this index, presented to the American Philosophical Society in
September, 179G, and published in the fourth volume of its Trans-
actions, contained forty-four additional genera with sixty-two
species of phanerogams, of which nine were hitherto unknown
species of grasses; while the cryptogams were further repre-
sented by two hundred and twenty-six additional species, belong-
ing to twenty-nine genera.

Muhlenberg perceived very early in his botanical studies how
great confusion was likely to arise if names were conferred upon
plants supposed to be new, without considering whether they
might not have been previously identified and named by others.
We have already described the painstaking care he took in his
own notes to find the correct names of his specimens. While he
was critical of the work of others, he was always ready to recog-
nize their merit, and to make allowance for their imperfections.
He wrote to Dr. Cutler of his work on the Useful Plants of New
England that, although the author regarded it as immature, " it
was of great use to me, and I was very much pleased with it.
Every beginning will be imperfect, especially in a new country,
and I have not yet read any botanical work without errors.
Even Linna3us's works, which were prepared with so much in-
dustry, are full of them." In another place he wrote : " Herr
Alton,* in my opinion, makes too many sj^ecies out of varieties ;
for instance, his asters and goldenrods. We must expect such
things when descriptions are made from specimens taken from a
garden instead of from their natural habitats, where plants grow
numerously and in various soils." Other criticisms of similar
tenor may be taken from his letters, all made from the point of
view of exactness in identification and description.

Freedom from self-glorification and from solicitude for the

* In his Hortus Kewensis, 1'789.

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG. 695

recognition of his work are patent in all liis writings and trans-
actions. When Dr. Barton announced, in 1791, his illustrated
Flora of Pennsylvania as in preparation, Muhlenberg concluded
that as that author had seen his manuscripts and herbarium, it
would not be necessary for him to publish anything except a few
additional notes which he might make during the year, and a
Floral Calendar. "Excuse my enthusiasm for science," he wrote
to Dr. Cutler, in 1792, "which has given me so many pleasant
hours, and which, I know, has been cultivated by you with great
success. Botany needs your co-operation, and when you have pre-
pared a full table, please leave a few fragments for me." It was
this readiness to give credit to the merit of others, combined with
his clear vision of the confusion that threatened to arise from the
continuance of planless labors, that decided him as early as 1785
to bring out a plan for common labor in making up the Flora of
North America. He came to the Philosophical Society again in
1790 or 1791 with this plan. " I repeat," he writes, "my formerly
expressed desire that a number of my learned countrymen should
unite in botanical investigation and send in their floras to the
society for revision and publication, so that by combination of the
floras of the different States we may obtain a flora of the United
States which shall rest on good and definite observations." While
this plan was not carried into execution through the medium of
the American Philosophical Society, Muhlenberg again and again
returned to it in his extensive correspondence. Thus he wrote :
" Others should do the same (that is, search out the flora of the
neighborhood of their homes), and, after collecting material for a
dozen years, let a Flora of North America be written." Further,
" I first sent in a sketch, and in 1790 an index of all the plants that
grow here, in the expectation that my botanical friends would join
in working up the floras of their several States, so that in about
ten years a more general work might be undertaken." And in
another place : " If the botanists continue to proceed in the way
they are going, in a few years all will be confusion. In order to
be sure, we should confer with one another. For this purpose I
have printed my Index before publishing full descriptions." A
letter to Dr. Cutler, of November 12, 1792, goes more into particu-
lars ; it reads : " You have made the beginning of a Flora of New
England, and all friends of botany wish that you would go on and
complete the work. Let each of our American botanists do some-
thing, and the wealth of America would soon be recognized.
Michaux should do South Carolina and Georgia ; Kromsch, North
Carolina ; Greenway, Virginia and Maryland ; Barton, New Jer-
sey, Delaware, and the lower parts of Pennsylvania ; Bartram,
Marshall, and Muhlenberg, each his neighborhood ; Mitchell, New
York ; and you, with the Northern botanists, your States. How

696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mucli might tlien be accomplished. If, then, one of our younger
associates — Dr. Barton, for instance, whose specialty it is — would
combine the different floras into one, how pleasant it would be for
the botanical world ! I have written to nearly all the persons
named above, and hope to receive their concurrence. Let me
know your views about it." Dr. Cutler gave the scheme his unre-
served aj^proval.

This plan was not carried out. Instead of it, Andr^ Michaux
worked the combined collections of his eleven years' travels in
the United States, through the French botanist Richard, into a
Flora of North America, and it appeared in Paris in 1803, one year
after the author's death in Madagascar.

The publication of this flora did not change Muhlenberg's
view of the necessity of comparative work in co-operation, and in
order to bring it a step nearer he decided in 1809 to write a cata-
logue of the then known native and naturalized plants of North
America {Catalogus Plantarum AmericcB Septentrionalis, hue
usque cognitarum hidigenarum et cicui'um), the printing of which
was finished after nearly nine months of work, at the end of July,
1813. While Michaux had described about fifteen hundred flow-
ering plants and ferns, Muhlenberg was able ten years later to
exhibit more, than double the number of species, and besides these
to add, from specimens mostly collected in Pennsylvania, 175
mosses, 39 liverworts, o2 algae, 176 lichens, and 305 fungi, in all
727 species. The Compositm comprised in Michaux 193 species, in
Muhlenberg 410.

Muhlenberg conscientiously named not only the books which
he had used in the determination of his collected plants, but also
the twenty-eight correspondents in different parts of the United
States who had assisted him in his researches by sending plants
or seeds. The work gives, besides the botanical and English
names, only the numbers of the several parts of the flower, the
color of the corolla, the character of tlie fruit, the locality, and
the time of flowering, all as briefly as possible.

At the same time a complete description of the plants growing
around Lancaster had been ready to print for years ; likewise a
complete description of all the other North American plants which
Muhlenberg had himself seen and arranged in his herbarium.
These descriptions were consequently based entirely on his own
knowledge, and had, therefore, especial value. Unfortunately,
they have not been published.

A part of one of these works, comprising the grasses, was
printed in 1817, two years after the author's death, under the
title Descriptio uberior Graminum (Fuller Description of Grasses).
The manuscript of it was presented by Zaccheus Collins, a friend
of Muhlenberg, to the American Philosophical Society in 1831.

SKETCH OF GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG. 697

The valuable lierbarium, for wliich Mulilenberg collected and
sorted for a full tliird of a century, was bought by a number of
his friends for a little more than five hundred dollars, and was
presented to the American Philosophical Society in February,
1818. It was then in good condition, but has, unfortunately, not
been well taken care of, and has become so decayed as to have
little if any more than historical value.

In considering the question of the value to science of these
labors of a whole lifetime, we should think first of the greater
clearness which resulted from them to the descriptive botany of
North America. Although Muhlenberg printed but little, and
although he often lost the claim to priority through being antici-
pated in publication by less reserved botanists, yet we find in
Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States about
one hundred species and varieties which were first established as
such by him, and besides them a nearly equal number which were
either assigned afterward to other genera, or with which, on the
principle of priority in publication, the names given by other
botanists were retained. This is really an admirable result, con-
sidering the zeal of collectors and hunters before and during
Muhlenberg's time, and the limited extent of the field which he
was able personally to examine. His services have also been well
recognized by botanists. A goldenrod was given by Torrey
and Gray the name Solidago Muhlenhergii ; Grisebach named a
centaury Erythrcea Muhlenhergii ; a small willow was called by
Barratt Salix Muhlenhergii; and Gray gave the name Muhlen-
hergii to a species of reed or sedge. Two mosses of the genera
Phascuni and Funaria were named after Muhlenberg by Schwartz ;
two lichens of the genera Umhilicaria and Gyrophora by Acha-
rius ; and a fungus of the genus Dothidea by Elliott.

About half of the plant names given by Muhlenberg which
are now recognized belong to the reeds and the grasses, Cyperacece,
and Graminece, in the study of which he was supported by Schre-
ber. One of the first new genera of grasses observed by him, to
which belong seven species in the Northern floral region of the
United States, and a still larger number of other species in the
other States and Territories, was given the name Muhlenhergia
by Schreber. At least five species of this genus, which have not
become domiciled east of the Mississippi, are known in Colorado.

This review of Muhlenberg's botanical work would not be com-
plete without special mention of his scientific correspondence, his
personal intercourse with naturalists, and the honors he received.
Among his foreign correspondents were Dillenius, Hedwig, Hoff-
mann, Persoon, Pursh, Smith, Schopf, Schreber, Sturm, Willde-
now, William Alton, of Kew ; Batsch, the mycologist ; Palisot de
Beauvoir in Paris, and Dr. Thibaud in Montpellier; Christian

698 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Ludwig Sclikulir, of Wittenberg, an eminent cryptogamist ; Pro-
fessor and Medical Counselor Heinrich. Adolpli Schrader, of
Gottingen ; Kurt Sprengel, professor of medicine and botanist at
Halle ; and Prof. Olof Swartz, one of Linnseus's most eminent
pupils. Among the twenty-eiglit home correspondents mentioned
by Muhlenberg in the preface to his catalogue are the Rev. Chris-
tian Denke^ of Nazareth, Pa., the Rev. Samuel Kramph, of iSTorth
Carolina, the Moravian bishop Jacob Van Vleck, and Dr. Chris-
topher Miiller, of Harmony, Pa. One of the most valued was Dr.
Baldwin, of South Carolina, and Muhlenberg's letters to him have
been published by William Darlington, in a volume entitled Bald-
winiana. All or nearly all these correspondents were entertained
by him in his home at Lancaster, which was open to all students
of plants, and was usually visited by them when they came to
Philadelphia. Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland
sought him there on their return from their long sojourn in Span-
ish America ; and Humboldt's letter acknowledging his hospital-
ity is the last which that master in science wrote in America.

Learned societies and institutions likewise covered him with
their honors. The University of Pennsylvania gave him the de-
gree of Master of Arts in 1780 ; Princeton College, that of Doctor
of Divinity in 1787. He was elected a member of the American
Philosophical Society on January 22, 1785, along with Joseph
Priestley and James Madison. Of other societies he received
diplomas: from the Imperial Academy of Erlangen, 1791; the
Society of Friends of Natural History, Berlin, 1798 ; the Westpha-
lian Natural History Society, 1798 ; the Phytographic Society of
Gottingen, 1802 ; the Physical Society of Gottingen, 1802 ; the
Linnsean Society of Philadelphia, 1809 ; the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, 181-4 ; the Society for the Promotion of
the Useful Arts, Albany, N. Y., 1815 ; the Physiographical So-
ciety of Lund, Sweden, 1815; and the New York Historical So-
ciety, April 12, 1815, not quite six weeks before his death.

Introducing the description of a JMulilenhergia in the second
volume of his work on the Grasses, Prof. Schreber wrote : " The
genus of which this remarkable grass is on account of its beauty
and of the particularly curious structure of its organs of fructifi-
cation one of the most notable species, received its name from me
when I published the new edition of the Genera Plantarum of
the honored Linnteus, after my most revered friend Dr. Heinrich
Muhlenberg, evangelical preacher at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and
President of Franklin College there, and also an eminent member
of many learned societies ; who has, through the discovery of nu-
merous new species and in other ways, rendered immortal service to
the natural history of North America, and especially to the knowl-
edge of the plants of Pennsylvania and the other United States.'^

CORRESP ONDENCE.

699

CORRESPOJfDENCE.

ARTIFICIAL STIMULATION OF TRUSTS.
Editor Pojyular Science Monthly :

SIR : On reading Mr. McPherson's paper
in your July number, and in view of the
present strike, I am more than ever impressed
with the social importance of the central
idea which I endeavored to set forth in a
paper, Corporations and Trusts, sent for
your consideration last winter. At this time
I desire to call your attention to what seems
to me to be an entirely unwarrantable posi-
tion assumed by Mr. McPherson.

After showing that there is a general
tendency toward specialization by the evo-
lutionary working of natural laws, he assumes
that it has been and is wise to still further
specialize by formation of corporations and
trusts — that is, by artificial means. On page
296 he says, " This industrial aggregation is
a natural and inevitable step of industrial
evolution that therefore can not be but bene-
ficial in Its final results." So far as the ag-
gregation is the result of natural laws, not
statutory laws, this may be so ; but to the
natural aggregation, with the hardships and
advantages incident thereto, there has all
along been an unnatural aggregating power
at work. I refer to the laws permitting the
formation of corporations for business pur-
poses. I hold that natural processes weed
out the weak and unfitted fast enough and
with sufficient attendant pain and contention.
Natural aggregation and natural competition
may be well, and their results on the whole
are probably beneficial ; but citing facts in
proof of these things, or calling our attention
to evolutionary doctrines of what natural
laws have accomplished, does not even tend
to prove that legislative enactments help to
produce a beneficial aggregation or speciali-
zation. The sociological part of evolution
comes pretty near establishing that all such
enactments are of very doubtful propriety.
That the law permitting the formation of
corporations for business purposes has been
more productive of bad than good results
seems to me very probable, and that there-
fore it is relatively ivrong, and never intend-
ed, on the whole, to produce " beneficial re-
sults," or "aggregations" that were bene-
ficial.

Mr. McPherson certainly fails to show
any such beneficial results and proofs there-
of. The fact is that natural laws are exact,
and the pain and pleasure or both are com-
mensurate, exact, and just, and tend to work
beneficially on the whole ; whereas any and
ail legal enactments are more or less inexact,
and no such perfect degree of justice, pain, and
pleasure follows ; frequently what follows z'.s
cdinosl wholly injustice.

For the great mass of people to accommo-
date themselves to this " aggregation " as
fast as natural laws would force it is to tax
them to their utmost limit of endurance ;
but when we artificially stimulate this " ag-
gregation" we have passed beyond their
power or ability to maintain their peace, and
strikes, bloodshed, and untold misery are
among the results. Much, if not all, of this
open contention and misery would be avoid-
ed if only the natural aggregating causes
produced effects. It is the artijicial "ag-
gregating" force of corporations that has
so overloaded the national stomach with its
"aggregations," combines, and trusts; and
now that stomach is in violent upheaval,
trying to free itself.

Free competition is well, and so are laws
preserving it in peace ; but laws which as-
sume to be able to help natural processes are
and always have been relatively bad, and in
some instances very bad.

If legislation permitting the formation
of private or business corporations has in-
creased the aggregating process and contrib-
uted to (or produced) the cause of trusts and
strikes — and Mr. McPherson seems to grant
that it has, which is just what I attempted
to show, among other things, in my paper
— then such legislation is something the
afflicted classes have just cause to com-
plain of.

The groat importance of the question,
and the suifering and the pending crisis, are
my excuses for calling your attention a sec-
ond time to this matter ; and, also, as I be-
lieve, when recognized, errors are not allowed
to go uncorrected in your monthly.
I remain very truly yours,

Charles Whedon.
MsDiNA, N. Y., Jid)j 10, 1804.

as^>.

7CO

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SOCIAL DISTURBANCES.

THE events of the last few months
in tliis country have certainly been
enough to rouse the most inditferent
citizen to serious reflection. In an al-
ready depressed condition of industry
and commerce we have had thousands
of men condemned by arbitrary action
to wholly unnecessary idleness, trade
in certain sections of the counti-y all
but parah'zed by the interruption of
commuuication, and property to the
value of millions of dollars destroyed.
As an accompaniment to all this there
has been considerable loss of life
through violence; and the heated pas-
sions of men have not stopped short
even of the most hideous aad diabolic-
al crime of train-wrecking. What fur-
ther developments the future may have
in store for us it is impossible to say ;
but it is hard to feel hopeful over the
prospect unless the public can be got to
look a little more deeply into the causes
of these troubles than hitherto they have
been accustomed to do.

It seems to us that the prevalent
liabit of regarding such disturbances as
arising entirely out of a strained rela-
tion between capital and labor is an
unfortunate one. Still more unfortu-
nate is it, and still wider of the mark,
when emotional people attribute all
such troubles to the tyranny of capital.
If capital were at all times to give way
to the demands of labor, capital would
cease to exist, and, population having
meanwhile increa.sed in a more than
ordinary ratio, general social penury
would be the result. Capital may be
said, without much abuse of metaphor,
to have the same instinct of self-preser-
vation that organic beings have: it will
fight for it.s life. To many people the
sight of a capitalist withstanding the
demands of his workmen suggests noth-

ing but inordinate selfishness and greed ;
but this is not the capitalist's view of
it ; what he feels — we are now suppos-
ing a typical case — is that he can not
meet those demands Avithout unduly
weakening himself and putting his men
in the position of getting more than the
market value for their labor. We do
not say, and are very far from thinking,
that capitalists never do selfish things.
Still less do we say, or think, that they
rise, as a rule, to the level of their so-
cial responsibilities ; but we wish to
affirm our opinion that capital is per-
fectly justified in acting on that instinct
of self-preservation already referred to,
seeing that it is a strictly limited quan-
tity and can not without risk of extinc-
tion take upon itself the burden of
satisfying the ever-expanding desires of
mankind. Human desires are like a
gas whose volume varies inversely with
the pressure to which it is subjected,
or, to state it otherwise, which expands
just as the pressure acting on it is re-
duced ; and to suppose that one set of
men should be able by successive con-
cessions to keep another much more
numerous set of men continually satis-
fied is to suppose what in the very na-
ture of the case is absurd.

Instead of perpetually canvassing the
supposed rival claims of capital and la-
bor it would be better if our social re-
formers would apply themselves to the
underlying question how it comes that
there is so much competition among the
so-called laboring classes for the kind of
employment which capitalists .supply.
The capitalists themselves do not create
the competition. If they yielded to all
the demands made upon them in the
matter of wages and hours, they might
be said to do, because then they would
be creating conditions which would
have a tendency to cause men to rush

EDITOR'S TABLE.

701

into their service. But tliey do noth-
ing of the kind: as ti rule they only
yield when they have to, and yet there
is generally more labor offering than
can be satisfactorily employed. Now,
this we consider to be the fundamental
social problem of our time; and yet we
do not find that it receives anything
like the attention it deserves and re-
quires. The labor organizations which
play so prominent a part in the modern
world seem to assume that labor will
always be in excess, and devote their
chief efforts to neutralizing by ai'titicial
means this natural disadvantage. Their
attitude toward capital is thus normally
a hostile one, even when actual hos-
tilities are not in j^rogress; and this
fact alone may account for not a little
of the friction which actually occurs in
the pi'actical relations between capital
and labor. To be always confronted
wiih a hostile force is not soothing to
the temper, and suggests at least de-
fensive, when it does not suggest off'en-
sive, measures. It would be better, as
it seems to us, if the labor organiza-
tions would cultivate less of the mili-
tant and more of the administrative
spirit, and would use the wide knowl-
edge they must necessarily acquire of
the conditions of the industrial world
to prevent the overcrowding of particu-
lar trades, and, in a general way, to
favor such a distribution of the work-
ing population as will tend most to
their welfare. As long as the capitalist
has only to blow his whistle, so to speak,
in order to get all the " hands " he re-
quires, the condition of the "hands"
will be one of more or less dependence
on him ; and therefore the true policy of
labor leaders is to try to so dispose of
the laboring population that they will
not be at the beck and call of capital,
but will have a much larger measure
than at present of social stability and
personal independence.

Just how this very desirable result
is to be brought about we are not pre-
pared to say ; but what strikes us is that

if more effort and thought had been de-
voted by the working classes, organized
as they are in unions which permit of
their best men coming to the front, to
problems of a constructive character,
and less to the planning of campaigns
and the devising of means by which the
least return in labor should be given for
the largest obtainable wage, they would
have been the better of it to-day. One
thing which they should long ago have
seen is the desirableness of their com-
plete separation from mere party poli-
tics, which, so far as they are concerned,
is a simple delusion and a snare. What
the workman wants is the simplest and
cheapest form of government, and, above
all, one under which no exceptional fa-
vors will be accorded to individuals or
classes. If he is not vvise enough to see
this, but falls a victim to the special
pleading used on behalf of preposterous
tariff laws, he can not lay the blame on
others; what he wants is understand-
ing, and, until he gets it, he will suffer.
A generally higher ideal of life would
stand the workman in good stead — an
ideal opposed to show and extravagance
and favorable to earnest endeavor for
intellectual and moral improvement. We
are no advocates for " starvation wages "
— far from it — but we can not overlook
the fact that what one individual con-
siders starvation wages will sometimes
sutiice for the comfort and self-respect
of another, the difference between the
two cases being one of personal habit.

As to the capitalist class, there is
this to be said, that the man of large
means, the lai'ge employer of labor who
does not interest himself in his men and
make the conditions of their labor as
profitable and satisfactory to them as
possible consistently with a due regard
to the stability of his business, is shame-
fully neglecting the duties which lie to
his hand. We have but a limited belief
in what is commonly known as philan-
thropy, but we believe in justice and
good will between man and man, and it
' should not be hard for the capitalist to

702

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

determine wLethcr he i:^ doing by tliose
Tinder him as, were he in their position,
he woidd wish, and might reasonably
ask, to be done by. This is an age in
wliich luxury runs wild. The capitalist
may faii'ly treat himself liberally ; but if
he has the true spirit of humanity about
him, he will not make of himself a
demigod or raise himself to Olympian
heights above the people. In saying
this we may be as the voice of one cry-
ing in the wilderness ; but if a message
has to be delivered, it is better to cry
out in the wilderness than not to cry
out at all. Socialism as a system of
govei'nment tills us with the most pro-
found apprehensions ; but, on the other
hand, there is a certain socialism of the
heart, if we may so express it, which
we woidd gladly do all in our power to
encourage — that feeling which leads a
man, be his station what it may, to con-
sider that he lives not for himself alone,
but for the good of society at large.
There is much said about the duties of
the rich, but it is doing the rich too
much honor to speak and write as if
they alone had social duties. The wel-
fare of society depends in the main on
the good citizenship of the multitude,
and not on anything the rich have it in
Iheir power to do. To them also it is
given to be good citizens; but the call
is not more imperative to them than to
those of average or scanty means. It is
au old, and ouglit to be au exploded,
fallacy that a single talent is not worth
improving. The social millennium will
come, if ever, when all the single talents
are being improved with a distinct, even
if only secondary, aim to the common
good.

ENDOWMENT OF BESEABCH.

A RECENT number of Nature con-
tains an article which begins by lament-
ing the neglect of the British Govern-
ment to make any adequate provision
for the carrying on of physical and
chemical research, and then goes on to

state that a wealthy manufacturer of
high scientific cidture. Dr. Ludwig
Mond, had purchased for the Royal In-
stitution a spacious building in which to
establish pliysical and chemical labora-
tories of the most approved kind, and
had undertaken to defray all expenses
connected with the equipment and main-
tenance thereof. Now, it seems to us
that Dr. Ludwig Mond's action in this
matter is highly commendable, and that
the action of the British Government in
leaving the establishment of such labo-
ratories to private enterprise and benefi-
cence is also commendable. It should
never be forgotten that whatever money
the Government spends comes from tax-
ation, and that tlie taxes are levied in
great part from tlie poor. "Whether,
then, is it better that the Government
should spend the proceeds of taxation
on such objects as these, or that intelli-
gent and cultivated men like Dr. Lud-
wig Mond, who have amassed great
wealth by the exercise of their talents,
should come forward and undertake the
duty? We say without hesitation that
the latter is far the better solution of
the question. If the Government were
to do everything of this kind, one of the
noblest uses to which private wealth can
be put would be at an end. Not only
so, but wealthy men woidd no longer
have any interest in studying the needs
of the community, and would be left
even more than they are at present to
indidgence in luxurj^ as tlie one means
of expressing tlie fact that they are
wealthy. If we want to redeem our
rich men from the vanity, inanity, and
vulgarity of self-indulgence and osten-
tation, the way to do it is for public
opinion to assign them social tasks suit-
ed to their means and opportunities ;
and this can not be done if the Govern-
ment is asked to shoulder all such re-
sponsibilities. All honor to men like
Ludwig Mond, who, without any spe-
cial urging, see what is required for the
public good and do it ! In this case
high intelligence goes hand in hand with

LITERARY NOTICES.

jo^

command of pecuniary means ; and there
is, therefore, reason to believe that what
is done under his direction will be well
done, and will not be marred or weak-
ened by the perfunctory spirit which so
often accompanies state action.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Factors in American Citilization. Popu-
lar Lectures and Discussions before the
Brooklyn Ethical Association. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 417. Price, $2.

This volume, the third in the series issued
by the Brooklyn Ethical Association, cer-
tainly does not fall below its predecessors in
interest or the range of its topics. Five of
the addresses relate to national life ; two
lectures are devoted respectively to com-
merce, the status of woman, and the labor
question ; while the subjects considered in
the remaining three papers are sufficiently
diverse — penal methods, charitable work, and
the drink habit.

Beginning with the idea of the nation.
Dr. De Garmo finds it to be the ultimate unit
in civilization. We advance by helping each
nation to unhampered development upon its
own lines, not by breaking down national
barriers. The discussion discloses that Mr.
Spencer's idea of government is often mis-
apprehended, especially when drawn from
old editions of Social Statics. Our American
civilization is, however, the product of numer-
oiis factors. The first of these in time, those
furnished by Nature, are described by Rev.
John Kimball, who agrees with Prof. Shaler
that even the boundaries of the civil war
may have been determined by the distribu-
tion of the Cretaceau limestone.

What America owes to the Old World is
epitomized by Mr. Palmer as everything ex-
cept itself. From England we inherit our
language, literature, trial by jury, and va-
rious institutions ; from the Netherlands, our
cherished ideas of religious tolerance, popu-
lar education, and the freedom of the press.
The written ballot is due to the same source,
the town meeting is (lermauic in its origin ;
while to Spain, France, and continental Eu-
rope we are indebted in other matters.

Dr. Janes shows what the military habit
costs us, contrasts the warlike and indus-

trial type, and leads us to question whether
the cultivation of the militant spirit pays.
Mr. Robert Taylor discourses upon the evo-
lution of railways and illustrates the great
progress made in transportation. To move
the freight of the United States in 1892
would have required five times the working
force of the world one thousand years ago.
Foreign commerce is ably handled by Mr.
Coombs, and is followed by the inevitable
discussion between the advocates of free
trade and protection.

An eloquent plea for the political equal-
ity of woman is made by Rev. Mr. Chadwick,
who remarks that if the objections to woman
suffrage could be shut up together by them-
selves they would dispose of each other.
Interesting statistics and suggestions in re-
gard to the economic position of woman are
also given by Caroline B. Le Row. Those
interested in charities will find a comprehen-
sive paper on the subject by Dr. Warner.
Elsewhere in the volume, in an essay upon
labor, Mr. Sullivan demands justice instead
of charity. From another standpoint Mr.
Gilman deals very fairly with the labor
question, and without " preaching profit-
sharing as a panacea for industrial woes "
still recommends it as an improvement upon
the wages system. A review of penal meth-
ods and institutions is contributed by Mr.
McKeen, and an investigation of the drink
habit by Dr. Crothers. Finally, philosophiz-
ing upon history, Mr. Powell concludes the
book.

The discussions following the lectures
and the lists of collateral readings suggested
contribute much to the value of the work.

The Yachts and Yachtsmen of America :
A Standard Work of Reference. Henry
A. MoTT, Editor. New York: Interna-
tional Yacht Publishing Company. Vol.
I. Pp. 692, with Eightv-nine" Plates.
Price, $15.

This sumptuous work is further defined
on the title-page as A History of Yachting and
of Yacht Clubs, as well as of the Various
Yachts, with Biographies of the Founders and
Members of the Different Clubs of the United
States and Canada. Yachtsmen of all clubs
have long desired to have a work for ready
reference, which, besides reliable information
relative to the yachts belonging to members
of their respective clubs, would give facts

704

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

relative to the yachts and yachtsmen of
other clubs. The purpose of this book is
to supply such information, and in addition
to furnish portraits and biographical sketches
of persons who have been and are promi-
nently connected with yachting, and of those
who have been instrumental in promoting
the best interests of yachting, as well as
illustrations of the various yachts, with de-
scriptions of the same, their dimensions, ca-
pacities, and records. A history is given of
each yacht club separately, with a statement
of what has been done by its members in
promoting the sport of yachting. In the
first chapter the evolution of the yacht is
described from the beginning with the first
presumed attempt of the stone-age savage
to propel himself upon a log, through the
stages of the catamaran, the hollowed log,
the dugout, the birch-bark canoe, the more
elaborate canoes of the South Seas and the
Indian Ocean, Egyptian, classical, and Yiking
ships, and the stages of modern shipbuild-
ing to the elaboration of the pleasure boat
or yacht of to-day. The history of yachting
is next given. Leaving out the ships of
Amnon in Jacob's time and the Argonauts'
ship Argo, which were business vessels, the
first yachts proper on record appear to have
been those of Ptolemy Philopater of Egypt
and Hiero King of Syracuse. After twelve of
the broad quarto pages of the book on the
history in general, twenty similar pages are
devoted to yachting in the United States.
Then follow chapters on the Cost of Yacht-
ing and Yacht Decorations ; Type of Yacht ;
Centerboard ; Rig of Yachts ; Speed Rec-
ords of Sailing Yachts ; Trophies ; History ;
Record of Races ; descriptions of yachts and
biographical sketches of members of the five
leading Canadian yacht clubs, and similar
information relative to thirty- eight yacht
clubs in the United States. The volume
contains more than six hundred photo-etch-
ings of yachts and clubhouses, nearly two
hundred half-tone vignettes of yachtsmen,
more than forty full-page half-tone portraits
of commodores, and a hundred full-page
photogravures of yachts and clubhouses. A
second volume is to contain a leading chap-
ter relative to the introduction of steam on
yachts and to vaiious otiier motor powers ; a
history of the America's Cup; histories of
such yacht clubs as do not appear in the

first volume; and photogravures and de-
scriptions of the vessels, cruisers, and war
ships of the American Navy.

Natural Theology. By Prof. Sir G. G.
Stokes. London : Adam and Charles
Black. Pp. 2n. Price, $1.50.

The second course of Gifford Lectures is
contained in this volume, the first series of
which was delivered and published in 1891.

According to the will of the founder, the
subject was to be treated as a strictly nat-
ural science, without reference to or reliance
upon any supposed exceptional or so-called
miraculous revelation.

Prof. Stokes has made no attempt to ful-
fill this requisition, stating at the close of the
course that the conception is hardly possible
to carry out in the manner contemplated, and
elsewhere that " any divorce between nat-
ural theology and revealed religion is to be
deprecated." He justifies his deviation from
the plan partly by an appeal to another
clause in the foundation, suggesting that the
lectures should be promoted and illustrated
by different minds.

There are ten addresses in all, the first
six giving what arguments are offered in
favor of theism. The first topic is the the-
ory of the luminiferous ether and the char-
acter of the proof for its credibility, a lesson
being drawn from this not to reject what
transcends sense experience and to provide
a favorable reception for the supernatural.
Secondly, it is argued, as the simple laws of
motion did not account for inorganic phe-
nomena, but to them were added various
theories from time to time, such as gravita-
tion and magnetism, so we are justified in
assuming some hypothesis for the construc-
tion of living matter which physical laws do
not fully explain : this is named the theory
of directionism. If also this individual di-
recting power be supposed, by whose influ-
ence the bodily molecules are brought to-
gether, we obtain some notion of survival
after death, since it is not subject to phys-
ical dissolution.

The exquisite construction of the " bacil-
lary layer" of the retina and the beauty of
color and marking found in plants and ani-
mals are adduced as evidences of design, and
the laws of chemical combination as testify-
ing to some scheme of creation including the

LITERARY NOTICES.

welfare of man. The " va?t array of primor-
dial atoms " as well as the beginning of life
upon the earth demand the exertion of cre-
ative power ; this, it is claimed, or even sub-
sequent creative acts, are not in conflict with
the process of evolution.

In the remaining lectures the author does
not enter upon a comparative study of re-
ligions, but confines himself to the claims of
Christianity.

Whatever may be said in favor of the
theistic arguments contained in the first part
of the book can scarcely be maintained in
regard to these deductions, wherein it is
urged that the Christian doctrine of the ori-
gin of man, his fall from a state of inno-
cence, the dogma of the Trinity, and the in-
dwelling of the S|jirit " satisfy certain aspi-
rations of natural theology."

The Dawn of Astronomy. By J. Norman
LocKYER, F. R. S., etc. New York and
London : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 432.
Price, $5.

It would be impossible to determine
whether the heavenly bodies aroused the
greater wonder in the ancients, who could
know but little of their real nature, or in us,
who have learned something of their immense
sizes, distances from the earth, and velocities
of motion. That the ancients were profound-
ly impressed by them, and were attentive ob-
servers of their phenomena, is being made
more and more evident by the advance of
archfeological research. While in Greece,
some four years ago, Prof. Lockyer became
interested in determining the orientation of
some of the Athenian temples. He found
reason to believe that these structures were
oriented upon an astronomical basis, and,
carrying the investigation back to the works
of the ancient Egyptians, discovered the
abundant evidence in support of his supposi-
tion which IS embodied in the handsome vol-
ume before us. The great temple of Amen-
Ra at Karnak faces the sunset at the time
of the summer solstice. A stone avenue
stretches through the axis of the temple
for five hundred yards, and throughout all
the halls of the building nothing was al-
lowed to obstruct the view through this
avenue toward the point where the sim
dropped below the horizon on the longest day
of the year. Other temples elsewhere were

VOL, XLV — 52

oriented toward the same point. Still others
appear to have been oriented with reference
to stars. Ruins of old temples have been
found and beside them a less ancient struc-
ture with an axis pointing in a somewhat
different direction. Inasmuch as stars change
their declinations about a degree in three
hundred years, this circumstance of a changed
axis in the new temple strongly supports the
theory of stellar orientation. Many similar
facts are given by Prof. Lockyer, and in con-
nection with them he sets forth the astro-
nomical basis of the Egyptian pantheon, de-
scribes the Egyptian calendar, and constructs,
from the various monuments, inscriptions,
and other available material, a chronicle of
the succession of moon cult to sun cult, and
of the mingling of these together and with
various star cults, as successive waves of
population inundated the valley of the Nile.
The volume is copiously illustrated with vieivs
of temples and other monuments, figures of
gods, diagrams, etc.

Sewage Disposal in the United States. By
George W. Rafter, M. Am. Soc. C. E.,
and M. N. Baker, Ph. B. New York : D.
Van Nostrand Co. Pp. 598. Price, $6.

This substantial volume embodies a com-
prehensive survey of the operations for the dis-
posal of sewage that have been carried on in
the United States. The conditions and needs
governing sewage disposal in this country
being somewhat different from those existing
abroad, the authors beUeve that the infor-
mation which they have gathered will be of
peculiar benefit to American sanitary officials
and engineers. The work is divided into
two parts, the former of which is a discus-
sion of piinciples, while the latter consists
of descriptions of works. The practice of
discharging sewage into fresh -water streams
and lakes from which the water supplies of
towns are taken has given rise to many of
the most perplexing problems that sanitary
engineers have had . to deal with. Accoid-
ingly, the pollution of streams by sewage and
manufacturers' waste and the self-purification
of streams thus polluted are among the ear-
liest topics treated in this work, their legal
as well as their scientific aspects being duly
considered. The authors regard as not
proved the assertion that polluted streams
are rendered fit for drinking by natural agen-

7o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

cies in the course of a few miles' flow. They
see no objection to discharge into tide-waters
or large lakes, and meet the argument as to
waste of material by stating that the organic
matter in sewage serves as food for low forms
of animal life, which in turn sustain food
fishes. The various modes of treating sew-
age— by chemical precipitation, broad irri-
gation, and intermittent filtration — are then
described. Since rye grass, one of the spe-
cies of useful plants that succeed best on
sewage farms, does not cure easily, but may
be readily preserved by ensilage, the silo
beomes a valuable adjunct to the sewage
works. In the portion of the volume de-
voted to descriptions of works, the establish-
ments at more than twenty places are de-
scribed with considerable detail and with
figures, maps, and diagrams. There are also
brief accounts of the use of sewage for ir-
rigation at a number of places in the West.
Various laws and codes of rules regulating
the disposal of sewage in the United States
and England are given in appendixes.

A Handbook of Gold Milling. By Henry

Louis. London and New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 504. Price, $3.25.

But few arts remain that have not been
brought under the sway of science, with the
result of securing improved products, a re-
duction of waste, lessened drudgery for
man and beast, or an increased return for
the same amount of effort. The separation
of gold from the rock and gravel in which it
occurs was carried on by wasteful empiric
methods so long as rich deposits were avail-
able, but now that lower-grade ores must be
largely depended upon, a disposition to
work in the light of exact knowledge is be-
coming manifest. The present volume is
designed to aid in the technical instruction
of gold millers. It gives no space to the
separating operations connected with hy-
draulic mining, the stamp mill being its only
theme. After some preliminary chapters on
the occurrence of gold, the properties of
gold and mercury, and the formation of
amalgams, the processes and appliances for
the several steps of the modern milling pro-
cess are taken up in order. Rock breakers,
mortar boxes, stamps, frames, guides, and
their various accessories are described and
are illustrated in views and detailed draw-

ings. The processes of amalgamation, con-
centration, cleaning-up, and the cleaning,
retorting, and melting of the amalgam are
then discussed and the appliances required
for them are set forth. Some information is
given with regard to the cost of milling,
labor, power, sampling, and assaying of ore,
etc., and several useful tables together with
an essay on the cam curve are contained in
an appendix.

The Industries of Russia. Prepared by
the Department of Trade and Manufac-
tures, Ministry of Finance, for the World's
Columbian Exposition. Editor of the
English translation, John Martin Craw-
ford, U. S. Consul General to Russia.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, Ameri-
can Agents. Five volumes. Price, $6.

The Russian Empire took an active part
in the exhibition of 1893 at Chicago. Wish-
ing to afford the American people a fuller
idea of the industrial capabilities of Russia
than the material exhibit of that country
could convey, the Imperial Minister of Fi-
nance caused to be prepared this series of
volumes which comprise sketches, by espe-
cially qualified writers, of the several chief
industries of the empire. The first volume
is devoted to manufactures and trade, and
opens with a general view of this field by
the distinguished chemist, Prof. D. 1. Men-
deleeff, who also contributes papers on the
chemical industry and naphtha to this vol-
ume. Papers on the various textiles are
furnished by N. P. Langovoy, professor in
the St. Petersburg Technological Institute,
and others on paper, leather, metals, glass,
food products, tobacco, spirits, shipbuilding,
etc., are contributed by other writers. Of a
more general scope are the essaj's on the in-
terior trade and fairs of Russia, the for-
eign trade, wages and working hours in
factories, tariff systems, etc. The third vol-
ume, which is the largest of the five, con-
taining over five hundred pages, is devoted
to agriculture and forestry, the various
features of these industries being treated by
a large number of sjjecial writers. Mining
and metallurgy are treated in a volume of a
hundred pages by Mr. A. Keppen, mining
engineer. The fifth volume is devoted to
Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway, giv-
ing a description of the country and its re-
sources, the history of its occupation by

LITERARY NOTICES.

707

Russia, and an account of the preliminary
work on the railway. The writers of all
parts of these volumes have a special acquaint-
ance with then- respective subjects through
a connection with technical institutions or
the Government service. Tables of statis-
tics and many colored maps add to the value
of the work.

Elementary Meteorology. By William
Morris Davis. Boston : Ginn & Com-
pany. Pp. 365. Price, $2.10.

This treatise, which is the outcome of
fifteen years of teaching and study in Har-
vard College may be used either as a text-
book or for general reading. It opens with
a consideration of the origin and uses of the
atmosphere, with its extent and arrange-
ment around the earth. As the winds arise
from differences of temperature, the control
of the temperature of the atmosphere by
the sun is then discussed. The motions of
the atmosphere and its varying quantities of
moisture are next studied. After this we
are led to the discussion of those more or
less frequent disturbances which we place
together under the name of storms. The
closing chapters deal with the ordinary suc-
cession of atmospheric phenomena on which
our local variations of weather depend, and
the average conditions which, repeated year
after year, we call climate. Some account is
also g'ven of the methods employed in pre-
dicting the weather. The text is illustrated
with maps, diagrams, and cuts of apparatus.

Appearance and Reality : A Metaphys-
ical Essay. By F. H. Bradley, M. A.,
LL. D., Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
London : Swan, Sonuenschein & Co. New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxiv -1-568.
Price, $1.76.

A decidedly ingenious volume, and, to
employ a schoolboy term, brimful of " cris-
cross " reasonings. Though few names are
mentioned, nearly all the great thinkers come
under the author's knife. In fact, as the au-
thor intimates, to read the work intelligently,
one must have read and widely. It is rather
favorable than otherwise to allege, of almost
every page within the covers, that the i-eader
will doubtless, here and there, discover him-
self uttering two ejaculations, viz.. How does
the author know '? and. Well reasoned for so
ingenious a query ! Indeed, at every step

we encounter a forest of questions in a field
of doubt. At the very opening, the critic is
not only disarmed, but Prof. Bradley comes
to his own rescue with his own sword, for he
" would rather keep " his " natural place as a
learner among learners." Hence, " if any-
thing in these pages suggests a more dog-
matic frame of mind " he " would ask the
reader not hastily to adopt that suggestion.
I offer him," he says, " a set of opinions and
ideas in part certainly wrong, but where and
how much I am unable to tell him. That is
for him to find out if he cares to, and if he
can." The chief aim of the book is to sup-
ply " a skeptical study of First Principles."
So, the student, with this in mind, proceeds
to ask how can there be, as alleged (preface),
any " positive function of the universe,"
when " outside of spirit there is not and
there can not be any reality " (closing lines,
page 562); yet withal, " spiiit " is nowhere
in the book defined, while things around us
that are generally accepted as real are (page
12*7) no "more than mere appearance."
These passages detached from the text
might constitute a partial injustice were
they not the main makes-up of the author's
labors. While paradoxes in philosophy are
in the aggregate not desirable, they some-
times serve a useful end, and, on the like
plane, perplexities in logic may have a place
for those who care to pursue the narrow and
thorfiy path to their hiding. One thing,
though not stated, is clearly enough per-
ceptible in a perusal of Appearance and
Reality : the universe is to each one accord-
ing to his faculties, and even the earthworm
has its world. Instead of taking to the
ocean to reach the author's distant shore, he
might have landed us in a nutshell across
some surer though narrower channel. The
work contains twenty-seven chapters, is di-
vided into two books, and constitutes one in
Sei'ies No. 3 of the Library of Philosophy.

In a lecture on The Status of the Mind
Problem^ Mr. Lester F. Ward, of Washing-
ton, predicates the dependence of mind and
body while carefully avoiding the predi-
cation of their identity. Concerning the
" mystery of mind," he offers the simple ex-
planation that " the phenomena of mind
stand in the same relation to the brain and
nervous system that all other phenomena

7o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stand to the substances that produce them ;
in a word, that the mind is a property of the
organized body." Mind is no more a mys-
tery than matter, except that its phenomena
being more complex, we possess as yet much
less knowledge of them than we do of many
of the simpler phenomena of Nature.

The Reoort of the United States Commis-
sioner of Fish and Fishenes for 1889 to 1891
contains, besides the summary of the work of
the commission and its different stations, re-
ports by Richard Rathbun of the Inquiry re
specting Food Fishes and the Fishing Grounds,
and by Hugh M. Smith regarding the Methods
and Statistics of the Fisheries ; and, in the
Appendices, reports, by Z. L. Tanner, on the
Investigations of the Steamer Albatross ; by
C. T. Townsend, on the Oyster Resources and
Oyster Fishery of the Pacific Coast of the
United States ; and by C. H. Stevenson, on
the Coast Fisheries of Texas ; with papers on
the Sparoid Fishes of America and Europe,
by D. S. Jordan and Bertt Fisher ; Fish En-
tozoa from Yellowstone Park, by Edward Lin-
ton ; and Ernst Haeckel's Plankton Studies
on the Importance and Constitution of the
Pelagic Fauna and Flora (translated by G.
W. Field).

A pamphlet by Mr. Alexis A. Julien, en-
titled Notes of Research on the New York
Obelisk, contains, under the significant title
of Misfortunes of an Obelisk, a history of
the obelisk in Central Park from the time it
was quarried at Syene till it was brought
and erected in its present position ; together
^^ ith a Study of the New York Obelisk as a
Decayed Bowlder. The author regards the
obelisk as liable to rapid decay in our damp
and variable climate, and his chief object
appears to be to discover the best means of
arresting its disintegration. He approves of
the paraffin treatment that has been applied
to it, but believes, and seeks to demonstrate,
that it was originally gilded ; and that if
again covered with gold it will be restored
to its first estate and be most effectually pro-
tected against further deterioration.

From Romcyn Hitchcock, Chicago, 111., we
have of his contributions to the United
States National Museum The Ainos of Yezo,
Japan — one of the most satisfactory and
valuable works on the subject that has ap-
peared ; The Ancient Pit Duellers of Yezo,
Japan ; Shinto, or the Mythology of the Japa-

nese ; The Ancient Burial Mounds of Japan' ;
and Some Ancient Relics in Japan.

The first paper, and the one occupying
the most space, in the Archivos do Museo
Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (Archives of the
National Museum of Rio de Janeiro), is by
Dr. Emilio Augusto Goldi, On a Disease of
the Coffee Tree in the State of Rio de Ja-
neiro, which is produced by a nematoid
worm, Mcloidogne exigua. Dr. Fritz Miiller
describes the metamorphoses of Trichodac-
fylus, a fresh-water crustacean, and furnishes
besides papers on Janira exul, an isopod
crustacean of the State of Santa Cattarina,
and two shrimps — Atyoida j)otimirum and
Palcemon pofiuna ; and Dr. Hermann von
Shering contributes a description and anat-
omy of Peltclla.

The Journal of Morphology, under the
editorial conduct of Prof. C. 0. Whitman
and Mr. Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., continues
to furnish the best results of the most care-
ful researches in the branch to which it is
devoted. No. 2 of Vol. VIII (May, 1893)
contains the second part of Pi'of. J. S. King-
ley's study of The Embryology of Limulus ;
The Habits and Development of the Newt,
by Edwin 0. Jordan ; The Formation of the
Medullary Groove in the Elasmobranchs, by
WilUam A. Lucy ; Biological Changes in the
Spleen of the Frog, by Alice L. Gaule ; His-
togenesis of the Retina in Amblystoma and
Necturus, by F. Mall ; and Homology of the
Centrosome, by S. Watase. All these arti-
cles are sui,tably illustrated in the plates.

No. 2 of Vol. I of the Contributions to
the Botanical Laboratory of the University
of Pennsylvania is devoted to a Botanical
and Economic Study of Maize, by John W.
Harshberger. The botanical account, under
which are included gross anatomy, histology,
bibliography, synonyms, and name, is fol-
lowed by a discussion of the origin of maize,
with evidences afforded by meteorology,
botany, archteology, ethnology, philology, and
history ; after which its geographical dis-
tribution, chemistry, agriculture, physiology,
utility, and future are considered.

The paper of Mr. William Trelea^e, of the
Missouri Botanic Garden, St. Louis, on The
Sugar Maples, with a Wilder Synopsis of all
North American Maples, is devoted, first, to
the identification and description of the va-
rieties which are known in different parts of

LITERARY NOTICES.

709

the country as sugar maples ; and, second, to
a detailed botanical description of the winter
appearance of the several species of maple '1
giving the characters of bark, color, etc., of
twigs, buds, and other marks apparent in
winter by which the species may be distin-
guished at that season. The leaves, seeding,
and buds of several of the varieties are fur-
ther illustrated in engravings.

The report of The Peabochj Museum of
American Archaeology and Ethnolocjy repre-
sents that during the absence of Curator
Putnam as chief of the Department of Eth-
nology at the Chicago Exposition the work
of the museum was continued without inter-
ruption. Much progress was made in the
arrangement of collections in the new halls,
one of which is devoted to the objects gath-
ered by the several expeditions to Yucatan
and Honduras during the past five years.
The expedition of 1892-93 was prematurely
terminated on account of the death of its
chief, Mr. Owens, and the placing of another
expedition is delayed. A memoir on Indian
Music, by Miss Fletcher, published as No. 5
of the museum papers, is the result of twelve
years' study, and contains the words .and
music of nearly one hundred songs of war,
friendship, love, and ceremonial, with a sci-
entific study of the structure of Indian music.
The museum's exhibit at Chicago was of the
most satisfactory character.

The Chemical Publishing Company, Eas-
ton. Pa., are publishing in monthly numbers,
to be of 48 pages each. Principles and Prac-
tice of Agricultural Analysis, by Dr. H. W.
Wiley. The work will be issued in two vol-
umes, of which the first, in ten numbers,
comprising nearly five hundred pages, will
contain a description of the origin of soil
and fertilizers, and the method of their ex-
amination; and the second will be devoted
to the best approved methods of analyzing
agricultural products. An attempt will be
made to condense all the material into twen-
ty-four numbers ; but if this can not be done,
a third volume will be published. The price
of the work will be 25 cents a number. Pub-
lication began in January, 1894.

Naturae Novitates — Natural History News
— is the name of a semimonthly publication
giving a bibliographical list of current liter-
ature of all nations in natural history and
the exact sciences, published by R. Fried-

lander & Son, Berlin, N. W., Carlstrasse, 11,
at 25 cents a number. All titles entered are
numbered consecutively from 1 up.

A Laboratory Manual of 90 pages, con-
sisting of a course of experiments in organic
chemistry, by W. R Orndorf, assistant Pro-
fessor of Chemistry at Cornell University
(D. C. Heath & Co., 40 cents), is arranged to
accompany Remsen's Organic Chemistry. It
contains a commendatory preface by Remsen.
Each experiment is followed by a series of
questions and a blank sheet for notes.

Under the simple title Guide to the Study
of Common Plants, Prof. Volney M. Spald-
ing has published a thoroughly practical
manual of laboratory study in botany (Heath,
85 cents). The author supports fully and
freely the modern doctrine that a knowledge
of things should be gained through studying
the things themselves rather than what some
one has written about them. The book is
adapted to classes in high schools and simi-
lar institutions. The pupils are assumed to
have parts of plants before them at every
lesson, and the exercises consist of directions
for examining this material so as to learn
what it has to teach. Seven chaptei's are
given to the several principal parts of flow-
ering plants, after which the chief botanical
families represented among common plants
are studied in succession. Full directions
for study, lists of material, apparatus, and
reference books aje given, and there is
some practical counsel for student and for
teacher.

The plan of the recently issued Treatise
on Hydrostatics, by Prof. Alfred G. Green-
hill, of Woolwich (Macmillan, $1.90), is to
develop the subject from the outset by means
of illustrations of existing problems. In this
way the author hopes that the student will
acquire a real working knowledge of the sub-
ject, while at the same time the book will
prove useful to the practical engineer. Par-
ticular attention has been given to the appli-
cations of the subject in naval architecture.
With regard to details it may be mentioned
that the condensed notation of units pro-
posed by M. Hospitaller at the International
Congress of Electricians of 1891 has been
employed, and in the mathematical processes
a free use has been made of the symbols and
operations of the calculus. In support of the
latter policy the author quotes the saying

710

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that " it is easier to learn the differential cal-
culus than to follow a demonstration which
attempts to avoid its use." Pneumatics and
hydraulics have been included as divisions
of hydrostatics, and there is a chapter on the
mechanical theory cf heat.

Dr. Daniel G. Brinton has reprinted from
the Proceedings of the American Philosoph-
ical Society his account of Nagualium — a
mystic cult that flourished in Mexico and
Central America in the times of conquest
and colonization (David McKay, Philadelphia,
$1). The nagualists were of various tribes
and languages, united in a powerful secret
organization ; they exercised necromantic
powers and held occult doctrines. They were
animated by an intense hatred of the Spanish
explorers, and their one purpose was the de-
struction of the invaders and the annihilation
of the government and religion introduced
by them.

A recent bulletin of the United States
National Museum is A Monograph of the Bats
of North America, by Harrison Allen, M. D.,
being designed to take the place of the
author's monograph on the same subject
issued thirty years ago. The new work is
made larger than the old by the addition of
species and by elaboration of the descriptions.
Thirty-eight plates, showing anatomical de-
tails, accompany the text.

A sketch of travel in California, by Rev.
Dr. Charles A. Stoddard, has been published
under the title Beyond the Rockies (Scribners,
$1.50). Dr. Stoddard describes the fruit
orchards, the wonderful climate, the big
trees, the Yosemite Valley, the old missions,
San Francisco and other Californian cities,
etc., in a chatty and entertaining style. In-
cidents of travel are also mingled with the
descriptions, and there are accounts of the
scenery and stopping places in Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, which
were passed through either in going or com-
ing. The volume is copiously illustrated
with photo-engravings of the places de-
scribed.

A new translation of The Social Contract,
of Jean Jacques Rousseau, with an introduc-
tion and notes by Prof. Edward L. Walter,
has been issued (Putnam, $1.25). Students
of political science will find in this book
" the most striking statement of a theory
destined to mold profoundly the history of

nations," and will discover within it, also,
" the weapons which are first sharpened and
polished, and then directed against the whole
framework of the modern state." The in-
troduction reviews the political circumstances
in which the treatise appeared, and the notes
give historical facts concerning the persons
and events referred to in the text, or refer-
ences to books from which full information
may be obtained.

In David T. Day's report on the Mineral
Resources of the United States for 1892, the
ninth of the series, the statistical tables of
previous years are carried forward. Instead
of chapters, the book is divided by mineral
topics, which are so arranged as to bring
kindred subjects together. The work is the
result of a census conducted by the principal
experts on each subject.

The Report of the Chief of the Weather
Bureau for 1891-92 is the first volume of
the meteorological data published by the of-
fice as now constituted, and continues the
series heretofore published by the War De-
partment. The necessity of crowding two
years' work into one report has compelled
condensation by the omission of the detailed
hourly and twice daily observations ; but this
omission is partly supplied on the daily
weather maps. Tables of monthly and an-
nual normal pressure, temperature, and pre-
cipitation are given. A description of the
instrumental equipment of observing stations
by Prof. C. F. Marvin, and a report by Prof.
Cleveland Abbe on the instrumental correc-
tions, methods of reduction, and the prob-
able resulting accuracy of the observations
and the means, add much to the value of the
volume. Mark W. Harrington, chief of the
bureau.

The Commissioner of Labor of the United
States publishes a special report on Compid-
sory Insurancs in Germany, which has been
prepared at his request by Mr. John Graham
Brooks, after residing in Germany and mak-
ing a careful and broad study of the subject
and all the circumstances surrounding. The
author was commissioned to collect all the
official information available with reference
to the system, and to ascertain in all legiti-
mate ways its real workings, its effect upon
labor and the workingman, and its general
tendencies. Neither approving nor condemn-
ing the system, Mr. Brooks has given the

LITERARY NOTICES.

711

roasoninfj for and against it, and its results,
taking up the steps wliich led to its institu-
tion and showing the phases attending its
beginning and the experience under it after
it was established. The report shows that
the system aims at securing all that has been
aimed at under various systems of charity,
and that its ethical side was most potent in
securing its establishment. It also appears
that the compulsory insurance laws were not,
as has beea supposed, the result of a sudden
conviction of an emergency to be met, but
came directly through evolutionary processes
covering long periods of time.

Besides the regular accounts of proceed-
ings and progress, and the Report of the
Secretary, the Annual Reports of the Board
of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for

1891 and 1892 contain in the general appen-
dixes brief accounts of scientific discoveries
in particular directions ; occasional reports
of the investigations made by collaborators
of the institution ; memoirs of a general
character or on special topics, both original
and selected ; and other papers, as space per-
mitted, supposed to be of use or value to the
correspondence of the institution. The at-
tention of the Board of Regents was largely
given, during the two years covered by these
reports, to the establishment of an Astro-
physical Observatory. An accession of
$200,000 to the endowment of the institu-
tion has been obtained through the bequest
of Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins, of Setauket,
Long Island.

A map and tables of the Average Eleva-
tion of the United States, published by Henry
Gannett in connection with the United States
Geological Survey, give, in the map, by gra-
dations of color, the elevations, at intervals
rising from five hundred to three thousand
feet, of the country and mountains, from the
few spots below sea level up to " above ten
thousand feet " ; and, in the tables, the num-
ber of square miles, in each State and in the
whole Union, at each grade of level, and the
mean elevations of the several States.

The report of Barton W. Evermann and
Wil/iam C. Kendall on The Fishes of Texas
and the Rio Grande Basin (United States
Fish Commission) is designed to complete
the studies published in a report made in

1892 preliminary to establishing a fish-cul-
tural station in Texas. It is intended to in-

clude all the species, both salt and fresh
water, which have been reported from the
region named, so far as the authors have
been able to learn. Geographically the
paper is made to include, besides the State
of Texas, all those parts of Colorado, New
Mexico, and Mexico that belong to the hy-
drographic basin of the Rio Grande. The
geographical distribution of the fishes is
prominently considered. The report is illus-
trated by forty plates.

77ie Living Method for Learning how to
Think in German proceeds on the assump-
tiorf that if one tries to speak German while
thinking in English, his conversation will
consist largely of pauses, in efforts to recall
the German expressions and to arrange them
idiomatically ; and that the only way to speak
German is remembering what Germans say
under the same or similar circumstances ;
not that one should live in Germany, but
that he should live in German. The process
is to associate the foreign phrases we have
learned so perfectly with our actions that they
will mentally suggest each other. The book
furnishes the phrases for usual acts ; then,
whenever we do any of the acts, we should
say, or think — in German — what we are
doing. From this we go on, expanding our
knowledge and practice, and making and
learning new combinations. [Charles F.
Kroeh, author and publisher, Hoboken, N. J.)

The Mechanics of Hoisting Machinery
(Macmillan & Co., $3.75) is a translation
made .by Karl P. Dahlstrom from Prof.
Herrmann's revised edition of Weisbach's
great work on Engineering Mechanics — a
work of which several volumes, treating of
special subjects, are already familiar through
translations. The present volume, however,
has never heretofore appeared in English,
although its value is generally recognized.
The edition is intended as a text-book for
technical schools and a guide for practical
engineers. Within its purview are included
levers and jacks ; tackle and differential
blocks ; windlasses, winches, and lifts ; hy-
draulic hoists, accumulators, and pneumatic
hoists ; hoisting machinery for mines ; cranes
and shears ; excavators and dredges ; and
pile drivers.

The Peerless CooTc Book, embracing more
than one thousand recipes and practical
suggestions to housekeepers, by Mrs. T. J.

712

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Kirkpatrick, appears to ha well adapted to
the needs of working housekeepers. The
recipes are plain, direct, and comprehensi-
ble, and for practicable dishes which may
be in common use in the most modest
households. They are also abundant in va-
riety. Much pains is taken in the arrange-
ment, and the articles are placed where
they would come in a regular course dinner.
Many of the recipes have been gathered
from practical housekeepers ; and of these
not a few are original with the ladies and
have never before been in print. The prac-
tical suggestions are excellent. (Mast, Crow-
ell, and Kirkpatrick, Springfield, Ohio. Price,
50 cents).

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Aericultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports. Maesachusetts: Meteorological
Summary for May, 1894. Pp. 8.— North Dakota:
Weather and Crop Service, May, 1894. Pp. 16.—
Ohio: Twelfth Annual Report for 1893. Pp. 50
—Commercial Fertilizers Pp. 32.— Storrs. Conn. :
Sixth Annual Report, 1893 Pp. 300.— University
of Illiiioi&: Acid Test of Cream. Pp. 8 —The
Chinch Bug. P]). 4. —University of Nebraska:
Seventh Annual Report. Pp. 206.

American Chemical Society. Journal, June,
1894. Pp. 64.

Burrell, D. R., M. D. The Insane Kings of
the Bible. Pp. 12.

Clark, F. C, New York, and Guthrie, Alfred
A., Albany, N. Y. A Cruise to the Mediteiranean
by Specially Chartered Steamers, February 6 to
April 8, 1895. Itinerary. Pp. 117.

Colgate University, Department of Geology
and Natural History. Circular. Pp. 24.

Committee (of A. A. A. S.) on Indexing Chem-
ical Literature. Eighth Annual Report. Pp. 3.

Cowan, Prank. David Alter, The Discoverer
of Spectrum Analysis. Greensburg, Pa. : The
Oliver Publishing House. Pp. 16.

Day, David T. Mineral Resources of the
United States. 1893. Washington: U. S. Geo-
logical Survey. Pp. 810.

Dolbear, A. E. Matter, Ether, and Motion.
Revised edition, enlarged. Boston: Lee & Shep-
ard. Pp. 407. $2.

Fowke, Gerard. Notes on Ohio Archasology.
Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. Pp. 56, with
Plates. 75 cents.

Fundenberg, Elizabeth. First Lessons in
Reading, based on the Phonic-word Method.
Pp. 80. 25 cents. Teachers' Edition. Pp. 144.
.50 cents. American Book Compaiiy.

Goldsmith, E. Volcanic Products from the
Hawaiian Islands. Pp. 4, with Plate.

Hale, Horatio. The Fall of Hockelaga. A
Study of Popular Tradition. Pp. 14.

Hoffman, Prank Sargent. The Sphere of
the State. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 275. $1.50.

Houston, Edwin J. Electricity One Htindred
Years Ago and To-day. New York: The W. J.
Johnston Company, Limited. Pp 199. $1.

Jackson, Ch.irles C. Has Gold Appreciated ?
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 38.

Jacobi, Mary Putnam, M. D. " Common
Sense " applied to Woman Suffrage. New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 236. |l.

Lane, Alfred C. Geologic Activity of the
Earth's Originally Absorbed Gases. Rochester,
N. Y. : Geofogicai Society of America. Pp. 20.

L^^nan, B. S. Some New Red Horizons.
Pp. 24.

Mackensen, Bernard, San Antonio, Tex. The
Essentials of Volapiik Grammar. Pp. 24. 25
cents.

Macmillan, Conway. Minnesota Botanical
Studies. Bulletin. No. 9. State Geological and
Natural History Survey. Pp. 88.

Mason, Otis Tufton. Migration and the Food
Quest. Washington, D. C. Pp. 10.

Maxwell, William H. Introductory Lessons in
English Grammar. Pp. 172. 40 cents.— First
Book in English. Pp. 176. 40 cents., American
Book Company.

Nichols, Edward L. A Laboratory Manual of
Physics and Applied Electricity. New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 292. $3.

Packard, A. S. On the Inheritance of Ac-
quired Characteristics in Animals with a Com-
plete Metamorphosis. Pp. 40.

Page, Charles E., M. D., New York. Thera-
peutic Fasting.

Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Institu-
tion for the Blind. Sixtv-second Annual Report.
Boston: G. H. Ellis. Pp. 295.

Pilling, J. C. Bibliography of the Wakashan
Languages. Smithsonifin Institution. Pp. 70.

Pollard, J. G. The Pamunkey Indians of
Virginia. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 19.

Powell, J. W. Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology. Washington. Pp. 52^.

Railwav Purchasing Agent Company. The
Official Railwav List, 1894. Chicago: The Rook-
ery. Pp. 429. %-i.

Ries, Heinrich. On Some New Forms of
Wollastonite from New York State. Pp. 2.— Mi-
croscopic Organisms in the Clays of New York
State. Pp. 67 with Plates.

Robinson, Henry. Hydraulic Power and
Hydraulic Machinery. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip-
pihcott Company. Pp. 226 %\0.

Rothwell, R. P. The Mineral Industry in the
United States and Other Countries. Vol. U.
New York: Scientiiic Publishing Company. Pp.
894. $5.

Schultz, Dr. G., and Julius, Dr. P. System-
atic Survey of the Organic Coloring Matters.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.200. $5.

Smith, J. G. North American Species of
Sagittaria and Lophotocarpus. St. Louis. Pp.
38, with Plates.

Smithsonian Institution. Report of the United
States National Museum for the Year ending
June 30, 18'J2. Pp. 620.

Thomas, Cyrus. The Maya Year. Sinith-
soaian Institution. Pp. 64.

Thompson, Langdon S. An Ideal Course of
Elementarv Art Education, Description. Pp. 22.
—Educational and Industrial Drawing— Manual
Training. Two Parts. Pp. 59 and 62.— Primary
Freehand Series. Four Drawing Books and Man-
ual —Advanced Freehand Series. Four Draw-
ing Books and Manual.— Model and Object Series.
Three Drawing Books and Manual.— ^Esthetic
Series. Six Drawing Books and Manual.— Me-
chanical Series.— Six'Drawing Books and Manual.
Boston: D. C. Heath & Cc.

Thompson. Wilmot A., Orange, N. J. Per-
petual Calendar Chart.

Thurston, R. H. The Animal as a Machine
and a Prime Motor. New York: John Wiley &
Sons. Pp. 97. $1.

Trevert, Edward. How to Build Dynamo-
Electric Machinerv. Lynn, Mass.: Bubier Pub-
lishing Company. Pp. 339. $7.50.

True, Frederick W. Diagnosis of Some Un-
described Wood Rats in the National Museum.
Pp.3.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

713

ITniversitv of the State of New York. Eeport
of the Secretary of the Regents, 1893. Pp. 324.
3.5 cents. — Report of Extension Department, 1393.
Pp. 134. 1.5 cents. •

Van Hise, C. R Correlation Papers. Archean
and Algonkian. U. S. Geological Survey. Pp.
549.

Welles, Charles S., M. D. Practical Dietetics
and Outline of Medicine. New York: F. V.
Duane. Pp. 79

Willis, Oliver R. Practical Flora for Schools
and Colleges. American Book Company. Pp.
349. $1.50.

Winlock, W. C. Progress of Astronomy for
1891 and 1892. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 96.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Social Factors of Crime. — Discussing tlie
subject of criminology in one of the circulars
of the Bureau of Education, Mr. Arthur Mac-
Donald speaks of crime as seeming to be, to
a certain extent, Nature's experiment on hu-
manity. If a nerve of a normal organism is
cut, the organs in which irregularities are
produced are those which the nerve controls.
In this way the office of a nerve in the nor-
mal state may be discovered. The criminal
might be spoken of as the severed nerve of
society, and the study of him as a practical
way (though indirect) of studying normal
man. The relation of criminology to society
and to sociological questions is already inti-
mate, and may in the future become closer.
Just what crime is at present depends more
upon time, location, race, country, national-
ity, and even the state in which one resides.
But notwithstanding the extreme relativity
of the idea of crime, there are some things in
our social life that are questionable. A young
girl of independence, but near poverty, tries to
earn her own living at three dollars a week,
and if, having natural desires for a few
comforts and some taste for her personal
appearance, she finally, through pressure,
oversteps the bound, society, which permits
this condition of things, immediately ostra-
cises her. It borders on criminality that a
widow works fifteen hours a day in a room
in which she lives, making trousers at ten
cents a pair, out of which she and her fam-
ily must live, until they gradually run down
toward death from want of sufficient nutri-
tion, fresh air, and any comfort. It is crim-
inally questionable to leave stoves in cars
so that, if the passenger is not seriously in-
jured but only hedged in, he will have the
additional chance of burning to death. It

has been a general truth, and in some cases
is one still, that a certain number of persons
must perish by fire before private individuals
will furnish fire escapes to protect their own
patrons. It is a fact that more than five
thousand people are killed yearly in the
United States at railroad grade crossings,
most of whose lives could have been saved
had the road or the railroad passed either
one over the other. The excuse of the ex-
pense is pleaded for the lack of the improve-
ments ; or, practically, it is admitted that
the extra money required to introduce them
is of more consequence than the five thou-
sand human lives. And yet, strange as it
may seem, if a brutal murderer is to lose his
life and there is the least doubt that the
crime was premeditated, a large part of the
community is often aroused into moral ex-
citement or indignation, while the murdered,
innocent railroad passenger excites little
more than a murmur. There is no sul^ject
on which the public conscience is more ten-
der than the treatment of the criminal. Psy-
chologically, the explanation of this is simple,
for the public have been educated gradually
to feel the suSering and misfortunes of the
criminal — things it is easier to realize, since
the thought is confined generally to one per-
sonality at a time. If the public could all
be eyewitnesses to a few of our most brutal
railroad accidents, the consciousness gained
might be developed into conscientiousness in
the division of their sympathies. The feel-
ing spoken of is a sincere though sometimes
morbid expression of unselfish humanitari-
anism.

The Arctic Sea.— In his address before
the British Association on the Polar Basin,
Mr. Henry Seebohm described the Arctic
Sea, which lies at the bottom of the polar
basin, as fringed with a belt of bare coun-
try, sometimes steep and rocky, descending
in more or less abrupt cliffs and piles of preci-
pices to the sea, but more often sloping gently
down in mud banks and sand hills. These
latter represent the accumulated spoils of
countless ages of annual floods, which tear
up the banks of the rivers and deposit shoals
of detritus at their mouths, compelling them
to make deltas in their efforts to force a
passage to the sea. In Norway this belt of
bare country is called the Fjeld, in Russia it

7H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is known as the Tundra, and in America its
technical name is the Barren Grounds. In
the language of science it is the country be-
yond the limit of forest growth. In exposed
situations, especially in the higher latitudes,
the tundra does really merit its American
name of barren ground, being little else
than gravel beds interspersed with bare
patches of peat or clay, and with scarcely a
rush or a sedge to break the monotony. In
Siberia, at least, this is very exceptional.
By far the greater part of the tundra, both
east and west of the Ural Mountains, is a
gently undulating plain, full of lakes, rivers,
swamps, and bogs. The lakes are diversified
with patches of green water plants, among
which ducks and swans float and dive ; the
little rivers flow between banks of rush and
sedge ; the swamps are masses of tall rushes
and sedges of various species, where phala-
ropes and ruffs breed, and the bogs are bril-
liant with the white, fluffy seeds of the cot-
ton grass. The groundwork of all this
variegated scenery is more beautiful and
varied still — lichens and m<,ss of almost
every conceivable color, from the cream-
colored reindeer moss to the scarlet-cupped
trumpet moss, interspersed with a brilliant
Alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages,
and hundreds of plants, each a picture in it-
self ; the tall aconites, both the blue and yel-
low species ; the beautiful cloudberry, with its
gay white blossom and amber fruit ; the fra-
grant Ledum pahistre, and the delicate pink
Andromeda poll folia. In the sheltered val-
leys and deep watercourses a few stunted
birches, and sometimes large patches of wil-
low scrub, survive the long, severe winter,
and serve as cover for willow grouse or
ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-
throated pipit are everywhere to be seen,
and certain favored places are the breeding
grounds of snipe, plover, and sandpipers of
many species. So far from meriting the
name of barren ground, the tundra is for the
most part a veritable paradise in summer.
But it has one almost fatal drawback — it
swarms with millions of mosquitoes. The
tundra melts avvay insensibly into the forest,
but isolated trees are rare, and in Siberia
there is an absence of young wood on the
confines of the tundra. The limit of forest
growth appears to be retiring southward, if
we may judge from the number of dead and

dying stumps ; but this may be a temporary
or local variation caused by exceptionally
severe winters.

Caynga Lake as a Rock Basin. — In a

paper entitled Lake Cayuga as a Rock Basin,
Ralph S. Tarr, after describing the topog-
raphy of the region and giving a summary
of the opinions previously held, attempts to
prove that Cayuga, and presumably other of
the lakes called Finger Lakes, is situated in a
rock basin, with a maximum depth of ap-
proximately four hundred and thirty-five
feet. The nature of the proof is that the
preglacial tributaries to this valley are found
to be rock-incased, and that their lowest
points are above the present lake surface.
The paper presents also a brief discussion of
the reason why a rock basin may be sup-
posed to have been constructed with com-
parative ease in this region, and a rhythm of
glacial erosion and deposition is suggested.
The course of the preglacial Cayuga River
is found to be northward, probably tributary
to a river which drained at least one of the
Great Lakes — Ontario. As the tributaries of
Cayuga River prove the rock-basin origin of
Cayuga, so also the Cayuga River tributary
of the Ontario stream indicates that Lake
Ontario is likewise a rock basin.

The Expert Witness. — As one of the em-
barrassing features in the situation of the
" scientific expert " witness. Prof. Charles
F. Himes mentions that he is legally a wit-
ness, an ordinary witness, but practically
endowed with extraordinary functions and
loaded with extraordinary responsibilities —
sometimes, perhaps, with extraordinary and
even absurd expectations. As a witness he
is under the same liabilities, rules, and re-
strictions as other witnesses, yet, by the cir-
cumstances under which he is called, he
" exhibits the character of a very willing
witness, of a well-paid witness, combined
with a great deal of the advocate. Now, he
can not be held responsible for this position,
but the system of jurisprudence, which not
simply permits it, which has not simply taken
him but has forced him in, and which, ap-
parently cognizant of all, seems only able to
originate complaints rather than to provide
a different character for him ; for there
seems, indeed, in many of the adverse criti-

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY

715

cisms of experts, to be only a confession of
weakness rather than a disposition earnestly
to consider the whole question with a view to
the radical remedy of the evils. The human
nature of the judge is recognized and pro-
vided against. . . . The jury is selected so
as to be free from bias, and is protected as
well. Other witnesses are not expected to
take the part the scientific expert is almost
compelled to take. In fact, if deliberately
planned, there could hardly be a network of
conditions devised calculated to produce so
many of the evils of scientific expert testi-
mony complained of or to cloud this testi-
mony of highest intrinsic value, having the
highest degree of certainty, and in a field
altogether its own." These witnesses are
sometimes supposed to be selected on ac-
count of their ability to express a favorable
opinion, when they are flippantly styled
" adroit advocates of the theory of the party
calling them " ; but in how many cases.
Prof. Himes asks, " does favorable opinion —
or bias, if you please — precede the call of
an expert rather than depend upon the
call?" And the still more pertinent ques-
tion, " How many experts are not in the
particular case because their opinions are
not wanted by the party who consulted
them ? "

Death Valley, California. — The principal
features of popular interest in Death Valley,
California, as described in Prof. Harrington's
Notes on its Climate and Meteorology, are its
excessive heat and dryness. The tempera-
ture rises occasionally in the shade to 122°,
rarely falls at any time in the hot months
below 70°, and averages 94°. It is not only
hot in the summer, but consistently hot, and
the heat is increased by occasional hot blasts
from the desert to the south. The air is not
stagnant, but in unusually active motion.
Gales of a few hours' duration are very com-
mon, and sometimes produce sand whirls
and sand storms. Rains may fall frequently
in the mountains and occasionally in the
valley. Clouds are by no means lacking,
and water can probably always be found in
the soil at the depth of a few feet, yet the
heat and wind together keep the surface
very dry and the relative humidity low.
Animal and plant forms are comparatively
few, and the former are usually nocturnal to

avoid the heat. Both heat and aridity are
increased by the character of the valley. It
is narrow and deep, appaTently the bed of
an old sea, inclosed by high and dry moun-
tains. The white and shifting sands become
much heated under the noonday sun ; the
I'est of the surface is in part salt and alkali,
in part probably wash from the mountains,
and in part a loose, spongy earth, over which
it is difficult to move. With the exception
of a few springs, the water is bitter and un-
wholesome. The meteorological features of
interest lie, for the most part, in those modi-
fications of diurnal changes which are due
to the topography. The range of tempera-
ture is unusually great. The hourly progress
of the wind shows enormous changes in
speed, in direction, and in temperature. The
diurnal change in the barometer is the most
characteristic of the form found in conti-
nental valleys. It is of the purest single
maximum type and has the largest ampli-
tude known. With these features go shai-p
thunderstorms, limited to certain hours of
the day, and daily gales and hot blasts. It
is also noteworthy that the absolute humidity
here is fairly constant, and is that belonging
to that part of the world. The air in the
valley is part of the general aerial ocean, and
this shows no sharp contrasts in its moisture
contents, except when wind prevails across a
mountain ridge. Here the prevailing winds
are up and down the valley, and its relative
aridity is due to its higher temperature.
The winter climate is believed to be cool and
salubrious, with an inch or two of rain.

The Vaennui Jacket and Liquid Oxygeut

— Prof. Dewar protects his liquefied gases, in
order to keep them in that state, from the
heat of convection, by inclosing them in a
vacuum jacket ; and from the heat of radi-
ation by silvering the surface of the contain-
ing vessel. He is thus able to keep liquid
air for thirty or forty hours. The vacuum
used contains a little mercury vapor, which,
though present in very minute quantities, can
be condensed into a bright mirror by cooling
the outside surface of the vessel with liquid
air. Among the experiments made in one of
Prof. Dewai-'s lectures to illustrate the prop-
erties of liquid oxygen, alcohol, which freezes
at —120°, solidified when dropped into it,
and in that state would not take fire. So-

i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

dium burns with intense brilliancy in gaseous
oxygen, but in liquid oxygen would not burn
at all, the very low temperature ( — 180°)
hindering chemical action. Liquid oxygen
has an electrical resistance five or six times
greater than that of the gas, which itself is
strongly magnetic. Put under the poles of
an electromagnet, the liquid leaped up to
them when the current was passed, and a
little piece of cotton wool saturated with it
was strongly attracted. Ordinary air from
the room was liquefied in the presence of the
audience. A small tube of liquid oxygen,
placed in a vessel of air, was put under the
air pumj), and in a short time liquid air began
to condense on its surface. Although the
nitrogen and oxygen of the atmosphere are
liquefied simultaneously, yet nitrogen, being
the more volatile, boils off first, and leaves
liquid oxygen behind. This can be proved
by holding a glowing taper over a vessel of
liquid air ; it does not burst into flame until
about four fifths of the contents have evap-
orated. Liquid air is magnetic, but more
feebly so than liijuid oxygen. It is also blue,
and the absorption bands in its spectrum are
less dark.

Bobeniian Graphite. — Natural graphite
occurs usually in masses and veins in the
oldest rocks, like granite, gneiss, mica schist,
and porphyry. At Schwarzbach, in Bohemia,
it is found in irregular masses in the gneiss,
apparently brought there after the formation
of the rock, and having been substituted for
the mica, of which it in some places takes
the foliated texture. Schwarzbach is situ-
ated on a grassy plain among the wild moun-
tains of southern Bohemia, in the district of
Krunian. The mines and surrounding coun-
try belong to the immense domains of the
Prince of Schwarzenberg. The mines em-
ploy eight hundred workmen, and produce
from six thousand to ten thousand tons a
year. The graphite is mined in shafts sunk
one hundred metres or more beneath the sur-
face of the ground. Being impregnated
with water, it is easily broken into small
blocks by the pick. It is sorted by the
miner into first and second choice — prima
and raffinade. These piles are again sorted, a
different process being oljserved with either
kind. The prima, which is designed for
pencil-making, is sorted by hand, and all im-

purities and hard particles are removed from
it. The raffinade is passed under millstones
where a cin-rent of water passing carries off
all the richest parts, and, giving up the sand
and pyrites in a series of pans provided for
them, carries the purified graphite into
another series of pans. If pyrite is present
in considerable proportions, it is burned out
by passing the matter in gratings over flame.

The Waganda. — Describing Uganda in
the British Association, Captain Williams
said that whatever the merits of the coun-
try, the people were worth keeping, for they
were a wonderful race. The missionaries
had done great good, notwithstanding the
conflict of religions. The men were fine,
well built, and athletic, and the women were
active and intelligent. They were not uni-
versally black — indeed, in Central Africa
there was a considerable variety of shades.
They liad a strange theory of transmigration
of souls, which prevented the people from
utilizing the food supply that lay before
them. The people were simply dressed ;
the women were not allowed to wear white
cloth, while the men wore white if they
could get it. They wore " bark cloth," which
was stretched out on pegs to the right
length. The Waganda were polygamists,
each man having seven wives. The women
were very happy, and did the hoeing and
other agricultural work, while the men
built the houses and carried the food. A
man as a nile bought his wives. In one case
he met a man who had bought a wife for
four cows. He had paid tivo of the cows
and then the lady was eaten by a leopard.
He thought it was very hard lines that he
should be compelled to pay the reipaining
cows. The houses were, as a rule, mere
slight, temporary structures, but the house
in which the late King Mtesa was buried was
a wonderful structure with twenty feet or
more of thickness of thatch. The churches
— both Catholic and Protestant — were ex-
tremely fine, but the former had unfortu-
nately been burned. The cruelties of the
people had been much exaggerated, and
were not comparable to the atrocities which
were once committed. In former days a
king had all the people killed who passed
along a certain road from morning to night,
and a man's life was almost worthless. The

POPULAR MISCELLANY

7^7

love of music — especially the drum and the
pipe and a sort of rude violin — was charac-
teristic of the people. There was abundance
of big game and the Waganda were capital
hunters, and their method of hunting was
quaint and original in the extreme. A huge
crowd, armed with stout sticks, beat down
the high grass level and tracked the leopard
or lion to his lair, and, getting him inclosed
within a space equal to a good-sized room,
literally beat the beast to death, and it
rarely happened that anybody was much
hurt.

The Gothenbnrg System. — In summariz-
ing his conclusions as to the advantages and
disadvantages of the Gothenburg or com-
pany monopoly system of liquor traffic in
operation in Sweden and Norway, Dr. E. R.
L. Gould insists that the system was not
originated with the idea of stopping the con-
sumption of liquors, but to combat drunken-
ness and reduce the evils consequent upon
inordinate indulgence in alcoholic drinks. It
is founded, too, upon the principle that,
since, taking human nature and practices as
we find them, it is impossible immediately
to eradicate the evil completely, it is better
to regulate it through the higher rather than
the lower elements of the community. Its
strength lies along the line of preventive
rather than of reformatory elements. Among
the advantages named is, first, the complete
divorcing of the liquor traffic from politics.
Further, the company monopoly has been so
administered that a general reduction of the
number of licenses has been brought about
everywhere, and, consequently, a lessening
of the temptation to drink. " It would be a
very strange condition of affairs indeed, in
any matter of this kind, if, when the element
of private gain was entirely eliminated, a re-
sulting improvement did not take place." A
series of effective checks is imposed against
a breach of trust, supposing there may exist
an inclination to commit it. The companies
have, in some measure, gone beyond the
legal requirements in the line of general in-
terest, particularly in raising the age of mi-
nority from fifteen, where the law puts it, to
eighteen, as regards selling drink to young
persons, and also in insisting immediately on
cash pajnnents. They have gradually raised
the price of drinks and reduced their

strength. In Norway the saloons are closed
on Sundays and at those times of day when
the workingman is most tempted to drink.
All men employed are paid fair fixed salaries,
and there is no temptation to push sales.
All taxes are paid under the company sys-
tem without shuffling. The cause of temper-
ance has been assisted financially and other-
wise. The profits on sales of drink are
expended for the relief of society. No com-
munity which has tried the system has after-
ward abandoned it. The measure is sup-
ported by the temperance party, though
many of them would prefer prohibition.
The disadvantages are laid mostly to defects
in existing law, rather than to faults inherent
in the system itself. The monopoly does
not extend far enough, but should cover fer-
mented drinks ; the limit for retail sales is
not fixed high enough ; the sale of liquors is
often connected with general business, from
which it should be separated ; a monopoly
of production by the state does not exist ;
the question of profits is still too conspicu-
ous ; and, from the temperance view of the
case, it is feared that the upper classes of
society do not wish to go further than the
Gothenburg system.

Volcanic Rocks in Eastern North Ameri-
ca.— Mr. George H. Williams has insisted on
the presence, in the oldest geological forma-
tions, of igneous rocks, disguised, perhaps,
under a foliated structure, and has dwelt
upon the methods by which their origin may
be established. The object of a paper by
him on The Distribution of Ancient Volcanic
Rocks along the Eastern Border of North
America is to show that igneous, and volcanic
rocks as well, are widely disti'ibuted through
the crystalline belt of eastern North Ameri-
ca, and to direct attention to them as offer-
ing a new and promising field for work in
crystalline geology. His review of the field
leads him to the conclusion that this class
of material is abundant. It has been identi-
fied from Newfoundland to Georgia. For
many areas the evidence of surface or vol-
canic origin is conclusive, while in many
others it is as yet only probable. The areas
of these ancient volcanic rocks now known
fall roughly in two parallel belts ; of these,
the eastern embraces the exposures of New-
foundland, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the

718

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Bay of Fundy, coast of Maine, Boston basin,
and the central Carolinas ; while the western
belt crosses the Eastern Townships and fol-
lows the Blue Rido;e through southern Penn-
sylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North
Carolina, to Georgia. Further and fuller
Studies of the subject are desired by the
author, who remarks that the identification
of truly volcanic rocks in highly or partly
crystalline terrains possesses far more than
a petrographical significance, since, by fixing
what was the surface at the time of their
formation, they furnish a certain datum for
tracing out the sequence of later geographic
changes and geological develof)ment.

A " Copper Ago." — An account of the
discoveries made at Tel-el-Heji, the site of
the ancient city of Lachish, in Palestine,
gave rise, in the British Association, to a
discussion concerning a proljable copper age.
The very high mound contains the ruins of
several towns, built each (except the lowest)
on the ruined remains of its predecessor
The uppermost was an Israelitish town, and
was very probably the remains of the La-
chish which was besieged and destroyed by
Sennacherib in the tmie of Hezekiah.
Throughout the mound, from the bottom to
the top, were found flint and metallic imple-
ments. Among them was a thick chisel
made of copper, which had been hardened
by mixture ^^ ith red oxide of copper, from
which it received a red appearance. Toward
the top of the mound were bronze arrow-
heads, which probably dated back to between
1400 and 1501) years b. c. In the ascent of
the mound a change was observed from cop-
per to bronze and from ))ronze to iron,
which Avas very common in the Israelitish
town. Lead was found in the form of a
thick wire, very pure. A silver bangle con-
tained ninety per cent of silver, considerable
copper, and an aijpreciable quantity of gold.
Sir John Evans s})oke of the evidences of a
copper age preceding a bronze age, seen in
North America, Ireland, Hungary, and other
countries. Dr. Ilildebrand said that several
implements of pure copper had been found in
Sweden. Prof. Boyd Dawkins thought the
evidence from North America showed that
the copper age was practically a side of the
neolithic age. Frjt. A. H. Sayce spoke of
the absence of words for tin in the Egyptian

and Assyrian languages, although the metal
was known in Egypt as far back as the
eighteenth dynasty, and although there are
words in both languages for gold, silver,
iron, copper, bronze, lead, and possibly me-
tallic antimony. The word for iron in Egyp-
tian meant metal from heaven, and in Assyr-
ian, heavenly metal. This would indicate
that their iron was meteoric.

Feats of Diving Birds. — Naval archi-
tects are credited with saying that the high-
est speed in navigation could be obtained by
suljmariue boats. The principle is illus-
trated in tlie diving birds, which are capable
of shooting through the water with amazing
velocity. While these birds live by catch-
ing fish in deep water far below the surface,
they present many differences in outer ap-
pearance. In the collection at the London
Zoological Gardens are black-footed pen-
guins, guillemots, " darters," a puffin, and a
cormorant. The penguin can not fly in the
air, can not walk, but hops as if its feet
were tied together ; and can not swim ; and
can only with any grace fly under water.
When the keeper of their quarters appears
to feed the birds, they each behave in their
characteristic way. The fish thrown into
the water, the penguins instantly plunge be-
neath, when an astonishing change takes
place, thus described by a writer in the
Spectator : " The slow, ungainly bird is
transformed into a swift and beautiful crea-
ture, beaded with globules of quicksilver,
where the air clings to the close feathers, and
fl/ing through the clear and waveless depths
with arrowy speed and powers of turning
far greater than in any known form of
aerial flight. The rapid and steady'strokes
of the wings are exactly similar to those of
the air birds, while the feet float straight
out, level with its body, unused for propul-
sion, or even as rudders, and as little need-
ed in its progress as tliose of a wild duck
when on the wing. The twists and turns
necessary to follow the active little fish are
made wholly by the strokes of one wing and
the cessation of movement in the other ; and
the fish are chased, caught, and swallowed
without the slightest relaxation of speed, in a
submarine flight which is quite as rapid as
that of most birds which take their prey in
midair." The head and shoulders mav be

NOTES.

719

brought above the surface for a second, and
then disappear ; but any attempt to remain
on the surface leads to ludicrous splashing
and confusion, for the submarine bird can
not float. The movements of the cormorant
are quite different. It does not plunge head-
long, but " launches itself on the surface,
and then ' ducks ' like a grebe. Its wings
are not used as propellers, but trail unresist-
ingly level with its body, and the speed at
which it courses through the water is wholly
due to the swimming powers of its large and
ugly webbed feet. These are set quite at
the end of the body, and work incessantly
like a treadle, or the floats of a stern-wheel
steamer. Yet the conditions of submarine
motion are so favorable that the speed of
the bird below the surface is three or four
times greater than that gained by equally
rapid movements of the feet when it has
risen and is swimming on the top." The
" darters " — divers of the African and
American lakes, compared to the survival of
some ancient lizard — dive and swim much
like the cormorant, except that the bird
keeps its neck drawn back in the form of
a flattened S when in pursuit of the fish.
" Once within striking distance, the sharp
bill is shot out as if from a catapult, and
the fish is spiked through and carried to the
surface. This ascent is made after each
single capture. Sometimes the bird has
great difiiculty in disentangling the pierced
fish from the spearlike beak, and its com-
panion adroitly relieves it of the struggling
victim and swallows the prize."

An Ouiinons Forecast. — A dismal fu-
ture is foreseen by M. Leroy Beaulieu, with
two new and exhaustive processes going on
in Europe, and, we might add, demanded
by large classes in America. They are the
rapid increase of state and communal ex-
penditure, which in France, Germany, Italy,
and Great Britain is augmenting by leaps
and bounds, mainly for unproductive outlay
on defense ; and the other is the still more
rapid increase of demands for grants-in-aid
to institutions intended to benefit the poorer
classes. More education, more guarantees,
more "civilization" of all kinds — thei-e is
no end to the proposals. Every European
state except Austria-Hungary has already a
large deficit ; besides which the communal

expenditure is advancing Incessantly in
France, and in a less degree in Germany,
while in Italy it is menacing the founda-
tions of society. It is impossible that the
twofold expenditure, on the means of killing
and on the means of philanthropy, should go
on without new taxation, and every tax di-
minishes the fund available for the payment
of labor. No prospect is seen of these two
depleting processes coming speedily to an
end. Formerly they were checked by the
rage of the taxpaying classes ; but univer-
sal suffrage disregards that, and may go on
taxing until its mood changes, or its own
sources of supply begin visibly to fail. The
demands partly urged by actual necessities,
and othernise being in the line of modern
philanthropy, " which desires improvement
in everything except manly independence,"
and further promoted by the fact that rea-
sonable wants increase more rapidly than
the means of satisfying them, are likely to
go on advancing. In view of these circum-
stances, men of M. Leroy Beaulieu's school
think that a time of grave economic dis-
tress, producing great social and political
changes, is at hand for western Europe.

NOTES.

The plague reported as prevailing m
China is described by a correspondent of the
British Medical Journal as presenting all the
symptoms of the true bubonic pest which
devastated Europe in the middle ages. Al-
though extinct in Europe, this pest has never
ceased to prevail in China from time to time,
and has also spread from there to Persia and
Asiatic Russia. The present outbreak is char-
acterized by intense symptoms corresponding
to those of typhus, and by the bubonic boils
characteristic of the disease. Europeans are
not affected by it, except the soldiers who
come directly in contact with it in disinfect-
ing work. It is extremely contagious from
person to person, but the danger from aerial
infection is slight.

In the " Crump Burial Cave," Blount
County, Ala., which was discovered in 1840,
were several coffins of black and white wal-
nut, " dug out " of logs, twelve or fifteen
human skulls, and other human bones scat-
tered about, masses of galena, grooved like
the aboriginal stone axes or mauls, as if for
use as war clubs, and other more usual im-
plements. Near this cave Mr. Frank Burns
has since found an Indian ladder that had
been used to climb up to a " rock house," a
large, roomy, dry place under overhanging

720

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cliffs of stone, which was also probably em-
ployed for biiiial purposes. The ladder was
a trunk of a cedar tree, having seven or eight
steps, eighteen or nineteen inches apart,
made by cutting a scarf into the tree. There
are many such houses, Mr. Burns says, in
the coal measures, and they were used by
the aborigines as dwelling or burial places.

A BLUE mineral discovered near Silver
City, New Mexico, and supposed to be ultra-
marine, occurs in irregular veins and streaks
in the lime carrying the silver ore which is
mined at Chloride Flat. The specimens pro-
cured by Mr. G. P. Merrill for the United
States Museum exhibit the earthy blue sub-
stance which on casual inspection resembles
ultramarine, associated with calcite and other
substances ; the analyses show, according to
Mr. K. L. Packard, a chemical resemblance
to talc, although the physical properties of
the two minerals are different.

A COMPANY engaged in the construction
of an electric railway on the Jungfrau pro-
poses to devote twenty thousand dollars to
the erection of a geophysical obsci-vatory at
an altitude of about fifteen thousand feet,
and to apply one thousand dollars a year for
its maintenance.

The Jakuns, or aboriginals, of Johore
(Malacca) live in small communities on the
banks of jungle streams, subsisting miser-
ably on fruits, tapioca, roots, and small fish
and reptiles. They seldom remain long in the
same spot, but wander from place to place,
living under scanty leaf shelters built on
rickety poles at a considerable height from
the ground. It is not uncommon to find a
dozen men, women, and children, in company
with a tame monkey or two, a few dogs and
cats, innumerable fowls, and perhaps a tame
hornbill, living in perfect harmony under
the same miserable shelter. These aborigi-
nes are all very expert fishermen, using
chiefly the three-pronged spear.

The National Home Reading Union of
England has for four years followed the
practice of taking its students every summer
into the fields, to the places which best illus-
trate the sultjects on which they are at work.
Thus, this year, while the general meetings
were held at Buxton, special meetings were
held at Salisbury, for the study of the monu-
ments, abundant in the district, illustrating
the arclucology, art, and history of early Eng-
land— " from Stonehenge to Salisbury Cathe-
dral." Special excursions were given for
botany, geology, etc., and conferences on so-
cial and educational subjects.

Dr. D. L. W. Robinson, President of the
South Dakota State Board of Health, is con-
vinced from experience in practice in that
region of great climatic variation and pres-
sure that a close relationship exists between
weather changes and health and disease.
Yet he fails to identify this relationship

specifically with either barometric changes
or low temperature, and suggests that it may
be connected with electrical conditions as the
principal factor.

According to the Bulletin of the Amer-
ican Geographical Society, the recent study
of the observations on mountain summits in
the neighborhood of Mount St. Elias shows
that Mount Logan is the loftiest peak in
North America, its height being 19,500 feet —
1,200 feet greater than that of Orizaba, and
1,500 feet more than that of Mount St. Elias.

OBITUARY NOTES.

The death is announced at Geneva, Switz-
erland, of the eminent chemist, J. C. de
Marignac, formerly professor in the Univer-
sity of Geneva. He retired from his profess-
orship in 1878, but continued his studies in
a laboi'atory, which he fitted up at home, till
the end of his life. He was well known for
his researches on ozone and on chlorine, sil-
ver, potassium, sulphuric acid, and other sub-
stances in the domain of mineral chemistry.
He was a correspondent of the Institute of
France, and received the gold medal of the
Royal Society in 1886. He was modest to
excess and led a retired life of labor, the
fruits of which made his name known through-
out the world.

The death is announced of Prof. Adolph
Leipner, Professor of Botany in University
College, Bristol, England. He had been hon-
orary secretary from its beginning in 1862,
and was at the time of his death President
of the Bristol Naturalists' Society.

Prof. August Kundt, the eminent physi-
cist, died May ilst at his country place near
Lubeck, fifty-four years of age. He was born
at Schwerin in 1839 and was graduated from
the University of Berlin in 1864, presenting
as his thesis an investigation on the depolari-
zation of light. He became a privatdocent
in the University of Berlin in 1867, and was
afterward a professor in the Polytechnic In-
stitution at Zurich, at Wiirzburg, in the Uni-
versity of Strasburg, in the organization of
which he had an important part, and in the
Berlin Physical Institute, where he was also
director. His first investigations were in
acoustics and were gradually extended to
embrace a large range of subjects. Perhaps
the most important of them were in optics
and magneto-optics.

M. A. Derbes, one of the pioneers in the
study of the life history of the algse, has re-
cently died in Marseilles, France. In con-
junction with M. Solier he was the author of
a work on Zoospores of the Algse and the
Antharides of the Ci-yptogams, published in
1847, which was rich with new facts and
formed the basis of all later observations on
the same subject.

ASAPH HALL.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

OCTOBER, 1894.

THE FOOTBALL SITUATION".

By EUGENE LAMB EICHAEDS,

PEOFESSOE OF MATHEMATICS IN TALE UNIVEESITY.

I WRITE not as an expert, but rather as an intelligent sj'-m.
pathizer. I have been for twenty-five years an instructor in
Yale College, and believe thoroughlj^ in its traditions of work and
scholarship. From my youth up having been fond of athletic
exercises, and as a student always ready to participate in them,
I can write of them understandingly. I have known personally
all the captains of the Yale football teams for the past twelve
years, most of them intimately. With one exception they have
all been my pupils. One of them was a member of my own fam-
ily. Having exceptional knowledge of the subject, which the
possession of these opportunities grants to but few men, I deem
it a duty to put in permanent form the results of my observa-
tions. I have already done this with reference to the subject of
athletics in general.* In this article I wish to confine my atten-
tion to the game of football.

I hope to prove that with all its faults it is one of the best
forms of athletic sport which can be invented ; that by no other
game or exercise practiced by young men are the players them-
selves so much benefited as by football ; that the colleges ought
to be as much interested in keeping it up as are the most enthu-
siastic football players themselves ; that the public, who have
boys to educate, ought to acquaint themselves with the subject.
Watching the games when possible, they ought not to allow
themselves to be beguiled into condemnation of the sport by sen-

* The Popular Science Monthly, March and February, 1884.

VOL. XLV. — 53

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sational writers, who inveigh against it either because they know
nothing of it, or because they have determined to know nothing
of it, since it does not square with their " historic and traditional
idea " of things suitable to a college. Lastly, I wish to suggest
lines along which measures for the improvement of the game
should be taken, and also to advocate some measures for the
better supervision of the sport.

It will surprise many good people, who have been accustomed
to hear such an epithet as " brutal " applied to the game of foot-
ball, that I should claim for it as the first point of superiority
over other college athletic sports that it is eminently an intel-
lectual game. A game of football between contestants evenly
matched in other respects is won by the superior mental work
of the winning team as embodied in the generalship of the cap-
tain and the thoughtful work of his men. The game is not simply
a struggle for mastery of one body of strong men over another,
but it is a contest for supremacy, in which supremacy is gained
not by physical strength alone, but by this strength rightly
directed by mind.

In the first place, the rules of the game must be observed by
every player. He must conform his play to them. He must have
them thoroughly in mind, in order to know what he can do, as
well as to avoid what he is not permitted to do. These rules are
very numerous — more numerous, I believe, than the rules of any
other college sport, and cover a '^vider sphere of action. The
interpretation and application of them in every moment of play
call for no ordinary quickness of mind in a successful player.

Though each man has a special line of play belonging to his
position on a team, yet his play is so related to the plays of the
rest of the team that he can not act without regard to the other
players. It is eminently a game of combinations. Individual
play is important, but team play is more important. The signals
of the captain must be heeded by all the players, even if they
seem to be given for only two or three men. Through weeks of
preparation these signals have to be studied, to be memorized, to
be practiced as thoroughly and faithfully by the men as the laws
of any science by successful scholars.

The only other college game which is to be compared with it
in respect of team play is the game of baseball. Yet in this game
the players have fixed positions. Though the men in these posi-
tions play in combination with each other, they are remote from
one another, and do not at any time join together to make a par-
ticular play effective, as the players of a football team move to a
common goal. Though team play is important, it is not as im-
portant as in football, while individual play, as, for instance, that
of pitcher or catcher, is more important. In rowing, the work.

THE FOOTBALL SITUATION: 723

thoiigh reqiiiring skill and severe training, is largely mechanical.
In track athletics the individual is everything.

That the game has had attractions for intellectual men in the
past is shown by the fact that the average scholarship of men on
the football teams has of late years been higher than that of men
in the other athletic organizations. In the years 1879 to 1888 the
average standing of men not on athletic organizations was on a
scale of 4, 3'69 ; for members of the university boat crew the
average was 2'52 ; for members of the baseball nine it was 3'41 ;
for members of the football team it was 2"G8. Track athletics
were not in existence as an organization through the whole
decade, but for the few years when there was a university team
the average was 2*66. In the previous decade, 1869 to 1878, it is only
fair to add that the average of the football men was slightly
below that of the other athletes, it being 2"51 to their 2'56. I can
only account for the fact of the rise of the average in the second
decade by the change in the numbers of the team from twenty to
eleven — a change giving opportunity for more skill, thus render-
ing the play more attractive to men of mind. Notwithstanding
the present style of mass play, which puts a premium on physical
strength and weight, it was a surprise to me to find that the
average scholarship of the sixteen men from the academic depart-
ment, including players and substitutes, was higher than the
average of any class which ever graduated. I can not believe,
however, that the high scholarship of football players will always
prevail, unless the style of the game be changed to one which
admits of more open play.*

Another advantage of the game is that the practice of it en-
gages a large number of players. A regular team has two more
men than the baseball nine, and three more than the crew of
eight men. The substitutes, having a systematic training, are
more numerous than the substitutes for either baseball or for the
crew. Track athletics only can be compared with it in the num-
bers brought into it. For a short period of the year this latter
sport may exercise more men, but taking into consideration the
various class teams of football, and especially the team of the
freshmen class with substitutes, it is doubtful if even the numbers
of those engaging in track athletics exceed the numbers engaging
in football.

Of the benefits accruing to the players the physical benefits
are the least noteworthy. Yet the play brings into activity al-
most every muscle of the body. The legs, the arms, and the trunk
are all used. No part of the muscular system is developed abnor-

* The style of the game will be changed by the adoption of the new rules, lately rec-
ommended by the committee of graduates.

724 THi: POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mally. In addition to the opportunity for this uniform develop-
ment must be mentioned the care bestowed upon the players in
the way of attention to injuries received. Not only is the best
surgeon employed, but the best professional trainers and rubbers
wait on the men to second the efforts of the doctor. To this con-
tinual watching of the men on the university teams is due not a
little of the comparative immunity from serious injuries received
of late years, notwithstanding the rough play in the field.

Another advantage to the players is derived from the great at-
tention given to the diet, not only of the players of the regular
team, but of any man who works faithfully as a substitute, or
shows any promise of " making the team " at any time in a pres-
ent or future season. Forty men are at times at the university
training table, a number greatly in excess of those at the table of
any other organization. The freshman team, too, with their sub-
stitutes, have their training table and their attendant coachers,
rubbers, and trainers.

But great as are the benefits of the sport to the players in mind
and body, they are not to be compared with its moral etfects. If
there is one virtue most to be desired in a manly character — with-
out which, indeed, it ceases to be manly — that virtue is courage.
And of the college sports there is not one which cultivates this
manly virtue more than football. Neither is the courage re-
quired entirely physical. Indeed, the best players feel and see the
danger which they brave. Conscious of injuries received, they
often continue to face plays which may exaggerate their pains.

Then the need of self-control in the midst of strong excitement
is another valuable lesson learned. Self-denial is taught in the
voluntary abnegation of the delights of college, in the forsaking
of indulgence in the luxuries of life. To training in courage
endurance, and self-control must be added the valuable lesson of
obedience to authority. The discipline in this respect is as strict
as the strictest military discipline. Men are required to obey
captain and coach and to obey silently. This unquestioning, in-
stant submission to word of command is not the least of the excel-
lent lessons of a football season. It shows its effects in the whole
college life and college world.

Strange as it may seem, a good claim can be made of a neces-
sary connection between good character and good football in its
best development. In everything requiring the best results the
best success depends upon the best men. As there is no other col-
lege sport which so brings out the best virtues in a man, so there
is no other college sport which is so dependent for its success upon
good all-round men. Though this statement is measurably true
for all amateur sports, it is emphatically true of football. It has
been borne out by facts. The best teams in Yale have had not

THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 725

only the best players, but the most successful teams have con-
tained the most moral and religious men. In a class prayer-meet-
ing I once heard a man, who was for two years a most valuable
player (a captain one of those years), declare that the great suc-
cess of the team the previous season was, in his opinion, due to the
fact that " among the team and substitutes there were so many
praying men." As it was with this man, so it has ever been with
the successful captains as well as the successful coachers at Yale.
They have been God-fearing men, upright in action and clean in
speech.

With reference to the colleges, the good effects of the game of
football which they produce in common with the other sports
need only a passing mention. Among these may be instanced
the esprit de corps to which they give rise, the healthy excite-
ments necessary to young men which they furnish — excitements
which, for many, replace and moderate, if they do not entirely
drive out, the old excitements of gambling and drinking, gate-
stealing, contests between town and gown, formerly so prevalent
and so diflficult to deal with on the part of the college authorities.
But in addition to these and other benefits to the college world,
football with its contests and training comes at a time of the year
when it does the most good not only in the directions mentioned,
but in two other ways. Boys who are just entering college and,
who are for the first time in their careers freed from the restraints
of school or home, it introduces to a new discipline, a discipline of
their fellows, and to new ideals, which, if not the highest, are at
least respectable and worthy of imitation. It brings many of them
in contact with the best men in college, and saves not a few of
them from wasting their idle hours in foolish and hurtful dissi-
pation. Again, it absorbs the attention of all the college to such
a degree as to divert the minds of many of those upper classmen
who formerly thought they had a mission to perform in acquaint-
ing the new men with the submission required of them in their
college home. The discipline of the sport coming at the time it
does has almost entirely done away with that occupation. The
freshmen have learned their lesson in a better way, under better
instructors. The discipline of football has almost banished the
discipline of hazing, or left it tame and without excuse for its
existence.

To the public the sport is most valuable, especially for those
who have boys to educate. The game has spread from the col-
leges to the schools. The discipline of play has helped the dis-
cipline of the study room. Indeed, it has suj)plemented it with
a new education. It has furnished stronger bodies with better
brains. It has given an antidote to excessive culture, which
often enfeebles the body while it refines the mind. It has given

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to the city youths a sport more fascinating with all its dangers
and severe restraints than the temptations of city life. What
this boon means in its effects npon the coming generations the
coming time will show. It certainly is bringing forward a more
virile race even in the cities. And the cities in the past have
been the first points of decadence of a decaying civilization. As
the census reports show, the population is flocking more and more
to the cities, so that the growth of athletics began at a time when
it was most needed. What President Eliot, in his late report,
says of the effect of athletic sports at Harvard, applies with equal
truth and force to athletics in all educational institutions — uni-
versities as well as schools — " namely, that there has been a de-
cided improvement in the average health and strength of Harvard
students during the past twenty-five years. The gain is visible in
all sorts of students, among those who devote themselves to study
as well as among those who give much time to sports." It was
in the colleges that this increased attention to physical exercise
was begun, and begun by the students themselves. The system
extended to the schools. It has been the parent of most of the
athletic clubs now in existence. It furnishes a healthy stimulus
and recreation to thousands of young men who but for it would
be wasting their strength in much more brutal and brutalizing
excitements. It is not too much to say that it is the salvation of
our youth. And just as the scholarship of our universities stimu-
lates the intellectual life of these schools, so the athletic contests
of the universities keep alive among the schoolboys a healthy ad-
miration for a manly physique. This effect of the college sports
has not been sufficiently noticed. It is worth all it costs. It could
never have existed if it had not been for the publicity given to
the college contests, and to football contests in particular. It has
given order to play and introduced obedience to authority and
the love of courage into every school in the land. It is not en-
tirely because Yale and Harvard play football or baseball, row
and train, that their students show a " decided improvement in
their average health during the past twenty-five years," but also
because their example has been followed by the schools, and con-
sequently better developed young men are sent from the schools
to the universities. The improvement is not confined to col-
lege students. It is noticeable in the young men of the whole
land. It has produced another effect. The young women of
the country have been induced to emulate the physical develop-
ment of their brothers. They have not played all their rough
games, it is true ; still, it is undeniable that the greater atten-
tion to the physique of women is in some degree an effect of
the visible good results of the better development of the men.
And all the aids of physical development, such as gymnasiums.

THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 727

athletic fields, and better playgrounds, have arisen to help on
this good work.

As to the disadvantages of football, the sport is like every-
thing else : it is subject to evils. The question is not whether
there are evils attending the game, but whether the evils over-
balance the good. I admit the evils, but I maintain that the evils
have been exaggerated, and that they are not yet great enough to
call for the abolition of the game.

Evil No. 1 : Excessive time devoted to practice. This charge
only applies to the last few weeks of preparation. The first
weeks, two hours and a half for most of the players would be the
maximum time. For the half-backs three hours would suffice for
their maximum time. Part of this time, too, is consumed in going
to and from the field or practice ground. Some of the players, more
systematic than their fellows, do not consume even so much time.
But in the last few weeks, varying in numbers according to the
judgment of the captain and coaches of the year, more time is
used, amounting, under the most exacting captain, to as many as
five hours and a half a day for five weeks. I may add, however,
that this exacting captain overdid the business, tired out his
team, and suffered the humiliation of a defeat. The most success-
ful captain whom I have known saved the time of his men all
through the season, seldom giving them more than two hours'
practice, and devoting only one week to hard practice. Five
hours a day is too much time for a student to devote to any sport.
So much time devoted to practice is not necessary for success.
On the contrary, it interferes with success, so that this evil is
bound to work its own cure. But, even granted that five and a
half hours per day for five weeks were given to football practice,
it does not follow that those are taken from study, or that, if the
game of football were driven out of college, all the players would
betake themselves to books. Some of them would give part of
their time to study, but poor scholars of the team would still con-
tinue to be poor students. Indeed, it is my belief that they would
be poorer scholars than before. When they are on the team the
very necessity to economize their time compels these men to regu-
lar hours of work. When they cease to play football they waste
their time. It has always been the result of my observation that
though the good scholars of the team do better work in the winter
and spring terms, the poor scholars at that time usually fall ojff
in scholarship. But if football is a cause of poor scholarship,
why is it that the cause is not uniform in its effects ? If it were
uniform in its effects all the players would be poor students. Yet
the highest honor men are often members of teams. But it may
be said that the introduction of football into college has affected
the scholarship of the college in general unfavorably, even if it

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has not so affected the scholarship of the players themselves.
But the facts are against this theory. I took the trouble to go
through the scholarship record of two decades — 1869 to 1888 —
decades which witnessed the great development of athletics. For
the first decade the average was 2"67 on a scale of 4 ; for the sec-
ond decade it was 2*69. In the various sports the average scholar-
ship of the football men was the only one which rose in the sec-
ond decade higher than in the first, passing from 2'51 to 2'68.

Evil No. 2 : Extravagance in expenditure of money earned.
Charges of this kind have been made quite recklessly, not only
against football but against athletics generally. Knowing that
the football teams have earned a great deal of money and not
knowing exactly how it is spent, enemies of the game have appar-
ently assumed that it must have been spent extravagantly. None
of this money goes to members of the team. It is all paid into
the treasury of the Financial Union. The treasurer is a graduate.
He pays out money according to the orders of the president of the
Y. U. F. B. C, or of the manager of the team. The only persons,
then, who could possibly be liable to the charges of wastefulness or
extravagance are these three persons. The treasurer can be thrown
out of consideration. He is simply an agent, and the writer can
testify to the fact that the treasurer exercises a restraining influ-
ence. Moreover, as the Financial Union holds and disburses,
through this treasurer, the moneys of the other athletic organiza-
tions, all the officers of that union (who are also officers of those
athletic organizations) exercise a mutual oversight and watch-
fulness toward one another. This influence is felt for good by the
two officers of the university football club as well as by all the
others.

Undoubtedly every year much more money is spent than is
necessary. Undoubtedly, also, much more money has been spent
on football in the last few years than was spent in the first years
of the existence of the game, and a judicious economy might have
saved a good deal of this money. But it must be remembered
that the age is extravagant ; that more money is wasted in dress,
in furniture, in all the vain show of living than was spent thirty
years ago. It must also be borne in mind that in the infancy of
the game only the fifteen or eleven members of the team were
expected to have their unusual expenses paid out of the football
treasury. Now there are a second team of regular substitutes,
and many possible candidates for either team, whose extra ex-
penses are defrayed. Again, the students themselves are aware
of the danger, and have selected for treasurer a graduate and a
business man who will save hundreds of dollars for the organi-
zation, besides by his influence in a quiet way acting as a check
on any tendency to unnecessary or extravagant expenditures.

THE FOOTBALL SITU ATI OK. 729

Though this officer has been in service only one year, the good
results of his work already begin to manifest themselves, as the
following figures will show. They are taken from a statement
made at my request by the treasurer of the Financial Union. I
quote from the letter, only making such changes as will render
the statement clear to the general reader :

" I have given the total footings, you will see, of the expenses
of the season of 1892 and also of the season of 1893. I have also
given you all the items which ran over $1,000 on the expenses
account. In comparing the total expenses, the comparison as

given on this memorandum is from M 's report, which was

made the 1st of February, and H 's report, at the same time

in the year. It seems to be impossible to get in all the bills, so
that the report shall be the same the 1st of February that it is
when I hand in my final report of the year in the summer. For
the sake of comparison, however, I would say this, that while

M 's report showed $15,284.62 expended when he put in his

report, the total expenses of the football season of 1892, when
closed up at the end of the college year, showed something over
$1,000 more than this, and I should think the season of 1893 would
show about the same addition. In either case, you see, it shows a
saving in 1893 over the season of 1892, unless there are some out-
side bills which I, as treasurer, do not know about at present.
In addition to that, we carried considerably more men in 1893.

" In the item of the training table, the sum shown on this re-
port does not allow for the sum paid in by each man for his share
of the board. As you know, it is the custom for each man to pay
what he is paying regularly, so that from these items of the train-
ing table there would be a deduction of the amount paid in by
the team. As this is not yet in, I have given you the figures as
they stand without deducting the same. As nearly as I can cal-
culate it now, Mr. C , the manager, expects to get between five

and six hundred dollars from this source, which would make the

training table expenses pretty close down to $2,000. Mr. M 's

collections from the team were not as full as this, so that the sav-
ing at the training table will be even more than it appears in this
memorandum I am sending you."

Railroad expenses . .

Hotels

'Bus bills

Uniforms and shoes.
Training table

Total expenses .

Season 1892.

$1,505 98

$1,303 00

3,1'74 29

2,400 27

1,004 88

1,026 45

1,494 50

2,001 49

2,93*7 30

2,798 86

$15,284 62

Season 1893.

$13,171 95

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Before leaving this subject it is only fair to say that there is
one form of extravagance of which the football association is not
guilty. They do not spend more than their income. They live
very far within it. Combining with the baseball association in
paying into the Financial Union their earnings, the two organi-
zations more than make up the deficiencies of the others. After
paying all bills of all the organizations the Financial Union is
able to give $4,000 to the field association, $1,000 to the gymna-
sium, and still has a reserve fund for future contingencies.

Evil No. 3 : Brutality. This is the hardest charge to meet, be-
cause there is such a difference of opinion as to what constitutes
brutality. In the eyes of timid people any collisions between
young men in the most properly conducted game would seem bru-
tal, though these same collisions would be tame fun to the aver-
age schoolboy. Personal encounters of some kind seem absolutely
necessary to the education of young men, especially young men
of the strongest characters. Such young men, judiciously trained,
constitute the best citizens of a State. A State full of such citi-
zens becomes thereby the safest to live in, for such men are its
best defense. At the dinner given by Colonel Higginson to the
teams of Yale and Harvard, it was remarked by Mr. Ropes, the
historian, that those nations which practiced semi-military games
like football were not only the strongest nations, but that they
were the least likely to rush into war ; whereas other nations
seemed to carry a chip on their shoulders, ready to fight on the
smallest provocation. Certainly those who have been intimately
acquainted with students and student life for the past twenty-five
years can bear testimony not only to the decreasing brutality of
college customs, but also to the generally mild and gentlemanly
characters of the football players. They, by their influence and
example in the college, have largely contributed to this better
state of college life.

If violent encounters on the football field do lead to the temp-
tation of inflicting needless personal injuries on an opponent, they
also give opportunities for resisting this temptation, and conse-
quently for the development of the highest forms of courage and
self-control. According to the observations of the writer, these
opportunities are embraced by the majority of the players. Only
the minority yield to the temptation, and few of that minority at-
tain to prominent places on a team. If the contrary were the fact,
football would long ago have vanished from the list of college
sports.

With reference to the evils of public contests — gate money and
strains and injuries — the writer sees no reason to change the views
already expressed.

" If field athletics are to continue, the expense of them must be

THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 731

met in one of two ways, either by gate money or by subscriptions.
Most young men prefer to give their money at the gate and thus
to pay for what they see. If a club knows that it is to spend only
what it earns, it will be stimulated, first, to play as good a game
as possible ; and, secondly, to spend its earnings with prudence.
It seems only just, too, that, if the public desire to see a good
game, they should pay for the exhibition. The men work hard
in practice, and are entitled to have their expenses paid. More
than that they do not ask. They do not play for gain but for
honor.

" The evil of liability to strains and injuries in athletics can
not be entirely obviated. It is well to bear in mind, at this point,
the fact that even those who are not athletes do not, therefore, en-
joy immunity from accidents. Yet so far, according to the recol-
lection of the writer, no regular member of a Yale crew, team, or
nine has been permanently injured by participating in a race or
match. Still, it is possible that a slight injury, to a person hav-
ing organic weakness, might result in a fatal difficulty. Such an
issue might be avoided by the requirement that every candidate
for trial should be examined by a competent physician, and, in
default of procuring a certificate of physical soundness, should be
excluded from participation in physical contests." *

As to particular rules looking to the improvement of the game,
none but experts should speak, f Yet it might be allowed to those
who are interested in it, and who have watched it closely, to make
suggestions along the lines in which improvements should be at-
tempted. The present style of mass play and momentum play
puts a premium on weight and brute force. The mingling men
in masses makes injuries more probable than in an open style
of play. The mass play makes the game as little as possible a
kicking game. It eliminates a great deal of the element of skill.
Skill ought to be encouraged by setting some sort of premium on
it. Increasing the number of points scored by a drop-kick from
the field might accomplish this somewhat. Some changes in the
rules regarding "interference" would do more. If, again, the
" warnings " for " rough play " were entirely omitted and the um-
pire were instructed to send a man off the field at the first offense,
captains would train their men to avoid these plays entirely.
Then the experts, in reforming the game, could not do better than
turn their attention to the umpires. If a plan for training um-
pires could be devised it would be a good thing. Not every good

* The Popular Science Monthly, March, 1884.

f Since this article was written the Committee on the Revision of the Rules of Football
have met and recommended changes which are substantially in harmony with the sugges-
tions made by the writer in this paragraph.

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

player, however fair-minded he may be, makes a good umpire. A
man without experience as a player, but yet possessing a quick
eye, a decisive will, and a knowledge of the rules of the game,
might be a better umpire than the most famous player.

As to interference by the faculties in the way of measures
limiting the game, I have already hinted at one, namely, the re-
quiring a certificate of physical soundness for every candidate for
athletic honors. I would also limit teams to undergraduates.
This measure would bring the teams better under the control of
faculty supervision, and would besides put a certain limit to com-
petition. In the first place, the professional schools do not exer-
cise a strict personal supervision over the students. They assume,
and rightly, that a man who commences the study of a profession
has begun the serious business of life, and is capable of directing
his own time. He may be absent from every exercise of the school
except the examinations. Passing those, he can still be a member
of the school in good and regular standing. Such a student, when
in competition for a place on the team with a member of the under-
graduate department, who is held up to attendance on daily exer-
cises, has a great advantage over him. His freedom from restraint
exercises a pernicious influence on the man who is subject to re-
straint. Concert of action between the faculties of undergraduate
departments and those of graduate and professional schools in the
way of control of any sport is almost impossible from the very
circumstances of the case.

Instead of appointing committees to 'act with the students in
the regulation of the sports, a better way to control them would
be the appointment of a director of athletics to a seat in the under-
graduate faculty, who should be the medium of communication
between the students and the instructors. Such a man ought to
have the confidence of the students and be in sympathy with them.
He ought also to be a gentleman and a scholar, a graduate of the
college, and a man holding its best traditions of righteousness and
scholarship sacred. Such a man would be alive to the responsi-
bilities of both sides — of the scholarship side as represented by the
instructors, and of the healthy boy side of student life. I would
not have the mangement of athletics taken by him out of the
hands of the students, but I would have him help them with ad-
vice and with instruction, too, if necessary. I would have him
attend the practice games and the races, oversee the coaches and
trainers, and watch the players and students. He could prevent,
without recourse to " reporting to the faculty," repetitions of
mistakes and follies on the part of the students. He could keep
out bad men from the list of trainers. He could prevent many a
promising lad from wrecking himself by making the excitement
of college sport the be-all and end-all of his existence. By his

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 733

presence among the instructors he could, as opportunity offered,
with timely words, fend off those sad mistakes which worthy gen-
tlemen of the best intentions sometimes make in their dealings
with boys — mistakes of which I think I am justified in saying
that Yale has not often been guilty in the past fifteen years. The
director would earn his salary if he did faithfully what his hand
found to do.

If such men were appointed by all the colleges, and if joint
action by the colleges at any time seemed desirable, these men
would be best fitted to deal with questions which might arise,
and would discover solutions of existing difficulties without rec-
ommending unpractical and impossible plans.

♦»»

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD.

III.— THE QUESTIONING AGE.

Br JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D.,

GBOTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

LONDON.

THE child's first vigorous effort to understand the things about
him may be roughly dated at the end of the third year, and
it is noteworthy that this synchronizes with the advent of the
questioning age. The first putting of a question occurred in the
case of Preyer's boy in the twenty-eighth month, in that of Pol-
lock's girl in the twenty-third month. But the true age of in-
quisitiveness, when question after question is fired off with won-
drous rapidity and pertinacity, seems to be ushered in with the
fourth year.

A common theory peculiarly favored by ignorant nurses and
mothers is that children's questioning is a studied annoyance.
The child has come to the use of words, and with all a child's
*' cussedness " proceeds to torment the ears of those about him.
There are signs, however, of a change of view on this point. The
fact that the questioning follows on the heels of the reasoning
impulse might tell us that it is connected with the throes which
the young understanding has to endure in its first collision with
a tough and baffling world. The question is the outcome of igno-
rance coupled with a belief in a possible knowledge. It aims at
filling up a gap in the child's knowledge, at getting from the
fuller knowledge of another some light on the scrappy, unsatis-
fying information about things which is all that his own obser-
vation can gather, or all that others' half-understood words have
managed to communicate. It is the outcome of intellectual crav-
ing— a demand for food. But it is much more than an expression

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of need. Just as tlie cliild's articulate demand for food implies
that he knows what food is, and that it is obtainable, so the ques-
tion implies that the little questioner knows what he needs, and
in what direction to look for it. The simplest form of question —
e. g.. What is this flower, this insect ? — shows that the child, by
a half-conscious process of reflection and reasoning, has found
his way to the truth that things have their qualities, their belong-
ings, their names.

Questioning may take various directions. A good deal of the
child's catechising of his long-suffering mother is prompted by
thirst for fact.* The typical form of this line of questioning is
" What ? " The motive here is to gain possession of some fact
which will connect itself with and supplement a fact already
known. How old is Rover ? Where was Rover born ? Who
was his father ? What is that dog's name ? What sort of hair
had you when you were a little girl ? These are samples of the
questioning activity by the help of which the little inquirer tries
to make up his connected wholes — to see things with his imagi-
nation in their proper attachment and order. And how greedily
and pertinaciously the small people will follow up their question-
ing, flying, as it often looks, wildly enough from point to point,
yet gathering from every answer some new contribution to their
ideas of things ! A boy of three years and nine months would
thus attack his mother : " What does frogs eat, and mice, and
birds, and butterflies ? and what does they do ? and what is their
names ? What is all their houses' names ? What does they call
their streets and places ? " etc.

Such questions easily appear foolish because, as in the case
just quoted, they are directed by quaint childish fancies. The
child's anthropomorphic way of looking out on the world leads
him to assimilate animal to human ways. Hence one value of
these questionings as showing which way the current of the
child's thought is setting. Hence, too, it would appear that not
every child's question is to be answered. We may, however, set
aside, or rather correct, the form of a child's question without
treating it with an ill-deserved and quite inappropriate contempt.

One feature in this fact-gleaning kind of question is the great
store which the child sets by the name of a thing. M. Compayrd
has pointed out that the form of question, " What is this ? " often
means " What is it called ? " The child's unformulated theory
seems to be that everything has its own individual name. The
little boy just spoken of explained to his mother that he thought
all the frogs, the mice, the birds, and the butterflies had names

* The first question put by Preyer's boy was, " Where is mamma ? " That is an inquiry
as to fact.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 735

given to tliem by their mothers, as he himself had. Perhaps this
was only a way of expressing the childish idea that everything
has its name, primordial and unchangeable. A nameless thing
may well seem to a child no less of a contradiction than a thing
without any size. Perhaps, too, the name as an external sound
joins itself to and qualifies the thing in a way that we, who are
wont to employ words as our own created signs, can hardly enter
into.

A second direction of this early questioning is toward the
reason and the cause of things. The typical form is " why ? "
This form of inquiry occurred in the case of Preyer's boy at the
age of two years and forty-three weeks. But it becomes the all-
predominant form of question somewhat later. Who that has
tried to instruct the small child of three or four does not know
the long, shrill, whinelike sound of this question ? This form of \
question develops naturally out of the earlier, for to give the
" what " of a thing — that is, its connections — is to give its " why " ,
— that is, its mode of production, its use and purpose. '

Nothing, perhaps, in child utterance is better worth interpret-
ing, hardly anything more difficult to interpret, than this simple-
looking little " why ? "

We ourselves, perhaps, do not use the word "why'' and its
correlative " because " with one clear meaning ; and the child's
first use of the words is largely imitative. What may be pretty
safely asserted is that even in the most parrotlike and wearisome
iteration of " why " and its equivalents " what for ? " etc., the
child shows a dim recognition of the truth that a thing is under-
standable, that it has its reasons if only they can be found.

Let us, in judging of this pitiless " why ? " try to understand
the situation of the young mind confronted by so much that is
strange and unassimilated, meeting by observation and hearsay
with new and odd occurrences every day. The strange things
standing apart from his tiny familiar world, the wide region of
the quaint and puzzling in animal ways, for example, stimulate
the instinct to approjjriate, to master. The little thinker must
try at least to bring the new and the odd into some recognizable
relation to this familiar world. And what is more natural than
to go to the wise lips of the grown-up person for a solution of the
difficulty ? The fundamental significance of the " why ? " in the
child's vocabulary, then, is the necessity of connecting new with
old, of illuminating what is strange and dark by light reflected
from what is already matter of knowledge. And a child's " why ? "
is often temporarily satisfied by supplying from the region of the
familiar an analogue to the new and unclassed fact. Thus his
impulse to understand why pussy has fur is fully met by telling
him that it is pussy's hair.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is only a step further in the same direction when the
" why " has to be met by supplying a general statement : for to
refer the particular to a general rule is a more perfect and sys-
tematic kind of assimilation. Now we know that children are
very susceptible to the authority of precedent, custom, general
rule. Just as in children's ethics customary permission makes a
thing right, so in their logic the fact that a thing generally hap-
pens may be said to supply a reason for any single thing happen-
ing. Accordingly, when the much-abused nurse answers the
child's question, " Why is the pavement hard ? " by saying, " Be-
cause pavement is always hard," she is perhaps less open to the
charge of giving a woman's reason than is sometimes said.* In
sooth, the child's queries, his searchings for explanation are, as
already suggested, prompted by the desire for order and connect-
edness. And this means that he wants the general rule to which
he can assimilate the particular and as yet isolated fact.

From the first, however, the " why " and its congeners have
reference to the causal idea, to something which has brought the
new and strange thing into existence and made it what it is. In
truth, this reference to origin, to bringing about or making, is ex-
ceedingly prominent in children's questionings. Nothing is more
interesting to a child than the production of things. What hours
and hours does he not spend in wondering how the pebbles, the
stones, the birds, the babies are made! This vivid interest in
production is to a considerable extent practical. It is one of the
great joys of children to be able themselves to make things, and
the desire to fashion things which is probably at first quite im-
mense, and befitting rather a god than a feeble child, naturally
leads on to know something about the mode of producing. Yet
from the earliest a true speculative interest blends with this prac-
tical instinct. Children are in the complete sense little philoso-
phers, if philosophy, as the ancients said, consists in knowing the
cause of things — " causas rerum cognoscere." This is the com-
pleted process of assimilation, of the reference of the particular
to a general rule or law. Everything remains a mystery, looks
distant and foreign, until its history, its origin is ascertained, and
it can be classed with the known things whose existence is ac-
counted for.

This inquisition into origin and mode of production starts
with the amiable presupposition that all things have been hand-
produced after the manner of household possessions. The world
is a sort of big house where everything has been made by some-
body, or at least fetched from somewhere. This application of
the anthropomorphic idea of fashioning follows the law of all

* Cf. some shrewd remarks by Dr. Venn, Empirical Logic, p. 494.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 737

childish thought that the unknown is assimilated to the known.
The one mode of origin which the embryo thinker is really and
directly familiar with is the making of things. He himself makes
a respectable number of things, including these rents in his clotheC,
messes on the table cloth, and the like, which he gets firmly im-
printed on his memory by the authorities. And, then, he takes
a keen interest in watching the making of things by others, such
as puddings, clothes, houses, hayricks. To ask who made the
animals, the babies, the wind, the clouds, and so forth, then, is
for him merely to apply the more familiar type of causation as
norm or rule. Similarly in all questions as to the " whence " of
things, as in asking whether babies were bought in a shop.

The " why " takes on a more special meaning when the idea of
purpose and adaptation of means to ends becomes clear. The
search now is for the end, what philosophers call the teleological
cause or reason. Here, again, the child sets out with the familiar
type of experience, with human production and action as deter-
mined by aim. And it is easy for him, his mind being possessed
by this anthropomorphic fancy which gives life to all things, to
carry out this kind of inquiry. There is a stage in the develop-
ment of a child's intelligence when questions such as " Why do
the leaves fall ? " " Why does the thunder make such a noise ? "
are answered most satisfactorily by a poetic fiction — by saying,
for example, that the leaves are old and tired of hanging on to
trees, and that the thunder-giant is in a particularly bad temper,
and making a row. It is perhaps permissible to make use of this
fiction at times, more especially perhaps when trying to answer
the untiring questioning about animals and their doings — a region
of existence, by the way, of which even the wisest of us knows ex-
ceedingly little. Yet the device has its risks; and an ill-con-
sidered piece of myth-making passed off as an answer may find
itself awkwardly confronted by that most merciless of things, a
child's logic.

But there is another sort of anthropomorphism in this interro-
gation. Children are apt to think not only that things in general
are after our manner, but, what is very different, have their de-
signs, so to speak, upon us. The sea, it will be remembered, made

its noise with special reference to the ears of the small child C .

We may call this the anthropocentric idea — that is, the idea that
man is the center of reference in the case of natural phenomena.
This anthropocentric tendency is apt to get toned down by the
temperament of a child, which is on the whole optimistic and
decidedly practical, into a looking out for the uses of things. A
boy, already quoted, once (toward the end of the fourth year)
asked his mother what the bees do. This question he explained
by adding " What is the good of them ? " When told that they

VOL. XLT. 54

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

made honey, he observed pertinently enough from his teleological
standpoint, " Then do they bring it for us to eat ? "

Tlie idea underlying this questioning as to uses is the same
idea which the theological optimists of the last century were wont
to drive to such a surprising length. Their amusing speculations
showed how far from easy it Is to apply the idea to particular
cases, and our small philosopher evidently saw the difficulty in
the case of the bees, not by any means one of the most difficult.

A child's question may be prompted merely by ignorance and
curiosity, or by a deeper motive, a sense of perplexity, of mystery,
or contradiction. It is not always easy to distinguish the two
types of question, yet in many cases at least its form, and the
manner of putting, it will tell us that it issues from a puzzled and
temporarily baffled brain. As long as the questioning goes on
briskly, we may infer that a child believes in the possibility of
knowledge, and does not know the deepest depths of intellectual
despair. More pathetic than the saddest of questions is the
silencing of questions by the loss of faith.

It is easy to see that children must find themselves puzzled
with much which they see and hear of. The apparent exceptions
to the rule don't trouble the grown-up persons, just because as re-
current exceptions they seem to take on a rule of their own. Thus
adults, though quite unversed in hydrostatics, would be incapable

of being puzzled by C 's problem, why my putting my hand in

water does not make a hole in it. Similarly, though they know
nothing of animal physiology, they are never troubled by the
mystery of fish breathing under water, which when first noted by
a child may come as a sort of shock. The little boy just referred
to, in his far-reaching zoological interogatory asked his mother,
" Can they (the fish) breathe with their mouf s under water ? "

In his own investigations, and in getting instruction from
others, the child is frequently coming upon puzzles of this sort.
The same boy was much exercised about the sea and where it
went to. He expressed a wish to take ofi^ his shoes and to walk
out into the sea so as to see where the ships go to, and was mucli
troubled on learning that the sea got deeper and deeper and that if
he walked out into it he would be drowned. At first he denied the
paradox (which he at once saw) of the incoming sea going uphill.
" But, mamma, it doesn't run up, it doesn't run up, so it couldn't
come up over our heads ? " He was told that this was so, and he
wisely began to try to accommodate his mind to this startling

revelation. C , too, was much exercised by this problem of the

moving mass of waters, wanting to know whether it came half-
way up the world. Probably in both these cases the idea of water
rising had its uncanny, alarming aspect.

We have seen that the disappearance of a thing is at a very

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 739

early stage a puzzle to the infant. Later on, too, the young mind
continues to be exercised about this mystery. Our little friend's
inquiry about the whither of the big, receding sea, " Where does
the sea sim (swim) to ?" illustrates this perplexity. A child seems
able to understand the shifting of an object of moderate size from
one part of space to another, but his conception of space is proba-
bly not large enough to permit him to realize how a big tract of
water can pass out of the visible scene into the unseen. The
child's question, " Where does all the wind go to ?" seems to have
sprung from a like inability to picture a vast unseen realm of space.

C 's question as to where all the days go to may have been

prompted by the idea that the days or their scenic contents con-
tinue to exist somewhere ; that the past is something like the un-
seen region of space into which things disappear as they move
away from us.

In addition to this difficulty of the disappearance of big things,
there seems to be something in the vastness, the infinite quantity
and number of existents perceived and heard about, which puzzles
and oppresses the young mind. The inability to take in all the
new facts leads to a kind of resentment at their multitude. " Moth-
er," asked a boy of four years, " why is there such a lot of things in
the world if no one knows all these things ? " One can not be
quite sure of the underlying thought here. Did the child mean
merely to protest against the production of so confusing a num-
ber of objects, or was there a deeper difiiculty, a dim presentiment
of Berkeley's idealism, that things can exist only as objects of
knowledge ? This surmise may seem far-fetched to some, yet I
have found what seem to me other traces of this tendency in chil-
dren. A girl of six and a half years was talking to her father
about the making of the world. He pointed out to her the diffi-
culty of creating things out of nothing, showing her that when
we made things we simply fashioned materials anew. She pon-
dered and then said, " Perhaps the world's a fancy." Here, again,
one can not be quite sure of the child-thought behind the words.
Yet it certainly looks like a falling back for a moment into the
dreamy mood of the idealist — that mood in which we seem to see
the solid fabric of things dissolve into a shadowy phantasmagoria.

The subject of origins is, as we know, beset with puzzles for
the childish mind. The beginnings of living things are of course
the great mystery. " There's such a lot of things," remarked the
little zoologist I have recently been quoting, " I want to know,
that you say nobody knows, mamma. I want to know who made
God, and I want to know if pussy has eggs to help her make ickle
(little) kitties." Finding that this was not so, he observed, " Oh,
then, I s'pose she has to have God to help her if she doesn't have
kitties in eggs given her to sit on." Another little boy, five years

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

old, found liis way to the puzzle of the reciprocal genetic relation
of the hen and the Q^^, and asked his mother : " When there is no
QgZi where does the hen come from ? When there was no ^^g, I
mean, where did the hen come from ? " In a similar way as we

saw in C 's journal a child will puzzle his brains by asking how

the first child was suckled, how the first chicken-pox was acquired,
how the first man learned to speak (without any example).

The allied mystery of growth is also a frequent theme of this
early questioning. " How " (asked one little three-year-old ques-
tioner) " does plants grow when we plant them ? and how does
boys grow from babies to big boys like me ? Has I grown now
while I was eating my supper ? See ! " and he stood up, to make
the most of his stature. It would be funny to know all a child's
speculations on this supremely interesting matter of growth.
But of this more by and by.

Much of this questioning is metaphysical, in that it transcends
the problems of every-day life and of science. The child is meta-
physician in the sense in which the earliest human thinkers were
metaphysicians, pushing his questioning into the inmost nature
of things, and back to their absolute beginnings. He has no idea
yet of the confines of human knowledge. If his mother tells him
she does not know, he tenaciously clings to the idea that some-
body knows — the doctor it may be, or the clergyman, or possibly
the policeman, of whose superior knowledge one little girl was
forcibly convinced by noting that her father once asked informa-
tion of one of these willing officials.

Strange, bizarre, altogether puzzling to the listener are some
of the child's questions. The " why " is applied to everything in
a most bewildering fashion. A little American girl, of nine years,
after a pause in talk, recommenced the conversation by asking,
" Why don't I think of something to say ? " A play recently per-
formed in a London theater made precisely this line of question-
ing a chief amusing feature in one of its comical characters. An-
other little American girl, aged three, one day left her play and
her baby sister, named Edna Belle, to find her mother and ask,
" Mamma, why isn't Edna Belle me, and why ain't I Edna
Belle ?" * The narrator of this story adds that the child was not
a daughter of a professor of metaphysics but of practical farmer
folk. One can not be quite sure of the precise drift of this ques-
tion. It may well have been the outcome of a new development
of self-consciousness, of a clearer awareness of the self in its dis-
tinctness from others. A question with a much clearer meta-
physical ring about it, showing thought about the subtlest prob-

* Quoted from an iirticle, Some Comments on Babies, by Miss Shinn, in the Overland
Monthly-, .January, 1894.

STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 74.1

lems, was that put by a boy of the same age : " If I'd gone upstairs,
could God make it that I hadn't ? "

All children's questioning does not, of course, take this sub-
lime direction. Along with the tendency to push back inquiry to
the unreachable beginning of things we mark a more modest and
scientific line of investigation into the observable and explain-
able processes of Nature. Some questions which a busy listener
would pooh-pooh as dreamy have a genuinely scientific value,
showing that the little inquirer is trying to work out some prob-
lem of fact. This is illustrated by a question put by a little boy
aged three years and nine months. " Why don't we see two things
with our two eyes ? " — a problem which, as we know, has exercised
older psychologists.

When this more definitely scientific direction is taken by a
child's questioning we may observe that the ambitious " Why ? "
begins to play a second role, the first being now taken by the more
modest " How ? " The boy Clerk Maxwell, with his incessant in-
quiries into the " go " of this thing or the " particular go " of that,
illustrates this early tendency to direct questioning to the more
manageable problems to which science confines itself.

These diiferent lines of questioning are apt to run on concur-
rently from the end of the third year, a fit of eager curiosity about
animals or other natural objects giving place to a fit of theological
inquiry ; this, again, being dropped for an equally eager inquiry
into the making of clocks, railway engines, and so on. Yet
through these alternating bouts of questioning we can distinguish
something like a law of intellectual progress. Questioning as the
most direct expression of a child's curiosity follows the develop-
ment of his groups of ideas and of the interests which help to
construct these. Thus I think it a general rule that questioning
about the make or mechanism of things follows questioning about
animal ways just because the zoological interest (in a very crude
form, of course) precedes the mechanical. The scope of this early
questioning will, moreover, expand with intellectual capacity, and
more particularly the capability of forming the more abstruse
kind of childish idea. Thus, inquiries into absolute beginnings,
into the origin of the world and of God himself, indicate the pres-
ence of a larger intellectual grasp of time relations and of the
processes of becoming.

Our survey of the field of childish questioning suggests that
it is by no means an easy matter to deal with. It must be ad-
mitted, I think, by the most enthusiastic partisan of children that
their questioning is of very unequal value. It may often be no-
ticed that a child's " Why ? " is used in a sleepy, mechanical way,
with no real desire for knowledge, any semblance of answer being
accepted, without an attempt to put a meaning into it. A good

742 THE POPULAR SCIENCJ^ MONTHLY.

deal of the more importunate varieties of children's questionings
when they follow up question by question recklessly, as it seems,
and without definite aim, appears to be of this formal and lifeless
character, an expression not of a sound intellectual activity, but
merely of a mood of general mental discontent and peevishness. In
a certain amount of childish questioning, indeed, we have, I suspect,
to do with a distinctly abnormal mental state, with an analogue
of that mania of questions or passion for mental rummaging or
prying into everything — Oriihelsuclit, as the Germans call it —
which is a well-known phase of mental disease, and in which the
patient will put such questions as these: "Why do I stand here
where I stand ?" "Why is a glass a glass, a chair a chair ?" *
Such questioning ought, it is evident, not to be treated too seri-
ously. We may attach too much significance to a child's ques-
tion, laboring hard to grasp its meaning, with a view to answer-
ing it, when we should be wiser if we viewed it as a symptom
of mental irritability and peevishness, to be got rid of as quickly
as possible by a good romp or other healthy distraction.

To admit, however, that children's questions may now and
again need this sort of wholesome snubbing is far from saying
that we ought to treat all their questioning with a mild contempt.
If now and then they torment their elders with a string of ran-
dom, reckless questionings, in how many cases, one wonders, are
they not made to sufi'er — and that wrongfully — by having per-
fectly serious questions rudely cast back on their hands ? The
truth is, that to understand and to answer children's questions
is a considerable art, including a large and deep knowledge of
things, and a quick, sympathetic insight into the little questioners'
minds. It is one of the tragi-comic features of human life that
the ardent little explorer, looking out with wide-eyed wonder
upon his new world, should now and again find as his first guide
a nurse or even a mother who will resent the majority of his
questions as disturbing the luxurious mood of indolence in which
she chooses to pass her days. We can never know how much
valuable mental activity has been checked, how much hope and
courage cast down, hj this kind of treatment. Yet happily the
questioning impulse is not easily eradicated, and a child who has
suffered at the outset from this wholesale contempt may be fortu-
nate enough to meet, while the spirit of investigation is still upon
him, one who knows and who has the good nature and the pa-
tience to impart what he knows in response to a child's appeal.

* See W. James, Psychology, vol. ii, p. 284.

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 743

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT.

By lee J. VANCE.

TWO hundred years ago a pious monk, Dom Perignon by-
name, lield the post of cellarer to the fraternity of monks of
the Order of St. Benedict, in the hamlet of Hautevillers, situated
on the river Marne, four or five miles from Epernay and about
fifteen miles from Rheims. His was an important position, for
the revenues of the abbey depended entirely on its vineyards,
and consequently on the taste, judgment, and skill of its cellarer.
Consider what this pious monk did to increase the revenues of the
abbey.

The important contributions that Dom Perignon made to the
art of wine-making were the result of observations and experi-
ment. Thus, he noticed that the wine which was made from
the grapes growing in the different vineyards of the district
showed, as might be supposed, different characteristics. For ex-
ample, the black grapes produced a white wine that improved
with age, instead of turning yellow and deteriorating as did the
wine made from white grapes. This set Dom Perignon to think-
ing. Then the happy idea suggested itself to him of " marrying "
the different wines produced in the vineyards of the district.
Why not blend the juice of the black grapes with that of the
white grapes ? Now, Dom Perignon, be it said, was an artist.
He tried many different mixtures until he obtained one or two
wines that satisfied his nice and cultivated taste.

If Dom Perignon had been content to manufacture wine by
the ancient and time-honored methods of his predecessors, he
would never have discovered the light, sparkling wine which has
made the Champagne district of France known the world over.
His first discovery, the blending of certain wines, which was
the result of care and thought, led in turn to his second and
greatest discovery — the secret of sparkling wines — which, oddly
enough, came by accident. One day a tightly corked bottle in
the cellar exploded, and lo ! to the monk was revealed the mys-
tery of effervescence, and vin mousseux — what we call cham-
pagne— was the glorious result.

The new wine met with immediate favor and great success.
It revolutionized the art of wine-making ; it was a revelation to
wine-drinkers. Sparkling wine was so far beyond the old-style
still wine that the two could not be compared in the same breath.
The delicious and original qualities of vin mousseux are a fine
color, a snap, a sparkle, and "beaded bubbles winking at the
brim," a quick, fleeting taste to the tongue, an almost impercepti-
ble bouquet, and last but not least a subtle, exhilarating effect.

A

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THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 745

The straw- white wine from the Champagne district, especially
from Hautevillers, became famous during the reign of Louis XIV.
The king contributed to bring the new wine into fashion by hav-
ing it on the royal table. The great wine connoisseur of the day,
Marquis de Sillery, at a souper d'Anet, introduced champagne in
flower-wreathed bottles, which, at a given signal, a dozen bloom-
ing damsels in the guise of Bacchanals placed upon the table.

Thus heralded, champagne became par excellence the wine of
civilization. So Talleyrand in his epigrammatic way called it,
^' vin civilisateur 'par excellence" In England, at the beginning
of the present century, champagne was the necessary adjunct to
^11 public and private banquets. No formal affair was complete
without it. And yet, ninety, eighty, seventy, or sixty years ago
the amount of champagne made and required was comparatively
small. Indeed, it is only within the last forty or fifty years that
the consumption of champagne has increased by " leaps and
bounds." It has increased fourfold within thirty years ; it has
-doubled within the past fifteen years ; and in this connection, it
is significant to note that the growing demand for champagne has
■come, not from France, but from foreign countries, principally
from Russia, England, and America. Five times as much cham-
pagne is required outside of France as is used for home con-
sumption.

The extraordinary demand for champagne stimulated the
wine-makers of other grajDe-growing districts and of other coun-
tries to produce a genuine vin mousseux. The result is, there
are many sparldiiig wines — for example, the sparkling wines of
Germany and Austria — but only one kind of champagne, and
that is made in the Champagne district of France.

The earliest attempt at the manufacture of champagne on a
commercial scale in the United States was made in Ohio about
the year 1850. At that time there were extensive vineyards in
the Ohio Valley. The pioneer and promoter of an American
champagne industry was the Hon. Nicholas Longworth, of Cin-
cinnati. He procured expert and capable wine-makers, and im-
ported improved machinery and appliances from the Champagne
district of France. He was fairly successful in making a spark-
ling Catawba wine. For several seasons — that is, from 1862 to
1865 — the vines were attacked by pests and fungoid diseases ; the
vineyards of the Ohio Valley were destroyed, and the champagne
business ruined. Since then the grape and wine industry has
been transferred to the northern part of Ohio, along the shores of
Lake Erie, and a small amount of champagne is now made at
Kelley's Island, Toledo, and Sandusky ; also at St. Louis, Mo.

Meanwhile the lake region of central New York was rapidly
coming to the front as the land of vineyards. We refer to the

746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

country around three lakes — Keiika, Seneca, and Canandaigua.
The grape industry was started along Lake Keuka about fifty
years ago. The first outdoor grapes were shipped to the New
York market about 18-47-'48 by the way of the Erie Canal. In
1860 the Lake Keuka grape industry was well rooted, and there
were planted and in bearing about 250 acres.

At the present time there are about 10,500 acres of vineyards
in the Lake Keuka district. To this should be added about 10,-
000 acres of vineyards in the Seneca and Canandaigua districts,
making a total of 26,500 acres in the lake region. In the western
part of the State is the Chautauqua district, which contains about
18,000 acres of vineyards. The Hudson River district, which was
established about 1860, has about 14,000 acres of vines.

In 1890,* when the statistics of viticulture were gathered for
the first time in the United States, it was found that New York
State, with one fourth of the acreage of California, raised almost
twice as many table grapes as the latter State. In other words,
four fifths of the grapes grown in New York are for table pur-
poses, while in California four fifths of the grapes are made into
wine.

The American champagne district, as the Lake Keuka region
has been known for some time, is fairly entitled to its name.
More and better champagne is produced annually in this district
than in any other section of the United States. The first wine
company, the Pleasant Valley, was formed in 1860, and a few
years later began making champagne. In 1865 the Urbana Wine
Company was organized, with the object of making a superior
American champagne. These two cellars each carry a stock of
1,000,000 bottles of champagne. There are five other cellars in the
district, all making champagne, and ranging in capacity from
;?0,000 to 150,000 gallons.

East of the Rocky Mountains no champagne in any quantity
is made outside of Ohio and New York. West of that great
range considerable champagne has been made in one section of
California, but the Eastern product is regarded by connoisseurs
as more nearly approaching in quality the best French product.
There is, and will be, a difference between the best American and
French champagnes, owing to the variety of grapes and soils, but
outside of that, as a chemical analysis will show, the difi'erence is
no greater than that between French champagnes produced in
the several localities of the Champagne district.

It is now well understood that the golden qualities of vin

* In thut season tbe New York jjrowers shipped to market the enormous quantity of
60,687 tons, or 121,374,000 pounds, of table grapes, while California sold only 38,785 tons
for the same purpose.

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748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

niousseux maybe attributed to three elements: (1) The variety
of grape ; (2) the soil and climatic conditions ; and (3) the manip-
ulation. The grapes of which the French wine is made grow on
a soil which is peculiar in its mixture of chalk, silica, light clay,
and oxide of iron. The surface of the champagne district is com-
posed of light clay and pebbles, and the vine flourishes best where
the soil appears most sterile. Hence, while the grapes for cham-
pagne contain but little sugar, they draw from the earth those
chemical elements that give certain peculiar qualities to the wine.

When viticulture was introduced into this country, more than
one hundred years ago, efforts were made to grow the European
varieties of grapes east of the Mississippi. With few exceptions,
these foreign varieties turned out to be failures. Then our East-
ern viticulturists directed their attention to the improvement of
native vines. By dint of experiment after experiment they have
succeeded in developing some of the choicest and most valuable
varieties of grapes known — varieties good for the table as well as
for wine-making.

The two great native grape stocks are the Concord and the
Catawba. From the seedlings of the Concord we have obtained
Worden, Moore's Early, Pocklington, Martha, and other well-
known varieties. The Concord is also one parent of Niagara, El
Dorado, Brighton, etc. From the Catawba we have obtained
lona, Diana, Excelsior, etc. The Delaware and Isabella have
given us a few good varieties. Some idea of the varieties of
native grapes can be gained from the statement that two hundred
and seventy-five varieties of grapes were sent by Eastern growers
to the horticultural exhibit at the World's Fair, Chicago.

The wonderful improvement of our wild American grapes is
striking testimony to man's power of selection. He has trans-
formed sourish, harshly flavored wildlings into sweet, luscious
fruit. In this process there has been an evolution of the sense of
taste. Our grandfathers and fathers ate sour grapes, but the
children's teeth have not been set on edge, because they eat sweet
grapes. The difference between a lemon and an orange repre-
sents the improvement of the grapes of the present day over the
grapes of fifty years ago.

Somewhat different has been the history of viticulture in Cali-
fornia. There, efforts to grow the European varieties of grapes
were successful from the first. The California growers did not
have to experiment with native vines. Numerous varieties of
the foreign species Vitis vinifera were planted and cultivated,
and, in the right climate and soil, they showed their Old World
characteristics. Many of the choice kinds of French, German,
Italian, and Spanish types seem to come nearer to reproducing
themselves here than elsewhere.

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 749

California may be divided into three grape-growing sections :
(1) The coast, (2) the Sierra Nevada foothills and Sacramento
Valley, (3) the southern counties. In the first district are grown
varieties of French champagne grapes, from which are produced
large quantities of sparkling wines. The Sierra Nevada foothills
are best adapted, as the Director of the Experiment Stations has
pointed out, to the growing of sherry, port, and raisin grapes,
while the slopes and valleys of the Coast Range must be looked to
for wines of the claret, burgundy, and sauterne types.* The
southern district of California excels in sweet wines and bran-
dies. Here the Muscat varieties are grown for table use and for
raisins.

Thus, the differences between the two great grape-growing
sections of the United States are clearly defined. The grapes
raised in New York and Ohio — in fact, all those raised east of
the Rocky Mountains — are native varieties and contain but little
sugar. They yield the delicate table wines and champagne. The
grapes raised west of the Rockies, especially in California, are
European varieties and are heavy in sugar. They produce
brandies, the demi-liquor wines, such as sauterne, and the heavy
liquor wines, such as sherries, madeiras, and ports. Hence the
methods of wine-making in California are quite different from
those in Eastern States.

The Eastern district possesses many points in common with
the French vineyard districts. The Lake Keuka country is a
fine grape-growing region, owing to the peculiar climatic and
other natural advantages that it enjoys.

Here is the proper place to observe that the best grape localities
or climates are those where dews are light or altogether absent. It
is a matter of experience that grape culture has become popular
and profitable only in such localities. It is so in the champagne
district of France along the river Marne, or in the Medoc district
stretching north from Bordeaux between the sea and the rivers
Garonne and Gironde, and in Germany along the river Rhine.
It is so in the United States, along the Hudson River, along the
lakes of central and western New York, and in the strip of terri-
tory extending along the shores of Lake Erie. In all of these
grape-growing regions the vines are exempt from heavy or fre-
quent dews and fogs, on account of the presence of considerable
bodies of water.

It is to these climatic conditions that the Lake Keuka grape
industry owes its success. The vineyards are always under the
protecting presence of Lake Keuka, and under the guard of the
high hills that surround it. Here the grape is enabled to escape

*See report for 1889.

75°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

its most dangerous enemy — early frost. The sj^ring comes late,
as the crust of ice on the lake keeps the water and air cold, and
retards the opening of the buds until the usual danger of frost
is past. The water exerts a similar favorable influence in au-
tumn, by retaining the heat collected during the summer, so that
the fruit is protected from early frosts in September. The pres-
ence of this stratum of air is shown by the absence of light frosts
during late autumn, and by the greenness of the foliage where the

Fig. 3. — Champagne Vault.

warm breezes from the lake extend. There is a difference of from
six to ten degrees between the temperature near the lake and that
on the hilltops.*

The soil is also another important factor in the successful
growing of grapes. The surface of the Lake Keuka hillsides is
composed of gravel and shale on calcareous rock. It looks bare,
having been washed oif by rainstorms and freshets centuries ago.
There are places where vegetation is stunted, and where weeds
find no great encouragement; and yet the finest Catawba vines
flourish in soils that appear little l)etter than gravel beds. You
wonder how grapes can grow and sweeten on such ground. The
reason is, that in such earth the soil retains the sun's heat long

* The influence of water in ameliorating climate is seen in the varieties of native grapes
that flourish in certain localities. The labrusca stock is a native east of the Alleghany
Mountains, and is suited to a moist climate. It does not do well or flourish in the dry re-
gions of the Western and Southwestern States. The bonrquhihma varieties, such as hcrbe-
mont, are eminently dry climate grapes. The fesiivalis of the South and the native viparias
of tlie Northwest are best fitted to their environment.

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 751

after sundown, so that the work of fructification goes on silently
by niglit as by day.*

A few words as to the methods of cultivation that obtain in
the Lake Keuka district. The vines are set from six to eight feet
apart, and are trained to run on trellises. Three lines of wire are
stretched from stakes, which are about eight feet distant from
each other. The vines begin bearing in the third year, and the
yield increases until the fifth and sixth years, when a vineyard is
said to be in full bearing. The life of a vineyard is often three
score and ten years, so that with good care and attention the chil-
dren may reap from the vines their fathers planted. The average
yield is about two tons of Catawba grapes to the acre, while the
Concords will often go four tons to the acre.

In the fourth year the vine, if it has made good growth, is
trimmed with two arms. The method of training is known as the
"horizontal arm and spur system." By this system two main
horizontal branches, or canes, are trained permanently to the
lower wires — one to the right, another to the left. The upright
shoots, that grow from the two main arms each season, are cut
back each fall or winter to upright " spurs." The strongest new
shoots that spring from these spurs in the spring are left for the
bearing wood of that season, and this new cane is headed back to
the top wire of the trellis. A strong vine will carry four shoots
on each arm, or eight in all, care being taken not to overload
the vine.

The method of pruning is known to growers as the thorough
renewal system. When the spurs on the two main arms become
overgrown or rank, they are renewed from new shoots, which
spring from the arm, or near the base of the vine. Sometimes the
arm itself is renewed from the head of the vine, or from a point
near the ground. Summer pruning consists in thinning the vines
here and there, and cutting off damaged clusters and imperfect
berries.

As soon as the frost is out of the ground the grower goes
through his vineyard to see if it has wintered well — that is, if post,
wires, and vines are in good shape. A few weeks later, the canes
are tied by willow bands to the lower wire. During May and
June the vineyard is plowed and the roots grubbed. The first

* The peculiar climatic and other natural advantages of the Lake Keuka region are
summed up by William Saunders, Government Superintendent of Gardens and Grounds, as
follows : " Here the Catawba and other late grapes mature and reach remarkable perfec-
tion, taking the latitude into consideration. These vineyards are mostly on the hillsides ex-
tending for several hundred feet above the valley and surface of Keuka Lake. The soil is
a drift formation, and the surface is thickly covered with loose shale. The marked adapta-
bility of this locality for grape culture may be attributed to its elevation and nature of the
soil." — {Report of Secretary of Agriculture for 1889, p. 113.)

752

THE POPULAR SCIEl^CE MONTHLY

plowing is away from the vines, and in the second and third it is
toward the vines. During the summer the vines grow vigorously^
and the climbing offshoots are tied by straw bands to the second
and third wires.

The algebraic x stands for the unknown quantity in grape-
growing — for bad weather, diseases and pests. A few years ago
the Lake Keuka vineyards were attacked by " black rot." At one
time it looked as if the industry would be wiped out as complete-
ly as it was in the Ohio Valley thirty years ago. But the remedy
known as the " Bordeaux mixture " proved to be the salvation of
the grape-grower. It is a composition of six pounds each of sul-
phate of copper and lime to fifty gallons of water. This is sprayed

Fig. 4. — Finishing Champagne.

on the vines three times during the season : first, when the blos-
soms begin to appear ; second, just after blossoming and when the
fruit has set ; third, when the grapes are partly grown. For the
last spraying many growers use a copper carbonate ammoniacal
solution.

The vintage begins the first week in September and lasts until
the third week in October. It depends, of course, on the weather
and on the kind of grapes grown. The Delawares ripen first, then
the Concords, while the Catawbas seldom mature before the first
week in October. The grape crop is picked in boxes which hold
from thirty to forty pounds. When filled they are carried to the

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 753

end of the rows, and there gathered two or three times a day and
drawn to the packing house. The fruit that is not packed in
boxes for market is stored in crates or on trays and, by proper
ventilation and temperature it can be kept fresh and fair for sev-
eral months. This gives the grower a long range of season, and
choice table grapes are supplied from October till the following
March or April.

This grape-picking time is a kind of long and pleasant picnic —
all the more pleasant for being a busy one. The men and women
look forward to it from year to year as a chance to earn money
to carry them through the winter, while the young people re-
gard the season as one of recreation and enjoyment. The most
expert pickers are the women and girls. They come from the
neighboring farms and country villages. The usual rate of wages
is one dollar per day without " board," or three dollars per week
with board.

The Lake Keuka grape crop is sent to market in small bask-
ets. Last year (1893) the number of cars shipped from the district
was not less than 2,200. As each car holds from 2,500 to 2,700
baskets, the reader can form some correct idea of the quantity of
grapes produced annually in this one district. The bulk of the
crop is sent to the Eastern cities — New York, Philadelphia, and
Boston. The growers send table-grapes as far west as Omaha and
Denver, and last season several carloads were shipped to the
Northwest, and even to Manitoba.

At the present time the wine cellars take a very small per cent-
age of the total crop. It is estimated that the twelve wineries in
the Keuka Lake district use from 5,000 to 6,000 tons of grapes dur-
ing the season. There is now an overproduction of grapes for
table purposes. The growers look to the growing wants of the
wine cellars to take their surplus crop. With the increasing de-
mand for American wines, especially for champagne and delicate
table wines, the time should be not far distant when the output of
the cellars will be ten times as great as it is to-day.

Of course, the reader will be interested in learning how the pure,
sweet juice of the grape is converted into lively, sparkling cham-
pagne. There is more or less of a veil of secrecy thrown around
the ways and methods of the champagne-maker; for he is an
artist and does not wish to disclose the mysteries of his art. What
follows concerning the various processes through which the wine
goes in its successive stages is the result of a visit made last au-
tumn to the largest establishment of its kind in the United States.

The building of A. B. & Co. is on the shore of the lake, and,

being constructed of huge blocks of quarried stone, looks like a

mediaeval castle. The outside gives one little notion of the size

and capacity of the establishment. There are fourteen separate

VOL. xLv. — 55

754- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vaults, or cellars, and these extend far under the hill. Together
they are one hundred and thirty-two feet long and one hundred
and five feet wide. Stored underground are one million bottles of
champagne made by the French method — i. e., by fermentation in
the bottle.

You enter : the nostrils are tickled with the odor of the wines.
You see the vats heaped full with luscious grapes ; the two double
wine presses are working and squeezing out the life-blood of the
berries ; the liquid stream is pouring into large tanks ; the men
are bare-armed, their hands and faces smeared with red stains —
you see this, and can imagine Bacchus and his merry crew holding
high carnival.

This new wine, or " must," after it deposits its lees in the course
of a few days, is run into casks holding from two to four thou-
sand gallons each. Here it remains for six or eight weeks — that
is, until it has passed through its first fermentation. Then it is
racked off into other casks, and is now ready for mixing.

The composition of the blend is, of course, one of the secrets of
the art. The French wine-maker mixes the juice of black grapes
with that of white grapes in the proportion of three to one. The
American wine-maker does about the same. He takes juice of the
black Concord and Isabella grapes and mixes it with that of the
red Catawba, lona, and Delaware grapes. The great point is to
get the right amount of saccharine matter, so as to cause neither
too much nor too little effervescence : if too much, the bottles
break afterward ; if too little, the wine becomes dull, flat, and in-
sipid. Thus the cuvee is effected. Think of the delicacy of taste
required in order to know what the juices of many different
grapes will bring forth two years hence! The mixture is put
into casks in which it undergoes the process of fining, and then it
is ready for bottling. After being bottled, the wine is kept in a
semi-warm room until fermentation is well begun. The bottles
are then carried to the deep, cool vaults, where they are packed in
horizontal layers, making a pile four or five feet deep and twelve
or fifteen feet long. Thus the bottles remain until the wine
within is fully ripe — a period of from twelve to eighteen months.

It is important that the vaults be kept at an equable tempera-
ture. This is accomplished by the cold storage system, and the
thermometer will not show a variation of more than three degrees
throughout the year. The bottles are of great strength and of
foreign make. The loss from breakage is always considerable,
ranging from five to fifteen per cent. It is one of the items of the
extra expense of champagne ; the others being the quality of the
juice, the care and manipulation required, and the capital invested
for two or three years.

When champagne is considered fully ripened, the bottles are

THE AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 755

placed upon clearing tables, or racks, the necks pointing obliquely
downward, in order that the sediment which has been formed
during fermentation may work down upon the cork. Twice a day
for three or four weeks the workmen give the bottles a quick lit-
tle shake, and turn them partly around and down. At the end of
this time the sediment is in the neck of the bottle, while the body
of the wine is clear.

Now the bottles are taken to the finishing room, cork down,
and the sediment is "disgorged." The workman cuts the cord
holding the cork, and zip ! out shoots the sediment with a report.
The bottle is quickly placed on a machine and supplied with
a temporary cork.

The wine in this state is raw — vin 'brut — without any liqueur.
It is sharp and not cloying to the taste. It must be sweetened.
So the bottle is placed in a machine, and a spoonful of liqueur is
injected into it from a graduated glass tube or reservoir. This
" dosage," as it is called, is simply pure sugar crystal dissolved in
old wine or fine brandy. The dry champagne which the English
and Americans like contains from four to eight per cent of
liqueur ; the Russians like sweet champagne, which has from fif-
teen to twenty per cent of liqueur.*

The bottle is permanently corked, and passed to a workman
who ties in the cork and fastens wire around it. An ingenious
capping machine puts on the pretty gold and silver foil that
decorates the bottle, and finally the label is pasted on and the
wine cased.

Such, in brief, are the successive stages through which cham-
pagne must pass ere it reaches the table with a bird and is called
a "cold bottle." During these processes each bottle has been
handled about two hundred times, and the transition from the
grape to the finished product has taken two years and a half of
time. There is, however, a short cut to champagne. Man does in
a few days or a week what it takes Nature to accomplish in two
years. He forces carbonic gas into the wine, and he even imi-
tates closely the different bouquets. All is not champagne that
sparkles, t

Champagne ! There is an indescribable charm over, around,
and about thee. The very word suggests glitter and bubble and

* The word " dry " is used by wine-growers to indicate natural- juice wine, such as claret
or Rhine wine, in which no sugar is left after fermentation. As applied to champagnes,
" dry " is used to indicate the degree of sweetness, as " dry " and " extra dry " or " special
dry." We do not undertake to pass on the comparative merits of the French and American
champagnes.

\ The apparatus for charging wine and formulas for imitating bouquets are given in
Antonio dal Piaz's book. Die Champagner-Fabrikation und Erzeugung impragnirter Schaum-
weiue. Wien, 1892.

756 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sparkle. It brings to many of ns a flood of recollections : pleas-
ant company — bright eyes and rosy cheeks — laughter, sunburned
mirth, and Provengal song — the feast of reason and flow of soul
— the flow of words, repartee and banter — after-dinner speeches,
and dull, formal dinners — all jumbled together. Even at this late
day many a Cassio listens to the voice of the tempter lago, who
says : " Come, come ; good wine is a good familiar creature, if it
be well used ; exclaim no more against it ! "

SOME LESSONS FROM CENTENNARIANS.

By J. M. FEENCH, M. D,

AN examination of the Massachusetts registration reports re-
- veals some facts with reference to centennarians which are
of interest, both in themselves considered and as illustrating some
of the conditions favorable to great longevity.

The whole number of persons who died in Massachusetts dur-
ing the ten years from 1881 to 1890, inclusive, at the age of one
hundred years or over, was 203. The whole number of deaths re-
ported during the same time was 394,484, making the proportion
of centennarians one for every 1,938 of all deaths reported.

Dr. Farr, the celebrated English registrar general, in his
March of an English Generation through Life, states that out of
every 1,000,000 persons born in England only 223 live to the age
of one hundred years. This is one in 4,484, or less than one half
the proportion in Massachusetts. It must be remembered, how-
ever, that in respect to certain elements the conditions in the two
cases are not parallel ; inasmuch as, in the first place, the returns
of deaths, especially of infants and young children, are much less
complete in Massachusetts than in England ; and, in the second
place, a large proportion of persons of the younger ages are con-
stantly going out from Massachusetts to settle in the newer por-
tions of our country, leaving an abnormally large proportion of
aged persons. Nevertheless, after all allowances have been made,
the proportion of centennarians in Massachusetts is unexpectedly
large, and leads to the belief that its climate and conditions of
life are favorable to longevity.

The average age of these 203 centennarians was one hundred
and two years, five months, and twenty-five days. One hundred
and sixty-five were between one hundred and one hundred and
five, thirty-one were from one hundred and five to one hundred
and ten, seven were from one hundred and ten to one hundred and
fifteen, and one was one hundred and eighteen years of age.

The next fact which claims our attention is that, of these 203

SOME LESSONS FROM CENTENNARIANS. 757

persons, 153 were females and only 50 males — that is, more than
three times as many women as men reached the age of one hun-
dred years. This proportion does not vary greatly from that
which has been reported in other cases. Thus, in New York city,
out of 111 persons dying at the age of ninety years or over, 77
were females and 34 males — a proportion of two and one fourth
to one. The Morning Post of London has tabulated all the cases
of exceptionally long life which were reported in its columns
during the year 1892, and finds that the octogenarians numbered
1,151, of whom 646 were females and 545 males. Above the age
of eighty the proportion of females rapidly increases, so that at
the age of one hundred or over there are five times as many
women as men. Dr. Farr states that of males living at twenty,
one in three reaches seventy, one in eight reaches eighty, and one
in seventy reaches ninety ; while of females living at twenty, one
in two and two fifths reaches seventy, one in six and three
fourths reaches eighty, and one in forty-nine reaches ninety.
Hufeland, in his Art of Prolonging Life, lays down the law that
" more women than men become old, but fewer very old." The
first part of this law is abundantly sustained by the results ob-
tained in all these cases. As to the latter portion, judging from
these figures, it is open to question. In Massachusetts the aver-
age age of the 50 males exceeded that of the 153 females by
about nine months ; but of the eight persons who were over one
hundred and ten years two were males and six females — still
three to one ; and the oldest of all was a female, who had at-
tained the great age of one hundred and eighteen years. This
advantage on the part of the female sex — and a considerable
advantage we must admit it to be, when we consider that there
are nearly five per cent more males born than females, and only
one third as many living at the end of a century — is probably
due in part to the fact that women as a class have a more fa-
vorable environment than men, leading more quiet and regular
lives, having fewer bad habits and forms of dissipation to sap
their vitality, and being less exposed to death by violence and
by accident ; and in part to a greater endurance and tenacity of
life which are inherent in the female sex.

Considering next the element of marriage, we find that 184
had been married one or more times, 14 had never been married,
and concerning 5 the facts were not stated. Leaving out of ac-
count the latter class, there were thirteen times as many married
as unmarried. In the absence of statistics showing the relative
proportion of married and unmarried persons in the community
at large, it is impossible to determine the proportion of centen-
narians in each class ; but it may be considered as quite certain
that the married reach the age of one hundred years in greater

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ratio tliaii the unmarried. The average age of the married ex-
ceeded that of the unmarried by about fourteen months. This
coincides with the results obtained from other sources. So far
as I know, all statistics show a smaller mortality rate and a
greater longevity among the married than the unmarried. Mr.
Darwin urges matrimony as one of the greatest aids to long life,
and calls attention to a mass of statistics gathered in France,
showing that unmarried men die in far greater proportion than
married. Dr. Stark says that bachelorhood ought to be classed
with the most unwholesome trades, or with a residence in the
most unwholesome districts, so far as danger to life is concerned ;
and he presents statistics showing that in Scotland the death
rate of unmarried men of certain ages was 15 per 1,000 annually,
while that of the married men of the same ages was less than
half as great. Huf eland says that " all those people who became
very old were married more than once, and generally late in life.
There is not one instance of a bachelor having attained a great
age." Massachusetts statistics present no instance of what may
be termed remarkable age, the oldest being one hundred and
eighteen, and married ; nor do they show whether the individuals
mentioned had been married more than once, or late in life. But
it is undoubtedly true that the more regular habits and better
hygiene of the married, their less degree of exposure, more
abundant home comforts, better food in health and better care in
sickness and approaching age, together with the moderate and
restricted gratification of the sexual appetite — in short, those ele-
ments which constitute the environment of the individual — are
more favorable to longevity than are the corresponding elements
in the unmarried.

Whether this is true in an equal degree of both sexes, however,
is more than questionable. Among the Massachusetts centenna-
rians one in eleven of the women had never been married, while
among the men the corresponding proportion was only one in
twenty-three. Further than this, while there were three times as
many women as men among the centennarians as a whole, there
were six times as many among the unmarried ones. It would
seem to be a fair inference that the effect of celibacy is less fatal
to longevity among women than men. Nor is this other than
might be expected, when we consider how helpless and dependent
is an old man, and how unable to care for himself in the little
niceties of life which contribute so largely to health and comfort,
and how much less so in all these respects is an old woman.

But it would be a manifest error to conclude that, because the
average age of the married exceeds that of the unmarried, there-
fore this excess of longevity is due to the married state, unless it
can first be shown that the individuals composing the two classes

SOME LESSONS FROM CENTENNAEIANS. 759

were originally in the enjoyment of the same degree of healtli and
soundness of constitution ; whereas, it is an indisputable fact
those persons entering the married state are, as a whole, more ro-
bust and enduring, and hence have a greater natural expectation
of life, than those who remain single ; and it is also evident that
repeated marriages, and especially marriages late in life, are indi-
cations of a greater than usual degree of vigor and vitality. They
are therefore in the nature of an effect, rather than a cause, of ex-
treme longevity.

Coming now to the subject of nativity, we find that 85 were
native-born, 115 were foreign-born, and of three the birthplace
was unknown. The average age of the native-born was one hun-
dred and two years and twenty-seven days ; and of the foreign-
born one hundred and two years, nine months, and eleven days.
Again, statistics are lacking to determine the relative number of
natives and foreigners in the State as a whole. But as it can
hardly be supposed that the foreign outnumbers the native popu-
lation, these figures would seem to show an advantage on the part
of the foreign-born, both in average age and in proportionate num-
ber of centennarians. This may be partially explained on the
ground that the immigrants who came to this country from fifty
to one hundred years ago, when the country was comparatively
new and unsettled, would naturally be persons of more than the
average vigor and endurance. Pioneers are of necessity a hardy
race. The weak and sickly remain quietly at home, while the
strong and hardy venture out into a new country and new con-
ditions.

It must not be forgotten also that there is a source of possible
fallacy in the ages given. It is proverbially difficult to obtain the
exact age of ignorant persons, the tendency being more and more,
as years advance, to exaggerate the real age. When to this is
added the element of foreign birth, rendering a reference to birth
records impossible, it is easy to see that there is a great liability
that the ages given by the foreigners as a class were considerably
in excess of the true ages.

Among the foreign-born the Irish carry off the palm as to num-
bers in the list of centennarians, as they undoubtedly do in the
general population, furnishing 93 out of 115. Their average a^e
exceeds that of the natives by about eight months, while it is ex-
ceeded by the other foreigners as a class by about four months.

As to color, 197 were white, with an average age of one hun-
dred and two years, four months, and twenty-four days ; and six
were colored, with an average age of one hundred and five years,
three months, and twenty-four days ; while three of the six colored
were over one hundred and ten years of age.

Now, it is an opinion generally held, and I think capable of

760 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proof, that the death rate among these two classes, the Irish and
the negroes, is much higher than that of the general population. I
have not at hand statistics which will conclusively prove this fact,
and will only quote the tables prepared by General Walker, based
upon the United States census of 1870, in which he shows that
while the Irish constituted three hundred and thirty-three per
thousand of the foreign population, they contributed four hun-
dred and ten to every thousand foreign-born decedents, thereby
largely exceeding their due proportion.

If we accept the opinion alluded to as a fact, we are brought
face to face with the paradoxical condition of a large proportion of
persons reaching extreme longevity among classes noted for a low
average longevity. How to account for this apparent anomaly is
a question of interest. But one explanation suggests itself to me,
and this I believe to be, in the main, the true one — namely, that
the centennarians of the classes named owe their great age to fa-
vorable heredity, a natural life-force and power of endurance trans-
mitted to them by their ancestors, which enabled them to with-
stand or overcome the unfavorable environment which carried off
a large proportion of their respective races ; while, on the other
hand, the admittedly higher average longevity of the native whites
is to be accounted for by their more favorable surroundings and
mode of life, better hygiene in health and care when sick, whereby
the vitality of the weak, the sickly, and the young is conserved,
and many years of life are added to the average. If this explana-
tion be accepted as the correct one, it suggests the law, which is
also warranted by a wider observation, that extreme individual
longevity depends chiefly upon favorable heredity, while a high
average longevity is promoted mainly by a favorable environment.

As the result of his studies of the native calendar of Central America and New-
Mexico, with special reference to linguistics and symbolism, Dr. D. G. Brinton
believes that the system of the peoples to whom it appertained was in a certain
sense philosophic; that it grew out of ripe meditation on the agencies which
direct and govern life; and that it was merely veiled — not smothered— in the
symbolism which has been transmitted to us, and which they found it convenient
to throw around it, in presenting it to the unlearned. The twenty potencies or
agencies, fixed at that number for a reason which the author determines, follow
each other in the sequence in which they were believed to exert their influence on
the life or existence, not of man only, but of things and of the universe itself.
This opinion exerted a strong constructive and directive influence on the national
myths, rites, and symbolism, extending to architecture and ornament, to details
of governnient, and to the every-day incidents and customs of national and
domestic life. In all of these we perceive a constant recurrence of the signs and
their correspondent numbers, drawn from the composite relations of twenty to
thirteen.

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN. 761

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN.

AN ANTHROPOMETRIC STUDY.
By FEANZ boas.*

THERE are few countries in which, the effects of intermixture
of races and of change of environment upon the physical
characteristics of man can be studied as advantageously as in
America, where a process of slow amalgamation between three
distinct races is taking place. Migration and intermarriage have
been a fruitful source of intermixture in the Old World, and have
had the effect of effacing strong contrasts in adjoining countries.
While the contrasts between European, negro, and Mongol are
striking, their territories are connected by broad stretches of
land which are occupied by intermediate types. For this reason
there are only few places in the Old World in which the compo-
nent elements of a mixed race can be traced to their sources by
historical methods. In America, on the other hand, we have a
native race which, although far from being uniform in itself,
offers a marked contrast to all other races. Its affiliations are
closest toward the races of Eastern Asia, remotest to the Euro-
pean and negro races. Extensive intermixture with these foreign
races has commenced in recent times. Furthermore, the Euro-
pean and African have been transferred to new surroundings on
this continent, and have produced a numerous hybrid race, the
history of which can also be traced with considerable accuracy.
We find, therefore, two races in new surroundings and three
hybrid races which offer a promising subject for investigation :
the Indian-white, the Indian-negro, and the negro-white. The
following study is devoted to a comparison of the Indian race
with the Indian-white hybrid race.

It is generally supposed that hybrid races show a decrease in
fertility, and are therefore not likely to survive. This view is
not borne out by statistics of the number of children of Indian
women and of half-blood women. The average number of chil-
dren of five hundred and seventy-seven Indian women and of one
hundred and forty-one half-blood women more than forty years
old is 5*9 children for the former and 7*9 children for the latter. It
is instructive to compare the number of children for each woman
in the two groups. While about ten per cent of the Indian

* The material for this study was collected for the Department of Ethnology of the
World's Columbian Exposition. Prof. F. W. Putnam, chief of the department, organized
a Section of Physical Anthropology, in charge of the writer. It was one of the objects of
this section to collect anthropometric material illustrating the racial characteristics of the
North American Indians.

762

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

women have no children, only 3'5 per cent of the half bloods are
childless. The proportionate number of half bloods who have
one, two, three, four, or five children is smaller than the corre-
sponding number of Indian women, while many more half-blood
women than full-blood women have had from six to thirteen
children. This distribution is shown clearly in Fig. 1, which

1

%

16
\i
12
10
8
6
1

577 INDIAN WOMEN OVER 40 YEARS OF AGE

141 HALF-BLOOD " " " " " "

;

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\

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/

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J^

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s.

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2

^^

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^

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 11 15 16 17 18 19

no. of children
Fig. 1. — Number of Children of Indian Women and of Half-blood Women.

represents how many among each one hundred women have a
certain number of children. The facts disclosed by this tabula-
tion show that the mixed race is more fertile than the pure stock.
This can not be explained by a difference of social environment,
as both groups live practically under the same conditions. It also
appears that the small increase of the Indian population is almost
entirely due to a high infant mortality, as under better hygienic
surroundings an average of nearly six children would result in a
rapid increase. It is true, however, that a decrease of infant
mortality might result in a decreased birth rate.

Among the Indians of the Pacific coast the infant mortality is
also very great, but we find at the same time a still larger pro-
portion of women who bear no children.

It is of some interest to note the average number of children
of women of different ages as indicating the growth of families.
Among the Indians there is an average interval of four years and
a half — as shown in the following table — which, however, must
not be confounded with an average interval between births :

Indian women 20 years of age have on the average 1 child.
" " 25 " " " " 2 children.

(( (1 OO 11 11 11 11 Q 11

(I 11 QQ 11 11 II 11 ^ 11

(I 11 QQ II 11 11 It g II

Among the half bloods the interval is shorter, but the number of
available observations is insufficient for carrying out the com-
parison in detail.

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN.

763

The statures of Indians and half bloods show differences
■which are also in favor of the half bloods. The latter are almost
invariably taller than the former, the difference being more pro-
nounced among men than among women. The white parents of
the mixed race are mostly of French extraction, and their statures
are on an average shorter than those of the Indians. We find,
therefore, the rather unexpected result that the offsjDring exceeds
both parental forms in size. This curious phenomenon shows

140 cm.

150

ICiO 170

SHORT TRIBES

180

190

1?

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,-

16

14

12

10

S

6

4

2

471 WOMEN) •■■-

479 MEN

0.0 = ..326 WOMEN fH*l-F-BLOOD

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140 cm. 150 160 170 180 190

TALL TRIBES

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1124 MEN }

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616 WOMEN) ■■■"■"••

133 MEN 1

0 .... .82 WOMEN ( HALF-BLOOD

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TRIBES OF MEDIUM STATURE

18

4

4 MEN, INDIAN

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35 MEN, HALF-BLOOD

k

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Fig. 2. — Statures of iNciANa and of Half Bloods.

that size is not inherited in such a manner that the size of the
descendant is intermediate between those of the parents, but that
size is inherited according to more intricate laws.

From investigations carried on among whites we know that
stature increases under more favorable surroundings. As there
is no appreciable difference between the social or geographical
surroundings of the Indians and of the half bloods, it seems to

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

follow that tlie intermixture has a favorable effect upon the

race.

The difference in favor of the half blood is a most persistent
phenomenon, as may be seen by a glance at the following table :

Differences of Average Statures of Indians and Half Bloods.

Tribes.

Men,
centimetres.

Women,
centimetres.

T^^n^t.pm Oiibwa

—0

1

0-0

Omaha

0

+ 0
+ 0
+ 1
+ 1
+ 1
+ 2
+ 3
+ 3
+ 4

+ n

+ 3
+ 8

0

1

6
0
6
7
0
2
2
5
0
3
3

— O-T

Blackf eet

Micmac!

-0-2

Sioux

+ 0-9

Delaware

+ 0-4

Ottawa

+ 0 4

Cree

+ 2-8

Eastern Cherokee

Western Ojibwa

+ 0-7

Chickasaw

Choctaw ,

Tribes of medium stature (16
Shortest tribes (less than 165

5 to 169 centimetres)

centimetres)

+ 2-5

+ 14-8

The last two entries in this table embrace mainly the Indians of
the Southwest and of the Pacific coast.

The facts which appear so clearly in the preceding table may
be brought out in a different manner by grouping all the Indian
tribes according to their statures in three classes : those measur-
ing more than 169 centimetres, or tall tribes; those measuring
from 165 to 1G9 centimetres, or tribes of medium stature; and
those measuring less than 165 centimetres, or short tribes. The
frequencies of various statures in each of these classes have been
plotted in Fig. 2. The horizontal line represents the individual
statures from the lowest to the highest. The vertical distance
of the curves from any point of the horizontal line shows how
many among each one hundred individuals have the stature rep-
resented by that particular point. Thus it will be seen that 14*4
per cent of the full-blood men of the tallest class have a stature
of 172 centimetres, while only 12"3 per cent of the half blood of
the same class have the most frequent stature belonging to them
— namely, 178 centimetres. Among the Indian women of the full-
blood tribes 16'8 per cent have a stature of 158 centimetres, while
only 14"4 per cent of the half bloods have their most frequent
stature — namely, 160 centimetres.

This tabulation brings out the peculiarity that the statures of
the half bloods are throughout higher than those of the full
bloods ; and that, at the same time, the most frequent statures
are more frequent among the pure race than in the mixed race.
This is expressed by the fact that the curves illustrating the dis-

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN.

765

tribution of statures among the half bloods are flatter than those
illustrating the same feature among full bloods. This peculiarity
r^ay be noticed in all the curves of Fig. 2, with the exception of
that of the men of the second group.

The statures near the average of each group are most frequent,
and as these values do not occur as often among the half bloods

5 BOYS 10

15

20 YEARS

cm.

no

1G5
ICO
155
.150
145
140

las

130
125
120
115
110
105
100

LI J 1 1 1 L

•

p:

'

1

NDIAN BOVS

^

y

HALF-BLOOD BOYS

/

/

/

'1*"*

"■-

...

if

f

•,•"

y

."_

—

/

^

,'

b

/

t

/

0"

/

*/

/

/

V

/

,•

/.'

^

—

'a

.-

rV

^

•

/

J...

°

5

BOYS

10

15

20 YEARS

1 1 1 1 M 1 M

INDIAN GIRLS

...00. HALF-BLOOD GIRLS

_

U'

^

/

^

y

V

/

,,

.'--

'*

/

'/

„°

''

^

„•>

t*

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•

.-■

/A

.-

^,

^'.,

.'

'

/

/

D%

-'/

'',

/

/

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.•

//

'

YEARS 5

10 GIRLS 15
TALL TRIBES

YEARS 5 GIRLS 10
TRIBES OF MEDIUM STATURE

15

cm.
170
165
ICO
155
150
145
140
1»5
130
125
120
115

no

105
100

Fig. 3. — Growth of Indian and Half-blood Children.

as among the full bloods, the values which are remote from the
average are at the same time relatively more frequent. Thus it
becomes apparent that the mixed race is less homogeneous than
the Indian race.

Another important phenomenon is revealed by a comparison
of the growth of Indians and half bloods (Fig. 3). When the
average statures of children of both races are compared, it ap-
pears that during the early years of childhood the Indian is
taller than the half blood, and that this relation is reversed later
on. This is found in both the groups for tall tribes and for tribes

II II

—

WHITE, 217

„.

INDIANS, 3018

i

■^.

,/

s

1

-V

.^j

v

\

\

■

!

/
/

-^

V-

\

1

/

/

\

\

\

i

/

t

/

\

\

\

..-

H

/

/

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\

s

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—

/

*

/

s

x

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.—

_..

:^

i"i-

^

-i

^

'S^

^

"^•^

\.

E.1.

l^b

120 mm. 130 140 150 100 170

Fig. 4. — Breadth of Face of Indians, Half Bloods, and Whites.

of medium stature. It is to be regretted that this comparison
can not be carried on for whites also. The social surroundings
of the white child are, however, so entirely different from those
of the Indian and of the half-blood children that no satisfac-
tory conclusions can be drawn from a comparison. It is difficult
to see why the laws of growth of the Indian and half blood should
differ in this manner ; why the Indian child at the age of three

766

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

years should be taller tlian the half-blood child, and then develop
more slowly than the latter. This peculiarity is most striking in
the growth of the tribes of medium stature, as in this case the
difference in the statures of adults is so considerable. Unfortu-
nately, we do not know if the same difference prevails at the time
of birth ; but even if this were the case the difference in the rate
of growth would remain mysterious. The various phenomena
described here merely emphasize the fact that the effect of inter-
mixture is a most complicated one, and that it acts upon physio-
logical and anatomical qualities alike. We observe in the mixed
race that the fertility and the laws of growth are affected, that
the variability of the race is increased, and that the resultant
stature of the mixed race exceeds that of both parents.

One of the most striking characteristics of the Indian face is
its great breadth as compared with that of the whites. It is there-
fore of peculiar interest to compare this measurement among the
full-blood Indian, the half bloods, and the whites. The curves on

o"

I

1

°

I

537 MEN 1

—-231 WOMEN) INDfAN

96 MEN ) HALF-BLOOD

...0. 60 WOMEN)

f

■/

V,

/

-^

\

•'

;

/
/

\

/

\

\

t

f -

...

/

1.

\

\

^

1

^/ ^

1

, \

\

\

/.-

o >

,

\

\

«°

■/■

-■

y

°c

x
\

\

k

='

,

/

/

/

\

\

y

■sN

■>'■

:'■

k''

-Jj

;^

120 mm.

130

no

150

160

170

Fig. 5. — Breadth of Face. Sioux.

Fig. 4 show the result of this inquiry. Among adult students of
American colleges we find an average breadth of face (between
the zygomatic arches) of 140 millimetres, while the average value
among Indians is nearly 150 millimetres. The facial measure-
ments of the half bloods are intermediate, the average value be-
ing nearer the typical Indian measurement and remote from the
white measurement. "We find in these curves also the peculiarity
observed before — that the half blood is more variable than the
pure race. This fact is expressed in the greater flatness of the
curve.

It will be noticed that the central portion of the curve illus-
trating the distribution of the measurements of breadth of face
of half bloods is markedly irregular, particularly that it shows a
depression in its central portion. This might seem accidental, but
it will be seen that in Figs. 5 and 6, where the same measurements
for the Sioux and Ojibwas are given, the same phenomenon ap-
pears. We see in all these curves that the measurements which
are near those of the parental races appear more frequently in the

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN,

767

mixed race than the intermediate measurements. It is true that th e
number of observed cases may seem rather small to draw this de-
duction with absolute certainty; but I have noticed that all tabu-
lations of face and head measurements which include more than

I
\

/

i

1

1

/

\

FULL-BLOOD, 157 MEN

Ji' BLOOD, 85 MEN

HALF-BREED, 73 MEN

—

1
1

r"

\/

/

i\

1
1

/

V

1

^

1
1

/

A

/

\\

\
\

1

//

\

/\

/

\

A

\.

^/

I

'

y

\

/

y

\

/

V

^\

N

V

/I /

\

\

d

\

"■\

^A

—

\

__

170

130 mm. UO 150 160

Fig. 6. — Breadth of Face. Eastern Ojibwas.

five hundred individuals give very regular curves except in the
case of half bloods, so that I believe I am justified in interpreting
the phenomenon illustrated in Fig. 4 as a real one, and that it is not
due to the small number of measurements. The correctness of
this view can be proved definitely by an appropriate grouping of

im.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

i;

4DIAN

ALF-BLOOD

HITE

150

y

"

/

—

y

—

/

140

/

/

L.,

/

/

/

/

^

/

/

i

,'

/

y"

f

/

*

130

/

^'

.-•'

/

1/

'■''

^

_

'

/

/'

/

/'

/

>

^

*

120

/

/

.--

^'

/

/

^

-..,

••

no

i

/

X--

/

/

y

/

/,

■■^

^

/•'

/

1

f

—

/

1

y

'

/

/''

,

-'

/

/

..

'

y

^

y

/

/

.''

,

.'

,'

f

"'

\

5 YEARS 10

15
BOYS

20

25

5 YEARS 10 15

GIRLS

150

no

130

120

20

110

Fig. 7. — Breadth of Face of Indian, Half-blood, and White Children.

the available material according to the following point of view :
The breadth of face and the breadth of head of man are closely
correlated. The broader the head, the broader the face. Irregu-
larities in the distribution of the measurement of the face will.

768

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

therefore, appear more distinctly when individuals are grouped
together which have the same breadth of head. I have grouped
the material in four classes, with the result that the double maxi-
mum of frequency, corresponding to the breadth of face of the
parental types, appears more strongly marked in every class.
Therefore we must draw the important inference that the face of
the offspring has a tendency to reproduce one of the ancestral
types — not an intermediate type. The effect of intermixture in
this case differs, therefore, fundamentally from the effect ob-
served in the measurements of stature.

When comparing the average breadth of face for Indians, half
bloods, and whites, another interesting phenomenon may be
seen. The average breadth of face of the half blood stands be-
tween that of the Indian and that of the white, but nearer the
former. When computing this average from year to year, it is
found that the same relation prevails throughout from the fourth
year to the adult stage, and in men as well as in women (Fig. 7).

100 mm.

1 1 1 1 1 1

'

;

FU

LL-
EN
OM

BLOOD

I

\

"o

201 V>

EN

'

I

V 1

L

^

1

f

y

V

HALF-BREED

83 MEN

5* WOMEN .. . ,.

"

1

Y

-r

/

^

r

\

^

.

1

h

\

/'

\

w

y

1

"

-^

1

/

J

\

\

.

/

^J

1

,

\

'n

\

'

^

^

y

y

o

''

\^

/

\

\

^-

'^y

^^

°

1 nn

y

%

N

>

=N:

.^

^

110 120 lao 110

Fig. 8. — Height of Face. Sioux.

or

xo

18

16

11

12

10

8

6

1

2

150

The relation of the three groups remains unchanged throughout
life. The amount of white and Indian blood in the mixed race is
very nearly the same. We find, therefore, the remarkable fact that
the Indian type has a stronger influence upon the offspring than
the white type. The same fact is expressed in the great frequency
of dark hair and of dark eyes among half bloods.

Two reasons may be assigned for this fact. It may be that
the dark hair and the wide face are more primitive characteris-
tics of man than the narrow face and light eyes of the whites.
Then, it might be said that the characteristics of the Indian are
inherited with greater strength because they are older. It must,
however, also be considered that half bloods are almost always
descendants of Indian mothers and of white fathers, and this may
have had an influence upon the race, although there is no proof
that children resemble their mothers more than they resemble
their fathers.

In carrying out the comparison of breadths of face it would be
better to study the curves of distribution for each year, but the

THE HALF-BLOOD INDIAN.

769

number of observations is insufficient for applying this method.
As stated before, the distribution of measurements is such that
the parental types are more frequent than the average ; for this
reason the latter has no real biological significance. It must be

1 I 1 1

FULL-
577 MEN
227 WOM

3L00D

,'

^ .J,

0

EN

'

'

y

>

;-

\,

HALF-Br^EED

88 MEN

54 WOMEN c .0 . .

.

t

•'/

s

A

s

S

s

;

A

«o

/

\

^

\

3

/

1

/

.

0

1

\

^

/

/

/

°

^^>

s.

\

0°

/

y

/>

y

\

■4-^

:^>^

0'

r-'

Vj:

—

-^

7^

"

'"„

1-^

.-.=

--.^

;^

:__

25 mm.

30

35

iO

45

fiU

Fig. 9. — Breadth of Nose. Sioux.

considered merely as a convenient index of the general distri-
bution.

Among the eastern Ojibwas I was able to make a classifica-
tion into three groups: Indians, three-quarter bloods, and half
bloods. In this case (Fig. 6) it will be noticed that the influence
of the white admixture is very slight in the three-quarter bloods.
The maximum frequency of the breadth of face remains at 150
millimetres, and we observe that a small increase in frequency
takes place at 140 millimetres.

From the breadth of face I turn to the consideration of the
height of face — i. e., the distance from the chin to the suture
between the nasal bones and the frontal bone (Fig. 8). This
measurement is subject to considerable variations, on account of
the difficulty of determining the initial points of the measure-
ment with sufficient accuracy. This accounts for the irregularity

1 1 I I I 1 1 I

FULL-BLOOD, tSS MEN

'a BLOOD, 85 MEN

HALF-BREED, 73 MEN

/

v

^

'L

\

I

L_.

L—

/

X

v,

t
I

/

/

\

\'

—

\

—

--

/

__

/

^

,\

\.

^.

^/

\

■

\

s.

1

/^

/

/

—

,— ,

s>

—

:2^5f-

y-

s^^

_

30 mm.

35

40

45

60

65

Fig. 10. — Breadth of Nose. Eastern Ojibwas.

of the curves. It appears clearly that the face of the half blood
is shorter than that of the white. I am not able to say if this
phenomenon is due to a general shortening, or if the nose, the
jaw, or the teeth contribute most to this effect. .The difference
between full blood and half blood is much smaller than in the
case of the breadth of face.

VOL. XLV. — 56

770

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The two measurements combined sliow that the Indian face is
considerably larger than the face of the half blood, while the
latter is in turn larger than the face of the white. As the head
measurements of the tribes which have contributed to these sta-
tistics prove that there is no appreciable difference between these
races regarding the size of the head, we are led to the conclusion
that the Indian face is also relatively larger than that of the half
blood and of the white.

Another characteristic difference between Indians and half
bloods will be found by comparing the breadth of nose of both
races. It is well known that the nostril of the Indian is round,
and that it is bordered by thick alse, while the nostril of the
white is elongated and has fine alee. Unfortunately, there are
no measurements of the nose of the white available, but a com-
parison of the transversal breadths of the nose of Indian and
half blood (Fig. 9) makes it clear at once that intermixture has
the effect of making the nostril narrower and the alae thinner.

1

Mill

"n

PURE INDIAN, 156 MEN

MORE THAN HALF, 85 MEN

LESS THAN HALF, 73 MEN

1

kO'^

/

X

r\

^\

//

'

\ ■

,

1

h

\

\

\

f

^

/

>

\

//

w

f

V

N

f;s

/

l^

"-■'

r^

^

::^

^^

~>^

* ^

^<~\

___,>

'_

1

_.

^^

d

1 [ 1 1

10

170 mm. ISO I'JO 200 210 230

Fig. 11. — ^Lenoth of Head. Eastern Ojibwas.

thus producing a much narrower nose. It appears at once that
the nose of the half-blood man is not wider than that of the
full-blood woman. The three-quarter bloods of the Ojibwas (Fig.
10) are found to take an intermediate position between full bloods
and half bloods.

We will finally consider the effect of intermixture upon the
length of head from the point between the eyebrows (the gla-
bella) to the occiput among a tribe with a head that is shorter
than that of the American white. The Ojibwa has a head which
measures about 191 millimetres, while that of the white meas-
ures about 195 millimetres. A comparison of the three classes
(Fig. 11) shows a gradual increase in length from the full blood,
through the three-quarter blood, to the half blood.

We find, therefore, that the laws of heredity in the forms of
the head and face are uniform, in so far as intermediate forms
are produced. I presume, however, that in all these cases the
middle forms are not found as frequently as forms resembling the
two parental types.

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 771

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE.

By Colonel A. B. ELLIS.

T TNTIL a few years ago it was popularly believed that tlie
^ negro nations of West Africa were in tlie unique position
of never having produced anything worth recording. They were
supposed to have no history, no traditions, and no folklore, and
even their religion was said to be something infinitely lower than
was found anywhere else, a worship of sticks, stones, or shells,
picked up at haphazard, and deified without rhyme or reason.
This groveling religion, which was alleged to be significant of the
degraded condition in which the West African negro was believed
to be, was called f etichism, a word which, while really a corruption
of the Portuguese feiiigo, " amulet " or " charm," was supposed to
be a negro word ; and several treatises were written to show that,
as it was impossible to conceive a lower form of religion, fetichism
might therefore be assumed to be the beginning of all religion.

All these extraordinary beliefs, which had no foundation what-
ever in fact, may be traced to the reports made by those persons
who, being engaged in the slave trade, resorted to West Africa in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The great majority of
these men had but a very transient acquaintance with West
Africa, only remaining on the coast sufficiently long to obtain
cargoes of slaves ; and consequently it was impossible for them to
have any real knowledge of the natives with whom they were
brought in contact. Then, as they had no knowledge of African
languages, they were dependent for their information upon those
negroes who had acquired a smattering of some European lan-
guage, and in most cases they seem to have completely misunder-
stood what their informants doubtless intended to convey. In
other cases the slave-traders no doubt drew upon their imagina-
tions, or exaggerated what they had seen; for if they could show
that the negro was a mere brutish animal, they palliated to some
eL.tent the iniquity of the slave trade ; and so his fancied brutish-
ness was persistently brought to the front — at all events toward
the end of the last century, when the traffic in slaves had begun
to fall into disrepute.

Dr. Theodor Waitz, the distinguished author of Anthropologie
der Naturvolker, was the first to express a doubt as to the authen-
ticity of the supposed facts concerning the social condition and
religion of the West African negro — which work my long ac-
quaintance with West Africa has enabled me to continue, and in
two volumes * I have shown that the religion of the negro, so far

* The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast and The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the
Slave Coast.

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from being fetichism, is a pure animism, or worsliip of spirits,
differing in no important particular from that of other people on
the same plane of civilization. In this paper I propose to dispel
another illusion, and show that the negro, like all other races, has
his folklore, or popular tales, which are in no wise inferior to those
invented by other people. Of course, the Uncle Remus stories
of Mr. Joel Chandler Harris are really American-negro versions
of West African folklore tales, but in most cases the tales have
been so much changed in order to adapt them to the altered con-
ditions of life and the new locale that they can now scarcely be^
called examples of West African folklore.

It is among the Yoruba tribes of the Slave Coast that we find
the folklore instinct most fully developed, and their tales may be
numbered probably by hundreds. The itinerant story-teller, akpa-
lo kpatita (" one who makes a trade of telling fables "), is a well-
known character, who wanders from town to town, reciting tales.
He is always well received, and is in great demand for social
gatherings. He very frequently carries with him a drum, with
the rhythm of which he fills up the pauses in the narrative. He
strikes a few taps on the drum, to attract attention, and as soon
as an audience is gathered he announces, " My alo * is about so-
and-so," and then commences the recital.

The first and second of the following tales are Yoruba; the
third is from the Ewe tribes, who inhabit the western portion of
the Slave Coast, and among whom Dahomi is the one best known
to Europeans ; while the fourth is from the Tshi tribes of the
Gold Coast, among whom are the Ashantis and Fantis. In each
case the exact English equivalent of the native version has been
given, and none of the stories have been in the least " touched up."

I. THE GOBLIN'S GIFT.

My alo is about a woman whose little girl made palm oil.f

One day, when she had made palm oil, she took it to the mar-
ket to sell.

She stayed in the market selling her palm oil until it was quite
dark. And when it was dark, a goblin I came to her to buy palm
oil, and paid her with cowries.*

When the little girl counted the cowries she found that there
was one short. And she asked the goblin for the cowry that was
wanting.

*Alo, a tale, fable.

f Palm oil, which is made from the nut of the oil palm {Elais guinioisis), is largely used
in native cookery, and is one of the chief articles of commerce.
X Jivin, goblin, spirit, or ghost.
* The cowry shell is the currency of the Slave Coast.

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 773

The goblin said that he had no more cowries, and the little
girl began crying, "My mother will beat me if I go home with
a cowry short."

The goblin walked away, and the little girl walked after him.

" Go away," said the goblin ; " turn back, for no one can enter
the country in which I live."

" No," said the little girl ; " wherever you go, I will follow,
until you pay me my cowry."

So the little girl followed, followed a long, long way, till they
came to the country where the people stand on their heads in their
mortars, and pound yams with their heads.*

Then they went on again a long way, till they came to a river
of filth. And the goblin sang :

" 0 young palm-oil seller,

You must now turn back."

And the girl sang :

" Save I get my cowry,

I'll not leave your track."

Then the goblin sang again :

" 0 young palm-oil seller,
Soon will lead this track
To the bloody river,
Then you must turn back."

And she.
And he.
And she,
And he,
And she,

"I will not turn back."

"See yon gloomy forest."

" I will not turn back."

" See yon craggy mountain."

"I will not turn back;
Save I get my cowry,
I'll not leave your track."

Then they walked on again, a long, long way ; and at last
they arrived at the land of dead people.

The goblin gave the little girl some palm nuts with which to
make palm oil, and said to her, " Eat the palm oil yourself, and
give me the ha-ha." \

But when the palm oil was made the little girl gave it to the
goblin and ate the ha-ha herself. And the goblin said, " Very
well."

* Yams are pounded into a sticky mass with a long wooden pestle, in a wooden mortar,
hollowed out of a section of a trunk of a tree.

f Ha-lia^ the stringy remnant of the pulp of the palm nut after the oil has been expressed.

774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

By and by the goblin gave a banana to tbe little girl, and said,
"Eat this banana, and give me the skin." But the little girl
pealed the banana and gave it to the goblin, and ate the skin her-
self.

Then the goblin said to the little girl : " Go and pick three
ados* Do not pick the ados which cry, ' Pick me, pick me, pick
me'; but pick those that say nothing, and then return to your
home. When you are half-way back, break one ado; break
another when you are at the house door, and the third when you
are inside the house." And the little girl said, " Very well."

She picked the ados as she was told, and returned home.

When she was half-way home she broke one ado, and behold,
many slaves and horses appeared and followed her.

When she was at the house door the little girl broke the sec-
ond ado, and behold, many creatures appeared, sheep and goats
and fowls, more than two hundred, and followed her.

Then, when she had entered the house, the little girl broke the
last ado, and at once the house was filled to overflowing with
cowries, which poured out of the doors and windows.

The mother of the little girl took twenty country cloths, twen-
ty strings of valuable beads, twenty sheep and goats, and twenty
fowlSjf and went to make a present to the iyale.l

The iyale asked whence all these things came, and when she
had been told she refused to accept them. She said she would
send her own child to do the same, and that she could easily get
as much.*

Then the iyale made palm oil and gave it to her own little
girl, and told her to go and sell it in the market.

The little girl went to the market. The goblin came, bought
palm oil of her, and paid her with cowries. He gave the proper
number of cowries, but the little girl hid one and pretended that
he had not given her enough.

" What am I to do ? " said the goblin. " I have no more cow-
ries."

" Oh ! " said the little girl, " I will follow you to your house,
and then you can pay me." And the goblin said, " Very well."

* The ado is a small calabash, commonly used for keeping medicinal powders in.
f The Yorubas reckon by scores and two hundreds — i. e., ten scores.

I In polygamous households the chief wife, who rules the others, is called the ii/ale,
" mistress of the house." The mother of the little girl was one of the inferior wives,
called iya-ivo, " mistress of trade," because they usually sell in the markets.

* From the European point of view this would appear to be a good trait on the part of
the iyale^ for the inference would be that she did not wish to deprive the subordinate wife
of so much property, but that would not be the construction a native would put on it. To
the native mind a person only refuses a present when he is nurturing rancor against the
donor, and to refuse a gift is regarded as a sign of enmity.

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 775

Then the two walked together, and presently the goblin began
singing, as he had done the first time. He sang :

" O young palm-oil seller,
You must now turn back."

And the little girl sang,

"I wili not turn back.""

And the goblin,

" You must leave the track."

And the girl.

, »i

"I will not turn back.

Then the goblin said, " Very well, come along." And they
walked on till they reached the land of dead people.

The goblin gave the little girl some palm nuts and told her to
make palm oil. He said, " When the palm oil is made, eat it your-
self, and bring me the ha-ha." And the little girl ate the palm
oil and brought the ha-ha to the goblin. And the goblin said,
''Very well."

Then the goblin gave a banana to the little girl and told her to
peel it. He said, " Eat the banana yourself, and bring me the skin."
And the little girl ate the banana and carried the skin to the goblin.

Then the goblin said : " Go and pick three ados. Do not pick
those which cry, ' Pick me, pick me, pick me,' but pick those
which say nothing."

The little girl went. She found ados which said nothing, and
she left them alone. She found others which cried, " Pick me, pick
me, pick me," and she picked three of them.

Then the goblin said to her : " When you are half-way home,
break one ado ; when you are at the door, break another ; and
break the third when you are inside the house."

Half-way home the little girl broke one ado, and behold, num-
bers of lions and leopards and hyenas and snakes appeared.
They ran after her, and harassed her, and bit her, till she reached
the door of the house.

Then she broke the second ado, and behold more ferocious ani-
mals came upon her, and bit and tore her at the door.

The door was shut, and there was only a deaf man in the house.
The little girl called to the deaf man to open the door, but he heard
her not. And there, upon the threshold, the wild beasts killed the
little girl.

II. THE MAIDEN WHO ALWAYS REFUSED.

My alo is about a beautiful maiden.

A man, his wife, and daughter lived in one house, in a certain
town. And the girl grew up ; she grew up very beautiful, and
her father and mother were rich.

-]■](> THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

All the young men who saw her wanted her, and many of them
sent presents to her father and mother, asking for her in marriage ;
but the maiden said she did not wish to marry.

So, whenever men came to ask for her, the maiden continued
to refuse. She said, " My figure is good, my face is good, my skin
is good,* therefore I shall not marry till I find a young man who
pleases me.''

So many young men came that at last the father and mother
were tired of urging their daughter to marry, and they said to her :
" Very well, choose for yourself ; we will have nothing more to do
with it."

And the maiden said : " Be not angry, O my father and O my
mother ! I am handsome, and I will only marry with one who is
handsome. If I meet such a one in the town, I will make such
and such signs to you when he walks with me to the door."

Now the leopard, living in his own place in the bush, heard
this ; and he turned himself into a handsome young man.f

He came into the town, and all the young girls turned their
eyes after him, for he was good to look at, and he wore a silken
cloth.

He walked through the town, holding in his hand a duru, J and
he played on it a tune that was melancholy and sweet.

Now, just at this time the beautiful maiden had come out of
her house, and as she walked along the street she saw the hand-
some young man playing on the duru. And the sounds of the
tune he was playing went into her heart, and his appearance
pleased her, and she loved him.

So she stood still in the street, looking upon the young man,
who came nearer and nearer. And when the young man had
reached her, he said, " Beautiful maiden, I am from a far country,
to which the fame of your beauty has penetrated, and I have come
hither to ask you to marry me, if you will so please."

And the maiden smiled and was glad. But she turned her
eyes to the ground, and said to the young man : " O handsome
stranger, is it the custom in your country thus to ask maidens
to marry ? My father and mother are here, near by, and with
them lies the giving."

Then she led the way to the house of her parents, and the
young man followed. And when she was at the door of the house
she made the signs to her father and mother so that they miglit
know that this was a young man whom she was willing to marry.

* A smooth, glossy skin is considered a great beauty.

f In the Tshi variant of this story it is a python who personates a young man. ^

X The native guitar, called saiiku on the Gold Coast. It has four, six, or eight strings,
and is tuned in the diatonic minor scale, C, D, E flat, F, G, A, B, C.

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 7-7

The young man entered the house, still playing on his duru,
and the sound of the music charmed the hearts of the old people,
and his appearance pleased them, and they were glad.

And after greetings made, the young man said, " My father
and my mother, I am from a far country, to which the fame of
your daughter's beauty has penetrated, and I have come hither to
ask you to give her to me in marriage."

And the old people said : " This, our daughter, has been many
times asked in marriage, and has always refused ; * therefore we
said to her, •' Choose for yourself ' ; and now, if she says ' Yes,' we
will not say ' No.' "

Then the young man took the maiden by the hand and looked
into her eyes, and said, " Beautiful maiden, do you agree that we
shall be married together ? "

And the maiden smiled, but she turned her head to one side,
and said softly, " Yes, handsome young man, I agree." And then
she ran and hid in another room, for she felt bashful.

Then the young man thanked the old people, and he paid the
head money and the head rum,t and gave many silk cloths for the
bride, and the same evening they were married.

Next morning the young man said to the old people that he
would now take his wife and return to his own country.

The old people felt sad at their child leaving them so soon, but
they did not refuse. They gave her presents, and goats, and sheep,
and fowls, and two female slaves, one that her father gave and
one that her mother gave.

Then the father gave a word of advice to his child and the
mother embraced her. They walked out on the road a little way
with her, and then they turned back.

Then the young woman and her husband went on. They took
a road that led into the forest, and the young man walked holding
his wife's hand.

Then the husband led the way along a narrow and rough path,
and the forest grew darker and denser, and the wife began to be
afraid, for she saw she was going away from the cultivated lands
into the haunts of wild beasts.

Presently, when they were in the thick wood, the husband
said, " Wife, I am hungry."

And the young woman said : " How can I cook anything in

* Parents can not compel a daughter to accept an unwelcome suitor, but if a girl per-
sists in refusing eligible offers without sufficient reason they can, if they choose, refuse to
maintain her any longer.

f Contracts of marriage are made by paying a certain sum, called " bead money," and
the payment of this sum is the only ceremony. " Head rum " is the term given to the re-
freshments which are provided for the marriage feast by the bridegroom.

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this narrow place, husband ? Wait at least until we reach the
next village."

And the husband replied, " You need never cook for me, wife,
for I eat my food raw."

Then the young woman was frightened, and began to have
doubts about the man she had married. But she told the two
slaves to put the calabashes down on the ground and asked her
husband if he would eat some yam.

And he said, " I am not one who eats roots," and he took the
fowls and ate them raw. He ate them all.

Then they went again along the path, farther into the forest,
and presently the husband said again : " Wife, I am hungry. Is
there anything to eat ? "

The young woman was very much frightened; she did not
know what to do, but she said, " Here are some sheep," and the
husband took the sheep and ate them all up.

Then they went again on their way, and, after a little, the hus-
band said, " Wife, I am hungry." And she said, " There are goats."
And he took the goats and ate them.

After he had eaten the goats they went on once more, and soon
the husband said again : " Wife, I am hungry. Give me something
to eat."

And she said : " Is not everything finished ? Have you not
eaten the fowls and the sheep and the goats that my dear parents
gave me ? And now there is nothing more in my hand."

And he said, " All is not finished, for there are these two per-
sons."

Then the young woman wept, she wept bitterly, and she cried,
" Take them, then, and eat them, if it must be so."

Now, in order to bring down this flesh so that he might eat it,
the husband had to turn himself back into a leopard. And he
sprang upon the two slaves, and tore them and killed them, and
ate them up.

When he had finished eating he again turned himself into a
young man, and took his wife's hand and led her along the path.
She wished to run away, but she did not know the way out of the
forest, and fear had weakened her legs.

Presently the husband said again : " Wife, I am hungry. Give
me something to eat."

Then the young woman threw herself on the ground and wept
and lamented, for everything was finished, and there was nothing
more to give him.

And the husband came and stood near her, looking side-
ways, and she was plump and soft, and he began to lick
his lips.

Now, there was a hunter in the bush near by, and he heard

WUST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 779

the lamentations of the young woman, and he crept up close and
lay hid.

Then the husband said again, "I am hungry/' and the wife
sobbed and wept, but said nothing, for everything was finished.

Then the husband turned himself back into a leopard, and
crouched down to spring upon her. He was just making a leap,
when the hunter fired his gun, " Bang ! " and he fell down. He
was dead.

Then the hunter came out of the bushes. He spoke to the
young woman and lifted her up. He cut off the tail of the leopard,
and took the young woman to his house, where he made her his
wife.

And this is the way of young maidens. The young men come
to ask, and the young maidens refuse. They refuse again, again,
and again, until at last the wild beasts turn themselves into men
and come and carry them off.

in. WHY THE HARE HAS LONG EARS.

This is a story of the hare and the other animals.

The dry weather was parching up the earth into hardness.
There was no dew, and even the denizens of the water suffered
from thirst. Soon famine came, and the animals, having noth-
ing to eat, assembled in council.

" What shall we do," said they, " to keep ourselves from dying
of thirst ? " And they deliberated a long time.

At last it was decided that each animal should cut off the tips
of his ears and extract the fat from them. Then all the fat would
be collected and sold, and with the money they would get for the
fat they would buy a hoe and dig a well, so as to get some water.

And all cried : " It is well. Let us cut off the tips of our ears."

They did so, but when it came to the turn of the hare to cut
off his ears he refused, and that is why his ears are so long.

The other animals were astonished at this conduct, but they
said nothing. They took up the ear-tips, extracted the fat, went
and sold all, and bought a hoe with the money.

They brought back the hoe and began to dig a well in the dry
bed of a lagoon. " Ha ! here is water at last. Now we can slake
our thirst a little."

The hare was not there, but, when the sun was in the middle
of the sky, he took a calabash and went toward the well.

As he walked along, the calabash dragged on the ground and
made a great noise. It said : " Chan-gan-gan-gan ; chan-gan-gaii-
gan ! " *

* The circumflex denotes a highly nasal sound.

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The animals who were watching by the lagoon heard this
noise and were frightened. They asked each other, "What is
it ? " Then, as the noise kept coming nearer, they ran away.

Reaching home, they said there was something terrible at the
lagoon, that had put to flight the watchers by the well.

When all the animals by the lagoon had gone, the hare drew
up water without interference. Then he went down into the well
and bathed, so that the water was muddied.

When the next day came all the animals ran to take water, and
they found it muddied.

" Oh ! " they cried, " who has spoiled our well ? "

Saying this, they went and got an image. They made bird-
lime and smeared it over the image. Then they set it up by the
well.

Then, when the sun was again in the middle of the sky, all
the animals went and hid in the bush near the well.

The hare came. His calabash cried : " Chan-gan-gan-gan ;
chan-gaii-gan-gan ! " He approached the image. He never sus-
pected that all the animals were hidden in the bush.

The hare saluted the image, but the image said nothing. He
saluted again, and still the image said nothing.

"Take care/' said the hare, "or I will give you a slap."

He gave a slap, and his right hand remained fixed in the bird-
lime. He slapped with his left hand, and that remained fixed
also.

" Oh ! oh ! " cried he, " let us kick with our feet."

He kicked with his feet. The feet remained fixed, and the
hare could not get away.

Then the animals ran out of the bush and came to see the hare
and his calabash.

" Shame, shame, O hare ! " they cried together. " Did you not
agree with us to cut off the tips of your ears, and when it came to
your turn to do so, did you not refuse ? What ! you refused, and
yet you come to muddy our water ? "

They took whips, they fell upon the hare and they beat him.
They beat him so that they nearly killed him,

" We ought to kill you, accursed hare ! " they said. " But no —
run."

They let him go, and the hare fled. Since then he does not
leave the grass.

IV. LEGEND OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SARFU TOTEM CLAN.

There was a man of Chama * whose wife died. He buried her
and mourned for her ; and one day, in the evening, when he was

* Chama is a native town at the mouth of the river Prah.

WJEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 781

walking along the beach, toward the village of Aboanu, thinking
about his dead wife, he met a strange young woman.

The young woman, who was very handsome, asked him why
he walked alone and appeared so sad. He replied : " My wife is
dead, and I am living alone. I feel lonely by myself, and there is
no one to cook my meals.''

The young woman said she felt sorry for him, and the two
wg,lked on, conversing together. She spoke kindly, and the man
liked her appearance ; so before long he asked her to take the
place of the deceased, and come home and live with him. She
agreed to the proposal, and, returning with the man to his house
the same night, became his wife.

They lived together very happily for a time, but when three
months had passed the wife grew restless and uneasy. Her hus-
band asked her what was troubling her, but she put him off with
excuses, until at last one day, when he had again asked her what
was the matter, she said that she was uneasy in mind because
she must leave him to go and visit her family.

The husband said, " That need not trouble you, for I will go
with you " ; but to this she would not consent, saying that alone
she had come to him and alone she must go away.

Then the husband declared that he would go with her, and, as
she still continued to refuse, he asked her to tell him her reason.
For a long time she would not tell him, but at last he pressed her
so much that she said, " I will not allow you to go with me, be-
cause you would laugh at me when we returned."

This answer much puzzled the husband. He asked, "Why
should I laugh at you ? " but she would not say why until he
had sworn a great oath that he would never allude to what she
was about to tell him. She then said : " You think I am a
woman, but I am a fish. My family are fishes, and my home
lies in the sea. If you still wish to accompany me, count the
breakers as they fall upon the shore, and dive with me under the
third one."

As the third breaker dashed upon the beach she threw herself
under it, and, her husband following her, they both passed under
the water, and arrived at the spot where her family dwelt. There
the wife was joyfully received by her relations; she told her tale
and introduced her companion as her husband.

The fish family made the man very welcome, and a house was
put in order for him, outside which he was strictly enjoined not
to venture ; but they did not give him any reason for this.

The man complied with the request for some days, and then,
one night, being tired of staying in the house, and seeing some
young fishes at play, he went out to look at them more closely.
He had scarcely left the house when all his wife's family came

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

round hiim, begging him to return, and, though he could not un-
derstand why they were so anxious, he returned.

Three days later, seeing the young fishes again at play, he a
second time left the house to go and look at them. Now, since he
had taken up his abode in the sea, he had acquired some of the
peculiarities of fishes, among others the emission of a phosphores-
cent light by night ; and, coming too near the surface of the water,
he was seen by some fishermen in a canoe, who immediately
speared him, thinking him to be an unusually fine fish. He cried
out for help, and his wife's relations hastened to his assistance.
They endeavored to drag him down to the bottom of the sea, but,
finding that all their efforts were unavailing, and that the fisher-
men were still pulling him np, they begged a shark that was
swimming by to bite through the fishing line that was fastened
to the spear. The shark immediately complied, and the man was
once more at liberty. He was taken back to the house, the spear
was drawn out of his body, and by means of dressings which
were applied the wound soon became healed.

This narrow escape had much frightened his wife's relations,
and as soon as the man had recovered they told him that he could
not stay there any longer, lest some other accident should befall
him through his imprudence. Therefore they sent him back to
the land with his wife, giving him as a parting gift the spear,
which they specially charged him to keep carefully concealed.

When they returned to the shore the two went back to their
former abode, and the man carefully hid the spear in the thatch
of the roof. The house in which they lived formed one side of a
central court, and other families lived in the houses on the three
other sides. In one of these houses was the owner of the whole,
and some years after the return of the husband and wife from the
sea he determined to put new thatch on all the houses.

After he had got the grass all ready for rethatching, he began
taking the thatch off the house in which the man and his fish wife
lived, and had hardly taken off three armfuls before he discovered
the spear, which the man had forgotten all about. Directly the
house-owner saw the spear, he knew it by the marks on it, and
said, " This is mine." He said that he had lost it one night when
out fishing ; that he had speared a large fish with it, which had
broken the line and escaped. " How did you get it ? " he asked
the husband.

The husband pretended not to hear, but the house-owner re-
peated the question. Then the husband said he did not know the
spear was there, but the house-owner said he did not believe him.
He called him a thief, and said he would bring a palaver before
the chief, because he had stolen the spear. Then the man was
obliged to tell all to clear himself, and the house-owner was satis-

WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 783

fied, and no more was said ; but all tlie town now knew that the
woman was a fish woman.

Nothing bad happened from this for some time, though the
husband had broken his great oath never to mention that his wife
and her family were fishes ; but one day a second wife whom the
man had taken quarreled with the first wife — as wives will quar-
rel— and she taunted the first wife with being a fish, and laughed
at her. The first wife was so much hurt at this that she made up
her mind to go back to her family in the sea and become a fish
once more. She went to her husband and said : " Twice have you
done wrong : first, in refusing to let me go alone to visit my
family ; and secondly, in breaking your great oath and revealing
my secret, which you swore to keep. I can no longer live in a
place where I and my children will be laughed at and put to
shame. I will return to my home."

Her husband endeavored to pacify her, but in vain, for she
would not be pacified. He said he would send away the second
wife, but still she was not satisfied. He begged and entreated her
to stop, but it was all of no use. Then he tried to hold her and
keep her by force, but she broke away from him, and running
down to the seashore, called to him a last good-by, and plunged
into the sea with her youngest child in her arms. After that she
was never seen again. Her two elder children remained with
their father, and from them is descended the 8arfu-ni-nam * clan,
none of whom may ever eat sarfu, for the fish woman was, when
in the sea, a fish of that kind.

Far from finding fault with the mistakes in science which we ohserve in the
works of the early Christian exegetists, the Rev. John A. Zahm, of the University
of Notre Dame, maintains that " we should ratlier he surprised that tlie errors
are so few. They were certainly not more numerous, nor more serious, than
those found in the works of the ablest of the professional exponents of the profane
science of the period. It were foolish to expect them to know more about geog-
rapliy than Eratosthenes and Strabo and Pomponius Mela, who had made a life
study of the subject; or to demand of them a more accurate knowledge of astron-
omy than was possessed by Hipparchus or Ptolemy; or to suppose that they
should have a more precise and a more extended acquaintance with physics and
natural history than had Aristotle or Pliny. Such an exaction would be the
height of unreason. As well might we find fault with them for not being so well
versed in physics as Ampere or Maxwell, or reproach them for knowing less of
astronomy than Leverrier or Father Secchi, and less of geograpliy than Hum-
boldt, Malte-Brun, or Carl Ritter — men whose science was based on the experi-
ments and observations of thousands of investigators, and on the accumulated
knowledge of well-nigh twenty centuries."

* Sarfu-ni-nam, " No sarfu flesh " ; literally, " Not to have sarfu flesh." The mrfu is a
kind of horse mackerel.

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

BARBERRIES: A STUDY OF USES AND ORIGINS.

Br FREDEKICK Le EOY SAEGENT.

n.

WHILE the vegetative organs of barberries exhibit, as we
have seen, an abundant variety of form and many degrees
of differentiation, the reproductive organs are, on the contrary, so
very similar throughout the group that what we may find to be
true of a single example, such as Berberis vulgaris, will apply
very generally to all the other species.

In the flowers (Figs. 2 and 3) there is traceable in almost every
feature some relation to the visits of insects. Thus the conspicu-
ousness gained by the yellow color * of every part, enhanced by
the clustering of the flowers and supplemented by their sweet
perfumes f attractively advertise, the abundant nectar which vis-
itors find provided for them through the activity of the twelve
orange glands (Fig. 3, N). In time of rain these sweets are pro-
tected by the pendent or nodding attitude of the flowers. On the
arrival of an insect the movements by which it obtains a sip of
the nectar are turned to account in a way to secure an advanta-
geous transfer of the pollen from anther to stigma.

It has long been known that the stamens are so sensitive that
at the slightest touch on the filament there is a quick inward
bending of the organ which brings the anther with its exposed
pollen to the center of the flower. Subsequently the stamen re-
gains its original position, and will now respond to another touch
as before. Sprengel in whose classic work J were first revealed
some of Nature's most cherished secrets, considered this to be
an arrangement whereby insect visitors brought about the self-
pollination of the flower, thus making possible the setting of
seeds. But later experiments have shown that while Sprengel
was entirely right in supposing insect visits to be of the utmost
importance in securing fertilization, nevertheless the barberry
is no exception to the general rule announced by Darwin, that
flowers which attract insects gain from their visits the advan-
tages which come from the transference of the pollen of one flower

* As berberine is reported to occur in the flowers (Huseraan u. Hilger, Pflanzenstoffe),
their color may be considered as due at least in part to the same pigment which is present
in the wood and bark.

f According to Kerner (Pflanzenleben, ii, p. 195) this odor is essentially the same as
that of white hawthorn flowers, which is known to arise from the presence of trimeth-
ylamine — a substance widely distributed in Nature, and curiously enough the cause of the
characteristic odor of herring brine.

\ Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen.
Berlin, 1793.

BARBERRIES. 785

to the stigma of another, the result of such cross-pollination being
greater vigor in the offspring. Thus Prof. Halsted * found that
barberry flowers from which insects had been carefully excluded
produced no fruit (others uncovered on neighboring branches
fruiting abundantly), and this in spite of the fact that through
jarring or as a result of age the stamens had curved inward as
far as they ever could. Microscopical examination showed a
considerable quantity of pollen to have been deposited among the
viscid hairs which form a ring about the top of the pistil (see
Fig. 3, H), but none whatever upon the cushion-like summit
which was found to be the only part that served as stigma.

Barberry blossoms are great favorites among the insects.
Few of our June flowers gather about them a larger number of
bees, hornets, flies, butterflies, and beetles. The smaller bees and
certain flies are especially abundant.

There is some reason to believe that the intense color of the
glands may serve as a guide to the insect, directing it at once
without loss of time to the nectar which collects in little hollows
between the bases of the filaments and the glands, where it is
held by capillary attraction. An insect in thrusting its proboscis
into a nectar cavity must touch the base of two filaments, where-
upon both stamens suddenly bend inward and strike the insect's
head. Now, Mliller \ calls attention to the fact that while large
insects such as bumblebees pay no attention to this, but continue
to make the circuit of the flower, smaller ones, like the hive bee,
appear to be somewhat startled by this performance and fly away
at once to another barberry flower. But the insect carries with
it some pollen upon one side of its head, and if in the next flower
this comes into the same relative position as before, more pollen
will be added on the same part ; but if, on the other hand, the
flower is approached from the other side, then the pollen already
collected will be deposited upon the stigma, while at the same
time a new supply of pollen is being received which may in turn
be carried to still another flower. As the smaller insects are the
more common visitors, cross-pollination, which is so much the
best for offspring, must therefore be the most usual result.

This sensitiveness of the stamens is exhibited by all the
species of Berberis so far as known, but is not found in other
members of the family, although a somewhat similar irritability
of stamens has been observed in certain of the Portulacaceoe,,
Tiliacece, Cistacecz, and Composites. The strikingly animal-like
nature of the movement is well shown by the following facts : A
chemical stimulus, such as ammonia gas, will induce contraction
as effectually as a mechanical stimulus. The presence of oxygen

* Botanical Gazette, August, 1887, p. 201. f The Fertilization of Flowers, p. 91.

VOL, XLV. — 57

786

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and a suitable temperature are necessary conditions. Repeated
stimulation at short intervals fatigues the organ, making it less
and less responsive, until finally all signs of sensitiveness disap-
pear, to return only after a period of rest. Certain chemical sub-
stances which are known to abolish or suspend the contractility
of animal protoplasm have been found to affect in a correspond-
ing manner the movements of barberry stamens. Thus nicotine,
alcohol, and the mineral acids destroy all power of movement. A
one-per-cent solution of morphine is similarly active, while curare,
the powerful nerve poison which leaves the contractility of
muscle unaffected, is found to exert no influence upon the stamens
of Berberis. The effect of arsenic and corrosive sublimate is to
render the filaments rigid and brittle, while if poisoned with
prussic acid or belladonna they become relaxed and flaccid. By
exposure for a short time to the vapor of chloroform or ether the

Fio. 13. — Series of anthers connectino; the primitive form with that having valvular dehis-
cence: A, Podophyllum emodi ; B, Podophyllum peltatum ; C, hypothetical transition
form ; D, the barberry form. All somewhat diagrammatic.

power of movement is suspended, but may return after removal
from the influence of the anaesthetic.

Moreover, experiment shows that the part of the filament which
contracts is not necessarily the part touched — that is to say, there
is a transmission of stimulus from cell to cell. So long as it
was believed that the contents of neighboring plant cells were
always completely separated by an imperforate wall, no satis-
factory explanation could be given of such a transference of im-
pulse, but now that modern microscopy has revealed the presence
of protoplasmic threads passing through the cellulose walls of
sensitive tissue, making the living matter continuous, the phe-
nomenon in question may be understood as a manifestation of
that fundamental property of protoplasm, irritability, to which
we also refer the sensitiveness of animals, even though it be ex-
hibited in a highly differentiated nervous system.

Since the irritability of the stamens is found so commonly

BARBERRIES. 787

throughout the genus, we may assume the ancestral herbaceous
barberry to have had the same peculiarity, but how this remark-
able degree of sensitiveness could have arisen is not so clear. It
would seem as if insect agency in some way or other must have
brought about a movement having such an obviously purposeful
relation to insect visits ; but when we reflect upon the almost uni-
versal absence of a similar movement in flowers similarly visited,
and the very questionable usefulness of the pronounced irri-
tability of " sensitive " leaves, it is apparent that such a simple
general explanation really explains very little. The few con-
jectures that the writer has to offer on the subject will be best
understood after we have considered what may probably have
been the evolution of certain structural peculiarities of the
flower.

The anthers (Fig. 3, A), opening as they do by little valves
hinged at the top, present a form of dehiscence confined entirely
to the BerberidacecB, the Laurace<x,, and a few other nearly re-
lated families not represented in our native flora. Within the
BerheridacecE all the genera except Podoxjliyllum (the May apples)
and Nandina have the anthers thus characterized ; hence, it is
clear that the stamens of the ancestral berberis were already
of this peculiar type, and so the antecedent stages should be
thought of as occurring in that line of berberidaceous herbs
which were the forerunners of the barberries. The herbaceous
genus Podophyllum contains species exhibiting a difference in
the stamens which affords us an important clew for the under-
standing of what these antecedent stages may have been like.
In P. Emodi (Fig. 13, A) the dehiscence of the anthers is by a
longitudinal slit down the middle of each lobe. In P. peltatum
(B), our common species, there is likewise a vertical slit, but it is
so near the inner side of the connective that there appears to be
but one valve to each lobe, the other inner valve having been
reduced to a mere vestige. To connect this condition with that
common elsewhere in the family, we need only suppose the at-
tachment of the enlarged valve to become gradually narrowed by
a continuation of the slit from below (C) until there remains only
the small hinge we find in the barberry stamens of to-day (D).
It deserves notice that the hinge, instead of being quite at the top,
is nearer the back of the anther, which is what might be expected
according to the hypothesis.

In the other families we have mentioned as exhibiting a val-
vular dehiscence of the anthers there is found almost invaria-
bly a pair of nectar glands on each filament (see Fig. 15). Now,
it is a curious fact that in certain of the less highly developed
mahonias the filaments are each provided with a pair of append-
ages (Fig. 14, A) similarly placed but being, so far as we know.

788

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quite as functionless as are the cilia on the leaf margin of our
common barberry. These cilia we saw good reason for believing
to be rudimentary spines. The supposition that the stamen ap-
pendages are degenerate nectar glands would seem to be scarcely
less probable, in spite of our inability to find as full a series of
intermediate stages. For it should be remembered that the time

Fio. 14. — BEEBERia AQuiFOLiuM. Stamen showing appendages (A).
Fig. 15. — Ltndera benzoin. Stamen showing nectar glands (N).
Fig. 16. — Berbekis vulgaeis. Petal showing nectar glands (N).

which has elapsed since the development of the floral peculiari-
ties here considered is surely much greater than in the case of the
foliar modifications, and consequently it would be strange indeed
if the intermediate stages had not disappeared.

Although, in regard to the evolution of the floral organs,
there is so much less opportunity than with the vegetative sys-
tem to test the validity of our conjectures, yet it may not be
entirely profitless to follow such clews as are available, and en-
deavor to reconstruct hypothetically the main features of those
more primitive flowers from which the present barberry type
was derived.

A multitude of stamens and pistils is generally recognized as
characteristic of primitive flowers ; * hence, we shall probably be
not far wrong in considering the remote ancestor of the barber-
ries and their kin to be in this regard very like a marsh mari-
gold {Caltha), although doubtless less conspicuous, and with the
parts more definitely arranged. As it is a very general charac-
teristic of berberidaceous flowers that the parts are in whorls of
three, we should expect this to be the case with the common
ancestor. Accordingly, we arrive at a generalized type of flower,
the structure of which may be expressed diagrammatically as in

* In the Lardizabalacece, an exotic group which some botanists consider to be a subfamily
of BerberidacecE, the pistils are from three to nine in number.

BARBERRIES.

789

Fig. 17. At this stage we should also expect the flowers to be
solitary, arising each from the axil of a leaf very similar to the
rest of the plant's foliage.

Competition in securing the benefits of insect visits, together
with the possibilities of a more economical as well as more
effective disposition of tissue-building material, would conspire to
bring about through natural selection the following changes :

1. Those branches of the herb on which flowers appeared
would be given up more and more fully to their function of
flower production ; their subtending leaves would be reduced in
size, and through a shortening of the axis the flowers would be
brought closer together, and thus their conspicuousness enhanced.
At the same time, part of the material saved might go to form
additional flowers in the cluster. With the assumption of the
shrubby habit the floral branches (peduncle, rhachis, and pedi-
cels) retaining their herbaceous nature, in consequence of their
short-lived usefulness, would appear still less like the others.
The formation of flower buds to last over the winter would favor
the blossoming of the flowers more nearly together in the follow-

FlG. I'i

Fig. 18.

Fig. 17. — Diagram showing number and arrangement of parts in the primitive berberidaceous
flower. Bracts, thi-ee (heavy black) ; sepals, six (outlined) ; stamens, twelve, dehiscence
longitudinal ; carpels, sis, many-ovuled.

Fig. 18. — Diagram of flower (hypothetical) in a stage of evolution intermediate between the
primitive form and the highest barberry type. Bracts and sepals as before; stamens,
twelve, with valvular dehiscence and bearing nectar glands (heavy black) ; carpel, one,
many-ovuled.

ing year. As the subtending leaves would now have lost almost
the last vestige of their usefulness, we should expect their reduc-
tion to mere scales. The result of all this would be such a ra-
ceme as we find the barberry to possess (Fig. 2).

2. With the increase in the number of flowers in a cluster
there would be less need for so many pistils in each flower. It
might often happen that only a few of those in one flower would
be fertilized, and in that case the store of food could be increased
in the favored seeds, much to the advantage of the offspring pro-
duced. Pistils which ceased to have a use would gradually dis-

790

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

appear, until finally there would remain a single one of much,
increased serviceableness (Figs. 18 and 19).

3. For the reasons already given we may suppose the sta-
mens to have their anthers so modified as to open by hinged
valves,* while at the same time there was developed upon each
filament a pair of nectar glands (Fig. 18). Insect visitors, finding
an abundance of nectar in a flower, would be less likely to feed
upon the pollen, which is so precious to the plant. As the posi-
tion of the nectar is nearer the center of
the flower, the visitor comes to occupy a
more definite place relative to the pistil
and stamens. The six stamens of the inner
row are for the most part the only ones
which can have their anthers touched, for,
as will be seen from the diagram, the re-
mainder are so placed as to be directly
behind the others. Being thus superflu-
ous as pollen- producers, the anthers of
the other stamens would naturally degen-
erate, and if they follow the general rule
of stamens in flowers which are provided
with an abundance of building material
(as, for example, the " double " flowers of
the florists), they would change into some-
thing very like petals. If these petaloid organs became slightly
arched over the inner stamens, they might still be of use in the
floral household by giving better protection to the pollen than
it had previously had, and at the same time increase somewhat
the conspicuousness of the blossom. While it is by no means
clear that any advantage is gained by having such an organ
bilobed at the upper end, it might be a not unnatural result of
that special part's having been derived from a bilobed anther.
A glance at Figs. 3 and 16 will show that just such a petaloid
organ is situated behind each of the stamens in a barberry flower, f

Fig. 19. — Diagram of euberberis
flower. Bracts and sepals as
before ; petals, six, with nec-
tar glands ; stamens, six, with
valves but no glands ; carpel,
one ; ovules, few.

* If it be supposed that the flowers were originally erect, it is possible that this pecul-
iar modification of the dehiscence may have arisen as a protection against rain, which
would thus be hindered from washing away the pollen, or indeed quite prevented from so
doing if the valve could have had that power of closing in wet weather and opening in
dry which Kerner ascribes (Pflanzenleben, p. 123) to the anther valves of certain Lauracece.
At the present day, as we have seen, the barberry stamens are so well shielded from the
rain by the pendent attitude of the flowers that any such peculiarities of the anthers can
hardly be of much service in this particular. Still, the assumption that this was equally
true in the ancestral forms is of course unwarranted.

f In B. vuk/aris it is the rule for these petals to be entire, its near relative, B. canadoisis,
having them bilobed. Fig. 3 and also Fig. 16 were, however, drawn directly from un-
doubted specimens of B. vulgaris.

BARBERRIES. 791

The nectar glands of these hypothetical outer stamens, although
situated behind the others, would not be disqualified in the least
by such a position from continuing to perform their function.
On the contrary, it might well happen that, as they no longer
produced pollen, they would secrete all the more nectar in conse-
quence, and thus relieve the inner stamens of so much of their
work. No longer required, the glandular appendages of the latter
would be reduced to rudiments (as in mahonias), or entirely dis-
appear, as we have seen in the case of the true barberries.

Do the above considerations help us to any better understand-
ing of how the irritability of the stamens came to be developed ?
In our previous consideration of this remarkable property, we
saw reason to believe that such a peculiar manifestation of pro-
toplasmic activity could only be satisfactorily explained as hav-
ing resulted from a rare combination of favoring circumstances.
Although, in the discussion of such a matter, we are confessedly
treading upon uncertain ground, still, it may be worth while to
inquire whether, supjoosing the barberry flower to have been
evolved essentially after the manner indicated, there have not
been thus happily combined the very factors we should deem
necessary and adequate to produce this result. It should be
remembered that we are not endeavoring to account for that
fundamental property of protoplasm known as contractility, but
only for its being in the stamens of the barberry so much more
strikingly exhibited than in other organs of the plant, and in the
great majority of other plants.

In the first place, in order that this or any other property of
protoplasm should be especially well shown in any organ, it
would seem to be a prerequisite that the organ should be unusii-
ally rich in protoplasm — a supposition which is confirmed by the
comparative study of motile organs. Such a very considerable
reduction of parts as we believe to have taken place in the bar-
berry flower might well be connected with the enrichment of the
remaining tissues.

Secondly, a mechanical stimulus applied repeatedly for in-
numerable generations, at a very definite part of the stamen,
would seem to be also necessary in order to account for the fact
that movement of the organ occurs in response to a touch only
when applied to the front of the filament and near its base.
From the position which the glands came to occupy in the flower,
just such a stimulus was afforded by the proboscis of every insect
that sipped the nectar.

Whether we are at liberty to suppose that the direct effects of
such a repetition of stimuli may be accumulated through inherit-
ance, or whether we must assume only the inheritance of for-
tuitous variations, is of comparatively small consequence in this

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

particular case, because the movement in question is undoubtedly
useful, and as such, variations in this direction, be they fortuitous
or mechanically induced, would be preserved by natural selection.
In other words, an ever-recurring mechanical stimulus is presup-
posed even on the theory which works entirely with accidental
variations, responding more or less fortunately thereto, while,
if the stimulus be a direct cause of the favorable variations, its
importance as a factor becomes still greater.*

Our theory of the origin of the peculiar movement in barberry
stamens amounts, then, to this : Stimulation by contact at a defi-
nite part of the filament for innumerable generations, increase of
the protoplasmic contents by the reduction of adjacent parts, and
the usefulness of such a movement at every stage of its develop-
ment— these three factors, although separately incompetent, have
yet in combination been the ones chiefiy concerned in bringing
about through the agency of natural selection such changes in
the protoplasm of the sensitive cells as make its fundamental
property of contractility prominent to an extraordinary degree.

Fertilization being accomplished, the single pistil ripens into
a berry. In Bey-heris vulgaris each of the two ovules ordinarily
becomes a hard-coated seed flattened on its inner face by pressure
(Fig. 20) in much the same way as happens with the two " beans"
in a coffee berry. Sometimes (as in the so-called " male berry "
coffee) one of the ovules aborts, thus leaving the other to form a
seed proportionally richer in reserve food and correspondingly
round in form. Occasionally there may be found barberry bushes
producing fruit in which both ovules have aborted, f But accord-
ding to Buckhout X such individuals " do not constitute a perma-
nent variety, for stoneless barberries are only found on old plants,
and it has been proved that young suckers taken from them and
planted in fresh soil fruit with perfect seeds." Seed production
in this case would thus seem to be a question of the plant's vigor
at a given period, and so to be comparable with the case of ordi-

* The belief that stimuH of the sort described directly induce modifications which are
inherited has of late years been advocated by Rev. George Henslow (The Origin of Floral
Structures). But before this supposition can be accepted in the present case, we surely
require an explanation of how it might be possible for changes induced in the protoplasm
of the mature stamens of a given flower to exert a modifying effect on the pollen grains, or
the female germ cells, for inheritance must, of course, proceed from them. The pollen
grains being separate and distinct, and the female germ cells fully formed and presumably
isolated from surrounding protoplasm at the time of the insect's visit, the difficulty suggested
would seem to be a very serious one, and, so far as the writer is aware, not even a plausible
explanation on this point has been offered.

f Sturtevant (On Seedless Fruits, Mem. Torr. Bot. Club, vol. ii, p. 3) cites a number of
authors who have noticed this phenomenon in barberries.

X Treasury of Botany, vol. i, p. lo6.

BARBERRIES,

191

nary seedless varieties (sucli as bananas, navel oranges, and tlie
tiny seedless grapes sold as dried " currants ") only on the suppo-
sition that in the latter also there had been a loss of vigor through
long-continued non- sexual propagation.

The agreeable tartness of the barberry fruit, which makes it
so generally and so highly esteemed, is due to the 'presence of
malic acid, a substance found also in the foli-
age. Besides being made into preserves and
jellies, the ripe fruit is candied or may be
dried like raisins. AVhile yet green the ber-
ries are sometimes pickled as a substitute for
capers. Barberry preserve is, moreover, often
used as the basis of a refreshing summer drink
— a sort of " barberryade." Finally, it is re-
ported that in our Western States the fruit of
Berheris aquifoUum and certain other native
species is made to yield upon fermentation an
agreeable wine.

But, for all their attractiveness to us, the
berries seem to be less in favor with birds than
are many fruits which we care nothing for.
So long as the more succulent or less acid
fruits are to be obtained, birds visit the bar-
berry but little. When winter comes, how-
ever, they are glad enough to profit by the
barberry's offer of something to eat, and the bright scarlet clusters
do not dangle in vain.

Kerner fed certain thrushes with barberries, and found that the
resistant seeds not only passed unharmed through the digestive
tract, but their power of germination was improved, as shown by
comparing them with seeds which had not been eaten. Add to
this advantage the long distances which birds are likely to carry
the seeds they eat, and the likelihood of their depositing them in
most favorable situations, and it will at once be apparent how
much superior to other methods is this mode of dissemination.

There can be little doubt that in the primitive ancestors of the
barberry family the fruits were dry capsules which depended upon
the wind to distribute their numerous seeds, as is the case to-day
in the majority of herbaceous Berberidacecz. That is to say, if
we suppose the six pistils of the primitive berberidaceous flower
(see Fig. 17) to have ripened into as many capsules, we shall have
a form of fruit from which not improbably may have been derived
all the different forms of fruit exhibited in modern representatives
of the family. Confining our attention to the line which culmi-
nates in the barberry, it will be seen that the supposition of such
a fruit's having descended from the x^rimitive form above men-

Fio. 20. — Berberis vul-
garis. Vertical sec-
tion of berry, showing
two seeds, each con-
taining copious re-
serve food and a long,
well - developed em-
bryo.

794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tioned involves the assumption of the following changes : (1) Th6
disappearance of all but one of the pistils ; (2) reduction of the
number of seeds ; (3) the abandonment of dehiscence ; (4) increased
hardness of seed coat; (5) the acquirement of succulence; (6) the
development of an attractive color.

The first-named alteration we have already considered in con-
nection with the evolution of the flower. As with this, so with
the other changes, the best we can do is to imagine how they might
have come about. Now, it is true of all cajjsular fruits that until
fully ripe they are neither dry nor dehiscent. We know that
variations in the time of ripening do occur, and experiments have
shown* that even unripe seeds will germinate and produce strong,
healthy plants. In view of these facts it seems reasonable to sup-
pose that not only might there arise varieties in which the capsule
would retain something of its succulence until the seeds were
nearly ripe, but if the fruit in this condition were eaten by birds or
other animals the seeds might be disseminated by them, much to
the benefit of the favored variety. There were doubtless seasons
of scarcity in prehistoric times as well as now, when animals
would be glad of even such comparatively unattractive fruits as
we have described. Among the descendants of those plants whose
fruits had become somewhat berrylike, those having the more
succulent pericarp would, other things being equal, have most
descendants, and thus in the course of many generations the
present condition be reached.

The conspicuousness, depending as it does upon the same
changes in the original pigment as occur in the transformations
of chlorophyll in autumn leaves, may be looked upon as a result
incidentally connected with the retention of succulence in the
pericarp after growth had ceased, and as this tendency for the
fruit to assume a color contrasting with the foliage would be
beneficial as an advertisement to birds, natural selection would
favor rather than hinder it.

The fact that in mahonias the berries are commonly of a dark
purplish blue suggests that possibly this was the color first as-
sumed by the fruit of the genus, the more conspicuous scarlet of
the common barberry and its near relatives being acquired later,
along with the higher differentiation of structure which it accom-
panies. Although this view gains some support from the occa-
sional appearance of a blue-fruited variety of Berheris vulgaris
(which might be thought of as a reversion to the ancestral type),
still it should be remembered that our knowledge of the chemistry
of plant pigments is at best too meager to justify much confidence
in any theory of color change.

* Goodale, Physiol. Bot., p. 460.

BARBERRIES. 795

When once tlie good services of birds had been secured, there
would be no need of having so many seeds in each fruit as must
have been formerly necessary to compensate for the extreme
wastefulness of wind as a distributing agent. At the same time
a reduction in the number would permit, as we have already had
occasion to notice, a higher development of each remaining seed —
that is to say, an increase of reserve food and a thickening of the
outer coat, features that we find to vary directly as the number of
seeds, there being all the way from eight (in many mahonias) to
two or even one in the true barberries.

However the characteristics of the barberry fruit may have
arisen, the fact that they came to depend upon birds for their dis-
semination must have exerted an important influence upon all the
subsequent differentiation of the group, for barberries were thus
brought into widely separated regions which they might not
otherwise have reached and so came to grow up in widely differ-
ent surroundings.

We have already considered the extent of the migrations which
are believed to have taken place in preglacial times. Among the
forms which became adapted to the refrigerated climate that
heralded the Glacial epoch, one of the most successful was prob-
ably a form almost if not quite identical with the modern Berheris
canadensis, which despite its name does not grow in Canada, but
is found only in the Alleghanies of Virginia and southward.
Before the glacier came, however, the ancestral form we are speak-
ing of probably did occur even to the north of Canada, and through
the agency of birds was carried into Asia and distributed widely
on that continent. Under the influence of their new environment
it would not be strange if in the Asiatic descendants of the cana-
densis stock there appeared, even during the (geologically) short
time since the beginning of the Glacial period, those slight differ-
ences which now distinguish Berheris vulgaris from the American
descendants — differences which in the minds of some botanists en-
title the two forms to rank only as varieties of the same species.
After the retreat of the glacier, Berheris vulgaris extends into
Europe to take the place of the mahonias previously extermi-
nated. It now flourishes from England to Persia and from Persia
to Japan. Our forefathers bring the plant to this country (largely
for the sake of its fruit), and thus it finally returns to the ances-
tral acres. It would surely seem to be not a little invigorated by
its journey around the world, since in the acquisition of American
territory it appears to be in a fair way to outdo its stay-at-home
relative, and has already fully justified with us its Old World
name of " common barberry."

[Concluded.'\

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

By M. V. O'SHEA.

ONE wliose attention lias been directed to the great activity
wliicli lias taken liold of the modern educational world can
not but have concluded that teaching has come to be regarded as
a more or less difficult art, for which considerable preparation
must be made in order that one shall be fitted to do it at all
well. The present age has not been heir to such a view as this,
however; for it has been comparatively recent that men have
grown to consider the imparting of instruction successfully as an
art to be acquired ; they have looked upon it rather as an instinct
that is born with its possessor, and that shows itself in some such
spontaneous manner as do other characteristics and habits that
lie outside of personal thought or control. The maxim that poets
are " born, not made," has been applied with much vigor also to
the great majority of teachers, who have themselves oftentimes
not thought it necessary or expedient to make any definite prepa-
ration for their calling, other than to acquire a certain familiarity
with the arithmetic or grammar or geography, knowledge of
which they innocently hope to pour into their pupils' minds out of
their own store of facts in these subjects. Educational practice
of to-day, however, is not wholly in sympathy with the declara-
tion that a teacher's art is born with him and can not be acquired ;
for it has provided elaborate means for the making of teachers, or
at least for affording them opportunities to greatly improve upon
what Nature has done for them. This has grown out of the belief
that teaching is founded upon a science, and its successful prac-
tice must be acquired by special study and apprenticeship, just as
with any other art, like civil engineering or architecture or medi-
cine. Confidence in this opinion has spread widely throughout
our own and other countries, and has resulted in the vast increase
of means whereby every teacher may now have opportunity to
become possessed in some measure of those special acquirements
which, it is believed, are essential in order that he shall deal
wisely with childhood in the schoolroom.

Previous to the eighteenth century there seems to have been
no adequate conception of the training of mind as being amenable
to the rules and methods of science. It was probably not thought
that the mental life was subject to laws the nature of which could
be ascertained, and which would have to be followed if there
would be any success in leading the mind to attain those ends
which should be kept constantly in view in all educational work.
The teacher, then, would be successful according to the measure
of his instinctive apprehension of the peculiar nature of each pu-

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS. 797

pil's mind ; and there would not be mncli opportunity to increase
his success by careful observation and study of a large number of
children. The first recognition of teaching as an art, founded upon
a rather indefinite science of the mind, seems to have been shown
by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, when they required
every individual who should teach in their schools to spend two
or three years as an apprentice, observing the ways of a master,
who was supposed to have become familiar with the best art of
teaching through his own experience in observation and experi-
mentation. Later, Eatich urged that teaching was an art, and
that those who were to practice it must become familiar with its
rules and devices before trying it, lest those whom they should
attempt to instruct should suffer by their ignorance and unskill-
fulness until experience should have taught them wisdom. In
the eighteenth century Francke embodied this idea in his schools
at Halle, requiring that all his teachers should, before being fully
admitted to the profession, spend two or three years in observing
others teach, and in reflecting upon the difficulties to be met with
and devising means to overcome them. This was the forerunner
of the " teacher's seminary," which has latterly spread through-
out Germany and all the progressive countries of Europe ; and
which has crossed over the waters to our own land, where a dif-
ferent name has been taken, but where the same ends are aimed
at. Previous to 1833 there were in France, according to Guizot,
forty-seven primary normal schools, while at present there are one
hundred and seventy-one well-equipped institutions, all of which
have become governmental institutions. In 1827 David Stowe
established the first normal seminary in Great Britain, at Glas-
gow ; and such great popularity did this attain that other institu-
tions of the same kind sprang up rapidly throughout Scotland and
England, while training colleges and professorships of pedagogy
in the universities have also been established. The first normal
school in our own country began operations at Lexington, Mass.,
in 1829, and now there is not a State in the Union that has not sev-
eral of these schools, supported at public expense ; while normal
colleges and professorships of pedagogy are meeting with favor
and multiplying in all parts of the country.

In America there is a problem to be met in the training of
teachers that gives very little trouble to many of the countries of
the Old World. In Germany, Austria, France, and the other im-
portant nations of Europe, teaching has come to be regarded as a
profession which, when an individual once enters, he rarely de-
serts, holding to it for life the same as if he had engaged in the
practice of medicine or law. The population of these countries is
practically constant, making it possible to determine pretty defi-
nitely about how many teachers will be required each year to

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

meet tlie demands of the public schools. On this account the
teacher is reasonably certain of finding and holding a place in
his profession if he enters it properly prepared ; and the govern-
ments of these countries can say that no teacher shall engage in
the practice of his profession until he shall have had the normal
school or training-seminary preparation, which is provided free,
under the provision that the beneficiary shall devote himself dur-
ing his life, or a certain portion of it, to the work of teaching in
the public institutions of the country. In our own country teach-
ing is not yet regarded as a profession to any great extent ; and
a majority of those engaged in it do not continue in it for a
long time, perhaps not more than two or three years. The
greater number of teachers are women whose tenure of office in
the schools is tentative, depending upon the time when they shall
find more attractive life work ; while most of the men who enlist
under the banner of the schoolmaster do so only as preliminary
to engaging in other and more remunerative professions when for-
tune favors. This uncertainty in things makes a thorough and
systematic training of teachers in anything like completeness im-
possible in our own country at the present time. However, so thor-
oughly is it recognized by those familiar with the question that
teaching is an art to be improved upon by special study, even by
those possessing the most favorable endowments, that provisions
are made for some professional training of every candidate for a
place as master in the schools. This is done through teachers' in-
stitutes in all the States, summer schools, teachers' training
classes in the high schools, normal schools, and departments and
chairs of pedagogy in the universities ; and by means of these
agencies almost every teacher receives more or less professional
instruction which enables her to grasp the problem she is to
undertake in the management of a school in a more skilled and
scientific manner. But, while not disparaging the work done by
any and all of these agencies, it must still be said that it is to our
normal schools that we must look for anything like that prepa-
ration and training which must be demanded of our teachers
before our schools shall be able to realize adequately those ends
for which they are established and maintained.

Something has been written against the normal-school idea by
those who feel that the art of teaching successfully must spring
up spontaneously out of the teacher's nature, since if it comes in
any other way, through study and apprenticeship, it will be
stilted, forced, and unnatural ; and it is further urged that teach-
ers who are thus made are more harmful than none at all. It has
been held in some quarters that the normal school puts into the
hands of its students a system of artificial makeshifts that
prevent the outworking of individuality, and reduce all teach-

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAININO^ OF TEACHERS. 799

ing to mere mechanism and parrotlike imitation. "They make
fine-working machines of our teachers," some still say, " but we
would rather have spontaneous activity, even though ignorant
and crude, than the finest action on the part of a machine." This
criticism of the normal school has served a wholesome purpose in
breaking up any tendency toward mechanism and spiritless,
formal methods of teaching which might have been displayed in
its earlier inception. It seems to be always true that in the be-
ginning of any great institution like the normal school the letter
and not the spirit will be at first emphasized ; but in the process
of healthy evolution the mechanical part becomes simply the
means of expression of the principles and truths underlying.
This has, no doubt, been true of the normal school ; and, in its
steady growth toward a more scientific basis for all it does, it has
come to pass that at the present time its work in the training of
teachers is made to cover the broadest and fullest possible view
of the human being and the purpose of his education. It is recog-
nized that the process of education from first to last is dependent
upon laws of the human mind, and it is partly the province of the
normal school to determine what those laws are. And further,
when the aims and ends of education have been decided upon, the
normal school must show what are the simplest, most speedy, and
most certain ways of attaining those ends. If we look briefly at
the work of the normal school as we have it now, we shall see
that the charge of its being unduly mechanical and too feebly
scientific can not be applied to it in its present stage of evolu-
tion.

The one ruling aim which gives character to the professional
work in the normal school is the purpose to awaken in the teacher
a consciousness that there is a science of education, and an art of
teaching founded upon that science ; to arouse in her an earnest,
indefatigable ambition to become acquainted with the best in
both, and, most important of all, to lead her to realize this in her
own work. The distinguishing characteristic of professional in-
struction, which marks it oft" from purely academic study, is the
attempt to acquaint students with the teaching aspect of subjects
of instruction, and to lead them to become students of all the
conditions in their schoolrooms that affect the action of the minds
of pupils in responding to all the means of stimulation which the
teacher consciously makes use of to attain the ends of develop-
ment. In other words, it is aimed to make the teacher conscious
of her art — conscious in the sense that she will intelligently con-
sider the growing, developing mind, acting according to definite,
exact laws ; and that she will attempt to wisely use the agencies
at her disposal in harmony with these laws to accomplish in the
most ready manner the highest possible ends of school train-

8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing. It appears, then, that the entire work in the professional
training of teachers consists of an investigation into the laws and
principles of mind activity, always followed by the effort to
rightly adapt the means of stimulation in the schoolroom (the
various subjects of instruction) to attain the full, harmonious,
capable development of child-nature. In the normal school this
work is usually divided into several branches, which, however, are
very vitally related, and which are always arranged in the natu-
ral order of sequence. The following is, in general, a very brief
outline of the work which is usually attempted in each branch :

I. Psychology. — The professional work is most naturally be-
gun by reflection upon the nature of the mind to be educated, en-
deavoring to find those laws and principles according to which its
normal activity is regulated in order that we may intelligently
wield the means of stimulation to secure its most natural and
speedy development. There are two methods which may be fol-
lowed in this study : The first assumes that the mind is an inert
object which can be abstracted from all concrete cases, and by an
analytic process separated into its logical parts. As a result of
this treatment we have a formal science of psychology, dealing
with the powers and attributes of the so-called faculties of the
mind, in the same way that we have a formal science of mathe-
matics, physics, and so on, that treat of characteristic subject-
matter in a logical way. The second method, which has come to
be followed most largely now in our training schools, regards the
mind as a growing, developing, assimilating power, and it is
sought to become acquainted with it while under these natural
conditions of activity. A knowledge of the mental life gained in
this latter way will be very different from that acquired by purely
formal study where the mind is considered apart from all con-
crete instances, and laws and principles are deduced which may ,
be applicable to it in general, but which have no reference to the
peculiar and distinguishing characteristics of specific instances,
nor of the manifold modifying conditions under which all activ-
ity, as induced by educational agencies, occurs. It should be, and
usually is, the aim to lead the prospective teacher to become
somewhat familiar with the concrete and developing mind under
those conditions which necessarily exist in all school work. It is
generally true that those who seek the normal school have not
the time nor the breadth of philosophical training and culture
to enable them to make the study of formal psychology profit-
able, although it would be most valuable for one who could
spend years in thought and reflection upon the matter, and who
would not need to make practical application at once of the prin-
ciples which he had considered. It is coming to be appreciated
that while a teacher need not, in order to do most intelligent

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS. 801

work, be learned in tlie logical principles and divisions of mind
activity, yet he does need to become acquainted with the action of
the mind as it is manifested in the many concrete cases which are
constantly before him in his daily work. He must come to feel
that the mind acts according to law, definite, exact, and unerring,
as well with reference to the subject-matter by which it is dis-
ciplined in the schools as to its reaction upon sense stimulus. He
must be trained to observe the effect of all external conditions,
bodily and otherwise, which do in any way modify or affect the
mental and moral condition of the child ; and it certainly can not
be maintained that this study leads the teacher to become imita-
tive and formal in his own class room.

Throughout all this work an effort is usually made to have the
prospective teacher discover for himself the more obvious prin-
ciples of mental activity, both by reflection upon the activities of
his own mental life and by the observation of mind phenomena
in the world about him. He is led to discern the intimate relation
between body and mind, to discover for himself the law of mutual
affection, and to trace the application of this fact in educational
procedure. So it will be seen that the purpose is to initiate him
into the habits of careful, intelligent observation of the facts of
mental activity as displayed under the ordinary conditions of the
class room, and to lead him to make correct, serviceable interpre-
tations of what he observes. As an aid toward this, many normal
schools include in their curricula special studies of child-nature
in the concrete, in order to train teachers to habits of exact, scien-
tific study of individual pupils under their charge, and also these
individuals when they are combined into classes. The value of
this work, when it is carried on intelligently, can not be overesti-
mated; for it leads the teacher into those habits of trying to find
some remediable cause for every undesirable manifestation of
child- nature in the class room which constitute the most praise-
worthy and serviceable attainments that those who deal with chil-
dren can become possessed of. Such study is usually of great
benefit to teachers by pointing out to them defects in vision and
other physical imperfections in pupils, which render them incapa-
ble of the highest and best work which they could otherwise suc-
cessfully undertake. The pupil teacher is made to realize that the
environment of his own pupils will be a potent factor in deter-
mining the mental and moral effect which the means of stimula-
tion in the school will have upon them ; and he is further led to
appreciate the maxim that in a great measure a teacher's success
will depend upon his ability to perceive clearly the effect of
external conditions, and to be able to arrange and modify them so
that they will all operate toward the accomplishment of those ends
which he is consciously seeking. It seems that such study as this

VOL. XLT. 68

8o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

will bring the teacher into broadest sympathy with child-nature,
and will enable him to affect peculiar natures and dispositions in
such manner as to establish wholesome and desirable ways of ac-
tion. It certainly is not true that the teacher is made a machine
by work of this character ; on the contrary, he is brought into the
highest possible freedom by finding the truth in the objects with
which he is to deal. How infinitely more free he becomes than
when he remains the creature of his own ignorance and pre-
conceived notions of the one formal way to deal with child-na-
ture!

II. The Science of Education. — It has already been said that
the study of psychology, for the teacher, must be of such charac-
ter that he will be enabled to apply it practically in the daily
work of instruction in the schoolroom ; for so long as it remains
merely theoretical he has received no benefit from it whatever,
at least so far as he is "professionally concerned. It follows read-
ily, then, that the principles of the science of education must be
gained simply as generalizations from the facts of psychology,
viewed with reference to the conscious and scientific stimulation
of the mind by educational agencies ; and this is all that is at-
tempted in this subject as the normal school has to deal with it.
This study is but a continuation of the study of psychology from
a special point of view — that of finding an order or method in edu-
cation as determined by the facts which have been found in our
observation of mind phenomena. It is continually emphasized in
the normal school that all method in education is naturally and
entirely dependent upon laws of mental growth and development.
It is the purpose in this place to investigate the general principles
which underlie all right educational procedure, with the end in
view to lead the teacher to become conscious of the laws regulating
the order both of the parts of the branches of instruction and of
the branches themselves when they are considered with reference
to training the mind ; and it is believed that in this way he gains
a knowledge of educational method and practice so wide and
broad that there will be little danger of his mistaking the mechan-
ism of school teaching, as exemplified by some individual who
happens to be his instructor, for the true spirit as the body of it
all. The ordinary student will not readily apply principles in
which the concrete cases from which they are drawn are not
clearly apparent; but in the consideration of such processes as
induction, deduction, apperception, concentration, interest, atten-
tion, and so on, he will have no difficulty in seeing their uni-
versal application in all the work of instruction, especially if he
is led to discover their importance by his own investigation.

There has been some objection on the part of certain philoso-
phers to the proposition that there is or can be a science of edu-

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS. 803

cation. It is maintained that, on account of the changeableness
of- human life, the diversity of human nature, the varying ideals
of educational practice, and so on, educational method must con-
sequently be in a continual flux, with no certainty or definite-
ness about it. Perhaps all persons looking at a science of educa-
tion from this point of view would agree that there must be a
change of procedure to accommodate changing interests and
ideals ; but there is unanimity of opinion between educators and
psychologists that the natural j^rocesses of the mind under stimu-
lation by educational agencies do not vary for individuals or pe-
riods of time, or for theories as to the aims and ends of education.
There is common agreement that the inductive process is the only
one that the child mind can follow in getting its first knowledge
of any branch of instruction, and this law must be universal.
So, too, it is agreed that in every instance it is impossible to ap-
propriate information of any character unless there is a swinging
of the mind toward the object of which knowledge is to be gained,
that is, unless there is an act of attention. And, again, it is com-
ing to be realized more and more that there is a vital relation be-
tween the now many and varied branches of instruction — a rela-
tion which unites them so closely that the human mind grasps
and appreciates them when presented together more naturally
than when it tries to get them separately and disjointedly ; and
this also must be true for all time and all individuals. It is upon
these and other uniform certainties that a science of education
may be built, and there is no necessity to attempt to include with-
in it all the uncertainties over which there seems to have been
some worriment.

III. The Art of Teaching. — When the teacher has become
familiar with those general principles which must be observed in
all the work of education, he is led to investigate the order and
method in each of the various branches of instruction found in
the schoolroom, to the end that he may present each one to
the child-mind in a manner befitting its peculiar nature. From
this study it will be found that the child acquires a knowledge of
language and the use of it in a somewhat different way from that
in which he masters the subject-matter of arithmetic and is able
to use it as required. The apprentice teacher must come to un-
derstand and appreciate that the operation of the mind is not the
same in gaining each and every subject which she uses in the
schoolroom for its development ; and this is often a great revela-
tion to the novice, who little suspects that there is such diversity
in things pedagogical. In this connection the student is made
acquainted with those forms and devices for teaching each sub-
ject which best illustrate the psychological principles that have
already been agreed upon. This work has been given the name of

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"special methods/' because it deals minutely with tlie principles
of teaching each particular subject, and suggests also in some
measure the mechanics that has been found adapted to each sub-
ject ; and it is this latter kind of work that has brought more or
less disrepute upon the normal school. But when a teacher is re-
quired to continue with this phase of his work until he is thor-
oughly able to comprehend that all devices and forms of teach-
ing are but efforts of individuals to best illustrate the underlying
principles, and when he is expected to work out a system of de-
vices for himself before he leaves the school, then there is little
danger of his falling into mechanical habits that will interfere
with that spontaneity which is all-essential in spirited teaching.
The normal school does not now emphasize the mechanical side
of teaching as much as it did when the knowledge of psychology
was so meager that pupil teachers could not hope to be investi-
gators of the principles which underlie educational method, but
must be content to be imitators of those who had made researches,
and embodied these in an art which necessarily exhibited much
of their own individuality. Every trained teacher is required in
these times to study the mind of the child ; and he is led to see
that the whole realm of methods and devices must be built upon
the laws of mental growth, and everything that has not this scien-
tific basis is worthless and even injurious.

As a necessary part of this work in the art of teaching there
is provision made in the normal school whereby theory may be
illustrated in actual practice in the model, or practice, school. It
is the aim in this school to show the application of principles and
the proper use of devices by an abundance of illustrative teaching
of such character that the apprentice may well emulate it in
all respects. It has become a familiar truth that it is with teach-
ing as with other callings in life — that in order to become able
most speedily to do creditable work the candidate should have
his attention specially directed to those qualities and accomplish-
ments which mark successful teaching, because he will not, in all
probability, appreciate them unless they are thus pointed out to
him. It can not be too strongly emphasized that object lessons
in successful teaching are as important and exemplify the same
pedagogical doctrine as is the case in other departments of educa-
tional work. In this illustrative teaching the apprentice is re-
quired to analyze carefully and fully all the lessons which he ob-
serves, not only from the point of view of the essential principles
underlying them, but he must take into account also the surround-
ing and accompanying conditions which materially affect the les-
son favorably or unfavorably. Every student is trained to see and
appreciate pedagogical problems, and he is expected to become able
to point out an intelligent and practical way for their solution.

THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS. 805

The practice department of the normal school usually illus-
trates a thoroughly graded and classified school from the kin-
dergarten to the high school, and is designed to embody three
phases of actual teaching : In the first place, as has been said,
pupil teachers are expected to witness model teaching that exem-
plifies the very best psychological principles in order that they
may have the very best ideals set before them. Second, every
pupil teacher is required to teach for a certain length of time
in this practice department under skilled criticism. The critic
teacher, who is usually an experienced and competent person, is
careful to point out the defects which the student displays in his
practice work, and to give him explicit directions how to over-
come them, always aiding him in every way possible to apply
readily and efficiently the principles he has gained in his theo-
retical work. In the third place, there is usually a spirit of in-
vestigation found in these practice schools, seeking constantly to
improve upon the methods of teaching which may be in vogue
at any time ; and, as a general thing, freedom is permitted the
apprentice to work out original methods, provided these seem to
be in harmony with the fundamental principles of teaching. It
is not too much to say that it is the aim always to inculcate
among pupil teachers that broad, wholesome spirit that will look
upon the teaching profession as a high and honorable one, where
more worthy motives should prevail than those of mercenary gain
or social preferment.

IV. The History of Education, — In order that a teacher
shall thoroughly understand and appreciate what is being done
pedagogically in these times it is necessary that he be led to see
how the present state of things has been brought about, in order
that he may put himself in line with the ascending tide in educa-
tional practice. The history of education, as a record of the de-
velopment of educational ideas and practices, showing the tran-
sition from a period of unpedagogical and unpsychological pro-
cedure to one with more humane and intelligent methods, is as
stimulative and beneficial a study as a teacher can undertake.
The aim generally kept in mind is to trace the process of develop-
ing pedagogical ideas with the end in view to see that there is and
has been a constant evolution along several distinct lines of edu-
cational practice, and that we are at present in a stage of that
evolution process which seems in no wise to be near completion.
The apprentice is led to appreciate that there has been in educa-
tional history much the same awakening to the consciousness
that there is a teaching science, determined by invariable laws of
mind growth and development, as is experienced by the ordinary
teacher who has come to look at her work from a psychological
rather than an academic standpoint. An effort is made to have

8o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the student trace the growth of progressive ideas through the
different ages and combine this knowledge into one organic whole ;
instead of becoming possessed of a chaos of unrelated facts which
may give general information, but can not be organized to afford
intelligent direction to the efforts of the student who tries to meet
the problems which confront him continually in his work. Surely
there can be no broader study for the prospective teacher than to
examine critically the great systems of pedagogical doctrine out
of which our own has grown ; such, for example, as those elab-
orated by Comenius, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Her-
bart, Spencer, Mann, and others, and to profit by the successes and
failures of these systems so far as they have been tried, and also
to gain inspiration and courage from their exponents.

This in brief is what the normal school attempts to do for the
professional betterment of those who seek its privileges. That
there is great opportunity yet for growth every one admits ; but
no one who is in touch with the normal school will doubt that it
is moving forward as rapidly as the law of growth of such an in-
stitution, conditioned as it is by the development of the school
system as a whole of which it is a part, will admit ; and that it
is now filling a great mission (even with all its imperfections on
its head) in improving the present condition of our schools, and
pointing to higher and better things in the future, is amply shown
on every side by the results of its efforts.

FUNERAL CUSTOMS OF THE WORLD.

By J. H. LONG.

A WRITER on the subject of the disposal of the bodies of the
dead has said, "As there is almost nothing else so deeply
interesting to the living as the disposal of those whom they
have loved and lost, so there is perhaps nothing else so distinc-
tive of the condition and character of a people as the method
in which they treat their dead." It may be premised, then, that
no custom stamps the standing of a people more clearly in the
scale of civilization than does the care of the bodies of the de-
parted. " People of a low and barbarous type carelessly permit
the remains of the dead to lie in the way of the living, and there
are a few instances in which the object of artificial arrangements
has been to preserve a decorated portion of the body — as, for ex-
ample, a gilded skull — among the survivors." The general tend-
ency of mankind, however, has been to bury the dead out of the
sight of the living ; and various as the methods of accomplish-
ing this end have been, they have resolved themselves into three

FUNERAL CUSTOMS OF THE WORLD. 807

great divisions : (1) The simple closing np of the body in earth or
stone; (2) the burning of the body and the entombing of the
cinders ; (3) the embalming of the body.

The first of these, i. e., the simple inclosing of the body in
earth or stone, is not only the most widely diffused of the three,
but also the earliest of which we have any record. It is referred
to again and again in Scripture, although the other methods
also are mentioned. A beautiful description of one of the most
ancient of Bible burials is found in the twenty-third chapter of
Genesis. It was considered by the Hebrews one of the greatest
calamities and deepest marks of dishonor to be deprived of
burial. So we read in the prophecy of Jeremiah against Jehoi-
akim, " He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and
cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." Evidently, next to
the simple exposure of the body, which savored too much of
cruel neglect, burial was the first means that would suggest itself
to the human race for the disposal of the remains of the dead.
In the beginning the rite was no doubt simple and unosten-
tatious ; but, as civilization advanced, it became more and more
ornate, reaching in some lands and ages a pitch of ceremonial
magnificence which seems incredible to us now, but relics of
which are still seen in our modern funeral displays. There
can be nothing more magnificent than the obsequies of a high
dignitary of the Greek or the Roman Church. But still, to those
outside these churches all such ceremonies appear just a little
tawdry and garish. It is doubtful whether there is, or can be,
any funeral ceremony so truly solemn as that which is held in
Westminster Abbey. In such a burial there is everything calcu-
lated to evoke the most reverential, the most solemn thoughts —
the dim religious light stealing through the painted windows far
up against the sky ; the long vista of arch and pillar and tomb ;
the silence, broken only by the solemn service for the dead, the
deep roll of the organ, and the voices of the singers like the sing-
ing of angels far away; more than all else, the thought that
everywhere about us lies the dust of those who once filled the
world with their fame, from the days of St. Edward the founder,
yes, from the days of Sebert the Saxon king. A burial at West-
minster marks the highest point ever reached by this form of
sepulture. It stands at one end of the series. At the other end
stand those hideous rites which have been practiced in many a
heathen land; in Ashantee, in Dahomey, in ancient Mexico, in
certain of the south sea islands, and (formerly) in India. Let
me epitomize two or three extracts bearing on this : " Hero-
dotus tells us that when a king died in ancient Scythia, those
who attended him cut off one ear, shaved their heads, wounded
themselves on the arm, forehead, and nose, and pierced the left

8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hand with, an arrow. Furthermore, the undertakers or managers
of the royal funeral had to furnish a woman, a cup-bearer, a
cook, a waiter, a messenger, and a certain number of horses ; all
to be killed. In fact, in the particular king's funeral which the
great Greek historian is describing they took the king's minis-
ters, fifty in number, and strangled them. Then, having killed
fifty of the chief horses of the king, they prepared them and set
them in a circle, upon each one a strangled rider, that they
might serve as a royal guard to the dead hero." " The chiefs
of the Fiji Islands have from fifty to one hundred wives, accord-
ing to their rank. At the interment of a principal chief the body
is laid in state upon a spacious lawn in the presence of an im-
mense concourse of spectators. The principal wife, after the ut-
most ingenuity of the natives has been exercised in adorning her
person, then walks out and takes her seat near the body of her
husband. A rope is passed round her neck, which eight or ten
powerful men pull, until she is strangled and dies. Her body is
then laid by that of the chief. In this manner four wives are sacri-
ficed, and all of them are interred in a common grave, one above,
one below, and one on either side of the husband. This is done
that the spirit of the chief be not lonely in its passage to the in-
visible world, and that, by such an offering, its happiness may be
at once secured." It may be added to this that, in certain lauds,
the custom is to inter alive the attendants of the dead chieftain ;
it being believed that this precaution adds to the solemnity of the
occasion and to the future happiness of the departed. In ancient
Mexico this practice of sacrificing upon the occasion of a funeral
was carried on with great pomp and lavish effusion of blood, in
some cases a hundred persons being slain to act as guides and
servitors to the deceased chief in his journey to the other world.
In India, owing to the kindly ofiices of the British Government,
the terrible suttee has entirely disappeared. This, it is need-
less to say, was the custom of self-sacrifice by the wife of the
dead husband. It is impossible not to admire the heroic spirit of
those Hindoo widows who deemed it a high honor to cast them-
selves upon the funeral pyre of their spouse. " Indeed, when the
female slaves find their mistress is greatly afflicted at the loss of
her husband, they promise her, in case she is resolved not to sur-
vive him, to burn themselves along with her, and are always as
good as their word. They dance near the funeral pyre, and throw
themselves into it, one after another."

The two other modes of sepulture are, as has been said, em-
balming and cremation. Embalming was not unknown among
the ancient Hebrews : there is frequent allusion in the later Scrip-
tures, and especiall}^ in the New Testament, to the embalming of
the body in antiseptics and fragrant substances. But the land

FUNERAL CUSTOMS OF THE WORLD. 809

wliicli was distinctively the land of embalming was Eg-ypt. This
subject is so vast that it is possible to refer to but two or three
points. One is the peculiar custom of judging the dead, before a
monument might be erected or other honor paid to their memory.
A writer on this subject says : " The judges who were to examine
into the merits of the deceased met on the opposite sides of a lake.
. . . When the judges met, all those who had anything to object
against the deceased person were heard ; and, if it appeared that he
had been a wicked person, then his name was condemned to per-
petual infamy, nor could hi-s dearest relatives erect any monument
to perpetuate his memory. This made a lasting impression upon
the minds of the people, for nothing operates more strongly than
the fear of shame and the consideration of our deceased relatives
being consigned to infamy hereafter. Kings themselves were not
exempted from this inquiry ; all their actions were canvassed at
large by the judges, and the same impartial decision took place as
if it had been upon the meanest of the subjects.'^ This trial,
which is described in the Book of the Dead, was a foreshadowing
of the trial of the soul by Osiris and his brother judges, before it
might be received into the Elysian Fields or the Pools of Perfect
Peace. The requirements for passing this latter ordeal were very
much the same as those set forth in the Sermon on the Mount :
to care for the fatherless and the widow ; to give food to the
hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, oil to the
wounded, and burial to the dead ; to be faithful to the king, and
loving to wife and child.

Another point deserving of notice was the strange custom of
placing the mummy in the seat of honor in the banquet hall.
This had a twofold office : (1) To warn the living of the fate in
store for them, like the unemenio mori of the Romans ; (2) to show
honor to ancestors. So it came to pass that of all lands in the
world, Egypt — so rich in obelisk and pyramid and needle; Egypt,
whose air does not destroy, but preserves — is also the richest in
these mute memorials of the once-living dead. What a marvel-
ous thing it is that we may to-day gaze upon the very face and
form of the Pharaoh who would not let Israel go, of him who
built the treasure cities of the plain !

The third method of disposing of the dead is by burning —
cremation, as it is now called. Many nations have practiced
burning, the best instances being the Greeks and the Romans.
Among the Greeks both methods were employed — burning and
burying; but gradually burning came to be the popular mode, the
reason being that fire was supposed to purify the celestial part of
man by separating it from the defilements of the body, and thus
enabling it to wing its flight to purer realms. More than the
Greeks the Romans were devoted to the process of cremation, al-

8io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

though in early ages they buried their dead. Cremation became
general at the end of the republic, i. e., shortly before the birth
of Christ. Under the emperors it was almost universal, but it
gradually disappeared as Christianity gained sway. The Roman
burial rites were very rigorous and voluminous. The ceremonial
of a modern funeral is as nothing compared with the Roman
ceremonial. There were the musicians, the players, the imitator
(who personated the dead), the images of the deceased, the train
of slaves and freedmen, the relatives tearing their garments and
covering themselves with dust, the funeral oration, and the final
obsequies at the pyre. This pyre was built in the form of an
altar of four sides. On it was placed the corpse upon a couch.
The eyes of the deceased were opened, the near relatives kissed
the body with tears ; and then, turning away their faces, they
applied the torch, while uj^on the burning mass were cast per-
fumes of myrrh and cassia, the clothes and ornaments of the
dead, and offerings of various kinds. At an officer's funeral the
soldiers made a circuit three times round the pyre, the ensigns
reversed, the trumpets braying, and the weapons clashing. If he
had been very popular, the soldiers cast their weapons upon the
burning mass as loving offerings to their dead commander. The
ashes were then gathered and put into an urn. Thus preserved,
they were deposited in one of those tombs which still adorn the
stately roads of Rome. Often lamps were kept perpetually burn-
ing in the tomb, while flowers and chaplets were brought thither,
that the dead might be reminded of the loving memory of the
living.

This mention of the burning of the body in ancient times leads
naturally to the question of cremation, which is attracting atten-
tion to-day, not so much in lands of sparse population as in lands
such as England, Belgium, and Italy, where the population is
dense and the available space small. In the large cities of such
lands, cities which have been populous for hundreds of years, it is
not a matter of mere sentiment ; it is a matter of almost life and
death to the inhabitants. And few persons will, I think, deny
that cremation will be eventually adopted in place of earth-burial.
This on grounds which will suggest themselves to all. It was, in
fact, Christianity that caused the reintroduction of earth-burial, .
for Christianity taught the resurrection of the body. This is the
reason why the Churches have always opposed cremation. But
it is seen now, apart from any theological argument, that there
can not be a bodily resurrection, as the same particles of matter
form, in the course of time, parts of various bodies, decaying
nature ever springing up to blooming life.

The objects of interest lying about the funeral pyres and
burial mounds of the human race in its long, long march are so

FUNERAL CUSTOMS OF THE WORLD. 811

many and so full of interest that one knows not where or when to
stop. There is the burial at sea — the most solemn of all — when
upon the mighty ocean the little group gathers round the captain,
and he commits the body to the waters until that day when " the
sea shall give up her dead." There are the rare forms of funeral
ceremonies ; for, although the chief are those I have mentioned —
earth-burial, burning, and embalming — yet these are not all.
Some races merely expose the body without any protection, as
some others actually put to death the aged and infirm. Strangest
of all, the Parsees of India expose their dead to the fowls of the
air on the Towers of Silence at Bombay, holding that earth, or
air, or water may not be desecrated by contact with the lifeless
body.

There are the great funerals of the world : of Alaric the Goth,
the conqueror of Rome, who was inclosed in a golden coffin and
buried in the bed of a river, which had been turned aside for the
purpose and then turned back, those who knew the spot being put
to death. Of Alexander the Great, from Babylon to Egypt, the
grandest funeral the world has ever seen. Of Napoleon, the
modern Alexander, when

" Cold and brilliant streamed the sunlight
On the wintry banks of Seine ;
Gloriously the imperial city
Eeared its pride of tower and fane ;
Solemnly with deep voice sounded,
Notre Dame, thine ancient chime,
And the minute-guns re-echoed
In the same deep, measured time ;
"While, above the cadenced cortege,
Like a dream of glory flits,
Tattered flag of Jena, Friedland, Areola, and Austerlitz."

Of the good Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward the Confessor, that
wife " whom living he had loved, and dead he had never ceased
to love," and whose body the great king followed on foot from end
to end of England, setting at each stopping place a cross, until
he came to Charing Cross, in the very heart of London to-day,
whence the body was borne to its final rest in England's mighty
abbey. Of Israel's great leader on

" Nebo's rocky mountain height, on this side Jordan's wave,
Where, in the land of Moab, there lies a lonely grave ;
And no man knows that sepulchre, and no man saw it e'er.
For the angel of God upturned the sod, and laid the dead man there."

Of Him who was laid in the rock-hewn tomb of Calvary, "the
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Time does not per-
mit us to dwell upon these, or upon the literature of the tomb —
Longfellow's God's Acre, Gray's Elegy, Milton's Lycidas, and

8 12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scores of others. There is Just one thought in conclusion. It is
that the funeral customs of the world, although not a conclusive,
are yet a very strong argument in favor of the belief in the im-
mortality of the soul. For the impelling motive in all these cus-
toms has been that death does not end all, that there is a life
beyond the grave. This it is which has prompted the savage to
lay offerings on the grave, that the spirit may return and accept
them. This it is which prompted the Egyptians to embalm their
dead, that the earthly form might one day be reclaimed by its for-
mer possessor. This it is which has prompted the preservation of
the body by secure burial, that it may not be consumed by wasting
time. This it is which has inspired the burning of the body, that
the soul may be free from its earthly fetters. Now, how are we
to account for this worldwide belief ? I mean, unless there under-
lies it a basis of fact. To have implanted this belief — unless it
has a fact as a basis — would seem to be but mockery on the part
of an all-wise, an all-good God.

-♦•♦-

POETRY AND SCIENCE.

By WILLIAM H. HUDSON,

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN TUE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITT.

IN his able and suggestive essay on Cosmic Emotion, the late
Prof. Clifford pointed out the significant fact that in the de-
velopment of thought the feelings never quite keep pace with the
intellect. It is not hard to see why this must be so. Every new
achievement of science, every fresh acquisition of knowledge,
makes its appeal directly to the intelligence ; and the judgment
so far as it is clear and unbiased, decides all questions at issue
purely on the merits of the evidence laid before it. Any revision
of old formulas, any restatement of old theories cause no friction,
and are made as a matter of course. But meanwhile each such
fresh achievement or acquisition enters at first as a disturbing fac-
tor into the emotional conditions of the time. Every generation
finds itself in possession of a certain body of knowledge concern-
ing the universe, and a certain philosophy of life based upon that
knowledge ; and between such knowledge and philosophy upon
the one hand, and its average emotions upon the other, there is,
as the result of long action and interaction, an adjustment or
equilibrium Avhich at the outset is relatively complete. The doc-
trines of Nature and human life in the midst of which men have
grown up have become so familiar to the common mind that the
feelings have had ample time to play round them, to saturate
them, to make them their own. Presently a sudden discovery.

POETRY AND SCIENCE. 813

or the rise of a new hypothesis concerning the work!, causes nn-
looked-for expansion of thought. Unknown aspects of the uni-
verse are brouglit to light, hidden processes revealed, undreamed-
of conceptions introduced. What follows ? The traditional bal-
ance between knowledge and emotion is disturbed. The intellect
adjusts itself rapidly to the changed conditions; the emotions
cling tenaciously to the conditions that are being left behind.
Years, perhaps generations, have to go by before once more the
intellectual possessions of the age are brought into sympathetic
relation with its common feelings and aspirations, and the adjust-
ment in this way approximately restored.

Illustrations of the principle here outlined may be found with-
out going further than the experiences of our own lives. We all
know well enough that at a time of great emotional stress or
upheaval we tend to revert to those ideas of our earlier days
which we fancy we have outgrown, and which in calmer seasons
no longer have any hold upon us. This is so notoriously the
case that much capital has been made in theological literature
out of the undeniable fact that during periods of unusual excite-
ment— during periods, that is, when the feelings take the upper
hand — the most skeptical spirits are apt to be driven back from
the open sea of doubt to the safe anchorage of their boyish faith.
It is a trite remark, too, that long after the judgment has been
convinced of some new proposition, the feelings will still persist
in protest and opposition. " A man convinced against his will is
of the same opinion still," as Hudibras long ago told us. Now all
this, in view of our generalization, is precisely what we should
expect. The feelings in most of us are very imperfectly adjusted
to our new intellectual acquisitions and their philosophical con-
sequences ; hence, in times of crisis, the almost inevitable lapse
into our older thought of the world, and our cruder guess at the
riddle behind it. In other words, the most advanced thinker is
likely to be more or less conservative upon the side of his emo-
tions. And all this explains not only the conservatism of women
and elderly men, but also the constant tendency among those en-
gaged in the study of the problems of life to segregate into oppos-
ing parties, roughly definable as the theological and the scientific
— those who, guided mainly by the feelings, resist the new knowl-
edge of the age ; and those who, looking at facts from the point
of view of the insulated intellect, accept such knowledge, con-
cerning themselves but little with the question of its emotional
results.*

Now this generalization interprets for us certain well-known

* A striking commentary upon these remarks will be found in the wonderful scene be-
tween Clotilda and Doctor Pascal in Zola's novel, Le Docteur Pascal, chap. iv.

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

facts that have found their p]ace in the history of every great
crisis in thought. The religious emotions of every epoch, though
they have this of absolute and permanent about them, that they
belong to man's sense of the mystery that lies at the heart of
things, find their immediate and concrete expression in direct rela-
tion to what is currently known and thought of the world and of
man's place in it. By and by Science steps in, and shows that the
popular cosmology is childish, and the philosophic structure
erected upon it a mere house upon the sands ; and in the shock
that follows it is not surprising that so many fine religious natures
should feel themselves unhinged. The emotions have clung about
the old knowledge so long that when that old knowledge is swept
away they too seem in themselves to be hollow and untrust-
worthy, and a numbing sense of chaos and utter inanity settles
down upon the consciousness of the w^orld. This is the experience
through which mankind has passed in every age of unusual in-
tellectual movement and revision ; this is the experience through
which, in these days, we ourselves are passing. The wail of an-
guish that goes up to Heaven as foundations that have stood the
,test of centuries crumble rapidly away ; the despair of many who,
driven hither and thither by adverse winds of doctrine, know not
where to turn for comfort or hope ; the Cassandra cry of not a few
who would have us believe that all faith has gone forever — these
are simply signs of the times, unavoidable accompaniments of the
wrenching away of men's emotions from their old moorings under
the pressure of that extraordinary influx of new ideas that charac-
terizes the age in which we live. The progress of science during
the past half century has been so rapid and continuous that the
intellect has got a long way ahead of the feelings, and the world
is overweighted by a large body of unemotionalized knowledge.
This is the real meaning of our present predicament in thought.
Only hereafter can dawn the epoch of readjustment between feel-
ings and knowledge ; only after many years of such ferment and
commotion can men at last come to the understanding that the
new thought, too, is religious and poetic, and will furnish a soil
for all the higher emotions richer and more fertile than that
which the deluge has overflowed.

The poet, more sensitive than other men to the subtle influ-
ences at work around him, finds himself in the storm and stress
of such a transitional period adrift amid currents and counter-
currents of thought, the trend of which is only dimly foreseen or
guessed at by the scientists and philosophers themselves. He
moves about " in worlds not realized," with many " blind mis-
givings," and much painful groping toward the light. Now,
whatever else poetry may or may not be, and whether we define
it, with Aristotle, as an imitation or, with Bacon, as an idealization

POETRY AND SCIENCE. 815

of tlie actual world around us, it is unquestionably the expression
of an attempt on the part of the mind of man to deal with life
from the standpoint of the feelings. It has been well said that
while science is concerned with the study of the relations of
things among themselves, religion and poetry are concerned with
the study of the relations of things to us. This gives us the poet's
problem. Regarding the new thought through the medium of the
imagination, he has to inquire in what way and to what extent the
changes in our conceptions of the universe and man brought
about by science affect our emotional outlook — our feelings re-
specting our own individual lives, our sympathies with the lives
of others, our attitude toward Nature, our hope for the future of
the race here and of the individual hereafter.

What, then, will be the poet's response to the intellectual con-
ditions under which he lives ? Confronted as he is by this large
mass of unemotionalized knowledge, what will be his message to
his time ? It may be one of passionate protest against or obsti-
nate indifference to the revolutionary movement in progress
around him, and which may seem to him to be taking all the
charm from life, all the beauty from the world. It may be one of
simple doubt and hesitation ; a mere cry of Why ? and Whither ?
— not so much an answer to the mute questionings of men, as a
translation of those questionings into language and form. Or, in
the third place, it may be a glimpse of coming things — an attempt
to catch the new thought and force it to an emotional revelation.
And as no man can wholly exclude the " element of necessity from
his labor," or " quite emancipate himself from his age and coun-
try," * so in one or other of these three ways will the forces of the
time influence and fashion the poet's work. His attitude will
thus be one of reaction, of uncertainty, or of prophecy ; his gospel
a gospel of evasion, of skepticism, or of promise.

Hereafter I hope to sketch the history of the poetry of the
nineteenth century from the point of view now indicated — that is,
to study it in direct connection with the scientific and industrial
movements of our time. Here, in the illustration of the above
theory, I must content myself with the mention of a few typical
names.

For the most distinctive example of the poetry of evasion we
turn naturally to the pages of John Keats. Leave out of ques-
tion the artistic qualities of his work, which have absorbed most
critics, but which do not concern us here, and the most signifi-
cant thing about Keats is his absolute indifference to the life and
spirit of his time. The world about him was alive with fresh in-
terests and hopes ; watchwords of progress were in the air he

* Emerson, Essay on Art.

8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

breatlied ; almost all Ms great contemporaries — Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Shelley, Byron among the number — were more or less
drawn into the eddjdng current of change ; but Keats remained
an outsider and an alien. He felt no thrill of enthusiasm for the
development of knowledge and the march of the race, no young
man's interest in the world's travail and hope. He never troubled
himself to ask what direction the thought of the time was taking.
He only knew and only cared to know that it was drifting in
some direction away from the old landmarks that he loved so
well, and he persistently resented the change, without, perhaps,
even realizing what it actually meant. There was nothing, there-
fore, left for him, as he felt, but to emulate the " negative ca-
pacity" of the Elizabethans — to live in the midst of all this ferment
without being touched by it.* So he built for himself a palace of
art — " a lordly pleasure house " — and escaped through the imagi-
nation from the pressure of a world in which he had no part.

For Keats, then, knowledge emphatically meant disillusion.
Reality, romance — these were essentially contradictory terms.
To explain the processes of Nature was to remove them once and
for all from the soft twilight of poetry, through which they
loomed dim but beautiful, into the lurid white glare of actuality,
where they stood out gaunt, naked, revolting. The sense of real
things constantly present to break in upon his sweetest fancies,
he could liken only to a muddy stream, the turbid current of
which was forever sweeping his mind back to darkness and noth-
ingness. In the well-known passage in Lamia about the rain-
bow, with its emphatic protest against philosophy, we have the
man's horror of science, so frequently revealed elsewhere in his
work by implication, set forth in a kind of formal declaration.
Such an outburst inevitably reminds us of the diatribes in Mr.
Ruskin's Eagle's Nest against physiology and what he calls Dar-
winism— perhaps the foolishest utterances to be found anywhere
in his voluminous writings, which is itself saying a good deal.
But, after all, perhaps the best commentary on the lines in question
is Haydon's statement that, three years before Lamia saw the
light, Keats and Lamb, while dining with him (Haydon), had
agreed together that " Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the
rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colors." We may imagine
how these two sage critics would have laid their heads together
over the more modern legend of the cynical chemist who is said
to have remarked that a woman's tears had no longer any kind of
power over him, since he knew their precise constituent elements
— muriate of soda and solution of phosphate ! Clearly, the £es-

* See his remarkable letter to his brother, on Shakespeare's " negative capacit3'," in For-
man's edition of Keats's Morks, vol. iii, pp. 99, 100.

POETRY AND SCIENCE. 817

thetic emotions of Keats lagged far behind the intellectual
achievements of his time ; and it was the consequent maladjust-
ment that caused him to cling so persistently to that old order of
ideas, to that cosmology of marvel and catastrophe which he felt
to be slipping away from the world with all the beautiful accumu-
lation of legend and myth which in the course of many centuries
had come to cluster about it. To him " glory and loveliness " had
indeed " passed away " from the present, and could be sought
only in the things that the general world was rapidly outgrowing ;
and hence it was to these dead things alone — to Greek fable or
mediaeval story — that he could turn to find the beauty that was to
be to him a joy forever.

But though in Keats's day the ocean of knowledge was slowly
rising on every side, he had no hint of that great tidal wave of
new ideas which has carried us so rapidly forward with its resist-
less roll. It is little to say that during the past half century the
consequent emotional perturbation has been greater than the world
ever experienced before ; for the single generalization of evolution
has disturbed the equilibrium of which we have spoken to an ex-
tent hitherto undreamed of. We face the universe from a new
standpoint ; our relations to Nature are altered ; the problems of
life, so often analyzed, so much discussed in the past, meet us in
unfamiliar forms. Amid the Babel of tongues and the fierce
clash of ideas and purposes to which all this has given rise, the
poetry of evasion has still made its voice heard and its influence
felt. In the works of Rossetti and the earlier writings of William
Morris (The Earthly Paradise and the other poems antedating his
conversion to socialism) we have the artistic traditions of Keats
carried on with unmistakable success; the mediaeval mood and
attitude, however, replacing the pagan mood and attitude of the
earlier bard. Both these m.en, too, sought to make their escape
through the imagination from the life of their own time — from
the rapid material changes going on in every direction, and from
the speculation and inquiry with which the whole air is alive.
The prelude to The Earthly Paradise, taken even by itself, makes
Morris's position sufficiently clear, and to understand Rossetti's we
have only to remember his own declaration of his belief that it
concerned men and women far more to attend to the form of their
tables and chairs than to bother about the doctrine of the con-
servation of energy and the hypothesis of natural selection.

Meanwhile, in the early years of the modern upheaval, a note
of deeper meaning made itself heard — the outcry of earnest na-
tures, conscious of the breaking down of old standards, but doubt-
ful as yet of the spiritual import and tenor of the iconoclastic
forces at work. To turn from the poems of Keats, Rossetti, and
Morris, to the poems of Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew

VOL. XLV. — 59

8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Arnold, is to turn from the poetry of evasion to the poetry of
skepticism. Here we find, as the burden of all their song, not the
reactionary indiif erence of the simple artist, but the eager probing
of the inquirer. Clough and Arnold are modern men, standing
face to face with the problems of modern life. There is in their
works no hatred of the new knowledge for itself, no intellectual
cowardice regarding it ; on the contrary, every fresh insight into
the methods of Nature and the laws of life is welcome ; but there
is, at the same time, painful realization of the fact that the old
foundations of the emotions are being sapped and undermined.
What will be the result ? Will science in this respect prove con-
structive as well as destructive ? Will new emotional bases be
given in place of those swept away ? Or, will all the immemorial
desires and aspirations and spiritual cravings of humanity be left
to perish in grim despair before the blighting breath of a crass
materialism which recognizes no sanctities and holds out no hope ?
These are the stubborn questions which, in one form or another,
are put again and again, and for the most part left unanswered,
in the poetry of the men to whom we now refer.

Clough's poetry, though little read to-day, and lacking almost
every element of popularity, is of the utmost interest for those
who care for the study of literature from the point of view here
adopted. It was with little exaggeration that Mr. Lowell ad-
judged him the man who most probably "will be thought, a hun-
dred years hence, to have been the truest expression in verse of
tlie moral and intellectual tendencies, the doubt and struggle
toward settled convictions, of the period in which he lived." He
was the plaything of conflicting tendencies, which he saw he cc uld
not harmonize. Everywhere in his poetry the striving after truth
is accompanied by a distressing realization of emotions out of
touch and keeping with his intellectual environment. " What I
mean by mysticism," he writes in one of his American letters, " is
letting feelings run on without thinking of the reality of their
object, letting them out merely like water. The plain rule in all
such matters is, not to think what you are thinking about the
question, but to look straight out at the things, and let them affect
you." This is the sane utterance of a manly nature, alive to the
manifold dangers of unchecked speculation, and not to be deceived
by theological or metaphysical jugglery into any false sense of
security. To hold fast to reality — that he saw was the prime re-
quirement, to be fulfilled at any cost ; and to seek for emotional
excitation in what has been proved to be no reality, but a figment
or shadow, would have seemed to him the willful blindness of folly
or the despicable subterfuge of cowardice. But was the reality
itself capable of furnishing scope for that emotional satisfaction
which his nature demanded ? Sometimes with more, sometimes

POETRY AND SCIENCE. 819

with less of hope, he approached this obstinate issue ; but the an-
swer of the sphinx was still, as it were, couched in riddles. Thus
his message to men was almost always a message of moods ; brief
seasons of faith alternating with other seasons in which the sense
of loss was so strong upon him that he was tempted to struggle to
save some floating remnant, worthless though it might turn out
to be, from the universal wreck of belief that was going on around
him.

An equally characteristic and far more considerable exponent
of this attitude and mood of mind was Clough's friend Arnold.
It was his mission, too, to give poetic voice to the emotional rest-
lessness and craving which — inevitably as we now see — went
along with the intellectual progressiveness of his age. Arnold
(whose verse and prose, earlier and later, treatments of these
themes furnish subject-matter for most instructive contrast) has
given us the key to his position, while at the same time he has
shown us how acutely that position was realized by him in the
familiar lines in the splendid Stanzas from the Grande Char- !
treuse, in which he describes himself as " wandering between two
worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born." The old faith
had gone with the old theories of the universe and man, and the
new theories of the universe and man had not yet revealed them-
selves in a religious light, or even shown themselves capable of
such revelation. For the time being they were hard, dry facts
of science merely ; that they would ever be more than this was
far from clear. Hence "the hopeless tangle of the age," the
" strange disease of modern life," the sense of futility and despair,
so characteristic of the large body of his poetic work. In the
wonderful poem just above referred to — a poem that can hardly
be read too often or too carefully as an exposition of the spiritual
conditions of the man and his time — all this is made particularly
clear. Why does Arnold linger among the shadows and tradi-
tions of the old Carthusian home — he a skeptic of the later time ?
Because he is seeking sadly for the spiritual comfort which all
the while he knows he can never find, either in the old creed,
because he has intellectually outgrown it, or in the new, because
he has not yet emotionally appropriated it. Thus he must let the
world go its way, with some hope for the coming race of men,
perhaps, but for himself and his own time, none.*

For Clough and Arnold, then, knowledge and feeling were out
of harmony ; yet at times they seem to have caught glimpses of

* The skepticism of Arnold and Clough is to be found deepened to absolute despair in
the works of many of the minor verse-writers of the time — as notably in that superb ex-
pression of pure pessimism — The City of Dreadful Night. But conditions of space forbid
my following the matter into these further details.

820 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the possibility that the disturbance of relations from which they
suffered so keenly might ultimately be overcome. That the far-
off future might at length bring " a solemn peace of its own " —
this in serenest hours was their larger faith. Fortunately for the
world, stronger poetic voices were already making themselves
heard in the declaration that the epoch of readjustment might
haply be near at hand. While some men were busy railing at the
new science as dismal, prosaic, irreligious, and others were painfully
asking whether, real and certain as were its revelations, they could
ever come to mean anything to the soul of man, there were still
those who, with greater receptivity and more prophetic vision,
saw that the new science itself, when once sympathetically envis-
aged, could even perhaps for this generation provide the spiritual
impulses, the religious and poetic fervor, which the old knowl-
edge, with the philosophy of life belonging to it, had furnished for
the generations gone by.

The mass of men, let us repeat, can only achieve this readjust-
ment of their feelings to their knowledge, this emotionalization of
newly acquired fact, by a slow and painful course of adaptation.
The discoveries and inductions of science must grow familiar
through habit and association before they can take a poetic or
religious coloring for the average mind. But it is exactly here
that a great poet's best work may be done. He can lead the way.
Taking the generalizations of the scientist and the philosopher as
they stand in exact and unimaginative statement, he may illu-
mine them with his genius, and as he sets them in their proper
light and pierces into their inner natures, the world, for the
first time begins to apprehend their beauty and to seize their
spiritual meaning. It is then that men are thrilled, as Emerson
puts it, by the influx of a new divinity upon the mind. It is, in
a word, his special mission and privilege to stand forth as the
emotional interpreter of the intellectual and material movements
of his age.

Hence arises the all-important question, Does our modern
poetry show any tendency toward the absorption into itself of
this vast mass of unemotionalized knowledge by which we now
stand confronted ? It is manifestly too early as yet to expect any
full emotional development of this new material, but are there
signs of a movement in this direction ? Can we yet pass from the
poetry of evasion and the poetry of skepticism to a poetry that
we may fairly call the poetry of promise ?

The name of Tennyson inevitably presents itself in this con-
nection. In the writings of this poet — the last of the true Vic-
torian brotherhood — we find, it need hardly be said, the sad,
skeptical note of Arnold often enough repeated. Not planting
himself, as Browning did, upon the stroDg rock of a transcen-

POETRY AND SCIENCE. 821

dental philosophy, he was shaken by storms of donbt and diffi-
culty that seemed to have nothing but a tonic effect upon his
more robust contemporary. Struggle, uncertainty, hesitation are
revealed throughout the whole of his work ; he holds his faith
with infinite effort; even In Memoriam, as he told Mr. James
Knowles, was more sanguine than the man himself ; and he got
but little beyond a " faint trust " of " the larger hope." Yet there
are other sides to Tennyson's writings that reveal the man in a
very different light. His keen interest in science ; his sympa-
thetic hold upon the vast movements in progress around him ; his
manly attitude toward the changes that life and thought were
everywhere undergoing ; his reiterated belief that we are but in
the morning of the times — the " rich dawn of an ampler day " ; his
faith, only now and then shaken, in the years that are still to
come — all these characteristics combine to render Tennyson the
most intensely modern of all our modern poets.

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell,
That raiud and soul, according well,
May make one music, as before.
But vaster.'"

There is the very index to Tennyson's intellectual position.
And a very casual reading of his collected works will suffice to
show how large an expression many of our new scientific concep-
tions find in his utterances. The underlying principle of all our
modern thought — the doctrine of the universality of law, and of
that orderly progression or development within the domain and
under the influence of law which we call evolution — these princi-
ples constitute the firm foundation of the entire fabric of his
philosophy of life ; they characterize his attitude toward the ex-
ternal world ; they mold all his social and ethical teaching ; out
of them grows his faith in the destiny of the race, his hope for
the untried future. For him, man is as yet " being made " ; the
"brute inheritance" clings about him; but, because so much has
already been accomplished, much more will be accomplished by

and by.

"This fine old earth of ours is but a child

Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time

To learn its limbs. There is a hand that guides."

Above all things, it seems to me significant that, with all the
reaction against the cry of progress that undoubtedly marks some
of his later poems, the evolutionary note comes out with ever-
increasing strength to the very end. It should not be forgotten
that such poems as The Dawn, The Dreamer, and The Making of
Man all belong to his last published volume.

/

822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

To go into further detail would be impossible ; limits of space
are already exhausted. Passing reference only can be made to
the fact that, while in Tennyson's works, upon the whole, we find
the fullest poetic interpretation as yet given to modern thought,
writers like Browning, Whitman, and Emerson, and among those
still living Robert Buchanan, William Watson, and Mathilde
Blind, have each of them revealed in different ways a healthy
tendency on the part of poetry to look at the facts of life from
the point of view of present thought rather than from the point
of view of past thought, and to recognize the supreme fact that
if we find cause to complain, with William Morris, of the empti-
ness of our own life, it is the fault of ourselves and not the fault
of our times. But here the subject must be left for the present ;
and the discussion of many important questions arising in connec-
tion with the above-outlined theory, held over till a more con-
venient season. Enough, perhaps, has been said to indicate the
view we have been trying to develop of the relations of poetry
to science, to show that there is no essential antagonism between
them, and to point out that recognition of the one as the supple-
ment of the other does not at all imply, as is so often thought,
any absurd confusion of their methods and aims. For myself I
read without fear the French critic's prediction that fifty years
hence no one will care to read poetry. " Of all forms of mistake,
prophecy is the most gratuitous," says George Eliot, and such a
statement may be quietly disregarded. On any large principle
of education, poetry has its secure place in the scheme of life ; but
our emotions must respond to our knowledge, not our knowledge
to our emotions. The business of the poet in his capacity of
spiritual teacher is to help us to clothe fact with the beauty of
fancy ; not to try to force fancy into the place of fact. Let us
understand what is scientifically true, socially right, and our feel-
ings will adjust themselves in due course. It is for science to
lead the way, and the highest mission of the poet is ever to fol-
low in the wake, and in the name of poetry and religion claim
each day's new thought as his own.

The locality of Florissant, Colorado, a lake deposit of the geological age called
Oligocene, is famous for the extraordinary abundance and variety and the excel-
lent condition of its insect remains. No group of insects perhaps, according to
Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, shows this more strikingly than the family of " crane
flies" or "daddy longlegs." Several hundred species have been collected there,
and in a very considerable number of them, representing many species, the ve-
nation of the wings is completely represented with all their most delicate mark-
ings, and also the slender and fragile legs with their clothing of hairs and spurs,
and, to some degree at least, the antennas and palpi. Even the facets of the com-
pound eye are often preserved as in life.

ASTRONOMY OF THE INC AS. 823

ASTRONOMY OF THE INCAS.

By M. jean DU GOUECQ.

THE traveler who in these days penetrates to the high plateaus
of upper Peru and Bolivia, explores the basin of Lake Titi-
caca, and returns to Cuzco, is struck with the great number of
ruins, hieroglyphic inscriptions, broken pottery work, and huacas
which he meets at every step. They are the relics of the fanati-
cism of the conquerors and of their unbounded rapacity. Of the
magnificent palaces adorned with gold and silver, the temples
of the sun glistening with jewels, and the astronomical columns
which stood at all points in the country from La Paz to
Anito, there remain nothing but fragments of crumbled walls,
an infinite number of pieces of bricks, deformed and muti-
lated statues disintegrated by time, blocks of granite and basalt
standing in the deserted fertile lands like black ghosts, and at
long distances apart a few tombs which have been forgotten by
the Spaniards. The monuments standing at Tyahuanaco and on
steep hills difficult of access, and in the archipelagoes of Lake
Titicaca, although dilapidated and also victims of the hands of
iconoclasts, deserve serious attention on account of their relatively
good state of preservation.

Popular superstition has, furthermore, contributed no little
to preserve the ruins of Lake Titicaca from complete spoliation.

Why are not more pains taken to send out scientific expedi-
tions to these regions, to study the ancient civilization of the In-
cas ? A work might be undertaken there of like nature with
that which has been accomplished in Egypt by Champollion and
Mariette Bey. Much that is valuable has been done there, it is
true ; but the whole story is still far from being told, and I am
confident that huacas have many secrets and surprises in reserve
for us. The astronomy of the Incas, a curious side of Peruvian
civilization, while it has been lightly touched upon by some of
the American reviewers and superficially noticed by a few ex-
plorers, is yet almost wholly unknown to us. Some even, of
whom Mr. Wiener is one, have gone so far as to deny that as-
tronomy existed among these peoples, or to reduce it to simple
rudimentary notions. Yet we have only to keep our eyes open in
passing through the country, or to consult the contemporary
annals of the conquest, to be assured that their science was not
a mere chimera or a legend invented to amuse. It would be
strange, indeed, if a people whose only cult was the worship of
the stars had not been moved to study the nature, movements,
and phenomena of the heavenly bodies, and had not attempted to
explain them in some way.

824 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The proofs that the Incas . . . had a real system of astronomy
are scattered, partly in what remains of the monuments that were
consecrated to the sun, and partly in the accounts of historians —
accounts which, whether because their importance has not been
suspected, or because of the difficulty of quoting them, most of
them having been printed only once, others having remained in
the state of manuscript, and very few of them having been trans-
lated, are but little known to men of science. Whatever the
verity of the legends preserved in these accounts, we find a com-
paratively highly developed astronomical system among the In-
cas, of which the most interesting parts are here given from
rare documents already published, and from American manu-
scripts and traditions. The work has not before been done so
completely.

Six nations only — China, Mongolia, India, Chaldea, Egypt, and
Australia — had, before the discovery of America, divided the
visible celestial sphere into constellations, and had used figures of
their own invention to represent them. The Peruvians, although
situated at the meeting of the Northern and Southern hemispheres,
did not extend their division over the whole sphere ; they recog-
nized and studied only a few of the more brilliant constellations,
like the Pleiades, the Jaguar, the Standard, the Southern Cross,
and some other groups which have not yet been identified,* It is
probable that they extended this division further than the first
historians — who were not learned in astronomy, and could there-
fore pay little attention to all the details — represent. Later writers
speak of other constellations which they do not mention. The
Incas called the milky way the dust of stars, and gave names to
its different parts. What is now called the Coal Sack was fig-
ured by them as a doe suckling her fawn — a simple and poetic
transformation of the Grecian and Aryan legend of Hercules and
his nurse. f A few stars of the first magnitude, such as Capella
and Vega, had special names. X It is almost impossible that the
Incas should have failed to give distinct names to the splendid
stars of the Southern hemisphere, such as Sirius, Canopus, Acher-
nar, etc. The silence of historians respecting this point is far
from being conclusive, and may be accounted for by supposing
that many of these stars not being visible in our hemisphere, they
did not ask the natives for their names, and limited their inquiries
to the stars of the Northern hemisphere which they knew.

The only planet which the Incas had discovered was Venus,
which they called the hairy, on account of the brightness of its

* Acosta, Histoire des Indes, 1591, Book V, chap. iv.

f Garcilaso, First Part of the Royal Commentaries, 1609, Book II, chap, xxiii.

X Acosta. Caelius, Caelum astronomico-poeticum, 1662, chap. xix.

ASTRONOMY OF THE IN CAS. 825

rays. They said that, being the most brilliant of the stars, the sun
would not permit it to be separated from him, and obliged it to
attend his rising as well as his going down, just as at the courts
of kings only the most distinguished lords and the handsomest
ladies were admitted to the ceremonious royal risings and retir-
ings. It appears nearly certain that the Incas spoke of Venus
under two different names, according as it preceded or followed
the sun. To this day the native Peruvians name it, in fanciful
language, the eight-hour torch and the twilight lamp. As this
star served to show the Indians when it was time to prepare the
maize for cooking, they also gave it a name indicative of that act.
A chapel in the Temple of the Sun was consecrated to this planet.

The phases of the moon were well known to the people, and they
attributed life and movement to it. When the moon was invisi-
ble, during the days preceding the first quarter, they said it was
dead, and would rest three days in the tomb, beyond the snowy
mountains and the immense ocean. Then it would rise again, to
their great joy. To the people of Asia and North America the
spots on the moon represented a rodent — a hare or rabbit — or a
human being. The Incas perceived in it a young woman, and said
that once upon a time the daughter of the king, walking in the
light of the moon in one of those limpid and blue nights peculiar
to the tropics and to these latitudes, suddenly fell in love with the
star of the night. Desiring to possess him, she went and hid her-
self in the top of a mountain by which he would pass, sprang upon
him at a favorable moment, and became one body with him.*
The moon, called by names which signified sister or wife, was re-
garded as the first wife of the sun, and was represented by a silver
plate bearing a woman's face. It, too, had its sanctuary, occupy-
ing a station of honor in the temple of the supreme god.

The difference between the seasons not being distinctly marked
in Peru by variations either in moisture or temperature, it was im-
portant to make very careful observations in order to determine
the times for planting and harvest. The only method was by ex-
periment. The attention of the ancient Peruvians was particu-
larly directed to the time when the sun passed the zenith, for then
it cast no shadow at noon. They also observed it very carefully
at the June solstice when it was seen nearest to the horizon ; and
they succeeded, as we shall see, in giving their observations scien-
tific precision.! The solar spots had also been observed.

In explanation of the circular motion of the sun, the Incas said
that it was hung in space by a cord ; that it entered the sea in the

* Garcilaso.

f Montesinos, Antiques Memoires du Perou, Book 11, chap, ii, in manuscript at the Library
of the Academy of History, Madrid.

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

evening, passed under the earth, and reappeared twelve hours'
afterward in the opposite part of the horizon.

The god himself was represented in sculpture, according to M.
Wiener, in statues of gold or reddish-brown porphyry, with " his
forehead encircled by the royal fillet in the midst of four fabulous
animals moving around him." The same author, on the evidence
of some monuments resembling the menhirs of the Druids, gives
another explanation of the circular motion of the sun. " It is re-
garded," he says, " as a being which comes to rest at night after its
daily march, in the inaccessible inclosure of the sanctuary (called
by a Quichua term signifying the place to which the sun is at-
tached). The holy object consists of two granite blocks about a
metre in height, on the inner faces of which have been found
holes about fifteen centimetres deep and nine centimetres in diame-
ter." This was narrow quarters for a star as voluminous as the
sun ! We shall find further on that M. Wiener gives the same
name to a system of observatories. The illustrious Peruvianolo-
gist has confused this word with the identical one which represents
the year in the Quichua language.

The earth was believed to be flat and circular, and the center
of it was shown in the sanctuary of Cuzco, the name of which, ac-
cording to Garcilaso, signifies umbilicus, or navel. The Greeks
had a similar belief, and located the center of the earth in the
Temple of Apollo, another solar deity, at Delphi, which they called
"0/A^aA,os, the navel of the inhabited world. It is celebrated under
that title in some of the Pythian odes of Pindar. The earth, the
Indian name of which signified " everywhere," was the only one
of the stars that had no sanctuary in the Temple of the Sun. Like
the peoples of the Aryan race, the Incas did not suspect that it
was endowed with motion. Only the revolution of the stars ex-
isted to them ; and the earth, instead of being a planet suspended
in space, gravitating round the sun, and turning upon itself, was
supposed to be fixed in the midst of a moving celestial sphere.

When the moon was eclipsed the Incas supposed that it was
ill, and uneasiness prevailed whenever it appeared obscured. If
the eclipse was total, they supposed that the star was perhaps
dead, and that, not being capable of maintaining itself in space, it
would fall to the earth, crushing the poor mortals thereon and
that the world would come to an end. For this reason when an
eclipse of the moon was beginning — an event they were not able
to predict — the Incas with such instruments as were within their
reach — drums, trumpets, cymbals, etc. — made a frightful noise,
and, tying up their dogs, tormented them so as to extort the most
hideous cries from them, in the hope that the moon, being a
friend of dogs, would be softened by their howling and try to re-
turn to life. Men, women, and children joined with their princes

ASTRONOMY OF THE INCAS. 827

in conjurations to avert tlie catastrophe. As long as the eclipse
continued they kept exclaiming, " Mama-quilla, Mama-quilla ! "
which might be paraphrased, " God save us!" and they suppli-
cated the sun to aid them. After the eclipse had passed away
they sang in chorus the praises of the god Pachacamac, who had
cured the pale star of night. Garcilaso adds to this story that
these practices were all still in vogue in his time — that is, a half
century after the conquest.

Mention is made in the Memoirs of Garcilaso of a comet which
appeared at the time of the death of the Inca Huascas, and of
another which was visible some time afterward, while Atahualpa
was a prisoner of the Pizarros. These apparitions were regarded
as annunciations of imminent woe. So, likewise, were shooting
stars, of which an extraordinary fall took place during the reign
of the same Inca.* Montesinos speaks of the appearance of two
comets during the reign of Yupanqui — one had the form of a lion,
the other of a serpent. " The sun," he wrote, " had sent these two
animals to destroy the moon. So the Indians directed a hailstorm
of stones at the lion and serpent to veil their light and prevent
them from tearing the moon to pieces, for if they succeeded in
carrying out their purpose everything on the earth would be
changed into savage and hideous beasts, women's hair into vipers,
and other things into bears, tigers, and similar evil creatures."
The Indians still believe that the shooting stars drop from the
sky, and utter prayers for deliverance when they see them.

The Inca year was originally divided into twelve lunations,
each of which had its special name. But experience having
shown that this lunar year was ten or twelve days shorter than
the solar year, a reform was determined upon. Montesinos asserts
that an assembly of amantas in the reign of Agay Manco thor-
oughly rearranged the calendar, dividing the year into three
months of thirty days each, and the month into three weeks
of ten days each, and adding to complete the solar year a half
week of five days, which was made six days every fourth year.
The Inca Yahnar Huquiz, grand astronomer, soon discovered that
an error of one day would appear after four hundred years in the
calendar thus instituted ! The Indians reckoned time by this sys-
tem till the Spaniards came.f Garcilaso says that the Inca Tapac
Yupunpuy discovered, three centuries before the conquest, that
the period between the solstices was three hundred and sixty-five
days and a quarter, and that he caused the intercalation of ten
days and a quarter, distributed among the lunations, in order to
make the lunar and solar years agree. Is it not strange to see the
Gregorian calendar invented and applied by the Incas three hun-

* Garcilaso, Book I, chap, xxxiv. f Montesinos, chapters xi and xii.

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dred years in advance of the Europeans ? The year was called
by a name derived from a Quichua word signifying to hind, and
the half century of fifty years was figured by the hieroglyph of a
bundle of reeds tied with a ribbon. Each of the twelve months
was named after its principal festival.

In the month of December a peculiar dance, in which only men
participated, was performed with great solemnity on the plaza in
front of the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. Offerings were made to
the divinity of lamas, which were burned on pyres of odorous
woods ; and birds and various animals, but rarely human victims,
were sacrificed. The dances followed, representatives of all the
provinces taking part in them. These dances were instituted by
Huayna Capac, the twelfth Inca. Two or three hundred men,
holding one another's hands, executed a kind of farandale, step-
ping in concert two paces forward and one backward, so that they
constantly gained ground, and all the time singing of the exploits
of the Incas. Huayna Capac had a golden chain made which they
all took hold of. It was as long as the two plazas of Cuzco, and
was composed of rings of the diameter of the sun. The Indians
hid it carefully at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, and a
legend relates that it was thrown into the depths of Lake Titicaca.
The young Incas appeared at this festival, according to the ex-
pression of the historian Balboa, as armed knights. The sages
charged with their education prepared them for the solemnity by
scourging them with leaves and rubbing their figures with the
blood of the offered lamas. The blood of the lamas and other
victims also flowed in January, February, March, and April.
The feast of the corn harvest was celebrated in May, and was
held in the Gardens of the Sun, on the hill Colcampata. The
people intoxicated themselves with a fermented drink {chicha),
made from corn and fruit, and danced in masquerade.

For the June festival, which was dedicated to the sun, rude
statues of men and women were made and covered with rich vest-
ments. The courts of the temples were strewn with flowers, and
the reigning Inca, with the chiefs of the tribes, executed sacred
dances. The feast of the Pleiades is still celebrated in this month.
In July and August spotted lamas and pigs were sacrificed, as
an offering to obtain abundant crops.

The vernal equinox was celebrated in September. All the
idols were collected in one place previous to the rising of the
moon. As soon as the star appeared above the horizon the In-
dians uttered loud cries for the aversion of harm, and struck one
another with whips of burning straw ; washed in a running
brook ; and, on their return, sacrificed a hundred white lamas.
They kept intoxicated for four days, and ate cakes prepared by
maidens with the blood of the victims. Another hecatomb was

ASTRONOMY OF THE INCAS. 829

offered in October, and in November tbe princely youth wbo
were to be given arms in the next month had their ears pierced.*

These Peruvian ceremonials were very like those which Ovid
has described. They were not the only ones ; an edict of the Inca
Pachacutec mentions three regular festivals occurring in each
lunar month ; there were also days for fairs and markets, and a
rest day occurring every nine or ten days, like the nondines of
the Romans, but not corresponding either with the quarters of
the moon or the week, although the phases of the moon were well
known to the Incas. As their lunar year fell behind the true
time, they rectified their calendar constantly, trying to make it
conform roughly with the phases of the moon.

The hours were not determinate spaces of time corresponding
with a mathematical division of the day, but simple indications
of such conditions as dawn, or morning, noon, sunset, and night.

The astronomical observations of the Incas were at first very
elementary and empirical. They marked the day when the sun
passed over the zenith. An experiment of the simplest character
will be sufficient to account for the conclusions they drew from
this observation. If we plant a stick vertically, and observe the
shadow which it casts when shone upon by the sun, we shall find
that at noon toward the end of December, this shadow is very long
and directed toward the north ; then it diminishes gradually till
the day when it is shortest at noon. In the Southern hemisphere
the shadow follows an inverse direction to this, and is longest at
noon in June and shortest in December. The days when the
shadow is longest, beyond the tropics, are the same for all places
in the same hemisphere. But the days when there is no shadow
at noon are not the same for all latitudes in the same hemisphere
within the tropics. A day's difference exists for every forty kilo-
metres. For this reason the Incas established observations at
different distances from north to south, over the whole extent of
their empire.

In order to verify the equinoxes, the amantas, or astronomers,
arranged richly sculptured columns in the courts of the temples
of the sun. On the approach of the equinox, they observed the
shadow projected by the columns. These were placed in the
center of a large circle through which a line, exactly oriented by
experiment, ran from east to west. When they saw that the
shadow struck this line in the middle, and that at noon the column
was bathed with light on every side, they announced the equinoc-
tial day. They then adorned the columns with flowers and fra-
grant herbs, and brought offerings of gold, silver, precious stones,
and fruit to the god. The gnomon, or column, was surmounted

* Desjardins.

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by a throne of massive gold^ in which the sun was to come and sit
on that day, illuminating the tower on all sides.

The amantas perceived that only four moons passed when the
shadow was turned toward the north, while there were eight
moons when it was directed toward the south. They did not take
into account that their observatories were situated between the
equator and the tropic of Capricorn. But when the Incas had
established their residence at Quito, their men of science imme-
diately remarked that the two shadows were equal, and that the
duration of their variations was exactly six moons. This is why
the columns called equinoctial at Quito were especially venerated
as the favorite abode of the great divinity.

Mr. Wiener mentions another astronomical apparatus which
was intended for the precise verification of the time of the equi-
noxes : " A vertical well, dug mathematically in the line of the
zenith, twice a year, in spring and autumn admitted the rays of
the sun and gave light in its lowest depth to a vast tunnel over
which it was bored. These observatories were called intilmatanas.
These intihuafanas were doubtless real, but the assignment of such
a purpose to them was a work of pure imagination." This appa-
ratus, ingenious as it may have been, is too sensibly removed from
historical tradition and from the study of the ruins of the solar
temples to have really existed. It should further be remarked
that such an observatory could be mathematically of service only
for the September equinox.

In tracing the meridian the Incas appear to have limited them-
selves to raising a pillar perpendicular to the line which the
shadow follows on the day when the sun passes the zenith, and
that they reached this result by a series of trials. This accounts
for the variations of a few minutes offered in the orientation of
some of the monuments.

The Inca method of determining the solstices was very strik-
ing, and nothing like it is found with any other people. On this
interesting point we can not do better than literally translate
Garcilaso, a descendant of the Incas by his mother, who was better
informed upon it than any other writer : " The common people
counted the years by the crops, and all were acquainted with the
summer and winter solstices. They have left conspicuously
visible marks of them. There are eight towers which they con-
structed at the east, and eight others which they constructed at
the west of the city af Cuzco, arranged in fours, of which two,
smaller than the others and about three stories high, were placed
between two others much larger. The other two towers were
much higher than those which in Spain serve as lighthouses in
the seaports and as observatories on the frontiers. These were in-
tended for the astrologers, to give them a good view. The spaces

ASTRONOMY OF THE INC AS. 831

between the smaller towers, being illuminated by the rising or
setting sun, were for the solstices, and the towers on the east an-
swered to those on the west, at the winter or at the summer sol-
stice. In order to verify the event the Inca placed himself in a
convenient spot, whence he watched whether the sun rose or set
between the two small towers on the east and on the west, and
thus the most skilled of the Indians found the astrology of their
solstices.*

This description, equally naive and unintelligible, requires
some explanation. The towers and turrets went by fours, two
large and two small, and there were two systems, intended for the
observation, by one system of the winter solstice, by the other of
the summer solstice. In position and relative distances they were
so arranged that when the sun reached the tropic of Cancer the
shadow cast by the northeastern turret was exactly tangential, at
the moment of sunrise, to the southern face of the northwestern
turret, and at the same time hid the sun from the amantas on ob-
servation in the corresponding tower ; and vice versa at the mo-
ment of sunset. As the sky might be cloudy at sunrise, the
astronomers posted to observe the setting sun replaced, confirmed,
or rectified, when necessary, the determinations of the • morning.
The southern turrets were used in the system of observatories for
the summer solstice.

Montesinos gives another version which seems different when
taken literally, but substantially confirms the former. He relates
that the Inca Capac Raymi assembled his learned men and astron-
omers to find the solstices. " There was a kind of solar quadrant
formed by shadows, and with it they knew what day was long and
what other was short, and at what time the sun went toward the
tropics and returned from them. I saw four very ancient walls on
a hill, and a son of the country afiirmed to me that this building
had served the ancient Indians as a clock." Though precise for
that time and place, and quite original, no account has been
taken in this method of the change in the obliquity of the eclip-
tic, forty-eight seconds a year, according to Delambre, the effect
of which upon the azimuth is very sensible in those latitudes.
Houzeau says that the Incas had no idea of this displacement ;
that they observed the June solstice only, and that the continued
observations of the amantas proved the absence of a solar calen-
dar. It is very possible that the Incas perceived that their observ-
atory system finally became useless, and that, without stopping
to inquire into the reason, they constructed new ones. There is
no doubt that the Incas recognized the movement of the ecliptic
some time before the other people of the Old World, but without

* Garcilaso, Book II, chap, xxiii.

832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

comprehending it, without making the necessary deductions for
it, and without including the important phenomenon in their cal-
culations. Houzeau was mistaken in affirming that the Incas
observed only one solstice. The historians are unanimous in de-
scribing a festival for each of them. We have seen, besides, that
two systems of observatories existed, with towers and turrets in
different positions, and consequently designed for the observa-
tion of two different solstices.

We need not, furthermore, presume that the people had no
calendar, from the ainantas observing the zenith passages of the
sun every year. The day, hour, and minute of an eclipse are fore-
told now ; yet astronomers are not prevented by this from study-
ing the different phases of the phenomena.

The destruction of these observatories, which Garcilaso says
were still standing in 15G0, must be regretted. Those of Quito
were destroyed by Sebastian Belalcazar, under pretext that they
prompted the natives to idolatry. Only shapeless ruins of them
are now to be found. The best preserved ones are at Cuzco,
on the Carmenca hill. The question, long asked, whether the
Incas used optical instruments, is now answered in the affirma-
tive. Mr. David Forbes has brought from Peru a silver figurine,
which represents a personage, probably an astronomer, holding
to his eye a tube which is nothing else than a telescope. The
figure is certainly of Peruvian origin, and dates from the period
of the Incas. — Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from
the Revue Scientifique.

In taking the recent census of India some difBculty was experienced, according
to C. E. D. Black, in determining what should be regarded as a house. " The
variety of structure was so great that a precise definition, such as satisfied census
authorities in other parts of the world, became an impossibility in India. In the
hill tracts one meets with collections of leaf-huts that are here to-day and gone
to-morrow. Again, there is a portable arrangement of matting and bamboo that
is slung on a donkey by the vagrant classes, though sometimes stationary on the
outskirts of a village for months together. Then comes the more stable erection
for the cultivator while engaged in watching his crops, and so on to the really
permanent abode of the lower grades of village menials, with wattle and daub
walls which last for years, and a roofing of thatch or palmyra leaves, renewed as
necessary before each rainy season. In some parts of India a considerable space
is walled in with a thick hedge of thorn or rattan, and the family expands in
separate buildings as the sons marry, but all is considered to be a single ' house.'
Pitched roofs, tiled or thatched, are usual in the moister tracts; flat-topped mud
or brick buildings are almost universal in the dry plains of the Deccan and Upper
India. Climate and the scarcity or plentifulness, as the case may be, are the
main causes of the diversity of building; while social custom and the relative
prevalence of the 'joint' or 'divided' family life among the Brahmanic classes
often determine the interior construction and arrangement."

SKETCH OF ASAPH HALL. 833

SKETCH OF ASAPH HALL.

IN spite of the few wonderful accidents that have led to great
changes and advance in modern ideas, most of the real ad-
vances of the world have been the results of simple hard work
and hard thinking by men of ability. As an example of the type
of scientist who does not make astounding discoveries of doubt-
ful value, but who surely and steadily advances the cause of
science by faithful work, stands the astronomer Asaph Hall.

He was born on October 15, 1829, in the little town of Goshen,
in the northwestern part of Connecticut, where the Berkshire
Hills come rolling over from Massachusetts. His grandfather, a
Revolutionary officer, was one of the first settlers of the place, and
was a wealthy man. But his father, through business failures,
lost nearly all his property. In 1842 he died, leaving a wife and
six children, of whom Asaph, then thirteen, was the oldest. Up
to the time of his father's death Asaph's life was that of a well-
to-do country boy. He had worked on the farm and he had gone
to the village school. His father was far better educated than
most of the men of the place, so that many good books fell into
the boy's hands. Often his rainy days were spent in the garret,
fighting the battles on the plains of Troy, or following Ulysses in
his wanderings.

When his father died everything was changed. Almost all
the property was mortgaged. In a family council it was decided
to remain on one of the farms and try to pay off the mortgage.
So Asaph and his mother set to work, and for three years toiled
with might and main, carrying on the work of a large farm
almost entirely by themselves. Asaph's mother was a tireless
worker, and he helped her as best he could ; but when the three
years were past they found they had been able to pay the in-
terest on the mortgage and nothing more. Sticking to the farm
did not seem to pay, so Asaph decided to leave and go and
learn the carpenter's trade. He persuaded his mother to move
to a little place she owned free from debt, and he apprenticed
himself to a local carpenter. He worked for three years for
sixty dollars a year. At the end of that time he became a jour-
neyman and worked for himself. He stayed in Litchfield County,
helping to build houses and barns that are standing on the old
farms to-day.

For six years he stuck to carpenter work, but all that time he
was full of ambition. He saw that the men he worked with were
a poorly educated set. They knew how to make a right angle by
the three, four, five rule, but they had no idea at all of the reason
for it. He was not satisfied to work in this blind rule-of-thumb

VOL. XLV. 60

834 ' '^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fashion — he wanted to know the reasons of things ; so he kept
picking up some knowledge of mathematics to help him under-
stand his business. In the summer he was busy with carpenter
work, but in the winter he generally went home. He did the
chores on the farm in the early morning and at night, and went
to school besides. As he learned more he decided to study and
become an architect. He managed to spend one winter in Nor-
folk, Conn., under the instruction of the Principal of the Norfolk
Academy. There he went through algebra and six books of
geometry.

When he was twenty-five years old he had saved a little money
from his carpenter work. Through the New York Tribune he
saw that there was a college at McGrawville, N. Y., where a
young man could earn his living and get an education at the same
time. He decided to go to this college. So in the summer of 1854
he set out for Central College, as it was called. When he got
there he found it was a very different place from what he had
expected. It was open to both sexes and all colors, and was the
gathering place of a queer set of cranks of all sorts. The teach-
ing was poor, but still to the green country youth the experience
was of immense value. His views were broadened and changed.
He stayed at the college only a year and a half. In that time he
went through algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and studied
some French and Latin. He soon proved himself to be by far the
best mathematician in the college.

One of the students was a young woman named Angeline
Stickney. She was a country girl of great sensibility and of fine
mental qualities. She Avas working her way through college, and
as a senior she helped in the teaching. Asaph Hall was one of her
pupils in mathematics. Many were the problems he and his class-
mates contrived to puzzle their teacher, but they never "were suc-
cessful. When she was graduated Asaph Hall was engaged to her.
He decided that he had stayed long enough at McGrawville. His
money was about gone, and the college was poor. So in 1855 they
set out together for Wisconsin. Angeline Stickney had a brother
there, and she stayed at his house while Asaph tramped about the
country in search of a school where they could teach. No school
was open for them. They became tired of the flat, sickly country,
and when spring came they decided to leave. On the 31st of March,
1856, they were married. Then they started for Ann Arbor.
Asaph entered the sophomore and junior classes in Ann Arbor
University, studying mathematics and astronomy under Prof.
Briinnow. He found he could do good work in both these
branches. His teacher encouraged him greatly. It was from
him that he acquired his taste for astronomy. Prof. Briinnow
was an excellent teacher, but he had trouble with his classes, and

SKETCH OF ASAPH HALL. 835

his work was so changed and broken up that young Hall decided
to leave after he had been there but half a year.

He went with his wife to Shalersville, Ohio, and took charge
of the academy there. They conducted it successfully for a year,
paying off all their debts and buying themselves new clothes, of
which they were much in need. When the school was over they
had no idea where to turn next. Hall wanted to go back to Ann
Arbor and study again, but there was a great storm on the lakes
at that time and his wife would not go. So they started East. He
had had an offer from Prof. Bond, who was in charge of the Har-
vard College Observatory, of three dollars a week as assistant.
Finally, he decided to accept it. He visited his old home in the
summer, and in the fall of 1857 he took his wife to Cambridge and
began his career as an astronomer.

Very few young married men of this day would like to start in
a profession at the age of twenty-nine on a salary of three dollars
a week. But young Hall expected he would be able to pick up
outside work. He thought he could pursue his study in mathe-
matics under Prof. Benjamin Peirce, then at Harvard. So he
entered on his new life full of hope. He took a couple of rooms
on Concord Avenue, near the observatory, and began housekeep-
ing. He soon found he could not carry out all his plans. There
was some quarrel between Prof. Peirce and Prof. Bond, and he
could not study with the former without offending his employer.
He had to give up that plan. His work at the observatory re-
quired long hours, but he managed to study a little by himself.
He studied mathematics and German at the same time by trans-
lating a German mathematical work. His little income was all
eaten up by simply the room rent. In order to live he had to do
outside work. By computing, making almanacs, and observing
moon culminations he doubled his salary and managed to scrape
along. His wife worked by his side faithfully, encouraging him,
helping him in his studies, and doing all the housework with her
own hands. Hall soon became a rapid, accurate, and skillful com-
puter. Soon his employers saw how valuable he was, and they
gradually increased his pay, till at last he drew a salary of six
hundred dollars a year.

He stayed in the Cambridge Observatory till the year 1862. At
that time the war had been going on for a year. The officers at the
Naval Observatory at AVashington had gone off into the service of
either the North or the South. Men were needed to fill their places.
Hall was recommended to fill a position there. It was a good
opening. He went to Washington, passed an examination, and
was offered a place. In the fall of 1863 he went down to Wash-
ington to begin his work. The city was then in a ferment. Many
of the officeholders were from the South. All sorts of jealousies

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and meanness were rife in the departments of tlie Government.
But he kept out of all disputes and settled down quietly to his
work.

On January 2, 1863, he was appointed a Professor of Mathe-
matics in the United States Navy. After that his career was as-
sured, for his position was for life. Starting as a farmer boy, then
turning carpenter, pursuing mathematics with the idea of be-
coming an architect, finally he had found the best field for his
labor in astronomy. Up to this time his struggle was a hard one.
He had never known what it was to have a moment of relaxation.
It was toil from morning till night, and all that he did was for
the personal benefit of others. After his appointment at Wash-
ington he was able to do work that counted for himself. So his
public scientific career really began in 1862.

From 1862 to 18G6 he worked on the nine-and-a-half-inch equa-
torial at the Naval Observatory under Mr. James Ferguson, mak-
ing observations and reducing his work. One night, while he was
working alone in the dome, the trap-door by which it was entered
from below opened, and a tall, thin figure, crowned by a stovepipe
hat, arose in the darkness. It turned out to be President Lincoln.
He had come up from the White House with Secretary Stanton.
He wanted to take a look at the heavens through the telescope.
Prof. Hall showed him the various objects of interest, and finally
turned the telescope on the half-full moon. The President looked
at it a little while and went away. A few nights later the trap-
door opened again, and the same figure appeared. He told Prof.
Hall that after leaving the observatory he had looked at the
moon, and it was wrong side up as he had seen it through the
telescope. He was puzzled, and wanted to know the cause, so he
had walked up from the White House alone. Prof. Hall explained
to him how the lens of a telescope gives an inverted image, and
President Lincoln went away satisfied.

After 1866 Prof. Hall worked as assistant on the prime vertical
transit and the meridian circle. In 1867 he was put in charge of
the meridian circle. From 1868 to 1875 he was in charge of the
nine-and-a-half-inch equatorial, and from 1875 until his retirement
on October 15, 1891, he was in charge of the twenty-six-inch equa-
torial. It can thus be seen that his practical experience as an
observing astronomer has been long and varied.

During his stay at the observatory he was sent on several ex-
peditions for the Government, In 1869 he was sent to Bering
Strait on the ship Mohican to observe an eclipse of the sun. In
those days one had to go to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus
of Panama; all the instruments had to be sent the same way — so
it was a big undertaking. In 1870-'71 he was sent to Sicily to ob-
serve another eclipse. In 1874 he went to Vladivostock, in Siberia,

SKETCH OF A SAP IT HALL. 837

to observe a transit of Venus. He visited China and Japan on the
way. In 1878 he headed an expedition to Colorado to observe the
eclipse of the sun, and in 1882 he took a party to Texas to observe
another transit of Venus.

Although on these expeditions he did valuable service, it has
been at Washington with the twenty-six-inch equatorial that he
has done his most important work. He has made studies of many
double stars, to determine their distances and motions. He has
also given a great deal of time to the study of the planet Saturn.
He made an especial investigation of the rings of this planet, and
also discovered the motion of the line of apsides of Hyperion, one
of Saturn's satellites. But by far the most important discovery
he has made, the one that will connect his name with astronomy
as long as the planets exist, was his discovery of the satellites of
Mars. It had been thought by some old astronomer that perhaps
Mars had satellites, but no one had been able to find them. In
the fall of 1877 Mars was in a very favorable position to observe,
and Prof. Hall turned his big telescope upon it. He searched
night after night without finding anything new. He began to
give up hope ; but on the night of August 11th he discovered a
little speck that turned out to be the outer satellite. Six days
later he discovered the inner one. The discovery of these two
little bodies (the smaller one being not more than fifteen miles
in diameter) spread quickly among the observatories. The eager
astronomers immediately began to find enough extra moons to
supply another solar system. One observer insisted that there
was one more moon at least, and Prof. Hall was blamed as stupid
for not seeing it. But after a thorough investigation it was shown
that Prof. Hall had discovered the two and the only two satellites
of Mars,

This important discovery brought his name at once before the
world at large, and was not slow in earning its reward. The Royal
Astronomical Society presented him with a gold medal, and he
was given the Lalande prize from Paris. Since that time his
work has been recognized as it should. He has become a member
of the most important scientific societies of this country, and an
honorary member of the royal scientific societies of England and
Russia and of the French Academy. The universities of the
country have recognized his work, Yale and Harvard each giving
him the degree of LL. D. The very last honor conferred upon
him is the Arago medal, just awarded to him by the French
Academy of Sciences.

Personally, Prof. Hall is a fine-looking man. He is tall and
broad-shouldered. His forehead is high and deexj. His eyes are
clear and bright, in spite of years spent in gazing at the stars.
He has always been strong and healthy. He is fond of the open

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

air, and has always taken exercise. So, in spite of his long years
of hard work, he is now in perfect health. His success has not
changed him in the least. He is always ready to help those who
want to learn anything from him.

His writings have appeared mainly in astronomical magazines
and in the Government reports of the work done in the Naval
Observatory. They are all the results of practical astronomical
work, and are mostly of a technical character. Consequently, they
are of little interest to general readers. He has often been asked
to write something for popular reading, but up to this time he
has never consented to do so, thinking that there is already enough
of such literature.

Prof. Hall is a self-made man. His life has not been an easy
one. Every bit of his education, every one of his successes, has
been gained by his own hard work. It was a steady uphill pull
from the time he was thirteen years old until his appointment at
Washington. In his younger days he saw many hard times.
During a large share of that part of his life he had only one good
suit of clothes in his possession. He and his wife were obliged to
save every penny. From his early training and from such experi-
ence his habits were formed. Naturally they are of the simplest
kind. He does not care for the luxuries of modern life. The
comforts of a plain home are all he wants. He still lives almost
as simply as when he was earning three dollars a week under
Prof. Bond. He has never cared for society merely for its own
sake, but he has been prominent in scientific circles. He is a
quiet man who never pushes himself forward ; yet, when he has
anything to say, people are glad to listen to it.

In his ideas on politics, science, and religion he is liberal and
yet conservative — that is to say, he has no objection to letting
other people have their own thoughts and live their own lives.
He can see no reason why science and real religion can not be
reconciled. His views on religion and politics are sound. He
does not care, however, to have anything to do with politics. He
hates its corruption, meanness, and party quarreling. He has
always been a little conservative in his scientific life. He has
never been led into wild theories of no value. His work has been
solid, earnest, and thorough, and will last forever. He is a widely
read man, fond of study. He loves his work ; so now, since his
retirement in 1891, he continues his studies and investigations.
He lives a quiet, simple life at his home in Washington, still ad-
vancing the cause of astronomy.

COBRESP ONDENCE.

839

C 0 BE, ESPONDENCE.

FLYING.

Editor Popular Science Monthly :

I WAS much gratified to see that Dr. Le
Conte's very able and interesting article
upon flying, in one of your recent numbers,
fully recognized the fact that mere air in
motion, commonly known as " wind," and pop-
ularly supposed to be in most cases moving
at a uniform velocity, can not in the long
run help a bird or a man to fly. In view of
the large amount of foolishness published in
the newspapers about rising in the air by the
action of the wind, and the strong contrast
that is drawn between wind and still air, it
would seem probable that the writers in their
role of would-be scientists base their doctrine
upon the analogy of a rising kite. For the
proper " squelching " of these notions their
fallacy should be thoroughly exposed, and
the real facts set forth as frequently as pos-
sible.

There is no question but that the appar-
ent mysteries of rising, soaring, etc., without
propulsive action, are due, as has been stated,
to variations in air velocity rather than to
that velocity itself. These variations can, of
course, act only in conjunction with inertia.
The bird or other flying machine, drifting
with the air at its average speed, takes ad-
vantage of the inherent tendency of his
mass to maintain its present rate of motion
(whether positive or negative or nil in rela-
tion to the earth's surface) for a short time
after the air velocity has changed, thereby
lifting him up by some local body of air
with, say, a suddenly increased velocity, act-
ing as a wedge beneath the front of his
wings (or other aeroplane) while he tem-
porarily stays still, or nearly so, in reference
to the general body of the air. Should there
be a local decrease of velocity the conditions
would be equivalent to a "breeze astern,"
and the rear edge of his wings would have
to be elevated at an angle with the plane of
the wind's motion — that is, if he wished to
continue rising. All this is obviously upon
the same principle as a block lifted by a
wedge slid under it, which can be pushed up
so long as it moves forward against the
wedge or remains stationary or moves back-
ward with the wedge, but at a slower rate of
speed.

If the bird was so fortunate as to be
held with the earth against the motion of
the wind by a guy- line, after the manner of
a kite, or if the block was held from a re-
trograding motion by a line in front or by a
strut behind it, the matter would of course
be perfectly simple ; but it must be strongly
impressed upon the popular mind that there is
in the case of flying creatures no such holding

action except that due to inertia, the which
can last but a short time. We must there-
fore assume frequent changes of air velocity
to account for the soaring which we so fre-
quently see materialized as an actual fact.
Going back to the analogy of the wedge, a
very simple experiment will show that the
block can be raised much higher by striking
the wedge a quick blow, thereby taking a
very full advantage of the Inertia of the
block, than it can when the wedge is pushed
in slowly. If too slowly, its action will of
course be nil, and the block will move back
with it instead of rising.

Now it is obvious that we all of us know
little enough about the principles of flying,
but the first fact to be thoroughly impressed
upon the mind of any would-be student of
this subject is that wind, regarded usually
as air in motion, must be considered as air
at rest, and the earth as a moving body slid-
ing along underneath it. Of course, this mo-
tion of the earth will make a difference to
our future flying machines in regard to the
time required to get from one place to an-
other, according to its direction ; but as far
as the operations of propelling, soaring, etc.,
areconcerned, the idea of wind must be left
entirely out of the question except so far as
we can learn about and deal with its fre-
quent and rapid variations in velocity. It is
probable, however, that these are too uncer-
tain to depend upon, and our mechanical ef-
forts must be directed toward getting any
desired motion we wish in a medium of air
at rest. The item of wind has therefore, as
before stated, nothing whatever to do with
the subject except as regards certain diifi-
cultiesi in stopping and starting from the
surface of the earth and the time, with a
given power, requn-ed to traverse given dis-
tances thereupon. Oberlin Smith.
Bridgeton, N. J., July, 1894.

A REMONSTRANCE.

Editor Popular Science Montldy :

Dear Sir: In your August number it
was apparently claimed that the specialty of
women, as women, is their power of intui-
tion. But what is intuition ? Dictionaries
and general usage seem to make the word
synonymous with instinct.

Now it is not so long since it was gen-
erally insisted that animals could never rea-
son, but acted by instinct only ; and in spite
of much talk about " God-given instinct,"
the talkers actually, and not always secretly,
considered their theory as a firm ground for
despising animals as unintelligent.

840

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

At present, thinkers seem to acknowledge
that animals can and do reason ; and scien-
tific men cease giving instinct as a cause for
the conduct of animals. Will these think-
ers now put women on a lower level than
animals, or do they limit the word " reason-
ing " to slow action of the mind, and refuse
it as a term for quick mental action ? That
were strange !

As a woman, I have seen much of women.
I have yet to find one with real powers of
intuition. I will not call her impossible.
Instead, I encounter foolish women, who act
from prejudice or impatience ; wise women,
who base their actions on great quantities of
observations continually renewed and com-

pared, as constant and careful as those of
an accomplished detective ; and a variety of
women between these types. But — so ab-
surd is the human being under the sway of
conventionality — some of the wisQ actually
made themselves believe that they acted and
Judged by intuition, because they had been
told that women did so.

Furthermore, kindness may not require
much reasoning power in the kind person,
nor may mere abstention from vice in the
abstainer; but I have always found that
active goodness — and what other sort de-
serves the name of good V — needed reason
to be brought into play as much as feeling.
Elizabeth Wikthkop Johnson.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

ANOTHER RAID ON TEE DOCTRINE OF
EVOLUTION.

A FEW months ago we referred to
the objections which had been
made to the teaching of modern scien-
tific views in the University of Califor-
nia ; but fortunately we were able to
state that much public sympathy bad
been extended to the incriminated pro-
fessors, and that they were able to bold
their po.sitions without any curtailment
of the liberty they claimed of imparting
the best scientific instruction in their
power without regard to preconceived
notions or theories. Even as we wrote
there was similar trouble brewing,
thougli we were not aware of it, in the
University of Texas. The results in the
latter case, if we are rightly informed,
have been far less satisfactory than in
the former. The Texan conscience, it
seems, is a very tender one ; and when
it became mooted that Dr. Edwards,
the Adjunct Professor of Biology, was
teaching on evolutionary lines, and that
the ingenuous youths who attended bis
classes were in danger of imbibing such
ideas as that the world may not really
have been made in six days, and that
the countless species of plant and animal
life now existing or that have existed in
the past may not have been called sepa-

rately into being by so many distinct
acts of creation, there was much heart-
searching on the ranches, and an en-
lightened public opinion determined that
something must be done at once. They
can stand a good many things down in
the Lone Star State, but heterodoxy and
horse- stealing are two things they will
not stand if they can help it. As the
Austin Daily Statesman elegantly ex-
pressed it: "The mind of the common
people of Texas is wonderfully set and
united on the verity of the old Bible as
she stands in the King James version.
The least bint that anything is being
taught in any school that will unsettle
the faith of their children in the good
old Bible doctrine of the creation of
matter, the origin of life, and the de-
scent of the race from Adam and Eve,
without going any further back in the
pedigree, will raise the ' Old Henry '
and wake the reptile that sleeps on the
log in the sun with pious fathers and
mothers all over the State. The origin
of man, as set forth in the Bible in a
pretty clear fashion, is made in the im-
age of God with a natural body and a
reasonable soul. It was a creative act
of almighty power immediately per-
formed with no intermediate ancestry."
The slight literary defects which the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

841

above extract — given, of course, textu-
ally — may reveal do not impair the lu-
cidity with which it sets fortli the views
of "the common people of Texas."
Whether Dr. Edwards had or had not
heard of " the reptile that sleeps on the
log with pious fathers and mothers all
over the State " we are not informed.
All we know is that, intentionally or
unintentionally, he roused it from its
slumbers, and that it was not long in
stinging into action the regents of the
university. A three-years' engagement
had been entered into with the professor,
only a short part of which had expired ;
but under the attacks of " the reptile "
the regents made short work of their
contract, and sent Dr. Edwards to teach
his evolutionary doctrines elsewhere.
It is rumored, indeed, that another rep-
tile was roused into life at the same
time as the orthodox one — namely, the
reptile of local jealousy. The professor
was not a Texan, and this, added to the
fact that he was an avowed evolutionist,
caused him to receive a very short shrift.
One or two other professors, according
to the journal above quoted, took the
hint and, with a wisdom somewhat
resembling that of Colonel Crockett's
coon, " came down " — that is to say,
resigned — so that at this date the univer-
sity may claim to be tolerably free from
the leaven of evolutionary theories.

Perhaps it is best. Texas is a re-
mote State, and many things there are
in a very primitive condition. It is a
land where one man's opinion is as good
as another's, and where any little defects
iu a gentleman's logic can be handily
repaired with a six-shooter. According
to the Daily Statesman, which ought to
know whereof it affirms, " the common
people " do not look upon schools and
universities as places where some things
may be taught of vfhich they are them-
selves ignorant, but as places the in-
struction in which they are entirely
competent and entitled, in the fullness
of their knowledge, to direct. Tliey
know how the different forms of organic

life came into existence, and no pro-
fessor— particularly one from another
State — is going to steal into their insti-
tutions of learning (save the mark !) and
teach anything on this subject contrary
to what they hold. Well, we think
there is something in Mr. Spencer's
works which fits this case. He says, in
the preface to the Data of Ethics, that
evil results may flow if people take up
evolutionary views before they are re-
ally fitted for self-guidance. For some
communities and individuals of a back-
wai'd type the strong, not to say, coarse
sanctions of a primitive theology are
better and safer tlian the broader but
less potent motives which the scientific
view of the world and of human life
affords. We are therefore by no means
disposed to hold that the Texans do not
know what is good for them. With a
little change of dialect they might say
with Tennyson's Northern Farmer :

" Doctors, they knaws nowt, for a says what's
naways true ;
Naw sort o' koind o' use to saiiy the tilings
that a do."

And just as the norihern farmer had
had his pint of ale every night for forty
years, and insisted on having it still in
spite of doctors, so " pious fathers and
mothers all over the State " have been
accustomed to the biblical version of the
origin of species, and will have it in
spite of all new knowledge and all
improved theories. There is no great
harm in this so long as the thing is
thoroughly understood. We sympathize
with Prof. Edwards in the disappoint-
ment which the untimely termination of
his engagement doubtless caused him ;
but if any other trained biologist accepts
a situation in the University of Texas it
will be his own fault. The simple truth
is that biological science can not as yet
be taught in that State — at least not
under the auspices of the State. Well,
biological science can wait until the
quarantine against it is raised, which, of
course, it will be some day. The suf-

842

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ferer meanwhile is the State, which con-
demns its young men either to listen to
antiquated and utterly inadequate dis-
cussions of biological questions in the
State university or else to go abroad for
the knowledge which is denied at home.

THE AMERICAN ASSOCflATION IN
BROOKLYN.

The American Association had a
very pleasant and profitable meeting in
Brooklyn. That city has a peculiar
character among American towns of
great size in being a city of homes
rather than of business, and is the
residence of a large number of libei'al-
minded, public-spirited men, and of
women warmly interested in every-
thing tending to promote advance in
knowledge and the means of right liv-
ing. The scientific students of the
country could not fail to find themselves
at once at home among such people.
This feature of the social and intellec-
tual life of the place was well presented
by Dr. Backus in his address of welcome
to the association, when, referring to
the fact that the citizens had failed to
secure the great university of which
they had dreamed, he intimated that
they had a more than abundant com-
pensation in the great private high
schools of world-wide reputation, gen-
erously supported by the public without
governmental or municipal aid, and ap-
propriating their annual surplus rev-
enues to the sti'engthening of their
faculties and equipments ; besides sup-
porting the largest free high schools for
young men and for young women in the
world, and possessing as superstructures
on the private foundations of generous
benefactors an institution furnishing
" the most practical, the most extensive,
and the most advanced system of in-
dustrial instruction to be found in our
country," and another which maintained
twenty-six departments of original sci-
entific research. Dr. Brinton replied in
behalf of the association, that it recog-
nized and appreciated the advantages of

a reunion in a city " whose streets are
lined with edifices erected by the mu-
nificence of a few for the benefit of the
many, and which in so many features
testifies to the broad liberality and en-
lightened intelligence of its foremost
citizens."

Dr. Brinton in his address described
the association as a body cultivating a
science the spirit of which is to seek as
its goal truth, " the one test of which
is that it will bear clear and untram-
meled investigation " ; which admits
and appeals to no other evidence than
" that which it is in the power of every
one to judge, and which is absolutely
open to the vrorld, having about it no
such thing as " an inner secret, a mys-
terious gnosis " ; a science at once mod-
est in its own claims and liberal to the
claims of others, and " noble, inspiring,
consolatory " in its mission, " lifting the
mind above the gross contacts of life,
presenting aims which are at once prac-
tical, humanitarian, and spiritually ele-
vating." Dr. Harkness, the retiring
president, chose as his subject the mag-
nitude of the Solar System and the ele-
ments which enter into the determina-
tion of it. His address, while it con-
tained much matter of great interest,
was largely technical, dealing considera-
bly with mathematical discussion, and is
hardly susceptible of being presented in
popular form.

The vice-presidential addresses, like-
wise, tended to be technical. Dr. Franz
Boaz discussed the relation of Race Fac-
ulties to the Advancement of Civiliza-
tion, maintaining that too much em-
phasis has been laid upon them at the
expense of the environment, which is
also a factor of very great importance.
Vice-President G. 0. Comstock ad-
dressed Section A upon Binary Stars.
Prof. Mansfield Merriam, in the Section
of Mechanical Science and Engineering,
considered the Resistance of Materials
under Impact. In his address upon a
Stable Monetary Standard, Vice-Presi-
dent Farquhar, in the Section of Eco-

LITERARY NOTICES.

843

nomic Science and Statistics, favored
the abandonment of attempts to estab-
lish a legal tender by legislation, and
the leaving of the question to settle
itself. The Battle with Fire was the
subject of an address by Vice-President
Norton's before the Chemical Section,
which embodied an account of the con-
tributions which chemistry has made to
the art of extinguishing fires and of
preventing them, and contained many
practical hints. In the other sections,
Vice-President Samuel Calvin described
the Niobrara stage of the Upper Cre-
taceous; Prof. W. A. Rogers spoke of
obscure heat as an agent in producing
expansion and contraction of metals;
and Prof. L. M. Underwood discussed
the evolution of the HepaticcB. While
a large proportion of the papers read in
the sections were technical and limited
in their bearing, a considerable number
were also of great general interest.

The meetings of the affiUated socie-
ties attracted nearly as much interest
as those of the association itself, and
papers were read in them which were,
to say the least, equal in merit and im-
portance to the average of those which
were read in the association. We regard
these societies as still in the experiment-
al stage ; and it appears to be yet to be
determined whether their influence as a
whole will be beneficial or the contrary
to the general body.

Amendments to the Constitution
were proposed for consideration next
year, to admit libraries and societies to
representation in the association through
one of their oflScers, and to add a Sec-
tion of Sociology.

The members of the association en-
joyed the full measure of the social ex-
changes and festivities which attend the
body wherever it goes. Excursions
were made to many points of scientific
interest. There were some features to
be criticised about the meeting. The
relatively small attendance at the very
interesting lectures of M. Du Chaillu
and Prof. Cope was hardly creditable

to the citizens of Brooklyn, in whose
honor they were especially given. A
deficiency of provisions for the comfort
of the attendants of the meetings, par-
ticularly in the matter of directions for
finding the way, was complained of;
and imperfections in the arrangements
of some of the excursions revealed a
want of adequate central control.

LITERARY NOTICES.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Herbert Spencer. By William Henry
Hudson. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 234.

This book is largely an outgrowth of
lectures delivered from time to time on Mr.
Spencer's Philosophy. The book itself was
undertaken to meet what seemed a healthy
popular demand. Mr. Hudson had observed
with some surprise the widespread diffusion
of interest in the subject of evolution. His
lectures were lieard by attentive and appre-
ciative audiences, and cultivated men and
women, especially the younger ones, ex-
pressed the desire to know more of the new
thought and of its bearing upon the practical
problems and issues of the day. He could
not refer all inquirers to Mr. Spencer's
works ; for, clear and forcible as is the pre-
sentation in them all, they are too volumi-
nous and the style of their writing is too
condensed for any but persons having abun-
dant time and strong powers of concentration
to master them in bulk. Therefore the au-
thor has undertaken to furnish this intro-
duction as a sort of guide or handbook to
the complete works, by the aid of which
readers may gain a kind of bird's-eye view
of the system as a whole, or, if they are dis-
posed and able to examine it more in detail,
may be assisted in their course through its
ditferent regions. In this he has succeeded
admirably, and his book is marked through-
out by a clearness of statement which will
enable any one of average intelligence to
follow the author through even the most
abstruse parts of the discussion. The ex-
amination of Mr. Spencer's work is preceded
by a biographical sketch of the philosopher
— the most satisfactory and probably the
only full one that has been presented. In it

844

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

all the incidents which had a part in shaping
Mr. Spencer's career, and in directing his
thoughts to the course they took, are plainly
set down, with the several stages in the de-
velopment of his scheme, and the order in
which its different parts were conceived or
brought forth. Two chapters are then de-
voted to Mr. Spencer's earlier work — to the
preparation for the Synthetic Philosophy
— and to the Synthetic Philosophy it-
self. Here pains are taken to place in its
proper light Mr. Spencer's connection with
the modern doctrine of evolution, and to
show him to be the originator of it — ante-
dating Darwin and all others many years in
the conception and first publishing of it, as
we have often shown in the Monthly. These
chapters deal to a considerable extent with
the abstract and metaphysical aspects of
Mr. Spencer's w^ork, but only as a necessary
introduction to what is to follow ; for it is
not the author's purpose to consider the
philosophy as an abstract conception or a
piece of metaphysical rationalistics, but
rather to demonstrate it as a scheme of life
and of reigning natural law; and he does
this with a success that is nothing less than
remarkable. This is, in fact, one of the
most important characteristics of the vol-
ume. No pains are spared to make promi-
nent the practical element in Mr. Spencer's
philosophy, to exhibit the bearing of his
writings on current problems, and to show
how the system fits to all the various re-
lations of the world's growth and the exi-
gencies and duties of life. Of all men's,
Spencer's thought has been most potent in
shaping and directing the intellectual move-
ment of the latter half of the century ; and
it has been so by reason of the immediate
bearing of his teachings not only on the
everyday questions that occupy men's minds,
but also on those larger problems which are
pressing on all sides for solution. Every
man of whatever calling or aim who reads
them attentively will find in them what will
aid him in the pursuit of his profession or
his object. This bearing appears through-
out in Mr. Hudson's book, and especially in
the chapters on the Spenccrian sociology
and on the ethical system and the religious
aspect, not because of efforts to exhibit it —
for such efforts are wholly absent — but logic-
ally and naturally, as a part of the thing

itself. Mr. Hudson is at some pains to ex-
plain the exact meaning of Mr. Spencer's
" Unknowable," and to correct the impres-
sions that have been industriously cultivated
by prejudiced antagonists that he is a materi-
alist or an agnostic in any atheistic sense ; a
pains which is supererogatory as to persons
who will carefully read what Mr. Spencer
says, but may be necessary as to those who
come to his writings burdened with the end-
less reiteration of misrepresentations. Those
who read this little book can hardly fail to
be impressed with the great importance and
wholesome character of Mr. Spencer's writ-
ings, and to desire to know more of them.

Folk Tales of Angola. Fifty Tales, with
Ki-Mbundu Text, Literal English Transla-
tion, Introduction, and Notes. Collected
and edited by Heli Chatelain. Boston
and New York : Houghton, Miiflin & Co.,
for the American Folklore Society. Pp.
315, with Map. Price, $3.

The author visited Africa as pioneer and
linguist of Bishop Taylor's self-supporting
missions. In his studies of the native lan-
guage he found that all the dialects spoken at
Loanda and Angola and those of the adjoin-
ing districts formed one language, and that
that language — the Ki-Mbundu — was worthy
of the founding of a literature. He published
some elementary books in it, and by the aid
of an intelligent native was able to take
down a large number of folk tales, riddles,
songs, and proverbs, of which the present
volume is only a first installment of what he
intends to publish. After comparing the
whole material, the author has found that
many of the myths, favorite types or char-
acters, and peculiar incidents which have
been called universal, can also be traced
through Africa from sea to sea, and that
African folklore is not a tree by itself, but
a branch of one universal tree. Though
Portuguese and Arabian influence is evident
in many of the stories, still the bulk of the
tales is purely native. African folklore is
especially rich in animal stories or fables.
The folklore of the Bantu appears to be re-
markably homogeneous and compact, while
the Nigritic folklore, after the exotic ele-
ments connected with Islam are eliminated
from it, is found to be virtually the same.
The mythologies and superstitions of the
various tribes are easily reducible to one

LITERARY NOTICES.

845

common type, and this is strikingly similar
to the popular conceptions of the Aryans
and other great races when not identical
with them. The stories are classified as
traditional stories regarded as fictitious ;
stories reported as true, or anecdotes ; his-
torical narratives ; stories of moral philoso-
phy, or proverbs ; poetry and music, and
riddles. The myths and tales of the negroes
in America are all derived from African pro-
totypes, and through the American negro
have exercised a deep and wide influence on
the folklore of the Indians, and even of the
American white race. This fact gives strong
incentives to the study of the subject by
Americans. Besides the stories, an analysis
is given of their general features, a bibliog-
raphy, directions for the pronunciation of
Ki-Mbundu, a description of the country and
people, and copious illustrative notes.

Report of the Commissioner of Education
FOR THE Year 1890-'91. Washington:
Government Printing Office. Two vol-
umes. Pp. 1549.

The whole number of pupils in schools of
all grades, public and private, is given at
14,669,069, constituting 23-09 per cent, or
not quite one fourth, of all the population.
Besides these are to be counted pupils in
evening schools, art, industrial, and business
schools, schools for defective classes and for
Indians, in all about 300,000 pupils, which
would swell the whole number to nearly 15,-
000,000. The commissioner remarks upon a
correspondence between the waves of indus-
trial prosperity and depression that pass over
the country and the relative attendance upon
the private and the public schools. The whole
number of teachers in schools of both kinds
is nearly 425,000. The entire expenditure
during the year for public schools was $146,-
800,163, or $17.67 for each pupil attending
135'7 days, and $2.31 per capita of the whole
population. Of the income for schools nearly
seventy per cent comes from local taxes and
nineteen per cent from State taxes. Besides
these and other statistics of the schools in the
United States, the first volume of the report
gives papers on Secondary Education in New
Zealand ; Education in France ; a review of
the Educational Systems of England and
Scotland and their Operations for ]890-'91;
the Educational System of Ireland ; Industrial

and Technical Education in Central Europe,
Education in Russia, Japan, Italy, Corea, and
Hawaii ; Legal Education in the United States
and in Canada, Australia, Spanish America,
Japan, and China ; Colleges of Agriculture
and the Mechanic jVrts. The second volume
gives a " Name Register " of State and City
Educational Officers ; statistics of city, sec-
ondary, higher, and professional schools ;
papers on Education in Alaska, the Educa-
tion of the Colored Race, Class Intervals in
City Public Schools, Educational Statistics,
discussions of current educational questions,
a report on the physical and mental condi-
tion of 50,000 London school children, and
Facilities in Experimental Psychology in the
Colleges of the United States. These articles
are followed by statistical tables.

Science and Hebrew Tradition. By Thomas
H. HuxLET. Collected Essays, Vol. IV.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 372.
Price, $1.25.

The essays contained in this volume are
concerned mainly with the question whether
the Old Testament is wholly true or partly
legendary. The first three, however, have
no direct connection with those that follow.
They deal with the discoveries and inductions
of paleontology, and can be said to bear upon
the above question only by furnishing sam-
ples of the scientific method of research.
They include Prof. Huxley's lectures on evo-
lution delivered in New York in 1876, and
his lecture on the Method of Zadig. The
fourth essay of the volume, entitled The In-
terpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of
Nature, was written for a controversy' with
Mr. Gladstone upon the correctness of the
account of creation in the book of Genesis.
The one following — Mr. Gladstone and Gen-
esis— is a continuation of the same theme. In
both of them Prof. Huxley denies that the
order in which the several kinds of living
creatures are said to have been created is the
same as that revealed in the records of pale-
ontology. In the next two essays he gives
the facts which conflict with the story of the
Noachian Deluge. The last in the volume is
A Study of the Evolution of Theology, the
data for which are drawn from the practices
of the ancient Israelites and of certain Poly-
nesian tribes.

Believing that all claims to infallibility

846

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are pernicious, Prof. Huxley states in his
preface that these essays are intended to
combat certain of such chiims. "Unless I
greatly err," he says, " the arguments ad-
duced go a long way to prove that the ac-
counts of the Creation and the Deluge in the
Hebrew Scriptures are mere legends ; and,
further, that the evidence for the existence
and activity of a demonic world, implicitly
and explicitly inculcated throughout the
Christian Scriptures, and universally held by
the primitive churches, is totally inadequate
to justify the expression of belief in it. This
much on the negative side of the discussion.
On the positive side, the essay on the Evolu-
tion of Theology, as I imagine, shows cause
for the conclusion that the Israelitic religion,
in the earliest phase of which anything is
really known, is neither more nor less rational,
neither better nor worse ethically, than the
religions of other nations in a similar state
of civilization ; that in the natural course of
its evolution it reached, in the prophetic age,
an elevation and an ethical purity which
have never been surpassed, and that, since
the new birth of the prophetic spii-it, in the
first century of our era, the course of Chris-
tian dogmatic development, along its main
lines, has been essentially retrogressive."

It will thus be seen that Prof. Huxley
aims to be not a destroyer but a purifier of
religion.

Elementary Lessons in Steam Machinery
AND. THE Marine Steam Engine. With
a Short Description of the Construction
of a Battle Ship. By Staff-Engineer J.
Langmaid and Engineer H. Gainsford.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 267.
Price, $2.

These lessons, prepared for the naval
cadets in one of the vessels of her Majesty's
fleet, are intended to represent a systematic
course of simple instruction preparatory to a
more thorough study of the whole subject.
In the earlier lessons instruction is given in
the elements of construction and mechanism,
and in those mechanical details which stu-
dents are usually expected to learn by work-
slioj) experience. The conclusions given are
wholly such as have been arrived at by ex-
perience, and the various details of marine
engines are illustrated by the simplest ex-
amples. The lessons on Construction include
the principles of measurements, the uses and

qualities of the metals used, and instructions
concerning riveted joints, screw threads and
fastenings, transmission of power by shafts,
etc. ; conversion of motion, toothed gearing,
friction, stuffing boxes and packing, joints
of pipes, etc. ; valves and cocks, and pumps.
The lessons on the marine steam engine re-
late to boilers and boiler mountings and en-
gines, with the details similarly separately
considered.

Aero-Therapeutics ; or, The Treatment op
Lung Diseases by Climate. With an Ad-
dress on the High Altitudes of Colorado.
By Charles Theodore Williams. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 187. Price,
$2.

This work, by the Senior Physician in the
Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of
the Chest, Brompton, and late President of
the Royal Meteorological Society, consists of
the Lumleian Lectures for 1893, delivered be-
fore the College of Physicians. In his lectures
the author has attempted to sketch a scientific
system of aero-therapeutics, based on the
combination of modern meteorology with
clinical experiment, in which each element
of climate is duly considered in its bearing
on health and disease. The lectures severally
relate to the factors and elements of climate,
temperature and moisture, and barometric
pressure in its relation to health and disease.
In the summary of results of different cli-
mates compared, at the close of the regular
lectures, a marked preponderance is found in
favor of high altitudes as against the English
home stations, the Riviera, and sea voyages.
The address on the high altitudes of Colorado
embodies a clear account of the character and
climate of the country, and a strong apprecia-
tion of its value to health.

The Conquest of Death. By Abbot Kinney.
New York. Pp. 259.

The author is struck with the deficiency
of children in American families and the ap-
parent prevalence of the habit of limiting the
number of children, and forebodes disaster
from it. " For some twenty years," he says,
" fact after fact has forced upon me the re-
luctantly received opinion that the present
vital movement in our population can only
eventuate in the elimination of the old Amer-
ican stock through nonreproduction. It is
impossible to disguise the fact that in many

LITERARY NOTICES.

847

places the population is maintained or in-
creased by immigration, or by the children
of recent immigrants. The fidelity of these
to the duties of marriage is largely due not
to the reason but to useful superstition. In-
tellectual inquiry invites infidelity. Skepti-
cism has no soul, nor has it breeding power.
Man must have a belief to be in earnest. The
skeptics disappear, the superstitious survive,
but progress can not live without intellectual
activity. This is incompatible with the in-
fallibility demanded for the integrity of su-
perstition. So long as there is progress there
must be intellectual independence. Here,
then, is the dilemma — skepticism and steril-
ity, or superstition and stagnation ; progress
to extermination, or perpetuation of life with-
out improvement. This problem, and others
kindred to it, are those for which I have
sought a solution." Finally, the main motive
of the work is declared to be the necessity
of reproduction in man to enter any demon-
strable future. The subjects of Sex, Mar-
riage, Husband Choice, Wife Choice, The
Child, Hints to the Husband, A Word to the
Wife, and Religion, are discussed.

The Theory of Heat. By Thomas Preston.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 719.

The author's object in preparing this vol-
ume has been to treat the science of heat in
a comprehensive manner, so as to produce a
tolerably complete account of the whole sub-
ject in its experimental as well as in its theo-
retical aspect. He has consequently enjoyed
a freedom in his choice of subject-matter and
mode of exposition which would not have
been possible in a work designed to meet the
requirements of some particular class of per-
sons preparing for examinations or engaged
in practical pursuits. The nobler aspect of
science as an instrument of education and
culture is kept in mind throughout, and the
principle is enforced that an acquaintance
with a number of facts does not constitute a
scientific education, and there is no royal
road to learning other than that by which
it is pursued for its own sake. The most
fruitful method of exposition, it is observed,
is not necessarily that by which a given num-
ber of facts may be recorded in the shortest
space, but rather that by which they may be
most easily assimilated by the mind and most
comprehensively grasped in their general

bearings and mutual relations; and this is
the method which is most calculated to ad-
vance knowledge and raise the intellectual
character of the individual. The historical
method of treatment is preferred, as admit-
ting the most constant comparison of theory
with the results of experiment and the closest
scrutiny at every step of the development.
With this is combined a due amount of detail
in description and explanation to secure in-
struction and such suggestion and criticism as
may excite intellectual life and independent
thought on the part of the student. The
classical experiments are given in detail, and
in addition such other investigations are no-
ticed as will give the student a general idea
of the work that has been done in each de-
partment up to the present time. In the in-
troductory chapter, or " preliminary sketch,"
some remarks are given on the general effects
of heat and on the meaning of the terms
used in the subject, the theories of heat are
reviewed, and the subjects of matter and en-
ergy and the theories concerning them are
discussed. In the subsequent chapters, ther-
mometry, dilatation, calorimetry, change of
state, radiation and absorption, conduction,
and thermodynamics are considered. Such
subjects as the steam engine and the theory
of solutions are omitted, as having obtained
separate treatment in special works. The
kinetic theory of gases has been entered into
so far as to meet the immediate requirements
of the subject in hand ; and the suggestion
is made that it, with some other subjects
usually dealt with in treatises on heat, are
deserving of treatment in a separate volume.

Science and Christian Tradition. By
Thomas H. Huxley. Collected Essays,
Vol. V. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 419. Price, $1.25.

This volume contains ten of Prof. Hux-
ley's vigorous magazine articles, first pub-
lished in the years 1887 to 1891, to which is
prefixed the Prologue to his volume entitled
Controverted Questions. Among these essays
are his series of three on agnosticism, and
his two on the Gadarene swine miracle in
controversy with Mr. Gladstone, while the
others deal mainly with other miracles of
the New Testament. In the essay on The
Value of Witness to the Miraculous, Prof.
Huxley scrutinizes certain medieval miracles

848

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

recorded by Eginhard, a writer of the time
of Charlemagne ; and in the one on Possibili-
ties and Impossibilities he examines the two
accounts of the feeding of multitudes with a
few loaves and fishes. The somewhat ex-
tended preface to this volume includes an
argument against the demonology, or belief
in various kinds of evil spirits, which has
been made a part of Christian theology. It
includes also a statement of the " Synoptic
Problem" — i. e., the question as to how, when,
and by whom the gospels which bear the
names respectively of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John were written. In looking back
over his various discussions of theological
doctrines. Prof. Huxley declines to admit the
charge that he has " gone out of his way "
to attack the Bible ; " and I as steadfastly
deny," he continues, " that ' hatred of Chris-
tianity ' is a feeling with which I have any
acquaintance. There are very few things
which I find it permissible to hate; and
though it may be that some of the organiza-
tions which arrogate to themselves the Chris-
tian name have richly earned a place in the '
category of hateful things, that ought to
have nothing to do with one's estimation of
the religion which they have perverted and
disfigured out of all likeness to the original."

The subject of Helical Gears is not a very
familiar one, but it appears to be of such
growing importance as to warrant a special
treatise upon it. In preparing his volume,
A Foreman Paltcrn-maker has treated with
much detail of illustration the true and only
workable methods of development of spur
and bevel wheels, and has entered fully into
the proper methods of construction of the
pattern parts. He has also explained the
methods of molding these gears by ma-
chine. He has aimed to make his book
practical and adapted to the shop and the
technical school. (Published by Macmillan
& Co., at the price of $1.)

George M. Dawmn, in his Geological
Holes on some of the Coasts and Islands of
Bering Sea and Vicinity, notices as one of
the most remarkable features of the region
the absence of any traces of a general glacia-
tion. Respecting the latest changes in ele-
vation of the land, evidences of a recent
slight general uplift are mentioned as visible
in several widely separated places. Mr.

Dawson also sends us JVotes on the Geology
of Middleton Island, Alaska. Both these
papers are published in the Bulletin of the
Geological Society of America.

Hugh M. Smith, M. D., reprints from the
Bulletin of the United States Fish Commis-
sion Economic and Natural History Notes on
Fishes of the Northern Coast of New Jersey,
and a paper on The Fyke Nets and Fyke-net
Fisheries of the United States, with notes on
the fyke nets of other countries. In the
former paper the subject of Ocean Pound
Fishing is dealt with.

The function of dynamics in evolution is
discussed by John A. Ryder in a lecture de-
livered by him in August, 1893, at Woods
Hole Biological Laboratory on Dynamical
Evolution. The author concludes that ob-
servers have hitherto allowed purely mor-
phological considerations to becloud their
vision ; and that when each of the five sci-
ences— physics, chemistry, physiology, mor-
phology, and psychology — " shall have been
given its due weight and place in the con-
duct of the study of life-forms, we shall be-
gin to know what the latter really means, but
not till then." (Published by Ginn & Co.,
Boston.)

J. W. Spencer, State Geologist, publishes
as a part of his work The Palwozoic Group —
Ten Counties of Northwestern Georgia (Polk,
Floyd, Barton, Gordon, Murray, Whitfield,
Catoosa, Chattooga, Walker, and Dade Coun-
ties), embracing the Geological and Physical
Characteristics, Economic Geology, and Soils.
A chapter on Good Roads is incorporated in
the report, and the whole is illustrated by
a geological map.

A part, including numbers six to twelve
of Vol. VII of the Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, contains Coleopterio-
logical Notices, by T. L. Casey ; A Revision
of the American Ciclidae, by C. H. Eigen-
mann and W. L. Bray ; Notes on some South
American Fishes, by C. H. Eigenmann ; and
The Granite at Mounts Adam and Eve, War-
wick, Orange County, N. Y., and some of its
Contact Phenomena, by J. F. Kemp and Ar-
thur Hollick.

In a paper on The Widening Use of
Compressed Air, applications of this force
are mentioned by W. P. Prcssinger in the
work of the pneumatic dynamite gun ; in
pneumatic block signahng ; to raising water

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

from deep wells ; to spraying oil into petro-
leum furnaces : as a stirrer, cooler, etc., in
various chemical manufacturing processes ; in
pneumatic elevators, cranes, and hoisting ma-
chinery; in pneumatic transmission tubes;
in refrigerating and ventilating; in the pro-
piilsion of cars ; in the purification of water
supplies ; and in various other operations
in which compressed air appears as a pow-
er, " ever ready to do our bidding, sum-
moned or dismissed by the simple turning
of a valve."

In his Contributions to the Morphology of
Cladoselache (Cladodus) — a fossil shark-
considerable attention is given by Bashford
Dean, of Columbia College, to the develop-
ment of the fins and of the heterocercal
structure. (Published by Ginn & Co., Boston.)

The Eighth Annual Report of the Com-
mimoner of Labor — for 1892 — relates to in-
dustrial education, and comprises the results
of inquiries on the subject made at home and
abroad. The schedule of questions under
which the information was obtained covered
a wide scope, and included such topics as the
age of the student workman, the occupations
he had followed, the nature of his previous
training, his proficiency in the use of tools
and material, whether he attained an average
degree of skill and efficiency in the use of
tools quicker than those who had not had
manual or trade training, whether he had
acquired greater economy in the use of ma-
terials, whether he was more proficient in
the things that indicate mental cultivation,
whether he promised to become a more in-
telligent workman, whether he received bet-
ter compensation than persons not coming
from the technical schools, and many other
points. In its original work the department
has received the aid of several men — experts
and specialists — not generally employed by
it, to whom acknowledgment is made by
name. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner.

Number 4 of Volume V of Studies from
the Biological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins
University contains four papers. The first
and most extended of these is an account of
An Undescribed Acraniate : Asymmetron
Lucayanum, by E. A. Andrews. The crea-
ture is a small lancelet found in the Bahamas.
Maynard M. Metcalf furnishes for this num-
ber Contributions to the Embryology of Chi-
ton, a first paper, and Dr. John P. Lotsy
VOL XLV — 61

contributes the beginning of an opus on The
Formation of the So-called Cypress Knees.
The fourth paper is a brief statement on The
Origin and Development of the Stichidia and
Tetrasporangia in Dasya Elegans, by B. W.
Barton. The several papers are accompanied
by plates and figures.

The sixth special report of the United
States Commissioner of Labor, Hon. Carroll
D. Wright, is an account of The Phosphate
Industry of the United States. This industry
is carried on in South Carolina and in Florida,
having become established first in South
Carolina, and extends somewhat into adjoin-
ing States. The report describes these two
chief fields separately, giving the geology of
each, an account of the methods and ma-
chinery employed in mining each of the sev-
eral kinds of phosphate rock, statements of
analyses, and general observations. There
are also detailed statistics as to rates of
wages, prices of machinery, royalties to the
State in South Carolina, freight charges, and
other elements in the cost of production, the
quantities consumed in a term of years, etc.
The report is illustrated with several photo-
graphic views and diagrams, and two folded
maps.

An article by Arlhur Hollick, reprinted
from the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical
Club, on Additions to the Palceobotany of the
Cretaceous Formation on Long Island, de-
scribes forty-six species of plants (leaves)
found in this formation, additional to the
ten species described in a previous paper.
Of these, nine species are new. An accom-
panying paper — Some Further Notes on the
Geology of the North Shore of Long Island
— embodies a discussion of the " preglacial "
or " yellow gravel " of the district named,
and its probable relation to the cretaceous
of New Jersey.

At an educational conference on geogra-
phy held in Chicago in December, 1892, W.
M. Davis, C. F. King, and G. L. Collie were
appointed to prepare a selected list of topo-
graphical maps published by the various
Government bureaus, making special men-
tion of such sheets as might best illustrate
the physical features of our country. It was
desired that the list should be distributed
among school superintendents and teachers
as an aid in securing for the high schools
the specified maps, together with the map of

850

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the district in which the school is situated,
to be introduced in the teaching of geology.
The hst thus contemplated is published,
with brief commentaries pointing out the
significance of the several maps, by Henry
Holt & Co., in the pamphlet, The Use of
Qovernment Maps in Schools. It describes
sixty-eight maps. (Price, 30 cents.)

Mathematical students of the higher
branches will understand and appreciate
Alexander Macfarlane' s setting forth of The
Principles of Elliptic and Hyperbolic Analy-
sis. In it the fundamental theorem of trigo-
nometiy is investigated for the sphere, the
ellipsoid of revolution, and the general ellip-
soid ; then for the equilateral hyperboloid
of two sheets, the equilateral hyperboloid
of one sheet, and the general hyperboloid.
Subsequently, the principles arrived at are
applied to find the complete form of other
theorems in spherical trigonometry, and to
deduce the generalized theorems for the
ellipsoid and the hyperboloid. At the end,
the analogues of the rotation theorem are
deduced. (Author's address, Austin, Texas.)

A paper by J. F. Kemp in the Contribu-
tions from the Geological Department of
Columbia College, on Gabbros on the West-
ern Shore of Lake Champlain, deals with
certain igneous rock in the townships of the
district named in which the most important
phases of the great igneous body that forms
the bulk of the Adirondacks are illustrated
and photographic details not previously noted
are adduced. The paper also appears in the
Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.

The first number of Tufts College Studies
comes without an editor's name, but a foot-
note to one of the articles, apparently edi-
torial, bears the name of J. S. Kingsley.
The number contains three papers — viz.. The
Anterior Cranial Nerves of Pipa, by G. A.
Arnold ; Ectodermic Origin of the Cartilages
of the Head, by Julian B. Piatt ; and The
Classification of the Arthropoda, by J. S.
Kingsley. (Published at Tufts College, Mass.)

In Observations on the Gcoloyy and
Botany of Martha''s Vineyard (contributions
from the Geological Department of Columbia
College) the question is discussed by Arthur
Hollick whether the island has been sub-
jected to distortion and elevation by moun-
tain-building forces, or whether its existence
may be accounted for u])ou the same hy-

pothesis by which we may account for the
other islands — Long and Staten — as remains
of the glacial morainal fringe. The author's
conclusions are in favor of the latter hy-
pothesis. The botanical section of the paper
gives a list of a hundred and twenty-eight
plants found growing on the island.

The Ore Deposits at FranMin Furnace
and OgdcJisburff, JV. J., are carefully de-
scribed in a paper on that subject by /. F.
Kemp, as to their history, location, surround-
ing, nature, and working. A list is given of
sixty-six minerals occurring in them. The
paper is a contribution from the Geological
Department of Columbia College.

The object of the original edition of Mr.
II. W. Watso7i's Treatise on the Kinetic
Theory of Gases (Macmillan & Co., $1) was
to set forth in a moi'e systematic and in
some cases a more simple form the demon-
strations of the laws of the theory. In the
present (the second) edition substantially
the same ground is covered as in that one ;
but a more detailed treatment has been
adopted, partly on account of historical in-
terest, but mainly to avoid some of the diffi-
culties experienced by the student in follow-
ing out investigations of the great generality
required in a more condensed treatment.

The matter of Elements of Solid Geome-
try (Macmillan & Co., $1.60) was used by
the author, N. F. Dupuis, in annual courses
of lectures to mathematical students, who
were much interested. The subject is car-
ried somewhat further than is usual in or-
dinary text-books of plane and solid geome-
try. The work is divided into four parts,
which are again subdivided : 1. Dealing
with the descriptive properties of lines and
planes in space, of the polyhedra, cone, cyl-
inder, and sphere. 2. Dealing with areal
relations. 3. Stereometry and planimetry ;
and 4. The principles of conical or perspec-
tive projection. A collection of miscella-
neous exercises is presented at the close of
the work. The author expresses a high
opinion of the value of sjTithetical solid
geometry, in that it exercises the intellectual
powers in the development of the theorems,
the imagination in the building up of the
spatial figures, and the eye and the hand in
their representation.

TlViite's JIanual, in his New Course of
Art List ruction for the Fifth- Year Grade,

LITERARY NOTICES.

851

includes the outline of the year's work in
geometrical drawing — including sections on
measurement, geometry, working drawings,
development, decorative drawing, color, his-
toric ornament, design, paper cutting, and
model and object drawing. It is marked by
the good qualities characteristic of all the
books of this series. (American Book Com-
pany.)

A new volume of Statistics of Public Li-
braries^ compiled by Weston Fli7it, has been
issued by the Bureau of Education. It con-
tains a list of three thousand eight hundred
and four libraries in the United States hav-
ing over one thousand volumes, arranged by
States. Many of them are not what is com-
monly understood as public libraries, for they
belong to schools, societies, and corporations,
and a few are even set down as private.
With each are given statistics concerning
its age, size, income, growth, manner of use,
ownership, etc. Prefixed to the list are sum-
maries of these various statistics illustrated
by comparative diagrams. A statistical list
of public libraries in Canada is appended.

An edition, abridged for the use of jun-
ior students, of Baron Roger de Ouimps's
Festalozzi, his Aim and Work, is published
by C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y., in his
Standard Teachers' Library. The transla-
tion is by Margaret Cuthbertson Crombie,
who has also appended brief, suggestive
notes and a bibliography of Pestalozzi.
(Price, 50 cents.)

The Art of Living in Australia would
not be misnamed were it called The Art of
Living Everywhere. It is, in fact, a treatise
on hygiene and diet, by Philip E. Muskett,
intended especially for Australia, but em-
bodying principles that are generally applica-
ble. Its main object is to call attention to
the need of improvement in the food habits
of Australians, who, the author is impressed,
are living in special opposition to their
semitropical environment. They are con-
sumers of butcher's meat enormously in ex-
cess of any common-sense requirements and
beyond any other people, while their fish-
eries are not developed, market gardening is
" deplorably neglected," salads are " con-
spicuous by their absence," and Australian
wine is " almost a curiosity." All this, he
thinks, is wrong, and he tries to teach a
better way. The Australians are not the

only people who need instruction or ad-
monitions on these subjects. In addition to
the discussion of the principles of right liv-
ing— including adaptation to the climate,
ablution, bedroom ventilation, clothing, diet,
and exercise — the book contains three hun-
dred Australian cookery recipes and acces-
sory kitchen information, prepared by an ex-
pert in such matters. (London : Eyre &
Spottiswoode.)

In Prmiary Elections a study of methods
for improving the Bases of Party Organiza-
tion is presented by Daniel S. Bemsen. Be-
lieving that reform should begin at the pri-
mary, the author would have the rules or
laws of party aim to induce the largest par-
ticipation of party members at that meeting.
A method should also be provided which
would enable minorities to elect their due
proportion of delegates. Holding these
principles in view, rules and methods are
suggested which, while they may not be per-
fect, are believed to be on the right lines and
such as will tend to make candidates feel
responsible to the membership of their
party rather than to any central power.
(New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons' Questions
of the Day Series. Price, 75 cents.)

John Phin dedicates his Common-Sense
Currency — a practical treatise on money in
its relation to national wealth and pros-
perity— to the farmers and mechanics of
the United States, in the hope that the
pi'inciple it sets forth may help them to de-
tect the sophistries and avoid the traps of
cheap-money demagogues, of avaricious and
dishonest legislators who sell themselves to
class legislation intending to cheat the work-
ingman ; and fanatics, honest, perhaps, but
ignorant and enthusiastic, whose wild
schemes contradict the fundamental prin-
ciples of monetary science. (New York :
Industrial Publication Company.)

The Diseases of Personality and The
Psychology of Attention, two well-known and
valuable works by the eminent French psy-
chologist, Th. Ribot, are published by the
Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago,
as numbers 4 and 5 of their Religion of
Science Library, at 95 cents each.

In a paper on The Coming Railroad,
the Chase-Kirchner aerodromic system of
transportation is described and its merits
are set forth by the projectors, G. N. Chase

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and H. W. Kircliner. The system includes
an elevated track, with aeroplane sails as
one of the sources of motor power. (St.
Louis, Mo.)

Parts VIII and IX of ff. H. Bancroft's
Book of the Fair are devoted to the Wom-
an's Exhibits, the Children's Department,
and the Machinery and Agricultural Halls.
(The Bancroft Company, Chicago. Price,
$1 each.)

Entolai may be characterized as a " phil-
osophical romance," or as a life history,
with a religious element, described other-
wise by the author, A. M. Bourhnd, as a
letter to those he loves about science and
the ideal. Its purport may be conceived
from the dedication : " To those whose love
of Nature has so thoroughly possessed them
that they have been able to escape from
every vestige of superstition, and as a con-
sequence of which have embraced an un-
faltering faith in the loving confidence in
righteousness, that sustains all things, and
rejoices in all truth." (Van Buren, Ark. :
Lloyd Garrison.)

From EartJi's Cejiter : A Polar Gateivay
Message, is the title of a story embodying a
thinly disguised teaching of some of the
doctrines of the Edward Bellamy school, by
S. Byron Welcome. A country within the
earth, reached by means of a polar current,
is supposed, where the ideal prevails of the
conditions imagined by the dreamers of the
class we have referred to.

Among recent bulletins of the United
States Geological Survey is a Report of Work
done in the THvision of Chemistry and Physics,
for 1890-'91, by Frank W. Clarke, which is
occupied mainly with analyses of minerals
and meteorites. Another bulletin is a Record
of North American Geology for 1890, by
Nelson H. Barton, being an alphabetical
author and subject bibliography of books
and essays in periodicals, dealing with North
American geology, and received by the Sur-
vey in 1890. Works on general geological
subjects, if printed in North America, are
also inehuled. Samuel H. Scudder describes
in another bulletin, with three plates. Some
Insects of Special Interest from Florissant,
Colorado. Still another is a record of Earth-
quakes in California in 1S90 and 1891, by
Edward S. Holden. It consists of an ob-
servation of each shock made at the Lick

Observatory, together with brief descriptions
from many city and country newspapers in
various parts of the State.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports. Alabama : Experiments in Crossing
Cottons. Pp. 48, with Plates. —Delaware: Straw-
berries. Pp. 10. — Massachusetts: Analyses of
Commercial Fertilizers. Pp. 8. — New York: On
Legal Standard for Cheese. Pp. 20.— Preventing
Leaf Blight. Pp. 6.— North Dakota: Weather and
Crop Service for June, 1894. Pp 15.

Bendire, Charles. Nests and Eggs of New
Birds from Island near Madagascar. Pp. 3.

Binet, Alfred. Psychologie des Grands Calcu-
lateurs et Joueurs d'Echecs (Psychology of Great
Calculators and Chess Players). Paris: Hachette
& Cie. Pp. 361.

Bird, Charles. Geology. A Manual for Stu-
dents in Advanced Classes, and for General
Headers. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
Pp. 429. $2.2o.

Brinton, D. G. The " Nation " as an Element
in Anthropology. Pp. 16. — On Various Supposed
Relations between the American and Asian Races.
Pp. 16.— The Alphabets of the Berbers. Pp. 11.

Call, R. E. On the Geographic and Hypso-
metric Distribution of North American Vivipari-
dae. Pp. 12, with Map.

Carus, Dr. Paul. The Nature of the State.
Chicago; The Open Court Publishing Ccmpany.
Pp. .56. 25 cents.

Cooke, Ebenezer, Editor. Pestalozzi's How
Nature Teaches her Children. Syracuse, N. Y.:

C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 206. $1.50.

Dall, William H. Monograph of the Genus
Gnathodon, Gray. Washington: United States
National Museum. Pp. 18, with Plate.

Dean, Lee Parker. The Evolution of Worlds
from Nebukr. Bridgeport, Conn.: The Marigold
Printbig Company. Pp. 84.

Earl, Alfred. Practical Lessons in Physical
Measurement. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.
350. $1.35.

Farrington, Oliver C. An Analysis of Jadeite
from Mogoung, Burma. Pp. 3.

Fewkes, J. Walter. A Study of Certain Figures
in a Maya Corfex. Reprint from the American
Anthropologist. Pp. 16, with Plates.

Frankland, Dr. and Mrs. Percy. Micro-or-
ganisms in Water. New York: Longmans, Green
& Co. Pp. .'533. $5.

Frost, Edwin Brant, Translator and Editor.
Dr. J. Scheiner's Treatise on Astronomical Spec-
troscopy. Boston: Ginu & Co. Pp. 482, with
Plates. $5.

Gebhard, William Paul. On Testing House
Drains and Plumbing Work. Pp. 8.— Tne Rela-
tions between Gas Companies and C4as Consumers.
Pp. 7.— Artificial Illumination. P)). 8.

Gill, Theodore The Nomenclature of the
Family Poecilidas or Cyprinodontida\ Pp. 2. —
The Differential Characters of the Salmonida;
and Thymallidaj. Pp. 0. — The Relations and
Nomenclature of Stizostidion or Lucioperea. Pp.
6. — The Nomenclature r.nd Characteristics of the
Lampreys. Pp. 4. All United States National
Museum, Washington.

Houston, Edwin J. A Dictionary of Electrical
Words New York : The W. J. Johnston Com-
pany, Limited. Pj). 669. $5.

Hudson, William Henry. An Introduction to
the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. New York:

D. Appleton A Co. Pp. 234. $1.25.

Huxley, Thomas H. Discourses, Biological
and Geological. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 388. $1.25.

POPULAR MISCELLANY

Japan, Imperial University of. Journal of the
College of Science. Vol. VI, Part IV. Pp. 156,
with Plates Vol. VII, Part I. Pp. 110, with
Plates. Tokyo.

Johnson, General Bradley T. General Wash-
ington. New York: D. Appleton ifc Co. Pp. 338.
Jordan, David Starr. Factors in Organic
Evolution. Leland Stanford Junior University,
Palo Alto, Cal. Pp. 149.

Knowlton, F H. A Review of the Fossil
Flora of Alaska. Washington; United States
National Museum. Pp. 36, with Plate.

Le Conte, Joseph. Memoir of John Lo Conte.
Berkeley, Cal. Pp. 24.

Mearns, Edgar A., M. D. Description of aNew
Species of Cotton Rat from New Mexico. United
States National Museum. Pp. 2.

Merrill, George P. On the Formation of
Stalactites and Gypsum Incrustations in Caves.
Pp. 5, with Plates.— The Formation of Sandstone
Concretions. Pp. 2, with Plate.

Michigan Mining School. Reports of the Di-
rector, 1890-'92. Pp. 102.

The New Science Review. Quarterly. Vol. I,
No. 1, July, 1894. Philadelphia: The Trans-
atlantic Publishing Company. Pp. 128. 50 cents.
$2 a year.

New York Society of Pedagogy. Magazine
and Book Reference. Quarterly. March and June,
1894. Pp. 8 and 10.

New York State Board of Charities. Twenty-
seventh Annual Report. Pp. C51.

Otken, Charles H. The Hie of the South. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 277.

Pammel, Prof. L. H. A Lecture on the Pol-
lination of Flowers. Des Moines, Iowa. Pp. 57.
Paret, T. Dankin. Emery and other Abrasives.
Philadelphia. Pp 36.

Pennsylvania, University of. Contributions
from the Zoological Laboratory. Philadelphia.
Pp. C8.

Rathbun, Mary J. Notes on Crabs of the
Family Inachida?. Pp. 33.— Crabs (New Species)
from the Antillean Region. Pp. 4. United States
National Museum.

Riley, C. V. Social Insects from the Psychical
and Evolutional Points of View. Biological So-
ciety of Washington. Pp. 74.

Salazar. A. E. Qarta al Senor Presidente de
la Societe Scientific du Chile sobre Ortografia
Razional (Letter on Rational Orthography). San-
tiago. Pp. 18.

Senate, United States, Committee of Finance.
Replies to Tariff Inquiries: Cotton Manufactures.
Washington. Pp. 127.

Seen, N., M.D. Abdominal Surgery on the
Battlefield. Pp. 15.

Sexton, Pliny T. A Plan for Independent
Voting within Political Party Lines. Pp. 16.

Shufeldt, R. W. On Cases of Complete Fibnlaj
in Existing Birds. Pp. 6.— On the Affinities of
the Steganopodes. Pp. 3.

Simonds, Frederic W. A Reply to some State-
ments in Prof. Tarr's "Lake Cayuga a Rock
Basin." Pp. 5.

Sloane, Florence N. Practical Lessons in
Fractions by the Inductive Method. Boston: D.
C. Heath & Co. Pp. 92, with Charts. 4i) cents.

Small. Albion W., and Vincent, George E.
An Introduction to the Study of Society. Ameri-
can Book Company. Pp. 184. $1.80.

Spurr, J. Edward. The Iron-bearing Rocks
of tile Mesabi Range in Minnesota. Minneapolis:
Harrison & Smith. Pp. 259.

Stearns, Robert E. C. Shells of Certain Cali-
fornia Localities. United States National Museum.
Pp 64.

Stejneger, Leonhard. Notes on a Japanese Spe-
cies of Reed Warbler. United States National
Museum. Pp. 2.

Stewart, D. D., M.D. Reactions of Nucleo-
Albumin with Urinary Tests. Pp. 29.

Thomas, Allen C. A History of the United
States. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 482.
$1.25.

Thornton, John. Human Physiology. New
York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 4.i6. $1.50.

True Frederick W. Notes on Skeletons and
Skulls of Porpoises. Washington: United States
National Museum. Pp. 5.

United States: Summary Statement of the Im-
ports and Exports for June, 1894. Washington:
Government Printing Office. Pp. 108.

Veeder, M. A., M. D. Solar Electrical Energy
not Transmitted by Radiation. Rochester, N. Y.t
Academy of Sciences. Pp. 10.

Welch, William H., M.D. Higher Medical
Education and the Need of its Endowment. Pp.
24.

White, Charles A. Notes on the Invertebrate
Fauna of the Dakota Formation. United States
National Museum. Pp. 6, with Plate.

Vv'illiamson, Benjamin. Introduction to the
Mathematical Theory of the Stress and Strain of
Elastic Solids. New York: Longmans, Green &
Co. Pp. 135. $1.50.

Wright, Claude Galls. An Outline of the
Principles of Modem Theosophy. New York:
The Path, 144 Madison Avenue. Boston: New
England Theosophical Corporation. Pp.192. $1.

Yale University. Report of the Observatory.
Pp. 20.

Ybarra, A. M. Fernandez de, M. D. The Med-
ical History of Christopher Columbus. Pp. 16.

Zahm, the Rev. J. A. Bible, Science, and
Faith. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. Pp. 116.
$1.25.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Spermophiles. — The destructive animals
that form the subject of Vernon Bailey's
Bulletin (Department of Agriculture) on the
prairie ground squirrels of the Mississippi
Valley, belong to the genus Spe?-mophilus,
and are commonly known as spermophiles.
The name is derived from the Greek words
(Tirtpfxa, seed, and <piK€7v, to love, in allusion
to the fact that seeds form a large propor-
tion of the food of the species. In the Old
World the spermophiles are known as sous-
liks, while in America they are popularly
called gophers or ground squirrels. The
term gopher, however, belongs properly to a
very different group of animals, to which it
should be restricted, namely, the pocket
gophers, which have external cheek pouches,
and resemble the moles in living under
ground and throwing up little mounds along
the courses of their subterranean tunnels.
Ground squirrel is a less objectionable name,
because these animals really are ground
squirrels; the term is, however, commonly
applied to the chipmunks belonging to the
related genus Tamias. Spermophilus is a

854

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

large genus, and is found throughout the
greater portion of the north temperate region
of both hemispheres from eastern Europe
across northern Asia and over the western
two thirds of America. About thirty-five
species and subspecies are found in the
United States, most of which are restricted
to the arid and subarid region west of the
Rocky Mountains. Throughout their range,
wherever the land is under cultivation, they
are among the most destructive of mammals,
feeding on grain, fruit, and garden vegeta-
bles to such an extent that the losses from
their depredations must be counted in hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. Several States
have paid large bounties for their destruction,
without materially reducing their numbers ;
and numerous bulletins of agricultural ex-
periment stations have dealt with means of
destroying them. Prof. C. P. Gillette has
shown, from examination of their stomachs,
that the thirteen-striped spermophile is not
an unmixed evil, for, besides large quanti-
ties of grain, it eats numbers of grasshop-
pers, wireworms, and other noxious insects,
whence he concludes that a large proportion
of its food is made up of insects that seem
to consist almost exclusively of injurious
species, and adds that " the squirrels would
be a most valuable adjunct to any cornfield
after planting if some method could be de-
vised to prevent them from taking the corn."

Pin Wells and Rag Bnslies. — A paper on
Pin Wells and Rag Bushes was read in the
British Association by Mr. E. Sidney Hart-
land. Prof. Rhys has lately brought to-
gether a number of instances, in Wales and
the Isle of Man, in which persons frequent-
ing sacred wells for the cure of disease and
other purposes have been in the habit of
throwing pins into the water, stuffing rags
under stones, or tying rags upon adjacent
trees ; and he has discussed the reasons for
these practices, suggesting that the pins are
offerings and the rags are vehicles for the
transfer of the disease. These suggestions
were discussed in Mr. Hartland's paper, who
compared the practices mentioned by Prof.
Rhys with ancient and modern observances
in Europe and other parts of the world at
sacred wells, crosses, trees, temples, and
other objects of superstition. He preferred
the hypothesis that the object of these usages

was to effect unison between the worshiper
and the divinity, which was to be effected by
the perpetual contact with the god of some
article identified with the worshiper. Prof.
Sayce mentioned evidences of similar customs
in Palestine and Egypt. In the latter coun-
try the rags were hung up by the Bedouin
and not by the native fellaheen. Colonel
Godwin Austen said that throughout the
Himalayas, from Cashmere to far in the
East, in Bhotau, he had observed the custom
of placing rags upon cairns, especially at the
passes. Dr. Robert Mensal, president of the
section, said that, although the customs
mentioned in the paper might seem ridicu-
lous, they all had a meaning, and the science
of folklore, as interpreted by men like Mr.
Hartland, was enabling us to find out what
that meaning was.

Plants and their Seasons. — The philoso-
phy that underlies the association of certain
groups and types of plants with certain defi-
nite seasons of the year is the subject of a
study by Henry L. Clarke, of the University
of Chicago, the flora east of the Rocky
Mountains alone being considered. The
problem is defined : " From March to No-
vember, each month brings a new prospect
in field and forest, and every careful observer
can feel in this succession of forms a har-
mony into which any decided change would
break discordantly. ... To say that the
fall flowers are not the spring flowers or
those of summer are neither, merely because
they have chosen at random this season or
that, is neither science nor common sense.
The truth is forced upon us that the various
groups of flowering plants are not scattered
indiscriminately from one end of the season
to the other, but are regulated by definite
scientific principles ; and that just as rela-
tions can be traced between physical geogra-
phy and geographical distribution, or between
plant history and geological periods, so there
is a connection between the relations of sea-
son to season and the relations of their re-
spective floras." After a careful examina-
tion of the phenomena in detail, Mr. Clarke
deduces the conclusion that " from early
spring to late autumn there is a progression
in the general characterof the flower groups,
from the lower to the higher, successive
groups succeeding each other in time, paral-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

855

lei groups coming synchronously. And the
later in order may be tvpes of a character of
development, or they may be specializations
of a group whose normal forms belonged to
an earlier season. In their blooming season
the more perfect succeed the more simple;
the aberrant, the normal; the specialized,
the generalized. But with the general ob-
servation arise certain modifying conditions "
— which are mentioned.

Unsanitary Positions. — In a paper on
Some Derangements of the Heart and Stom-
ach produced by the Unusual Position of
Children in School, read before the Academic
de Medecine of Paris, Dr. Motais pointed out
the effects of that attitude in which the
pupil seats himself on the ischial tuberosity,
supporting himself by leaning on the left
elbow and stooping forward, so that the trunk
of the body then develops an antero-lateral
curvature. The result is, firstly, that by the
lateral inclination the border of the false
ribs on the left side descends until it is in
contact with the iliac crest. The larger
curvature of the stomach is thus pressed
upon the spleen and general mass of the in-
testines ; secondly, by bending the body so
much anteriorly a fold is formed at the upper
part of the abdominal wall, and the anterior
surface of the stomach follows the curve.
These conditions produce a mechanical hin-
drance to the movements of the cardiac
stomach. The function of the thoracic
viscera is equally interfered with by means
of the anterior curvature owing to the draw-
ing together of the ribs and also by the de-
scent of the left half of the diaphragm
toward the upper border of the stomach.
The diflficulty thus afforded to respiration re-
acts on the heart, the contractions of which
are, moreover, mechanically hindered by the
distortion of the thoracic cavity. The neck
is necessarily somewhat twisted, and the
large vessels at the root, therefore, are sub-
mitted to a certain amount of torsion. The
effect of the attitude described above is espe-
cially marked when an organic affection of
the heart exists. Dr. Motais is also of the
opinion that this position is a strong patho-
genic element protracting the duration of
dyspepsia. He has found that if children
who suffer from this complaint are made to
assume a correct posture while in school the

symptoms subside more rapidly than when
such a precaution is not taken. The same
observations are applicable to adults engaged
in sedentary occupations, and Dr. Motais laid
great stress on the point that the medical
man, when treating cases of chronic heart or
gastric disease, should give his patients di-
rections as to the posture to be assumed
when much sitting is necessary.

Australian Dingoes. — A colony of din-
goes or Australian wild dogs recently bred
in the Jardin d^AccIimatafion in Paris, and
two of the brood of four lived. This animal
has very dense hair, which is thicker in
winter than in summer, erect and mobile
ears, long and pointed muzzle, and tufted
tail, which hangs down when the animal is
at rest and is carried curled over the back
when its attention is attracted by any noise.
It has well- developed senses of hearing and
smell. Its average height is perhaps about
twenty inches, but different specimens vary
greatly in size. Its hair is usually red on
the back and head, growing lighter and
lighter on the inside of the thighs and limbs.
Some individuals are of uniform color ; others
have white on the paws and the end of the
tail. The dingo inhabits the forests, heather,
and steppes of the whole Australian conti-
nent, where it lives upon kangaroos and
whatever other animals offer to its greedy
appetite ; and it plays havoc with the flocks
of the colonists, who war upon it without
mercy. Dingoes are frequently domesticated,
but, according to Bohm, they retain all their
wild instincts in that condition, and readily
attack any animal that comes within reach
of them. The two puppies in the Jardin
d'Acclimatation were cared for with much
solicitude by their mother, who did not leave
them, but permitted the attendants to change
their litter and handle them without objec-
tion. She refused all food but raw meat,
but occasionally drank milk. She played
freely with the other dogs around the ken-
nel, some of M'hich were of fine breeds ; and
when any conflict arose with regard to food,
knew perfectly well how to defend herself.
When the young were a month old, the
mother, finding they did not require her con-
stant attention, gave way to her vagabond
habits. She made her way out* of the box
in which the little ones were confined, and

856

THE POPVLAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

left them to wander around the garden, only
returning to give them suck She at length
escaped from the garden to Neuillv, but re-
turned of her own accord. For fear of los-
ing her entirely, she was separated from her
young and fastened up. The young are
very familiar, and play all day long with the
other young dogs.

Thrifty Birds. — A curious illustration of
the industrial instincts of animals, given in
M. Frederic Houssay's book on that subject,
is afforded by the California woodpecker,
which, though an insect eater, stores away
for its winter supply food of an entirely dif-
ferent character, not so subject to decay. It
collects acorns, for which it hollows small
holes in a tree — a hole for an acorn — into
which the acorn is exactly fitted, ready to
be split by the strong beak of its owner, but
too tightly held to be stolen by other birds
or squirrels. Another woodpecker, in Mex-
ico, stores against droughts, selecting the
hollow stem of a species of aloe, the bore of
which is just large enough to hold a nut. It
drills holes at intervals in the stem and fills
it from bottom to top with nuts, the separate
holes being probably made for convenience
of access to the column of nuts within. The
common ants of Italy store oats and other
kinds of grain in chambers which they make
of about the size of a watch. They have a
way of keeping the grains from sprouting
with which we are not acquainted ; and if
they are removed, the seeds sprout. AVhen
they wish to use their store, they allow the
grains to germinate till the chemical change
takes place in the material that makes its
fermenting juice suitable for their digestion.
They then arrest the process of change by
destroying the sprout, and use the stock
of glutinous sugar and starch as their main
food in winter.

Atiiiospherir Dnst and Air Colors. — Hav-
ing continued his observations on dust parti-
cles in the atmosphei'e in connection with
other meteorological phenomena, Mr. John
Aitken has now exceeding fifteen hundred
observations, to j)roduce which required the
testing of fifteen thousand samples of air.
The list includes, besides Great Britain, ob-
servations itiade in the south of France, at
Uyeres, Cannes, and Meutone, and at the

Italian lakes. At none of the places in these
districts was pure air ever met with. On the
slopes of Monte Motterone, at Baveno, with
the wind blowing up the slopes and carrying
up the impure air, the amount of dust at
two thousand feet was i-educed only to 0'C4
of the number at low level, while if the wind
was from other directions it was reduced to
0'3. The conclusion that the descriptions
given by many writers of the beauty of the
coloring on earth and sky seen at high level
at sunrise and sunset are much exaggerated
is confirmed by the observations on the Rigi
Kulm. During five years no coloring at sun-
rise or sunset was witnessed from this point
equal to what is frequently seen at low level.
The sunset colors are sho\vn to depend very
much on the amount of dust in the air.
When the atmosphere is comparatively free
from dust the coloring is cold, but the light-
ing is clear and sharp ; and when there is
much dust, there is more color on the moun-
tains and clouds and in the air itself, and
the coloring is warmer and softer. At high
level the coloring is more feeble and of
shorter duration. A thick veil of haze seemed
to hang in the air between the observer and
the mountain on all days when the number
of particles was great, and it became very
faint when the number was small. The con-
dition of the air on the occasions of the dif-
ferent visits to the Rigi varied greatly. The
clearest days, with the lowest numbers of
particles, were when the wind blew from the
Alps. The daily maximum on the Rigi did
not appear on all days. Winds from pure
directions generally prevented it, either by
checking the ascent of the valley air, or by
the valley air being pure, or by the pure val-
ley air not being much heated by the sun
and therefore having but little tendency to
rise. It was very marked when the wind
was from the plains. The hour at which the
rise in numbers began and the hour of maxi-
mum were very irregular. The amount of the
daily maximum vai-ied greatly ; sometimes it
was only two or three times the morning
number, while it at other times exceeded it
eightfold. In the observations at Kingair-
loch, in Argyllshire, certain abnormal read-
ings of dust particles were always accom-
panied by certain conditions of weather. If
the sky remained clouded all day, the num-
bers were always low during the whole of

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

^S7

the day ; but if breaks formed in the clouds,
the numbers began to rise, and the increase
was very much in proportion to the amount
of clear sky. It also appeared that these ab-
normal readings came more frequently with
auticyclonic than with cyclonic circulation.
The fact that during the days of abnormally
high readings the air did not become hazed
to anything like the extent indicated by the
number of particles, seemed to suggest that
these nuclei are of molecular dimensions, and
it is even possible they may not be nuclei at
all while the air is dry, and form nuclei in
saturated air. The Kingairloch observations,
when arranged in tables, showed that nearly
double the number of particles are required
to produce the same amount of haze when
the air is very dry as when it is damp. The
transparency of the air was also noticed to
be roughly proportional to the wet bulb de-
pression. It is not the amount of vapor in
the air that produces this effect, but the
nearness of the vapor to the dew point, which
seems to enable the dust particles to condense
more vapor by surface attraction and other-
wise, whei'eby, by becoming larger, they have
a greater hazing effect. In all densely in-
habited areas the air loses its purity, and in
all uninhabited areas it tends to regain it ;
but all uninhabited areas are not equally
good purifying ones. Much of the dusty im-
purity discharged into our atmosphere from
artificial sources, by volcanoes, and by the
disintegration of meteoric matter, falls to
the ground, but much of it is so fine it will
hardly settle. The deposition of vapor on
these small particles seems to be the method
adopted by Nature for cleansing them away ;
they become centers of cloud particles and
ultimately fall with the rain.

The Labors of a Woodpecker. — John B.
Smith, of Rutgers College, New Jersey, writes
to Garden and Forest that he has received a
piece of white oak, thirteen inches in length
and three inches in diameter, containing four
holes made by a woodpecker. Each of the
holes is nearly or quite an inch wide with
the grain, and a trifle less across the grain,
narrowing to the bottom of the holes ; each
of them reaches into the center of the tree
and into an insect burrow. In order to reach
one of the larva3 which were the object of
its researches, the bird was compelled to

make two attempts, having missed the point
on the first attempt. The larva for which
all this work was done measured about three
quarters of an inch in length, with a diame-
ter of perhaps one sixteenth of an inch, and
would hardly serve to make more than a
scant mouthful for even the smallest wood-
pecker. It must have taken the bird at least
half an hour of persistent work to make each
hole, or at least an hour to secure this one
larva, weighing only a few grains. It seems,
Mr. Smith remarks, as if it would be almost
impossible to gain from such a larva a fair
return in food value for the energy exjiend-
ed in getting at it, especially where it is ne-
cessary to make two efforts to recover one
mouthful. In the other burrows the bird was
more successful, and gained the larva at the
first attempt.

A Forest in Nicaragaa. — With the excep-
tion of a few clearings, the entire region of
the San Juan River, Nicaragua, is described
by B. Shimek, in his report to the Natural
History Society of the State University of
Iowa, as covered with typical tropical forests.
They are almost impenetrable, except with
the aid of the machete, with which the trav-
eler must literally tunnel his way in many
places through the walls of vegetation. The
trees, many of which are very tall and from
eight to fourteen feet in diameter, are not
quite so closely placed together as those of
our northern forests ; but the intervening
spaces are covered with shrubs and vines and
numerous other plants, so that, particularly
in lower places, dense jungles are formed.
Moreover, each tree is a veritable garden in
itself. The masses of parasites and epiphytes
which cover the larger branches of the trees,
and often extend down the trunk and along
the smaller branches to their very tips, form a
perfect canopy overhead through which the
sun's rays never penetrate. Ferns, brome-
lias, orchids, mosses, and many other plants
crowd their hosts with a dense mass of multi-
colored vegetation. In their active struggle
for existence with more powerful neighbors
of the forests, these plants have probably
gradually ascended, in their search for the
sun's light, to the upper branches of the very
neighbors which sought to crowd them out,
thus transferring the struggle from the sur-
face of the soil: to the air above. So firmly

858

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is this habit fixed, however, that, even where
a tree stands alone, its trunks and branches
are almost invariably covered with these
plants. Their abundance and variety may
be judged from the fact that upon a single
jicara tree, not more than twenty feet high,
which stood in a clearing near Castillo, the
author counted forty species of epiphytes.
The vines and underbrush are less abimdant
on the higher grounds, and moving about is
consequently easier. But, whether the place
is high or low, the same deep, dark, reeking
forest spreads over all. Two facts strike the
observer as pecuhar, at least during the sea-
son which the party spent at Castillo — the
comparative scarcity of brilliant flowers, and
the failure of the plants of one species to
mass together. The comparatively small
number of conspicuous flowers is a disap-
pointment to him who expects to find a mass
of brilliant bloom in these tropical forests ;
not so much because these flowers are really
wanting as because the flowering period of
most of the species is rather long, and for
the further, perhaps more important, reason
that the flowers which do appear seem insig-
nificant when compared with the sea of green
that covers everything. No less striking is
the fact that, as a rule, specimens of any one
species do not mass together to the exclusion
of other species, excepting sometimes along
the watercourses. Different kinds of trees
are mingled together m endless confusion,
and no " groves " of any one species, such
as we are familiar with in the North, occur,
nor can any species, as a rule, ever be said
to be prominent. The same is true of smaller
plants ; and the collector is not only bewil-
dered by the variety of plants that come in
his way, even in a restricted locality, but is
also provoked by the scarcity of specimens
of most of the species. Along the river
banks, however, palms, grasses, etc., often
take possession of large tracts.

Origin of Clays. — Clay, says Mr. Robert
T. Hill, in his report on that material in the
" Mineral Resources of the United States,"
is the innnediate or ultimate product of the
decomposition of feldspar. Feldspar is a con-
stituent mineral of all the igneous rocks of
the earth, and is especially abundant in the
older granites and gneisses. By its decom-
position, which occurs principally under the

action of water, the soda, lime, potash, and
other alkaline constituents of the feldspar
are removed in solution, leaving the alumi-
num silicate and quartz as a residuum, com-
mercially known as rock kaolin — a non-plastic
material which, when free from iron, is also
known as porcelain clay. Water, in Nature
as in pottery, is the chief agent in clay work-
ing, and, besides its original action in decom-
posing the feldspar, it transports and grinds
the original kaolin, and deposits it, in vari-
ous degrees of purity or mixture, in second-
ary localities as a sediment. Clay material
thus produced is known as sedimentary or
transported clay, and, with the exception of
some of the kaolins which have not been far
removed from their place of origin, is more
or less plastic. The washing and grinding
of clays by clay-workers is a repetition of
fundamental geologic processes of erosion,
corrosion, and deposition constantly going on
in Nature ; and the geologist can see in the
flumes and settling tanks of the potter a
laboratory demonstration of the principal
agencies which he studies. The clay mate-
rial resulting from the decay of feldspar may
be broadly classified under the two general
heads of residual and sedimentary. The re-
sidual material is that which is found in the
original place of occurrence of the decom-
posing feldspar, and may possess many phys-
ical aspects, sometimes occurring as a firm
or crumbling rock, resembhng decomposed
granite, or again as a fine, white, non-plastic
clay or kaolin. It is usually accompanied by
quartz, a material not essentially injurious,
which can be removed, if that is desired, by
washing. The sedimentary clays are those
which have been removed from their place
of origin and redeposited in water. They
embrace all degrees of mixture and purity,
and may be either kaolinitic or plastic.

Valne of a Geological Snrvoy. — On the

18tli of April, 1894, the geological survey of
Alabama attained its majority — twenty-one
years — under the present management, with
Eugene A. Smith as State Geologist. By
way of memorial of the occasion maps are
in course of preparation showing the condi-
tion of our knowledge of the geology of the
State at the beginning and at the end of the
period, 1873 to 1894 ; and besides these,
tables showing the relative amounts of raw

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

8^9

materials and of finished products from the
mineral resources of the State at the same
times. A sketch of the history of the sur-
veys in the State has also been prepared
by Mr. Smith. They were begun with the
appointment of Michael Tuomey as Pro-
fessor of Geology in the State University in
1847, when he was expected to spend about
four months in each year in field observa-
tions. The next year he was made State
Geologist. An appropriation was first made
for the survey in 1854. Prof. Tuomey died
in 185*7 ; his last i-eports were edited and
brought out by Prof. John W. Mallet, chem-
ist to the survey ; and the survey was dis-
continued. The second survey, under Prof.
Smith, was begun in 1873. A detailed ac-
count of its several stages and departments,
with the papers published by it, is given in
the memoii". The co-operation of the United
States survey with the State survey, begun
in 1879, is recognized as having been "very
distinctly advantageous." " In retrospect
one can, however," says Prof. Smith, " eas-
ily see how these benefits might have been
materially increased by more frequent con-
ferences and consequently more thorough mu-
tual understandings and adjustments." The
survey has cost during the past eleven years
$75,847, or an average of about $6,900 a
year. For the whole period of twenty-one
years during which the survey has been ac-
tive, the aggregate cost has been $90,597,
an average of $4,314 per annum. Since
the organization of the survey, the tax rate
of the State has been reduced over fifty per
cent, without diminishing the revenues.
The increase in the value of property in cer-
tain sections of the State that has rendered
this possible has been due in the main to
the development of the mineral wealth, and
to this the survey publications have contrib-
uted a certain undetermined share. Some
of the regions of the State in which the
mining of coal and iron had since assumed
vast proportions were untouched when the
earlier reports directed attention by maps,
analyses, and otherwise, to their great re-
sources ; and very recently the survey has
demonstrated the existence of profitable
areas in the coal measures heretofore un-
tried ; has pointed out a source of wealth in
the phosphatic marls of certain sections ;
has shown that gold may be mined with I

profit at many points ; has demonstrated
that clays suitable for the manufacture of
fine porcelain ware, fire brick, tiles, and
other articles occur in. practically limitless
quantity in many sections ; and has pointed
out the places where good marbles and build-
ing stones may be had for the quarrying.
All these have as yet not been turned to
account.

Meanings of Japanese Fans. — The study
of Japanese fans is regarded, in Mrs. Char-
lotte M. Salwey's book on the subject, as
substantially the study of the history, re-
ligion, etiquette, daily manners and customs,
peace and war, trade, games, and literature,
in fact, of the whole civilization and art of
the country. From the sixth century down-
ward fans were a part of the national cos-
tume. Every fan belonging to every rank
had its meaning, and was used in its own
particular way according to a strict code of
etiquette. The flat fan, or uchiwa, was in-
troduced into Japan by the Chinese, and has
been made in different shapes and used in
many different ways. The cheapest and
most usual forms are common objects in the
West. One of its most curious varieties is
the iron war fan, invented in the eleventh
century for the use of military commanders,
either for direction and signaling or as a
shield for defense. It is made of leather
and iron. The water fans are made of bam-
boo and thinly lacquered, so that they may
be dipped in water to secure extra coolness
while fanning. Another kind of uchiwa is
the revolving white fan, which whirls around
its stick and can be rolled up. Another
strong, flat paper fan is used as bellows to
blow the charcoal fire in the kitchen. The
agl are folding fans ; among them the hi
wood fans are the most beautiful. They are
painted with fiowers and tied with white
silk. Anciently they were hung with artifi-
cial flowers made of silk. These were the
court fans, and different flowers were ap-
propriated by different great families, so that
a fan answered the purpose of armorial bear-
ings. Folding fans also served the purpose
of ensigns in war, and an enormous fan, mita
(tffi, giant fan, was carried in processions in
honor of the sun goddess. Children and
dolls have fans of their own. Dancers and
jugglers carry peculiar fans. The tea fan,

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Rikiu, was used at the ancient tea ceremony
for handing little cakes. The ac/i is now
frequently made useful by being covered
with engraved maps of the different prov-
inces. Sometimes a fan case holds a dagger.
Preachers make points in their speeches by
sharply opening or shutting their white fans.
Album fans, on which poems are written,
are a curious feature in the life of Japan.
Many old legends are told again by the ar-
rangements of houses, flowers, figures, and
birds painted on the faces of fans. An end-
less etiquette is involved in the use of fans.
With the Japanese, in fact, the fan is an
emblem of life. The rivet end is regarded
as the starting point, and as the rays of the
fan expand, so the road of life widens out
toward a prosperous future. The affi is said
to have originally taken its shape from the
remarkable mountain Fusiyama, which repre-
sents to the Japanese all that is beautiful,
high, and holy.

Artificial Birds for Women's Hats. — Ac-
cording to a writer in the London Spectator, a
change has come over the minds of women in
respect to feathers ; and while these pretty
ornaments continue to be worn, the objections
to the wanton sacrifice of birds in order to
procure them have so far prevailed that sub-
stitutes have been found for those kinds to
obtain wliich birds were killed. While the
egret plume— the finest of these feathers — is
still unapproachable as an ornament, the mil-
liners say that ladies object to buying the
real article, " because it is cruel," and de-
mand artificial substitutes, or are contented
with less perfect plumes, and sham "os-
preys," as they are called, are made in ways
it is difficult to determine. Some are fash-
ioned from split quill feathers of a larger
heron. In others even a microscope fails to
show the process of manufacture. Besides
substitutes for the "osprey," "all kinds of
composite feather decoration, perfect for the
purposes to which it is applied, are now
used for hats and bonnets, and a naturalist
in a milliner's shop finds himself confronted
with a hundred varieties of plumage never
seen in Nature, but excellent in art, for which
it would puzzle any one but the plumassier
or the taxidermist to find a name. The era
of stuffed birds and natural wings adorning
headdresses is almost over. Not long ago.

for instance, terns were a favorite orna-
ment. The whole bird was used. Large
hats were fashionable, and two or three of
the ' sea swallows ' were grouped on a single
head. . . . Now the milliners have discov-
ered a substitute with which no lover of
birds can quarrel, and which reflects no little
credit on their craft. Poultry feathers, in
some cases of natural colors, but more often
dyed to tints suited to the material with
which they are worn, are made up into
plumes, wings, coronets, and pompons, with
a grace and variety of outline which harmon-
ize with the modeling of the human head far
better than the natural bird forms. Wings
of domestic pigeons, often mottled with ex-
quisite shades of gray or roan, are still used ;
but as the pigeons themselves are destined
for food, no one can quarrel with the dispo-
sition made of their plumage. The greater
part of modern head gear, however, is deco-
rated with dyed cock feathers, or 'coque'
feathers — pronounced to rhyme with ' oak ' —
as the milliners prefer to call them. The use
of the cock's feathers has been a gradual de-
delopment. In John Leech's day they were
suggested by the plumes worn by the Sardin-
ian troops in the Crimean War, and were worn
in ladies' felt hats, somewhat of the ' field
marshal's ' pattern. These were only the
dark-green tail feathers. But the piles of
' Mercury wings ' of all colors — plain or
decorated with tinsel or jet — which filled the
milliners' shops last summer, and which still
hold their own, are an immense advance on the
cock-feather plumes. Some of these wings
are so well made that, except for want of
proportion between the primary and second-
ary feathers, even a naturalist's eye might be
deceived. Regarded purely as an ornament,
they are preferable to the natural arrange-
ment, for their construction admits of endless
adaptation." Women's fondness for feath-
ers may be credited with being the means of
preserving one and that the largest species of
livmg bird from extinction, for it has offered
the inducement for which ostrich farms have
been established and are maintained.

The Australian Dlprotodou. — Interest
was excited in the recent meeting of the
Australasian Association by an account, by
C. W. de Vis, of the diprotodon, fossil bones
of which have been found in Lake Mulligan,

F OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

861

and its times. The diprotodon was in some
respects like a wombat, but seems to have
been less capable of rapid motion. The
spongy texture of the bones of the skeleton
mdicates that it frequented lakes and marshes.
Two species of the fossil have been found in
central Australia — one about six feet high
and ten feet long, and the other about five
feet high and eight feet long. The arid
central plains of the present were occupied
ia diprotodon times by vast extents of lux-
uriant forest and richly vegetated districts,
well watered by wide rivers. The marsupials
were even then the dominant type of life in
Australia ; lizards were also numerous, and
some were of unusually large proportions ;
megalania, for example, are extinct " guana,"
from eighteen to twenty feet in length. Alli-
gators and turtles of forms now extinct in-
fested the waters, and among the fishes was
the still existing ceratodus. The remains of
a varied bird fauna have been preserved in
the same deposits. This fauna included
some ancestral forms connecting, on the one
hand, the wingless birds of New Zealand
with the Australian emus, and on the other
hand the Australian birds with the New
Zealand apteryx. The author was inclined
to attribute the disappearance of so many of
these forms of ancient life quite as much to
senile decay as to altered climatic influences.

Waters of the Colorado Coal Field.— The

water supply of the Colorado coal field of
Texas, though not abundant as a whole, is
represented in the report of Messrs. N. F.
Drake and R. A. Thompson, of the State
Geological Survey, as usually ample and suf-
ficient for all demands and purposes. Nu-
merous springs burst forth from the strata
and many overflowing rivers and creeks
traverse the breadth of the region, which
afford water unsurpassed for wholesomeness
and purity. When sufficient care is exercised
in their location, water for drinking purposes
can be olitained from wells in nearly all parts
of the area, though when bored to excessive
depths the water contained is, as a rule, con-
taminated with salt, oil, and other impurities
that exist in the strata. The Colorado,
Concho, and San Saba are the only rivers
flowing through the district. The Colorado,
having for its origin the great springs flow-
ing out from the eastern slope of the Staked

Plains, and being re-enforced at every point
of its course, furnishes an unsurpassed supply
of water to its riparian inhabitants. Except
in times of what is called the " red rises," its
water is pure and clear. These red rises are
caused by heavy rainfalls in the region of
the Red Beds of the Permian and Triassic in
which the Colorado heads. The beds consist
of conglomerates, fine-grained sandstones, and
impervious arenaceous and highly calcareous
red clays and shales, which disintegrate rap-
idly under the action of rainfall, and the
disintegrated material is borne down by the
rapid current of the river. Owing to the
fine-grained and impervious nature, especially
of the clays, they do not silt rapidly, and the
material is held in suspension by the water
long after it has passed the limits of the
Red Beds. The Colorado flows over numer-
ous little falls and rapids while pursuing its
course across the heavy beds of limestone
and sandstone which extend from the
western boundary of the Permian to the
southern limit of the Upper Cretaceous.
This shifting turns its every particle again
and again to the purifying action of the at-
mosphere, and the immense beds of stiff and
tenacious clays and shales do not impair its
clearness. The water flowing over the lime-
stone becomes highly charged with carbonic
dioxide in solution, which oxidizes much of
the organic matter that may contaminate it,
and thus renders it purer. The water of the
Concho River is of the same character as that
of the Colorado. The San Saba runs about
forty miles through the carboniferous forma-
tion. Few of the creeks or smaller streams
are ever-running, but the majority of them
flow except in the driest seasons. Water is
obtained in them from numerous large, deep
holes, the majority of which remain fllled
through the year, and in which it does not
become stagnant.

St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Nebular
Hypothesis. — In a study, in the American
Ecclesiastical Review, of the exegeses by the
early Christian writers, especially those of
Alexandria and Cassarea, the Rev. John A.
Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame, sets
forth that they were the first to propose or
develop a true theory of the origin of the
world, and to lay the foundations of cosmo-
ganic doctrines that are usually credited to

862

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

investigators of a much later epoch. Thus,
in the Hexacmeron of St. Gregory of Nyssa,
"is developed, in unequivocal terms, the
same hypothesis that has so long been re-
garded as the special glory of the Syst^me
du Monde of Laplace." According to this
saint, the words, " In the beginning God cre-
ated the heaven and the earth," " do not refer
to the creation of the heavens and the earth,
as we now behold them, and still less do they
signify the creation of the creatures — plants,
animals, and man — that inhabit the earth.
They refer rather to the creation from noth-
ing of the primitive, cosmic matter — from
which all forms of matter, organic and inor-
ganic, were subsequently fashioned. The
saint finds a warrant for this interpretation
in the words of Genesis itself. For, accord-
ing to the inspired writer, the earth, after
the first creative act, was ' void and empty,'
or, as the Septuagint has it, 'invisible and
discomposed.' In the beginning, then, all
things were created potentially rather than
in act. They were contained naturally or in
germ in the invisible and unformed matter
that came forth from nothing in response to
the divine fiat. The first sentence of Gene,
sis tells us of creation, properly so called,
the opus creationis (or work of creation).
That which follows refers to the formation
from pre-existing matter of all the bodies of
the universe. This is what theologians call
the ojmft formationis (work of formation)
and what modern scientists term the devel-
opment of evolution. In the beginning,
therefore, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa,
all was in a chaotic or nebulous state. But
it did not remain so, because the Almighty
put it under the action of certain physical
laws by virtue of which it was to go through
that long cycle of changes of which science
speaks. . . . The manner in which the saint
expresses himself when treating of this sub.
ject is, considering the scientific knowledge
of his time, simply marvelous. He seems
to have had an intuitive knowledge of what
could then not be demonstrated, and of what
could be known only after the revelations
of modern geography and astronomy. . . .
After the primitive, nebulous matter of the
cosmos was created, certain molecules, St.
Gregory teaches, began, under the influence
of attraction, to unite with other molecules,
and to form separate masses of matter. In

the course of time, these masses of matter,
rotating on their axes, gave off similar
masses, which assumed a spherical form.
In this wise were produced the sun and
moon, stars and planets. ... In this bril-
liant conception, in which he could but divine
what Laplace and his compeers have ren-
dered all but certain, St. Gregory recog-
nized the existence of laws which he was
unable to detect, much less to comprehend.
These were the laws made known long ages
afterward by the investigations of Kepler,
Newton, and Plateau, and the laws of chemi-
cal affinity which have thrown such a flood
of light on the secret operations of Na-
ture. ... No exegetist has ever been more
happy in the employment of the scientific
method ; no one has ever had a keener ap-
preciation of the reign of law and order
which obtains in the universe. No one has
ever realized more thoroughly that the cos-
mos as we now see it, far from being the
work of chance, is the result of a series of
divine interventions, is the outcome of a
gradual evolution of that primordial matter
which God created in the beginning ; which
he then put under what we call laws of Na-
ture ; and which he still conserves by his
providence."

A Monument to LavoisieV. — A proposition
was published by Gustavus Hinrichs, of St.
Louis, on the 8th of May of this year — it
being the centenary of the death of that
chemist — for the erection by the chemists of
the world of a monument to the memory of
Lavoisier, " the Copernicus of chemistry."
" It is now well understood," Mr. Hinrichs
says, "that the claims of^Lavoisier to uni-
versal recognition depend in no way upon
the title to the discovery of any new sub-
stance, however important. Both England
and Sweden have appropriately honored
their discoverers of dephlogisticated air by
imposing monuments. The well-known fact
that both these eminent chemists remained
faithful and aggressive phlogistonists till
death is an all-sufficient proof that their
discovery is in no way essential to the
glory of Lavoisier. The life work of Lavoi-
sier was deeper and broader than the dis-
covei'y of any new substance, and affected
the very foundation of the science of chem-
istry. He broke through the veil of mere

NOTES.

863

phenomena, and discovered beyond it the
reality of chemical processes." Some of the
contemporaries of Lavoisier may have been
more skilled experimenters in some direc-
tions, and no doubt he left much for his fol-
lowers to do. " Nevertheless, his Traite
Mtmentaire de Chimie is unquestionably the
first rational exposition of the science of
chemistry, entirely resting on experimental
evidence, largely his own, and admitting to
the entities of matter nothing that was not
actually produced ; and since that day
chemistry is the science of the real ele-
ments."

NOTES.

In the present course of thought and
life Prof. George E. Howard sees a crisis
which is determining the character of the
modern imiversity. Thus there is a grow-
ing tendency to abandon the traditional as-
sumption that there is an essential difference
in the scholastic value of studies. A new
test of scholastic fitness has arisen — the test
of life. All things are in process of devel-
opment ; whole departments of knowledge,
hitherto unheard of in the schools, have
received recognition. Old subjects which
were thought dead have turned out to be
but sleeping. Thus philosophy and the clas-
sics, subjected to the comparative method,
are being made more productive than ever
before for social good.

A REPORT on the climatology of the city
of Mexico, based upon hourly observations
continued through sixteen years (1877 to
1892), is published by Senor Barcena, of the
meteorological observatory there. The mean
annual temperature is 15'4° C. The mean
monthly temperature ranges from 12" C. in
December to IB'T C. in May. The highest
temperatures in the shade range from 23° C.
in December to 31'6° C. in April ; while the
limit of lowest temperature runs from — 2'2°
C. in December to 8-2° C. in August and Sep-
tember. The most rainy months are those
from June to September.

A " Bird day " has been established in
some of the schools of Oil City, Pa., the ob-
ject of which is to promote " preservation of
American birds from the women who wear
them and from the small boy." The literary
exercises are similar to those customary on
Arbor day.

Frogs are credited by Dr. Romanes, in
his Animal Intelligence, with having definite
ideas of locality. A Japanese correspondent
of Nature says that the same fact has been
noticed of old by the Japanese and Chinese.
Rejoan Terashima, in his illustrated Cyclo-

paedia of the Three Systems of Japan and
China (completed in 1713), says that "when
frogs are removed far, they always long after
the original locality ; hence the Chinese
name Hia nia." For similar reasons the
Japanese call them " Kaeru," meaning re-
turn. This author is confirmed by the lexi-
cographer Shisei Tagawa.

Experiments made upon certain fresh-
water crustaceans, says the International
Journal of Microscopy, show that they are
sensitive to sounds corresponding to more
than forty thousand vibrations per second
(sounds that we can not hear), and to ultra-
violet rays that we can not perceive. Now,
all the rays that we can perceive appear to
us with definite colors, and it should be the
same with these animals ; so that it is prob-
able that they see colors that are unknown
to us, and that are as different from those
that we are familiar with as red is diffei'cnt
from yellow or green from violet. It follows
from this that natural light, which seems
white to us, would appear colored to them,
and that the aspect of Nature would be en-
tirely different to them from what it is to us.
It is possible, therefore, that to certain ani-
mals Nature is full of sounds, colors, and
sensations that we have no idea of.

An English committee of sportsmen and
naturalists is taking in hand the protection
of South African mammals — the giraffe, ze-
bra, eland, gnu, koodoo, and other antelopes
— against their threatened extinction. A
suggested method of accomplishing this is to
secure an inclosed park of about a hundred
thousand acres.

In a new process for coloring leather by
electrical action, the hide is stretched upon
a metallic table and covered, except at the
edges, with the coloring liquid. A difference
of potential is established between the liquid
and the metallic table. The effect of the
electric current is to cause the pores of the
skin to open, whereby the coloring is enabled
to penetrate deeply into its tissue.

A BUST of Charles Waterton, the natu-
ralist and South American traveler, executed
by the late W. Hawkins in 1865 — the year
in which Waterton died — has been presented
to the Linnsean Society of London by the
trustees of the late Mrs. Pitt Byrne. The
only accessible portrait of Waterton is from
an original oil painting made by C. W. Peale
in Philadelphia in 1824. An engraving of
it forms the frontispiece of the third volume
of the Essays on Natural History. The
bust and the portrait correspond well when
allowance is made for the forty years' differ-
ence in the age of the subject.

Dr. Franz Stuhlman, who accompanied
Emin Pasha into the heart of Africa, saw
much of the people called Pygmies. He
looks upon them as the remnant of a prime-
val race which at one time occupied the

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

whole of tropical Africa and southern Asia.
They have lost their original langiiage, and
have been encroached upon by surrounding
tribes, even within the dense forests to which
they retired, until they are met with only in
scattered remnants. No trace of degeneracy
is to be found among them, for, according
to the accounts, they are well proportioned
" and certainly not rachitic."

Evidence is adduced in Nature, by J.
Howard Mummery, contradictory of the hy-
pothesis that caries of the teeth is a modern
disease and confined to civilized races. The
author's father, in a communication to the
Odontological Society in 18V0, brought to-
gether the results of an inquiry extending
over more than ten years, in which he exam-
ined more than two thousand skulls, and was
brought to very different conclusions. Among
thirty-six Egyptian skulls, caries was found
in fifteen (41-66 per cent) ; among seventy-
six Anglo-Saxon, twelve (IS-TS per cent);
among one hundred and forty-three skulls of
Romano-Britons, forty-one (28-6'7 per cent) ;
and among fortj'-f our miscellaneous skulls of
ancient Britons, 20-45 per cent, showed cari-
ous teeth. Of modern savage races, among
the Tasmanians, 2*7-7 per cent, of caries was
found ; among native Australians, 20-45 per
cent ; among East African skulls, 24-24 per
cent ; &nd among the skulls of West African
natives, 27-96 per cent.

Books are protected in India against the
attacks of insects by pouring a few teaspoon-
fuls of refined mineral naphtha, or benzine
collas, into the crevices of the binding, and
then shutting up the volume in a close-fitting
box. They have to be afterward sprayed
over lightly with the finest kerosene oil,
which should be rubbed off before it pene-
trates the binding. Another way is to brush
the books over with a saturated solution of
corrosive sublimate. In the Indian Museum
Library the books are kept in close-fitting
glass cases with a few ounces of naphthaline
upon each shelf. The paste used in binding
these books is also poisoned with sulphate of
copper.

In the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, is
a crow's nest from Rangoon made of iron
wire, such as is used in fastening the corks
of aerated water bottles. Mr. Campbell, of
the museum, quotes from the donor of the
curiosity, who says that such nests can al-
ways be obtained from high trees in the
vicinity of the factories of aerated water.

An extensive series of minute chipped
stone imi)lements from India, which has late-
ly come into the possession of the United
States National Museum, is described by
Curator Thomas Wilson as comprising every
condition of the implement and having the
single peculiarity, in which these differ from
other prehistoric implements, of remarkably
small size. The cores are rarelv more than

an inch and three quarters in length, and
the blades are rarely more than an inch and
a quarter or an inch and a half, the majority
of them being not more than an inch, while
the finished specimen is frequently not more
than five eighths of an inch in length. The
finished implements are of various forms —
slim, almost needlelike, triangular, with a
base convex, straight, or concave, quadrilat-
eral, trapezoid, rhomboidal, while the most
delicate and finely finished are in the form of
a crescent.

In their woodcut engi-aving, according to
Mr. T. Tokuno, of the United States Na-
tional Museum, the Japanese artists strive to
imitate the original, even to the sweep of the
brush, so closely that it shall be difficult for
an inexperienced person to detect the differ-
ence, and they have been wonderfully suc-
cessful. The methods employed by them
are those used in Europe in the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The
material is wood cut in the direction of the
fiber, or planks, for which since Bewick's
time blocks cut across the fiber have been
substituted with us.

The chief features of the Karst (lime-
stone) regions of eastern Europe, according
to Dr. Jovan Cirjic, are those known as
karren dolinen, blind valleys, and poljen.
The karren are surfaces composed of blocks
of limestone separated by narrow fissures.
The dolinen, called by English writers swal-
low holes, sink holes, or cockpits, are rounded
hollows varying from thirty to more than
three thousand feet in diameter and from
six feet to three hundred and thirty feet in
depth, and great numbers of them often oc-
cur in a limited space. They may be dish,
funnel, or well shaped, or of other forms.
Besides the simple basins, the dolinen also oc-
cur in the form of chimneys communicating
below with blind cavities or with under-
ground river courses or systems of fissures.
The first are known in France as avens, and
the second in Jamaica as H</7it holes.

In the Mining School at Houghton, which
had one hundred and one pupils in 1893,
Michigan claims to possess the largest school
of mining engineering in the United States.
The school also excels in the number of
graduates in proportion to its age. Its pu-
pils are mostly farmers' sons, and twenty-
three States and foreign countries are rep-
resented among them. Its equipment has
been planned with the idea of providing the
means for each student to occupy his entire
time without obliging him to wait, and of
making the laboratory take the place, to a
large extent, of instructors. Candidates for
admission are expected to be proficient in
the use of the English language and in the
special subjects required, including the solu-
tion of practical problems in mathematics.
A three years' course is prescribed.

IInT D E X.

ARTICLES MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK ARE ILLUSTRATED.

PAGE

Alpine Olimbing, Early. (Misc.) 427

American Association, Meeting of the. (Misc.) 425

" " The, in Brooklyn. (Editor's Table) 842

Amok, Running. (Misc.) 283

Anatomy and Physiology for Young Men. (Misc.) 141

Animals Reason, Do ? (Oorr.) II. B. Poole 265

Arctic Sea, The. (Misc.) Y13

" Seasons, Succession of. (Misc.) 138

" Temperatures and Exploration. S. Jenkins 653

Armstrong, H. E. Scientific Education 630

Astrology, Seventeenth Century 686

Astronomy of the Incas. J. du Gourcq 823

Atmospheric Dust and Air Colors. (Misc.). 856

Audubon Monument, The. (Misc.) 282

Australian Dingoes. (Misc.) 855

Australian Diprotodon, The. (Misc.) 860

Badenoch, L. N. Homes of Social Insects * 338

Barberries : A Study of Uses and Origins.* F. L. Sargent 594, 784

Barometers, Odd. (Misc.) 285

Bathing after Exercise. (Misc.) 142

Bell, J. Jones. The Story of a Great Work * 463

Berthelot, P. E. Ancient and Mediaeval Chemistry 109

Birds, Artificial, for Women's Hats. (Misc.) 860

" Cause of the Migration of. (Misc.) 569

'' Diving, Feats of. (Misc.) 718

" Habits of. (Misc.) 286

" of Michigan. (Misc.) 573

" The Nocturnal Migration of. F. M. Chapman 506

" Thrifty. (Misc.) 856

Black, J. William. Savagery and Survivals 388

Bluestone Industry, The Great.* H. B. Ingram 352

Boas, Franz. The Half-blood Indian.* 761

Bolles, Frank. The Humming Birds of Chocorua 588

" " Up the Chimney 24

Bonfort, Helene. Sketch of Heinrich Hertz. (With Portrait) 401

VOL. XLV. — 62 _

53727

866

INDEX.

Books uoticed.

PAGE

,127, 270, 413, 557, 703, 843

Adams, E. Herbert, M.D. Prevention of

Tuberculosis in Ontario, 566.
Addresses, Centennial and Quadrennial, 130.
Aeronautics, S79.
Allen, Harrison, M. D. A Monograph of

the Bate of North America, 710.
Atkinson, George F. The Study of the
Biology of Ferns by the Collodion Meth-
od, 564.
Badenoch, L. N. Romance of the Insect

World, 420.
Ball, Sir Robert S. The Story of the Sun,

127.
Bancroft, H. H. The Book of the Fair, 852.
Barber, E. A. Pottery and Porcelain, 130.
Bateson, W. Materials for the Study of

Variation, 559.
Bedell, Frederick, and Albert Gushing Cre-

hore. Alternating Currents, 417.
Bennett, Charles W. History of the Phi-
losophy of Pedagogics, 568.
Blow, Susan E. Symbolic Education, 275.
Boehmer, George H. Prehistoric Naval
Architecture of the North of Europe, 564.
Bonham, John M. Secularism: its Progress

and Morals, 133.
Bourland, A. M. Entolai, 852.
Bradley, F. H. Appearance and Reality,

707.
Brinton, Daniel G. Nagualism, 710.
Brodbeck. Adolf. Die zehn Gebote der

Jesuiten, 564.
Brooks, John Graham. Compulsory Insur-
ance in Germany, 710.
Brooks, William K. The Genus Salpa, £72.
Budge, E. A. Wallis. The Mummy, 413.
Carus, Paul. Piimer of Philosophy, 131.
—The Religion of Science, 567.
Catalog of A. L. A. Library, 279.
Chase, G. N., and H. W. Kirchner. The

Coming Railroad, 851.
Chatelaiu Heli. Folk Tales of Angola, 814.
Chief of Engineers, United States Army.

Annual Report for 1893, Part I, 567.
Clark, Charles H. Practical Methods in

Microscopy, 423.
Clarke, Frank W. Report of the Division

of Chemistry and Physics, 1891, 852.
Cooley, Le Roy C. Laboratory Studies In

Elementary Chemistry, 565.
Corning, J. Leonard. Pain: its Neuro-
pathological. Diagnostic, Medico-legal,
and Neuro-therapeutic Relations, 414.
Dahlstrom, Karl P. The Mechanics of

Hoisting Machinery, 711.
Darton, Nelson H. Record of North Amer-
ican Geology for 1890, 8.52.
Davis, Charles M. Standard Tables for

Electric Wirenien, 135.
Davis, William Morris. Elementary Mete-
orology, 707.
— C. F. King, and G. L. Collie. The Use of
Government Maps in Schools, 849.

Day, David T. Mineral Resources of the

United States, 710.
Dawson, George M. Coasts and Islands of

Bering Sea, 848.
— Geology of Middleton Island, Alaska, 848.
Dawson, Sir J. William. The Canadian

Ice Age, 277.
Dean, Bashford. Contributions to the Mor-
phology of Cladoselache, 849.
—Report on the European Methods of Oys-
ter Culture, 134.
Denison, Charles. Climates of the United

States, 5M.
Dumble, Edwin T. Report on the Brown

Coal and Lignite of Texas, 134.
Dupuis, N. F. Elements of Solid Geom-
etry, 850.
Evermann, Barton W., and WUliam C.
Kendall. The Fishes of Texas and the
Rio Grande Basin, 711.
Factors in American Civilization, 703.
Fiske, John. Edward Livingston You-
mans, Interpreter of Science for the Peo-
ple, 270.
Fletcher, William I. Public Libraries in

America, 561.
Flint, Weston. Statistics of Public Libra-
ries, 851.
Foreman Pattern-maker. Helical Gears, 848.
Gannett, Henry. Average Elevation of the

United States, 711.
Gingell, Miss Julia Raymond. Aphorisms
from the Writings of Herbert Spencer, 559.
Glazebrook, R. T. Heat, 433.
—Light, 423.
Gray, Asa. Letters, 273.
Greaves, John A. A Treatise on Element-
ary Hydrostatics, 422.
Greenhill, Alfred G. Treatise on Hydro-
statics, 709.
Guimps, Roger de. Pestalozzi, his Aim

and Work, 851.
Harvard Astronomical Observatory Annals,

565.
—Report for 1893, 565.
Hertz, Heinrich. Electric Waves, 420.
Hitchcock, Romeyn. The Ainos of Yczo,

708.
—Shinto, or the Mythology of the Japanese,

708.
Hoffmann, Charles Frederic. Christ, the

Patron of all Education, 564.
Holden, Edward S. Earthquakes in Cali-
fornia in 1890 and 1891, 852.
HoUick, Arthur. Additions to the Palaeo-

botany of Long Island, 849.
— Geology and Botany of Martha's Vine-
yard, a'jO.
—Geology of the North Shore of Long

Island, 849.
Horsford, Miss Cornelia. Leifs House in
Vineland, and Graves of the Northmen,
279.

INDEX.

867

Books noticed:

Hudson, Thomson Jay. The Law of Psy-
chic Phenomena, 562.
Hudson, William Henry. An Introduction
to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer,
843.
Huxley, Thomas H. Science and Hebrew

Tradition, 845.
— Science and Christian Tradition, 847.
lies, George. A Class in Geometry, 274.
Industries of Russia, The, 706.
Iowa Geological Survey. First Annual Re-
port, 279.
Iowa State University. Bulletin from the
Laboratories of Natural History, vol. ii,
566.
Jackman, Wilbur S. Number Work in

Nature Study, 131.
Johns Hopkins University. Studies from
the Biological Laboratory. Vol. V, No. 4,
849.
Journal of Morphology, 708.
Journal of Physiology, 413.
Journal of Social Science, 566.
Julien, Alexis A. Notes of Research on

the New York Obelisk, 708.
Kemp, J. P. Gabbros on the Western Shore

of Lake Champlain, 850.
—Ore Deposits at Franklin Furnace and

Ogdensburg, N. J., 850.
Kidd, Benjamin. Social Evolution, 5.57.
King, John H. Man an Organic Commu-
nity, 415.
Kinney, Abbot. The Conquest of Death,

846.
Kirkpatrick, Mrs. T. J. The Peerless Cook

Book, 711.
Klein, Felix. Lectures on Mathematics,

423.
Kroeh, Charles F. The Living Method for

learning how to Think in German, 711.
Langmaid, J., and H. Gainsford. Element-
ary Lessons in Steam Machinery and the
Marme Steam Engine, 846.
Locey, William A. The Derivation of the

Pineal Eye, 565.
Lockyer, J. Norman. The Dawn of Astron-
omy, 705.
Louis, Henry. A Handbook of Gold Mill-
ing, 706.
Macfarlane, Alexander. The Principles of

Elliptic and Hyperbolic Analysis, 850.
McKinley, William, Speeches and Address-
es, 128.
Macy, Jesse. First Lessons in Civil Gov-
ernment, 277.
Marcotte, Charles. Governments and Poli-
ticians, Ancient and Modem, 133.
Marshall, Henry Rutgers. Pain, Pleasure,

and Esthetics, 562.
Means, James. The Problem of Manflight,

565.
Michigan State Board of Health. Eight-
eenth Annual Report, 189C, 564.
Middleton, G. A. T. Surveying and Sur-
veying Instruments, 422.

Minerva. Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt,

563.
Monroe, Will S. The Educational Labors

of Henry Barnard, 568.
Mott, Henry A. The Yachts and Yachts-
men of America, vol. i, 703.
Muir, M. M. Pattison. The Alchemical

Essence and the Chemical Element, 414.
Mtiller, Max. Science of Thought, 566.
Muskett, Philip E. The Art of Living in

Australia, 851.
Naturae Novitates, 709.
New Jersey Agricultural College Experi-
ment Station. Report of the Botanical
Department for 1892, 566.
New Jersey, Geological Survey of. Annual

Report for 1892, 131.
New Occasions, 567.
New York Academy of Sciences. Annals,

vol. vii, 848.
— Transactions, vol. xii, 131.
New York Agricultural Expeiiment Station.
Report of the Board of Control for 1892,
563.
New York State Library. Bulletin, Legis-
lation, 565.
Orndorff, W. R. Laboratory Manual, 709.
Pater, Walter. Plato and Platonism, 132.
Peabody Museum of American Archteology

and Ethnology. Report, 709.
Phin, John. Common-sense Currency, 851.
Pressinger, W. P. The Widening Use of

Compressed Air, 848.
Preston, Thomas. The Theory of Heat, 847.
Psychological Review, The, 276.
Rafter, George W., and M. N. Baker. Sew-
age Disposal in the United States, 705.
Rand, Silas Tertius. Legends of the Mic-

macs, 417.
Raymond, George Lansing. Art in Theory,

418.
Rein, W. Outlines of Pedagogics, 128.
Remsen, Daniel S. Primary Elections, 851.
Ribot, Th. The Diseases of Personality,

851.
—The Psychology of Attention, 851.
Rio de Janeiro, Museo Nacional do. Archi-

vos, 708.
Ritchie, David G. Darwin and Hegel, with

other Philosophical Studies, 421.
Romanes, G. J. An Examination of Weis-

mannism, 418.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The Social Con-
tract, 710.
Ryder, John A. Dynamical Evolution, 848.
Sanford, Henry R. The Limited Speller,

567.
Scudder, Samuel H. Insects from Floris-
sant, Col., 852.
Seavy, Manson. Practical Business Book-
keeping by Double Entry, 423.
Smith, Hugh M. Fishes of the Northern

Coast of New Jersey, 848.
— Fyke-net Fisheries of the United States,
848.

868

INDEX.

PAGE

Books noticed :

Smithsonian Institutipn. Report of S. P. United Statei? Geological Survey. Bulletins

Langley, Secretary, for 1893, 279. Nos. 83 to 85, 92, 94, and 96, 134.

—Reports of the Board of Regents for 1891 United States Weather Bureau. Report of

and 1892, 711. the Chief for 1893, 710.

Sohn, Charles E. Dictionary of the Active University of Pennsylvania. Contributions

Principles of Plants, 422. to the Botanical Laboratory, 708.

Spalding, Volney M. Guide to the Study Vines, Sydney H. A Student's Text-book

of Common Plants, 709. of Botany, first half, 415.

Spencer, J. W. Ten Counties of North- Ward, Lester F. The Status of the Mind

western Georgia, 848. Problem, 707.

Standard Dictionary, vol. i, 129. Watson, H. W. Treatise on the Kinetic
Stoddard, Charles A. Beyond the Rockies, Theory of Gases, 850.

710. Webb, T. W. Celestial Objects for Com-
Stokes, Sir G. G. Natural Theology, 704. mon Telescopes, 564.

Suess, Edward. The Future of Silver, Welcome, S. Byron. From Earth's Center,

564. 852.

Thomson, Sir William. Popular Lectures White's New Course in Art Instruction, 375.

and Addresses, vol. ii, 561. —Manual for the Fifth Year Grade, 850.

Todd, Mrs. Mabel Loomis. Total Eclipses Wilder Quarter Century Book, The, 378.

of the Sun, 561. Wiley, H. W. Principles and Practice of
Trelease, William. The Sugar Maples, 708. Agricultural Analysis, 709.

Tufts College Studies. 850. Willett, James R. Heating and Ventila-
United States Commissioner of Education. tion of Residences, 566.

Report for 1891, 845. Williams, Charles Theodore. Aero-thera-
United States Commissioner of Fish and peutics, 846.

Fisheries. Report, 1889 to 1891, 708. Wood, Henry. Political Economy of Natu-
Uuited States Commissioner of Labor. Re- ral Law, 433.

port for 1892, 849. Woodhull, John F. First Course in Sci-
— -The Phosphate Industry of the United ence, 566.

States, 849. Wright, Marcus J. General Scott, 558.

Boys, Remaking our. (Misc.) 574

Butter-making, Bacteria in. (Misc.) 430

Camphor Tree, The. (Misc.) 570

Carman, A. Joseph Neef : A Pestalozzian Pioneer 373

Centenarians, Some Lessons from. J. M. French 756

Champagne District, The American.* L. J. Vance 743

Chapman, Frank M. The Nocturnal Migration of Birds 506

Chemical Constitution and Color. (Misc.) 570

Chemistry, Ancient and Mediaeval. P. E. Berthelot 109

Children, City, Recreations for. (Misc.) 142

Children's Letters. (Misc.) 139

Chimney, Up the. F. Bolles 24

Cholera, Propagation of. (Misc.) 143

Cla«s, A Dangerous. (Editor's Table) 126

Clays, Origin of. (Misc.) 858

Climates, Dakota. (Misc.) 428

Clouds, Measuring the Heights of. (Misc.) 286

Collections, Preparation of. (Misc.) 141

Copper Age, A. (Misc.) 718

Corporations and Trusts, The Meaning of. L. G. McPherson 289

Cotton-seed Oil. F. G. Mather 104

Crime, Human Aggregation and. G. Tarde 447

" Social Factors of. (Misc.) 713

Crothers, T. D., M. D. Should Prohibitory Laws be Abolished ? 225

INDEX. 869

PAGE

Dairy Schools and Dairy Products.* F. W. WoU 234

Davis, Floyd. Science as a Means of Human Culture 668

Death Valley, California. (Misc.) 715

Dewey, John. The Chaos in Moi*al Training 433

Drinks, Uses of. (Misc.) 575

Dust, The Work of. P. Lenard 647

Dynamite, The Meaning of. (Editor's Table) 555

Economics, Classes in. (Misc.) 425

Edson, Mrs. Helen R. Frost-forms on Roan Mountain.* 30

Education, Cause and Effect in. 0. H. Henderson 51

" in the South, Women and. (Misc.) 569

" Scientific. H. E. Armstrong 630

" The Possibilities of. (Editor's Table) 266

Ellis, A. B. West African Folklore 771

Ether, Constitution of the. (Misc.) 571

Ethical Relations between Man and Beast. E. P. Evans 634

Evans, E. P. Ethical Relations between Man and Beast 634

" " Religious Belief as a Basis of Moral Obligation 83

Evolution, an, in Animated Nature, Theological and Scientific Theories of.

A. D. White 1

" the Doctrine of, Another Raid on. (Editor's Table) 840

Expert Witness, The. (Misc.) 714

Explosions, Coal-dust. (Misc.) 572

Eye, The, as an Optical Instrument.* A. Flint 199

Facial Expression, On Acquired. L. Robinson 380

Faculties, Dormant, Occupations to Awaken. (Misc.) 575

Fish, Non-edible, Economic Uses of.* R. F. Walsh 61

Flint, Austin, M. D. The Eye as an Optical Instrument * 199

Flying. O. Smith. (Corr.) '. 839

Flying Machine, Herr Lilienthal's. (Misc.) 285

Folklore, West African. A. B. Ellis 771

Football Situation, The. E. L. Richards 721

Forecast, An Ominous. (Misc.) 719

Forest in Nicaragua. (Misc.) 857

French, J. M., M. D. Some Lessons from Centenarians 756

Frost-forms on Roan Mountain.* Mrs. H. R. Edson 30

Funeral Customs of the World. .J. H. Long 806

Geological Survey, Value of a. (Misc.) 858

Gilbert, Sir Joseph Henry, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 119

Gothenburg System, The. (Misc.) 717

Gourcq, Jean du. Astronomy of the Incas 823

Government Publications, The Disti'ibution of. E, S. Morse 459

Graphite, Bohemian. (Misc.) 716

Grimsley, G. Perry. The New Mineralogy 663

Hall, Asaph, Sketch of. (With Portrait.) 833

Halsted, Byron D. Sunshine through the Woods * 313

870 INDEX.

PAGE

Hemen way's, Mrs., Work for Science. (Misc.) 284

Henderson, 0. Hanford. Cause and Effect in Education 51

Hering, Daniel W. Modern Views and Problems of Physics 511

Hertz, Heinrich, Sketch of. (With Portrait.) H. Bonfort 401

Hogan, Mrs. Louise E. Milk for Babes * 491

Hudson, William H. Poetry and Science 812

Hughes, James L. The Kindergarten a Natural System of Education 207

Humming Birds of Ohocorua, The. F. Bolles 588

Ice Dam, The Cincinnati.* G. F. Wright 184

lies, George, Nature as Drama and Enginery 496

Imagination, The Age of. J. Sully . . .• 323

Imaginative Side, The, of Play, J. Sully 577

Indian, The Half-blood.* F. Boas 761

Ingram, Henry Balch, The Great Bluestone Industry * 352

Insects, Parasitic and Predaceous. 0. Y, Riley 678

" Social, Homes of.* L. N. Badenoch 338

Isthmus, an Artificial, A Proposition for. E. A. Le Sueur 472

Japanese Fans, Meanings of. (Misc.) 859

Jenkins, Stuart. Arctic Temperatures and Exploration 653

Johnson, Elizabeth Winthrop. A Remonstrance. (Corr.) 839

Jordan, David Starr. Latitude and Vertebrae. .... 346

Keely, Robert N., Jr., M. D, Nicaragua and the Mosquito Coast* 160

Kindergarten, The, a Natural System of Education. J. L. Hughes 207

Knudson, A. A. Peculiar Sound Effects * 75

Lake Basins, Erosion of. A. R. Wallace 40, 244

" Cayuga, as a Rock Basin. (Misc.) 714

Lakes, Studies of. (Misc.) 281

Lavoisier, A Monument to. (Misc.) 862

Leaves and Rain. (Misc.) 283

Lemurs, Madagascar. (Misc.) 284

Lenard, P. The Work of Dust 647

Le Sueur, Ernest A. A Proposition for an Artificial Isthmus 472

" " Commercial Power Development at Niagara * 608

Life, Form and. G. Pouchet 521

Littlewood, H. On Accuracy in Observation 533

Long, J. H. Funeral Customs of the World 806

McAdie, Alexander. A Colonial Weather Service * 331

McFarland, R. W. Mistakes of Scientific Men, Artists, and Poets. (Corr.).. 265

McPherson, Logan G. The Meaning of Corporations and Trusts 289

Mather, Frederic G. Waste Products : Cotton-seed Oil 104

Mayflower, the. Guests of.* C. M. Weed 17

Milk for Babes.* Mrs. L. E. Hogan " 491

Mind Cures. (Misc.) 429

" Weather and the. (Misc.) 572

Mineralogy, The New. G. P. Grimsley 663

INDEX. 871

PAGE

Mistakes of Scientific Men, Artists, and Poets. R. W. McFarland. (Corr.). . 265

Mollusks, The Sleep of. C. T. Simpson 99

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, and Modern Bacteriology. Mrs. H. M. Plunkett 359

Moral Obligation, Religious Belief as a Basis of. E. P. Evans 83

" Training, The Chaos in. J. Dewey 433

Morse, Edward S. The Distribution of Government Publications 459 ,

Mosquito Coast, Nicaragua and the.* R. N. Keely, Jr 160

Mountain Climbing, Beginnings of. (Misc.) 576

Mountains and Lakes. (Misc.) 282

Muhlenberg, Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 689

Nature as Drama and Enginery. G. lies 496

Nebular Hypothesis, St. Gregory of Nyssa and the. (Misc.) 861

Neef, Joseph, a Pestalozzian Pioneer. A. Carman 373

Niagara, Commercial Power Development at.* E. A. Le Sueur 608

Observation, On Accuracy in. H. Littlewood 533

O'Shea, M. V. The Professional Training of Teachers 796

Oxygen, Liquid, Experiments with. (Misc.) 282

" The Vacuum Jacket and. (Misc.) 715

C(

Peat-moss Atolls. (Misc.) 428

Perfection, Seeking. (Misc.) 572

Photography of Colors. (Misc.) 139

The, of Colors. L. Weiller 539

Physics, Modern Views and Problems of. D. W. Hering 511

Pin Wells and Rag Bushes. (Misc.) 854

Plants and their Seasons. (Misc.) 854

Plunkett, Mrs. H. M. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Modern Bacteriology 359

Poetry and Science. W. H. Hudson 812

Poole, Helen Blackmer. Do Animals Reason ? (Corr.) 265

Popular Science Monthly, The Founder of. (Editor's Table) 410

Pouchet, Georges. Form and Life 521

Prohibitory Laws be Abolished, Should, ? T. D. Crothers 225

Public Documents, Expansion in. (Misc.) 426

Questioning Age, The. J. Sully 733

Rain-making. F. Sanford 478

Refuse, Town, as Fuel. (Misc.) 574

Religion, Science, Orthodoxy, and. (Editor's Table) 125

Remonstrance, A. (Corr.) E. W. Johnson 889

Reptilian and Amphibian Motions. (Misc.) 136

Research, Endowment of. (Editor's Table) 702

Richards, Eugene Lamb. The Football Situation 721

Riley, C. V. Parasitic and Predaceous Insects 678

Robinson, Louis. On Acquired Facial Expression 380

Rocks, Volcanic, in Eastern North America. (Misc.) 717

Sanford, Fernando. Rain-making 478

Sanitary Building, A. (Misc.). 140

872 INDEX.

PAGE

SanitatioD, The Benefits of. (Misc.) 425

Sargent, Frederick Le Roy. Barberries: A Study of Uses and Origins.*. 594, 784

Savagery and Survivals. J. W. Black 388

Science as a Means of Uuuaan Culture. F. Davis 668

Serviss, Garrett P. Pleasures of the Telescope. I. The Selection and Test-
ing of a Glass* 213

Simpson, Charles T. The Sleep of Mollusks 99

Smith, Oberlin. Flyiug. (Oorr.) 839

Social Disturbances. (Editor's Table) 700

Socialism, State, in New Zealand. (Misc.) 137

Society Vulgar, Is? (Editor's Table) 268

Soda Lake, The, of Wyoming. (Misc.) 426

Sound Effects, Peculiar.* A. A. Knudson 75

Speech, The Beginnings of. (Misc.) 281

" Tones. (Misc.) 430

Spermophiles. (Misc.) 853

Sully, James. Studies of Childhood. I. The Age of Imagination 323

" " Studies of Childhood. II. The Imaginative Side of Play 577

" " Studies of Childhood. III. The Questioning Age 733

Superstitions, Primitive, Modern Survivals of. (Misc.) 137

Tarde, G. Human Aggregation and Crime 447

Tea Gardens, The, of Johore. (Misc.) 427

Teachers, The Professional Training of. M. V. O'Shea 796

Telescope, Pleasures of the. I. The Selection and Testing of a Glass.*

G. P. Serviss 213

Theology, The Final Effort of. A. D. White 145

Thibet, Explorations in. (Misc.) 571

Timber Testing. (Misc.) 284

Toads and Cancers. (Misc.) 140

Trees, Different, Behavior of, to Lightning. (Misc.) 430

" Temperature of the Interior of. (Misc.) 140

Troost, Gerard, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 258

Trusts, Artificial Stimulation of. (Corr.) C. W. Whedon 699

University, the American, Future Work of. (Misc.) 573

Unsanitary Positions. (Misc.) 855

Vance, Lee J. The American Champagne District.* 743

Vertebrae, Latitude and. D. S. Jordan 346

Volcanic Ashes, Analysis of. (Misc.) 138

Wuganda, The. (Misc.) 716

Wallace, Alfred Russel. The Ice Age and its Work. Ill, IV. Erosion of

Lake Basins 40, 244

Walsh, Robert F. Economic Uses of Non-edible Fish * 61

Ward, Lester F. Weisraann's Concessions 175

Warfare of Science, the. New Chapters in. XIX. From Creation to Evolu-
tion. Parts III and IV. A. D. White 1, 145

Water Kings, A Family of.* C. M. Weed 443

INDEX. 873

PAGE

Waters of the Colorado Coal Field. (Misc.) 861

Weather Service, A Colonial.* A. McAdie 331

Weed, Clarence M. A Family of Water Kings * 443

" " The Guests of the Mayflower* 17

Weiller, Lazare. The Photography of Colors , . . . . 539

Weismann's Concessions. L. F. Ward 1Y5

" (Corr.) F. R. Welsh 553

Welsh, F. R. Weismann's Concessions 553

Whedon, Charles. Artificial Stimulation of Trusts. (Corr.) 699

White, Andrew Dickson. New Chapters in the Warfare of Science. XJX.
From Creation to Evolution. Part III. Theological and Scientific
Theories of an Evolution in Animated Nature. Part IV. The Final

Eflfort of Theology 1, 145

Whitmore, O. S. Kiln-drying Hard Wood 375

Whitney, Prof. William Dwight. (Misc.) 569

Williams, William Mattieu, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 548

Wind, Effects of, on Soil. (Misc.) 430

Woll, F. W. Dairy Schools and Dairy Products * 234

Woman, Man and. (Editor's Table) 553

Wood, Hard, Kiln-drying. O. S. Whitmore 375

Woodpecker, The Labors of a. (Misc.) 857

Woods, Sunshine through the.* B. D. Halsted 313

Work, a Great, The Story of.* J. J. Bell 463

Wright, G. Frederick. The Cincinnati Ice Dam * 184

END OF VOL. XLV.

MBL/WHOI LIBRARY

UH IflUE