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THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

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

VOL. XXL

MAY TO OCTOBER, 1882.

NEW YOKK :

B. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET.

188 2.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, *

1882.

/o44^

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MAY, 1882.

METHODS AND PEOFIT OF TREE-PLANTING.

By N. H. EGLESTON.

THE recent calamitous fire in Michigan calls attention afresh to the
rapid consumption of our forests, and occasions renewed inquiry
as to what may be done either to check that consumption or to make
good the loss thereby sustained. More than fifty townships of land,
covering an area of aboufr two thousand square miles, or a territory
nearly half as large as the State of Connecticut, were swept over by
the flames. " Scarcely a green sprig," says a reporter, " was left in
the track of the fire." This fire was, indeed, exceptional in extent, as
well as in the loss of life occasioned by it ; and yet it was only the em-
phasized form of a very common occurrence one so common that we
fail to notice it as we should, or become sensible of the aggregate losses
resulting therefrom. The destruction of the great pine-forests of the
Northwest, of Michigan and Wisconsin, rapidly as it is carried forward
by the lumberman's axe, is hastened by the fires lighted, in some cases,
by the lumberman's carelessness or that of others, and in other cases
as the speediest way of clearing the ground for agricultural use. There
is no part of our country exempt from the destructive effects of forest-
fires. The mountains and hill-sides of New England frequently show
blackened spaces on their verdant flanks. The same is true of the
great wooded regions of New York and Pennsylvania. The vast Adi-
rondack forests are visited by fires, the frequency and extent of which
are known to hardly any but the wandering trappers and hunters whose
camp-fire's, left unextinguished, may have lighted them. New Jersey
has suffered severely from the burning of her woods. Ten thousand
acres, covering a space seven miles in breadth, were swept over, at one
time, in 1866. In 1871 two fires in Ocean County consumed over
thirty thousand acres, and it is said that this whole county is overrun

VOL. XXI. 1 \

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by fires as often as once in twenty years. In' the southern part of the
State, so frequent are the fires and so wide-spread, the risk has made
woodland less salable than formerly. Though nine tenths of this
region is wooded, there is little large timber to be found, and lumber
is largely brought from distant places. Droughts are becoming more
frequent, and these increase the exposure to fire. Thus the partial con-
sumption of the forests makes their further consumption the more cer-
tain and rapid.

And what is true in this limited area is measurably true through-
out the country. That our forests are being destroyed with alarming
rapidity admits of no question, and it is probably true that fires con-
sume more than are cut down by the axe of the lumberman and the
wood-chopper.

Our neighbors in Canada keep themselves better informed in regard
to the condition of their forests than we are in regard to our own. The
Commissioner of Crown Lands, in the province of Quebec, in his re-
port of 1871, speaking of the preservation of timber-lands, says : "The
most formidable agent in the destruction of our forests is, certainly,
fire. All the most active operations in lumbering which have taken
place since the settlement of the country, and all those which are likely
to take place for the next twenty years, have not caused, and will not
cause, to our forests so much devastation as this one destroying ele-
ment has effected up to the present time." In a report on forestry
and the forests of Canada, by a member of the Dominion Council of
Agriculture, in 1877, it is estimated that more pine-timber has been
destroyed by fire than has been cut down and taken out by the lum-
bermen.

The combined effect of fires and the wasteful consumption of our
forests in the production of lumber and for other purposes, and the
almost total neglect to protect their growth, have resulted in the
diminution of our area of woodland to such an extent as justly to occa-
sion alarm on many accounts. In California, for instance, the Presi-
dent of the State Board of Agriculture reported, several years ago,
that within twenty years at least a third of the native supply of ac-
cessible timber had been cut off or destroyed, and that forty years
would exhaust the forests. This estimate was made without taking
into account the increased demands upon the forests which would be
made by the increase of population and the growth of manufacturing
industries.

Similar reports come from other States and Territories, though in
those which were originally heavily wooded the destruction of the
trees may not have gone so far as to produce a scarcity of lumber, or
to increase its price to such an extent as to be burdensome. In some
parts of the country, also, particularly in the older States, it is proba-
ble that the growth of the woods has kept pace with their destruction.
Yet of the country .as a whole it may be said, without hesitation, that

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 3

the supply of desirable timber, both pine and hard-wood, has materially-
diminished within the last twenty-five years. As a natural conse-
quence, the price has everywhere advanced, and a further advance is
as natural and inevitable, unless effective measures are taken to check
the waste of our forests and to restore them to their proper dimen-
sions. The necessity of vigorous action in regard to this matter is
beo-inning to be felt. In the sparsely wooded districts of the West
this is particularly true. The Legislatures and agricultural societies
of several of the States have already taken important action on the
subject. Laws have been enacted for the protection of the existing
forests from destruction by fires, and for encouraging the planting of
trees. The national Congress has also, within a few years, made
enactments both for the repression of timber-thieving on the public
lands and to encourage the planting of timber-trees.

The enactments of Congress for the purpose of encouraging tim-
ber-planting, while they have marked a step in the right direction,
have not been so effective as they might have been. This has resulted
in part through evasion of the laws by speculators, who have only made
a pretense of planting while their real object was to get possession of
land which they could sell at a profit for agricultural purposes, and in
part because the requisitions of the law were too onerous to be com-
plied with by settlers without capital. The latter was of course unin-
tentional. But this, as well as other defects of the timber-culture acts,
came as the natural result of our ignorance in this country of the whole
matter of tree-planting. We know enough to plant apple and peach
trees in orchards, and a row of maples or elms, occasionally, along the
road-side, for shade and ornament. But of the cultivation of trees on
the large scale, in masses, as they grow in the native forests, few
among us know anything. A planted forest is a thing almost unknown
here. The chances are that, among the members of Congress who
framed the timber-culture acts, not one had any practical knowledge
of the subject. The whole matter is new to us, and we have hardly
any experience for our guide. For our knowledge we must go abroad,
where the subject is treated with the greatest and most scientific atten-
tion, as we have lately shown (" Popular Science Monthly," July, 1881).
In France and Germany, and other European countries, one of the
principle bureaus of government is that having charge of the forests
and rivers. Its annual reports are looked for and read with interest,
as having important bearings upon the revenue as well as upon the
health of the people and the agricultural and commercial resources of
the country. -

It is a happy thing for us that, as we are waking up to the neces-
sity not only of checking the wasteful consumption of our existing
forests but of planting new ones, we have the experience and careful
study of the subject by European nations to aid us. For, although
their physical conditions are in many respects different from our own,

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

so that we can not adopt their methods without modification, yet
certain great principles and facts have been established which are as
applicable to use here as they are there.

The first, the fundamental point in tree-planting on a large scale,
that is, in planting what may be called a forest, is to consider the trees
as a Crop, like any other crop, only this requires a much longer time
than ordinary crops to come to maturity. This will at once put the
subject to many if not to most persons in a new aspect. Accepting
the idea that trees are to be planted like corn or wheat, as a crop, there
follows at once the necessity of care and cultivation and the consider-
ation that these are the conditions of success. We do not expect to
harvest an ordinary crop, and one that will yield a satisfactory pecu-
niary return, without having bestowed upon it care and labor. No
more should we look for success in the larger growths of the forest
without a corresponding culture. And when we come to look upon
the growth of a forest in this light we shall easily, almost inevitably,
regard our ordinary native forests, where the trees are simply suffered
to grow up in complete neglect, exposed to injury from the intrusions
of cattle and from other causes, as at best only a partial utilization of
the fields which Nature has provided for our comfort and profit. It is
true that trees will grow and come to maturity in rough places and on
poor soils, where nothing else will grow or where the cultivation of
other crops is impracticable and unprofitable. It is true also that the
growth of these great forest-crops, instead of impoverishing, enriches
the soil. Hence there is no use of our poor and what we call waste
lands, which abound more or less everywhere, at once so economical
and profitable as to devote them to the growth of trees. Left to them-
selves, as our forests and woodlands generally are, they are remunera-
tive. But they might be made much more remunerative. They would
be, if, instead of regarding them as one of the accidental products of
Nature, we were to regard them as one of our staple crops, something
to be managed and cared for by us.

The proper care of a tree-crop, as of any crop, requires its protec-
tion from injury. But we have left our forests unfenced, or, if we
have inclosed them, it has been not so much for the sake of excluding
destructive animals from them as for the purpose of making them past-
ure-grounds for our cattle, where they have been free to range and
feed upon whatever might please their taste. The tender buds, the
green and succulent shoots, the young trees sprouted in Nature's seed-
bed and started for the growth of a century, perhaps more, we have
put at the disposal of the teeth and horns and trampling hoofs of cat-
tie. This has been regarded as a cheap way of feeding these animals.
But there is no fodder for cattle so expensive as forest-fodder. Grass
is cheaper than trees. Sir John Sinclair, in his " Code of Agriculture,"
says : " A landlord had better admit his cattle into his wheat-field than
among his under-wood. In the one case they only injure the crop of

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 5

one year, whereas in the other, by biting and mangling one year's
shoot, mischief is done to at least three years' growth." But he has
quite understated the possible if not probable damage. At the Vienna
Exposition in 1873 there was a convention of forest managers from
most of the European countries, and an extensive exhibition of forest
products. Among these there were sections of trees taken from a for-
est property near Krainburg, and designed to illustrate the compara-
tive growth of trees when properly protected and cultivated and when
exposed to browsing animals. There were shown trees which in thirty
years had attained a height of only thirty inches, and others of the
same age which had grown near them, but protected from animals,
that were twenty-eight feet in height. The cubic contents of sixteen
hundred trees, exposed and protected, were measured, with this result :
in the unpastured woods, three thousand and fifty-six cubic feet ; in
the pastured woods, eleven. The annual increase of growth was found
to be as one hundred to one, or a loss of ninety-nine per cent, of pos-
sible results. Here certainly is food for study.

In many of the ancient forests of Europe there has come down, by
immemorial usage, the feudal right of the neighboring peasants to
pasturage ; but so injurious is the exercise of this right felt to be
that the owners of the forests make it one of their chief endeavors to
extinguish this right, by purchase or otherwise, whenever they can.

Again, looking upon his trees as a crop, the planter will engage in
his work with a patient forecasting of the future. His success or fail-
ure does not depend upon what he may do, or fail to do, in a single
season or a single year. His trees will come to maturity only with the
lapse of generations. He may be planting in part for his grandchildren
rather than for himself, except so far as they are himself. The pine,
for example, is reckoned to come to maturity only after a growth of
one hundred and sixty years. All the more need, therefore, for the
adoption of a proper method, and that he should

" Learn to labor and to wait."

The European managers of forests, in forming their plantations,
allow from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty years as
the period of growth, or of rotation, as they call it. In laying out a
forest plantation they will divide the proposed tract into six or eight
sections, planting one every twenty years, and, when the whole is
planted, cutting and renewing a section every twenty years. Mean-
time there is a thinning process going on all the while, as the trees
grow and require more room for their proper development. By this
division of a forest into sections, they avoid the evil effects upon water-
supply, climate, etc., resulting from the sweeping off of large forests
at one time.

European foresters also insist strongly upon the importance of
drainage for the best growth of the forest. They urge that this is

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fully as important for the most rapid and healthful growth of trees
as for the growth of the ordinary crops of the garden or the field.
For this purpose they construct open ditches at intervals throughout
the forest. In our natural forests, filled with the roots of old trees
and often with rocks, it would be difficult to make such ditches. But
in many of our low and swampy lands it would be quite practicable,
and would add greatly to the amount and value of the growing wood.
There is no reason why one should not incur the expense necessary
to drain the soil for trees as readily as he does that which he considers
desirable for his grass or corn ; and all who undertake the planting of
trees on new ground should bear this in mind.

We are writing now to urge the importance and even necessity of
planting trees on the large scale, as well as the preservation and care
of our existing native forests ; and one of the first questions to be set-
tled is that of the distance which should separate trees from each other
at the time of planting. The experience of European planters has
satisfactorily proved that they should be planted much nearer to one
another than they are to stand when fully grown. In this respect they
should be planted not like the apple or peach orchard, but like the
corn-field. One reason why the law of Congress for the promotion of
tree-culture has not been more successful is that it allowed trees to be
planted twelve feet apart. Trees, when young, are delicate things,
and need protection. Like human beings, they seem to have a feeling
of companionship. They support and encourage one another. They
thrive best when near each other. Accordingly, European foresters
commonly plant trees at a distance of not more than four feet apart,
and some of our Western planters are disposed to place them even
closer than this. Such close planting follows the course of Nature.

If we observe a natural forest, from which destructive animals are
excluded, we shall see that the ground is thickly strewed with trees
that few large vacant spaces are to be found, especially when the trees
are small. As they increase in size and need more space, Nature has
her own way of thinning out. The weaker decay, and the law of the
survival of the fittest asserts itself. Following her guidance we have
learned to plant closely, and then, from time to time, to make room
for the growing trees by transplanting a portion to other fields, or by
cutting them and devoting them to such uses as they are fitted for.
The smaller serve for hoops for the barrel-maker, or poles for various
uses. And so, at all stages of growth, there is an available and profit-
able use for the trees that seem to be crowding their neighbors.

It is found, again, that trees are not only social in their nature, but
that they like variety in their society. As a general thing, different
kinds of trees grow better when mixed together than when each kind
is planted by itself. This, also, is usually Nature's way of planting.
It is common, therefore, for the foresters abroad to plant what they
call nurse-trees along with those which they intend to make the staple

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 7

of the ultimate and full-grown forest, the final outcome of their one
hundred and twenty or one hundred and sixty years of watching and
culture. If, for instance, they propose to raise what shall be at last a
forest of oak-timber, they will plant with the oaks successive rows of
the pine, .the beech, the maple, the larch, or the birch, each at a dis-
tance perhaps of twenty feet from its own kind, but each only four
feet from some neighbor. After a few years the quickest-growing
trees will be removed those nearest the oaks and this will go on
from time to time till, finally, the oaks are left to develop themselves
to their fullest stature and their greatest strength. As a rule, the thin-
ning is made at such intervals that half the trees originally planted
will be removed by the time they are twenty feet high. The number
on an acre should not exceed eight hundred when they have reached
the height of thirty feet, and when forty feet high only three hundred
or three hundred and fifty should remain. These successive thinnings,
it is estimated, will more than pay for the care and labor, as well as
interest on the land, leaving the final forest as clear profit. And it is
to be considered that very much more valuable timber is produced on
an acre of ground with this careful and systematic treatment than
when a forest is left to grow up by chance and in neglect, as is so
commonly the case. There is as great difference in the returns, pro-
portionally, as there is between the yield of a vegetable-garden care-
fully tended and that of one left without proper cultivation and allowed
to be overgrown with weeds. Dr. Berenger, head of the School of
Forestry at Vallambrosa, Italy, says that "while an uncultivated
woodland, taken for a long period, and counting interest and taxes,
would yield almost nothing to the capital invested, it is well established
that the same land, managed according to modern science, would, in
the long run, yield a revenue both conspicuous and constant."

In many parts of our country, on the plains and prairies especially,
and wherever tree-planting is undertaken, except for utilizing waste
or rough and comparatively inaccessible ground, which would not be
profitable for ordinary tillage, the most desirable mode of planting
will be in belts or borders rather than in blocks. These belts should
be so disposed as to serve as screens from the strongest and most hurt-
ful winds. There can thus be secured an equally abundant growth of
timber, while the screen it furnishes will greatly increase the product
of other crops, and serve to promote the comfort of all, whether man
or beast, who can have its shelter. The variety of products on a farm
may be thus greatly increased also. Tender vegetables and fruit-trees
readily flourish under the protection of such shelter belts of forest-
trees which could not otherwise be cultivated with success, if at all.
And the protection of such belts extends farther than many suppose.
It is estimated that their beneficial influence reaches, in horizontal
distance, about sixteen times their height. It is probable, therefore,
that belts of trees might be so disposed, on almost any farm, that the

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ground occupied by them would not diminish but rather increase the
cultivable area, and the forest growth would be a positive addition to
its productiveness.

But whatever the particular plan adopted, a prominent question
will be with every one, what trees to plant. The multitude offering
themselves for consideration is embarrassing. Our country is one of
such extent and such varied climate and soil that we have a tree vege-
tation embracing all the variety of the entire Eastern hemisphere.
Our Atlantic coast corresponds, in this respect, with that of China
and Japan, while our Pacific-coast region is like that of Western
Europe. At the International Exhibition at Philadelphia, in 1876,
the wood of nearly four hundred indigenous species of trees was
shown, whereas Great Britain has only twenty-nine ; France, thirty-
four ; and all Europe, leaving out Russia, only about fifty. The little
State of Connecticut, on the authority of Professor Brewer, has sixty
species of native trees. At the Philadelphia Exhibition there were
specimens of thirty-seven species of the oak, thirty-four of the pine
family, seventeen of spruce and fir, eleven of maples, besides many
others.

With such a variety of trees and so many conditions of climate
and soil, and the different objects which the planter may have in view,
no one can give an answer to the question what to plant, except in a
general way. Trees have their homes as well as men, where they
develop to the best. And, though they may often be transferred to
other regions and be made to form to themselves new homes, the
success of such a transfer can not be predicted with certainty. Ex-
periment alone can decide. But, for the general purposes of tree-
planting, and for those who are looking for definite and sure results,
the safe rule, and the only trustworthy one, is to follow Nature to
plant the trees which she has already planted near us or in situations
like our own. From these we may wisely make a selection, according
to the objects we have mainly in view. If we want the speediest
growth of fuel or shelter, we shall choose the quick-growing trees. If
we purpose to grow valuable timber we shall make a different selec-
tion, or we may select for both results at the same time. Even in
those parts of the country most destitute of any considerable masses
of trees, the Western Plains, the treeless regions as they are called,
there are a goodly number of species showing themselves, if but
sparsely, and giving us hints as to what may be accomplished there
in tree-planting, if fires and the depredations of destructive animals
can be prevented. We have it, for example, on good authority, that
the following trees, among others, are natives of Nebraska, one of
the so-called treeless States : the buckeye, the red and the sugar ma-
ple, the box-elder, the honey locust, the white and green ash, two
species of elm, the hackberry, sycamore, black walnut, three species
of the hickory, seven species of oak, the iron-wood, two species of

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 9

birch, four of willow, the cotton-wood, the yellow pine, the red cedar,
and two species of fir. Besides these trees there are many shrubs,
some of which are tree-like and reach a height of twenty feet. One
living where such trees are natives will hardly need to look elsewhere
for trees, whether for fuel, timber, or the purposes of art and orna-
ment. But one may also be pretty sure that where these grow other
well-known and valuable trees can be successfully cultivated.

And there are some trees which are deserving of more attention than
has yet been given them in this country. The willows, for instance,
have seldom been cultivated in a large way ; and yet there are few
trees so easily grown, or which will pay better for cultivation. They
adapt themselves to a wide range of soil and climate. They grow on
high ground and on gravelly soils not less than by the sides of streams,
where we most commonly see them. They are of rapid growth and
yield a large return. The osier-willow is specially useful, we know,
for the manufacture of baskets, chairs, and other articles of furniture,
and we import it to the extent of $5,000,000 annually, when we might
produce it easily in almost any part of our country. "We hardly think
of the willow as a timber-tree or for the production of lumber, but
only as yielding a cheap, poor sort of fuel. But in England the wood
is greatly prized for many purposes. While it is light it is also tough;
it does not break into slivers. Hardly any wood is so good, therefore,
for the linings of carts and wagons used in drawing stone or other
rough and heavy articles. It makes excellent charcoal, especially for
the manufacture of gunpowder. It bears exposure to the weather, and
boards made of it are very serviceable for fences. Some species of it
are admirable for use as a live fence or hedge. On account of its com-
parative incombustibility, the willow is eminently useful for the floors
of buildings designed to be fire-proof. It grows to a large size and
furnishes a great amount of lumber. There is a white willow growing
in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which, at four feet from the ground,
measures twenty-two feet in circumference and extends its branches
fifty feet in every direction. Tradition says it was brought from
Connecticut in 1807 by a traveler, who used it as a riding-switch.
The Hon. Jesse W. Fell, in giving an account of experiments in tree-
planting, on an extensive scale, in Illinois, says, " Were I called upon
to designate one tree which, more than all others, I would recommend
for general planting, I would say unhesitatingly it should be the white
willow." Professor Brewer says : " In England, where it is often sixty
or seventy feet high in twenty years, there is no wood in greater
demand than good willow. It is light, very tough, soft, takes a good
finish, wiH bear more pounding and knocks than any other wood grown
there, and hence its use for cricket-bats, for floats to paddle-wheels
of steamers, and brake-blocks on cars. It is used extensively for turn-
ing, planking coasting-vessels, furniture, ox-yokes, wooden legs, shoe-
lasts, etc." Fuller says, "It groweth incredibly fast it being a by-

io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

word that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse before that
by other trees will pay for the saddle." The basket-willow, well cul-
tivated, will yield a net income of $150 a year to the acre. On the
whole, therefore, it would seem that the various kinds of willow, the
economic value of which has been hitherto entirely overlooked in our
country, are eminently deserving, of attention, and will amply reward
those who cultivate them.

The ailantus and the catalpa are also deserving of much more
attention than has been given them. They are both quick-growing
trees, soon attaining a size fitting them for use as fuel or in the form
of lumber, while they are also very tough and durable. They combine
solidity with rapid growth in an unusual degree, which gives them
great value to the tree-planter. The ailantus is a native of China. It
was brought to this country about a hundred years ago and planted as
an ornamental tree. It was for a time very popular as a shade-tree in
the streets of many of our cities, but the disagreeable odor of its
flowers soon destroyed its popularity, and it was cast out of good
society. But, although it may not be a desirable tree for the street or
the vicinity of houses, it has, as we have said, qualities which com-
mend it to the forest-planter. The French have planted it extensively
because its leaves have been found to be a welcome food to the silk-
worm. We may find it advantageous to plant it for the same reason, if
the silk-culture is to be established in this country. The ailantus, while
it grows as rapidly as the cotton-wood, produces a wood of a spe-
cific gravity nearly equal to white oak, which it resembles in color
and structure, and above that of black-walnut. It has a beautiful
grain, takes a high polish, is easily worked, and is an admirable
wood for cabinet-work or the interior finish of houses. It will grow
on almost any soil, and is easily propagated by seed or from suck-
ers, which it throws up very abundantly. It is quite hardy as far
north as a line drawn from St. Louis to Boston, and is well fitted for
planting in exposed positions. Professor Sargent, of the Arnold Arbo-
retum, Harvard University, says of it : "A careful study of the ailan-
tus from an economic point of view, and as a subject for sylviculture,
forces on me the conclusion that no other tree, either native or for-
eign, capable of supporting the climate of so large an area of the
United States, will produce, in so short a space of time, and from land
practically useless, so large an amount of valuable material valuable
alike for construction and for fuel."

TheWestern catalpa (C. speciosa), formerly little known beyond
the region of the lower Ohio, except as a few specimens have been
grown for the sake of their beautiful flowers, which resemble somewhat
those of the horse-chestnut, has lately been found to be one of our
most valuable trees. AVhat chiefly commends it, in addition to its
very rapid growth, is its remarkable durability. ~No tree is known to
be equal to it in this respect. It seems to be almost imperishable

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. n

when exposed to moisture, and was formerly much used by the In-
dians for canoes. It has been a favorite material for fence and gate
posts, and posts are now to be seen which have been in the ground
from fifty to a hundred years, and show hardly any signs of/ decay.
It promises to be a very valuable tree for railway-ties, and some of our
railway companies, especially in the West, are planting it extensively
on this account. It is also an excellent wood for the uses of the car-
penter and the cabinet-maker. It resembles in color and texture the
chestnut, is easily worked, and takes a fine polish. The rapidity of its
growth in good soil is astonishing. A specimen from a tree which
grew in Nebraska, and shows but four annual layers of growth, meas-
ured nine and three quarters inches in circumference, and the growth
of the first two years was already turned to heart-wood. The tree is
easily propagated from seed, and will grow anywhere south of the
forty-second parallel. Specimens of it are to be found as far north as
the middle of Massachusetts, and along the sea-coast as far as Maine.
Wherever it can be established it will prove not only one of our most
beautiful but one of our most useful woods. There are two species
of catalpa indigenous* to the United States ; the Speciosa, flowering
three weeks earlier than the other, a native of the South, is the hardier
of the two, and preferable for planting.

As showing how practical men regard the catalpa and the ailantus,
we may state that the Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad have made a con-
tract with Messrs. Douglas, of Waukegan, to plant for them in Kansas
several hundred acres of these trees. A Boston capitalist has also con-
tracted for the planting in the same way of five hundred and sixty
acres of prairie-land in Eastern Kansas. The plantation is to consist
of three hundred acres of the catalpa, two hundred acres of ailantus,
not less than twenty-seven hundred and twenty trees to the acre,
and sixty acres are to be held as an experimental ground to be
planted with several varieties of trees to be selected by Professor
Sargent. What is even more noteworthy, the Iron Mountain Railroad
Company, whose road runs for hundreds of miles through a heavily
timbered country, have made a similar contract for planting near
Charleston, Missouri, one hundred acres of the catalpa as an experi-
ment. This they do because, while they own some of the finest white-
oak timber on the continent, catalpa ties have stood on their road for
twelve years entirely unaffected by decay, and the demand for ties
and for posts of this wood far exceeds the present supply. It is esti-
mated that the new railroads built in the treeless States in 1879
required over ten million ties.

The Australian eucalyptus, or blue-gum, though an Australian tree,
makes itself at home in California. It is a tree of astonishingly rapid
growth, yet, like the ailantus and catalpa, it produces heavy, solid
wood. In a plantation of it in Alameda County, California, in seven
years from planting the trees were generally ten inches in diameter

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and sixty feet high. Wonderful stories are told, also, of the value of
the eucalyptus as a preventive of malaria, and in reclaiming swamps
by absorbing their moisture. But, whatever may or may not be true
of it in these respects, the rapidity of its growth and the quality
of its wood will commend its cultivation wherever it can be accli-
mated.

A good deal has been expected of the Scotch pine, and it has been
somewhat extensively imported for the purpose of planting. In Eu-
rope it has a great reputation for the durability of its wood, and for its
rapid growth on poor soils and in exposed situations. But time is seem-
ing to prove that this tree is not well adapted to our country. It grows
well for a while, and has a promising appearance while young ; but,
after attaining an age of from twelve to twenty years, it is apt to fail,
dying off suddenly, to the great disappointment of the planter. Its
most valuable use is as a nurse-tree in very exposed places, where it
will shelter other and better trees until they get established and are
able to take care of themselves.

But it is hardly worth while to go abroad for the Scotch pine when
we have at home such a tree as the pitch-pine (P. rigida). This tree
can be produced from seed in this country in the open field with as
much certainty as a crop of corn. It has been grown for many years
in this way on the barren and wind-swept soil of Cape Cod, and its cul-
tivation has been entirely successful. Large plantations of it are to be
found there, and, for the production of fuel and as a nurse for more
valuable trees in such exposed and sterile situations, it has proved
worthy the attention of land-holders, as it can be planted at a cost of
from one to two dollars an acre.

But the white pine is the most valuable of the conifers for our
Northern States. No other is equal to it as a timber-tree. The one
drawback to its cultivation is the difficulty of producing it from seed
in the open field. It is a tender and delicate plant at its beginning.
It needs the care and shelter of the nursery. But a tree so noble when
fully grown, and so valuable for many purposes, is worthy of all needed
care when young, and will repay it abundantly. The tree-planter can
well afford to be at the expense of transplanting this tree from the
nursery. For timber, when fully grown, for shelter-belts on farms and
grounds, as well as for its fine appearance on the lawn as a single tree
or in clumps, our American white ]3ine stands second to no other tree
in its claims - upon the attention of the planter. The rapidity with
which it is being swept away by the lumberman's axe, together with
its great usefulness and desirability in the arts, and especially for build-
ing purposes, will give this tree for some time to come an increasing
economic value.

The European larch is quite worthy of cultivation, especially in
New England. Professor Sargent says, " There is no tree capable of
producing so large an amount of such valuable timber in so short a

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 13

time as the European larch, in countries where its cultivation is pos-
sible." Its cultivation has been proved possible in a large part of our
country. In the East and West alike it has been planted with success,
and has shown itself to be superior to the American larch, or hack-
matack, as it is commonly called. It is especially adapted to poor
soils, and bleak, rocky situations emphatically a tree to be planted on
waste and comparatively valueless lands. It belongs to the coniferous
family of trees, though not an evergreen. It grows to a height of
more than one hundred feet, and perhaps no tree combines more valu-
able qualities. In Europe is is especially esteemed for railway-ties.
It is the most durable wood known when alternately subjected to the
influence of air and water. Hence it is very valuable for piles for the
construction of docks and the support of buildings. Venice is largely
built upon piles made of this wood, and, though they have been ex-
posed to the elements for hundreds of years, in many cases they show
hardly any signs of decay. The European larch is more durable, as
well as stronger and tougher, than oak. For posts it is probably equal
to our red cedar. It is admirably adapted for the frames.of buildings.
Grigor, an eminent English writer on forestry, says, " No tree is so
valuable as the larch in its fertilizing effects, arising from the rich-
ness of the foliage which it sheds annually." The Messrs. Fay and
others have planted it extensively on Cape Cod and with great success.
It has been grown all the way from there to Northwestern Iowa, and
even beyond, and a village in Iowa bears the significant name " Larch-
mont."

An important practical question arises whether it is best to stdrtt a
plantation from the seed or from trees already grown from one to three
years that is, of a size convenient for transplanting. With some kinds
of trees there is little difficulty in raising them from the seed sown
where they are to grow. But the preponderance of opinion both in
Europe and in this country favors planting the young trees. Though
so large and strong when fully grown, many trees are quite small and
tender at tl}e beginning. The stately pine, that sends its lofty spire to
a height of one or even two hundred feet, is hardly visible for the first
two years of its life. It is very easily destroyed. It is most econom-
ically raised, therefore, in nurseries or seed-beds, where it can have the
needful protection and care. Transplanting, also, while in the nurs-
ery tends to give trees a furnishing of roots which prepares them to
make a more vigorous growth than when they spring from seed on the
forest-ground. It will in most cases probably be safer and cheaper
for the planter to procure his trees from the professional nursery -men
than to undertake himself to raise them from the seed. The European
larch and Scotch pine can be imported at a cost of not more than half
a cent apiece, all expenses paid. Messrs. Douglas & Sons, of Wauke-
gan, Illinois, and other nursery-men in this country, are now raising
them very largely and will furnish them at an equally cheap rate ;

i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and there are some risks in importing trees which are avoided by pur-
chasing those which are home-grown.

The Messrs. Douglas are probably the largest and most successful
raisers of forest-tree seedlings in the United States ; and, while they
are sending out trees by the million, for the encouragement of farmers
and others of small means who have had no experience in, planting, or
find it difficult to procure trees, at the suggestion of Professor Sargent,
of the Arnold Arboretum, they offer to send out dollar packages of
trees by mail, post-paid, to any part of the country. These packages
contain each from seventy-five to a hundred forest-trees. By this
means any one who has any interest in trees, or who would like to
make an experiment in growing them, may at trifling cost have them
delivered safely at his own door. Two years ago seventy-five thou-
sand trees were sent out in this way as a beginning, and not a single
one, it is said, failed to reach its destination in a good condition.

It may be well to make one statement in regard to planting a par-
ticular class of trees. These are the evergreens, or the conifers, in-
cluding of course the larches. For shelter-belts on farms and by road-
sides, and for ornamental planting near dwellings, no trees are more
desirable. They commend themselves also for their bright-green foli-
age, holding on through the long winters which prevail over so large
a portion of the country. They have been less planted than is desir-
able, because planting them has so often resulted in failure. This has
come principally from not understanding the different nature of these
trees from that of all others. The sap of the pine family is resinous
and hardens whenever the bark of the roots becomes dried by exposure
either to the sun or the wind, and when once hardened no application
of water will dissolve it and set it flowing again. The tree is death-
struck. Nothing can save it. Hence the one important thing in trans-
planting evergreens, whether from their native woods or from the
nursery, is to keep the roots in a moist state until they are safely bed-
ded in the ground again. This is the secret of success. This done,
no trees are more easily or successfully managed. We would as soon
undertake to transplant a hemlock or a pine as a currant-bush. There
is no more need of failure with the one than with the other.

We have assumed all along, if we have not directly asserted, that
the planting of trees on the large scale will be pecuniarily profitable,
while it is, on many accounts, so desirable. We turn to this point now,
however, more distinctly, because, although tree-planting is desirable
for the repair of the rapid waste of our existing forests and to main-
tain a supply of lumber for the various uses of life, indispensable in-
deed, and most important also in its bearings upon climate, agricult-
ural production, and upon all the industries and comforts of life, it
is the argument of pecuniary profit upon which we must chiefly rely
for any efficient action in the work of forestry. Nothing can be plainer,
to any one who looks at the subject in a comprehensive way, than that

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 15

there is coming an increased demand for wood, for use as fuel and in
the various arts and industries, while the sources of supply will be less-
ened for a long time to come, whatever may be done to increase them.
The existing forests, which we are sweeping off so rapidly with the
axe and by fire, have been the growth, some of them, of centuries.
They can not be replaced in this generation or the next. In some
cases they can not be replaced at all. Meantime the destruction of
what are left will continue. It is estimated that the great lumber
region of Michigan and Wisconsin will be swept of its timber in ten
years more. The increasing millions of our population will make in-
creasing demands upon the forests. With all that we may do in plant-
ing there is likely to come a scarcity of lumber and of timber for pur-
poses of construction which will carry the price far beyond anything
which we now know, and make woodlands mines of wealth to their
owners.

But comparatively few take such a large view of things ; or, if
they do, have the forecast and resolution to act upon it. It is the con-
sideration of present gain or loss which moves most men to action.
And, regarded in this light, the subject of tree-planting is one which
commends itself to almost all land-owners. Apart from the rich prai-
ries of the West, there is hardly a farm, we may say, upon which there
is not. some portion so swampy, so rocky and inaccessible, or so poor
in soil, that the cultivation of the ordinary crops upon it is impracti-
cable or unprofitable. Such portions are now properly called waste-
lands. But there ought to be no waste-lands. There need be none.
These intractable portions of many of our farms, now bearing only a
scanty and often well-nigh worthless growth, may, with little trouble,
be planted with valuable trees, which, even in a few years, will yield a
profitable return from their proper thinning, while those that may be
left will increase in value as certainly and as rapidly as money depos-
ited in a savings-bank or invested in the public funds. The farmer or
land-owner can hardly provide for his children so easily as in this way
a sure and valuable legacy. A distinguished authority has said, " As
a general rule, in the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, land under
wood, at the end of sixty years, under good management, will pay the
proprietor nearly three times the sum of money that he would have
received from any other crop on the same piece of ground."

Nothing is better understood in England and on the Continent than
that the forests are among the best and surest sources of income.
Governments and great corporations regard them as stable and impor-
tant means of revenue. In our own country, as yet, we have not
become accustomed to look upon the forests in this aspect. Nor have
we cared for them as we do for those things which we depend upon
for revenue. And yet, neglected as our woodlands have been, and
left to take care of themselves, they have yielded a fair pecuniary
return. There is no reason why, with good management, they should

16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not be as profitable as the Scotch plantations. We have already suffi-
cient demonstration of this from actual experiment. We have some
plantations of trees, both in the East and in the West, which are of
sufficient age to furnish reliable data upon this subject. Mr. Budd, a
tree-grower of Iowa, and a careful observer, says : "A grove of ten
acres, thinned to six feet apart, containing twelve thousand trees, at,
twelve years were eight inches in diameter and thirty-four feet high,
the previous thinning paying all expenses of planting and cultivation.
Ten feet of the bodies of these trees were worth, for making bent-
stuff, etc., forty cents each, and the remaining top ten cents, making a
total of $6,000 as the profit of ten acres in twelve years, or a yearly
profit of $50 per acre. 1 ' Similar reports come from other places in the
West.

But, turning from the rich lands of the West to the poor soils and
rough exposures of the East, we have sufficient examples of the profit-
ableness of tree-planting. One of the oldest in date, perhaps the
oldest example of forest-planting in this country, is that of Mr. Zacha-
riah Allen, at Smithfield, Rhode Island. In 1820 a tract of land
forty acres in extent was bequeathed to him. Professor Sargent,
from whom we take the account, says : " It had been constantly used
as a pasture for nearly a hundred years previous to its coming into
Mr. Allen's hands, and was at that time entirely worn out. The situ-
ation was an elevated one, and completely exposed to the wind, the
forty acres occupying the summit of a high hill of granite formation.
The surface was marked with ledges, cropping out in projecting cliffs,,
with intervals of loamy soil, covered with a scanty herbage, and sup-
plying nourishment to a few straggling white birches and the other
hardy plants which still too clearly mark our barren pastures. It was
found impossible to lease the land for pasturage, so exhausted had it
become. The owner consequently determined to try the experiment
of planting the whole, or that portion where the rock did not come to
the surface, with the seeds of forest-trees. The planting was done in
1820, and cost $45. Since then, for fifty-seven years, Mr. Allen has
kept a minute account of his expenditures and receipts in connection
with that field. He sets down the price of the land at fifteen dollars
an acre, that being what it was appraised at in the division of the es-
tate of the previous owner, though the taxes were for years less than
two dollars and a half yearly for the whole forty acres. Charging him-
self with the land and with interest on its valuation, and also on the
taxes paid" for fifty-seven years, his debit account stood, at the close
of 1877, $3,804.83. His credit account at the same time, for wood,
posts, timber, etc., and 320 cords still uncut, stood $6,348.06, leaving
a profit of $2,543.23, or 6 T 9 ^- per cent on the investment for the whole
term, and the land greatly improved besides."

The experiments of Messrs. Fay and others at Lynn, and on the
barren sands of Cape Cod, where thousands of acres, valued at only

METHODS AND PROFIT OF TREE-PLANTING. 17

fifty cents apiece, and hardly worth that, have been planted with the
native pitch and white pine, the Scotch and Austrian pine, the Nor-
way spruce, and the European larch, are equally convincing. Mr.
Fay planted in 1854, and in 1877 had one hundred and twenty-five
acres densely covered with trees. The larches had reached a height
of forty feet and a diameter of fourteen inches. Scotch pines, sown
as late as 1861, were thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter a foot
from the ground. Mr. Fay is abundantly satisfied with the results of
his experiments. Professor Sargent says, speaking of the plantations
made by Messrs. Fay and others : " When we consider the success
which has attended the experiments of these gentlemen in reclothing
their property with forest growths, under circumstances, too, as dis-
advantageous as it is possible for Massachusetts to offer, it must be
acknowledged that the attempt to replant our unimproved lands. is a
perfectly feasible one; and the only wonder is that the inhabitants of
Essex and Barnstable Counties, with such examples before them, have
not already planted their worthless, worn-out lands with a crop which
would yield a larger profit than any they have produced since the first
clearing of the forest."

Taking the results of Mr. Fay's planting, and the average results
of the planting of the larches in the Highlands of Scotland, which are
nearly the same in like conditions, Professor Sargent finds that, on
ordinary soil, larches planted when about one foot high and three years
old, will in twenty years average twenty-two feet in height and seven
inches in diameter three feet from the ground ; and that in thirty
years they will be from thirty-five to forty feet high and twelve inches
in diameter; and, if thinned out, the remaining trees, at fifty years
from the time of planting, will reach from sixty to seventy feet in
height and at least twenty inches in diameter. On this basis he makes
the estimated profit on a plantation of ten acres of larch-trees, at the
end of fifty years, to be $52,282.75, or thirteen per cent per annum for
the whole time. The estimate is carefully made, as would be seen, if we
had space for the particulars ; but with a considerable discount from
the figures of Professor Sargent there is left, certainly, a reasonable
profit.

It is to be remembered also that trees are not exhausting crops, but
that they tend to enrich and improve the land on which they grow.
If this be taken into account, the estimate of possible and probable
profit from the planting of our many acres of wild, rocky, sandy, and
other poor and practically waste land, is to be counted only by mill-
ions of dollars, while the benefits that would accrue from extensive
tree-planting in the more equable distribution of rain and the flow of
our streams^ in meteorologic influences upon health and comfort, and in
other ways, would be simply incalculable.

VOL. XXI. 2

18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

PEOFESSOE GOLDWIJNT SMITH AS A CEITIC.

By HERBERT SPENCER.

N the pref ace to the " Data of Ethics " there occurs the following
sentence :

AVith a view to clearness, I have treated separately some correlative aspects
of conduct, drawing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced
from the other, and have thus given abundant opportunity for misrepresentation.

When I wrote this sentence, I little dreamed that Professor. Gold-
win Smith would be the man to verify my expectation more fully than
I expected it to be verified by the bitterest bigot among those classed
as orthodox.

I do not propose here to enter upon a controversy. I propose sim-
ply to warn readers that, before accepting Professor Goldwin Smith's
versions of my views, it will be well to take the precaution of refer-
ring to the views as expressed by myself, to see whether the two cor-
respond. And, by way of showing that this warning is called for, I
will give them the opportunity of comparing representation with real-
ity in a single instance.

In his article in the last number of this " Eeview," and on page
340, he characterizes the doctrine I have set forth in these words :

An authoritative conscience, duty, virtue, obligation, principle, and rectitude
of motive, no more enter into his definitions, or form parts of his system, than
does the religious sanction.

Before going further, let the reader dwell a moment on this state-
ment, and consider the full implication of its words. Let him ask
himself what kind of conclusions he would look for in a system of
ethics which does not recognize " an authoritative conscience " ; what
ideas of right and wrong are likely to be found in a treatise on con-
duct which excludes "duty" and "virtue"; what he thinks must be
the general traits of a moral doctrine in which "principle" has no
place. Then, when he has fully impressed himself with the meaning
of Professor Smith's words, and imagined the kind of teaching indi-
cated by them, let him observe the teaching he actually finds. The
following passage, from chapter ix of the " Data of Ethics," will pre-
pare the way for more specific passages :

It is quite consistent to assert that happiness is the ultimate aim of action,
and at the same time to deny that it can be reached by making it the immediate
aim. I go with Mr. Sidgwick as far as the conclusion that "we must at least
admit the desirability of confirming or correcting the results of such compari-
sons [of pleasures and pains] by any other method upon which we may find rea-
son to rely " ; and I then go further and say that, throughout a large part of
conduct, guidance by such comparisons is to be entirely set aside and replaced
by other guidance (pp. 155, 156).

PROFESSOR GOLD WIN SMITH AS A CRITIC. 19

Even without going further, it will, I think, be manifest enough that,
instead of putting pleasures and pains in the foreground, as alone to
be considered in determining right and wrong (which Professor Gold-
win Smith's account of my views will lead every reader to suppose I
do), I have here distinctly asserted the need for another method of
determining right and wrong. And if comparisons of pleasures and
pains, or estimations of happiness, are to be " entirely set aside " in
the guidance of " a large part of conduct," it will puzzle any reader to
conceive what such guidance can be if there are excluded from it all
ideas of principle, rectitude, duty, obligation. But now, remarking
this much, I go on to point out that a large part of the chapter is de-
voted to the refutation of Bentham's doctrine, that happiness is to be
the immediate object of pursuit. I have insisted on the authoritative
character of certain "regulative principles for the conduct of asso-
ciated human beings" (p. 167), which are already recognized and "es-
tablished," and have urged that conformity to these must be the direct
aim, and not happiness. Concerning certain moral ideas and senti-
ments, I have said :

Are they supernaturally-caused modes of thinking and feeling, tending to
make men fulfill the conditions to happiness? If so, their authority is peremp-
tory. Are they modes of thinking and feeling naturally caused in men by ex-
perience of these conditions? If so, their authority is no less peremptory (p.
168).

And then, having in various ways explained and enforced the need
for these "regulative principles," and the peremptory authority of
these " modes of thinking and feeling " known as conscience, I have
closed the chapter by saying that "conflicting ethical theories . . .
severally embody portions of the truth, and simply require combining
in proper order to embody the whole truth" (p. 171).

The theological theory contains a part. If for the divine will, supposed to
be supernaturally revealed, we substitute the naturally-revealed end toward
which the power manifested throughout evolution works; then, since evolution
has been, and is still, working toward the highest life, it follows that conform-
ing to those principles by which the highest life is achieved is furthering that
end. The doctrine, that perfection or excellence of nature should be the object
of pursuit, is in one sense true, for it tacitly recognizes that ideal form of being
which the highest life implies, and to which evolution tends. There is a truth,
also, in the doctrine that virtue must be the aim, for this is another form of the
doctrine that, the aim must be to fulfill the conditions to achievement of the
highest life. That the intuitions of a moral faculty should guide our conduct is
a proposition in which a truth is contained, for these intuitions are the slowly
organized results of experiences received by the race while living in presence of
these conditions. And that happiness as the supreme end is beyond question
true, for this is the concomitant of that highest life which every theory of
moral guidance has distinctly or vaguely in view.

So understanding their relative positions, those ethical systems which make
virtue, right, obligation the cardinal aims, are seen to be complementary to those

zo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ethical systems which make welfare, pleasure, happiness the cardinal aims (pp.
171, 172).

Nor is this all. Having asserted that the moral sentiments " are
indispensable as incentives and deterrents," and that " the intuitions
corresponding to these sentiments " have " a general authority to be
reverently recognized," I have ended by saying :

Hence, recognizing in due degrees all the various ethical theories,- conduct in
its highest form will take as guides, innate perceptions of right, duly enlight-
ened and made precise by an analytic intelligence, while conscious that these
guides are proximately supreme solely because they lead to the ultimately su-
preme end happiness, special and general (pp. 172, 173).

Experience does not lead me to suppose that Professor Goldwin
Smith will admit his description of my views to be unjustified. Con-
trariwise, many instances have proved to me that, when the statements,
first made are not distinguished by great scrupulousness, no great scru-
pulousness is shown in the defense of them. The reader will be able,
however, to decide beforehand whether any reply which may be made
can be adequate. He has simply to ask himself whether, having read
the sentence I have quoted from Professor Goldwin Smith, he could
have expected to find in the " Data of Ethics " the passages I have
quoted from it. If he says " No," as he must do, then, whatever ex-
planation or defense may be offered, will leave outstanding the charge
of grave misrepresentation.

Perhaps it will be assumed that this is simply a mistake, an inad-
vertence, an oversight on the part of Professor Goldwin Smith an
excejDtional error he has fallen into. Well, even were this true, it
could hardly be held to excuse him, considering that his statement in-
volves a condemnatory characterization of the work as a whole. But
it is not true. So far from being exceptional, the instance I have
given is typical of his entire criticism. I have noted eight other state-
ments of his concerning views of mine, which are quite at variance
with the facts most of them as widely at variance as the one I have
instanced. I do not wish to occupy either my own time or the pages
of the " Contemporary Review " in setting forth these at length, but
I am quite prepared to do it if need be. Contemporary Review.

-+++-

MONKEYS.

Bt ALFRED ETTSSEL WALLACE.

IF the skeletons of an orang-outang and a chimpanzee be compared
with that of a man, there will be found to be the most wonderful
resemblance, together with a very marked diversity. Bone for bone,
throughout the whole structure, will be found to agree in general

MONKEYS. 21

form, position, and function, the only absolute differences being that
the orang has nine wrist-bones, whereas man and the chimpanzee have
but eight ; and the chimpanzee has thirteen pairs of ribs, whereas
the orang, like man, has but twelve. AVith these two exceptions, the
differences are those of shape, proportion, and direction only, though
the resulting differences in the external form and motions are very
considerable. The greatest of these are, that the feet of the anthro-
poid or man-like apes, as well as those of all monkeys, are formed like
hands, with large opposable thumbs fitted to grasp the branches of
trees, but unsuitable for erect walking, while the hands have weak
small thumbs but very long and powerful fingers, forming a hook
rather than a hand, adapted for climbing up trees and suspending the
whole weight from horizontal branches. The almost complete identity
of the skeleton, however, and the close similarity of the muscles and
of all the internal organs, have produced that striking and ludicrous
resemblance to man which every one recognizes in these higher apes
and, in a less degree, in the whole monkey tribe ; the face and feat-
ures, the motions, attitudes, and gestures being often a strange carica-
ture of humanity. Let us, then, examine a little more closely in what
the resemblance consists, and how far, and to what extent, these ani-
mals really differ from us.

Besides the face, which is often wonderfully human although the
absence of any protuberant nose gives it often a curiously infantile
aspect monkeys, and especially apes, resemble us most closely in the
hand and arm. The hand has well-formed fingers with nails, and the
skin of the palm is lined and furrowed like our own. The thumb is,
however, smaller and weaker than ours, and is not so much used in
taking hold of anything. The monkey's hand is, therefore, not so
well adapted as that of man for a variety of purposes, and can not be
applied with such precision in holding small objects, while it is un-
suitable for performing delicate operations such as tying a knot or
writing with a pen. A monkey does not take hold of a nut with its
forefinger and thumb as we do, but grasps it between the fingers and
the palm in a clumsy way, just as a baby does before it has acquired
the proper use of its hand. Two groups of monkeys one in Africa
and one in South America have no thumbs on their hands, and yet
they do not seem to be in any respect inferior to other kinds which
possess it. In most of the American monkeys the thumb bends in
the same direction as the fingers, and in none is it so perfectly opposed
to the fingers as our thumbs are ; and all these circumstances show
that the hand of the monkey is, both structurally and functionally, a
very different, and very inferior organ to that of man, since it is not
applied to similar purposes, nor is it capable of being so applied.

When we look at the feet of monkeys we find a still greater differ-
ence, for these have much larger and more opposable thumbs, and are,
therefore, more like our hands ; and this is the case with all monkeys,

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

so that even those which have no thumbs on their hands, or have them
small and weak and parallel to the fingers, have always large and
well-formed thumbs on their feet. It was on account of this peculiar-
ity that the great French naturalist Cuvier named the whole group of
monkeys Quadrumana, or four-handed animals, because, besides the
two hands on their fore-limbs, they have also two hands in place of
feet on their hind-limbs. Modern naturalists have given up the use
of this term, because they say that the hind extremities of all monkeys
are really feet, only these feet are shaped like hands ; but this is a
point of anatomy, or rather of nomenclature, which we need not here
discuss.

Let us, however, before going further, inquire into the purpose and
use of this peculiarity, and we shall then see that it is simply an
adaptation to the mode of life of the animals which possess it. Monk-
eys, as a rule, live in trees, and are especially abundant in the great
tropical forests. They feed chiefly upon fruits, and occasionally eat
insects and birds'-eggs, as well as young birds, all of which they find
in the trees ; and, as they have no occasion to come down to the
ground, they travel from tree to tree by jumping or swinging, and
thus pass the greater part of their lives entirely among the leafy
branches of lofty trees. For such a mode of existence, they require
to be able to move with perfect ease upon large or small branches, and
to climb up rapidly from one bough to another. As they use their
hands for gathering fruit and catching insects or birds, they require
some means of holding on with their feet, otherwise they would be
liable to continual falls, and they are able to do this by means of their
long finger-like toes and large opposable thumbs, which grasp a branch
almost as securely as a bird grasps its perch. The true hands, on the
contrary, are used chiefly to climb with, and to swing the whole
weight of the body from one branch or one tree to another, and for
this purpose the fingers are very long and strong, and in many species
they are further strengthened by being partially joined together, as if
the skin of our fingers grew together as far as the knuckles. This
shows that the separate action of the fingers, which is so important to
us, is little required by monkeys, whose hand is really an organ for
climbing and seizing food, while their foot is required to support them
firmly in any position on the branches of trees, and for this purpose
it has become modified into a large and powerful grasping hand.

Another striking difference between monkeys and men is, that the
former never walk with ease in an erect posture, but always use their
arms in climbing or in walking on all-fours like most quadrupeds.
The monkeys that we see in the streets, dressed up and walking erect,
only do so after much drilling and teaching, just as dogs may be
taught to walk in the same way ; and the posture is almost as unnat-
ural to the one animal as it is to the other. The largest and most
man-like of the apes the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang-outang also

MONKEYS. 23

walk usually on all-fours ; but in these the arms are so long and the
legs so short that the body appears half erect when walking ; and
they have the habit of resting on the knuckles of the hands, not on
the palms like the smaller monkeys, whose arms and legs are more
nearly of an equal length, which tends still further to give them a
semi-erect position. Still, they are never known to walk of their
own accord on their hind-legs only, though they can do so for short
distances, and the story of their using a stick and walking erect by its
help in the wild state is not true. Monkeys, then, are both four-
handed and four-footed beasts ; they possess four hands formed very
much like our hands, and capable of picking up or holding any small
object in the same manner ; but they are also four-footed, because
they use all four limbs for the purpose of walking, running, or climb-
ing ; and, being adapted to this double purpose, the hands want the
delicacy of touch and the freedom as well as the precision of move-
ment which ours possess. Man alone is so constructed that he walks
erect wUh perfect ease, and has his hands free for any use to which
he wishes to apply them ; and this is the great and essential bodily
distinction between monkeys and men.

We will now give some account of the different kinds of monkeys
and the countries they inhabit.

The Different Kinds of Monkeys and the Countries they
inhabit. Monkeys are usually divided into three kinds apes, monk-
eys, and baboons ; but these do not include the American monkeys,
which are really more different from all those of the Old World than
any of the latter are from each other. Naturalists, therefore, divide
the whole monkey-tribe into two great families, inhabiting the Old
and the New Worlds respectively ; and, if we learn to remember the
kind of differences by which these several groups are distinguished,
we shall be able to understand something of the classification of ani-
mals, and the difference between important and unimportant characters.

Taking first the Old World groups, they may be thus defined :
apes have no tails ; monkeys have tails, which are usually long ; while
baboons have short tails, and their faces, instead of being round and
with a man-like expression as in apes and monkeys, are long and more
dog-like. These differences are, however, by no means constant, and
it is often difficult to tell whether an animal should be classed as an
ape, a monkey, or a baboon. The Gibraltar ape, for example, though
it has no tail, is really a monkey, because it has callosities, or hard
pads of bare skin on which it sits, and cheek-pouches in which it can
stow away food ; the latter character being always absent in the true
apes, while both. are present in most monkeys and baboons. All these
animals, however, from the largest ape to the smallest monkey, have
the same number of teeth as we have, and they are arranged in a
similar manner, although the tusks, or canine teeth, of the males are
often large, like those of a dog.

2 + THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The American monkeys, on the other hand, with the exception of
the marmosets, have four additional grinding-teeth (one in each jaw
on either side), and none of them have callosities or cheek-pouches.
They never have prominent snouts like the baboons ; their nostrils are
placed wide apart and open sideways on the face ; the tail, though
sometimes short, is never quite absent ; and the thumb bends the same
way as the fingers, is generally very short and weak, and is often quite
wanting. We thus see that these American monkeys differ in a great
number of characters from those of the Eastern hemisphere ; and they
have this further peculiarity, that many of them have prehensile or
grasping tails, which are never found in the monkeys of any other
country. This curious organ serves the purpose of a fifth hand. It
has so much muscular power that the animal can hang by it easily
with the tip curled round a branch, while it can also be used to pick
up small objects with almost as much ease and exactness as an ele-
phant's trunk. In those species which have it most perfectly formed
it is very long and powerful, and the end has the under-side cpvered
with bare skin, exactly resembling that of the finger or palm of the
hand, and apparently equally sensitive. One of the common kinds of
monkeys that accompany street organ-players has a prehensile tail, but
not of the most perfect kind ; since in this species the tail is entirely
clad with hair to the tip, and seems to be used chiefly to steady the
animal when sitting on a branch by being twisted round another
branch near it. The statement is often erroneously made that all
American monkeys have prehensile tails ; but the fact is that rather
less than half the known kinds have them so, the remainder having
this organ either short and bushy or long and slender, but entirely
without any power of grasping. All prehensile-tailed monkeys are
American, but all American monkeys are not prehensile-tailed.

By remembering these characters it is easy, with a little observa-
tion, to tell whether any strange monkey comes from America or from
the Old World. If it has bare seat-pads, or if when eating it fills its
mouth till its cheeks swell out like little bags, we may be sure it
comes from some part of Africa or Asia ; while, if it can curl up the
end of its tail so as to take hold of anything, it is certainly Ameri-
can. As all the tailed monkeys of the Old World have seat-pads (or
ischial callosities as they are called in scientific language), and as all
the American monkeys have tails, but no seat-pads, this is the most
constant external character by which to distinguish them ; and, having
done so, we can look for the other peculiarities of the American monk-
eys, especially the distance apart of the nostrils and their lateral po-
sition.

The whole monkey-tribe is especially tropical, only a few kinds
being found in the warmer parts of the temperate zone. One inhabits
the Rock of Gibraltar, and there is one very like it in Japan, and these
are the two monkeys which live farthest from the equator. In the

MONKEYS. 25

tropics they become very abundant, and increase in numbers and va-
riety as we approach the equator, where the climate is hot, moist, and
equable, and where flowers, fruits, and insects are to be found through-
out the year. Africa has about fifty -five different kinds, Asia and its
islands about sixty, while America has one hundred and fourteen, or
almost exactly the same as Asia and Africa together. Australia and its
islands have no monkeys, nor has the great and luxuriant Island of New
Guinea, whose magnificent forests seem so well adapted for them.
We will now give a short account of the different kinds of monkeys
inhabiting each of the tropical continents.

Africa possesses two of the great man-like apes the gorilla and
the chimpanzee, the former being the largest ape known, and the one
which, on the whole, perhaps most resembles man, though its counte-
nance is less human than that of the chimpanzee. Both are found in
West Africa, near the equator, but they also inhabit the interior
wherever there are great forests ; and Dr. Schweinfurth states that
the chimpanzee inhabits the country about the sources of the Shari
River, in 28 east longitude and 4 north latitude.

The long-tailed monkeys of Africa are very numerous and varied.
One group has no cheek-pouches and no thumb on the hand, and many
of these have long, soft fur of varied colors. The most numerous
group are the guenons, rather small, long-tailed monkeys, very active
and lively, and often having their faces curiously marked with white
or black, or ornamented with whiskers or other tufts of hair ; and
they all have large cheek-pouches and good-sized thumbs. Many of
them are called green monkeys, from the greenish-yellow tint of their
fur, and most of them are well-formed, pleasing animals. They are
found only in tropical Africa.

The baboons are larger, but less numerous. Thev resemble dogs
in the general form and the length of the face or snout, but they have
hands with well-developed thumbs on both the fore and hind limbs ;
and this, with something in the expression of the face, and their habit
of sitting up and using their hands in a very human fashion, at once
shows that they belong to the monkey-tribe. Many of them are very
ugly, and in their wild state they are the fiercest and most dangerous
of monkeys. Some have the tail very long, others of medium length,
while it is sometimes reduced to a mere stump, and all have large
cheek-pouches and bare seat-pads. They are found all over Africa,
from Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope ; while one species, called the
hamadryas, extends from Abyssinia across the Red Sea into Arabia,
and is the only baboon found out of Africa. This species was known
to the ancients, and it is often represented in Egyptian sculptures,
while mummies of it have been found in the catacombs. The largest
and most remarkable of all the baboons is the mandrill of West Af-
rica, whose swollen and hog-like face is ornamented with stripes of
vivid blue and scarlet. This animal has a tail scarcely two inches

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

long, while in size and strength it is not much inferior to the gorilla.
These large baboons go in bands, and are said to be a match for any-
other animals in the African forests, and even to attack and drive
away the elephants from the districts they inhabit.

Turning now to Asia, we have first one of the best known of the
large man-like apes the orang-outang, found only in the two large
islands, Borneo and Sumatra. The name is Malay, signifying " man
of the woods," and it should be pronounced orang-ootang, the accent
being on the first syllable of both words. It is a very curious circum-
stance that, whereas the gorilla and chimpanzee are both black, like
the negroes of the same country, the orang-outang is red or reddish-
brown, closely resembling the color of the Malays and Dyaks who live
in the Bornean forests. Though very large and powerful, it is a harm-
less creature, feeding on fruit, and never attacking any other animal
except in self-defense. A full-grown male orang-outang is rather more
than four feet high, but with a body as large as that of a stout man,
and with enormously long and powerful arms.

Another group of true apes inhabit Asia and the larger Asiatic
islands, and are in some respects the most remarkable of the whole
family. These are the gibbons, or long-armed apes, w^hich are gen-
erally of small size and of a gentle disposition, but possessing the most
wonderful agility. In these creatures the arms are as long as the body
and legs together, and are so powerful that a gibbon will hang for
hours suspended from a branch, or swing to-and-fro, and then throw
itself a great distance through the air. The arms, in fact, completely
take the place of the legs for traveling. Instead of jumping from
bough to bough, and running on the branches, like other apes and
monkeys, the gibbons move along while hanging suspended in the air,
stretching their arms from bough to bough, and thus going hand over
hand as a very active sailor will climb along a rope. The strength of
their arms is, however, so prodigious, and their hold so sure, that they
often loose one hand before they have caught a bough with the other,
thus seeming almost to fly through the air by a series of swinging
leaps ; and they travel among the net-work of interlacing boughs a
hundred feet above the earth with as much ease and certainty as we
walk or run upon level ground, and with even greater speed. These
little animals scarcely ever come down to the ground of their own ac-
cord ; but, when obliged to do so, they run along almost erect, with
their long arms swinging round and round, as if trying to find some
tree or other object to climb upon. They are the only apes who nat-
urally walk without using their hands as well as their feet ; but this
does not make them more like men, for it is evident that the attitude
is not an easy one, and is only adopted because the arms are habitually
used to swing by, and are therefore naturally held upward instead of
downward, as they must be when walking on them.

The tailed monkeys of Asia consist of two groups, the first of which

MONKEYS, 27

have no cheek-pouches, but always have very long tails. They are
true forest monkeys, very active, and of a shy disposition. The most
remarkable of these is the long-nosed monkey of Borneo, which is very
large, of a pale-brown color, and distinguished by possessing a long,
pointed, fleshy nose, totally unlike that of all other monkeys. Another
interesting species is the black and white entellus monkey of India,
called " Hanuman " by the Hindoos, and considered sacred by them.
These animals are petted and fed, and at some of the temples numbers
of them come every day for the food which the priests, as well as the
people, provide for them.

The next group of Eastern monkeys are the Macaques, which are
more like baboons, and often run upon the ground. They are more
bold and vicious than the others. All have cheek-pouches, and though
some have long tails, in others the tail is short, or reduced to a mere
stump. In some few this stump is so very short that there appears to
be no tail, as in the magot of North Africa and Gibraltar, and in an
allied species that inhabits Japan.

American Monkeys. The monkeys which inhabit America form
three very distinct groups : 1. The Sapajous, which have prehensile or
grasping tails ; 2. The Sagouins, which have ordinary tails, either long
or short ; and, 3. The Marmosets, very small creatures, with sharp
claws, long tails, which are not prehensile, and a smaller number of
. teeth than all other American monkeys. Each of these three groups
contains several sub-groups, or genera, which often differ remarkably
from each other, and from all the monkeys of the Old World.

We will begin with the howling monkeys, which are the largest
found in America, and are celebrated for the loud voice of the males.
Often in the great forests of the Amazon, or Orinoco, a tremendous
noise is heard in the night or early morning, as if a great assemblage
of wild beasts were all roaring and screaming together. The noise
may be heard for miles, and it is louder and more piercing than that of
any other animals, yet it is all produced by a single male howler sitting
on the branches of some lofty tree. They are enabled to make this
extraordinary noise by means of an organ that is possessed by no other
animal. The. lower jaw is unusually deep, and this makes room for a
hollow bony vessel about the size of a large walnut, situated under the
root of the tongue, and having an opening into the windpipe by which
the animal can force air into it. This increases the power of its voice,
acting something like the hollow case of a violin, and producing those
marvelous rolling and reverberating sounds which caused the celebrated
traveler Waterton to declare that they were such as might have had
their origin in the infernal regions. The howlers are large and stout-
bodied monkeys with bearded faces, and very strong and powerfully
grasping tails. They inhabit the wildest forests ; they are very shy,
and are seldom taken captive, though they are less active than many
other American monkeys.

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Next come the spider-monkeys, so called from their slender bodies
and enormously long limbs and tail. In these monkeys the tail is so
long, strong, and perfect, that it completely takes the place of a fifth
hand. By twisting the end of it round a branch the animal can swing
freely in the air with complete safety; and this gives them a wonderful
power of climbing and passing from tree to tree, because the distance
they can stretch is that of the tail, body, and arm added together, and
these are all unusually long. They can also swing themselves through
the air for great distances, and are thus able to pass rapidly from tree
to tree without ever descending to the ground, just like the gibbons
in the Malayan forests. Although capable of feats of wonderful agility,
the spider-monkeys are usually slow and deliberate in their motions,
and have a timid, melancholy expression, very different from that of
most monkeys. Their hands are very long, but have only four fingers,,
being adapted for hanging on to branches rather than for getting hold
of small objects. It is said that, when they have to cross a river the
trees on the opposite banks of which do not approach near enough for
a leap, several of them form a chain, one hanging by its tail from a
lofty overhanging branch and seizing hold of the tail of the one below
it, then gradually swinging themselves backward and forward till the
lower one is able to seize hold of a branch on the opposite side. He
then climbs up the tree, and, when sufficiently high, the first one lets
go, and the swing either carries him across to a bough on the opposite
side or he climbs up over his companions.

Closely allied to the last are the woolly monkeys, which have an
equally well-developed prehensile tail, but better proportioned limbs,
and a thick, wholly fur of a uniform gray or brownish color. They
have well-formed fingers and thumbs, both on the hands and feet, and
are rather deliberate in their motions, and exceedingly tame and affec-
tionate in captivity. They are great eaters, and are usually very fat.
They are found only in the far interior of the Amazon Valley, and,
having a delicate constitution, seldom live long in Europe. These
monkeys are not so fond of swinging themselves about by their tails as
are the spider-monkeys, and offer more opportunities of observing how
completely this organ takes the place of a fifth hand. "When walking
about a house, or on the deck of a ship, the partially curled tail is car-
ried in an horizontal position on the ground, and the moment it touches
anything it twists round it and brings it forward, when, if eatable, it is
at once appropriated ; and when fastened up the animal will obtain any
food that may be out of reach of its hands with the greatest facility,
picking up small bits of biscuit, nuts, etc., much as an elephant does
with the tip of his trunk.

We now come to a group of monkeys whose prehensile tail is of a
less perfect character, since it is covered with hair to the tip, and is of
no use to pick up objects. It can, however, curl round a branch, and
serves to steady the animal while sitting or feeding, but is never used

MONKEYS. 29

to hang and swing by, in the manner so common with the spider-
monkeys and their allies. These are rather small-sized animals, with
round heads and with moderately long tails. They are very active and
intelligent, their limbs are not so long as in the preceding group, and,
though they have five fingers on each hand and foot, the hands have
weak and hardly opposable thumbs. Some species of these monkeys
are often carried about by itinerant organ-men, and are taught to walk
erect and perform many amusing tricks. They form the genus Cebus
of naturalists.

The remainder of the American monkeys have non-prehensile tails,
like those of the monkeys of the Eastern hemisphere ; but they consist
of several distinct groups, and differ very much in appearance and
habits. First we have the Sakis, which have a bushy tail and usually
very long and thick hair, something like that of a bear. Sometimes
the tail is very short, appearing like a rounded tuft of hair ; many of
the species have fine bushy whiskers, which meet under the chin, and
appear as if they had been dressed and trimmed by a barber, and the
head is often covered with thick, curly hair, looking like a wig.
Others, again, have the face quite red, and one has the head nearly
bald a most remarkable peculiarity among monkeys. This latter
species was met with by Mr. Bates on the upper Amazon, and he de-
scribes the face as being of a vivid scarlet, the body clothed from neck
to tail with very long, straight, and shining white hair, while the head
was nearly bald, owing to the very short crop of thin, gray hairs. As
a finish to their striking physiognomy, these monkeys have bushy
whiskers, of a sandy color, meeting under the chin, and yellowish-gray
eyes. The color of the face is so vivid that it looks as if covered with
a thick coat of bright scarlet paint. These creatures are very delicate,
and have never reached Europe alive, though several of the allied
forms have lived some time in our Zoological Gardens.

An allied group consists of the elegant squirrel-monkeys, with long,
straight, hairy tails, and often adorned with prettily variegated colors.
They are usually small animals ; some have the face marked with black
and white, others have curious whiskers, and their nails are rather
sharp and claw-like. They have large, round heads, and their fur is
more glossy and smooth than in most other American monkeys, so that
they more resemble some of the smaller monkeys of Africa. These
little creatures are very active, running about the trees like squirrels,
and feeding largely on insects as well as on fruit.

Closely allied to these are the small group of night-monkeys, which
have large eyes, and a round face surrounded by a kind of ruff of
whitish fur, so as to give it an owl -like appearance, whence they are
sometimes called owl-faced monkeys. They are covered with soft,
gray fur, like that of a rabbit, and sleep all day long, concealed in
hollow trees. The face is also marked with white patches and stripes,
giving it a rather carnivorous or cat-like aspect, which, perhaps, serves

3 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as a protection, by causing the defenseless creature to be taken for an
arboreal tiger-cat, or some such beast of prey.

This finishes the series of such of the American monkeys as have
a larger number of teeth than those of the Old World. But there is
another group, the Marmosets, which have the same number of teeth
as Eastern monkeys, but differently distributed in the jaws, a premolar
being substituted for a molar tooth. In other particulars they resemble
the rest of the American monkeys. These are very small and delicate
creatures, some having the body only seven inches long. The thumb
of the hands is not opposable, and instead of nails they have sharp,
compressed claws. These diminutive monkeys have long, non-prehen-
sile tails, and they have a silky fur, often of varied and beautiful colors.
Some are striped with gray and white, or are of rich brown or golden-
brown tints, varied by having the head or shoulders white or black,
while in many there are crests, frills, manes, or long ear-tufts, adding
greatly to their variety and beauty. These little animals are timid
and restless ; their motions are more like those of a squirrel than a
monkey. Their sharp claws enable them to run quickly along the
branches, but they seldom leap from bough to bough, like the larger
monkeys. They live on fruits and insects, but are much afraid of
wasps, which they are said to recognize even in a picture. This com-
pletes our sketch of the American monkeys, and we see that, although
they possess no such remarkable forms as the gorilla or the baboons,
yet they exhibit a wonderful diversity of external characters, consider-
ing that all seem equally adapted to a purely arboreal life. In the
howlers we have a specially developed voice-organ, which is altogether
peculiar ; in the spider-monkeys we find the adaptation to active motion
among the topmost branches of the forest-trees carried to an extreme
point of development ; while the singular nocturnal monkeys, the active
squirrel-monkeys, and the exquisite little marmosets, show how distinct
are the forms under which the same general type may be exhibited,
and in how many varied ways existence may be sustained under almost
identical conditions.

Lemurs. In the general term, monkeys, considered as equivalent
to the order Primates, or the Quadrumana of naturalists, we have to
include another sub-type, that of the lemurs. These animals are of a
lower grade than the true monkeys, from which they differ in so
many points of structure that they are considered to form a distinct
sub-order, or, by some naturalists, even a separate order. They have
usually a much larger head and more pointed muzzle than monkeys ;
they vary considerably in the number, form, and arrangement of the
teeth ; their thumbs are always well developed, but their fingers vary
much in size and length ; their tails are usually long, but several
species have no tail whatever, and they are clothed with a more or
less woolly fur, often prettily variegated with white and black. They
inhabit the deep forests of Africa, Madagascar, and Southern Asia,

MONKEYS. 3 1

and are more sluggish in their movements than true monkeys, most
of them being of nocturnal or crepuscular habits. They feed largely
on insects, eating also fruits and the eggs or young of birds.

The most curious species are the slow lemurs of South India,
small tailless nocturnal animals, somewhat resembling sloths in appear-
ance and almost as deliberate in their movements, except when in the
act of seizing their insect prey ; the tarsier, or specter-lemur, of the
Malay Islands, a small long-tailed nocturnal lemur, remarkable for the
curious development of the hind-feet, which have two of the toes very
short and with sharp claws, while the others have nails, the third toe
beino- exceedingly long and slender, though the thumb is very large,
giving the feet a very irregular and outre appearance ; and, lastly, the
aye-aye of Madagascar, the most remarkable of all. This animal has
very large ears and a squirrel -like tail, with long, spreading hair. It
has large curved incisor teeth, which add to its squirrel-like appear-
ance and caused the early naturalists to class it among the rodents.
But its most remarkable character is found in its fore-feet or hands,
the fingers of which are all very long and armed with sharp, curved
claws, but one of them, the second, is wonderfully slender, being not
half the thickness of the others. This curious combination of charac-
ters shows that the aye-aye is a very specialized form that is, one
whose organization has been slowly modified to fit it for a peculiar
mode of life. From information received from its native country, and
from a profound study of its organization, Professor Owen believes
that it is adapted for the one purpose of feeding on small, wood-boring
insects. Its large feet and sharp claws enable it to cling firmly to the
branches of trees in almost any position ; by means of its large, deli-
cate ears it listens for the sound of the insect gnawing within the
branch, and is thus able to fix its exact position ; with its powerful
curved gnawing teeth it rapidly cuts away the bark and wood till it .
exposes the burrow of the insect, most probably the soft larva of some
beetle, and then comes into play the extraordinary long wire-like
finger, which enters the small cylindrical burrow, and with the sharp
bent claw hooks out the grub. Here we have a most complex adapta-
tion of different parts and organs all converging to one special end,
that end being the same as is reached by a group of birds, the wood-
peckers, in a different way ; and it is a most interesting fact that,
although woodpeckers abound in all the great continents, and are
especially common in the tropical forests of Asia, Africa, and America,
they are quite absent from Madagascar. We may therefore consider
that the aye-aye really occupies the same place in nature in the forests
of this tropical island as do the woodpeckers in other parts of the
world.

Distribution, Affinities, and Zoological Rank of Monkets.
Having thus sketched an outline of the monkey-tribe as regards
their more prominent external characters and habits, we must say a

32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

few words on their general relations as a distinct order of mammalia.
No other group, so extensive and so varied as this, is so exclusively
tropical in its distribution, a circumstance no doubt due to the fact
that monkeys depend so largely on fruit and insects for their subsist-
ence. A very few species extend into the warmer parts of the tem-
perate zones, their extreme limits in the northern hemisphere being
Gibraltar, the western Himalayas at eleven thousand feet elevation,
East Thibet, and Japan. In America they are found in Mexico, but
do not appear to pass beyond the tropic. In the southern hemisphere
they are limited by the extent of the forests in South Brazil, which
reach about 30 south latitude. In the East, owing to their entire
absence from Australia, they do not reach the tropic ; but in Africa
some baboons range to the southern extremity of the continent.

But this extreme restriction of the order to almost tropical lands is
only recent. Directly we go back to the Pliocene period of geology,
we find the remains of monkeys in France, and even in England. In
the earlier Miocene several kinds, some of large size, lived in France,
Germany, and Greece, all more or less closely allied to living forms of
Asia and Africa. About the same period monkeys of the South
American type inhabited the United States. In the remote Eocene
period the same temperate lands were inhabited by lemurs in the East,
and by curious animals believed to be intermediate between lemurs
and marmosets in the West. We know from a variety of other evi-
dence that throughout these vast periods a mild and almost sub-trop-
ical climate extended over all Central Europe and parts of North
America, while one of a temperate character prevailed as far north as
the Arctic Circle. The monkey-tribe then enjoyed a far greater range
over the earth, and perhaps filled a more important place in Nature
than it does now. Its restriction to the comparatively narrow limits
of the tropics is no doubt mainly due to the great alteration of climate
which occurred at the close of the Tertiary period, but it may have
been aided by the continuous development of varied forms of mam-
malian life better fitted for the contrasted seasons and deciduous vege-
tation of the north temperate regions. The more extensive area
formerly inhabited by the monkey-tribe would have favored their
development into a number of divergent forms, in distant regions and
adapted to distinct modes of life. As these retreated southward and
became concentrated in a more limited area, such as were able to
maintain themselves became mingled together as we now find them,
the ancient and lowly marmosets and lemurs subsisting side by side
with the more recent and more highly developed howlers and anthro-
poid apes.

Throughout the long ages of the Tertiary period monkeys must
have been very abundant and very varied, yet it is but rarely that
their fossil remains are found. This, however, is not difficult to ex-
plain. The deposits in which mammalian remains most abound are

MONKEYS. 33

those formed in lakes or in caverns. In the former the bodies of large
numbers of terrestrial animals were annually deposited, owing to their
having been caught by floods in the tributary streams, swallowed up
iu marginal bogs or quicksands, or drowned by the giving way of ice.
Caverns were the haunts of hyenas, tigers, bears, and other beasts of
prey, which dragged into them the bodies of their victims, and left
many of their bones to become imbedded in stalagmite or in the mud-
dy deposit left by floods, while herbivorous animals were often carried
into them by these floods, or by falling down the swallow-holes which
often open into caverns from above. But, owing to their arboreal
habits, monkeys were to a great extent freed from all these dangers.
Whether devoured by beasts or birds of prey, or dying a natural death,
their bones would usually be left on dry land, where they would
slowly decay under atmospheric influences. Only under very excep-
tional circumstances would they become imbedded in aqueous de-
posits ; and, instead of being surprised at their rarity, we should rather
wonder that so many have been discovered in a fossil state.

Monkeys, as a whole, form a very isolated group, having no near
relations to any other mammalia. This is undoubtedly an indication
of great antiquity. The peculiar type which has since reached so high
a development must have branched off the great mammalian stock at
a very remote epoch, certainly far back in the Secondary period, since
in the Eocene we find lemurs and lemurine monkeys already special-
ized. At this remoter period they were probably not separable from
the insectivora, or (perhaps) from the ancestral marsupials. Even now
we have one living form, the curious Galeopithecus, or flying lemur,
which has only recently been separated from the lemurs, with which
it was formerly united, to be classed as one of the insectivora ; and it
is only among the opossums and some other marsupials that we again
find hand-like feet with opposable thumbs, which are such a curious
and constant feature of the monkey-tribe.

This relationship to the lowest of the mammalian tribes seems in-
consistent with the place usually accorded to these animals at the head
of the entire mammalian series, and opens up the question whether
this is a real superiority or whether it depends merely on the obvious
relationship to ourselves. If we could suppose a being gifted with
high intelligence, but with a form totally unlike that of man, to have
visited the earth before man existed in order to study the various
forms of animal life that were found there, we can hardly think he
would have placed the monkey-tribe so high as we do. He would ob-
serve that their whole organization was specially adapted to an arbo-
real life, and this specialization would be rather against their claiming
the first rank among terrestrial creatures. Neither in size, nor
strength, nor beauty, would they compare with many other forms,
while in intelligence they would not surpass, even if they equaled, the
horse or the beaver. The carnivora, as a whole, would certainly be

VOL. XXI. 3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

held to surpass them in the exquisite perfection of their physical struct-
ure, while the flexible trunk of the elephant, combined with his vast
strength and admirable sagacity, would probably gain for him the first
rank in the animal creation.

But if this would have been a true estimate, the mere fact that the
ape is our nearest relation does not necessarily oblige us to come to any
other conclusion. Man is undoubtedly the most perfect of all animals,
but he is so solely in respect of characters in which he differs from all
the monkey-tribe the easily erect posture, the perfect freedom of the
hands from all part in locomotion, the large size and complete opposa-
bility of the thumb, and the well-developed brain, which enables him
fully to utilize these combined physical advantages. The monkeys
have none of these, and without them the amount of resemblance they
have to us is no advantage, and confers no rank. We are biased by
the too exclusive consideration of the man-like apes. If these did not
exist, the remaining monkeys could not be thereby deteriorated as to
their organization or lowered in their zoological position ; but it is
doubtful if we should then class them so high as we now do. We
might then dwell more on their resemblances to lower types to ro-
dents, to insectivora, and to marsupials, and should hardly rank the
hideous baboon above the graceful leopard or stately stag. The true
conclusion appears to be, that the combination of external characters
and internal structure which exists in the monkeys is that which, when
greatly improved, refined, and beautified, was best calculated to become
the perfect instrument of the human intellect, and to aid in the devel-
opment of man's higher nature ; while, on the other hand, in the rude,
inharmonious, and undeveloped state which it has reached in the quad-
rumana, it is by no means worthy of the highest place, or can be held
to exhibit the most perfect development of existing animal life. Con-
temporary Review.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES.

By EOBEET W. LOVETT.

IN the fifth century before Christ, Democritus declared that the
senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste were merely modifications
of the sense of touch. Aristotle ridiculed his theory, and so, stamped
with his disapproval, it lay untouched for two thousand years, until
Telesius, an Italian of the sixteenth century, revived it.

Strange to say, all that modern science has accomplished in embry-
ology and zoology tends to confirm this theory of Democritus, that
these four senses are only specializations of the universal sense the
sense of touch. In the embryo of all animals the organs of these four
senses first appear as infoldings of the outer germinal layer, the ecto-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES. 35

derm, from which the outer skin also develops. At an early stage
they are all simple pockets in the outer covering. If the history of
the embryo is to be taken as the miniature of the history of the race
that is, if the individual in its development follows the same course
that the race has followed, and it seems reasonable to suppose that
this is the case it is easy to see the importance of this evidence.

In the animal kingdom the sense of touch is universal; it is even
found in those lowest animals, the protozoa, which are only masses of
simple protoplasm. But, if this animal with its one sense is to become
higher, there must be a division of labor ; there is too much work for
one sense to do properly, and by a quantitative modification this primi-
tive sense is to become qualitatively different in parts, and this quali-
tative difference is the difference which we notice between the sense
of touch and the other senses of the higher animals; it has come about
by an accumulation of the sense of touch.

The waves of air which fall on the body of this protozoan as heat
are capable of a higher rendering, they will signify more than heat to
the proper organ for perceiving them, they will give the sensations of
light and colors. The simplest eyes are merely pigment-spots in the
skin, they merely distinguish heat from cold and light from darkness ;
but later, by the formation of a lens and sensitive membrane, the ex-
ternal world is revealed in all its variety.

The eye is first found in the sea-anemone, where it is merely one
of these pigment spots. But all that the most complete eye can give
to us is a field of gradated colors. In itself this field of colors conveys
no information to us. It must be explained before it can be of any
practical use to us, and this necessary explanation can only be furnished
by our sense of touch. That is, distance, magnitude, and shape are
not directly perceived by the eye, but are suggested by certain object-
ive gradations of color which have been associated with them in our
past experience. Thus, sight appears as entirely dependent upon touch
for its usefulness. This theory was first advanced by Bishop Berke-
ley in his famous " Essay toward a New Theory of Vision," and was
afterward confirmed in a very wonderful way by some experiments
made by Dr. Cheselden, of London. A young man had been blind from
his birth on account of cataracts. These were removed by Dr. Ches-
elden, and he suddenly received his s'.ght. At first he could perceive
no such thing as distance or form. Only by repeatedly touching ob-
jects could he bring himself to realize that certain experiences of touch
were always associated with certain gradations of color. Gradually
he connected the sensations of sight with the sensations of touch, and
in time became as insensible as we are to their true relation.

The ear first appears, in the jelly-fish, as a pocket in the outer skin.
In this simple condition it serves as a general indicator of violent air-
motion. But as the animal becomes higher there is a demand for a
nicer perception of sound, and this pocket is closed and finally is pro-

3 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vided with a complicated acoustic apparatus, in the same way that the
eye is provided with a lens, which renders into terms of noise and mu-
sic those air-waves which to the rest of the skin are imperceptible.

But a sound conveys no more information in itself than does the
field of colors presented by the eye ; only when we can tell from what
it comes, and what consequences have been connected with it in our
past experience, does it have any practical meaning to us. And, again,
this explanation can only be furnished by our sense of touch, or by our
sense of sight, which, as we have seen, is entirely dependent upon our
sense of touch.

The senses of smell and taste should properly be resolved into one
sense, for they are probably only late modifications of the same prop-
erty of the mucous membrane lining the mouth and nose. This mem-
brane is only an invading growth of the skin surrounding the mouth,
so, morphologically, this sense is the same as the two just examined.
The sense of smell is undoubtedly present in some insects, as, for in-
stance, in the burying beetles, and may perhaps be found lower.

In man this double sense is undoubtedly retrogressive, and probably
reaches its highest development in some of the lower mammalia.
With us it is at best only a source of transitory pleasure, and seems in
no way to contribute to our higher mental development.

But the senses of sight and hearing are very different in this re-
spect. If Darwin is right, they have played a most important part in
the evolution of the past as the instruments of sexual selection. And,
in the future development of our race, it seems as if their perfection
would be reached only with the perfection of the human mind. For
if the impulse to development is given from without by the environ-
ment, these organs must be continually improved so as to perceive the
nicer and nicer distinctions in the environment which will be the
means of elevating the mind. If the impulse to development is given
from within the mind, these sense-organs must be developed more
highly in order to provide the enlarging mind with the continually
nicer perception which it will require.

Man's mind develops, not his body. With the exception of these
two sense-organs, his body has been nearly stationary for thousands of
years, but these two organs respond to comparatively little change.
The ear of the savage differs from the ear of the civilized man more
than the two men differ in any other respect.

Touch, smell, and taste seem as complete as they need be for any
conceivable human being, but that the eye is yet incomplete is very
strikingly shown by the so-called actinic rays of the solar spectrum.
In this spectrum there are rays beyond the violet which have an action
on certain chemical substances much like the action of the blue and
violet rays. But to the human eye these rays are absolutely invisible.
The perception of this unknown color seems but a short step in the
development of the eye.

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY. 37

But how different from the others, both in character and history,
is the sense of touch ! Having -with them a common origin, like them
it is resident in the outer skin, but it is active alike all over the body ;
the touch of the finger-tips may be more delicate than that of the
palms, but it is only a quantitative difference. The sense of touch is
the fundamental sense. All the other senses have to render their data
into its terms before they can be understood by the mind. Animals
can live without sight, hearing, taste, or smell, but the presence of the
sense of touch seems a necessary condition of animal existence. The
other senses are means of self-preservation ; the sense of touch is the
manifestation of an animal's existence.

The senses, then, all originate from the outer covering ; this cov-
ering has from the beginning a special sensation from the resistance
to external pressure ; this property it retains throughout the animal
kingdom. The other sense-organs appear as specialized parts of this
universal sense-organ ; morphologically they are only parts of the skin,
rendered more sensitive than the normal skin.

All the evidence seems to point one way, to the conclusion that the
other senses are all modifications of the sense of touch. That such is
probably the fact seems to be generally admitted. What I have tried
to show is our ground for that conclusion, and that what was with
Democritus a random speculation is with us fast assuming the nature
of a scientific truth.

THE STEREOSCOPE: ITS HISTORY.*

By W. LE CONTE STEVENS.
I.

rpHAT a near object of small dimensions presents an aspect slightly
-L different to each one of a pair of eyes directed upon it, has been
known for more than two thousand years ; but no application of this
knowledge was ever made until some time after the beginning of the
present century. The analysis of binocular vision is one of the prod-
ucts of modern investigation, and the stereoscope is its direct outcome.
That vision with two eyes is greatly preferable to what the ancients
accorded to Polyphemus is fully appreciated by every one who pos-
sesses a pair of healthy visual organs and a stereoscope, but who at
any time has been so unfortunate as to suffer a temporary injury that
reduces him for a few days to the condition of the classic monocular
giant. Familiar as he may be with the truth that the perspective
effect of a fine painting is better appreciated when one eye is closed,

* Expanded from an address before the Photographic Section of the American Insti-
tute, delivered March 7, 1882.

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he is never willing to keep it thus inactive any longer than necessary ;
and, if such a hint is gently suggested, he is prompt to answer it by
some prosaic contrast between the artist's clever illusion and the neces-
sities of life in a wide-awake world. Lord Bacon says : " We see more
exquisitely with one eye than with both, because the vital spirits thus
unite themselves the more, and become the stronger ; for we may find
by looking in a glass whilst we shut one eye that the pupil of the other
dilates." But even the cogent logic of Lord Bacon would scarcely
reconcile many of us to the adoption of strictly Cyclopean customs in
the enjoyment of vision.

In response to the question, " What is the use of having two eyes ? "
the answer has been given, " To have one left if the other is hurt."
Much as we may admire the sagacious foresight of this youthful physi-
ologist, it will not be found sufficient to rest contented with his ulti-
matum. He had evidently not tried his skill to find how unexpectedly
he would miss the inkstand while endeavoring to dip his pen into it
at arm's length, with one eye closed. He had not thought of holding
his finger a few inches in front of his face to find what part of the
wall it would hide from each eye in succession, or how differently it
would look when regarded from those two points of view separately,
how much thicker it would appear when both eyes were open, how read-
ily he could examine three sides of it at once, how much more defi-
nitely he could judge its distance, in a word how much more compre-
hensive was the information given by two eyes if used at the same
moment. Assuming that he knows exactly how to account for the
inversion of the retinal image and the erect appearance of the object
there pictured, how our visual perceptions are only signs of what we
momentarily feel on the retina, signs that generally represent the real-
ities with a fair degree of accuracy, but may sometimes represent
almost anything else on demand, how, if the eyes be healthy, we have
no consciousness of possessing any retina at all, but instantly and un-
consciously refer every retinal sensation to some external body whose
existence we are obliged to assume, unless there be special arguments
to convince us to the contrary granting all this, our young physiolo-
gist has not thought of inquiring how it is that, although two retinal
images are produced, we see but a single object, and this despite the
fact that, like photographs of the same body simultaneously taken
from different stand-points, these two images are necessarily dissimilar.

This question, and especially its latter part, is much more easily
asked than answered with fullness, clearness, and certainty. There is
no antecedent reason why two separate retinal images should not pro-
duce the impression of two separate bodies. That they may do so
must have come within the experience of every one. A few "glasses of
champagne are often enough to convince the most skeptical. Without
resorting, however, to agencies that produce involuntary though tem-
porary loss of 'muscular control of the eyes, it is only necessary to

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY.

gaze at any clearly defined object for a few moments, and press upon
the eyeball near the outer corner of the opening between the lids
double vision is instantly attained. The condition thus induced is un-
natural, and the effect is unnatural vision. Our modes of interpreting
nerve-impressions, like our modes of mental and bodily action in other
respects, are the results partly of individual experience and partly of
inheritance through countless generations. If a blow is received upon
the right cheek, whether it be from a solid body or from a wave in the
medium in which we are immersed, experience at once suggests the
direction from which it came. If through many generations every
individual were continually receiving gentle blows on the center of
the right cheek through all the moments of waking existence, and the
accurate perception of these were conducive to his welfare, then on
physiological principles it seems in the highest degree probable that
the judgment of direction by the cheek might become as habitual and
unerring as is our judgment of direction by the eye. By a liberal
construction of language we might be said to that extent to see with
the cheek ; and the man who is blessed with the healthiest, best-trained,

Fig. 1. Left and Kight Projections uf Glass Coae.

and most vigorous cheek, aside from other qualities, would be most apt
to win in the struggle for existence. If, then, in normal vision each of
two eyes receives impressions due to wave-impulses from the same ex-
ternal object, the position of this is referred to the same external place
in accordance with the association that experience, individual and an-
cestral, instantly arouses in response to the sensation felt on each sep-
arate retina. If, therefore, every person were blessed with such optic
luxuriance as is attributed to the fabled Argus, there is no reason to
suppose that, if each eye be healthy and ordinarily controllable, he
would have anything else than single vision, unless the necessities
imposed in the struggle for success made it advantageous to acquire
the power of dissociating the action of the muscles of these eyes, and
thus making use of voluntary multiple vision.

4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In an essay published many years ago, Carlyle dwelt, in a manner
characteristically his own, upon the unconsciousness that is a mark of
health in the human body. The dyspeptic man knows full well that
he has a stomach, but the eupeptic child has no conception of the ex-
istence of such an organ, however vivid may be its ideas of fairies, ogres,
and dragons. In like manner the retina is an abstraction for him who
has good binocular vision and but little book-lore. "With a single eye
he sees many objects at the same time, and judges their different posi-
tions ; the only idea aroused is about the objects themselves, and not
about the retinal impressions from them. If both eyes be directed to
the same distant point, there is still the same consciousness of a single
external thing, and not of two eyes. By slowly crossing the two visual
lines for the purpose of comprehensively scanning the root of one's own
nose, which is the nearest object that can be regarded with entire con-
venience, if both eyes are of equal power, the visual impression is found
to be that two noses are approaching each other, and closing up the
brightest part of the field of view in front. Between them is left a
narrow heart-shaped window, with dimly transparent nasal shutters.
The outlines of these are most easily discerned by momentarily clos-
ing each eye alternately, while the convergence of visual lines is vig-
orously retained, and then opening both and depending on indirect
vision. If there is any consciousness of an eye at all, it is referred
to the sensation of strain in the muscles that seem to be pulling the
shutters together, and not to any retina receiving pictures of them.
There is, indeed, the consciousness of looking out of the window
from a single stand-point, but not from two eyes. The subjective im-
pression is that the two points of view are identified into a single
eye, whose position is central and constitutes the point of origin from
which all our estimates of direction and distance are made. Keeping
the nasal window as small as possible by cross-vision, and endeavor-
ing to test the real singleness of the double-phantom nose by gently
putting the finger upon it from in front, it is easy additionally to con-
vince one's self that

"... things are not what they seem."

Two fingers will be seen approaching from different directions. If it
should occur to the indignant observer that these may be utilized in
putting an end to his nasal redundancy by closing up the window, they
will steadily converge and strike together upon the root of the nose,
almost exactly where he had been supposing his point of view to be.
The window at the next moment, instead of being closed, will be
opened wide, and, on resting the tired muscles of his eyes, he will find
that the phantom-noses have leaped to the two sides, the position of
each being indicated by the faithful ghosts of the fingei. The experi-
ment is a little surprising at first, and the specters are very shadowy,
but a literally close search will be quite sure to reveal them by indirect
vision.

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY.

Subjectively, therefore, our condition is not so very different from
that of the famous Cyclops. We have the advantage of being able to
see double, by adjusting conditions properly ; but, if sensation is to be
trusted, the object is duplicated while the eye is single, although by
other means we learn that the object remains single, and is only viewed
from two different stand-points at the same moment, while the sepa-

Fig. 2. Wheatstone's Stereoscope. (Front View.)

Fig. 3. Wheatstone's Stereoscope. (Ground Plan.)

rate lines of direction for the two eyes meet elsewhere. By appropri-
ate muscular training the eyes may be directed, each slightly outward,
so that these "lines meet behind the observer's head while the object,
apparently duplicated, is seen still in front. The recognition of the
subjective fusion of the two eyes into a Cyclopean, or central binocular
eye, is a fundamental prerequisite for the explanation of vision in the
stereoscope. In consequence of this, if two similar pictures are placed
close in front of the eyes, the distance between their centers being
equal to the distance between the pupils, they at once appear to coa-
lesce into a single picture. In this way an objective existence may
appear to be given to the binocular eye by approaching a mirror until
the nose touches the glass, and avoiding the convergence of visual
lines that would otherwise be natural. A narrow face is seen, possess-

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing but a single eye, that looks into the very depths of the observer's
Cyclopean eye.

The conception of this subjective union as the product of the ex-
perience of the race in interpreting sensations, and the consequent
necessity of distinguishing between realities and their visual represen-
tations, seems never to have been appreciated until long after the in-
vention of instruments for use in the analysis of vision. Much con-
fusion has resulted from the attempt to explain what are really sub-
jective results of retinal sensation by the application of geometric
principles, irrespective of the illusive union of the two eyes when em-
ployed together. In 1604 Kepler stated that the 'distance between the
eyes constituted a base-line, which we employ for measuring the dis-
tance of objects by a species of visual triangulation. This idea was
subsequently greatly elaborated by Sir David Brewster and others ;.
and in most, if not all, of our text-books of physics to-day it is applied
in a very familiar diagram to explain the principle of the stereoscope.
On this theory the apparent position of every point in the stereoscopic
field of view is determined by the meeting of separate visual lines,
which converge in front. An obvious consequence is that this locali-
zation should become impossible if the visual lines become parallel or
divergent. But, in truth, there can be no perception of locality by
this method. If the eyes are subjectively united, the visual lines be-
come subjectively united along with them ; if, indeed, such language
is at all applicable to lines that are mere abstractions. In its applica-
tion to stereoscopic vision, therefore, the diagram is worthless ; for
such vision is much easier to most persons when the visual lines are
parallel, or very slightly divergent, than when they are strongly con-
vergent, and in no case can there be any recognition of intersection
between lines which, if subjectively perceived at all, w T ould be coinci-
dent throughout their whole extent.

The error just mentioned has undoubtedly sprung from the assump-
tion that stereoscopic vision is always perfectly normal. If this be so,
it should be as painless as the reading of this page, even when con-
tinued for hours in succession. Every one who has tried the experi-
ment with an ordinary stereoscope, and a large, miscellaneous collec-
tion of stereographs, knows how wearying it is, and how in some cases
distinct vision is found impossible. To indicate the real differences
between normal vision and that which is attained in most stereoscopes,
it will be necessary first to study the development of this instrument.

The duality of human vision of near objects, and the consequent
dissimilarity of retinal pictures in the separate eyes, was apprehend-
ed and more or less vaguely discussed by Euclid (b. c. 300), Galen
(a. d. 200), Baptista Porta (1593), Leonardo da Vinci (1584), Aguilo-
nius (1613), and by Smith, Harris, and Porterfield during the eight-
eenth century. No practical results were wrought, however, until
1838, when Sir Charles Wheatstone read before the Royal Society his

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY.

now classic paper on the " Physiology of Vision." Let the reader im-
agine, or actually put on the page before him, some small solid body,
such as a cone, with a few lines drawn from its vertex to the base. If
it be of glass, so much the better ; an ink-dot can then be marked at
the center of the base, and the lines scratched upon the sides can
easily be blackened. Close the left eye ; the cone appears to the right
eye like Fig. 1, R. Without moving the head, look with the left eye
alone ; the appearance is like Fig. 1, L. If each eye were in succes-
sion transformed for a moment into an electric light, the shadows
projected upon the paper would be those given in the figure, but with
a common base. Opening both eyes, the perception of the height of
the cone is far more distinct than when either is closed. Let us now
quote Wheatstone's own words : " It being thus established that the
mind perceives an object of three dimensions by means of the two dis-
similar pictures projected by it on the two retinse, the following ques-
tion occurs : What would be the visual effect of simultaneously pre-
senting to each eye, instead of the object itself, its projection on a
plane surface as it appears to that eye ? To pursue this inquiry, it is
necessary that means should be contrived to make the two pictures,
which must necessarily occupy different places, fall on similar parts of
both retinse. Under the ordinary circumstances of vision, the object
is seen at the concourse of the optic axes (visual lines *), and its im-
ages consequently are projected on similar parts of the two retina? ;
but it is also evident that two exactly similar objects may be made to
fall on similar parts of the two retince, if they are placed one in the
direction of each optic axis, at equal distances before or beyond their
intersection."

Fig. 4. Wheatstone's Stereoscope (Perspective View), 1833.

To follow out to the letter the instructions suggested in Wheat-
stone's last sentence, transfer Fig. 1 to glass. This can be easily done.
Upon an oblong plate of window-glass put a few drops of clear var-
nish ; let it spread thinly over the surface and become thoroughly dry.

* In Wheatstone's time the visual lines were supposed to be optic axes. That this is
not quite so has since been proved by Helmholtz.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Copy the picture, of exact size, by scratching through the varnish, and
then blacken the lines with ink. Hold the transparent plate at the
distance of a foot from your eyes, and through it look at a point about
five feet away. Very little motion of the plate is needed to get this
point exactly aligned with each of the dots within the circles by look-
ing with each eye in succession. Look at the point now with both
eyes, and you will see, suspended in the air, probably just beyond the
plate, apparently a solid cone of glass pointing toward you, the very
facsimile of our glass cone from which the pictures were taken.

Copy the picture also on paper or card-board, of exact size, but with
the part marked R transferred to the left, and that marked L to the
right. Hold up the point of a pencil about half-way between your
eyes and the card. In a moment the proper position is found, where it
is aligned with R for the right eye and with L for the left. Open both
eyes and converge them upon the pencil-point. A little cone pointing
toward you is suspended in the air just beyond the pencil, which may
now be withdrawn. Move your head from side to side : the cone
moves with you. It is brilliantly lustrous, sharp in outline, and much
smaller than that previously seen. Two companion circles, one on each
side, are left behind on the card, and are larger than the base of the
suspended cone, but a little smaller than the circles originally were.
Their appearance is due to images of R and L which fall upon retinal
parts that in normal vision could not be simultaneously impressed by

Fig. 5. The First Landscape Stereograph.

an external single body. The sensations produced by them are hence
not suggestive of singleness, and each is therefore referred separately
outward in the direction from which the rays producing them have
come. Such side-images are perceived also when the glass plate is
employed. Try the same experiment now with the picture on the
page ; the miniature cone leaps off the paper into the air, but this time
it is hollow, for its vertex is pointed to the place from which it seems
to have sprung.

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY. 45

These experiments are delightfully surprising when successfully-
accomplished for the first time. They are well worth the trifling pre-
liminary trouble which they entail. But even this can be in great
measure avoided by having a photograph of the picture taken on glass.
If you will previously approach the polite photographer in your most
charmingly courteous and irresistible style, enable him to perceive the
glittering phantom cone reversed in mid-air, invite him to grasp it
and give to this " airy nothing a local habitation and a name," and
convince him that, if not illusive, it is even more elusive than the
merry sunbeam which his camera alone can catch in all its beauty, he
will at once be lost in admiration of your magic skill and singular sa-
gacity, and instantly find it impossible to avoid preparing the wonder-
working photograph on glass. This he will smilingly present to you
in the most enthusiastic and complimentary manner, with evident
gratitude for the favor you have bestowed, and the good taste you
have exhibited in selecting him as the recipient of your discriminating
and exclusive confidence.

The presence of the uncombined images at the sides of the bi-
nocular picture, as it stands out in solid relief, is apt to be confusing,
because their effect is partially to distract the attention. In Wheat-
stone's first experiments, he avoided them by looking through tubes,
or into a box. In any case, the methods of stereoscopy just de-
scribed, although by far the most useful in studying the principles of
binocular vision, are not usually acquired until after a few trials.
When they are once mastered, it becomes easy to discard pencils and
other points of fixation, and the voluntary muscular control of the
eyes is sufficient for all cases. Wheatstone gave to the world a new
revelation in both the science and the art of perspective, when, in
1838, he devised his reflecting stereoscope for the purpose of remov-
ing the difficulties involved in stereoscopy by direct vision. Figs. 2
and 3 are exact reproductions of his drawings, representing the front
view and ground-plan of his original stereoscope ; and, in describing
them, we can not do better than again to give his own words : "AA'
are two plane mirrors, about four inches square, inserted in frames,
and so adjusted that their backs form an angle of 90 with each other;
these mirrors are fixed by their common edge against an upright, B,
or against the middle line of a vertical board, cut away in such manner
as to allow the eyes to be placed before the two mirrors. C C are two
sliding boards, to which are attached the upright boards DD', which
may thus be removed to different distances from the mirrors. To
facilitate this adjustment I employ a right- and a left-handed wooden
screw, r I ; the two ends of this compound-screw pass through the
nuts e e', which are fixed to the lower parts of the upright boards D D',
so that, by turning the screw-pin p one way, the two boards will ap-
proach, and, by turning it the other way, they will recede from each
other ; one always preserving the same distance as the other from the

4 6

.THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

middle line f. E E' are panels, to which the pictures are fixed in such
a manner that their corresponding horizontal lines shall be on the
same level ; these panels are capable of sliding backward and forward
in grooves on the upright boards, DD'. The observer must place his
eyes as near as possible to the mirrors, the right eye before the right-
hand mirror, and the left eye before the left-hand mirror ; and he must
move the sliding-panels E E' to or from him, until the two reflected
images coincide at the intersection of the optic axes, and form an
image of the same apparent magnitude as each of the component pict-

ures.

In using this stereoscope, of which a perspective view is given in
Fig. 4, the two conjugate pictures must be on separate cards, but may
be much larger than those which are now so extensively used with
more modern instruments. The arrangement is obviously such that
no side-images can be perceived, since it is impossible for either eye
to receive more than one image, and this is reflected from the oblique
mirror directly in front. As an instrument it is unwieldy and incon-
venient in comparison with those to which we are accustomed ; but

Fig. 6. The Binocular Camera.

with it the great secret of binocular vision was brought into open day-
light. Wheatstone had the genius to find out how the door was to be
unlocked, and it was left for others to devise the special forms that
would be employed in making most acceptable to the world the treas-
ure which he had found. His predecessors had more or less distinct
conceptions of an hypothetical treasure, just as something was known
about the nature of steam before the low-pressure engine was invented,

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY. 47

and about sound-waves before the telephone came into existence. To
him distinctly belongs the credit of objectively demonstrating the
essential features of binocular vision, with the first instrument act-
ually constructed in accordance with principles which possibly others
might have applied, if they had possessed equal clearness of concep-
tion and fertility of invention. So slight was the general appreciation
of the fact that the two retinal images in binocular vision are dissimi-
lar, that Wheatstone made this discovery independently, and then
added the application which others had failed to make, but without
the knowledge that any one had preceded him in even forming the
conception. The originality of his discovery is not affected by the
unemphatic statements afterward found to have been recorded by
those who preceded him in thought but not in act.

One of these predecessors was Mr. James Elliot, of Edinburgh,
who, "previous to or during the year 1834, had resolved to construct
an instrument for uniting two dissimilar pictures." By delay he lost
the golden opportunity, which, without envy or knowledge of his ex-
istence, was snatched away from him by Wheatstone. Not until 1839
did Elliot construct the instrument which he had contemplated. It
was simply a wooden box, open at the extremities, so that a pair of
conjugate pictures on glass could be placed at one end, and all light
except that which was transmitted through them could be excluded
from the eyes placed at the other end. He was not aware of Wheat-
stone's invention, which indeed did not become generally known for a

Fig. 7. Brewster's Stereoscope, 1849.

number of years after its completion, because not adapted for general
use, and because no other means than free-hand drawing existed for
the accurate preparation of the conjugate pictures. Those employed
by Wheatstone were outlines of various geometric solids. Elliot's
first stereograph was^a landscape, represented in Fig. 5, which is a

4 8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

little smaller than that constructed by him. In the background of
each picture is the moon, the stereographic interval between them be-
ing two and a half inches, which is about the average distance between
the pupils of a pair of eyes. Next comes a cross, and in the fore-
ground is the withered branch of a tree. In the picture on the right
it is seen that the branch is nearly aligned with the cross, which is
projected against the sky on one side of the moon ; in that on the
left one limb of the cross is projected against the moon, while the
branch is wholly on the right of both. If the reader will place one
edge of a card on the line between the two pictures, while the other
edge touches his nose and forehead, he will perceive but a single pict-
ure, in which the branch, cross, and moon are successively farther
away, the two former standing out in clear relief. By a little attention,
moreover, he will see two phantom-cards, one on each side of the
combined picture, and between the two his Cyclopean eye is regarding
the landscape before him.

At the exhibition of Wheatstone's reflecting stereoscope, and the
reading of his paper before the British Association at Newcastle, in
August, 1838, one of the most interested auditors present was Sir
David Brewster, who remarked on its important bearing upon the

Fig. 8. Modified Brewster Stereoscope.

theory of single vision to which he himself had given much attention.
In his subsequent investigations he devised two important instruments
which, with others of less value, were described in papers published
in 1849. These were the binocular camera and the lenticular stereo-
scope. During the following year they were exhibited in Paris ; and
here it was that stereoscopy first became the delight of the people^
after having been confined for a dozen years to the laboratory of the
physicist.

The binocular camera needs but little description. Every one is
familiar with the instrument, first devised in its simplest form by Bap-

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY. 49

tista Porta, as ordinarily employed by the modern photographer. It
consists now of a dark chamber, into which light from the object to
be pictured is converged with a combination of carefully corrected
achromatic lenses upon a prepared plate whose distance can be readily
adjusted. If provided with two such combinations a few inches apart
(Fig. 6), so that two pictures of the same object can be simultaneously
taken thus from slightly different standpoints, it becomes the instru-
ment on whose co-existence depends the value of the stereoscope.
Without it the preparation of the stereograph would be practically
impossible in many cases, for a living object, and even many inanimate
objects, such as clouds, may move during the interval consumed in
changing the position of the single camera and taking the two pictures
successively. In the absence of photography dissimilar pictures must
be made with the brush or pencil ; and, aside from the labor thus im-
posed, few artists can compete with the sunbeam where perfect accu-
racy in every detail is required. Without the stereoscope, on the
other hand, there would be little or no raison cVttre for the binocular
camera. Photography can scarcely be said to have had an existence
before the publication, in 1839, of the labors of Talbot and Daguerre ;
and until Archer discovered, in 1851, that collodion could be employed
as a vehicle for silver salts, the art was incapable of very wide or suc-
cessful application for stereoscopic purposes. This epoch in photog-
raphy, indeed, came after Brewster's double camera had been devised.
The latter was itself the timely and natural outcome of the develop-
ment of this art of sun-drawing, in conjunction with Brewster's in-
vention of a far more convenient form of stereoscope than that em-
ployed by his distinguished contemporary. Wheatstone could hardly
have entertained any idea of utilizing the evanescent images in silver
nitrate obtained prior to 1802 by Wedgwood and Davy, or even those
secured in 1814 by the elder Niepce on bituminized plates, which, in-
deed, were more permanent, but still far from satisfactory. Scarcely
a year elapsed after Wheatstone's invention before the first photograph
ever obtained from the human face was successfully taken by the
leader in photography on our own side of the Atlantic, Dr. John W.
Draper ; but the art was not yet enough developed, even in such

Fig. 9. Arrangement of Semi-Lenses.

hands, to suggest the application for stereoscopic purposes which was
afterward so happily made by Brewster. To this physicist, therefore,
we must credit the invention of the means by which stereoscopy was
made to become co-extensive with photography.

The only difficulty in viewing a stereograph, as we have seen, con-
sists in giving the proper direction to the eyes, which, in spite of the
VOL. xxi. 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

efforts of the untrained observer, will generally converge to a single
point of fixation. Brewster's mode of preventing this was, like El-
liot's, to cause each of the two pictures to be viewed at the bottom of
a box, through which light was transmitted. His stereoscope is shown
in Fig. 7, which has been taken from an instrument brought to New
York in 1850, and much prized by its owner as the first stereoscope
ever seen in America. The box is of mahogany, and provided with a
lid which can be raised so that an opaque card also may be viewed, if
desired, by reflected light admitted from above. The bottom is made
of roughened glass so as to diffuse the light that is transmitted, in case
a photograph on glass is employed. In either case, the picture can
slide easily in and out. To secure the natural convergence of visual
lines, a condition which Brewster thought indispensable, a pair of semi-
lenses were inclosed in brass tubes at the top of the box. These tubes
could be drawn slightly out, like those of an opera-glass, and one was
capable of slight lateral motion, being fixed upon a sliding plate of
wood as shown in the drawing. They could thus be adapted to differ-
ent pairs of eyes. They served the double purpose of holding the
semi-lenses, with edges toward each other, at the most convenient dis-

Fig. 10. The American Grandfather, 1861.

tauce from the stereograph, and of hiding from each eye the picture
intended for the other. Since the rays in transmission are deviated
toward the thicker part of the glass, it is possible without discomfort
to use pictures on which the stereographic interval exceeds that be-
tween the observer's pupils. On ordinary stereographs, however, three
inches is the usual limit. Another office performed by the semi-lenses

THE STEREOSCOPE : ITS HISTORY.

is that of magnifying the pictures as they are binocularly viewed. It
was indeed a happy thought that produced such a combination of ad-
mirable features.

Much space could be occupied in describing the many forms of
stereoscope that have been devised since that of Brewster was first
put forth. They have all been applications of the principles already
explained in connection with the reflecting and refracting instruments,
devised in 1838 and 1849 e That of Helmholtz is probably the best in
Europe. In this each tube extends into the box, and is provided with
a pair of accurately centred plano-convex lenses, which greatly mag-
nify the pictures. It is indeed simply a pair of telescope eye-pieces,
each of which is screwed into a plate to which lateral motion, for the
purpose of adjustment, may be given with a screw, lever, and spring.
To avoid the necessity of optic divergence, the stereograph must be
comparatively small. Such an instrument is necessarily quite costly.
The form most widely employed in Europe is that shown in Fig. 8,
in which the box is divided by a partition (s), which does not extend
so far as to prevent ready motion of the slide. The tubes are dis-
carded and the semi-lenses are permanently fixed, edge to edge (Fig.
9), into the wood at the smaller end. This is objectionable, because
no adjustment is possible for either the distance of the card or the
width between the eyes.

Twenty years ago the stereoscope just described was the only one
extensively used in America. At present it is hard to find, because
totally displaced by another instrument, the device of a modest Ameri-
can whose name seems to be but little associated in the popular mind

Fig. 11. Accommodating Grandchildren, 1882.

with his own invention. This fact would be inexplicable were it not
that he has made so many thousands of readers happy by his writings
on literary topics that they think of him only as the poet, the profess-
or,' the genial " autocrat of the breakfast-table," whose delicate humor
and warm human sympathy have so often caused smiles and tears to
mingle together, that they forget him as the physiologist, who finds
use for other instruments besides his mirth-provoking pen. There are
few who think of him as an inventor, when they use the convenient
and compact stereoscopes that have been multiplied in tens of thou-
sands, until now no home is too humble, no father too poor, to delight

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his little ones with phantom scenes of beauty, brought by the sunbeam
and the stereoscope from places that their eyes will never behold.
The writer will not be deemed blameworthy in transcribing, from a
letter that was not intended for the public, a few lines which the au-
thor has consented to let him give. Dr. Holmes says : " It appeared
to me that the box stereoscopes were cumbrous and awkward affairs.
I had one of Smith and Beck's, and one or more of other patterns, but
I did not like them ; and so one day I cut out a piece of wood in some
such shape as this (Fig. 10), the lines representing slots in which the
stereograph was to be placed, stuck an awl in for a handle, and there
was my stereoscope. ... I have forgotten to mention the hood, which
I made of pasteboard cut to fit. Other open instruments, and many
closed ones, have been made, but most of them have been awkward,
expensive, and sometimes gimcracky, whereas I think mine may be
called simple, strong, cheap, handy."

No better compendium of good qualities can be expressed than is
comprised in this brief list of four words. The figure is taken directly
from " the original great-grandfather pattern," as the inventor has
pleasantly called it, the " real Adam " of hand-stereoscopes, that was
born or developed in 1861, delighted the human beings who lived
in that remote day, and has been sleeping these many years. Com-
pelled now to show itself, like Hip Van Winkle, it is perhaps a little
stiff ; and in style it is a trifle blunt, in comparison with its polished
and accommodating great-grandchildren of the present day (Fig. 11),
that fold up and pocket themselves out of sight ; but nevertheless its
character is that of a straightforward, clear-headed old ancestor, that
looks forth honestly from under that somber hood.

To produce the illusion of viewing an actual sunlit scene, Dr.
Holmes placed between the stereograph and the semi-lenses an oblique
wooden plate, in which were a pair of elliptic openings, so that the
effect was that of looking through a circular window. The front was
covered with gilt paper from which a golden light was reflected upon
the picture. As an appropriate name he selected that of " The Claude
Lorraine Stereoscope."

The inventor offered his device gratuitously to manufacturers in
New York and Philadelphia, but their refusal was as courteous as
was consistent with firm opposition. He did not assume the trouble
to secure it by patent, as he " did not care to make money by so ob-
vious and simple a contrivance." A few of these stereoscopes were at
last constructed by Mr. Joseph L. Bates, of Boston ; and the demand
rapidly grew so that now but few of any other make are to be found in
the United States. Improvements, indeed, have been added, but not
of such kind as to diminish the cost ; one of these, introduced by Mr.
Bates, was the substitution of a sliding cross-bar for the series of fixed
slots. The " Claude Lorraine " effect may be easily obtained with any
ordinary stereoscope, by the use of an extra cross-bar, on which the

MEASUREMENTS OF MEN. 53

gilt window-plate is hinged ; it may thus be adjusted to any position
and inclined at will according to the direction from which the light
comes.

A simple and moderately satisfactory stereoscope may be impro-
vised by unscrewing the concave eye-pieces from an ordinary opera-
glass, and looking through it at the stereograph, which must be held
about six inches from the centers of the object-glasses and parallel to
the line connecting these. Vision by this method, however, is very
uncomfortable if the stereograph be large. The instrument is a crude
Helmholtz stereoscope, but it needs adjusting-screws at both ends of
each tube to make it entirely satisfactory. The only objection to Dr.
Holmes's instrument is the absence of adjustment ; but, despite this
defect, it is deservedly used everywhere in our country. Quietly and
unselfishly he has done far more for the stereoscope in America than
has ever been credited him by those who enjoy the fruits of his spon-
taneous and unpaid ingenuity.

+*+-

MEASUREMENTS OF MEN.

By FRANCIS G ALTON, F. B. S.

WHEN shall we have anthropometric laboratories, where a man may
from time to time get himself and his children weighed, meas-
ured, and rightly photographed, and have each of their bodily faculties
tested, by the best methods known to modern science ? In the Janu-
ary number of this " Review " I endeavored to show the advantages
of photographic chronicles maintained from childhood to age, and how
they should be made and preserved ; in the present memoir I propose
to briefly speak upon the anthropometric and medical facts that might
properly be recorded by the side of the photographs in the family
records to which I there referred. I shall endeavor to define the scope
of what may be effected in this direction, partly by accurate apparatus
now extant, and partly in a rougher and less effective way, owing to
the present want of appropriate apparatus. In doing so the instru-
mental and other desiderata will be pointed out that seem most easily
capable of being supplied, if the attention of a few persons interested
in the matter could be brought to bear on the subject Two things
are at present needed a desire among many persons to have them-
selves and their children accurately appraised, and an effort among a
few scientific persons who have the special knowledge required for the
purpose to systematize the methods by which this could best be done.
There appears at length to be a somewhat general concurrence of
opinion that the possibilities of a child's future career are more nar-
rowly limited than our forefathers were fondly disposed to believe. I

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shall not endeavor to epitomize the many arguments pro and con in
respect to such views as these, but will merely recall, in partial justifi-
cation of them, the results of some inquiries into the life-histories of
twins * that I published a few years ago. I took two categories of
twins those who were closely alike in their infancy and those who
were exceedingly unlike and I traced their histories up to the date of
the memoir. It appeared that twins who were closely alike at the first
frequently preserved their resemblance throughout life, subject, I may
almost say, to the accident of a fever, or other serious illness altering
the constitution of one of them, and laying the first foundation of a
gradually widening divergence. I found not a few cases in which
twins residing apart and following different professions at home and
abroad still continued to live parallel lives, ageing in the same way,
and preserving all along the same features, voice, gestures, and ways
of thought. I also met with cases in which death had occurred at
nearly the same time to the two twins, and from the same disease. It
further appeared, as regards those twins who were born very unlike,
that in no case did their dissimilarity lessen under the influence of
identical nurture. They had the same nurses, the same tutors, the
same companions, they were reared in every respect alike, yet their
characters continued to be as dissimilar, and, I need hardly add, their
features remained as different as if they had belonged to totally dif-
ferent families. The conclusion to which I was driven by the results
of this inquiry was that a surprisingly small margin seemed to be left
to the effects of circumstances and education, and to the exercise of
what we are accustomed to call " free-will."

It follows from such opinions as these, which appear to be gaining
ground in popular estimation, that it is highly desirable to give more
attention than has been customary hitherto to investigate and define
the capacities of each individual. They form his stock-in-trade, the
amount of which admits of definition, whereby he has to gain his live-
lihood, and to fulfill the claims upon him as head of a family and as a
citizen. So far as we succeed in measuring and expressing them, so
far almost in an equal degree should we be able to forecast what the
man is really fit for, and what he may undertake with the least risk of
disappointment. They would encourage him if unduly timid, or they
would warn him from efforts doomed to be wasted.

What I propose to speak of in the present memoir are those meas-
urements of the bodily form and faculties that can, or apparently could,
be made with some precision, but the personal data in respect. to in-
tellectual and emotional capacities, and to special aptitudes and tastes,
require a separate treatment. The progress of the art of measure-
ment of the more purely bodily faculties has been by no means uni-
form. It has never been specially directed toward furthering the

* " Journal of the Anthropological Institute," 1875 ; " Fraser's Magazine," November,
18*75.
\

MEASUREMENTS OF MEN. 55

knowledge of the life-history of individuals, but for the most part
toward other theoretical investigations. In some cases elaborate in-
struments and methods of observation have been devised by which
certain faculties have been tested with extreme minuteness ; in other
cases no well-contrived and approved system of examination exists.
If everything should be stated by which anthropometry might profit,
the effect would be not unlike the map of some partially-settled coun-
try, drawn on a scale so large as to show the cadastral survey of its
principal town-lands. A fraction of the whole would thus be minutely
engraved, the wide adjacent regions would be represented by a few
lines of route, and the remainder would consist of blanks. In order
to convey in the best way an idea of what is known about such a coun-
try as this, the general map of it should be on a small scale, and then
uniformity of treatment becomes possible. Acting on this principle,
I shall avoid entering into details on those subjects where there exists
very much to speak of, and shall nowhere go further than is sufficient
to express the simpler requirements of anthropometry.

Let us, then, consider how we should set to work to define and de-
scribe the various bodily faculties of a person whom we had ample
means of observing, say one of our own children. Some of the obser-
vations could hardly be made except at a properly equipped anthropo-
metric laboratory ; others, as it will be seen, could at present be car-
ried on best in the play-ground. I shall not care to distinguish these
in the description ; they will be obvious enough when they occur. The
tests would define the capacities of the person at the moment when he
was observed. They are expected to be renewed at intervals, so as to
serve as records of successive periods in his life-history.

Photography was the subject of my last memoir. I showed that
the features should be taken in full face and in exact profile, and on
not too small a scale that of about one seventh of the natural size
being, perhaps, the most convenient. I also spoke of other photo-
graphs in less formal attitudes, to show the whole figure and gesture.
In some of these the limbs might be more or less bared to exhibit the
muscular development.

I need not dwell upon the usual anthropometric measurements.
They should of course be made, and probably no better rules can be
followed in making them than those of the present Anthropometric
Committee of the British Association. These measurements refer to
height, to weight, to chest-girth (but only if taken by skilled observers
on a uniform plan), to capacity of lungs (also under those condi-
tions), and to color of hair and eyes. Other data are asked for in
the instructions issued by the committee which would also require
to be recorded, and which may as well be mentioned now such
as birthplace and residence, whether in town or country, both of the
person and of his parents ; also their race, whether English, Scotch,
or Irish, etc.

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We now proceed to the measurements and records that are more
especially the subject of this memoir.

Energy may be defined as the length of time during which a per-
son is wont to work at full stretch, day by day, without harm to him-
self, in obedience to an instinctive craving for work, and endurance
may be tested by the same observation if an adequate motive for work
be supplied. Some persons seem almost indefatigable ; they are never
happy or well except when in constant action ; and they fidget, fret,
and worry themselves under enforced idleness. Others, whose vitality
is low, break down under a small amount of strain, and their happiness
lies mainly in repose. The true tests would undoubtedly be physio-
logical, and of considerable delicacy, but they have yet to be dis-
covered, or at least to be systematized for anthropometric purposes.
They would measure the excess of waste over repair consequent upon
any given effort, and would furnish the indications of a loss of capital'
which, if persevered in, must, infallibly lead to vital bankruptcy. Now,
when a haberdasher examines a piece of cloth to learn its strength, he
handles and pulls it gently in different directions, but he does not care
to tear it to pieces or to strain it. He learns by the way it behaves
under a moderate tension how it would support a great deal more of
it. So it may prove to be with physiological tests, as applied to the
determination of the amount of endurance. The balance of the living
system might be artificially disturbed by a definite small force, and its
stability under the influence of greater forces might thereby be in-
ferred. Unfortunately, the only convenient tests of a person's endur-
ance that are now available are records of such feats of sustained
bodily or mental work as he may have recently performed, that were
not succeeded next day by feverish excitement or by fatigue, but
whose effects were entirely dissipated by a single night's rest.

The faculties about which I have next to speak admit of being
developed in a high degree by exercise, and some difficulty will always
arise in knowing how far their development may be due to nature and
how far to practice. This difficulty is, however, of less importance
than it might appear to be. All our faculties are somewhat exercised
in the ordinary course of life, and when we begin to practice any
special test, though our skill increases rather quickly at first, its rate
of progress soon materially lessens, and we are able to judge with
sufficient precision of the highest point which we can hope to attain.
When recording the results of any test it would be sufficient to append
a brief note concerning the amount of previous practice.

The strength is best measured by a spring dynamometer, of which
the frame-work is held in the left hand with the arm extended, while
the spring is drawn back by the right hand in the attitude of an
archer. This is the test used by the Anthropometric Committee ; it
only refers to the strength of the arms, but that is in most cases
sufficient to express the general muscular power, and it has the ad-

MEASUREMENTS OF MEN. 57

vantage of not causing injurious straining to weakly persons. Trials
of lifting heavy weights are positively dangerous. If a multitude of
persons were tested in that way, some instances of broken blood-
vessels and of abdominal ruptures would be almost sure to occur.

Agility may be defined in terms say of the number of seconds
required to run a hundred yards, of the greatest horizontal distance
that can be covered by a leap, of the distance to which a cricket-ball
can be thrown, and by means of various gymnastic feats. The several
merits of the latter, however, require to be carefully considered, and
those that can be performed in-doors and in a confined space should be
selected as standards.

The co-ordination of muscles and eye is another faculty that varies
widely in different persons, while it is also greatly increased by educa-
tion. Some persons are gifted with a high power of accurate move-
ment, while others are as notoriously clumsy. In all cases, however,
this faculty may be largely developed in special directions, as is shown
by the superior dexterity of artisans to that of amateurs. It seems a
most simple faculty to be tested, nevertheless I know of no recognized
methods of doing so ; and, in default of one, the best plan of defining
its amount might be, in the case of youths, by their measured skill in
well-known games, as racquets, cricket, rifle-shooting, billiards, and
wherever else a good eye and steady hand are required.

The faculty of sense-discrimination has in many respects been the
subject of most elaborate experiments, chiefly in regard to the rela-
tion between the amounts of stimuli, as measured by objective stand-
ards (such as weight in pounds, as brightness in units of intensity,
etc.), and the corresponding amount of evoked sensations, measured
by subjective standards, namely, by the feelings of the several persons
operated on. Out of all the contrivances that have been devised for
these experiments, some of which are extremely delicate, we want a
battery of the most simple ones that are sufficiently effective for ordi-
nary anthropometric purposes. I find it difficult, in obedience to the
programme already laid down, to enter as much as I should like to do
into particulars concerning this wide and important part of the sub-
ject before us. The sources of error to be guarded against, the prin-
ciples that have to be attended to, and the instruments already in use,
can not be properly explained in a few paragraphs. The reader must
take it for granted that all this is a familiar subject to many writers
and experimenters, such as Fechner and Delbceuf, and that the work
remaining to be done is to select out of extant instruments those that
are sufficiently inexpensive and quick in manipulation to be appro-
priately placed in an anthropometric laboratory. Under these circum-
stances I will refrain from doing more than specifying the more im-
portant measurements among the many that admit of being made :

Sight. Its keenness ; the appreciation of different shades ; that
of different colors.

5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Sound. Its keenness ; the appreciation of different grades of
loudness ; that of different notes.

Touch. Discrimination of different roughnesses, such as wire-work
of differently sized mesh.

Muscular Sense. Discrimination of weights externally alike, but
differing slightly in specific gravity.

Another class of delicate apparatus refers to the rate of response
to stimuli. A signal is given to one of the senses, as by the sight of
a suddenly lifted finger, by an exclamation, or by a touch, to which
response is made by pressing a stop. The interval between the signal
and the response is measurable, and it differs in different persons.

Another well-known arrangement tests the time lost in forming a
simple judgment. Arrangement is made for two possible and different
signals, which are severally to be responded to by different forms of
response. The subject of the experiment is ignorant which of the
two signals will appear. After he perceives it, there is an appreciable
time of hesitation before he is able to make the appropriate response,
and this time is easily measured, and is found to differ in different
persons.

The persistence of impressions, especially if visual ones, is exceed-
ing various. Some persons are strongly affected by after-images and
others are not. For example, after gazing at a red wafer for a short
definite time and then rapidly withdrawing the eye, the appearance of
a green after-image will be present to some and not to others. There
can be little doubt that the liability to after-images is an important
factor of the artistic temperament, being the base of the enhanced
susceptibility to conditions of contrast and harmony of colors. Nu-
merous experiments exist bearing on various kinds of after-images, but
they want systematizing for anthropometric purposes.

The memory, in its dependence on the relative impressions of eye,
ear, and other senses, whether severally or in combination, admits of
being tested, and here again numerous scattered experiences have been
gained, and ingenious experiments have been devised which require
consolidating and systematizing.

This is perhaps as much as need be said in a very brief general
glance over a large division of a large subject. My object is to point
out that means already exist for the appraisement of many of the prin-
cipal bodily faculties, but that they require to be systematized, and
that others have to be contrived, and that they can not be properly
utilized for ordinary anthropometric purposes without such apparatus
as would require to be kept in a laboratory and used under the guid-
ance of an intelligent operator.

I will say a few words, and a few only, upon another large branch
to which I alluded in my previous article, namely the medical life-his-
tory of each individual. There seems to be need for medico-metric

MEASUREMENTS OF MEN. 59

laboratories where certificates of observed facts should be furnished to
any applicant for stated fees. These would contain as exact and com-
plete a report of the physiological status of a person as is feasible in
the present state of science, by the help of the microscope, chemical
tests, and physiological apparatus. Laboratories of this description
ouo-ht to be welcome to practicing physicians, who, being unable to
keep the necessary apparatus in their consulting-rooms, could send
their patients to be examined in any way they wished, whenever they
though it desirable to do so. The laboratories would be of the same
convenience to them that the Kew Observatory is to physicists, who
can send their delicate instruments there to have their errors ascer-
tained.

The data for the medical history of a man's life are the observa-
tions made by his physician in his successive illnesses, and I would
dwell on the importance of gradually establishing a custom that the
medical attendant of each patient should as a matter of course write
down such clinical notes of his case as are written at the bedsides of
public patients at hospitals. These papers would be for the private
and future use of the patient, and would be preserved by him, together
with the prescriptions. They would accumulate as the years went by,
and would form the materials for a medical life-history of very great
value to the patient himself in the illnesses of his later life. The
records might be epitomized by his physician from time to time, and
they would in that form be an heir-loom to the children of the patient,
warning their medical attendants in future years by throwing light on
hereditary peculiarities.

The popular object of this and the previous memoir is to further
the accumulation of materials for life-histories in the form of adequate
photographs, anthropometric measurements, and medical facts. ~No
doubt it would be contrary to the inclinations of most people to take
much trouble of the kind about themselves, but I would urge them do
so for their children so far as they have opportunities, and to establish a
family register for the purpose, filling it up periodically as well as they
can. It will have been seen that much may be effected without special
apparatus, and on the other hand that much more could be effected,
and with increased ease and precision, if anthropometric laboratories
existed.' Should a demand arise for such establishments, it would not
be difficult to form them in connection with various existing scientific
institutions. A few shelves would hold the necessary apparatus. Some-
thing useful of the kind could be set on foot at a moment's notice, but
it would require much practice and consideration by capable men be-
fore a standard outfit could be decided on.

The motives that might induce a person to take the trouble of get-
ting himself accurately measured and appraised from time to time, and
of recording the^ results, are briefly as follows : 1. Their biographical
interest to the person himself, to his family, and descendants. 2.

60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Their utility, especially from a medical point of view, to himself in
after-life. 3. The information they might give of hereditary dangers
and vital probabilities to his descendants. 4. Their value as future
materials for much-needed investigations into the statistics of life-
histories. Fortnightly Review.

-+++-

LIBEETY OF THOUGHT.

By Rev. E. WOODWARD BROWN.

MY subject is the progress of freedom of inquiry ; of liberty to
investigate and discuss, to compare and contrast, to adopt and
reject opinions liberty to think for one's self in every direction. The
subject is not the great life and war of thought, that which accom-
panies struggles of all kinds in the world struggles religious, polit-
ical, social, and industrial but is simply the progress of thought out
of an enslavement that has existed through the world in all time.
The mind of man has been more or less forbidden to exercise itself
as it pleases. A great work which it might have done and has not
done, work of all sorts throughout society in all its departments, has
failed because some men have forbidden other men to think in a dif-
ferent way from what those men willed.

The causes why men have repressed thought are found in a natural
dislike of dissent from cherished opinions in a natural illiberality
owing to ignorance or pride of opinion, or in a vague fear that new
thinking will in some way hurt one, or one's cherished opinions, as to
how things should be ; also in the advantage pecuniary, social, polit-
ical or other, arising from some established system, civil, ecclesiastical,
educational, or the like, which free discussion would endanger in whole
or in part. Through these causes those who have had the power have
used it to put down all objectionable thought.

In heathendom, whenever and wherever a great ecclesiastical sys-
tem has prevailed there has generally been an enslavement of mind in
all directions ; and wherever a great absolute state has existed there
has been an enslavement of mind in political and social, if not also in
religious directions. To refer to the enslavement by ecclesiastical sys-
tems : in these instances the ecclesiastical power has shackled thought
upon religion, morals, science, and literature, upon social and civil
subjects, in short upon everything ; has controlled absolutely the
whole expression of the nation's mind. The priestly class have ar-
ranged, inspired, and regulated all the duties to God, to the state, to
the family,, and to society. The priestly body has also claimed the su-
preme control of education ; has prescribed the limits and the courses
in which it shall be lawful for the human mind or for the human being

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 61

to go ; has also fixed the laws of literature and art, as we see in the
conventional architecture, sculpture, and paintings of Egypt, Assyria,
and Babylonia. This ecclesiastical conventionalism, supported by the
popular superstition, has greatly hampered original thought.

This sacred fixedness has not allowed, on the one hand, any progress
in the native mind itself, nor the influence upon it of foreign mind and
foreign methods.

In Egypt we have a priesthood dominant and fixing all forms of
life. In the Assyrian power we have the kings constantly exalting the
gods, in proclamation and inscription ; and the architecture and sculp-
ture are of an ecclesiastical and unchanging pattern. In the Medo-
Persian power the ecclesiastical authorities largely shape the people's
life; and- we find that part of the creed, that idols should be de-
stroyed, enforced wherever the Persian arms were carried. In Hin-
dostan we have religion setting conventional limits to religion, phi-
losophy, science, art, literature, politics, and social life.

But, on the other hand, we also find libertv of thought. Buddhism
has been tolerant and pacific ; has propagated itself never by war nor
by legal force, but only by moral suasion. China, too, seems to have
allowed a measure of liberty of thought in everything but politics.
Several religions exist there side by side ; and philosophy, science,
and literature are found without an ecclesiastical imprint.

In the ancient republican systems of government there seems to
have been more or less liberty of thought, except in religion and poli-
tics. This was so in the Phoenician confederacy, in the Carthaginian
commercial states, in the Grecian republics, and in the Roman com-
monwealth.

In the dawn of Greece we find the priestly class weakened and
superseded by the military. The despotic colleges of priests which
existed in the East never had a place among the high-spirited and
independent chiefs of Greece, who are described in Homer and else-
where as taking the offices of religion into their own hands, and in
various ways keeping its ministers in check. Doubtless, the genius of
the people also had something to do with this. Nowhere has there
been more liberty of thought in heathendom than in Greece, more
freedom from superstition and bigotry ; and yet even the Greeks were
intolerant. Anaxagoras, who tried to explain astronomical and mete-
orological phenomena, had a narrow escape with his life from the
offended "piety" of the Athenians. It took all the influence of Peri-
cles to save him. Socrates was put to death. Phidias was persecuted,
and died broken-hearted in prison. Every honest man was, at one
time, in danger of being accused of atheism by the zealots. Noble
citizens were tortured. Yet, on the whole, " at the epoch of the high-
est glory of philosophy, Plato, Aristotle, and most of the philosophers,
whether of Grecian, or, more latterly, of Greco-Roman antiquity, had
full liberty of thought, or nearly so. The state's public policy inter-

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fercd but little with their labors, to cramp them and give them a par-
ticular tendency. They, on their part, concerned themselves but little
about politics, nor cared much to influence immediately and decisively
the society in which they lived."

Liberty of thought was allowed in Roman civilization, and yet,
even there, was not permitted upon political subjects. The Roman
method of conciliation was, first of all, the most ample toleration of
the customs, religion, and municipal freedom of the conquered, and
then their gradual admission to the privileges of the conquerors. Free-
dom of thought was allowed to a remarkable degree. Education was
controlled neither by priest nor magistrate. Writing was free, and
the circulation of popular works was extensive, though probably the
rulers would have quickly restrained the circulation of what they
considered injurious to the state. Public speech was free upon phi-
losophy and morals, and uj)on theories of government, liberty, and'
tyrannicide.

"While Mohammedanism has fixed unalterably its doctrines and
forms, and has allowed no discussion of them, and so far has been
inconsistent with freedom of thought, still it has permitted a measure
of free thought. Its followers do not regard infidelity or heresy as
criminal, and persecution for theological opinions .has not been their
rule. They have never had an Inquisition ; or the burning of an unbe-
liever under authority of law. They have always allowed conquered
Christians to retain their faith, and even to have public worship. No
wars of compulsory conversion like those of Charlemagne, no expul-
sion of unbelievers, like that of the wars of Spain, stain the record of
Mohammedanism. The succession of the Greek Patriarchs of Constan-
tinople and Jerusalem has been regular for more than four centuries,
and their relations with the Sultan have been far more amicable
usually than those of the Pope with the kings of France and Ger-
many.

The Koran says, " Those who are Moslems and those who are Jews,
and the Christians and the Sabeans who believe in God and the last
day, and work righteousness, for them is their reward with the Lord,
and there is no fear for them, and they shall not be put to sorrow."
Many of the caliphs invited Christian scholars to their courts, and
were glad to have Christian students in their schools. The Caliph
Ilaroun-al-Raschid employed Nestorians as head teachers. In the
tenth century ambitious young Frenchmen went to the Asiatic
schools of Spain. For instance, there Gerson, afterward Pope Syl-
vester II, was educated.

We now come to the progress of liberty of thought in Christen-
dom.

The Christian Church has been afraid of inquiry because, so far as
it makes unsound and false statements of fact, contrary to those of
the Bible, it tends to unsettle the minds of men in what is regarded

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 63

as accepted and very important truth, and so she objects to every one
reading what she considers to be infidel books.

But, again, portions of the Christian Church have opposed inquiry
because it made true statements which contradicted certain wrong
interpretations and inferences that the Church had made from Script-
ure, and so, in undermining the errors of theology and the Church,
seemed to be undermining the important truth, and, while in reality
doing a good service, seemed to be doing harm. For instance, inves-
tigation of the laws of nature has ever been supposed by many " to be
doing away with the being or the perfections or the providence of
God ; the discovery of second causes has been thought to detract from
the glory of the Great First Cause." The discovery that God works
by law, or with regularity, has been supposed to interfere with the
faith that he is personal, has a choice to do this or that, and inter-
feres among men for or against. A class of thinkers have assumed
that, at least in some spheres, God acts without the aid of second
causes, and frequently without regard to uniform laws acts irregu-
larly. Science has been steadily reducing the extent and the number
of such spheres, but in the case of every one there has been a battle
offered by those who believed that in that sphere God operated with-
out regard to law ; that there man should not look for regular laws or
for secondary causes, and that to do so is presumptuous if not irrever-
ent and impious. In this way good men and great men have shown
themselves opponents of real science ; have made the mistake of assum-
ing that their prejudices and views were in harmony with the spirit
and the views of the Bible, or of true religion. These men have
supposed that they and the Bible were at one, and have been mistaken.
They have undertaken contests in which they were defeated, and in
which it became afterward apparent to the Church at large that they
were mistaken.

This opposition of portions of the Church to mental liberty is con-
trary to the original views and practices of the Church. And the right
has also been disputed by worthy men, such as Ambrose, Hilary, and
Martin, within the Church. The Christian religion is not accountable
for this false position of the Church toward freedom of thought.

Let us now look at the mental enslavement in Western Christendom.
Strange to say, that great Christian Church which has played such
an important part here, has, as before intimated, been guilty of such
enslavement ; has, with all its illumination on many subjects and its
great power, been an opponent of freedom of thought ; has been hos-
tile to views of Scripture and doctrine different from the accepted
views of the day ; has considered all expression of divergent views as
exceedingly bold, if not irreverent and heretical. For centuries the
clergy and the monks directed the whole current of European affairs,
personal, family, community, or national ; scientific, literary, philoso-
phical, or theoretical. The clergy and monks were a body by them-

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

selves, a hierarchy, a caste, a class that had undertaken the intellect-
ual as well as much other schooling of Europe. They ruled in and
throughout every sphere. They fixed everything in thought, religious
doctrine, general philosophy, science, art, poetry all. In a great
measure they formed and controlled public opinion. They fashioned
after their own views the minds of youth.

All this was well enough for a time. Europe needed it, and the
gain was greater than the loss ; better almost any education than no
education ; not but that their education was the best, but there comes
a time when formal education by human teachers must cease when
" school is out " ; and when this time arrived in Europe, and here and
there men were in thought beginning to go without their teachers
and beyond their teachers, then the Church, instead of, like a wise
father, letting them go, tried to hold them.

The Church had become lifted up with the idea that theirs alone
was the wisdom which could train, and theirs alone was the right to
train ; that it was their legitimate business. And so they tried to
regulate thought all the thought of the world so far as they could
reach that world.

Learning was oppressed, original speculation in philosophy, original
research in science, were prevented. Human reason was bound, for
woe to him who claimed to find in metaphysics, mathematics, or the
physical sciences that which contradicted what was stated ! " The
habit of doubt, the impartiality of suspended judgment, the desire
to hear both sides of a disputed question, the going beyond what
was taught," the making discoveries, all were condemned. Freedom,
the condition of true inquiry, was cursed. Blind, unquestioning ac-
ceptance was blessed. The people were allowed a literature of imagi-
nation, but the effort was made to strictly keep them out of any
moral and physical truth other than Rome had provided.

~YY r e now come to the change of the tide, to the beginning of better
days for inquiry, to the dawn of the day of liberty. While liberty
of thought was always more or less asserting itself, still, after a while,
such assertion increased in emphasis and force. Several facts were
favorable. It seems that, after all, the Church admitted the principle
of freedom, for she advocated free thinking for herself. She main-
tained that religious belief and practice should not be brought under
the absolute control of the civil government, and, by this assertion of
the independence of the spiritual and therefore of the intellectual
world, she prepared the way for the independence of the individual in
these worlds. The language she held for herself as a whole, for her-
self in matters of religion and conscience, and for herself in the in-
tellectual sphere, led the way for similar language by each person
for himself.

Another great gain for freedom of thought was when secular gov-
ernment began to think for itself in its executive, legislative, and judi-

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 65

cial departments ; when each state began to declare that, in political
matters, it was independent of the Church.

Still another great gain was, when a few " mighty though solitary
persons " in the twelfth century, the first scholastics, asserted the right
of human reason to be heard and to be consulted in the formation of
opinions, as against the mere say-so of the Church ; though most of
these persons forbore to attack commonly received opinions upon
religion ; but they revolted from blind acceptance of everything the
Church said. They went to work timidly. They would believe in
part because the Church said so, but they wanted that belief sup-
ported also by reason. The inference would be that reason had also
some claim to be heard ; a further inference might be that these men
were rationalists, and would only believe what reason could com-
prehend, but that would not follow. They only did not want to
believe what contradicted reason, and they wanted the privilege of
supporting their belief by reason so far as they could.

Abelard, founder of the scholastic philosophy, began the great
battle. The first shock of the strife was- when he threw down the
gauntlet about reason, and St. Bernard, a very distinguished divine of
the day, took it up. Both were men of great genius, leaders of great
parties, and both were bent on reform. St. Bernard was a monk,
humble, self-denying, and modest. He was celebrated for his pen-
ances, his poverty, his devotion to the distressed, as well as for his
learning and eloquence. He had attacked the vices of the monastic
world, and was reforming it with great zeal. It was a fight between
giants, and Abelard was beaten he was silenced.

A friend and disciple of Abelard, Arnold of Brescia, advocated
liberty of thought, while he also championed the rights of the people
all around to act and live as they pleased, so far as the ecclesiastical
body then dominant was concerned. And, so far did this revolu-
tion go, begun by Abelard and Arnold of Brescia, that it seemed at
one time likely to antedate the great religious revolution of the six-
teenth century by nearly four centuries. Free, independent thinking,
with heresy, was rife in all the schools. A republic existed at Rome.
The most fertile of the French provinces, Languedoc, was in the power
of the Albigenses. But as Abelard was silenced, so Arnold was
hanged. The Roman Republic was suppressed. The Albigenses of
Languedoc were exterminated. The cause of liberty came to grief,
and yet the good work of emancipation was not ended.

'Another great gain for free thought was in the early national
literatures. They were uncompromising foes of Rome, its vices and
its tyranny over thought. Petrarch denounced the Roman hierarchy,
popes, cardinals, and monks, with unmeasured severity. He poured
out a torrent of invective. Dante showed the ideal church, and then
contrasted with it the real Church. He put popes into hell, and called
Rome the very Babylon that John saw in the Apocalypse. Boccaccio

TOL. XXI. 5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

treated the popular religious teachers with unbounded ridicule. The
Minnesingers of Germany expressed freely their hatred of the tyranny
of the Church ; and the Provencal bards of France were unsparing in
their attacks upon the hierarchy, until they were silenced by the fatal
Albigensian crusade. The rising popular national literature. of Eng-
land indignantly censured the monks and higher clergy, and spoke out
boldly against the whole hierarchical system. The famous " Vision
of Piers Ploughman," by William Langlande (a. d. 1362), one of the
earliest pieces of English literature, is from the pen of an earnest
reformer, " who values reason and conscience as the guides of the
soul, and attributes the world's sorrows and calamities to the wealth
and worldliness of the clergy, and especially of the mendicant orders " ;
while, also, Chaucer, in his " Canterbury Tales," shows himself in full
accord with Wycliffe in hostility to the mendicant orders.

In many of these early writings, reverence for the Church and re-
ligion is blended with bitter, censures of the arrogance and wealth of
the ecclesiastics. The spiritual power of the Pope is distinguished
from his temporal power. The one is revered, the other denounced.

Again, we have the beginning of free thought in criticism in the
idea of the comparative study of religion, as seen in the work " De
Tribus Impostoribus."

Further, we have the beginning of free thought in philosophy, to
wit : in the Mohammedan philosophy of the great infidel Averroes,
introduced into Christendom from the Mohammedan universities of
Spain ; and there was also a struggle of the Church with Averroism,
the subject of conflict being the nature of the soul, and the doctrines
of emanation and absorption.

Furthermore, we have an effort at free thought in science. There
were the leaders of science, Raymond Lully and Roger Bacon ; there
were also the Platonists Barbaras, Curanus, Ticinus, Patricius,
Picus, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Fludd, etc. ; and again the theoretical
reformers of science Telesius, Campanella, Bruno, Ramus, and Me-
lanchthon.

Moreover, there were discoveries which tended to diffuse knowl-
edge, and so to awaken the mind of Europe the art of making pa-
per, the invention of gunpowder, and the discovery of the magnetic
needle. There were, also, the universities. Instead of the Church
being exclusively the only tribunal of opinion, the universities became
now also centers of thought, with opinions and power of their own.
Thus a certain new supremacy sprang up in the world of thought a
supremacy generally in accord with that of the Church, but sometimes
antagonistic, and always more or less separate from it in the sphere
of philosophy, science, and letters, here claiming to have an opinion of
its own, and the claim being to some extent allowed.

Again, free thought found help in the jurists. They hated the
Papal tyranny. Their study of the scattered remains of Roman law

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 6 7

and civilization tended to generate mental freedom from prejudice and
from authority.

We also have help to free thought in the revival of classical learn-
ing. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, among the many compli-
cated causes which it would be difficult to trace, a general revival of
Latin literature took place, which greatly modified the mental state of
Europe. For the first time in centuries we find, feeble though it be,
an uprising against the universal credulity and against the universal
passion for theology. There was a strong desire for secular learning
beginning to stir the mind of Europe. A taste was developed for
philosophy, science, letters, and classical learning, an intellectual life
which, while more or less suppressed in one land or another, one gen-
eration or .another, by civil or ecclesiastical despotism, was destined
to increase all over Europe and to continue until the present. Men
thronged the universities to study not only theology, but also philoso-
phy, law, medicine, science, belles-lettres, and the old literature of
Greece and Rome. A desire arose among men to think for themselves
in every sphere of thought. At this revival there was introduced into
literature that principle of freedom to think which the Reformation
brought into religion, and which principle Cartesianism brought next
into philosophy ; and, next, the French Revolution, four centuries
from the beginning of the general movement, brought into politics.

Again, we have the rise of free thought in religion. Church tyr-
anny was encountered by a resistance within the Church itself, which
resistance could not be overcome. Many could not be restrained, con-
fined, and controlled by the Church. ^Nowhere, in fact, did individual
reason more boldly assert itself than in heresies and sects in the Church
in their denial of the infallibility of creeds, councils, and popes.
The long rule of orthodoxy was broken through by many heresies,
which, though often repressed, broke out again as often, and with new
force and consistency. The minds of the learned were perplexed by
sudden doubts concerning the leading doctrines of faith.

Every sort of new opinion in religion was entertained, notwith-
standing ecclesiastical authority. An impartial philosophy was pro-
claimed by Abelard. A stern and uncompromising infidelity was
taught in Seville and in Cordova, which infidelity began to overshadow
the mind of Christendom. A passion for astrology and for the fatal-
ism it implies revived, though there was, as yet, no general disposition
to rise above the traditional teachings and fixed systems of the
Church. -

The Reformation was, among other things, an assertion of liberty of
thought ; was a partial emancipation of the mind of Western Christen-
dom from bondage ; was a teaching man to think for himself in the
specific instance of the claims of the Romish Church to control all in
religion ; was, if not a complete emancipation, at least a great increase
of liberty. This, in Germany, Denmark and Holland, England and

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

France, and, for a time, in other lands where the Reformation was
afterward crushed out, was a power of mental freedom.

Yet mental enslavement continued. The reformers would only

change the master. He certainly was not to be the Roman Catholic
Church, they said ; he was only to be a more legitimate power. Stand-
ards were still set up, and ecclesiastical and civil power stood behind
them, to compel religious, philosophical, scientific, and other thought,
not to differ from them. Every one, Romish or Protestant, claimed
the right to defend and to propagate opinion by force ; every one was
in favor of calling in the civil power to aid in a controversy in thought.
But matters have much improved in the ecclesiastical sphere during
these last four centuries. There is now marked progress in liberty
of religious thought. The fierce invectives once hurled back and
forth between Protestant and Catholic are dropped. The war of de-
nominations has largely ceased. Convictions seriously entertained are
now generally respected. Although a change of religion, or even in
ministers a change of denomination, frequently causes more or less
petty persecution, still there is improvement since the time, several
centuries ago, when the apostasy of any one from the rest was re-
garded as one of the worst of crimes. A change of religion or even
of denomination, from a sense of duty, is now commonly allowed
among intelligent men. To-day the Protestant nations and the Roman
Catholic countries of France,, Spain, Italy, Austria, Bavaria, and Span-
ish America, have abandoned intolerance and enjoy freedom of opinion.

There is also marked progress in liberty of scientific thought in
the seventeenth century, that freedom to prosecute and publish inves-
tigation in science, which is so necessary to the advancement of sci-
ence, hardly existed as yet. Though the political influence of the
Church of Rome had much diminished, though European society had
largely passed from the dominion of the Roman Church to that of
temporal governments, yet that Church, though less tyrannical, freer
from abuses, and more tolerant than before, was still disposed to
maintain at every point the doctrines and opinions already expressed
upon questions of science and learning ; while also in Protestant
lands popular prejudice still to an extent repressed mental freedom.

But there arose practical reformers in science Leonardo da Vinci
Copernicus, Fabricius, Galileo, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe. Science
began to make decided advances in geography, astronomy, chemistry,
physics, anatomy, medicine, geology, political economy, and other
branches. The conflict with the astronomers is well known and has
been well described the fear of Copernicus, the imprisonment of
Galileo, the burning at the stake in Rome of Giordano Bruno for up-
holding the teaching of modern astronomy as to the immensity of the
universe and the plurality of worlds.

Still liberty of thought in science began to grow in various lands,
giving us Bacon, Harvey, Descartes, Hooker, Barrow, Newton, Locke,

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT. 69

Condillac, Helvetius, and others. In the present century all force has
ceased, though certain advances in science have awakened opposition
for instance, the teaching of geology that the world had existed
for millions of years, and had taken its shape under natural laws.
This was thought to be against the Bible ; so, too, vaccination and
anaesthetics and other new things have been opposed with unnecessary '
haste and heat, as devices to defeat God's will. But to-day science
and philosophy are free in many lands, while the narrow and restrict-
ive policy which still obtains in others is gradually yielding.

Freedom of political thought is largely increased, though despot-
ism and obstructive social systems have been much in the way ; but,
as the civil despotisms have changed into constitutional governments,
there has been a steady increase of freedom.

Freedom of publication has likewise increased. In the middle ages
nothing was allowed to be published that was against the opinions of
the ruling powers in church or in state, nothing in theology, philoso-
phy, science, or literature ; though of course this tyranny was by no
means complete, and very many were the attacks 011 received opinions.
Still, as a rule, the press was enslaved. Despotic governments in
church or state have not allowed a free press, except in instances of
a mild sovereign or upon matters foreign to any interest of the rulers.
The general policy has been to forbid all utterance that in any way
is subversive of the authority or influence of government. We have
heard much of regulation of the press, in political matters, which
means despotic interference with it ; the governments have been
afraid of it ; the upper classes in church, state, society, and indus-
trial enterprise, have been afraid of it ; it is rather the mouth-piece of
truth and of justice for the people ; wherefore " the complete proper
liberty of the press is the conquest of a high civilization."

In France the Revolution witnessed the freedom, even the license,
of the press. Bonaparte followed. He feared and hated free thought,
and was, in some directions, its persistent opponent and oppressor ; he
exerted the immense power which he possessed to trammel the press ;
he cherished a mean jealousy of every kind of intellectual superiority
which he could not enslave.

In Austria, Spain, and Italy, under their despotic governments, in-
fluenced more or less by the priests, a strict censorship has been exer-
cised over all thought interfering with civil or with ecclesiastical
despotism. Yet, since the civil absolutism has decreased, the liberty
of the press has increased, until now, in Italy at least, it is complete.

The English-speaking lands have a free press ; so, I believe, have
the Spanish republics of America, and the same is true of Germany,
Holland, and Belgium, and to a less extent of Scandinavian countries.
In all these lands the principle has largely prevailed that writing and
publishing are in^themselves indifferent matters to government.

Such is a review of the progress of liberty of thought, especially

7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in Christendom a review that evidences the fact of progress. There
was never before a period when men were judged so little according
to their belief as now, and when all studies were pursued with such
freedom. The victory of toleration in the purely intellectual sphere
has been almost achieved. The principle is almost established that
there shall be no restraint upon thinking, speaking, or publishing,
whether it be in theology, in philosophy, in criticism, in science, in
literature, or in politics. Both the law and public opinion favor such
liberty.

A EEPLY TO MISS HAEDAKEE ON THE WOMAN

QUESTION.

By NINA MOEAIS.

TO classify phenomena as manifestations of a universal law is the
intellectual pastime of the nineteenth century. The finding of a
Eosetta stone which shall be the key to a bewildering maze of details
is a mental rest to the thinker. Hence, a theory which settles a much-
vexed question by a scientific ipse dixit is met with a murmur of ad-
miration and a sigh of relief. But those who profess to hold a com-
mission from Science should not the less be bound to the " scientific
rule of deducing no principle which facts will not prove." What Sci-
ence says, facts will corroborate, but they will not always wait upon
the interpretation of her devotees. About fifty years ago a gentleman
of high scientific attainments proved by irreproachable mathematics
that no steamship could cross the Atlantic, for by no expedient could
a vessel be built which could stow away enough fuel to propel itself to
so great a distance. To-day the gentleman might take as an ordinary
trip the journey he proved impossible.

In the March number of " The Popular Science Monthly " Miss
Hardaker invokes Science to testify to the natural and irrevocable
mental inferiority of the female to the male. A statement of this
kind, coming as it does when woman is struggling for every step in
her intellectual advance, is peculiarly baneful to her. To cover ancient
prejudice with the palladium of scientific argument is to unite the
strength "of conservatism and of progress in one attack. An examina-
tion of the accuracy of the paper, " Science and the Woman Question,"
may not, therefore, be ill-timed.

Two propositions underlie Miss Hardaker's argument. They are
as follows :

1. A large amount of matter represents more force than a small
amount. Hence man is superior to woman in body and brain (page
579).

2. "All human energy is an exact equivalent of the amount of

REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 7 i

food consumed and assimilated." Man, by reason of his larger organs,
eats and assimilates more food than woman does. Each of his organs,
including the brain, is therefore capable of acting with proportionally-
greater energy. Hence, " men will always think more than women "

(page 583).

Collaterally our author finds that the demands of maternity must
cause a large subtraction from the smaller amount of mental energy
which women would otherwise exert, and, as the result of her funda-
mental propositions, she draws the startling conclusion that "unless
woman can devise some means for reducing the size of man, she must
be content to revolve about him in the future as in the past " (page
581).

Before entering upon the question by means of her own original
and scientific method, Miss Hardaker makes the following statements :
" Students of physiology see that a final and conclusive law can not be
drawn from differences in brain- weights and measurements, because of
the present imperfection of data." But the superior power of the male
brain, like the superior power of the male muscle, is shown conclusive-
ly by its product (page 578).

The figures which begin Miss Hardaker's argument are those which
all speculations regarding the brain take into consideration. These
figures are quite complete enough to indicate distinctly that the aver-
age male brain is always larger than the female. Miss Hardaker her-
self states that " all accepted authorities agree that the average male
brain exceeds the average female brain in weight by about ten per
cent " (page 578). Now, if the principle that bulk is power were ad-
mitted, the measurements obtained would be nearly, if not quite, con-
clusive of the natural superiority of the male : it would not have been
reserved for Miss Hardaker to make the discovery. Miss Hardaker
can not afford to dismiss brain-measurements as incomplete evidence,
for these statistics become the key-stone of her own logic when she
endeavors to prove man's mental superiority because of his excess of
brain.

The student, however, does not reason as Miss Hardaker reasons.
He, as well as she, possesses the historic fact that the product of the
masculine mind has always been greater than that of the feminine.
He might, therefore, find that, as the male brain has been more produc-
tive, it is the better organ. Upon this point Miss Hardaker contends
that not only can we reason to the general quality of organs from
tlreir respective products, but we can actually arrive at a knowledge
of their structure by such processes of logic. " We do not examine a
muscle," she says, "to ascertain its internal structure" (page 578). If
this were true, the occupation of the anatomist would be gone : the
valvular arrangement of the heart, the cellular formation of the lungs,
would have been disclosed by an observation of the externally percep-
tible operations of these organs. The truth is, that we can never rea-

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

son from product to structure until after we have internal evidence of
the functional relations between the structure and product of the class
of organs to which those under test belong ; nor can we without such
knowledge even reason to the general quality of two organs by their
different product, unless our comparisons are made under the same
. environment. For instance, take two pairs of lungs : let one respire at
sea-level, the other at the top of Mont Blanc. Their absolute product
would be no estimate of their relative capacity. Still, the physiologist
would have little difficulty in eliminating the effect of difference of
circumstances in his calculation, because his complete knowledge of
the lungs and of the influence of atmospheric pressure enables him to
allow for differences of environment. But no such allowance can be
made in estimating the normal power of the male and female brain
which have always acted in different mental atmospheres ; for the
relation of structure to function as regards brain has not been accu-
rately determined.

It is because of this lack of knowledge regarding the precise con-
nection between brain-structure and thought, and not because of im-
perfection in the data of measurements, that students refuse to draw
therefrom the law of brain capacity ; and thinkers will not infer the
capacity of male and female brains from their products, until the
different influences acting upon men and women can be eliminated.
While anatomy is unable to solve for us the enigma of sexual brain-
power, we may have recourse to comparison under similar environ-
ment as the key to our problem. This method of discovery Miss
Hardaker, with a perversity remarkable in a disciple of modern science,
is laboring zealously to prevent.

" We need not," she says, " ascertain the meaning of brain-size by
experiment ; we can arrive at it by analogy. All other organs (under
the same conditions) work in proportion to their size. Is there any
good reason for making an exception of the brain?" (page 578).
Now, even if all other organs work in proportion to their size, the fact
that the brain is exceptional, in the nature and in the variety and
complexity of its functions, would render the argument from biceps to
brain as questionable as that from marble to zinc. There may be prop-
erties in common, but in the production of forces the similar effects of
these common properties may be wholly vitiated by others peculiar to
only one of the objects compared. Besides, size is not always a gauge
of organic capacity. Does the large eye see better, the large ear hear
more, the large nerve feel more keenly ? And, if, all other conditions
being equal, they might do so, the incalculable variation of condition
renders the size test of no practical value at all. This, however, is a
phase of the subject to be discussed later, when we shall endeavor to
show that, although we agree with Miss Hardaker that a larger brain
means something, it does not necessarily mean a " greater amount of
thinking in a given time." And, here we throw in, as interesting

REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 73

facts, that woman's smaller heart beats faster than man's larger one ;
that her circulation is to his in swiftness as ten to nine ; and that, ac-
cording to Miss Hardaker's figures, and to some celebrated authorities,
the proportion of brain to body is larger in woman than in man.

But to meet Miss Hardaker upon her own ground in the discussion
of her fundamental propositions, we shall waive, as she has done, all
sexual differences, of physical or local environment, and all analogical
inferences, and proceed to compare the male and female brains upon a
supposititious level of like conditions. She proposes to prove, on quite
new and highly scientific grounds, that absolute weights and meas-
urements are, after all, the ultimate tests of capacity. It may be
deemed singular that the profound students who have preceded Miss
Hardaker some of whom were undoubtedly scientists should have
entirely overlooked the beautifully simple conclusion she formulates,
thus : " If mass represents force, the larger the brain, the larger the
power." The reason why students have been so blind to Miss Harda-
ker's discoveries is quite as simple as the discovery itself. It is because
her premises are false.

A large amount of matter does not represent more force than a
small amount, nor does it represent any force at all. There is an ele-
mentary law of physics which declares that the momentum of a body
equals its size multiplied by its velocity, and this may lead to the sup-
position that matter itself is force. But matter in a state of inertia
is not power ; it becomes powerful only when acted upon. The same
force acting upon different bodies imparts velocity in the inverse ratio
of their masses ; and, since velocity as well as size is a factor of power,
it follows that a force which imparts a greater velocity to a smaller
body gives it as great a momentum as a larger body obtains when
acted upon by the same force ; for the velocity in the latter case is
feebler. Even admitting (what Miss Hardaker does not appear to
claim) that potential energy may be proportionate to size of mass, we
see that potential energy can only be evolved by an appropriate force
acting through or upon the mass, and, to make the potential energy of
a large mass do more work than that of a smaller one, the force ap-
plied must always be greater. Hence, not the size of the body, but the
strength of the impelling force, is the ultimate test of its power. A
glance at obvious facts will show that size is not the gauge, that
weight may indeed be a direct impediment to the evolution of force.
The avoirdupois of the fat boy is a clog to his energy ; the fast run-
ner wins by his light weight ; the champion oarsman reduces his
flesh.

In applying her theory to the brain, one fact which Miss Hardaker
herself states is sufficient to tell very disastrously against her conclu-
sion that larger brain-weight means larger thinking power. "Accord-
ing to Gratiolet, the male brain can not fall below thirty-seven ounces
without involving idiocy, while the female may fall to thirty-two

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ounces without such result " (page 578). Here are two brains precisely
of the same quality, one thirty-seven ounces the other thirty-one, an
absolute difference of six ounces. Yet these six ounces represent just
nothing. Indeed, give the woman thirty-four ounces and leave the
man thirty-seven, his three ounces more are simply a minus : thirty-
four is rational thought, thirty-seven irrational. In this instance a
small amount of matter represents more power than a large amount.
It would seem that the true law must be sought elsewhere than in the
grocer's scale.

But the impelling force which Miss Hardaker omits in her former
statement is supplied in her next assumption : "All human energy is
derived from food. Man eats more than woman because his larger
size requires him to do so, a larger proportion of nourishment is sent
to his brain ; hence men think more than women." A look backward
at our elementary law of physics will show that Miss Hardaker's sec-
ond conclusion is as weak as her first. To repeat that portion of our
law which bears upon this argument, we find that the same force act-
ing on different bodies imparts velocity in the inverse ratio of their
masses, and it is therefore clear that, in order to make the large ma-
chine run as fast as the small one, fuel must be supplied to the former
more freely. The explosive force that sends the tiny rifle-ball at the
rate of twenty miles a minute could not overcome the inertia of the
missile discharged from the Krupp gun ; a proportional force to each
would send each just the same distance. Now, granting all the prem-
ises of Miss Hardaker's second proposition, that male and female eat
in certain fixed proportions, that a certain fixed amount of that pro-
portion goes to nourish relatively proportioned brains, the only logical
conclusion is that the larger brain, supplied with more blood, would in
a given time do heavier work, but not more work, than the smaller one
supplied with less blood. Under these circumstances the momentum
of the larger brain would be greater than that of the small brain ;
their velocities equal. Without his extra supply of blood, man's brain
could never overtake woman's in velocity / indeed, without this addi-
tional stimulus it might not be able to move at all. The theory that
the smaller brain is propelled more easily, might explain the quickness
of perception and of fancy which, according to Miss Hardaker, are
womanly traits.

Such reasoning, however, is at best mere theorizing, for it applies
the simple laws of mechanics to the intricate and so far inexplicable
structure of the brain, making no allowance for complications which
would divert the action of the law. It may be true that blood is the
primary motor of the brain ; but there are many other elements besides
the size of brain and body, or even the amount of food assimilated,
which measure the quantity of blood sent to the brain. The problem
is by no means, as Miss Hardaker has tried to make it, an easy sum in
simple proportion which the school-boy may solve standing on one

REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 75

foot. Omitting altogether a consideration of the superior blood-circu-
lation of women as a class, overlooking entirely the probability (in-
dicated by the data of the idiot question heretofore discussed) that
proportion of brain to body is an element in the capacity of the for-
mer, the individual rapidity of circulation, the richness of food in
brain-making material become important terms of our problem. The
opium-eater, the wine-drinker, the consumer of brain-stimulants, cer-
tainly drive more than a proportional share of blood to the brain. At
the same time there is always a personal equation to vary the propor-
tional action of food-supply. The brains of Moses and Mohammed
were stimulated by prolonged fasts. The circumstances of travel,
temperament, companionship, wealth, the passions, music, art, dancing,
machine-stitching, and a thousand others, which can never be aver-
aged, often exert an adventitious influence on the appropriation of
fuel for thought. These influences are entirely independent of food-
consumption and brain-size ; they defy the application of any law of
mechanics.

But Miss Hardaker's scientific argument, if true, proves too much ;
for if men, the greater consumers, think more or even better because
of the large size of their bodies and the larger power of their digestive
organs than women do, then it must follow that the larger and health-
ier men as a class must think, if not more, at least more profoundly,
than smaller and less robust men. Yet the bulk of the world's thought
has not been done by men of superior physique or even of superior
health. Aristotle, Napoleon, Jeffrey, Thiers, were short in person ;
Shakespeare, Buckle, Comte, were delicate in frame ; Descartes and
Bacon were always sickly ; Heine wrote his best while in physical
agony ; Newton and Spinoza were slight in form and of medium
height ; Herbert Spencer's health has always been precarious ; Mrs.
Browning was a life-long invalid ; while, unfortunately for a theory
based upon superior digestion, Goethe and Carlyle were confirmed
dyspeptics.

The instances here crted are by no means exceptional. Indeed, the
seeker for data under this head will find that, instead of larger and
more healthy physiques evolving a larger average amount of mental
power than smaller and less robust ones, the contrary result is emphat-
ically true. As a matter of fact, the circumstance of superior muscu-
lar development seems unfavorable to great exertion of the mind.
The demands of the body itself are in large men imperative. The
waste of the system must be repaired, and the first draughts of energy
must go to this purpose. Afterward, though the potential energy
represented by the food consumed may still be stored up, there is little
power or little inclination to apply that energy to thought. The col-
lege student who is most active in the field, who has the greatest
height in his stockings, and the biggest biceps, is rarely at the head of
his class. Not Wly does the larger body require more in proportion

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for its nourishment, but the forces which effect this nourishment are
not easily turned in other directions, and it is, therefore, a natural se-
quence that the body must dwindle as the power of the mind increases.
The savage Teutons, whose great bodies affrighted the Romans of
Caesar, have become the civilized possessors of less bulk and more
knowledge. Human energy appears not to be harmonious, but to run
in grooves. Thought produces thought, and the energy once sent to
the brain is the direct cause of a new demand for supplies. In like
manner, the arm that is developed by work needs a larger amount of
food for its maintenance. This is the explanation of the historic fact
that physical and mental powers have never been proportionally culti-
vated, but always at the expense of each other. The profound thinker
and the superior pugilist are rarely united.

But, even if it is true that the larger and healthier physique affords
more blood for brain-use, it does not follow that the larger the supply
the greater the amount of brain- work possible. The argument assumes
that the brain has no limit to its activity except in the quantity of
blood that ban be prepared for it. But it needs no scientific educa-
tion to know that there are other influences which limit the thinker's
activity, and that these limitations are somewhere in the mysterious
recesses of the brain, or in the forces of which the brain is the organ.
The physical health of the brain-worker may be perfect, his digestion
unimpaired, his power to assimilate food the same, and yet he may not
be able to concentrate his thoughts or carry on a complicated train of
reasoning. The defect is not in his body that is as healthy as ever ;
nor is it in any of the processes of blood-making these go on as be-
fore. The trouble lies in the brain itself, whose capacity for work
is measured by some hidden standard of its own, and which gives
warning when a cessation of brain-work is imperative. The body is a
furnace whose power of consuming fuel is greater than the capability
of its boiler the brain to generate power. To kee]3 the latter in
good working condition, something more is necessary than building
and feeding the fires. A supplementary but' important consideration
is, whether the steam beyond a certain point will not be productive of
unpleasant consequences in the form of an explosion.

In the discussion of the collateral question, that of the effect of
maternity on brain-power, Miss Hardaker's scientific logic takes its
most amusing form. " The necessary outcome of absolute intellectual
equality of the sexes," she says, "would be the extinction of the human
race. For, if all food were converted into thought in both men and
icomen, no food tchatever coidd be appropriated for the reproduction
of species " ( page 583). What Miss Hardaker really means by this last
highly scientific axiom it is impossible to guess. She can not mean
that, as all food is converted into thought in men, women must cease
to be mothers in order to imitate his food-conversion. Whatever Miss
Hardaker may intend by her impossible supposition, the fact that ma-

REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 77

ternity does make large draughts upon the energy of woman is not to
be overlooked. But, unless it can be shown that the mental activity of
man is ceaseless, that his manual labor diverts no blood from the brain,
that his imaginative and reasoning powers keep steadily at work year
in and vear out, limited only by supply of food, it does not necessarily
follow that women must fall behind men in the brain-work of a life-
time. Both men and women need mental rest no brain-worker can
keep at the top of his speed for ever ; and women whose duties as
mothers divert their energy from the brain may overtake men in their
voluntary holidays. This fact will have more concrete significance
when we reflect that the professional brain-workers in both sexes are
in the minority, and that women who are such are usually unmarried,
or mothers of small families. At the same time, the labors of men who
form the great masses of population are not more stimulating to brain-
culture than the vocations of their wives. But, granting what is prob-
ably true, that woman as a whole can never show as much mental prod-
uct as man, because some of her time and energy must be devoted to
motherhood, still she may be quite as capable of production. There-
fore, any reasoning which excludes women as a class from the advan-
tages of equal mental training with men, on the ground that they must
be the mothers of the race, is forcing the activity of women into one
channel, and rendering all other efforts (such as the writing of a scien-
tific article, perhaps) unnatural and unwomanly.

But suppose the whole of Miss Hardaker's argument to be founded
on true premises, and all her conclusions to be just and accurate, it
may yet be pertinently asked, Cut bono ? Miss Hardaker would slam
the educational doors in women's faces because, being smaller, they
are unfit to enter the select retreats of Brobdingnag. But, if justice
is to prevail in the rules of admission, the woman who possesses a brain
of fifty-six ounces is entitled to precedence over the great majority of
males whose brains weigh only forty-nine and a half. Should the en-
vironment be more favorable to the woman whose brain-weight is
forty-four ounces, she can claim the advantage over the larger male
brain whose environment is less favorable. Then, too, the applicants
for entrance must be subjected to the test of an eating-match, and the
dyspeptic must consent to suicide or rejection. All this must be done,
for, although Justice carries her scales, she is blindfolded. She can
only weigh brains, food, environment, but can not see the sex of suitors
for admission into the new academy. Miss Hardaker must be aware
that, were every element in her assumptions true, some women must
be greatly superior to the average men, although the highest point
reached by the male could not be obtained by the female. Miss Hard-
aker would, perhaps, object to having the doors of journalism closed
against her, because she can never think as profoundly as Lord Bacon,
or because in general woman's literary production has not made so fair
a showing as man's. It is not long ago since this sort of reasoning

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

militated strongly against the publication of any article that might be
signed with a woman's name. But science not the false science which
answered Miss Hardaker's invocation, not the science which would con-
fine the negro to slavery because of his small brain and small mental
achievement true science says that, if woman's power is to be judged
by her work, she must be given a fair field for its display. To clear
the race-course for the man, and to block woman's road at a certain
point, because we feel intuitively that she can go no further, is by
no means consistent with modern scientific methods. If the line of
woman's power is marked, let her discover the fact, as Bacon thought
all scientific truth should be discovered by experiment. The discov-
ery will not long be delayed ; the law of the survival of the fittest will
not be abrogated. But, if it should be found that the mental steam-
ship of the female can, after all, store enough fuel to cross the ocean
of reasoning, it would give woman the inestimable benefit of correct-
ing the possible errors into which a professed enemy of her sex has
fallen. It would demonstrate that, like Mr. Darwin's pea-hen, women
have remained inferior to their mates, not because of natural defect,
but by reason of external circumstances. A just trial is the whole de-
mand of the reform philosophy.

In the Royal Society, many years ago, it is said Charles II asked
an explanation of the fact that a fish in water had no weight ; that
water plus a fish was no heavier than water without a fish. The wise
gentlemen of the Royal Society (presumably males of large bulk) were
much agitated over the problem, and gave many scientific reasons for
the remarkable phenomenon. It was a wiser man (though not of so
scientific a turn of mind) who, instead of giving his reasons why the
fish had no weight in its own element, tried the experiment and found,
to the surprise of the scientific gentlemen, that a practical test was of
more value than any quantity of learned but ill-founded speculation.
Perhaps it will not be out of place, by way of parallel to Miss Harda-
ker's triumphant demonstration of " the reason why," to cite the testi-
mony of a prominent instructor, whose evidence tends to show that
her scientific impossibility may be affected by some elements which
she has not considered. " So far as my observation and experience
go, " says President Magill, of Swarthmore College (a gentleman who
for ten years has been the instructor of about three hundred students
of both sexes), "there is absolutely no difference in the average intel-
lectual capacity of the sexes, under the same training and external in-
fluences. The valedictorians of our classes have been almost equally
divided between the sexes, with a slight and accidental preponderance
in favor of the young women."

THE GENESIS OF THE SWORD.

THE GENESIS OF THE SWOED *

THE idea of employing weapons for assault or defense was a logic-
al result of the first contests that took place between man and
man. In these contests the strongest man with his native weapons
his fists was unconsciously the father of all arms and all armed
strength, for his weaker antagonist would early seek to restore the
balance of power between them by the use of some sort of weapon.
The shorter-armed man lengthened his striking power by the use of a
stick, and found, after a time, the help its leverage and weight afforded
him. The first case in which the chance-selected, heavy-ended staff or
club showed that weight or hardness had its value, was a first step
toward furnishing it with a strong head. Hence the blow of the fist
was the forerunner of the crushing weapon. In the same way the
pointed stick became the lance or dagger ; and the thrown shaft,
helped, as knowledge increased, by the bow or " throwing-stick," was
the precursor of the dart and arrow. The character of the first
weapons was largely determined by the nature of the materials from
which they were derived, and their shape partly from this and partly
by copying the forms of the weapons possessed by the animals the
primitive men slew. Hence arises the general similarity in character
and shape of the earliest tools from all parts of the world.

The weapons of animals are piercing, striking, serrated, poisoned
or missile ; and weapons made directly from those of some animals
were used for similar purposes. Spears and lances are found made
from the weapons of the walrus, boar, gnu, rhinoceros, sword-fish, nar-
whal, and antelope, to be used for piercing, as the animals themselves
used them. The serrated bone of the sting-ray furnished both the
material and example for many a South-Sea Island spear. The saw-
fish's snout has given the natives of New Guinea a ready-made weapon
(Fig. 2), and the setting of the shark's teeth in the jaw has suggested
their employment in making deadly the edge of a Tahiti sword (Fig.
39). The curved buffalo-horn and the wavy antelope-horn gave the
types of the Indian kandjar. (Fig. 1) and many other Eastern weapons.
The hollow poison-fang of the venomous serpent not only gave a
lesson to the- South American Indians, who use a poison-tipped spear,
but indirectly suggested holes for poison in the poisoned arrow-heads,
and grooves for the same purpose in the mediaeval stiletto. The
barbed arrow-head was suggested by the barbed sting of the insect,
which stays in the wound it makes ; and the Bushman may have
learned to half cut off his arrow close to the head, so that it should
break off in the wound, from observing how stings thus break off in

* From a paper by C. Cooper King, of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in Cas-
sell, Petter, Galpin & Co.'s " Science for All."

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the body they have penetrated. Other patterns have been furnished
by the stones which the primitive men have had to use for crushing
and cutting tools, and have been developed in working them out.
Thus we have the axe, spear, lance, or dart, and arrow (Figs. 3, 4), of

the paleolithic men, the stabbing dagger made from

reindeer-horn (Fig. 0), and the stone lance-heads

(Fig. 5) of the cave-men.

In the next stage, that of the "neolithic" men,

the tools are a little better finished ; the weapons

1 2

Weapons from Animal Forms.

4 5

Palaeolithic.

7 8 9

Neolithic.

cut better, the lance-heads are thinner, sharper, and finer, and pro-
visions for fastening to handles appear (Figs. 7, 8, 9) ; and the dagger
(Figs. 8 and 9) has developed the form from which all the other hand-
weapons have come.

The bronze age, having the art of working in a more tractable ma-
terial, gave an improved weapon. Its dagger is thinner, broader, more
pointed, and more dangerous, but yet bears evidence, in peculiarities
of shape, that memories of the stone age still survived in the fabri-
cator's mind. The blades are still short, but the weapon is furnished
with a handle of wood (Fig. 11) or bronze (Fig. 10) or ivory (Fig. 12),
often richly decorated and quite small. The ancient nations furnish us
longer daggers, or swords of bronze, of various patterns, as the Egyp-
tian (Fig. 13), Assyrian (Fig. 14), and Grecian (Figs. 15, 16) swords.

The earlier swords were used exclusively for stabbing. Adapta-
tion to cutting was begun after bronze was introduced, and was de-

10
Irish.

11 12

English.

18 14

Egyptian. Assyrian.

15 16

Grecian.

veloped as the art was learned of forging iron and steel into weapons.
The first iron swords copied the shape of their bronze ancestors, and,
while they were longer and more formidable stabbing instruments
than those, were not much better for cutting. They were broad, two-

THE GENESIS OF THE SWORD.

edged, and in time pointed. Finally, the Romans made the gladius
sharp, of highly-tempered steel, and strongly piercing the first real
sword (Figs. 17, 18, 19), of which only five specimens are now known
to exist.

The well-tempered and well-made Saxon sword was the property
only of those who had the rank of thane. As a rule, it was a straight,
cut-and-thrust Made, with a double edge and a broad point, though
other shapes have been found.

Of the three ways in which a sword may be used for cutting, that
called chopping, in which the work is done with the shoulder and fore-
arm and little play of the wrist, and the blow comes down straight with
a whack, is of the most value against body-armor. The medieval
swords, therefore, were stout, straight, and wide (Figs. 20 to 23), and
adapted to that kind of work. The hands being clad in mail, no at-
tempt was made to protect them, and the hilts were plain and simple,
except that a groove was sometimes made in the side of the blade to
diminish the weight of metal without causing a loss of strength. The
character of the sword varied little except as to the fashions suggested
by fancy, till armor was done away with about 1600. Then, the change

21 22

Medley al.

24 25

Eapiers.

of the sword into the single-edged weapon or the rapier-blade began
to become common. While rapiers with flat or very slightly triangu-
lar blades, and often immoderately long, were used in France, Spain,
and Italy in the sixteenth century, the full development of this form
of arm (Figs. 24, 25) took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. The blades were narrow, the hilts had merely a single nar-
now guard for the back of the hand, with a broad base to protect the
fingers in thrusting, and the rhomboidal or triangular section of the
blade was altered, lightened, and stiffened by grooving (as in the group
of figures, 26).

VOL. xxi. 6 \

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The fighting-swords of the latter part of the eighteenth and for-
mer part of the nineteenth centuries (Fig. 27) were not very good,
either as rapiers or sabers, and marked a period of transition to one

Sections or Sword-Blades.

almost of decadence. The cavalry-swords of the early part of the
present century were clumsy and unscientific. With great width of
blade and a tendency to increase the width toward the point (Fig. 28),.
they were not intended for cutting weapons, and were almost useless

as thrusting ones. The idea that weight at the.
sword-end was valuable in enhancing the force of
the cut was faulty in theory and practice, and was
rather a retrogression to the principle of the axe
than an advance in the true method of construc-
tion of the sword. This has given way to the mod-
ern sword, which combines within itself all the
powers of which the weapon is capable, is good
as a guard for thrusting and for cutting. Slightly
curved, but not so much as to impede its pointing
power, nor so wide as to be too heavy, stiffened by
grooves so as to be capable of use as a rapier, its
blade, with an edge on one side along its length,
is flattened at the point, where it is ribbed, for
strength, into a two-edged sword (Fig. 29). The
hilt has a wider guard, and is intermediate between the rapier type
and that of the basket form. Adopting the principles that have ob-
tained at various times, it is a good all-round weapon in skillful hands.
While Western nations have thus tended to adopt a straight blade,
Eastern races have almost without exception preferred a curved sword.
By reason both of their physical peculiarities and of the lighter char-
acter of the armor they wear, they have been accustomed to adminis-
ter cutting blows with their weapons rather than the straight, down-
right strokes that are adapted to Western strength and armor, and a
curved edge is more suitable for cutting blows. The hilt of the East-
ern sword is small, and the boss, or pommel, at the end of the hilt is
large, so as to prevent the sword from slipping when the drawing cut
is made. The Asiatic swords exhibit, moreover, greater divergencies
of type than the Western swords. Some, like the Persian cimeters
(Fig. 30), and the Malay creeses (Fig. 31), are often wavy, sometimes
resembling the conventional tongue of fire (flamboyant), forms which
may be due to the influence of the priests of the fire or the sun, or may
be copied from the curvature and ornamentation of the antelope-horn
dagger. The Albanian sword has the edge thrown forward by the

THE GENESIS OF THE SWORD.

slight forward curvature of the blade, a feature which is heightened
in the Goorkha knife, the owner of which, it is said, can decapitate an
ox with one blow of it (Fig. 32). Some of the Eastern swords, as
those of the Chinese, the Bashi-Bazouk or Circassian dagger, with its
blade resembling the Roman gladius, and the Mahratta sword, are
straight, like the Western weapons.

The ornamentation of all these weapons is very frequently only the
survival of the methods by which the blades were fixed to their hilts,
which was generally by thongs or rivets. Thus the Malay creese (Fig.
33) and the tulwar (Fig. 34) are made clearly to indicate the way in
which the blade was originally lashed with cords to the hilt.

The sword does not rank so highly with savage nations as the spear

30 31

Asiatic Curved Swords.

33 34

Survivals of Methods of Attachment.

or club, and belongs to a higher civilization than that which is satis-
fied with hand-to-hand weapons of stone. But the development of the
club into the sword is easily traceable, though the ultimate resultant
is far inferior to the metal blades of even the bronze age. Figs. 35
to 41 show the successive steps. The Xew Zealand club (Fig. 35) ;
the Indian collaree-stick (Fig. 36), often used as a missile ; the Iro-
quois club (Figs. 37, 38), rendered good for piercing or cutting as
well by a deer-horn point at first, and by an iron blade later on ; the
Marquesas (Fig. 39) or Tahiti cutting instrument, armed with sharks'
teeth ; the. Esquimau or Australian sword (Fig. 40), in which strips
of meteoric iron, obsidian, or glass are inserted in a cleft in the side of
a stick; and fastened by cement ; and, lastly, the Mexican maquahuilt
(Fig. 41), or wooden sword, armed with sharp, razor-like flakes of ob-
sidian, are the progressive steps of savage life toward the sword. The
last-mentioned weapon was deadly enough to be ranked with its iron
compeer, for it is said to have been capable of cutting off a limb. In
this respect it is th^ highest type of a sword of other materials than
metal.

Of all weapons, the sword has held throughout historic time the

8 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

highest place. Its use implied the personal courage of the individual
at close quarters. The arrow might slay at a distance, and be dis-
charged by a coward. The spear, again, if long enough and deftly

36 37 38 39

Development or the Swokd among Savages.

held, could kill without risk to the holder thereof, unless the adversary
were similarly armed. But the sword meant personal conflict, where
the victory was not always to the strong. Rightly it is the sign of
might and governance, for it implies both the will and the power to
execute the behests of its holder. It is one of the insignia of author-
ity, because it is the sign of courage and skill.

-^^

ON THE DIFFUSION OF ODOES.

By E. C. EUTHEEFOED.

THE following paragraph is similar to others I have occasionally
seen going the rounds of the papers for the last twenty-five or
thirty years :

It is said that a grain of musk is capable of perfuming for several years a
chamber twelve feet square without sustaining any sensible diminution of its
volume or its weight. But such a chamber contains 2,985,984 cubic inches, and
each cubic inch contains 1,000 cubic tenths of inches, making in all nearly three
billions of tenths of an inch. Now, it is probable, indeed almost certain, that
each such cubic tenth of an inch of the air of the room contains one or more of
the particles of the musk, and that this air has been changed many thousands of
times. Imagination recoils before computation of the number of the particles
thus diffused and expended. Yet have they all together no appreciable weight
and magnitude. Moseleifs Illustrations of Science.

OJV THE DIFFUSION OF ODORS. 85

More than thirty-six years ago I announced, in some lectures I was
then engaged in delivering, that there were some facts in the phenom-
ena of odors and the sense of smell that were incompatible with the
effluvia or diifusion-of -particles theory ; and I suggested an explana-
tion based on the idea of a vibration or wave-motion, and an " odorif-
erous ether " analogous to, if not identical with, that of the luminif er-

ous ether.

In the year 1863, in a letter to Professor Tyndall, I submitted the
thought to him. After quoting some passages from his book, " Heat
a Mode of Motion," upon the subject of odors, I wrote as follows : " I
would respectfully ask if, in the consideration of, or in the course of,
experiments upon this subject, it has ever occurred to you that odor
might be as essentially a " mode of motion " as heat, light, or sound ?
. . . The seemingly unlimited generation of odoriferous particles (?)
by certain substances, without sensible diminution of bulk or weight,
first led to the conception that, however copiously odoriferous particles
of matter were disseminated through the atmosphere, the odorous prop-
erty itself was as purely a specific variety of motion as the undulations
of the luminif erous ether. That this must be the explanation of the
action of the odor-generating force for a part of its route to the hu-
man sensorium seems to be incontrovertible, for it is hardly conceiv-
able that the material particles should actually penetrate the membrane
and force their way, as moving bodies, through the pulpy tissue of
the nerves to the seat of sensation ; but that through that portion of
their career, at least, their power is propagated by wave-like motions
analogous to those of heat and sound."

Professor Tyndall did me the honor to answer my letter, but not to
indorse my view, except in a very faint and qualified manner. Never-
theless, reflection and added experience have only gone to confirm me
in the correctness of it, and I venture to predict that before many
years it will be as much an accepted fact of science as the undulatory,
luminiferous-ether theory now is.

In the case given above the entire space of the chamber is thor-
oughly impregnated with the perfume as much as if it were an abso-
lute solid of odor. And yet these "particles," so profusely diffused
through the room, are wafted away, and their places supplied by new
emissions from the undiminished " grain," " many thousands of times ' :
every year without appreciable " sensible diminution of its volume or
weight," or pungency. This is an obvious impossibility upon any the-
ory of molecular Or atomic diffusion. The assumption of immense dif-
fusibility and vastness of inter-particular spaces would only enhance
the difficulty, for the odor spans the spaces is as absolutely continu-
ous as if the particles were in actual contact. That is, in the given
space, the chamber, anywhere within the limits of the odor, there is
no place where it is not. This actio in distans implies ethereal motion
vibration between the particles.

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

According to this view the odoriferous bodies, or their molecules,
have no more to do (in the sense of physical impact) in producing the
sensation of smell than a luminous body a candle or the sun has to
do (by impact) with the sensation of light. There is corporeal impact
or touch in neither case. Of course, with each molecule as a center of
activity, the effect will be more pronounced at the immediate surface
(as with all radiant energies) than at any distance. And, undoubted-
ly, particles of disintegrating, odorous matter are often brought in
contact with the Schneiderian membrane ; but the sensation of that
impact, if there be any, would be of touch, not of smell, as surely as
that, from that point of contact to the sensorium, the effect or influ-
ence is conveyed by a vibration a wave-motion in the " fluid " of the
nerve-duct as the undulations of the luminiferous ether are propa-
gated along the course of the optic nerve to the seat of sensation,
where they are translated into light and color. But, if, for any por-
tion of the distance between the internal sense and the fragrant body,
the odor, like light, is but a motion, it is safe to assume it for all.
The analogy of this mode of odors to that of light and sound is some-
thing in its favor.

COLOK-BLINDNESS AND COLOK-PEKCEPTIOK*

By SWAN M. BUENETT, M.D.

TO physiologists that part of the function of vision which is con-
cerned in the perception of colors has always been one of great
interest, but it was not until the genius of Thomas Young offered
them his theory of vision that they had anything like a plausible
working hypothesis. This theory, as elaborated and promulgated by
Professor Helmholtz, has until very recently been the one most relied
upon in explanation of all the phenomena of colored vision. It is,
however, a pure hypothesis, since not one of its fundamental princi-
ples is a demonstrated or even a demonstrable fact. By a process of
deductive reasoning, and most probably with little, if any, experimen-
tation for it is said that Young prided himself on being independent
of the necessity of experiment the vivid imagination of this original
mind seized upon an hypothesis which seemed to satisfy the demands
of an acceptable theory, in so far as it accounted for all or nearly all
of the observed phenomena. At that time, however, and even when
Helmholtz resurrected and revivified the theory, the question of color-
blindness had not been investigated to the extent it has within the
past ten years, and most physiologists rested content with the belief
that at last the true theory of colors had been found,

* A paper read before the Philosophical Society of Washington, December 18, 1880.

COLOR-BLINDNESS AND COLOR-PERCEPTION 87

Such, however, is no longer the case, and there are many who are
not almost but quite persuaded that the true theory of vision is one
of the questions to be solved by the coming physiologist. This theory
of Young-Helmholtz, as it is called, demands three primary or funda-
mental colors, by the admixture of which all other colors are pro-
duced. These colors are supposed, by Helmholtz, to be red, green,
and violet. All other colors and shades are made from the proper mixt-
ure of two or more of these colors. White is the sensation produced
by the proper mingling of all three sensations ; black is the absence
of sensation. Corresponding to these three primary sensations there
are in the retina, or terminal expansion of the optic nerve, three dis-
tinct sets of nerves which respond to the wave-lengths of the luminif-
erous ether which physically represent these colors.

This is all very simple and extremely plausible, but certain phe-
nomena of vision make it necessary to so modify this simplicity as to
spoil its beauty and give an elasticity to the theory which can not be
gratifying to the student of exact science. It becomes necessary to
suppose, for instance, that the nerve-fiber which responds to red is also
affected, in a less degree, by the green waves, and in a still less degree
by the violet; and the green waves, while principally affecting the
green fibers, affect also the red and violet; and the violet waves influ-
ence the red and green fibers, though in a much less degree than they
do the violet. In this theory gray is but a white of diminished in-
tensity.

Color-blindness is explained in keeping with this theory as follows :
Any one or all three of the color-fibers may be wanting, or lacking in
functional activity. Consequently there may be red-, green-, or violet-
blindness, or there may be total color-blindness. Since, however, it is
supposed that each one of the color-fibers is affected (though in a less
degree) by both other colors as well as by its own peculiar color, there
must be a sensation produced by each color, though it will be of less-
ened intensity in the case of the lacking color, and that sensation must
be other than that of the color belonging to the missing fiber. Under
these circumstances, even a saturated primary color would not, when
its fiber was missing, appear black, though it would appear darker than
to one with normal color-perception. To a red-blind person, a spectral
red, for example, while appearing a color much less luminous than is
usual, would not be black ; and, if a solar spectrum were presented to
such a color-blind individual, it need not appear shortened at the red
end. If the green fiber is the lacking one, green will not appear as
black,' but when of a certain shade will appear as gray, and for the
following reason : White is the product of the sum of all the sensa-
tions which the mind is capable of perceiving through the eye. When
the eye is normal, we have it when all three of the fibers are affected
in about the same degree, and in the color-blind when the two remain-
ing fibers are thus^affected. Any color, therefore, which contains, be-

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sides green, a certain proportion of the other colors (red and violet)
as certain shades of what we call green do will cause, when presented
to such a green-blind individual, the sensation of white of diminished
intensity. When the solar spectrum is placed before him, there should
be a gray or neutral band at the line which divides the two colors
which are unmistakably distinguishable ; and, in the green-blind, it is
nearer the red end of the spectrum than in the red-blind.

When the violet is the lacking fiber, we have phenomena analogous
to those where the red fiber is missing, though, of course, there are
differences in details.

In accordance with this theory, therefore, there can be no color-
blindness, in the strict acceptation of the term, except when all the
color-fibers are lacking ; because all colors produce an impression of
some kind, though it may not be the one experienced by those of nor-
mal color-perception. There is, however, a marked confusion of the
various colors, and by the special character of this confusion one kind
of color-blindness is differentiated from another.

In making an examination for the diagnosis of color-blindness,
nomenclature, or the naming of the colors which are presented to the
person to be examined, is entirely discarded. It has been found that
an individual maybe able to name the several colors correctly, and yet
make mistakes when called upon to match them ; and, on the other
hand, he may not be able to name a single color correctly, and yet
make no serious mistakes in "matching." The method of comparison
is therefore the only one which should be adopted in making examina-
tions for color-blindness.

The method of Professor Holmgren, which is the simplest and, on
the whole, the most convenient, consists in placing on a table before
the examinee a large assortment of skeins of colored worsteds. A
" sample " skein of light-green is laid to one side, and the individual
is told to select from the pile all the skeins which are of the same
color lighter or darker. If he places by the sample a shade of any
other color but green, he is color-blind. This examination, however,
does not fix the particular color to which he is blind, and, in order to
find the color which is lacking in his chromatic scale, a purple or rose-
colored skein is laid aside as a sample and the confusions he makes
here are supposed to fix the diagnosis. If he matches the purple with
blue and violet or one of them, he is red-blind. If, however, he selects
the greens and grays, he is green-blind. Violet-blindness (which is
very rare) is recognized by a confusion of red, purple, and orange in
the test with the purple skein.

Another plan for employing the comparative method is to have
two solar spectra, one above the other, the upper of which is movable.
A colored band is isolated in the fixed spectrum, and the upper spec-
trum is moved until what is supposed to be the same color is immedi-
ately above it. Or, the isolated band may be matched with a skein of

COLOR-BLINDNESS AND COLOR-PERCEPTION. 89

colored wool. Of course, the same mistakes will be made here as in
the preceding method.

Another method of examination rests on the phenomena of what
are called contrast colors. When a white surface is illuminated simul-
taneously by a red and a white light as by two lamps, for example,
before one of which a red glass is held an object, a pencil, for in-
stance, held midway between the two will cast two shadows, one from
the red light and another from the white light. To one of normal
color-perception, one of these shadows (that cast by the white light)
will be red, while the other (that cast by the red light) will be green ;
to any one blind for either one of these colors, there will be no differ-
ence in the color of the shadows. If rings cut from black or gray
paper are laid upon red or green paper and the whole is covered with
tissue-paper, the rings will have a reddish tinge if the ground is green,
and green if the ground is red. If, however, the individual is blind
to either of these colors, no such difference will be noted ; and, if
letters cut from black or gray paper are used instead of rings, they can
not be distinguished when laid on the colored ground and covered
with the tissue-paper.

Another method is to make letters of certain colors on different
colored grounds shades of red letters, for instance, on a green ground.
When these are of the requisite tints, the color-blind person is not able
to distinguish them.

There are other methods, but they are all modifications to a greater
or less extent of the foregoing, and any one who is color-blind to any
considerable degree can be detected by any one, or at least by any
two, of the methods indicated.

There is another theory of colors brought forward within the last
few years by Professor Hering, of Prague, which is adhered to by
many physiologists, and is a vigorous rival of the Young-Helmholtz
theorv. Professor Hering assumes that there are three chemical vis-
ual substances in the retina, which he calls the black-icJiite, the red-
green, and the Mue-ydlow. Light acts upon these substances by what
he calls assimilation (A), and dissimilation (D). When light acts in a
dissimilating or decomposing manner on the black-white substance, the
sensation of white is produced ; when there is an assimilation or regen-
eration of this substance, the sensation is black. Hering is by no
means certain which are the A- and which the D-colors, but he is dis-
posed to regard red as the dissimilating color of the red-green sub-
stance, and green the assimilating color. Blue, he thinks, causes dis-
similation of the blue-yellow substance, while its regeneration is caused
by yellow. All colors, he supposes, act in a dissimilating manner on
the black- white substance that is, they produce the sensation of white
in addition to their own peculiar color. They act, however, in vary-
ing degrees of intensity, yellow acting with the greatest power, the
strength of action diminishing toward the two ends of the spectrum.

9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In accordance with this theory, there are, therefore, four fundamental
colors instead of three (excluding black and white), namely : red,
green, yellow and blue, and they are supposed to be produced as fol-
lows : Red is the product of the dissimilation of the red-green sub-
stance, green is the result of its assimilation ; blue is the result of the
dissimilation of the blue-yellow, and yellow of its assimilation. , When
the A- and D-action on the red-green and blue-vellow substance are
equal there is no color sensation, but only the D-action of these colors
on the black- white substance, that is white. Simultaneous A- and D-
action on the black- white substance, however, is not attended by aboli-
tion of sensation, but by the sensation of gray.

It will be seen from this that, in the Hering theory, what were be-
fore considered as complementary colors are antagonistic and tend to
neutralize each other. It will be remembered that those colors have
been called complementary which, when mixed together, would pro-
duce white (we speak now of spectral colors). This was explained by
the Young-Helmholtz theory on the principle of combination ; it is
accounted for by the Hering theory on the principle of subtraction.
When red and green, for instance, form white on being mixed, the
white is not produced by the sum of the sensations of red and green,
but the red and green, being antagonistic, neutralize each other, and
there only remains the D-action of both colors on the black-white sub-
stance that is, white.

As in the Young-Helmholtz theory, the other colors, aside from the
primary, are the results of mixed sensations.

Color-blindness, in accordance with this theory, is of two forms.
In one, both color substances are wanting, and there only remains the
black-white substance to be acted on by light (achromatopsia). In
the other form, one of the two color-substances is lacking and only
the two colors of the remaining color-substance are distinguishable
(dichromatopsia). If the red-green substance is lacking, there will be
red-green blindness or blue-yellow vision ; if the blue-yellow substance
is the missing one, there will be blue-yellow blindness, or red-green
vision.

To satisfactorily account for some of the phenomena of color-blind-
ness, however, it becomes necessary to suppose that, when one color-
substance is wanting, the light rays which act specifically on that sub-
stance produce an A- or D-action on the remaining color-substance. In
red-green blindness, for example, red, yellow, and green act in a dis-
similating manner on the remaining blue-yellow substance, giving rise
to the sensation of yellow, while blue alone acts in an assimilating man-
ner. The most strongly dissimilating color will be yellow, while the
others will be more or less varying in their action. In the case of
blue-yellow blindness, red, yellow, and blue are the dissimilating col-
ors and green the assimilating color. It will be readily understood,
when we have this state of affairs, that in the dichromatrope, where

COLOR-BLINDNESS AND COLOR-PERCEPTION. 91

the A- and D-action of the one remaining color-substance are equal,
gray will be the result, because, as we have before remarked, where two
colors neutralize each other there still remains the action of both on
the black-white substance, which will give rise to the sensation of gray
or white of diminished intensity. But the same colors will not appear
gray to all color-blind persons, for the reason that the same colors do
not act in every case with the same intensity of dissimilation and as-
similation. In most individuals it is the purple and the blue-green
which give rise to the impression of gray.

A spectrum should, in accordance with this theory, appear in only
two colors to the color-blind, and may or may not be shortened ac-
cording as the dissimilating power of the two remaining colors is in-
tense or very feeble. The only colors, of course, which such a color-
blind person can with certainty distinguish are the two belonging
to the one remaining color-substance, blue and yellow, for instance,
when there is red-green blindness, and red and green when there is
blue-yellow blindness. It is not to be understood, however, that such
an individual can never correctly distinguish other colors. Most fre-
quently he can, but there is always a liability to confusion, often of
the most astonishing character ; and, moreover, the distinctions are
made, not by the sense of color, but by some other characteristic, dif-
ferent degrees of luminosity, most commonly.

The evidences which the phenomena of color-blindness have
brought against the three-fiber theory of Young-Helmholtz are :

1. That the red-blind can not distinguish perfectly the greens and
violets, nor the green-blind the reds and violets ; yellow and blue being
the only colors about which they make no mistakes.

2. Even in a spectrum which is very much shortened the red-
blind finds the brightest place, not in the bluish-green, as we should
expect, but in the yellow, as in the normal eye.

3. This theory can not satisfactorily explain the extreme shorten-
ing of the spectrum, extending, as it sometimes does, into the orange,
and even into the yellow.

4. The line of demarkation in the spectrum is sharply at the blue,
all to the left almost always appearing of one color, and all to the
right of another, there being no lines of division between blue and vio-
let, nor between the red and yellow and the yellow and green.

5. The gray or neutral band is far from being invariably present,
and when it is it is often, in the red-blind, in the position it should
be in the green-blind, and vice versa (Mauthner).

'Against the Hering theory the following objections have been ad-
vanced :

1. There is no reason for supposing that red and green and blue
and yellow are opposing colors. They are all active in their specific
line, and even Hering has not been able to determine which possesses
the A-action an<J which the D-action.

gz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

2. The simj)le colors are not complementary, as Hering asserts ;
blue-green, and not green, is the complementary color of red, and
violet-blue, and not blue, is the complementary color of yellow. The
simple colors can not, therefore, be considered as antagonistic.

3. The white, which comes from the union of two of Hering's
antagonistic colors, is not the result of subtraction, but of addition, as
is shown when, with a double spectroscope, a saturated violet being
made to cover a yellow, a white is produced which is manifestly more
intense than the yellow, while another yellow of the same intensity as
the violet added to the yellow does not produce a yellow intenser than
the yellow resulting from the first experiment.

4. White is not a direct independent sensation ; it is absent in the
spectrum where, in red-blindness or violet-blindness, the specific color
is absent (Donders).

From the foregoing, and from a study of the phenomena as pre-
sented by a number of color-blind persons, two important facts are
forced upon the unbiased observer : 1. That we have not yet arrived
at any fixed laws governing the phenomena ; that all cases can not be
classed as distinctly red, green, or violet blindness, though it seems
probable that all might be classed under the heads of red-green and
blue-yellow blindness. 2. That neither of the two prominent hypothe-
ses fills the demands of an acceptable theory, inasmuch as both fail to
account consistently for all the phenomena.

It seems to us that, in the consideration of the subject of color-
blindness hitherto, too much stress has been laid on the part which the
retina plays in color-perception. There are three distinct agents at work
in the perception of color. The impression is first made on the retina;
this is carried thence by means of the optic nerve to the center in the
brain which presides over the function of vision, and it is there con-
verted into a sensation. Let any one of these agents become incapaci-
tated, from any cause, for properly carrying on its function, and there
must be a perversion or absence of sensation. In certain affections of
the retina and optic nerve we have instances of color-blindness from
deranged or abolished functional activity of the first two agents, and
in some forms of toxic action, particularly alcoholic poisoning, we have
in all probability examples of the cerebral form of color-blindness.
The supposed color-fibers or color-substances may be in a perfect con-
dition and acted upon in a perfectly normal manner by light, but the
optic nerve may be incapacitated by some change in its molecular
structure from carrying all of the impressions correctly to the brain-
center, and, even should all the separate impressions arrive there, the
cerebral center itself may not be in condition to convert them into the
proper sensation. The conducting power of the nerve, or the convert-
ing power of the cerebral center, may be but slightly deranged or to-
tally deficient for some color or colors, and so the phenomena presented
by two cases falling under the same category would be very different;

COLOR-BLINDNESS AND COLOR-PERCEPTION. 93

and, when we consider the infinite degrees of incapacity that may exist
for all the different colors, we can readily understand the infinite varia-
tion in the mistakes of the color-blind, and the impossibility of laying
down exact rules for diagnosis.

It is my belief that a large number, perhaps a majority, of the
cases of congenital color-blindness have not their seat in the retina at
all, but are cerebral in their character. In other words, I believe
that in these cases the brain-center of vision has not the power to dif-
ferentiate the various impressions it receives. This opinion will seem
the more plausible when we remember that the sense of sight is a de-
veloped or educated one. Though we have received from our ances-
tors the potentiality of vision, every child that is born must learn to
see for itself. Without here entering into a discussion of the ques-
tion of the development of the color-sense, which has received much
attention at the hands of Mr. Gladstone, Magnus, and others, it is safe
to assume, with our knowledge of analogous matters, that the differen-
tiation of colors is a power partly inherited and partly developed in
the individual ; and, moreover, we should expect to find this power,
which is undoubtedly cerebral in its character, most strongly devel-
oped where the faculty was most used. And so we do find it. Wom-
en, who are much more concerned than men in the selection and com-
parison of colors, are rarely affected with color-blindness ; and we all
know how much quicker the feminine eye is in detecting slight differ-
ences in shades of color than is that of men who are not color-blind.
In those cases of color-blindness which, for the sake of distinction, we
shall call central, we believe that the brain-center of vision has not
been developed to its full or at least to its ordinary power for discrim-
inating between the impressions corresponding to the different colors.
The retina may be capable of properly responding to these various im-
pressions, and the optic nerve may carry them as separate impressions
to the brain-center ; but this has not the power of converting them
into individual sensations.

From what has already been said, it is evident that neither of the
two at present prominent theories satisfactorily accounts for all the
phenomena of color-blindness. Moreover, it seems to me, the true
theory of colors when found will be simple ; and the laws governing
the sense of vision will be found to bear some analogy to those gov-
erning the other senses at least, I do not believe it will be found nec-
essary to invent new processes and new reactions of tissues to agents
affecting the economy. The true theory, I believe, will be found to
lie in the direction pointed out by the recent researches on the phys-
ical reaction of certain simple substances to the undulations of the lu-
miniferous ether. This reaction may be in its restricted sense chem-
ical, purely physical, or chemico-physical ; but it will be due to the
changes in the molecular structure of simple substances, caused by the
action of the e^her. In other words, the variation in the sensation

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

produced will have its basis, not in complexity of tissue, but in the
varying action of the affecti7ig agent.

"Without entering into a discussion of the question in detail, I
would say that it seems probable that the optic nerve is merely a
highly organized nerve of common sensation. In some of the lower
forms of animal life light is perceived over the whole cutaneous or
external surface, as shown by the action of the animals when exposed
to its influence. Furthermore, it is now a generally admitted fact
that heat and light are due to vibrations of the same ether, differ-
ing only in their wave-lengths. The effect of both heat and light is
to produce molecular change. When heat produces a sensation through
the cutaneous nerves, it is most probable that it does it by means of a
molecular change in the terminal filaments of these nerves which is
communicated to the brain-center through the nerves, probably also
by a rapidly progressive change in their molecular structure. The
nerves of common sensation, however, do not seem to possess the power
to differentiate variations in wave-lengths they take cognizance only
of the varying intensity of the vibratory motion ; that is to say, they
distinguish quantities rather than qualities. It would, however, be
doing no violence to known facts to suppose that a high specialization
would enable these nerves to carry as distinct impressions the changes
wrought by the separate wave-lengths. In fact, it is highly probable
that they do so, but the cerebral centers in which they terminate have
not been educated to the point of making distinctions between these
separate impressions and fixing them as individual sensations.

In framing a theory of color-perception on the basis we have indi-
cated, we would suppose the retina to be a body whose molecular
structure is such that it will respond with promptness to all or nearly
all the wave-lengths of perceptible light. This molecular change pro-
duced in the retina is carried by the optic nerve to the center of vis-
ion in the brain, and is there converted into a sensation. This is, to
some extent, going back to the original theory of Newton, who, in
speaking of the action of light upon the retina, considered that "the
rays impinging upon the ends of the optic nerve excite vibrations
which run through the optic nerve to the sensorium. Here they are
supposed to affect the sense with various colors according to their nat-
ure and bigness."

The chief objection to this hypothesis, advanced by Young, was
that the frequency of these vibrations must be dependent upon the
constitution of the substance of the retina, and it was almost impossi-
ble that every sensitive point should have an infinite number of differ-
ent particles to respond to this infinite number of vibrations. He there-
fore supposed the number to be limited to three which corresponded
to red, green, and violet.

It will be seen that the difference in the different theories of colors
lies in the supposed reaction of the retina to light. After the impres-

COLOR-BLINDNESS AND COLOR-PERCEPTION.

sion has passed beyond the retina, there is no special or important dif-
ference m the views as to the final conversion into a sensation The
objections to these two hypotheses we have already stated. The accept-
ance of such an hypothesis as we propose, however, does not involve
the necessity of inventing new laws, or of creating new issues, but
only applies known laws and analogous reactions of other substances
to the elucidation of the phenomena observed. We know that there
are membranes which respond with promptness to any number of sim-
ple aerial vibrations at the same time, and recent discoveries have
shown that there are substances which, when in proper condition thus
respond to wave-lengths of light. Silenium, when in a crystalline
condition, alters its molecular condition (as manifested by its varying
resistance to the passage of the electric current), not only when acted
on by light of varying intensity, but also by the different wave-leno-ths
If, then, we suppose the retina to be a substance of this nature but
responding more promptly, and in a more delicate manner, than' anv
other known substance to the wave-lengths of light, we have a basis
tor a theory of vision which is extremely simple in its nature, and
tounded on known physical laws.

We will not here enter upon a detailed application of this theory
to the elucidation of all the phenomena of colored vision, but will sim-
ply mention a few points in connection with color-blindness. One
general principle may be laid down which will cover all cases of reti-
nal color-blindness as distinguished from cerebral or central, and that
is, that in these cases the molecular structure of the retina is so al-
tered as to allow it to respond feebly or not at all to light rays of cer-
tain wave-lengths. We know, for example, that silenium must be in
a crystalline state-that is, its molecular structure must be in a certain
definite condition-before it can respond in such a delicate manner to
variation m the intensity of the light-waves ; and we know that there
are certain wave-lengths of the ether-the ultra-red and the ultra-
vl olet-which call forth no reaction on the part of the retinal sub-
stance. It would, therefore, be a highly justifiable supposition that a
slight alteration m the molecular structure of the retina would render
it incapable of being affected by certain wave-lengths to which it,
when in a normal condition, readily responds. This incapability may
be partial or complete as regards any particular wave-lengths. In
some instances of color-blindness, for example, the spectrum is short-
ened at the red end even under the most intense illumination, while
in others there is a shortening only when the illumination is feeble-
becoming of normal length when the intensity of the illumination is
increased-showmg, in the latter case, that the reaction to the red rays
is still present when they are of sufficient intensitv.

When we come to cerebral color-blindness, which is, according to
my view, the most common, the explanation is still simple. In this
instance we have only to suppose the cerebral center of vision incapa-

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ble of distinguishing between the impressions of wave-lengths which
lie relatively near together as regards their vibration numbers. It
will be noticed, as an important fact, that there is confusion only of
those colors which lie toward the same end of the spectrum. Red and
green, for instance, are the colors which are most commonly undistin-
guishable ; blue and yellow less commonly ; but no instance -is on
record in which red and blue, or green and yellow, were constantly
confounded. It seems from the examinations thus far made that the
color-blind make, as a rule, distinctions between only two classes of
color-sensations. A most intelligent color-blind man, whom I recently
examined with the spectrum, saw it only as two colors the line of
demarkation being sharply at the blue-green junction, all to the right
was blue, all to the left was what he called red. He could distinguish
no line of separation between the red, green, and yellow, and the maxi-
mum of intensity was at the yellow, as is the case with normal eyes.
As Mauthner says, there are no fixed rules which serve us for a diag-
nosis between red- and green-blindness. The two colors are confused,
but how are we to know which is the one correctly perceived ? The
individual who is found to be green-blind by one method of examination
is often found to be red-blind bv another, and in some cases to have a
shortening of the red end of the spectrum. Moreover, the red-blind
can not unerringly pick out the greens, nor the green-blind the reds.

If, as we believe, a large number, perhaps a majority of the cases of
congenital color-blindness are cerebral rather than retinal, and due
more to a want of education of the color-sense than to any anatomical
defect, a plan for the diminution or eradication of color-blindness
would be by no means chimerical. The fact that women are less fre-
quently color-blind than men we consider most probably due to the
circumstance that their faculty for color is in more active and constant
use, and for this reason has become more highly developed, and has been
transmitted as a sexual peculiarity from mother to daughter. It seems,
therefore, quite reasonable to suppose that if boys could have their
color-sense educated to the same extent as girls, and the process were
continued through a number of generations, the defect of color-blind-
ness would in course of time disappear, except as a rare anomaly.

-+++-

STALLO'S "CONCEPTS OF MODERN PHYSICS."*

By W. D. LE SUEUK.

" "FT is generally agreed," says Mr. Stallo, " that thought in its most
-L comprehensive sense is the establishment or recognition of rela-
tions between phenomena." All perception is of difference ; and two

* From a criticism of " The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics," in the " Cana-
dian Monthly."

STALLO'S "CONCEPTS OF MODERN PHYSICS." 97

objects, therefore, are the smallest number requisite to constitute con-
sciousness. On the other hand, objects are conceived as identical by
an attention to their points of agreement ; though conception may also
be regarded as perception applied to a group of objects, so as to bring
before the mind its class characteristics ; the word well expressing
the gathering into one of the several qualities or properties by which
the group is distinguished from other groups. Conception is, there-
fore, the source of ideas, and the word concept expresses the union
effected in the mind of those attributes or properties under which a
given object is at any moment recognized. In other words, it is " the
complement of properties characteristic of a particular class." If the
class be a very special one the concept will apply to but few individu-
als ; but the complement of properties which it will connote will be
a very comprehensive one. If, on the other hand, the class be a very
wide or general one, the concept will apply to a much larger number
of individuals, but it will comprehend fewer attributes or properties.
As application widens, meaning narrows ; until from an infima species,
or in English a group of the most special kind, we rise to a summum
genus, or a class in which only such properties remain as are absolutely
essential to thought. The process by which this is done is the proc-
ess of abstraction, which consists in dismissing from consideration all
properties not essential to the particular class which we may wish to
form. Objects are known, it is further to be remarked, " only through
their relations to other objects," and each individual object only "as a
complex of such relations." No operation of thought, however, "in-
volves the entire complement of the known or knowable properties (or
relations) of a given object. In mechanics a body is considered sim-
ply as a mass of determinate weight or volume, without reference to
its other physical or chemical properties " ; and, in like manner, every
other department of knowledge only takes account of that aspect of
the object which it is necessary for the purpose in hand to study.
The mind can not completely represent to itself at any one time all
the properties or relations of an object ; nor is it necessary that it
should do so, as they can not possibly all be relevant to the same intel-
lectual operation. Our thoughts of things are thus symbolical, because
what is present to the mind at a given moment is not the object in the
totality of its relations, but a symbol framed for the occasion, and em-
bracing just those relations under which the object is to be considered.
A concept in which all the relations of an object should be embraced
is an obvious impossibility. We can not stand all round a thing all at
once ;'we must choose our side, or, in other words, fix upon our point
of view.

The above line of thought will be familiar to all students of phi-
losophy, and particularly to those acquainted with the writings of Mr.
Herbert Spencer. For some reason or other, however, Mr. Stallo
abstains, not only here but generally throughout his book, from any

VOL. XXI. *7

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mention of the relation of his philosophical views to those of other
writers. He does not give us his bearings, so to speak, but leaves us
to discover them for ourselves. We can not think this policy a good
one. To the general reader it is not helpful, as it may lead him to
form an exaggerated idea of the originality of the views contained in
the volume a result, we are sure, at which the author would not con-
sciously aim. Some special illustrations of what we are now remark-
ing upon may present themselves before we close.

" All metaphysical or ontological speculation is based upon a dis-
regard of some or all of the truths above set forth. Metaphysical
thinking is an attempt to deduce the true nature of things from our
concepts of them." The last sentence presents us with a definition of
admirable terseness and force, stating as it does the whole case against
metaphysics in a dozen words. For purposes of thought we analyze
and abstract ; but, not content with deriving from these operations the
logical aid they are calculated to afford, we fly off to the conclusion that
what we have done in the realm of thought holds good outside of thought
or absolutely. To apply this to the matter in hand : where the " me-
chanical theory of the universe " asserts mass and motion to be the " ab-
solutely real and indestructible elements of all physical existence," it
overlooks the fact that mass and motion by themselves are really
elements of nothing but thought, and are simply a kind of mental
residuum after all the more special properties of objects have, by suc-
cessively wider generalizations (as before explained), been mentally
abstracted. As our author puts it : " They are ultimate products of
generalization, the intellectual vanishing-points of the lines of abstrac-
tion which proceed from the infimce species of sensible experience.
Matter is the summum genus of the classification of bodies on the
basis of their physical and chemical properties. Of this concept, matter,
mass and motion are the inseparable constituents. The mechanical the-
ory, therefore, takes not only the ideal concept matter, but its two
inseparable constituent attributes, and assumes each of them to be a
distinct and real entity." Mr. Stallo sees in this a survival of mediae-
val realism ; but it is really nothing else than the opinion of the mul-
titude, now and in all ages, elevated to the rank of a philosophical
doctrine. Men in general are materialists who temper their material-
ism to themselves by a supplementary belief in spiritual existences.

Not only is the mind prone to believe that its concepts are truly
representative of external realities, but it readily assumes also that the
order of succession in the world of thought must be the order of de-
velopment in the external world. The effect of the latter illusion is
completely to invert the order of reality. " The summa genera of
abstraction the highest concepts are deemed the most, and the data
of sensible experience the least, real of all forms of existence." Be-
cause we arrive at the concept matter by leaving out of consideration
all the properties that differentiate one form of matter from another,

STALLO'S "CONCEPTS OF MODERN PHYSICS:' 99

and because matter thus divested of its special properties forms a kind
of rock-bed of thought, we conclude that similarly undifferentiated
matter must form the rock-bed, or, to vary the figure, the original raw
material, of the objective universe. But manifestly, in the scale of
reality, the highest place must be given to things as they are, to indi-
vidual objects with their full complement of properties, and succes-
sively lower places to such objects robbed by abstraction of one after
another of their essential attributes. When we come to matter, we
have just enough left to think about and no more. The logical faculty,
however, goes further, and performs the tremendous feat of sundering
the elements, mass and force, the conjunction of which alone renders
matter a possible object of thought ; whence arise endless discussions
as to whether motion is a function of matter, or matter a function of
motion. The first opinion is known as the mechanical or corpuscular
theory of matter, and the latter as the dynamical. The true answer
to these intellectual puzzles is that we have no business dealing with
the mere elements of thought as if they were elements of things, and
that so long as we do we shall only succeed in landing ourselves in
in what Mr. Spencer calls " alternative impossibilities of thought."

The notion of the inertia of matter is similarly a product of ab-
straction, and by no means a representation of fact. Our author's
explanation (page 163) is as follows : "When a body is considered
by itself conceptually detached from the relations which give rise to
its attributes it is, indeed, inert, and all its action comes from with-
out. But this isolated instance of a body is a pure fiction of the in-
tellect. Bodies exist solely in virtue of their relations ; their reality
lies in their mutual action. Inert matter, in the sense of the mechan-
ical theory, is as unknown to experience as it is inconceivable in
thought. Every particle of matter of which we have any knowledge
attracts every other particle in conformity with the laws of gravita-
tion ; and every material element exerts chemical, electrical, and other
force upon other elements which, in respect of such force, are its
correlates. A body can not, indeed, move itself ; but this is true for
the same reason that it can not exist in and by itself. The very pres-
ence of a body in space and time, as well as its motion, implies inter-
action with other bodies, and therefore, actio in distans ; consequent-
ly, all attempts to reduce gravitation or chemical action to mere
impact are -aimless and absurd.

This whole passage is so completely on the lines of the Positive
Philosophy, that to us it seems singular that the author could have
penned- it without making some reference to the precisely similar
views of Auguste Comte, views which the scientific world in general
has largely disregarded or ignored. "Did the material molecules,"
says Comte ("Philosophic Positive," vol. i, p. 550), "present to our
observation no other property than weight, that would suffice to pre-
vent any physicist ^from regarding them as essentially passive. It

ioo THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MOXTHLY.

would be of no avail to argue that, even in the possession of weight,
they were entirely passive, inasmuch as they simply yielded to the
attraction of the srlobe. "Were this correct, the dirheuitv would onlv
be shifted ; the earth as a whole would then be credited with an activ-
ity denied to separated portions of it. It is, however, evident that, in
its fall toward the center of the earth, the falling body is just as
active as the earth itself, since it is proved that each molecule of the
body in question attracts an equivalent portion of the earth quite as
much as it is itself attracted, though, owing to the enormous pre-
ponderance of the earth's attraction, its action alone is perceptible.
Finally, in regard to a host of other phenomena of equal universality,
thermal, electric, and chemical, matter plainly presents a very varied
spontaneous activity of which it is impossible for us henceforth to

o ard it as destitute. ... It is beyond all question that the purely
passive state in which bodies are conceived to be when studied from
the point of view of abstract mechanics becomes under the physical
point of view a complete absurdity."" Xearly sixty years have elapsed
since this was written ; and yet, as Mr. Stallo's book proves, there is
a necessity for repeating and re-enforcing it to-day. The same may
be said of the doctrine that all our knowledge of objective reality
depends upon the establishment and recognition of relations ; or, in
other words, that the properties of things by which we know them
are their relations to other thing This doctrine lies at the very
foundation, not only of the Positive Philosophy, but of all true philos-
ophy, and yet, according to the statement of our author, it has been
almost wholly ignored by men of science, as well as by metaphysi-
cians, who constantly put forward the view that whatever is real must
exist absolutely r * : or, in other words, that nothing which does not

-t absolutely can be real. Hence have arisen the endless discus-
sions as to absolute motion and rest. That motion could be real, and
yet only relative, L rued, even to such eminent thinkers as New-

ton, Leibnitz, and Descartes, wholly impossible ; yet far from there
being any impossibility in the matter, the truth is that it is only rela-
tive motion that can have to our apprehension the character of reality.
Absolute motion could in no way be distinguished from absolute rest.

THE TEEE THAT BEAES QUIXIXE.

By 0. E. BACHELEB. M. D.

THE introduction of cinchona-culture into India was commenced
in 1S6'2. The rapid destruction of the cinchona-tree in South
America, owing to the reckless method of gathering the bark, and the
consequent high price of quinine in a country where that drug holds

THE TREE THAT BEARS QUININE. 101

so important a rank, led the Government of India to try the experi-
ment of introducing the tree into the waste mountainous regions of

CD CD

that country. Difficulties almost insurmountable were at first presented
in obtaining young plants and seeds from the cinchona regions of the
Andes, on account of the obstacles thrown in the way by the different
South American governments. Several years passed before a sufficient
number of plants could be secured for purposes of experiment.

Exjjerimental gardens were opened on the Xilgiri Mountains of
Southern India, the Himalayas on the north of Bengal, the hills of
Assam and the Northwest Provinces, and on the highlands of Burmah.
"With the exception of the Nilgirifl and Himalayas, these localities
were found to be unfavorable.

At Darjeeling in the Himalayas, four hundred r ; les north of Cal-
cutta, near which the cinchona-gardens are located, I gathered the fol-
lowing particulars of the introduction and culture of the cinchona-tree,
and the manufacture and use of its alkaloid- :

1. The soil, climate, and temperature of the cinchona regions of the
Andes were carefully noted. Gneiss and mica schist in a somewhat
loose and decomposed state, with a covering of vegetable mold, at
such an altitude as would secure a moist temperature with the least
possible variability, were the observed conditions, and these were
sought for in the Himalayas. Gneiss and mica schist compose the pre-
vailing formation throughout the Himalayan range, except its snow-
capped summits, which are granite. To find the proper altitude was
a more difficult matter. The higher and lower were at first tried, but
it was found that an elevation of from four to five thousand feet above
the sea-level afforded the most favorable conditions.

The soil is, as far as possible, identical with that of the Andes.
The eastern terminus of the Himalavan range, being nearest to the
sea, and in the range of the southeast monsoon, which on land ifl
southwest, is constantly shrouded in mist, so much so that the ravs of
the sun are seldom clear. The eternal snows and glaciers are here not
more than fifty miles from the burning plains of Bengal, the highest
peak, the second in the world, being more than twenty-eight thousand
feet above sea-level. The rain-fall is more than double that of the
plains, the last ten years showing an average of one hundred and thir-
teen inches per year. A remarkably uniform temperature is thus se-
cured, the extremes being 34 r and 90, while the ordinary summer
range is between 60" and 70 D , and the winter between 45 and 55.

Several varieties of the cinchona have been tried. Some have
failed entirely, while the C. saccirubra and G. tfisaya prove the most
hardy. The former of these has proved by far the most productive,
and is now much more generally cultivated.

'2. The seeds ripen at the commencement of the dry season suc-
ceeding the rains, i. e., in October and Xovember. After being gathered
they are spread out, in shallow boxes to dry. It is estimated that an

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ounce of seeds may produce from twenty to twenty-five thousand
plants. When thoroughly dried they are sown in beds, and when
well started the young plants are transferred to nursery -beds protected
from sun and rain by light thatched roofs. When from eight months
to a year old, or about twelve inches high, they are ready to be planted
out, the thatch-covering having been removed for a fortnight or so to
harden them. Propagation by cuttings is practiced to some extent,
and succeeds well. The plants are about six feet apart, and an acre of
ground may produce a thousand or more trees.

Where vegetation is so rapid and profuse as in India, constant
weeding is necessary, and, until the trees are sufficiently large to shade
the ground, one or two hoeings a year are highly beneficial. The
following may be considered as a fair representation of the rapidity
of growth :

At four years of age, 9 inches girth, 9 feet height.
" six " " 13 " " 17 " "

" ten " " 21 " " 30 " "

" twelve " " 28 " " 39 " "

At first, a very successful method was introduced for securing the
bark without injury to the tree. Commencing with trees about eight
years old, a strip of bark an inch and a half wide was taken from the
trunk, extending from the lower limbs to the roots. Leaving a strip
of equal width, an inch and a half, another was taken, and so on quite
round the tree, thus removing one half and leaving one half intact.
The whole trunk was then covered with moss, carefully bound on, so
as to exclude the light and air. In from ten to eighteen months the
bark would be found to be completely renewed without detriment to
the growth of the tree. The new bark thus formed was found to be
thicker and richer in quinine than the natural growth. This process
could be repeated at intervals of from a year to a year and a half for
an indefinite period. This method is still followed in the Nilgiris,
while in the Himalayas it has failed on account of the ants, which
penetrate the moss and destroy the exposed wood. In the Himalayas
two methods are now practiced. By the first the trees are felled and
the bark carefully peeled from the trunk and branches. The stumps
are allowed to remain, and from the sprouts that spring up two of the
most thrifty are preserved for future trees, while the rest are cut away.
This is called coppicing. By the second method the tree is uprooted,
and the bark removed from the trunk, branches, and roots. The
ground is then replanted with seedlings. Time must show which of
these methods will prove the most profitable.

The bark, on being removed from the trees, is placed in open sheds
near at hand to dry, that the first process of drying may be in the
open air and in the shade. When dried as much as possible without
artificial heat it is carried to the dry-house, a close brick building,
where the process is completed with the aid of slow charcoal-fires.

THE TREE THAT BEARS QUININE. 103

The drying is thus accomplished, at the lowest possible temperature,
without detriment to its chemical qualities. After this it may be
stored without danger of deterioration.

3. The medicinal alkaloids contained in the bark are quinine,
cinchonidine, quinidine, and cinchonine. Quinine has long been re-
garded as by far the most important of these, being the great specific
for malarious fevers. The price of bark in the market has conse-
quently varied with the amount of quinine it was found to contain,
with very little reference to the other alkaloids. Careful experiments
have shown that all these alkaloids possess a very high medicinal value,
but little if at all inferior to quinine.

Malarious fevers, prevailing so extensively throughout India, and
especially among the lower classes, the high price of quinine has ren-
dered it absolutely prohibitory to the masses. Consequently, the Gov-
ernment has turned its attention to the production of an article that
should contain, as far as possible, all the febrifuge qualities of quinine,
at a rate so moderate as to come within the reach of all. This benevo-
lent object has been fairly reached in the production of what is known
as amorphous quinine, or cinchona alkaloid, which sells at about fifty
cents per ounce, while quinine is held at from three to five dollars per
ounce. The products of the government cinchona-gardens are largely
employed in the manufacture of this drug.

The method of preparation is extremely simple. The bark, roughly
pulverized, is macerated in cold water acidulated with sulphuric acid,
until its properties are quite exhausted. Its resulting liquor is pre-
cipitated by a caustic alkali potash. The precipitate is then dried,
pulverized, and sealed in tin boxes of a pound each. The powder is
of a dull whitish color, very light, almost insoluble in water, but dis-
solves readily in acidulated water. At the time of issuing the last
report, one hundred and forty thousand ounces of this febrifuge were
being produced from the Himalaya gardens.

4. At , an early period extensive experiments were instituted to
ascertain the relative curative value of the different alkaloids. One
commission, consisting of sixteen prominent medical officers, reported
as follows :

Treated by cinchonine, 410 cases. Cured, 400, failed, 10.
" . " cinchonidine, 359 " " 346, " 13.

" " quinidine, 376 " " 365, " 11.

The experiment was then varied, in which the alkaloids were pitted
against quinine. The number of fever-cases treated was 2,472, with
2,445 cures and 27 failures. The ratio of failure per 1,000 was as
follows :.

Treated by quinine . . . . . . . ratio of failure 7*092

" " quinidine " " 5*024

" " chinchonidine . . . . " " 9926

" " cinchonine " " 23*255

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

These results, corroborated as they are by many subsequent ex-
periments, in various parts of India, conclusively show that all the
alkaloids of cinchona possess a nearly equal curative value, and hence
the conclusion is that all combined possess a value very little if at all
inferior to quinine. The doses are about the same. Cinchona alkaloid
is now largely used throughout the country, with a proportionate re-
duction in the demand for quinine.

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bast., M. P.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK is one of that class of men of whom each
age can present only a few brilliant specimens, who are at home,
and masters, in pursuits of the most diversified character. He is al-
most equally distinguished as a banker and man of business, as a zool-
ogist, ethnologist, and archaeologist, and as a publicist and parlia-
mentarian. He stands in the front rank among bankers, while he
occupies a prominent position among naturalists, and " is a standing
proof that an industrious man of active mind may at once be diligent
in business while serving science." " His name," says one of his most
appreciative biographers, " is equally familiar to the ethnologists and
entomologists of New York or of Moscow, in the counting-houses
where the world's business is settled, and among the Maidstone Lib-
erals, who every four years temporarily lose their voices with crying,
' Sir John and liberty ! ' Most curious of all, the cause of this repu-
tation in one circle is little known to those in the other two. The
Kentish rustics may know that the ' Squire ' is fond of looking at
queer things, and the bankers may have sometimes listened to him at
the Royal Institution or in Parliament ; but each set of men judge
their many-sided friend by their own standard, and in each depart-
ment he has rendered services which ought to command the respect in
which he is indubitably held."

Sir John Lubbock derives his versatility in a very large measure
by inheritance. His father, Sir John William Lubbock the third
bar"onet of that name was head of the banking-house to which the
son has succeeded, and earned a more enduring fame as an astronom-
ical and mathematical writer. He was for twelve vears Treasurer and
Vice-President of the Royal Society, and was the author of works on
" The Lunar Theory," " Perturbation of the Planets," "Researches on
the Tides," the "Theory of Probabilities," and other publications,
which are still quoted as authorities. His treatise on " Probabilities ' :
anticipated that of Quetelet by several years, and, being published
anonymously, was for some time ascribed to De Morgan.

The present baronet, the subject of this sketch, was born in Lon-

SKETCH OF SIB JOHN LUBBOCK, BART, M. P. 105

don, on the 30th of April, 1834. His early education was received in
a private school kept by Mr. Waring ; at a later period he was sent to
Eton College, where he had the Earl of Dalkeith, Lord Grey de Wil-
ton, Mr. Lefevre, and Mr. Chitty, Q. C, for fellow-pupils. He was
withdrawn from school when fourteen years old without being al-
lowed to enter the university, and put into the bank ; for his father's
partners had been taken suddenly ill, and it was deemed important that
he should be prepared to assume control of the establishment as soon
as possible in case death should take away its heads. His attention
was here directed to quite different objects from those in which he
had been interested, but he did justice to their demands, and exerted
himself to become a complete man of business, with a success to
which his subsequent accomplishments as a banker and the mark he
has left in English methods of business bear ample testimony. He
did not suffer this, however, to divert him from his former pursuits.
He passed his leisure at the family seat of High Elms, near Farnbor-
ough, in Kent, " a goodly mansion in the midst of an estate of four-
teen hundred acres, which had been purchased by his grandfather."
Here he continued his studies in natural history, and made it an object
to supplement and extend that education only the foundations of
which are laid at school and college.

The banking-house of which Sir John Lubbock is the head that of
Robarts, Lubbock & Co., has been in existence since 1T50, has always
stood high, and has not decreased in stability during the administra-
tion of its present chief. Lender that administration it has promoted
a reform in the methods of transacting business throughout the king-
dom that has greatly facilitated and expedited it, by securing the ex-
tension of the clearing-house system of London to the country banks.

The clearing-house has long been a most useful institution among
the London bankers for collecting the checks paid in by their custom-
ers with greater facility than by sending round to the various banks and
getting the money over the counter, and, in their turn, having to pay to
the messengers of other bankers the charges drawn on them. In the
clearing-house building as many desks are arranged as there are bankers
connected with the institution, each of which is allotted to a particu-
lar banker. A clerk, going with a number of checks upon some or all
the bankers, puts those which are drawn upon each on his desk. At
the same time all the other banks holding checks upon his bank place
them upon his desk. When the day's business is completed, only the
balances shown upon posting the checks pro and con have to be paid
over, and this is done through drafts upon a special account in the
Bank of England. Mr. Babbage had called attention to the propor-
tion of transactions of bankers that passed through the clearing-house
to those that did not. Acting upon the suggestion given by Mr. Bab-
bage, Sir John, taking an amount of $115,000,000 that passed through
the hands of his hcvuse during the last few days of 1864, analyzed the

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

respective items of clearing -checks, bills, bank-notes, and coin, and
found that out of each million more than $700,000 passed through the
clearing-house. Such a measure of the convenience secured by the
system was evidence enough that its extension was desirable. Under
the old system of settling country accounts, a country bank taking in
the course of the day two hundred checks, drawn on perhaps one hun-
dred bankers scattered all over the kingdom, had to write one hundred
separate letters and dispatch them by post to as many different points.
Under the new system, the checks are all sent to London, grouped and
classified as are the city checks in the city clearing-house, and sent in
batches to their destinations, with a great saving of labor.

To Sir John Lubbock is also due the introduction of a method of ex-
amination for clerks of bankers and joint-stock companies conducted .
by the City of London College, in the same manner as the examina-
tions instituted by the Government under the Civil Service Commis-
sioners. He is also Honorary Secretary to the London Association of
Bankers, and in that capacity, besides keeping the records of the meet-
ings of the association, acting as secretary of all committees, control-
ling the internal arrangements of the Clearing-House, etc., he has the
duty of representing the bankers of London on questions relating to
Government in Parliament, and, indeed, whenever any intermediate
agent between banking circles and the officers of Government is
needed. When the Institute of Bankers, now numbering more than
two thousand members, was formed, he was unanimously chosen its
president. He has contributed many valuable papers to financial lit-
erature, and was a member of the International Coinage Commission.

The proper performance of these multifarious duties would seem
not to leave time for the successful pursuit of any other occupations,
but Sir John Lubbock has been able to give them due attention and,
in addition, besides doing good service to his country in Parliament,
to become a distinguished investigator and experimenter, and an au-
thority in more than one branch of science. Science was one of the
earliest of Sir John Lubbock's pursuits, and it was one of those that
he has most constantly followed up. He knew practically nothing of
banking till he was fourteen years old, while his name was not on the
rolls of Parliament till he was a man of thirty-six. But he was a nat-
uralist in his very childhood. His taste in this direction was carefully
nurtured by his father, who was accordingly very glad when Mr. Dar-
win settled as his near neighbor at Down. From that day forward
he was a pupil of that master, and became one of his most ardent dis-
ciples. His methods of investigation are very similar to those of Mr.
Darwin, and consist largely of the minute, accurate observation of
small things. His researches in zoology have been chiefly devoted to
the development, habits, and structure of the lower animals, chiefly of
insects and Crustacea, in which he has made numerous discoveries that
are recorded in various scientific journals and in the " Transactions ' :

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK. BART, M. P. 107

of the Royal, Linngean, and other learned societies. Relative to these
subjects he has published an elaborate treatise on one of the obscure
groups of insects, entitled a " Monograph of the Thysanura and Col-
lembola " (Royal Society, 1873), and works of a more popular charac-
ter on the "Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects" and "Wild Flow-
ers considered in Relation to Insects," in the latter of which he con-
siders the agency of insects in the fertilization of flowers by carrying
pollen from flower to flower while in search of food, and the adapta-
tion of the flowers to the function of dusting the insects that visit
them with their pollen and to the reception of the pollen of other
flowers from them. His most recent researches, carried on with the
aid of members of his family, have been devoted to the observation of
the habits of insects, particularly of wasps, bees, and ants, which have
been attended with important discoveries. He has given particular
attention to the study of the mental faculties of insects, whether those
creatures have any, and to what extent they may be developed, and
has made numerous interesting communications on the subject to the
British Association and the Royal Institution, which have been ex-
tensively published, even in miscellaneous journals, and generally
read ; and in connection with this branch he was able to interest the
British Association with the life-history of a pet wasp which he kept,
to such an extent that its death in the following year was considered
worthy of notice in a special paragraph in "Nature." Among the
consequences of these publications have been the direction of a greater
degree of attention to the biological history of the orders that form
the subjects of them, and a higher appreciation of the study of little
things.

Sir John Lubbock also became an active and eminent student of
archaeology. He examined the shell-mounds, or kitchen-middens, on
the coast of Denmark, to which attention had originally been called by
Steenstrup and other Danish antiquaries, and was the first to make Eng-
lish readers acquainted with those rude relics of the ancient Scandina-
vian savages. He also studied the gravels of the Somme from Amiens
to the sea, in search of prehistoric remains, and explored the bone-caves
of Dordogne and the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, and examined the
archaeological collections in numerous public and private museums.
These researches formed the subjects of various memoirs in the " Nat-
ural History Review" and other publications, and were finally col-
lected, with many additions, and published under the title of " Pre-
historic Times as illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and
Custonis of Modern Savages," in a work which has passed through
five editions. His readings in the literature relating to modern savage
life led him to a consideration of the origin of civilization and of the
manner in which customs, once all but universal in the infancy of the
human race, became altered or narrowed down to the few rude tribes
who may now ahme possess them. These inquiries were originally

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

given to the Royal Institution in the spring of 1868, and were after-
ward greatly enlarged and published in a work, * The Origin of Civil-
ization and the Primitive Condition of Man," which has passed through
five editions, and, like his former work on prehistoric man, has been
translated into the French, German, Italian, Danish, Russian, Hunga-
rian, Dutch, Swedish, and other languages. It has also gone through
two American editions, and has given rise to considerable controversy
which has been called forth bv the antagonism of some of its views to
the prepossessions of a large proportion of its readers. It must have
cost the author an enormous amount of labor, and is, aside from the
theories it enunciates, a most serviceable work of reference, offering a
nearly exhaustive array of facts which it would be impossible for any
student to obtain for himself, drawn from a mass of authorities the
mere list of which would fill a considerable space. In this work the
Darwinian doctrine is applied in tracing the development of the social
and mental condition of savages, their arts, their system of marriage
and of relationship, their religions, languages, moral character, and
laws. It sustains the belief that " the law of humanitv is not des^en-
eracy, but progression ; not the falling away from a primitive state of
perfection, but the gradual amelioration and advance toward a higher
and better condition." To be more particular, the author maintains
the conclusions that "existing savages are not the descendants of civ-
ilized ancestors ; that the primitive condition of man was one of utter
barbarism ; and that from this condition several races have independ-
ently raised themselves." This work was one of the first attempts to
treat the origin of civilization on a rational and philosophic basis, and
has been pronounced " the completest summary of barbaric life that
we possess."

These books form, however, but a small part of Sir John Lubbock's
scientific writings, which include besides numerous papers in the trans-
actions of learned societies, and in the scientific and antiquarian jour-
nals, the list of which is constantly growing, and the editing from the
original manuscript of the treatise of the nonagenarian Svend Xilsson
on " The Stone Acre of Sweden."

The labors of Sir John Lubbock in behalf of the preservation of
the ancient monuments of Great Britain and Ireland may be con-
sidered in connection with his scientific work, although they have been
carried on chiefly in Parliament, and under the form of appeals to the
public. They have found shape in the well-known Ancient Monu-
ments Bill, which passed a second reading three times, but was finally
lost in the House of Lords. This bill was based upon the principle
" that, if the owner of one of these ancient monuments wishes to de-
stroy it, he should be required, before doing so, to give the nation the
option of purchase at a fair price." For this purpose, it proposed to
create a body of commissioners especially charged with the protection
of the ancient monuments, and so commended itself to all persons in-

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART, M. P. 109

terested in the subject that every archaeological society in the kingdom
petitioned for its passage. It was, however, strongly opposed by
other interests, with arguments of the most puerile character, such, for
instance, as that the people who erected the monuments were savages,
about whom no one cares or should care ; that the monuments them-
selves are ignoble and destitute of all art and of everything that
entitles them to preservation ; and that to preserve them was to inter-
fere seriously with the rights of property.

Replying to these objections in 1875, Sir John asked the honorable
members of the House of Commons to look at the ancient monuments
in their own districts mentioned in his bill, and tell him which of
them they would see destroyed without regret. " Was it Silbury Hill,
the grandest sepulchral monument, perhaps, in Europe ? Was it Ave-
bury, the most remarkable of the so-called Druidical structures ? Was
it Stonehenge, enigmatical and unique ? Was it Arthur's Round Table,
or the Rollrich Stones, Kitscoty House, or Wayland Smith's Forge,
dear to all readers of Sir W T alter Scott ? " Then, after referring to
similar monuments in Scotland and Ireland, he concluded : " Those
monuments have passed through great dangers. They have been
spared by Roman soldiers, by Britons, Saxons, Danes, and Xormans ;
they were respected in days of comparative poverty and barbarism ;
in these days of enlightenment and civilization, of wealth almost be-
yond the dreams of avarice, they were in danger of being broken up
for a profit of a few pounds, or removed because they cumbered the
ground. If the House allowed them to be destroyed, they could never
be replaced. It was said that the bill would interfere with the rights
of property. What rights ? The right of destroying interesting na-
tional monument-. That was the only right that would be interfered
with. It was not incidental to the bill, it was no drawback in the bill, it
was the very object of the measure. It was really, however, the rights
of destruction, not the rights of possession, which it touched. It was
now for the House to determine whether it would exercise on behalf
of the nation the right to preserve those monuments ; whether it
would maintain the ri^ht of individuals to destrov, or the risrht of the
nation to preserve."' Sir John himself bought two of the sites men-
tioned in his speech, to save them from threatened destruction : Ave-
bury, whose temple was nearly perfect in the time of Charles n, who
visited it, but which was now about to be sold for building-lots after
most of its stones had been broken up or carried off ; and Silbury
Hill, said by "Xature " to be "the grandest tumulus in Great Britain,
if not in Europe."

Sir John Lubbock's political career may be said to have begun in
1865, when he stood for a seat in the House of Commons for West
Kent, at the request of the Liberal Committee, and was defeated by
only fifty votes. In 1868 he was nominated as a Liberal candidate for
the representation of the L^niversity of London, backed by a committee

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

composed of such men as Airy, Babbage, Darwin, Huxley, Lyell, Max
Miiller, Tyndall, and others, but he thought it better to leave the field
open to Mr. Lowe, and stood, instead, for West Kent, where he was
again defeated. In 1870 he was elected for the borough of Maidstone,
and again, in 1874, after a keener contest than the preceding one, but
a good-natured one. In 1880 he lost his seat for Maidstone,, but was
returned a few days afterward by the University of London. In
recommending him for this seat a number of gentlemen, among whom
were Messrs. Alfred W. Bennett, Grant Duff, Thiselton Dyer, F. W.
Farrar, D. D., Dr. Michael Foster, H. E. Roscoe, and Dr. Samuel
Wilks, said that, since he combined in himself eminence in many
branches of knowledge and walks of life, he might be said to represent,
as few (if any) others could, the different faculties which combined to
form the university. He has made his mark in Parliament as an in-
dustrious, discriminating, working member, more distinguished, per-
haps, for the merit of the measures he has introduced and supported
than as a brilliant orator, although he has acquitted himself excellently
in the latter capacity, and earned the reputation of a speaker who
always has something to say that is well worth hearing, and the faculty
of saying it well. The following list of the bills which he has intro-
duced and promoted in their passage through the Houses attest that
his labors have been to the purpose, efficient, and successful. The bills
are, to use the peculiar phraseology with which their titles are legally
expressed, the Apothecaries' Company Medical Act Amendment Bill ;
the Bank Holiday Bill ; the Falsification of Accounts Bill ; the Banker's
Book Evidence Bill ; the College of Surgeons' Medical Act Amendment
Bill ; the University of London Medical Act Amendment Bill ; the
Absconding Debtor's Bill ; the Factor's Acts Amendment Bill ; the Bills
of Exchange Bill ; the Dental Practitioners' Bill ; the Compromise Acts
Amendment Bill ; and the Ancient Monuments Bill, which was lost
in the House of Lords. All of these acts have a practical bearing on
every-day life, and show the stand Sir John has taken in Parliament
as the elected member for the University of London, and the repre-
sentative, by an unrecorded vote, of science and the banking interest.
The best known of his bills is the Bank Holiday Bill, which has added
four new statute holidays to those that were already in existence, with
a result that has been in every way satisfactory, both to employers and
to the persons in their employ. Speaking of Sir John in connection
with the Ancient Monuments Bill, but having this act also in view,
" Nature " styles him " a member whose reputation as an archaeologist,
though great throughout the country, is exceeded by his popularity as
the author of the most successful measure of private legislation in
modern times the Bank Holiday Act," Sir John's political career,
as a whole, has been that of a consistent Liberal.

As a magistrate and country gentleman, Sir John Lubbock also
takes an active part in most of the varied duties incumbent on an

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART, M. P. in

English land-owner. He has contributed to political literature, though
not so voluminously as to scientific, and he has taken an active part in
measures to promote the extension and improvement of science-teach-
ing in the schools. The amount of work that he has done could have
been accomplished at his age only by means of the most indefatigable
industry, and the most economical use of time. He has always been
an early riser, and contrives, whenever it is possible, to get three or
four hours' work in the morning before breakfast. His career is an
example of what can be accomplished in a life well spent. No doubt,
says a biographer, many adventitious advantages existed in his case,
which poorer men do not possess. He had no anxiety as to bread ;
but, on the other hand, he does as much mechanical work every day
as would entitle him to a very fair return for his labors. Moreover,
the calls of his public position make inroads on his time, of which the
man who is his own master, by reason of his living in the by-ways of
the world, has little idea.

Sir John has received the appointment of the crown as a member
of the Senate of the University of London, and has been for several
years vice-chancellor of the same institution. He has also been a trustee
of the British Museum, a member of the Public School Commission, a
member of the International Monetary Commission, and a member of
the Royal Commission for the Advancement of Science. In literary,
scientific, and scholastic honors he is a Doctor of Civil Law of Oxford,
an LL. D. of Dublin, a Fellow of the Royal, Linnaean, Geographical,
Geological, and Antiquarian Societies ; he has been President of the
Ethnological Society, of its successor, the Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain, Vice-President of the Royal Society, Vice-President
and President of the Linnaean Society, the principal English biological
society ; and Vice-President and President of the British Association,
having been selected for the latter office to preside over the last (the
jubilee) meeting of the association, at York.

Sir John Lubbock was married in 1856 to Miss Ellen Frances,
daughter of the Rev. Peter Hordern, of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lanca-
shire, and has a family of three sons and three daughters. Lady Lub-
bock was a woman of considerable natural ability, and enjoyed the
privilege of giving much encouragement and aid to her husband by
the interest she took in all his pursuits. Her sympathies were also
extended to her husband's friends, who are still able to remember the
hospitable reception they used to meet at her hands. She contributed
a paper on " The Shell-Mounds of Denmark " to the volume of " Va-
cation Journals " for 1862-'63. She was a contributor to " Nature "
from time to time, and wrote a few articles which appeared in a pub-
lished form elsewhere. These works, however, " Nature " remarks,
" would afford but a poor criterion of all that she has directly and in-
directly done toward the advancement of natural science." She died
in 1879.

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ENTERTAINING VARIETIES.

THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON;*

OR,

TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF HAKIM BEN SHEYTAN.

Translated by F. L. 0.

CHAPTEE III.

" Whose salam hails me? Hath my friend returned ?
It is his form, but not his cheerful voice."

SO says the poet ; and thou, too, O father of my faith,f wilt find
me an altered man, if it be the will of Allah that we shall meet
again. Yet not the frost has chilled my heart ; not the harmattan-
wind has seared my brow : the gloom that clouds my soul is the gloom
of sorrow for the boundless misery of my fellow-creatures even of
my fellow-men. For the habitants of Monghistan are not brutes ; nor
are they apes, J gifted with human skill. No : they are men, degraded
by vice and monstrous superstitions, and as a human being I share in
their shame, and the weight of their woe oppresses my own heart.
May the angel of mercy be their helper !

Beth-Raka is not a large town, and I hoped to reach the opposite
hills by sunset ; but, before we had made our way to the end of the
first street, the smoke began to stifle our breath, and we concluded to
make a detour to the right and approach the furnace from the north
side of the town, where the ground was higher and the air less suffo-
cating. We entered a side-street, and would to Allah the smoke
had been dense enough to blind our eyes and save us the distress of
beholding such misery ! The street forms a hollow way through the
hills, and the rocks on both sides are full of caves, most of them
widened to a height of eight feet. In and around these caves we saw
a swarm of shapes as if the sleepers of a rock-tomb had issued from
their gloomy dens withered forms, bloated or swollen faces, and eyes
that were not fit to meet the light of day. We met a half -grown lad
with the face of an old man, and laborers that were too infirm to walk
erect, and as we proceeded I saw with horror that the condition of
these unfortunates was not the result of an exceptional malady, but of

* Copyright by D. Appleton & Company, 1882.

f Addressed to the Mollah of Tripoli. The pastor fides of an Arabian mosque styles
himself " Guardian of the Faith," and " Gate-keeper of the Peace-house " (Kada'l Beth-
Salam).

% " All that day we met neither man nor beast nor ape," says Ibn Koteiba in his
chronicle of the Mauritanian campaign. Monkeys, in the opinion of the Arabs, are not
beasts, but Ayd-Kapi's a sort of half -men.

ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 113

their daily habits. The starved-looking children were playing in the
street ; some, too weak to play, were sitting on the ground, diverting
themselves as well as they could ; the men were busy at work, as if
disease had become their accustomed state, an evil too hopeless to
attempt its cure. Unlike the beggars of Soodan, their poor prefer
tatters to nudity. Even their little ones were encumbered with un-
sightly rags, and, strange to say, the poorest people seemed to have
the largest number of children. Habit has inured them to the im-
purities of the atmosphere ; they breathe the thickest dust with in-
difference ; yet these same people are afraid of the night-air. After
dark the fire of the furnace burns low and the smoke clears away, at
the very time when the inhabitants close every aperture of their
hovels. Where whole families sleep together (as in the den of Er-
Masood) this insane habit can not fail to increase their infirmities.
Poverty is by no means the only cause of their sickliness. The only
manly -looking men I saw in that town were the hard-working laborers
of a smithy, and in the wealthier quarters, where the children are as
pretty as our own, their fathers look unsound and peevish, in spite of
their great paunches.

The cave-street led steadily up-hill till we reached the top of an
eminence, where we stopped and breathed more freely. On the north
slope of the hill the wealthier burghers had some well-built log-houses,
and right before us was a large stone building with a spacious court,
where I saw a number of fat old fellows, all wearing the same kind of
cloaks, and all shaved like the sick of a lazar-house. At first I thought
that the place was a sort of hospital for the cure of obesity, but I
afterward ascertained that it was a guttle-house,* a building where
numerous dervishes are fattened at the public expense. These holy
men consume great quantities of manioc-roots, f which they digest in
the interior of the building, where every one of them has a little stall
of his own. At daybreak, at sunset, and again at the rise of the moon,
they set up a plaintive howl, in order to save their souls from the
Great Pitch-Hole, as the Monakees call the vale of Jehannum.J They
do not perform any kind of useful labor, but, as their howl is supposed
to propitiate the wrath of the gods, they are revered as saints, and the
people feed them very liberally. They wear a sort of sack-gowns, as
tighter garments would be inconvenient ; and among those I met
at Beth-Raka some were so fat that I could see their cheeks from
behind.

In the mean time the sun had gone down, and, as the twilight in

* Fress-Haus (W.).

f The Jatropha manUiot, a species of esculent tubers, as nutritious as our yams or
"sweet-potatoes."

\ The mythology of the Mohammedans represents the bottomless pit as a desolate
valley, swept by harmattan-winds, and infested with uncouth goblins and swarms of gad-
flies a sort of tropical Tartarus.
vol. xxi. 8

ii 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this country is very short, we feared that we should lose our way in
the maze of the suburban roads. The dervishes of the guttle-house
seemed disinclined to converse with strangers, and the children at play
on the hill were unable to answer our questions ; but at last we met a
well-dressed old burgher, who gave us all the information we desired.
"The road to Kapibad passes through my field," said he, "and if
you will follow me I will show you the shortest way. I live at the
foot of the hill over yonder, where you see that large mosque of the
Tripilates."

" Is not that sect very numerous in this town ?" I asked.

"Yes, their buildings occupy all the best sites," said he, "and they
have the impudence to call themselves the only true Yeshanees."

" Do you belong to the Thumpers ? " I asked.

" The Thumpers," said he, " are nearly as superstitious as the Tri-
pilates. Their teachers walk in darkness. No, I am a JSHbir, or
Senior, of the Grizzlies,* so called because our people follow the rule
of the primitive Yeshanees, whose priests were chosen from among the
gray -headed and venerable elders of the community. How do you like
this part of our land ? " he asked, when we reached the foot of the
declivity.

" The hills remind me of the Khundee highlands," said I ; " the
buildings of Khundistan can not be compared to yours, but the in-
habitants seem to be happy in their free wilderness."

" Yes, they have a happy climate," said he, " but they are poor,
ignorant wretches, who worship only one God and take a sinful delight
in worldly pleasures. They do not know that the welfare of the soul
requires the mortification of the body, and that earthly thoughts ob-
struct the way to heaven."

" Where does all this smoke come from ? " I inquired.

"From the mash-house," said he. "We shall pass it before we
reach the city gate. The mashers employ a hundred workmen, and it
will surprise you to see what quantities of grain pass through their
hands."

If the mash-house had been a bakery, its usefulness could have
reconciled me to the smoke, for in this quarter of the city, too, the
people seemed to be in desperate want of bread, and I asked the Kar-
man to distribute all our provisions to relieve some of the famished
children that gathered around us at the street-corners.

Near the gate the road was not paved, and the ground was here
covered with mire instead of dust.

" Yes, cities abound with foul odors and all kinds of impurities,"
remarked the Kabir, " but such evils are outweighed by moral bless-
ings. In this town even the poorest enjoy the advantage of spiritual
instruction and edifying sermons."

" A great advantage, indeed," I was going to say, when I stumbled

* Parduscos (R.).

ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 115

over a big man who was lying prostrate in the middle of the street.
A shorter and fatter fellow was sitting near him, but made no attempt
to help his comrade, and for good reasons, as it seemed, for, when I
tried to assist the prostrate man, he kicked me like a horse, and after
a torrent of frightful blasphemies began to pelt us with mud and
rubbish.

" Leave them alone ! " cried the Karman ; " I believe that drunken
wretch has hit me with a stone."

But at those words the fat man jumped to his feet and staggered
forward as if he were going to follow us. "Do not call a Yeshanee
a wretch," he stammered ; " that man is fond of mash, but he atones
for it on the prayer-day, and in the mosque no one can exceed the
frequency and fervor of his groans. Oh, how Yesha loves a prayerful
heart ! " he added ; when I heard a loud splash, and, looking back, I
saw that he, too, had fallen in the mud, and was evidently as drunk as
his companion.

" Mash is very cheap in this town," explained the Kabir.

" Not to those poor fellows," said I ; "it will cost them their
health."

"Yes, but such losses, too, often result in spiritual gain," replied
the Kabir. " The body must be humbled, the natural heart must be
broken, before the soul can partake of grace. The vilest sinners be-
come the devoutest believers. Here is the mash-house," said he, as
we stopped before a high stone-wall.

The building was shrouded in a cloud of hot vapor that added a
lurid glow to the lights that shone through every hole and crack in
the wall, and when we reached the gate we could hear the hiss of a
mighty furnace, but the flues were so high that the black smoke
passed harmless over our heads. Still, the atmosphere within was
almost suffocating. The air was thick with steam, made more offen-
sive by the intensity of the same vicious odor we had first noticed in
the eastern suburbs. All this smell, filling the air for leagues around,
seemed to be diffused from a seething kettle in the background of the
building. A multitude of half -naked men ran to and fro with sacks,
pots, and buckets, while others were raking the furnace which was
going to be covered for the night. Nearer by, and all along the
walls, were large heaps of grain, besides apples and other fruits.

" Is this hdbbada * a provision store-house ? " I inquired.

" No, these things are merely stored here till they are ready to use
them," said the Kabir, " and that will be soon enough ; every day five
hundre'd horse-loads of grain are here used up in the manufacture of
strong drink. They make five kinds of mash, the cheaper sorts cheap
enough for the poorest."

These words convinced me of what I had suspected for some time,

* E<T abbada, " by treason," in the original evidently by the misplacement of a dia-
critical point. x

n6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

though my soul shrank from the thought as long as there was a shad-
ow of doubt, namely, that these ship-loads of victuals would all be
made into fire-water ; mountains of grain and fruit turned into poison,
while the streets were full of starving children !

" Do you believe in a god ? " I asked the Kabir.

"I do, and in more than one ! " was the prompt reply. , ,

"And do you believe the gods will forgive you this shameful
waste?"

The Kabir touched my arm. " Do not talk so loud," he whispered.
" How can we help it ? " said he, in an undertone ; " we have tried all
kinds of remedies, and they have all failed. How can we prevent the
manufacture of mash ? "

" Simply enough," I replied ; " do not drink it. Does your religion
not forbid such an outrage, or does not your conscience prompt you
to stop it ? Is the way to freedom so far ? " *

" We have not been idle, O son of my uncle," said the Kabir ; " the
evil has been greatly diminished."

" In what way ? " I asked.

"Our dervishes," said he, "prohibit the sale of mash on all prayer-
days."

" When do they permit it ? " I asked.

" Only on six days out of seven," said he.

" But do you not drink mash in your mosques ?" asked my guide.

The Kabir gave him an evil look.f "That is a slander," said he.
" What they hand around in our mosques has the smell and the ap-
pearance of mash, but before we put it to our lips a special miracle
turns it into quite a different substance." J

" Has it a different taste ? " I inquired.

The Kabir hesitated. "Unbelievers deny it," said he. "Our
doctors claim that it has the same effect on the human body as a simi-
lar quantity of ordinary mash ; Jbut science, you know, is always forg-
ing weapons to destroy the faith." #

The overseer of the mash-house stood near enough to overhear our
conversation. He made no remark, but walked up to the furnace and
ordered the laborers to quit work. " It is time to close the gate," said
he.

We took the hint and left.

" That overseer owns a part of the mash-house," said the Kabir ?
when we reached the open street. " I wonder if he has heard your
remarks ? "

* Professor Widerleger understands this as an allusion to the sixteenth chapter of the
Syrian Koran, where the drunkard is compared to a slave who can not fly because " the
way to his native land is so far."

f Meyad emassek a venomous look.

% "Por un milagro peculiar se obra una trasustaciacion," (R.).

* " Dass die Wissenschaft Waffen zur Vernichtung des Glauhens schmiedet," (W.).

ENTERTAINING^ VARIETIES. 117

" Do you care if he did ? " said I.

" Oh, certainly ! " whispered the Kabir ; " he is a man of wealth,
and a prominent member of our mosque."

The Kabir's residence was a long wooden building at the end of a
field, with several shade-trees, and some fifty acres of land, devoted to
the cultivation of poison-berries.

"If you dislike the smell of fire-water, you had better accept the
shelter of my roof ,' ' said he, " for all our caravansaries are redolent
with the fumes of mash. As for myself, I never touch the stronger
sorts, though our doctors prescribe them."

We thanked him for his kindness, but, as the night was clear and
pleasant, we asked permission to camp under one of his shade-trees.
While the Karman pitched our tent, our host pressed me to inspect
the interior of the building.

" Do you know a remedy for the gout ? " * he asked as soon as we
were alone. " I have tried all sorts of cures, but unsuccessfully."

" Have you ever tried to drink water ! " I asked him.

The Kabir sighed. " I thought you were a physician," said he ;
" is that the only remedy you know ? Never mind," he added, when I
made no reply, " I suppose there is no help for it. This earth is a vale
of tears."

He had lighted a lamp, and I noticed that the background of his
room was full of papyrus-rolls, tablets, and other things that bespoke
him a man of letters.

"There is one consolation," said he; "the evils of this earth can
not deprive us of spiritual enjoyments. Nay, the more the light of
earthly pleasure fades, the brighter the joys of a higher world often
dawn upon the mind."

A strange smell began to fill the room, and, looking toward the
corner where the Kabir was seated upon his divan, I discovered to my
dismay that he had lighted a pot with, stink- weeds. He invited me to
take a seat at his side, but, seeing that I was in need of rest, he kindly
permitted me to retire to my tent.

Before we resumed our journey the next morning, we had to re-
plenish our provision-bags, and met a boy who offered to show us the
way to the market-place. " It is not far from here," said he, " you
can already hear the shouting of the doctors."

Since daybreak we had, indeed, heard the sound of repeated
whoops, often accompanied by the tooting of a cow-horn ; and when
we arrived at the market-place we soon discovered the cause of the
noise. 'In opposite corners of the square two medicine-venders had
erected their platforms, and their incessant yells had already attracted
large crowds of the natives. One of the doctors had decorated his
booth with all sorts of fanciful pictures, and, while he exalted the

* Akdel hesha^, the " wine-disease." Either the gout or the stone.

n8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

merits of his medicine, the mahudis* blew their horns, while two as-
sistants ran to and fro distributing spoonfuls and handfuls of a blue
powder and collecting copper coins. The doctor had the voice of a
steer, and I noticed that his sudden whoops f sometimes opened the
purse-strings of spectators who had listened with indifference to his
quieter remarks. - -

His rival had no pictures, but talked with astonishing volubility
and attracted customers by a very ingenious device. Behind his plat-
form he had made an inclosure with chains and ropes and filled it
with a troop of sickly-looking fellows cripples, lepers, and such
like as he could easily have collected in any back street of the
town. Now and then, in the course of his fluent harangue, the doc-
tor would stop and turn toward this cadaverous assembly. " Have
you not all derived great benefits from the use of my oil ? " he in-
quired.

" Yes, yes, yes ! " the lepers shouted in chorus, whereupon the
mahud blew his horn, and the collectors rushed into the crowd to ex-
change bottles for coin. At times the doctor varied his query : " Is
there any disease which my oil will fail to cure ? "

" No, no, no ! " yelled the chorus, and a shower of coin followed as
before. At longer intervals a couple of assistants would bring a large
tub from an adjoining building, and, with the appearance of a strenu-
ous effort, lift it up and exchange it for an apparently empty pot irpon
the stage.

"Another barrelful sold!" then cried the doctor. "By Allah
(whose perfection be extolled ! ), there is no medicine like it ! Oh, the
wonderful virtues of my oil ! " whereupon the mahud blew his horn
vigorously till coppers showered in from all sides.

Walking toward the gate, we overtook several men whom I re-
membered to have seen at the stand of the oil-man.

"What is that oil good for, O friend ?" I asked a young fellow
who carried a bottle of it in his hand.

He looked at me with surprise. " Did you not hear what the doctor
said ? " he replied ; " it cures all diseases, so it can not fail to be good
for something."

" Tell me, O my master," I asked an old burgher, " do you know
what that bottle contains ? "

" That I can not tell," said he ; " but surely it must be a powerful
medicine."

" And do you prefer it to the other doctor's powder ? " I asked
again.

" Judging from its taste, the potency of this oil can not be ex-

* Mahud (pi. mahudim, or mahudis), a town-crier, or news-crier. When Cordova
was the capital of Moorish Spain, every market-hall of the vast city had two mahudis,
who announced the news twice a day, like our morning and evening papers.

f "Sein plotzliches Gebrull," (W.).

ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 119

ceeded," said he ; " no powder in the world could be so bitter and dis-
gusting."

" Why did you buy that bottle, O brother of my uncle ? " I asked
one other man, an old fellow with the long hair of a villager.

" I bought it because I saw all the townsfolk do the same," he re-
plied ; " it must surely be good for something. I should have bought
a larger bottle," he added, " but the times are very hard. Our fields
are suffering from a drought, and on the western border people are
dying with hunger."

The appearance of the country seemed to confirm these words. Six
miles from Beth-Raka the fields looked as if the samum-wind had
scorched the grass ; and here and there at the road-side the people had
gathered around a singing dervish, praying for rain, as my guide as-
sured me, though he confessed that he could not understand the chants
of the singer. Toward noon we passed a mountain that seemed to
be a general meeting-place of the dervishes, for high up among the
rocks of the summit we could see a large assembly of people, and even
at this distance we heard the sound of their chants.

" What are those people doing up there ? " I asked a man who had
halted his wagon near a point where a by-road led up toward the top
of the mountain.

" Praying for rain," said he ; "I am going there myself."

" Your horses will have a hard pull before you reach the top,"
said I, for his wagon was heavily loaded with grain.

" Oh, no," said he ; " my servant will take this load to the mash-
house at Beth-Raka. The brewers are paying high prices because of
the scarcity of grain."

" And what will you do on the hill ? " I inquired.

" Sing and pray," said he. " Will you join me and let us ask Allah
to deliver us from this famine ? "

" No, sir," I replied, " but I wish I could deliver you from that
mash-house."

The fellow turned away with an angry look and remarked that I
must be a 3Iurchnk a word which they apply to a race of impious
savages who refuse to exalt the glory of Allah.

We had now passed the last ridge that divides the plain of Beth-
Raka from the valley of Kapibad ; and before us, on the heights of
the western hills, we saw the towers and gardens of the Monghistan
capital. My guide was well acquainted with this part of the country,
and when we reached the next hamlet he took me to a caravansary
where'he had often stopped, and where we intended to clean our gar-
ments before proceeding to the capital. But we had hardly entered
the gate of the Asmakan,* when the gate-keeper took my guide aside,
and, after a few questions, crossed his arms and greeted me after the
manner of the Galla highlanders.

* The\court-yard where caravans water their camels.

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"May Allah bless the day and the hour of your arrival ! " said he.
" This morning a messenger of the Emir has arrived from Kapibad,
and is now awaiting your coming under a tree where all the roads
from the east meet near the village gate."

\_To be continued.']

Dornian, in his "Origin of Primitive Superstitions," gives the follow-
ing on the authority of Schoolcraft: " Sleep is thought by the Algic race to be
produced by fairies, the prince of whom is Weeng. The power of this Indian
Morpheus is exerted in a peculiar manner and by a novel agency. Weeng
seldom acts directly in inducing sleep, but he exercises dominion over hosts
of gnome-like beings, who are everywhere present. These beings are invisi-
ble. Each one is armed with a tiny club, and when he observes a person sit-
ting or reclining under circumstances favorable to sleep, he nimbly climbs upon
his forehead and inflicts a blow. The first blow only creates drowsiness; the
second makes the person lethargic, so that he occasionally closes his eyelids; the
third produces sound sleep. It is the constant duty of these little emissaries to
put every one to sleep whom they encounter men, women, and children. They
hide themselves everywhere, and are ready to fly out and exert their sleep-com-
pelling power, although their peculiar season of action is in the night. They are
also alert during the day. "While the forms of these gnomes are believed to be
those of little or fairy men, the figure of Weeng himself is unknown, and it is
not certain that he has ever been seen. Iagoo is said to have seen him sitting
upon a branch of a tree. He was in the shape of a giant insect, with many
wings upon his back, which made a low, deep, murmuriDg sound, like distant
falling water. Weeng is not only the dispenser of sleep, but it seems he is also
the author of dullness. If an orator fails, he is said to be struck by Weeng. If
a warrior lingers, he has ventured too near the sleepy god. If children begin to
nod or yawn, the Indian mother looks up smilingly and says they have been
struck by Weeng, and puts them to bed."

In his "Diseases of Memory," Ribot says: "When a child learns to

write, according to Lewes, it is impossible for him to use his hand alone; he
must also move his tongue, the facial muscles, and perhaps his feet. In time
he is able to suppress these useless discharges of nerve- force. And so, when
we attempt for the first time any muscular act, we expend a great quantity of
superfluous energy which we learn gradually to subdue. By exercise certain
movements are fixed, to the exclusion of others."

What is a Cause ? Kingdon Clifford says that the word represented

by " cause " has sixty-four meanings in Plato and forty-eight in Aristotle. He
further observes that " these were men who liked to know as near as might be
what they meant ; but how many meanings the word has had in the writings of
the myriads of people who have not tried to know what they meant by it will,
I hope, never be counted."

Oxygen and Consciousness. Brown-Sequard, according to Dr. Luys,

once injected the head of a dog, when separated from the trunk, with defibrin-
ated and oxygenated blood, and at the moment when the injection of this blood
had recalled the manifestations of life he called the dog by his name. The eyes
of the head thus separated from the trunk turned toward him, as if the voice of
the master had still been heard and recognized.

CORRESP ONDENCE.

121

CORRESPONDENCE.

DR. PRIESTLEY.

Messrs. Editors.

CERTAIN facts connected with the life
and history of Dr. Priestley came to
my knowledge and recollection about the
time of the centennial gathering at North-
umberland, Pennsylvania. Had it occurred
to me sooner, I should have deemed it of
sufficient interest to those present, and to
the general public, to have communicated
these facts ; and, even now, it seems desira-
ble to make this record.

When Dr. Priestley's house was attacked
by the mob, and he was driven from his
home, he fled for his life, and took ref-
uge with my maternal grandfather, Samuel
Vaughan, either at his London house (in
Mark Lane, or Mincing Lane), or at his
country-house in Hackney. For a long time
previous to this date he was very intimate
in my grandfather's family, where he was
received always as a loved and welcome
guest. At the time referred to he remained
an inmate of the family for a month or
more. My mother, who was born in Lon-
don, in 1766, was living with her parents at
the time of the riot. A strong attachment
had grown up between her and Dr. Priest-
ley. She looked upon him as a second fa-
ther ; and I well remember, as a boy, the
great pleasure with which she dwelt upon
the memory of their friendship. While con-
cealed in my grandfather's house Dr. Priest-
ley wrote his celebrated " Appeal." It was
dictated by him to my mother, she acting as
his amanuensis. The " Appeal " was printed
from her manuscript. As a memorial of
this event, Dr. Priestley presented to my
mother a brooch, made for the purpose.
It is a miniature likeness of himself, cut in
shell, on a blue background, and mounted
in an oval gold frame, with a scroll across
it near the bottom, on which is the word
" Appeal." This brooch is now in my
possession. I held it in my hand at the
time of the celebration, regretting that so
interesting a relic could not be viewed by
those present. Forty years or more have
elapsed since my mother's narration of these
events, and, as the present account rests
entirely upon the memory of my late sister
and myself, it is possibly incorrect in some
details. The main points, however, may be
relied upon, and as proof may be taken the
existence of the brooch, bearing on its scroll
the word " Appeal."

T. B. Merrick.

Gebmantown; Philadelphia, )
February 24, 1888. )

QUACK ADVERTISEMENTS.
Messrs. Editors.

Ik the March number of " The Popular
Science Monthly " there is an article from
the London " Lancet " entitled " Quackery
within the Profession," which, though short,
is certainly vigorous. The following quota-
tions are pertinent :

" There can not possibly be a ' system '
or ' cure ' in medicine. There are no rule-
of-thumb methods, and no mysteries in true
science. If we do not know what a remedy
is, and how it acts, we have no right, as hon-
est men, to employ it. The time has passed
for the working of cures by charms, and the
recourse to nostrums. We pander to the
credulity of the unskilled community when
we show ourselves credulous. . . . From the
highest places in society to the lowest ranks
of the people, there is just now a grievous
readiness to ' believe in ' quacks and quack-
ery. . . . There is no system, or cure, or charm,
or nostrum, known to the profession."

These words are strong enough, and arc
properly found within the pages of a maga-
zine devoted to popularizing science that
is, popularizing it in the sense of giving the
unprofessional reader the latest teachings
of science without the rigorous processes of
induction leading to such results.

The aim being, therefore, such a high
and laudable one, is it not somewhat incon-
sistent, to say the least, to find in the same
March number advertisements of the follow-
ing notoriously quack medicines and reme-
dies ?

St. Jacob's Oil, Grrcffenberg's Vegetable
Pills, Voltaic Belts, Parker's Ginger Tonic,
Kidney-wort, Mrs. Pinkham's Vegetable
Compound, "a positive cure for consump-
tion," and two whole pages devoted, the one
to Warner's Safe Kidney and Liver Cure,
and the other to Compound Oxygen ?

Such advertisements undoubtedly pay
well ; but should not a prosperous magazine
like " The Popular Science Monthly," with
such lofty pretensions, be above lending
itself, even indirectly, to countenancing
quackery, or doing anything to increase that
" grievous readiness to believe in quacks and
quackery " which the writer in the London
" Lancet " so much deplores ?
Respectfully yours,

Charles E. L. B. Davis,

Captain of Engineers.
Buffalo. Xeav York, February 22, 15S2.

Captain Davis writes to the editors of
the " Monthly," complaining that they do

122

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not also edit the advertisements. We must
draw the line somewhere, and we stop at
the one hundred and forty-fourth page. We
do not think it would be easy to edit the
advertisements. If the rule should be, not
to publish lies, it would abolish the depart-
ment, for they are by no means confined to
quack medicines. St. Jacob's may he about
his " oil," and Aunty Pinkham about her
" compound " ; but there is this mitigation
in such cases, that everybody knows it.
The worst difficulty begins with those ad-
vertisements in which truth and falsehood
are mixed, for

"A lie that is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."

Our correspondent had better address him-
self to the managers of the advertising de-
partment, and convince them that they
should not work down to the low standard
of the religious and secular press. Mean-
time we agree not to sandwich advertise-
ments through the text of the " Monthly,"
as is the custom with some journals. Ed-
itors.

SCIENCE IX THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Messrs. Editors.

I have read with great interest the arti-
cles you have recently published, explain-
ing improved methods of teaching various
branches of science in public schools.

At the opening of this school last Sep-
tember, we found ourselves with a class of
a dozen boys and girls from fourteen to
eighteen vears of as:e, who were ready to
begin the study of ''natural philosophy."
I suppose we might have provided those
boys and girls with copies of some one of
the many text-books which profess to carry
students over the entire subject in " four-
teen weeks," or some other incredibly short
time ; we might have set those students to
committing and reciting that text, but we
didn't.

After some experimental work with im-
provised apparatus in illustration of the
properties of matter, the students provided
themselves with copies of Tyndall's " Les-
sons in Electricity." We chose that branch
of physics rather than any other, because
the school owned a set of Tyndall's appa-
ratus especially designed to accompany the
"Lessons." The class then began a sys-
tematic course of experiment, following, in
a general way, the order of their book, but
making also many other experiments. The
students took turns in conducting the work,
and all were enthusiastic. Nothing was
taken without proof, and, the better to as-

sure myself of the thoroughness of the work,
I had them write up from memory weekly
reports of the experiments performed. Of
course, our work was slow, but I think it
was sure, a real scientific spirit manifesting
itself in every member of the class. We
have now reached a part of the work where
a more powerful electrical machine is nec-
essary, and of course we shall get it. I
think it is a mistake to begin with the ma-
chine. It is too complicated to be easily
understood at first, and the result is a lack
of clear ideas. The simple experiments rec-
ommended by Professor Tyndall are excel-
lent. They lead the student along so grad-
ually and so surely that when he reaches the
explanation of the electrical machine, or the
Leyden-jar, he finds very little difficulty.

We have in the school other scientific
work than that described above ; but this
is the one subject where we have the best
chance to cultivate accuracy and an interest
in scientific methods.

Yours, respectfully,

Charles J. Bfell,
Principal of Boonville Academy.
Boowille, New York, February 18, 1SS2.

INFLUENCE OF EAETH-WOEM3 ON
PLANTS.
Messrs. Editors.

I notice much discussion concerning the
effects of earth-worms upon plants in pots,
in regard to their eating the roots of plants,
and also the injury their acid excretions
may do the plants. Having kept house-
plants for many years and in all sorts of
vessels, from unglazed earthen pots to
glazed delf, and in iron and in tin vessels
also, and having had good success without
drainage at all, even by having a hole in
the vessel, and also having had the earth-
worms under consideration, before Mr.
Darwin was heard from on the subject, I
feel that I may add an item of interest
about them. The complaints that I have
seen come from florists. Florists, like all
other specialists, have notions, and I believe
this about earth-worms hurting plants is
one. I have found women who, when their
house-plants did not thrive, laid it to earth-
worms. I do not agree with them nor with
the florists, as I do not believe, from nearly
twenty years' handling of house-plants, that
earth-worms injure pot-plants. I have used
all sorts of soil, from good garden to leaf-
mold, and have always used well-rotted
manure, in which earth-worms abound, to
mix with the soil, and, if I can, have had
good air, plenty of light, correct tempera-
ture, and have watered properly. I have
never failed to have a plant thrive, even if
the pot was full of worms, and was tin, delf,
iron, or unglazed pottery, and I have grown

EDITOR'S TABLE.

123

and had bloom all of the ordinary house-
plants, and some that were not common in
house-culture.

I have noticed that the worm3 will, if
there is a hole in a pot, and the pot is not
often disturbed, crawl out at the hole and
lie under the pot, if there is room, and the
bottoms of most pots will allow this, and

' this they will do in all sorts of pots. Plants

frequently become diseased from over-wa-

I tering, its lack, or from other causes, and

! too often the worm has to take blame for

what he is entirely innocent of.

Yours, respectfully,

Aoa H. Kepley.
Effingham, Illinois, February 20, 1SS2.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

"SCIEXCE AKD CULTURE."

THE reception accorded to Professor
Huxley's new volume, under the
above title, by the leading organs of pub-
lic opinion, is especially significant at
the present time. The book is a collec-
tion of addresses, lectures, and essays,
which have appeared at intervals dur-
ing the last seven years, on a consid-
erable variety of subjects, educational,
biological, and philosophical. They are
all of superior merit the maturest and
most finished of Professor Huxley's lit-
erary productions, and are all of popular
interest ; but the critics do not regard
them as having equal claims to their
attention. It is the first address, from
which the volume takes its name given
at the inauguration of Josiah Mason's
college to which they chiefly devote
themselves, and their discussions are
noteworthy, as indicating the great
change that is going forward in the
public mind with regard to the higher
relations of science and education.

It is beyond doubt that the most for-
midable hindrance to the progress of
rational education is the idolatry of an
antiquated and effete system of study.
on the ground that it is pre-eminently
and exclusively adapted to the promo-
tion of " culture." It is by association
of classical studies with a dignified and
venerated ideal of " culture " that they
have acquired their superstitious as-
cendency, and have become the greatest
drags we have on real educational prog-
ress. Human cultivation is, and alwavs
must be, the supreme thing, and it is,
therefore, difficult to overestimate the

injurious influence of a false ideal of its
means and objects.

But the difficulty in this case is in-
creased by the fact that the ideal of
culture, which must now be rejected as
wholly inadequate, was once true. The
old and the still prevalent idea of cult-
ure is that which is derived from liter-
ary pursuits, and it is limited to certain
literary forms, as most perfect for the
purpose. Professor Huxley says of the
great majority of educated Englishmen
that, " in their belief, culture is obtain-
able only by a liberal education ; and a
liberal education is svnonymous, not
merely with education and instruction
in literature, but in one particular form
of literature, namely, that of Greek and
Koman antiquity. They hold that the
man who has learned Latin and Greek,
however little, is educated, while he
who is versed in other branches of
knowledge, however deeply, is a more
or less respectable specialist, not admis-
sible into the cultured caste."

But the human mind is no longer to
be cultivated merely by the forms or
the arts of expression. That these are
important things, and that in past times
they may have been the main things, no
one denies ; but such an ideal of cult-
ure is essentially superficial, and breaks
down before the serious intellectual de-
mands of the present time. The mind
of our age has passed from the consid-
eration of verbal figments to the laws of
reality. The correlative of form is sub-
stance, and the correlative of literary
form is the substance of thought, and
modern science has made this the funda-

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mental concernment. There has been
not only a change here, but a reversal
of the order of importance. The ques-
tion now is, not of the art of expres-
sion in itself, but to what is it subserv-
ient. "We grow increasingly impatient
of the rhetorician. The casket may be
elegant, but what does it contain? The
husks and shells of expression have had
sufficient attention we have now to
deal with the living kernel of truth.
The old ideal is discredited by the new
developments of knowledge, and the
new ideal must contain more substan-
tial elements than that which it super-
sedes. Under the old ideal of cul-
ture, a man may still be grossly ig-
norant of the things most interesting
and now most important to know ;
but an ideal of cultivation begins to
be demanded which does not comport
with ignorance. Modern knowledge is
the highest and most perfected form of
knowledge, and it is no longer possible
to maintain that it is not also the best
knowledge for that cultivation of mind
and character which is the proper ob-
ject of education. This truth is making
its way steadily, and although the tra-
ditional ideal of culture is strongly for-
tified in existing institutions, and main-
tained by old habits and associations,
it is undermined on every side, and is
certain to give place to more compre-
hensive and rational views of what con-
stitutes a properly cultivated man.

The leading criticisms of Professor
Huxley 1 s book, as we have said, illus-
trate this position decisively. They not
only show that the question is upper-
most and urgent with the thinking
classes, but that science has already so
clearly established its main positions
that the old resistance is futile, and that
a revised and enlarged conception of
culture has become inevitable. Pro-
fessor Huxley is even reproached by
distinguished literary authorities for not
fully perceiving the strength of his own
case, and how far science has already
pushed its educational conquests. It is

even maintained that the scientific spirit
and method have so far penetrated and
revolutionized the classical system as to
have given it a new lease of life ; so
that it will be conserved in future only
by virtue of what it has borrowed from
the progressive agency which it has
hitherto so desperately resisted. The
London " Saturday Keview " discourses
upon the subject as follows:

Professor Huxley's position as to the claims
of the natural sciences on the one hand and
the humanities on the other of the " mod-
ern" and the " classical " plan of education,
as they are commonly called is, on the whole,
if we rightly collect his meaning, something
like this : The medieeval system of European
universities, which with more or less minor
diversity was in substance the same every-
where, embraced everything which to the
best men of its day seemed best worth a
man's knowing, and deserves our thanks and
praise according to its time and work. But it
became stereotyped and inexpansive. It was
too narrow to hold the flood of new knowl-
edge and interests let loose upon the world
by the revival of classical learning. The
Eenaissance, in so far as it affected educa-
tion, was the protest of far-sighted reformers
against the bondage of medievalism. The
humanities fought their pitched battle against
the scholastic curriculum, and won it. Our
present classical education represents the tri-
umph of the lilterai humaniores three cen-
turies and a half ago. But the humanities,
like the scholastic system before them, have
in their turn become stereotyped. Now science
has arisen and opened a new world, unfamil-
iar to the men of classical traditions, and often
scorned by them ; and science is fighting its
way to its proper eminence as Greek did in
the days of Erasmus. The leaders of science
are the true humanists of our own time, and
the old-fashioned humanities must give place
to them. Now, if we were prepared to as-
sume, as Professor Huxley to some extent
seems tacitly to assume, that classical educa-
tion had reached its final development, and
that nothing more was to come out of scholar-
ship and antiquities than was got out of them
by English scholars forty or fifty years ago,
we should entirely agree with Professor Hux-
ley's conclusions. But, for our part, we are
not prepared to assume anything of the kind.
There are matters not adverted to by Profess-
or Huxley, and to which, as they certainly lie
outside his business, his attention may natu-
rally have not been directed, which appear to

EDITOR'S TABLE.

125

us necessary to be taken into account before
we acquiesce in the view of science and hu-
manism as two litigant parties, or attempt to
pass a final judgment upon their alleged
strife.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but
Professor Huxley has underrated the strength
and the victories of science. They are not
confined to the bounds of natural history or
physics, or to any or every branch of what we
call the natural sciences. The modern spirit
of science is too mighty and subtile not to
penetratt, into every region of the field of hu-
man knowledge. It is transforming and re-
quickening the humanities themselves ; and
we make bold to say that classical studies, so
far from waning before the light of science,
are awakening and waxing to a new Renais-
sance of which not we, but our children and
children's children, will see the full splendor.
What is it that Sir Josiah Mason's foundation
excludes, and in Professor Huxley's judgment
rightly, from the benefits and encouragement
of his bounty ? " Mere literary education and
instruction," such mere drilling in language
as until a recent date was understood to be
the staple of our so-called classical learning.
But our universities are now awake to the
truth that knowledge of the ancient languages
is an instrument, not an end in itself. The
end is another kind of knowledge, and knowl-
edge not undeserving to be compared for
worth with the knowledge of things and of
nature. It is the knowledge of man in the
works of his hands and his thought, of the
men from whom we inherit our laws, our art,
and our civilization ; the praise of famous men,
and our fathers that begat us. Socrates and
Plato, the fathers of philosophy ; Pericles,
the father of statesmanship ; Alexander, the
father of conquering civilization ; Ulpian and
Papinian, the fathers of scientific law ; Trajan
and the Antonines, of administration and
government ; Homer, the father of poetry ;
Phidias and Praxiteles, of sculpture these
last the masters' of all followers in their craft
unto this day and Aristotle, the father of
science itself ; surely of these men and their
work we can not know too mueh, and even a
little knowledge of them would be ill ex-
changed, for a man who does not mean to be
a chemist, for a little knowledge of the atomic
weights of elements.

But {his, some one will say, is not what
comes of our so-called classical education ;
what we get from our classical teachers is only
verse-grinding, scraps and odds and ends of
half-understood Latin and Greek, and a gen-
eral contempt for knowledge that is not at
Latin and Greek. This has been only too

true ; but we hope it will not be true much
longer. Cambridge, the head and front of the
old verbal scholarship, is transforming her
classical curriculum. Not through mere lin-
guistic attainments, but through scientific phi-
lology, scientific archaeology, scientific study
of ancient history and philosophy , will hence-
forth lie the road to her highest honors. "We
shall no longer have accomplished classical
scholars who stand mute before a coin or an
inscription, and can not tell a work of the
school of Phidias or Praxiteles from a late
Asiatic or Eoman imitation. Let the teachers
of natural science look to it on their side that
their own special studies do not degenerate
into mere book-work, such barren catalogues
of undigested facts and such an empty show
of paper knowledge as Professor Huxley lifts
up no uncertain voice against. Then, when
at last a true and lively knowledge of man
and of his history goes hand in hand with a
true and lively knowledge of Nature and her
works, our schools will produce results worthy
of their noble means, and science and culture
will be no longer names to bandy in contro-
versy, but firm and inseparable allies. Science
has come upon our humanists as from a re-
gion of mystery, like the nameless champion
of the legend, clad in magical armor and
wielding invincible weapons. But the cham-
pion is a friend and deliverer ; well for them
that receive him, and ill for them that in rash-
ness and little faith repel him. But is there
not already a working alliance ? Are modern
philology and archaeology "mere literary ed-
ucation and instruction " ? "We conceive not ;
and we call Professor Huxley himself to wit-
ness. In his Aberdeen address he expresses
the wish that there should be a Professorship
of Fine Arts in every university, and that its
functions should somehow be regularly con-
nected with the arts curriculum. We are
happy to think that this is exactly what is
being done, or in a fair way to be done, at
Cambridge. The study of classical antiquity
through classical art is there rapidly becom-
ing a living and working branch of the gen-
eral classical studies of the university. But
this, some will again say, is dreaming of the
future. Are we satisfied with the present ?
Are we content that there should be univer-
sity dignitaries who do not know one end
of the solar spectrum from the other, and
bishops who show their competence to criti-
cise biological theories by supposing that the
blood-corpuscles are formed by coagulation
after death ? We answer, unquestionably not.
We hold that the elements of natural knowl-
edge should be an integral part of general edu-
cation. But we would make room for them

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as we have already said on other occasions
not by ceasing to teach the humanities, but
by teaching them better.

The criticism of the London "Acad-
emy " still further illustrates the ad-
vance of rational ideas on this subject :

The address on " Science and Culture,"
which gives its name to the volume, is a dis-
cussion of the place of scientific and of liter-
ary training in education. T he form in which
the question in debate between the advocates
of " science " and of " culture " is presented
is not which of these two things is the more
valuable, but whether the idea of complete
culture does not include within itself that of
scientific discipline. This way of stating the
question brings out clearly the fundamental
agreement that there is if we leave out of ac-
count the devotees of " useful knowledge "
between the advocates of the classics and of
physical science. For it is seen that the' ad-
vocates of science admit that every one ought
to know something of literature, though they
think it possible sufficiently to cultivate the
sense of literary form by means of the modern
languages alone ; while the advocates of the
classics, in maintaining that classical studies
give the best possible intellectual training,
admit that culture is not complete if nothing
but the sense for literary form has been cul-
tivated. The questions that are really in de-
bate are, therefore, the subordinate ones
whether, though real intellectual as well as
aesthetic education is given by the study of
the classics, physical science is not the typical
intellectual discipline, for which anything
else is an imperfect subsitute ; and whether,
though some literary culture can be got out of
modern books alone, a certain knowledge of
the classics is not necessary as a preparation
for the the full appreciation of European lit-
erature in general. Professor Huxley decides
both these questions in favor of the advocates
of scientific education. He suggests incident-
ally that modern men of science have more
of the spirit of antiquity than " the modern hu-
manists. . . . "We falsely pretend," he says,
speaking of the Greeks, "to be the inheritors
of their culture,. unless we are penetrated, as
the best minds among them were, with an
unhesitating faith that the free employment
of reason, in accordance with scientific meth-
od, is the sole method of reaching truth."

He points out, near the end of the essay,
that the higher sciences, those that deal with
man and society, can only be constructed by
the application of the methods of physical
science. As regards the literary side of edu-
cation, he expresses the opinion that " for

those who mean to make science their serious
occupation ; or who intend to follow the pro-
fession of medicine ; or who have to enter
early upon the business of life ; . . . classi-
cal education is a mistake." It is possible to
get sufficient culture out of modern literature
perhaps out of English literature alone.

Something might be said against this last
opinion, even by those who agree with Pro-
fessor Huxley entirely as to the necessity of
scientific discipline as part of a complete ed-
ucation. But, granting that knowledge of
classical literature is not an essential part of
culture, there is still a difficulty about omit-
ting Greek and Latin from education in some
cases and not in others. For, if the classical
languages are to be taught at all, it is desir-
able that the study of them should begin at
an earlier age than that at which a decided
preference either for literature or for science
usually manifests itself.

This last remark is very important in
its bearing upon the general issue be-
tween classical and scientific studies. It
is a concession of what we have con-
stantly maintained, that, if the study
of Greek and Latin is to be worth any-
thing at all, it must consume a portion
of the time devoted to education that
is out of all relation to the value of the
acquisitions, compared with others that
are necessarily excluded. If that time
is not given to them, the acquisitions are
so worthless that the effort is wasted ;
but, if the full time is taken by the
classical tongues, there is no room left
for any fullness or thoroughness of
scientific study. Hence the need, as
the "Academy " remarks, of beginning
so early with the Greek and Latin that
the pupil is unable to form an opinion
of the uses and value of his studies. But
this period of immature judgment is ex-
actly the proper time for the training of
the powers of observation and the ac-
quisition of elementary science. These
early years, therefore, belong rightfully,
and by the laws of the mental constitu-
tion, to science and the rudimentary
study of natural things. It is a suffi-
cient outrage in itself to put children
at the dead languages, whereby there
is certain to be engendered a hatred of
study ; but it is no less an outrage upon

LITERARY NOTICES.

127

the childish nature to neglect those
studies which are best suited to this
stage of his unfolding faculties.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Physical Education ; or, the Health Laws
of Nature. By Felix L. Oswald, M. D.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 259.
Price, $1.

The health papers contributed by Dr.
Oswald to the " Monthly " during the past
year, having been revised by the author, are
now issued in a separate form, and, as we
are glad to see, at a price which will favor
their wide circulation. We call attention
to some points of interest in this remark-
able little book.

In the first place, it must be said that
the author is no mere unpractical theorizer.
He is a medical man of thorough prepara-
tion and large professional experience, and
an extensively traveled student of nature
and of men. While in charge of a military
hospital at Vera Cruz, his own health broke
down from long exposure in a malarial re-
gion, and he then struck for the Mexican
mountains, where he became director of
another medical establishment. He there
spent eight years, making many excursions
to explore the imperfectly known Mexican
highlands, and he has given the results of
his observations and adventures in his
" Summer-land Sketches,' 5 one of the most
interesting and instructive books of travel
that has appeared in a long time.

Dr. Oswald has also journeyed extensive-
ly in Europe, South America, and the United
States, and always as an open-eyed, absorbed
observer of nature and of men. So active
a career we might suppose not to be in the
highest degree favorable to superior literary
work, which we are accustomed to expect only
from the devotees of scholarship, who con-
centrate themselves upon books in the soli-
tude of their libraries. And yet Dr. Oswald's
merits as a writer are of a very high order.
He has a genius in - the use of language
which is less a result of cultivation than a
gift of nature. He writes in a style that is
at once crisp and incisive, easy and flowing.
His vocabulary is prolific, and every word is
the most felicitous for its place. There is

no halting and no dissonance in the musical
rhythm of his periods, and there is not a
weak or a faltering sentence to be found be-
tween the covers of the book on " Physical
Education." He never spins out his pas-
sages, or plays with epithets for effect ; and
though the earnestness and ardor of ex-
pression often start the pulse, the strain of
eloquence never breaks into rhetorical in-
flation. These traits are possessed by our
author in a degree that places him, beyond
question, among the few unrivaled masters
of lucid idiomatic English.

In an age when the whole force of cult-
ure is thrown upon the art of effective ex-
pression, it is no easy task to reach pre-
eminence in this field ; but the interest of
the case is heightened when we learn that
Dr. Oswald is not an Englishman, and is not
writing in his native speech, but in a foreign
tongue. Macaulay, in his life of Frederick
the Great, remarks, " Xo classic work, as
far as I recollect, was ever composed by
any man except in a dialect which he had
learned without remembering how and when,
and which he had spoken with perfect ease
before he had ever analyzed its structure."
The little book now before us will go far to
refute this dictum of the great essayist. At
any rate, we do not think the critic of the
" Troy Press " is far from the truth when
he declares that " Mr. Felix L. Oswald, of
Cincinnati, is the cleanest writer of pure
English on this continent."

But, though proficient to a rare degree
in one of the most difficult arts, yet with
Dr. Oswald this art is far from being an end
in itself; he subordinates his gift of writing
to a more serious purpose. It is by the
breadth, beneficence, and vital urgency of
this controlling purpose that the man is to
be properly measured. With him the accom-
plishments of literary expression, like the
facts and truths of science, only acquire their
highest value as they are made tributary to
human amelioration. By " physical educa-
tion " he means not mere " gymnastics," as
hitherto interpreted, but all hygienic and
educative resources for the physical improve-
ment and redemption of mankind. Though
a man of many-sided culture, and a passion-
ate lover of nature, and therefore with in-
exhaustible resources for his own mental
gratification, yet Dr. Oswald is still more a

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

man of profound sensibility to his human
environment, and of irrepressible sympathy
with the weakness, the difficulties, the er-
rors, and the miseries of his fellow-beings.
His book has the double object of pointing
out the more common and fruitful sources
of those debilities and infirmities from
which people suffer through their preju-
dices, ignorance, unhealthy habits, and un-
natural practices, and of arousing them to
more earnest, hearty, and determined effort
at amendment.

It is just at this point that criticism in-
tervenes with its accusation that our author
writes with exaggeration and extravagance.
If this objection implies that facts are dis-
torted or truth overstrained in Dr. Oswald's
pages, we believe it will be found to have a
very slender basis ; if it is a mere matter
of taste, the use of superlatives is certainly
excusable here if anywhere. Dr. Oswald is
inspired with the hope of mending things ;
and, in writing for the people, he does not
believe that non-committal under-statements
are best suited to answer that purpose.
With feeble conventional protests which
arouse no indignation and provoke no ac-
tion Dr. Oswald has little patience. He
writes both to divert and to convert his
readers, and his essays are therefore doubly
contrasted with the subdued regulation
monographs of a scientific period that is
cultivated out of half its life. To produce
any salutary and permanent reform, the
evils to be corrected require to be presented
in a very strong light and vividly realized.
" Cool indifference, whatever subjective ad-
vantages it may have, will never set a rub-
bish-heap of old shams and errors afire."

There is but one thing worse, in the
view of Dr. Oswald, than the injurious prac-
tices which undermine the stamina and
lower the health and life of a people, and
that is the dull, conventional acquiescence
in a confessedly vicious state of things.
Holding that this wide-spread and culpable
torpor is due largely to the preaching of an
ancient gospel of anti-naturalism, he main-
tains that its only possible counteraction is
the vigorous and vehement inculcation of the
gospel of nature, and his book is animated
throughout with this preaching. The mere
lazy indifference of those who are comfort-
able in prevailing customs, and content with

the decorous rule of Mrs. Grundy, is suffi-
ciently intolerable ; but when these fall back
upon a philosophy of life which maligns
the natural instincts, libels the world we
live in, and promises another to compensate
for the breakdown of this, he has only hot
denunciation of the doctrine and all who
teach it. However we may object to pun-
gency of speech, Dr. Oswald may at any
rate plead the abundant example of his
adversaries in the use of it.

The " Physical Education " is one of the
most wholesome and valuable books that
have emanated from the American press in
many a day. Not only can everybody un-
derstand it, and, what is more, feel it, but
everybody that gets it will be certain to
read and re-read it. We have known of the
positive and most salutary influence of the
papers as they appeared in the " Monthly,"
and the extensive demand for their publi-
cation in a separate form shows how they
have been appreciated. Let those who are
able and wish to do good buy it wholesale
and give it to those less able to obtain it.
It will be a boon to benighted multitudes.

The Voyage of the Yega round Asia and
Europe, with a Historical Review of
Previous Journeys along the North
Coast of the Old World. By A. E.
Nordenskiold. Translated by Alexan-
der Leslie. With five Steel Portraits,
numerous Maps, and Illustrations. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 741. Price,
86.

The frequent references which have been
made within the last two years to the enter-
prise of which this work gives the first full
and detailed account, attest the value which
the world attaches to the problem which it
was designed, if possible, to solve, that of
forcing a northeast passage to China and
Japan a problem which, the author re-
marks, "for more than three hundred years
had been a subject of competition between
the world's foremost commercial states and
most daring navigators, and which, if we
view it in the light of a circumnavigation of
the Old World, had, for thousands of years
back, been' an object of desire to naviga-
tors." Professor Nordenskiold was led to
undertake this voyage by the success of his
previous voyages, in which he had reached
the mouth of the Yenisei River by sea from

LITERARY NOTICES.

129

Sweden, in 1875 and 1876, and was con-
vinced that the open navigable water which
had carried him so far extended probably to
Behring Strait. He laid his plans before
the King of Sweden and other persons, who
were known to sympathize with his object,
and received from his Majesty, Mr. A. Sibi-
riakoff, and Mr. Oscar Dickson, whose por-
traits on steel worthily appear in the vol-
ume, pledges of substantial support, selected
his company, prepared his vessels the Vega,
a steam-whaler, the Lena, as a tender to go
ahead in doubtful places, and two merchant-
vessels, which were to carry coal for the ex-
ploring vessels and sailed from Maosoe, a
few miles southwest of Xorth Cape, on July
25, 1878. Here the expedition proper be-
gan and hence it was conducted through the
sea that washes the northern edge of the
Old World, along the coast-lines of provinces
of which readers may have seen indefinite
mention, and conceived hazy ideas, but of
which they could have hardly had distinct
notioDS before, till it emerged again through
Behring Strait into the regions of civili-
zation and exact knowledge. Of the sea
and coasts along the Arctic borders of Eu-
rope and Asia, Professor Nordenskiold's ac-
count gives the fullest and most interest-
ing descriptions, touching nearly all the
subjects of interest appertaining to them.
First, we have the history, which in the pres-
ent case naturally relates and is largely con-
fined to previous voyages to the same re-
gions, the relation of which, Professor Xor-
denskiold remarks, adds a much-needed va-
riety to the interest of the story, " for near,
ly all the narratives of the older northeast
voyages contain in abundance what a sketch
of our own adventures has not to offer, but
what many readers, perhaps, will expect to
find in a book such as this accounts of
dangers and misfortunes of a thousand sorts
by land and sea." Then come geographical
descriptions of features of land and sea,
with the varied aspects of summer and win-
ter phenomena according to the season when
the author witnessed them ; natural history,
embracing the vegetable and animal life of
the whole Arctic stretch covered by the voy-
age; geology; and the delineations of the peo-
ple. In the latter category are included full
and satisfactory as well as entertaining ac-
counts of those curious tribes, the Samoyeds
vol. xxi. 9 \

and the Chuckchees, their mode of life, habits
and manners, and religion, which are rich in
incidental and personal sketches, are given
in the kindliest of feeling and with delicate
humor, and form, perhaps, to general readers,
the most interesting part of the book, while
they must also rank high as anthropological
studies. A prominent object of the voyage
was to study the feasibility of opening a
commercial highway from Europe to the
river-marts of Central and Eastern Siberia,
by way of the sea-route which the expedi-
tion took. Professor Nordenskiold's esti-
mate of the productive capacity of these re-
gions of the far Xorth, and of their possible
value in the world's economy if they could
be brought within reach of the markets,
may be a surprise to those who have asso-
ciated with Siberia all that is frozen and in-
hospitable. " If we take Siberia in its widest
sense," he says, "that is to say, if we in-
clude under that name not only Siberia
proper, but also the parts of High Asia
which lie round the sources of the great
Siberian rivers, this land may very well be
compared in extent, climate, fertility, and
] the possibility of supporting a dense popu-
lation, with America north of 40 north lati-
tude. Like America, Siberia is occupied in
the north by woodless plains. South of this
region, where only the hunter, the fisher,
and reindeer nomad can find a scanty liveli-
hood, there lies a widely extended forest
territory, difficult of cultivation, and in its
natural conditions, perhaps, somewhat re-
sembling Sweden and Finland north of 60
or 61 north latitude. South of this wood-
ed belt, again, we have, both in Siberia and
America, immeasurable stretches of an ex-
ceedingly fertile soil, of whose power to re-
pay the toil of the cultivator, the grain ex-
ports during recent years from the frontier
lands between the United States and Can-
ada have afforded so striking evidence.
There is, however, this dissimilarity between
Siberia and America, that, while the prod-
ucts of the soil in America may be carried
easily and cheaply to the harbors of the At-
lantic and Pacific, the best part of Siberia,
that which lies around the upper part of the
courses of the Irtish, Obi, and Yenisei, is
shut out from the great oceans of the world
by immense tracts lying in front of it, and
the great rivers which in Siberia cross the

130

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

country and appear to be intended by nature
to form not only the arteries for its inner
life, but also channels of communication
with the rest of the world, all flow toward
the north, and fall into a sea which, down to
recent times, has been considered complete-
ly inaccessible." The basins of the three
Great rivers together cover an area of near-
ly 2,500,000 geographical square miles, of
which 1,440,000 geographical square miles
lie south of 60 north. A part of the jour-
ney lay through the region of the remains of
the mammoth, and " between shores prob-
ably richer in such remains than any other
on the surface of the globe, and over a sea,
from whose bottom our dredge brought up,
along with pieces of drift-wood, half-decayed
portions of mammoth-tusks." The business
of gathering and disposing of these tusks is
really an important one, estimated to amount
to a hundred pairs a year, or twenty thou-
sand pairs since the country was conquered.
These figures indicate that the mammoth
population of the country must have been
more considerable than the impression of
the barrenness of the Arctic regions which
is given by a superficial view leads us to sup-
pose could have been the case. Professor
Xordenskiold finds no difficulty, however, in
indicating the sources whence these animals
derived their food. Having remarked that
the remains of food which were found in the
hollows of the teeth of a rhinoceros discov-
ered on the Wilui River consisted of por-
tions of leaves and needles of species of
trees that still grow in Siberia, he observes
that " it ou^ht not to be overlooked that in
sheltered places overflowed by the spring in-
undations there are found, still far north of
the limit of trees, luxuriant bushy thickets,
whose newly expanded juicy leaves, burned
up by no tropical sun, perhaps form a spe-
cial luxury for grass-eating animals, and that
even the bleakest stretches of land in the
high north are fertile in comparison with
many regions where at least the camel can
find nourishment."

Even now the animal life in the extreme
north, as in Xova Zcmbla, in summer, "is
more vigorous and, perhaps, even more
abundant, or, to speak more correctly, less
concealed by the luxuriance of vegetation,
than in the south." Especially is this the
case with " the innumerable flocks of birds

that swarm around the polar traveler dur-
ing the long summer days of the north."
Insects, also, of a few species, are remark-
ably abundant, considering that the soil is
continually frozen below the depth of a few
inches, but as a rule " the actual land ver-
tebrate fauna of the polar countries is ex-
ceedingly scanty in comparison with that
of more southerly regions. It is quite oth-
wise as regards the sea. Here animal life
is exceedingly abundant as far as man has
succeeded in making his way to the farthest
north. At nearly every sweep the dredge
brings up from the sea-bottom masses of
decapods,crustacea, mussels, asteroids, echi-
ni, etc., in varying forms, and the surface of
the sea on a sunny day swarms with ptero-
pods, beroids, surface-crustacea, etc, "A
greater number also of the higher types of
animals within the polar territory occur in
the sea than on the land. Having spent a
winter in the frozen ocean, the expedition
proceeded easward to and through Behring
Strait, and calling, always with scientific
intent, at Japan, China, and the East In-
dia islands, came around through the Red
Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and
the Atlantic Ocean, to its starting-point in
the Scandinavian waters, thus accomplish-
ing, for the first time in history, the circum-
navigation of Europe and Asia.

Lectures on the Origin and Growth
of Religion as illustrated by Some
Points in the History of Indian Bud-
dhism. By T. W. Rhys Davids. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 262.
Price, $2.50.

A religion which is believed to embrace
more adherents than any other system of
religious thought ; the fundamental princi-
ples of which are embodied in a literature
the merit and intrinsic interest of which
have received the general recognition ' of
scholars in all nations ; and some of the ex-
ternal aspects of which present a striking
resemblance to some Christian forms, is
entitled to be regarded as a most remark-
able outgrowth and manifestation of human
thought, and deserves profound and respect-
ful studv. Buddhism is such a religion as we
have described, and it receives the treatment
it merits at the hands of Mr. Davids, who is
considered one of the most competent living
authorities on the subject It has to be

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

examined by nations, for it presents very
varied phases in different countries, accord-
ing as it lias been modified by the character
and circumstances of their people and by
their history. Everywhere, however, India
is looked to as the land of its origin ; and it
is in India that its oldest and most impor-
tant books are found. Mr. Davids has,
therefore, very properly selected India as
the country in which to consider it for the
elucidation of its fundamental principles.
His lectures, which were delivered on the
Hibbert foundation, consider, first, " The
Placs of Buddhism in the Development of
Religious Thought," under which head the
author reviews the condition of India at the
time of the introduction of Buddhism, the
effect the new religion had on that condi-
tion, and the influence the condition exerted
upon the shape it eventually took ; and,
afterward, the "Pali Pitakas," or the prin-
cipal books of Buddhism the Buddhist
theory of Karma, or what takes the place,
with a striking difference, of the Christian
idea of the future life ; the " Buddhist Lives
of the Buddha " ; " Gotama's Order," or the
rules that were laid down by the founder
of the religion himself ; and " The Later
Forms of Buddhism," which are immense in
their variety. Among the lessons to be de-
rived from the study, Mr. Davids points out
that " the knowledge of what man has been
in distant times, in far-off lands, under the
influence of ideas which at first sight seem to
us so strange, will strengthen within us that
reverence, sympathy, and love, which must
follow on a realization of the mysterious
complexity of being, past, present, and to
come, that is wrapped up in every human
life."

Bacteria. By Dr. Ferdinand Cohn. Trans-
lated by Charles S. Dolley, Rochester,
New York. Pp. 30, with a Plate.

The title of this paper and the name of
its author commend it without any further
words. We need notice especially only the
translator'^ statement of one of his objects
in offering it, which is, to set the example
of publishing scientific books in cheap edi-
tions, as is done abroad. The plate of illus-
trations consists of figures that were drawn
by Dr. Cohn himself for " The Microscopical
Journal."

Beliefs about Man. Bv M. J. Savage.
Boston: George H. Ellis. Pp. 130.
Price, $1.50.

This work, a complement to a previously
published volume on " Belief in God," em-
braces the substance of a number of regu-
lar Sunday-morning sermons on the nature,
origin, and destiny of man, in which were
also considered some of the problems, such
as those of sin and salvation and of free-
will, which have troubled him during all the
ages. The points brought out may be sum-
med up in brief, that " man is the animal
that has learned to think of himself, to
think of right, to think of God, and has
ended by thinking that he is a son of God " ;
that the doctrine of evolution has no rela-
tion to theism or atheism ; that the doctrine
of necessity, as distinguished from free-will,
"gives us motive power, gives us a way to
work, gives us confidence that our work will
' not be without its appropriate results " ; that
the forces, the powers, that are at work in
human nature to-day do not need uprootal
or change, but only instruction, guidance,
self-control ; that the perfect city of God
is to begin here ; that the absolute condi-
tions of progress are freedom and knowl-
edge ; and that death is not the end, but
may be simply the fitting for " that other,
higher life, that we may trust surrounds us
everywhere now, and of which, even to-day,
unknowingly, we are a part."

Transactions of the Medical Association
of Georgia. Thirty-second Annual Ses-
sion, 1881. Edited by Dr. A. Sibley
Campbell, M. D., Secretary. Augusta,
Georgia : Pp. 314. Price, 1 ; by mail,
$1.05.

This volume includes the papers which
were read at the meeting of the association
whose proceedings it records ; which papers
pertain to appropriate subjects in medical
and surgical treatment, and are based upon
material drawn chiefly from cases in the
practice of their authors. The one, perhaps,
of most general interest is that of Dr. R. J.
Xunn, on " Female Diseases, the Result of
Errors in Habit and Hygiene during Child-
hood and Puberty." Illustrations are given
where the matter calls for them. The ne-
crology of members of the association who
died during the year is followed by a num-
ber of biographies of physicians previously

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

deceased, among which a conspicuous posi-
tion is given to that of Dr. Crawford W.
Long, for whom is claimed absolute priority
in the discovery of anaesthesia by ether, and
who died in 1S78, "at the bedside of a pa-
tient, in the discharge of his duty."

The Universe; or, The Infinitely Great
and the Infinitely Little. By F. A.
Pouchet, M. D. Sixth edition. Illus-
trated by 270 Engravings on "Wood.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
564. Price, $3.75.

To present the leading facts of nature to
the non-scientific public in such a style that
it will read of them with the interest with
which it follows the development of a ro-
mance, without detracting from the dignity
and accuracy of scientific statement, to
compose such a vivid word-picture as shall
enable the reader to form an adequate con-
ception of the marvelousness of the wonders
that science has discovered, without falling
into exaggeration and sensationalism, are
tasks which the most learned investigator
in science and the best-trained writer would
be justified in shrinking from attempting.
Only a man of strong imagination, combined
with an unusually even mental poise, could
undertake to carry a series of description
of this character through the whole field
of nature. M. Pouchet has undertaken
this, and has accomplished it successfully.
He leads us in his most entertaining work,
which the child or the student of science
may read with equal pleasure, by succes-
sive steps, truly from the .infinitely little
to the infinitely great. Beginning with the
invisible world of the microscope, which
includes the animalcules that still live in
our fluids, the fossil infusoria of the edi-
ble earths, and the nummularia of the lime-
stones of which cities and the pyramids
are built, and the " architects of the sea,"
the corals, the boring mollusks, and the
u mountain-building " foraminif era, he goes
on to make us acquainted with the insects,
the abundance of their life, and the magni-
tude of their works and their depredations,
the birds and the artful structures of which
they are the architects, and with the won-
derful migrations of animals of every class.
Then, passing to the vegetable kingdom, he
illustrates the anatomy and physiology of
plants, the functions of the seed and the

process of germination, the " extremes in
the vegetable kingdom," from the lichen of
the rock to the baobabs and sequoias of the
primeval forest, and discourses of the lon-
gevity and density of plants, and their mi-
grations, even more wonderful than those
of animals. Next the department of geology
is brought under review, with an account of
the formation of the globe by gradual devel-
opment and change as recorded on the tab-
lets of the rocks, descriptions of fossils, em-
bracing here again the extremes, though not
infinite, of the little and the great "the
mountains, cataclysms, and upheavals of the
globe, volcanoes and earthquakes, glaciers
and eternal snows, caverns and grottoes,
steppes and deserts, and the air and its cor-
puscules. The " Infinitely Great " is repre-
sented in the sidereal universe, under which
head are considered " The Stars and Im-
mensity" and the solar world. The final
chapter gives a brief account of the mon-
sters and superstitions, belief in which was
cultivated in the middle ages. The author
declares and his work bears him out that
his object in composing it has been to in-
spire and extend to the utmost of his power
a taste for natural science : hence, he has
given, " not a learned treatise, but a simple
elementary study, conceived with the idea of
inducing the reader to seek in other works
for more extensive and more profound
knowledge." We can onlv refer to the rich-
ness of details that characterizes the work
and the excellence of the illustrations.

The Gospel in the Stars ; or, Primeval
Astronomy. By Joseph A. Seiss, D. D.
Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Co. New
York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Pp. 452.
Price, 81-50.

The author of this work, a prominent
Lutheran clergyman, has already acquired
considerable distinction from the zeal with
which he has propagated Piazzi Smyth's
theory that the great pyramid of Egypt was
constructed in pursuance of a divine revela-
tion, for a divine purpose. He here pro-
pounds a similar theory for the formation
and delineation of the forty-eight original
constellations of the sky, which he believes
were primarily composed under inspiration,
to typify man's redemption by Christ. What-
ever skeptics, readers, and scholars may
think of the matter, he has no doubt about it.

LITERARY NOTICES.

l 33

The Art of Voice-Production, with Spe-
cial Reference to the Method of Cor-
rect Breathing. By A. A. Patton,
author of "The Voice as an Instru-
ment." New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 106. Price, $1.

Application is made in this work of the
investigations which have been carried on,
by means of the laryngoscope, into the struct-
ure and mode of action of the vocal organs,
to the study of a scientific cultivation, or, as
the author, with but litttle exaggeration,
calls it, production of voice. The founda-
tion of voice-culture is laid in correct breath-
ing. This should always be full and easy,
and done by the action of the muscles of the
diaphragm, not of the clavicle or ribs. The
technic consists in learning to know when
the voice-organs act properly, and how to
make them act so. Particular stress is laid
upon what is called the articulate action of
the glottis an action under which, in its
perfection, the individual notes of a series
are divided in such a manner that a com-
plete scale of fractional tones of very small
degree may be produced with perfect smooth-
ness, and with unchanging though naturally
modifying tone-quality, by the voice, as the
best violinists accomplish the same through
their instruments. To this, the author be-
lieves, such singers as Xilsson and Santley
owe their marvelous powers of execution ;
and, in illustration of the fineness to which
it is possible to reduce it, the case is cited
of Madame Mara, who was able to perform
twenty-one hundred changes of pitch within
the compass of three octaves, or one hun-
dred changes between each two notes of the
ordinary scale.

The Study of Trance, Muscle-Reading,
and Allied Xeryous Phenomena, in
Europe and America. With a Letter
on the Moral Character of Trance-Sub-
jects ; and a Defense of Dr. Charcot. By
George M. Beard, A. M., M. D. New
York. Pp.' 40.

This is a setting forth, in brief, of what
has been done in Europe during the past
two or three years, in a department of psy-
chology in which the author was one of the
earliest and is still one of the most inde-
fatigable workers, and offers a means of
comparing American (of which Dr. Beard's
have been the most conspicuous) and Euro-
pean researches in it.

Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer. By
Alexander Winchell, LL. D. Chicago :
S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 400. Price, $2.

This is a very pleasant volume of es-
says, descriptive, scientific, and philosophic,
though predominantly geological, and writ-
ten in a style intended to suit the general
reader. As is well known, the author has
command of a very entertaining style, and
his long and varied experience with the
practical study of nature has given him
ample materials for an attractive volume.
Books of this kind perform a most impor-
tant office, not only in awakening a feeling
for science, but in instructing the public on
many interesting topics which are hardly
touched in our scientific manuals. A few
of his titles will suggest the variety there is
in these pages: "Mont Blanc and its As-
cent," " Obliterated Continents," " A Grasp
of Geological Time," " Geological Seasons,"
" Salt Enterprise in Michigan," " Huxley
and Evolution," and " The Metaphysics of
Science." We need not commit ourselves
to eveiything Professor Winchell says in
this volume, but it will prove instructive
and provocative of thought to most read-
ers, and may be therefore cordially recom-
mended.

Principles of Chemical Philosophy. By
Josiah Parsons Cooke, of Harvard Col-
lege. Revised edition. Boston: John
Allyn. Pp. 623. Price, 83.50.

We are glad to see that this well-known
standard work devoted to the higher grade
of chemistry has undergone careful and ex-
tensive revision by the author, and been so
largely rewritten as to make it in many
respects a new book. Xot only is the work
itself essentially improved by this further
elaboration, but the results of the last ten
years of chemical progress are thoroughly
embodied in its text, and many features of
scientific interest are here brought forward
for the first time. The distinctive aim of
the work is philosophical, that is, it presents
the great body of the chemical truths in a
closely correlated and thoroughly systema-
tized form. " Thus alone," says the author,
"can the student give breadth and dignity
to his knowledge, and come to know nature
not as a sum of certain parts, but as a grand
and related whole." Such a generalized
knowledge of chemistry this book aims to

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

impart. It presents chemistry as a philo-
sophic system, and it deals with the facts
of the science only so far as they illustrate
this system. It is not intended in any re-
spect to take the place of laboratory teach-
ing, but solely to supplement it. Not until
the student has become familiar with chem-
ical phenomena, at least to some limited ex-
tent, is he prepared to study the science in a
systematic way ; but all who have this prep-
aration will acquire most rapidly a general
knowledge of the whole field when the sub-
ject is presented in a deductive form.

Report of the Director of the Astronom-
ical Observatory of Harvard Col-
lege. By Edward C. Pickering. Cam-
bridge: University Press. Pp. 16.

This is the thirty-sixth annual report of
the institution. Mention is made of. the
improved position that has been given the
Observatory for conducting researches by
means of the subscription which was raised
in 1878. Observations have been made on
eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, the spectra
of particular stars, the comets of 1881,
variable stars, and the working of the in-
struments, and also photometric observa-
tions. Some interesting results have been
derived from the observations on stellar
spectra, one of them giving a hint toward
a more rapid method of detecting variable
stars, another suggesting analogies between
the spectrum of a certain star and that of
the great comet of 1881. Mr. Chandler, of
the observatory staff, is engaged in collat-
ing, for comparison, the observations of
stars of known or suspected variability.

The Palaeolithic Implements of the Val-
ley of the Delaware. Cambridge,
Massachusetts : Peabody Museum of
American Archaeology and Ethnolosrv.
Pp. 25.

This publication contains communica-
tions which were made on the subject
named in the title to the Boston Society of
Natural History at one of its meetings, as
follows: "Historical Sketch of the Discov-
ery of the Implements," by C. C. Abbott ;
" A Comparison of them with Palaeolith-
ic Implements from Europe," by H. TV.
Haynes ; " On the Age of the Trenton Grav-
el," by G. F. Wright ; " Statement relating to
the Finding of an Implement in the Grav-

el," by Lucien Carr ; and " On the Litholog-
ical Character of the Implements," by M. E.
TVadsworth. Mr. F. TV. Putnam furnishes
the concluding remarks, in which he de-
scribes the finding of three implements by
himself and a companion, and adds, " Cer-
tainly the evidence that has been brought
forward to-night will clear away all doubts
as to the importance and reliability of Dr.
Abbott's discoveries and investigations,
which have proved the former existence of
palaeolithic man in the valley of the Dela-
ware."

Chemical and Physical Analysis of Milk,
Condensed Milk, and Infants' Milk-
Foods, with Special Regard to Hygiene
and Sanitary Milk-Inspection. By Dr.
Nicholas Gerber. Translated and ed-
ited by Dr. Hermann Endemann. Illus-
trated. New York. Pp. 101.

The author of this treatise has been
engaged, scientifically and practically, in the
dairy industry for several years, and is now
manager of a milk-product company in the
interior of the State of New York. Having
often himself felt the need of a uniform
method of analysis for milk and its products
which would satisfy practical wants, and
possess scientific accuracy, he has aimed to
give in this volume a short and exact method
for the examination of the various milks and
milk-foods, expecting to follow it up with
another volume on other milk-products and
substances employed in the dairy industry.
He claims superiority for his method over
the methods known before 1877, in accu-
racy, in simplicity, and in cheapness and
economy of time.

The Brain of the Cat. By Burt G. Wild-
er, M. D. Pp. 39, with Four Plates.

This paper, which was originally read
before the American Philosophical Society,
is the first of a series of contributions to the
knowledge of the brain of the domestic cat,
and is to be followed with a " Description
of the Cerebral Fissures, together with their
Svnonomy." The author believes that the
cat offers superior advantages over other
easily accessible animals for preliminary
anatomical work. He also proposes a re-
vision of anatomical nomenclature, with a
schedule of alterations for abbreviating and
simplifying it, and making it more intel-
ligible.

LITERARY NOTICES.

1 35

Publications of the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology, and of its Of-
ficers, Students, and Alumni. 1862-
1881. Compiled by William Ripley
Nichols, S. B. Boston: A. A. King-
man. Pp. 50.

The list is intended to include the
books, pamphlets, reports, and contribu-
tions to periodicals (excepting daily jour-
nals) printed during the time included within
its scope, by the Institute officials and its
affiliated societies and associations ; by pro-
fessors and other instructors during their
connection with the school ; by special
students during their connection with the
school ; and by alumni and holders of cer-
tificates of proficiency during their connec-
tion with the school and in after-life. The
list is of considerable size, covers a variety
of subjects, literary and scientific, includes
many titles from foreign journals, and is
creditable to the institution and to American
research.

The Science of Mind. By John Bascom,
author of " The Principles of Psychol-
ogy," " Comparative Psychologv," etc.
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 462." Price,

$2.

The first thing to be said about Dr. Bas-
com's various philosophical works is that
the handling of the subjects is his own, and
in stamping upon them the individuality of
his own mind he gives them a new and at-
tractive interest. And that freedom and
freshness which he maintains in his methods
of statement are to no small degree pre-
served in the elucidation of his views. He
is in no sense either a compiler or a servile
expositor of established opinions, but he is
an independent (we had almost said a free)
thinker upon his chosen themes of study.
Although by no means always up to the
times, he is always in a progressive way,
and moves as fast, perhaps, as the circum-
stances will allow. His present work, " The
Science of Mind," though avowedly and es-
sentially metaphysical, and standing squarely
upon intuitional or transcendental ground,
is still a- very different book from its prede-
cessors of the same class, and shows that
the intelligent metaphysician is compelled
to yield to the advance of scientific knowl-
edge.

Dr. Bascom does not sympathize with the
current reproaches of metaphysical philoso-

phy, but recognizes that, like all other im-
perfect and difficult things, it may be and
must be practically improved. In his pref-
ace he says : " If asked why I hoped that
this volume might reward study, I should
answer, not because the system presented is
new, but because the statement it here re-
ceives is at once succinct and elaborate, is
strengthened by new points, by a consistent
! maintenance of all that belongs to it, and by
the rejection of that which, essentially alien
to its principles, only embarrasses it. I
trust the intuitive philosophy will be found
hereby to have gained somewhat of that
proof which springs from completeness and
proportion of parts."

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Political Economy in One Lesson. By Al-
pbonse Coartoia. New York: The Society for
Political Education. 1882. Pp. 20.

Formula and Tables for the Horse-Power of
Leather Belts. By A. F. Nagle, M. E. Provi-
dence, Rhode Island : J. A. & R. A. Reid, print-
ers. 1S82. Pp.8.

A Free Canal. Letter of ex-Governor Sey-
mour. Pp. 5.

Some Points relating to the Geological Ex-
ploration of the Fortieth Parallel. By M. E.
Wadsworth, Ph. D. Reprint from " Proceedings
of the Boston Society of Natural History. "' Pp.
32.

History of the Water-Supply of the World.
By Thomas J. Bell. Cincinnati, Ohio : Peter G.
Thomson. 1882. Pp. 134.

The Geological and Natural History Survey
of Minnesota. Ninth Annual Report. ByN. II.
Winchell, State Geologist. St. Peter: J. K.
More, State Printer. 1881. Pp. 392.

The Constants of Nature. Part V. A Recal-
culation of the Atomic Weights. Bv Professor
F. W. Clarke. S. B. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution. 1882. Pp.271.

Natural Law. or the Science of Justice. Part
I. Bv Lvsander Spooner. Boston : A. Williams
& Co*. 18S2. Pp 16.

Our Homes. By Henrv Hartshorne. Phila-
delphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 1882. Pp.
119. 50 cents.

Report to the State Board of Health on the
Methods of Sewerage for Cities and Large Vil-
lage* in the State of New York. By James F.
Gardiner, Director of the New York State Sur-
vey. Pp. 15.

Nervous Shock as a Therapeutical Agent.
Bv Romaine J. Curtis. M. D. " St. Louis Medi-
cal Journal " Publishing Co. 1882. Pp. 13.

The Germination and Vitality of Seeds. By
Richard E. Kanze, M. D. Pp. 14. 50 cents.

National Regulation of Interstate Commerce.
Bv C. C. Bonney. Chicago : Legal News Co. 1882.
Pp. 32.

A Free Canal. Argument of the New York
Produce Exchange in favor of making the Ca-
nals of the State free from Tolls. 1S82. Pp. 18.

The Books of Chilan Balam : The Prophetic
and Historic Records of the Mavas of Yucatan.
Bv Daniel G. Brinton. M. D. Philadelphia: Ed-
ward Stern & Co. 1882. Pp. 19.

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Anaesthesia and Non- Anaesthesia in the Ex-
traction of Cataract. By Haskett Derby, M. D.
Cambridge : Riverside Press. 1882. Pp. 32.

Studies from the Biological Laboratory of
Johns Hopkins University. Professor H. New-
el Martin. Editor ; Professor W. K. Brooks, As-
sociate Editor. Baltimore: N. Murray. Vol.
II, No. 2. 1882. Pp. 178. Illustrated.

Cotton-Seed: The Greatest Wonder of the
Present Day. By Professor J. P. Stelle. Mo-
bile. 1882. Pp.8.

Hints and Suggestions for Reform in Medi-
cal Education. By Frederic R. Sturgis, M. D.
New York: William Wieser, printer. 1882.
Pp. 13.

Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences. Vol. iv, No. II. Buffalo : Bigelow
Brothers, Printers. 1S82. Pp. 63. Illustrated.

Experiments in Amber Cane and the Ensi-
lage of Fodders at the Experimental Farm, Mad-
ison. Wisconsin. David Atwood, printer. 1882.
Pp. 78.

The Mistakes of Robert G. Insersoll on Nat-
ure and God. A Scientific Criticism. By George
W. Edgett. Boston : Thomas Todd, printer.

1881. Pp.37.

Insects injurious to Forest and Shade Trees.
By A. S. Packard, Jr., M. D. Washington : Gov-
ernment Printing-Office. 1881. Pp. 275. Illus-
trated.

Report on a Water Supply for New York and
other Cities of the Hudson Valley. By J. T.
Fanning, C. E. New York. 1881. Pp. 38. Il-
lustrated.

On Ovariotomy. By Thomas Keith, M. D.
Louisville, Kentucky : John P. Morton & Co.,
printers. 1881. Pp. 19.

Epidemic Convulsions. By David W. Yan-
dell, M. D. Louisville, Kentucky: printed by
John P. Morton & Co. 1881. Pp. 15.

A Discourse on the Life and Character of Dr.
Richard O. Cowling. By David W. Yandell, M.
D. Louisville, Kentucky : printed by John P.
Morton & Co. 1882.

Statistics of the Production of the Precious
Metals in the United States. By Clarence King.
Washington : Government Printing-Office. 1881.
Pp. 94. ^With Plates.

Gloria. A Novel. By R. Perez Goldos. From
the Spanish, by Clara Bell. In two volumes.
New York : William S. Gottsberger. 1882.

Polly's Scheme. By Corydon. Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co. 1882. Pp. 207. $1.

The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning. By
Helen H. Richards. Boston : Estes & Lauriat.

1882. Pp. 90.

Vaccination. Arguments Pro and Con. By
Joseph F. Edwards, M. D. Philadelphia: P.
Blakiston, Son & Co. 1882. Pp. 80. 50 cents.

First Aid to the Injured. By Peter Shepherd,
M. B. Revised by Bowditch Morton, M. D. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1882. Pp.87. 50
cents.

How to Make the Be>t of Life. By J. Morti-
mer Granville, M. D. Boston : S. E. Cassino.
1882. ]p. 96. 50 cents.

Easy Lessons in Light, by Mrs. W. Awdry,
114pa2es; and Easy Lessons in Heat, by P. A.
Martineau, 136 paees. London: Macmillan &
Co. 1880.

The Rhymester, or the Rules of Rhyme. By
the late Tom Hood. Edited, with Additions, by
Arthur Penn. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
1882. $1.

The Occult World. By A. P. Sinnetr. Bos-
ton : Colby & Rich. 1882. Pp.172. $1.

Tables for the Determination. Description,
and Classification of Minerals. By James C.
Fave, Ph. D. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co.
1882. Pp. 85. $1.

John Stuart Mill : A Criticism. With Per-
sonal Recollections. By Alexander Bain, LL. D.
New York : Henry Holt & Co. 1882. Pp. 200.
$1.25.

James Mill: A Biographv. By Alexander
Bain, LL. D. New York : Henry Holt & Co.
1882. Pp. 466. $2.

The Wine Question in the Lieht of the New
Dispensation. By John Ellis, M.D. New York :
published by the author. 1882. Pp. 228,

The Practice of Commercial Organic Analy-
sis. By Alfred H. Allen, F C.S. Vol. ii. Phila-
delphia : Presley Blakiston. 1882. Pp. 561. $5.

Annual Report of the State Geologist of New
Jersey for the Year 1881. By Professor George
H. Cook. Trenton, New Jersey : J. L. Murphy,
printer. 1881. Pp. 107.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Purification of the Boston Water-Snp-
ply, The water with which the city of Bos-
ton is supplied became affected last October
by a peculiar and disagreeable taste and
odor which made it unpalatable, and justi-
fied much complaint on the part of citizens.
The taste was quite accurately described as
a " cucumber-taste," from its resemblance
to the taste of water which has stood in
contact with cucumbers. In a milder form
it was called a "fish-oil taste." After sev-
eral efforts to determine its origin, Professor
Ira Eemsen, of Baltimore, was called in to
give the subject a thorough examination.
He, after patient investigation and experi-
ments, which failed to discover the cause of
the odor in other matters, determined its
source, by the most satisfactory tests, to be
the decomposition of a fresh-water sponge
(Spongilla jluviatilis), that was found quite
abundantly in the mud of the bottom of
Farm Pond, the water of which was most
offensive. Measures have been taken to
free the pond from the cause of impurity.

Tile Hessian Fly. From a monograph
published by Professor A. S. Packard, Jr.,
through the United States Entomological
Commission, it appears that the losses from
the Hessian fly are greatest in the grain-
raising areas of the Middle and Northwest-
ern States and the adjoining regions of Can-
ada, while the New England States have
been comparatively free from its attacks,
probably because so little wheat is culti-
vated in them. No statistics as to the loss-
es have ever been collected, but they have
been sufficient to occasion much conster-
nation and alarm in certain years. Two

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

137

broods of the fly are produced in a year, the
first laying its eggs in April and May, the
second in August and September. The dam
age is done by the larva, which lies at the
sheathing base of the leaves first above the
roots, at or near the surface of the soil, and
absorbs the sap from the stalks. From the
larva, the insect passes into the pupa state,
in which it resembles a flaxseed, and re-
mains in it for the five winter months. The
pest flourishes best in rather warm and moist
seasons ; and it has been noticed that the
years when it has been most abundant have
been characterized by weather answering to
that description. It is afflicted by several
parasites by which it is said that nine tenths
of every generation of the insects are de-
stroyed. The principal parasites are a chal-
cid fly that destroys the pupa, and a platy-
gaster, which lays its eggs in the e^g. Pro-
fessor Packard recommends, as remedies for
the insect, late sowing of fall wheat, so that
the flies may be killed by frost before lay.
ing their eggs, high culture to give the plant
new vigor, the sowing of the most vigorous
and many-stooled varieties, and pasturing,
which destroys the " flaxseeds," but is " a
rather rude, uncertain remedy." Special
remedies like limeing, dusting, burning stub-
ble, etc., are not recommended, because they
are inferior to those just mentioned, and
are as likely to destroy the helpful para-
sites as the harmful flies. A comparison of
the periods when the flies have been most
abundant indicates that the plague has cul-
minating periods in the neighborhood of
twenty-five years apart.

Folk-Lore of the Mammoth. Baron
Xordenskiold, in his " Voyage of the Vega,"
gives some interesting citations of the folk-
lore of the Siberian natives respecting the
mammoth, whose remains are very abundant
in the country. Evert Yssbrants Ides, a
Russian embassador in 1692, related that
the heathen Yakuts, Tunguses, and Osti-
aks, supposed that the mammoth always
lived in. the earth and went about in it,
however hard the ground might be frozen,
and that it died when it came so far up that
it saw or smelled the air. J. B. Miiller, in
1720, added that the tusks were believed to
have formed the animal's horns, that they
were fastened above the eyes and were

movable, and that with them the animal
dug a way for itself through the mud ; when
it came to a sandy soil, the sand ran to-
gether so that the mammoth stuck fast and
perished. Miiller further stated that many
natives assured him that they themselves
had seen such animals in large grottoes in
the Ural Mountains. Klaproth says that
the Chinese at Kiakhta considered mammoth
ivory the tusks of the giant rat, tien-shu,
which is found only in the cold regions
along the coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the
light, and lives in dark holes in the interior
of the earth. Some of the literati believed
that the discovery of these immense earth-
rats niurht even explain the orisrin of earth-
quakes. The horns and crania of the rhi-
noceros, which were found along with the
remains of the mammoth, were believed to
have belonged to gigantic birds, concerning
which stories were related analogous to those
told of the roc in the "Arabian Nights."
Pieces of the horns were used to increase
the elasticity of bows, and were believed to
exert a beneficial effect on the arrow, and to
tend to make it hit the mark. Ermann and
Middledorf suppose that the finds of these
remains two thousand years ago gave occa-
sion to Herodotus's account of the Arimaspi
and the gold-guarding dragons. Certain
it is that during the middle ages such " grip-
claws " were preserved as of great value in
the treasuries and art collections of the time,
and that they gave rise to many a romantic
story in the folk-lore, both of the "West and
the East. Even in our own century, Heden-
strom, in 1830, otherwise an intelligent
traveler, believed that the fossil rhinoceros-
horns were actual "grip-claws."

Water-Temperatures at the Top and Bot-
tom of Lakes. Professor William Ripley
Xichols has obtained, from the examination
of the relative temperatures of the surface
and the depths of fresh-water ponds near
Boston, Massachusetts, results that differ
from the views on this subject that are
commonly held and taught. In Fresh Pond
and Mystic Pond considerable difference
was shown to exist in the temperature at
the top and at the bottom, and the tempera-
ture appeared to decrease regularly from
top to bottom. Having compared his own
observations with those made in Swiss and

i 3 8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Scotch lakes, in winter as well as in sum-
mer, Professor Nichols is led to the conclu-
sion that " the watei of lakes and ponds is,
as a rule, before freezing, cooled to a temper-
ature much lower than 4 Cent. (39 Fahr.),
not simply at the surface, as generally
stated, but to a considerable depth. The
commonly received idea and the current
statements of the text-books of chemistry
and physics, are, therefore, misleading."
The temperature of the water at the bottom
of deep lakes is, moreover, not constant at
the point of greatest density, as is frequently
stated, but often lies appreciably above that
point. Professor Nichols is not satisfied
that we know sufficiently well the depth to
which the diurnal variations of temperature
extend under different circumstances. The
curves of temperature in Mystic Pond show
that there were several times when a few
successive days of warm or cold weather
produced an effect on the water, even at a
depth of seventy-five feet. The paper re-
cording these observations is supplemented
by a list of other publications and papers
bearing on the subject.

Sanitary Reports of British Schools.

The "Lancet" about a vear ago addressed
a series of questions to the managers of
English schools respecting their sanitary
provisions and the health of their pupils.
The answers which it has received indicate
that the subject is given considerably more
attention than it was a few vears asro, and
that many of the managers sympathize with
the editor in the object of his inquiries
that of ascertaining the conditions of the
best scholar-health. The first report made
by the journal summarizes the replies re-
ceived from thirty-nine schools, in relation
to the points of the character of the situa-
tion and buildings, and the climatic con-
ditions ; the amount of air-space per pupil
in the sleeping- and school-rooms ; general
state of health,- cases of illness; sanitary
arrangements as regards drainage, closets,
lavatories, bathing, towels, etc. ; provisions
for the isolation of contagious cases ; and
provisions for medical inspection. No par-
ticular relation seems to be shown between
the presumed healthful or unhealthful
character of the site, and the presence or
absence of disease. The sleeping-rooms

afford from 273 to 1,300 cubic feet of air
per individual ; if the schools were full, the
probable average allotment would be be-
tween 300 and 400 feet. The provision of
air in the school-rooms is " fairly ample."
The drainage is pronounced good in nearly
every school, and no cases of illness are
mentioned which could be traced to defect-
ive drainage. Lavatory arrangements are
well attended to, with provisions for hot,
cold, and swimming baths, and separate
towels, brushes, etc., for each boy. Eight
schools report that no cases of illness oc-
curred during the year, one never having oc-
casion to send for the doctor. The diseases
mentioned include ophthalmia in two schools,
pneumonia in two, " congestion of the
lungs " in two, peritonitis in one, rheumatic
fever and erythema nodosum in one, and
sore-throat in one. Measles occurred in fif-
teen schools (fifteen cases in one), scarlet
fever in twelve (fourteen cases with one
death in one school), varicella in two, mumps
in three (thirty cases in one school), Rotheln
in three, whooping-cough in two, and ty-
phoid fever in one. Many of the schools
have provision of some kind for the isola-
tion of pupils sick with contagious disease.
Only five schools have arrangements for
systematic medical inspection. The value
of these returns is modified by the fact that
the schools having the best sanitary ar-
rangements and showing the best condition
would naturally be the ones most ready to
report.

Recent Existence of the Mastodon.

Professor Collett's " Geological Report of
Indiana for 1880 " mentions some new facts
that seem to indicate that the mastodon
existed in our country at a more recent date
than is commonly supposed. In nearly all
the specimens that have been found, gener-
ally in places where the animal has been
mired, the skeletons are in a greater or less
state of decay. In a skeleton discovered a
few years ago, in Fountain County, the mar-
row of the larger bones was used by the
workmen to grease their boots, and the
place of the kidney-fat was occupied by
lumps of adipocere. During the summer
of 1880 a mastodon was found in Iroquois
County, Illinois, that gave every evidence
of having lived among the same life and

POPULAR MISCELLAXY.

*39

vegetation as prevail to day. A mass of
fibrous, bark-like material was found be-
tween the ribs, filling the place of the ani-
mal's stomach, which proved to be composed
of crushed herbs and grasses, similar to
those that still grow in the vicinity. In the
same beds of miry clay, a multitude of small
fresh-water and land shells were observed
and collected, of mollusks which prevail all I raffe is very delicate, and the marrow is
over the States of Illinois, Indiana, and parts held at a high value. Passing the animals
of Michigan. These facts afford strong of the deer and bovine tribes, which are ap-
evidence that animal and vegetable life, and predated by all, we come to the whales and
consequently climate, are the same now as seals, which furnish a chief part of the food-

and the quagga and zebra form favorite
dishes amon? the Hottentots and in Central
Africa. Camel's flesh is highly esteemed in
Africa, but is not liked by the Tartars. The
hump, however, cut in slices and soaked in
tea, serves the purpose of butter. The South
American alpaca affords a flesh little infe-
rior to mutton. The flesh of the young gi-

when the mastodon lived.

Some Rare Meats. The flesh of the
elephant is relished by the inhabitants of
many districts of Africa and Asia. Major
Denham says that it is esteemed by all, and
that, though it looks coarse, it is better fla-
vored than the beef of the country. Gor-
don Cumming speaks of the dainty dishes of
baked elephant's feet and elephant's trunk,

supply of the Esquimaux. The walrus is
also highly esteemed in the Arctic regions,
and its tongue, heart, and liver are often
eaten by whalers in the lack of better pro-
visions. The dolphin is eaten at the Faroe
Islands, where two thousand individuals are
taken annuallv. The flesh of the dusronsr is
good and palatable, having the flavor of pork
combined with the taste of veal, and is es-
teemed a great delicacy by the Mohamme-

whicb, prepared after a way he describes at \ dan Malays, who find in it a substitute for
length, very much resemble buffalo's tongue. tne P ork tnat is forbidden them. The meat

of the young animal salted and cured, with
the flesh and fat in its alternate layers, pro-
duces a bacon which can not be distin-
guished from that of real pig, and which
finds a ready sale in Queensland. The oil,

Le Yaillant says that baked elephant's foot
is a dish fit for a king ; but Captain Lind-
ley likens it to " very soft leather and glue
mixed together." Hippopotamus-meat is
appreciated in Africa by both natives and

European colonists, but Dr. Schweinfurth properly tried out, is equal to fresh butter,
and Captain Lindley do not find it so appe-

The fat of this animal and of the rhi-

Suggestions to Observers in Anthro-

tizing.

noceros is considered delicious, and is used pology. Recognizing that the rapid ad-
instead of butter. The Portuguese settlers vance of civilization is causing the native
are permitted to eat the flesh of these ani- races everywhere to disappear, or is modi-
mals during Lent, passing it off as fish. The fying them essentially, and that what still
flesh of the American tapir, somewhat re- exists in its originality must be saved now,
sembling unsavory, coarse, and dry beef, is the Anthropological Society of Hamburg
considered palatable by the Indians, and ' has framed a schedule of questions, to be
the fatty protuberance on the nape of its \ sent out to persons who are in a position to
neck, and the feet and groin, cooked to a answer them intelligently, respecting the
jelly, are regarded as great delicacies. The | more important characteristics of the abo-
horse is said to have been universally used rigines of the several countries. The ques-
as food before the period of civilization, and ; tions concern first, the names of tribes and
was greatly liked by the ancient Germans : the districts in which they live ; the color of
and Scandinavians. Mungo Park speaks of the tribes, the characteristics of their hair,

wild horses being eaten in Africa. . Mare's
flesh is a choice morsel to the Chilian In-
dians. The efforts to reintroduce horse-flesh
as food have had considerable success in
some European capitals. The Greeks ate
donkeys ; the flesh of the wild ass is held
in high esteem by the Persians and Tartars ;

the material and fashion of their clothing,
the ornaments of whatever kind they
wear, and how they wear them, the marks
of paint, cutting, and tattooing, that they put
on their skin, whether they file or knock out
their teeth ; their weapons, how they make
them and how they use them, and their de-

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fenses; the material, architecture, furnish-
ing, and adornment of their dwellings, wheth-
er they be huts, pile-dwellings, caves, or
tents ; their public buildings, temples, sacred
places, and altars ; their domestic, hunting,
and farming utensils, pottery, glassware,
metallic and wooden vessels ; how they
make and apply their paints ; their mining
arts ; their usages in trade ; their money
and their manner of counting ; how they
make their fires ; their intoxicants and nar-
cotics ; what they know and have of music
and musical instruments ; what with them
takes the place of writing; their supersti-
tions and folk-lore, and particularly the ob-
jects to which they give special honors ;
their social customs and usages in inter-
course with friends and enemies ; observ-
ances in the matters of birth, marriage, and
death ; their diseases and methods of cure ;
their ideas as to a future state ; their tradi-
tions as to their origin ; their knowledge of
the stars, and their manner of computing
time. The questions covering these points
in detail are to be sent out, in English and
German, to ship-captains, merchants, con-
suls, and missionaries, who, it is expected,
will enter upon the schedule notes embody-
ing such information as they can furnish.
As it is impossible to make the questions
exhaustive, further communications than
those asked for, such as the judgment of the
respondent may dictate, will be thankfully
received.

An Artificial Volcano. The newspapers
of Cologne tell of a kind of artificial volcano
which was produced recently at Apenrade,
in the Rhine provinces, in the course of the
digging of an artesian well. At the depth
of not quite five hundred feet, a strong ebul-
lition was noticed, accompanied by a dull
rumbling. Then, all at once, the earth and
stones in the tube were violently blown out
to a considerable height, with a heavy deto-
nation, and a column of gas came up hiss-
ing. When lighted with a match, the gas
burned with a clear flame, rising high in the
air, till it was extinguished by a new erup-
tion of pebbles and dirt. Eruptions of
stones and gas continued till the time the
story was told, when the flame of the gas
continued to be of undiminished intensity.
The phenomenon was occasioned, of course,

1 by one of those accumulations of gas which
I take place now and then in the bowels of
the earth, giving rise to fire-damp explosions
in coal-mines, causing earthquake-shocks in
countries which are not volcanic, and giving
rise to the so-called " mud-volcanoes," when
the gas forces its passage through .beds of
moist clay.

Origin of Native Gold. Professor J. S.
Xewberry has presented some strong points
of fact and argument against the theory
that the grains and nuggets of gold found
in placers are formed by precipitation from
chemical solutions. He holds, in a paper
he has published on the subject, that geol-
ogy teaches, in regard to the genesis and
distribution of gold, that it exists in the
oldest known rocks, and has been thence
distributed through all strata derived from
them ; that, in the metamorphosis of these
derived rocks, it has been concentrated into
segregated quartz-veins by some process not
yet understood ; that it is a constituent of
fissure-veins of all geological .ages, where it
has been deposited from hot chemical solu-
tions, which have reached deeply buried
rocks of various kinds, gathering from them
gold with other metallic minerals ; and that
gold has been accumulated through mechan-
ical agents in placer deposits by the erosion
of strata containing auriferous veins.

What has been gained by Vivisection.

Dr. Ferrier was recently arrested in Eng-
land for practicing vivisection without a
license, and the members of the British Med-
ical Association were indignant at the act,
regarding it as an insult and a measure of
annoyance. Dr. Ferrier's offense seems to
have been observing with Dr. Yeo, who had
a license, experiments that were intended to
throw light upon certain features of the
treatment of lesions of the brain. Dr. Fer-
rier's investigations in this department,
which would have been impossible without
vivisection, have been of immediate and of
the greatest value to mankind. Among the
results of them has been the discovery of
the means of localizing in its definite region
the point where an injury, resulting in epi-
leptic fits, has been inflicted, and of apply-
ing remedial treatment to the precise spot
where it will be effective. Dr. Echeverria

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

has given a list of 165 cases of traumatic
epilepsy, 64 per cent of which were cured
by trephining. Before Dr. Ferrier's ex-
periments this trephining would have had
to be done blindly. The knowledge gained
by Dr. Ferrier's researches has also been
useful in guiding to the spot where pus has
accumulated in case of abscesses in the
brain, and in indicating the site of tumors.
Considering how recently these discoveries
have been made, it in fact seems extraordi-
nary that they should have been already
productive of so much benefit. The opera-
tions on the animals are not painful after
the exposure of the brain has been accom-
plished, and that is done under anaesthetics,
nor does any pain follow the recovery from
anaesthetic influence. The effects of the
after-stimulations are simply the excitement
of the wonder and curiosity of the animals
at their involuntary motions. Probably a
single sportsman inflicts more pain in a
day's shooting than Dr. Ferrier has done in
the whole course of his researches.

A Xew Natural Hydrocarbon. Profess-
or Henry Carvill Lewis has published a
description of a new substance resembling
dopplerite which has been found in a peat-
bog at Seranton, Pennsylvania. It is black,
jelly-like in consistency, and elastic to the
touch when first taken from the ground,
breaking with a conchoidal fracture, but be-
comes tougher and more elastic, like India-
rubber, immediately on exposure to the air.
Occasional seeds, having the characters of
the spores of one of the higher cryptogams,
occur in the substance, as well as in the sur-
rounding peaty matter. The composition
of the substance nearly corresponds with
the formula CioH 22 Oi6, differing from that
of dopplerite in the presence of much larger
proportions of hydrogen and oxygen. Pro-
fessor Lewis suggests that this product is,
perhaps, an intermediate product between
peat and coal, and proposes to combine it
with dopplerite under the generic name of
phytocollite (" plant-jelly ").

Parasites. Professor Arnold Heller, of
Kiel, has recently published an interesting
work on parasites, with particular reference
to their import to men. It is only lately
that the true origin and character of para-

sites have been at all adequately understood.
Not very long ago they were supposed to be
formed out of the substances of the body ;
and in the condition of knowledge at the
time it was hard to account otherwise for
their presence in certain parts of the sys-
tem. They have also been supposed to be
received by inheritance ; and it has not been
fully proved that, in rare instances, this
may not be the case. It has, however, been
shown that, as a rule, they are introduced
into the system, either directly or through
germs taken in with the food, breathed in
the air, brought by unclean hands or with
unclean dishes, or blown in with the dust.
They are generally dependent on moisture
for their vitality, and, finding in the bodily
juices a favorable environment, may be-
come suddenly active after having been long
dormant in uncongenial situations. Most, if
not all of them, probably existed originally
in a free state, and have become wonted to
what is now an exclusive abode by gradual
adaptation in long time ; in such cases, they
seem to have lost some of the organs, such
as those of locomotion, which they origi-
nally possessed, but which have become of
no further use to them. Some of them have
been made useful to man. The leech serves
a valuable purpose in the healing art ; the
cochineal aphis furnishes a valuable dye ;
the tape-worm of the snipe tickles the pal-
ate of the hunter and the epicure as " mac-
caroni-piatti " flat maccaroni; and the
worms of fresh-water fishes are esteemed as
food in some parts of Italy. The ichneu-
mon flies and their tribe are of inestimable
benefit in destroying the insect enemies to
vegetation ; and helpful moths have been
discovered which prey upon the moths and
other insects in the furs of rodents and the
feathers of birds. Among vegetable para-
sites, ergot is valuable in medicine, and the
mistletoe-berry is used in making bird-lime
and fly-paste. It has been suggested that
even intestinal worms may be good for
children by helping to consume the excess
of slime ; and Jordan, of Mayence, has set
forth that the animals that infest the skin
of man may be beneficial by forcing him to
look after the cleanliness of his person and
clothing, and his intestinal worms by mak-
ing him careful of his food. This view can
not, however, be justified, even when we ad-

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mit that parasites in many cases do no per-
ceptible harm. To these cases may be op-
posed the numerous instances in which they
have proved destructive to their hosts,
whether animals, birds, or men, often car-
rying off multitudes of creatures when they
become excessively abundant on a species ;
and in the most favorable cases they give
the host discomfort and inconvenience,
though their work mavbe overlooked in the
presence of his superior vigor. As a rule,
parasites belong to the lower orders of
animals worms or insects. Sometimes an
arachnoid or a crustacean will join the com-
pany ; but a few small fishes are the only
creatures among the vertebrates that ever
assume that relation. The stories that have
been told of the existence of other inhabit-
ants in the system are either fables or have
originated in the accidental presence of sin-
gle individuals who were probably as much
astonished as their host at finding them-
selves in such a home.

The Repeating Melograph. M. J. Car-
pentier exhibited, at the recent electrical 1
exhibition in Paris, an instrument called the
repeating melograph, by means of which, he
claimed, any piece or improvisation which
a composer may play on the key-board to
which it is attached is registered, and may !
be repeated upon any other instrument \
with which it may be connected. It, more-
over, secures the repetition, not of the
piece only, but of the style, even to the j
false notes, of the player. Both processes,
the registering and the repeating of the
piece, are performed through the medium
of electric currents. In the former case the
keys of the instrument on which the piece
is played are connected with wires through
which a current is established when the key
is pressed down. This current sets in oper-
ation an apparatus, with tools answering to
the several keys, by means of which a per-
foration corresponding in character with
the musical value of the note is made in a
moving band of paper. The piece being
finished, the band is ready to serve in a
second execution of it. Electric communi-
cation is effected between the perforated
band and the second instrument ; and a
current is formed, causing a corresponding |
key to be sounded at each perforation of j

the band as it passes the circuit in the pro-
cess of unrolling. M. Carpentier contem-
plates adjusting his instrument so that it
may also be made to print the piece in or-
dinary musical type.

Electric Units. The International Con-
gress of Electricians at Paris unanimously
agreed upon a uniform standard of electric-
al units of measurements. It decided to
adopt the fundamental units, the centime-
tre, the gramme, the second (C. G. S.);
that the practical units, the ohm and the
volt, should be defined, as now, the ohm as
10 9 , and the volt as 10 8 ; that the unit of
resistance (ohm) be represented by a col-
umn of mercury having a section of a square
millimetre at the freezing-point, and a
height to be determined experimentally by
the International Committee ; that the cur-
rent produced by a volt in an ohm be called
an ampere instead of a w-eber, the latter
name having been applied by Weber him-
self in Germany to a current of ten times
less force ; that the name of coulomb be
applied to the quantity of electricity defined
by the condition that an ampere gives a
coulomb a second, the former English we-
ber ; and that the name farad be applied to
the capacity defined by the condition that a
coulomb in a farad gives a volt which is
equivalent to the farad of the British Asso.
ciation. The Carcel lamp was recommended
to be continued as the standard for the com-
parison of lights, pending the investigations
of an International Committee to ascertain
and fix upon the most practicable standard.

"Clonds of Seeds." A correspondent
of " La Nature " describes a remarkable ap-
pearance of seeds in the air that was ob-
served in Guatemala during eight consecu-
tive days in February last. In the early
hours of the afternoon it was easy to per-
ceive at a certain distance from the ground
bodies resembling snow-flakes, which ap-
peared and disappeared instantaneously,
generally going in the same direction, but
which were visible only when they passed
between the sun and the observer. They
moved gracefully, with variegated colors,
falling and then rising out of sight, as snow-
flakes do when they melt in the air; at
other times they were carried along by the

NOTES.

wind. The populace thought that fire was
falling from the sun. More intelligent per-
sons believed that snow had been actually
formed in consequence of the cooling of the
atmosphere, some of which had fallen with-
out melting till it came in sight, and this
view was currently accepted. It was finally
shown; however, that the particles were float-
ing seeds, and every one was enabled to sat-
isfy himself of the fact by grasping a hand-
ful of them.

NOTES.

The tertiary lake-basin at Florissant, be-
tween South and Hayden Parks, Colorado,
furnishes one of the richest deposits of fossil
insects that have been found anywnere.
According to Mr. S. H. Scudder, who exam-
ined it in connection with the Hayden Sur-
vey, it has yielded in a single summer more
than double the number of specimens which
the famous localities at (Eningen, in Bava-
ria, furnished Heer in thirty years. The
(Eningen specimens are, however, a3 a rule,
better preserved, but a larger number of
satisfactory specimens are found at Floris-
sant than at (Eningen. Sixteen species of
insects have been published, and, besides
these, a planorbis-shell, eight species of
fishes, several birds' feathers, and a single
tolerably perfect sparrow. Also several
thousand specimens of thirty-seven species
of plants, have been found.

Professor Xorde.vskiold has had occa-
sion during his Arctic vova^es to ask the
question, which must have often occurred to
many, What becomes of the " self -dead "
animals, or those that die a natural death ?
During his nine expeditions in regions where
animal life is abundant, he has found only
a very few remains of recent vertebrate
animals which could be proved to have died
a natural death. We have at present no
idea of what beeomes of the bodies of such
animals, " and yet we have here a problem
of immense importance for the answering
of a large number of questions concerning
the formation of fossiliferous strata. It is
strange, in any case, that on Spitzbergen it
is easier to find the vertebras of a gigantic-
lizard of the Trias than bones of a self-dead
seal, walrus, or bird, and the same also
holds good of more southerly inhabited
lands."

Mr. A. S. Packard, Jr., has given, in a
contribution to the Boston Society of Nat-
ural History, the descriptions of twentv-two
new species of ichneumon, microgaster, tri-
cogramma, and other genera of parasites in-
festing North American butterflies, typical

specimens of most of which may be seen in
the collection of Mr. S. H. Scudder, and of
a few in the Harris collection of the muse-
um of the society.

Professor Otis T. Masox is not satisfied
I with the existing classifications of the an-
j th Topological sciences, and has adopted a
J classification of his own, as follows: 1. An-
thropogeny ; 2. Prehistoric Anthropology ;
3. Biological Anthropology ; 4. Psychologi-
cal Anthropology ; 5. Ethnology ; 6. Linguis-
tic Anthropology; 7. Industrial Anthropol-
! ogy ; 8. Sociology proper ; 9. The Science
! of Religion ; to which he adds a tenth class
of works on the instrumentalities of re-
search. In his bibliographical contributions
to the Smithsonian Report and the " Ameri-
can Xaturalist," Professor Mason states that
a larger number of papers have been pub-
lished on prehistoric anthropology than on
any other branch of the science. He enu-
merates one hundred and forty-six memoirs
in this branch as published in 1879, and
twentv-eizht as published in America alone
in 1880.

The deaths in the Peabody Buildings,
London, during sixteen years, have been at
the rate of sixteen and seven tenths per
thousand per annum, while the general
death-rate of the metropolis during the
same period has been twenty-three and
four tenths. The death-rate in the crowd-
ed districts surrounding the Peabody Build-
ings has been stated to be thirty or forty to
the thousand.

A committee of the British Association
is investigating the question of the existence
of earth-tides, or of oscillations in the crust
of the earth similar to those which are pro-
duced in the ocean by the attraction of the
moon. A pendulum is so suspended that its
slightest motion turns a mirror, and causes
a perceptible movement in the spot of light
reflected by it upon a distant screen. The
pendulum is proved to be continually chang-
ing its position, for the reflected light is in
incessant motion, and so irregularly that it is
hardly possible to localize its mean position
on the screen within five or six inches. Mr.
W. Mattieu Williams has susnrested that the
constant movements of the microscopic bub-
bles imprisoned within the cavities of gems
and minerals are due to the same cause.

The death is announced of the Rev. Dr.
Thomas R. Robinson, Director of the Ob-
servatory at Armagh, Ireland. He was
elected to the Royal Society in 1856, and
was one of. the oldest Fellows on the list,
beimr nearlv ninetv when he died. His
latest contribution to science, " On the Con-
stants of the Cup Anemometer,'' was pub-
lished in the " Philosophical Transactions "
in 1S80.

i 4 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

M. P. Puiseux, remarking upon the ap-
parent relations between the activity of
vegetation and actinometric conditions, cites
in illustration the promptitude with which
plants mature during the summer of lands
which the snow hardly leaves. Phaneroga-
mous plants may be found at the height of
twelve thousand feet, ranunculuses on the
Schreckhorn, saxifrages on the Gravola, go-
ing through all the phases of their develop-
ment in the space of three months under a
mean temperature, according to ordinary
estimates, considerably inferior to that of
the polar regions. Doubtless these plants
find a compensation for the unfavorable
thermic conditions in the intensity of the
solar radiation at great altitudes, which is
increased by the reflections from the snow.

M. Gautier insists, in a number of
communications to the French Academy of
Sciences, that the venom of serpents con-
tains a toxic substance analogous to the
alkaloids and the ptomaines. The venom
of the Vaja tripudians, of which a quarter
of a milligramme will kill a sparrow, may
be boiled, filtered, and treated with alcohol,
without losing its activity. These proper-
ties indicate a relation with the alkaloids.
Not only the saliva of serpents, the salivas
of other animals of the dog, the hare, even
of man are capable of exhibiting delete-
rious properties. An extract from human
saliva furnishes an extremely poisonous
liquid, capable of killing a bird almost as
quickly as the venom of a serpent. Thus
the saliva of man, the dog, and the serpent,
all contain toxic alkaloids, and do not differ
essentially except in the higher or lower
degree of concentration of the poison ; and
it appears that animal as well as vegetable
tissues are capable of elaborating alkaloids.

M. G. Delaunay has been studying the
influence exercised by the greater or less in-
tensity of the nutritive phenomena in cases
of poisoning by strychnine. Equal doses
of strychnine were given to two frogs, one
of which had been kept active for a half-
hour previously. The poison took effect
more quickly and more actively upon this
one than upon the one that had been quiet.
In another experiment, the poison operated
more slowly and more lightly upon a frog
that had been bled than upon the other one,
which had not been hurt. When one of the
frogs was bled after taking the poison, it
exhibited a tendency to return to the nor-
mal condition in measure as it lost blood.

M. Albert Gaudry has been elected to
fill the chair in the French Academy which
was made vacant by the death of M. Sainte-
Claire Deville, receiving forty votes to eight-
een cast for his competitor, M. Laury, ge-
ologist. " La Nature " remarks that with
M. Gaudry a new science, paleontology, ob-
tains representation in the institute.

Dr. K. von Fritsch, of Halle, maintains
that the causes of earthquakes are much
slighter than has been generally believed,
that they may be sought at a depth of not
more than ten or fourteen miles, and often
of less, and that rather feeble forces may
produce earthquakes which will be felt at
great distances. The hammer in Krupp's '
factory, which weighs a thousand centners,
and falls from a height of ten feet, pro-
duces sensible concussions over a surface
five miles in diameter ; and a recent explo-
sion in a dynamite factory was felt at be-
tween twenty-five and thirty miles away.
Dr. Fritsch points out how earthquakes
might and must be produced by the increase
and decrease in volume of rocks under the
influence of physical and chemical forces,
by concussions, by the opening of crevice9
in rocks, and by the subsidence of masses
of rocks due to these agencies.

Dr. S. Gibbon, medical officer for the
Holborn district, London, says in his latest
report that, whatever may be the cause,
there is no doubt that a Jew's life in Lon-
don is, on an average, worth twice as many
years as a Christian's. The Hebrews of the
metropolis are notoriously exempt from tu-
bercular and scrofulous taint. Pulmonary
consumption is very rare among them. The
medical officer of one of the Jewish schools
has remarked that their children do not die
in anything like the same ratio as Christian
children. In High Street, Whitechapel, the
average death-rate on the north side, which
is occupied by Jews, is twenty per thousand,
while on the south side, which is occupied
by English and Irish Gentiles, it is forty-
three per thousand.

Mr. C. R. Plowright, F. L. S., made
thirteen experiments last summer in inocu-
lating wheat-plants with the fungus of the
barberry-bush, and derived results adverse
to the theory that wheat-mildew is developed
from the fungus. One hundred and sev-
enty-six plants of wheat were employed,
seventy-eight of which were inoculated with
the barberry-fungus, and ninety-eight un-
inoculated ones were kept for check plants.
Seventy-six per cent of the inoculated plants
developed the rust in about fifteen days, and
seventy per cent of the uninoculated plants
developed it also. Only one experiment of
the thirteen seemed to support the theory
of metamorphosis.

Mr. Muybridge has been exhibiting some
remarkable rapid-process photographs in
Paris, one of which is said to have been
taken in one hundredth of a second. He
has obtained a series of six photographs
during the leap of a clown, which when pro-
jected on a screen by a zoetrope exhibit the
clown as in motion, with all his changes of
position.

CHARLES DARWIN, M. A., F. R. S., Etc.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JUNE, 1882.
SPECULATIVE SCIENCE.

By J. B. STALLO.

" Wenn ein Kopf und ein Buck zusammenstossen, und es hlingt hohl, muss es denn immer
das Buck yewesen sein ? " Lichtexberg, the Physicist.

THE zbove title is prefixed to an article contributed by Professor
Simon Newcomb to the April number of the " International Re-
view." The avowed object of that article is to discredit a recent vol-
ume of the " International Scientific Series" (" The Concepts and
Theories of Modern Physics ") as a publication unworthy of the com-
pany in which it appears, and to denounce its author as a person
ignorant of the subject whereon he writes as a scientific, or rather
unscientific, " charlatan " and " pretender " belonging to the class of
" paradoxers " whom Professor De Morgan has immortalized in his
famous " Budget." I am fully aware that, as a rule, it is both unwise
and in questionable taste for an author to make direct reply to criti-
cism, however hostile, baseless, or absurd. The merits of a book must
find their vindication, at last, in its contents, and the chief function
of the critic is to bring them to the attention of the reader, the value
and spirit of the critical performance being of secondary importance.
But the case in hand appears to me to be an exceptional one. The
unmistakable intent of Professor Newcomb's " criticism " (and, if it
be left unchallenged, its probable effect) is to signalize the contents of
the book with which he deals as mere drivel, and unworthy of a mo-
ment's serious attention. And he writes for a magazine, the majority
of whose readers, however intelligent they may be, can hardly be ex-
pected to possess that familiarity with the matters under discussion
which is a necessary prerequisite to the formation of an independent
and trustworthy judgment. All they are likely to know and care is,

YOL. XXI. 10 X

146 THE POPULAR SCLEXCE MONTHLY.

that Professor Xewconib is a prominent scientist, at the head of a
scientific bureau in Washington; while the author of the book he pro-
fesses to review, if known at all, is known only in connection with
pursuits which are generally supposed to preclude, not only distinc-
tion but even reputable standing in the domains of scientific investi-
gation. I take the liberty, therefore, to subject the strictures of my
critic to a counter-critical examination, trusting that the learned pro-
fessor himself will find it thorough, and that the reader who has not
only perused his article, but also looked into a chapter or two of my
book, will recognize it as neither impertinent nor unfair.

Whatever may be thought of the soundness or unsoundness of the
general argument of the little book in question, the drift of that argu-
ment, it seems to me, can hardly be mistaken by the reasonably intelli-
gent reader. TThat I attempt to show is simply this : that modern
physical science aims at a mechanical interpretation of physical phe-
nomena, seeking to effect a reduction of them to two elements which
are ordinarily designated as matter and motion, but which (for reasons
briefly stated in the book, but to be stated more at length presently)
are more correctly designated as mass and motion. I then attempt to
show that, if to these premises we add the assumption of the atomic
constitution of matter, the mechanical theory necessarily involves four
distinct propositions, relating severally to the equality, inertia, and in-
elasticity of the atoms or ultimate molecules and the essentially ki-
netic character of what is now universally termed energy. In order to
enforce the irrecusability of these propositions on the basis of the
atomo-mechanical theory, and to guard against the imputation that I
am engaged in the frivolous pastime of chopping logic, I am at pains
to show, in the next four chapters, that every one of these pro]30si-
tions is insisted on and propounded in terms identical with, or equiva-
lent to, those in which I state them, by men whom I was under the
delusion, up to the time of the aj^pearanc'e of Professor Xewcomb's
article, of regarding as persons of the highest scientific authority
such men as Professors Du Bois-Reymond, Thomas Graham, Wundt,
etc. I then proceed to inquire what is the relation of these proposi-
tions to the sciences of chemistry, physics, and astronomy, as they are
actually constituted, endeavoring to ascertain whether or not the funda-
mental propositions of the atomo-mechanical theory are available as
theoretical solvents of the facts with which these sciences are con-
versant, and whether or not they are consistent with them. The result
of this inquiry is, that the man of science, however emphatic he may
be in the general assertion that all physical phenomena are due to the
interaction of atoms or ultimate molecules, is constrained by the data
of scientific experience to repudiate and discard the propositions
which his assertion necessarily involves. It thus appears that there is
conflict between the facts and working hypotheses or theories of the
sciences on the one hand and the atomo-mechanical theory on the

SPECULATIVE SCIEXCE. 147

other ; that the latter theory fails in the presence of the facts, and
that all attempts to remove this conflict have, thus far at least, been
abortive.

After supplementing these preliminaries by a discussion of the
atomic theory and its dependant, the kinetic theory of gases, I ap-
proach the problem whose solution is the sole aim of my little treatise,
which, as is expressly stated in the very first sentence of the preface,
is designed as a contribution, not to physics or metaphysics, but to the
theory of cognition. That problem is the determination of the logical
and psychological origin of the mechanical theory, and of its attitude
toward the laws of thought and the forms and conditions of its evolu-
tion. It is neither necessary nor practicable here to attempt a repro-
duction of the tenor of my discussion. It is sufficient for my present
purpose to state my conclusion, which is, that the mechanical theory
with all its implications is founded on a total disregard or misapprehen-
sion of the true relation of thoughts to things or of concepts to phys-
ical realities ; that, so far from being a departure from and standing in
antagonism to metaphysical speculation, the propositions which lie at
its base are simply exemplifications of the fallacies that vitiate all
metaphysical or ontological reasoning properly so called. There is
hardly a page in the book, after the first two expository chapters, in
which my utter repudiation of the mechanical theory and its funda-
mental assumptions is not couspicuous. My objections to this theory
are stated in so many ways, and are enforced by so many considera-
tions, that my position in regard to it appears to me insusceptible of
misapprehension even by the most hebetated intellect. During the
last six weeks I have received more than twenty letters from various
persons most of them mathematicians and physicists, but a few of
them persons without scientific training in which the doctrines of my
book are discussed or questioned, sometimes on grounds which indicate
that my meaning has been strangely misapprehended. But not one of
these letters gives rise to the least suspicion that the writer was mis-
taken as to mv attitude toward the mechanical theory.

And now, what does Professor Xewcomb represent my position to
be ? The reader who has not seen his article will be amazed when I
tell him that, according to him, my book was written for the purpose
of maintaining the propositions of the atomo-mechanical theory, and
of subverting the whole science of physics by means of them, on the
principle, I suppose, that if the facts do not agree with the theory, so
much the worse for the facts ! Here is Professor XewcomVs lan-
guage : '

The author's criticism is wholly destructive ; where he constructs it is only
to destroy. It is true that his first chapter on the atomo-mechanical theory lays
down certain propositions already mentioned which he seems to hold as true.
He makes use of them to destroy the whole fabric of modern physics, and show
physical investigators generally to be the subjects of miserable delusions. But

i 4 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his last chapter is devoted to showing that this theory is itself a failure, so that,
when he takes his leave, we have nothing left to contemplate hut a mass of ruins.

It is curious to note the introduction of the word " seems " into this
passage as the lawyers say, its appearance with a semble while in
other places, e. g., where Professor Newcomb speaks of the proposition
that molecules are inelastic as my "favorite doctrine," or where he
charges me (after reading my tenth chapter !) with ignorantly con-
founding the "abstract noun" mass with the concrete term matter, he
makes no such qualification.

Having satisfied himself (no doubt before writing his article,
though the conclusion is stated most explicitly toward its close) that I
am in the lists as a champion of the atomo-mechanical theory and as
the dogmatic defender of its fundamental propositions, he proceeds to
assail these propositions, sometimes with what he seems to regard as
an argument, but generally with a sneer. The contents of my intro-
ductory chapter, consisting almost exclusively of citations from the
writings of Professors Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig,
Du Bois-Reymond, etc., he brands as "propositions in which we can
trace neither coherence nor sense." The thesis that, on the basis of the
atomo-mechanical theory, all potential energy is in reality kinetic
the distinct proposition of Professor P. G. Tait, who asserts it as the
unavoidable consequence of the atomo-mechanical theory of gravita-
tion he "passes over as not even worth quoting." Similarly the doc-
trine of the essential passivity of matter also a proposition of Pro-
fessor Tait, whose exact words I quote on page 306 of my book is
flouted with the disdainful remark that " such words as * active ' and
' passive' have no application in the case and serve no purpose, except
to produce confusion in the mind of the reader." In this way he
levels his thrusts at the most eminent physicists and mathematicians
of the day, laboring always under the hallucination that he is strik-
ing at me.

Among the most characteristic performances of Professor New-
comb are his strictures, already adverted to, on my substitution of the
term mass for the word matter, in designation of the substratum of
motion in the light of the atomo-mechanical theory. According to
him, this use of the word mass is evidence of my ignorance and intel-
lectual confusion, as well as of my " total misconception of the ideas
and methods of modern science." He informs me that the word mass
is " an abstract noun like length" whereas I use it " as a concrete term,
and in nearly the same sense as we commonly use the word matter."
And thereupon he delivers himself of a dissertation (which resembles
nothing so much as a sermon of " Fray Gerundio " to his " familiars ")
on the necessity of using scientific terms only in accordance with their
exact definitions, of ascertaining the meanings of the words mass and
motion by a reference to the methods whereby they are measured, and

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. i +9

so on. All this is certainly strange news to an author who has de-
voted several chapters of his book to the task of showing that the
great fundamental vice of the mechanical theory is the confusion of
concepts with things, and particularly of the connotations of the con-
cept mass with the complement of the properties of matter who, in
a word, is guilty of the great offense of expressing, in the precise terms
of the science of logic, what Professor Xewcomb is staggering at with
a phrase borrowed from some elementary treatise on grammar !

And here I am tempted to do a little Gerundian preaching myself,
Professor Xewcomb being, of course, my congregation of " familiars."
Here is my sermon : Sombre sabio y admirado, scattering supernal
wisdom, like hurling thunder-bolts, is a prerogative of the dwellers on
Olympus, not to be usurped by a drag-footed philosopher bellowing at
its base. Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. I do not mean to question
your general ruminant powers ; but you have delivered yourself of
some things " that have not been well digested," and had better be
chewed again. Let me see how I can help you. Listen: When we
speak of matter, we mean something which not only has weight, pro-
portional to its mass, but which has all manner of properties optic,
thermic, electric, magnetic, chemical, and so on. Now, in the light of
modern science, all these " properties " are regarded as modes of mo-
tion, if I may be permitted to use the expression of Professor Tyndall.
And when we strip matter (in thought, you understand) of all these
modes of motion, we have nothing left but inertia, which is but
another name for mass. This mass is not a concrete thing, but a con-
cept or a part of a concept ; it is, as you say, " an abstract noun like
length." And the trouble with the atomo-mechanical theorists is their
fancy that this abstraction is a thing in itself, something you could
look at if you had a telescope with sufficient magnifying power, or
which you could weigh and measure if you had a pair of scales or a
chemical reagent sufficiently delicate. They labor, as you see, under
a huge mistake, which, in charity, ought to be corrected. Whenever
you find real matter, you have mass and the modes of motion in indis-
soluble synthesis and conjunction. But when this synthesis is broken
by the destructive analysis of the mechanical theorist who persists in
saying that things consist of matter and motion, you are bound to tell
him that what he calls matter is not matter at all, but only something
which, by a. curious law of our thought, we are bound to conceive or
imagine as a substratum of motion the word substratum being a bar-
barous Latin term which in a rough way signifies what is supposed to
underlie motion. The term matter, as used by those deluded people
who think that all the facts of this world can be explained by a reso-
lution of them into matter and energy, or matter and motion, denotes
simply what the physicist who knows what he is talking about calls
mass.

And now, mind, what I have just told you is not some shallow con-

i 5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ceit hatched under my own time-tonsured pate, but genuine wisdom
which I have simply borrowed from an old, clear-headed fellow, who
lived and died a long while ago Leonhard Euler. If you will read
his seventy-fourth letter to a German princess, written on the 11th day
of November, 1760, you will find it all set forth at great length. In
reading it you must bear in mind, though, that in Euler's time the im-
ponderables, as they were then called, were not so distinctly known or
believed to be modes of motion as they are now. And you must also
remember that he was writing to a princess who probably knew more
about madrigals and operatic airs than about scientific terms, in conse-
quence whereof his exposition became a little diffuse. If, however,
you should reject eld Euler's reasoning as "belonging to a past age of
thought," which, I see, is one of your favorite ways of getting rid of
irrefutable truths, I may refer you to a gentleman who is yet among
the living Hermann Helmholtz. You will find what he has to say on
the "matter in hand," on the third and fourth pages of his first essay,
" Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft " (not included in the collection of
his essays).

Now, hombre querido (I am still preaching), if after this you will
carefully read again the first twelve chapters of my book, you will
probably find that they are somewhat less absurd than you fancied they
were. But you will say, no doubt in fact, you do say, though not
in so many words that all this is mere speculative trash, in which the
man of science has no concern. One of my reviewers in the New
York " Critic " whom I at one time suspected, perhaps unjustly, from
certain peculiarities of his phraseology, and from the fact that, like
yourself, he sneers at me for having "wasted" two long chapters on
transcendental geometry, of having had oral confabulations with you,
in which the mouth of the speaker was not and could not be applied
to the ear of the listener disposes of my discussion of the relation of
the mechanical theory to the laws of thought by the following oracu-
lar dictum (a travesty of a saying of Carlyle) : "A sound digestion has
little self -consciousness of the operations of the stomach; the sound
thinker gives himself little uneasiness respecting the laws of thought."
I can not stop, at this moment, to show you how and why a little
knowledge of the laws of thought is useful to the physicist and mathe-
matician. I shall come to that by-and-by, when I have considered
what you say about the kinetic theory of gases and space of an indefi-
nite number of dimensions. For the present I only want to tell you
how I ventured upon the audacity of intruding the theory of cognition
into the science of physics.

In Europe, as well as in this country, there are certain idle fellows
who, during the first half of the present century, for want of more
useful occupation, took to tracing the ramifications of forms of speech,
and finally got to digging for their roots. These absurd persons
abound chietly in Germany, where, as you know, the people are always

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. 151

in the nebular regions, when they ought to be fighting and grubbing
on the solid ground below. In course of time these individuals, de-
spite the utter fatuity of their undertaking, persuaded themselves that
they were engaged in something important, and became noisy and pre-
sumptuous. At one time they even clamored for admission into the
ranks of the physicists and astronomers, on the ground that they had
discovered phonetic and other laws, which they claimed to be as im-
mutable as the laws of Kepler. Their application was, of course,
scornfully denied, for the reason that they were either no scientists at
all, or at best speculative scientists. Instead of submitting humbly
to this just decree of the physicists (it is a pity they had not my pres-
ent meekness before them as an example), these men grew wrathy and
turned away with something like this objurgation : " Well, never mind,
the time is not far distant when you will come as suppliants to us."
And, thereupon, in sheer malice, having got well-nigh through with
the roots and branches of words, they fell to attacking the history of
their meanings of concepts, as they called them pretending to make
legitimate employment of inductive methods, which they wholly mis-
apprehended, no doubt, and which, at any rate, were among the clear
prerogatives of the physicists. And now they pretend to have estab-
lished, inductively, a number of laws relating to the operations of the
intellect, which they again assert to be immutable, and, though con-
trolling acts of consciousness, to be wholly independent of deliberate
intent or set purpose. They say, for instance, that there runs through-
out the history of speculative as well as of ordinary thinking an
almost irrepressible tendency to hypostasize concepts, or (as I have
called it, cribbing an outrageous barbarism from Professor Bain) to
reify them. I will try to explain to you what that means, as nearly as
possible in your own words. When people make or find a new " ab-
stract noun," they instantly try to put it on a shelf or into a box, as
though it were a thing ; thus they reify it. In very early times they
did worse than that they undertook to incase it in a smock-frock or
a pair of breeches. They personified it. There was a still earlier
period when, worst of all, men blasphemously and impiously deified
abstractions ; and it is said that this class of persons has not wholly
died out yet.

Now, the silly speculators I have just alluded to have already di-
vided the science they pretend to be cultivating into several branches,
to which, being word-mongers, they give all sorts of sesquipedalian
names, such as comparative linguistics, comparative psychology, com-
parative mythology, and so forth. To give you an idea of the temer-
ity of these pseudo-scientists, let me tell you that one of them, Professor
Max Miiller, of Oxford who is, of course, a German at one time
undertook to account for the monotheism of the Jewish race by a
peculiarity of Semitic speech. It is even whispered that he and others,
years ago, evolved $he whole city of Troy, with all its houses and

i 5 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

walls, the heroes within it, with their wives and children, as well as
the Greek warriors and their ships, without it everything, including
the Trojan horse and what it contained from a parcel of solar myths,
demonstrating to their own satisfaction that all these persons and
things were, at bottom, nothing more than "objectivations" of forms
and laws of speech. As was to be expected, this fine theory came to
grief when Schliemann appeared with a pickaxe and spade. As usual,
the theory collapsed in the presence of the facts. Be that as it may,
there is one thing these scientific pretenders persist in asserting, in
spite of all their past discomfitures : that more than three fourths of
the controversies in theology and metaphysics have had their rise in
the ignorance of the fathers of the Church, and of mediaeval and
modern scholastics, of the results brought to light in these new-fangled
sciences. Unfortunately, when I was less old and waiy than I am
now, I fell in with these " paradoxers," some of whom I knew to be
men of great learning, and believed to be persons of thorough earnest-
ness of purpose. To my astonishment I found two mathematicians
among them Hermann Grassmann and Franz Woepcke. I had read
with some difficulty, but, as I thought, with reasonable grasp of his
meaning, the " Ausdehnungslehre " (since supplemented by a new
treatise under nearly the same title, and a number of articles in
Crelle's and Borchardt's " Journal ") of Grassmann ; and I had at-
tempted to read some of the writings of Woej^cke, though without
success, because he went far beyond my depth. But I got an impres-
sion that both had things to say in mathematics, at least that were
worth knowing ; and inferred that there must be sense and jmrpose
also in their linguistic endeavors. In this way I became interested,
and gradually caught the spirit of the comparative linguists and my-
cologists by contagion. And so it came to pass that, after a while, I
asked myself this question : " If the results of these sciences are avail-
able for the solution of the perplexities of the metaphysicians, why
may they not also throw some light on the nature of our perplexities
in physics ? ' : So far as I could learn, no one had attempted an orderly
and systematic answer to this question, although (as is not unusual in
cases of this sort) there was a considerable amount of scattered mate-
rial ready to the hand of whomsoever should undertake the work.
Under these circumstances, I was fool-hardy enough to make an at-
tempt myself, the result being my poor little book. And now I con-
fess I am not a little mortified at being informed that I am a " learned
and able " idiot ; and I derive but scant comfort from the assurance
that my mental predicament may be accounted for on the theory of
contagion, and that the hypothesis of congenital imbecility may be
avoided.

But it is time to doff my Gerund ian robes and to cease apostro-
phizing the familiars, for I have things to say which ought to be said
in all earnestness and sobriety. I am about to examine Professor

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. 153

Newcomb's animadversions on my chapters on the kinetic theory of
gases and transcendental geometry. On the former he expatiates as
follows :

For the benefit of the non-scientific reader we may say that there is no
theory of modern physics, the processes supposed by which are invisible to di-
rect vision, which is more thoroughly established than this. It explains with
the utmost simplicity and without introducing any but the best known prop-
erties of molecules, a great number of diverse phenomena, seemingly incapable
of explanation in any other way. The only objection of the author which we
can completely understand is that the theory in question i. e., the kinetic theory
of gases- seems to him incompatible with his own favorite doctrine that mole-
cules are inelastic. Should he have any hesitation in pitting his a priori idea
against so widely received a theory, it should relieve him to know that the sup-
posed antagonism arises only from his own misapprehension. No elasticity is
assigned the molecules in the Tcinetic theory, but only an insuperable, repulsive
force which causes the molecules to repel each other when they are brought suffi-
ciently near together. The reader who has any interest in following the author
in his attempt to show that Maxwell and his colaborers were guilty of a long
series of fallacies and errors in attempting to prove the theory in question, may
read the chapter, as an abstract is impossible.

So " no elasticity is assigned to the molecules in the kinetic the-
ory." Well, that is startling news indeed ! I hope it has been con-
veyed to Sir William Thomson, who at latest accounts was still en-
gaged in the arduous, but, as we are now informed by Professor
Newcomb, utterly useless study of vortex-rings, which he hopes to
make available as substitutes for elastic atoms or ultimate molecules.
At the last meeting of the British Association Sir William Thomson
read a paper " On the Average Pressure due to the Impulse of Vortex-
Rings on a Solid," of which an abstract is published in "Nature"
for May 12, 1881 (vol. xxiv, pp. 47, 48). In this paper Sir William
says :

The pressure exerted by a gas composed of vortex-atoms is exactly the
same as is given by the ordinary kinetic theory, which regards the atoms as hard
elastic particles.

I do not' deem it necessary to multiply quotations from the writings
of other scientific men in support of my statement that the kinetic
theory of gases can not dispense with the assumption of the elasticity
of ultimate- molecules. No intelligent reader who has glanced at page
42 of my book can be in any doubt as to what is taught on the subject
by the founders and promoters of the theory in question. But I will
add one citation, because it is from a book to which I shall have occa-
sion to refer for another purpose. The most thorough mathematical
treatise on the kinetic theory of gases, indorsed as such by Clerk
Maxwell, is the well-known little book of Henry William Watson. It
is in the form of propositions ; and the very first words of the first
proposition are these :

i 5 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A very great number of smooth, elastic spheres, equal in every respect, are
in motion within a region of space of a given volume, and therefore occasionally
impinge upon each other with various degrees of relative velocity, and in various
directions.

The italics in this passage, as well as in all past and future quota-
tions, are mine.

In justice to Professor Newcomb, however, we must look at his
entire sentence, which is this : " No elasticity is assigned to the mole-
cules in the kinetic theory, but only an insuperable, repulsive force,
which causes the molecules to repel each other when they are brought
sufficiently near together.'''' This information, Professor Newcomb
hopes, will "relieve me." I am indeed relieved ! AVhat the learned
jDrofessor tells me in the last part of his sentence certainly simplifies
matters to the last degree. All that needs be assigned to the mole-
cules is an "insuperable repulsive force." Such a force is the greatest
convenience for the physicist that can possibly be devised ; it not only
effects a simple and satisfactory solution of the difficulties set forth in
my fourth and eighth chapters, but it enables us at once to get over
every other difficulty that may be suggested. It is singular that Sir
Isaac Newton did not understand this when he was distressed about
the mechanism of gravitation ; for, obviously, all that is required to
explain it is to assign to the molecules an attractive force. Sir Isaac's
ignorance is all the more remarkable because, coming to think of it, I
now recollect that the philosophy of which Professor Newcomb is the
able exponent was very clearly set forth, just fourteen years before
the appearance of Newton's "Principia," in a profound metaphysical
treatise published by one Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (otherwise called
Moliere) under the somew T hat whimsical title " Le Malade Imaginaire."
Toward the close of that great work (w r hich is in the form of dia-
logues), one of the interlocutors, Bachelierus, philosophizes as follows :

"Mihi a docto doctore
Domandatur causam et rationem quare
Opium facit dormire.
A quoi respondeo
Quia est in eo
Virtus dormitiva
Cujus est natura
Sensus assoupire."

Of course, we are not to be embarrassed by anything John Ber-
noulli has written about " insuperable forces " as mathematical or phys-
ical, functions ; nor is it worth while to be disturbed by considerations
respecting the effect of their assumption upon the doctrine of the con-
servation of energy.

Professor Newcomb's indignation at my treatment of the kinetic
theory of gases is very great indeed. " There is no theory of modern
physics," he says, " the processes supposed by which are invisible to

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. i 55

direct vision, which is more thoroughly established than this. It ex-
plains with the utmost simplicity, and without introducing any but the
best-known properties of molecules, a great number of diverse phenom-
ena seemingly incapable of explanation in any other icay." Now, it
is a great pity that these glad tidings did not reach Professor Clerk
Maxwell before he was laid to rest in his early grave. They would
certainly have been a great comfort to him, and possibly might have
prolonged his life. For there is reason to suspect that in his latter
days he arrived at conclusions respecting the kinetic theory of gases
which bear a strange resemblance to my own. Being, not a scientific
dogmatist, but an honest and candid investigator in search of truth, he
came to see with ever-increasing clearness that the difficulties of his
favorite theory beset not only its fundamental assumptions, but also
their inevitable consequences, especially in their bearings upon the
theory of heat. After the appearance of Watson's treatise already
adverted to, on the 26th day of July, 1877, he published in "Nature"
(vol. xvi, No. 404) a review of it, in which he considered the signifi-
cance of Mr. Watson's propositions in connection with certain matters
discussed on pages 97, 99, and 127 of my book. And thereupon he
made this declaration (" Nature," vol. xvi, p. 245) :

The clear way in which Mr. Watson has demonstrated these propositions
leaves us no escape from the terrible generality of his results. Some of these, no
doubt, are very satisfactory to us in our present state of opinion about the con-
stitution of bodies, but there are others which are likely to startle us out of our
complacency, and perhaps ultimately to drive us out of all the hypotheses in
tchich hitherto we have found refuge into that state of conscious ignorance which
is the prelude to every real advance in knowledge.

I hope, by-the-way, that this last remark of the great scientist will
be pondered by those who complain that, after demolishing, as they
imagine, all current physical theories, I leave them in the midst of ruins,
and do not at once present them with a golden key for unlocking all
the mysteries of the universe, or, like Puck, in " Midsummer-Night's
Dream," " put a [theoretical] girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes."

Before I leave this subject, I take the liberty of quoting another
passage from the same article, which Professor Newcomb, if he knows
anything about the discussions to which the kinetic theory of gases
has given rise, will find instructive. Speaking of Boltzmann's attempt
to reconcile the elasticity of atoms with their rigidity by increasing
their co-efficients of elasticity ad infinitum, so as to make them practi-
cally rigid a supposition also developed in an essay of Hugo Fritsch
in Konigsberg, entitled " Stoss zweier Massen unter der Yorausset-
zung ihrer Undurchdringlichkeit behandelt," which does not seem to
have fallen under Professor Maxwell's notice (and, I may add, a sup-
position of which Professor Newconib's "insuperable force" may

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be a vague reminiscence) Maxwell says ("Nature," vol. xvi, pp.
245, 246) :

But, before we accept this somewhat promising hypothesis, let us try to con-
struct a rigid-elastic body. It will not do to increase the co-efficients of elasticity
without limit till the body becomes practically rigid. For such a body, though
apparently rigid, is in reality capable of internal vibrations, and these of an
infinite variety of types, so that the body has an infinite number of degrees of
freedom.

The same objection applies to all atoms constructed of continuous, non-rigid
matter, such as the vortex-atoms of Thomson. Such atoms would soon convert
all their energy of agitation into internal energy, and the specific heat of a sub-
stance composed of them would be infinite.

A truly rigid-elastic body is one whose encounters with similar bodies take
place as if both were elastic, but which is not capable of being set into a state of
internal vibration. "We must take a perfectly rigid body and endow it with the
power of repelling all other bodies, but only when they come within a very
short distance from its surface, but then so strongly that under no circumstances
whatever can any body come into actual contact with it.

This appears to be the only constitution we can imagine for a rigid-elastic
body. And, now that we have got it, the best thing we can do is to get rid of
the rigid nucleus altogether, and substitute for it an atom of Boscovich a math-
ematical point endowed with mass and with powers of acting at a distance on
other atoms.

But Boltzmann's molecules are not absolutely rigid. He admits that they
vibrate after collisions, and that their vibrations are of several different types,
as the spectroscope tells us. But still he tries to make us believe that these
vibrations are of small importance as regards the principal part of the motion of
the molecules. He compares them to billiard-balls, which, when they strike
each other, vibrate for a short time, but soon give up the energy of their
vibration to the air, which carries far and wide the sound of the click of
the balls.

In like manner, the light emitted by the molecules shows that their internal
vibrations after each collision are quickly given up to the luminiferous ether;
If we were to suppose that at ordinary temperatures the collisions are not severe
enough to produce any internal vibrations, and that these occur only at temper-
atures like that of the electric spark, at which we can not make measurements
of specific heat, we might, perhaps, reconcile the spectroscopic results with what
we know about specific heat.

But the fixed position of the bright lines of a gas shows that the vibrations are
isochronous, and therefore that the forces which they call into play vary directly
as the relative displacements, and, if this be the character of the forces, all im-
pacts, however slight, will produce vibrations. Besides this, even at ordinary
temperatures, in certain gases, such as iodine gas and nitrous acid, absorption
bands exist, which indicate that the molecules are set into internal vibration by
the incident light. The molecules, therefore, are capable, as Boltzmann points
out, of exchanging energy with the ether. But we can not force the ether into
the service of our theory so as to take from the molecules their energy of inter-
nal vibration, and give it back to them as energy of translation. It can not in
any way interfere with the ratio between these two kinds of energy which Boltz-
mann himself has established. All it can do is to take up its own due propor-
tion of energy according to the number of its degrees of freedom. We leave it

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. 157

to the authors of "The Unseen Universe " to follow out the consequences of this
statement.

I may safely take it for granted after this, I presume, that, while
Professor Newcomb may have a vocation for expounding and defend-
ing the kinetic theory of gases, he has no special call, as he supposes,
to stand up for Clerk Maxwell and his opinions.

It is hardly necessary to say that Professor Newcomb does not
honor my objections to the kinetic theory of gases with any notice or
attempt at refutation. He observes that " an abstract of them is im-
possible," which is to be regretted, for, if he had undertaken to give
us one, we should undoubtedly have learned some noteworthy things.
The task of making such an abstract does not appear to be very dif-
ficult. What I insist on is, that every valid physical theory is essen-
tially a simplification and not a complication, a reduction of the number
of unrelated facts which it undertakes to account for, and not a mere
substitution of many arbitrary assumptions of unknown and unverifiable
facts for a few known facts that is to say, speaking in the language
of mathematics, that every true physical theory is in effect a reduction
of the number of independent variables representing the phenomena
to be explained. And I show that the kinetic theory of gases not only
fails to satisfy this requirement, but is a complete reversal of a legiti-
mate scientific procedure. This is the sense of the passage which Pro-
fessor Newcomb parades before the unwary reader, whom he ought to
have shocked still more with my horrible suggestion (which I now
deliberately repeat) that a gas is in its nature a simpler thing than a
solid, and that no attempt to account for its properties by taking those
of a solid as a basis and making arbitrary additions to them is likely
ever to succeed.

It is not a little instructive to note the character of sacredness as-
cribed by persons of Professor Newcomb's frame of mind to dominant
physical theories, and the violence with which they repel every attempt
to point out their defects. My reviewer in " The Critic " is almost be-
side himself after reading my " assault " on " that magnificent fabric
of science, the undulatory theory of light and heat." Before he pelts
me again with his missiles, he will do well to look and see who is
standing at the place to which he directs them. There is at Harvard
University a most learned and laborious scientist whose merits as an
original investigator are at least equal, if not superior, to his inestima-
ble services as an expounder of scientific truth, and the extent of whose
attainments is no less conspicuous in his memoirs and books than the
clearness of his intellect Professor Josiah P. Cooke, Jr. In May,
1878, Professor Cooke published a lecture on the radiometer in this
journal (' f Popular Science Monthly "), in which he had occasion to
speak of the undulatory theory of light and the luminiferous ether.
And there (pages 11, 12) we find this language :

But turn now to tl^e astronomers, and learn what they have to tell us in re-

i 5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gard to the assumed luminiferous ether through which all this energy is supposed
to be transmitted. Our planet is rushing in its orbit around the sun at an aver-
age rate of over 1,000 miles a minute, and makes its annual journey of some
550,000,000 miles in 365 days, 6 hours, 9 seconds, and -^ of a second. Mark the
tenths ; for astronomical observations are so accurate that, if the length of the
year varied permanently by the tenth of a second, we should know it; and you can
readily understand that, if there were a medium in space which offered as much
resistance to the motion of the earth as would gossamer threads to a race-horse,
the planet could never come up to time, year after year, to the tenth of a second.
How, then, can we save our theory, by which we set so much, and rightly,
because it has helped us so effectively in studying Nature ? If we may be allowed
such an extravagant solecism, let us suppose that the engineer of our previous
illustration was the hero of a fairy-tale. He has built a mill, set a steam-engine
in the basement, arranged his spindles above, and is connecting the pulleys by
the usual belts, when some stern necessity requires him to transmit all the energy
with cobwebs. Of course, a good fairy comes to his aid, and what does she do?
Simply makes the cobwebs indefinitely strong. So the physicists, not to be out-
done by any fairies, make their ether indefinitely elastic, and their theory lands
them just here, with a medium filling all space, thousands of times more elastic
than steel, and thousands on thousands of times less dense than hydrogen gas.
There must be a fallacy somewhere, and I strongly suspect it is to be found in
our ordinary materialistic notions of causation, which involve the old metaphys-
ical dogma, "nulla actio in distans" and which in our day have culminated in
the famous apothegm of the German materialist, " Kein Phosphor, Icein Gedanke"

If my reviewer will compare this passage with what I have said on
the undulatory theory, he will, perhaps, discover that my observations
are at least proof against the charge of frivolity and irrelevancy.
And it is not necessary to add, I hope, that it is no more my intention
than that of Professor Cooke to call upon the physicist to throw
away the undulatory theory as a working hypothesis before he has a
better one.

I now come to Professor NTewcomb's reflections on my discussion
of transcendental geometry. Here are some of them :

In considering the author's work in detail, we begin with the subject of tran-
scendental geometry, or hyper-geometry, as it is sometimes called. We do this
because his criticisms are so readily disposed of. He speaks of the "new geo-
metrical faith " ; of the " dispute " between the " disciples " of the transcendental
or pangeometrical school and the "adherents" of the old geometrical faith ; of
the "champions" of the old geometrical creed; of the "doctrine" of hyper-
space. To the refutation of these supposed erroneous doctrines he devotes no
less than sixty-two pages. Now, all his criticism is founded on an utter mis-
apprehension of the scope and meaning of what he is criticising. We make bold
to say that no mathematician has ever pretended to have the slightest evidence
that space has four dimensions, or was in any way different from what is taught
in our familiar system of geometry. He has not been an adherent or champion,
or held any doctrine on the subject. Now and then it is barely possible that a
physicist might be found Zollner, for instance suggesting such a thing in a
moment of aberration. But the great mass of men in their senses remain unaf-
fected by any such idea.

SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. 159

Again :

Whatever we may say of the utility of such investigations, one thing is cer-
tain they are perfectly harmless. At the very worst they can do no more

injury to scientific conceptions than the careless author of an elementary algebra
will do his pupil by loading an hypothetical baker's wagon with more loaves of
bread than the baker could get into it. If Judge Stallo had taken up a book on
algebra, found a problem the answer to which required five thousand loaves
of bread to be carried by a single baker, and had devoted sixty-two pages to an
elaborate statistical and mechanical proof that no wagon could possibly hold
that number of loaves, his criticisms would have been as valuable and perti-
nent as those which he devotes to his imaginary school of pangeometry.

After reading these passages I am sorely perplexed. When Pro-
fessor Newcomb penned them he had before him my extracts (in a
note to page 211 of my book) from the Exeter address of Professor
Sylvester, embodying a reference to the speculations of Professor Clif-
ford, and another independent citation from Clifford's writings on page
213. And, being himself a writer on geometry of more than three
dimensions, he can hardly have been ignorant of the many other pan-
geometrical speculations respecting the necessity of assuming the ex-
istence of a fourth dimension for the purpose of explaining certain
optic and magnetic phenomena. There are mathematicians and phys-
icists in Europe excellent mathematicians and physicists, too who
maintai