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HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

LIBRA

OF THE

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY.

ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MIO NY ELLY.

EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

VOL. XXXV.

MAY TO OCTOBER, 1889.

Jt NEW YORK :

Pear PLE TON-AND COMPANY,
1, 8, anD 5 BOND STREET.
1889.

Vie oe
ihos A100 fu
hay. ON CINe.

RUDOLF J. E. CLAUSIUS.

THE

BoP be whi NCE
IVE OLIN, Te EW

MAY, 1889.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.
VI.—DIABOLISM AND HYSTERIA.

By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H. D.,
EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

PART I.

ie: the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science
in destroying the idea that individual lunatics are “ possessed
by devils,’—in establishing the truth that insanity is physical
disease,—and in substituting for superstitious cruelties toward the
insane a treatment mild, kindly, and based upon ascertained facts,

The Satan who had so long troubled individual men and
women thus became extinct; henceforth his fossil remains only
were preserved; they may still be found in the sculptures and
storied windows of medizeval churches, in sundry liturgies, and
in popular forms of speech.

But another Satan still lived—a Satan who wrought on a
larger scale—who took possession of multitudes. For, after this
triumph of the scientific method, there still remained a class of
mental disorders which could not be treated in asylums, which
were not yet fully explained by science, and which therefore
gave arguments of much apparent strength to the supporters of
the old theological view: these were the epidemics of “ diabolic
possession ” which for so many centuries afflicted various parts of
the world.

When obliged, then, to retreat from their old position in
regard to individual cases of insanity, the more conservative the-
ologians promptly referred to these epidemics as beyond the
domain of science—as clear evidences of the power of Satan; and,
as the basis of this view, they cited from the Old Testament fre-

quent references to witchcraft, and, from the New Testament, St.
VOL. Xxxv.—1

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Paul’s question as to the possible bewitching of the Galatians,
and Simon the magician’s bewitching of the people of Samaria.

Naturally, such leaders had a large body of adherents in that
class—so large in all times—who find that

“ To follow foolish precedents and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think.” *

It must be owned that their case seemed strong. Though in
all human history, so far as it is closely known, these phenomena
had appeared, and though every classical scholar could recall the
wild orgies of the priests, priestesses, and devotees of Dionysus
and Cybele, and the epidemic of wild rage which took its name
from some of these, the great fathers and doctors of the Church
had left a complete answer to any skepticism based on these facts ;
in their view the gods of the heathen were devils—these examples,
then, could be transformed into a powerful argument for diabolic
possession. t

But it was more especially the epidemics of diabolism in
medizeval and modern times which gave strength to the theologi-
cal view, and from these I shall present a chain of typical exam-
ples.
As early as the eleventh century we find clear accounts of dia-
bolical possession taking the form of epidemics of raving, jump-
ing, dancing, and convulsions—the greater number of the sufferers
being women and children. In a time so rude, accounts of these
manifestations would rarely receive permanent record; but it is
very significant that even at the beginning of the eleventh cent-
ury we hear of them at the extremes of EKurope—in northern
Germany and in southern Italy. At various times during that
century we get additional glimpses of these exhibitions, but it is
not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that we have a
renewal of them ona large scale. In 1237, at Erfurt, a jumping
disease and dancing mania began and afflicted a hundred chil-
dren, many of whom died in consequence; it spread through the
whole region, and fifty years later we hear of it in Holland.

But it was the last quarter of the fourteenth century that saw
its greatest manifestations. There was much reason for them.
It was a time of oppression, famine, and pestilence: the crusading
spirit, having run its course, had been succeeded by a wild, mysti-
cal fanaticism; the most frightful plague in human history—the

* As to eminent physicians, finding a stumbling-block in hysterical mania, see Kirch-
hof’s article, page 351, cited in previous chapter.

+ As to the Menads, Corybantes, and the disease “Corybantism,” see, for accessible
and adequate statements, Smith’s “ Dictionary of Antiquities” and Lewis and Short’s “ Lex-
icon”; also reference in Hecker’s “Essays upon the Black Death and the Dancing Mania.”
For more complete discussion, see Semelaigne, ‘“ L’Aliénation mentale dans PAntiquité,”
Paris, 1869.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 3

black death—was depopulating whole regions, reducing cities to
villages, and filling Europe with that strange mixture of devotion
and dissipation which we always note during the prevalence of
deadly epidemics on a large scale.

It was in this ferment of religious, moral, and social disease
that there broke out in 1374, in the lower Rhine region, the great-
est perhaps of all manifestations of “ possession ”—an epidemic of
dancing, jumping, and wild raving.

The cures resorted to seemed on the whole to intensify the
disease; the afflicted continued dancing for hours, until they fell
in utter exhaustion. Some declared that they felt as if bathed in
blood, some saw visions, some prophesied.

Into this mass of “ possession ” there was also clearly poured a
current of scoundrelism which increased the disorder.

The immediate origin of these manifestations seems to have
been the wild revels of St. John’s Day. In those revels sundry
old heathen ceremonies had been perpetuated, but under a nomi-
nally Christian form: wild Bacchanalian dances had thus become
a semi-religious ceremonial. The religious and social atmosphere
was propitious to the development of the germs of diabolic influ-
ence vitalized in these orgies, and they were scattered far and
wide through large tracts of the Netherlands and Germany, and
especially through the whole region of the Rhine. At Cologne
we hear of five hundred afflicted at once, at Metz of eleven hun-
dred dancers in the streets, at Strasburg of yet more painful mani-
festations ; and from the greater cities they spread through the
villages and rural districts.

The great majority of the sufferers were women, but there
were many men, especially of those whose occupations were seden-
tary. Remedies were tried upon a great scale—exorcisms first,
but especially pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Vitus: the exor-
cisms accomplished so little that popular faith in them grew
small, and the main effect of the pilgrimages seemed to be to
increase the disorder by subjecting great crowds to the diabolic
contagion. Yet another curative means was seen in the great
flagellant processions—vast crowds of men, women, and children
who wandered through the country, screaming, praying, beating
themselves with whips, imploring the divine mercy and the
intervention of St. Vitus. Most fearful of all the great attempts
at cure were the persecutions of the Jews. A feeling had evi-
dently spread among the people at large that the Almighty was
filled with wrath at the toleration of his enemies, and might be
propitiated by their destruction: in the great cities and villages
of Germany, then, the Jews were plundered, tortured, and mur-
dered by tens of thousands. No doubt that, in all this, greed was
united with fanaticism, but the argument of fanaticism was sim-

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ple and cogent—the dart which pierced the breast of Israel at that
time was winged and pointed from its own sacred books: the
Biblical argument was the same used in various ages to promote
persecution, and this was that the wrath of the Almighty was
stirred against those who tolerated his enemies, and that because
of this toleration the same curse had now come upon Europe
which the prophet Samuel had denounced against Saul for show-
ing mercy to the enemies of Jehovah.

It is but just to say that various popes and kings exerted
themselves to check these cruelties. Although the argument of
Samuel to Saul was used with frightful effect two hundred years
later by a most conscientious pope to spur on the rulers of France
in extirpating the Huguenots, the papacy in the fourteenth cent-
ury stood for mercy to the Jews. But even this intervention
was long without effect; the tide of popular superstition had be-
come too strong to be curbed even by the spiritual and temporal
powers.*

Against this overwhelming current science for many genera-
tions could do nothing. Throughout the whole of the fifteenth
century physicians appeared to shun the whole matter. Occasion-
ally some more thoughtful man ventured to ascribe some phase
of the disease to natural causes, but this was an unpopular doc-
trine, and evidently dangerous to those who developed it.

Yet, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, cases of “ pos-
session ” on a large scale began to be brought within the scope of
medical research ; and the man who led in this evolution of medi-
cal science was Paracelsus. He it was who first made modern
Europe listen for a moment to the idea that these diseases are
inflicted neither by saints nor demons, and that the “dancing
possession ” is simply a form of disease, of which the cure may
be effected by proper remedies and regimen. ;

Paracelsus appears to have escaped any serious interference—
it took some time, perhaps, for the theological leaders to under-
stand that he had “let a new idea loose upon the planet”; but
they soon understood it, and their course was simple. For about
fifty years the new idea was well kept under, but in 1561 another
physician, John Wier, of Cleves, having revived it, he was ruined
and narrowly escaped with his life.

* See Wellhausen, article “Israel,” in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” ninth edition ;
also the reprint of it in the “History of Israel,” London, 1885, p. 546. On the general
subject of the demoniacal epidemics, see Isensee, “ Geschichte der Medicin,” vol. i, pp. 260
et seq. ; also Hecker’s essay. As to the history of Saul, as a curious landmark in the general
development of the subject, see “The Case of Saul, showing that his Disorder was a Real
Spiritual Possession,” by Granville Sharp, London, 1807, passim. As to the citation of
Saul’s case by the reigning pope to spur on the French kings against the Huguenots, I
shall give a line of authorities in my chapter on “The Church and International Law.” See
also Maury, “La Magie et l’Astrologie dans l’Antiquite et au Moyen Age.”

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 5

In the following century the Protestants of Holland were no
less severe toward Balthasar Bekker, an eminent divine of the
Reformed Church, who doubted some of the statements regarding
possession.*

Although the new idea was thus resisted, it must have taken
some hold upon thoughtful men, for we find that in the second
half of the same century the St. Vitus’s dance and forms of de-
moniacal possession akin to it gradually diminished in frequency
and were sometimes treated as diseases. In the seventeenth cent-
ury, so far as the north of Europe is concerned, these displays of
“possession” on a great scale had almost entirely ceased; here
and there cases appeared, but there was no longer the wild rage
extending over great districts and afflicting thousands of people.
Yet it was, as we shall see, in this same seventeenth century—in
the last expiring throes of this superstition—that it led to the
worst acts of cruelty.t

While this satanic influence had been exerted on so great a
scale throughout northern Europe, a display strangely like it, yet -
strangely unlike it, had been going on in Italy. There, too, epi-
demics of dancing and jumping seized groups and communities ;
but they were supposed to arise from a physical cause, the theory
being that the bite of a tarantula in some way provoked a super-
natural intervention, of which dancing was the accompaniment
and cure.

In the middle of the sixteenth century Fracastoro made an
evident impression on the leaders of Italian opinion by using
medical means in the cure of the possessed; though it is worthy
of note that the medicine which he applied successfully was such
as we now know could not by any direct effects of its own accom-
plish any cure—whatever effect it exerted was wrought upon the
imagination of the sufferer. This form of “possession,” then,
passed out of the supernatural domain, and became known as
“tarantism.” Though it continued much longer than the corre-
sponding manifestations in northern Europe, by the beginning of
the eighteenth century it had nearly disappeared ; and, though spe-
cial manifestations of it on a small scale break out occasionally,
even in these days, its main survival is the “tarantella,” which
' the traveler sees danced at Naples as a catchpenny assault upon
his purse.{

* For Paracelsus, see ‘Isensee,” vol. i, chap. xi; also Pettigrew, “Superstitions con-
nected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery” (London, 1844, introduct-
ory chapter. For Wier, see authorities given in my previous chapter. For Bekker, see cita-
tions in my chapter on “ Witchcraft.”

+ As to this diminution of wide-spread epidemic in the seventeenth century, see citations
from Schenk von Grafenberg and in Hecker, as above ; also Horst.

¢ See Hecker’s “Epidemics of the Middle Ages,” pp. 87-104; also extracts and ob-

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But, long before this form of “possession” had begun to disap-
pear, there had arisen new manifestations, apparently more inex-
plicable. As the first great epidemics of dancing and jumping
had their main origin in a religious ceremony, so various new
forms had their principal source in what were supposed to be cen-
ters of religious life—in the convents, and more especially in those
for women.

Out of many examples we may take a few as typical.

In the fifteenth century the chroniclers assure us that an in-
mate of a German nunnery having been seized with a passion for
biting her companions, her mania spread until most, if not all,
her fellow-nuns began to bite each other; and that this passion
for biting passed from convent to convent into other parts of
Germany, into Holland, and even across the Alps into Italy.

So, too, in a French convent, when a nun began to mew like a
cat, others began mewing, and the desire spread and was only
checked by severe measures.*

In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation gave new
force to witchcraft persecutions in Germany. The new Church
endeavored to show that in zeal and power she exceeded the old.
But in France influential opinion seemed not so favorable to these
forms of diabolical influence, especially after the publication of
Montaigne’s “ Hssays,” in 1580, had spread a skeptical atmosphere
over many leading minds.

In 1588 occurred in France a case which indicates the growth
of this skeptical tendency even in the higher regions of the French
Church. In that year Martha Brossier, a country girl, was,it was
claimed, possessed of the devil. The young woman was to all ap-
pearance under direct satanic influence. She roamed about, beg-
ging that the demon might be cast out of her, and her impreca-
tions and blasphemies brought consternation wherever she went.
Myth-making began on a large scale; stories grew and spread.
The capuchin monks thundered from the pulpits throughout
France regarding these proofs of the power of Satan. The alarm
_ spread, until at last even jovial, skeptical King Henry IV was
disquieted, and the reigning pope was asked to take measures to
ward off the evil.

Fortunately, there then sat in the episcopal chair of Angers a
prelate who had apparently imbibed something of Montaigne’s
skepticism—Miron; and, when the case was brought before him,
he submitted it to the most time-honored of sacred tests. He first
brought into the girl’s presence two bowls, one containing holy
water, the other ordinary spring-water, but allowed her to draw a
servations in Carpenter’s ‘“ Mental Physiology,” London, 1888, pp. 8312-315; also Mauds-

ley, ‘“‘ Pathology of Mind,” p. 73 and following.
* See citation from Zimmermann’s “ Solitude,” in Carpenter, pp. 34, 314.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 7

false inference regarding the contents of each: the result was that
at the presentation of the holy water the devils were perfectly
calm, but when tried with the ordinary water they threw Martha
into convulsions.

The next experiment made by the shrewd bishop was to simi-
lar purpose. He commanded loudly that a book of exorcisms
should be brought, and, under a previous arrangement, his attend-
ants brought him a copy of Virgil. No sooner had the bishop
begun to read the first line of the “ Ajneid” than the devils threw
Martha into convulsions. On another occasion a Latin dictionary,
which she had reason to believe was a book of exorcisms, produced
a similar effect upon the devils.

Although the good bishop was thereby led to pronounce the
whole matter a mixture of insanity and imposture, the capuchin
monks denounced this view as godless. They insisted that these
tests really proved the presence of Satan, showing his cunning in
covering up the proofs of his existence. The people at large sided
with their preachers, and Martha was taken to Paris, where vari-,
ous exorcisms were tried, and the Parisian mob became as devoted
to her as they had been twenty years before to the murderers of
the Huguenots,—as they became two centuries later to Robes-
pierre,—and as they are at the present moment to General Bou-
langer.

But Bishop Miron was not the only skeptic. The Cardinal de
Gondi, Archbishop of Paris, charged the most eminent physicians
of the city, and among them Riolan, to report upon the case.
Various examinations were made, and the verdict was that Martha
was simply a hysterical impostor. Thanks, then, to medical sci-
ence, and to these two enlightened ecclesiastics who summoned its
aid, what fifty or a hundred years earlier would have been the
center of a wide-spread epidemic of possession was isolated, and
hindered from producing a national calamity.*

But during the seventeenth century a theological reaction set
in, not only in France but in all parts of the Christian world, and
the belief in diabolic possession, though certainly dying, flickered
up hectic, hot, and spiteful through the whole century. In 1611
we have a typical case at Aix. An epidemic of possession having
occurred there, Gauffridi, a man of note, was burned at the stake
as the cause of the trouble. Michaelis, one of the priestly exor-
cists, declared that he had driven out sixty-five hundred devils
from one of the possessed. Similar epidemics occurred in various
parts of the world.+

Twenty years later a far more striking case occurred at Lou-
dun, in western France, where a convent of Ursuline nuns was
“afflicted by demons.”

* See Calmeil, “La Folie,’ tome i, livre 8, c. 2. ° + See “ Dagron,” chap. il.

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The convent was filled mainly with ladies of noble birth, who,
not having sufficient dower to secure husbands, had—according
to the common method of the time—been made nuns, without any
special regard to their feelings.

It is not difficult to understand that such an imprisonment of
a multitude of women of different ages would produce some wo-
ful effects. Any reader of Manzoni’s “ Promessi Sposi,” with its
wonderful picture of a noble lady kept in a convent against her
will, may have some idea of the rage and despair which must
have inspired such assemblages in which pride, pauperism, and
the suppression of the instincts of humanity wrought a fearful
work.

What this work was is to be seen throughout the middle
ages; but it is especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth cent-
uries that we find it frequently taking shape in outbursts of
diabolic possession.*

In this case at Loudun, the usual evidences of satanic influ-
ence appeared. One after another of the inmates fell into convul-
sions; some showed physical strength apparently supernatural;
some a keenness of perception quite as surprising; many howled
forth blasphemies and obscenities.

Near the convent dwelt a priest—Urbain Grandier—noted for
his brilliancy as a writer and preacher, but careless in his way of
living. Several of the nuns had evidently conceived a passion for
him, and in their wild rage and despair dwelt upon his name.

In the same city, too, were sundry ecclesiastics and laymen
with whom Grandier had been engaged in various petty neigh-
borhood quarrels, and some of these men held the main control of
the convent.

Out of this mixture of “ possession ” within the convent and
malignity without it, came a charge that Grandier had bewitched
the young women.

The Bishop of Poictiers took up the matter. A trial was
held, and it was noted that, whenever Grandier appeared, the
“ possessed ” screamed, shrieked, and showed every sign of dia-
bolic influence. Grandier fought desperately, and appealed to the
Archbishop of Bordeaux, De Sourdis. The archbishop ordered a
more careful examination, and, on separating the nuns from each
other and from certain monks who had been bitterly hostile to
Grandier, such glaring discrepancies were found in their testi-
mony that the whole accusation was brought to naught.

But the enemies of Satan and of Grandier did not rest.

* On monasteries, as centers of “ possession,” and hysterical epidemics, see Figuier,
“Te Merveilleux,” page 40 and following; also Calmeil, Lingin, Kirchhof, Maudsley,
and others. On similar results from excitement at Protestant meetings in Scotland and
camp-meetings in England and America, see Hecker’s “‘ Essay,” concluding chapters.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 9g

Through their efforts Cardinal Richelieu, who appears to have
had an old grudge against Grandier, sent a representative, Lau-
bardemont, to make another investigation. Most frightful scenes
were now enacted; the whole convent resounded more loudly
than ever with shrieks, groans, howling, and cursing, until finally
Grandier, though even in the agony of torture he refused to con-
fess the crimes that his enemies suggested, was hanged and
burned.

From this center the epidemic spread; multitudes of women
and men were affected by it in various convents. Several of the
great cities of the south and west of France came under the same
influence ; the “ possession ” went on for several years longer, and
then gradually died out, though scattered cases have occurred
from that day to this.*

A few years later we have an even more striking example
among the French Protestants. The Huguenots, who had taken
refuge in the mountains of the Cevennes to escape persecution,
being pressed more and more by the cruelties of Louis XIV,
began to show signs of a high degree of religious exaltation.
Assembled for worship in wild and desert places, an epidemic
broke out, ascribed by them to the Almighty, but by their oppo-
nents to Satan. Men, women, and children preached and prophe-
sied. Large assemblies were seized with trembling. Some under-
went the most terrible tortures without showing any signs of
suffering. Marshal de Villiers, who was sent against them, de-
clared that he saw a town in which all the women and girls, with-
out exception, were possessed of the devil, and ran leaping and
screaming through the streets.

Cases like this, inexplicable to the science of the time, gave
renewed strength to the theological view.t

Toward the end of the same century similar manifestations
began to appear on a large scale in America.

The life of the early colonists in New England was such as to
give rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession
brought from the mother-country. Surrounded by the dark pine
forests; having as their neighbors Indians, who were more than
suspected of being children'of Satan; harassed by wild beasts
apparently sent by the powers of evil to torment the elect; with
no varied literature to while away the long winter evenings;
with few amusements save neighborhood quarrels; dwelling
intently on every text of Scripture which supported their gloomy

* Among the many statements of Grandier’s case, one of the best in English may be
found in Trollope’s “Sketches from French History” (London, 1878). See also Bazin,
“Louis XIII.”

+ See Bersot, “‘Mesmer et le Magnétisme animal” (third edition, Paris, 1864, pp. 95
et seq.).

10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

theology, and adopting its most literal interpretation—it is not
strange that ideas regarding the darker side of nature were rap-
idly developed.*

The fear of witchcraft, thus developed, received a powerful
stimulus from the treatises of learned men. Such works, coming
from Europe, which was at that time filled with the superstition,
acted powerfully upon conscientious preachers and were brought
by them to bear upon the people at large. Naturally, then,
throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century we find
scattered cases of diabolical possession. At Boston, Springfield,
Hartford, Groton, and other towns, cases occurred, and here and
there we hear of death-sentences.

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the fruit of
these ideas began to ripen. In the year 1684 Increase Mather pub-
lished his book, “ Remarkable Providences,”’ laying stress upon
diabolical possession and witchcraft. This book, having been sent
over to England, exercised an influence there and came back with
the approval of no less a man than Richard Baxter. By this its
power at home was increased,

In 1688 a poor family in Boston was afflicted by demons. Four
children, the eldest thirteen years of age, began leaping and bark-
ing like dogs, or purring like cats, and complaining of being
pricked, pinched, and cut. An old Irishwoman was finally tried
and executed.

All this produced a deep impression on the mind of a man of
great natural abilities, of most earnest and conscientious desire to
do good in his generation, mixed with pride, vanity, ambition, and
love of power; in short, a typical specimen of the high ecclesias-
tic as he has so often afflicted the earth. This man was Cotton
Mather, the son of Increase Mather, and both father and son gave
all their great powers to deepening and extending this theologi-
cal view as sanctioned by Scripture.

In 1692 began a new outbreak of possession, which is one of
the most instructive in history. The Rev. Samuel Parris was the
minister of the church in Salem. No pope ever had higher ideas
of his own infallibility, no bishop a greater love of ceremony, no
inquisitor a greater passion for prying and spying.t

Before long Mr. Parris had much upon his hands. Many of
his hardy, independent parishioners disliked his ways. Quarrels
arose. Some of the leading men of the congregation were pitted
against him. The previous minister, George Burroughs, had left
the germs of troubles and quarrels, and to these were now added

* For the idea that America before the Pilgrims had been especially given over to
Satan, see the literature of the early Puritan period, and especially the poetry of Wigzles-
worth, treated in Tyler’s “ History of American Literature,” vol. ii, p. 25 et seq.

+ For curious examples of this, see Upham’s “ History of Salem Witchcraft,” vol. i,

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 11

new complications arising from the assumptions of Parris. There
were innumerable wranglings and lawsuits; in fact, all the essen-
tial causes for satanic interference which we saw at work in and
about the monastery at Loudun, and especially the turmoil of a
petty village where there is no intellectual activity, and where
men and women find their chief substitute for it in squabbles—
religious, legal, political, social, and personal.

In this darkened atmosphere thus charged with the germs of
disease it was suddenly discovered that two young girls in the
family of Mr. Parris were possessed of devils; they complained of
being pinched, pricked, and cut, fell into strange spasms and made
strange speeches; showing all the signs of diabolic possession rec-
ognized in the works of experts or handed down by tradition.
The two girls, having been brought by Mr. Parris and others to
tell who had bewitched them, first charged an old Indian woman,
and the poor old Indian husband was led to join in the charge.
This at once afforded new scope for the activity of Mr. Parris.
With his passion for magnifying his office, he immediately began
making a great stir in Salem and in the country round about.
Two magistrates were finally summoned. With them came a
great crowd, and a court was held at the meeting-house. The
scenes which then took place would have been the richest of farces
had they not led to events so tragical. The possessed went into
spasms at the approach of those charged with witchcraft, and
when the poor old men and women attempted to attest their inno-
cence they were overwhelmed with outcries by the possessed,
quotations of Scripture by the ministers, and denunciations by the ©
mob. The mania spread to other children, and one especially—
Ann Putnam, a child of twelve years—showed great precocity and
played a striking part in the performances, Two or three married —
women also, seeing the great attention paid to the afflicted, and
influenced by that epidemic of morbid imitation which science
now recognizes in all such cases, soon became similarly afflicted,
and in their turn made charges against various persons. The In-
dian woman was flogged by her master, Mr. Parris, until she con-
- fessed relations with Satan; and others were forced or deluded
into confession. These hysterical confessions—the results of un-
bearable torture, or the reminiscences of dreams, which had been
prompted by the witch legends and sermons of the period—em-
braced such facts as flying through the air to witch gatherings,
partaking of witch sacraments, signing a book presented by the
devil, and submitting to satanic baptism.

The possessed had begun with charging their possession upon
poor and vagrant old women, but ere long, emboldened by their
success, they attacked higher game, struck at some of the fore-
most people of the region, and did not cease until several of these

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were condemned to death, and every man, woman, and child
brought under a reign of terror. Many fled outright, and one of
the foremost citizens of Salem went constantly armed, and kept
one of his horses saddled in the stable to flee if brought under
accusation.

The hysterical ingenuity of the possessed women grew with
their success. They insisted that they saw devils prompting the
accused to defend themselves in court. Did one of the accused
clasp her hands in despair, the possessed clasped theirs; did the
accused, in appealing to Heaven, make any gesture, the possessed
simultaneously imitated it; did the accused in weariness drop her
head, the possessed dropped theirs, and declared that the witch
was trying to break their necks. The court-room resounded with
groans, shrieks, prayers, and curses; judges, jury, and people were
aghast, and even the accused were sometimes thus led to believe
in their own guilt,

Very striking in all these cases was the mixture of trickery
with frenzy. In most of the madness there was method. Sundry
witches charged by the possessed had been engaged in controversy
with the Salem church people. Others of the accused had quar-
reled with Mr. Parris. Still others had been engaged in old law-
suits against persons more or less connected with the girls. One
of the most fearful charges—which cost the life of a noble and
lovely lady—arose undoubtedly from her better style of dress and
living. Old slumbering neighborhood or personal quarrels bore in
this way a strange fruitage of revenge; for the cardinal doctrine
of a fanatic’s creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God.

Any person daring to hint the slightest distrust of the pro-
ceedings was in danger of being immediately brought under accu-
sation of a league with Satan. Husbands and children were thus
brought to the gallows for daring to disbelieve these charges
against their wives and their mothers. Some of the clergy were
accused for endeavoring to save members of their churches,*

One poor woman was charged with “ giving a look toward the
great meeting-house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered
the house and tore down a part of it.” This cause for the falling
of a bit of poorly nailed wainscoting seemed perfectly satisfactory
to Dr. Cotton Mather, as well as to the judge and jury, and she
was hanged, protesting her innocence. Still another lady, belong-
ing to one of the most respected families of the region, was
charged with the crime of witchcraft. The children were fear-
fully afflicted whenever she appeared near them. It seemed never

* This is admirably brought out by Upham, and the lawyer-like thoroughness with
which he has examined all these hidden springs of the charges is one of the main things
which render his book one of the most valuable contributions to the history and philosophy
of demoniacal possession ever written.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE, 13

to occur to any one that a bitter old feud between the Rev. Mr.
Parris and the family of the accused might have prejudiced the
children, and directed their attention toward the woman. No ac-
count was made of the fact that her life had been entirely blame-
less; and yet, in view of the wretched insufficiency of proof, the
jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. As they brought in this
verdict, all the children began to shriek and scream, until the
court committed the monstrous wrong of causing her to be in-
dicted anew. In order to warrant this, the judge referred to one
perfectly natural and harmless expression made by the woman
when under examination. The jury at last brought her in guilty.
She was condemned; and, having been brought into the church
heavily ironed, was solemnly excommunicated and delivered over
to Satan by the minister. Some good sense still prevailed, and
the Governor reprieved her; but ecclesiastical pressure and popu-
lar clamor were too powerful. The Governor was induced to re-
call his reprieve, and she was executed, protesting her innocence
and praying for her enemies.*

Another typical case was presented. The Rev. Mr. Burroughs,
against whom considerable ill will had been expressed, and whose
petty parish quarrel with the powerful Putnam family had led to
his dismissal from his ministry, was named by the possessed as
one of those who plagued them, one of the most influential among
the afflicted being Ann Putnam. Mr. Burroughs had led a blame-
less life, the only thing ever charged against him by the Putnams
being that he insisted strenuously that his wife should not go
about the parish talking of her own family matters. He was
charged with afflicting the children, convicted, and executed. At
the last moment he repeated the Lord’s Prayer solemnly and
fully, which it was supposed that no sorcerer could do, and this,
together with his straightforward Christian utterances at the exe-
cution, shook the faith of many in the reality of diabolical pos-
session.

Kre long it was known that one of the girls had acknowledged
that she had belied some persons who had been executed, and
especially Mr. Burroughs, and that she had begged forgiveness;
but this for a time availed nothing. Persons who would not con-
fess were tied up and put to a sort of torture which was effective
in securing new revelations.

In the case of Giles Cory the horrors of the persecution culmi-
nated. Seeing that his doom was certain, and wishing to preserve
his family from attainder and their property from confiscation,
he refused to plead. He was therefore pressed to death, and,
when in his last agonies his tongue was pressed out of his mouth,
the sheriff with his walking-stick thrust it back again.

* See Drake, “The Witchcraft Delusion in New England,” vol. iii, p. 34 e seg.

14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Everything was made to contribute to the orthodox view of
possession. On one occasion, when a cart conveying eight con-
demned persons to the place of execution stuck fast in the mire,
some of the possessed declared that they saw the devil trying to
prevent the punishment of his associates. Confessions of witch-
craft abounded; but the way in which these confessions were ob-
tained is touchingly exhibited in a statement afterward made by
several women. In explaining the reasons why, when charged
with afflicting sick persons, they made a false confession, they
said:

... “By reason of that suddain surprizal, we knowing our-
selves altogether Innocent of that Crime, we were all exceedingly
astonished and amazed, and consternated and affrighted even out
of our Reason; and our nearest and dearest. Relations, seeing us
in that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger, appre-
hending that there was no other way to save our lives,... out of
tender ... pitty perswaded us to confess what we did confess.
And indeed that Confession, that it is said we made, was no other
than what was suggested to us by some Gentlemen; they telling
us, that we were Witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, and
they knew that we knew it, which made us think that it was so;
and our understanding, our reason, and our faculties almost gone,
we were not capable of judging our condition; as also the hard
measures they used with us, rendred us uncapable of making our
Defence, but said anything and everything which they desired,
and most of what we said, was in effect a consenting to what they
Saige t. as

Case after case, in which hysteria, fanaticism, cruelty, injus-
tice, and trickery played their part, was followed up to the scaf-
fold. In a short time twenty persons had been put to a cruel
death, and the number of the accused grew larger and larger. The
highest position and the noblest character formed no barrier.
Daily the possessed became more bold, more tricky, and more
wild. No plea availed anything. In behalf of several women,
whose lives had been of the purest and gentlest, petitions were
presented, but to no effect. A Scriptural text was always ready
to aid in the repression of mercy: it was remembered that “Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light,” and above all re-
sounded the Old Testament injunction, which had sent such mul-
titudes in Europe to the torture-chamber and the stake, “ Ye shall
not suffer a witch to live.”

Such clergymen as Noyes, Parris, and Mather, aided by such
judges as Stoughton and Hathorn, left nothing undone to stimu-
late these proceedings. The great Cotton Mather based upon this
outbreak of disease thus treated his famous book, “ Wonders of

* See Calef, in Drake, vol. iii, pp. 56, 57; also vol. iii, pp. 838-46; also Upham.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 15

the Invisible World,” thanking God for the triumphs over Satan
thus gained at Salem; and his book received the approbation of
the Governor of the Province, the President of Harvard College,
and various eminent theologians in Europe as well as in America.

But, despite such efforts as these, observation, and thought
upon observation, which form the beginning of all true science,
began a new order of things. The people began to fall away.
Justice Bradstreet, having committed thirty or forty persons, be-
came aroused to the absurdity of the whole matter; the minister
of Andover had the good sense to resist the theological view ;
even so high a personage as Lady Phips, the wife of the Gov-
ernor, began to show lenity.

Each of these was, in consequence of this disbelief, charged
with collusion with Satan; but such charges seemed now to lose
their force.

In the midst of all this delusion and terrorism stood Cotton
Mather firm as ever. His efforts to uphold the declining supersti-
tion were heroic. But he at last went one step too far. Being
himself possessed of a mania for myth-making and wonder-mon-
gering, and having described a case of witchcraft with possibly
greater exaggeration than usual, he was confronted by Robert
Calef. Calef was a Boston merchant, and appears to have united
the good sense of a man of business to considerable shrewdness in
observation, power in thought, and love for truth. He began
writing to Mather and others to show the weak points in the sys-
tem. Mather, indignant that a person so much his inferior dared
dissent from his opinion, at first affected to despise Calef; but, as
Calef pressed him more and more closely, Mather denounced him,
calling him among other things “ A Coal from Hell.” All to no
purpose. Calef fastened still more firmly upon the flanks of the
great theologian ; thought and reason now began to resume their
sway.

The possessed having accused certain men held in very high
respect, doubts began to dawn upon the community at large.
Here was the repetition of that which set men thinking under
similar circumstances in the German bishoprics when those under
trial for witchcraft there had at last, in their desperation or mad-
ness, charged the very bishops and the judges upon the bench with
sorcery. The party of reason grew stronger. The Rev. Mr. Par-
ris was soon put upon the defensive, for some of the possessed be-
gan to confess that they had accused people wrongfully. Hercu-
lean efforts were made by certain of the clergy and devout laity
to support the declining belief, but the more thoughtful turned
more and more against it; jurymen prominent in convictions
solemnly retracted their verdicts and publicly craved pardon of
God and man. Most striking of all was the case of Justice Sew-

16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

all. A man of the highest character, in view of what he sup-
posed the teachings of Scripture and the principles laid down by
the great English judges, he had unhesitatingly condemned the
accused ; but reason now dawned upon him. He looked back and
saw the baselessness of the whole proceedings, and made a public
statement of his errors. His diary contains many passages show-
ing deep contrition, and ever afterward, to the end of his life, he
was wont, on one day in the year, to enter into solitude, and there
remain all the day long in fasting, prayer, and penitence,

Chief-Justice Stoughton never yielded. To the last he lamented
the “evil spirit of unbelief” which was thwarting the glorious
work of freeing New England from demons,

The church of Salem solemnly revoked the excommunications
of the condemned and drove Mr. Parris from their pastorate.
Cotton Mather passed his last years in groaning over the decline
of the faith and the ingratitude of a people for whom he had done
somuch. Very significant is one of his complaints, since it shows
the evolution of a more scientific mode of thought abroad as
well as at home: he laments in his diary that English publishers
gladly printed Calef’s book against witchcraft and possession,
but would no longer publish his own, and he declares this “an
attack upon the glory of the Lord.”

ee ree

GLASS-MAKING.

By C. HANFORD HENDERSON,
PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE PHILADELPHIA MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL,

II.—THE HISTORY OF A PICTURE-WINDOW.

Lae the reproduction of the beautiful, Art has occupied itself
chiefly with form and color, and has seldom made more
serious demands upon light than to ask enough of it to reflect
its achievements in these two directions to the eye of the beholder.
So keen is the pleasure derived from well-adjusted proportions
that our statuary and architecture please by their appeal to this
one sentiment alone. When color joins with represented form,
our delight in these harmonies is sufficiently complete to exclude
for the time any sense of deficiency. We believe ourselves to be
quite satisfied.

And yet, when we turn from these clever reproductions to the
veritable nature of the outward world, or of our own unmaterial-
ized fancies, our copies seem poor things after all. At best, they
are so inadequate that one almost feels that the attempt is a mis-
take. The marble figure lacks the divine life that suffused and
made adorable the human original. The painted atmosphere has

GLASS-MAKING.

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VOL. Xxxv.—2

18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not the spiritual light and transparency of the real heavens. The
aureole encircling the sainted head does not palpitate with the
living fire that glows in every sunbeam. Some element there is
in nature’s beauty that art has failed to catch. It may be, that in
attempting to give permanence to impressions which are essen-
tially transitory, a certain violence is done to the constitution of
things, which we resent even while we admire. The beauty is too
permanent. It is not one with the pasemie, ever-changeful moods
of Nature.

We must not, however, be too ounce and demand the impos-
sible. It is not to be expected that the pupil will equal the master.
But the question is not unreasonable as to whether Art can not
import into her work some of the life and the eternal ebb and flow
which characterize that world of beauty which it is her province
to attempt to reproduce. Form and color are large elements, but
they do not make up nature. There must be light and motion,
else the scene is deficient in its chief charms. True, it is impos-
sible to realize motion in very fact: the strained muscle and un-
stable poise can only suggest it. Nor is it possible, working with
marble and canvas, to realize the life and light of the real ether.
This is something too subtile to be simulated. But it may be bor-
rowed. By giving expression to his conceptions in translucent
materials, the artist may so strain and filter the sunlight that it
shapes itself at his bidding into such pictures as he will. And the
beholder, seated on his bench before it, or perhaps kneeling in a
reverential mood, loses himself in this fine vision, and under its
influence sends out his thoughts over broader ranges and higher
planes.

I remember distinctly, as a child, the keen pleasure I used to.
get from a picture-window that faced me during afternoon church.
It was a poor thing, artistically—Zaccheus on the bough of a very
inadequate-looking sycamore-tree, with a passing multitude of such
dimensions as to make tree-climbing seem absolutely superfluous
—hbut in the early winter twilight I found the picture very beau-
tiful. When the increasing darkness had softened the group in
the foreground into a pleasant harmony, there was a strip of sky
along the horizon that sprang into glowing life. And in that bit
of light I used to wander over the Judean hills in happy abstrac-
tion until the music and the benediction called me back again to
the more prosaic life of an American city.

It is this added element in glass that makes it so fitting a ma-
terial for the expression of artistic conceptions. It is a sensitive
vehicle for the carriage of a beautiful thought. The material pos-
sesses a wealth of the purest color; it permits in its shading the
accurate representation of form, and it furnishes something that
marble and canvas do not—large possibilities in the way of light.

GLASS-MAKING. 19

and of effective changeableness. These considerations are attract-
ing the attention of artistic people, and probably in no other field
is there better work being done to-day. It is true that the mate-
rial is fragile—very fragile—but then few works of art are fash-
ioned with the idea of rough usage. If protected from mere
mechanical injury, glass will outlast many forms of matter appar-
ently much more robust. Particularly is it proof against that
ever-present enemy, the atmosphere. Stone crumbles and decays,
metals corrode, and pigments fade, but glass defies nearly every-
thing but fracture. The few glass ornaments that have come
down to us from the ancient world are in a state of superior pres-
ervation. Glass and terra-cotta, fragile as they are, seem better
adapted than even tablets of stone for preserving the records of
the past. Clay cylinders from Assyria, depicting the story of the
garden of Hden, are a part of historical record still extant: the
graven decalogue is no more.

The subject of picture-windows is a very large one, since
their fabrication demands the exercise of such diverse faculties.
Viewed from either the artist’s or the technologist’s standpoint,
it presents many features of interest. In our nomenclature we
have permitted ourselves to fall into rather careless habits. The
terms “painted,” “stained,” and “mosaic” glass are used indis-
criminately to designate any form of window-glass work which
involves color, but a moment’s consideration will show them to
be far from synonymous. Some of our best effects are produced
without the use of either paint or stain, and such windows have
the advantage of a much greater durability. In painted glass the
colors are produced by enamels fused to the surface of the glass
by means of heat. In stained glass, a permanent transparent color
effect is secured by the action of heat on certain metallic oxides
applied to the surface as pigments; while in mosaic glass, pure
and simple, the design is brought out by the use of shaped frag-
ments of colored glass bound together by strips of doubly grooved
lead.

The three products, it will be seen, are quite distinct. It fre-
quently happens, and in the older examples of ecclesiastical design
it is nearly always the case, that all are combined in one window.
But at the present time there is a strong reaction against the em-
ployment of either paint or stain, since they are not only less
durable but also less brilliant than homogeneous colored glass.
There is a decided tendency to rely entirely upon the mosaic
treatment, and to limit the use of paint to the representation of
the human figure.

The manufacture of mosaic glass has attracted the attention of
men of such ingenuity and taste that it deserves its rank among
the fine arts. It has attained a degree of artistic perfection of

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which the earlier examples gave only sparing promise. In spite
of the abandonment of paint and stain, the mosaic glass has been
given greater variety and greater depth of color than at any time
since the Renaissance. In its present form, the mosaic picture-
window is a distinctively American product. It has been evolved
here, and, though now somewhat copied in Europe, it is here that
the process has reached its greatest extension and perfection. The
history of its mode of becoming is both unique and interesting.
It. is one that could not have been written much earlier to advan-
tage, for the material of which it is composed has only been gath-
ering during recent years. Were this history to be unfolded
logically, it would start with the first conception which shaped
itself in the brain of the artist, and from that intangible begin-
ning it would be traced through the colored sketch, the full-sized
cartoon, the gradual replacement of colored paper by colored
glass, and so on to the completed window; but that would pre-
suppose too much. It would take for granted that the artist in
glass had only to catch his fine dreams of beauty, and that the
material for their expression would be found at hand ready for
his use. But such is very far from being the case. In this form
of art-work the real struggle has been to make the material adapt
itself to the conception it is intended to express. The struggle,
however, has been carried on so cleverly and so successfully that
the ultimate triumph is the more enjoyable for the prelude. It is
more consistent, therefore, to consider first the technical part in
the history of a picture-window, the production of that adroitly
wrought and daintily colored material which has made the win-
dow possible; and then, having won the material, to regard its
subsequent disposition in producing the fine effects which make
it so admirable.

To describe every variety of glass utilized in a mosaic picture-
window would be to describe nearly every form of glass known
in the flat. In such a window, be it remembered, the entire pict-
ure, except the exposed portions of the figure, is brought out by
the use of shaped fragments of colored glass; and one can readily
imagine that, as all possible subjects are chosen for such repre-
sentation, all possible shades and combinations and effects are
needed in the glass employed. Draperies, vegetation, architecture,
sky, earth, air, and water, are all successfully depicted without
the use of either paint or stain. Such windows, except the flesh
portions, are true mosaics, and of the most brilliant kind.

To acccomplish these wonders the glass has been made in ali
the colors of the spectrum, and has undergone a thousand differ-
ent transformations. The shapes have been no less varied than
the colors. The so-called “jewels,” or pieces of richly colored
glass, cut with facets after the manner of precious stones, have

GLASS-MAKING. 21

added immensely to the brilliancy of modern designs, and have
been particularly effective when introduced as a setting or frame-
work to a picture-window. They are imported for the most part
from Germany. The greater part of the flat glass used, however,
is made in the immediate neighborhood of New York, under the
direct supervision of the art-workers who are to utilize it. I had
recently the pleasure of going through such a factory in Brooklyn,
probably the largest of the kind in this country, and it was a veri-
table chromatic treat to visit the store-rooms, for some five hun-
dred different color combinations were recognized in stock. The
mosaic ateliers of the Vatican contain, it is true, not less than
twenty-six thousand different tints; but these, it must be remem-
bered, are simply opaque enamels, while the glass mentioned is
all easily translucent, and much of it is clearly transparent.

In the manufacture of this glass the materials employed are
much the same as in ordinary sheet and plate glass. It is a double
silicate of lime and soda, the coloring being due to the addition of
metallic oxides which are soluble in the fused glass. The mate-

In THE Guass-SHop. SELECTING THE GLASS FROM THE SHEETS.

rials needed for the basis are, as before, sand, limestone, and
alkali. They are mixed in the proper proportions—that is to say,
about thirty parts of lime and forty of soda to every hundred
parts of sand—and are fused in fire-clay crucibles in the customary
glass-furnace. The coloring matter is added at different stages of
the process, according to the nature of the material.

The mineral world has been pretty thoroughly ransacked to

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obtain the needed colors, and additions to the list are constantly
being made as the result of further experimentation. Taking the
colors up in the order of the spectrum, the violet shades are gen-
erally produced from manganese or from very small quantities of
cobalt; the deep blues, indigos, purple blues, and normal blues,
from varying proportions of cobalt; peacock-blue from copper ;
the finest greens from copper and chromium; and the dull sea-
water tint from ferrous oxide. The oxide of copper gives an
emerald green. The yellows come from a variety of sources: the
sesquioxide of uranium gives a fine fluorescent yellow; the oxide
of lead a pale yellow, and the oxide of silver, applied as a pigment
to the surface of the glass, a permanent yellow stain. The higher
oxide of iron gives an orange color, but, as it has a strong tend-
ency to become reduced, it is necessary during the manipulation
of the glass to keep some oxidizing agent present, such as man-
ganic oxide. In the reds a number of excellent shades are readily
obtainable. Manganese furnishes a variety of pinkish reds and
pinks ; copper, in its lower oxide, the fine blood-red of Bohemian
glass; and gold, the deepest and most brilliant of all reds, the well-
known ruby glass. This list, however, is but a fragment. It bears
to the complete array of color at the command of the glass-worker
much the same relation that an inventory of crude pigments would
bear to the fine distinctions housed in an artist’s color-box. It is
only intended to give some little idea of the mineral bases utilized
for their color effect. The fine gradations of color, and the rich
and delicate tones, are the result of no such elementary chromat-
ics. Many substances have joined their forces to produce these fine
results. In many cases they have been obtained only after long
experimentation, and have a corresponding value in the eyes of
their discoverers. The magnificent window designed by Mr. John
La Farge, which now faces the chancel in Trinity Church, Boston,
owes the brilliancy of its peacock hues to the combined forces of
some seventeen ingredients. This is an extreme instance of com-
plexity, but it fairly represents the present tendency to secure a
multitude of effects even at the expenditure of a multitude of
agents.

In addition to these metallic compounds a number of other
substances are used to produce either colors or unique effect. A
little carbonaceous matter yields an amber tint of very agreeable
hue, while the opalescence now so much in vogue and so justly
admired results from the presence of oxide of tin, arsenic, or lime,
or from native minerals, such as fluorite or the cryolite now im-
ported in such large quantities from Greenland. The superiority
of American art-work in glass is largely due to the introduction
of this effective opalescent glass. It was first used in this country
about ten years ago, by Mr. John La Farge and Mr. Louis C.

GLASS-MAKING. 24

Tiffany. The idea is due to Mr. Tiffany, and suggested itself in
the most accidental manner. His own collection of glass included
several Venetian wine-glasses made of thin opalescent glass, as
well as several of thin transparent ruby of the quality used in
ordinary colored window glass. As a painter he was naturally
keenly alive to all color effects, and could not fail to be impressed
with the contrast presented by the two glasses. The opalescent
afforded such varying and beautiful effects, and seemed to possess
so many advantages over the ordinary transparent glass, that the
idea flashed upon him that if the ruby glass could be made use of
in windows, why could not the opalescent as well? He decided at
any rate to attempt its introduction. After long and careful ex-
perimenting he succeeded in obtaining a sufficient quantity of
glass for the construction of a window. There were so many dif-
ficulties to be overcome, however, that for a time it seemed doubt-
ful whether the glass could ever be largely introduced. That
question has now been so far. set at rest that the glass may be said
to enjoy too great a popularity for its own good. Its reputation
has been somewhat injured at the hands of enthusiastic glass-work-
ers—“ glass sinners,” Mr. Tiffany calls them—whose taste in this
direction appears to have suffered chromatic aberration. It is the
apparent ambition of these people to combine the greatest number
of colors in the smallest possible space, and the results have been
unhappy to such a degree as to frighten more sober-minded lovers
of beauty from paths so seemingly dangerous. This unfortunate
craze, however, may soon be expected to spend itself, and the
really artistic work in opalescent glass will suffer no permanent
damage from the nightmares in color which now disfigure many
even of our better-class tenements and hotels.

But the glass-worker has only begun his work when he has
the molten “metal” simmering in his crucibles. It must undergo
many subsequent manipulations before it is available for the pur-
pose of art. Some of these, from a technical point of view, seem
retrogressional. It has been found that the rich color effects in
glass of the middle ages are largely due to the imperfections in
the material. Its lack of homogeneousness, its unequal thickness,
and uneven surfaces contribute largely to its beauty. The mod-
ern product is too uniform to be brilliant; it transmits the light
with too great regularity. Intentional imperfections are, therefore,
introduced into the process; and the products, in consequence, are
much more satisfactory to the artist. This work of individual-
izing the product has now been so far systematized that several
special brands of art glass are recognized in the markets. The so-
called antique glass, in both white and colors, is made precisely
like the ordinary sheet window glass, except that the surface of
the glass is made full of minute blow-holes, which produce almost

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an aventurine effect, and add greatly to its brilliancy. In the
cathedral glass the surface is rendered wavy and uneven, so that
the transmission of light shall be correspondingly irregular. In
the flash glass ordinary sheets are covered with a thin plating of
colored glass, a process which permits a very delicate color tone,
and materially decreases the expense, where a costly glass, such
as ruby, is needed to give the color. But in mosaic work it is
now generally preferred that the glass shall not be at all trans-
parent, since the effect is much richer. The most of the glass is
therefore cast, the process being a repetition in miniature of the

In THE PAINTING-Room. THE ARTIST LAYING IN THE HEADS.

casting of rough plate. The pots containing the molten colored
glass always remain, however, in the furnace, and the “ metal” is.
dipped out in small iron ladles. It is poured at once on a little
casting table, and is smoothed out by means of an iron roller.
The small sheets thus obtained are readily handled, and permit
the use of the convenient rod leer. In this, the annealing process
requires from three to six hours, and at the end of that time the
sheets are ready for use.

In case more than one color is to appear in the same sheet, the
effect is obtained by mixing together several masses of differently
colored and still plastic glass on the casting table, by means of a
copper instrument not unlike a plasterer’s trowel. In this way
three or even four colors are combined in the same piece of glass,
and, though the results are always more or less experimental,

GLASS-MAKING. 26

artists have learned to adapt them to their picture-windows as
well as to their geometrical designs. The workmen have attained
no little skill in the art of mixing. They have learned to reduce
the accidental element in this apparently hit-or-miss process to a
minimum, and with a fair degree of accuracy to secure predeter-
mined combinations. The mixture of blue and white translucent
glass in particular is made to represent sky effects as naturally as
if the colors had been laid on by an artist’s brush. It is true that
this combination is prone to represent an August sky; but this is
not to be regretted, since at no other season of the year are the
heavens more beautiful.

By this mode of manufacture the glass has an unequal thick-
ness and consequent varying depth of color that well adapt it for
art purposes. For certain uses, however, particularly for drapery,
the differences in color tone are still not sufficiently great, and
other devices must be resorted to. A special product, known as
drapery glass, has of recent years been added to the already ex-
tended list, and produces a most excellent effect. While the sheet
of glass on the casting table is still sufficiently hot to be plastic, it
is seized by suitable tools, and rumpled up until it looks like a
piece of crumpled cloth. It is permitted to cool in this condition,
and, when introduced into a picture-window, presents a luminous
substitute scarcely less natural than real drapery. One is almost
tempted to run his hand over the folds to try their texture.

It is by processes so painstaking and so ingenious as these that
the material for our picture-window is won. The industry is still
a comparatively new one, yet so marked are the improvements
witnessed by the passing years that the artist is now almost un-
restricted in making the design of his window. Should it contain
any effects not expressible in materials already at hand, the de-
ficiency is only an incentive for further effort, and the needed
material is pretty sure to be speedily forthcoming.

So much for the body of our window: the soul of it comes by
a less visible process. -

In some quiet moment, under the influence of a strong senti-
ment, or in the face of an inspiring vision, a suggestion of beauty
is evolved in the artist mind. Why it comes in one brain rather
than in another it would be difficult to say. Whether it is the
result of some subtile chemical reaction in the gray and the white,
or the incomprehensible force that has caused this reaction, it
seems almost useless to inquire. But in some way or other the
vision comes, and finds lodgment under a hospitable roof. It is
entertained and communed with until it takes definite shape, and
the conception is committed to paper. It is at first little more
than a suggestion, a small colored sketch. If this prove satisfac-
tory, it becomes the nucleus of a window, and undergoes its first

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

metamorphosis, enlargement. From the beginning of its career
until finally, after months or years, the picture is in place and the
bright sunlight illumines it, the different steps in the transforma-
tion involve never-ceasing care and thought. At any step a failure
of attention might mean a total failure of the work. To follow
this little sketch in its growth toward a window, will be to watch
its fortunes under many different hands and under widely varying
circumstances.

As the Tiffany Glass Company of New York has been particu-
larly successful in adapting the mosaic treatment to picture-win-
dows, their studios furnish typical illustrations of the several
steps. Ordinarily the artist simply furnishes the small colored
sketch, and from this germ the window is evolved. Occasionally
he goes a step further, and supplies a cartoon in black and white
of the natural size. Itis only in rare instances that he does the
full-sized sheet in colors. Not unfrequently the suggestion for a
window is taken from some celebrated painting or engraving.
The Tiffany Company recently reproduced Gustave Doré’s famous
picture, “Christ leaving the Pretorium,” for a church memorial
window, the entire piece being executed in pure mosaic, with the
exception of the faces and hands. The dimensions of this truly
magnificent work of art are twenty by thirty feet. It is the most
ambitious window ever attempted in America, and, indeed, the
largest opalescent piece in the world. In many cases, however,
the suggestion comes from humbler sources. A very beautiful
window designed by Mr. EK. P. Sperry—“ Faith, Hope, and Charity”
—and recently completed as a memorial window for the Unity
Church at Springfield, Mass., sprang from a thought suggested by
a Christmas card. Where the design for a window is ordered and
paid for by the purchaser of the window, it is of course impossible
to secure a duplicate; but where a picture that is already common
property is reproduced, the work may be several times repeated.
Thus “The Good Shepherd,’ a very satisfactory figure of the
Christ taken from the well-known painting by Frederick J.
Shields, has been reproduced in glass three times, and now adorns
as many churches in different parts of the country. It is too beau-
tiful a conception to be rendered any less pleasing by this repeti-
tion. In all cases the patterns and other needed guides are pre-
served, so that, should the occasion arise, a picture-window once
executed may be readily duplicated. A window has just been
completed for the Buffalo Cathedral, to take the place of one
recently destroyed by fire. It is a very close duplicate of the
original work. But while the success in reproducing pictures
already extant has been very marked, a keener pleasure is de-
rived from modern pictures designed originally for execution
in glass. Many of these are exceedingly beautiful, and represent

GLASS-MAKING. 27

the thought of some of the best artists of the modern American
school.

The enlargement of the colored sketch to natural size is accom-
plished by women artists, who work standing before large sheets
of heavy brown paper tacked against the walls of the studio.
While this mode of procedure would in any case be necessitated by
the large size of the cartoons, it has the independent value of per-

In THE DEcoRATING-Room. TREATING THE LEADS.

mitting the progress of the work to be checked at all stages by
long-range scrutiny. As much of the enlargement as possible is
done mechanically, but at best there remains much free-hand
work requiring genuine artistic feeling. Indeed, throughout the
entire process, true artists are needed in the most mechanical por-
tions to make the success of the adventure complete. When the
enlargement is finished, the cartoon is divided up by heavy black
lines so disposed as to represent the doubly grooved lead needed
to hold the fragments of colored glass together. Sketch and car-
toon are now taken to the glass store-room, and appropriate glass
for the window is selected and laid aside. If suitable material is
not found in stock, it is ordered in such quantity that the discov-
ery of right effects may reasonably be expected. As the accidental
element, in spite of all the skill on the part of the glass-worker, is
necessarily large, it sometimes happens that a ton of glass must
be searched over to find a few pounds of just the right sort. In
some cases several months pass before appropriate material can
be selected.

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The search for material ended, the work of construction may
begin. Two duplicate copies of the cartoon are first made. One
operation suffices to accomplish this. The cartoon is laid on a
large table, and beneath it are two sheets of similar paper and two
sheets of ordinary black transfer paper arranged alternately. By
passing a small revolving wheel over the outlines of the cartoon,
the tracings are quickly and accurately made. Hach space is then
numbered correspondingly on both tracings, and one of them is
cut up to make patterns for the glass-cutter. An ingenious dis-
secting instrument is used for this purpose. It consists of a pair
of double-edged shears, which, in cutting, removes a strip of paper
just the width of the lead which will separate the fragments of
glass when they are finally bound together. In this way each
pattern is precisely the size required. When the glass is ready to
be put together in the window, there is very little coaxing to be
done to get it into place.

The picture-window has now reached the most critical stage in
its development. The paper patterns are to find suitable counter-
parts in glass, and upon the nicety with which this substitution is
accomplished depends the effect of the entire work. Nothing is
left undone that will assist the glass-cutter in forming correct
color-judgments. Throughout the entire process, and here par-
ticularly, the work progresses under precisely those conditions
that are best calculated to make surprises and incongruities im-
possible when the whole shall be completed. A sheet of plain
glass, the size of the cartoon, is laid over the undissected tracing.
Outlines of the intended lead bands are then painted on the clear
glass in black lines of corresponding width. On the model thus
prepared the paper patterns are stuck by means of a little wax.
It is now ready to be taken to the figure-room, where it is placed
directly in front of a large window, and the slow work of substi-
tuting colored glass for paper begins. The position in which the
completed window is to be placed must constantly be borne in
mind, and the treatment adopted be made to conform to the re-
quirements of light and neighborhood. A window that will be
effective when seen against a clear northern sky will probably be
somewhat dull if turned to some other point of the compass and
seen against a dark background of brick walls and shadows, while
a window that would be a delight under these more somber con-
ditions would be insupportably glaring against the stronger ight.
Consideration must also be paid to whether the window is to be
seen commonly at long or short range, and to the general color
tone of neighboring windows and walls.

Piece by piece the paper patterns are removed, and the shaped
fragments of glass take their place. Each fragment is obtained
by repeated trials until just the right effect is secured. When the

GLASS-MAKING. 29

fragment has been selected and shaped, it is also held to the sheet
of clear glass by means of a little wax, and another paper pattern
is removed, to be similarly replaced by glass. In this manner the
removal and replacement ge on step by step until the entire work
is done. The colored sketch and the enlarged cartoon are always
kept in sight, so that the spirit of the picture may be realized as
completely as possible. The workmen who thus select and cut the
glass have acquired a surprising skill in adapting its accidental
variations to the needed expression of the thought. In many cases
they entered the studio as boys, and have been slowly trained to
perform this difficult work with much nicety of judgment. In
mosaic glass of purely geometrical design, the requirements of

SoLDERING JOINTS oF LEAD LINEs.

color harmony alone need attention; but in the picture-window,
in addition to this, a very appreciative eye is needed to seize upon
just the right combinations to bring out the draperies and the
background and the sky. It is frequently impossible to secure
the desired effect with one thickness of glass, and the custom of
doubling the glass is becoming more prevalent each year. This
practice gives both better drawing and deeper color. In the
matter of draperies, particularly, the method leaves little to be
desired. In the window representing “ Faith, Hope, and Charity,”
the draperies of the three figures were executed in white opalescent
glass, and the dainty shades desired—pale green, pink, and yellow
—secured by placing back of this, fragments of plain glass of the

30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proper color. The effect could scarcely have been more delicate,
yet the color tones were full and strong.

In another window, the design of Mr. Will H. Low, the dra-
peries of a seated figure were executed ina vivid blue. The sketch
called for a rich purple, and any one passing through the studio
at this stage of progress would have been inclined to resent the
seeming liberties taken by the workmen. The artist’s intentions.
evidently were only half carried out. But, while one stands pon-
dering over the excessive amount of assurance possessed by people
of a certain class, one of their number has quietly slipped a piece
of ruby glass back of the draperies, and at once the vivid blue
vanishes to give place to a magnificent purple as much finer than
the artist’s paper-color as the sunshine is better than gas-light.

In this plan of doubling the glass the colorist has in his pos-
session a device of immense effectiveness. The entire color tone
of a window can readily be changed, even after it is completed
and in place.

When the window is well under way, the preparation of the
flesh portions of the picture begins. These are cut from white
opalescent glass, and must be painted with no inconsiderable skill.
In the early days of mosaic glass the painting was done almost in
monochrome, a light reddish brown being a favorite tint. It had,
however, the disadvantage of giving a statue-like sameness to all
the figures. Had the taste continued, our windows would have
become an assemblage of rather monotonous blonde types. But
to-day there is great variety in this respect, and the painting of
the face and other exposed portions of the figure is made to con-
form very strictly to the character of the whole picture. In eccle-
siastical designs done in medieval style, the painting is executed
in a pinkish-brown monochrome on transparent antique glass.
The effect is so very Elizabethan that it is hard to believe the
work a modern product, unless one has seen it in process of evo-
lution. For the saints and Madonnas of the early masters, the
high cheek-bone and other characteristics of feature are repro-
duced with remarkable fidelity. But, while these products are
highly interesting, they are in point of beauty far excelled by
modern types. To the production of these nearly the whole range
of mineral paint has contributed. One of the finest examples of
the modern school of painting on glass is to be found in the face
of “The Good Shepherd,” in which nearly every possible color has
been used. At a distance one is not conscious of any particular
color, but is attracted by the intense life and love shown in the
face. Rather bold expedients are often employed to secure these
striking effects. In one face, whose eyes were more than usually
expressive of life, the result was obtained by bands of bright
green bordering both eyelids.

GLASS-MAKING. 31

The manner of painting the flesh portions is not without inter-
est. The pieces of opalescent glass are mounted in rough frames
before a window, and nearly all other light is cut off. In this way
the artist can see his work under precisely the same conditions
that will prevail when the window is put in place, and he can paint
to correspondingly good advantage. The colors are put on rather
heavy to allow for firing, and for the distance at which the faces
will commonly be seen. In many cases the paint is put on solidly,
and is then picked off with a sharp instrument, giving much the
effect of an etching. It looks a little eerie, on going into such a
studio, to see a group of heads and hands, and other severed mem-
bers of the anatomy staring at one in luminous characters. The
painting must be done in installments, as it is necessary to fire the
glass from two to four times. Each firing requires about an hour
and a half, and six hours more for the kiln to cool down. Before
the last firmg the flesh portions are taken to the figure-room and
given place in the otherwise completed picture. In this way the
artist can judge of the final colors needed to bring them into per-
fect harmony with the general color tone of the picture. :

It is by the expenditure of such care and labor that the soul
and body of our picture-window are brought together ; but, before
the union is made permanent, the window undergoes a searching
art scrutiny, and any changes are suggested that would add to its
beauty and harmony. In some cases all the combinations have
proved so fortunate that very few changes are needed; but the
case is not always so easily disposed of. It happens at times that
portions of the glass must be recut several times before the de-
sired effect is secured ; or, even after the window is completed, the
discovery is sometimes made that a different background would
have been more effective in bringing out the figure. Such was
the case in a Jeanne d’Arc window designed by Mr. Frank D.
Millet. The substitution of a light for a dark sky brought the
. figure into much finer relief.

When, finally, the effect is considered satisfactory, the frag-
ments of colored glass are removed one by one from the sheet of
clear glass, and are skillfully bound together by means of strips
of doubly grooved lead. This requires some very nice soldering.
When it is completed the lead is tinned in order to protect it from
the atmosphere. The spaces between the glass and the lead are
then filled with a composition of putty and lead, which sets very
rigidly, and serves the double purpose of making the window per-
fectly water-tight and of preventing any looseness on the part of
the fragments of glass. There remains only the provision of a
strong, iron-bound frame, and the picture-window, after a devel-
opment covering many months, is ready to be put in place. The
materials for its manufacture have been gathered from many

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THK POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

32

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THE Goop SHEPHERD.

THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL. 33

sources, and the skill of many hands and brains has united to
bring them into suitable community. The functions of artist and
artisan have been fulfilled. Now they give place to the office of
the critic.

The result of this co-operative labor is much more than mere
decoration. It is a work of art whose capacity for deep and beau-
tiful expression we are only beginning to realize. Standing before
such a picture-window, one feels anew the spiritual element in all
beauty. The thought that has fastened itself to a sunbeam seems
singularly alive and pervasive.

To one who is familiar only with the chromatic efforts of the
“glass sinners” this praise may seem extravagant; but, as we love
painting in spite of some pretty poor chromos, and statuary in
the face of popular domestic groups turned out by the gross, so is
it possible to warmly admire the window of real merit while we
deplore its unhappy imitator. At its best one can imagine few
objects more beautiful. The varying light and the purity of color
in art work of this character are a source of lively pleasure. They
appeal to a sentiment which, when present at all, is apt to be a
dominant one. Those who entertain it turn away regretfully from
so beautiful and so luminous a picture.

THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL—FERNANDO DE
NORONHA.

By JOHN C. BRANNER, Pu. D.

HE island of Fernando de Noronha* is in the South Atlantic
Ocean, two hundred and fifty miles south of the equator,
about two hundred miles northeast of Cape St. Roque, and near
the track of vessels plying between European ports and those of
South America lying south of the cape. It belongs to Brazil, and
has long been used by that Government for a penal colony. In
1876, when a member of the Imperial Geological Survey of Brazil,
I visited this island for the purpose of studying its natural history
and mapping it. It was no part of my official duty to criticise the
administration of the affairs of the island as a prison, yet it was
but natural that I should take a deep interest in this administra-
tion, and should inform myself, whenever occasion offered, regard-
ing the methods employed in dealing with a class of persons so
new to me. The commandant and other officers spoke freely
whenever they addressed me in regard to administrative meas-
* The name is also erroneously written—Fernam de Loronha, Ferro de Noronha, Fer-

nando Noronha, Ferdinando Noronha, Fernand de la Rogne, ete.
VOL. XXXV.—3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ures, while from the prisoners themselves I learned much of the
operation and results of these measures.

It will throw some light upon the character of the inhabitants
of Fernando de Noronha to know how crime is looked upon by
the common people in Brazil, and I can not better show this than
by relating a bit of personal experience.

I had the misfortune at one time to wound a Brazilian laborer
—in his dignity. He thereupon threatened to take my life, and
was by no means careful to keep his resolutions to himself. As
the carrying out of such a determination upon his part would
have caused me much inconvenience, I called upon him in person,
with the purpose, if possible, of dissuading him. I found that he
did not look upon the condition of a criminal with dread at all.
He told me frankly that, if he should succeed in carrying out his
designs, he knew perfectly well what his career would be. “ At
present,” said he, “I am obliged to work for a living; if I am sent
to jail, my living will be furnished me, and I shall have nothing to
do. If you are dead, there will be no one to appear against me in
the courts as my accuser, and in the course of a year or less I shall
be set free, well rested, and with the reputation in the community
of being a man of courage.”

In this case I saw to it that he had the opportunity of enjoying
the coveted otium cum dignitate in jail without having to commit
acrime. But in a country where wrong-doing sets so ightly upon
the conscience, and where it so frequently goes altogether unpun-
ished, the criminal class is large, as we should expect, though
through a lax administration of the laws but a small part of it
ever reaches Fernando. I refer to this phase of the subject be-
cause, in order to understand the class of people inhabiting Fer-
nando de Noronha, it is necessary to know something of the source
of supply.

The convict-island is visited once a month by a small steamer
from Pernambuco. On one of the vessels I took passage, fur-
nished with the usual and indispensable official letters of intro-
duction from the President of the Province of Pernambuco; and,
after a voyage of two and a half days, anchored in front of the
village in which the commandant or governor of the island lives.
Arrived at the anchoring-ground—for there is no wharf or pier,
and no small boats are allowed on the island—I could see upon the
beach about seventy-five half-naked men tugging at a huge two-
storied raft, trying to get it into the water. When this was
launched, a large cable was secured on shore, and the great raft
was paddled slowly in our direction, telling out the cable, the
other end of which was finally made fast to the steamer.

The personal baggage, five or six newly arrived convicts with
their guards, and myself and servant, were placed on the upper

THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL. 35

story of this peculiar craft, and it was then drawn in near the
shore by means of the cable. When we struck bottom I was
taken on the wet, slippery, naked back of a convict, who waded
ashore and deposited me on the dry beach. Everybody and every-
thing landed from the raft, I was escorted by a man who took
me in charge, and whom I afterward found to be a convict directed
by the commandant to look after all persons and all things land-
ing, and escorted up the very steep hill, through the well-paved
streets of the village, to the house of the commandant, closely fol-
lowed by the newly arrived convicts under guard.

The commandant I found to be a very aged man, an officer in
the regular Brazilian army. His thin gray hair was cut close to
his angular head, and his mustache was white with age and yellow
with tobacco-smoke. He received me indifferently for a Brazil-
ian, for, though he placed the island itself and everything and
everybody on it at my orders, in true Brazilian style, I could see
that there was a coolness beneath his politeness. I afterward
found that this was due to a suspicion that I had been sent here
by the Government upon some secret mission. This impression
removed, he became heartily kind to me, and did all in his power
to aid me in my work. He gave me a room in the official resi-
dence, the seat of honor at his bountifully served table, and a
motley crew of convicts for servants, while the slender resources
of the island were in reality placed at my disposal.

At the house of the commandant certain ones of the convicts
were admitted freely and treated with more or less indulgence.
The chief amusement of the officers of the garrison and their
wives was to assemble during the evening around the big table
in the reception-room in the official residence, and there to play
kino. On such occasions (and this game was played every even-
ing during my stay save two) there were from one to five privi-
leged convicts standing about the room as lookers-on, and some of
them were even invited to take, and did take, part in the game.
At meal-time they frequently dropped into the dining-room, and
gently encouraged the old governor to scold them while at his
meal. Some of them, being ready conversationalists, were permit-
ted to talk freely, and were even asked, before the meal was over,
to take places at the great dining-table; and, though they always
sat below the wine, were generally given some sweetmeats or a
cup of coffee at the end of the meal.

Among the convicts thus specially privileged about the house
was a tall, handsome Italian, apparently a man of education. He
spoke, besides his native language, Spanish,German, some English,
and Portuguese almost perfectly. I asked his story of the son of
the commandant, who also told me the personal history of many
of these men, and learned that he had killed five persons in less

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than five minutes, including the young lady to whom he was be-
trothed, because she had followed the advice of her father and
mother, and had broken off the match upon the morning of the
day on which they were to be married. As the narrator ended
the story, which was told in all its dreadful details, he remarked,
“ And so you see he was almost justified.”

This instance, which is simply an example out of a great many
of a more or less similar nature, is mentioned for the purpose of
illustrating one of the most deplorable facts connected with the
administration of the affairs of the island—that is, the inevitable
influence upon its inhabitants of familiarity with crime. This
young man, neither a criminal nor an executive officer, had come,
by constant contact with criminals, to look upon crime with pity
in some cases, and with actual approval in others.

It is not my purpose to repeat here in detail the stories of the
lives of these people, for those stories are sensational to the last
degree, and should be looked upon simply as so many facts in a
social study. But, while some of the convicts were indulged,
others were treated with unnecessary severity, which merged into
cruelty. This unequal justice, or rather the disproportionate pun-
ishment meted out to offenders, and over which the officers in
charge had full jurisdiction, was, in itself, demoralizing to the
great body of convicts, and held out no hope or encouragement to
any one to be anything short of the most abandoned criminal. No
effort was made to fit the punishment to the crime. Flogging was
the one remedy for everything, and, as it always took place in the
presence of the assembled prisoners, this became a new element of
degradation to the entire community. A convict having stolen a
pig, was sent for and flogged. The very next morning the com-
mandant was called to the front door, and there on the veranda
stood a man horribly mangled by an assassin. “ What does all
this mean ?” said the commandant. “Fulano has killed me,” said
the convict. “ Away with you to the hospital”; and, turning to an
officer, he continued, “and bring Fulano here to me.” And Fulano
was brought and flogged.* The influence of such a system of
treatment upon the less depraved classes of criminals may readily
be imagined.

* T undertook to witness a flogging once, but, as I did not get through it with credit to
myself, the less said of that occasion the better. I was informed by one of the officers that,
not long before, one convict had been so severely flogged that he had died of his injuries.
In the light of these facts it is interesting to read article 179, section 19, of the Brazilian
Constitution of 1824. It is as follows: “From this time forth flogging, torturing, branding,
and all other cruel punishments are abolished.” It should be added, however, that in 1879,
since my visit to Fernando de Noronha, the Minister of Justice of the Brazilian Empire has
directed that corporal punishment of the convicts should cease.

Postscript_—The “ Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society” for July, 1888, con-
tains an article upon Fernando by a gentleman who visited that place in 1887. The convict

THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL. 37

The amusements of the inhabitants were cock-fighting and
kino. I suggested to the commandant that cock-fighting was a
degrading pastime for his protégés (I did not mention kino,
because that was the favorite amusement in his own house).
His reply was: “I know it isn’t good; but then—”

Often in private conversation these men would discourse to me
upon the moral and social condition of their companions. On
‘such occasions I frequently heard such expressions as these: “ You
must look out for Fulano.” “Some people have no consciences.”
“The Lord deliver us from a convict!” “These convicts are a
bad set, I tell you!”

Society was as varied among these men as in other parts of the
world. There were all classes and grades, though they all met on
the common level of crime. Social distinctions among them were
based upon money first, and second, other things being equal, upon
the nature of the crime committed, certain crimes being regarded
’ as indicative of courageous manhood.

While about my work one day, my attention was attracted by
a young man who was posing near by and disdainfully watching
me. He was not more than twenty years of age, good-looking,
and well dressed. A fine felt hat sat jauntily upon the side of his
head, and he wore a blue cloak, the bright red lining of which he
displayed to good advantage by tossing it back over his shoulder.
I saw that he was a type, drew him into conversation, and finally
asked him for what he was sent to Fernando. Bridling up and
throwing back his shoulders, he struck his left breast with his
right hand closed, as if upon a dagger, and exclaimed proudly,
“ Mor-r-rte ! ” (murder).

Many of the prisoners were known among themselves by what
seemed to be very odd names, and I learned that they were nick-
names taken from some circumstance connected with the crimes
they were expiating. Sometimes there was a ghastly sort of
humor about these names. One, who had murdered a priest, was
called “O Padre,” the priest; another, who had murdered a man
for his money and had found but half a pataca upon him, was
called “ Meta Pataca,” half a pataca, about sixteen cents; another,
for a similar reason, was called “Quatro Vintens,”’ four cents.

These are simply instances of how the minds of these people
dwelt constantly upon crime, how they admired crime, and conse-

system is there spoken of as “almost unique in its excellence,” and a convict of seventeen
years’ standing is called “our dear old guide.” The great number of verbal errors in the
article lead one to conclude that its author knows little or nothing of the Portuguese lan-
guage, without the easy command of which he could get no clear insight into the working
of the convict system. He states also that one of the prisoners was flogged during his
short visit. Flogging continues, therefore, in spite of the order of the Minister of Justice
made in 1879 and referred to above.

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quently gravitated toward it. About their work in shop or field,
the daily bread of their minds was to think and talk of crime in
every shape that diseased minds and perverted natures can con-
jure it up. One would entertain his companions by detailing to
them the story of some crime committed by himself, or of which
he had knowledge, while every one listened attentively, like so
many experts. The story ended, criticism began, and each one
would indicate what he considered the weak points in the plan
and its execution, and would suggest improvements here and there.
One story always led to another, and, as might be expected, minds
accustomed to this highly seasoned food soon rejected all other.

The total population of the island at the time of my visit was
2,562, about seven hundred of whom were not criminals, but the
wives and children of convicts who were, by necessity or choice,
accompanying husbands or parents in their exile and imprison-
ment. As already stated, the great majority of the convicts had
been sent here for murder, and belonged to a low, brutal type of
men. The general tendency of this intermingling of the innocent
with the criminal, and of the less depraved of the convicts with
the worst, is to reduce all to a common level, and that level the
lowest.

In the ordinary experience of life a man seldom or never sinks
so low that there is no hope for him, hope both subjective and ob-
jective, but of the worst of these convicts this is not true. The only
priest of the island, after years of labor, went through his sacred
duties in a perfunctory manner, for, as he gave me to understand,
he had long since come to realize that the seed he sowed fell into
the fire. Speaking to him one day regarding the peculiar charm
of the place, he replied: “Ah me! I can’t see these things now,
for though it is, externally, all that you see and say of it, this
quiet, this seclusion, this beautiful and bountiful nature are
turned by man into a stifling, suffocating hole—a stench in the
nostrils of God.”

But fortunately the attractiveness, the beauty and grandeur of
nature as seen in the delightful landscapes, the tropical vegetation,
the peculiar fauna and flora, the majesty of the ocean, the violence
of the tempests, the charming caprice of clouds and sunshine, pre-
vent one from brooding too long over these dark pictures of hu-
man depravity, while the convicts themselves not infrequently
come like quaint figures in the foregrounds of beautiful pictures.
But to see this beauty one must look through the eyes of a lover
of nature.

For the true-hearted naturalist there is no such thing as soli-
tude, but to those who see but little or nothing companionable or
intelligible in landscapes, in forests and fields and oceans, and
above all to the ignorant, Fernando de Noronha doubtless seems

THE CONVICT-ISLAND OF BRAZIL. 39

a lonely, desolate, and forbidding place. A phrase in common use
among the inhabitants of that island expresses better than any-
thing else could the general feeling of the prisoners in regard to
their isolation and separation from all that is interesting and
attractive to them on earth. For them, and in their minds, the
earth is divided into two parts, one of which—that inhabited by
themselves—is known as Fernando, the other part is known and
usually spoken of as “the world.” This term was in constant use,
and I frequently heard among them such expressions as these:
“ When I was in the world,” “ This came from the world.”

It is often asked whether there was not great danger in trust-
ing one’s self with men so many of whom were known to be des-
perate characters. This question can not be answered for every
one at the same time, because whether there would be danger
would depend almost entirely upon how one conducted himself.
The commandant was so solicitous regarding my personal safety,
when I first began my work on the island, that he wished to send
an escort of soldiers with me in order to secure me against pos-
sible danger, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded him to
allow me to dispense with such cumbersome attendance.

When working in parts of the island remote from the village I
sometimes found it necessary to pass the night in the huts of the
convicts. At such times I was never treated otherwise than with
respect by them, and I never had the least reason to feel disturbed
about my personal security. One day, when alone in my room in
the house of the commandant, a tall mulatto came to the door and
handed me a begging letter, written in very poor Portuguese. In
this letter he called himself my “afflicted fellow-countryman.”
Addressing him in English, I found that he had been an Ameri-
can sailor, and was here for murder. As he seemed eager to
be in my service, I employed him; but, when I informed the
commandant of the arrangement, he endeavored to dissuade me
from having him about me, assuring me that he was the most un-
conscionable, incorrigible criminal in the entire settlement. In
spite of these protests, I took my “ fellow-countryman” with me,
and for three days his services gave entire satisfaction. At the
end of that time he was discharged for the only impoliteness
shown me during my stay upon the island.

Abandoned and unscrupulous as so many of the convicts were,
I found them susceptible to the ameliorating influences of fair
wages and reasonable treatment—a susceptibility due to some ex-
tent, perhaps, to the general absence of considerate treatment in
their present lives—and when I left Fernando some of those whom
I had employed manifested their good-will toward me in a way of
their own. On the morning upon which the steamer was to sail
for Pernambuco, my collections and baggage had all, as I thought,

40 THH POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

been placed on board, when, previous to my taking leave of the
officers and their families, I was called to the door by a visitor—
one of my convicts. He stood barefooted and uncovered, his
warped, reddish-brown hat held in his left hand behind him, his
coarse shirt of dirty cotton cloth hung, in the customary fashion,
outside his coarse trousers, and these were rolled half-way up his
bare, brown legs. He laid his right forearm across his forehead
like’a timid child, and when asked, “ And what is it, Feliciano?”
he said: “ My patron, pardon me, eh? but it is allI have. Here
are some squashes I have brought for your lordship to take back
to the world with you,” and he pointed with his leather hat toward
six enormous squashes that lay upon the floor of the veranda, and
which he had brought during the night from a distant part of the
island. My embarrassment may be realized in some degree when
I say that I knew that, excepting only the clothes he wore, these
six squashes were the sum total of that poor fellow’s earthly pos-
sessions. I knew, too, how serious an offense it would be to decline
his present, so there was nothing to be done but to accept it and
take his squashes “back to the world” with me. If the matter
had ended here, it would have caused me no serious inconvenience;
but, before the steamer sailed, a whole wagon-load of squashes had
accumulated on the floor of the veranda, and all of them had to
be accepted and taken away.

When the time for my embarkation had arrived, the officers
of the station accompanied me to the beach, where they bade me
farewell in that affectionate and touching manner so character-
istic of Brazilian gentlemen. After these had withdrawn, there
came about me seven men with rough clothing—what there was
of it—rough, hard hands, and hard faces. They stood uncovered,
and, without speaking a word, one after another held out to me a
thick, horny right hand. One of them then stooped and took me
on his back, and, wading out to the great raft, left me to be trans-
ferred to the steamer. That afternoon I saw this lofty, beautiful,
but sin-cursed Fernando sink slowly into the ocean; and the last
sight I had of it was when, as the sun went down, it touched with
crimson and gold a cloud-banner that streamed away like a pen-
nant from the summit of its majestic peak.*

* In view of what I have said of the moral condition of the convicts confined on this
island, it is but just that I should add that in the year following my visit, that is, in 1877
the Imperial Government of Brazil appointed a commission for the purpose of elaborating
a prison system for the country. The President of the Province of Pernambuco held out
to the Legislative Assembly of that province the hope that Fernando de Noronha would not
be overlooked by this commission. Said he, ‘‘The grave social, economic, and moral ques-
tions here involved will be settled.”’ It is to be hoped, too, that the transfer of this penal
colony from the Department of War to that of Justice will also be conducive to a better
prison system.

THE STRANGH MARKINGS ON MARS. 41

THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.

i the whole planetary empire of the sun there is but one body,

if we except the moon, whose actual surface can be satisfac-
torily examined even with the most powerful telescope. The
broad disk of Jupiter presents a most inviting and splendid sight ;
but it is apparent that we are not looking at the solid shell of a
planet, but at a vast expanse of thick clouds, surrounding and
concealing the planetary core, and reflecting the sunlight from
their shifting surfaces. Saturn presents a somewhat similar
appearance, modified by greater distance. Uranus and Neptune
are so nearly beyond the present reach of telescopes, so far as
the phenomena of their disks are concerned, that we know almost
nothing of their surface appearances. Some observations of Ura-
nus, however, indicate that it presents the same equatorial paral-
lelism of exterior markings that characterizes Jupiter and Saturn;
and so we may infer that what we faintly discern on its disk are
the outlines of cloud-masses, enveloping the planet, and drawn
out by the effects of its rotation into belts and streaks. Coming
to the nearer planets, we find that Venus, superbly brilliant to
the naked eye, and consequently, it might naturally be thought,
a promising object for telescopic scrutiny, is nevertheless the most
disappointing of all the planets when viewed with a telescope.
The splendor of its luminosity in itself forms an obstacle to the
study of its surface, where flitting glimpses of shadowy forms
and brilliant spots only serve to excite the keenest curiosity.
With respect to Mercury, our knowledge is equally unsatisfac-
tory. The surface of the moon, of course, has been well studied, as
such maps as those of Beer and Madler, Neison and Schmidt suf-
ficiently attest. But, after all, the absence of the faintest indica-
tion of life robs the wonderful lunar landscapes of a large share
of the interest that would otherwise attach to them.

Finally, we look at Mars, and here at last we find a globe
whose true surface we can inspect, and which at the same time
possesses an atmosphere and other concomitants of vital organiza-
tion. Since Mars has been selected by more than one astronomer
as the probable abode of life (and perhaps the only one besides
the Earth in the solar system), and especially since a discussion
of the markings seen upon the planet necessarily involves the
physical features upon which the theory of Mars’s fitness for
inhabitation rests, it will be well to recall here the principal facts
that have been ascertained respecting that interesting orb.

The diameter of Mars is 4,200 miles, or only some 240 miles

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

more than half of the mean diameter of the Earth. The density
of the planet is rather less than three quarters of the density of
the Harth, or about four times the density of water. The force
of gravity upon its surface is less than two fifths of that upon
the Earth; more accurately, 0°38. That is to say, if a man from
the Earth could visit Mars, he would find that his weight had
diminished almost two thirds. Members of terrestrial fat men’s
clubs could become agile dancers by simply going to Mars. This
feebleness of the force of gravity must, it is clear, have an impor-
tant effect upon the organization of any forms of life that may
exist upon Mars, whether animal or vegetable. The mean dis-
tance of Mars from the sun is 141,500,000 miles, that of the Earth
being 92,900,000. The length of Mars’s year is six hundred and
eighty-seven days. Its day is only forty-one minutes longer than
our day upon the Earth. The inclination of its equator to the
plane of its orbit differs but slightly from that of the Harth. But
when we come to consider the eccentricity of its orbit, we find a
decided difference between the Earth and Mars. The Earth’s
orbit is so nearly a circle that its greatest and least distances from
the sun differ by only 3,000,000 miles, while the orbit of Mars is
so eccentric that that planet is 26,000,000 miles nearer to the sun
at one extremity of its orbit than at the other. It follows that,
while Mars receives, upon the whole, less than half as much light
and heat from the sun as the Harth gets, yet that quantity is
variable to the extent of about one third of its greatest value—in
other words, the sun gives Mars half as much again heat at its
perihelion as it does at its aphelion. It is hardly necessary to
point out the important climatic effect of such a variation. An-
other remarkable resemblance between the Earth and Mars comes
in here. Just as on the Earth, the summer of the northern hemi-
sphere of Mars occurs when the planet is farthest from the sun
and its winter when nearest. The effect, as Mr. Proctor has
pointed out, tends to equalize the temperature of the seasons in
Mars’s northern hemisphere, but to exaggerate their difference in
the southern hemisphere.

We may dwell for a moment upon this last-stated peculiarity,
for it is exceedingly interesting in its suggestiveness. Having
summer occurring in the southern hemisphere of Mars at the
planet’s perihelion, and winter at its aphelion, we should find
there a most remarkable disparity both in temperature and in
the brilliancy of daylight between the two seasons. The differ-
ence would be the sum of the effects produced by the greater or
less distance of the sun and the variation in the inclination of its
rays to the surface of the planet. Since the first cause alone would
produce an inequality amounting, in the extreme, nearly to the
ratio of 3 to 2, it is evident that the addition of the second would

THE STRANGH MARKINGS ON MARS. 43

increase the difference to such an extent that the seasonal changes
might be fatal to all higher forms of life. We have only to recol-
lect how powerful the effect of the comparatively moderate va-
riations between the seasons of our own planet is upon the human
organism in order to understand what must be the condition of
things in the southern hemisphere of Mars, where the passage
from one season to the other presents the succession of violent
winter cold, accompanied by days of gloom and faint sunshine,
followed by a blazing summer, with the sun hanging overhead,
visibly increased in apparent size by its approach. Telescopic
observations show clearly by the great variation in the extent of
the polar snows how extensive is the effect of these changes upon
the surface of the planet. In the hot summer the snows rapidly
retreat toward the pole, and even leave the actual pole itself bare
of snow, showing that upon Mars, as upon the Earth, the center,
or pole, of greatest cold (at least in the southern hemisphere)
does not coincide with the geographical pole of the planet. Then,
with the on-coming of winter, the march of the snows begins and
they rapidly advance further and further toward the equator,
spreading over the antarctic regions until another change of sea-
son brings back a flaming sun to melt them away. It should be
added that, as Prof. Young has remarked, the climate of Mars,
upon the whole, appears to be much milder than we should nat-
urally have expected in view of its distance from the sun.

Bearing in mind these general facts about the size of Mars
and its position in the solar system, we shall now proceed to the
discussion of its surface phenomena as revealed by the telescope,
merely pausing to remark that the atmosphere of Mars is appar-
ently less dense than that of the Harth, and that the spectroscope
has demonstrated the presence of watery vapor in it.

The little telescope of Galileo, which had enabled him to dis-
cover the phases of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, the mountains
of the moon, the existence of Saturn’s ring, and “vast crowds of
stars” in the Milky Way, was not powerful enough to show him
the markings that diversified the disk of Mars. The earliest draw-
ings of Mars that have come down to us were made by Fontana,
in Italy, in 1636 and 1638. They contain very little detail, the
best representing the planet simply with a darkish spot in the
center of the disk. Twenty odd years later Huygens made much
better drawings, and then the work was taken up by Cassini,
Maraldi, and others, with the cumbersome telescopes of the time,
the most powerful of which consisted of an object-glass suspended
high in the air by means of a long pole or other support, while
the eye-piece in the hand of the observer on the ground was, with
infinite difficulty, brought and kept in line with the optical axis
of the instrument. One of these telescopes was no less than three

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hundred feet in length, the great length being necessary in order
to avoid, as far as possible, the chromatic aberration of the single
lenses of which object-glasses were then made! Considering the
enormous difficulties under which they labored, the results at-
tained by these early observers are astonishing. The delineations
of the planet’s surface made by Huygens and Hooke were suffi-
ciently exact to be used by modern astronomers in ascertaining
the rotation period of the planet within a fraction of a second,
while Cassini’s observations enabled. him to calculate that period
with an error of less than three minutes. In fact, Huygens saw
enough to suggest to his penetrating mind the existence of an
analogy between the surface of Mars and that of the Earth.

In 1666 Cassini made a drawing of Mars, which is reproduced
in our cut, showing in rough outline a feature of the planet’s sur-
face which has since become well known under the names of
Kaiser Sea and the Hour-glass Sea, the last being suggested by
its shape. Directly underneath Cassini’s drawing I have placed,
for the purpose of comparison, a picture of Mars made by Herschel
in 1780, and showing the same sea, but with much more detail.
Allowing for the difference in the position of the disk (for the two
drawings were plainly not made at precisely the same period of
the planet’s rotation, nor at the same inclination), and also con-
sidering the great superiority of Herschel’s telescope, the resem-
blance is sufficiently striking to show that the two observers were
looking at the same feature of the planet, and that it was a per-
manent marking on the disk. The south polar ice-cap is conspicu-
ous in Cassini’s drawing.

A word, by the way, in regard to the “seas” and “ice-caps” of
Mars. The general color of the planet is ruddy, some observers
say rose-color, and this hue is plain in naked-eye observations.
But the telescope shows that the disk, instead of being uniformly
red, although that tint predominates, is divided into streaks and
patches of varying hue. The reddish regions are regarded as
‘being the land-surfaces of the planet, while the dusky or greenish
parts are looked upon as probably oceans or seas. At the poles
there are seen white caps which, inasmuch as they increase in
size when it is winter and decrease when it is summer in their
respective hemispheres, are regarded as the arctic and antarctic
snow regions of Mars.

From the time of Herschel the study of the surface markings
of Mars was prosecuted by many observers with more or less suc-
cess, and Beer and MAdler, those indefatigable portrayers of celes-
tial scenery, made a chart of Mars; but it was not until some
twenty years ago that a reasonably full and satisfactory map of
the red planet was produced. Then Mr. Proctor, using the draw-
ings of the “eagle-eyed” Dawes as the basis of his work, con-

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THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 45

structed a chart of Mars, which was published in his most famous
book, “ Other Worlds than Ours,” and which is reproduced with
this article. The most hasty comparison of this chart with the
drawings of Cassini and Herschel shows that an enormous ad-
vance had been made since the time
of the latter, incomparably greater,
in fact, than had been accomplished
in the hundred and more years that
elapsed between Cassini and Herschel.
Yet if we should place any single one
of Dawes’s drawings side by side with
those of the old observers, the differ-
ence would not appear by any means
so striking, for, the reader must rec-
ollect, Mr. Proctor’s chart was con-
structed by inspecting and comparing
twenty-seven of Dawes’s sketches,
representing the planet at different
periods of its -rotation, so that all
sides of it were successively viewed
in the best position for observation,
If we had an equally numerous se-
ries of Cassini’s, or preferably of
Herschel’s sketches, made in a simi-
lar manner, we should probably be HERSUREL Wee
able to construct from them a chart
which, while it certainly would be
greatly inferior to Proctor’s in its details, would nevertheless
make it clear that the earlier observers saw many of the principal
markings that are shown in the more modern map.

Still more detailed charts of Mars followed that of Mr. Proctor,
notably those of M. Flammarion, and Mr. Green, the latter being
a very beautiful work based upon a series of splendid drawings
made by Mr. Green in the island of Madeira. But no very con- |
siderable advance was made in areography, as the geography of
Mars has been called, until Signor Schiaparelli published the
results of his surprising observations made during the very favor-
able opposition of Mars in 1877. Although Schiaparelli has re-
peated these observations again and again, and they have been
confirmed, in part at least, by several able observers, there is a
disposition in some quarters to cast doubt upon them, and to
ascribe them to the effects of optical illusion or some other hallu-
cination. Considering the wonderful character of these observa-
tions, and the immense advance that they constitute in the study
of the surface of Mars, there is, perhaps, the shadow of an excuse
for some incredulity about them. Yet I think the reader will be

VoL. Xxxv.—3*

OLD Drawines or MArRs.

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

convinced, after inspecting Schiaparelli’s map, and hearing the
story of what he has seen, that to throw discredit upon the sub-
stantial accuracy of his observations, marvelous though they may
appear, is to do serious injustice to the great Italian astronomer.

And, now, what is it that Schiaparelli has seen on Mars? Many
readers will probably at once answer “canals,” for the fame of
“Schiaparelli’s canals” has become wide-spread, and that very
word has, perhaps, done as much as anything to foster incredulity
in regard to these discoveries. It is true that Schiaparelli himself
suggested the name canals to describe the strange lines that he
found traversing the continents of Mars, and forming, as it were,
a network of intercommunication between its seas; but, at the
same time, he indicated that that name was simply to be taken,
for lack of a better, as descriptive of.their general appearance,
and not as implying that they were canals in our sense of the
word. Of course, the term was at once restricted, in popular ac-
ceptation, to its terrestrial sense, and there have not been wanting
speculations about the engineers who constructed those wonderful
canals on Mars! Mr. Proctor rather helped on this fanciful inter-
pretation of Schiaparelli’s discovery by throwing out the sugges-
tion that, owing to the slight force of gravity on Mars, we should
not be too hasty in setting limits to the engineering achievements
of the giants who might dwell upon that planet!

But, setting aside the manifestly false analogy which would
make of Schiaparelli’s “canals” actual artificial water-courses,
we shall find that the real facts are not the less wonderful and
suggestive of interesting reflections. Schiaparelli’s first observa-
tions of these singular objects were made, as I have already said,
during the opposition of Mars in 1877. It will be remembered
that it was at that very same opposition that Prof. Hall, using
the great Washington telescope, at that time the most powerful
refractor in the world, discovered the moons of Mars. Yet Prof.
Hall saw nothing wonderful or very unusual on the disk of the
planet; and Schiaparelli, on the other hand, failed to discover
the little moons. Hall’s discovery was made in August; Schia-
parelli’s began in September. All this is very singular; but it
seems still more strange that, while the moons of Mars, having
once been discovered, were afterward seen with comparatively
small telescopes, the canals have never been seen with the great
glass at Washington, and that only three or four observers be-
sides Schiaparelli have ever seen them. In the last annual report
of the Naval Observatory for the year ending June, 1888, it is
stated that the great telescope had been in constant use, under
the charge of Prof. Hall, and that the surfaces of both Saturn
and Mars were constantly and carefully examined, and drawings
made from time to time. In the case of the latter planet the

THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 47

canals of Prof. Schiaparelli, though specially looked for, both
during and after the opposition, could not be made out. At the
very same time the canals were visible not only to Schiaparelli,
but to Perrotin and Terby, and, as we shall see further on, some
very remarkable phenomena connected with them were observed.
At the Lick Observatory, too, they saw the canals, though they
did not perceive all the details and peculiarities noted by Schia-
parelli and Perrotin. How shall we account for these remark-
able discrepancies ? I do not for a moment think that they shake
the substantial accuracy of the Italian observations. No doubt
a clew to the explanation is furnished by what Schiaparelli
has recently said of the difficulty of seeing the objects he has
described: “On the rare days when these extremely difficult
observations are possible, the period of good telescopic images
does not last, ordinarily, more than two or three hours during the
twilight, or the commencement of night.... I have found by
experience, at Milan, that one can hardly hope to have an at-
mosphere sufficiently good during more than eight or ten even-
ings (during an opposition) ; sometimes even entire months pass
without one’s being able to make a satisfactory observation.
Much rarer still are evenings of perfect images, those in which
one can employ the whole power of an instrument hike our Merz
equatorial of eighteen inches.”

And this is said of the Italian sky, which has long been famous
for the steady views that it gives of the heavenly bodies. What
could be expected, then, of the mist-haunted atmosphere of the
Potomac flats through which the watchers at our Naval Observa-
tory must strain their vision? At Mount Hamilton they have
atmospheric conditions that rival those of Italy, and therefore it
was to be foreseen that they could hardly fail to confirm the
existence of Schiaparelli’s strange markings.

It should be said, before proceeding, that while the great ma-
jority of the canals have been seen only by Schiaparelli himself
and a few other observers, there are two or three which had been
recognized, though not under their present designation, and per-
haps not in their complete extent, before the Italian astronomer
made his discovery. Notable among these is the narrow arm
running out of the Kaiser Sea, or Syrtis Magna, as Schiaparelli
names it, and which he calls the Nilosyrtis. Herschel, and even
earlier observers, seem to have noticed this.

But the detection of the dark lines called canals was only the
beginning of Schiaparelli’s singular discoveries. The next devel-
opment in this remarkable series of observations was the doubling
of the canals. Those that he saw in 1877 were simple lines, or
narrow bands, and, strange as their appearance was, the liveliest
imagination could hardly have prefigured their aspect at subse-

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

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THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 49

quent oppositions. In 1879 Schiaparelli noticed that the canal
which he calls Nilus (see his map) was double, or consisted of
two streaks running side by side, and perfectly parallel. This
observation was made shortly after the time of the vernal equinox
on Mars. ’

“ These two regular, equal, and parallel lines,” he says, “I con-
fess profoundly surprised me, all the more because a few days
before, the 23d and 24th of December, I had carefully examined
that same region without discovering anything of the kind. I
awaited with curiosity the return of the planet in 1881 in order to
see if an analogous phenomenon would present itself in the same
place, and I saw the same thing reappear on the 11th of January,
1882, one month after the vernal equinox of the planet, which had
occurred on the 8th of December, 1881. The duplication was still
plainer at the end of February. At this same date, the 11th of
January, another duplication had already been produced, that of
the middle section of the canal of the Cyclops at the edge of Elys-
ium (see map). Greater still was my astonishment when, on
the 19th of January, I saw the canal Jamuna, which was then
in the center of the disk, composed very plainly of two parallel
straight lines traversing the space which separates the Niliacus
Lacus from the Aurore Sinus. At first I thought it was an illu-
sion caused by fatigue of the eye and by some new kind of stra-
bismus ; but there was no resisting the evidence. From the 19th
of January I simply went from surprise to surprise; the Orontes,
the Euphrates, the Phison, the Ganges, and most of the other
canals showed themselves very clearly, and indubitably divided
in two.”

It is not a matter for surprise that this announcement of Schia-
parelli’s, coming upon the heels of his original discovery of the
canals as single lines, which in itself was sufficiently remarkable,
caused still greater doubt to be entertained of the correctness of
his observations. It seemed to many easier to believe that a dis-
tinguished astronomer and practiced telescopist had been misled
by some deception of the eyes, some optical trick of his instru-
ment or of the atmosphere, than that the globe of Mars was cov-
ered, over the larger part of its surface, with a network of lines,
apparently connected with the water-system of the planet, and
that, at certain times, these lines, canals, or water-courses, or
whatever they might be, were doubled up throughout their whole
extent. Hven the positive assurance of the celebrated astronomer,
“T am absolutely certain of what I have observed,” could not
banish all doubt. The manner in which the doubling of the canals
was brought about seemed most mysterious, and added to the
apparently dubious character of the whole occurrence. Schia-
parelli declared that sometimes he was able to perceive precur-

50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sory symptoms of the change. A lght, hardly visible shade
would make its appearance, extended alongside one of the canals.
In a few days only a series of whitish spots would appear there.
A day or two later the perfect double of the canal would be seen
with absolute distinctness lying beside the original, exactly paral-
lel with it, and of equal length, breadth, and depth of color.

“One can,” says Schiaparelli, “compare this process of forma-
tion to the appearance that would be presented by a multitude of
soldiers dispersed without order who, little by little, should ar-
range themselves in ranks or in columns; so that we are here
dealing with formations unknown on the earth, determined by
the geographical configuration of the ground, and capable of re-
producing themselves periodically in the same places and under
the same aspects.”

These canals (we must continue to call them by that name for
lack of a better) vary in length from a few hundred miles to two
or three thousand, while their width is seventy-five or eighty
miles. When they become double, the distance between the twin
canals is from two hundred and fifty to five hundred miles.

The Italian astronomer’s later observations have again and
again confirmed the results of his earlier ones. During the oppo-
sitions of 1883-’84, 1886, and 1888, under somewhat varying
conditions, and with different degrees of visibility, yet always
unmistakably, he has seen not only the canals, but the strange
phenomenon of their doubling or gemination. The character of
the appearances has been always the same, but in details they
have differed.

' Let the reader compare Schiaparelli’s map with the chart of
Mr. Proctor, and he can not fail to be impressed by the enormous
advance in the matter of minute detail exhibited by the former.
Apparently more has been learned about the surface of Mars
during the past twelve years than was learned in the previous
two hundred years, and the greater part of this gain is the work
of a single observer.

While it is more or less idle to speculate on the nature of these
singular objects appearing on a globe that never approaches the
earth nearer than about forty millions of miles, and that ordi-
narily is very much farther away, yet it is impossible to avoid
indulging a natural curiosity to know what they are. It is known
that all the features of Mars’s globe are more or less change-
able, though upon the whole they preserve the same general
aspect, and Schiaparelli declares that in the case of the canals
the changes are not only extensive but periodical. It has gen-
erally been believed that the variations of appearance in the
larger features of the disk were owing principally to atmospheric
causes. Large regions of the planet have, at times, been seen

THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 51

apparently hidden under a veil, the gradual withdrawal of which
has again revealed their well-known contours, and in such cases
the conclusion has seemed irresistible that what had been observed
was the formation and subsequent dissipation of vast cloud
areas concealing or obscuring the outlines of continents and seas
beneath them. So the indistinctness near the edges of the disk
and the altered appearance of the planetary features there have
been partially ascribed to atmospheric influences as well as to the
effects of perspective. Whether the observed changes in the ap-
pearance of the canals can be ascribed to similar causes is a ques-
tion which can not yet be solved. Schiaparelli appears to think
that they are principally due to something which occurs on the
surface of the planet itself, and which something, in its turn,
depends upon the changes of the seasons.

In order to form any opinion whatever upon this question it is
necessary to examine a little more closely the varying aspects of
the canals. Their discoverer has noted these four points:

1. A canal may remain invisible for a longer or shorter time.
This invisibility, he insists, is an actual disappearance of the canal,
and is not due simply to unfavorable circumstances of observa-
tion. Moreover, he finds here a striking appearance of connection
with the seasons. The epoch most favorable for the disappear-
ance of the canals is near the time of the southern solstice of Mars,
which, as we have seen, occurs when the planet is nearest to the sun.

2. In many cases, according to Schiaparelli, the presence of a
canal begins to manifest itself to the eye in a very vague and un-
certain manner, by a slight shading which irregularly extends it-
self in the direction of its length. This phenomenon is so delicate
that, he says, it marks, as it were, the limit between visibility
and invisibility.

3. Very often the canals present the appearance.of a gray band
fading out on each side and having the deepest shade in the mid-
dle, which may be dark enough to suggest the appearance of a
more or less clearly marked line. Sometimes, but rarely, one side of
the band alone is nebulous or indistinct, the other being clearly de-
fined. Various other anomalous appearances have been observed.

4. The most perfect type of the canals, and that which their
discoverer says he regards as the expression of their normal con-
dition, “is a dark line, sometimes quite black and well defined,
looking as if it had been traced with a pen on the yellow surface
of the planet.” When the canals appear in this form they are
very uniform throughout their length, and Schiaparelli says, on
the rare occasions when he has been able to clearly distinguish the
two edges, one from the other, he has discerned slight sinuosities
or scollopings on the borders. He adds that the width of a canal
may change with time from a thread, barely perceptible in the

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

best atmospheric conditions, to a broad black band visible at the
first glance.

To all these characteristics must be added, of course, the ex-
traordinary occurrence of the gemination or doubling of the
canals. It is natural to suppose that, in such cases, what would
be seen would be the apparition of a new canal along side of an
old one. That, in fact, is what Schiaparelli described as occurring
during his earlier observations; but, during the opposition just
passed (1888), he discovered that this was not a general rule, and
that it may happen that neither of the new canals, when a doub-
ling takes place, may coincide with the old one. “The identity,”
he adds, “in the general direction and situation is then merely
approximative; every trace of the former canal disappears, giving
place to two new lines.” Both the width and the distance apart
of the twin canals vary in successive seasons.

It would carry us far béyond the limits of space available for
this article to enter into a more minute account of Schiaparelli’s
observation of the many anomalies and changes of appearance
which the canals present at different seasons and under varying
circumstances. Enough has been said to indicate that it would
be impossible to make a map which should show the precise ap-
pearance of the surface of Mars at any fixed period, and at the
same time contain a representation of all the phenomena which
are, from time to time, to be seen there. And it should be said,
because this is a matter that has been misunderstood, that Schia-

Ordinary Appearance. Appearance in April, 1888.
CHANGES IN THE ASPECT OF LIBYA.

parelli does not intend his maps to be taken as portraitures of the
planet, but simply as sketches showing details of whose existence
. there is no doubt whatever, but all of which can not be, or have
not been, seen simultaneously.

And now there remain yet other remarkable circumstances to be
mentioned in order to complete the picture of the surface of Mars,

THH STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 53

and some of these may have an important bearing upon the ques-
tion of the nature of the canals. A glance at Schiaparelli’s map
shows us the disk of the planet divided into areas of land and
water, which are about equal in their total extent. Then crossing
the land areas in every direction are the canals, which it will be
observed always begin and end either at the edge of a sea, or at a
point of junction with other canals. Without varying their direc-
tion they cross one another, and in some cases several canals radi-
ate from a single center, which then generally appears expanded
into a “lake.” In addition there are certain regions which Schia-
parelli describes as variable in appearance, or intermediate be-
tween the seas and the lands, presenting sometimes the character
of maritime surfaces and at other times that of continental areas.
Among these are the places marked on the map Deucalionis Regio,
Hellas, and the island called Commeria. The region named Libya,
which ordinarily appears as a continental expanse, seems to belong
to this class of variable areas, and within the past year it has ob-
tained great celebrity because it was said to have been submerged
by an inundation from the adjoining sea. This region is more
than 200,000 square miles in area, and lies just under the equator.
In May last M. Perrotin, of the Nice Observatory, made the some-
what startling announcement that the continent of Inbya had dis-
appeared. “Clearly visible two years ago,” said M. Perrotin, in
his report to the Paris Academy of Sciences, “to-day it no longer
exists. The neighboring sea, if sea it is, has completely invaded
it. In place of the light reddish tint of the continents of Mars the
black, or rather dark-blue, color of the seas has appeared there.
. . . In sweeping over the continent the sea has abandoned on the
- south the region that it formerly occupied, and which now appears
with a tint intermediate between that of the continents and that
of the seas, a light-blue color, analogous to that of a slightly misty
sky in winter.”

A look at the accompanying cut will show the change which
Perrotin detected. This extraordinary aspect of Libya was first
seen in April and lasted into May. In June the “continent”
seems to have resumed, or nearly so, its ordinary appearance.
Perrotin’s suggestion that the change observed was probably
periodic appears to be borne out by an examination of former ob-
servations of this region of the planet. There was a partial “ in-
undation” of Libya in 1882, and a still more extensive one in 1884,
both of which were noted by Schiaparelli, who confirms Perrotin’s
observation of 1888 in a general way, but does not describe the
continent as having at any time completely disappeared. Speak-
ing of its appearance in 1884, Schiaparelli says Libya had a flaky
look, as if it had been “ covered with innumerable little spots all
jumbled together.” The suggestion of clouds contained in this

VOL, XXxv.—4

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

description is very striking, yet Schiaparelli does not pursue the
analogy.

All of the regions which possess this semi-maritime character
frequently present a lighter color when viewed obliquely, or near
the edge of the planet’s disk, than when seen near the meridian.
This fact seems strongly to suggest the presence of atmospheric
phenomena, which may change or modify the appearance of any
district covered by them according to the visual angle under
which it is observed. The reader has only to take an ordinary
terrestrial globe, and, supposing it to represent Mars, turn it
slowly around its axis, in order to perceive how the situation of
any region with respect to the center or the edges of the disk may
influence its appearance. Near the edge the surface of the planet
must necessarily be seen through a far greater depth or thickness
of its atmosphere than in the center of the disk, and, if that atmos-
phere contained clouds or mist, of course its opacity would be greater
in proportion to its greater depth, and the reflection of light from
the mist would give a whiter tone to the features of the planet seen
through it. Nevertheless, the cloud theory fails to account satis-
factorily for all the appearances that have been so carefully de-
scribed by Perrotin and Schiaparelli. Yet if it were possible for
us to imagine that masses of clouds of some sort could retain, for
considerable periods, a fixed or nearly fixed general form and posi-
tion in the planet’s atmosphere, disappearing and reappearing in
the same localities according to the seasons, and occasionally ex-
tending their outlines or slightly shifting their positions, then we
might be able to account for such phenomena as those presented
by Libya, without recourse to such violent, extensive, and rapid
geological changes as would seem to be necessary to produce
alternate inundations and emergences of large areas of land.

As to the nature of the canals, it is still more difficult to sug-
gest any satisfactory explanation. Several hypotheses have been
presented, none of which appears entirely to meet the case. I
have already remarked that there has not been lacking the sug-
gestion that these curious streaks represent the lines of actual
artificial water-courses on Mars. The straight and undeviating
course which they pursue might be regarded as lending some de-
gree of probability to such a view, but the enormous scale on
which they exist seems to compel the rejection of the hypothesis.
It is true that, if we consider only the influence of the force of
gravity on Mars, giants could dwell upon that planet whose
mechanical achievements might vastly surpass the greatest per-
formances of our engineers; for a body weighing a ton on the earth
would weigh only seven hundred and sixty pounds on Mars, and
on the other hand aman on Mars possessing relatively the same
activity as one of us might be fifteen feet tall and strong in propor-

THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 55

tion. But even granting the existence of such a race of Goliaths
on our neighbor world, it is not conceivable that they could have
constructed a system of tremendous canals over half the surface
of their planet, or that they would have done it if they could.
The canals of Mars are enormously disproportioned in magnitude
to the most gigantic inhabitants that a due regard for the law
of gravitation would suffer us to imagine there.

An ingenious Frenchman has considerately and considerably
diminished the difficulty for the inhabitants of Mars by the sug-
gestion that the continents of that planet are so slightly elevated
above the level of its seas that frequent and periodical inunda-
tions occur over large areas, thus forming temporary channels of
communication between the seas which leave only the more ele-
vated points above water to serve as places of refuge for the non-
aquatic inhabitants. According to the theory, these inhabitants,
possessing a horse sense comparable to that of the descendants of
Noah, have, in the course of ages, improved and strengthened
their natural places of refuge in times of flood, by excavating the
ground from the low lands periodically invaded by the sea, and
piling it up on the higher places, thus producing lines of partly
artificial hills geometrically placed, and with talus-like flanks,

It will be observed that these attempts at explanation make
no reference to the duplication of the canals. Mr. Proctor, always
fertile in ingenious theories, undertook to include this strange
transformation in an explanation of the canals which he suggest-
ed; namely, that they are great rivers, over and along which, in
certain seasons, vast fog-banks are formed, or which, perhaps,
being frozen in winter, remain covered with snow and ice in
spring until the snow is melted along their banks, so that by a
phenomenon of diffraction the image of the rivers appears to us
as a light line between two dark ones.

M. Fizeau has put forth a theory according to which the canals
of Mars are simply glacial productions, enormous crevasses and
clefts in the ice covering the planet, like those seen on a smaller
scale in our glaciers. But this theory, of course, would imply that
Mars is now undergoing the effects of a glacial epoch, involving
even the equatorial regions of the planet, while, as a matter of
fact, the surface of Mars appears not to suffer from any extreme
degree of cold. Attention has also been called to a fancied
resemblance between the rectilineal canal system of Mars and the
systems of rays seen on the moon, especially that which has its
center at the crater Tycho, and which, under certain illumina-
tions, is one of the most conspicuous features of the lunar surface.

In fact, it may be said, in a double sense, that there is no end
of speculations on this curious subject. But nothing has yet been
proposed that covers all the appearances presented, and even a

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

combination of atmospheric and geological activities seems insuf-
ficient to explain everything. It is possible that some deception
of the eye may enter to a minor degree into the observations that
have been so carefully described by Schiaparelli and others, but I
can not believe that that excellent observer has been mistaken as
to the main facts.

Mars is a world having an atmosphere as the Earth has, and
possessing a diversified surface, upon which great operations of
Nature are taking place under our eyes; and, while it may be idle
for us to speculate as to whether those operations involve the
weal or woe of a race of intelligent beings dwelling in the midst
of them, yet the mind of man will never be satisfied to let such
questions as these alone. If he can plant his foot upon one globe
only, at least his thoughts can and will range among a million.

BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE AT MUGBY SCHOOL.*
Br Dz. J. E. TAYLOR, F.R.S.

Bases HAMPSON was a capital sample of the best traditions
of Mugby School. A lad of fourteen, with well-knit limbs,
brave, honest-looking, bluish-gray eyes, a good cricketer and
swimmer, and not bad at a high jump. He could no more do a
mean thing than he could tell a lie; and he could give or take a
thrashing if absolutely necessary, although he would be in no
hurry for either.

Mugby School has kept the lead in modern educational prog-
ress which a former distinguished master introduced many years
ago. That master was not content that boys should learn Latin
and Greek. He was more anxious they should learn to be Chris-
tian gentlemen; to fear and eschew an untruth as they would
poison; to be brave and yet gentle; tender toward the weak, not
defiant even to the strong. The boys at Mugby School were well
acquainted with the lives of the best men of all ages and of all
nations, as well as with the most stirring deeds of valor, self-denial,
and manly bravery. The noblest thoughts of the wisest men were
drawn freely upon for their benefit.

Much of this “new education” was thought an innovation at
first; but never before were English lads turned out of school in
such high-toned, manly form, or so well able to hold their own at
the universities, or in the bigger world outside.

As may be imagined, the wonders of science had not been
ignored in such a school. One can hardly believe that modern
science is almost included within the present century. All before

_* From advance-sheets of “ The Playtime Naturalist,” in press of D. Appleton & Co.

BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE AT MUGBY SCHOOL, 57

then, except astronomy, was more or less speculation. Nobody
would call Linnzeus’s system of botany a science, although it was
very useful and introductory ; nor was geology, zodlogy, nor chem-
istry. Scientists had only been playing, like children, in the vesti-
bule of the great temple. It may be that we ourselves have not
advanced far within the precincts—at least those who study these
subjects a hundred years hence may think so. But, at any rate,
the amount of knowledge extant concerning the world in which
we live, and its ancient and modern inhabitants, is vast compared
with what it was when the present century commenced.

At Mugby School, science was an important and also a welcome
subject. How welcome it was is best indicated by the fact that the
boys got up a Natural History Society among themselves. This
was really a self-imposed task, done out of school-hours. Some of
the principal teachers encouraged the lads by becoming members ;
not that they knew much of natural history or scientific subjects
(some of them, indeed, knew nothing at all, and actually learned
a good deal from the boys themselves).

Of course, the society was founded on the best models. It was
not a bit behind the famous “ Royal Society of London” in its
equipment. It had its president and vice-president, and its com-
mittee were called “the
council.” It also published,
for the world’s benefit, ab-
stracts of the short papers
the boys read—the ab-
stracts being nearly as
long as the papers. AI-
though its members were
not numerous, they felt
they bore the weight of
the dignity of the society
on their shoulders; and,
as they were too boyish-
manly to be priggish, the
training did them no harm.

Well, the society was
divided into sections. One
section was appointed to
collect the plants of the
neighborhood—that is, those obtainable during the school half-
holidays ; another to collect butterflies and moths; a third, bee-
tles; a fourth, birds; a fifth, fossils, etc. They were to publish
lists of the plants, birds, insects, and fossils of the district in the
“Society’s Proceedings”; for, of course, the latter was the name
given to the abstracted papers.

VOL. Xxxv.—4*

Fie. 1.—ScauLe or CHUB.

58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The society had only been founded the year before Jack Hamp-
son was sent to Mugby School; so it was in the first zeal and fresh-
ness of its youth. Jack didn’t like science—it was nothing but a
lot of hard, jaw-breaking names, he said, and what was the. good
of them? He and others had enough of hard words in their daily
Latin and Greek tasks. Jack rather snubbed the fellows who
volunteered to learn more hard words than were required—he
couldn’t understand it. What was the good of calling a butter-
cup Ranunculus, and a white stone quartz ? It was all sham and
show !

Now, Jack was a born hunter. He was ardently fond of fishing,
and not a bad shot, considering he had been mistrusted, instead of
trusted, with a gun.
I dare say his skill
with the latter would
have astonished his
father; and I have
no doubt a good
many ounces of *bac-
ca found their way
into the keeper’s
pocket before he be-
came so creditable a
shot.

But there was not

Fic. 2.—Sca.z oF BLEAK. much fishing about

Mugby ; or, rather,

they were such little things that Jack felt ashamed of pulling them
out, and so he slipped them in again, although they never seemed
to grow any bigger. This was a wise act on their part, if they had
only known the unconscious chivalry of Jack’s nature, which hated

Fic. 3.—ScaLE oF EEL.

taking advantage of a weak thing. Then as to shooting—first, he
hadn’t a gun, and, if he had possessed one, the rules of the school
would have precluded his using it. Next, what was there to shoot ?
The small birds in the hedges? Any cad could do that! Sneak

BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE AT MUGBY SCHOOL. 59

after the poor beggars behind hedges, and then bang at a robin, a
wren, a yellow-hammer, or a tit, and perhaps blow it to pieces!
That was not good enough. Partridge and pheasant shooting,
Jack thought, are hardly much better sport, only you can eat
them.

Of course, there was the excitement of cricket and foot-ball,
hare-and-hounds, paper-chases, hurdle-racing, juamping—not only
not bad, but altogether good and brave and manly sports. But,
somehow, a lad of superior mental abilities wants something
else.

Now, the scientist is also a hunter. He traces his descent from
Nimrod—he is a hunter before the Lord. He roams through the
stellar universe for his prey—hunts for stars, comets, planets. He
is not daunted because he did not live on the world when it was
young, millions of years ago; for he makes up for it by hunting
the remains of the animals and plants that lived during countless

A

Fie. 4.—Scanz or Roacu. Fie. 5.—ScALE oF DAcE.

ages, and which have long been buried in the rocks of the earth’s
crust as fossils. He hunts for flowering plants and animals in
all parts of the earth; braves heat and cold, hunger and thirst,
wounds and death, in his ardent search for them. The structures
of rocks do not escape his mineralogical hunting, nor the compo-
sition of any sort of substance, organic or inorganic, his chemical
analysis. He hunts down stars thousands of millions of miles
away with his telescope, and creatures less, than the fifteen-
thousandth part of an inch long with his microscope. Was there
ever such a great hunter? This hunting instinct began scores of
thousands of years ago, when the hairy, naked Paleolithic men
hunted extinct hairy elephants and rhinoceroses. It has been de-

60 THE POPULAL SCIEN CE MONTHLY.

veloped until it has assumed the high intellectual pleasure of
roaming through God’s great creation, and of confirming the
ancient writer’s conclusion—“ Lo, there is no end to it!”
Of all these things Jack Hampson had never heard a word.
Perhaps he had occasionally listened to a few joking remarks
about Darwin and our “ be-
WN ANAM ing descended from monk-
us eys” at his father’s dinner-
; table. But his father (who
was anything but a wealthy
man these hard agricultural
times, although he farmed
his own estate) had not much
time for considering the dis-
coveries of modern science. '
Their echoes faintly reached
him occasionally, but never
touched him seriously. Not
only were the times bad, but
his family was large, and it
was not without a stretch
that Jack was sent to Mugby
School, rather more than
twenty miles off. His brother (Jack’s uncle) was better off, because
he had no family ; and the uncle also had more leisure, and, what is
more, was really a man of a literary and scientific turn of mind.
All school-boys make friends at school. Nobody has ever ana-
lyzed the process of
friend-making among
boys. It is as myste-
rious as genuine love-
making. Friendships
—at least, boys’ friend-
ships—are also made
“at first sight.” Live
in a public school a few
years, and you will find
it out. You might just
as well tell a boy to
make friends with a cer-
tain other boy, as order
him to make love a few years later with your female selection \
And yet what issues of life depend on those boyish friendships
made at school! They are often more durable than marriages.
They survive success, disaster, and disease. Not unfrequently,
they are prolonged to the second and third generation. If there

Fic. 6.—ScaLe or GUDGEON.

Fig. 7.—ScALE oF BREAM.

BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE AT MUGBY SCHOOL. 61

is one thing more difficult to explain concerning instincts than
another, it is the instinct of boys’ friendships.

How Jack Hampson—big-limbed, broad-backed Jack—came to
take up, the very day he arrived at Mugby, with little Willie Ran-
some, I can not tell. There ;
is something in the doc-
trine of contrasts ; doubt-
less Willie was as great a
contrast to Jack as you ¢
would have found in the ff WS =
whole school—rather un- SE
dersized, weakly, but never- Ss
theless a brave and truthful
boy. He was fond of books
—a trifle too fond, for it
would have done him good
to have got away from them
a little. . The chief feature about. Willie was his large, bright, in-
quiring eyes, and his altogether affectionate disposition. He took
to Jack at once, and Jack to him. Never before was there a better
illustration of “friendship at first sight.” .

It was at the commencement of the spring term that the friends
came to Mugby School. Without knowing it, but fortunately for
them and for the whole
school, a fine, enthusiastic
young fellow had been ap-
pointed “science teacher.”
The term sounds vague, but
| sodo all terms if too strictly
analyzed. The boys dubbed
him “professor,” and there-
by unconsciously gave him
higher rank than his con-
fréeres, who were only
“teachers.” It would have
been impossible for a young
man to have been selected
better fitted for such a post.
Nothing gets hold of boys
sooner than enthusiasm. Boys are naturally enthusiastic. There
is no better proof of vitality, even in an old man, than that he con-
tinues to be enthusiastic about anything intellectual.

Willie Ransome’s father was a village doctor, and it was hoped
Willie would some day help his father in his increasingly larger,
but not increasingly profitable, rounds. Willie entered the science
class the first term. His father was a man of scientific tastes, with

Fie. 8.—ScaLe or Loacu.

==

‘c

mera

Fic. 9.—ScaLe or Minnow.

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

little leisure to indulge them. But he had already inoculated his
only son with a love for such subjects. Willie, however, had
never before been drawn within the magic circle of enthusiasm
for them, and his highly
sensitive temperament was
fixed by the professor’s de-
scriptions and demonstra-
tions immediately. Before
the term was half over, he
was a member of the so-
ciety, and doing his best to
“collect” for the society’s
museum.

Jack had many a hearty
laugh over this disposition
to hoard up a lot of old
stones and things, and give
them hard names. . More
than once he was asked to
attend a society’s meeting
—for each member had the privilege of introducing a friend—but
he always shirked it. “No,” he said; “they are not my sort.”

One wet evening, however, Willie Ransome got Jack to go,
just because there was
nothing else todo. There
was a short paper being
read on “ Fish-Scales,”
and a number of them
were mounted for micro-
scopical examination, of
course with a low power,
say inch and half-inch.
Anything relating to fish
or fishing was certain to
gain Jack’s attention,
therefore a better sub-
ject could not have been
selected to engage his no-
tice. Besides, Jack had
never yet even looked
through a microscope I Fig. 11.—ScaLz or Common Carp.

He felt a bit ashamed of

this now; but there were a couple of microscopes present, and
Jack determined to have a good look through them. The scales
of different sorts of British fishes were on view. Of course, fish-
scales are common enough; but who would think that each kind

BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE ‘AT MUGBY SCHOOL, 63

has its own pattern of scale, and that you could tell a species of
fish by its scales ?

The paper showed that the scales of fishes were composed of
the same material, chitine, as the feathers of birds, or the hair and
nails of animals—a kind of substance only found in the animal
kingdom, and never in the vegetable; that these scales are devel-
oped in little pockets in the fish’s skin, which you can plainly
see for yourself when a herring is scaled. They are arranged
all over the fish’s body like the tiles covering a roof, partly over-
lapping each other, as is seen by one part of the scale being often
different from the other.

Jack looked through
the microscope and was
delighted. He was always
a reverent-minded boy,
and the sight broke on
his mind like a new reve-
lation. How exquisitely
chaste and beautiful were
the markings, lines, dots,
and other peculiarities !
Then the scales-which run
along the middle line of the
fish were shown him, and
theducts perforating them,
out of which the mucus
flows to anoint the fish’s
body, and thus reduce the
friction of its rapid move-
ment through the water.
The lad was half bewil-
dered at the possibility
of the new knowledge.
“Could anybody get to
know about these things?” he asked Willie, who told him of
course he could, if he would only take a little trouble.

“But,” said his young friend, “I would advise you to get a
pocket-magnifier first, and begin to examine with that. Some
fellows begin right off with a powerful microscope they get their
governors to buy them, and they work it like mad for a month or
two, and then get tired of it. Fact is, they never learned the art
of observing.”

“What do you mean by that ?” said Jack.

“Why, getting into the habit of looking about you, keeping
your eyes open, and quickly spotting anything unusual. Fancy a
fellow beginning to use magnifying glasses of thousands of times

Fig. 12.—ScaLe or PIKE.

64. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

before he has begun to use his own eyes! Use your own eyes
first, then get a little extra help in the shape of a shilling pocket-
lens, and by and by you will be able to use a real microscope, and
enjoy using it too.”

This was rather a long lecture for Willie to give, or for Jack
to listen to. He wouldn’t
have listened if it had
. not been for what he
had just seen. He said
nothing, but he made up
his mind he would get
one of these useful shill-
ing magnifiers. Willie
usually had a country
walk during the school
half-holiday, and Jack
had often been invited
to accompany him; but
he didn’t care to go
“ humbugging after
grubs and weeds,” he
said. Now, however, he invited himself, and somewhat surprised
his friend by stating he wanted to go with him.

Fie, 18.—ScaLEe or GRAYLING.

————_—s> o > __

AGNOSTICISM.

A REPLY TO PROFESSOR HUXLEY.
I.
By Rev. Dr. HENRY WACE, Privncrpat or Kine’s CoLiece.

12 would hardly be reasonable to complain of Prof. Huxley’s
delay in replying to the paper on “ Agnosticism” which I read
five months ago, when, at the urgent request of an old friend, I
reluctantly consented to address the Church Congress at Manches-
ter. I am obliged to him for doing it the honor to bring it to
the notice of a wider circle than that to which it was directly ad-
dressed ; and I fear that, for reasons which have been the occasion
of universal regret, he may not have been equal to literary effort.
But, at the same time, it is impossible not to notice that a writer
is at a great advantage in attacking a fugitive essay a quarter of a
year after it was made public. Such a lapse of time ought, indeed,
to enable him to apprehend distinctly the argument with which
he is dealing; and it might, at least, secure him from any such
inaccuracy in quotation as greater haste might excuse. But if
either his idiosyncrasy, or his sense of assured superiority, should

AGNOSTICISM. 65

lead him to pay no real attention to the argument he is attacking,
or should betray him into material misquotation, he may at least
be sure that scarcely any of his readers will care to refer to the
original paper, or will have the opportunity of doing so. I can
scarcely hope that Prof. Huxley’s obliging reference to the “ Offi-
cial Report of the Church Congress” will induce many of those
who are influenced by his answer to my paper to purchase that
interesting volume, though they would be well repaid by some of
its other contents; and I can hardly rely on their spending even
twopence upon the reprint of the paper, published by the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge. I have therefore felt obliged
to ask the editor of this review to be kind enough to admit to his
pages a brief restatement of the position which Prof. Huxley has
assailed, with such notice of his arguments as is practicable within
the comparatively brief space which can be afforded me. I could
not, indeed, amid the pressing claims of a college like this in term
time, besides the chairmanship of a hospital, a preachership, and
other duties, attempt any reply which would deal as thoroughly
as could be wished with an article of so much skill and finish.
But it is a matter of justice to my cause and to myself to remove
at once the unscientific and prejudiced representation of the case
which Prof. Huxley has put forward; and fortunately there will
be need of no elaborate argument for this purpose. There is no
occasion to go beyond Prof. Huxley’s own article and the lan-
guage of my paper to exhibit his entire misapprehension of the
point in dispute; while I am much more than content to rely for
the invalidation of his own contentions upon the authorities he
himself quotes.

What, then, is the position with which Prof. Huxley finds
fault ? He is good enough to say that what he calls my “ descrip-
tion” of an agnostic may for the present pass, so that we are so
far, at starting, on common ground. The actual description of an
agnostic, which is given in my paper, is indeed distinct from the
words he quotes, and is taken from an authoritative source. But
what I have said is that, as an escape from such an article of Chris-
tian belief as that we have a Father in heaven, or that Jesus
Christ is the Judge of quick and dead, and will hereafter return to
judge the world, an agnostic urges that “ he has no means of a sci-
entific knowledge of the unseen world or of the future”: and I
maintain that this plea is irrelevant. Christians do not presume
to say that they have a scientific knowledge of such articles of
their creed. They say that they believe them, and they believe
them mainly on the assurances of Jesus Christ. Consequently their
characteristic difference from an agnostic consists in the fact that
they believe those assurances, and that he does not. Prof. Hux-
ley’s observation, “Are there then any Christians who say that they

VOL. xxxv.—b5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was ig-
norant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of
a professed theologian,” is either a quibble, or one of many indi-
cations that he does not recognize the point at issue. I am speak-
ing, as the sentence shows, of scientific knowledge—knowledge
which can be obtained by our own reason and observation alone—
and no one with Prof. Huxley’s learning is justified in being igno-
rant that itis not upon such knowledge, but upon supernatural
revelation, that Christian belief rests. However, as he goes on to
say, my view of “the real state of the case is that the agnostic
‘does not believe the authority’ on which ‘these things’ are
stated, which authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fash-
ioned ‘ infidel’ who is afraid to own to his right name.” The argu-
ment has nothing to do with his motive, whether it is being afraid
or not. It only concerns the fact that that by which he is distinct-
ively separated from the Christian is that he does not believe the
assurances of Jesus Christ.

Prof. Huxley thinks there is “an attractive simplicity about
this solution of the problem ”—he means, of course, this statement
of the case—“ and it has that advantage of being somewhat offen-
sive to the persons attacked, which is so dear to the less refined
sort of controversialist.” I think Prof. Huxley must have forgot-
' ten himself and his own feelings in this observation. There can
be no question, of course, of his belonging himself to the more
refined sort of controversialists; but he has a characteristic fancy
for solutions of problems, or statements of cases, which have the
“advantage of being somewhat offensive to the persons attacked.”
Without taking this particular phrase into account, it certainly has
“the advantage of being offensive to the persons attacked” that
Prof. Huxley should speak in this article of “ the pestilent doctrine
on which all the churches have insisted, that honest disbelief ”—
the word “honest” is not a misquotation—* honest disbelief in
their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offense, indeed a
sin of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future
retribution as murder or robbery,” or that he should say, “ Trip
in morals or in doctrine (especially in doctrine), without due re-
pentance or retractation, or fail to get properly baptized before
you die, and a plébiscite of the Christians of Europe, if they were
true to their creeds, would affirm your everlasting damnation by
an immense majority.” We have fortunately nothing to do in
this argument with plébiscites ; and as statements of authoritative
Christian teaching, the least that can be said of these allegations is
that they are offensive exaggerations. It had “the advantage”
again, of being “offensive to the persons attacked,’ when Prof.
Huxley, in an article in this review on “Science and the Bishops,”
in November, 1887, said that “scientific ethics can and does declare

— ne

AGNOSTICISM. 67

that the profession of belief” in such narratives as that of the
devils entering a herd of swine, or of the fig-tree that was blasted
for bearing no figs, upon the evidence on which multitudes of
Christians believe it, “is immoral”; and the observation which
followed, that “theological apologists would do well to consider
the fact that, in the matter of intellectual veracity, Science is al-
ready a long way ahead of the churches,” has the same “advan-
tage.” I repeat that I can not but treat Prof. Huxley as an exam-
ple of the more refined sort of controversialist; it must be sup-
posed, therefore, that when he speaks of observations or insinua-
tions which are somewhat offensive to the “persons attacked”
being dear to the other sort of controversialists, he is unconscious
of his own methods of controversy—or, shall I say, his own temp-
tations ?

But I desire as far as possible to avoid any rivalry with Prof.
Huxley in these refinements—more or less—of controversy ; and
am, in fact, forced by pressure both of space and of time to keep as
rigidly as possible to the points directly at issue. He proceeds to
restate the case as follows: “The agnostic says, ‘I can not find
good evidence that so and so is true” ‘Ah, says his adversary,
seizing his opportunity, ‘then you declare that Jesus Christ was
untruthful, for he said so and so’—a very telling method of rousing
prejudice.” Now that superior scientific veracity to which, as we
have seen, Prof. Huxley lays claim, should have prevented him
putting such vulgar words into my mouth. There is not a word
in my paper to charge agnostics with declaring that Jesus Christ
was “untruthful.” I believe it impossible in these days for any
man who claims attention—I might say, for any man—to declare
our Lord untruthful. What I said, and what I repeat, is that the
position of an agnostic involves the conclusion that Jesus Christ
was under an “illusion” in respect to the deepest beliefs of his
life and teaching. The words of my paper are, “ An agnosticism
which knows nothing of the relation of man to God must not only
refuse belief to our Lord’s most undoubted teaching, but must
deny the reality of the spiritual convictions in which he lived and
died.” The point is this—that there can, at least, be no reasonable
doubt that Jesus Christ lived, and taught, and died, in the belief
of certain great principles respecting the existence of God, our re-
lation to God, and his own relation to us, which an agnostic says
are beyond the possibilities of human knowledge; and of course
an agnostic regards Jesus Christ asa man. If so, he must neces-
sarily regard Jesus Christ as mistaken, since the notion of his
being untruthful is a supposition which I could not conceive being
suggested. The question I have put is not, as Prof. Huxley repre-
sents, what is the most unpleasant alternative to belief in the
primary truths of the Christian religion, but what is the least un-

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pleasant; and all I have maintained is that the least unpleasant
alternative necessarily involved is, that Jesus Christ was under
an illusion in his most vital convictions,

I content myself with thus rectifying the state of the case,
without making the comments which I think would be justified
on such a crude misrepresentation of my argument. But Prof.
Huxley goes on to observe that “the value of the evidence as to
what Jesus may have said and done, and as to the exact nature
and scope of his authority, is just that which the agnostic finds
it most difficult to determine.” Undoubtedly, that is a primary
question; but who would suppose from Prof. Huxley’s statement
of the case that the argument of the paper he is attacking pro-
ceeded to deal with this very point, and that he has totally ignored
the chief consideration it alleged ? Almost immediately after the
words Prof. Huxley has quoted, the following passage occurs,
which I must needs transfer to these pages, as containing the
central point of the argument: “It may be asked how far we can
rely on the accounts we possess of our Lord’s teaching on these
subjects. Now it is unnecessary for the general argument be-
fore us to enter on those questions respecting the authenticity of
the gospel narratives, which ought to be regarded as settled by
M. Renan’s practical surrender of the adverse case. Apart from all
disputed points of criticism, no one practically doubts that our Lord
lived, and that he died on the cross, in the most intense sense of
filial relation to his Father in heaven, and that he bore testimony to
that Father’s providence, love, and grace toward mankind. The
Lord's Prayer affords sufficient evidence wpon these points. If the
Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen world, of
which the agnostic refuses to know anything, stands unveiled be-
fore us. There you see revealed the divine Father and Creator of
all things, wn personal relation to his creatures, hearing their
prayers, witnessing thetr actions, caring for them and rewarding
them. There you hear of a future judgment administered by Christ
himself, and of a heaven to be hereafter revealed, in which those
who live as the children of that Father, and who suffer in the cause
and for the sake of Christ himself, will be abundantly rewarded.
If Jesus Christ preached that sermon, made those promises, and
taught that prayer, then any one who says that we know nothing
of God, or of a future life, or of an unseen world, says that he does
not believe Jesus Christ.”

Prof. Huxley has not one word to say upon this argument,
though the whole case is involved init. Let us take as an exam-
ple the illustration he proceeds to give. “If,” he says, “I venture
to doubt that the Duke of Wellington gave the command, ‘ Up,
Guards, and at ’em!’ at Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr.
Wace would accuse me of disbelieving the duke.” Certainly

AGNOSTICISM. 69

not. But if Prof. Huxley were to maintain that the pursuit of
glory was the true motive of the soldier, and that it was an illu-
sion to suppose that simple devotion to duty could be the supreme
guide of military life, I should certainly charge him with contra-
dicting the duke’s teaching and disregarding his authority and
example. A hundred stories like that of “Up, Guards, and at
’em!” might be doubted, or positively disproved, and it would
still remain a fact beyond all reasonable doubt that the Duke of
Wellington was essentially characterized by the sternest and most
devoted sense of duty, and that he had inculcated duty as the very
watchword of a soldier; and even Prof. Huxley would not sug-
gest that Lord Tennyson’s ode, which has embodied this charac-
teristic in immortal verse, was an unfounded poetical romance.
The main question at issue, in a word, is one which Prof. Hux-
ley has chosen to leave entirely on one side—whether, namely,
allowing for the utmost uncertainty on other points of the criti-
cism to which he appeals, there is any reasonable doubt that the
Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount afford a true account
of our Lord’s essential belief and cardinal teaching. If they do—
then I am not now contending that they involve the whole of
the Christian creed; I am not arguing, as Prof. Huxley would
represent, that he ought for that reason alone to be a Christian—
I simply represent that, as an agnostic, he must regard those be-
liefs and that teaching as mistaken—the result of an illusion, to
say the least. I am not going, therefore, to follow Prof. Hux-
ley’s example, and go down a steep place with the Gadarene swine
into a sea of uncertainties and possibilities, and stake the whole
case of Christian belief as against agnosticism upon one of the
most difficult and mysterious narratives in the New Testament.
I will state my position on that question presently. But I am
first and chiefly concerned to point out that Prof. Huxley has
skillfully evaded the very point and edge of the argument he had
to meet. Let him raise what difficulties he pleases, with the help
of his favorite critics, about the Gadarene swine, or even about
all the stories of demoniacs. He will find that his critics—and
even critics more rationalistic than they—fail him when it comes
to the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, and, I will
add, the story of the Passion. He will find, or rather he must
have found, that the very critics he relies upon recognize that in
the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer, allowing for
variations in form and order, the substance of our Lord’s essential
teaching is preserved. On a point which, until Prof. Huxley
shows cause to the contrary, can hardly want argument, the judg-
ment of the most recent of his witnesses may suffice—Prof.
Reuss, of Strasburg. In Prof. Huxley’s article on the “ Evolution
of Theology” in the number of this review for March, 1886,

70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he says, “As Reuss appears to me to be one of the most learned,
acute, and fair-minded of those whose works I have studied, I
have made most use of the commentary and dissertations in his
splendid French edition of the Bible.” What, then, is the opin-
ion of the critic for whom Prof. Huxley has this regard? In the
volume of his work which treats of the first three Gospels, Reuss
says at page 191-192, “If anywhere the tradition which has pre-
served to us the reminiscences of the life of Jesus upon earth car-
ries with it certainty and the evidence of its fidelity, it is here”;
and again: “In short, it must be acknowledged that the redactor,
in thus concentrating the substance of the moral teaching of the
Lord, has rendered a real service to the religious study of this
portion of the tradition, and the reserves which historical criti-
cism has a right to make with respect to the form will in no way
diminish this advantage.” It will be observed that Prof. Reuss
thinks, as many good critics have thought, that the Sermon on
the Mount combines various distinct utterances of our Lord, but
he none the less recognizes that it embodies an unquestionable
account of the substance of our Lord’s teaching.

But it is surely superfluous to argue either this particular
point, or the main conclusion which I have founded on it. Can
there be any doubt whatever, in the mind of any reasonable man,
that Jesus Christ had beliefs respecting God which an agnostic
alleges there is no sufficient ground for? We know something at
all events of what his disciples taught; we have authentic origi-
nal documents, unquestioned by any of Prof. Huxley’s authori-
ties, as to what St. Paul taught and believed, and of what he
taught and believed respecting his Master’s teaching; and the
central point of this teaching is a direct assertion of knowledge
and revelation as against the very agnosticism from which Prof.
Huxley manufactured that designation. “As I passed by,” said
St. Paul at Athens, “I found an altar with this inscription:
‘To the unknown God.’ Whom therefore ye ignorantly—or in
agnosticism—worship, Him I declare unto you.” An agnostic
withholds his assent from this primary article of the Chris-
tian creed; and though Prof. Huxley, in spite of the lack of in-
formation he alleges respecting early Christian teaching, knows
enough on the subject to have a firm belief “that the Nazarenes,
say of the year 40,” headed by James, would have stoned any one
who propounded the Nicene Creed to them, he will hardly con-
tend that they denied that article, or doubted that Jesus Christ
believed it. Let us again listen to the authority to whom Prof.
Huxley himself refers. Reuss says at page 4 of the work already
quoted :

Historical literature in the primitive church attaches itself in the most imme-
diate manner to the reminiscences collected by the apostles and their friends,

AGNOSTICISM. 71

directly after their separation from their Master. The need of such a return to
the past arose naturally from the profound impression which had been made upon
them by the teaching, and still more by the individuality itself of Jesus, and on
which both their hopes for the future and their convictions were founded. . . . It
is in these facts, in this continuity of a tradition which could not but go back to
the very morrow of the tragic scene of Golgotha that we have a strong guarantee
for its authenticity. . . . We have direct historical proof that the thread of tradi-
tion was not interrupted. Not only does one of our evangelists furnish this proof
in formal terms (Luke i, 2); but in many other places besides we perceive the
idea, or the point of view, that all which the apostles know, think, and teach, is at
bottom and essentially a reminiscence—a reflection of what they have seen and
learned at another time, a reproduction of lessons and impressions received.

Now let it be allowed for argument’s sake that the belief and
teaching of the apostles are distinct from those of subsequent
Christianity, yet it is surely a mere paradox to maintain that
they did not assert, as taught by their Master, truths which an
agnostic denies. They certainly spoke, as Paul did, of the love of
God; they certainly spoke, as Paul did, of Jesus having been
raised from the dead by God the Father (Gal.i, 1); they certainly
spoke, as Paul did, of Jesus Christ returning to judge the world ;
they certainly spoke, as Paul did, of “the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. xi, 31). That they could have done
this without Jesus Christ having taught God’s love, or hav-
ing said that God was his Father, or having declared that he
would judge the world, is a supposition which will certainly be
regarded by an overwhelming majority of reasonable men as a
mere paradox ; and I can not conceive, until he says so, that Prof.
Huxley would maintain it. But if so, then all Prof. Huxley’s
argumentation about the Gadarene swine is mere irrelevance to
the argument he undertakes to answer. The Gospels might be
obliterated as evidence to-morrow, and it would remain indisput-
able that Jesus Christ taught certain truths respecting God, and
man’s relation to God, from which an agnostic withholds his
assent. Ifso, he does not believe Jesus Christ’s teaching; he is
so far an unbeliever, and “unbeliever,’ Dr. Johnson says, is an
equivalent of “ infidel.”

This consideration will indicate another irrelevance in Prof.
Huxley’s argument. He asks for a definition of what a Christian
is, before he will allow that he can be justly called an infidel.
But without being able to give an accurate definition of a cray-
fish, which perhaps only Prof. Huxley could do, I may be very
well able to say that some creatures are not crayfish; and it is not
necessary to frame a definition of a Christian in order to say con-
fidently that a person who does not believe the broad and unques-
tionable elements of Christ’s teachings and convictions is not a
Christian. “Infidel” or “ unbeliever ” is of course, as Prof. Huxley

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

says, a relative and nota positive term. He makes a great deal
of play out of what he seems to suppose will be a very painful
and surprising consideration to myself, that to a Mohammedan I
am an infidel. Of course I am; and I should never expect a
Mohammedan, if he were called upon, as I was, to argue before
an assembly of his own fellow-believers, to call me anything else.
Prof. Huxley is good enough to imagine me in his company on a
visit to the Hazar Mosque at Cairo. When he entered that
mosque without due credentials, he suspects that, had he under-
stood Arabic, “dog of an infidel” would have been by no means
the most “unpleasant” of the epithets showered upon him, before
he could explain and apologize for the mistake. If, he says, “I
had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace’s company on that occasion,
the undiscriminative followers of the Prophet would, I am afraid,
have made no difference between us; not even if they had known
that he was the head of an orthodox Christian seminary.” Prob-
ably not; and I will add that I should have felt very little confi-
dence in any attempts which Prof. Huxley might have made, in
the style of his present article, to protect me, by repudiating for
himself the unpleasant epithets which he deprecates. It would, I
suspect, have been of very little avail to attempt a subtle explana-
tion, to one of the learned mollahs of whom he speaks, that he
really did not mean to deny that there was one God, but only
that he did not know anything on the subject, and that he
desired to avoid expressing any opinion respecting the claims of
Mohammed. It would be plain to the learned mollah that Prof.
Huxley did not believe either of the articles of the Mohammedan
creed—in other words that, for all his fine distinctions, he was at
bottom a downright infidel, such as I confessed myself, and that
there was an end of the matter. There is no fair way of avoiding
the plain matter of fact in either case. A Mohammedan believes
and asserts that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is
the prophet of God. I don’t believe Mohammed. In the plain,
blunt, sensible phrase people used to use on such subjects I be-
lieve he was a false prophet, and Iam a downright infidel about
him. The Christian creed might almost be summed up in the
assertion that there is one, and but one God, and that Jesus
Christ is his prophet; and whoever denies that creed says that he
does not believe Jesus Christ, by whom it was undoubtedly as-
serted. It is better to look facts in the face, especially from a
scientific point of view. Whether Prof. Huxley is justified in his
denial of that creed is a further question, which demands separate
consideration, but which was not, and is not now, at issue. All I
say is that his position involves that disbelief or infidelity, and
that this is a responsibility which must be faced by agnos-
ticism.

AGNOSTICISM. 73

But I am forced to conclude that Prof. Huxley can not have
taken the pains to understand the point I raised, not only by the
irrelevance of his argument on these considerations, but by a mis-
quotation which the superior accuracy of a man of science ought
to have rendered impossible. Twice over in the article he quotes
me as saying that “it is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing
for a man to have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus
Christ.” As he winds up his attack upon my paper by bringing
against this statement his rather favorite charge of “immorality ”
—and even “most profound immorality ”—he was the more bound
to accuracy in his quotation of my words. But neither in the offi-
cial report of the congress to which he refers, nor in any report
that I have seen, is this the statement attributed tome. What I
said, and what I meant to say, was that it ought to be an unpleas-
ant thing for a man to have to say plainly “that he does not
believe Jesus Christ.” By inserting the little word “in,” Prof.
Huxley has, by an unconscious ingenuity, shifted the import of
the statement. He goes on to denounce “the pestilent doctrine
on which all the churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in
their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offense, indeed
asin of the deepest dye.”* His interpretation exhibits, in fact,
the idea in his own mind, which he has doubtless conveyed to
his readers, that I said it ought to be unpleasant to a man to
have to say that he does not believe in the Christian creed. I cer-
tainly think it ought, for reasons I will mention; but that is not
what I said. I spoke, deliberately, not of the Christian creed as a
whole, but of Jesus Christ as a person, and regarded as a witness
to certain primary truths which an agnostic will not acknowledge.
It was a personal consideration to which I appealed, and not a
dogmatic one; and I am sorry, for that reason, that Prof. Huxley
will not allow me to leave it in the reserve with which I hoped it
had been sufficiently indicated. I said that “no criticism worth
mentioning doubts the story of the Passion; and that story in-
volves the most solemn attestation, again and again, of truths of
which an agnostic coolly says he knows nothing. An agnosticism
which knows nothing of the relation of man to God must not only
refuse belief to our Lord’s most undoubted teaching, but must
deny the reality of the spiritual convictions in which he lived and
died. It must declare that his most intimate, most intense beliefs,
and his dying aspirations were an illusion. Is that supposition
tolerable?” Ido not think this deserves to be called “a propo-
sition of the most profoundly immoral character.” I think it
ought to be unpleasant, and I am sure it always will be unpleas-
ant, for a man to listen to the Saviour on the cross uttering such
words as “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and to

* “Popular Science Monthly”? for April, 1889, p. 766.

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

say that they are not to be trusted as revealing a real relation be-
tween the Saviour and God. In spite of all doubts as to the accu-
racy of the Gospels, Jesus Christ—I trust I may be forgiven, under
the stress of controversy, for mentioning his sacred name in this
too familiar manner—is a tender and sacred figure to all thought-
ful minds, and it is, it ought to be, and it always will be, a very
painful thing, to say that he lived and died under a mistake in re-
spect to the words which were first and last on his lips. I think,
as I have admitted, that it should be unpleasant for a man who
has as much appreciation of Christianity, and of its work in the
world, as Prof. Huxley sometimes shows, to have to say that its
belief was founded on no objective reality. The unpleasantness,
however, of denying one system of thought may be balanced by
the pleasantness, as Prof. Huxley suggests, of asserting another
and a better one. But nothing, to all time, can do away with the
unpleasantness, not only of repudiating sympathy with the most
sacred figure of humanity in his deepest beliefs and feelings, but
of pronouncing him under an illusion in his last agony. If it be
the truth, let it by all means be said; but if we are to talk of “im-
morality ” in such matters, I think there must be a lack of moral
sensibility in any man who could say it without pain.

The plain fact is that this misquotation would have been as
impossible as a good deal else of Prof. Huxley’s argument, had
he, in any degree, appreciated the real strength of the hold which
Christianity has over men’s hearts and minds. The strength of
the Christian Church, in spite of its faults, errors, and omissions,
is not in its creed, but in its Lord and Master. In spite of all the
critics, the Gospels have conveyed to the minds of millions of men
a living image of Christ. They see him there; they hear his
voice; they listen, and they believe him. It is not so much that
they accept certain doctrines as taught by him, as that they ac-
cept him, himself, as their Lord and their God. The sacred fire of
trust in him descended upon the apostles, and has from them been
handed on from generation to generation. It is with that living
personal figure that agnosticism has to deal; and as long as the
Gospels practically produce the effect of making that figure a
reality to human hearts, so long will the Christian faith, and the
Christian Church, in their main characteristics, be vital and per-
manent forces in the world. Prof. Huxley tells us, in a melan-
choly passage, that he can not define “the grand figure of Jesus.”
Who shall dare to “define” it? But saints have both written
and lived an imitatio Christi, and men and women can feel and
know what they can not define. Prof. Huxley, it would seem,
would have*us all wait coolly until we have solved all critical
difficulties, before acting on such a belief. “ Because,” he says,
“we are often obliged, by the pressure of events, to act on very

AGNOSTICISM. mG

bad evidence, it does not follow that it is proper to act on such
evidence when the pressure is absent.” Certainly not; but it is
strange ignorance of human nature for Prof. Huxley to imagine
that there is no “pressure” in this matter. It was a voice which
understood the human heart better which said, “Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest”; and the attraction of that voice outweighs many a crit-
ical difficulty under the pressure of the burdens and the sins
of life.

Prof. Huxley, indeed, admits, in one sentence of his article, the
force of this influence on individuals.

If (he says) a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of all his hopes, the mirror
of his ethical ideal, in the pages of any, or of all, of the Gospels, let him live by
faith in that ideal. Who shall, or can, forbid him? But let him not delude him-
self with the notion that his faith is evidence of the objective reality of that in
which he trusts. Such evidence is to be obtained only by the use of the methods
of science, as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts at present to
very little.

Well, a single man’s belief in an ideal may be very little evi-
dence of its objective reality. But the conviction of millions of
men, generation after generation, of the veracity of the four evan-
gelical witnesses, and of the human and divine reality of the fig-
ure they describe, has at least something of the weight of the ver-
dict of a jury. Secwrus judicat orbis terrarum. Practically the
figure of Christ lives. The Gospels have created it; and it sub-
sists as a personal fact in life, alike among believers and unbeliev-
ers.. Prof. Huxley himself, in spite of all his skepticism, appears
to have his own type of this character. The apologue of the
woman taken in adultery might, he says, “if internal evidence
were an infallible guide, well be affirmed to be a typical example
of the teachings of Jesus.” Internal evidence may not be an infal-
lible guide; but it certainly carries great weight, and no one has
relied more upon it in these questions than the critics whom Prof.
Huxley quotes.

But as I should be sorry to imitate Prof. Huxley, on so mo-
mentous a subject, by evading the arguments and facts he alleges,
I will consider the question of external evidence on which he
dwells. I must repeat that the argument of my paper is independ-
ent of this controversy. The fact that our Lord taught and be-
lieved what agnostics ignore is not dependent on the criticism of
the four Gospels. In addition to the general evidence to which I
have alluded, there is a further consideration which Prof. Huxley
feels it necessary to mention, but which he evades by an extraor-
dinary inconsequence. He alleges that the story of the Gadarene
Swine involves fabulous matter, and that this discredits the trust-
worthiness of the whole Gospel record. But he says:

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full and candid con-
sideration. It may be said that critical skepticism carried to the length suggested
is historical pyrrhonism; that if we are to altogether discredit an ancient or a
modern historian because he has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as
well to give up paying any attention to history. . . . Of course (he acknowledges)
this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive whose witness could be
accepted, if the condition precedent were proof that he had never invented and
promulgated a myth.

The question, then, which Prof. Huxley himself raises, and
which he had to answer, was this: Why is the general evidence of
the Gospels, on the main facts of our Lord’s life and teaching, to
be discredited, even if it be true that they have invented or pro-
mulgated a myth about the Gadarene swine? What is his answer
to that simple and broad question? Strange to say, absolutely
none at all! He leaves this vital question without any answer,
and goes back to the Gadarene swine. The question he raises is
whether the supposed incredibility of the story of the Gadarene
swine involves the general untrustworthiness of the story of the
Gospels; and his conclusion is that it involves the incredibility of
the story of the Gadarene swine. A more complete evasion of his
own question it would be difficult toimagine. As Prof. Huxley al-
most challenges me to state what I think of that story, I have only
to say that I fully believe it, and moreover that Prof. Huxley, in
this very article, has removed the only consideration which would
have been a serious obstacle to my belief. If he were prepared to
say, on his high scientific authority, that the narrative involves a
contradiction of established scientific truth, I could not but defer
to such a decision, and I might be driven to consider those possi-
bilities of interpolation in the narrative, which Prof. Huxley is
good enough to suggest to all who feel the improbability of the
story too much for them. But Prof. Huxley expressly says:

I admit I have no @ priori objection to offer. . . . For anything I can abso-
lutely prove to the contrary, there may be spiritual things capable of the same
transmigration, with like effects. . . . So I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am
unable to show cause why these transferable devils should not exist.

Very well, then, as the highest science of the day is unable to
show cause against the possibility of the narrative, and as I regard
the Gospels as containing the evidence of trustworthy persons who
were contemporary with the events narrated, and as their general
veracity carries to my mind the greatest possible weight, I accept
their statement in this, 2s in other instances. Prof. Huxley vent-
ures “to doubt whether at this present moment any Protestant
theologian, who has a reputation to lose, will say that he believes
the Gadarene story.” He will judge whether I fall under his de-
scription; but I repeat that I believe it, and that he has removed
the only objection to my believing it.

AGNOSTICISM. 77

However, to turn finally to the important fact of external evi-
dence. Prof. Huxley reiterates, again and again, that the ver-
dict of scientific criticism is decisive against the supposition that
we possess in the four Gospels the authentic and contemporary
evidence of known writers. He repeats, “without the slightest
_ fear of refutation, that the four Gospels, as they have come to us,
are the work of unknown writers.” In particular, he challenges
my allegation of “ M. Renan’s practical surrender of the adverse
case”; and he adds the following observations, to which I beg the
reader’s particular attention :

I thought (he says) I knew M. Renan’s works pretty well, but I have contrived
to miss this “‘ practical”.—(I wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope of that useful
adjective)—surrender. However, as Dr. Wace can find no difficulty in pointing
out the passage of M. Renan’s writings, by which he feels justified in making his
statement, I shall wait for further enlightenment, contenting myself, for the pres-
ent, with remarking that if M. Renan were to retract and do penance in Notre
Dame to-morrow for any contributions to biblical criticism that may be specially
his property, the main results of that criticism, as they are set forth in the works
of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not be sensibly affected.

Let me begin, then, by enlightening Prof. Huxley about M.
Renan’s surrender. I have the less difficulty in doing so as the
passages he has contrived to miss have been collected by me al-
ready in a little tract on the “ Authenticity of the Gospels,” * and
in some lectures on the “ Gospel and its Witnesses”; + and I shall
take the liberty, for convenience’ sake, of repeating some of the
observations there made.

I beg first to refer to the preface to M. Renan’s “ Vie de Jésus.” {
There M. Renan says:

As to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The Gospel of St. Luke is a regular
composition, founded upon earlier documents. It is the work of an author who
chooses, curtails, combines. The author of this Gospel is certainly the same as the
author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now, the author of the Acts seems to be a
companion of St. Paul—a character which accords completely with St. Luke. I
know that more than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning; but one
thing at all events is beyond doubt, namely, that the author of the third Gospel
and of the Acts is a man who belonged to the second apostolic generation; and
this suffices for our purpose. The date of this Gospel, moreover, may be deter-
mined with sufficient precision by considerations drawn from the book itself. The
twenty-first chapter of St. Luke, which is inseparable from the rest of the work,
was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, but not long after. We are,
therefore, here on solid ground, for we are dealing with a work proceeding en-
tirely from the same hand, and possessing the most complete unity.

It may be important to observe that this admission has been
supported by M. Renan’s further investigations, as expressed in
his subsequent volume on “The Apostles.” In the preface to that

* Religious Tract Society. + John Murray, 1883. t Fifteenth edition, p. xlix.

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

volume he discusses fully the nature and value of the narrative
contained in the Acts of the Apostles, and he pronounces the fol-
lowing decided opinions as to the authorship of that book, and its
connection with the Gospel of St. Luke (page x sq.):

One point which is beyond question is that the Acts are by the same author as
the third Gospel, and are a continuation of that Gospel. One need not stop to
prove this proposition, which has never been seriously contested. The prefaces at
the commencement of each work, the dedication of each to Theophilus, the perfect
resemblance of style and of ideas, furnish on this point abundant demonstrations.

A second proposition, which has not the same certainty, but which may, how-
ever, be regarded as extremely probable, is that the author of the Acts is a disciple
of Paul, who accompanied him for a considerable part of his travels.

At a first glance, M. Renan observes, this proposition appears
indubitable, from the fact that the author, on so many occasions,
uses the pronoun “ we,” indicating that on those occasions he was
one of the apostolic band by whom St. Paul was accompanied.
“One may even be astonished that a proposition apparently so
evident should have found persons to contest it.” He notices,
however, the difficulties which have been raised on the point, and
then proceeds as follows (page 14):

Must we be checked by these objections? I think not; and I persist in be-
lieving that the person who finally prepared the Acts is really the disciple of Paul,
who says “‘ we”’ in the last chapters. All difficulties, however insoluble they may
appear, ought to be, if not dismissed, at least held in suspense, by an argument so
decisive as that which results from the use of this word ‘‘ we.”

He then observes that MSS. and tradition combine in assigning
the third Gospel to a certain Luke, and that it is scarcely conceiy-
able that a name in other respects obscure should have been
attributed to so important a work for any other reason than that
it was the name of the real author. Luke, he says, had no place
in tradition, in legend, or in history, when these two treatises were
ascribed to him. M. Renan concludes in the following words:
“We think, therefore, that the author of the third Gospel and of
the Acts is in all reality Luke, the disciple of Paul.” _

Now let the import of these expressions of opinion be duly
weighed. Of course, M. Renan’s judgments are not to be regarded
as affording in themselves any adequate basis for our acceptance
of the authenticity of the chief books of the New Testament. The
Acts of the Apostles and the four Gospels bear on their face cer-
tain positive claims, on the faith of which they have been accepted
in all ages of the Church; and they do not rest, in the first in-
stance, on the authority of any modern critic. But though M.
Renan would be a very unsatisfactory witness to rely upon for
the purpose of positive testimony to the Gospels, his estimates of
the value of modern critical objections to those sacred books have

AGNOSTICISM. 79

all the weight of the admissions of a hostile witness. No one
doubts his familiarity with the whole range of the criticism rep-
resented by such names as Strauss and Baur, and no one questions
his disposition to give full weight to every objection which that
criticism can urge. Even without assuming that he is prejudiced
on either one side or the other, it will be admitted on all hands
that he is more favorably disposed than otherwise to such criti-
cism as Prof. Huxley relies on. When, therefore, with this full
knowledge of the literature of the subject, such a writer comes to
the conclusion that the criticism in question has entirely failed to
make good its case on a point like that of the authorship of St.
Luke’s Gospel, we are at least justified in concluding that critical
objections do not possess the weight which unbelievers or skeptics
are wont to assign to them. M. Renan, in a word, is no adequate
witness to the Gospels; but he is a very significant witness as to
the value of modern critical objections to them.

Let us pass to the two other so-called “ synoptical ” Gospels.
With respect to St. Matthew, M. Renan says in the same preface
(“ Vie de Jésus,” p. lxxxi):

To sum up, I admit the four canonical Gospels as serious documents. All go
back to the age which followed the death of Jesus; but their historical value is
very diverse. St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the dis-
courses. Here are “the oracles,” the very notes taken while the memory of the
instruction of Jesus was living and definite. A kind of flashing brightness at once
sweet and terrible, a divine force, if I may so say, underlies these words, detaches
them from the context, and renders them easily recognizable by the critic.

In respect again to St. Mark, he says (p. lxxxii):

The Gospel of St. Mark is the one of the three synoptics which has remained
the most ancient, the most original, and to which the least of later additions have
been made. The details of fact possess in St. Mark a definiteness which we
seek in vain in the other evangelists. He is fond of reporting certain sayings of
our Lord in Syro-Chaldaic. He is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond
doubt, from an eye-witness. There is nothing to conflict with the supposition
that this eye-witness, who had evidently followed Jesus, who had loved him and
watched him in close intimacy, and who had preserved a vivid image of him, was
the apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.

I call these admissions a “ practical surrender” of the adverse
case, as stated by critics like Strauss and Baur, who denied that
we had in the Gospels contemporary evidence, and I do not think
it necessary to define the adjective, in order to please Prof. Hux-
ley’s appetite for definitions. At the very least it is a direct con-
tradiction of Prof. Huxley’s statement * that we know “absolutely
nothing ” of “the originator or originators” of the narratives in
the first three Gospels; and it is an equally direct contradiction
of the case, on which his main reply to my paper is based, that we

* “Popular Science Monthly” for April, 1889, p. 756.

80 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have no trustworthy evidence of what our Lord taught and
believed.

But Prof. Huxley seems to have been apprehensive that M.
Renan would fail him, for he proceeds, in the passage I have
quoted, to throw him over and to take refuge behind “the main
results of biblical criticism, as they are set forth in the works of
Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example.” It is scarcely
comprehensible how a writer, who has acquaintance enough with
this subject to venture on Prof. Huxley’s sweeping assertions,
can have ventured to couple together those four names for such a
purpose. “Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar”! Why, they
are absolutely destructive of one another! Baur rejected Strauss’s
theory and set up one of his own; while Reuss and Volkmar in
their turn have each dealt fatal blows at Baur’s. As to Strauss, I
need not spend more time on him than to quote the sentence in
which Baur himself puts him out of court on this particular con-
troversy. He says,* “The chief peculiarity of Strauss’s work is,
that it is a criticism of the Gospel history without a criticism of
the Gospels.” Strauss, in fact, explained the miraculous stories in
the Gospels by resolving them into myths, and it was of no im-
portance to his theory how the documents originated. But Baur
endeavored, by a minute criticism of the Gospels themselves, to
investigate the historical circumstances of their origin; and he
maintained that they were Tendenz-Schriften, compiled in the
second century, with polemical purposes. Volkmar, however, is
in direct confiict with Baur on this point, and in the very work
to which Prof. Huxley refers,t he enumerates (p. 18) among “ the
written testimonies of the first century”—besides St. Paul’s epistles
to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, and the apocalypse of
St. John—* the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, according
to John Mark of Jerusalem, written a few years after the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, between the years 70 and 80 of our reckoning—
about 75, probably; to be precise, about 73,” and he proceeds to
give a detailed account of it, “according to the oldest text, and
particularly the Vatican text,” as indispensable to his account of
Jesus of Nazareth. He treats it as written (p. 172) either by
John Mark of Jerusalem himself, or by a younger friend of his.
Baur, therefore, having upset Strauss, Volkmar proceeds to upset
Baur; and what does Reuss do? I quote again from that splen-
did French edition of the Bible, on which Prof. Huxley so much
relies. On page 88 of Reuss’s introduction to the synoptic Gos-
pels, he sums up “the results he believes to have been obtained
by critical analysis,’ under thirteen heads ; and the following are
some of them:

* “ Kritische Untersuchungen tiber die kanonischen Evangelien,” 1847, p. 41.
+ “ Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit,” 1882.

AGNOSTICISM. 81

2. Of the three synoptic Gospels one only, that which ecclesiastical tradition
agrees in attributing to Luke, has reached us in its primitive form.

8. Luke could draw his knowledge of the Gospel history partly from oral
information; he was able, in Palestine itself, to receive direct communications
from immediate witnesses. ... We may think especially here of the history of
the passion and the resurrection, and perhaps also of some other passages of which
he is the sole narrator.

4. A book, which an ancient and respectable testimony attributes to Mark, the
disciple of Peter, was certainly used by St. Luke as the principal source of the
portion of his Gospel between chapter iv, 31, and ix, 50; and between xviii, 15,
and xxi, 38.

5. According to all probability, the book of Mark, consulted by Luke, com-
prised in its primitive form what we read in the present day from Mark i, 21, to
xiii, 37.

It seems unnecessary, for the purpose of estimating the value
of Prof. Huxley’s appeal to these critics, to quote any more. It
appears from these statements of Reuss that if “the results of
biblical criticism,’ as represented by him, are to be trusted, we
have the whole third Gospel in its primitive form, as it was writ-
ten by St. Luke; and in this, as we have seen, Reuss is in entire
agreement with Renan. But besides this, a previous book written
by Mark, St. Peter’s disciple, was certainly in existence before
Luke’s Gospel, and was used by Luke; and in all probability this
book was, in its primitive form, the greater part of our present
Gospel of St. Mark.

Such are those “results of biblical criticism ” to which Prof.
Huxley has appealed; and we may fairly judge by these not only
of the value of his special contention in reply to my paper, but of
the worth of the sweeping assertions he, and writers like him, are
given to making about modern critical science. Prof. Huxley
says that we know “ absolutely nothing ” about the originators of
the Gospel narratives, and he appeals to criticism in the persons
of Volkmar and Reuss. Volkmar says that the second Gospel is
really either by St. Mark or by one of his friends, and was written
about the year 75. Reuss says that the third Gospel, as we now
have it, was really by St. Luke. Now Prof. Huxley is, of course,
entitled to his own opinion; but he is not entitled to quote au-
thorities in support of his opinion when they are in direct opposi-
tion to it. He asserts, without the slightest fear of refutation,
that “the four Gospels, as they have come to us, are the work of
unknown writers.” His arguments in defense of such a position
will be listened to with respect: but let it be borne in mind that
the opposite arguments he has got to meet are not only those of or-
thodox critics like myself, but those of Renan, of Volkmar, and of
Reuss—I may add of Pfleiderer, well known in this country by his
Hibbert Lectures, who, in his recent work on original Chris-
tianity, attributes most positively the second Gospel in its present

VOL. XXxXvV.—6

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

form to St. Mark, and declares that there is no ground whatever
for that supposition of an Ur-Marcus—that is an original ground-
work—from which Prof. Huxley alleges that “at the present time
there is no visible escape.” If I were such an authority on mo-
rality as Prof. Huxley, I might perhaps use some unpleasant lan-
guage respecting this vague assumption of criticism being all on
his side, when it, in fact, directly contradicts him; and his case is
not the only one to which such strictures might be applied. In

“Robert Elsmere,” for example, there is some vaporing about the ©

“oreat critical operation of the present century” having de-
stroyed the historical basis of the Gospel narrative. As a matter
of fact, as we have seen, the great critical operation has resulted,
according to the testimony of the critics whom Prof. Huxley him-
self selects, in establishing the fact that we possess contemporary
records of our Lord’s life from persons who were either eye-wit-
nesses, or who were in direct communication with eye-witnesses,
on the very scene in which it was passed. Hither Prof. Huxley’s
own witnesses are not to be trusted, or Prof. Huxley’s allegations
are rash and unfounded. Conclusions which are denied by Volk-
mar, denied by Renan, denied by Reuss, are not to be thrown at
our heads with a superior air, as if they could not be reasonably
doubted. The great result of the critical operation of this cent-
ury has, in fact, been to prove that the contention with which it
started in the persons of Strauss and Baur, that we have no con-
temporary records of Christ’s life, is wholly untenable. It has
not convinced any of the living critics to whom Prof. Huxley
appeals; and if he, or any similar writer, still maintains such an
assertion, let it be understood that he stands alone against the
leading critics of Kurope in the present day.

Perhaps I need say no more for the present in reply to Prof.
Huxley. I have, I think, shown that he has evaded my point; he
has evaded his own points; he has misquoted my words; he has
misrepresented the results of the very criticism to which he
appeals; and he rests his case on assumptions which his own au-
thorities repudiate. The questions he touches are very grave
ones, not to be adequately treated in a review article. But I
should have supposed it a point of scientific morality to treat
them, if they are to be treated, with accuracy of reference and
strictness of argument.

ir
By W. C. MAGEE,
BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.

I SHOULD be wanting in the respect which I sincerely enter-

tain for Prof. Huxley if I were not to answer his “appeal” to me |

in the last number of this review for my opinion on a point in
controversy between him and Dr. Wace. Prof. Huxley asks me,

_—

AGNOSTICISM. 83

“in the name of all that is Hibernian, why a man should be ex-
pected to call himself a miscreant or an infidel” ? I might reply
to this after the alleged fashion of my countrymen by asking him
another question, namely—When or where did I ever say that I
expected him to call himself by either of these names? I can not
remember having said anything that even remotely implied this,
and I do not therefore exactly see why he should appeal to my
confused “ Hibernian” judgment to decide such a question.

As he has done so, however, I reply that I think it unreason-
able to expect a man to call himself anything unless and until
good and sufficient reason has been given him why he should do
so. We are all of us bad judges as to what we are and as to what
we should therefore be called. Other persons classify us according
to what they know, or think they know, of our characters or
opinions, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly. And were
I to find myself apparently incorrectly classified, as I very often
do, I should be quite content with asking the person who had so
classified me, first to define his terms, and next to show that these,
as defined, were correctly applied to me. If he succeeded in doing
this, I should accept his designation of me without hesitation,
inasmuch as I should be sorry to call myself by a false name.

In this case, accordingly, if I might venture a suggestion to
Prof. Huxley, it would be that the term “infidel” is capable of
definition, and that when Dr. Wace has defined it, if the professor
accept his definition, it would remain for them to decide between
them whether Prof. Huxley’s utterances do or do not bring him
under the category of infidels, as so defined. Then, if it could be
clearly proved that they do, from what I know of Prof. Huxley’s
love of scientific accuracy and his courage and candor, I certainly
should expect that he would call himself an infidel—and a mis-
creant too, in the original and etymological sense of that unfor-
tunate term, and that he would even glory in those titles. If
they should not be so proved to be applicable, then I should
hold it to be as unreasonable to expect him to call himself by such
names as he, I suppose, would hold it to be to expect us Chris-
tians to admit, without better reason than he has yet given us,
that Christianity is “the sorry stuff” which, with his “ pro-
foundly” moral readiness to say “ unpleasant ” things, he is
pleased to say that it is.

There is another reference to myself, however, in the pro-
fessor’s article as to which I feel that he has a better right to
appeal to me—or, rather, against me, to the readers of this re-
view—and that is, as to my use, in my speech at the Manchester
Congress, of the expression “cowardly agnosticism.” I have not
the report of my speech before me, and am writing, therefore,
from memory; but my memory or the report must have played

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

me sadly false if I am made to describe all agnostics as cowardly.
A much slighter knowledge than I possess of Prof. Huxley’s writ-
ings would have certainly prevented my applying to all agnos-
ticism or agnostics such an epithet. .

What I intended to express, and what I think I did express by
this phrase was, that there is an agnosticism which is cowardly.
And this Iam convinced that there is, and that there is a great
deal of it too, just now. There is an agnosticism which is simply
the cowardly escaping from the pain and difficulty of contem-
plating and trying to solve the terrible problems of life by the
help of the convenient phrase, “I don’t know,” which very often
means “I don’t care.” “ We don’t know anything, don’t you
know, about these things. Prof. Huxley, don’t you know, says
that we do not, and lagree with him. Let us split a B. and 8.”

There is, I] fear,a very large amount of this kind of agnos-
ticism among the more youthful professors of that philosophy,
and indeed among a large number of easy-going, comfortable men
of the world, as they call themselves, who find agnosticism a
pleasant shelter from the trouble of thought and the pain of effort
and self-denial. And if I remember rightly it was of such agnos-
tics I was speaking when I described them as “ chatterers in our
clubs and drawing-rooms,” and as “ freethinkers who had yet to
learn to think.”

There is therefore in my opinion a cowardly agnosticism just
as there is also a cowardly Christianity. A Christian who spends
his whole life in the selfish aim of saving his own soul, and never
troubles himself with trying to help to save other men, either
from destruction in the next world or from pain and suffering
here, is a cowardly Christian. The eremites of the early days of
Christianity, who fled away from their place in the world where
God had put them, to spend solitary and, as they thought, safer
lives in the wilderness, were typical examples of such cowardice.
But in saying that there is such a thing as a cowardly Chris-
tianity, I do not thereby allege that there is no Christianity which
is not cowardly. Similarly, when I speak of a cowardly agnos-
ticism, I do not thereby allege that there is no agnosticism which
is not cowardly, or which may not be as fearless as Prof. Huxley
has always shown himself to be.

I hope that I have now satisfied the professor on.the two points
on which he has appealed to me. There is much in the other
parts of his article which tempts me toreply. But I have a dis-
like to thrusting myself into other men’s disputes, more especially
when a combatant like Dr. Wace, so much more competent than
myself, is in the field. I leave the professor in his hands, with
the anticipation that he will succeed in showing him that a scien-
tist dealing with questions of theology or biblical criticism may

GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 85

go quite as far astray as theologians often do in dealing with
questions of science.

My reply to Prof. Huxley is accordingly confined to the strictly
personal questions raised by his references to myself. I hope
that, after making due allowance for Hibernicisms and for imper-
fect acquaintance with English modes of thought and expression,
he will accept my explanation as sufficient— Nineteenth Century.

GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY.
By A. H. ALMY.

HE statistics collected from the sugar-producing countries
show that more than one half of the world’s sugar is derived
from the beet-root; and it is known that the consumers of sugar
in the United States often make daily use of it in their hause-
holds without suspecting that they are contributing to the sup-
port of the peasantry and wage-earners of continental Europe.

Whenever the history of the beet-sugar industry shall have
been written, it will prove interesting and instructive to the stu-
dent, as an achievement of science, and will present a problem to
the political.economist of grave import in its reflection on the
future business possibilities. It is a matter of historical record
that for many years, in the early part of the present century, con-
tinental Europe worked almost hopelessly to produce a sugar-
yielding plant which would thrive in its northern climate and
supply the sugar it consumed.

Chemistry had demonstrated that the beet-root—as well as
other forms of plant-life—contained a solution of sugar identical
with that found in the cane-plant of the tropics; but the amount
of sugar extracted was so inconsiderable as to preclude the hope
of obtaining a supply from that source, unless new discoveries
should make it possible to increase the saccharine product.

Schools of instruction were established for imparting special
information in the cultivation of the beet and the extraction of
the saccharine principle. And costly experiments and researches
were made.

Scientific men were rewarded, subsidies were granted, and fac-
tories were built, but sugar was produced only at extravagant
cost; and, as a financial venture, without other considerations, it
proved a stupendous failure. The industry was abandoned in
France with the fall of Napoleon, but was continued in a moderate
way by some of the continental states without a profitable result,
until about twenty years ago, when the possible war complica-
tions of that period—which afterward culminated in the humilia-

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of France—forced Germany to rehabilitate her agricultural
industries, from which the armies of the empire were chiefly sup-
~ plied. Her lands were worn under a thousand years of tillage
without rotation of crops, and had more recently become unprofit-
able and valueless under the vain attempt to produce the staple
crops of grain in competition with the rich prairies of our North-
west, and her farmers were emigrating to America. The soil
was not exhausted, as many have supposed, but, like our own
farms in New England, laboring at present under the same diffi-
culties, required a diversity of culture and new fertilization.
Their previous experiments had shown that the beet-root, depend-
ing largely for its growth upon the atmosphere, did not exhaust
the soil, as was the case in the cultivation of grain, but, in rota-
tion with the staple crops, like wheat, barley, and rye, it left the
land richer for the following crop. Besides, the beet-root was
peculiarly a product of the temperate zone—indigenous to the
latitude of northern France and Germany, requiring fair skies,
sunlight, and long seasons, for the full perfection of its growth
for sugar-making purposes. It could not be raised profitably
for saccharine extraction on the sea-coast, as it easily absorbed
saline matters, or in the dark and damp places of England, or in
the higher latitudes, where the season is too short to ripen the
plant to perfection, any more than it would thrive in the hot cli-
mate of the South.

A new system of excise duties was established which induced
the farmer to enter into the growing of beets on a larger scale,
and bounties were given to attract capital into the construction of
factories for the manufacture of beet-sugar. This excise tax, not
unlike that of our own internal revenue collection on whisky and
tobacco—where the consumer pays the tax—was equal to two and
a half cents per pound on the sugar extracted from the beet. To
the sugar exporter the tax was returned, and there was also paid
a bonus which assumed the character of an export bounty.

Under these conditions an enormous increase of sugar produc- —
tion and a rapidly augmented exportation of sugar followed.
The farmer commenced a new system of fertilization that pro-
duced larger crops, and began with energy to develop from the
soil the nitrogen which the chemists had found to be so much
needed in the cultivation of the beet-root. He made more ma-
nure on the farm by feeding his cattle with the pulp, received
from the factories that had sprung up like magic a residuum ~
derived from the chemical processes in the extraction of sugar
containing all the salts and elements remaining, thus giving a
new impulse to cattle-raising and dairy products from its rich
fodder.

Gathering from twenty to twenty-five tons of beets from an

GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 87

acre, each ton yielding from one hundred and fifty to two hundred
pounds of sugar, which gave him three times the profit that he
had hitherto derived from the cultivation of wheat, rye, barley,
and the staple crops, leaving the land better prepared to receive
the annual plant in its rotation with the beet, he found the value
of his farm increasing enormously, and his prosperity phenomenal,
as the swarms of peasants—men, women, and children—flocked to
his growing fields or followed the harvesting, while full employ-
ment was given to the general wage-earner and the artisan.

New employments and collateral industries increased in the
same ratio; railroads were projected and built to transport the
beet-root from the interior farms to the great factories scattered
for hundreds of miles throughout Germany, long trains of plat-
form-cars, often numbering fifty to sixty, piled full of white sugar-
beets, met the eye of the traveler during the harvesting season,
and speculation ran high with the fabulous profits of the sugar
manufacturers.

Subsequently the attempt to manufacture beet-sugar in the
Southern United States met with signal failure. Later, beet-sugar
factories were started in the Northern States, in the latitude of
Germany, where the soil and meteorological conditions were equal
to the best of beet-growing sections on the Continent; to which
was added the long Indian summer, which can not be approached
by any country in its advantages for maturing the plant. To
these factories, erected in different sections of the North, subsidies
were granted and bounties were given by several of the States in
which they were located, fostered and assisted by the Agricultural
Bureau and experimental stations of the Government; yet they
were overcome by the same difficulties that had for fifty years
and more confronted their foreign pioneers, and they, one and all,
came to grief in their attempts to manufacture sugar from the
beet-root at a profit, for the metamorphosis of the plant and the
sugar-beet process had not yet been developed.

But during the last decade great discoveries have been made
in the cultivation of the root, as well as in the methods for the
extraction of the solution of sugar by ingenious mechanical de-
vices, and the sugar-beet of to-day bears no resemblance to that
of the past century, either in its form or the minerals it contains;
and the saccharine principle has been increased a thousand per
cent above the extraction of one per cent secured by the early
experiments of Archaud in the days of the first Napoleon. Forty
years afterward the chemists found their experimentation had
increased the product to six per cent only, and a quarter of a
century later the highest attainable result proved that it required .
twelve and a half parts of beet-root to produce one part of grain
sugar, about one eighth per cent of the whole, which was the

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

basis on which the German excise duty was established ; yet last
year the statistical organ of the German Empire reports an aver-
age extraction of thirteen per cent. The employment of an
ingenious contrivance known as the “ diffusion battery ”—though
simple in its conception, nevertheless illustrates well-known laws
of chemical science in the transfusion of liquids, and successfully
opens the membranous walls of the sugar-cells of the plant, giv-
ing a higher grade of juice, with less gummy, nitrogenous, and
fibrous impurities, at less cost than by the old methods of me-
chanical pressure—has in no small degree contributed to this
result. It had taken three quarters of a century to develop the
chemistry and the mechanical adjustment of the sugar-beet pro-
cesses, and even now we notice that the progress in this direction
is great.

Meantime France, Belgium, Austria- Hungary, Poland, Rus-
sia, and other countries in continental Europe, after a series of
unsuccessful attempts, resumed the manufacture of beet-sugar,
and by a system of subsidies, bounties, and drawbacks, notwith-
standing the many climatic and meteorological difficulties, pro-
duced a large quantity of sugar, but little as compared with Ger-
many, as is shown by the following table, estimating the produc-
tion of beet-sugar in the year 1885:

German Bmpirelss-yciieise es + s)e eee IOC Kristin cite che 1,155,000 tons.
PATICE che a Aare doo Guna atatntel shaliers wher anatlere: Srauataioateets aremeyeae nas 808,000 ‘
Be] iti a0. 5, asely. ceebovereteve tee See te sekev cies topctay x esate a eae 88,000 “
JUG ut 3s DUET oo oldo fo Obae conde ogo maros ace solaelo5 558,000 “
Russia and Poland: soxsin ccs asa te nis eiehcusiecieecesrorerteryeloe 387,000 “
Holland and other countries... ........ccccescscees sees 50,000 “
2,546,000 “

The entire production of cane-sugar in Cuba, Java, Brazil,
Peru, British India, Egypt, Manila, Louisiana, and other cane-
sugar producing countries, during the same period, did not exceed
2,260,100 tons, or less than one half of the world’s sugar production.

The simple and inexpensive methods adopted in the German
factories have made the beet-sugar manufacture one of the most
profitable of industries, and the work goes on day and night, at
a prime cost for conversion of two dollars per ton of beets, or one
cent per pound of sugar, not estimating the cost of the beet-root,
but including labor and all materials used, like coal, coke, lime,
charcoal, wear and tear, and interest on the invested capital. The
monthly disbursements of such an establishment exceed sixty
thousand dollars, and give employment to thousands of wage-
earners in direct and collateral industries. One sugar corporation
in France reported a net profit derived from the manufacture of
beet-sugar a few years ago of two millions of dollars, and the sea-
son did not extend beyond one hundred and twenty days. Under

GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 89

these new conditions the production of beet-sugar in continental
Europe has doubled in the last decade; and, after the home popu-
lations are supplied, the surplus is exported to Great Britain and
the United States, reducing the price of sugar in the markets of
the world more than fifty per cent.

The sugar-refineries of this country use the beet- and cane-
sugar indiscriminately in the manufacture of the block sugar of
commerce, and the family grocer sells the imported refined beet-
sugar at a price from twenty-five to fifty per cent above the price
of cane-sugar.

Before our late war, Louisiana produced more sugar than Ger-
many; and although the beet-sugar industry in the latter country
was greatly stimulated by the high prices of sugar prevailing, in-
cident to the entire destruction of the cane-sugar industry of the
United States, yet as late as 1875 the empire produced only twenty-
five hundred tons, while for the year 1888 a production of one
million three hundred thousand tons of sugar and saceharine re-
sultants is recorded.

If the increasing production of continental sugar continues
in the same ratio as in the past, it needs no prophet to foretell
the future of the cane-sugar colonies. Even now the English
market can not afford to take colonial cane-sugar, although it is
admitted free of duty. The English refining factories, which rep-
resent an investment of fifteen or twenty millions of dollars, and
have hitherto supported a large population of wage-earners, are
being closed, from the competition with continental sugar.

These questions are attracting the attention of all the govern-
ments of Europe; and while a number of members of the British
Parliament tried to find compensation for the losses of the cane-
sugar colonies, and the destruction of the British sugar-refineries,
in the circumstance that the consumers of sugar in Great Britain
saved fifty-five millions of dollars annually, in the reduced cost
of an article of prime necessity of which the consumption had
increased thirty-three per cent within a few years; yet an inter-
national congress was determined upon, for the purpose of doing
away, if possible, with all bounties on sugar manufacture.

This grave question was presented, in all its bearings, to the
Parliaments, Finance Ministers, Boards of Trade, and Chambers
of Commerce of many of the Continental Governments, but at
the gathering in London the proposition met with little or no
favor.

After the adjournment of the congress the German Empire
announced a new excise duty, which took effect last August,
involving all the principles of the old duties, and increased the
“material and consumption” tax on beets to three cents per pound
on sugar as against two and a half cents per pound previously,

go THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and fixed the export bounty at two cents and two and a half
cents per pound on raw and refined sugar respectively.

During the past year large capital has been attracted toward
the development of the sugar-beet industry in the United States
on the Pacific coast. Although that section of the country, with
its peculiar surroundings, does not generally present the mete-
orological and climatic conditions necessary to secure the best
results in the cultivation of the beet-root for sugar-making pur-
poses, yet a factory was started last October, with equipment
and machinery capable of reducing three hundred and fifty
tons of beets per diem, and has proved a great financial success.
A full supply of beets, cultivated by the wheat-growers of Cali-
fornia, kept the works fully employed, and a boom was given to
the town of Watsonville. The factory consumes seven tons of lime
daily in the chemical processes of extracting the sugar, which is
distributed pro rata to the grower of beets free, and can be re-
turned to the soil. Besides, the farmers averaged over eighty
dollars per acre for their beet products, while the recent report of
the Agricultural Bureau estimates the returns from the total pro-
duction of the five principal crops—oats, corn, rye, barley, and
wheat—in the United States to be less than twelve dollars per
acre as an average.

The beet-root, deriving its fertilization from previous crops
of annuals, can not rotate effectually with the cereals, except
in the third season; and of course the comparative estimate of
increased profit over wheat is not as large as it would be if
the plant admitted of continuous culture, and thus may be mis-
leading.

When we take into consideration the elements—organic and
mineral—of which all plants are composed, and that each variety
requires for its perfect development certain meteorological con-
ditions, peculiar characters of soil, and combinations of the vari-
ous leading constituents of plant-food, which have enlisted the
energies of scientists for years in continued investigation, we are
struck with admiration and wonder at the progress of agricultural
chemistry—not only in revealing the chemicals as they exist, re-
placing them in the soil when exhausted by cultivation, but in
transforming a root and making almost a new creation, by extract-
ing the noxious minerals which had retarded its development,
with simply special culture.

It is admitted that the new appliances of steam and electricity
and the inventions of the past quarter of a century have changed
the commerce of civilization, but, as economic factors, these can
scarcely prove more far-reaching in their influence than those
discoveries of science, in the same period, which have made it
possible to open a new industry in a northern latitude for the

GROWTH OF THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 91

manufacture of an article of prime necessity, whose habitat has
been for a century in the tropics.

The chemists have found that the four principal elements which
enter into plant-life are met every day, only under other names and
slightly different forms. Nitrogen in one form is the ammonia of
commerce. Potash is simply lye from wood-ashes. Phosphoric
acid is ground bones dissolved in acid; and lime is seen every-
where. These represent the necessary nutrition of the beet-root
when the climatic conditions are favorable; but if they exist in
insoluble combination, they will be useless in the economy of nu-
trition, or if in form suitable for similation, but excessive in quan-
tities, they will stimulate the plant to abnormal growth, unsuited
to its desired perfection.

The scientists have shown us how to cultivate the beet for sugar-
making; that soils charged with mineral salts are injurious to its
development for that purpose; that, in fact, the beet easily absorbs
saline matters, while the alkaline salts constitute one of the
greatest obstacles to sugar extraction. They say new ground, or
that lately cleared of forest, should not be applied to the culture
of the beet, but the land used for this purpose should have been
under continued cultivation at least ten or fifteen years for the
removal of the nitrates and the organic matter containing nitro-
gen, which are always present in new soils, and exert an injurious
influence on the quality of the root.

We now have elaborate tables of analyses of soils to show the
chemical composition of those most favorable to the culture, as
well as to the physical character which render them’ best suited
to the cultivation of the beet, their porosity and subsoil conditions.

Unless the supply of the elements of plant-food is continuous
and regular, a purely sandy soil would be undesirable. If no
means are provided for the removal of surplus water which may
be found in a purely clay soil, or to so improve its condition as to
admit of free circulation of air as well as water, it will be too
heavy, and become absolutely useless. The same is true of purely
calcareous soil, since the same unfavorable conditions would pre-
vail, though perhaps to not quite the same extent. Such soils”
would also be unsuited to the plant itself, because they would not
admit of the free progress of the tap-root nor of the lateral fibrous
roots in their search for nutrition. These conditions have a pow-
erful influence upon the ultimate yield of sugar from the surface
cultivated.

But if the sandy soil be mixed with either or both of the
others, and with humus—pulverulent brown earth—in suitable
proportions, the conditions most favorable to the maintenance of
a regular and plentiful supply of food, the healthy condition of
the root and its consequent normal development will be assured.

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The beet-root, as a biennial plant, enters readily into rotation
with annual plants, and with those plants known to exhaust the
soil. It precedes barley, wheat, rye, and oats, and prepares the
soil in a marvelous manner for cereals, the subsequent fertiliza-
tion of which prepares the soil for the beet. The land must not
receive fertilizing treatment during the season of the growth of
the beet-root, but must be well prepared—not too light, not too
moist; it should be warm, rich in humus, deep and free from
stones, like a garden. The form of the beet desired for greater
sugar extraction would, with this physical condition, be long and
tapering.

In this collection of data, derived from the best authorities in
Europe, where the cultivation of the beet is best managed, it will
not be possible to speak of the meteorological conditions necessary
to the perfect growth of the root for sugar-producing purposes,
except to say that the principal conditions to be studied in this
connection are those of the temperature and moisture with which
the plant may be surrounded. The amount of moisture at the
disposition of the plant, at all seasons of its growth, is the most
important factor in its normal development. Temperature has an
influence: if it be too low or too high, it has the same power of
evil as a deficiency of moisture. Various sections of the United
States north of Mason and Dixon’s line, where the rainfall is
regular, like New England, with its long Indian summer, present
all the conditions to produce the sugar-beet to perfection.

The cultivation of the root, and the latest approved processes
for extracting the sugar, will be considered hereafter.

—____44o——_—_—

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE.
By P. L. SIMMONDS, F.L. 8.

HAT a subject scientific research has found in eggs as a
study, witness the works of Moquin-Tandon and O. des
Murs.* These publications serve to show how the odlogic char-
acteristics may assist in the methodical classification of birds,
what relation there is between the egg and the organic conforma-
tion of the bird, and what particular habits of birds may be gath-
ered from a study of their eggs and nests.

Some birds only lay a single egg, others many. The largest
ordinary number, on the average, is five or seven. The species
laying less are more rare than the species laying a larger number.
Those in a state of liberty produce, on the average, twelve to
fifteen. But in domestic poultry the number is larger. Farm-

* “Traité Général d’Oologie Ornithologique,” par P. 0. des Murs.

LGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 93

yard hens average sixty or seventy eggs in the year, and certain
Cochin-China fowls are said to lay from two hundred to three
hundred eggs. The number of eggs laid is less at the commence-
ment and end of life. With hens, for instance, the number laid is
less in the first and fourth year than in the second and third, and
after the fifth year, generally, they cease laying. Chickens and
ducklings, which can generally shift for themselves soon after
emerging from the egg, are more numerous in a brood than young
pigeons, which have to be fed by the parent. But if pigeons only
lay two eggs at a time, they lay more frequently—once or twice a
month—and hence rear a large number of young.

In form and general aspect the difference among birds’ eggs is
endless. Some are elongated, some are spherical, some are dull on
the surface, some are polished, some are dark, others gray or
white, others very bright. The shape of eggs offers as much
diversity as their size and weight. They may be thrown, how-
ever, into six principal or typical forms—the cylindrical, the oval,
the spherical, the ovicular, oviconical, and the elliptic. The ovic-
ular form of egg belongs to the Passere and Grallinacee, the
ovoid to the rapacious birds and the Palmipedes, the conical to
the wading birds and some Palmipedes, the short to some game
and many stilted birds, and the spherical to nocturnal birds of
prey and the kingfishers.

Mr. W. C. Hewitson observes that in their relative sizes the
eggs of different birds vary in a remarkable degree from each
other. The guillemot and the raven are themselves about equal
in size, but their eggs differ as ten to one. The snipe and the
blackbird differ but slightly in weight, their eggs remarkably.
The egg of the curlew is six or eight times as large as that of the
rook; the birds are about the same size. The eggs of the guille-
mot are as big as those of an eagle, while those of the snipe equal
the eggs of the partridge and the pigeon. The reason of this great
disparity in size is, however, obvious. The eggs of all those birds
which quit the nest soon after they are hatched, and are conse-
quently more fully developed at their birth, are very large, and
yet so admirably formed to occupy the least possible space, that
the snipe has no more difficulty in covering its eggs, though ap-
parently so disproportionate, than the thrush or the blackbird.
Hence we see that eggs are not always proportioned to the size of
the birds which lay them. The standard yield and weight of eggs
for the different varieties of domestic fowl are about as follow:
Light Brahmas and partridge Cochins, eggs seven to the pound;
they lay, according to treatment and keeping, from eighty to one
hundred per annum, oftentimes more if kept well. Dark Brah-
mas, eight to the pound, and about seventy per annum. Black,
white, and buff Cochins, eight to the pound; one hundred is a

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTALY.

large yield per annum. Plymouth Rocks, eight to the pound, lay
one hundred per annum. MHoudans, eight to the pound, lay one
hundred and fifty per annum; non-sitters. La Fléche, seven to
the pound, lay one hundred and thirty per annum; non-sitters,
Black Spanish, seven to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per
annum. Dominiques, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and
thirty per annum. Game fowl, nine to the pound, lay one hun-
dred and thirty per annum. Crévecceurs, seven to the pound, lay
one hundred and fifty per annum. Leghorns, nine to the pound,
lay from one hundred and fifty to two hundred per annum. Ham-
burgs, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and seventy per an-
num. Polish, nine to the pound, lay one hundred and fifty per
annum. Bantams, sixteen to the pound, lay sixty per annum.
Turkeys, eggs five to the pound, lay from thirty to sixty per an-
num. Ducks’ eggs vary greatly with different species, but from
five to six to the pound, and from fourteen to twenty-eight per
annum, according to age and keeping. Geese, four to the pound,
lay twenty per annum. Guinea fowls, eleven to the pound, lay
sixty per annum. Large eggs have generally a thicker shell than
small ones. By comparison with eggs in former times, those of
improved breeds of fowls of the present day have gained one
third in weight. :

Exceptionally large hens’ eggs are often met with. Thus, in
the journal “ Land and Water ” for June 16, 1877, a Cochin-China
fowl’s egg is recorded which weighed one quarter of a pound and
measured eight and five eighth inches lengthwise, six and a half
inches in circumference. That of a Dorking weighing seven
ounces measured seven and a half inches round the middle and
nine and a half inches across the ends. Another weighed ten and
a half ounces, and measured eight inches round the center and
twelve and a half inches across the ends.

In the “ Birmingham Mercury ” of May 9, 1857:

A half-bred Cochin-China hen belonging to Mr. Campbell, carter, of Great
Croft Street, Darlaston, is stated during the past few weeks to have laid eleven
extraordinary eggs of an enormous size, each weighing upward of five ounces,
and one when just laid weighed not less than seven ounces. On one being broken
another perfect egg, of the usual size, was found inside, which led to seven being
broken with the same results. Around the one weighing seven ounces (being the
tenth egg) a third shell and egg had begun to form. Several of these eggs are
whole, and by carefully handling them the motion of the inner eggs may be per-
ceived. Two of the inner eggs are also preserved, and numbers of people have
been to see them, and have expressed themselves highly gratified at such an
extraordinary phenomenon. The hen is not above the middle size, being about
four and a half pounds in weight.

Many eggs are laid naked, dry, and smooth; others are im-
pregnated with a greasy, glutinous substance. The latter are

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 95

chiefly those of sea-birds, or those which live in moist localities.
This glutinous coating is doubtless intended to preserve the eggs
from the water, or to maintain the degree of heat necessary to
preserve life. There are soft eggs laid entirely without shells, or
with only the albuminous inner membrane. This occurs chiefly
in hens that are too fat; and this failing can be remedied by sup-
plying calcareous substances with their food.

Egg-shell is much used in medical prescriptions. When cal-
cined at alow red heat the shells afford a very pure form of car-
bonate of lime. The principal use of egg-shells is, however, when
blown, for the cabinets of private ornithological collections and
those of public museums. The eggs of the ostrich are often
mounted in silver, and form elegant drinking-cups; so are the
handsome green eggs of the Australian emeu, which look as if
made of dark morocco-leather. Ostrich egg-shells serve as water-
vessels among the African women; necklaces made of pieces of
egg-shells punched out in a circular form are worn by some Af-
rican natives.

Eggs blown are sometimes used in shooting-galleries, strung
as a mark or target. The smooth surface of the egg-shell
can even be used for artistic purposes, and we often see os-
trich-eggs and hens’ eggs painted or engraved with fanciful
designs.

The employment of egg-shells for ornamental purposes is
extremely ancient. A MS. in the Harleian collection represents a
number of egg-shells ornamented in the most elegant and costly
manner; miniatures were often painted upon them with extreme
care, and egg-shells thus curiously decorated became valuable
and highly esteemed presents. In Venice young noblemen fre-
quently lavished large sums of money upon portraits painted
within egg-shells, intended as presents.

Those who have only seen the ordinary fowl’s eggs of our
shops and poultry-yards would suppose that eggs were always
white. But, on examining a large collection of birds’ eggs, it will
be found that they are of all colors. Except, perhaps, some very
clear shades, the yellow for instance, none are wanting. There
are blue eggs, yellowish, green, reddish, and olive. When we
consider the eggs of some nine thousand different birds known,
we find that not one fifth of those of the Kuropean birds are
white, and among the exotic birds the number of white is much
less. The white color is not always pure; there are gray and yel-
low shades, more or less of a dirty hue. In colored eggs, there
are uniform colors and spotted colors. Although the larger num-
ber of the races of domestic fowls lay white eggs, there are some
which have a yellow or nankeen tint; these are principally Asi-
atic birds. Birds which build open nests seem uniformly to have

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

colored eggs, and those which possess concealed or covered nests,
white eggs.

But few of those who break the shells of the cooked eggs of
our common domestic fowls at the breakfast-table ever think of
the wonderful nature of the structure they crush, or of the com-
plex chemical nature of the contents consumed as food. The
white, fragile cortex called the shell, composed of mineral matter,
is not the tight, compact covering which it appears to be, for it is
everywhere perforated with a multitude of holes. Under the mi-
croscope the shell appears like a sieve, or it more closely resembles
the white perforated paper sold by stationers. The shell of the
egg is lined upon its interior everywhere with a very thin but
pretty tough membrane, which, dividing at or very near the ob-
tuse end, forms a small bag which is filled with air. In new-laid
eggs this follicle appears very small, but it becomes larger when
the egg is kept. In breaking an egg this membrane is removed
with the shell, to which it adheres, and therefore is regarded as a
part of it, which it is not. The shell proper is made up mostly of
earthy materials. The proportions vary according to the food of
the bird, but ninety to ninety-seven per cent is carbonate of lime.
The remainder is composed of two to five per cent of animal mat-
ter, and one to five of phosphate of lime and magnesia.

If a farmer has a flock of one hundred hens they produce in egg-
shells about one hundred and thirty-seven pounds of chalk annu-
ally ; and yet not a pound of the substance, or perhaps not even an
ounce, exists around the farm-house within the circuit of their
feeding-grounds. The materials of the manufacture are found in
the food consumed, and in the sand, pebble-stones, brick-dust,
bits of bones, etc., which hens and other birds are continually
picking from the earth. The instinct is keen for these apparently
innutritious and refractory substances, and they are devoured
with as eager a relish as the cereal grains or insects. If hens are
confined to barns or out-buildings, it is obvious that the egg-
producing machinery can not be kept long in action unless the
materials for the shell are supplied in ample abundance.

Within the shell the animal portion of the egg is found, which
consists of a viscous colorless liquid called albumen, or the white,
and a yellow globular mass called the vitellus, or yolk. The
white of the egg consists of two parts, each of which is enveloped
in distinct membranes. The outer bag of albumen, next the shell,
is quite a thin, watery body, while the next, which invests the yolk,
is heavy and thick. But few housekeepers who break eggs ever
distinguish between the two whites, or know of their existence
even. Each has its appropriate office to fulfill during the process
of incubation or hatching, and one acts, in the mysterious process,
as important a part as the other.

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 97

The yolk contains water and albumen, but associated with
these is quite a large number of mineral and other substances,
which render it very complex in composition. The bright yellow
color is due to a peculiar fat or oil, which is capable of reflecting
the yellow rays of light, and this holds the sulphur and phos-
phorus which abound in the egg.

It is well known that from the egg all the constituent parts of
the young animal are formed—its skeleton, as well as its various
soft textures. Now, for the construction of the skeleton an amount
of earthy matter is required which does not exist preformed in
the soft contents of the egg, but has to be drawn from the shell.
During the process of incubation, with the co-operation of the
atmospheric air which permeates the shell, it appears that the
phosphorus present in the yolk gradually undergoes oxidation,
and becomes converted into phosphoric acid. This acts upon and
dissolves the carbonate of lime belonging to the shell, which thus,
as incubation proceeds, becomes thinner and thinner. The thin-
ning of the shell also makes it easier for the young bird to peck
its way out.

An enveloping membrane or bag surrounds the yolk, and
keeps the fluid matter of which it is composed together. Being
lighter than the white, it floats to that portion of the egg which
is uppermost, but is kept in position between the two extremities
by two processes of inspissated albumen, called chalazea, which
pass to and are attached, one to either end of the egg.

Entire contents. White. Yolk.

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The white of egg, as this shows, contains a considerably larger
proportion of water than the yolk. It contains no fatty matter,
but consists mainly of albumen in a dissolved state, and inclosed
within very thin-walled cells. It is this arrangement which gives
to the white of egg its ropy, gelatinous state. Thoroughly shak-
ing or beating it up with water breaks the cells and removes the
ropy state.

Eggs are useful for many purposes besides food and hatching.
The white of an egg has proved a most efficacious remedy for
burns; seven or eight successive applications of this substance
soothe the pain and effectually exclude the air from the burn.
This simple remedy seems preferable to collodion, or even cotton.

Extraordinary stories are told of the healing properties of an oil
VOL, XXxV.—7

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which is easily made of the yolks of fowls’ eggs. It is in general
use among the peasants of southern Russia as a means of curing
cuts, bruises, and scratches. When, as sometimes by accident,
sulphate of copper, or corrosive poisons generally, are swallowed,
the white of one or two eggs will neutralize the poison, and
change the effect to that of a dose of calomel. Raw eggs have at
all times been considered an excellent remedy for debility, on
account of the phosphorus contained in them, as well as a pre-
ventive of jaundice in its more malignant form. The yolk is
sometimes used as a convenient medium for forming an emulsion
of the thick turpentines with water. These mixtures are used as
enemata.

As a flesh-producer, one pound of eggs is equal to one pound of
beef. About one third of the weight of an egg is solid nutriment,
which is more than can be said of meat. Eggs, at average prices,
are among the cheapest and most nutritious articles of diet. Like
milk, an egg is a complete food in itself. It is also easily digested,
if not damaged in cooking.

The celebrated Guinod de Reyniére, who consecrated his life
to studying the delicacies of the table, affirms, in his “ Almanach
des Gourmands,” that eggs can be served in more than six hun-
dred ways, and a book is published in London by a French cook,
which gives one hundred and fifty recipes for cooking eggs. The
feeble man, who has regained strength by boiled eggs for several
days, will continue the same comforting food when presented in
the form of an omelet, which is one of the principal food prep-
arations made with eggs.

The flavor of eggs is much influenced by the nature of the
package, for they imbibe foreign odors with the greatest readi-
ness. Eggs brought in the same ship as oranges become impreg-
nated with the scent and flavor of the fruit. If the cases in
which they are packed are made of green wood, the eggs will be
ruined. The straw in which they are packed should also be per-
fectly dry, or it will ferment and communicate a fusty smell to
the eggs.

A raw egg beaten up in a glass of wine is recommended for
vocalists for clearing their voice, and in cases of debility; and a
spirit of eggs is sold which is said to be useful in impaired health
or the infirmities of age, when vital energy is wanting, and as a
specific for soreness of the throat. The white of eggs forms an
albuminous solution, useful in diarrhea of phlegmatic origin. To
make this, beat up the white of four eggs and add a quart of water
slowly, remove the froth formed, add sugar, a little orange-water,

and, if necessary, a dozen drops of laudanum. This albumenized —

water is the best antidote to a great number of mineral poisons.
The phosphorus in the egg is very good for all those who have

——

, _—

‘atk Wa

ee See

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 99

brain-work to do. The sulphur in the yolk, as is well known,
acts chemically on silver spoons, turning them black, forming a
sulphide of silver that can not be removed without taking off the
surface of silver, thus rapidly wearing the spoon away.

Kggs, although of animal origin, are now allowed to be eaten
by Catholics during Lent. But it was not always so: formerly
eggs never figured on the tables of the faithful during the fast;
but, on the Saturday previous to Easter, a great quantity of
eggs, held over for six weeks, was blessed and distributed among
friends on Haster Sunday. They were dyed yellow, violet, and
especially red, hence the origin of the red or Haster eggs. In the
reigns of Louis XIV and XV, after grand mass on Easter-Sunday,
pyramids of eggs gilded were taken to the cabinet of the king,
who distributed them to his courtiers. The custom of Haster
eggs is continued to the present time, although modified. Easter
eggs are no longer blessed nor gilded to be offered to sovereigns,
nor are they held over to Easter eve to receive brilliant colors.
A fortnight before Easter, in the coffee-houses and beer-shops
of Catholic cities, may be seen huge dishes of eggs of various
colors, which are eaten by the customers with their beer. And
in families a hard egg is added to the salad, after removing the
colored shell.

The mutual presentation of colored eggs at Easter by friends
continues in Russia and all Catholic countries. Fowls’ eggs
variously colored, and having flowers and other devices upon
them, formed by the coloring matter being picked off, so as to
expose the white shell of the egg, are a part of all the Malay enter-
tainments in Borneo.

The eggs of the domestic fowl are the edible eggs par excel-
lence, but many others can be utilized for food. The egg of the
goose, which is larger, is inferior in quality; in districts where
geese are bred they give, however, some benefit. The egg of the
duck, with a smoother shell, smaller and less rounded, is of a
greenish or dark white, the yolk is larger and of a deeper color
than that of other poultry eggs, and the white by cooking attains
a consistence like transparent isinglass. The egg of the pea-fowl
or guinea-hen has a thick and hard shell, flesh-colored; the yolk
is proportionally much larger than the white.

The common wild or gray lag goose is the origin of our domes-
tic goose. It used to be common and bred in our fens in former
years. The common goose begins to lay toward Candlemas, and
lays from nine to eleven eggs. If well fed, she will lay thirty-five
to forty eggs, and sometimes fifty, if the eggs are removed and
she is not allowed to set. The turkey-hen lays from twelve to
twenty eggs, rather smaller than those of the goose, which are
white, mixed with reddish or yellow freckles. They are very

100 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good in pastry, and mixed with fowls’ eggs they improve ome-
lets.

The question whether fowls or ducks are the better investment
for the production of eggs has to some extent been settled experi-
mentally in Germany and France in favor of ducks. They laid
more eggs than the fowls, and, though they were rather small-
er, they proved to be decidedly superior in nutritive material.
It may be doubted whether as much attention is paid in Eng-
land to the production of eggs as the utility of the food demands,
and particularly by the poor, to whom their value is a consider-
ation. Efforts should be made to induce all persons conveniently
circumstanced to keep hens and ducks, and there is reason to
believe that ducks are more profitable than hens, having regard
to the number and size of the eggs laid by them. The solid mat-
ter and the oil in a duck’s egg exceeds that of a hen’s egg by as
much as one fourth.

Eggs, their dietetic use apart, are of great utility in many
branches of industry. In some, as in confectionery, both the
whites and yolks are used, but usually the two find separate ap-
plications. The whites are employed in calico-printing, in pho-
tography, in gilding, in clarifying wines and liquors, and by the
bookbinder on the leather previous to lettering or tooling.

An egg-oil is obtained in Russia in large quantities and of
various qualities; the best so fine as to far excel olive-oil for
cooking purposes. The less pure and very yellow qualities are
chiefly used in the manufacture of the celebrated Kazan soap.
Both of these products were shown at the London International
Exhibition in 1862, and at subsequent exhibitions. Neither the
oil for cooking purposes nor the soap are sufficiently cheap for
general use; they are consumed only by the wealthy classes as
luxuries; the soap, being regarded chiefly in the light of a cos-
metic, is a much-valued addition to a Russian lady’s toilet neces-
saries. The yolk is also used for medicinal purposes. It was
used in the middle ages for the painter’s art, before the discovery
of oil-colors, as in the chapter-house at Westminster.

Eggs, whether to be used in culinary or pharmaceutical prepa-
rations, should be fresh. To determine this they should be ex-
amined by the light of alamp. Fresh eggs are easily known by
their transparency when held up to the light. By keeping they
become cloudy, and when decidedly stale a distinct, dark, cloud-
like appearance is discernible opposite some portion of the shell.
Another simple mode is by placing the egg against the closed
eyelid, and if the end of the egg is void it will feel warm, where-
as if the egg is new laid it continues cold. A way to tell bad eggs |
is to put them in a pail of water, and, if good, they will lie on
their sides; if bad, they will stand on their small ends, the large

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 101

end always uppermost, unless they have been shaken consider-
ably, when they will stand either end up.

How to keep eggs is a problem that has attracted the atten-
tion of inquirers from the earliest times. Twenty or more pro-
cesses are generally known, all of which give unsatisfactory and
incomplete results—a circumstance scarcely to be wondered at
when the composition of an egg and the various changes to
which it is subjected by exposure to atmospheric influence are
taken into consideration. The egg-shell is furnished with numer-
ous pores, through which the water evaporates, the loss of aque-
ous contents thus sustained being scarcely perceptible in the first
week, more marked in the second, and of considerable interest in
the third. The surrounding atmospheric air takes the place of
the water that has evaporated, and oxygenates the contents of the
shell, which then commence to ferment and are speedily spoiled.
To hinder this evaporation, and so aid the preservation of eggs,
they are often steeped for twelve hours in lime-water, by which
means molecules of lime are deposited on the shell, and so ob-
struct the pores to some extent.

To the solution of the problem of how to prevent the air from
penetrating the shell of the egg, the experiments of such eminent
savants as Musschenbroek, Réaumur, and Nollet have greatly
contributed. They all agree that the most practicable method is
to envelop the new-laid egg in a light coating of some imperme-
able substance, such as wax, tallow, oil, or a mixture of wax and
olive-oil, or of olive-oil and tallow. Réaumur suggested an alco-
holic solution of resin, or a thick solution of gelatin. Nollet
experimented successfully with India-rubber, collodion, and vari-
ous kinds of varnish. At the Dairy Products Show at the Agri-
cultural Hall in 1884, three prizes were awarded for eggs pre-
served in the following manner :

1. Eggs which had been dipped twice in a solution of gum
arabic and then dried, enveloped in paper, and kept in bran.

2. Eggs which had been rubbed with lard and then kept in
dry salt.

3. Eggs coated with a composition of mutton and beef suet,
and then wiped with a dry cloth.

With a view to utilizing in a more portable and consequently
cheaper form the large supply of eggs obtainable in Austria,
Messrs. Effner & Co. started a factory at Passau, in Bavaria, for
condensing them. The eggs are carefully selected and dried,
then reduced to a fine meal, and packed in tins ready for use.
Although it is scarcely probable that the condensed egg can ever
replace new-laid eggs for breakfast, it is asserted that a good
omelet, as also the finest pastry, may be prepared from the
product.

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

The eggs of wild birds are not very generally eaten in this
country, but in some localities those of sea-fowl are largely con-
sumed, and a considerable trade is carried on in gulls’ eggs on
many of our coasts. There is a great demand for plovers’ eggs in
the city markets for epicures. They are the eggs of the lapwing
(Vanellus cristatus), a bird which lays about four eggs of an
olive cast, spotted with black. These eggs come chiefly from
Holland, the home produce being now very small, and they are
received during the spring and summer, from March to June, ©
Mr. Yarrell, who wrote many years ago, mentions that two hun-
dred dozens of peewits’ eggs were sent in one season from Rom-
ney Marsh to London. The eggs of many other species of birds
are imposed upon the Londoners in the place of plovers’ eggs.

In the sea islands of Alaska, the eggs of the thick-billed guille-
mot have an economic value, being the most palatable of all the
varieties found in the islands, and hence are much sought after
by the natives. The bird lays a single egg, large and very fanci-
fully colored. The shell is so tough that, in gathering them, they
are thrown into tubs and baskets on the cliffs, and poured out
upon the rocks with a single flap of the hand, just as a sack of
potatoes would be emptied, and only a trifling loss is sustained
from broken or crushed eggs.

On the Faro Islands the number of eggs laid by the lesser
black-backed gull, and sent annually to shore for culinary pur-
poses, must be prodigious. The eggs of the common guillemot
lie there so close together that it is dificult to move among them.

The eggs of the stork are very good eating, whether hot or
cold. The natural color of the cormorant’s egg seems to be a
bluish green, like the usual variety of the common domestic duck,
but over this is a thick, white, irregular covering of lime, which
is frequently in such abundant quantity as to stand out in lumps
on the surface, seldom allowing much of the original color to be
visible. No doubt this superabundance of lime is produced by
the bones of the fish, of which this bird is said to eat prodigious
quantities, and perhaps also from shell-fish.

Turtles’ eggs are held in great esteem wherever they are
found, as well by Europeans as by others. They have a very soft
shell, and are about the size of a pigeon’s egg. The mother turtles
lay three or four times a year, at intervals of two or three weeks.
An experienced eye and hand are required to detect the eggs, as
they are always ingeniously covered up with sand. The Orinoco
and Amazon Indians obtain from these eggs a kind of clear, sweet
oil, which they use instead of butter. In the month of February,

when the high waters of the Orinoco have receded, millions of _

turtles come on shore to deposit’ their eggs. The certainty and
abundance of the harvest is estimated by the acre. The yearly

EGGS IN CHEMISTRY AND COMMERCE. 103

gathering about the mouth of the river Amazon alone is some
five thousand jars of oil, and it takes five thousand eggs to make a
jar. The turtle comes at night, and deposits from one hundred and
forty to two hundred white eggs in the sand, carefully covering
them up before returning to the sea. In about fourteen days she
returns again to the same place to lay, and will come up about
four times before stopping laying, thus giving some six hundred
to eight hundred eggs. A native of Brazil will consume as many
as twenty or thirty turtles’ eggs at a meal, and a European will
eat a dozen at a breakfast. They make an excellent omelet. The
Indians frequently eat them raw, mixed with their cassava flour.
The condition in which the egg of the turtle is best fit to be
eaten is when taken from the slain animal, before the formation
of the glaze and the surrounding parchment-like skin, which
answers the purpose of a shell.

The eggs of a large lizard (Varanus vivitattus) are eaten in
Java. In the West Indies the eggs of the iguana are thought a
delicacy. One of these lizards will sometimes contain as many
as foursccre eggs, which, when boited, ave like marrow. They
are about the size of a pigeon’s egg, but with a soft shell. The
eggs of the common teguexin (Teius teguexin), and of other large
species of lizards, are eaten in South America.

In the Antilles and on the west coast of Africa the eggs of the
alligator are eaten. They resemble in shape a hen’s egg, and
have much the same taste, but are larger. More than a hundred
eges have been found in one alligator.

The large eggs of the boa constrictor are regarded as a dainty
by the Africans from the Congo. One of these snakes, killed on
an estate in British Guiana in 1884, had fifty eggs, which were
eaten by the negroes.

The eggs of various fishes differ remarkably in external ap-
pearance. Some would scarcely be believed to be eggs at all.
Take, for instance, the skate’s egg. It looks like a flattened
leather purse, with four horns or handles at the corners. The
yolk is in the shape of a walnut, larger or smaller according to
the species. In the Hlasmobranchit, sharks and rays, the ova are
not so numerous as those of other fishes, the eggs being gener-
ally inclosed in coriaceous or leathery capsules, familiarly known
to sea-side visitors as mermaids’ purses and the like.

The egg of the picked dog-fish, the yolk of which is about the
size of a pigeon’s egg, is used by the inhabitants in parts of Sweden
and Norway as a substitute for other eggs in their domestic econ-
omy. Cod-roe is sold in London in a dried form, smoked, and thus
darkly colored. It is a delicious dish when partly salted, par-
boiled, and then fried. Cod-roes are exported in tins to Australia
and India in the salted state. The late Frank Buckland examined

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

a cod-roe weighing seven pounds and three quarters, and found
the average was one hundred and forty eggs to the grain. This
gives 67,200 eggs to the ounce, so that in the whole mass of this
one cod-roe, allowing three quarters of a pound for skin, mem-
brane, etc., there were no less than 7,526,400 eggs.

Caviare is the common name for a preparation of the dried
spawn or salted roe of fish. The black caviare is made from the
roe of sturgeon, and a single large fish will sometimes yield as
much as one hundred and twenty pounds of roe. A cheaper and
less prized red kind is obtained from the roe of the gray mullet,
and some of the carp species, which are common in the rivers and
on the shores of the Black Sea. It is of interest to Turkey and
the Levant trade only.

Botargo is a preparation made on the coasts of the Mediterra-
nean, of the ovaries full of the mature eggs of the mullet (Mugul
cephalus). The eggs are salted, crushed, reduced to a paste, and
then dried in the sun. Sometimes spices or other ingredients are
added. Botargo is eaten like caviare.

There is also a destruction by mankind of the ova or spawn of
the Crustacea—lobsters, crabs, and shrimps—which are carried
under their tail. The lobster produces from 25,000 to 40,000 eggs, ©
the crayfish upward of 100,000. As much as six ounces of eggs
can be taken off in May from a lobster weighing three to three
pounds and a half, and there are about 6,720 eggs in an ounce of
lobster spawn. The lobster is never so good as when in the con-
dition of a “ berried hen.”

The eggs of some insects are eaten in Siam, Egypt, and Mexico,
but those most valuable commercially are the eggs of the silk-
moth.

The trade in silk-worms’ eggs from Japan has become an ex-
tensive and profitable one. In 1868 £1,000,000 was paid to Japan
by the “ graineurs” of Europe for silk-worms’ eggs. In 1869 two
million cards, costing on an average 12s. 6d. each, were sent to
Europe. In other years three millions of these cards, packed in
cases of about three hundred, thickly studded with these tiny
specks, have been shipped from Japan by the various steamers.

In China and Japan the moths are placed to lay their eggs on
cardboard or thick paper, which they cover regularly and closely
_ with a secretion which glues them to the spot and acts as a pre-
servative from heat or other accidents. Hence the cards may be
transported many thousands of miles safely, in a ship with a prop- .
erly regulated temperature, so as to prevent their hatching too
soon. They should be arranged, and the cards thickly covered,
without being overlaid, and having no unpleasant smell. A first
glance at one of these cards would lead one to suppose that the
eggs were artificially attached to the card, but the regularity is

BOTANICAL GARDENS. . 105

obtained by careful management of the moths at the time of lay-
ing the eggs. A vigorous moth will usually lay four or five hun-
dred eggs. When the laying is terminated the peasants examine
the cards, and, if there are any vacant places, attach a moth, by
pins through its wings, so that the eggs may be deposited in the
right place.—Abridged from the Journal of the Society of Arts.

BOTANICAL GARDENS.
By Dr. FR. HOFFMANN.

OTWITHSTANDING its size, prosperity, and luxury, the
commercial metropolis of the United States has been hith-
erto a less fruitful soil for the rise and growth of humanistic and
scientific institutions of learning, and museums, than Boston,
Washington, Philadelphia, and, through its university, Baltimore.
Movements, donations, and beginnings for the building up of such
institutions have not been wanting, but they have usually been
hindered by the predominance of mercantile interests and tenden-
cies, unfortunate starts, misadministration, seizure by political
aspirants, or lack of competent, skilled, unselfish management,
and have fallen short of their intended and possible aims. Cente-
narian Columbia College, with its professional branch schools,
has been left far behind by Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins
universities. The Astor and Lenox libraries can not compete with
those of other cities of like importance with New York, and are
surpassed by libraries in Boston and Washington. The Museum
of Natural History in Central Park has only recently acquired
importance and value; and the Art Museum has not till within a
short time, by means of a few large bequests. and gifts, overcome
its previous failures. Ethnographical, zodlogical, botanical, and
pharmacological museums are, except for the sporadic collections
in scientific institutions, and for the ethnographic collection in the
Historical Society, not existent, nor have we a botanical and
zoological garden. The museums of the medical schools do not
exceed the measure of demonstration objects, and the small phar-
macological collection of the College of Pharmacy is one of the
most neglected and insignificant of all.

The creation of higher institutions of learning and of scientific
collections has hitherto been left for the most part to private en-
terprise and munificence; the latter has, as everywhere else in our
country, accomplished much in New York that is good and useful,
and has given large sums. But the givers have too often lacked
correct understanding, and have failed to secure the qualified and
experienced agents that were needed in order to put their rich

106 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gifts to the best use. Men of the stamp of Louis Agassiz and Asa
Gray do not readily grow up and flourish in the intellectual
atmosphere of a commercial and partly political metropolis; or
they are less appreciated; and therefore the endowers of large
foundations want the stimulating and authoritative influence and
the correct intelligence to apply their gifts in the right direction,
and to guard them against extravagance from injudicious expend-
iture, dilettanteism, and experimenting. Furthermore, Americans,
in their lack of knowledge and of models, have been distin-
guished by a tendency to perpetuate their munificence and names
preferably in monumental edifices; hence the excessive founda-
tion of so-called universities with splendid buildings, but which
have been usually destitute of what alone, with or without archi-
tectural luxury, gives them purpose and value—an efficient fac-
ulty, well-endowed apparatuses, and capable pupils. In conse-
quence of this erroneous comprehension and consequent expendi-
ture in buildings, and by the scattering of teaching force and
means, most of our higher schools, libraries, museums, and collec- ©
tions have been weakened. We have no lack of imposing struct-
ures, but no real universities and technical high-schools; libraries,
like those of the Astor and Lenox in New York, elegantly housed
without a correspondingly general value and utility. The munifi-
cence of our founders directs itself, as Prof. James M. Hart has
remarked in his book on “German Universities,” mainly to brick
and mortar. The rest is left to chance and the discretion of the
administration; hence numerous experiments, often followed by
a miserable, inefficient career.

In comparison with other cities of like size and population,
New York is poor in public squares and parks. In size and natu-
ral beauty the Central Park can indeed well sustain a comparison
with the parks of other cities, and it might, if the money poured
out upon it since its creation in 1857 had been wisely and honestly
expended, have been one of the best parks and botanical gardens
in the world. If Nature had not done so much for it, it would
stand, notwithstanding half a million dollars a year are expended
upon it, far behind the parks of other great cities. If only a part
of this sum had been systematically applied to the maintenance
of a competent, experienced botanical and landscape gardener as
director of the plantations, and the necessary palm- and plant-
houses had been erected, the Central Park might have been, not
only one of the largest but one of the handsomest public parks
and botanical gardens; for, with its superficies of eight hundred
and forty acres, it has a much greater area than, for example,
Regent’s Park, with its beautiful botanical and zodlogical gar-
dens, Kensington Garden, and the Kew Gardens of London, taken
together. The last-named, a famous botanical garden, contains

BOTANICAL GARDENS. 107

only sixty-seven acres, and has nothing like the diversity of forma-
tion that the Central Park contains.

The plan for making Central Park, like those parks, a botani-
cal garden as well, has existed since its foundation in 1857,* and
has come up again from time to time; a costly beginning was pro-
jected under the Tweed régime, and the foundations were laid for
a large glass house, by which the little lake on the east side of the
park between Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Streets was to be
roofed for the cultivation of Victoria regia and other fresh-water
plants. The money that was appropriated found takers enough,
but no building came out of it.

Much might be accomplished in the Central Park with its rich
flora under expert and artistic administration, without great cost,
if only the majority of the trees and shrubs were marked with
their botanical and English names, as is done in the squares of
Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities; and the people of the city
might thus be put in the way of becoming acquainted with at
least the native trees and bushes, and excited to some interest in
botany. The daily thousands of summer visitors pass by these
abundant groups of plants without any information to their names,
and without any means or motive for informing themselves re-
specting these objects that make the park attractive and beau-
tiful. This, however, is one of the most important purposes of the
botanical gardens of our time; and the Central Park could fulfill
it as well as and even better than Regent’s Park and Kensington
Garden and the plant-houses in Hyde. Park in London.

Of the eight hundred and forty acres in the Central Park, four

*Tt may be of interest to mention here that after the once famous Hamilton Garden
near Philadelphia, which was managed for three years toward the end of the last century
by the famous botanist, Friedrich Pursh, New York has had the first botanical garden in
North America. It was established in 1801 by Dr. David Hosack, a physician, who came
to this country from Scotland, on a tract of about twenty acres, which he bought from the
city. It was situated several miles north of the city at the time, on the place of the pres-
ent square between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets.
The wooded, hilly land was cleared and laid out and surrounded by a stone wall, along
which the tall forest-trees were allowed to remain. In 1806 the garden was under high
cultivation, and contained over fifteen hundred species of American useful, medicinal, and
ornamental plants, a good hot-house, and an audience-room for botanical teaching. In
1806 and 1807 two hot-houses were added, and a number of West Indian and European
plants were put under cultivation. A catalogue printed in 1807 gave the names of two
thousand species. The garden—which Dr. Hosack had named the Elgin Garden, after his
Scottish home—was regularly taken care of during the following years by the owner and
some wealthy lovers of plants; but was sold in 1810, for want of means to carry it on, to
the State of New York, for seventy-three thousand dollars. With this, skillful direction of
the garden scems to have come to an end. It was committed in turn to the Regents of the
University of New York, the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finally
to Columbia College. This wealthy corporation, by an arrangement with the State Legisla-
ture in 1816, annexed the garden, which had fallen into decay, and with this the once
widely known Elgin Botanical Garden, of New York, ceased to be.

108 _ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hundred acres are wooded with trees and shrubs; forty-three and
a quarter acres, besides the reservoirs, are covered with water in
the six lakes; and of the many meadows the largest contains nine-
teen acres. The size, conditions of soil, natural beauty, and cen-
tral location are therefore far more favorable and more diversi-
fied than in the famous parks and botanical gardens of London,
Paris, and Berlin. Only a proper beginning, a scientific and artis-
tic organization, and the wise application of the means that are at
hand, are needed to combine the useful with the agreeable in the
park, and make it also one of the handsomest of botanical gardens.
One is therefore involuntarily reminded of Schiller’s words—
“Warum in die Ferne schweifen, sich’ das Gute liegt so nah?”

(“ Why wander into the far, seeing the good lies so near ?”) when
he regards the present movement and efforts to create a “ great
botanical garden” in certain territory in the northern annex to the
city, on the Bronx River, beyond Mount Vernon. A committee of
the Torrey Botanical Club is trying and hopes to collect a mill-
ion dollars for that purpose. It is given among the purposes to be
attained by this garden that it will furnish the city with living
plants as demonstration objects for botanical instruction in the
medicinal, pharmaceutical, and other institutions. But smaller
gardens and houses for the cultivation of tender and half-hardy
plants, like the little botanical garden created by Prof. Asa Gray
and his pupils in Cambridge, the Arboretum in Boston, and
Shaw’s Gardens in §t. Louis, would be abundantly sufficient for
this purpose. Instead of utilizing that which is at hand and
near us, we must, in a fashion characteristic of New York, have
something new and grand for a botanical garden—a scheme that
will bring money among the people, give position and name to
politicians, feed the mills of land-speculators and contractors, and
therefore find favor everywhere.

The project is not objectionable in itself. But why not apply
it to the already existing Central Park, which has abundant room
and all that is needed for the establishment of a complete botani-
cal garden, and would gain immensely by it in usefulness and
beauty ? Witha million dollars all could be provided on the same
grand scale that the Kew Garden of London possesses in planta-
tions, hot-houses, and botanical museums; moreover, a large sum
of money alone will no more make a great botanical garden than
it will a great university. It requires, first of all, the intellectual
creators and the scientifically and artistically competent organiz-
ers and architects.

Without reverting in this short article to the history of botan-
ical gardens, which may be found in every large encyclopedia, we
will confine ourselves to the discussion of their scientific impor-
tance. This is not so much in the drift of modern botanical sci-

BOTANICAL GARDENS. 109

ences than it was formerly. With the popularization of science
and the rise of landscape gardening on an extensive scale in or
near all the great cities, botanical gardens have acquired more and
more importance and perhaps greater value for the awakening
and instruction of the masses, and should therefore be made easily
accessible to them and as instructive as possible. Hence the pub-
lic parks that are most easily within reach of the largest numbers
of people are the peculiarly favorable territory on which to place
botanical gardens. Their importance and usefulness in this sense
were recently expounded in a striking manner by Prof. Schwen-
dener in his address on assuming the rectorate of the University
of Berlin, when, having described the present condition of botany
and its aims and purposes, he said: “If we ask how botanical
gardens stand in reference to this new direction, it can not be
denied that they are in general behind the progress of science.
They still exhibit, aside from a few unimportant changes, the im-
press of an earlier time. Certain fashionable plants, like palms,
orchids, camellias, azalias, cactuses, heaths, etc., are cultivated in
extravagant numbers, and grow, bloom, and decay without bearing
any fruit for science. Where there are specialists, who work up
some group in monographs, as rich a representation of its forms
in living examples as possible may he justified; but we should not
forget in this case that most systematic research must rest for the
greater part on herbarium material, for the whole number of culti-
vated forms constitute only a fraction of what is already described.
The largest collections of living plants in the gardens of the great
cities may contain sixteen thousand or eighteen thousand species ;
but the flora of the whole earth includes ten times as many. The
phytographer is not willing to depend upon garden specimens,
because they sometimes vary considerably from plants collected
in nature and afford no certain guarantees of their origin. It is
therefore not to be supposed that the demands of the new system
can be satisfied with specimens that have grown under cultiva-
tion. Hardly anything else can be expected of the future than
that the enormous stock of living plants which all the great gar-
dens now exhibit will suffer a gradual reduction.

“But if the vegetable kingdom is gradually giving up the
charm which it has exercised so long, what shall take its place ?
The gardens as such stand in no other relation to the now domi-
nant microscopical and experimental physiological research than
that of furnishing the necessary material and a certain number of
plants for experiment, and for that no particular efforts or large
_ gardens are needed. In this direction, therefore, no one will prob-
ably desire extensive enterprises or set up new aims.

“As little does it lie in the province of botanical gardens to
deal with problems in the geography of plants. What has hith-

110 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

erto been done in this direction by the arrangement of geograph-
ical groups, and which is all that can be done in the future, belongs
to the domain of popular demonstration and the instruction of
wider circles, not to that of science. It may be of real interest to
the garden-visiting public to find Japanese, Chinese, American, or
Australian plants, etc., together in greater numbers, and the ad-
ministration of the gardens are not to be blamed if they meet this
popular desire as practically as they can, only they must not con-
ceive that they are thereby solving any scientific problem.

“The one thing that remains for the directors of botanical
gardens, if they would keep up with the progress of science and
to make them something more than mere magazines of living
plants, is to engage themselves in the questions that concern the
variability of organic forms, the influence of changed life-condi-
tions on the form, the phenomena of hybridization and reversion,
and especially the factors that are conducive to the further devel-
opment of the vegetable kingdom and of its history.

“Tf we raise the question, in conclusion, of what will be the
consequences of the perspective we have defined for the botan-
ical gardens, it is hardly to be feared for the smaller gardens,
serving principally for the purposes of instruction, that they will
be seriously affected by it, for their stock of plants does not at
most exceed the present requirements for demonstration.

“But a profounder change concerning the scientific side of
botanical gardens may nevertheless be anticipated in the future.
The fashionable plants of the trade-gardens and the monotonous
forms of certain genera which require whole houses in their aim-
less fullness of species do not deserve such a preference; and the
time is at hand for botanical gardens to break with these old tra-
ditions and to carry out a stricter selection connected with neces-
sary reforms in nomenclature. For this is demanded an expert
and energetic administration which recognizes modern problems
and knows how to overcome the hindrances that stand in the
way.”

What evidently is wanted and should be created in New York
is what the botanical gardens of London, Paris, Berlin, and other
great cities principally are, a “magazine” of cultivated native
and exotic plants, in which botanists and lovers of plants as well
as the masses can enjoy themselves and be instructed, and by
means of which a perception of and interest in the beauty and
endless richness of forms and colors of the plant-world can be
awakened and advanced in the populace. The Central Park is
eminently adapted for such an establishment, has the right loca-
tion for it, abundant space, and therefore all the prerequisites that
are needed. Should it seem desirable, in the course of the growth
of the city northward, at some later time to have more and new

THE DESERT OF GOBI AND THE HIMALAYAS. 111

parks with botanical gardens, future generations will know how
to provide them, probably with better means and service, and in
any case with closer-lying interest and benefit. At present it
would be an extravagance, a vain illusion, and a needless and
costly experiment, to go for the establishment of a botanical gar-
den beyond the Central Park, which is so well adapted to the pur-
pose, and to create from the beginning a “grand botanical gar-
den” at a considerable distance in a wholly unprepared territory.
—Translated and abridged for the Popular Science Monthly from
the March number of Pharmaceutische Rundschau.

THE DESERT OF GOBI AND THE HIMALAYAS.
By Lircrenant F. E. YOUNGHUSBAND.*

i Royal Geographical Society enjoyed a profitable evening
a few months ago in hearing an account by Lieutenant F. E.
Younghusband of a journey which he had made across Central
Asia from Manchuria and Peking to Kashmir, over the Mustagh
Pass, and the discussion upon it, in which officers learned in
Indian geography took part. The author started in the summer
of 1885, with Mr. H. KH. M. James, who has since published in the
book called “The Long White Mountain” the best account of
Manchuria that we have. The travelers separated, after a pleas-
ant and profitable journey, at Newchang, Mr. James to return
home by ‘way of Chifu and America, and Lieutenant Young-
husband to travel back to India through Mongolia and Chinese
Turkistan.

Respecting the field of the earlier journey, the author asserts
that “few countries could repay the traveler better for his labors
than Manchuria. It is a noble country, and well worthy of being
the birthplace of the successive dynasties which issuing from it
have conquered all the countries round, and of that dynasty
which to-day holds sway over the most populous empire in the
world. The fertility of the soil is extraordinary ; the plain coun-
try is richly cultivated and dotted over with flourishing villages
and thriving market towns, and the hills are covered with mag-
nificent forests of oak and elm. The mineral resources are at
present undeveloped, but coal and iron, gold and silver are known
to be procurable. The climate is healthy and invigorating, but
very cold in winter, when the temperature varies from 10° below
zero Fahr. in the south to 40° or more below zero in the north.
Rivers are numerous and large.” The principal river is the Sun-

* Condensed from the author’s paper in the “Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society.”

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gari, which is navigable for vessels of three or four feet draught
as far as Kirin, and whose rich valley is every year attracting
thousands of colonists from China. The drawback is brigandage,
which is very rife in northern Manchuria, and on account of
which the people have to collect, for their own protection, in
large villages and towns, so that small hamlets and detached
farm-houses are never seen. Though it is Manchuria, the coun-
try is not inhabited by Manchus. They have been drained off
to China proper, and their places are taken by immigrants from
the Chinese provinces. The people of the original race have lost
their old warlike spirit, and are a laughing-stock to the Chinese
colonists. Unable to make headway against the brigands, they
depend on the Chinese regiments to do that work for them.

A great many things had to be thought of in preparing for a
long journey over an almost unknown country, in which were
included the crossing of the terrible Desert of Gobi and of the
Himalaya Mountains. Bills could not be obtained on any town
in Turkistan, and it was necessary to carry money in bulk. If
the Chinese copper coinage were taken, it would require a train
of mules to carry a sufficient sum. The problem was solved by
taking sixty pounds of solid silver, stowed away in the baggage.
Clothing must be provided in anticipation both of great heat and
of intense cold; and medicines had to be laid in, for the people
as well as for the traveler and his party, “for they are always
useful for giving to the natives. It is well I did so, for Mr. Dal-
gleisch’s fame as a medicine-man had spread throughout Turkis-
tan, and the Turkis thought that I, being also English, must be
able to cure them instantly of any illness they had.”

Ascending the valley of the Yangho from Kalgan, “the coun-
try presented a desolate and deserted appearance, for the villages
were half in ruins; numerous watch-towers, now falling in pieces,
were scattered over the country; and the inhabitants, looking ill-
fed and badly clothed, were attempting in a half-hearted way to
cultivate fields which were constantly being covered with layers
of dust by the horrible sand-storms that used to occur almost
daily at this time of the year. The country is of the formation
called loess—a light, friable soil which crumbles to dust when the
slightest pressure is put upon it. In consequence of this the roads
are sunk thirty to forty feet below the level of the surrounding
country ; for when a cart passes along a road the soil crumbles
into dust, the wind blows the dust away, and a rut is formed.
More traffic follows, more dust is blown away, and gradually the
roadway sinks lower and lower below the surrounding level ; for
the Chinese here, as elsewhere, never think of repairing a road.
... On the 14th of April, 1886, I emerged on to the real steppes
which are the characteristic features of Mongolia proper. Stretch-

THE DESERT OF GOBI AND THE HIMALAYAS. 113

ing far away in the distance there was a great, rolling, grassy plain,
on which the flocks and herds and the yurtas, or felt tents, of the
Mongols were scattered about. These people offered a striking
contrast to the Chinese inhabiting the districts I had just left.
They were strong and robust, with round, ruddy faces, very simple-
minded, and full of hearty good humor. They are entirely pas-
toral and nomadic in their habits, and do not take to agricultural
pursuits. The old warlike spirit which made them so powerful in
the days of Genghis Khan has now disappeared completely. The
Chinese Government has purposely encouraged the men to become
Lamas, and now it is said that as many as sixty per cent of the
whole male population are Lamas, who, by their religion, are neither
allowed to marry nor to fight. In consequence, there is a great
decrease in the fighting strength of the Mongols, as well as in the
whole population. A recent famine carried away numbers more,
and the country, it seems, would almost become depopulated were
it not that Chinese immigrants are now invading it, and these are
even outdoing the Mongols in their own callings, for I met Chinese
in Mongolia who owned flocks of sheep which they were fattening
for the Peking market.”

In order to avoid the heat of the day, and to let the camels feed
by daylight, when they could be watched and kept from straying,
the usual plan of the journey was to start at about three o’clock
in the afternoon, and travel on till midnight or later. The nights
were often extremely beautiful, and the stars shone out with an
unwonted magnificence. “Venus was a resplendent object, and
guided us over many a mile of that desert. The Milky Way, too,
was so bright that it looked like a bright phosphorescent cloud,
or as a cloud with the moon behind it. This clearness of the

-atmosphere was probably due to its being so remarkably dry.
Everything became parched up and so charged with electricity
that in opening out a sheep-skin coat or a blanket a loud crackling
noise would be given out, accompanied by a sheet of fire. The
temperature used to vary considerably. Frosts continued to the
end of May, but the days were often very hot, and were frequently
hottest at nine or ten in the morning, for later on a strong wind
would usually spring up, blowing sometimes with extreme vio-
lence, up till sunset, when it generally subsided again. If this
wind was from the north, the weather was fine but cold. If it
was from the south, it would be warmer, but clouds would collect,
and rain would sometimes fall; generally, however, the rain would
pass off into steam before reaching the ground. Ahead of us we
could see the rain falling heavily, but before it reached the ground
it would gradually disappear—vanish away—and when we reached
the spot over which the rain had been falling there would not be

a sign of moisture on the ground.” Instead of the rain, the sand
VoL. xxxv.—8

114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

found its way everywhere. Occasionally the march had to be
given up because the camels could not make head against the vio-
lence of the wind.

A great ridge of bare sand, destitute of vegetation, at the
western end of the Husku Hills, about forty miles long and nine
hundred feet high, is associated with a tradition of a large mili-
tary force having once been collected and preparing to march to
China, when a mighty wind arose, blowing the sand against them
and burying them all, together with several villages and temples.

The Altai Mountains are perfectly barren, with the upper por-
tion composed of bare rock and the lower of long gravel slopes,
formed of the débris of the rocks above. This débris is formed
under the influence of the extremes of the climate upon the unpro-
tected rock, with no rainfall sufficient to wash it away. So it
accumulates in a uniform slope, often thirty or forty miles in
length, leaving only a few hundred feet of the original jaggy out-
line of the mountain visible at the top. A prominent Altai peak
was pointed out to the traveler as covering a grassy hollow which
is frequented by wild camels. The Mongols are said to shoot these
animals for the sake of their skins, and also to catch the young
ones and train them to be ridden. They will go two hundred
miles a day for a week, but can not be broken to carry a load.
They. are smaller than the tame camels, and are said to have short,
smooth hair, in place of the long hair of the ordinary Mongolian
camel. Considerable numbers of wild asses, and wild horses, the
Equus Prejevalski, weré seen roaming around the plains.

The most trying march in the desert was that of the last day,
which was performed in sight of the Tian Shan, or “ Heavenly
Mountains.” It was seventy miles in length, “and not a sign of
water could be found throughout, while the heat was intense, for _
the wind blew off the heated gravel as from a furnace, and I used
to hold up my hand to protect my face from it, in the same way
as one would in front of a fire.” On the next evening a friendly
voice welcomed the party as it was ascending the lower slopes of
the Tian Shan to a Turki house, with a stream of water running
by it. The country on the southern slope of the range still con-
tinued desert, but with a small oasis every fifteen or twenty miles,
containing a village and cultivated lands. A difference was at
once observed between the Turki and ordinary Chinese towns.
“Tn China the houses are, as a rule, large and well built, with pent
roofs and overhanging eaves. The shops are of a respectable size,
with plenty of room inside for the storage of goods for sale, and
for several bustling shopkeepers, who serve their customers from

behind good solid counters. In Turkistan the houses and shopsare —
more after the Indian style. They are built of mud, low, and flat- _

roofed, and the shops small and heaped up all round with goods,

THE DESERT OF GOBI AND THE HIMALAYAS, 115

so that there is little room left for the shopkeeper. ... If you
could get a bird’s-eye view of Chinese Turkistan, you would see a
great, bare desert, surrounded on three sides by barren mountains,
and at their bases you would see some vivid green spots, showing
out sharp and distinct, like blots of green paint dropped on toa
sepia picture.” The oases are extraordinarily fertile; every scrap
of land that can be cultivated is used up, and every drop of water
is drained off and used for irrigation. The inhabitants are indus-
trious, but not so good cultivators as the Chinese. They seem
peaceful and contented, dress simply and well, and live in houses
which, though built of mud, are kept remarkably clean inside.
They are, however, much lacking in spirit, and stand in great awe
of the Chinese, who produce upon them, as well as upon all the
people of these regions, an impression of their overwhelming
strength and importance. They are perfect masters of the art of
impressing Orientals; their officials are scarcely known as human
beings, but “ are presences inhabiting a great walled-in inclosure,
entrance to which is barred by massive gates, and they never ap-
pear in public except in state and accompanied by an escort.
China, too, is regarded by the Turkis as an almost fabulous coun-
try.” They never go there, and “ only hear of it from the Chinese,
who give the most exaggerated descriptions of it, telling them that
the emperor has an untold number of soldiers at his command, and
has.a hill of gold and a hill of silver, from which he obtains inex-
haustible wealth.” Turfan, being seated at a very low elevation
and surrounded by the desert, suffers from an intense heat, and
the people, to avoid it, dig underground rooms, and live in them
during the day.

The Kirghiz, whose country came next in order, were found
more well-to-do than the Mongols or Kalmucs, dressing better,
living in better tents, and keeping them clean; fine, strong men,
not so industrious as the Turkis, but a great deal more so than
the Mongols. “We put up every night in their tents, and they
were generally very civil, though naturally rather curious to
know who I was and see all my things. The Afghan had a hard
time answering all the questions, so, when he found it monotonous, -
he used to spread a rug and solemnly say his prayers. He was a
Hadji, and, to keep up his religion properly, had to pray five times
a day. When he had been traveling all day, and had not been
able to say his prayers, he used to make up for it in the evening
by repeating them once every half-hour or so.” On the plain
called the Syrt were large fields of wheat grown by the Kirghiz,
who had built houses to store their grain in, but continued to live
themselves in their tents. “They said they preferred not living
in houses, as they were always afraid of their tumbling down
upon them.” The author himself, when crossing the Himalayas

116 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a few days afterward, had to guard against the dangers of living
inatent. In that region the Kanjutis are on the watch for the
traveler, and, learning his ways in the day, attack him at night.
If he pitches a tent, they cut the ropes and catch him inside it,
“So, as I wished to end my journey in India, and not in Kanjut, I
gave up using a tent, and for three weeks, while crossing the
Himalayas, bivouacked out, spreading my rugs on the ground on
the least windy side of any friendly rock I could find, and always
changing my position after dark.”

A complete outfit had to be procured for crossing the lofty
range—good, sound, hard ponies, spare shoes for them, and tools
for shoeing them; pack-saddles and blankets, and long sheep-skin
coats for the men, and, as there would be no paths, pick-axes and
spades for road-making. “ As we got further into the mountains,
I noticed that the heavy haze which perpetually hangs over the
Kashgar and Yarkand districts faded away. This haze must, I
think, be formed of dust stirred up by the strong winds which
blow almost daily in those districts, for I noticed that there was
‘ a thin, permanent coating of dust on the rocks in the valley of
the Tisuaf River, where there is practically no natural dust, but
over which this haze continually hangs, and that, as we advanced
inland and the haze disappeared, so also did this coating of dust
on the rocks.”

From the summit of the Aghil Darvan Pass (sixteen thousand
or seventeen thousand feet high) the author had a view of the
great Mustagh Range, or Karakorum Mountains, which form
the water-shed between the rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean
and those which take their way toward central Asia, with an
immense glacier flowing down from the main range. “The ap-
pearance of these mountains is extremely bold and rugged as they
rise in succession of needle peaks, like hundreds of Matterhorns
collected together; but the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and all the
Swiss mountains would have been several hundred feet below me,
while these mountains rose up in solemn grandeur thousands of
feet above me. Nota living thing was seen and not a sound was
heard; all was snow and ice and rocky precipices, while these
mountains are far too grand to support anything so insignificant
as trees or vegetation of any sort. They stand bold and solitary
in their glory, and only permit man to come among them for a
few months in the year, that he may admire their magnificence
and go tell it to his comrades in the world beneath. As I looked
on the scene, I felt as if I were intruding on the abode of some
great, invisible, but all-pervading deity.”

After ascending the Sarpo Laggo River for a few miles toward -
the Mustagh Pass, “we came in view of the great peak K2, the
second highest mountain in the world, 28,250 feet in height. We

®

SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS. 117

could see it through a break in the mountains, rising up straight,
bold, and solitary, covered from foot to summit with perpetual
snow. The upper part, for perhaps five thousand feet, was a per-
fect cone, and seems to be composed entirely of ice and snow, the
accumulation of ages. The lower part was more precipitous, but
steep enough to throw off the snow altogether, while at the base was
a great glacier formed by the masses of snow which fell from its
sides. It was a magnificent sight, and I could scarcely tear myself
away from it.” The name K2 has been given to this mountain
by the Trigonometrical Survey, waiting the discovery of a native
name for it, for this enlightened corps always prefers native names
when they can be found. Probably, however, like Mount Ever-
est,* it has no name, not being familiar enough to the people to
receive one, for both summits can be seen only from almost inac-
cessible places. The name Peak Godwin-Austen, after the officer
who first surveyed the Mustagh Range and glaciers, was proposed
for it at this meeting of the Royal Geographical Society.

The thrilling description of the crossing of the Mustagh Pass,
where the party reached the height of nineteen thousand feet
above the sea, is too long to be quoted here. It simply includes
the usual adventures of icy Alpine climbing intensified, and adds
no new facts. General Strachey, President of the Geographical
Society, remarked, in the discussion of Lieutenant Younghus-
band’s paper, that this pass appeared to be the center of the most
wonderful accumulation of glaciers on the face of the earth. Some
of them, which Colonel Godwin- Austen described, and which
Lieutenant Younghusband must have passed over, were from
thirty to forty miles in length, and probably, by passing from
one to another, the traveler should be able to go over a glacier
surface of seventy or eighty miles.

——_—_~0@—___—

SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS.

HE name of Prof. Clausius—“ one of the most brilliant lights

of the nineteenth century,” as he is called by one of the Vice-
Presidents of the British Association—is conspicuously associated,
along with those of Rankine and Prof. William Thomson, in the
development of the science of thermodynamics, or the demonstra-
tion of the mechanical theory of heat ; and to him is credited the
first placing of the kinetic theory of gases on a secure scientific basis.
England and France mourned almost equally with Germany in his
death—England, because of his association with the great British
* The name commonly given as the native name of Mount Everest is not the name of

the pinnacle itself, but of one of the satellite peaks by which it is surrounded, and which
shut it off from ordinary view.

118 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

students of the nature of heat; and France, because he completed a
work begun by her own Sadi Carnot, and because of a sentimental
affection to which she had already given a unique expression.

RuDOLF JULIUS EMANUEL CLAUSIUS was born in Céslin,
Pomerania, January 12, 1822, and died in Bonn, August 24, 1888.
He began his course of studies at the gymnasium in Stettin, where
he made such marked progress as to attract the attention of his
teachers and secure for him an early transfer to the University of
Berlin. Here he evinced a predominant taste for the mathemat-
ical branches. He afterward went to the University of Halle, and
received its doctor’s degree in 1848. He then won the position of
a Privat Docent at the University of Berlin, and a few months
afterward was appointed Instructor of Natural Philosophy in the
School of Artillery. At about this time he began his contribu-
tions of scientific papers to Poggendorff’s “ Annalen,” some of
the earliest of which were selected for translation in the first vol-
ume of Taylor’s “Scientific Memoirs.” In 1857 he was appointed
by the Swiss Federal Government Professor of Natural Philoso-
phy in the Polytechnic School at Zurich. His career at this place
was distinguished by continued activity in his favorite fields of
research, besides which “he published some short papers on some
purely mathematical questions, suggested, however, by physical
problems, and some papers dealing with what is generally known
as physical chemistry.” He gave up his chair in Zurich in 1867
to go to a similar position in Wurzburg, whence two years after-
ward he removed to become Professor of Natural Philosophy in
the University of Bonn. He became dean of this institution in
1874, and continued there till his death.

The memoirs published by Clausius are estimated to number
more than a hundred. Seventy-seven are recorded on the lists of
the Royal Society up to 1873. Among his earlier papers the most.
famous are those “On the Nature of those Constituents of the
Atmosphere by which the Reflection of the Light within it is
effected,” and “On the Blue Color of the Sky, and on the Morning
and the Evening Red,” which were published while he was in his
tutorship at Berlin. While at Zurich he published “ The Influence
of Pressure on the Freezing-Point” ; “The Mechanical Equivalent
of an Electric Discharge, and the Heating of the Conducting Wire
which accompanies it”; “ Electrical Conduction in Electrolytes ” ;
and “The Effect of Temperature on Electric Conductivity.” In
1866 he published an important paper “ On the Determination of the
Energy and Entropy of a Body,” in which avery valuable and sug-
gestive conception was set forth. The idea of entropy, by which
term is designated the available energy of a system, or that which —
can be converted into mechanical work, which he first conceived
in 1854, and which led him to some extremely general and bold

SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS. 119

conclusions concerning the universe, was developed and extended
in his address before the Congress of German Physicians and
Naturalists at Frankfort in 1867, eliciting the principle that the
entropy of the universe tends toward a maximum.

The principal works of Clausius, on which his chief title to
fame must rest, are those on “The Potential Function and the
Potential” (1857), and on “The Mechanical Theory of Heat,” the
first volume of which was published in 1864. The properties of
the potential function, while they had been neglected for a con-
siderable time in France, had been put to their best use by all the
philosophers of Germany and England who had treated of the
natural forces of attraction and repulsion—particularly by such
students as Gauss, Kirchhoff, and Thomson. In the preface to
the second edition of his work on this subject, Prof. Clausius
made the modest declaration that it was not his aim to institute
new researches on the fundamental properties of the function, but
simply to expound an existing theory. But it is evident through
the treatise, as M. P. Langlois has shown, that while he takes up
the ideas of Green and Gauss, he makes them his own by the sim-
plifications which he has brought to them on one side and the
extension which he has on the other hand given to some parts of
the research. The work is distinguished beyond all other things,
M. Langlois adds, by the strength of the analytic faculty displayed
in it, which is carried to its ultimate limit. “Not contented with
having established a formula, Clausius knew how to make it of
remarkable utility. Twofundamental and particular ideas are de-
veloped in the treatise. First, the author fixes with precision the
difference between the potential function and the potential, and
shows the exact significance that should be given to the two,
‘which are so much used in mathematical physics, and especially
now in questions of electric dynamics; and he elucidates alike
the idea of the potential of a mass upon itself and restores to the
potential its true value, which had been erroneously doubled... .
But it is not to this work that Clausius is indebted for his legiti-
mate fame. His name is pre-eminently attached to the great prob-
lem of thermodynamics; and it is in his studies in this branch
that his influence has made itself predominantly felt.”

Thermodynamics may be said to date from 1824, when Sadi Car-
not published his “ Reflections on the Motor Power of Fire and on
Machines suitable for developing it.” The question of the nature
of heat had already occupied Rumford and Davy, to say nothing
of Bacon and Stahl; and being a dominating one in the problems.
into which it entered, arrested all physicists, who had only one
step more to make to create thermodynamics. Carnot introduced
the idea of mechanical work into the study, and sought to fix the
relation that exists between the work of a thermic machine and

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the heat which it employs. Waiving the too subtile question of
the nature of heat, he devoted himself principally to fixing the
conditions under which a maximum of work is yielded with a
given quantity of heat. Guided by the purely philosophical idea
of the equivalence of the work expended and the work produced,
in perfect mechanics, he affirmed the analogous principle that
the possible work is proportional to the quantity of heat employed
and to certain functions of the temperatures of the vapor on com-
ing in and going out. Carnot’s annunciation of his theory was
defective in that it took no notice of the fact that the hot body
gives out more heat than the cold one receives from it, and that it
regarded as equal the amount of heat received upon one isother-
mal side of a cycle and that emitted from the other side; a prin-
ciple that may hold good for infinitely small cycles, but not for
larger ones, in which a difference exists between the thermic quan-
tities proportioned to the size of the cycle. This error and the
true condition as pointed out by Clausius are defined by Prof.
Rankine, who says, in his paper “ On the Economy of Heat in Ex-
pansive Machines”: “ Carnot was the first to assert the law that
the ratio of the maximum mechanical effect to the whole heat ex-
pended in an expansive machine is a function solely of the two
temperatures at which the heat is respectively received and emit-
ted, and is independent of the nature of the working substance.
But his investigations, not being based on the principle of the
dynamic convertibility of heat, involve the fallacy that power can
be produced out of nothing. The merit of combining Carnot’s law,
as it is termed, with that of the convertibility of heat and power,
belongs to Mr. Clausius and Prof. William Thomson; and, in the
shape in which they have brought it, it may be stated thus: The
maximum proportion of heat converted into expansive power by
any machine is a function solely of the temperatures at which heat
is received and emitted by the working substance, which function
for each pair of temperatures is the same for all substances in na-
ture.” The law as thus modified and newly expressed might, as M.
Langlois remarks, be designated as the equation of Clausius. But
Clausius himself, acknowledging the influence which the French-
man’s ideas had exercised upon him, called it the theorem of Car-
not. The second volume of the “ Mechanical Theory of Heat ” is
almost wholly devoted to applications to electrical phenomena.
The reviewer in “ Nature” of the English translation of this
work says that the method of treatment pursued in it left hardly
anything to be desired, “even from the point of view of a student
previously ignorant of the subject. The reader is nowhere per-
plexed by uncouth symbols or analytical operations beyond those
which are familiar to all acquainted with the principles of the dif-
ferential and integral calculus. At the same time, ... the reader is

SKETCH OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS. 121

never allowed to lose sight of the essential meaning of the symbols
employed. ... Any one wishing to gain a general acquaintance,
thorough as far as it goes, with the subject, can scarcely do so
with the expenditure of less time and labor than are required for
the perusal of this book. As a mathematical study the book may
replace some of the luxuriant growths of modern geometry and
analysis with great advantage to the brains of the student.”

In his later years Clausius was interested principally in the
study of the questions raised by dynamo-electric machines. He
published a theory of dynamo-motors in “ La Lumiere élec-
trique,” in 1884, in which he sought to fix more general equations,
resting on more solid theories than those in use; but, notwith-
standing his memoir is marked by his peculiar qualities, the theo-
ries have not been accepted, and have only been partly, if at all,
confirmed by late researches. Yet it is to him that we owe a brill-
jiant and clear exposition, and one of the first that was made, of
certain phenomena of self-induction.

The Franco-German War occurred while Prof. Clausius was at
Bonn. Although he was not liable to draft in the general mobiliza-
tion, he was engaged in the ambulance service, and diligently inter-
ested himself in the care of the wounded. After the war was over,
the German Government decorated him with the order of the Iron
Cross, and the French with that of the Legion of Honor. The rea-
son of the French awarding such a distinction upon an eminent
German at such a time, when resentments still lively enough were
at their height, is most probably to be found in the fact that he
did not observe distinctions of nationality in his attentions. The
incident affords a striking illustration of the effect of scientific
studies in widening the range of thought and sympathy.

Prof. Clausius is described by M. Langlois as having been a
teacher of remarkable clearness and simplicity in his explana-
tions. His instruction was marked by a particular care to keep
always within the limits of true physical principles. While he
was remarkably versed in mathematical methods, he always kept
the physical notations in the minds of his readers, and never
allowed himself to be carried by his analyses into the regions of
too vague conceptions. Mr. G. W. de Tunzelmann agrees with
this conclusion in his obituary sketch in “Nature,” saying that
Clausius formed a center of attraction at Bonn, “not only as a
great investigator, but as a teacher of almost unrivaled ability.
The secret of his powers as a teacher may easily be guessed from
the study of his published papers and treatises.” The greater
part of his work, the writer adds, had the additional advantage of
being effected by the aid of comparatively simple analysis.

Prof. Clausius was elected a foreign member of the Royal So-
ciety in 1868, and received its Copley medal in 1879.

122

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

“PLAYING ’POSSUM.”
Editor Popular Science Monthly : :

N your February issue Mr. 8. F. Good-

rich brings up the question whether ani-
mals ever “play ’possum.” He suggests
that the apparent helplessness of certain ani-
mals when attacked is real; that what is
popularly ascribed to cunning is in reality
due to fright—a faint, and not a feint.

This theory is new to the great majority
of those who have observed the habit re-
ferred to; but its newness is not of itself a
serious objection to it. Many familiar phe-
nomena have waited long before receiving
correct explanation. It has always been
taken for granted that animals passive in
the presence of danger were attempting de-
ception. Rarely has any other explanation
of their conduct been offered; but it does
seem almost incredible that our far-away
kinfolk should be using that distinctively
human device—simulation.

Many of these acts can be satisfactorily
explained on either assumption. The opos-
sum may at times be unable to move because
of his fright, or he may assume the passive-
ness of death as his surest hope for life.
Which appears the more reasonable ?
Granted that it is difficult for us to credit
the animals in question with sufficient in-
telligence and self-control to select deliber-
ately such mode of defense, does not the
other theory involve us in much greater
difficulties ?

Do the lower animals ever feign any con-
dition? If this question can be answered
positively, it seems to me that we shall have
the solution to the other problem. The cat,
when playing with a captured mouse, appears
to feion unconcern and forgetfulness while
looking away from its victim, and surprise
on seeing it again. Probably there are very
few persons who have not at least once been
deceived by the disabled appearance of birds
when their nests or young were approached.
Very many of our birds under these circum-
stances act so as to draw attention to them-
selves, and when pursued keep just out of
reach, luring the pursuer to his greatest ef-
forts by seeming to have reached the maxi-
mum of their speed. Finally, the foolish
one, with feelings injured, gives up the chase
in disgust. Are the birds conscious. that
their appearance is deceptive? Fear cer-
tainly did not make them really helpless.
If it be admitted that there is hypocrisy in
such cases, then it may not seem impossible
for even these stupid animals to feign other
conditions, not excepting that of death.

If the opossum while in this passive state
be thrown into water, its passiveness will be

modified somewhat, but will still be main-
tained. Its nose will be kept above the sur-
face, and it will paddle away so very gently
that the motion is hard to detect. If while
“dead” a stick be put into its open mouth,
it will quietly close on it with its teeth, and
may then be carried long distances swinging
from the stick, but showing no other signs
of consciousness; or it may be carried by
the tail, it doing the holding. Do these
facts, which none acquainted with the habits
of opossums will question, sustain the theory
of paralyzing fear ?

The fox also appears helpless sometimes
when caught, and there are instances re-
corded of men being severely bitten because
of too much faith in its apparent innocence.

The toad when captured frequently makes
a complete surrender, closing its eyes and
settling down to apparent listlessness. If
everything remains quiet, its eyes will soon
open very gradually, closing again if danger
be still visible; if not, it will prepare to
move. If the enemy be discovered while it
is trying to escape, it again assumes its
former submissiveness.

The actions of the spreading adder are
also curious. If approached, it makes a
hissing noise and starts forward, looking as
hideous as possible, as though it would
frighten its enemy. These motions it will
repeat several times if touched with the
finger or a stick; but finally it seems to de-
spair of relief by that method, and throws
itself on its back and utterly refuses to make
further defense. On first observing this pe-
culiar position, I was sure the reptile was
dead; but on returning a few minutes later
to the box in which I had it,“found it look-
ing all right. The same effect followed the
repetition of the teasing. When I turned
it right side up, it immediately turned back
again. Repeated experiment since with these
snakes has shown that they even resist with
muscular effort a change from their unnatu-
ral position.

Many beetles have habits similar to those
of the animals named, and, like them, their
pretense is overdone. When the Colorado
beetle, or potato-bug, falls from the potato-
vine on being approached, it nearly always
comes to the ground with the feet up.

Many other examples might be given;
but the above, I think, are sufficient to show
that the theory that in the phenomena under
consideration the animals are helpless from
fright is untenable. In almost every case
the animal manifests consciousness, shows
itself cognizant of the situation, and betrays
its anxiety to escape. H. L. Ropers.

Lewistown, I[uu., February 28, 1889.

CORRESPONDENCE.

SENSE OF DIRECTION IN ANTS.
Editor Popular Science Monthly:

A sHorT article on the “Sense of Direc-
tion in Insects,” in the February number of
“The Popular Science Monthly,” served to
remind me of an account of the travels of
an ant told me by my father, the late Prof.
Lyford. His attention was drawn to the in-
sect by a very heavy load which it was car-
rying. When first noticed it was traveling
along a gravel walk in most approved fash-
ion, and, while occasionally avoiding a large
pebble, was pursuing in the main a very
straight line. But soon it turned from the
walk, and taking a different direction entered
a grass-plat. Here a different mode of pro-
ceeding was adopted. Finding it difficult to
walk around the grass-stalks, it would climb
to the top of the blade, let it bend down with
its weight, then get off and climb a second,
and so on. Besides making quite satisfac-
tory progress in this manner, the top of the
grass-blade seemed to furnish a convenient
point of observation, like a tree-top in a for-
est. Through the grass the route was very
direct until it reached its “‘Azll,” when it
disappeared. A careful calculation of the
distances traveled on the gravel and through
the grass, and of its rate of progress over
the two, indicated that, while the total dis-
tance was greater than if measured in a
straight line, yet that the insect had act-
ually selected, very nearly if not exactly, the
route which could be traversed in the shortest
time, seeming to realize that in this case at
least “the longest way round was the short-
est way home.”

Epwin F. Lyrorp.
Sprrnerietp, Mass., February 20, 1889.

JAPANESE MAGIC MIRRORS.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

In the February number of the “ Monthly,”
in the “ Miscellany,” page 572, Prof. Menden-
hall’s account of the Japanese “‘magic mir-
ror” is quoted. The reason which he gives
for the peculiar property that a few acci-
dentally possess of reflecting upon a screen
an enlarged image of the figures in relief on
the back of the mirror seems to me, to say
the least, questionable.

While in Japan I became intensely inter-
ested in the phenomenon, which has been
explained in many ways. By the process of
‘exclusion, all for the time being were dis-
carded but two. The first of these is given
by Prof. Mendenhall, viz., “‘When the mir-
ror is cast the cooling process has the effect
of drawing it slightly out of shape”; and
the second endeavored to answer the ques-
tion by supposing that in the casting there
was produced a difference of density oppo-
site the ornamentations, which are in de-
cided relief. It was argued that the more
‘dense portions would be abraded less in the
operations of grinding and polishing than

b23

the softer parts, hence leaving them a very
little in relief. There is no design, in the
mind of the artist, for an unequal density in
the casting, and, so far as I am aware, there
is no proof that it exists. In observing the
mode of grinding the face for the final pol-
ish, it appeared quite evident that all “‘ draw-
ing” and differences in density would be re-
duced to quite the same level. The process
of final finish seemed to me to solve the
puzzling riddle, which is as follows: When
the moderately convex surface has been
brought to a satisfactory and equable con-
dition, the casting is placed upon a solid
base, on which the figures in relief firmly |
rest, leaving the intervening spaces practi-
cally unsupported. In order to get all the
“drawing” and unevenness out of the face
of the casting, some are ground thinner than
others. The final polish is given by violently
rubbing the surface with the rather small
end of a soft-wood stick, applied with heavy
pressure. It seems evident that when the
stick passes from the thick supported to the
thin unsupported parts, the latter would be
slightly depressed, and the continued rub-
bing pressure would fix these depressions,
leaving slightly raised lines exactly opposite
the ornamentations in relief on the back.
These are so slight as not to be detected
by the eye, but when cast from the convex
surface on a screen at some distance the di-
verging rays would enlarge the image, so as
to produce the fact of the phenomenon.
G. O. Rogers.
ApaAm, Mrxtco, February 1, 1889.

SELF-POISONING BY SNAKES.
Editor Popular Science Monthly:

In your January number you say, “To
what extent a poisonous serpent’s bite is nox-
ious to itself is doubtful” ; and the testimo-
ny of Dr. Stradling there given tends to set-
tle the doubt in the negative. Bearing upon
this question is the following from Lieuten-
ant Michler’s report to Major W. H. Emory,
United States Army, and bearing date July
29, 1856. Itis to be found in Major Emo-
ry’s report of the “ United States and Mexi-
can Boundary Survey,” vol. i, pp, 121, 122.

“The glare of our fires attracted a large
number of rattlesnakes; the whole place”
(the “Sierra del Poso Verde”) “seemed in-
fested with them. We judged them to be
a new species from their tiger-colored skins ;
they were exceedingly fierce and venomous,
On the deserts of the Colorado we had often
seen others with horns, or small protuber-
ances above the eyes; and Dr. Abbott has
taken from the body of still another species
quite a number of small ones, among which
was a monstrosity with two perfectly formed
heads attached to one neck. When you lie
down on your blankets stretched on the
ground, you know not what strange bedfel-
low you may have when you awake in the

124

morning. My servant insisted upon encir-
cling my bed with a riata of horse-hair to
protect me from their intrusions. Snakes are
said to have a repugnance to being pricked
by the extremities of the hair. The paisano,
or chaparral cock, surrounds his antagonist,
while asleep, with a chain of cactus-thorns.
When the preparations are all made, the bird
flutters over the head of the snake to arouse
it to action; the latter, in its vain efforts to
escape, is irritated to such a degree by run-
ning against the barrier encompassing it, that

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at ends its existence by burying its fangs in its
own body.”

To what end or purpose is all this won-
derful strategy on the part of the bird? Is
it simply to imprison the snake? Is it for
the fun of seeing the reptile fooled? Is it
merely that the snake should “ inflict only
mechanical injury upon its own body” which
would not be at all likely to prove fatal; or
is the whole story false ?

A. J. WILLIAMS.
CLEVELAND, Onto, February 21, 1889.

EDITOR’S TABLE

INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY.

governed colleges, lagged behind may be

ILL’S “Essay on Liberty” and | judged from the comparatively recent

Darwin’s ‘‘ Origin of Species”
mark the opening of what we may re-
gard as the latest chapter in the history
of modern thought. Mill vindicated for
all men the right, not only of using
their individual judgment, but of ex-
pressing their individual opinions, upon
all subjects whatsoever, and proclaimed
it to be at once the duty and the inter-
est of society at large to see that no im-
pediments were cast in the way of such
exercise of intellectual liberty. Darwin
furnished almost at the same moment a
theory which ran so strongly counter to
received opinions that to espouse it de-
manded no small amount of intellectual
courage, and to discuss it fairly on its
merits, without any appeal to theologi-
cal prejudices, a somewhat rare degree
of liberality. Darwin seemed to say to
a society that had just received Mr.
Mill’s essay with acclaims of praise:
“‘ Well, here is a touchstone of your sin-
cerity; here is a doctrine which I have
carefully thought out, and which, if true,
involves a complete reconstruction of
many of your most cherished ideas: can
you do it justice? Can you do justice to
those who may accept it?” Outside of
the theological colleges the world re-
sponded fairly well to the appeal, and
‘The Origin of Species,”’ though keenly
criticised, received the treatment due to
a serious intellectual effort. How far the
theological colleges, or the theologically

period at which a professor of eminence
was removed from his chair in a South-
ern college because he had embraced
and taught Darwinism in a very mild
and inoffensive form.

The question, however, at which we
wish to glance very briefly, is not as to
the merits of Darwinism, but as to
whether a better basis for the claims of
modern thought might not be found on
the lines of Mill’s famous essay than
upon that profession of ‘agnosticism ”
to which so many nowadays betake
themselves. A passage that falls under
our eye, from a French moralist of the
seventeenth century, may help to illus-
trate our meaning. ‘‘ There is,” says
Nicole, the friend of Pascal, “a duty of
conviction, which arises when we are
face to face with evidence ; a duty, also,
of doubt, because it is absurd not to be
in doubt regarding doubtful things; and
a duty of opinion, because we are obliged —
to affirm that one thing is more proba-
ble than another, if proof to that effect
is offered.” Now, what a modern think-
er may justly claim is, liberty to do what
Nicole calls his “duty ” in these three
particulars: to believe in things certain,
to doubt of things doubtful, and to have
an opinion where the evidence, though
not demonstrative, is sufficient to estab-
lish a probability. But from which of
these three phases of duty should he
choose a name for himself? Would it

EDITOR'S TABLE.

not be equally absurd for him to call
himself a “‘ believer,” or a “‘ doubter,” or
an “‘opiner”? Surely he is all three,
each in its turn; and, whether in be-
lieving, or in doubting, or in opining,
he is equally maintaining his intellectual
integrity. Taking this view of the mat-
ter, we have not hitherto been able to
regard the “agnostic” position as very
well or happily chosen by many, at
least, of those who profess to hold it.
We think, for example, that “‘ agnostic”
is a poor name for such a man as Prof.
Huxley to be known by. Prof. Huxley
is a man of a decidedly positive and
constructive cast of mind, a man eager
to affirm all the truths that he can es-
tablish. If he makes a stand for any-
thing, it is for intellectual integrity. To
him it is a crime to believe without evi-
dence, or to disbelieve in spite of evi-
dence. In this respect he is entirely
at one with the excellent Nicole, whose
words we have quoted. Why should a
man of this kind be separated by any
badge or party nickname from the com-
munity at large? His one great interest
is the truth, and what nobler interest
can any man have? Or, again, what
profounder basis of sympathy and union
can any two men, or any body of men,
have, than a common and ardent love
of the truth? Mere outward agreement
in opinion counts for little, unless there
is sincerity at the back of it. It is im-
possible, at least for any enlightened
man, to derive satisfaction from the
support of those who, he knows, have
no interest in the truth, and who are
prepared to defend the opinions they
have embraced by all kinds of party
strategy.

The highest profession any man can
make is a profession of intellectual integ-
rity ; and to us it seems to be suflicient
for all purposes. It is one which a man
can summon others to share. It be-
comes at once the basis of a true apos-
tolate. “Believe what you may,” cries
the true modern thinker, “disbelieve
what you may, only make it a sacred

125

principle that your beliefs shall be honest,
and shall be advocated and defended by
honest arguments and none other.” It
may seem to some that this is an appeal
easily made, a programme easily real-
ized. Possibly, but it demands this:
that underneath every opinion and be-
lief shall be a fundamental sense, ac-
quiring gradually the force of an instinct,
that the ultimate object of loyalty and
devotion is the truth. Truth, if we may
so express it, must own the soil of the
mind, and opinions and beliefs must be
merely tenants occupying according to
the terms oftheir several leases. Loyal-
ty to an opinion is a misleading phrase,
and one that ought to be banished from
the vocabulary of honest men. The
only true and worthy loyalty is to that
which alone can vitalize any opinion—
namely, the truth.

If it be objected that there is no con-
venient name by which the brotherhood
of truth-lovers could be known, we an-
swer that the objection seems to us of
trifling importance. The great thing is
that a man should be a truth-lover, not
that he should have any special appella-
tion. The Christians ‘‘ were first called
Christians at Antioch”; and St. Paul
founded churches without, apparently,
using or recognizing the name, which is
not once mentioned in his epistles. The
‘“* Methodists” of the last century took
a name that was applied to them mainly
in derision by their opponents, and one
which certainly did not bind them to
any set of opinions. Let a man profess
and, still better, let him practice honesty
in all his beliefs, and let the world dub
him as it may. He will then be pre-
pared to say, when duly questioned,
what those things are which, following
the pious Nicole, he finds it a duty to
believe, the evidence being what it is;
what those things are which to his
honest apprehension are doubtful; and
what those in regard to which he is
moved by a greater probability to en-
tertain an opinion. The things that he
disbelieves he will also with equal frank-

126

ness declare, and his disbelief will be
governed by a sense of duty as much as
every other attitude of his mind. There
is great need in the present day for
those who love the truth in sincerity to
seek one another out, and to strengthen
one another for the great conflict that
has incessantly to be waged with the
forces of error, of falsehood, and of
moral indifference. What can separate
any man, against his will, from the love
of the truth? And what should sep-
arate from one another men who,
though differing momentarily in opin-
ion, love the truth with constant and
equal devotion ?

AN UNCANDID CRITICISM.

We find in the March number of the
“Canada Educational Monthly,” pub-
lished at Toronto, the following remarks
about Dr. Andrew D. White and “The
Popular Science Monthly”:

“The same number [of ‘ The Popular
Science Monthly ’] contains the conclud-
ing portion of Dr. Andrew White’s arti-
cle on ‘Demoniacal Possession and In-
sanity.’ Dr. Andrew White ‘seemeth
to be somewhat,’ but, we think, many
thoughtful readers will say, ‘he addeth
nothing to me.’ Probably the best arti-
cle in the number, for most of our read-
ers, will be that on ‘Natural Science in
Elementary Schools.’ Sometimes the
‘Popular Science’ is worth reading
carefully, but at other times it is some-
what unsatisfactory, and many of its
writers seem to have atheistical tenden-
cies, so that its pages are occasionally
disgraced by remarks about Christianity
which are too spiteful to be scientific.”

Dr. Andrew D. White is what he is,
and whatever he ‘‘seemeth to be” to
the editor of the ‘Canada Educational
Monthly ” will not alter the facts. The
ex-President of Cornell and our late
Minister to Germany does not need
that we should sound his praises as a
man of wide and accurate knowledge
and of philosophic habit of mind. What

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

must have struck every careful reader
of his recent articles is, that he handled
his subject with the utmost regard for
the feelings of those to whom some of
his conclusions might have been unwel-
come; and it seems proper to remark
that, if he “‘added” nothing else to the
editor of the ‘Canada Educational
Monthly,” he might have added—had
his example been sufficiently heeded—
a tone of respect in dealing with the
opinions of opponents. It is easier,
however, to sneer than to argue, to in-
sinuate than to prove or disprove. If
Dr. White has presented his subject in
a false light, let the ‘“‘ Canada Education-
al Monthly’ demonstrate the fact. It
is hard to “add” anything to people
who do not want to have anything add-
ed to them except, perhaps, an extra
layer of prejudice; but, in the way of
adding information, that writer does his
own full duty who states relevant facts
in a lucid and candid manner. If Dr.
White has not done this, let his critics
show it. We are not responsible for our
contributors’ opinions; but, in the name
of intellectual honesty and literary mo-
rality, we protest against such criticism
as that quoted from our Toronto con-
temporary.

As to “The Popular Science Month-
ly,” we have no doubt that our habit of
letting the leading thinkers of the world
express their opinions through our pages
is very distasteful to many who still
cling, more or less tenaciously, to the
slowly decaying superstitions of the
past. But the columns of the ‘ Month-
ly” will bear witness that these discus-
sions, though in the main outspoken,
have always been dignified in tone, and
as considerate of the feelings of others
as the utmost courtesy can require.

“The Popular Science Monthly” en-
deavors to represent the scientific cult-
ure of the age in all its fullness and
variety ; and it is happy to know that,
in doing so, it has the sympathy and
support of a very wide circle of readers,
including most of the prominent edu-

LITERARY NOTICES.

cators of this continent. Our firm be-
lief is, that the truth can take care of
itself—that it does not need any bolster-
ing or hedging round or underpinning ;
and we therefore throw our pages open
to any one who can discuss a timely
subject bearing upon the progress of
human interests in a scientific manner.
We know of no other principle upon
which a ‘Popular Science Monthly”
could be honestly or successfully con-
ducted; and, as to our pages being
‘disgraced by remarks about Ohristian-
ity which are too spiteful to be scien-
tific,” we can only say that an unsup-
ported charge of this kind, in the face
of the record made by the magazine
from its beginning, need give us ex-
tremely little concern. Some time ago
we had occasion to remark that a single
number of the “Canada Educational
Monthly” contained two articles bor-
rowed from “The Popular Science
Monthly ’’— one of them without ac-
knowledgment. We think that such
practical approval of the wares we offer
the public goes far to set off the illib-
eral criticism above quoted from the
same quarter.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Tur Foik-Lore or Piants. By T. F. Tatset-
Ton Dyer. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 328. Price, $1.50.

FoLxk-Lore is always a fascinating study,
and no branch of it offers more of peculiar
interest than that of plants. Prof. Dyer,
therefore, has chosen a popular theme, one
that has engaged the attention of many writ-
ers before him, and the present volume is a
condensation in large part from previous
books and papers upon the subject. In the
author’s own prefatory words it is “a brief,
systematic summary, with a few illustrations
in each case of the many branches into which
the subject naturally subdivides itself.” The
book before us is, therefore, a hand-book to
all who are interested in the subject upon
which it treats. A mention of some of the
twenty-three chapters into which the work is
divided will help to present a faint idea of
the scope and success of Prof. Dyer’s compi-

_less wheels of progress.

127

lation. Plants in witchcraft, plants in fairy
lore, love-charms, plant language, doctrine of
signatures, sacred plants, plants in folk-medi-
cine, and mystic plants; these are suggestive
of the careful systematic work done by the
author. It is impossible to epitomize a work
of this kind which in itself is an epitome of
a vast subject. The foot-notes and refer-
ences, one or more on nearly every page, il-
lustrate how very wide has been the glean-
ing of the painstaking author. Open the
book at any page, and a pleasing, succinct
statement will be found of some ancient su-
perstition of plant spirit, plant worship, plant
witchery, plant demonology, or plant legend.

Darwin, in his famous work upon “ Move-
ments of Plants,” says: ‘“ Why a touch,
slight pressure, or any other irritant such as
electricity, heat, or the absorption of animal
matter should modify the turgescence of the
affected cells in such a manner as to cause
movement we do not know.” In the light of
this frank confession of ignorance by one of
the wisest of Nature’s modern students it is
not strange that during the early ages of the
world every living thing was believed to be un-
der the direct control of some spirit, good or
evil, which was none the less real to the ig-
norant people because unseen. It was natu-
ral for the ancients to ascribe causes to well-
established effects, and the world of plant life
came in for its full share. They believed
blindly in the vegetable origin of the human
race—that is, man sprang from some sacred
world-tree. In modern times the belief is
not altogether different from this, but the
method is through the gradual unfolding of
the higher from the lower by the slow pro-
cess of evolution. In like manner the an-
cients, in seeking for a divinity, ascribed su-
perhuman power to the mighty oak, and
clothed other trees as with the garb of gods.
The worship of to-day is often of structures
far less lofty and inspiring than the forest
giants. In our time we can with profit glance
back and note the growth of ideas as they
broaden with the ages and see that our own
idols must be broken in pieces by the relent-
This is one of the
good features of such books as the one be-
fore us, and should make them popular, be-
cause being a history of the people in every-
day life—their common thought and conver-
sation.

128

We must remember that the day of folk-
lore is not past; superstition has not given
place to science, and the reign of isolated ab-
surdities still holds sway in many minds in
place of law and order. It may be no worse
to attribute the hidden evil of the world to
plants possessed of Satan than to believe
that there is a creature with horns and a
cloven foot seeking for the innocent to sat-
isfy his capacious maw.

Some of the most charming examples of
plant lore are found in that portion having
to do with fairies. Of course, the fairy itself
is a pleasing myth that will require many
ages to eradicate from the human mind, be-
cause it adds so much of innocent beauty to
a majority of the nursery rhymes and chil-
dren’s tales. The whole deception of Santa
Claus is one born to an endless earthly life,
because having only a happy and healthful
influence upon both the old who practice it
and the young who are so delightfully de-
ceived. There is a perennial pleasure in the
thought that a tulip-blossom is a cradle in
which mother fairies lull their little ones to
sleep. To this day the finder of a four-
leaved clover is considered by many as a
person born to good luck—a notion that has
descended from an older idea, namely, that
the monstrous leaf was a talisman which en-
abled its wearer to detect the haunts of fair-
ies. Much of fairy lore clusters around the
so-called fairy rings, that is, the green circles
in old pastures within which the elfs were
Supposed to dance at night by the light of
the moon. Modern science has extracted the
last breath of poetry from this common phe-
nomenon and left it as a dry fact in the cy-
clopeedias.

Flowers play no insignificant 7éle in love-
making at the present day, and no school-
girl’s botany is complete unless she can dis-
course fluently upon the language of flowers.
Some plants are naturally symbolic of cer-
tain ideas. Thus, grass readily may stand
for usefulness and the cypress for mourning,
the poppy for sleep, and the trembling aspen
for fear. Other plants do not carry their
florigraphical meaning in plain sight, but
have acquired their adopted meaning in ways
that are lost in oblivion while the symbol re-
mains. Thus the rose was dedicated to Ve-
nus by the early Romans and Greeks, and
now stands for love, especially the deep red

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

varieties. The constancy of the violet and
the curiosity of the sycamore are far less evi-
dent than the weeping nature of the droop-
ing willow.

The degree of credence given by many to
the strange stories of fabulous plants is one
of constant surprise to those whose knowl-
edge shows up the traditions in their true
light. The barnacle-tree is an instance to
the point, and the following is a sixteenth-
century description of it: “‘ There are found
in the north of Scotland and the isles adja-
cent, called Orcades, certain trees whereon do
grow small fishes of a white color, tending to
russet, wherein are contained little living
creatures; which shells in time of maturity
do open and out of them grow those little
living things which, falling into the water, do
become fowls whom we call barnacles, in the
north of England brant geese, and in Lan-
caster tree geese; but the others that do fall
upon the land perish and do come to noth-
ing.” There is more foundation in fact for
this exaggeration of trees which, overhanging
and dipping into water at high tide, may bear
barnacles than in the wonder-working moon-
wort which would open locks, and unshoe
horses treading upon it—certainly a very

unsafe herb in the hands of unscrupulous |

house - breakers—providing the fable were
true. Under the “ doctrine of signatures ”
the author brings together a large amount of
interesting matter illustrating the old idea
that each medicinal plant has some sign of
color, shape, etc., which indicates its healing
power either for the whole body or for some
particular organ. For example, red juice is
for the blood, yellow for jaundice, the liver
leaf—shaped like a liver—for the liver, ete.
This doctrine was carried to an almost amus-
ing excess. Thus, the shell of walnut, which
resembles a human skull somewhat, was used
for troubles of the brain. The aspen was
employed for palsy ; and mistletoe, a plant
that grows in a suspended position, was good
for dizziness.

Young people even could find much
amusement in the chapter upon games, hay-
ing plant lore as the basis and often set to
rhyme.

Folk-lore in medicine is a vast subject re-
ceiving its full measure of treatment. Strange
are many of the rhymes in this section of the

subject. A single couplet is here indulged in: —

—

LITERARY NOTICES.

“Bat an apple going to bed,

Make the doctor beg his bread,”
which is only a striking way of saying—

That apple eaten upon retiring

Is better than the doctor hiring—
a statement that may not be in accord with
the teaching of the theory and practice of
modern medicine.

The book before us is full of weird things
that cast a peculiar light upon the past, and
add new luster to the present. The human
mind in the early centuries was saturated
with unaccountable notions of the wildest
sort. Prof. Dyer has shown a master’s hand
in dealing with the occult theme. He has
been happy in his selections, conscientious
in treatment, and clever in the grouping of
the otherwise almost isolated and independ-
ent fables, superstitions, and legends.

Internationa, Law, By Henry Sumner
Mains, K. C. 8. I. New York: Henry
Holt & Co. Pp. 234. Price, $2.75.

TuE series of twelve lectures here pub-
lished was delivered before the University of
Cambridge in 1887, by the late Sir H. Maine,
then Professor of International Law on the
foundation of Dr. Whewell. In speaking of
the sources of international law the author
says that a great part of it is Roman law
spread over Europe by a late stage of the
process by which the general body of Roman
law had obtained authority over the same
territory. It was the part of Roman law
which had been called “ Law of Nations,” or
“Taw of Nature,” and which was originally
a collection of rules and principles common
to the institutions of the various Italian races.
The author next considers the history of the
conception of sovereignty, and how a state
acquires unappropriated territory, also what
degree of occupancy constitutes a valid claim
over a given area. A consideration of the
law in regard to jurisdiction in territorial
waters, and on board merchant ships on the
high seas, leads up to the subject of naval or
maritime belligerency. The Declaration of
Paris occupies part of the chapter on this
subject and also a separate chapter. The
author thinks that the condition on which
the United States offered. to assent to the
prohibition of privateers in this document,
namely, that all private property be exempt
from capture, would be a very favorable ar-

VOL. XxXv.—9

129

rangement for Great Britain, whose food-
supplies and the goods sent to pay for them
have to travel such long distances by sea.
The mitigation of war is next taken up, and
the means of injuring an enemy commonly
prohibited are named, the subject of spies
and stratagems is discussed, and the dis-
posal of the wounded and other prisoners
is treated. Certain relations of belligerents
on land, comprising military occupation, ca-
pitulation, and flags of truce, together with
the subjects of captures and requisitions, oc-
cupy the next two chapters. In the statute
regulating his professorship, Dr. Whewell
enjoined upon the occupant of the chair that
he should make it his aim, in all parts of his
treatment of the subject, to lay down such
rules and suggest such measures as might
tend to diminish the evils of war, and finally
to extinguish war among nations. Accord-
ingly, the professor devotes his closing lect-
ure to the measures for the abatement of
war proposed within recent years. In this
chapter are considered the opposition to war
on religious grounds, the substitution of ar-
bitration for war, touching upon the defects
of international courts, with a mention of De
Molinari’s proposal that it should be one of
the duties of neutrals to combine to thwart
the spirit of belligerency. These lectures
were not prepared for publication by the au-
thor, but have passed through the press un-
der the direction of Mr. Frederic Harrison and
Mr. Frederick Pollock.

Tur Economic INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY.
By James EH. THorotp Rogers. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp. 547.
Price, $3.

Pror. Rogers develops English history
from the standpoint of an economist, and
brings to his task a rich mine of records
hitherto neglected. As readers of his “Six
Centuries of Work and Wages” are aware,
he has been a diligent delver into the elabo-
rate accounts kept in England since the thir-
teenth century by farmers, builders, and land-
lords, These and the court rolls of manors
have enabled him to ascertain the variations
for six hundred years in prices, wages, rents,
and taxes. Weare told what people ate and
drank, how they were housed and clothed,
and what some of them were able te save.
This new light shed upon the hearth, ward-
tobe, and dinner-table evidences in a very

130

striking way how progress and retrogres-
sion have succeeded one another in England.
Prof. Rogers’s work is a notable contribution
to the modern view of history, which looks
not so much at the conspicuous and pictur-
esque elements of national life, the contests
of courts and battle-fields, as at the daily
life of the common people; which busies
itself with their progress in the arts and sci-
ences, their success in translating justice into
law, and the consequences due to change of
conviction as to the rights of the citizen and
as to truth in religion.

Prof. Rogers shows that in many ways
the common people in the middle ages were
better off than they are now. Although the
standard of living was low, want was rare.
The best workmen, associated together as
guilds, purchased lands and houses through-
out England for charitable service to their
order, and so in a spontaneous, wholesome
way effected an insurance for old age and in-
firmity. In the fifteenth century skilled work-
men, such as carpenters, and masons, worked
but eight hours a day; this, too, without in-
voking legislation for the purpose. So skilled
were some of these men that they combined
the talents of both design and execution,
and planned the churches, guild-halls, and
cathedrals they afterward helped to build.

Rent was at first a tax imposed by the
lord for the protection he extended. For
arable land in six centuries rent has been
multiplied tenfold in comparison with the
price of grain. Competitive rents were of
very gradual introduction by the landed
classes, who in the main have been grossly
unjust in evading taxation and in increas-
ing privileges while ignoring the responsi-
bilities originally attached thereto. Once,
property was almost universally diffused, and
at that time Prof. Rogers believes the re-
spect for property, still so characteristic of
Englishmen, to have been implanted. Be-
cause its sheep-pastures were secure from
the invader and untouched by the thief, Eng-
land for three centuries enjoyed a monopoly
of wool production in Kurope, enormous in
value. Prof. Rogers is of those who accord a
supreme molding potency to circumstances
and conditions; he holds the drunkenness
and unthrift of the English working people
to be largely chargeable to the demoraliza-
tion of unjust poor-laws, and the oppres-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sions of a landlordism which at last extorted
famine rents. While he has devoted his life
to the study of political economy, he sees
that that science takes but a partial view of
man and not the highest view; and that
no one can understand political economy
who does not take some trouble to un-
derstand human nature—its sentiments, af-
fections, passions, and hopes. It is refresh-
ing to find an economist who has had the
expanding experience of a long parliament-
ary career and a varied knowledge of men
and things the world over. Such a man, pos-
sessed of a new and rich store of fact, brings
a new treatment to the well-worn themes
of currency, pauperism, colonial policy, and
the extension of the sphere of government
into the field of business. His chapters, de-
livered as lectures at Oxford, have the free-
dom if albeit the dogmatism of a veteran
discoursing to his juniors. Still they have a
ring of manliness and humanity which much
heightens the effect of his teaching. He has
some plain words for the economists of the
arm-chair who give verbal symmetry to in-
complete and second-hand impressions—men
who are plainly in sympathy with those who
have wealth and comfort rather than with
those who create these things.

Beauty, Heats, anp STRENGTH For EVERY
Woman. By Oscar B. Moss, M.D. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: The Register Printing and
Publishing House. Pp. 376..

“T am not able to recall,” says Miss
Catherine HK. Beecher, “in my immense cir-
cle of friends and acquaintances all over the
Union, so many as ten married ladies, born
in this century and in this country, who are
perfectly sound, healthy, and vigorous.” A
large share of the women in any one’s ac-
quaintance in America are delicate, or have
frequent fits of sickness, or general poor
health, or are chronic invalids. There is
little of this disease that is not preventable
by faithful use of the medical knowledge that
we now possess. To make this knowledge
known to the women of America, and to im-
press them with the importance of guiding

their mode of life by it, are the objects of

Dr. Moss’s volume. The first practical sub-

ject which the author treats is diet, and this |

is followed by a chapter on the dress of
young girls. In the next chapter the physio-

"

a

LITERARY NOTICES.

logical and psychological changes that occur
when the girl attains the age of puberty are
described. Mental and physical culture are
the next two subjects considered, and under
the latter head certain gymnastic exercises
adapted to develop various parts of the body
are specified. Woman’s dress, the hygiene
of the monthly period, marriage, the hygiene
of pregnancy, and the change of life, are
treated in a simple practical fashion. The
last chapter is devoted to beauty, and tells
women the most effective ways of securing
beauty for themselves, and of transmitting
it to their children. The treatment is plain,
practical, and popular throughout.

Mentat Hyotution 1n Man. Oriarn or Hv-
MAN Facutry. By Gerorce Joun Ro-
MANES, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 8vo. Pp.
452. D. Appleton & Co. Price, $3.
Tuts is the most important scientific work

that has appeared in many months. It fol-
lows in logical sequence upon the author’s
former book, ‘Mental Evolution in Ani-
mals,” and is intended to be the first install-
ment of a series which the writer says will
deal with the intellect, emotions, volition,
morals, and religion. The present volume is
concerned chiefly with the origin of human
faculty, as distinguished from its develop-
ment, and is mostly limited to the psychology
of the subject, postponing anthropological
evidences for the next installment.

Dr. Romanes takes for granted the gen-
eral theory of evolution, including the evo-
lutional doctrine of descent “as regards the
whole of organic nature, morphological and
psychological, with the one exception of
man.” Even with man this assumption is
continued so far as his bodily organization
is concerned; it being thus only with refer-
ence to the human mind that this exception
is allowed. The effort is then made to show
that the same doctrine is applicable also to
the mind of man, or to “ human faculty.”

In the last number of “ The Popular Sci-
ence Monthly ” extracts were given from the
work before us sufficient to indicate the main
positions taken and the line of arcument pur-
sued, which circumstance renders it unne-
cessary for us to give in this place even an
outline of the course of exposition. One
thing, however, ought to be observed, which
did not appear in the article referred to.

131

The controversy centers around the problem
of language and the mental acts involved in
predication. The task of proving that these
require and exemplify nothing more than
higher and more perfect developments of
powers the same in kind as those found low-
er down in the scale of animal life, is pur-
sued with great ability and thoroughness,
and with a conclusiveness which will impress
itself upon every thoughtful and candid
mind. The greater part of the volume is
taken up with this examination of language
and the mental processes involved therein.
The result is to bring out in a manner never
hitherto accomplished that language itself,
its formation and constitution, furnishes a
demonstration of the necessary continuity
of development from the animal intelligence,
to explain the “ origin of human faculty.”

This splendid work of scientific achieve-
ment brings forward into full view of the
world of science a second Darwin. No doubt
such an assertion is a bold one, but we are
persuaded that it is just. Not only is the
work done a continuation of that of the au-
thor of “‘The Descent of Man”; but in his
single-mindedness in the search for truth, in
his careful, conservative judgment, in the
thoroughness of his analysis, in his readi-
ness to hear and patiently examine objec-
tions, in his plain, clear style of expression,
Dr. Romanes more nearly approaches Dar-
win than has any other scientific writer.
The present work is a magnificent one, and
we shall await with eagerness the others
that are to follow.

Days snp Nicuts IN tHe Tropics. By

Feirx L. Oswap. Illustrated. Boston:

D. Lothrop Company. Pp. 186.

THe young or old reader who takes up
this book can not fail to be charmed with
the vivid scenes of animal life which it por-
trays. It contains the experiences of the au-
thor in a trip through the forests of Brazil
to collect native natural history specimens
for a rational museum in Rio Janeiro. Both
entertainment and information are afforded
by its accounts of the doings and habits of
monkeys, boas, various members of the cat
family, birds, manatees, insects, ant-eaters,
and the scarcely more domesticated children
of the forest—the Indians. The surprising
toleration which pet-keepers and pet-dealers

132

exercise for the mischief and impudence of
their charges is well portrayed in several
places. The text is not burdened with tech-
nical names, and the many spirited illustra-
tions, together with the tasteful cover, add to
the attractiveness of the book.

Socrat Procress: An Hssay. By Danren
GREENLEAF THompson. London and New
York; Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 161.
Price, $2.

Tus work forms a part of the same se-
ries of philosophical discussions to which the
author’s earlier volumes belong. Its spe-
cial object is to present the principles that
control the progress of society, a knowledge
of which will enable men to direct their
movements as social units so as to produce
the most useful work with the least friction.
The essay is substantially the introduction to
a longer work, on which the author is en-
gaged, entitled “The Fundamental Rights of
Man.” The two chief topics of this book
are the conditions and the promotion of so-
cial progress. Every individual desires his
own advancement, says the author, and close-
ly bound up with this ideal of individual bet-
terment is an ideal of social improvement.
If there be either individual or social progress,
there must be liberty for action. But the
conflicting efforts of antagonistic individuals
will neutralize each other if they are not re-
strained. This restraint is furnished by Jaw.
But too much restraint is as destructive as
none. Hence the general condition essential
to social progress is the establishment of
an equilibrium between liberty and law.
Men dwell together in the organic relations
of society because this state allows each in-
dividual to attain a greater number of de-
sires than he could in a solitary and hostile
existence. The existence of society requires
a social liberty—that is, the recognition of
rights due each member of the community,
and the limitation of the acts of every one
by those rights. The nature of men makes
necessary the defense of social liberty by
positive law, with machinery to enforce it un-
failingly and consistently. No government
can be stable that does not insure equality
in rights at least between those of the same
class, and a government which depends upon
the existence of classes tends to instability
as knowledge becomes diffused among the

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

least favored classes. Inequality of power,
whether political or ecclesiastical authority
or wealth, is dangerous to security and should
be resisted. One more condition essential
to the progress of society is fraternity—a
disposition to prefer the good of the whole
to the selfish interest ‘of the individual.

In the part of the volume devoted to dis-
cussing the promotion of social progress Mr.
Thompson calls attention to the fact that in
every community there are observable two
opposed tendencies with regard to the exist-
ing order of things: one toward change, the
other resistance to change. The terms radi-
calism and conservatism have been used to
express these antagonistic forces. Men un-
fortunately tend to range themselves as ad-
herents of one tendency or the other, and
any idea which bears the name of one party
is scouted by the other. In the social organ-
ism, as in the human body, change is essen-
tial to life, and, when the changes which con-
stitute the vital processes stop, death en-
sues and disintegrative changes begin. Mr,
Thompson states as the general principles
governing the promotion of social progress,
that opportunity should be afforded for the
action of evolutionary forces; that changes
favoring the common freedom should be aid-
ed; and that equal enjoyment and security
of life, liberty, and property are the test of
common freedom. Further, in order to de-
cide whether to aid or oppose a given change,
we should examine the motives of its propo-
nents and its opponents, estimate both the im-
mediate and the remote consequences of the
proposed change, consider the result of leaving
things as they are, and calculate the probabili-
ties of accomplishing the change and the re-
sults of failure. For the formation of opinions
that will be reliable guides to conduct, self-
knowledge and self-control in individuals are
prime necessities. The habit of being sus-
Picious of the correctness of one’s positions
and of the justice of one’s sympathies and
antipathies ought to be systematically culti-
vated. Opinions should be expressed freely
though judiciously, in order to get the bene-
fit of criticism, upon them. Action should
be controlled by an extension and more care-
ful application of the same rules which ought
to govern expression of opinion. Compromise _
and forbearance are sometimes the most ef-
fective action. While Mr. Thompson in his

LITERARY NOTICES.

opening chapters insists on the necessity of
regulation for the world as it now exists, he
says in closing: “‘ As we draw nearer to per-
fect social conditions positive law will grow
less necessary. If all men had the true al-
truistic disposition, there would be no need of
government. The course of progress is from
the anarchy of the primitive state through law
and government to the anarchy of the per-
fect state. We should aim, then, to dimin-
ish the restraints of authority, and, though
working cautiously and tentatively, should
seek ever to contract the sphere and mini-
mize the duties of government. Only thus can
that City arise into which the glory and hon-
or of all the nations may be brought.” Mr.
Thompson’s “‘ Social Progress” will be a very
helpful book to the student of public affairs
who desires to look below the foaming, ed-
dying surface of the stream of events, and
see the streneth and direction of the currents
that determine the course in which society
may advance.

A Study of Man, and the Way to Health,
by J. D. Buck, M.D. (Clarke, $2.50), may
be described as a series of essays philosophi-
cal in character, though popular in style.
The body of the work opens with a chapter
on the nature of evidence; then follow sec-
tions on the relations of matter and force,
the universal ether, the character of phe-
nomena, polarity, the matter of life, the
forms of life, and the functions of organ-
isms ; or a brief outline of the principles of
biology. An important chapter is devoted
to a concise outline of the structure and
functions of the human body, from which
is deduced the philosophy of physiology, and
upon which is laid the foundation of the
science of psychology. Then follows a sec-
tion on consciousness and psychic phenomena
in general; a chapter on health and disease ;
a section on sanity and insanity; and the
work closes with a section on the higher
self, the archetypal man. The author is
not at war with either science or religion,
though he aims to get rid of both ignorance
and superstition.

The little book entitled Living Matter,
by C. A. Stephens (The Laboratory Company,
Norway Lake, Me., $1), is an attempt to ex-
plain the constitution of the universe on the
supposition that matter is sentient. The

133

author credits to matter only “‘a sentience
of low degree, in quantity far, very far be-
neath that evinced by even the lowest forms
of life.” Biogen, or living matter, forms all
tissues of the animal body. Mr. Stephens
gives an explanation of the method in which
animal organisms are developed on the bio-
gen hypothesis. He accounts for aging and
death as resulting from changes in biogen,
every one of which “is of the nature of an
ordinary physical cause fairly within human
power to avoid or remedy, and many of which
in fact we are every day avoiding and reme-
dying.” This leads up to a suggestion of the
possibility of learning how to prevent death
altogether.

There has been printed A Classified List
of Mr. S. William Silver's Collection of New
Zealand Birds, with short descriptive notes
by Sir Walter ZL. Buller (London, E. A.
Petherick & Co.). A part of this collection,
which is one of the most complete in Europe,
formed a very attractive feature in the New
Zealand Court, at the Colonial and Indian
Exhibition in London, in 1886, and was
awarded a diploma and medal. To the eight
cases then exhibited, four have since been
added, containing many of the rarer birds
of New Zealand. Many of the genera and
most of the species are strictly confined to
New Zealand and the neighboring islands.
The volume is copiously illustrated with
heads, and in many cases full figures, of
the typical species, besides many cuts of
nests. An interesting object included in this
collection is a frame of feathers of the moa,
discovered in a cave in New Zealand by Mr.
Taylor White in 1874.

The Forty-first Report on the New York
State Museum of Natural History contains
the reports of the trustees and the direct-
or, which relate the general progress and
changes in the museum during 1887. In
the report of the botanist it is stated that
since the summer was unusually favorable to
the production of fleshy fungi, the hymeno-
mycetes, special attention was given to the
collection and sketching in colors of these
plants. The document is accompanied by
reports of finding a large number of plants
in various localities ; by a paper on “ Fungi
destructive to Wood,” contributed by P. H.
Dudley, C E.; and by a botanical index to
the museum reports Nos, 22-28. The report

134

of the entomologist occupies the greater part
of the volume, and contains more or less ex-
tended notes on a large number of insects
of economic importance. The report of the
geologist is brief. It is accompanied by an
account of the finding of the bones of mas-
todon associated with charcoal and pottery
at Attica, and by descriptions of new species
of Fenestellide of the lower Helderberg, with
Plates VIII to XV.

Part II of the Report of the Chief Signal
Officer for 1887 (War Department) consists
of a ‘“‘ Treatise on Meteorological Apparatus
and Methods,” by Prof. Cleveland Abbe.
The subdivisions of the subject are: the
measurement of atmospheric temperature,
of atmospheric pressure, of the motion of
the air, of aqueous vapor, and of precipita-
tion, all of which are treated with great full-
ness. Plates containing ninety-eight illus-
trations are appended to the volume.

A Star Atlas, with explanatory text by
Dr. Hermann J. Klein (E. and J. B. Young &
Co.), has been issued, containing maps of all
the stars from 1 to 6°5 magnitude between
the north pole and 34° south declination, and
of all nebulee and star-clusters in the same
region which are visible in telescopes of
moderate powers. The volume contains a
little preliminary text, followed by descrip-
tions of the more interesting fixed stars,
star-clusters, and nebule contained in the
maps, arranged in order of right ascension.
Of the eighteen double-page maps, twelve
are devoted to stars and six to the other
objects. The atlas is finely printed on
heavy paper.

A little volume of Chemical Lecture Notes
has been published by Prof. Peter 7. Austen
(Wiley, $1), which the author says is “simply
a collection of notes and observations on cer-
tain topics which experience as a teacher has
shown me often give the student more or
less trouble.” Explanations are given of
most of the principles of chemical philoso-
phy, and about one fourth of the volume is
devoted to an essay on “‘ The Chemical Fac-
tor in Human Progress.”

A former zealous propagator of Volapiik,
Prof. George Bauer, has invented what he
deems a still better universal language,
which he calls Spelin. A pamphlet giving
a sketch of this language, translated and

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

abridged from an exposition of the system
by the author, has been issued by Charles 7.
Strauss, 424 Broadway, New York. The
principal advantages claimed for Spelin over
Volapiik are that it contains no sound not
occurring in all three languages, English,
German, and French ; it has no declension,
no subjunctive mode, only five tenses, nearly
twice as many monosyllabic words in flowing
sentences as Volaptk, fewer letters for ex-
pressing the same thoughts by seventeen
per cent, more frequent vowel termination,
and no words of five, six, or more syllables.
The brief summary of its grammar in this
pamphlet shows that Spelin is well worth
examination by any one who is in search of
the best universal language.

The Patriotic Reader, compiled by Henry
B. Carrington (Lippincott, $1.20), is a large
collection of “utterances that inspire good
citizenship,” in prose and verse. The selec-
tions are classified in sixteen parts, the first
referring to the Hebrew and related nations,
the second to the Greeks and Romans, and
most of the others to different periods in
American history. One division is composed
of national hymns, songs, and odes, both of
America and other countries. None of the
grand and eloquent utterances in behalf of
freedom for the slaves and the preservation
of the Union, spoken before and during our
civil war, are included. A biographical in-
dex of authors and persons whose deeds are
celebrated is appended. The mechanical
features of the volume are substantial and
tasteful.

A book which is being very widely read
is Max O Rell’s latest production, Jonathan
and his Continent (Cassell, $1.50). The
author gives hurried glimpses at a multitude
of subjects, as if himself entered on the
frantic race which he accuses Jonathan of
running. His comments are light and en-
tertaining, though many of his impressions
have evidently been gathered from the funny
columns of American newspapers.

Lessing: Ausgewalte Prosa und Briefe
(“Selected Prose and Letters”), edited, with
notes, by Horatio Stevens White, is the sixth
of Dr. J. M. Hart’s series of “ German Clas-
sics for American Students” (G. P. Putnam’s
Sons). It presents typical specimens of the ©
works of one of the most catholic and versa-
tile of German authors—the one, perhaps,

LITERARY NOTICES.

who stands on a level with Goethe. The
editor describes him as having been of “ mul-
tifarious activity as fabulist, literary and
dramatic critic, philosopher, and theolo-
gian.” His “ Laocoon” is one of the recog-
nized classics in the literature of art. He
was eminent as a classical scholar, archzolo-
gist, antiquary, poet, and dramatist —‘“‘a
pioneer in the development of modern Ger-
man literature.” And there has been no
figure in that literature “whose life is more
laborious and fruitful, no character in an
age of sentimentality which was more sane,
stalwart, and manly.” The selections pre-
sent him in these various aspects, and the
letters reveal features of his personality.

A translation of Testa, an instructive
book for boys, by Paolo Mantegazza (Heath,
$1.25), has just been issued. Its character
may be quickest indicated by comparing it
to “Sanford and Merton,” though it has the
advantage of being written for the present
generation. Before this book appeared
nothing of note, except De Amicis’s “ Cuore,”
had been written for children in Italy. ‘“ Tes-
ta” is a story of a boy who was sent to live
for a year with a sagacious old uncle, a re-
tired sea-captain, who, by telling anecdotes
and by commenting upon various incidents,
teaches his nephew many lessons in regard
to the operations of nature, the ways of the
world, and especially manners and morals.
There is also some good counsel on the
choice of a profession. In an early chapter
is given a set of model resolutions for a
month, and succeeding chapters contain
blank pages for the young reader to fill with
his own good resolutions for each remaining
month of a year. The great variety of the
book, and its Italian and, therefore, unfa-
miliar flavor, are enough to make it inter-
esting to the average American boy, though
only serious-minded boys will appreciate its
full meaning.

The treatise on The Psychic Life of
Micro-organisms, by Alfred Binet (the Open
Court Publishing Company, 50 and 75 cents),
has for its object to prove the existence of
psychological faculties in the simplest or-
ganisms, and to describe their modes of
manifestation. The sensibility and power
of reacting possessed by these simple creat-
ures is commonly called irritability. But
M. Binet asserts that, “in these inferior

15

beings, which represent the simplest forms
of life, we find manifestations of an intelli-
gence which greatly transcends the phe-
nomena of cellular irritability.” The author
describes in successive chapters the psychic
phenomena connected with the use of motory
organs and organs of sense, with nutrition
and fecundation, and he treats also the
physiological function of the nucleus. He
even goes further than is indicated above,
and ascribes psychic faculties to the cells
which make up the tissues of higher ani-
mals. He states that ‘the faculty of seiz-
ing food and of exercising a choice among
foods of different kinds—a property essen-
tially psychological—appertains to the ana-
tomical elements of the tissues just as it
does to all unicellular beings.” In his views
on the subject of this volume the author
takes issue especially with M. Richet, and
also with Prof. Romanes.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

American Society for Psychical Research. Pro-
ceedings, Vol. I, No, 4. Boston: Damrell & Up-
ham, Pp. 290. $1.

Bodington, Mrs. Alice. The Mammalia; Extinct
Species and Surviving Forms. Pp. 25,

Bowditch, H. P.. M.D. Hints for Teachers of
Physiology. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 58.
25 cents.

Branner, John C. The Cretaceous and Tertiary
Geology of the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin of Brazil. Pp.
64, with Plates.

Bunce, Oliver Bell. The Story of Happinolande.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 188. 25 cents.

Chicago Manual Training School. Sixth Annual
Catalogue, 1888-89. Pp. 24.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station,
Annual Report for 1888, Part IL.

Cook, A. J. Silo and Silage. Lansing, Mich. :
Darius D. Thorp. Pp. 31.

Dayis, Singleton W. Sketches of the Scientific
Dispensanion of a New Religion. San Diego, Cal.
p- 64.
Day, George B. The New Interpretation ; or, the
Scriptures viewed in the Light of Christian Science.
Chicago: O. M. Parsons. Pp. 121. 50 cents.

Doty, Alvah H.,M. D. A Manual of Instruction
on the Principles of Prompt Aid to the Injured.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 224. $125.

Draper, Andrew 8. Twenty-fifth Annual Report
of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction of
New York. Albany. Pp. about 1,200.

Drummer, An Old How to be Successful on the
Road as a Commercial Traveler. New York: Fow-
ler and Wells Company. Pp. 84. 20 cents.

Fewkes, J. Walter. The Anatomy of Astrangia
Danz. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Pp.
20, with Six Plates.

Fowke, Gerard, Sidney, Ohio. The Manufacture
and Use of Aboriginal Stone Implements. Pp. 20.

Galton, Francis. Natural Inheritance. London
and New York: Macmillanand Co. Pp. 259. $2.50.

Garrigues, Dr. H. J. Der Scheintod. New
York. Pp 28.

Gilman, Nicholas Paine. Profit Sharing between

136

Employer and Employé. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 46v. $1.75.

Gould, George M., M.D. Concerning Reflex
Neurosis due to Eye-Strain. Pp. 11.

Hazard, Rowland Gibson, LL. D. Works. Ed-
ited by his Granddaughter, Caroline Hazard. Bos-
ton: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 4 vols. Pp. 373,
490, 405, 468. $2 a volume.

Hitt, Robert R., M. C. Speech on Commercial
Union with Canada. Pp. 8.

Janes, Lewis G. Evolutionof the Earth. Bos-
ton: New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp. 32. 10
cents,

Letchworth, William P. The Insane in Foreign
Countries. New Lork: G. P, Putnam’s Sons. Pp.
374. $3.

Lewis, T. H., Minnesota. Minor Antiquarian

Articles. Pp. 7.
Lockhart, John Gibson. Ancient Spanish Bal-
lads. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp. 299.

Lloyd, J. Hendrie, Philadelphia.
of Oscar Hugo Webber. Pp. d.

McLean, John. The Indians: Their Manners
and Customs. Toronto: William Briggs. Pp. 351.
—The Blackfoot Sun-Dance. Toronto: The Copp
Clarke Company. Pp. 7.

Mallery, Garrick. Philosophy and Specialties.
Washington: Philosophical Society. Pp. 89.

Mallet, Prof. J. W. Experiments upon Alum
Baking-Powders. Pp. 15.

Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amberst.
Twenty-sixth Annual Report. Pp. 99.

Mixter, William G. An Elementary Text-Book
of Chemistry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Pp. 468.

National Educational Association, Proceedings
of the Department of Superintendence, February,
1888. Pp. 165.

Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station. Sec-
ond Annual Report. Lincoln, Neb. Pp. 43.

Newell, Jane H. Outlines of Lessons in Botany.
Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 140.

New Jersey Industrial Education, Hoboken.
Report of the Board of Trustees. Pp. 19.

New York College for the Training of Teachers.
Circular of Information. 1889. Pp. 49.

O'Brine, David. A Laboratory Guide in Chemi-
cal Analysis. New York: John Wiley &Sons. Pp.
237. $2.

Parrish, Joseph, M. D., The Legal Responsibility
of the Insane ; and Allen, Alfred H., The Unaltera-
bility of Strychnine in the Body after Death. Phila-
delphia ; Medical Jurisprudence Society. Pp. 5.

Payne. F. KF. Eskimo of Hudson's Strait. To-
ronto: The Copp Clarke Company. Pp. 18.

Richards, W. J. Indianapolis, Ind. The True
Relation of the Advertising Agent to Publisher and
Advertiser. Lp. 5.

Rochester, N. Y. Forty-first Annual Report of
the Board of Education. Pp. 205.

Scudder, S. H. Mimicry and Protective Resem-
blance ; or, Butterflies in Disguise. Pp. 12.
Society for the Prevention of Crime.

Annual Report. New York. Pp. 20.

Stetefeldt, Carl A. The Lixiviation of Silver
Ores with Hyposulphite Solutions. New York: The
Scientific Publishing Company. Pp. 234.

Stevens, W. Le Conte. The Sensitive Flame as
a Means of Research. Pp. 4.

Stock, St. George. Deductive Logic.
at New York: Longmans, Green & Co.

1,25.

Super, O. B., editor. Confessions d’un Ouvrier.
By Emile Souyvestre. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.
Pp. 127.

Taylor, Dr. J. E. The Playtime Naturalist.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 287.

Thomson, Sir William. Popular Lectures and

The Insanity

Twelfth

London
Pp. 856.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Addresses. Vol. I, Constitution of Matter. London
and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 460. $2.

Ward, John H., Louisville, Ky. Reform within
the Party. Pp. 19.

Washington University, St. Louis.
Training School, Ninth Year. Pp. 66.

Winchell, Alexander. Shall We Teach Geology?
Chicago: 8. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 217. $1.

Wright, Hon. W. W. The Utility of Experiment
Stations. Geneva, N. Y.: New York Experiment
Station. Pp. 14.

Wright, Julia McNair. Seaside and Wayside.
No. 3. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co. Pp. 297. 55
cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Preserving Timber from Moisture.—The
following recommendations are given by the
Forestry Division of the Department of Ag-
riculture in regard to the cheaper coatings
for keeping moisture out of timber: Never
apply paint or any other coating to green or
unseasoned timber. If the wood was not
well dried or seasoned, the coat will only
hasten decay. Good coatings consist of oily
or resinous substances which make a smooth
coat capable of being uniformly applied.
They must cover every part, must not crack,
and possess a certain amount of plasticity
after drying. Coal-tar, with or without sand
or plaster, and pitch, especially if mixed with
oil of turpentine and applied hot (thus pene-
trating more deeply), answer best. A mixt-
ure of three parts coal-tar and one part
clean unsalted grease, to prevent the tar
from drying until it has had time to fill the
minute pores, is recommended. One barrel
of coal-tar (three to four dollars per bar-
rel) will cover three hundred posts. Wood-
tar is not serviceable because it does not dry.
Oil paints are next in value. Boiled linseed-
oil, or any other drying vegetable oil, is used
with lead or any other body, like powdered
charcoal, which will give substance to it.
Immersion in crude petroleum is also rec-
ommended. Charring of those parts which
come in contact with the ground can be con-
sidered only as an imperfect preservative,
and unless it is carefully done, and a consid-
erable layer of charcoal is formed, the effect
is often detrimental, as the process both
weakens the timber and produces cracks, thus
exposing the interior to ferments. Lastly, in
communities where durable timber is scarce,
it will pay to establish a plant for impreg-
nating timber with antiseptics by the more
costly processes described in “‘ Forestry Bul-
letin” No. 1

Manual

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Geological Progress.—In reviewing the
progress made by geological science during
the last twenty-four years, Prof. W. Boyd
Dawkins mentions the advantages which it
has drawn from microscopic analysis of the
rocks, in the study of metamorphism, and of
the crushing and shearing forces that were
brought to bear on the cooling crust of the
earth; and from deep-sea explorations, re-
vealing the structure and deposits of the
ocean abysses. From a comparison of these
deposits with the stratified rocks, we may
conclude that the latter are marginal, and
deposited in depths not greater than one
thousand fathoms, or at the shore end of the
globigerina ooze, and most of them at a less
depth—and that consequently there is no
proof in the geological record of the ocean
depths having ever been in any other than
their present places. In North America, the
geological survey of the Western States has
brought to light an almost unbroken series
of animal remains, ranging from the Hocene
down to the Pleistocene age. In these we
find the missing links in the pedigree of the
horse, and sufficient evidence of transitional
forms to enable Prof. Flower to restore to
its place in classification the order Ungulata
of Cuvier. These may be expected to occupy
the energies of American geologists for many
years, and to yield further proof of the truth
of the doctrine of evolution.

Yucatan Hammoecks.—With a couple of
straight poles, a shuttle, a thin slab of za-
poli-wood, and a pile of heniquen-leaves at
hand, says Consul Thompson, of Merida, the
Yucatecan is ready to accept contracts for
hammocks by the piece, dozen, or hundred.
The poles are placed a distance apart, ac-
cording to the required length of the ham-
mock. The thin slab of hard wood is fash-
ioned into a stripper, by the aid of which
the fiber of the thick heniquen-leaf is de-
nuded of its envelope, and a wisp of rasped
fiber is obtained. This having been bleached,
the fibers are separated into a certain num-
ber, and these are rolled into a strand. Two
or more of these strands are then taken out,
and by a similar dexterous manipulation
converted into a han or cord, from which
the hammock is made. The cord is riven
rapidly around the two upright poles, and
the shuttle, worked by the women, scems to

137

move and seek the right mesh, says Consul
Thompson, with a volition of its own—and
in a very short space of time the hammock
is made and laid with its kind, to await the
coming of thecontractor. Almost the entire
exportation of hammocks from Yucatan is
absorbed by the United States. All the dis-
tricts of the State produce hammocks, but
that of Tixcoco more than all the other
districts combined. Chemax hammocks are
noted for their fineness, and do not have to
seck a market abroad.

What is Fire-proof?— The idea that
theatrical appurtenances of wood and cloth
can be made efficiently fire-proof by soaking
them with certain chemical solutions is, in
the opinion of Mr. Walter Emden, a sericus
error. Theoretically, the soaking works
beautifully, and in practice for a time secures
immunity against the spread of fire. “ But
for how long? Of the majority of these
preservative solutions, it is a question if any-
thing is left at the end of a certain time.
They evaporate or sublimate or pass off into
the atmosphere. No one can say with any
degree of certainty for what length of time
a beam or a cloth will be fire-proof as the
result of soaking in any non-inflammable
solution. Now, miscalculations in respect
to this may lead to the most terrible catas-
trophes.” <A further point of the greatest
moment is that gas-flames raise the temper-
ature of wood and canvas in their vicinity to
140° F., and dry them totinder. Obviously,
actual contact with a raked flame must,
under such circumstances, produce results
altogether different from those of the exper-
iments usually made with preservative solu-
tions. It is the materials themselves which
are used in the construction that must be
proof against fire. The aim should be, not
to make some combustible material incom-
bustible, but to use only fire-proof materials.

Bread of Water-Lily Seeds.—The seeds
of various species of water-lilies form the
food of thousands of people in Asia and
some partsof America. The most important
species for this purpose are those belonging
to the genus Trapa, which are known in In-
dia as Singhara, in China as Ling, and gen-
erally as water-chestnut. The fruit of the
Trapa bicornis, which grows in the lakes of

138

China, is collected by women and children
who paddle about among the plants in small
circular boats resembling wash-tubs. Other
species are grown in Cashmere, where the
lakes become so crowded with the plants
that navigation is made impossible, and the
Government derives £12,000 a year from
the taxes on the crop of a single lake; and
in India, where the cultivation is system-
atically carried on. The fruit abounds in
starch, which has the flavor of a chestnut,
and may be eaten raw or cooked. The dried
nuts will keep for many years. The meal
may be made into cakes or into a porridge.
If the kernels are soaked overnight in cold
water, they will be ready in the morning to
be boiled or steamed into food. The seeds
of the lotus (Welumbo) were much used as
food in ancient Hgypt, but seem to be neg-
lected now. The tuberous roots resemble
the sweet potato and arestarchy. ‘The root-
stalks when boiled are farinaceous and agree-
able, and those of the American species are
employed as food by Western Indians. The
seeds of the lotus, in India, are eaten raw
when green, and roasted or boiled when ripe
and hard. The root, which is two or three
feet long, is eaten, boiled, as a vegetable.
The Klamath Indians live chiefly on the
tookow, or seeds of the yellow water-lily
(Nuphar lutea). The capsules are broken,
and the seeds are separated from their husks.

The Philosophy of Waist-Belts and Cor-
sets.—In the course of an investigation upon
the work of the heart in health and disease
certain facts were observed by Prof. Roy
and Mr. J. G. Adams which throw light upon
the physiological bearing of waist-belts, etc.
By means of a cardiometer, they register ac-
curately the changes in volume of the heart
and the amount of blood propelled by it,
under varying conditions. In the dog, even
a slight compression of the abdomen caused
an increase in volume of the heart, and with
this a greatly increased amount of blood,
passed through the heart in a given time.
These phenomena can be explained without
difficulty. The abdominal vessels are capable
of containing all, and more than all, the blood
in the organism. Slight compression of the
abdomen will, without disturbing the arterial
supply, drive out from the abdominal veins
and venous capillaries a large amount of

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

blood; and this blood will be of use for the
other regions of the body. Now, the fune-
tional activity of any organ depends directly
upon its blood-supply. Increase the arterial
blood-supply of any part, and, other things
being equal, the activity and power of work
of that part are increased. The abdominal
walls in front and at the sides are formed
of soft, elastic tissues. In health, press-
ure is, through these, exerted upon the
abdominal contents, and at the same time
upon the abdominal veins and venous capil-
laries, by means of the muscles contained in
these walls. If, however, the muscles lose
their tone, the walls become flaccid, and
the veins dilate, and thus holding a larger
amount of blood than is necessary, act
as reservoirs for this blood, and so de-
prive the rest of the body of an amount
of fluid necessary for its due nutrition.
Here, then, we have an explanation of the
use of some form or other of waist-belt by
all nations who have passed beyond the
stage of absolute barbarism. The waist-belt
is of use, and has constantly been used, in
cases of sudden and great exertion, and in
those cases where it becomes necessary to
counteract the tendency to a useless storing
up of blood in the abdomen; and by persons
in health, in bringing more blood into the
service of the brain and muscles to produce
a condition of increased mental and muscular
activity. Flaccid abdominal walls are rather
the rule than the exception with women, and
among men occur in those leading sedentary
lives. We are, therefore, brought to con-
clude that among women some form of
waist-belt is advantageous. Moderate con-
striction does no harm; extreme constriction
is absurd and dangerous.

The Scilly Islands.—Scillonians is what
the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands call
themselves, Though politically attached to
Cornwall, and nearer to it than to any other
part of the world, they are not Cornish, but
of high-blooded English stock, being to a
large extent descended from the Godolphins
and from royalists who had suffered from
the English civil wars. There are, however,
considerable local differences between the
people of the several smaller islands. In
the days of sailing ships the Scilly Islands
were an important naval outpost and a place

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

of refuge for vessels in stormy seasons.
The people were skillful ship-builders and
prosperous ship-owners. Steam has de-
prived them of most of their old advan-
tages, and they have had to turn their
attention to other pursuits. The mild cli-
mate and the good soil of the islands are fa-
vorable to all kinds of vegetation. Raising
early potatoes and vegetables for the English
markets has been a remunerative occupation.
Recently the raising of narcissus and other
bulbs has promised to be still more profit-
able, and the people are every year giving
more and more attention to it. In 1887
more than a hundred tons of flowers were
exported. The small extent of the islands
bringing them into close relations, and al-
most inevitably under one another’s eye, the
Scillonians are quite sociable and considera-
bly prone to gossip. They give occasional
dinners, at which heavy cake and clotted
cream are favorite dishes; but they object
to dancing and card-playing, and abhor jest-
ing and flippancy. They are great readers,
and keep in the current of English periodi-
cal literature; and, having had George Eliot
and Tennyson to visit them, they are “ not
to be awed by the prestige of any literary
magnate.” Finally, Mr. Frank Bonfield says
of them, “‘ Most of them seem to have had
a tradition of having come in from some-
where at no very remote period of the past,
and I am very doubtful if there is any abo-
riginal population—that is to say, families
who have no record or reminiscence handed
down of having lived somewhere else.”

Chemical Bibliographies.—The report of
the American Association’s Committee on In-
dexing Chemical Literature mentions as pub-
lished, the “Provisional List of Abbrevia-
tions of Titles of Chemical Journals,” Dr.
A. Tuckerman’s “‘ Index to the Literature of
the Spectroscope,” and Prof. Clarke’s “ Table
of Specific Gravities ” ; as completed, Prof.
Traphagen’s “ Index to the Literature of Co-
lumbium,” and Prof. Bolton’s “ Bibliography
of Chemistry” for 1887; and as in prepa-
ration, indexes on “Ethylene,” by Mr. A. A.
Noyes; “‘ Methane,” by Prof. W. P. Mason;
“Cesium and Rubidium,” by Mr. William
Rupp; “Tantalum,” by Prof. Traphagen;
a “Bibliography of the History of Chem-
istry,” by Dr. Bolton; and ‘‘ Thermodynam-

139

ics,” by Dr. A. Tuckerman. Bibliographies
are mentioned of “Food Adulteration and
its Detection,” by Dr. J. P. Battershall ;
“ Milk,” by E. W. Martin; and “Butter,”
adulterations, testing, etc., by Prof. Hi-
wyn Waller and others. Among lists of pat-
ents relating more or less to applied chem-
istry are those of Mr. C. T. Davis on the
manufacture of leather; of bricks, tiles,
and terra-cotta; of paper; and his “Treatise
on Boiler Incrustations ”; and Mr. William
T. Braunt’s “ Treatise on Animal and Vegeta-
ble Fats and Oils.” B. Tollen’s “Handbuch
der Kohlenhydrate,” Breslau, 1888, contains
about fifteen hundred references to the lit-
erature of carbohydrates. Dr. A. B. Lyons
is publishing, in the “ Pharmaceutical Era,”
a monthly “Index Pharmaceuticus.” The
work of the committee is now being supple-
mented by chemists in Great Britain.

Old and New-Fashioned Ideas in Medi-
eine.— Dr. Malcolm Morris has indicated
some points in medical practice in which a
mysticism, which was one of its predominant
features in the middle ages, still lingers
around it. “There remains in the people,”
he says, “a belief in the efficacy of drugs as
drugs—a belief that, as for every bane there
must be an antidote, so for every disease
there must be a curative leaf or root. Nature
is distrusted; disease is still represented as
some evil influence to be exorcised. In the
popular mind Disease walks the earth as a
devouring fiend, and has a personality about
it as of old. The phrases ‘ Stricken with
disease,’ ‘visitations,’ and ‘seizures,’ are
survivals of the conceptions of primitive
times. . . . The mysticism survives in the
courtly phrase and the ambiguous language
of the practitioner of modern times. When
sorely pressed by the sick man, the physician’s
only armory is equivocation, from which he
draws such verbal weapons as ‘the state of
the constitution,’ ‘the tone of the body,’ ‘the
general health,’ ‘lowered vitality,’ and all
that kind... . Are these not in some sort
a survival of the circle of the horoscope?”
The profession is also at a disadvantage be-
cause of a skepticism, reacting from the im-
plicit faith in drugs of the olden time, which
“repudiates all aids and accessories; briefly,
it states its deliberate opinion that disease
is infinitely better left toitself. The natural

140

physiological energy of the body is the prime
element in the healing process. This is
neither more nor less than modern fatalism
—waiting on events. Such a doctrine, if
successful, would be fatal to medicine.” A
third evil under which it suffers is material-
ism, which “in medicine may be carried to
an injurious extreme. In modern pathology,
for example, as originated by the German
school and taught by its apostles, while men
are actively contesting as to the nature or
formation of a certain cell—whether it be
spindle-shaped, round, or ovoid; whether it
be derived from this tissue or from that—
they are likely to lose sight of the real bear-
ings of the case. By all means respect facts,
and you can not show better respect for them
than by using them. A medical inquirer is
not a mere collector. Collect your facts, and
then reason from the data you have estab-
lished. A collection teaches nothing till it
has been arranged. The tendency at present
is, in the majority of instances, to collect
everything, and to arrange and therefore to
adduce nothing.”

Sanitary Science and Children’s Health.
—Among the greatest gains that have re-
cently been made in sanitary science, Mr.
Edwin Chadwick counts the power that has
been obtained of preventing children’s dis-
eases. “In the larger district schools,” he
says, “the districts of the poor-law unions,
the children’s chief diseases are now practi-
cally abolished. These institutions may be
said to be children’s hospitals, in which
children, orphans of the lowest type from
the slums, are taken in large proportions
with developed diseases upon them, often
only to die from constitutional failure alone.
Yet in a number of these separate schools
there are now no deaths from measles,
whooping-cough, typhus, scarlatina, or diph-
theria. The general death-rate is about ten
in one thousand, and of those who are not in
the probationary wards, of those who come
in without developed disease upon them, the
death-rates are now less than three in one
thousand, or less than one third of the death-
rates prevalent among the children of the
general population of the same ages.” In
an institution where the old death-rate was
twelve in one thousand, by drainage and
clearance of sewage-smells the rate was re-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

duced by more than one third; then, after
improving the ventilation of the rooms and
providing a separate bed for each child, the
rate was reduced to less than three in one
thousand, “‘ and that with children of the
lowest type. In a visit to one of these half-
time schools, after an interval of several
years, I was so struck with the appearance
of the children as less pallid and with less
of the dull, leathery look that I had seen
before—they were bright and fresh-looking
—that I observed to the manager that he
must have had a new class of children since
my last visit. His answer was ‘No,’ but
that since the sanitary improvements had
been made in the lower districts the children
received from them were of the improved
type which had struck me.”

American India-Rubber.— The India-
rubber of Central America is obtained from
varieties of Castilloa, which yield rubber
very little inferior to that obtained from the
Siphonia. Toraise India-rubber plants which
are indigenous to one place in another where
the conditions are at all favorable is no diffi-
cult task, but to make the same plant suc-
cessfully productive is another matter alto-
gether. Mr. Thomas B. Warren has called
attention to the influence which handling
raw rubber with sweaty or dirty hands has
in promoting its decay. The less the raw
article is fashioned by the hands in handling,
the better. Grease of any kind, even in
small quantity, is pernicious to the durability
of the substance. When handled too much
in manufacturing, it is sure to show signs of
decay after a short time in the parts most
exposed to manipulation. It makes a great
difference in the quality of the raw product
whether it has been collected by a relatively
clean Brazilian creole or by a fatty-perspiring
African. When rubber shows signs of decay
from this cause, dusting over with raw sul-
phur tends to arrest it.

Whisky no Antidote for Rattlesnake-
Poison.—The popular opinion that whisky
is an antidote to rattlesnake-bite is contro-
verted by Dr. A. T. Hudson, of Stockton,
Cal., on the authority of experiments by Dr.
S. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell mixed the
virus of the rattlesnake with alcohol and
with other reputed antidotes, and found,

POPULAR MISCELLANY. 141

on injecting the solution into animals, that
its power was not altered. He found also
that the effect of the virus was subject to very
well defined limits, and that a quantity which
would kill an animal of a certain size was
much less powerful, or inert, upon larger
animals. If a large snake should bite a
goat of about fifty pounds’ weight, and after-
ward two children of corresponding weight,
he might kill the goat, while the children
would survive, because not enough virus was
left after the goat was bitten seriously to
harm the children; then, if whisky were
given to the children, their recovery would be
attributed to it, while it really had nothing
to do with the matter. It is rare that an
adult person dies from the bite of a rattle-
snake. Whisky may, however, be regarded
as physiologically antidotal, in so far as it
will sustain the flagging powers while the
poison is being eliminated by the excretory
organs.

The Teak-Tree.—Teak-wood is the most
important of the forest products of Siam. It
is used in immense quantities throughout
the Hast for house-building, and is largely
exported to China and Europe for ship-build-
ing purposes. It is said to be unsurpassed
for resisting the ravages of the white ants
and the effects of the weather. It grows in
the northern part of Siam and Burmah at a
height of 1,200 feet and more above the sea,
and reaches its greatest perfection in about
a hundred and twenty years; but a good-
sized tree that can be cut down when qual-
ity of wood is not an object, can be grown
in ten or fifteen years. The teak district is
from 100 to 150 miles wide. The forests
are in charge of the governors of the prov-
inces in which they are situated. They are
generally leased for a term of ten years, and
the lessee is obliged to fell and remove the
greatest number of logs possible, paying a
definite royalty to the governor. The trees
are girdled, and are left standing for two
years to allow the sap to run out and the
wood to become perfectly dry. The cutting
down takes place in the dry season, and the
logs are left until sufficient rain has fallen
to allow of their being dragged to the river
with the help of elephants. After the logs
are made up into rafts, they are delivered
to the raftsmen to convey to Bangkok; when

all is ready, the evil spirits of the river must
be propitiated, the cost of which is paid by
the owner of the timber. This custom re-
mains in force, despite the efforts of the
foreign and educated classes to stop it, and
should any one ignore it he would be unable
to procure raftsmen.

Discovery by Observation.—The circum
stances attending an archeological discovery
recently made in German Altenburg, on the
Danube, illustrate in the most striking man-
ner the value of intelligent observation.
Prof. Hauser was interested for a month in
watching the colors of an extensive corn-
field, which varied in every part. He found
an elevated post of observation, and, after a
week’s close attention, declared it to be his
opinion that the corn was growing over
the site of an ancient amphitheatre. His
drawings showed that the oblong center-
piece was somewhat concave, and the corn
was quite ripe in that part, because there
was much soil between the surface and the
bottom of the theatre. Elliptical lines of
green, growing paler the higher they rose,
showed the seats, and lines forming a radius
from the center showed the walls supporting
the elliptical rows of seats. Excavations
were made as soon as the corn had been
harvested, which confirmed the professor’s
theory in nearly every particular. At six
inches below the soil the top of the outer
wall was found, and from there the soil
gradually grew thicker until the bottom of
the arena was reached, the pavement of which
is in perfect condition. From the theatre a
paved road leads to the Camp of Carnuntum.

The Buddhist Story of the Partridge.
Among the Buddhist stories which Mr. T.
W. Rhys Davids has made known to the
public is a legend of 400 B. c., pertinent to the
question of the standards of precedence. It
runs to the effect that a partridge, a monkey,
and an elephant, friends, dwelling near a great
banyan-tree, discussing which should be con-
sidered first, inquired which was the oldest
among them. The elephant, when asked
how far back he could remember, replied-
that when he was a little elephant he used
to walk over the banyan-tree, and its top-
most twig just grazed his belly. The mon-
key, when quite a little monkey, could gnaw

142

the topmost twig of the tree as he squatted
on the ground. But the partridge said:
“Friends, there used to be another banyan-
tree. One day, after eating of its fruit, I
voided a seed here. Hence this tree.’ So
they agreed, the story continued, to honor
and reverence the partridge, as he was the
oldest, and he trained the others in obedi-
ence to the Five Precepts. Thenceforward
they lived together in so beautiful a har-
mony that it became a proverb, and was
known as “the beautiful life of the par-
tridge.” And they all three went, after
death, to heaven. The story accords with
the general idea among the ancients that
the birds were of very old lineage.

Asphalt and Petroleam in Venezuela.—
A part of the department of Colon, in Vene-
zuela, is very rich in asphalt and petroleum.
At one place a thick bitumen is ejected from
the mouth of a cave, in globules which ex-
plode with considerable noise. The place
called the nfernito, or little hell, is a mound
of sand, from twenty-five to thirty feet high,
on the surface of which are numerous holes
of different sizes, whence petroleum and hot
water are ejected with a noise equal to that
caused by two or three steamers blowing off
at once. Considering the immense amount
of inflammable gases that accompany such
flows of petroleum, it is suggested that some-
thing of the kind may he connected with
the Taro of Maracaybo—a constant lightning
without thunder, which is observed from the
foot of the bar at the entrance to the lake.
Croppings of asphalt and coal appear at the
foot of the mountains in the department of
Sucre; and near the mountains is a flow of
a black liquid, distinct from asphalt or petro-
leum, and apparently identical with a sub-
stance which occurs among anthracite de-
posits.

Habits of Turtles.—Turtles are described
as sleepy creatures that rest at intervals
throughout the day and become abnormally
active at night. When asleep they lie upon
the bottom of their habitat, with their heads
downward and eyes closed, and are not easily
disturbed. Their weight is considerable, and
precludes them from moving constantly in
the water; and, as a rule, when swimming
they keep near the surface, and stretch their

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

heads out, in order to gulp in air readily,
Upon land they are helpless, almost as pow-
erless as the seal in a similar situation,
They capture their prey with great agility,
for, with their long necks, they can thrust
their heads forward very rapidly. The head,
fin, and tail are independent of the shell, and
move freely, but can not be drawn wholly
under the shell, like those of the tortoise.
Turtles, especially young ones, are very pug-
nacious, and fight by striking their adver-
sary’s head with their fins and biting. Mr.
Carter, of the British National Fish-Culture
Association, thinks it practicable to propa-
gate them artificially. The eggs should be
placed in sand, heated from beneath by
water-pipes to a constant temperature of
70° F., which could be raised in the daytime
to 100° by concentrating the temperature
from without. The young turtles will seck
for water at once, and this should be pro-
vided, warmed to 100°. While propagation
in this way might be profitable, it would not
be easy to domesticate the animals to our
cool latitudes.

Influence of Antiseptics on Foods.—It
has become common in trade to apply anti-
septics to perishable foods, in order to pre-
serve them, salicylic acid being probably the
most used. Itis important to ascertain what
the effect of the addition is upon the quality
of the food, and upon the digestive func-
tions. Lehmann has shown that salicylic
acid does not usually contribute any injuri-
ous quality to food, but apprehends that the
indiscriminate use of such substances may
be dangerous. Experiments have been made
in our Department of Agriculture to deter-
mine what effect in retarding digestion may
be possessed by such substances as salicylic
acid, boric acid, sodium acid sulphite, sac-
charine, beta-naphthol, and alcohol. It was
found that salicylic acid prevents the conver-
sion of starch into sugar under the influence
of either diastase or pancreatic extract, but
does not very seriously interfere with peptic
or pancreatic digestion of albumen. Sac-
charine holds about the same relation as
salicylic acid. Sodium acid sulphite and
borie acid are practically without retarding
effect.
ly with the formation of sugar by diastase,
but not with the action of pancreatic extract

Beta-naphthaline interferes decided- _

NOTES.

on starch. Peptic and pancreatic digestion
of albuminoids were almost prevented by it.
The experiments show that the indiscrimi-
nate use of these agents, without sanitary
inspection, should not be allowed.

Bells as Weather Indicators.—M. P. J.
de Ridder, of Lebbeke, Belgium, has ob-
served that bells are heard further away when
the atmosphere is in cyclonic motion, and
that a calm atmosphere, saturated with moist-
ure, favors the transmission of sound, while
contrary winds are not always an obstacle.
Certain small bells six and eight kilometres
southeast from Lebbeke are called water
bells by the people there, because their be-
ing heard at Lebbeke is immediately followed
by a season of rain. And, generally, the
hearing of a distant sound, like that of a bell
or the rumbling of a railway train, is regard-
ed as portending the end of fine weather and
the approach of rain. One bell, which is ten
kilometres away, is heard twice a year—in
March or April, and in September or Octo-
ber—and always in identical conditions of
the sky.

NOTES.

WE are indebted to the kindness of the
Tiffany Glass Company, of New York, for
the use of the photographs from which the
illustrations were engraved for Prof. Hen-
derson’s article on “The History of a Picture-
Window,” in this issue of the ‘‘ Monthly.”

Avaska is commonly thought of as an
exceedingly cold place, but, except in the
northern part, this reputation is not justi-
fied. To be sure, in the Yukon district,
comprising the country north of the Alaskan
Mountains, the mean annual temperature is
about 25° Fahr., and the ground thaws in
summer only two or three feet down from
the surface, remaining frozen continually be-
low. In the Aleutian Peninsula and Islands,
however, the mean is from 36° to 40°, and
in a series of observations, extending over
five years, the greatest cold was found to be
zero, while the highest temperature was 77°.
A still warmer and a moist climate belongs
to the Sitka district, the strip extending
down along the coast of British America.
Ifere the mean is 44°7°, and the temperature
during the winter seldom goes so low as the
freezing-point. The mean annual tempera-
ture of the State of New York is 46°49°.

Tur French Academy of Sciences has
awarded its Cuvier medal to Prof. Joseph
Leidy, of Philadelphia, for his eminent serv-
ices in zodlogy. The medal was accom-

143

panied by a letter recognizing Dr. Leidy, as a
leader in his specialty.

THE report of the United States Com-
missioner of Education shows the following
percentages of increase in ten years (1876-
77 to 1886-87), in the five divisions of the
Union, in population, school enrollment, and
school expenditure :

hd |/a4| 38

DIVISIONS. Be | Es | a3

aS at] as

North Atlantic division....... 16°5 | 5:7 | 21-7
South Atlantic division.......| 26°T | 58°7 | 50-4
South Central division. ...... 86°8 | 83°4 | 65°4
North Central division.. 82:0 | 29°7 | 51-1
Western division............. 721 | 58°38 | 75°9
Wnited States... 5... 1a. 29°0 | 81-1 | 41-1

SoME erroneous opinions respecting rep-
tiles are corrected by Arthur Ayling in
“Science Gossip.” Thus, the slow-worm or
blind-worm (Anguwis fragilis) is not blind,
but has eyes which, though small in com-
parison with its size, are very bright, and
are in fact the prettiest part of its body;
and it can not inflict a poisonous bite.
Snakes do not “sting” with their forked
tongues. Reptiles can live a long time
without food—a triton, for instance, has
been kept in that condition for six months
—hbut they die in the end; and stories of
toads having been imprisoned in rocks for
years or ages under circumstances where air
was excluded from them are false. Toads
can not “spit fire,” and newts and lizards
can not inflict dangerous bites.

Dr. F. B, Jussert, of London, claims to
have shown, from a comparison of the num-
ber of deaths in England and Wales in
various years, that the mortality from can-
cer increased from 4,966 in 1850 to 18,542
in 1881, and the death-rate per million in-
habitants from 320 to 520. In view of these
facts, he suggests that, instead of shirking
the subject, it should be met, the cause of
the mortality studied, and a remedy sought.

NERVELESSNESS is mentioned by the
“North China Herald” as the distinguish-
ing quality of the yellow race. A Chinaman
can go through the most tedious and monot-
onous work from hour to hour and from
day to day, without any appreciable sense
of weariness or irritation; and a school-boy
can do the same with his lessons without
even longing to be at play. The Chinese
can also sleep under conditions which would
make a Huropean very uncomfortable and
restless. This quality is one of the things
that make the Chinese such unwelcome com-
petitors in the labor markets.

Tue hamlet of Nivezé, near Spa, in Bel-
gium, is infested with what the inhabitants
call ‘‘ bad-air wells,” or outlets whence car-
bonic-acid gas exhales. Dr. Parkin, of Spa,
describes eight spots whence the exhalations
are abundant, and most so in times of storm

144

and. seasons of low barometer. In some
the escaping gas makes noises that can be
heard from sixty feet away. The ground
presents no peculiar appearance, except that
nothing will grow immediately around the
outlets. Some of these places are under
houses, or near them, and cause considerable
inconvenience. Dr. Parkin believes that the
phenomena are connected with the volcanic
region of the Hifel. Prof. Lancaster, of
Brussels, thinks that the source of the gas
is deeply seated in the earth.

AN experiment has been tried at Guild-
ford, England, to test Mr. Conder’s system
for treating and purifying sewage with a list
of ingredients, a principal one of which is
sulphate of iron. An open wire-work cage
containing the purifying material was let
down into the sewer and immersed for about
an inch and a half in depth into the flowing
sediment. The result is reported to have
been a vast improvement in the character of
the liquid flowing from the drains into the
river, and an abatement of nuisance at points
where heretofore nuisances and offensive
smells had been complained of.

“OmitTIne articles in which its occur-
rence has been purely accidental,” says Mr.
A. W. Stokes, in ““The Chemical News,”
“arsenic has been found of late years to be
present in some samples of muslins, cre-
tonnes, wall-papers, playing-cards, the glaze
of some enameled stew-pans, the paper of
fancy boxes, and in some furs. These last
are usually the furs prepared by amateurs. ...
One has no wish to be an alarmist, or in any
way to harass trade, and it must freely be
acknowledged that cases of any ill results
whatever being traced to the use of these
articles are very rare. None the less, seeing
how unnecessary they are, and how each
year arsenic seems to be finding its way into
new quarters, it seems advisable to stop its
further progress.”

To furnish the French railroads with
cross-ties — 10,000 a day and 3,650,000 a
year—more than a thousand fine trees have
to be cut down every day. In the United
States more than 15,000,000 cross-ties are
used yearly, to furnish which requires the
destruction of 197,600 acres of forests. The
“Bulletin du Musée Commercial” estimates
the number of logs required for the railways
of the world at more than 40,000,000.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Tue Rey. John George Wood, one of the
most popular and instructive of natural his-
tory writers, died March 3d, while on a visit
to Coventry, England. He was born in Lon-
don, the son of a surgeon, in 1827, and was
graduated from Merton College, Oxford, in
1848. He served for two years in the Ana-
tomical Museum at Christ Church, Oxford ;
held two chaplaincies, and was Precentor of

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Canterbury Diocesan Choral Union. His
best efforts were given to his books, most of
which were on natural history. The chief
of them was his large “ Natural History,” in
three volumes; the best known, the “ Com-
mon Objects of the Seashore.” Among the
others, besides those of the “Common Ob-
jects ” series, were his ‘‘ Popular Natural His-
tory,” “Sketches and Anecdotes of Animal
Life,” “The Boys’ Own Natural History
Book,” “‘My Feathered Friends,” ‘ Homes
without Hands,” “Insects at Home,” “Our
Garden Friends and Foes,” several educa-
tional works, and a series of ‘“‘ Natural His-
tory Readers” for schools. He edited for
some time “‘The Boys’ Own Magazine,” and
was a popular lecturer.

Sir Witi1am O’Smavcunessy Brooxre,
F. R. S., who was distinguished by his con-
nection with electric telegraphs, died in Eng-
land in January. He was Director-General
of Telegraphs in India for ten years, and re-
ceived a knighthood for his services in es-
tablishing telegraphs in that empire.

ALEXANDER PaGENstEcHER, Director of
the Museum of Natural History at Hamburg,
died January 5th, of heart-disease, in his
sixty-fourth year. He was for many years
Professor of Zodlogy at Heidelberg, and was
the author of a well-known work on “ Uni-
versal Zoology ” (“‘ Allgemeine Zoologie ”’) in
four volumes (1875-1881).

Dr. JoHannes Brock, appointed Professor
of Natural Science at Gottingen, has recently
died there. He was formerly Professor of
Zoélogy at Dorpat, and was well known by
reason of a scientific journey to the Indian
Archipelago which he undertook under the
auspices of the Berlin Academy.

Dr. J. SorKa, Professor of the German
University of Prague, and formerly of the
University of Munich, and author of books
on bacteria, died by suicide, February 28d.

Carrain Jonn Ericsson, the inventor of
the caloric engine, the Monitor, and other
useful or warlike agents, died in this city,
March 8th, in the eighty-sixth year of his
age. He was a native of Sweden and came
of a family of engineers. He showed his
inventive capacity at an early age. He
came to this country in 1839, and two years
afterward began the Princeton, the first
naval vessel to carry her machinery under
the water-line and out of the reach of the
enemy’s shot. His name is also identified
with the invention of the submarine boat
Destroyer, sun motor, and submarine motor ;
and some of his unpatented inventions are
in the hands of the Delamater Iron Company.

Tue Rey. Dr. Churchill Babington, an
English botanist, dicd January 12th, at
Cockfield Rectory. He was a contributor to ~
Sir J. Hooker’s “ Journal of Botany and Kew
Miscellany.”

@

GRAHAM SUMNER.

WILLIAM

THE.

ee (diy AR .03,0cb BN. ©
REO INT Hoh y

JUNE, 1889.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.
VIL.—DIABOLISM AND HYSTERIA.

By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D.,
EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

PART II.

BA PORT forty years later than the New England epidemic of
“ possession ” occurred another typical series of phenomena
in France. In the year 1727 there died in the city of Paris a sim-
ple and kindly ecclesiastic, the Archdeacon of Paris. He had lived
a pious, Christian life, and was endeared to multitudes by his
charity ; unfortunately, he had espoused the doctrine of Jansen on
the subject of grace and free will; and, though he remained in
the Gallican Church, he and those who thought like him were
opposed by the Jesuits, and finally condemned by a papal bull.

His remains having been buried in the cemetery of St. Medard,
the Jansenists flocked to say their prayers at his tomb, and soon
miracles began to be wrought there. Ere long they were multi-
plied. The sick being brought and laid upon the tomb, many
were cured. Wonderful stories were attested by eye-witnesses.
The myth-making tendency—the passion for developing, enlarg-
ing, and spreading tales of wonder—came into full play and was
given free course.

Many thoughtful men satisfied themselves of the truth of these
representations. One of the foremost English scholars came over,
examined into them, and declared that there could be no doubt as
to the reality of the cures.

This state of things continued for about four years, when, in
1731, more violent effects showed themselves. Sundry persons
approaching the tomb were thrown into convulsions, hysterics,

and catalepsy; these diseases spread, became epidemic, and soon
VOL, Xxxv.—10

146 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

multitudes were similarly afflicted. Both religious parties made
the most of these cases. In vain did such great authorities in medi-
cal science as Hecquet and Lorry attribute the whole to natural
causes ; the theologians on both sides declared them supernatural
—the Jansenists attributing them to God, the Jesuits to Satan.

Of late years such cases have been treated in France with
much shrewdness, When, about the middle of the present cent-
ury, the Arab priests in Algiers tried to arouse fanaticism against
the French Christians by performing miracles, the French Goy-
ernment, instead of persecuting the priests, sent Robert Houdin,
the most renowed juggler of his time, to Algiers, and for every
Arab miracle Houdin performed two; did an Arab marabout
turn a rod into a serpent, Houdin turned his rod into two ser-
pents, and afterward showed the people how this was done.

So, too, at the last International Exposition, the French Goy-
ernment, observing the evil effects produced by the mania for
table turning and tipping, took occasion, when a great number of
French schoolmasters and teachers were visiting the Exposition,
to have public lectures given in which all the business of dark
closets, hand-tying, materialization of spirits, presenting the faces
of the departed, and ghostly portraiture, was fully performed by
professional mountebanks, and afterward as fully explained by
them.

So in this case. The Government simply ordered the gate of
the cemetery to be locked, and, when the crowd could no longer
approach the tomb, the miracles ceased. A little Parisian ridicule
helped to end the matter. A wag wrote up over the gate of the

cemetery :
“De par le Roi, défense 4 Dieu

De faire des miracles dans ce lien ”—

which, being translated from doggerel French into doggerel Eng-

lish, is—
‘‘ By order of the king, the Lord must forbear

To work any more of his miracles bere.”

But the theological spirit remained powerful. The French
Revolution had not then intervened to bring it under healthy
limits. The agitation was maintained, and, though the miracles
and cases of possession were stopped in the cemetery, it spread.
Again full course was given to myth-making and the retailing of
wonders. It was said that men had allowed themselves to be
roasted before slow fires, and had been afterward found unin-
jured ; that some had enormous weights piled upon them, but had
supernatural powers of resistance given them; and that, in one ~
case, a voluntary crucifixion had taken place.

This agitation was long, troublesome, and no doubt robbed

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE, 147

many temporarily or permanently of such little brains as they
possessed ; it was only when the violence had become an old story
and the charm of novelty had entirely worn off, and the afflicted
found themselves no longer regarded with especial interest, that
the epidemic died away.”

But in Germany at that time the outcome of this belief was far
more cruel. In 1749 Maria Renata Sanger, sub-prioress of a con-
vent at Wiirzburg, was charged with bewitching her fellow-nuns.
There was the usual story—the same essential facts as at Loudun
—women shut up against their will, dreams of Satan disguised as
a young man, petty jealousies, spites, quarrels, mysterious uproar,
trickery, utensils thrown about in a way not to be accounted for,
hysterical shrieking and convulsions, and, finally, the torture,
confession, and execution of the supposed culprit.

Various epidemics of this sort broke out from time to time in
other parts of the world, though happily, as modern skepticism
prevailed, with less cruel results.

In 1760 some congregations of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales
became so fervent that they began leaping for joy. The mania
spread and gave rise to a sect called the “Jumpers.” A similar
_ outbreak took place afterward in England, and has been repeated
at various times and places since in our own country.{

In 1780 came another outbreak in France; but this time it was
not the Jansenists who were affected, but the strictly orthodox.
A large number of young girls between twelve and nineteen
years of age, having been brought together at the church of St.
Roch, in Paris, with preaching and ceremonies calculated to
arouse hysterics, one of them fell into convulsions. Immediately
other children were similarly taken, until some fifty or sixty were
engaged in the same antics. This mania spread to other churches
and gatherings, proved very troublesome, and in some cases led
to results especially painful.

About the same period came a similar outbreak among the
Protestants of the Shetland Isles. A woman having been seized
with convulsions at church, the disease spread to others, mainly
women, who fell into the usual contortions and wild shriekings.
A very effective cure proved to be a threat to plunge the diseased
into a neighboring pond.

But, as we near the end of the eighteenth century, a fact very

* See Madden, “ Phantasmata,” chap. xiv; also Sir James Stephen, ‘‘ History of France,”
lecture xxvi; also Henry Martin, “ Histoire de France,” chap. xv, pp. 168 e¢ seg. ; also Cal-
meil, liv. v, chap. xxiv; also Hecker’s “Essay,” iv, 5; and, for samples of rayth-making,
see the apocryphal “‘ Souvenirs de Créquy.”

+ See Soldan, Scherr, Diefenbach, and others.

$ See Adams’s “Dictionary of All Religions,” article on “Jumpers”; also Hecker’s
“Essay,” iv, 6.

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

important for science is established. It was found that these
manifestations do not arise entirely from religious sources. In
1787 came the noted case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, A
girl working in a cotton-manufactory there put a mouse into the
bosom of another girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl
thus treated immediately went into convulsions, which lasted
twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three other girls were
seized with like convulsions, a little later six more, and finally, in
all, twenty-four were attacked. Then came a fact throwing a
flood of light upon earlier occurrences. This epidemic, being
noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant.
The patients suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair,
and dashed their heads against the walls. There was a strong
belief that it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident
physician amused the patients with electric shocks, and the dis-
ease died out.

In 1801 came a case of similar import in the Charité Hospital
at Berlin. A girl fell into strong convulsions. The disease proved
contagious, several others becoming afflicted in a similar way;
but nearly all were finally cured, principally by the administra-
tion of opium, which appears at that time to have been a fashion-
able remedy.

Similar to this was a case at Lyons in 1851. Sixty women were
working together in a shop, when one of them, after a bitter quar-
rel with her husband, fell into a violent nervous attack. The
other women, sympathizing with her, gathered about to assist her,
but one after another fell into a similar condition, until twenty
were thus prostrated, and a more general spread of the epidemic
was only prevented by clearing the premises.*

But, while these cases appeared to the eye of Science fatal to
the old conception of diabolic influence, the great majority of
such epidemics, when unexplained, continued to give strength to
the older view.

In Roman Catholic countries these manifestations, as we have
seen, have generally appeared in convents, or in churches where
young girls are brought together for their first communion, or at
shrines where miracles are supposed to be wrought.

In Protestant countries they appear in times of great religious
excitement, and especially when large bodies of young women are
submitted to the influence of noisy and frothy preachers. Well-
known examples of this in America are seen in the “ Jumpers,”
“ Jerkers,” and various revival extravagances, especially among
the negroes and “ poor whites” of the Southern States.

* For these examples and others, see Tuke, “Influence of the Mind upon the Body,”
vol. i, pp. 100, 277; also Hecker’s “ Essay,” chap. iv.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 149

The proper conditions being given for the development of the
disease—generally a congregation composed mainly of young
women—any fanatic or overzealous priest or preacher may stim-
ulate hysterical seizures, which are very likely to become epi-
demic.

As a recent typical example on a large scale, I take the case of
diabolic possession at Morzines, a French village on the borders
of Switzerland; and it is especially instructive, because it was
thoroughly investigated by a competent man of science.

About the year 1853 a sick girl at Morzines, acting strangely,
was thought to be possessed of the devil, and was taken to Besan-
con, where she seems to have fallen into the hands of kindly and
sensible ecclesiastics, and, under the operation of the relics pre-
served in the cathedral there—especially the handkerchief of Christ
—the devil was cast out and she was cured. Naturally, much was
said of the affair among the peasantry, and soon other cases began
to show themselves. The priest at Morzines attempted to quiet the
matter by avowing his disbelief in such cases of possession; but
immediately a great outcry was raised against him, especially by
the possessed themselves. The matter was now widely discussed,
and the malady spread rapidly; myth-making and wonder-mon-
gering began; amazing accounts were thus developed and sent
out to the world. The afflicted were said to have climbed trees
like squirrels; to have shown superhuman strength; to have ex-
ercised the gift of tongues, speaking in German, Latin, and even
in Arabic; to have given accounts of historical events they had
never heard of; and to have revealed the secret thoughts of per.
sons about them. Mingled with such exhibitions of power were
outbursts of blasphemy and obscenity.

But suddenly came something more miraculous, apparently,
than all these wonders. Without any assigned cause this epi-
demic of possession diminished, and the devil disappeared.

Not long after this Prof. Tissot, an eminent member of the
medical faculty at Dijon, visited the spot and began a series of
researches, of which he afterward published a full account. He
tells us that he found some reasons for the sudden departure of
Satan which had never been published. He discovered that the
Government had quietly removed one or two overzealous eccle-
siastics to another parish, had sent the police to Morzines to main-
tain order, and had given instructions that those who acted out-
rageously should be simply treated as lunatics and sent to asylums.
This policy, so accordant with French methods of administration,
cast out the devil: the possessed were mainly cured, and the mat-
ter appeared ended.

But Dr. Tissot found a few of the diseased still remaining, and

he soon satisfied himself by various investigations and experi-

150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ments that they were simply suffering from hysteria. One of his
investigations is especially curious. In order to observe the pa-
tients more carefully, he invited some of them to dine with him,
gave them without their knowledge holy water in their wine or
their food, and found that it produced no effect whatever, though
its results upon the demons when the possessed knew of its pres-
ence had been very strikingly marked. Even after plentiful doses
of holy water had been thus given, the possessed remained afflict-
ed, urged that the devil should be cast out, and some of them even
went into convulsions, the devil apparently speaking from their
mouths. It was evident that Satan had not the remotest idea
that he had been thoroughly dosed with the most effective medi-
cine known to the older theology.*

At last Tissot published the results of his experiments, and the
stereotyped answer was soon made. It resembled the answer
made by the clerical opponents of Galileo when he showed them
the moons of Jupiter through his telescope, and they declared
that the moons were created by the telescope. The clerical oppo-
nents of Tissot declared that the non-effect of the holy water upon.
the demons proved nothing save the extraordinary cunning of
Satan; that the arch-fiend wishes it to be thought that he does
not exist, and so overcame his repugnance to holy water, gulping
it down in order to conceal his presence.

Dr. Tissot also examined into the gift of tongues exercised by
the possessed. As to German and Latin, no great difficulty was
presented: it was by no means hard to suppose that some of the
girls might have learned some words of the former language in
the neighboring Swiss cantons where German was spoken, or
even in Germany itself; and as to Latin, considering that they
had heard it from their childhood in the church, there seemed
nothing very wonderful in their uttering some words in that lan-
guage also. As to Arabic, had they really spoken it, that might
have been accounted for by the relations of the possessed with
Zouaves or Spahis from the French army; but, as Tissot could
discover no such relations, he investigated this point as the most
puzzling of all.

On a close inquiry he found that all the wonderful examples
of speaking Arabic were reduced to one. He then asked whether
there was any other person speaking or knowing Arabic in the
town. He was answered that there was not. He asked whether
any person had lived there, so far as any one could remember, who
had spoken or understood Arabic, and he was answered in the
negative. He then asked the witnesses how they knew that the
language spoken by the girl was Arabic; no answer was vouch- |

* For an amazing delineation of the curative and other virtues of holy water, see the
Abbé Gaume, “ L’Hau bénite au XIX™e Siécle,” Paris, 1863.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 151

safed him, but he was overwhelmed with such stories as that of a
pig which, at sight of the cross on the village church, suddenly
refused to go further—and he was denounced thoroughly in the
clerical newspapers for declining to accept such evidence.

At Tissot’s visit in 1863 the possession had generally ceased,
and the cases left were few and quiet. But his visits stirred a
new controversy, and its echoes were long and loud in the pulpits
and clerical journals. Believers insisted that Satan had been
removed by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; unbelievers
hinted that the main cause of the deliverance was the reluctance
of the possessed to be shut up in asylums.

Under these circumstances the Bishop of Annecy announced
that he would visit Morzines to administer confirmation, and word
appears to have spread that he would give a more orthodox com-
pletion to the work already done by exorcising the devils who re-
mained. Immediately several new cases of possession appeared ;
young girls who had been cured were again affected; the embers
thus kindled were fanned into a flame by a “ mission” which sun-
dry priests held in the parish to arouse the people to their relig-
ious duties—a mission, in Roman Catholic countries, being akin
to the “revivals” among some Protestant sects. Multitudes of
young women, excited by the preaching and appeals of the clergy,
were again thrown into the old disease, and at the coming of the
good bishop it culminated.

The account is given in the words of an eye-witness:

“At the solemn entrance of the bishop into the church, the
possessed persons threw themselves on the ground before him, or
endeavored to throw themselves upon him, screaming frightfully,
cursing, blaspheming, so that the people at large were struck with
horror. The possessed followed the bishop, hooted him, and
threatened him, up to the middle of the church; order was only
established by the intervention of the soldiers. During the con-
firmation the diseased redoubled their howls and infernal vocif-
erations, and tried to spit in the face of the bishop and to tear off
his pastoral raiment. At the moment when the prelate gave his
benediction a still more outrageous scene took place. The vio-
lence of the diseased was carried to fury, and from all parts of the
church arose yells and fearful howling; so frightful was the din
that tears fell from the eyes of many of the spectators, and many
strangers were thrown into consternation.”

Among the very large number of these diseased persons there
were only two men; of the remainder only two were of advanced
age. The great majority were young women between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-five years.

The public authorities shortly afterward intervened and sought
to cure the disease and to draw the people out of their mania by

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

singing, dancing, and sports of various sorts, until at last it was
brought under control.*

Scenes similar to these, in their essential character, have arisen
more recently in Protestant countries, but with the difference that
what has been generally attributed by Roman Catholic ecclesias-
tics to Satan is attributed by Protestant ecclesiastics to the Al-
mighty. Typical among the greater exhibitions of this were those
which began in the Methodist chapel.at Redruth in Cornwall—
convulsions, leaping, jumping, until some four thousand persons
were seized by it. The same thing is seen in the ruder parts of
America at “revivals” and camp-meetings.

And in still another great field these exhibitions are seen, but

more after a medizeval pattern. In the Tigretier of Abyssinia we
have epidemics of dancing which seek and obtain miraculous
cures. .
Reports of similar manifestations are also sent from missiona-
ries from the west coast of Africa, one of whom sees in some of
them the characteristics of cases of possession mentioned in our
Gospels, and is therefore inclined to attribute them to Satan.+

But happily, long before these latter occurrences, science had
come into the field and was gradually diminishing this class of
diseases. Among the earlier workers to this better purpose was
the great Dutch physician Boerhaave. Finding in one of the
wards in the hospital at Haarlem a number of women going into
convulsions and imitating each other in various acts of frenzy, he
immediately ordered a furnace of blazing coals into the midst of
the ward, heated cauterizing irons, and declared he would burn
the arms of the first woman who fell into convulsions. No more
cases occurred.f{

These and similar successful dealings of medical science with
mental disease brought about the next stage in the theological de-
velopment. The Church sought to retreat, after the usual manner,
behind a compromise. Early in the eighteenth century appeared
a new edition of the great work by the Jesuit Delrio which for a
hundred years had been a text-book for the use of ecclesiastics in
fighting witchcraft. But in this edition the part played by Satan
in diseases was changed. It was suggested that, while diseases
have natural causes, it is necessary that Satan enter the human
body in order to make these causes effective. Delrio claims that

* See Tissot, “ L’Imagination: ses Bienfaits et ses Hearements surtout dans le Domaine
du Merveilleux,” Paris, 1858, par. 7; ‘“‘Les Possédés de Morzines’’; also Constans, “ Rela-
tion sur une Epidémie de Hystéro-Démonopathie,” Paris, 1863.

+ For the Tigretier, with especially interesting citations, see Hecker’s “Essay,” chap. iii,
sec. 1; for the cases in western Africa, see the Rev. J. L. Wilson, “ Western Africa,” p.
217.

t See Figuier, “ Histoire du Merveilleux,” vol. i, p. 402.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 153

Satan “attacks lunatics at the full moon, when their brains are
full of humors,” that in other cases of illness he “stirs the black
bile,’ and that in cases of blindness and deafness he “clogs the
eyes and ears.” By the close of the century this compromise was
evidently found untenable, and one of a very different sort was
attempted in England.

In the third edition of the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” pub-
lished in 1797, under the article “ Demoniacs,” the orthodox view
was presented in the following words: “The reality of demonia-
cal possession stands upon the same evidence with the gospel sys-
tem in general.”

This statement, though necessary to satisfy the older theologi-
cal sentiment, was clearly found too dangerous to be sent out into
the modern skeptical world without some qualification. Another
view was therefore suggested, namely, that the personages of the
New Testament “adopted the vulgar language in speaking of
those unfortunate persons who were generally imagined to be pos-
sessed with demons.” Two or three editions contained this curi-
ous compromise; but, as we come to the middle of the present
century, the whole discussion is quietly dropped.

But science, declining to trouble itself with any of these views,
pressed on, and toward the end of the century we see Dr. Rhodes
at Lyons curing a very serious case of possession by the use of a
powerful emetic; yet myth-making came in here also, and it was
stated that, when the emetic produced its effect, people had seen
multitudes of green and yellow devils cast forth from the mouth
of the possessed.

The last great demonstration of the old belief in England was
made in 1788. In the city of Bristol at that time lived a drunken
epileptic, George Lukins. In asking alms he insisted that he

_was “possessed,” and proved it by jumping, screaming, barking,
and treating the company to a parody of the “Te Deum.”

He was solemnly brought into the Temple Church, and seven
clergymen united in the effort to exorcise the evil spirit. Upon
their adjuring Satan, he swore “by his infernal den” that he
would not come out of the man—“ an oath,” says the chronicler,
“nowhere to be found but in Bunyan’s ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,’
from which Lukins probably got it.”

But the seven clergymen were at last successful, and seven
devils were cast out, after which Lukins retired, and appears to
have been supported during the remainder of his life as a monu-
ment of mercy.

With this great effort the old theory in England seemed prac-
tically exhausted.

Science had evidently carried the stronghold. In 1876, at a
little town near Amiens, in France, a young woman was brought

F VoL. XXxv.—]0*

154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to the priest, suffering terribly with all the usual evidences of
diabolic possession. The priest was besought to cast out the
devil, but he simply took her to the hospital where, under scien-
tific treatment, she rapidly became better.*

The final triumph of science in this part of the great field has
been mainly achieved during the latter half of the present century.

Following in the noble succession of Paracelsus and John
Hunter and Pinel and Tuke and Esquirol, have come a band of
thinkers and workers who have evolved out of the earlier forms
of truths new growths, ever more and more precious.

Among the many facts and principles thus brought to bear
upon this last stronghold of the Prince of Darkness, may be
named especially those of “expectant attention,” an expectation
of phenomena dwelt upon until the longing for them becomes
morbid and invincible, and the creation of them perhaps uncon-
scious. Still another class of phenomena are found to arise from
a morbid tendency to imitation which leads to epidemics. Still
another group has been brought under hypnotism. Multitudes
more have been found under the innumerable forms and results
of hysteria. A study of the effects of the imagination upon
bodily function has also yielded remarkable results.

And, finally, to supplement this work, have come in an array
of scholars in history and literature who have investigated myth-
making and wonder-mongering.

Thus has been cleared away that cloud of supernaturalism
which so long hung over mental diseases, and thus have they been
brought within the firm grasp of science.+

* See Figuier ; also Collin de Plancy, “ Dictionnaire Infernale,” article Possédés.

+ To go even into leading citations in this vast and beneficent literature would take me
far beyond my plan and space, but I may name, among leading and easily accessible au-
thorities, Brierre de Boismont on “ Hallucinations,” Hulme’s translation, 1860; also James
Braid, “The Power of the Mind over the Body,” London, 1846; Krafft-Ebing, ‘‘ Lehrbuch
der Psychiatric,” Stuttgart, 1888; Tuke, “ Influence of the Mind on the Body,” London,
1884; Maudsley, “ Pathology of the Mind,” London, 1879; Carpenter, ‘“ Mental Physi-
ology,”’ sixth edition, London, 1888; Lloyd Tuckey, “‘ Faith Cure,” Nineteenth Century
Magazine for December, 1888; Pettigrew, “Superstitions connected with the Practice
of Medicine and Surgery,” London, 1844.

As to myth-making and wonder-mongering, the general reader will find interesting a
plementary accounts in the recent works of Andrew Lang and Baring-Gould.

A very curious evidence of the effects of the myth-making tendency has recently come
to the attention of the writer of this article. Periodically, for many years past, we have
seen, in books of travel and in the newspapers, accounts of the wonderful performances of
the jugglers in India; of the stabbing of a child in a small basket in the midst of an
arena, and the child appearing alive in the surrounding crowd; of seeds planted, sprouted,
and becoming well-grown trees under the hand of the juggler; of ropes thrown into the air
and sustained by invisible force. A short time since Count de Gubernatis, the eminent
professor and Oriental scholar at Florence, informed the present writer that he had recently —
seen and studied these exhibitions, and that, so far from being wonderful, they were much
inferior to the jugglery so well known in all our Western capitals.

GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 155

Conscientious men still linger on who find comfort in holding
fast to some shred of the old belief in diabolic possession. The
sturdy declaration in the last century by John Wesley, that
“giving up witchcraft is giving up the Bible,” is echoed feebly in
the latter half of this century by the eminent Catholic ecclesiastic
in France who declares that “to deny possession by devils is to
charge Jesus and his apostles with imposture,” and asks, “ How
can the testimony of apostles, fathers of the Church, and saints
who saw the possessed and so declared, be denied ?” And a still
fainter echo lingers in Protestant England.*

But, despite this conscientious opposition, science has in these
latter days steadily wrought hand in hand with Christian charity
in this field, to evolve a better future for humanity. The
thoughtful physician and the devoted clergyman are now con-
stantly seen working together; and it is not too much to expect
that Satan, having been cast out of the insane asylums, will ere
long disappear from monasteries and camp-meetings, even in the
most unenlightened regions of Christendom.

GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST.t
By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D., LL. D.

NU eigece from Washington Territory the coast is every-
where very rugged, being formed by the lofty peaks of an
extension of the Cascade Range; while the thousands of islands
which fringe the coast of British Columbia and Alaska are but
the partially submerged peaks of an extension of the Coast Range,
from which the great glaciers of former times have scraped off
nearly all the fertile soil. It is estimated that there are ten thou-
sand islands between Washington Territory and Mount St. Elias,
and all the larger of them bear snow-covered summits during the
whole year. The water in the narrow channels separating these
islands is ordinarily several hundred feet deep, affording, through
nearly the whole distance, a protected channel for navigation.
Three great rivers interrupt the mountain barrier of British
Columbia facing the Pacific—the Fraser, the Skeena, and the
Stickeen—and the interior is penetrated for some distance by innu-
merable fiords. The Canadian Pacific Railroad follows the course
of the Fraser for a long distance, and passes within sight of gla-
ciers of considerable extent, and every fiord receives the drainage

* See the Abbé Barthélemi, in the “ Dictionnaire de la Conversation”; also the Rev. W.
Scott’s “‘ Doctrine of Evil Spirits proved,” London, 1857.

+ From advance sheets of “The Ice Age in North America, and its Bearings on the
Antiquity of Man.” In press of D. Appleton & Co.

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of numerous decaying glaciers. But it is not until reaching the
Stickeen River, in Alaska, in latitude 57°, that glaciers begin to

ZEEE

a ZZ A
II

Fig. 1.—GuacieR STATION, SELKIRK Mountains, British CotumpBra. (Courtesy of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.)

appear which are both easily accessible and large enough to invite
protracted study. The water coming into the sound from the Stick-

GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 157

een River is heavily charged with glacial mud, which spreads itself
out over a great expanse. An extensive delta, forming almost the

SCALE OF MILES
20 40

=
und \) A Ft.Simpson

Fig. 2.—Map oF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA. The arrow-points mark glaciers.

only arable land in southeastern Alaska, has been built up by the de-
posit at the mouth of this river. The most accurate information

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

yet obtained concerning these glaciers is that gathered by Mr. Will-
iam P, Blake in 1863. According to him, “there are four large
glaciers and several smaller ones visible within a distance of sixty
or seventy miles from the mouth” of the river. The second of
these larger ones has attracted most attention. This “sweeps
grandly out into the valley from an opening between high mount-
ains from a source that is not visible. It ends at the level of the
rive¥ in an irregular bluff of ice, a mile and a half or two miles in
length, and about one hundred and fifty feet high. Two or more
terminal moraines protect it from the direct action of the stream.
What at first appeared as a range of ordinary hills along the river,
proved on landing to be an ancient terminal moraine, crescent-
shaped and covered with a forest. It extends the full length of
the front of the glacier,” * |

This glacier has never been fully explored. A number of years
since, a party of Russian officers attempted its exploration, and
were never heard from again. Mr. Blake reports that, as usual
-with receding glaciers, a considerable portion of the front as it
spreads out in the valley is so covered with bowlders, gravel, and
mud that it is difficult to tell where the glacier really ends. But
from the valley to the higher land it rises in precipitous, irregular,
stair-like blocks, with smooth sides, and so large that it was im-
possible to surmount them with the ordinary equipment of ex-
plorers. The glacier is estimated to be about forty miles long.

Another glacier, upon the opposite side of the river, of which
Mr. Blake does not speak, was reported to me by those familiar
with the country as coming down to within about two miles of the
bank. The Indians are very likely correct in asserting that these
two glaciers formerly met, compelling the Stickeen River to find
its way to the sea through a vast tunnel. It would then have ap-
peared simply as a subglacial stream of great magnitude.

North of the Stickeen River, glaciers of great size are of increas-
ing frequency, and can be seen to good advantage from the excur-
sion steamer. The Auk and Patterson glaciers appear first, not far
north of Fort Wrangel. On approaching Holkham Bay and Taku
Inlet, about latitude 58°, the summer tourist has, in the numerous
icebergs encountered, pleasing evidence of the proximity of still
greater glaciers coming down to the sea-level. Indeed, the gla-
ciers of Taku Inlet are second only in interest to those of Glacier
Bay.

In going from Juneau to Chilkat, at the head of Lynn Canal, a
distance of about eighty miles, nineteen glaciers of large size are
in full sight from the steamer’s deck, but none of them come down
far enough to break off into the water and give birth to icebergs. |
' The Davidson Glacier, however, comes down just to the water’s

* “ American Journal of Science,” vol. xciv, 1867, pp. 96-101.

GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 159

edge, and has there built up an immense terminal moraine all along
its front.

An illustration of the precipitous character of the southeastern
coast of Alaska is seen in the fact that it is only thirty-five miles

Front about one mile wide.

(Photograph by Partridge.)

Fig. 3.—Norris GLACIER, TAKU INLET, ALASKA. Showing icebergs that have broken off from the front.

from the head of Lynn Canal to the sources of the Yukon River,
which then flows to the north and west for nearly three thousand

miles before coming down to the sea-level. Lieutenant Schwatka

160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

reports four glaciers of considerable size in the course of this short
portage between Chilkat and Lake Lindeman.* The vast region
through which the Yukon flows to the north of these mountains
is not known to contain any extensive glaciers. But, according
to the reports of Dall, Schwatka, and others, it is a most inhospi-
table country, where nares life can be maintained only with the
greatest difficulty ; ; where the thermometer sinks to 60° below zero
in winter, and rises for a short period to 120° in the summer; and
where the ground remains perpetually frozen at a short depth
below the surface.

Fic. 4.—DAVIDSON GLACIER, NEAR CHILKAT, ALASKA, LATITUDE 59° 45’. The mountains are from
five thousand to seven thousand feet high; the gorge about three quarters of a mile wide; the
front of the glacier, three miles; the terminal moraine, about two hundred and fifty feet high.
(View from two miles distant.)

From Cross Sound, about latitude 58° and longitude 136° west
from Greenwich, to the Alaskan Peninsula, the coast is bordered
by a most magnificent semicircle of mountains opening to the
south, and extending for more than a thousand miles. Through-
out this whole extent, glaciers of large size are everywhere to be
seen. Elliott + estimates that, counting great and small, there can
not be less than five thousand glaciers between Dixon’s Entrance
and the extremity of the Alaskan Peninsula.

Little is known in detail of the glaciers of this region. But
those in the neighborhood of Mount St. Elias are evidently the
largest anywhere to be found in the northern hemisphere outside
of Greenland. This mountain rises 19,500 feet above the sea; and
Lieutenant Schwatka, in his expedition of 1886, reported eleven
glaciers as coming down from its southern side. One of these,

* “Science,” vol. iii (February 22, 1884), pp. 220-227.
+ See “ Our Arctic Province,” p. 91.

GLACIERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 161

which is named the Agassiz Glacier, he estimates to be twenty
miles in width and fifty miles in length, and to cover an area of a
thousand square miles. Another, which he named Guyot Glacier,
seemed to be about the same in dimensions. These come down to
the sea-level in Icy Bay, and present a solid ice wall many miles in
extent, which is continually breaking off into icebergs of great size.*

Vancouver’s account of the glacial phenomena along this coast
is still both instructive and interesting, and in places curious:

“Between these points (Pigot and Pakenham) a bay is formed,
about a league and a half deep toward the north-northwest, in
which were seen several shoals and much ice; the termination of
this bay is bounded by a continuation of the above range of lofty
mountains. On this second low projecting point, which Mr. Whid-
bey called ‘Point Pakenham, the latitude was observed to be 60°
594’, its longitude 212° 29’. The width of the arm at this station was
reduced to two miles, in which were several half-concealed rocks,
and much floating ice, through which they pursued their exami-
nation, to a point at the distance of three miles along the western
shore, which still continued to be compact, extending north 30°
east; in this direction they met such innumerable huge bodies of
ice, some afloat, others lying on the ground near the shore in ten
or twelve fathoms water, as rendered their further progress up the
branch rash and highly dangerous. This was, however, very for-
tunately, an object of no moment, since before their return they
had obtained a distinct view of its termination, about two leagues
farther in the same direction, by a firm and compact body of ice
reaching from side to side, and greatly above the level of the sea;
behind which extended the continuation of the same range of lofty
mountains, whose summits seemed to be higher than any that had
yet been seen on the coast.

“While at dinner in this situation they frequently heard a very
loud, rumbling noise, not unlike loud but distant thunder ; similar
sounds had often been heard when the party was in the neighbor-
hood of large bodies of ice, but they had not before been able to
trace the cause. They now found the noise to originate from
immense ponderous fragments of ice, breaking off from the higher
parts of the main body, and falling from a very considerable
height, which in one instance produced so violent a shock that it
was sensibly felt by the whole party, although the ground on
which they were was at least two leagues from the spot where the
fall of ice had taken place. .. .

“The base of this lofty range of mountains (between Elias and
Fairweather) now gradually approached the sea-side ; and to the
southward of Cape Fairweather it may be said to be washed by the
ocean; the interruption in the summit of these very elevated

* “New York Times,” November 14, 1886.
VOL. xxxv.—11

162 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mountains, mentioned by Captain Cook, was likewise conspicu-
ously evident to us as we sailed along the coast this day, and looked
like a plain composed of a solid mass of ice or frozen snow, inclin-
ing gradually toward the low border; which from the smooth-
ness, uniformity, and clean appearance of its surface, conveyed the
idea of extensive waters having once existed beyond the then lim-
its of our view, which had passed over this depressed part of the
mountains, until their progress had been stopped by the severity
of the climate, and that, by the accumulation of succeeding snow,
freezing on this body of ice, a barrier had become formed that had
prevented such waters from flowing into the sea. This is not the
only place where we had noticed the like appearance; since pass-
ing the icy bay mentioned on the 28th of June, other valleys had
been seen strongly resembling this, but none were so extensive,
nor was the surface of any of them so clean, most of them appear-
ing to be very dirty. I do not, however, mean to assert that these
inclined planes of ice must have been formed by the passing of
inland waters thus into the ocean, as the elevation of them, which
must be many hundred yards above the level of the sea, and their
having been doomed for ages to perpetual frost, operate much
against this reasoning; but one is naturally led, on contemplating
any phenomenon out of the ordinary course of nature, to form
some conjecture and to hazard some opinion as to its origin,
which on the present occasion is rather offered for the purpose of
describing its appearance, than accounting for the cause of its
existence.” *

Beyond Mount St. Elias, in the neighborhood of the Copper Riv-
er and Prince William Sound, glaciers are reported by Elliott as
numerous and of great size. Mount Wrangel, in the forks of the
Copper River, is estimated by him to be upward of twenty thou-
sand feet in height. From the flanks of the Chugatch Alps, of
which Wrangel is the eastern summit, immense glaciers descend
to Prince William Sound, and add greatly to the gloomy grand-
eur of its scenery. Glaciers also extend throughout the Kenai and
Alaskan Peninsulas, as far to the westward as longitude 162°, and
one even has been observed upon the island of Unalaska.

The region in the interior north of the St. Elias and Chugatch
Alps has been but imperfectly explored; but there seems pretty
general agreement that there are no glaciers there at the present
time, nor is there evidence that glaciers ever existed in the coun-
try. Much of the region is now covered with tundra—that is,
with vast level areas which are so deeply frozen that they never
thaw out below a few feet from the surface. These are covered
with a dense growth of heath and arctic mosses, which afford food.
for the reindeer, but are useless for man.

* “Voyage of Discovery around the World,” vol. v, pp. 812-314, 858-360.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 163

- At Eschscholtz Bay, on Kotzebue Sound, in latitude 66° 15,’
Kotzebue discovered in 1818 a cliff of frozen mud and ice “ capped
by afew feet of soil bearing moss and grass.”* Large numbers of
bones of the “mammoth, bison (?), reindeer, moose-deer, musk-ox,
and horse, were found” at the base, where they had fallen down
from the cliff during the summer thaw. Sir Edward Belcher and
Mr. G. B. Seeman afterward visited the same spot and corrobo-
rated Kotzebue’s account. From their report it was evident that
the conditions in northern Alaska are very similar to those in
northern Siberia, where so many similar remains of extinct and
other animals have been found in the frozen soil. The section
described at Eschscholtz Bay seems to be simply the edge of the
tundra which is so largely represented in the central portions of
the Territory.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER.
By Pror. T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S.

(ee concluding paragraph of the Bishop of Peterborough’s
reply to the appeal which I addressed to him in the penulti-
mate number of this review, leads me to think that he has seen a
personal reference where none was intended. I had ventured to
suggest that the demand that a man should call himself an infidel,
savored very much of the flavor of a “bull”; and, even had the
Right Reverend prelate been as stolid an Englishman as I am, I
should have entertained the hope, that the oddity of talking of the
cowardice of persons who object to call themselves by a nickname,
which must in their eyes be as inappropriate as, in the intention
of the users, it is offensive, would have struck him. But, to my
surprise, the bishop has not even yet got sight of that absurdity.
He thinks, that if I accept Dr. Wace’s definition of his much-loved
epithet, Iam logically bound not only to adopt the titles of infidel
and miscreant, but that I shall “even glory in those titles.” As I
have shown, “infidel” merely means somebody who does not
believe what you believe yourself, and therefore Dr. Wace has a
perfect right to call, say, my old Egyptian donkey-driver, Nooleh,
and myself, infidels, just as Nooleh and I have a right to call him
an infidel. The ludicrous aspect of the thing comes in only when
either of us demands that the two others should so label them-
selves. It is a terrible business to have to explain a mild jest, and
I pledge myself not to run the risk of offending in this way again.
I see how wrong I was in trusting to the bishop’s sense of the
ludicrous, and I beg leave unreservedly to withdraw my misplaced
confidence. And I take this course the more readily as there is

* See Prestwich’s “Geology,” vol. ii, p. 468 ef seq.

164. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

something about which I am obliged again to trouble the Bishop
of Peterborough, which is certainly no jesting matter. Referring
to my question, the bishop says that if they (the terms “ infidel”
and “miscreant ”)

should not be so proved to be applicable, then I should hold it to be as unreason=
able to expect him to call himself by such names as he, I suppose, would hold it to
be to expect us Christians to admit, without better reason than he has yet given
us, that Christianity is “the sorry stuff” which, with his “profoundly ” moral
readiness to say ‘‘ unpleasant” things, he is pleased to say that it is.*

According to those “English modes of thought and expres-
sion,” of which the bishop seems to have but a poor opinion, this
is a deliberate assertion that I had said that Christianity is “ sorry
stuff.” And, according to the same standard of fair dealing, it is,
I think, absolutely necessary for the Bishop of Peterborough to
produce the evidence on which this positive statement is based, I
shall be unfeignedly surprised if he is successful in proving it;
but it is proper for me to wait and see.

Those who passed from Dr. Wace’s article in the last number
of this review to the anticipatory confutation of it which followed
in “The New Reformation,” must have enjoyed the pleasure of a
dramatic surprise—just as when the fifth act of a new play proves
unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, par-
don the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of
antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy reminds
me of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but
strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled
“Turk’s head,” sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of
generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous
sketch of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out
among those theologians who are men of science and not mere
counsel for creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of

dealing with the greater part of Dr. Wace’s polemic, and enables
me to devote more space to the really important issues which have
been raised.t

Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that appro-
bation of the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance
Reuss, does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or
indeed of any of his views; and, further, that the disagreements
of a series of investigators do not in any way interfere with the
fact that each of them has made important contributions to the

* “ Popular Science Monthly ” for May, 1889, p. 83.

+ I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship of the Gospels. For the pres-
ent I must content myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr. Wace’s
statements as to the results arrived at by moderncriticism. They are as gravely as surpris-
ingly erroneous.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 165

body of truth ultimately established. If I cite Buffon, Linnzus,
Lamarck, and Cuvier, as having each and all taken a leading share
in building up modern biology, the statement that every one of
these great naturalists disagreed with, and even more or less contra-
dicted, all the rest is quite true; but the supposition that the lat-
ter assertion is in any way inconsistent with the former, would
betray a strange ignorance of the manner in which all true science
advances.

Dr. Wace takes a great deal of trouble to make it appear that
I have desired to evade the real questions raised by his attack
upon me at the Church Congress. I assure the reverend principal
that in this, as in some other respects, he has entertained a very
erroneous conception of my intentions. Things would assume
more accurate proportions in Dr. Wace’s mind if he would kindly
remember that it is just thirty years since ecclesiastical thunder-
bolts began to fly about my ears. I have had the “ Lion and the
Bear” to deal with, and it is long since I got quite used to the
threatenings of episcopal Goliaths, whose crosiers were like unto
a weaver’s beam. So that I almost think I might not have no-
ticed Dr. Wace’s attack, personal as it was; and although, as he
is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the
modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not
come under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I
further venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expen-
diture of twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would
have enabled Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conven-
tions as to direct my attention to the fact that he had attacked
me before a meeting at which I was not present? I really am
not responsible for the five months’ neglect of which Dr. Wace.
complains. Singularly enough, the Englishry who swarmed
about the Engadine, during the three months that I was being:
brought back to life by the glorious air and perfect comfort of
the Maloja, did not, in my hearing, say anything about the im-
portant events which had taken place at the Church Congress;
and I think I can venture to affirm that there was not a single:
copy of Dr. Wace’s pamphlet in any of the hotel libraries which
I rummaged in search of something more edifying than dull
English or questionable French novels.

And now, having, as I hope, set myself right with the public:
as regards the sins of commission and omission with which I have:
been charged, I feel free to deal with matters to which time and.
type may be more profitably devoted.

The Bishop of Peterborough indulges in the anticipation that
Dr. Wace will succeed in showing me “ that a scientist dealing
with questions of theology or biblical criticism may go quite
as far astray as theologians often do in dealing with questions

166 | THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of science.” * I have already admitted that vaticination is not
in my line; and I can not so much as hazard a guess whether
the spirit of prophecy which has descended on the bishop comes
from the one or the other of the two possible sources recognized
by the highest authorities. But I think it desirable to warn
those who may be misled by phraseology of this kind, that the
antagonists in the present debate are not quite rightly repre-
sented by it. Undoubtedly, Dr. Wace is a theologian; and I
should be the last person to question that his whole cast of
thought and style of argumentation are pre-eminently and
typically theological. And, if I must accept the hideous term
“scientist ” (to which I object even more than I do to “ infidel ”),
IT am ready to admit that I am one of the people so denoted.

But I hope and believe that there is not a solitary argument I
have used, or that I am about to use, which is original, or has
anything to do with the fact that I have been chiefly occupied
with natural science. They are all, facts and reasoning alike,
either identical with, or consequential upon, propositions which
are to be found in the works of scholars and theologians of the
highest repute in the only two countries, Holland and Germany,t
in which, at the present time, professors of theology are to be
found, whose tenure of their posts does not depend upon the re-
sults to which their inquiries lead them.{

It is true that, to the best of my ability, I have satisfied myself
of the soundness of the foundations on which my arguments are
built, and I desire to be held fully responsible for everything I
say. But, nevertheless, my position is really no more than that
of an expositor; and my justification for undertaking it is simply
that conviction of the supremacy of private judgment (indeed, of
the impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the
Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by
the vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that
backsliding toward the “beggarly rudiments” of an effete and
idolatrous sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with

* “Popular Science Monthly” for May, 1889, p. 84.

+ The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but I am not sure.

¢ Imagine that all our chairs of Astronomy had been founded in the fourteenth cent-
ury, and that their incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with
every respect for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth, I
think men of common sense would go elsewhere to learn astronomy. Zeller’s “‘ Vortrage
und Abhandlungen ” were published and came into my hands a quarter of a century ago.
The writer’s rank, as a theologian to begin with, and subsequently as a historian of Greek
philosophy, is of the highest. Among these essays are two— Das Urchristenthum ” and
“Die Tibinger historische Schule ”—which are likely to be of more use to those who wish
to know the real state of the case than all that the official “apologists,” with their one eye
en truth and the other on the tenets of their sect, have written. For the opinion of a
scientific theologian about theologians of this stamp see pp. 225 and 227 of the “‘ Vertrage.”

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 167

the saddest spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Eng-
lishmen in this generation. A high court of ecclesiastical juris-
diction, with a host of great lawyers in battle array, is and, for
Heaven knows how long, will be, occupied with these very ques-
tions of “ washings of cups and pots and brazen vessels,” which the
Master, whose professed representatives are rending the Church
’ over these squabbles, had in his mind when, as we are told, he
uttered the scathing rebuke:
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honoreth me with their lips,

But their heart is far from me:

But in vain do they worship me,

Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men (Mark vii, 6, 7).

Men who can be absorbed in bickerings over miserable disputes of
this kind can have but little sympathy with the old evangelical
doctrine of the “open Bible,” or anything but a grave misgiving
of the results of diligent reading of the Bible, without the help of
ecclesiastical spectacles, by the mass of the people. Greatly to
the surprise of many of my friends, I have always advocated the
reading of the Bible, and the diffusion of the study of that most
remarkable collection of books among the people. Its teachings
are so infinitely superior to those of the sects, who are just as
busy now as the Pharisees were eighteen hundred years ago, in
smothering them under “the precepts of men”; itis so certain,
to my mind, that the Bible contains within itself the refutation
of nine tenths of the mixture of sophistical metaphysics and old-
world superstition which has been piled round it by the so-called
Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only immediate
and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with
Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of mankind, lies in
copious draughts from the undefiled spring, that I exercise the
right and duty of free judgment on the part of every man,
mainly for the purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my
example. If the New Testament is translated into Zulu by
Protestant missionaries, it must be assumed that a Zulu convert
is competent to draw from its contents all the truths which it is
necessary for him to believe. I trust that I may, without immod-
esty, claim to be put on the same footing as the Zulu.

The most constant reproach which is launched against persons
of my way of thinking is, that it is all very well for us to talk
about the deductions of scientific thought, but what are the poor
and the uneducated todo ? Has it ever occurred to those who talk
in this fashion that the creeds and articles of their several confes-
sions ; their determination of the exact nature and extent of the
teachings of Jesus; their expositions of the real meaning of that
which is written in the Epistles (to leave aside all questions con-

168 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cerning the Old Testament) are nothing more than deductions,
which, at any rate, profess to be the result of strictly scientific
thinking, and which are not worth attending to unless they really
possess that character ? If it is not historically true that such and
such things happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what be-
comes of Christianity ? And what is historical truth but that of
which the evidence bears strict scientific investigation ? I do not
call to mind any problem of natural science which has come under
my notice, which is more difficult, or more curiously interesting as a
mere problem, than that of the origin of the synoptic Gospels and
that of the historical value of the narratives which they contain,
The Christianity of the churches stands or falls by the results of
the purely scientific investigation of these questions. They were
first taken up in a purely scientific spirit just about a century
ago; they have been studied, over and over again, by men of vast
knowledge and critical acumen; but he would be a rash man who
should assert that any solution of these problems, as yet formu-
lated, is exhaustive. The most that can be said is that certain
prevalent solutions are certainly false, while others are more or
less probably true.

If I am doing my best to rouse my countrymen out of their dog-
matic slumbers, it is not that they may be amused by seeing who
gets the best of it, in a contest between a “scientist” and a theo-
logian. The serious question is whether theological men of sci-
ence, or theological special pleaders, are to have the confidence of
the general public; it is the question whether a country in which
it is possible for a body of excellent clerical and lay gentlemen to
discuss, in public meeting assembled, how much it is desirable to
let the congregations of the faithful know of the results of bibli-
cal criticism, is likely to wake up with anything short of the grasp
of a rough lay hand upon its shoulder; it is the question whether
the New Testament books, being as I believe they were, written
and compiled by people who, according to their lights, were per-
fectly sincere, will not, when properly studied as ordinary histori-
cal documents, afford us the means of self-criticism. And it must
be remembered that the New Testament books are not responsible
for the doctrine invented by the churches that they are anything

ut ordinary historical documents. The author of the third Gos-
pel tells us as straightforwardly as a man can that he has no claim
to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and ed-
itor, who had before him the works of many and variously quali-
fied predecessors.

In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded
giving an answer to his main proposition, which he states as fol-
lows:

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 169

Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one practically doubts that our
Lord lived and that he died on the cross, in the most intense sense of filial rela-
tion to his Father in heaven, and that he bore testimony to that Father’s provi-
dence, love, and grace toward mankind. The Lord’s Prayer affords a sufficient evi-
dence on these points. If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole
unseen world, of which the agnostic refuses to know anything, stands unveiled
before us. .. . If Jesus Christ preached that sermon, made those promises, and
taught that prayer, then any one who says that we know nothing of God, or of a
future life, or of an unseen world, says that he does not believe Jesus Christ.*

Again—

The main question at issue, in a word, is one which Prof. Huxley has chosen
to leave entirely on one side—whether, namely, allowing for the utmost uncer-
tainty on other points of the criticism to which he appeals, there is any reason-
able doubt that the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount afford a true
account of our Lord’s essential belief and cardinal teaching.t

I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here
stated ; indeed, I should say that I have indicated my reply to
them pretty clearly ; but, as Dr. Wace wants a plainer answer, he
shall certainly be gratified. If, as Dr. Wace declares it is, his
“whole case is involved in” the argument as stated in the latter
of these two extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For
I am of opinion that there is the gravest reason for doubting
whether the “Sermon on the Mount” was ever preached, and
whether the so-called “ Lord’s Prayer” was ever prayed by Jesus
of Nazareth. My reasons for this opinion are, among others,
these: There is now no doubt that the three synoptic Gospels,
so far from being the work of three independent writers, are
closely interdependent, { and that in one of two ways. Hither all
three contain, as their foundation, versions, to a large extent ver-
bally identical, of one and the same tradition; or two of them are
thus closely dependent on the third; and the opinion of the ma-
jority of the best critics has, of late years, more and more con-
verged toward the conviction that our canonical second Gospel
(the so-called “ Mark’s” Gospel) is that which most closely repre-
sents the primitive groundwork of the three.* That I take to be

* “Popular Science Monthly” for May, 1889, p. 68. + Ibid., p. 69.

¢ I suppose this is what Dr. Wace is thinking about when he says that I allege that
there ‘“‘is no visible escape” from the supposition of an “ Ur-Marcus” (p. 82). That a
“theologian of repute” should confound an indisputable fact with one of the modes of
explaining that fact, is not so singular as those who are unaccustomed to the ways of
theologians might imagine.

* Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a case of “copying” will be
particularly well prepared to appreciate the force of the case stated in that most excellent
little book, “The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels,” by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rush-
brooke (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through such painful experiences
I may recommend the brief discussion of the genuineness of the “Casket Letters” in my
friend Mr. Skelton’s interesting book, “‘ Maitland of Lethington.” The second edition of
Holtzmann’s “Lehrbuch,” published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair and full account of

170 THE POPULAR. SCIENCE MONTHLY.

one of the most valid results of New Testament criticism, of im-
measurably greater importance than the discussion about dates
and authorship.

But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt
or dispute, the second Gospel is the nearest extant representative
of the oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that
it contains neither the “Sermon on the Mount” nor the “ Lord’s
Prayer,” those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of
the “essential belief and cardinal teaching” of Jesus? Not only
does “ Mark’s” Gospel fail to contain the “Sermon on the Mount,”
or anything but a very few of the sayings contained in that col-
lection ; but, at the point of the history of Jesus where the “Ser-
mon” occurs in “ Matthew,” there is in “Mark” an apparently
unbroken narrative, from the calling of James and John to the
healing of Simon’s wife’s mother. Thus the oldest tradition not
only ignores the “Sermon on the Mount,” but, by implication,
raises a probability against its being delivered when and where
the later “ Matthew ” inserts it in his compilation.

And still more weighty is the fact that the third Gospel, the
author of which tells us that he wrote after “many” others had
“taken in hand” the same enterprise ; who should therefore have
known the first Gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it
the deference due to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he
had any reason for thinking it was so)—this writer, who exhibits
far more literary competence than the other two, ignores any
“Sermon on the Mount,’ such as that reported by “ Matthew,”
just as much as the oldest authority does. Yet “Luke” has
a great many passages identical, or parallel, with those in “ Mat-
thew’s” “Sermon on the Mount,’ which are, for the most part,
scattered about in a totally different connection.

Interposed, however, between the nomination of the apostles
and a visit to Capernaum ; occupying, therefore, a place which
answers to that of the “Sermon on the Mount” in the first Gospel,
there is, in the third Gospel, a discourse which is as closely similar
to the “Sermon on the Mount” in some particulars, as it is widely
unlike it in others. ~

This discourse is said to have been delivered in a “plain” or
“level place” (Luke vi, 17), and by way of distinction we may call
it the “Sermon on the Plain.”

I see no reason to doubt that the two evangelists are dealing,
to a considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and
a comparison of the two “sermons” suggests very strongly that

the present results of criticism. At page 366 he writes that the present burning question
is whether the “relatively primitive narration and the root of the other synoptic texts
is contained in Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that properly informed
(sachkundige) critics differ,” and he decides in favor of Mark.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 171

“TLuke’s” version is the earlier. The correspondences between the
two forbid the notion that they are independent. They both begin
with a series of blessings, some of which are almost verbally iden-
tical. In the middle of each (Luke vi, 27-38, Matthew v, 43-48)
there is a striking exposition of the ethical spirit of the command
given in Leviticus xix, 18. And each ends with a passage contain-
ing the declaration that a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the
parable of the house built on the sand. But while there are only
twenty-nine verses in the “Sermon on the Plain,” there are one
hundred and seven in the “Sermon on the Mount”; the excess in
length of the latter being chiefly due to the long interpolations,
one of thirty verses before, and one of thirty-four verses after, the
middlemost parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances,
it is quite impossible to admit that there is more probability that
“Matthew’s” version of the sermon is historically accurate than
there is that Luke’s version is so; and they can not both be
accurate.

“Luke” either knew the collection of loosely connected and
aphoristic utterances which appear under the name of the “Ser-
mon on the Mount” in “ Matthew,” or he did not. If he did not,
he must have been ignorant of the existence of such a document
as our canonical “ Matthew,” a fact which does not make for the
genuineness or the authority of that book. If he did, he has
shown that he does not care for its authority on a matter of fact
of no small importance; and that does not permit us to conceive
that he believed the first Gospel to be the work of an authority to
whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic eye-witness.

The tradition of the Church about the second Gospel, which I
believe to be quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is
for “Mark’s” authorship, would have us believe that “ Mark” was
little more than the mouth-piece of the apostle Peter. Consequent-
ly, we are to suppose that Peter either did not know, or did not
care very much for, that account of the “essential belief and car-
dinal teaching ” of Jesus which is contained in the Sermon on the
Mount; and, certainly, he could not have shared Dr. Wace’s view
of its importance.*

I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of
the Gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew
these things. But how can any one who does know them have
the conscience to ask whether there is “any reasonable doubt”

* Holtzmann (‘‘ Die synoptischen Evangelien,” 1868, p. 75), following Ewald, argues that
the “Source A” (=the threefold tradition, more or less) contained something that an-
swered to the “Sermon on the Plain” immediately after the words of our present Mark,
“And he cometh into a house” (iii, 19). But what conceivable motive could “ Mark ” have
for omitting it? Holtzmann has no doubt, however, that the ‘Sermon on the Mount” is

a compilation, or, as he calls it in his recently published “ Lehrbuch” (p. 372), ‘‘ an artificial
mosaic work.”

M72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth ?
If conjecture is permissible, where nothing else is possible, the
most probable conjecture seems to be that “Matthew,” having a
cento of sayings attributed—rightly or wrongly it is impossible
to say—to Jesus, among his materials, thought they were, or might
be, records of a continuous discourse, and put them in at the place
he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the highest character
saw no harm in composing long speeches which never were spoken,
and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and warriors; and
I presume that whoever is represented by “ Matthew” would have
been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his
following the example of the best models accessible to him,

So with the “ Lord’s Prayer.” Absent in our representative of
the oldest tradition, it appears in both “ Matthew” and “ Luke.”
There is reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commence-
ment of our era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula
which is embodied in the present Schmone-Esre* of the Jewish
prayer-book. Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious
Jew, whatever else he may have been, doubtless did the same,
Whether he modified the current formula, or whether the so-called
“ Lord’s Prayer” is the prayer substituted for the Schmone-Esre
in the congregations of the Gentiles, who knew nothing of the
Jewish practice, is a question which can hardly be answered.

- In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace’s article + he adds to the
list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, “ The
story of the Passion.” I am not quite sure what he means by
this—I am not aware that any one (with the exception of certain
ancient heretics) has propounded doubts as to the reality of the
crucifixion; and certainly I have no inclination to argue about
the precise accuracy of every detail of that pathetic story of suffer-
ing and wrong. But, if Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does,
that that which, according to the orthodox view, happened after
the crucifixion, and which is, in a dogmatic sense, the most impor-
tant part of the story, is founded on solid historical proofs, I must
beg leave to express a diametrically opposite conviction.

What do we find when the accounts of the events in question,
contained in the three synoptic Gospels, are compared together ?
In the oldest, there is a simple, straightforward statement which,
for anything that I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly
true. In the other two, there is, round this possible and probable
nucleus, a mass of accretions of the most questionable character.

The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon
its lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of
the body, as not unfrequently was the case, the pain during the

* See Schiirer, “‘ Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes,” Zweiter Theil, p. 384.
t ‘‘Popular Science Monthly” for May, 1889, p. 69.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 174

first hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need
any serious physical symptoms at once arise from the wounds
made by the nails in the hands and feet, supposing they were
nailed, which was not invariably the case. When exhaustion set
in, and hunger, thirst, and nervous irritation had done their work,
the agony of the sufferer must have been terrible; and the more
terrible that, in the absence of any effectual disturbance of the
machinery of physical life, it might be prolonged for many hours,
or even days. Temperate, strong men, such as the ordinary Gali-
lean peasants were, might live for several days on the cross. It
is necessary to bear these facts in mind when we read the account
contained in the fifteenth chapter of the second Gospel.

Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv, 25), and the narrative
seems to imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (v.
34). In this case, he would have been crucified only six hours;
and the time spent on the cross can not have been much longer,
because Joseph of Arimathza must have gone to Pilate, made his
preparations, and deposited the body in the rock-cut tomb before
sunset, which, at that time of the year, was about the twelfth
hour That any one should die after only six hours’ crucifixion
could not have been at all in accordance with Pilate’s large
experience in the effects of that method of punishment. It, there-
fore, quite agrees with what might be expected if Pilate “ mar-
veled if he were already dead,” and required to be satisfied on this
point by the testimony of the Roman officer who was in command
of the execution party. Those who have paid attention to the ex-
traordinarily difficult question, What are the indisputable signs
of death ?—will be able to estimate the value of the opinion of a
rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report to the procu-
rator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend of Jesus,
who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and of
wealth.

The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was deposited in a spa-
cious,* cool, rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not
by a well-fitting door, but by a stone rolled against the opening,
which would of course allow free passage of air. A little more
than thirty-six hours afterward (Friday 6 Pp. M., to Sunday 6 A. M.,
or a little after) three women visit the tomb and find it empty.
And they are told by a young man “ arrayed in a white robe ” that
Jesus is gone to his native country of Galilee, and that the disci-
ples and Peter will find him there.

Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that,
for any evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been
vacated at any time during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it

* Spacious, because a young man could sit in it “on the right side” (xv, 5), and there-
fore with plenty of room to spare.

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is said that no Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking
the former course, it is to be recollected that Joseph of Arimathea
might well be familiar with that wise and liberal interpretation of
the fourth commandment, which permitted works of mercy to
men—nay even the drawing of an ox or an ass out of a pit—on the
Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was free to the most
scrupulous observers of the law.

These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant
narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word
to say against the inherent probability of that narrative; and, for
my part, am quite ready to accept it as an historical fact, that
so much and no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of
Nazareth. On what grounds can a reasonable man be asked to
believe any more? So far as the narrative in the first Gospel, on
the one hand, and those in the third Gospel and the Acts, on the
other go beyond what is stated in the second Gospel, they are hope-
lessly discrepant with one another. And this is the more signifi-
cant because the pregnant phrase “ some doubted,” in the first Gos-
pel, is ignored in the third.

But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us
directly in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a
very singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul,
in the vigor of his manhood, with every means of becoming ac-
quainted, at first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not
merely refused to credit them, but “persecuted the church of God
and made havoc of it.” The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon
the acute intellect of this zealot for the traditions of his fathers:
his eyes were blind to the ecstatic illumination of the martyr’s
countenance “ as it had been the face of an angel”; and when, at
the words “ Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man
standing on the right hand of God,’ the murderous mob rushed
upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul ostentatiously
made himself their official accomplice.

Yet this strange man, because he has a vision one day, at once,
and with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opin-
ion. And he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any
re-examination of the facts.

Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusa-
lem to them which were apostles before me; but I went away into Arabia. (Gala-
tians i, 16, 17.) ‘

I do not presume to quarrel with Paul’s procedure. If it satis-
fied him, that was his affair; and, if it satisfies any one else, I am
not called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied.
But I certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me,
in like case; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that
it could, or ought to, satisfy me; and that I can entertain but a

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 7s

very low estimate of the value of the evidence of people who are
to be satisfied in this fashion, when questions of objective fact, in
which their faith is interested, are concerned. So that, when Iam
called upon to believe a great deal more than the oldest Gospel
tells me about the final events of the history of Jesus on the
authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv, 5-8), I must pause. Did he
think it, at any subsequent time, worth while “to confer with
flesh and blood,” or, in modern phrase, to re-examine the facts for
himself ? or was he ready to accept anything that fitted in with
his preconceived ideas ? Does he mean, when he speaks of all the
appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if they were of the
same kind, that they were all visions, like the manifestation to
himself ? And, finally, how is this account to be reconciled with
those in the first and the third Gospels—which, as we have seen,
disagree with one another ?

Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid
that, so far as I am concerned, Paul’s testimony can not be seri-
ously regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of
traditional opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55
and 60 A.D.; that is, more than twenty years after the event ; a pe-
riod much more than sufficient for the development of any amount
of mythology about matters of which nothing was really known.
A few years later, among the contemporaries and neighbors of the
Jews, and, if the most probable interpretation of thé Apocalypse
can be trusted, among the followers of Jesus also, it was fully
believed, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor
Nero was not really dead, but that he was hidden away somewhere
in the East, and would speedily come again at the head of a great
army, to be revenged upon his enemies.

Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that
Dr. Wace’s challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the
Lord’s Prayer, and the Passion, was more valorous than discreet.
After all this discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me,
first, what Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I
will tell you whether I believe him, or in him,* or not! As Dr.
Wace admits that I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief
about the bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done
something to help mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total
want of conception of the nature of the obstacles which impede
the conversion of his “ infidels.”

The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of

* T am very sorry for the interpolated “in,” because citation ought to be accurate in
small things as in great. But what difference it makes whether one “believes Jesus” or
“believes in Jesus” much thought has not enabled me to discover. If you “believe him”
you must believe him to be what he professed to be—that is, “believe in him”; and if you
“believe in him” you must necessarily “believe him.”

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon
on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, or any other data offered by the
synoptic Gospels (and a fortiori from the fourth Gospel) are insu-
perable. Every one of these records is colored by the preposses-
sions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose and of
those by whom they were collected and edited ; and the difficulty
of making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our
ignorance of the exact dates at which the documents were first
put together ; of the extent to which they have been subsequently
worked over and interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want
of sense, and the dogmatic tendencies, of their compilers and edit-
ors. Let us see if there is any other road which will take us into
something better than negation.

There is a wide-spread notion that the “ primitive Church,”
while under the guidance of the apostles and their immediate
successors, was a sort of dogmatic dove-cote, pervaded by the most
loving unity and doctrinal harmony. Protestants, especially, are
fond of attributing to themselves the merit of being nearer “the
Church of the apostles” than their neighbors; and they are the
less to be excused for their strange delusion because they are great
readers of the documents which prove the exact contrary. The
fact is that, in the course of the first three centuries of its exist-
ence, the Church rapidly underwent a process of evolution of the
most remarkable character, the final stage of which is far more
different from the first than Anglicanism is from Quakerism.
The key to the comprehension of the problem of the origin of
that which is now called “Christianity,” and its relation to Jesus
of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound conclusion
as to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did without
being clear on this head. By far the most important and subse-
quently influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took
place in the course of the century, more or less, which followed
upon the crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church
history, but, most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the
period are brightly illuminated by the contemporary evidence of
two writers of whose historical existence there is no doubt,* and
against the genuineness of whose most important works there is
no widely admitted objection. These are Justin, the philosopher
and martyr, and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall call
upon these witnesses only to testify to the condition of opinion
among those who called themselves disciples of Jesus in their
time.

Justin, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written
somewhere about the middle of the second century, enumerates

* True for Justin ; but there is a school of theological critics, who more or less question
the historical reality of Paul and the genuineness of even the four cardinal epistles.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 177

certain categories of persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not,
be saved.* These are:

1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that Jesus is the
Christ. Not saved.

2. Jews who observe the law; believe Jesus to be the Christ ;
but who insist on the observance of the law by Gentile converts.
Not saved.

3. Jews who observe the law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and
hold that Gentile converts need not observe the law. Saved (in Jus-
tin’s opinion ; but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).

4, Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who
observe the law. Saved (possibly).

5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do not observe

‘the law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices),
but do not consider those who do observe it heretics. Saved (this
is Justin’s own view).

6. Gentile believers who do not observe the law except in
refusing idol sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be
heretics. Saved.

%. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call them-
selves Christians. but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. Not saved.

8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. Not saved.

Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural
birth of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable
minority, to be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the pre-
ternatural birth of Jesus and his pre-existence as the “ Logos” or
“Word.” He conceives the Logos to be a second God, inferior to
the first, unknowable, God, with respect to whom Justin, like
Philo, is a complete agnostic. The Holy Spirit is not regarded
by Justin as a separate personality, and is often mixed up with
the “Logos.” The doctrine of the natural immortality of the
soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a believer in the
resurrection of the body as in the speedy second coming and the
establishment of the millennium.

This pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century—
a much-traveled native of Samaria—was certainly well acquainted
with Rome, probably with Alexandria, and it is likely that he
knew the state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of
the Christian world as well as any man of his time. If the various
categories above enumerated are arranged in a series thus—

Justin's Christianity.
ase aa

Orthodox Judco - Christianity. Tdolothytic
Judaism. —————— Christianity. Paganism.
I II Ill IV iV VE ere Vie VIII

* See “ Dial. cum Tryphone,” sections 47 and 35. It is to be understood that Justin
does not arrange these categories in order as I have done.
VOL. Xxxvy.—12

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox
Judaism, on the extreme left, to paganism, whether philosophic
or popular, on the extreme right; and it will further be observed
that, while Justin’s conception of Christianity is very broad, he
rigorously excludes two classes of persons who, in his time, called
themselves Christians; namely, those who insist on circumcision
and other observances of the law on the part of Gentile converts ;
that is to say, the strict Judzeo-Christians (II), and, on the other
hand, those who assert the lawfulness of eating meat offered to
idols—whether they are gnostics or not (VII). These last I have
called “idolothytic” Christians, because I can not devise a better
name, not because it is strictly defensible etymologically.

At the present moment I do not suppose there is an English mis-
sionary in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether
the materials of his dinner had been previously offered to idols or
not. On the other hand, I suppose there is no Protestant sect
within the pale of orthodoxy, to say nothing of the Roman and
Greek Churches, which would hesitate to declare the practice of
circumcision and the observance of the Jewish Sabbath and diet-
ary rules, shockingly heretical.

Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the
right of Justin’s position, but it is of much narrower compass.

Justin.
re
Judeo- Christianity. Modern Christianity. Paganism.
JULIUS.) aaa TS ——————
I II lil IV Vv VI Vil Vill

For, though it includes VII, and even, in saint and relic worship,
cuts a “monstrous cantle” out of paganism, it excludes, not only
all Judzo-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics.
Ever since the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have
cheerfully burned, and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons
who came under the categories II, III, IV, V. And the wolf would
play the same havoc now if it could only get its blood-stained jaws
free from the muzzle imposed by the secular arm.

Further, there is not a Protestant body except the Unitarian,
which would not declare Justin himself a heretic, on account of
his doctrine of the inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very
much afraid that, in strict logic, Dr. Wace would be under the
necessity, so painful to him, of calling him an “infidel,” on the
same and on other grounds.

Now let us turn to our other authority. If there is any result
of critical investigations of the sources of Christianity which is
certain,* it is that Paul of Tarsus wrote the Epistle to the Gala-

* TI guard myself against being supposed to affirm that even the four cardinal epistles
of Paul may not have been seriously tampered with. See no e on page 176.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 179

tians somewhere between the years 55 and 60 A. D., that is to say,
roughly, twenty, or five-and-twenty, years after the crucifixion.
If this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if
not the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state
of the primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul’s writ-
ing, it unquestionably furnishes us with the evidence of a partici-
pator in the transactions narrated. With the exception of two or
three of the other Pauline epistles, there is not one solitary book
in the New Testament of the authorship and authority of which
we have such good evidence.

And what is the state of things we find disclosed ? A bitter
quarrel, in his account of which Paul by no means minces matters
or hesitates to hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were “ re-
puted to be pillars”: James, “the brother of the Lord,’ Peter, the
rock on whom Jesus is said to have built his Church, and John,
“the beloved disciple.” And no deference toward “the rock”
withholds Paul from charging Peter to his face with “dissimu-
lation.”

The subject of the hot dispute was simply this: Were Gentile
converts bound to obey the law or not ? Paul answered in the
negative; and, acting upon his opinion, had created at Antioch
(and elsewhere) a specifically “Christian” community, the sole
qualifications for admission into which were the confession of the
belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and baptism upon that confes-
sion. In the epistle in question, Paul puts this—his “ gospel,” as
he calls it—in its most extreme form. Not only does he deny the
necessity of conformity with the law, but he declares such con-
formity to have a negative value. “Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing”
(Galatians v, 2). He calls the legal observances “ beggarly rudi-
ments,” and anathematizes every one who preaches to the Gala-
tians any other gospel than his own—that is to say, by direct con-
sequence, he anathematizes the Jerusalem Nazarenes whose zeal
for the law is testified by James in a passage of the Acts cited
further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, dealing with
the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear that Paul
himself thinks it a matter of indifference; but he advises that it
should not be done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On the
other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed
Paul’s “ gospel,” insisting on every convert becoming a regular
Jewish proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole
law ; and this party was led by James and Peter and John (Gala-
tians i, 9). Paul does not suggest that the question of principle
was settled by the discussion referred to in Galatians. All he
says is that it ended in the practical agreement that he and Bar-
nabas should do as they had been doing in respect of the Gentiles ;

180 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while James and Peter and John should deal in their own fashion
with Jewish converts. Afterward he complains bitterly of Peter,
because, when on a visit to Antioch, he at first inclined to Paul’s
view, and ate with the Gentile converts; but when “certain came
from James,” “drew back, and separated himself, fearing them
that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews dissem-
bled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas was carried
away with their dissimulation” (Galatians 1i, 12, 13).

There is but one conclusion to be drawn from Paul’s account
of this famous dispute, the settlement of which determined the
fortunes of the nascent religion. It is that the disciples at Jeru-
salem, headed by “ James, the Lord’s brother,” and by the leading
apostles, Peter and John, were strict Jews, who objected to admit
any converts to their body, unless these, either by birth or by be-
coming proselytes, were also strict Jews. In fact, the sole differ-
ence between James and Peter and John, with the body of disci-
ples whom they led, and the Jews by whom they were surrounded,
and with whom they for many years shared the religious obsery-
ances of the Temple, was that they believed that the Messiah,
whom the leaders of the nation yet looked for, had already come
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Acts of the Apostles is hardly a very trustworthy history ;
it is certainly of later date than the Pauline epistles, supposing
them to be genuine. And the writer’s version of the conference
of which Paul gives so graphic a description, if that is correct, is
unmistakably colored with all the art of a reconciler, anxious to
cover up a scandal. But it is none the less instructive on this
account. The judgment of the “council” delivered by James is
that the Gentile converts shall merely “abstain from things sacri-
ficed to idols, and from blood and from things strangled, and from
fornication.” But notwithstanding the accommodation in which
the writer of the Acts would have us believe, the Jerusalem
church held to its endeavor to retain the observance of the law.
Long after the conference, some time after the writing of the
Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, and immediately after
the dispatch of that to the Romans, Paul makes his last visit to
Jerusalem, and presents himself to James and all the elders. And
this is what the Acts tells us of the interview:

And they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands (or myri-
ads) there are among the Jews of them which have believed; and they are all
zealous for the law: and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou
teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling
them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs (Acts —
xxi, 20, 21).

They therefore request that he should perform a certain public re-
ligious act in the Temple, in order that

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 181

all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof they have been in-
formed concerning thee; but that thou thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law
(ibid., 24).

How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and
which the writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear
conscience, if he wrote the epistles to the Galatians and Corinth-
ians, I may leave any candid reader of those epistles to decide.
The point to which I wish to direct attention is the declaration
that the Jerusalem church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his
personal disciples and friends, twenty years and more after his
death, consisted of strict and zealous Jews.

Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal dissen-
sions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a “ringleader of
the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts xxiv, 5), which must have af-
fected James much in the same way as it would have moved the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in George Fox’s day, to hear the latter
called a“ ringleader of the sect of Anglicans.” In fact, “ Nazarene”
was, as is well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus ;
his immediate followers were known as Nazarenes, while the con-
gregation of the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem—
the Jerusalem church—was emphatically the “sect of the Naza-
renes,” no more in itself to be regarded as anything outside Juda-
ism than the sect of the Sadducees or of the Essenes.* In fact, the
tenets of both the Sadducees and the Essenes diverged much
more widely from the Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than Naz-
arenism did.

Let us consider the position of affairs now (A. D. 50-60) in rela-
tion to that which obtained in Justin’s time, a century later. It
is plain that the Nazarenes—presided over by James “the brother
of the Lord,” and comprising within their body all the twelve
apostles—belonged to Justin’s second category of “Jews who ob-
serve the law, believe Jesus to be the Christ, but who insist on
the observance of the law by Gentile converts,” up till the time
at which the controversy reported by Paul arosé. They then, ac-
cording to Paul, simply allowed him to form his congregation of
non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and elsewhere; and it would
seem that it was to these converts, who would come under Justin’s
fifth category, that the title of “Christian” was first applied. If
any of these Christians had acted upon the more than half-per-
mission given by Paul, and had eaten meats offered to idols, they
would have belonged to Justin’s seventh category.

Hence, it appears that, if Justin’s opinion, which was doubtless
that of the church generally in the middle of the second century,
was correct, James and Peter and John and their followers could

* All this was quite clearly pointed out by Ritschl nearly forty years ago. See “Die
Entstehung der alt-katholischen Kirche” (1850), p. 108.

182 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not be saved; neither could Paul, if he carried into practice his
views as to the indifference of eating meats offered to idols. Or,
to put the matter another way, the center of gravity of orthodoxy,
which is at the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth cent-
ury, was at the extreme left, just before the middle of the first
century, when the “sect of the Nazarenes” constituted the whole
church founded by Jesus and the apostles; while, in the time of
Justin, it lay midway between the two. It is therefore a profound
mistake to imagine that the Judzo-Christians (Nazarenes and
Ebionites) of later times were heretical outgrowths from a primi-
tive, universalist “ Christianity.” On the contrary, the universal-
ist “Christianity ” is an outgrowth from the primitive, purely Jew-
ish, Nazarenism; which, gradually eliminating all the ceremonial
and dietary parts of the Jewish law, has thrust aside its parent,
and all the intermediate stages of its development, into the posi-
tion of damnable heresies.

Such being the case, we are in a position to form a safe judg-
ment of the limits within which the teaching of Jesus of Naza-
reth must have been confined. Kcclesiastical authority would
have us believe that the words which are given at the end of the
first Gospel, “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the na-
tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost,” are part of the last commands of Jesus,
issued at the moment of his parting with the eleven. If so, Peter
and John must have heard these words; they are too plain to be
misunderstood ; and the occasion is too solemn for them to be ever
forgotten. Yet the “ Acts” tells us that Peter needed a vision to
enable him so much as to baptize Cornelius; and Paul, in the Ga-
latians, knows nothing of words which would have completely
borne him out as against those who, though they heard, must be
supposed to have either forgotten or ignored them. On the other
hand, Peter and John, who are supposed to have heard the “Ser-
mon on the Mount,” know nothing of the saying that Jesus had
not come to destroy the law, but that every jot and tittle of the
law must be fulfilled, which surely would have been pretty good
evidence for their view of the question.

We are sometimes told that the personal friends and daily
companions of Jesus remained zealous Jews and opposed Paul’s
innovations, because they were hard of heart and dull of compre-
hension. This hypothesis is hardly in accordance with the con-
comitant faith of those who adopt it, in the miraculous insight and
superhuman sagacity of their Master; nor do I see any way of
getting it to harmonize with the other orthodox postulate; namely,
that Matthew was the author of the first Gospel and John of the
fourth. If that is so, then, most assuredly, Matthew was no dul-
lard; and as for the fourth Gospel—a theosophic romance of the

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 183

first order—it could have been written by none but a man of
remarkable literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alexandrian
philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of the writer of the fourth
Gospel is more remote from that of the “sect of the Nazarenes”
than is that of Paul himself. Iam quite aware that orthodox crit-
ics have been capable of maintaining that John, the Nazarene,
who was probably well past fifty years of age when he is supposed
to have written the most thoroughly Judaizing book in the New
Testament—the Apocalypse—in the roughest of Greek, under-
went an astounding metamorphosis of both doctrine and style
by the time he reached the ripe age of ninety or so, and pro-
vided the world with a history in which the acutest critic can
not make out where the speeches of Jesus end and the text of
the narrative begins; while that narrative is utterly irreconcila-
ble in regard to matters of fact with that of his fellow-apostle,
Matthew.

The end of the whole matter is this: The “sect of the Naza-
renes,” the brother and the immediate followers of Jesus, commis-
sioned by him as apostles, and those who were taught by them up
to the year 50 A. D., were not “Christians” in the sense in which
that term has been understood ever since its asserted origin at
Antioch, but Jews—strict orthodox Jews—whose belief in the Mes-
siahship of Jesus never led to their exclusion from the Temple
services, nor would have shut them out from the wide embrace of
Judaism.* The open proclamation of their special view about the
Messiah was doubtless offensive to the Pharisees, just as rampant
Low Churchism is offensive to bigoted High Churchism in our
own country ; or as any kind of dissent is offensive to fervid relig-
ionists of all creeds. To the Sadducees, no doubt, the political dan-
ger of any Messianic movement was serious, and they would have
been glad to put down Nazarenism, lest it should end in useless
rebellion against their Roman masters, like that other Galilean
movement headed by Judas, a generation earlier. Galilee was
always a hot-bed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of Rome;
and high priest and procurator alike had need to keep a sharp eye
upon natives of that district. On the whole, however, the Naza-
renes were but little troubled for the first twenty years of their
existence ; and the undying hatred of the Jews against those later
converts whom they regarded as apostates and fautors of a sham
Judaism was awakened by Paul. From their point of view, he
was a mere renegade Jew, opposed alike to orthodox Judaism and
to orthodox Nazarenism, and whose teachings threatened Judaism

* “Tf every one was baptized as soon as he acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah, the

first Christians can have been aware of no other essential differences from the Jews.”—
Zeller, “‘ Vortrige” (1865), p. 216.

184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with destruction. And, from their point of view, they were quite
right. In the course of a century, Pauline influences had a large
share in driving primitive Nazarenism from being the very heart
of the new faith into the position of scouted error; and the spirit
of Paul’s doctrine continued its work of driving Christianity fur-
ther and further away from Judaism, until “ meats offered to idols”
might be eaten without scruple, while the Nazarene methods of
observing even the Sabbath or the Passover were branded with
the mark of Judaizing heresy.

But if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speaks were
orthodox Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus
was anything else? How can he have founded the universal
religion which was not heard of till twenty years after his death ? *
That Jesus possessed in a rare degree the gift of attaching men
to his person and to his fortunes; that he was the author of many
a striking saying, and the advocate of equity, of love, and of humil-
ity ; that he may have disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for
legal observance, and appealed rather to those noble conceptions
of religion which constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching
of the great prophets of his nation seven hundred years earlier;
and that, in the last scenes of his career, he may have embodied
the ideal sufferer of Isaiah—may be, as I think it is, extremely
probable. But all this involves not a step beyond the borders of
orthodox Judaism. Again, who is to say whether Jesus proclaimed
himself the veritable Messiah, expected by his nation since the
appearance of the pseudo-prophetic work of Daniel, a century and
a half before his time; or whether the enthusiasm of his follow-
ers gradually forced him to assume that position ?

But one thing is quite certain: if that belief in the speedy sec-
ond coming of the Messiah which was shared by all parties in the
primitive church, whether Nazarene or Pauline; which Jesus is
made to prophesy, over and over again, in the synoptic Gospels;
and which dominated the life of Christians during the first cent-
ury after the crucifixion—if he believed and taught that, then
assuredly he was under an illusion, and he is responsible for that
which the mere effluxion of time has demonstrated to be a pro-
digious error. .

When I ventured to doubt “ whether any Protestant theologian
who has a reputation to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene
story,” it appears that I reckoned without Dr. Wace, who, referring
to this passage in my paper, says:

* Dr. Harnack, in the lately published second edition of his ‘‘ Dogmengeschichte,” says
(p. 39), “Jesus Christ brought forward no new doctrine”; and again (p. 65), “It is not diffi-
cult to set against every portion of the utterances of Jesus an observation which deprives
him of originality.” See also Zusatz 4, on the same page.

AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 185

He will judge whether I fall under his description; but I repeat that I believe
it, and that he has removed the only objection to my believing it.*

Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge of any such deli-
cate question as that put before me; but I think I may venture
to express the conviction that, in the matter of courage, Dr. Wace
has raised for himself a monument wre perennius. For, really, in
my poor judgment, a certain splendid intrepidity, such as one ad-
mires in the leader of a forlorn hope, is manifested by Dr. Wace
when he solemnly affirms that he believes the Gadarene story on
the evidence offered. I feel less complimented perhaps than I
ought to do, when I am told that I have been an accomplice in
extinguishing in Dr. Wace’s mind the last glimmer of doubt which
common sense may have suggested. In fact, I must disclaim all
responsibility for the use to which the information I supplied has
been put. I formally decline to admit that the expression of my
ignorance whether devils, in the existence of which I do not be-
lieve, if they did exist, might or might not be made to go out of
men into pigs, can, as a matter of logic, have been of any use what-
ever to a person who already believed in devils and in the histori-
cal accuracy of the Gospels.

Of the Gadarene story, Dr. Wace, with all solemnity and twice
over, affirms that he “believes it.” I am sorry to trouble him fur-
ther, but what does he mean by “it”? Because there are two sto-
ries, one in “ Mark” and “Luke,” and the other in “ Matthew.”
In the former, which I quoted in my previous paper, there is one
possessed man; in the latter there are two. The story is told
fully, with the vigorous, homely diction and the picturesque details
of a piece of folk-lore, in the second Gospel. The immediately ante-
cedent event is the storm on the Lake of Gennesareth. The imme-.
diately consequent events are the message from the ruler of the
synagogue and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood.
In the third Gospel, the order of events is exactly the same, and
there is an extremely close general and verbal correspondence
between the narratives of the miracle. Both agree in stating that
there was only one possessed man, and that he was the residence
of many devils, whose name was “ Legion.”

In the first Gospel, the event which immediately precedes the
Gadarene affair is, as before, the storm; the message from the
ruler and the healing of the issue are separated from it by the
accounts of the healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew,
and of a discussion with some Pharisees. Again, while the sec-
ond Gospel speaks of the country of the “Gerasenes ” as the local-
ity of the event, the third Gospel has “Gerasenes,” “ Gergesenes,”
and “ Gadarenes” in different ancient MSS.; while the first has
“ Gadarenes.” |

* “ Popular Science Monthly ” for May, 1889, p. 76.
VOL. Xxxv.—12*

186 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The really important points to be noticed, however, in the nar-
rative of the first Gospel, are these—that there are two possessed
men instead of one; and that while the story is abbreviated by
omissions, what there is of it is often verbally identical with the
corresponding passages in the other two Gospels. The most un-
abashed of reconcilers can not well say that one man is the same
as two, ortwo as one; and, though the suggestion really has been
made, that two different miracles, agreeing in all essential particu-
lars, except the number of the possessed, were effected immedi-
ately after the storm on the lake, I should be sorry to accuse any
one of seriously adopting it. Nor will it be pretended that the
allegory refuge is accessible in this particular case.

So, when Dr. Wace says that he believes in the synoptic evan-
gelists’ account of the miraculous bedevilment of swine, I may
fairly ask which of them does he believe ? Does he hold by the
one evangelist’s story, or by that of the two evangelists? And
having made his election, what reasons has he to give for his
choice? If itis suggested that the witness of two is to be taken
against that of one, not only is the testimony dealt with in that
common-sense fashion against which theologians of his school
protest so warmly; not only is all question of inspiration at an
‘end, but the further inquiry arises, after all, is it the testimony of
two against one? Are the authors of the versions in the second
and the third Gospels really independent witnesses ? In order to
answer this question, it is only needful to place the English ver-
sions of the two side by side, and compare them carefully. It will
then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in
substance, but in arrangement, and in the use of identical words
in the same order, are such, that only two alternatives are con-
ceivable: either one evangelist freely copied from the other, or
both based themselves upon a common source, which may either
have been a written document, or a definite oral tradition learned
by heart. Assuredly, these two testimonies are not those of inde-
pendent witnesses. Further, when the narrative in the first
Gospel is compared with that in the other two, the same fact
comes out.

Supposing, then, that Dr. Wace is right in his assumption that
Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote the works which we find attrib-
uted to them by tradition, what is the value of their agreement,
even that something more or less like this particular miracle oc-
curred, since it is demonstrable, either that all depend on some
antecedent statement, of the authorship of which nothing is known,
or that two are dependent upon the third ?

Dr. Wace says he believes the Gadarene story; whichever
version of it he accepts, therefore, he believes that Jesus said what
he is stated in all the versions to have said, and thereby virtually

FUNGI. 187

declared that the theory of the nature of the spiritual world in-
volved in the story is true. Now I hold that this theory is false,
that it is a monstrous and mischievous fiction; and I unhesitat-
ingly express my disbelief in any assertion that it is true, by
whomsoever made. So that, if Dr. Wace is right in his belief, he
is also quite right in classing me among the people he calls “ infi-
dels”; and although I can not fulfill the eccentric expectation of
the Bishop of Peterborough, that I shall glory in a title which,
from my point of view, it would be simply silly to adopt, I cer-
tainly shall rejoice not to be reckoned among the bishop’s “us
Christians” so long as the profession of belief in such stories as
the Gadarene pig affair, on the strength of a tradition of unknown
origin, of which two discrepant reports, also of unknown origin,
alone remain, forms any part of the Christian faith. And, al-
though I have, more than once, repudiated the gift of prophecy,
yet I think I may venture to express the anticipation, that if
“Christians” generally are going to follow the line taken by the
Bishop of Peterborough and Dr. Wace, it will not be long’ before
all men of common sense qualify for a place among the “ infidels.”
—Nineteenth Century.

FUNGI.
I.—TOADSTOOLS AND MUSHROOMS.*

By T. H. McBRIDE,
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

a fungi as aclass may hardly be called popular. For va-
rious reasons they are, so to speak, under a cloud. They are
little known, and so in lieu of better information the legend “ poi-
son” seems to run for all the finer and more showy species. If
not held absolutely poisonous, most are at least considered useless
and are nameless. Literature, the all-embracing, which concerns
itself freely with other forms of animate nature, draws a line at
the fungi; and Browning evinces great boldness when he ventures
to touch with the wand of his poesy “the freaked, fawn-colored,
flaky crew” that rises in November hours.

Worse than all this, thanks to the imperfect knowledge of days
not long gone by, the very word fwngus is uncanny, and to most
minds of vague, uncertain application, suggestive of things unpleas-
ant, not to say direful. For what, forsooth, isa fungus? <A wily
invader which, having by some unguarded entrance gained access,
may do all sorts of mischief; may fill our cellar, for instance, and
turn us out of house and home, as one is reputed to have filled the

* Tilustrations from drawings by M. F. Linder and the author.

188 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cellar of the wine merchant, barring the door from within and
threatening summary eviction and what not! is it not a fearful
parasite which, having found lodging in the tissues of its unwill-
ing host, swells to proportions vast, a hidden tumor, sending its
human victim all too soon forth from his tenement of clay ?

Even when not thus associated with the destruction of nobler
forms, fungi are nevertheless held suspect. At best and largest
they are odd, peculiar, hiding in out-of-the-way places, far from
“the warm precincts of the cheerful day”; “off color,’ as men
say, and owing little or no allegiance to our sovereign sun; pale,
ghastly things whose homes are with the dead.

It remained for modern Science to dignify the world ; nothing
shall be stranger to her touch benign. Even the fungi come into
prominence as they come into light. Odd as they may appear and ~
mysterious too, they, like some odd and peculiar people, do greatly
improve upon acquaintance. Certainly no one can look in upon
a basket of Boleti fresh from August woods and not greatly
admire their delicate tints, their yellows, purples, browns, and
grays. Fungi, once for all, are plants, for the most part very sim-
ple ones too; in their larger forms more commonly useful than
noxious, and positively sources of serious injury and detriment in
those species only which to mankind at large are unseen, unknown,
and unsuspected. To these reference will be made again; for the
present let us consider such forms only as meet the eye of ordinary
observation, the common denizens of forest and of field.

Assuming the vegetable nature of fungi, the most notable thing
about them, as compared with all surrounding vegetation, 1s their
color. Growing plants are green; Whitney says the words are
synonymous. But whatever the colors fungi may take on, and
they are often brilliantly tinted, they are never green, at any rate
in the sense of possessing leaf-green. Without exception the fungi
are chlorophyl-less. This, though a negative quality, is, neverthe-
less, a very convenient one, and withal expressive, for it defines
exactly the place these plants must hold in the economy of nature.
Chlorophyl, as is well known, gives to ordinary plants their special
and peculiar ability, namely, the power to elaborate the most im-
portant organic products—starch, sugar, and the like. This power,
accordingly, the chlorophyl-less fungi have not. They are strictly
non-productive plants ; all that they have they receive. Likewise
bringing to the feast of life naught save appetite, they must needs
lay under contribution, living or dead, the whole organic world,
and are parasites or saprophytes according to their dietary habits.
Such as derive their nourishment from dead organic matter are
saprophytes, while those which assail living organisms, and derive
food-supply direct from the living tissues of living hosts, are prop-
erly enough called parasites.

FUNGI. 189

Somehow or other, through sympathy perhaps, we are more will-
ing to pardon saprophytism than parasitism pure and simple, and
Nature apparently takes the same view of the case, for the sapro-
phytes include all the largest and finest specimens of the fungus
kind. Mushrooms, toadstools, earth-stars, puff-balls, stink-horns,
truffles, bracket-fungi, are nearly without exception saprophytes.
Such fungi, too, as we see, have won attention and enjoy something
of a popular classification. This classification science largely con-
firms—not wholly ; and it is interesting to notice that it is just
where the popular classification is weak that science fails to dis-
cover difference. Many a country wight and many an epicure as
well would deem it rare fortune could he learn to distinguish inva-
riably toadstools from mushrooms. Suppose we say that toad-
stools are poisonous while mushrooms are not. A toadstool, accord-
ingly, 1s a poisonous mushroom, and a mushroom is an edible toad-
stool. The only possible means, therefore, by which the two may
be distinguished is a test direct, as in the old rule which bids the
inquirer eat with the assurance that, if he survive, he has eaten a
mushroom; if he die, a toadstool. But some species poisonous to
one person are by no means so to another; so that even the rule
just quoted is unsatisfactory on the score of being inconclusive, as
well as inconvenient of application. Even Agaricus muscarius,
esteemed so very poisonous to ordinary mortals, is said to produce
in the Kamtchatkan simply an increase of that pleasing stupidity
which the Chinaman seeks in his opium-bowl or the American in

‘his beer. Furthermore, Science runs
her lines not as between toadstools and
mushrooms, but as between specific
forms. Poisonous and not poisonous,
edible and inedible, are side by side in
any enumeration of species. Let it be
once known which are edible species,
and these may thereafter be readily
recognized by any one competent to
discern a species—no easy matter, by
the way, even to the practiced student.

So much for popular estimate and
classification. Let us now briefly con-
sider fungi from the standpoint of
structure, the true basis of classifica-
tion or distinction. A bit of mold
placed on the stage of our microscope
will enable us to make a beginning (Fig.
1). Here we have cells, of course, tubular in shape and disposed
to form thread-like branches in different directions. These
threads are known as hyphe, and fungi generally are masses of

Fig. 1.—FRvuIT oF GREEN MoLp
(Penicillium glaucum).

190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

\

hyphze modified here and there to the accomplishment of vari-
ous functions. Fungi, like other organisms, have two principal
things to do—viz., to accumulate energy and to expend it; to
grow and to produce fruit. The hyphe of a fungus are, there-
fore, in ordinary cases of two sorts—nutrient hyphe forming the
~ mycelium, and fruiting hyphe which make up the fructification.
In what we term puff-ball, mushroom, we have simply the fruc-
tification—the fruiting hyphz—all compacted together, while the
mycelium lies hidden beneath the surface. When, however, we
pluck the mushroom from its place, the mycelium may perhaps
seldom be discovered. There are for this two reasons: first, the
mycelial threads are generally tenuous and delicate in the ex-
treme, and unless crowded together escape observation ; and, sec-
ondly, once the fructification or colony of mushrooms is formed,
the energy of the mycelium having passed above the surface, the
threads vanish. Only in special cases, or where the fructification
is unusually large, and the number of hyphe converging at a
single point in consequence very great, do we find root-like
structures that are at once obvious and persistent. Fugacious as
the mycelium thus appears, it is really in many—perhaps most—
cases much longer-lived than the fructification it creates. Months
—possibly in some instances years—elapse while the subterranean
hyphal threads ramifying and spreading through myriad dimin-
utive tunnels are ingathering to some single center those re-
sources of nutriment and energy which shall at length break
forth with a suddenness and volume utterly astounding. In my
neighbor’s yard, not long ago, appeared a succession of giant
puff-balls one after another, sometimes two or three at a time,
over an area of perhaps thirty by forty feet. In size the plants
ranged from the dimensions of a goose-egg to that of a half-
bushel, and the amount of matter raised above the surface was
little less than one hundred pounds. The largest fruit seemed
simply sessile, hardly attached to the substratum, while others,
smaller, showed something like a tap-root, white, cord-like, ex-
tending a few inches downward—not a root, certainly, rather the
undeveloped base of the ball itself. Whence had all this wealth
of organic matter come, and what was the meaning of it all ?
The previous existence of a wood-yard on the locality affords
probable explanation of the phenomenon. Through and through
the accumulated detritus of the old wood-yard the mycelium of
the puff-ball had literally threaded its way, developing perchance
for years over an area of not less than twelve hundred square
feet, restoring again for the moment to the kingdom of life and
light organic matter which seemed fallen into ruin irretrievable.

Turning our attention now to the fructification, we shall find
our mushroom to consist of the following parts: A short stalk,

FUNGI, gl

or stem, crowned with a cap, the pilews. This cap consists of an
expanded disk, bearing on its lower surface hundreds of radiat-
ing plates, the gills or lamelle, with sharp edges and delicately
tinted, velvety sides. Cut a section perpendic-
ular to the course of these plates or gills, and
we have a comb-like structure which under a
good lens presents the appearance portrayed in
Fig. 2. Under still better lenses we may discover
on each gill-section a marginal row of rather
large cylindric cells, each bearing at its sum-
mit a pair of smaller cells manifestly formed
by abstriction from diverging branches of the
larger cell (see Fig. 3). The small cells are the
spores, and the supporting cell but the term1-
nus of an extended and much-branched hypha,
Fie. 2.—Srction or raz Which has blended with a myriad like itself to
oe common form stalk and cap and gill of our completed
mushroom. That is the whole structure, and
yet from such simple machinery behold what wealth and variety
of form and style come forth! Other modes of spore-production
there are to be hereafter seen, but that described is characteristic
of the vast majority of those
greater fungi which occupy
the shadows of our world. To
begin with, there are hun-
dreds of species of agarics,
fungi like the mushroom,
differing from each other in
matters of form and color
chiefly, the attachment of
stipe and gills, the stability
and instability of the entire
structure. Some, as the “ink-
caps” (Coprinus), spring in
the night and vanish in inky
dissolution ere the sun as-
cends to midday; others, as
the little woolly fungus with
cleft gills (Schizophyllum),
so common on fallen branch-
es everywhere, survive the
storms of many seasons and outlast the substratum on which they
grow. Fig. 3 shows the elegant curvature of the cleft gill-plates,
and the order in which they appear. New ones are constantly
intercalated between those already formed.
In all these the lamellee run out in rays and remain quite gen-

Fie. 3.—ScHIZOPHYLLUM COMMUNE, cross-section.

192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

erally distinct from one another; but here follows a series in
which these plates all intersect, or wander in many a winding
line and labyrinthine pattern (Dedalea, Trametes, etc.), until the
intersections become so numerous as to form a perfect honey-
comb whose cells are minute pores. The gummy, golden Boleti
of the woodlands, and the common brack-
et-fungi (Polyporus) of every stump and
log in all the forest, are examples.

Even the puff-ball family —another
section of the greater fungi—form their
fruit in agaric fashion, and the connection
between our mushroom and the giant
“uffer,” though at first sight remote, is
yet not far to seek. It must be remem-
bered that mushrooms when first emerg-
ing from the ground are quite contracted
and closed, often like a closed umbrella—
Fig. 4.—Srconium WARNET, ver- one of the old-fashioned sort, puckered

tical section. i : : :

around the margin with a string. Split
such a mushroom at this stage, and all the lamellez will be found
with their edges close pressed against the sides of the stipes, the
edge of the pileus close drawn
round the bottom. Now, in au-
tumn we may find a fungus look-
ing exactly like an unopened toad-
stool; but you watch its opening
in vain—it never opens. The
puckering string never relaxes,
the lamelle never leave the stipe,
but are indeed grown fast against
it, and with maturity become
wrinkled in myriad folds, finally
to break down entirely, leaving a
mass of dusty brown spores which
escape only with the final rupture
of the fragile, unexpanded pileus
(Fig. 4). From such a fungus the
puff-ball differs chiefly in degree ;
the spores are borne upon threads
and fill up definite cavities, one
or more, and are discharged, as
in the case just described, by the
rupture of the inclosing tissues.
These latter here constitute a defi-
nite wall—the peridium. This may break open irregularly, or it
may break regularly, throwing back from the top its pointed lobes

Fig. 5.—GEASTER FORNICATUS (after Morgan).

FUNGI. 193

in roseate and star-like forms—earth-stars, beautiful as they are
curious, and offering a singularly perfect mechanism for the dis-
persal of the spores. Here is an earth-star (Fig. 5) whose peridium
consists of three coats—two outer, strong and leathery, and one
inner, delicate, silk-like. The whole structure is developed as a
smooth white ball beneath the soil. But, once the spores are ripe,
the outermost peridium splits open at the top, its lobes spring
backward and outward, giving room for the second covering to
burst in similar fashion. The lobes of the second, however, by
recurving, hoist the entire inner structure out of the ground and
up into the air, where the inner peridium, enthroned thus upon
springing arches, groined by no human hand, opens at tip a
purse-like mouth, and suffers the spores slowly to escape, to sail on
unknown journeys with the passing breeze.

We have space left but sufficient to mention the fruiting of
the morel. Here we have on the outer upper side of the structure
a layer of rather large elongate cells, quite similar to those on
the mushroom gills; but, instead of abstricted spores on the out-
side of the supporting cells, we find each of the latter a fruit-case
in which are lodged eight elliptical sporules arranged in a row,
formed freely—that is, each entirely independent of the other and
of the cell-wall that incloses all. But this method of fruiting
brings us in sight of the microscopic and parasitic world of fungi,
subject of our next chapter. Here, then, we well might rest; and
yet, ere toadstools, mushrooms, and puffers vanish entirely from
our thought, it were well to note, if but for a moment, the various
titles these organisms wear. The names by which natural objects
are known contain often in primary significance something of
historic epitome; so, in the present case, we may discover the
manner in which the object named first attracted human atten-
tion: the word itself is the record. Thus it appears that the
word fungus, although coming to us from the Latin, is neverthe-
less of Greek origin, and is the same word as that we have angli-
cized in sponge ; so that, according to the earliest record we have,
the sponges of the sea and the fungi (puff-balls ?) of the land
were considered kin. Our Teutonic ancestors seem to have ar-
rived at the same conclusion; and to this day, for a German,
Schwamm is either a sponge or a fungus, as you like it. Nor less
interesting is the etymology of our other common names for such
plants. Toadstool is sufficiently plain, prosaic, and suggestive;
mushroom would seem to be the English adaptation of a French
word, mousseron (something growing in or among moss), evi-
dently pronounced by Englishmen long before spelled, and evinc-
ing the fact that the quick French wit was first to discover the
edible qualities of this as of so many other delicacies.

VoL, XXxV.—13

194 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

FABULOUS ASTRONOMY.*
By Pror. J. C. HOUZEAU.

i iieaves darkness of the night exercised a sort of terror upon the
minds of our ancestors. Just as material existence was sup-
posed to succeed to nothing, and to be followed by it, day succeeds
night, and this, they said, is the origin of time, as the winter is of
the year. The Ostiaks of the Yenisei count their years by the
snows, as also, or by winters, did the Iroquois of North America.
The Numidians, Ceesar’s Gauls, and the Germans of Tacitus, esti-
mated daily periods by the nights. The night had a considerable
importance in‘the North; and the Scandinavians had the most
coherent and most poetical ideas of it. Day was the son of Night.
The latter went first, a passage in the Edda says, mounted on her
horse Rinfax, of the icy mane. Every morning, at the conclusion
of his race, the courser watered the earth with the foam that fell
from his bridle; this was the dew. Day followed, mounted on
Sinfax, of the glowing mane, which lightened up the air and the
earth. These people also believed that the longest night, that of
the winter solstice, begat all the others, and that the world was
created on such a night. Therefore night was called mother.
Midwinter-night, or Yule, was the great annual festival, and
marked the beginning of the new year. The Chaldeans said that
the world began at the autumnal equinox, when the night be-
came longer than the day. The French courts in the seven-
teenth century still ordered clients to appear within fourteen
nights. The English fortnight is a contraction of this term.

The ancient Peruvians said that the moon was dead during the
three days that it is invisible. The Khasias, of northeastern In-
dia, thought that the sun burned it up. Some savage tribes be-
lieve that the lunation is a quarrel between the sun and moon as
husband and wife, identically repeated in every month. The in-
creasing moon represents its gaining the ascefidency, the decrease
its yielding, till at last the sun swallows it and spits its head out
in the sky. The ancient Slavs imagined that the moon was
condemned to wander, for infidelity with the morning star. The
Dakota Indians fancied that the declining moon was eaten by
mice; the Polynesians, by spirits of the dead. The Hottentots
said that, suffering from headache, it covered its face with its
hand; the Eskimos, that, becoming tired and hungry, it retired to
rest and eat, after which it recuperated very fast.

There is probably no country where some kind of a picture has
not been made out of the visible spots on the moon. Two types

* From the “ Bibliographie générale de l’Astronomie,” by MM. Houzeau and Lancaster.

FABULOUS ASTRONOMY. 195

of figures, distributed according to a geographical rule, have pre-
dominated in these fancies. In Eastern Asia, it is a hare or rab-
bit. The Chinese and Japanese make it a hare. sitting on its hind-
quarters, pounding rice ina mortar. The Hindus see a hare or
roe; the Siamese, a hare, or, some of them, a man and woman cul-
tivating their field. The North American and Mexican Indians
symbolize the moon by a hare or rabbit; and some of the Central
American monuments represent it by a jar or spiral shell with a
rabbit coming out from under it. In South America, a human
figure took the place of the hare. The Incas related that a light
young woman, walking in the moonlight, was charmed by the
beauty of the star, and sprang forward to embrace it. The moon
took her up, and has kept her ever since. Some tribes, in both
North and South America, make of the spots a woman bent with
age. In Samoa, they see a woman and her child; on the Book
Islands, men; in Timor, an old woman spinning. The Scandi-
navian Edda relates that Mane, who regulates the course of the
moon in its quarters, placed there two children whom he saw car-
rying a jug of water hung between them from a pole. The Hski-
mos say that Anninga, the moon, brother of the beautiful Mal-
nia, the sun, was pursuing his sister and about to overtake her,
when she turned round and smutted his face and clothes with
her fingers, which she had blackened with the soot of a lamp.
The Khasias say that the spots are the cinders resulting from the
monthly burning up of the moon by the sun.

French peasants variously believe that they see in the moon
the traitor Judas, hanging from an elder-branch; turnip-Jack
wheeling a barrow of stolen turnips; Cain leaning on his spade
and looking at the murdered Abel; a peasant who has been caught
by the moon stealing wood in his lord’s domain; a peasant com-
pelled to freeze in the moon with his bundle of sticks for making
fence on Sunday; a hunter and his dog; or a she-goat and her
keeper by a bush.

Kclipses of the moon attract more attention than those of the
sun, because total ones are more frequently seen than those of the
sun, and the darkness is of longer duration. The Peruvians sup-
posed that they were an illness of the moon, and if total were a
sign of its death, when it would fall to the earth and put an end |
to the world. When one occurred, they would beat upon every-
thing that would make a noise, and chastise their dogs, in the faith
that the star, witnessing the sufferings of the creatures it loved,
would revive itself to save them. All would call upon the heav-
enly powers not to allow the star to die; and, when the light re-
turned, praise was given to the great god Pache-camac, supporter
of the universe, for having restored the moon, and thereby pre-
vented the winding up of human existence.

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

The Caribs, and the Hurons as well, made a great din, upon
drums and kettles, and by rattling loose pebbles in gourds, to
frighten away the terrible demon Maboya, the author of frightful
apparitions, pestilence, thunder, and storms, who was trying to
eat up the moon. The French author Dutestre describes the Car-
ibs, young and old, women and men, as dancing all night long,
with their feet close together, one hand on their heads and the
other on their hips, not singing but shouting lugubriously. Once
beginning to dance, every one had to keep it up till daylight,
without stopping for anything whatever. At the same time a
girl would be shaking a gourd rattle and trying to keep her voice
in tune with the din. While Eskimos were applying somewhat
similar remedies, their women bored the ears of the dogs in the
faith that, if the animals cried out, the end of the world was not
yet at hand; for these animals are supposed to have existed be-
fore men, and to have a better presentiment of the future. The
practice of those tribes which shoot arrows at the jaguar or
shark, or whatever animal they may suppose to be eating the
moon, is matched by the example of Alfonso VI, of Portugal, in
1664, who, learning that a comet was in sight, went out to look
at it, scolded it, and fired pistol-shots at it.

While the story of the dragon which causes eclipses by devour-
ing the sun or the moon is still current among the populace in
Siam and China, the educated classes in those countries have mas-
tered enough of the science of the phenomena to be able to cal-
culate them. But in China the court and imperial authorities
throughout keep up in form the primitive traditions. Under these
traditions an eclipse of the sun was a warning to the emperor to
look into his faults and amend them. The coming phenomenon
having been pre-announced by the official astronomer,* notice of
it was given throughout the country and the court made prepara-
tion for it by fasting and retreat. The appointed day was one of
anxious waiting. The instant the star was touched, or when it
began, according to the Chinese expression, to be eaten, the em-
peror himself gave the alarm by beating the prodigy-roll on the
thunder-drum. The mandarins, who had come with their bows
and arrows to succor the suffering star, shot into the air unin-
terruptedly. The Chinese idlwminati know that these are only
forms, but superstition still rules among the people, who throw
themselves upon their knees at the beginning of the eclipse, and
make a great noise with drums and gongs, to deliver the star from
the devouring dragon. The Greek and Latin authors relate that
a great noise was made during eclipses. The early Christians

* The astronomers He and Hi were condemned to death for having failed to predict,
according to the requirements of the law, the eclipse of the sun that occurred in the reign
of Tchong Kang, 2155 3. ¢.

FABULOUS ASTRONOMY. 197

rang bells during storms * and eclipses to counteract the action of
bad spirits, to repel, with the priest’s blessing, the darkness caused
by phantoms—a survival, according to P. Lafitan, of the dark
genii that devoured the moon.

The earliest observers of the stars had no suspicion of their
true nature, or of the considerable distances that separate them
from us. If they did not think them within reach of their hands,
they supposed that they were, at least, almost in a literal sense,
accessible to the voice. Homer says that the highest pines of
Mount Ida passed beyond the limits of the atmosphere and pene-
trated into the ethereal region through which the clangor of the
arms of his heroes reached tothe sky. This sky was a solid hemi-
sphere, a bell resting upon the earth, or, according to Euripides,
a cover set over the work of the sublime artisan. The Hebrew
psalmist, of the eleventh century before our era, said to the Lord,
“Thou stretchest out the heavens as a pavilion.” The stars of
Anaximenes were fixed in this vault like nails. The celestial bell
covered a flat earth which was surrounded by water on every side.
Every people imagined itself in the center of it, and China is still
“The Middle Empire.” The Incas exhibited this center in their
sanctuary of Cuzco, the name of which signified navel, as the
Greeks also saw it in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, which was
also called the navel (éu¢aAés) of the world, and was celebrated by
Pindar under that name. The Chinese located the navel of the
earth in the city of Khotén. The conception of the earth as flat
and like a cake prevailed in European civilization till the Cru-
sades, and the lazzaroni of Naples have it still.

The Hawaiians, Maoris, and Eskimos supposed that the whole
sky was supported by a pillar, as the ancients fancied it upheld by
Atlas. The Iroquois thought it was fluid.

The Polynesians explained the revolutions of the sun by sup-.
posing that the great god Meni held it by a cord.

The shepherd of Sapta Sindhon regarded the stars as fires kin-
dled by Agni (the elementary fire), or by Varuna (the celestial
vault). A hymn which he addressed to the gods mentions the
moon with icy rays to signalize its powerlessness against the di-
vine fires of heaven. (It is to be remarked that the moon is often
spoken of as a frozen place—probably in reference to the differ-
ence in temperature between day and night.)

The milky way, which was Winter’s path to the Scandinavians,
was the road of souls for some of the American nations; the souls
entered the world by the door situated where it intersects the
zodiac in Gemini, and quit it to return to the gods by the door of
Sagittarius. French peasants still call it St. James’s road; my-
thology attributed it to the milk that dropped from Juno’s breast

* This practice was kept up till the last century.

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while she was suckling Hercules. It was the celestial river of the
Chinese, a shark-infested creek to the Tahitians; to another tribe,
the field where their ancestors hunted ostriches; star-dust to the
Peruvians. The Pleiades were regarded by the Iroquois and some
of the ancients as a group of dancers, and are still figured in some
parts of Europe as a hen and chickens, A tribe called the Choki-
tapia are said to have regulated their festivals by the appearance
and disappearance of this group. When they disappeared, in the
autumn in that country, was the time for beginning farm-work,
the feast of the men; and the feast of the women was celebrated
on their reappearance. The former festival referred to the burial
or combustion of the seed ; the latter to the return of the absent.
The day before the reappearance of these stars the women rejoiced
and danced around a pole. In the autumn, the dance of the dead
was held. Women swore by the Pleiades, and men by the sun.
In all religious festivals the calumet was presented toward the
Pleiades, and prayers for happiness were addressed to them. These
Indians believed that the Pleiades were seven young persons who
guarded the holy seed during the night and executed a sacred
dance over it. Epizors, the morning star, charmed with their
grace, took them to the sky, where the stars were cheered by their
gambols. The sand-dance of Malay warriors may convey some
idea of this celestial dance. The bath of purification, prescribed
by some of the medicine-men, comprised a triangular hole in which
seven hot stones were dropped and covered over with cold water.
In their invocations, the medicine-men prayed the Pleiades to help.
them heal bodily diseases. For talismans, they had seven bones,
seven balls, or seven buttons.

The period of fifty-two years formed a complete era for the
Aztecs, and they questioned whether at the end of that period the
great heavenly clock, having performed its revolution, might not _
stop forever. This era menaced a considerable number of the
population once in their lives, and some of them perhaps twice.
The night on which the fifty-second year would expire was a
solemn moment to them, and was signalized by extinguishing
the sacred fires in the temples and those on private hearth-
stones, and by breaking all vessels that had contained provisions ;
and the evening was passed in darkness, with trembling and fear.
The day was in November, when the Pleiades would culminate at
midnight, and this moment was the termination of the century.
As the hour appeared, the human victim was sacrificed, and the
sticks were rubbed over his still quick body for striking the fire
for his funeral pile and the inauguration of the new era. Men
were waiting with torches ready to be lighted, with which the
new fire was to be distributed to all the provinces. The moment
of midnight was hailed with shouts of joy. The world had not

THE PRODUCTION OF BEHET-SUGAR. 199

come to an end, and men could hope that it would last at least
through another era. Those who could not attend the public
ceremonies watched kneeling on the roofs of their houses. The
secular festival was suppressed by the Spaniards, the last human
victim having been sacrificed on the pyramid of Tlaloc in 1507.
—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from a review, by
M. L. Barré, in the Revue Scientifique.

eee

THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR.
By A, H. ALMY,

i hash the May number of this magazine a sketch was presented of

the rise and progress of the beet-sugar industry. In this arti-
cle it is proposed to outline the method of growing the plant, and
the processes employed in extracting the sugar. The sugar-beet,
like other plants, contains a definite number of chemical elements
which are indispensable to its growth, and which must be present
in suitable proportions in order to insure its highest development.
Yet it is not long since the proportions of these constituents were
looked upon as merely incidental, and without any direct bearing
on the processes of growth. Plants are nourished by air, water,
and the substances contained in the soil; but they differ in the
kinds and quantities of nourishment required. Some need to have
their roots constantly in water, others are best suited to dry soils,
and others again prosper only on the best and most richly manured
land. There are some elements common to all plants, and some
peculiar to each kind. Like animals, plants are endowed with
taste or choice regarding their food—they do not absorb indis-
criminately nor in the same proportions all the substances pre-
sented tothem. From this it follows that the fertilization of the
soil should be adapted to the character of the plant that is to be
cultivated. Wheat, rye, barley, and other cereals push up long
stalks having few and slender leaves, which absorb little nourish-
ment from the air. These plants consequently take most of their
food through the roots, and are, therefore, great exhausters of the
soil. Plants, on the contrary, having large, fleshy, green leaves,
like the beet, take greater quantities of carbonic acid and water
from the air, and hence withdraw less material from the ground.
In the process of growth plants exhaust that portion of the soil
which comes in contact with their roots; hence, after the surface
layers have been drawn upon by short, creeping roots like those
of the cereals, a long tap-root, like that of the beet, may be
i. to extract an abundance of nourishment from the deeper
ayers,

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The mechanical condition of the soil is another important fac-
tor in the cultivation of the sugar-beet. From the closeness of
its texture, a stiff clay retains water, and does not readily admit
heat or air among its particles; it also opposes much resistance to
the fibrous roots making their way through it. By preventing
the free growth of the roots downward, clay is especially unfa-
vorable to the sugar-beet crop; for the beet, instead of produc-
ing the long, slim root which is necessary for the proper secre-
tion of saccharine material in the sugar-cells, grows round, tur-
nip-like roots, which are of no value for sugar-making. Sand
is the opposite of clay, and, from the looseness of its texture, ad-
mits heat too freely, and is not capable of retaining a sufficient
amount of moisture for the needs of vegetation. In sand, also,
the particles of plant food are washed down by the rains below
the reach of the roots, or are vaporized by heat and escape
into the air. Plants grow best in loam, which is a mixture of
these soils of opposite character, in such proportion that the faults
of both are corrected. The depth of the soil and the nature of the
underlying stratum are also important; for if the richest soil is
only seven or eight inches deep, and lies on a cold, wet clay or on
rock, it will not be as fruitful as a leaner soil that lies on gravel,
for instance, which is perhaps the best subsoil. The best soil for
the cultivation of the sugar-beet root is a mellow, sandy loam,
with a free and permeable subsoil, such as would be called by
the German agriculturist a first-class barley soil. It should be
ten to sixteen inches deep—the deeper the better—rich in well-
decomposed organic matter and minerals,

Ordinary land can not be planted with the same crop year after
year without a gradual diminution of product. This is owing to
the fact that the specific food of the particular plant is exhausted
from the soil by the constant drafts upon it. But if the land is
planted one or more years with a vegetable which takes a differ-
ent kind of nourishment from the soil, time is allowed for the
chemical changes constantly going on in the ground to produce a
supply of the food required by the first kind of crop. In the cul-
tivation of the beet-root for sugar-producing, it must follow the
cereals, such as wheat, rye, and barley, but, to be profitable, not
oftener than every third year.

The advantages of correct fertilization in the cultivation of
- the beet-root are shown by the experiments of Lawes and Gilbert.
On one acre of ground, cultivated without manure, 302 bushels of
beets were grown. On another acre adjoining and possessing the
same characteristics of soil, enriched with 550 pounds of nitrate
of soda or Chilian saltpeter, 886 bushels of roots were obtained.
The beets grown without manure contained 2,1154 pounds of
sugar per acre; the beets grown with the mineral nitrogen con- —

THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR. 201

tained 5,145 pounds per acre. In other words, with the use of a
fertilizer, an increase of 3,030 pounds of sugar was obtained.

The application of highly nitrogenous fertilizers, or the in-
corporation of partly decayed organic substances—like stable
manure—in the soil in the autumn or in the spring, directly pre-
ceding the cultivation of the sugar-beet, is known to act injuri-
ously on the composition of the roots. Such manuring increases
the foreign substances in the juice, prevents a desirable develop-
ment of the sugar, besides placing the latter under unfavorable
circumstances for separation. Thus no fertilization must be used
during the year of the beet crop.

After the plowing and harrowing of the soil, much the same as
required for a potato crop, leaving the ground as smooth as a gar-
den, the sowing of the seed commences early in the month of May,
when the beet-planter, represented in Fig. 1,is brought into requisi-

A TN —
Thr: | Ny

Fig. 1.—THE GERMANIA BEET-PLANTER.

tion. Like the mower, reaper, binder, and other agricultural won-
ders, it saves the labor of many workmen. It is drawn by two
horses, and plants eight rows, eighteen inches apart, at each pas-
sage. The seed is placed in hoppers extending along the top of
the machine; thence it descends through chutes or apertures,
which can be enlarged or contracted at pleasure, into the body
of the machine. A shaft, furnished with small spoons, runs
through the body of the machine, and is made to revolve with
greater or less rapidity by an arrangement of cog-wheels connect-
ing the shaft with one of the driving-wheels. At each revolution
each little spoon brings up a seed and deposits it in a small hop-
per, from which it descends through a series of funnel-shaped
tubes, which telescope into each other, into the seed-box of the
drill. Another series of cog-wheels is set in motion by the other
driving-wheel, and these cause another shaft to revolve, faster or
slower, according to the arrangement of the wheels. This shaft
is furnished with eight wheels, with cams or projections on the
circumference, which operate the valve-rods that open and shut
the seed-boxes in the drills, and thus this gearing regulates the

distance at which seeds are dropped, just as the other regulates
VOL, Xxxv.—13*

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the quantity of seed deposited in the seed-boxes. The seed-drills
are furnished with little plows, which open furrows for the seed,
deeper or shallower in proportion as they are laden with weights
provided for the purpose, and, being hung on pivots, they readily
adapt themselves to any inequalities on the surface of the land.
In returning across the field, the inner wheel follows in the track
made by the outer one in going, and thus the last row of a twenty-
acre field is parallel to the first, and the spaces between the rows
are uniform. With land thoroughly prepared, and with men and
horses practiced in their work, the machine could plant twenty-
five to thirty acres per day. .
The beet-cultivator, Fig. 2, is also drawn by two horses, and
cultivates five rows at each passage. It consists mainly of five

Fie. 2.—TuEe BEET-CULTIVATOR, WITH ATTACHMENT FOR PROTECTING THE YOUNG PLANTS.

sets of scuffles or hoes, set in a framework, suspended between the
hind-wheels of the machine. By means of a lever, terminating in
a cog-wheel and playing on a cogged semicircle, this frame can be
moved from side to side, or elevated to pass over obstructions, or
for convenience in going to and returning from the field. Each
set of hoes comprises three different forms of implements adapted
to the cultivation of the crop at different stages of its growth.
The first set consists of a broad, single scuffle, almost as wide as
the distance between the rows; this is intended to be used about
as soon as the rows can be traced, and it is provided with a con-
trivance which bestrides the rows, and protects the young plants
from being covered with earth. The second set of implements
consists of two narrow scuffles, which penetrate and stir the soil
to a greater depth, and are used after the plants have been
thinned out and have grown stronger, and there is no longer any
danger of covering them with earth. The third set, connected
with the beet-cultivator, is a kind of double mold-board plow, and
is used for the last hoeing or hilling, Fig. 3. The shape and use

THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR. 203

of these implements will be seen by reference to the diagrams,
which illustrate the cultivator rigged for use at ones stages
of the growth of the crop.

Every seed-vessel of the beet, containing fiom two to three
germs, will produce as many plants, of which the strongest is left,

Fic. 3.—TuHEe BEET-CULTIVATOR, WITH ATTACHMENT FOR COVERING THE ROOTS AT THE LAST
HOEING.

while the rest are pulled up or otherwise destroyed. The process
of thinning out the plants, not unlike the same operation in the
cultivation of corn, takes place after the first passage of the cul-
tivator, as soon as the roots have reached the length of from four
to five inches. The remaining plants are six to eight inches apart.
The soil around the young plant is mas “Vegsened. by the
beet-cultivator, as
shown in Fig. 2,
every two or three
weeks, until the
leaves have ac-
quired their proper
development early
inJune. This treat-
ment, by destroying
the weeds and in-
creasing the gener-
al absorbing prop-
erties of the soil,
favors an undisturbed and early development of the leaves, which
have a controlling influence in the formation of sugar.

The beet-digger, Fig. 4,is a powerful machine, also drawn by
two horses. It consists of two long knives or coulters, fixed in a
heavy framework, and so arranged that they may be set to run
to a greater or less depth, as may be desired. These knives run
under and lift two rows of beets at each passage. As the machine

Fie. 4.—THE BEET-DIGGER.

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

passes along, only a slight rippling or undulating motion is ob-
served in the rows of beet-tops, but the roots are loosened and
cleared of dirt more perfectly than could be done by hand, and, as
no roots are broken or left in the ground, a considerable increase
in the crop is obtained. Like the beet-cultivator, the digger is
steered by a lever at the hind end of the machine, and can be lifted
to pass over obstructions and for convenience of travel to and
from the field. The beets being raised out of the soil, and the
leaves cut off with sword-like knives about one half to an inch
above the root, the harvesting is completed by the removal of the
roots to the pits or factory.

These machines are constructed to work with mathematical
exactness, and are used in Germany with great success, and ac-
complish a very important saving of labor. They have also been
experimented with at the Massachusetts Agricultural College
with the same results. It is obvious that the smoother and more
level the land, the better for cultivation; but the beet machinery
will do good work on rolling and uneven land. The beet-planter,
or any part of it, may pass over stones or mounds without inter-
fering with its operation, ample provision being made to enable
each part to adapt itself to the inequalities of the land. Finally,
the crop must be kept free from weeds until harvested, other-
wise the root-lifter, which on clean land is a model of simplic-
ity and effectiveness, will be clogged and will not work at all.
In short, it requires and abundantly rewards careful prepara-
tion of the land, punctual performance of the various operations
of tillage, and perseverance in destroying weeds. We may say,
this machinery is well adapted to the culture of other crops, par-
ticularly corn.

The estimated cost of the cultivation of the sugar-beet per acre,
without machinery, on the farm in New England, is about the
same as for a crop of onions, corn, or potatoes, and, exclusive of
fertilizers, may be estimated as follows:

Ball plowin geniitecrsttcsert stellen siete lake eter edeteetene atetel isla) onsen ree ete $2.00
SON THOMAS 6G Gone osIOeeeT oe bo code dcdds sodadeoascoacadoc 4.00
Harrowing. Siccc gis,. satis oe: docoe ree esememeteetceiete =) ker letcry sakes 2.00
Markingvand) plamtin ore arteritis keetete eestor rete ietsci ie ener 1.00
Hirst weeding and) thimmingey he cre eis iee eerie tetris deena is 3.00
Cultivator with horse, three times...............-..5+0seeeeeees 4.50

U0) ES Nort ane ae Soo Sota aig bu copa Cb oS $16.50

It would be impossible, within the limits of this article, to de-
scribe in minute detail all the approved methods for the manu-
facture of beet-sugar; but an attempt will be made to give a gen-
eral idea of the different processes, with a description of some of
the ingenious mechanical contrivances introduced during the past

' THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR. 205

decade, which have been important agencies in making it possible
to manufacture beet-sugar at a profit. The method of extracting
the sugar from the beet-root is entirely unlike the one usually
employed in manufacturing sugar from the cane-plant, but the
principle of the former is equally applicable to the latter, and
will probably be generally adopted when the cane-sugar manu-
facturer can afford to replace his old mechanical system with
rotary diffusion batteries.

The beet-roots are dumped, by the farmers, into large bins
about nine hundred feet long, capable of holding five thousand tons
of beets, from which they are dropped by adjustable traps into
a concrete ditch or canal, underneath the beet-house. This canal
is provided with descents of brickwork or metal gutters, through
which the roots are borne by the rushing water into the wash-
house, which constitutes the first stage of the factory. In the
wash-house is a large screw or raising wheel arrangement, by
which the beets are emptied into a hopper on the second floor,

Fie. 5.—TuHEe Breret-Ourter.

from which they pass into a large, drum-shaped iron cylinder,
called the wash-barrel, where the roots are thoroughly cleaned.
The washing of the beet is a very important operation in the
manufacture-of the sugar, for the roots are thus freed from mold,
small stones, and other kinds of dirt attaching to them, which not
only saves the machinery employed in the actual preparation of the
beets from injury, but keeps the sugar ultimately obtained free

206 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from impurity. With the mere washing of the beets the sugar
manufacturer is not content; they are therefore freed from those
parts which are poor in saccharine, damaged or otherwise unde-
sirable, by a machine called a carousal.

When cleaned, the beets are thrown from the wash-barrel into
a hopper, from which they pass into an endless elevator which
carries them to the top floor, where they are discharged into a
large hopper. They then pass into a cage which will hold one
thousand pounds of beets, and, when this weight is indicated,
the cage empties its load into the cutter or slicer, Fig. 5. The cage
and the indicator enable the factory people to closely estimate
the amount of raw material used each day. It is also a check
on every department. It will show any error that may arise in
the receiving or shipping departments. The slicer is a round
iron shaft, rotating horizontally, and fitted with steel knives ca-
pable of slicing four hundred tons of beets in twenty-four hours.
The rotating knives, which descend upon the beets, cut them
into thin slices, thus exposing the sugar-cells, which is an impor-
tant factor in the diffusion system. The lower end of the cutter
opens into a wooden trough about two feet square, on the bottom
of whichis an endless belt. As the sliced beets fall from the
cutter, the belt carries them along to the diffusion tanks.

In alluding to the operation of the diffusion battery in the arti-
cle on “Growth of the Beet-Sugar Industry,” it was said that
“though simple in its conception, it nevertheless illustrates well-
known laws of chemical science in the transfusion of liquids, and
successfully opens the membranous walls of the sugar-cells of the
plant, giving a higher grade of juice, with less gummy, nitroge-
nous, and fibrous impurities, at less cost than by the old methods
of mechanical pressure.” By membranous diffusion is understood
the process of exchange between two fluids of unequal density,
contained in two vessels separated only by a membrane. Sup-
posing the sugar-cells to be brought in contact with pure water,
then, theoretically, if the cells contain twelve per cent of sugar,
transfusion will go on till an equal weight of water contains six
per cent of sugar, while by the passage of water into the cells the
juice there is reduced to the same degree, Taking the six-per-cent
watery solution and treating with it fresh roots containing twelve
per cent of sugar, a nine-per-cent solution will be obtained, which,
on being brought a third time in contact with fresh roots, would
be raised to a density of 10°5 per cent. Thus, seven eighths of
the whole sugar would be obtained at the third operation, and it
is on this theory that the diffusion process is based.

A diffusion battery, Fig. 6, consists of a range of twelve large,
close, upright cylinders called diffusers, provided with man-holes
above and perforated false bottoms, with a like number of heaters,

THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR. 207

(AIO

NM
ANTREAVRAL ALVIN
i

Metres

os SE

Fic. 6.—VERTICAL AND HorIzoNnTAL SECTIONS OF RoseErt’s DirFrusion BATTERY (Stammer).

4, root-cutter; b, charging-car with weighing attachment; c, movable hopper; 4d, d?, d?, d3, etc.,
diffusers ; e, reheating-reservoir; f, communicating-tubes between diffusers; g, discharge-tube;
k, conducting-tube for displaced water or juice; 1, safety-tube connecting with all the diffusers,
and serving to disconnect a defective one; t, u, v, X. y, Z, valves corresponding to the various
tubes; m, tube joining valves with diffusers; r1 and r?, etc., conduits between reheaters and

diffusers ; w and u, valves corresponding with same ; r3, conduit of juice to defecators ; s, man-
hole for exit of exhausted slices.

208 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arranged in alternation with the diffusers, revolving on a center.
As the pure water from an elevated tank percolates through the
mass of the two or three tons of sliced beets, under a pressure of
eighty pounds, the fluid contents of any one cylinder can be forced
into another through the communicating pipes, and thus—under

qi) || ay ne A i
i UPN UAE We hi oe

canna AT ac HA
(uh PA AL A aaa

7 “al = <a a May th h
me ec Ha i | i mi

CASS
SS S SSS SS

Fie. 7.—FURNACE FOR SUPPLY oF LIME AND CARBONIC-AcID GAs To Factory (‘‘ Journal des
Fabricants de Sucre’’).

the combined influence of heat and pressure—the whole solution
becomes richly charged with sugar. From cylinder No. 1, which
contains the slices almost exhausted of their soluble contents, the
fluid passes into No. 2, where it acts on slices somewhat richer in
juice. So it goes on through the series, meeting in each cylinder

THE PRODUCTION OF BEET-SUGAR. 209

slices increasingly rich in juice, and acquiring density in its prog-
ress. Before entering the last cylinder the solution is heated,
and the richly charged fluid is sent forward to the carbonation
tanks. This process of saturation consists in the treatment of the
diffusion juices with lime and carbonic acid, whereby the non-
saccharine substances are precipitated and partly decomposed,

F = “thd

TULL LTELEELLE LITE PILE bg
HZ

GY \
eS = Killlilke

KS. DW \ WW WR WC

Fia. 8.—Vacoum STRIKE-PAN, VERTICAL SECTION (Maumené),

the sugar remaining unaltered in solution. These foreign or non-
saccharine substances, which are present in the juice in consider-
able proportions, would interfere with the crystallization of the
sugar.

The carbonic-acid gas is generated in a lime-kiln, Fig. 7, which
consists of a hollow circular chamber of incombustible material
provided with furnaces and delivery apertures, and is generally
placed in the open air in the factory yard. The lime and carbonic-

210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

acid gas are obtained by the decomposition of marble chips by a
fire of coke and a bath of sulphuric acid. The process of satura-
tion being complete, the juice is drawn through sand-catchers by
means of a lye-pump, which conveys it under pressure into the
filter-presses of the first saturation, where the precipitated sub-
' stances are received. The presses consist of a number of four-
cornered plates or frames, over which cloths are stretched. The

or

Ip

NHHIN

NIN i,
‘

\

ey

i

a aaa

Lee

Sa

Fie. 9.—CENTRIFUGAL FILTER (Maumené).

residuum is deposited between the plates or in the frames, as the
case may be, while the fluid passes through the cloths before
leaving the press, and is thus filtered.

From the presses the liquid mass passes to the evaporator.
This consists of one or more cylindrical vessels, either in a ver-
tical or a horizontal position, according as its effect is single,

MISCHIEF-MAKERS IN MILK. 211

double, triple, or quadruple, and provided with a system of heat-
ing pipes. The steam which proceeds from the boiling juice of
the first vessel serves to heat the second vessel, and so on through
the entire series. The evacuation of the heating system on the
evaporator is effected by means of small tubes leading from one
vessel to the other and connected with a condenser.

When the sirup has attained to a certain degree of concentra-
tion, it is drawn off by means of pneumatic suction direct into the
vacuum boiler. The vacuum boiler, Fig. 8, consists of a vertical,
cylindrical, or ball-shaped vessel, with a conical base, containing
heating worm tubes. The mass obtained from the vacuum boiler
is first of all placed in a refrigerator, which consists of a trough
provided with a stirrer and a refrigerator jacket. The mass of
sugar crystals must now be separated from the sirup, so that raw
sugar may be obtained, and hence it is sent forward from the
refrigerator to the centrifugal machines.

A centrifugal machine, Fig. 9, consists of a cylindrical drum,
over which is a finely perforated sieve, and which rotates with
great rapidity on its own axis. The mass placed in the drum is
pressed against the sieve by the action of centrifugal force, and
the fluid escapes through the small apertures. The sirup hav-
ing been disposed of, the yellow sugar obtained is called the first
product, and this, having been emptied from the drum, is trans-
ferred to another sieve, where it is freed from the lumps which
it may contain, and the raw sugar is finally emptied into sacks on
the lower floor, when it is ready for the refinery. The process
of refining raw sugar into the block sugar of commerce is an
independent industry.

MISCHIEF-MAKERS IN MILK.
By ALICE B. TWEEDY.

ERY recently it was announced by Proust that the bicarbon-

ate of soda used as a preservative of milk formed a com-
pound particularly injurious to children—i. e., the lactate of soda.
There appears to be great danger, in the newly aroused fear of
fermentative changes in food and of the baneful products of the
busy bacilli, that any vaunted preservative or germicide may be
greedily seized upon at once, without thought as to the innocence
of its chemical activity. This easy credence in antiseptics seems
to be characteristic of the minds that shrink with most unreason-
ing fear from every advance in bacteriological research. Not long
since, a novelist, more imaginative than scientific, arraigned Science
because “the idea of the comma bacillus is more dreadful than
that of the cholera.” This, as an outburst of ignorance, would be

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

excusable, preferring the known horror to the immeasurable un-
known. But, to one acquainted with the fact that infinitesimal
life swarms about and within us, why should it be terrible to
learn that some forms are coincident with disease? If we thrive
upon palpitant air, drink water* populated with bacteria, and
shelter millions of microbes in our bodies, why should we tremble
to find a few unfriendly species that we can not safely entertain ?
We talk glibly of “pure air” and “ pure water”; but, to be exact,
we have only a laboratory knowledge of either, and might as well
try to rid ourselves of our surplus population as to provide our-
selves with these elements in a sterilized state.

“ Dead” and “ undesirable” may be equivalent terms in regard
to air and water, but we do not yet know whether they can be
applied to food. All of the bacilli that visit our articles of diet
seem to herald some fermentative or putrefactive change. Some-
times these are agreeable to us, and we aid them in their work of
creating yeast, wine, and kumyss. Even then we watch closely
and fix a limit to their activity. Generally, we are squeamish
about their advent in meat, milk, cheese, or eggs, having dire ex-
perience of the alkaloids that they manufacture. And, it must
be noted, it is not the bacilli themselves that give us trouble;
for all we know they may be as digestible as the cholera bacillus
was to M. Roche Fontaine. It is the physiological result of their
sojourn in the food that constitutes the danger—the unfortunate
remainder, or ptomaine, that may be fatal tous. This ptomaine is
an alkaloid formed from the medium in which the organism exists,
and includes whatever substance may be left of the bacterium
itself. Just as man changes the atmosphere about him by exhal-
ing carbonic-acid gas and various solid particles of matter, so the
bacillus decomposes the tissues and fluids of the body in which it
resides.

Nothing more wonderful than this work of disintegration is
revealed to us in the economy of Nature. The picture of species
after species accomplishing, by a brief life, one step toward the
final resolution of organic matter into the elementary products, is
not surpassed by a study of the glacial chiseling of the rocks,
nor of the marvelous influence of the earth-worm in fructifying
the soil.

Obviously, we can not wait for the manufacture of any poison,
but must make it an impossibility, if we can, without rivaling
any of the toxic effects by our remedies. Acquaintance is occa-
sionally made with the ptomaine before the guilty micrococcus is
known; in such cases even more care must be exercised.

Following the investigations of Lister and Hueppe, the ordi-

* A cubic centimetre of wholesome water may contain from 53,000 to 770,000 colonies
of bacteria.

MISCHIEF-MAKERS IN MILK. 213

nary fermentation of milk is traced to the growth of a micro-
organism known as Bactervwm lactis, which converts the milk-
sugar into lactic acid. The work of decomposition is then taken
up by another bacillus, named subtilis, through which butyric acid
is produced. Recent experiments made in the cultivation of milk
bacteria by Baginski* indicate that the Bacteriwm lactis is incor-
rectly named, and, being responsible for an acetic-acid formation,
is better termed acett.

There is also a peculiar fermentator, Bacterium coli, that refuses
to meddle with milk-sugar alone, but upon the addition of white
of egg shows extraordinary activity, furnishing lactic, formic, and
acetic acid. These three—Bacterwwm aceti, Bacillus subtilis, and
Bacterium coli—are the normal visitants + of milk, and the changes
dependent upon their presence are well understood. The micro-
organisms that breed disease and death appear under exceptional
circumstances, against which, so far as they are known, we may

carefully guard.

The bacilli of phthisis, typhoid, and scarlet fever have been
detected in milk supposed to be wholesome. Thorough inspection
of cattle and dairies may reduce the frequency of infection; but,
until such supervision is the rule, all danger can be avoided by
boiling the milk. In the late Congress at Paris on the study of
tuberculosis, Dr. Nocard advised this to be done in every case
where there existed any tendency to consumption.

A peculiar sickness,{ which in its malignant form is similar to
anthrax, has been traced to a germ occurring in milk. The con-
ditions required for its development are known, and have been
artificially produced by feeding cattle with fodder exposed to the
dew-fall. The poison is found in sweet milk, butter, cream, and
cheese, but not in buttermilk. It is either formed in small quan-
tity, or has the property attributed to it of self-attraction. Neither
the ptomaine nor the bacillus producing it has been determined,
and they offer a new field for experiment.

The chief mischief-maker is yet unknown, unless it may pos-
sibly be identical with the micrococcus* found by Dr. Sternberg
in cheese. Its ptomaine,|| however, was isolated by Prof. Vaughan,
of the University of Michigan, in 1885, and was called, from the
substance in which it was discovered, tyrotoxicon—cheese-poison.

The history of this discovery is interesting. Three hundred
cases of cheese-poisoning were recorded in Michigan by the Board

* “Report of the Physiological Society of Berlin,” January 18, 1889.

+ Twenty-three varieties of bacteria were found in intestines of milk-fed infants suffer-
ing with summer complaints (Dr. Booker, Baltimore).

t “Science,” New York, 1886, vol. viii, p. 482.

* “ Report of the Board of Health of Michigan,” 1884-85, vol. xiii, p. 218.

|| “‘Ptomaines and Leucomaines,” Vaughan and Novy, p. 56.

214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Health during 1883 and 1884. Although none of these were
fatal, the illness was in some instances alarming, and the evil
effects were confined to twelve different cheeses. Samples of these
were sent to Prof. Vaughan for analysis. The cheese exhibited
no unusual taste or odor, but a dog, with keener instinct than the
human, selected a piece of untainted cheese in preference. The de-
tection of the poison proved to be a difficult task. The ptomaine
was volatile and unstable, and a method had to be invented for its
isolation. An alcoholic extract of the cheese fixed the poison in a
fatty acid. An aqueous extract was made and evaporated, when
the poison also disappeared. Two years of patient study perfected
the process, and Prof. Vaughan succeeded in separating the
ptomaine in crystalline shape. During the same year he ob-
tained tyrotoxicon from milk kept in stoppered: bottles in the
laboratory.

In 1886 there occurred some cases of mysterious poisoning at
Long Branch. Twenty-four persons became suddenly ill at one,
hotel, nineteen at another, and in the following week thirty more
complained of similar symptoms. The investigations conducted
by the chemists, Newton and Wallace, established the fact that
tyrotoxicon was the cause of the sickness. The conditions in
which the poison was generated are given in the report as follows:
“The noon’s milking—which alone was followed by illness—was
placed while hot in the cans, and then, without any attempt at
cooling, carted eight miles during the warmest part of the day in
a very hot month”! Milk-poisoning in lowa and Michigan was
subsequently traced to the formation of tyrotoxicon; and, in
India,* an English surgeon, Firth, discovered the same ptomaine _
in milk that occasioned sickness.

It might be supposed that so favorable a nidus as custard would
not be overlooked by the mischievous bacillus. After Vaughan’s
method of isolating the ptomaine was made known, many analyses
of poisonous ice-cream and cream-pufts testified to its industry.
Wherever this toxic agent was identified, the circumstances at-
tending its growth were carefully studied, and the care of the
milk, cream, or custard was found to be faulty. In some instances
cleanliness had been strictly observed, but other conditions induc-
ing fermentation had been overlooked. In the milk-poisoning at
Long Branch proper airing and cooling of the milk were neg-
lected. In Milan, Mich., three fatal cases occurred in the tidy
home of a farmer’s family. Examination showed that the but-
tery where the milk was kept had a new floor laid over decaying
boards, and some of the dirt accumulations between these, taken
to the laboratory, generated tyrotoxicon in fresh milk. In Lawton,
Mich., the custards prepared for freezing stood for some hours in

* “Tndian Medical Journal,” Calcutta, 1887, vol. vi, p. 1.

MISCHIEF-MAKERS IN MILK. 215

an unventilated building formerly used as a meat-market. The
ice-cream made from them poisoned eighteen persons.

According to Prof. Vaughan, tyrotoxicon does not develop
below 60° Fahr., and is anaérobic—grows when air is excluded.
Some very simple measures, then, are preventive :

1. Scrupulous cleanliness.* A little dry milk on the rim of a
can or vessel may breed the germ which will find a culture-ground
in fresh milk.

2. A low temperature—below 60° Fahr.

3. Ventilation in an untainted atmosphere.

It is but just to say that these precautions are generally ob-
served by careful dairymen and cream manufacturers. There is
grave reason to fear, however, that they are not generally observed
after the milk reaches the consumer’s hands. Also, the slightest
carelessness may affect seriously that class of the community
which does not speak for itself—the very youngest.

The symptoms of cholera infantum + and poisoning by tyro-
toxicon have been proved experimentally to be very much alike,
if not identical. HKven the post-mortem condition of children dying
with this complaint is shown by Prof. Vaughan to agree exactly
with that caused by tyrotoxicon-poisoning in animals. The enor-
mous per cent of deaths from the disease occurs between the ages
of six months and two years, proving conclusively that heat and
atmospheric conditions can not be the potent causes. There is
only one differing factor in the life of those under six months and
older children—the food. The younger class, then, must escape,
because a greater majority of them are naturally nourished. Sta-
tistics { prove with increasing testimony that all artificial feeding
is not only unnatural but hazardous, and to be successful requires
the most intelligent attention. However, if all mothers and nurses
could learn that milk exposed to foul or warm air for any length of
time may not only sour, but become the vehicle of a virulent poison,
perhaps the summer months would bear a better health record.*

“One word of warning may not be amiss.|| Whenever a young
child is fed upon cow’s milk, and this causes symptoms of dis-
agreement, the diet should be changed at once either to meat or
rice; for, if the chief mischief-maker be at work, the best milk
will only furnish it with the medium in which it flourishes, and,
deprived of this, it will inevitably perish.

* “ Philadelphia Medical News,” vol. 1, p. 676.

+ Prof. Vaughan’s address before the New York Academy of Medicine, May, 1888.
“Philadelphia Medical News,” June, 1888.

$ “Of 591 cases in Liverpool only 28 had natural nourishment; of 341 in Leicester,
only two per cent” (“ Philadelphia Medical News,” June, 1887).

* “Nine tenths of the mortality under one year of age is from preventable causes ”
(Dr. Wood’s address before the American Medical Association).

|| “Sanitarian,” vol. xvii, pp. 308-311.

216 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A “CRAZE”?
By JOSHUA F. BAILEY.

aes impression is quite general that Christian Science is mere-
ly a captivating theory; that its text-book, “Science and
Health,” is a collection of ingenious opinions—relating mainly to
the cure of physical disease by imaginative means—that appeal
especially “to persons of a highly religious and highly emotional
nature.” It is also confounded with “faith-cure” and “mind-
cure,” and alleged abuses and malpractice occurring under these
and other irregular forms of mental healing are heralded as “ an-
other Christian Science case.” It is credited with contemning
observation and induction, and, by consequence, natural science;
with making man “a part of God,” and with various fanciful
pretensions about sickness and death, and the unreality of matter.

A writer in the April “ Popular Science Monthly ” succeeded in
committing all these errors and offenses against exactness of state-
ment—besides others that space forbids the enumeration of—in
less than four pages of the “ Monthly.” After having in this small
compass misstated the doctrines and pretensions of the true school
of Mind-healing, demolished his own misstatements, and all the
false systems as well, this writer, with a strange disregard of
sequence, devotes six pages to argument and instance in favor of
mental healing, and—most surprising of all—administers what
Christian scientists consider a well-merited rebuke to the M. D.s
for not giving the public the benefits of this “pleasant and inex-
pensive medicine that cures in some cases where drugs fail,”
“shortens the term of sickness and lightens its pains in many other
cases,” and, “furthermore, has no injurious incidental effects.”

There is really no excuse for such misrepresentation of Chris-
tian Science; for it has-a text-book, “Science and Health,” uni-
versally recognized as the exponent of its doctrines and methods,
When called in question, it is entitled to be judged on authorized
statements, and not on those of speculators in public credulity, on
newspaper gossip and public rumor. This text-book says: “Sys-
tems of so-called ‘mind-cure’ are as truly material as the prevail-
ing systems of medicine. They have no relationship with Chris-
tian Science”; and of “faith-cure,” “Faith is belief, and not
understanding. Belief is virtually blindness when it admits truth
without understanding it. If truth is admitted, but. not under-
stood, it may be lost, and error may enter through this same
channel of ignorant belief.”

So far from not trusting observation and induction, “Science
and Health” is a record of experiments in Mind that satisfy the

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A “CRAZE”? 217

most exacting rules for the use of these guides in investigation,
and that extend over many years. Its statements are absolute
and demonstrable in the same sense and by the same methods as
the propositions of geometry. Every line of this book was writ-
ten from demonstration, by which is meant experiment in the
sense the word carries in natural science. The author first
worked out the principles of healing in Christian Science on her-
self, after she had been condemned by medical science. Then,
through nine years more, she worked out the rule of the opera-
tion of truth in the constant, public practice of healing “all man-
ner of diseases,” physical and moral,

This practice covered thousands of cases, Her history through
these years, and the almost twenty that have succeeded them, has
been one of silent endurance, in reliance on God, of mockery and
persecution, often—in the earlier times—of hunger and cold. Suf-
fering worse than martyrdom, daily repeated, has set its seal upon
her work.

Here is her own declaration as to the method pursued in work-
ing out her discovery :

“The point to be determined is, Shall Science explain all
cause and effect, or shall these be left open to mere speculative
thought ?...In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless.
Proof is essential to a due estimate of the subject. . . . I have set
forth Christian Science, and its application to the treatment of
disease, only as I have discovered them. I have demonstrated
the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men

through Mind. ... I have healed hopeless disease, and raised the
dying to life and health, through the understanding of God as
the only life. . . . The sick, the halt, and the blind look up to me

with blessings.”

To the truthfulness of the most surprising of her declarations
many certificates are published in “ Science and Health” from per-
sons of unquestioned character, and have stood fourteen years
unchallenged. Hundreds of others have been published during
the seven years past, and the publication continues monthly in
the “Christian Science Journal,” with the names and addresses of
writers, and thousands more are at the free disposition of any in-
quirer for truth.

The laws or formule of Christian Science are given in “Science
and Health” so plainly that any person of average intelligence
can repeat the results obtained by the author. These results have
been and are being repeated by multitudes of persons, who testify
publicly to the fact that they have proved them to be invariable.

Prima facie, then, the pretensions of Christian Science are not
absurd. They are entitled to fair and candid examination, con-

ducted as it would be in the case of any other alleged science,
VOL, xxxy.—14

218 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

under its own canons of procedure, subject to the laws of obser-
vation and induction that govern all investigation. The validity
of its conclusions must be allowed to rest on the proofs of con-
formity to these scientific tests.

The charge that Christian Science contemns natural science is
as unfounded as that it disregards observation and induction. It
is said in “Science and Health”:

Learning is useful if it is of the right sort. History, observation, invention,
philosophic research, and original thought, are essential to the growth of mortal
mind out of itself, error. The tangled barbarism of learning we deplore—the
mere dogma, the speculative theory, the nauseous fiction.

If natural science says one thing more clearly than another, it is this: that
law is everywhere, and that there can be no exception to it. Natural science
denies miracles, if by a miracle is meant any variation from the regular order of
divine cause and effect.

Herein Christian Science is in a line with natural science. Christian Science
devoutly believes the wonderful works performed by Jesus, but affirms that his
so-called miracles were in accord with the highest law; that they proceeded from
the divine Principle of him, which is the Christ or anointed imperial humanity.
Miracles are impossible in Science. The highest manifestation of Life or Truth is
divine—not supernatural or preternatural, since Science is nature explicated.

The rational claims of natural science against the authority
and mere belief of dogmatic theology have all been anticipated
and formulated in “Science and Health.” The comparison of
“The Devil-Theory,” in the editor’s table of the April “ Monthly,”
with the following passage from the chapter “Imposition and
Demonstration,” will illustrate this identity of attitude:

God, or good, has not created a mind susceptible of creating evil, for evil is the
opposing error, and not the truth of creation.

As I understand it, the only evil, or devil, in the universe is made up of such
erroneous beliefs as these: that man is a compound of both mind and matter;
that a wicked mind can exist in a material form, and both form and mind can be
created by the Divine Mind; that God is the author of sin, sickness, and death;
and that Mind can be an entity within the cranium, with power to sin ad libitum. |
In other words, Satan is not a person but an illusion. <A lie is the only Satan there
is, as results prove. All the discords of earth are lies, and falsehood can not pro-
ceed from Truth. Jn and of itself discord is a falsity. It does not represent the
fact relative to God or man.

To give the merest outline of the Principle and rule of Chris-
tian Science, as laid down in “Science and Health,” would require
a volume. Some of the phenomena and workings of human con-
sciousness, and conclusions from the standpoint of Christian Sci-
ence, can only be briefly referred to in the space at command.

Man may be defined as a state of consciousness, and the con-
dition of consciousness constitutes the individuality. Conscious-
ness is related to two distinct classes of phenomena. One of these

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A “CRAZE” ? 219

classes embraces the impressions derived from or received through
the five personal senses, and constitutes what is called material or
physical life. These are all summarized in the word matter. In
the technology of Christian Science they are termed “beliefs” of
matter, and are treated as inhering in a supposed subject termed
“mortal man” or “mortal mind,” and are said to be cognized
through material sense. This is the consciousness of life in
matter, or life in the material body, and in Christian Science is
termed the “false consciousness.”

Besides this consciousness or sense of material life, or life in
the body, there is another sense or consciousness of Truth, Love,
beauty, expressed in the word God, or Spirit. The impressions of
Spirit not only do not come to us through the personal senses, can
not be cognized by material sense, but they are contrary to this
sense, are the opposites of the phenomena of material sense. They
are distinct or obscure, just as the individual is immersed in or
withdrawn from the objects of material sense, and the impressions
derived from them.

Because these two states of consciousness are opposites, they
are destructive of one another: as one is increased, the other is
diminished ; they are precisely represented in the action of light
and darkness—as one advances, the other recedes. Hvery human
- individuality is the battle-ground of these opposing forces; the
scale is at every instant inclined more strongly to the one or the
other, and the true history of the individual and of the race—the
only history—is the record of this struggle.

In the uninstructed consciousness, and on this mortal plane
of existence, the beliefs and fears that are the inseparable con-
comitants of material sense, or the belief of life in matter, pre-
dominate; beliefs of good or ill are connected with all the ele-
mental and other conditions that make up the material environ-
ment; with every act of the material man; with every article of
food, drink, or apparel; with the function and operation of every
organ of the body; with sleep and wakefulness, and every condi-
tion that can be named. In their train is the countless array of
disease, envy, jealousy, malice, hatred, covetousness; every con-
dition of thought that lust, appetite, and the nameless brood that
develop and are propagated as earthly life advances—these are
the shadowy attendants that haunt the consciousness of material
man—the penalty attached to the false sense of life in matter.

Does progress in wisdom, gained from personal sense, emanci-
pate man from this terrible thralldom ? To the contrary, the
more knowledge he gains, relative to these conditions and influ-
ences, the more laws he finds himself subject to—a subjection that
the savage, untutored man is free from. In the words of “Science
and Health,” “Man hath sought out many inventions, but he

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hath not yet found that knowledge can save him from the dire
effects of knowledge.”

The character of this personal or material sense or so-called
consciousness, and the doctrine of Science concerning it, are stated
in these graphic words from the text-book of Science:

Personal sense defrauds, lies, cheats, will break all the commands of the Mo-
saic Decalogue, to meet its own demands. How, then, can this sense be the chan-
nel of blessings or of understanding to man? How can man, reflecting God, be
dependent on such material senses for knowing, hearing, seeing? Who dare say
that the senses of man can be at one time the medium for serving sin, and, at
another, for communion with God ?

An affirmative reply would contradict the Scripture, for “the same fountain
sendeth not forth sweet and bitter waters.”

The so-called senses of matter are the only source of evil or error. Science
shows them to be false; since matter has no sensation, and no organic construc-
tion can give it hearing and sight, or make it the medium of Mind.

Outside of the material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense—of
God, man, and creation—is nonsense, or want of sense. Belief would have the
material senses sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense,
and defines these so-called senses as human beliefs, whose testimony can not be
true of man or his Maker—of whose reality, or immortality, the senses can take
no cognizance. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows
upon them, than the fibers of a plant. Mind alone feels, sees, tastes, smells, and
hears; therefore these faculties continue when organization is destroyed. Other-
wise the very worms could unfashion man. If it were possible for the real senses
of man to be injured, Soul could reproduce them in all their perfection; but they
can not be disturbed, since they exist in Soul.

“Science and Health” gives plain, practical rules by which
the origin and classification of all the objects or images appearing
in consciousness can, first, be instantly recognized ; and, second, can
be dealt with understandingly and on their merits. It thus simply
affirms that states and conditions of consciousness can be gradu-
ally and progressively controlled and changed from fear and suf-
fering to happiness and serene confidence. It teaches how to
eliminate from consciousness, how to destroy all objects that are
opposed to harmony, through the cultivated understanding of
Truth. The operation of this understanding results in gradual
elimination of material sense, and beliefs of matter that are its
concomitant, from the individual, and thus from the race, con-
sciousness. The improved state of consciousness thus resulting is
what constitutes “Christian Science Mind-healing.”

Hundreds of thousands of persons, found in every city, town,
and village, are living this Science. They have destroyed, indi-
vidually, and in the measure of their several understandings of
Science, the beliefs and fears of matter, and have come into a
state of measurable, relative health and harmony. That all who

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A “CRAZE”? 221

enter the Science can not demonstrate on themselves and others
with the same or with uniform success, is no more an argument
against its Principle and Rule, than is the fact that few can fol-
low the calculations of Leverrier an argument against the exist-
ence of the planet Neptune, or the truth of mathematics that
pointed it out. Because every school-boy or college graduate
does not work his way into the calculus, or reach the demonstra-
tion of the highest problem of geometry, shall we deny the exact-
ness and value of mathematics, and throw away our Euclid and
the arithmetics? To the contrary of such reasoning, would not
the pretension that the results of Christian Science could be
brought out arbitrarily, and in disregard of established facts and
laws of consciousness, be a demonstration of its. unscientific
character ?

Now, as to the question of reality or unreality of matter and
its beliefs, especially of sickness and sin: evidently, if the objects
opposed to harmony can be destroyed or kept out of any indi-
vidual consciousness, such objects will—to this individual—have
ceased to exist. If he can keep out any one or a number of such
objects, just in so far approach is made to the state of absolute
harmony, that is wholeness or health.

Christian Science admits the reality of the phenomena of
matter—as defined above—to material sense, and it teaches the
destruction of this sense, through the operation of Truth under-
stood; but it demonstrates, by such destruction, that it is a false
sense, and that it is unreal in this—that it has neither Principle
nor permanence.

The exercise of the healing power in Christian Science is no
mystery. It is explained in “Science and Health” as follows:

“A mental state of self-condemnation and guilt, or a faltering
and doubting trust in Truth, are unsuitable conditions for healing
the sick; if lost yourself in the belief and fear of disease, and
ignorant of the mental remedy, you fail to use the energies of
Mind in your own behalf, you can exercise little or no power for
others’ help.”

“To succeed in healing you must conquer your own beliefs and
fears as well as those of your patients, and you must rise daily
into higher and holier being; by the spirit of Truth and Love you
manifest, you will heal the sick. ... Science makes no concessions
to persons or opinions. One must abide strictly by its rules, or
he can not demonstrate its Principle. . . . We approach to God or
Life in the ratio of our spirituality and fidelity to Truth; and in
that ratio we are able to discern the thoughts of the sick and the
sinful that it may heal them.”

The power of healing goes up and down with the moral condi-
tion of the healer, and this so completely that the Scientist knows

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

his position and power in Mind, from day to day, with the same
certainty and precision that the mariner knows the position of his
ship on the ocean,

“Science and Health” describes the operation of Christian
healing in these words:

The body improves under the same truth that improves the mind. Christian
Science is sunlight to the body. It invigorates and purifies. It acts as an altera-
tive, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors,
dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, and restores carious bones to soundness,
The effects of this Science are to stir the human mind to a change of base whereby
it may yield to the Divine Mind.

As when an acid and an alkali meet and ferment, bringing out a third prop-
erty, so mental and moral fermentation change the material base of man, giving
more spirituality to mortal sense, and causing it to depend less on material evi-
dence. The changes that go on in mortal mind serve to reconstruct the body.

Hence the doctrine “ Truth is the universal medicine of sin
and sickness”; both have their origin in error, in ignorance; the
antidote to error is Truth, to ignorance is understanding; and the
question of reality or unreality is summed up in the words “Sin
and sickness have just as much reality as you give them—and no
more.”

The nature and scope of healing in Christian Science are fur-
ther set forth in these words:

No man is healed in sin, or by it, any more than he is morally saved in or by
sin. To be every whit whole, he must be better spiritually as well as physically.
Lust, hatred, and dishonesty make a man sick; and neither medicine nor mind
can physically help him unless they make him better morally, and so deliver him
from the destroyer. Body and mind are one. The heat of hatred, infleming
brutal propensities, the indulgence of evil motives and aims, will make any man
(who is above the very lowest type of manhood) a hopeless sufferer. They con-
sume the body with the fires of hell!

It will be seen that Christian Science is the Science of Life;
its text-book says: “Its anatomy is mental self-knowledge, and
consists in the art of dissecting thoughts, in order to discover
their quality, quantity, and origin; it teaches when and how to
probe the self-inflicted wounds of malice, envy, and hate; how to
secure the hallowed influences of unselfishness, philanthropy,
spiritual love, and the government of the body, both in health
and sickness ; its ontology is the nature and essence of all being—
Mind, and its essential qualities; and on these primary elements
my system of mental healing is based; its pharmacy is moral,
and its medicine is intellectual and spiritual for physical healing.”

The proposition “all is Mind, there is no matter,” is funda-
mental in Christian Science, but, as above intimated, it is not, as
superficial critics allege, a bald denial of the phenomena of ma-
terial sense. In its methods the truth of this proposition is

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A “CRAZE”? 223

demonstrated or proved by the annihilation of the alleged un-
reality. The affirmation of the absolute supremacy of Mind is
not stated as a theory, but is accompanied by plain rules, com-
prehensible to any fair intelligence, by which this supremacy can
be verified in an endless progression. This authority over the
supposed conditions of matter was first completely demonstrated
by Jesus. It is the Science of the life of Jesus, in its supremacy
over matter and its beliefs of sin and sickness, that is set forth in
“Science and Health.”

No one knows, or can learn, any more of this Science than he
has demonstrated—that is, lived. The students of natural science
will not find unreasonable the declaration of an humble beginner
in this Science, that no one is entitled to sit as a judge on it who
has not either gone through with the demonstrations as set forth
by its Founder, according to her directions, or until he can show
by experience that when the rules of the Science are followed the
results are not invariable.

This position was forcibly stated in a review of it that ap-
peared the year following the publication of “Science and
Health,” as follows: “ Why do you assail her for individual opin-
ions and beliefs? That is not the ground she occupies. She
declares that what she states is not her own. It is Science left
subject to proof, based upon Principle, governed by given rules,
the demonstration whereof she leaves for you. It is for you to
decide whether it is Science or not: now who can answer that
question who doesn’t understand Science ?”

Enough has been said to show that healing in Christian Sci-
ence is very different from the fanciful representation given of it
by the writer in the April “Monthly.” Physical healing is a
necessary and useful incident, not a factor, in the scheme of
Christian Science. The operation of the healing power is as
clearly defined and as tangible in consciousness, just as amenable
to law—vastly more so to one reasonably well instructed—as are
the phenomena involved in the operation of natural law on the
plane of visible effects.

The writer in the April “ Monthly” could not tell its readers
what Christian Science is, precisely because it 7s Science, and can
not be learned or picked up by curiously turning over the leaves

of “Science and Health,” from odd paragraphs in the daily papers,
or from the loose gossip that circulates in the lower atmosphere
of human thought.

For the ungenerous and unworthy statements reflecting on the
personal character and motives of the founder of Christian Sci-
ence, these words of hers from the great text-book of Science shall
make the only answer:

“In founding this system of ethics and medicine I have labored

224 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for principle, not for personality, Others can not take my place,
even if willing to do so. I therefore remain at my post, work-
ing for the generations to come, never looking for a present
reward.”

“T have clung to Truth most closely in the hour of its trial.
The weapons of mortal selfishness, envy, ambition, and: hatred
that have opposed, have often pierced the human heart, but ‘none
of these things have moved me.’... Twenty-two years I have
‘planted and watered ‘in labor and travail, working day and
night.’ ”

“Hoping all things, enduring all things—in the spirit of
Christ’s charity—ready to bless them that curse me, glad to bear
consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick, I commit
these pages to honest seekers for Truth in this age and to pos-
terity.”

As to the reflections of the same character on the tens of thou-
sands of devoted students who are laboring to spread the glad
tidings she has brought, to alleviate and, finally, to destroy the
supposed ills of humanity—real to sense, but not to Truth—they
are left to the judgment of those who have followed these few
words, so unworthy of their great theme.

It is proper to refer to the declaration of the signs of “ decad-
ence” of Christian Science. Its founder began in 1867 with a
single student. Since that time she has taught nearly four
thousand, the number increasing every year—not to speak of
the pressure for admission to her classes of hundreds she is
obliged every year to refuse. “Science and Health” had an in-
significant sale during the years following its publication in 1875.
But this, too, has steadily increased yearly, until it has reached
a sale of forty thousand copies. A large proportion of the stu-
dents from the classes of its author have become healers and
teachers, so that, while for obvious reasons no exact statistics of
their number can be given, it is certain that some hundreds of
thousands are to-day “in” Science—that is, living, according to
their several understandings, the “Life that is Spirit.” Among
those who receive “Science and Health” as a revelation of divine
Truth are many of the most gifted and honored men and women
not only in this country but in England.

Christian Science is no “craze.” The readers of “The Popular
Science Monthly ” will judge for themselves whether the words
of its founder are words of soberness or of delusion. She says:
“T have never supposed this century would present the full fruits
of Christian Science, or that sin, sickness, and death would not
continue for centuries to come; but this I do aver, that, as a re-
sult of my teaching, old age and decrepitude will not come so
soon—that already health is restored and longevity increased by

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 225

it. If such are the present fruits, what may not the harvest be
when justice shall be done to this Science ?”

Christian Science claims to be the Science of sciences; it takes
up without hesitation the challenge, “The true science of mind-
cure must explain all the phenomena of mental healing,” and vol-
untarily lays itself under the further obligation to account for
all mental and all supposed material phenomena whatever. It is
this, and all of this, or it is nothing. Aut omnis, aut nullus, is the
motto on its shield, is its word to humanity. Though the brow of
divine Science is star-encircled, its feet are upon the earth, and
health, harmony, and holiness are the gifts it brings to men.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” *

A WORD WITH PROF. HUXLEY.
By W. H. MALLOCK.

WELCOME the discussion which, in this review and else-

where, has been lately revived in earnest as to the issue be-
tween positive science and theology. I especially welcome Prof.
Huxley’s recent contribution to it, to which presently I propose to
refer in detail. In that contribution—an article with the title
“ Agnosticism,’ which appeared a month or two since in “The
Nineteenth Century ”—I shall point out things which will proba-
bly startle the public, the author himself included, in case he cares
to attend to them. ;

Before going further, however, let me ask and answer this
question. If Prof. Huxley should tell us that he does not believe
in God, why should we think the statement, as coming from him,
worthy of an attention which we certainly should not give it if
made by a person less distinguished than himself? The answer
to this question is as follows: We should think Prof. Huxley’s
statement worth considering for two reasons: Firstly, he speaks
as a man pre-eminently well acquainted with certain classes of
facts. Secondly, he speaks as a man eminent, if not pre-eminent,
for the vigor and honesty with which he has faced these facts,
and drawn certain conclusions from them. Accordingly, when he
sums up for us the main conclusions of science, he speaks not in
his own name, but in the name of the physical universe, as modern
science has thus far apprehended it; and similarly, when from
these conclusions he reasons about religion, the bulk of the argu-

* “The Bishop of Peterborough departed so far from his customary courtesy and self-
respect as to speak of ‘cowardly agnosticism.’”—Pror. Huxury, “Nineteenth Century,”
February, 1889, p. 170, and “ Popular Science Monthly,” April, 1889, p. 751.

VoL, xxxv.—15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ments which he advances against theology are in no way peculiar
to himself, or gain any of their strength from his reputation ; they
are virtually the arguments of the whole non-Christian world.
He may possibly have, on some points, views peculiar to himself.
He may also have certain peculiar ways of stating them. But it
requires no great critical acuteness, it requires only ordinary fair-
ness, to separate those of his utterances which represent facts
generally accepted, and arguments generally influential, from
those which represent only some peculiarity of his own. Now, all
this is true not of Prof. Huxley only. With various qualifica-
tions, it is equally true of writers with whom Prof. Huxley is ap-
parently in constant antagonism, and who also exhibit constant
antagonism among themselves. I am at this moment thinking of
two especially—Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr. Herbert Spencer.
Mr. Harrison, in his capacity of religious teacher, is constantly
attacking both Mr. Spencer and Prof. Huxley. Prof. Huxley
repays Mr. Harrison’s blows with interest; and there are certain
questions of a religious and practical character as to which he
and Mr. Spencer would be hardly on better terms. But, under-
neath the several questions they quarrel about, there is a solid
substructure of conclusions, methods, and arguments, as to which
they all agree—agree in the most absolute way. What this agree-
ment consists in, and what practical bearing, if taken by itself, it
must have on our views of life, I shall now try to explain in a
brief and unquestionable summary; and in that summary, what
the reader will have before him is not the private opinion of these
eminent men, but ascertained facts with regard to man and the
universe; and the conclusions which, if we have nothing else to
assist us, are necessarily drawn from those facts by the necessary
operations of the mind. The mention of names, however, has this
signal convenience—it will keep the reader convinced that I am
not speaking at random, and will supply him with standards by
which he can easily test the accuracy and the sufficiency of my
assertions.

The case, then, of science, or modern thought, against theo-
logical religion or theism, and the Christian religion in particular, ,
substantially is as follows:

In the first place, it is now an established fact that the physical
universe, whether it ever had a beginning or no, is, at all events,
of an antiquity beyond what the imagination can realize; and
also that, whether or no it is limited, its extent is so vast as to be
equally unimaginable. Science may not pronounce it absolutely
to be either eternal or infinite, but science does say this, that
so far as our faculties can carry us they reveal to us no hint of
either limit, end, or beginning.

It is further established that the stuff out of which the universe

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 227

is made is the same everywhere and follows the same laws—
whether at Clapham Common or in the farthest system of stars—
and that this has always been so to the remotest of the penetrable
abysses of time. It is established yet further that the universe
in its present condition has evolved itself out of simpler condi-
tions, solely in virtue of the qualities which still inhere in its ele-
ments, and make to-day what it is, just as they have made all yes-
terdays.

Lastly, in this physical universe science has included man—
not alone his body, but his life and his mind also. Every opera-
tion of thought, every fact of consciousness, it has shown to be
associated in a constant and definite way with the presence and
with certain conditions of certain particles of matter, which are
shown, in their turn, to be in their last analysis absolutely similar
to the matter of gases, plants, or minerals. The demonstration
has every appearance of being morally complete. The interval
between mud and mind, seemingly so impassable, has been tray-
ersed by a series of closely consecutive steps. Mind, which was
once thought to have descended into matter, is shown forming
itself, and slowly emerging out of it. From forms of life so low
that naturalists can hardly decide whether it is right to class
them as plants or animals, up to the life that is manifested in
saints, heroes, or philosophers, there is no break to be detected in
the long process of development. There is no step in the process
where science finds any excuse for postulating or even suspecting
the presence of any new factor.

And the same holds good of the lowest forms of life, and what
Prof. Huxley calls “the common matter of the universe.” It is
true that experimentalists have been thus far unable to observe
the generation of the former out of the latter, but this failure may
be accounted for in many ways, and does nothing to weaken the
overwhelming evidence of analogy that such generation really
does take place or has taken place at some earlier period. “Car-
bonic acid, water, and ammonia,” says Prof. Huxley, “certainly
possess no properties but those of ordinary matter. ... But when

they are brought together under certain conditions they give rise
to protoplasm ; and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomenon of
life. I see no breach in this series of steps in molecular complica-
tion, and I am unable to understand why the language which. is
applicable to any one form of the series may not be used to any of
the others.” *

So much, then, for what modern science teaches us as to the
universe and the evolution of man. We will presently consider
the ways, sufficiently obvious as they are, in which this seems to
conflict with the ideas of all theism and theology. But first for a

* “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews,” pp. 114, 117.

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

moment let us turn to what it teaches us also with regard to the
history and the special claims of Christianity. Approaching Chris-
tianity on the side of its alleged history, it establishes the three
following points: It shows us first that this alleged history, with
the substantial truth of which Christianity stands or falls, con-
tains a number of statements which are demonstrably at variance
with fact; secondly, that it contains others which, though very
probably true, are entirely misinterpreted through the ignorance
of the writers who recorded them; and, thirdly, that though the
rest may not be demonstrably false, yet those among them most
essential to the Christian doctrine are so monstrously improbable
and so utterly unsupported by evidence that we have no more
ground for believing in them than we have in the wolf of
Romulus.

Such, briefly stated, are the main conclusions of science in so
far as they bear on theology and the theologic conception of hu-
manity. Let us now consider exactly what their bearing is. Prof.
Huxley distinctly tells us that the knowledge we have reached as
to the nature of things in general does not enable us to deduce
from it any absolute denial either of the existence of a personal
God or of an immortal soul in man, or even of the possibility and
the actual occurrence of miracles. On the contrary, he would
believe to-morrow in the miraculous history of Christianity if
only there were any evidence sufficiently cogent in its favor; and
on the authority of Christianity he would believe in God and in
man’s immortality. Christianity, however, is the only religion in
the world whose claims to a miraculous authority are worthy of
serious consideration, and science, as we have seen, considers these
claims to be unfounded. What follows is this—whether there be
a God or no, and whether he has given us immortal souls or no,
science declares bluntly that he has never informed us of either
fact ; and if there is anything to warrant any belief in either, it
can be found only in the study of the natural universe. Accord-
ingly, to the natural universe science goes, and we have just seen
what it finds there. Part of what it finds bears specially on the
theologic conception of God, and part bears specially on the theo-
logic conception of man. With regard to God, to an intelligent
creator and ruler, it finds him on every ground to be a baseless
and a superfluous hypothesis. In former conditions of knowledge
it admits that this was otherwise—that the hypothesis then was
not only natural but necessary; for there were many seeming
mysteries which could not be explained without it. But now the
case has been altogether reversed. One after another these mys-
teries have been analyzed, not entirely, but to this extent at all
events, that the hypothesis of an intelligent creator is not only
nowhere necessary, but it generally introduces far more difficulties

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 229

than it solves. Thus, though we can not demonstrate that a cre-
ator does not exist, we have no grounds whatever for supposing
that he does. With regard to man, what science finds is analogous.
According to theology, he is a being specially related to God, and
his conduct and his destinies have an importance which dwarfs
the sum of material things into insignificance. But science exhib-
its him in a very different light; it shows that in none of the
qualities once thought peculiar to him does he differ essentially
from other phenomena of the universe. It shows that just as
there are no grounds for supposing the existence of a creator, so
there are none for supposing the existence of an immortal human
soul; while as for man’s importance relative to the rest of the uni-
verse, it shows that, not only as an individual, but also as a race,
he is less than a bubble of foam is when compared with the whole
sea. The few thousand years over which history takes us are as
nothing when compared with the ages for which the human race
has existed. The whole existence of the human race is as nothing
when compared with the existence of the earth; and the earth’s
history is but a second and the earth but a grain of dust in the
vast duration and vast magnitude of the All. Nor is this true of
the past only, it is true of the future also. As the individual dies,
so also will the race die; nor would a million of additional years
add anything to its comparative importance. Just as it emerged
out of lifeless matter yesterday, so will it sink again into lifeless
matter to-morrow. Or, to put the case more briefly still, it is
merely one fugitive manifestation of the same matter and force
which, always obedient to the same unchanging laws, manifest
themselves equally in a dung-heap, in a pig, and in a planet—
matter and force which, so far as our faculties can carry us, have
existed and will exist everywhere and forever, and which nowhere,
so far as our faculties avail to read them, show any sign, as a whole,
of meaning, of design, or of intelligence.

It is possible that Prof. Huxley, or some other scientific au-
thority, may be able to find fault with some of my sentences or '
my expressions, and to show that they are not professionally or
professorially accurate. If they care for such trifling criticism
they are welcome to the enjoyment of it; but I defy any one to
show, putting expression aside and paying attention only to the
general meaning of what I have stated, that the foregoing ac-
count of what science claims to have established is not substan-
tially true, and is not admitted to be so by any contemporary
thinker who opposes science to theism, from Mr. Frederic Harri-
son to Prof. Huxley himself.

And now let us pass on to something which in itself is merely
a matter of words, but which will bring what I have said thus far
into the circle of contemporary discussion. The men who are

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

mainly responsible for having forced the above views on the
world, who have unfolded to us the verities of nature and human
history, and have felt constrained by these to abandon their old
religious convictions—these men and their followers have by com-
mon consent agreed, in this country, to call themselves by the
name of agnostics. Now there has been much quarreling of late
among these agnostics as to what agnosticism—the thing which
unites them—is. It must be obvious, however, to every impartial
observer, that the differences between them are little more than
verbal, and arise from bad writing rather than from different rea-
soning. Substantially the meaning of one and all of them is the
same. Let us take, for instance, the two who are most ostenta-
tiously opposed to each other, and have lately been exhibiting
themselves, in this and other reviews, like two terriers each at
the other’s throat. I need hardly say that I mean Prof. Huxley
and Mr. Harrison.

Some writers, Prof. Huxley says, Mr. Harrison among them,

have been speaking of agnosticism as if it was a creed or a faith
or a philosophy. Prof. Huxley proclaims himself to be “ dazed”
and “bewildered” by the statements. Agnosticism, he says, is
not any one of these things. It is simply—I will give his defini-
tion in his own words—
a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single prin-
ciple. . . . Positively, the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect,
follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consid-
eration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclu-
sions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be
the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be
ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store
for him.

Now anything worse expressed than this for the purpose of the
discussion he is engaged in, or, indeed, for the purpose of convey-
ing his own general meaning, it is hardly possible to imagine.
Agnosticism, as generally understood, may, from one point of
view, be no doubt rightly described as “a method.” But is it a
method with no results, or with results that are of no interest ?
If so, there would be hardly a human being idiot enough to waste
a thought upon it. The interest resides in its results, and its re-
sults solely, and specially in those results that affect our ideas
about religion. Accordingly, when the word agnosticism is now
used in discussion, the meaning uppermost in the minds of those
who use it is not a method, but the results of a method, in their
religious bearings; and the method is of interest only in so far as
it leads to these. Agnosticism means, therefore, precisely what
Prof. Huxley says it does not mean. It means a creed, it means
a faith, it means a religious or irreligious philosophy. And this

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM,” 231

is the meaning attributed to it not only by the world at large, but
in reality by Prof. Huxley also quite as much as by anybody. I
will not lay too much stress on the fact that, in the passage just
quoted, having first fiercely declared agnosticism to be nothing
but a method, in the very next sentence he himself speaks of it
asa “faith.” I will pass on to a passage that is far more unam-
biguous. It is taken from the same essay. It is as follows:

“ ¢ Agnosticism [says Mr. Harrison] is a stage in the evolution of religion, an
entirely negative stage, the point reached by physicists, a purely mental conclu-
sion, with no relation to things social at all.’ I am [says Prof. Huxley] quite dazed
by this declaration. Are there then any ‘conclusions’ that are not ‘ purely men-
tal’? Is there no relation to things social in ‘ mental conclusions’ which affect
men’s whole conception of life? . . . ‘ Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of
religion.’ If... Mr. Harrison, like most people, means by ‘religion’ theology,
then, in my judgment, agnosticism can be said to be a stage in its evolution only
as death may be said to be the final stage in the evolution of life.”

Let us consider what this means. It means precisely what
every one else has all along been saying, that agnosticism is to
all intents and purposes a doctrine, a creed, a faith, or a philoso-
phy, the essence of which is the negation of theologic religion.
Now the fundamental propositions of theologic religion are these:
There is a personal God, who watches over the lives of men; and
there is an immortal soul in man, distinct from the flux of mat-
ter. Agnosticism, then, expressed in the briefest terms, amounts
to two articles—not of belief, but of disbelief. J do not believe in
any God, personal, intelligent, or with a purpose ; or, at least, with
any purpose that has any concern with man. Ido not believe in
any wmmortal soul, or in any personality or consciousness surviv-
ang the dissolution of the body.

Here I anticipate from many quarters a rebuke which men of
science are very fond of administering. I shall be told that ag-
nostics never say “there is no God,” and. never say “there is no
immortal soul.” Prof. Huxley is often particularly vehement on
this point. He would have us believe that a dogmatic atheist is,
in his view, as foolish as a dogmatic theist; and that an agnostic,
true to the etymology of his name, is not a man who denies God,
but who has no opinion about him. But this—even if true in some
dim and remote sense—is for practical purposes a mere piece of
solemn quibbling, and is utterly belied by the very men who use
it whenever they raise their voices to speak to the world at large.
The agnostics, if they shrink from saying that there is no God, at
least tell us that there is nothing to suggest that there is one, and
much to suggest that there is not. Surely, if they never spoke
more strongly than this, for practical purposes this is an absolute
denial. Prof. Huxley, for instance, is utterly unable to demon-
strate that an evening edition of the “ Times” is not printed in

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Sirius; but if any action depended on our believing this to be
true, he would certainly not hesitate to declare that it was a fool-
ish and fantastic falsehood. Who would think the better of him—
who would not think the worse—if in this matter he gravely de-
clared himself to be an agnostic ? And precisely the same may be
said of him with regard to the existence of God. For all practical
purposes he is not in doubt about it. He denies it. I need not,
however, content myself with my own reasoning. I find Prof. Hux-
ley himself indorsing every word that I have just uttered. He
declares that such questions as are treated of in volumes of divin-
ity “ are essentially questions of lunar politics, . . . not worth the
attention of men who have work to do in the world ”: and he cites
Hume’s advice with regard to such volumes as being “ most wise ”
—“Commit them to the flames, for they can contain nothing but
sophistry and illusion.”* Quotations of a similar import might
be indefinitely multiplied; but it will be enough to add to this
the statements quoted already, that agnosticism is to theologic
religion what death is to life; and that physiology does but deep-
en and complete the gloom of the gloomiest motto of paganism—
“Debemur mort.” If then agnosticism is not an absolute and dog-
matic denial of the fundamental propositions of theology, it dif-
fers from an absolute and dogmatic denial in a degree that is so
trivial as to be, in the words of Prof. Huxley himself, “not worth
the attention of men who have work to do in the world.” For all
practical purposes and according to the real opinion of Prof. Hux-
ley and Mr. Harrison equally, agnosticism is not doubt, is not
suspension of judgment; but it is a denial of what “most people
mean by religion”—that is to say, the fundamental propositions
of theology, so absolute that Prof. Huxley compares it to their
death.

And now let us pass on to the next point in our argument,
which I will introduce by quoting Prof. Huxley again. This de-
nial of the fundamental propositions of theology “ affects,” he says,
“men’s whole conception of life.” Let us consider how. By the
Christian world, life was thought to be important owing to its
connection with some unseen universe, full of interests and issues
which were too great for the mind to grasp at present, but in
which, for good or evil, we should each of us one day share, tak-
ing our place among the awful things of eternity. But at the
touch of the agnostic doctrine this unseen universe bursts like a
bubble, melts like an empty dream; and all the meaning which it
once imparted to life vanishes from its surface like mists from a
field at morning. In every sense but one, which is exclusively
physical, man is remorselessly cut adrift from the eternal; and
whatever importance or interest anything has for any of us, must

* “Tay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews,” p. 125.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 233

be derived altogether from the shifting pains or pleasures which
go to make up our momentary span of life, or the life of our race,
which in the illimitable history of the All is an incident just as
momentary.

Now supposing the importance and interest which life has thus
lost can not be replaced in any other way, will life really have
suffered any practical change and degradation ? To this question
our agnostics with one consent say Yes. Prof. Huxley says that
if theologic denial leads us to nothing but materialism, “the
beauty of a life may be destroyed,” and “ its energies paralyzed ” ; *
and that no one, not historically blind, “is likely to underrate the
importance of the Christian faith as a factor in human history,
or to doubt that some substitute genuine enough and worthy
enough to replace it will arise.” + Mr. Spencer says the same thing
with even’ greater clearness: while, as for Mr. Harrison, it is need-
less to quote from him; for half of what he has written is an am-
plification of these statements.

It is admitted, then, that life, in some very practical sense, will
be ruined if science, having destroyed theologic religion, can not
put, or allow to be put, some other religion in place of it. But we
must not content ourselves with this general language. Life will
be ruined, we say. Let us consider to what extent and how.
There is a good deal in life which obviously will not be touched at
all—that is to say, a portion of which is called the moral code.
Theft, murder, some forms of lying and dishonesty, and some
forms of sexual license, are inconsistent with the welfare of any
society ; and society, in self-defense, would still condemn and pro-
hibit them, even supposing it had no more religion than a tribe of
gibbering monkeys. But the moral code thus retained would con-
sist of prohibitions only, and of such prohibitions only as could be
enforced by external sanctions. Since, then, this much would sur-
vive the loss of religion, let us consider what would be lost along
with it. Mr. Spencer, in general terms, has told us plainly enough.
What would be lost, he says, is, in the first place, “our ideas of
goodness, rectitude, or duty,” or, to use a single word, “morality.”
This is no contradiction of what has just been said, for morality is
not obedience, enforced or even instinctive, to laws which have an
external sanction, but an active co-operation with the spirit of
such laws, under pressure of a sanction that resides in our own
wills. But not only would morality be lost, or this desire to work
actively for the social good; there would be lost also every higher
conception of what the social good or of what our own good is;
and men would, as Mr. Spencer says, “ become chiefly absorbed in

* “Tay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews,” p. 127.

+ “ Agnosticism,” “Nineteenth Century,” February, 1889, p. 191, and “ Popular Science
| Monthly,” April, 1889, p. 773,

234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the immediate and the relative.”* Prof. Huxley admits in effect
precisely the same thing when he says that the tendency of sys-
tematic materialism is to “paralyze the energies of life,’ and “to
destroy its beauty.”

Let us try to put the matter a little more concisely. It is ad-
mitted by our agnostics that the most valuable element in our life
is our sense of duty, coupled with obedience to its dictates; and
this sense of duty derives both its existence and its power over us
from religion, and from religion alone. How it derived them from
the Christian religion is obvious. The Christian religion pre-
scribed it to us as the voice of God to the soul, appealing as it
were to all our most powerful passions—to our fear, to our hope,
and to our love. Hope gave it a meaning to us, and love and fear
gave it asanction. The agnostics have got rid of God and the
soul together, with the loves, and fears, and hopes by which the
two were connected. The problem before them is to discover some
other considerations—that is, some other religion—which shall in-
vest duty with the solemn meaning and authority derivable no
longer from these. Our agnostics, as we know, declare them-
selves fully able to solve it. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Harrison, though
the solution of each is different, declare not only that some new
religion is ready for us, but that it isa religion higher and more
efficacious than the old; while Prof. Huxley, though less prophetic
and sanguine, rebukes those “who are alarmed lest man’s moral
nature be debased,” and declares that a wise man like Hume would
merely “smile at their perplexities.” ¢

Let us now consider what this new religion is—or rather these
new religions, for we are offered more than one. So far as form
goes, indeed, we are offered several. They can, however, all of
them be resolved into two, resting on two entirely different bases,
though sometimes, if not usually, offered to our acceptance in com-
bination. One of these, which is called by some of its literary ad-
herents Positivism or the Religion of Humanity, is based on two
propositions with regard to the human race. The first proposition
is that it is constantly though slowly improving, and will one day
reach a condition thoroughly satisfactory to itself. The second
proposition is that this remote consummation can be made so in-
teresting to the present and to all intervening generations that
they will strain every nerve to bring it about and hastenit. Thus,
though humanity is admitted to be absolutely a fleeting phenome-
non in the universe, it is presented relatively as of the utmost
moment to the individual; and duty is supplied with a constant

* “ Since the beginning, religion has had the all-essential office of preventing men from
being chiefly absorbed in the relative or the immediate, and of awaking them to a conscious-
ness of something beyond it.”—“ First Principles,” p. 100.

+ “Lay Sermons,” pp. 123, 124.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 235

meaning by hope, and with a constant motive by sympathy. The
basis of the other religion is not only different from this, but op-
posed to it. Just as this demands that we turn away from the
universe, and concentrate our attention upon humanity, so the
other demands that we turn away from humanity and concentrate
our attention on the universe. Mr. Herbert Spencer calls this the
Religion of the Unknowable; and though many agnostics con-
sider the name fantastic, they one and all of them, if they resign
the religion of humanity, consider and appeal to this as the only
possible alternative.

Now I have already in this review, not many months since, en-
deavored to show how completely absurd and childish the first of
these two religions, the Religion of Humanity,is. I do not pro-
pose, therefore, to discuss it further here, but will beg the reader
to consider that for the purpose of the present argument it is
brushed aside like rubbish, unworthy of a second examination.
Perhaps this request will sound somewhat arbitrary and arrogant,
but I have something to add which will show that it is neither.
The particular views which I now aim at discussing are the views
represented by Prof. Huxley; and Prof. Huxley rejects the Re-
ligion of Humanity as completely as I do, and with a great deal
less ceremony, as the following passage will demonstrate:

Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his
lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other
brutes; a blind prey to impulses which, as often as not, lead him to destruction;
a victim to endless illusions which, as often as rot, make his mental existence a
terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle. He
attains a certain degree of physical comfort, and develops a more or less workable
theory of life, in such favorable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or Egypt,
and, then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles with varying fortunes,
attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to maintain himself at
this point against the greed and the ambition of his fellow-men. He makes a point
of killing or otherwise persecuting all those who try to get him to move on; and
when he has moved on a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his vic-
tims. He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step yet fur-
ther. And the best men of the best epoch are simply those who make the fewest
blunders and commit the fewest sins. . . . I know of no study so unutterably sad-
dening as that of the evolution of humanity as it is set forth in the annals of his-
tory; .. . [and] when the positivists order men ta worship humanity—that is to
say, to adore the generalized conception of men, as they ever have been, and
probably ever will be—I must reply that I could just as soon bow down and wor-
ship the generalized conception of a “ wilderness of apes.” *

Let us here pause for a moment and look about us, so as to see
where we stand. Up to a certain point the agnostics have all gone
together with absolute unanimity, and I conceive myself to have

* “ Asnosticism,” “ Nineteenth Century,” February, 1889, pp. 191, 192, and “ Popular
Science Monthly,” April, 1889, pp. 772, 773.

236 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

gone with them. They have all been unanimous in their rejection
of theology, and in regarding man and the race of men as a fugi-
tive manifestation of the all-enduring something, which always,
everywhere, and in an equal degree, is behind all other phenomena
of the universe. They are unanimous also in affirming that, in
spite of its fugitive character, life can afford us certain consider-
ations and interests, which will still make duty binding on us, will
still give ita meaning. At this point, however, they divide into
two bands. Some of them assert that the motive and the meaning
of duty is to be found in the history of humanity, regarded as a
single drama, with a prolonged and glorious conclusion, complete
in itself, satisfying in itself, and imparting, by the sacrament of
sympathy, its own meaning and grandeur to the individual life,
which would else be petty and contemptible. This is what some
assert, and this is what others deny. With those who assert it we
have now parted company, and are standing alone with those
others who deny it—Prof. Huxley among them, as one of their
chief spokesmen.

And now addressing myself to Prof. Huxley in this character,
let me explain what I shall try to prove to him. If he could be-
lieve in God and in the divine authority of Christ, he admits he
could account for duty and vindicate a meaning for life; but he
refuses to believe, even though for some reasons he might wish to
do so, because he holds that the beliefs in question have no eyi-
dence to support them. Hecomplains that an English bishop has
called this refusal “cowardly ”—“has so far departed from his
customary courtesy and self-respect as to speak of ‘cowardly
agnosticism.’” I agree with Prof. Huxley that, on the grounds
advanced by the bishop, this epithet “ cowardly ” is entirely unde-
served ; but I propose to show him that, if not deserved on them,
it is deserved on others, entirely unsuspected by himself. I pro-
pose to show that his agnosticism is really cowardly, but cowardly
not because it refuses to believe enough, but because, tried by its
own standards, it refuses to deny enough. I propose to show that
the same method and principle, which is fatal to our faith in the
God and the future life of theology, is equally fatal to anything
which can give existence a meaning, or which can—to have re-
course to Prof. Huxley’s own phrases—“ prevent our ‘energies’
from being ‘ paralyzed,’ and ‘life’s beauty’ from being destroyed.”
I propose, in other words, to show that his agnosticism is cow-
ardly, not because it does not dare to affirm the authority of
Christ, but because it does not dare to deny the meaning and the
reality of duty. I propose to show that the miserable rags of
argument with which he attempts to cover the life which he pro-
fesses to have stripped naked of superstition, are part and parcel
of that very superstition itself—that, though they are not the

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 237

chasuble and the embroidered robe of theology, they are its hair-
shirt, and its hair-shirt in tatters—utterly useless for the purpose
to which it is despairingly applied, and serving only to make the
forlorn wearer ridiculous. I propose to show that in retaining
this dishonored garment, agnosticism is playing the part of an
intellectual Ananias and Sapphira; and that in professing to give
up all that it can not demonstrate, it is keeping back part, and the
larger part of the price—not, however, from dishonesty, but from
a dogged and obstinate cowardice, from a terror of facing the ruin
which its own principles have made.

Some, no doubt, will think that this is a rash undertaking, or
else that I am merely indulging in the luxury of a little rhetoric.
I hope to convince the reader that the undertaking is not rash,
and that I mean my expressions to be taken in a frigid and literal
sense. Let me begin then by repeating one thing, which I have
said before. When I say that agnosticism is fatal to our concep-
tion of duty, I do not mean that it is fatal to those broad rules
and obligations which are obviously necessary to any civilized
society, which are distinctly defensible on obvious utilitarian
grounds, and which, speaking generally, can be enforced by exter-
nal sanctions. These rules and obligations have existed from the
earliest ages of social life, and are sure to exist as long as social
life exists. But so far are they from giving life a meaning, that
on Prof. Huxley’s own showing they have barely made life toler-
able. A general obedience to them for thousands and thousands
of years has left “the evolution of man, as set forth in the annals
of history,’ the “most unutterably saddening study ” that Prof.
Huxley knows. From the earliest ages to the present—Prof. Hux-
ley admits this—the nature of man has been such that, despite
their laws and their knowledge, most men have made themselves
miserable by yielding to “ greed” and to “ ambition,” and by prac-
ticing “infinite wickedness.” They have proscribed their wisest
when alive, and accorded them a “foolish” hero-worship when
dead. Infinite wickedness, blindness, and idiotic emotion have,
then, according to Prof. Huxley’s deliberate estimate, marked and
marred men from the earliest ages to the present ; and he deliber-
ately says also, that “as men ever have been, they probably ever
will be.”

To do our duty, then, evidently implies a struggle. The im-
pulses usually uppermost in us have to be checked, or chastened,
by others, and these other impulses have to be generated, by fixing
our attention on considerations which lie somehow beneath the
surface. If this were not so, men would always have done their
duty; and their history would not have been “unutterably sad-
dening,” as Prof. Huxley says it has been. What sort of consid-
erations, then, must those we require be? Before answering

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

this question let us pause for a moment, and, with Prof. Huxley’s
help, let us make ourselves quite clear what duty is. I have
already shown that it differs from a passive obedience to exter-
nal laws, in being a voluntary and active obedience to a law that
is internal; but its logical aim is analogous—that is to say, the
good of the community, ourselves included. Prof. Huxley de-
scribes it thus—“ to devote one’s self to the service of humanity,
including intellectual and moral self-culture under that name”;
“to pity and help all men to the best of one’s ability”; “to be
strong and patient,” “to be ethically pure and noble”; and to push
our devotion to others “to the extremity of self-sacrifice.” All
these phrases are Prof. Huxley’s own. They are plain enough in
themselves; but, to make what he means yet plainer, he tells us
that the best examples of the duty he has been describing are to
be found among Christian martyrs and saints, such as Catherine
of Sienna, and above all in the ideal Christ—“the noblest ideal
of humanity,’ he calls it, “which mankind has yet worshiped.”
Finally, he says that “religion, properly understood, is simply the
reverence and love for [this] ethical ideal, and the desire to realize
that ideal in life which every man ought to feel.” That man
“ought” to feel this desire, and “ought” to act on it, “is,” he
says, “surely indisputable,” and “agnosticism has no more to do
with it than it has with music or painting.”

Here, then, we come to something at last which Prof. Huxley,
despite all his doubts, declares to be certain—to a conclusion which
agnosticism itself, according to his view, admits to be “indisput-
able.” Agnosticism, however, as he has told us already, lays it
down as a “fundamental axiom” that no conclusions are indis-
putable but such as are “demonstrated or demonstrable.” The
conclusion, therefore, that we ought to do our duty, and that we
ought to experience what Prof. Huxley calls “religion,” is evi-
dently a conclusion which, in his opinion, is demonstrated or
demonstrable with the utmost clearness and cogency. Before,
however, inquiring how far this is the case, we must state the
conclusion in somewhat different terms, but still in terms which
we have Prof. Huxley’s explicit warrant for using. Duty is a
thing which men in general, “as they always have been, and prob-
ably ever will be,” have lamentably failed to do, and to do which
is very difficult, going as it does against some of the strongest and
most victorious instincts of our nature. Prof. Huxley’s conclu-
sion, then, must be expressed thus: “ We ought to do something
which most of us do not do, and which we can not do without a
severe and painful struggle, often involving the extremity of self-
sacrifice.”

And now, such being the case, let us proceed to this crucial ques-
tion—What is the meaning of the all-important word “ought” ?

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 239

It does not mean merely that on utilitarian grounds the conduct in
question can be defended as tending to certain beneficent results.
This conclusion would be indeed barren and useless. It would
merely amount to saying that some people would be happier if
other people would for their sake consent to be miserable; or that
men would be happier as a race if their instincts and impulses
were different from “what they always have been and probably
ever will be.” When we say that certain conduct ought to be fol-
lowed, we do not mean that its ultimate results can be shown to
be beneficial to other people, but that they can be exhibited as
desirable to the people to whom the conduct is recommended—
and not only as desirable, but as desirable in a pre-eminent degree
—desirable beyond all other results that are immediately bene-
ficial to themselves. Now the positivists, or any other believers
in the destinies of humanity, absurd as their beliefs may be, still
have in their beliefs a means by which, theoretically, duty could
be thus recommended. According to them, our sympathy with
others is so keen, and the future in store for our descendants is so
satisfying, that we have only to think of this future and we shall
burn with a desire to work for it. But Prof. Huxley, and those
who agree with him, utterly reject both of these suppositions.
They say, and very rightly, that our sympathies are limited; and
that the blissful future, which it is supposed will appeal to them,
is moonshine. The utmost, then, in the way of objective results,
that any of us can accomplish by following the path of duty, is
not only little in itself, but there is no reason for supposing that
it will contribute to anything great. On the contrary, it will
only contribute to something which, as a whole, is “unutterably
saddening.”

Let us suppose, then, an individual with two ways of life open
to him—the way of ordinary self-indulgence, and the way of pain,
effort, and self-sacrifice. The first seems to him obviously the
most advantageous; but he has heard so much fine talk in favor
of the second, that he thinks it at least worth considering. He
goes, we will suppose, to Prof. Huxley, and asks to have it dem-
onstrated that this way of pain is preferable. Now what answer
to that could Prof. Huxley make—he, or any other agnostic who
agrees with him ? He has made several answers. I am going to
take them one by one; and while doing to each of them, as I
hope, complete justice, to show that they are not only absolutely
and ridiculously impotent to prove what is demanded of them, but

_ they do not even succeed in touching the question at issue.

One of the answers hardly needs considering, except to show
to what straits the thinker must be put who uses it. A man, says
Prof. Huxley, ought to choose the way of pain and duty, because

| it conduces in some small degree to the good of others; and to do

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good to others ought to be his predominant desire, or, in other
words, his religion. But the very fact in human nature that
makes the question at issue worth arguing, is the fact that men
naturally do not desire the good of others, or, at least, desire it in
a very lukewarm way; and every consideration which the posi-
tivist school advance to make the good of others attractive and
interesting to ourselves Prof. Huxley dismisses with what we may
call an uproarious contempt. If, then, we are not likely to be
nerved to our duty by a belief that duty done tends to produce
and hasten a change that shall really make the whole human lot
beautiful, we are not likely to be nerved to it by the belief that
its utmost possible result will be some partial and momentary
benefit to a portion of “a wilderness of apes.” The positivist
says to the men of the present day: “ Work hard at the founda-
tion of things social; for on these foundations one day will arise
a glorious edifice.” Prof. Huxley tells them to work equally
hard, only he adds that the foundation will never support any-
thing better than pig-sties. His attempt, then, on social grounds,
to make duty binding, and give force to the moral imperative, is
merely a fragment of Mr. Harrison’s system, divorced from any-
thing that gave it a theoretical meaning. Prof. Huxley has shat-
tered that system against the hard rock of reality, and this is one
of the pieces which he has picked up out of the mire.

The social argument, then, we may therefore put aside, as good
perhaps for showing what duty is, but utterly useless for creating
any desire to doit. Indeed, to render Prof. Huxley justice, it is
not the argument on which he mainly relies. The argument, or
rather the arguments, on which he mainly relies have no direct
connection with things social at all. They seek to create a relig-
ion, or to give a meaning to duty, by dwelling on man’s connec-
tion, not with his fellow-men, but with the universe, and thus de-
veloping in the individual a certain ethical self-reverence, or rath-
er, perhaps, preserving his existing self-reverence from destruc-
tion. How any human being who pretends to accurate thinking
can conceive that these arguments would have the effect desired
—that they would either tend in any way to develop self-rever-
ence of any kind, or that this self-reverence, if developed, could
connect itself with practical duty—passes my comprehension. In-
fluential and eminent men, however, declare that such is their
opinion ; and for that reason the arguments are worth analyzing.
Mr. Herbert Spencer is here in almost exact accord with Prof.
Huxley; we will therefore begin by referring to his way of stat-
ing the matter.

“We are obliged,” he says, “to regard every phenomenon as &
manifestation of some power by which we are acted on; though
omnipresence is unthinkable, yet, as experience discloses no bounds _

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 241

to the diffusion of phenomena, we are unable to think of limits
to the presence of this power; while the criticisms of science teach
us that this power is incomprehensible. And this consciousness
of an incomprehensible power, called omnipresent from inability
to assign its limits, is just that consciousness on which religion
dwells.” * Now Prof. Huxley, it will be remembered, gives an
account of religion quite different. He says it is a desire to real-
ize a certain ideal in life. His terminology therefore differs from
that of Mr. Spencer; but of the present matter, as the following
quotation will show, his view is substantially the same.

“Let us suppose,” he says, “that knowledge is absolute, and
not relative, and therefore that our conception of matter repre-
sents that which really is. Let us suppose further that we do
know more of cause and effect than a certain succession; and I
for my part do not see what escape there is from utter material-
ism and necessarianism.” And this materialism, were it really
what science forces on us, he admits would amply justify the dark-
est fears that are entertained of it. It would “drown man’s soul,”
“impede his freedom,” “ paralyze his energies,” “ debase his moral
nature,’ and “ destroy the beauty of his life.” + But, Prof. Hux-
ley assures us, these dark fears are groundless. There is indeed
only one avenue of escape from them; but that avenue truth
open to us.

“For,” he says, ‘after all, what do we know of this terrible ‘ matter,’ except
as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious-
ness? And what do we know of that ‘spirit’ over whose extinction by matter a
great lamentation is arising, . .. except that it also is a name for an unknown and
hypothetical cause or condition of states of consciousness? . . . And what is the
dire necessity and iron law under which men groan? Truly, most gratuitously
invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an ‘iron’ law it is that of gravitation;
and if there be a physical necessity it is that a stone unsupported must fall to the
ground. But what is all we really know and can know about the latter phe-
nomena? Simply that in all human experience stones have fallen to the ground
under these conditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing that
any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we have, on the

contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. ... But when, as com-
monly happens, we change will into must, we introduce an idea of necessity
which .. . has no warranty that I can discover anywhere.... Force I know, and

Law I know; but who is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind’s
throwing?”

Let us now compare the statements of these two writers. Each
states that the reality of the universe is unknowable; that just as
surely as matter is always one aspect of mind, so mind is equally
one aspect of matter; and that if it is true to say that the thoughts '
of man are material, it is equally true to say that the earth from

* “First Principles,” p. 99. + “Lay Sermons,” pp. 122, 128, 127.
VOL. Xxxv.—16 °

242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which man is taken is spiritual. Further, from these statements
each writer deduces a similar moral. The only difference between
them is, that Mr. Spencer puts it positively, and Prof. Huxley
negatively. Mr. Spencer says that a consciousness of the un-
knowable nature of the universe fills the mind with religious
emotion. Prof. Huxley says that the same consciousness will pre-
serve from destruction the emotion that already exists in it. We
will examine the positive and negative propositions in order, and —
see what bearing, if any, they have on practical life.

Mr. Spencer connects his religion with practical life thus: The
mystery and the immensity of the All, and our own inseparable
connection with it, deepen and solemnize our own conception of
ourselves. They make us regard ourselves as “elements in that
great evolution of which the beginning and the end are beyond
our knowledge or conception”; and in especial they make us so
regard our “ own innermost convictions.”

“Tt is not for nothing,” says Mr. Spencer, ‘‘that a man has in him these sym-
pathies with some principles, and repugnance to others. . . . He is a descendant
of the past; he is a parent of the future; and his thoughts are as children born to
him, which he may not carelessly let die. He, like every other man, may properly
consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown
Cause: and when the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain belief, he is
thereby authorized to profess and act with this belief.” *

In all the annals of intellectual self-deception it would be hard
to find anything to outdo or even to approach this. What a man
does or thinks, what he professes or acts out, can have no effect
whatever, conceivable to ourselves, beyond such effects as it pro-
duces within the limits of this planet; and hardly any effect,
worth our consideration, beyond such as it produces on himself
and a few of his fellow-men. Now, howcan any of these effects
be connected with the evolution of the universe in such a way as
to enable a consciousness of the universe to inform us that one
set of effects should be aimed at by us rather than another ? The
positivists say that our aim should be the progress of man; and
that, as I have said, forms a standard of duty, though it may
not supply a motive. But what has the universe to do with the
progress of man? Does it know anything about, it or care any-
thing about it? Judging from the language of Mr. Spencer and
Prof. Huxley, one would certainly suppose that it did. Surely,in
that case, here is anthropomorphism with a vengeance. “It is
not for nothing,” says Mr. Spencer, “that the Unknowable has im-
planted in a man certain impulses.” What is this but the old
theologic doctrine of design? Can anything be more inconsistent
with the entire theory of the evolutionist ? Mr. Spencer’s argu-

* “ First Principles,” p. 128.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 243

ment means, if it means anything, that the Unknowable has im-
planted in us one set of sympathies in a sense in which it has not
implanted others: else the impulse to deny one’s belief, and not to
act on it, which many people experience, would be authorized by
the Unknowable as much as the impulse to profess it, and to act
on it. And according to Mr. Spencer’s entire theory, according to
Prof. Huxley’s entire theory, according to the entire theory of
modern science, it is precisely this that is the case. If it is the
fact that the Unknowable works through any of our actions, it
works through all alike, bad, good, and indifferent, through our
lies as well as through our truth-telling, through our injuries to
our race as well as through our benefits to it. The attempt to con-
nect the well-being of humanity with any general tendency ob-
servable in the universe, is in fact, on agnostic principles, as
hopeless as an attempt to get, in a balloon, to Jupiter. Itis utterly
unfit for serious men to talk about; and its proper place, if any-
where, would be in one of Jules Verne’s story-books. The desti-
nies of mankind, so far as we have any meansof knowing, have as
little to do with the course of the Unknowable as a whole, as the
destinies of an ant-hill in South Australia have to do with the
question of home rule for Ireland.

Or even supposing the Unknowable to have any feeling in the
matter, how do we know that its feeling would be in our favor,
and that it would not be gratified by the calamities of humanity,
rather than by its improvement? Or here is a question which is
more important still, Supposing the Unknowable did desire our
improvement, but we, as Prof. Huxley says of us, were obstinately
bent against being improved, what could the Unknowable do to
us for thus thwarting its wishes ?

And this leads us to another aspect of the matter. If conscious-
ness of the Unknowable does not directly influence action, it may
yet be said that the contemplation of the universe as the wonder-
ful garment of this unspeakable mystery, is calculated to put the
mind into a serious and devout condition, which would make it
susceptible to the solemn voice of duty. How any devotion so
produced could have any connection with duty I confess I am ata
loss to see. But I need not dwell on that point, for what I wish
to show is this, that contemplation of the Unknowable, from the
agnostic’s point of view, is not calculated to produce any sense of
devoutness at all. Devoutness is made up of three things, fear,
love, and wonder; but were the agnostic’s thoughts really con-
trolled by his own principles (which they are not) not one of these
emotions could the Unknowable possibly excite in him. It need
hardly be said that he has no excuse for loving it, for his own first
principles forbid him to say that it is lovable, or that it possesses
any character, least of all any anthropomorphic character. But

244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

perhaps it is calculated to excite fear or awe in him. This idea is
more plausible than the other. The universe as compared with
man is a revelation of forces that are infinite, and it may be said
that surely these have something awful and impressive in them,
There is, however, another side to the question. This universe
represents not only infinite forces, but it represents also infinite
impotence. So long as we conform ourselves to certain ordinary
rules we may behave as we like for anything it can do to us. We
may look at it with eyes of adoration, or make faces at it, and
blaspheme it, but for all its power it can not move a finger to
touch us. Why, then, should a man be in awe of this lubberly
All, whose blindness and impotence are at least as remarkable as
its power, and from which man is as absolutely safe as a mouse in
a hole is from alion? But there still remains the emotion of
wonder to be considered. Is not the universe calculated to excite
our wonder? From the agnostic point of view we must certainly
say No. The further science reveals to us the constitution of
things the feeling borne in on us more and more strongly is this,
that it is not wonderful that things happen as they do, but that it
would be wonderful if they happened otherwise: while as for the
Unknown Cause that is behind what science reveals to us, we can
not wonder at that, for we know nothing at all about it, and, if
there is any sronder involved in the matter at all, it is nothing but
wonder at our own ignorance.

So much, then, for our mere emotions toward the Unlenowenie
There still remains, however, one way more in which it is alleged
that our consciousness of it can be definitely connected with duty ;
and this is the way which our agnostic philosophers most com-
monly have in view, and to which they allude most frequently. I
allude to the search after scientific truth and the proclamation
of it, regardless of consequences. Whenever the agnostics are
pressed as to the consequences of their principles, it is on this con-
ception of duty that they invariably fall back. Mr. Herbert
Spencer, on his own behalf, expresses the position thus:

The highest truth he sees will the wise man fearlessly utter, knowing that, let
what may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the world, knowing that
if he can effect the change [in belief] he aims at, well; if not, well also; though
not so well.*

After what has been said already it will not be necessary to
dwell long on this astonishing proposition. A short examination
will suffice to show its emptiness. That a certain amount of truth
in social intercourse is necessary for the continuance of society,
and that a large number of scientific truths are useful in enabling
us to add to our material comforts is, as Prof. Huxley would say,

* “Wirst Principles,” p. 123.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 245

“surely indisputable.” And truth thus understood it is “ surely
indisputable” that we should cultivate. The reason is obvious.
Such truth has certain social consequences, certain things that we
all desire come of it; but the highest truth which Mr. Spencer
speaks of stands, according to him, on a wholly different basis,
and we are to cultivate it, not because of its consequences, but in
defiance of them. And what are its consequences, so far as we can
see? Prof. Huxley’s answer is this: “I have had, and have, the
firmest conviction that ... the verace via, the straight road, has
led nowhere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled
forest.” Now if this be the case, what possible justification can
there be for following this verace via ? In what sense is the man
who follows it playing “his right part in the world” ? And when
Mr. Spencer says, with regard to his conduct, “it is well,” with
whom is it well, or in what sense is it well? We can use such
language with any warrant or with any meaning only on the sup-
position that the universe, or the Unknowable as manifested
through the universe, is concerned with human happiness in some
special way, in which it is not concerned with human misery, and
that thus our knowledge of it must somehow make men happier,
even though it leads them into a wild and tangled forest. It is
certain that our devotion to truth will not benefit the universe;
the only question is, will knowledge of the universe, beyond a cer-
tain point, benefit us? But the supposition just mentioned is
merely theism in disguise. It imputes to the Unknowable design,
purpose, and affection. In every way it is contrary to the first
principles of agnosticism. Could we admit it, then devotion to
truth might have all the meaning that Mr. Spencer claims for it:
but if this supposition is denied, as all agnostics deny it, this de-
votion to truth, seemingly so noble and so unassailable, sinks to a
superstition more abject, more meaningless, and more ridiculous
than that of any African savage, groveling and mumbling before
his fetich.

We have now passed under review the main pésitiv’ argu-
ments by which our agnostics, while dismissing the existence of
God as a question of lunar politics, endeavor to exhibit the reality
of religion, and of duty, as a thing that is “ surely indisputable.”
We will now pass on to their negative arguments. While by
positive arguments they endeavor to prove that duty and religion
are realities, by their negative arguments they endeavor to prove
that duty and religion are not impossibilities. We have seen
how absolutely worthless to their cause are the former; but if the
former are worthless, the latter are positively fatal.

What they are the reader has already seen. I have taken the
statement of them from Prof. Huxley, but Mr. Spencer uses lan-
guage almost precisely similar. These arguments start with two

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

admissions. Were all our actions linked one to another by me-
chanical necessity, itis admitted that responsibility and duty would
be no longer conceivable. Our “ energies,” as Prof. Huxley ad-
mits, would be “ paralyzed” by “utter necessarianism.” Further,
did our conception of matter represent a reality, were matter low
and gross, aS we are accustomed to think of it, then man, as the
product of matter, would be low and gross also, and heroism and
duty would be really successfully degraded, by being reduced to
questions of carbon and ammonia. But from all of these difficul-
ties Prof. Huxley professes to extricate us. Let us look back at
the arguments by which he considers that he has done so.

We will begin with his method of liberating us from the
“iron” law of necessity, and thus giving us back our freedom and
moral character. He performs this feat, or rather, he thinks he
has performed it, by drawing a distinction between what will
happen and what must happen. On this distinction his entire
position is based. Now in every argument used by any sensible
man there is probably some meaning. Let us try fairly to see
what is the meaning in this. I take it that the idea at the bottom
of Prof. Huxley’s mind is as follows: Though all our scientific
reasoning presupposes the uniformity of the universe, we are un-
able to assert of the reality behind the universe, that it might not
manifest itself in ways by which all present science would be
baffled. But what has an idea like this to do with any practical
question ? So far as man, and man’s will, is concerned, we have
to do only with the universe as we know it; and the only knowl-
edge we have of it, worth calling knowledge, involves, as Prof.
Huxley is constantly telling us, “the great act of faith,” which
leads us to take what has been as a certain index of what will be.
Now, with regard to this universe, Prof. Huxley tells us that the
progress of science has always meant, and “ means now more than
ever,” “the extension of the province of ... causation,and...
the banishment of spontaneity.”* And this applies, as he ex-
pressly says, to human thought and action as much as to the
flowering of a plant. Just as there can be no voluntary action
without volition, so there can be no volition without some pre-
ceding cause. Accordingly, if a man’s condition at any given
moment were completely known, his actions could be predicted
with as much or with as little certainty as the fall of a stone could
be predicted if released from the hand that held it. Now Prof.
Huxley tells us that, with regard to certainty, we are justified in
saying that the stone will fall; and we should, therefore, be justi-
fied in saying similarly of the man, that he will act in such and
such a manner. Whether theoretically we are absolutely certain
is no matter. Weare absolutely certain for all practical purposes,

* “Tay Sermons,” p. 123.

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 247

and the question of human freedom is nothing if not practical.
What then is gained—is anything gained—is the case in any way
altered—by telling ourselves that, though there is certainty in the
case, there is no necessity ? Suppose I held a loaded pistol to
Prof. Huxley’s ear, and offered to pull the trigger, should I recon-
cile him to the operation by telling him that, though it certainly
would kill him, there was not the least necessity that it should do
so? And with regard to volition and action, as the result of pre-
ceding causes, is not the case precisely similar ? Let Prof. Huxley
turn to all the past actions of humanity. Can he point to any
smallest movement of any single human being, which has not been
the product of causes, which in their turn have been the product
of other causes? Or can he point to any causes which, under
given conditions, could have produced any effects other than those
they have produced, unless he uses the word could in the foolish
and fantastic sense which would enable him to say that unsup-
ported stones could possibly fly upward? For all practical pur-
poses the distinction between must and will is neither more nor
less than a feeble and childish sophism. Theoretically no doubt
it will bear this meaning—that the Unknowable might have so
made man, that at any given moment he could be a different be-
ing: but it does nothing to break the force of what all science
teaches us—that man, formed as he is, can not act otherwise than
as he does. The universe may have no necessity at the back of
at; but its presence and its past alike are a necessity at the back of
us; and it is not necessity, but it is doubt of necessity, that is
really “the shadow of our own mind’s throwing.”

And now let us face Prof. Huxley’s other argument, which is
to save life from degradation by taking away the reproach from
matter. If it is true, he tells us, to say that everything, mind in-
cluded, is matter, it is equally true to say that everything, matter
included, is mind; and thus, he argues, the dignity we all attribute
to mind, at once is seen to diffuse itself throughout the entire uni-
verse. Mr. Herbert Spencer puts the same view thus:

Such an attitude of mind [contempt for matter and dread of materialism] is
significant not so much of a reverence for the Unknown Cause, as of an irrever-
ence for those familiar forms in which the Unknown Cause is manifested to us.*
. - - But whoever remembers that the forms of existence of which the unculti-
vated speak with so mnch scorn... are found to be the more marvelous the
more they are investigated, and are also to be found to be in their natures abso-
lutely incomprehensible . . . will see that the course proposed [a reduction of all
things to terms of matter] does not imply a degradation of the so-called higher,
but an elevation of the so-called lower.

The answer to this argument, so far as it touches any ethical
or religious question, is at once obvious and conclusive. The one
* “First Principles,” p. 556.

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

duty of ethics and of religion is to draw a distinction between two
states of emotion and two courses of action—to elevate the one
and to degrade the other. But the argument we are now consid-
ering, though undoubtedly true in itself, has no bearing on this
distinction whatever. It is invoked to show that religion and
duty remain spiritual in spite of all materialism; but it ends,
with unfortunate impartiality, in showing the same thing of vice
and of cynical worldliness. If the life of Christ is elevated by
being seen in this light, so also is the life of Casanova; and it is
as impossible in this way to make the one higher than the other
as it is to make one man higher than another by taleing them both
up in a balloon.

I have now gone through the whole case for duty and for re-
ligion, as stated by the agnostic school, and have shown that, as
thus stated, there is no case at all, I have shown their arguments
to be so shallow, so irrelevant, and so contradictory, that they
never could have imposed themselves on the men who condescend
to use them,if these men, upon utterly alien grounds, had not
pledged themselves to the conclusion which they invoke the argu-
ments to support. Something else, however, still remains to be
done. Having seen how agnosticism fails to give a basis to either
religion or duty, I will point out to the reader how it active-
ly and mercilessly destroys them. Religion and duty, as has been
constantly made evident in the course of the foregoing discussion,
are, in the opinion of the agnostics, inseparably connected. Duty
is a course of conduct which is more than conformity to human
law; religion consists of the emotional reasons for pursuing that
conduct. Now these reasons, on the showing of the agnostics
themselves, are reasons that do not lie on the surface of the mind.
They have to be sought out in moods of devoutness and abstrac-
tion, and the more we dwell on them, the stronger they are sup-
posed to become. They lie above and beyond the ordinary things
of life; but after communing with them, it is supposed that we
shall descend to these things with our purposes sharpened and in-
tensified. It is easy to see, however, if we divest ourselves of all
prejudice, and really conceive ourselves to be convinced of noth-
ing which is not demonstrable by the methods of agnostic science,
that the more we dwell on the agnostic doctrine of the universe,
the less and not the more shall duty seem to be binding on us.

I have said that agnosticism can supply us with no religion.
Perhaps I was wrong in saying so, but if we will but invert the
supposed tendency of religion, it can and it will supply us with a
religion indeed. It will supply us with a religion which, if we
describe it in theological language, we may with literal accuracy
describe as the religion of the devil—of the devil, the spirit which
denies. Instead of telling us of duty, that it has a meaning which

“COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM.” 249

does not lie on the surface, such meaning as may lie on the sur-
face it will utterly take away. It will indeed tell us that the
soul which sins shall die; but it will tell usin the same breath
that the soul which does not sin shall die the same death. In-
stead of telling us that we are responsible for our actions, it will
tell us that if anything is responsible for them it is the blind
and unfathomable universe; and if we are asked to repent of any
shameful sins we have committed, it will tell us we might as well
be repentant about the structure of the solar system. These med-
itations, these communings with scientific truth, will be the exact
inverse of the religious meditations of the Christian. HKvery man,
no doubt, has two voices—the voice of self-indulgence or indiffer-
ence, and the voice of effort and duty; but whereas the religion
of the Christian enabled him to silence the one, the religion of the
agnostic will forever silence the other. I say forever, but I
probably ought to correct myself. Could the voice be silenced
forever, then there might be peace in the sense in which Roman
conquerors gave the name of peace to solitude. But it is more
likely that the voice will still continue, together with the longing
expressed by it, only to feel the pains of being again and again
silenced, or sent back to the soul saying bitterly, I am a lie.

Such, then, is really the result of agnosticism on life, and the
result is so obvious to any one who knows how to reason, that it
could be hidden from nobody, except by one thing, and that is
the cowardice characteristic of all our contemporary agnostics.
They dare not face what they have done. They dare not look fix-
edly at the body of the life which they have pierced.

And now comes the final question to which all that I have thus
far urged has been leading. What does theologic religion answer
to the principles and to the doctrines of agnosticism? In con-
temporary discussion the answer is constantly obscured, but it is
of the utmost importance that it should be given clearly. It says
this: If we start from and are faithful to the agnostic’s funda-
mental principles, that nothing is to be regarded as certain which
is not either demonstrated or demonstrable, then the denial of God
is the only possible creed for us. To the methods of science noth-
ing in this universe gives any hint of either a God or a purpose.
Duty; and holiness, aspiration and love of truth, are “merely
shadows of our own mind’s throwing,” but shadows which, instead
of making the reality brighter, only serve to make it more ghastly
and hideous. Humanity isa bubble; the human being is a pup-
pet, cursed with the intermittent illusion that he is something
more, and roused from this illusion with a pang every time it flat-
ters him. Now, from this condition of things is there no escape ?
Theoiogic religion answers, There is one, and one only, and this is
the repudiation of the principle on which all agnosticism rests.

250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Let us see what this repudiation amounts to, and we shall then
realize what, in the present day, is the intellectual basis which
theologic religion claims. Theologic religion does not say that
within limits the agnostic principle is not perfectly valid and has
not led to the discovery of a vast body of truth. But what it does
say is this: That the truths which are thus discovered are not the
only truths which are certainly and surely discoverable. The
fundamental principle of agnosticism is that nothing is certainly
true but such truths as are demonstrated or demonstrable. The
fundamental principle of theologic religion is that there are other
truths of which we can be equally or even more certain, and that
these are the only truths that give life a meaning and redeem us
from the body of death. Agnosticism says nothing is certain
which can not be proved by science. Theologic religion says,
nothing which is important can be. Agnosticism draws a line
round its own province of knowledge, and beyond that it declares
is the unknown void which thought can not enter, and in which
belief can not support itself. Where Agnosticism pauses, there
religion begins. On what seems to science to be unsustaining
air, it lays its foundations—it builds up its fabric of certainties.
Science regards them as dreams, as an “ unsubstantial pageant” ;
and yet even to science religion can give some account of them.
Prof. Huxley says, as we have seen, that “from the nature of
ratiocination,” it is obvious that it must start “from axioms which
can not be demonstrated by ratiocination”; and that in science
it must start with “one great act of faith ”—faith in the uni-
formity of nature. Religion replies to science: “ And I, too, start
with a faith in one thing. I start with a faith which you, too,
profess to hold—faith in the meaning of duty and the infinite im-
portance of life; and out of that faith my whole fabric of certain-
ties, one after the other, is reared by the hands of reason. Do
you ask for proof ? Do you ask for verification ? I can give you
one only, which you may take or leave, as you choose. Deny the
certainties which I declare to be certain—deny the existence of
God, deny man’s freedom and immortality, and by no other con-
ceivable hypothesis can you vindicate for man’s life any possible
meaning, or save it from the degradation at which you profess to
feel so aghast.” “Is there no other way,’ I can conceive science
asking, “no other way by which the dignity of life may be vindi-
cated except this—the abandonment of my one fundamental prin-
ciple? Must I put my lips, in shame and humiliation, to the cup
of faith I have so contemptuously cast away from me? May not
this cup pass from me? Is there salvation in no other?” And
to this question, without passion or preference, the voice of reason
and logic pitilessly answers “ No.”

Here is the dilemma which men, sooner or later, will see before

THH ANIMAL WORLD OF WELL-WATERS. 251

them, in all its crudeness and nakedness, cleared from the rags
with which the cowardice of contemporary agnosticism has ob-
scured it; and they will then have to choose one alternative or the
other. What their choice will be I do not venture to prophesy ;
but I will venture to call them happy if their choice prove to be
this: To admit frankly that their present canon of certainty, true
so far as it goes, is only the pettiest part of truth, and that the
deepest certainties are those which, if tried by this canon, are illu-
sions. To make this choice a struggle would be required with
pride, and with what has long passed for enlightenment; and yet,
when it is realized what depends on the struggle, there are some
at least who will think that it must end successfully. The only
way by which, in the face of science, we can ever logically arrive
at a faith in life,is by the commission of what many at present
will describe as an intellectual suicide. I do not for a moment
admit that such an expression is justifiable, but, if I may use it
provisionally, and because it points to the temper at present preva-
lent, I shall be simply pronouncing the judgment of frigid reason
in saying that it is only through the grave and gate of death that
the spirit of man can pass to its resurrection—Tortnightly Re-
view.

THE ANIMAL WORLD OF WELL-WATERS.
By Dr. OTTO ZACHARIAS.

oe HAT! can it be that, in the well from which we obtain

our drinking-water, there are animals?” This question
will undoubtedly suggest itself to one or more of my readers
on seeing the heading I have given to these lines. Some of them
perhaps may, in view of the existence of a “ well-fauna,” take a
solemn pledge of total abstinence so far as the drinking of water
is concerned, and hereafter quench their thirst in something else.
Others may perhaps, seemingly in jest, and yet withal in truth,
seriously enough ascribe a catarrh of the stomach, contracted by
drinking water that was too cold, not to their own carelessness,
but to some little animal which they fancy they have swallowed.
Others still will play the part of skeptics, and perchance, hold-
ing a glass of water from their well up to the light, peer critically
into it and exclaim: “The story. is merely another fable of the
scientists; we shall not believe in the existence of these creatures
until we see them.”

Nor can any one be blamed for taking this view of the matter.
However, right here, the fact should be mentioned that it is not
the clear upper portion of the well-water that contains the ani-
mal organisms, but that they occur in the lower strata, close to

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the bottom of the well and in the mud there. It is especially
this mud that must be regarded as the native soil of the different
organisms which are to be referred to in the following article;
and this at once forcibly calls to our attention the fact that
turbid well-water (that is, water which may be suspected of
holding mud-particles in suspension) should under no circum-
stances be used for drinking purposes. Water, clear and spark-
ling, from a mountain brook, or water drawn from a good well,
will, even under a microscope, present nothing that could arouse
the aversion of the drinker, or raise doubts as to its desirability
from a sanitary point of view.

It is but of late that the attention of naturalists, and espe-
cially of zodlogists, has been drawn to the peculiar kinds of ani-
mal life which exist in the depths of wells. Credit is due chiefly
to Prof. Franz Vejdovsky, in Prague, for calling the attention of
scientists to this realm of the animal world. Already many years
ago the searching eye of Science had penetrated to the greatest
depths of the oceans and inland seas; untiring zeal had discov-
ered interesting phases of animal and plant life in dark caves and
grottoes, as well as on the snow-fields of the Alps. But the wells
had thus far been left unsearched, and here there still remained a
wide field for the explorer, for the making of interesting observa-
tions and discoveries,

A peculiar circumstance led to a systematic examination of
wells in search for the organisms they might contain. The death-
rate at Prague had grown to be very high, and this created in
the mind of the public the idea that the condition of the water-
supply there was at fault. In 1879 a committee was appointed
which was to make a practical investigation into this matter.
At the request of this committee, Prof. Vejdovsky has, in a period
extending over two years, examined with the microscope the
water of more than two hundred wells of the city of Prague, in
order to study the noxious organisms suspected of existing therein.

Of course, it is only possible to acquire knowledge of this kind
by obtaining a sufficient quantity of mud from the well which is
to be examined. This is done by sinking an apparatus especially
constructed for the purpose into the well-shaft. The scoop con-
sists of a stirrup made of iron, a foot and a half long and half a
foot broad, to which a bag of coarse canvas is attached. This
contrivance is fastened to a rope from twenty to thirty metres in
length, and, in order that it should sink deep into the mud, a
cannon-ball, weighing from eight to ten pounds, is fastened to it
at the proper place.

According to the kind of well, the canvas bag is either dragged
over the bottom, so that it may gather up the mud, or the rope
is jerked up and down; the water is thus stirred up and rendered

THE ANIMAL WORLD OF WELL-WATERS., ang

turbid, so that in this manner the mud will be caught in the bag
on drawing it up to the surface.

In order to make the investigation a thorough one, a small por-
tion of this muddy matter, which generally consists of decaying
organic substances, is placed at once under the microscope, and
the organisms contained in it are determined. Besides doing this,
it is desirable to put a large quantity of the mud, say about one
hundred grammes, into a glass jar, which can be closed, and to
add some water from the well from which the mud was taken.
Then this should be quietly set aside for two or three weeks, in
some light spot, where the warm sunbeams can penetrate, so that
any eggs or germs present in the water may be destroyed. In
this way a great deal may yet be ascertained that could not have
been learned at the examination conducted immediately after
obtaining the sample.

“But what does the mud from such a well contain ?” will be
asked by the reader with whom the question what it is that he
must guard against is of prime importance. This question is
here to be answered. First of all, let a glance be cast at the
woodcuts subjoined. Excepting Figs. 6,7, and 8, the organisms
represented are visible only under the microscope, or at least
require, in order to be distinguishable, the aid of a powerful mag-
nifying lens. Nearly every particle of well-mud
contains the amcebe pictured in Fig. 1. They
resemble drops of flowing liquid, and constantly
change their form by sending out ray-like exten-
sions. These extensions of the body are called
pseudopodia, because their appearance creates the
impression that the little animal is possessed of
feet. But this is not the case; the pseudopodia (ps)
are formed only in the moment when a change in
location is desired, and they cease to exist when
the place is reached which the little animal
sought to attain. It can easily be proved that
these amcebe are animals, for they take up solid particles of
food, digest the same, and cast out again whatever has not been
assimilated. There is no vegetable organism which takes up solid
particles into its interior for sustenance. The propagation of the
amceba takes place in the simplest manner imaginable, by fission:
a large specimen contracts at the center and ultimately divides
into two parts, so that the mother-animal is actually rent into
halves. In the body-substance of these beings, which are on the
lowest plane of organic life, the microscope discloses a number
of small particles, and a larger kernel (k), which is called the
nucleus. Besides this there are yet one or more clear spaces called
“vacuoles” (v). When fission takes place, the nucleus is also

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

divided, and each of the newly formed organisms receives its
share. These little beings are particularly entitled to our atten-
tion, because each higher organism is also originally evolved
from a naked egg-cell, and devoid of any membrane or cuticle.*
Moreover, such a cell shows essentially the same simple structure,
and moves about in the same manner as the amceba—that is, by
the aid of pseudopodia.

Hence the amcebe are one of the lowest forms of organisms
known; they have remained on the lowest plane of development,
and, if one accepts, with Lamarck and Darwin, the evolution of
the animal world from a simplest beginning, these creatures must
be regarded as the original progenitors of all forms of animal
life. Of course, every one is at liberty to doubt such progressive
evolution of organized beings; but this
much is certain, the individual develop-
ment of each proceeds from a primary
state, which is not greatly different from
the structure of these amcebee.

Fig. 2 represents a shell-bearing amoeba,
(Huglypha), which is also to be found in
great numbers in the mud of wells. In
this organism the naked sarcode, which
consists of a substance similar to albumen, is covered and pro-
tected by a membranous envelope, or “carapace,” from which,
through an opening, the pseudopodia (ps) appear. The little or-
ganism pictured in Fig. 3 stands in close relationship to the pre-
ceding (Centropyxis aculeata.) Its shell, made up of diatoms and
fragments of small particles of stone, shows thorn-like protuber-
ances,

Fig. 2.

Fria. 3. Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 makes us acquainted with the appearance of the flagel-
late infusoria. These are animals that have a delicate body, which
can be contracted, and at one end of which there is a filament (9/)
which is constantly in motion, and with which certain movements
are executed. This filament is in reality nothing else than a long

* Authorities differ on the question as to whether the amcebe are covered with a mem-
brane or not.—TRANSLATOR.

«

THE ANIMAL WORLD OF WELL-WATERS. 255

pseudopodium, which has grown to be permanent, and which
has a certain function to exercise, namely, to make motions of
rowing and feeling.

Starting with the
amoeba, the flagellate
infusoria represent the
next higher phase of
morphological differ-
entiation — that is to
say, they represent the
division of the homo-
geneous substance of
the amceba into distinct
parts, to which different
functions are assigned.
In social science one
would allude to this as
the commencement of a
division of labor.

Fig. 5 represents an individual belonging to the genus Cothur-
mia, which is very frequently found in the depths of town and
country wells. It possesses the power to withdraw with light-
ning speed into the trans-
* parent envelope which sur-
rounds it whenever the cilia
which are attached to its
front come in contact with
anything hard. K denotes
the nucleus which no infu-
soria lack, and wv represents
the vacuole, which, however,
at times may disappear.

Fig. 6 pictures a small
creature, the Stenostonia leu-
cops, which attains a length
of about one millimetre, and
which appears to the naked
eye like a minute white
thread. This kind of worm
is of frequent occurrence, and
has received its name from
the rotary motion which the
cilia that are on the surface of
its body impart to the water when the animal moves or swims: g g,
is the nerve-center (brain-ganglion), which is very considerable in
proportion to the size of the worm. The mouth is not shown in

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the picture, but p h is the throat, and this is followed by the sac-
like “ stomach-intestine,” d. These worms propagate likewise by
simple fission, after a new brain-ganglion has been formed at th s#,
by the thickening of the two sides. A new mouth is formed by a
drawing in of the outer skin. On either side of the head there
is a little indentation in which longer hairs are growing. These
are probably organs of sense; however, their function has not
yet been determined.

Figs. 7 and 8 show a pair of crab-like animals, which are
among the regular inhabitants of wells. Fig. 7 is a cyclops; Fig.
8 represents a crustacean, the Cypris. The latter is rather a
peculiar object, as the animal is inclosed in a shell-like structure,
called a carapace, from which only a pair of caudal appendages
protrude, which are provid-
ed with bristles and serve
for the purpose of locomo-
tion; oc is the eye.

A considerable number
of species of cyclops are
to be found in the mud
of wells. Fig. 7 shows the

Fic. 8. Cyclops nanus. This lit-

tle animal travels rapidly

through the water by means of its swimming apparatus, to which

the powerful muscles (m) lend considerable assistance. The

female carries two ovisacs (ez) with numerous eggs ; oc, at the

front part of the body, is the eye, which is of a reddish or brown
color and possesses a fine lens.

In this article we have enumerated and pictured only the prin-
cipal representatives of this fauna of the wells, so that a general
idea might be gained of the appearance of the animals which live
in the turbid water of wells. However, to show how rich in
numbers this little animal world is, the fact should be mentioned
that Prof. Vejdovsky, after his careful examination of the water of
two hundred and thirty-one wells of Prague, was able to announce
the existence of—(1) twenty varieties of amceba-like organisms;
(2) twelve varieties of flagellate infusoria; (3) forty-five varieties
of other infusoria; (4) twenty-four varieties of worms; (5) ten
varieties of crustacea—making altogether a total of one hundred
and eleven species of organisms. Most of these varieties were
found in wells which had been polluted by the infiltration of
urine and decaying organic matter. The organisms carried down
by the surface water into these lower regions had found abun-
dant food there, and were thus enabled to continue their exist-
ence. With regard to the question as to whether the water from
wells that show an abundance of these forms of life is dangerous

THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE OR JARGON. 257

to health or not, it may be said that the danger of. partaking of
such water is due, not so much to the presence of the minute in-
fusoria, worms, and crustacea, as to the occurrence of putrefying
organic matter which has found its way into these wells and
there greatly favors the development of fungi. The intelligent
reader will not, therefore, allow the existence of a well-fauna to
interfere with his enjoyment in quaffing a cooling draught fresh
from the pump; for, as already remarked, the organisms spoken
of live only in the lower depths, and as a rule never reach the
upper strata of the water.

Should, however, by any accident this normal state of affairs
be changed, the turbid appearance of the water would indicate it,
and bear at once warning to rather choose water from some other
source until the well shall have resumed its normal condition,
or shall have been subjected to a thorough cleaning.—Translated
from Ueber Land und Meer for the Popular Science Monthly.

THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE OR JARGON.
By EDWARD HOLLAND NICOLL.

I WAS about to take a trip up the S—,, one of the rivers which

flow into Puget Sound. It was early in March, yet the grass
was green, the trees were putting out fresh leaves, and the dog-
wood, salmon-berry, and wild rose were in blossom. The river
was swollen by the melting masses of snow on the Cascade Mount-
ains (a prolongation of the Sierra Nevadas), and its waters were
rushing rapidly toward the sound. I was considering whether it
would be practicable to make headway against the current, when
I saw Jack, an Indian, who had been with me on one or two river-
journeys, lying lazily in his canoe, enjoying the mild March sun.
I went up to him, and our conversation ran thus:

“Klahowya,’ I said. “ Hyas kloshe,” replied Jack.» “ Nika
tikegh klatawa kopa chuck; konsichickamen potlatch ?” “Kwi-
num dollar.” “Hyas skookum chuck papet canim?” “Wake
hyiu.” This is Chinook, and put into English would read: “How
do youdo?” “Very well.” “I want to go up the river.” “How
much will you give?” “Five dollars.” “ Will the current make
it hard work?” “ Not very.”

Chinook, a language or jargon, the existence of which few
people living east of the Rocky Mountains know of, is the sole
medium of communication between the whites and Indians upon
the northwest coast of America, from the Columbia River to
Alaska, including the tribes scattered over Washington Territory
' and Oregon. Chinook is a conventional language, and, in this
VOL, Xxxv.—17

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

respect, is like the lingua franca of the Mediterranean coast, and
the “pidgin” English of the Kast Indies and China.

A century ago, in the year 1787, two vessels, the Columbia,
commanded by John Kendrick, and the Washington, by Robert
Gray, left Boston on a voyage to the northwest coast of America,
to open up a fur trade, and, if possible, to trade with China. At
the rendezvous in Nootka Sound, to the westward of Vancouver
Island, which latter is a part of what is now British Columbia,
the people on the vessels acquired a number of words used by the
natives. The expedition going afterward up the Columbia River
to Oregon, they carried these Indian words with them there,
which, added to some common and easily pronounced English
words, formed the beginning and basis of Chinook. Its vocabu-
lary, however, was scant until the coming of the Astor expedition
and the settlement of Astoria. It was then enlarged by numerous
English words, together with many of French origin, or of the
Canadian patois. The dialects of the Chinook and Chehalis tribes,
which ranged about southeastern Oregon, furnished many words
for its development. The Hudson Bay and Northwest Companies,
and the early settlers in Oregon, further added to it; it came into
use between Indians of different tribes, and even between Ameri-
cans and Canadians; it spread to Puget Sound, and found its way,
with trade, up the Pacific coast and rivers, as explorers and settlers
advanced, gradually spreading until its use reached its present
extent.

Chinook is not a written language, and the spelling given here
is purely phonetic. Ot the five or six hundred words in common
use, about one third are of English and French derivation ; a few
can not be traced to any source, and the rest are taken from the
Chehalis and Chinook dialects.

No words beginning with the letter r are used; the sound of
that letter is modified into that of J or p, the pronunciation of
which is the easier. This matter of pronunciation, and not the
impression made upon the ear, seems in all tongues to be the true
foundation of euphony. There are no words in Chinook which
begin with the letters f, j, q, u, v, x, or 2; but two begin with g,
“get up,” and “ glease” (grease).

Turning to the words derived from the English, we find “ bit,”
meaning dime, the bit being the general designation on the Pacific
coast for a ten-cent piece, and “ tea,” “sun,” “short,” “papa,” “ole-
man,” “musket,” “smoke,” “man,” “soap,” “paint,” “spoon,” etc.,
all of which need no translation. Rice becomes “lice”; fish,
“pish”; fire, “piah”; rum, “lum”; rope, “lope”; cry, “cly”;
dry, “d’ly.” Acat is “ puss-puss.”

The first white men with whom the Indians in Oregon asso-
ciated intimately being those of the expedition under Gray and —

THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE OR JARGON. 259

Kendrick, from Boston, Americans have always been termed in
Chinook “Boston men,” while “Boston Illahee” (“illahee,” the
ground, or earth) stands for the “ United States.” An English-
man is “King George.”

With few exceptions, the words of French origin begin with
the letter J, that is, the article “le” or “la”; there is no article in
Chinook except as found joined or prefixed with these French
words. The following are some of the most common: “ La pome,”
apple; “la chaise,” chair; “la chandelle,” candle; “la table”; “la
bal,” bullet, ball; “la messe,” mass; “la pote,” door; “la pois,”
peas; “diaub” (diable), devil; “ marsi” (merci), thanks,

It is impossible, without a knowledge of the two dialects,
Chinook and Chehalis, to say what native words in the Chinook
jargon belong to each ; the Chinook, however, predominates.

Many words have two or more equivalents; as, for example,
“chickamen,” which means iron, any metal, metallic money; with
“dollar,” it is silver; “chuck” stands for water, river, stream ;
“salt chuck” is the sea; “skookum chuck,” a rapid; “solleks
chuck,” a rough sea. “Tum-tum” is the heart, will, opinion.
“Mamook tum-tum” means to make up one’s mind; “mamook
kloshe tum-tum,” to make friends or peace. “ Polaklie ” is night,
dark, darkness. “Till” means tired, heavy, a weight. “ Wau-
wau ” is to talk, speak, call, ask, tell, answer, conversation ; “ cultus
wau-wau” is idle talk, nonsense.

Onomatopeeia is frequent in Chinook. “ Hee-hee,” means
laughter ; “ Kah-kah,” a crow; “moos moos,” a cow; “kal-ak-a-
la-ma,” a goose; “shwahkuk,” a frog; all of these are imitations
of natural sounds. These words are native, and their origin is
due to the disposition to give an imitative complexion to those
words which signify matters recognized by the ear, thus bringing
about a similarity between the sign and the thing it stands for.
But we have to do here with Chinook, not the “ bow-wow theory ”
of the origin of language.

But few of the verbs are English, though many are formed by
prefixing “mamook” to make, or do (native), to an English word ;
as “mamook pent,” to paint; “mamook warm,” to heat; “ mamook
bloom” (broom), to sweep; “mamook wash,” to wash. It is a
curious fact that neither the verb “to be,” nor any of its moods
or tenses, are found in Chinook. All verbs are understood wher-

_ ever necessary in a sentence. There are a number of words which

_ are used indifferently as nouns and verbs, though there are but
_ few which are used solely as verbs.

at

One form of pronoun answers for the personal and possessive.
“Nika” is I and mine; “mika,” thou and thine; “ yahka,” he, his;
“nesika” is we, us, ours; “mesika,” you, yours; “klaska,” they,

{ theirs.

260 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

The numerals, probably, are taken from the native yee and
some of them are as follows: 1, “ikt”; 2, “mokst”; 3, “klone”;
4, “lakit ie 5, “kwinum”; 6, C aetna gy a Gana Be

‘“stotekin ” = 9, “Kywaist-’= 10) ** fanelotan ”; 11, “tahtlelum pe
Ikt”’: 20, “ mokst faiitlelened ”. 100, “ikt tukamonuk.”

The missionaries who lator among the natives of the north-
west coast from necessity learn Chinook. I once attended a
church service in Washington Territory, where, the congregation
being made up of Indians, the praying and preaching were both
in Chinook. The Lord’s prayer is rendered thus:

“Nesika papa klaksta mitlite kopa saghalie, kloshe kopa
“Our father who stayeth in the above, good in
nesika tum-tum mika nem; kloshe mika tyee kopa konaway

our heart (be) thy name; good thou chief among all
tilikum ; kloshe mika tum-tum kopa illahee, kahkwa kopa

people ; good thy Will” ye? upon earth, as in
saghalie. Potlatch konaway sun nesika muckamuck. Spose
the above. Give every day our food. If
nesika mamook mesachie, wake mika hyas solleks; pe spose
we do ill, (be) not thou very angry; and if
klaksta mesachie kopa nesika, wake nesika solleks kopa
any one (do) evil toward us, (be) not we angry toward
klaska. Mahsh - siah kopa nesika konaway mesachie.”

them. Sendaway far from us all evil.”

Any one can acquire Chinook whose memory is retentive
enough to enable him to learn a certain number of words; and
then, with practice, he will speak it fluently. It is not uncommon
to hear young children in Washington Territory and Oregon talk
in Chinook as easily as in English.

Many Chinook words have taken root in, and form part of,
the Pacific coast vernacular. Some of the most common of these
are “tillicum,” friend; “tyee,”’ chief, or boss; “ kiutan,”’ horse;
“muckamuck,” food; “cultus,” worthless; and “siwash,” which
is always used for Indian. The motto on the seal of Washington
Territory is a word used in Chinook, but native in origin, i.e,
“ Alki,” meaning by-and-by, or in the future.

From what has been said, it will be seen that while Chinook
does not rise to the dignity of a language, it is an important factor
in every-day life as it exists on the northern Pacific coast. The
Indians of that region are peculiar. They get their food easily by
fishing, hunting, and gathering the wild roots and berries of the
woods. Nomadic bodies hang about the towns and settlements,
earning money from the whites in various ways. In a word, they
procure their living too readily to develop habits of industry and
thrift. The experiment of supporting them on Government reser-
vations, and educating them in useful pursuits, is but partially
successful. They become discontented, and long for the freedom ~

SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. 261

of their life on the sea-coast and rivers. The Indian, too, likes to
associate with the white man, from whom, it must be confessed,
he learns many of the vices, and but few of the virtues, of civili-
zation. It is not probable that Chinook will fall into disuse for
many years to come. Though it is difficult to determine whether
or not the native population of this part of our country i is ma-
terially decreasing at present, the race will, no doubt, in time
become reduced to small proportions, and the raison détre of
Chinook will gradually cease.

SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER.

re GRAHAM SUMNER was born at Paterson, N. J.,
October 30, 1840. He is the son of Thomas Sumner, who
came to this country from England in 1836, and married here
Sarah Graham, also of English birth. Thomas Sumner was a
machinist, who worked at his trade until he was sixty years old,
and never had any capital but what he saved out of a mechanic’s
wages. He was an entirely self-educated man, but always pro-
fessed great obligations to mechanics’ institutes and other associa-
tions of the kind of whose opportunities he had made eager use in
England. He was a man of the strictest integrity, a total ab-
stainer, of domestic habits, and indefatigable industry. He be-
came enthusiastically interested in total abstinence when a young
man in England, the method being that of persuasion and mis-
sionary effort. He used to describe his only attempt to make a
speech in public, which was on this subject, when he completely
failed. He had a great thirst for knowledge, and was thoroughly
informed on modern English and American history and on the
constitutional law of both countries. He made the education of
his children his chief thought, and the only form of public affairs
in which he took an active interest was that of schools. His con-
tempt for demagogical arguments and for all the notions of the
labor agitators, as well as for the entire gospel of gush, was that
of asimple man with sturdy common sense, who had never been
trained to entertain any kind of philosophical abstractions. His
plan was, if things did not go to suit him, to examine the situa-
tion, see what could be done, take a new start, and try again. For
- instance, inasmuch as the custom in New Jersey was store pay.
and he did not like store pay, he moved to New Eugland, where
he found that he could get cash. He had decisive influence on the
convictions and tastes of the subject of this sketch.
Prof. Sumner grew up at Hartford, Conn., and was educated in
the public schools of that city. The High School was then under

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the charge of Mr. T. W. T. Curtis, and the classical department un-
der Mr. 8. M. Capron. These teachers were equally remarkable,
although in different ways, for their excellent influence on the
pupils under their care. There was an honesty and candor about
both of them which were very healthful in example. They did
very little “ preaching,” but their demeanor was in all respects such
as to bear watching with the scrutiny of school-children and only
gain by it. Mr. Curtis had great skill in the catechetical method,
being able to lead a scholar by a series of questions over the track
which must be followed to come to an understanding of the subject
under discussion. Mr. Capron united dignity and geniality in a
remarkable degree. The consequence was, that he had the most
admirable discipline, without the least feeling of the irksomeness
of discipline on the part of his pupils. On the contrary, he pos-
sessed their tender and respectful affection. Mr. Capron was a
man of remarkably few words, and he was a striking example of
the power that may go forth from a man by what he is and does
in the daily life of a school-room. Both these gentlemen em-
ployed in the school-room all the best methods of teaching now so
much gloried in, without apparently knowing that they had any
peculiar method at all. Prof. Sumner has often declared in pub-
lic that, as a teacher, he is deeply indebted to the sound traditions
which he derived from these two men.

He graduated from Yale College in 1863, and in the summer of
that year went to Kurope. He spent the winter of 1863-64 in
Geneva, studying French and Hebrew with private instructors,
He was at Gottingen for the next two years, studying ancient lan-
guages, history, especially church history, and biblical science. In
answer to some questions, Prof. Sumner has replied as follows:

“My first interest in political economy came from Harriet
Martineau’s ‘ Illustrations of Political Economy.’ I came upon
these by chance, in the library of the Young Men’s Institute
at Hartford, when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I read
them all through with the greatest avidity, some of them three
or four times. There was very little literature at that time with
which these books could connect.. My teachers could not help me
any, and there were no immediate relations between the topics
of these books and any public interests of the time. We sup-
posed then that free trade had sailed out upon the smooth sea,
and was to go forward without further difficulty, so that what
one learned of the fallacies of protection had only the same inter-
est as what one learns about the fallacies of any old and aban-
doned error. In college we read and recited Wayland’s ‘ Political
Economy,’ but I believe that my conceptions of capital, labor,
money, and trade, were all formed by those books which I read in
my boyhood. In college the interest was turned rather on the po-

SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. 263

litical than on the economic element. It seemed to me then, how-
ever, that the war, with the paper money and the high taxation,
must certainly bring about immense social changes and social
problems, especially making the rich richer and the poor poorer,
and leaving behind us the old ante-war period as one of primitive
simplicity which could never return. I used to put this notion
into college compositions, and laid the foundation in that way for
the career which afterward opened to me.

“T enjoyed intensely the two years which I spent at Gottingen.
I had the sense of gaining all the time exactly what I wanted.
The professors whom I knew there seemed to me bent on seeking
a clear and comprehensive conception of the matter under study
(what we call ‘the truth’) without regard to any consequences
whatever. I have heard men elsewhere talk about the nobility of
that spirit; but the only body of men whom I have ever known
who really lived by it, sacrificing wealth, political distinction,
church preferment, popularity, or anything else for the truth of
science, were the professors of biblical science in Germany. That
was precisely the range of subjects which in this country was
then treated with a reserve in favor of tradition which was preju-
dicial to everything which a scholar should value. So far as
those men infected me with their spirit, they have perhaps added
to my usefulness but not to my happiness, They also taught me
rigorous and pitiless methods of investigation and deduction.
Their analysis was their strong point. Their negative attitude
toward the poetic element, their indifference to sentiment, even
religious sentiment, was a fault, seeing that they studied the Bible
as a religious book and not for philology and history only; but
their method of study was nobly scientific, and was worthy to
rank, both for its results and its discipline, with the best of the
natural science methods. I sometimes wonder whether there is any
one else in exactly the same position as I am, having studied bib-
lical science with the Germans, and then later social science, to
mark the striking contrast in method between the two. The later
social science of Germany is the complete inversion in its method
of that of German philology, classical criticism, and biblical sci-
ence. Its subjection to political exigencies works upon it as dis-
astrously as subjection to dogmatic creeds has worked upon bib-
lical science in this country.

“T went over to Oxford in the spring of 1866. Having given
up all my time in Germany to German books, I wanted to read
English literature on the same subjects. I expected to find it
rich and independent. I found that it consisted of second-
hand adaptation of what I had just been studying. I was then
quite thoroughly Teutonized, as all our young men are likely to
be after a time of study in Germany. I had not undergone the

264 THE POPULAR: SCIENCE MONTHLY.

toning-down process which is necessary to bring a young Ameri-
can back to common sense, and I underrated the real services of
many Englishmen to the Bible as a religious book, exactly the
supplement which I then needed to my German education. Ull-
mann’s ‘ Wesen des Christenthums,’ which I had read at Gottin-
gen, had steadied my religious faith, and I devoted myself at
Oxford to the old Anglican divines and to the standard books of
the Anglican communion. The only one of these which gave me
any pleasure or profit was Hooker’s ‘ Ecclesiastical Polity.’ The
first part of this book I studied with the greatest care, making an
analysis of it and reviewing it repeatedly. It suited exactly those
notions of constitutional order, adjustment of rights, constitu-
tional authority, and historical continuity, in which I had been
brought up, and it presented those doctrines of liberty under law
applied both to church and state which commanded my enthusi-
astic acceptance. It also presented Anglicanism in exactly the
aspect in which it was attractive tome. It reawakened, however,
all my love for political science, which was intensified by reading
Buckle and also by another fact next to be mentioned.

“The most singular contrast between Gottingen and Oxford
was this: At G6ttingen everything one got came from the uni-
versity, nothing from one’s fellow-students. At Oxford it was
not possible to get anything of great value from the university ;
but the education one could get from one’s fellows was invaluable.
There was a set of young fellows, or men reading for fellowships,
there at that time, who were studying Hegel. I became intimate
with several of them. Two or three of them have since died at
an early age, disappointing hopes of useful careers. I never
caught the Hegelian fever. I had heard Lotze at Géttingen, and
found his suggestions very convenient to hold on by, at least for
the time. We used, however, in our conversations at Oxford, to
talk about Buckle and the ideas which he had then set afloat, and
the question which occupied us the most was whether there could
be a science of society, and, if so, where it should begin and how
it should be built. "We had all been eager students of what was
then called the ‘ philosophy of history, and I had also felt great
interest in the idea of God in history, with which my companions
did not sympathize. We agreed, however, that social science
must be an induction from history, that Buckle had started on
the right track, and that the thing to do was to study history.
The difficulty which arrested us was that we did not see how the
mass of matter to be collected and arranged could ever be so mas-
tered that the induction could actually be performed if the notion
of an ‘induction from history’ should be construed strictly.
Young as we were, we never took up this crude notion as a real
programme of work, I have often thought of it since when I

SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. 265

have seen the propositions of that sort which have been put for-
ward within twenty years. I have lost sight of all my associates
at«Oxford who are still living. So far as I know, I am the only
one of them who has become professionally occupied with social
science.” ’ |

Mr. Sumner returned to the United States in the autumn of
1866, having been elected to a tutorship in Yale College. Of this
he says:

“The tutorship was a great advantage tome. I had expected
to go to Egypt and Palestine in the next winter, but this gave me
an opportunity to study further, and to acquaint myself with
church affairs in the United States before a final decision as to
a profession. I speedily found that there was no demand at all
for ‘biblical science’; that everybody was afraid of it, especially
if it came with the German label on it. It was a case in which,
if a man should work very hard and achieve remarkable results,
the only consequence would be that he would ruin himself. At
this time I undertook the translation of the volume of Lange’s
‘Commentary on Second Kings.” While I was tutor I read Her-
bert Spencer’s ‘ First Principles ’—at least, the first part of it—but
it made no impression upon me. The second part, as it dealt with
evolution, did not then interest me. I also read his ‘Social Stat-
ics’ at that period. AsI did not believe in natural rights, or in
his ‘fundamental principle, this book had no effect on me.”

Mr. Sumner was ordained deacon at New Haven in December,
1867, and priest at New York, July, 1869. He became assistant to
Dr. Washburn at Calvary Church, New York, in March, 1869.
He was also editor of a broad church paper, which Dr. Wash-
burn and some other clergymen started at this time. In Septem-
ber, 1870, he became rector of the Church of the Redeemer at
Morristown, N. J.

“When I came to write sermons, I found to what a degree my
interest lay in topics of social science and political economy.
There was then no public interest in the currency and only a
little in the tariff. I thought that these were matters of the most
urgent importance, which threatened all the interests, moral,
social, and economic, of the nation, and I was young enough to
believe that they would all be settled in the next four or five
years. It was not possible to preach about them, but I got so
near to it that I was detected sometimes, as, for instance, when a
New Jersey banker came to me, as I came down from the pulpit,
and said, ‘There was a great deal of political economy in that
sermon,’

“Tt was at this period that I read, in an English magazine, the
first of those essays of Herbert Spencer which were afterward
collected into the volume ‘The Study of Sociology.’ These

266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

essays immediately gave me the lead which I wanted to bring
into shape the crude notions which had been floating in my head
for five or six years, especially since the Oxford days. The con-
ception of society, of social forces, and of the science of society
there offered, was just the one which I had been groping after,
but had not been able to reduce for myself. It solved the old
difficulty about the relation of social science to history, rescued
social science from the dominion of the cranks, and offered a defi-
nite and magnificent field for work, from which we might hope
at last to derive definite results for the solution of social prob-
lems.

“It was at this juncture (1872) that I was offered the chair of
Political and Social Science at Yale. I had always been very
fond of teaching, and knew that the best work I could ever do in
the world would be in that profession; also, that I ought to be in
an academical career. JI had seen two or three cases of men who,
in that career, would have achieved distinguished usefulness, but
who were wasted in the parish and the pulpit.”

Mr. Sumner returned to New Haven as professor in Septem-
ber, 1872. Of the further development of his opinions he says:

“T was definitely converted to evolution by Prof. Marsh’s
horses some time about 1875 or 1876. I had re-read Spencer’s ‘ So-
cial Statics’ and his ‘ First Principles,’ the second part of the latter
now absorbing all my attention. I now read all of Darwin, Hux-
ley, Haeckel, and quite a series of the natural scientists, I greatly
regretted that I had no education in natural science, especially in
biology; but I found that the ‘philosophy of history’ and the
‘principles of philology, as I had learned them, speedily adjusted
themselves to the new conception, and won a new meaning and
power from it. As Spencer’s ‘Principles of Sociology’ was now
coming out in numbers, I was constantly getting evidence that
sociology, if it borrowed the theory of evolution in the first place,
would speedily render it back again enriched by new and inde-
pendent evidence. I formed a class to read Spencer’s book in the
parts as they came out, and believe that I began to interest men
in this important department of study, and to prepare them to
follow its development, years before any such attempt was made
at any other university in the world. I have followed the growth
of the science of sociology in all its branches, and have seen it far
surpass all the hope and faith I ever had init. I have spent an
immense amount of work on it, which has been lost because mis-
directed. The only merit I can claim in that respect is that I
have corrected my own mistakes. I have not published them for
others to correct.” ‘

The above statement of the history of Prof. Sumner’s educa-
tion shows the school of opinion to which he belongs. He adopts

SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, 267

the conception of society according to which it is the seat of
forces, and its phenomena are subject to laws, which it is the busi-
ness of science to investigate. He denies that there is anything
arbitrary or accidental in social phenomena, or that there is any
field in them for the arbitrary intervention of man. He therefore
allows but very limited field for legislation. He holds that men
must do with social laws what they do with physical laws—learn
them, obey them, and conform to them. Hence he is opposed to
state interference and socialism, and he advocates individualism
and liberty. He has declared that bimetallism is an absurdity,
involving a contradiction of economic laws, and his attacks on
protectionism have been directed against it as a philosophy of
wealth and prosperity for the nation.

As to politics, he says:

“My only excursion into active politics has been a term as
alderman. In 1872 I was one of the voters who watched with in-
terest and hope the movement which led up to the ‘ Liberal’ Con-
vention at Cincinnati, that ended by nominating Greeley and
Brown. The platform of that convention was very outspoken in
its declarations about the policy to be pursued toward the South.
I did not approve of the reconstruction policy. I wanted the
South let alone and treated with patience. I lost my vote by
moving to New Haven, and was contented to let it go that way.
In 1876 I was of the same opinion about the South. If I had been
asked what I wanted done, I should have tried to describe just
what Mr. Hayes did do after he got in. I therefore voted for Mr.
Tilden. In 18801 did not vote. In 1884 I voted as a Mugwump
for Mr. Cleveland. In 1888 I voted for him on the tariff issue.”

A distingushed American economist, who is well acquainted
with Prof. Sumner’s work, has kindly given us the following esti-
mate of his method and of his position and influence as a public
teacher : “ For exact and comprehensive knowledge Prof. Sumner
is entitled to take the first place in the ranks of American econo-
mists; and as a teacher he has no superior. His leading mental
characteristic he has himself well stated in describing the charac-
teristics of his former teachers at Gottingen; namely, as ‘bent on
seeking a clear and comprehensive conception of the matter “ or
truth ” under study, without regard to any consequences. what-
ever, and further, when in his own mind Prof. Sumner is fully
satisfied as to what the truth is he has no hesitation in boldly
declaring it,on every fitting occasion, without regard to conse-
quences. If the theory is a ‘spade, he calls it a spade, and not an
implement of husbandry. Sentimentalists, followers of precedent
because it is precedent, and superficial reasoners find little favor,
therefore, with Prof. Sumner; and this trait of character has
given him a reputation for coldness and lack of what may be

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

called ‘humanitarianism,’ and has rendered one of his best essays,
‘What Social Classes owe to each other, almost repulsive in re-

spect to some of its conclusions.

At the same time, the repre-

sentatives of such antagonisms, if they are candid, must admit
that Prof. Sumner’s logic can only be resisted by making their

reason subordinate to sentiment.

Prof. Sumner is an earnest

advocate of the utmost freedom in respect to all commercial ex-
changes; and the results of his experiences in the discussion of
the relative merits and advantages of the systems of free trade
and protection have been such that probably no defender of the
latter would now be willing to meet him in a public discussion of

these topics.”

Prof. Sumner has published “ History of American Currency,”
“Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States,”
“Life of Andrew Jackson,” “EKconomic Problems,” “ Protection-
ism,” “ Essays in Political and Social Science,” and “ What Social
Classes owe to each other,” besides a large number of magazine
articles on the same line of subjects.

CORRESPONDENCE.

“CHRISTIAN SCIENCE,” “KORESHAN

SCIENCE,” zEro.

Editor Popular Science Monthly:
N article appears in your valuable jour-
nal for April, page 798, on the subject
of ‘‘Christian Science.” On page 800 an
item is given concerning Dr. Teed, of Chi-
cago, in which is stated that said Benedict
was a victim of faith-cure, and that C. R.
Teed will be called upon to answer criminal
charges, etc. Ido not know the address of
our friend Mr. Fernald, so I can not write
him to correct this item. I am personally
acquainted with Dr. Teed and the case in
question, and I desire to state, in justice to
all concerned, that the statement used as an
argument by our friend is not true. Dr.
Teed is editor of ‘‘The Guiding Star.” His
system of science and philosophy is wholly
different in every one of its tenets from
“Christian science.” We is an eclectic phy-
sician, and has had years of practice. He
was called to see Mr. Benedict, and gave him
medicine. The man died of inflammation of
the lungs. Dr. Teed had lately moved from
New York to Chicago, and he had not taken
out a State license to practice medicine.
This was the charge against him. He hada
good physician in regular practice in con-
sultation in the case. The man died just as
mnillions of others do. Though both medi-
cine and mind-cure—not “ Christian science ”
—were employed in the case, they both

failed. The charges against Dr. Teed were
not sustained, and he won the case. I hope
you will ask Mr. Fernald to correct this item
in his article; at least mail him my state-
ment, and see if he is human enough to undo
what he has tried to do—bring reproach on
a fine man in fine practice.
Respectfully, R. O. Spar.

Ciry Hotrn, WaitsBueG, WASHINGTON TER’y,
April 1, 1889.

Editor Popular Science Monthly :

As to “ Koreshan science” being wholly
different from ‘Christian science,” Prof,
Spear’s authority might seem unquestion-
able, as he is a graduate of the “ Koreshan
College,” and a writer of “Koreshan”
pamphlets. But, to the impartial scientific
investigator, this particular hotch-potch of
astrology and speculative theology named
“ Koreshan science” is essentially the same,
in whatever curative action it may have, as
“Christian science,” the “ faith-cure,’ and
all other varieties of designed or accidental
mental healing.

Now to answer the more important part
of Prof. Spear’s letter. The newspaper re-
port of the Benedict case, from which I
quoted, gave more particulars, which I omit-
ted simply to save space. I intended to ask
you to print the rest of that report, but I
have obtained something better. The phy-
sician who was called to see the patient at
the last moment has kindly furnished me

CORRESPONDENCE,

the appended account of the matter, which
I think will satisfy your readers that I was
fully justified in classing this case among
the blunders of mental healing.
Very truly yours,
Freperik A, FERNALD.
New York, May 8, 1889.

269 CuxstNUT STREET, 13,
May 6, 1889.
Freperix A. Fernap, Esa.

Dear Sir: The man Teed, whom you
speak of as doctor, was at the time of Bene-
dict’s death the founder and president of
the World’s College of Life, pastor of the
Arch-Triumphant Church, editor of the
“ Guiding Star,” proprietor of a restaurant,
etc., all conducted in one or two office-rooms
in Central Music Hall. The fellow claimed
to be a graduate of the New York Eclectic
Medical College, but at the coroner’s inquest
could not produce a diploma, claiming as an
excuse that it was lost. As I remember it,
his method consisted in healing by prayer
and faith, including absent treatment, all of
which was employed in the case of Benedict
from the beginning of his illness until about
two or three days previous to his death,
when medicine was prescribed by an eclectic
practitioner whom Teed called to his assist-
ance. At this stare of the case Teed partly
or wholly abandoned his system, and also
prescribed medicines; but, inasmuch as his
knowledge of the pathological conditions
which were present, and with which he had
to deal, amounted to almost nothing, the
treatment was of no avail. According to his
statements, made to me the morning of Bene-
dict’s death, the patient was regarded as
having had diphtheria, pleurisy, intercostal
neuralgia, and heart-disease, all existing at
one and the same time! The absurdity of
such a thing is apparent to almost any one.
The post-mortem examination proved death
to be due to broncho-pneumonia. In my
Opinion, under proper treatment the case
would have recovered. The following is a
copy of the verdict of the coroner’s jury:

“We, the jury, recommend that one
Cyrus R. Teed, who treated and prescribed
for the deceased during his sickness without
being properly authorized to do so, be held
by the proper authorities to the grand jury
for violating sections 10, 11, and 12 of an
act approved January 16, 1887, regulating
the practice of medicine in the State of Illi-
nois; and we furthermore recommend that
the penalty for the violation of the above
act should be made more severe, so as to in-
clude imprisonment in addition to fine, in
the future.”

In his instructions to the jury the deputy
coroner made a few remarks in which he
hinted at quacks, impostors, and “ voodoo”
doctors, and declared that the public was
sick of having such frauds running at large.

Respectfully yours,
C. W. Leieu, M. D.

269

THE POSITION OF THE AGNOSTIC.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

W3HILE sympathizing heartily with the
spirit of your editorial article on “ Intellect-
ual Liberty,” in the May number of the
“Monthly,” yet it seems to me you have
overlooked an application of the word ag-
nostic which it is important that all lovers of
truth should recognize. Nay, more, in the
words of Nicole, whom you cite with ap-
proval, it is ‘“‘the duty” of the modern
thinker to declare himself an “ agnostic ” in
regard to many questions that are still dis-
cussed in theological circles.

It is one of the chief merits of the
school of philosophy of which Prof. Huxley
is so brilliant a member that it distinctly
recognizes what Mr. Spencer declares to be
“the conviction . .. that has been slowly
gaining ground as civilization has advanced,”
viz., that “ human intelligence is incapable
of absolute knowledge,” and that “ our duty
is to submit ourselves with all humility to the
established limits of our intelligence; and
not perversely to rebel against them.”
Hence, when questions are propounded, to
which, from their nature, neither an affirma-
tive nor a negative answer can be given, and
which do not admit of solution by any natu- ©
ral process, but can only be solved by the
acceptance of a supernatural authority—that
authority being generally the very question
at issue—then it becomes the duty of those
who follow the scientific method in their
search for truth to declare themselves on all
such subjects “‘ agnostics.”

Our theological friends occupy much of
their time in discussing questions of this
character, such as the origin of the universe,
the nature and personality of God, the di-
vinity of Christ, the immortality of the
soul, and the like. But all these are in-
serutable questions, incapable of solution by
the human intellect. They have been dis-
cussed ever since the dawn of philosophy,
and are no nearer solution to-day than when
they were first propounded. If settled to
any one’s satisfaction at all, they can only
be so accepted without proof and upon au-
thority. Moreover, there are many questions
capable of solution by the scientific method,
which theologians discuss only from prem-
ises founded upon the supposed solution of
the primary questions referred to above.
This inevitably prevents their proper dis-
cussion and solution. The premises can not
be accepted by the scientific thinker who is
convinced of the futility of all ontological
speculation as a means for establishing the
truth. This does not mean—as so many
seem to think—that science only concerns
itself with those things which can be seen
and felt. Nor does it even deny to the in-
dividual, who feels that his intellectual and
moral integrity can be best conserved by
such speculations, the right to indulge in
them, and believe in them if needs be. By
all means let him do so, if he is made a hap-

270

pier and a better man by such faith. But
let him not upbraid his fellow-man whose
faith is not as his is; let him not imagine
that truth is entirely on his side; and, above
all, let him beware of dogmatism. So “ with
malice toward none, with charity for all,” he
may cultivate that openness of mind which
a genuine search for truth fosters and intel-
lectual liberty maintains,

I think you will agree with me that much
ontological speculation is a distinct loss to
sound philosophy, and that there would be a
great saving of time and talent if all think-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ers accepted and acted upon “the conclu-
sions of Hume and Kant, so well stated by
the latter in a sentence” quoted by Prof.
Huxley :

“The greatest and perhaps the sole use
of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all,
merely negative, since it serves, not as an
organon for the enlargement (of knowledge),
but as a discipline for its delimitation, and,
instead of discovering truth, has only the
modest merit of preventing error.”

Rosert MatHews.
Rocuester, N. Y., May 8, 1889.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

THE CLAIMS OF “CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.”
E print in this number of the

“* Monthly ” a defense of ‘‘ Chris-

tian science,” and an explanation is due
our readers for the appearance of such a
paper in the pages of a scientific journal.
Our April issue contained a carefully
prepared article, which aimed to give a
just statement of the claims and the re-
sults of ‘‘ Christian science.” The writer
of that article had good authority for all
his statements, and his only purpose was
to tell the truth about the new theory.
Notwithstanding his efforts in respect
to fairness, he is charged, in the reply
which we publish, with the most igno-
rant misrepresentation of the doctrine.
We do not concede the truth of this
charge, but we print Mr. Bailey’s ex-
position for two reasons: first, to re-
move all possible ground for the charge
of one-sidedness; and, second, to give
our readers a fuller idea of what kind of
stuff “Christian science” is. Of the
half-dozen replies sent us we selected
for publication the one that came from
the most authoritative sourcee—from the
editor of “The Christian Science Jour-
nal”’—although it was the only one of
the whole number which did not ex-
plicitly concede the honesty of pur-
pose of Mr. Fernald’s article. The
reader will observe in the reply fre-
quent quotations from Mrs. Eddy’s book,
“Science and Health,” which, being

is generally accepted as the authorita-
tive expression of the tenets of the sect.
Reference to Mr. Fernald’s article will
show that his statement of the claims
of “Christian science’ was based upon
quotations from exactly the same source,
and hence is no more open to the ob-
jection of being a ‘fanciful represen-
tation” than is the exposition of Mr,
Bailey.

If a doubt remained in the mind of
any reader as to whether this doctrine
deserves the name of ‘‘science,”’ it must
be destroyed by Mr. Bailey’s article.
This writer defines man as “a state of
consciousness,” comprising, first, the im-
pressions received through the five
senses, and, second, ‘‘the impressions
of Spirit.” He asserts that sense-im-
pressions can be kept out of conscious-
ness by these other impressions, and
hence that the former are unreal and
not to be trusted. This is a good sam-
ple of the jumping at conclusions which
passes among ‘ Christian scientists” for
legitimate induction. The pretension
that the senses are “unreal,” and that
their “testimony can not be true,” is too
absurd for serious discussion. Nobody
who has either any knowledge of science
or any plain common sense can accept it
—even the “ Christian scientists” do not
themselves believe it. We venture to say
that Mrs. Eddy governs her actions by
her sense-impressions a thousand times

written by the inventor of the doctrine, |aday. She would not step off from the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

271

top of her house distrusting the testi- | the senses must be true. As was shown

mony of her eyes that it was a long way
to the ground; she would not eat food
which her sense of taste told her was
unfit to eat; nor remain on a railroad-
track when her hearing told her that a
train was coming. It is absurdly illogi-
cal to trust the senses in such cases, and
to refuse to trust them in the precisely
parallel cases when they testify to a
headache, or the inflammation of a joint,
or the presence of a malignant tumor.
Our senses are occasionally deceived by
close resemblances, but with these ex-
ceptions the experience of every day of
our lives embraces a countless host of
instances in which we find it safe to
trust our senses. All the observations
which furnish the material of science
are made by the senses, and any doc-
trine which denies the trustworthiness
of the senses certainly is not science,
whatever else it may be. ‘Christian
science”’’ makes itself ridiculous by strut-
ting about in the borrowed plumage of
a system whose data and method it
affects to despise. The application of
the name of science to this vague meta-
physical doctrine is utterly unwarranted.
In trade, art, politics, religion, and every
other field in which wealth or fame can
be achieved, spurious articles are being
palmed off continually under the name
of something else which enjoys a well-
earned repute. Especially has there
been of late years an eagerness to tack
the name of science on to all sorts of
schemes and theories which have no
particle of right to the designation, in
order that they may share its glory and
gain the aid of its prestige.

Mr. Bailey claims that “ Christian
science” has been vindicated by numer-
ous successes in healing disease. Many
persons with various complaints have
been subjected to “Christian science”
treatment and have ceased to complain.
From this he infers not only that the
treatment cured them, but also that all
these grotesque notions about “the im-
pressions of spirit’? and the falsity of

by the contributor to our April number,
it is not necessary to accept the ‘‘ Chris-
tian science” theory in order to explain
the process of mental healing. When
there is any real effect, it is due to the
stimulating influence exerted upon the
patient’s mind, and it makes no differ-
ence whether the stimulus is truth or
error, if the patient only is stirred up by
it. The alleged results of ‘“ Christian
science,” and the number of its believ-
ers, have been paralleled by many delu-
sions which have had their day and then
disappeared. Mesmer was a greater
prophet in his time than Mrs. Eddy.
Mesmerism had its host of cured pa-
tients, many of them very worthy per-
sons, who gave enthusiastic testimonials
to its efficiency andtruth. Spiritualistic
healers have paraded their alleged cures,
and have argued for their doctrine as
persistently as the ‘‘ Christian scientists,”
but they have never gained any scientific
standing. Every other absurd quackery
that bids for the dollars and homage of
the ignorant multitude has the same sort
of indorsements, but time and science
deal mercilessly with all alike. Witch-
craft and diabolic agency have been
wide-spread and eminently reputable
doctrines, but they have ignominiously
fallen beneath the attacks of scientific
investigators. The reader will find in
a note to Dr. White’s article in our
present issue some of the leading au-
thorities which have combated these
myth-making and wonder - mongering
agencies. A comparison of one of these
books with ‘Science and Health” will
show the difference between a scien-
tific and a visionary treatment of a sub-
ject. Mrs. Eddy’s book, as shown in
the extracts which Mr. Bailey gives,
is an incomprehensible, because mean-
ingless, mass of rant and rubbish, con-
sisting of capricious inferences from
scanty facts, of far-fetched analogies,
of hysterical appeals to sentiment, and
fanciful twisting of language. The fact
that such a baseless speculation as

ag

“Christian science” can find believers
shows that what is referred to in our
other editorial as the fancy of the mul-
titude for theories which save them
trouble and minister to their love of the
marvelous has not yet disappeared from
the world. The fascination for hold-
ing odd notions seems to be a weakness
of the human mind which is hard to
eradicate. Such beliefs have been pretty
well driven out of chemistry, physics,
zoology, and other fields of science
which can be searchingly investigated,
and they remain only in psychology and
medicine, dealing with the living human
organism, which can not be freely ex-
perimented upon. Human credulity has
been greatly lessened by the march of
scientific enlightenment, and what re-
mains has taken on a new form. In
earlier times it delighted in the super-
natural, now it revels in its own false
ideas of the natural. Then it trusted
the revelations of self-appointed proph-
ets, now it pins its faith to the slipshod
reasoning of sham investigators. Science
has done such wonderful things of late
that a certain class of people, including
many of excellent judgment in other
fields, has come to believe any marvels
put forth under its name. Hence we
have a modern class of mystery-mongers
which will flourish until the spread of
scientific culture has diffused the power
of discriminating between science and
base imitations of science.

DR. ABBOTT'S DEFENSE OF THE DEVIL-
THEORY.

Reptyine to our recent article on
“The Devil-Theory,” Dr. Lyman Ab-
bott says that he objects to it because
it is “unscientific.” Will the reverend
doctor allow us to say that we object
to his article because it is evasive? It
is evasive, in the first place, because,
though he declares our position to be
unscientific, he does not attempt to show
in what way, but leaves his readers to
discover it for themselves, as he ex-
presses it, ‘between the lines.” It is

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

evasive, in the second place, because it
does not attempt to defend the particu-
lar version of the devil-theory put for-
ward by the doctor in his ‘‘ Sunday aft-
ernoon” discourse and criticised by us;
but, without a word of warning or
apology to the reader, cleverly switches
that version away and substitutes a com-
pletely different one. It will be remem-
bered that the view which Dr. Abbott
advocated, in the essay to which we re-
ferred, as being most in harmony both
with reason and with Scripture was that
the victims of devil possession were un-
happy creatures who, by a long course
of sin, had virtually lost control of them-
selves and were compelled to act as they
might be moved by the malign spirit or
spirits to whom they had “ voluntarily ”
surrendered themselves. We pointed
out that this was not in harmony with
Scripture, which nowhere dropped the
slightest hint that the possessed were
other than the involuntary and helpless
victims of their diabolical persecutors.
One would have expected some notice
by Dr. Abbott of this direct challenge of
the “Scriptural” character of his teach-
ing; but no, not one word have we on
this point in his last deliverance in the
“ Christian Union.” We are treated in-
stead to a reproduction of something
written by him twenty years ago, which,
as he says, expresses perfectly the opin-
ions he holds to-day. What, then, is the
drift of the resuscitated article? The
reader may judge by a few extracts:
“Tt may be confidently asserted that,
if there are no cases of demonstrable
demoniacal possession in modern times,
there are mental phenomena which the
hypothesis of such possession better
solves than any other. What more rea-
sonable explanation has science to afford
of the case of that nurse who begged to
be dismissed from her mistress’s service
because, in undressing the child whom
she devoutly loved, an almost irresisti-
ble passion seized her to tear it to pieces ;
or that young girl who, otherwise ex-
emplary, seemed to herself to be im-

EDITOR’S TABLE.

pelled by a spirit to acts of incendia-
rism; ... or that distressed chemist, of
a naturally amiable character, who went
to an asylum that he might be pre-
vented from indulging in a propensity
to kill some one; or that respectable old
lady who endeavored to strangle her
own daughter?” etc., ete.

But, if these are types of devil pos-
session, what becomes of the theory re-
cently advanced by Dr. Abbott that a
devil “never becomes the possessor of a
human soul except by its own gradual
and voluntary subjection to his hateful
despotism”? As an honest man, the
doctor will have tu admit that the facts
marshaled in his article of twenty years
ago were destined to support a view
the direct opposite of that which we criti-
cised—the view, namely, that diabolical
agency may be most reasonably assumed
when, the general character being sound,
some morbid or criminal propensity for
which no natural cause can be assigned
is manifested in one particular direction.
He says he holds the same views now;
and yet, the other day, he took up the
entirely irreconcilable position that, be-
fore the fiend could do anything with a
human being, there had to be a “ gradu-
al, voluntary” yielding to his infernal
suggestions. Dr. Abbott says that he
does not ‘‘maintain the doctrine of de-
moniacal possession upon theological
grounds”; but surely if he maintained
it at all as a sincere, independent con-
viction, he could hardly put forward
two so directly contradictory views
without being aware of the contradic-
tion. Will not the doctor say which of
the two theories it is he really holds?
_ Is the presence of the devil to be argued
from the general excellence of character
of those who, in some one respect, are
urged by an inexplicable impulse to
crime? Or is it the other way—does
the fiend simply in the end claim, as
it were, his due from those who have
“sradually and voluntarily” surren-
dered themselves into his hands?

Leaving our respected opponent to

VOL, xxxv.—18

273

make his election between the above
two views, both of which he singularly
professes to maintain, let us, from our
own point of view, briefly inquire what
light the devil-theory throws either
upon the phenomenon of morbid im-
pulses or upon that of hardened, ha-
bitual iniquity. If it is a devil who be-
sets an amiable chemist or a respectable
old lady, when one or the other wishes
to commit some senseless act of vio-
lence, the only remedy would seem to
be exorcism, which, however, there is
reason to fear, is a lost art—outside, at
least, of the Roman Catholic Church.
But it is perfectly known to Dr. Ab-
bott, as to every one else, that these
morbid influences do, more or less, yield
to various curative measures in which
exorcism has no part whatever. If evi-
dence on this point is wanting it is sup-
plied in the further article we print in
our present number from the pen of Dr.
Andrew D. White. To know the cause
of an evil ought to be a great help to the
discovery of a cure, provided the cause
is a natural one; but of what assistance
would it be to any one to know that —
his friend or neighbor was afflicted with
a devil, if there were no devil-chaser
accessible? On the other hand, what
mischief might not be wrought by the
assumption of a supernatural cause, if
the cause were really natural, and there-
fore, possibly, removable by natural
means? We doubt very much whether
Dr. Abbott has sufficiently reflected on
the mischief he may be doing in en-
couraging people to believe in devils, in-
stead of urging them to a patient, untir-
ing search after the natural causes and
appropriate remedies of all ills, bodily
and mental. In this great controversy
a man of Dr. Abbott’s intelligence ought
to be on our side. We would respect-
fully call upon him to probe his con-
science, and ask whether he is really be-
ing just to himself, or doing the world a
service, by inciting his readers and hear-
ers to attribute to Satanic agency every
manifestation of evil that they can not

274

clearly trace to a natural cause. He
knows as well as we do the general in-
ertness of the human mind, and how
readily multitudes abandon the search
for natural causes in favor of supernatu-
ral explanations that, in their eyes, have
the double merit of saving them trouble
and ministering to their love of the
marvelous. Is this a disposition that a
man of culture should set himself to
aggravate and render more potent for
the fabrication of mischievous illusions ?
That is what Dr. Abbott is now doing,
however, and we scarcely understand
how he can be blind to the fact.

The other hypothesis—that after a
gradual and voluntary subjection of the
nature to sin in some form or other the
individual passes under the power of a
fiend—errs in the direction of super-
fluity. If Dr. Abbott should elect to
stand by this view of the matter, and,
in spite of his very recent indorsement,
to dismiss his theory of twenty years ago
about amiable and respectable people
becoming the victims of diabolical pos-
session, we should then only have to ask
him how he distinguishes between slay-
ery to a devil and that slavery to evil
propensities long indulged which the
world has for ages recognized as a famil-
iar and deplorable phenomenon. The
devil in this case seems to be a fifth

wheel to the coach, and even worse

than a fifth wheel; for it is hard to see
how the weight of the vehicle is going
to be made to rest, in the slightest de-
gree, on so unnecessary an adjunct.

LITERARY NOTICES.

NaruraL Ingeritance. By Francis Gat-

TON. London and New York: Macmillan

& Co. Pp. 259. Price, $2.50.

Tur name of the author of this work is
identified with studies of problems that lie
at the base of the science of heredity, more
closely, perhaps, than that of any other who
has written upon the subject. Upon it he
has published five books and fifteen mem-
oirs and review articles, the earliest of
which appeared in 1869. That work, which

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

covered the subject of “Hereditary Genius,”
could only have been the fruit of long-con-
tinued, careful studies, such as Mr. Galton
is still pursuing, but under more and more
methodized forms. This volume contains
the more important of the results of these
continued researches, set forth in an orderly
way, with more completeness than has hith-
erto been possible, together with a large
amount of new matter. The inquiry relates
to the inheritance of moderately exception-
al qualities by brotherhoods and multitudes
rather than by individuals. Among the
problems to be dealt with to which particu-
lar attention is called are the one that refers
to the curious regularity observed in the sta-
tistical peculiarities of populations during a
long series of generations, in which certain
marks that may not recur prominently in
the groups most closely related to one anoth-
er, appear most distinctly through the whole;
the average share contributed to the person-
al features of the offspring by each ancestor
severally ; and the nearness of kinship in
different degrees. The discussion is opened
with an account of the processes in heredity,
in which a distinction is marked between

natural and acquired peculiarities, and fam-

ily likeness and individual variation, latent
characteristics, blending and mutually exclu-
sive heritages, and petty influences are con-
sidered. The man being usually one twelfth
larger than the woman, a rule is found for
transmuting female into male measures so
as to fix a uniform standard, applicable to
either sex. The term “particulate inherit-
ance” is defined as relating to the bits of
elements which we inherit from this pro-
genitor and that, and as covering the incalcu-
lable number of small and mostly unknown
circumstances that influence our develop-
ment. In a chapter on “ Organic Stability ”
the effort is made to show, by familiar illus-
trations from common things, how types
may come about and be perpetuated; how —
“sports? may suddenly appear and then en-
dure; and, from this, that evolution is not
by minute steps only, but may occur by
jumps. The account of the method by
which the author’s “schemes” and his rules
for estimating the value of his results were
prepared is minute and exact, hard as a
mathematical demonstration to follow, but,
like a mathematical demonstration, clear

LITERARY NOTICES.

when the processes are matured. By it is
deduced an equation suggesting a theory of
descent, to be applied in the subsequent in-
vestigations. The investigations were made
by the aid of experiments on sweet peas (the
sizes of the peas of a crop), and on moths
bred for the purpose, and of about a hun-
dred and fifty family records. The records,
of course, include facts relating to a vastly
larger number of persons. The chief sub-
jects to which they relate are stature, eye-
color, temper, the artistic faculty, some
forms of disease, marriage selection, and fer-
tility. The item of stature offers many ad-
vantages in the study—from the ease and
frequency with which it may be measured
and its practical constancy during many
years, from the fact that it is not a simple
element, but is the sum of the accumulated
leneths or thicknesses of many bodily ele-
ments, and because its discussion need not be
entangled with considerations of marriage
selection, and its variability is normal. To
the inheritance of stature each mid-parent
(median between the two parents) contrib-
utes an influence marked as one half, each
individual parent one quarter, and each indi-
vidual grandparent one‘sixteenth. A like
hereditary relation is found to exist between
the man and his ancestors in the matter of
eye-sight. In point of the artistic faculty,
highly artistic people intermarry, while mod-
erately artistic people do not so usually, be-
cause, “A man of highly artistic tempera-
ment must look on those who are deficient
in it as barbarians; he would continually
crave for a sympathy and response that such
persons are incapable of giving. On the other
hand, every quiet unmusical man must shrink
a little from the idea of wedding himself to a
grand piano in constant action, with its vocal
and peculiar social accompaniments; but he
might anticipate great pleasure in having a
wife of a moderately artistic temperament,
who would give color and variety to his pro-
saic life. On the other hand, a sensitive and
imaginative wife would be conscious of need-
ing the aid of a husband who had enough
plain common sense to restrain her too en-
thusiastic and frequently foolish projects.”
And vice versa. Of the problem as related
to disease, the author observes: “The vital
statistics of a population are those of a vast
army marching rank behind rank, across the

275

treacherous table-land of life. Some of its
members drop out of sight at every step,
and a new rank is ever rising to take the
place vacated by the rank that preceded it,
and which has already moved on. The pop-
ulation retains its peculiarities, although the
elements of which it is composed are never
stationary; neither are the same individuals
present at any two successive epochs. In
these respects a population may be compared
to a cloud that seems to repose in calm upon
a mountain plateau while a gale of wind is
blowing over it. The outline of the cloud
remains unchanged, although its elements
are in violent movement and in a condition
of perpetual destruction and renewal... .
Both in the cloud and in the population
there are continual supply and in-rush of
new individuals from the unseen; they re-
main awhile as visible objects and then
disappear. The cloud and the population
are composed of elements that resemble
each other in the brevity of their existence,
while the general features of the cloud and of
the population are alike in that they abide.”
One of the striking facts disclosed in the
classification of the diseases of each family
is their great intermixture. We know very
little about the effects of such mixture, how
far they are mutually exclusive, and how far
they blend; or how far, when they blend,
they change into a third form. Owing to
the habit of free intermarriage, no person
can be exempt from the inheritance of a va-
riety of diseases, or of special tendencies to
them. While death by mere old age and
failure of vital powers appears common, it is
not found, as a rule, that the children of per-
sons who die of old age have any marked
immunity from specific diseases. Applying
the inquiry to consumption, the law of hered-
ity found to govern the other faculties exam-
ined appears to govern that of liability to
this disease also, although the constants of
the formula differ slightly. It is not pos-
sible that more than one half of the varie-
ties and number of each of the parental ele-
ments, latent or personal, can, on the average,
subsist in the offspring; for a calculation
based upon the supposition that they can all
be conveyed would soon lead into absurdi-
ties. But if the personal and latent ele-
ments are transmitted on the average in
equal numbers, it is difficult to suppose that

276

there can be much difference in their variety.
Mr, Galton’s inquiries, as a whole, can be
hardly regarded as more than pioneer work,
the determinate and accurate results of which
have yet to be brought out. The conclu-
sions, he remarks, “depend on ideas that
must first be well comprehended, and which
are now novel to the large majority of read-
ers, and unfamiliar to all. But those who
care to brace themselves to a sustained effort,
need not feel much regret that the road to
be traveled over is indirect, and does not
admit of being mapped beforehand in a way
they can clearly understand. It is full of
interest of its own. It familiarizes us with
the measurement of variability, and with cu-
rious laws of chance that apply to a vast di-
versity of social subjects. This part of the
inquiry may be said to run along a road on
a high level, that affords wide views in un-
expected directions, and from which easy
descents may be made to totally different
goals from those we have now to reach.”

Tr CriticaL Prriop or American History.
1783-1789. By Joun Fiske. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 368. Price,
$2.

On hearing the news of the treaty which
ended the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine
stopped the publication of ‘‘ The Crisis,” de-
claring, “The times that tried men’s souls
are over.” So far from this being the case,
Prof. Fiske says, “The most trying time of
all was just beginning. It is not too much
to say that the period of five years following
the peace of 1783 was the most critical mo-
ment in all the history of .the American peo-
ple.” The American commonwealth was
then a tender plant, beset by many and va-
ried dangers, and only the most judicious
- management could have preserved its life
until it had taken firm root. Prof. Fiske in
his first chapter recounts the negotiations at
Paris in 1782 and 1783 in regard to the
treaty of peace, giving especial attention to
King George’s troubles with his successive
cabinets, and their bearing on the questions
at issue. This is followed by a survey of
the changes in forms of government, and in’
regard to the succession of property, slavery,
and church establishment made by the thir-
teen commonwealths in consequence of ob-
taining independence of England. The next

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

two chapters tell of the obstacles thrown in
the path of Congress by the discontent of
the unpaid army ; by the unwillingness of the
people to pay taxes for the support of the
General Government, or to pay their debts to
British creditors; by their jealousy of any
semblance to royal power or hereditary privi-
lege; by the commercial hostility between
the States, and State quarrels over conflict-
ing boundary claims; by the poverty of the
country and the confusion of the currency
—until finally insurrections in some of the
States forced upon a majority of the people
the conviction that something must be done,
and done quickly. The author then shows
how a spirit favorable to strengthening the
national Government grew out of various oc-
currences. One of these was the settlement
of the conflicting claims of the States to lands
west of the Alleghanies by the surrender of
all these claims to the United States; an-
other was a difficulty with Spain in regard to
the navigation of the lower Mississippi. The
convention which drew up the new Consti-
tution was led up to in a most cautious way.
“ At first,” says Prof. Fiske, “it was to be
just a little meeting of two or three States to
talk about the Potomac River and some pro-
jected canals ” ; then commissioners from all
the States were invited to be present and dis-
cuss some uniform system of legislation on
the subject of trade ; and, finally, the plan for
a convention to devise provisions “to render
the Constitution of the Federal Government
adequate to the exigencies of the Union”
was Officially adopted by Congress.

The. story of the work done by the Fed-
eral Convention forms the chief chapter of
the volume, and is told in a way to show the
interactions of the opposing and diverging
forces whose resultant was the Constitution
of the United States. Then follows an ac-
count of the discussion and ratification of
the document by the several States, and the
election and inauguration of Washington as
President, and the critical period of Ameri-
can history was safely passed. Prof. Fiske
offers his book to the student of American
history, not as a complete summary of the
events of the period which it covers, nor as
a discussion of the political questions in-
volved in them, but rather as a grouping of
the main facts in such a way as to bring out
their causal sequence.

a

LITERARY NOTICES.

Tae Praytime Naturauist. By Dr. J. E.
Taytor, F. L. S., Editor of ‘“‘Science-
Gossip.” With 366 Illustrations, New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 287.
Price, $1.50.

No better statement of the scope and
spirit of the ‘‘ Playtime Naturalist” can be
given than by quoting its preface entire. It
is as follows: ‘The writer of this book has
a liking for intelligent English lads, just as
some people have for blue china and etch-
ings. He ventures to think the former are
even more interesting objects. And, as the
writer was once a boy himself, and vividly
remembers the never-to-be-forgotten rambles
and observations of the objects in the coun-
try ; and, moreover, as he treasures up such
reminiscences as the most pleasant and in-
nocent of an active man’s life, he thought he
could not do better than enlist this younger
generation in the same loves and the same
pleasures. He has endeavored to do his
best for his human hobbies, and hopes their
lives may be richer and sweeter and more
manly for what he has introduced them to
in the following pages.”

The book is a story of the collecting done
by the boys of “ Mugby School,” and its
style may be seen in the section relating to
fish-scales, published in the May number of
this magazine. There is a delightful chapter
early in the velume entitled “ Among the
Birds,” and this is followed by a fascinating
account of moth and butterfly collecting. A
variety of insects of land and water, land
shells, frogs, newts, etc., and microscopic
animals and plants, receive attention in turn.
The descriptions are accompanied by an
abundance of illustrations, which aid in
identifying the creatures described, and add
much to the attractiveness of the volume.
No book better adapted to arouse a love of
nature in the young has been published in a
long time.

An Exvementary Text-Book or CHeEmistRy.
By Witu1am G. Mrxter, Professor of
Chemistry ‘in Yale University. New
York; John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 459.
Price, $2.50.

THE author states as the aim of this book,
to enable the student to grasp the funda-
mental principles of the science, and at the
same time to learn something of the chem-
istry of common things. The work is adapt-

277

ed to students of college age. The “peri-
odie classification” has been made the basis
of arrangement. The acidic and basic groups
are treated alternately in order to discuss
bases and salts early in the course, as well
as to give constant variety to the character
of the experiments performed. Compounds
of the rare elements are described, to make
evident the reasons for the classification,
and also to serve as a basis for the summa-
ries of the groups. Graphic and constitu-
tional formulas are much used. The rea-
sons for a number of constitutional formu-
las are given, and, in case of compounds
whose constitution is not understood, care is
generally taken to state that the constitu-
tional formulas employed are assumed from
analogy. Considerable matter intended for
reading rather than recitation is distinguished
by small type. The volume is introduced
by a short chapter on the physics of chem-
istry, which includes an account of crystal-
lography and of the laws of gases. De-
tailed directions for experiments, and a large
number of figures of apparatus, are given.
Much pains is taken to show the relation-
ship between the members of each group
by means of summaries. Presentations of
chemical principles are scattered at inter-
vals through the book.

Nature anp Man. Essays ScIENTIFIC AND
PuiLosopuicaL. By Wittiam B. Car-
PENTER, with an Introductory Memoir by
J. Esttin Carpenter. New York: D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 483. Price, $2.25.
Tue fifteen essays contained in this vol-

ume represent chiefly the latter phases of

Dr. Carpenter’s thoughts on the problems

concerned with the interpretation of nature

and man. He believed some of the conclu-

sions which they embody to be of high im-

portance in the guidance of life. They were

the result of long observation, and in some
cases differed widely from the ideas which
his early education and his first studies had
led him to adopt. Mr. J. Estlin Carpenter
undertakes in the ‘‘ Memorial Sketch” to
indicate some of the processes which con-
tributed to this change, and to present briefly
the connection between Dr. Carpenter’s va-
ried work and the personality from which
his many-sided energy flowed out, An in-
teresting and instructive delineation is given
of the various phases which Dr. Carpen-

278

ter’s views, particularly those bearing upon
the relations of theological and scientific
thought, underwent in the course of his tran-
sition from strict teleologism to the full ac-
ceptance of the theory of evolution. He
received his early education under the su-
perintendence of his father, a Unitarian min-
ister, who was accustomed to insist in his
teaching on the importance of bringing the
reasoning powers to bear upon observed
facts—a principle which the philosopher ap-
plied well in his after-studies. In his six-
teenth year he became interested in Mr. Ex-
ley’s “New Theory of Matter,” a book de-
voted to showing that “all the attractions
of gravitation, cohesion, electricity, chemi-
cal, magnetic, etc.,” can be explained upon
the same principles. It was a first attempt
to demonstrate the correlation of forces.
While Dr. Carpenter was active in prosecut-
ing his physiological investigations, and had
already touched upon the similarity in the
character of the laws regulating vital and
physical phenomena, the affairs of his re-
ligious society obtained a nearly equal share
of his interest. He cultivated music, particu-
larly organ music, with great assiduity. With
this taste, and partly directing it, perhaps,
was associated the preparation of a collec-
tion of psalm-tunes for his little chapel at
Edinburgh. His adherence to the Unitarian
faith barred him from a professorship in the
university, for which he desired to be a can-
didate. When he had removed from Edin-
burgh, he felt the loss of public worship
more than any other inconvenience of his
situation, and wished he could be back at his
old post, where he could take his part in lead-
ing the “devotional feelings of the congre-
gation.” When the “ Vestiges of Creation ”
appeared, a few of its conceptions were
found to be so similar to thoughts that he
had expressed, that some readers attributed
it to him; but he was not prepared to ac-
cept the main doctrine of that book, and an-
swered it by saying that, as we had script-
ural authority for believing that the Creator
formed man out of the dust of the earth, he
must confess his predilection for believing
that the Creator had at some period “ en-
dowed certain forms of organic matter with
the properties requisite to enable them to
combine at the fitting season into the hu-
man organism”—rather that that we are

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

descended from a chimpanzee. He taught
that a common designed plan reigned in the
evolution of the solar system, of human
forms, and of the entire organic world; be-
lieved thoroughly in the reality of miracles;
and held that man is accountable to the Cre-
ator for all his acts, even those that are re-
ally God’s own. While this was going on, his
views concerning the correlation of forces
were taking more definite shape, his studies
of the nervous system were becoming ex-
panded and leading him to modified opin-
ions concerning the will and moral responsi-
bility. When Darwin’s “ Origin of Species”
appeared, “he was well fitted toappreciate the
general argument,” for he had long thought
on the subject of modification by descent,
and while he had rejected the theory of the
“Vestiges,” “it had been on the grounds of
insufficient evidence and physiological error,
not from theological prepossession.” He
had written to his brother Russell in 1874,
that one of his great desires was “to be of
some use as a mediator in the conflict which
has now distinctly begun between science
and theology. I see quite clearly that it is
of no use to try to grapple with the subject
unless one thoroughly masters the question
on both sides.” His views on the questions
raised by Darwin’s theory are specifically ex-
pressed in a semi-autobiographical article on
“ Darwinism in England,” which he published
in Malta in 1881, and which is given in Mr.
Estlin Carpenter’s “Memorial.” His theo-
logical views were disturbed by this course
of thinking, but he wrote in a letter: “I
believe that these difficulties are a necessary
result of the habits of thought which have
been growing up with me; and, as they never
obscure my view of duty, I find it better not
to trouble myself too much about them, but
to apply myself to the business of the time.”
Through these difficulties, Dr. Carpenter, we
are told, “after no long interval, worked his
way. The strong religious needs of his na-
ture found their satisfaction in the view of
the world depicted in the later essays in this
volume.” Of the essays in the present col-
lection, five relate to physiology, the brain,
muscular movement, and force; three, to
man as the interpreter of nature, the psy-
chology of belief, and the “ Fallacies of Tes-
timony in Relation to the Supernatural ” ;
two, to human automatism; one, to “The

LITERARY NOTICES.

Deep Sea and its Contents”; four, to “The
Force behind Nature,” “Nature and Law,”
“The Doctrine of Evolution in its Relations to
Theism,” and “The Argument from Design
in the Organic World.” The list of Dr. Car-
penter’s writings contains two hundred and
ninety-three titles.

Toe Piantation Negro as A FREEMAN. By
Paitire A. Bruce. “ Questions of the Day
Series.’ No. LVII. New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons. Pp. 262. Price, $1.25.

Tue estimate of negro character which
prevails in the Northern States, where ne-
groes are few, has been more influenced by
knowledge of the wrongs which the race has
suffered than by acquaintance with the act-
ual habits of the black people. Mr. Bruce’s
volume will dispel any too ideal view of the
black race which the reader may hold. It is
a very thorough presentation of their men-
tal and moral traits, as exhibited in all the
important relations of life, based upon ob-
servations of the author extending over a long
series of years since emancipation, in “South-
side Virginia,” a region containing a colored
population of about two hundred and fifty
thousand. Mr. Bruce represents the negro
as a careless and capricious parent, as being
decidedly lax in regard to the marriage tie,
as depending on firm management for his
value as a servant, and as humble or imper-
tinent in demeanor toward the whites accord-
ing to the way he is treated. His crimes
are of the impulsive class—he is not a cool
and calculating villain. As a voter he is
easily led astray, and is becoming readily
purchasable. His religion is emotional, and
has but little influence on his conduct. He
is highly superstitious, and has great faith in
the trick doctor. The author thinks that the
ordinary sort of education furnished the ne-
gro hurts him in some ways, as well as help-
ing him, and that a system modified so as to
be adapted to his character would be much
more of a benefit. About the same that was
said of the black as a servant applies to him
as afarm laborer, He delights to.own or
rent land, but his laziness makes him an un-
desirable tenant. As a mechanic he is gen-
erally only a helper. Mr. Bruce regards the
hegro not as being essentially depraved, but
as having many unfortunate weaknesses, and
this opinion dominates the view as to the fu-

279

ture of the race which he gives in the clos-
ing chapter. He regards the proper solution
of the negro problem as a matter of pro-
found solicitude to a large and important part
of our country.

A Manvat or Instruction 1n THE Princt-
PLES oF Prompr Arp To THE INJURED. By
AuvaH H. Dory, M.D. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 224. Price, $1.25.

In order that the subject of this volume
may be well understood, it is essential to
know something of the construction of the
human body and the functions of the differ-
ent organs. For this reason the author de-
votes about a third of the volume to anat-
omy and physiology. Coming to the appli-
cation of this knowledge, he describes the
use of roller bandages, of four-tailed, square,
triangle, and cravat bandages; of slings, com-
presses, and tampons; also the tying of knots,
the making of poultices, and the application
of moist and dry heat. Half a dozen pages
are devoted to antiseptics and deodorants.
The various forms of injury are then de-
scribed, and the proper treatment for each
is stated. Under wounds, the bites of dogs
and snakes are included. The chapter on
hemorrhage contains a diagram showing the
position of the important arteries, and a cut
of a suspender so devised as to be especially
useful in case of emergency for constricting
a bleeding limb. The use of various arti-
cles likely to be at hand as temporary splints
and slings in cases of fracture is described.
A variety of injuries, many of them involv-
ing unconsciousness, receive due attention.
Among these are burns, frost-bite, fainting,
stunning, intoxication, fits, hysteria, and
heat-stroke.

In the treatment of drowned persons,
three methods of artificial respiration are
given, with figures. There is a chapter on
poisons, and another in which a variety of
injuries and affections are treated, including
convulsions of children, bed-sores, chafing,
ete. The last chapter is on transportation
of the patient, either with or without a lit-
ter, manufactured or extemporized, and in-
cludes by permission that part of the “ Man-
ual of Instruction for Hospital Corps, U.S.A.”
which relates to transportation of the wound-
ed, with the cuts. The author states that
special effort has been made to so arrange
the matter and to introduce such points as

280

will make the book of use to the ambulance
corps connected with the different military
organizations. He has endeavored to explain
each topic in a simple manner, and when
medical terms are used their lay synonyms
are also given. Numerous illustrations have
been inserted to aid in making the work read-
ily intelligible.

Tue Insane IN Foreren Countries. By
Witiram P. Lercuworts. New York:
G. P. Putnam’sSons. Pp. 374. Price, $3.

Tuis volume, by the President of the
New York State Board of Charities, is an
important contribution to the literature of
its subject. It embodies an examination of
European methods of caring for the insane,
especially the insane in public institutions,
pursued without interruption for seven
months, supplemented by information ob-
tained since the time of the author’s visit.
By way of contrast, a brief introductory
sketch of the ways in which the insane were
treated in earlier times is given. The sys-
tems employed in England, Scotland, and
Ireland are then described in turn, and the
characteristics of representative Continental
institutions are set forth. A chapter each
is given to the insane colony of Gheel, in
Belgium, where is the celebrated shrine of
St. Dymphna, and to the colony-hospital at
Alt-Scherbitz in Saxony. The final and
longest chapter, and the most important
portion of the volume, presents a résumé of
the author’s observations and his conclu-
sions drawn from them. Based upon the
results of his inspections of foreign and
American asylums, and of his own experi-
ence in the supervision of the defective
classes of New York State, Mr. Letchworth
offers his views as regards the selection of
sites and locations of asylums, the kind of
buildings to be provided; the questions of
sewage disposal, water-supply, protection
against fire, the laying out of the grounds,
the furnishing and decoration of wards and
rooms, the difficult problem of the disposi-
tion of the acute, the chronic, and the crimi-
nal insane ; the practice of restraint and the
amount of liberty that may be granted; the
character of the attendants to be chosen;
the religious exercises, amusements, employ-
ments, dress and clothing, visitation and cor-
respondence of patients, post-mortem exami-
nations ; the methods of admission and dis-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

charge, and the value of summer resorts.
All these subjects are treated clearly and
explicitly. Besides these, the author gives
his personal views respecting the insane in
poor-houses, local or district care of the in-
sane, state care, the boarding-out system,
state supervision, and kindred topics, The
book is beautifully printed and richly illus-
trated with engravings and heliotype repro-
ductions of plans of buildings and asylum
interiors, and pictures of historical interest.

GxEoLocicaL Survey or New Jersey. Finan

Report oF THE SraTE GroLocist. Vol.

I. Topography, Magnetism, Climate. By

GrorGE H. Coox, State Geologist. Tren-

ton: John L. Murphy Publishing Com-

pany. Pp.489, with Maps, ete.

THE survey was authorized by the State
Legislature in 1864, and has been continued
regularly till the date of the report. The
act contemplated a completion of the work,
previous partial surveys having been carried
on by Henry D. Rogers in 1836-40, and Dr.
William Kitchell in 1854-56. While the
yearly reports of the present work that have
been made and liberally distributed among
the people have been somewhat miscellane-
ous as to the subjects discussed, on account
of the prominence of special wants and in-
terests, the various branches of the survey
have been kept advancing, so that it has been
found practicable to include the final geo-
graphical reports in this volume. The State
Geologist has enjoyed the co-operation and
assistance of the United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey; and the expense of con-
ducting the latter half of the topographical
work has been borne by the United States
Geological Survey. Of the several parts of
the present volume, the article on the Geo-
detic Survey, by Prof. Bowser, of the Coast
Survey, gives accurate determinations, in
latitude and longitude, of several hundred
points, the stations of which are exactly de-
scribed, and the primary ones distinctly
marked on the spot. In the ‘‘ Physical De-
scription,” Mr, C. C. Vermeule, after defining
the geographical position and outlines of the
State, relates the history of the questions of
boundary and limits of jurisdiction from the
beginning ; marks the political divisions,
with measurements of the areas of the coun-
ties and townships, and describes the topog-
raphy of the State as being “ readily classed

LITERARY NOTICES.

in belts which correspond closely with the
outcrops of the various geological formations.
Beginning at the northwest, we have the Kit-
tatinny Mountain and Valley, occupying the
western half of Sussex and Warren counties,
and corresponding to the Paleozoic forma-
tion; next, the Archean Highlands ; then the
rolling Triassic or red sandstone plain; then
the furrowed and irregularly hilly cretaceous
plain; and, lastly, the triangular, extremely
level, sandy, and pine-clad plain of the Ter-
tiary formation, fringed seaward by a belt of
tide-marsh inclosed from the sea by sand-
beaches. These features are common to the
Atlantic slope southwest.” In the detailed
review these belts divide themselves up into
alternating streaks of mountain and valley,
table and plain, of which twenty-four are
described. These divisions present, consid-
ering the limitations of the area, much di-
versity of aspect, from the mountain lands
of the northwest, studded with lakes, with
the trap dikes of the “red sandstone plain”
intervening, to the swamps and pine plains
and tidal plain and beach sands as we ap-
proach or when we reach the sea-coast. The
description is supplemented by a table giving
the areas of the several water-sheds, with the
percentage of forest upon them, and their
population per square mile, a list of bench-
marks at which the elevation above the sea
is exactly recorded; and a much larger list
of elevations, from the latest and best deter-
mninations of prominent points, referred to
mean sea-level. The paper on the Magnetic
Survey, recording observations at one hun-
dred and fifty-eight stations, reveals some
noteworthy irregularities in declination, par-
ticularly in regions of Archean rock, and
near the trap ridges, where a tendency of the
needle toward a perpendicular to the crest-
line of the ridge is remarked upon. This
paper is accompanied by a chart showing
equal lines of declination for 1888. Prof.
Smock describes four natural climatic prov-
inces in the State, each of which has its pe-
culiar features: the Highlands and Kittatin-
ny Valley; the Red Sandstone Plain; the
Southern Interior; and the Sea-shore, or At-
lantic Coast Belt. The first is not generally
marked by excessive extremes of tempera-
ture, but has rather a northern climate, The
last, though having nowhere a truly mild
winter climate—like that of southern Florida

281

and California, ete.—affords pleasant winter
resorts. In view of the small area of the
State, the variety of conditions to be found
in New Jersey appears a little remarkable. A
fine topographic map, and an altitude map,
in which nine grades of elevation are indi-
cated by as many distinct shades of coloring,
are furnished in pockets.

Activity is resumed by the Society for Po-
litical Education by the issue of a pamphlet,
No. 25 in its series, on Electoral Reform.”
It sets forth the grave defects in the electo-
ral systems of most of the States, and ex-
plains the remedies therefor in secrecy of
ballot and other reforms. The “New York
(Saxton) Bill” and the ‘“‘ Massachusetts Bal-
lot Reform Act” are appended. The next
forthcoming publication of the society will
deal with the “ Liquor Question in Politics,”
and as soon as possible it will revise and re-
issue its list of standard works on economics,
political history and science, and economic
reforms, for the direction and aid of stu-
dents and the general reading public. The
Society aims at awakening an intelligent inter-
est in governmental methods and purposes,
and at diffusing information concerning the
rights and duties of citizens. Mr. George
Iles, secretary, 330 Pearl Street, New York,
invites the co-operation of all interested in
the society’s work.

The Self: What is it? is the problem
which Mr. J. S. Malone attempts to answer
(J. P. Morton & Co., Louisville, 75 cents).
He divides the human mind into two parts
—intellect and sensibility—and affirms that
the faculty which causes all human activity
is desire, a subdivision of sensibility, chal-
lenging any one to find one voluntary human
action that can be traced back to intellect as
its primal cause. He deems intellect only
instrumental. He affirms that moral re-
sponsibility belongs also to sense, and that
the end of existence concerns only this de-
partment of mind. In the second division
of his book he maintains that intellect is an
offshoot from sense, and examines some of
Kant’s doctrines.

Mr. Frederic H. Iveshas privately printed
in Philadelphia a brief account of his pro-
cess of photographing in colors, under the
title A New Principle in Heliochromy. He

282

alludes to the various attempts which have
been made to produce photographs in natu-
ral colors, and then states the essential feat-
ures of his own method. He says in conclu-
sion that there is much yet to be done in
perfecting the print-making part of the pro-
cess, and that for the present he is satisfied
to obtain perfect heliochromic prints on
glass, so that the result may be shown with
the optical lantern. He appends a reply,
which he made in the “Journal of the
Franklin Institute,” to a criticism on his
claims by Mr. C. H. Bothamley. The 6ro-
chure has a photo-engraved portrait of Mr.
Ives as frontispiece.

A lecture entitled Outlines of a New Sci-
ence, by E. J. Donnell, has been published
in the “Questions of the Day Series” (Put-
nam, $1). The author maintains that ez-
changeability is the source of economic value,
that all wealth is the fruit of commercial ex-
change, and that, when this is going on ac-
tively, all departments of productive indus-
try have health and vigor. Further, that
the recent enormous increase in the product-
ive powers of labor has created a problem
which demands an immediate solution ; that
the problem is especially pressing in this
country because our productive powers are
greater and the restrictions on our commer-
cial exchanges more oppressive than in any
other of the advanced industrial nations ; and
that our tariff system taxes the many for the
benefit of the few.

The Trustees of the Peabody Museum of
American Archeology and Ethnology have
begun to issue from time to time such special
papers as have heretofore been published in
connection with the annual reports, in a sepa-
rate form, but of uniform octavo size with
the reports. Each number will be sold sepa-
rately at a specified price, which will vary
according to the number of pages and illus-
trations. The papers will be omitted from
the annual reports. The first of these papers
published is an interesting essay by Mrs. Ze-
lia Nuttall, on a “‘ Relic of Ancient Mexico—
Standard or Head-dress ?””—with three col-
ored plates, to which is appended a note “On
the Complementary Signs of the Mexican
Graphic System.” -

The Plans for furnishing an Abundant
Supply of Water to the City of New York
Jrom a Source independent of the Croton

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Water-shed, proposed'by John R. Bartlett and

Associates, contemplate the utilization of
the Passaic water-shed in New Jersey; the
reservoirs to be located about fifteen miles
from the city, and the water to be brought
in by a tunnel under the Hudson River,
The supply of all the New Jersey towns
suburban to New York, and of Brooklyn, is
declared to be practicable by the same sys-
tem, and it is claimed that the quantity of
water available for this purpose is sufficient
to furnish them all abundantly. The water-
privileges of the region in question are
owned by private corporations, from which
the author has obtained concessions of the
right to construct reservoirs and collect and
use the surplus waters. In behalf of this
scheme, it is claimed that the Passaic water-
shed has three times the area of the Croton
water-shed, and is therefore capable of af-
fording a much larger supply of water than
can ever be derived thence; that it is much
nearer to the city; that the water can be
brought direct to the lower part of the city,
where it is most needed; that it will be pure
and wholesome, and, being delivered under a
head-pressure of three hundred feet, will go
of its own force to the tops of the highest
houses, and with sufficient energy to be in-
stantly available in extinguishing fires; and
that it possesses other somewhat less im-
portant but obviously convenient advan-
tages. The book in which the scheme is
developed and explained contains several
addresses and memoirs, legal opinions, and
opinions of experts on the various questions
brought out in the discussions of it, with
maps, plans, profiles, and views.

Mr. Charles W. Darling, Corresponding
Secretary of the Oneida Historical Society,
has published privately, in a pamphlet of 43
pages, some Historical Notes concerning the
City of New York as it appeared in its earliest
days. They have been gathered from the
writings of the chief historians, earlier and
later, of the city, and from manuscript folio
volumes of public records. They contain
matter that is omitted by one or other, or
more, of the writers quoted from, and form
a picture as a whole which it will be hard to
find in its fullness anywhere else. The notes
date back to the period when trading and
fishing huts were first erected upon Manhat-
tan Island, and embrace the years between

LITERARY NOTICES.

the discovery by Hudson in 1609 and the re-
call of Governor Wouter Van Twiller in 1637.

Business is one of half a dozen thought-
ful little books by James Platt, on kindred
subjects and with equally terse titles (Put-
nam, 75 cents). It is a clear, vigorous, and
direct statement of the nature and impor-
tance of each of the qualities which make up
the mental fittings of the successful man of
business. The author has long advocated
the teaching of business methods in English
schools, so that the youth of that country
might be competent to fill the clerkships
which English merchants are constantly
giving to Germans and Swiss. He regards
commercial life as a remorseless struggle
for existence, in which the men of greatest
skill and perseverance defeat their fellows.
He repudiates the doctrine of the weak, in-
dolent, and thoughtless that puts all failure
upon the Lord, and says that if men do not
succeed it is because they are not equal to
the requirements of the age they live in. Mr.
Platt does not hold that reading books alone
will make any one a thorough man of busi-
ness, but that books can supply knowledge
of laws and principles which, if intelligently
applied, will prevent failure or be product-
ive of success.

D. C. Heath & Co. are about to publish
Thirty-six Observation Lessons on Common
Minerals, by Henry L. Clapp, designed as a
practical guide for the use of the teacher in
directing the pupil’s energies, and cultivating
the true scientific habit of thinking and
working. The same firm will issue The
Laws of Health in Relation to School Life,
by Arthur Newsholme, M.D., intended for
the guidance of all who are charged with
the responsibility of watching over the men-
tal and physical well-being of pupils of both
Sexes in public or private schools. The
book is in use in English training schools,
and the American edition has been carefully
revised to adapt it to our climate and the
needs of our schools.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Adams, Robert C. Pioneer Pith. The Gist of
Lectures on Rationalism. New York: The Truth-
Seeker Company. Pp. 99. 25 cents.

Angerstein, E., M. D., and Eckler, G. Home
Gymnastics for the Well and the Sick. Boston
36 mad York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 94.

Bennett, Alfred W., and Murray, George. A

283

Hand-book of Cryptogamic Botany. London and
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 473. $5.
Bastin, Prof. Edson 8. College Botany. Chi-
cago: G. P. Engelhard & Co. Pp. 461. $3.
Benson, Lawrence Sluter. Mathematics in a
Nutshell, etc. 25 Bond Street, New York. Pp. 10.

Bert, Paul. Primer of Scientific Knowledge.
Translated and adapted for American Schools. Phila-
delphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 186. 36
cents,

Boylston, Peter. John Charaxes: A Tale of the
Civil War in America. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-
cott Company. Pp. 289. $1.26.

Branner, John ©. Aunual Report of the Geo-
logical Survey of Arkansas. Little Rock. Pp. 320,
with Maps.

Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth.
London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 2 vols.
Pp. 750 and 748. $6.

Burt, Stephen Smith, M.D. Views on the Pre-
vention and Treatment of Typhoid Hever. New
York. Pp 11.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Bulletin No. 97. Fungous Diseases of Plants.
Pp. 13.

Crothers, T. D., Editor. “The Quarterly Journal
of Inebriety.” April, 1889. Hartford, Conn. : The
Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. Pp. 100.

Danmar, William. The Tail of the Earth; or,
the Location and Condition of the “ Spirit World.”
Brooklyn, N. Y. Pp. 60. 25 cents.

Dexter, Seymour. A Treatise on Co-operative
Savings and Loan Associations. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 299. $1.25.

Dunham, 0O.M. * The American Workman.” An
Illustrated Magazine. New York. Pp. 16. 5 cents;
$2.50 a year.

Foote, E. B., Jr., M.D. Dr. Cyrus Edson’s Plea
for Compulsory Vaccination reviewed. Pp. 16.

Foster, Michael, and others. “The Journal of
Physiology.” Vol. X. Nos. 1and2. Pp. 151 and iy,
with Plates. $5 volume.

Groh, Israel W. Did Man fall? New York:
The Truth-Seeker Company. Pp. 21. 10 cents.

Hill, Robert T. Events in North American Cre-
taceous History illustrated in the Arkansas-Texas
Division, Austin, Texas. Pp. 10.

Hitchcock, C. C. The Influence of Science on
Religious Thought, Ware, Mass. Pp. 17.

Tilinois, University of. Agricultural Experiment
Piston: Field Experiments with Corn. 1888. Pp.
02.

Ingersoll, Robert; Coudert, Frederick A.; and
Woodford, Stewart L. The Limits of Toleration.
A Discussion. New York : The Truth-Seeker Com-
pany. Pp. 44. 10 cents.

Iowa Agricultural College Experiment Station.
Ames. Bulletin No.4. Pp. 48.

Jacobi, Mary Putnam, M.D. Physiological Notes
on Primary Education and the Study of Language.
New ae and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp.

Poin Hopkins University Circulars. No. 72.

Leffinann, Henry, and Beam, William. Examina-
tion of Water for Sanitary and Technical Purposes.
peste: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 106.

Linnean Society of New York City. Abstract
of Proceedings for 188889. Pp. 9.

McGee, W J. Notes on the Geology of Macon
County, Missouri. Pp. 82.—Classification of Geo-
graphic Forms by Genesis. Pp. 10.—Dynamical
Geology. Pp. 6.

McKenzie, F. J., editor. Discussion of the Medi-
cal Bill, Regulars vs. Quacks. Oshkosh, Wis. Pp.

“Minnesota, Public Health in.” February, 1889.
Monthly, with supplement. Pp.&2 and Chart. 50
cents a year. : :

284

Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment
Station. Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Con-
trol. Amberst. Pp. 264—Bulletin No. 28. On
Commercial Fertilizers. Pp. 12.

Michigan, Agricultural College of. Report of the
Weather Service Department and Rainfall Charts.
Pp. 33.—Feeding Steers of Different Breeds. Pp.29,
with Plates—Why not plant a Grove? Pp. 7.—
Potatoes, Roots, Fertilizers, and Oats. Pp. 12.

Montgomery, D. H. The Leading Facts of French
History. Boston: Ginn & Co, Pp. 821. $1.25.

New York. Report of the Commissioners of the
State Reservation at Niagara for 1888. Pp. 112,
with Plates.—Report of the Central Park Menagerie.
Pp. 43.—University of the City of. Catalogue and
Announcements. 1888-89. Pp. 144.

Old South Leaflets. Washington's Inaugurals,
Boston: D. C. Heath & Co, Pp. 12. 5 cents.

Parker, Francis W. How to study Geography.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 400. $1.50.

Perrin, B. Homer’s Odyssey. Books I to IV,
at Notes. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 229.
1.40.

Pickering, Edward C. Henry Draper Memorial.
Third Annual Report of the Photographic Study of
Stellar Spectra. Pp.8.—A Photographic Determina-
tion of the Brightness of the Stars. Pp. 214.

Potts, William. Evolution of Vegetable Life.
Boston : The New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp.
28. 10 cents.

Powell, J. W., Director. Seventh Annual Report
of the United States Geological Survey, 1885-86.
Washington: Government Prirting-Office. Pp. 656,
with Map and Plates.

Proctor, Richard Anthony. The Student's Atlas.
London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
Twelve Circular Maps. $1.50.

Rauch, John H., M.D. Water Supplies of Illi-
nois and the Pollution of its Streams. Springfield,
Ill. Pp. 81.

Raue, C. G., M.D. Psychology as a Natural Sci-
ence applied to the Solution of Occult Psychic Phe-
nomena. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, Pp. 541.
$3.50.

Raymond, Rossiter W. Evolution of Animal
Life. Boston: The New Ideal Publishing Company.
Pp. 22. 10 cents.

Rotch, A. Lawrence. Observations made at the
Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, Massachu-
setts, in 1887. Cambridge, Mass.- John Wilson &
Son. Pp. 141, with Plates.

Shufeldt, R. W. Osteology of Cireus Hudsonius.
Pp. 33.

Sonrel, A., and Jordan, David Starr. Six Species
of North American Fresh-Water Fishes. Drawings
and Explanation of Plates. Washington: Smith-
sonian Institution.

Townshend, Smith, M.D. Report of the Health
Officer of the District of Columbia. 1888. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 178, with
Charts.

Tuttle, Hudson.
of Psychic Science.
Co. Pp. 252. $1.25.

Verschoyle, Rev. J., Editor. The History of An-
ecient Civilization. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 295. $1.75.

Ward, Lester F. Some Social] and Economic
Paradoxes. Washington. Pp. 12.—An Undescribed
Vegetable Organism from the Fort Union Group of
Montana. Pp. 4.—The Paleontologic History of the
Genus Platanus. Pp. 4, with Five Plates.

Whitman, Dr. C. O.. Director. First Annual Re-
port of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Wood’s
Holl, Massachusetts, for 1888. Pp. 44. :

Willard, Frances E. Glimpses of Fifty Years.
The Autobiography of an American Woman. Chi-
cago : Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association.
Specimen pages,

Wiman, Erastus.
tinent. New York.

Studies in the Outlying Fields
New York: M. L. Holbrook &

The Greater Half of the Con-
Pp. 30.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

John Goldie.—This industrious botanist
was born near Maybole in Ayrshire, March
21, 1793; died at Ayr, Ontario, Canada, where
he had long resided, in June, 1886, in his
ninety-fourth year. Mr. Goldie was educated
as a gardener; and most Scotch gardeners
in those days were botanists. From the Glas-
gow Botanic Garden, then in charge of Sir
William Hooker, he came to America for bo-
tanical exploration in the year 1817. The
interesting particulars of this expedition are
here given in an abstract from his “ Descrip-
tion of some New and Rare Plants discovered
in Canada in the Year 1819,” published in the
“ Edinburgh. Philosophical Journal,” vol. vi,
April, 1822. ‘Having had for many years
a great desire to visit North America, chief-
ly with a view to examine and collect some
of its vegetable productions, I contrived in
1817 to obtain as much money as would just
pay my passage there, leaving when this was
done but a very small surplus.” He sailed
from Leith to Halifax, went to Quebec,
whence he dispatched his collections of liv-
ing roots and dried plants in a vessel bound
for Greenock, “but never heard of them
afterward.” At Montreal he found Pursh,
who advised him to explore the northwest
country, and promised to obtain for him per-
mission to accompany the traders going to
that region the following spring. “I tray-
eled on foot to Albany, thence proceeded by
water to New York. ...I explored the
eastern part of New Jersey,.a country which,
though barren and little inhabited, yet pre-
sents many rarities to the botanist, and gave
me more gratification than any part of Amer-
ica that Ihave seen. Ata place called Quak-
er’s Bridge I gathered some most interesting
plants, and, having accumulated as large a
load as my back would carry, I took my jour-
ney to Philadelphia ”—thence to New York,
whence a ship was about to sail to Scotland,
“and, having again committed my treasures
to the deep, I had again, as the first time, the
disappointment of never obtaining any in-
telligence whatever of them. My finances
being now extremely low and winter having
commenced, I hardly knew what to do; but,
after some delay, went up to the Mohawk
River, where I found employment that sea-
son as schoolmaster ”—thence in the spring

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

to Montreal, and, failing to make the connec-
tions necessary to reaching the northwest dis-
trict, he “took to the spade” all summer
long, except two days in the week which he
devoted to botanizing. “In the autumn I
shipped my collection of plants, and in two
months had the mortification to learn that
the vessel was totally wrecked in the St. Law-
rence. During the next winter I did little,
except employing myself with such skill as
I was able in designing some flower-pieces,
for which I got a trifle. Early the following
spring I commenced labor again, and by the
beginning of June had amassed about fifty
dollars, which, with as much more borrowed
from a friend, formed my stock of money for
the next summer’s tour. I started in the be-
ginning of June from Montreal], and passing
through Kingston went to New York [mean-
ing the State, evidently], to which, after an
excursion to Lake Simcoe, I returned ; then
visited the Falls of Niagara and Fort Erie,
and crossed over to the United States, keep-
ing along: the eastern side of Lake Hrie”’; he
crossed over to Pittsburg, back by way of
Olean, Onondaga, and Sackett’s Harbor to
Montreal, and thence safely home to Scot-
land, ‘‘the plants I carried with myself be-
ing the whole that I saved out of the prod-
uce of nearly three years spent in botanical
researches.” Hard lines these and in those
days for collecting botanists, which those
who “stay at home at ease” do not appre-
ciate. In the year 1824 he was commis-
Bioned to take charge of a cargo of living
plants sent by the Edinburgh Botanic Gar-
den to that of St. Petersburg. On his re-
turn he went into the nursery business in his
native country. Then, with a laudable wish
_to better the prospects of his family, in 1844
he transported his home from the Scotch to
the Canadian Ayr, in the province of Ontario,
where he flourished and prospered for over
thirty years of green old age, and died in the
midst of numerous and prosperous children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Tornadoes.—Mr. J. P. Finley says that
there are two principal conditions upon which
the occurrence of tornadoes depends: one is
a state of unstable equilibrium in the air, and
the other a circulatory motion with reference
to any center of disturbance. Tornadoes are

-most likely to occur in regions where warm

285

moist air flows underneath a colder and dri-
er stratum coming from another direction,
Such regions are found in the Mississippi,
Missouri, and Ohio Valleys, and in Alabama,
Georgia, and the Carolinas. The summer
season is the most favorable for tornadoes,
when the interior of the continent is warmed
up, and the air of the lower strata is drawn
from lower latitudes far up into the northern
portions of the country on the eastern side
of the Rocky Mountains. If this unstable
condition does not of itself induce a disturb-
ance, one is readily brought about by the
addition of any small effect from some other
cause, as from extremely warm weather, in
which the air strata close to the earth’s sur-
face become still hotter than those above
them. Tornadoes very generally accompany
an area of low barometer, and are to be
looked for in the southeast quadrant only of
the “low,” at distances generally of from

| two hundred to five hundred miles from the

center. But as the unstable state ina “low”
very rarely extends down to the earth’s sur-
face, tornadoes are not necessarily visible in
every general storm. The destructive vio-
lence of a tornado is sometimes confined to
a path a few yards in width, or it may widen
to the extreme limit of eighty rods. The
tornado, with hardly an exception, occurs
just after the hottest part of the day—most
frequently between 3.30 and 5 p.m. The
month of greatest frequency is May, April
coming next. It is estimated that one hun-
dred and forty-six tornadoes occur in the
United States yearly. The vortex wind-ve-
locities of the tornado-cloud vary from one
hundred to five hundred miles an hour, from
actual measurements. Velocities of from
eight hundred to one thousand miles an hour
are extremes that have been reported, but
may not be altogether reliable. The cloud
generated by the vortex assumes the form of
a funnel, with the smaller end toward the
earth. The characteristic effects of a tor-
nado are objects drawn into the vortex from
all sides, whirled upward and thrown out-
ward by the circling air: structures are lit-
erally torn to pieces, as shown by the fineness
of the débris ; light objects are carried to
great heights and also to great distances;
persons are stripped of clothing ; fowls and
birds are denuded of feathers and killed;
trees are whipped to bare poles, uprooted or

286

twisted off near the roots; heavy timbers are
driven through the sides of buildings or deep
into the solid earth; men and animals are ter-
ribly mangled by contact with flying débris,
and by being swept over the surface of the
ground ; bowlders weighing tons are rolled
along; railroad trains are thrown from the
tracks; and iron bridges are carried from
their foundations.

Economical Uses of Flowers.—The dried
flowers of Hemerocallis graminea and the
young flowers of the plantain pickled in
vinegar are choice Chinese foods. Capers
are the flower-buds of a Capparis or a Zygo-
phyllum ; and cloves are the unexpanded
flower-buds of Caryophyllus aromaticus. The
petals of safflower, Carthamus tinctorius,
yield a beautiful dye of various shades of
color between red and yellow. It is the car-
thamine of the pink saucers, and this, mixed
with powdered mica or tale, forms a rouge
for ladies’ toilet-tables. The dried flowers
of two species of Butea, locally known as
dhak, tisso, toolsee, and kassaree, are exten-
sively used in India for the production of
orange and red dyes. The orange-red flow-
ers, which grow in clusters, are pressed when
fresh, or boiled or steeped when dried, in a
weak solution of lime in water. The flower-
buds of Ca/asaccion, which resemble a clove,
the blossoms of a larkspur of Khorassan,
and the white flowers of Cedrela Toona,
give yellow dyes. The Sophora Japonica, a
well-known ornamental shrub of our gar-
dens, is cultivated in China for the sake of
the imperial yellow dye obtained from its
bunches of flowers and undeveloped flower-
buds. Flowers of marigold are made into
garlands in India for the idols and for the
decoration of houses in festivals. The red
flowers of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis supply a red
dye, and have been used to polish boots and
shoes. <A fleeting orange or buff dye is ex-
tracted in India from the corolla tubes of
Nyctanthes, which are also strung in neck-
lacesfor women. The flowers of the teak and
of the pomegranate are used in India for dye-
ing red. The dried stigmas of the crocus are
a source of saffron. Cake saffron is made
of the florets pressed together with mucilage.
Insect- powder is the pulverized dried flowers
of Pyrethrum. Yo medicine, the female flow-
ers of hops are tonic and narcotic; the Pro-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vence rose is considered astringent; the flow-
ers of the hollyhock are mucilaginous and
demulcent ; those of Grislea tomentosa as-
tringent and tonic; those of camomile tonic
and anodyne. Infusion of linden-flowers is
given as an antispasmodic. The flowers of
the Abyssinian Brayera anthelmintica and
the flower-heads of Artemisia act as vermi-
fuges. Violets are considered purgative ;
but a conserve of the flowers with sugar has
a grateful flavor for covering nauseous medi-
cine. The flowers of the Indian Mohwa
(Bassia latifolia) secrete much sugar, and are
gathered by the natives during their season,
in March and April. <A single tree will yield
many hundred-weights of corollas. They are
eaten by the poorer classes in various parts
of India. The ripe flowers have a sickly
smell and a sweet taste, resembling manna,
and are stored as a staple of food; when
dried they have somewhat the odor and ap-
pearance of Sultana raisins; containing 634
per cent of sugar, they are as nourishing as
grain, but people could not live on them
alone for any length of time. They are dis-
tilled by the Parsees, and yield a powerful,
coarse spirit. Cowslip-flowers are used in
wine-making, and the flowers of meadow-
sweet to improve the flavor of certain wines.
Some of the Chinese teas are often scented
with flowers. The kinds of flowers and the
processes are various, but the object of all is
to make the tea more attractive,

Forestry in Spain.—Action was taken for
the promotion of forestral science in Spain
toward the close of the fifteenth century;
and there is reason to believe that measures
had been adopted to check the destruction
of timber even previous to the reign of Fer-
dinand and Isabella. The school of forest-
ry, projected in 1835, went into operation
ten years later, and was attached to the Es-
curial in 1868. It is under the direction of
a head administrator and chief engineer,
with nine professors and three assistants, —
The number of students, now ninety-two, is
not limited, and is dependent on the number
of successful candidates for entrance each
year. On the completion of the course at
the school, which lasts four years, the suc-
cessful candidates are appointed to the corps
of forest engineers. The course of instruc-
tion is divided into preparatory and profes-

NOTES.

sional categories. Candidates for admission
must be qualified in Spanish and Latin gram-
mar, geography, Spanish history, the elements
of natural history, theoretical mechanics, ge-
ometry and its relations to projections and
perspective, physics, chemistry, lineal, topo-
graphical, and landscape drawing, and French
and German. Especial attention is given
in the course to topography, chemistry, and
mathematics. Branches bearing particularly
on forestry are introduced in the second year,
and are made more prominent in the suc-
ceeding years. The custody of the public
forests is vested in the civic guard. The
country is divided into forty-six forestral de-
partments, the forests in each of which are
under the care of a chief engineer.

Evening Continuation Schools: —In a
paper read before the Society of Arts, Lon-
don, Dr. William Lant Carpenter considered
the best means of continuing the education
of children who are taken from the day
school as early as the law allows and set at
work, He said that education to be given
in the evening must be such as will attract,
interest, and recreate tired children. It has
to compete with the social gambolings of
the street, or even with the gaudy, specious
amusements which too often allure them.
Tn the second place, it must touch and draw
forth the opening nature of children of that
age, so that their instinctive impulses and
growing powers, both of body and mind, shall
be rightly nourished and trained. Lastly, it
must bear directly upon the practical work
of their daily life, upon the pure enjoyments
that are possible to them, and upon the
noble duties that will devolve on them. In
Nottingham a very successful attempt had
been made to ingraft upon the instruction
required by the Government, exercises of a
more practical and recreative character,
conducted by voluntary teachers, such as
calisthenics, musical drills, drawing, model-
ing, demonstration in elementary science, ge-
ography with special reference to physical
phenomena and to commerce, shopping and
workshop arithmetic, needlework, historical
and other readings illustrated by the lantern.
Moreover, seven working men were appointed
to be the managers of each school, and these
men so labored that during the first year of
their service the attendance was doubled.

287

The “Recreative Evening Schools Associa-
tion” was formed in London in 1886 with
a similar purpose, and had accomplished
valuable work, both within and outside of
the metropolis. Dr. Carpenter said in re-
gard to the use of the lantern that its
value as an educational agent is only begin-
ning to be recognized. Eyes wearied with
long use during the day can not endure the
fatigue of much book-work at night, but
they are revived and charmed by the splen-
dor of gay color and brilliance of light. He
urged the teaching of science, not only as a
preparation for technical education, but still
more to put the young people into an intel-
ligent relation with the phenomena of the
world in which they live. In order to deal
with the distress arising from unthrift, vice,
self-indulgence, and reckless and improvident
marriage in a great city like London, Dr.
Carpenter said: ‘“ We must capture the boys
and the girls who will be the fathers and
mothers of five or ten yearshence. If when
captured their lives and habits are molded
at the impressionable age, from fourteen to
twenty-one, so as to become good citizens,
and not reckless pleasure-hunters, unaccus-
tomed to resist the impulse of passion or
the suggestions of desire, we are, in point of
fact, sterilizing the unfitness latent in them,
and thus preventing the formation of a new
national debt of vice and crime.”

NOTES.

Dr. F. P. Wicutnick sounds another note
of alarm against danger from lead-poisoning
from using fruit canned in tin. Three cases
have lately come under his observation in
which he assigns the cause of trouble to this
source. One case is that of a patient who
had been using canned tomatoes for three
years, and who had for several months suf-
fered painful disorders of digestion. Analy-
sis of the tomatoes revealed the presence of
0°987 grain of oxide of tin and 0°339 grain
of chloride of lead per pound of preserved
vegetables. The other cases are of a mother
and son who have eaten canned tomatoes
freely, and are ‘suffering from similar digest-
ive disorders. The evidence of lead-poison-
ing is not presented in so positive a form as
in the other case. Medical men and chem-
ists have usually inclined to the opinion that
the danger of poisoning from canned fruits
was insignificant.

Tue “Quarterly Journal of Inebriety ”
has called attention to the indiscriminate

288

administration of policemen’s discipline to so-
called drunken cases in hot weather. Most
frequently such cases are suffering far
more from other causes than from liquor
—trom debility, heat-stroke, or some other
cause peculiar to or resulting from the
weather—added to a degree of intoxication
which under ordinary circumstances might
not attract an officer’s attention—not un-
frequently from the policeman’s club or
rough handling. The thing they need is medi-
cal attention, or at least medical examination,
before being thrust into a hot, close cell.

Tue meeting of the British Association
for this year is to be held at Newcastle-on-
Tyne, under the presidency of Prof. W. H.
Flower, F.R.S. The presidents of the va-
rious sections are as follows: A, Mathemati-
cal and Physical Science, Captain W. De
W. Abney, R.E., C. B., F. R.S.—B, Chemi-
cal Science, Sir I. Lowthian Bell, F. R. S.—C.
Geology, Prof. James Geikie, LL. D., F. B.S.
—D, Biology, Prof. J. S. Burdon-Sanderson,
M.A., M. D., LL. D., F. R. S.—E, Geography,
Colonel Sir Francis de Winton, K. C. M. G., F.
R. G.S.—F, Economic Science and Statistics,
Prof. F. Y. Edgeworth, M. A., F.S.S.—G,
Mechanical Science, William Anderson, M.
Inst. C. E—H, Anthropology, Prof. Sir W.
Turner, LL. D., F. B.S.

A Boranicat ConerEss has been called
by the Botanical Society of France, to be held
in Paris in August, for the presentation and
discussion of treatises on botanical subjects,
pure or applied. Particular attention will
be given to considering the usefulness of es-
tablishing joint action looking to the prepa-
ration of maps showing the distribution of
species and genera over the globe; and to
the characters for classification furnished by
anatomy.

Tne French Association for the Advance-
ment of Science will meet in Paris, August
8th to 15th.

Aw affection similar to sunstroke is de-
scribed by the “ British Medical Journal” as
produced by the electric light, and is called
“‘electric-light stroke.” It is very liable to
attack the men working at the electric fur-
nace of the Creuzot steel-works. As the
heat emitted by this furnace is not felt to
any great degree, the fact lends probability
to the supposition that the “‘stroke” is an
effect of light rather than of heat,

Tue French Academy of Sciences offers
for 1889 the Prix Vaillant, of three thou-
sand francs, for the best work on diseases of
cereals in general; a grand prize of three
thousand francs for the complete study of
the embryology and development of any ani-
mal; the Prix Bréant, of one hundred thou-
sand francs, for a specific against cholera ;
and a prize of five hundred francs for a
theoretical and practical essay on the prog-
ress of aérial navigation since 1880.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

OBITUARY NOTES.

M. CuevrevL died at his home in Paris,
from natural exhaustion of his vital force,
April 9th, at the age of one hundred and
two years, eleven months, and nine days.
He had lived very quietly since the celebra-
tion of the completion of his one hundredth
year, August 31, 1886. He was accustomed
to drive daily to see the progress made in

the erection of the Eiffel Tower. His son, M.

Henri Chevreul, had recently died; and, al-
though the fact had not been communicated
to him, he seemed to have some suspicion of
it, and to be anxious. On his return from
his last drive, the Wednesday before his
death, he was very weak, and had to be
helped, with some difficulty, up to his apart-
ments; and it was evident that the end was
approaching. He sank gradually, without
pain, till the morning of the 9th, when he
expired.

CHARLES Martins, an eminent student in
several branches of science, died in Paris,
March ‘th, in his eighty-third year. He was
appointed a Fellow in Natural History in the
Faculty of Medicine in 1839; lectured on
geology at the Sorbonne ; became Professor
of Botany at Montpellier in 1851; was elected
to the Academy of Sciences, Section of Rural
Economy, in 1863. He was also a great
traveler; in his long career, he devoted him-

self with equal success to the study of me-

teorology, physics, botany, paleontology,
comparative anatomy, and physiology.
Wherever he went, he studied alike the cus-
toms, fauna and flora, and the physical phe-
nomena of the region, and he described
them all in his book, “‘ From Spitzenberg to
the Sahara.” With Bravais and Lepileur he
ascended Mont Blanc in 1844, and verified
the results which De Saussure had reached.

Pror. Donpvers, of the University of
Utrecht, one of the first of contemporary phys-
iologists, has recently died. He was the au-
thor of valuable studies on accommodation
(of eye-sight), binocular vision, astigmatism,
and phonation, which have become stand-
ards.

Tue Rev. Dr. Frederick A. P. Barnard,
late President of Columbia College, died at
his home in this city, April 27th, a few days
less than eighty years of age. We gave
a sketch of his earlier life in the “ Month-
ly” for May, 1877, and purpose to publish
in a future number a fitting memorial of the
great services which he rendered to the cause
of education.

M. G. Meninexint, Professor of Geology
in the University of Pisa since 1849, died
January 29th, seventy-eight years of age.

Srenor ANGELO GeNoccHl, President of
the Academy of Sciences of Turin, died
March "7th, aged seventy-one years,

Gy

Y

HENRY CARVILL LEWIS.

THE

Pere Cerra SOC LEN Can
MONTHLY.

JULY, 1889.

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ?

By W. G. SUMNER,
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN YALE COLLEGE.

iE? might seem that liberty was one of the most trite and worn

of all subjects. It will be the aim of this paper to show that
liberty is the least well analyzed of all the important social concep-
tions, that it is the thing at stake in the most important current
controversies, and that it needs to be defended as much against
those who abuse it as against those who deride it.

In the first place, I put together some citations which will, I
think, justify me in bringing this subject forward again:

1. Rodbertus is the one of the recent socialists with whom it is
best worth while to deal, for he is the master of them all. He is
also best understood in his writings on Roman taxation, in which
his historical text and his social dogmas throw important light on
each other. He defines liberty to be a share in the power of the
state.* He then defines “free trade,” in the following pages, so
as to make it cover all civil liberty, according to Anglo-American
institutions, and attributes to “free trade,’ in this sense, no less
harm than the destruction of civilization. It is amusing to notice
how this denunciation of free trade, which it would have been so
satisfactory for the opponents of free trade to quote, has been
fenced off and marked with the strongest kind of a danger-signal,
so that it is never quoted at all, because it isan assault on all mod-
ern liberalism as broad as the Pope’s “ Encyclical” of 1864. In
fact, this parallelism must be noted more than incidentally, for it
helps to show what I here have in view: that all forms of liberty
are solidaire with each other, and all forms of assault on liberty, as
well the revolutionist and socialistic as the extreme reactionary, are

* 5 Hildebrand’s “ Jahrbiicher,” 269.
VOL, Xxxv.—19 :

290 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

also solidaire with each other. A criticism of Rodbertus is a task
which I reserve for another occasion, but, as germane to my pres-
ent subject, I ask attention to the following proposition, as illus-
trating the sort of dogma which shows the need of re-analyzing
liberty: “ Moral freedom is conditioned on historical necessity.”
Some of our contemporaries take that sort of proposition as the
profoundest wisdom. To me it is oracular in more senses than
one.*

2. From a large collection of similar cases I select the follow-
ing: “ Life appears to the Manchester party to run its course under
the form of a parliamentary debate, and not otherwise. An asser-
tion is followed by an objection, this by a rejoinder, and so on.
The decision of the majority is final.” The view here stigmatized
is held by all those who believe in government by deliberation.
“The great affair in this world is, not to convince a man’s intelli-
gence, or to increase his knowledge, but it is at least equally im-
portant to lead his will and to conquer it.” + The writer goes on
to argue that, if men are allowed to act freely, they will not act
by deliberation, but selfishly. There he leaves the matter, appar-
ently believing that he has routed the “ Manchester Schule,” and
established something of philosophical or practical importance.
He must, of course, assume that himself and his friends are to de-
cide when others and their friends are acting selfishly, and ought
to have their wills conquered.

3. To take another citation from a popular writer: “ Not one
liberal principle but is admirable in the abstract; yet not one lib-
eral measure that has not worked terrible mischief in our time.
The liberty of thought, for instance; who dare gainsay it? Yet
it has proved destructive of the principle of religion, without
which there is less cohesion among men than among a herd of
swine. The liberty of settlement and circulation has given rise
to the pestilence of large towns, in which men congregate and live
together on terms worse than a pack of wolves. The liberty of
industry has reduced four fifths of the population to a state of
serfdom more cruel than negro slavery, while more than half of
the remaining population is engaged in a perpetual struggle, more
savage than the intermittent warfare of cannibals. Free trade
among nations has ruined, first individually, then industrially,
then financially, and finally politically, prosperous countries, such
as Turkey, while in England it has destroyed, not only agricult-
ure, but all those sterling qualities which formerly characterized
British industry and trade. . . . Parallel to the deception experi-
enced by the modern world through the progress of industry,
aided by discovery and invention, have come down on this genera-

* 8 Hildebrand’s “ Jahrbiicher,” 420, note.
+ Von Hichen in “ Preuss. Jahrbiicher,” 1878, p. 382.

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 291

tion the fatal effects sprung from the spread of education. While
thoughtless or superficial writers pretend to find in education the
remedy of all social evils, as a matter of fact education has become
the source of a vast amount of human suffering in modern times,
under which those whose education is their only patrimony or
source of income suffer most.” * This is sufficiently explicit, and
also manifests the solidarity of all forms of liberty and modern
civilization. Those who attack them all show that they appre-
ciate the truth of things a great deal better than those who try to
attack some and save others.

4, Then there are the philosophers of the newest school, who,
seizing upon the plain fact that all liberty is subject to moral re-
straints, as we shall presently see, are forcing upon us, or trying
to force upon us, by legislation, restraints on liberty derived from
altruistic dogmas, and, in general, under the high-sounding name
of ethics, are assuming a charter for interference wherever they
choose to allege that they have moral grounds for elev that
things ought to be as they want them.

5. Finally, the anarchists, taking liberty to mean that a man
ought to be a law unto himself, and that there should be no other
law, have shown from another side that we should try to find out
what liberty is.

THE HIisToRY oF THE DoGMA OF NATURAL LIBERTY.—The his-
tory of the dogma of the natural liberty of all men, with the cog-
nate dogma of the natural equality of all men, would be an im-
portant topic for exhaustive treatment by itself. From the notes
which I have made on the subject I condense as far as possible
the following view of it:

Slavery in the classical states seems to have rested upon the
law of war, that the vanquished man with his family and all his
property fell under the good pleasure of the conqueror. Xenophon
states this law explicitly: “The law is well known among:all
men that, when a state goes to war, the property and bodies of all
in the state are the property of the captors. You will, therefore,
not possess wrongfully whatever you get, but, if you permit them
to retain anything, it will be out of humanity.” + It seems that
the reason why slaves in antiquity so universally accepted their
fate was that they understood that such was the fortune of war.
They acquiesced in it as according to the rules of the game. The
earliest writer in date whom I have found who utters the dogma
of liberty is Philemon (fl. c. 350 B. c.): “No one by nature ever
was born a slave, but ill-fortune enslaved the body.” { Aristotle
discusses the subject in the third and fourth chapters of the first

* Karoly, “The Dilemmas of Labor and pe neeHOn, | London, 1884, introd., x.
+ “Kyroped.,” vii, 5, 738. Cf. “Memorab.,” ii, 2, 2, and Polybius, ii, 58, 9.
t Frag. 39 in Meineke, “Com. Graec.,” iv, S. 47.

292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

book of the “ Politics.” He says that some held that slavery was
against nature. Such persons, whoever they were, must have de-
rived their opinions entirely from humane impulse and poetic
enthusiasm. Aristotle was not of that tone of mind. He could
not find in history any example of a state which had not slavery.
When he examined the state in which he lived he easily saw that
slavery was of its very essence. He therefore held that slavery
was a natural necessity. Such it was in the sense that it was
rooted in the nature of the classical state. It is undeniable that
the classical state could not have grown up and could not have
produced its form of civilization without slavery. It must also
be recognized as a fact that no other organization of society has
yet shown itself capable of that degree of expansion which the
Roman state developed by means of slavery. The medizval state
broke down under the first expansive requirement which was
made upon it. Whether the modern state, based on natural agents
and machinery, is capable of expansion or not, is yet to be proved.
There seems to be ample reason to believe that it is, unless the
modern world votes not to go on; but, if the modern world votes
to go on and not be afraid, it can only do so by virtue of educa-
tion, and then it is subject to the remonstrance of Mr. Karoly at
the head of this article, and of others who think like him. To
return to the classical state: it remains only to observe that slav-
ery was likewise the fate of that state which, having enabled it to
grow up to immense power and achievement, also inevitably car-
ried it down to ruin and disgrace. It is free to us all to speculate
on the question whether every force which makes high expansion
possible will not also bring with it its own form of inevitable
destruction or decay. Aristotle, therefore, proceeding upon the
historical method and upon observation, found that slavery was
necessary and expedient within the limits of the age and the form
of society he was discussing.

Fuller expression of the dogma of natural liberty comes only
with the Christian era. Dio Chrysostom, at the end of the first
century, expresses himself in favor of it, but his declaration is in-
cidental and can be taken only as rhetorical.* It is among the
Christian writers that it first finds distinct and enthusiastic ex-
pression. With them it is rather an inference from fundamental
doctrines of the faith than an actual article of the creed, although
they quote texts freely in support of it. The doctrines of Chris-
tianity are undoubtedly favorable to it, and the inference was
direct and easy. Tertullian (fl. c. 200 a. D.), addressing heathen,
declares, “We are your brothers by the right of one mother—
Nature.” +

It was not confined to Christians, however. Itis very probable

* “ Orat.,” vil, 138. + “ Apologet. ad Gent.,” ¢. 39.

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 293

that it may have entered into the Stoic philosophy in some vague
way. We find it in the lawyers of the third century. Ulpian says:
“Tn civil law, slaves are considered null. Not, however, by natu-
ral right; because, as regards natural right, all men are equal.” *
And Florentinus: “ Liberty is the natural faculty of that which
it is permitted to any one to do, unless something has been pro-
hibited to him by force or law. Slavery is an institution of the
law of nations, by which any one is subjected to the rule of
another, against nature. Servi are so called because military
commanders are wont to sell captives, and so to preserve (servare)
them and not kill them.” + The doctrine, therefore, gets into the
Institutes of Justinian: { “Slavery is the institute of the law of
nations by which a human being is subjected to another’s control
against nature.” These propositions, however, in the law, re-
mained entirely barren, and were not different from the academi-
cal utterances of the philosophers. It was the voice of reason and
conscience recognizing a grand abstract doctrine, but without
power to solve the social problems which would arise if that doc-
trine should be in any measure admitted into the existing order.
The Christians alone seem to carry on the doctrine as something
more than a pious hope, something not more distant than any
other feature of the kingdom of heaven, and easily realizable in
that kingdon. The vague elements of social and political innova-
tion in the revolt of the Donatists and the Bagaudes bear witness
to the extent to which some such doctrines had been popularized.
The latter had a very naive definition of natural rights, and, on
the whole, as good a one as has ever been given: “Natural rights
are born with us, about which nothing is said.” *

By the seventh century, the churchmen had made the doctrine
of natural liberty one of the tenets of the Church. Gregory the
Great writes: “Since our Redeemer, Creator of all creatures,
deigned to put on human form, in order by his divine grace to
break the bonds of the servitude by which we were held as cap-
tives, that he might restore us to our ancient liberty, it is fitting
and advantageous that those whom Nature has made free, and
whom the law of nations has made subject to the yoke of servi-
tude, should be restored, by enfranchisement, to that liberty in
which they were born.” || This passage became authoritative for
the middle ages, as well for the point of view of the doctrine, and
the sanction of it, as for its substance. It is a familiar fact that

= Digest,” 1, 1'7, 32. + “Digest,” v, 4. t I, tit. iii, 2.

# See Jung, Sybel’s “ Zeitschrift,” xlii, 65. He gives no authority for the definition of
natural rights. Another topic which might be investigated with great advantage to social
Science is the history of popular revolts, with especial attention to their common elements

_ of political and social dogma.
| Epistles, book vi, ep. 12; 77 Migne, 803.

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the current reason then alleged for enfranchisements was one’s
soul’s health in the realization of a high Christian ideal. About
825 Bishop Jonas, of Orleans, asks: “ Why are not master and
slave, rich and poor, equal by nature, since they have one Lord in
heaven, who is not a respecter of persons?. . . The powerful and
rich, taught by these [church fathers], recognize their slaves and
the poor as equal to themselves by nature.”* In the twelfth cent-
ury Bishop Ivo writes: “If we consult the institutes of God, and
the law of nature, in which there is neither bond nor free,” etc. +
In the thirteenth century the doctrine appears in Bracton.{ When
describing the classes of men as free, villains, serfs, etc., he says:
“ Before God, there is no acceptance of men as free, or of men as
slaves.” Here we see the doctrine, such as the churchmen had
been elaborating it, with its scriptural warrant, pass into the
English common law.

In the fourteenth century the kings of France, in enfranchis-
ing the communes on the domains, repeatedly allege this doctrine
as one of their motives.* Undoubtedly, the real motive was that
more revenue could be got from them by taxing them as com-
munes than by exacting feudal dues from the members as serfs,
but it all helped to spread the doctrine as an idea of what would
be “right.”

This review now shows that the doctrine of liberty and equality
by “nature,” by birth, and by natural right was not by any means
an eighteenth-century dogma. It had been growing and spreading
for eighteen hundred years. It had begun in skepticism about the
fairness of slavery. It could not begin with anything else. It went
on until it became a philosophical notion of liberty, meaning the
natural right of every one to pursue happiness in his own way, and
according to his own ideal of it. It could not stop short of that.

This dogma did not emancipate slaves or serfs. During a
thousand years, from the sixth to the sixteenth century, the peas-
ants of France and England passed through the stages of slavery,
serfdom, villainage, and compulsory settlement,|| by persistent
struggles of their own, aided by economic improvements and po-

* “Te Instit. Laic.,” ii, 22; 106 Migne, 213. He quotes Coloss. iv, 1.

+ Epist. 221; 162 Migne, 226.

+ Book i, ch. 8, ed. Twiss, 1878.

* The originals of these documents are not accessible to me. One of Philippe le Bel is
quoted: “Seeing that every creature who is formed in the image of our Lord ought, in
general, to be free by natural right,” etc.; and one by Louis le Hutin: “Seeing that, by
the right of nature, each one ought to be born free,” ete.

|| In September, 1860, the correspondent of the “ Augsbiirger allgemcine Zeitung”
wrote from New York that the correct solution of the American slavery question would be
to determine upon five steps: 1, forbid separation of negro families; 2, bind the slaves to
the soil; 3, change them into serfs; 4, change serfdom to villainage; 5, abolish the last.
(Quoted by Rodbertus, with approval, 2 Hildebrand’s “Jahrbiicher,” 266.) This is as

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 295

litical vicissitudes, but the dogma of natural rights was aiding
them all the time, by undermining the institutions of the law,
and by destroying the confidence of the ruling classes, so far as
they were religious and humane, in the justice of the actual sit-
uation.

Therefore the most important fact in regard to the history of
the dogma of natural liberty is that that dogma has never had an
historical foundation, but is the purest example that could be
brought forward of an out-and-out a priors dogma; that this
dogma, among the most favored nations, helped and sustained the
emancipation of the masses; and that, by contagion, it has, in the
nineteenth century, spread liberty to the uttermost parts of the
earth. At no time during this movement could anybody, by
looking backward to history, have found any warrant for the
next step to be made in advance. On the contrary, he would
have found only warning not to do anything. Such must always
be the effect of any appeal to history, as to what we ought to do,
or as to what ought to be. Itisa strange situation in which we
find ourselves, when those of us who are most unfriendly to “ met-
aphysics,’ and have most enthusiastic devotion to history, find
ourselves compelled to remonstrate against half-educated denial
of what speculative philosophy has done and may do for mankind,
and also to remonstrate against the cant of an historical method
which makes both history and method ridiculous. To go off and
begin to talk about history, in the crisis of a modern discussion,
is the last and best device of reaction and obscurantism,

Let it be noticed also that from our present standpoint this.
doctrine has lost nearly all the arguments which were ever
brought to its support. The notion of natural rights is not now
held by anybody in the sense of reference to some original histori-
cal state of the human race. The biblical scholars would scarcely
avow the exegesis by which the doctrine was got out of the Script-
ures. The dogma to-day does not stand on the ground of an in-
ference from any religious doctrine. The doctrine of evolution,
instead of supporting the natural equality of all men, would give
a demonstration of their inequality ; and the doctrine of the strug-
gle for existence would divorce liberty and equality as incompat-
ible with each other. The doctrine, thus stripped of all the props
which have been brought to its support, would remain only a poetic
inspiration; but, if all this is admitted, if its historic legitimacy is
all taken away, does that detract anything from the beneficence
of the doctrine in history, or render invalid a single institution

refined and beautiful an application of the “teachings of history” as could possibly have
been made to that case, yet it requires very little knowledge of the case as it really stood
to see that this programme was as unpractical and pedantic as the wildest proposition
which could have been made by an a priori philosopher.

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which rests upon it now? Shall weany of us return into serfdom,
because it is proved that our ancestors were emancipated under a
delusion or a superstition ?

On the other hand, it is when we turn to the present and the
future that the rectification of the dogma becomes all-important.
The anarchists of to-day have pushed the old dogma of natural
liberty to the extremest form of abstract deduction, and they pro-
pose to make it a programme of action. They therefore make of
it a principle of endless revolution. If, however, the basis on
which it once rested is gone, it is impossible that we should hold
and use it any more. With our present knowledge of history, we
know that no men on earth ever have had liberty in the sense of
unrestrainedness of action. The very conception is elusive. It is
impossible to reduce it to such form that it could be verified, for
the reason that itis non-human, non-earthly. It never could exist
on this earth and among these men. The notion of liberty, and
of the things to which it pertains, has changed from age to age
even in modern history. Never in the history of the world has
military service weighed on large bodies of men as it does now on
the men of the European continent. It is doubtful if it would
ever have been endured. Yet the present victims of it do not
appear to consider it inconsistent with liberty. Sumptuary laws
about dress would raise a riot in any American State; a prohibi-
tory law would have raised a riot among people who did not
directly resist sumptuary laws. <A civil officer in France, before
the Revolution, who had bought or inherited his office, had a degree
of independence and liberty in it which the nineteenth-century
official never dreams of. On the contrary, the more this nine-
teenth-century civil and political liberty is perfected, the more it
appears that under it an official has freedom of opinion and inde-
pendence of action only at the peril of his livelihood.

So far our task has been comparatively easy. It requires only
industry to follow out the history of what men have thought
about anything. To find out how things have actually taken
place in the life of the human race is a task which can never be
more than approximately performed, in spite of all our talk about
history. To interpret the history is still another task, of a much
more difficult character.*

LIBERTY IN HistoRY AND INSTITUTIONS.—We are blinded by
the common use of language to the fact that all social actions are
attended by reactions. To take the commonest and often noticed

* The Emperor Paul, of Russia, showed what may be done in the interpretation of his-
tory. When he heard of the excesses of the French Revolution, he turned to his sons and
said, ‘‘ Now you see that it is necessary to treat men like dogs ” (Masson, “ Mémoires sur
la Russie,” 219). It is true that he was crazy, but we all have our personal limitations,
which are most'important when we undertake interpretation.

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 297

instance: We talk of buyers and sellers, as if they were independ-
ent of each other. We call those who have money buyers, and
those who have goods sellers. We find, however, that no trans-
action can be correctly understood until we regard it as an ex-
change, having two parts, an action and a reaction, equal and
opposite. In the language of the market, also, we speak of
being long or short of the market, but every one who has either
money or goods is in the market, and is both long and short
of it all the time. He is either long of goods and short of money,
or long of money and short of goods. The philosophy of the
market can not be understood unless we study it from this point
of view.

The fallacy of a great many doctrines in social science, and the
philosophy of a great many errors in social policy, is that they
divorce the action from the reaction. If there is not a reaction
with equivalence and equilibrium, then there is an expenditure
from one side toward the other, a drain of force from one side and
an accumulation of it at another, until there come a crisis and a
redistribution. When the return and equivalence are suspended,
there is a necessary continuance of the movement, in the tendency
toward a stable equilibrium of another kind, which would come
about when all the force had been transferred. Forinstance: You
give good schools for less than their market value; you must, then,
give free schools; then you must give free books and stationery ;
then “hot breakfasts,’* and so on in succession. The fact that
one thing has been given is made an argument for more. You are
told: You have established free schools; “why should not you”
do whatever else the proponent favors. The argument that, be-
cause you have given a man one thing, you ought to give him an-
other, is not good in logic, but it is intensely strong in human
nature and in history. The saying is attributed to Danton, the
revolutionist: “The revolution came, and I and all those like me
plunged into it. The ancien régime had given us a good educa-
tion, without opening an outlet for our talents.” The great fal-
lacy of socialistic schemes is that they break off the social reac-
tion. A man is to have something simply because he is a man—
that is, simply because he is here. He is not to be called upon to
render any return for it, except to stay. On the other hand, the
tax-payer, who has provided all there is, is not on that account to
be entitled to a recompense of any kind. He has only incurred a
new liability—viz., to do the next thing which is demanded of
him. The only stable equilibrium under this system would be
universal contentment. But bounty does not lead to content-
ment, and can not, unti: the recipient has everything for nothing.
The movement, therefore, runs to a crisis, a redistribution, a re-

* “The Economist,” 1389, p. 430

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

commencement. The further it goes, the further it approaches
anarchy, impoverishment, and barbarism.

At various times, in primitive society, in ancient Egypt, and in
the Roman Empire, when women have possessed the forces which
were efficient in the society, they have had dominion over men.
They abused the power when they had it, too. At other times
the subjection of women has been due to the fact that they have
needed protection. They did not possess the forces which, at the
time, were required for self-defense in the society. Since they
accepted protection, they could not be free. When they fell into
dependence, they could not be independent. If they could claim
protection, and at the same time dominion, they would be privi-
leged ; and any one who enjoys privilege, which some one else has
to furnish, is of course superior. Hence, there are three positions
only in social relations: servitude with inferiority, privilege with
superiority, and a middle state of neither, with equality.

Peasant proprietors turn into colons and serfs through mis-
ery.* They abandon personal liberty in order to get protection,
and they accept servitude to get security, because they find that
they have not enough of the force which prevails in the society to
defend themselves. Their lords maintain superiority and exact
for themselves social privilege. Such was the course of things at
the downfall of the Roman Empire. When things began to im-
prove in western Europe, the slave thought that it was com-
parative freedom when he was bound to the soil, because his
family could not be separated, and he could not be removed from
his home. <A villain, however, would have thought it slavery to
be reduced to the status of the serf, with unlimited servitudes to
render. The serf,in his turn, thought it immeasurable gain to
get his servitudes made definite, although a free man would have
thought it slavery to be reduced to villainage. A villain could not
go if he wanted to, but he could not be evicted if any one wanted
to send him away. A free man can goif he wants to, and may
be evicted if the other party chooses. At what point does the
servitude of the villain, who must stay and work and pay feudal
dues, turn into the blessing of the free tenant, who has fixity of
tenure, but works and enjoys, subject to taxes ? Evidently it is at
that point where the rights and benefits of holding and using
become equal to the burdens and duties of taking and using—
always with reference to the comparative value of other chances
which present themselves. If a villain wants to stay, it is a privi-
lege that no one can evict him; if he wants to go, it is a servitude
that some one can retain him. If the landlord wants to force
tenants to stay and till his land, it is a privilege for him to be able

*This is a disputed point, on which a great deal has been written, with very great —
divergence of opinion. The above seems to me to be the best opinion.

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 299

to force them to stay.* If the landlord wants to turn his land to
other use, it is a servitude for him if he can not evict his tenants.
The modern peasant proprietor is one in whose status all these
privileges and servitudes have met, coalesced, and disappeared, so
that they are all summed up in the question whether his land is
worth holding and tilling, subject to the taxes which must be paid
on it.

In all these variations and mutations of social status and of
the relations of classes, which we might pursue with any amount
of detail through the history of the last fifteen hundred years,
where is there any such thing as personal liberty of the sort which
means doing as one likes? None have had it but those who were
privileged—that is to say, it has lain entirely outside of civil lib-
erty. It has had the form of an artificial social monopoly, and
the fact has come out distinctly that liberty to do as you please in
this world is only possible as a monopoly, but that it is the most
valuable monopoly in the world, provided you can get it as a
monopoly. You would realize it when you got into the position
of Nero, or Louis XIV, or Catharine II.

We may gather some other cases in point.

A man who expects to go to the almshouse in his old age may
regard a law of settlement as his patent of security, because it
defines and secures his place of refuge. A man who is in the
same status, but who is determined to better his condition by en-
ergy and enterprise, tries to move. He finds the law of settlement
a curse, which may hold him down and force him to become a
pauper.

If you are not able to make your own way in the world, you
want to be protected by status. If you have ambition and ability
to make a career for yourself, you find that status holds you down.
In the former case it holds you up, or keeps you from falling ; in
the latter it holds you down, or keeps you from rising. On the
whole, therefore, it keeps the society stagnant. If numbers do
not increase very much, there may not be much suffering. If
numbers do increase, there will be mendicancy, pauperism, vaga-
bondage, and brigandage. It is a matter of great surprise that so
little investigation has been expended on the vagabondage of the
middle ages. The students of that period have kept their atten-
tion on those who were inside of its institutions. The test of the
medizval system is to be found in a study of those who were kept
out of its institutions.

If it is a mark of a free man, as in early Rome, to do military
duty, every one may regard that function as a right or privilege,
rather than as a burden or duty. It may carry with it privileges

*It was so in Denmark in the last century. See Falbe-Hansen, “Stavnsbaands-
Losningen,” and the “ Nation,” 1889, p. 123.

300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

of citizenship which make it worth more than it costs. If, how-
ever, the privileges of citizenship are lost and the burden of mili-
tary duty increases, men will, as in the dark ages, sacrifice per-
sonal liberty as well as civil liberty in order to get rid of military
duty. If, as in Russia, at least formerly, the privileges of citizen-
ship are nil and the burdens of military duty very heavy, to be
taken as a soldier is like incurring a capital sentence.

If a man enjoysa position of advantage compared with others,
he is anxious to entail it on his children. If he is under shame or
disadvantage, he is anxious to break the entail. One who is born
of a duke is anxious to maintain hereditariness, but one who is
born of the hangman rebels against it. The two were part of one
system, and, in the long run, must stand or fall together.

He who is not able to attain to his standards of happiness by
his own efforts is one of the “weak.” He does not want to be let
alone. He wants some one to come and help him. He who is
confident of his own power to accomplish his own purposes, wants
to be let alone; he is “ strong” and resents interference. In the
long run, however, he who may be called upon for aid in the for-
mer case will insist on his right to interfere in the latter case, and
he who claims freedom in the latter case will find that he must
bear his own burdens in the former. Any other course would
simply lead to a new system of privilege and servitude, for he who
can choose his own ends and make somebody else help him attain
them has realized privilege in its old and ever-abiding sense.

Privilege and servitude, therefore, are the poles between which
all forms of social status We when we classify them with reference
to our present study. Rights lie on the side toward privilege.
Duties lie on the side toward servitude. Rights and duties, how-
ever, are not separated by any gulf nor even by a line, They
overlap each other. Not only are they parallel and connected by
the social reaction, but also often to different men or at different
times the same thing presents itself either as a right or a duty,
e. g., military duty. Somewhere between, however, lies the middle
point or neutral point, where there is neither privilege nor servi-
tude, but where the rights and duties are in equilibrium, and that
status is civil liberty in the only sense in which it is thinkable or
realizable in laws, institutions, and history.

We have seen cases above in which the same men were under
privilege and servitude at the same time, having accepted one as
the price of the other. We have also seen cases in which the
privilege of some involved the servitude of others. The former
class of cases have been those which have had the most unhappy
issue, for the privileges have often faded with time and the servi-
tudes have been intensified. It is a bargain which a rational being
can rarely afford to make, to incur servitude in the hope of privilege. —

WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY ? 301

Herein lies the curse of socialistic schemes when viewed from the
side of the supposed beneficiary. They are a bait to defraud him
of his liberty. I do not see how the German accident and work-
man’s insurance can fail to act as a law of settlement, thereby,
under a pretense of offering the workman security, robbing him
of his best chance of improving his position. Still, the cases
where a man incurs his own servitude for the sake of his own
privilege are not as bad in some respects as those in which some
have privileges for which others bear servitudes.

The modern jural state, at least of the Anglo-American type,
by its hostility to privileges and servitudes, if not by direct ana-
lytical definition of its purpose, aims to realize the above defini-
tion of liberty. It is the one which fills our institutions at their
best, and the one which forms the stem of our best civil and social
ideals. If all privileges and all servitudes are abolished, the indi-
vidual finds that there are no prescriptions left either to lift him
up or to hold him down. Hesimply has all his chances left open
that he may make out of himself all thereisinhim. This is indi-
vidualism and atomism.* There is absolutely no escape from it
except back into the system of privileges and servitudes. The
doctrine of the former is that a man has a right to make the most
of himself to attain the ends of his existence. The doctrine of
the latter is that a man has a right to whatever he needs to
attain the ends of his existence, If the latter is true, then any
one who is bound to furnish him what he needs is under servi-
tude to him.

The fact, however, is rapidly making itself felt that this civil
liberty of the modern type is a high and costly thing. A genera-
tion which has been glorying in it and heralding it to all the
world as a boon and a blessing, to be had for the taking and to be
enjoyed for nothing, begins to cry out that it is too great for
them; that they can not attain to it nor even bear it; that to be a
free man means to come up to the standard and be it; and that
it is asking too much of human nature. They want somebody to
come and help them to be free. It has always been so. Men
have failed of freedom not because kings, nobles, or priests en-
slaved them, but because liberty was too high and great for them.
They would not rise to it. They would submit to any servitude
rather. Therefore they got servitude.

The strain of civil liberty is in the demand which it makes on
the whole mass of the people for perpetual activity of reason and
conscience to re-examine rights and duties, and to readjust their
equilibrium. Civil liberty is not a scientific fact. It is not in the

* The writer of an otherwise good book (Rauber, “ Urgeschichte des Menschen,” ii, 291,

fs.) indulges in an extraordinary screed against the atomists. He reaches the conclusion
that fate is the state. To me it scems that fate is one’s father and mother.

302 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

order of nature. It is not positive and objective; therefore it is
not capable of constant and easy verification. It is historical and
institutional. That means, however, that it is in the flux and
change of civilization, wherefore the reason and conscience of
men are kept in constant activity to re-examine accepted princi-
ples, and to reach new and ‘more correct solution of problems. On
account of this activity, institutions are modified constantly, and
the concrete contents of the public creed, about rights and duties,
are undergoing constant change. It does not appear that this ever
can be otherwise. There is an assumption that we can attain to
social stability by finding out the right “form of government,”
or the correct “social system,’ but no ground for such a notion
can be found in philosophy or history.* The equilibrium of rights
and duties constitutes the terms on which the struggle for existence
as carried on in a given society, after the reason and conscience of
the community have pronounced judgment on those terms. The
very highest conception of the state is that it 1s an organization
for bringing that judgment to an expression in the Constitution
and laws. <A state, therefore, is good, bad, or indifferent, accord-
ing to the directness and correctness with which it brings to an
expression the best reason and conscience of the people, and em-
bodies their judgment in institutions and laws. The state, there-
fore, lives by deliberation and discussion, and by tacit or overt
expressions of the major opinion.

The fact that laws and institutions must be constantly re-
molded, in the progress of time, by the active reason and con-
science of the people, is what has probably given rise to the notion,
just now so popular, that ethical considerations do, or ought to,
regulate legislation and social relations. The doctrine, however,
that institutions must, in the course of generations, slowly change
to conform to social conditions and social forces, according to the
mature convictions of great masses of men, is a very different
thing from the notion that rights and duties should be at the sport
of all the crude notions which, from time to time, may gain the
assent of even an important group of the population.

Among the most important tides of thought at the present
time which are hostile to liberty are socialism, which always has
to assume a controlling organ to overrule personal liberty and set
aside civil liberty, in order to bring about what the socialist au-
thorities have decided shall be done; nationalism, really a cognate
of socialism, with opposition to emigration or immigration; state

* One of the most remarkable signs of the confusion reigning in social science is the
fact that current discussion is marked by an attempt to force positive character upon the
doctrines of the state, or to make a science of “ political science,” which never can be any-
thing but historical and institutional, and at the same time to deny scientific character to
economic laws, and to insist that they are historical and institutional.

A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 303

absolutism, which, in its newest form, insists that the individual
exists for the state; and altruism, which, when put forward as an
absolute dogma, is as anti-social as selfishness. These all are only
the latest forms of the devices by which some men live at the ex-
pense of others. In their essence and principle they are as old as
history, and not even the device of making the victims vote away
their own liberty, apparently of their own free will, because they
think they ought to do so, has anything new in it.

A STUDY OF SUICID
By CHARLES W. PILGRIM, M.D.

S the love of life is generally acknowledged to be the strong-

est instinct of the human mind, it is but natural that the

subject of voluntary death should have attracted, at all times, a
great amount of attention from moralists and sociologists.

Some of the noblest men and women of ancient times advo-
cated and practiced self-destruction, and the frequency of the act
in our own day demonstrates that the fear of death is by no means
general. Prof. Mayer, of Paris, in a lecture on this subject, de-
clared that every one of his hearers had, at some time, thought
favorably of committing the deed. He challenged contradiction,
but no one responded.

This longing for “restful death,’ which comes to nearly all of
us sooner or later, can usually be resisted; but often the desire is
so great that the will is not strong enough to overcome it, and
another name is added to the long list of suicides which statistics
show us is increasing with terrible rapidity.

Very exhaustive statistics in regard to this subject have been
compiled by Profs. Bertillion and Morselli, and they both arrive
at about the same conclusions. Taking each million of inhabit-
ants, the following results were obtained: In Austria the number
was increased between 1860 and 1878 by from 70 to 122 annually ;
in Prussia, between 1820 and 1878, by from 71 to 133; in the smaller
German states, between 1835 and 1878, by from 117 to 289; in
France, between 1827 and 1877, by from 52 to 149, the greater pro-
portion being in the larger cities. Peasants rarely commit sui-
cide, statistics showing that in Belgium, where laborers can gen-
erally find employment, the increase between 1831 and 1876 was
only from 39 to 68. In Sweden and Norway about the same result
was obtained, viz., an increase from 39 to 80 per year during the
same period. Italy, Spain, and Ireland show the lowest number,
the increase between 1864 and 1878 being only from 28 to 35 in the
former, while in Spain and Ireland it was still less, the latter show-

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing an increase of but from 14 to 18 per year during the same
period. This result is probably due to a great extent to the infiu-
ence of the Catholic priesthood, for it is the Roman Church, above
all others, that has firmly “ fix’d its canon ’gainst self-slaughter.”

On account of the more settled social condition of England the
statistics of that country do not show the same alarming increase
as those of France, Germany, and Austria, but the regularity of
the number for each five years, from 1855 to 1875—viz., from 1855
to 1860, 65; from 1860 to 1865, 66 ; from 1865 to 1870, 67; and from
1870 to 1875, 66—supports in a remarkable degree the statement
made by Buckle that, “ when the social conditions do not undergo
any marked change, we find year by year the same proportion of
persons putting an end to their existence, so that we are able to
predict, within a very small limit of error, the number of volun-
tary deaths for each ensuing period.”

Both Profs. Bertillion and Morselli express some doubt as to
the reliability of their statistics showing an increase in the United
States on account of its rapidly increasing population; but any
one who will pay attention to the subject will be convinced, I am
sure, that a marked increase is annually taking place; and there
are many reasons why it should be so. Our country is young,
social changes are rapid, and the struggle for wealth is severe. In
brief, we are living in what is justly called a “fast age.” The
modern youth “consumes in an hour, by useless brilliancy, the oil
of the lamp which should burn throughout the night,” and soon
finds that the infirmities of age have supplanted the vigor of
youth ; the business man who to-day is at the very height of pros-
perity, by some rash speculation becomes a bankrupt to-morrow;
the professional man, who is ambitious of distinction, does not
rest when the sun goes down, but prolongs his work far into the
quiet hours of night. In fact, almost every one is madly pursuing
either pleasure, wealth, or fame, and, under such circumstances, is
it a wonder that often an overpowering sense of ennwi and disgust
of life occurs, or that the delicate structure of the brain breaks
down, impelling the unfortunate victim to seek rest in the suicide’s
dishonored grave ?

Besides dissipation, reverses of fortune and overwork, love,
jealousy, and remorse play an important part in the etiology of
self-destruction. Marc Antony fell upon his sword and killed ©
himself because he believed that Cleopatra had played him false;
and she, overcome by remorse and grief, placed the asp to her
breast that it might “the knot intrinsicate of life untie,” and thus
unite her in the grave with him whose absence filled her life with
woe; and the same motives which, thirty years before the birth
of Christ, made Antony and Egypt’s queen “ a-weary of the sun,”
rule just as powerfully to-day in modern hearts.

A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 305

Such causes, though occurring everywhere, are, of course,
more frequent in large cities like Paris, London, and New York,
the former probably taking precedence, it being no uncommon
sight to see upon the marble slabs of the Morgue three or four
dead bodies which have been recovered from the Seine. When
the history of such cases can be learned, they show, in the ma-
jority of instances, the absence of domestic ties, coupled either
with misguided love and jealousy or dissipation and remorse. In-
deed, so far aS men are concerned, we must consider marriage,
with its accompanying influences of home and children, a most
important prophylactic. In regard to women, however, this
statement does not hold good, for with them suicide is more
frequent among the married than the single, the proportion
being 10 to about 9 or 9°4. This may be explained to some extent
by the mental disturbances produced by pregnancy and child-
birth, but the strongest reason undoubtedly is that a girl’s youth-
ful dreams of happiness are often shattered by the realities of
married life.

One of the most interesting tables in this connection is that
compiled by Bertillion, and first published in the “ Revue Scien-
tifique” for 1879. He found that among a million of inhab-
itants, taken from all classes, the following numbers committed
suicide, viz.:

Married men with children.. ....... 205 (| Married women with children......... 45
Married men without children....... 440 | Married women without children...... 158
Widowers with children............ 526 | Widows with children............... 104
Widowers without children......... 1,004 | Widows without children............ 238

We here learn the interesting facts that, when marriage is
childless, the number of suicides is doubled in men and trebled
in women; and also that maternal love diminishes the number of
suicides among widows with children by one third over those of
childless unions.

This table also shows that males exceed females in the fre-
quency of the act in the proportion of four to one. While this is
true of suicides in general, it certainly is not the case in those
who are insane. My experience leads me to believe that suicidal
tendencies in the insane are quite as frequent among women as
among men, and I am sure that the former frequently show the:
more determination and persistence. In the outside world men
lead more exciting lives and are subject to greater mental strain
than women, and it is therefore natural that they should more
frequently resort to suicide. Another probable reason for the
comparative infrequency of suicide among women is that they
are better endowed with religious fervor and possess a larger’
Share of hope. In India and Japan only does this rule fail to hold.

VOL. Xxxv.—20

306 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good, and there the number of suicides among women is twice as
great as among men. This fact bears striking witness to the
hardships of woman’s lot in countries removed from the infiu-
ences of civilization.

Statistics show that the months in which the fewest suicides
occur are October and November, while the greatest number occur
in April, May, and June. July and September also have a goodly
share, the latter possessing a peculiar fascination for women.
This refutes the old idea that suicides occur most frequently in
damp and gloomy weather, for the months just mentioned as
being the most prolific are certainly those in which the skies
look brightest and the earth is fairest. Another remarkable fact
in this connection is that the progressive increase and decrease in
the number of suicides coincide with the lengthening and the
shortening of the days, and, as M. Guerry has shown, not only
the seasons of the year, but the days of the month and of the week,
and even the hours of the day exert an influence, the constancy
of which can not be mistaken. As a result of his elaborate re-
search he found that the greatest number of suicides among men
occurred during the first ten days of the month, and from Monday
to Thursday of the week. This is accounted for by remembering
that the majority of workingmen receive their wages either on
the first of the month or the last of the week, and that “ pay-day ”
is often followed by dissipation, debauchery, and remorse. Oet-
tingen completed this interesting observation by showing that
the larger number of suicides among women take place during
the last half of the week, when they are most apt to feel the
effects of man’s prodigality and wrong-doing. In regard to the
hours of the day, we know, from Brierre de Boismont’s examina-
tion of 1,993 cases of suicide in Paris, that the maximum number
occurred between 6 A. M. and noon, and thereafter regularly
declined, reaching the minimum at the hour before sunrise.

It is also an established fact that the more rugged natures of
men impel them to seek coarser means of self-destruction, such as
the revolver, the razor, and the rope, the latter being most fre-
quently used by those in whom the vigor of manhood is lost.
Women, on the contrary, seldom resort to measures which they
think will disfigure them, and therefore most frequently seek
death by poisoning, asphyxia, or drowning. This, of course, only
refers to cases in which the suicide has opportunity to adopt the
method preferred. In hospitals for the insane almost all suicides,
both male and female, and of whatever age, are accomplished by
suspension, that being generally the most available method.

Epidemics of suicide frequently occur, and he who introduces
any unusual method is sure of having numerous followers. In
1793 an epidemic occurred in Versailles, and the population was _

A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 307

decreased within a single year by 1,300 self-sought deaths. In
the Hdtel des Invalides an inmate hung himself upon a certain
cross-bar, and within a fortnight five more did the same thing,
although there had not been a single case of suicide in the estab-
lishment for two years before, and the threatened epidemic was
only averted by the removal of the fatal bar.

Lord Bacon, in his “ Essay on Death,” says that, “after Otho,
the emperor, had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of
affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their
sovereign.” Plutarch tells us that the women of the ancient city
of Miletus, becoming melancholy over the absence of their hus-
bands and lovers, resolved to hang themselves, and vied with each
other in the alacrity with which they did the deed. Various
other epidemics have occurred in more recent times—viz., at
Rouen, in 1806; at Stuttgart, in 1811, etc.

What might almost be called an epidemic prevailed in the
New York State Lunatic Asylum in July, 1850. According to the
report for that year, there were at one time twenty-eight persons
in the institution bent upon destroying themselves. There were
admitted during that month forty-four patients, nineteen of whom
were suicidal. The first successful attempt occurred on the
12th, and on the following day two more, who had been in the
asylum for a long time and had never shown suicidal tendencies,
attempted strangulation, and were so persistent that they were
only prevented from carrying out their designs by mechanical
restraint. On the 17th, 20th, and 22d other attempts were made
by various patients, and before the end of the month, at which
time it subsided, there had been fourteen distinct attempts by
eight persons, while several others, in whom the propensity was
strong, required constant watching to prevent them from accom-
plishing their object.

These epidemics are, to a great extent, the result of the prin-
ciple of imitation, and it may be said that suicide is almost as
much the subject of fashion as is dress or household decoration,
and that each particular method reigns for a time and then gives
way to some newer means. For instance, a man destroys himself
by plunging from the heights of a tower. The newspapers
graphically record the fact, and straightway a dozen more do the
same thing, and the practice is only stopped when some one who
is tired of life sends a bullet through his brain. This method is
then adopted until another takes a dose of carbolic acid, when
that in turn becomes the prevailing means.

Another proof that suicide is often due to the faculty of imi-
tation is the fact that many cases are recorded of children com-
mitting the deed, without apparent cause, after having heard of a
case in which their interest was aroused.

308 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Among the most remarkable attempts at suicide upon record
is that of a man in Fressonville, in Picardy, as related by Dr.
Winslow, who was actuated by a desire to ring his own death-
knell. To accomplish this object he hanged himself to the clap-
per of the church-bell. But, fortunately, he chose an hour at
which it was not customary for the bell to ring, and attention
was attracted in time to save his life. Another very deliber-
ate attempt, probably the most extraordinary ever known, was
that made by an Italian shoemaker, named Matthew Lovat. This
case was originally reported by Dr. Bergierre, afterward en-
larged upon by Dr. Winslow in his “ Anatomy of Suicide,” and
has since been frequently quoted by various writers. The his-
tory of the case in brief is that the man determined to imitate as
nearly as possible the crucifixion of our Saviour, and therefore
deliberately set about making a cross, and providing himself with
all the adjuncts of that scene. “He perceived that it would be
difficult to nail himself firmly to the cross, and therefore made a
net which he fastened over it, securing it at the bottom of the
upright beam and at the ends of the two arms. The whole appa-
ratus was tied by two ropes, one from the net and the other from
the place where the beams intersected one another. These ropes
were fastened to the bar above the window, and were just sufii-
ciently long to allow the cross to lie horizontally upon the floor
of the apartment. Having finished these preparations, he next
put on his crown of thorns, some of which entered his forehead ;
then, having stripped himself naked, he girded his loins with a
white handkerchief. He then introduced himself into the net,
and, seating himself on the cross, drove a nail through the palm
of his right hand by striking its head upon the floor until the
point appeared on the other side. He now placed his feet upon a
bracket he had prepared for them, and with a mallet drove a nail
completely through them both, fastening them to the wood. He
next tied himself to the cross by a piece of cord around his waist,
and wounded himself in the side with a knife which he used in
his trade. The wound was inflicted two inches below the hypo-
chondrium, toward the internal angle of the abdominal cavity, but
did not injure any of the parts which the cavity contains. Sev-
eral scratches were observed upon his breast which appear to
have been done by the knife in probing for a place which should
present no obstruction. The knife, according to Lovat, repre-
sented the spear of the passion. All this he accomplished in the
interior of his apartment, but it was necessary to show himself
in public. To accomplish this he had placed the foot of the cross
upon the window-sill, which was very low, and by pressing his
fingers against the floor he gradually drew himself forward until,
the foot of the cross overbalancing the head, the whole machine ~

|

A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 309

tilted out of the window and hung by the ropes which were fast-
ened to the beam. He then, by way of finishing, nailed his right
hand to the arm of the cross, but could not succeed in fixing the
left, although the nail by which it was to have been fixed was
driven through it, and half of it came out on the other side. This
happened at eight o’clock in the morning. Some persons by
whom he was perceived ran up-stairs, disengaged him from the
cross, and put him to bed. By medical care his wounds ulti-
mately healed, but he was ever afterward morose and singular.”
A person bent upon suicide will sometimes await a favorable
opportunity for months, or overcome apparently insurmountable
difficulties by the exercise of ingenuity which, if it were devoted
to the accomplishment of a better object, would be worthy of the
highest commendation. Dr. Wynter cites the case of a man who
was placed under medical observation because he had attempted
to commit suicide. He was watched with the greatest care;
during nine months all means—so far as his attendants knew—by
which he could injure himself were removed. But one morning
he was discovered hanging by his neck from the bedstead, quite
dead. How he became possessed of the cord was an enigma
which was afterward solved by the discovery that he had care-
fully preserved every piece of string from the parcels that had
been sent to him from time to time. With them he had twisted a
rope sufficiently strong to accomplish his purpose. The news-
papers a few months ago reported the case of a man named Fred-
erick Helbig, of Zanesville, Ohio, who also showed considerable
inventive talent. He was blind and disconsolate, and therefore
resolved to die, but as none of the common methods were suited
to his purpose he made his way to the cellar, broke off a piece of
the gas-pipe, and then covering the end of the pipe and his head
with a heavy quilt, quietly suffocated himself with the gas.
Another extraordinary case is that of a man who was quite
recently admitted to the Buffalo Insane Asylum. He had at-
tempted suicide the day before while in the station-house, and,
owing to his dangerous tendencies, he was placed under the care
of a special night-watch, who sat outside his door. For three
nights all went well, but on the fourth he jumped from the head
of his bed for the transom over his window, the only exposed glass
in the room, crashing through the panes and seizing the bars on
the outside. Before the attendant could prevent it he had, with
a bit of glass, cut into his throat, severing the thyroid cartilage.
The patient was in a frenzied condition, and it required the efforts
of five attendants to keep him from tearing open the wound. The
cartilage was united and the wound sewed and dressed. Foiled in
his attempts to tear open the wound, he fixed his lips and jaws
tightly and exhaled forcibly. He succeeded literally in blowing

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

himself up, for the air found its way through the slit in the carti-
lage into the tissues about the wound, and in a few seconds the
emphysema extended as low as the clavicles and so high that his
features lost all expression. He refused food and resisted nutri-
tive enemas and shortly died of exhaustion.

The question, “ Is suicide an evidence of insanity?” is one which
has given rise to much discussion. In olden times it seems always
to have been considered a crime, and very severe laws were enacted
against it. The Hebrews did not bury the bodies of suicides until
after sunset, thus treating them as they did executed criminals.
The Armenians cursed and burned the house in which the suicide
had lived. At Thebes their bodies were burned and no funeral
rites allowed; while the Greeks, on the contrary, among whom it
was the custom to burn the bodies of those who died a natural
death, buried suicides immediately, as they thought it a wrong to
contaminate fire, which they deemed a holy element, by burning
in it the bodies of those who had been guilty of self-slaughter. In
England it was formerly attended by some of the consequences of
felony,* hence the term felo de se. All of the personal property
which the party had at the time of committing the deed, even in-
cluding debts to him, was forfeited to the crown, and his remains
were interred, without the rites of Christian burial, in the public
highway, with a stake driven through the body. In fact, every-
where was the act proscribed and considered a crime, until the
present century, when it began to be regarded by many writers as
a positive proof of insanity. Esquirol says, “I believe that I have
proved that all suicides are mentally diseased”; and Dr. Wins-
low, one of the greatest authorities on this subject, supports Dr.
Rowley’s assertion that “suicide should ever be considered an act
of insanity.” On the other hand, Blandford, Griesinger, Bucknill,
Tuke, Gray, and nearly all modern authorities think that suicide
is often committed by people in whom no disease of the brain ex-
ists. Indeed, Dr. Gray went much further, and in one of his lect-
ures said, “Suicide, though always an unnatural act, is, in the
large proportion if not in the majority of cases, committed by
persons who are entirely sane.” Whether it is or is not the act of
insanity can only be determined by a careful inquiry, as there
are many cases to support either side of the argument, and each
one must be a “law unto itself.” For instance to be insane
enough to commit suicide does not imply that a man must bea
raving lunatic, “cutting strange antics before high Heaven,”
which make his madness apparent to the most unpracticed ob-
server. Indeed, in many instances the attempt at suicide is the

* The new penal code makes it in this State a felony to attempt to commit suicide.

Lawrence Ballard was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment under this section, on Febru-
ary 8, 1883. This was the first conviction for the crime in New York under the new code.’

ir

A STUDY OF SUICIDE. 311

first prominent symptom of insanity, and frequently the intensity
of the suicidal tendency subsides with the progress of the disease.
All who know anything about the insane will admit that lunatics
very frequently possess extraordinary cunning in concealing their
lunacy, and that the malady, in many cases, is successfully hidden
from friends and acquaintances until some remarkable departure
from the ordinary ways of life brings it to hght. A case in point
is that of Hood Alston, who committed suicide in New Orleans in
the early part of 1879, after writing a full explanation of why he
wished to die. He had been an able writer for the newspapers in
many of the large cities, his habits had been those of a gentleman,
and his death, in the absence of the letter which he left, would
have been inexplicable. He was in the Interior Department at
Washington, and was afterward appointed the secretary of a
mining company in California. He was married and had every
requisite for domestic happiness. “Last November,” he wrote,
“T became possessed of an impulse to kill my friends. I could
hardly resist an opportunity. The desire would be but for a mo-
ment and then pass away. An infant was born to us two months
ago. I loved it, was proud of it. When it first looked upon me
the desire seized me to prey upon its young life. My friends were
ignorant of my mental condition. I imparted it to no one, not

even to my darling wife. I die that others may live.” Dr. Wins-

low relates a singular case of a man who was heard to exclaim:
“Do, for God’s sake, get me confined, for if I am at liberty I shall
destroy myself and wife; I shall do it unless all means of destruc-
tion are removed, and therefore do have me put under restraint.
Something above tells me I shall do it, and I shall.” Mr. Cheva-
lier also tells us of a young lady of delicate constitution, although
she had never given any symptoms of mental derangement, who
suddenly started up from the tea-table and rushed to the window,
out of which she endeavored to throw herself. It was with great
difficulty that she was prevented from accomplishing her design.
She remained insane during the rest of her life, which he adds,
“was fortunately not long protracted.” Such cases illustrating
the frequency and intensity of the suicidal and homicidal pro-
pensity abound in every work on mental disease and are found in
every asylum. But, on the other hand, there are undoubtedly
many cases of suicide in which the hypothesis of insanity is un-
tenable. Cato stabbed himself rather than live under the des-
potic reign of Cesar; Themistocles poisoned himself rather than
lead the Persians against his countrymen; Zeno, when ninety-
eight, hung himself because he had put his finger out of joint;
and Hannibal and Mithridates poisoned themselves to escape be-
ing taken prisoners. When we search Scripture we find that Saul,
rather than fall into the hands of the Philistines, commanded his

Bile THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

armor-bearer to hold his sword that he might plunge upon it;
Samson, for the sake of being revenged upon his enemies, pulled
down the house in which they were reveling and “died with
them”; and Judas Iscariot, after selling the Saviour for thirty
pieces of silver, was overcome by remorse “and went and hanged
himself.” The examples quoted from ancient history show that
the deed was the result of Stoic philosophy, and those from the
Bible show motives sufficient for the act, and in all must we dis-
card the theory of insanity.

To come down to our own times, we may take, for example, the
case of Benjamin Hunter, the Camden murderer. For four or five
days before his execution he made a practice of sitting over the
prison register, with his legs covered by a blanket, and, under the
pretense that they were cold, kept rubbing them with his hands,
leading those who saw him to believe that he did so only for the
purpose of increasing their warmth by restoring the circulation
through them. Upon the night preceding the execution he man-
_ aged to secrete a basin in which he placed his feet, and after cut-
ting through the vessels with a piece of sharpened tin he com-
menced the process of rubbing, and was actually forcing out his
life with every movement when his appearance attracted the at-
tention of the keeper. His object had almost been gained, and,
under the circumstances, can we say that it was an insane one?
He was a proud man, who dreaded the disgrace of a public execu-
tion; he also possessed in a marked degree the desire to cheat the
law of its deserts, which is a characteristic tendency of the crimi-
nal mind; in one constituted and situated as he was there were
sufficient reasons to account for the attempt, and, instead of its
being the act of a madman it was merely the effort of a deter-
mined will to accomplish a desired end. Cases innumerable might
be cited, did space permit, where persons of undoubted sanity
have committed suicide for the purpose of escaping suffering,
punishment, or disgrace. In fact, a great many of the suicides of
which we daily read, probably the majority, can not be considered
due to cerebral disease, but must be looked upon rather as the
result of social laws, combined with false training and education.

“Ts suicide ever justifiable ?” is another mooted question, and
many writers have answered it in the affirmative. Epictetus,
Zeno, Pliny, Seneca, and Plutarch were its advocates. Hume, in
his “ Essay on Suicide,” says: “It would be no crime for me to
divert the Nile or Danube from its course if I could; where, then,
is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood out of its natural
channels ?” Rousseau taught, “'To seek one’s own good and avoid
one’s own harm in that which hurts not another, is the law of
Nature.” Budgel believed that, “when life becomes uneasy to

support, and is overwhelmed with clouds and sorrows, man has a

SHA-BUTTERFLIES., 313

natural right to deprive himself of it, as it is better not to live
than to live in pain.” Montesquieu, Montaigne, Dr. Donne, and
others have advanced similar ideas; but it is needless to say that
their arguments can find support only in the minds of those who
believe that “ death endeth all.”

The tendency has always been to palliate the act, and the ver-
dict, “committed suicide while laboring under temporary aberra-
tion of mind,” has become a stereotyped phrase. This verdict
was frequently rendered in earlier times for the purpose of pre-
venting the property of the deceased from reverting to the crown,
and it has been kept alive in more recent times by the desire,
which is inherent in every human breast, to speak kindly of the
dead. It is evident, however, that such a verdict should only be
rendered when the actions of the deceased have been such as to
point very strongly to insanity, or where the autopsy shows un-
doubted lesions of the brain. Under such conditions no other
verdict would be just. But when one becomes “a deserter from
the army of humanity,” and resorts to suicide as a means of escape
from the trials of life, the act is merely a confession of weakness,
which, while it may awaken feelings of compassion, certainly does
not call for palliation. There are conditions of life, I will admit,
to which death might seem far preferable; but though our mis-
fortunes may be such as to make us long for the grave, we must,
to slightly change the noble words of Burke, “even in despair live
on,” remembering that—

“Our time is fixed, and all our days are numbered ;
How long, how short, we know not; this we know,
Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,

Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission.”

SEA-BUTTERFLIES.
By Pror. CARL VOGT.

“ares little boat lay ready at the dock of Nice; I had at that time

to depend upon my own hands. The idea that a permanent
station could be established on the sea-coast, with laboratories in
which the student could find in one place all the aids he would
need in the investigation of sea-animals, had not yet occurred to
any one. It was not till I had worked two years in N ice, and
had suffered all the inconveniences and loss of time that come
from deficiency of means, that I devised plans for building such
an establishment, which all came to no result till Herr A. Dohrn,
with unexampled energy, founded the zoological station in Na-

ples, a model that has been imitated in nearly all coast countries.
VOL. Xxxv.—20*

314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thirty years ago, we did the best we could. I was living in
Nice in a private house, since turned into a hotel, which stood on
a projecting rock. My fishing-ground was in the Bay of Villa-
franca, which, cutting deep into the shore a few kilometres to the
eastward, was inexhaustibly rich in swimming creatures. I had
come to an understanding with an intelligent fisherman. When
the weather seemed favorable to the flowing of rich tides into the
bay, Joacchino would come early in the morning to my house
and tell me that the Graziella lay at the dock. Then he would
pack two baskets with large, wide-mouthed glasses; I would stuff
into my pockets as many small glasses as they would hold, and
take a net made of the finest bolting-cloth stretched upon a cop-
per ring, and furnished with a long, strong handle. Joacchino
had & similar net of his own in the boat. Magnifying glasses and
compasses, hung by ribbons from the neck, completed the outfit,
which was quickly deposited in the boat; Joacchino rowed, for
we only went out when the air was still, and I steered. In about
an hour we were in the bay.

“Do you see the tide, Joacchino ?”

“There, sir, before the Sanita,” answered Joacchino, after
having risen and looked around.

I saw, indeed, the clear streaks with smooth, unrufiled surface
that usually denote the coming in of the tide.

“T hardly think,” I said, “that we shall fill our vessels to-day.
It is getting cloudy, and the sun is not shining.”

“So much the better, sir. The sirocco is blowing outside on
the sea, and will come in here in the afternoon. Do you see the
long swells on the tide which run from the offing along the coast
to the back of the bay ? I will wager that the stream reaches to
the other side of the bay, over by the lighthouse, and from there
to the mouth. That is a good sign. The more cloudy the sky is,
the more butterflies we shall catch.”

“We must go out from the land to catch butterflies. We
might perhaps get a few swallow-tails, mourning-cloaks, or a few
pretty Jasons out there; but here—”

Joacchino somewhat nervously drove the boat by vigorous
oar-strokes to the edge of the stream, which was really swarming
with animals of various kinds.

While the Meduse and the polyps had some attractions for
him, he aimed particularly for a place where a transparent animal
was making a fierce eddy in the stream. I at once recognized the
indomitable creatures that turn so wildly in circles. It was a
perfectly transparent Pterotrachea, about a span in length, as
thick as one’s finger, which keeps its long snout incessantly foray-
ing around.

“ Where you see them,” said Joacchino, “the butterflies are not |

SHA-BUTTERFLIES. 315

far off. There! you have a handsome one, of the largest kind.”
He handed me a glass, with which he had dipped some out of the
water.

I am quite proud of young Joacchino. He has eyes like a
lynx, and has learned that the more delicate animals must not be
touched with a net, but must be let run in with the water into a
glass held out to receive them. In deep water the net must be
handled so as to cause an eddy by the side of the animal that
shall draw it along on the surface.

“ Bravo, Joacchino!” I said, after examining the animal in the
glass. “I know now what you know about butterflies.” The
animals which have been named Pteropoda, or wing-footed, really
deserve the name. They are excitable creatures, that fly round
in the broad glass, often strike the walls in their vehement move-
ments, then suddenly draw in their wings, turn downward, and
slowly sink to the bottom, to spring up again after a time and
begin the old play anew. I recognized at once the boat-butterfly,
dedicated to the famous seaman Peron, the Cymbulia peront
(Fig. 1). A little way off, one sees merely the eddy in the water

Fig. 1.—CYMBULIA PERONI.

and a brownish kernel about the size of a grain of wheat; only
on a closer inspection can we distinguish two large, roundish
wings, as clear as glass, that sit upon a yellowish body drawn
backward in length, that rests in a crystal boat, the contour of
which can not be exactly discerned, because the substance of
which it is formed has the same refractive power as water. It is
only when the animal is put, hardly covered with water, in a flat
saucer of glass, against a black ground, that we can see the figure

316 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of a boat hollowed above, rounded in front, and drawn out into
two points behind (Fig. 1) the outer surface having wart-like pro-
cesses, while fine points like the teeth of a saw rise from the
upper edges in front of and behind the body.

The body itself lies in the upper hollow of the boat, and is so
loosely fixed to it that if carelessly handled it is easily separated
from the shell, The shell is made of a uniform and structureless
substance, about midway in consistence between jelly and gristle.
The animal does not appear to be especially affected in its mo-
tions by separation from the boat, but flies around in the water
as before; but, as it does not live long in captivity, it has not been
possible to determine whether or not it is able to form a new
shell. It may be said, against such a supposition, that besides per-
fect animals, only empty shells or rarely shelless animals are found
in the sea, while none have ever been observed with imperfect
shells, as must have been the case did a new growth take place.

The body is very curiously constructed. Leaving out the
wings, it appears insignificant in proportion to the shell, and as if
buried in it. The fore-part corresponds with the thicker, bluntly
rounded part of the boat. In the posterior channel plays a thread-
like tail-appendage, starting from a heart-shaped, extremely thin,
and transparent fin, which is attached to the body by a thicker
stem. There is no head; in front, at the spot where the wings
join in the central line, lies the mouth, projecting in the shape of
a little round mast, behind which a dark-brown, crescent-shaped
streak may be perceived. This is the pharynx-head shining
through the body-cover. Like other mollusks, this animal bears
a peculiar inner armament which has been wrongly named the
tongue, but has not the least in common with the tongue of ver-
tebrates. This tongue is variously formed, according to the food
of the animal—like a file or rubber in plant-eaters, or provided
with teeth, hooks, and thorns in carnivores. All the sea-butter-
flies have on their tongues rows of strong, pointed hooks; they
are—perhaps with a few exceptions—distinctively carnivorous.
But our fishing did not end with the capture of a few Cymbulie
and slipping them into the glasses which we had provided, for
inspection at home. The Oymbulie are the giants among the
sea-butterflies of the Bay of Villafranca; a multitude of small fry
also swim in the tide which even the most skilled eye can not dis-
tinguish from the water, so clear and transparent are they.

“Slowly, Joacchino! Let us drift with the stream!”

I sink the fine net into the water, so that its rim is barely un-
der the surface, and set the long handle on the edge of the boat
against the thole-pin. Joacchino slowly pushes the boat onward
without beating the water.

“Stop! Give me the lager-beer glass!”

SHEA-BUTTERFLIES. 317

Blessed be Gambrinus! Without his invention, nobody per-
haps would have thought of furnishing beer-glasses with fixed
handles. The net, which was filled with a mass of swimming
creatures that could not escape, was raised above the water till
there was room to dip out of it with a beer-glass. We have been
fortunate, for we have fallen upon a swarm of needle-butterflies,

Fie. 2.—TIEDEMANNIA.

Creseis acicula (Fig. 3), and have caught a considerable number
of them in our glass, besides other shelled species, such as Hyalea
tridentata (Fig. 4), and Cleodora lanceolata (Fig. 5). But it is best
to isolate them, and to separate from among the other little trans-
parent minnows certain crustaceans, some of which might take a
notion to attack the butterflies and eat them. Then we turned
toward home. The hour and a half occupied in the journey back
Was spent in selecting out.

318 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I let the water run out of the net into a small glass, so as to be
sure that it contains no other animals, and take a glass tube long
enough easily to reach the bottom of the mug. The life here is
all in a confusion of panic on account of the cramped quarters. I
introduce the tube, holding the upper end tightly closed with my
forefinger. The air contained within it permits very little water
to enter.

We have now to keep a sharp lookout. When I perceive a
butterfly which perhaps has sprung at a bound to the surface and
is now gently sinking back, I try to bring the lower end of my tube
close to it. My forefinger is then suddenly raised; a stream of
water, stronger as the tube is deeper in, presses out the escap-
ing air and draws the animal in withit. My forefinger is then
brought down to close the upper end, the tube is drawn out, and
the animal in it is transferred to the collecting-glass. This is a
simple method of catching such small and delicate animals, but
must be well practiced if one would acquire any skill init. It can
not be used successfully in a rough sea, and when that is the con-
dition the student must wait till he gets home. But when the
animal is secured, it is a real joy to lose one’s self in contemplat-
ing it with the lens and microscope. The needle-butterflies are
a beautiful object. Their cylindrical, glass-clear shell is firm
enough to stand a slight pressure. An animal is caught in the
prescribed way and put in a compressorium; a small instrument,
a thin glass-plate or cover, is used with a tortuous movement to
bring it closer up on the stand, which is also of glass, A drop of
water is made to fall on the stand, the creature to be examined
is brought up, and the two plates are twisted till both touch the
drop. We might crush our specimen with the apparatus; but we
carefully regulate the pressure so that no harm shall come to it
while it is held fast in the same place. It struggles, beating with
its wings, but all its exertions are in vain; it can not in the nar-
row space overcome the pressure that weighs upon its shell.

It is a wonderful view we get under the microscope of the fine
muscular fibers crossing one another in the wings, now drawing
together and now extending out, and we can follow the ramifica-
tions of the nerves and the vessels of the circulation. We perceive
the motions of the mouth as it opens and shuts, the pharynx-head
with the tongue, which is projected and withdrawn, the connec-
tions of the intestine; we see the heart beat, and can follow the
current and eddies of water which are produced in the breathing-
pores and certain secretory openings by the beating of innumera-
ble cilia in their regular way. The animals are hermaphrodite.
We can see the eggs and other products in the organs where they
are generated and in the channels through which they are ex-
pelled. Only a few hours passed before the needle-butterflies and —

SHA-BUTTERFLIES. 319

their relatives could be seen laying eggs, with transparent shells,
which resembled rosaries or long pods, in the spaces of which
the eggs swam inaclear liquid. Do they lay these eggs because
they are comfortable in the vessel, or in order to rid themselves
of what is a burden in their straitened captivity ? While this
question is still unanswered, it is certain that such strings of eggs
and pods are also found drifting in the open sea, that the eggs
which are laid in captivity are usually fertilized, and that the
development of the embryo can be followed under the microscope
—at least, till the point when the larve, which go through many
metamorphoses, leave the shells to swim in the sea. These do not
resemble the parents, but the larvee of creeping sea-mollusks, and
swim by means of a ciliary apparatus which grows on the head,
and afterward, when the wings have been formed, is repressed.
The free larve have not been successfully raised any further in
captivity. Probably they die of hunger, for it is impossible to
feed them. But we can fish them out of the sea in a net, and can
compare from the various forms found among them the succession
of single steps in their growth to the adult state. This is, indeed,
not always easy, for, on the one hand, the larve of different species
are often very much alike, and, on the other hand, the currents
do not always fetch what is wanted, so that many observers have
to wait year after year to continue their observations and bring
them to a conclusion. -

_ Dealing with the pelagic animals that swim on the high sea
is a delicate matter, and, despite the most careful researches, the

Fig. 3.—CRESEIS ACICULA. Fie. 4.—HYALEA TRIDENTATA. Fig. 5.—CLEODORA LANCEOLATA.

cause of their appearance and disappearance has never been ascer-
tained. In the years from 1850 to 1852, which I spent in Nice,
and when I fished with my fine net at least twice a week in the
Bay of Villafranca, I only found a few species of needle-butterflies
and related species. Cymbulie, which could not have escaped me
then, I first found at a visit in the Easter vacation of 1867, when
they were very numerous. Messina is the Mediterranean station

320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

where the butterflies are brought in the largest number and most
various forms from the stream of Charybdis. When I last spring
asked my colleague there, Prof. Kleinenberg, to send me a few
specimens of a naked shelless species (Pnewmodermon), my courte-
ous friend sent me a goodly number of other butterflies, and
wrote: “I am sorry I can not send Pnewmodermon. While it
was formerly so abundant that one could hardly make a haul
without having some in his net, there are now none here.” The
same Job’s comfort came from the zodlogical station at Naples,
which usually afforded remarkably fine sea-animals, and where I
myself had obtained Pnewmodermon two years before. I received
a splendid lot of other butterflies, which were so well preserved
that one could almost believe they were still alive; but Pnewmo-
dermon was not among them.

In Messina, however, is found the round butterfly, Tiedemannia
(Wig. 2), of gigantic proportions when compared with the others,
which somewhat resembles the mourning-cloak of the land-snails,

Fig. 6.—CLINoPsis KROHNII. Fie. 7.—CLIONE BOREALIS. Fie. 8.—LIMACINA ARCTICA.

but is otherwise of like structure with the Cymbulie. It also
has a water-clear shell, but much smaller and entirely smooth;
its wings are united into a large disk, and its mouth is drawn out
into a long, double-tipped snout, which the animal carries in swim-
ming like a rakish mast between the wings.

All the sea-butterflies mentioned above are predatory, but I
am inclined to believe that certain gorbellies, which are compara-
ble to corpulent night-moths, and might be called thick butter-
flies (Hyalea), are also, besides, plant-eaters. They tumble around
clumsily at Messina and Naples, are occasionally driven to Villa-
franca, and are distinguished by their swollen, brownish shell,
extending into a point behind, and having a narrow opening, out
of which rise the short and massive three-lobed wings. They
usually bear ragged or ribbon-like appendages of a brown or dark- |

SEA-BUTTERFLIES. 321

green color, which well adapt them to abiding among the sea-
weeds. In the intestines of many specimens which I have exam-
ined for that purpose I have found among fine grains of sand and
mold dubious remains of sea-plants and little shells of swimming
mollusk-larve.

Many sea-butterflies are naked, having their spindle-like bodies,
instead of shells, covered only by a sack-like skin. The laterally
fixed wings are sometimes drawn back into pockets, and over them
rises a roundish, somewhat depressed head-part, which is occa-
sionally provided with appendages bearing hooks or suckers. To
them belongs the above-mentioned violet-colored Pnewmodermon
of the Mediterranean Sea, which, when danger is impending,
envelops itself in a white cloud of slime that is secreted in numer-
ous glands, but is soon exhausted.

A species occurs in the northern seas which, together with a
little butterfly, Limacina arctica (Fig. 8)—a species having a
somewhat spiral, transparent shell—comes into remarkable direct
relations with man. The little Lvmacinas appear in immense
‘swarms in the polar seas, and the not less numerous naked Cliones,
Clione borealis (Fig. 7), which are much larger and inflict griev-
ous destruction upon them. In the Mediterranean Sea the Cliones
are represented by the related genus, Clinopsis Krohnuw (Fig. 6).
The polar voyager, Captain Halbdll, once tried to bring some liv-
ing Cliones to Prof. Eschricht, in Copenhagen, for examination.
Knowing that they were carnivorous, he fed them with reindeer-

/ meat, which they ate greedily at first; but, although he changed
| the water frequently, he was not able to keep them alive more
| than eight days, and had to bring them preserved in alcohol, But
_ Eschricht made a very satisfactory research upon them.

The Limacinas eat little crustaceans, the Cliones eat the Lima-
einas, and both are consumed by the ton by whales. The Green-
| land whale appears to live almost exclusively on the two species
_ of sea-butterfly, which it has to swallow in immense quantities to
| fill its capacious maw. It eats also other pelagic small fry and
crustaceans as side-dishes.

These are only indirect relations in which the sea-butterflies

inhabiting all seas stand to man. But they are important enough.
| Without whale-food, no whales; without these, no blubber to
| grease sailors’ water-proof boots and overalls; and without boots
| and southwesters, no’ sailors and high-sea fishermen; and with-
| out whales, no whalebone, no parasols and umbrellas and corsets,
which were not worn by the beauties of ancient times, because
ithey were limited to the productions of the Mediterranean Sea,
lwhere there are no Greenland whales. But chains of this kind
can be found everywhere.
| The older French naturalists—D’Orbigny, Péron, Lesueur—

VOL, XXxvV.—21

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

who paid much more attention to the butterflies of the tropical
seas than to those of the nearer Mediterranean, pronounced them
nocturnal high-sea animals. They had never been seen near the
coast, nor before sunset. They were not found at a less distance
than about ten marine miles from the coast, and disappeared in
the deep at daybreak. That may be correct for the tropical re-
gions, where a dazzling sunlight is poured upon the highly heated
surface of the sea; but it must not be forgotten that the sea-but-
terflies have no eyes, and their keeping away from the coast,
where the water is highly warmed to a considerable depth, may
indicate that temperature is more a determining factor in this
behavior than light. The sea-butterflies behave differently in the
Mediterranean. They are not wanting on sunny days, but are
more numerous when the sky is clouded and in the night. In
midsummer they are, like many other pelagic animals, extremely
rare, and keep themselves in the great deeps. Prof. Chun, of
Konigsberg, who investigated this matter in the summer of 1886,
fished larvee of Cymbulia and Tiedemannia from as great depths
as a thousand metres. Temperature may also be the decisive
moment in this case; why should the animals not spend their
summer vacation there ? The sea-butterflies of the Mediterranean
are not at all afraid of the coast. The Bay of Villafranca is
hardly two kilometres wide, and they swim in the straits and
harbor of Messina. I have caught multitudes of needle-butterflies
in the daytime in that stream, close by the shore.

The case is somewhat different in the polar seas. We hunt
the whale during the polar summer, when the sun does not set
for months, and not in the polar nights, which are also months
long, and when the ships would be frozen in the ice. If the Cli-
ones and Limacinas were night animals they would not come to
the surface during the whaling season, and would also not be
known to sailors and hunters. They might, in fact, seek the deep
in winter for the same reasons that they resort to it in summer in
the Mediterranean—to escape extremes of temperature. Hvery-
thing that lives depends on external conditions, and, as these are
not everywhere the same, the behavior of the organisms subject
to them must adapt itself to the local relations.—Translated for
the Popular Science Monthly from Land und Meer.

Tue fact that the enforcement of the legal requirements as to air-space im
school-rooms fails of itself to secure a wholesome atmosphere, has been empha- —
sized by Dr. George Reid’s inspections of the schools of Stafford, England, where
from 2°039 to 3°708 volumes of carbonic acid per 1,000 volumes of air were found
to be present. With all the air that may be allowed, arrangements for some kind
of circulation are still necessary.

FARM-LIFE IN CHINA. 323

FARM-LIFE IN CHINA.
By ADELE M. FIELDE.

em number of persons that may subsist upon the products of

an acre of land appears to have been practically determined
by the Chinese. On ground that has been tilled for thousands of
years they, by a skillful use of fertilizers and by attention to the
welfare of each plant, raise crops that would honor a virgin soil.

In this Swatow region probably nine tenths of the men are
engaged in agriculture. The farmers live in villages, isolated
dwellings being uncommon. The villages are walled, contain no
wasted space, and are densely peopled. The wide-spreading, flat
fields, lying along the river-banks at the foot of the hills, may be
made to yield here on the Tropic of Cancer a constant series of
crops without interval on account of winter. Their chief produc-
tions are rice, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, pulse, garden vegetables,
peanuts, indigo, sessamum, ginger, the grass-cloth plant, tobacco,
and wheat. Rice is the staple food of the people, and in the best
years the local product just supplies the local demand. Sugar is
the principal export. The cane requires less labor than any other
crop, and will grow upon unwatered land, which is unsuitable for
rice-culture. One crop of cane or two crops of other produce may
be grown in the same year upon unwatered land. On the best
rice-fields three crops are sometimes raised. The early rice is
sowed in April and harvested in July; the late rice is sowed in
August and harvested in November, and the field is then some-
times planted with garden vegetables, which are pulled in March.
The expense of fertilizing the third crop is so nearly equal to its
value that it is never reckoned as a source of profit to the culti-
vator.

The whole country belongs theoretically to its sovereign, and
upon all land that can be tilled with profit a tax is paid into the
imperial treasury. The sum due annually to the Government for

| the use of land is fixed for each field, amounts to from sixty cents
| to two dollars, and averages a dollar and a half upon each Eng-
lish acre,

When a father dies his land is divided equally among his sons,
| the eldest receiving an additional tenth on account of the extra
¢ expense to which he is put in worshiping the manes of the ances-
{ tor, The land is distributed very generally, though unequally,
8 among the people, and is usually tilled by its peasant proprietor.
E Few own so much as two hundred acres; one who owns ten acres
' 1s reckoned wealthy, and he who owns one acre possesses a compe-
| tence, Those who own from one tenth to one half an acre are

324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

most numerous, and therefore there are many who till land for
a Share of the produce.

Land that is too sterile for profitable cultivation or for taxa-
tion sells for from six to sixty dollars an acre, while good farm-
land is valued at from three hundred to eight hundred dollars an
acre. Rice-fields not in the vicinage of a city sell readily for six
hundred dollars an acre, and are not always to be bought at that
price, because those who own land find it the safest investment,
and part with it only when under the stress of debt. The burst-
ing of dikes, drought, and bad habits are the chief causes of the
transfer of land, and the sale of a child often precedes that of the
rice-field. Interest on money lent is from twelve to twenty per
cent, according to agreement between lender and borrower.

The chief expense of tillage is in fertilizers, beans and sesa-
mum-seeds from which the oil has been expressed being commonly
used, at an outlay of from six to forty and an average of twenty-
four dollars upon every acre of land. Besides this, potato-peel-
ings, hair from shaven heads, and all other vegetable and animal
refuse is carefully husbanded and methodically applied to the soil.
The clods of the field are laid up into little ovens to retain and
be enriched by the smoke of the stubble burned underneath them,
Adobe houses, whose walls have for many years absorbed the
fumes of a kitchen and the exhalations of human inmates, are
pulverized and added to the ever-hungry earth. Each growing
plant separately receives distinguished consideration, a scrap of
tobacco-stalk being sometimes put beside its root to destroy under-
ground grubs, while its leaves are frequently examined and sedu-
lously freed from vermin. The rotation of crops is always prac-
ticed.

As no milk, butter, or cheese is used, the only quadruped seen
on the farms is the water-buffalo, or the zebu, which assists in
plowing and harrowing. Many farmers rear ducks, which are
taken to the fields to devour the snails, crabs, and young frogs
which thrive there at planting-time. Fowls often accompany the
harvesters, picking up the last grains left among the stubble.

Few families are without the ubiquitous black hog, whose
usual habitat is the door-step. Its food is the bran of the rice
hulled and eaten in the house; its head is the chief offering set
before the lares and penates, and its flesh is most highly esteemed
among festive viands. It is reared at small expense, makes no
disputed demand on space, furnishes the unctuous element in a
satisfying bill of fare, and can always be sold at ten cents a
- pound.

The farming appliances are simple, and a complete outfit can
be bought for forty dollars, A plow with two shares, a pair of
harrows, and a fanning-mill each cost two dollars; a pump worked.

FARM-LIFE IN CHINA. 325

by treadles in irrigating the fields, four dollars; a water-buffalo,
twenty dollars; hoes, sickles, baskets, and sundries, nine dollars,

When land is leased, the owner pays the taxes, and the lessee
furnishes all that is required in tillage. Payment to the landlord
is always made in unhusked rice, and when the land is worked
on shares this amounts to about one half the crop. The usual
bargain for the use of land is a ton and a quarter of unhusked
rice, worth about thirty dollars, for each acre. If the year be
remarkably bad, the lessee may insist upon the landlord’s taking
one half the crop, though that be manifestly much less than the
amount agreed upon as payment. If the year be good and the
land excellent, the lessee may pay one third of his crop to the
landlord, may have expended another third upon fertilizers, and
may have the other third as net profit for his labor. As one man
is unable to till more than one acre alone, the average yearly earn-
ings ef men who work land on shares is less than thirty dollars.
One acre of good land produces on the average 3,648 pounds of
clean rice.

A farmer may be hired by the year for from eight to fourteen
dollars, with food, clothing, head-shaving, and tobacco. Those
who work by the day receive from eight to ten cents, with a noon-
day meal. At the planting and harvesting of rice, wages are from
ten to twenty cents a day, with five meals; or thirty cents a day
without food. Few land-owners hire hands, except for a few days
during the planting and harvesting of rice. Those who have more
land than they and their sons can till, lease it to their neighbors.

Much land is held on leases given by ancient proprietors to
clansmen whose descendants now till it, paying from seven to
fourteen dollars’ worth of rice annually for its use.

Food averages little more than a dollar a month for each
member of a farmer’s family. One who buys, cooks, and eats his
meals alone, spends from one and a half to two dollars a month
upon the raw material and fuel. Two pounds of rice, costing
three and a half cents, with relishes of salt fish, pickled cabbage,

_ cheap vegetables and fruits, costing a cent and a half, is the ordi-
_ nary allowance to each laborer for each day. Abernethy’s advice
| to a luxurious patient, “ Live on sixpence a day and earn it,” is
followed by nearly every Chinaman. One or two dependent rela-
tives frequently share with him the sixpence.

Five dollars, wisely spent, each year, will keep up a comfort-
4 able and even elegant outfit of clothing for a man or a woman.
|| The clothing is usually woven in hand-looms in the farmer’s
|) house, from the fiber of the grass-cloth plant (Boehmeria nivea),
) or from imported cotton yarn. The average amount of clothing
|) possessed by a farmer may be reckoned at four dollars in value.
A room may be comfortably furnished by an outlay of five

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dollars, and such a room would usually be occupied by three or
four persons. The house varies in value, from the twenty-dollar
cabin of the poor to the thousand-dollar dwelling of the rich.
The value of the land in the villages in which the agriculturists
live is from six to eight hundred dollars an acre.

As the emigration of men is constant, and the smothering of
female infants is common, it is probable that the land will sup-

, port no more than its present population. One sixth of an acre to
each mouth to be filled is commonly declared to be the least that
will enable the cultivator to live upon his own land, even with the
highest tillage and the utmost frugality. One acre, tilled by the
peasant proprietor alone, will feed six persons—the peasant, his
wife, his aged father and mother, and his two young children. It
will yield rice, hulled in the house, and vegetables, raised between
rice-crops, sufficient for food. The straw and stubble will serve
as fuel, and the pig and fowls will supply meat. The clothing
will be woven and made by the wife, while the old couple take
care of the children. The aged and the young are thus provided
for through the land which has been the property of the one and
will be the inheritance of the other. If dirt, superstition, and
mendacity were eliminated from such a home, its inmates would
appear eminently fit to survive. A process of natural selection
has doubtless adapted the Chinese to their environment.

Two brothers, aged thirty-one and thirty-two years, inherited
from their father one acre of land, half of which is watered. Their
house, with the ground on which it is built, is worth fifty, their
furniture fifteen, their clothing twenty, and their farming appli-
ances thirty dollars. They live as well as do their neighbors, have
paid up a debt inherited with their land, and are now laying up
money to invest in wives. Twenty years ago a wife could be
betrothed for thirty dollars, whereas none can now be obtained
for less than a hundred dollars, and the price is rapidly rising.
Last year they got twenty-seven dollars’ worth of rice from one
half their farm, after having put on twelve dollars’ worth of fer-
tilizers. On the other half they planted sugar-cane, put on fifteen
dollars’ worth of manure, and sold the standing crop for forty dol-
lars. The younger brother did nearly all the work.

Pong Hia lives in a village of three hundred persons, in which
about thirty men are land-owners, having altogether forty-five
acres of land. Pong Hia owns two acres, inherited from the father
who adopted him. His land is worth one thousand dollars. His
family consists of ten persons. He is himself forty-six years old,
his wife is forty-one, his son is twenty-two, his son’s wife is twen-
ty-one, his four daughters are from ten to seventeen, and his two
grandchildren are three and seven years old. He and his son till

the land, hiring help at harvest-time, and weaving straw mats on

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 327

rainy days. The women-folk make the clothing, rear pigs and
fowls, and do all the house-work. Their dwelling, with its site, is
valued at a hundred and twenty dollars, their furniture at forty-
four dollars, their clothing at forty dollars, their farming appli-
ances at forty dollars. They have a water-buffalo, two hogs,
thirty fowls, ten ducks, a pair of geese, a dog, and a cat. Last
year Pong Hia sold twenty dollars’ worth of rice from his farm,
and paid $3.60 in taxes. He has two hundred dollars out at inter-
est, at eighteen per cent.

At this rate of production and consumption, the arable land in
the State of New York, with a reduction of one half its returns
on account of its more northern latitude, would support the total
population of the United States at the present time; and the oc-
cupied arable land of the United States, with its producing power
diminished, on account of climate, to one half that of land at
Swatow, would feed a population equal to that of the whole world,
or over 1,400,000,000. |

——_+oq—_—__—

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM.

By Rev. Dr. HENRY WACE,
PRINCIPAL OF KING’S COLLEGE.

aga who may be willing to look at this further reply on
my part to Prof. Huxley need not be apprehensive of being
entangled in any such obscure points of church history as those
with which the professor has found it necessary to perplex them
in support of his contentions; still less of being troubled with
any personal explanations. The tone which Prof. Huxley has
thought fit to adopt, not only toward myself, but toward English
theologians in general, excuses me from taking further notice of
any personal considerations in the matter. I endeavored to treat
him with the respect due to his great scientific position, and he
replies by sneering at “theologians who are mere counsel for
creeds,” saying that the serious question at issue “is whether
theological men of science, or theological special pleaders, are to
have the confidence of the general public,” observing that Hol-
land and Germany are “the only two countries in which, at the
’ present time, professors of theology are to be found whose tenure
of their posts does not depend upon the result to which their
inquiries lead them,” and thus insinuating that English theolo-
gians are debarred by selfish interests from candid inquiry. I
shall presently have something to say on the grave misrepresenta-
tion of German theology which these insinuations involve; but
for myself and for English theologians I shall not condescend to
reply to them, I content myself with calling the reader’s atten-

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion to the fact that, in this controversy, it is Prof. Huxley who
finds it requisite for his argument to insinuate that his opponents
are biased by sordid motives; and I shall for the future leave him
and his sneers out of account, and simply consider his arguments
for as much, or as little, as they may be worth. For a similar
reason I shall confine myself as far as possible to the issue which
I raised at the Church Congress, and for which I then made my-
self responsible. I do not care, nor would it be of any avail, to
follow over the wide and sacred field of Christian evidences an
antagonist who resorts to the imputation of mean motives, and
who, as I shall show, will not face the witnesses to whom he him-
self appeals. The manner in which Prof. Huxley has met the
particular issue he challenged will be a sufficient illustration to
impartial minds of the value which is to be attached to any fur-
ther assaults which he may make upon the Christian position.
Let me then briefly remind the reader of the simple question
which is at issue between us. What I alleged was that “ an agnos-
ticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to God must
not only refuse belief to our Lord’s most undoubted teaching, but
must deny the reality of the spiritual convictions in which he
lived and died.” As evidence of that teaching and of those con-
victions I appealed to three testimonies—the Sermon on the
Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and the story of the Passion—and I
urged that whatever critical opinion might be held respecting the
origin and structure of the four Gospels, there could not be any
reasonable doubt that those testimonies “ afford a true account of
our Lord’s essential belief and cardinal teaching.” In his original
reply, instead of meeting this appeal to three specific testimonies,
Prof. Huxley shifted the argument to the question of the general
credibility of the Gospels, and appealed to “the main results of
biblical criticism, as they are set forth in the works of Strauss,
Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar.” He referred to these supposed “re-
sults ” in support of his assertion that we know “ absolutely noth-
ing” of the authorship or genuineness of the four Gospels, and
he challenged my reference to Renan as a witness to the fact that
criticism has established no such results. In answer, I quoted
passage after passage from Renan and from Reuss showing that
the results at which they had arrived were directly contradictory
of Prof. Huxley’s assertions. How does he meet this evidence ?
He simply says, in a foot-note, “For the present I must content
myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr.
Wace’s statements as to the results arrived at by modern criti-
cism. They are as gravely as surprisingly erroneous.” I might
ask by what right Prof. Huxley thus presumes to pronounce, as it
were ex cathedra, without adducing any evidence, that the state-
ments of another writer are “ surprisingly erroneous”? But lin

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 329

my turn content myself with pointing out that, if my quotations
from Renan and Reuss had been incorrect, he could not only have
said so, but could have produced the correct quotations. But he
does not deny, as of course he can not, that Reuss, for example,
really states, as the mature result of his investigations, what I
quoted from him respecting St. Luke’s Gospel, namely, that it
was written by St. Luke and has reached us in its primitive form,
and, further, that St. Luke used a book written by St. Mark, the
disciple of St. Peter, and that this book in all probability com-
prised in its primitive form what we read in the present day from
Mark i, 21, to xiii, 37. These are the results of modern criticism
as stated by a biblical critic in whom Prof. Huxley expressed spe-
cial confidence. It was not therefore my statements of the results
of biblical criticism with which Prof. Huxley was confronted, but
Reuss’s statements; and, unless he can show that my quotation
was a false one, he ought to have had the candor to acknowledge
that Reuss, at least, is on these vital points dead against him.
Instead of any such frank admission, he endeavors to explain
away the force of his reference to Reuss. It may, he says, be well
for him

to observe that approbation of the manner in which a great biblical scholar—for
instance, Reuss—does his work does not conimit me to the adoption of all, or in-
deed of any, of his views; and, further, that the disagreements of a series of inves-
tigators do not in any way interfere with the fact that each of them has made
important contributions to the body of truth ultimately established.

But I beg to observe that Prof. Huxley did not appeal to
Reuss’s methods, but to Reuss’s results. He said that no retracta-
tion by M. Renan would sensibly affect “ the main results of bibli-
eal criticism as they are set forth im the works of Strauss, Baur,
Reuss, and Volkmar.” I have given him the results as set forth
by Reuss in Reuss’s own words, and all he has to offer in reply is
an ipse dixit in a foot-note and an evasion in the text of his
' article.

But, as I said, this general discussion respecting the authen-
ticity and credibility of the Gospels was an evasion of my argu-
ment, which rested upon the specific testimony of the Sermon on
| the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and the narrative of the Passion ;
)\ and, accordingly, in his present rejoinder Prof. Huxley, with
|: much protestation that he made no evasion, addressed himself to
| these three points. And what is his answer? I feel obliged to
|| characterize it as another evasion, and in one particular an eva-
ji sion of a flagrant kind. The main point of his argument is that
| from various circumstances, which I will presently notice more
particularly, there is much reason to doubt whether the Sermon
|| on the Mount was ever actually delivered in the form in which it

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is recorded in St. Matthew. He notices, for instance, the com-
bined similarity and difference between St. Matthew’s Sermon on
the Mount and St. Luke’s so-called “Sermon on the Plain,” and
then he adds:

I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the Gospels, to
say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these things. But how can any
one who does know them have the conscience to ask whether there is ‘‘ any reason-
able doubt ” that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth ?

It is a pity that Prof. Huxley seems as incapable of accuracy
in his quotations of an opponent’s words as in his references to
the authorities to whom he appeals. I did not ask “ whether
there is any reasonable doubt that the Sermon on the Mount was
preached by Jesus of Nazareth,’ and I expressly observed, in the
article to which Prof. Huxley is replying, that “Prof. Reuss
thinks, as many good critics have thought, that the Sermon on
the Mount combines various distinct utterances of our Lord.”
What I did ask, in words which Prof. Huxley quotes, and there-
fore had before his eyes, was “ whether there is any reasonable
doubt that the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount afford
a true account of our Lord’s essential belief and cardinal teach-
ing.” That is an absolutely distinct question from the one which
Prof. Huxley dissects, and a confusion of the two is peculiarly
inexcusable in a person who holds that purely human view of the
Gospel narratives which he represents. If a long report of a
speech appears in the “ Times” and a shortened report appears in
the “ Standard,” every one knows that we are none the less made
acquainted—perhaps made still better acquainted—with the essen-
tial purport and cardinal meaning of the speaker. On the sup-
position, similarly, that St. Matthew and St. Luke are simply givy-
ing two distinct accounts of the same address, with such omissions
and variations of order as suited the purposes of their respective
narratives, we are in at least as good a position for knowing what
was the main burden of the address as if we had only one account,
and perhaps in a better position, as we see what were the points
which both reporters deemed essential. As Prof. Huxley himself
observes, we have reports of speeches in ancient historians which
are certainly not in the very words of the speakers; yet no one
doubts that we know the main purport of the speeches of Pericles
which Thucydides records.

This attempt, therefore, to answer my appeal to the substance
of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is a palpable evasion, |
and it is aggravated by the manner in which Prof. Huxley quotes
a high German authority in support of his contention. I am
much obliged to him for appealing to Holtzmann; for, though
Holtzmann’s own conclusions respecting the books of the New

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 331

Testament seem to me often extravagantly skeptical and far-
fetched, and though I can not, therefore, quite agree with Prof.
Huxley that his “Lehrbuch” gives “a remarkably full and fair
account of the present results of criticism,” yet I agree that it
gives on the whole a full and fair account of the course of criti-
cism and of the opinions of its chief representatives. Instead,
therefore, of imitating Prof. Huxley, and pronouncing an ipse
dixit as to the state of criticism or the opinions of critics, I am
very glad to be able to refer to a book of which the authority is
recognized by him, and which will save both my readers and my-
self from embarking on the wide and waste ocean of the German
criticism of the last fifty years. “ Holtzmann, then,” says Prof.
Huxley in a note on page 489, “ has no doubt that the Sermon on the
Mount is a compilation, or, as he calls it in his recently published
‘Lehrbuch’ (p. 372), ‘an artificial mosaic work.’” Now, let the
reader attend to what Holtzmann really says in the passage re-
ferred to. His words are: “In the so-called Sermon on the Mount
(Matt. v—vii) we find constructed, on the basis of a real discourse
of fundamental significance, a skillfully articulated mosaic
work.”* The phrase was not so long a one that Prof. Huxley
need have omitted the important words by which those he quotes
are qualified. Holtzmann recognizes, as will be seen, that a real
discourse of fundamental significance underlies the Sermon on
the Mount. That is enough for my purpose; for no reasonable
person will suppose that the fundamental significance of the real
discourse has been entirely ‘obliterated, especially as the main
purport of the sermon in St. Luke is of the same character. But
Prof. Huxley must know perfectly well, as every one else does,
that he would be maintaining a paradox, in which every critic of
repute, to say nothing of every man of common sense, would be
against him,if he were to maintain that the Sermon on the Mount
does not give.a substantially correct idea of our Lord’s teaching.
But to admit this is to admit my point, so he rides off on a side
issue as to the question of the precise form in which the sermon
was delivered.

I must, however, take some notice of Prof. Huxley’s argument
on this irrelevant issue, as it affords a striking illustration of that
superior method of ratiocination in these matters on which he
prides himself. I need not trouble the reader much on the ques-
tions he raises as to the relations of the first three Gospels. Any
one who cares to see a full and thorough discussion of that diffi-
cult question, conducted with a complete knowledge of foreign
criticism on the subject, and at the same time marked by the
greatest lucidity and interest, may be referred to the admirable

* “Tn der sog. Bergpredigt, Mt. 5-1, gibt sich eine, auf Grund einer wirklichen Rede
von fundamentaler Bedeutung sich erhebende, kunstreich gegliederte Mosaikarbeit.”

a2 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY,

“Tntroduction to the New Testament,” by Dr. Salmon, who, like
Prof. Huxley, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and who became
eminent as one of the first mathematicians of Europe before he
became similarly eminent as a theologian. J am content here to
let Prof. Huxley’s assumptions pass, as I am only concerned to
illustrate the fallacious character of the reasoning he founds upon
them, He tells us, then, that—

there is now no doubt that the three synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work
of three independent writers, are closely interdependent, and that in one of two
ways. Either all three contain, as their foundation, versions, to a large extent
verbally identical, of one and the same tradition; or two of them are thus closely
dependent on the third; and the opinion of the majority of the best critics has, of
late years, more and more converged toward the conviction that our canonical
second Gospel (the so-called ‘‘ Mark’s” Gospel) is that which most closely repre-
sents the primitive groundwork of the three. That I take to be one of the most
valid results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably greater importance
than the discussion about dates and authorship. But if, as I believe to be the
case beyond any rational doubt or dispute, the second Gospel is the nearest extant
representative of the oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that
it contains neither the ‘‘Sermon on the Mount” nor the “ Lord’s Prayer,” those
typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the “‘ essential belief and cardinal
teaching” of Jesus?

I have quoted every word of this passage because I am anxious
for the reader to estimate the value of Prof. Huxley’s own state-
ment of his case. It is, as he says, the opinion of many critics of
authority that a certain fixed tradition, written or oral, was used
by the writers of the first three Gospels. In the first place, why
this should prevent those three Gospels from being the work of
“three independent writers” I am at a loss to conceive. If Mr.
Froude, the late Prof. Brewer, and the late Mr. Green each use
the Rolls Calendars of the reign of Henry VIII, I do not see that
this abolishes their individuality. Any historian who describes
the Peloponnesian War uses the memoirs of that war written by
Thucydides; but Bishop Thirlwall and Mr. Grote were, I presume,
independent writers. But to pass to a more important point, that
which is assumed is that the alleged tradition, written or oral,
was the groundwork of our first three Gospels, and it is, therefore,
older than they are. Let it be granted, for the sake of argument.
But how does this prove that the tradition in question is “the
oldest,” so that anything which was not in it is thereby discredit-
ed? It was, let us allow, an old tradition used by the writers of
the first three Gospels. But how does this fact raise the slightest
presumption against the probability that there were other tradi-
tions equally old which they might use with equal justification
so far as their scope required? Prof. Huxley alleges, and I do

not care to dispute the allegation, that the first three Gospels.

—_ —- = _— oo

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 333

embody a certain record older than themselves. But by what
right does he ask me to accept this as evidence, or as affording
even the slightest presumption, that there was no other? Be-
tween his allegation in one sentence that the second Gospel “ most
closely represents the primitive groundwork of the three,” and
his allegation, in the next sentence but one, that “the second
Gospel is the nearest extant representative of the oldest tradition,”
there is an absolute and palpable non sequitur. It isa mere juggle
of phrases, and upon this juggle the whole of his subsequent argu-
ment on this point depends. St. Mark’s Gospel may very well
represent the oldest tradition relative to the common matter of the
three, without, therefore, necessarily representing “the oldest tra-
dition” in such a sense as to be a touchstone for all other reports
of our Lord’s life. Prof. Huxley must know very well that from
the time of Schleiermacher many critics have believed in the ex-
istence of another document containing a collection of our Lord’s
discourses. Holtzmann concludes (“ Lehrbuch,” page 376) that
“ander all the circumstances the hypothesis of two sources offers
the most probable solution of the synoptical problem”; and it is
surely incredible that no old traditions of our Lord’s teaching
should have existed beyond those which are common to the three
Gospels. St. Luke, in fact, in that preface which Prof. Huxley
has no hesitation in using for his own purposes, says that “many
had taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those
things which are most surely believed among us”; but Prof.
Huxley asks us to assume that none of these records were old, and
none trustworthy, but that particular one which furnishes a sort
of skeleton to the first three Gospels. There is no evidence what-
ever, beyond Prof. Huxley’s private judgment, for such an assump-
tion. Nay, he himself tells us that, according to Holtzmann, it is
at present a “ burning question ” among critics “ whether the rela-
tively primitive narration and the root of the other synoptic texts
is contained in Matthew or in Mark.”* Yet while his own author-
ity tells him that this is a burning question, he treats it as settled
in favor of St. Mark, “beyond any rational doubt or dispute,” and
employs this assumption as sufficiently solid ground on which to
rest his doubts of the genuineness of the Sermon on the Mount
and the Lord’s Prayer!

But let us pass to another point in Prof. Huxley’s mode of
argument. Let us grant, again for the sake of argument, his non
sequitur that the second Gospel is the nearest extant representa-
tive of the oldest tradition. “How comes it,” he asks, “that it
contains neither the Sermon on the Mount nor the Lord’s Prayer ?”
Well, that is a very interesting inquiry, which has, in point of
fact, often been considered by Christian divines; and various

* “ Popular Science Monthly ” for June, 1889, p. 169.

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

answers are conceivable, equally reasonable and sufficient. If it
was St. Mark’s object to record our Lord’s acts rather than his
teaching, what right has Prof. Huxley, from his purely human
point of view, to find fault with him? If, from a Christian point
of view, St. Mark was inspired by a divine guidance to present
the most vivid, brief, and effective sketch possible of our Lord’s
action as a Saviour, and for that purpose to leave to another writer
the description of our Lord as a teacher, the phenomenon is not
less satisfactorily explained. St. Mark, according to that tradition
of the Church which Prof. Huxley believes to be quite worthless,
but which his authority Holtzmann does not, was in great meas-
ure the mouth-piece of St. Peter. Now, St. Peter is recorded in
the Acts of the Apostles, in his address to Cornelius, as summing
up our Lord’s life in these words: “ How God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about
doing good, and healing all who were oppressed of the devil; for
God was with him”; and this is very much the point of view
represented in St. Mark’s Gospel. When, in fact, Prof. Huxley
asks, in answer to Holtzmann, who is again unfavorable to his
views, “ What conceivable motive could Mark have for omitting
it?”* the answers that arise are innumerable. Perhaps, as has
been suggested, St. Mark was more concerned with acts than
words; perhaps he wanted to be brief; perhaps he was writing
for persons who wanted one kind of record and not another; and,
above all, perhaps it was not so much a question of “omission”
as of selection. It is really astonishing that this latter considera-
tion never seems to cross the mind of Prof. Huxley and writers
like him. The Gospels are among the briefest biographies in the
world. I have sometimes thought that there is evidence of some-
thing superhuman about them in the mere fact that, while human
biographers labor through volumes in order to give us some idea
of their subject, every one of the Gospels, occupying no more than
a chapter or two in length of an ordinary biography, nevertheless
gives us an image of our Lord sufficiently vivid to have made him
the living companion of all subsequent generations. But if “the
gospel of Jesus Christ ” was to be told within the compass of the
sixteen chapters of St. Mark, some selection had to be made out of
the mass of our Lord’s words and deeds as recorded by the tradi-
tion of those “who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and
ministers of the word.” The very greatness and effectiveness of
these four Gospels consist in this wonderful power of selection,
like that by which a great artist depicts a character and a figure
in half a dozen touches; and Prof. Huxley may, perhaps, to put
the matter on its lowest level, find out a conceivable motive for St.
Mark’s omissions when he can produce such an effective narrative
* “Popular Science Monthly ” for June, 1889, p. 171.

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 335

as St. Mark’s. As St. John says at the end of his Gospel, “ There
are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they
should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written.” So St. John,
like St. Mark, had to make his selection, and selection involves
omission.

But, after all, I venture to ask whether anything can be more
preposterous than this supposition that because a certain tradition
is the oldest authority, therefore every other authority is discred-
ited ? Boswell writes a life of Johnson; therefore every record of
Johnson’s acts or words which is not in Boswell is to be suspected.
Carlyle writes a life of Sterling first, and Archdeacon Hare writes
one afterward; therefore nothing in the archdeacon’s life is to be
trusted which was not also in Carlyle’s. What seems to me so
astonishing about Prof. Huxley’s articles is not the wildness of
their conclusions, but the rottenness of their ratiocination. To
take another instance :

Luke either knew the collection of loosely connected and aphoristic utterances
which appear under the name of the ‘‘ Sermon on the Mount” in “‘ Matthew,” or
he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of the existence of such a
document as our canonical “‘ Matthew,” a fact which does not make for the genu-
ineness or the authority of that book. If he did, he has shown that he does not
care for its authority on a matter of fact of no small importance ; and that does
not permit us to conceive that he believed the first Gospel to be the work of an
authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic eye-witness.

I pass by the description of the Sermon on the Mount as a
“collection of loosely connected utterances,” though it is a kind
of begging of a very important question. But supposing St. Luke
to have been ignorant of the existence of St. Matthew’s Gospel,
how does this reflect on the genuinéness of that book unless we
know, as no one does, that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written
before St. Luke’s, and sufficiently long before it to have become
known to him? Or, if he did know it, where is the disrespect to
its authority in his having given for his own purposes an abridg-
ment of that which St. Matthew gave more fully ? Prof. Huxley
might almost seem dominated by the mechanical theory of inspi-
ration which he denounces in his antagonists. He writes as if
there were something absolutely sacred, neither to be altered nor
added to,in the mere words of some old authority of which he
conceives himself to be in possession. Dr. Abbott, with admirable
labor, has had printed for him, in clear type, the words or bits of
words which are common to the first three Gospels, and he seems
immediately to adopt the anathema of the book of Revelation, and
to proclaim to every man, evangelists and apostles included, “if
any man shall add unto these things, ... and if any man shall
take away from the words” of this “common tradition” of Dr.

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Abbott, he shall be forthwith scientifically excommunicated. I
venture to submit, as a mere matter of common sense, that if
three persons used one document, it is the height of rashness to
conclude that it contained nothing but what they all three quote;
that it is not only possible but probable that, while certain parts
were used by all, each may have used some parts as suitable to his
own purpose which the others did not find suitable to theirs; and,
lastly, that the fact of there having been one such document in
existence is so far from being evidence that there were no others,
that it even creates some presumption that there were. In short,
I must beg leave to represent, not so much that Prof. Huxley’s
conclusions are wrong, but that there is absolutely no validity in
the reasoning by which he endeavors to support them. It is not, .
in fact, reasoning at all, but mere presumption and guess-work,
inconsistent, moreover, with all experience and common sense.

Of course, if Prof. Huxley’s quibbles against the Sermon on
the Mount go to pieces, so do his cavils at the authenticity of the
Lord’s Prayer; and, indeed, on these two points I venture to think
that the case for which I was contending is carried by the mere
fact that it seems necessary to Prof. Huxley’s position to dispute
them. If he can not maintain his ground without pushing his
agnosticism to such a length as to deny the substantial genuine-
ness of the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer, I think
he will be found to have allowed enough to satisfy reasonable
men that his case must be a bad one. I shall not, therefore, waste
more time on these points, as I must say something on his strange
treatment of the third point in the evangelical records to which I
referred, the story of the Passion. It is really difficult to take
seriously what he says on this subject. He says:

I am not quite sure what Dr. Wace means by this—I am not aware that any
one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics) has propounded doubts as to
the reality of the crucifixion; and certainly I have no inclination to argue about
the precise accuracy of every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong.
But if Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that which, according to the
orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a dogmatic sense,
the most important part of the story, is founded on solid historical proofs, I must
beg leave to express a diametrically opposite conviction.

Prof. Huxley is not quite sure what I mean by the story of the
Passion, but supposes I mean the story of the resurrection! It is
barely credible that he can have supposed anything of the kind;
but by this gratuitous supposition he has again evaded the issue
I proposed to him, and has shifted the argument to another topic
which, however important in itself, is entirely irrelevant to the
particular point in question. If he really supposed that when I
said the Passion I meant the resurrection, it is only another proof
of his incapacity for strict argument, at least on these subjects.

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 239

I not only used the expression “the story of the Passion,” but I
explicitly stated in my reply to him for what purpose I appealed
to it. Isaid that “that story involves the most solemn attesta-
tion, again and again, of truths of which an agnostic coolly says
he knows nothing”; and I mentioned particularly our Lord’s
final utterance, “ Father, into thy hands I commend wy spirit,” as
conveying our Lord’s attestation in his death agony to his rela-
tion to God as his Father. That exclamation is recorded by St.
Luke; but let me remind the reader of what is recorded by St.
Mark, upon whom Prof, Huxley mainly relies. There we have
the account of the agony in Gethsemane and of our Lord’s prayer
to his Father; we have the solemn challenge of the high priest,
“Art thou the Christ, the son of the Blessed ?” and our Lord’s reply,

. “Tam; and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand
of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” with his imme-
diate condemnation, on the ground that in this statement he had
spoken blasphemy. On the cross, moreover, St. Mark records his
affecting appeal to his Father, “ My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?” All this solemn evidence Prof. Huxley puts aside
with the mere passing observation that he has “no inclination to
argue about the precise accuracy of every detail of that pathetic
story of suffering and wrong.” But these prayers and decla-
rations of our Lord are not mere details; they are of the very
essence of the story of the Passion; and, whether Prof. Huxley is
inclined to argue about them or not, he will find that all serious
people will be influenced by them to the end of time, unless they
can be shown to be unhistorical.

At all events, by refusing to consider their import, Prof. Hux-
ley has again, in the most flagrant manner, evaded my challenge.
I not only mentioned specifically “the story of the Passion,” but I
explained what I meant by it; and Prof. Huxley asks us to be-
lieve that he does not understand what I referred to; he refuses

to face that story; and he raises an irrelevant issue about the
‘resurrection, It is irrelevant, because the point specifically at
issue between us is not the truth of the Christian creed, but the
meaning of agnosticism, and the responsibilities which agnosti-
cism involves. I say that whether agnosticism be justifiable or
not, it involves a denial of the beliefs in which Jesus lived and died.
It would equally involve a denial of them had he never risen; and
if Prof. Huxley really thinks, therefore, that a denial of the resur-
rection affects the evidence afforded by the Passion, he must be
incapable of distinguishing between two successive and entirely
| distinct occurrences.

But the manner in which Prof. Huxley has treated this irrele-

vant issue deserves perhaps a few words, for it is another charac-

| teristic specimen of his mode of argument. I note, by the way,
VOL, XXXV.—22

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that, after referring to “the facts of the case as stated by the old-
est extant narrative of them”—he means the story in St. Mark,
though this is not a part of that common tradition of the three
Gospels on which. he relies; for, as he observes, the accounts in
St. Matthew and St. Luke present marked variations from it—
he adds:

I do not see why any one should have a word to say against the inherent proba-
bility of that narrative; and, for my part, I am quite ready to accept it as an
historical fact, that so much and no more is positively known of the end of
Jesus of Nazareth.

We have, then, the important admission that Prof. Huxley has
not a word to say against the historic credibility of the narrative
in the fifteenth chapter of St. Mark, and accordingly he proceeds -
to quote its statements for the purpose of his argument. That
argument, in brief, is that our Lord might very well have sur-
vived his crucifixion, have been removed still living to the tomb,
have been taken out of it on the Friday or Saturday night by
Joseph of Arimathea, and have recovered and found his way to -
Galilee. So much Prof. Huxley is prepared to believe, and he
asks “on what grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe
any more?” Buta prior question is on what grounds can a rea-
sonable man be asked to believe as much as this? In the first
place, if St. Mark’s narrative is to be the basis of discussion, why
does Prof. Huxley leave out of account the scourging, with the
indication of weakness in our Lord’s inability to bear his cross,
and treat him as exposed to crucifixion in the condition simply of
“temperate, strong men, such as the ordinary Galilean peasants
were”? In the next place, I am informed by good medical au-
thority that he is quite mistaken in saying that “no serious phys-
ical symptoms need at once arise from the wounds made by the
nails in the hands and feet,” and that, on the contrary, very grave
symptoms would ordinarily arise in the course of no long time
from such severe wounds, left to fester, with the nails in them,
for six hours. In the third place, Prof. Huxley takes no account
of the piercing of our Lord’s side, and of the appearance of blood
and water from the wound, which is solemnly attested by one wit-
ness. It is true that incident is not recorded by St. Mark; but
Prof. Huxley must disprove the witness before he can leave it out
of account. But, lastly, if Prof. Huxley’s account of the matter
be true, the first preaching of the church must have been founded
on a deliberate fraud, of which some at least of our Lord’s most
intimate friends were guilty, or to which they were accessory ; and
I thought that supposition was practically out of account among
reasonable men. Prof. Huxley argues as if he had only to deal
with the further evidence of St. Paul. That, indeed, is evidence

4
]

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 339

of a far more momentous nature than he recognizes; but it is by
no means the most important. It is beyond question that the
Christian society, from the earliest moment of its existence, be-
lieved in our Lord’s resurrection. Baur frankly says that there
is no doubt about the church having been founded on this belief,
though he can not explain how the belief arose. If the resurrec-

‘tion be a fact, the belief is explained; but it is certainly not ex-

plained by the supposition of a fraud on the part of Joseph of Ari-
mathea, As to Prof. Huxley’s assertion that the accounts in the
three Gospels are “hopelessly discrepant,” it is easily made and as
easily denied; but it is out of all reason that Prof. Huxley’s bare
assertion on such a point should outweigh the opinions of some
of the most learned judges of evidence, who have thought no such
thing. It would be absurd to attempt to discuss that momentous
story as a side issue in a review. It is enough to have pointed out
that Prof. Huxley discusses it without even taking into account
the statements of the very narrative on which he relies, The man-
ner in which he sets aside St. Paul is equally reckless:

According to his own showing, Paul, in the vigor of his manhood, with every
means of becoming acquainted, at first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses,
not merely refused to credit them, but “‘ persecuted the Church of God and made
havoc of it.” . . . Yet this strange man, because he has a vision one day, at once,
and with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion.

“A vision!” The whole question is, what vision? How can
Prof. Huxley be sure that no vision could be of such a nature as
to justify a man in acting on it? If, as we are told, our Lord
personally appeared to St. Paul, spoke to him, and gave him spe-
cific commands, was he to disbelieve his own eyes and ears, as
well as his own conscience, and go up to Jerusalem to cross-
examine Peter and John and James? If the vision was a real
one he was at once under orders, and had to obey our Lord’s
injunctions. It is, to say the least, rash, if not presumptuous,
for Prof. Huxley to declare that such a vision as St. Paul had
would not have convinced him; and, at all events, the question is
not disposed of by calling the manisfestation “a vision.” Two
things are certain about St. Paul. One is that he was in the con-
fidence of the Pharisees, and was their trusted agent in persecut-
ing the Christians; and the other is that he was afterward in the
confidence of the apostles, and knew all their side of the case. He
holds, therefore, the unique position of having had equal access
to all that would be alleged on both sides; and the result is that,
being fully acquainted with all that the Pharisees could urge
against the resurrection, he nevertheless gave up his whole life to
attesting its truth, and threw in his lot, at the cost of martyrdom,
with those whom he had formerly persecuted. Prof. Huxley re-
minds us that he did alli this in the full vigor of manhood, and in

340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spite of strong and even violent prejudices. This is not a witness
to be put aside in Prof. Huxley’s off-hand manner.

But the strangest part of Prof. Huxley’s article remains to be
noticed; and, so far as the main point at issue between us is con-
cerned, I need hardly have noticed anything else. He proceeds
to a long and intricate discussion, quite needless, as I think, for ~
his main object, respecting the relations between the Nazarenes,
Ebionites, Jewish and Gentile Christians, first in the time of Jus-
tin Martyr and then of St. Paul. Into this discussion, in the
course of which he makes assumptions which, as Holtzmann will
tell him, are as much questioned by the German criticism on
which he relies as by English theologians, it is unnecessary for
me to follow him. The object of it is to establish a conclusion,
which is all with which I am concerned. That conclusion is
that “if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speak were
orthodox Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus
was anything else?” * But what more is necessary for the pur-
pose of my argument? To say, indeed, that this a priori proba-
bility places us “in a position to form a safe judgment of the
limits within which the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth must have
‘been confined,” is to beg a great question, for it assumes that
our Lord could not have transcended those limits unless his dis-
ciples transcended them simultaneously with him. But if our
Lord’s beliefs were those of an orthodox Jew, we certainly know
enough of them to be quite sure that they involved a denial of
Prof. Huxley’s agnosticism. An orthodox Jew certainly believed
in God, and in his responsibility to God, and in a divine revela-
tion and a divine law. It is, says Prof. Huxley, “extremely prob-
able” that he appealed “to those noble conceptions of religion
which constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great
prophets of his nation seven hundred years earlier.” But, if so,
his first principles involved the assertion of religious realities
which an agnostic refuses to acknowledge. Prof. Huxley has, in
fact, dragged his readers through this thorny question of Jewish
and Gentile Christianity in order to establish, at the end of it,
and, as it seems, quite unconsciously, an essential part of the very
allegation which I originally made. I said that a person who
“knows nothing” of God asserts the belief of Jesus of Nazareth
to have been unfounded, repudiates his example, and denies his
authority. Prof. Huxley, in order to answer this contention,
offers to prove, with great elaboration, that Jesus was an ortho-
dox Jew, and consequently that his belief did involve what an
agnostic rejects. How much beyond these elementary truths
Jesus taught is a further and a distinct question. What I was
concerned to maintain is that a man can not be an agnostic with

* “Popular Science Monthly” for June, 1889, p. 184.

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 341

respect to even the elementary truths of religion without reject-
ing the example and authority of Jesus Christ; and Prof. Hux-
ley, though he still endeavors to avoid facing the fact, has estab-
lished it by a roundabout method of his own.

I suppose I must also reply to Prof. Huxley’s further challenge
respecting my belief in the story of the Gadarene swine, though
the difficulty of which he makes so much seems to me too trivial
to deserve serious notice. He says “there are two stories, one in
‘Mark’ and ‘ Luke,’ and the other in ‘Matthew.’ In the former
there is one possessed man, in the latter there are two,” and he
asks me which I believe? My answer is that I believe both, and
that the supposition of there being any inconsistency between
them can only arise on that mechanical view of inspiration from
which Prof. Huxley seems unable to shake himself free. Cer-
tainly “the most unabashed of reconcilers can not well say that
one man is the same as two, or two as one”; but no one need be
abashed to say that the greater number includes the less, and that
if two men met our Lord, one certainly did. If I go into the oper-
ating theatre of King’s College Hospital, and see an eminent sur-
geon perform a new or rare operation on one or two patients, and
if I tell a friend afterward that I saw the surgeon perform such
and such an operation on a patient, will he feel in any perplexity
if he meets another spectator half an hour afterward who says he
saw the operation performed on two patients? All that I should
have been thinking of was the nature of the operation, which is
as well described by reference to one patient as to half a dozen;
and similarly St. Mark and St. Luke may have thought that the
only important point was the nature of the miracle itself, and not
the number of possessed men who were the subjects of it. It is
quite unnecessary, therefore, for me to consider all the elaborate
dilemmas in which Prof. Huxley would entangle me respecting
the relative authority of the first three Gospels. As two includes
one, and as both witnesses are in my judgment equally to be
trusted, I adopt the supposition which includes the statements of
both. It is a pure assumption that inspiration requires verbal
accuracy in the reporting of every detail, and an assumption quite
inconsistent with our usual tests of truth. Just as no miracle has
saved the texts of the Scriptures from corruption in secondary
points, sono miracle has been wrought to exclude the ordinary
variations of truthful reporters in the Gospel narratives. But a
miracle, in my belief, has been wrought in inspiring four men to
give, within the compass of their brief narratives, such a picture
of the life and work and teaching, of the death and resurrection,
of the Son of man as to illuminate all human existence for the
future, and to enable men “ to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and
believing to have life through his name.”

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is with different feelings from those which Prof. Huxley
provokes that I turn for a while to Mrs. Humphrey Ward’s article
on “The New Reformation.” Since he adopts that article as a
sufficient confutation of mine, I feel obliged to notice it, though
I am sorry to appear in any position of antagonism to its author,
Apart from other considerations, I am under much obligation to
Mrs. Ward for the valuable series of articles which she contrib-
uted to the “ Dictionary of Christian Biography ” under my editor-
ship, upon the obscure but interesting history of the Goths in
Spain. I trust that, in her account of the effect upon Robert Hls-
mere and Merriman of absorption in that barbarian scene, she is
not describing her own experience and the source of her own aber-
rations. But I feel especially bound to treat her argument with
consideration, and to waive any opposition which can be avoided.
I am sorry that she, too, questions the possibility in this country
of “a scientific, that is to say, an unprejudiced, an unbiased study |
of theology, under present conditions,” and I should have hoped
that she would have had too much confidence in her colleagues in
the important work to which I refer than to cast this slur upon
them. Their labors have, in fact, been received with sufficient
appreciation by German scholars of all schools to render their
vindication unnecessary; and if Prof. Huxley can extend his
study of German theological literature much beyond Zeller’s
“Vortrage” of “a quarter of a century ago,” or Ritschl’s writings
of “nearly forty years ago,” he will not find himself countenanced
by church historians in Germany in his contempt for the recent
contributions of English scholars to early church history. How-
ever, it is the more easy for me to waive all differences of this
nature with Mrs. Ward, because it is unnecessary for me to look
beyond her article for its own refutation. Her main contention,
or that at least for which Prof. Huxley appeals to her, seems to
be that it is a mistake to suppose that the rationalistic movement
of Germany has been defeated in the sphere of New Testament
criticism, and she selects more particularly for her protest a recent
statement in the “ Quarterly Review” that this criticism, and par-
ticularly the movement led by Baur, is “an attack which has
failed.” The Quarterly Reviewer may be left to take care of him-
self; but I would only ask what is the evidence which Mrs. Ward
adduces to the contrary ? It may be summed up in two words—
a prophecy and a romance. She does not adduce any evidence
that the Tiibingen school, which is the one we are chiefly con-
cerned with, did not fail to establish its specific contentions; on
the contrary, she says that “history protested,” and she goes on
to prophesy the success of other speculations which arose from
that protest, concluding with an imaginary sketch, like that with
which “ Robert Elsmere ” ends, of a “new Reformation preparing, —

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 343

struggling into utterance and being, all around us... . It is close
upon us—it is prepared by all the forces of history and mind—its
rise sooner or later is inevitable.” This is prophesy, but it is not
argument; and a little attention to Mrs. Ward’s own statements
will exhibit a very different picture. The Christian representa-
tive in her dialogue exclaims:

What is the whole history of German criticism but a series of brilliant failures,
from Strauss downward? One theorist follows another—now Mark is uppermost
as the Ur-Evangelist, now Matthew—now the Synoptics are sacrificed to St. John,
now St. John to the Synoptics.. Baur relegates one after another of the Epistles
to the second century because his theory can not do with them in the first. Har-
nack tells you that Baur’s theory is all wrong, and that Thessalonians and Philip-
pians must go back again. Volkmar sweeps together Gospels and Epistles in a
heap toward the middle of the second century as the earliest date for almost all of
them; and Dr. Abbott, who, as we are told, has absorbed all the learning of the
Germans, puts Mark before 70 a.p., Matthew just about 70 a.p., and Luke about
80 a.p.; Strauss’s mythical theory is dead and buried by common consent; Baur’s
tendency theory is much the same; Renan will have none of the Tubingen school ;
Volkmar is already antiquated; and Pfleiderer’s fancies are now in the order of the
day.

A better statement could hardly be wanted of what is meant
by an attack having failed, and now let the reader observe how
Merriman in the dialogue meets it. Does he deny any of those
allegations ? Not one. “ Very well,” he says, “let us leave the
matter there for the present. Suppose we go to the Old Testa-
ment”; and then he proceeds to dwell on the concessions made
to the newest critical school of Germany by a few distinguished
English divines at the last Church Congress. I must, indeed, dis-
pute her representation of that rather one-sided debate as amount-
ing to “a collapse of English orthodoxy,” or as justifying her state-
ment that “the Church of England practically gives its verdict”
in favor, for instance, of the school which regards the Pentateuch
or the Hexateuch as “the peculiar product of that Jewish relig-
ious movement which, beginning with Josiah,. . . yields its final
fruits long after the exile.” Not only has the Church of England
given no such verdict, but German criticism has as yet given no
such verdict. For example, in the introduction to the Old Tes-
tament by one of the first Hebrew scholars of Germany, Prof.
Hermann Strack, contained in the valuable “Hand-book of the
» Theological Sciences,” edited, with the assistance of several distin-
guished scholars, by Prof. Zéchler, I find, at page 215 of the third
edition, published this year, the following brief summary of what,
in Dr. Strack’s opinion, is the result of the controversy so far:

The future results of further labors in the field of Pentateuch criticism can not,
of course, be predicted in particulars. But, in spite of the great assent which the
view of Graf and Wellhausen at present enjoys, we are nevertheless convinced that
it will not permanently lead to any essential alteration in the conception which has

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hitherto prevailed of the history of Israel, and in particular of the work of Moses.
On the other hand, one result will certainly remain, that the Pentateuch was not
composed by Moses himself, but was compiled by later editors from various origi-
nal sources. . . . But the very variety of these sources may be applied in favor of
the credibility of the Pentateuch.

In other words, it may be said that Dr. Strack regards it as estab-
lished that “'The Law of Moses” is a title of the same character
as “The Psalms of David,” the whole collection being denominated
from its principal author. But he is convinced that the general
conclusions of the prevalent school of Old Testament criticism,
which involve an entire subversion of our present conceptions of
Old Testament history, will not be maintained. In the face of
this opinion, it does not seem presumptuous to express an appre-
hension that the younger school of Hebrew scholars in England,
of whose concessions Mrs. Ward makes so much, have gone too
far and too fast; and, at all events, it is clear from what Dr. Strack
says—and I might quote also Delitzsch and Dillmann—that it is
much too soon to assume that the school of whose conquests Mrs.
Ward boasts is supreme. But, even supposing it were, what has
this to do with the admitted and undoubted failures on the other
side, in the field of New Testament criticism? If it be the fact,
as Mrs. Ward does not deny, that not only Strauss’s but Baur’s
theories and conclusions are now rejected ; if it has been proved
that Baur was entirely wrong in supposing the greater part of the
New Testament books were late productions, written with a con-
troversial purpose, what is the use of appealing to the alleged
success of the German critics in another field? If Baur is con-
futed, he is confuted, and there is an end of his theories; though
he may have been useful, as rash theorizers have often been, in
stimulating investigation. In the same valuable hand-book of
Dr. Zéchler’s, already quoted, I find, under the “ History of the
Science of Introduction to the New Testament,” the heading (page
15, vol. i, part 2), “Result of the controversy and end of the
Tiibingen school.”

The Tubingen school (the writer concludes, p. 20) could not but fall as soon
as its assumptions were recognized and given up. As Hilgenfeld confesses, ‘it
went to an unjustifiable length, and inflicted too deep wounds on the Christian
faith. ... No enduring results in matters of substance have been produced
by it.”

Such is the judgment of an authoritative German hand-book
on the writer to whom, in Merriman’s opinion, “ we owe all that we
really know at the present moment about the New Testament,” as
though the Christian thought and life of eighteen hundred years
had produced no knowledge on that subject!

In fact, Mrs. Ward’s comparison seems to me to point in exactly
the opposite direction :

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 345

I say to myself (says her spokesman, p. 466) it has taken some thirty years for
German critical science to conquer English opinion in the matter of the Old Testa-
ment. . . . How much longer will it take before we feel the victory of the same
science . . . with regard to the history of Christian origins?

Remembering that the main movement of New Testament criti-
cism in Germany dates not thirty, but more than fifty years back,
and that thirty years ago Baur’s school enjoyed the same applause
in Germany as that of Wellhausen does now, does it not seem
more in conformity with experience and with probability to an-
ticipate that, as the Germans themselves, with longer experi-
ence, find they had been too hasty in following Baur, so with an
equally long experience they may find they have been similarly
too hasty in accepting Wellhausen ? The fever of revolutionary
criticism on the New Testament was at its height after thirty
years, and the science has subsided into comparative health after
twenty more. The fever of the revolutionary criticism of the Old
Testament is now at its height, but the parallel suggests a similar
return to a more sober and common-sense state of mind. The
most famous name, in short, of German New Testament criticism
is now associated with exploded theories; and we are asked to
shut our eyes to this undoubted fact because Mrs. Ward prophe-
sies a different fate for the name now most famous in Old Testa-
ment criticism. I prefer the evidence of established fact to that
of romantic prophecy.

But these observations suggest another consideration, which
has a very important bearing on that general disparagement of
English theology and theologians which Prof. Huxley expresses
so offensively, and which Mrs. Ward encourages. She and Prof.
Huxley talk as if German theology were all rationalistic and Eng-
lish theology alone conservative. Prof. Huxley invites his readers
to study in Mrs. Ward’s article

the results of critical investigation as it is carried out among those theologians
who are men of science and not mere counsel for creeds ;

and he appeals to

the works of scholars and theologians of the highest repute in the only two coun-
tries, Holland and Germany, in which, at the present time, professors of theology
are to be found, whose tenure of their posts does not depend upon the results to
which their inquiries lead them.

Well, passing over the insult to theologians in all other countries,
what is the consequence of this freedom in Germany itself ? Is it
seen that all learned and distinguished theologians in that coun-
try are of the opinions of Prof. Huxley and Mrs. Ward? The
quotations I have given will serve to illustrate the fact that the
exact contrary is the case. If any one wants vigorous, learned,

| and satisfactory answers to Prof. Huxley and Mrs. Ward, Ger-

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

many is the best place to which he can go for them. The profess-
ors and theologians of Germany who adhere substantially to the
old Christian faith are at least as numerous, as distinguished, as
learned, as laborious, as those who adhere to skeptical opinions,
What is, by general consent, the most valuable and comprehensive
work on Christian theology and church history which the last
two generations of German divines have produced ? Herzog’s
“ Real-Encyclopadie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kirche,”
of which the second edition, in eighteen large volumes, was com-
pleted about a year ago. But it is edited and written in harmony
with the general belief of Protestant Christians. Who have done
the chief exegetical work of the last two generations? On the
rationalistic side, though not exclusively so, is the “ Kurzgefasstes
exegetisches Handbuch,” in which, however, at the present time,
Dillmann represents an opposition to the view of Wellhausen
respecting the Pentateuch ; but on the other side we have Meyer
on the New Testament—almost the standard work on the subject
—Keil and Delitzsch on the Old Testament and a great part of
the New, Lange’s immense “ Bibelwerk,” and the valuable “ Kurz-
gefasster Kommentar” on the whole Scripture, including the
Apocrypha, now in course of publication under the editorship of
Profs. Strack and Zéckler. The Germans have more time for
theoretical investigations than English theologians, who generally
have a great deal of practical work to do; and German professors,
in their numerous universities, in great measure live by them.
But it was by German theologians that Baur was refuted ; it is
by German Hebraists like Strack that Wellhausen and Kuenen
are now being best resisted. When Prof. Huxley and Mrs. Ward
would leave an impression that, because German theological
chairs are not shackled by articles like our own, therefore the
best German thought and criticism is on the rationalistic side,
they are conveying an entirely prejudiced representation of the
facts. The effect of the German system is to make everything an
open question; as though there were no such thing as a settled
system of the spiritual universe, and no established facts in Chris-
tian history; and thus to enable any man of great ability with
a skeptical turn to unsettle a generation and leave the edifice of
belief to be built up again. But the edifice is built up again, and
Germans take as large a part in rebuilding it as in undermining
it. Because Prof. Huxley and Mrs. Ward can quote great German
names on one side, let it not be forgotten that just as able German
names can be quoted on the other side. Take, for instance, Har-
nack, to whom Mrs. Ward appeals, and whose “ History of Dog-
mas” Prof. Huxley quotes. Harnack himself, in reviewing the
history of his science, pays an honorable tribute to the late emi-

nent divine, Thomasius, whose “History of Dogmas” has just

3
a

CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 347

been republished after his death, and who wrote in the devoutest
spirit of the Lutheran communion. Of course, Harnack regards
his point of view as narrow and unsatisfactory ; but he adds that,
“equally great are the valuable qualities of this work in partic-
ular, in regard of its exemplarily clear exposition, its eminent
learning, and the author’s living comprehension of religious prob-
lems.” A man who studies the history of Christian theology in
Harnack without reference to Thomasius will do no justice to his
subject.

But, says Mrs. Ward, there is no real historical apprehension
in the orthodox writers, whether of Germany or England, and the
whole problem is one of “historical translation.” Every state-
ment, every apparent miracle, everything different from daily
experience, must be translated into the language of that experi-
ence, or else we have not got real history. But this, it will be ob-
served, under an ingenious disguise, is only the old method of
assuming that nothing really miraculous can have happened, and
that therefore everything which seems supernatural must be ex-
plained away into the natural. In other words, it is once more
begging the whole question at issue. Mrs. Ward accuses ortho-
dox writers of this fallacy; but it is really her own. Merriman
is represented as saying that he learned from his Oxford teachers
that
it was imperatively right to endeavor to disentangle miracle from history, the
marvelous from the real, in a document of the fourth, or third, or second century ;
. . . but the contents of the New Testament, however marvelous and however
apparently akin to what surrounds them on either side, were to be treated from
an entirely different point of view. In the one case there must be a desire on
the part of the historian to discover the historical under the miraculous, ... in
the other case there must be a desire, a strong “affection,” on the part of the
theologian, toward proving the miraculous to be historical.

Mrs. Ward has entirely mistaken the point of view of Chris-
tian science. Certainly if any occurrence anywhere can be ex-
plained by natural causes, there is a strong presumption that it
ought to be so explained; for, though a natural effect may be due
in a given case to supernatural action, it is a fixed rule of philoso-
phizing, according to Newton, that we should not assume un-
known causes when known ones suffice. But the whole case of the
Christian reasoner is that the records of the New Testament defy
any attempt to explain them by natural causes. The German
critics Hase, Strauss, Baur, Hausrath, Keim, all have made the
attempt, and each, in the opinion of the others, and finally of
Pfleiderer, has offered an insufficient solution of the problem.
The case of the Christian is not that the evidence ought not to be
explained naturally and translated into every-day experience, but
that it can not be. But it is Mrs. Ward who assumes beforehand

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that simply because the “ Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,”
by that learned scholar and able writer, Dr. Edersheim, whose
recent loss is so much to be deplored, does not “translate” all the
Gospel narratives into natural occurrences, therefore it is essen-
tially bad history. The story has been the same throughout.
The whole German critical school, from the venerable Karl Hase
—and, much as I differ from his conclusions, I can not mention
without a tribute of respect and gratitude the name of that great
scholar, the veteran of all these controversies, whose “ Leben
Jesu,” published several years before Strauss was heard of, is
still, perhaps, the most valuable book of reference on the subject
—all, from that eminent man downward, have, by their own re-
peated confession, started from the assumption that the miracu-
lous is impossible, and that the Gospels must, by some device or
other, be so interpreted as to explain it away. “ Affection” there
is and ought to be in orthodox writers for venerable, profound,
and consoling beliefs; but they start from no such invincible
prejudice, and they are pledged by their principles to accept
whatever interpretation may be really most consonant with the
facts.

I have only one word to say, finally, in reply to Prof. Huxley.
I am very glad to hear that he has always advocated the reading
of the Bible and the diffusion of its study among the people; but
I must say that he goes to work in a very strange way in order
to promote this result. If he could succeed in persuading peo-
ple that the Gospels are untrustworthy collections of legends,
made by unknown authors, that St. Paul’s epistles were the
writings of “a strange man,” who had no sound capacity for judg-
ing of evidence, or, with Mrs. Ward’s friends, that the Pentateuch
is a late forgery of Jewish scribes, Ido not think the people at
large would be likely to follow his well-meant exhortations. But
I venture to remind him that the English Church has anticipated
his anxiety in this matter. Three hundred years ago, by one of
the greatest strokes of real government ever exhibited, the pub-
lic reading of the whole Bible was imposed upon Englishmen;
and by the public reading of the lessons on Sunday alone, the
chief portions of the Bible, from first to last, have become stamped
upon the minds of English-speaking people in a degree in which,
as the Germans themselves acknowledge,* they are far behind us.
He has too much reason for his lament over the melancholy
spectacle presented by the intestine quarrels of churchmen over
matters of mere ceremonial. But when he argues from this that
_ the clergy of our day “can have but little sympathy with the old
evangelical doctrine of the ‘open Bible,” he might have remem-
bered that our own generation of English divines has, by the

* See the preface to Riehm’s “ Handworterbuch.”

AN EXPLANATION TO PROF. HUXLEY. 349

labor of years, endeavored at all events, whether successfully or
not, to place the most correct version possible of the Holy Script-
ures in the hands of the English people. I agree with him most
cordially in seeing in the wide diffusion and the unprejudiced
study of that sacred volume the best security for “true religion
and sound learning.” It isin the open Bible of England, in the
general familiarity of all classes of Englishmen and English-
women with it, that the chief obstacle has been found to the
spread of the fantastic critical theories by which he is fascinated ;
and, instead of Englishmen translating the Bible into the lan-
guage of their natural experiences, it will in the future, as in the
past, translate them and their experiences into a higher and a
supernatural region.— Nineteenth Century.

————_——$¢0¢——__—__——

AN EXPLANATION TO PROF. HUXLEY.

By W. C. McGEE, Bisnor or PETERBOROUGH.

|e the February number of this review Prof. Huxley put into

the mouth of Mr. Frederic Harrison the following sentence:
“In his [the agnostic’s] place, as a sort of navvy leveling the
ground and cleansing it of such poor stuff as Christianity, he is a
useful creature who deserves patting on the back—on condition
that he does not venture beyond his last.” The construction
which I put upon these words—and of which I still think them
quite capable—was that the professor meant to represent Mr.
Harrison and himself as agreed upon the proper work of the
agnostic, and as differing only as to whether he might or might
not “venture beyond” that. On this supposition, my inference
that he had called Christianity “sorry,” or, as I ought to have
said, “poor stuff” (the terms are, of course, equivalent), would
have been perfectly correct.

On re-reading the sentence in question, however, in connection
with its context, I see that it may more correctly be regarded as
altogether ironical; and this, from the professor’s implied denial
in his last article of the correctness of my version, I conclude that
he intended it to be. I accordingly at once withdraw my state-
ment, and express my regret for having made it. May I plead,
however, as some excuse for my mistake, that this picture of him-
self when engaged in his agnostic labors is so wonderfully accu-
rate and life-like that I might almost be pardoned for taking for
a portrait what was only meant for a caricature, or for supposing
that he had expressed in so many words the contempt which dis-
oa itself in so many of his utterances respecting the Christian

aith ?

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, ©

Nevertheless I gladly admit that the particular expression I
had ascribed to him is not to be reckoned among the already too
numerous illustrations of what I had described as his “ readiness
to say unpleasant,’ and—after reading his last article—I must
add, offensive, “things.”

With this explanation and apology I take my leave of the pro-
fessor and of our small personal dispute—small, indeed, beside the
infinitely graver and greater issues raised in his reply to the un-
answered arguments of Dr. Wace.

I do not care to distract the attention of the public from these
to a fencing-match with foils between Prof. Huxley and myself.
In sight of Gethsemane and Calvary such a fencing-match seems
to me out of place.—Nineteenth Century.

FUNGI.
II.— MICROSCOPIC FORMS.*

By T. H. McBRIDE,
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA,

df oe microscopic world is ever fair. In every department of
research we revert to our instruments, certainly expecting
to be charmed by beauty, whether of movement or mechanism.
Rarely are we disappointed, certainly not in the realm of organic
form. Here everything is beautiful, and, as the heavens to the
astronomer, everything is clean. Even the rudest fungi offer no
exception. In them the microscope finds no exception to the law
of beauty. The simplicity of structure noted in the previous arti-
cle runs through nearly all, only varied a thousand times; but
whether mycelial thread or spores, one or other or both conjoined,
the result, as we hope by illustration here to show, is always sym-
metry and elegance itself.

To begin, let us revert to the lilac-bush, whose whitened leaves
may readily afford illustration of mycelial webs and threads. By
September, if not sooner, the entire foliage will have taken on its
peculiar whiteness as if thickly dusted with chalk or flour. On
certain leaves, however, appear suspicious-looking dark-brown
specks or grains, very small, but plainly visible to the naked eye.
Removing some of these granules to the microscope, we find the
field filled with tiny sculptured spheres ornamented with a pro-
fusion of long, interlocking filaments, starting out like so many
extended radii of each sphere. A gentle pressure on the cover-
glass breaks the sphere, and forthwith (Fig. 1) a dozen tiny sacs

* Tllustrations from drawings by M. F. Linder and the author.

FUNGI. 55

appear, each packed with transparent oval nucleated spores, just
such spores and quite such sacs as appeared in the fruiting sur-
face of the morel, and we are ready with the botanist to call the
granules fruit. Who could have guessed the contents of that
sphere ? But look again at those radiating ornamental filaments.
Trace to its distal end a single ray, and see the grapnels by which
the fertile globule we have studied holds fast to the surface of its
host through storm and flood. Notice the elegant curves, the
symmetrical branching, fit model for the artist in arabesque or
filigree! What more beautiful or more efficiently suggestive!
(Fig. 2 a.)

Such is the lilac blight; but now that we have discoverd one
such fungus, we may carry our inquiries to almost any extent.
The neighboring cherry-tree will afford similar material for study
and admiration. Here the appendages are simpler, and the fruit
itself contains but a single sac with spores (Fig. 3a). The pop-
lars and the willows show spherules whose appendages are simple
hooks, so that the fruit is a minute bur of the teazel sort, fit
for fairy carding (Fig. 2b). The oak-leaf and the hazel bear ap-
pendages simpler still, the appendages being straight and needle-
shaped, ray-like, actinic; Phyllactinia Léveillé named it—leaf-
ray—the needles starting like rays of light from some effulgent
center (Fig. 3 b).

During the early days of autumn we can hardly go amiss for
the appendaged fungi such as just described. In the woodland,
the pastures, by the road-side, in shade and in sun, a thousand
white-flecked leaves attract the appreciative and only the appre-
ciative eye. Minuteness removes from ordinary ken—and the
world goes on! Besides, these parasites are not especially harm-
ful, at least in the phases described, to their presumably unwilling
hosts. The pea-vine and the rose-bush may sometimes suffer, but
generally the leaves attacked have pretty well done the season’s
work before the parasite attains its maximum, so that man’s
interest in the matter is not specially affected. There is, how-
ever, another and different set of leaf-fungi whose parasitism is
decidedly more intimate, and consequently destructive of the
host-plant, suicidal as such a policy would seem to be. These
latter, as indeed all the fungi already cited, are known as blights,
and as such some species are already famous. The potato mur-
rain, which has its place in civil history, is a very pretty little
transparent branching fungus, so delicate that a breath destroys
it. First becoming notorious in 1845, and during the famines of
1846 and 1847, it has been found and studied in all parts of the
world for the forty years succeeding. The lilac fungus is content
to spread its mycelium over the surface of the lilac-leaves, absorb-
ing its nourishment from the surface cells; but the potato mold,

anaes THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Phytophthora infestans of the books, seems to reach every
cell and every tissue, so that a whole potato-field once infested
will go down as if smitten by the frost of night. Kindred fungi are
upon many of the plants about us. Peronospora viticola attacks
the leaves of the grape. In wet seasons it is not uncommon to see
the wild grape-vines along our western streams completely white
with this overwhelming assailant, nor are our Concord vineyards
ever quite exempt. The mycelial filaments thread the soft inte-
rior tissues while fruiting hyphe come forth in delicate tufts or
pencils through the open stomata on the under surface of the leaf.
It is pleasant to think that weeds of various kinds suffer from
similar fungal invasions. Thus goosefoot (Chenopodium, sp.)
bears every spring upon its earlier leaves a tiny parasite, which
seen under our lenses seems a miniature forest, while the fruit
masses itself in violet tinted patches plainly to be seen by the
naked eye.

Even the evergreens, the cone-bearers, that ancient race of
hardy conservatives, are compelled to pay tithes and tribute to
these all-assailing Vandals. I suppose the cedars of Lebanon are
not exempt! At all events, who has not seen our native cedars
bending after some warm shower in June with orange-colored
fruit, beautiful, but to the cedar costly as it is fair? (Fig. 4 a.)
Cedar-apples, men say, and they are not a few who would insist
that the cedar is actually blooming and fruiting. Such fruit has
actually been planted—vain expectation. Cedar-apples are but
the excrescences caused by the persistent development of a fun-
gus parasitic upon branch or leaf; they are receptacles from
which the fungus throws out at a favorable moment gelatinous
masses of orange-colored spores (Fig. 4 6). No fruit of the cedar
are apples such as these, fruit rather of the cedar’s malignant
foe. Trees are sometimes seen whose crop of “apples” becomes so
heavy that disaster almost to extinction marks successive years.
Strange to say, the cedar does not bear its affliction alone. The
hawthorn has a part in the matter, and on its leaves are borne
fringed cups of fungal fruit supplemental to the cedar’s parasite,
just as the cluster-cups on the barberry-leaves are congeners of
the rusts on fields of standing grain. In fact, with these micro-
scopic forms parasitism is the rule, whether as affecting the vege-
table world as we have seen, or in more insidious guise assailing
the animal as well, when bacteria and bacilli in phantom myriads
appear to baffle surgery and sanitary science. Here, as has been
well said, is “the arrow that flieth by day; the pestilence that
walketh at noonday.” The discussions of a decade have rendered
these organisms familiar, at least by name, to every reader. Every
wise physician is an experimenter in the field. A new literature
has grown up, to which the scientific world makes daily contri- —

FUNGI. 353

butions, and bacteriology is hailed the latest phase of biologic
science. Nevertheless, the subject is as yet only touched upon.
We have simply begun to find out how to study these minutest
forms, some of which may yet be hiding beyond our utmost micro-
scopic vision.

But the most remarkable group of fungoid organisms remains
yet to be considered—remarkable alike because of the innate nov-
elty and beauty of the objects themselves, and because of the diffi-
culty which seems ever likely to attend any effort to fix exactly
their place in classification. Among English writers the organ-
isms in question are called slime-molds; in science they have re-
ceived as a group different appellations. The slime-molds are
sufficiently common in all
the wooded regions of the
globe, although receiving
less attention on account
of minuteness and unob-
trusiveness. With most of
the species it is a plain case
of “seek and thou shalt
find.” Some, however, are
quite large, as, for instance,
one of the simplest appear-
ing often in summer flow-
ing up between the planks
of our familiar board
walks, for be it under-
stood at the outset that
the slime-molds are, in one stage at least, soft, protoplasmic
bodies possessed of locomotive powers, changing form with pro-
tean incertitude, and position with nonchalance far from reas-
suring. The species in question appears then, in quantity, a
patch of brownish, frothy-looking matter, not attractive. Scrape
it away, and probably more will take its place, furnished forth
from the moist, dark chambers underneath. Leave it a few hours,
and you return to find a mass of purplish dust, overarched, per-
chance, by a porous crust of yellowish color and fragile struct-
ure. This dust is fruit, spores we may say, and we wonder
what may be the destiny of spores formed in so strange a fash-
ion. Place a few of these spores in a moist chamber, and in a
short time each germinates and produces—a mycelial thread ?
Not at all; on the contrary, a protoplasmic particle, not to be dis-
tinguished from that other protoplasmic bit men call Amceba.
When these Amcebe, produced by the germinating spores, have
for a time pursued each his individual way, all under favoring

circumstances reassemble, coalesce, actually blending, in most
VOL. XXXV.—23

Fig. 1—FRviT oF Litac BuicHtT, x 300.

354 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cases, to produce a new slime-mold in
all respects comparable to its polymor-
phic ancestry, a new motile organism
ready once more to break up into spores
and fruit, and so continue its never-end-
ing cycle of purposeless existence. I say
purposeless, for there seems to be no
outlet, no outlook toward anything bet-
ter or higher. Its relations look back-
ward, not forward, and we connect it’

. with the lowest forms of animal life
more easily than with anything else.
Hence the difficulty of the systematist.
Animals they can hardly be, for no-
where else in the kingdom are animals
reproduced by spores, to say nothing of
the forms of fruiting described later on.
We call them for convenience fungi;
yet, while some fungi are destitute of
mycelium, and some produce swarm
spores or motile naked amceboid spores,
still in-no instance do these behave as
in the slime-mold.

It is interesting to notice the gin-
gerly manner in which naturalists in
their discussions approach these forms.
Sachs throws in a chapter, nowhere
in particular, a sort of addendum on
Myxomycetes. De Bary, the lamented,
gives us his masterpiece on fungi, “7-
cluding the Mycetozoa,” and in speak-
ing of their relationship says, “ For
various reasons, which, according to the
knowledge at hand, have from time to
time been more or less closely worked
out, I have, since 1858, placed the Myxo-
mycetes (slime-molds) under the name
Mycetozoa outside the vegetable king-
dom, and this I still consider their
proper place.”* He does not call the
organisms animals, be it observed. If
a zoologist chooses to do so, De Bary
makes no objection. Meanwhile, Saville
Kent, zodlogist, encouraged probably by
De Bary’s position, comes forward in

Fie. 2,
* De Bary, “ Morphology and Biology of Fungi,” p. 478.

FUNGI.

his “ Manual of Infusoria” and claims
the whole series as animals; while
Cooke, as representing the English
botanists, says, in the introduction to
“Myxomycetes of Great Britain,” “It
is unnecessary to attempt any contro-
version of the proposition once made,
but soon ignored, that these organisms
are more intimately related to animals
than plants.”* And Saccardo, in his
great work now appearing, “Sylloge
Fungorum,” enumerates and describes
the Myxomycetes with the rest.

But while systematists thus differ
as to the place the slime-molds should
have in classification, we need not hesi-
tate to enjoy their beautiful forms.
They are, whether we know what they
are or not. The sidewalk species is
very strange, and the transition from
slime to dusty spores would be incredi-
ble did we not witness it. Stranger
still, however, is the case of a species
often brought in midsummer from the
woods. Here, as the object comes from
the forest, is a mass of yellowish slime
without apparent structure or parts,
“without form or comeliness.” We lay
it upon the laboratory table, shut it up
in a box, if you choose, and a few days
later examine to find no end of struct-
ure. Every particle appears to have
passed into the composition of definite
and elegant machinery. <A perfect hon-
ey-comb now lies upon the bit of rotten
wood, the original support, each cell
capped with a filmy lid which seems
all too fragile, and which, opening here
and there, discloses a powdery, fluffy
mass within. Brought to the micro-
scope, the contents of each cell spread
out in fruit, in spores and banded fila-
ments, “elaters” called, to whose beauty
our drawing (Fig. 5) pays but distant
tribute. Golden is the color, sculptured

* Cooke’s ‘‘ Myxomycetes of Great Britain,”’ introduction, p. iii.

Fie. 3.

355

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

are the spores, and twisted are the filaments with many a delicate
spiral wound, the coils running transverse to certain finer striz,
as if the whole structure did but make appeal to some esthetic
eye. Slime-mold it was before, Trichia chrysosperma now, and,
so far as may be seen, simple evaporation has wrought the
change.

Fig. 6 illustrates the fruit of another slime-mold which, dur-
ing the present year, has been extremely common in this vicinity.
Abundant rains during the summer were, perchance, the stimulat-
ing cause. On oak-
stumps of four or
five years’ standing
there appeared glis-
tening patches of
the size of one’s
hand, by no means
attractive to the cas-
ual observer; rather
the reverse. Pres-
ently the entire mass
heaped itself up, be-
coming, say, four
tenths of an inch
in depth; a thin
film covered all, and
desiccation began.
Shortly the entire
mass had been trans-
formed. Hundreds
of slender columnar
receptacles, each
mounted upon the
most delicate little,
black, shining pedi-
cle or stalk, and
crowded with
spores, completely

replaced that mass
~4,—" - a — high] - : :
Fig. 4 CEDAR-APPLE en the latter highly mag of slim e, leavin g

scarcely a_ trace,
The upper film breaks away, and a thousand delicate, plume-like
structures wave a diminutive forest (Fig. 6). Each tiny stalked
receptacle is a spore-case with lace-like walls of richest color, and
is at first packed with unicellular sporules of the same deep tint,
The entire fruit resembles somewhat a stamen, hence the name,
Stemonitis (like a stamen). Other fungi, of the same type as —

FUNGI. 357

stemonitis, only more delicate still both in form and color, are
not infrequent. They are everywhere in the woodland—on leaves
and sticks that le close upon the ground, upon a thousand hum-
blest things. Such forms are the Comatriche, Arcyrie, Cribrarie,
etc. The arcyrias form their
spores and the net which con-
tains them all in a delicate
spherical or obconical recepta-
cle.* At maturity the upper
part breaks away and the elas-
ticity of the contained struct-
ures forces them out as a most
airy puff, from which the spores
may be driven by the wind while
the base of the original enve-
lope remains as an empty cup.
Sometimes the entire structure
is mounted upon a slender,
polished stalk of appreciable
length, and the whole colony of |
sporangia stand as tiny salvers
whose shadowy contents rise
like incense-wreaths. To find a
rosy field of Arcyria puniceum,
to safely box it and lodge it in
one’s collection, is enough to
give a man joy, even of the
esthetic sort, from Sunday to
Sunday. The tints in all these ‘Fie. 5.—Srorzs anp Exaters or TRICHIA
Raia are just right : they eal CHRYSOSPERMA. Highly magnified.
the grays, the olives, the brick-reds, the browns, and yellows.

Of these that produce their fruit thus in spherical or cup-
shaped receptacles, some are giants among the rest. One, very
common, imitates the Lycoperdons, or puff-balls, and that so
closely as to have deceived the botanists themselves. It has
been named Lycoperdon again and again, and even carried over
the whole tribe with which it is related into the order Gastero-
mycetes—the puff-ball order. The student finds a row of little
spheres, ashy or rosy in color, about as large as bullets, resting
side by side on some bit of rotten stuff in the woods, and forth-
with thinks about Lycoperdon pusillum, or possibly some new
Species, and not until after much investigation and groping, and
probably some outside assistance, does he at length reach the “ true
inwardness” of Lycogala.

* Stemonitis also has at one time in its development a delicate peridium around each
Sporangium. This, however, soon vanishes.

358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The more we study these wonderful organisms, the more sur-
prising it seems that two such very different phases should coexist
in the same organism and succeed each other so abruptly. We no
longer wonder at the perplexity of the systematists, and we can
but admire the reck-
less courage of Sac-
cardo, who discusses
the slime-molds in his
volume vii, “Sylloge
Fungorum,” along
with other mycelium-
less forms, and says
never so much as “ By
your leave.”

Before the vision
of the biologist there
rises ever more that
weird limbo where
“men” appear “as
trees walking.”
Fig. 6.—STEMONITIS FuscA. Central figure x 2; detail and Whether, as in that

spores more highly magnified. °

elder case, experience
may bring clearer vision, time alone can tell. Plant and animal
have doubtless somewhere a common starting-ground. Toward
that common origin the Myxomycetes undoubtedly point. They
are not it. They seem rather
to represent an independent
twig near the base of the
great tree of life, a branchlet
whose departure was absolute
as ancient, developing with no
respect to any other organic
thing, and soon reaching the
limit of that particular pos-
sibility. Perfect in them-
selves, we may look for noth-
ing further in that direction.
Nature herself has written,
“ No thoroughfare.”

In conclusion, we may
notice the question of utility 4e.7—Axcyrra Punrcea. Detail and spores highly
which doubtless rises in some mgeiacd.
minds. To what end are all these microscopic bits of stuff
organic thus hidden from ordinary ken? To such a query no
real answer can be given. Our systems of economics are nowhere
sufficiently refined, our tests of value show no balances whose

THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SEA-FISHES. 359

delicacy trembles to a case like this. What know we of Nature’s
infinite equipoise ? Such organisms are their own excuse for
being, and, if by any chance they serve at length the esthetic
sense of some creature intellectual, his is the good fortune; their
destiny waxes not nor wanes.

THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SHA-FISHES.

By Pror. W. K. BROOKS,
OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

OME years since the writer was much impressed by an article
by Prof. Huxley, in “The Popular Science Monthly,” on the
artificial propagation of food-fishes, in which he recognizes the
value of the economic results which have followed the culture of
the fishes of inland waters, but gives very emphatic expression to
his belief that man’s influence, either for good or for bad, upon
the infinite wealth of the ocean, is so very slight as to be abso-
lutely without significance. He argues that an oceanic species
which is rich enough in individuals to resist all the enemies which
prey upon it can be in no danger from man. If, he says, it is able
to hold its own in the fierce struggle with the natural conditions
of its existence, the loss of the few individuals, which are all that
the human fishermen are able to capture, can not possibly lead to
its extermination, nor even exert any noteworthy influence upon
its abundance; nor can man, he argues, by artificially fertilizing
_a few million eggs, and by rearing a few million young fishes,
cause any appreciable increase in the abundance of a species
which includes countless millions of adult fishes, each of which
has the power to leave behind it millions of descendants.

As compared with the natural reproductive power of the cod-
fishes upon the Grand Banks, the efforts of man to artificially
increase the supply sink into absolute insignificance, and Hux-
ley’s statement of the case seemed to me at’ the time to be con-
vincing; but I have recently been able to investigate the subject
for myself, and I am now satisfied that his opinions are not be-
yond question. As I am well aware that their influence has been
far-reaching, and has much to do with current views, I take this
opportunity to state my reasons for the change in my own opin-
ion, as I wish to call attention to what I now consider a serious
fallacy in his argument. If man’s destructive influence were simi-
lar in kind to that of the other enemies of marine food-fishes, it
would undoubtedly be quite true that the numbers destroyed by
him are as nothing when compared with those which are de-
stroyed in other ways; but the danger which comes from man’s

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

influence is fundamentally different from all the natural dangers
to which sea-fishes are exposed, since it is modern or recent, and
has, therefore, failed to be recognized and provided against during
the evolution of these animals. In this sense man’s influence is
unnatural, while all other dangers are natural. The danger from
man is not only modern, but also totally anomalous in the rapid-
ity of its approach. It has not grown up gradually and imper-
ceptibly, but has swept over the entire ocean with a speed which
leaves no chance for the production of compensating adjustments.
by the slow process of selection. If it were to remain without
change, or were to change very slowly, there can be no doubt that.
all the species which were not quickly destroyed would ultimately
be brought into adjustment, and would from that time on be able
to resist; but what animal can become adjusted to an enemy who
is able, in less than a generation, to increase his power by such
inventions as the steamboat, the electric light, and the dynamite
bomb? To marine food-fishes man is a catastrophe, not a natural
enemy, and the natural methods of maintaining the harmony be-
tween oceanic animals and the slow geologic changes of the ocean
bottom are of no avail against him.

A study of the destructive forces of nature shows that man is
peculiar in other all-essential particulars. It is a well-known fact
that of all the marine animals which fall a prey to enemies, or be-
come the victims of accidents and diseases, all but an infinitesimal
percentage are destroyed during infancy or youth. As soon as
the eggs of a fish are laid, the process of decimation begins, and it.
is initiated on a scale which would quickly sweep the species out
of existence if it lasted long; but, fortunately, it does not, and each
day in the life of a young fish brings with it an enormous increase
in the chance for a long life.

During the early stages of development the young fish is to-
tally defenseless, and at the mercy of enemies and accidents ; and,
although each pelagic fish lays enormous numbers of eggs, not
a single one could escape if the embryonic period were long.
Natural selection has been constantly acting for untold ages to
shorten it, however, for in each generation those eggs which de-
veloped most rapidly have most frequently escaped destruction ;
and as the fishes which hatched from these precocious eggs have
inherited a tendency to produce similar eggs, the embryonic life
has gradually grown short, and most pelagic eggs now develop so
rapidly that it is not unusual for them to hatch within twenty-
four hours after they are fertilized. After they are hatched the
transparency and activity of the little fishes add greatly to their
safety, although each school of young fishes is constantly encom-
passed on all sides by a host of enemies. I have found, by watch-
ing for an hour from the end of a wharf a school of some eight

THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SHA-FISHES. 361

hundred or a thousand young fishes, that one of them fell a victim
each minute to the enemies of the air or of the water. While the
death-rate is vastly less than it was during embryonic life, it is
great enough to put an end to the entire school in a single day,
were it not for the fact that each time a bird swoops down upon
the little fishes out of the air above, and each time that a preda-
cious fish darts in among them out of the depths and carries off
a victim, the survivors profit by the new experience, and become
more alert and vigilant and better able to escape future danger.
While it is not possible to give figures, there can be no doubt
that the chance for long life increases by a high geometrical ratio
with age. Among salt-water fishes the death-rate is enormous at
first, but it grows less and less as the individuals grow older; and
the natural death-rate of adult fishes is infinitesimal as com-
pared with the death-rate of the young. A high birth-rate has
its advantages, since it gives an opportunity for selection, and
thus contributes to the maintenance and gradual evolution and
improvement of the standard of the race. Each adult fish isa
survivor, picked out or naturally selected from among thousands
or even millions of less favored brothers and sisters; and while
many of the accidents which overwhelm the eggs and young are
of such a character that individual peculiarities count for nothing
against them, we can not doubt that, on the whole, the alert and
energetic and intelligent fishes are most likely to escape, and to
grow up to maturity and to bear descendants. <A high rate of
increase does unquestionably aid evolution by selection, but the
well-known fact that it is reduced in all species with low death-
rates shows that its primary and most important purpose is to
compensate for the loss from accidents and diseases and enemies,
and to insure the perpetuation of the species.

A young fish with a million brothers and sisters must, before
it reaches sexual maturity, be in imminent peril of life a million
times before it is able to reproduce its kind; and the million perils
are so grouped that most of them face it at the beginning of its
life, and grow less and less frequent as it becomes older. The
perils of a fish may be compared to a pyramid which tapers from a
broad base in infancy to a pointed apex in mature life, and each
Species must be made up of individuals of all ages in a similar
numerical ratio to each other. The perils of each individual fish
seem to be accidental, but their average for the entire species con-
forms to exact numerical laws, and the number which die during
the first day, the second day, and so on, of their lives, must be
about the same, season after season. During the slow process of
evolution the birth-rate of each species has been so regulated by
selection that, after the natural mortality has been provided for,

there shall be enough survivors in each generation to maintain
VOL, XXXV.—238*

362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the species and to keep the area which it inhabits stocked with as
many adults as it can support.

All the natural sources of mortality are thus provided for. As
each species is slowly and gradually brought into harmonious
adjustment to the conditions of its environment, its birth-rate,
like all its other attributes, is regulated and adapted to meet all
the natural demands upon it. Now what happens if, after each
one of the natural enemies has claimed its victims, a new enemy
not provided for by Nature suddenly attacks the few adult surviv-
ors which Nature has provided to perpetuate the species? What
happens when the last drop falls into the brimming bucket ?
‘What happens when the proverbial last straw is put on the load ?
It may be quite true that, for each codfish which man catches, the
natural enemies destroy a million. That has no bearing on the
subject. Nature has provided for the destruction of the million.
Before their birth they were destined to premature death. The
one was reserved by Nature for another purpose.

If the destructive influence of man had been gradually brought
to bear, and had kept pace with the evolution of the species, nat-
ural selection would have provided a remedy, and the birth-rate
would have been correspondingly increased ; but this has not been
the case; and, while man might not be able to make any impres-
sion on the broad base of the pyramid, we must remember that
he does not attack the base, but the pointed apex. The fact that
sea-fishes are so enormously prolific is entirely irrelevant. Their
high birth-rate is an adjustment to their natural environment,
while the influence of man is a new factor which has not been pro-
vided against.

It is difficult to get statistical information regarding marine
animals, but there is ample evidence that they may be extermi-
nated by man. The Bahama sponge-fishermen complain that they
are now compelled to make long voyages and to visit remote banks
for sponges which in former years could be gathered in abundance
near the seaports. It is well known that, just before the oil from
the wells of Pennsylvania came into common use, the sperm-
whales had become so scarce that they were in imminent danger
of extermination. The scarcity and the high price of sea-fishes
in the vicinity of large seaport towns are unquestionable; and the
shore-fisheries of the New England coast, to which Cape Cod owes
its name, have been so completely destroyed that, when the Cape
Cod fishermen caught, a few months ago, in their nets some of
the young codfishes which had been hatched in the Fish Com-
mission laboratory at Wood’s Holl, they brought them to the
naturalists as specimens of a new and unknown species. The
destruction of sea-fishes may require many years, but there is no
animal on earth large enough to be valuable as human food which

THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SEA-FISHES. 363

can long survive the attacks of a new unnatural enemy armed
with the energy, the resources, and the intelligence of civilized
man. Fortunately, the qualities which render him the most resist-
less of enemies also enable him to become a producer as well as a
destroyer; and, while the fear of him and the dread of him is
upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the air and
upon all the fishes of the sea—while they are all delivered into
his hands, and are powerless to resist him—he alone of all animals
is able to make good the destruction caused by his ravages, and
to increase, by agriculture, by domestication, by selection and im-
provement, and by artificial propagation, the animals and plants
which he destroys.

Can these influences be brought to bear upon marine animals ?
Can human intelligence and skill and power over Nature be so
employed as to make quickly, by artificial means, that slight ad-
justment in the birth-rate of food-fishes which would have been
brought about more slowly by natural agencies if man had long
occupied his present rank among their enemies ?

Looked at in this way, the proposition certainly does not seem
to be impracticable; and, while human efforts in this field are of
too recent a date to furnish positive evidence, I believe that I have
shown that there is no a priort impossibility and no logical basis
for a negative answer to the question. The results which have
already been reached by the artificial propagation of certain sea-
fishes, like the shad, which make periodical visits to fresh water,
are extremely interesting, as they furnish indirect evidence which
is very conclusive. They prove that human influence produces
very prompt and decidedly advantageous results in the case of
these fishes, and thus give us every reason to hope that equally
valuable results will follow—a little more slowly, perhaps—from
our efforts to increase the supply of more strictly marine species.

In the year 1880 the fisheries census and special investigations
which were carried on under the direction of the United States
Fish Commission proved that there had been a most rapid and
alarming decline in the value of the shad-fisheries in the rivers
and bays and sounds of our Atlantic coast, and that there was
every reason to fear that in a few years the shad would be utterly
exterminated. The adult shad is an oceanic fish, but each spring
it enters one of the inlets or bays and makes its way up to the
fresh-water streams to reproduce its kind. The supply of shad for
the market is caught during this spring migration, when the fishes
enter our inland waters plump and fat after their winter’s feast
upon the abundant supply of food which they find in the ocean.
As they spend the greater part of each year gathering up and
converting into the substance of their own bodies the innumerable
minute marine organisms which would be of no value whatever to

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

man without their aid, and as their natural instincts impel them
to bring to our very doors this great addition to our food-supply,
their economic value is very great, as they put at our service a
vast area of the surface of the globe which would otherwise be
entirely beyond our control. The extinction of the shad would,
therefore, be a national calamity.

In 1880 the fishermen believed, apparently with good reason,
that the rapid decline was due to improper methods of fishing—
to the erection of pounds and weirs along the shores of the salt
bays and sounds, where the fishes were captured in great numbers
long before they had reached their spawning-grounds. It was
urged that, if these obstructions were removed, and all the shad
were permitted to reach fresh water before they were captured,
enough eggs would be deposited each year to keep up the supply,
but that the destruction of such great numbers in salt water must
necessarily result in extermination. This seemed to be good logic,
but in the spring of the year 1888 more shad were caught in salt
water than were caught altogether in the year 1880 in both fresh
and salt water; and yet the shad-fisheries are now increasing in
value from year to year, while in 1880 they were in danger of
destruction.

To what is this change due? In 1880 the United States Fish
Commission began systematically and upon a large scale the work
of collecting the eggs from the bodies of the shad which were
captured for the market in the nets of the fishermen. These eggs
were artificially fertilized and hatched; the young fishes were
kept for a few days in captivity in glass jars; they were then set
at liberty in the fresh-water streams, and the waste of eggs was
thus prevented. This work has been prosecuted steadily for eight —
years, and the results are briefly summarized in the following
table:

Shad captured in Shadieaptuvedlin Percentage of

YEARS. salt cr brackish Gow wae ai Total. incre ore
USS OR se ears 2,549,544 1,591,424 4,140,968 46
TSB oR ee eek 8,267,497 1,906,434 5,172,981 26
SSG Sins has 3,048,768 2,485,000 5,584,368 34
NS Siiepronrestet. 8,818,744 2,901,661 6,715,405 62
BSSSieitectoet 5,010,101 2,650,373 7,660,474 85

The money value of the excess in 1888 over the total catch in
1880 is more than $700,000. The conditions are now more unfavor-
able than ever to natural reproduction, and there can be no doubt
that, if no shad had been produced: by man since 1880, and if all
the other conditions had been as they are, the fisheries would now
be valueless. The mature shad which run the gantlet of all the
pounds and traps in the lower waters, and finally reach the mouths —

THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SHA-FISHES, 365

of the rivers, are excluded by dams and other obstructions from
all the streams which are of most value as feeding-grounds for the
young; and the area which is now available for spawning is re-
stricted to the lower waters of the rivers, which are so assiduously
swept by drift-nets and seines that each fish is surely captured
soon after its arrival, and before it has had an opportunity to
deposit its eggs. The number of eggs which are naturally depos-
ited is now very small indeed, for, while the take upon the spawn-
ing-grounds has increased from 1,600,000 in 1880 to 2,600,000 in
1888, the take in salt water has increased from 2,500,000 to 5,000,000,
and the shores of our bays and sounds are now so thoroughly
lined with both nets and pounds that the number of shad which
reach the spawning-grounds at all is proportionately much less
than it was eight years ago, and more shad are now taken each
year in salt water, where spawning is impossible, than were taken
altogether in 1880. The fact that, in spite of all this, the value of
the fisheries has increased eighty-five per cent, seems to prove that
the shad is now entirely an artificial product, like the crops of
grain which are harvested on our farms.

If any one doubts whether this result is due to man’s efforts,
we have more conclusive evidence. Previously to 1870 no shad
were found in the Pacific Ocean or in any of its tributaries. Be-
tween 1870 and 1875 the United States Fish Commission intro-
duced a few young shad into the Sacramento River. The number
was very small, but the little fishes made their way down to the
Pacific to feed and grow large and fat, and to return at last to
the fresh water to reproduce their kind. Some of them came back
to the same river, but others, following the warm Pacific current,
wandered farther north into other rivers, until now the shad is in
some places sufficiently abundant to furnish profitable fisheries,
and it is distributed along more than three thousand miles of the
Pacific coast of North America, and is still spreading northward
in such a way as to indicate that it will in a few years be found
in the rivers of Asia, so that the descendants of the shad of the
Chesapeake Bay will increase the food-supply of China. If such
noteworthy and valuable results follow the artificial culture of a
fish which spends the greater part of its life in the ocean, and
there obtains its food, is there any reason why man should not
also make good his destruction of species which are more strictly
marine ?

The great increase in the shad-fisheries during the last eight
years has been effected by the use of means which, while effective,
are very crude and primitive as compared with those of modern
agriculture, for example, and we must look for great improve-
ments and a vastly greater return in the future. A farmer who
did nothing more than to save and sow wild seeds which would

366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

otherwise be lost on sterile ground or killed by frost or damp or
eaten by birds and insects, would no doubt effect a slight increase
in the food-supply, but his efforts would be very far behind the
requirements of modern agriculture. His harvest would be as
nothing compared with that of the farmer who sows improved
seed; cultivates, protects, and nourishes his seedlings, and thus
increases many hundred-fold the bounty of nature. Can similar
improved methods be applied to the harvest of the sea? The
Superintendant of the United States Fish Commission, Prof. Mar-
shall McDonald, is now trying on a large scale experiments which
will furnish an answer to this question, and the result will be
eagerly looked forward to by those who are interested in pure
science, as well as by those who value nothing except economic
results. The young shad which are reared from the artificially
fertilized eggs are usually turned out into the streams soon after
they are born to shift for themselves. Many of them perish from
accidents and the attacks of enemies, while others are forced to
struggle for an insufficient supply of food. All horticulturists
and breeders of domesticated animals know that the size and
vigor and vitality of a plant or animal depend to a great degree
upon its treatment during its infancy and youth, and that a
stunted or injured infant seldom becomes a valuable adult plant
or animal. Last spring about half a million young shad were
placed soon after hatching in a large pond in Washington, and
were carefully tended and fed and protected from enemies dur-
ing the whole of the period which the young shad spends in fresh
water. The young fishes prospered and grew rapidly, and nearly
all of them were still alive when the time for migrating to the
ocean came in the fall. The gates of the pond were then opened
one morning, and all day long the silver stream of young shad
poured out through them and started on the long journey down
to the sea. All naturalists will look forward with the greatest
interest to the time when these fishes return, bringing back with
them to the fishermen of the Potomac the wealth of food which
they have gathered in the ocean. In the mean time we may in-
dulge the hope that the strong constitutions which they have
acquired during their carefully nurtured youth will enable them
to excel their less favored brothers, and that when they reach our
market they will have some of the excellence of our improved
garden products.

But this is not all. These shad were reared from selected eggs.
The adults which enter our waters first in the spring are most
valuable to the fishermen, since they are put upon the market at
a time when fresh fish are scarce and high priced. Our experience
with garden vegetables justifies the expectation that the eggs of
early shad shall themselves give birth to early shad. Now, all

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS. 367

the young fishes which were put into the Fish Commission pond
were hatched from eggs taken from the earliest shad of the season,
and, if this process of selection be pursued for a few years, we
may feel confident that the Potomac River will soon abound in
shad of extra quality at the time when fine shad are hardest to
get and most valuable.

———_~++4—__—_—.

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS.
By BENJAMIN REECE.

T is a remarkable fact that in social and industrial concerns
men never dream of restoring an equilibrium by withdrawing
the forces which disturb it, but they invariably demand the exer-
tion of new and opposite forces to neutralize the effect of those in
operation which could more easily be removed. When the moy-
ing locomotive is to be brought to a stand, the engine-man shuts
off the steam and applies the brakes ; but the practical statesman,
and indeed many economic students, never dream of this simple
method in dealing with social problems; they almost always insist
on bringing out another locomotive of equal weight and power to
run counter to the one in motion and thereby neutralize its energy,
and the forces generated in the two locomotives are thus lost in
preserving an equilibrium which could have been more readily
secured by closing the throttle-valve of the one which it was de-
signed to stop. The railroad manager making such use of his
motive power would be deemed insane, yet in our industrial con-
cerns a similar application of social energy is declared to be the
only practical method, and those who decry its folly are con-
temptuously termed impracticals.

The space devoted by the leading periodicals to the discussion
and investigation of the causes which underlie the disordered and
incongruous development of our railways, as well as the numerous
remedies proposed, fully attest their state of utter instability,
which, if not corrected, may ultimately lead to practical confisca-
tion by means of legislation, or their purchase and control by Gov-
ernment. In whatever light we view the social and industrial rela-
tions of the railroads, we are confronted by that state of chaotic
confusion which must ever result from a persistent transgression
of natural law.

Yet, while railroad managers are pleading to be preserved by
legislation from their reciprocal aggressions, while the railroads
and the public are asking for laws to protect them from their
mutual hostilities, while railroad companies and employés have
vainly sought an equitable adjustment of their differences, and
are each looking to legislation to define their rights and limit

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their obligations, it is worthy of all attention that in the physical
and mechanical phases of its development the railroad is a marvel
of orderly design, a monument of human energy, organization,
and skill, to the perfection of which every branch of scientific
research has contributed and revealed to man the proper adapta-
tion of means to ends.

In a recent article* it was pointed out that to increase the
specific gravity of water would at once disturb its relations to
every other form of matter, and that the equilibrium so destroyed
could only be restored by a return to natural adjustments. Do
not the disordered industrial relations of our railroads present a
striking parallel ?—for, with regard to their social and economic
relations, viz., to the investors who own them, to the employés
who operate them, and to the public who employ them, their
adjustments are non-adapted, and have thus far proved non-
adaptable; for innumerable laws, intended to be remedial, have
only served to increase the disorder and perplexity. Is it not
time that we ceased our vain attempts to neutralize by balancing
unmeasured, unweighed, and complicated forces, and turn our
attention to the discovery of the original sources of disturbance,
so that by shutting off the steam and applying the brakes the
equilibrium of adjustments will be reinstated ?

In the examination of the many evils which it is sought to
remedy, I will refer to articles in recent publications, contributed
by gentlemen whose experience and intimate knowledge of details
connected with railroad management enable them to speak with
authority, and I can not but conclude that an analysis will show
all the disturbances enumerated to have their origin in two groups
of stimulating laws, and in their repeal will be found the only true
and permanent remedy.

“The Political Control of Railways”t is a general argument
against legislation which prescribes and enforces regulations for
the administration of railroad proprerties. The author calls for
the repeal of the Interstate Commerce Bill, and of adverse laws
enacted by the States; but such enactments had their origin in an
effort to restore the equilibrium between the railroads and the
public, and they stand as the reactions of, and not as the active
causes of, the original disorder. It is true the repeal of these laws
might restore harmony between the railroads, but only by a fur-
ther unbalancing of the relations between the railroad companies
and the public. The argument is substantially this: that having
built roads without regard to commercial necessities or demands,
investors should be permitted to unite in pools, etc., to secure the

* “Taw as a Disturber of Social Order,” “Popular Science Monthly,” March, 1889,

p. 682.
+ Appleton Morgan, “ Popular Science Monthly,” February, 1889.

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS. 369

maintenance of profitable rates, and the author insists that legis-
lation aiming to prevent such unions or agreements or regulating
rates is in the nature of confiscation. This seems plausible, for it
is only a half-statement of the case; as the Western granger, who
has granted a free right of way and voted aid for the construc-
tion of competing lines of railways, views such alliances as
treachery and dishonesty, to be prevented and punished by legal
penalties.

The author of “ Legislative Injustice to Railways” * condemns
attempts at State regulation, which from the very nature of things
must more or less directly interfere with interstate commerce ;
but, upon the whole, he is disposed to look upon the Interstate
Commerce Bill as a step in the right direction, and would only
recommend certain modifications of the anti-pooling and the long
and short haul clauses. But in the main this writer asks for legis-
lation aimed directly at the inherent dishonesty of railroad man-
agement; viz., he wants laws compelling directors to publish
truthful reports, and asks the appointment of public accountants
to examine and attest all reports for publication. He asks a law
making it incumbent upon railroads to elect at least one thor-
oughly trained and honest director, specially educated for the
purpose. He also insists on legislation “to regulate the methods
of construction companies,” which, he says, “are probably doing
more to demoralize the railroad system than any other factor,”
and he broadly intimates that these companies are nothing but
organized schemes for the enrichment of thrifty directors at the
expense of the stockholders.

“Bribery in Railway Elections” + is an argument to show that
the many evils complained of are the result of systematic bribery
employed in the election of the directors who control the man-
agement of railway properties. The writer asserts that the prac-
tice is neither business-like nor moral, “and requires some weapon
more potent than argument,” hence he demands enactments pre-
scribing heavy penalties. But surely bribery within the railway
company can not be the cause of demoralization, for it is but a
symptom of a diseased organism, and proves the evil to rest in the
constitution of the railway corporation itself, which is the creat-
ure of statute law. What could better indicate the operation of
foreign and abnormal forces than this acknowledgment that our
railroads are controlled by forces neither “business-like nor
moral”? Is it not evident that such an organism is of artificial
origin, and is unfitted to survive unless its business and moral
qualities are developed on a plane with the importance and far-
reaching influences of the properties controlled ?

* Henry Clews, “North American Review,” March, 1889.
+ Isaac L. Rice, “The Forum,” March, 1889.

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In “The Prevention of Railroad Strikes,” * as the title indicates,
the author confines himself to the want of harmony existing be-
tween railroad companies and their employés, and suggests a plan
for improving their relations by bringing the officials of the roads
into closer personal contact with the men.

An examination of the evils, as above given from various
sources, proves them to be symptoms of a chronic disease, at once
suggesting a complication of disorders arising from two forms of
original stimulation, which, although more or less reciprocal in
their operations, are susceptible of a tolerably distinct line of divis-
ion: viz., (1) legislative stimulation of railway construction ; (2)
legislation tending to push capital into unnatural combinations,
These two groups of laws give rise to evils independent of each
other, although when coexisting they interact, and not unfre-
quently the one furnishes the means while the other affords the
occasion for dishonesty, as the construction companies heretofore
alluded to make plain; e. g., while our loose laws, encouraging the
construction of new railroads, have afforded the opportunity or
occasion for directors to insidiously absorb the profits of stock-
holders by the extension of systems, the laws which have united
“unbusiness-like and immoral forces” for the control of railway
properties have placed in the hands. of designing men the tools
and means of doing so dishonestly.

In this present article let us confine the inquiry to the evils
arising from laws intended to induce the speedy construction of
railroads, and we will leave to a future number the examination
of those evils which have developed within the railway corpora-
tion itself, of which railroad wrecking, false reports, bribery in
railway election, and railroad strikes are familiar phases.

The splendid opportunities which the railroad afforded for the
development of a country’s resources were very quickly recognized
by society at large, and, being impatient of the reasonable caution
exercised by capital before embarking into vast and costly enter- :
prises, the people through their Legislatures enacted laws espe-
cially calculated to promote and hasten the construction of rail-
roads, never imagining that any evils could arise therefrom. The
Western and central States particularly enacted laws providing
for State subsidies and local aid, while the General Government
joined the States in the surrender of the public lands to railroads,
Nearly all the States passed general railroad laws substantially
granting railway charters to any one who followed the legal forms
in making application for them. These various laws have all con-
tributed to destroy the equilibrium between the normal wants of
a developing commerce and the natural development of railway
systems within prudential limits to meet the growing demand,

* Charles Francis Adams, ‘‘ Scribner’s Monthly,” April, 1889.

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS. — 371

and much of the present demoralization is due to the rash, impetu-
ous folly of those who hoped to enjoy the pleasures of stimulated
activity and still escape the reacting evils.

When legislative inducements were made to investors for the
construction of new railroads, capitalists were pleased to be re-
lieved of ordinary prudence in making their investments, and
upon the strength of such legislation continued to build railroads
in excess of commercial wants, expecting to so adjust the traffic
rates as to insure to them good profits ; but this was never the pur-
pose of the shippers or of the legislators who represented them,
for, by the construction of numerous lines, they expected to arouse
a spirit of competition among the railroads which would lead to
cut rates and reduced cost of service. Thus the original laws
which stimulated the organization and construction of railroads
polarized the interests of the investors and the shippers, and made
mutually repellent forces which should have mutually attracted.
Each was deluded by false hopes, for neither considered the rights
or interests of the other, and all subsequent legislation which has
aimed to preserve the benefits of unwise and premature railroad
construction to the public has shifted all the evils and consequent
losses upon the railroad companies, while the efforts of railway
companies to avoid all competition, by a division of revenues
would throw the entire burden of supporting useless roads upon
the public; and it is this unbalanced condition of affairs which has
led to aggressions upon the part of railroads, adverse verdicts by
juries, and hostile legislation by the States, all of which are in the
nature of reactions due to the disturbance caused by the original
laws.

For example, between the cities of Toledo and Detroit there are
two lines of railway passing through the same towns, and for the
greater part of the distance running side by side, their rights of
way abutting. These two roads, being branches of the Lake Shore
and Canada Southern respectively, were originally independent
and competing lines, but,as one could have carried the business
brought to the two, it is evident that the conflict was only a ques-
tion of the survival of the fittest. In this as in most other cases
the new road ultimately fell into the hands of those who owned
the original line, and, though under different managers, are oper-
ated under one controlling policy; rates were equalized, train
schedules harmonized, and the business which with the small ad-
ditional cost of a second track could be more cheaply performed
by one line must now earn the fixed charges and pay dividends on
the stock certificates of two, all of which extra expense must be
paid by the people. So long as the roads were in competition, they
were a source of loss to the owners; when they harmonized their
differences, they became a burden to the public; and the class of

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

legislation which encouraged the construction of the second line,
under the false pretext to the public that it would serve as a com-
peting route, has really imposed upon the people the expense of
supporting two railroads when their interests could be as well or
better served by the support of one. The WestShore, Nickel Plate,
and other lines were practically built for the purpose of sale to the
old roads which they paralleled and threatened with ruinous com-
petition, and, as in the first instance named, the people living along
those lines are now compelled to pay for the maintenance of two
railroads, while for all practical purposes they derive benefits from
only one. Is it not evident that the construction of railroads in
excess of commercial needs must entail a loss upon the investors
or an additional cost to shippers; and so long as this unbalanced
state exists the railroad companies can only be saved from losses
by pooling with, purchasing, or gaining control of competing lines,
and thereby throw the cost upon the people? Or if the latter,
through legislation, the verdicts of their juries, and interpreta-
tions of their courts, can thwart such combinations, purchase, or
control, then the full force of vicious legislation will be shifted to
the railroads, and as investments those properties will be ruined.

The rights and obligations of railway companies and the public
meet and harmenize at the point where, the facilities provided be- ~
ing ample for the business, the amount of traffic is sufficient to
make a low cost of service remunerative to the investors; but this
desideratum can not be attained by legislating to preserve rail-
road properties by restricting competition and legalizing pools,
nor by anti-pooling clauses to foster competition ; it will only
come through the repeal of the disturbing laws which by stimu-
lating the construction of railroads polarized interests which nat-
ural adjustments made identical; but normal adjustments are ~
impossible so long as laws exist which offer advantages to the
investor other than the natural and legitimate profits of the in-
vestment.

Let general railroad laws be repealed, and, before the legislative
authority to exercise the right of eminent domain is extended to
a railway company, let the public necessity for the construction
of a railroad be fairly shown and affirmatively proved as required
by the common law.

Is the present demoralization to be wondered at when, in most
of the States, charters granted under general laws are deemed as
prima facie evidence of the public necessity, although railroads
so chartered may be projected side by side with those having
facilities not half employed ?

Not uncommonly it is claimed that the railroads have made —
the country what it is, but is it not equally true that the country
has made its railroads what they are? The two statements com-.

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS. 373

plement each other, and afford further proof that a stable adjust-
ment is only possible when the development of a country’s com-
merce and its means of transport and communication advance
together.

The State of Iowa early passed sundry laws very favorable to
the construction of railroads, and, as a consequence, induced the
premature development of several systems. For convenience of
illustration, let us watch the early settlers of Iowa distribute them-
selves along three lines of railroad when they could have been
better accommodated at less cost for highways, schools, churches,
policing, and the administration of township and county affairs
along the line of one; but in addition to these incidental burdens
they found themselves compelled to pay high rates for railway
service in order to pay the fixed charges and dividends on the
stock of three railroads doing the business of one. If the legis-
lators had been endowed with the common sense of the locomotive-
driver, they would have closed the throttle-valve and put on the
brakes ; but, instead of doing this, they allowed the disturbing laws
to remain in force, and prescribed legal rates to be charged for
railway services, hoping thereby to retain the benefits and still
escape the evils of premature railroad extension, and from that
day to this Iowa has vainly sought a satisfactory solution of the
problem.

The evils to be corrected were those due to the premature or
unnecessary construction of railroads: this could only be accom-
plished by deterring such construction; and in so far as the laws
succeeded in so doing, the people were relieved of the evils but
lost the advantages arising from the operations of the original
law, and, in so far as the remedial laws failed to deter further con-
struction, the evils as well as the supposed benefits of the original
law remained in force.

As might be expected, the two classes of laws—the one stimu-
lating direct, the other repressing railroad extensions by impair-
ing their value as investments—did not operate to restore a stable
equilibrium ; for the adverse legislation ‘was not aimed directly
against premature and unnecessary construction, but it simply
made the conditions of operating railroads more onerous.

Hence the influence of the two laws may be likened to a see-
saw, and in their operations they have caused abrupt changes and
violent oscillations. The first effect of adverse legislation tended
to stop further building; but when populative increase caused the
legal tariff rates to become remunerative to the railroads, the
deterring laws became inoperative, the stimulating enactments
once more hastened a development far in advance of the natural
wants, and the pressure of adverse laws was again experienced ;
and so these spasmodic fluctuations have taken the place of the

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

steady, rhythmic development which results from the operation
of natural laws and is ever indicative of genuine progress and
stability.

The pernicious influence of such conflicting legislation has led
capital to alternate its moods between the extremes of inexcusable
recklessness and unwarranted timidity ; whereas the repeal of laws
encouraging construction would withdraw the incentive of the
reckless, while a similar repeal of laws discouraging construction
would quiet the fears of the timid, and a healthy growth and a
stable development would result.

Laws which have led to the construction of parallel lines of
railway have diverted capital from the improvement of the coun-
try’s highways; and even in Illinois and adjoining States, during
certain seasons of the year, a ton of freight can be shipped a thou-
sand miles to the seaboard at less cost than it can be hauled a dis-
tance of ten miles to market; yet, in spite of this grotesque condi-
tion, laws encouraging further railroad extensions still deface their
statute-books.

The Interstate Commerce Bill aims to correct the evil, but it
will fail, for it does not touch the cause. It attempts to cure evils
which have come from unnecessary and premature construction
by regulating the operation of railroads. Its direct and immedi-
ate effects appear to be good, for men do not concern themselves
with the necessary reactions which are the true adjustments by
which any laws or systems of laws must be judged.

Here is our railroad system in a state of utter demoralization
and confusion, and yet the “ Railway Age” of April 12th presents
a table in detail showing that six hundred and sixty-six new lines
are in contemplation, with an aggregated mileage of over fifty-
three thousand miles, of which nearly fifteen thousand miles are
under construction or contract, nearly ten thousand miles are sur-
veyed, and twenty-nine thousand miles incorporated only. Does
this not suggest the probable direction which the reaction to the
Interstate Commerce Bill will take, unless stimulating laws are
repealed, viz., a separation of the men who build the railroads on
speculation under the one class of laws and the bona fide investors
who will be compelled to purchase and operate them under the
other class of laws? Can any one imagine the bewildering com-
plications which the new adjustment threatens ?

The Interstate Commerce Bill gives fair warning to investors
that, if they avail themselves of laws which encourage the con-
struction of railroads, they must suffer the consequences of their
rashness, for they will be permitted neither to combine in pools nor
discriminate in rates. This would be fair and logical if the par-
ties constructing railroads were also the ones who operate them;
but, unfortunately, our laws are so devised as to give aid and en-

RAILWAY MALADJUSTMENTS. 375

couragement to persons who construct railroads without regard
to public wants for speculation merely, and then so manipulate
them as to compel old companies to purchase and operate the new
lines in order to save losses on the old, which can not be done
without additional cost to the people.

If we would restore harmonious relations between the rail-
roads, we must repeal the laws which are more favorable to those
who build than to those who operate them; and by such repeal
the construction of railroads for purposes of blackmail and specu-
lation will be made impossible, and the occupation of dishonest
construction companies will be gone.

Is it not evident that to prevent ruinous competition and ad-
verse legislation of which the railroads complain, and to avoid the
discrimination, pools, and combines of which the public complain,
we must close the throttle-valve and apply the brakes, and, by
repealing, arrest the operation of those laws which have led to
undue and premature railway construction; and, as population in-
creases, existing railway systems will be more fully employed, and
new systems will be extended only on their merits? Under such
conditions disturbances will become less and less marked, pulsa-
tions less and less severe, and a stable equilibrium will be speedily
restored.

An analysis of the testimony presented to the United States
Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, which entered upon
its investigation after the above article was in type, fully con-
firms the position assumed. Mr. Fink stated to the committee
that there were too many roads, and that, if the Grand Trunk and
a half-dozen other lines did not exist, the public would be as well
served as now. It was generally acknowledged that the law was
not fully observed, and Mr. Depew did not hesitate to state that
it never would be unless pools were legalized.

With few exceptions the railroad managers asked for the abro-
gation or modification of the anti-pooling and long and short haul
clauses, which led Mr. Herrick, of the New York Produce Ex-
change, to remark, that “it seemed as if the railroads wanted to
abrogate just what the public demanded should be enforced.”
Mr. Depew admitted that the law has prevented the building of
useless roads, and that the condition of the railroads had im-
proved, but not so much as would have been the case had they
been permitted to pool. He said, “The law has proved beneficent
to the public at the expense of the railroads”; but with legalized
pools the converse might be stated, for they would improve the
position of the railroads at the expense of the public.

Mr. John D. Kenna, ex-railroad commissioner and attorney
for the Produce Exchange, insisted that the Interstate Commerce

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTAHLY.

Act extended to the roads all the advantages which could be
legitimately derived from a pool; and he very justly observed
that, when recklessness had reached its length, the railroad presi-
dents and bankers ordered their employés to obey the law and
stop building useless railroads.

Mr. John Newell, President of the Lake Shore, declared that
“for fifteen years they had fruitlessly sought a solution of the
difficulty”; the cause of failure is not obscure, for railway pools,
like legislation, sought to annul the unfavorable conditions in-
duced by over-construction ; but moderating the evil effects sim-
ply resulted in the unchecked persistency of the cause; hence new
roads were built, expecting to enjoy the artificial profits derived
through combination, and, if denied a connection with the pool,
the new roads entered the lists as freebooters and disturbers until
their claims were allowed.

Since the Interstate Commerce Law is neither fully respected
nor enforced, what its effect will be is undetermined; but as it
aims to lessen the evils due to excessive railroad-building, it will
tend to increase the energy of the original disturbing cause, and
will probably result in specializing the speculative constructor as
distinct from the operator of railroad properties; and as the im-
pinging forces are intermittent in operation, it is at once suggest-
ive of the attempt to balance an egg upon its end. Railroad
managers would scale up rates by combination, the people would
scale them down by competition; in either case the gain of the
one is predicated upon the loss of the other.

In the normal adjustment of means to ends, of supply to nat-
ural demand, no such conflict appears, for the public could be
better served at lower cost, while the railroads could secure fair
profits from a larger traffic at lower rates.

The strength of this position does not rest upon the fact that
“ existing railroads have all they want,” but on what Senator Blair
failed to comprehend, that the public are already provided with
more railroads than the traffic at reasonable rates can sustain ;
hence no possible legislation can be invoked which can prevent
either a loss to the railroads or added burdens upon the people.

Tue existence of evidences of the Glacial period in the Altai Mountains was
doubted by B. Van Cotta, who failed to find them. But Mr. E. Michaelis, in
1870, observed ‘‘undoubted traces of a mighty spreading of ancient glaciers” in
the southern part of the range, where there are now some large glaciers and
snow-covered ridges. Among them are deposits of bowlders, of various rocks,
confusedly mingled, the smaller ones well rounded and the larger ones more an-
gular, while the intervals between the stones are crammed with clay and sand.
The relation of these deposits to the neighboring defiles is in most cases incom-
prehensible.

MUSCLE AND MIND. 377

MUSCLE AND MIND.
By FRANCES EMILY WHITE, M.D.

HE fundamental characteristic of the animal world, as dis-
tinguished from the vegetable world, lies in its different
relations to the energies of matter. Every animal is a mechanism
for the liberation of energy previously stored up, in great part, in
the tissues of plants which serve as food for these higher forms of
life; and the quantity and kinds of energy liberated in any ani-
mal are determined mainly by the degree of development of the
muscular and nervous systems, the other tissues and organs of the
body being subservient to these two, which have been well styled
the master tissues.

But the animal differs from the plant, not only in the power
of liberating energy, and thus acting on the outside world; it is
also differently affected by the outside world, the energies of
which play upon its living tissues as the wind upon the strings
of an Atolian harp; and the sensitive organism thrills under these
influences with responsive sensations of greater or less diversity
and intensity according to the variety and grade of development
of its sensitive organs.

The muscular and the nervous tissues, upon which depend the
distinctively animal functions of sensation and spontaneous move-
ment, develop together, and their relations, both anatomical and
physiological, are of the most intimate character.

Rudimentary nerve-threads are found in the Hydra; first
recognized by Klinenberg, they were regarded by him as partly
nervous and partly muscular; and the most primitive fibers posi-
tively identified as true nerves serve as pathways of communica-
tion from the sensitive surface to the rudimentary nerve-centers,
and from these centers to the equally rudimentary muscles of the
simple animals to which they belong. In short, the primitive
nervous system is merely an immature apparatus for the produc-
tion of sensations and the excitation of movements of the kind
called “reflex,” since they are excited by a stimulus transmitted
from the surface of the body to the nerve-centers and thence
reflected, as it were, to the muscles;* and a large proportion of
the nerve-bundles which, with the centers, make up the nervous
system of man, consists of fibers of communication between the
muscles of the trunk and limbs and their stimulating centers in

* The term “reflex” is a misnomer, as the action of the nerve-center is not the mere
reflection of an impulse received from the periphery. The word is used to indicate that
the exciting cause of activity of the center arises outside itself, and not, as in so-called
“automatic” action, within itself.

VOL. Xxxv.—24

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the brain; and since no muscle normally contracts except under
the stimulus of a nervous impulse transmitted through a nerye-
fiber from the central nervous system, my first thesis will be at
once admitted, viz., that exercise of muscles necessarily involves
exercise of their associated regions in the central nervous system,
and that voluntary movements at least require the activity of cer-
tain areas of the brain.

It is admitted that the evolution of mind in the animal series
and that of the bodily organs have kept pace with each other,
The hemispheres of the brain increase in size and in complexity
in the ascending zoélogical scale, the animal becoming mentalized
in a direct ratio to the development of this part of the brain,
which in man forms by far its largest subdivision. The doctrine,
first definitely formulated by Fritsch and Hitzig, that the cortex
of the brain contains special centers which govern definite groups
of muscles,* is most significant in connection with this subject.
They and their followers divide the brain cortex into two princi-
pal regions—one of sensory areas, which lie in the hinder part of
the brain, and another of motor areas, which lie anteriorly ; 1. e.,
into a region engaged in receiving from the surface organs (the
skin, the eye, etc.) impressions which excite the various sensa-
tions, and a region concerned in exciting and co-ordinating the
movements of the body. The motor centers thus far definitely
located are those which control the muscles of the face, arm, leg,
and trunk. They lie on each side of one of the fissures of the
brain,t in the order named from below upward—an arrangement
which led Dr. Lauder-Brunton to suggest that it had occurred
in accordance with the progressive evolution of the faculties,
premising that the uppermost in position were the latest to be
acquired and the highest functionally. Thus animals low in the
scale seize their food with the mouth; the center for the face-
muscles was therefore earliest in order of development, as it is
lowest in situation, Animals of a somewhat higher grade grasp
their food with the anterior limbs—the next higher centers being
those devoted to the arm-movements. Animals still further ad-
vanced in development have the power of running after their
prey, using the posterior to assist the anterior limbs in accordance
with the higher level of the centers concerned. Later still, the
trunk muscles come to the assistance of the arms and legs in
the all-important work of securing food, the first necessity. Co-
incident with these observations is the fact that the higher the
center the more it requires education in the human being. The
new-born infant has control of the muscles of the mouth to

* Known as the doctrine of localization.

+ The fissure of Rolando, anterior to the fissure of Sylvius which separates the motor
from the sensory areas,

MUSCLE AND MIND. 379

the extent of appropriating the food placed at its lips; yet,
for the effective use of the arms and legs, months of training are
necessary; while definite movements of the trunk, as in danc-
ing, bowing, etc., are acquired much later in life. It is also a
most significant fact that the center for the control of the various
and complex movements concerned in speech is limited to the
left side of the brain in right-handed persons—a few cases having
been recorded in which disease of the corresponding locality on
the right side of the brain has been followed by loss of speech in
the left-handed *—implying that the more frequent and intelligent
use of the muscles of the right hand and arm has had some con-
nection with the development of the faculty of speech. This is
corroborated by the fact that, among the lower animals, there is
little if any difference in the use of the anterior limbs, as there is
also absence of the faculty of speech—a factor of the highest im-
portance in mental development.

Although the doctrine of localization has distinguished oppo-
nents, Prof. Goltz denying that either sensations or movements
have any special centers in the brain, and the late George Henry
Lewes opposing the idea to the extent of saying, “It is the whole
man who feeis and thinks,” nevertheless the doctrine is gaining
ground. At least two cases have been recorded of otherwise nor-.-
mal individuals in whom a congenital absence of the left hand
and a part of the arm was accompanied by a rudimentary condi-
tion of the corresponding convolution on the right side of the
brain, showing that the building up of these motor areas in the
brain is largely dependent on muscular exercise during the period
of growth. That the maintenance of their nutrition in the adult
is also to some extent dependent on muscular exercise is made
probable by the fact that wasting of the corresponding convolu-
tion has been found in a few instances after amputation of a limb.
Removal of the brain, slice by slice, in the lower animals is fol-
lowed by a corresponding reduction both of intelligence and of
power of voluntary movements which disappear together in about
an equal degree; and every observer knows that in many cases
of brain disease intelligence and the power of voluntary move-
ment alike suffer in proportion to the extent of degradation of
brain substance. There is also no more conspicuous feature of
idiocy than its accompanying feeble, irregular, and uncodrdinated
movements. Just what relations exist between the motor areas of
the brain and general intelligence is not a matter for dogmatic
assertion; but that these centers form a part of the intellectual
machinery is undoubted, and the facts cited, without reference to
theories, may be regarded as proving my second thesis, viz., that
the systematic and regular use of the voluntary muscles of the body

* Kiissmaul.

380 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

must have an important influence on the development of the brain,
and hence also of the mind of which the brain is the organ.

Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to certain minor
points in the physiology of the brain, all agree that it is organ-
ized on the same general plan as are the lower parts of the nerv-
ous system, and as are the entire nervous systems of those simple
animals whose functions consist in feeble sensations which arouse
equally feeble movements; and as there are no abrupt transitions
either in the animal series or in individual development, so in the
nervous system of man there is no abrupt introduction of mental
conditions of a kind totally different from those which prevail at
a lower plane of animal life, but rather the foundations of all
mental processes are to be found in simple reflex actions, The
mental building material is, therefore, derived from movements
as well as from sensations; and a sensation and its associated
movement may be said to constitute the psychical wnit of the
whole mental life, as a sensory and motor nerve with their con-
necting center constitute the structural unit of the entire nervous
system.

It is argued by Prof. Bain* that it is by the experience of
muscular exertion that we obtain our first real knowledge of the
’ external world—a “not-me” as opposed to the “me” of passive
sensation. Mr. Herbert Spencer also describes our fundamental
conception of matter as of something which offers resistance.
The different degrees of resistance met with from the “ not-me”
calling out different degrees of muscular effort, there arises a
sense of discrimination which is the beginning of knowledge.

The duration of a muscular act also leaves its impression as a
distinct element of consciousness; and the continuance of the
mental state which accompanies this duration becomes a measure
of time, the idea of which is thus incorporated in our mental
make-up from the very dawn of consciousness.

The origin of the perception of space is similarly traced, in
part at least, to movements; especially the idea of linear extension,
which is greater or less in any given case according to the degree
of contraction involved in moving the limbs through space, taken
in connection with the time occupied. It is, then, largely by
these fundamental modes of what may be termed muscular dis-
crimination that we acquire our ideas of matter, of time and of
space—the classic triad of “innate ideas” of the intuitionists.
These supposed innate ideas being, however, susceptible of a
psycho-physical explanation, we are bound by the law of parsi-
mony to accept it.f

* See “‘The Senses and the Intellect,” by Prof. Alexander Bain, M. A.

+ See “First Principles.”
+ The view advocated by Prof. W. James (see ‘“‘ Mind,” 1887), that all sensations have ~

MUSCLE AND MIND. 381

It thus appears that the brain has a twofold connection with
the muscular machinery of the body; that it not only supplies
the stimulus required for the production of voluntary movements,
necessitating a corresponding activity on its own part, but that it
is stimulated in turn by the active muscles; since every contrac-
tion is a separate occasion for the return of responsive impulses
to the brain, by means of which the corresponding centers there
are informed of the degree of energy put forth, and the extent of
the resulting movement. Voluntary movements are thus associ-
ated with three distinct kinds of consciousness: 1. That which
accompanies the outgoing impulse from the brain—the so-called
“sensation of innervation.”* 2. That excited by contraction of
muscles through impulses arising within the muscle itself and
thence transmitted to the brain—the true muscular sensation in
which the muscle acts the part of a special sense-organ. 3. That
produced by the resulting movement, also due to impulses sent to
the brain—perhaps from the surfaces of the bones as they move
against each other at the joints, or from the stretched and com-
pressed tissues, especially the tendons in which many “ Pacinian
corpuscles” are found,

The brain is thus infused with a knowledge of the work done
by the muscles, and hence of the external world of matter upon
which the body acts by means of its muscles. These muscular
tuitions—so-called intuitions—become permanent constituents of
the mental life; and my third thesis is to the effect that the
muscles play a réle in the development of mind similar to that
which belongs to the other special sense-organs—the eye, the
ear, ete,

The dependence of intellect upon sensation was recognized by
Aristotle in his famous dictum, “ Nothing in the intellect not
first in the senses”; + and whatever the differences of view which
divide the schools of psychology or individual psychologists as to
the origin of our ideas of matter, time, and space, and whatever
the real nature of the so-called “muscle-sense,” all agree that the
special sense-organs are the chief avenues of approach to the

an underived spatial element, though opposed to that of the exclusively muscular origin of
the space idea, does not conflict with the general scope of my argument, since, as will appear
later, the more important special sense-organs involve a muscular element.

* Not a true sensation, since it starts from the center. These sensations are described
by Prof. Meynert as dependent on the memory of originally reflex movements. See “ Psy-
chiatry,” by Theodor Meynert, M. D.

+ Said by Schwegler to be falsely attributed to Aristotle; the following citations, how-
ever, from Grote’s account of the psychology of Aristotle show that this aphorism is in
harmony with his philosophy: “‘ Without the visible phantasm of objects seen and touched,
or the audible phantasm of words heard and remembered, the ‘ous’ [intellect] in human
beings would be a nullity.”—“ The fundamenta of intellect are sense and hearing.” Many
other excerpts of similar purport might be given.

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

brain, and that the sensations excited through these organs con-
stitute the raw material of the mental life—touch, hearing and
sight being recognized as par excellence intellectual senses. Now,
it is a most significant fact, from the point of view of my
third thesis, that the activities of these three senses in particular
involve muscular co-operation as an essential accessory; and the
profound relations which exist between many of the mental pro-
cesses and muscular action are at least adumbrated in certain
experimental observations by Wundt upon the eye. He has
shown, for example, that vertical distances appear greater than
equal horizontal distances in the proportion of 4°8 to 4, and that
the same proportion exists between the muscular forces which
move the eye vertically and those which move it horizontally;
that the minimum of movement of the eye capable of exciting
consciousness of contraction and the smallest perceptible dis-
tance are in exact agreement, both answering to an angle of one
sixtieth of a degree; that we are able to distinguish a difference
in length of two lines if it amount to one fiftieth of the entire
length of the shorter one—the difference in movement of the
eyes in this case being also one fiftieth of their entire linear
movement,*

These relations can not be mere coincidences. Ideas of the
size and distance of objects are also attributable in part to the
degree of muscular action involved; for the nearer an object to
the eye, the greater the muscular exertion required in converging
the axes of the balls upon the object, and the greater the tax upon
the muscles of accommodation; and it is not the visual sensation
alone which gives the idea of distance, although the degree of
distinctness, no doubt, has a marked influence, but the muscular
sensations excited by the movements of accommodation and con-
vergence must also contribute to the result. A mere allusion to
the immense importance of visual perceptions in our mental fur-
nishings will sufficiently indicate the bearings of these facts on
the relations of muscular activity to mental activity and growth.
To the significance of the muscles as organs of the muscular
sense must then be added that which is due to the existence of a
muscular element in other sense-organs.

Since movements, no less than sensations, play a conspicuous
part in the acquisition of knowledge of the external world, it fol-
lows that ideas are a revival of ideal movements as well as of
ideal sensations. My fourth thesis is, therefore, that ideas have
no special separate centers in the brain, but result from the excita-
tion of those areas which have taken part in the original acquisi-
tion of ideas, viz., the sensory and motor centers. These two kinds
of centers, with the inhibitory centers and numerous connecting

* See ‘German Psychology of To-day,” Ribot.

MUSCLE AND MIND. 383

fibers, make up the convolutions of the brain and constitute the
physical basis of the mental life.*

The voluntary or spontaneous excitation of ideas is thus to be
attributed to the activity of the psycho-motor centers, while the
inhibitory centers, since they play an important part in attention
and concentration of thought, are the seat of the higher faculties ;
and intellectual power probably bears a direct ratio to the devel-
opment of these centers. By observations and experiments simi-
lar to those employed in localizing the sensory and motor areas,
the inhibitory centers have been localized in the frontal lobes of
the brain. The development of these lobes, as compared with
other parts of the brain, is conspicuous in man; as a rule, also,
great intellectual power is associated with great frontal devel-
opment. t

The biological doctrine that automatism is a property of proto-
plasm supports the theory of the originally spontaneous charac-
ter of the so-called voluntary movements, leading up to the view
that volition is an underived quality of mind; but it is a biologi-
cal fact that muscles and nerves appear on the stage of animal
life together in the form of a reflex apparatus, and that the pri-
mordial movements executed by these specialized forms of proto-
plasm are reflex; my fifth thesis is, therefore, that the germs of
wolition are to be found in movements ; that volition, so far from
providing an original stimulus to the muscular activities, has itself
grown out of these activities—the voluntary movements developing
secondarily from reflex ones.

Movements in themselves excite agreeable sensations which -
prompt to repetition ; such as prove injurious, however, become a
source of pain which tends to their suppression—that is, to inhi-
bition ; volition, therefore, develops under the stimulus of pleas-
ure combined with the repressive influence of pain, both of which
result from the action of muscles. The will is thus disciplined
and directed to such activities as are useful to the organism.

Prof. Meynert describes volitional impulses as due to the [re-
vived] perception or memory of sensations of innervation. By
means of association these memories acquire sufficient intensity
themselves to excite movements which thus starting from the brain
appear to be spontaneous; their character will, however, depend
on what has been previously registered in the motor centers.{
Although the brain-centers concerned in the exercise of volun-
tary restraint (the inhibitory centers), primarily stimulated to
activity by the pain resulting from injurious movements, do not

* “Thought consists of a certain elaboration of sensory and motor presentations, and
has no content apart from them.” Article “Psychology,” “Encyclopedia Britannica,”

_ Mr. James Ward.

+ See “Functions of the Brain,” by David Ferrier, M. D., F. B.S. ¢ Op. cit.

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

expend their influence directly upon muscles, they may, neverthe-
theless, be regarded as a part of the motor machinery, since they
act on other centers which are motor; and, by the associated ac-
tion of these two kinds of centers, the will gradually acquires a
real though limited control over the voluntary muscles.

Volition, whatever its origin, involves a state of excitation of
the brain and stimulation of body and mind. Opposition only
serves to increase its energy (as the load in “the nerve-muscle
preparation ” * augments the force of the contraction), and under
excitement intellectual as well as muscular work is more easily
done. Emotional excitement, if not of too absorbing a nature, pro-
motes intellectual activity, but the latter is itself accompanied by
a peculiar exaltation of feeling which is a source of the keenest
psychical satisfaction.

Stimulation, then, either sensory or volitional, is a necessary
antecedent of activity—in common parlance, its cause. Prof.
Bain advocates the idea that stimulation is the sole cause of pleas-
ure, the nutritive functions by keeping up the vital energy en-
abling stimulation to be carried to certain lengths before degen-
erating into pain. If we fall short of the pain limit, we fail of
the satisfactions which flow from the conscious expenditure of
energy to the full degree of which the organism is capable. If
we exceed this limit, we pay the penalty of physical degeneracy
and resulting mental decrepitude with the accompanying falling
off of activity, and hence of pleasure. Degeneration also follows
from disuse—that is, the neglect of stimulation, and consequent
inaction.

Sir William Hamilton, following Aristotle, defines pleasure as
“the reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of power
of whose energy we are conscious.” But exercise of power occurs
as aresult of stimulation. The larger statement of Prof. Bain,
therefore, includes that of Hamilton; and, since the spontaneous
exertion of power with the accompanying state of consciousness
depends on excitation of motor centers, both these statements are
involved in my sixth thesis, viz., that movements are the primary
source of pleasure and pain which, in the experience school of
psychology, are recognized as the basis of the entire mental life.

Mr. James Ward t regards the reflex movements immediately
expressive of pleasure and pain as primordial, the voluntary
movements being elaborated out of these. But movements occur
presumably below the plane of consciousness—e. g., in vegetable
protoplasm. "We may therefore conclude that, in the developing
animal series, the lowest members of which are indistinguishable

* The calf-muscle, with its nerves, taken from the leg of a frog. Within certain limits,

the heavier the weight attached to the muscle the more powerfully it contracts when the
nerve is stimulated. t Loc, cit,

MUSCLE AND MIND. 385

from plants, pleasure and pain gradually arose out of movements,
thus leading to the development of volition.

Lucretius says:* “It is delightful to stand on the sea-shore in
a high wind and watch the dangers of those who are on the deep;
it is equally pleasant to behold from an elevated station a battle
raging in the plains below, because it is naturally agreeable to wit-
ness those misfortunes from which yourself are free; but far-‘more
pleasant still is it to occupy wisdom’s heights, and from thence to
look down on others groping and wandering in search of the true
light.” + Although the want of sympathetic feeling shown in this
poetic flight is shocking to the altruism of the nineteenth century,
the idea is nevertheless in entire harmony with Hamilton’s defini-
tion of pleasure, since consciousness of power naturally belongs
to a position of superiority; and the feeling here disclosed un-
doubtedly constitutes an important element in human satisfac-
tions. It is not always necessary that superiority should be
demonstrated in order to the securing of its legitimate effects;
a powerful mastiff scorns to use his strength against an inferior
antagonist ; the mere consciousness of ability to exterminate the
puppy with a single shake satisfies the demands of his nature.

Pleasure, originating in physical activity and reaching a far
higher phase in the doing of intellectual work, culminates in the
supreme consciousness of power which attends the moral actions.
As pointed out by Mr. Stanton Coit,{ “The conscious fulfillment
of duty is attended by a feeling of happiness which sometimes
takes the form of deep inward peace, and sometimes of gladness
and exultation, like that of a victor.” Thus the ancient heathen
poet and the modern moralist, although separated by the vast
ocean of sympathy which les between the opposite poles of ego-
ism and altruism, meet nevertheless on the common soil of a com-
mon human nature.

Activity, then, carries with it its own reward; it is in itself an
end; and education, once almost exclusively directed to the imme-
diate cultivation of the mind, is gradually extending to all the
activities of the complex human being—the physical and moral
as well as the intellectual. The general methods by which the
full measure of development of which human nature is suscep-
tible may be secured are, I believe, indicated in the psycho-physi-
ological facts and principles of which I have here attempted a
brief outline.

* Quoted by B. Cattell in “ Are Animals mentally happy?” ‘Nineteenth Century,”
August, 1886.

+ It was one of the teachings of a certain system of theology, now happily nearly obso-
lete, that the spectacle of the tortures of the damned woul!d constitute one of the elements
of heavenly bliss.

¢ See “ Mind,” No. xliii, ‘‘The Final Aim of Moral Action.”

VOL, XXxV.—25

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Experimental proofs of the efficiency of these methods are also
forthcoming. Among them, perhaps, none are more convincing

Fie. 1.—AceE, Srx Montag.

Fie. 2.—Acr, E1ieHTEEN MonrTuHs.

than the results secured in the modern training schools for idiots,
in which difficult field the late Dr. Edward Séguin, of New York,

Fie. 3—AGE, SEVEN YEARs.

distinguished himself not
only as an investigator of
remarkable insight and
originality, but as a hu-
manitarian of a high order.

At the meeting of the
British Association in 1879,
Dr. Séguin read a paper en-
titled “The Training of an
Idiotic Hand,” * in which
are given the details of his
developmental method of
teaching in the case of an
idiot boy. The training de-
scribed was applied mainly
to the hands, over which the
feeble will of the child had
almost no control. He was
unable to put either his fin-
gers or hands in any given
required attitude, although
movements of great rapid-

ity and considerable force were involuntarily executed, mainly
from the wrist. The sense of touch was also almost wholly want-

* See “ Archives of Medicine,” October, 1879.

7”

MUSCLE AND MIND. 387

ing. After a year’s training (the detailed account of which is
most instructive) he is described as having learned to help and
amuse himself, and to refrain from biting himself, and from strik-
ing his friends, although the hands are still subject, at times, to
involuntary movements. The sense of touch has developed to the
degree of recognizing about one hundred objects by their shape
-and texture alone, without the aid of sight. He has also acquired
consciousness of the ordinary variations of temperature of water,
food, etc. He has been taught to recognize the typical geometri-
cal forms, and to cut them out of paper. He has visited the florists
daily, and learned to know and name about sixty different kinds
of flowers, all fragrant, thus appealing to the brain through still
another sense. This development of the special senses and of
volition was accompanied by a marked decline, not only of un-
controlled movements but of outbursts of temper, which had been
conspicuous.

At the end of a year’s training, concentrated mainly on the
hands, the special training of the eyes was begun, the history of
which is given in a second paper.*

There was a lack of control over the movements of the eyes
quite comparable to that which had existed in the case of the

Fie. 4.—Acr, E1eut YEARS. Fie. 5.—Acr, Nine YEARS.

hands. The boy was unable voluntarily either to hold his eyes
still or to direct them toward any particular object—rapid oscil-
lations alternating with periods of fixation upward and to one side.
In the training of these refractory organs the improved hands
were made to give most effective assistance. “ What words can
not do,” says Dr. Séguin, “the hand can; viz., it can present ob-
jects to the eye at the proper distance, at the proper opportunity,
and with the proper degree of insistence and pertinacity, even fol-

* See “ Archives of Medicine,” December, 1880.

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lowing the eye in its wanderings till it has captured and capti-
vated the regard,. . . keeping the eye at bay, or leading it away
from its empty fixedness.”

At the end of the second year of training, “the vibrations of
the eyes have diminished, his voluntary look has become more
steady, and his automatic one less riveted.” From the study of
objects and movements this no longer idiotic boy was led on to
the acquirement of language. At the beginning of training he
could repeat only the last word of what was said to him; at the
end of the second year he had acquired an accurate though lim-
ited vocabulary. Five portraits of the child accompany the re-
ports of this experiment—the first (Fig. 1) taken at six months of
age, Showing normal development; the second (Fig. 2) at eighteen
months (after convulsions), in which idiocy is apparent;* the
third (Fig. 3) at seven years, in which the characteristics of idiocy
are well marked; the fourth (Fig. 4) at the end of a year’s training
of the hands, and the fifth (Fig. 5) after a year’s training of the
eyes. These portraits testify, in a language far more forcible than
that of words, to the efficiency of Dr. Séguin’s method. The im-
provement—physical, mental, and moral—as reflected in the last
portrait, is most remarkable.t The entire history of this experi-
ment is a history of the triumph of the physiological method of
education {[—the only rational method, and as applicable to the
sound as to the unsound body and brain. To the physiologist,
at least, it must have the value of a complete demonstration of
the supreme importance of physical culture in both mental and
moral development.

Corroborative testimony of equal or even greater importance
may be found in a recent report of the New York State Reforma-
tory at Elmira, to whose resident physician, Dr. Hamilton D.
Wey, belongs the distinction of having proposed and carried out
the details of an experiment* for testing the effects of physical
culture on the mental and moral capacities of an inferior order of
adult criminals. Dr. Wey selected for this experiment twelve
men ranging from nineteen to twenty-nine years of age, five of
whom had been convicted of burglary, four of grand larceny, and
three of crimes against the person.

* The fact that idiocy often follows convulsions has a significant bearing on the subject
of this paper, since the convulsions of childhood are generally the result of reflex over-
stimulation of the motor centers of the brain from excessive irritation of the sensory cen-
ters brought about by some severe disturbance at the periphery, as in the convulsions of
teething. f

+ We are indebted to the kindness of the Messrs. Putnam for permission to reproduce
these portraits.

+ This includes all that comes under the head of manual training.

# Sec Annual Report of Board of Managers of the New York State Reformatory, Janu-
ary, 1887.

MUSCLE AND MIND. 389

Three of them had been total-abstinence men; eight had in-
dulged in alcoholic drinks occasionally, and one habitually. Sever-
al of them confessed to intemperate parents; one had an insane anda
one an epileptic mother. Many of these men had faces indicative
of criminal tendencies; the heads of two were suggestive of idi-
ocy ; and among the entire number there was not a face which
did not express either mental hebetude or moral obliquity, or both
combined.

During the previous two years these men had made no appre-
ciable progress in school-work, seeming incapable of prolonged
mental efforts. One of them could neither read nor write; an-
other found great difficulty in doing either; and, although four of
them understood the steps necessary for working out a problem
in long division, they could never obtain a correct answer, while
the remaining eight were “stranded upon the shoals of rudiment-
ary arithmetic from notation to simple division.” Some of them
were unable even to name the State or country from which they
had come. It will be admitted that the proposed test of the value
of physical culture was of the severest possible kind.

The physical discipline to which they were subjected consisted
in (1) hot baths—three weekly, the Turkish and common bath

alternating; (2) massage—kneading of the muscles, passive mo-
tions of the joints, and friction of the entire surface; (3) physical
exercise—manual drill, free gymnastics and exercise with dumb-
bells ranging progressively from three to eight pounds in weight;
(4) the substitution of a special dietary for the regular prison
fare. The experiment was continued during five months—long
enough to demonstrate the value of the method, but not to deter-
mine the full measure of success probably attainable by these
means. At the end of this period, nine of the eleven men then
living had risen from the third or refractory to the intermediate
grade, the remaining two having merely maintained their original
standing in this grade.

During the six months immediately preceding the experiment,
the average marking for shop-work, school-work, and conduct had
been forty-six per cent. During the experiment, the average for
school-work, previously lowest of all, rose to seventy-four per
cent, the conduct improving at about an equal rate. Shop-work
was discontinued, as the special training was thought to secure
enough muscular exercise. During the six months following the
term of the experiment, the average marking of the men in the
three departments of shop-work, school-work, and conduct rose to
seventy-one per cent as compared with forty-six per cent for the
six months preceding the experiment. At the end of this period
Dr. Wey reported* that “although the men had been remanded to

* See “Science,” June 17, 1887.

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the former routine of prison life, mental development was still
going on; six of the number had reached the first grade in school-
work, and two of the remaining five had every prospect of soon
doing so.”

Physical improvement was marked; their skins had acquired
the softness and smoothness of childhood (several having had
some form of skin-disease), and their biceps muscles had become
worthy of the traditional blacksmith. Their former stooping
attitude, slow movements, and shuffling gait had given place to
an appearance of alertness and vigor; their faces also had devel-
oped an expression of comparative brightness and intelligence.
In manual labor the advance was not so pronounced as in other
directions, though improvement in this department was marked ;
but the stride in mental and moral development was almost beyond
belief. Dr. Wey, in closing his account of this most interesting
test of a new method in prison discipline, says, “I regard my
experiment in physical culture as showing that something more
than mere brawn can be accomplished by muscular exercise,
properly directed.”

Inquiries extending over a period of forty years, made of about
three hundred members of the Cambridge and Oxford University
crews, instituted by Dr. Maclaren, director of the University Gym-
nasium at Oxford, have elicited facts which may be accepted as_
experimental evidence of the value of physical training in a
class of cases in which the conditions of life are most favorable,
hence affording a test from which practically every element ex-
cept the purely muscular one is eliminated. The benefits expe-
rienced by the members of these crews are stated to be an increase
of stamina, of energy, enterprise, and executive power, and of for-
titude in endurance of trials, privations, and disappointments—a
goodly list of benefits bearing on the mental and moral as con-
spicuously as on the physical side of the question,” says Dr. Mac-
laren, “for, in the struggle for existence, failure is more likely
to result from inability to endure trials and disappointments than
from merely physical weakness—the statistics of suicide bearing
out this statement.” *

The testimony obtained from this source shows that the advan-
tages of physical training are not limited to the idiotic, the igno-
rant, and the criminal classes, the conditions of whose lives have
been especially unfavorable to a normal symmetrical develop-
ment, but that they belong alike to all; and these widely different
experiments, considered together, are calculated to convince the
most skeptical mind of the soundness of the several foregoing
theses based on certain facts of the development and physiology
of the muscular and nervous systems, and on certain principles of

* See Dr. Maclaren’s work on training.

MUSCLE AND MIND. 391

psycho-physics and psychology, to which reference has been made.
This experimental evidence, having been drawn from observations
on the extremes of human capacity and character (exemplified in
the young idiot, the adult criminal, and the university student,
during the intermediate developmental period), may be accepted as
virtually covering the entire ground of human nature in its vari-
ous phases, and therefore as conclusive of the wniversal applica-
bility of systematic physical culture in education. The cases cited
show that in the processes of mental and moral development the
muscles, as well as the purely sensory mechanisms, play a con-
spicuous part; and, while the period of growth is undoubtedly
most favorable to this work, Dr. Wey’s experiment shows that
even the adult brain and mind may be improved by the various
procedures included under the head of physical culture.

That health has an important bearing upon morals is un-
doubted.* Count Tolstoi, through the lips of one of his dramatic
impersonations, says, “I must have some physical exercise or my
character will entirely spoil”; + and it is probable that not even
the finest examples of human development have attained a height
so great, either intellectual or moral, as to be beyond betterment
by these means. Descartes testified to the importance of atten-
tion to the physical nature in saying, “If it be possible to perfect
the human race, it is in medicine that we must seek the means ”—
employing the term “medicine” in its broad sense as a science
devoted to the care of the body. The curative value of physical
exercise has long been recognized. Boerhaave said that most of
our fashionable diseases might be cured mechanically instead of
chemically, by climbing a bitter-wood tree or by chopping it down,
rather than by swallowing a disgusting decoction of its leaves and
bark. Asclepiades was accustomed to prescribing a course of
gymnastics for nearly every form of bodily ailment. Tolstoi
also proposes to enrich medicine with a new term, “labor-cure,”
as a sovereign specific for nervous affections.

We have found that activity is in itself an end. The excite-
ment which attends voluntary muscular exercise is a natural
stimulant in which all can afford to indulge, since, unlike the
artificial stimulants, it adds to the stock by promoting the nutri-
tion of the entire body. Voluntary exercise also tends to develop
the general power of volition (including that of self-restraint),
which, as we have seen, first appears on the stage of animal life
in connection with movements.

But emotions and thoughts as well as movements may be
inhibited and brought under control; and it is in this region of

* See author’s article, “Hygiene as a Basis of Morals,” ‘ Popular Science Monthly,”’
May, 1887,

+ See “ Anna Karénina.” ¢ Loe. cit.

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mentality that volition reaches its highest phase. Whosoever
has attained those “shining table-lands” of human character
where force, courage, endurance, and a due degree of altruism
perennially abide is in his own person an apotheosis of power,
the power whose beginnings we have traced to the muscular
activities.

It then appears that in the twofold nature of man the physi-
cal and the psychical exist not merely in the relation of simple
contiguity, but rather as involved in “the one and indivisible
whole” of human existence, and that the psychical—the so-called
spiritual—qualities are developed through the physical agents
known as the bodily organs, by means of the activities which
constitute the functions of those organs.

Said the great Spinoza, whose far-reaching vision penetrated
depths beyond the ken of the common mind: “ We do not desire
or strive after anything because we think it good ; we think it
good because we are moved to strive after and desire it.”

KINSHIP IN POLYNESIA.*

By C. N. STARCKE, Pu. D.,
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN.

Foes Polynesia, the distinct classes constitute a similar state of
things to the family group in the peoples of Asia, since they
form an exclusive organization, holding property in common. It
is not very clear how these classes arose, but we may assume that
they are connected with an earlier distribution into clans, so that
the chief represents the eldest line of the posterity of their com-
mon ancestor. In some cases this ancestor is supposed to be of
divine origin; but we lay no stress on such a supposition, since it
probably arose after the chief’s position was established. The
people are usually in possession of small plots of ground, either
as comparatively independent proprietors, or as serfs; the nobles
are owners or rulers of small districts, and the king is ruler of the
whole. The conditions are in many respects confused and in-
definite, yet the type is undoubtedly that of the joint family, or
village community. .

The classes differ from clans in a natural way. The nobles of
different clans belong to one class, and while the clan is usually
exogamous, the class always tends to become endogamous. In
Polynesia, the definition of the class depends upon the line of
kinship, and the classes are not isolated with the exclusiveness of

* From “The Primitive Family,” by Dr. C. N. Starcke, “International Scientific Series,”
vol. lxv, just published by D. Appleton & Co. i

KINSHIP IN POLYNESIA. 393

castes in India: marriages between the different classes are not
absolutely forbidden.

The position of a child born from a marriage between persons
of unequal rank may be decided in several ways. The child may
either be always assigned to the superior or inferior class, or al-
ways either to the father or mother. Polynesia offers us examples
of all kinds,

If the father or mother alone belongs to the ruling class, the
child is, in the Caroline Isles, assigned to that class.* In the Tonga
Isles, the highest class—the Egi, or nobles—inherits rank and
property through the mother; the children of the common people
(Mataboulas and Tuas) inherit from the father, but belong to the
mother’s class.t In Otaheite, the children of a marriage between
a noble (Hui-Arii) and a woman of a lower class are set aside, un-
less numerous ceremonies are performed in the temple at the time
of the wedding, so as to raise the rank of the inferior person. {
Both among the nobles and in the intermediate class of land-
owners the father abdicates in favor of his new-born son, because
the son has an additional ancestor, and is therefore of higher rank
than his father.*

Marriages are dissolved in the Sandwich Isles at the wish of
either party; only in the case of the chiefs there is no divorce,
but they form a connection with other women, and their wives
take other lovers. These are usually of inferior rank, and the
children begotten of such marriages are almost always put to
death, probably by the kinsfolk of the higher class, in order that
their own importance may not suffer from intermixture with an
inferior rank.|| When we are told that in Hawaii the dignity of
chief is inherited through the mother, it must be understood that
preference is given to those of the chief’s children whose mother
is of the highest rank.~ “ The wife does not share her husband’s
rank. The rank of the child is decided by certain definite laws,
generally by that of its mother, but also in some cases by that of
the father. A woman of noble family who marries one of the
common people loses her rank in the event of bearing children to
him, in which case she and her children are degraded to her hus-
band’s class. The right of inheritance is not decided by priority
of birth, but by the fact that the mother is of higher rank than
the other wives.” (

This is also the case at King’s Mill and in New Zealand. In

* Chamisso, vol. ii, p. 241.

+ Martin, vol. ii, p.101. Rienzi, vol. iii, p. 45. Morgan, “Systems,” p. 559.

} Ellis, vol. iii, p. 98.

* Thid., vol. iii, p. 100. Cook, vol. i. Hawkesworth, vol. ii, p. 243.

| Ellis, vol. i, p. 256; vol. iv, p. 411. A Varigny, p. 14.

¢ Chamisso, vol. ii, p. 275. } Wilkes, vol. v, p. 85. Rienzi, vol. iii, p. 142.
VOL, XXXV,—25*

394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the latter country, the man who marries into another tribe or clan
takes up his abode in it, and is thenceforward reckoned with his
wife’s family. It is also usual for the wife to raise her husband
to her own rank, while this is not done by the husband.* This
fact has been regarded as asurvival of a clearly established fe-
male line, and a sign of the earlier pre-eminence of the wife; but
it seems to me to imply precisely the opposite. Only the preva-
lent custom of ascribing the child to its father would induce the
kinsfolk of a woman of high rank to adopt her husband, in order
-not to lose their hold upon the children. If the female line were
about to disappear, the growing claims of the husband would lead
to the adoption of his wife by his own family.

It has been supposed that the strongest proof of the female
line is to be found among the Fiji Islanders, but here also the
spirit of mature criticism is wanting. We are told that the king
is succeeded by his brother, and by his eldest son only in the event
of his leaving no surviving brother. The mother’s rank and some
other circumstances may, however, cause this rule to be violated,
so that the younger is preferred to the elder brother.t The chief’s
practice of extensive polygamy makes it desirable to establish the
child’s rank by a reference to its mother.{ The female line can not
be deduced from these customs, but a stronger proof is afforded
by the institution of the Vasu, which is described as follows:
“Most prominent among the public notorieties of Fiji is the Vasu,
The word means a nephew or niece, but becomes a title of office in
the case of the male, who, in some localities, has the extraordinary
privilege of appropriating whatever he chooses belonging to his
uncle, or those under his uncle’s power. Vasus are of three kinds:
the Vasu taukei, the Vasu levu, and the Vasu ; the last is a com-
mon name, belonging to any nephew whatever. Vasu taukez is a
term applied to any Vasu whose mother is a lady of the land in
which he is born, The fact of Mbau being at the head of Fijian
rank gives the Queen of Mbau a pre-eminence over all Fijian
ladies, and her son a place nominally above all Vasus. No mate-
rial difference exists between the power of a Vasu taukei and that
of a Vasu levu, which latter title is given to every Vasu born of a
woman of rank, and having a first-class chief for his father. Vasu
tauket can claim anything belonging to a native of his mother’s
land, excepting the wives, home, and land of a chief. ... How-
ever high a chief may rank, however powerful a king may be, if
he has a nephew he has a master, one who will not be content
with the name, but who will exercise his prerogative to the full,

* Thompson, vol. i, p. 176. Brown, p. 34.

+ Williams and Calvert, p. 18. Appendix xxvi. Rienzi, vol. iii, p. 286. Morgan,
“Systems,” p. 582; ‘“ Ancient Societies,” p. 375.

$ Williams and Calvert, p. 26. Appendix xxvii.

KINSHIP IN POLYNESIA. 395

seizing whatever may take his fancy, regardless of its value or
the owner’s inconvenience in its loss. Resistance is not thought
of, and objection only offered in extreme cases. Thokonauto, a
Rewa chief, during a quarrel with an uncle, used the right of
Vasu, and actually supplied himself with ammunition from his
enemy’s stores.” *

It can not be denied that this great power of the sister’s son is
very remarkable, and at the first glance it seems only possible to
explain it by assuming that there was a peculiar sanctity in the
tie of kinship between the man and his sister’s son. The extent
of the claim is astonishing—a claim which no son would venture
to put forward ; and this is the more remarkable since the sister’s
son is not the uncle’s heir. In all other cases in which the female
line divides father and son, in order to tighten the bond between
the mother’s brother and sister’s son, the analogy with the male
line is maintained ; that is, the uncle exerts his authority over the
sister’s son, whereas in this instance their positions are reversed.
This arouses a suspicion that ideas unconnected with the female
line may have produced the Vasu rights.

On examining more closely the whole institution of the Vasu,
we are first struck by the fact that no legitimate rights belong to
the common Vasu. These claims can only be made by the Vasu
whose mother’s brother possesses people and land. It may be as-
sumed that the power of the Vasu in its extreme development was
first directed against the mother’s brother after it had become an
integral part of the political machinery of Fiji, since we are told
that the Vasu right becomes an instrument in the king’s hand for
ruthlessly plundering the land. The king makes use of the Vasu,
and shares the plunder with him.+ There can be no doubt that
the institution of Vasu arose out of the natural reverence with
which the subjects regarded the king’s sister’s son when he visited
his uncle. They honored the king through his kinsfolk. The
king and his sons ruled after no gentle fashion, and the ruler was
entitled to commit all sorts of acts of violence. In this way the
honor paid to the king’s sister’s son enabled him to rob the people
freely. The Vasu right was gradually transformed into a funda-
mental institution, and that which was at first serviceable to the
king was now turned against him. It certainly affords no indica-
tions of a mystical and religious belief in any special sacred bond

between the mother’s brother and sister’s son.

-

Tue Russian observers of the solar eclipse of August 19, 1887, have expressed
the conclusion that the corona has a real existence, and is not merely an optical
phenomenon; it having maintained its shape during the whole of the eclipse at each
spot where it was observed, and also at spots as far as six thousand miles apart.

* Williams and Calvert, p. 27. + Ibid., p. 27. Appendix xxviii.

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SOME OF THE LIMITATIONS OF MEDICINE.*

By STEPHEN 8. BURT, M.D.,

PROFESSOR OF OLINIOCAL MEDIOINE AND PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS, NEW YORK POST-GRADUATE MEDI-
CAL SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL.

toe is a trait peculiar to some minds to believe too much and to
-L. others to believe too little. Between these extremes, however,
there are many who, though keenly alive to the limitations of
medicine, are, at the same time, able to appreciate the great boon
itis to mankind, There may be those who would resent the idea
of circumscribing our art, but “ truth can never be really injuri-
ous, whatever phantoms apprehensive ignorance may conjure up
around it.”

The questions have often presented themselves to me why,
after so many years of familiarity with disease, is there such a
wide difference of opinion regarding its management ? Why is it
possible that there are two large schools of medicine opposed in
theory if not in practice? Why the endless and surprising con-
sumption of patent remedies? It would seem that more or less
superstition still prevails in reference to disease, as well as much
ignorance respecting its natural history. I am not well convinced
that illness is a necessary concomitant of human existence; and
to believe that it is unavoidable is to paralyze all legitimate efforts
for its prevention. That it will, at any time, be wholly eradicated
is too much to hope, and as Utopian as to expect that a high order
of knowledge will ever be universal; nevertheless, great mental
attainments and perfect physical health have been realized, and
therefore must be accepted as a standard for approximation. Nor
is such a realization fortuitous. Long years before our era a wise
philosopher of Greece declared that chance was nothing more
than cause unperceived by human reasoning. Now, the welfare
of the human race suffers in proportion to the survival of a be-
lief that chance and not some ascertainable cause underlies the
evils that endanger it. We are prone to shift the responsibility
for our misfortunes upon others, and slow to take the blame on
ourselves, where it commonly belongs. Life is certainly a desira-
ble thing under favorable circumstances, and oftentimes we are
the makers, or, at least, the modifiers of our environment. As a
rule, bad health is the foundation of the greater part of the un-
happiness of man. And yet nothing is more positive than that
the preservation of good health depends upon a strict observance
of the laws of being, which include those of inheritance. Many

* Read before the Clinical Society of the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and
Hospital, January 19, 1889.

SOME OF THE LIMITATIONS OF MEDICINE. 397

of these precepts are well understood, but they are by no means
generally heeded; for, though life is undoubtedly shortened by
ignorance, it is also curtailed by a disregard of what is known—a
failure to profit by the understanding. All infringements of the
rules of health entail suffering upon the individual, his contem-
poraries, or his descendants. It is the inability to appreciate that
man is but a molecular vibration in the great molar pulsation of
life, that allows him to hope that action will ever be not followed
by reaction. Furthermore, Nature is never cognizant of extenuat-
ing circumstances, Whatever a man’s motive, he is equally a
victim of a neglect to preserve his bodily well-being, whether his
intentions be good or bad. We see death prematurely and with
impartiality destroy the just and the unjust. We know that
life bears many an old sinner to its utmost limit, and, contrari-
wise, that goodness is not incompatible with extreme old age.
Seeing and knowing these things, are we to shut our eyes and be
oblivious to such truths, or are we to awaken to a just apprecia-
tion of the invariable relation of cause and effect, however far
removed one from the other ?

Life has been defined as “the continuous adjustment of inter-
nal relations to external relations.” Hence, a partial failure of
the inner man to,meet the successive changes that are going on
about him, means incomplete life or disease, and a complete fail-
ure of a similar adjustment signifies death. The transmission
and the development of characters known as inheritance are made
clear by the hypothesis of pangenesis, which, therefore, with your
permission, let me give: “Every unit or cell of the body throws
off gemmules or undeveloped atoms, which are transmitted to the
offspring of both sexes, and are multiplied by self-division. They
may remain undeveloped during the early years of life or during
successive generations; and their development into units or cells,
like those from which they are derived, depends on their affinity
for and union with other units or cells previously developed in
the due order of growth.” Here we find an explanation of the
manner in which predispositions to disease are probably trans-
mitted, and, what is more, the particular form of inheritance
known as atavism, or the recurrence of certain features after one
or two generations of immunity. I dwell upon this matter of in-
heritance in order to show how futile the attempt to construct a
perfect being out of imperfect material. No amount of thera-
peutic skill will ever be able to atone for the fatal mistake of
unwise parentage. The laws of generation are as applicable to
man as to the lower animals. It seems unfair that the child
should suffer for the shortcomings of the parent, but the offspring
is a continuation of his progenitors, the product of those who
have gone before, plus his own individuality. Hence, what affects

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the child in some degree affects the parent. Indeed, the suffering
of a parent over the misfortunes of the child is often greater than
that of the child itself. It is important that man should under-
stand the great power that inheritance exerts upon the race for
good and for evil, so that he may make a wise departure in the
right direction; and that he should know that his daily life so
regulates his habits of mind and body that each succeeding day
is the sum total of the days that have gone before in its influence
upon his future health and movements.

Confucius says: “ When you know a thing, to hold that you
know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you
do not know it—this is knowledge.” The laity are of necessity
more or less ignorant of the nature of disease. And it would
seem that their ignorance is shared by no inconsiderable number
of our profession. Every malady pursues a definite course, and
ends in restoration, incomplete recovery, or in death. Now, I be-
lieve that those medical men who are familiar with the natural
history of disease will admit that the milder forms of most acute
affections will pass through their various stages and end in recoy-
ery without the assistance of a single drug. Moreover, I think
they will be obliged to acknowledge that, under the most favora-
ble circumstances and most skilled treatment, many persons die
overpowered by the virulence of a malady. The daily record of
vital statistics would seem to prove as much, And the patholo-
gists will bear testimony to the fact that where disease, either
acute or chronic, has invaded a vital organ, just so much of the
tissue as is destroyed remains destroyed and is never reproduced.
Have we a broken-down lung? The best that can happen is
that the process shall be stopped. Are portions of the kidneys
degenerated ? We can but save the remainder. Has the liver
begun to retrograde into fibrous tissue ? We can at best but check
the retrogression.

The probable reason that treatment does not keep pace with
the rapid advance of pathology is that therapeutics has gone
astray, since the only possible solution for some of these diffi-
culties is to seek out the cause and obviate it. A great deal of
time and talent have been wasted in a fruitless search for specific
remedies for disease, like unto the metaphysicians who have been
asking unanswerable questions for hundreds of years about the
unknowable.

While it is possible to imagine a community so intelligent as
to exist free from the ravages of disease, it is too much for the
most sanguine to hope for in the near future. But, notwithstand-
ing this, the history of the recent past assures us that already
great strides are being made in the proper direction. Devastat-
ing epidemics are less common, because stupidity and superstition

SOME OF THE LIMITATIONS OF MEDICINE. 399

are being overcome by intelligence and a more general recognition
of the sequence of cause and effect.

We have many useful drugs, some that are indispensable, but
they are mostly double-edged tools to be handled only by trained
hands. The man unfamiliar with disease who ventures to admin-
ister these drugs because he happens to be acquainted with their
names, is very much like the literary aspirant who resorted to
opium in the vain hope of becoming a De Quincey.

Whenever the germs of disease gain admission to the body,
Nature makes strenuous efforts to throw them off, and, although
it takes its own time, it is often successful. For example, fever,
by destroying the morbid products that produce it, serves a most
useful réle in the restoration of the patient to health. And, as
part of nature, the skillful physician stands by in readiness to
do his share in furthering the process already initiated. By an
intimate acquaintance with the phenomena of disease and the
means by which they are manifested, he is enabled to do the
right thing at the proper moment, and thus frequently turn the
scale toward recovery, when without his intelligent interference
the balance might fall in the wrong direction. But the meddle-
some interposition of the ill-informed is often productive of great
harm. A burning desire to do some impossible thing leads the
unwary practitioner into many fatal extravagances. To have the
knowledge when not to act, and the moral courage to forbear and
give Nature a reasonable chance, are indeed combinations of gifts
as desirable as they are rare. From this it follows that the man
who recognizes the limitations of medicine is by far the safest
adviser. There areno real specifics for disease; and to believe
that somewhere in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms,
hidden from the eye of man, there are to be found by diligent
search a cure, at least, for each of the many ills that flesh brings
upon itself, seems much less rational than to consider all these
troubles as induced by violations of laws, known or discoverable,
which must be obeyed and can not be evaded. In the scheme of
Nature it would have been much simpler to eliminate all pain and
disease than to provide occult remedial agents for each, were either
alternative within the scope of creation.

No; disease is avoidable to a very considerable extent, if not
entirely. And this is possible just in proportion to our knowledge
and our will to act thereon. But, because of our ignorance and of
our failure to live up to what is known, we are yet far removed
from perfect health.

Let us now glance at what we can do. To begin with, we are
able to give much instruction regarding the avoidance of dis-
ease. We can relieve functional troubles first by the simpler
means of rest, food, or exercise, as the conditions demand. We

400 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can quell undue pain. But we can not continue to supply medi-
cines that will take the place of proper living. The man who
neglects his own health, and expects the medical profession to
make up for his negligence, is somewhat like a person careless of
fire in his own house because there happens to be an efficient fire
department in town. The flames sometimes get extinguished if
the alarm is sounded in time. We can assist Nature in her
endeavor to cast out morbid products by various therapeutical
expedients. We can remove some of the exciting causes of dis-
ease, or else take the patient beyond their reach. We can place
him under the most favorable circumstances for Nature to do her
work, and at criticat moments stimulate the flagging powers and
thus bridge over a yawning gulf. We can palliate many of the
distressing symptoms of disease, but we can not atone for all the
outrageous infringements of Nature’s inexorable laws by dosing
with drugs, and, moreover, it is not likely that we shall ever be
able to do so.

It is possible that we are upon the threshold of a new era in
the treatment of infectious and miasmatic diseases, in which new
reasons will be found for the survival of old remedies, and many
useful additions will be made to our pharmacopeia. The wonder-
ful discoveries of Pasteur in France and of Koch in Germany,
and the splendid achievements of the former in his applications
of them, seem very fruitful of promise. But, notwithstanding all
this, it is much safer to be cautious about mad dogs than to run
any undue risks because Pasteur has evolved a means of lessening
the terrors of rabies.

And now, in conclusion, I would venture to claim that the
answer to my three questions at the beginning of this paper is
found in the fact that there is a natural cycle to many diseases
wherein there is a tendency toward recovery that, to be sure, is
favored or retarded by a multitude of circumstances, but which
often takes place irrespective of medication. And this fact is the
substratum of all those differences of opinion that are continually
arising among superficial observers; is a reason for the survival
of many absurd therapeutical theories; is the explanation of the
existence of the vagaries of faith and of mind-cures; and, what is
perhaps the most lamentable of all, makes it possible for the de-
signing to trade upon the credulity of the public with their oft-
times harmful nostrums.

Descartes supposed, in 1668, that the displacement of the rocks and the ele-
vations of the surface might be caused by the earth’s contraction. Newton ex-
pressed a similar thought in 1681, in a letter respecting Dr. Burnet’s “Sacred
Theory of the Earth,” but was careful to add to his hypothesis, “I have not set
down anything I have well considered, or will undertake to defend.”

SKETCH OF HENRY CARVILL LEWIS. 401

SKETCH OF HENRY CARVILL LEWIS.

LTHOUGH Prof. Lewis died at an age when men usually
have hardly more than begun to produce matured work, his
name had already become associated with the solution of a most
important geological question, and he was recognized as one who
had led the science another step forward.

HENRY CARVILL LEWIs was born in Philadelphia, November
16, 1853, and died in Manchester, England, July 21,1888. He was
descended from an ancient patrician family, the Ludewigs, of the
free imperial city of Hall, in Swabia, who are mentioned as hav-
ing occupied as early as the fourteenth century responsible posi-
tions as military and civil officers in their city and in the Holy
Roman Empire. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
sons of his ancestor, Johann Peter Ludewig, appear as distin-
guished in arms and letters. One of them, Johann Peter von
Ludewig, besides having other dignities, was a learned jurist and
historiographer and poet laureate of the empire, and the author of
many historical and legal works. His own ancestor of this gen-
eration, Johann David Ludewig, was connected with military
and court life. His great-grandfather removed to America in
1784 and anglicized his name to Lewis. His grandfather, John F.
Lewis, and his father, F. Mortimer Lewis, were engaged in the
East India trade. The latter, since retiring from business, has
been actively engaged in various philanthropies in connection
with hospitals and benevolent institutions, and is now President
of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and of
the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. An incident that oc-

curred when Henry Lewis was little more than an infant is men-
tioned by his biographer as showing an early inclination toward
geological studies. He was found, while on a visit to the country,
digging in the gravel-walk with a spoon, and, when asked why
he was doing it, replied that he “wanted to see what was under-
neath.” This may have been only a manifestation of childish
activity which under other circumstances might not have been
noticed and have passed without influence upon his career ; but
his father and his maternal grandfather, Mr. Henry Carvill, were
quick to observe the direction of the dawning intelligence of the
boy, and to cultivate whatever profitable tastes he might show.
The generous interest taken by his father in fostering the bent of
his son’s mind toward research deserves, in fact, special recogni-
tion and acknowledgment. As soon as his son displayed earnest
leanings in this direction, Mr. Lewis provided every facility for

helping him in his favorite studies. Instead of attempting, as too
VOL. XXXV.—26

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

many parents might mistakenly have done, to divert him from
this to a more “ practical” line of pursuits, he fitted up for him
a well-furnished chemical laboratory and workshop; and this
laboratory was through all his life a favorite retreat of Carvill
Lewis’s, to which it was his delight to introduce his scientific
friends. His interest in mineralogy and geology assumed a more
definite and controlling shape when he was about twelve years
old, when Dr. Isaac Lea gave him some specimens as the founda-
tion of a collection, and stimulated him to go on studying them,
A year later he and some playmates formed a scientific society,
which continued in existence and of which he remained a member
till 1875, when it disbanded. Having been graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1873 with the highest honors in the
classical course, he took a post-graduate course of three years in
the natural sciences. For several years after his graduation he
divided his time almost equally between geology and astronomy.
Twenty-nine communications by him are recorded in the “ Pro-
ceedings of the Mineralogical and Geological Section of the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,” from 1877 to 1879. He
gave to the American Association in 1877 a description of an
aurora and of the zodiacal light as observed by him in May of that
year, and notes by him on the zodiacal light were published in the
“Proceedings of the American Association” and in the “ Ameri-
can Journal of Science” in 1880. In 1879 he joined the Geological
Survey of Pennsylvania as a volunteer member, and continued
associated with it till 1884. In connection with this work he in-
vestigated the surface geology of the southern part of the State,
and began the tracing of the great terminal glacial moraine with
which his name is most closely associated, determining its course
through the northern part of Pennsylvania. In all these re-
searches, as well as his studies in mineralogy and petrology—not-
ably in those relating to the diamond and to the archzean rocks—
he was moved by an earnest spirit of independent inquiry, and
afforded a living illustration of the force and application of his
motto, “Truth for authority, not authority for truth.” The con-
trolling force of this principle in his life-work is emphasized in
the simple record on his tombstone in Walmsley church-yard,
Bolton, “ He loved the truth.”

In 1880 Mr. Lewis was elected Professor of Mineralogy in the
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; and in 1883, Pro-
fessor of Geology in Haverford College. He held both of these
positions at the time of his death. From 1885 to 1887 he was occu-
pied during the winters in petrologic studies in Heidelberg with
Prof. Rosenbusch, and during the summers in field-work on the
glacial geology of England, Wales, Ireland, Switzerland, and
northern Germany. The winter and spring of 1887—88 were

SKETCH OF HENRY CARVILL LEWIS. 403

spent in this country, partly in visiting the places in the Southern
States where diamonds have been found, in continuance of his
investigations on the origin of that gem. He had read papers on
the subject at the meetings of the British Association in 1886
and 1887, and was planning to present his further results at the
next meeting of that body; after which he hoped to carry on his
glacial studies in Norway and other parts of Kurope.

He sailed, with Mrs. Lewis, for Europe, on the 3d of July, 1888,
He was affected during the latter part of his voyage with symp-
toms of illness, which developed, after he reached Manchester,
England, into typhoid fever. From this he died on the 21st of
July. Prof. G. F. Wright, author of “The Ice Age in North
America” (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1889), who was asso-
ciated with him in the investigation of the terminal glacial mo-
raine, has furnished the estimate which follows, of the general
value of his work. The more particularized review of his glacial
investigations with which this paper continues, has been fur-
nished us by Mr. Warren Upham, who was also the author of a
sketch of Lewis in the “ American Geologist.”

“Tt is impossible,” says Prof. Wright, “to overestimate the
value to the world of such a career as Lewis set before him, and
already at his early death had largely realized. His vigor of body
and mind, pleasing address, liberal education, high social position,
and abundant means, insured to him flattering success in almost
any direction. He could easily have attained eminence in the
politics of his State and nation. He could have entered upon a
business career with fair prospect of becoming a millionaire. Or
he could have settled down, as the majority of those thus situated
do, to the seductive pleasures of society, and have been one of its
chief ornaments. Instead of this, he threw all the resources of
his nature and of his position into the most laudable work of
enlarging the stock of the world’s knowledge.

“The leisure hours of his boyhood were spent in his laboratory

and in roaming over the hills in the vicinity of Philadelphia in
search of facts to explain their origin, After graduating from
the university, he offered himself as an assistant to the Geological
Survey of the State, and for one or two seasons accompanied the
surveyors in the dull routine of their work. He afterward was
commissioned to prosecute independently investigations into the
nature of the gravel deposits of the rivers entering the Atlantic
between New York and Norfolk, Va. It was with the results of
these youthful investigations that he came to the meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science at Boston,
in 1880, with two or three papers which at once attracted the
attention both of that body and of the wider audience reached by
the printed reports. Lewis was specially delighted on that occa-

404 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY,

sion by the approval of his work which was given by the venera-
ble Prof. W. B. Rogers, then at the head of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and for so long a time connected with
the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania and the adjoining Appa-
lachian region.

“ During all his earnest search for the truths of Nature, Lewis
was stimulated by the thought that man does not live by bread
alone, but that he who ministers to the mental wants of the race
by discovering truth and bringing it within reach of the general
apprehension is as truly a philanthropist as he who ministers to
their bodily comfort. In all these aims it is gratifying to know
that his wife most heartily coincided. A great truth of Nature,
like the wonderful history of the Glacial period, when it finds its
way into the school-books of the children and into works of gen-
eral literature, is of incalculable utility in the intellectual devel-
opment of mankind.”

“Prof. Lewis first became specially interested,’ writes Mr.
Upham, “in the glacial drift and its terminal moraine during the
latter part of the year 1880, when, in company with Prof. G. F.
Wright, he studied the remarkable osars of Andover, Mass., the
gravel of Trenton, N. J., containing paleolithic implements, the
drift deposits of the vicinity of New Haven, Conn., under the
guidance of Prof. Dana, and finally the terminal moraine in east-
ern Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers. The
following year Profs. Lewis and Wright traversed together the
southern border of the drift through Pennsylvania from Belvi-
dere, on the Delaware, west-northwesterly more than two hundred
miles across the ridges of the Alleghanies, to Little Valley, near
Salamanca, N. Y., and thence southwesterly one hundred and
thirty miles to the line dividing Pennsylvania and Ohio, which it
crosses about fifteen miles north of the Ohio River. The report
of this survey of the terminal moraine was published in 1884,
forming Volume Z of the reports of progress of the Second Geo-
logical Survey of Pennsylvania.

“With the similar exploration of other portions of this great
moraine done a few years earlier by Prof. Chamberlin in Wiscon-
sin, Profs. Cook and Smock in New Jersey, and Mr. Warren
Upham in Long Island, thence eastward to Nantucket and Cape
Cod, and also in Minnesota, it completed the demonstration
of the formation of the North American drift by the agency of
land-ice.

“The observations of the moraine in Pennsylvania, detailed in
this volume, are summarized by Prof. Lewis as follows: ‘The
line separating the glaciated from the non-glaciated regions is
defined by a remarkable accumulation of unstratified drift ma-
terial and bowlders, which, heaped up into irregular hills and

SKETCH OF HENRY CARVILL LEWIS. 405

hollows over a strip of ground nearly a mile in width, forms a
continuous line of drift-hills (more or less marked) extending
completely across the State: These hills vary in height from a
few feet up to one hundred or two hundred feet, and, while in some
places they are marked merely by an unusual collection of large
transported bowlders, at other places an immense accumulation
forms a noteworthy feature of the landscape. When typically
developed this accumulation is characterized by peculiar contours
of its own—a series of hwmmocks, or low, conical hills, alternate
short, straight ridges, and inclosed shallow basin-shaped depres-
sions, which, like inverted hwmmocks in shape, are known as
kettle-holes. Large bowlders are scattered over the surface, and
the unstratified till which composes the deposit is filled with
glacier-scratched bowlders and fragments of all sizes and
shapes.’

“From its lowest point in Pennsylvania, where it crosses the
Delaware, 250 feet above the sea-level, this terminal moraine ex-
tends indiscriminately across hills, mountains, and valleys, rising
over 2,000 feet above the sea in crossing the Alleghanies, and at-
taining the maximum of 2,580 feet on the high table-land farther
west, being there ‘finely shown at an elevation higher than any-
where else in the United States,’

“Preliminary outlines of Prof. Lewis’s work on the glacial drift
of England, Wales, and Ireland are given by his papers in the
reports of the British Association for 1886 and 1887; and the first
of these also appeared in the ‘ American Naturalist’ for Novem-
ber, and the ‘ American Journal of Science’ for December, 1886.
Their most important new contribution to knowledge consists in
the recognition of the terminal moraines formed by the British
ice-sheet, which Lewis traced across southern Ireland from Tra-
lee on the west to the Wicklow Mountains and Bray Head, south-
east of Dublin; through the western, southern, and southeastern
portions of Wales; northward by Manchester and along the Pen-
nine chain to the southeast edge of Westmoreland; thence south-
east to York, and again northward nearly to the mouth of the
Tees; and thence southeastward along the high coast of the
North Sea to Flamborough Head and the mouth of the Hum-
ber. It is a just cause for national pride that two geologists of
the United States—Lewis in Great Britain in 1886, and Salis-
bury the next year in Germany—have been the first to dis-
cover the terminal moraines of the ice-sheets of Kurope.. Like
the great moraines of the interior of the United States, those of
both England and Germany lie far north of the southern limit
of the drift.

“ Another very important announcement by Prof. Lewis relates
to the marine shells, mostly in fragments and often worn and stri-

406 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ated, found in morainic deposits and associated kames 1,100 to
1,350 feet above the sea, on Three Rock Mountain, near Dublin, on
Moel Tryfan in northern Wales, and near Macclesfield in Ches-
hire, which have been generally considered by British geologists
as proof of marine submergence to the depth of at least 1,350 feet.
These shells and fragments of shells, as Lewis has shown, were
transported to their present position by the currents of the con-
fluent ice-sheet, which flowed southward from Scotland and north-
ern Ireland, passing over the bottom of the Irish Sea, there plow-
ing up its marine deposits and shells, and carrying them upward
as glacial drift to these elevations, so that they afford no testi-
mony of the former subsidence of the land. The ample descrip-
tions of the shelly drift of these and other localities of high level,
and of the lowlands of Cheshire and Lancashire, recorded by
English geologists, agree perfectly with the explanation given by
Lewis, which indeed had been before suggested, so long ago as in
1874, by Belt and Goodchild. This removes one of the most per-
plexing questions which geologists have encountered, for nowhere
else in the British Isles is there proof of any such submergence
during or since the Glacial period, the maximum known being 510
feet, near Airdrie, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. At the same time
the submergence on the southern coast of England was only from
ten to sixty feet, while no traces of raised beaches or of Pleisto-
cene marine formations above the present sea-level are found in
the Orkney and Shetland Islands. The work and writings of Prof.
Lewis emphasize the principle that glacially transported marine
shells and fragments of shells, which occur in both the till or
bowlder-clay and the modified drift in various parts of Great Brit-
ain, are not to be confounded with shells imbedded where they
were living, or in raised beaches, for only these prove the former
presence of the sea.

“The drift deposits of England south of the terminal moraines
traced by Lewis were regarded by him as due to floating ice upon
a great fresh-water lake, held on the north by the barrier of the
ice-sheet which covered Scotland, northern England, and the area
of the North Sea, and on the southeast by a land-barrier where
the Strait of Dover has since been eroded. Under this view he
attributed the formation of the Chalky bowlder-clay in East An-
glia and of the purple and Hessle bowlder-clays in Lincolnshire
and much of Yorkshire to lacustrine deposition, and believed that
there was only one advance and recession of the ice-sheet. But
shortly after the British Association meeting in 1887 his observa-
tions on Frankley Hill in Worcestershire and thence westward
led him to accept the conclusion, so thoroughly worked out by
other glacialists both in America and Great Britain, that there
were two principal epochs of glaciation, divided by an intergla-

SKETCH OF HENRY CARVILL LEWIS. 407

cial epoch when the ice-sheet was mostly melted away. There
can be little doubt that the continuation of Lewis’s study of the
drift in England, if he had lived, would have soon convinced him
of the correctness of the opinions of Searles V. Wood, Jr., Mr.
Skertchly, and James Geikie, that land-ice during the earlier Gla-
cial epoch overspread all the area of the Chalky bowlder-clay, ex-
tending south tothe Thames. Small portions of northern Eng-
land, however, escaped glaciation both then and during the later
cold epoch when the terminal moraines mapped by Lewis were
accumulated; and these tracts of the high moorlands in eastern
Yorkshire and of the eastern flank of the Pennine chain are simi-
lar to the driftless area of southwestern Wisconsin.
; “Comparison of the drift in the United States and Great Britain
enabled Prof. Lewis to refer the British modified drift, both that
often intercalated between deposits of till and that spread upon
the surface in knolly and hilly kames and more evenly in plains
and along valleys, to deposition from streams supplied by the
glacial melting, the material being washed out of the ice-sheet.
These beds, however, are to be carefully distinguished from those
of interglacial and post-glacial age. It is greatly to be regretted
that this sagacious observer was not spared for the fulfillment of
his plan of yet more extended study of European glacial deposits
in the light of his wide knowledge of the terminal moraine and
other drift formations in this country.”

Prof. Lewis was a member of the American and the British
Associations; of the American Philosophical Society, the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences, and the Franklin Institute, in Phila-
delphia; of the Geological Society of Liverpool; and a Fellow of
the Geological Societies of London and Germany.

He was married in 1882 to a daughter of the late William
Parker Foulke, of Philadelphia, who, with a daughter, survives
him, and will transfer his unfinished papers, for completion, to
the distinguished geologists who have generously offered their
assistance. He possessed a strong Christian faith, and was an
active member of St. Michael’s Protestant Episcopal Church,
Philadelphia, of whose Sunday school he was for many years a
teacher, and for a long time superintendent. He had the happy
faculty of imparting knowledge to those whom he taught, and in
making his instructions interesting and agreeable. With a high
character, a pure standard of manhood, fine mental and physical
powers, a wide range of scholarship, a happy, genial, and enthu-
siastic temperament, rare perseverance and industry, and a lofty
devotion to the interest not only of science but of mankind, his
life seemed to promise the widest usefulness and honor.

The following list of Prof. Lewis’s published papers is abbre-
viated from the “ American Geologist” :

408 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1876. “On Strontianite and Associated Minerals in Miffin County, Peon-
sylvania.”

1877-79. Twenty-nine communications to the Mineralogical and Geological
Section of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia.

1880. ‘‘ Note on the Zodiacal Light: The Aurora and Zodiacal Light of May
Sa A eae

1880. “The Antiquity of Man in Eastern America, geologically con-
sidered.” .

1880. “‘The Iron Ores of the Brandon Period.”

1881. “‘ The Antiquity and Origin of the Trenton Gravel.”

1882. Fifteen communications to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
delphia.

1882. “‘ Volcanic Dust from Krakatoa.”

1882. ‘‘The Great Terminal Moraine across Pennsylvania.”

1882. ‘ Note on the Aurora of April 16 and 17, 1882.”

1882. ‘‘ Map of the Terminal Moraine.”

1883. Eight communications to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
delphia.

1883. ‘‘The Great Ice Age in Pennsylvania.”

1883. “The Geology of Philadelphia.”

1884. “Report on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and Western New
York. Illustrated by a Map of Pennsylvania, showing the Glaciated Re-
gion, etc.”

1884, ‘“‘A Phosphorescent Variety of Limestone.”

1884. ‘‘ Supposed Glaciation in Pennsylvania south of the Terminal Moraine.”

1884, “‘ Marginal Kames,”

1884. ‘‘ An Interesting Mineral (Cacoclasite) from Canada.”

1885. ‘“‘On a New Substance resembling Dopplerite, from a Peat Bog at
Scranton.”

1885. “ A Great Trap Dike across Southeastern Pennsylvania.”

1885. “Erythrite, Genthite, and Cuprite from near Philadelphia.”

1885. “The Direction of Glaciation as ascertained by the Form of the
Stria.”

1885. ‘Some Examples of Pressure Fluxion in Pennsylvania.”

1886. “ Comparative Studies upon the Glaciation of North America.”

1886. “On a Diamantiferous Peridotite and the Genesis of the Diamond.”

1887. “The Terminal Moraines of the Great Glaciers of England.”

1887. “On Some Important Extra-Morainic Lakes in Central England, North
America, and elsewhere, during the Period of Maximum Glaciation, and on the
Origin of Extra-Morainic Bowlder-Clay.”

1887. ‘“‘ The Matrix of the Diamond.”

1887. “On the Terminal Moraine near Manchester.”

1887. “ Accounts of Some so-called ‘Spiritualistic ’ Séances.”

1888, “ Diamonds in Meteorites.”

CORRESPONDENCE,

409

CORRESPONDENCE.

AWAKENING THOUGHT.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :
OUR article upon “ Learning to think,”
in the April number of your magazine,
treats upon a great necd.

To make it yet more helpful to those who
wish to know how to ask questions, either to
awaken thought or to elicit information
from others, will you kindly suggest, in a
future number, some leading “questions ar-
ranged under certain categories,” for further
instruction by way of example ?

Tn behalf, I believe, of many educators,

A Moruer.
Worcester, Mass., May 1, 1889.

ANIMAL ALTRUISM.
Editor Popular Science Monthly : :

In G. J. Romanes’s chart of the “ De-
rivative Origin of the Human Mind” * he
marks ‘“ Sympathy” in the scale on the level
or line 24 with “communication of ideas,”
on which level or line is also placed “ Hy-
menoptera.”

The writer has not studied Mr. Romanes
enough to understand his chart, and there-
fore can not see why the Hymenoptera are
there placed, except it be that in that class
of insects the communication of ideas is
earliest seen. He does not note altruism in
the chart.

It seems to me altruism is allied to
“sympathy,” and to the maternal faculty
of affection. At first thought it seemed as
if altruism might be the outgrowth of mater-
nal love and regard. But two instances of
its manifestation in members of a colony of
domestic fowls appear to be adverse to that
conclusion. These may be described in de-
tail.

Stockton, was occupied in 1881 with the care
and study of several dozen chickens. One
day she was feeding them meat cut in small
pieces, and most of her feathered family
gathered around and fed from her hand.
But one little white pullet was too timid to
come up and get her portion. A strong
gray chicken, nearly full grown, and which
sustained no family kinship to the other,
seemed to observe and take in the forlorn
Situation of the one standing back, began to
fight, and tried to drive away the cluster, as
if to make room for the lagging associate.
But it did not stir or move toward the feed-
ing group. The gray, failing in that effort,
boldly came forward, took a fragment of
meat, carried it to the hungry chicken and

* “ Popular Science Monthly,” April, 1889.

dropped it at its feet, and then moved away,
as if it had done a useful and friendly
act.

On another and subsequent occasion, Mrs,
R— was again feeding her poultry from
her hand. As she appeared, they hurried
out from under a sheltered retreat, and with
natural eagerness each swallowed its coveted
portion. But one Black Spanish member
timidly remained behind under cover, though
in sight. After devouring a few pieces of
meat, a vigorous brown Leghorn seized a
good-sized piece, ran to a corner, and hid it.
She then went to the retreat and induced the
backward party to go out. They two went
to the place of concealed store, when the
Leghorn brought forth the reserved morsel
of meat and dropped it before her companion,
which at once accepted the gift.

Here are two examples of the altruistic
faculty developed in members of the body
politic of domestic fowls. As these in-
stances are found in young individuals
wherein the maternal faculty of love and re-
gard for offspring has never been called in
action, must we not conclude that altruism
in them is an outgrowth of energies remote
from the maternal characteristic? The im-
mediate mother of those chickens was the
incubator.

It is of interest to determine how early
in the growth of mind altruism can be per-
ceived. A. §. Hupson, M. D.

Stockton, CAL., April 1, 1889.

DO CATTLE COUNT?
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Reapine, not long ago, a sketch in our
local paper, entitled “Can Animals count ?”’
said to have been taken from “The Popular
Science Monthly,” recalls to my mind an
incident that I have heard my father relate.

My grandfather Butterfield kept a hotel
on the Green Mountains, five miles from
Manchester, Vermont, more than a hundred
years ago. It was his custom to salt his
cattle every Sunday morning.

After vegetation started in the spring he
would turn his young stock into the forest to
get their living, being short of cleared past-
urage.

These cattle would remain ‘away a week,
but would invariably come to the barn every
Sunday for their salt, and after eating it
would return to the woods again.

Now, if this does not prove that animals
can count, it proves that they are creatures
of very regular habits.

Susan M. B. Srapiin.
MANNSVILLE, JEFFERSON County, N. Y.

410

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE STIMULATION OF THOUGHT.

N another page we print a letter

from ‘‘ A Mother,” whom we are
happy to find interested in the subject
of our recent editorial article, ‘‘ Learn-
ing to think.” We are not sure that
we can fully meet our correspondent’s
demand for a series of ‘questions ar-
ranged under certain categories” for
the purpose of drawing out thought,
seeing that the questions would neces-
sarily vary to a great extent with the
subject. As we pointed out before,
however, what is of chief importance
is to keep alive a sense of relation be-
tween the particular thing that occu-
pies attention for the moment and other
things. A vast number of practical er-
rors lie in neglecting the category of
cause. The question Why? is one that
can hardly be asked too often, provided
only it is asked with a sincere desire
for information and not in a spirit of
evasion or obstruction. Children often
ask Why? simply to gain their own ends,
not with any intention of yielding to
the reasons given. This spirit, of course,
has to be repressed as far as possible,
but too much encouragement can not be
given to an observing, inquiring dispo-
sition.

Whatever the intellectual task in
hand, we should adjust ourselves to it,
with the intention of seeing the subject,
as far as may be, in its true proportions
and complete bearings. We know what
it is to sit opposite an object so as to
get a good, fair, and square view of it.
So with our intellectual tasks: we should
shift our position till we feel that we
are so situated as to take in all that we
can take in of them. Instead of this,
however, how common a thing it is for
people, old and young, to take but a
hasty, angular glance, so to speak, at
what they have to deal with, and so fail

to see its most important and really
conspicuous features! Before questions
can be asked to any good purpose, there
has to be careful observation; and be-
fore there can be careful observation,
the object must be placed in the center
of the field of vision. Whatever we see
we should try to realize first in its en-
tirety, as consisting of such and such
related and convergent parts; and after-
ward we should examine it analytically,
in order to obtain a better knowledge of
the parts, from which may flow a better
insight into their relations. It is one
thing to know that a key fits a lock, and
another to be able to figure to ourselves
the wards or compartments in the lock
that exactly answer to the pattern of
the key. It is one thing to know that a
certain action is predicated of a certain
subject, and another to understand that
the predicated action was a natural
product of the attendant circumstances,
The habit of classification is one that
can be taught with comparative ease to
the young; and it is one that gives rise
to many useful questions. It continually
raises the question, ‘“‘ What is it?” and
teaches the habit of going behind first
appearances. We can not ask in regard
to anything: To what class does it be-
long? without also asking: What is it
like? What is it unlike? Then, when
the class is recognized, there arise ques-
tions of relation to other classes, etc.,
questions of origin, of function, of cause
and effect, of purpose, of significance,
and many others, To develop our theme
fully would be to write an essay on
pedagogics. Tosum up, we may say that
the great desideratum is to establish a
healthy action and reaction between the
mind and the environing world. Some
minds set up this action and reaction,
this interchange of impressions and con-
ceptions, for themselves; others need

EDITOR’S TABLE.

more or less help, and that help can
best take the form of placing them, as
we have expressed it, fairly opposite
successive objects of study, and leading
them to ask, one by one, the questions
necessary to draw out all the informa-
tion obtainable in regard to these. The
educator who makes all education prac-
tical—that is to say, who keeps the
idea of rational purpose ever in the
foreground — will certainly accomplish
better results, in the way of developing
thought, than one who teaches with
only an occasional reference to purpose.
We can not say more on this subject at
present; but, as it is one of great im-
portance, and seems to be of special in-
terest to not a few of our readers, we
may attempt further elucidations at a
future day.

THE WORK OF PRESIDENT BARNARD.

TueE death of ex-President Barnard,
of Columbia College, has removed from
among us one of the most successful and
far-sighted of American teachers. Dr.
Barnard was a leader in advancing edu-
cational movements; among the fore-
most in steps to enlarge the scope and
improve the methods of academic in-
struction. His early training and associa-
tions might have been expected to make
him a conservative; but they did not.
While prizing and keeping what was
good in the old theories and forms, he
was a pioneer in the movement that has
liberalized the courses of university stud-
ies and given them greater flexibility
and adaptation. During the very years
previous to 1860, when he was closely
associated with institutions which seem
to have been crystallized in the formal-
ity of the ancient traditions, and with
men wedded to them, he was maturing
those views which, foreshadowed in his
papers and reports on “ College Govern-
ment,” “Collegiate Education,” “ Art
Culture,” “The Improvements practi-
cable in American Colleges,” “‘ The Re-
lations of University Education to Com-

411

mon Schools,” and ‘“ University Educa-
tion,” he carried out in the latter part
of his career.

Notwithstanding its advantages of
age and endowment, Columbia College,
when Dr. Barnard was called to its
presidency in 1865, was not occupying
a conspicuous position. His accession
to the presidency was nearly coincident
with the removal of the college to its
present location and the establishment
of the School of Mines. These were for-
tunate events which contributed their
share to the growth of the college. But
the prosperity of the School of Mines it-
self, which has become one of the fore-
most American scientific schools, is large-
ly accredited to his executive ability,
conjoined with the fidelity of the Board
of Instructors who were happily asso-
ciated with him. While always urging
the giving of increased prominence to
scientific studies, he did not lose sight
of the value of the other departments.
He rather sought and secured a sym-
metrical development all around; so
that, as one of the most temperate sum-
maries that we have noticed of the re-
sult of his work records, ‘‘ under his ad-
ministration Columbia has made steady
progress, until he was able in his last

years to foresee a future in which the
institution shall grow into the dignity of
a university worthy of the metropolis.”
During the last year of his active serv-
ice Columbia is said to have had the
highest enrollment of any college in the
country.

President Barnard was successful be-
cause he was an original and independ-
ent thinker and a prompt executor;
because he was quick to discern what
was good and ready to accept it. He
was neither too strongly attached to the
old and established, nor so radical as to
grasp at visions and try to force changes.
Regarding education as something that
must grow and be developed, he looked
constantly forward, judged everything
by its merits, and seized and made the
best of whatever he found that was good.

-

412

The avowal of principles and acceptance
of innovations that flew in the face of
the custom of the ages often demanded
much courage, but he never lacked it;
and the wisdom of his course was usu-
ally justified in the event.

The opening of the School of Mines
gave an opportunity to enlarge the plan
of studies in favor of science, and to
encourage the preference of students
who desired to give it predominant at-
tention. Similar liberality toward oth-
er departments facilitated the ultimate
adoption of elective studies. This is a
factor that is changing the whole aspect
of college life. Columbia College is not
alone in the movement toward flexibility
in the curriculum ; but it is most largely
due to President Barnard that it is in
it at all, and has been able to turn it
to advantage. It can not be doubted
that his positive attitude and example
have been influential in promoting its
extension and its advance elsewhere.
The truth of the remark with which
our “sketch” of Dr. Barnard in May,
1877, opened—that few men among the
promoters of science and liberal culture
in our time had labored more efficiently
and successfully than he—was made
more and more plain during the suc-
ceeding years of his life, and was never
more evident than on the day when he
resigned the presidency of Oolumbia
College.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Tae American ComMonweatta. By James
Bryce, M. P. London and New York:
Macmillan & Co. Two Volumes. Price, $6.
THE comprehensiveness and importance

of Mr. Bryce’s book place it with Von Holst’s

great work in the first rank of treatises on
the political institutions of America. It is
not a history, though its statements are
elucidated here and there by historical ma-
terial; it is not a treatise on constitutional
law, though the general character and nota-
ble features of the Federal and the sev-
eral State Constitutions are pointed out;
its fifteen hundred pages comprise an ac-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

count of the present condition of the Ameri-
can nation. In the words of the author,
“There are three main things that one wishes
to know about a national commonwealth,
viz., its framework and constitutional ma-
chinery, the methods by which it is worked,
the forces which move it and direct its
course.” These three things it has been bis
task to tell about the United States, Part I
deals with the three divisions of the Federal
Government—the executive, the legislative,
and the judicial. It describes the relations
of the national power to the several States.
It discusses the nature of the Constitution
and shows how this stable instrument hasbeen
in a few points expressly, in many others
tacitly and half-unconsciously, modified. Part
II deals similarly with the State governments.
There is also given some account of the
systems of rural and city government which
have been created in the various States. Mr.
Bryce commends our rural governments,
but condemns the government of our cities
as “the one conspicuous failure of the United
States.” Part III contains a sketch of the
party system and of the men who “run” it,
The author is conscious of especial difficulties
in making such a sketch, because the system
is so different from what a study of the
Constitution would suggest, because there
are no existing authorities on the subject,
and knowledge must be gleaned from news-
paper articles, conversation, and a variety
of occurrences, which together constitute a
floating and uneven basis for the work.
But what Mr. Bryce deems the most difficult
and most vital part of his task is to describe
public opinion in America, and this subject
forms Part IV. Public opinion, he says,
“stands above the parties, being cooler and
larger-minded than they are; it awes party
leaders and holds in check party organiza-
tions. No one openly ventures to resist it.
It determines the direction and the character
of national policy. It is the product of a
greater number of minds than in any other
country, and it is more indisputably sover-
eign.” In order to illustrate the statements
made in treating of parties and public
opinion, the author gives in Part V accounts
of the Tweed Ring, the Philadelphia Gas
Ring, and Kearneyism. He follows these
with discussions of territorial extension, the
laissez-faire doctrine, and women’s suffrage,

LITERARY NOTICES.

and then passes to an estimate of the strength
and weakness of democratic government as
it exists in the United States, and a com-
parison of the facts with European specula-
tion about democracy in general. Part VI
is of a somewhat different character from
the preceding portions of the work, dealing
with the social institutions of the United
States, but these, as the author says, “count
for so much in the total life of the country,
in the total impression which it makes and
the hopes for the future which it raises, that
they can not be left unnoticed.” In foot-
notes and appendixes to both volumes much
matter illustrative of the text is supplied.
Among these materials are an account of
“the lobby,” and a newspaper description of
a scene in a presidential nominating conven-
tion. Mr. Bryce is not inclined to credit
so much influence to democracy in making
‘America what it is as preceding writers
have done, or as Americans are fond of
doing. ‘A close analysis of social and
political phenomena,” he says, “‘ often shows
us that causes are more complex than had
at first appeared.” He finds many things to
condemn in our political system, as any
honest critic must, but he is not pessimistic
in regard to our future. He is convinced of
“the existence in the American people of a
reserve of force and patriotism more than
sufficient to sweep away all the evils which
are now tolerated, and to make the polities
of the country worthy of its material
grandeur and of the private virtues of its
inhabitants. America excites an admiration
which must be felt upon the spot to be un-
derstood. The hopefulness of her people
communicates itself to one who moves among
them, and makes him perceive that the
graver faults of politics may be far less dan-
gerous there than they would be in Europe.
A hundred times in writing this book have I
been disheartened by the facts I was stating;
a hundred times has the recollection of the
abounding strength and vitality of the nation
chased away these tremors.” If there is not
much in these volumes that the well-in-
formed American is not aware of, there is a
great deal in them that Americans do not
sufficiently think of, while to the English
reader it furnishes a broad, truthful, appre-
ciative view of the great republic of the New
World.

413
Tue History or ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. Ed-
ited by Rev. J. VerscHoyiy. New York:

D. Appleton & Co. Pp, 295. Price, $1.75.

Tus hand-book is intended to give a com-
prehensive view of ancient civilization in
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and other quarters of
“the East,” as well as in Greece and Rome,
in order to bring them out in their relations
with one another and show the chain of de-
pendence, without an understanding of which
their succession and development can not be
adequately comprehended. The civilization
of Rome, “ which was the outcome of corpo-
rate action,” was most largely influenced by
that of Greece, which was “the outcome of
individual thought,” and this runs back into
the various civilizations of the East. The
precise nature and extent of the influence of
these civilizations upon Grecian development
have not been defined, but are at this moment
more than ever before the subject of active
study. The author does not attempt to meas-
ure them, but gives comprehensive though
succinct descriptions of the civilizations so far
as they have been made out, beginning with
“the beginnings of civilization,” and bring-
ing under review in succession, ‘‘ The Monu-
ments and Art of Egypt,” “ The Babylonians
and Assyrians,” “The Religion and Social
State of the Jews,” “ Phoenician Commerce,”
and “The Civilization of the Aryans, Hindoos,
and Persians,” Greek civilization is treated
under the heads of “ Religion,” “ Politics,”
“Literature and Art,” and “ The Diffusion of
Greek Genius”; “The Roman World” under
those of “The Republic,” “The Conquests
of Rome—Transformation of the Republic,”
“Roman Society under the Empire,” and
“Latin Literature and Art.” The work is
based on M. Ducoudray’s “Histoire som-
maire de la Civilisation” ; but, while a trans-
lation was made by an experienced hand, it
can not, in its present form, be called a trans-
lation, for a large part of it has been re-
written.

How to stupy Grograruy. By Francis
W. Parker. International Education
Series, Vol. X. New York: D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 400. Price, $1.50.

THE equipment of the teacher must in-
clude both an understanding of educational
theory and an acquaintance with educational
practice. The present volume, as indicated
by its title, is designed to contribute to the

414

latter of these qualifications. It consists of
plain and detailed directions for teaching a
knowledge of the earth’s surface. The
general forms of river basins are first taught
with the aid of diagrams. The structure of
each of the continents is then shown in the
same way. Next, attention is drawn to a
large number of points which together give
a view of the world as a whole, among these
being the relative positions of the continents,
relations of continents to oceans, distribu-
tion of heat, ocean currents, winds, distribu-
tion of moisture, of vegetation, of animals,
of races of men, and of minerals, and po-
litical divisions. A brief outline of a course
of study is given, and this is followed by a
chapter of general suggestions and direc-
tions. One direction which the author ranks
above all others is that the pupil should
form the habit of “locating every place,
natural feature and country, mentioned in
reading and study,” the best chance for this
being found in the study of history. He in-
dorses the use of relief maps, after consid-
ering the objections to them, and recom-
mends map-drawing. He maintains that
“in the art of questioning is concentrated
the art of teaching,” hence the “Notes on
the Course of Study,” which occupy about
half of the volume, largely consist of ques-
tions. These may be used as they stand by
the teacher in giving lessons, and should
also serve the higher purpose of a model
from which the teacher may learn the art of
original questioning. The course of study is
marked out in grades, and the “ Notes” are
followed by a list of books and maps suita-
ble for supplementary reading and reference
in each grade. Essays on “Spring Studies
in Nature,” “ Weather Observations,” “The
Study of Geography,” and “ Relief Maps and
their Construction,” by various writers, are
appended. This book can not fail to be an im-
portant aid to the teacher in changing geog-
raphy lessons from a mere drudgery for the
memory to a real study of the earth’s surface.

Tae Minp or tHe Curnp, Part II. Tur De-
VELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. By W.
Preyer. Translated from the German
by H. W. Brown. New York: D. Ap-
pleton & Co. ‘“ International Education
Series.” Pp. 317. Price, $1.50.

Tur former volume of the relation of

Prof, Preyer’s investigations on the mind of

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the child contained those parts devoted to
the development of the senses and of the will.
The present volume contains a third part,
which treats of the development of the in-
tellect. Three appendixes are added, con-
taining supplementary matter. The author,
considering that the development of the pow-
er of using language is the most prominent
index to the unfolding of the intellect, de-
votes the greater part of the volume to that
branch of the subject. The question wheth-
er there can be thought without words, which
Max Miiller has made a living one, holds a
first place in the discussion. The author’s
opinion on this subject is clear and expressed
without reserve, and is opposed to the view
which Dr, Miller maintains. The thinker,
who has long since forgotten the time when
he himself learned to speak, can not give a
decided answer to the question; for he can
not admit that he has been thinking without
words, “not even when he has caught him-
self arriving at a logical result without a
continuity in his expressed thought... .
But the child not yet acquainted with verbal
language, who has not been prematurely arti-
ficialized by training and by suppression of
his own attempts to express his states of
mind, who learns of himself to think, just as
he learns of himself to see and hear—such a
child shows plainly to the attentive observer
that long before knowledge of the word as
a means of understanding among men, and
long before the first successful attempt to
express himself in articulate words—nay,
long before learning the pronunciation of a
single word, he combines ideas in a logical
manner—i. e., he thinks.” This position is
sustained by numerous illustrations and cita-
tions of incidents; and the case of uneduca-
ted deaf-mutes is regarded as demonstrating
that thought-activity exists without words,
and without signs for words. In our own
only half-remembered experiences, the au-
thor says, “it was not language that gener-
ated the intellect; it is the intellect that for-
merly invented language; and even now the
new-born human being brings with him into
the world far more intellect than talent for
language.” The acquisition of speech be-
longs to the unsolved physiological prob-
lems. As a help to the investigation, a par-
allel is drawn between the child that does
not yet speak and the diseased adult who

LITERARY NOTICES.

no longer has command of language, in the
light of which the organic conditions of
learning to speak are considered, with im-
portant physiological results. The develop-
ment of speech in the child during the first
three years is described from observations
on the author’s own infant. The growth of
the feeling of self, or the “I” feeling, is
examined in a like manner; and the results
are summarized, particularly as they bear
upon the theory of the formation of con-
cepts without language. In the appendixes
are given ‘Comparative Observations com-
cerning the Acquirement of Speech by Ger-
man and Foreign Children”; ‘Notes con-
cerning Lacking, Defective, and Arrested
Mental Development in the First Years of
Life”; and reports of several cases illus-
trating the process of learning to see, on the
part of persons born blind, but acquiring
sight through surgical treatment. A full
conspectus, showing the results of Prof.
Preyer’s observations in a chronological or-
der, arranged by months, is added by the
translator, and very greatly augments the
value of the book.

Porvutar Lectures AnD ApprEssrs. By Sir
Wititiam THomson. In Three Volumes.
Vol. I. Constitution or Matter. With
Tlustrations. London and New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 460. Price, $2.
Tur first lecture included in this volume

deals with capillary attraction, explaining

with the aid of diagrams the action of the
forces which produce capillary phenomena.

There are two lectures on electrical measure-

ments: one describing how the units in

present use have been arrived at and point-
ing out certain things in relation to them
which should be advanced and perfected ;
the other dealing mainly with the construc-
tion of electrometers. The collection con-
tains an extended discussion of the size of
atoms, and an address entitled “Steps
toward a Kinetic Theory of Matter.” The
most popular address in the volume is en-
titled “The Six Gateways of Knowledge,”
and deals with the senses, including among
them the temperature-sense. Prof. Thomson

says there is no evidence for the existence of a

magneticsense. Another attractive paper to

the general reader is a lecture on the wave
theory of light, delivered in Philadelphia.

There are two lectures on the sun’s heat, one

415

of which considers the probable limits to the
periods of time past and future during which
the sun can be reckoned on as a source of heat
and light. The second volume of this series
will include subjects connected with geology,
and the third will be chiefly concerned with
phenomena of the ocean and with maritime
affairs.

Seventa ANNUAL Report or THE UNITED
States GEOLOGICAL SURVEY TO THE SEC-
RETARY OF THE INTERIOR—1885-’86. By
J. W. Powe t, Director. Washington:
Government Printing- Office. Pp. 656,
with Plates.

Tue report begins with an explanation of
the purposes of the geographic division of
the survey and the object of the topographic
maps and methods of preparing them. In
the geologic division the adoption of a scheme
of taxonomic representation that shall be
comprehensive and susceptible of extension
as new features come to light is shown to be
important. The perfection of the work of
the survey has made necessary the estab-
lishment of accessory divisions of paleon-
tology, chemistry, microscopic petrography,
statistics and technology, forestry, and illus-
trations ; and, in order that needed facilities
may be provided for the consultation of the
results obtained by other geologists, a libra-
ry of 17,255 books, 19,600 pamphlets, and
9,000 maps, has been collected. Topograph-
ic surveys were carried on during the year
over 81,829 square miles, at an average cost
of about $2.75 per square mile, In the dis-
tribution of the work, the investigation of
the archean rocks has been conducted under
the direction of Prof. Raphael Pumpelly ;
investigations of the Atlantic coast, includ-
ing changes of level, by Prof. Shaler; in-
the Appalachian region, by Mr. G. K. Gil-
bert; in the Lake Superior region, by Prof.
R. D. Irving; in Glacial Geology, by Prof.
T. C. Chamberlin; in Montana, Yellowstone
Park, Colorado, California, Volcanic Geology,
the Lower Mississippi region (iron and other
ores, sulphur and salt deposits, etc.), Poto-
mac River and the head of Chesapeake Bay,
by Dr. Hayden, Arnold Hague, S. F. Emmons,
G. F. Becker, Captain Dutton, L. C. John-
son, and W J McGee, respectively. In
other branches of the studies, the surveys
have been continued under the several spe-
cialists who have had them in charge in pre-

416

vious years. The special papers contained
in this volume—fruits of the division sur-
veys already named—are: “ The Rock-Scor-
ings of the Great Ice Invasion,” by T. C.
Chamberlin; ‘“ Obsidian Cliff, Yellowstone
National Park,” by J. P. Iddings; “ Geology
of Martha’s Vineyard,” by Prof. Shaler;
“Classification of the Early Cambrian and
Pre-Cambrian Formations,” by R. D. Irving;
“Structure of the Triassic Formation of the
Connecticut Valley,” by W. M. Davis; ‘Salt-
making Processes in the United States,” by
T. M. Chatard; and “ Geology of the Head of
Chesapeake Bay,” by W J McGee.

Prorit- SHARING BETWEEN EMPLOYER AND
Empitoyes, By Nichotas P. Giuman.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp.
460. Price, $1.75.

Tur wide extent which labor troubles
have reached in the past few years, and the
great loss and misery which they have caused,
give importance to a scheme which promises
to be in any measure a remedy for them.
The present volume, which is the only recent
work giving a comprehensive account of its
subject, is devoted chiefly to a history of
profit-sharing. Accounts of experience with
the system in business houses of continental
Europe occupy three chapters, the first of
which is a sketch of “the father of profit-
sharing,” M. Leclaire, and his house. In
the other two chapters the operation of the
system in paper-making, typographical in-
dustries, cotton and woolen factories, iron,
brass, and steel works, insurance, banking,
and transportation companies, retail es-
tablishments, agriculture, and various other
industries is described. A chapter is de-
voted to profit-sharing in England, and
another to American experience with the
system. Cases in which the system has
been abandoned are grouped in another
chapter, the reasons for abandonment being
given in each case. The author has pre-
fixed to this history an exposition of the
present standing of profit-sharing, a brief
introduction, a chapter on product-sharing,
which is concerned with the conduct of agri-
culture, fisheries, and mining “on shares,”
and another on such aspects of the wages
system as concern his theme. In two con-
cluding chapters he gives a summary and
analysis of the results which have been so

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

far attained, and follows this with a state-
ment of the argument for profit - sharing,
The essence of his argument is thus stated:
“ Profit-sharing advances the prosperity of
an establishment by increasing the quantity
of the product, by improving its quality, by
promoting care of implements and economy
of materials, and by diminishing labor dif-
ficulties and the cost of superintendence.” A
bibliography of the subject is appended.

Tue Comptere Works or Rownanp G, Haz-
arD., Edited by his Granddaughter, Car-
oLinE Hazarp. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Miffin & Co. Four Vols. Pp.
416, 410, 380, 504. Price, $2 a volume.
Mr. Hazarp was a man engaged busily

in manufactures and commerce, who found

time to think of questions of political econ-
omy and metaphysics, and wrote well and
vigorously upon them. While his discus-
sions usually went back to fundamental prin-
ciples and were rather abstract, those on
economical subjects at least were practical
enough to be applicable to questions of the
day; and it is mentioned by Prof.G.P. Fisher .
that in the financial exigencies that arose
during the civil war his observations were
more than once influential upon the proceed-
ings of Secretaries of the Treasury. He was
born, of Quaker descent, in 1801, and lived,
excepting thirteen years spent in Pennsylva-
nia, at Peacedale, in Rhode Island, where
he was engaged in the woolen manufacture,

For ten consecutive years he traveled in the

South, in the interest of his business. In

the course of these journeys he took up

the cause of Northern colored men who were
detained at New Orleans in the chain-gang ;
and, having resolved to secure their release,
may be said to have bearded the slave-power
in its den and fought it victoriously in its
own courts. It is illustrative of the condi-
tion of American thought and feeling at the
time, that it was deemed expedient, when
this matter was referred to several years aft-
erward, to suppress the name of the chief
actor, in order that he might not come too
directly under public reproach. But Mr.

Hazard regarded the episode as the greatest

effort of his life. He died June 24, 1888,

carrying his taste for the discussion of ab-

struse questions of metaphysics into the last
hours of his life. Mr. Hazard’s papers, which
were first published as public addresses, in

LITERARY NOTICES.

periodicals, or in book-form—while some of
them have never before been published—are
grouped in these four volumes in as many
sets, each having its distinctive character.
In the volume containing the portrait and
“ Biographical Preface,” the most important
paper is on “Language,” the first essay which
the author produced, and one which, as he
averred, contained the germs of all his writ-
ings. Tt attracted the attention of Dr. Chan-
ning, and was the origin of a lasting friend-
ship between the two. Of the other papers
the most notable are those on “‘ The Adapta-
tion of the Universe to the Cultivation of the
Mind”; “The Bible,” now for the first time
published; ‘“ Intemperance” ; “‘ The Public
Schools”; and ‘“‘ The Duty of Individuals to
support Science and Literature.” A second
volume of “Economics and Politics” con-
tains papers on public questions. The first
of them, on the “‘ Decline of Political Moral-
ity,” is as good reading and as pertinent now
as when it was spoken immediately after the
election of the elder Harrison in 1840. The
others were related to questions of their time,
such as the “ Fugitive-Slave Law”; matters
concerning railroads and their charges ; ‘‘ The
Tariff”; “Bribery; ”’ “ Hours of Labor”;
and questions of finance and policy that arose
during the war or have arisen since, A third
volume comprises the book “Freedom of
Mind in Willing,” which was first published
by D. Appleton & Co. in 1864.
pared at the suggestion of Dr. Channing, as
an answer to the position of Edwards, and is
preceded by an analysis by Prof. G. P. Fisher
of the author’s philosophical writings. The
fourth volume contains the letters on “ Cau-
sation and Free Will,” which were addressed
to John Stuart Mill, with their appendixes, the
“Existence of Matter” and “ Our Notions of
Infinite Space”; “ Animals not Automata,”
which first appeared in this magazine, and
discourses on “‘ Man a Creative First Cause.”

Some Cuaprers oN JUDAISM AND THE SCIENCE
or Rewigion. By Rabbi Lovrs Gross-
MANN, D.D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons. Pp. 190. Price, $1.50.

Tue author attempts to sketch in this
volume a few agreements which he discerns
as already noticeable between historical Ju-
daism and the present science of religion,
leading up to the thought that the science of
religion is the science of J udaism—or, as he

VOL. X¥XXV.—27

It was pre- '

417

otherwise expresses himself, that the results
of the science of religion and the doctrines
of Judaism overlap eachother. He first aims
to show that religion is intuitive, or that the
religious feeling is native and common to all
men; that itis spontaneous, by which is meant
that the feeling, having been suggested by in-
tuition, is made active and manifests itself in
some form of personification. Jn the chap-
ter on “ The Universal Religion and the
Sects,” religion is treated as in some sorta
growth and an adaptation. A distinction is
drawn between religion and theology: “ Re-
ligion is a child of our heart, theology is a
creation of our mind. . . . Religion is eter-
nal; theology a make-shift, which the exi-
gencies of time and the compelling agents of
Providence may throw into a useless heap.”
The relations of prophecy and the value of
religious books are considered. The stand-
ard of morality, theories of ethics, and the
relations of religion and knowledge, are dis-
cussed. The relations of Judaism are treat-
ed of under the headings of its history and
the foreign elements in Judaism. The book
is full of suggestion, but the peculiarities of
its thought and style make very careful read-
ing essential to the proper appreciation of it.

Tue Inprans: Tarr Manners anp Customs.
By Jonny McLean. With Eighteen II-
lustrations. Toronto: William Briggs.
Pp. 351.

Tue information embodied in this book
is based upon a nine years’ residence of the
author as a missionary among the Blood
Indians of the Canadian Northwest, and
some facts of a historical nature have been
obtained from other sources. Finding that
many of the books about the Indians are of
a sensational character, he has endeavored
to write an account that should be reliable.
and at the same time interesting. A large
number of topics are touched upon, includ-.
ing family, war, and social customs, religions,
languages, legends, and traditions, modes of
communication, and Indian oratory. Sketches
are given of Tecumseh, Red Jacket, and
other Indian heroes, and there is a chapter
consisting of frontier tales of adventure.
The author tells of the results achieved by
the missionaries in Christianizing and civi-
lizing the Indians, and gives his ideas on
the Indian problem. ‘‘Hand, head, and
heart training must go together,” he says,

418 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

“in elevating the Indian race.” Many re-
spects in which the Indians are commonly
misjudged are pointed out in this volume,
and a large store of material is furnished
from which an intelligent opinion of these
people may be formed.

Tue Srory or HappinoLaNDE AND oTHER LE-
Gcenps. By Oriver Bert Bunce. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 188.
Price, 25 cents.

THESE are nineteenth-century legends,
or essays they might be called, for the em-
bodiment of story in each case is subordinate
to the thought which it contains. They are
of a critical character, but far from being ill-
natured or pessimistic, and are attractive in
style. “‘The Story of Happinolande” calls
attention very forcibly to the fact that the
necessity of providing for our own wants is
the only thing that makes us consent to
‘supply the wants of others, and that without
this necessity the industrial system of the
world could not exist. In “A Millionaire’s
Millions” a would-be public benefactor is
gradually forced to the conviction that, for
improving the condition of the poor, ideas
are more powcrful than money, and that a
stimulus to industry and economy accom-
plishes the beneficent purpose which alms-
giving only defeats. Certain schemes and
tendencies which have recently attracted pub-
lic attention, especially in New York city, are
also critically examined. “The City Beau-
tiful” is an ideal, which will stimulate the
reader to do his share toward realizing it;
while the closing story, “John’s Attic,” is
an ideal of a “‘home beautiful” adapted to
moderate circumstances.

Prof. David O Brine has published a
second edition, rewritten, of A Laboratory
Guide in Chemical Analysis (Wiley, $2). In
its present form the book eomprises, first,
a chapter giving the preparation, tests, and
uses of each of the reagents employed ;
next, a description of tests in the dry way,
including those specially applicabie to miner-
als. The tests in the wet way for the bases
are then deseribed, and there is a page on
separation by electrolysis, which is followed
by the methods for separating the acids.
The next chapter comprises tables showing,
first, the reactions of the bases, then those
of the acids, with the usual reagents, which

are followed by a brief summary of the
leading laws and principles of chemistry.
Methods for the examination of water and
the detection of various poisons are given,
and the closing chapter deals with general
stochiometry.

The treatise on The Lixiviation of Silver-
Ores with Hyposulphite Solutions, by Carl A.
Stetefeldt (The Scientific Publishing Compa-
ny), is offered to metallurgists as a clear, com-
plete description of the lixiviation process
in its most improved modern form. Special
prominence has been accorded to the Russell
process as practically standing for the lix-
iviation of to-day. The author deals first
with the chemistry of the process, describ-
ing the chemicals used, giving the reactions
of the sodium hyposulphite and the extra
solutions, and telling in some detail the
solubilities of metals and various compounds
in sodium hyposulphite solutions. This part
includes also the chemistry of the wash-
water, and of sodium and calcium sulphide,
and a chapter on laboratory work. In the
part of the volume devoted to the practical
carrying out of the process, a minute de-
scription of the arrangement of the plant is
given, with detailed drawings, dimensions,
and estimates of the cost of erecting and
running the mill. The making of the solu-
tions, the charging and discharging of the
vats, the treatment of roasted and raw ores,
and the precipitation of the metals from a
lixiviation solution receive attention in turn.
The closing chapter is a comparison of re-
sults of the Russell process with those of
ordinary lixiviation and of amalgamation.
The author reports that he has found it dif-
ficult to obtain correct statistics of the lix-
iviation process, but he expects to issue
supplements that will place the statistics
upon as sound a basis as the chemistry of
the subject rests upon. The first of these
supplements accompanies our copy of the
work; it contains some corrections and re-
sults from the Yedras Mill, Sinaloa, Mexico.

The Elementary Biology, prepared by
R. J. Harvey Gibson, M.A. (Longmans,
$1.75), is a text-book adapted to college stu-
dents. It opens with a brief summary of
the principal conclusions of physics and
chemistry, dwelling especially upon those
laws on which biology immediately rests.
Many speculations and explanations in re-

ih ley

LITERARY NOTICES.

gard to the relationship of morphological
and physiological details to general princi-
ples have been introduced, because the author
is convinced that “working hypotheses not
only serve to weave apparently isolated facts
together, but give a certain vividness and
interest to what would otherwise prove too
often a bare and lifeless catalogue of data.”
We has made the botanical aspect of biology
predominate over the animal in this book,
because he deems the former from its sim-
plicity more suited to elementary study, and
because the latter has been abundantly
treated by other authors. The book con-
tains 192 cuts.

Among the late “Bulletins” of the
United States Geological Survey are No. 40,
on Changes in River Courses in Washington
Territory due to Glaciation, by Bailey Willis,
with maps; No. 41, The Fossil Faunas of
the Upper Devonian—the Genesee Section,
New York, by Henry S. Williams ; No. 42,
Report of the Work done in the division of
Chemistry and Physics (1885-36), by F. W.
Clarke ; No. 48, On the Tertiary and Cre-
taceous Strata of the Tuscaloosa, Tombigbee,
and Alabama Rivers, by Eugene A. Smith
and Lawrence C. Johnson ; No. 44, Bibliog-
raphy of North American Geology for 1886,
by Nelson H. Darton ; No. 45, Present Con-
dition of Knowledge of the Geology of Texas,
by Robert T. Hill; No. 46, The Nature and
Origin of Deposits of Phosphate of Lime,
by &. A. #. Penrose, Jr., with an introduc-
tion by Prof. Shaler, and a bibliography;
and No. 47, Analysis of Waters of the Yellow-
stone National Park, with an Account of’ the
Methods of Analysis employed, by Frank
Austin Gooch and James Edward Whitfield.

Of two recent geological essays by W
J McGee, Notes on the Geology of Macon
County, Missouri, embodies the results of a
survey which was made preliminary to put-
ting down a prospect bore; and Dynamical
Geology relates to certain fundamental defi-
nitions growing out of the discrimination of
processes commonly confounded but really
distinct.

A little manual of Deductive Logic has
been issued by St. George Stock, M. A. (Long-
mans, $1.25). The author remarks in his
preface that one critic who examined his
book in manuscript advised him not to pub-
lish it, because it was too like all other

419

logics, while another advised him to cut out
a considerable amount of new matter. He
followed the latter advice, and hopes that
he has at least escaped the guilt of wanton
innovation. His object has been “to pro-
duce a work which should be as thoroughly
representative of the present state of the
logic of the Oxford schools as any of the
text-books of the past.” As a qualification
for his task, he refers to seventeen years of
study and teaching of the subject at Oxford.
A collection of exercises is appended. The
volume is made in a neat and convenient form.

The most noticeable characteristic of
Cram’s Standard American Atlas of the
World (George F. Cram, New York, $10.50)
is its unconventional handiness. On the
front cover is an index of the United States,
Carada, and Memco maps, and the pages
referred to here and in the full index inside
the volume can be readily found, as the
leaves are printed on both sides, either
with maps or letterpress. The volume con-
tains maps of all the States and Territories
of the United States, which, it is stated on
the title-page, “are the largest scale and
clearest print of any atlas maps published.”
There are also maps of the various divisions
of Canada, the other countries of North
America, Europe and its countries, South
America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the
chief island groups of the world, and twenty-
two maps of American cities. Each State
map is accompanied by an index of its towns
and villages, with information in regard to
location, population, post offices, railways, ete.
At the end of the book are twenty pages of
“curiosities of statistics,” and six pages of
colored statistical diagrams. We have found
with very little search a number of errors in
its maps and its figures of population.

An American edition of Sonnenschein’s
Cyclopedia of Education, edited by Alfred
E. Fletcher, is published by Bardeen ($3.75)
It comprises a wide variety of pedagogical,
psychological, historical, descriptive, and
biographical articles, by such writers as Os-
car Browning, J. S. Curwen, James Donald-
son, Sir Philip Magnus, David Salmon,
Arthur Sidgwick, and James Sully. <A bib-
liography of education, occupying thirty-
four pages, is appended.

A History of Education in North Caro-
lina, by Charles Lee Smith, is published by

420

the United States Bureau of Education as
one of its “‘ Circulars of Information,” among
which it forms one of a series of “ Contri-
butions to American Educational History,”
under the editorial direction of Herbert B.
Adams. In this essay, as Commissioner
Dawson remarks, the writer has traced the
genesis and development of education in
North Carolina from the first settlement of
that State to the present time; and for that
purpose has examined the colonial records,
the early laws of the State, works in public
libraries, and private collections and per-
sonal correspondence, by the aid of which he
has made a very satisfactory presentment of
the story. While the history of primary

and secondary instruction has: not been neg-.

lected, the higher education has been prin-
cipally treated in the sketch. The influence
of certain classes of immigration and of
institutions outside of the State is shown.
Facts concerning noted educators are brought
out. A full account of the University of
North Carolina and of its influence on the
South is given. In the picture of the pres-
ent status of education in the State, we have
been particularly interested in the story of
what has been achieved since the war, and
with the accounts of education among the
colored people. One flourishing institution,
Livingstone College, of the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church, is wholly the product
of their effort. The views of buildings, which
are prominent in the volume, help illus-
trate how fast a hold the architectural idea
still keeps in education.

Another of the Educational Bureau’s cir-
culars comprises a paper on Industrial Edu-
cation in the South, by the Rev. A. D. Mayo.
A general discussion of the conditions of
American and Southern life leads to a con-
sideration of the need of industrial train-
ing to improve those conditions, not only in
the shops and on the farms, but in the home
too; and to a review of the provisions that
have been made to furnish such training.
These seem to be good, so far as they have
been made, to be distributed with fair even-
ness among the States, and to be afforded
in such institutions as Tulane University and
Washington University on a liberal and effi-
cient scale.

Included in the Proceedings of the De-
partment of Superintendenee of the National

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Educational Association, at its meeting in
Washington in February, 1888, are papers
and discussions on “Manual Training in
the Public Schools,” “County Institutes,”
“Elocution,” “ Qualifications of Teachers,”
“Normal Schools,” “Moral Training,” “Can
School Programmes be shortened and en-
riched?” “ Alaska,” the relations of “Su-
perintendents and Teachers,” and “ National
Aid to Education.”

The Massachusetts Society for promoting
Good Citizenship (Boston) issues as its first
“Circular of Information” a report of the
Committee upon Courses of Reading and Study
on Works on Civil Government. The report
contains a list of text-books recommended
for schools, each accompanied by a descrip-
tive and critical note, showing the scope and
value of the book; a list of other text-books,
with notes; a list of brief commentaries and
similar books recommended; and a list of
less valuable or more bulky commentaries
and books of reference. .

The fifth of the “Monographs” of the
Industrial Education Association consists of
a study, in the history of pedagogy, of As-
pects of Education, by Mr. Oscar Browning.
The author reviews the various shapes in
which interest in education has manifested
itself since the middle ages, with the factors
which have influenced or worked to change
them—ending with the present aspect, which
he seems to regard as largely the following
of Dr. Arnold’s labors at Rugby School.

Hints for Teachers of Physiology, by H.
P. Bowditch, MU. D. (D. C. Heath & Co.), is
No. 14 of the Boston Society of Natural
History’s “ Guides for Science-Teaching.” It
furnishes suggestions for supplementing the
instructions of the text-books by means of
simple observations and experiments on liv-
ing bodies or on organic material, for which
teachers will need no other apparatus than
is within their easy reach. Price, 25 cents.

The Training of Nurses, an address be-
fore the Michigan State Board of Charities
and Correction, by Dr. Hal C. Wyman, gives a
clear picture of what the ideal nurse should
be, and of the manner in which she should
perform the duties of her office.

The Scaside and Wayside series of read-
ers, by Julia MeNair Wright, has reached
its third number (Heath, 55 cents), The
present volume is similar in character to the

LITERARY NOTICES.

two which preceded it, the lessons dealing
with plants, insects, birds, and fishes.

It inspires confidence in Mr. Benjamin Y.
Conklin’s text-book of English Grammar and
Composition (Appleton, 75 cents) to find
the author saying in his “ hints to teachers”’:
“Tn teaching grammar, it should never be
forgotten that the real object is to teach
pupils how to speak and to write the English
language correctly, and how to read it in-
telligently. Analysis and parsing are only
means to this end.” The theory of the book
is the gradual development of the sentence,
beginning with its simplest form and adding
new elements one after another. The learn-
ing of the proper forms which are required
by the relations of words in sentences is de-
ferred until the pupils have become familiar
with the nature and office of the different
parts of speech. The author states that he
“has endeavored to avoid an excess of lan-
guage-work on the one hand, and too much
formal parsing and analysis on the other.”

~The questions on the lessons are designed to

cause the pupil to construct his own answers.
Instead of the usual examples of false syn-
tax, exercises are given for filling blanks in
sentences by supplying the correct forms of
the needed words. But, for teachers who
desire to use the former, a collection is given
in an appendix. The book is intended to
compass the entire range of a two - book
course.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Archer, T, A. The Crusade of Richard I. 1189-
92. (‘*English History by Contemporary Writers”
Series.) New York: G@. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp.
838, with Plates. $1.25.

Baker, L. W., M. D., Baldwinville, Mass. The In-
fectious Diseases in their Relations to the Public
Schools., Pp. 12.—How shall we deal with the Ine-
briate? Pp. 7.

Baker, T. Barwick LI. War with Crime.
York; Longmans, Green & Co, Pp.299. $4.

Cassell & Co., New York. “ The American Work-
man.” Weekly. Pp. 16. 5 cents; $2.50 a year.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Annual Report for 1889. Part I. Pp. 48.

Cornell College of Agriculture. Agricultural Ex-
peoment Station. Bulletin No. 5, April, 1889. Pp.

New

_ Crocker, George Grover. Principles of Procedure
in Deliberative Bodies. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 169.

Currier, Charles G., M.D., New York. The
Efficacy of Filters and Other Means employed to
purify Drinking Water. Pp. 42.

Dawson, George M. Notes on the Indian Tribes
of the Yukon District and the Adjacent Northern
Portion of British Columbia. Pp, 23.

Dolbear, Prof. A. E. On the Organization of
Atoms and Molecules. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 16,

421

Ebers, George. Margery (Gred): A Tale of Old
Nuremberg. Translated by Clara Bell. New York:
W.S. Gottsberger & Co. 2 vols. Pp. 279 and 300.

Egleston, T. Catalogue of Minerals and Syno-
nyms alphabetically arranged for the Use of Muse-
ums. Washington: Government Printing-Office,
Pp. 198,

Garner, R. L. Nancy Bet. (Verse.) Norfolk,
Va.: ‘“ Landmark”’’ Steam Printing-House, Pp. 18.

Goode, George Brown. The Fisheries and Fish-
ery Industries of the United States. Sections III,
1V, and Y. Washington: Government Printing-
Office. 4 vols., pp. 177, 178, 808, 881, and Plates,

Gouge, H. A., New York. Air: Its Uses and
Abuses. How Perfect Ventilation can be secured
under all Circumstances. Pp. 40.

Hague, Arnold, U.8. Geological Survey. Soaping
Geysers. Pp. 10.

Hayes, Plym 8. Electricity in Facia) Blemishes.
Chicago: W.T. Keener. Pp, 128.

Howe, William W. Municipal History of New
Orleans. Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University.
Pp. 38. 25 cents. ©

Huebsch, Samuel, New York. Piikeds de Solo-
mon. (Proverbs of Solomon in Volapik.) Pp, 42.

Tlinois Sixth Annual Report of the Board of
Health. Springfield. Pp. 274.

Kaweah Co-operative Colony Company, Limited,
Cal. A Pen-Picture. San Francisco: The “Com-
monwealth.” Pp. 382,

Kunz, George F., New York. Precious Stones.
Pp, 24.—Mineralogical Notes. Pp. 3.—On Two New
Masses of Meteoric Iron. Pp. 4, with Plate.-—Meteoric
Tron from Arkansas, 1886. Pp. 8, with Plate.—Pre-
cious Stones, Gems, and Decorative Stones in Canada
and British North America, exhibited at the Paris Ex-
hibition, 1889, by Tiffany & Co., New York, Pp. 382,

Lloyd, J. Hendrie, M. D., Philadelphia. The In-
sanity of Oscar Hugo Webber. Pp. 5.

McComas, E. W., Fort Scott, Kansas.
cept of the Universe. Pp, 38.

McGee, Mrs. Anita Newcomb, Secretary. Or-
ganization and Ilistorical Sketch of the Women’s
Anthropological Society of America, Washington,
D. C,; The Society.. Pp. 22.

Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment
Station, Amherst. Analysis of Commercial Ferti-
lizers. Instructions, Pp. 4

Mays, Thomas J., M. D., Philadelphia.
ism and Pulmonary Consumption. Pp. 10.

Merriam, George §., Editor. The Story of Will-
iam and Lucy Smith. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. Pp. 666. $2.

Michigan, Agricultural College of. Experiment
Station Bulletins, 89, 47, 48 (Insecticides, Silos and
Ensilage, and Horticultural Department). Pp. 16,
45, and 27.

Montague, F.C. Arnold Toynbee. Baltimore:
Jobns Hopkins University. Pp. 70. 50 cents.

Moses, Bernard. The Establishment of Munici-
pal Government in San Francisco. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University. Pp. 88. 50 cents.

O’Connor, William D. Mr, Donnelly’s Review-
ers. Chicago, New York, and San Francisco: Bel-
ford, Clarke & Co. Pp. 101,

Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Columbus.

Eulen No. 8, Series 2 (Insects and Insecticides).
p. 19.

Packard, A. S. The Cave Fauna of North
America, with Remarks on the Anatomy of the
Brain and Origin of the Blind Species. National
Academy of Sciences. Pp. 156, with 27 Plates.

Parker, Francis W. How to study Geography.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 400. $1.50.

Phillips, Henry, Jr. An Attempt toward an In-
ternational Language. By Dr. Esperanto (Warsaw,
Russia). New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 56.
25 cents.

“Public Health.”
sota statistics.

A Con-

Alcohol-

Supplement, giving Minne-

422

Riley, C. V. Insect Life. Vol. I, No.9. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 86.

Shufeldt, R. W., M. D. Osteology of Arctic and
Sub-Arctic Water-Birds, Pp. 80.—Ostevlogy of the
North American Anseres. Pp, 86.

Snyder, William L. The Geography of Marriage,
or Legal Perplexities of Wedlock in the United
States. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp.
834. $1.50.

Starcke, C. N. The Primitive Family, its Origin
and Development. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 815. $1.75.

Stowell, T. B. Syllabus of Lectures in Anatomy
and Physiology. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen.
Pp. 118.

Thomas, Cyrus. Aids to the Study.of the Maya
Codices, Washington: Government Frinting-Office,
Pp. 100.

Todd, W. G., Editor. ‘* The Teacher’s Outlook ”
Monthly. Vol. I,No.1. Des Moines, lowa: Teach-
ers’ Publishing Company. Pp. 32.

Trent, William P. English Culture in Virginia.
Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University, Pp. 141. $1.

Wentworth, G. A., McLellan, J. A., and Glashan,
J.C. Algebraic Analysis, Solutions, and Exercises,
illustrating the Fundamental Theorems and the most
Important Processes. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp.
418, $1.60.

Whitman, C. O., and Allis, Edward Phelps. Jr.
“Journal of Morphology.” April, 1889. Boston:
Ginn & Co. Pp. 260, with Plates. $9 a year.

Winchell, N. H., State Geologist. The Geologi-
cal and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. Re-
port for 1887. Minneapolis. Pp. 501.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

An Estray Wreck.—One of the most
useful features of the monthly “ Pilot Charts,”
published by the Hydrographic Office of the
Navy Department, is the series comprising
tracings of the courses of derelict vessels.
It is said that between twenty-five and forty-
five of these peripatetic dangers to naviga-
tion are recorded every month in the North
Atlantic alone, and the supply is constantly
kept up by the fruits of every great storm.
Their wanderings are often very eccentric.
Thus the W. L. White, a lumber-laden three-
masted schooner, having been abandoned off
Delaware Bay during the blizzard of March,
1888, started off to the southward under the
influence of the inshore current and the north-
west gale. Upon reaching the Gulf Stream
she turned away to the eastward and began
her long cruise toward Europe, directly in
the track of thousands of vessels; drifting
blindly about at the mercy of wind and cur-
rent. During the former part of her wander-
ing she followed a course about east-north-
east, at an average rate of about thirty-two
miles. a day. From the beginning of May
till the end of October she pursued an ex-
traordinarily zigzag course, seesawing back
and forth, and doubling upon herself, “ stag-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gering like a drunken man all over a com-
paratively small area, a constant menace to
navigation in its most frequented ground.”
After escaping from this snarl, she moved east
and northeast, 1,260 miles in eighty-four days,
or an average of about fifteen miles a day.
Finally, on the 28d of January, 1889, she
was stranded on one of the islands of the
Hebrides after a cruise of ten months and
ten days, in which she traversed a distance
of more than five thousand miles, and was
reported forty-five times; while many more
vessels may have passed dangerously near
her at night or during thick weather.

The Canadian Lakes and the Glaciers.—
In accounting for the origin of the great
lake basins in Canada, Dr. Robert Bell re-
gards Lake Superior as of volcanic origin,
and Hudson Bay as having some points in
common with it; while Athabasca, the Great
Slave Lake, Lake Winnipeg, the Georgian
Bay, and Lake Ontario, lie along the line
where the limestones and sandstones meet
the older Laurentian and Huronian strata,
and were probably excavated by post-tertiary
glaciers. Dr. Bell also points out that dikes
of greenstones, etc., often formed the origi-
nal lines along which the channels of rivers,
arms of lakes, and fiords, were cut by denud-
ing forces. Prof. A. T. Drummond suggests
that the glaciers have been called upon to do
too much work. There is difficulty in ac-
cepting the theory of such colossal glacial
systems as geologists invoke. The vast ef-
fects of erosion by atmospheric and other
agencies in Miocene and Pliocene ages which
immediately preceded the Glacial epoch, and
the great deposits of decomposed rock which
must have accumulated during those ages,
have been overlooked. The continental gla-
cier, even if only a mile in thickness, of
the extent demanded by the theory, would
represent a depth of about five hundred or
six hundred feet taken uniformly everywhere
from the waters of the ocean and transformed
into ice. The withdrawal of such a mass of
water from the North Atlantic would have
carried our coast-line from seventy-five to
one hundred miles seaward, would have ren-
dered the Gulf of St. Lawrence dry land and
brought the Great Banks of Newfoundland
to the surface, and would have obliterated
the German Ocean. Are we prepared to ac-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

cept these consequences? Prof. Drummond
prefers a theory of great northern elevations
of land creating mountain-chains and their
glaciers, accompanied or followed by a de-
pression farther south, which admitted the
arctic currents, or perhaps formed an in-
land sea and a highway for icebergs bearing
débris and bowlders, which they dropped on
the bottom.

Orchids.—Orchids are commended by Mr.
Frederick Boyle as pleasant room-ornaments,
and clean, easily managed plants. ‘“‘ Observe
my Oncidium,” he says; “it stands in a pot,
but this is only for convenience—a recep-
tacle filled with moss. The long stem, feath-
ered with great blossoms, springs from a bare
slab of wood. No mold nor peat surrounds
it; there is absolutely nothing save the roots
that twine round their support, and the wire
that sustains it in the air. It asks no atten-
tion beyond its daily bath.” Sir Trevor Law-
rence can see no reason, in the case of most
orchids, why they should ever die. ‘The
parts of the Orchidee are annually repro-
duced in a great many instances, and there
is really no reason why they should not live
forever, unless. . . they are killed by errors
in cultivation.” Another authority says that,
“like the domestic animals, they soon find
out when there is one about them who is
fond of them. With such a guardian they
seem to be happy, and to thrive, and to es-
tablish an understanding, indicating to him
their wants in many important matters as
plainly as though they could speak.” Ac-
cording to Mr. Boyle, the secret of orchid-
culture lies in their indifference to detail
“Secure the general conditions necessary for
their well-doing, and they will gratefully re-
lieve you of further anxiety; neglect those
general conditions, and no care for detail
will reconcile them.” In Mr. Sander’s orchid
farm, at St. Albans, England, where three
acres are occupied by orchids exclusively,
growing in the most profuse luxuriance, no
great pains are taken to exclude frost from
the cool houses. It would be better to keep
them at 50°, but the advantage does not
equal the expense and inconvenience of
warming such enormous buildings to the
requisite degree. Mr. Boyle says that the
“Tndians of tropical America cherish a fine
orchid to the degree that, in many cases, no

423

sum, and no offer of valuables, will tempt
them to part with it. Ownership is distinct-
ly recognized when the specimen grows near
a village.” Mr. Roege has left a description
of the scene when he first beheld the Flor
de Majo. The church was hung with gar-
lands of it, and such emotion seized him at
the view that he choked. The natives showed
him plots of this species acres in extent,
where it was grown for the ornamentation
of their church. A fine Cattleya Morsie in
one of Mr. Sander’s houses—the largest or-
chid of the kind that was ever brought to
Europe—had grown upon a high tree beside
an Indian’s hut, and belonged to him, as it
had belonged to his grandfather, He re-
fused to part with it at any price for years,
but was overcome at last by a rifle of pecul-
iar fascination, added to the previous offers,
“A magic-lantern has great influence in such
cases, and the collector provides himself with
one or more nowadays as part of his outfit.”

Etching on Glass.s— The object to be
etched is immersed in a bath of melted wax,
which on removal forms a thin coating over
its surface. On this the designs are carefully
scratched out by means of a pointed instru-
ment, which removes the wax along the lines
of the pattern. The glass is then immersed
in a solution of hydrofluoric acid. The acid,
which is very corrosive, attacks all the por-
tions of the glass not protected by the wax,
thus eating out the lines of the engraving on
the glass. When this is done, all that re-
mains is to clear away the wax. Owing to the
destructive nature of hydrofluoric acid, a spe-
cial room is kept, in which it is applied, the
windows of which must be coated with wax,
and the vessels used to contain the acid must
be made of lead. Monograms and similar de-
signs are printed in a kind of thick ink, on
transfer paper, the lines of the monogram be-
ing left uncovered by theink. The pattern is
then transferred to the glass, the ink protect-
ing the portions covered from the acid in the
subsequent processes. As, however, the
monogram only covers a small portion of
Say, @ wine-glass or decanter, the rest is
coated with wax. The bath of hydrofluoric
acid is then used as before. The pretty
zigzag patterns which so frequently adorn
many wine-glasses are scratched on the wax
by means of several ingenious machines.

424 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

One of the simplest patterns is produced by
the tracing point rapidly revolving in a circle,
while the glass slowly turns round on its axis.
Another well-known pattern is traced out by
a rather complicated mechanism, in which,
by means of wheels having cogs along half
their circumference, the tracing points are
made to move up and down, and the glass to
turn round, alternately, in a series of jerks.
Although most of the patterns on glass
are etched in this way, they lack the sharp-
ness of definition required for the very best
engravings. These latter are therefore care-
fully ground by hand, very small rapidly
rotating wheels covered with fine rotten-stone
powder being used to cut out the pattern on
the glass. A large number of wheels of dif-
ferent shapes and sizes must be used for the
various details of a complicated design, such
as a bunch of flowers and fruit, and this
method is only resorted to in the case of the
most expensive dessert sets, as it involves
a considerable amount of skilled workman-
ship. With regard to the embossed patterns,
so common on butter-dishes and similar ar-
ticles, these, as well as the lenses used in
lighthouses, are formed by pressing the
molten glass into molds of the desired form.
The flutings and ribbings on decanters, and
the familiar lozenge or diamond patterns on
cruets, are carved on the ‘glass by means of
grindstones, whose edges are rounded, an-
gular, or flat, as the case may be. In the
preliminary grinding, rotten-stone and water
are used, but for the final polish the finest
putty powder is required.

Roman Wines.—The increase in late
years of the wine production of the province
of Rome bas been attended with great im-
provements in the quality of the wine pro-
duced. The principal group of wine-making
districts is that of the “ Castelli Romani,”
the wines of which are robust and durable.
The land is of volcanic origin, and the an-
cient Roman rules of cultivation are fol-
lowed. The cultivation of the white grape
is giving place to that of the black, with
a corresponding change in the color of the
wine. The wine is kept in caves that con-
sist of long corridors or galleries hewn out
in layers of tufa, and having lateral niches,
in each of which a butt is placed holding
between eight and twelve hectolitres. The

caves are ventilated by means of wells, and
even in the height of summer the wine is thus
kept at a very low temperature. The Goy-
ernment exercises strict measures against
adulteration ; and this is held to include the
addition of any substances that are not found
in pure wine, or the use of which is not in
accordance with the rational principles on
which wine-making is based. The addition
of substances naturally to be found in wine
is also considered as adulteration, if the sub-
stances are beyond the just proportions ex-
isting in pure wines. An exception is made
in the case of gypsum, for which the maxi-
mum quantity to be permitted is determined
by the Superior Board of Health.

Lead-Poisoning.—Several cases of lead-
poisoning, caused by the preparation of home-
made wine in earthenware dishes coated with
litharge glazing (oxide of lead) have recently
been noted in the London “Lancet.” The
symptoms were the appearance of a bluish
line around the gums, vomiting of bile in
large quantities, obstinate constipation, and
constant abdominal pains. On analysis of
some cherry-wine, from the use of which one
of the cases had arisen, lead, in the form of
sulphate, was found in very dangerous pro-
portions. ;

Getting to Sleep.—Among the many re-
cipes that have been given for overcoming
wakefulness is one devised by a Mr. Gardner,
and formerly celebrated in England, but now
almost forgotten. It is to lie on the right
side, with the head so placed on the pillow
that the neck shall be straight; keeping the
lips closed tightly, a rather full inspiration
is to be taken through the nostrils, and the
lungs then left to their own action, The
person must now imagine that he sees the
breath streaming in and out of his nostrils,
and confine his attention to this idea. If
properly carried out, this method is said to
be infallible. Counting and repeating poetry
are other means that have been recommend-
ed. Combing the hair, brushing the forehead
with a soft shaving-brush, or fanning, are
all good sleep-inducers, and might well be
tried on sleepless children. To these may
be added the Spanish practice of getting a
baby off to sleep by rubbing its back with
the hand. A sensation of dry, burning heat

_

ae aa

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

in the soles and palms, which accompanies
certain diseases in some people, is a cause of
sleeplessness that will give way to sponging
the parts with vinegar and water. Wake-
fulness is sometimes the result of lack of
food, and a glass of cold water or pale ale,
or the eating of a sandwich, will, by setting
up activity in the abdominal organs, divert
the superabundant blood from the head, thus
removing the cause of the unnatural activity
of the'brain. One reason why the most gift-
ed minds have frequently been afflicted by
sleeplessness is because bodily exercise is
too often neglected by people devoted to in-
tellectual pursuits. For such persons there
-is no better soporific than muscular exertion,
carried even, in extreme cases, to a sense of
fatigue.

Criminal Responsibility of the Insane.
—It is a difficult matter to define with any-
thing like precision the point at which we
should cease to regard crime as the result of
depravity and begin to treat the wrong-doer
as the victim of disease. Prof. C. J. Cul-
lingworth, of Owens College, thinks that
certain forms of insanity are not properly
regarded in the practice of the English crim-
inal courts. In 1843 the House of Lords
obtained from the judges who had acquitted
the murderer McNaghten, on the plea of in-
sanity, the opinion that, “to establish a de-
fense on the ground of insanity, it must be
clearly proved that at the time of commit-
ting the act the party accused was laboring
under such a defect of reason from disease
of the mind as not to know the nature and
quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did
know it, that he did not know he was doing
what was wrong.” Hyver since it was put
forth, this test has been treated as though it
were the law of the land. It is, however,
far from satisfactory, in that it restricts
mind to the intelligence, and ignores the
emotions and the will. Now it is by no
means unusual to find the disorder of the
emotions and the will far greater than that
of the intellect, and especially in the cases
of those whom insanity is most likely to im-
pel to criminal acts. It is a common experi-
ence in lunatic asylums to find that the very
persons who are the most dangerous to
themselves and those about them are the
most intelligent inmates in the institution.

425

This is not a purely medical view of the
question, Sir James Stephen has said: “No
doubt there are cases in which madness in-
terferes with the power of self-control, and
so leaves the sufferer at the mercy of any
temptation to which he may be exposed... .
I do not think that a person unable to con-
trol his conduct should be the subject of
legal punishment.” Here we are brought
face to face with the fiercely disputed ques-
tion whether there is or is not such a thing
as irresistible impulse—that is, whether per-
sons apparently sane, and at any rate free
from obvious delusion, may be impelled to
insane acts by a force that they can not
control. “I can not deny that medical wit-
nesses have sometimes pressed this doctrine
of irresistible influence unduly; still, there
are undoubtedly cases where the insanity re-
veals itself chiefly, if not solely, in acts of
violence, the consequence of uncontrollable
impulse.
can recognize lunacy as well as another, and
that it invariably betrays itself by definite
and unmistakable symptoms, are altogether
erroneous. In a lunatic asylum the raving
maniac is an exception, the majority of the
inmates being quiet, orderly persons, who
present, so far as their outward appearance
goes, little or nothing to distinguish them
from other people. Probably no one visits
such an institution for the first time without
being puzzled to know which are the officials
and which the inmates. Like other chronic
disorders, insanity is apt to come on insid-
iously. A certain alteration of manner, a
disposition to talk a little more or a little
less than usual, an unaccustomed reckless-
ness in expenditure, a tendency to be sus-
picious of those who have hitherto been im-
plicitly trusted, a slight failure in business
capacity—these may be all the symptoms
that mark the departure from mental health,
until one day the smoldering insanity breaks
out in an act of violence. The analogy be-
tween epilepsy and those forms of insanity
which are accompanied with sudden out-
bursts is a very close one. The causes that
have been at work in each case have been
cumulative in their action, and only when
the accumulated irritation has reached a
certain degree of intensity has there becn
any, or but the very slightest, outward indica-
tion of the gathering storm, The spectacle

The popular notions that one man

426

of an epileptic seizure taking place suddenly

_in an apparently healthy person is one of
such every-day occurrence that it scarcely
excites any notice. But if a medical witness
stands up in court and suggests that an
atrocious and apparently motiveless act of
violence was the insane act of the appar-
ently calm prisoner in the dock, he is in
danger of being ridiculed as a theorist.”

A Practical View of Parks.—Lord Bra-
bazon, at the Sanitary Congress held in York
in September, 1886, defended the propriety
of maintaining parks in large towns upon the
broadest practical grounds. Such establish-
ments, he held, should not be considered
luxuries, but public necessities. For health
is one of the first of necessities, and no ex-
pense should be spared, and no opportunity
neglected, to increase the average standard
of the nation’s health and strength. If a
people’s average standard of vitality be low-
ered, that people will assuredly be handi-
capped in the race of nations by as much as
that standard has been lessened. The health
of the mind is largely dependent on the
health of the body, and a nation can only
as have much muscular power and brain force
as may be the sum total of those qualities
possessed by the men and women of which it
is formed. It isan axiom of hygienic science
that, other things being equal, the health of
a population is in inverse ratio to its density,
Hence the density of population in large
towns should be offset by providing as much
open space as possible in the form of
squares, parks, and pleasure-grounds.

Dangers of the Laboratory.—A striking
instance of the dangerous quests which en-
thusiastie chemists undertake are the efforts
to investigate the yellow oily substance called
chloride of nitrogen. This terrible explosive
was discovered in 1811 by Dulong, who lost
one eye and three fingers in a vain attempt
to ascertain its composition. So powerful
is it that when Faraday and Sir Humphry
Davy took it in hand they provided them-
selves with thick glass masks to protect
their eyes from flying bits of glass, and to
some extent from the irritating vapors of
the oil itself. Faraday was on one occasion
stunned by a detonation of only a few grains
of the compound, and bits of the tube in

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which it had been contained almost pene-
trated his mask. On another occasion Sir
H. Davy was severely injured by the explo-
sion of a few drops under the receiver of
an air-pump. Since their time the precise
composition of the oil has been a mystery.
At last, however, Dr. Gattermann, of Got-
tingen, has succeeded in its analysis. He
finds that the substance examined hitherto
was impure, and that the extreme danger of
handling it was partly due to that fact, and
partly to the varying action of light. Any
bright light, he has found, is enough to pro-
duce detonation—a discovery made by the
sudden destruction of his apparatus by a
stray sunbeam. Chemical research nowa-
days is apt to stray among the teeming past-
ures of organic chemistry, to the neglect of
the old problems offered by the inorganic
world, though the solution of these problems
should enlist the highest efforts of experi-
mental science.

Superstitions about Snakes. — Besides
certain errors in natural history, imagination
has vested snakes with some supernatural
or uncanny qualities. Thus, they are in
some places believed to know where buried
treasures are deposited; to lie upon the
gold in winter; and, while too wary to show
themselves near their hoard in summer, to
come out in the bright, warm days of spring
and bask in the neighborhood of their
winter quarters. At such times a wise man
will not kill them, but will watch where they
go, mark the place, and take measures to
possess himself of the treasure. But the
snake is supposed to fight wildly for his
property; and there are feigned to be in
the old mines of Italy winged serpents which
never come into the open air, but haunt
the vaults where anything of value is hidden.
They live upon the scent of gold, and vio-
lently attack any one who forces his way
into their domain. No one, it is added, has
ever seen them except by torch-light, when
they must have looked rather like bats. The
house-snake in Carinthia is supposed to
bring good luck to the house he frequents.
The fatter he grows the fuller will be the
stalls, the granaries and the kitchen. So he is
not disturbed, but has a bowl of milk placed
every morning and evening in the cellar where
he lives. Some of these serpents are fabled

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

to wear a crown—a small circlet of gold
set with strange jewels, that brings good
luck to any one who finds and knows how
to deal with it—otherwise it may bring more
harm than good. When it or any other
treasure is found, it must not be touched first
with the hands, but a part of the clothing
should be cast over it. A maiden should
use her apron for this purpose, but a man
may take his coat or even his pocket-hand-
kerchief. If a hat or any part of the head-
gear is used, the finder will go mad. These
snakes are thought to have a queen who is
far more terrible than they. A legend is
current at Friedbach that, in the old days
when it was vexed with snakes, a stranger,
Fridelo, came along, and promised to relieve
them, provided, if he should be killed, they
would say a mass for his soul every year.
He ordered a fire built around an oak-tree,
under which he placed himself. As the fire
burned, Fridelo began to sing, or whistle,
or call, and the snakes rushed into the fire
and perished. Finally, a white serpent ap-
peared, passed the fire, and bore Fridelo to
the fire on the other side, where both were
consumed. The district was ever after-
ward free from venomous creatures, and in
gratitude for the riddance a church was
built where the tree stood, in which serpent
masses are said.

A Church-going Dog.—A story of al-
most reasoning intelligence is told of a dog
belonging to the Rey. R. Ashton, superin-
tendent of an Indian school and pastor of
the church at Brantford, Ontario. He at-
tends the church with the ninety Indian
children of the school, and rises and sits
down with the congregation. One day when
a stranger-clergyman had preached too long
for the dog, he bethought himself of a meth-
od for closing the service: he would have
the collection taken which he had associated
with the end of the sermon. He ran to the
boy who was accustomed to carry the plate,
and gazed steadfastly in his face. Finding
that no notice was taken of this, he sat up
and “begged” persistently for some time.
This also receiving no attention, he put his
nose under the lad’s knee and tried with all
his strength to force him out of his place,
continuing this at intervals till the sermon
was concluded.

427

Agricultural Maxims,—In the new edi-
tion of Stephens’s “ Book of the Farm” the
student of agricultural science is advised to
enter upon his course early in the winter, be-
cause most farming operations are begun at
that time. Two years are considered neces-
sary for a thorough grasp of the subject,
for he “can not understand the object of a
single operation in the first vear of his pu-
pilage.” Those who have not been bred upon
a farm and who can afford it, will find it
better to spend their time at an agricultural
college with a farm attached, than with
some “ practical’? man as a private tutor,
who is not gifted with teaching abilities,
Of the branches of science applicable to
agriculture are named botany, chemistry,
germs, zoology, entomology, geology, mete-
orology, mechanics, and engineering. Among
practical hygrometriec indications is men-
tioned the vapor issuing from the funnel of
a locomotive steam-engine, “for when the
air is saturated with vapor, it can not ab-
sorb the spare steam as it isejected from the
funnel, and hence a long stream of white
steam, sometimes four hundred yards in
length, is seen attached to the train. When
the air is dry, the steam is absorbed as it
issues from the funnel, and little of it ig
seen.” Other signs of weather are drawn
from the behavior of animals. According
to the calculations given in this book, most
plowing, including turning and time spent in
occasional stoppages, is done at the rate of
about a mile an hour; and “a ridge of no
more than seventy-eight yards in length re-
quires five hours and eleven minutes out of
every ten hours for turning at the landings,
with a ten-inch furrow-slice; whereas a
ridge of two hundred and seventy-four yards
in length only requires one hour and twen-
ty-two minutes for turning—making a differ-
ence of three hours and forty-nine minutes
in favor of the long ridge as regards the
saving of time” in one day’s work.

Distribution of Lakes onthe Globe.—The
distribution of lakes on the earth has been
studied by Dr. Bohm, of Vienna. Assum-
ing that lakes usually exist in groups, and
their origin is connected with the glaciers,
the author shows that there is a relation
between their situation and their altitude.
It seems proved that the height of mountain

428

lakes above the level of the sea, in going
from the pole to the equator, rises as the
snow-line rises. Alpine lakes are classified
as valley lakes and mountain lakes. The
former are generally of considerable extent.
They occupy the bottoms of the valleys and
form a horizontal zone among themselves,
bounding the circumference of a former gla-
cial region, where the currents of ice, at the
moment of maximum congelation, could ex-
ercise their greatest action. The others are
generally small and lie at great elevations,
in the heart of the mountainous region; but
they are also frequently present in numbers
at a common height in each chain of mount-
ains, where they indicate the last stage in
the retreat of the glaciers. Mountain lakes
have only an ephemeral existence, for the
amount of detritus which they receive and
the depth of their effluents contribute to
their speedy disappearance. More than a
hundred lakes have gone out in this way in
the Tyrol during the last century.

Famines and Irrigation in India.—Mr.
H. C. Danvers has summarized the histories
of fifty-two famines in India, extending over
a period of twenty-three hundred or twenty-
four hundred years, of which thirty occurred
in the historical period, and twenty-two
within the present century. The earliest
was between 503 and 443 B. c. Then a
period of fifteen hundred years follows with-
out a record, though not, doubtless, without
famines. The year a. D. 1033 was remark-
able for very extensive drought and famine,
succeeded by a pestilence. The earliest
famine in the Deccan oceurred in the year
1200, and lasted twelve years. The distress
of 1845 was caused, in part, by excessive
taxation, by reason of which “the poor be-
came beggars, the rich became rebels, and
the farmers were forced to fly to the woods,
and to maintain themselves by rapine. The
lands were left uncultivated, and grain con-
sequently became scarce, famine began to
desolate whole provinces, and the sufferings
of the people obliterated from their minds
every idea of government and subjection to
authority.” The great Doorga Deerce famine
of 1396 arose from a total want of season-
able rain, and lasted twelve years. In the
famine of 1811, the Government sanctioned
disbursements on account of ceremonies for

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, '

rain to be performed in the principal pago-

das in Cuddapah. In Kattywar, men sold
their children for food, and many respecta-
ble and well-to-do persons poisoned them-
selves to secure release from the pangs of
hunger; and others died from want of that
grain which their riches could not purchase.
The great famine in southern India, of
187678, was the worst which has been ex-
perienced since the beginning of the century.
It is estimated that five and a half millions
more, out of one hundred and ninety million
people, perished than would have died had
the seasons been ordinarily healthy, Mr.
Danvers anticipates great results in mitigat-
ing the evils of famine from the extension
of the railroads, by means of which provis-
ions can be speedily taken into regions of
scarcity, and prices kept down. In the dis-
cussion in the Society of Arts upon Mr.
Danvers’s paper, General Rundal laid great
stress on the economical advantages of sys-
tems of irrigation. The total sum expended
on irrigation works throughout India was
£24,500,000, while the total loss which the
Government had sustained in successive
famines was given as £23,500,000. The
irrigation works returned more than five per
cent net, but the sum hopelessly spent in
trying to mitigate famine returned nothing,
and ten million lives had been lost during
the century. The Godavery works, after
thirty-five years, had netted £1,400,000, or
double the whole capital outlay; the Kistna
works, after twenty-five years, had netted
£281,000, which was, perhaps, half what
they had actually cost. These two works
irrigated 563,700 acres and 803,000 acres
respectively. The Tanjore works were still
more remunerative. Other works had not
given so large visible returns; but they
could not be called failures, because they
provided security against future famines,
and were otherwise economically beneficial,

Identification by Thumb - Marks, —
Among other anthropometrical data, Mr,
Francis Galton has secured the impressions
in printer’s ink of the two thumbs of many
hundred persons, in order to determine the
possibility of using that method in identifi-
cation. He says that a minute investigation
of thumb or finger marks shows an extraor-
dinary difference in small though perfectly

Tee eye

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

distinct peculiarities. Neither is there any
room for doubt that these peculiarities are
persistent throughout life. This method of
testing identity would be valuable in many
cases. A writer in the “British North Bor-
neo Herald,’ commenting on a lecture by
Mr. Galton on this subject, has spoken of
the great difficulty of identifying coolies
either by their photographs or measure-
ments, and said that the question how this
could best be done would probably become
important in the early future of British
North Borneo. Mr. Galton believes also
that the difficulty of identifying pensioners
and annuitants has led to the loss of large
sums of money annually. A method of tak-
ing the impressions which he has used with
good success is as follows: A copper plate
is smoothly covered with a very thin layer of
printer’s ink, by means of a printer’s roller,
When the thumb is pressed upon the inked
plate, no ink penetrates into the delicate fur-
rows of the skin; the ridges only are inked,
and these leave their impression when the
thumb is pressed on paper. Turpentine
readily removes the ink from the skin. A
simpler process is to slightly smoke a piece
of smooth metal or glass, press the thumb
upon it, and then make the imprint on a bit
of gummed paper that is slightly dampened.
The impression is a particularly good one,
and is durable enough for the purpose.

Judicious Charity.—The giving of money
to beggars has been condemned on many
sides. To bestow food or clothing upon a
certain class of mendicants is also mistaken
charity. The former is only an incumbrance,
to be thrown away at the first opportunity ;
and the latter often finds its way to the
pawn-shop. To prevent blankets being
pawned, a benevolent Scotch lady once sug-
gested buying them in two colors, cutting
them down the middle, and sewing a half of
one color to a half of the other. The pur-
pose of the gift or loan would be answered,
while the blanket would be unavailable as
a pledge. The poor who are most deserving
of sympathy and aid require much searching
out, and often, when face to face with those
who fain would relieve, make the most of
their miserable surroundings in order to
conceal their poverty. Indiscriminate alms-
giving should be avoided and organization

429

adopted —not the organization which re-
quires elaborately furnished offices and a
staff of heavily paid officials, but that which
consists of benevolent individuals who have
time at their disposal, and the heart and
means to give, co-operating with each other.
In all cases the assistance afforded should be
adapted to the circumstances of the case, and,
wherever possible, assume the form of a loan
in preference to that of a gift. Money should
demand an equivalent of labor in some form:
an out-building whitewashed, a fence mend-
ed, wood cut, coal put in, ashes or snow re-
moved, or something else. Organization
could provide common material for shirt-
making at proper prices by starving seam-
stresses, even if the articles were subse-
quently sold at a loss or given away. In
any case let something, however simple, be
required in return, so as not to destroy what
self-reliance remains to the recipients of the
bounty.

Arrow-Poison.—A letter from Mr. H. M.
Stanley, read recently before the Royal Geo-
graphical Society of London, contained an
extremely interesting reference to the arrow-
poison used by the natives on the lower
Congo. Mr. Stanley says that several of his
party, being hit by the arrows of the natives,
died almost immediately in great agony. The
poison was found to consist of the bodies of
red ants, ground to a fine powder, and then
cooked in palm-oil. This mixture was smeared
on the arrow-heads; its poisonous effects are
due to the formic acid which is known to ex-
ist in the free state in red ants. This acid
is also found in the stinging-nettle.

Expression in Infants.—It is not proba-
ble that infants in their earliest days give
expressions of pleasure, for such expressions
are largely imitative. There is but little dif-
ference during the first days of life between
the joyful and the sad, the intelligent and
the stupid face. The child’s feelings have
to be called out by his experiences, and his
means of expression caught from those
around him. He has a few movements of
reflex origin, and some that may be intuitive.
According to the ‘Lancet,’ an agreeable
perception or a feeling of satisfaction is ne-
cessary to the causation of a smile, while the
number of sensations of a pleasurable sort

430

which are possible to a baby a few days old
is very small, and a perception in the proper
sense is beyond its capacity. ‘The being
bathed or suckled does not cause it to smile,
but its countenance expresses simple satis-
faction, probably because of the absence for
the time being of all uncomfortable feeling.
Even sleeping infants a few days old lift the
angles of the mouth in an incipient smile,
if such it may be named. Very lively faces
with dimples in the cheeks, but with closed
eyes and other signs of sleep, are matters of
common observation. On the twelfth day
of life Preyer observed on the face of a wak-
ing infant most of the characteristics of a
smile, though the mouth movements were
imperfect. It was on the twenty-sixth day
of life that he first observed all the signs of
an intelligent smile in his own child.”

The Nest of the Water-Spider.—The
ways of the water-spider (Argyroneta aqua-
tica) were described in M. Blanchard’s article
several months ago. A fuller account of the
breeding habits of this arachnid is given by
Mr. Joseph L. Newton in “Science Gossip.”
The author had placed several of the spiders
in a tank, in which suitable plants were
growing. All made themselves at home but
one, which appeared restless. ‘For the
first two days it quickly traversed from side
to side, making repeated attempts to climb
the glass to effect an escape, but eventually
it settled down, and was soon busily webbing
together in a diverging manner the pectinate
leaves of the water crowfoot; then going
within its leafy shade, ... to weave its
silken cocoon, or nest, in which, on the fifth
day, 10th of June, through a small opening
it had left unwebbed . . . could be observed
the yellowish mass of eggs, surrounded with
a glistening layer of air, distinctly separate
from its still unfinished harbor. After a day
or so of rest, it further extended the nest
downward, in a bell or funnel form, until
nearing two inches Jong; then closed the
lower or wider portion, with the exception of
two openings, one on each side, just to give
leave of its exit or admission. This being
completed, the mother could often be seen
gracefully wending her way to the surface,
and carrying down large successive bubbles
of air, then carefully liberating them, one by
one, in order to form a sufficient supply, in

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which it then remained for some days. From
the end of the first week the eggs now gradu-
ally grew darker, and on July Ist, exactly
the third week, the upper portion of the nest
or cocoon was completely laden with young;
when the large globule of air slowly began
to diminish, and, on being exhausted, the
mother seemed reluctant to find a further
supply—as though she had done her duty.
Here the young naturally became troubled,
and in the fourth week were quickly parad-
ing the interior of the cell, apparently for
escape, which they, through the course of
nature, effected on July 11th; thus, in about
thirty days, over forty young were actively
playing their delightful and youthful part,
each bearing its silvery bubble.”

Annual Rings of Trees.—In regarding
the annual ring as it is marked in different
kinds and qualities of timber, Prof. Fernow
says that there are to be taken into consid-
eration the absolute width of the rings, the
regularity in their width from year to year,
and the proportion of spring wood to autumn
wood. The spring wood is characterized by
less substantial elements (vessels of thin-
walled cells in greater abundance), while the
autumn wood is formed by thicker-walled
cells, which therefore appear of darker color,
In the wood of conifers and in that of de-
ciduous-leaved trees, in which the vessels (ap-
pearing as pores on a transverse cut) are
most frequent in the spring wood, the annual
ring is usually very distinctly visible; while
in those woods which, like the birch, linden,
maple, etc., have the pores (or vessels) even-
ly distributed throughout the annual ring
growth, the distinction is not so marked.
Sometimes the gradual change in appearance
of the annual ring from spring to autumn
wood, which is due to the difference of its
component elements, is interrupted in such
a manner that seemingly a more or less pro-
nounced layer of autumn wood can be recog-
nized, which again changes to spring or sum-
mer wood, and then finishes with the regular
autumn wood. This irregularity may occur
even more than once in the same ring. Such
double or counterfeit rings, which can be
distinguished from the true annual ring by a
practiced eye with the aid of a magnifying
glass, have led to the notion that the annual
rings are not a true indication of age. The

NOTES.

cause of such irregularity may be sought in
some temporary interruption of the vigorous
functions of the tree, induced by defoliation,
for instance, or by extreme climatic condi-
tions—such as sudden changes of tempera-
ture, cold days followed by sudden warm
weather, or droughts followed by rain. The
absolute breadth of the ring depends on
the length of the period of vegetation, and
is affected by the depth and richness of the
soil, and the influence of light upon the tree.

NOTES.

Accorp1nc to the “ Medecinische Presse,”
of Vienna, a Dr. Tere has found a cure for
rheumatism in bee-stingings. Having found
that every stinging is followed by a swelling
up to a point when the body seems to have
become hardened against further effect, he
tried the stingings on a rheumatic patient.
Upon saturating the patient’s system with
the bee-poison the rheumatism disappeared
—not to return for a long time. Dr. Tere
has applied his remedy in one hundred and
seventy-five cases and has inflicted thirty-
nine thousand stingings; and now keeps a
colony of bees on his premises, to be em-
ployed in this work.

Accorpiné to a count by Dr. W. J. Beal,
of the Michigan Forestry Commission, there
grow wild in Michigan seventy species of in-
digenous trees and three exotics that have
escaped from cultivation; and of shrubs, one
hundred and fifty native and five escaped
exotics.

A Dictionary of Volapiik, compiled by
Assistant Surgeon M. W. Wood, U.S. A., is
announced by Charles E. Sprague, New York.
It will contain more than three hundred
pages, and will embody the additions and
emendations contained in the fourth edition
of Schleyer’s dictionary. A peculiar feature
will be the arrangement of the Volapik-
English and Enghsh-Volapiik parts on the
same pages ; each page containing a Volapiik-
English and an alphabetically corresponding
English-Volapiik part.

PeRTINENTLY to the interest that is taken
in testing the vision and color-sense of sea-
men, a writer in the “Lancet” urges the
importance of accuracy of hearing in men of
this class. During fogs, sounds are the only
Means vessels possess of giving notice of
their presence, and the only means by which
they may be warned against danger of col-
lision. It often requires a nice ear to hear
a distant fog-whistle, and a nicer one to de-
termine from what direction it comes. Sea-
men are as liable to affections which will
blunt the acuteness of their hearing as they
are to faults of eye-sight.

431

Tere is another instance of how observa-
tion trips up @ prior2 reasoning. A corre-
spondent of “The Spectator” relates that
some one wrote to an English paper to say
that “blackbirds did not eat fruit because
they liked it, but because they were thirsty,
and recommended we should place pans of
water on the gravel walks and so save our gar-
den fruit. A cottager in Montgomeryshire,
being told of this interesting fact, replied in
the dialect of that part of the country:
‘Dern the bruts! they cross the bruck to
come to my geérding.’”

AN opinion is growing that bovine tuber-
culosis is frequently transmitted to the hu-
man subject by eating the flesh and drinking
the milk of tuberculous cows. It is to be
hoped that thorough boiling of the meat de-
stroys the vitality of the bacilli, which are
assumed to produce this disease, but we are
not warranted in believing that roasting the
meat, as usually practiced, will have that
effect; and as milk is seldom boiled before
being partaken of, it is clear that the milk
of a tuberculous animal is unfit for food,
and dangerous to life.

British North Borneo is fast approach-
ing the state of a regularly organized colony,
with a fine promise of prosperity. The ter-
ritory has been divided into nine provinces,
named after the founders of the company,
and grants of land have been issued cover-
ing 475,289 acres, in five of the provinces,
those on the coast having the preference.
The grantees are mostly Dutch; and a large
proportion of the land granted is intended
for tobacco cultivation. The total area of
the territory will probably be found to be
move than 20,000,000 acres. The price of
the land, originally one dollar an acre, has
been raised to two dollars. Regular steam
communication was instituted September 1,
1888, between Sandakan and Hong-Kong
and Singapore.

A story is told in the Ohio papers of a
railroad engine-driver who was suspended
because the examining physician pronounced
him deaf. He asked to be reinstated be-
cause, when on a moving engine, he could
hear perfectly well. This was found, on
experiment, to be the case. Prof. W. M.
Williams matches this story with another,
within his own observation, of a man who
was painfully deaf in a quiet house, but
“could hear ordinary conversation with per-
fect ease in a cab or railway-carriage, pro-
vided the jolting was considerable.”

A “ Dictionary of Universal Climatolo-
gy” is announced as in preparation by the
Observatory of Rio Janeiro, M. L. Cruls, di-
rector. It is intended to present methodi-
cally the climatological data of as great a
number of places on the earth as is possi-
ble, reduced to uniform standards of nota-
tion and terminology.

432

M. Cartes Ricuet, editor of the ‘ Re-
vue Scientifique,” Paris, is investigating he-
redity in man, and invites information from
correspondents respecting remarkable in-
stances of the transmission of powers.

“VEGETABLE MUSK” is made from the
seeds of the Hibiscus abelmoschus, a mal-
vaceous plant. The ancient Egyptians used
to chew the seeds to stimulate their appe-
tites and make their breath fragrant, and
they regarded them as aphrodisiac and as-
tringent. Previous to the French Revolution,
when it was the fashion to powder the hair,
the seeds, called ambrette, were mixed with
starch and kept till the starch had absorbed
a suitable proportion of their perfume, when
the seeds were removed and the musky-
odored starch was put up in packets for sale.
Ambrette is now imported in large quantities
into Europe, and is used in the preparation
of the alkermes of Florence, and to adulter-
ate musk.

“Wow Sea-Birds dine” is described in
“Nature” by a correspondent who caught
them in the act off the island of Mull. Ob-
serving them collected at a single spot, he
steamed toward it, and found that the center
of their gathering was a reddish-brown bail,
about two feet under the surface, composed
of herring-fry, which had been driven into
that shape by the divers surrounding the
shoal and hemming them in on all sides, “so
that the terrified fish huddled together in a
vain effort to escape inevitable destruction.
The divers work from below and the other
sea-birds feed from above; and, as in some
eases after the birds had been at work for
some time I saw no ball, I suppose not one
-fish is left to tell the tale.” The observation
was repeated several times.

ASAYAMA, one of the most noted volcanoes
in Japan, is the loftiest mountain in the
country which is in a constant state of ac-
tivity, and is nearest to the capital, and is
also situated in a district that is famous for
its health resorts. A correspondent who
visited it describes the roar on approaching
the edge of the crater as not unlike the
noise produced by the passage of a railway-
train across a bridge under which one is
standing. There was no shaking, but loud
hissing and bubbling constantly proceeded
from numberless vapor-jets in the inner face
of the crater-wall. The estimates of the
diameter of the opening vary widely. The
present crater is apparently the youngest
and innermost of three.

Tue important treatise of Buys Ballot
on the distribution of temperature over the
earth contains very plain cartographic rep-
resentations of the variations of tempera-
tures from means of the parallels and the
difference between the temperatures of Janu-
ary and July. The least variations in the
latter point are on the equator, and the great-
est are in northeastern Asia (60°) and north-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

western America (40°), and in the southern
hemisphere, in Australia.

OBITUARY NOTES,

Mr. Rosert Damar, of Weymouth, Eng-
land, a well-known naturalist and geologist,
died May 4th, in his seventy-fifth year. He
was an extensive traveler and assiduous col-
lector. Among the collections he made were
a series of fossil fishes from the cretaceous

beds of the Lebanon, Syria; the most com- _

plete specimen of the extinct Steller’s sea-
cow, from Behring Island ; and a series,
called complete, of the fishes of the Caspian
Sea. He had lately purchased the zo6logical
collections forming the Godeffroy Museum
in Hamburg, and had perhaps the largest col-
lection in England of recent shells. He was
the author of a work on the “ Geology of Wey-
mouth and the Island of Portland.” He was
contemplating, at the time of his death, an-
other trip to Siberia, to procure an entire
mammoth’s skeleton.

Among recent deaths of scientific men in
Europe are those of the Finnish botanist,
Prof. Sextus Otto Lindberg; and Dr. Her-
mann Theodor Gayler, Director of the Botan-
ical Gardens at Frankfort.

Warren De La Ruz, F. R.S., an emi-
nent English physicist, died April 19th, aged
about sixty-three years. He was born in
Guernsey and educated in Paris; was in-
terested in photographic observations of so-
lar eclipses and of the transit of Venus in
1874; was associated with Prof. Balfour
Stewart and Mr. B. Loweny in the publica-
tion of “ Researches in Solar Physics”; car-
ried on a series of researches on the electric
discharge, the results of which were commu-
nicated to the Royal Society and the French
Academy; was for two years President of
the Royal and for eleven of the Chemical
Society, and for three years a member of
the Council of the Society of Arts; and was
a corresponding member of several foreign
scientific societies.

Pror. Franz Cornetius Donnvers, of the
University of Utrecht, a distinguished phys-
iologist and ophthalmologist, died March
24th, in the seventy-first year of his age.
He studied in the Netherlands Military Hos-
pital School and the university, and was a pro-
fessor at Leyden and afterward at Utrecht.
He was the author of many works, among
them an inaugural dissertation on “ Harmony
of Animal Life”; ‘“ Dutch Contributions to
Anatomical and Physiological Knowledge” ;
“‘ Metabolism of Tissue as the Source of the
Proper Heat of Plants and Animals”; trea-
tises in optics, including his great work on
“ Anomalies of Refraction and Accommoda-
tion”; and technical and special essays. He
has been called the first surgeon who ap-
proached the subject of lenses as aids to vis-
ion in a truly scientific spirit.

ee i

a

_

eel CMe TR a eae,

eS

Eee Te, RF

ANTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER.

THE

POPRBULAR:. SCIEN CE
REO Ee iay

AUGUST, 1889.

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

By C. HANFORD HENDERSON,
PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE PHILADELPHIA MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL.

N observant foreigner once said of America, “I found prog-
ress in everything except in their schools and churches.”
One must take with a grain of allowance the impressions of for-
eign tourists. They are solicited so importunately by the objects
of the senses that they fail, as a class, to appreciate the real sig-
nificance of American institutions. But there was, nevertheless,
not a little truth in this brief criticism. The schools and the
churches have not kept pace with the march of events. Perhaps
one notices them straggling the more, because of all institutions
they are supposed to be the most jealous guardians of the interests
of humanity. Yet in hundreds of communities the land over the
masses of the people are but half persuaded of the utility of the
one, and treat with increasing neglect the ministrations of the
other. While these protestants against our current scholasticism
and ecclesiasticism were few in number, their complaint attracted
little notice. Now, however, that their ranks are grown to large
proportions, a deep importance attaches to the question as to
whether these institutions are, or are not, properly fulfilling their
functions.

The hand of Destiny never seemingly pointed with more un-
erring certainty to an impending change than it does to-day as it
stretches out toward the school and the church. The office of the
teacher and the office of the priest are passing the review of a
thoughtful public sentiment. Of the failure of the Church to
justify her proud title of “the institute of humanity” little need
be said. But, however imperfect one may regard her present min-

istrations, he can scarcely withhold his affection from an insti-
VOL. XXxV.—28

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tution which has done so much to encourage the sentiment of
worship. The liberal movement, the impulse toward Christian
unity, the substitution of ethical for dogmatic teaching, the appeal
to the soul of man rather than to his credulity, all seem to indi-
cate that the Church, which has been so much in the past history
of the race, is yet to adapt herself to the changed conditions of
the times, and still be an important factor in its future.

But of even greater importance are those changes which seem
imminent in the school. Its influence comes at an age when the
mind is particularly plastic, and when life is new and fresh. It
occupies the attention during the greater portion of at least five
days in the week, and even during the remainder it is seldom
absent from the thoughts for any considerable length of time.

One can scarcely overestimate the importance of establishing so

pervasive an institution upon the right basis.

It may seem a trite thing to particularize again the function
of an old institution like the school, yet it is only by keeping this
very constantly in mind that one can appreciate its present posi-
tion, or pass intelligent judgment upon those innovations which
have been proposed for its improvement.

The school, in the first place, then, is a means and not an end,
It serves a purpose. It is not, like the state or the church, an
organism and possessed of life. One can construct no pleasing
ideal of what the perfect school ought to be. He can at best only
specify what results it should produce. Like all other tools, its
function is to form and to fashion. A machine is not valued for
its proportions, its color, its material, but for its subserviency to
the work required, and for the character of its products. The

point demands emphasis, for educators too frequently look to the

symmetry of the school itself instead of to the harmony of its
results. They forget that different materials require different
tools for their working.

It is a curious thing that the human mind should so delight in
the idea of stability, and should attempt to attain it, when such
an idea finds no place in all nature. Even the crystal, the most
unchanging object of our admiration, has undergone innumerable
births and deaths. All nature is in a state of solution and of flux.
There is no stability, even comparative, except where there is no
life. Yet we, who believe ourselves to live best when we are in
the most perfect communion with that infinite intelligence whose

manifestation we call Nature, are constantly denying our faith by ,

the profane effort to give permanence to that which is essentially
transitory. Our laws seem to us good. We crystallize them into
a code, and so burden the generations to come with an evil mort-
gage upon their justice. Our faith seems to us divine. We kill

it by formulating it into a creed, and so starve the souls of our

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 435

children. Oppressed with weariness, we paint our heaven as a
place of eternal rest. As well might we extol the lifeless moon
above the sentient earth. It is no wonder that men fear death,
and hear with chill delight the holy name of heaven. Through
all our human institutions there runs this same unnaturalness
and inconsistency acting like a constant brake upon our progress.
In theory we adore this progress, but the seraphim of our secret
altars are insoluble, infusible, unchangeable. In the school this
inconsistency of ours has been particularly glaring and particu-
larly disastrous. We have found our imagination of sufficient
compass to span the distance between man and protoplasm, but it
seems to have halted at the less difficult task of recognizing that
the principle of evolution is still working, and that the educa-
tional demands of one age are not the demands of all ages.

The cause of education, however, will be but poorly served if
one demolish without building up again with as much zeal as he
tears down. Nor must one complain too bitterly of an institution
which, in spite of its short-comings, has assisted to produce in the
community a culture sufficient to recognize them. But it would
be well to remember that the school can never be made to con-
form to any crystallographic habit, however beautiful. Let it be
regarded as what it is, simply a tool and a very plastic one at that,
not too sacred to be sharpened and altered, whenever by so doing
it can be made to accomplish better work.

The great question, then, concerning the schools is a very sim-
ple one: What effect has the institution upon its pupils ? What
sort of men and women does it make out of them? It is not what
studies are taught, or what accomplishments are imparted, or what
extent of information is bestowed. These considerations have
their proper importance, but they are secondary; the real test is
deeper. The standard so far has been too material. We want
now something more spiritual. It is a truism to say that the
function of the school is not to instruct, but to educate; but it is
a truism which has not yet been taken sufficiently to heart to be
translated into a fact. Struck by the manifest inadequacy of the
ordinary school in preparing boys to meet the problems of life, a
somewhat vehement reformer has declared that America has suc-
ceeded, not because of her public-school system, but in spite of it.
The exaggeration is evident. There are many, however, who can
not help feeling that as a moral force the modern school, whether
public or private, has been scarcely less than impotent. It has
given itself up to the business of instruction, and has found little
or no time for the infinitely more important work of development,
The whole force of the school should be devoted to the one su-
preme issue—the boy himself. If, while you are making a man,
you can also make a scholar, it will be well, but look to the man

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

first. The majority of thoughtful people, if questioned, would, I
believe, make answer that their own spiritual enlightenment had
come from literature that happened to fall within their reading
rather than from either pulpit or college chair. It looks very
much as if we were leaving to chance—if there be such a thing—
what ought to be the object of our mightiest effort.

I should deeply regret any exaggeration of the deficiencies of
the school, but I think that I do not err in stating that in many
of these institutions the work of true education would be better
accomplished were the formal instruction now in vogue entirely
abolished, and the children simply brought into daily contact with
some living, spiritually-minded man or woman, and through them
with the questions of life and with the rich literature of the race.

The end of education being discipline, it is manifest that the
subjects chosen for study are less important than the spirit in
which the study is pursued. In the atmosphere of a school where
this sentiment prevails, almost any curriculum will produce living
men. But there are certain branches of study which, better than
any others, are calculated to provoke thought and serve the ends
of education. There are certain ways of spending the time that
promise the richest harvest. To select such studies and employ
such modes is indisputably the function of those who attempt to
guide the course of education. In this all are certainly agreed.
Yet that old notion of the ideal school still hinders the search
after these admittedly good things. In many schools the course
pursued is much the same as if we mixed the colors on our palette
with our eyes shut, and still expected to get the tint desired. The
discrepancy between the end sought and the method employed
would discourage any one less sophisticated than the average
school-man. Hygiene, for example, is taught in rooms so ill-ven-
tilated that the children are fairly pale. Grammar and parsing
are inflicted in the blind hope that they may in some occult way
influence the language of the child. They rarely do. On some
unaccountable theory of culture years are devoted to languages
that one will never use, and precious moments squandered on the
geography of places one will never see or hear of. And so one
might follow the entire list of studies undertaken in the majority
of schools. They seem hopelessly inadequate.

In the face of such wide-spread failure it would appear that
this search after a suitable scheme for the disposition of the time
of children must be very difficult. The truth is, that it is difficult
to the verge of the impossible, if one proceeds in this credulous
fashion, selecting studies and occupations which bear no relation
whatever to the result it is desired to produce, and then calmly
trusts that by some alchemistic process these base metals will be

transmuted into gold. But the task is not difficult if one goes

——

Oe ee eee

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 437

about it in the right way. And the right way, here as elsewhere,
is the natural way. A definite result is wanted. Let definite
means be taken to reach that result. If strong men are wanted,
let the conditions of the school be such that strength will be a
necessity. In many of them at present it is not even a possibility.
If honest men are wanted, let the training of the school tend to
that end, even if one’s knowledge of Timbuctoo and the Kara-
korum Mountains is not very definite. If self-reliant men are
wanted, let education take the place of instruction. If useful
men are wanted, let useful things be taught. If thoughtful men
are wanted, let the appeal be made to the individual reason of the
boy rather than to external authority. All this is very obvious;
it is merely common sense, but unfortunately it is not the method
of the schools. In a word, the problem of education is to be ap-
proached from the other side. We are to work backward from
results. Instead of assuming certain studies to be useful, and
then working on to decidedly variable results, we are to begin
with results admitted to be worthy, and then work backward to a
curriculum as varied as Joseph’s coat if individual cases demand
it. What the true educator most wishes to influence is the con-
duct of life. The object he holds sacred; the methods by which
he compasses it, indifferent.

This is the spirit of manual training. Where this system of
education has been introduced, it gives so distinct a character to
the course of study that it has loaned its name to the school as a
whole. In many respects this is unfortunate, as it has caused
serious misapprehension in regard to the purpose of such schools,
but apparently the name is now too well rooted in educational
nomenclature to be easily changed. It should be borne in mind,
however, that the name stands for an object rather than a method.
The manual training school has sprung into existence for a pur-
pose much more profound than that of merely cultivating the
hand. It has come in recognition of the growing demand for a
complete man. Our educational methods have too long been at
work turning out fractional products, men strong perhaps in this
or that particular department, but sadly deficient when viewed
from the standard of complete manhood. The specific purpose of
such schools is to offer an education that includes as far as pos-
sible all of the faculties. Its favorite maxim is, “Put the whole
boy to school.” Its mode of carrying out this purpose is the very
practical one of occupying the time in any way, formal or infor-
mal, that will best lead to the end proposed.

The manual training school is now in its formative period,
and the time is a critical one. Two rival theories contend for the
mastery of itsfuture. The one regards manual training as an end
in itself, and subordinates education to technical skill. It con-

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cerns itself more with the production of artisans than of men.
This view of manual training makes the school very much akin
‘to the trade and industrial schools, and would end by converting
it into a shop. The school is heralded as the legitimate successor
of the apprentice system, and as an institution whose highest end
is to restore the advantages lost in the abolition of that system.
According to this theory, the ability to do becomes the standard
of success for the school, and the chief object of its ambition, the
production of well-executed handiwork. The results of the year’s
work would be summed up in an exhibition of things.

The other theory also sees in the school an establishment for
the fabrication of a definite product, but it is a product too subtile
to find its complete expression in wood or iron or clay. It is
believed that the specific purpose of education is to cultivate
character, to induce sound thinking, and to make a necessity of
scientific inquiry. Its highest end is ethical. Of great value, but
secondary to its supreme purpose, are the skill and the informa-
tion which would be the natural result of such cultivation. The
aim of the school is to prepare for completeness of life. The cen-
tral thought in its entire organization is always the boy himself,
and everything that is done, every study that is taken up, every
influence that is brought to bear, has for its sole purpose his
development. In this view of its proper function, the school is a
purely educational institution, and is industrial only in making
use of the tools of industry to accomplish its chosen purpose.
The manual work, like the work in science and literature, is sim-
ply a means of development. It bears the same relation to the
process of education that a railway train does to travel. One may
select slower modes of approach if he choose, but, in his delight at
the rapid transit, he must not confuse the journey with the end
for which the journey is made. Those who hold this view of
manual training, watch with sincere regret any encroachment of
that spirit which places the inanimate product, however ingenious
and beautiful it may be, above the human product. The object
of manual training, they believe, is the production of thoughtful,
self-reliant, honest men.

It will be seen that these two theories are antagonistic. The
first, in its anxiety for material results, is somewhat impatient at
the slower unfolding of the spiritual handiwork. The second,
while it admits all the claims of the first, objects to their limited
scope—they do not go far enough. It believes thoroughly in men
and women who can do something, but it believes also, and more
thoroughly, in men and women who are something. Both theo-
rists sow in all sincerity, and reap as they have sown. One har-
vest is gathered before the other. The seed matures early, and
blossoms and bears fruit in objects of beauty and utility. There —

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 439

is much to exhibit on stated occasions to the public gaze and com-
mendation. The other harvest is slow in maturing. It taxes
faith and hope. It does not offer material well suited for public
display. Yet this intangible result is so valued by those who
labor for it, that they are content to wait, persuaded that a well-
spent present can afford to leave the future to divine law.

In nearly every manual training school these two elements are
present. In one way this is an advantage, for they act as a check
upon each other. The practical side is kept from becoming sor-
did; the spiritual side from becoming visionary. But the balance
of power between the two is of the utmost importance, for it
determines the character of the school. If it be on the one side,
the tendency of manual training must be regarded as unfortu-
nate—the educational ideal is degraded; life contracts. If it be
on the other, no finer nursery can be imagined for the rearing of
a race which shall be strong in its passion for goodness and for
knowledge. It teaches that the worth of a man lies in what he is.
The question is one of fiber, not of veneer.

It is not unnatural that an enterprise with so ambitious a pur-
pose should constantly bring disappointment to its projectors.
When one has poured out his whole soul in an effort to regenerate,
even a reasonable amount of success does not satisfy him. He
looks, perhaps, for too much. The currents in human affairs
which do not make for righteousness are too strong to be easily
stemmed. The influence of the school is working against very
powerful counter-influences. Arrayed against it are the low
maxims of the street and the market, the sensationalism of much
of our current literature, and not infrequently the indifferent moral
atmosphere of the home itself. It is not alone that these opponents
have contemporary power, but they have been in office for from.
thirteen to fourteen years. We have to fight not only the present,
but the past as well. The leaven of the new ideas goes frequently
into very obdurate dough, and its working is correspondingly
sluggish. We must cope with both the boy and his great-grand--
mother.

A difficulty keenly felt in these schools is the necessity of
spending the first few months in the negative work of undoing.
Children, as a rule, are very badly trained. They are taught to
work under a false stimulus, and from vicious motives. Their
morality is generally the morality of rewards and punishments. .
Were the childish heart less beautiful and less pure than it is,
the injury done to it would be even more irreparable.

Nor are these the only difficulties. The spirit of manual train-
ing is ethical and evolutionary. But, unfortunately, not all of
those who presume to teach in such schools have themselves
caught its fine meaning. One can not communicate what he has

440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not. Men will teach for bread and butter just as they will preach
and pray. Too many are in the school because they have nothing
else to do. They have not elected teaching. Like their boys, they
must undo a great deal of their past, and this in a man requires
not a small degree of plasticity. Some possess it, some do not.
To look within the soul and draw one’s inspiration from that well
of living water is not given to all men; to communicate it, in all
frankness and generosity, to but few. Our education has made
us all too cautious. We are too afraid of speaking out and ex-
pressing our inmost convictions. And so our goodness, if we
have any, does not prove contagious. No wave of spirituality
proceeds from our teaching.

In contending against these odds, the pressure from without
and the insufficiency within, the teacher experiences alternations
of hope and despair. The faculty of a manual training school is
commonly made up of young men. The more thoughtful among
them have been attached to the movement by its immense prom-
ise, but under their hopefulness there is observable a current of
almost premature seriousness. It is a grave task to undertake
the regeneration of humanity, even when it is in the bud.

In attempting to carry out this idea of boy development, the
atmosphere of the school is an object of constant solicitude.
Great care is taken that it shall not be charged with the miasma
called information. It is to be kept fresh, and, above all, morally
wholesome. Character is to be grown there, but one spirit must
pervade the school; it is that of a divine egotism. The boy is
taught that for himself the one object of supreme importance in
the whole universe is himself. His gaze is directed toward the
naked human soul, stripped of the false props of apparel, of fam-
ily, of possessions, even of knowledge. He is led to do this and
that not for the sake of the product, although this is duly valued,
but for the sake of the doing, and the reaction it will have upon
himself. Education is thus made intensely subjective. The worth,
the dignity, the responsibility of the individual are given greater
emphasis than the facts of geography, of grammar, or of history.
It is in this spirit, the constant recognition of a definite end, that
manual training attempts to work. It would not do, however, to
talk to boys very much about the soul. It is an abstraction to
them, and they would soon cease to listen. They must be made to
feel it. The task is a very subtle one; its nature must never be
forgotten, but seldom displayed.. The kingdom of heaven can
not be taken by violence. It is through gentleness and patience,
through love and sympathy, that the inner recesses of boys’
hearts are to be reached. They have been taught in a vague way
that the body has a soul. The statement is here reversed, and
they are made to feel, if possible, that the soul has a body. They

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 441

come to the school deeply impressed concerning the objects of the
senses, the concrete. They are here persuaded of the greater
reality of the spirit; and appreciation is asked for the abstract
and impersonal. So far these objects might be the objects of any
school of high principle. They represent the spirit of the new
education. But they belong peculiarly to manual training, since
it is a system willing not only to cherish these sentiments, but
also to work with complete singleness of purpose for their reali-
zation, It is a sincere and practical effort to do something better
than has yet been done in the name of education.

The methods of manual training are too new to have been
encumbered with any traditions; nor have they attained suffi-
cient fixedness to threaten growth. For the most part, they are
still tentative and experimental. This plasticity is very hopeful.
A question left open is a constant stimulus to renewed searching
after something still a little better. Hach school that attempts to
carry out manual training soon develops a certain individuality.
Any teaching so intensively subjective as this is deeply influ-
enced by the personality of its faculty. The character of the men
who have it in charge is quick to find expression in the school.
The distinctive features in the institution at Philadelphia are,
perhaps, the predominance given to ethics and the unremitting
effort to preserve unity throughout the many-sided development
attempted. In defending our unity we are beset by difficulties.
The over-enthusiasm of our friends would plunge us into many
excesses. Manual training seems to them so good a thing that
they can not realize the possibility of having too much of it. We
who take the long view have often to counsel moderation, or the
new idea would quite run away with us. In the intense delight
which these good people feel in giving substance to ideas, they
would discard everything which is not capable of such expres-
sion, They apparently forget that imagination is absolutely
needful for perspective, and that of all useless, pitiable creatures
the unimaginative man is superlative. Yet this excessive amount
of representation would quite kill imagination. In careless
hands the effect of manual training would be to set bounds and
limits rather than to break them down. It is not a system that
can be indiscriminately recommended. Men are so prone to mis-
take the means for the end, that those who esteem manual train-
ing most highly are least willing to encourage its introduction,
unless they know the character of the men who are to have it in
charge.

In its organization the manual training school differs little
from the customary high school. It is an institution of similar
grade, and covers about the same period of boy life. Its students
enter at from thirteen to fifteen years of age, and remain, if they

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

complete their entire course, for three years. It is not less liter-
ary and not less scientific than the best of our high schools, but
it is, we believe, far more practical in preparing boys to meet the
real problems of life. The customary high-school course covers
four years, but, as only a small percentage of students remain to
graduate, it is thought wiser in the manual training school to
limit the course to three years, and to offer a fourth year of post-
graduate study in any department where a student has shown
special aptitude. One third of the school day is devoted to man-
ual work, and the rest to science and literature. It seems impos-
sible, however, to consider such a school except as a whole. It
refuses to be divided into sections. Representing, as it daes, a
purpose rather than a method, all departments are bound to-
gether by a common aim, and are subservient to that. They are
members one of another, and the head no longer says to the hand,
or, for that matter, to any other member of the anatomy, “I have
no need of thee.” We venture to hope that the impulse whose
spirit I have been attempting to describe is only at the begin-
ning of its work. When the new aspirations in education, which
are now called manual training, come to a fuller development,
they will concern themselves not with the hand only, but with
the entire body and the entire being. We even hope that at
some time in the future parents and teachers will feel it their
duty to acquaint themselves with the condition and needs of the
little bodies of which they are now the ignorant guardians, and
will attempt by definite means to make them more fitting vest-
ments for the human soul. The time has come, it seems to me,
‘when evolution should be a conscious process, and man should
work in happy sympathy with the purposes of that power which
makes for righteousness.

Although the most distinctive feature in these schools is nat-
urally the manual department, its success from the educational
standpoint can only be judged by observing its effect upon the
rest of the school work. It is true that the boy does not in all
cases understand the full significance of his work, but he is,
nevertheless, gaining unconsciously that degree of patience, of
perseverance, and of judgment needed to accomplish his task,
The next thing he undertakes demands these qualities in fuller
measure, and so the work of character-building goes on simul-
taneously with the production of handiwork. The boy sees, per-
haps, only these finished pieces of work as his result. We who
are looking on see something vastly more important. We see the
sturdier virtues—self-reliance, manliness, and helpfulness—devel-
oping to wholesome proportions. The boy takes pride in his work,
and we take pride in him.

_ The constructive faculty in children and boys is very strong.

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 443

They seem never so thoroughly happy as when they are making
something. This wonderful self-activity in children was what
Froebel seized upon as the basis for the Kindergarten. In boys it
is made the basis for manual training. Whenever possible, the
appeal is made to their own resources and faculties in preference
to the external world. Here, as in the lecture and recitation
room, education is made to proceed subjectively.

In judging of the success of the enterprise, due allowance
must be made for the quality of the material that is to be worked
up. Itisto be remembered that not a few of the boys who come
to a manual training school come there for the express purpose
of cultivating the mechanical side to the exclusion of everything
else. In many cases these lads are finally converted to the
broader view of life, but, if that enlightenment does not come,
they can hardly be taken to represent in fairness either the aim
or the result of manual training. Comparisons are always diffi-
cult to make successfully, and here particularly so, because allow-
ances have to be made on both sides. While many of the most
clever little workmen would possibly count as dullards in a
school of different character, not a few of the boys represent an
intelligence above the average. For it is the more advanced peo-
' ple who have been the first to recognize the significance of man-
ual training, and have shown their faith in it by selecting it for
their own sons. The visitor to a manual training school, if he
come to it with the shop idea in his head, expresses constant sur-
prise at the class of boys he sees there. Sometimes he very
graciously compliments the institution on its excellent English,
under the apparent impression that a little noise has a tendency
to make the adverb and the adjective, the past tense and the per-
fect participle, play at stage-coach and change places with each
other. His surprise is perhaps not unnatural, for he comes
expecting to find a shop, and he finds a school.

The theory upon which a manual training school is conducted
may not be lightly disregarded. It has here been dwelt upon as the
all-important thing about the school, for it determines the aims
and methods of the institution, and the very atmosphere of its
lecture-rooms and laboratories. Moreover, it determines for what
class of students the school is intended. If things be regarded as
the proper product, only prospective artisans should enroll them-
selves among its students; but if men be the product sought,
‘ then its rolls will be as catholic as human want itself. There, in
jackets and knickerbockers, will be found the embryo scientist
and teacher, journalist and minister, lawyer and doctor, artist
and artisan, merchant and manufacturer ; and these men, though
they may never have occasion to directly exercise their acquired
dexterity, will be brought into fuller relation with all life through

A44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that complete education of the faculties which it is the function
of a manual training school to accomplish.

In glancing at the several schools of this character which have
been established in America, one must admit that the artisan
spirit is more prevalent than the educational. The fact is to be
deplored. It means that unless the advocates of the higher po-
sition are alert and vigilant, the fine opportunity for broader
culture offered by manual training will be lost in mere technique.
The man-element will go under, and the world of things will
again rule,

The chief claim of manual training, it must be repeated, is
not mechanical. It is spiritual, the development of character; and
while its success in this direction can not always be judged from
the standard of formal scholarship, there are other and very ready
tests which are infallible. Conduct is a sure gauge of the stuff of
which a boy is made. No better index of the moral atmosphere
of a school can be found, I think, than its discipline. The boys
in a manual training school are not yet old. The younger among
them are only thirteen or fourteen years, and to boys of this age
there are special temptations to disorder in the freedom and move-
ment of the laboratories. To maintain order among three hun-
dred of these active young spirits without appealing to their fear
of consequences, or to other vicious motives, would not seem an
easy task. Yet it is accomplished in a highly satisfactory manner.
There are plenty of noise and life, it is true, and a fair share of fun,
but this seldom goes beyond wholesome bounds. As far as possi-
ble the order of the school is left to the boys themselves. Certain
customs are observed as a matter of convenience, but there are no
formal rules for conduct. The boys know perfectly well what is
right, and they are encouraged to do it because it is the right, and
not because they will get into trouble if they do otherwise. As
little personal authority is exerted as possible. The inexorable
law of right is taught as a principle, to which both teacher and
boy must conform, It is a high ground to take, but it works—as
all appeals to the better nature of a boy generally do. It is pos-
sible that this abnegation of authority robs the professorial chair
of some of its dignity, but there are better levers in the world
than this. The friendly, even affectionate, comradeship between
teacher and pupil which takes its place, is the source of a deeper
influence and of a more profitable intercourse.

It is felt by those imbued with the new idea of education that
punishment, however judiciously applied, is an inadequate and
superficial thing, and represents at best misapplied energy.
Nature has placed an indissoluble bond between cause and effect.
Wrong conduct is so surely followed by natural punishment that
it seems a presumption on the part of a teacher to attempt to

THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 445

measure out a suitable penalty in addition. The same effort can
better be applied to an attempt to show the boy why a certain
line of conduct is wrong, and the greater beauty of the right. All
appeals are avoided which involve in any way the fear of conse-
quences. This applies not only to the discipline of the school but
also to questions of scholarship, The system of daily marking
has been abolished, and an attempt made to substitute the natural
and proper motive for study in place of the lower and artificial
one. No rod, either mental or physical, is held over the boy.
Solomon was the great advocate of that system of government,
but, judging from the subsequent behavior of Rehoboam, it has
been suggested that it was not a success even in the hands of so
wise a man. The school is to prepare for life, and in life things
are not conducted in that way. The difficult art of governing
one’s self can best be learned if the practice begins in boyhood. It
becomes increasingly difficult to choose the wrong as one recog-
nizes more and more clearly that the offense is primarily against
one’s own nature, and can meet forgiveness only by self-atone-
ment. The deepest philosophy of life thus forms an essential part
of the curriculum of a manual training school. I do not believe
that a school conducted in this spirit ever graduates a boy who
feels that he is escaping from restraint when he leaves the school.
- He is under the eye of an ever-present master, who judges with
increasing culture, not according to appearance, but righteous
judgment; for that master, if the school has been successful, is
himself. We feel justified in subordinating the less serious ends
of education to this one supreme end; for conduct, as Matthew
Arnold says, is at least three fourths of life. It is the essence of
religion, the material of men.

In thus seeking to reach the inner sources of conduct and
achievement, the manual training school renders an inestimable
service if it succeed in arousing boys to think for themselves, and
in making them the guardians of their own destiny, working
under divine law. But the work of the school does not end here.
The occupations of life which open before its graduates are varied
and numerous. There is something for all talents, however di-
verse. A school which produces men must so train its boys that
they will be competent to take some definite and acceptable part
in this complex activity. The selection of the right part to be
taken is a matter of no small moment. It must be made ulti-
mately by the boy himself, but he is as yet so young and so inex-
perienced, it is no wonder that many men declare in after-life that
they have mistaken their vocation. Unless his genius be of the
pronounced type which knows its future from the very cradle,
this selection, all-important as it is, is extremely difficult to make.
The boy needs help and friendly counsel. To prevent the enor-

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

mous waste of energy and the life-long unhappiness which arise
from mistakes in one’s calling, is certainly a highly important
function of an institution which professes to prepare a lad for the
problems of daily living. The absence of pronounced taste in the
boy is not the only obstacle to be overcome. There are few boys
totally devoid of some interest which may be made available for
future work, but it needs something to bring it out. The ordi-
nary school training does not doit. In the outcry which is peri-
odically made against what is mistakenly called “ over-education,”
there is discernible the bitter tone of men who feel in a blind way
that somehow the schools have cheated them in so ill-preparing
them for life. There is much reason in their complaint. It is not
true that such questions are outside the business of the school.
What a boy is to do after he leaves school is very much the busi-
ness of the school, and its neglect is scarcely less than criminal.
If what is done before graduation bears no relation to what is to
be done after graduation, then the school—and it is said in all
soberness—had better give place to the gymnasium, for that at
least would give health and beauty in place of narrow chests
and pseudo-culture. But the faculty of a manual training school
do not so believe. ‘They believe that the development of a
useful, judiciously chosen purpose in life is a very important
element in education, and it receives in such schools an amount
of attention commensurate with its importance. A boy can not
judge rightly for what sort of work he is best fitted unless
his experience be so enlarged by those who guide his course that
he shall at least come in contact with the different departments
of human activity, and taste them, if we may so phrase it, for
himself. Even with these advantages, the choice is a difficult
one. The first boyish impulse is not always to be trusted; but,
by giving these impulses as free play as practicable during the
three years of the course, the chances of mistake are at least
greatly reduced. In a well-equipped manual training school
there are few boys who are not able to become interested and
proficient in some one of its several departments. In the hope of
making the school still more useful in helping boys to select a
suitable life-work, and in helping to prepare them to carry it out
with efficiency, the plan of post-graduate study has been intro-
duced. By permitting a boy to work a year in that particular
department where his undergraduate performances have shown
the greatest promise, he can be still more effectively prepared for
the work of the world. This is a special and experimental feat-
ure of the school at Philadelphia. The results indicate that it is
worthy of further extension.

It is significant of the spirit oe its teaching that so large a
proportion of manual-training graduates continue their studies in

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 447

universities and higher technical schools, Its effect, as far as one
can judge, has been to make boys aspire after the better things
of life.

J have read that Pestalozzi, in his eager enthusiasm, used to
find many things in his little ‘school which less partial though
not less careful observers failed to discover. I should be sorry to
repeat his mistake in connection with the manual training school.
I have tried, therefore, to so temper my praise with criticism
that both the beauty of the system and its danger should be
fairly represented. The view taken might still be too favorable,
if it were given as the veritable history of a single school. The
spirit of manual training, to which I have tried to give expres-
sion, represents rather an ideal, which in moments of extreme
hopefulness we are tempted to believe that we have partially
realized, and in moments of discouragement we still hold to be
worthy of our effort,

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
By Pror. T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S.

Nemo ergo ex me scire querat, quod me nescire scio, nisi forte ut nescire discat.*
Aveustinus, De Civ. Dei, xii, 7.

ONTROVERSY, like most things in this world, has a good
and a bad side. On the good side, it may be said that it
stimulates the wits, tends to clear the mind, and often helps those
engaged in it to get a better grasp of their subject than they had
before; while, mankind being essentially fighting animals, a con-
test leads the public to interest themselves in questions to which,
otherwise, they would give but a languid attention. On the
bad side, controversy is rarely found to sweeten the temper, and
. generally tends to degenerate into an exchange of more or less
effective sarcasms. Moreover, if it is long continued, the original
and really important issues are apt to become obscured by dis-
putes on the collateral and relatively insignificant questions
which have cropped up in the course of the discussion. No doubt
both of these aspects of controversy have manifested themselves
in the course of the debate which has been in progress, for some
months, in these pages. So far as I may have illustrated the
second, I express repentance and desire absolution; and I shall
endeavor to make amends for any foregone lapses by an en-
deavor to exhibit only the better phase in these concluding
remarks,

* Let no one therefore seek to know from me what I know I do not know, except in
order to learn not to know.

448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The present discussion has arisen out of the use, which has
become general in the last few years, of the terms “agnostic” and
“aonosticism.”

The people who call themselves “agnostics” have been charged
with doing so because they have not the courage to declare them-
selves “infidels.” It has been insinuated that they have adopted
a new name in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches
to their proper denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputa-
tion, I have replied by showing that the term “agnostic” did, as
a matter of fact, arise in a manner which negatives it; and my
statement has not been, and can not be, refuted. Moreover,
speaking for myself, and without impugning the right of any
other person to use the term in another sense, I further say that
agnosticism is not properly described as a “ negative” creed, nor
indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses
absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much
ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various
ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to
say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition
unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that cer-
tainty. This is what agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it
is all that is essential to agnosticism, That which agnostics deny
and repudiate as immoral is the contrary doctrine, that there
are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically
satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to
the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propo-
sitions. The justification of the agnostic principle lies in the suc-
cess which follows upon its application, whether in the field of
natural or in that of civil history; and in the fact that, so far as
these topics are concerned, no sane man thinks of denying its
validity.

Still speaking for myself, I add that, though agnosticism is
not, and can not be, a creed, except in so far as its general princi-
ple is concerned ; yet that the application of that principle results
in the denial of, or the suspension of judgment concerning, a
number of propositions respecting which our contemporary eccle-
siastical “ gnostics” profess entire certainty. And in so far as
these ecclesiastical persons can be justified in the old-established
custom (which many nowadays think more honored in the
breach than the observance) of using opprobrious names to those
who differ from them, I fully admit their right to call me and
those who think with me “infidels”; all I have ventured to urge
is that they must not expect us to speak of ourselves by that
title.

The extent of the region of the uncertain, the number of the
problems the investigation of which ends in a verdict of not

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 449

proven, will vary according to the knowledge and the intellectual
habits of the individual agnostic. I do not very much care to
speak of anything as unknowable. What I am sure about is
that there are many topics about which I know nothing, and
which, so far as I can see, are out of reach of my faculties. But
whether these things are knowable by any one else is exactly one
of those matters which is beyond my knowledge, though I may
have a tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities of the
case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure that the region of un-
certainty—the nebulous country in which words play the part of
realities—is far more extensive than I could wish. Materialism
and idealism; theism and atheism; the doctrine of the soul and
its mortality or immortality—appear in the history of philoso-
phy like the shades of Scandinavian heroes, eternally slaying one
another and eternally coming to life again in a metaphysical
“Nifelheim.” It is getting on for twenty-five centuries, at least,
since mankind began seriously to give their minds to these topics.
Generation after generation, philosophy has been doomed to roll
the stone up hill; and, just as all the world swore it was at the
top, down it has rolled to the bottom again. All this is written in
innumerable books; and he who will toil through them will dis-.
cover that the stone is just where it was when the work began.
Hume saw this; Kant saw it; since their time, more and more
eyes have been cleansed of the films which prevented them from
seeing it; until now the weight and number of those who refuse
to be the prey of verbal mystification has begun to tell in practi-.
cal life,

It was inevitable that a conflict should arise between agnosti-.
cism and theology; or rather I ought to say between agnosticism:
and ecclesiasticism. For theology, the science, is one thing; and:
ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone conclusion * as to:
the truth of a particular form of theology, is another. With.
scientific theology, agnosticism has no quarrel. On the contrary,.
the agnostic, knowing too well the influence of prejudice and:
idiosyncrasy, even on those who desire most earnestly to be im--
partial, can wish for nothing more urgently than that the scien--
tific theologian should not only be at perfect liberty to thrash out
the matter in his own fashion, but that he should, if he can, find
flaws in the agnostic position, and, even if demonstration is not

| to be had, that he should put, in their full force, the grounds of
| the conclusions he thinks probable. The scientific theologian
( admits the agnostic principle, however widely his results may
( differ from those reached by the majority of agnostics.
But, as between agnosticism and ecclesiasticism, or, as our
* “Tet us maintain, before we have proved. This seeming paradox is the secret of

) happiness.” (Dr. Newman, “ Tract oi p. 85.)
VOL, XXXV.—29

450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

neighbors across the Channel call it, clericalism, there can be
neither peace nor truce. The cleric asserts that it is morally
wrong not to believe certain propositions, whatever the results of
a strict scientific investigation of the evidence of these proposi-
tions. He tells us that “religious error is, in itself, of an immoral
nature.”* He declares that he has prejudged certain conclu-
sions, and looks upon those who show cause for arrest of judg-
ment as emissaries of Satan. It necessarily follows that, for him,
the attainment of faith, not the ascertainment of truth, is the
highest aim of mental life. And, on careful analysis of the na-
ture of this faith, it will too often be found to be not the mystic
process of unity with the divine, understood by the religious
enthusiast—but that which the candid simplicity of a Sunday
scholar once defined it to be. “Faith,” said this unconscious
plagiarist of Tertullian, “is the power of saying you believe
things which are incredible.”

Now I, and many other agnostics, believe that faith, in this
sense, is an abomination; and though we do not indulge in the
luxury of self-righteousness so far as to call those who are not of
our way of thinking hard names, we do feel that the disagree-
ment between ourselves and those who hold this doctrine is even
more moral than intellectual. It is desirable there should be an
end of any mistakes on this topic. If our clerical opponents were
clearly aware of the real state of the case, there would be an end
of the curious delusion, which often appears between the lines of
their writings, that those whom they are so fond of calling “infi-
dels” are people who not only ought to be, but in their hearts
are, ashamed of themselves. It would be discourteous to do more
than hint the antipodal opposition of this pleasant dream of theirs
to facts.

The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us that, if we
refuse to admit that there is good ground for expressing definite
convictions about certain topics, the bonds of human society will
dissolve and mankind lapse into savagery. There are several
answers to this assertion. One is, that the bonds of human
society were formed without the aid of their theology, and in
the opinion of not a few competent judges have been weakened
rather than strengthened by a good deal of it. Greek science,
Greek art, the ethics of old Israel, the social organization of old
Rome, contrived to come into being without the help of any one
who believed in a single distinctive article of the simplest of the
Christian creeds. The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the
chief political and social theories of the modern world have
grown out of those of Greece and Rome—not by favor of, but in
the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to

* Dr. Newman, “ Essay on Development,” p. 857.

4S wt oe

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 451

which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of
this world were alike despicable.

Again, all that is best in the ethics of the modern world, in so
far as it has not grown out of Greek thought or barbarian man-
hood, is the direct development of the ethics of old Israel. There
is no code of legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and
so merciful, so tender to the weak and poor, as the Jewish law;
and if the Gospels are to be trusted, Jesus of Nazareth himself
declared that he taught nothing but that which lay implicitly, or
explicitly, in the religious and ethical system of his people.

And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast well said that
he is one; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart,
and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neigh-
bor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and saerifices. (Mark
xii, 32, 33.)

Here is the briefest of summaries of the teaching of the
prophets of Israel of the eighth century ; does the Teacher, whose
doctrine is thus set forth in his presence, repudiate the exposi-
tion? Nay, we are told, on the contrary, that Jesus saw that he
“answered discreetly,” and replied, “Thou art not far from the
kingdom of God.”

So that I think that even if the creeds, from the so-called
“ Apostles’” to the so-called “ Athanasian,” were swept into obliv-
ion; and even if the human race should arrive at the conclusion
that whether a bishop washes a cup or leaves it unwashed, is not
a matter of the least consequence, it will get on very well. The
causes which have led to the development of morality in man-
kind, which have guided or impelled us all the way from the
savage to the civilized state, will not cease to operate because
a number of ecclesiastical hypotheses turn out to be baseless.
And, even if the absurd notion that morality is more the child
of speculation than of practical necessity and inherited instinct,
had any foundation; if all the world is going to thieve, murder,
and otherwise misconduct itself as soon as it discovers that cer-
tain portions of ancient history are mythical, what is the rele-
vance of such arguments to any one who holds by the agnostic
principle ?

Surely the attempt to cast out Beelzebub by the aid of Beelze-
bub is a hopeful procedure as compared to that of preserving mo-
rality by the aid of immorality. For I suppose it is admitted
that an agnostic may be perfectly sincere, may be competent,
and may have studied the question at issue with as much care as
his clerical opponents. But, if the agnostic really believes what
he says, the “ dreadful consequence” argufier (consistently I admit
with his own principles) virtually asks him to abstain from tell-

452 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing the truth, or to say what he believes to be untrue, because of
the supposed injurious consequences to morality. “ Beloved breth-
ren, that we may be spotlessly moral, before all things let us lie,”
is the sum total of many an exhortation addressed to the “in-
fidel.”’” Now, as I have already pointed out, we can not oblige our
exhorters. We leave the practical application of the convenient
doctrines of “reserve” and “non-natural interpretation” to those
who invented them.

I trust that I have now made amends for any ambiguity, or
want of fullness, in my previous exposition of that which I hold
to be the essence of the agnostic doctrine. Henceforward, I might
hope to hear no more of the assertion that we are necessarily ma-
terialists, idealists, atheists, theists, or any other ists, if experience
had led me to think that the proved falsity of a statement was
any guarantee against its repetition. And those who appreciate

the nature of our position will see, at once, that when ecclesiasti- - |

cism declares that we ought to believe this, that, and the other,
and are very wicked if we don’t, it is impossible for us to give any
answer but this: We have not the slightest objection to believe
anything you like, if you will give us good grounds for belief;
but, if you can not, we must respectfully refuse, even if that re-
fusal should wreck morality and insure our own damnation several
times over. We are quite content to leave that to the decision of
the future. The course of the past has impressed us with the
firm conviction that no good ever comes of falsehood, and we feel
warranted in refusing even to experiment in that direction.

In the course of the present discussion it has been asserted that
the “Sermon on the Mount” and the “ Lord’s Prayer” furnish a
summary and condensed view of the essentials of the teaching of
Jesus of Nazareth, set forth by himself. Now this supposed Sum-
ma of Nazarene theology distinctly affirms the existence of a spir-
itual world, of a heaven, and of a hell of fire; it teaches the
fatherhood of God and the malignity of the devil; it declares the
superintending providence of the former and our need of deliver-
ance from the machinations of the latter; it affirms the fact of
demoniac possession and the power of casting out devils by the
faithful. And, from these premises, the conclusion is drawn that
those agnostics who deny that there is any evidence of such a
character as to justify certainty, respecting the existence and the
nature of the spiritual world, contradict the express declarations
of Jesus. I have replied to this argumentation by showing that
there is strong reason to doubt the historical accuracy of the
attribution to Jesus of either the “Sermon on the Mount” or the
“ Lord’s Prayer”; and, therefore, that the conclusion in question
is not warranted, at any rate on the grounds set forth.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY, 453

But; whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about
this and other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain
that from them, taken together with the other books of the New
Testament, we may collect a pretty complete exposition of that
theory of the spiritual world which was held by both Nazarenes
and Christians; and which was undoubtedly supposed by them to
be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though it is just as clear that they
did not imagine it contained any revelation by him of something
heretofore unknown. If the pneumatological doctrine which per-
vades the whole New Testament is nowhere systematically stated,
it is everywhere assumed, The writers of the Gospels and of the
Acts take it for granted, as a matter of common knowledge; and
it is easy to gather from these sources a series of propositions,
which only need arrangement to form a complete system.

In this system, man is considered to be a duality formed of a
spiritual element, the soul; and a corporeal* element, the body
And this duality is repeated in the universe, which consists of a
corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual
world. The former consists of the earth, as its principal and
central constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars.
Above the earth is the air, and below it the watery abyss. Wheth-
er the heaven, which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell
in, or below, the subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal
or incorporeal is not clear.

However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and
the abyss, are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in nature
to the spiritual element in man, and these spirits are of two kinds,
good and bad. The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior
to all the others, and their Creator as well as the Creator of the
corporeal world and of the bad spirits,is God. His residence is’
heaven, where he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good
Spirits; his angels, or messengers, and the executors of his will
throughout the universe,

On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Gakem—the
devil par excellence. He and his company of demons are free to
roam through all parts of the universe, except heaven. These bad
spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety, and their
whole energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils
upon him, and to thwarting, so far as their power goes, the benev-
olent intentions of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and
bodies of men form both the theatre and the prize of an incessant
warfare between the good and the evil spirits—the powers of
light and the powers of darkness. By leading Eve astray, Satan
brought sin and death upon mankind. As the gods of the hea-

* It is by no means to be assumed that “ spiritual ” and “corporeal ” are exact equiva-
| ents of “ immaterial” and “ material” in the minds of ancient speculators on these topics.

454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

then, the demons are the founders and maintainers of idolatry ;
as the “powers of the air,” they afflict mankind with pestilence
and famine; as “unclean spirits,” they cause disease of mind and
body.

The significance of the appearance of Jesus, as the Messiah or
Christ, is the reversal of the satanic work, by putting an end to
both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at
hand, when the “ prince of this world ” shall be finally “ cast out”
(John xii, 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly career,
cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his dev-
iltry, along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their
destruction, be hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire—there
to endure continual torture, without a hope of winning pardon
from the merciful God, their Father; or of moving the glorified
Messiah to one more act of pitiful intercession; or even of inter-
rupting, by a momentary sympathy with their wretchedness, the
harmonious psalmody of their brother angels and men, eternally
lapped in bliss unspeakable.

The straitest Protestant, who refuses to admit the existence of
any source of divine truth, except the Bible, will not deny that
every point of the pneumatological theory here set forth has am-
ple scriptural warranty: the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and
the Apocalypse assert the existence of the devil and his demons
and hell, as plainly as they do that of God and his angels and
heaven. It is plain that the Messianic and the satanic concep-
tions of the writers of these books are the obverse and the reverse
of the same intellectual coinage. If we turn from Scripture to
the traditions of the fathers and the confessions of the churches,
it will appear that in this one particular, at any rate, time has
brought about no important deviation from primitive belief.
From Justin onward, it may often be a fair question whether
God, or the devil, occupies a larger share of the attention of the
fathers. It is the devil who instigates the Roman authorities to
persecute; the gods and goddesses of paganism are devils, and
idolatry itself is an invention of Satan; if a saint falls away from
grace, it is by the seduction of the demon; if a heresy arises, the
devil has suggested it; and some of the fathers* go so far as to
challenge the pagans to a sort of exorcising match, by way of test-
ing the truth of Christianity. Medieval Christianity is at one
with patristic, on this head. The masses, the clergy, the theolo-
gians, and the philosophers alike, live and move and have their be-
ing in a world full of demons, in which sorcery and possession are

* Tertullian (“ Apolog. adv. Gentes,” cap. xxiii) thus challenges the Roman authorities:
let them bring a possessed person into the presence of a Christian before their tribunal ;
and, if the demon does not confess himself to be such, on the order of the Christian, let
the Christian be executed out of hand.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 455

every-day occurrences. Nor did the Reformation make any dif-
ference. Whatever else Luther assailed, he left the traditional
demonology untouched; nor could any one have entertained a
more hearty and uncompromising belief in the devil, than he and,
at a later period, the Calvinistic fanatics of New England did.
Finally, in these last years of the nineteenth century, the demono-
logical hypotheses of the first century are, explicitly or implicitly,
held and occasionally acted upon, by the immense majority of
Christians of all confessions,

Only here and there has the progress of scientific thought, out-
side the ecclesiastical world, so far affected Christians that they
and their teachers fight shy of the demonology of their creed.
They are fain to conceal their real disbelief in one half of Chris-
tian doctrine by judicious silence about it; or by flight to those
refuges for the logically destitute, accommodation or allegory.
But the faithful who fly to allegory in order to escape absurdity
resemble nothing so much as the sheep in the fable who—to save
their lives—jumped into the pit. The allegory pit is too commo-
dious, is ready to swallow up so much more than one wants to put
into it. If the story of the temptation is an allegory; if the early
recognition of Jesus as the Son of God by the demons is an alle-
gory; if the plain declaration of the writer of the first Epistle of
John (iii, 8), “To this end was the Son of God manifested that he
might destroy the works of the devil,” is allegorical, then the Pau-
line verson of the fall may be allegorical, and still more the words
of consecration of the Eucharist, or the promise of the second com-
ing; in fact, there is not a dogma of ecclesiastical Christianity
the scriptural basis of which may not be whittled away by a simi-
lar process,

‘ As to accommodation, let any honest man who can read the
New Testament ask himself whether Jesus and his immediate
friends and disciples can be dishonored more grossly than by the
supposition that they said and did that which is attributed to
them; while, in reality, they disbelieved in Satan and his demons,
in possession and in exorcism ?*

An eminent theologian has justly observed that we have no
right to look at the propositions of the Christian faith with one
eye open and the other shut. (“Tract 85,” p. 29.) It really is not
permissible to see with one eye, that Jesus is affirmed to declare
the personality and the fatherhood of God, his loving providence,
and his accessibility to prayer, and to shut the other to the no less
definite teaching ascribed to Jesus in regard to the personality
and the misanthropy of the devil, his malignant watchfulness, |

* See the expression of orthodox opinion upon the “accommodation” subterfuge, al-

ready cited, “Nineteenth Century,” February, 1889, p. 173; “ Popular Science Monthly,”
April, 1889, p. 754.

456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and his subjection to exorcistic formule and rites. Jesus is made
to say that the devil “ was a murderer from the beginning” (John
viii, 44) by the same authority as that upon which we depend for
his asserted declaration that “God is a spirit” (John iv, 24).

To those who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian
dictum that the doctrine which has been held “always, every-
where, and by all” is to be received as authoritative, the demon-
ology must possess a higher sanction than any other Christian
dogma, except, perhaps, those of the resurrection and of the Mes-
siahship of Jesus; for it would be difficult to name any other
points of doctrine on which the Nazarene does not differ from the
Christian, and the different historical stages and contemporary
subdivisions of Christianity from one another. And, if the demon-
ology is accepted, there can be no reason for rejecting all those
miracles in which demons play a part. The Gadarene story fits |
into the general scheme of Christianity, and the evidence for
“Legion” and their doings is just as good as any other in the
New Testament for the doctrine which the story illustrates.

It was with the purpose of bringing this great fact into promi-
nence, of getting people to open both their eyes when they look at
ecclesiasticism, that I devoted so much space to that miraculous
story which happens to be one of the best types of its class. And
I could not wish for a better justification of the course I have
adopted than the fact that my heroically consistent adversary has
declared his implicit belief in the Gadarene story and (by neces-
sary consequence) in the Christian demonology as a whole. It
must be obvious, by this time, that, if the account of the spiritual
world given in the New Testament, professedly on the authority
of Jesus, is true, then the demonological half of that account
must be just as true as the other half. And, therefore, those who
question the demonology, or try to explain it away, deny the truth
of what Jesus said, and are, in ecclesiastical terminology, “ infi-
dels” just as much as those who deny the spirituality of God.
This is as plain as anything can well be, and the dilemma for my
opponent was either to assert that the Gadarene pig-bedevilment
actually occurred, or to write himself down an “infidel.” As was
to be expected, he chose the former alternative; and I may ex-
press my great satisfaction at finding that there is one spot of
common ground on which both he andI stand. So far as I can
judge, we are agreed to state one of the broad issues between the
consequences of agnostic principles (as I draw them), and the ;
consequences of ecclesiastical dogmatism (as he accepts it), as
follows:

KEcclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an
essential part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of
which it declares to be certified by Jesus.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 457

Agnosticism (me judice) says: There is no good evidence of
the existence of a demonic spiritual world, and much reason for
doubting it.

Hereupon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means
that you disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an “infidel” instead
of an “agnostic.” To which the agnostic may reply: No; for
two reasons: first, because your evidence that Jesus said what
you say he said is worth very little; and, secondly, because a man
may be an agnostic in the sense of admitting he has no positive
knowledge; and yet consider that he has more or less probable
ground for accepting any given hypothesis about the spiritual
world. Just asa man may frankly declare that he has no means
of knowing whether the planets generally are inhabited or not,
and yet may think one of the two possible hypotheses more likely
than the other, so he may admit that he has no means of knowing
anything about the spiritual world, and yet may think one
or other of the current views on the subject, to some extent,
probable.

The second answer is so obviously valid that it needs no dis-
cussion. I draw attention to it simply in justice to those agnos-
tics, who may attach greater value than I do to any sort of pneu-
matological speculations, and not because I wish to escape the
responsibility of declaring that, whether Jesus sanctioned the
demonological part of Christianity or not, I unhesitatingly reject
it. The first answer, on the other hand, opens up the whole ques-
tion of the claim of the biblical and other sources, from which
hypotheses concerning the spiritual world are derived, to be re-
garded as unimpeachable historical evidence as to matters of fact.

Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives,
I was anxious to get rid of the common assumption that the
determination of the authorship and of the dates of these works
is a matter of fundamental importance. That assumption is based
upon the notion that what contemporary witnesses say must be
true, or, at least, has always a prima facie claim to be so regarded ;
so that if the writers of any of the Gospels were contemporaries
of the events (and still more if they were in the position of eye-
witnesses) the miracles they narrate must be historically true,
and, consequently, the demonology which they involve must be
accepted. But the story of the “ Translation of the Blessed Martyrs
Marcellinus and Petrus,” and the other considerations (to which
endless additions might have been made from the fathers and
the medieval writers) set forth in this review for March last,
yield, in my judgment, satisfactory proof that, where the miracu-
lous is concerned, neither considerable intellectual ability, nor
undoubted honesty, nor knowledge of the world, nor proved faith-
fulness as civil historians, nor profound piety, on the part of eye-

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

witnesses and contemporaries, affords any guarantee of the object-
ive truth of their statements, when we know that a firm belief in
the miraculous was ingrained in their minds, and was the pre-
supposition of their observations and reasonings.

Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we
have no real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of com-
position of the Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that
nothing better than more or less probable guesses can be arrived
at on that subject, I have not cared to expend any space on the
question. It will be admitted, I suppose, that the authors of the
works attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever
they may be, are personages whose capacity and judgment in the
narration of ordinary events are not quite so well certified as
those of Eginhard; and we have seen what the value of Egin-
hard’s evidence is when the miraculous is in question.

I have been careful to explain that the arguments which I
have used in the course of this discussion are not new; that they
are historical and have nothing to do with what is commonly
called science; and that they are all, to the best of my belief, to
be found in the works of theologians of repute.

The position which I have taken up, that the evidence in favor
of such miracles as those recorded by Eginhard, and consequently
of medizeval demonology, is quite as good as that in favor of such
miracles as the Gadarene, and consequently of Nazarene demon-
ology,is none of my discovery. Its strength was, wittingly or
unwittingly, suggested, a century and a half ago, by a theological
scholar of eminence; and it has been, if not exactly occupied, yet
so fortified with bastions and redoubts by a living ecclesiastical
Vauban, that, in my judgment, it has been rendered impregnable,
In the early part of the last century, the ecclesiastical mind in
this country was much exercised by the question, not exactly of
miracles, the occurrence of which in biblical times was axiomatic,
but by the problem, When did miracles cease ? Anglican divines
were quite sure that no miracles had happened in their day, nor
for some time past; they were equally sure that they happened
sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier. And it was a vital ques-
tion for them to determine at what point of time, between this
terminus a quo and that terminus ad quem, miracles came to
an end,

The Anglicans and the Romanists agreed in the assumption
that the possession of the gift of miracle-working was prima facie
evidence of the soundness of the faith of the miracle-workers.
The supposition that miraculous powers might be wielded by
heretics (though it might be supported by high authority) led to
consequences too frightful to be entertained by people who were

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 459

busied in building their dogmatic house on the sands of early
church history. If, as the Romanists maintained, an unbroken
series of genuine miracles adorned the records of their Church,
throughout the whole of its existence, no Anglican could lightly
venture to accuse them of doctrinal corruption. Hence, the An-
glicans, who indulged in such accusations, were bound to prove
the modern, the medizval Roman, and the later patristic miracles
false ; and to shut off the wonder-working power from the Church
at the exact point of time when Anglican doctrine ceased and
Roman doctrine began. With a little adjustment—a squeeze here
and a pull there—the Christianity of the first three or four centu-
ries might be made to fit, or seem to fit, pretty well into the An-
glican scheme. So the miracles, from Justin say to Jerome, might
be recognized ; while, in later times, the Church having become
“corrupt ”—that is to say, having pursued one and the same line
of development further than was pleasing to Anglicans—its
alleged miracles must needs be shams and impostures.

Under these circumstances, it may be imagined that the estab-
lishment of a scientific frontier, between the earlier realm of sup-
posed fact and the later of asserted delusion, had its difficulties ;
and torrents of theological ‘special pleading about the subject
flowed from clerical pens; until that learned and acute Anglican
divine, Conyers Middleton, in his “ Free Inquiry,” tore the sophist-
ical web they had laboriously woven to pieces, and demonstrated
that the miracles of the patristic age, early and late, must stand
or fall together, inasmuch as the evidence for the later is just as
good as the evidence for the earlier wonders. If the one set are
certified by contemporaneous witnesses of high repute, so are the
other; and, in point of probability, there is not a pin to choose
between the two. That is the solid and irrefragable result of
Middleton’s contribution to the subject. But the Free Inquirer’s
freedom had its limits; and he draws a sharp line of demar-
kation between the patristic and the New Testament miracles—on
the professed ground that the accounts of the latter, being in-
spired, are out of the reach of criticism.

A century later, the question was taken up by another divine,
Middleton’s equal in learning and acuteness, and far his superior
in subtlety and dialectic skill; who, though an Anglican, scorned
the name of Protestant ; and, while yet a Churchman, made it his
business to parade, with infinite skill, the utter hollowness of the
arguments of those of his brother Churchmen who dreamed that
they could be both Anglicans and Protestants. The argument of
the “ Essay on the Miracles recorded in the Ecclesiastical History
of the Early Ages,”* by the present Roman cardinal, but then

*T quote the first edition (1843). A second edition appeared in 1870. Tract 85 of
the “Tracts for the Times” should be read with this “Essay.” IfI were called upon to

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Anglican doctor, John Henry Newman, is compendiously stated
by himself in the following passage:

If the miracles of church history can not be defended by the arguments of
Leslie, Lyttleton, Paley, or Douglas, how many of the Scripture miracles satisfy
their conditions? (p. cvii).

And, although the answer is not given in so many words, little
doubt is left on the mind of the reader that in the mind of the
writer itis: None, In fact, this conclusion is one which can not
be resisted, if the argument in favor of the Scripture miracles
is based upon that which laymen, whether lawyers, or men of
science, or historians, or ordinary men of affairs, call evidence.
But there is something really impressive in the magnificent con-
tempt with which, at times, Dr. Newman sweeps aside alike those
who offer and those who demand such evidence.

Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which would not have a
verdict in their favor in a court of justice; that is, they employ against Scripture
a weapon which Protestants would confine to attacks upon the Church, as if
moral and religious questions required legal proofs, and evidence were the test of
truth * (p. cvii).

“Asif evidence were the test of truth” !—although the truth in
question is the occurrence or non-occurrence of certain phenomena
at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden revelation
of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the scientific
mind is enough to take away the breath of any one unfamiliar
with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the assumption
that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious end in
any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical events,
things that actually happened; and, as such, must needs be ex-
actly those subjects about which evidence is appropriate and
legal proofs (which are such merely because they afford adequate
evidence) may be justly demanded. The Gadarene miracle
either happened, or it did not. Whether the Gadarene “ ques-
tion” is moral or religious, or not, has nothing to do with the
fact that it is a purely historical question whether the demons
said what they are declared to have said, and the devil-possessed
pigs did or did not rush over the cliffs of the Lake of Gennesa-
reth on a certain day of a certain year, after A.D. 26 and before
A.D. 36; for, vague and uncertain as New Testament chronology
is, I suppose it may be assumed that the event in question, if it
happened at all, took place during the procuratorship of Pilate.
compile a primer of “infidelity,” I think I should save myself trouble by making a selec-
tion from these works, and from the “ Essay on Development ” by the same author.

* Yet, when it suits his purpose, as in the introduction to the “Essay on Develop-

ment,” Dr. Newman can demand strict evidence in religious questions as sharply as any
“infidel author”; and he can even profess to yield to its force (“Essays on Miracles,”

1870, note, p. 391).

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 461

If that is not a matter about which evidence ought to be re-
quired, and not only legal but strict scientific proof demanded
by sane men who are asked to believe the story—what is? Isa
reasonable being to be seriously asked to credit statements which,
to put the case gently, are not exactly probable, and on the
acceptance or rejection of which his whole view of life may de-
pend, without asking for as much “legal” proof as would send
an alleged pickpocket to jail, or as would suffice to prove the
validity of a disputed will ?

“Infidel authors” (if, as I am assured, I may answer for them)
will decline to waste time on mere darkenings of counsel of this
sort; but to those Anglicans who accept his premises, Dr. New-
man is a truly formidable antagonist. What, indeed, are they to
reply when he puts the very pertinent question:

“‘ whether persons who, not merely question, but prejudge the ecclesiastical mira-
cles on the ground of their want of resemblance, whatever that be, to those con-
tained in Scripture—as if the Almighty could not do in the Christian church
what he had not already done at the time of its foundation, or under the Mosaic
covenant—whether such reasoners are not siding with the skeptic,”

and

“whether it is not a happy inconsistency by which they continue to believe the
Scriptures while they reject the Church” * (p. liii).

Again, I invite Anglican orthodoxy to consider this passage :

_ the narrative of the combats of St. Antony with evil spirits is a development
rather than a contradiction of revelation, viz., of such texts as speak of Satan
being cast out by prayer and fasting. To be shocked, then, at the miracles of
ecclesiastical history, or to ridicule them for their strangeness, is no part of a
scriptural philosophy (p. liii-liv).

Further on, Dr. Newman declares that it has been admitted

that a distinct line can be drawn in point of character and circumstance between
the miracles of Scripture and of church history; but this is by no means the case
(p. lv). . . . Specimens are not wanting in the history of the Church of miracles
as awful in their character and as momentous in their effects as those which are
recorded in Scripture. The fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish, temple,
and the death of Arius, are instances in ecclesiastical history of such solemn
events. On the other hand, difficult instances in the Scripture history are such
as these: the serpent in Eden, the ark, Jacob’s vision for the multiplication of
his cattle, the speaking of Balaam’s ass, the axe swimming at Elisha’s word, the
miracle on the swine, and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which,
as in that of Noah’s blessing and curse, words which seem the result of private
feeling are expressly or virtually ascribed to a divine suggestion (p. lvi).

Who is to gainsay our ecclesiastical authority here? “Infidel
authors” might be accused of a wish to ridicule the Scripture
* Compare Tract 85, p. 110: “I am persuaded that were men but consistent who op-

pose the Church doctrines as being unscriptural, they would vindicate the Jews for reject-
ing the gospel.”

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

miracles by putting them on a level with the remarkable story
about the fire which stopped the rebuilding of the temple, or that
about the death of Arius—but Dr. Newman is above suspicion.
The pity is that his list of what he delicately terms “ difficult”
instances is so short. Why omit the manufacture of Eve out of
Adam’s rib, on the strict historical accuracy of which the chief
argument of the defenders of an iniquitous portion of our pres-
ent marriage law depends? Why leave out the account of the
“Bene Elohim” and their gallantries, on which a large part of
the worst practices of the medieval inquisitors into witchcraft
was based ? Why forget the angel who wrestled with Jacob,
and, as the account suggests, somewhat overstepped the bounds ~
of fair play at the end of the struggle? Surely we must agree
with Dr. Newman that, if all these camels have gone down, it
savors of affectation to strain at such gnats as the sudden ail-
ment of Arius in the midst of his deadly, if prayerful,* enemies ;
and the fiery explosion which stopped the Julian building opera-
tions. Though the words of the “Conclusion” of the “ Essay on
Miracles” may, perhaps, be quoted against me, I may express my
satisfaction at finding myself in substantial accordance with a
theologian above all suspicion of heterodoxy. With all my
heart, I can declare my belief that there is just as good reason
for believing in the miraculous slaying of the man who fell short
of the Athanasian power of affirming contradictories, with re-
spect to the nature of the Godhead, as there is for believing in
the stories of the serpent and the ark told in Genesis, the speak-
ing of Balaam’s ass in Numbers, or the floating of the axe, at
Elisha’s order, in the second book of Kings.

It is one of the peculiarities of a really sound argument that
it is susceptible of the fullest development; and that it some-
times leads to conclusions unexpected by those who employ it.
To my mind it is impossible to refuse to follow Dr. Newman
when he extends his reasoning from the miracles of the patristic
and medisval ages backward in time as far as miracles are
recorded. But, if the rules of logic are valid, I feel compelled
to extend. the argument forward to the alleged Roman miracles
of the present day, which Dr. Newman might not have admitted.

* According to Dr. Newman, “This prayer [that of Bishop Alexander, who begged
God to ‘take Arius away’] is said to have been offered about 3 p.m. on the Saturday;
that same evening Arius was in the great square of Constantine, when he was suddenly
seized with indisposition” (p. clxx). The “infidel” Gibbon seems to have dared to sug-
gest that “an option between poison and miracle” is presented by this case; and it must
be admitted, that if the bishop had been within reach of a modern police magistrate, things
might have gone hardly with him. Modern “infidels,” possessed of aslight knowledge of
chemistry, are not unlikely, with no less audacity, to suggest an “option between fire-damp
and miracle” in seeking for the cause of the fiery outburst at Jerusalem.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 463

but which Cardinal Newman may hardly reject. Beyond ques-
tion, there is as good, or perhaps better, evidence for the miracles
worked by our Lady of Lourdes, as there is for the floating of
Elisha’s axe or the speaking of Balaam’s ass, But we must go
still further; there is a modern system of thaumaturgy and
demonology which is just as well certified as the ancient.* Ve-
racious, excellent, sometimes learned and acute persons, even phi-
losophers of no mean pretension, testify to the “levitation” of
bodies much heavier than Elisha’s axe; to the existence of
“ spirits” who, to the mere tactile sense, have been indistinguish-
able from flesh and blood, and occasionally have wrestled with
all the vigor of Jacob’s opponent; yet, further, to the speech, in
the language of raps, of spiritual beings, whose discourses, In
point of coherence and value, are far inferior to that of Balaam’s
humble but sagacious steed. I have not the smallest doubt that,
if these were persecuting times, there is many a worthy “ spirit-
ualist”” who would cheerfully go to the stake in support of his
pueumatological faith, and furnish evidence, after Paley’s own
heart, in proof of the truth of his doctrines. Not afew modern
divines, doubtless struck by the impossibility of refusing the
spiritualist evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted,
and deprived of any a priori objection by their implicit belief in
Christian demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge
seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than
those of need, greed, and vainglory.

Under these circumstances, it was to be expected, though it is
none the less interesting to note the fact, that the arguments of
the latest school of “spiritualists” present a wonderful family
likeness to those which adorn the subtle disquisitions of the advo-
cate of ecclesiastical miracles of forty years ago. It is unfortu-
nate for the “spiritualists” that, over and over again, celebrated
and trusted media, who really, in some respects, call to mind the

# A writer in a spiritualist journal takes me roundly to task for venturing to doubt the
historical and literal truth of the Gadarene story. The following passage in his letter is
worth quotation: “‘ Now to the materialistic and scientific mind, to the uninitiated in spiritual
verities, certainly this story of the Gadarene or Gergesene swine presents insurmountable
difficulties; it seems grotesque and nonsensical. To the experienced, trained, and culti-
vated Spiritualist this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one of the most instructive,
the most profoundly useful, and the most beneficent which Jesus ever wrought in the
whole course of his pilgrimage of redemption on earth.” Just so. And the first page
of this same journal presents the following advertisement, among others of the same
kidney :

“To WraLtuy Sriritvatists.—A lady medium of tried power wishes to meet with an
elderly gentleman who would be willing to give her a comfortable home and maintenance
in exchange for her spiritualistic services, as her guides consider her health is too delicate
for public sittings: London preferred. Address ‘ Mary,’ office of ‘Light.’ ”

Are we going back to the days of the Judges, when wealthy Micah set up his private
ephod, teraphim, and Levite?

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Montanist * and gnostic seers of the second century, are either
proved in courts of law to be fraudulent impostors; or, in sheer
weariness, as it would seem, of the' honest dupes who swear by
them, spontaneously confess their long-continued iniquities, as
the Fox women did the other day in New York.t But whenever
a catastrophe of this kind takes place, the believers are nowise
dismayed by it. They freely admit that not only the media, but
the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to lose sight of the
elementary principles of right and wrong; and they triumphantly
ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures disprove
the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which have
not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in
this, they unconsciously plagiarize from the churchman, who just
as freely admits that many ecclesiastical miracles may have been
forged; and asks, with the same calm contempt, not only of legal ©
proofs, but of common-sense probability, Why does it follow that
none are to be supposed genuine? I must say, however, that the
spiritualists, so far as I know, do not venture to outrage right
reason so boldly as the ecclesiastics. They do not sneer at “ evi-
dence”; nor repudiate the requirement of legal proofs. In fact,
there can be no doubt that the spiritualists produce better evi-
dence for their manifestations than can be shown either for the
miraculous death of Arius, or for the invention of the cross.{

From the “ levitation” of the axe at one end of a period of near
three thousand years to the “levitation” of Sludge & Co. at the
other end, there is a complete continuity of the miraculous with
every gradation from the childish to the stupendous, from the
gratification of a caprice to the illustration of sublime truth,
There is no drawing a line in the series that might be set out of
plausibly attested cases of spiritual intervention. If one is true,
all may be true; if one is false, all may be false.

This is, to my mind, the inevitable result of that method of

* Consider Tertullian’s “sister” (“hodie apud nos’’), who conversed with angels, saw
and heard mysteries, knew men’s thoughts, and prescribed medicine for their bodies (“De
Anima,” cap. 9). Tertullian tells us that this woman saw the soul as corporeal, and described
its color and shape. The “infidel” will probably be unable to refrain from insulting the
memory of the ecstatic saint by the remark that Tertullian’s known views about the cor-
poreality of the soul may have had something to do with the remarkable perceptive powers
of the Montanist medium, in whose revelations of the spiritual world he took such profound
interest.

+ See the New York “World” for Sunday, October 21, 1888; and the “ Report of the
Seybert Commission,” Philadelphia, 1887.

+ Dr. Newman’s observation that the miraculous multiplication of the pieces of the
true cross (with which “the whole world is filled,” according to Cyril of Jerusalem; and of
which some say there are enough extant to build a man-of-war) is no more wonderful than
that of the loaves and fishes, is one that I do not see my way to contradict. See “ Essay on
Miracles,” second edition, p. 163.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 465

reasoning which is applied to the confutation of Protestantism,
with so much success, by one of the acutest and subtlest disputants
who have ever championed ecclesiasticism—and one can not put
his claims to acuteness and subtlety higher.

... the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a
sate truth it is this, . ... ‘‘To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” *

I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti-Protestant epi-
grams are profoundly true. But I have as little that, in the same
sense, the “ Christianity of history is not” Romanism; and that to
be deeper in history is to cease to be a Romanist. The reasons
which compel my doubts about the compatibility of the Roman
doctrine, or any other form of Catholicism, with history, arise out
of exactly the same line of argument as that adopted by Dr. New-
man in the famous essay which I have just cited. If, with one
hand, Dr. Newman has destroyed Protestantism, he has annihilated
Romanism with the other; and the total result of his ambidextral
efforts is to shake Christianity to its foundations. Nor was any
one better aware that this must be the inevitable result of his
arguments—if the world should refuse to accept Roman doctrines
and Roman miracles—than the writer of Tract 85.

Dr. Newman made his choice and passed over to the Roman
Church half a century ago. Some of those who were essentially
in harmony with his views preceded, and many followed him.
But many remained; and, as the quondam Puseyite and present
Ritualistic party, they are continuing that work of sapping and
mining the Protestantism of the Anglican Church which he and
his friends so ably commenced. At the present time, they have no
little claim to be considered victorious all along the line. I am
old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the Tractarian
party ; and Iam amazed when I consider the present position of
their heirs, Their little leaven has leavened, if not the whole, yet
a very large, lump of the Anglican Church; which is now pretty
much of a preparatory school for Papistry. So that it really be-
hooves Englishmen (who, as I have been informed by high author-
ity, are all, legally, members of the state Church, if they profess
to belong to no other sect) to wake up to what that powerful or-
ganization is about, and whither it is tending. On this point, the
writings of Dr. Newman, while he still remained within the An-
glican fold, are a vast store of the best and the most authoritative
information. His doctrines on ecclesiastical miracles and on de-
velopment are the corner-stones of the Tractarian fabric. He be-
lieved that his arguments led either Romeward, or to what eccle-
Siastics call “infidelity,” and I call agnosticism. I believe that

* “ An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” by J. H. Newman, D. D., pp.
Tand 8. (1878.)
VOL, Xxxv.—30

406 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

he was quite right in this conviction; but while he chooses the
one alternative; I choose the other; as he rejects Protestantism on
the ground of its incompatibility with history, so, a fortiori, I con-
ceive that Romanism ought to be rejected, and that an impartial
consideration of the evidence must refuse the authority of Jesus
to anything more than the Nazarenism of James and Peter and
John, And let it not be supposed that this is a mere “infidel”
perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and clearly ad-
mitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted in this
way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts which seem to
show that Jesus contemplated the evangelization of the heathen:

. Did not the apostles hear our Lord? and what was their impression
from what they heard? Is it not certain that the apostles did not gather this
truth from his teaching? (‘‘ Tract 85,” p. 63.)

He said, “‘ Preach the gospel to every creature.” These words need have only
meant ‘ Bring all men to Christianity through Judaism.” Make them Jews, that
they may enjoy Cbrist’s privileges which are lodged in Judaism; teach them those
rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which hitherto have been dead or-
dinances, and now are living; and so the apostles seem to have understood them
(Ibid., p. 65).

So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary
orthodox Judaism, it seems to have tended toward a revival of the
ethical,and religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by
the belief in Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which
had grown round Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these
belong the doctrines of the resurrection, of the last judgment, of
heaven and hell; of the hierarchy of good angels; of Satan and
the hierarchy of evil spirits. And there is very strong ground for
believing that all these doctrines, at least in the shapes in which
they were held by the post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian
and Babylonian * sources, and are essentially of heathen origin.

How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of
circumjacent paganism into Judaism ; how far any one has a right
to say that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines as
ascertained verities comes to the same thing as contradicting
Jesus, it appears to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less diffi-
cult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of
them ; and, more especially, that demonology which has been
accepted by the Christian churches in every age and under all
their mutual antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that,

> * Dr. Newman faces this question with his customary ability. ‘ Now, I own, I am not
at all solicitous to deny that this doctrine of an apostate angel and his hosts was gained
from Babylon: it might still be divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet’s ass
speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might instruct his church by means of heathen
Babylon” (“Tract 85,” p. 88). There seems to be no end to the apologetic burden that
Balaam’s ass can carry.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 467

whether Jesus sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation
or not, it is doomed. The future of Christianity as a dogmatic
system and apart from the old Israelitish ethics which it has ap-
propriated and developed, lies in the answer which mankind will
eventually give to the question whether they are prepared to
believe such stories as the Gadarene and the pneumatological
hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is they will de-
cline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever their
minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline
must and will at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing
civilization.

The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted
with the contents of the May number of this review, wherein I
discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage,
It would appear that “evasion” is my chief resource, “incapacity
for strict argument” and “rottenness of ratiocination” my main
mental characteristics, and that it is “barely credible” that a
statement which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true.
All which things I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth,
forced on me by long experience, that it is only from those who
enjoy the blessing of a firm hold of the Christian faith that such
manifestations of meekness, patience, and charity are to be ex-
pected.

I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers
could entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main
issue as it has been stated and restated by my opponent:

an agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to God must not only
refuse belief to our Lord’s most undoubted teaching, but must deny the reality of
the spiritual convictions in which he lived and died.*

That is said to be “ the simple question which is at issue between
us,” and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convic-
tions selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer,
and the Story of the Passion.
My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first
place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings
and the convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain, so that what
ecclesiastics are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing
of the kind. And, in the second place, if Jesus taught the de-
monological system involved in the Gadarene story—if a belief
in that system formed a part of the spiritual convictions in which
he lived and died—then I, for my part, unhesitatingly refuse be-
lief in that teaching, and deny the reality of those spiritual con-
victions. And I go further and add, that exactly in so far as it

* “ Popular Science Monthly,” July, 1889, p. 328.

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

can be proved that Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan demon-
ological theories current among the Jews of his age, exactly in
so far, for me, will his authority in any matter touching the spir-
itual world be weakened.

With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out
that the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in
the opinion of the best critics, a “mosaic work” of materials de-
rived from different sources, and I do not understand that this
statement is challenged. The only other Gospel, the third, which
contains something like it, makes, not only the discourse, but the
circumstances under which it was delivered, very different. Now,
it is one thing to say that there was something real at the bottom
of the two discourses—which is quite possible; and another to
affirm that we have any right to say what that something was, or
to fix upon any particular phrase and declare it to be a genuine
utterance. Those who pursue theology as a science, and bring to
the study an adequate knowledge of the ways of ancient histo-
rians, will find no difficulty in providing illustrations of my mean-
ing. I may supply one which has come within range of my own
limited vision.

In Josephus’s “ History of the Wars of the Jews” (chap. xix)
that writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the
opening of a war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and
would naturally be supposed by the reader to be intended for a
true version of what Herod said. In the “ Antiquities,” written
some seventeen years later, the same writer gives another report,
also in the first person, of Herod’s speech on the same occasion.
This second oration is twice as long as the first, and though the
general tenor of the two speeches is pretty much the same, there
is hardly any verbal identity, and a good deal of matter is intro-
duced into the one which is absent from the other. Now Jose-
phus prides himself on his accuracy; people whose fathers might
have heard Herod’s oration were his contemporaries; and yet his
historical sense is so curiously undeveloped, that he can, quite
innocently, perpetrate an obvious literary fabrication; for one of
the two accounts must be incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether
I believe that Herod made some particular statement on this
occasion ; whether, for example, he uttered the pious aphorism,
“Where God is, there is both multitude and courage,” which is
given in the “ Antiquities,” but not in the “ Wars,” I am com-
pelled to say I do not know. One of the two reports must be erro-
neous, possibly both are: at any rate, I can not tell how much of
either is true. And, if some fervent admirer of the Idumean
should build up a theory of Herod’s piety upon Josephus’s evi-
dence that he propounded the aphorism, is it a “ mere evasion ” to
say, in reply, that the evidence that he did utter it is worthless ?

*

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 469

It appears again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when
brought face to face with Hal o’ the Wynd, I have been trying to
get my simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose
chase through the early history of Christianity, in the hope of
escaping impending defeat on the main issue. But I may be per-
mitted to point out that there is an alternative hypothesis which
equally fits the facts; and that, after all, there may have been
method in the madness of my supposed panic.

For suppose it to be established that Gentile Christianity was
a totally different thing from the Nazarenism of Jesus and his im-
mediate disciples; suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as
the sixth decade of our era at least, there were violent divergen-
cies of opinion among the followers of Jesus; suppose it to be
hardly doubtful that the Gospels and the Acts took their present
shapes under the influence of these divergencies; suppose that
their authors, and those through whose hands they passed, had
notions of historical veracity not more eccentric than those which
Josephus occasionally displays—surely the chances that the Gos-
pels are altogether trustworthy records of the teachings of Jesus
become very slender. And as the whole of the case of the other
side is based on the supposition that they are accurate records
(especially of speeches, about which ancient historians are so curi-
ously loose), I really do venture to submit that this part of my
argument bears very seriously on the main issue; and, as ratioci-
nation, is sound to the core.

Again, when I passed by the topic of the speeches of Jesus on
the cross, it appears that I could have had no other motive than
the dictates of my native evasiveness. An ecclesiastical dignitary
may have respectable reasons for declining a fencing-match “in
sight of Gethsemane and Calvary”; but an ecclesiastical “infi-
del”! Never. It is obviously impossible that, in the belief that
“the greater includes the less,” I, having declared the Gospel evi-
dence in general, as to the sayings of Jesus, to be of questionable
- value, thought it needless to select, for illustration of my views,
those particular instances which were likely to be most offensive
to persons of another way of thinking. But any supposition that
may have been entertained that the old familiar tones of the eccle-
siastical war-drum will tempt me to engage in such needless dis-
cussion had better be renounced. I shall do nothing of the kind.
Let it suffice that I ask my readers to turn to the twenty-third
chapter of Luke (revised version), verse thirty-four, and he will
find in the margin

Some ancient authorities omit: And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.”

_ So that, even as late as the fourth century, there were ancient
authorities, indeed some of the most ancient and weightiest, who

470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

either did not know of this utterance, so often quoted as charac-
teristic of Jesus, or did not believe it had been uttered.

Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter, which abused
me heartily for my want of moral courage in not speaking out. I
thought that one of the oddest charges an anonymous letter-
writer could bring. But Iam not sure that the plentiful sowing
of the pages of the article with which I am dealing with accusa-
tions of evasion, may not seem odder to those who consider that
the main strength of the answers with which I have been favored
(in this review and elsewhere) is devoted not to anything in the
text of my first paper, but toa note which occurs at page 171.*
In this I say:

Dr. Wace tells us: ‘It may be asked how far we can rely on the accounts we
possess of our Lord’s teaching on these subjects.” And he seems to think the
question appropriately answered by the assertion that it “‘ ought to be regarded as
settled by M. Renan’s practical surrender of the adverse case.”

I requested Dr. Wace to point out the passages of M. Renan’s
works in which, as he affirms, this “ practical surrender” (not
merely as to the age and authorship of the Gospels, be it observed,
but as to their historical value) is made, and he has been so good
_astodoso. Now let us consider the parts of Dr. Wace’s citation
from Renan which are relevant to the issue:

The author of this Gospel [Luke] is certainly the same as the author of the
Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of the Acts seems to be a companion of
St. Paul—a character which accords completely with St. Luke. I know that
more than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning; but one thing, at all
events, is beyond doubt, namely, that the author of the third Gospel and of the
Acts is a man who belonged to the second apostolic generation ; and this suffices
for our purpose.

This is a curious “practical surrender of the adverse case.”
M. Renan thinks that there is no doubt that the author of the
third Gospel is the author of the Acts—a conclusion in which I
suppose critics generally agree. He goes on to remark that this
person seems to be a companion of St. Paul, and adds that Luke
was a companion of St. Paul. Then, somewhat needlessly, M.
Renan points out that there is more than one objection to jump-
ing, from such data as these, to the conclusion that “ Luke” is the
writer of the third Gospel. And, finally, M. Renan is content to
reduce that which is “ beyond doubt” to the fact that the author
of the two books is a man of the second apostolic generation.
Well, it seems to me that I could agree with all that M. Renan
considers “ beyond doubt” here, without surrendering anything,
either “ practically ” or theoretically.

Dr. Wace (“Nineteenth Century,” March, p. 363)f states that

* “ Popular Science Monthly,” April, 1889, p. 752. + Ibid., May, 1889, p. 77.

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 471

he derives the above citation from the preface of the fifteenth
edition of the “Vie de Jésus.” My copy of “ Les Evangiles,” dated
1877, contains a list of Renan’s “ tuvres Complétes,” at the head
of which I find “Vie de Jésus,” 15° édition. It is, therefore, a
later work than the edition of the “Vie de Jésus” which Dr.
Wace quotes. Now “Les Hvangiles,”’ as its name implies, treats
fully of the questions respecting the date and authorship of the
Gospels; and any one who desired, not merely to use M. Renan’s
expressions for controversial purposes, but to give a fair account
of his views in their full significance, would, I think, refer to the
later source.

If this course had been taken, Dr. Wace might have found
some as decided expressions of opinion in favor of Luke’s author-
ship of the third Gospel as he has discovered in “The Apostles.”
I mention this circumstance because I desire to point out that,
taking even the strongest of Renan’s statements, I am still at a
loss to see how it justifies that large-sounding phrase “ practical
surrender of the adverse case.” For, on p. 438 of “Les Evan-
giles,” Renan speaks of the way in which Luke’s “ excellent inten-
tions” have led him to torture history in the Acts; he declares
Luke to be the founder of that “eternal fiction which is called
ecclesiastical history”; and, on the preceding page, he talks of
the “myth” of the Ascension—with its mise en scéne voulue. At
p. 435, I find “Luc, ou Vauteur quel qu’il soit du troisiéme
Evangile” [Luke, or whoever may be the author of the third
Gospel]; at p. 280, the accounts of the Passion, the death and the
resurrection of Jesus are said to be “peu historiques” [little his-
torical]; at p. 283, “ La valeur historique du troisiéme Evangile est
sirement moindre que celles des deux premiers” [the historical
value of the third Gospel is surely less than that of the first two].

A Pyrrhic sort of victory for orthodoxy this “surrender”!
And, all the while, the scientific student of theology knows that
the more reason there may be to believe that Luke was the com-
panion of Paul, the more doubtful becomes his credibility, if he

really wrote the Acts. For, in that case, he could not fail to have
been acquainted with Paul’s account of the Jerusalem conference,
_ and he must have consciously misrepresented it. We may next
turn to the essential part of Dr. Wace’s citation (“ Nineteenth
Century,” p. 365)* touching the first Gospel:

St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the discourses. Here
| are “the oracles ’’—the very notes taken while the memory of the instruction of
| Jesus was living and definite.

M. Renan here expresses the very general opinion as to the
) existence of a collection of “ logia,” having a different origin from

* “Popular Science Monthly,” May, 1889, p. 79.

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the text in which they are imbedded, in Matthew. “Notes” are
somewhat suggestive of a short-hand writer, but the suggestion is
unintentional, for M. Renan assumes that these “notes” were
taken, not at the time of the delivery of the “logia,’ but sub-
sequently, while (as he assumes) the memory of them was living
and definite; so that, in this very citation, M. Renan leaves open
the question of the general historical value of the first Gospel,
while it is obvious that the accuracy of “notes,” taken, not at the
time of delivery, but from memory, is a matter about which more
than one opinion may be fairly held. Moreover, Renan expressly
calls attention to the difficulty of distinguishing the authentic
“logia ” from later additions of the same kind ( “ Les Evangiles,”
p. 201). The fact is, there is no contradiction here to that
opinion about the first Gospel which is expressed in “Les Evan-
giles ” (p. 175).

The text of the so-called Matthew supposes the pre-existence of that of Mark,
and does little more than complete it. He completes it in two fashions—first, by
the insertion of those long discourses which gave their chief value to the Hebrew
Gospels; then by adding traditions of a more modern formation, results of sueces-
sive developments of the legend, and to which the Christian consciousness already
attached infinite value.

32 66

M. Renan goes on to suggest that besides “ Mark,” “ pseudo-
Matthew ” used an Aramaic version of the Gospel originally set
forth in that dialect. Finally, as to the second Gospel (“ Nine-
teenth Century,” p. 365): *

He [Mark] is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond doubt, from an
eye-witness. There is nothing to conflict with the supposition that this eye-witness

. was the apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.

Let us consider this citation also by the light of “Les Evan-
giles”:

This work, although composed after the death of Peter, was, in a sense, the
work of Peter; it represents the way in which Peter was accustomed to relate
the life of Jesus (p. 116).

M. Renan goes on to say that, as an historical document, the
Gospel of Mark has a great superiority (p. 116), but Mark has
a motive for omitting the discourses; and he attaches a “ puerile
importance” to miracles (p. 117). The Gospel of Mark is less
a legend than a biography written with credulity (p. 118). It
would be rash to say that Mark has not been interpolated and re-
touched (p. 120).

If any one thinks that I have not been warranted in drawing &
sharp distinction between “scientific theologians” and “counsel
for creeds”; or that my warning against the too ready acceptance

* “ Popular Science Monthly,” May, 1889, p. 79.

A —— i —

a

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY, 473

of certain declarations as to the state of biblical criticism was
needless; or that my anxiety as to the sense of the word “ prac-
tical” was superfluous, let him compare the statement that M.
Renan has made a “ practical surrender of the adverse case” with
the facts just set forth. For what is the adverse case? The ques-
tion, as Dr. Wace puts it, is, “It may be asked how far can we rely
on the accounts we possess of our Lord’s teaching on these sub-
jects.” It will be obvious, that M. Renan’s statements amount to
an adverse answer—to a “ practical” denial that any great reliance
can be placed on these accounts. He does not believe that Mat-
thew, the apostle, wrote the first Gospel; he does not profess to
know who is responsible for the collection of “logia,” or how many
of them are authentic; though he calls the second Gospel the most
historical, he points out that it is written with credulity, and may
have been interpolated and retouched; and, as to the author “quel
qwil soit” of the third Gospel, who is to “ rely on the accounts” of
a writer who deserves the cavalier treatment which “ Luke” meets
with at M. Renan’s hands ?

I repeat what I have already more than once said, that the
question of the age and the authorship of the Gospels has not, in
my judgment, the importance which is so commonly assigned to
it; for the simple reason that the reports, even of eye-witnesses,
would not suffice to justify belief in a large and essential part of
their contents; on the contrary, these reports would discredit the
witnesses. The Gadarene miracle, for example, is so extremely
improbable, that the fact of its being reported by three, even inde-
pendent, authorities could not justify belief in it unless we had
the clearest evidence as to their capacity as observers and as inter-
preters of their observations. But it is evident that the three
authorities are not independent; that they have simply adopted
a legend, of which there were two versions; and instead of their
proving its truth, it suggests their superstitious credulity ; so that,
if “ Matthew,” “ Mark,” and “ Luke” are really responsible for the
Gospels, it is not the better for the Gadarene story, but the worse
for them.

A wonderful amount of controversial capital has been made
out of my assertion in the note to which I have referred, as an
obiter dictum of no consequence to my argument, that, if Renan’s
work* were non-extant, the main results of biblical criticism as
set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for
example, would not be sensibly affected. I thought I had ex-
plained it satisfactorily already, but it seems that my explanation
has only exhibited still more of my native perversity, so I ask for
one more chance.

_ *T trust it may not be supposed that I undervalue M. Renan’s labors or intended to
speak slightingly of them.

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

t

In the course of the historical development of any branch of
science, what is universally observed is this: that the men who
make epochs and are the real architects of the fabric of exact
knowledge are those who introduce fruitful ideas or methods. As
a rule, the man who does this pushes his idea or his method too
far; or, if he does not, his school is sure to do so, and those who
follow have to reduce his work to its proper value, and assign
it its place in the whole. Not unfrequently they, in their turn,
overdo the critical process. and, in trying to eliminate errors, —
throw away truth.

Thus, as I said, Linneeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck, really “set
forth the results” of a developing science, although they often
heartily contradict one another. Notwithstanding this circum-
stance, modern classificatory method and nomenclature have
largely grown out of the results of the work of Linneus; the
modern conception of biology, as a science, and of its relation to
climatology, geography, and geology, are as largely rooted in the
results of the labors of Buffon; comparative anatomy and pale-
ontology owe a vast debt to Cuvier’s results; while invertebrate
zoology and the revival of the idea of evolution are intimately
dependent on the results of the work of Lamarck. In other words,
the main results of biology up to the early years of this century
are to be found in, or spring out of, the works of these men.

So, if I mistake not, Strauss, if he did not originate the idea of
taking the mythopeeic faculty into account in the development of
the Gospel narratives ; and, though he may have exaggerated the
influence of that faculty, obliged scientific theology hereafter to
take that element into serious consideration; so Baur, in giving
prominence to the cardinal fact of the divergence of the Nazarene
and Pauline tendencies in the primitive Church ; so Reuss, in set-
ting a marvelous example of the cool and dispassionate applica-
tion of the principles of scientific criticism over the whole field of
Scripture ; so Volkmar, in his clear and forcible statement of the
Nazarene limitations of Jesus, contributed results of permanent
value in scientific theology. I took these names as they occurred
to me. Undoubtedly, I might have advantageously added to
them; perhaps I might have made a better selection, But it
really is absurd to try to make out that I did not know that these
writers widely disagree; and I believe that no scientific theologian
will deny that, in principle, what I have said is perfectly correct.
Ecclesiastical advocates, of course, can not be expected to take
this view of the matter. To them, these mere seekers after truth,
in so far as their results are unfavorable to the creed the clerics
have to support, are more or less “infidels,” or favorers of “in-
fidelity ”; and the only thing they care to see, or probably can see,
is the fact that, in a great many matters, the truth-seekers differ

|
}
|
(
]

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 475

from one another, and therefore can easily be exhibited to the
public, as if they did nothing else; as if any one who referred to
them, as having each and all contributed his share to the results
of theological science, was merely showing his ignorance; and, as
if a charge of inconsistency could be based on the fact that he
himself often disagrees with what they say. I have never lent a
shadow of foundation to the assumption that I am a follower of
either Strauss, or Baur, or Reuss, or Volkmar, or Renan; my debt
to these eminent men—so far my superiors in theological knowl-
edge—is, indeed, great; yet it is not for their opinions, but for
those I have been able to form for myself, by their help.

In “ Agnosticism: a Rejoinder” (p. 484) * I have referred to
the difficulties under which those professors of the science of the-
ology, whose tenure of their posts depends on the results of their
investigations, must labor ; and, in a note, I add:

Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been founded in the fourteenth
century, and that their incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In
that case, with every respect for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain
and expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to
learn astronomy.

I did not write this paragraph without a knowledge that its
sense would be open to the kind of perversion which it has suf-
fered ; but, if that was clear, the necessity for the statement was
still clearer. It is my deliberate opinion: I reiterate it; and I say
that, in my judgment, it is extremely inexpedient that any subject
which calls itself a science should be intrusted to teachers who
are debarred from freely following out scientific methods to their
legitimate conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. If I
may borrow a phrase paraded at the Church Congress, I think it
“ought to be unpleasant” for any man of science to find himself
in the position of such a teacher.

Human nature is not altered by seating it in a professorial
chair, even of theology. I have very little doubt that if, in the
year 1859, the tenure of my office had depended upon my adher-
ence to the doctrines of Cuvier, the objections to those set forth
in the “Origin of Species” would have had a halo of gravity
about them that, being free to teach what I pleased, I failed to dis-
cover. And,in making that statement, it does not appear to me
that I am confessing that I should have been debarred by “ selfish
interests” from making candid inquiry, or that I should have been
biased by “sordid motives,” I hope that even such a fragment
of moral sense as may remain in an ecclesiastical “infidel” might
have got me through the difficulty ; but it would be unworthy to

* “Popular Science Monthly ” for June, 1889, p. 166,

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

deny or disguise the fact that a very serious difficulty must have
been created for me by the nature of my tenure. And let it be
observed that the temptation, in my case, would have been far
slighter than in that of a professor of theology ; whatever bio-
logical doctrine I had repudiated, nobody I cared for would have
thought the worse of me for so doing. No scientific journals
would have howled me down, as the religious newspapers howled
down my too honest friend, the late Bishop of Natal; nor would
my colleagues in the Royal Society have turned their backs upon
me, as his episcopal colleagues boycotted him.

I say these facts are obvious, and that it is wholesome and
needful that they should be stated. It is in the interests of the-
ology, if it be a science, and it is in the interests of those teachers
of theology who desire to be something better than counsel for
creeds, that it should be taken to heart. The seeker after theo-
logical truth, and that only, will no more suppose that I have
insulted him than the prisoner who works in fetters will try to
pick a quarrel with me, if I suggest that he would get on better
if the fetters were knocked off; unless, indeed, as it is said does
happen in the course of long captivities, that the victim at length
ceases to feel the weight of his chains or even takes to hugging
them, as if they were honorable ornaments.*— Nineteenth Century.

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.t
By C. M. WOODFORD.

N October, 1885, I left England with the object of paying a
visit to the group of islands known as the “Solomon Islands,”
for the purpose of making collections of the fauna, and, if pos-
sible, penetrating to the mountains of the interior of some of the
larger islands, which had not yet been visited by white men. The
Solomon Islands are a group lying about five hundred miles to
the eastward of New Guinea. They extend for six hundred miles
in a northwest and southeast direction, and are situated between
the parallels of 5° and 11° south latitude, and the meridians of 154°
and 163° east longitude. They were first discovered by Mendafia,
the Spaniard, in 1567, who gave them the name of the Islands of
Solomon, in order that his countrymen, supposing them to be the

* To-day’s “Times” contains a report of a remarkable speech by Prince Bismarck, in
which he tells the Reichstag that he has long given up investing in foreign stock, lest
so doing should mislead his judgment in his transactions with foreign states. Does this
declaration prove that the chancellor accuses himself of being “ sordid” and “selfish,” or
does it not rather show that, even in dealing with himself, he remains the man of realities ?

+ From a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, March 26, 1888.

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 477

islands whence King Solomon got his gold, might be induced to
colonize them. There are seven principal islands and numerous
smaller ones. The total land area of the group I estimate at
fifteen thousand square miles, or considerably more than twice
the area of Wales. They present evidences of recent volcanic
activity. The island of Savo was an active volcano at the time
the Spaniards discovered the group in 1567. There is an active
volcano near the center of the island of Bougainville; hot springs
and sulphur are found at Savo, Simbo, and Vella Lavella, while
Kulambangara is an extinct volcano. During my residence of six
weeks at Alu I experienced frequent shocks of earthquake, but
of no great violence. The mountains of Bougainville rise to a
height of 10,000 feet, and those of the other large islands to from
3,000 to 5,000 feet, except on Guadalcanar, where they reach an ele- _
vation of 8,000 feet. I made three attempts to reach the interior
of this island, but was prevented by the hostility of the mountain
tribes and the timidity of my guides. The highest point which I
attained on Guadalcanar was 1,140 feet. Tin and copper have
been found in small quantities on the island of San Cristoval,
while I myself discovered copper on the island of Guadalcanar,
and from the northwest end of the island of Malayta I obtained a
mineral from the natives which proves to be iron pyrites. The
people told me they used it for staining their teeth. The coast
natives buy it from the bushmen in bamboos, at the fair that
takes place on the coast every two or three days. The islands are
for the most part clothed from the coast to the mountain-tops
with the densest tropical forest, in which the immense ficus-trees,
of several species, are often conspicuous objects, their trunks cov-
_ ered with creepers and ferns; the undergrowth consisting of small
palms of many species, among which and over the trees the im-
mensely long rattans or climbing canes twine in and out in inex-
tricable confusion. In the neighborhood of native villages the
beach will be found fringed with cocoanut palms, but my observa-
tion tends to prove that the cocoanut rarely grows unless planted.
I know, however, that this is opposed to the opinions of some.
[Mr. Woodford made two or three visits to the Solomon Islands,
by means of the schooners engaged in recruiting boys to work
upon the plantations at Fiji, and returning them to their homes
at the expiration of their terms of service; and by trading-vessels
from Sydney. It is not necessary to follow the author in the de-
tails of his journeying from place to place, and of bargainings
with the natives. We present the more striking incidents of life
in this region. ]
From the trading station at Rubiana, which is the center of the
_ head-hunting district, our first visit was to a small island occupied

| by another trader. This island he is allowed to occupy on suffer-
VOL. xxxv.—80*

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ance only. It belongs to the natives of Sisieta; they will not sell it,
as they use it for their cannibal feasts. I was told that six bodies
were eaten here a fortnight before my visit. From here we went
to a town called Oneavesi, and thence crossed to the small island
of Rubiana proper, where we found nearly all the men away on a
head-hunting expedition to the island of Isabel. I here photo-
graphed the interior of a tambu house, the post of which was
carved to represent a crocodile. Along the rafters was a row of
heads. I also took a photograph of a collection of sacred images,
near to which was a heap of skulls, upon every one of which I

q (A

Fic. 1.—Sacrep ImaGE AT RUBIANA.

noticed the mark of the tomahawk. These collections of images
are to be found in nearly every town throughout the lagoon, and
are strictly tambu (Fig. 1). I found out afterward that the natives
strongly objected to my photographing them, or indeed approach-
ing them at all. At another village close by on the same island
we again found nearly all the male population absent on the same
expedition. The women and those left at home were preparing 4
feast for them on their return. At the principal canoe-house

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 479

in another village we visited there were five large head-hunting
canoes, profusely ornamented and inlaid with pearl-shell. The
house was about eighty feet long, with a high-pitched roof, the end
being closed in, but two narrow slits being left for the high prows
of the canoes to pass through (Fig. 2). In this house there were
eight heads; I recognized among them the straight hair of natives

Fic. 2.—HEAD-HUNTING CANOE AND CANOE-HoUSE AT RUBIANA.

of the Lord Howe’s group, and was told that a year or so previous-
ly a canoe containing sixteen of them had been driven from Lord
Howe’s group to Isabel, where they have been caught from time
to time by the head-hunters. In another canoe-house in the same
town I counted thirteen heads. After some persuasion they car-
ried out the largest canoe for me to photograph. The Rubiana
men returned next day from Isabel with five heads, from three
men and two women; they also brought five prisoners alive.
During the fortnight that I spent in the lagoon I heard of no
less than thirty-one heads being brought home, as follows: Ru-
biana village, five; Sisieta, six; Kokorapa, three; Lokorokongo,
seventeen.

I, for the second time, spent a fortnight at this place; and havy-
ing on my previous visit gained the confidence of the two chiefs
of Sisieta, named Wange and Ingova, I went frequently ashore at

their town. On one occasion I saw the inauguration of a large
trough for preparing and pounding food, the ceremony taking
place in the chief canoe-house of the town. I was assigned a seat
next to Ingova, while above my head were the eight heads pre-

480 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

viously mentioned. The trough was about thirty feet long, and
carved to represent a crocodile. Twenty-two men were seated on
each side of the trough, and an old man at either end. They had
all their ornaments on, and wore their shields over their shoulders,
while their spears and tomahawks were close behind them. The
food, consisting of taro, yams, and nuts, was placed in the trough,
and the men sat ready. An old man in full fighting rig was then
seen advancing toward the house. Walking up to the entrance, he
suddenly started back and raised his spear, exclaiming, “ Basioto!”
(“ A crocodile!) and standing on the defensive. Ingova then ad-
vanced from the interior of the house, and, placing one hand on
the crocodile’s head, began a speech which lasted about ten min-
utes. Ata given signal the men began pounding the food, all of
them keeping excellent time. When they got tired or hot they
were relieved by others, and the pounding was continued for over
half an hour. I was then asked to go, and, not wishing to offend
them, I did so.

[On another occasion the author had walked with some natives
from Aola, on the coast of Guadalcanar, to a town called Kobua,
situated on the river of that name, and about four miles inland. |]
While walking along the river-bank with my men we heard a
number of natives approaching, shouting and making a great
noise. I was told they were coast natives returning from a raid
upon a mountain town. My men all stood on the defensive with
their spears ready poised, and I got my revolver ready, but they
proved to be friends. They were very proud of their victory,
and told me that they had killed one man and got one alive. I
saw the dead man’s hand and a piece of flesh carried in triumph
by one of them on his spear. I did not see the prisoner, and I was
glad to hear afterward that he had escaped. It is these constant
raids of the coast natives upon the bushmen, and retaliatory ones
on the part of the bushmen upon the coast natives, that render it
difficult and dangerous to penetrate any distance into the interior.
I had been over three months at Aola before I could induce the
natives to accompany me into the interior, during which time
I had surveyed all the lower coast of the rivers in the neighbor-
hood.

[A typical illustration of the vegetation of the islands is fur-
nished in the picture of the sago palms (Fig. 3) on the Bokokimbo
River, a stream which runs down from the mountains of the inte-
rior.] The vegetation [the author says] is here most luxuriant,
and composed of large ficus and other large forest trees, with occa-
sional clumps of sago and areca palms, but few cocoanuts. The
river was ascended and surveyed for about ten miles, for the whole
of which it runs through a rich alluvial flat, densely wooded.

[Valemanga, where the author stopped in an attempt to make

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 481

the ascent of Mount Vatupusau (4,360 feet high), was situated at
the height of 800 feet on the top of a narrow ridge, sloping ab-
ruptly down on the eastern and western sides], and was sur-
rounded with a stockade about seven feet high, with a narrow open-
ing, closed at night, through which we squeezed one by one. In

Fie. 3—Sago Patms AND NUTS—VIEW ON THE BOKOKIMBO RIVER, GUADALCANAR.

weak places, sharpened bamboos were stuck in the ground on the
inside of the fence to transfix any one breaking through. Walk-
ing into the center of the town, I inquired for the head man, and
when he appeared I held out my hand to him, which he took, and
then he put his arms round meand embraced me. The settlement
consisted of ten or a dozen houses and thirty inhabitants. ... At
dusk we were conducted to a perfectly clean new house, with, as
usual, the bare ground for floor, and were supplied with cooked
\) yams. After we had finished our meal, the whole town crowded
i into the house, and my men sang a song, and when they had fin-
« ished the women of the town sang one of their dismal chants. In
the midst of the performance, Sosoni, one of my men, suddenly
sprang to his feet, and, after a short speech, presented the chief

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

man of the town with three or four sticks of tobacco. I had not
intended to make my present before morning; but, as I thought
the opportunity a good one, I gave Beta an axe, a knife, and some
pipes, matches, and a quantity of tobacco, and told him to present
them with a suitable speech. Shortly afterward one of the men
of the town stood up, and, leaning his two hands upon his toma-
hawk, returned thanks. EKach man before commencing his speech
gave a shrill scream, I suppose to attract attention, but the sing-
ing went on all the time. [A few days after this, eleven natives,
consisting of six men, three women, two little girls, and a baby,
arrived at Aola, being the sole survivors out of the thirty inhabit-
ants. The town had been attacked at daylight two days after the
author’s visit, and the old’ chief, Tambougi, who had given the
traveler the affectionate embrace, was among the killed. |

Natives of different parts of the group differ considerably from ,
one another, but they belong to the Melanesian or Papuan type.
The natives of Buka and Bougainville and of the islands of Bou-
gainville Straits and of Choiseul are intensely black in color, but —
as one journeys eastward the color changes to a dark brown. i
They have woolly hair, but occasionally natives are met with wavy
and in some cases straight hair. The men wear no clothes beyond :
the T-bandage usually met with among savage races, but fre- i
quently men are seen without even this. The natives of Alu, how-—
ever, wear a small piece of calico round the waist. On San Cris- ;
toval and the more eastern islands the women wear a small plaited - ,
square of grass fiber, about six inches by four, which is suspended ~
round the waist by a string and hangs down the front. Upon
Malayta they wear the same, but one frequently sees women with- —
out even this. On Guadalcanar the women wear a series Of
fringes, one over the other, made out of some vegetable fiber re-—
sembling hemp. For working in they wear a similar fringe made ~
out of a shredded banana-leaf. The dress of the women of Rubi-—
ana and the neighboring district was declared by Captain Cheyne,
who visited the islands in 1846, to be indescribable. At Alu the
women wore pieces of calico bought from the traders. These —
Solomon natives are not so addicted to the practice of tattooing”
as the lighter-colored Polynesians, probably because the pattern
would not show so conspicuously upon their dusky skins. In San
Cristoval, however, both men and women have frequently the
face cut all over with a pattern of chevron-shaped cicatrices;
and on Guadalcanar the same practice is in vogue, but the pait-
tern takes the form of small circles, which are traced by a sharp-
ened bone from the wing of the flying fox, and a small bamboo —
with the edge sharpened. The operation, which is completed at
one sitting, isa particularly painful one, and the operator is highly
paid for his trouble, tattooing being a profession.

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 483

Many of these natives pierce and gradually distend the lobe
of the ear, and enlarge it by degrees until at length it attains an
enormous size. On San Cristoval a circular disk of soft, white

Fig. 4.—NATIVES OF AOLA, GUADALCANAR,

sah

| | : My ..

\ wood, from two inches to two inches and a half in diameter, is
( Carried in the hole, but at Rubiana the hole was kept stretched by
] Pieces of sago-palm leaf, or pandanus leaf, which were bent into

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

a hoop, and, by constantly exerting a pressure, tended to enlarge
the hole. A boy, whose photograph I took at Rubiana, had the
hole in his ears enlarged to a diameter of at least four inches.
They are excessively fond of and prize highly armlets made from
the shell of the giant clam (Tridacna gigas). A native chief,
whom I saw at Santa Anna with a remarkably fine pair, told me
he had given a boy for each. At Guadalcanar, Rubiana, and to
the westward they take rather the form of bangles, and as many
as eight or ten are frequently worn oneach arm. Large crescents

cut out of pearl-shell are frequently worn round the neck, and, —

especially on Malayta, frontlets of a white cowry. Perhaps, how-
ever, the ornament most highly prized is a necklace of dogs’ teeth.
A good necklace will consist of five hundred teeth, each one being
carefully bored and mounted with great ingenuity. As only two
teeth are available from each dog, it would require two hundred
and fifty dogs to make a necklace such as I refer to. On San
Cristoval, where most of the dogs’ teeth come from, I am told
that they extract the teeth from live dogs, burying them up to
the neck in the ground for the purpose. Porpoise teeth, cuscus
teeth, and the teeth of the flying fox are also used, but are not so
highly valued as dogs’ teeth.

The natives of Rubiana and New Georgia also wear a neck
ornament known by them as a buckea. This is a ring cut from
the solid shell of the Tridacna gigas, and suspended round the
neck by a sort of plaited red straw. The buckea is more highly
prized if it possesses a peculiar yellow stain, and I am told that

the best are made from shells that are found as fossils in the bush —

in regions of coral upheaval.
I must not forget to mention the strings of bead-money, gener-

ally about a fathom in length, which are made from shells at the —

expense of great labor. It is of two kinds, red and white, the red
being more highly prized by them.
Their weapons are bows and arrows, spears, clubs, tomahawks,

and defensive shields. But, while the natives of San Cristoval —
and Malayta use the arrow, spear, and tomahawk, I never saw on ~

Guadalcanar any arrows or bows except those used for bird-shoot-

ing. At Rubiana and New Georgia also arrows are not used, the

tomahawk and spear being preferred. But it is on Bougainville
that the finest specimens of arrows and spears are found. In fact,
the latter, barbed with the wing-bones of the flying fox, are
eagerly sought after and bought by the natives of the more east-
ern islands, the Alu natives paying two or three visits a year to
Bougainville for the purpose of buying spears, arrows, baskets,
and other things in the manufacture of which the Bougainville
natives excel.

Perhaps the thing that’ most strikes a stranger visiting the

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 485

group is the beauty of shape and decoration of the canoes. These
vary in size from the tiny thing just able to support a boy of
twelve, to the great head-hunting canoes, capable of carrying fifty
or sixty men. They are built of planks laboriously adzed down
from the solid tree, and are sewn together with a tough vegetable
fiber, the seams being calked with a sort of putty scraped from
the kernel of a nut (Parinariwm lauwrinum) that grows plentifully
in the bush. This vegetable putty sets perfectly hard in a few
hours and is quite water-tight. The canoes are ornamented ex-
teriorly at bow and stern with white cowry shells and inlaid with
pieces of pearl-shell cut into patterns, and at the bow end, just
above the water-line, is often a small human-shaped figure-head.
These canoes are propelled solely by paddles, being unadapted to
sailing, and, being long, narrow, and light for their size, they travel
at a great rate.

Except perhaps on Bougainville, the use of stone implements
has gone out among these natives, but while at Guadalcanar I ob-
tained more than two hundred stone adzes. These were brought
me by the natives, and were for the most part dug up by boys
upon the sites of old houses. I asked an old man to mount me
one upon a wooden handle in the correct way. The same form of
handle is still used, but a plane-iron is now employed instead of
the stone axe. With these they cut out their canoe-planks and
fashion the wooden bowls in which they serve their food.

The houses vary in shape somewhat in different parts of the
group, and in Florida and Fauro houses built on posts may be
seen. On Guadalcanar the eaves of the roof come right down to
the ground. The material is always the same, the leaf of the sago
palm, which makes a durable and dry roof. There is no floor but
the bare ground, but rough couches are made of palm-stems laid
side by side, and raised from a few inches to a couple of feet from
the ground. They are most uncomfortable to sleep upon, being
very hard and rough and invariably too short. A fireplace is
made in the center of the house, and the smoke finds its way
out through the door, or through the roof or sides of the house.
Strings of pigs’ jaw-bones, cuscus and flying-fox skulls, fishes’
bones, turtles’ heads, and sometimes human jaw-bones may be
seen strung on strings along the rafters as mementoes of former
feasts ; but the human heads, at least in the head-hunting districts,
are reserved for the canoe-houses. These are larger and better
built than the ordinary dwelling-houses, and are tambu (tabooed)
for women—i. e., a woman is not allowed to enter them, or indeed
to pass in front of them,

Both men and women take their parts in the gardens; felling
the trees and fencing against wild pigs being men’s work, while
the actual gardening—planting, weeding, and digging—is done by

VOL, Xxxv.—31

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the women. Having few wants, blest with a climate in which the
rudest methods of cultivation produce abundance of food for their
use, they ought to be a happy and contented race, and no doubt,
were security to life more assured, they would be. But a man
would as soon think of going to his garden of a morning without
his spear and tomahawk as an Englishman would of wearing his
hat in church. The greatest distinction a native can earn is to
have taken a life, and it matters not whether it is an old woman
surprised working in her yam-patch, or a man surprised and killed
in the bush, the glory is just as great. Such a thing as a square,
stand-up fight between equal numbers I never heard of. This
renders them suspicious in the presence of strangers; always
ready for treachery themselves, they are constantly suspecting it
in others. Having given them a bad character in their dealings
with one another, I must in justice say that my own relations with
them were throughout of the most friendly character.

The shark is held in high veneration among certain of these
natives, and notably upon the island of Savo. The Savo natives
say that their island was made by the shark, who carried the stones
there and planted yams and cocoanuts, and put upon it men and
women, and the bird known as the megapode. The megapodes
increased so rapidly that they began to make havoc by digging in
the yam-patches. The men went to the shark and asked him to
take the megapodes away. This was done, but now the men
missed the megapode’s eggs, which are a favorite article of food
with them. They accordingly went again to the shark and asked
him to bring the birds back, but to confine them to one place.
This request was also complied with. The result may be now
seen: the megapodes lay their eggs on two large open patches of
sandy ground, which are several acres in extent, and nowhere else
on the island. These laying-grounds are fenced off into small
divisions for different owners, and I am told that several thousands
a day are taken out of them. I myself bought eighteen eggs for
the value of three-halfpence when calling there.

The sharks at Savo grow to a great size and are extremely
bold. At the time of a child’s birth the mother decides whether
it belongs to the land or the water. If to the latter, it is thrown
into the sea at death, with all the property it may have accumu-
lated during life. If the mother declares it belongs to the land,
it is buried ashore, the property also being buried with it, which,
strange to say, is always found to have been stolen a few days
afterward by the devil.

These natives believe in the power of some of their number to
produce rain, while I met with a belief in the existence of a man
in the moon, which was related to me by a native of Aola, named
Muri Lau.

LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 487

I can not conclude my description of the natives and their cus-
toms without some reference to cannibalism and head-hunting. I
may state that very few white men have ever had the good for-
tune to see a cannibal feast, as the natives, knowing the detesta-
tion in which the practice is held by white men, always keep the
occurrence as quiet as possible. On one occasion only did I ever
see human flesh, and the owner assured me he was not going to
eat it. I mnever heard of cannibalism the whole (six months) time

_I was living at Aola on Guadalcanar, and the natives, in answer
to my inquiries, most strenuously denied the practice, but this, of
course, they would do. On San Cristoval it is said to be common,
and bodies are hawked about for sale from town to town, and
the same is the case on Malayta. The head-hunters of New Geor-
gia and the neighboring islands are also notorious cannibals, while
my own boy, Hogare, who was a native of the island of Buka,
confessed to me that the practice was common there. Not only
will the New Georgian natives eat the bodies of those killed in bat-
tle, or prisoners, but they will exhume the bodies of people re-
cently buried for their disgusting purpose.

Throughout the group one constantly sees human skulls hung
up either in or outside the houses, but it is from New Georgia and
the adjacent islands that head-hunting is carried on to its fullest
extent. Among these natives it appears to be a perfect passion.
No canoe-house can be completed and no canoe launched without a
head being obtained. They make long voyages in their large toma-
kos, or head-hunting canoes, for the purpose of securing heads,
the chief hunting-ground at the present time being the two islands
of Choiseul and Isabel, ninety to one hundred miles away, which,
however, are becoming somewhat “worked out.” The basest
treachery is often employed. They will at times visit a village as
friends, and, after staying for a day or two, at a given signal turn
upon their hosts, and either kill them or take them alive. Such a
case occurred while I was at Rubiana. At other times they will
surprise or cut off a party fishing on the reef, and no matter
whether they are men, women, or children, the heads count. The
heads, after being slightly smoked, are stuck up along the rafters
of the roof in the canoe-houses, and I have myself counted thir-
teen recent heads in a house at Sisieta. Occasionally the head-
hunters themselves meet with reverses; and while at Rubiana I
inquired the reason of some particularly fine cocoanut-trees hav-
ing been cut down; I was told that it was in consequence of the
death of a chief who was killed on a head-hunting expedition to
Isabel,

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

“SCIENTIFIC CHARITY.”
By A. G. WARNER, Px. D.

(ie 1844 C. C. Greville made this entry in his journal: “ We are
now overrun with philanthropy, and God only knows where
it will stop, or whither it will lead us!” When he wrote these
words he was appalled lest the malign influence of philanthropy
should avail to secure additional legislation for the protection of
women and children in the mines and factories of England.
During the first half of the present century the English phi-
lanthropists and the English economists joined issue squarely
upon two great questions, and the victor in one case was van-
quished in the other: the economists won in the fight for the
reform of the poor-laws, the philanthropists in the fight for fac-
tory legislation. Of course, no sharp line of distinction can be
drawn between the two classes thus labeled, but in the main it is
true that the apostles of self-sacrifice were on one side and the
apostles of self-interest on the other. Especially in the struggle
for factory legislation were the two classes distinct, and distinctly
antagonistic. Cobden doubted the sincerity of Shaftesbury, and
Shaftesbury rejected the reasoning of Cobden. Results have

indicated that
‘Each was partly in the right,

And both were in the wrong.”

While political economy was getting itself called the “dismal
science,” it was actually fighting the battles of the poor as well as
the rich; and while philanthropy was being charged with a mis-
chievous meddlesomeness, hurtful to the poor and fatal to the
industrial supremacy of England, it was, in truth, cutting the
tap-root of the Chartist agitation and re-establishing the founda-
tions of British industry. From these dual experiences of success
and failure in the attempted solution of social problems the
obvious conclusion has been that neither class of thinkers can be
regarded as infallible, while at the same time the conclusions of
neither can be considered valueless,

The conclusion is commonplace enough, but the unusual feat-
ure of the case is that both parties seem to have accepted it
entire. All are pretty well agreed that both sense and sentiment
are necessary to guide us properly along the devious paths of
politico-economic investigation. He who approaches a social
question from the side exclusively of the reason, or exclusively of
the emotions, is apt, like the blind man feeling of an elephant, to
mistake a part for the whole, and to err accordingly. In conse-
quence of a fuller appreciation of the necessity for the many-sided

“ SCIENTIFIC CHARITY.” 489

investigation of social questions, we have lately come to hear of a
“new political economy,” and very lately of a “new charity.”
The former is said to be less “dismal” and the latter more “ sci-
entific” than their respective progenitors, and it is hoped that a
mutual exchange of the surest conclusions and the best methods
in each will result in the improvement of both.

The title of this paper has been put in quotation-marks be-
cause it is believed by some that no such thing as “scientific
charity ” exists, and, when these two words are joined, that either
the adjective or the substantive or both must lose all natural sig-
nificance. They say that those interested in science and those in-
terested in charity have an equal right to complain of the phrase,
and that its use is only another instance of the confused thinking
that results from a tendency to count our sciences before they are
hatched, But right or wrong the term exists, and will serve as
well as another to stand for a certain phase of recent charitable
work. It has come to be much used by the members of the.
National Conference of Charities and Correction; and it seems;
unlikely that one more profanation of the word “science” can.
add much to the exasperation of those who contend for its more:
restricted application.

Social pathology is not an attractive study. The failure of the
unfit to survive forms the subject of the dreariest chapter in
social science. Indeed, it is so entirely dreary that it is seldom
written. Those calling themselves scientists have been very will-
ing to leave the care of defectives and incapables to the philan-.
thropists, and equally willing to complain of the latter for alleged.
bad management. Those interested in the new charity are en-
deavoring to devise such methods of work as will make benevo--
lence more certainly beneficent, and such methods of investigation
as will enable them to give at least an approximate answer to.
Greville’s question, “ Whither will philanthropy lead us?” Cer-
tainly in the past it has led to many quagmires, and much has
been and still more could be written on the subject of philanthropy
as a failure.

“We can have as many paupers as we will pay for.” The
truth of this somewhat frequently quoted statement one might
possibly reach by a study of his own inner consciousness.. Such
a study would show, probably, the truth of Emerson’s assertion
that “men are as lazy as they dare to be,” and thence, by deduct-
ive reasoning, we might prove the correctness of the conclusion
indicated. But the new political economy is inclined to ask that
@ priori reasoning should be re-enforced by reasoning from. ob-
| served facts. Now, fortunately, the truth we are trying to estab-
_ lish is capable of demonstration by experiment. The apparatus

| needed is very simple, and consists merely of a pocketful of five-
VOL, Xxxv.—31*

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

cent pieces. Provided with these, go to any crowded thorough-
fare, and give them out to the children or others that ask for help
—perhaps under pretense of peddling. Notice how the number
of askers multiplies—how older children and better-dressed chil-
dren take part in the asking—and you will realize that, if your
pocket were big enough, you could pauperize half the city. The
same experiment may be tried by simply giving a little money to
each one that chooses to ring your door-bell and ask for it. It
may almost be considered fortunate that a great nation was so
unfortunate as to try just such experiments on a gigantic scale.
Walker thus summarizes the influence of English outdoor poor
relief while the Gilbert Act was in force: “The disposition to
labor was cut up by the roots; all restraints upon an increase of
population disappeared under a premium upon births; self-respect
and social decency vanished before a money-premium on bas-
tardy.” Cities in our own country—notably Brooklyn and Phila-
delphia—have found that, when public outdoor relief, given
prodigally for a long series of years, was cut short off, the number
of indoor poor actually decreased, as also the demands upon the
private charities of the cities, and this in the face of an increasing
population.

It is characteristic of the new or scientific charity as opposed
to purely emotional philanthropy that it regards poverty as an
evil to be assailed in its causes. It does not merely pity poverty,
but studies it. It believes that a doctor might as well give pills —
without a diagnosis, as a benevolent man give alms without an
investigation. It insists that “hell is paved with good inten- —
tions,” and that the philanthropist must be careful as well as
kindly.

Mr. Smiley, in his recent article in “The Popular Science
Monthly” on “ Altruism economically considered,” says but lit-—
tle of this more rational phase of charitable work. The evils he
condemns are very evil, but others are attacking them as vigor-
ously as himself, and possibly along lines of greater strategic
advantage. To prosecute existing charitable methods at the bar
of true charity is apt to have more practical results than to ar-
raign the same culprits at the bar of political economy.

Most of the workers in the new charity in this country have
entered more or less fully into the movement for what is known
as “charity organization.” Speaking broadly, the purpose of this
movement is to make the benevolent work of our large cities
more systematic and more intelligent. The plans of those inter-
ested in the movement are already sufficiently well realized, so
that each year they seek out, analyze, classify, and record a vast
number of facts regarding the poor and poor-relief in the princi- —
pal cities of the country. An examination of some of the statis- —

|

]

i

“ SCIENTIFIC CHARITY.” 491

tics already collated by them will best serve to indicate their
methods and the value of their work.

Charity organization societies have been formed in cities
embracing about one seventh of the entire population of the
United States. Thirty-four of them, representing cities contain-
ing one eighth of the population of the country and probably one
sixth of its pauperism, reported to the fourteenth National Con-
ference of Charities and Correction, which met at Omaha in Sep-
tember, 1887. From careful estimates it is supposed that these

- cities contained about 456,000 paupers. Over 62 per cent of this

number actually came under the cognizance of the charity or-
ganization societies of the cities indicated—that is, they dealt
with 57,000 families, containing about 285,000 persons. Not all of
the societies made full reports, or they made them in such a form
that the facts contained were not easily comparable with those re-
ported by the others. Twenty-five societies, however, agreed in
classifying under four heads the cases that came before each,
These societies made a careful analysis of nearly 28,000 cases, in-
cluding something over 100,000 persons. The result by percent-
ages of the classification above referred to was as follows:

Should have continuous relief... ...........ce cess eee e ones 10:3 per cent,
a NCTMPOVATYP Oct recto tsecre:aicielsice ave cwrele eereeries 26'6)

Needing work rather than relief...............00008. sande 40raar oS

Unworthy of relief............... tania sity aired apie aed ets Dies

Charles D. Kellogg, who made the report to the National Con-
ference, goes on to say: “ For several years there has been a very
close correspondence of published experience between Boston and
New York, and in these cities the percentage of those needing
work rather than relief has been 53°4, and of the unworthy, 15°8.
... On the other hand, there is a notable unity of opinion that
only from 31 to 37 per cent, or, say, one third of the cases actu-
ally treated, were in need of that material assistance for which
no offices of friendly counsel or restraint could compensate. The
logical application of this generalization to the whole country
is that two thirds of its real or simulated destitution could be
wiped out by a more perfect adjustment of the supply and de-
mand for labor and a more vigorous and enlightened police ad-
ministration. Subsequent and wider experience may modify
this conclusion, but hardly can wholly overturn it; and, while it
stands, it is of the highest significance in the solution of the poor ~
problem.” Not only are these deductions of “the highest signifi-
cance in the solution of the poor problem,” but they contain im-
portant suggestions for the philanthropist’s should-be friend, the
student of political economy.

But it was felt by the charity organizationists that a still more

492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

penetrating analysis was needed, and at the meeting of the six-
teenth National Conference, where about forty representatives of
this branch of philanthropic work were present, a schedule was
adopted for the collation of more elaborate and, it is hoped, more
useful statistics. This schedule, except for a few minor altera-
tions and additions, is the same as the one elaborated and used
by the Buffalo society. Asan example of the manner in which
the figures will tell their story when collated, we may glance at
some of the results reached by the Buffalo society through a very
careful study of 1,407 families, including 5,388 persons. The chief
cause of destitution was adjudged to be lack of employment in
263 cases, sickness in 326, no male support in 373, intemperance in
124, physical defects in 113, insufficient earnings in 87, accidents
in 45, imprisonment of bread-winner in 35, shiftlessness in 26, and
insanity in 15,

The personal equation must enter very largely into the collec-
tion of such statistics. For instance,it might be inferred a priori,
from the foregoing figures, that those who were responsible for
the decisions are not rabid “temperance people” nor prohibition-
ists. Such is, indeed, the fact; but, at the same time, it must be
said that in Boston, and among workers inclined to give intem-
perance its full meed of discredit as a cause of poverty, a careful
statistical analysis of this character convinced them that it was
the chief cause in only about half the cases. Though statistics of
this nature may not be the firmest ground to tread upon, they yet
afford better footing than the quicksands of hap-hazard opinion.*

In some matters, also, the facts are more tangible, and the
results, therefore, more reliable. For instance, it has for some
time been the opinion of practical workers that a considerable
portion of the most hopeless poverty is caused by the decay of the
ties of the family. It is found that, in the 1,407 families reported
on in Buffalo, there were, in fact, 183 deserted wives. Where, as
in this case, investigation merely confirms a previous opinion, it
is still of the greatest use, because it enables the workers to make
a more cogent appeal for remedial legislation.

Recently, more than in the immediate present, it was the fash-
ion to talk as though a common-school education was the one
thing needful to cure all social ills, and to bring down upon us an
imminent millennium, The reformers of that time went to battle
with a spelling-book shield that might have borne the device of
a schoolmaster rampant. In such a connection it is interesting
to notice that in the 1,407 destitute families investigated in Buffalo
it was found that the respective heads of 1,019 of them could both

* See an article by the present writer, “Notes on the Statistical Determination of the

Causes of Poverty,” in the “Publications of the American Statistical Association,” March,
1889. ,

“ SCIENTIFIC CHARITY.” 493

read and write, that 49 others could read but not write, and that
only 339, or twenty-four per cent, were wholly illiterate.

It will be seen from the foregoing examples that the field of
investigation upon which the charity organizationists have entered
is a large and important one. A good deal might be said in the
way of criticism, especially of the analysis of the causes of pov-
erty, but it is rather the purpose of this paper to describe than to
criticise. The facts it is aimed to accumulate are of a character
that could not be got by public officials without very great expense,
since they take account of the cases of many dependants whose
names never appear on the records of public poor-relief.

Besides the statistics, which all the societies will work together
to accumulate, different societies have undertaken elaborate spe-
cial investigations into the heredity of pauperism and similar
topics. Oscar C. McCulloch, at the last National Conference, read
a paper entitled “The Children of Ishmael: a Study in Social
Degradation,” which was based upon such an investigation made
by the society in Indianapolis. It gave the hideous story of thirty
interrelated families, embracing two hundred and seventy persons,
nearly all of whom belong to the pauper and criminal classes, as
did their ancestors before them. The study resembles that which
Dugdale made of the Juke family, by which it was suggested;
but it embraces a larger number of families formerly distinct.

The workers in the new charity are active propagandists,
They insist continually upon the evils of indiscriminate giving.
They assail the public authorities with facts and figures, and the
churches with biblical quotations. They assure the latter that
bread indiscriminately given is cast not “upon the waters,” but
into the bottomless pit—that it is “the bread by which men die.”
They establish in each city an office to serve as a clearing-house
of charities, and so endeavor to prevent the overlapping of the
relief given by different agencies. Their general view of the situa-
tion enables them to devise new and needed forms of benevolence,
and to ascertain what additional legislation can be really helpful.

It is very satisfactory when the conclusions of one set of think-
ers coincide with the conclusions of others who have approached
the same subject from a different standpoint. When, therefore,
the philanthropist, trying to think and work in accordance with
the principles of enlightened self-sacrifice, finds himself agreeing
in theory and practice with the economist whose guiding star has
been “enlightened self-interest,’ there is reason to congratulate

| them both. In speaking in this manner, we of course ignore the
| philosophical subtlety by which it is said to be proved that all
( our actions must necessarily have their origin in motives of self-
|i interest. Assuming the proof of this to be perfect, it is yet to be
|: said that the different forms in which self-interest manifests itself

494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have been so differentiated that we may rightly separate and clas-
sify them. The man who is convinced that all organic life came
from a single form is yet justified in practical—e. g., gastronomi-
cal—affairs in making a distinction between meats and vegeta-
bles, or even between beefsteak and mutton. So, there is a prac-
tical if not a philosophical difference between the motives that
guide men in stock speculations and those that guide them in the
founding of hospitals. To reach charity by the way of self-inter-
est is following too roundabout a road for the average man or
the average thinker, and many there be that have failed most
sadly in the attempt.

It is therefore exceedingly fortunate that the philanthropists
seem likely to work out their own salvation from mischief-mak-
ing by studying with scientific care the lessons that their own
experience teaches. Such a course not only gives valuable facili-
ties for checking the conclusions of those who have thought and
worked along other lines, but it secures the acceptance by those
charitably inclined of correct ideas much more readily than could
any amount of outside pressure. The dictates of wisdom are
formulated in language to which they are accustomed, and the
motives to which appeal is made are those to which they have
taught themselves obedience. Not that acceptance of the new
ideas is easy under any circumstances for those trained in the
older methods. It can only be said that it is a trifle less difficult
to rout this variety of old fogyism by attacking from within rather
than from without.

But there is, happily, an increasing number of those who ap-
preciate the fact that the introduction of scientific methods into

charitable work will not hamper charity but aid it; that the

resulting restrictions that may be placed upon us will merely
guide our sympathies, and not thwart them. The restraints that
will be put upon benevolence will be merely to prevent its waste
and insure its usefulness—“ restriction for the purpose of expan-
sion.” Scientific methods carefully used for such purposes will
not make the charity of the future cold-blooded and calculating,
but will prevent it from being foiled, defeated, and turned back
from its high purposes by its own gratuitous blunders; they will
render that charity helpful, constructive, progressive, and make

it possible that love of:neighbor may “ shape with growing sway

the growing life of man.”

Tur Rey. Dr. Dallinger, who is also an eminent student of microscopic life,
remarked in a recent lecture at Birmingham, England, that since the human mind
had given itself fearlessly and without bias to the study of the phenomena, evolu-
tion had become no longer a bugbear, and might be looked upon, even by the
most timid theologian, as the actual method of creation.

THE INFLUENCE OF RACH IN HISTORY. 495

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE IN HISTORY.*
By M. GUSTAVE LE BON.

ISTORICAL studies have undergone a great transformation

in our days. Almost exclusively literary a few years ago,
they are tending at this time to become almost as exclusively sci-
entific. It is not the recent progress of archeology alone that has
caused a remodeling of our knowledge and our ideas in history.
The discoveries in the physical and natural sciences have had a
still greater effect upon them ; and it is by means of these discov-
eries that the notion of natural causes is entering into history
more and more, and that we are habituating ourselves to consider
historical phenomena as subject to laws as invariable as those
that control the course of the stars and the transformations of
bodies. The part which all the ancient historians attributed to
Providence or to chance, is now no longer attributed to anything
but natural laws, as entirely removed from chance as from the
will of the gods.

The new ideas which are entering into history are due chiefly
to the progress of natural science. Making more and more evident
the preponderant influence of the past on the evolution of beings,
it teaches us that we must first study the past in societies to com-
prehend their present condition and foresee their future. In the
same way that the naturalist now finds the explanation of beings
in the study of their ancestral forms, the philosopher who wishes
to comprehend the genesis of our ideas and institutions should
examine primitive usages. Thus regarded, history, the interest of
which might seem but slight so long as it is limited to the enumer-
ation of dynasties and battles, is acquiring an immense significance.

The method which the modern man of science applies to his-
tory to-day is identical with that which the naturalist applies in
his laboratory. A society can be regarded as an organism in pro-
cess of development. There is a social embryology as there are
an animal and a vegetable embryology, and the laws of evolu-

_ tion that govern them all are of the same order. Social embry-
ology, or the study of civilizations, shows us the series of ad-
vances by which the marvelous and complicated mechanism of
refined societies has issued from the savage condition in which
the first men long lived ; how our thoughts, feelings, institutions,

| and creeds had their roots in the primal ages of mankind. Instead
| of, as formerly, seeing a gulf between the peoples who ate their
| aged parents and those who lavish cares upon them in their old
| age and weep at their tombs; between those who look upon their

* From the author’s work, “Les Premiéres Civilisations,” now appearing in parts,

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

women as lower animals belonging to all the members of the tribe,
and those who have made them the object of a chivalrous cult;
between those who expose their malformed children to perish,
and those who lodge their idiots and incurables in magnificent
hospitals—we trace out the close bonds which connect, through
the ages, the most different thoughts, institutions, and creeds. We
realize that present civilizations have been derived from past ciy-
ilizations, and contain in the germ all the civilizations to come.
The evolution of thoughts, religions, industries, and art—in short,
of all the elements that enter into the constitution of a civiliza-
tion—is as regular and inevitable as that of the different forms of
an animal series. |

The factors that determine the birth and development of the
constituent elements of a civilization are as numerous as those
which control the development of a living being. The study of
them has as yet hardly begun; but the influence of some of them
can be brought into evidence. One of the most important among
these factors is race—that is, the aggregation of the physical,
moral, and mental traits that characterize a people.

When human races appear in history they have generally
already acquired marked characteristics, which afterward under-
go only very slow transformations. The oldest Egyptian bas-
reliefs, on which are depicted the various types of the peoples
with whom the Pharaohs had to do, are proof that our present
grand characterizations of races could have been applied even
then, in the dawn of history.

The various human races had formed themselves during the
hundreds of thousands of years that preceded historical times.
They were so formed, no doubt, like all the animal species, by
means of slow changes produced by variability of the environ-
ment, limited by selection and enforced by heredity. The first
step toward understanding the history of a people and the origin
of their institutions, moral ideas, and creeds, is to study their
mental constitution. It is vain to ask from anatomical charac-
teristics, as has been done for a long time, for the means of
differentiating races. Psychology alone permits a precise defi-
nition of racial distinctions. It shows us that peoples of similar
mental constitution will have similar fates when placed in like
circumstances, however they may differ in external aspect. In this
way we have been able to make a rational comparison between
the modern English and the ancient Romans. There exists, in .
fact, an evident mental relationship between these two peoples;
the same indomitable energy of character, the same respect for
their institutions, the same capacity for conquering people and
for holding colonies. But, regarding the external type, there is a
complete want of resemblance between the two peoples.

THE INFLUENCE OF RACH IN HISTORY. 497

Two fundamental psychological elements to be always studied
among any people are character and intelligence. Character is
infinitely more important to the success of an individual or a race
than intelligence. Rome, in her decline, certainly possessed more
superior minds than the Rome of the earlier ages of the republic.
Brilliant artists, eloquent rhetoricians, and graceful writers ap-
peared then by the hundred. But she was lacking in men of
manly and energetic character, who may perhaps have been care-
less of the refinements of art, but were very careful of the power
of the city whose grandeur they had founded. When it had lost
all of these, Rome had to give way to peoples much less intelligent
but more energetic. The conquest of the ancient, refined, and let-
tered Greeco-Latin world by tribes of semi-barbarous Arabs con-
stitutes another example of the same kind. History is full of such.

While character thus plays the chief part in the historical
development of a people, it is intelligence that prevails in deter-
mining their civilization ; but it must be creative, and not assimi-
lative only. Peoples having only an assimilative intelligence, like
the Phoenicians of old and the Mongolians and the Russians of the
present time, are capable of appropriating more or less of foreign
civilization, but can not make civilization advance. Peoples
endowed with a certain intelligence, like the Greeks in antiquity
and the Arabs in the middle ages, have been the factors of all the
general progress by which mankind has profited.

The most superficial observation soon demonstrates that the
several individuals composing a race differ from one another in
physical aspect as well as in moral and mental constitution ; but
a little more attentive observation will show that under these
apparent diversities is hidden a mass of characteristics common
to all the individuals of the race, the aggregation of which con-
stitutes what has justly been named the national character of
a people. When we speak of an Englishman, a Japanese, or a
negro, we at once attribute to him—and without hardly ever being
much mistaken—a collection of general traits which are a kind of
precise condensation of the characteristics of his race. These na-
tional characteristics, created among homogeneous peoples by the
long-continued influences of the same mediums, the same insti-
tutions, and the same creeds, play a fundamental, though invis-
ible, part in the life of peoples.

In human races, as in animal species, some 5 offer many varie-
ties, others but few. The fewer varieties a race presents—or the
less they diverge from a mean type—the more homogeneous it is,
Such, for example, is the modern English race, in which the
ancient Briton, the Saxon, and the Norman have been effaced to
form a wholly new and quite distinct type. If, on the contrary,
the groups have been juxtaposed without having been sufficiently

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mixed, the race continues heterogeneous, and the mean type be-
comes more difficult to establish, because the common traits that
compose it are less numerous. It is easy to comprehend that the
more homogeneous a race is, the stronger it will be, and the more
called upon to march rapidly in the way of progress. When, on
the contrary, thoughts, traditions, creeds, and interests remain
separated, dissensions will be frequent, and progress always slow
and often completely hindered.

Wesee by this how important to the explanation of the history
of a people is the study of its composition. We see also that the
word “people” can not be in any case considered synonymous with
“race.” An empire, a people, or a state is a more or less consider-
able number of men united by the same political or geographical
necessities, and subjected to the same institutions and laws.
These men may belong to the same race, but they may equally
belong to different races. If the races are too dissimilar, no
fusion is possible. They may, under necessity, live side by side,
like Hindus subject to Europeans, but we must not think of giv-
ing them common institutions. All great empires uniting dis-
similar peoples are created only by force, and are condemned to
perish by violence. Those only can endure which are formed
slowly by the gradual mixture of races differing but little, con-
tinually crossing with one another, living on the same soil, sub-
ject to the action of the same climate, and having the same insti-
tutions and creeds. These different races may thus, after a few
centuries, form a new homogeneous race.*

As the world grew old, the races gradually became more
stable, and their transformations by mixture rarer. In prehis-
torical times, when man’s hereditary past was not so long, when
he had neither well-fixed institutions nor well-assured conditions .
of existence, mediums had a more profound action upon him
than now. Civilization has permitted man to subtract himself,
to a large extent, from the influence of the medium, but not from
that of his past. As mankind grows older, the weight of heredity
grows heavier. For heredity to act in the mixture of races, it is
necessary that one of the races shall not be too inferior to the
other in numbers, and that their physical and mental constitu-
tions shall not be too different.

The first of these conditions is fundamental. When two dif
ferent races are brought together, the more numerous one absorbs
the other. In a black population, a few families of whites will

* The mechanism of this fusion of the different elements of a race is rarely observed.
I, however, witnessed it once, during my travels, among a mountaineer population isolated
in the interior of Galicia, at the foot of the Tatras Mountains. The memoir in which
I recorded my observations appeared in the “Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de
Paris” (1888).

THE INFLUENCE OF RACH IN HISTORY. 499

disappear without leaving any traces. Such has been the lot of
all conquering peoples which, though strong in arms, have been
weak in numbers. Those only have escaped obliteration which,
like the Aryans in India, formerly, and the English, also in India,
to-day, have observed a rigid system of castes, preventing the
mixture of conquerors and conquered. Except where the rule of
caste has operated, the general result has been to see the conquer-
ing people absorbed, after a few generations, by the conquered.
It has not disappeared, however, without having left traces of its
work in civilization behind it. Egypt, conquered by the Arabs,
quickly absorbed its conquerors; but they left the most impor-
tant elements of civilization—religion, language, and arts—there.
A like phenomenon took place in Europe among the peoples
called Latin. The French, Italians, and Spaniards have, in real-
ity, no traces of Latin blood in their veins; but the institutions of
the Romans were so strong, their organization was so perfect,
their influence in civilization so great, that the countries occupied
by them for centuries have remained Latin in language, institu-
tions, and peculiar genius.

It is not, however, by reason of its strength that one people
imposes its civilization upon another; very often the conquered
people leads the conquerors in this line. The Franks finally tri-
umphed over the Gallo-Roman society, but they were in a short
time morally conquered by it. They were also physically over-
come, for they had plunged into a population more numerous
than themselves. This conquest of the conquerors by the con-
quered is to be seen in a still higher degree among the Mussulman
peoples. It was precisely when the political power of the Arabs
had wholly disappeared, that their religion, language, and arts
were spread most extensively.

But when races too dissimilar are brought in contact by the
chance of invasions and conquest, fusion is impossible by any
force, and the only result that can be produced is the extermina-
tion of the weaker race. This disappearance of the inferior peo-
ple in the face of a superior race does not always take place by
means of a systematic and sanguinary extermination; the simple
action of presence, to use a chemical term, is sufficient to bring
on destruction. When the superior people has established itself
in a barbarous country, with its complicated mode of life and its
numerous means of subsistence, it monopolizes and masters the
living forces of the country much more easily and speedily than
the former occupants. The latter, formerly masters of all the re-
sources of the land, come at last to only toilsomely gleaning what
their conquerors have left.

When two different races become mingled, notwithstanding a

| great inequality of civilization, the result is disastrous rather to

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the inferior than to the superior race. It soon disappears, and
gives place to a race which may represent, in a mental respect, a
kind of mean between the two races, but morally is inferior to
either of them. Half-breeds have never made a society advance;
the part they have played has been to degrade the civilizations
of which they have by chance been the heirs. The disastrous re-
sults of such mixtures of superior races with inferior were clearly
perceived by the most ancient civilized peoples. This was doubt-
less the origin of that rule of castes, preventing unions between
persons of different races, which we find in many ancient societies.
Without it, man would never have risen above the dawn of civili-
zation.

But, while the mixture of races which have reached very un-
equal stages of evolution is always disastrous, the result is other-
wise when these races, although still possessing different qualities,
have arrived at nearly the same period of development. Their
qualities can then very usefully complement one another, The
republic of the United States has been formed by precisely such a
mixture of races, already elevated in civilization and having
qualities complementary to one another. The people owes its
astonishing vigor to the fact not only that it is constituted of
a mixture of elements—English, Irish, French, German, etce.—
already highly developed, but also that the individuals through
whom the crossing was effected were themselves the results of a
selection from among the most active and vigorous members of
those nations.

The general laws which we have just summarized can of them-
selves furnish the explanation of a large number of historical
events. They show, for example, why one conquest was the origin
of a brilliant civilization, and why another introduced an era of
disorder and anarchy ; why the Oriental has always easily imposed
his yoke and his customs upon Orientals whose mental constitu-
tion was like his own; and why struggles between Orientals and
Westerners have been so ferocious, and usually terminated in piti-
less massacres of the conquered. They likewise tell us why certain
peoples have been colonizers, and how they have been able, natu-
rally, if they were of the race of the conquered, or by respecting
their customs and creeds if they were of a different stock, to main-
tain their authority over distant nations.

A question has arisen as to whether the steady advance of man
tends to equalize races, or to differentiate them more and more.
To it we have to answer that the upper level of civilization is
always ascending; but by this fact itself, and since there are
always nations at the lowest step, the gulf between them and the
higher races is constantly growing deeper. There is progress, it
is true, even in the most backward groups. But the law of this

,

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THE INFLUENCE OF RACE IN HISTORY. 501

progress gives it an accelerated march as it advances. The supe-
rior races are now developing themselves by giant steps, while the
others still demand the long ages which our ancestors traversed
in order to reach the point where we are now. And when the in-
ferior races reach that point, where shall we be? Farther from
them, without doubt, than we are now, unless we shall have dis-
appeared. The evident conclusion then is, that as human races
become civilized they tend to greater differentiation rather than
to an approach to equality. Civilization not being able to act
equally on unequal intelligences, and the most developed neces-
sarily profiting more than those who are less so, it is easy to see
that the difference between them will increase considerably in
each generation.* It increases all the more because the division
of labor, condemning the lower strata to a uniform and identical
work, tends to destroy all intelligence in them. The engineer of
our days, who composes a new machine, needs much more intelli-
gence than the engineer of the last century ; but the modern work-
man requires much less intelligence to make the detached piece of
a watch, which he will keep on making all his life, than his ances-
tors had to have to make the whole watch.

These considerations do not rest on theoretical reasonings
alone. We some time ago fortified them also by anatomical argu-
ments. Studies of the skulls of human races have shown us that
while among savages the heads of different individuals vary but
little in their dimensions, the differences in our civilized societies
are formidable. From the upper to the lower ranks of society
the anatomical gulf is as immense as the psychological gulf, and
the advance of civilization is constantly making it wider. Since,
then, the differences among men of the same race become more
and more extended as the race rises in civilization, we conclude
that the higher the civilization the more considerable will be the
intellectual diversities among individuals of the race. No doubt
the mean level will also rise.+

* Theoretically, the differentiation between individuals should follow a kind of geomet-
rical progression, and consequently accentuate itself with extreme rapidity. It is, however,
less rapid than the theory indicates. The reason of it doubtless lies in the observed fact
that the families of superior men—scientific and literary men, artists, statesmen, ete.—sel-
dom endure. Their descendants disappear rapidly by degeneration, or at least soon return
to the crowd. There seems to be a mysterious law constantly tending to eliminate or re-
duce to the mean intellectual type of a race all the families which depart very greatly from
it, This is so, perhaps, because a superiority in one direction has to be acquired at the
cost of an inferiority, and consequently a kind of degeneracy, in another. <A great man is
most frequently an ill-balanced man; and cerebral unbalancing, however little accentuated
it may be, is as hard to perpetuate by reproducticn as an anatomical monstrosity. Societies
also seem condemned, like individuals, not to pass a certain level.

+ Most of the thoughts embodied in this article, especially the theory of the progressive
differentiation of races, individuals, and the sexes with the advance of civilization, are the

502 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The study of all civilizations proves, in fact, that all progress
has been accomplished by a small number of the higher minds.
The mass has done nothing more than profit by the advance; it
does not even like to see it extended, and the greatest thinkers or
inventors have often been martyrs. Yet all the generations, the
whole past of a race, bloom out in these fine geniuses. They do
not appear by chance or miracle, but represent a long synthesis,
To favor their birth and growth is to favor the birth of a prog-
ress by which all mankind will be benefited. If we should allow
ourselves to be blinded by our dreams of universal equality, we
should ourselves be the first victims of it. Equality can only
exist in inferiority. To bring about a reign of equality in the
world, it would be necessary gradually to pull all that gives value
to a race down to the level of what in it is lowest. It would re-
quire ages to raise the intellectual level of the lowest peasants
up to that of the genius of a Lavoisier, while a second and the
stroke of the guillotine is sufficient to destroy such a brain. But
while the part of superior men in the development of a civiliza-
tion is considerable, it is not quite what it is generally believed to
be. Their action, I repeat, consists in synthetizing all the efforts
of a race; their discoveries are always the result of a long series
of prior discoveries; they build an edifice with stones which
others have previously hewn. Historians fancy they must couple
the name of aman with every invention; yet, among the great
inventions which have transformed the world, like those of print-
ing, gunpowder, and electric telegraphy, there is not one of which
it can be said that it was created by a single man.

Of similar character is the part which great statesmen have
played. They could without doubt destroy a society or disturb its
evolution, but it is not given to them to change its course. The
genius of a Cromwell or a Napoleon could not perform such a
task. Great conquerors might destroy cities, men, and empires
by sword and fire, as a child could burn a museum filled with
treasures of art, but this destructive power should not subject us

to illusions respecting the grandeur of their achievements. The

work of great political men is durable only when, like Cesar or
Richelieu, they direct their efforts according to the demands of

result of my own researches. The reader who may be interested in the subject will find
them developed in the following works, or memoirs, which have been published at different
times: ‘‘ Recherches anatomiques et mathématiques sur les Lois des Variations du Volume
du Crane” (cowronné by the Institute and by the Anthropological Society of Paris);
“Etude de 42 Cranes d’Hommes célébres de la Collection du Muséum de Paris” (Bulletin
of the Anthropological Society of Paris); “L’Homme et les Sociétés, leurs Origines et leur
Histoire,” vol. ii; “De Moscou aux Monts Tatras, Etude sur la Formation d’une Race”
(Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Paris); “L’ Anthropologie actuel et Etude des
Races” (“Revue Scientifique”); “La Psychologie comme Elément de Classification des
Individus et des Races” (“Revue Philosophique”’),

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE IN HISTORY. 503

the moment; the true cause of their success is, then, generally
long anterior to themselves. The really great men in politics are
those who anticipate the demands that are going to arise, the
events for which the past has prepared, and point out the way to
be followed. They, also, like the great inventors, synthetize the
results of a long previous work.

Of what, in the eye of philosophy, is history, as the books tell
it, composed, except of the long revital of the struggles endured
by men to create an ideal, adore it, and then destroy it? And
have such ideals any more value in the eyes of pure science than
the mirage of the desert ? There have been, however, great enthu-
siasts, creators of such mirages, who have profoundly transformed
the world. They still from their tombs hold the minds of multi-
tudes under the sway of their thoughts. While not mistaking
the significance of their achievements, let us not forget that they
would not have succeeded in accomplishing what they did if they
had not unconsciously incarnated and expressed the dominant
ideal of their race and their time.

It is, in fact, ideas, and consequently those who incarnate
them, that lead the world. They rise at first under vague forms,
and float in the air, gradually changing their aspect, till some
day they appear under the form of a great man or a great act. It
is of little account, as determining the force with which they shall
act, whether they are true or false. History teaches us that the
most chimerical illusions have excited more enthusiasm among
men than the best demonstrated truths. Such illusions are only
shadows, but nevertheless have to be respected. Through them
our fathers were hopeful, and in their heroic and heedless course
they have brought us out of barbarism and led us to the point
where we stand to-day. Mankind has expended most of its efforts,
not in the pursuit of truth, but of error. It has not been able to
reach the chimerical aims it was pursuing; but in pursuing them
it has realized a progress that it was not seeking.—Translated for
the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.

Mr. Garprner OC. Hussarp shows a good record, in his presidential address to
the American Geographical Society, of American contributions to the extension of
geographical knowledge. Our country ‘‘has contributed its quota of martyrs in
the frozen North, and has led the way into the torrid regions of Africa.” It has
laid the foundations of the new science of the geography of the sea, by the dis-
coveries of its explorers in ocean currents, the topography of the sea-bottoms, and
deep-sea life, in which Americans were first to engage. “The exploring vessels of
our Fish Commission have discovered in the deep sea, in one single season, more
forms of life than were found by the Challenger Expedition in a three years’
cruise.” We have also led the way in founding the “geography of the air,” or

| the science of storms, etc., and are still keeping at the front.

504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE STONE AGE IN HEATHEN SWEDEN.
By W. H. LARRABEE.

Qx= of the peculiar features of modern historical study is that
it is to a very large extent dependent upon the examination
of the monuments which the people of the past have left and the
articles of use and ornament that are found among their ruins.
When the nations constituting objects of research were civilized
and had writing, asin Egypt and Mesopotamia, the information
afforded by these relics is extremely valuable, and furnishes rec-
ords of events and illustrations of the life of the peoples more
definite and accurate than can be obtained from books. The ac-
counts and pictures they bear were a part of the contemporary
life, and have such a relation to written history as in the eye of
law courts the evidence of the res gesta has to a minute made up
after the event. With peoples who had not writing and arts, the
relics give hardly any evidence respecting events, and only scanty
and incoherent testimony of the conditions of their life. The fur-
ther back we go in the investigation the less satisfactory does the
knowledge imparted by them become. But they are all that we
have by which to inform ourselves respecting the life of primi-
tive man.

Relics of human life antedating all written monuments have
been found in nearly all countries where the search has been car-
ried on by excavation, and often occur superficially where they
can be seen without particular search. The investigation of such
relics has been made most systematically in the Scandinavian
countries, and it was there that the division of prehistoric times
into three periods was first made. Thus in Sweden the use of iron
was universal in the ninth century A.D., and had been so fora
long time. Investigation of the antiquities of the country has
shown that previous to the Iron age there was another long time
when iron was not known, and weapons and tools were made of
bronze; and that before the beginning of the “ Bronze age” the
country had been inhabited by people who had not the use of
metals, and were obliged to employ such materials as stone, horn,
bone, and wood. This was the “Stone age.” We can conceive,
says the Rev. F. Woods, how incomplete is the evidence respect-
ing the primitive life afforded by these relics of stone and bronze,
by reflecting that while furniture, stuffs, and clothes made out
of such perishable materials as wood, bone, leather, cloth, etc.,
formed incomparably the greater part of the belongings of the
heathen Northmen, it is “only by an exceptional conjunction of
specially favorable conditions” that such materials have been
able to survive.

Ri? B

THE STONE AGH IN HEATHEN SWEDEN. 505

The relics of the Stone age in Sweden, and incidentally in Scan-
dinavia generally, are described, and the testimony they give to the
kind of life the people lived is set forth in the first part of Dr.
Oscar Montelius’s “ Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times”
(London and New York, Macmillan & Co.), from which, and the
Rev. F. Woods’s intro-
duction, the facts and
illustrations in this ar-
ticle are derived.

Our only clew to the
antiquity of human
settlement in Scandi-
navia is derived from
the evidence afforded a :
by certain finds of a Fie. 1.—HAMMERING-PEBBLE. Biase ae AR-
habitation of some
southern parts of the region by a people of the Stone age at a time
when firs were still the prevailing trees there. Since then the for-
ests of fir-trees have died out and made way for great forests of
oaks, “which covered the land till they in their turn succumbed
to the now prevailing beech woods.”

Fig. 3.—LUNATE FLiInt Saw.

Traces of population at a somewhat later but still very early
| date are found in the “kitchen-middens ”—enormous collections
_ of shells, with bones, bearing marks of having been. eaten from,

and remains of fireplaces and instruments—which are scattered
| along the sea-coasts.

Fic. 4.—POLISHED GRINDSTONE, WORN BY Use.

The tools with which the Northmen during the Stone age
iproduced their wooden works, and which are found at their old
sresorts, were mainly knives, saws, borers, chisels, and axes or
shatchets. They were made out of flint, chipped into shape by

VOL, XXxV.—32

506 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stone hammers, of which many specimens have been found.
Sometimes hollows were cut or ground out in the hammering-
pebbles (Fig. 1), in order to secure a firmer grip for the fingers,
The manner in which such a peb-
ble could be used for the work
was demonstrated to an English-
man some time ago by an Indian
arrow-maker in California. The
long and narrow barbs in the fine
arrow-heads (Fig. 2) and saw-
teeth (Fig. 3) were obtained
probably by the pressure of a
bone tool, such as is still used
by some American tribes. Holes
Fic. 5.—AmBrr Brap. Fie. 6.—Bonr Fisa- Were bored, where needed, by

. oe twirling a stick, hard pressed
upon, against the spot where the perforation was tobe. It took a
long time, but primitive men had time. Most of the tools were
only chipped, while others were polished or ground. The grind-

stone was usually a suitable block of sandstone, or else a thick ~

piece of the same material. One of these pieces, which has been

worn down in the middle by use, is represented by Fig. 4. Handles,
if the instruments were provided with them, were inserted into

Fig. 7.—DoLMEN AT HAGA, ON THE ISLAND OF ORUST.

holes bored by the tedious process which we have mentioned, or
were attached in grooves by splitting the end of a stick and bind-
ing it around by cords. Clumsy implements these, even at the
best, but some beautiful works remain that were executed with
them; and a Danish gentleman recently, for experiment, had
some trees felled and all the work necessary for building a small

ww
Pa

THE STONE AGE IN HEATHEN SWEDEN. 507

house, with doors and windows, carried out exclusively with axes
and other implements of flint.

At first the people are supposed to have made such clothes as
they wore of skins and hides; at a later period they became ac-
quainted with woven stuffs of wool; and the lake-dwellers of
Switzerland cultivated flax. For ornaments they had beads of
amber (Fig. 5), the teeth of animals, and articles of bone. Awls and
needles were made of bone, and an instrument resembling a comb,
made of the same material, is supposed to have been used, just as
instruments of the kind are employed by the Eskimos, in cutting
out the leather threads for sewing. Fishing and the chase sup-
plied the chief means of subsistence, and probably, during the ear-
lier part of the period, the only means. Hooks (Fig. 6) were made
of bone, or of bone with the point and barb of flint. Harpoons

Fig. 8.—T wo PassaGE-GRAvES AT LUTTRA.

and fishing-spears were also in use, and the lake-dwellers had nets.
The people had boats, for remains of fish that can only be caught
in deep-sea water have been found in the middens. The earliest
boats were probably “dug-outs,” though none of those now. known
can be referred to the Stone age. Domestic animals were kept, for
their bones have been found in the passage-graves. The Swiss
pastured their cattle and tilled the ground, raising flax, three
sorts of wheat, and two-cornered and six-cornered barley. We
have no direct proofs of tillage in Sweden during the Stone age,
put certain facts seem to show that it was not unknown to them ;
and this view has been confirmed by the discovery of a stone hand-

508 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mill belonging to the period. Caldrons of clay have holes bored

in the upper part, by which the vessel was probably hung over

the fire for cooking. Vessels were decorated with straight lines.
A horn axe assigned to this period bears two engraved representa-

tions of animals.

Except the pile-houses of the Swiss lakes, we know nothing of
the dwellings of the Stone age. Prof. Montelius thinks the con-
jecture is allowable that the people lived in tents made of hides,

or in hovels of wood, stones, and turf. Prof. Nilsson has traced —

a resemblance in form between what are called the “ passage-
graves” of Scandinavia and the homes of the arctic races in
America and Europe. That the Stone-age men had fixed dwell-
ing-places “appears from their often magnificent tombs, which
seem to point to the beginning of an organized society, and the
combined industry of a small community or of a whole tribe.”
These tombs are described as “dolmens” (Fig. 7), “passage-
graves” (Fig. 8), and “stone cists” (Fig. 9). Of these, the dol-
mens were the earliest; the passage-graves are a little later; the

Fig. 9.—STone Cist NEAR SKOTTENED.

uncovered stone cists are later still; and the cists covered with a
barrow belong to the time of transition between the Stone and
Bronze ages.

“During the Stone age,” says Prof. Montelius, “bodies were
always buried unburned, in a recumbent or sitting position. By
the side of the dead body was usually laid a weapon, a tool, or
some ornaments. We often find in graves of this period earthen-
ware vessels, now filled only with earth. The care bestowed upon
the last resting-place of the departed certainly betokens a belief
in a future life; but the things placed by the side of the dead
seem to show that that life was believed to be merely a continua-
tion of the life on earth, with the same needs and the same pleas-

oe

ELECTRICAL WAVES. 509

ures.” Offering-stones, with little cup-shaped holes, are sometimes

_found on the roof-stones of graves of the Stone age. They are now
popularly called “elf-mills,” and are still regarded as holy ; and,
it is said, offerings are still secretly made in them.

That the Stone age lasted for a very long time in the North is
proved, among other things, by the fact that this period reached
a far higher development there than anywhere else in Europe.
At what time it began in Sweden we can not even approximately
determine ; but everything seems to show that it ended rather
before than after 1500 B. c., and, therefore, about three thousand
five hundred years before our time. In many countries of the
east and in the south of Europe the Stone age came to an end long
ago; while in some parts of the New World this stage of civili-
zation has continued to our own day.

—ooo>

HLECTRICAL WAVKES.*
By SAMUEL SHELDON, Pu. D.

INCE the time when Maxwell occupied himself with the
theory of electricity, perhaps even since the time of Fara-
day, it has been generally accepted by most physicists that elec-
tricity is a phenomenon resulting from oscillations of the lumi-
niferous ether. However, with the exception of a few experi-
ments on inductive capacities, etc., instigated by Maxwell’s “ elec-
tro-magnetic theory of light,” no direct experimental verifica-
tions of this hypothesis had been made until the latter part of
last year, when Prof. Hertz, of Carlsruhe, Germany, commenced
a series of experiments on the interference of electrical waves.
In all, six articles have been published—two in Band 31 and
four in Band 34 of the “ Annalen der Physik und Chemie.” The
earlier articles are of a qualitative character, while the later are
quantitative. The former are of less interest than the latter, be-
cause the phenomena are less striking and are not so decisive as
a proof. They are substantially as follow: The secondary elec-
trodes of a large Ruhmkorff. coil consist of two brass rods whose
ends are surmounted with brass balls. The two rods are in the
same straight line, and separated from each other by a short air-
Space of about seven millimetres in length. This is the general
form of discharger in a Ruhmkorff. From either of these elec-
trodes is led a wire, which connects with a rectangularly bent
wire, which, however, is not completely closed, but is cut in some
| portion, and each of its ends surmounted by brass balls.

* Read before the Mathematical Physical Club of Boston and Cambridge, December
! 17, 1888.

510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

If, now, the Ruhmkorff be excited, the following phenomena

result: If the point of contact between the conducting wire and _

the rectangle be moved along the latter, it will be found that,
for most places, a spark passes between the balls of the rect-
angle, which varies in intensity, and at one place entirely disap-
pears. This place, if we suppose the opening in the rectangle to
be in the middle of one end and both balls to be of the same
size, is in the middle of the other end. If, now, while no spark
is passing in the rectangle, an insulated conductor be brought
into connection with either ball, the sparks again appear. These,
again, may be caused to disappear by moving the point of
contact toward the manipulated terminal. The same effect
would also be produced if, instead of changing the point of
contact, an equal insulated conductor were touched to the other
ball.

The length, resistance, and quality of the conducting wire have
no influence upon the sparks; neither does the resistance or mate-
rial of the rectangle affect it noticeably: e.g., one half of the
rectangle being made of thick copper wire and the other of very
fine German-silver wire did not alter the phenomena. Another
conductor being brought in contact with the joint between the
conducting wire and the rectangle has no influence.

The size of the rectangle has a great influence upon the size
and length of the spark between its terminals; the larger giving,
within certain limits, always the longer spark.

The air distance of the Ruhmkorff discharger is of great im-
portance ; under five and more than fifteen millimetres proved to
be infelicitous.

Hertz’s explanation of these phenomena is the following: At
the moment when a discharge takes place between the terminals
of a Ruhmkorff coil, in the whole circuit, and in all conductors in
contact with it, powerful wave disturbances are agitated, which
follow each other in such infinitesimal portions of time that the
time which is required to travel with enormous velocity even a
short wire is appreciable. These waves, arriving through the
conducting wire at the rectangle, divide and traverse simultane-
ously both branches. If both sides are electrically symmetrical,
the two wave-branches arrive at the balls of the rectangle in ex-
actly the same phase, but oppositely directed, and interfere; there
can then be, of course, no spark. If, however, they are not sym-
metrical, as when the contact is not in the middle, they do not in-
terfere totally, but a spark passes. As the contact moves around
the rectangle, the spark at its terminals will be less or more pow-
erful as the interference is more or less total.

The electrical symmetry depends not alone upon the length of

the wire, but upon its self-induction coefficient and its capacity.

————

ELECTRICAL WAVES. 511

The formula which expresses the relations is one from Lorenz
(“ Annalen der Physik und Chemie,” vii, p. 161):

_ PO,
a GT

where T = time of oscillation of the electrical wave, P = the self-
induction of the conductor concerned, C = its electrostatic ca-
pacity, and A = velocity of electrical propagation, which is as-
sumed to be that of light. It will thus be seen that each conductor
has its own proper time of electrical oscillation and wave-length.

If, now, the capacity of one side of the rectangle be increased,
the time of oscillation of the waves on that side will be also in-
creased. This will increase the wave-length, and equilibrium can
be established by adding the same capacity to the other side, or
by changing the point of contact.

For the reason that the only variables in the time of oscilla-
tion are the self-induction and the capacity, the resistance and
material of the rectangle have no influence on the phenomena.
Because the capacity of each half of the rectangle is chiefly that
of the balls at its terminals, the employing of fine wire for one
half can produce no noticeable effect.

That the size of the rectangle should have such an influence is
to be expected up to certain limits—that is, until the total length
of the sides is one wave-length or a multiple of the same. Then
the waves could be made to arrive at the terminals in opposite
phases, and would give the largest sparks.

Were this the only proof which Hertz could give of interfer-
ence, a great deal of doubt might be cast upon its conclusiveness.
Would not one naturally expect that, if both sides of the rectangle
were of the same length and had the same capacity, the potential
on both balls would be the same, and no discharge could take
place; or, when of different capacities, the charging and discharg-
ing following each other so rapidly that the same quantity of
electricity would tend to pass through a section of each side of
the rectangle, and would thus necessitate a discharge ?

But Hertz’s quantitative experiments are more satisfactory.
In order to understand them, a few preliminary phenomena must
be described. These relate to what he calls the principle of “ reso-
nance.” As any sound resonator, having its own proper wave-
length, can be set in vibration by a vibrating body of the same or
multiple time of vibration, so we might suppose that any electri-
cal conductor could be set in vibration by a neighboring electrical
wave disturbance of proper time of oscillation. This supposition
is verified by experiment.

The apparatus and arrangement are very similar to those in
the previous experiment. However, instead of the two outer brass
balls on the Ruhmkorff discharger, two hollow zinc spheres of

512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thirty centimetres diameter were substituted, and these were
movable along the rods. As these constitute the electrical ends
of the discharger, the same may be altered in length by the total
diameter of each by simply letting the rods project into the cavity
of the spheres. The time of oscillation of the waves in the Ruhm-
korff can thus be altered. The brass balls of the rectangle were
provided with a micrometer adjustment, so that the length of
spark which passed might be measured. The connecting wire
was in these experiments dispensed with, and the rectangle was
mounted on insulators in front of the Ruhmkorff discharger.

With this arrangement Hertz carried out a complete set of
observations, in each of which the effect of a regular series of
changes in one of the variables was investigated—e. g., the time
of oscillation of the primary discharger would be regularly in-
creased by changing the capacity or self-induction, and for each
change the length of spark in the rectangle would be measured.
One series in detail will suffice for our purpose.

Suppose, at the beginning of the experiment, that the time of
oscillation of the rectangle is smaller than that of the Ruhmkorff
discharger, and the spark is one millimetre long. If now we hang
two hooks of wire on each ball of the rectangle, the capacity is
increased, and we get a spark of three millimetres. Add two
more equal hooks, and the spark is five millimetres. Add two
more, and it falls off to three millimetres again. If this process
be continued, the spark will alternately reach a maximum and
minimum, and the natural inference is that the time of oscillation
of the rectangle is nearest that of the Ruhmkorff discharger when
the spark in the former is at a maximum.

Perhaps it is most striking to place the micrometer at the maxi-
mum spark distance,and then, by constantly changing the capaci-
ty of either conductor, cause the spark to disappear and reappear.
Should small spheres be used, instead of wires, for changing the
capacity, we would then: have a direct means of determining the
wave-length. —

These sets of experiments led Hertz to conclude that the prin-
ciple of resonance is as true for electrical waves as for sound
waves, and he employs it for his quantitative work.

The arrangement of apparatus is as follows: To the outer ends
of the Ruhmkorff discharger are attached two plates, whose planes
are vertical and embrace the line of direction of the discharger.
Back of one of these is mounted on an insulated stand a similar
plate of the same size. A wire leads from the inner central edge
of this to.a point on a level but just back of the air-space of the
discharger. It then turns in a curve to a point about thirty centi-
metres directly over the discharger, and then continues in a

straight horizontal line some sixty metres. The end is left free,

Oe ee

ELECTRICAL WAVES. 513

and, if now the Ruhmkorff be excited, a series of stationary elec-
trical waves will be formed in the wire. To detect these we em-
ploy the principle of resonance. A wire whose time of oscillation
has been determined and found to be nearly equal to that of the
primary conductor is bent into a circle, and the ends are brought
close together. This is then brought close to the long wire, and
held so that its plane embraces the latter. <A fine display of sparks

will be seen to accompany the Ruhmkorff discharge.

If this proof circuit be approached to the extreme end of the
long wire, no sparks will be seen. The wire has at its end, in fact,

anode the same as a stopped organ-pipe has. As the air in the

pipe is undisturbed, so the potential of the wire end is unchange-
able. As we recede from the end, the sparks grow longer, but
finally disappear again. Here is another node. We measure the
distance between the two and cut the wire so that its total length
shall be a multiple of this length, and then we proceed to find all
the nodes, and mark them by paper riders. If we measure each
of these distances and take the mean, or measure the whole length
of the wire and divide by the number of nodes, we have a value
for the wave-length of the conductor. In Hertz’s experiment this
yalue was 2’°8 metres. From this value, and the time of oscilla-
tion reckoned from the self-induction and capacity, he gets the
velocity of propagation of electrical disturbances as two hundred
thousand kilometres per second. This result Hertz prints in
bold-faced type, and puts it as a climax of all his work. This is
truly wonderful. If we consider that the calculated value of the
time of oscillation depends upon the assumption that the velocity

_ of electrical wave propagation is the same as that of light (three

hundred thousand kilometres per second), and this circuitous
calculation of the same thing gives two hundred thousand kilo-

metres per second, we can hardly give Hertz the credit of ex-

tremely accurate work. However, Hertz has made a great ad-

_ vance in physical science. Since Weber introduced the absolute

system of units, no great advance has been made. Physicists have
busied themselves in measuring the various constants, in refining
and perfecting the methods of measurement, or in applying prin-
ciples already known to technical and practical purposes. Hertz,
however, has opened a new and unexplored field, which must
eventually bring us into a closer acquaintance with the mysteries
which we are daily manipulating.

This series of experiments has excited a great deal of attention
in English physical circles. Prof. Fitzgerald, of this department

) of the British Association, laid great emphasis, at the last meet-

ing, on the advance which had been made. Oliver Heaviside has
justified his patronymic by publishing a complex mass of mathe-

matical formulee on the subject. He considers that the waves of
VOL, XXXvV.—33

514 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hertz are of a much more complex nature than the experiments
would leave one to infer.

When we remember the effect which electricity has upon the
plane of polarized light, it would seem that Hertz’s wave-lengths
are of an entirely different order from what they should be. How
can electrical wave-lengths of one metre be in any way associated

with light-waves of less than one billionth of a millimetre ? What-
- ever we have known of the wave lengths of the ether, in radiant
heat and light, has always been of that infinitesimal order. Still,
should the velocity of propagation of electrical waves be much
greater than has been supposed, then with these large wave-lengths —
the times of oscillation could be of the same order as those of
light.

Hertz, however, has a system of stationary waves, and it would
seem that no direct calculations could give a correct value for the
time of oscillation. This can be shown by moving a long trough
of water. By holding one end in the hand, suitable impulses can
be given so as to produce any desired wave-lengths. Should
Hertz be wrong in his conclusions, still the impulse which he has
given in this direction is sure to fructify. It is possible that in-
duction may be found to be a phenomenon of pure wave-motion,
and that it can be likened directly to radiation. Could we then
carry the comparison still further, and say that a conductor is an
opaque medium; that a dielectric is transparent—then we would
likely soon be constructing electrical lenses, would be detecting
electrical refraction, diffraction, and possibly be constructing an
electrical spectrum. Doubtless, if not this, some similar thing
will develop, and no young physicist need then say that all the
things in physics have already been discovered and measured.

—_——_o+o——_—_

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.
By FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.
ie

ARNHAGEN von ENSE, the German Macaulay, character-

izes the shams of our latter-day civilization in the remark

that “a constant improvement in the luster of the varnish has
kept up with the progressive dry-rot of the timber.”

The historian thus denounces the increasing political corrup-
tion of his age, but his aphorism admits of a much wider applica-
tion. The increase of prudery masks the decadence of the virtue
it tries to simulate; modern courtesies of speech too often conceal
the baldest egotism; callous inhumanity is glossed over with sen-
timental cant.

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. 515

But the justice of Varnhagen’s indictment is perhaps most
forcibly illustrated in the time and labor saving contrivances of
modern civilization, as contrasted with the enormous waste inci-
dent to the evils of life under abnormal circumstances.
The apparent shiftlessness of animals and savages is often due
to their confidence in the spontaneous bounty of Nature. Apes
will nibble and fling away dozens of wild figs for one they eat, well
knowing that the forests will continue to produce millions of simi-
lar fruits. Nomads exhaust the pastures of a whole river-delta,
and then drive their herds farther inland, having found by ex-
perience that, before the return of spring, the coast-land meadows
will have recovered their luxuriance.
We pity the ignorance of the Circassian peasant who wastes
his time and energy by plowing his highland farm with an imple-
ment resembling a crooked fence-rail; but together with other
old-fashioned things that barbarian has retained his primitive
confidence in the trustworthiness of his natural instincts, and con-
sequently devotes every square yard of his field to the production
of palatable and nutritious vegetables,
“Whatever is natural is wrong,” was for centuries the shibbo-
leth of our spiritual taskmasters, and that doctrine has borne its
fruit in the reckless disregard of our natural intuitions. The
shocking taste of a poisonous weed or liquid is generally accepted
asa prima facie proof of its wholesomeness, and many millions
of acres, plowed and harrowed with highly improved apparatus,
are wasted on the production of not only useless but positively

pernicious harvests. Our prohibition orators bewail the vast area

of arable soil wasted on distillery crops, but in the eyes of science
the alcohol-habit is only a special form of the stimulant-vice,
which, in the course of the last fifty years, has assumed more
gigantic proportions than in the most bibulous era of pagan an-
tiquity. The official statistics of the liquor traffic generally allow
| one bushel of grain for two gallons of spirits, and three bushels
‘for one barrel of beer. By that estimate, the distilleries of the
United States alone consumed in the last few years an annual
| average of thirty-five million bushels of grain, the breweries at
‘ least twenty millions. The aggregate of that wasted farm-prod-
) uce would have made more than a billion four-pound loaves of
) bread, or nearly a hundred loaves for every household in North
\ America. Placed side by side, the bushel-measures containing
i that grain would form a chain equal in extent to the circumfer-
rence of the earth. But the area of the land thus “tilled to bring
oforth a harvest of misery, crime, and disease” is only a fraction of
i the total portion of arable fields cultivated to subserve the various
)forms of the stimulant-vice. Tobacco, tea, coffee, pulque, and
jopium, together with all the toxic stimulants prepared from tree-

516 _ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fruits and edible roots, devour the toil of many million laborers
and the productive value of at least one million square miles, The
fertility of that enormous area is thus not only wasted, but turned
from a blessing into a concentration of curses. Mankind, indeed,
would gain by the result if the fruitful fields of that poison-har-
vest were wholly withdrawn from human use; but if even only
half their surface were devoted to the production of wholesome
food, pauperism would disappear before the blessings of an un-
paralleled abundance—an abundance far exceeding the prosperity
of the happiest provinces of pagan Italy or Moorish Spain. Add-—
ing the indirect benefits resulting from the decrease of disease and
crime, it is no exaggeration to say that half the weight of human
misery would thus be lifted from the scale of weal and woe.

Our political economists would be scandalized by studying the
free-and-easy financial methods of ancient empires whose rulers
often permitted a large percentage of the public taxes to cling to
the pockets of ill-controlled collectors; but the live-and-let-live
carelessness of those potentates was associated with a belief in the
justice of the general claim to earthly happiness, and the evils of
absolutism were mitigated by the liberality of the absolute Ceesars,
Every city of the Roman Empire had its free wrestling-ring and
foot-race course; every provincial metropolis a free circus, with
accommodation for many thousand spectators. Free baths were
thought as indispensable as free public fountains of pure drink-
ing-water. Holidays were multiplied to satisfy the needs of an
increasing population deprived of the rustic sports of their ances-
tors. Every community had its weekly and monthly festivals,
In Greece even the hostilities of civil wars were suspended to
insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic
games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period
the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight
hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the
yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations
equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. As a consequence, dis-
content with the rule of such autocrats was so rare, that the peace
of an empire equal in extent to the entire area of modern Hurope
could be preserved with a standing army of less than one hundred
thousand men.

The modern alliance of canting hypocrisy and bullying despot-
ism has tried a different plan. Enjoyments are reserved for
aristocrats by the grace of the orthodox Deity, while the worship
of sorrow is enforced on millions of toilers, whose desire of recre-
ation is suppressed as a revival of impious worldliness. The
Czesars silenced the clamors for liberty with free bread and free —
circus games; the Czars silence them with the knout; but those —
cowed victims of knout and cross can not be expected to die in

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION, 517

defense of their oppressors; and the conscious impossibility of
relying on the enthusiasm of volunteers obliges every ruler of
fifty faithful square miles to surround his throne with a bulwark
of dehumanized machine soldiers, who, in obedience to the man-
date of the uniformed chief machinist, would shoot their own
fathers or bayonet their own children. <A territory which once
could be easily managed with twenty legions, each of four thou-
sand men, has now to be bullied into submission by standing
armies aggregating from five million and a half to six million
conscripts. The expenses of maintaining that apparatus for the

_ perpetuation of orthodox despotism cost the nations of Europe a

minimum of $625,000,000 a year, and withdraw from agriculture
an amount of labor which otherwise would suffice to support her
population in spite of intermittent droughts.

Our elaborate code of by-laws for the suppression of holiday
recreations can still be circumvented by the resources of opulence,
and the well-known hopelessness of any other expedient has stim-
ulated a race for wealth which does not hesitate to attain its ob-
ject at any risk of social or sanitary consequences. The number
of infants which the superstition of the Ammonites sacrificed to
Moloch is a mere trifle compared with the multitude of children
now devoted to a far more cruel fate by being literally drudged
to death in crowded factories to enable a millionaire to save a few
dimes on his weekly pay-roll and add a few per cent to the exor-
bitant rate of his yearly profits. In times of general scarcity the
market has been drained of its scant supplies by speculators try-
ing to coin gain from the distress of their fellow-men and risking,
after all, to be foiled by the decay of their hoarded stores or their
destruction by fire or flood. Quack nostrums, which not one in-
telligent man in a hundred would privately hesitate to pronounce
infinitely worse than worthless, are sold by ship-loads and car-
loads to disseminate disease and the seeds of the stimulant-vice,
and the saints who contribute thousands to insure the theological

| soundness of the Quaggalla Hottentots do not care enough for

|
(
{
]
1
(

the physical health of their own countrymen to whisper a word
against the lawfulness of the infamous traffic.

Nearly two thousand years ago Pliny and Columella denounced
the folly of destroying the highland forests that shelter the sources
of fertilizing brooks and the nests of insect-destroying birds. “Sa-
ered groves” were not limited to the land of the Phcenicians. The
Celtic and German Druids protected the forests of their native
lands; and even the barbarous Huns seem dimly to have recog-
nized the climatic influence of arboreal vegetation, since we read

‘of their chiefs enacting laws for the protection of the mountain-

) woods in the lower valley of the Danube.

The medieval reign of Antinaturalism, however, inaugurated

518 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that reckless destruction of forest-trees which by its consequences
has turned many of the most fruitful regions of ancient Europe
into almost irreclaimable deserts, Rational agriculture became a
tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely
denounced from thousands of pulpits ; improvidence, “ unworldli-
ness,” and blind reliance on the efficacy of prayer were system-
atically inculcated as supreme virtues. A warning against the
consequences of that infatuation would have been answered by
the prompt anathemas of the miracle-mongers; but it would bea
mistake to suppose that their rant imposed on any independent
thinker, even, of that ghost-ridden age. “When I consider the
value of the least clump of trees,” says Bernard Palissy, a perse-
cuted dissenter of the sixteenth century, “I much marvel at the
great ignorance of men, who, as it seems, do nowadays study only

to fell and waste the fair forests which their forefathers did guard —

so carefully. I would think no evil of them for cutting down
the woods, did they but replant again some part of them; but
they care nothing for the consequences of their wastefulness,
nor do they reck of the great damage done to their children
which come after them.” (“(uvres complétes de Bernard Pa-
lissy,” p. 88.)

The folly of the insane bigotry which left such protests un-
heeded was only too soon demonstrated by its natural conse-
quences. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas

had been deprived of their woods, the general failing of springs —

turned rivers into shallow brooks and brook valleys into arid
ravines, which at last ceased to supply the irrigation canals by
which the starving farmers hoped to relieve their distress. Vast

tracts of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned. And —

while the summer droughts became more severe, winter floods be-
came more frequent and destructive. The steep mountain-slopes,
denuded of their vegetable mold, sent down torrents of snow-water,
turning rivers into rushing seas and inundating their valleys in
spite of protecting dikes. Hill-sides which once furnished past-
ures for thousands of herds were torn up by ever-deepening ravines
and reduced to a state of desolation as complete as that of a vol-
canic cinder-field. Harbors once offering safe anchorage for the
fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the accumulating
deposits of the diluvium which had been swept down from the
torrent-rent mountain-slopes, while a detritus of coarse sand and
gravel covered the fields of the intermediate valleys.

On the shores of the Adriatic alone 250,000,000 cubic yards of
highland soil are thus yearly deposited in the form of pestilential
mud-banks. A million square miles of uplands in southern Europe
and western Asia have become almost as arid as the mountains of
the moon. The Rhone, the Loire, the Ebro, the Guadalquivir, the

ae

HOME-MADE APPARATUS. 519

Euphrates, and the Orontes have completely depopulated many
districts exposed to the devastations of their yearly floods.

In America the same cause has begun to produce the same
effect. Not in Mexico alone, but within the boundaries of our
own republic, the progress of reckless forest-destruction has made
inundations an annual calamity, and has so impoverished the soil
of the denuded area that extensive tracts in the terrace-lands of
the southern Alleghanies now resemble the despoblados of worn-
out Spain. The loss resulting from the consequences of that im-
providence far exceeds the benefit of labor-saving machinery—so
much so, indeed, that the waste of vegetable mold, in our Eastern
cotton States alone, more than outweighs the profit derived from
the improvement of all agricultural implements used on this con-
tinent,

pe Se etl

HOME-MADE APPARATUS.

By JOHN F. WOODHULL,

PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE IN THE COLLEGE FOR THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS,
NEW YORK CITY.

iia is a duty every teacher owes to his pupils to explain to them,
or help them to find out for themselves, the causes of the
natural phenomena which occur daily before their eyes. Yet to
undertake to teach pupils about natural objects without allowing
them to see, handle, hear, taste, or smell them—i. e., to come in
contact with them by means of their senses—is like trying to
teach music to a man who was born deaf, or color to a man who
was born blind. Although it is pretty generally conceded that .
the teaching of the physical sciences ought to be accompanied
with illustrative experiments, it is rarely done in the public
schools, even in the larger high schools,

The science teacher in the public schools appears to be in a
state of mind which might be described as hopeless. He knows
that it is idle to look for well-equipped laboratories in the public
schools. He knows, also, that even if he could hope for labora-
tories and apparatus, he certainly can never expect a course of
study which will permit of sufficient time for laboratory work.
Therefore, finding it wholly impracticable to carry out his convic-
tions, he is in a state of hopelessness. He despairingly falls into
the old way of assigning lessons from the text-book. Subjects
so full of interest as the natural sciences are thus converted into
useless drudgery.

The problem is, How shall we make it practicable to teach sci-
ence in the public schools experimentally ?

The first difficulty in the solution of this problem is that school

520 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

boards have not the means wherewith to purchase apparatus to
any great extent. This fact has led some firms to manufacture
what might be called demonstration apparatus, much cheaper and
simpler in construction than that hitherto used, and therefore
vastly superior for illustrating principles, although not sufficiently
refined for making accurate measurements; like a story told for
illustration by a public speaker, short and to the point, but not
embellished so much as to divert the mind from the argument.
This is a step in the right direction, but it does not solve the
problem. The apparatus is still so expensive that it will be a
long time before school boards will be able to purchase it.

Driven by necessity, therefore, which frequently proves to be
the mother of invention, the teacher must seize upon familiar
objects which chance to be at hand, and, with slight changes per-
haps in their construction, use them as apparatus with which to
illustrate the principles of his science. Oftentimes he will find
that this simple, home-made apparatus is far better for illustrat-
ing scientific principles than that which has held sway in labora-
tories for years. Its great merit lies in its simplicity. The stu-
dent’s mind is confused by a complex piece of apparatus. He
loses sight of the principle which you would teach in his per-
plexity to solve the riddle of the machine. Again, this home-
made apparatus has special merit in the eyes of the school trustee

who sees that with an expenditure of five cents something has ~

been made which usually costs five dollars.

The second great difficulty in the solution of our problem is ©

that school courses, as they are now planned, do not allow ade-
quate time for experimentation. It may seem strange to say that

one can make his own apparatus and experiment with it in less’

time than is required to use the old-fashioned apparatus, and yet
we positively and emphatically state this. For example, the prin-
ciples taught by the so-called “fountain in vacuo” are much more
quickly illustrated by a bottle with rubber stopper and tubing, as
shown in Gage’s “Elements of Physics,” page 3, Fig. 3. In this
case the lungs are used as an air-pump. If the same bottle and
tubing be arranged as shown in the above-mentioned text-book,
page 59, Fig. 40, the lungs may be used as a condenser, and the
bottle will supply the place of a condensing chamber. Contriy-

ances»by which all the experiments may be performed which ~

usually require air-pump and condenser are as simple as those
mentioned above. The common-school teacher who has difficulty
in securing air-pump and condenser may rejoice in the thought
that he has a pair of lungs which may be made to supply the
place of both, and are less liable to get out of order. They will
not require him to spend his Saturday afternoons in oiling them
and fixing valves.

HOME-MADE APPARATUS. 521

The time required to get ready the old-fashioned apparatus
makes it utterly impossible for a teacher in a public school to
use it. Again, the time required for the manipulation of it in the
class, causes the pupil’s mind to wander to other thoughts than
that of the principle which is to be illustrated. Add to this the
fact that home-made apparatus is so suggestive of scientific prin-
ciples that, while the student is making it, his mind is constantly
learning something new, and we have ground for the statement
that home-made apparatus economizes time sufficiently to make it
practicable to teach science experimentally in the public schools.

Perhaps the chief argument in favor of home-made apparatus
is what might be called the manual-training argument—i. e.,
the argument of its educational value to the student who con-
structs it. It is always noticeable that the student who makes his
own apparatus is not only liable to get a better comprehension of
the principles which it illustrates, but his mind is thereby stimu-
lated to inquire into many kindred principles.

The third great difficulty in the solution of our problem is
often stated in this way: Teachers in the public schools have not
sufficient skill to do this work. The reply is, (1) that it requires
less skill to illustrate principles with home-made apparatus than
with that which has been the awe and admiration of pupils and
teachers alike for ages, and (2) that patience and a love for the
work are far more essential qualifications than that which is usu-
ally called skill.

To summarize the arguments for home-made apparatus:

1. It teaches the principles better than the cumbersome and
expensive forms of apparatus can. Pupils, as arule, are not ma-
chinists and do not understand a complex machine.

2. The student takes a more lively interest in it and under-
stands it better because he makes it himself.

3. All schools may possess it because of the slight expense in-
volved.

4, It is applicable to the lower grades because of its simplicity.

5. It is applicable to subjects which have not hitherto been
taught experimentally. |

The last argument has special reference to physiology. It has
been customary to speak of physics and chemistry as the experi-
mental sciences, but there seem to be equally good reasons why
physiology should be taught by experiments also. The processes
of respiration, circulation, action of muscles, formation of voice,
digestion, and many others admit—nay, demand—illustrative ex-
periments, and the advantages of home-made apparatus are quite
as apparent in this field as in the realm of the physical sciences.

522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE DEFENSIVE ARMOR OF PLANTS.
By M. HENRY DE VARIGNY.

NA, ELLE, as Darwin and his successors have established, plants
are dependent to a considerable extent upon insects for the
means of securing the fertilization of their seed, they are also
liable to be eaten by them, and are in great danger from the vora-
cious appetites of other animals. They are not, however, wholly
without defense against these attacks, but are provided with
armors of various kinds, by the aid of which they offer a more
or less effective resistance to them. These methods of defense
have been the subject of special investigation by Prof. E. Stahl,*
of the University of Jena, whose work, “ Pflanzen und Schnecken”
(June, 1888), presents a most interesting chapter in the history of
the vegetable struggle for existence.

While every plant has its enemies more or less numerous and
dangerous, the number as a whole is not generally considerable,

Some attack the young plant, others the adult; some one part of ©

it, some another. They would, perhaps, be more numerous were
it not for the effectiveness of the means of defense that the plant
can present against them. These means are various, but without
them vegetable species would disappear very quickly. The pro-
tection conferred by them is evident, but an enemy more or less is
much for a plant. It is sometimes a question of life or death.
The phylloxera alone has been competent to destroy the vine in
France; and, if ruminants should add their attacks to those of
insects against the thyme or euphorbia, those kinds would soon
disappear. In some cases, as of thorns or nettles, the armor is
easily discovered ; in other cases it is internal, chemical, or toxic,
The protection is evident, whatever its nature may be. The ques-
tion arises whether it is fortuitous or the result of a selection
among plants. We can hardly doubt what the answer should be.
Selection has certainly played a considerable part in the matter,

* Prof. Stahl’s study is not the only one that has been made in this line, although it is
perhaps the only experimental one. M. L. Erréra, of Brussels, presented a short memoir
to the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium in 1886, in which he pointed out how experi-
ments and observations could be carried on in reference to the subject. Ile drew up a
table in which he classified the means of defense presented by plants as follows :—JBiologi-
cal characters : Plants at stations not easily accessible or with organs difficult of access,
social plants, vassal plants, bullying plants (simulating dangerous species). Anatomical
characters ; Hard, cutting, or piercing organs, calcification, silicification, nettle-hairs,
thorns, ete. Chemical characters: Acids, tannins, volatile oils, bitter properties, alka-
loids, and glycosoids. M. Erréra adds a table of plants known to him which present one
or another of the characteristics thus described. But his design was simply to show how
great an interest the study might be made to afford. His views are confirmed by Prof.
Stahl’s researches,

THE DEFENSIVE ARMOR OF PLANTS. 523

M. Stahl’s experiments were made in his own garden and in the
woods in the neighborhood, and bore direct reference to the atti-
tude of snails toward the plants. The questions were asked, What
plants do snails prefer ; what ones do they avoid, and why do they
avoid them? The results of his study may be verified by almost
any one. Several species of snails were observed ; including spe-
cial feeders, those which live wholly on mushrooms, and om-
nivorous snails, which, while preferring certain species, eat more
or less of all kinds of plants, and sometimes accommodate them-
selves to animal food.

Pieces of mushroom were offered to the snails, a part of them
fresh, others after having been macerated in alcohol, dried by
evaporation, and washed. The different species varied in their
behavior toward the food. The omnivorous snails would not eat,
or would only touch the fresh pieces, but readily devoured those
which had been treated with alcohol; but a special feeder ate the
fresh pieces and left the others. Hence the author concluded that
there exists in the fresh mushroom a substance soluble in alcohol
that attracts some animals and repels others. It must not, how-
ever, be believed that the special feeders can only live on particu-
lar food, for they are capable of accommodating themselves to
other kinds when it is necessary. That the ingredient soluble in
alcohol was the essential element of the food was proved by the
special feeders, which avoided the macerated and dried food, but
returned to it when it had been soaked again in the alcohol by
which that ingredient had been abstracted.

Some light is cast upon the bearing of this experiment by
reflecting on the enormous quantities of food which the omnivo-
rous snails in a state of nature require. A vine-snail or a slug
will eat a quarter or a third of its weight of carrot or potato in
twelve or twenty-four hours. Although their needs are but slight,
they can hardly find enough to assuage their hunger, on account
of the mechanical or chemical defenses which most plants offer
against them. Thus, the garden snail causes immense destruction
of the filbert-leaves in the spring; but it would cause more if
these leaves did not contain certain chemical substances, for it
eats them more greedily after they have been treated with alco-
hol. Though this sort of protection is only relative, it will appear
very considerable when we reflect upon the abundance and fer-
tility of some species of snail.

Examining a garden near Jena after a warm rain in April,
of forty-four snails of the species hortensis, fruticum, and arbus-
torum, ten were found upon living plants, while the thirty-four
others were eating dead leaves. These three species, therefore,
‘most usually attack dead plants. Helix pomatia, on the other
hand, was observed almost exclusively upon living species. Ex-

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

periments in which this species, with Helix hortensis and Limax
agrestis, a voracious all-feeder, were put in présence of several
plants having strong odors and pronounced flavors, showed that
their tastes as toward living plants were very different. These
experiments tend to show that the living plants are protected to
a greater or less extent by the presence of some constituent disa-
greeable to the snails, which we may regard as a defensive armor
to them. The dead parts of the plants were preferred, although
as a rule dried vegetable is less alimentary than fresh, because
the disagreeable substance had been removed or weakened by
evaporation. Other experiments show that this kind of armor is,
as a rule, the most effective.

When a drop of the juice of sorrel, garlic, saxifrage, or nastur-
tion is put upon the tegument of a snail, the animal manifests
pain and exudes abundance of its mucous secretion; yet it is not
thus affected by a drop of water. When snails avoid plants
marked by such juices, we have a right to regard the plants as
defended by a chemical armor. The offensive substance may also
be important to the nutrition of the plant, but that is not the ques-
tion we are dealing with here. Many plants are evidently lacking
in this means of defense; for, of some plants, all the animals ex- —
perimented upon have been found to prefer fresh to dead parts.
Others are never touched by them, whether living or dead. Hence
we may conceive that an infinite variety may exist in the degrees
of chemical armoring between total absence of protection and
complete protection. ;

Plants containing perceptible tannin are disagreeable to nearly
all animals. Only swine will eat acorns as if they regard them ~
as food, Other animals reject them, except when they can not get
anything else. Leguminous plants containing tannin in weak
proportions are eaten by horses and cattle, but snails are not fond —
of them. But the garden snail, which lets fresh clover alone, will
eat it freely after the tannin has been extracted with alcohol.
It is also probably tannin that inspires snails with respect for
vetches, saxifrage, and stone-crop. Many water-plants, likewise,
strong in tannin, are respected by water-snails, while the treat-
ment with alcohol converts them into savory dishes for the same
animals. Other plants, like dock, sorrel, and begonia, contain
oxalic acid in notable quantities, and are obnoxious to them when
too freely mixed with their food. It is worthy of remark that if
carrot, of which snails are fond, is soaked in solutions of tannin
or oxalic acid, they will avoid it in proportion as it is strongly
impregnated with the offensive substance.

Strongly acid substances are often found on the surface of the
leaves of plants. M. Stahl casually perceived that a leaf of Cino-
thera caused a very pronounced acid sensation on contact with

THE DEFENSIVE ARMOR OF PLANTS. 525

the tongue, which was due to the presence of a superficial acid.
On examination he found the same property present in other
plants of the Onograceew and Papilionacee. The acid is secreted
by numerous one-celled cylindrical hairs. It consists of a mixt-
ure of oxalic, acetic, and malic acids, and, being very disagreeable
to slugs and snails, constitutes an efficacious protection against
their ravages. A simple contact of its tentacles or teguments
with the secretory hairs is enough to cause the animal to draw
back and go somewhere else to indulge its cravings. Butif the
leaves are washed, and the hairs cleansed of the acid secretion,
they will be eaten at once.

Many plants are furnished with strong and pungent ethereal
oils or similar substances. Prof. Tyndall thinks that these es-
sences help to protect the plant against excessive heat. With-
out disputing this, M. Stahl finds that they are also efficient in
defense against animals. This was proved with respect to rue,
calamus, peppermint, dictamnus, and crane’s-bill; and snails would
at once turn out of the way to avoid a crushed leaf of the latter
when placed in their road. Bitter leaves were avoided when fresh ;
when dead, even those of the gentian were relished, although the
fresh ones were rejected by very hungry animals. The expressed
juices were very disagreeable to them. The bitter was evidently
the unpleasant quality, for the plants in question were free from
tannin.* The liverworts, according to W. Pfeffer’s researches, con-
tain fat substances, the function of which is unknown, but to
which Mr. Stahl ascribes a protecting agency. It is certain that,
though they are easily accessible to all animals, they very rarely
present any traces of having been attacked by them; and land-
snails respect them in a very marked manner. Even after four-
teen days of fasting, Helix hortensis could not resolve to eat the
thallus of Pellia. But there are genera (Lunaria and Marchantia)
of which the less delicate snails will consent to eat a little. When
the thalluses are treated with alcohol, the mollusks accept them
readily ; and there are some, like Plagiochila, that they will even
eat fresh, in spite of their disagreeable smell, because of the much
sugar that isin them. But most plants of the order are avoided,
because of the unpleasant taste and smell given them by their

* M. Stahl did not particularly concern himself with alkaloids, although they must
have played a considerable part in defense in some of the plants that he experimented
with. On this point we may refer to some of M. Erréra’s conclusions, as given in the
paper of himself and Maistrian and Clautrian (Brussels, 1887) on the “ Localization and
Importance of Alkaloids in Plants”: “ The alkaloids can hardly be regarded as other than
the waste of protoplasmic activity. In fact, it has been proved by experiment that they
can not serve as nitrogenous food to plants, and are toxic even to the plant that produces
them. . . . The recent researches of Armand Gautier in the,animal kingdom bring a strong
confirmation to these views. It may be said that a few grammes of an alkaloid protect
a plant against the devastations of animals as effectually as the strongest thorns.”

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fats. It is not always easy to determine of what other uses dis-
agreeable or toxic chemical constituents may be to the plant; the |
point that concerns us in this discussion is, that they protect it
from being eaten, and of this there can be hardly any doubt.

M. Stahl’s study of the mechanical defenses of plants is no less
interesting than that of their chemical armor. Many of the weap-
ons of this character are obvious and well known; but some of
them are more difficult of discovery, while a great variety prevails
among them. In the large majority of cases the mechanical
defense consists of a hardening of some parts of the plants, which
may be general, so as to form a kind of carapace, or local, in the
production of hard special organs, such as hairs, thorns, or nee-
dles, making it harder for animals to reach the plants. Sometimes
the mechanical weapons are associated with chemical qualities, as
in the nettle, crane’s-bill, Primula sinensis, blessed thistle, ete.
They either serve to prevent or impede the access of snails and
slugs, to make it harder for them to take hold of the alimentary
part, or to cause pain during the eating.

Hairy plants certainly offer more obstacles to snails going
about on them than do glabrous plants. If we place a snail upon
a comfrey-plant, it will find itself very uncomfortable, unable to
get any hold on the leaves, and continually brought to a stop by
the disagreeable contact of the hairs with its tentacles; and a
free snail or slug will be hard to find on this plant. Other hairy
plants possess immunity in less marked degrees; and M. Stahl’s
conclusions from his experiments as a whole are that chemical
armor is more efficient than hairs. In some cases downy plants
were preferred, while chemically armored species were always
respected. So, when glabrous and downy species of the same family
were tested, downy ones were eaten, while smooth ones were left
alone. Hence, the hairs afford only an inefficient defense. M.
Stahl accounts for this by supposing that, while the smooth plants
are protected by disagreeable chemical constituents, the hairy
plants are without this armor, or else present attractive qualities
of odor or taste, against which their hairs are only an imperfect
set-off.

Some plants are defended by the calcification of their super-
ficial cells. The snails would not eat the leaves of Hrysumum
cheirantoides (treacle-mustard) when fresh, or even when treated,
with alcohol, but attacked them readily after the carbonate of
lime had been dissolved out by acetic acid, The same was ob-
served with other plants having a similar property. The grasses
are protected against attacks from many animals by the silicifica-
tion of the walls of their cells, without which the new enemies
that would be added to supplement the assaults of their present
foes would make an end of the whole family. This may be tested —

THE DEFENSIVE ARMOR OF PLANTS. $27

by offering to snails full-grown leaves and young, tender ones of
the same grass. The latter will be taken and the others left.
But if, by a method of cultivation proposed by Sachs, we make a
normally siliciferous plant grow where it can get no silica, it will
be devoured at once.

Some plants, that were avoided after treatment with alcohol as
well as before it, were found to contain a gum which the alcohol
failed to remove, and which stood between the snails and the edible
substance. Among these were linden, althea, cactuses, and gum-
my roots. Another series of plants, including an Arum, narcissus,
leucojum, and the balsam touch-me-not, which contain no tannin
or gum or substances of disagreeable taste or smell, appeared to
be protected by raphides. Tabernzeemontanus recognized in 1587
that the leaves of these plants produce a violent sensation of
burning in the bronchial tubes, and that it is not due to soluble
products or juices, but to the raphides, which are abundant in
their tissues. This is proved by the fact that the filtered juice of
the pounded leaves does not produce the burning sensation, while
the residue on the walls of the filter, and the pounded leaves them-
selves, produce the characteristic sensation that is felt after chew-
ing the fresh leaves. It is also confirmed by the fact that if the
leaves of Arum maculatum, for example, are treated with dilute
hydrochloric acid, which dissolves the raphides, animals will
readily eat them, while they let alone leaves treated with alcohol,
even when they have been steeped in sugar-water. In the case of
the squill, snails avoid the outside of the scales, which are rich in
raphides, and eat the inner sides, which are free from them. So
in the narcissus and orchids, and various other plants, there are
parts protected by raphides which are objectionable to snails, and
other parts free from them that they eat. But, while raphides
protect against some animals, they do not against all. Birds and
ruminants do not object to the plants containing them; and even
snails manifest different degrees of aversion to them. In a simi-
lar manner to these plants with raphides, some species of iris are
protected by crystals of oxalic acid. It is very probable that the
kinds of armor that we have named are available for protection
against other animals than snails. But investigation on this sub-
ject has not been sufficiently advanced to permit of definite con-
clusions or generalizations.

Of the kinds of defense named, a minority of the plants stud-
ied by M. Stahl possess but one; many are endowed with two;
and some with three—as, for instance, Oxalis (oxalic acid, tannin,
and hairs); Circea (bitter hairs, tannin, and raphides) ; Smilax
(thorns, raphides, and poisons); Aloe (leaf-teeth, raphides, and
bitter substance) ; and Pontederia (crystals of oxalate of lime,
' raphides, and tannin). In fact, considering the number of ene-

\

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

mies against which a plant has to contend to maintain its exist-
ence, their defenses are more numerous than we would suspect,
and more important than we might at first believe.

In analyzing M. Stahl’s results, we perceive that some families
possess, as a whole, similar methods of protection: the grasses,
sedges, and horse-tails, silicification; the rough-leaved orders,
hairs; the Amaryllidee, Asparagee, orchids, and: Onagracee, ra-
phides ; the gentians, bitter substance; the rose family, geraniums,
legumes, and heaths, tannic acid; the nightshades, alkaloids; the
labiates, ethereal oils; mosses, mechanical means (by silicifica-
tion); and liverworts, chemical means, and one genus of them,
Riccia, mechanical means also.

Different genera in the same family sometimes present quite
diverse means. Among the lilies are genera (Scilla and Ornitho-
gallus) having raphides; others, alliaceous compounds; lilies, tu-
lips, and crown imperial, poisons, There are also differences be-
tween the species of the same genus; thus, one species of Sedum is
protected by tannin, and another by an alkaloid. And in the same
plant there are often very notable differences between the leaves,
fruit, and root.

M. Stahl asserts that he has not found a single phanerogamous
species, living in a wild condition, that is not armed in some way
against slugs and snails. Such armor is wanting only among cul-
tivated plants, or, rather, among some of them. It appears as if
at the moment when man cultivates a species of plant, or takes
it under his protection, using all possible means to facilitate its
existence and remove its enemies, the plant gives up its own
means of maintaining the struggle, surrendering its defensive
armor at man’s invitation. The common lettuce is a striking
example of this fact. It is a favorite viand, as all know, of the
Gasteropods of the garden. Nothing protects it against their
attacks, and its smooth, tender, and succulent leaves make it a
ready prey to them; yet it is the descendant, modified by culti-
vation, of the Lactuca scariola, which has chemical constituents
so distasteful to snails, and so constant, that they will not eat it
even after it has been treated with alcohol.

The defensive armor of plants is most frequently situated upon
their surface, or where the attack begins. This is particularly -
the case with the mechanical weapons and such chemical ones as
tannin, special juices, etc.

When we consider how varied are these armors of plants and
how generally spread they are among all the orders, and that
without them some species would not be able to exist, it is hard
to deny that there is some special adaptation in them, or to sup-
pose that they are merely accidental. The case is undoubtedly
one of natural selection; and the fact that the protection is gained |

|

BLOOD-VENGEANCE AND PARDON IN ALBANIA, 529

sometimes in one way and sometimes in another, is not unfavor-
able to this hypothesis. It is with plants as with animals. One
animal endures by means of his agility, another by his thick skin;
another by this kind of defense, and another by that. The field
opened by M. Stahl is one that has as yet been but little explored.
It promises much that is novel, and bids fair to afford a new and
most interesting chapter in the history of natural selection.—
Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Sci-
entifique.

—_++4-—__—_-

BLOOD-VENGEANCE AND PARDON IN ALBANIA.
By HERR J. OKIE.

ee Albanians are accustomed to train ganders for fighting,
for which purpose they feed them with such herbs as con-
tribute most to the development of a pugnacious disposition.
When one among them thinks his goose’s courage has been suffi-
ciently developed, he sends out a herald to go through the village
uttering a challenge for any townsman having a gander which
he is ready to pit in a combat to bring him to the ring for a
match.

Such a challenge was sounded in the village of Unter Rogiza
in the later days of August of last year. It was answered by a
wealthy Albanian, who at once betook himself with his goose to
the place where such spectacles were exhibited. His antagonist
was already in waiting, with about a hundred on-lookers, The
match had gone on for about two hours, when one of the cham-
pions began to fail. His owner wanted to help him, but the
proprietor of the conquering goose would not permit it. Irritated
by this, the losing owner raised his gun and shot the other man
down on the spot. The spectators of the tragedy were so aston-
ished for the moment that no movement was made to arrest the
murderer, and he fled to the mountain. The friends of the mur-
dered man instituted a pursuit of him, which was kept up for sev-
eral hours, the murderer running up and down the hills, and his
pursuers following him closely. Finally, when he saw that he
could not escape, he turned toward the village and took refuge in
the house of his victim. The dead Arso was lying in the room,

-and his mother beside him was weeping and lamenting the death

of her only son. The murderer set his gun in the corner and said:

' “Tam in your house; give me bessé (oath of protection), for they
| are going to kill me.” He continued repeating these words till
| the old mother gave him the bessdé. When his pursuers came up
| to the house, the mother of the dead Arso stepped to the door and
' waved a handkerchief toward them as a sign that no one should

VOL. Xxxv.—34

530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enter. The pursuers scattered, only the father of the deceased
remaining in the yard. When they had all gone away, he went
into the room where the murderer of his son was sitting by the
mother, with a part of her mantle thrown over his knee.

“Go out of the room,” she called to him; “I have given him
my oath!”

The old man, without speaking, set his gun in the corner, kissed
his son’s cold forehead, and went out to make preparations for the
funeral. At sunset, while the people of the village were busied
with the affairs of their inner households, and even Arso’s relatives
were engaged each in his own particular duties, the old lady took
her charge by the hand and led him out upon the mountain, As
soon as she had seen him at a safe distance she told him: “ Now
my oath is fulfilled ; you must look out for yourself after this!”

The obligation of the bessé had terminated ; now followed the
pursuit of vengeance. The more industriously the family of the
murdered man sought for retribution, the more earnestly the
friends of the murderer exerted themselves to obtain pardon.
This state of affairs continued through two months,

At last the whole circle of the murderer’s relatives met and
decided to ask the father of the murdered man to remit the blood-
penalty to the murderer. For this they all rose—the women taking
their infants from the cradle and carrying them along—and went
in a body to Arso’s father. In front of the company marched the
murderer, his head veiled with a linen cloth, and the gun with
which he had committed the murder hanging from his neck, muz-
zle down. Behind him walked two of his particular friends, and
after them the rest of the family procession. As they came near
the house of the avenger, they all cried out as with one voice,
“Aman! aman!” (pardon); and continued the petition till
noon. The father of the murdered man, without seeming to
notice them, consulted with the members of his family whether
he should, according to the customary law of the country, shoot
the murderer at once or give him pardon. It was decided to par-
don him. The father advanced toward the expectant company.
The murderer knelt, ready to accept life or death, while the rest of
the procession renewed their petition for pardon. The old gentle-
man took the murderer’s gun and discharged it into the air; then
lifted the cloth from his head and kissed him, in token of pardon.
Then he kissed the other male members of the family procession,
took the murderer by the hand, led him into the house, and set
him in the son’s place, The affair was concluded by a three
days’ feast in the avenger’s house.—TZranslated for the Popular
Science Monthly from Das Ausland,

= oslo =—=S

MR, MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 531

MR. MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM.
By W. D. LE SUEUR.

S, in olden time, a certain Lars Porsena, of Clusium, swore
by the great gods that his friends the Tarquins, who had
been expelled from Rome for gross misconduct, “should suffer
wrong no more,” so,in our own day, Mr. Mallock, of “Is Life
worth Living ?” seems to have sworn a great oath that the beliefs
which the republic of modern thought has for good cause expelled
from its borders shall by his powerful arm be restored to their
old tyranny over human life. He therefore brings up his forces,
draws lines of circumvallation, and prepares to conquer and capt-
ure the whole host of liberal thinkers, and either put them logic-
ally to the edge of the sword or force them back into the ancient
slavery. The enterprise is not lacking in audacity, and, to do Mr.
Mallock justice, he seems to be a writer of no little courage and
of infinite jest. His sword-practice is always brilliant; and, if he
could only induce his opponents to stand exactly where he makes
his passes and slashes, there is no question that he would do for
them completely enough. As it is, we see the gleam of the
weapon; but, somehow or other, the foe does not fall, and we be-
gin to perceive that he was never quite in the line of the strokes.
In furtherance of the purpose above indicated, Mr. Mallock
has contributed two apparently powerful articles to the “Fort-
nightly Review ”—one on “The Scientific Bases of Optimism,”
and the other on “ Cowardly Agnosticism.” We shall briefly ex-
amine the first of these to-day, and, perhaps, with the editor’s kind
permission, may take up the second at a later date. “ Optimism,”
in Mr. Mallock’s view, is the essential creed of all the modern
schools of thought, whether Unitarians or Deists, followers of
Spencer, followers of Matthew Arnold, or followers of Auguste
Comte. All of these, whatever some of them may say to the con-
trary, really unite in worshiping Humanity; and Mr. Mallock
undertakes to show them how foolish their worship is, and how
mutually contradictory are the ideas on which it is founded. Let
us take a brief but careful survey of Mr. Mallock’s argument.
“The religious doctrine of Humanity,” says this agile writer,
asserts that the facts of history have a meaning, that they fol-
low a certain rational order, and that, taken as a whole, they have
been, are, and will be always, working together—though it may
be very slowly—to improve the kind of happiness possible for
the human being, and to increase the numbers by whom such
happiness will be enjoyed. To affirm this, however, is, by impli-
cation, to affirm that a natural element in human character is

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

sympathy, and that not only is this feeling far stronger and
wider than has usually been supposed, but it is capable even now,
when once the idea of progress has been apprehended, of inspir-
ing the individual to work for the progress in which he shares,
and is sure to acquire, as time goes on, a strength incalculably
greater. It is because the religion of humanity takes (as he
says) such a cheerful view of things in general that Mr. Mallock
rechristens it “the creed of Optimism.” All the holders of that
creed believe, we are told, “that the human lot has something in
it which makes it, in the eyes of all-who can see clearly, a thing
to be acquiesced in, not merely with resignation but devoutness.”
This is the idea which Mr. Mallock undertakes to dispel by show-
ing (1) that the doctrine of a steady progress in human affairs is
not proved; (2) that sympathy is not the powerful emotion that —
optimists take it to be; (3) that admitting progress to be a real-
ity, and sympathy to be all that it is claimed to be, the thought of
the miseries humanity had endured in the past would poison all ~
the satisfaction resulting from its improved condition in the ©
present and its brilliant prospects for the future; (4) that the ©
more we dwell upon the practical perpetuity of the human race ~
the more is individual influence dwarfed in comparison; (5) that
it is difficult to imagine what form or character the happiness
we anticipate for our posterity can take, seeing that the absence
of pain is merely negative in its character, and that the idea of
an abundance of creature comforts is not one that can give pleas-
ure to any human being capable of any high conception of life;
finally, (6) that if we are to see any meaning in life we must follow
a light which is not that of science—the light of theological faith,
Such is the argument of our opponent, supported throughout,
it must be admitted, by more or less aptly chosen instances. and
an abundance of plausible rhetoric. The question is, How does
it affect, how does it touch, any vital issue of the present time?
Is it true that there exists in the world to-day a “creed of opti-
mism ” held in common by a number of otherwise divergent schools
of thought, and that the elements of that creed are as described
by Mr. Mallock ? To this question we venture to give a negative
answer. It is quite possible that individuals here and there may
have constructed for themselves some such metaphysical creed as
the above; but to say that any large number of representative
thinkers of our time could be got to take their stand on the propo-
sitions formulated and criticised by Mr. Mallock is to state what
we are confident is not the case.
The situation to-day is simply this: A theological creed which
had descended to our age from very early times has been found,
when examined from the historical point of view, to be as little
proof against criticism as the moral, political, and scientific ideas

MR, MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 533

of the same period. The considerations which moved our ancestors
to belief do not and can not move us; and, therefore, so far as the
theology in question furnished an interpretation of the world or
a guide to conduct, men who can not now accept it are compelled
to look around for other canons, other sanctions, other modes of
arriving at truth. The thinkers of this age have not deliberately
made this situation for themselves. The change has come, upon
the whole, very gradually ; and human beings are every day being
born into an atmosphere in which the ideas that were current in
the earlier centuries simply can not live unless in some manner
artificially protected. The difference between our time and the
former age consists mainly in this, that educated men have now
something like an adequate idea of what knowledge is, and of
what proof is, and that they have got into the way of asking for
proof before they yield belief. That this was not formerly the
case—that' men believed for the most fantastic and ridiculous
reasons—could be abundantly proved if necessary; but surely it
is not necessary. The task, then, which is assigned by dogmatic
theology to this generation is to believe without those aids to be-
lief which the more habitual supernaturalism of our more igno-
rant ancestors supplied. Some try to do it and succeed, making
ends meet by ways and means best known to themselves. Some
try and do not succeed; and some feel dispensed from trying at
all. Monotheism it must be remembered was not a special reve-
lation to mankind. There are good grounds for the belief that, in
every case it has resulted from the consolidation of an antecedent
polytheism; while polytheism itself has been a delusion forced
upon men’s minds by the countless activities in nature which they
have been powerless to explain to themselves in any other way.
The time has come at length when, as an explanation of nature,
monotheism itself has lost its virtue; not because there are not
many dark problems still to be solved, but because monotheism is
recognized as rather the assumption of a solution than a solution.
Men, even those who view things in this light, may still be theists,
but intelligent men at least are not theists merely because they
can not understand everything in nature. Their reasons are of a
different order.

Instead, therefore, of there being anything in the condition of
men’s minds to-day or in the average philosophy of the time to

_ provoke ridicule or hostile comment, there is much that calls for

every allowance and consideration. The science, the history, the
philosophy, the political and social organization of the past are dis-
credited. Its theology is discredited, too, and men are engaged in
a strenuous effort to lay new foundations and rear worthier super-
structures in every department of thought. The workers, happily
for themselves and for the world, are not all brigaded and dra-

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gooned by the voice of authority, and therefore they are not all
working on the same lines; but they are working, and their sin-
cere labors will not be in vain.

The question, however, at present is whether the various lib-
eral schools referred to by Mr. Mallock stand committed to the
new dogmatic system which he has described. The first thing
that strikes a careful reader of his article is that he has not given
a single quotation from any leader of modern thought indicating
acceptance of the views in question—a thing which it would cer-
tainly have been easy to do if these views were, as he maintains,
fundamental with them all. It is an illusion into which a man
easily falls, whose own thought has run in dogmatic lines, to sup-
pose that others must have constructed for themselves a philo-
sophical or logical framework of equal rigidity. The truth can
not, therefore, be too often repeated that the essential mark of
modern thought is the taking of the world just as it is, and the
reduction of all theories more or less to the rank of working hy-
potheses. Whether the changes in human affairs support the
theory of a great secular drift toward better conditions is a ques-
tion to be decided simply according to the evidence, which can
hardly under any circumstances be of a demonstrative character
in the full sense. The simple fact that men have the power of
rationally adapting means to ends is enough to prompt to effort
and inspire hope, for in this power lies the key to the highest pos-
sibilities of advancement. He who knows can, and, as long as
this is the case, the path of knowledge will be the upward path.
Knowledge, to be sure, is sometimes abused. Why? For want
of more knowledge. There may come periods in the history of a
people when the virtue of such knowledge as they possess has
become exhausted, and when in the rude school of experience they
may have to learn other practical lessons as the necessary condi-
_ tion of further advance; but how all this may be is a matter for
which no individual man is responsible, and one who should wait
to devise a practical philosophy for himself until he had cast the
horoscope of humanity would not be wise. The late Mr. Arnold
thought he had discovered clear traces of “a power, not ourselves,
that makes for righteousness”; but he did not wait for the formu-
lation of that discovery, if such it was, before striving to order his
own life on principles of righteousness. And if some one comes
forward and points out, as one critic at least of Mr. Arnold did,
that whether “the power” is making for righteousness or not
depends upon the stage of a nation’s development, there being —
periods when the general forces make rather for unrighteousness, —
no one is obliged, even though he may regard the criticism as
pertinent and well-founded, to abandon his previously adopted
plan of life.

MR, MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 535

If, therefore, Mr. Mallock would really make the position of an
independent, non-theological thinker of the present day unten-
able, he must show, not that the theory of progress in general is
without logical support, but that, taking the world as it is known
to us, there is no support outside of theology for intellectual or
moral effort. Let Mr. Mallock show that, because we can not
share his views in regard to the government of the world, we can
not desire the good of our neighbor or draw the distinction which
the poet draws between “a higher and a lower,’ and we shall at
once acknowledge our situation to be a very serious one. It is
simply because he can not show anything of the kind that he
adopts his present tactics, which are to saddle on the liberal
schools doctrines which they do not hold, and then to attack those
doctrines with his heaviest logical ordnance. In regard to the
doctrine of progress, Mr. Spencer is perhaps the most authorized
exponent of modern ideas, and how far he is from maintaining it
in anything like an absolute form may be gathered from his works
at large and very conclusively from the eighth chapter of the first
volume of his “Principles of Sociology.” A quotation or two
may be permitted: “If, on the one hand, the notion that savagery
is caused by lapse from civilization is irreconcilable with the evi-.
dence, there is, on the other hand, inadequate warrant for the

- notion that the lowest savagery has always been as low as it is
now. It is quite possible, and, I believe, highly probable, that ret-
rogression has been as frequent as progression. ... Of all exist-.
ing species of animals, if we include parasites, the greater number
have retrograded from a structure to which their remote ancestors;
had once advanced. ... So with super-organic evolution. Though,,
taking the entire assemblage of societies, evolution may be held to.
be inevitable as an ultimate effect of the co-operating factors, in--
trinsic and extrinsic, acting on them all through indefinite periods.
of time; yet it can not be held inevitable in each particular soci-.

ety or even probable. . . . Direct evidence forces this conclusion:
onus. Lapse from higher civilization to lower civilization, made:
familiar during school days, is further exemplified as our knowl-.
edge widens.”

Any candid person can judge from these passages how far Mr:
Spencer must be from basing any theory of human conduct upon
the abstract notion of the progress of the human race. His moral
system, as is well known, has nothing to do either with a general
theory of progress or with the sympathetic interest which indi-
vidual men may take now or hereafter in the fortunes of humanity

_atlarge. If we turn to another writer of very “advanced” opin-
ions, but whose standpoint differs materially from Mr. Spencer’s
—Dr. Maudsley—we find that he too lays no great stress upon the

_ idea of progress, and very fully recognizes the many evidences

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of retrogression which history and natural history alike present,
“Tt admits of no doubt,” he says in one place, “that a law of de-
generation is manifest in human events; that each individual,
each family, each nation, may take an upward course of evolution
or a downward course of degeneracy. Noteworthy” (he adds) “is
the fact that, when the organism—individual, social, or national—
has reached a certain state of complex evolution, it inevitably
breeds changes in itself which disintegrate and in the end destroy
it.”* Turn now to Mr. Leslie Stephen, a writer as free from all
theological prepossessions as either Mr. Spencer or Dr. Maudsley.
Far from making the assumptions which Mr. Mallock attributes
to the whole liberal school, he criticises some of those assumptions
in terms that resemble very closely those used by Mr. Mallock
himself. For example, he tells us that, while speculations in re-
gard to a future Utopia for human society “may be useful in de-
fining an end toward which all well-wishers to their fellows may
desire to act,” such speculations are nevertheless rash, and do not
solve the difficulty for us, inasmuch as “the knowledge—if we
could attain the knowledge—that our descendants would be better
off than ourselves would not disprove the existence of the present
evil.” Pushing the objection further, he says: “ We can not tell

that progress will be indefinite. It seems rather that science —

points to a time at which all life upon the planet must become
extinct, and the social organism may, according to the familiar
analogy, have its natural old age and death.” t
There is no use in taking up space with further citations.
The fact is, we would not, at this moment, know to what writer of
the several schools of thought referred to by Mr. Mallock we
could turn, to find that dogmatic assumption of progress which
he says is characteristic of them all. What characterizes them
all is a manly determination not to despair of the fortunes of
humanity because the former monopolizers of spiritual authority
have suffered an abatement of their prerogatives and now expend
a large portion of their energy in anathematizing the tendencies
of the age. What further characterizes them all is a conviction
that morality and happiness must have sources independent of
human institutions and abstract philosophies, and that, certainly,
neither demonstrable falsehoods nor unverified theories of any
kind can be their absolutely necessary conditions. Mr. Leslie
Stephen expresses this well when he says: “It may be said that
the whole history of the world and its inhabitants represents a
problem of stupendous magnitude. ... We work out the prob-
lem by living, or rather we work out our own little bit of the
problem. We are utterly incompetent to grasp the whole or to
rise above it, and say why such and such data must have been
* “Body and Will,” p. 238. + “Science of Ethics,” p. 444.

MR, MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 537

given, and what will be the further stages of the process. But
when we once recognize the fact that the problem is being worked
out, we see that an answer is actually given in some degree by
the very facts before us. That is really the nature of the change
in the point of view implied in the acceptance of the evolution
theory.” *

Having thus shown to how large an extent Mr. Mallock has
drawn upon his imagination in regard to the importance assigned
in modern ethical theories to the idea of progress, it is easy to
show that what he has said on the subject of sympathy is equally
destitute of foundation. The emancipated modern thinker tries
to take stock of human nature as itis: the age for constructing
ideals of a purely imaginative kind has passed. We want to as-
certain just how much sympathy there is in average human na-
ture, so that we may know what we have to depend on. We want
to discover also how far the quantity now existing admits of in-
crease. Auguste Comte studied this question closely; and, far
from unduly magnifying the sympathetic element in human
nature, he continually speaks of it as being very weak in com-
parison with the egoistic, and therefore requiring all the re-en-
forcement we can give it. His whole system is an elaborate effort
to draw out sympathy and make it more widely and powerfully
operative in human affairs. For this purpose his followers think
it right and profitable to dwell much upon the history of the
human race, and to bring into strong relief the organic depend-
ence of the individual upon society at large. Many who, per-
haps, would not care to acknowledge any obligations to Comte,
are to-day doing the same thing—so much so that the prominence
given to the thought of society as an organic whole, infusing its
own larger life into its individual members, may be said to be an
especial note of the present age. If it be asked what object there
can be in quickening sympathy between a man and his fellows,
the answer is, the promotion of more harmonious social action,
resulting in economy of force and increase of happiness. Upon
this point Mr Mallock seems to be all astray, owing doubtless to
the too abstract manner in which he chose to treat the question.
He seems to think that the whole effect of sympathy is confined
to the mental representation of others’ pains and pleasures. He
forgets, apparently, that it has its natural outcome in action; and
that, except as a basis for action, there would be no useful pur-
pose in cultivating it. This is the true and obvious answer to his
paradoxical contention that an increase of sympathy could not
‘make for happiness, seeing that if, on the one hand, it enabled us
to enter more heartily into the joys of others, it would, on the
other, bring home to us more poignantly their sorrows. We can
; * “Science of Ethics,” p. 84.

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not increase sympathy with mankind at large without strengthen-
ing the sense of duty and prompting to deeds which—whether
they take the form of promoting happiness or averting misery—
will themselves be a source of blessedness to the doers. What is
wanted is simply such a development of sympathy as will best
subserve the interests of society ; and Mr. Mallock’s idea that a
power of sympathy sufficient to prompt men to lead virtuous lives
would also be sufficient to fill them with anguish at the thought
of all the past sufferings of mankind, is altogether fanciful and
hollow.

An assumption which vitiates much of Mr Mallock’s reason-
ing on this whole subject is that right conduct is, in the human
sphere, a kind of rare and frail exotic, requiring the services of a
theological gardener and the warm, heavy-laden atmosphere of
some ecclesiastical hot-house in order to live at all. But that is
a view which we are under no obligation to accept, and which
the facts of life are very far from suggesting. Why should the
relations of man with man be, in their own nature, everlastingly
wrong? Surely there is sunlight enough, and air enough, and
earth enough, and water enough, for a good many of us to live
together on this earth in peace and concord and mutual helpful-
ness! Surely men have need of one another, and it is difficult to
imagine how they could long work together without the develop-
ment in their minds of the conception of justice. In point of
fact, the idea of justice is in the world and has been in it in one
form or another for many ages. The task that is set before us
to-day, with our widened experience and deepened reflection, is to
realize that idea more and more perfectly in all social relations,
Why should we wish to doit? Because we know that justice is
good, and because our sympathies, aided by a certain diffused
feeling of self-interest, prompt us to strive for the perfecting of
society. But, apart from all voluntary or deliberate effort, the
idea of justice acts as a powerful leaven in the society into which
it enters, and we may hope that by and by it will leaven the
whole lump. When Mr. Mallock says that “the problem is to
construct a life of superlative happiness,’ he makes a complete
misstatement so far as any problem contemplated by the thinkers
he criticises is concerned. Theologians promise a life of superla-
tive happiness in another world, but non-theological reformers
are more moderate in their expectations. What the fortunes of
the human race may be in the far-distant future they do not
undertake to predict. They may sometimes, like the poet, dream
their dream of good; but, if so, it is a good such as the conditions
of human nature and its environment are capable of supplying.
It is hard to understand how Mr. Mallock could bring himself to
make such a statement as that just quoted. Admitting that theo-

MR. MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 539

logians attack the problem of “ constructing a life of perfect hap-
piness,” does it follow that the liberal thinkers of the present day
must follow them on that ground, like the magicians of Pharaoh,
imitating, to the best of their considerable ability, the miracles of
Moses and Aaron? It would be much to Mr. Mallock’s benefit if
he could only be persuaded, once for all, that the distinguishing
mark of the whole evolutionary school is that they take the world
as they find it, and expect no more from it than it is adapted to
render. If human history as a whole is predestined to be a fail-
ure, that is none of their affair; they are not in the business of
insuring worlds or universes or even civilizations. All they can
say—and this they do on the ground of experience—is that, taking
the world and the human consciousness as they are, there seems
to be one line of conduct which best subserves human interests;
and which, therefore, they will both follow themselves and recom-
mend to others. That line consists in practicing the lessons that
Nature and history have taught us, using our faculties for the
acquisition of real knowledge and our powers of foresight for a
wise adjustment of present action to future needs and results. If
the man who is filthy spurns this humble, unpretentious philoso-
phy, and determines to be filthy still, he must be allowed to exer-
cise his preference, as he has done under other dispensations.
Wisdom will still be justified of her children, though the gospel
of science should be hid to them that are lost.

Mr. Mallock is much concerned over what the future of
humanity will be if his principles do not prevail. He can not
“feel any pleasure in the thought of a Humanity ‘shut up in infi-
nite content, when once it had secured itself three meals a day,
and smiling every morning a satisfied smile at the universe, its
huge lips shining with fried eggs and bacon.” Well, if the time
should ever come when humanity has nothing to be satisfied with
save abundance of food and a good digestion, Mr. Mallock’s deli-
cately chosen image may be in some measure realized; but why
it should be necessary to imagine such a future for society, merely
because knowledge is growing and superstition waning, it is not
easy to say. Why should not “knowledge grow from more to
more,” and yet “ more of reverence in us dwell,” so that—

“, . . mind and heart, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster ” ?

It is hard to conceive any reason except such as might be sup-
plied by the petulance of a disappointed partisan. Mr. Mallock
would fain persuade us that, save on his principles, life is not
worth living; but, despite his elaborate argumentation, the mod-
ern world, while departing ever more widely from his favorite

540 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

principles, goes on living and enjoying life. Hence these tears,
and these savage diatribes against an imaginary dogmatic opti-
mism on the partof his opponents. To him they perhaps seem
optimists, as not sharing his pessimism; to their own apprehen-
sion they are simply children of their age, listening to its teach-
ings with earnest attention and trying to utter the message they
receive.

What, after all, would Mr. Mallock have us do? He says
that there is no evidence of any meaning or of any general pro-
gressive movement in human history—none that “would be ac-
cepted either in physical or philosophical science.” Yet he wants
us to believe on some a priori ground, which he is prepared to
present, that life has a meaning and does exhibit progress. If we
will only accept the light that he offers, we shall see that “ life is
full of august meanings”; but that light, he plainly tells us, is
not the light of science. In the same way he offers to invest with
infinite significance and value any little services we may render
to humanity—services which, considered simply as offered by man
to man, would not be worth taking into any kind of account. The
method in this case is to bring our offering to Christ, who “ judges
it by the effort and the intention.” The altar of humanity, then,
is not a sanctifying altar; and men must be assured of a high
rating for their sacrifices before they will be content to make
them. “ The love of humanity without faith to enlighten it, and
nothing to justify it beyond what science can show, is as absurd
as the love of Titania for Bottom.” The reply to this is that long
before what Mr. Mallock speaks of as “faith” was known in the
world the nobler spirits among men had a love for humanity, and
were further ennobled, not made ridiculous, by their love. From
the commencement of history, indeed, down to the present day,
there has been but one way of being noble, and that has been
by caring for one’s fellow-men. That way some have found out in
an eminent degree, and multitudes in a lesser degree, without any
aid from theological fancies. In the present day, when the laws
of social development and the true relations of individual life are
so much better understood than formerly, there ought to be, and
there is, much more to nourish in individuals a rational regard
for the general welfare. The love of Titania, whether for Bot-
tom or for Oberon, supplies no apt illustration here, since the case
is not one calling for romantic love, but simply for loyal devo-
tion to a recognized source of good—to that higher life of society
without which the individual life would wither and starve.

Mr. Mallock’s terms are too hard. Much as we might wish to
read those “august meanings,’ much as we might wish to feel
that our gifts to humanity received instant recognition and sym- —
pathetic appraisement, if it is a question of reinstating the Tar-

MR. MALLOCK ON OPTIMISM. 541

quins of ecclesiasticism, we must forego those visions; we must
look within for our reward. Better to face a sterile universe than
submit to a spiritual tyranny. But to us the universe is not ster-
ile, nor is life without meanings which might almost be pro-
nounced “ august.” The theological solution of the problem is
simply an adjournment: the next world is to clear up the mys-
teries of this. The scientific solution may be summed up in the
word “adaptation.” There is a law in things which slowly re-
veals itself to careful observation; and just as that law is read,
learned, marked, and obeyed, does human life grow in value and
more and more carry its own justification within itself. “It doth
not yet appear what we shall be” is a saying very applicable to
the future of our race upon the earth. Supposing it possible that
religion should in the future take the form of an earnest study of
the laws of life and cf morality, personal and social, who can
forecast the glory that might yet be revealed in this despised
humanity of ours? And who would not feel, in presence of such
a transfiguration, that it was “ good for us to be here”? If any-
thing will thus transfigure society, we venture to affirm that it
will be science pursued in a religious spirit—that is, regarded as a
ministry of truth and good to mankind. There is a force avail-
able here that is at present little understood. It may possibly
never be understood by more than a few: no one can answer
for that; but it is impossible not to hope that some day, for a
religion based on relics and texts,on myths and traditions, on
dogma and ritual, on barren erudition at one end of the scale, bois-
terous sentiment at the other, and infinite mystification through-
out, may be substituted one founded on the truth of nature and di-
rected with undivided aim to the perfecting of humanity. Already
we see, here and there, how much of pure happiness the right ad-
justment of human relations can create; and we do not see why
the law, by virtue of which such happiness is produced, should
not become more widely known and more faithfully observed.
It is the habit of the self-styled orthodox to fling all the failures
of the universe at our heads, as if we had produced them, or were
at least specially responsible for explaining them. The habit is
an idle one: the responsibility is not ours; but now that the light
of scientific—that is, of verifiable—truth has come into the world,
we do hold ourselves responsible for bearing witness to it, and
causing it to shine as widely as possible. And, as we are not an-
swerable for the past, neither do we assume to control or predict
the future. We see merely a duty in the present, a duty the per-
formance of which will bring peace, tranquillity, and security.
This is not optimism, but it is in every man’s power to make it a
religion.

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SAVAGE LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA,

By Caprain JOHN PAGE,
OF THE ARGENTINE NAVY.

ee Gran Chaco derives its name, according to Charlevoix,
from those great Indian battues, or collections of wild game,
which, surrounded by a cordon of fire and hunters, were gradually
driven toa given center. It isa vast central tract of country lying
between the southern tropic and 29° south latitude, bounded on
the north by Brazil and Bolivia, on the south by the Argentine
province of Santa Fé, on the east by the Parand4 and Paraguay
Rivers, and on the west by Santiago del Estero and Salta. It con-
tains about one hundred and eighty thousand square miles, or con-
siderably more than the superficies of Great Britain and Ireland.
About one third part of this vast area belongs to Paraguay, but the
exact demarkation of the limits between the Argentine Republic,
Bolivia, and Paraguay has still to be made, although between the
first and last of these countries an arrangement was entered into
through the arbitration of President Hayes, of the United States,
which must necessarily be called satisfactory. The Gran Chaco
has been called, particularly in allusion to the low-lying Paraguay
section, the “ Oceano firme,” or solid ocean. In fact, owing to the
comparatively limited means of communication, it was formerly
considered too vast for an undivided control, and the Argentine
part was constituted into two territorial governorships—one called
the Chaco Austral and the other the Chaco Central. <A third sec-
tion is that belonging to Paraguay, part of which, along its north-
ern side, is disputed by Bolivia, and goes by the name of Province
of Azero. The Chaco Austral is the most favored in natural riches
of these three great sections, and has extensive primeval forests.*

The principal water-courses of these territories are the Pilco-
mayo and Bermejo, which are undoubtedly destined to become
highways of commerce. The waters of these rivers differ in color,
those of the Pilcomayo being dark and sometimes brownish, and
those of the Bermejo red, as its name indicates; both are narrow

* Mr. Clements Markham said, in the discussion on Captain Page’s paper, that the Gran
Chaco was a most important region, lying between the plateaus of the Andes on one side,
and the great fluvial highway of riches. In the Quichua language “chacu” meant a hunt,
but under the government of the Incas of Peru the word was used for that festival when
they surrounded and numbered their flocks. It was a counting of wealth, Hence the
Hatun chacu, or Gran chacu, was so named by the Incas, because those vast, forest-covered
regions to the east of their mountain homes were a source of wealth to them in wild ani-
mals, precious drugs, and the highly prized harvests of coca. In the distant future the
channels which flowed from the homes of the Incas across the Gran Chaco were destined
to bring down the produce of the Andes to markets beyond the Atlantic, but that time
had not yet arrived, although the speaker believed it was near at hand.—Ep1Tor.

SAVAGE LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 543

and tortuous, and both run in a general southeast direction, pre-
serving a remarkable parallelism throughout their course, at a dis-
tance of about one hundred and eighty miles. Their depths and
general characteristics correspond, and they are frequently ob-
structed by narrow argillaceous beds and fallen trees. The waters
of both rivers are drinkable, but hard and unsuited for washing.
The Bermejo brings down an enormous amount of sediment, which
is deposited with such extraordinary rapidity that it must be con-
sidered a peculiarly strong feature of the mechanical work of the
river, by which its geological formations are made and unmade,
This swift precipitation of its detritus, which it replaces by an in-
creasing abrasion of the banks, goes on in the Bermejo, even when
at its height and when in the exercise of its greatest carrying-
power, with a speed equal to the square of its normal current. I
have seen this river eat away an entire point of land, and by way
of compensation deposit, just a turning below, an amount of de-
tritus sufficient to form a similar promontory, which in one season
of low water became covered with a thick and luxuriant growth
of red willow. The Pilcomayo is to a great extent unknown, and
in one section that is quite unknown is invested with a mythical
halo in the shape of a tradition that it disappears. An apparent
disappearance is a phenomenon which seems to have taken place
with some rivers. The upper Paraguay, as I have witnessed, has
been known to flow, as if absolutely lost for many miles, beneath
a matted covering of living and dead vegetation several feet in
depth. In the year 1858 one of these growths, under the influ-
ence of an extraordinary inundation, broke loose and drifted two
thousand miles, down to Buenos Ayres, where it brought up, with
many wild animals and reptiles that had taken refuge there from
the almost universal deluge. The Pilcomayo is not affected in
this way, and I believe that it not only does not become lost, but
that there are no insuperable obstacles to its navigation. At the
point where it is supposed to be lost, it begins a very erratic wan-
dering—after running a few miles to the southeast, it suddenly
turns to the north, leaving several minor branches looking in the
opposite direction. It then returns as rapidly to its general south-
east course, and, while subject to overflows, the main body of it
flows on in a natural bed uninterruptedly to its mouth.*

* Colonel Church remarked, in the discussion, that the Argentine Republic seemed to be
divided into two sections—that of the Pampas, without forest, and that of the Chaco, which
was a forest-covered country. Curiously enough, the rains of the Chaco district did not
occur during the rainy periods of the Pampas district; but from November to May there
was a veritable downpour, and the country became flooded, filled with lagoons, with here
and there an island or small hill. At the head-waters of the Bermejo there was on such
occasions a lagoon forty leagues across. It was a very difficult problem to him how the

Pileomayo and the Bermejo could ever be usefully navigated. The former, one hundred
and eighty leagues above its mouth, filtered itself through a sandy swamp one hundred

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Several attempts have been made to explore this river. The
story of one that was undertaken under the Bolivian Government
has been told with such exaggerations as almost mark it a work
of fiction, by Lieutenant Van Nivel. A tragic interest attaches to
the expedition of Dr. Crévaux, of the French Geographical Soci-
ety, who undertook to work along the banks of the river, The
party were enticed inland by the savages and murdered. A later
Bolivian expedition of one hundred troops, accompanied by a
French traveler, M. Thouar, were harassed but not actually at-
tacked by the savages, and, after wandering considerably out of
their course, succeeded in reaching the Paraguay, having tray-
ersed the Chaco in a southeast direction more or less along the
river, but without in any manner elucidating its geography.*

miles in diameter, while above this swamp it was filled with falls, rapids, sand-banks, and
snags. The bed of the latter oscillated backward and forward to the extent of thirty or
forty miles, carrying with it great trunks of trees of very hard wood, the specific gravity of
which exceeded that of water. The rainy season was succeeded by one so dry that animal
life almost perished for lack of water. There was a distance of twelve hundred and fifty
miles along the Bermejo to its mouth in which it received but one branch,—Ep1ror.

* Dr. Crévaux, already distinguished for his work in exploring the boundary of Guiana
and Brazil, was commissioned to endeavor to reach the opposite side of the Amazon Valley
by way of the upper Paraguay. At Buenos Ayres the members of the local Geographical
Society interested him in the idea of tracing the course of the Pilcomayo. So, instead of
ascending the Paraguay, he went by railway to Tucuman, crossed the Bolivian border on the
16th of January, 1882, and made his way to Father Doroteo’s mission, San Francisco, on
the Pilcomayo. At about the same time a military expedition sent against the Toba Indi-
ans of the Chaco to punish them for some depredations had returned, bringing seven chil-
dren as prisoners, It was deemed best to send a messenger to them—a Toba woman named
Galla or Petrona, who had lived for some time at the mission—to learn how they would
receive the explorers. The messenger did not return, but, as was afterward learned, insti-
gated the Indians to murder Dr. Crévaux and his companions. The party, numbering
twenty persons, without waiting longer, started on the 19th of April. On the 27th of the
same month they were all massacred but one.

M. Thouar started from Santiago in May, 1883, on hearing that the Tobas held as pris-
oners two survivors of the Crévaux expedition. Following Crévaux’s steps from Tarija and
the advanced post of Caiza, he reached the scene of the massacre and founded there
toward the end of August the colony Crévaux. He learned, from a number of the aborigi-
nes whom he interrogated, that none of the Crévaux expedition survived; but, not satis-
fied with what the Indians affirmed, he plunged into the unknown region and undertook
with fifty Bolivian soldiers to descend the Pilcomayo in the midst of the hostile tribes,
His party, which was weakened from time to time by desertions, descended the right or
Argentine bank of the river, plunged through deep, brackish marshes, narrowly escaped a
surprise by two thousand Indians, repelled an attack by eight hundred of them, found fur-
ther traveling through the swamps impracticable, and crossed over to the other side of the
river ; and, finally, in October, having reached the beginning of the great delta of the Pil-
comayo, gave up the attempt to follow the river further, and took the shortest course for
the Paraguay, which they reached after a month’s journeying in great suffering. M. Thouar
returned to the exploration in 1885, and, starting from the southern part of the delta,
went up by land eighty leagues to the place where he had left the Pilcomayo on his former
expedition, and thence descended the river in a canoe to its mouth. After this he was
engaged by the Bolivian Government in two attempts to find a route for a wagon-road

SAVAGE LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 545

The Bermejo River in 1869~70 became deflected from its an-
cient course and actually wandered about for a long time before
finding a new bed. It formed for the time being an island nearly
two hundred miles in length by an average of fifteen miles in
width. This change of bed in our times enables us to understand
the mechanical work which this and the Pilcomayo rivers have
carried on for many centuries, resulting in the production of the
rich alluvial lowlands of the Gran Chaco. It is an interesting
fact that the Bermejo im this as in other changes of less magni-
tude has manifested a tendency to swerve to the eastward suffi-
ciently marked to suggest the idea of some physical cause.

The Bermejo, like the Pilcomayo, has been the object of many
expeditions to open up its waters to navigation. Between 1853
and 1858 my father, Captain Page, under the auspices of the
United States Government, explored the fluvial system of the Rio
de la Plata, and, with the assistance of a staff of competent offi-
cers, made extensive collections in botany and natural history,
which were deposited at the Smithsonian Institution. He made
track surveys of all the rivers so far as he examined them, and
established wherever he went those positions which are the stand-.
ards to this day used in the cartography of those countries, In.
the course of these explorations he twice entered the Bermejo and
once the Pilcomayo, ascending the former to a distance of nine
hundred miles by river course, and turned back, paradoxical as it:
may seem, on account of the excess of water which had flooded
the country, fearing that his steamer, in case of a sudden fall, the:
course of the river being unrecognizable, would be left stranded
in the interior. This was the only expedition up the Bermejo:
undertaken with purely scientific views. Its results are embodied
in the book, “ The La Plata, Argentine Confederation, and Para-.
guay.”

The author was commissioned in 1885 to examine the Bermejo:
and report upon its navigability. He started on the 25th of June..
The way for the first three hundred miles from the mouth of the:
river was interrupted by obstructions caused by the wrecked ves--
sels of former exploring expeditions; the falls of Yzo, a sharp
incline of some two feet in the mile over about that extent, which
causes the water to run swiftly and eddy around and look formi-
dable to the uninitiated; and the argillaceous bars. The most for-
midable barrier of the last class was overcome by fixing a chain-
drag .with four pickaxes fastened uprightly in it, which was
drawn forward and backward over the clay, marking a scratch

from Sucre, in Bolivia, to Puerto Pacheco on the Paraguay. Both projected routes proved
impracticable from want of water, and M. Thouar is said to be satisfied that the only feasi-
ble route from Bolivia to the Paraguay lies by way of the Pilcomayo.—Enrror, from “ La
Nature.”

VOL, XXXV.—35

546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which the water in a few hours washed out into a navigable
channel.

At about three hundred miles above the mouth of the Ber-
mejo the author entered the Teuco, or the channel opened by the
erratic waters of that river when they departed from their origi-
nal bed. In many places along the old bed successive annual
floods have covered with rich deposits the low-lying lands, leay-
ing the tops of large trees peering above the surface. It would
be impossible for the least sentimental nét to admire and feel the
influence of those rich woods, clothed in perpetual verdure, the
trees entwined by the Paraguay jasmine, with its delicate white
and blue flowers, whose fragrance is perceived as you run along
the banks, and covered with other climbers, parasites, and orchids
in great variety. There is a certain richness of growth in these
wilds, filled with the native pineapple, which is unlike the rank-
ness of the Brazilian tropical vegetation, so suggestive of jungle
fevers, A Mr. Plaisant, in 1854, by direction of the Minister of
Commerce of France, made an analysis of the woods of Paraguay,
which practically may be said to be identical with those of the
Chaco, and he concluded that they might be advantageously
employed to take the place of those used in Europe for cabinet
work. Many of them are certainly very beautiful; the tataneée
(Porliera hygrometrica) compares favorably with the bird’s-eye
maple; the palo rosa, the Guayacan Cesalpinea melanocarpa, a
variety of Lapachos, the urundey, curupdy, and cumpayna, the
quebracho, with a hundred others, all of hard, indestructible
wood, when used in the earth or water, and which would hold
their own with any of the woods of Europe or Asia. Mr. Plaisant
classified thirty-nine species of superior quality, useful for naval
construction and cabinet work, exclusive of a great number which
had special applications for medical and domestic use. Most of
the trees I have enumerated are actually used in Argentina in
great quantities for ship-building, fencing, telegraph-lines, and
railway sleepers. The three species of algarroba produce the long
locust-pod, a staple article of food with the Chaco Indians, who
pound it up and make it into a very sustaining bread. They also
brew from it an intoxicating beverage, under the influence of
which they become dangerous. The pod is very fattening food
for cattle and horses, having a great percentage of saccharine
matter. The presence of the algarroba is an indication of high
land not subject to overflow. The alba species is employed exten-
sively in the manufacture of hubs and furniture; its bark is good
for tanning purposes, and a majority of the window and door
frames of the older houses of Buenos Ayres are made of it. The
“palo santo,’ holy wood, or lignum vite, is seen in quantities

north of the twenty-sixth parallel. Its wood, which is extensively |

ee

SAVAGE LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 547

used for blocks and bushings, is so full of resinous matter that it
will burn like a candle.

Among the useful plants is the caraguatd, of the family of the
Bromeliacee, which grows generally within the range of the for-
ests, and from which the Indian obtains a strong fiber useful for
many domestic purposes. It is said to be the fiber known to
Kuropean manufacturers as Batista Anand. The caraguata has
also a faculty of catching and retaining water, whereby the
Indians are afforded means of slaking their thirst in seasons of
drought. Among a hundred edible wild fruits may be named the
chanar ; the vinal; the guayabo, a fine fruit; the wbhagay, a pas-
sion-flower, which gives a large but rather insipid fruit; and the
manduvira, a wild almond. Several Lacteas produce a fine fruit,
and the woods are full of the wild pineapple.

The exploitation of the timber industry has occupied several
thousand people, and has been the means of reducing to a quasi-
civilization many hundreds of the aborigines. This has led to
the development of the Austral Chaco along the borders of the
Parand, where are now many small towns and large agricultural
colonies, prosperous beyond their own hopes, and connected by
rail and telegraph. Two of these colonies are owned by English-
men; and the word of the proprietor of one of them is given that
the Indians are of the best laborers, being the most docile and
steady, although a trifle more indolent than the civilized work-
men. As I continued my ascent of the Bermejo, with but little
other interruption than was occasioned by the draught of my ves-
sel, I always found large masses of Indians at the low passes,
which are indeed their fishing-grounds; at these points, which
were numerous in the upper Teuco, they would wait, evidently in
expectation of some catastrophe or something giving them a
chance to make an attack. They were usually on these occasions
made up with their war-paint, and many of them decorated with
ostrich-feathers, but they generally kept their arms out of sight,
though doubtless handily within reach; and they would come to
us with articles for barter, consisting of dried fish, necklaces, a
few bows and arrows and war-clubs, the skins of wild animals,
and the animals themselves. I was never attacked, though often
threatened.

It is asafe prediction that this region has a great future, pos-
sessing as it does an equable climate, tempered by the prevailing
southeast and southwest winds, with just enough of the warm
-and relaxing weather to give a zest to the enjoyment of the other
kind and stimulate vegetable growth; a climate which through-
out the whole extent of its territories suits admirably the sons of
southern Italy, and in its southern section has been proved to suit
the hardier men of England and the United States. The soil is

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good, and compares well with the lands of southern and western
Buenos Ayres, having in its favor, for agricultural purposes, a far
better climate; and is adapted to the growth of cotton, tobacco,
the castor-oil plant, the olive, barley, sorghum, Indian corn, rice,
the manioc,and many other products of temperate and intertropi-
cal climates. Cattle thrive in all the Chacos, attaining an extraor-
dinary development in size, especially among the Indian herds,
where they depend exclusively upon the grasses and wild fruits
such as the palm and locust. The grasses are varied and abun-
dant, and include many of the species highly thought of in Buenos
Ayres, which is the pre-eminent cattle-growing section just now
of the Argentina.— Abridged for the Popular Science Monthly from
the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.

———<++-—_____

SKETCH OF LAVOISIER.

NTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER was born on the 26th * of
August, 1743,and suffered death by the guillotine on the 8th
of May,1794. His family, descended from a postilion in the royal
stables in the previous century, had gradually risen in estate. His
father, styled in the standard biographies a “ wealthy tradesman,”
is described by M. Grimaux, in the “ Revue des Deux Mondes,” as
a graduate of the law school, and advocate and attorney in the Par-
liament of Paris. The family had also considerable wealth on the
mother’s side, Lavoisier’s father was thus able to provide his son
with good instruction, and interested himself in doing so, The
youth was sent to the Collége Mazarin, where he was remarked as a
brilliant pupil and adiligent student. Science at once became the
prominent object of his studies. After leaving the college he took
a course in law, and was admitted as an advocate in 1764. At the
same time he began those studies by which he became eminent in
many branches of science. He pursued mathematics and as-
tronomy with the Abbé La Caille; botany with Bernard de Jus-
sieu; mineralogy and geology with Guettard; and chemistry with
Rouelle. At twenty years of age, while he seemed to give the
principal share of his attention to mathematics, he became inter-
ested in meteorology, and began a series of barometric observa-
tions, which were continued through his whole life.
So interested did Lavoisier become in his studies that he was
ready, in his twentieth year, to give up general society and confine

* So it is given in the “ Biographie Générale” on the authority of J. Lalande, and by
M. Edouard Grimaux, who writes on the authority of original manuscripts and correspond-
ence in the “ Revue des Deux Mondes” for December 15, 1887. Other biographers give
the 16th of August.

a

SKETCH OF LAVOISIER. 549

the circle of his associates to his teachers and fellow-students;
and, pleading that his health required it, he put himself upon an
exclusive milk diet. Some of his friends seem to have believed
that his health was really giving way ; and M. de Troncq, send-
ing him a dish of gruel, advised him in 1763 to be temperate in his
studies, and to believe that “a year longer on the earth is worth
more than a hundred in the memory of men.”

Among his particular friends was Guettard, who had been ad-
mitted to the Academy as a botanist in 1743, but had afterward
devoted himself to geology and mineralogy. He had already
traveled in France and other countries in the interest of a plan he
had conceived for making geological maps, upon which the kind
of soil, mines, and quarries should be indicated by special marks,
In connection with Guettard, Lavoisier made extensive excursions
during three years through different parts of France. At the
same time he studied the gypsum of the environs of Paris, con-
cerning which he presented, in 1765, the first of the valuable series
of memoirs with which he was to enrich the journals of the
Academy of Sciences during nearly the next thirty years. His
investigation included the varieties of the mineral and their solu-
bility in water, and the cause of the setting of plaster, which he
was the first to explain.

The Academy having, in 1765, offered a prize of two thousand
livres for an essay on “the best means of lighting at night the
streets of a large city, combining clearness of illumination, facil-
ity of service, and economy,” Lavoisier resolved to compete for it,
and began at once a series of experimental studies on the subject.
In order to make his vision more sensitive to slight differences in
the intensity of light, he hung his room in black, darkened it, and
confined himself within it for six weeks, without permitting him-
self to look upon daylight for an instant. The two thousand
livres were divided by the Academy among three competitors,
who had incurred considerable expense in their experiments, while
it gave a special distinction to Lavoisier’s memoir by awarding
the king’s gold medal to the author, for which a public session
Was given.

The geological excursions with Guettard were resumed imme-
diately after the conclusion of this transaction. The intervals of
leisure were given to reading, studying, and making notes; among
the fruits of which was an inquiry into the matter of fire and the
nature of itselements. At first Lavoisier fancied that air was only
water reduced to vapor, or rather water combined with the matter
of fire; but this gave way at once to the conception of an atmos-
phere having an existence of its own and containing the fiery fluid
and water in solution. Guettard’s plan for a mineralogical atlas

of France having been adopted by Minister Bertin, Lavoisier was

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

invited to accompany him in a tour in the interest of that work to
Lorraine and Alsace. Among the fruits of this journey was an
extended memoir on the analyses of mineral waters, which was
not, however, published during Lavoisier’s life. The work of
publishing the atlas on the original plan proving to be a larger
one than the government was ready to sustain, Guettard retired
from it, and Monnet, who was no friend of Lavoisier’s, took his
place. He used Guettard’s and Lavoisier’s material, added some-
thing of his own, and ignored Lavoisier, while recognizing Guet-
tard, in his credits.

Other results of Lavoisier’s earlier work were papers “ On the
Pretended Conversion of Water into Silica” (in which a prevail-
ing error was refuted), “On a Species of Steatite,’” “On a Coal-
Mine” (in conjunction with Guettard), “The Analysis of the Gyp-
sums of the Environs of Paris,” “ Thunder,” the “ Aurora Bore-
alis,” “ The Conversion of Water into the Condition of Ice,’ and
“The Strata of Mountains” (general observations on the mod-
ern horizontal strata which have been deposited by the sea, and
on the conclusions that can be drawn from their disposition
relative to the antiquity of the terrestrial globe). The last was
not published till 1789, when it appeared in the “ Memoirs of the
Academy.”

Lavoisier was nominated in 1768 to succeed Baron in the Acad-
emy of Sciences, by Lalande, who proposed him on the ground that
he had knowledge, talent, and activity, and possessed a fortune,
which, relieving him from the necessity of embracing another pro-
fession, would enable him to be very useful to science. His prin-
cipal competitor was Jars, an eminent metallurgist. Lavoisier
was chosen, but the final decision rested with the king, and his
minister decided that Jars should have the seat. Out of defer-
ence to the views of the Academy, a new position of adjunct chem-
ist was provisionally created for Lavoisier, with the understand-
ing that on the occurrence of the next vacancy in chemistry he
should go in without a new election. The vacancy occurred
through the death of Jars in the next year.

Desiring, as the biographers pleasantly express it, to place him-
self on a financial footing in which he could pursue, independent-
ly, investigations involving costly expenditures, Lavoisier sought
and obtained in 1768 a position as one of the farmers-general (of
the revenue). He conscientiously performed the duties of his
office; instituted reforms in taxation by removing useless duties,
and earned the gratitude of the Jews of Metz by freeing them
from an odious impost. M. Grimaux represents him as performing
the duty of making regular tours of inspection, with which he as-
sociated the study of the features of scientific interest which the
places he visited might afford. The work of this office brought

SKETCH OF LAVOISIER. 551

him into association with farmer-general Paulze, whose daughter
he married, and who went with him to the scaffold. In 1776 Tur-
got made him inspector-general of powder and saltpeter. In this
capacity he made great improvements in the manufacture, so that,
while he put a stop to forced official searches for saltpeter in the
cellars of private houses, he quadrupled the product of the salt,
and so increased the explosive force of gunpowder that the
French brand became as much superior to the English as it had
been inferior.

Lavoisier’s great work consisted in the discovery of the true
functions of oxygen and the nature of combustion; the determi-
nation of the relations of the solid, liquid, and gaseous states of
matter; and in many other observations that embodied the germs
of what have become since the leading principles of chemical sci-
ence. Oxygen was detected at about the same time by Priestley,
Scheele, and Lavoisier; but the phlogistic theory of combustion
possessed the minds of chemists, and, although Kck de Suchbach
and Jean Rey had already dimly discerned the truth, no one had
paid any attention to their discoveries, and Lavoisier was work-
' ing on what was to him, and substantially to the world, virgin
ground, “ Wixed air” and “combustible air” had been speculated
upon, and “the air that is left after combustion ” had attracted at-
tention. But the phenomena of this kind, inconsistent as they
were with the phlogistic theory, had not been sufficient to over-
throw it. The first germ of Lavoisier’s theory on these matters
was embodied in a sealed packet which he deposited with the
Academy in 1770. Recognizing that the calcination of metals
could not take place without the access of air, and that the freer
the access the more rapid the calcination, he “ began to suspect,”
as he expresses himself, that some elastic fluid contained in the
air was susceptible, under many circumstances, of fixing itself and
combining with metals, and that to the addition of that substance
were due calcination and the increase in weight of metals con-
verted into calxes. From this thought came, after much groping
with erroneous conclusions, the idea that air is a compound con-
taining a vital part and another part, and that it is the vital part
that is absorbed. The behavior of charcoal when burning in oxy-
gen pointed to the nature of that substance and to the true theory
of combustion. This new vital substance, which, uniting with
metals, formed calxes, and with other substances generated acids,
he called oxygen or the acid-producer; the air that was left after
combustion was azote, or lifeless, The inflammable air which,
combining with oxygen, was found to form water, was called hydro-
gen. Upon these facts, and with a few other names of known sub-
stances, Lavoisier constructed the system of chemical nomenclature
which, after having undergone many modifications to conform to

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

new discoveries, still rules, The “ muriatic radicle” gave Lavoisier
some trouble, for he could find no oxygen in muriatic acid, and
his experiments upon it with oxygen resulted in the production
of a neutral substance which must be its calx; and so he called
chlorine oxidized muriatic acid. Such mistakes were natural in
the early days of chemistry. Thedecomposition of volatile alkali,
or ammonia, by Berthollet, led to the suggestion which Lavoisier
gave out with great modesty, that many earths, still regarded as
simple, might be compound; and that their apparent indifference
to oxygen should be attributed to their being already saturated
with it.

On the nature of gases and vapors, which had not been under-
stood before, Lavoisier asserted, in a memoir published in 1777,
that most bodies were capable of existing in three different states
—those of solids, liquids, and vapors, or aériform fluids. The
terms airs, vapors, and aériform fluids express only a single form
of matter—a class of bodies infinitely extended; and this principle
“ gives the key to nearly all the phenomena relative to the differ-
ent kinds of air and to vaporization.” While heat tends to change
volatile bodies into vapor, the pressure of the air has a contrary
effect; and “the tendency of volatile bodies to evaporate is in
direct ratio to the heat to which they are exposed, and inverse to
the weight or pressure brought to bear upon them.” Lavoisier’s
memoirs on heat, expansion and contraction under changes of
temperature, and latent heat, show an insight into the accepted
principles. He discussed with much sagacity the question
whether heat is a fluid or a force; and it would not be hard, for
one who is determined to look for it, to find in his essays on this
subject a prevision of the current constitutional chemistry. La-
voisier’s later labors were physiological. They include papers on
the production of carbonic acid in respiration and the office of the
lungs in the process, in which the present theory is proposed as
secondary hypothesis, and on cutaneous transpiration. In his
physiological studies, M. Dumas has found that he had arrived
at a remarkable anticipation of modern views concerning the re-
lations of organic to inorganic nature.

Lavoisier carried his energy into several other fields, and made
his mark in all. He cultivated anestate of two hundred and forty
arpents in the Vendéme, and in nine years doubled its production.
His name is associated with a number of propositions looking to
the public welfare or economical reform. In 1789 he presented in »
the National Assembly a report of the “Caisse d’Escompte,” to
which he had been attached for one year. As commissioner of
the treasury he proposed in 1789 a new plan for the collection of

-imposts, which he elaborated in a special essay entitled “The Ter-
ritorial Wealth of the Kingdom of France,” a work which, accord-

SKETCH OF LAVOISIER. 553

ing to M. F. Hoefer, in the “ Biographie générale,” gave him a
place in the front rank of the economists of his time. He partici-
pated in the work of the commission on a new system of weights
and measures. As treasurer of the Academy he set the accounts
and inventories in order, and discovered some forgotten funds of
the institution, and made them available. “In short, Lavoisier
was to be found everywhere; and his facility and zeal, equally
admirable, were adequate for everything.”

On the 2d of May, 1794, twenty-eight of the farmers-general,
of whom Lavoisier was fourth on the list, were accused in the Con-
vention of conspiring with the enemies and against the people of
France. On the 6th of May they were all condemned to death,
and on the 8th were executed together. Lavoisier and his friends
hoped that his great scientific eminence and the undoubted useful
character of his career might be brought to bear to save him.
Some efforts were made to exert such influence. Lavoisier himself
drew up a memoir of what he had done for the Revolution. The
Bureau of Consultations presented a detailed report on his labors,
A deputation of the Lycée des Arts visited him at the Concier-
gerie, bearing “ to Lavoisier, the most illustrious of its members,”
a testimonial of its admiration.

Lavoisier left no children. He is described as having had a
pleasing, intellectual face, and having been of large figure and of
pleasant, sociable, and obliging disposition.

His most important works were: “Opuscules physiques et
chimiques” (“Physical and Chemical Worklets,” 1774), “ Méthode
de Nomenclature chimique” (“Method of Chemical Nomencla-
ture,” 1787), “Traité élémentaire de Chimique” (“ Elementary
Treatise on Chemistry,” 1789). A complete edition of his works,
published by the French Minister of Public Instruction, 186468,
included these books, fifty-eight memoirs communicated to the
Academy of Sciences between 1770 and 1790, and numerous notes,
letters, and reports relating to the various affairs in which he
was engaged. He had himself begun to prepare a collection
of his works, the completed portions of which were published
by his widow in 1805 in two volumes entitled “ Mémoires de
Chimie.”

Consumption, according to Dr. Irving A. Watson, prevails in all parts of New
Hampshire, but is apparently influenced by topographical conditions. It is more
prevalent ata low elevation with a maximum soil moisture than in the higher
elevations with a less moist soil. The season has only a small influence upon the
mortality from the disease; the mortality is considerably greater among’ women,
and no age is exempt from it; but the least liability to contract it exists between
the ages of two and fifteen, and the greatest between twenty and thirty. The
death-rate is relatively much the larger among the foreign-born.

554

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR’s; TABLE.

THE JOHNSTOWN DISASTER,

MONG the published sermons of

the Rev. John Wesley is a famous

one on “ The Cause and Cure of Earth-
quakes.” The cause of earthquakes, ac-
cording to the eminent divine, was na-
tional unrighteousness, and their cure
would be found to lie in national refor-
mation, It was, in his opinion, of slight
importance to know what physical causes
or conditions were concerned in the pro-
duction of earthquakes; seeing that,
when the Almighty proposed to use
them for purposes of national chasten-
ing, they would always be forthcom-
ing; and when he willed to hold them
in abeyance they would not happen.
In the case of railway and steamboat
accidents we have often been pointed
to alleged Sabbath desecration by the
railway and steamboat companies as the
underlying causes of tle calamities.
Speaking generally, there have never
been lacking those who could interpret
every grave occurrence in such a way
as to reveal their own familiarity with
the special designs of Heaven. In the
face of such explanations any reference
to secondary or mediate causes seemed
superfluous, if not profane. Lord Palm-
erston incurred much theological odium
for suggesting that thorough sanitary
measures might be more effectual than
prayer in averting cholera from Great
Britain; or that, at least, it might be
well to try such measures before ap-
pointing a day of national humiliation.
Down to the present time it has been
customary, throughout a large part of
society, to let the theological view of
all personal bereavements dominate the
natural. From one point of view the
effect of this has been beneficial; from
another it has been quite the opposite.
It has been beneficial as affording, in
effect, a vindication of the natural order
of things and disposing men’s minds to

resignation and fortitude. It has been
the opposite of beneficial in diverting
attention from the proximate causes of
painful visitations, and so far diminish-
ing the sense of personal responsibility
in connection with such things. That
mankind would much earlier have ac-
quired the power of combating the
various forms of disease successfully,
had theological prepossessions been ab-
sent, no candid and reasonable person
could well deny.

The effect of the Johnstown disaster
will be, if we mistake not, to bring into
needed prominence the two ideas of the
supremacy of natural law and the de-
pendence of human life upon a wise ad-
justment by society itself of means to
ends. No other general lesson is dedu-
cible from the sad circumstances of the
case. Whatever may have been possible
in John Wesley’s time, it is hardly pos-
sible to-day for any leader of opinion to
maintain that the disaster should be re-
garded as a divine dispensation. The
preacher of the Brooklyn Tabernacle
himself, who in most matters generally
manages to express the most belated
view, has openly refused to interpret —
this calamity as a sign of divine anger;
being able, as he states, to affirm of his
own knowledge that many of those over= —
taken by sudden death were among the ©
best people in the country. Then let
the lesson which the facts so powerfully
teach be taken to heart. Not by right-
eousness of life, not by religious zeal, —
not by personal piety or devotion, not
by anything that does not directly bear
on the dangers to be averted or the
benefits to be secured, will human life
be protected from ill or enriched with
good, so far as the order of things in the
physical world is concerned. The prayer
that is efficacious is the prayer that
stimulates to work; and the work that
is efficacious is that which is guided by

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EDITOR’S TABLE.

observation and reason. In one of the
dispatches received by “The New York
Times” from the scene of the disaster
it was stated that some persons who had
been rescued from the flood only to find
themselves sole survivors of their fami-
lies had abandoned all faith in Provi-
dence, and had emphasized their change
of mind by casting away their Bibles.
This affords an illustration of a kind of
faith that never should have existed.
These persons had evidently cherished
the idea that, if they tried to live relig-

jously, Providence would see that they

did not suffer from the effects either of
their own or of others’ carelessness;
and that natural agencies of a destructive
character would in some mysterious way
be instructed to pass them over, even
while causing havoc all around. This
expectation having been falsified by
facts, their faith in the divine govern-
ment is not only shaken but destroyed.
Their standpoint is manifestly a less
reasonable and noble one than that of
the patriarch Job, who in the depth of
his trouble could exclaim, ‘‘ Though He
slay me, yet will I trust him.”

Herein lies a lesson for the clergy
and for all teachers of youth. The only
stable faith is one that reposes upon the
order of nature, or at least that fully
accepts that order, and is therefore pre-
pared for all that may flow from it. The
man who supposes that by any pious
observances he can, to even the smallest
extent, guarantee himself or his house-
hold from fire or flood, from pestilence,
famine, or any form of physical disas-
ter is virtually a fetich-worshiper. The
pact he strives to make with the power
he recognizes is of the nature of a pri-
vate bargain, according to the terms of
which exceptions to the general working
of natural laws are to be made when-
ever his individual interests seem to re-
quire it. That man, on the other hand,
has a rational faith which will never be
put to shame, who, accepting the gen-
eral scheme of things as something fixed,

| and preparing himself for all that may

555

necessarily flow therefrom, strives to
make the best possible life for himself
and others. Such a man does not ex-
pect security if the conditions that guar-
antee it have not been fulfilled. He
knows that pestilence will “‘come nigh
his dwelling”’ unless sanitary measures
are enforced in the neighborhood. He
knows that vigilance is the price not
only of civil liberty but of freedom from
all the avoidable ills of life. He sees
that the laws of life rightly observed
are the source of abundant happiness,
and that all that is needed to make life
increasingly worth living is greater in-
sight into the natural order of things,
and a due inclination of the heart to do
the things which the book of the law
prescribes. It seems too much almost
to hope that any adequate compensation
can be found for so stupendous a disas-
ter as that at Johnstown and in the
valley of the Conemaugh ; but the suffer-
ing and loss it has entailed will not have
been wholly in vain if we can bring our-
selves to regard the calamity as a great
national object-lesson in the paramount
necessity of placing human life under
the safeguards that science is prepared
to supply, and in the duty that devolves
upon every individual in the community
to contribute his own quota of reflection
and action to the general welfare. One
man, by a policy of masterly inactivity,
re-established the falling fortunes of the
Roman state: who knows what one
man, by a resolute activity founded on
common sense, might have done to avert
one of the greatest calamities of modern
times?

MENTAL GROWTH FROM MANUAL
TRAINING.

THE new class of schools which in-
cludes in its course of study exercises for
the hands has been much misunderstood,
even by some who have undertaken ‘the
charge of such institutions. The phrase
“manual training” in the names of
these schools has conveyed the impres-
sion that hand-work is not only their

556

distinctive but their dominating feat-
ure. The true aim and the intellectual
character of these schools are admirably
presented in the article on “The Spirit
of Manual Training,” by Prof. C. Han-
ford Henderson, which opens this issue
of the ‘‘ Monthly.” As Prof. Henderson
shows, there is no school whose plan is
so free from one-sidedness as the manual
training school. ‘The specific purpose
of such schools,” he says, “‘is to offer an
education that includes as far as possible
all of the faculties. Its favorite maxim
is, ‘Put the whole boy to school.’ Its
mode of carrying out this purpose is the
very practical one of occupying the time
in any way, formal or informal, that
will best lead to the end proposed.”
The chief danger which besets such a
school is that of becoming a shop, and
producing artisans rather than develop-
ing men. There are many who are not
aware that any other effect follows from
the training of the hands than the power
to make certain articles. But nota finger
can be consciously lifted unless an im-
pulse is first sent to that finger from the
brain. The bungling motions of un-
practiced hands are due to the imperfect
control of an undeveloped brain, and
the gradual acquirement of the power
to move the hands to just the right ex-
tent, in just the right direction, and
with just the right amount of force, is
accompanied by a proportionate devel-
opment in the brain. The increasing
sensitiveness of the eye to detect slight
deviations from a perfect square, vertical,
or circle carries with it a general ability
to see accurately, and to rightly interpret
the visual impressions presented to the
mind. Manual training has also a higher
influence. The boy takes a pride in his
work, and, in overcoming the difficulties
of his successive tasks, he develops the
virtues of perseverance, self-reliance,
and honesty. These schools are still in
a formative stage, and doubtless imper-
fections and errors may be found in the
character of any particular institution;
but if the spirit which Prof. Henderson

THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

reveals shall dominate the manual train-:
ing school, its book-study and its shop-
work promise to form the best system
of all-around educational development
that has yet been devised.

BRUNOS STATUE AT ROME,

THE erection at Rome of a statue to
Giordano Bruno, who on the 17th of ©
February in the year 1600 was publicly
burned in that city for the heresies alleged —
to be contained in his philosophical
writings, is a noble act of justice to the
memory of a great and much-injured
man. It is more than this, however, —
for it bears emphatic witness to the de-
termination of the Italian Government —
and people to range themselves on the
side of the widest freedom in specula-
tion, and thus to place their whole civi-
lization under the auspices and guidance
of the modern spirit. It is satisfactory
that, amid not a few partial signs of re-
action, we have this great and formal —
vindication of the principle of intellectual
liberty on the part of one of the lead-
ing nations of the world. When we
read of the thousands of telegrams of
sympathy sent to the Pope in connec-
tion with this event, we can not help
wondering how the sympathizers, who,
it may be presumed, all enjoy a fair
measure of civil liberty in the countries
throughout which they are scattered,
would themselves like to be in the hands
of a power that could bring them to the
stake if their opinions were not of the
pattern which that power chose to ap-
prove. From the modern point of view
the execution of Bruno was simply the
cold-blooded murder by ignorant fanatics
of a man immeasurably their superior
in knowledge and intellectual power;
and who, by his refusal, in the face of
death, to recant his opinions, proved
himself possessed also of the highest
degree of moral heroism. He was ac-
cused of atheism in his day, but his
system of thought was pantheistic rather
than atheistic. He believed that the

LITERARY NOTICES.

universe had an animating soul, which
was diffused through every form of ma-
terial existence, giving to each the
powers and properties it was found to
possess. He was a warm upholder of
the Copernican system of philosophy;
for adherence to which Galileo also suf-
fered at a later date. He believed that
the universe was of infinite extent and
embraced an endless multitude of worlds.
In a word, he had broken the fetters of
ecclesiastical dogma, and had entered
on a career of original speculation and
research. No wonder he was considered
a dangerous man, and that first the
prison, and finally the stake, were his
portion. Times, however, have greatly
changed; and he who was led as a
criminal to death for having dared to
think for himself and uttered his thought,
is now placed high on the honor-roll of
the forerunners of modern liberty and
Civilization, and is gratefully remem-
bered by thousands of intelligent men
‘and women the world over.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Tue Ice Ace in Norto America, AND ITS
BEARING UPON THE ANTIQUITY oF Man.
By G. Freprrick Wriest, D. D., LL. D.,
F.G.S.A. With an Appendix on “Tuer
Propasie Cause or Guacration.” By
Warren Uruam, F.G.S8. A. With 147
Maps and Illustrations. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. xviii and 622.
Price, $5.
Tux publication of “‘ The Great Ice Age,”
) by James Geikie, fifteen years ago, and of its
# second edition, revised, two or three years
\) later, presented to the general reader a com-
) prehensive and very interesting account of
|) the Glacial period, the latest completed chap-
\ ter of geologic history. In this, as in so
) many other portions of the geologic record,
| the most important recent contributions to
i knowledge have been gathered on this con-
iitinent ; and Prof. Wright, widely known for
his extensive observations and fruitful inves-
tigations in glacial geology, has here set
yforth, in an attractive popular style, the
avast array of evidence that an ice-sheet for-
merly overspread the northern half of North
\America, stretching southward to Nantucket,

557

Martha’s Vineyard, and Long Island, to the
cities of New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis,
and on the Pacific coast to Seattle and Van-
couver Island.

Conclusive proof that the drift deposits,
bowlders, and strize found upon all the coun-
try farther north are due to the agency of
land-ice seems to be supplied by the ter-
minal moraines which were recognized only
about a dozen years ago by Clarence King
in the Elizabeth Islands on the south coast
of New England, by Cook and Smock in New
Jersey, and by Chamberlin in Wisconsin.
Since then Prof. Wright has devoted every
vacation and leisure day to the fascinating
study of the drift, and has personally exam-
ined and mapped large portions of the gla-
cial boundary along its extent across the
eastern half of the United States, from Nan-
tucket and Cape Cod through New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mis-
souri, Kansas, Nebraska, and South and
North Dakota. This boundary traverses val-
leys, hills, and mountains, with surprising
disregard of the contour, often rising or
falling one thousand feet or more within
short distances in crossing the Alleghany
ranges.

Not content with these investigations,
Prof. Wright went three years ago to Alas-
ka, and there spent a month in observations
of the Muir Glacier, which enters the sea at
the head of Glacier Bay, terminating in
water about six hundred feet deep, and ris-
ing above the water in a vertical cliff of ice
a mile long and two hundred and fifty to three
hundred feet high. The author’s measure-
ments showed that this glacier is pushed out
into the bay at an average rate of forty feet
per day, moving thus many times faster than
the comparatively small glaciers of the Alps,
though not surpassing the motion of Green-
land glaciers, which similarly end in the sea,
being there broken into icebergs and floated
away.

Portions of Prof. Wright’s exploration
of the glacial boundary were done for the
Geological Surveys of Pennsylvania and of
the United States, the terminal moraine
through Pennsylvania being traced by him
in company with the late Prof. Henry Car-
vill Lewis. During these surveys, and in the
visit to the Muir Glacier, many very instruct-
ive photographs were taken, which appear

558

as engraved illustrations in this volume.
The author also presents very fully the re-
sults of the labors of others, both in-the
United States and in Canada, as Agassiz,
Dana, E. and C. H. Hitchcock, Newberry, Le
Conte, Lesley, White, Chamberlin, Salisbury,
Todd, Gilbert, McGee, Shaler, Davis, Stone,
Russell, Upham, A. and N. H. Winchell,
Claypole, Spencer, Whitney, Sir William and
G. M. Dawson, Bell, Chalmers, and many
more, often quoting from their reports and
memoirs, and reproducing their illustrations
and maps. The work is thus a compendium,
well brought up to date, of the already
voluminous literature of this wonderful geo-
logic winter of our globe.

Glaciers now exist, as described in this
volume, on the Sierra Nevada, on Mount
Shasta, in the Selkirk Range, and in great
numbers and extent northward to Mount St.
Elias and Unalaska. In the chapter on the
glaciers of Greenland, a map shows the
route of Nordenskiéld in 1883, and of Dr.
F. Nansen last year upon the ice-sheet that
covers its interior, extending in a vast mo-
notonous expanse which rises gradually to
elevations in its central portion six thousand
to ten thousand feet above the sea. The
further description of glaciers in other parts
of the world, and of the antarctic ice-sheet,
prepare the reader for the discussion of the
signs of former glaciation in the now tem-
perate regions of North America and Eu-
rope.

The striation of the bed-rocks, the stri-
ated pebbles and bowlders of the drift, sec-
tions of till and of stratified drift and loess,
the characteristic topography of kames, ter-
minal moraines, and the oval hills of till
called drumlins, are very clearly described,
with excellent illustrations from photo-
graphs. The boundary of the glaciated area
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi is shown
in a series of six maps; and a general map
showing the glacial geology of the United
States delineates, besides this southern limit
of the North American ice-sheet and drift,
the successive terminal moraines formed at
times of halt or readvance of the ice during
its retreat and final melting, the courses of
the glacial striz and transportation of bowl-
ders, the driftless area of southwestern Wis-
consin and portions of adjoining States, the
modified drift deposited in valleys of south-

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ward drainage from the ice-sheet, and the : |
boundary of the glacial Lake Agassiz which |
was held in the basin of the Red River of
the North and of Lake Winnipeg by the
barrier of the ice while it was being melted
away.
Important changes in the drainage of the
country, caused by the ice-sheet and its drift
deposits, are noticed in considerable detail.
In the same way that Lake Agassiz was
formed, outflowing by the glacial River |
Warren along the course of the Minnesota
and Mississippi Rivers, the Great Lakes of
the St. Lawrence were held by the receding
ice-barrier at levels much higher than now,
similarly outflowing over the lowest points —
in their southern water-shed to the Missis-
sippi; and these ancient lake-levels are still _
found distinctly marked by beach ridges and i
deltas of gravel and sand. Another very
interesting glacial lake was formed in the
basin of the Ohio River by the tempor
dam of the ice-sheet, which at its time of
maximum area extended across this river at
Cincinnati, carrying its morainiec drift into ©
the northern edge of Kentucky. “ These 1
glacial deposits south of the Ohio,” accord.
ing to Prof. Wright’s observations, “are |
such as to make it certain that the front of
the continental glacier itself pushed, at some
points, seven or eight miles beyond the Ohio
River; and it is altogether probable that —
for a distance of fifty miles (or completely ©
around the eastern, northern, and western |
sides of the Kentucky peninsula formed by ©
the great bend of the river) the ice came |
down to the trough of the Ohio, and erossed —
it so as completely to choke the channel and
form a glacial dam high enough to raise the
level of the water five hundred and fifty feet |
—this being the height of the water-shed to ©
the south.” ‘Traces of the former existence § |

of about four hundred miles in the valleys of | |
the Ohio, Alleghany, and Monongahela Riv-) |
ers and their tributaries. At the present; |
time the abundant lakes, and the waterfalls ,
on streams, throughout the glaciated area,” |
so remarkably contrasted with their general | |
absence farther south, are due to irregulari- :
ties in the deposition of the drift and to its |
obstructions of the preglacial drainage. |
A chapter is devoted to the flight of)
plants and animals during the Glacial pe}

LITERARY NOTICES.

riod, species from far north having been
driven southward by the severe climate and
accumulating ice, as is shown by remnants
of a flora and fauna like those of the arctic
regions, which have managed to continue
their existence since the Ice age on the tops
of mountains in temperate latitudes. Many
peculiarities in the distribution of forest
trees, made known by the researches of the
late Prof. Asa Gray, also find their’ only ade-
quate explanation in these vicissitudes of
climate.

Northwestern Europe was covered by an
ice-sheet about half as extensive as that of
our own continent, and the author gives on
a single map a comparative view of the gla-
ciated areas of both. Another map shows
the course of the terminal moraines recently
traced by Lewis in Ireland, Wales, and Eng-
land, and by Salisbury in Germany, each of
whom had much previous experience from
work on glacial geology in the United States.

Treating of the cause and date of the
Glacial period, Prof. Wright rejects the as-
tronomic theory of Croll and Geikie, which
attributes the severe climate to conditions
dependent on the eccentricity of the earth’s
orbit between two hundred and forty thou-
sand and eighty thousand years ago. Instead
of this, the post-glacial erosion of the gorge
below the Falls of Niagara and of that ex-
tending eight miles on the Mississippi from
Fort Snelling to the Falls of St. Anthony at
Minneapolis, similar erosion by streams trib-
utary to Lake Erie, changes in the shores
and deposits of dune sand about Lake Michi-
gan, and other observations, afford much
shorter measures of the time since the de-
parture of the ice-sheet, agreeing in their

testimony that it was no longer ago than

seven to ten thousand years. Prof. Wright

‘is also disposed to doubt that there have
_ been two distinct Glacial epochs in America,

and believes that the facts thus far obtained

are capable of explanation on the theory of

but one epoch, with the natural oscillations

"accompanying the retreat of so vast an ice-
_ front.

The last two chapters review the evi-
dences of man’s presence in America and

Europe during the Glacial period, specially

describing the important discoveries of pa-

Teolithic implements in glacial gravel depos-
its near Trenton, N. J., by Abbott; near

559

Claymont, Del., by Cresson; in the Little
Miami Valley, Ohio, by Metz; and at Little
Falls, Minn., by Miss Babbitt. But doubts
remain concerning the authenticity of the
famous Calaveras skull and stone imple-
ments denoting a higher state of develop-
ment than that of paleolithic man, reported
as occurring in the lava-covered gold-bear-
ing gravels of California, which, if obtained
there in the undisturbed gravel, would give
to our race a considerably greater antiquity
than is otherwise known.

In the appendix Mr. Upham contributes
“an explanation of the causes of the Glacial
period, which, in this application of its fun-
damental principle, seems to be new, while
in its secondary elements it combines many
of the features of the explanations proposed
by Lyell and Dana and by Croll. Briefly
stated, the condition and.relation of the
earth’s crust and interior appear to be such
that they produce, in connection with con-
traction of the earth’s mass, depressions and
uplifts of extensive areas, some of which have
been raised to heights where their precipita-
tion of moisture throughout the year was
almost wholly snow, gradually forming thick
ice-sheets ; but under the heavy load of ice
subsidence ensued, with correlative uplift of
other portions of the earth’s crust; so that
glacial conditions may have prevailed alter-
nately in the northern and southern hemi-
spheres, or in North America and Europe,
and may have been repeated after warm in-
terglacial epochs.” Mr. Upham believes that
the earth’s crust floats in a condition of hy-
drostatic equilibrium upon the heavier liquid
or viscous mobile interior, or layer envelop-
ing the interior, subject, however, to strains
and resulting deformation because of the
earth’s contraction. But such oscillations
seem not inconsistent with the doctrine that
the earth’s interior is solid, with a degree of
mobility like that of ice in glaciers, Whether
the formation of the Himalayan mountain-
range has been contemporaneous and correl-
ative with the Glacial period, and the Appa-
Jachian uplift with the Carboniferous and
Permian glaciation of portions of the East-
ern hemisphere, as is here suggested, must
probably require many future years of ob-
servation and study to determine.

All who have read the earlier work of
Prof. Geikie, or listened to Prof. Wright’s

560

lectures on this subject before the Lowell
Institute in Boston, and the Peabody Insti-
tute in Baltimore, will welcome this elegantly
printed volume as the most elaborate and
complete presentation of this marvelous geo-
logic period. The broad and critical knowl-
edge which the authors have gained through
long field-work, the admirable literary style
with which the complex facts are grouped
and explained, the abundant illustrations by
engravings and maps, and the copious index
making the volume a convenient manual, will
be sure to incite many to observe for them-
selves the records of the Ice age in the
vicinity of their own homes.

THE FisHerRIES AND FisHery INDUSTRIES OF
THE UniteD States. By Grorce Brown
GoopE and a Staff of Assistants. Sec-
tions III, 1V,and V. Washington: Gov-
ernment Printing-Office. Four Vols, Pp.
176, 178, 808, 887, with Plates and
Charts.

Tus great work is designed to give a
complete survey of all that relates to our
fisheries, and includes in its portly volumes
a vast amount of information on every branch
of the subject. This information is present-
ed, moreover, in a way to attract readers,
notwithstanding its discouraging voluminous-
ness, and invite them to keep on. The first
part of the present installment, Section III,
is devoted to a description of the “ Fishing-
Grounds of North America,” and is edited
by Richard Rathbun. The term “ fishing-
grounds ”’ is defined to apply to “‘ those areas
of the sea-bottom: which are known to be
the feeding or spawning grounds of one or
more species of edible fishes, and which af-
ford fisheries of greater or less extent.” The
most important of our fishing-grounds are
located off the eastern coast of North Amer-
ica, between Nantucket and Labrador; the
most distant fields lying in Davis Strait off
the coast of Greenland. These, with the oth-
er fields of the eastern coast down to Mexico,
are described, under thirteen local or special
headings, by Joseph W. Collins and Mr. Rath-
bun; the sea fishing-grounds of the Pacific
States coast, by President Jordan; those of
Alaska, with their resources, by Tarleton H.
Bean; those of the Great Lakes, by Ludwig
Kumlien and Frederick W. True. In addi-
tion, President Jordan furnishes a discus-
sion of the “Geographical Distribution of

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Food-Fishes in the Several Hydrographic Ba-
sins of the United States.” The text is sup-
plemented by thirty-two “‘ ocean temperature
charts.” Section IV comprises an account
of “The Fishermen of the United States,”
by Prof. Goode and Mr. Collins, including
the classification of their nationalities, their
distribution, delineations of their mode of
living, character, habits at work, intelligence,
tastes, and other qualities. A feature of
special interest is the section on the part
played by “fishermen as investigators.” In
Section V, the “ History and Methods of the
Fisheries” are related in two very large
volumes. The review of this part tends to
take the form of an enumeration rather than
an analysis. Nineteen authors are repre-
sented in the different papers. The accounts
cover the history of the several fisheries de-
scribed; their beginning, growth, or decay,
and present condition; the methods pursued
at the different grounds where each fishery is
prosecuted ; processes of preparation for the
market ; applications of the fish; statistics of
returns and value; inquiry into the agencies
which have affected the prosperity or exist-
ence of the fishing stations as such; and a
variety of such other information as may
help to a clear and comprehensive view of
the condition and prospects of fishing enter-
prise. The first volume relates to food-fish-
es; the second to marine mammals, reptiles,
and invertebrates which are used for food
or other economical purposes. The special
subjects are the halibut, cod, haddock, hake,
mackerel, menhaden, herring and “sardine,”
Spanish mackerel, millet, red snapper, salm-
on, whale, blackfish and porpoise, Pacific
walrus, seal and sea-otter, turtle and terra-
pin, oyster, scallop, clam, mussel and aba-
lone, crab, lobster, crayfish, rock lobster,
shrimp and prawn, leech and trepang, and
sponge fisheries, industries, and trades ; with
special chapters on “ The Shore Fisheries of
Southern Delaware,” the ‘Havana Market
Fishery of Key West,” “ The Pound-net Fish-
eries of the United States,” and ‘The Fish-
eries of the Great Lakes.” In nearly ey-

ery chapter may be found illustrations on

the depreciation or destruction of fish-beds
once extremely valuable and prolific, of the

manner in which we have allowed great re- j
sources to go to waste through the reckless |
prosecution of speculative enterprises. One »

t

LITERARY NOTICES. 561

volume of the series is an atlas of two hun-
dred and fifty-five plates.

A TREATISE ON CO-OPERATIVE SAVINGS AND
Loan Associations. By Seymour Dex-
ter. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 299.

Tue author has aimed, in preparing this
treatise, to furnish information concerning the
class of associations described in the title, in
a form in which it shall be accessible to all
desiring it; to explain clearly the principles
on which the typical association is founded ;
to describe variations from the type; to fur-
nish a complete and safe guide to persons
wishing to engage in such associations; to
correct certain false notions concerning some
matters of financial management in them;
and to publish the best statutes of the sev-
eral States concerning them, recommending
particularly the New York act of 1887 and
the laws of Massachusetts. While co-opera-
tion has existed under various forms and for
many purposes, the efforts in the special
shape considered in this book have been
more uniformly successful than in any other.
The associations formed for the purpose have
had various names—building and loan asso-
Ciations, building associations, mutual say-
ings and loan associations, homestead aid as-
sociations or co-operative banks. The name
given them by Mr. Dexter includes all the
others, and is believed to describe them more
accurately than any other name.
fits derived from them are all included under
the general description that they encourage
‘savings. This they do by affording a safe
place of deposit, convenient, but out of the
reach of pressing temptations to spend; that
the ultimate object of the saving, to provide
a home, is made practicable through them;
that through them an opening is offered for
the investment of small sums that might
otherwise be frittered away; and that they
afford convenient facilities to their members
wishing to negotiate loans. A chapter is de-
voted to the delineation of the typical asso-
ciation; another chapter to a sketch of the
growth and spread of the organizations and
accounts of their conditions in the several
States—which is imperfect as a history be-
cause it has been impossible as yet to get
full information on the subject. The devel-
opment of the scheme on which the associa-

VOL, XXXV.—36

The bene- |

tions are conducted is reviewed, with the
modifications it has undergone, and “the
best scheme” is determined; and this re-
view is followed by directions for the organi-
zation of an association under the New York
act of 1887, and also under that of 1851,
and by instructions in the keeping of the as-
sociation’s accounts—this being, in fact, the
exposition of a particular system of book-
keeping. In the appendix are given the
laws of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachu-
setts, and Ohio respecting the associations,
and forms for a constitution and the papers
required in the transaction of their business.
The book supplies satisfactory information
on a subject in which there is wide-spread
interest, and answers well to the familiar de-
scription that it responds to a want of the
times.

ANNUAL REPoRT OF THE GroLoGicaL SURVEY
or ARKANSAS For 1888. Vol. I. By Joun

C. Branner, State Geologist. Little Rock:

Press Printing Company.

OPERATIONS under the present survey
were begun in 1887. When the first report
was made, they had been carried on for so
short a time that only a meager statement
could be published ; hence the result of most
of the work that has been done from the be-
ginning will be given in the four volumes of
the current report. The present volume,
after a brief general account of the work
done during the year, is occupied with the
report of Dr. T. B. Comstock, assistant ge-
ologist, upon his preliminary examination of
the mineral resources of the western central
part of Arkansas, with especial reference to
the production of the precious metals. The
second volume will give the results of the
combined work of the United States Geo-
logical Survey, and the Geological Survey of
Arkansas, upon the Mesozoic geology of the
State. The third volume will relate to the
coal regions ; and the fourth volume will
contain miscellaneous and local reports.
Dr. Comstock’s work, as described in the
present volume, relates to Pulaski, Saline,
Hot Spring, Garland, Montgomery, Polk, and
Scott Counties, and parts of Yell, Pike, How-
ard, Sevier, and Franklin Counties. The ob-
servations recorded were made in 1887 and
1888 in all the important places in the State
where mining or prospecting for gold and

562

silver were or had been carried on, and were
also directed to a certain extent to the oc-
currence of the baser metals. After describ-
ing the surface geology and the mines of
the counties named with considerable full-
ness, the author summarizes his conclusions
that there is but little reason to believe that
any workable deposits of gold occur in the
State. The promise is better, though not
brilliant, for silver; and much of the profit
to arise in the working of the silver ores is
likely to ensue from the presence of other
metals, chiefly lead and zinc, with which the
silver ores are closely linked. Other metals
looked for were copper, which does not prob-
ably exist in deposits that can be profitably
worked; tin, of which there is one slight in-
dication; nickel and cobalt, of which one
“claim” is mentioned that “deserves devel-
opment”; manganese, which exists in con-
siderable amount; iron, in ores the quantity
and quality of which do not appear to have
been definitely determined; and miscellane.
ous products, such as graphite, silica powder,
pyrites, and mineral paints. <A list of the
minerals of western central Arkansas, and
a chapter on the location of mining claims,
complete the volume.

A Hanppoox or Cryprocamic Botany. By
Aurrep W. Bennett, F. L.S., and Groree
Murray, F. L.S. London and New York:
ae Green & Co. Pp. 473. Price,

BB.

Tuts work fills an important gap in our
botanical literature, for, while we have, on
the one hand, numerous elaborate mono-
graphs dealing with special families or groups
of cryptogams, and, on the other, our gen-
eral treatises on botany give a sketch of the
cryptogamic series, there is no book in the
English language devoted to presenting the
main facts of cryptogamic botany as they
are known at the present time. The first
subdivision treated is the vascular crypto-
gams, including fossil forms, and embrac-
ing six classes. In this subdivision and the
Muscinee, the classification adopted by the
authors follows generally accepted princi-
ples. In the Thallophytes, however, where,
on account of less complete knowledge,
there is less general agreement, the systems
are numerous, and the authors state that in
choosing among them they have made an

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

effort to bring together those organizations
which are most nearly related to one another,
To this end, while they adopt the Proto-
phyta of Sachs as a primary class, they differ
from that authority in holding to the older
division of the higher Thallophytes into the
two great groups of Alge and Fungi. Be-
sides those already mentioned, the two small
groups, Characee and Mycetozoa, make up
the seven chief subdivisions employed in
this work. The language of the treatise is
clear and smooth, and the authors have
striven toward a simple terminology in their
department by using such Anglicized forms
of Latin and Greek terms as sporange, arche-
gone, antherid, epiderm, etc. The text is
illustrated by nearly four hundred excellent
illustrations; lists of the literature of the
several groups, classes, or orders are inserted
at the appropriate places; and the volume is
adequately indexed.

Tue TREE or MyrHoLocy, ITs GROWTH AND
Fruirace: A Stupy. By Cuarzes Dz B.
Mitts. Syracuse, N. Y.: ©. W. Bardeen.
Pp. 288.

Tuts work, which is declared to be the
fruit of a love for the subject, seeks to as-
certain something of the origin, nature, and
growth of myth, what it primarily was, and
what has come of it, The theme can not, in
the author’s view, be said to have become
obsolete, “‘when the bale-fires are still kin-
dled, as in Scotland and Norway, on each re-
turn of the solstice; when the peasant, as
in Germany, still fodders wind and flame in
deprecatory offering, and hunts on St, John’s
night the witches from house and stall; when,
as in our own country, the superstitious re-
‘gard for signs, omens, etc., still holds so
strongly even in intelligent and compara-
tively freed minds, and survivals almost in-
numerable of old mythological beliefs exer-
cise, to this hour, powerful sway over both
opinions and conduct.” The origin of myths
is sought by the author chiefly in the disposi-
tion of childhood, “and so the child-mind of
humanity,” to view every object about it as
having conscious life; as endowed, in some
strange or vague way, with personality.
Combined with this is a propensity to ex-
aggerate, particularly in matters associated
with the religious sentiment. Thus the il-
lusions of mythology grew as the original

LITERARY NOTICES.

appellative sense of words descriptive of ob-
jects in nature was lost, and the anthropo-
morphism and personification became more
and more complete. From this general de-
scription and origin the author goes on to
account for “‘ myths of explanation,” “myths
arising from metaphor,” “heroic legends,”
“nursery tales,” “ proverbs, folk-lore,” etc.,
“survivals and reminiscences,” ‘‘ shadow and
signification,” “didactic and ethical myths,”
and “symbolism.” Finally, he forecasts an
“excelsior” for the human mind, when it
shall grow beyond “ anthropomorphism in
reference to Deity?” ;

The book prepared by Paul Bert as an
introduction to his “ First Steps in Scientific
Knowledge ” has been translated and issued
in this country, with the title Primer of Sci-
entific Knowledge (Lippincott, 36 cents). The
author says of the present volume: “ This
new work is carried out in the same spirit
as the former and follows the same plan.
The book is so arranged that the larger work
becomes a review and extension of the sub-
ject. The method which consists in present-
ing to the child during two or three consecutive
years the same subjects, in the same order,
following the same general arrangement, but
with an increasing number of facts and a
progressive elevation of ideas,is an excel-
lent one and is now universally adopted.”
The “ Primer” is both more elementary and
more practical in character than the “ First
Steps.” It treats of man (his organs and
their uses), animals, plants, stones, and the
three states of matter, with a few para-
graphs on light, sound, electricity, and mag-
netism, Reading lessons and subjects for
composition are given at the end of each
section. The book is full of pictures and is
provided with a glossary. These two books
serve admirably to bring the study of nature
into the early education of pupils, where it
will do them most good.

Avery attractive little’ book, entitled Out-
lines of Lessons in Botany, is offered by Jane
H. Newell, for the use of teachers, or of
mothers studying with their children (Ginn),
The lessons here outlined are suitable for
children of twelve years of age and upward.
They follow the plan of Dr. Gray’s “ First
Lessons” and “How Plants Grow,” and
are intended to be used in connection with

563

either of those books. The necessary refer-
ences are given at the end of each section.
These lessons contain directions for getting
plants to work upon by raising them from
the seed, etc.; also suggestions for leading
the pupils to observe and to experiment for
themselves, Part I, now before us, deals
with the organs of plants and their func-
tions, taking up in succession roots, buds
and branches, stems and leaves, and thus
affords a basis for classification, which Part
II, on flowers, is to develop. A general de-
scription of seedlings precedes the chapters
on the special organs, and prefixed to that
is a brief account of plants and their uses.
Only the flowering plants are studied in
these lessons. The book has twenty-five
illustrations,

Prof. Wentworth’s series of mathemat-
ical text-books has been increased by the
first volume of a work on Algebraic Analy-
sis, by G. A. Wentworth, J. A. McLellan,
and J. C. Glashan (Ginn, $1.60). This work
is intended to supply students of mathe-
matics with a well-filled storehouse of solved
examples and unsolved exercises in the ap-
plication of the fundamental theorems and
processes of pure algebra, and to exhibit to
them the highest and most important results
of modern algebraic analysis. It may be
used to follow and supplement the ordinary
text-books, or as a work of reference in a
course of instruction undera teacher. The
present volume ends with a large collection
of exercises in determinants.

Studies im the Outlying Fields of Psy-
chie Science, by Hudson Tuttle (Holbrook,
$1.25), is an attempt to explain those oc-
currences which have come to be known by
the name of psychic phenomena, His theory
is, that there is a psychic ether which con-
veys thought as the luminiferous ether con-
veys light; that every one’s thoughts pro-
duce waves in this psychic ether, which may
be felt by a person at a distance who has
the requisite sensitiveness, and that in this
way mesmerism, clairvoyance, mind-reading,
visions, thought-transference, etc., are made
possible. He regards this theory and these
phenomena as furnishing a scientific basis
for the belief in immortality. The closing
chapter is a record of impressions which the
author believes he received from the spirit-
world. Mr. Tuttle appears to be acquainted

564

with the physiological explanations of hallu-
cination, the influence of the mind upon the
bodily functions, and allied phenomena, and
he accepts some and rejects others accord-
ing as they happen to run with or counter to
his speculations. Other results of scientific
research he treats in the same arbitrary
fashion.

The second volume to appear in the four-
volume history of English literature, which
is being published by Macmillan & Co., is A
History of Highteenth Century Literature
(1660-1780), by Edmund Gosse, M. A.
($1.75). The first great writer of this period
is Dryden, and the other prominent names
which come in the scope of the present vol-
ume are Pope, Swift, Steele, Addison, Defoe,
Richardson, Ficlding, Smollett, Johnson,
Hume, Goldsmith, and Gibbon, the period
ending with Fanny Burney, Junius, and
Burke. In regard to the critical opinions
expressed in the work the author says: ‘In
every case I have attempted to set forward
my own view of the literary character of
each figure, founded on personal study.
Hence, in a few cases, it may be discovered
that the verdicts in this volume differ in
some degree from those commonly held. A
few names which are habitually found chron-
dicled are here omitted, and still fewer which
are new to a general sketch are included.
. . . Inthe final chapter I have stated my
theory with regard to the mode in which the
philosophical, theological, and political writ-
ing of the period should be examined. But
I may explain here that it has been my ob-
ject, while giving a rough sketch of the
tenets of each didactic specialist, to leave
the discussion of those tenets to critics of
the specialist’s own profession, and to treat
his publications mainly from the point of
view of style.” The work is provided with
an index, and a brief bibliography designed
to refer the student to the most accessible
text of the chief writers mentioned.

Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans, edited
by Benjamin W. Wells (Heath, 65 cents), has
been adapted for the class-room by a copi-
ous accompaniment of notes and other in-
formation. The text is prefaced by an in-
troduction of fifteen pages dealing with the
composition of the drama, editions and
manuscripts, meter and rhyme, and the di-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vergence of the play from history, and in-
cludes some biographical notes on the his-
torical characters in the drama. The text
has a clear, attractive look, although the
stage directions and foot-notes are in rather
small type for German print, which is try-
ing enough to the eyes even when large.
Thirty-eight pages of notes—grammatical
and historical—are appended.

Prof. B. Perrin’s edition of Homer's Odys-
sey, Books I-IV (Ginn & Co.’s “College Series
of Greek Authors,” $1.50), is based on the
edition of Karl Friedrich Ameis and C,
Hentze, with adaptation to what the editor
believes to be the requirements of American
college classes. Considerable material has
been furnished for the higher criticism of
the poem, in which the first four books are
of special significance. At the same time,
enough assistance of an elementary sort has
been provided to enable a good teacher to
use the volume in introducing students to
the study of Homer. Certain interpretations
characteristic of the Ameis-Hentze edition
have been retained in the current notes,
while the editor expresses in the appendix
his preference for other views. On the
other hand, he has incorporated in the notes
views at variance with those of the German
edition. Variations in the manuscript, read-
ings of other editors, and other data appro-
priate to a text-book of the kind, are given
in the appendix.

John Chardzes (John B. Lippincott Com-
pany, $1.25) is a tale of the civil war in North ~
America, by Peter Boylston, an author whose
identity is left indefinite in a prefatory note
by his “literary executor.” The plot affords
room for considerable variety of situation
and incident, and the management is lively.
The history of the title character is invested
with a degree of mystery which adds to the
interest and complexity of the story; anda
negro woman from the slave-markets of the
South, having decided individuality of char-
acter, is introduced with some skill.

The Beginner’s Reading-Book, by Eben
H. Davis (Lippincott, 42 cents), starts with
short sentences, in both script and Roman
type; new words are not arranged in col-
umns on the page, nor does the alphabet ap-
pear by itself in the book. The “ Teacher’s
edition” contains a chapter on how to teach
reading, in which the teacher is advised to

LITERARY NOTICES.

exercise the pupils in talking about objects,
and in reading from the blackboard, before
putting the readerinto theirhands. Pictures
of the objects named accompany most of the
lessons, and when long sentences are reached
they are broken into short sections at nat-
ural pauses, each standing in a line by itself,
in order that the pupil’s mind may not be
required to take in too much at once.

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi has published,
under the title Physiological Notes on Pri-
mary Education and the Study of Language
(Putnam, $1), four essays, of which three
appeared in “The Popular Science Monthly ”
for 1885 and 1886, and the fourth in “ The
Teacher ” during 1888. Two of these essays
describe “An Experiment in Primary Edu-
cation,” being a record of the method em-
ployed in training the intellectual faculties,
especially the perception and memory, of a
child between the ages of four and six anda
half years. The next essay, entitled ‘‘The
Flower or the Leaf,” is a reply to a criticism
by Miss EH. A. Youmans on the method of
teaching a knowledge of plants employed in
the afore-mentioned “ Experiment.” The
subject of the paper which concludes the
volume is “‘ The Place for the Study of Lan-
guage in a Curriculum of Education,” and
embraces a consideration of what special
influence language study has upon mental de-
velopment, what is the age at which this
influence should be exerted, and what rela-
tive proportion language and other subjects
should have in a general curriculum.

One might suppose Zhe Geography of
Marriage (Putnam, $1.50) to be a survey of
the diversified natural features of the state
of matrimony. But, under this title, Mr.
William L, Snyder offers a law-book written
in such a popular style as to make it, aside
from its subject, attractive and useful to the
lay reader. Ina score of chapters he com-
pares the provisions of the marriage and
divorce laws of the States of the Federal
Union as to who may marry, what consti-
tutes a valid marriage, clandestine and run-
away marriages, bigamy, divorce, and vari-
ous other features of the subject, taking oc-
casion to point out the evils arising from the
differences among these laws in different
parts of our country. Of the two ways of
securing a uniform law which have been

565

proposed, he favors concerted action by the
States rather than a constitutional amend-
ment giving up the control of this matter to
Congress, A summary of the marriage and
divorce laws existing in this country, ar-
ranged by States, concludes the volume. The
index, which covers the general part of the
book tolerably, is very meager with respect
to this summary.

The fifth volume in the series of “ Eng-
lish History by Contemporary Writers ” tells
the story of The Crusade of Richard 1
(1189-’92), and the materials were selected
and arranged by 7. A. Archer (Putnam,
$1.25). There is an ample number of ac-
counts of this expedition, some by contem-.-
porary writers who were in Palestine when
the events narrated occurred ; others by con-
temporaries who remained at home; and.
still others by writers of the next genera-
tion, some of whom had visited the scenes
of the crusade. Accounts of the authors
and books from which extracts are taken,
and notes on various customs and things of
the time, are appended to the volume. Pict--
ures of war-engines, fortresses, etc., illus-
trate the text. The volume lacks an index.

Mr. D. H. Montgomery has made a book.
which claims to embody The Leading Facts
of French History (Ginn, $1.25), and is evi-
dently intended to serve either as a text--
book or for general reading. It begins:
with a reference to the cave-men and the:
latest event which it records is the election)
of President Carnot. The narrative is popu-
lar and picturesque in style, and is enlivened
with numerous anecdotes. Many additional
bits of information and the pronunciation of
all difficult names are supplied in foot-notes.
Fourteen maps, mostly in colors, show the
changing boundaries of France throughout
the history. A list of dates, a genealogical
table of French sovereigns, and a list of
books on French history, are appended to
the volume.

Six Species of North American Fishes,
published by the Smithsonian Institution,
under the head of “‘ Natural History Ilus-
trations,” contains representations of the
figures and details of five species of mi-
nor fresh-water fishes and the pickerel, as
they were prepared under the direction of
Profs. Agassiz and Baird, from drawings
by A. Sourel, with explanations by President

566

David Starr Jordan. The publication is made
“as a memorial of a project undertaken
early in the history of American science, by
two of the most eminent naturalists this
country has ever possessed.”

A full and valuable paper on Zhe Cave
Fauna of North America is published by
Prof. A. S. Packard, from the memoirs of
the National Academy of Sciences. It con-
tains descriptions of the caves, with notes
on their hydrography, temperature, origin,
and geological age; the source of the food-
supply of their inhabitants; the probable
mode of colonization; with lists of the spe-
cies inhabiting the better-known caves. This
general introduction to the subject is fol-
lowed by more special articles on the vege-
table life of the caves ; a systematic descrip-
tion of the invertebrate animals found in
them; a systematic list of the cave ani-
mals of North America; geographical distri-
bution of the cave species; lists of Ameri-
can and European cave animals and of blind
non-cayvernicolous animals; anatomical stud-
ies; a discussion of the origin of the cave
species and genera; and a bibliography. To
all these are appended twenty-seven plates
of illustrations.

The seventh series of the “ Johns Hopkins
University Studies in Historical and Political
Science” is devoted to social science, educa-
tion, and government. The first number is
a sketch, by # C. Montague, of Arnold
Toynbee, a tutor at Oxford, and an earnest
and practical advocate of political, economi-
cal, and ecclesiastical reform, and of meas-
ures for improving the condition of the
masses, who died in 1883, in his thirty-first
year. Accounts are added of “The Work of
Toynbee Hall,” which is named after him,
and in which the effort is made to further
what he had at heart, and of “The Neigh-
borhood Guild in New York”—the former
by P. L. Gill, and the latter by the Rev.
Charles B. Stover. The second and third
numbers present the history of The Estab-
lishment of Municipal Government in San
Francisco, by Prof. Bernard Moses, of the
University of California. The history be-
gins with the foundation of the Spanish
pueblo in 1776, and is considered in three
“somewhat clearly defined periods”: those
of Spanish settlement and stagnation; of
transition, extending from the conquest to

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the adoption of the charter of 1850; and
the third period, ending with the adoption
of the charter of 1851. No. 4 is The Mu-
nicipal History of New Orleans, by William
W. Howe. It begins with the foundation of
the town in 1718, and traces the gradual de-
velopment of the municipal organization and
its vicissitudes under the changes of juris-
diction which the Louisiana Territory suf-
fered, with the experiments in charter-making
that marked the career of the American city,
down to the adoption of the present charter
in 1882. To this are added notices of the fire
department, Commission of Public Works,
and water and gas supply, and accounts of
the charitable gifts that have been made to
the city, and the voluntary public associa-
tions. The sixth and seventh numbers em-
brace a sketch of English Culture m Vir-
ginia, by Prof. William P. Trent, of the
University of the South. The paper consists
chiefly of a study of the letters of Francis
Walker Gilmer, one of the most active of
the Virginia gentlemen of the old school for
the advancement of education, who was also
considerably distinguished in his day for lit-
erary achievements—and an account of the
English professors obtained by Jefferson for
the University of Virginia.

No. XXV of the Heonomic Tracts of the
Society for Political Education (330 Pearl
Street, New York) is a pamphlet on Electoral
Reform. In it the purposes of those per-
sons who are seeking to withdraw the con-
trol of the distribution of ballots from par- —
tisan manipulators and lodge it with public
officers, and to secure a really secret and in-
dependent vote, are explained ; the objec-
tions to their proposed system are answered ;
the operation of the Australian system is
described ; and the text of the Massachu-
setts ballot-reform act and the New York
Saxton bill are given in full. No, XXVI of
this series is Zhe Liquor Question in Polt-
tics, by George Iles. It deals with the grow-
ing and alarming power of the liquor traffic,
and with the efforts of various forms to re-
strain it, gives clear and impartial anal-
yses of the propositions and arguments of -
the advocates of “regulation” by high li-
cense, and of the prohibitionists ; and con-
tains summaries according prominence 10
peculiar features of the more recent anti-
liquor legislation in several States. Mr. 0.

LITERARY NOTICES.

J. Smith, 80 Vesey Street, New York, in a
pamphlet entitled Js all well with us? as-
sumes that we have not politically degener-
ated from any standard of our ancestors,
but are quite as pure as they; and, admit-
ting the existence and hold of the spoils sys-
tem, maintains that it is a legitimate and
direct fruit of the restrictions imposed in
the Constitution of the United States upon
freedom and elasticity of legislative action.
He believes that, to get rid of it, our form
of government must be so modified that the
will of the people may find certain and im-
mediate expression in law.

The Teacher's Outlook, edited by W. G.
Todd (Des Moines, Iowa), is a monthly maga-
zine, devoted to general literature, science,
health, and industrial and national affairs. Its
peculiar feature is a semi-codperative plan of
publication, under which teachers are invited
to become stockholders under certain easy
conditions ; when they are enrolled on the list
of contributors, and are entitled to send one
article each year for publication (if it be
found suitable), for which they receive
another share of stock.

The American Workman, published for
0. UM. Dunham by Cassell & Co., is “ an illus-
trated weekly magazine of practice and the-
ory for all workmen, professional and ama-
teur. Its purpose is to furnish articles, with
designs, for various kinds of work, particu-
larly such as an amateur might incline to
undertake. The half-dozen numbers on our
table contain, on their first pages, articles
with views and diagrams on “ A Cabinet in
Fret-cutting,” “ A Drawing-room Overman-
tel,” “ A Cheap, Strong, and Tasteful Method
of binding Pamphlets, Music, etc.,”’ ‘“‘ Wood-
Carving,” “Saw Filing and Setting,” “ A
Summer Fitment for the Fireplace,” etc. ;
and the other pages are occupied with simi-
lar matter.

In The Story of William and Lucy Smith,
edited by George 8. Merriam (Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.), are presented the life and
thoughts of a literary man whose career was
distinguished by creditable work through
forty years, but who did not acquire fame.
“He was a man of genius and rare fineness
of nature; the associate in early years of
Mill, Sterling, Maurice, and Lewes,” of Sam-
uel Warren, and of Grove, author of “ The
Correlation of Physical Forces.” He be-

567

came a contributor to “ Blackwood’s Maga-
zine” in 1839, and was regularly represented
in its pages—as literary reviewer, and in es-
says embodying philosophical thought—till
his death in 1871. His contributions were
mostly anonymous ; no collection of his papers
was made; and this book is published to ex-
hibit his best work, in dramatic, critical, and
philosophical writings. His best and best-
known work was “ Thorndale, or the Con-
flict of Opinions,” published in 1857; after
it was ‘“‘ Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good
and Evil,” 1862. Lucy Smith was his wife,
and his mate in the best sense of the word.
The book is divided into three parts, cover-
ing Mr. Smith’s bachelor life, the joint mar-
ried life of the couple, and Mrs. Smith’s
widowhood. It bears the character of a
tribute of admiration, as well as of literary
analysis, and its interest is literary and psy-
chological.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Charles C. Days Out of Doors, Wew
York: D. Appleton & Co, Pp. 323. $1.50.

Andrews, Charles M. The River Towns of Con-
necticut. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University,
Pp. 126. $1.

Baird, Spencer F. Annual Report of the Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution, June 80, 1886. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Office, Pp. 878.

Bamford, Mary E. Up and Down the Brooks.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Pp. 222.

The Bancroft Company, San Francisco. A Popu-
lar History of California. Pp. 216.

Boone, Richard G. Education in the United
Phae New York: D, Appleton & Co. Pp. 402.
1.50.

Burroughs, John. Indoor Studies.
New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co,
$1.25.

Carus, Dr. Paul. Fundamental Problems. The
Method of Philosophy as a Systematic Arrangement
of Knowledge. Chicago: Open Court Publishing
Company. Pp. 207. $1.

Clark University, Worcester, Mass. First Official
Annourcement. Pp. 31.

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science
and Art. Thirtieth Annual Report. Pp. 63.

Cope, E.D. The Descent of Man. Boston: The
New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp. 16. 10 cents.

Cremation, Opinions on. New York: United
States Cremation Company (limited). Pp. 55.

Croll, James. Stellar Evolution and its Relations
to Geological Time. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 118. $1.

Curtis, George William. Address prepared for
the Annual Meeting of the New York Civil Service
Reform Association, May 1, 1889. New York: Civil
Service Reform Association. Pp. 15.

Davis, William Morris. Topographic Develop-
ment of the Triassic Formation of the Connecticut
Valley. Pp. 12.—The Faults in the Triassic Forina-
tion near Meriden, Conn. Pp. 16, with Five Plates.

Dawson, George M. Report on an Exploration
in the Unknown District, N. W. T., and3adjacent
Northern Portion of British Columbia, 1887. Mont-

Boston and
Pp. 256,

568

real: Dawson Brothers.
Maps.

Eccles, Robert G., M.D. Evolution of the Mind.
Boston: New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp. 24.
10 cents.

Greely, A. W., Annual Report of the Chief Sig-
nal Officer of the Army, i888. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing-Office. Pp. 418.

Grimes, J. Stanley. Geonomy: Creation of the
Continents by the Ocean Currents;—and Kosmo-
nomia: The Growth of Worlds and the Causes of
Gravitation. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Com-
pany. Pp, 189. 50 cents.

Grote, George, and Ségur, Count. The Two
Great Retreats of History (of the Ten Thousand ;
and Napoleon’s from Moscow). With Introduction
and Notes by D. H. M. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp.
818. 60 cents.

Grove, Sir George. A Dictionary of Music and
Musicians. Appendix. London and New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 315. $2.25.

Haferkorn, H. E., and Heise, Paul. Handy Lists
of Technical Literature. Part I. Pp. 99. $1. With
Key. Pp.12, 25 cents.

Henderson, J. T., Commissioner of Agriculture.
Crop Report, Georgia, June. Atlanta, Pp. 16.

Hill, R. T., Austin. A Portion of the Geological
Story of the Colorado River of Texas, Pp. 18.

Holt, Henry, & Co. Supplementary Educational
Catalogue. New York. Pp. 22.

Home Rule and Federation.
love. Pp. 54. 2d.

Illinois, University of. Agricultural Experiment
Station. Bulletin No.5. Pp.24.

Indiana University, Bloomington. David Starr
Jordan, President. Aunual Catalogue for the Sey-
enty-fifth College Year. 1889. Pp. 95.

Iowa Agricultural College. Experiment Station.
Bulletin Nos. 3, 4, and 5. Pp. 150.

Jacksonville, Fla., Sanitary Association Report
of the Epidemic of 1888. Pp. 350,

James, Uriah Pierson, Cincinnati.
Pp. 7, with Portrait.

Kansas State Agricultural College, E. M. Shelton.
Report of Experiment in Pig-Feeding. Pp. 19.

Livermore, W. R., U.8. A. Classification of the
Atomic Weights in Two Ascending Series. Pp. 12.

Loewy, Benjamin. A Graduated Course of
Natural Science. London and New York: Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 151. 60 cents.

Macloskie, Prof. G., Princeton College, The
Poison Apparatus of the Mosquito. Pp. 5.—Arrange-
ment of Analytical Keys. Pp. 3.—Concessions to
Science. Pp. 9.

Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment
Station. Bulletin No. 84. Pp. 16.

Merriam, Florence. Birds through an Opera-
Glass. Boston and New York: Houghton, Miffiin
& Co. Pp. 228. 7% cents.

Mills, T. Wesley, M. D., Montreal. The Influence
of the Nervous System on Cell Life. Pp. 10.—
Physiological and Pathological Reversions. Pp. 15.

Mooney, James, Washington, D. C. Folk-Lore
of the Carolina Mountains. Pp. 10.—The Holiday
Customs of Ireland. Pp. 50.

New Jersey Geological Survey, Annual Report
of the State Geologist, 1888. G. H. Cook. Camden;
Linnickson Chew. Pp. 87.

New York State Board of Charities.
second Annual Report, 1888.

Nunes, Dr. Silva. De Ja Lobéline dans la thera-
peutique de l’Asthme. (On Lobeline in the Thera-
peutics of Asthma.) Riode Janeiro. Pp. 36.

Paige, J. B., V.8., Montreal. A Case of Light-
ning-Shock with Recovery, with Remarks by F.
Buller and T. Wesley Mills. Pp. 16.

Pp. 283, with Plates and

London: E. True-

Biography.

Thirty-
Pp. 608, with Plates.

Pickering, Edward C., Cambridge, Mass. The
Bruce Photographic Telescope. P. 1.—Meridian-
Circle Observations of Close Polar Stars. Pp. 26.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Philadelphia, ZoGlogical Society of. Annual Re-
port of the ead of Directors, 1889. Pp. 28.

Putnam, Samuel P. The Glory of Infidelity,
San Francisco; Putnam and MacDonald. Pp. 22.

Quarantine Conference, Montgomery, Ala.,
March, 1889. Proceedings. Pp. 144.

Sawyer, Rev. L. A., Whitesboro, N. Y. Intro-
duction to a New Edition of the Bible. Pp. 56.

Shufeldt, R. W. Development of the Skull in
Neotoma Fuscipes. Pp. 28, with Plates.

See, T. J. J.. University of Missouri. Origin of
Binary Stars. Pp. 73.

Smith, Eugene A., University of Alabama. On
the Tertiary and Cretaceous Strata of the Tuscaloosa,
Tombigbee, and Alabama Rivers. Pp. 187.

Stevens, W. Le Conte, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Diffraction of Sound. Pp. 12.

Theosophical Book Company, Boston. Light on
the Path. Written down by M. C. Pp. 68. 30
cents.

Thomas, Cyrus. The Problem of the Ohio
Mounds. Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 54,

Thorne, Juan M., Director, Cordoba. Resultados
del Observatorio Nacional Argentino. Vol. X, 1877.
Pp. 263.

Todd, J. 8., M. D., Atlanta, Ga. Medicine and
Longevity. Pp. 15.

Utah, Admission of. Report of the Committee
on Territories, H. KR. Washington: Government
Priuting-Office. Pp. 12.

Wachsmuth, Charles, and Springer, Frank. Pa-
pers on Crinoids. Pp. 54, with Plates,

Wallace, Alfred Russel. Darwinism: An Ex-
position of the Theory of Natural Selection, with
some of its Applications. London and New York:
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 494. $1.75.

Washburn College Laboratory of Natural History
Bulletin. Topeka, Kansas: F, W. Cragin, Editor.
Pp. 32.

White, C. D. Carboniferous Glaciation 'in the
Southern and Eastern Hemispheres, etc. Pp. 32.

Waterman, A. A..& Co. “ Waterman’s Journal.”
Current Events and Books. Semi-monthly. Pp.
12. Each number, 10 cents ; $2 a year.

Woodward, C. M. The Intellectual Value of
Manual Training. New York: Simpson & Co. Pp.
19.

The

Wright, G. Frederick. The Ice Age in North
America, and its Bearings on the Antiquity of Man.
New York: D. Appleton & Co, Pp. 622, with
Plates. $65.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Science-Teaching in Schools.—The re-
port of the Committee of American Natu-
ralists, on a scheme of instruction in natural
science to be recommended to the schools,
advises that instruction should begin in the
lowest grades of the primary schools, and con-
tinue through the whole course. It should
be chiefly by object-lessons in the lowest
grades, but should be more systematic in the
high schools; and an elementary, but genu-
ine and practical, acquaintance with one or
more departments of natural science should
be required for admission to college. The
main part of the scientific work should be

given in the lower schools to the study of |

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

plants and animals; the botanical instruc-
tion beginning with such exercises as draw-
ing and describing various forms of leaves,
and advancing to flowers of gradually in-
creasing difficulty. In zodlogy, the most fa-
miliar animals, and those which the pupils
can see alive, should be studied first, then
the common, and finally the more obscure
forms. The collection of specimens should
be encouraged, and the specimens should be
made the subject of object-lessons. Human
physiology and hygiene being of immense
practical importance, their rudiments should
be taught in the grammar and even the pri-
mary schools. Rudimentary courses in phys-
ics and astronomy should be introduced in
the highest grades of the grammar school.
Physical geography, pheenogamic botany, and
human physiology should be included in the
classical courses in the high school, and re-
quired for admission to college.

The Sun-Danee of the Blackfeet,—The
most important sacred festival of the Black-
feet Indians is the sun-dance, which is called
also by the whites the medicine-dance. The
tradition runs that it originated in the thank-
offering of a woman for the recovery of her
sick child ; accordingly, it is usually instituted
by a woman who has come successfully out
of some trial. It is generally held when
the wild fruit is ripe, in July or August, in
a lodge especially constructed for it, and
may continue for seven days. The cere-
monies have been described by the Rev.
John McLean, who witnessed them at the
Blood Indian camp in Alberta Territory,
Canada. The sacred fire was burning in the
sun-lodge, and was used by the people for
lighting their pipes. The fuel was supplied
exclusively by young men who had performed
some valorous deed, such as stealing horses
from a hostile tribe, and thought the duty
an honorable one. Two bundles of birch-
wood brush were placed in the form of a
cross on the sacred pole. A bower of brush-
wood by the side of the lodge was occupied
by the woman who had instituted the cere-
mony, her husband, and a medicine-man,
fasting and praying. Prayers were offered
at stated times by virgins. Dramatic repre-
Sentations of heroic adventures were given,
and sham fights presented representations
of actual battles; these were succeeded by

569

feasts of berries cooked in fat, smoking, and
conversation. A young man who had been
successful in a horse-stealing expedition came
up, in fulfillment of a vow, to make himself a
sacrifice to the god. An old medicine-woman
cut off one of his fingers, held it up to the
sun, and dedicated it to him. Two young
men presented themselves to be consecrated
for admission to the noble band of warriors.
One of them stretched himself upon a blanket
on the ground, An old man made a speech
over him relating his brave deeds, each inci-
dent of which was received with applause
and music. Then four men held him while
a fifth made incisions in his breast and back.
Wooden skewers were inserted in the breast
incisions, and connected by lariats with the
sacred pole, while an Indian drum was fast-
ened to the skewer in the back. “The
young man went up to the sacred pole, and
while his countenance was exceedingly pale
and his frame trembling with emotion,
threw his arms around it and prayed earnest-
ly for strength to pass successfully through
the trying ordeal, His prayer ended, he
moved backward until the flesh was fully
extended, and, placing a small bone whistle
in his mouth, he blew continuously upon it
a series of short, sharp sounds, while he
threw himself backward and danced until
the flesh gave way and he fell. Previous to
his tearing himself free from the lariats, he
seized the drum with both hands, and with
a sudden pull tore the flesh on his back,
dashing the drum to the ground amid the
applause of the people. As he lay on the
ground, the operators examined his wounds,
cut off the flesh that was hanging Icosely,
and the ceremony was at an end.”

The Selkirk Mountains and their Gla-
ciers.—The Selkirk Mountains are situated
in the southern part of British Columbia,
west of the main range of the Rocky Mount-
ains, within the great bend of the Columbia,
and are crossed by the Canadian Pacific
Railway at the height of 4,313 feet above
the sea. As seen from the Columbia be-
tween the two ranges, they rise in gentle
slopes and tiers of foot-hills richly clad in
pine forest, and cleft by far-reaching valleys,
while the Rockies, on the other side of the
observer, tower up “from almost barren
benches of white silt, with a sparse sprink-

57°

ling of Douglas firs, in great bare preci-
pices of pinkish-white limestone to rugged
mountain forms at once.” The level of
perpetual snow among them is given by the
Rev. W. 8. Green, who visited them to ex-
amine their glaciers, at about seven thousand
feet, and the upper limit of the forest at six
thousand feet, while the principal peaks rise
to between ten and eleven thousand feet.
The starting-point of Mr. Green’s excur-
sions was the Glacier Hotel station of the
railway, in front of the great Illecewact
Glacier, 4,122 feet above the sea. Seek-
ing some commanding point whence a view
might be gained of what lay beyond the
upper snow-field, the author reached a little
peak on the southern shoulder of Mount Sir
Donald, six hundred feet below the main
summit (10,645 feet). Hence “we had,” he
says, “one of the most interesting views it
is possible to imagine. Now for the first
time we saw what the glacier regions of the
Selkirks really meant. From the base of the
peak we were on, the great snow-field ex-
tended for over ten miles. Beyond it to the
southward, and away in unending series, far
as the eye could reach, rose range after
range of snowy peaks with glaciers in the
hollows; peaks and glaciers were simply
innumerable. Looking westward and north-
ward, a similar prospect presented itself.”
Of these glaciers, Mr. Green has mapped the
Sir Donald, Geikie (four miles long and one
thousand yards wide), Deville, Dawson, Van
Horne, Asnekan, and Lily. All the glaciers
show evidences of shrinking. Measurements
made at the foot of the Great Illecewaet
Glacier indicated that the ice had moved
along twenty feet in thirteen days.

Mental Powers of Criminals.—The bear-
ing of educationon the character and reforma-
tion of criminals is discussed by Dr. Hamilton
D. Way in a paper on the physical and indus-
trial training of that class, which is published
by the Industrial Education Association. The
author assumes that “it is a mistake to sup-
pose that the criminal is naturally bright.
Moral failure and blunted intellect, as a rule,
go hand in hand. If bright, it is usually in
a narrow line and self-repeating.” The crim-
inal’s malpractice has its origin in blunted
or non-developed nervous areas, and is in-
dicative of wrong-headedness, Whatever

THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

may be said of the motives or incentives
that led to crime, the fact remains that the
head of the criminal is wrong. The time
has gone by in which to argue that to edu-
cate the criminal is to make him a more ac-
complished and successful scamp. “It is
through physical and mental training and
their composite labor that the slumbering
germs of manhood are fructified, maturing
under a firm and unrelaxing discipline,”
The criminal’s mind, “ while not diseased, is
undeveloped, or it may be abnormally devel-
oped in certain directions; the smartness
resulting therefrom partaking of low cun-
ning and centering about self. He is defi-
cient in stability and will-power, and inca-
pable of prolonged mental effort and appli-
cation. His intellect travels in a rut, and
fails him in an emergency. His moral
nature shares in the imperfections of his
physical and mental state.” A training is
advocated by the author that will awaken
the slumbering faculties, and thus set the
mind in a normal condition. This training
had best not be given by persons connected
with the prison, for it might thereby be un-
pleasantly associated with penal features,
but by teachers brought in for the purpose.
Dr. Way gives an interesting relation of ex-
periments which he has made with prisoners
in accordance with these views, the average
results of which are very encouraging.

The Advantages of Insensibility.—An
English writer has recently suggested that
we are wont to give excessive praise to the
faculty of sensibility, while we depreciate its
opposite, or the want of it, insensibility, It
is clear, he maintains, that almost every
shade of insensibility has a side of advan-
tage as well as of disadvantage. The world
forgets how very much tender sensibility
often interferes with the calm judgment
necessary for right action and the cool pres-
ence of mind which is essential to effective
execution. What shall we say of the sur-
geon or the nurse who is so sensitive that
the sight of suffering disturbs the judg-
ment and makes the hand tremble when a
steady hand is most essential to efficient
work. It is obvious that, for every purpose
of alleviating pain itself, a certain measure
of insensibility to sympathetic pain is in the
highest degree advantageous, if not neces”

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

sary. The best nurses are the calmest nurses,
and they are very seldom the ones who suf-
fer most at the sight of their patients’ suffer-
ing; and “‘one of the great advantages which
patients feel on entering a hospital is that
their sufferings do not come back reflected
from the faces of those around them; that
the sympathy they excite is only a mild
sympathy, and not one which heightens their
own pain, .. . Hardly a sufferer exists who
is not the better instead of the worse for
seeing that those around him are noé over-
whelmed by his sufferings—that, so far as
he can go out of himself at all, he may get
a little relief by entering into the less over-
shadowed lines around him, and tasting in-
directly another’s enjoyments.”

A Theory of Volcanic Action.—Mr. J.
Logan Lobley explained in the British As-
sociation last year a theory of the causes of
volcanic action which he had reached while
keeping in view forty-two leading and con-
trolling facts. His conclusions are, that the
primary cause of the formation of lava is
the internal heat of the globe inducing chem-
ical action in subterranean regions when the
materials and conditions are both favorable ;
that since the fusion-point of solids is raised
by extreme pressure, the conditions for chem-
ical action may be changed by the removal
of vertical pressure or its relief by lateral or
tangential pressure; that certain substances
are fusible at low or moderate temperatures,
and that thus at very moderate depths chem-
ical action may be locally commenced that
will extend until sufficient heat is produced
to effect rock-fusion; that the cause of the
ejection of lava from its source, and of its
rise in the volcanic tube, is the increase of
bulk consequent upon the change from the
solid to the fluid state, aided by the forma-
tion of potentially gaseous compounds by
chemical reactions among the original mate-
rials of the magma; that the ascent of the
lava in the volcanic tube may be affected by
the weight of the atmosphere and by lunar
attractive influence ; that the explosive effects
of volcanic eruptions are altogether second-
ary, and are due to the access of sea and
land water to fissures, by percolation through
cool rocks, up which lava is ascending; that
this water, when converted into steam, opens,
by its expansive power, rents that admit

571

large flows of sea-water to the lava, occasion-
ing the formation of vents and the greater
explosive phenomena of eruptions. The for-
mation of the actual surface volcano and
the determination of its position are there-
fore due to the sea, near which volcanoes
are almost always situated. Emissions of
lava without explosive effects are from vol-
canic tubes to which large flows of water
have not obtained admittance; and, on the
other hand, purely explosive eruptions, with-
out lava-flows, are caused by water reaching
lava which fails to rise to the surface of the
earth.

Fire-proof Houses in Buenos Ayres.—
They build fire-proof houses in Buenos Ayres
and Montevideo without thinking of it, and
while using all the wood they can afford to;
and they use neither iron nor the arch. Trees
are scarce in the neighborhood, and timber
has to be brought down from the upper
waters in hard woods. Being dear, a little
of it is made to go as far as possible. The
floors and the roofs are supported by joists
of hard wood, as among us; across these are
laid flat rails of the same, and the spaces
between these are bridged over by thin
bricks thirteen inches and a half long, with
their ends resting on the rails; another layer
of bricks is then laid with lime, and gener-
ally on this a layer of flat tiles, The doors
and windows have no boxes, but simply
frames, which are set up when the walls are
going up, and built in. There is no lathing,
or wainscot, or skirting of the bottom of the
walls. A house thus built can not be burned.

Glass-Blowing by Machinery.—A system
for glass-blowing by machinery, under which
mouth-blowing is dispensed with, has been
devised by Mr. Howard M. Ashley. In the
machine, the molten metal is delivered into
a receptacle called a parison, which holds
just enough metal to form a bottle. At the
bottom of the receptacle is a collar mold,
which forms the ring around the mouth.
The central portion of the mold—whijch may
be described as a punch within a punch,
from the method in which it works up into
the molten glass to make the collar—is hol-
low, and is connected with a reservoir of
compressed air. After the collar is molded,
the mold is turned upside down, a little air

572

being at the same time admitted. The met-
al begins to elongate gradually by gravity,
and its fallis regulated. When it has attained
the required length, the bloom is inclosed
within the two halves of the mold, and the
bottom of the mold is also placed in posi-
tion, At the same moment the air is fully
turned on, and the bottle is blown out to the
full shape of the mold. The result is a com-
plete bottle of the same thickness of glass
throughout, and of perfect form and accu-
racy in every part. A pair of these ma-
chines, with one youth and three boys to
serve them, are competent to turn out an
average of one hundred and twenty bottles
per minute per machine. The capacity of
the system is greatly increased in the repeat-
ing-machine, which is quadrupled, and oper-
ates in a continuous cycle, as follows: while
the first bottle is being automatically dis-
charged, the second bottle is being finished,
the third one is being punched, and the
fourth is being cast—that is, the metal is be-
ing filled into the mold by the “gatherer,”
or server of molten metal.

Do Squirrels play ’Possam ?—In a paper
on the intelligence of squirrels, with special
reference to feigning, communicated to the
Royal Society of Canada, Dr. T, Wesley
Mills gives two cases of the behavior called
feigning, by chickarees or red squirrels, and
then proceeds to discuss several views ad-
vanced in explanation of this habit. Feign-
ing death has been observed in many differ-
ent genera of insects, in snakes, fishes, nu-
merous birds, crustaceans, and several mam-
mals. In the case of insects, Preyer would
ascribe the so-called shamming death wholly
to cataplexy (hypnotism), which Dr. Mills
deems highly probable. Couch would ex-
plain certain behavior of wolves, foxes, and
some other animals, usually set down to de-
liberate feigning, also by an effect analogous
to cataplexy. He thinks their senses are
stupefied by surprise, terror, etc., so that they
are unable to escape. Dr. Clarke adds to
this explanation the idea that the quiet of
animals when restrained, in many cases is
due to an intelligent perception that struggle
is useless. Dr. Mills is convinced that Ro-
manes in discussing this subject has import-
ed difficulties into it which are not in the
nature of the case present. First, is it at all

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

essential to “feigning” either death or in-
jury that an animal should have, as Romanes
supposes, the abstract idea of death at all?
It is to be remembered that in these cases
the animal simply remains as quiet and as
passive as possible, which is in accord with
all an animal’s experiences as to escape from
danger by any form of concealment. A
great part of the whole difficulty has proba-
bly arisen from the use of the expression
“feigning death.” What is assumed is in-
activity and passivity, more or less complete.
This, of course, bears a certain degree of
resemblance to death itself. In regard to
the behavior of his red squirrels, Dr. Mills is
inclined to think that “ by inherited instinct,
as well as by all those life experiences which
had taught them that quiet and concealment
of their usual activities were associated with
escape from threatened evils, these little
animals were naturally led, under the un-
wonted circumstances of their confinement,
to disguise in an extraordinary degree their
real condition, and even to imitate an unu-
sual and unreal one.” He has reason to be-
lieve also that the hypnotic element may play
a part in the apparent feigning of death by
squirrels. “It thus becomes manifest,” he
continues, ‘‘ how varied and also how complex
these cases of so-called feigning may be.
The subject is all the more interesting, be-
cause it shows that there is much that is
common in the psychic life of human beings
and that of the lower animals. It places
the study of their habits and intelligence on
a higher plane, and furnishes new motives
for extending our inquiries and attempting
to give unity to our conception of nature in
this as in other domains,”

The Bronze Buddha of Nara.—The old
bronze images in Japan are remarkable alike
for their enormous proportions, the method
of their construction, and the excellent char-
acter of the alloy composing them. The
largest and most remarkable of them is at
Nara, some miles eastward of Kioto, which
was erected about a.p.1100. It is fifty-
three feet six inches high and more than
twenty-eight feet broad across the shoul-
ders. On its head are 966 curls; and the
image is surrounded by a glory or halo sev-
enty-eight feet in diameter, on which sixteen
images, each eight feet long, are cast. Two

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

smaller images, each twenty-five feet high,
stand in front of the larger one. The total
weight of metal in the main figure is about
450 tons, and this is said to consist of gold,
500 pounds; tin, 16,287 pounds; mercury,
1,954 pounds; and copper, 986,080 pounds.
The large images are not cast in single pieces,
but are built up of numerous small pieces of
irregular shape, which are cemented togeth-
er by a substance of unknown composition,
that takes on the same tarnish as the bronze.

Forestry in the Cape Colony.—No care
was taken of the forests of the Cape Colony
until 1880, when many valuable tracts had
been nearly destroyed. Measures were taken
in that year for their future preservation,
and the Count de Vaeselot, who had had a
large experience in French forestry, was ap-
pointed forest superintendent. He divided
the forests into districts and these into sec-
tions, in which the felling should proceed so
that the regrowth of the first section should
be given time to develop into mature trees
before the axe should be used there again.
By this system the entire shutting up of any
forest for a time is done away with. The
period for the “revolution” of felling is
fixed at forty years. The forests severally are
watched over by a staff of foresters and in-
spectors, under whose supervision all cutting
goes on, and who attend to the raising and
planting of young trees. The Government
has established large tracts of plantations
and nurseries from which the forests and
private holders are supplied; has begun a
reafforestation of Table Mountain; and has
instituted an “arbor day,” which is observed
with great enthusiasm.

The “Heaps of Joy» of Saint-Pilon.—
Tourists have often noticed little heaps of
stones on the higher peaks of Mont Sainte-
Baume, Provence. They are called castellets,
or little castles, and are either composed of
several stones forming a sort of rude pyramid,
or of one large stone inserted in a fissure of
the rocky soil. They are most frequent in the
vicinity of the Oratory of Saint-Pilon, where
they are found at an elevation of nearly one
thousand feet. Dr. B. Féraud has learned
that they are also locally called moulons de
Joye (heaps of joy), and that, besides being
intended to testify to the successful ascent of

573

pilgrims to the summit of Saint-Pilon, they
were frequently designed to propitiate St.
Magdalen, to whom prayers are made on the
spot for approval of the special maiden
whom the worshiper may desire to marry.
In the latter case the mound is visited by
the builder at the end of a year, and if he
finds the stones undisturbed, he considers
that the saint approves of his choice ; but if
the heap is broken up, it is generally regard-
ed as a decisive barrier against the intended
marriage. In this superstition Dr. Féraud
sees a survival of the ancient usage of erect-
ing stone monuments, such as altars, pillars,
menhirs, etc., to commemorate some impor-
tant personal event.

Sign-Talk in New Guinea.—An explora-
tion was made some months ago by Mr,
Theodore F. Bevan of the Philp and Queen’s
Jubilee Rivers, hitherto unknown affluents
of the Gulf of Papua, in southern New
Guinea. In the course of his voyages the
traveler met several bands of natives who
had apparently never before seen white men,
intercourse with whom brought out some cu-
rious characteristics and capacities of the
sign-language. At Attack Point, on the
Aird River, the progress of the party was
opposed by some sixty nude Papuans, who,
after a little hesitation, bore down upon them,
“alternately splashing the water into the air
and beating time with their paddles against
the sides of their canoes, also shooting vol-
leys of arrows at us... . This attack was
decided in our favor, without any bloodshed,
by a judicious use of the steam-whistle and
a few shots fired wide and high.” The say-
ages were painted, decorated with feather
head-dresses in addition to other ornaments,
and wore white groin-shells to partly conceal
their nudity. At Tunui, on Philp River, the
natives dressed their persons and canoes in
green boughs in manifestation of their
friendly feelings, and were responded to by
the whites with dumb motions and words
likely to be recognized by them. The next
step from this side was to bind a slip of
Turkey-red cloth, a piece of sharpened hoop-
iron, and one or two trifles upon a wooden
batten, and let it drift down-stream. ‘One
native, bolder than the rest, paddled after
this parcel, and, after cautious inspection,
appropriated it, and donned the red cloth as

574

a covering for his frizzly hair. On another
visit from the natives, one was horrified at
seeing salt beef in a cask, and another was
terrified at seeing his own ugly reflection ina
mirror. They had become tired of the white
men by this time, and signified it by waving
their arms down-stream. ‘ One very old and
wrinkled man rubbed his nose and pinched
the tip of it, and rubbed the pit of his stom-
ach. Another signified by signs the act of
cutting off the head and arms, using the
words ‘oorar’ and ‘badinar.’” With a tribe
called Kiwa Pori, in the delta of the Queen’s
Jubilee River, one of the signs was to hide
their lowered heads in their hands and then
to draw their hands down ever cheeks, mouth,
chin, neck, breast, and abdomen. These
men were of unusually fine stature, and dark
bronze in color; but, though with well-
nourished and muscular frames, “ their re-
treating foreheads and heavy eyebrows gave
them a sinister expression.” One tribe al-
ways spoke the name of the sun in a whis-
per, with finger pointing upward and averted
gaze. In a deserted hut, which exceeded the
others of the village in size, was found fixed
up in front a “taboo,” consisting of a painted
mask resting on a large circular wisp of
sago-palm fiber and rattan, with pendent
streamers of the same fibrous material ;
while half-way down the floor of the hut
were bones of fishes and small deer sus-
pended from streamers. All of the new
tribes wore nose-pencils, distended the lobes
of their ears, and smoked sun-dried tobacco
by means of bamboo tubes. The canoes of
all the tribes were dug-outs, with either a
bank of mud or a small boy squatting in
the prow and opposing his back to the in-
coming water. Some of them were very
large. In one, twenty-nine men stood up to
paddle.

Polishing Telescopic Objectives. — The
shaping and grinding of telescopic objective
lenses are operations requiring great care and
delicacy in execution. In polishing, softer
powders and softer tool-surfaces must be
used than in grinding. Of all the sub-
stances that have been used for the face of
the polisher, pitch, or the natural bituminous
deposit from Archangel, which was first
employed by Sir Isaac Newton, is, accord-
ing to Mr. Howard Grubb, still the best. It

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has the important qualities of perfect inelas-
ticity and a property of subsidence. Cloth
can not give a perfect surface, because it is
apt to round off the edges of the pits left by
the grinding-powder, and to polish their bot-
toms as well as the real surface of the lens.
Pitch wears away the surface evenly, and
does not take hold of the pit-bottoms till
the whole is ground down to a level with
them. Although pitch, by boiling, can be
made so hard that an impression can not be
made on it with the finger-nail without split-
ting it in pieces, it will, even in this con-
dition, if laid on an uneven surface, in time
subside and take the form of whatever it is
resting upon. This property, by virtue of
which it may be considered technically a
liquid, is taken advantage of in the manipu-
lation of the polishing process to produce a
surface exactly even and true. It appears
to be peculiar to pitch, some of the resins,
and ice; although it has been observed, in a
vastly inferior degree, in some metals, It is
a curious circumstance that the same quality
which in ice allows gradual creeping and
subsidence, and the consequent formation of
glaciers, should in pitch help us to produce
accurate optical surfaces,

Italian Butter.—The Italians do not ex-
cel in the manufacture of butter. It is pro-
duced considerably only in four districts, of
which Lombardy furnishes the best, usually
through the market of Milan. The butters
of Reggio and the Tyrol are used for mixt-
ures, and those of Aimilia and Sorrento are
unimportant in quantity. In the rest of the
country, oil, fat of American origin, or sub-
stitutes are used for daily wants. According
to the French consul at Milan, the principal
obstacle to the development of the trade in
pure butter is the increasing use of these sub-
stitutes, and artificial butters, which are im-
ported from America, France, Germany, Eng-
land, and the Netherlands. ‘The demand
for butters in Europe, South America, Aus-
tralia, India, Japan, and even China, has
become so important that, in presence of the
insufficiency of the natural product, it be-
came necessary to manufacture an analogous
substance, so that in Holland and Denmark,
the principal countries producing pure but-
ter, the artificial butter industry was under-
taken without fear of prejudicing the pure

NOTES.

article. It was not long before Italy followed
the example of these two countries, but the
first attempts were not fortunate.” Italian
margarine butter costs from forty to forty-
five per cent less than pure butter, and is
more easily handled.

NOTES.

Tux * Gand-Book of Meteorological Ta-
bles,” compiled by Prof. H. A. Hazen, con-
tains in a convenient form the reductions
needed for current work, omitting those not
now generally used. Several of the tables
are new, or recomputed in their present
form after some years’ experience by the au-
thor in their use. The table for reduction
of barometrical observations to sea-level has
been extended to eight thousand feet. For-
mulz and tables are given for the determi-
nation of mean wind direction, and for the
conversion of wind velocities from miles per
hour to metres per second, and wice versa.

Tue Society or Association of Sanitary
Inspectors of Great Britain is composed of
the professional inspectors who act under
the direction of the medical boards of health.
The “ Lancet ” claims that a great improve-
ment has come over the character of these
officers since the society was formed, five
years ago, and that they have gained great-
ly in influence. The examinations by the
Sanitary Institute have also contributed ma-
terially to raise the standing of these men.
The diploma of the institute conveys no legal
license or corporate privilege, but it is a tes-
timonial of qualification, a badge of honor,
and a stimulant to earnest work and improve-
ment,

Tae Watson gold medal and $100 in
gold, founded by Dr. James C. Watson, to
be given to the citizen of any country who
_ has made the most important discoveries in
astronomy, has been awarded to Dr. Edward
Schonfeld, of the University of Bonn, Ger-
many. The medal is given to Dr. Schonfeld
for his researches concerning the variable
stars and for his work in cataloguing the
stars brighter than the tenth magnitude,
from the equator to the southern tropic.

Tue Congress on Tuberculosis that was
held in Paris in the summer of 1888 recom-
mended the inclusion of that affection in the
. list of contagious diseases of animals, and
the seizure and destruction of every infected
beast. It urged the spread of popular in-
struction respecting the precautionary meth-
ods for preventing tubercular contagion, the
risks that are run by the infection of meat
and milk coming from tuberculous cattle,
and the measures to be taken for the disin-
fection of materials derived from phthisical
patients. It insisted on the inspection of
dairies and dairy farms.

575

A LowLAND cure has been suggested
by Dr. Lindsley, to be applied in places be-
low the level of the sea, where the atmos-
phere is denser than at normal or higher
levels, Such places are the valley of Con-
chilla, near Los Angeles, California, about
two hundred and seventy-three feet; the Dead
Sea district, twelve hundred and eighty-nine
feet; Lake Asal in Hast Africa, six hun-
dred and thirty-nine feet; the Arroyo del
Muerto, California, two hundred and thirty
feet; the oasis of Sirrah in Libya, one
hundred and twenty-three feet, and the bor-
ders of the Caspian Sea, eighty-six feet below
the sea-level.

Cotorano possesses largecoal-fields which
yielded 1,489,811 tons in 1886. The valua-
tion of coal on the cars, at $2.36 per ton
gross, was $3,375,095. About 3,500 men
are employed. The average cost of pro-
ducing the coal on the cars at the mines is
$1.74 per ton. The fields yield anthracite,
bituminous, and lignite coals; and it ig
thought by the officers of our Geological Sur-
vey that about 100,000 square miles of the
territory of the State are underlaid by coal-
bearing strata.

THE monument to be placed over General
Prjevalsky’s grave on the shores of Lake
Issik-kul will represent a rock twenty-eight
feet high, on the top of which a large eagle
is perched. The eagle grasps in its talonsa
map of Central Asia, the arena of the scien-
tific exploits of the deceased, and in its beal:
an olive-branch, symbolical of the peaceful
scientific conquests which Russia owes to
Prjevalsky. The inscription, recording the
name, birth, and death of the deceased, on
one side of the rock, is surmounted by a large
bronze cross, In the interior of the monu-
ment is cut a spiral staircase crowned with
an enlarged copy of the medal struck by the
Academy of Sciences in 1887, and showing
the inscription, “To the first explorer of
Nature in Central Asia.”

BisHopr’s Ring was seen in February, 1889,
by Miss E. Brown, of Cirencester, England,
at about noon one day when the sun was
hidden behind a cloud. It appeared very
similar in extent and color, but not in inten-
sity, to its exhibition after the Krakatoa
eruption.

In a paper on “ Destructors and Refuse
Furnaces,” read before a Yorkshire Sanitary
Science Conference, Mr. W. Warner said that
a chimney one hundred and sixty feet high
was suitable for the cremation, and could be
built, with a six-celled destructor, for about
£3,000, or $15,000. If a town could utilize
all the clinkers, fine ashes, and fine dust, it
would pay the cost of burning and the re-
turn of capital expended on the plant, and
produce a revenue to aid the necessary cost
of erection. The author did not see why
the point of perfection should not be reached.

576

In a paper in the British Association on
“ Tattooing,” Miss A. W. Buckland said that
in Africa, Australia, and the islands of the
Indian Ocean, tattooing consists of a series
of short cuts which heal, leaving cicatrices.
In New Zealand, America, the Pacific islands,
among the tribes of India, and in Burmah,
Borneo, and New Guinea, patterns are first
drawn upon the skin, and then punctured
with thorns, needles, or splinters of human
bones. Color is then rubbed in. The pro-
cess is very painful and can only be carried
on at intervals, several years being some-
times required for its completion, Among
men tattooing is valued as a mark of brav-
ery. In the case of women devices are
worked upon the chin to signify marriage.

Arter his ethnological researches in
EKeypt, Prof. Virchow has concluded that the
fellaheen do not exactly represent the an-
cient inhabitants in their physical aspect.
The evidence afforded by the oldest sculpt-
ure and the earliest skulls shows that the
primitive type was brachycephalic, whereas
the types of the present time and of many
centuries past are dolichocephalic and meso-
cephalic, It is uncertain whether the change
was produced by the environment or by the
influx of new races; but Prof. Virchow in-
clines to the latter view.

Tue principal and most useful wood in
Borneo is bilan, or iron-wood. Its char-
acteristics, as mentioned by Mr. R. T. Prit-
chet, are hardness, density, and being ant-
proof. It is the best shingle wood, and, be-
ing large and plentiful, the most valuable
timber. Other sinking woods are russock,
grealing, mirabou, the last of which, a heavy,
dark-yellow wood, is valuable for furniture
and takes a fine polish; camphor-wood, and
a red wood, and sirayah, which gives logs
five feet in diameter and forty feet long.

OBSERVATIONS made by M. Janssen on
Mont Blane for the purpose of deciding
whether certain lines in the solar spectrum
are due to oxygen in our air or in the solar
atmosphere, showing the lines weaker than
at lower levels, seem to prove that they are
due to our atmosphere.

THE nipa is a palm-tree of Borneo
which grows in the swamps above the man-
grove, where the water begins to be brack-
ish. It revels where the swamps are more
fresh than salt, its leaves growing boldly and
imposingly to a height of twenty feet and
upward. House-thatching is principally made
of these leaves stitched together, which form
roofs well adapted to turn away the heat.
The adjan mats, which travelers find very
useful, and will fold up into very small com-
pass, are also made from them,

Tue pest of locusts has been fought vig-
orously and successfully in Cyprus by gath-
ering the eggs and catching the developed
insects in systems of screens. The number

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of eggs collected increased from 37} tons in
1879 to 236 tons in 1880, and 1,330 tons in
1881. More than 6,000 screens were em-
ployed in 1882, and 195,000,000,000 insects
were destroyed. The system was steadily
made more effective, and in 1886 there were
available for use more than 11,000 screens
and 13,000 traps, the screens representing
an aggregate length of about 315 miles, or
nearly the whole coast-line of the island.

Ir sounds odd to read in a paper by
Robert Wallace, on Indian agriculture, that
the Manchester Chamber of Commerce is co-
operating in an attempt to “reduce the
amount of refraction’? or impurities to be
recognized as a “trade custom” in the sale
of wheat from six or seven to two per cent.
Regarding the present custom, it has been
estimated, according to Mr. Wallace, that the
direct loss to the community is equivalent to
the sum of fifty thousand pounds a year,
“spent upon the absolutely unremunerative
work of shipping or carrying sand or clay
which had been added to the cleaner sam-
ples of wheat with the deliberate object of
netting an unjust gain.”

OBITUARY NOTES.

Marra Mircnett, a distinguished astrono-
mer and professor in Vassar College, died in
Lynn, Mass., June 28th, of disease of the
brain, from which she had been suffering for
about eighteen months. She was born in
Nantucket, in 1818, the daughter of an ama-
teur astronomer, and studied under her fa-
ther and Charles Pierce. At eleven years of
age she recorded the time of the beginning
and ending of an eclipse of the moon. In
1847 she discovered the first of her eight
comets. She was the first woman to be
elected to the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences; was a member and fellow of
the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science; an LL. D. of Hanover
and Columbia Colleges ; and was actively in-
terested in measures to elevate woman’s
work. She resigned her professorship at
Vassar College in January, 1888, but no ac-
tion was taken on her resignation, so that
she still remained the titular incumbent.

REeICHENBACH, the eminent botanist, has
recently died in Hamburg, aged sixty-seven
years. He was best known from his investi-
gations of orchids and hybrids.

Dr. Grorce Owen Rezs, F. R. S., died in
Mayfield, England, May 27th.

Dr. Paut Du Bors-Reymonp, a brother
of Dr. Emil Du Bois-Reymond, died in Frei-
burg, Baden, April 7th, in his fifty-ninth
year. He was Professor of Mathematics at
the Technical High School of Berlin; was
formérly at the Universities of Freiburg and
Tiibingen ; and was the author of two well-
known mathematical works,

ae

WW

ti

THE

Peed, A 8 CEN Oi
MeN DEY

SEPTEMBER, 1889.

A STUDY FROM LIFE.
By OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

ANY a strange little beast from far-off quarters of the globe

may be picked up in New York, in places where sailors are

wont to dispose of their pets. In this way I came into possession

of a rare and interesting animal, a black-headed lemur, or Lemur

brunneus, native of Madagascar. He was a member of my house-

hold for nearly a year, and during that time the family circle was

never dull. The whole of Barnum’s menagerie next door could not
afford more entertainment than did this one droll little fellow.

He was about the size of a small cat, or, to be exact, from the
tip of his pointed nose to the root of the tail he measured sixteen
inches; of that length, three inches were face and thirteen body
and neck. His girth back of the fore-legs was nine inches.

The manners of the little stranger were extremely odd. His
home was a cage in the parlor, where he was generally alone all
day, and spent the time, it is to be supposed, in sleeping, although
Imust admit I rarely found him so. At about four in the after-
noon I went into the room and let him out. The moment I ap-
peared he came to the front of the cage, pressed his weird little
black face with its clear topaz eyes to the wires, and then began to
call and “weave” impatiently. The latter was a singular move-
ment. Planting his hind-legs far apart in a half-sitting position,
he held up and outward his short arms, and swayed his whole body
from side to side—at each end of his swing bringing his hands
down almost to the floor. This he did very rapidly, uttering every
moment a short, quick sort of double grunt, with an occasional

| explosion or “snort,” in the exact tone of a pig.

Of course, I instantly opened his door, from that time till ten

| O'clock being his regular daily outing. Like a flash he bounced

VOL. Xxxv.—37

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

through it, jumped to the nearest chair, from that to the sofa, the
table, somebody’s lap or shoulder, the mantel, the top of his cage,
or the piano, and so made the circuit of the two parlors, without
touching the carpet. After thus going the grand rounds, he gen-
erally jumped to the floor, and ran all about under the furniture.
His sharp nose nearly touched the carpet, and his back (owing to
the four inches difference in length between his fore and hind
limbs) sloped up at an angle of forty-five degrees to the tail, which
stood straight up like a banner over his back, the tip sometimes
curling forward like a dog’s, sometimes backward like a hook.
During the whole performance he constantly uttered a contented
single grunt like “ woof !”

If any movement in the room startled him, he broke into a
grotesque gallop, bringing his feet up closely beside his hands at
every leap. This gallop, which was rapid and light, always ended
in a sudden spring to somebody’s lap, or a scramble to the top of a
tall easel, where he looked around to see what had frightened him,
But if not disturbed, when his tour of inspection was over he
usually went to the open fire, placed himself, sometimes on the
toe of a lady’s slipper if it were conveniently near, sometimes on
a little three-by-five-inch cushion on the arm of an easy-chair.
Here he sat up like a cat with tail hanging out before him, or fell
eagerly to dressing his peculiar woolly fur, which stood out all
over his body, washing his face by licking the outside edge of his
hand and rubbing it back and forth over his face, and wiping his
mouth on a chair as a bird wipes its bill, first one side and then the
other. Especially did he labor over his eighteen-inch-long tail,
scraping up the fur till it stood out round and gave that member
great apparent size. The tool with which he accomplished so
much was his curious row of lower front teeth, which ended in
points of almost needle sharpness, and projected at an angle that
prevented their being used to bite, but made an effective scraper
for the skin, or a comb for his own gray wool.

Warmed and dressed, the playful fellow began his evening’s
amusement. If the master’s quiet game of cribbage was going
on, he often began by marking his prey from his seat on the chair-
arm, and without warning springing to the middle of the table,
scattering cards like chaff, upsetting cribbage-board and sending
the pegs flying, slapping cards out of the hands of the players,
and biting needle-like holes in them.

To make a great commotion of any sort was his delight. Sit-
ting peacefully on my lap, or lying flat upon his stomach, every
limb stretched out, apparently the most innocent and harmless of
pets, he would often quietly rise to his feet and, before I suspected
him, snatch my book out of my hand or spring over it into my
face. If I started at this rough salute, as I was tolerably sure to

A STUDY FROM LIFE. 579

do, he was struck with panic, gave one mighty bound to the man-
tel, the bracket of a lamp, the edge of an open door, or the floor,
where he stood a few seconds motionless as he alighted. A panic,
indeed, struck through him instantly, with curious effect. Whether
he were lying quietly on one’s knee, standing, sitting, or in what- —
ever position, on being alarmed by an attempt to capture him, or
by an unexpected sound, he instantly disappeared—sideways, back-
ward, or forward mattered not—without in any way making ready,
or getting upon his legs. It was asif his body were a spring, or
as if he were flung by some force outside of himself—he simply
went. Itis impossible to give an idea of this most remarkable
movement; I never saw anything like it. A curious fashion he
had also of leaping against the bare side wall of the room, which
he struck flatly with all fours, and then bounded off in another
direction. I have seen the same thing done by a squirrel, and
also—strange as it seems—by a bird. .

The extreme nervousness of the little lemur seemed to be
caused by too much company. When alone with one person,
especially if that one were my daughter or myself—his prime
favorites—he was as quiet as the family cat. He sat or lay in
the lap, and allowed himself to be brushed; indeed, he enjoyed
brushing, and thrust out arms and legs to be operated upon. He
sat up with his tail laid over his shoulders in a comical way, and,
if he wanted to turn his head, he “ducked” it under the tail and
brought it up the other side rather than change its comfortable
position. This member was really an important charge to the
little beast; he spent hours in dressing it, and by it he expressed
all his emotions. When in quiet mood it hung straight down, as
stiffly as if made of wood; on mischief bent, it assumed a wicked-
looking sidewise turn, though still hanging; during his pranks
and in excitement it stood up like a flag-staff, safely out of harm’s
way; if his “angry passions rose,” it was swished, after the man-
ner of a cat; and when he jumped, it delivered a severe blow, like
a smart rap with a stick.

Never was a living creature more alert than this small brute.
So acute was his hearing that it was absolutely impossible to sur-
prise him. No matter how quietly and apparently off his guard
he sat on a chair, one could not jerk or tip that piece of furniture
so quickly as to take him unawares; at the first sign of movement
he appeared on the other side of the room, one could hardly tell
how. I wanted much to see him when he did not see me, and to
that end several times stole into the room from the front. The
back of the cage was toward that side, and he could not possibly
seeme, I took off my shoes, and moved—to my senses—without
the slightest sound over the carpet; but when I reached the point
where I could see the open front of his cage, there he was, waiting,

580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

looking for me, his bright yellow eye pressed eagerly against the
wires, in the corner nearest the side I came to. The instant he
saw me he uttered a mocking grunt, which plainly said, “ Thought
you'd surprise me, eh ?” and began a violent weaving and coax-
ing to get out. Perhaps he was thus wide awake because he
seemed really to fear being alone, and to dread the dark. The
moment he was left in the room the spirit of mischief departed,
and he retreated to the top of his cage, where he remained till
some one came in. The dusk, with its shadows, always alarmed
him, and, when taken into a strange room, he cowered and clung
to his friend as if frightened out of his wits. Fond as was the
lemur of society, he was exceedingly nervous about it. When he
heard a person coming through the hall, he first ran to the end
of a sofa nearest the door; as the steps approached, he grew more
and more uneasy; and, when the hand touched the door-knob, he
yielded to wild panic, bounded to the other end of the sofa and
over the back, where he held by one hand, while his body dangled
behind. His great sensitiveness showed also in another way—he
never met a human eye with his own. He saw every expression
of the face, but he always looked just beyond it. He violently
objected to being stared at, turned his head away, and, if his head
were held between two hands for the purpose of looking in his
face, he got away, either by a sudden spring to the top of the
head of his captor or by wriggling himself out backward. His
wool-covered body was the most elusive in the world to hold.

But, although the little fellow would not look one squarely in
the face, he saw everything that happened, and was as inquisitive
as any monkey. He liked to sit before the window and look at
passers-by, both beast and human; a cat aroused him to the point
of expressing his mind, and he saluted her by a short, sharp bark.
A bugle that was brought out with the hope of curing him of too
great familiarity with the person of the owner, proved, on the
contrary, to be a special lure. He rose on his hind-legs—which he
did with perfect ease—and thrust his nose into the large end, evi-
dently to find the sound. Once happening to get possession of
the instrument when its guardian was absent, the lemur made a
thorough examination of it. He pulled it on to the floor, threw
his body across it, embracing it with his legs to keep it in place,
and then proceeded to push his head almost out of sight into the
big end, take the small end in his mouth, as if to blow, and to
make minute and careful study of every part of it, until fully
satisfied that whatever he sought was beyond his reach, when he
abandoned it.

The intelligence of the creature was notable. He knew his own
blankets instantly wherever he saw them, and was quite positive

that no one had a right to touch them; he learned his name read-_

SE Ore ES £4) Sh ae S

A STUDY FROM LIFE, 581

ily, always answered when spoken to, and came at a call like a
dog, a thing very rare among animals of his sort. He also knew
his own box, his chosen seats, his place before the fire, and insisted
that they should not be used by others. In pictures he recognized
a bird, or, at least, he tried to snatch it out of the paper, and the
same with figures that looked like insects. He disapproved of
change, complained when I closed the shutters, and looked askance
at me when I put on a different dress. He knew with perfect cer-
tainty who would let him out of the cage and who would not;
one of the gentlemen of the house might sit in the parlor all day,
and, except for keeping an eye on him, the little beast made no
sign; but let either of his mistresses enter, and he was excited at
once, weaving, grunting, and demanding that the door be opened.
He understood at once, too, when forbidden to do anything.

On the occasion of a several days’ visit of a child, he was at
first very jealous; did not like her occupying a lap he had con-
sidered his own, and opposed with a squealing grunt her sitting on
his special stool before the fire. But she was a gentle child, and
a little later he became very fond of her, let her pat him, sit beside
him on his seat, and at last insisted upon lying on some article of
her dress if any were in the room.

What the small African set his mind on he always secured in
the end, for his persistence was simply marvelous. He was as
fond of apples as any school-boy, and the head of the family liked
to tantalize him by coming in with one hidden in his pocket. The
sharp little nose sniffed it at once, and the eager little fellow
sprang upon the apple-bearer, tried to dive into his pocket head
first, then to dig into it from below, and, despairing of this, went
to work to tear away the garments that covered it. No doubt he
would have succeeded, but before he went so far the owner gave
in, and delivered the fruit to the impatient creature. He snatched
it at once, and fairly “gobbled” at it, biting off pieces with his
back teeth, throwing his head up to chew them, and carefully
separating and dropping the skin. He never at any time made a
full meal, as do many beasts. His desire seemed to be merely to
stop the cravings of hunger; the moment these were satisfied he
opened his hand, and whatever food was in it dropped, he being
apparently as unconscious as if he had nothing to do with it. He
ate bread, sweet potato, and banana, and drank milk and water;
but his delight was—with the girls—in candy, and that he never
dropped. If there was a bit in sight, and he not sharing it, he
was simply wild. A piece being offered, he snatched it, chewed
it down, and instantly begged for more. The favorite trick of a
mischievous youth was to give him a licorice-drop, which be-
came soft and tenacious in the mouth, held his jaws together,
and in every way was troublesome; but, in spite of his strug-

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gles with it, he was never discouraged, and always coaxed for
another.

No beast that I ever saw was more fond of play than the little
Malagasy, not even a lively kitten. From the moment his door |
was opened till he was shut in for the night he often gave his
mind to a constant succession of pranks. He scraped the beads
off our dress-trimmings with his comb-like teeth, and he slapped
or pulled books or work out of our hands, and especially liked to
frolic in one’s lap, lying on his back kicking with all fours, pre-
tending to bite, and even turning somersaults or indulging in the
most peculiar little leaps. In the latter he flung out his arms,
dropped his head on one side in a bewitching way, turned half
around in the air, and came down in the spot he started from, the
whole performance so sudden, apparently so involuntary, and his
face so grave all the time, it seemed as if a spring had gone off
inside, with which his will had nothing to do.

A favorite plaything with the lemur was a window-shade. He
began by jumping up to the fringe, seizing it and swinging back
and forth. One day he learned by accident that he could “ set it
off,” and then his extreme pleasure was to snatch at it with somuch
force as to start the spring, when he instantly let go and made
one bound to the other side of the room, or to the mantel, where
he sat, looking the picture of innocence, while the released shade
sprang to the top and went over and over the rod. We could
never prevent his carrying out this little programme, and we
drew down one shade only to have him slyly set off another the
next instant.

Next to the shade, his chosen play-ground was a small brass
rod holding a bracket-lamp. It was not more than half an inch
wide, and so sharp-edged that it seemed impossible that an ani-
mal of his size and weight could stay on it one minute, especially
as it was not more than eight or ten inches long, and held a
burning lamp at the end. The lamp was no objection to the
always chilly little beast; he enjoyed the heat of it, and not only
did he sit there with perfect ease, and dress his fur or eat his
bread, but he played what seemed impossible pranks on it. He
turned somersaults over it; he hung by one hand and swung; he
jumped and seized it with hand or foot; whisked over it, and
came up the other side. He never made a slip nor touched the
lamp, and his long, stiff tail served as a balancing-pole.

Perhaps the greatest fun in our little captive’s residence in a
parlor was with a newspaper. The thing that inspired his first
interest in the article was being told to let it alone, when he
longed to tear it up. That ungratified desire made us constant
trouble, till at last I resolved to give him his wish. I took an old
paper and put it on the floor for him. His first pass was to come

A STUDY FROM LIFE. 583

with a big leap into the middle of it, when the rustle instantly
scared him off in a second bound as tremendous as the first. He
soon returned, however, and began again. He turned somer-
saults on it, rolled over on it, took hold of one corner and rolled
himself up init. But during all these performances, every fresh
rustle of the paper put him in a panic, and he leaped spas-
modically away—a wild frolic impossible to describe, with atti-
tudes so grotesque, movements so unexpected, and terror and joy
so closely united, that it was the funniest exhibition one can im-
agine. The next evening I arranged a newspaper tentwise on the
floor. The lemur looked at it, contemplated the tempting pas-
sage-way under it, then dashed frantically through and flew tothe
highest retreat in the room, as if he had taken his life in his
hands. He returned—for it was impossible to keep away—and
resumed the gambols, the hand-springs, the various fantastic
exercises, and between each two antics flung himself about the
room as if he had gone mad, ending every romp by sitting a few
seconds motionless, with a grave and solemn air, as if it were out
of the question that he could be guilty of anything frivolous.
Unlike most beasts, this little fellow had a great liking for
strangers, and frequently took violent fancies,in which case it
was quite impossible to keep him away from the object of his
affections. Some people liked it, but others did not; and when one
young lady was actually afraid of him, he appreciated her atti-
tude, and not only resented it by angry barking grunts, but con-
trived again and again to surprise her, by stealing up behind her
chair and suddenly pouncing upon her. Of course, she shrieked,
and he squealed and grunted and ran out his tongue at her.
With his friends he was troublesomely affectionate, insisting on
being held, on lap, arm, or shoulder, and following them from
room to room, in a long, droll gallop on the floor, or by jumping
from chair to table, and sometimes to their backs as they passed.
Almost every sound the creature uttered reminded one of a
pig. Going about the room contentedly, he constantly made a
low sound represented by “ oof!” or “ woof!” with the tone and
accent of the animal mentioned ; when anxious to get out of his
cage, the grunt was double, like the drawing in and expulsion of
the breath in the same tone, varied—as has been said—by a little
explosive sound. His bark even was of a piggish quality. When
angry or hurt, he delivered a squeal and grunt together impossible
to characterize; and if rubbed and caressed, he breathed out a
loud,rough purr. His cry of loneliness was truly piteous; I heard
it occasionally through the register. It was a sobbing, dismal
sound, sometimes half a howl, sometimes with a retching sound.
In uttering this he opened a small round hole of a quarter-inch
diameter in the front of his very flexible lips, If this cry isa

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

common indulgence of his tribe in the wilds of Madagascar, I do
not wonder that the people are superstitious about them, and call
them “ ghosts ” or “ specters.” No lament can be imagined more
weird and torturing to the nerves. At first, when I heard my pet
cry thus, I ran hastily down-stairs, thinking something dreadful
had happened; but the instant his eye fell upon me, the rogue
changed his wails into the grunt of recognition, and a demand to
be let out.

When, after five hours of revels that kept his audience in
shrieks of laughter or in terror for his life, the time came for him
to go to bed, and his wire-gauze door was—in spite of his remon-
strance—closed upon him, it was curious to see him prepare for
night. His bed was in a round wooden box, fastened upon the
side of his cage, lined and covered with blankets. Sometimes he
lay on his back, his head hanging out upside down, and two legs
sticking out at awkward angles; occasionally his arms were
thrown over his head, and his hands clung to the edge of the box.
But usually, after a long preparation of fur-dressing, he placed
his head on the bottom of the box, face down, and then disposed
his body around it, wriggling and twisting and turning, till he
was satisfied, when he was seen lying on his side, his head not
under him as would be expected, and his tail curled neatly around.
Sometimes, after long and elaborate arrangement of himself, when
one would not expect him to move before morning, he suddenly
started up and came out as bright, and lively as if he never
dreamed of going to sleep. But more often, when he had thus
composed himself, the heavy blanket was dropped before his door,
the lights were turned out, and he was left for the night.

—__++—____

RECENT ECONOMIC CHANGES.
By Hon. DAVID A. WELLS.

HE readers of “ The Popular Science Monthly ” will remember
the interesting series of papers communicated to its pages
during the years 1887 and 1888 by Mr. David A. Wells; in which
were traced out, and exhibited in something like regular order,
the causes and extent of the wonderful industrial and social
changes and accompanying disturbances which have especially
characterized the last fifteen or twenty years of the world’s
history. It is safe to say that no economic papers have been
published in recent years, on either side of the Atlantic, that
attracted more attention or were read by so many persons with

such interest and profit.
It affords us pleasure now to state that, since their original

RECENT ECONOMIC CHANGES. 585

publication in this journal, these papers have been in great part
rewritten by the author, and in all revised and brought up to the
latest date; and are now nearly ready for publication in book
form by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., under the title of “Recent
Economic Changes, and their Effect on the Production and Dis-
tribution of Wealth and the Well-being of Society.”

From advanced sheets we are enabled to lay before our readers
the following illustrations of the quality of the new material that
Mr. Wells has incorporated in his forthcoming volume.—EpDITor.

ON THE ORIGIN AND SEQUENCE OF TRUSTS.

It was formerly a general assumption that, when price no
longer equaled the cost of production and a fair profit on capital,
production would be restricted or suspended ; that the less favored
producers would be crowded out, and by the relief thus afforded
to the market normal prices would be again restored. But this
doctrine is no longer applicable to the modern methods of produc-
tion. Those engaged in great industrial enterprises, whether they
form joint-stock companies or are simply wealthy individuals, are
invested with such economic powers that none of them can be
easily pushed to the wall, inasmuch as they can continue to work
under conditions that would not permit a small producer to exist.
Examples are familiar of joint-stock companies that have made
no profit and paid no dividends for years, and yet continue active
operations. The shareholders are content if the plant is kept up
and the working capital preserved intact, and, even when this is
not done, they prefer to submit to assessments, or issue prefer-
ence shares and take them up themselves rather than go into
liquidation, with the chance of losing their whole capital. An-
other feature of such a condition of things is, that the war of com-
petition in which such industrial enterprises are usually engaged is
mainly carried on by a greater and greater extension of the mar-
ket supply of their products. An illustration of this is afforded
in the recent history of the production of copper. When in 1885
the United States produced and put on to the market seventy-four
thousand tons, as against forty thousand tons in 1882, the world’s
prices of copper greatly declined. A large number of the smaller
producers were compelled to suspend operations, or were entirely
crushed; but the great Spanish and other important mines en-
deavored “to offset the diminution of profit on the unit of quan-
tity ” by increasing their production; and thus the price of cop-
per continued to decline until it reached a lower figure than ever
before known in history.

Under such circumstances industrial over-production—mani-
festing itself in excessive competition to effect sales, and a reduc-
tion of prices below the cost of production—may become chronic ;

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and there appears to be no other means of avoiding such results
than that the great producers should come to some understanding
among themselves as to the prices they will ask; which in turn
naturally implies agreements as to the extent to which they will
produce. Up to this point of procedure no exception on the part
of society can well be taken. But such an agreement, once per-
fected and carried out, admits of an almost entire control of prices
and the establishment of monopolies, in the management of which
the rights of the public may be wholly ignored. Society has
practically abandoned—and from the very necessity of the case
has got to abandon, unless it proposes to war against progress and
civilization—the prohibition of industrial concentrations and com-
binations. The world demands abundance of commodities, and
demands them cheaply ; and experience shows that it can have
them only by the employment of great capital upon the most ex-
tensive scale. The problem, therefore, which society under this
condition of affairs has presented to it for solution is a difficult
one, and twofold in its nature. To the producer the question of
importance is, How can competition be restricted to an extent
sufficient to prevent its injurious excesses? To the consumer,
How can combination be restricted so as to secure its advantages
and at the same time curb its abuses ?

Another cause of the so-called over-production is undoubtedly
due to an agency which has never before in the history of the
world been operative to the extent that it is at present. With the
great increase of wealth that has followed the increased control
over the forces of nature and their utilization for production and
distribution, there has come a desire to convert this wealth into
the form of negotiable securities paying dividends or interest with
regularity, and on the recipiency of which the owner can live
without personal exertion or risk of the principal. Hence a
stimulus for the undertaking of new enterprises which can cre-
ate and market such securities; and these enterprises, whether
in the nature of new railroad, manufacturing, or mining cor-
porations, once developed, must go on producing and selling
their products or services with or without a profit in order to
meet their obligations and command a share of previously exist-
ing trade. Production elsewhere, as a consequence, is interfered
with, displaced, and in not a few cases, by reason of better condi-
tions, permanently undersold. And the general result is appro-
' priately recognized by the term “ over-production.”

Furthermore, in anticipation of such consequences, the tend-
ency and the interest of every successful manufacturing com-
bination are to put the prices of its products down to a figure
where it will not pay for speculators to form new competitive

stock companies to be bought off or crushed by it. For, if it did

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RECENT ECONOMIC CHANGES. 587

keep up high profit-assuring prices, one of two things would
eventually happen: either new factories would be started; or the
inventive spirit of the age would devise cheaper methods of pro-
duction, or some substitute for the product they furnished, and
so ruin the first combination beyond the possibility of redemp-
tion. And hence we have here another permanent agency, an-
tagonistic to the maintenance of high and remunerative prices.

CURIOUS CHANGES IN PRICES.

The record of extreme changes in prices, by reason of circum-
stances that are acknowledged to have been purely exceptional,
is also most instructive, and removes not a few commodities from
the domain of any controverted economic theory respecting mone-
tary influences.

The price of manufactured Mediterranean coral—the trade in
which is extensive—has been greatly depressed in recent years by
reason of the discovery of new banks of coral on the coast of
Sicily, from which the raw material has been obtained most
cheaply, and in large excess of demand. The consequent decline
in prices has, however, opened new markets in Africa, where the
natives now purchase coral ornaments in place of beads of Vene-
tian and German manufacture,

Few commodities have fluctuated more violently in price in
recent years, or more strikingly illustrate the degree to which
supply and demand predominate over all other agencies in deter-
mining price, than the vegetable product hops. In 1881 there was
an almost universal crop failure, and the highest grade of English
_ hops (Kast Kent) commanded 700s. per cwt. In 1886 the German
Hop-Growers’ Association estimated the quantity grown through-
out the world at 93,340 tons, and the annual consumption at only
83,200 tons, so that there was an excess of production over con-
sumption for that year of nearly 10,000 tons. As might have been
expected, there was a notable decline in the world’s prices for hops,
and the same quality of English hops which commanded 700s. per
ewt. in 1882 sold for 74s. in 1887, and in June, 1888, for 68s. Later
_ in the year, with unfavorable harvest reports, the price advanced
to 147s.

DIAMONDS.

The recent price experience of diamonds is in the highest de-
gree interesting. Diamonds were first discovered in South Africa
about the year 1868, and a business of searching (mining) for them °
immediately sprang up. At the outset the mining was conducted
by individuals, but, in consequence of the expense, the work grad-
ually and necessarily passed into the control of joint-stock com-
panies with command of large capital; and it was not until 1880
that operations on a great scale were undertaken. The result of

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this improved system, conjoined with underground mining, was
such an increase in the output of diamonds that an oversupply to
the market and a serious reduction in price became imminent;
and the period of 1883~’84 was, in fact, one of falling prices and
intense competition among the various producing companies, dur-
ing which the leading companies paid little or nothing to their
shareholders, and some entirely suspended operations.* Continued
disaster was, however, finally arrested through a practical con-
solidation of all the companies for the purpose of controlling
product and prices; and a revival in demand having occurred
about the same time, average prices were advanced between 1885
and 1887 from 20s. 5d. per carat to 23s. 74d.

The value of the diamonds exported from South Africa since
the first discovery of the mines, or from 1868 to 1887, is believed
to have been between £40,000,000 and £45,000,000 ($200,000,000 to
$225,000,000), of which about £15,500,000 ($77,500,000) represents
the value of the output from 1883 to 1887. Very curiously, this
large export of value—nearly all in the first instance to England
—seems to find no distinctive place in the columns of British im-
ports, although they have served in a large measure to enable
South Africa to pay for her imports of British and other foreign
products. If the export of diamonds from South Africa to Ku-
rope has aggregated £45,000,000 ($225,000,000) in the rough, the
process of cutting may be regarded as having increased their mar-
ket value full one hundred per cent, or to £90,000,000 (or $437,-
000,000)—a greater value than the yield of the world during the
two preceding centuries. The aggregate weight of the entire dia-
mond product of the South African mines up to 1887 is estimated
at 38,000,000 carats, or over seven and a half tons.

Of this immense product there is good reason for believing
that a very large proportion found a market in the United States.
According to the customs returns, the value of the unset dia-
monds which were imported into the United States, and paid duty,
from 1877 to 1887 inclusive, was in excess of $50,000,000; and it
can hardly be doubted that an equal or larger import in the form
of unset stones and jewelry escaped during the same period the
cognizance of the revenue officials. The value of the present
. annual import of precious stones not set—mainly diamonds—is
about $10,000,000. In 1868 the annual value of a corresponding
import was about $1,000,000. These data, imperfect as they are,

* The “ Kimberly Central Company ”—the leading organization—which from 1880 to
1883 increased its dividend from ten to thirty per cent, paid nothing to its shareholders
during 1884 and 1885, and at the close of 1886 was only able to declare a dividend of five
per cent. The other great diamond-mining company, the “De Beers,” was more fortunate,
and paid for 1884 to 1886 an average of about eight and a half per cent; but most of the
companies paid nothing during the same period, and some entircly suspended mining.

;

RECENT ECONOMIC CHANGES. 589

afford some indication of the rapid increase in wealth in recent
years among the people of the United States.

We have, therefore, in this experience, the phenomenon of the
strangely persistent value of a comparatively useless gem, during
a period when the prices of most other commodities were dimin-
ishing by leaps and bounds, as well as the extraordinary concur-
rent absorbent power of the world for a greatly increased product.
But the demand for diamonds latterly is thought not to have kept
pace with their increasing production; and it is said that the stock
of diamonds in the hands of dealers in 1888 was fully twenty-five
per cent in excess of their requirements. To meet and neutralize
the influence of this condition of affairs, the South African dia-
mond-mining companies have limited production, which for the
time has advanced prices. But the tendency obviously is for dia-
monds to decline in value; and the wonder, indeed, is that this has
not happened at an earlier date. “One thing, furthermore, seems
certain, and that is, that when the breakdown of speculation and
prices does occur, the consequences will be singular and far-reach-
ing. For it is to be remembered that for the most part the use of
diamonds is a mere whim of fashion, that may change at any
time. There is no way of stimulating the demand for them, ex-
cept by lowering prices, and, of course, if prices were materially
reduced, the wealthy votaries of fashion would inevitably cease
to wear diamonds, and would take up some other form of per-
sonal adornment.”* The price experience of diamonds in the
near future promises, therefore, to be even more interesting than
it has been in the recent past.

In the United States during recent years there has been a re-
markable decline in the price of hides and in certain descriptions
of leather ; “ Buenos Ayres” hides having sold in May, 1889, at the
lowest figures for thirty years, while the leather trade generally
has been depressed and unsatisfactory. The agency occasioning
the first result is ascribed to the great increase in the supply of
domestic hides consequent upon a notable extension of the Ameri-
can (Western) cattle industry; and, in the case of the second, to
an over-production and decline in demand for upper-leather, in
consequence of a change in fashion, whereby lighter grades of
foot-wear have supplemented the use of “ leg-boots.”

CHANGES OF INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES.

The improvements in recent years in the production of sugar
from the beet, and the artificial encouragement of this industry
in the continental states of Europe through the payment of large
bounties, have in turn compelled the large producers of cane-sugars
in the tropics to entirely abandon their old methods of working,

* London “ Economist.”

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and reorganize this industry on a most gigantic scale as a condi-
tion of continued existence. Thus, for example, although the
business of cane-sugar production was commenced more than
three hundred years ago on the island of Cuba, the grinding of
the cane by animal or “ wind” power, and the boiling and granu-
lating by ancient, slow, and wasteful methods, were everywhere
kept up until within a very recent period, as they still are by small
planters in every tropical country. But at the present time, upon
the great plantations of Cuba and some other countries, the cane
is conveyed from the fields by a system of railroads to manufactur-
ing centers, which are really huge factories, with all the charac-
teristics of factory life about them, and with the former home or
rural idea connected with this industry completely eliminated.
In these factories, where the first cost of the machinery plant
often represents as large a sum as $200,000 to $250,000, with an
equally large annual outlay for labor and other expenses, all
grades of sugar from the “crude” to the “ partially refined” are
manufactured at a cost that once would not have been deemed
possible. In Dakota and Manitoba the employment on single
wheat estates of a hundred reapers and an aggregate of three hun-
dred laborers for a season has been regarded as something un-
precedented in agricultural industry; but on one sugar estate in
Cuba—* El Balboa ”—from fifteen hundred to two thousand hands,
invariably negroes, are employed, who work under severe disci-
pline, in watches or relays, during the grinding season, by day
and night, the same as in the large iron-mills and furnaces of the
United States and Europe. At the same time there are few village
communities where a like number of people experience the same
care and surveillance. The male workers occupy quarters walled
and barricaded from the women, and the women from the men,
There are in every village an infirmary, a lying-in hospital, a phy-
sician, an apothecary, a chapel, and priest. At night and morning
mass is said in chapel, and the crowds are always large. There
is of a Sunday less restraint, though ceaseless espionage 1s never
remitted. On these days and in parts of holidays there are rude
mirth, ruder music, and much dancing. This picture is given
somewhat in detail, because it illustrates how all-pervading and
tremendous are the forces that are modifying society everywhere,
in civilized, partially civilized, and even barbarous countries, con-
jointly with the new conditions of production and consumption.

Tux English Society for Promoting the Growth of Industrial Villages has been
formed to counteract the tendency of workingmen to huddle themselves in the
slums of cities, and to encourage suburban settlements. Its report cites, im illus-
tration of the practical working of this thought, the example of a manufacturing
firm in London, which has placed many of its hands in the country, and sends out
material to them to be returned manufactured, paying them full wages.

A,

THE SURFACH TENSION OF LIQUIDS. 591

THE SURFACE TENSION OF LIQUIDS.
By W. H. LARRABEE.

HAT is it that keeps a drop of water in shape; that enables
it to resist a considerable pressure or blow before it will
collapse into a spatter; that holds it in its integrity to a leaf or
the eaves till it is mature to fall, while it still maintains its
round, independent individuality ? Whatever the power is, it
appears yet more distinctly in a globule of mercury, which will
not be hammered out of shape or compelled to spread. Dr.
Thomas Young conceived, for the explanation of this and some
other phenomena exhibited by small, isolated liquid masses, the
idea of their being surrounded by a thin, elastic membrane, less
dense than the deeper parts of the drop, and capable of adhering
perfectly to them, and more or less strongly to solid bodies. It
seemed capable of opposing a certain resistance to being rent, and
this was called its superficial tension. Some’ curious movements
take place when certain solid substances are cast upon water, to
account for which Dutrochet supposed a new force, which he
called epipolic force. These phenomena of the drops, the “ epipolic
force,” the calming effects of oil on storm-disturbed water, and a
variety of other curious actions hitherto unaccounted for, have
lately been referred to this property of superficial tension. Tak-
ing a drop of water as typically embodying the property, M. E.
Gossart * asserts that all the energies of nature may be found in
its tenuous envelope. Besides M. Gossart, studies of the curious
and protean properties of this superficial tension, or the envelope
of the water-drop, have been published by M. H. Devaux + and M.
Van der Mensbrugghe.{ The present article is a summary of some
of the results of their studies. Regarding water in a vessel, M. Van
der Mensbrugghe finds that whatever may once have been thought
on the subject, it is not equally constituted throughout. Its parti-
cles are solicited by attractive forces which are exhibited when,
upon drawing out a pencil which has been dipped into the mass,
a drop is found adhering to the point. If this drop be conceived
to be cut by a horizontal plane, all the parts below the plane
may be supposed to be sustained by those which are above it.
It is also acted upon by repulsive forces tending to scatter the
particles, the effects of which are seen in evaporation. When the
* “ A Voyage on the Surface of a Drop of Water.” Lecture before the Scientific and
Literary Society of Caen, published in the “ Revue Scientifique,” 1887.
+ “Spontaneous Movements of certain Bodies on the Surface of some Liquids,” “La
Nature,” 1888.

¢ “Superficial Tension.” Lecture before the Belgian Society of Microscopy, March 3,
1888, published in “La Nature,” 1888.

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

attractive and repulsive forces are at equilibrium within the
liquid, there is supposed to be in the immediate vicinity of the
free surface a tendency to the dispersion of the particles which is
constantly opposed by the attractive forces. The condition of the
superficial layer may be compared with that of a thin, elastic
membrane under stretch, the cohesion of which constantly op-
poses itself to a more considerable elongation. The superficial
layer of a liquid is thus subject to a contractile force or tension,
by virtue of which it tends to become as small as possible. M.
Gossart, comparing the relative situation of two molecules, A
within the drop, and B at its surface, against the air or another

liquid or a solid body, shows that each molecule is attracted by —

the others only from a certain distance (less than ten thousandth
of a millimetre), which is as formidably great to it as it seems
little to us. Those molecules which are at a greater distance
from A and B will have no more action upon them than the stars
have upon our sun, earth, and planets. Regarding these spheres
alone, A, equally solicited in all directions by an equal number
of molecules, will be free in its movements, and obedient to
Pascal’s principle; while B has not the same surrounding in
every direction. Hence a kind of rarefaction which extends to
only a slight depth in the drop; and hence also, on the surface,
the elastic membranous or resistant quality.

This property is illustrated in some experiments described by
M. Van der Mensbrugghe. Take two pencils, one of which should
be of light wood and thinner than the other (Fig. 1); place them
alongside and in contact; drop a little clear water in the angle
between them, so as to moisten the line of contact. There will be
formed a slight liquid mass, adherent to both pencils, of concave
outline, the section of which is represented by a b in the corner
diagram of Fig.1. The lighter pencil will hang from the other
by virtue of the tension of the concave surfaces a b, that bound
either side of the line of contact. "With the pencils twelve centi-
metres long, a weight of eighteen hundred milligrammes may be
sustained in this way. In a second experiment, a ring of copper
wire a millimetre thick and three and one quarter inches in
diameter, is laid carefully upon the surface of pure water, when
—if everything be entirely clean—it will float, as in Fig. 2, section
a, and this, notwithstanding copper is 8'8 times heavier than
water. This takes place because all the tensions of the liquid
that touches upon the ring produce an upward resultant. A ring
weighing seventeen hundred and thirty milligrammes may be thus
upheld, while the maximum effect of the tensions is three thousand
seven hundred and seventy milligrammes, or more than double the
weight of the ring. Needles, globules of mercury, a thin ring of
platinum, etc., may be similarly made to float on water.

THE SURFACE TENSION OF LIQUIDS. 593

In a third experiment a strip of thin, unglazed paper, say six
inches and three quarters long by an inch and a half wide, is folded
so as to form a box or trough, as represented in the lower part of
Fig. 3. Set the box on a table, moisten the inner faces with a wet
brush, and pour in water from an inch or two above. The tension
of the liquid surface will at once bring the long sides of the box
together, and the vessel will thus shut upon itself.

7

Fig. 1.—ADHERENCE OF ONE PENCIL TO ANOTHER BY THE I’ENSION OF CONCAVE SURFACES OF
WATER.

Again, take a cylindrical cork of about wine-bottle size; fix in
the center of one end a fine iron wire terminating’ in a hook or
pan to hold ballast. In the other end fix a ring about four inches
in diameter, lifted on branching supports as-in Fig. 4. Plunge
the apparatus into a vessel containing a suitable depth of water.
With a proper weight of ballast, the cork will assume a vertical
position, and will rise only to a certain distance above the level of
the water. But if the whole is pushed down into the liquid and
left there, the ring will not again clear itself from the water; it
will only rise a little above its level, producing a double concave
meniscus. In this case the effect of superficial tension is to give
_ rise to a downward resultant sufficient to counterbalance the in-
crease of the upward thrust. If the ballast is managed so that
the excess of this resultant is but slight, on the application of
ether by a wad or sponge, the effect of which will be to diminish
the superficial tension of the water, the ring will rise from the
liquid and the apparatus assume its original position.

In a fifth experiment a square frame of wire is dipped into a
VOL. XXxvV.—388

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mixture of soap and sugar with water. On withdrawing the
frame its inner space will be occupied with a flat film of so little
weight that it does not visibly sag, but becomes more tense as it
is attenuated. A closed contour of cotton or silk thread laid upon
the film will lie in any form so long as the film is whole and its
tension equal in every direction. But the instant it is broken

Fig. 2.—CoPprPpeR RING FLOATING ON THE SURFACE OF WATER.

within the contour the thread will stretch and assume a circular
form as in Fig. 5, under the influence of the outward tensions of
the rest of the film. It takes the shape in which it bounds as
great a surface as its length permits, which is that of a circle.
Prof. Schoentjes has varied upon this experiment by using, instead
of a simple thread, a system composed of portions of rectilinear
solids and portions of arbitrary form, made by passing threads
loosely through pieces of fine straws (as in the object lying on the
table in Fig. 5). This being placed upon the film and the film
pierced, as in the previous experiment, invariably assumed a
shape in which all the loose thread portions became arcs of a
single circumference, of which the rectilinear solid portions (the
straws) constituted chords—or the figure, according to Steiner,

of the maximum surface that can be limited by a contour so —

composed. M. Terquem and M. Gossart, by breaking the film at
one or more points outside of the contour, make the thread double
into loops.

M. Gossart has studied the pressure of this supposed mem-
brane surrounding the drop of water, and its variation under dif-

ferent degrees of curvature. Investigating its behavior in a —

}
b

—

THE SURFACE TENSION OF LIQUIDS. 595

homogeneous medium, he takes the envelope itself—a drop void of
water, or rather full of air—represented for convenience of ma-
nipulation by a soap-bubble, and consisting of two films separated
by an extremely thin mass of water. The pressure is the same in
every part, and the curvature uniform, and that which gives the
least possible surface—a sphere. The pressure is strong enough
to drive tobacco-smoke back through a pipe-stem or to blow out a
candle. The curved film may be deformed by passing it through
rigid frames, but it will always preserve a geometrical shape, for
it can not continue to exist except upon the condition of exercis-
ing an equal pressure throughout upon the air imprisoned within
it; but some of the shapes it will assume within this rule are very
curious.

If a drop of water is poured upon another liquid, it is still im-
prisoned in its contractile sac, but in one having two walls of
unequal elasticity ; the upper wall resting against the air, and the
lower one mae the a The line of suture of these two

oe ih

Fig. 8.—A PAPER Box CLOSING UPON ITSELF WHEN WATER IS POURED INTO IT.

walls floats in three different media—air, water, and the subjacent
liquid ; or, to use M. Gossart’s figure, it is like a cord drawn by
three different forces, which are represented in this case by the
upper and lower walls of the sac and the uncovered membrane
of the inferior liquid, pulling against one another, as when three
ropes are pulled by three men of unequal strength. Suppose, as
the extreme case, that the attraction of the membrane exterior to
the drop so prevails over the tension of the two walls of the sac
that they can not rest in equilibrium. Then the sac will be drawn

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

out, and all the superior liquid will spread in an infinitely thin
layer over the other. This is what happens to a drop of oil when
itis thrown upon water. When a liquid is brought in contact
with a solid, as when a first drop of water is let fall upon a hori-
zontal plate of glass, the inclosing sac is flattened where it is in
touch with the glass, and bulges where it is in contact with the air.
The form of the sac and the angle of its junction with the glass
are determined by the fact that the two tensions of the envelope,

Fie. 4.—AN Iron RING HAVING BEEN PLUNGED UNDER WATER, HOLDING DOWN THE CORK TO
WHICH IT IS ATTACHED.

the upper and lower, should balance the traction of the exterior
glass upon the cordon separating them. In the case of a drop of
alcohol, the tensions being much weaker, can not resist the trac-
tion of the glass, and the liquid spreads out at once, as also hap-
pens with water when the plate has already been moistened.
Mercury opposes a very strong tension, and is hardly flattened at
all on striking the glass. A drop of water cast upon a hot plate
also exhibits a superior tension, and assumes the spheroidal state,
which was first analyzed in 1850 by M. Boutigny, of Evreux. He
said, “ Bodies in a spheroidal state are bounded by a film of mat-
ter, the molecules of which are so connected that we can compare
them to a solid, transparent, very thin, very elastic envelope,
probably less dense than the rest, that protects the liquid within
it against any too considerable heating.”

This force of superficial tension exists and is manifest in all
liquids, but in different degrees. It is stronger in water than in
any other of the common liquids except mercury. Its value has

been measured, and is usually expressed, in milligrammes per milli-.

THE SURFACE TENSION OF LIQUIDS. 597

metre of superficial length, at 60° Fahr., as 7°5 for distilled water ;
49 for mercury; 4 for glycerin; 3°6 for olive-oil; 2°8 for soap-
suds; 2°7 for spirits of turpentine; 2°6 for petroleum ; 2°5 for abso-
lute alcohol; and 1°88 for ether. It is diminished when the liquid
is warmed, and is weakened and even destroyed by impurity. M.
Terquem has determined, from observations on the interference of
luminous rays, that the envelope is less than 37,495 of a millime-
tre thick.

Curious effects appear when liquids having different superfi-
cial tensions are brought together, and when solids containing
volatile properties are thrown upon a liquid. With two liquids
that will mix, as water and alcohol or ether, the tension at the
point of contact becomes null, and the lighter fluid spreads out
over the other. This is followed, according to M. Van der Mens-

Fic. 5.—A Contour or SILKEN THREAD EXPANDING INTO A OIRCLE WHEN THE FILM ON WHICH
IT HAS BEEN LAID I8 BROKEN.

brugghe, by a retreat of this fluid toward the point where it was
dropped, in consequence of an increased tension given to that
point by the cooling that follows the evaporation of the dropped
liquid. If the liquids will not mingle, as when oil or turpentine
is dropped on water, the drop spreads over the surface, forming a
thin layer upon it which is marked by beautiful plays of colors.
M. Devaux exemplifies one of these effects by an experiment
(Fig. 6) in which a tin boat, having a notch cut in the stern, is
launched upon the water. On letting a drop of alcohol fall at
the notch, the boat moves away as if driven by some repulsion.
There is, however, no repulsion; but the tension astern has been

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

destroyed or diminished, while that forward continues in full
force to draw the boat onward. If a bit of camphor be substi-
tuted for the alcohol, its vapor has the same effect upon the ten-

Fic. 6.—TIN BOAT SAILING AROUND ON WATER BY THE AID OF A Bit oF CAMPHOR. a

sion, and the boat. may be made to sail regularly, with consider-

able speed, for hours. The experiment is made more spectacular

by furnishing the boat with a mast carrying a flag.

Fie. 7.—Movements or FINE GRAINS OF CAMPHOR ON THE SURFACE OF MERCURY.

In another experiment described by M. Devaux, a few granules
of camphor are sprinkled upon mercury, and breathed upon till a —
kind of lye is formed, when a multitude of long-tailed “ tadpoles”

THE SURFACE TENSION OF LIQUIDS. 599

appear swimming over the surface of the mercury (Fig. 7). If,
now, we breathe continuously from one side upon the mercury,
the “tadpoles” will become more lively, and direct themselves
against the breath, coming up to the very edge of the mercury.
The breath, driving the vapors back, clears a space in front of the
“tadpole,” leaving the tension of the mercury free to act upon
it and draw it forward, while it clouds the rear, weakening the
tension.

M. Devaux has exemplified the strength and persistence of the
tensional force by connecting his camphor-boat with a float in the
shape of a watch-glass. The movement of the boat continues, car-

EW

Ly

i

mn

aT

=—==S=—SSSSSSSSQ

Fig. 8.—Tin Boat cAusina A LOADED FLOAT TO GO ROUND WITH IT.

rying the float around while it is loaded with weights rising to
fifty or a hundred grammes, and even to a kilogramme (Fig. 8) ;
and if forcibly stopped, it will begin again when the obstacle is
removed,

The phenomena of capillary attraction are explained under the
theory of superficial tension. The liquid rises in the tubes by vir-
tue of the adhesion of its superficial membrane to their walls, and
to a less height in the larger than in the smaller tubes because
the mass of the liquid to be raised increases more rapidly than
the power of the membrane to sustain it. Just as the tension of
a liquid is diminished by adding a foreign substance, the capillary
force of a tube is diminished by the presence of a foreign vapor.
This is illustrated by M. Devaux as in Fig. 9, where water rises
to the greatest height in the tube A, which was filled simply with
air, to a less height in E, which has been charged with the vapor
of ether, and to a still less height in C, which was occupied with
the vapor of camphor.

Other energies than this mechanical energy have been shown

600 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by different investigators to reside in the thin envelope of the
water-drop; acoustic energy by M. Savart, as noticed in a cascade
of water-drops, the envelopes of which underwent rhythmical
deformations; calorific energy, due to the displacement of mole-
cules that pass from the surface to the ranks, or which ascend to
the superficial layer; luminous
energy, as studied by Newton,
Boyle, Hooke, Young, and Fres-
nel; and electrical energy, as
manifested in effects that have
been observed by M. Lipmann—
all of which, according to M.
Gossart, are transformable one
into another in accordance with
the law of conservation of force.

A drop of water hangs from
a leaf or the eaves of a house,
held up as in a bag by its su-
perficial envelope. It continues
to increase in size and weight
many times faster than the ten-
sion of its cordon of attachment
is re-enforced, till it overcomes

that tension, and then it falls;
Fig. 9 —LEVELS TO WHICH WATER WILL RISE IN
CAPILLARY TuBEs CHAKGED, RESPECTIVELY, and, according to M. Gossart,
5 piestaieaien ee a or Erne (E), AND a] the drops of water that fall—
of themselves—are of the same
size. The drops of melted metals, whose superficial tensions are
enormous, reach correspondingly enormous magnitude. The pu-
rity of liquids can be determined by observing the size of the
drops they give; in the case of wines, by counting the number of
drops per cubic centimetre; for the superficial tension of all
liquids is modified by adulteration.

M. Van der Mensbrugghe has calculated what he calls the
potential energy of water, on the basis of the estimation of its
superficial tension at 7°5 milligramme-millimetres per square milli-
metre of free surface. This is resident in a film not more than
sooo Of a millimetre thick. Distributed over the whole ocean, it
gives an amount of mechanical force which we have no means
of accurately calculating. If we suppose that of two equal and
adjacent superficial layers of sea-water, one washes over the other
by the effect of the wind, for example, the layer that is covered
loses its free surface, and with it its proper potential energy,
which appears again in an increase of speed. Thus on the
ocean the action goes on, the energies of the successive waves

being extinguished as to them and transferred to others; so that __

ied ihn Le

7

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 601

every wave in course of formation is composed of portions the
speeds of which are greatest toward the top. Ina violent wind
the acceleration produces on each wave a crest that becomes more
and more protuberant, and at length is disintegrated, or breaks.
It follows that any agent capable of preventing the washing of
the superficial slices over one another will constitute an obstacle
to the progressive increase of the living force of the liquid
masses.

Such an agent is found in oil when it covers a sufficient extent
of the surface of the sea. By virtue of its specific levity it keeps
on the surface and prevents the washing of one layer of water
over another. Thus is explained the soothing action, which ap-
pears so mysterious at first sight, of oils upon rough seas. Sus-
ceptible of being spread out into laminz of the incredible thin-
ness Of gpqooo OT Boole Of a millimetre, a small quantity of oil
is efficacious to cover and prevent overwashing of waves upon a
large surface. When this is done, the formation of the crests or
breaking waves, so dangerous to ships, can not take place, and
the terrible breaker is converted into a harmless swell.

eS

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS.
By Pror. T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S.

HARLES, or, more properly, Karl, King of the Franks, con-

secrated Roman emperor in St. Peter’s, on Christmas day,
A. D. 800, and known to posterity as the Great (chiefly by his
agglutinative Gallicized denomination of Charlemagne), was a
man great in all ways, physically and mentally. Within a couple
of centuries after his death Charlemagne became the center of
innumerable legends; and the myth-making process does not
seem to have been sensibly interfered with by the existence of
sober and truthful histories of the emperor and of the times
which immediately preceded and followed his reign, by a con-
temporary writer who occupied a high and confidential position
in his court, and in that of his successor. This was one Eginhard,
or Kinhard, who appears to have been born about A. D. 770, and
spent his youth at the court, being educated along with Charles’s
sons. There is excellent contemporary testimony not only to
Eginhard’s existence, but to his abilities, and to the place which
he occupied in the circle of the intimate friends of the great ruler
whose life he subsequently wrote. In fact, there is as good evi-
dence of Eginhard’s existence, of his official position, and of his
being the author of the chief works attributed to him, as can rea-
sonably be expected in the case of a man who lived more than

602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a thousand years ago, and was neither a great king nor a great
warrior. These works are—l. “The Life of the Emperor Karl.”
2. “The Annals of the Franks.” 3. “Letters.” 4. “The History
of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs of Christ, SS. Marcel-
linus and Petrus.”

It is to the last, as one of the most singular and interesting
records of the period during which the Roman world passed into
that of the middle ages, that I wish to direct attention.* It was
written in the ninth century, somewhere, apparently, about the
year 830, when Eginhard, ailing in health and weary of political
life, had withdrawn to the monastery of Seligenstadt, of which he
was the founder. A manuscript copy of the work, made in the
tenth century, and once the property of the monastery of St.
Bavon on the Scheldt, of which Eginhard was abbot, is still
extant, and there is no reason to believe that, in this copy, the
original has been in any way interpolated or otherwise tampered
with. The main features of the strange story contained in the
“ Historia Translationis” are set forth in the following pages, in
which, in regard to all matters of importance, I shall adhere as
closely as possible to Eginhard’s own words:

While I was still at court, busied with secular affairs, I often thought of the
leisure which I hoped one day to enjoy in a solitary place, far away from the
crowd, with which the liberality of Prince Louis, whom I then served, had pro-
vided me. This place is situated in that part of Germany which lies between the
Neckar and the Main,t and is nowadays called the Odenwald by those who live
in and about it. And here having built, according to my capacity and resources,
not only houses and permanent dwellings, but also a basilica fitted for the per-
formance of divine service and of no mean style of coustruction, I began to think
to what saint or martyr I could best dedicate it. A good deal of time had passed
while my thoughts fluctuated about this matter, when it happened that a certain
deacon of the Roman Church, named Deusdona, arrived at the court for the pur-
pose of seeking the favor of the king in some affairs in which he was interested.
He remained some time; and then, having transacted his business, he was about
to return to Rome, when one day, moved by courtesy to a stranger, we invited
him to a modest refection; and while talking of many things at table, mention
was made of the translation of the body of the blessed Sebastian,t and of the neg-
lected tombs of the martyrs, of which there is such a prodigious number at Rome;
and the conversation having turned toward the dedication of our new basilica, I
began to inquire how it might be possible for me to obtain some of the true relics
of the saints which rest at Rome. He at first hesitated, and declared that he did
not know how that could be done. But observing that I was both anxious and
curious about the subject, he promised to give me an answer some other day.

* My citations are made from Teulet’s “Einhardi omnia que extant opera,” Paris,
1840-1843, which contains a biography of the author, a history of the text, with transla-
tions into French, and many valuable annotations.

+ At present included in the duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden.

+ This took place in the year 826 a.p. The relics were brought from Rome and de-
posited in the Church of St. Medardus at Soissons.

A ide

:

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 603

When I returned to the question, some time afterward, he immediately drew
from his bosom a paper, which he begged me to read when I was alone, and to
tell him what I was disposed to think of that which was therein stated. I took
the paper, and, as he desired, read it alone and in secret. (Cap. i, 2, 3.)

I shall have occasion to return to Deacon Deusdona’s con-
ditions, and to what happened after Eginhard’s acceptance of
them. Suffice it, for the present, to say that Kginhard’s notary,
Ratleicus (Ratleig), was dispatched to Rome and succeeded in
securing two bodies, supposed to be those of the holy martyrs
Marcellinus and Petrus; and when he had got as far on his home-
ward journey as the Burgundian town of Solothurn or Soleure,*
notary Ratleig dispatched to his master,.at St. Bavon, a letter
announcing the success of his mission.

As soon as by reading it I was assured of the arrival of the saints, I dispatched _
a confidential messenger to Maestricht, to gather together priests, other clerics,
and also laymen, to go out to meet the coming saints as speedily as possible. And
he and his companions, having lost no time, after a few days met those who had
charge of the saints at Solothurn. Joined with them, and with a vast crowd of
people who gathered from all parts, singing hymns, and amid great and univer-
sal rejoicings, they traveled quickly to the city of Argentoratum, which is now
called. Strasburg. Thence embarking on the Rhine they came to the place called
Portus,t and landing on the east bank of the river, at the fifth station, thence
they arrived at Michilinstadt,t accompanied by an immense multitude, praising
God. This place is in that forest of Germany which in modern times is called the
Odenwald, and about six leagues from the Main. And here; having found a
basilica recently built by me, but not yet consecrated, they carried the sacred re-
mains into it and deposited them therein, as if it were to be their final resting-
place. As soon as all this was reported to me, I traveled thither as quickly as I
could. (Cap. ii, 14.)

Three days after Eginhard’s arrival began the series of won-
derful events which he narrates, and for which we have his per-
sonal guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of
a servant of Ratleig the notary, who, being set to watch the holy
relics in the church after vespers, went to sleep, and during his
slumbers had a vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and
white, which came and sat upon the bier over the relics; while,
at the same time, a voice ordered the man to tell his master that
the holy martyrs had chosen another resting-place and desired to
be transported thither without delay.

Unfortunately, the saints seem to have forgotten to mention
where they wished to go, and, with the most anxious desire to
gratify their smallest wishes, Eginhard was naturally greatly per-
plexed what todo. While in this state of mind, he was one day

* Now included in western Switzerland.

+ Probably, according to Teulet, the present Sandhofer-fabrt, a little below the em-

bouchure of the Neckar.
¢ The present Michilstadt, thirty miles northeast of Heidelberg.

604 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

contemplating his “great and wonderful treasure, more precious
than all the gold in the world,” when it struck him that the chest
in which the relics were contained was quite unworthy of its con-
tents ; and after vespers he gave orders to one of the sacristans to
take the measure of the chest in order that a more fitting shrine
might be constructed. The man, having lighted a wax candle
and raised the pall which covered the relics, in order to carry out
his master’s orders, was astonished and terrified to observe that
the chest was covered with a blood-like exudation (loculum mirum
in modum humore sanguineo undique distillantem), and at once
sent a message to Eginhard.

Then I and those priests who accompanied me beheld this stupendous miracle,
worthy of all admiration. For just as when it is going to rain, pillars and slabs
and marble images exude moisture, and, as it were, sweat, so the chest which
contained the most sacred relics was found moist with the blood exuding on
all sides. (Cap. ii, 16.) J

Three days’ fast was ordained in order that the meaning of the
portent might be ascertained. All that happened, however, was
that at the end of that time the “blood,” which had been exuding
in drops all the while, dried up. Eginhard is careful to say that
the liquid “had a saline taste, something like that of tears, and
was thin as water, though of the color of true blood,’ and he
clearly thinks this satisfactory evidence that it was blood.

The same night another servant had a vision, in which still
more imperative orders for the removal of the relics were given;
and, from that time forth, “nota single night passed without one,
two, or even three of our companions receiving revelations in
dreams that the bodies of the saints were to be transferred from
that place to another.” At last a priest, Hildfrid, saw, in a dream,
a venerable white-haired man in a priest’s vestments, who bitterly
reproached Kginhard for not obeying the repeated orders of the
saints, and upon this the journey was commenced. Why Egin-
hard delayed obedience to these repeated visions so long does not
appear. He does not say so in so many words, but the general
tenor of the narrative leads one to suppose that Mulinheim (after-
ward Seligenstadt) is the “solitary place” in which he had built
the church which awaited dedication. In that case all the people
about him would know that he desired that the saints should go
there. If a glimmering of secular sense led him to be a little
suspicious about the real cause of the unanimity of the visionary
beings who manifested themselves to his entowrage in favor of
moving on, he does not say so.

At the end of the first day’s journey the precious relics were
deposited in the church of St. Martin, in the village of Ostheim.
Hither a paralytic nun (sanctimonialis quedam paralytica) of the

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 605

name of Ruodlang was brought in a car by her friends and rela-
tives from a monastery a league off. She spent the night watching
and praying by the bier of the saints; “and health returning
to all her members, on the morrow she went back to her place
whence she came, on her feet, nobody supporting her, or in any
way giving her assistance.” (Cap. ii, 19.)

On the second day the relics were carried to Upper Mulinheim,
and finally, in accordance with the orders of the martyrs, deposited
in the church of that place, which was therefore renamed Seligen-
stadt. Here, Daniel, a beggar boy of fifteen, and so bent that “ he
could not look at the sky without lying on his back,” collapsed
and fell down during the celebration of the mass. “Thus he lay
a long time, as if asleep, and all his limbs straightening and his
flesh strengthening (recepta firmitate nervorum), he arose before
our eyes, quite well.” (Cap. 1, 20.)

Some time afterward an old man entered the church on his
hands and knees, being unable to use his limbs properly:

He, in the presence of all of us, by the power of God and the merits of the
blessed martyrs, in the same hour in which he entered was so perfectly cured that
he walked without so much asa stick. And he said that, though he had been deaf
for five years, his deafness had ceased along with the palsy. (Cap. iii, 33.)

Eginhard was now obliged to return to the court at Aix-la-
Chapelle, where his duties kept him through the winter; and he
is careful to point out that the later miracles which he proceeds
to speak of are known to him only at second hand. But, as he
naturally observes, having seen such wonderful events with his
_ own eyes, why should he doubt similar narrations when they are
received from trustworthy sources ?

Wonderful stories these are indeed, but as they are, for the
most part, of the same general character as those already re-
counted, they may be passed over. There is, however, an account
of a possessed maiden which is worth attention.

This is set forth in a memoir, the principal contents of which
are the speeches of a demon who declared that he possessed the
singular appellation of “ Wiggo,” and revealed himself in the
presence of many witnesses, before the altar, close to the relics of
the blessed martyrs. It is noteworthy that the revelations appear
to have been made in the shape of replies to the questions of the
exorcising priest, and there is no means of judging how far the
answers are really only the questions to which the patient replied
yes or no.

The possessed girl, about sixteen years of age, was brought by
her parents to the basilica of the martyrs.

When she approached the tomb containing the sacred bodies, the priest, ac-
cording to custom, read the formula of exorcism over her head. When he began

606 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to ask how and when the demon had entered her, she answered, not in the tongue
of the barbarians, which alone the girl knew, but in the Roman tongue. And
when the priest was astonished and asked how she came to know Latin, when her
parents, who stood by, were wholly ignorant of it, “‘Thou hast never seen my
parents,” was the reply. To this the priest, ‘‘ Whence art thou, then, if these are
not thy parents?”” And the demon, by the mouth of the girl, “I am a follower
and disciple of Satan, and for a long time I was gatekeeper (janitor) in hell; but,
for some years, along with eleven companions, I have ravaged the kingdom of the
Franks.” (Cap. v, 49.)

He then goes on to tell how they blasted the crops and scattered
pestilence among beasts and men, because of the prevalent wicked-
ness of the people.*

The enumeration of all these iniquities, in oratorical style, takes
up a whole octavo page; and at the end it is stated, “ All these
things the demon spoke in Latin by the mouth of the girl.”

And when the priest imperatively ordered him to come out, “I shall go,” said
he, “not in obedience to you, but on account of the power of the saints, who do
not allow me to remain any longer.” And, having said this, he threw the girl
down on the floor and there compelled her to lie prostrate for a time, as though
she slumbered. After a little while, however, he going away, the girl, by the
power of Christ and the merits of the blessed martyrs, as it were awakening from
sleep, rose up quite well, to the astonishment of all present; nor after the demon
had gone out was she able to speak Latin: so that it was plain enough that it was
not she who had spoken in that tongue, but the demon by her mouth, (Cap.
v, 51.)

If the “ Historia Translationis” contained nothing more than has
been, at present, laid before the reader, disbelief in the miracles of
which it gives so precise and full a record might well be regarded
as hyper-skepticism. It might fairly be said: “Here you have a
man, whose high character, acute intelligence, and large instruc-
tion are certified by eminent contemporaries; a man who stood
high in the confidence of one of the greatest rulers of any age, and
whose other works prove him to be an accurate and judicious nar-
rator of ordinary events. This man tells you, in language which
bears the stamp of sincerity, of things which happened within his
own knowledge, or within that of persons in whose veracity he
has entire confidence, while he appeals to his sovereign and the
court as witnesses of others; what possible ground can there be
for disbelieving him ?”

Well, it is hard upon Eginhard to say so, but it is exactly the
honesty and sincerity of the man which are his undoing as a wit-
ness to the miraculous. He himself makes it quite obvious that
when his profound piety comes on the stage, his good sense and
even his perception of right and wrong make their exit. Let us

* In the middle ages one of the most favorite accusations against witches was that they
committed just these cnormities,

"
.

ed a2 ~ =

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 607

go back to the point at which we left him, secretly perusing the
letter of Deacon Deusdona. As he tells us, its contents were—

that he (the deacon) had many relics of saints at home, and that he would give
them to me if I would furnish him with the means of returning to Rome; he had
observed that I had two mules, and, if I would let him have one of them and would
dispatch with him a confidential servant to take charge of the relics, he would at
once send them tome. This plausibly expressed proposition pleased me, and I
made up my mind to test the value of the somewhat ambiguous promise at once; *
so giving him the mule and money for his journey I ordered my notary Ratleig
(who already desired to go to Rome to offer his devotions there) to go with him.
Therefore, having left Aix-la-Chapelle (where the emperor and his court resided
at the time) they came to Soissons. Here they spoke with Hildoin, abbot of the
monastery of St. Medardus, because the said deacon had assured him that he had
the means of placing in his possession the body of the blessed Tiburtius the mar-
tyr. Attracted by which promises he (Hildoin) sent with them a certain priest,
Hunus by name, a sharp man (hominem callidum), whom he ordered to receive and
bring back the body of the martyr in question. And so, resuming their journey,
they proceeded to Rome as fast as they could. (Cap. i, 3.)

Unfortunately, a servant of the notary, one Reginbald, fell ill
of a tertian fever, and impeded the progress of the party. How-
ever, this piece of adversity had its sweet uses; for, three days
before they reached Rome, Reginbald had a vision. Somebody
habited as a deacon appeared to him and asked why his master was
in such a hurry to get to Rome; and when Reginbald explained
their business, this visionary deacon, who seems to have taken the
measure of his brother in the flesh with some accuracy, told him
not by any means to expect that Deusdona would fulfill his prom-
ises. Moreover, taking the servant by the hand, he led him to the
top of a high mountain and, showing him Rome (where the man
had never been), pointed out a church, adding: “ Tell Ratleig the
thing he wants is hidden there; let him get it as quickly as he can
and go back to his master”; and, by way of a sign that the order
was authoritative, the servant was promised that from that time
forth his fever should disappear. And as the fever did vanish to
return no more, the faith of Kginhard’s people in Deacon Deusdona
naturally vanished with it (et fidem diaconi promissis non habe-
rent). Nevertheless, they put up at the deacon’s house near St. Pe-
ter da Vincula. But time went on and no relics made their appear-
ance, while the notary and the priest were put off with all sorts
of excuses—the brother to whom the relics had been confided was
gone to Beneventum and not expected back for some time, and so
on—until Ratleig and Hunus began to despair, and were minded
to return, wnfecto negotio.

* It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about the deacon, whose pledge he
qualifies as sponsiones incerte. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which fully justified
skepticism.

608 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But my notary, calling to mind his servant’s dream, proposed to his companion
that they should go to the cemetery which their host had talked about without
him. So, having found and hired a guide, they went in the first place to the basil-
ica of the blessed Tiburtius in the Via Labicana, about three thousand paces from
the town, and cautiously and carefully inspected the tomb of that martyr, in order
to discover whether it could be vpened without any one being the wiser. Then

they descended into the adjoining crypt, in which the bodies of the blessed mar- -

tyrs of Christ, Marcellinus and Petrus, were buried; and, having made out the
nature of their tomb, they went away thinking their host would not know what
they had been about. But things fell out differently from whet they had ima-
gined. (Cap. i, 7.)

In fact, Deacon Deusdona, who doubtless kept an eye on his
guests, knew all about their manceuvres and made haste to offer his
services, in order that, “with the help of God” (st Deus votis eorum
favere dignaretur), they should all work together. The deacon
was evidently alarmed lest they should succeed without his help.

So, by way of preparation for the contemplated vol avec effrac-
tion, they fasted three days; and then, at night, without being
seen, they betook themselves to the basilica of St. Tiburtius, and
tried to break open the altar erected over his remains. But the
marble proving too solid, they descended to the crypt, and “ hav-
ing invoked our Lord Jesus Christ and adored the holy martyrs,”
they proceeded to prise off the stone which covered the tomb, and
thereby exposed the body of the most sacred martyr Marcellinus,
“whose head rested on a marble tablet on which his name was
inscribed.” The body was taken up with the greatest veneration,
wrapped in a rich covering, and given over to the keeping of the
deacon and his brother Lunison, while the stone was replaced with
such care that no sign of the theft remained.

As sacrilegious proceedings of this kind were punishable with
death by the Roman law, it seems not unnatural that Deacon Deus-
dona should have become uneasy, and have urged Ratleig to be
satisfied with what he had got and be off with his spoils. But the
notary having thus cleverly captured the blessed Marcellinus,

thought it a pity he should be parted from the blessed Petrus, side

by side with whom he had rested for five hundred years and more
in the same sepulchre (as Eginhard pathetically observes) ; and the
pious man could neither eat, drink, nor sleep, until he had compassed
his desire to reunite the saintly colleagues. This time, apparently
in consequence of Deusdona’s opposition to any further resurrec-
tionist doings, he took counsel with a Greek monk, one Basil, and,
accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing to Deusdona, they
committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing this time, not
only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of dust, which
they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer that it
was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius.

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 609

How Deusdona was “squared,” and what he got for his not very
valuable complicity in these transactions, does not appear. But at
last the relics were sent off in charge of Lunison, the brother of
Deusdona, and the priest Hunus, as far as Pavia, while Ratleig
stopped behind for a week to see if the robbery was discovered,
and, presumably, to act as a blind if any hue and cry were raised.
But, as everything remained quiet, the notary betook himself to
Pavia, where he found Lunison and Hunus awaiting his arrival.
The notary’s opinion of the character of his worthy colleagues,
however, may be gathered from the fact that, having persuaded
them to set out in advance along a road which he told them he
was about to take, he immediately adopted another route, and,
traveling by way of St. Maurice and the Lake of Geneva, event-
ually reached Soleure.

Eginhard tells all this story with the most naive air of uncon-
sciousness that there is anything remarkable about an abbot, and
a high officer of state to boot, being an accessory both before and
after the fact to a most gross and scandalous act of sacrilegious
and burglarious robbery. And an amusing sequel to the story
proves that, where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, an-
other high ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than

himself.

On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were
safely bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an
audience in the emperor’s antechamber, and began to talk to him
about the miracle of the bloody exudation. In the course of con-
versation, Eginhard happened to allude to the remarkable fineness
of the garment of the blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot
Hildoin replied (to Eginhard’s stupefaction) that his observation
was quite correct. Much astonished at this remark from a person
who was supposed not to have seen the relics, Eginhard asked
him how he knew that. Upon this, Hildoin saw that he had
better make a clean breast of it, and he told the following story,
which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus: While
Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard’s notary,
Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers.
The relics were placed in a church, and a number of laymen and
clerics, of whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over
them. One night, however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake
Hunus, went to sleep; and then, according to the story which
this “sharp” ecclesiastic foisted upon his patron—

it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great reason why all the

people, except himself, had suddenly become somnolent; and, determining to

avail himself of the opportunity thus offered (oblata occasione utendum), he rose

and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the chests. Then, having burned

through the threads of the seals with the flame of the candle, he quickly opened
VOL, XXXV.—39 ©

610 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the chests, which had no locks;* and, taking out portions of each of the bodies
which were thus exposed, he closed the chests and connected the burned ends of
the threads with the seals again, so that they appeared not to have been touched ;
and, no one having seen him, he returned to his place. (Cap. iii, 23.)

Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at first declared
to him that these purloined relics belonged to St. Tiburtius; but
afterward confessed, as a great secret, how he had come by them,
and he wound up his discourse thus:

They have a place of honor beside St. Medardus, where they are worshiped
with great veneration by all the people; but whether we may keep them or not is
for your judgment. (Cap. iii, 23.)

Poor Eginhard was thrown into a state of great perturbation
of mind by this revelation. An acquaintance of his had recently
told him of a rumor that was spread about, that Hunus had con-
trived to abstract all the remains of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus
while Eginhard’s agents were in a drunken sleep; and that, while
the real relics were in Abbot Hildoin’s hands at St. Medardus, the
shrine at Seligenstadt contained nothing but a little dust. Though
greatly annoyed by this “ execrable rumor, spread everywhere by
the subtlety of the devil,” Eginhard had doubtless comforted him-
self by his supposed knowledge of its falsity, and he only now
discovered how considerable a foundation there was for the scan-
dal. There was nothing for it but to insist upon the return of the
stolen treasures. One would have thought that the holy man,
who had admitted himself to be knowingly a receiver of stolen
goods, would have made instant restitution and begged only for
absolution. But Eginhard intimates that he had very great diffi-
culty in getting his brother abbot to see that even restitution was
necessary.

Hildoin’s proceedings were not of such nature as to lead any
one to place implicit trust in anything he might say; still less
had his agent, priest Hunus, established much claim to confidence;
and it is not surprising that Eginhard should have lost no time
in summoning his notary and Lunison to his presence, in order
that he might hear what they had to say about the business.
They, however, at once protested that priest Hunus’s story was a
parcel of lies, and that after the relics left Rome no one had any
opportunity of meddling with them. Moreover, Lunison, throwing
himself at Eginhard’s feet, confessed with many tears what actu-
ally took place. It will be remembered that, after the body of St.
Marcellinus was abstracted from its tomb, Ratleig deposited it in
the house of Deusdona, in charge of the latter’s brother, Lunison.
But Hunus, being very much disappointed that he could not get

* The words are scrinia sine clave, which seem to mean “having no key.” But the cir-
cumstances forbid the idea of breaking open,

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THH MIRACULOUS. 611

hold of the body of St. Tiburtius, and afraid to go back to his
abbot empty-handed, bribed Lunison with four pieces of gold and
five of silver to give him access to the chest. This Lunison did,
and Hunus helped himself to as much as would fill a gallon meas-
ure (vas sextarta mensuram) of the sacred remains. Eginhard’s
indignation at the “rapine” of this “nequissimus nebulo” is ex-
quisitely droll. It would appear that the adage about the receiver
being as bad as the thief was not current in the ninth century.

Let us now briefly sum up the history of the acquisition of the
relics. Eginhard makes a contract with Deusdona for the delivery
of certain relics which the latter says he possesses. Eginhard
makes no inquiry how he came by them; otherwise, the trans-
action is innocent enough.

Deusdona turns out to be a swindler, and has no relics. There-
upon EKginhard’s agent, after due fasting and prayer, breaks open
the tombs and helps himself.

Eginhard discovers by the self-betrayal of his brother abbot,
Hildoin, that portions of his relics have been stolen and conveyed
to the latter. With much ado he succeeds in getting them back.

Hildoin’s agent, Hunus, in delivering these stolen goods to
him, at first declared they were the relics of St. Tiburtius, which
Hildoin desired him to obtain; but afterward invented a story of
their being the product of a theft, which the providential drowsi-
ness of his companions enabled him to perpetrate from the relics
which Hildoin well knew were the property of his friend.

Lunison, on the contrary, swears that all this story is false,
and that he himself was bribed by Hunus to allow him to steal
what he pleased from the property confided to his own and his
brother’s care by their guest Ratleig. And the honest notary him-
self seems to have no hesitation about lying and stealing to any
extent, where the acquisition of relics is the object in view.

For a parallel to these transactions one must read a police
report of the doings of a “long firm” or of a set of horse-coupers ;
yet Eginhard seems to be aware of nothing, but that he has been
rather badly used by his friend Hildoin and the “nequissimus
nebulo” Hunus.

It is not easy for a modern Protestant, still less for any one
who has the least tincture of scientific culture, whether physical
or historical, to picture to himself the state of mind of a man of
the ninth century, however cultivated, enlightened, and sincere
he may have been. His deepest convictions, his most cherished
hopes, were bound up in the belief of the miraculous. Life was a
constant battle between saints and demons for the possession of
the souls of men. The most superstitious among our modern
countrymen turn to supernatural agencies only when natural

612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

causes seem insufficient ; to Eginhard and his friends the super-
natural was the rule, and the sufficiency of natural causes was
allowed only when there was nothing to suggest others,

Moreover, it must be recollected that the possession of miracle-
working relics was greatly coveted, not only on high but on very
low grounds. Toa man like Eginhard, the mere satisfaction of
the religious sentiment was obviously a powerful attraction. But,
more than this, the possession of such a treasure was an immense
practical advantage. If the saints were duly flattered and wor-
shiped, there was no telling what benefits might result from their
interposition on your behalf. For physical evils, access to the
shrine was like the grant of the use of a universal pill and
ointment manufactory ; and pilgrimages thereto might suffice to
cleanse the performers from any amount of sin. A letter to Lu-
pus, subsequently abbot of Ferrara, written while Eginhard was
smarting under the grief caused by the loss of his much-loved
wife Imma, affords a striking insight into the current view of the
relation between the glorified saints and their worshipers. The
writer shows that he is anything but satisfied with the way in
which he has been treated by the blessed martyrs whose remains
he has taken such pains to “convey ” to Seligenstadt, and to honor
there as they would never have been honored in their Roman
obscurity :

It is an aggravation of my grief and a reopening of my wound, that our vows
have been of no avail, and that the faith which we placed in the merits and inter-
vention of the martyrs has been utterly disappointed.

We may admit, then; without impeachment of Eginhard’s sin-
cerity, or of his honor under all ordinary circumstances, that when
piety, self-interest, the glory of the Church in general, and that of
the church at Seligenstadt in particular, all pulled one way, even
the work-a-day principles of morality were disregarded; and, a
fortiori, anything like proper investigation of the reality of the
alleged miracles was thrown to the winds.

And if this was the condition of mind of such a man as Egin-
hard, what is it not legitimate to suppose may have been that of
Deacon Deusdona, Lunison, Hunus, and company, thieves and
cheats by their own confession; or of the probably hysterical
nun ; or of the professional beggars, for whose incapacity to walk
and straighten themselves there is no guarantee but their own? —
Who is to make sure that the exorcist of the demon Wiggo was —
not just such another priest as Hunus; and is it not at least pos-
sible, when Eginhard’s servants dreamed night after night in such.
a curiously coincident fashion, that a careful inquirer might haye
found they were very anxious to please their master ?

Quite apart from deliberate and conscious fraud (which is a

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS, 613

rarer thing than is often supposed), people whose mythopeeic fac-
ulty is once stirred are capable of saying the thing that is not, and
of acting as they should not, to an extent which is hardly imagin-
able by persons who are not so easily affected by the contagion
of blind faith. There is no falsity so gross that honest men, and,
still more, virtuous women, anxious to promote a good cause, will
not lend themselves to it without any clear consciousness of the
moral bearings of what they are doing.

The cases of miraculously effected cures of which Eginhard is
ocular witness appear to belong to classes of disease in which
malingering is possible or hysteria presumable. Without modern
means of diagnosis, the names given to them are quite worthless,
One “miracle,” however, in which the patient was cured by the
mere sight of the church in which the relics of the blessed martyrs
lay, is an unmistakable case of dislocation of the lower jaw in a
woman; and it is obvious that, as not unfrequently happens in such
accidents to weakly subjects, the jaw slipped suddenly back into
place, perhaps in consequence of a jolt, as the woman rode toward
the church. (Cap. v, 53.)*

There is also a good deal said about a very questionable blind
man—one Albricus (Alberich ?)—who, having been cured, not
of his blindness, but of another disease under which he labored,
took up his quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out as a prophet,
inspired by the archangel Gabriel. Eginhard intimates that his
prophecies were fulfilled; but, as he does not state exactly what
they were or how they were accomplished, the statement must be
accepted with much caution. Itis obvious that he was not the
man to hesitate to “ease” a prophecy until it fitted, if the credit
of the shrine of his favorite saints could be increased by such a
procedure. There is no impeachment of his honor in the supposi-
tion. The logic of the matter is quite simple, if somewhat sophist-
ical. The holiness of the church of the martyrs guarantees the
reality of the appearance of the archangel Gabriel there, and
what the archangel says must be true. Therefore, if anything
seem to be wrong, that must be the mistake of the transmitter ;
and, in justice to the archangel, it must be suppressed or set right.
This sort of “reconciliation” is not unknown in quite modern
times, and among people who would be very much shocked to be
compared with a “ benighted papist” of the ninth century.

The readers of this review are, I imagine, very largely com-
posed of people who would be shocked to be regarded as anything
but enlightened Protestants. It isnot unlikely that those of them

* Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the “ vana ac superstitiosa presumptio” of the
poor woman’s companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with “herbs and frivolous
incantations.” Vain enough, no doubt, but the “ muliercule” might have returned the epi-
thet “superstitious” with interest.

614 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

who have accompanied me thus far may be disposed to say : “ Well,
this is all very amusing as a story; but what is the practical inter-
est of it? We are not likely to believe in the miracles worked by
the spolia of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus, or by those of any other
saints in the Roman calendar.”

The practical interest is this: If you do not believe in these
miracles, recounted by a witness whose character and competency
are firmly established, whose sincerity can not be doubted, and who
appeals to his sovereign and other contemporaries as witnesses of
the truth of what he says,in a document of which a MS. copy
exists, probably dating within a century of the author’s death,
why do you profess to believe in stories of a like character which
are found in documents, of the dates and of the authorship of
which nothing is certainly determined, and no known copies of
which come within two or three centuries of the events they
record? If it be true that the four Gospels and the Acts were
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all that we know of
these persons comes to nothing in comparison with our knowledge
of Eginhard; and not only is there no proof that the traditional
authors of these works wrote them, but very strong reasons to the
contrary may be alleged. If, therefore, you refuse to believe that
“ Wiggo ” was cast out of the possessed girl on Eginhard’s author-
ity, with what justice can you profess to believe that the legion of
devils were cast out of the man among the tombs of the Gada-
renes? And if, on the other hand, you accept Eginhard’s evi-
dence, why do you laugh at the supposed efficacy of relics and the
saint-worship of the modern Romanists ? It can not be pretended,
in the face of all evidence, that the Jews of the year 30, or there-
about, were less imbued with the belief in the supernatural than
were the Franks of the year A. D. 800. The same influences were
at work in each case, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the
results were the same. If the evidence of Eginhard is insuffi-
cient to lead reasonable men to believe in the miracles he relates,
a fortiory the evidence afforded by the Gospels and the Acts must
be so.*

But it may be said that no serious critic denies the genuineness
of the four great Pauline Epistles—Galatians, First and Second
Corinthians, and Romans—and that, in three out of these four,
Paul lays claim to the power of working miracles.t Must we sup-
pose, therefore, that the Apostle to the Gentiles has stated that
which is false? But to how much does this so-called claim amount ?

* Of course there is nothing new in this argument; but it does not grow weaker by age.
And the case of Eginhard is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because the for-
mer has 80 very frankly, though incidentally, revealed to us, not only his own mental and
moral habits, but those of the people about him.

¢ See 1 Cor. xii, 10-28; 2 Cor. vi, 12; Rom. xv, 19.

THE VALUH OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 615

It may mean much or little. Paul nowhere tells us what he did
in this direction, and, in his sore need to justify his assumption of
apostleship against the sneers of his enemies, it is hardly likely
that, if he had any very striking cases to bring forward, he would
have neglected evidence so well calculated to put them to shame.

And, without the slightest impeachment of Paul’s veracity, we
must further remember that his strongly marked mental charac-
teristics, displayed in unmistakable fashion in these Epistles, are
anything but those which would justify us in regarding him as a
critical witness respecting matters of fact, or as a trustworthy in-
terpreter of their significance. When a man testifies to a miracle,
he not only states a fact, but he adds an interpretation of the fact.
We may admit his evidence as to the former, and yet think his
opinion as to the latter worthless. If Eginhard’s calm and object-
ive narrative of the historical events of his time is no guarantee
for the soundness of his judgment where the supernatural is con-
cerned, the fervid rhetoric of the Apostle of the Gentiles, his
absolute confidence in the “inner light,” and the extraordinary
conceptions of the nature and requirements of logical proof
which he betrays in page after page of his Epistles, afford still
less security.

There is a comparatively modern man who shared to the full
Paul’s trust in the “inner light,’ and who, though widely dif-
ferent from the fiery evangelist of Tarsus in various obvious par-
ticulars, yet, if Iam not mistaken, shares his deepest characteris-
tics. I speak of George Fox, who separated himself from the
current Protestantism of England in the seventeenth century as
Paul separated himself from the Judaism of the first century, at
the bidding of the “inner light ”—who went through persecutions
as serious as those which Paul enumerates, who was beaten,
stoned, cast out for dead, imprisoned nine times, sometimes for
long periods, in perils on land and perils at sea: George Fox was
an even more widely traveled missionary, and his success in
founding congregations, and his energy in visiting them, not
merely in Great Britain and Ireland and the West India Islands,
but on the continent of Europe and that of North America, was
no less remarkable. A few years after Fox began to preach there
were reckoned to be a thousand Friends in prison in the various
jails of England; at his death, less than fifty years after the
foundation of the sect, there were seventy thousand of them in
the United Kingdom. The cheerfulness with which these people
—women as well as men—underwent martyrdom in this country
and in the New England States is one of the most remarkable
facts in the history of religion.

No one who reads the voluminous autobiography of “ Honest
George” can doubt the man’s utter truthfulness; and though, in

616 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his multitudinous letters, he but rarely rises far above the inco-
herent commonplaces of a street preacher, there can be no ques-
tion of his power as a speaker, nor any doubt as to the dignity
and attractiveness of his personality, or of his possession of a
large amount of practical good sense and governing faculty.

But that George Fox had full faith in his own powers asa
miracle-worker, the following passage of his autobiography (to
which others might be added) demonstrates;

Now after I was set at liberty from Nottingham gaol (where I had been kept
prisoner a pretty long time) I traveled as before, in the work of the Lord. And
coming to Mansfield Woodhouse, there was a distracted woman under a doctor’s
hand, with her hair let loose all about her ears; and he was about to let her blood,
she being first bound, and many people being about her, holding her by violence ;
but he could get no blood from her. And I desired them to unbind her and let
her alone; for they could not touch the spirit in her by which she was tormented.
So they did unbind her, and I was moved to speak to her, and in the name of the
Lord to bid her be quiet and still, And she was so. And the Lord’s power settled
her mind and she mended; and afterwards received the truth and continued in it
to her death. And the Lord’s name was honoured; to whom the glory of all his
works belongs. Many great and wonderful things were wrought by the heavenly
power in those days. For the Lord made bare his omnipotent arm and mani-
fested his power to the astonishment of many; by the healing virtue whereof
many have been delivered from great infirmities, and the devils were made sub-
ject through his name: of which particular instances might be given beyond what
this unbelieving age is able to receive or bear.*

It needs no long study of Fox’s writings, however, to arrive at
the conviction that the distinction between subjective and object-
ive verities had not the same place in his mind as it has in that
of ordinary mortals. When an ordinary person would say “I
thought so and so,” or “I made up my mind to do so and so,”
George Fox says “it was opened to me,” or “at the command of
God I did so and so.” “Then at the command of God on the
ninth day of the seventh month 1643 [Fox being just nineteen] I
left my relations and brake off all familiarity or friendship with
young or old.” “About the beginning of the year 1647 I was
moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire.” Fox hears voices and
he sees visions, some of which he brings before the reader with
apocalyptic power in simple and strong English, alike untutored
and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his contemporary, he
was a master.

“ And one morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud
came over me and a temptation beset me; and I sate still, And
it was said, All things come by Nature. And the elements and
stars came over me; so that I was in a manner quite clouded

* “ A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, and Christian Ex-
periences, etc., of George Fox,” ed. i, 1694, pp. 27, 28.

MUSHUMS OF HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS. 617

with it. ... And, as I sate still under it, and let it alone, a living
hope arose in me, and a true voice arose in me which said, There
is a living God who made all things. And immediately the
cloud and the temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all,
and my heart was glad and I praised the Living God” (p. 13).

If George Fox could speak as he proves in this and some other
passages he could write, his astounding influence on the con-
temporaries of Milton and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this
modern reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his “ Thus saith
the Lord,” “This is the work of the Lord,” steeped in supernatu-
ralism and glorying in blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the
philosopher, founded in naturalism and a fanatic for evidence, to
whom these affirmations inevitably suggest the previous ques-
tion: “ How do you know that the Lord saith it ?” “How do you
know that the Lord doeth it ?” and who is compelled to demand
that rational ground for belief without which, to the man of
science, assent is merely an immoral pretense.

And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of
the Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little
dream of offering that they would regard the demand for it as a
_ kind of blasphemy.— Nineteenth Century. .

i

MUSEUMS OF HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS.
Br RUDOLF VIRCHOW.

“ees publication of a plan for establishing, in the capital of the

German Empire, a “Museum of Popular Costumes and Prod-
ucts of Home Industry,” has aroused so earnest and general an
interest that the realization of the thought may be regarded as
assured. It may, it is true, be possible to carry it out at first only
to a very limited extent, for neither sufficient means nor space can
be secured at once for setting up a comprehensive institution.
But the initial purpose of the authors of the enterprise will have
been accomplished when they have exhibited a series of objects
illustrative of their plan. They confidently hope that these ex-
amples will satisfy their fellow-citizens of the usefulness and even
the need of such a museum; and that the Government will assist
it as it has assisted the technical museum, and will eventually take
it under official care.

Herr von Gossler, the Prussian Minister of Worship, has
already given the costume museum free temporary quarters in the
old Industrial Academy, the present Hygienic Institute, in the
Kloster-Strasse. The first acquisitions, which were made in the
peninsula of Monkgut, in Riigen, satified him that profitable re-

618 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sults could be secured.’ It is obvious that the acquisitions can be
more easily made through private persons who are in more imme-
diate intercourse with the inhabitants of the special districts, than
through state officers, who will be hampered by numerous re-
serves. It seems clear, therefore, that the best course for the im-
mediate present will be to excite interest in the enterprise among
the people themselves; and to secure the participation of friends of
the scheme in the practical support of its promoters. The devel-
opment of the older museums has been predominantly to the ad-
vantage of the representative arts. Even architecture has been
crowded into the background after sculpture and painting. In-
dustrial art has been very slowly and tardily recovered from ob-
livion. Those highest efforts of human skill, while they arouse
the admiration of the observer, vitalize and elevate the under-
standing, excite it to imitation, and give direction to the activity
of whole generations. They have thus become pre-eminently the
criterion of civilization.

But civilization has never anywhere come up at once. Many
generations have to apply their best force, through slow labor, to
gain artistic skill and make it at home. A kind of hereditary
transmission assures the continuance of progress in this field, and
in case of long interruption the recovery of aims and methods
once possessed. Not only, therefore, does the investigator, the
real art-expert, give his attention to the study of the history of
art, but the question also occurs to the simple man of the people
—who may have made sucha great discovery, and how, in the
course of time, ever higher degrees of skill and understanding in
art are mastered.

Two circumstances have hitherto given deep significance to
these questions, and extended them far over the domain of pure
art: First, the increasing knowledge of the efforts of savages. This
began with the great discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, but only obtained that fruitful significance in the gen-
eral view which is now apparent to all with the scientific expedi-
tions of the last century, especially with Cook’s voyages and Alex-
ander von Humboldt’s researches. Who does not know that the
course of civilization from its rudest beginnings to an often sur-
prising height, lies visible as in an open book in the savages of
to-day, and that the development of society, law, and religions, as
well as the ordering of the household and the whole theory of
property in household goods and ornaments, domestic animals
and useful plants, may be observed, now here, now there, in their
gradual building up? Unhappily, the savages are disappearing
with fearful rapidity under contact with civilized races; and it
may be considered fortunate that the increased care in the obser-
vation and collection of the things peculiar to these perishing sur-

MUSEUMS OF HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS. 6:19

-vivals of primitive times is exerted in preserving the objects them-
selves as well as the recollection of them, for future study. Thus
are explained the origin and growth of ethnological museums, of
which the one in Berlin is one of the best specimens.

The second circumstance that has determined with hardly less
force the direction of late research is the shaping of archeology
into a real science of prehistory. The growing interest in the
European states in collecting the antiquities of the country, with
the activity of Danish and Swedish students and the co-operation
of several German investigators, have been the means of intro-
ducing general order and chronological consistency into this pre-
viously chaotic domain. The discovery of the Swiss pile-dwell-
ings kindled zeal in the study through all Europe; and prehistoric
museums are now among the institutions in the completeness of
which each nation has a peculiar pride.

In this study, out of the graves and dwellings of our ancestors,
is unfolding before us a new picture of the growth of human civil-
ization; and we observe with surprise and wonder how it serves
as a complement to the conception supplied by the view of the de-
velopment of savages, so that one supplements the other. We
look at our ancestors themselves as they stood in their day where
savages are now.

Art-history proper is preceded by the history of labor; a long
story, that began in the farthest primeval time, is still continu-
ing, and is destined to continue ever. There is no boundary-line
between the two, for no man can say where art begins, or toil for
daily living ends. Art proceeds out of the labor of the day, as a
flower from a bud. History and prehistory are only outwardly
separate, while inwardly they are undistinguishable. As pre-
history survives in the present savages, so likewise prehistoric
traditions pass over into the lives of civilized peoples. The re-
covery and preservation of these traditions is a not less important
aid to the understanding of civilization than prehistory itself;
for they furnish the threads by which we can trace the connection
of the past and the present in immediate sequence.

The connections of the oldest traditions are afforded first by
language and legends, for the study of which no museums are
required. Next to these in value are material objects, particu-
larly useful ones, with which are associated antique designs and
mythic—sometimes superstitious—meanings, and which also in
their forms, decorations, and applications give very definite views
of their age. It is the purpose of the projected museum of cos-
tumes and household goods to collect these objects—not the only
purpose, for there are many stages in the historical development
of peoples which have left their traces in dress and furnishings,
but the principal one. A museum of costumes and household

620 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

goods will, therefore, close the gaps between ethnological and pre-
historic museums on the one side and between ethnological and
historical museums on the other side. It will do for our own peo-
ple what ethnological museums have done in relation to foreign
peoples, particularly to savages; it will seek out objects of the
present as historical museums have recovered them from the
tombs and dwelling-places of primitive times; and will give for
the common life and conduct of the peoples what historical mu-
seums have furnished as to their ecclesiastical and courtly life.

We have a right, therefore, to expect much from the museum
of costumes and household goods. Experience has contradicted
the objection that it is too late to carry out such a purpose. Our
beginnings have already taught us that even in Germany one has
only to inquire and exert himself earnestly to obtain a great
number of objects of antique tradition. In other countries brill-
iant success has been achieved, especially in Sweden, which,
through the indefatigable industry of Herr Hazelius, has had a
model museum of this kind in Stockholm for many years. There
are also notable collections of similar character in Moscow and
Amsterdam; but the expectations should not be raised too high,
Thus it is evident that what we perhaps too ambitiously call
national costumes do not reach back into prehistoric times,
There was then nothing like them. Such characteristic styles
can exist only among those peoples of whom some of the tribes
have continued in a kind of natural condition, and these are
found in Europe only among those of the Finnish stock. With
all the Aryan peoples of Europe the national costume is a rela-
tively late, almost a modern, product. In Germany such cos-
tumes can be found only in limited districts, sometimes only in
particular villages, and are seldom of earlier origin than the fif-
teenth century. Not afew of them were first fixed by the Refor-
mation. The actual collection of the material:may open the way
to comparative studies that will furnish earlier dates, but this is
likely to be the case only as applies to single parts of the dress.

Men are more permanent in their house construction, methods
of tillage and of domesticating animals, in their furnishings and
tools, than in their dress. Articles of stone, bone, horn, and clay,
in particular, incline to be fixed in character. The groundwork
of house arrangement persists through all the additions which the
extension of the scale and the larger estate may entail; and it is,
in respect to the family, as permanent as are the topography and
flora to whole districts.

Whole houses can hardly be brought into museums except as
they may be represented by models or drawings. Consideration
will be given to these. Rooms and chambers may be introduced

in complete arrangement, and we hope at the opening of the ©

Ti eee

re

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. 621

museum to make such exhibitions of apartments from various
stations, by means of which we shall be able to convey ideas of
the more important parts of the house.

The new enterprise invites the active co-operation of our coun-
trymen. Asa rule, the people know best where such treasures as
we desire to bring to light are to be found. We therefore ask
them to help us gather up such national relics as still exist in the
way of dress and house furnishings to be preserved for the obser-
vation of posterity — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly
from Die Gartenlaube.

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION,
Br FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.
EL.

“ae use of certain remedial drugs is apt to become a confirmed
habit, which often continues to afflict the patient for years
after his apparent recovery from the effects of the original dis-
ease. The medication of desperate moral disorders has now and
then entailed a similar penalty. During the millennium of mediz-
val superstition, when the enforcement of antinatural dogmas had
made common sense a capital crime and secular science an article
of contraband, the study of classic literature became for thou-
sands a refuge from the peril of madness. From the tyranny of
the monkish Inquisition thousands of persecuted thinkers could
still escape to the haunts of Plato and Virgil, as, in spite of chains
and guards, a Siberian exile may in dreams return to the lost para-
dise of freedom. Knowledge, too, could still be delved from the
treasure-mine of pagan philosophy, and for nearly a thousand
years the study of dead languages became thus a chief condition
of intellectual survival.

_ Intellectual progress had been almost completely arrested.
Like a monstrous dam, the barrier of an unnatural dogma ob-
structed the currents of civilization; all through priest-ridden
Europe the rivers of national life had been collected into a vast
theological mill-pond, and only from the heights of a classical edu-
cation, from turrets accessible only by steep and tortuous stairs,’
philosophers could, in retrospect, study the phenomena of life un-
der less abnormal conditions, and naturally made the attic of that
edifice the repository of their own choicest thought.

Then came the great dam-burst of the Protestant revolt. The
rills of the first breach soon became uncontrollable torrents, and
the flood of the accumulated waters rushed onward with an impe-
tus which, in the rapid progress of science and reform, promised

622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to compensate the stagnation of a thousand years. Thus far,
however, the speed of that progress has been sadly retarded by
the very means which once constituted its only hope of revival.
Instead of navigating the river of the new era in manageable
boats, scholars persisted in clinging to the wreck of their classic
observatory, to a cumbersome raft of old beams and planks which
got stranded at every turn of the stream, and often became a se-

rious obstacle in the channels of reform. The experience of the —

last three hundred years has as yet failed to disassociate the ideas
of Latin and Greek from the scholastic notions of culture, and the
time may come when practical educators will almost fail to realize
the possibility of the fact that, in our own rapid age of discovery
and invention, millions of our most gifted students had to waste
from one-third to three-fifths of their time on the study of dead

languages. Witness the following curriculum of the German q

Gymnasia, or high schools—the preparatory colleges of the best
European universities, and the gates to every highway of liberal
education: .
_ Latin, ten hours per week; Greek, eight hours; Hebrew, three
hours; German, four hours; mathematics, four hours; geog-
raphy, two; history, two; drawing, two; French, two; physiol-
ogy, two; religion, optional; English, optional (occasionally
taught instead of French); gymnastics, four hours. In other
words, twenty-one hours of graveyard studies to eighteen hours
of all living sciences taken together, since gymnastics has ceased
under certain circumstances to be a compulsory branch of educa-
tion.

Those twenty-one hours devoted to the dead leave not a min-
ute’s time for the study of such problems of life as biology and
rational hygiene; not a minute for anatomy, political economy,

philosophy, rhetoric, or non-sectarian ethics. Such things, of — 4

course, are taught by the regular or special professors of the uni-
versity ; but a large percentage of students pass directly from the

primer-class of the gymnasium to the duties of practical life,and

in ninety-nine of a hundred cases may charge the long period
given to the study of the ancient languages to the budget of total
loss. Not one of a hundred non-philological students (gradu-
ates devoting themselves to the special study and the teaching
of ancient languages) would ever dream of continuing his anti-
quarian pursuits or be able to look upon a Greek or Latin text-
book without a shudder of disgust. It has been conclusively
proved that all the etymological benefit derived from linguistic
graveyards could be reaped in a single year by the study of root-
words (most of them familiarized by their French and English
derivatives). It has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of
every impartial thinker that grammar-drill is not the superlative

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. 623

intellectual exercise vaunted in the arguments of its advocates,
but, on the contrary, almost the worst of all possible systems of
mental training—a dead-lift of memory, exercising the lower at
the expense of the higher mental faculties. Nor is there a shadow
of a doubt that in natural history, astronomy, geography, physi-
ology, and. mathematics, the achievements of Greece and Rome
have been distanced as far as their own writers eclipsed the
wiseacres of Scythia and Abyssinia. Yet the New World con-
tinues to emulate the Old in wooing the specters of the past,
and thousands of American parents encumber the memory of
their children with a mass of antiquarian rubbish that leaves no
room for the culture of progressive science, too often not even
for the adequate study of their own mother-tongue.

A cardinal tenet of medizeval ethics was the belief in the merit
of mental prostitution—the duty of submitting to dogmas which
their professors did not and could not believe, and which the exi-
gencies of daily life obliged them practically to repudiate.

A logical consequence of that doctrine was the antagonism of
theory and practice, which continues to involve an enormous
waste in our method of moral education. A million pulpits still
preach a gospel that inculcates the vanity of industrial pursuits,
“Take no thought of the morrow, for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself.” “Take no thought, saying,
What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall
we be clothed? For after all these do the Gentiles seek.” As
a practical comment on the wisdom of those precepts, nations,
cities, and corporations vie in the restless pursuit of wealth, and
a thousand lessons of daily life admonish the young citizen of
our industrial world to take earnest and constant thought of the
morrow; nay, the mere attempt to disregard those lessons would
be followed by the punishment of the shiftless vagrant.

Loss of health and wealth, loss of working capacity—in fact,
every form of temporal affliction—the disciples of our moral exem-
plar are instructed to consider as proofs of divine favor. Yet the
prevention of such favors is the legally encouraged purpose of
dozens of fire and life insurance companies and mutual aid asso-
ciations with their omnipresent agencies.

Our ethical text-books in the plainest terms teach the possi-
bility of curing diseases by prayer and mystic ceremonies. “If
any man is sick among you, let him call for the elders of the
church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord.” “ And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,
and the Lord shall raise him up.” “And when he had called unto
him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean
spirits, to cast them out and to heal all manner of disease.” Yet
in at least forty-five of the fifty most civilized countries of Chris-

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tendom the attempt to cure any serious disease on that plan would
be followed by a prompt indictment for quackery.

The possibility of diabolical apparitions is implied in a count-
less number of passages which our traditional creed requires us to
accept as infallible truth. Devils by scores and legions range the
land of faith, tempting the virtuous, afflicting men and animals
with strange diseases, or even taking permanent possession of a
human body still tenanted by a conscious soul. The report of a
five minutes’ interview with the smallest of those imps would now
expose the narrator to the risk of a lunacy inquest.

The worthlessness of earthly life is inculcated with a distinct-
ness which seems intended as an encouragement to the indirect
suicide of monastic asceticism; yet the same moralists who bewail
this earth as a vale of tears take the liveliest interest in the pro-
longation of human life, and court popularity by indorsing every
measure tending to promote the progress of sanitary reform.

The inevitable result of such inconsistencies is a moral confu-
sion resembling the bewilderment of the guests invited to the ban-
quet of Rueckert’s Hakim Baba, who urged his visitors to indulge
in wine, but thrashed them fearfully if they showed any signs
of intoxication. .

From the chaos of conflicting theoretical and practical lessons
our children, by the aid of experience, somehow manage to evolve
a moral compromise code of their own; but what a waste of time
could be saved, how many hours of doubt, perplexity, and repent-
ance could be obviated by a system of ethics inculcating precepts
in harmony with the laws of nature and the facts of actual life!

Yet the injury caused by the theoretical survival of obsolete
dogmas is far surpassed by the baneful results of the attempt to re-
establish their authority by the aid of legal enforcements. Moral
confusion in that case takes the more serious form of a moral
revolt which strikes at the very root of social order by making
injustice a synonym of law and order. The statesmen who con-
stantly warn us against the danger of attempting social reforms
by an appeal to “ paternal legislation” have as yet failed to ex-
plain by what right they continue to employ that method for the
perpetuation of social abuses. They decline to meddle with the
affairs of their poor brother, for fear of sheltering him against
“the natural penalties of his shiftlessness”; but they risk that
interference by enforcing laws to deprive him of the natural re-
wards of his labor, especially if their own position enables them
to evade the inconveniences of such laws. In other words, they
denounce meddlesome help but connive at meddlesome injury.
Their tender conscience shrinks from the injustice of confessing
an arbitrary, unearned blessing, but consents to the injustice of
inflicting an arbitrary, undeserved curse.

THE WASTES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. 625

For what else is the tyranny of the laws by which nine tenths
of our fellow-citizens are robbed of their scant chance of recrea-
tion and obliged at the expense of their mental and physical
health to toil like criminals, whose only alternative of labor is the
dreary inactivity of their prison-cells—all in order to retain a
conventional mark of deference to the joy-hating insanity of the
middle ages—or, perhaps, to enhance by the charm of contrast
the prerogatives of the privileged few, whose abundance of leisure
days enables them to dispense with the blessing of a free Sun-
day ?

It is true that the rigor of medizval ethics has been modified
in several important respects. The duty of abstaining from work
and relying on prayer has been abrogated in favor of our tax-
paying national industries. The duty of despising the danger of
defilement by things that enter the mouth has been generally
remitted in favor of candidates for the temperance vote. The
obligation of despising the vanities of secular science does not
prevent the Rev. Tollemach-Tollemach from collecting his tithes
by telephone; but the duty of renunciation, of submissive absti-
nence from worldly and physical enjoyments, is still enforced at
the expense of every laborer whose financial circumstances pre-
clude the luxury of extra-Sabbatarian leisure days.

In the course of the last twenty years several hundred appeals
for the abrogation of our anachronistic blue laws have been
calmly ignored as below the notice of legislators engaged in such
important reforms as the dredging of Catfish Bayou, though it
might be questioned if the total amount of misery entailed on
our workingmen by the systematic suppression of public recrea-
tion has ever been surpassed by the results of the most inhuman
alliance of medizval bigotry and despotism. The Spanish Inqui-
sition enforced its mandates regardless alike of fear and pity;
but its victims were selected from a class forming, after all, only
a small fraction of the total population—one scapegoat, per-
haps, in a herd of ten thousand—while at least a hundred-fold
proportion of our countrymen feel the galling yoke of the Sab-
bath despots. The Scotch ascetics of David Hume’s time filled
their churches by a system of penal statutes which made financial
and social ruin almost the only alternative of conformity; but
the Caledonian peasant who had passed a week among the flocks
of his Highland home might easily endure a day of confinement
in the man-pen of his kirk, while the bigots of our manufacturing
communities enforce their asceticism upon men who need recrea-
tion and outdoor sports as they need food and sunlight, and
whose numbers include thousands for whom the promise of a
post-mortem Utopia has lost its compensating value.

A few Sundays ago I accompanied a friend on a stroll across

VOL. Xxxv.—40. ‘

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

hill-pasture where a young goat-herd lay stretched out at full
length under a tree still dripping from the showers of a recent
thunder-storm.

“Hallo, Billy!” called out my companion. “What are you
doing in that puddle of rain? Don’t you know there is a law
against bathing on Sunday ?”

“That’s a fact,” laughed Billy. “If a stretch in the wet grass
could do a fellow any good, I have no doubt there would be a law
against it.”

That reply exactly defines the popular verdict on a code of
laws founded upon a system whose corner-stone is indeed the
dogma that “whatever is natural is wrong.” Sabbatarian des-
potism has succeeded in connecting the popular notion of a moral-
ist with the idea of a kill-joy, and made religion a synonym of a
system for the infliction of the greatest possible misery on the
greatest possible number.

“Why, but is there not an offset in the leisure gained for the
perusal of moral and instructive pamphlets ?” asks the agent of
the Free Tract Society.

Our pious friends can, indeed, not be accused of underrating the
value of those tracts if they expect them to compensate the waste
of opportunities for life-brightening recreations, the loss of good
humor, the loss of patriotism, the loss of faith in the benefits of
laws and creeds, the loss of content, and the often irretrievable
loss of health and vital energy.

THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION:

A WORD TO THE WAYFARING MAN.
By HUNTINGTON SMITH.

hy es any great question comes up for settlement,
there are always people ready with arguments on both
sides; These arguments are all supported by what we call facts.
Facts in great numbers are accumulated to prove diametrically
opposite things; for there is no question, it matters not how ab-
surd it may be, that facts in abundance can not be found in its
favor. Now the simple truth is, that facts mean nothing till we
know the relation which they bear to other facts. A mass of facts
is like a heap of bricks; and just as you can construct any sort
of a building out of a given heap of bricks, so out of a sufficient
number of facts you can, by picking your material and fitting it
together in accordance with some plan you have already deter-
mined upon, build up any sort of an argument. There is a com-
mon saying that figures will not lie. It is true that figures do not

cee a

Sin itsieeeia,

THH ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 627

of themselves lie, any more than a heap of bricks will lie; but
they can be made to lie, just as a heap of bricks may be used for
the construction of a sham building. We may compare the dis-
cussion over a great question to the terminal moraine of a glacier.
The word moraine means a heap of rubbish. When a glacier is
_ formed and begins to push its way down a valley, a vast mass of
rubbish gathers and conceals its approach from view. If you did
not look carefully at one of these terminal moraines, you never
would know that there was any glacier; and after you discovered
the glacier you never would know, except by careful observation,
that it moved. Yet it does move, slowly but surely, in spite of
the rubbish that seems to block its way. The rubbish is pushed
on little by little, and in due time the glacier gets to the sea.
Every one realizes then that the important thing was not the
moraine but the glacier. The moraine has been ground out of
sight or is scattered along the path; but the glacier remains.

So it is with every great truth that is making its way in the
world. It stirs up a vast amount of talk. Some people approve
of the truth, and bring their little store of facts to show what a
fine thing it will be; others disapprove of it, and bring the same
little facts, arranged in a different way, to show that if this prin-
ciple is adopted it will inflict immense damage upon the welfare
of society. Many remember how it was when the great question
of the abolition of slavery came up in this country. Some men
argued against it, ingeniously devising plausible arguments, full
of statistics and Bible texts, and assertions that slavery was
indorsed by Christianity; and others argued in its favor, with
more statistics, and other Bible texts, and the assertion that
Christianity and slavery were totally incompatible; and mean-
while the principle of human freedom went on working, and in
time the slaves were set free.

How did the man of upright mind and noble heart decide the
question of slavery or abolition in the days when that question
was before the country ? Did he weigh argument against argu-
ment, statistics against statistics, this Bible text against that
Bible text ? No. He simply sat down in the quietude of his own
chamber and said to himself: “The slaves are men like me.
Would I be willing to be a slave? Will it, in the long run, be
profitable to humanity if a portion of the human race remains in
bondage ?” And it did not take him long to answer the ques-
tion. His own reason told him what the answer was. He de-
clared then and there that slavery was wrong, and henceforth he
was on the side of freedom.

Now, a man who takes such a course as that, it matters not
how learned or how ignorant he may be in the science of facts, is
a philosopher. <A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, and it is pos-

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sible to be wise and yet to know very few facts. Wisdom does
not consist in the ability to heap up facts, although our school
instructors seem to think it does. Wisdom is concerned with
something far higher than facts; it is concerned with the true,
the eternal, the unchanging relations of things. The man who
has grasped a few of the elementary truths of existence and goy-
erns his life in accordance with them is wise, even if he can not —
read a line of Latin, or solve a problem in algebra, or work out a
sum in the rule of three. A few of the elementary truths of ex-
istence are that you must treat others as you would be treated
yourself; that, if you would derive the utmost possible adyan-
tage from your relations with your fellows, you must be frank
and open in what you do; that you must not build up barriers of
restrictions between yourself and others and expect to thrive,
either materially or morally, as you would if the barriers did not
exist—in a word, the elemental truths of existence upon which we
must depend are justice, fraternity, and love. The man who goy-
erns his life by these principles may not be a learned man; he
may not be able to construct ingenious arguments from census
reports; but he will be a good father, a kind neighbor, a man you
can trust in business, and he is pretty sure to be prosperous, be-
cause he is on the side of truth and righteousness, and somehow
or other truth and righteousness, sooner or later, always win.

The great questions, as we have said, are all the time arising,
and they have to be met in some way. Hach generation has its
own particular question to settle. In this country, a generation
ago, it was the abolition of slavery. That question was effectually
settled, as we all know. Now a new generation has come upon
the stage, and a new question arises. The new question is broader
than the other, although it does not goso deep. If it does not
affect so closely the very principle of manhood or call for such
heroic treatment, its settlement concerns the welfare of a far
greater number, and upon it depend the prosperity and happi-
ness of the whole nation. It is not, then, a question to be decided
lightly. Every man should think long and carefully before ren-
dering his decision. The question with which we are now con-
cerned is that of protection and free trade.

Here, as in all other great questions, we find men taking sides
and trying to win converts to their own special views by argu-
ments in which statistics—that is, facts—in one form or another,
are brought together to prove diametrically opposite things. If
we listen to them, we are perplexed, we are not enlightened. If
one man tells us that wages are higher in this country because of
protection, and that consequently everybody is better off with pro- —
tection than without it; and another man tells us that, while
wages will be lower under free trade, the expenses of living will

THE HTHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 629

be far less, and, being relieved from the burden of heavy taxation,
we shall all be much more prosperous than we are now; and if
each of these men supports his assertions with a vast array of in-
controvertible statistics, what are we to do—we who are not
learned in figures, or who see that the same facts differently
arranged can be made to prove different things ?

Evidently there is only one course open to us if we wish to de-
cide the question on its merits and not in accordance with per-
sonal prejudice, or party affiliation, or the superior eloquence and
ingenuity of the orator we hear last. We must brush aside all
these confusing statistics, ignore the arguments based upon them,
and put the matter before our minds in the simplestform. We
must deal, not with a misleading array of facts, but with the ele-
mental truths of existence. We must do this, even though we run
the risk of being called mere theorists and impractical. The
trouble with the practical man is, that his vision is closely lim-
ited; he sees only what is directly under his nose. The practical
man always wants to get change for his dollar as quickly as pos-
sible. He is never willing to run what he calls risks—that is, he
is never desirous of making a beginning till he has the end within
his grasp. It was not a practical man who built the first steam-
ship to cross the Atlantic, or invented the electric telegraph, or
planned the first ocean cable, or conceived the idea of the Pacific
Railway. The relation of the practical man to humanity in gen-
eral is the same as that of the hands to the body. It is not for
the hands to make plans or say how things shall be done; that
must be left to the brain. It is the business of the hands, when
the plan is made, to take hold and do the work. And just as the
hands can not judge of a thing simply by the sense of touch—can
not tell a five-dollar gold-piece from a copper cent—so the practi-
cal man, because governed by immediate appearances, is of all

men the most easily deceived.

But you, if you are a theorist, a philosopher, a man who deals
with general principles, will settle the matter for yourself in
accordance with general principles. If the question before you
is that of free trade and protection, and practical men are being
confused and misled by the artful devices of statistical orators,
you will simply refuse to listen to the conflicting statements of
either side, which do not prove anything, and never can prove
anything. You will decide the matter for yourself on general
principles; and you will first wish to determine clearly and defi-
nitely what is meant by the terms protection and free trade.

The word protection means a defense, a guard, literally a cover
or shield against something or somebody, and it can be used, of
course, only against an enemy. No one would think of protecting
himself against a friendly influence. The word protection, or its

630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

equivalents in different languages, was devised by man when he
was still in a barbarous condition, when his hand was against
every other man, and every other man’s hand was against him.
It was necessary that he should have some sort of a defense or
cover to enable him to attack his enemies without being immedi-
ately killed, and this defense or cover, whether it was a shield to
hold before his person or a strong wall built about his dwelling-
place, he called a protection. Holding the shield before him, he
could throw his spear or shoot his arrows at his enemy and not
be harmed by the spear or the arrows his enemy returned; be-
hind the strong wall he could be safe from assault and carry on
the various activities of life without fear of molestation. He
could, if he chose, scour the surrounding region, and rob and kill
right and left, and get back to his strong wall before those he
attacked could rally and take him prisoner. The outside bar-
barians would not endure this sort of thing forever. They also
longed for protection. They got shields for themselves and built
strong walls about their places of refuge, and in this way groups
of what we now call society were first organized. Each of these
groups was a very barbarous sort of society, but it was society
nevertheless. A society means an association of persons for mu-
tual profit or advantage. The barbarous group was a society
based on protection, and protection was therefore an invention of
barbarism; it was armed and organized selfishness; it was the
means by which theft and rapine and murder were made possible
on a large scale.

Time went on, and man gradually acquired better ideas of liv-
ing. The little protected groups who were continually making
war on each other and trying to prosper, each at the advantage of
the other’s happiness and prosperity, were led to see that they
would be happier and more prosperous if they would stop mak-
ing war on each other, tear down their strong walls, and unite in
one harmonious community. It is not known who the first man
was that conceived this idea, but whoever he may have been
he was unquestionably a great benefactor to the human race.
The groups that united into communities, however, did not em-
brace the whole of mankind. In fact, in these first days of primi-
tive intelligence, a single community in which all mankind could
unite was out of the question. A good many groups were still so
barbarous that they preferred a hazardous existence maintained
by war, rather than the prosperity that was sure to follow a
friendly cultivation of the arts of peace. The groups that did
join into communities were closely related to one another by
blood; they spoke the same or nearly the same language, they
had the same or similar customs, and their ideas of what life was
for were nearly identical. These groups united and formed larger

THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 631

groups or communities, and then the same relation existed be-
tween the large communities that had hitherto existed between
the smaller groups. They all felt the need of protection, and this
desire for protection led them to build larger and stronger walls,
and to devise new methods of defense.

The only advantage was—and it was a great one—that, instead
of a lot of little groups all fighting with one another, there were
now large communities, and the chances for fighting were cor-
respondingly decreased. But the process of assimilation once be-
gun could not stop, because man, if he was to be anything more
than a fighting animal, must agree to live on friendly terms with
his fellows and cultivate the arts of peace. The process went on:
communities that had gradually grown to have similar ideas
united into still larger communities; tribes became states, and
then, at last, states became nations.

Now the idea of the necessity for protection has so long been
dominant with the various associations of men that these associa-
tions, even in our days of general enlightenment, do not readily
believe that it can be given up. A man who has been living for
years in a wild country where he has been liable to attacks from
savages at any moment, does not readily adapt himself to the
new conditions of mutual trust when he comes to live again
among civilized and peaceful folks. You will find him still sleep-
ing with his revolver at his side, and when he walks abroad he
has his eye out for a possible ambush. So it is with the associa-
tions of mankind that have developed from the far-back barbar-
ous groups. They know that the conditions of existence have
changed, they know that if they are peaceable and industrious
they will not be molested; but the idea of protection still lurks in
their minds, and they feel that they must have it in some form, or
be at the mercy of the rest of mankind, whom they wrongfully
regard as enemies, but who are by nature as peacefully inclined
as themselves.

And so we find man, as intelligent and enlightened as he is to-
day, still clinging to this relic of barbarism, this system of organ-
ized selfishness known as protection. The trade of man is no
longer fighting, the trade of man is now to devise inventions for
his own comfort, and although we find some great associations
maintaining vast standing armies in conformity with the spirit of
protection, the chief occupation of man is with the arts of peace.
The arts of peace and warfare are incompatible; one builds up
and the other tears down; one creates, the other destroys; hence
it is generally acknowledged that warfare is an evil which must
soon be abolished. Mencan not fight and at the same time till the
fields, work in factories, construct railways, write novels, preach
sermons, and paint pictures. Men are beginning to see now that

632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fighting is a foolish waste of blood and time and money, espe-
cially money, and before long fighting will be abandoned, because
when men once are thoroughly convinced that a thing is foolish,
or that it costs more than it comes to, they stop doing it. The
few men who are now in favor of war are practical men who be-
lieve that war conduces in some way to national prosperity or
helps trade. They would like to see things torn down, if they
could have the opportunity of building them up. The theorists,
the philosophers, are all opposed to war; they know it does a
great deal more harm than good.

War, then, which has so long been the chief form of protection
adopted by nations, is doomed. Men began some time ago, when
peaceful communities were fully established, to see that it was
doomed; but the old idea of protection, growing out of the dis-
trust of humanity for humanity, had its hold upon them, and they
set themselves at work to devise some new method of protection
which would meet the new conditions and not destroy what we
may call the industrial type of society. The practical men of the
day put their heads together and said that the chief thing now
was trade, and that they must not permit any rivalry in trade.
The enemies of their special community were no longer the men
who were better armed or better fortified; the enemies of their
community were the men who could make things they could not
make, or supply things they could make at a lower price.

“Let us,” they said, “keep trade to ourselves. Let us make
everything we want, be sufficient to ourselves, and be independent
of the rest of mankind. In that way we shall grow rich and
prosperous, and the rest of mankind may supply its wants the
best it can.”

How were they to do this? The days of war were going by.
They could not establish guards and shoot every one of their
fellow-citizens who bought anything of a foreigner, or shoot every
foreigner who brought goods to sell within their borders. They
could not do this, because it would be ruinous and expensive, but
they could fine every person who engaged in trade with any per-
son outside their own nation, and this they proceeded todo. They
established a new form of protection, and called it very properly
a protective tariff. The word tariff comes, so some philologists
tell us, from Tarifa, a town in Spain at the entrance of the Strait
of Gibraltar, where passing vessels were detained by force and
obliged to pay tribute to the inhabitants. The citizens of Tarifa
were the first of the modern protectionists. When we speak of
protection nowadays, we mean a system of tribute imposed upon
a whole nation by a certain small but powerful class of its practi-
calmen. The system is so devised that it takes money out of the
pockets of the people and puts it into the pockets of the practical

THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 633

men, who are manufacturers and traders. At least, it does so at
first. After a while it does something else, and the manufacturers
and traders lose by it, just as the practical men of barbarous times
lost in the end more than they gained by war.

We have now traced the idea of protection from the begin-
nings of human society down to the present time, and we know
what it means. What, on the other hand, is free trade? The
term free trade explains itself. It is the opposite of protection.
It does not believe in barriers or covers or defenses. It does not
believe in organized selfishness at the expense of the many for
the good of the few. It believes in the most open and free inter-
course between all mankind. It believes that all men are brethren,
and that it is no more right to fine an Englishman, a German, or
a Frenchman because he can do a thing well than it is to fine an
American for employing an Englishman, a German, or a French-
man to doa thing well. It believes that the world is large enough,
the resources of nature sufficient, to enable every man to support
himself without joining a protected community and forswearing
the help of others. Protection, as we have seen, is organized self-
ishness. Free trade is based on the elemental principles of exist-
ence—on justice, fraternity, and love.

But now come the orators and tell us, on one side, that protec-
tion means higher wages and greater prosperity for everybody,
and, on the other side, that free trade means reduced expenses for
the necessities of life and diminished taxation; and the orators
on both sides have countless statistics to prove the absolute truth
of what they say. What are we, who are not practical men, and
who know that statistics will prove anything—what are we to
do? Evidently we must fall back on elemental principles, and
extend our reasoning a little further. We must examine the
assertions of the orators in the light of general principles, and ask
whether they are true.

Let us suppose a primitive group modeled after the groups of
barbarous times to be formed in our day in accordance with the
existing industrial conditions. Let us suppose a family group—
for such the early groups were—a family group consisting of a
father, a mother, three daughters, and four sons. In the barbar-
ous days families were sometimes of this size. The father, we
will imagine, is a shoemaker; the mother a milliner; the first
daughter, Sarah, a dressmaker; the second daughter, Jane, a
cook; the third daughter, Mary, a seamstress; the first son, James,
a tailor; the second son, Thomas, a hat-maker; the third son,
John, a butcher; the fourth son, Henry, a grocer. Each has
_ grown to be expert at his or her particular trade, and is doing
well. But the third son, John, is a very practical man, and he
has studied what is called political economy. Political economy

634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is the science of selecting suitable facts to prove certain prede-
termined propositions with regard to the laws of trade; it can
always be made to favor protection, but it will also favor free
trade if you choose to have it do so and select your facts with
proper discretion; political economy is the favorite science of
practical men. John, then, has studied political economy, and he
comes to the conclusion that the various members of the family
are squandering their forces by working for outsiders. He calls
the family together and says:

“T think I see a way in which we could be more prosperous.
We must give up working for the rest of the world. Father must
make shoes only for us; Jane must not cook for anybody except
ourselves; James must not make clothes for any one except his
father and his three brothers; Henry must not undertake to sell
groceries to people who do not belong to the family; and I shall
not supply any one but you with meat. Moreover, no one must
buy of other people. We must have our shoes made by father,
our clothes by James, and we must buy our groceries of Henry.
If any member of the family buys anything of an outsider, he is
to be fined twenty-five per cent of the cost of the article; and if
any one of us sells anything to an outsider, and takes that
outsider’s goods in exchange, those goods shall be taxed one
fourth of their value. The money so collected shall be put into
a common fund, and used for defraying the joint family ex-
penses.”

What, think you, would be the reply of the philosophic father
to a proposition like that? He would not be likely to waste
many words over the matter. He would tell John flatly that he
was a fool, and advise him to let political economy alone, and he
would send the whole family about their business.

But now let us suppose that, instead of a family, we have a
town made up of a hundred families, and the people get together
and are asked to adopt a proposition similar to that made by John,
the political economist. Some prominent citizen arises and de-
clares that the town would be vastly more prosperous and inde-
pendent if all its trading were done within its own limits; that
the poor and struggling traders would have enough to do if people
would patronize them instead of sending to other towns for goods;
and that to discourage trade with outsiders it was expedient to
tax all such commercial transactions, and place the money so
obtained in the town treasury. Would not this proposition be as
absurd as the other? Would not some citizen with a philosophi-

cal turn of mind, who reasoned from general principles, reply in

words like these:
“The gentleman who has made this proposition is talking
nonsense. The prosperity of this town and the comfort of its

THE HTHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 635

inhabitants depend on its relations with other towns and the
country at large. Our prosperity and comfort depend on the
number and quality of things we can make that the rest of the
world wants, and the facility with which we can exchange those
things for things that we want. The gentleman who has just
spoken proposes to tax the very relations upon which our material
welfare is founded! We want corn and wheat and tea and coal
and sugar; can we produce any of those things here? Certainly
not. In order to get them we must make things wanted by the
people who can and do produce corn, wheat, tea, coal, and sugar,
and exchange our products for theirs. If we tax corn, wheat, tea,
coal, and sugar, the people who want our goods will take them
and pay for them in money, and we shall simply be paying out of
our own pockets the extra valuation put upon goods that we
want. We all of us who want and must have corn, wheat, tea,
coal, and sugar, will be paying extra for them, and the only peo-
ple who will be benefited will be the few among us who produce
the articles that outsiders want. They can put larger prices on
their goods on the strength of the extra valuation of corn, wheat,
tea, coal, and sugar, and so the greater portion of the taxes will
fall indirectly into their pockets. It will be cheaper for us in the
end to pay the money directly over to them in the form of sub-
sidies, which is a polite term for legalized charity.”

Somewhat in this way, no doubt, the philosophical citizen
would speak, and it would be strange if a majority of his fellow-
citizens did not agree with him. If we enlarge our community,
and instead of a city have a state, would the conditions be any
different ? Not atall. Certain people in this state would be able
to do certain things well, and their prosperity would depend upon
the facility with which they could exchange their labor or the
products of their labor with the labor or the products of labor of
the citizens of other states. What would have been the condition
of this country, of the United States of America, if every State
had put up a barrier against its neighbors in the shape of a pro-
tective tariff? Suppose that an inhabitant of Massachusetts
could not get anything from Pennsylvania or New York without
paying a duty, and suppose that an inhabitant of New York or
Pennsylvania could not buy of an inhabitant of Illinois without
being taxed by his own State from twenty-five to forty per cent
on his purchase, what would become of our national prosperity ?
To ask the question is to answer it. The prosperity of each
depends upon the utmost freedom of intercourse with all the
others.

Let us now take a still wider outlook, and extend our reason-
ing a little further. Why, if a protective tariff is not conducive
to prosperity when established between families or towns or

636 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

states of the same country, should it be regarded as beneficent to
the welfare of a country when every country is only a state in
the great federation of humanity we call the world? Do not the
elemental principles of existence apply to countries as well as to
states ? They certainly do. Then whence the argument that a
protective tariff between states of the same country is wrong,
while between countries even of the same blood and race it is
right and proper, and conducive to national prosperity ? Is it
not plain that the device of a protective tariff between countries
is a relic of the old barbarous idea of protection, the idea that
people belonging to other communities are enemies, and that we
must have as little to do with them as possible, except to fight
them if they trespass on our rights or threaten to take trade away
from us? It must be so, or men who profess to believe in justice
and fraternity and love between all mankind never would be
found advocating the detestable and misleading system of or-
ganized selfishness built up of burdensome taxes upon the rela-
tions that alone can civilize, enlighten, and elevate the whole of
humanity and so conduce immeasurably to the welfare of the
whole world.

One of the chief arguments of the orators who favor protection
is, that under the tariff system the prosperity of this country has
been very great, and as usual they cite an endless array of statis-
tics to prove the truth of what they say. But is the assertion
reasonable? Can we who govern our ideas by common sense and
not by the dictates of short-sighted expediency agree with the
orators when they say that our national prosperity is due to pro-
tection? Do we not find, when we come to consider the matter,
that through our boundless resources and unlimited energy in
industrial affairs we have prospered in spite of the protective
tariff, not because of it? If the State of Pennsylvania adopted a
protective tariff and continued to prosper and heap up wealth
within her borders, should we say that it was because of the
tariff ? No. We should see at once that her prosperity was due
to causes superior to the disadvantages of a tariff system—that is,
to the extraordinary capacity of her citizens for industrial affairs
and the vast stores of material at their command, enabling them

to conquer obstacles under which less powerful communities —

would languish or utterly perish. If aman sets up a bazaar for
the sale of any sort of goods, and charges an admission fee to
customers, and yet can sell his goods low enough to induce cus-
tomers to pay the admission fee and enter and make purchases,
and if this man amasses a great deal of money from his business,
we shall not be likely to say that his riches are due to his system
of admission fees. We simply conclude that he must have an
extraordinary capacity for getting his goods at a low price; he

—-,

ome pg we Tea ge aims

Si.

THE HTHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 637

prospers, not on account of his system of admission fees, but in
spite of it.

We have gone far enough now in our course of reasoning to
see that in the light of the elemental principles of existence the
evils of protection are very great. Its greatest evil is that it
interferes with the free exchange of human activities; it puts a
check upon justice, fraternity, and love. But a great evil can
not exist without engendering other evils. Another evil en-
gendered by the protective system is that it encourages poor
and defective work. If a man is sure of plenty of trade, no
matter how he makes his goods, he will not be so particular
with regard to the quality. Ask an American oculist where he
gets the delicate instruments with which he tests the eyes of
his patients. He will tell you, if he is an expert at his profes-
sion, that he gets his instruments abroad. Why? Because the
men in this country who produce such articles are not careful
to do good work. They can make inferior instruments and sell
them to the generality of oculists who are not expert, and make
more money than they could by producing really excellent arti-
- eles, and selling them at the same price as the foreign goods, If
you buy a suit of cheap clothing in this country, the chances are
that it will be of little service compared with a suit of clothes
you could buy for a third less if you were living in London.
Why? Because the tariff on woolens enables the American
manufacturers of clothing to use cheaper and poorer goods, and
to charge more for a suit of clothes than the foreign suit of first-
class material would cost if you could send to London and buy
it without being fined for patronizing an English tailor. As a
matter of fact,a great many rich Americans who go abroad do
patronize foreign tailors and do not get fined, but of course the
poor Americans who have to stay at home and support the tariff
system can not do this. They must buy poor clothing of their
fellow-citizens and pay nearly as much for it as they would for a
foreign article of excellent quality. American clothing manu-
facturers will tell you that they can make as good clothing as a
foreigner can and at as low a price. Of course they can, but
they don’t. If they did, they would not be in favor of protection ;
they would be willing to meet the foreigner on terms of friendly
competition, and not take advantage of him by skulking behind
the tariff wall maintained at the expense of the people who do
not make, but who buy, clothing.

Imagine a community isolated from the rest of the world, and
that this community suffers from a water famine. All the wells
have dried up, and water has to be brought from a distant river.
Each person goes after what water he needs, or employs some one
else to bring water for him, and every one is supplied. But a few

638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

practical men get together and say: “ How much better it would
be if everybody went after water and poured what was brought
into a common tank from which supplies could be drawn as
needed! We will build the tank.” They build the tank, and the
people bring water and fill it. Then the practical men take pos-
session of the spigots and charge the people so much a gallon for
all the water drawn from the tank. The practical men are pro-
tected by the labor of the rest of the community ; unfortunately,
all can not be practical men.

Of course, the effect of protection upon the morals of the pro-
tected must in the end be very bad. It has a tendency to make
them cowardly, treacherous, and grasping. The fear of meeting
outsiders in friendly competition; the temptation to make poor
goods when poor goods can be sold for an unjustly high price; the
business of seizing as legitimate prey the labor of others and turn-
ing that labor to one’s own uses—must, sooner or later, have a bad
effect on the individual and the community at large. A man can
not thrive at the expense of other men, whether those men are his
near neighbors or are living at the antipodes, without being
hardened in his sensibilities and becoming to a certain extent in-
human. The effect of protection upon the moral welfare of the
protected is bad; its effect on their material welfare is eventually
ruinous. In barbarous times, when men collected in protected
groups behind strong walls, the outside barbarians had as little
to do with them as possible. They removed their goods if they
could beyond the reach of plunder. On the other hand, a great
many practical men crowded into the fortified groups when the
advantages of protection were recognized, there was soon not
enough plunder to go round, and the practical men who believed
in protection quarreled among themselves as to who should have
the spoils, till they learned by experience how foolish fighting was,
and joined a larger community where they could live on friendly
terms with a larger number of their fellows. So it is with the
protected in our day. As long as the wants of a protected com-
munity are simple and the industries with reference to the pop-
ulation few, the community gets on very well. If its resources
are ample, it will be able to produce things at a low price and
compete in the open markets of the world with the producers of
older, unprotected communities which have no such natural re-
sources to draw upon. But the time comes when the natural
resources of the favored community are exhausted and it can no
longer produce certain things at a lower price than anybody else.
Then the members of other communities will not pay for the
privilege of trading with a protected community on equal terms.
They will go elsewhere with their products, where they can ex-
change them freely. An Englishman, who is a practical man

THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 639

taught by the theorists and by hard experience that free trade
pays in the long run better than protection, will buy of an Ameri-
can only as long as he can exchange his own goods, plus the duty
exacted by the tariff, for the American’s goods, and still get them
lower than he can of anybody else. When the American can no
longer sell the goods the Englishman wants at a lower price
than that demanded by other people, the Englishman will go
elsewhere; and if the American puts a tax on the Englishman’s
goods, it is the same as charging more for his own goods, and
he is simply handicapping himself in what ought to be a free
race.

When this happens—and it is sure to happen sooner or later,
because if a man, however strong, willfully handicaps himself in
a race, there is sure to be found in time a man who will beat him
—when this happens the producers of a protected community
have no longer any foreign demand to depend upon and the home
demand is not enough to take up the supply, because so many
practical men have been attracted into the protected community
and gone to producing, that more things are made than the com-
munity really desires. The community desires things that its
own members can not make, and to get them it must exchange
money, which represents labor in some form, at a ruinous dis-
advantage. The result of all this is, that the practical men who
have been producing things their own country does not want are de-
prived of patronage and are worse off than if they had never been
protected. If the family of which we were speaking a little way
back had been contented to live out in the country by themselves
in a simple way, they would have got on very well without the
rest of the world. They would have cut down trees and built a
cabin, made a clearing and planted corn and potatoes, hunted
game, clad themselves in the skins of animals, and existed entirely
independent of their fellow-men. But their wants were numerous,
they were forced to depend on others to supply them, and they
were obliged to exchange the products of their own labor with the
products of the labor of the rest of the world.

We could go on multiplying examples, but we might end by
being statistical, and we must not forget the general principles
which were to govern our decision. It is clear enough now that
protection is a relic of barbarism; that it interferes with and
often interrupts the interchange of human activities; that it is
ruinous to justice, fraternity, and love; that just as protection in
barbarous times, by means of strong walls and armor, put a pre-
mium on brute force and treachery, so protection in these days,
by means of a commercial tariff, puts a premium on ignorance
and fraud. For these reasons we know that the world would
be better off without protection in any form, and we are bound

640 _ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to do all we can to rid humanity of a burden so heavy to bear
and so injurious, materially and morally, to every member of a
civilized community.
“‘ Gold and iron are good
To buy iron and gold;
All earth’s fleece and food
For their like are sold.

‘“‘ Nor kind nor coinage buys
Aught above its rate.
Fear, craft, and avarice
Can not rear a state.”

SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY.*

By GEORGE H. WILLIAMS,
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,

EOLOGY has, from the earliest times, claimed the serious at-
tention of mankind, by appealing to two entirely different
sides of human character. In the first place, the reverence for the
mysterious in nature, which in untutored men amounts to worship,
has always been excited by the secrets of the earth ; while, in the
second place, the cupidity of man has always led him to explore
the rocks in quest of the mineral treasures which they contain.

Thus we have at the very outset a theoretical and a practical
interest in geology, both of which have played a most important
part in the development of the science. From the earliest times
and under various guises we can trace their influence side by side,
and they are throughout typical of the two objects with which
Nature is always studied—as an end in herself or as a means to
an end—as science pure or applied.

The ultimate object of geology is to decipher the complete
life-history of our planet. The biologist at his microscope suc-
ceeds by patient watching in tracing the entire existence of some
minute organism. Often the most surprising metamorphoses of
form and function are observed, and more than one generation
may be necessary to complete the cycle of changes. Through
phases far more varied and through conditions infinitely more
complex, we may follow the story of “world-life.” The globe,
like the organism, is developing according to some inherent law
of its own; while among its countless fellow-occupants of space
it is hardly more than the single insect amid the myriads which
compose its swarm.

* Portion of an address delivered at the commencement exercises of the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, June, 1888.

SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY. 641

But the history written in the rocks is long and difficult to
read. Here, the record is scanty ; there, lost, or, worse still, mis-
leading. Only by the most minute and careful tracing out of
every clew can we hope to read aright the glorious tale. A thou-
sand earnest students are collecting observations and comparing
their results. Astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and
biology are all contributing to the sum of what old Mother Earth
herself can tell us of her history.

If such a task as this is worthy to arrest the attention and ex-
cite the interest of all intelligent men and women, then I may feel
justified in speaking of some of the modern aspects of geology.

If we would understand the true significance of the present
outlook in geological science, we must take at least a glance at its
past history.

Ages before it became a science, geology itself existed. The
germs of an interest in the history of the earth are as old as man’s
own questionings about the origin of himself and his surround-
ings. In the religions of all ancient peoples are cosmogonies and
theories of the world innumerable; and fanciful as these are, they
still bear witness to an appreciation of the mysterious in nature
amounting even to a worship.

With the advent of Christianity and the acceptance of the
Bible, geology became a burning question which has hardly ceased
to smolder, even in our day. The Mosaic account of the creation
and the true meaning of fossil remains were eagerly discussed by
the early Church fathers and by the keenest minds of the Re-
naissance. Tertullian, Leonardo da Vinci, and Voltaire alike ex-
hausted upon them their sharpest wit and their profoundest wis-
dom. No assertion could be too absurd to secure a following,
provided it accorded with the six creative days. One supposed
that the shells imbedded in the rocks on mountain-summits owed
their existence to a certain “plastic force” inherent in matter;
another imagined them produced by the influence of the sun or
stars. Still others were so blasphemous in their mad defense of
Scripture as to assert that fossils were only the waste débris
. formed in earlier and unsuccessful attempts of the Deity to create
a world. And, lastly, Voltaire, in bitter irony, maintained that
in his opinion the fossils of the mountains were merely shells
dropped from the pilgrims’ hats as they journeyed homeward
from the Holy Land! The decrees of religious dogma as to what
interpretation was to be placed upon facts which the rocks dis-
closed, were as stern and implacable as those placed by the Church
on Galileo; but still more stern and implacable were the facts
themselves. For centuries the fierce war raged on one battle-field
after another, and from each, Dogma sullenly retired, leaving the
victory to Truth. This fascinating phase of the history of geology

VoL. xxxv.—41

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

has been made the subject of a series of recent papers by Presi-
dent Andrew White. It does not, however, concern us further
than to show that, although such violent opposition certainly re-
tarded the early and free development of geology, it was never-
theless not unfavorable to its ultimate success. The wide-spread
partisanship excited by theological discussions only disseminated ~
a broader knowledge of the subject, and hence a greater interest
in it, so soon as the hindrances to its cultivation were finally
removed.

But it is to neither religious persecution nor to religious zeal
that we owe our modern science of geology. Dogma and discus-
sion might have been extended indefinitely without approaching
one whit nearer to the truth. Observation, not theory, was the
one thing needful. While the doctors were deciding whether or
not shells could have been strewn over mountain-tops by the
waves of Noah’s deluge, the “practical men” of the earth were
busy in exploring its crust for hidden wealth. Some accurate
means of comparing and classifying the strata was to them a mat-
ter of necessity, and it need not surprise us to find that the first
real geologists were not professors, but “ practical ” miners; that
the earliest germination of a truly scientific study of the earth
was not in the university, but in the technical school.

At that remarkable period, about one hundred years ago, when
not merely the sciences, but Science herself in the modern sense,
sprang into life, geology was doubly prepared to receive the
benefit of the great awakening. As she gradually developed from
a creed into a science, there was twofold interest in her welfare:
the first, theoretical, or, as we may more properly say, theological,
since it amounted to a religious fanaticism; the second, practical,
and brought about by the growth of mining industries and the
search for wealth.

During the past century of geological activity the objective
points of these two ideas have been in succession more or less
cultivated. Among the theologians the question at issue related
to the fossils; among the miners, on the other hand, to the
rocks,

Originating, as the systematic study of the earth’s crust did,
in the mining schools, it is not strange that the latter first received
the serious attention of scientific men, The rocks were the earliest
objects of investigation, and petrography, or the science of rocks,
was, naturally enough, the starting-point in geology. But asa
science, petrography was, at the outset, a failure, though not on
account of any lack of appreciation or patience on the part of its
cultivators. Mineralogy throve, but no means could be discovered
of applying her methods to the finer-grained rocks, and so the
interest in petrography necessarily declined. After repeated

SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY. 643

trials, resulting only in disappointment, the students of rocks fol-
lowed the example of the theologians ; and, in lieu of observations
and facts, produced only the useless and often virulent polemics
of the Neptunist and Vulcanist.

Again, there was a reaction against such waste of energy.
Geologists, wearied by more barren controversy, turned eagerly
to some new field where observation should be less difficult.
They had opened the great book of Nature and had first tried
to read the text; but the hieroglyphics were obscure, and the
clew could not be found. Isit strange, therefore, that they should
have gladly left this hard and unintelligible writing for the
picture-book which Nature spread before them in the fossils ?
Here at least was something tangible. None now doubted that
these fossils had once been living organisms which could be un-
derstood by careful comparison with living forms.

It was through the study of fossil organisms—or paleontology
—that geology first accomplished its true aim, viz., the decipher-
ing of a portion of the earth’s history by observed facts. We
can hardly wonder that a field so fruitful should, since the be-
ginning of our century, have been cultivated to the exclusion
of almost every other. But paleontology is essentially a biologi-
cal, not a geological science. Its service to the sum of human
knowledge can scarcely be overestimated, for it has done much in
establishing the greatest generalization of this or perhaps of any
century—the doctrine of evolution. Nevertheless, its contribu-
tions must ever be to the history of life on the globe, rather than
to the history of the life of the globe.

So strong has been the growth of the organic side of our sci-
ence that a popular idea still prevails that there is no geology
aside from stratigraphy and the fossil-bearing rocks. The paleon-
tological school is still in the ascendant, but it is no longer with-
out a vigorous rival.

Within recent years there seems to have been infused into
almost every domain of physical science a fresh life. Through
gradually acquired generalizations higher points of view have
been reached; old notions have been discarded for newer and
broader ones. Prof. Langley tells us of the “new astronomy ” ;
the doctrine of the conservation of energy has given us a new
physics; evolution, a new biology; and the study of carbon com-
pounds, a new chemistry. So, too, the application of the micro-
scope to the study of rocks has given us a new geology.

The recent development in the science of the earth consists of
the return to the work begun by its earliest pioneers. The old
Petrographers were right. If we would know the life-history of
our planet, we must learn the origin, structural relations, and
composition of our rocks. We must discover the forces—chemi-

644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

cal and physical—which work in and upon them, and we must see
how they work.

As I have already said, the early geologists had full faith in
the importance of their labors, but they were forced to abandon
them by a lack of methods and appliances suitable to cope with
the difficulties presented. To-day this importance is not dimin-
ished, but rather increased, by what has been accomplished along
other lines. If we can renew the attack upon the old questions
with improved weapons, the rewards of victory are as promising
as ever. Itis believed that such weapons are now in our hands,
and the hope of success is almost daily attracting fresh and ear-
nest workers to the ranks from every land.

The first and strongest impetus to a renewed study of the
rocks themselves was given by the successful application of the
microscope to this end; but this most valuable acquisition has by
no means remained alone in the rapid growth of modern petrogra-
phy. Other appliances, scarcely less useful in rock-study, fol-
lowed quickly in its wake. Microchemical analysis, the separat-
ing funnel, and, most of all, the furnace, in which has been accom-
plished the perfect synthesis of many rocks, have all contributed,
along with the microscope, to make the methods of petrography
not inferior in delicacy and accuracy to those of any other
science.

The greatest difficulty with which the older geologists had to
contend, in their studies of the rocks, was their inability to iden-
tify the constituent minerals which composed them. Their disap-
pointment and vexation are still curiously recorded in some of our
oldest rock-names, like “ dolerite,’ deceptive ; and “ aphanite,” not
apparent or distinguishable. With the successful application of
the microscope to rock-study, this difficulty at once disappeared,
and at the same time new and unexpected problems of the great-
est interest unfolded themselves in quick succession.

In the light of all that had been done with the aid of the
microscope in the organic sciences, it may at first seem strange
that its application to geology was so long delayed. This was
due to the imaginary difficulties in preparing transparent rock-
sections, and to the fact that rock powders had been examined
microscopically at an early date with absolutely no result.

In spite of certain sporadic efforts in this direction, it was not
until the year 1858 that the clew to the solution of the difficulty
was hit upon by Henry Clifton Serby, a wealthy manufacturer
of Sheffield, England, who as a pastime succeeded in making
transparent rock-sections. These he examined with the micro-
scope with good results, but the matter would hardly have re-
ceived serious attention by scientific men had he not, almost by
accident, transplanted his idea to Germany. In this congenial

SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GHOLOGY. 645

soil it readily took root and flourished like a vigorous tree, bear-
ing rich fruit and sending its seeds into every land upon the
earth where knowledge is sought for.

At first progress was necessarily slow, mistakes were frequent,
and a general interest in the subject was almost lacking. But as
one point after another was gained, and as a deeper insight into
the problems presented was secured, the number of workers stead-
ily increased. The patient labors of such pioneers as Zirkel,
Vogelsang, and Rosenbusch can never be forgotten by those who
can now avail themselves of their years of toil in a few months.

Interesting and surprising results were secured at the outset
by the new science, but they were mineralogical rather than geo-
logical in their bearing. It is only now, after thirty years of
preparation, that the time is fully ripe for the application of the
new petrography to some of the deepest questions of theoretical
geology. This it is which affords almost the only hopeful means
of dealing withthe records of the crystalline strata of the earth,
which undoubtedly contain the longest, as they do by far the dark-
est, chapter of its history. What paleontology has already done
and is still doing for the more superficial strata in which organic
remains are preserved, the microscope must do for the crystalline
rocks, whether volcanic, plutonic, or metamorphic. These con-
tain their own life-histories, written in characters which need
only to be carefully studied in order to be properly interpreted.

The purely mineralogical services of the microscope need not
here concern us, but it may be pertinent to inquire, What spe-
cific classes of facts has this instrument disclosed and what new
ideas has it suggested that entitle it to so high a consideration by
those who are interested with the broader problems of the earth’s
history ? To this inquiry we may answer:

1. The microscope has shed light into darkness; and, by its
promise of results, has stimulated an enthusiastic cultivation of a
most important but hitherto neglected field.

2. It has shown us that the internal structure of the common-
est pebble is not less admirable, delicate, and exquisitely beautiful
than that of a living organism.

3. It has already thrown much light upon the origin of many
of the crystalline rocks—both massive and schists—by allowing
us to judge of the conditions under which they must have been
formed.

4, Most wonderful of all, it has taught us that the components
of the “everlasting hills” are not mere masses of dull, unchange-
able, inert matter, but that, in so far as constant change of form
and composition to accord with altered conditions is a sign of life,
they live.

Any single one of the four points which I have here enumer-

646 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ated is enough to assure a lively interest in modern petrography,
not merely on the part of geologists, but on the part of all intelli-
gent persons who love to study the “ wonderful wisdom and power
of God as shown in his works.” Together they promise far more
for the future than has been fulfilled in the past.

We can not pause long enough to consider each of these four
points in succession, but it will be worth our while to glance for
a few moments at the last.

It is a question how far the popularly received distinction
between dead and living matter can be made amenable to strict
definition as long as we know so little of what the so-called “life-
force” is. As far as we can judge of the phenomena presented
by the organic and mineral worlds, they differ rather in degree
than in kind. This seems like a bold statement, and I am fully
aware that it would be totally unwarranted except for the recent
disclosures of the microscope in geology.

The chemistry of life is the chemistry of carbon; the chemistry
of the rocks is the chemistry of silicon. Both are closely allied
elements, with the property of forming extremely complex com-
pounds, which become more or less unstable with a variation of
external conditions. We are accustomed to regard unceasing
change as a sign of life, and to look upon the rocks as unchang-
ing, and therefore dead. But the microscope shows that this is a
false conception. Not only do the component minerals assume a
form as directly inherent in their nature as that of a plant; but,
if the surrounding conditions become unfavorable, they change
to other forms, and leave written in the rocks the records of their
often complicated histories. The only difference seems to be in
the relative slowness of the action. I say “seems to be,” because
I am by no means convinced of the absolute identity of the two
processes.

In his recent annual address, the well-known President of the
Geological Society of London, Prof. John W. Judd, has attempted
to throw aside entirely the distinction between’ crystallized and
living matter, and to bring the phenomena of change observed
by the microscopist in rocks within the limits of such definitions
of life as those of Lewes and Spencer. While we may be unwill-
ing to follow him to this extent, we can but confess that the
analogy to vital terms and processes recently used with so much
power by Prof. Drummond in quite a different sphere is also capa-
ble of a valuable application in illustrating some of the modern
aspects of geology. We may speak of the embryology of a min-
eral, of its histology, morphology, physiology, vitality, and suita-
bility to its environment, designating by these terms phenomena
which are at least analogous to those which they represent in
biology.

SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY. 647

We encounter, in thin sections of both volcanic and metamor-
phic rocks, microscopic crystals arrested in every stage of their
growth, and it is not true that these earlier forms are mere epit-
omes of the perfected individual. We have the fundamental
globulite and the complicated and fantastic “ growth - forms,”
which are as different from the finished crystal as is the larva
from the butterfly. Thus, to one familiar with such facts as these,
there can be no confusion in speaking of the “embryology of a
crystal.” We think with wonder of the marvelous vitality of
seeds which sprouted after three thousand years spent in Egyptian
pyramids, and yet the “vitality” of a crystal is such that it will
continue its growth under favorable conditions after any number
of thousands of years of interruption.

There is, however, nothing among the recent disclosures of the
microscope in regard to rocks so surprising as their delicate ad-
justment to their environment. We are accustomed to look upon
the masses of our mountains as the very type of what is sta-
tionary and eternal; but in reality they are vast chemical labora-
tories full of activity and constant change. With every altera-
tion of external conditions or environment, what was a state of
stable equilibrium for atoms or molecules ceases to be so. Old
unions are ever being broken down and new ones formed. Life in
our planet, like life in ourselves, rests fundamentally on chemical
action. The vital fluid circulates unceasingly through the arteries
of the oceans and the currents of the air; it penetrates the rocks
through the finest fissures and invisible cracks, as the human
blood penetrates the tissues between artery and vein, producing,
with the help of heat and pressure, like changes in the histology
of the globe. The recurrence, after a long interval, of the same
set of conditions in the same rock-mass, may bring about the un-
ending cycle—analogous to succeeding generations—which Hut-
ton, the earliest of the Scotch geologists, recognized a hundred
years ago.

Such processes as these, which properly represent the physi-
ology of our earth’s crust, have long been suspected, but their
exact nature and details are only now being gradually disclosed
by microscopical studies of the rocks.

Suppose, for instance, that a lava-stream bursts from the side
of some volcano. As it flows onward, quickly solidifying and
crystallizing under circumstances of intense heat, chemical com-
pounds are produced which accord with such conditions, but per-
haps not with those ordinarily obtaining at the earth’s surface.
If this is the case, the hardened lava will be in a chemically un-
stable state, and will tend in turn to adapt itself to its new sur-
roundings by chemical change.

- Countless examples of this adaptability of rocks to their envi-

648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ronment are familiar to every geologist who has availed himself
of the newest and most potent aid in his profession. There is
nothing hypothetical about them, for the minerals have written
their own “life-histories” in characters which can not be misread.
They throw a flood of light upon many types of rocks whose ori-
gin and nature have heretofore remained an unsolved riddle; and
they open up a vista of possibilities to the future explorer whose
length and whose attractiveness can hardly be exaggerated.

Let me quote, in closing this brief survey of a new field in
geology, a single passage from Prof. Judd:

“Tn the profound laboratories of our earth’s crust,” he says,
“slow physical and chemical operations, resulting from the inter-
action between the crystal, with its wonderful molecular struct-
ure, and the external agencies which environ it, have given rise to
new structures, too minute, it may be, to be traced by our micro-
scopes, but capable of so playing with the light-waves as to startle
us with new beauties, and to add another to

‘The fairy tales of science,
And the long results of time.’

“Yes! minerals have a life-history, one which is in part deter-
mined by their original constitution, and in part by the long
series of slowly varying conditions to which they have since
been subjected. . . . Inspite of the limitations placed upon us by
our brief existence on the globe, it is ours to follow, in all its
complicated sequence this procession of events; to discover the
delicate organization in which they originate; to determine the
varied conditions by which they have been controlled; and to
assign to each of them the part which it has played in the won-
derful history of our globe during the countless ages of the past.

“ Mineralogy has been justly styled the alphabet of petrology;
but if the orthography and etymology of the language of rocks
lie in the province of the mineralogist, its syntax and prosody
belong to the realm of the geologist. In that language, of which
the letters are minerals and the words are rock-types, I am per-
suaded that there is written for us the whole story of terrestrial
evolution.”

Conotupine its review of the report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal
Society, “‘Nature” calls attention to the fact that the study of the sequelw of
the great explosion ‘‘has not merely enlarged our conceptions of volcanic powers
and the continuity of atmospheric circulation, as well as yielded positive informa-
tion of great value to different branches of science, but has opened up fresh prob-
lems in optical and meteorological physics, the attack and solution of which will
stimulate research as well as materially advance the boundaries of our present
knowledge of these subjects.”

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 649

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM.
By RALPH 8. TARR,

N the Gulf Stream, near the surface, animal life is extremely
abundant, both young and adult finding the warm waters of
the current peculiarly adapted for life and rapid growth, Cuttle-
fish swim about, chased by sword-fish, dolphins, and sharks. At-
tracted by the glare of the electric lights in the evening, large
schools sport around the United States Fish Commission steamer
Albatross, swimming backward and forward with equal facility,
leaping out of water and ejecting their black, inky fluid whenever
surprised. Many devices were tried for the capture of one of
these quick-motioned creatures, but we failed to secure any until
an ingenious sailor rigged a peculiar spear, which, when properly
used, would bring the cuttle-fish on board. This curious animal,
classed by naturalists among the mollusks, or shell-fish, has so
little resemblance to its rela-
tives, oysters and clams, that
an average observer would be
far more likely to place it
among the true fishes. It has
large, prominent eyes, and its
mouth is armed with a horny
beak, very much like a par-
rot’s bill, With this it un-
doubtedly proves itself a dan-
gerous enemy to many marine
animals. Forward motion is
obtained by a fin-like tail, while
it moves backward by sudden-
ly forcing water out of a bag
having its opening near the
creature’s mouth. Ten arms
or feelers, with their inner sur-
faces lined with suckers, are 5
arranged about the mouth. Al- re. 1—currze-Fisx (Sepia officinalis) AND SHELL.
though it seldom grows over a
foot long, an embrace from its arms is painful. How much more
so must it be in the case of the large octopus, or devil-fish, of the
North, which is often forty feet in length, measured from the tips
of the two long arms! In this latter animal the suckers are some-
times two inches in diameter, and, when worked by the powerful
muscles, painful wounds can be produced. From earliest times

fabulous accounts of a creature like this have been circulated,
VOL. xxxv.—41*

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but it was not until 1870 that this animal was accurately studied
and described by responsible persons. Previous to that time it
was regarded with the same skepticism that the sea-serpent now

Fic. 2.—CapturzE or A Giant SQUID.

is by many. However, naturalists are beginning to look upon
the sea-serpent theory with more favor, while a few are active

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 651

supporters of the belief that the sea is still possessed of some
descendants of the enormous fish-like reptiles which inhabited it
in early geological periods. <A fair picture but poor description
of an octopus is given by Victor Hugo in his “Toilers of the
Sea.” He,in the course of his description, becomes very much
confused, mixing devil-fish with polyp, and describing an animal
possessed of habits belonging to each of these two widely sepa-
rated groups. The confusion apparently arises from the fact
that a common name for the octopus is poulp, but this etymo- ©
logical resemblance to the polyp, or sea-anemone, is the only one.
He also confounds the name Cephalopoda with Cephaloptera, a
gigantic ray or skate, also called devil-fish, and this causes new
confusion in the description. There are gigantic octopi in the
Southern waters, and these furnish food for the toothed sperm
whale. Our Northern devil-fish is not a true octopus, but a squid,
for it has ten arms instead of eight.

A sword-fish captured during the voyage was found to have in
its stomach over thirty eyes and twenty beaks of the small cuttle-
fish, together with a few partly digested individuals. Sword-
fishes and sharks are natural enemies, always fighting when they
meet, and there are accounts of fierce and deadly encounters be-
tween them. An ugly sword-fish is a bad enemy to encounter,
using its weapon, as it does, with such ease and force. One
will often drive its sword through the bottom of a boat, and, if
it succeeds in withdrawing it without breaking it off, the boat
rapidly fills with water, and the occupants, driven into the sea,
are savagely attacked and badly wounded by the furious fish. At
times they are abundant on all sides, lying near the surface, with
their dorsal fin projecting above.

A sailor speared a dolphin one day, much to our surprise, for
they seldom came near enough to reach. For several days there
had been a school around, probably attracted by the refuse thrown
overboard, by the brilliant light at night, and by the cuttle-fish
which kept near the vessel. They usually remained many feet
below the surface, and, viewed through the deep azure-blue water
of the Gulf Stream, the different colors of their bodies reflected
in the sunlight, and again in the electric light, were beautiful in
an extreme degree. At last one, coming too near the surface, re-
ceived a fatal wound, and was successfully brought on deck. I
had often heard of the changing colors of a dying dolphin, and
now I was to witness them for the first time. No one can ex-
aggerate the weird beauty of the sight as the fish in its last
struggles changes through all its various hues. One can see the
colors disappear, to be followed by others. Beginning with the
head, they seem to sweep as a wave over the body. Blue gives
place to white, then a light yellow, which in turn changes to a

652

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. '

Fic. 3.—THE Sworp-Fisu (Xiphias gladius).

golden, and following

this a copper - colored
tint; and so on through
all conceivable hues,
until finally, the end
having come, change
is interrupted in its

course, and two tints

are left in possession
of the body—one in
the act of disappear-
ing, the other about to
spread itself over the
surface. That portion
exposed to sunlight
changes more rapidly,
while the under side is
less gorgeous. Here we
see a peculiar property
possessed by many ani-
mals widely separated
in the scale of life—
that of changing color
at will, either to suit
the surrounding shade,
as illustrated in the
chameleon and _ dol-
phin, or to attract cer-
tain kinds of prey, as
seen in many of the
lower marine animals
—which becomes so
much a habit in the
case under considera-
tion that, even when
death is at hand, the
changes are all passed
through involuntarily.

Stormy petrels, or
Mother Carey’s chick-
ens, as they are more
commonly called, fol-
low the outbound ves-
sel in large flocks, gath-

ering about as soon as land is lost to view, and remaining until the

shore is once more sighted, unless a violent storm drives them |

i)
«

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 653

away. For the most part they feed upon refuse thrown overboard,
but are never fat and always hungry, due undoubtedly to the fact
that they are almost continually upon the wing, seldom being

Fig. 4.—FLyina-FisH (Hxocetus) PURSUED BY THE DOLPHIN.

seen resting. Hovering over the food in a peculiar manner, by

patting the water with its webbed fe

wings, it appears to stand
on the water, and, following
the food as it is drifted
about, to walk along. Sail-
ors regard it with great su-
perstition, and believe that
some calamity will follow
the wanton killing of this
bird. They seem to have no
fear of man, for they con-
stantly flew near and aboard
the vessel. Attracted by the
lights, many flew aboard
at night, and, striking the
house, fell senseless to the
deck. These birds must

et and quickly flapping its

Fic. 5.—Stormy PEetre. (Thalassidroma pelagica).

have a very short and irregular breeding period, for they are
found several hundred miles from land, at all seasons of the year.
They probably go in flocks, at different times, to their favorite
breeding-place, and after a short period, having raised one brood,

they return.

654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Physalia, the Portuguese man-of-war, with its beautiful blue
float, may at times be seen on all sides. The float, filled with air,
serves to keep the animal on the surface, and, driven by the wind,
to bear it from place to place. It is a curious animal, or rather
cluster of animals we should say, for naturalists now consider it
to be a group of individuals, having different functions, but
working for the same general cause—that of supporting the mass,
They say that in this group there are some whose sole purpose is
to obtain food, some to digest, others to reproduce, etc., yet each
is an individual animal working for the good of the whole, that
the whole may work for its good, and
that in conjunction they may perform
all the functions of life necessary to the
well-being and general welfare of the
whole united colony. The cluster has
most remarkable defensive powers, be-
ing well furnished with lasso cells or
stinging organs. These consist of little
barbed, arrow-like points, fastened to
thread-like arms, each of which is coiled
up in a little cell. Whenever it is neces-
sary to use them they are hurled out with
violence, and each barb, striking the ob-
ject, penetrates, for it has the power of
“working into” flesh, and, being covered
with a sort of poison, it in conjunction
with many ethers benumbs the prey and
renders it harmless, That the Physalia
possesses this property to a marked de-
gree, some of the sailors of the Albatross
can testify, for they incautiously placed
their hands in a tub of water containing
one, and the shock they received was
compared in violence to a strong shock
from a Leyden jar. Sea-anemones pos-

sess this same property, although the

Fie. 6.—PortTUGUESE MAN-oF-WAR :
(Physalia arethusa). common shore species can affect only
very tender animals. I have seen a deep-
sea anemone, six inches in length, by this means kill and afterward
swallow a lively fish a foot long, that was placed in the aquarium ~
with it. The fish barely touched the anemone, then seemed incapa-
ble of moving farther, and after a few struggles became paralyzed.
These arrow-points possess the power of motion for several hours
after being detached from the animal. Lasso cells can be replaced
when lost, and in a very short time. Ona square foot there are
millions of cells. It is a curious fact that all well-defended animals —

ats.
Ny

a
}
ts

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 655

—TI speak with particular reference to the lower marine animals—
are usually brilliantly colored. This can be seen in the case of
sea-anemones, tropical shells, and crabs. Those with little or no
defense are inconspicuous and resemble surrounding objects. The
reason for all this is plain, for if inconspicuous they easily escape
the notice of their enemies. Brilliant, well-defended animals have
little fear of enemies, but by their bright colors will attract curious
animals within reach of their deadly powers.

Like the Physalia in general structure, and in the fact that
they possess stinging cells, are the jelly-fishes, which are present
in the Gulf Stream in a great abundance of forms. There are

Fie. 7.—A JELLY-FISH SWIMMING,

bell-shaped, tubular, spherical, discoidal, and many other forms,
most being transparent, but some very brilliantly colored. One
of the disk-like forms is colored with deep purple and orange
bands radiating from the center, while from the entire circumfer-
ence hang many transparent tentacles. The mouth of most jelly-
fishes is beneath, in the center of the bell, and is surrounded by
tentacles which procure food. These are also furnished with
stinging cells by which the food is killed. Their modes of repro-

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

duction are curious. In some a portion of the body of the parent
begins to grow out, and this continues until a perfect bud-like
protuberance is the result, and then the bud drops off and, after
various interesting changes, becomes a fully formed jelly-fish.
Sometimes the parent begins to divide, and actually splits into
two parts, each of which becomes a perfect animal.

So great is the transparency of most jelly-fishes that they are

scarcely visible; but at night, what a change takes place! When

a school is passed, the water becomes suddenly transformed to a
mass of liquid fire, composed of individual balls that together, on

account of their great number, appear as one vast sheet of light.

When they are disturbed, their brilliancy is increased. Far differ-
ent from the jelly-fish in structure, but resembling it in its phos-
phorescence, is Pyrosoma, a colony of animals often found in
these warm waters, which together form a fleshy mass, possess-
ing no remarkable points by day, but at night becoming most
brilliantly phosphorescent. In the mass, six inches in length,
there are hundreds of separate animals, each like the others, all
massed together in a common colony. They are very curious,

for, while most of the young remain to help build the mother.

colony, some become entirely separate, and, after swimming about
for a while, begin a new cluster that soon takes the form of the
parent group. Each group has a regular shape just like the
original one. The same is true of corals and most other clusters
formed of more than one individual.

In our surface towings we find many beautiful animals, but
none have impressed me so strongly as the so-called sea-butterflies.
They are small, usually, and seldom found in abundance, and,
being thus inconspicuous, are not likely to be seen by those not
specially searching for them. Every color is found in these beau-
tiful forms, and, as they float upon the surface, with their wing-
like expansions spread out to catch the wind, but a small amount
of imagination is needed to transform them into true butterflies
accidentally fallen into the water. They have a very hght and
beautiful shell, with an air-chamber above to serve as a float,
while from a lower compartment the wings are expanded. When
startled, their sails are withdrawn into this chamber, and the
oddly shaped shell is alone exposed to view. Sea-butterflies can,
by arranging their sails so as to utilize the wind in the most
effective manner, guide their course to a certain extent, just as
the ship can proceed against a head wind. Their shells, which
are often taken without the animal, present many very peculiar
forms, from the nearly round to the long, sharply pointed ones,
some with spines, others perfectly smooth; and we can see them
in every conceivable color, the glassy, transparent kinds, the
milk-white, and masses of the most brilliant colors, so confusing

ANIMAL LIFE IN THH GULF STREAM. 657

and varied as to defy all comparison or description. These little
animals, living in the water and moving from place to place, are
as perfect and sea-worthy ships in miniature as the best modern
vessels, and built upon as improved a pattern as our vessels which
have been so long evolving. They have for centuries plowed the
open seas in their vessels, never seeking port and never suffer-
ing disaster. With their air-float above, in addition to buoyancy,
perfect stability is obtained. Their body below serves as ballast,
and their membranous wings are good sails, that can be furled
or hoisted at the animal’s will. No masts to be carried away, no
anchor needed, but perfect safety always. How well adapted for
their surroundings—indeed, how well all Nature’s creatures are
adapted for their mode of life! How many ideas in modern archi-
tecture and engineering, but just discovered as the result of long
study and experiment, have been in use for centuries untold
among the lower animals which we are so wont to regard as un-
worthy of life! The ant, the bee, the spider, and hundreds of
others are to-day using principles which man has yet to learn.
The properties of the arch and dome, if not first learned from ani-
mals, might have been, much to man’s advantage, long before he
discovered them.

On very rare occasions the nautilus is found, and at times we
also fall in with the Argonauta, or paper nautilus. They are both
related to cuttle-fishes, differing from them in having shelly cover-
ings and in some other more technical points. Each has a row of
arms, with suckers around the mouth, and they move in the same
manner as true cuttle-fishes do—by ejecting a quantity of water
through a tube with such force as to drive the animal backward.
The nautilus, as it grows, builds the shell larger to accommodate
the growing body, building on the edge and continuing the spiral,
and at the same time forming a partition across the rear. If a
nautilus-shell is cut longitudinally, it will be found to be made
up of a large anterior chamber, which the animal occupied just
before it died, and behind a large number of chambers separated
from each other by transverse partitions, and connected together
only by a small circular hole that exists in each partition. When
the nautilus is alive, a fleshy tube runs through all these cham-
bers, passing through the holes, and forms the only connection
between the animal and the rear chambers once inhabited by it.
It is thought that by means of this tube the rear compartments
can be filled with water or emptied at the animal’s will, thus
allowing it either to rise to the surface or to sink to any required
depth. Argonauta is a pure white, ridged shell, thin and delicate,
the animal being very much like the nautilus; but in this case
the female alone has the covering, while the male is entirely
without ashell. In many cases, among the lower forms of ani-

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mal life, the male is unprotected, while the female is covered by
some very perfect shell, or is otherwise well fitted for self-pro-
tection, all undoubtedly for the preservation of the young. The
higher we ascend in the animal kingdom the more we see the
opposite extreme, the male being the best fitted to defend, and
hence assuming both its own protection and that of the weaker
sex. Far back in remote geological periods animals resembling

Fie. 8.—THE ARGONAUT.

the nautilus and Argonauta were extremely abundant, and also
forms even more primitive than these; but to-day we have only a
very few as representatives of this large group of fossil animals.
The surface-waters in the Gulf Stream teem with minute life of
all kinds. There the young of larger animals exist, microscopic
in size; and adult animals which never grow large enough to be
plainly visible to the naked eye occur in immense quantities. By
dragging a fine silk net behind the vessel, these minute forms are
easily taken, and when placed in glass dishes millions uncount-

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 659

ed are seen swimming backward and forward. When looked at
through a microscope we see young jelly-fishes, the young of bar-
nacles, crabs, and shrimps, besides the adult microscopic species,
which are very abundant. The toothless whale finds in these his
only food. Rushing through the water, with mouth wide open,
by means of his whalebone strainers the minute forms are separated
from the water. Swallowing those obtained after a short period
of straining, he repeats the operation. The abundance of this
kind of life can be judged from the fact that nearly all kinds of
whales exist exclusively upon these animals, most of them so small
that they are not noticed on the surface. Prominent among the
animals obtained from the surface towings is Sapharina, a small
crustacean which is remarkably iridescent, flashing in the sun-
light with metallic colors. It darts swiftly about, now green,
now blue, and very conspicuous on account of its ever-changing
hues. Another similar form is red. At all times, and in nearly
all places, both in the Gulf Stream and in the warmer waters out-

- side, there is an interesting transparent animal called Salpa, At

first glance it would appear
to be structureless, but, if
carefully studied, a mouth,
a stomach, and other organs
will be found, which place
it among the higher inver-
tebrate animals. They swim
around in large schools, but
on account of their great
transparency are scarcely Fic. 9.—DoLioLum (AN ASCIDIAN ALLIED TO THE
ie : SALPA),

visible. Whether or not

they serve as food for other animals I do not know, but it seems
that a meal made of them would be rather unsatisfactory on ac-
count of the great quantity of salt water that enters into their con-
struction. They often have a curious blue parasite inside the body
walls, and this is about the only visible sign of structure. Very few
animals are free from parasites, and in the fishes they are numer-
ous, burrowing into the gills, in the roof of the mouth, and all over
the external portions of the body. On sharks we sometimes find
them four inches long, an inch of which extends into the flesh.
There is one called Penella, which is very long, and has a hairy tuft
on the outer end. In most cases this parasite has attached to the
external stem a species of barnacle, which itself has small parasites.
Parasitic tendencies degenerate an animal, so that many of the
once essential organs become useless and are lost. We see this
well illustrated in Penella, which is an ally to the shrimp, but has
so changed, by losing its feet and other organs, as to bear but little

' resemblance to these higher crustaceans. Degeneration is still

660 , THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

better illustrated by certain worm-like animals which live in the
stomachs of sharks and other fishes. Being placed where food is
ground up fine and all ready for assimilation, there is no need of
a mouth, and but little need of a stomach, so both of these organs
are lost, and all food is absorbed into the system through the outer
walls of the body. Eyes are also lost, and the animal becomes a
mere stomach; but, as for that matter, most animals are a mere
stomach, with a few necessary organs to assist it. Some true fishes
can be classed as parasites, while many use other animals as a means
of attachment and protection. Under the dome of the true bell-
shaped jelly-fish, a species of fish is generally found that is never
taken under other conditions. It appears not to be affected by the
stinging cells of the animal, but will stay near the mouth while
the darts are exerting their deadly powers upon some brother-
fish, and after this fish is dead will pick up enough for a meal from
what the jelly-fish does not eat. What benefit this fish is to the
jelly-fish it would be impossible to say, but in such cases some

service is usually returned, such, for example, as that of warning ~

the friend in case of danger. This habit of commensalism, or
eating at the same table, is seen in other animals, as the oyster-
crab, pilot-fish, and others. They seem to recognize their friends,
and not only do not harm but even protect them. The oyster-
crab could, if so inclined, devour the oyster without trouble, but
it never offers to. Under such conditions certain apparently dead-
ly powers have no effect, and these animals may even be entirely
unharmed by digestive fluids. Fish are sometimes found in very
odd places. One burrows into the side of a larger fish and stays
there, as in a house, catching what food passes by. Another fast-
~ ens itself on to the sides of a fish by means of a sucker, and, assum-
ing a similar color to that of the larger one, is easily overlooked
by its enemies. One of these, the lump-fish, is a very pretty green
in color. There are certain fishes that always stay in the surf

near shore, being able to remain there without being cast ashore,

and never seeking quiet water.

Among the patches of sea-weed which float in the Gulf Stream
there are numerous small fishes very prettily colored. One among
these has a curious mode of defense, and because of this is called

the file-fish. Normally folded down upon its back is a rather

long spine. Whenever danger is apprehended, this spine suddenly
springs upright, and is held there by a little bone behind it near
the base and under the skin. If this bone is touched with a knife,
it can be pressed down, and then the spine will fold back; but,
unless the bone is removed, the spine will remain rigidly upright.
The fish possesses the power of raising or lowering the spine at
will. We sometimes see flying-fish jump out of the water and
scale along the surface for many feet. Chased by their enemies,

a
we Oa er Sen S 6.9. e e ei s a ii te i il

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 661

they seek safety in the air, and, after darting as far as possible,
will strike the water again and then dash off in another direction.
They present a very odd appearance, skipping out of the water
and passing through the air by means of their wing-like fins, and
then again disappearing. While trying to escape their finny ene-
mies they often fly right into the claws of an albatross or some
other large sea-bird, jumping, so to speak, “from the frying-pan
into the fire.” A hard lot is theirs in this struggle for existence,
eating smaller animals only to, be themselves eaten. The panic
which a shark will cause in a school of mackerel or menhaden, or
a dolphin among flying-fish, can hardly be described. Another
curious fish that we sometimes meet with is the Hippocampus, or
sea-horse. These little creatures are most interesting to watch in
an aquarium. They curl their tails about any object which will
hold them in place, and then assume an upright position. With
their peculiarly shaped head and large, intelligent eyes, an almost
perfect miniature resemblance to a horse is plainly seen. There

\ INZW Wy)

NR N ING
\\ \ig

\ \) ANS

Fia. 10.—Sra-Horse (Hippocampus brevirostris). Fig. 11.—Gooszt BARNACLES ON A BoTTLE.

— Ss S

it sits motionless, rolling its prominent eyes backward and for-
ward until a small animal comes too near, when a sudden dive is
made, which generally ends fatally to the intended prey, and then
the same grave indifference is assumed. Altogether it reminds
me of a toad watching for its food.

Floating around on all sides are numerous patches of gulf-
weed filled with life of all kinds. Here good-sized crabs and
shrimps flee for refuge from larger foes, and feed upon their more
minute brethren also seeking safety under the floating weed.
Here the goose barnacle is found in great numbers attached to
everything that floats. This is the animal which is such an enemy
to shipmasters sailing from tropical ports. Although the vessel’s

662 | THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bottom is scraped just before leaving port, young goose barnacles
attach themselves in such numbers that, owing to their rapid
growth, they seriously retard the ship’s progress. There is no
remedy but to sail on, letting them grow as fast as they will, and
removing them when port is reached. Norwegian sailors believe
that the barnacle goose hatches out of the goose barnacle, and
many have asserted that they have seen the young just on the
point of flying out. This belief probably arises from the peculiar
scooping motion of the fringed feet of the barnacle while it is
obtaining food. Even then a good imagination needs some stretch-
ing to be able to see a resemblance to a young bird. When a
barnacle is young, it is free-swimming, and resembles a shrimp;
but, as it grows older, it attaches itself to some object by a sort
of cement, and becomes so changed that, unless its anatomy is
carefully studied, no affinities to a shrimp would be imagined.
Indeed, early naturalists considered it to be a shell-fish or mol-
lusk. Odd as it may seem, many kinds of animals, at first pos-
sessed of free motion, voluntarily attach themselves to some object,
and are from that moment imprisoned, having no power of moy-
ing from place to place.

Insects are seldom seen in a natural state far from land, but
we find a few young forms a little nearer shore, and one of these,
a fly larva (Chironomus), is more interesting than the others on
account of its remarkable powers of endurance. Experiments
were tried, and we found that it would live after being taken out
of a vial of alcohol in which it had been kept several hours.
Most animals, under similar conditions, will die in five minutes,
and the most hardy in twenty. Different poisons were tried, and
none were effective. Even caustic potash was resisted for nearly
an hour. In the mean time the creature would swim around
lively. Such hardiness is probably found in no other animal. In
addition to these more interesting forms, there are hundreds of
species each presenting some especial peculiarity which distin-
guishes it from the rest, and all have interesting habits and points
of structure. The waters of the Gulf Stream gradually merge
into those of the ocean on either side, and, while there are some
peculiarly tropical forms which never go outside of the warm
water, most are likely to be taken on either side in the colder
waters, and there are many which are found both near shore and
in the Gulf Stream. After long-continued southerly winds, tropi-
cal forms are at times cast on shore; and vessels passing through
the Gulf Stream frequently bring into port, attached to their
bottoms, crabs and shrimps which normally do not live in the inner
region. The warm waters of this part of the ocean are very favor-
able to rapid growth, and the animals there are tropical. Wash-
ing the shores of Florida, the Gulf Stream serves to transport its

THE PREVENTION OF HYDROPHOBIA. 663

animals to Europe, and the many kinds which we have been
considering are thus carried from place to place without their
own guidance. Thus it is that the tropical faunz of the two sides
of the Atlantic so closely resemble each other. The Gulf Stream,
then, serves not only to modify the climate of naturally cold
regions, but also to distribute life equally on two different shores,
which, without some such communication, would have animals as
decidedly different as are those of Asia from American east coast
species.

HUXLEY AND PASTEUR ON THE PREVENTION OF
HYDROPHOBIA.

T the call of the Lord Mayor, a meeting was held at the
Mansion House, in London, on the 1st of July, to hear state-
ments from men of science with regard to the recent increase
of rabies in England and the efficacy of the treatment discov-
ered by M. Pasteur for the prevention of hydrophobia. Among
several letters that were read, the following, one from Prof. Hux-
ley and the other from M. Pasteur himself, are of especial interest :

“Monte GENERASO, SWITZERLAND, June 25, 1889.

“My Lorp Mayor: I greatly regret my inability to be pres-
ent at the meeting which is to be held under your lordship’s au-
spices in reference to M. Pasteur and his institute. The unremit-
ting labors of that eminent Frenchman during the last half-
century have yielded rich harvests of new truths, and are models
of exact and refined research. As such they deserve and have
received all the honors which those who are the best judges of
their purely scientific merits are able to bestow. But it so hap-
pens that these subtle and patient searchings out of the ways of
the infinitely little—of that swarming life where the creature that
measures one thousandth part of an inch is a giant—have also
yielded results of supreme practical importance. The path of M.
Pasteur’s investigations is strewed with gifts of vast monetary
value to the silk-trader, the brewer, and the wine merchant. And,
this being so, it might well bea proper and a graceful act on the part
of the representatives of trade and commerce in its greatest cen-
ter to make some public recognition of M. Pasteur’s services even
if there were nothing further to be said about them. But there is
much more to be said. M. Pasteur’s direct and indirect contribu-
tions to our knowledge of the causes of diseased states, and of the
means of preventing their occurrence, are not measurable by
money values, but by those of healthy life and diminished suffer-
ing tomen. Medicine, surgery, and hygiene have all been pow-

664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTALY.,

erfully affected by M. Pasteur’s work, which has culminated in
his method of treating hydrophobia. I can not conceive that any
competently instructed person can consider M. Pasteur’s labors in
this direction without arriving at the conclusion that, if any man
has earned the praise and honor of his fellows, he has. I find it
no less difficult to imagine that our wealthy country should be
other than ashamed to continue to allow its citizens to profit by
the treatment freely given at the institute without contributing
to its support. Opposition to the proposals which your lordship
sanctions would be equally inconceivable if it arose out of noth-
ing but the facts of the case thus presented. But the opposition
which, as I see from the English papers, is threatened, has really
for the most part nothing on earth to do either with M. Pasteur’s
merits or with the efficacy of his method of treating hydrophobia.
It proceeds partly from the fanatics of laissez faire, who think it
better to rot and die than to be kept whole and lively by state
interference, partly from the blind opponents of properly con-
ducted physiological experimentation, who prefer that men should
suffer rather than rabbits or dogs, and partly from those who for
other but not less powerful motives hate everything which con-
tributes to prove the value of strictly scientific methods of in-
quiry in all those questions which affect the welfare of society.
I sincerely trust that the good sense of the meeting over which
your lordship will preside will preserve it from being influenced
by these unworthy antagonisms, and that the just and benevolent
enterprise you have undertaken may have a happy issue.
“Tam, my Lord Mayor, your obedient servant,
“Tomas H. HUXLEY.
“The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, Mansion House, HE. C.”

The following letter from M. Pasteur, dated Paris, the 27th
ult., was read by Sir H. Roscoe:

“DEAR COLLEAGUE AND FRIEND: I am obliged by your send-
ing me a copy of the letter of invitation issued by the Lord Mayor
for the meeting on July Ist. Its perusal has given me great
pleasure. The questions relating to the prophylactic treatment
for hydrophobia in persons who have been bitten and the steps
which ought to be taken to stamp out the disease are discussed in
a manner both exact and judicious. Seeing that hydrophobia has
existed in England for a long time, and that medical science has
failed to ward off the occurrence even of the premonitory symp-
toms, it is clear that the prophylactic method of treating this
malady which I have discovered ought to be adopted in the case
of every person bitten by a rabid animal. The treatment required
by this method is painless during the whole of its course and not
disagreeable. In the early days of the application of this method,

THE PREVENTION OF HY DROPHOBIA. 665

contradictions such as invariably take place with every new dis-
covery were found to occur, and especially for the reason that it
is not every bite by a rabid animal which gives rise to a fatal out-
burst of hydrophobia. Hence prejudiced people may pretend that
all the successful cases of treatment were cases in which the nat-
ural contagion of the disease had not taken effect. This specious
reasoning has gradually lost its force with the continually increas-
ing number of persons treated. To-day, and speaking solely for
the one anti-rabic laboratory of Paris, this total number exceeds
7,000, or exactly, up to the 31st of May, 1889, 6,950. Of these the
total number of deaths was only seventy-one. It is only by pal-
pable and willful misrepresentation that a number differing from
the above, and differing by more than double, has been published
by those who are systematic enemies of the method. In short, the
general mortality applicable to the whole of the operations is one
per cent, and if we subtract from the total number of deaths those
of persons in whom the symptoms of hydrophobia appeared a few
days after the treatment—that is to say, cases in which hydropho-
bia had burst out (often owing to delay in arrival) before the
curative process was completed—the general mortality is reduced
to 0°68 per cent. But let us for the present only consider the
facts relating to the English subjects whom we have treated in
Paris. Up to May 31, 1889, their total number was two hundred
and fourteen. Of these there have been five unsuccessful cases
after completion of the treatment and two more during treatment,
or a total mortality of 3°2 per cent, or more properly 2°3 per cent.
But the method of treatment has been continually undergoing
improvement, so that in 1888 and 1889, on a total of sixty-four
English persons bitten by mad dogs and treated in Paris, not a
single case has succumbed, although among these sixty-four there
were ten individuals bitten on the head and fifty-four bitten on
the limbs, often to a very serious extent. I have already said
that the Lord Mayor in his invitation has treated the subject in a
judicious manner, from the double point of view of prophylaxis
after the bite and of the extinction of the disease by administra-
tive measures. It is also my own profound conviction that a rig-
orous observance of simple police regulations would altogether
stamp out hydrophobia in a country like the British Isles. Why
am I so confident of this? Because, in spite of an old-fashioned
and wide-spread prejudice, to which even science has sometimes
given a mistaken countenance, rabies is never spontaneous. It is
caused, without a single exception, by the bite of an animal
affected with the malady. It is needless to say that in the begin-
ning there must have been a first case of hydrophobia. This is
certain; but to try to solve this problem is to raise uselessly the

question of the origin of life itself. It is sufficient for me here, in
VOL. XXxv.—42

666 THE POPULAK SCIENCE MONTHLY.

order to prove the truth of my assertion, to remind you that
neither in Norway, nor in Sweden, nor in Australia, does rabies
exist; and yet nothing would be easier than to introduce this ter-
rible disease into those countries by importing a few mad dogs.
Let England, which has exterminated its wolves, make a vigorous
effort and it will easily succeed in extirpating rabies. If firmly
resolved to do so, your country may secure this great benefit in a
few years; but, until that has been accomplished, and in the pres-
ent state of science, it is absolutely necessary that all persons bit-
ten by mad dogs should be compelled to undergo the anti-rabic
treatment. Such, it seems, is a summary of the statement of the
case by the Lord Mayor. The Pasteur Institute is profoundly
touched by the movement in support of the meeting. The inter-
est which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has evinced in
the proposed manifestation is of itself enough to secure its suc-
cess. Allow me, my dear colleague, to express my feelings of
affectionate devotion.”— Nature.

ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.
By HENRY J. PHILPOTT.

hws the joint enterprise of making a living, human beings not
only potentiate but they also stimulate one another. The
power and the stimulus are often combined, just as some foods
furnish at the same time nutrition and stimulation to the human
body. Sometimes we may distinguish between the two elements.
It is so in the case of property. Wealth is power. Property is a
stimulant. In order to make this distinction clear, we draw an-
other. We must explain the difference in meaning between
wealth and property. This will not be a hard task. Property is
ownership, and wealth is the thing owned. Wealth is a thing,
property a right to it. Wealth is mine and thine, property mine-
ness and thineness. True, we often confuse the terms, and speak
of the thing itself as property; especially do we speak of a body
of real estate as a piece of property. This is justified by usage
and by the dictionaries. For the present, however, I should like
to confine the term to its original meaning. In this I shall follow
Macleod, who says:

“When we understand the true meaning of the word property,
it will throw a blaze of light over the whole science of econom-
ics, and clear up difficulties to which the word wealth has given
rise; in fact, the meaning of the word property is the key to all
economics.

“Most persons, when they hear the word property, think of |

ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 667

some material things, such as lands, houses, money, corn, cattle,
etc. But that is not the true and original meaning of the word
property.

“Property, in its true and original meaning, is not any mate-
rial substance, but the absolute right to something.”

It is in the same sense that the socialists use the word. When
they demand the abolition of property they do not mean the abo-
lition of lands, houses, etc. They are as anxious as anybody that
wealth shall be increased. But they want it to be ours, not mine
or thine. Wealth which belongs to the whole people is not prop-
erty in the economic sense of the term. It is conceivable, though
not practically ascertainable, that property might be totally abol-
ished without any diminution of wealth. So property may be in-
creased without any increase of wealth. There would be just as
much land-surface on the earth if nobody owned a rood of it.
There were as many negroes after as before the abolition of prop-
erty in man. The abolition proclamation did not obliterate a
single acre of land, a house, a shred of clothing, or a mouthful of
food. But it did obliterate a vast amount of property; so does
a commercial panic. “ And yet,” says Prof. Newcomb, using the
panic of 1837 as an illustration, “if we look at the case from a
common-sense point of view, we shall see that no wealth was de-
stroyed. There were just as many suits of clothes in the country
the day after the crisis as there were before, and they were just
as well fitted for wearing. The mills and factories were all in as
good order, the farms as fertile, and the crops as large after the
supposed hurricane as before. The houses remained standing,
the wood was in the wood-sheds ready for burning, and the food in
the larder ready for cooking, just as it had been left. Ina word,
every appliance for the continued enjoyment of the fruits of labor
remained as perfect as it ever was.”

Prof. F, A. Walker, in calling attention to the distinction be-
tween wealth and property, says that “the neglect of this dis-
tinction has caused great confusion.” But he soon dismisses the
subject with the remark that “we might say that ‘ property’ is
not a word with which the political economist has anything to do.
It is legal, not economical, in its significance.” I can not concur in
that opinion. I think the socialistic theory, which relates prima-
rily to the institution of property, is an economic theory, as truly
as monometalism, or free trade, or Malthusianism. The whole
subject of distribution, to which Prof. Walker devotes a hundred
pages, and which is certainly one of the most important in this or
any other science, is a question of whose shall be the wealth pro-
duced ; that is, it is a question of the distribution of property in
the wealth, rather than of the wealth itself. Whether two fisher-
men jointly carve out a partnership boat, or whether one furnishes

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the capital and the other the labor, the boat is not “distributed ” ;
but the ownership of it is, and presumably according to economic
principles. So there may often be distribution of property more
or less than commensurate with the distribution of wealth; and it
is the distribution of property which, in fact, most concerns the
economist.

A great deal has been written about this subject of private
property. The world is filling with people, and it is filling with
good things which these people like and want. Shall the people
as a body own the goods ina lump, or shall the ownership and
enjoyment of the goods be divided among the human beings in
proportion to the ability of each to get hold of them by hard
work, or skillful work, or monopoly, or trickery, or any good or
bad superiority which helps to constitute him one of the “ fittest”
and most likely to survive in such a contest? Shall even the
planet itself, crowding with the less fit, be parceled out among
these good and bad “ fittest” ? Can there be a more momentous
question than this? Can there be one which more deeply con-
cerns the economist as such? On the very day on which I write,
four men are to hang for committing murder in answer to this
question. The mere presence in the community of a considerable
and clamorous element which denies the right of property has its
grave economic effects, and hence is a matter of great moment to
the economist. Hanging four men, or a hundred men, will not
silence that element.

This, however, is not the only aspect of the question that con-
cerns us, though most writers seem to have thought so. The
orthodox have been content to prove, or perhaps only assert, that
the right of property is the greatest of all the stimuli to labor
and frugality, just as Proudhon, on the other hand, was content
to show that property is robbery. If any distinction has been
made as to the comparative validity of titles to different kinds of
property, it has usually been thought sufficient to distinguish
between owning the earth and owning its products. But it is not
so simple a matter as this. Our great danger is not the theo-
retical denial of the right of property in general. We are daily
called upon to defend it against attack in detail. Bastiat saw this
half a century ago, when he was in the thick of the hottest battle
that has ever raged about the citadel of property. And now that
the contest has broken out in that quarter again, and under the
inspiration of being interrupted in the midst of this very sen-
tence by a bulletin announcing that the condemned anarchists
have just been hanged, it would be easy to write a book from the
following text, which is to be found in the eighth chapter of the
“Harmonies of Kconomics” ;

“A mere theoretical war against property is by no means the

ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 669

most virulent or the most dangerous. Since the beginning of the
world there has existed a practical conspiracy against it which is
not likely soon to cease. War, slavery. imposture, oppressive im-
posts, monopolies, privileges, commercial frauds, colonies, right to
employment, right to credit, right to assistance, right to instruc-
tion, progressive taxation imposed in direct or inverse proportion
to our power of bearing it, are so many battering-rams directed
against the tottering edifice; and if the truth must come out,
would you tell me whether there are many men in France, even
among those who think themselves conservative, who do not, in
one form or another, lend a hand to this work of destruction ?”

In America, at the present time, this interminable war on the
instinct and institution of private property has taken on all these
forms, and many more, which will be treated of in their proper
places. The four anarchists, who are at this moment hanging by
their necks, were in the van of the procession. When we care-
fully study the relation of all these doctrines to the antiquated
notion of a sacred and absolute right of private property, those
who openly deny the right of property in land, as being itself a
denial of property in the products of labor, are seen to be far
toward the rear. To that study let us now devote our attention ;
and, in order that it may be a scientific and not a partisan study,
we must not let private ownership be to us for the nonce either a
fetich or a bugbear. We must analyze it dispassionately, as if it
concerned us only as a matter of curiosity, though, in fact, our
analysis will show that it is in all respects our chief concern.
And we must not neglect to note the economic consequences of its
being to us and to our fellow-beings a fetich on the one hand, or
on the other a bugbear.

What is property ? We have said it is not wealth; but that is
not saying what itis. We have said it is ownership, but a syno-
nym is not a definition. What constitutes ownership? What is
the exact meaning of the words mine and thine, in the sense of
ownership? There is none, Few words are more indefinite in
their meaning. There are degrees of mineness and thineness.
These apply respectively to different communities at different
periods of their history, and to different subjects of property at
the same period and in the same community. Thus there have
been times and places in which the phrase “my wife” expressed
a property relation. The phrase is still everywhere used, but not
in the same sense of property. And yet it seems that among us a
man has property in his wife’s affections, for he has an action for
damages against the man who “alienates” them. Yesterday I
received a copy of an interesting paper, read before the American
Water-Works Association, under the title “Is Water Property ?”
This question of what is and what is not ownership or property

670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is one with which the courts of Christendom are engaged in an
interminable wrestle. Their anxiety shows that they regard the
settlement of that question in any particular case as a great point
gained one way or the other.

I have said that property is a right to something. Itis rather,
as Macleod says, “an aggregate or bundle of rights.” This ag-
gregate is not the same for all classes of property. Hence in order
to define property we must classify it. Before attempting this, let
us inquire how it comes about that there is such an institution
existing among men. Wecan all feel, if we can not formulate, a
definition which will suffice for this purpose. I do not exactly
know the limits of my property-rights, nor which of the rights
that I have to-day may be taken away from me to-morrow, but I
am severely conscious of the fact that I am chiefly occupied in a
struggle to make that mine to-morrow which is not mine to-day,
and I want to know how I came to be engaged in this struggle;
how the universe happens to be divided into the mine and the
not-mine ; and by what warrant the one is transmuted into the
other ?

I know of but one economist who introduces the science of po-
litical economy by founding it upon the right of property. The
late Prof. J. M. Sturtevant begins his text-book of “ Economics ”
in this wise:

“The science we are about to expound is the logical develop-
ment and application to a special group of phenomena, of a single
law of nature, as truly as physical astronomy is the logical devel-
opment and application to the phenomena of the solar system, of
the law of gravitation. The law of nature to which we refer may
be thus enunciated :

“ Hvery man owns himself,and all which he produces by the
voluntary exertion of his own powers.

“Hvery science must assume something. Ours must assume
that the idea of ownership is perfectly clear and intelligible to
every one. Itis a simple intuition, which originates in the spon-
taneous action of every human mind, and is therefore indefinable.
It ranks in this respect with the idea of personality of moral obli-
gation and of causation.”

This statement of the case must be rejected. Property may be
universal among human beings, though this is extremely doubt-
ful. But certainly the idea is not clear and intelligible to every
one. It would be nearer the truth to say that it is not yet clear
to any one. Even the notion that every man owns himself is not
universal. A great many human beings are still owned by mas-
ters, and millions more by their kings, The conscripted soldiers
of Europe do not own themselves. They are owned by the state.
And this ownership by the state, by a king, by a slaveholder, is —

ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 671

considered perfectly normal in the communities where it pre-
vails. I have heard it preached from a Northern pulpit that denial
to the Southern black of the right of property in himself was a
divine institution. The assertion of that right, and of the idea
which Prof. Sturtevant calls a “simple intuition, originating in
the spontaneous action of every human mind,” drove many of the
stronger abolitionists into open rejection of the sacred writings of
Christianity, which nowhere furnished them a text for their side
of the argument. The poorest slave may own something, but he
does not own himself.

Neither does every man, in any community, own all the prod-
ucts of his voluntary efforts. Wage-workers never do. They are
increasing in proportionate numbers. Hence the second part of
the assumed law of nature on which it is proposed to rest the
whole science of political economy is less and less true every year,
and the whole present progress of civilization is away from it.
The belief that it ought to be true is the foundation of the creed
of those anarchists who have just been hanged, and of those who
mourn them. “Labor produces all the wealth, and labor ought to
own it,’ istheir familiar cry. Since few things are produced by
the efforts of single-handed men; since, as I have shown in the
second paper of this series, nearly all production is by combina-
tion—ownership of product by producers, if it is to be universal
and complete, must also be in combination, or, as we say, in com-
mon. This is the straight read tocommunism, and the first guide-
board on the way is this doctrine that property in anything
springs certainly and exclusively from effort expended in its pro-
duction. Yet it is a doctrine which has often been laid down
by the most conservative economists and philosophers. Locke
stated it two hundred years ago in these terms: “ Whatsoever,
then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided, and
left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined to it some-
thing that is hisown, and thereby makes it his property.” McCul-
loch says,* “ All have been impressed with the reasonableness of
the maxim which teaches that the produce of a man’s labor and
the work of his hands are exclusively his own.”

So Laveleye t says that “ property in all the fruits of his work
must be guaranteed to the worker.” Bonamy Pricet is equally
emphatic: “I made it and it is mine, is a sentiment which asserts
property in every human soul.” Imagine the navvies who build
a railroad saying this! And Herbert Spencer* even informs us
that, “from the beginning, things identified as products of a man’s

* “ Principles of Political Economy,” chap. ii, section 1.
+ “Elements of Political Economy,” chap. iii, section 9.
¢ “Practical Political Economy,” chap. vi.

#* “ Principles of Sociology,” section 541.

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

own labor are recognized as his.” On the island where Mr. Spen-
cer lives, we might say that almost from the beginning the prod-
uct, and part of the time both producer and product, have been
recognized as belonging to the lord of the manor. At present the
bulk of the products belong to the lords of the factories—the
“captains of industry”—and nobody but the socialist fails to
recognize both the fact and its propriety.

So in the first chapter of Dr. Chapin’s recast of Wayland’s
“Political Economy ” we find it stated, as the third of the funda-
mental principles of the science, that “the exertion of labor estab-
lishes a right of property in the fruits of labor, and the idea of
exclusive possession is a necessary consequence.” And Mark Hop-
kins, in his “ Law of Love” (chapter iii), says that “ with no right
to the product of his labor, no man would make a tool or a gar-
ment, or build a shelter, or raise a crop. There could be no indus-
try and no progress.”

Now we must accept or reject the theory supported by this
formidable and indefinitely extensible array of authority, because
it does or does not conform to the facts; not because it leads to
the conclusion that property ought to keep even pace with pro-
duction in its development toward communism; not because it
justifies some in opposing property in land on the ground that
land is not a product of labor; not because it leads Prof. Perry
and his school into confusion in their effort to prove that property
in land is right because the value of land7is the product of the
labor of its owner. If production confers on the producer the
divine or otherwise particularly sacred right of property in the
product, I propose to accept the truth as soon as convinced of it,
whatever agreeable or disagreeable conclusions it may lead to. I
do not know that there is any absolute and infallible criterion of
truth or reality. Perhaps “ persistence in consciousness” may be
one. But, at any rate, I have lived long enough to know that
“aoreeableness ” is not.”

The fact known to everybody is that the vast army of those
who work for wages or salaries do not acquire the slightest pro-
prietary interest in the particular things with which they “mix
their labor.” Neither do the transportation companies nor the
draymen of the streets. It may be said, in defense of the theory,
that their interest is bought off in advance, or that, having sold
their labor, it is no longer theirs, but does, in fact, belong to the
owner of the product.

But this is not the statement of the economists and philoso-
phers we have quoted, and would slur over the laws by which the
rate of pay for salaried services is governed. It is much less con-
fusing and more rational to look at the matter as the great ma-

jority of people look at it—as all look at it, in fact, until they are |

ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 673

influenced by the labor agitators, who base their arguments on
the unguarded utterances of the great thinkers quoted above.

It is all as plain as day. What the wage-worker acquires by
his work is not a proprietary interest in the thing he has worked
on, but a right of action against the person who employed him to
work on it. Itis notajus in re, but a jus in personam, It is a
claim against his employer. It is not a claim for any particular
chattel or product, but for legal-tender money of a certain total
amount. This amount is determined, not, or at any rate not di-
rectly, by the value of the thing produced, nor yet by the value
that his work added to it, but by the demand and supply of his
kind of labor. The legal claim itself is a subject of property. It
can be bought and sold. The community stands ready to enforce
it, and thus gives it all its value. Property in this claim, or right
of action at law, is just as truly property as is property in the
material product, and it is often more reliable; for it lives on,
even though the capitalist’s property in his factory and its unsold
products is wholly destroyed by fire, or its value partially de-
stroyed by a tumble in the market.

The theory we started out to combat consists, in fact, of four
propositions, and we have refuted three of them. We have proved
that it is not true that every man owns himself; that it is not true
that every man owns his products, or the things with which he
has mixed his labor, nor that he gets thereby any proprietary
interest in them ; and that not the affirmative but the negative of
these propositions has been most generally accepted by mankind
as the true and natural state of the case. So much for what 1s.
It remains to inquire what ought to be? What would be absolute
justice in the matter ? Would it be universal private ownership
of self and of the products of the labor of one’s self ? To any such
question as this there are three possible answers. There is the
answer “ Yes,” there is the answer “ No,” and there is the answer
that it makes no practical difference what is absolutely just, since
absolute justice is unattainable or undesirable. If justice, like per-
petual motion, is beyond our reach, the most economical thing to
do is to find that out and cease to hope and struggle forit. Mean-
time economy of motion or of force is an approach toward per-
petual motion, and so we may find something, or conclude we
want nothing, that will be an approach toward absolute justice.

Now, justice, like property, is an undefined, and quite likely
undefinable, term. Our ideas of it change from age to age. Itis
related to the term and the thing “ equality,” and this we can all
understand. When it is said that two things equal each other, we
know exactly what is meant. The proposition that all men ought
to be equally rich and happy is perfectly clear. That would be
absolute equality. The idea of justice bears about the same rela-

VOL, XxXxv.—43

674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion to equality that the mathematical statement of a proportion
does to that of a simple equation. We may say it would be abso-
lute justice for all men to be rich and happy in proportion to
their deserts, whatever that last word may mean; perhaps it
would mean that they ought to be rich and happy in proportion to
the pains of the work they do, perhaps in proportion to its results.

The former seems to me to be the true meaning. If there be
such a thing as deserving, it seems to me that the woman who
heroically wears herself out as a half-hand deserves more than
the man by her side who does a hand’s work with ease and pleas-
ure—supposing, of course, that they have both previously made
the same heroic efforts to acquire skill and efficiency. Absolute
justice, if there were such a thing, would give her several times
his wages. But could society afford thus to reward people in
proportion to their incurable incompetency ? If we say “No,”
then we decide that absolute justice is undesirable at the present
stage of evolution. It can be desirable only under the condition
of a perfect equality of gifts; and since this condition is most
nearly approached by the lowest savages, we are almost forced to
the conclusion that absolute justice is a thing to be avoided
rather than courted—at any rate, for the present, and until the
course of evolution (or progressive creation) is changed. Such
seems to be the real view of everybody, whether he has thought
little or much upon the subject; and yet everybody denies it, and
claims to be in favor of absolute justice, or the nearest possible
approach to it. Nay, and he is sincere in his claim. The differ-
ence between what people believe and what they think they be- —
lieve is always important, but nowhere more so than in this study —
of political economy.

Any system of private property which bestows its blessings in —
proportion to efficiency in work and management, is unjust to the —
man who, with a heroic disposition to do his best, is held down,
by circumstances over which he has no control, to a life of hard
work and little pay. That those who get the least pay have the
most irksome work is notoriously not the exception, but the rule.
But this is an injustice which it would be fatal to the very life of
society to mend, even if it could be done. We can never estimate
relative irksomeness; and, if we could, it would be fatal to put a —
premium on the incapacity which makes the task irksome. Ca-
pacity to work and inclination to work are both important. Both
must be developed. Nature’s way of doing this was gradually
to develop in the human mind the institution of property, as we
have it to-day. She planted it there long before any of her creat-
ures ever thought of asking why or how or with what probable
result; and she planted it deep, and nurtured its roots to deeper
and deeper growth. And she planted by its side a restless long-

ORIGIN OF THH RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 675

ing for something we call justice. Both were, and both still are,
blind sentiments, working out Nature’s “plans” as involuntarily
as do our breathing or loving. Our ideas alike of justice and of
the right of private property correspond to the age and com-
munity in which we live. They may never coincide. At present
they do not, in any mind with which I have come in contact.

And yet we must take account of both of them, or lose our
reckoning. We shall find among the causes which have con-
tributed to that confusion of ideas regarding the right of property
which now confronts and perplexes us, in all our legislation, as
well as in our pursuit of theoretical knowledge, the following:

1, That the origin of the right of property is not one, but
several. Ownership of self arose in one way, of means of suste-
nance in another, of land in another, and of fellow-beings in
another.

2. That most writers have failed to draw the line between
possession maintained by force, or not subject to contest, and
ownership which depends absolutely on the recognition by our
fellow-beings of our right to the things we call our own. As is
remarked by T. E. Cliffe Leslie, in his introduction to Laveleye’s
“Primitive Property”:

“No mere psychological explanation of the origin of property
is, I venture to affirm, admissible, though writers of great author-
ity have attempted to discover its germs by that process in the
lower animals. A dog, it has been said, shows an elementary pro-
prietary sentiment when he hides a bone, or keeps watch over his
master’s goods. But property has not its root in the love of pos-
session. All living beings like and desire certain things, and, if
Nature has armed them with any weapons, are prone to use them
in order to get and keep what they want. What requires expla-
nation is not the want or desire of certain things on the part of
individuals, but the fact that other individuals, with similar wants
and desires, should leave them in undisturbed possession, or allot
to them a share, of such things. It is the conduct of the commu-
nity, not the inclination of individuals, that needs investigation.
The mere desire for particular articles, so far from accounting for
settled and peaceful ownership, tends in the opposite direction,
namely, to conflict and the right of the strongest. No small
amount of error in several departments of social philosophy, and
especially in political economy, has arisen from reasoning from
the desires of the individual, instead of from the history of the
community.”

This is one of the profoundest observations ever made on the
‘subject under consideration. The error to which it is an answer
is shared by so great an authority as Herbert Spencer, and re-
peated in his “ Principles of Sociology ” (section 536).

676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

“The fact referred to in § 292, that even intelligent animals
display a sense of proprietorship, negatives the belief propounded
by some, that individual property was not recognized by primitive
men. When we see the claim of exclusive possession understood
by a dog, so that he fights in defense of his master’s clothes if left
in charge of them, it becomes impossible to suppose that even in
their lowest state men were devoid of those ideas and emotions
which initiate private ownership. All that may be fairly as-
sumed is that these ideas and sentiments were at first less devel-
oped than they have since become.”

And again (section 541), Mr. Spencer says:

“The desire to appropriate, and to keep that which has been
appropriated, lies deep, not in human nature only, but in animal
nature: being, indeed, a condition to survival.”

Nevertheless, individual ownership does not prevail among the
social insects, and yet their industry and frugality have been,
even from Bible times, held up as a lesson for man. “Go to the
ant, thou sluggard,”’ and learn among other things that animals,
unlike men, may be aroused to intense and untiring activity and
close frugality by purely social instincts, their own sustenance
being swallowed up in social sustenance.

In the following passage from the same section, Mr. Spencer
reaches, only to drop it, the point insisted on by Mr. Leslie:

“The consciousness that conflict, and consequent injury, may
probably result from the endeavor to take that which is held by
another, ever tends to establish and strengthen the custom of
leaving each in possession of whatever he has obtained by labor;
and this custom takes among primitive men the shape of an
overtly-admitted claim.”

Perhaps this explains also the custom of leaving each in pos-
session of what he obtains without labor. At any rate, the claim
to ownership comes to be admitted, and then only is it ownership
or property, whether founded on participation in production or,
as Lieber (“Property and Labor”) insists, on appropriation or
what not.

Pror. Josepa Le Conte has suggested that the custom of deducing the relative
mortality from different diseases by comparison with the total mortality, instead
of the number of persons still living, is liable to lead to erroneous conclusions.
Even estimates of general mortality by comparing the total annual deaths with
the number of persons at all ages may mislead. Thus the apparent low rate of
mortality in San Francisco as compared with Eastern cities arises from the abnor-
mal proportion of adults to children there, and not from general conditions unusu-
ally favorable to health. The true coefficient of mortality from cholera infantum
is expressed by the ratio of the number of deaths from the disease to the number
of persons liable to be attacked by it—or to the number of children under three
years of age.

ARCTIC ICH AND ITS NAVIGATION. 677

ARCTIC ICE AND ITS NAVIGATION.

By ALBERT A. ACKERMAN,
ENSIGN, UNITED STATES NAVY.

he people can understand the fascination of summer life in
the arctic regions for those who have once gone through the
experience without disaster.

It is an awe-inspiring land. The massive, dreamy beauty of
the slumbering icebergs, the sharp outlines and sheer height of
the basalt coast cliffs, the mysterious expanse of the glacier, and
the ceaseless motion of the ice-floes grinding and clashing to-
gether, produce upon all men emotions of awe and delight.

Elsewhere, Nature moves as well with power and grandeur,
but more slowly and with much less amplitude of action; there,
the changes that in a temperate climate require months take
place tumultuously in a few days.

The breaking up and floating away of the ice-field, the débdcle
of the glaciers and disgorging of the fiords, impress man with his
utter insignificance and weakness in the presence of such mighty
forces. Fleets of lofty icebergs drift southward, urged on by
deep under-currents, and plow their way through thinner ice,
splitting, colliding, and overturning, always maintaining a cer-
tain sphinx-like dignity—majestic and mysterious. Vast out-
reaching tongues of ice extend from their hidden bases, as hard
as rock and as dangerous to the unwary navigator, while to lee-
ward drifts a convoy of smaller bergs, the débris of the first—a
jostling following too rough for safe companionship. Over all
this glistening mass of marble white hover myriads of white gulls,
and in the blue translucent caverns at the water’s edge reverber-
ate the swash of the sea and the music of cascades.

Amid such surroundings men can test themselves, where the
brave have confessed fear and the hardy and strong confessed
weakness; and so long as men are brave and strong, so will there
be volunteers for expeditions, the northern limit of which depends
alone upon the extent to which fortune favors their strength and
judgment. Arctic exploration is not dependent, however, upon
the vanity of adventurers; the world throngs with eager students
of Nature,and from these must spring the motive which alone can
lead to success. Rarely does it happen that robust health and
love of adventure accompany the knowledge of generalization
only acquired by years of study, and so essential in localities
where there is little that is familiar and unworthy of record; to
this, and not only to the disasters from which hardly an expedi-
tion has escaped, is due the fact that, notwithstanding the treas-

678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ure expended in arctic exploration, so little is known and so many
of the popular ideas are erroneous.

Most arctic travelers will agree in saying that careful study
of all the works on the subject will form but a meager prepa-
ration for a prospective explorer. It is a new world; impressions
are so strange and vivid that no fixed plan of description will
suffice. .

In the narrow Greenland waters each successive headland, isl-
and, or mountain stands as the mark of farthest progress and
blasted hopes of brave old-time navigators. Can anything be
more pathetic than the quaint log-book of that stanch old sea-
man, Captain John Davis, with its account of protracted strug-
gles and final disappointment ? He sailed in the time of Raleigh
and Blake. Now, but a few miles beyond a black, ram-shaped
cape, that he named Sanderson’s Hoop, lies the Danish trading-
post of Upernavik, and every summer ten powerful steam whal-
ers smash through the ice, which at this point turned back his
small sailing vessels. For hundreds of years, dating back to the
time of Davis and Frobisher, the art of ice navigation has been
constantly improving, until now it is a very rare thing for either
a Dundee whaler or a St. John sealer to meet with serious disaster
while pursuing its legitimate calling.

With our own Bering Sea whalers the case is different—there
are important differences between the ice encountered in Green-
land waters and that north of Alaska. A description of the cir-
cumstances affecting the formation of the various kinds of berg
and floe ice will make this clear.

The natural form of an iceberg is a regular prism, broken from
the face of the glacier as its onward motion forces it down along
the bottom of the inclosing fiord, by the buoyant action of the
water. Through the tides the upward pressure of the water va-
ries constantly, and has much to do with the production of inter-
nal strains and fissures, which form planes of cleavage parallel to
the face of the glacier; one of these ultimately marks the bound-
ary of the berg, the others are weak spots which may develop
afterward. Where glaciers approach the sea at a steep grade,
they move more rapidly, are subjected to greater stresses, there is
less opportunity for the exhibition of the viscous property of ice
at the freezing-point, débdcles occur more frequently, and the
bergs are smaller and more irregular. Under such conditions
the ice is full of partly cemented cracks and curved fissures, so
that in a short time water-markings, ice-scorings and scratches,
and the melting of snow-spots, produce the most fantastic and
airy shapes. More durable than clouds, they still rival them in
variety of design and change of form, as successive beauties are
revealed in passing. Apparently free from all the requisitions of .

ARCTIC ICH AND ITS NAVIGATION. 679

equilibrium, owing to the preponderance of the part submerged,
bold spurs and flying arches spring from their walls, and hanging
balconies ornament their crests.

In Greenland, as in the antarctic, there is either a great con-
tinent or a congeries of islands, covered with an ice-field of such
gradual inclination through great distance that the movement of
its face is very slow, and the débdcles and avalanches occur less
frequently, so that the bergs are of enormous size und regular
shape, having a height of from one to two hundred feet in the
northern and three hundred feet in the southern hemisphere.
The Alaskan glaciers are of comparatively small extent, the ice-
field of which the Muir and Davidson glaciers are spurs being
only four hundred miles wide; owing to the inclination of their
containing valleys, they move with great rapidity, débdcles are
occurring continually; the bergs, falling into shallow water,
quickly go to pieces, and the fragments which at last escape
through the intricacies of fiords and archipelagoes are very small.
In addition, the comparatively shallow water along the coast of
Siberia prevents floe-bergs of any great size passing through
Bering Strait, while a seventeen-fathom bank, north of Wran-
gell Island, bars the way to all rectangular bergs over twenty-
three fathoms thick that have drifted across the arctic. In this
way it happens that the Bering Sea whalers never see the great
icebergs which play so important a part in the navigation of
those in Greenland waters.

Perhaps the continual excitement in the confined waters of the
latter land, and the natural desire to classify the new and myste-
rious with the old and commonplace, make the mind quick to
see resemblances. However that may be, the bergs seem subject
to some laws of form. Capitals, sphinxes, castles, and cathedrals
are frequently met with; at times, whole menageries would troop
past—lions couchant, mushrooms, and flowers occur in profu-
sion—the small fragments of ice,through the washing of water
and scoring of surrounding floes, showing a greater variety of
forms than the large bergs.

On the east side of Melville Bay in north Greenland is a head-
land called, from its peculiar shape,“ The Devil’s Thumb.” Itisa
remarkable column, resembling a closed hand with the thumb pro-
jecting upward, and bears stout testimony to the toughness of the
granite composing it, which has withstood in this sharp outline
all the disintegrating forces of that climate for centuries. It is
about seven hundred feet high. In June, 1884, a photograph was
taken of a very lofty iceberg, grounded in its vicinity, which was
an almost perfect representation of a hand and wrist, the index-
finger pointing heavenward. A connection between the black,
time-stained Devil’s Thumb and this beautiful marble-like shaft

680 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was at once made in the minds of every one present, and the ice-
berg was named “'The Hand of Providence.”

The pack ice of one winter’s growth is met and fought by the
whalers on both sides of the continent, until, with the assistance
of the summer sun, it is conquered, and no longer forms an obsta-
cle to progress northward.

Hayes states that the formation of new ice in Foulk Fiord dur-
ing one winter in still water was thirteen feet thick. It is highly
improbable that any additions at that depth would be made dur-
ing even extraordinary cold periods; it has since been surmised by
experienced arctic travelers that a portion of this thickness was
due to snow deposits. Ordinarily, this ice will not be found
thicker than seven feet. Early in summer it breaks up and floats
away in immense floes as pack ice; sometimes, through pressure,
becoming hummocked or piled in thicknesses of three or four fold
into the size of small bergs or crushed into fragments, until it
finally melts out of sight away to the southward. This ice can
be distinguished, even when hummocked, from that formed by
broken-up bergs by its opaque-white color, due to the presence of
innumerable air-cells, its method of formation rendering it softer
and more porous than glacier ice, which is subjected to years of
pressure and concentration through infiltrating streams of freez-
ing water.

Before the immense floes are broken up, however, they are ex-
tremely dangerous in the confined Greenland waters, where they
are continually subjected to terrible pressures by the winds and
surface currents. The eastern whalers, through superior equip-
ment and working in company, escape many of the disasters of
the Americans in the Pacific, while their proximity to land or fast
ice and numerous villages of Eskimos gives them strong hopes
of rescue, even though their vessel may be lost. After arriving
at their station they have little to fear but floating bergs and
hummocks, their powerful steamers crushing the then rotten floe
ice with ease. As the whales leave the vicinity of Pond’s Inlet
early in the summer, the whalers strive to get there as quickly as
possible; a large reward being often given by the owners to the
crew of the vessel first reaching that point. They can afford this,
as her cargo may consist largely of whalebone collected by the
Eskimos in the vicinity. These men are, in consequence, the
best ice-navigators in the world.

Our own American whalers have no such incentive; they are
no less hardy or brave than any seamen in the world. Their life
is a hard one; in case of disaster, there is no such way of escape
as that open to the Scotchmen in the east; and yet it would be
comparatively easy to establish a life-saving station on the north
coast of Alaska, which would repay perhaps more than any other

- = Senne

ARCTIC ICH AND ITS NAVIGATION. 681

on our coasts. There is but one narrow passage for the Bering
floes, and the ice after passing through the strait scatters and be-
comes easier to avoid. The pack is not confined and caused to
revolve between immense icebergs or many narrow passages, as
in Greenland or eastern waters, so that the recent employment of
steam whalers, instead of the old-time sailing vessels, has been
dictated more by a desire for increased profits than by actual ne-
cessity.

But there is another and more dangerous ice than floe ice, as
it takes many years for its formation. It is met with in isolated
floes, but rarely if ever in pack below Smith’s Sound, and the

Scotch whalers seldom encounter it. Ships have been nipped
hundreds of times in floe ice and escaped, but few if any have ever
freed themselves from the fierce grasp of the ancient ice of the
arctic, called by Nares floe-berg or paleocrystic ic2. This bears
evidence of great age, the part above water being from fifteen to
forty-five feet in thickness, which would make its depth from one
hundred and thirty-five to four hundred and five feet ; the stout-
est-built ship that ever put to sea would be crushed into match-
sticks by the pressure of two such floes upon her sides. This ice
forms the northern limit of the cruising-grounds of the American
whalers north of Alaska. Some years it moves to the southward
and closes up on them; again, it recedes, disclosing more of the
mystery of the farther north. Scattered here and there through
it are polynias, or lakes of ice, of one year’s growth, inclosed by
heavy floes arched and keyed together.

Paleocrystic ice is old pack ice built up by successive deposits
of snow during a long period of time, thus giving it an appear-
ance of stratification. There is an alternation of soft white and
hard blue ice, representing, respectively, compressed snow and
water formed during the sunshine by thaws, and frozen at night
or when cloudy. (It is a remarkable fact that snow will melt and
seep through floe ice in sunlight though the thermometer may
record far below the freezing-point.) Eventually, during the long
summer day, the floe is left bare and dry, but soft and porous,
unless so far north that the snow-storms continue all the year
round. Over some strata are layers of atmospheric dust, such as
Nordenskiéld found on the Greenland glaciers; also the gradual
decrease of the thickness of the layers—due to pressure and in-
crease of blue ice—because of greater infiltration, as the lower part
of the berg is approached, make certain the progressive nature of
the formation.

Beyond the Melville Bay pack, averaging six feet in thickness,
lies the “north water” of the whalers, corresponding to the open
space usually found between the paleocrystic pack and Bering
Strait. This is dotted with hummocks, rubble ice, or broken-up

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bergs, and icebergs of enormous size, which it is easy to avoid
except in the frequent fogs of the summer months. These ice-
bergs break from the immense glaciers bounding Melville Bay
and Kennedy Channel, which occasionally rise two hundred feet
above the water. It is apparent that the bergs breaking off irregu-
larly might, through a bulky form of the submerged part, attain
a still greater height. Hayes mentions a berg over three hundred
feet high in the “north water”; the Proteus on her last trip
sighted one a hundred and fifty feet high, six miles long, and a
little more than a mile wide. These immense bergs are most im-
portant agents in breaking up the ice-fields in early spring, for,
being propelled by deep under-currents, their motion is often con-
trary to that of the floe ice moved by the wind and surface currents,

The wind also plays an important part, a southwest gale send-
ing the packs and hummocks upon the edge of the fast or land
ice, and crushing it for some distance, after which any northerly
wind disengages the free ice, leaving an open space, called the
inshore lead, which the earliest whalers always follow. It is, of
course, dangerous, as a south wind sends the pack back, and im-
prisons if it does not crush them. In July the quicker way
through “the middle passage” of the Melville Bay pack is used,
as the ice is then comparatively harmless, although vessels are
sometimes nipped and rather severely handled.

No stronger vessels than those of the Dundee whalers are built ;
they are from four hundred to one thousand tons displacement,
have powerful, well-secured engines to resist the shock of ram-
ming or stoppage of the propeller by ice, and are built with an
eye to the easy and rapid replacement of rudder, propeller, and
propeller-shaft if damaged, these parts being carried in duplicate.
Above all other considerations, they possess strength for ramming
as well as resistance to lateral pressure when nipped.

Another very important feature is that the bow shall have
considerable inclination, which permits the vessel, when ramming
very heavy ice, to lift slightly and slide on it, thus easing the
shock and assisting the cutting action of the bow with the down-
ward crushing weight of the ship. In this way it is possible for
these steamers at full speed to ram ice over twenty feet thick, and
receive no immediate incapacitating damage.

If the ice is not too heavy, the shear-like rise and fall of the

bow is repeated several times as the vessel steams powerfully
ahead until her headway is checked. The difficulty then is to
extract the ship from the dock she has cut by her advance: the
floes press on her sides, cakes of ice and slush fill her wake, and
there is nothing but the ice-hampered propeller with which to
overcome her inertia and draw back out of the nip. Frequently
this is insufficient, and the ship may be crushed.

———

ARCTIC ICH AND ITS NAVIGATION. 683"

In breaking up a floe of great extent and thickness, which is
rarely attempted, as the coal and labor thus expended might be
saved by a movement of the ice in a few hours, two vessels work
to great advantage in concert, striking alternate blows at an angle
with each other, thus breaking off wedge-shaped sections, which
are shoved out of the way as fast as an advance is made into
the floe.

Various other methods are employed for breaking a way
through the ice or relieving the pressure on the ship, but they
are all insignificant compared with the mighty results of dashing
and fearless ramming. Without it,in spite of the utmost exer-
tions of officers and men, Greely would not have been rescued.
The dispersive effect of explosives in water-soaked ice is small, and
placing the torpedoes requires time; the ice-saw is clumsy, slow,
and rapidly exhausts an already overwrought crew, while warp-
ing and towing floes are but the last safeguards from despair.

The Dundee skippers are not held to too strict account for
damages that the vessels may sustain during their short but ex-
citing cruise. Desperate risks are taken every day; the man who
fears responsibility would never succeed, while another hesitating
or lacking resource would quickly lose his ship. Starting from
Dundee in April, they generally reach Godhavn, in latitude 69° 15’
north, before June, but from that point to their destination it is a
long and plucky fight with the ice. Continually following up the
breaches made in the solid field by storms and tides, their only
fear, though surrounded by floes capable of crushing the ships if
taken unawares, is that the lead will open in some other place,
leaving them inclosed by vast immovable floes until some rare
northwest wind loosens the pack, or the summer’s sun so weakens
it that the ship is able to smash through and escape.

On the approach of a gale, when the ice may be expected to
move rapidly and through its great weight and extent accumulate
pressure, a fine solid floe is selected in which to form a protected
dock. In it the ship is rammed as far as possible, if necessary the
slip being deepened with the ice-saw; so long as the floe holds
together the ship will be subjected to the pressure of only those
small fragments that may be forced into the entrance to the dock.

To take advantage of every little patch of open water in break-
ing through the pack, a pilot is stationed aloft in the “crow’s
nest”; this is a large cask, with a trap-door in the bottom for en-
trance, secured to the mast. It is sometimes quite cozy, being
fitted with a wind-screen, rest for the long glass, engine-room bell
pull or indicator, helm-director, and compass. The height of the
observer is about one hundred and fifteen feet, and the greatest
distance at which ordinary pack ice is visible from that height is
less than seven miles; it is evident, then, how much experience and

684 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

judgment are necessary in directing the movements of the ship,
the only indications at times being doubtful ice-blinks and unde-
cided water-skies.

The ice-blink is frequently a very weak indication in summer,
appearing as a narrow belt of a little lighter and yellowish sky
just above the horizon. So faint is its appearance at times that it
would not be recognized except by comparison with known water-
sky. The latter is dark and gloomy, much resembling that pre-
ceding a thunder-storm.

In the pack itself it is generally calm, a slight breeze being
almost certain evidence of the close proximity of considerable
open water.

The sealers of Dundee and St. John, Newfoundland, rendezvous
at the latter port and start almost in the same half-hour about
midnight of some day in March. The date is fixed by law, in order
to protect the seals during their bearing period. They have a less
venturesome voyage than the whalers, though starting earlier,
their hope being to meet the first great ice-floes in the open sea
where they are subjected to very little pressure, though the fogs
and dark nights make it difficult to avoid collision with one of the
numerous icebergs.

The sealers depend in a great measure on luck to strike the
floes on which the hair-seal is found in great numbers; a few of
the oldest captains are supposed to possess a prescience or peculiar
judgment, though it is by no means certain that the seals will be
met with in the same part of the open sea in two consecutive sea-
sons. In fact, out of ten or twelve sealers leaving in the same
hour every year, it frequently happens that one or two of the
luckiest have made two successful trips with full cargoes before
some of the others have reported more or less bad luck from their
first; the Proteus once brought in one hundred thousand skins
from her first trip of the season alone.

On sighting the ice the steamers run along the great floes and
through the leads until they find a floe on which a colony of seals
have congregated; a dock is rammed into the ice at once; ice
anchors are laid out ahead; the very large crew carried is landed
by the Jacob’s ladders dangling from the head-booms. Sometimes
the crew is split up into several parties to work on different floes ;
in all cases the seals are surrounded as rapidly as possible and
driven toward a common center. Here they crawl up on each
other, barking and moaning, until they form a great heap ten feet
or more in height, writhing and fighting, while the ice in every
direction is dotted with the white puppy-seals so young as to be
unable to move. The men at work on the ice esteem very highly
the frozen hearts of these young seals, claiming that they are not
only palatable, but enable them to better stand cold and fatigue.

A CORNER OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIES. 685

The seals having been concentrated, the work of slaughter com-
mences: each man is armed with a pole having a hook attached
to one end, with which the seals are one by one drawn from the
pile and killed by a single blow on the head. The skin is then
quickly removed with the fat blubber, which is wrapped up in it;
it is valueless as fur, and eventually tanned, split, and made up
as imitation kid into gloves, linings of porte-monnaies, valises,
shoes, etc.

In less than two months after the sealers first start out, the
seals have completely disappeared; where they go is a mystery.
In the fall they reappear in small groups making their way north
again.

The whaling season then follows immediately after the seal-
ing, the same steamers sometimes being employed.

Early in September, whether the season has been successful or
not, the Dundee whalers start on their return voyage, following
the east coast of British America and Labrador until they lose
the benefit of the polar current near Newfoundland.

It is arough trip; gales and tremendous seas are peculiar to
both time of year and locality, yet it may be considered almost
uneventful to the crews of those racked and bruised vessels which
will require the whole winter to refit for next season’s work.

A CORNER OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIES.
By Caprais G. LANGEN.

ee Key or Ké Islands of the Dutch East Indies derive their
name from a native word signifying “What do you say ?”
The native tradition runs that when Macassar traders first land-
ed there and inquired in the Malay tongue after the name of the
land they had set foot on, the natives answered, “ Kay,” and this
expression was mistaken by the questioners for the name of the
islands. The group consists of two larger islands, of which the
westerly one bears the name of Nuhu-roa, or Little Key, and the
easterly one Ju-ud, or Great Key, with a number of smaller isl-
ands around them. Great Key is undoubtedly geologically much
older than Little Key and the other surrounding islands, and
possesses elevations of from two thousand to three thousand feet,
while Little Key and the other islands are very low. Great Key is
principally of a rocky and volcanic formation; Little Key and
the surrounding islands are formed of coral and interveined by
flint and quartz. Little Key, according to the most reliable chiefs,
was raised out of the sea about thirty-five years ago, during the

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shocks of a severe earthquake attended by a tidal wave; after
which no earthquakes occurred till April, 1884.

Every island belonging to the group is covered, down to the
water’s edge, with dense tropical jungle, with gigantic creepers
winding from one tree to another so as to form a close network,
These forests contain choice kinds of timber, the inducements
offered by which have provoked the establishment of the present
German colony. The southwest monsoon, which blows during
our winter months, brings abundant rains; and the occasional
showers of April, with the heavy dews of June, July, and August,
keep the ground moist and afford ample nourishment to vegeta-
tion. In October and November, the hottest months, vegetation
suffers from drought, The rain percolates through the soil quick-
ly to the coral. The traveler will, therefore, meet with only a
few pieces of marshy soil on the islands; but he is astonished at
the luxuriant growth of vegetation, at the gigantic and stately
trees spreading their roots to seek a firm hold around the coral,
out of whose porous texture their fibers obtain nourishment; and
no place on the group is entirely barren and destitute of vegeta-
tion.

The supply of fresh water is very unevenly distributed, and
there are many villages where none is obtainable, and the inhab-
itants have to go a long distance forit. Generally, the fresh-
water wells are situated close by the sea. All the fresh drinking-
water contains lime in large quantities, the characteristic effects
of which are neutralized by the liberal use of acid fruits. It is evi-
dent that the sea, infiltrating gradually through the pores of the
coral, becomes purified and separated from all its saline ingredi-
ents on its way to the wells; and those places where fresh water
is not obtainable are of quartz formation.

The islands are divided into districts, each comprising a num-
ber of villages with their surrounding land. Hach district has
its principal chief, or rajah, and these have in the villages under-
chiefs of various ranks. All these offices are hereditary, descend-
ing to the eldest sons of the respective families. If there is no
successor, a new chief is elected by the natives of the district. A
chief receives no payment, but after having been acknowledged
and established in office by the Resident of Amboyna, he is pre-
sented with a silver mounting for his walking-stick, on which is
engraved the Dutch coat of arms. After he has held his office for
twenty-five years with faultless conduct and loyalty, the silver
mounting on the walking-stick is replaced by a golden one. Ifa
chief has rendered an extraordinarily praiseworthy service to his
government, he is presented with a fanciful, richly ornamented
umbrella, which his servant carries before him, when he walks
abroad, to prevent the sun from tanning his face.

A CORNER OF THE DUTCH HAST INDIES. 687

About one third of the population are Mohammedans, and
these are increasing every year, through the influence of Arabs
and of natives who have returned as hadjis from Mecca. These
men are worshiped to a certain extent by their inferior-stationed
fellow-believers, and exercise such an influence upon them as to
be kept for the rest of their lives in food and clothes.

The indigenes of Key are tall, strongly built, having the fore-
head broad and slanting backward, dark eyes with heavy black
lashes, a large but well-shaped nose, high cheek-bones, and
broad mouth, with the under lip more or less projecting, black
and brown colored beard, and long, wavy, but fine curled black
hair, mixed with several lighter or darker shades of brown,
reaching to the shoulder and projecting all round the head
like a mop. Their skin is rather dark, but of a lighter hue
than that of the Papuans of New Guinea. Formerly, their cloth-
ing was the same as that used by the Alfueros of Ceram and
Borneo; but, since the establishment of the European colony,
both their clothing and manner of living have become more
elaborate. Mixtures have taken place between some of them and
the Papuans of New Guinea, resulting in the formation of a stock
which is found in all parts of the islands.

The natives live in huts built on poles of strong and hard tim-
ber or thick bamboo; and a very few houses of chiefs are con-
structed of timber. The huts are built several feet above the
ground, for protection against the swarms of vermin that come up
during the southwest monsoon, and to secure a free current of air
and consequent coolness. The sides of these houses are covered
in either by attap, which consists of the dried leaves of the sago-
palm doubled over a small bamboo about six feet long and laced
tightly to it by means of split cane; or with the stems of the
same palm-leaf, which, after being drilled and deprived of their
thorns, are placed vertically between two boards in such a way
that the hollow part of the stem fits tightly over the half-rounded
part of the succeeding one. In this way a very light but water-
tight outside covering is formed, and gives to the house a not un-
pleasant appearance, for the dried stems exhibit a brown gloss,
as if they were polished. The doorway, in the middle of the
front of the house, leads into a spacious room, which represents
the reception-room for visitors. On the floor of this room, which
is covered with split-bamboo matting of rather wide meshes, are
spread out other mats, made of fine grass or bark. Belonging to
each mat is a bolster, with a cover of bright calico print, having
its ends ornamented with embroidery. From each side of the re-
ception-room are openings leading into the other rooms. These
rooms are divided into sitting and bed rooms, and they are
adorned with fancy colored boxes made out of palm-leaves, and

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

having figures worked upon them with differently colored bark
and beads of small shells. Placed one upon another, these boxes
are good substitutes for cupboards and chests of drawers, while
a strong, roughly made timber chest, provided with a clumsy
lock of iron or brass, contains the family treasures, jewels, heir-
looms, weapons, and emblems. An assemblage of huts or houses
forms a village. The villages are surrounded by walls of coral,
and are for the most part situated on the sea-shore.

Each village has an allotment of land, the boundaries of which
are established by the chiefs. Here the native may fell his tim-
ber, cultivate a garden, or cut down the sago-palm, which fur-
nishes his principal food. The cocoanut-trees, however, are re-
garded as general property, and are under the guardianship of
chiefs, without whose orders not a nut may be plucked till har-
vest-time. Then, on a day appointed for this purpose, the whole
village will set out to gather them, when each one will receive a
number proportioned to his rank and station.

When a native child is strong enough to assist his parents in
their daily occupation, he has to accompany them to the garden,
the boat-building yard, or some other place of general work.
Children of from three to five years of age may be seen occupied
in trying their skill in carving ornamental figures such as are
used for the figure-heads of boats, or in cutting out vessels and
rigging them, or the boys will assist their fathers at the building
of a boat or a house. Although they are without all proper
drawing materials, the artistic and constructive talent is almost
universally manifested among them. The children are seen try-
ing their skill by drawing, on a smooth, flat surface of fine sand,
houses, animals, steam and sailing boats, and I have been always
struck by the symmetry of their work. The children are deemed
marriageable at fifteen years of age, but arrangements for mating
the female children are made as soon as may be after their birth.

When disputes relating to boundaries arise between different
villages, each of the quarreling districts elects a person and com-
mits him to the judgment of the god, who, it is believed, will let
the party in the wrong die within three months. If no harm be-
falls either party after the lapse of that time, the land in dispute
is divided equally.

The chief talent of the natives is for boat-building. The sym-
metrical construction of their vessels, large and small, would as-
tonish a European ship-builder, and is the more remarkable as
they have nothing but the most roughly shaped tools. All the
tools are made by natives of Teor. In nearly every village we
find a smith established, who is employed from morning till night
melting rusty nails in a charcoal-fire, which is kept burning by
means of a primitive pair of bellows moved by the operator’s

7

A CORNER OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIES. 68g

helpmate. This apparatus consists of two bamboo cylinders,
about two feet long, at the bottom of each of which a small bam-
boo conveys the current of air into a still smaller one, leading into
the charcoal-fire. Each of these bamboo cylinders contains a
spear of the same material, at the lower end of which are tied
bunches of feathers. Generally a native of Key will prefer the
rough workmanship of the tools made by the village blacksmith
to the finely finished and polished ones imported from Europe.

The natives are largely engaged in felling and selling timber.
For felling the trees the woodman uses a wedge-shaped axe only,
by which he is able to cut down the largest tree. After lopping
off all the branches and bark, he squares the trunk in such a skill-
ful though wasteful manner that, as a rule, the four sides repre-
sent exactly the same dimensions. The islands produce large
quantities of various kinds of very hard and soft timber, suitable
for different branches of building, but the most valued sort is the
bayam, or New Guinea teak, called by the natives by a Malay
word signifying iron-wood, because of its flexibility and durabil-
ity, and its immunity from the attacks of white ants. Mother-of-
pearl shell is found in the bays and inlets, and other valuable
shells are plentiful. Tortoise-shell is exported in very small
quantity.

On the perpendicular face of a cliff on the northwest coast of
Nuhu-roa are to be seen rude native drawings of various shapes
and meanings, chiseled in the rock, which appear to have been
once filled in with red pigment. It is a marvel how the chiseler
could have been suspended over these very steep rocks, so as to
be able to engrave the figures, The eye may distinctly perceive
such forms as a little sailing boat, a human head, hand, foot, star-
fish, tombstones, and many other objects; and it is strange that
similar figures are still drawn and painted on various articles in
use. Natives, on being questioned about these rock-engravings,
answer that they can not account for them, nor were their fathers
before them any wiser; but they think that the spirits of the dead
suspend themselves over the cliffs at midnight and engrave them.
All natives shun the spot, and by no means whatever can they
be induced to climb the cliff in order to copy these strange draw-
ings. No native can be persuaded to accompany a European to
this spot, where, according to their belief, the spirits hold their
meetings. Certain trees are also held sacred, and believed to be
the abode of an invisible god, to whom the native offers sacrifice
whenever any mishap occurs in his family, or when one of its
members leaves home to go over thesea, The sacrifices are made
in the following manner: Some cooked sago or rice is wrapped
up in a palm-leaf, and, before tying the same with a piece of split

cane in the shape of a parcel, the person sacrificing scrapes over
VOL, xxxv.—44

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the sago or rice, by means of a knife, file, or any other sharp-
edged stone, a little gold-dust off his ornaments. After this has
been done, he ties the parcel together and suspends it by means of
a split cane from a branch of the sacred tree, under fervent pray-
ers to his god. In some parts of the island the traveler will find
these sacred trees, ornamented from top to bottom, like a German
Christmas-tree, with these odd-looking palm-leaf parcels. In
other parts of the Key group there are still found public places
for sacrificing, consisting of a fanciful carved box, elevated on a
pole about four or five feet high. The sacrifice is conveyed
through a small opening in the box. Some places are shunned
by the natives, who prefer walking along distance out of their
direct way, to being obliged to pass the haunted spot where some
imaginary Satan and his followers are supposed to hold their
meetings.—Abridged from the Proceedings of the Royal Geograph-
acal Society.

SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING.

COMPANY of about one hundred and fifty gentlemen dis-

tinguished in science and literature sat down a few months
ago to a banquet in the Hotel Vendéme, Boston. The festival was
one tendered by his colleagues, classmates, and friends to Prof.
Joseph Lovering in honor of the distinction he enjoyed of hay-
ing served for fifty years as a professor in Harvard College. He
was the first professor who held that position for so long a time.
Previous to entering upon this office, he had served two years as
tutor; and, adding the two terms together, his was the second
longest period of consecutive service recorded in the history of
the institution. President Eliot presided at the banquet, and the
tables were occupied by members of the Board of Overseers, the
teaching faculty, and distinguished graduates and friends of the
oldest American institution of learning. The speakers were too
many to be specified here; and we shall have to be satisfied with
saying that their names are associated with what is best in the
thought and learning of the period. A similar scene was wit-
nessed in this city at the dinner of the Harvard Club on the
21st of February, 1889, when Prof, Lovering, being a guest, re-
ceived congratulations.

JOSEPH LOVERING was born in Charlestown, Mass., December
25, 1813. His father was surveyor of ice, wood, and lumber. He
attended a grammar school of his native town, and seems there
to have outrun the capacity of his teachers; for it is recorded of

him that he went through Colburn’s Algebra by himself, none of

ee See

SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 691

them having any knowledge of the subject: He was afterward
fitted for college under his pastor, the Rev. Dr. James Walker,
subsequently Professor and President of Harvard University, to
whom he recited daily, entered the sophomore class at Harvard
in 1830, and was graduated in 1833. He entered the Divinity
School in Cambridge in the fall of 1834, and remained there two
years, but was practically employed in teaching almost constantly
after graduation: in the first year, in a small private school in
Charlestown; in 183435, as assistant to Prof. Peirce in the in-
struction of the college classes in mathematics; in 18356, as
proctor and instructor in mathematics; in 1836-’37, as tutor in
mathematics and lecturer in natural philosophy; and from 1838
to 1888, as Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philoso-
phy. Retiring from this active professorship after fifty years
of service, he became, as he still is, Hollis Professor Emeritus.
He acted as Regent in 1853-54 during Prof. Felton’s absence in
Europe; succeeded to that office in 1857, and held it till 1870; but
passed a year’s leave of absence—given to him in consideration of
his long and uninterrupted services to the college—in 186869, in
Europe. When the Jefferson Physical Laboratory was opened
in 1884, he was appointed its director, and during the four years
of his administration made annual reports of its activities.

While his college duties demanded the largest share of his
time and his best thoughts, he found and improved opportunities
to make a good record of other work—all for the increase and
dissemination of knowledge. Among these extra-collegiate exer-
cises were nine courses, of twelve lectures each, and each lecture
delivered to two different audiences in the earlier years, on
astronomy and physics, at the Lowell Institute; shorter courses
of lectures at the Smithsonian Institution, the Peabody Institute
of Baltimore, and the Charitable Mechanics’ Institution of Boston ;
and single lectures in different towns and cities in New England.
He edited, in 1842, at the request of the author, a new edition of
Farrar’s “ Electricity and Magnetism.” One of his essays on the
aurora borealis, in the “Memoirs” of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, fills a thick quarto volume. Other memoirs,
on terréstrial magnetism, the aurora, the determination of trans-
atlantic longitudes, etc., published in the same series, attest the.
fertility of his researches.

As Permanent Secretary of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, from 1854 to 1873, Prof. Lovering edited
fifteen volumes of its “Proceedings.” Retiring from this office
on being elected President of the Association for 1873, he put
upon record that, when he entered upon its duties at the eighth
meeting of the Association, the body had an annual income of
only a few hundred dollars, and was dependent upon the gener-

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

osity of the cities where it met for the publication of its “ Pro-
ceedings.” Since that time it had been able to pay all its expenses,
had acquired a valuable stock of “ Proceedings,” and possessed a
cash balance amounting (with interest) to more than two thou-
sand dollars. As president of the Portland meeting of 1873, he
emphasized, in his reception address, as the one object of the Asso-
ciation, the advancement of science in the United States. “Few
of us,” he said, “can aspire to the honor of being discoverers of
the laws of nature, in the high sense of that phrase. But no one,
however humble his capacities, or however limited his opportu-
nities, who labors for science, will fail to advance it and be re-
warded by it. We meet together from year to year, the veterans
in science, with the younger aspirants for distinction, and many
more who long to catch the earliest tidings of the last word which
Science has to say in regard to the earth under our feet or the
stars above us; a few to speak but many more to listen; but each
doing his part to advance science, either by active research or
encouraging sympathy. Our brief meetings allow us no leisure
to listen to what is old or to what may be read in books, or to
glittering generalities, or ingenious speculations on the universe,
unsupported by evidence and individual investigation. But any
new fact, however microscopic, any new investigation, whether it
concerns a planet or an atom, any new experiment in which a law
of nature is made more palpable and convincing, finds with us a
ready welcome.” The members, he added, did not concern them-
selves with the utility of the truths which were communicated at
these meetings. If they had no immediate practical value, it was
sufficient for them that they were true and revealed the plans of
the Creator. “It is impossible for the man of science to serve
two masters, the Kingdom of Nature and Mammon. It is a dan-
gerous thing for him to be thinking of the utility of his discov-
eries, or of the pecuniary profit which may be made out of them,”
In his retiring address, in 1874, which was published in the
“Monthly ” for December, 1874, and January, 1875, Prof. Lovering
spoke of “Instruments in Physical Progress ” and “ Mathematical
Investigations in Physics,” and sketched the resources and present
attitude of the physical sciences. He presented the view that
“the great problem of the day is how to subject all physical phe-
nomena to dynamical laws. With all the experimental devices
and all the mathematical appliances of this generation, the human
mind has been baffled in its attempts to construct a universal
science of physics. But nothing will discourage it; when foiled
in one direction, it will attack in another. Science is not destruc-
tive, but progressive; while its theories change, the facts remain.
Its generalizations are widening and deepening from age to age.
We may extend to all the theories of physical science the remark

io teat: ie =.

ee ee a

SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 693

of Grote, which Challis quotes in favor of his own: ‘Its fruit-
fulness is its correctibility.’ Instead of being disheartened by
difficulties, the true man of science will congratulate himself in
the words of Vauvenargues, that he lives in a world fertile in
obstacles. Immortality would be no boon if there were not
something left to discover as well as to love!”

THE OBSERVATORY OF HARVARD UNIvERSITY.—M. W. C.
Bond started a private observatory at his house in Dorchester,
where he observed eclipses and occultations, as far back as 1820.
In 1840 he was induced by President Quincy to remove to Cam-
bridge with his transit-instrument and other appointments, which
were supplemented by some telescopes, sextants, etc., belonging to
the college. Prof. Lovering was associated with him in the man-
agement of this primitive observatory. Its location was in a pri-
vate house belonging to the college, in which Mr. Bond and Prof.
Lovering took up their residence. Humboldt had induced the
Royal Society of London to co-operate in making simultaneous
observations on the elements of terrestrial magnetism in Great
Britain and its colonies. The only stations on this Western Con-
tinent were at Toronto, Canada, and in Philadelphia and Cam-
bridge. Prof. Bache, afterward Chief of the United States Coast
Survey, conducted the observations in Philadelphia. Mr. Bond
and Prof. Lovering had charge of the observations in Cambridge.
These observations were to be made simultaneously all over the
earth, and with instruments constructed according to the Gauss
pattern. Cambridge was supplied with a set of these instru-
ments by the generosity of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences.

As, on one day of each month, observations were to be made
every five minutes on three different instruments, day and night,
for the purpose of obtaining the curves of diurnal variation in the
magnetic elements, the assistance of a few competent and zealous
undergraduates was freely offered and gladly accepted. Of these,
Thomas Hill, afterward President of Harvard College, and Ben-
jamin A. Gould, now the distinguished astronomer, deserve spe-
cial mention. Prof. Benjamin Peirce rendered valuable service,
not only by assisting in the observations on the special days of
each month, but in applying the Gauss theory to the calculation
of the magnetic elements for Cambridge. Mr. Hill was employed
in reducing the weekly means to empirical formule by the method
of Prof. Peirce.

Profs. Peirce and Lovering were co-editors of the “ Mathe-
matical Miscellany,” published at Cambridge, and devoted to pure
and applied mathematics. The essays contributed by Prof. Lov-
ering are enumerated in the annexed catalogue of his publica-
tions. A gentleman who has achieved a world-wide reputation in

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

science has recently written of Prof. Lovering’s articles that they
impressed him as few others had ever done. “It will surprise him
to know it; yet it is true that the ideas then presented, and with
an elegance worthy of their breadth and power, affected the whole
tenor and tendency of my thoughts, and thus of my subsequent
life. At this moment I could repeat by memory long passages
from these articles. They were upon ‘ The Internal Equilibrium
of Bodies, ‘The Application of Mathematical Analysis to Physical
Research,’ ‘The Divisibility of Matter, etc.” And he compares
the style of parts of them with that of the most classic passages
in Babbage’s “ Ninth Bridgewater Treatise.”

Mr. R. W. Emerson published the following notice for the
“Dial” :* “We rejoice in the appearance of the first number of
this quarterly journal edited by Prof. Peirce. Into its mathe-
matics we have not ventured; but the chapters on astronomy and
physics we read with great advantage and refreshment. Espe-
cially we thank Prof. Lovering for the beautiful essay on the
‘Internal Equilibrium and Motion of Bodies, which is the most
agreeable contribution to scientific literature which has fallen
under our eye since Sir Charles Bell’s book on the hand, and
brings to mind the clear, transparent writings of Davy and Play-
fair. Surely this was not written to be read in a corner, and we
anticipate the best success for this new journal.”

Prof. Lovering is a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in Boston ;. was its corresponding secretary for many
years; was afterward its vice-president, and its president since 1880.
He is also.a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the
American Historical Society of Philadelphia, of the California
Academy of Sciences, and of the Buffalo Historical Society. In
connection with the work of the United States Coast Survey from
1867 to 1876, he had charge of the computations for determining
differences of longitude in the United States and across the
Atlantic Ocean, by means of the land and cable lines of telegraph.
He was for some years one of the trustees of the Tyndall fund for
the endowment of scientific research, and is now one of the
trustees of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology.
Besides the papers already mentioned, Prof. Lovering contributed
other articles to the “ Memoirs” and “ Proceedings” of the Ameri-
can Academy, and scientific articles and reviews to the “ Proceed-
ings of the American Association,” the “ American Journal of
Science,” the “ Journal of the Franklin Institute,” the “ American
Almanac,” the “North American Review,” the “Christian Ex-
aminer,” “Old and New,” and “The Popular Science Monthly.”
The following is a list of these contributions:

* Vol. iii, p. 131.

—S-

;
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IN i aeiah Xara

SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 695

1. “*An Account of the Magnetic Observations made at the Magnetic Observa-
tory of Harvard College.” In two parts (‘‘ Memoirs of the American Academy,”
vol. ii, 1846.)

2. “ On the Secular Periodicity of the Aurora Borealis” (ibid., vol. ix).

8. ‘On the Determination of Transatlantic Longitudes by Means of the Tele-
graphic Oables” (ibid., 1867). .

4, “Catalogue of Auroras observed, mostly at Cambridge, after 1838” (ibid.,
vol. x, 1868).

5. “On the Periodicity of the Aurora Borealis.” In two parts (ibid., with
plates, 1868).

6. ‘*On the Causes of the Difference in the Strength of Ordinary Magnets and
Electro-Magnets, of the same Size and Shape.” (‘' Proceedings of the American
Academy,” vol. ii).

7. “On the Law of Continuity ” (ibid.).

8. “ On the Aneroid Barometer ” (ibid.).

9. ‘Electrical Experiment ”’ (ibid., vol. iv).

10. “* On the Connection of Electricity with Tornadoes”? (ibid., vol. ii).

11. “On Corons and Halos” (ibid.).

12. ‘On the Spectroscope ” (ibid., vol. iii).

18. “On the Bioscope ” (ibid.).

14. “ Apparatus for Rapid Rotations ” (ibid.).

15. “Shape of Luminous Spots in Solar Eclipses” (ibid.).

16. “Notice of the Death of John Farrar” (ibid.).

17. “ Notice of the Death of Melloni” (ibid.).

18. ‘‘New Apparatus and Experiments in Optics and Acoustics” (ibid.).

19. “‘ Arago’s Opinion of Table-Moving ”’ (ibid.).

20. ‘¢On Fessel’s Gyroscope” (ibid.).

21. ‘“ Apparatus to regulate the Electric Light” (ibid.),

22. “Does the Mississippi River flow Up-hill?” (ibid.).

23. ‘Report on Hedgcock’s Quadrant ”’ (ibid.).

24. “On the Boomerang ” (ibid., vol. iv).

25. “ Report on Meteorological Observations” (ibid.).

26. **On the Ocean Cable” (ibid.).

27. “On the Polarization of the Light of Comets” (ibid.).

28. “Report on the Polar Expedition of Dr. I. I. Hayes” (ibid.).

29. “On Records of the Aurora Borealis ” (ibid.).

30. “ First Observations on the Aurora in New England ” (ibid.).

31. “Notice of the Death of Biot” (ibid., vol. ii).

32. “On the Velocity of Light and the Sun’s Distance ” (ibid.).

838. ‘Notice of the Death of O. M. Mitchell” (ibid.).

84. “On the Optical Method of studying Sound ”’ (ibid., vol. vii).

35. “On the Periodicity of the Aurora Borealis” (ibid., vol. viii, 1878).

86. ‘On the French Republican Oalendar ” (ibid.).

87. “ Application of Electricity to the Motion of Tuning-Forks”’ (ibid.).

88. “* On Optical Meteorology ” (ibid.).

39. “ On Transatlantic Longitudes ” (ibid.).

40. “ Notice of the Death of William Mitchell ” (ibid.).

41. “Notice of the Death of Faraday ” (ibid).

42. “* Notice of the Death of David Brewster ” (ibid.).

43. “ Notice of the Death of J. W. F. Herschel” (ibid.).

44, “ Notice of the Death of Christopher Hansteen ’’ (ibid., vol. ix).

696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

45. “ Notice of the Death of Auguste A. de la Rive ” (ibid.).

46. ‘* Notice of the Death of James Walker ” (ibid., vol. x).

47. “‘ Notice of the Death of Joseph Winlock ” (ibid., vol. xi).

48. ‘Notice of the Death of Alexis Caswell” (ibid., vol. xiii).

49. “Notice of the Death of John H. Temple” (ibid., vol. xiii).

50. ‘ Notice of the Death of Joseph Henry ” (ibid., vol. xiv).

51. “ Notice of the Death of H. W. Dove” (ibid., vol. xv).

52. ‘ Address as President on Presenting the eomnaed Medal to J. Willard
Gibbs” (ibid., vol. xvi).

53. “* Anticipations of the Lissajous Curves” (ibid.).

54. “Notices of the Deaths of Richard H. Dana, of Edward Desor, and of
John W. Draper ” (ibid., vol. xvii).

55. “Notice of the Death of Sir Edward Sabine ” (ibid., vol. xix).

56. “ Address of the President on Presenting the Rumford Medal to H. A.
Rowland ” (ibid.).

57. “ Address as President on presenting the Rumford Medal to S. P. Lang-
ley ” (ibid., vol. xxii).

58. ‘‘ Notice of the Death of Gustav Robert Kirchhoff” (ibid., vol. xxiii),

58*, ‘“ Address as President on presenting the Rumford Medal to A. A. Michel-
son” (ibid., vol. xxiv).

58**, “The ‘Mécanique Céleste’ of Laplace, and its Translation by Bowditch”
(ibid., vol. xxiv).

59. “On the Electro-dynamic Forces” (‘“‘ Proceedings of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science ” (vol. ii).

60. ‘‘On a Curious Phenomenon relating to Vision” (ibid.).

61. “Ona Singular Case of Interference in the Hye itself” (ibid., vol. vii).

62. “On a Modification of Soleil’s Polarizing Apparatus ” (ibid.).

63. “On the Australian Weapon called the Boomerang ” (ibid., vol. xii).

64. “On the Optical Method of studying Sound ” (ibid., vol. xvi).

65. “On the Periodicity of the Aurora Borealis” (ibid., vol. xvi, 1868).

66. “Sympathetic Vibrations between Tuning-Forks and Stretched Cords”
(ibid., vol. xvi).

67. “On Methods of Illustrating Optical Meteorology ” (ibid., vol. xix, 1871).

68. “On Sympathetic Vibrations ” (ibid., vol. xxi, and ‘‘ Journal of the Frank-
lin Institute,” May, 1878).

69. “ Addresses as President at the Portland Meeting” (Proceedings of the
A, A. A.5., vol. xxiii),

70. “On a New Way of illustrating the Vibrations of Air in Organ-Pipes ”
(ibid., vol. xxiii).

71. “ Address as Retiring President, A. A. A. S.” (ibid., vol. xxiii, republished
in “The Popular Science Monthly,” ‘“‘ American Journal of Science,” and the
“ London Philosophical Magazine ”’),

72. “On a New Method of measuring the Velocity of Electricity ” (‘‘ Proceed-
ings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,” vol. xxiv,
also “‘ Journal de Physique,” tome vi).

73. “Shooting Stars” (“ American Journal of Science,” vol. xxxv).

74. “The American Prime Meridian ” (ibid., N. S., vol. ix, 1850).

75. “The Aneroid Barometer” (ibid., N. S., vol. ix, 1850.)

76. “On the Velocity of Light and the Sun’s:Distance” (ibid., N. 8., vol.
XXxXvi).

77. “ Melloni’s Researches on Radiant Heat” (“‘ American Almanac,” 1850).

a

SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 697

78. “ Animal Electricity ” (ibid., 1851).
79. ‘Recent Discoveries in Astronomy ”’ (ibid., 1852).
80. “ Comets” (ibid., 1853).
_81, “ Atmospherical Electricity ” (ibid., 1854 and 1855).
. 82. “ Lightning and Lightning-Rods ” (ibid., 1856).
83. “ Terrestrial Magnetism” (ibid., 1857).
84. “ Theories of Terrestrial Magnetism” (ibid., 1858).
85. “On the Boomerang” (ibid., 1859).
86. “On the Aurora Borealis and Australis” (ibid., 1860).
87. “On Meteorology ” (ibid., 1861).
88. ‘On the Pressure of the Atmosphere and the Barometer ”’ (ibid., 1862).

REVIEWS, ETC.

89. “ Guyot’s Physical Geography ” (“‘ Christian Examiner,” vol. xlvii).

90. “ Humboldt’s Cosmos” (ibid., vol. xlviii).

91. ‘Skepticism in Science ” (ibid., vol. li).

92. “Spiritual Mechanics ” (ibid., vol. lv).

93. “Thompson and Kaemtz on Meteorology ” (“‘ North American Review,”
vol, xxi).

94, ‘Elementary Works on Physical Science” (ibid., vol. Lxxii).

95. ‘“ Michael Faraday ” (“ Old and New,” vol. i).

96. “Reports on Lighthouses.” By Benjamin Peirce and Joseph Lovering
(“Journal of the Franklin Institute,” vol. xviii).

97. ‘On the Internal Equilibrium and Motion of Bodies” (‘‘ Cambridge
Mathematical Miscellany,” vol. i).

98. “On the Application of Mathematical Analysis to Researches in the Phys-
ical Sciences ” (ibid.).

99. ‘* Encke’s Comet” (ibid.),

100. ‘ The Divisibility of Matter ” (ibid.).

101. “‘ Boston and Science ” (“‘ Memorial History of Boston,” vol. iv).

102. “ Article on the Telegraph ” (‘‘ American Oyclopadia,” last edition).

103. ‘‘ Address at the Dedication of the Mural Monument to the Memory of
Dr. James Walker,” in the Harvard Church, Charlestown.

SUBJECTS OF LECTURES AT THE LOWELL INSTITUTE.

1840-41. “ Electricity and Magnetism.”

1841-"42. ‘ Mechanics.”

1842-"43, ‘‘ Astronomy.”

184844, “ Optics.”

1845-46. “ Astronomy.”

185854. “ Electricity and Magnetism.”

1859-60. “ Astronomy.”

1865-66. ‘‘ Light and Sound.”

1879-80. ‘ Connection of the Physical Sciences.”

Prof. Lovering also edited six volumes, from V to X inclusive,
and part of Volume XI, of the “ Memoirs ” of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences; also the “ Proceedings” of the same
Academy, Volumes VII, VIII, and XVII.

698

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

MR. WALLACE ON “ DARWINISM.”
HE recently published work of Mr.
Alfred Russel Wallace on ‘ Dar

winism ” furnishes a timely and weighty
answer to those who, following the rash
lead of the Duke of Argyll, have lately
been maintaining that the doctrine of
natural selection is wholly unable to
explain the development of species, and
that, as a theory, it has had its day.
Far from conceding anything to this
noisy school, Mr. Wallace is disposed to
make even larger claims for the potency
of this principle than Darwin himself
did, and certainly larger than Mr. Spen-
cer is to-day disposed to allow. He
holds that we only have to look closely
enough at the facts in order to see the
influence of natural selection every-
where, and to convince ourselves that
it alone has presided over the whole
development of vegetable and animal
forms. It is needless to say that Mr.
Wallace is a naturalist of the very first
rank, and that his reasonings do not
lack for facts and illustrations to enforce
them. The work he has now given to
the world is an exceedingly valuable
repertory of information bearing on the
questions he discusses, and is written in
a style at once popular and exact. In
giving it the title ‘‘ Darwinism,” he once
more evidences the generosity of nature
which led him thirty years ago to waive
the claims he might have urged as dis-
coverer of the principle of the variation
of species by means of natural selection.
He recognizes that Darwin has made
that whole field of investigation pecul-
iarly his own; and he is, therefore,
very willing that Darwin’s name should
stand indissolubly and exclusively con-
nected with the great revolution in
speculative biology which our genera-
tion has witnessed.

The two principal questions which

Mr. Wallace’s work will bring into
prominence are (1) whether the ex-
tremely wide claims he puts forth on
behalf of natural selection are fully
made good; and (2) whether his views
in regard to the mode of development
of man’s higher intellectual and moral
nature are well founded. Upon the first
point, as we have already hinted, Mr.
Wallace comes into direct collision with
Mr. Spencer. The latter considers that
the doctrine of natural selection can not
account for certain cases of variation,

and that we must have recourse to the .

supplementary doctrine of use and dis-
use. Mr. Wallace takes up the instances
cited by Mr. Spencer, and endeavors to
show that they may be explained with-
out calling in any other law than that
of natural selection. He admits that, as
regards those ‘‘lower organisms which
consist of simple cells and formless
masses of protoplasm,” the action of
the environment is very marked, and
that the variations it produces on
individual forms may be transmitted
by inheritance; but he does not con-
sider that we can argue from cases in
which the environment acts thus pow-
erfully on the whole life of the organ-
ism, and, of course, necessarily on its
reproductive system, so far as it can
be said to have a system, to causes
where the outward structure alone of
well-established types is affected by
change of habit. Such modifications he
does not think are transmissible by in-
heritance ; spontaneous variation and
natural selection alone are adequate, in
his opinion, to produce permanent va-
riation. The question is manifestly an
obscure one, calling for patient and ex-
haustive investigation. If changes pro-
duced by the environment in the very
lowest forms may be transmitted by in-

heritance, as Wallace admits, then the

EDITOR’S TABLE.

question is, at what point the line is to
be drawn. How far down may we
come in the development of type before
this principle ceases to act? Again,
how can it be positively ascertained that
changes of nutrition, or changes in the
general balance of function, may not act
on the reproductive system so as to pro-
duce inheritable variation? Mr. Wal-
lace does well to stand up for the doc-
trine of natural selection, and to insist
that it shall not needlessly be put aside;
but the general doctrine of evolution
would not suffer if the exceptions to the
action of natural selection contended for
by Mr. Spencer should ultimately be
maintained.

Refusing to admit any other general
' law than that of natural selection as a
key to the development of species, and
finding, as he asserts, that Jaw inade-
quate to explain man’s moral and intel-
lectual nature, or rather the extreme
differences existing between individuals
in respect to moral and intellectual qual-
ities, Mr. Wallace summons to his as-
sistance the theory of a special ‘‘ spir-
itual essence of nature, capable of pro-
gressive development under favorable
conditions.” To explain an unknown
thing by one still more unknown has
never been considered a quite satisfac-
tory logical performance; and we can
not help feeling a little surprised that,
in a purely scientific treatise, our author
should resort to such a method. ‘On
the hypothesis,” he says, ‘‘ of this spir-
itual nature superadded to the animal
nature of man we are able to under-
stand much that is otherwise mysterious
or unintelligible in regard to him.” The
trouble is that “this spiritual nature,”
as it does not lend itself to definition,
is not and can not be an object of know!]-
edge, and therefore can not serve as a
scientific hypothesis at all. It may,
however, be questioned whether Mr.
Wallace is not untrue to his own prin-
ciples when he says that the differences
in moral and intellectual attributes be-
tween different individuals are greater

699

than can exist under the rule of natural
selection. Who is to set the limits of
spontaneous variation in any species,
and, above all, in the most complex and
highly organized species, man? In the
lower tribes individuals departing in a
marked manner from the average type
are generally doomed to destruction; but
in human society it is different. Human
society is itself an organism of ever-in-
creasing complexity as we pass from the
lower to the higher races; and in the
social organism there is room for an
infinite variety of tastes, accomplish-
ments, aptitudes, and powers. A man
need not be a great mathematical gen-
ius or have a surpassing talent for
music in order to survive; neither does
an extraordinary development in either
direction necessarily lead to his extinc-
tion. A place can generally be found
for every man whose nature is not ab-
solutely anti-social. Thus extreme vari-
ations are preserved, and the qualities
they imply are kept, as it were, in cir-
culation in the social body, ready to
manifest themselves under suitable con-
ditions. The range of variation in men
would probably be greater than it is
were it not for the fact that the law of
natural selection is at work more or less
at all times in suppressing both superi-
orities and inferiorities. It was an old
pastime of a certain venerable race to
stone their prophets; and one of their
wisest men has left on record the cau-
tion: “Be not righteous overmuch,
neither make thyself overwise: why
shouldst thou destroy thyself?” Nor
has the danger of excessive righteous-
ness altogether vanished in our own
time, as Mr. Spencer in his essay on
‘“The Morals of Trade”’ bears impress-
ive witness. But, on the other hand,
there are dangers in excessive inferi-
ority. After uttering his caution against
over-righteousness the Hebrew moralist
goes on to say: ‘Be not overmuch
wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
shouldst thou die before thy. time?”
And to-day, as then, the man who is

700

overmuch wicked or foolish generally
meets an early fate. The law of natural
selection is, therefore, manifestly at
work in controlling the moral and in-
tellectual development of society; and
if, in spite of this, there is a much wider
variation between human individuals
than obtains in the lower orders of ani-
mal life, that is just what, considering
the extreme complexity of the social
organism, we should have expected.

THE COACH OF CIVILIZATION.

Tue author of that popular book
“* Looking Backward” has given a graph-
ic description of present-day civilization,
as he understands it, by comparing it to
a coach in or on which the wealthy
classes ride while the working classes
drag it over heavy roads and up steep
ascents. It would almost seem as if
the author had been more concerned to
write what the French call wne belle
page than to represent things as they
really are, otherwise the picture would
have been somewhat differently drawn.
Nothing is told us of the means where-
by seats on the coach are obtained nor
of the means by which they are lost.
There is no hint that frugality, prudence,
self-control, readiness of resource, and
social usefulness, are in general the qual-
ities by which men rise to competence,
or that it is the lack of these qualities,
and often of any disposition to possess
them, that consigns some men to the
labor of the rope. We do not read that
the man who is on the coach has often
helped to make better conditions of life
for multitudes of his fellow-men, nor is
a hint dropped that many of those who
get the credit of riding are really them-
selves laboring hard to help the vehicle
forward. There is nothing in the whole
description that answers to the case of
those intelligent, efficient, and self-re-
specting workers who, without reaping
wealth, obtain a large measure of com-
fort and ample means of self-improve-
ment. We get no hint of social vices

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that do more to make the lot of their
victims difficult, if not hopeless, than
anything in the constitution of society.
Mr. Bellamy might, had he chosen, have
introduced these points. They are so
obvious that he could not have over-
looked them, and we must therefore
conclude that he omitted them on liter-
ary grounds. The way to be tiresome,
said Voltaire, is to say everything; and
Mr. Bellamy did not want to be tire-
some, so he simply gave us a picture of
a coach crowded with idlers and dragged
by the industrious under the lash of
hunger. Well, Mr. Bellamy has pro-
duced the effects he aimed at, His coach
has been very widely talked about and
considerably admired; so perhaps now
he might take into consideration those
who are not so impatient of details as
to prefer a misleading comparison,
dashed off with a few bold strokes, to a
more correct one carefully elaborated.
We know he could make another coach
for us if he tried, and we should very
much like him to try.

Far be it from us to say that society
as we see it to-day has reached the acme
of perfection; there is much in it we
are deeply persuaded that is faulty and
that might be improved. We want
greater economy in production and—no
one need hesitate to say——greater equal-
ity in distribution. We want a greater
sense of social responsibility on the part
of the holders of wealth, and we want
especially a diminution of the senseless
passion for display. These things we
believe are now on the way, though it
might be hard to discern the signs of the
one last mentioned. Society is becom-
ing every day more closely knit in the
bonds of a common sympathy; the self-
respect of the average man is daily in-
creasing and public opinion is becoming
at once more rational and more humane,
What we have chiefly to contend with
to-day is not the idleness or extrava-
gance of a few, but a general lack of
knowledge as to the best methods of so-
cial co-operation. Where Mr. Bellamy

LITERARY NOTICES.

errs, in our opinion, is in making the
wealthy portion of society a simple bur-
den upon the poor. Such is not the
case. On'the contrary, it is the men of
wealth who have done more than any
other class to direct labor into useful
_ channels and generally to vivify and fer-
tilize the industry of the world. If Mr.
Bellamy could amend his story of the
coach so as to bring this undoubted fact
into prominence, he would do more jus-
tice to the century in which he lives, and
take a little of the sting from the dia-
tribes of his Dr. Barton.

LITERARY NOTICES.

EpucarTion 1n THE Unirep Srares: Irs His-
TORY FROM THE HaRwiest SETTLEMENTS.
By Ricnarp G. Boonr. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 402. Price, $1.50.
Tuts is the eleventh volume of the “In-

ternational Education Series,” and is char-

acterized by the general editor of that se-
ries as the first noteworthy attempt to pre-
sent the subject, and as forming “a tol-
erably complete inventory of what exists,
as well as an account of its origin and de-
velopment.” We find it a systematic and

comprehensive treatise, presenting the im-

portant facts in their bearing upon one an-

other and their relations to contemporary
conditions. The history is divided into the

Colonial and the Revolutionary periods and

the period of Reorganization, to which is

added a review of “Current Educational In-
terests.” The discussion of “The Colonial

Period ” comprises the history of the earli-

est American schools, of colonial colleges,

and of colonial school systems. Under

“The Revolutionary Period” are sketched

the conditions of elementary, secondary, and

collegiate education during the time in-
cluded. The third part, “The Period of

Reorganization,” includes accounts of the

transition from the old to the new, with its

centralizing tendencies, the agencies and
methods for the preparation of teachers, the
development of the course of instruction in
the more recent colleges, the aspects of pro-
fessional, technological, and special educa-
tion, the growth of supplemental institu-
tions, learned societies and libraries, and the

701

relations of Government and education.
“Current Educational Interests” embrace
“Compulsory School Attendance,” ‘The
Gradation of Schools,” ‘Education in the
South,” and “The Higher Education of
Women.” To each chapter is appended a
bibliography. The author’s aim has been
“to suggest lines of thought for the teacher
and sources of information, and, avoiding
mere description on the one side and per-
sonal criticism on the other, to exhibit faith-
fully the development of contemporary in-
stitutions and educational forces, with some-
thing of their national setting.” The editor,
Dr. Harris, sees in the trend of the educa-
tional movement, as disclosed in this his-
tory, a tendency from private, endowed, and
parochial schools, toward the assumption of
education by the state, away from isolated
efforts and toward system and supervision,
and in methods toward the adaptation of the
matter of instruction to the mind of the
child and toward improved discipline. The
entire educational idea of the people, too,
“has progressed in the direction of divine
charity,” as is exemplified in the greater
attention paid to the education of women
and to institutions for unfortunates. The
author finds our educational system still
very imperfect, and notices as problems yet
unsolved or not provided for the means of
securing a supply of qualified teachers; a
way, while shaping the understanding mind,
of bringing up youth with sound bodies and
a love for truth; the relation which the pub-
lie schools should sustain to industrial train-
ing; questions concerning infant and pri-
mary and free public higher and profes-
sional education; extra-school training; and
the constitution of a citizenship education.
A hopeful outlook is discerned in the fact
that common-school questions are being
studied by college presidents and professors
as related to their own labors, and by econo-
mists and historians.

Indoor Stupies. By Joun Burroveus. Bos-
ton and New York: Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. Pp. 256. Price, $1.25.

Mr. Burrovaus is best known as a writer
about Nature, or outdoor subjects. In that
department he has gained a position among
the select representative authors of our coun-
try. Completely at home amid rural sur-

702

roundings, communing with Nature, and then
drawing from the hidden stores of his mind
what he has absorbed from her, independ-
ent in thought and thoroughly American,
and pithy and vigorous in expression, he
found an audience as soon as he took the
platform from which he was best fitted to
speak; and that audience has been growing
ever since. In the ‘‘Egotistical Chapter,”
which forms one of the “studies,” he relates
how, like many other authors who have after-
ward achieved success, he groped in unlucky
experiments before he found his proper
place. He began by reading books of es-
says and trying te catch their style; and
wrote essayish papers on subjects whose in-
terest was so universal that it was spread
out very thin, to have them sent back by the
journals to which he offered them; and final-
ly took to outdoor themes “to break the
spell of Emerson’s influence, and get upon
ground of his own.” His style, which is of
the most forcible, and in which strong
thoughts are condensed into few words of
most direct meaning, is the result of much
study and discipline, in which, he says, “I
have taught myself always to get down to
the quick of my mind at once, and not fum-
ble about amid the husks at the surface.”
Of late years he has been giving more at-
tention to literary topics and subjects of
scientific discussion, although in these also
the nature-side appears most prominent to
his view. The present volume is largely
made up of articles of this character. In
them he displays the same independence
that characterized his earlier work—a de-
termination to say what he thinks, without
giving himself worry concerning what oth-
ers may have said or thought. In two of
the longer essays—“‘ Matthew Arnold’s Criti-
cism”’ and ‘“‘ Arnold’s View of Emerson and
Carlyle ””—the literary side is alone conspic-
uous; in two others, “‘ Henry D. Thoreau”
and “Gilbert White’s Book,” we have the
student of nature appreciating and criticis-
ing his two most illustrious co-workers in
the same line. ‘Science and Literature” is
an attempt to measure the value of science
in culture, in which the author indicates
that “the final value of physical science is
its capability to foster in us noble ideals,
and to lead us to new and larger views of
moral and spiritual truths. The extent to

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

which it is able to do this measures its
value to the spirit—measures its value to
the educator. That the great sciences can
do this, that they are capable of becoming
instruments of pure culture, instruments to
refine and spiritualize the whole moral na-
ture, is no doubt true; but that they can
ever usurp the place of the’ humanities or
general literature in this respect is one of
those mistaken notions which seem to be
gaining ground so fast in our time.” In
“Science and the Poets” Hmerson is held
up as the poet whose work has been most
influenced by science. ‘A Malformed Gi-
ant” is a brave criticism of Victor Hugo’s
excesses of style and manner. Of the eight
“Brief Essays,” “The Biologist’s Tree of
Life” touches a scientific subject, and “ An
Open Door” relates to the question of a
superintending Providence.

Riversipe Lisrary ror YounG Propie. No.
8. Brirps THROUGH AN OpERa-Guiass. By
Fiorence A. Merriam. Pp. 223. Ur
AND Down THE Brooxs. By Mary E.
Bamrorp. Pp. 222. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. Price, 75 cents each.

Tur “Riverside Library” series is de-
signed especially for boys and girls who are
laying the foundation of private libraries,
and is intended to consist not of ephemeral
publications, but of “books that will last.”
It will comprise principally books of history,
biography, mechanics, travel, natural his-
tory, adventure, and kindred themes, with
fiction not excluded, presenting the various
subjects in an attractive manner, but not in
the “ Childese dialect.” The author of
“Birds through an Opera-Glass,” recogniz-
ing the perplexities of young observers, has
tried to supply their wants, the chief of
which in studying birds is the means of dis-
tinguishing and identifying them without
having to become ornithologists or to grapple
with the technical terms in the text-hooks.
The opera-glass supplies a means of looking
at the creatures as if from a shorter distance
than it is possible to approach them, and
will or should supply the points by which
they are to be recognized. To these points
are added such facts as lie within reach of
the young observer’s opportunities respect-
ing the song, nesting, and general behavior
of the bird. The robin supplies the stand-
ard by which all the other birds are com- —

LITERARY NOTICES.

pared. Some simple and easily followed
rules for observation are given. With these,
the opera-glass, and his own good sense,
the young observer is introduced by the aid
of the pleasing descriptions to some seventy
species. To these are added a table, which
the author calls “ pigeon-holes,” for the clas-
sification of the birds, synopses of general
family characteristics and of arbitrary clas-
sifications, and a list of books for reference.

“Up and Down the Brooks” is the story
told in a similar spirit of the insect life in
and upon the water. The specimens serving
as types were collected in the brooks of one
of the counties of California; but the author
judges rightly that members of the same
families may be found by almost any brook
East or West, and that her accounts will
serve for all. These insects are such as
every one sees dancing upon the water, swim-
ming in it, or flying above it; but few have
any real acquaintance with their nature,
mode of growth, habits of life, or afiilia-
tions. To those who wish to know about
them, this little series of sketches will be
convenient and instructive as well as enter-
taining.

Days out or Docrs. By Cuaries C. As-
Bort. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 323. Price, $1.50.

A Book about Nature by Dr. Abbott by
this time needs no special introduction to
the readers of the ‘‘ Monthly.” They have
all had a taste of the author’s quality as an
observer and describer of outdoor life, and
know that he is capable of transmitting to
any others who will listen to him or read
him the variety and enjoyment that he finds
there. As the

“ragged cliff
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours,”
Dr. Abbott finds the same to be “true of the
tamest pasture, where not even the clover
and buttercups of one side are the twins of
the buttercups and clover of the other”;
and where through the succeeding changes
of the year objects of interest “never re-
peat themselves, or else I am daily a new
creature. Nor sight nor sound but has the
freshness of novelty, and one rambler, at
least, in his maturer years is still a boy at
heart.” These changes by the month and
Season enter into the plan of the present

793

book, which presents a kind of naturalist’s
calendar or diary of the months. The birds
figure as the principal characters, though
other objects of life are not unregarded, and
the story of their coming and going, or
sometimes staying, their working, sporting,
cooing, nest-breeding, and initiation into the
experiences of life, is recorded consecutively
from January through the winter, spring,
summer, and autumn months, till December
closes the cycle and ends at the time when
a new series is to begin. Other people find
novelties and things of ever refreshing in-
terest abroad. Dr. Abbott does not deny
them the pleasure, for he can do and has
done the same; but he can find, too, all
that is needed to make life worth living on
the banks of his unpretending creek and
modest river to which it is ever his pleasure
to return, Therefore he holds “that one
need not mope because he has to stay at
home. Trees grow here as suggestively as
in California, and the water of our river is
very wet. Remember, too, if trees are not
tall enough to suit your whim, to lie down
beneath the branches of every one of them,
and, as you look up, the topmost twig pierces
the sky. There is not an oak but will be-
come a gigantic Sequoia in this way. One
need learn no magic to bring the antipodes
home to him.” This is, perhaps, the prin-
cipal lesson taught in the book, and it is
made extremely palatable by the spice of
familiar illustration, incident, adventure, per-
sonal delineations, old lore of history and
tradition, and pictures of the brook and
fields and their incessantly changing life.

Puysicat Reauism. By Toomas Cass, M. A.
London and New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. One vol. 8vo. Pp. 387.
Price, $5.

Tus is an able and scholarly work, well
worthy the attention of those familiar with
the course of philosophical thought and fond
of philosophical discussion. The argument
of the author is that we sensibly perceive an
internal but physical world—physical objects
of sense in the internal nervous system—
from which we infer an external and physi-
cal world. This is “physical realism.” It
is opposed to intuitive or natural realism,
which declares that we directly perceive an
external physical world; and to cosmothetic
idealism, which concludes that we are sen-

»

704

sible of a psychical, but infer a physical
world. It also controverts all the strictly
idealistic hypotheses. The treatise is divided
into two parts, the first containing the “‘Gen-
eral Proof of Physical Realism,” and the sec-
ond dealing with ‘‘ Psychological Idealism.”
This last embraces in successive chapters
criticisms of the philosophies of Descartes,

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, from the .

author’s point of view. These discussions
are very acute and interesting. In general,
it may be said that the negative part of the
work, or the refutation of idealistic doc-
trines, is more successful and more valuable
than the constructive portion which involves
the substantiation of the author’s theory.

PsycHoLocy aS A NATURAL SCIENCE, APPLIED
TO THE SoLuTION oF OccuLT Psycuic
Puenomena. By G. C. Rate, M.D.
Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. 8vo.
Pp. 541, 1 vol.

Tus is a disappointing book. Its psy-
chology is crude, and as “applied to the so-
lution of occult psychic phenomena,” it does
not appear to solve anything. The occult
phenomena, indeed, are not reached till page
380, and the part relating to them is largely
taken up with extracts from well-known au-
thors (like those belonging to the Society for
Psychical Research, Mesmer, Braid, Fahne-
stock, and others), upon which Dr. Raue
makes, it must be said, some interesting
comments; but he adds nothing, so far as we
are able to make out, to the store of human
knowledge upon the subject. What explana-
tion he does give is an application of his
psychology, which is based upon or rather
an exposition of that of Dr. Friedrich
Eduard Beneke, who, the author thinks, has
been undeservedly neglected by succeeding
thinkers. In this notion we can not agree
with Dr. Raue, because there is nothing suf-
ficiently significant in Beneke’s work to make
it worth while for students of the present
time to recur to his writings. A sample of
this applied psychology is found in the ex-
planation of “thought-transference.” The
latter may be understood, according to the
author, if we suppose that the soul actually
consists of different systems of substantial
primitive forces, having “ mobile elements,”
and producing different mental modifications
which are spaceless, ‘and consequently not
restricted by any corporeal distance or inter-

—

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ference, so that they can reach a similar
psychic modification in another mind as well
as in their own, and impart to it their own
state of excitement and make it conscious,”
But how, pray, are we able to conceive of
motion without space or “room” for mo-
tion? And if thought is thus excited in one
person by the attraction of similar excitation
in another, there being motion from the one
to the other, what more is this than a state-
ment that there is some subtle power of
thought - transfer which we do not under-
stand? To make such an averment we
hardly need Dr. Raue’s book.

Thus, while the scholar will always find
much to interest him, and much to approve
in any work of this charaeter, prepared with
serious purpose, we can not recommend it to
those who are only able to give a limited
amount of attention to the topics of which
it treats, being persuaded that they can more
profitably spend their time upon something
else.

It is a little singular that no mention is
made in this book (written by a Philadel-
phian) of the very interesting and valuable
report by the Seybert Commission of the
University of Pennsylvania upon some of
the most curious of these “occult psychic
phenomena.”

Tue PuiLosopHy or Kant; AS CONTAINED IN
EXTRACTS FROM HIS OWN WRITINGS. Se-
lected and translated by Joun Watson,
LL. D., Professor in Queen’s College,
Kingston, Canada. One vol. Pp. 356.
Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.75.

Kanr’s Kritik oF THE PurRE Reason Ex-
PLAINED AND DEFENDED. Being Vol. I of
Kant’s “Critical Philosophy for English
Readers.” By Joun P. Manarry, D.D.,
and Joun H. Bernarp, B.D. Pp. 389.
Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.75.

Tur demand for a return to Kant, which
has been evident in the philosophical world
for a few years past, has issued in a good
deal of new and valuable Kantian literature,
and there is likely to be more; for it can not
be denied that this return to the study of
Kant has produced an increase of his au-
thoritative influence. Whatever our views
may be of the wisdom of pursuing philoso-
phy under the chief guidance of the Konigs-
berg sage, and whatever may be our opinion
of the value of his principles and method,
there is no doubt that a thorough study of his

LITERARY NOTICES.

works is indispensable, not only for scholar-
ship’s sake but also to secure a proper men-
tal equilibrium in forming a theory of knowl-
edge, on the part of those especially who
have been educated to rely on a@ posteriori
methods. For the reason just given the sci-
entific student can least of all afford to
neglect Kant, and if he has a contempt for
this philosopher he may be assured that
there is still opportunity for creditable
achievement in the way of refuting the au-
thor of the “Kritik” on many important
points still left for the ambitious contro-
versialist.

The two works above mentioned are ex-
cellent, each in its own way, for the purpose
of making the student acquainted with Kant-
ian philosophy.*® Prof. Watson’s idea is to
present to a class of more advanced students
a series of carefully selected extracts from
the chief treatises of Kant, “The Critique
of Pure Reason,” “The Metaphysic of Mo-
rality,” “The Critique of Practical Reason,”
and “The Critique of Judgment”; then to
aid these students by the discussions of the
class-room, using the extracts as a text-book.
Tt must be borne in mind that, except pos-
sibly where a student is devoting himself
exclusively to philosophy, never could he
hope to go over the whole of the four works
just named under the teacher’s class instruc-
tion. The advantage, then, of a work like
Prof. Watson’s is very apparent, if the selec-
tions have been so judiciously made as to pre-
sent connectedly the most important parts
of the treatises. In accomplishing this the
editor has been very successful. He has
made good his claim that the volume “ con-
tains all the main ideas of Kant in their sys-
tematic connection,” and he has produced a
very useful book for those who have not the
time to devote to Kant’s works in full, and
also an excellent preparatory course for
those who intend to go further in studying
that philosopher.

Prof. Mahaffy’s book is a good one for
the student to read in connection with a
text-book like Prof. Watson’s. It is exposi-
tory and critical; we regret to say it is also
polemical, the latter quality constituting its
chief weakness. In a somewhat extravagant
preface Prof. Mahaffy expresses his convic-
tion that Kant is “certainly the greatest ”
of all metaphysicians, “and perhaps the

VOL. Xxxv.—45

(25

most imperfectly understood.” We do not
think the writers of this volume have added
anything to Kant’s greatness, whatever it
may be, but we do consider that they have
contributed something to a better under-
standing of him. For the most part they
have correctly apprehended their master’s
meaning, and have clearly interpreted him
in a style of diction which is very agreeable
and well calculated to hold the student’s at-
tention. This volume is to be followed by
a second, containing the “ Prolegomena” of
Kant.

Sratzt or New York. Twenty-seconp An-
NUAL REPORT OF THE STaTE BoarpD oF
CHaritizs, 1888. CHaruxs §. Hoyt,
Secretary. Pp. 608.

THE visitorial powers of this board ex-
tend to all charitable, correctional, and elee-
mosynary institutions, excepting State pris-
ons, supported wholly or in part by the
State, or by cities, counties, incorporated
benevolent associations, or otherwise. Its
executive duties are the supervision of the
support, care, and removal of State paupers ;
the examination and removal of alien pau-
pers to their homes in different countries of
Europe; watch of the care of the insane;
the approval and certification of incorpora-
tions for the custody and care of dependent
children; and the oversight and control of
insane Indians on the several reservations
of the State. It has also authority to require
reports from the various institutions subject
to its visitation. The institutions included
within this jurisdiction have in all $54,310,-
658 of property; return as the year’s re-
ceipts, $14,591,817, and $13,315,698 ex-
pended ; and care for 64,322 persons. The
report gives a picture of their general con-
dition and operations.

“War with Crime.” Being a Selection of
Reprinted Papers on Crime, Reformato-
ries, ete. By the late T. Barwick LI. Bar-
Ker, Esq. Edited by Hersert Puizirs
and EpMunp Verney. London and New
York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 299.
Price, $4.

Mr. Barker, who died in December, 1886,
is described as having been a man of diligent
thought, who sought out the principles that
underlie the practical side of every question.
“A country squire of moderate wealth, he
studied the duties incumbent on him in that

706

station of life; a country magistrate, he felt
bound to inquire into the causes of crime,
and to use for the benefit of the community
the experience gained on the bench; a poor-
law guardian, he was drawn into personal
sympathy with the poor, the outcast, and the
destitute.” The papers he left behind him,
from which the selection of those in the
present volume was made, embody his well-
digested thought on a variety of subjects,
and many of them deal with problems still
unsolved. Of those here presented, three
deal with the prevention of crime generally;
others present as a practical measure for
that object the apportionment of sentences
to crimes on a scientific principle which
should be made clearly understood, of “cu-
mulative punishment.” This means grada-
tion according to the antecedents of the of-
fender and the number of repetitions of the
offense, with a term of police supervision
added, under which the man might be en-
couraged to try to regain his character in
honest employment. Other papers deal with
adult reformatories; the imprisonment of
children, which is advocated under certain
conditions ; jail labor; reformatories; meas-
ures for just dealing with vagrants; ec-
clesiastical questions ; education; labor and
wages; and the prisons bill (Mr. Cross’s of
1876).

EXPLORATION OF THE CHEST IN HEALTH AND
Disease. By SrepHen Suita Bort, M. D.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 206.
Price, $1.50.

Tus manual, which embodies the methods
pursued by the author with his classes, is in-
tended to aid the student in learning the
significance of physical signs and their mode
of development. Dr. Burt states that he has
made no attempt to establish distinctive
signs of disease, because he is convinced that
“precision in diagnosis is more surely at-
tained by treating each sign as subordinate
to the various combinations of signs which
are found in the different maladies.” The
text is illustrated with cuts showing the
position of the heart and lungs with refer-
ence to each other and to the chest-walls, the
forms of instruments, etc. In describing the
different forms of stethoscopes, the author
expresses a preference for one which engages
both ears. He has discovered, by means of
the double stethoscope, what he deems a

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

demonstration of the dual function of the
ears, viz., for perceiving the direction of
sounds. When listening to the ticking of a
watch with a binaural stethoscope having
arms of soft rubber tubing, if one arm is
closed by pinching it, the watch seems to
have been removed to the ear which still
hears its ticking. If the tube is released and
the other one is closed, the watch appears
to be transferred, not to its actual place, but
to the other ear.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL-OFFICER
OF THE ARMY TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR
FOR THE YEAR 1888. By A. W. GREELY.
Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 418.

On the military side of his functions, the
Chief Signal-Officer records the steps he has
taken to secure a suitable heliograph appa-
ratus, the selection of field-glasses for army
use, and experiments with homing pigeons.
The inadequacy of the present methods to
insure instruction in military signaling is
lamented, with the declaration that “there
is not an average of two officers to a regi-
ment who are competent to transmit signals
—hby sun, flag, and torch—day and night,
except those who have passed through a
regular course of instruction in connection
with this office.” A valuable report by Lieu-
tenant Thompson on foreign organizations
and appliances for signaling forms one of
the appendixes of the volume. In the matter
of the weather service, credit is accorded to
three of the principal newspapers of the
country for the assistance given by their
meteorological editors in supplementing the
general predictions made by the office by
their own local predictions, and to other
journals for publishing meteorological data
of local interest. Of the storm-signals, 77°4

per cent were verified; the system of cold-'

wave observations was continued successfully
and satisfactorily. Observations on atmos-
pheric electricity were continued at four sta-
tions. Bulletins showing the effect of the
weather on the crops were issued weekly.
The railway bulletin service has decreased,
having been largely superseded by the State
services, which are well spoken of. The
question of river observations, in relation to
dangerous floods and the stages of naviga-
tion, engaged attention. <A system of rain-

fall stations was instituted in July, 1887, at ~

i.

:

LITERARY NOTICES.

suitable points in the great water-sheds, near
the sources of the principal tributaries of
the largest rivers. Improvements in the
organization of the service are shown to be
much needed to make it as efficient as it
should be.

FuNDAMENTAL Propiems. THE METHOD OF
PHILOSOPHY AS A SYSTEMATIC ARRANGE-
MENT oF KnowLepcr. By Dr. Pav.
Carus. Chicago: The Open Court Pub-
lishing Company. Pp. 267. Price, $1.
THE papers presented in this volume,

constituting a constructive series of philo-
sophical essays, first appeared for the most
part in the editorial columns of ‘“‘ The Open
‘Court.”” They were there subjected to criti-
cism and discussion which the author has
turned to advantage in revising and rearrang-
ing and adding to them. Philosophy is re-
garded, from a point of view both radical and
conservative, as the most practical and im-
portant science, whose problems lie at the
bottom of all the single sciences, of which
religion and ethics are applications. The
view is radical, because the issues of philo-
sophic thought are presented in their rigidity
without trying to conceal the consequences
to which the argument leads, with the old
and long-cherished errors faced and critically
explained; and conservative, because the
historical connection with the work of our
ancestors is regarded, and progress is sought
through a development from the past, not by
arupture withit. ‘A philosophy of most
radical free thought” is presented, “that is
no negativism, no agnosticism, and no meta-
physical mysticism, but a systematic arrange-
ment of positive facts.}? This philosophy is
monism, or a conception of all existence as
one, This is complemented by meliorism, or
the conception of a purified, higher view of
life.

Home GYMNASTICS FoR THE WELL AND THE
Sick. Edited by E. Ancrrstern, M. D.,
and by G. Ecxier. Translated from the
Eighth German Edition. Boston : Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 94. Price, $1.50.

WHILE setting forth in no uncertain
terms the invigorating effects of systematic
bodily exercise, the authors of this manual
frankly caution the reader against resorting
to gymnastics for the cure of serious diseases,
certainly not without previous consultation
with a physician, and they warn him also not

797

to impatiently expect striking results after a
few weeks’ practice. The book comprises
some general rules and information about
home gymnastics, which is followed by de-
tailed descriptions of sixty-nine exercises,
most of which need no apparatus, while for
the others dumb-bells, a wand, and a chair
are the only articles required. Fifty-two
cuts illustrate the descriptions. General
directions and specific lists of exercises are
then given for the use of boys and girls of
different ages, for young men, young women,
mature men and women, and for old age.
Similar directions and groups of exercises
are given adapted to certain conditions of
ill-health or imperfect development, such as
general weakness, weak chest, stagnation in
the abdominal organs, corpulence, bent car-
riage, etc. A large sheet containing all the
cuts, and a list of the exercises, accompanies
the volume.

State or New York. TuHirty-rirtra ANNUAL
Report OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT
or Pustic Instruction, 1889. ANDREW
S. Draper. Pp. about 1,000.

THE year covered by this report is de-
scribed as having been one of marked edu-
cational activity. A new interest in educa-
tional work was manifested, and showed
itself most intelligently in directions which
promise the best results. The rivalries and
antagonisms between different classes of
educational workers are disappearing. The
criticisms of the public schools have prompt-
ed examination of deficiencies and the search
for means of remedying them. More study
is given to the history and philosophy of
education than ever before; and “on every
side a new and healthful interest in public-
school work, on the part of those charged
with the carrying on of that work, is appar-

“ent.” The cost per capita of educating the

children of the State is put at various
amounts, according to the rule by which it
is estimated, but the real cost, for the chil-
dren actually attending the schools, is ulti-
mately fixed at $15.19. The expense per
capita of the whole population was $3.08.
The statistics of attendance are claimed to
show that, while it is relatively smaller
than formerly, the school work of the State
has grown somewhat in substantial char-
acter during the last thirty years. Since
1865 the average attendance in the cities has

708

advanced about evenly with the advance in
total enrollment, and in the towns it has
increased twenty per cent, while the total
enrollment has fallen off nine per cent. The
results of inquiries into the compulsory edu-
cational methods of England, France, and
Germany are reported. More attention to
purely professional work in the examination
of teachers is recommended. The superin-
tendent is accustomed, in accordance with
the law of the State, to indorse the certifi-
cates and diplomas issued by State superin-
tendents and normal schools in other States;
and he has had some correspondence with
other superintendents with reference to a
general understanding on this matter. The
responses have not been as general or as
satisfactory as was desired. The superin-
tendent believes that the movement in favor
of the manual-training system has been re-
tarded by the fact that “the kinds of indus-
trial work which have been pushed forward
were such as seemed incongruous with school
work and gave small promise of assimilat-
ing with it”; and he regards free-hand
drawing as offering a simple and practicable
means of reaching the same end. Consider-
able space in the report is occupied with the
discussion of questions concerning school
libraries. Several valuable documents are
included among the “Exhibits” and in the
appendix.

Tae Moprern Science Essayist. Monthly.
Boston: The New Ideal Publishing Com-
pany. Ten cents a number, one dollar a
volume of twelve numbers.

Tus periodical has been established as a
medium for the publication of essays and
lectures presenting the modern scientific or
evolutionary aspect of various subjects.
Each number contains one essay. The six
numbers before us contain the first six of
the fifteen lectures on different phases of
evolution, delivered before the Brooklyn
Ethical Association last winter. ‘These lect-
ures followed a logical order. The first two
were biographical sketches of the two great
men whose names are most intimately asso-
ciated with the evolution hypothesis—Her-
bert Spencer and Charles Robert Darwin,
the former by Daniel G. Thompson and the
latter by Rev. John W. Chadwick. The
third is on “ Solar and Planetary Evolution,”

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by Garrett P. Serviss, and is illustrated.
This is followed by “Evolution of the
Earth,” by Lewis G. Janes; “Evolution of
Vegetal Life,” by William Potts; and ‘“ Evo-
lution of Animal Life,” by Rossiter W.
Raymond. The plan of the series included
lectures on the descent of man, evolution of
mind, society, theology, and morals; proofs
of evolution, its philosophy, and its rela-
tions to religious thought and the coming
civilization. In undertaking to present to
its members and the public in a popular
form the leadlng ideas of the evolution
philosophy, this association has entered upon
a work in harmony with the most enlight-
ened spirit of the time, which can not fail
to produce beneficial and gratifying results.
The lectures of last winter were delivered by
men having special fitness for dealing with
the subjects assigned to them, and each
furnishes an excellent introduction to a
course of reading on its special topic. We
learn that the association is to conduct a
similar series of lectures next season, and
that its success has led to the formation of
similar organizations in various parts of the
country.

Annuat Report oF THE BoARD OF REGENTS
OF THE SmiTHsoNnIAN INstrtUTION, for the
Year ending June 30, 1886. Part I.
Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Pp. 878, with Plates.

Brsipes the operations of the Institution
itself and of the National Museum and Bu-
reau of Ethnology, which are regularly under
its charge, this report includes sketches of
the work of the United States Fish Commis-
sion and Geological Survey, which, though
independent of the Institution, are related
to it in line of work, Not so much as usual

is recorded in the way of explorations—partly —

because the work has been completed in
many of the districts, and partly because
means have been lacking for beginning new
enterprises of any magnitude. The list of
publications, besides bibliographies and cata-
logues, includes several works and mono-
graphs of importance and general interest.
The development of the National Museum, as
measured by the acquisition of fifteen hun-
dred lots of specimens, was unexpectedly
great. Besides the central reference library
of the museum, sectional libraries have been
established in the scientific departments. In

LITERARY NOTICES.

the Bureau of Ethnology, the field work in-
cludes mound explorations, explorations in
ancientand modern stone villages, and general
field studies in institutions, linguistics, etc. ;
the office work has consisted largely in giving
literary form to the results of the field work.
The operations of the Geological Survey and
the Fish Commission are presented in brief
summaries. The summaries and “ occasional
papers” in the appendix include ten papers
relating to anthropology; an article on “‘ Cer-
tain Parasites, Commensals, and Domiciliaires
in the Pearl Oysters,” by R. E. C. Stearns ;
“Time Reckoning in the Twentieth Century,”
by Sandford Fleming; and a “Report on
Astronomical Observations,” by George H.
Boehmer.

EXAMINATION OF WATER FOR SANITARY AND
TECHNICAL Purposes. By Henry Lerr-
mann, M. D., Ph. D., and Witt1am Beam,
A.M. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son
& Co. Pp. 106. Price, $1.25.

THE aim of this manual is to present pro-
cesses which are trustworthy and practicable,
without any useless matter. Certain pro-
cesses which have long held prominent places
are not admitted to this volume, for instance,
the soap test for hardness, which is rejected
on the authority of Hehner, who has declared
it inaccurate, and has devised the method
here presented. The colorimetric tests for
nitrates and nitrites are described to the ex-
clusion of the processes heretofore in use.
Besides the descriptions of analytical opera-
tions, the text includes a chapter on the in-
terpretation of results, dealing with the ac-
tion of water on lead, living organisms in
water, identification of the source of water,
and the purification of drinking and boiler
waters. Tables of various analytical data
are appended, there are several pictures of
apparatus, and a number of sheets of labels
accompany the volume.

Cottrce Botany. By Epson §. Bastin, Pro-
fessor of Botany, Materia Medica, and
Microscopy in the Chicago College of
Pharmacy. Chicago: G. P. Engelhard
& Co. Pp. 451. Price, $3.

As indicated by its title, this work is
adapted to students of some maturity. The
first subject taken up in it is “ Organog-
raphy,” the organs being divided into those
of vegetation and those of reproduction. In

fee!

describing the organs something is told of
their functions, although a short division of
the volume is devoted to “ Vegetable Physi-
ology,” after “ Vegetable Histology,” which
is the second subject treated. Appended to
the chapters on histology are directions for
the use of the microscope and accessory ap-
paratus. Suggestions for laboratory work
follow each chapter in these three divisions
of the book. The fourth and closing part is
occupied with “ Vegetable Taxonomy,”’ end-
ing with a brief account of the succession of
plants in geologic time. The text is illus-
trated by nearly six hundred cuts, largely
from drawings by the author, and a glossary
of botanical terms is appended. The vol-
ume is somewhat marred by typographical
errors.

In the Jntroduction to Sawyer’s Bible, the
Rev. Leicester A. Sawyer, of Whitesboro,
N. Y., in view of a new translation in course
of publication by him, sets forth his views
respecting the character, authenticity, date,
and purpose of the several books of Script-
ure. He holds that if the prodigies and
miracles of both Testaments are explained
in the light of modern science, and if the
judgement of the ancients is tested by the
laws of evidence ruling in the courts, they
will be found “to have been attested only
by incompetent witnesses, and by supposed
proofs that are entirely sophistical”; and
claims that his work will show many of the
supposed facts to have been fictions, and of
the prophecies to have been written and an-
tedated after the event had occurred. He
finds many errors which the late revision
has failed to correct, but concerning which
he expects to contribute to the formation of
right views ; and hopes also that his scheme
may be adapted to facilitate more successful
Bible study than has been generally possi-
ble hitherto by readers of English Bibles.

Vol. IX of the Observations of the Na-
tional Argentine Observatory covers the work
done during the year 1876, which was di-
rected by Juan M. Thorne, in the absence
of Dr. Benjamin A. Gould. The volume
contains 18,021 determinations of the posi-
tions of southern stars.

No. V of Vol. XVIII of the Annals of
Harvard College Observatory records the ob-
servations of the total eclipse of the sun, Au-

710

gust 29, 1886, made by Prof. W. H. Picker-
ing, with the aid of volunteer assistants, on
the island of Grenada, in the West Indies.
The account is accompanied by four plates.
No. VII of the same volume is a record of A
Photographic Determination of the Bright-
ness of the Stars, all of the measures in-
volved in this work, the identification of the
stars, and the numerical computations hav-
ing been made, with few exceptions, by
Mrs. 1. Fleming. The paper contains a
catalogue of 1,009 close polar stars, one of
420 stars in the Pleiades, and one of 1,131
equatorial stars, Part I of Vol. XX is a
record of Observations made at the Blue Hill
Meteorological Observatory in the Year 1887,
and is introduced by a description of the
observatory and its work, by A. Lawrence
Rotch, §. B., its proprietor and director.
Mr. H. Helm Clayton is the observer. The
Observatory of Harvard College now co-op-
erates with the Blue Hill Observatory by
publishing the observations of the latter,
and a consolidation of the two institutions
is contemplated. The present record com-
prises tables of hourly values of atmospheric
pressure, air temperatures, wind azimuths
and movements, precipitation, bright sun-
shine, cloud observations, ete., etc. There
are six plates showing tracings by self-
registering instruments, and a view of the
observatory. The Third Annual Report of
the Photographic Study of Stellar Spectra,
conducted at the Harvard College Observa-
tory, and constituting the Henry Draper
Memorial, sketches briefly the progress of
the work during 1888.

The fourth number of the Proceedings of
the American Society for Psychical Research
(Damrell & Upham, $1) is a pamphlet of
about three hundred pages, nearly a third of
which is devoted to the report of the com-
mittee on phantasms and presentiments, by
Prof. J. Royce. The report contains ac-
counts of a large number of cases, with
corroborative evidence, and an estimate of
their value. A record of experiments in
thought transference is contributed by Mr.
and Mrs. John F. Brown, and a report upon
“the diagram tests,” by Prof. C. 8S. Minot.
The theory of telepathy is discussed by Mr.
Hodgson and Prof. Minot. The report of
the committee on mediumistic phenomena is
instructive, in spite of its brevity, for it men-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tions as an obstacle to this work that medi-
ums which have been recommended to the
attention of the committee are constantly
being shown up as impostors. Still, the
committee has made some investigations,
which it is not ready to report, and hopes
to make more.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Charles C. Days out of Doors.
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 323. $1.50.

Allen, Alfred H. Commercial Organic Analysis.
Vol. III, Part I. Philadelphia: P. blakiston, Son &
Co. Pp. 431. $4.50.

Allen, William F., and Spencer. Dayid E. High-\
er Education in Wisconsin. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing-Office. Pp. 68.

Atwater, W.O. The What and Why of Agri-
cultural Experiment Stations. Washington: Goy-
ernment Printing-Office. Pp. 16.

Austin, Peter T., New Brunswick, N. J. Ad-
dress on Scientific Agriculture. Pp. 16.—Chemical
Lecture Notes: Specimen pages.—Hypochlorous
Acid in Alkaline Solution. Pp.4.—Lecture Experi-
ments with Nitrous Acid. Pp. 6.—Lecture Experi-
ments. Pp. 4.—Dark Rooms and Developers. Pp.
8.—The Relation of Fertilizers to Fruits. Pp, 8.—
A Vexatious Mixture for Qualitative Analysis. Pp.
3.—English Examinations. Pp. 5.—A Handy Rec-
ord-Book. P. 1.—Petroleuimas an Explosive. P. 1.

Barrows, W. B. The English Sparrow in North
America. Washington: Government Printing-Of-
fice. Pp. 405, with Map.

Boielle, B. A. Daudet’s “ La Belle-Nivernaise,”
with Introduction and Notes. Boston and New
York and Chicago: D. C. Heath & Co, Pp. 101.

Branner, J. C., and Brackett, R. N., Little Rock-
The Peridotite of Pike County, Ark. Pp. 10, with
Plates.

Bush, George Gary. History of Education in
Florida. Washington: Government Printing-Office,
Pp. 54.

Butler, A. O. What Moses Saw and Heard
Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons. Pp. 484.

Collar. William C. Practical Latin Composition.
Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 268.

Commonwealth Publishing Company, Denver,
Col. “The Con monwealth,” June, 1889. Monthly.
Pp. 142. 385 cents; $4 a year.

Day, David T Mineral Resources of the United
States, 1887. Washington: Government Printing-
Office. Pp. 832.

Dubois, Prof. A. J. Science and Miracle. Fp.
32. :

New

Ellwanger, George H. The Garden’s Story.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 345, $1.25.

Failyer, G. H., and Millard, J. T. Report of the
Chemical Department of the Kansas Agricultural
Experiment Station for 1888. Manhattan. Pp. 49.

Garnett, James M_ Elene; Judith; Athelstan ;
Byrhtnoth. Translations of Anglo-Saxon Poems.
Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 70.

Ginn & Co., Boston. Catalogue and Announce-
ments for 1889. Pp, 152.

Griswold, W. M., Bangor, Maine.
to Periodicals for 1888. Pp. 47.

Howard, George E. Introduction to the Local
Constitutional History of the United States. Balti-
more: Publication Agency of Johns Ilopkins Uni-
versity. Pp. 526.

Johnston, H. H. The History ofa Slave. New
York: D. Appleton & Co, Pp. 168. 50 cents.

Jones, Charles Edgeworth. Education in Geor-
gia. Washington; Government Printing - Office.
Pp. 154.

Annual Index

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

McClure, William S, Scientific Materialism ; its
Effect in Artand Morals. Albany: The Argus Com-
pany. Pp. 16.

MacDonald, Rev. D., Savannah Harbor, New
Hebrides. Oceania, Linguistic and Anthropological.
Londen : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Riving-
ton, Limited. Pp. 218.

Meriwether, Colyer.
tion in South Carolina.

Michigan. Report of H. B. Baker, Secretary of
the State Board of Health, for 188788, Pp. 328.—
Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletins,
Nos, 50 and 51.,—The Grain-Plant Louse, and Ene-
mies of the Wheat Aphis. Pp.6and7. Lansing.

New York Agricultural Experiment Station.
Peter Collier, Director. Bulletin. A Study of the
Corn-Plant: Lucern or Alfalfa.

Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin,
Columbus. Colie of Horses. By H. J. Detmers,
Pp. 48.

Ryder, Prof. John A. The Origin and Meaning
of Sex. (Two papers.) Pp. 2 and 3.

Sensenig, David M. Numbers Universalized.
An Advanced Algebra. Part I. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 353. $1.40.

Sizer, Nelson. Right Selectionin Wedlock. New
York: Fowlers & Wells. Pp. 3i. 10 cents.

Smith, Charles Lee. History of Education in
North Carolina. Washington: Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. 180.

Smock, John ©. Iron Mines and Iron-Ore Dis-
tricts in the State of New York. New York State
Museum of Natural History. Pp. 70, with Map.

Taylor, Thomas, M. D. ‘Twelve Edible Mush-
rooms of the United States. Washington, D. C.:
Gibson Brothers. Pp. 23, with Plate.

Toronto, City of. Report on Extension of Wa-
ter-Supply and Disposal of Sewage. By Rudolf
Hering and 8. M. Gray. Pp. 26, with Maps, ete.

Turner, J. B. Extracts from Note-Books on
“‘The Fallacies of Science and Faith,’ etc. Jack-
sonville, {li.: Morton Brothers. Pp. 30.

Van Dalle, A. N., Editor. Pages choisés des Me-
moirs du Due de Saint-Simon. Boston: Ginn &
Co. Pp. 237, 15 cents.

Wilber, Francis A. A Convenient Form of Gas-
Receiver, etc. Pp. 3.

Wisconsin. Twelfth Annual Report of the State
Board of Health. J. T. Reeve, M. D., Secretary,
Madison. Pp. 302.

Woodward, C. M., St. Louis.
ual Training to Body and Mind.

History of Higher Educa-

Relation of Man-
Pp. 26.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Practical and Moral Instruction in
Schools. — What shall be taught in the
schools, says the New York State Superin-
tendent, in his last report, is a difficult ques-
tion to answer. The law leaves it to each
locality to settle for itself. ‘‘The tendency
_ of the times, particularly in the larger places,
is to undertake toomuch. It ought to be re-
membered that it does not devolve upon the
public schools to put into the child’s head
all that he will ever be expected to know. . . .
It is better to create a desire for knowledge,
and supply the implements with which to
gain it.” The trial of manual training is
commended, and this, it is observed, need
not be confined to carpentry work with boys

711

and making aprons and dresses with girls.
Free-hand or industrial drawing may train
the hand and the eye more effectually than
handling a saw ora needle. Every school
in the State may undertake this without diffi-
culty. The importance of a pervading moral
influence in the school-room is insisted upon.
“There is, unfortunately,” the superintendent
remarks, “‘ but little done to stimulate patri-
otism among children in the public schools,
or outside of them. A generation ago it
was common to use the masterpieces of our
national oratory for the purposes of recita-
tion and declamation in the schools, and the
resultant influences were of no small conse-
quence in arousing and cultivating patriotic
ardor in the rising generations. Then every
child was required to take part in the exer-
cises. But even this is no longer common.
The modern fashion is to take pupils who
give promise of special success as orators
and readers and train them elaborately for
show upon public occasions. The older
custom might be revived with profit.” The
normal schools continue to grow in size and
extent and to improve in the character and
quality of the work performed; and they
are gradually confining themselves more and
more closely to their legitimate work, the
preparation of teachers for the public
schools.

Methods of Transportation.—The de-
velopment of the art of carrying is considered
by Prof. O. T. Mason in a paper in the
“ American Anthropologist” on “‘ The Begin-
nings of the Carrying Industry.” Twenty
distinct forms of the art are enumerated by
him as preceding the modern inventions of
transportation by the power of machinery.
Among them are carrying in the hand,
which is universal; with both hands, when
the load is divided and balanced; on the
fingers—the method of the ancient royal
cup-bearers ; with a baldric; with the load
hung to a belt—chiefly employed in car-
rying treasure; hung to the arm, as when a
basket is used; hung from the shoulders,
on the shoulder, on the scapula, on the
back, on the head, on the forehead or
bregma, in pockets, by men combined, by
hauling, by throwing or tossing, by caravans,
with relays, and by couriers. Primitive
commerce, says the author, “and all the

712

carrying and running involved in primeval
arts connected with food, shelter, clothing,
rest, enjoyment, and war, were accomplished
on the heads or foreheads, shoulders or
backs, or in the hands of men and women ;
and civilization, while it has invented many
ways of burden-bearing, finds also an end-
less variety of uses for the old methods... .
It is, for instance, only a few years since
the invention of the passenger and freight
elevator began to supplant that caravan of
hod-carriers who have been since the be-
ginning of architecture carrying upward to
its completion every wooden and brick
structure in the world. . . . The back is the
natural resting-place for the burden. The
lowest savages know this, and inventive
genius early began to devise apparatus for
harnessing this part of the body. In Africa,
on the Andes, in Mexico, throughout the
civilized world, the peaceable carrier bears
ou his back the commerce of the race.”

Mexican Porters. —Mr. W. A. Croffut re-
lates, in the ‘‘ American Anthropologist,” that
of half a dozen porters whom he saw resting at

a Mexican railway station—“ One had a sofa’

on his shoulders, strapped on I could not see
how; another bore a tower of chairs locked
into each other and rising not less than eight
feet above his head; another carried a hen-
coop with a dozen or twenty hens, and oth-
ers were conveying laden barrels and vari-
ous household goods. They had come, they
said, from San Luis Potosi, not less than
fifty miles distant.” The carriers were
almost always in sight from the car-win-
dows of the Mexican National Railroad, and
were declared by President Purdy to be its
rivals. If it were not for them, the country
would treble its railroads in the next year,
and the roads would double their profits.
‘““We are combating the custom of centuries.
Those fellows carry on their backs to Mexi-
co the entire crops of great haciendas far
over the mountains.”

Monthly Distribution of Incendiary
Fires.—Mr. Franklin Webster has found
that the prevalence of incendiarism is sus-
ceptible of being graphically represented
systematically according to the season. The
monthly curves for the four years ending
in 1886 show that there are more criminal

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fires in January than in February; that: the
number increases through March, April,
and May, falls off in June, and then in-
creases again till November, to fall off again
in December, Taking the years separately,
there appears to be an extraordinary regu-
larity in the number of criminal fires in the
first six months, while the chief irregulari-
ties and widest fluctuations ‘are in the last
half of the year; and in this period, erimi-
nal fires, taking the whole country, are ex-
cessive compared with the earlier months.
In the farming districts they are more fre-
quent when the greatest activity prevails,
and are especially numerous in the time de-
voted to harvest; while, during the months
when most of the great crops are growing,
there is a lull in the reports of incendiarism.
Mr. Webster concludes that incendiary fires
for the sake of collecting insurance are rare
as compared with other fires of criminal
origin.

California’s Thermal Springs.—Accord-
ing toa paper read by Prof. W. F. McNutt
before the International Medical Congress,
more than two hundred localities are known
in California where waters of temperatures
rising to 212° F., and charged with salts and
gases of high therapeutic value, pour forth
from the earth in great profusion. The num-
ber of individual springs in different locali-
ties ranges from one to thirty, each varying
in composition, temperature, and possibly
other as yet undetermined qualities. Al-
though the character of these springs is
known, only a few of them have, as yet, been
carefully analyzed, and at still fewer have pa-
tients been under a competent observer’s care.
The seven aguas calientes springs at Warner’s
Ranch, fifty miles from San Diego, vary in
temperature from 58° to 142°. An account
is given of a wonderful little valley near El-
sinore, containing altogether one hundred
and eighty-six springs of hot and cold
water, sulphur, soda, white sulphur, magne-
sia, iron, borax, hot mud, fresh water, ete.
The Arrowhead hot springs, at an altitude
of over two thousand feet, vary in tempera-
ture from 140° to 210°. An immense pe-
troleum spring is mentioned as being some
ten miles west of Santa Barbara, situated in
the bed of the ocean, about a mile and a
half from the shore, the product of which

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

continually rises to the surface of the water
and floats upon it over an area of many
miles. At the thermal acid springs in the
Coso Range, Inyo County, thousands of tons
of pure sulphur cover the ground, which
were deposited there in former times, when
the water must have contained large quan-
tities of sulphureted hydrogen. Owens
Lake is a remarkable body of water, which
is more than twice as salt as the Atlantic
Ocean. Volcanic mineral springs are lugu-
briously situated in Death Valley, and Sara-
toga Springs at the south end of Funeral
Range, south of Death Valley. Mono Lake,
in many of its features, resembles the Dead
Sea. Of Byron Springs, in Contra Costa
County, one, called “Surprise,” is both ca-
thartic and emetic. Some of the springs

are sparkling with carbonic acid; others-

contain sulphureted and phosphureted hy-
drogen; and there are hot mud-baths. Las-
sen County is full of hot (boiling) springs,
having a temperature of from 200° to 212°.

Alpine Funerals.—A clew to the origin
of the Irish wake and other funeral pomposi-
tics, which we are sometimes inclined to re-
gard as relics of barbarism, may be found in
the funeral customs of some of the Alpine re-
gions. The circle of acquaintance of the more
prospcrous people of the villages often ex-
tends over miles of country; and the friends
of a deceased proprietor will make long jour-
neys to attend his funeral. The dictates of
hospitality require that their physical wants
be provided for ; or, if not, they will meet at
the inn and naturally have something very
like a feast. In some districts,even before
death occurs and the patient is in his last
agonies, all around are informed of the fact
and expected to make a ceremonial last visit.
They enter the sick-room, take a long look
at the dying man, and go their ways. After
death, when the body has been prepared for
burial, a table is spread covered with re-
freshments, and open house is held till the
funeral. Whoever comes is invited to eat
and drink. Two candles are kept burning
by the coffin, and two women are employed
to watch and pass their time in prayer. Aft-
er the funeral a hot meal is given to the
guests. In Carinthia, while perfect quiet
and decency are preserved, the friends are
invited to come in and say a praycr for the

Vie

soul of their late friend, at stated hours, or
during the whole time; and occasionally one
of them repeats the prayer aloud, while the
others join in, On leaving the room, each
of the visitors is offered a piece of bread and
a glass of wine or spirits, and is expected to
accept. Such customs, perfectly simple and
proper in their origin, may easily, when car-
ried to excess or abused by unworthy per-
sons or intruders, degenerate into the repul-
sive wake.

The Girl’s Kitchen-Garden.—The Girl’s
Kitchen-Garden, a practical development of
the Kindergarten in adaptation to Hnglish
or American habits, is an institution for
teaching girls from very childhood those
things which pertain to good house-work and
good housekeeping, by a series of illustra-
tive lessons which are made as attractive as
possible. It includes a graduated series of
three courses. In the first course the girls
are taught methodical daily work, by being
taken step by step through the series of du-
ties, to the accompaniment of lively songs,
bright object-lessons, and little toy models
for table-setting and bed-making. The second
course includes washing, ironing, and housc-
cleaning; in the third course, the parts of
beef and mutton, pie-making, baby-dressing
with dolly, and “‘ waiting on the door,” An
English journal observes, respecting the pos-
sible utility of the institution: “One can
not but notice how happy little girls are if
allowed to dust mother’s chairs or to iron the
stockings and handkerchiefs ; how deftly
they manage the swceping-broom with a han-
dle about twice as tall as themselves; how
delighted to have a small piece of dough and
make grimy little editions of mother’s tarts.
And one can not but be struck, too, by the
fact that as these same little girls grow older
they lose this taste, and come to look upon
domestic work as drudgery, preferring, when
they leave school, any occupation but house-
work, Is not this,in a great measure, due
to the fact that this natural womanly taste
is neglected, and its cultivation left out of
the girl’s education, with the result that our
girls go out as little maids-of-all-work with
such profound ignorance and want of meth-
od that they are a torment to the mistress
and a misery to themselves?” The kitchen-
garden is intended to help remedy this evil.

714

Flirtation in Battak-Land.—The Bat-
taks are a people of common origin with
the Malays and resembling them in many re-
spects, who live along the western coast and
in the interior of the island of Sumatra. The
district chiefs form a confederation, the
strongest one among them residing near the
Toba Lake. They have enjoyed the advan-
tages of civilization, are good agriculturists,
have an original system of writing, and take
care to have their children instructed in such
arts and knowledge as they appreciate; and
yet they eat enemies who are taken armed,
and criminals of a certain class, and adorn
their tombs with obscene figures. As senti-
mental people in Western countries practice
in a “language of flowers,” so the young
people of either sex among the Battaks cor-
respond by means of a language of leaves.
The leaves themselves have no significance,
but their names, modified, perhaps, within
the bounds of poetic license, indicate or
rhyme with the word which the correspond-
ent wishes to suggest. Besides leaves, cor-
als, bells, ants, and the figures of all sorts of
objects are employed for the same purpose.
Dr. Van der Tunk, who has studied the Battak
language, tells of another method of senti-
mental communication among them, by means
of quatrains, which are called by them endes
or umpana, In these the first two lines are
sugeested by the language of the leaves,
which is employed to suggest their catch-
word. They, however, have no particular
significance, but lead up to the second pair
of lines, in which is embodied the sentiment
that the lover wishes to express. To be ex-
pert in the use of these endes, it is necessary
to know a considerable number of them by
heart. The young maidens are usually bet-
ter versed in this lore than the young men,
and there are often in the Battak villages
some who make a business of supplying and
interpreting them. It is one of the customs
of the people that girls, as soon as they reach
a marriageable age, shall leave the houses of
their parents and go to live with some other
unmarried woman (a widow or grass-widow).
A strict.surveillance is pretended to be kept
over them, which is usually more honored in
the relaxation than in the exact observance ;
and they are by no means debarred the so-
ciety of young men during this period, nor
ignorant of the art of flirtation. While occu-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pied here in weaving mats and making to-
bacco-boxes and si7ih-bags, they teach one an-
other the endes which they have learned from
their grandmothers and other old women, and
for retaining which their memories possess
enormous capacities.

Atmospheric Tides.—The question of the
tides similar to ocean tides that may be ere-
ated in the atmosphere by the moon has en-
gaged the attention of many physicists since
Newton. The longest series of studies on
the subject is that of Hisenlohr, which in-
cludes thirty-two thousand observations dis-
tributed through twenty-three consecutive
years. The author concluded that a certain
equalization of atmospheric pressure is pro-
duced during a revolution of the moon around

-the earth. According to M. Maurice Guist,

a later observer, the equalization is not
brought about by the movement of masses
of air, but by a kind of expansion of the
atmosphere, which only sets in motion dis-
tinct particles of the whole mass. Since, in
this way, the density of the air at any given
point does not change much during a revo-
lution of the moon, the temperature and hy-
grometric condition are no more influenced ;
neither the barometer nor other meteoro-
logical instruments, therefore, give proof of
an atmospheric tide, although, in other
points of view, the influence of the moon
may be well marked by the instruments.
The action of the sun must be still weaker
than that of the moon. The equalization of
pressure, in this view, takes place the more
easily as the difference is less between the
augmentation and diminution of density.
These conditions exist when the regions of
less and of greater density are near one
another. ‘Thus the equalization can take
place at the quadratures rather than the
syzygies ; or when the sun and moon are 90°
apart their influence is not cumulative as it
is at the syzygies. This is fully confirmed
by observations. Every culmination of the
moon is preceded, for any meridian, by a
barometric height inferior to the mean, and
is followed by a superior height. The in-
crease of pressure after the culmination is
explained by the fact that the atmosphere,
not being so much sustained by the moon,
bears more heavily upon the mercury in the
barometer, while the inverse phenomencn

ie of Nines ee ee ee ee

<a 2 Geet

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

occurs previous to the culmination. These
two inverse variations of pressure may, how-
ever, be masked by meteorological condi-
tions, a8 when there is an ascending or a de-
scending current. During the winter months
the mean pressure in the hours following
the culmination of the moon is greater than
in the hours preceding it. A current of
rising air could mask the phenomenon, but
there rarely is one at this season. During
the summer months the variation is less
marked. Finally, if we take account of the
action of the sun, we shall find that these dif-
ferences are more accentuated at the syzygies
than at the quadratures, corresponding with
what has been observed above. The results
of observation thus prove that there really
exists an atmospheric tide. It is hardly sen-
sible to our instruments, because we are at
the bottom of the ocean, subject to the action
of the moon and the sun, and because the
elastic force of the air is constantly tending
to equalization of pressures,

Art and Fun of the Eskimos,—Much as
has been written of the Eskimos, says Mr. E.
F. Payne, in a paper read before the Canadian
Institute, we find in almost every writing
something new to interest us. Mr. Payne’s
own essay bears out the assertion. In
building their igloos the Eskimos take ad-
vantage of the tendency of the snow to
drift on the southeastern sides of the hills,
so that the author, on visiting a village after
a snow-storm, was struck with its resem-
blance to a lot of mole-hills. Nothing
could be seen but a little snow thrown up on
each side of a hole by which a passage led
to the igloo ; but, on a nearer approach, win-
dows could be seen a little below the surface,
from which the snow had been removed.
Upon entering some of those zgloos, passage-
ways were found cut through the drifted
snow, so connecting the huts as to give the
appearance of an underground village. The
people are not destitute of the art-sense,
but have an inborn love of sketching, and
are proficient in carving. Good models of
kyacks, animals, and birds in ivory are
made, especially on the north side of the
strait, where the artists vie with one another
in trying to make the smallest models. The
art of drawing is confined for the most part
to describing figures on the level surface of

75

the snow, either with a piece of stick, or in
larger figures with the feet. In several in-
stances correct drawings of their own peo-
ple were made by slowly moving along with
the feet close together, and afterward dex-
terously adding details with one foot. Per-
spective was a great mystery to them; and
even those who were accustomed to look
daily at the pictures on the walls of the au-
thor’s house could not understand it. In-
voluntarily their hands would steal up to
the picture and feel for the objects that
seemed to project; while other persons
would shift their heads to leok behind
screens or doors in the picture. Amusements
are few, and only one or two excite interest.
Throwing the harpoon has the greatest at-
traction for the men, and wrestling and
running are occasionally practiced till the
weaker side loses interest. Foot -ball was
played with the blown bladder of a walrus
covered with leather. ‘Men, women, and
children all took part in it, and no quarter
was allowed. Here a woman, carrying her
child on her back, might be seen running at

‘full speed after the ball, and the next mo-

ment she might be lying at full length with
her naked child floundering in the snow a
few feet beyond her. A minute later the
child would be again in its place, and nearly
choking with laughter she would be seen
elbowing her way after the ball again. Boys
make small spears and throw them at marks ;
and girls have dolls and keep them till they
are married, and they play at housekeeping
and going a-visiting just like United States
girls.

The Otter at Home.—The otter, as he
may be seen sunning himself on a tree-
trunk, looks like a large cat which has been
thrown into the water and crawled out.
Some people think that the fur of the otter
throws the water off like the feathers on a
duck’s back. That is not the case; his fur
protects his body in a different way. Any
one who has seen a water-rat come up on a
bank after a dive will have a good idea of
the general appearance of the otter’s fur.
Now he gives his coat a shake and combs
his fur a bit with his short, webbed feet.
His head looks for the moment just like
that of an infuriated tiger in miniature, as,
with ears drawn close to his head, he snarls

716

and shows his teeth. When properly treat-
ed, the otter is easily converted into an
affectionate and playful pet. He is a trifle
larger than a cat, having a very similar
head, only flatter, which is provided with a
fine set of teeth, and he can use them with
terrible force for his size. On his lip he
has alot of strong bristles, His eyes are
small and have a watchful look about them ;
the neck is almost as thick as his chest; his
body is long and round; the legs are very
short, strong, and flexible; the toes webbed
for a great part of their length, and the
claws on them sharp. The tail is thick at
the root, and tapers off to a point. It is
very powerful, and is, in fact, his swimming-
machine. In color he is dark brown, as a
rule, with the sides of his head and throat
brownish gray. On land the otter moves
with a peculiar loping gait. When he comes
up out of the water, there is first a little
swell on the surface, then his head appears,
and if everything is quiet he silently crawls
up on a log or bank. When startled, he
makes one gliding plunge, and the water
closes over him with scarcely a ripple.

The Value of Human Variation. — Mr.
Francis Galton, addressing the Anthropo-
logical Institute recently, said that anthro-
pologists ought to give more consideration
to variety than they have hitherto bestowed
upon it. They commonly devote their in-
Quiries to the mean values of different
groups, while the varicty of the individuals
who constitute those groups is too often
passed over with contented neglect. . An
average man is morally and intellectually
a very uninteresting being. The class to
which he belongs is bulky, and no doubt
serves to keep social life in motion. It also
affords, by its inertia, a regulator that, like
the fly-wheel to the steam-engine, resists
sudden and irregular changes. But the aver-
age man is of no direct help toward evolu-
tion, which appears to our dim vision to be
the primary purpose, so to speak, of all
living existence. Evolution is an unresting
progression; the nature of the average in-
dividual is essentially unprogressive. Ilis
children tend to resemble him exactly,
whereas the children of exceptional persons
tend to regress toward mediocrity. The
Hebrew race, whose average worth is not

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

especially notable, is mainly of interest on
account of its variability, which in ancient
and modern times seems to have been ex-
traordinarily great. It has been able to
supply men, time after time, who have
towered high above their fellows, and left
enduring marks on the history of the world.
In a mob of mediocrities, the general stand-
ard of thought and morals must be medi-
ocre, and, what is worse, contentedly so. The
lack of living men to afford lofty examples
and to educate the virtue of reverence would
leave an irremediable blank. All men would
find themselves at nearly the same dead
average level, each as meanly endowed as
his neighbor. These remarks apply with
obvious modifications to variety in the physi-
cal faculties. Peculiar gifts, moreover, af-
ford an especial justification for division of
labor, each man doing that which he can do
best. 3

The Interdependence of Life.—The doc-
trine of the dependence of life on external
conditions, says General R. Strachey, includes
life itself as an important concurrent agen-
cy in the general results observed. Thus,
in order to supply the food and other require-
ments of animals, the presence of vegeta-
bles or other animals is necessary. To some
animals, as well as to some plants, the shel-
ter of forests or particular forms of plants
is essential. Parasites need for their sus-
tenance living plants and animals. The fer-
tilization and hence the propagation of plants
is a development of life not deviating in any
particular direction from that which follows
the hereditary principle. It rather appears
that the existing face of nature is the result
of a succession of incidents, unimportant in
themselves, which by some very slight al-
teration of local circumstances might have
been turned in a different direction. For
instance, a difference in the constitution or
sequence of the substrata at some locality
might have determined the elevation of
mountains where a hollow filled by the sea
was actually formed, or the converse, where-
by the climatal and other conditions ‘of a
particular area would have been changed,
and a different impulse there given to the
development of life. All that we see or
know to have existed upon the earth has
been controlled to its most minute details by

ee ee a

=e

—

POPULAR MISCELLANY,

the original constitution of the matter which
was drawn together to form our planet. The
character of all inorganic substances, as of
all living creatures, is only consistent with
the actual constitution and proportion of the
various substances of which the earth is
composed. Other proportions than those
present in the constituents of the atmos-
phere would have required a different organ-
ization- in all air-breathing animals, and
probably in all plants. Any considerable
‘difference in the quantity of water, either in
the sea or distributed as vapor, must have
involved corresponding changes in the con-
stitution of living creatures.

The Medium of Electro-magnetic Action.
—It was decided by experiment, during
1888, according to Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, in
the British Association, that electro-magnetic
action takes place, not at a distance, but
through an intervening medium. The ex-
periments were made by Hertz in Germany,
who observed the interference of electro-
magnetic waves quite analogous to those of
light, and proved that electro-magnetic ac-
tions are propagated in air with the velocity
of light. ‘“ By a beautiful device Hertz has
produced rapidly alternating currents of such
frequency that their wave-length is only
about two metres. I may pause for a min-
ute to call your attention to what that means.
If they vibrated three hundred thousand
times a second, the waves would be each a
kilometre long. This rate of vibration is
much higher than the highest audible note,
and yet the waves are much too long to be
manageable. We want a vibration about a
thousand times as fast again, with waves
about a metre long. Hertz produced such
vibrations, vibrating more than a hundred
million times a second.” While this rate is
too slow for visibility or light, and the vi-
brations are also inaudible, the experimenter
was able to detect them by resonance. He
constructed a circuit whose period of vibra-
tion for electric currents was the same as
that of his generating vibrator, and “was
able to see sparks, due to the induced vibra-
tion, leaping across a small air-space in this
resonant circuit.” By this combination—of
a vibrating generating circuit with a resonant
receiving circuit—which the author had rec-
ommended at the Southport meeting of the

717

Association to be used for this very investi-
gation, Hertz was able to observe the inter-
ference between waves incident on a wall
and the reflected waves. The phenomenon
is the same as what are known as Lloyd’s
bands, in optics, which are due to the inter-
ference between a direct and a reflected wave.
“Tt follows, hence, that just as Young’s and
Fresnel’s researches on the interference of
light prove the undulatory theory of optics,
so Hertz’s experiment proves the ethereal
theory of electro-magnetism. It is a splen-
did result. Henceforth I hope no learner
will fail to be impressed with the theory—
hypothesis no longer—that electro-magnetic
actions are due to a medium pervading all
space, and that it is the same medium as the
one by which light is conducted.”

Washing Men and Children by Machin-
ery.—One of the latest inventions in sanita-
tion is machinery for personal washing. A
French colonel, according to Mr. Edwin Chad-
wick, ascertained that he could wash his men
with, tepid water for a centime, or one tenth
of a penny a head, soap included. The man
undresses, steps into a tray of water, and
soaps himself, when a jet of tepid water is
played upon him. He then dries and dresses
himself in five minutes, against twenty min-
utes in the bath, and with five gallons of water
against seventy in the usual bath. In Ger-
many they have an arrangement under which
half a million of soldiers are regularly washed.
By an adaptation of apparatus to the use of
schools, a child may be completely washed in
three minutes.

Modern Deterioration of Eye-sight.—Dr.
R. Brudenell Carter, when questioned about
the causes of modern deterioration of eye-
sight, replied that the circumstances of civili-
zation are unfavorable to the cultivation of
eye-sight. We are not as dependent on keen-
ness of vision as our ancestors were. Much
of the work of dwellers in towns is done
upon objects close to them, from which they
obtain large retinal images, whence they be-
come comparatively insensible to small ones.
They often work by defective light, and are
thus driven to approach the object still more
closely; and it is by such approximation
that the malformation which produces short
sight is mainly brought about. The increase

718

of the malformation is provided by itself:
“structurally it is handed down to posterity,
and mechanically it is increased by the prac-
tice which it compels of turning the eyes in-
ward to combine upon a very near point.”
Among the consequences of short-sighted-
ness are failure to develop the power of ob-
servation; blindness to the expression of the
human face; an acuteness expending itself
upon details with but a restricted power of
grasping principles. The remedies proposed
for the defect include testing of visual pow-
er and limitations of tasks to capabilities,
and, in reading matter, large type with the
upper part of the letters cut with particu-
lar clearness,

A Tame Gorillan—An English trader at
Ngove, on the southwest coast of Africa,
Mr. J. J. Jones, has had for some time a
young female gorilla whose docility is most
remarkable. Jeannie, as the baby gorilla has
been named, sleeps with her master, and
follows him wherever he goes, weeping like
a child if left behind. She recently accom-
panied him on a journey of twenty miles or
more, walking all the way. She has ac-
quired many civilized tastes and habits, and
will drink tea, ale, brandy, etc., out of a
cup or glass, displaying the utmost careful-
ness not to break the vessel. She will, in
fact, do almost anything her master wishes,
and is surprisingly intelligent and affection-
ate. This is by no means a solitary instance
of the facility with which young gorillas
can be tamed. The experience of others
who have lived in the Fernand Vaz corrobo-
rates this statement as to their tractable
disposition when treated with kindness, as
well as the distress they exhibit if scolded
for misconduct.

Proposed Storage of Nile Floods.—Mr.
Cope Whitehouse presented before the Brit-
ish Association at Bath a plan, which he has
been advocating for several years, for storing
the surplus waters of the floods of the Nile in
the depression called the Raian basin—which
he believes to be the site of ancient Lake
Moeris—to be drawn off again to irrigate the
land of Egypt in thedry season. He computes
that a reservoir capable of supplying low
Nile with 50,000,000 cubic metres of water
a day for 100 days can be made for £500,000.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The canal of escape for the excess of the
Nile flood, to be used as the canal of supply
and discharge, can be opened in 300 days,
by the excavation and handling of 3,000,000
cubic metres of sand, clay, and soft rock.
The area and productive wealth of Egypt
would be increased by more than one third.
No burden would be imposed upon the pres-
ent tax-payers. The works would be mainly
the utilization and restoration of dikes,
canals, and physical characteristics in actual
use for the same purpose during 2,000 years,
and, in part, in continuous operation from
B. C. 1800 to the present time.

NOTES.

Tur National Geographic Society has
been organized at Washington “ to increase
and diffuse geographical knowledge,” and will
hold fortnightly meetings. It projects a
physical atlas of the United States, and has
begun the publication of the “ National
Geographical Magazine.” It will give promi-
nence to the educational aspect of geographi-
cal matters, and will endeavor to stimulate
interest in original sources of information.
It was organized in January, 1888, has about
two hundred active members, and has formed
itself into five sections: those of the geog-
raphy of the land; of the sea; of the air;
of the geographic distribution of life; and
of abstract geographic art (map-making,
etc.). Mr. Gardner G. Hubbard is president,
and Mr. George Kennan Washington, corre-
sponding secretary of the society.

Tue British Government has yielded to
popular clamor so far as to assent to a new
and thorough investigation of the merits of
vaccination. While assenting to this, it al-
lows it to be given out that it sees no neces-
sity, in any new facts that have been discoy-
ered, for such an investigation. It is sug-
gested, in connection with a report that has
been made to the effect that small-pox hos-
pitals for isolation are a positive and deadly
nuisance to those around them, that the ques-
tion be also asked whether persons or com-
munities have a right to concentrate a dis-
ease which they may easily avoid by congre-
gating patients in such hospitals, to the seri-
ous risk of those who live outside.

Pror. Epwarp S. Morse has been elected
a corresponding member of the Society of
Ethnology, Anthropology, and Archeology,
of which Prof. Rudolf Virchow is president.

Tue biography, papers, and letters of the
late John Ericsson are to be edited by Colo-
nel Church, of the “ Army and Navy Journal.”
The Swedes have decided to erect a statue
in Stockholm in honor of their distinguished
countryman.

NOTES.

HyprocraPHer Dyer, of the Navy De-
partment, reports that testimonials are con-
stantly received of the efficiency and useful-
ness of the pilot charts and supplements.
The record*of floating vessels affords an ex-
cellent opportunity for studying the various
phases of ocean currents. The supplement is
issued whenever subjects of special interest
demand it. Such supplements have been
sent out descriptive of West Indian hurri-
canes and the law of storms; on the best
transatlantic routes and the winter storm-
belt of the Atlantic; and on water-spouts off
the Atlantic coast. Reports of marine nie-
teorology are received regularly from forty-
six Government vessels and five hundred
and forty-four of the mercantile marine.
Many favorable reports have been received
on the efficacy of oil in smoothing the waves.

A REMARK is made by Dr. A. G. Auld upon
the strange fact that the effects of tobacco
are so commonly overlooked in computing
the causes of disease—for it is one of the
most virulent poisons known, continually at
work in the systems of those who use it, and
a poison whose physical reactions have never
been accurately determined. Dr. Auld is im-
pressed that it is responsible for a variety of
functional derangements which there is no
reason to aver can not terminate in organic
disease. Among these are albuminuria of
which he has traced cases to the tobacco hab-
it ; and certain fibrillary twitchings, often
excessive, that occur most frequently about
the trunk and upper arms, When such
symptoms are found in association with to-
bacco-smoking, it will not suffice merely to
indulge less in the practice, but tobacco must
be dispensed with entirely.

Concernine flamingoes straddling their
nests, which Mr. Henry A. Blake has dis-
puted (‘‘ Popular Science Monthly,” March,
1888), Mr. E. J. Dunn, of Melbourne, has
written in ‘‘ Nature” that he has seen in
Bushmanland numbers of the tall nests that
are described and pictured in the books.
They are conical, about eighteen inches high
and six inches in diameter at the top, with a
shallow, basin-like cavity for the eggs, were
built in the water where it was a few inches
deep, and could not have been sat upon un-
less they were straddled over.

Tur London Diocesan Conference has
suggested legal measures to meet the evil of
too early marriages, and Dr. Matthews Dun-
can asserts that the age at which marriage
takes place is one of the most important
factors in the matter of defects of the re-
productive function. He believes that fer-
tility is surest and safest, and most happy
in its results, at between twenty and twenty-
five years in women, and twenty-five and
thirty years in men; and regards the condi-
tions as more precarious at an earlier than at
a later age. The social and economical con-
ditions are also not to be overlooked,

|

719

Dr. Barty TvxE insists upon the impor-
tance of giving more attention to efforts to
cure insanity. This thought has been sub-
ordinated under the operation of the asylum
system, which was begun for protection rath-
er than cure, and of the theory of the psy-
chological nature of insanity. The London
County Council has now before it a propo-
Sition to appoint a committee to inquire con-
cerning the expediency of complementing the
existing system of treatment with a hospital
and medical staff having a curative course in
view.

A REMARK in the report of Principal
Bliss, of the Detroit High School, on over-
work, touches what is incontestably one of
the weak points ‘of the public schools. It
should be remembered, he says, “ that over-
work is a continued rush. Our classes are
large and our recitation periods short. The
good of a class can not be sacrificed for that
of an individual. In the hurry of our daily
work, some boy or girl who is not strong
enough to do our work may be overlooked.
Have the public schools so far assumed the
duties of parents that parents can be ex-
cused for not calling our attention to such a
case?”

Arter twelve years of experimental work
at Rothamsted, Dr. Gilbert has found the
old views confirmed respecting the value of a
due apportionment of nitrogenous and min-
eral substance in the cultivation of potatoes,
The present practices of good farmers with
barn-yard manures are sustained, while min-
eral manures alone are of little effect. Al-
though liberal manuring increases the tend-
ency to disease, the effect is thought to be
offset by the advantage of a heavy crop.
The continuous growth of potatoes in the
same land does not appear to render the crop
more liable to disease, but rather the reverse.
Thus, during three periods, of four years
each, the percentage of disease in the va-
rious plots was reduced successively from
5:14-12°82 to 1°63-4'95, and 1°43-1°78.

A BIoLoGIcaL survey of Kansas is in
progress, under the direction of members
of Washburn College, the eighth report of
which is given in the Bulletin of the Lab-
oratory of Natural History. It includes a
fourth series of notes on fishes, by Dr. C. H.
Gilbert, and Mr. B. B. Smyth’s catalogue of
flowering plants and ferns, in which 1,602
species and varieties are named.

Porous rebaked porcelain has been
found by Dr. C. G. Currier to be the best
substance for domestic filters. If thick and
strong enough to allow the use of a large
surface, and the substance remains perfect,
it may yield a fair flow of clear water, free
from all bacteria; yet under the ordinary
Croton pressure, the yield is only in rapid
drops, unless the apparatus be complex.
The filter should be occasionally sterilized
throughout, by steaming or other means.

720

Dr. Ocie, an English statistician, while
admitting to the full extent alleged the move-
ment, in England and the United States, to-
ward the towns and cities, denies that it is
attended by a depopulation of the rural dis-
tricts. He has found that the rural popula-
tion in England did not decrease between
1851 and 1881 by more than one per cent, a
rate quite within the limit of allowance for
error. The author believes that the rural
population is only stationary, and is ample,
with the modern improvements in farming,
for the tillage of the land, while only its in-
crease and surplus pour into the towns; but
the continuous migration of the most vigor-
ous and energetic to the manufacturing dis-
tricts, and the higher mortality. there, may be
producing a gradual deterioration.

WSGILE asserting that attention has hith-
erto been largely paid to the preservation of
the unfit members of society by not allow-
ing them to disappear according to natural
causes, and thus propagating unfitness, Dr.
Thomas Searcy, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., sug-
gests that a higher field of effort lies in the
direction of increasing the proportionate
numbers in society of the more fit. Appar-
ently, in modern society, the object of effort
is to reach such a degree of competency
that one’s children will not have to strive.
Degeneracy then sets in. The first genera-
tion may succeed by force of the brain-power
transmitted from its parents, but the after-
generations have no bottom to stand upon.

In a recent lecture on the education of
girls, Mr. James Oliphant condemned the
impression that the education of the two
sexes should be governed by the same rule.
Physical deterioration, he said, could best be
prevented by a suitable distribution of stud-
ies during the day, and by allowing hourly
short interludes of muscular exercise. There
was, in our modern plan of study, too much
reiteration and too little thought, a conse-
quent sense of drudgery, and a lack of the
interest which comes of using the reasoning
power. Home lesson work had become a
sort of tyranny. The possession of special
aptitudes did not justify the preference often
given to them in cultivation, at the expense
of less developed faculties.

In the lack of any national registry of
vital statistics, the Superintendent of the
Census of 1890 will rely upon the physicians
to furnish an approximate estimate of the
birth and death rates of most of the coun-
try. He is accordingly issuing to the medi-
cal profession ‘“‘ Physicians’ Registers,” with
blanks, which they are invited to fill, and
thus furnish more accurate returns than it is
possible for the enumerators to make. In
order that the returns of farm products and
live stock may be as full and complete as
possible, farmers are requested to keep ac-
counts of such matters from June 1, 1889, to
May 31, 1890.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Tse demand for its leather, which is so
pleasant for summer shoes, has brought the
kangaroo into imminent danger of extinc-
tion ; and the Australians are contemplating
measures for restricting the slaughter of the
animal.

Dr. Kocn’s theories respecting the func-
tions and work of the cholera bacillus, which
have been disputed, and even discredited by
certain commissions, have now been con-
firmed in their most important points by the
researches of Drs. Neil Macleod and Milles.
These gentlemen, who practice in a part of
the British Empire where cholera is endem-
ic, have identified, isolated, and cultivated
Koch’s spirillum, and confirm his original
statement as to its pathogenic character,

Our of more than five hundred letters
received by the Principal of the Detroit
High School in answer to questions concern-
ing the effect of the studies on the health
of the children, 87°81 per cent sustain the
work of the school. The sixty-two com-
plaints are of various character, and refer
among other things to “hard studies,” bad
air, long lessons, and worry. In fourteen of
the cases of complaint the pupils were doing
more than the regular work; and requests
to be allowed to do this had in some in-
stances followed complaints.

Accorpine to Dr. Ozeretskofski, hysteria
exists among Russian soldiers, and presents
as various diversities of form as it does
among women.

OBITUARY NOTES.

EvuGren FrerDINAND VON HAMEYER, an
eminent ornithologist, and President of the
Ornithological Society of Berlin, died in
Stolp, Prussia, June Ist, at eighty years of
age. He was the author of several books,
and possessed the largest existing collection
of European birds.

Mr. Joun F. La Trost Bateman, the
engineer who supplied Glasgow with water
from Loch Katrine, died June 10th, aged
seventy-nine years.

Heinrich Gustav ReIcHensacn, Pro-
fessor of Botany and Director of the Bo-
tanic Garden at Hamburg, died there, May
6th, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
He was born in Leipsic, the son of a bota-
nist and professor at Dresden, and co-operated
with his father in the preparation of the later
volumes of the “Icones Flore Germanice
et Helvetice.’? He devoted more than forty
years of his life chiefly to the study of or-
chids, in knowledge of which he was the first.

Cartes Harvey BoLtmMan, museum as-
sistant in the University of Indiana, a young
naturalist of great promise, died July 13th,
at Waycross, Georgia. He was in charge of
the explorations of the United States Fish
Commission in Georgia.

os

\\

y) Da

CAROLUS LINNAUS.

THE

Boe LAR. SCIlLENG E
ile @ NO Ey

OCTOBER, 1889.

PENSIONS FOR ALL.
By Generar M. M. TRUMBULL.

‘pS the wondrous literature of the time there is hardly anything
so glaring and sensational as the report of the Commissioner
of Pensions explaining the work of his department for the year
ending June 30, 1888. In that report he says: “ The total amount
expended for all purposes by the Bureau of Pensions was $82,038,-
386.59. The total expenditures of the Government for the fiscal
year 1888 were $267,924,801.13. Thus it will be seen that the amount
expended for and on account of pensions was nearly thirty-one
per cent of the entire outlay of the Government.”

In round numbers, one third of the public payments goes for
pensions, and it is gravely proposed that the peusioners have the
other two thirds also. A few days ago the Governor of Illinois,
speaking to the Illinois department of the Grand Army, said,
“Tf the Government paid $1,000,000 daily for pensions, the nation
as a nation would be just as rich at the end of the year as it was
before, as the money would still be in the hands of our own people.”

To take a million dollars a day from industry and bestow it
upon idleness is a patriotic form of dragoonade much recom-
mended by politicians like the Governor of Illinois. The “nation
as a nation ” is not injured by it; the money is still in the hands
of our own people. It is merely taken out of the hands that
earned it and put into other hands to spend it.

In Whittier’s delightful poetry we are cheered by the informa-
tion that

“¢ , . Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,
And the rebel rides on his raids no more.”

True, the rebel raiders have dismounted, but the “boys in

blue” have sprung into the vacant saddles and the raids go on.
VOL, xxxv.—46

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The point of attack is the national treasury. The cry is, “On to
Washington!” The new foray is not the sudden dash of a scout-
ing party; it is literally the charge of an army. The brazen
throats of the bugles and the buglers ring out the inspiring slogan,
“ Pensions for all!”

Is there no moral resistance in the people? Must the guardi-
ans of the public money throw up their hands, while the foragers
carry off the national cash-box ? Or must they buy off the raid-
ers as once upon a time the Romans bribed the Gauls ?

A comprehensive pension system corrodes the heart of gov-
ernment and beguiles a people into servitude. A caste composed
of pensioners is always the defender of existing wrongs. It be-
lieves that all reforms are assaults upon its own privileges and
that public honesty is dangerous. It can always be depended on
to support the pensioning power. The history of England shows
how worthless ministries have retained office for years by a judi-
cious distribution of pensions. National alms-giving weakens
public spirit as 1t conquers private virtue.

In the United States we have converted civil offices into gifts
called patronage, and pensions will share the same fate. Where
public offices are legal tender in payment for party services, pen-
sions will become so too. To a dangerous extent they are used as
political currency now. By a skillful use of pensions the party
in power can bribe one portion of the people with the money of
the other.

With the warnings of all history before us, we submit to the
corruption of our politics by a pension system heavier than was
ever laid upon any other people since governments began. No
monarchy, no hierarchy, no oligarchy ever had the daring to put —
so many idlers under public pay as we have placed there by our
pension laws. Some of us think that consequences do not follow —
causes in republics as in the “ effete monarchies,” and that we can
dignify our people by an alms-tribute that would debase the peo-
ple of those benighted lands across the sea. With much vehe-
mence we exclaim : “ Pensions are not a king’s prerogative here;
they are the free gifts of a free people. Pensions can not corrupt
us. The Asiatic cholera is harmless here, because it is not an
American disease.”

It has never been suspected that the warriors who subdued the —
great rebellion, who marched and counter-marched over half a
continent and fought a thousand battles, were a puny, sickly race _
of men. Yet this is the inference we must draw from the official
testimony of the Commissioner of Pensions. In his report for
1888 he says, “It thus appears that in the aggregate 1,166,926 —
pension claims have been filed since 1861, and in the same period —
737,200 claims have been allowed.”

PENSIONS FOR ALL, 723

This includes, of course, the claims of widows and dependent
relatives. Although many have been dropped from the rolls by
reason of death and other causes, the actual number of old sol-
diers on the pension-list is 323,020, while there are thousands of
claims on file not yet adjusted by the Pension Bureau.

It is pretended that, although the soldiers were sound and
hearty when they went into the army, they were enfeebled by
hardship and disease when they came out of it. Some of them
were, but not many in proportion to the whole number in the
ranks. The great parade at Washington in 1865 is a sufficient
refutation of that claim. The athletic and boisterous armies
which marched in review before the President of the United States
at the close of the war were not composed of sickly and vitiated
men. They were fairly rollicking with health, they were full of
“lusty life.” Yet we are told they carried millions of mortal
microbes in their knapsacks and all manner of diseases latent in
their blood—diseases which needed only pension laws to develop
them into activity.

Colossal as are the figures presented by the Commissioner of
Pensions, they are to be multiplied six times when Congress final-
ly capitulates to the Grand Army. Even in their present rudi-
mentary form they make the English pension-list cheap and
tawdry by comparison. Last year the English pension-roll con-
tained the names of 156,492 persons altogether, who drew from
the treasury £7,815,575, of which amount the army pensioners
(97,004) drew £3,789,282, and the navy pensioners (38,366) drew
£2,040,659. The Financial Reform Association of England, com-
menting on this exhibit, says: “John Bull will do well to notice
that in these last five years of bad trade he has had to pay an
army list of over 100,000 pensioners (military, naval, and civil)
for doing nothing; and that their drawings, amounting to nearly
eight millions, swallowed up the whole of the income-tax laid on
the national profits for last year.”

The complaint is valuable as a caution to “ Brother Jonathan.”
He has had to pay three or four army corps, each as large as the
one criticised by the Financial Reform Association of England,
and it is proposed that they shall be recruited to their full ca-
pacity by adding to their numbers twice six hundred thousand
more.

The pension-roll of England is very much larger than it was a
hundred years ago when John Philpot Curran poured upon it the
following sarcasm: “ This polyglot of wealth, this museum of cu-
riosities, the pension-list, embraces every link in the human chain
from the exalted excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the de-
based situation of the lady who humbleth herself that she may be
_ exalted; but the lesson it inculcates forms its greatest perfection.

724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It teaches that sloth and vice may eat the bread which virtue and
honesty may starve for after they have earned it; it teaches the
idle and the dissolute to look up for that support which they are
too proud to stoop and earn; it directs the minds of men to an
entire reliance on the ruling powers of the state.”

This condemnation will apply in general terms to every pen-
sion system. It is impossible to limit pensions to rewards for
sacrifice and service. Favoritism and fraud will crowd the pen-
sion ranks with pretenders. Every crippled soldier who has really
been disabled by battle-wounds must share his earned reward with
men who never did a dollar’s worth of service. He must drag
along with him to the pension-office a dozen “comrades” who
never saw a battle and who never received the slightest injury to
body, health, or limb.

“Veteran diseases ” are those miraculous ailments which rage
unsuspected in the bodies of old soldiers until seductive pension
laws bring them to the notice of the sufferers. The Arrears of
Pensions Bill is responsible for over a hundred thousand veteran
diseases. This law was in existence about two years, and expired
by limitation July 1, 1880. In 1878, the year before the law went
into operation, the pension applications numbered 18,812. In 1879,
under the stimulus of the act, they rose to 36,835. In 1880 they
reached the shameful dimensions of 110,673. In 1881, the law hay-
ing expired, the number of applications fell to 18,455. The Ar-
rears of Pensions law invited the Grand Army to loot the treas-
ury, and 110,673 veterans accepted the invitation. The number of
applications filed the yearsbefore the law and the year after it,
prove that the 110,673 extra diseases were made not by the war,
but by the Arrears of Pensions Bill. The bribe offered by Con-
gress put a hundred and ten thousand additional names on the
sick report for 1879 and 1880.

The crippled and wounded soldiers, whose battle-scars were
vouchers to their honesty and sacrifice, did not receive any bene-
fit from the Arrears of Pensions law. They were already on the
pension-rolls. All the booty was divided among the men who
suddenly discovered that they were suffering from diseases of
which they had been ignorant for fifteen years. The moral enor-
mity of this proceeding is revealed in the fact that every one of
those claims was attested by the solemn oath of the claimant.

The law of compensation pervades all things, and it applies
here. If pension laws are potent in the making of diseases, pen-
sions themselves have the opposite effect—they cure them. There
is nothing that promotes longevity like a pension. It is now sey-
enty-seven years since the War of 1812 began and seventy-four
years since it ended. Yet there are nearly a thousand men on
the pension-rolls who claim that they were soldiers in that war,

PENSIONS FOR ALL. 725

There is a delightful contrast between the rugged and, healthy
state of the old veteran after his pension has been allowed and
his decrepit condition before the allowance. I know a man who
was simply a harbor of refuge for diseases until he obtained his
pension, and then they disappeared. Having drawn his “ arrears,”
he prudently took out a life-insurance policy. The affidavit on
which he obtained his insurance curiously contradicted the affi-
davit on which he got his pension, proving that the pension had
restored him to health and made him a “ good risk” for the insur-
ance company. The department was greatly shocked on learning
the facts, and revoked the pension; but, on discovering that the
delinquent was a good caucus warrior and a hustler at the polls,
the department became shocked at its own imprudence and re-
stored him to the “nation’s roll of honor.”

It is not irony or sarcasm to say that the insurance companies
can afford to give lower rates to old pensioners than to other peo-
ple, because the pensioners’ chances of long life are greater than
the chances of other men. The commissioner’s figures prove this.
He reports that the number of the pensioners of 1861 to 1865 who
died in 1888 was only two per cent of the three hundred thousand
pensioners on the rolls, most of whom must be between forty-five
and sixty-five years of age,and all of whom are legally and of-
ficially suffering from wounds and diseases contracted in the
army. Three hundred thousand healthy citizens of the like age
will show a larger mortality than those diseased pensioners can
show. This proves that a large proportion of those “ veteran dis-
eases ” are fictitious.

Still more miraculous is the power of pension laws to bring
dead men back to life. Year after year the “Mexican War Pen-
sion Bill” was rejected by Congress. At last the claim agents
proved by the tables of mortality that the Mexican War soldiers
were nearly all dead. That war, they said, was an insignificant
affair; our army in Mexico was small, and the surviving members
of it could not be numerous after the lapse of forty years. Be-
sides, it was invidious to be generous to the soldiers of the late
war and niggardly to the soldiers of Mexico. This plea carried
the bill through. It was passed on the 29th of January, 1887, and
before the 1st of March, 1889, 21,296 surviving soldiers of Mexico,
and 7,742 widows, had filed their claims for pensions under the
law. On the very face of the returns it is evident that most of
those claims are without any of that merit or grace whereby pen-
sions are justified, namely, service in battle, or at least on the
genuine theatre of war during the time of active hostilities.

How happens it that so many Mexican War veterans spring up
out of the ground, like Roderick Dhu’s freebooters, at the clarion
call “to pensions” ? Not one tenth of those claimants ever saw a

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

battle. Here is the explanation of the miracle. Taylor’s last fight
was at Buena Vista, where he had less than five thousand men.
Many of these had also fought at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma,
and Monterey. It is liberal to say that all the battle-soldiers of
Taylor did not exceed ten thousand. Scott’s last fight was at the
city of Mexico, where he had about eleven thousand men. Many
of these were the same soldiers who had fought at Cerro Gordo,
Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Molino del Rey. Scott’s
real battle-soldiers could all be included within a total of twenty
' thousand men. Allowing for losses of all kinds, it is not likely
that more than twenty thousand battle-soldiers of the American
army in Mexico were alive at the close of the war in 1848. It is
not likely that two thousand of them are living now. Every one
of these is compelled to lead nine comrades under the flag of booty
to the gory field of pensions. Where does he get the nine? He
gets them from the army of redundance, thus:

Although the fighting ended in September, 1847, when Scott
captured the city of Mexico, peace was not declared until June,
1848. This nine months’ interval was passed in “negotiations.”
This valuable time was wisely employed by our Government in
re-enforcing the American armies in Mexico, so that our invincible
numbers might act as a moral pressure upon the Mexicans, con-
vincing them how hopeless was their cause. This policy was suc-
cessful. The Mexican Government, deeming further resistance
useless, ratified the Treaty of Querétaro.

From September, 1847, until June, 1848, new regiments, com-
panies, and detachments were poured into Mexico to re-enforce the
divisions already there, so that only a small fraction of the army
that marched home did any fighting in the Mexican War. Ship-
loads of soldiers arrived at Vera Cruz in June, before the ratifica-

tion of the treaty of peace was known at Washington, They were ~

ordered back without being permitted to disembark, because, peace

having been declared while they were on the way, there was no ~
necessity that they should land. It is this overflow army that —

now swoops down upon the Capitol, augmented by the home troops,

who did garrison duty at the various posts in the United States —

during the war, and now march into the treasury by file left, under
the pretense that they also are soldiers of Mexico. They can as
truthfully claim to be soldiers of Austerlitz.*

——————

alia,

Pensions pauperize the character and abase the souls of men, ~

especially those men who have no scars to show. They poison

honest pride and make nobility itself ignoble. They paralyze

conscience and weaken self-respect. To obtain and retain pen-

sions men will scruple not at perjury. Men of the highest rank —

* The benefits of the act are limited to men over sixty-two years of age, so that the

soldiers of Mexico who were under twenty-one at the close of the war are yet to hear from. —

al
7
sah.

PENSIONS FOR ALL. 727

will stoop to mendicancy for a pension they do not need. Pope

asks:
‘‘ What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.”

And yet a pension can wn-noble the chief of all the Howards, and
reduce him to ignominious pauperism. The Duke of Norfolk,
with an income of two millions of dollars a year, is on the pension-
list of England for sixty poundsa year. This pension was granted
to his ancestor by the gentle Richard III. Nobody knows why.
It may have been for smothering the princes in the Tower. It
could not have been for anything very good, because Richard
was not in the habit of rewarding virtue; yet for more than four
hundred years the Dukes of Norfolk, chiefs of all the Howards,
have asked for and received this degrading outdoor relief. We,
too, can fall to the same base level by the same process of gravita-
tion, as the following testimony shows:

When the Mexican War Pensions Bill passed, the “honor” of
being the first man to claim his dole and get it was given toa
prominent and wealthy citizen of Kentucky, who did not need the
alms any more than the Duke of Norfolk needed the charity of
sixty pounds a year. Yet he took it, and was applauded for his
promptness by the press as if he had done a patriotic deed. Such
demoralizing power has a pension.

It is true that we have no hereditary pensions yet extending
beyond the third and fourth generation, but we have made a fair
beginning, and may hope to enjoy that high-caste luxury in gor-
geous blossom after it shall be withered and dead in England.
The “royal prerogative” is now exercised by Congress, with a
profuse liberality exceeding that of kings. Our senators and rep-
resentatives are creating a pensioned aristocracy out of the con-
sanguineous relics of naval and military officers, official digni-
taries, and successful politicians, many of whom had no claim to
recognition except that their public lives were laboriously spent
in the private service of themselves.

The “retired system” is a high-toned pension scheme, avail-
able only to those who have taken the superior degrees in the
order. This is borrowed from the “ half-pay ” and “retiring ” sys-
tem of England, where it had a logical and consistent reason for
existence, under the social law which decreed that no man should
earn an honest living by his own exertions after he had once held
the “king’s commission.” No such law prevails in this country,
and the practice founded on it is an exotic ill adapted to the cli-
mate of a republic. We have now on the “retired list” of the
army one general, four major-generals, twenty-six brigadier-gen-
erals, eighty-five colonels, and three hundred and fifty-nine officers
of lower grade. The navy can make a like showing, and the civil

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

service is rapidly growing to the same proportions. Many of
those “retired ” officers have been placed on the list by the arbi-
trary favoritism of Congress, and some of them never held the
rank in the army which they hold on the retired list. In fact, one
of the chief abuses of political power is the reckless and irrespon-
sible usurpation by which members of Congress confederate and
combine to place their friends on the retired list, and their con-
stituents on the pension-roll.

One of the amiabilities of the practice is its freedom from par-

tisan bigotry. It is notorious that on a recent occasion the widow
of an eminent Republican politician was rewarded with a pension
of two thousand dollars a year, on condition that the widow of
an eminent Democratic politician should be included in the bill
_and rewarded with a pension of the same amount. This having
been done, the Republicans voted for the Democratic pension and
the Democrats for the Republican pension. In this way the be-
nevolence was lifted up out of the impure air of partisan politics
into the ethereal atmosphere of good feeling and high life.

In one of Irwin Russell’s negro hymns, the jingle sounds like
this:

: “ Close up—saints in de center ;

Fall in—sinnahs on de flanks ;
An’ all “Il get a pension an’ a honorable mention
What stand up stiddy in de ranks.”

We extend the principle far beyond those boundaries and give
pensions to claimants, whether they stood up steady in the ranks
or not. If the pension list could be analyzed it would be found
that, after taking out the wounded men, fifty per cent of the others
did not stand up steady in the ranks nor do any valuable service.
It would be found that their diseases are pension pretexts only,
and, where they really exist, that they were not contracted in the
army.

In addition to pensions for all, we have supplemented claims _
for “equalization of bounties,” and schemes of that kind. A Con- —
gressman from Iowa introduced a bill to give the soldiers the dif-
ference between the value of the greenbacks in which they were
paid and gold at the time of payment. The statesman who intro- —
duced this bill is not at all troubled about where the money is to
come from to effect its purpose. He is a descendant of Marryat’s —
old sea-captain, who bequeathed princely sums to his friends, to- —
gether with gold snuff-boxes and diamond-hilted swords which ©
had been presented to him by various emperors and kings. As
he did not own a dollar in the world, and the swords and snuff-
boxes had no existence,.the good-natured impostor showed his
liberality without subjecting his will to the dangers of a contest.
The sum of money necessary to pay that difference would be the ~

PENSIONS FOR ALL, 729

measure of a conquest, the ransom of an empire. It would far ex-
ceed the fine imposed by Germany on France in 1871.

It is time that the soldiers themselves repudiate the dema-
gogues and vindicate their own patriotism. The glory of the
Union army is tarnished by the mercenary clamor for pensions.
If the soldier is to be a chronic menace to industry, he will forfeit
his claim to honor, and cancel the obligation due him for service
in the war. As it stands now, every Union soldier is “a suspect ”
in the eyes of his countrymen. He is regarded as a pension-grab-
ber, and as a patriot who desires to commute his military glory
for a stipulated sum in cash. The suspicion is unjust. There are
thousands of Union soldiers who, having served the country in
war, refuse to forage on it now.

It may be said, Why do they not protest against the pension
scheme ? Why do they remain silent while the forays are being
organized? The answer is easy. In the first place it is not a
pleasant thing for any old soldier to criticise the plans and pur-
poses of his comrades. It is an unthankful duty, even if itisa
duty at all. It can only make him unpopular among those whose
approbation he would like to have. Secondly, he thinks that a
general pension law is the only plan by which the worthy soldiers
can be placed on a level of reward with the unworthy claimants
who never did any good service, but who have no delicacy and no
scruples about getting on the pension-rolls.. He says: “ There are
many brave, needy, and deserving soldiers who will never make
application for a pension, therefore let the Government offer it.”
And, thirdly, whatever his own opinions may be as to the morality
or policy of pensions, he does not care to be officious in opposition
to the general sentiment on that subject, nor does he wish to stand
as an obstacle in the pension path of others.

During the latter part of the war there may have been some
Union soldiers who were tempted into the army by large bounties,
but they were a very small proportion of the whole. Excepting
these, it may be truly said that the men who saved the Union
neither knew nor cared when they enlisted what were the rates of
pay, or the measure of allowances for service. They were moved
by patriotism and not by promises of pay. The charge that they
were a “mercenary soldiery” was false in the days of Abraham
Lincoln, although it was freely made by the envious and dis-
loyal. Let it not become true now. Let not the “pension temp-
tation” change the character or diminish the fame of the Grand
Army.

730 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY.
By Pror. M. ALLEN STARR, M.D., Pu. D.

LMOST every one has at some time wondered whether there
is any truth in phrenology. The figures of heads, on which
various mental faculties are marked, are to be seen everywhere,
and the notion that from the shape of the head the character can
be determined has enough of the mysterious in it to prove attract-
ive. The thought that some one may discover our little foibles
and more serious deficiencies—for it is these rather than our
strong points that we are afraid of having found out—makes the
study of bumps disagreeably interesting. And perhaps the desire
to find out a little more about our friends than they would wish
us to know adds somewhat to its attraction.

It is pretty well agreed among scientists, at present, that the
old system of phrenology has no actual basis of fact, and that ele-
vations upon the skull do not indicate masses of brain beneath
them. But to this old system of Gall modern science really owes
a great deal; for, ike every false idea, it had within it a little
kernel of truth, and the interest excited by the claims of its sup-
porters awakened a discussion which has led to a discovery of the
greatest importance in the saving of human life.

The claims of Gall that each part of the brain presided over
some mental faculty stimulated Flourens, the leading French

physiologist of forty years ago, to a series of experiments which |

seemed to show the falsity of Gall’s hypothesis. These experi-
ments in turn were disputed and led to others, and thus interest
in the brain and its action was stimulated, until in 1870 the sub-
ject was taken up in Germany, and facts were discovered which
form the basis of our present knowledge of brain action.

For in Germany a method of testing the action of the brain
was invented by Fritsch and Hitzig in 1870. These men noticed
that when they applied an electric shock to the brain of an anes-
thetized dog, the result was a movement of the limbs. To cause
this movement a certain part of the brain had to be irritated by
the electricity, other parts being irresponsive; and it was even
possible to distinguish the part which moved the fore-leg from
that which moved the hind-leg, while, queerly enough, the irrita-
tion of one side of the brain always caused movements in the
other side of the body. This was an important discovery, for it
showed that one part of the brain governed motions while the
other parts had nothing to do with motion.

The German investigators went a step further. They said,
“Tf this part of the brain really governs motion, then when it is

Se ee a ee ee

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 73

removed the dog will lose the power of movement,” and this
reasoning was found in fact to be correct; for when this part,
which they named “the motor area,” was taken away, the animal
was found to be paralyzed, while removal of other parts had no
such effect. These experiments, since that time repeated in every
laboratory of Europe and America, and tried upon various ani-
mals, have established the fact that there is in the brain a certain
part which directs voluntary movements.

The second step toward the new phrenology was taken in Eng-
land in 1873 by David Ferrier. Reasoning from the fact that our
movements are usually the result of some preceding sensation, he
concluded that sensation as well as motion must be governed by the
brain. If motion is governed by one part, sensation may be received
in another part. This reasoning led him to undertake a series of
experiments to settle the question. He soon succeeded in showing
that sensations, which are received by the various sense organs
of our bodies—by the eye, ear, nose, mouth, or by the skin—are all
sent inward to the brain, and that each of these organs sends its
impressions to a distinct region of the brain; sensations of light
going in one direction, those of sound in another, and so forth.

The work of Munk, of Berlin, in 1881, confirmed and added to
the discoveries of Ferrier, and finally established the conclusion
that sensations as well as motion can be located. So that to-day
it is possible to lay out a sort of map on the brain of animals,
and to say that each of the regions put down on the map has a
particular sense with which it is related. On such a map there
are here and there empty spaces, such as there are on our geo-
graphical maps of Africa—for no one knows what is there. But
that, of course, does not invalidate our knowledge of regions which
are known, and only shows that further discovery is possible.
When we come to see the practical results of these discoveries,
the arguments of those who oppose vivisection will cease to inter-
est or move us.

These physiological experiments, however, are only of impor-
tance to us in our study of our own mental action, provided they
have a bearing upon the working of the brainin man. And this
is a question which has only been settled within the past fifteen
years. It was admitted, indeed, that in the structure and appear-
ance of his brain man resembled quite closely the higher types of
gorilla and ape, and yet the apparently impassable barrier between
men and animals as regards mental activity prevented any hasty
conclusion that these facts could beapplied to men. The question
whether sensation and motion could be assigned to parts of the
brain in the human race was still (ten years ago) an open one.
Of course, it is impossible to experiment upon the human brain.
But on a little consideration it soon became evident that Nature

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was really furnishing the observer with a series of natural experi-
ments on man in the form of disease. The physiologist removed
apiece of the brain and watched the loss of sight or hearing, or
the loss of motion which ensued. The physician, on the other
hand, watches the same kind of loss of sight and hearing, or of
motion, in his patient, and may perhaps conclude that here too a
loss of brain-tissue is the cause. And this conclusion was con-
firmed by further observation. Perhaps this may be made a little
clearer if we add a fact or two regarding the way in which these
experiments of nature are conducted. The blood which is sent to
the brain at every throb of the heart goes up in a set of tubes,
which give off side branches, like the system of water-pipes which
connect your basins with the reservoir. Each tube gets smaller as
its branches are given off, until at the end, instead of one large
pipe, there is an innumerable series of little end pipes, each throw-
out its little stream.

Let us picture to ourselves the water-pipe system of a town set
up on a frame aboveground, with the great main, the street
mains, the house pipes, and the little pipes all over the houses, all
in view, and we will have a sort of conception of the brain’s vessels
and its blood-supply. Now, it is easy to see that, if a stick ora
mass of leaves start out from the reservoir into a main, they will
go on and on till they reach a pipe too small to allow them to
pass, and there they will lodge. If the stick gets into one’s house
pipe, one’s entire house will be cut off from the water-supply ; if
the mass of leaves breaks up, afew particles may come in and
plug up a pipe to one only of the basins. But in either case the
basin will be as useless for washing purposes as if there were no
reservoir at all. Now, something very similar to this occurs in
disease. Little plugs sometimes come up to the brain from the
heart in the blood, and lodge in the little vessels which conduct
the blood to various parts of the brain ; and when the part of the
brain is thus cut off from its supply of nutrition, it gradually
withers up and ceases to act.

But when it ceases to act, a loss of some one sense results, just
as in the dog when a part of the brain was cut out a loss of some
sense occurred. When these facts were studied in this way, it soon
became evident that in some persons it was the sight, in others the
hearing, in others some other sense, in others still the power of
movement which was lost; and further study showed that the vary-
ing effect depended upon which part of the brain was deprived of
nutrition and was withered, just as in the dogs the location of the
part removed determined which sensation was destroyed ; so thata
striking parallel between the results of experiment and the results
of disease can be drawn; and thus the conclusion is arrived at that
what is true of animals is true of man, that in man as well as in

one ee eee

ea a

—— lh. Se TSO

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 733

animals certain regions of the brain can be mapped out and can
be assigned to the different senses. It has thus been proved that
in their action as well as in their structure the brains of man and
of animals are alike.

If in structure and in function all brains are somewhat similar,
it may be interesting to obtain a little notion of what a brain is
really like. The figure will demonstrate this very well.

a,
nes 5

Fig. 1.—DIaAGRAM OF THE EXTERNAL SURFACE oF THE LEFT CEREBRAL HEMISPHERE (modified
from Ecker).

It shows that the brain is an egg-shaped organ with an irregu-
lar surface of a yellowish-gray color. The irregularities are
formed by a folding of the surface layer so as to accommodate
itself to the small space in the head. To illustrate this, when a
handkerchief is spread out over the hands it takes up a great
space, and a box in order to hold it would have to be of large
size; but by gathering the handkerchief up in the hands it is
thrown into folds, and, although its actual surface is not de-
creased, the space it occupies is much diminished, and it could
now be put in a very small box and yet all be there, but then its
surface would be irregular and show many creases. Now, what
was done to the handkerchief Nature has done to the brain as it
has developed. In the lower animals and in an early stage of life
the folds are few and simple, but in man when full grown they are
many and complex. This only means that the actual surface of

734. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the brain if spread out would be much greater in man than in the
lower animals, and far too great to be laid out flat within the —
head. There are many interesting facts which make one believe
that the greater the extent of brain surface in a man, or, to put it
a little differently, the more the folds and deeper the creases be-
tween them, the greater are the man’s mental powers; and just
here it becomes apparent that to judge of the extent of the entire
brain surface by the size of the head, or by the extent of the super-
ficial irregular surface which is covered by the skull without any
regard to the number of folds or their depth, is to fall into an
absurd error, and here we begin to see how baseless the old phre-
nology really is.

For a little brain with many deep folds may really when spread
out have a larger surface than a large brain with few shallow
folds, and a so-called bump or elevation on the apparent surface
of the organ, even if it produces a corresponding elevation on the
head, which it frequently fails to do, will indicate nothing regard-
ing the number of the folds or the depth of the creases which lie
about it, so that it may be stated without hesitation that from the
size or shape of the head no conclusion whatever can be made as
to the extent of surface of the brain, and consequently no conclu-
sion can be reached regarding the mental capacity.

But what lies underneath the brain surface ? The inner struct-
ure of the brain is interesting. Everywhere coming off from the
under surface are white threads which gather into bands and pass
downward and inward, and finally come out below in the form of
nerves. These are the lines of communication by which messages
from various parts of the body reach the brain, and along which
the impulses are sent out from the brain to the body which result
in speech and action. Imagine for a moment that from every
part of your hand little threads pass up the arm and find their
way to the brain, and there go to a special part of its surface and
end. It can be seen at once that you would have a little map of
the hand laid out on the brain surface, projected there, to use the
terms of the geographer; and in fact such a map of the entire
body could really be drawn on the brain surface if we could fol- ©
low all the. little threads to their ends. A sensation which has
been sent in from your little finger has always gone to a definite
place in your brain, and whenever a message passes along that
thread and goes to the brain you feel a sensation in the little
finger. The thread goes along your funny-bone at the elbow, and
if you happen to strike it there you send a message along it to
the brain; but as all such messages have usually come from the
little finger, the brain supposes that this one has also come from
there, and that is the reason that, although you strike your funny-
bone, you feel it in the finger. That also is the reason why peo-

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 735

ple whose fingers have been cut off often say that they have pain
in the missing finger, and when you are seated on a hard or un-
comfortable chair your foot “ goes to sleep.”

Now, just as the fingers are joined to the brain we must believe
that the other organs are joined to it. Thus the eye sends in its
thousands of little threads to one part of the brain surface, the
ear to another, the nose and tongue to another. So that each of

Fie. 2.—DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE DIRECTION OF SOME OF THF FIBERS IN THE CERE-
BRUM (Le Bon). The foldings of the surface; the association fibers joining different regions of
the surface with each other; and the fibers passing down to the organs of sense are shown.

the organs of sense is related to a special region of the brain. And
each of these regions receives messages from its own particular
organ and from no other. That is what is meant by the term
localization of brain functions; namely, that each power of sensa-
tion can be assigned to a location of its own. This idea aids very
materially our conception of the senses. The sense of sight, for
example, can not be thought of as dependent upon the eye alone,
but upon the eye and the visual part of the brain surface with
their connecting threads. And, after all, we must admit that we
do not really see with our eyes or hear with our ears. Why does
your friend want to hurry through an art gallery, while you wish

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

to look carefully at the paintings ? You both see them with your
eyes alike. Is it not because behind the eye there is something
that is mental which enhances your enjoyment, and the lack of
which prevents him from appreciating the beauties of art ?

Go to a concert, and, as you come away, listen to the comments
of people about you. One says that he was occupied chiefly in
watching the gyrations of the man who plays the kettle-drums.
Another is indulging in raptures over the intricate counterpoint
displayed in the orchestration of the symphony. You have en-
joyed the music without perhaps having noticed the counterpoint
at all. And yet you and the other two have heard equally well,
so far as the actual hearing goes. But how differently you have
really heard! It has been the reception of the sounds in the brain,
rather than in the ear, the appreciation of their meaning, the ideas
awakened by the sensations there, which has determined this dif-
ference. You see and hear with the brain, and not with the eye
or ear.

Or take another function of the brain, that of voluntary move-
ment. You may be fairly skillful and graceful; you may have
learned to write a good hand, or to play on the piano; you may
even have succeeded in acquiring the power to pronounce foreign
languages with the ease and fluency of your own. But this is not
the limit to the knowledge of movement. There are many new
motions which you might acquire; for example, the steps of new
dances, the peculiar fingering of the violin or cornet or other
musical instruments, or some one of the innumerable fine adjust-
ments of motion which you see made with such rapidity by any one
of fifty different operatives in every factory in the land. All these
are movements of adaptation and adjustment, first studied by the
aid of sight and then imitated by the aid of muscular sense, or the
sense of movement, and finally acquired by practice till they can
be executed with dexterity. It is not the fingers or the muscles
which have learned the movements. It is the brain which, in its
motor area, has received the sensation of movement, has retained
a memory, and then combined the memories into new forms of
motion so as to direct and guide the hand which carries them out.
And so, though we all have hands and arms, there are some who
use them deftly and are skillful, and there are others who will
always be hopelessly clumsy and awkward. And the difference
lies in the brain in the part called the motor area.

Where are the various areas? They can be shown by the aid
of diagrams representing the brain surface (Figs. 3 and 4). In the
middle lies the motor area (Fig. 3,1), and it is interesting to know
that on the left half of the brain, which guides the right hand, it
is larger in extent than on the other side which controls the left
hand; because the majority of fine movements are performed by

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 737

the right hand, and have to be learned by the left brain. The
reverse is true of left-handed people.

At the extreme back is the visual area which receives im-
pressions from the eye (Fig. 3, 2; Fig. 4, 2). In the lower part of
the side the auditory
area is situated, where
impressions from the
ear are received (Fig. 3,
3). On the under sur-
face and in front of the
auditory, the senses of
taste and smell are lo-
cated (Figs. 3 and 4, 4).
Touch, which includes
the senses of location
and of movement, as
well as those of tem-
perature and pain, is
assigned to the same
area as that of motion,
but extends a little far-

4 Fie. 3.—THe FouncrionaL AREAS ON THE BRAIN SURFACE.
ther back (Figs. 3 and The parallel lines show the situation of different areas: 1,

Be, abd this overlap. | syactmotions s ars otsigat § ert erngs 4 area
ping of the two is not

strange when we consider that our motions are guided by touch ;
think how differently you lift a heavy lamp or a fine bit of cotton-
wool, and you will see how your grasp is guided by touch. These
are the areas which
are thus far discov-
ered, but our knowl-
edge of the brain is by
no means complete,
for there are large re-
gions, on this African
map, of undiscovered
country. Fortunately,
several Stanleys are
on the way.

Let us now, accept-
Fie. 4—Tsz Mepran Surrace or THe Ricst Haur or tar ing this theory of the

BRaIN, SHOWING FUNCTIONAL AREAS. : :
localization of func-
tions in the brain, go on to see how much it reveals to us regard-
ing the process of thinking.

Although a part of our thinking is done by the aid of lan-
guage, the greater part of it is carried on without the conscious-
ness of actual words. Mental images are constantly passing

VOL, Xxxv.—47

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through the mind, one crowding upon another; and it is only
when we need to tell some one else about them that we use lan-
guage. Call up to your mind for a moment the place in which
you passed last summer, and already there has appeared a series
of mental images of place and people, of scenes and events, each
following the other with amazing rapidity but in silent succession,
Max Miller would have us believe that thought without words is
impossible, and he even attempts to trace the development of
thought by studying the growth of language.* But many authori-
ties, scientific and philosophical, teach the contrary, and rather
than accept his position one is tempted to undermine it by advanc-
ing the opinion that few men think as the student of words does.

If we think, then, by means of mental images largely, it may
- be worth while to study the structure of a mental image.

When you examine a flower you perceive its graceful shape
and form, its exquisite color, its delicate fragrance, and its soft,
velvety feel. You say it is called a rose, but—

“What's in aname? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

So that without its name you have a mental image of it, whichis —

made up of several distinct sensations. These are the sensations
of the rose as it appears to the eye—the visual vmage ; the sensa-
tion as it reaches the nose—the olfactory image ; and the sensation

of its touch, its shape, and softness—the tactile rmage. These im- —

pressions on the different senses have been sent to distinct and
separate regions of the brain surface. There, having been re-
ceived, they are stored up, so that the image once formed can be
recognized when repeated and can be revived in memory.

Every sensation leaves behind it a trace upon the brain, which

trace is the physical basis of our memory of the sensation. Per-
haps no modern conception of the physical basis of memory is
more graphic than that which we find in Plato. In the “Theeete-
tus” he puts the following words into the mouth of Socrates:

“T would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind ~

of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men,
harder, moister, and having more or less purity in one than in an-

other. Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother
of the Muses, and that when we wish to remember anything which ~

we have seen or heard or thought in our own minds, we hold the —

wax to the perceptions and thoughts, and in that receive the im- ~
pressions of them as from the seal of a ring; and that we remem-

ber and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but
when the image is effaced or can not be taken then we forget and
do not know.” +

* “ Science of Thought.” + “ Theetetus,”’ Jowett’s translation,

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 739

Plato carries out the same figure to explain different degrees
of memory. When the wax is deep, abundant, smooth, and of the
right quality, the impressions are lasting. Such minds learn
easily, retain easily, and are not liable to confusion. But, on the
other hand, when the wax is very soft, one learns easily but for-
gets as easily; if the wax is hard, one learns with difficulty, but
what is learned is retained.*

In some way or other, we do not know exactly how, the sensa-
tions leave behind them impressions or memory pictures.

And these separate memory pictures are associated together,
as they have all come from the same object; so that, the associa-
tion being once made, any
one will bring to mind the
others, and hence if you
perceive the fragrance you
remember the appearance
of the flower from which it
comes—its color or its feel.
This association of separate
memory-pictures is secured
by means of fine nerve-
threads, which pass between
the various areas of the
brain and join the parts of
the mental image with each
other. This may be repre-
sented in the diagram (Fig.
5) by placing a circle for
each memory-picture in its
appropriate place and join-
ing the circles by lines. The
circles represent those little
round masses of brain sub- Fie. 5.—Dracram to miusTRATE THE ConoEPT Ros.

Each memory is the relic of a past perception, ac-
stance called nerve - cells, quired through an organ of sense. These memories are

and the lines the associa- associated, forming together the concept.

° Dyic The lines from the rose represent the channels of sen-
tion nerve- fibers uniting sation; the lines between the circles the association
the cells (Fig. 6). The dig- tacks. The mouth and hand are the motor organs of

A speech and writing.
gram shows the physical
basis of the mental image of a rose—what has been called by Ro-
manes a “recept,” since its elements have been received by the
senses.t What is true of the rose is true of every other object
which we have ever learned to know, for of every object we have
a recept, or a series of mental images in the brain.

TACTILE
ANDO.
TEMPERATURE

ope

LIVIID

AYN Avo.
SPTIC NERVE

3.
BAYAN AXOLIOny

* “Memory Historically Considered,” Burnham, “ American Journal of Psychology,”
ii, 41.
+ Romanes, “ Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 36, D. Appleton & Co., 1889.

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We are constantly increasing our store of mental images, and
when one contrasts the small number of such images in the brain

of a common uneducated day-laborer with the myriads in the

brain of one who has traveled widely, has become familiar with
the stores of informa-
tion in foreign lan-
guages as well as in
his own, and has cul-
tivated his powers of
observation in many
different directions
—for example, such
a great leader of
thought as Glad-
stone—one can not
but be amazed at the
capacity of work in
this little organ, the
brain. And if there
Fie. 6.—TuHEe Location oF THE MEMoRY-PicTURES IN THE MEN- is a physical basis for
TAL IMAGE OF A RoSE ON THE BRAIN SURFACE. The different each of these mental
memory-pictures are joined by association fibers. . . :

images, is it not evi-

dent that in the brain of a Gladstone large areas must be taken
up which in the laboring man are really empty ? We have seen

that on our brain-map there are some empty spaces. There is —

every reason to believe that these grow smaller as our information

widens; and, if so, then, like the undiscovered country of Africa, —

they should really be a stimulus to efforts of further conquest.
But this mental image of the rose, as represented in the figure,
is not really a complete image until it is associated with a name,
And the mental image of the name is not as simple as might at
first be supposed; for you have not only learned to recognize the

=F

word “rose” when you hear it, or when you see it printed, but —

you have also learned to say the word and to write it, so that you
really have a word-image “rose” made up of two sensory images,

auditory and visual, and of two motor images, or the memory of ©

the effort necessary to use the word in speech and in script. It

is necessary to add then four more circles to the diagram to show
the physical basis of the word “rose,” and each of these must be

placed in its own special region, which has been determined by a
long series of investigations. These circles, too, must be joined

together, since all the parts of the word are connected in the mind;
and, finally, the word-image and the mental image, in all their parts,
must also be associated (Fig. 7). Thus the complete mental image
of such a simple object as a rose is made up of numerous distinct
mental pictures, each joined to all the others, and each located in

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 741

its own particular domicile. Now, such a mental image is termed
a concept, and concepts are the material of thought. Thought is
the play of consciousness among these concepts—a play which
always, in our waking hours, is within definite boundaries and
along lines of association. The oddity of our dreams arises from
the disregard of these
lines and boundaries in
a semi-conscious state.
Many of the concepts
are related to one an-
other. Thus the rose is
only one of many flow-
ers which you know,
and the term “ flower”
really brings to a focus
all the images of the
different roses, chrys-
anthemums, pansies,
and pinks and varied
objects which the most
complete horticultural

exhibition can display. Fie. 7.—THE Location oF THE MEMORY-PICTURES OF THE
The term “ flower ”— Worp-Imace Rose. 1, word-hearing; 2, word-seeing; 3,

word-uttering ; 4, word-writing memory-picture.

which we may call an
abstract term, because it stands, not for a single object, but for a
class of different objects with common features—enables us to
handle these many mental images easily and communicate the
pictures before our minds to others. It is a convenience, then, to
use the word; but, nevertheless, it is the mental images, rather
than the words, which play the greater part in our thinking.

This has been most ably expressed by the Duke of Argyll,
who says: “Images are repetitions of sensation, endowed with all
its mental wealth, and consciously reproduced from the stores of
memory. Without images we can do nothing in the fields of
thought, while with images we can mentally do all things which
itis given ustodo. Thevery highest and most abstract concepts
are seen and handled by our intellects in the form of voiceless
imagery. How many are the concepts roused in us by the forms
and by the remembered images of the human countenance!
Love and goodness, purity and truth, benevolence and devotion,
firmness and justice, authority and command—these are a few,
and a few only, of the abstract ideas which may be presented and
represented to us in every degree and in every combination by
the remembered image of some silent face. What a wealth of
concepts is set before us, for example, in the images raised by this
single line:

‘Her eyes are homes of silent prayer’!

742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

“ Introspection will convince us—perhaps to our own astonish-
ment—how large a part of our thinking operations are conducted
through the raising and recalling of remembered images.” *

But it may be objected that one can not spend one’s time in
day-dreams, or in the mere pleasures of memory and imagination,
You say that reason and action are the real things of life. Have
these, too, such a physical as well as a mental basis? Let us fol-
low one or two simple acts of reasoning foramoment. When you
see a rose, although it is at a distance from you, you will admit
that you believe it to have a fragrance. ‘You conclude that it has,
because in your former experience with roses you remember that,
when you have held one near, you have always perceived its per-
fume. The association of the sight of the rose and the fragrance
has become fixed in your mind, and when you see it your thought
is led along to its fragrance, and you draw the conclusion that the
rose is fragrant. That is an act of reasoning. Supposing some
one says that the rose sounds sweetly. You have no association
between such things as roses and sounds in nature, and your
thought refuses to run along where there is no track. You reply
that he is talking nonsense—that is, the unreasonable.

Or take another example. Your dog sees you go into the hall
and take up your hat and cane; he at once jumps up and runs
about, showing by his action that he has come to the conclusion
that you are off for a walk, and that he wants to go with you.
What is the basis of this process of reasoning? He has a mental
image of this act of yours, associated with another mental image
of a run on the lawn, and the first calls up to his mind the second.
In his experience one act has usually followed the other, and he
draws the conclusion that you are going out where he can run.
You say at once that the dog has reasoned correctly. It may
even be true that the dog has learned to understand language.

Many dogs know the word “out,” and it calls up to them as dis-—

tinct a mental image as your act of putting on your hat. Sir
John Lubbock has even taught his dog to read ; + for, by showing

him a large card on which the word “water” was printed, every }

time he gave him a drink, an association was established in the

dog’s mind between the card and the act; and, finally, when the —

dog wanted a drink, he would bring the card in his mouth to his

es

2

ini ee

=
va

master. Ten such different words were taught him, and he rarely ©

made a mistake. So that the understanding of speech and of —

writing and the act of reasoning, so far as simple conclusions go, —

from the recollection of mental images, may be granted to ani-

mals as well as to man. And these acts of reasoning, like those

* Aroyll, “The Identity of Thought and Language,” “Contemporary Review,” De-—
cember, 1888, p. 814.
+ “Intelligence of Animals,” D. Appleton & Co.

THH OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 743

of memory, have as a basis the association of ideas. It may be
admitted at once that many high processes of thought involve
the following of association along many lines at once, or in such
a complex way that to picture them clearly to the mind would be
an almost impossible task. But there appears to be no essential
- difference in kind between the simple conclusions which have been
used as illustrations and the more complex ones involved in ab-
stract reasoning. The logician will reduce all your acts of rea-
soning to certain syllogisms which it is now quite customary to ex-
press in algebraic formule. For each of these formule it is pos-
sible to picture a physical basis of nerve-cells, joined together by
nerve-fibers, so that it seems probable that the mechanism of
thought will some day be understood. Our thoughts are usually
so rapid and so many that we do not stop to analyze them, but,
when we do, we find them always the result of a gradual accre-
tion of ideas and not a new creation. The inventor will tell you
that his mostbrilliant discovery did not spring suddenly into his
mind in all its perfection, but was gradually led up to, step by
step, with many halts and puzzling alternatives. Finally, old
mechanisms and principles, formerly familiar, were successfully
associated together with new adaptations into a new unit, and the
ingenious mechanism was complete. The evolution of the loco-
motive, of the telegraph, and of the telephone teaches us the pro-
cess in the inventor’s mind as clearly as it shows his genius for
construction. There are many other mental processes which might
be followed out which display equally well how closely reasoning
depends on the association of ideas—i.e., upon the play of con-
sciousness along lines of communication between different re-
gions of the brain. But we must pass on to some illustrations of
action.

Watch a game of tennis and notice the difference between
players, and you can tell a great deal about their mental pro-
cesses. One is quick to see the ball, to note its direction, and to
calculate its speed and the position it will reach in a moment, and
yet from a lack of quickness in movement or from clumsiness he
is unable to return it well. Another is particularly agile and
graceful, plays all over the field, and seems to be everywhere at
the right time; and you think him the better player. But as you
watch you find that he judges the ball badly, and is not accurate
in his calculation as to where it is going or when it will fall. The
champion player is the one who combines accuracy and quickness
with precision and agility. The sight of the direction of the ball
leads him at once to a correct judgment of how far he has to run
or reach for it, and his movement is quick enough and directed
with just sufficient force to make the return. Now, this matter of
precision of movement is dependent upon a process of perception,

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

association, and effort, and is to a great extent a matter of inborn
capacity. The physicists express this by saying that each of us
has his personal equation, Perhaps this will be more easily under-
stood if we follow the manner in which it was discovered. One
of the interesting astronomical events is the eclipse of Jupiter’s
moons as they pass behind the planet and disappear from the
astronomer’s view. Maskelyne, British astronomer royal, and his
assistant in the Greenwich Observatory, in 1795, sitting side by
side and looking through two telescopes, were attempting to re-
cord very accurately the moment at which the eclipse was com-
plete. It was found that their records differed from one another
by some fractions of a second. And the differences were about
the same when other observations with a similar object were

made. The explanation of these differences has been found, after
“many years of investigation, to be due to a difference in the rapid-
ity with which each man observed and recorded his observation,
and those differences can now be measured. This was not appre-
ciated at first, for we find that the result of this discovery of a
difference between the records of the two observers was very un-
fortunate to one of them; for in his annual report Maskelyne
writes:

“T think it necessary to mention that my assistant, Mr. David
Kinnebrook, who had observed the transits of stars and planets
very well in agreement with me all the year 1794, and for the
great part of the present year, began from the beginning of Au-
gust last to set them down half a second of time later than he
should do according to my observations; and in January of the
succeeding year, 1796, he increased his error to eight tenths of a
second. As he had unfortunately continued a considerable time
in this error before I noticed it, and did not seem to me likely ever
to get over it and return to the right method of observing, there-
fore, though with reluctance, as he was a diligent and useful as-
sistant to me in other respects, I parted with him.”

Thus Mr. David Kinnebrook fell a victim to the earliest dis-
covery of the difference of power of observation.

How these differences were measured it would take too long to
relate. The results only can be stated, and for details reference
made to an article by Prof. Cattell in a recent number of “The
Popular Science Monthly” on “The Time it takes to Think,”
and to one by Prof. Sandford, in the “ American Journal of Psy-
chology,” on the “ Personal Equation.” *

Any act which depends upon sensation, such as returning a
tennis-ball or replying to a question, takes time. This act can be
separated into certain parts. There is the perception of the sensa-
tion, the decision to respond to it, and the act of motion. You

* Vol. ii, No. 1.

THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 745

hear the question, you think of the answer, and you say it. Hach
of them has been separately measured, and takes from one tenth
to one sixth of a second, so that the entire process requires from
three tenths to one half of a second to complete it. People differ
widely from one another in this rapidity of action, and the same
person differs much at different times, and the explanation of this
difference is found in the inherent power of activity in the brain.
The effect of wine is to make these acts slower. The action as a
whole calls into activity several parts of the brain, the nerve from
the organ of sense to the brain, the part receiving the sensation,
the tract from it to the motor area, and the part of that area which
initiates the impulse and guides the movement and the nerve
thence to the muscles. It is not surprising, therefore, that it
should take some time; the astonishing thing is really the rapidity
with which the brain acts, for modern measurements extend to
thousandths of a second, and some mental processes in rapid brains
take only a few hundredths of a second to be completed. Famil-
larity with a certain act lessens the time it requires. A lady was
heard to say the other day, in alluding to the acting of the French
comedians who have recently been seen here, that it was surpris-
ing how much faster French people talked than Americans. She
would have thought it an act lacking in courtesy had it been in-
sisted upon that it was not because they really talked faster, but
because her English-speaking brain refused to think as rapidly in
French, that had led her to the conclusion. Yet such was the fact.

There is one more process of mental activity to which allusion
must be made, as it has thrown much light upon the theory of
localization, and has now been fully explained by that theory—
viz., the power of speech. There is perhaps no mental process
which brings us more closely to the point of meeting of the physi-
cal and mental elements of the mind.

Language is so complex, as we survey it and as we constantly
use it, that it seems at first impossible to unravel all its mys-
teries. But, if we watch its growth, we can get at some facts of
not a little interest. Let us trace the way in which a baby learns
its first word.* As the baby looks about him he begins after a
time to distinguish faces, and one face, his mother’s, being con-
stantly near, soon becomes most familiar. Mothers are constantly
talking to their babies, and always speak of themselves as “mam-
ma” or “ mother,’ never using “I” or “me,” After a time the
baby begins to notice this sound “mamma” and to recognize it,
and then the fact that a certain face and a certain sound usually
come together finally establishes a fixed association between the
sight-picture and the sound-picture, so that the one when brought
to mind brings up the other. Then, if you ask the baby, “ Where

* Preyer, “ The Mind of the Child,” D. Appleton & Co., 1888,

746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is mamma ?” he will look about the room until he finds the familiar —

face. He has now taken his first step in acquiring speech, he has
learned the meaning of a word. The second step follows after a
time. From time immemorial in the baby’s experience he has
been able to cry, and he knows it; in other words, he is aware of
the fact that it is one of his native powers to make a noise. By
and by it begins to occur to him that this sound, “mamma,” is also
a noise, and some day, probably by accident, as he is being cruelly
shaken up by being trotted on some one’s knee, he emits a sound
like “mamma.” If heisa bright baby—and whose baby is not ?—
he notices the similarity between the sound he has made and the
sound he has already learned. Such attempts at saying “mamma”
usually meet with considerable active encouragement of an agree-
able kind, and he naturally repeats the attempt. After many
failures it is a success, and he has at last acquired a memory of
the exact effort in certain muscles of lips and tongue needed to
produce the sound, and has also associated that memory of effort
with the memory of the sound which in time is joined to the
memory of the mother’s face. And now the second process is
complete, and the baby knows how to say the word intelligently ;
for intelligent speech is speech based upon an association of ideas,
Of course, as the child grows, he subsequently adds a visual pict-
ure of the word “mamma” to the auditory picture when he learns
to read ; and a manual-effort memory to the speech-effort memory
when he learns to write. When all these four memories are
acquired and associated, he has acquired the use of language.

Now, what is true of this simple word has been true of every
other word which we make use of ; and, though we can not recall
this process which we have been through, we can see it going on
about us. If you wish to study it carefully, study children, by the
aid of Preyer’s interesting book, “The Mind of the Child.”* Or
if you wish to observe the process more directly, recall the manner
in which you have acquired a foreign language, for that is done
in the same way, if the natural method is followed. Suppose that
you are told that in German the brain is called Gehirn—that it is
pronounced gayheern, and spelled g-e-h-i-r-n. If you are not famil-
iar with German, you have now a new word-image connected
with the mental image of the brain much more easily acquired
than was the word “mamma” when you learned it, but nevertheless
acquired in the same way.

Whether we think, then, in mental images or in language,
the process is the same; it is consciousness playing along certain
lines of association to and fro between definite memory-pictures.
These memory-pictures have been acquired through the senses,

* The practical application of this knowledge is made by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, in
an article on “ Language in Education,” ‘“ American Journal of Psychology,” vol. ii, No. 1.

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THE OLD AND THE NEW PHRENOLOGY. 747

each through its own particular channel of sensation, and are
stored up in the brain, each in its particular part of the brain.

Memory is the revival in consciousness of these various mem-
ory-pictures.

Imagination is the combination of old pictures into a new
image.

Reasoning is the passage of thought from one picture to
another, along established lines.

Action is the carrying out of the impulse to whose memory
reason has led up.

These are some of the mental faculties, and it is at once evi-
dent that they are not distinct entities, like the mental image, but
rather powers of the mind to deal with these images; and, there-
fore, the faculties can not be said to have any particular seat,
and can never be located in an area of the brain. Imagination
and reasoning power are therefore not to be assigned to bumps on
the head,.as the old phrenology taught. And even when we speak
of memory we distinguish it broadly from the memory-pictures,
which do have a location, but one that is wholly different from
that taught by Gall. Here, again, we see how far removed from
the old phrenology the new phrenology is, and how much more
exact in its knowledge. If proofs of these facts are demanded,
they are to be found in the study of diseases of memory, as de-
scribed in Ribot’s entertaining little volume. But one or two
statements may be made, very briefly, in closing, which must
carry conviction to the most skeptical mind.

The reason why it is now accepted that each sense with its
memory-pictures has a definite location in the brain distinct from
all others, is that it is possible for one sense or one set of memory-
pictures to be lost without affecting the others. There are men in
apparently perfect health who have suddenly lost all their sight-
memory, so that they no longer recognize people or things formerly
familiar. One such man did not even know his wife until she spoke
to him, when he at once knew her voice. There are men who
have in the course of a few moments been deprived of their mem-
ory of language, and who, although they could talk and even
write, were as incapable of understanding what was said to them
or of understanding what they saw on a printed page as one would
be of spoken or written Chinese. There are others still who have
lost their artistic or musical powers, but in other respects are per-
fectly sound, so that instead of being able to sketch from memory
as formerly they are unable to call up to mind a single memory-
picture; and instead of being able to follow or recollect a melody
or appreciate the harmonies of music, they are totally deprived of
this pleasure, and this without any blindness or deafness except-
ing of the mind.

748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Others, again, lose the power of speech or of writing without
having their understanding of language interfered with or without
any paralysis of the muscles—the effort-memory of speech is lost.

Such effects find their only possible explanation in the fact
that each set of memory-pictures may be destroyed simply, and

this is only possible provided they are situated in separate regions,

of the brain.

And there is a great practical application of all this theory of
localization, which has only been reached within the past three
years.

If it is possible to locate a set of memories, and in the progress
of disease those memories are lost, it is evident that the location
of the disease has been determined. Sometimes that disease is of
a kind which can be removed—for example, a brain tumor. From
a study of such facts as those presented here it has been possible
to determine the location of tumors in the brain, and, although
externally there was no sign of disease, it has been possible for
surgeons to go through the skull to find the tumor and to remove
it. Upto the present time about seventy such operations have
been done in this country and in Europe, and of these fifty have
been successful, and what was formerly considered a necessarily
fatal disease has thus been cured.

The practical demonstration of the truth of the new phrenol-
ogy is therefore complete.

The old phrenology, as we have seen, was wrong in its ‘theory,
wrong in its facts, wrong in its interpretation of mental processes,
and never led to the slightest practical result. The new phrenol-
ogy is scientific in its methods, in its observations, and in its anal-
ysis, and is convincing in its conclusions. And who can now
set a limit to the benefit it has brought to mankind by its practi-
cal application to the saving of human lives ?

LIFE AT THE CAMEROONS.
By ROBERT MULLER, M. D.

HE Cameroons youth has the inclination to independence from

the day of his birth, and it is taken advantage of by his
mother. Before he can walk, she sets him out near the house,
where he looks about him all the day at will. As soon as he is
large enough she gives him the day’s catch of fish of his father
or elder brother, to spread and turn for drying and putting away.
As soon as he can use his legs, he is taken by his brothers or a
friendly youth in the canoe, and is gradually taught the manage-
ment of the vessel. When he has become stronger, he is allowed

LIFE AT THE CAMEROONS. 749

to go alone and disport himself in the water to his heart’s con-
tent. At the same time he begins to fish, using four lines at once
—two attached to his big toes as his feet hang over the side of
the boat, and two held in his hands. It is a curious spectacle in-
deed to see him pulling in first one foot and then the other, as a
fish has been caught upon it, and at the same time gesticulating
with his arms to keep the boat in position and manage the lines
in his hand. As he fishes the boat is allowed to drift down the
stream; but the pulling back absorbs his entire attention. Crab-
fishing comes in about every two years, when the crustaceans oc-
cupy the water so thickly that they can be caught as fast as they
can be taken out with the hands.

For the chief dish at his breakfast or dinner he receives a hash
of various vegetables, baked or packed sausage-fashion in leaves.
Rice, bought from the factories, and pilot-bread from the ships,
are becoming common, and are regarded as delicacies. A favorite
dish is made of chicken and yams, cooked, with pepper-pods, in
palm oil. The youth eats his meal in company with his mother
and brothers and sisters, and is allowed only in exceptional cases
to share his father’s usually solitary repast. By “brothers and
sisters” are understood only children of the same mother; the
others are the sons and daughters of his father. I learned this
when I asked my little companion Akuelle,a son of King Bell,
who was the other youth with us. “He is a son of King Bell,”
was the reply. “Then he is your brother?” “ No, doctor, he has
another mother.” When the child is nine years old he is shorn
and counted among the men. If his father is rich, a wife is
bought for him, but the couple are not expected to live together
for some years yet. During his earlier years the negro of this
part of Guinea is conspicuously intelligent and a most pleasing
companion. But his good qualities disappear with the passing
away of his youth, and he becomes the false, idle, quarrelsome
African of the factories.

The breech-clout constitutes the usual clothing of the men. A
small apron is also worn, so that if the former piece becomes op-
pressive it can be taken off without the man being wholly naked.
Articles of European clothing are often worn, but only on the
upper part of the body; trousers have not yet been admitted to
the Cameroons wardrobe. King Bell wears also a stove-pipe hat,
which he manages to keep always looking new.

The birth of a girl is received with great joy, as a costless ac-
quisition of wealth, for she is sure when she becomes marriage-
able to bring a goodly sum. The purchaser may come from the
same village or from another, but is more welcome in the latter
case, for then he will have to pay more. The child grows up
under the eyes of her mother, and is taught by her to cook, work

750 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the field, take care of the other children, and smoke. All this
must be done early, for it will not be many years before a pur-
chaser will come for her; and at ten or twelve years of age she
will probably be called upon to follow a stranger. Notwithstand-
ing the early marriages, the number of children seldom exceeds
three, and the woman is a matron at twenty. When she has
passed her bloom she is relegated to the capacity of a servant, and
her husband gets another, younger wife. Thus men of means
often take one or two new women every year. The women and
their children live in separate houses, which are not shared by
the husband. He lives, too, in a house of his own, in the midst
of the women’s houses, which are sometimes quite numerous.
King Bell has a hundred and twenty wives. The intercourse be-
tween mother and child is very different from what it is with us,
and the Cameroons mother is more sparing in her caresses than
her white sisters. Kissing has no place among them, but they
have their own peculiar ways of fondling and petting, which per-
haps represent as much affection as the more demonstrative pro-
ceedings of Europeans.

So long as they are young and handsome the Cameroons
women pay great attention to their toilet. The petticoat, which
reaches down from the hips to the ankles, must be thoroughly
smooth and clean, and the apron, which is worn under it, is as
spotless as the under-clothing of a European lady. Their hair is
woven by professional hair-dressers into braids of various shapes,
without grease and usually without ornaments, although a woman
is occasionally found who wears a string of beads around her
head, The dressing usually lasts for a week, and is bound up at
night in a cloth for protection. It is also a part of the hair-
dresser’s business, which is carried on in the street, to pull out
the lady’s eyelashes. A string of pearls or some other ornament
of European origin is worn around the neck. The shoulders,
breast, and belly are covered with ornamental tattooing in red
and blue, apparently centering at the navel. Elaborate ruffles of
ivory or metallic rings are worn upon the wrists and ankles,

The principal musical instrument is the drum, or climbi, which
is made from a hollowed log. It has a slot along the direction of
its length, which is unevenly divided by a bridge left across it, on
which the drumstick is beat to produce different tones. The
music is at first monotonous enough to the ear, and it is hard to
realize that the instrument is available asa telegraph. Yet this
is its principal use. The Cameroons man drums out every event
that appears worth communicating. The next man takes it up
and drums it on, and in this way news is spread speedily from one

village to another. A regular drum-language has been worked ©

out, which the Cameroons man can imitate with his mouth or beat

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LIFE AT THE CAMEROONS. 751

silently on his breast, and thus converse at his convenience with
his countrymen, even in the presence of white men who under-
stand the spoken language. The drum-telegraph does not cease
during the whole night, for the Cameroons man is communica-
tive and has much time. The drum is also available as an instru-
ment to dance by. The dances are quite different from those of
the civilized world. The sexes being separated, there are no
waltzes or contra-dances; there are no pauses for conversation ;
but the dancing lasts all day, and, when any one gets tired of it,
he simply goes away and rests. The performance presents a curi-
ous scene, with two fellows beating on their drums as if wild, .
yet in regular measure, and a company of male or female dancers
in action in front of them. These have disposed themselves in a
circle, and beginning with short, shuffling steps to the right and
left, gradually wax more lively in their motions till the muscles
of the legs, arms, and shoulders are all engaged, and the whole
body at last gets into a condition of shaking and twisting that
no Kuropean can imitate. There is, however, no jumping, but a
kind of singing, in which a favorite theme is taken up by one of
the musicians and joined in by the chorus, which from time to
time rises into a regular bellowing. This goes on to the climax,
then subsides into a calmer tempo, while the performers are gather-
ing strength for a new outburst. The Cameroons music would be
tame without the drum. It is therefore taken into the boat, where
the song is performed in the same fashion as at the dance. The
subjects of the songs are various: sometimes they celebrate the
beauty of the canoe; sometimes the good trade which the singers
have made; sometimes scorn of their enemies or praise of their
friends; and sometimes they are of love. The other musical in-
struments are of inferior importance as compared with the drum,
and include stringed instruments of various construction, in which
the resonance is sometimes strengthened by using a hollow gourd
shell; and, in King Bell’s royal canoe, a bell and an ivory horn.
The Cameroons man is a most passionate trader. Circum-
stances compel the recognition of a credit system between Euro-
peans and the Duallas. The black comes to the white man and
asks for an advance upon the products which he engages to bring.
. When he brings them he wants another advance, and, keeping
this up for several years, he is liable to get considerably behind in
the white man’s books. The Europeans accordingly find it con-
venient to “ stop the trade” from time to time, and compel the na-
tives to “wash out their accounts” before they will permit any
further advances. This they do by agreement among themselves,
whereby the native is debarred the opportunity of skipping from
one dealer to another. Trade is almost wholly by barter, in which
the blacks receive rice, tobacco, spirits, cloth, guns, ammunition,

752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

salt, and knickknacks in exchange for their palm-oil, nuts, and
ivory. The Europeans, of course, do not fail to make the bargains
profitable to themselves. The unit of values is the “kru,” and
represents the quantity of goods which the man will receive for a
definite quantity of his products. It is a very indefinite standard ;
for a kru of salt is not worth as much as a kru of cloth, and thus
it varies according to the kind of goods in question. It may be
rated at about twenty marks German. There are also the “kek,”
or the quarter-kru, and the “ bar,” or twentieth of a kru; whence
apparently the kru may in the beginning have represented the
English pound.

The exchange of his products keeps the Cameroons man very
busy. He usually spends the day at the factory in bargaining.
For the goods which he has actually brought for the satisfaction
of his immediate wants, he usually receives a ticket or “ book”;
and this little paper is the one thing in the world for which he
has a real respect, and by which he will swear. He can not read
it, but he has learned that on presenting wt he will receive what
has been promised him. The mystery of this process seems to
him a real enchantment, and he regards it accordingly; and the
awe with which it inspires him is extended to all writing.

The objects offered in the factories are not produced by the
Cameroons man. He is too idle for that, and prefers to be a
middle-man. He buys the goods in “the bush,” on such terms as
to give him a tremendous profit in the whole transaction. In fact,
he cheats the bushman, and because of it conceives a great con-
tempt for him, which he expresses by calling every one whom he
regards as dull a bushman.

From time to time the Cameroons man leaves his home, pro-
visions his canoe, and, taking some of his wives with him, is rowed.
by his slaves into the bush, where he has his appointed trading
posts and purveyors. When his boat or boats are filled, he re-
turns to the Cameroons in grand style, and celebrates the end of
his expedition with a feast.

The Cameroons man is also a sportsman on the water. The
canoe is an exceedingly unstable craft when an inexperienced man
is trying to manage it, but the blacks handle it with great skill,
and, whether it be a large boat carrying many persons (some of
them have capacity for sixty), or built for himself alone, he pro-
pels it swiftly, safely, and accurately. A canoe skimming over
the water in the panoply of war offers an attractive sight. The
boats are handsomely painted in gay colors, and have artistic
figure-heads, chiefly representing birds or men, or creatures of
fancy. The crew sit on the sides and propel it by dexterous
manipulations of the paddles, which they hold with one hand at
the end of the handle, and the other close down by the blade; and

ee ee Ce ee a ee

UN TY a ee

LIFE AT THE CAMEROONS. 753

they pride themselves on the figures and tricks they can execute
with it. The boatmen in these war-vessels delight in arraying
themselves with warlike emblems—helmets of goat-skin, guns of
all kinds except good ones, swords, and bush-knives. While the
war vessels are highly adorned, the trading vessels and those in
common use are plain.

On account of their lack of industry, the Cameroons people
make very few articles beyond what are necessary for their own
use; and it is therefore hard to obtain a satisfactory collection of
their products. If they could be taught to apply themselves to
anything, they would make most excellent wood-carvers. The
figure-heads and models of their canoes, and their chairs, are very
fine. They make handsome mats and bagsof bast. Their fishing
nets and lines do them credit. Carved canes of ebony and cala-
bashes are harder to procure. An ivory-cutter drives a good busi-
ness in making walking-sticks for persons of means. The gar-
dens, in which banana-trees and yams are the most important
plants, are taken care of by the women, who also look after the
eggs, committing the sale of them to the young people. The
youthful salesmen drive their trade at the factories and the ships.
The buyer very carefully tests all the eggs, selecting the good
ones, which are usually not in very large proportion to the whole
number, and the seller takes his pay and goes with the rejected
eggs to the next customer. He takes the best he can find out of
the lot, and the seller goes on till he generally manages to dispose
of most of his stock. Sometimes a chicken pecks through the egg-
shell while the bargain is going on. This vexes the European,
but is very enjoyable to the native; for are we not fond of teasing
those we love? The egg-merchant uses his mouth for a porte-
monnaie, and puts coin after coin into it; when he has to make
change, he spits his fund into his hand, and picks out the needed
six- and three-penny pieces.

The people also keep goats, which they eat and Europeans do
not; swine, whose flesh Europeans reject; in the interior, very
small cows, which furnish good meat; dogs; and in the way of
pets, parrots, monkeys, chameleons, and crabs.—Translated for the
Popular Science Monthly from Das Ausland.

Tux report of the British Royal Education Commission assumes that if the
object of elementary education be the fitting of pupils in general for those
duties which they will most probably be called on to perform, instruction in sci-
ence is only second in importance to instruction in reading, writing, and arith-
metic. The soundness of this view is illustrated by the fact, also declared in the
report, that the preponderance of opinion among the teachers examined is that no
subject is better calculated to awaken the interest and intelligence of the pupils
than science.

VOL, Xxxv.—48

754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EVOLUTION AS TAUGHT IN A THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY.

By ROLLO OGDEN.

T the time of the last hearing of the case of Prof. Woodrow
before the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian
Church, at Baltimore, many of the Johns Hopkins students em-
braced the opportunity of a lifetime to listen to the expositions of
the doctrine of evolution made by so many of the divines of that
gathering. It is said that inextinguishable laughter was excited
among these young men by their learning how greatly their in-
competent professors had misled them as to what evolution really
was and meant. It is not often that a theologian can stop to afford
such enlightenment to the inquirer in science; and, when he does,
it is an obvious duty for one finding such priceless light hidden
under a bushel to discover it to the world.

The bushel, in the case in hand, is the two volumes of “ Dog-
matic Theology,” recently published by Prof. Shedd, of Union
Theological Seminary, embodying the lectures which he gives in
that institution; and the little candle which would surely cast its
beams far in this naughty world if really given a chance to shine,
is the exposition and annihilation of the doctrine of evolution as
given in the chapter on “ Creation,” vol. i, pp. 499-515. The pro-
fessor opens the discussion by admitting that there is a “true
evolution.” This whets curiosity, until it is explained to be the
individual development of an organism from its embryo. This
being the only “true” evolution, all other kinds are, of course,
false, and accordingly are labeled forthwith “ pseudo-evolution,”
under the burden of which eminently calm and philosophical epi-
thet they have to stagger all through the subsequent pages. A
better name, however, could not be devised to fit that caricature
of the theory which Dr. Shedd sets himself to explain before re-
futing. It is probably unwitting caricature; the professor is an
unconscious humorist. It is, at any rate, charitable to suppose
that he jumbles up several different theories into one through
ignorance. It would be hard to excuse, on any other ground, his
identifying the views of Darwin with those of Spencer and
Haeckel. Chauncey Wright long ago pointed out the great dif-
ferences between these writers. Whatever may be thought of the
general theorizings of the last two, it is clear that their method is
not the patiently inductive one of Darwin. They are wide-rang-
ing philosophers and rigid systematizers. Darwin was the most
matter-of-fact and plodding naturalist, who dreaded of all things
getting his feet off the earth. He felt himself lost once out of

=

EVOLUTION IN A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 755

sight of facts. His books furnish the best examples of careful
induction the world has seen, and it is, of course, for that reason
that they have had such immense influence, and that he gave an
indestructible life to that cautious working theory of evolution
which is to-day the presupposition of all the best work in natural
science.

But Prof. Shedd leaves all this out of the account, and knows
of no evolution which does not mean the change of a mineral into
a vegetable, and of a vegetable into an animal. “ Evolution,” he
says, “is not a mere change of form but of matter.” It is true he
recurs frequently to Darwin and his specific views, but you can
never be sure that he will not fly off to his favorite Haeckel even
when apparently farthest from him. This process of mixing up
distinct things makes it easy for a disputant, when persecuted in
one city, to flee into another, but does not much help one who is
after the facts.

This confusion can be forgiven, however, for the sake of the
doctor’s great lucidity when he comes to state the objections to
evolution. Here you always know what he means. We can not
follow him all through his enumeration of the difficulties which
the theory has to encounter, but will allude to those which are the
most novel. The first gun he fires off is formidable enough: “The
first objection to the theory of pseudo-evolution is that it is con-
tradicted by the whole course of scientific observation and experi-
ment. It is a theory in the face of facts.” That is certainly a
serious objection, and one wonders that it had never occurred to
any of the scientists who have looked into this matter. It is but
another instance of the value of a new point of view. In fact, the
thing appears to be mostly intuitive with Prof. Shedd (and, of
course, for that reason all the more certain; he stands by the in-
tuitive philosophy), for he advances slight evidence for the state-
ment we have quoted; the gist of what he says being that he
never heard of a pigeon being developed out of a cabbage or a
piece of quartz, nor of its developing, on the other hand, into a
horse. It would be a brazen theory that could hold up its head
after such an objection, but the professor seems to fear that evo-
lution needs to be slain at least twice, and so he fires a second
fatal shot: “This objection is proved to be true by the failure of
the theory to obtain general currency.” He means Darwinism
now, for all the testimony which he cites bears on that theory.
Agassiz is his main tower of strength. The views of a man who
died sixteen years ago may be thought to have little to do with
what is now “ general currency,’ but that is nothing beside the
witness of Haeckel himself. Out of its own mouth Dr. Shedd will
judge evolution. He cites a passage from “Creation” in which
the German rails at the French for not accepting Darwinism, and

756 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

says that even among his own countrymen are to be found many
doubters. It is scarcely worth mentioning that this book was
- written twenty-one years ago, only nine years after the appear-
ance of the “ Origin of Species,” for it is one of Prof. Shedd’s first
principles that a proof-text is a proof-text, no matter where you
find it. Besides, it is exposition, not comment, that we are at just
now.

“Tf the doctrine be true, it should be supported like that of
gravitation by a multitude of undisputed facts and phenomena.”
The implication is that it is not so supported, and that is pretty
tough on the libraries full of books like Miller’s “ Facts for Dar-
win.” Prof. Shedd takes it very unkindly of Darwin that he never
exactly defined a species. Considering that that is one of the
things that Darwin said he was perfectly unable to do, and that
this very fact led him to believe that there was something mighty
queer about species anyhow, it does seem rather hard to bring it
up against him now. “Evolution,” adds the professor, “ conflicts
with the certainty of natural science.” If it is true, it is the intro-
duction of chance into nature. Anything may happen from any-
thing. This is clear, for the evolutionists themselves say that
“variations are accidental.” Poor Darwin! after all his pains
and endless iteration, there it goes—“ accidental.” One of the most
tiresome things in his books is his constant crying out, “ Now,
mind you, when I say accidental, I mean according to laws that
are not yet discovered.” But, after all, here is an order of mind
for which he ought to have said it twice as many times.

The embryological argument for evolution attains the high
honor of being admitted to be “plausible”; but it is immediately
and severely added that this is just the place to apply the maxim,
“ Judge not by the outward appearance.” Naturally, Prof. Shedd
is strong on design: “The abundant proof of design in nature
overthrows the theory of evolution. - This design is executed even
in an extreme manner. The mamme on man’s breast and the
web-feet of the upland goose show that the plan of structure is
carried out with persistence even when in particular circum-
stances there is no use for the organ itself.” If that is hyper-
borean science, it is dangerously near Hibernian logic, and ought
to be called the argument from the usefulness of useless things.

But it is really impossible to keep up the pretense of taking
Prof. Shedd’s arguments against evolution seriously. Even one
who has read in the subject as little as the writer has can not but
see that this theologian, in attempting to refute the arguments of
the evolutionists, does not know what those arguments are. Take
one sentence of his: “If evolution be true, man may evolve into
ape as well as ape into man.” It would not be possible to con-

struct a single sentence containing a more complete misapprehen- ~

EVOLUTION IN A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 757

sion of evolutionary doctrine. Evolution does not assert, it de-
nies that ape evolves into man. Evolution undertakes to show
why it is perfectly impossible that man should ever evolve into
ape. Prof. Shedd ought to know this, or, if he does not, he ought
to refrain from attacking what he does not understand. There is
a misprint in one of his pages which is highly significant. He
speaks of Darwin’s work on “insectivorous animals”! A mis-
print, of course, yet how characteristically a sign that the author
was moving about in a world not realized when he wrote those
pages! A scientist reading proof, with a spark of vitality left in
him, could no more have passed over that blunder than Prof.
Shedd could have passed over a careless expression which might
have implied that he believed the mercy of God was of equal rank
with his justice. In one case as in the other the thing would
have seemed so horrible a mistake that instinct without intellect
would have prevented its finally getting printed.

The worst of it is that there is no reason whatever to suspect
Dr. Shedd’s perfect honesty in all this. When he says that evo-
lution has failed to obtain general currency, he undoubtedly be-
lieves it. Evidence to the contrary he either has not read or has
not weighed. If he were to see what Romanes says in his latest
book, and says wholly in passing, wholly as a matter of course,
that there is not living a naturalist of note who is not an evolu-
tionist, he would probably be greatly surprised. If he were to
read the evidence gathered a few years ago by the “ Independent,”
and recently by the “ Christian Union,” going to show that eyo-
lution underlies the scientific teaching of all our leading colleges,
he would probably be greatly alarmed. I repeat that Prof. Shedd
is undoubtedly entirely honest in his ignorance; and I say that
that is the worst of it, because it lends the influence of his high
character and great learning and unusual ability to the spread of
erroneous and disastrous beliefs.

Narrowly considered, it is in reality a conspicuous and crown-
ing testimony to the place which evolution has taken in the
thought of the world, that Prof. Shedd should have, at last, taken
up the cudgels against it. It is like exerting influence back into
the seventeenth century. It is a doctrine of the nineteenth cent-
ury, making such a din, cutting up so much of the inherited
theology by the roots, that Turretin looks out uneasily from his
grave to see what the row is all about. Such a remark is in the
line of what the professor considers the highest compliment. He
prefers to be known as scholastic. A student who listened to a
year’s lectures from him, a decade ago, reported that but two
books written in this century were referred to—and, as one of
these was Hodge’s “Theology,” that, as the student admitted,
reduced the number to one. The writer heard the late President

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Sturtevant, of Illinois College, narrate an experience of his own
with Prof. Shedd, which, as the story was told in general com-
pany, may be referred to without any violation of confidence. It
was many years ago that he and Prof. Shedd went in company
from Andover to Boston, each intending to preach in a Boston
pulpit on the following Sunday. They returned on the same train,
Monday morning.

“T don’t know how it was with you, professor,” said President
Sturtevant, “ but, for myself, I certainly felt like laying unusual
stress on evangelical doctrine yesterday, preaching in Boston
where so many loose theories are afloat.” And Prof. Shedd replied:
“ T really don’t know anything about that. I never read books of
that class, All these infidel arguments were so much better put
by the writers of the seventeenth century.” To have pierced
through such an armor is a great achievement, and the counter-
attack of the professor is in reality, as has been said, a supreme
proof of the immense influence now gained by evolutionary doc-
trine—a sort of rueful cry, “ Thou hast conquered, O Evolution!”

Such complete failure to understand the great contribution to
knowledge and speculation made by the theory of evolution can
not but have a most deplorable influence when found in one occu-
pying so prominent a chair of instruction in so prominent an insti-
tution. A fair proportion of Prof. Shedd’s students come from
colleges where they have been taught to regard evolution as one
of the settled things. They must come out from their lectures in
Union Seminary either dazed or indignant. Others, of course,
who have either taken a short cut to the ministry, or have had
their only education in some ecclesiastically controlled school
where they have met no competent teacher of natural science,
take in all that they are told on this, as on other subjects, and go
out to swell the number of ministers who know nothing of the
revolution wrought in human thought in the past thirty years.
They are the men who do all they can (of course unwittingly) to
make Christian belief an impossibility to a large class of intelli-
gent and educated young men. One of that class came to his pas-
tor, not long ago, and said: “I was at the meeting of the Be-
nighted Presbytery last week, and they were talking about evolu-
tion as a very dangerous thing, and finally passed a resolution
condemning it. I thought that everybody accepted evolution.”
That young Presbyterian was a graduate of Harvard, and learned
of Prof. Gray (who, by the way, isa Balaam whom Prof. Shedd
in delightful innocence summons to curse evolution) to reconcile
evolution with theistic and even Christian belief, and was not
unnaturally surprised at running up against a chunk of the last
century.

It would be wholly unfair to give the impression that such |

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. 759

treatment of evolution as Prof. Shedd’s is the regular thing in
our theological seminaries. In a few of them there is a frank
acceptance of the main positions of evolutionary teaching; in
many of them there is a growing care not to antagonize evolution
as flatly as was once customary, and to lay down theological
propositions which would not be entirely swept away if it should
turn out that evolution should finally have to be admitted to be
established. Archbishop Whately used to say that the attitude
of the clergy to new scientific doctrines was marked by three defi-
nite stages: “ At first they say, ‘It is ridiculous’; then they affirm,
“It is contradicted by the Bible’; at last they declare, ‘We always
believed it.’” All these stages are represented in the teaching of
the seminaries—to which one Union should be assigned may be
inferred from what has gone before. It will certainly not be
Prof. Shedd’s fault if the institution which he serves does not
prove to be the one to come to mind as the best illustration of
Horace Bushnell’s remark : “ Some theological seminaries are not
only behind the age, but behind all ages,”

—____¢

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE.
By Dz. ROBSON ROOSE.

HE doctrine that a short life is a sign of divine favor has
never been accepted by the majority of mankind. Philoso-
phers have vied with each other in depicting the evils and mis-
eries incidental to existence, and the truth of their descriptions
has often been sorrowfully admitted, but they have failed to dis-
lodge, or even seriously diminish, that desire for long life which
has been deeply implanted within the hearts of men. The ques-
tion whether life be worth living has been decided by a majority
far too great to admit of any doubt upon the subject, and the
voices of those who would fain reply in the negative are drowned
amid the chorus of assent. Longevity, indeed, has come to be
regarded as one of the grand prizes of human existence, and
reason has again and again suggested the inquiry whether care
or skill can increase the chances of acquiring it, and can make
old age, when granted, as comfortable and happy as any other
stage of our existence.

From very early times the art of prolonging life, and the sub-
ject of longevity, have engaged the attention of thinkers and
essayists; and some may perhaps contend that these topics,
admittedly full of interest, have been thoroughly exhausted. It
is true that the art in question has long been recognized and prac-
ticed, but the science upon which it really depends is of quite mod-

760 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ern origin. New facts connected with longevity have, moreover,
been collected within the last few years, and some of these I pro-
pose to examine, and further to inquire whether they teach us
any fresh means whereby life may be maintained and prolonged,

But, before entering upon the immediate subject, there are
several preliminary questions which demand a brief examination,
and the first that suggests itself is, What is the natural duration
of human life? This oft-repeated question has received many dif-
ferent answers; and inquiry has been stimulated by skepticism as
to their truth. The late Sir George Cornewall Lewis expressed the
opinion that one hundred years must be regarded as a limit which
very few, if indeed any, human beings succeed in reaching, and
he supported this view by several cogent reasons. He pointed
out that almost all the alleged instances of abnormal longevity
occurred among the humbler classes, and that it was difficult, if
not impossible, to obtain any exact information as to the date of
birth and to identify the individuals with any written statements
that might be forthcoming. He laid particular stress upon the
fact that similar instances were altogether absent among the
higher classes, with regard to whom trustworthy documentary
evidence was almost always obtainable. He thought that the
higher the rank the more favorable would the conditions be for
the attainment of a long life. In this latter supposition, however,
Sir George Lewis was probably mistaken: the comforts and: lux-
uries appertaining to wealth and high social rank are too often
counterbalanced by cares and anxieties, and by modes of living
inconsistent with the maintenance of health, and therefore with
the prolongation of life. In the introduction to his work on
“ Human Longevity,” Easton says, “It is not the rich or great...
that become old, but such as use much exercise, are exposed to
the fresh air, and whose food is plain and moderate—as farmers,
gardeners, fishermen, laborers, soldiers, and such men as perhaps
never employed their thoughts on the means used to promote
longevity.”

The French naturalist, Buffon, believed that, if accidental
causes could be excluded, the normal duration of human life
would be between ninety and one hundred years, and he sug-
gested that it might be measured (in animals as well as in man)
by the period of growth, to which it stood in a certain proportion.
He imagined that every animal might live for six or seven times
as many years as were requisite for the completion of its growth.
But this calculation is not in harmony with facts, so far, at least,
as man is concerned. His period of growth can not be estimated
at less than twenty years; and if we take the lower of the two
multipliers, we get a number which, in the light of modern evi-
dence, can not be accepted as attainable. If the period of growth

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—

THH ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. 761

be multiplied by five, the result will in all probability not be far
from the truth.

If we seek historical evidence, and from it attempt to discover
the extreme limit of human life, we are puzzled at the differences
in the ages said to have been attained. The longevity of the
antediluvian patriarchs when contrasted with our modern expe-
rience seems incredible. When we look at an individual, say
ninety years of age, taking even the most favorable specimen,
a prolongation of life to ten times that number of years would
appear too absurd even to dream about. There is certainly no
physiological reason why the ages assigned to the patriarchs
should not have been attained, and it is useless to discuss the sub-
ject, for we know very little of the conditions under which they
lived. It is interesting -to notice that after the Flood there was a
gradual decrease in the duration of life. Abraham is recorded to
have died at one hundred and seventy-five; Joshua, some five
hundred years later, “ waxed old and stricken in age” shortly
before his death at one hundred and ten years; and his prede-
cessor, Moses, to whom one hundred and twenty years are as-
signed, is believed to have estimated the life of man at threescore
years and ten—a measure nowadays pretty generally accepted.

There is no reason for believing that the extreme limit of
human life in the time of the Greeks and Romans differed materi-
ally from that which agrees with modern experience. Stories of
the attainment of such ages as one hundred and twenty years and
upward may be placed in the same category as the reputed lon-
gevity of Henry Jenkins, Thomas Parr, Lady Desmond, and a host
_of others. With regard to later times, such as the middle ages,
there are no precise data upon which any statements can be based,
but there is every reason to believe that the average duration of
life was decidedly less than it is at present. The extreme limit,
indeed, three or four centuries ago, would appear to have been
much lower than it is in the nineteenth century. At the request
of Mr. Thoms, Sir J. Duffus Hardy investigated the subject of the
longevity of man in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and six-
teenth centuries, and his researches led him to believe that per-
sons seldom reached the age of eighty. He never met with a
trustworthy record of a person who exceeded that age.

To bring the investigation down to quite recent times, I can
not do better than utilize the researches of Dr. Humphry, Pro-
fessor of Surgery at Cambridge. In 1886 he obtained particulars
relating to fifty-two individuals then living and said to be one
hundred years old and upward. The oldest among them claimed
to be one hundred and eight, the next one hundred and six, while
the average amounted to a little more than one hundred and two
years. Many interesting facts connected with the habits and

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mode of life of these individuals were obtained by Dr. Humphry,
and will be referred to in subsequent paragraphs.

A short account of the experience of a few life-assurance
companies will conclude this part of my subject. Mr. Thoms
tells us that down to 1872 the records of the companies showed
that one death among the assured had occurred at one hundred
and three, one in the one hundredth, and three in the ninety-ninth
year. The experience of the National Debt Office, according to
the same authority, gave two cases in which the evidence could
be regarded as perfect; one of these died in the one hundred and
second year, and the other had just completed that number. In
the tables published by the Institute of Actuaries, and giving the
mortality experience down to 1863 of twenty life-assurance com-
panies, the highest age at death is recorded as ninety-nine; and I
am informed by the secretary of the Edinburgh Life Office that
from 1863 onward that age had not been exceeded in his experi-
ence. In the valuation schedules, which show the highest ages of
existing lives in various offices, the ages range from ninety-two
to ninety-five. It is true that one office which has a large busi-
ness among the industrial classes reports lives at one hundred
and three, and in one instance at one hundred and seven; but it
must be remembered that among those classes the ages are not
nearly so well authenticated as among those who assure for sub-
stantial sums. There is, moreover, another source of error con-
nected with the valuation schedules. When a given life is not
considered to be equal to the average, a certain number of years is
added to the age, and the premium is charged at the age which
results from this addition. It follows, therefore, that in some
cases the ages given in the schedules are greater by some years
than they really are.

Taking into consideration the facts thus rapidly passed under
review, it must, I think, be admitted that the natural limit of
human existence is that assigned to it in the book of Kcclesiasti-
cus, “ The number of a man’s days at the most are an hundred
years” (chapter xviii. 9). In avery small number of cases this
limit is exceeded, but only by a very few years. Mr. Thoms’s in-
vestigations conclusively show that trustworthy evidence of one
hundred and ten years having been reached is altogether absent.
Future generations will be able to verify or reject statements in
all alleged cases of longevity. It must be remembered that pre-
vious to the year 1836 there was no registration of births, but
only of baptisms, and that the registers were kept in the churches,
and contained only the names of those therein baptized.

Whatever number of years may be taken as representing the
natural term of human life, whether threescore and ten or a cent-

ury be regarded as such, we are confronted by the fact that only

ea ee Fe ee ns

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THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE, 763

one fourth of our population attains the former age, and that only
about fifteen in one hundred thousand become centenarians. It
is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the causes of prema-
ture mortality, but the conditions favorable to longevity, and the
causes to which length of days has been assigned, are closely con-
nected with its subject.

A capability of attaining old age is very often handed down
from one generation to another, and heredity is probably the
most powerful factor in connection with longevity. A necessary
condition of reaching advanced age is the possession of sound
bodily organs, and such an endowment is eminently capable of
transmission. Instances of longevity characterizing several gen-
erations are frequently brought to notice. A recent and most
interesting example of transmitted longevity is that of the veteran
guardian of the public health, Sir Edwin Chadwick, who was
entertained at a public dinner a few weeks ago on the occasion of
his reaching his ninetieth year. He informed his entertainers
that his father died at the age of eighty-four, his grandfather at
ninety-five, and that two more remote ancestors were centenarians.
It is difficult to estimate the influence of other contingencies

which affect longevity. With regard to sex, Hufeland’s opinion
was that women were more likely than men to become old, but
that instances of extreme longevity were more frequent among
men. This opinion is to some extent borne out by Dr. Humphry’s
statistics: of his fifty-two centenarians, thirty-six were women.
Marriage would appear to be conducive to longevity. A well-
known French savant, Dr. Bertillon, states that a bachelor of
twenty-five is not a better life than a married man of forty-five,
and he attributes the difference in favor of married people to the
fact that they take more care of themselves, and lead more regu-
lar lives than those who have no such tie. It must, however, be
remembered that the mere fact of marrying indicates superior
vitality and vigor, and the ranks of the unmarried are largely
filled by the physically unfit.

In considering occupations as they are likely to affect longev-
ity, those which obviously tend to shorten life need not be con-
sidered. With respect to the learned professions, it would appear
that among the clergy the average of lifeis beyond that of any
similar class. It is improbable that this average will be main-
tained for the future; the duties and anxieties imposed upon the
clergy of the present generation place them in a very different
position from that of their predecessors. Among lawyers there
have been several eminent judges who attained a great age, and —
the rank and file of the profession are also characterized by a
decided tendency to longevity. The medical profession supplies
but few instances of extreme old age, and the average duration

764. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of life among its members is decidedly low, a fact which can be
easily accounted for. Broken rest, hard work, anxieties, exposure
to weather and to the risks of infection can not fail to exert an
injurious influence upon health. No definite conclusions can be
arrived at with regard to the average longevity of literary and
scientific men, but it might be supposed that those among them
who are not harassed by anxieties and enjoy fair health would
probably reach old age. As a general rule, the duration of life is
not shortened by literary pursuits. A man may worry himself
to death over his books, or, when tired of them, may seek recrea-
tion in pursuits destructive to health; but application to literary
work tends to produce cheerfulness, and to prolong rather than
shorten the life even of an infirm man. In Prof. Humphry’s

_ “© Report on Aged Persons,” containing an account of eight hun-

dred and twenty-four individuals of both sexes, and between the
ages of eighty and one hundred, it is stated that forty-eight per
cent were poor, forty-two per cent were in comfortable circum-
stances, and only ten per cent were described as being in affluent
circumstances. - Dr. Humphry points out that these ratios “must
not be regarded as representing the relations of poverty and afflu-
ence to longevity, because, in the first place, the poor at all ages
and in all’ districts bear a large proportion to the affluent; and,
secondly, the returns are largely made from the lower and middle
classes, and in many instances from the inmates of union work-
houses, where a good number of aged people are found.” It must
also be noticed that the “past life-history” of these individuals
showed that the greater proportion (fifty-five per cent) “ had lived
in comfortable circumstances,” and that only thirty-five per cent
had been poor.

Merely to enumerate the causes to which longevity has been

attributed in attempting to account for individual cases would be

a task of some magnitude; it will be sufficient to mention a few
somewhat probable theories. Moderation in eating and drinking
is often declared to be a cause of longevity, and the assertion is
fully corroborated by Dr. Humphry’s inquiries. Of his fifty-two
centenarians, twelve were recorded as total abstainers from alco-
holic drinks throughout life, or for long periods; twenty had
taken very little alcohol; eight were reported as moderate in their
use of it; and only three habitually indulged init. It is quite
true that a few persons who must be classified as drunkards live
to be very old; but these are exceptions to the general rule, and
such cases appear to be more frequent than they really are, because
they are often brought to notice by those who find encouragement
from such examples. The habit of temperance in food, good
powers of digestion, and soundness of sleep are other main char-

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acteristics of most of those who attain advanced years, and may —

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. 765

be regarded as causes of longevity. Nota few old persons are
found on inquiry to take credit to themselves for their own con-
dition, and to attribute it to some remarkable peculiarity in their
habits or mode of life. It is said that Lord Mansfield, who
reached the age of eighty-nine, was wont to inquire into the hab-
its of life of all aged witnesses who appeared before him, and that
only in one habit, namely, that of early rising, was there any
general concurrence. Health is doubtless often promoted by early
rising, but the habit is not necessarily conducive to longevity. It
is, as Sir H. Holland points out, more probable that the vigor of
the individuals maintains the habit than that the latter alone
maintains the vitality.

If we pass from probable to improbable causes of longevity we
are confronted by many extravagant assumptions. Thus, to take
only a few examples, the immoderate use of sugar has been re-
garded not only as a panacea, but as decidedly conducive to length
of days. Dr. Slare, a physician of the last century, has recorded
the case of a centenarian who used to mix sugar with all his food,
and the doctor himself was so convinced of the “balsamic virtue”
of this substance that he adopted the practice, and boasted of his
health and strength in his old age. Another member of the same -
profession used to take daily doses of tannin (the substance em-
ployed to harden and preserve leather), under the impression that
the tissues of the body would be thereby protected from decay.
His life was protracted beyond the ordinary span, but it is ques-
tionable whether the tannin acted in the desired direction. Lord
Combermere thought that his good health and advanced years
were due, in part at least, to the fact that he always wore a tight
belt round his waist. His lordship’s appetite was doubtless
thereby kept within bounds; we are further told that he was very
moderate in the use of all fluids as drink. Cleanliness might be
supposed to aid in prolonging life, yet a Mrs. Lewson, who died
in the early part of this century, aged one hundred and six, must
have been a singularly dirty person. We are told that instead of
washing she smeared her face with lard, and asserted that “ people
who washed always caught cold.” This lady, no doubt, was fully
persuaded that she had discovered the universal medicine.

Many of the alchemists attributed the power of prolonging
life to certain preparations of gold, probably under the idea that
the permanence of the metal might be imparted to the human
system. Descartes is said to have favored such opinions: he told
Sir Kenelm Digby that, although he would not venture to promise
immortality, he was certain that his life might be lengthened to
the period of that enjoyed by the patriarchs. His plan, however,
seems to have been the very rational and simple one of checking
all excesses and enjoining punctual and frugal meals.

766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Having thus endeavored to show the extent to which human
life may be prolonged, and having examined some of the causes
or antecedents of longevity, the last subject for inquiry is the
means by which it may be attained. Certain preliminary condi-
tions are obviously requisite; in the first place there must bea
sound constitution derived from healthy ancestors, and in the
second there must be a freedom from organic disease of important
organs. Given an individual who has reached the grand climac-
teric, or threescore and ten, and in whom these two conditions
are fulfilled, the means best adapted to maintain and prolong
his life constitute the question to be solved. It has been said that
“he who would long to be an old man must begin early to be one,”
but very few persons designedly take measures in early life in
_ order that they may live longer than their fellows.

The whole term of life may be divided into the three main
periods of growth and development, of maturity, and of decline.
No hard and fast line can be drawn between these two latter
phases of existence: the one should pass gradually into the other
until the entire picture is changed. Diminished conservative
power and the consequent triumph of disintegrating forces are
the prominent features of the third period, which begins at differ-
ent times in different individuals, its advent being mainly con-
trolled by the general course of the preceding years. The “turn-
ing period,” also known as the “ climacteric” or “ middle age,” lies
between forty-five and sixty ; the period beyond may be considered
as belonging to advanced life or old age. The majority of the
changes characteristic of these last stages are easily recognizable,
It is hardly necessary to mention the wrinkled skin, the furrowed
face, the “ crow’s feet ” beneath the eyes, the stooping gait, and the
wasting of the frame. The senses, notably vision and hearing,
become less acute; the power of digestion is lessened; the force
of the heart is diminished; the lungs are less permeable; many
of the air-cells lose their elasticity and merge into each other, so
that there is less breathing surface as well as less power. Si-
multaneously with these changes the mind may present signs of
enfeeblement; but in many instances its powers long remain in
marked contrast with those of the body. One fact connected with
advanced life is too often neglected. It should never be forgotten
that while the “ forces in use” at that period are easily exhausted,
the “ forces in reserve” are often so slight as to be unable to meet
the smallest demand. In youth, the vires in posse are super-
abundant; in advanced life, they are reduced to a minimum, and
in some instances are practically non-existent. The recognition
of this difference is an all-important guide in laying down rules
for conduct in old age.

An order to prolong life and at the same time to_enjoy it; occu-!_

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THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. 767

pation of some kind is absolutely necessary ; it is a great mistake
to suppose that idleness is conducive to longevity. It is at all
times better to wear out than to rust out, and the latter process is
apt to be speedily accomplished. Every one must have met with
individuals who, while fully occupied till sixty or even seventy
years of age, remained hale and strong, but aged with marvelous
rapidity after relinquishing work, a change in their mental condi-
tion becoming especially prominent. There is an obvious lesson to
be learned from such instances, but certain qualifications are neces-
sary in order to apply it properly. With regard to mental activity,
there is abundant evidence that the more the intellectual facul-
ties are exercised the greater the probability of their lasting.
They often become stronger after the vital force has passed its
culminating point; and this retention of mental power is the true
compensation for the decline in bodily strength. Did space per-
mit, many illustrations could be adduced to show that the power
of the mind can be preserved almost unimpaired to the most
advanced age. Even memory, the failure of which is sometimes
regarded as a necessary concomitant of old age, is not infrequently
preserved almost up to the end of life. All persons of middle age
should take special pains to keep the faculties and energies of the
mind in a vigorous condition ; they should not simply drift on in
a hap-hazard fashion, but should seek and find pleasure in the
attainment of definite objects. Evenif the mind has not been
especially cultivated, or received any decided bent, there is at
the present day no lack of subjects on which it can be agreeably
and profitably exercised. Many sciences which, twenty or thirty
years ago, were accessible only to the few, and wore at best a
somewhat uninviting garb, have been rendered not merely intel-
ligible but even attractive to the many; and in the domain of
general literature the difficulty of making a choice among the
host of allurements is the only ground for complaint. To increase
the taste for these and kindred subjects is worth a considerable
effort, if such be necessary; but the appetite will generally come
with the eating. The possession of some reasonable hobby which
can be cultivated indoors isa great advantage in old age, and
there are many pursuits of this character besides those connected
with literature and science. Talleyrand laid great stress on a
knowledge of whist as indispensable to a happy old age, and
doubtless to many old people that particular game affords not
only recreation but a pleasant exercise to the mind. It is, how-
ever, an unworthy substitute for higher objects, and should be
regarded only as an amusement and not as an occupation.
Whatever be the sphere of mental activity, no kind of strain
must be put upon the mind by a person who has reached sixty-
five or seventy years. The feeling that mental power is less than

768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it once was not infrequently stimulates a man to increased exer-
tions which may provoke structural changes in the brain, and will
certainly accelerate the progress of any that may exist in that or-
gan. When aman finds that a great effort is required to accom-
plish any mental task that was once easy, he should desist from the
attempt, and regulate his work according to his power. With this
limitation, it may be taken for granted that the mental faculties
will be far better preserved by their exercise than by their disuse.

Somewhat different advice must be given with regard to bodily
exercises in their reference to longevity. Exercise is essential to
the preservation of health; activity is a potent cause of wasting
and degeneration. The vigor and equality of the circulation, the
functions of the skin, and the aération of the blood, are all pro-
moted by muscular activity, which thus keeps up a proper bal-
ance and relation between the important organs of the body. In
youth, the vigor of the system is often so great that if one organ
be sluggish another part will make amends for the deficiency by
acting vicariously, and without any consequent damage to itself.
In old age, the tasks can not be thus shifted from one organ to
another ; the work allotted to each sufficiently taxes its strength,
and vicarious action can not be performed without mischief.
Hence the importance of maintaining, as far as possible, the equa-
ble action of all the bodily organs, so that the share of the vital
processes assigned to each shall be properly accomplished. For
this reason exercise is an important part of the conduct of life in
old age; but discretion is absolutely necessary. An old man
should discover by experience how much exercise he can take
without exhausting his powers, and should be careful never to
exceed the limit. Old persons are apt to forget that their staying
powers are mtich less than they once were, and that, while a walk
of two or three miles may prove easy and pleasurable, the addi-
tion of a return journey of similar length will seriously overtax
the strength. Above all things, sudden and rapid exertion should
be scrupulously avoided by persons of advanced age. The ma-
chine which might go on working for years at a gentle pace often
breaks down altogether when its movements are suddenly accel-
erated. These cautions may appear superfluous, but instances in
which their disregard is followed by very serious consequences
are by no means infrequent.

No fixed rule can be laid down as to the kind of exercise most
suitable for advanced age. Much must depend upon individual
circumstances and peculiarities; but walking in the open air
should always be kept up and practiced daily, except in unfavor-
able weather. Walking is a natural form of exercise and sub-
serves many important purposes: not a few old people owe the

maintenance of their health and vigor to their daily “ constitu-.

-

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE, 769

tional.” Riding is an excellent form of exercise, but available
only by a few; the habit, if acquired in early life, should be kept
up as long as possible, subject to the caution already given as to
violent exercise. Old persons of both sexes fond of gardening,
and so situated that they may gratify their tastes, are much to be
envied. “ Fortunati nimium, sua si bona nérint!”* Body and
mind are alike exercised by what Lord Bacon justly termed “ the
purest of human pleasures.” Dr. Parkes goes so far as to say that
light garden or agricultural work is a very good exercise for men
past seventy: “It calls into play the muscles of the abdomen and
back, which in old men are often but little used, and the work is
so varied that no muscle is kept long in action.” A few remarks
must be made, in conclusion, with regard to a new form of exer-
cise sometimes indulged in even by elderly men. JI allude to so-
called “tricycling.” Exhilarating and pleasant as it may be to
glide over the ground with comparatively little effort, the exer-
cise is fraught with danger for men who have passed the grand
climacteric. The temptation to make a spurt must be often irre-
sistible ; hills must be encountered, some perhaps so smooth and
gradual as to require no special exertion, none, at least, that is
noticed in the triumph of surmounting them. Now, if the heart
and lungs be perfectly sound, such exercises may be practiced for
some time with apparent impunity ; but if (as is very likely to be
the case) these organs be not quite structurally perfect, even the
slightest changes will, under such excitement, rapidly progress
and lead to very serious results. Exercise unsuited to the state
of the system will assuredly not tend to the prolongation of life.
With regard to food, we find from Dr. Humphry’s report that
ninety per cent of the aged persons were either “ moderate” or
“small” eaters, and such moderation is quite in accord with the
teachings of physiology. In old age the changes in the bodily
tissues gradually become less and less active, and less food is re-
quired to make up for the daily waste. The appetite and the
power of digestion are correspondingly diminished, and although
for the attainment of a great age a considerable amount of digest-
ive power is absolutely necessary, its perfection, when exercised
upon proper articles of diet, is the most important characteristic.
Indulgence in the pleasures of the table is one of the common
errors of advanced life, and is not infrequent in persons who, up
to that period, were moderate or even small eaters, Luxuries in
the way of food are apt to be regarded as rewards that have been
fully earned by a life of labor, and may, therefore, be lawfully en-
joyed. Hence arise many of the evils and troubles of old age, and
notably indigestion and gouty symptoms in various forms, besides
mental discomfort. No hard and fast rules can be laid down, but

* [Fortunate beyond measure if they know their own advantages. ]
VOL, XXXvy.—49

770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

strict moderation should be the guiding maxim. The diet suita- —

ble for most aged persons is that which contains much nutritive
material in a small bulk, and its quantity should be in proportion
to the appetite and power of digestion. Animal food, well cooked,
should be taken sparingly and not more often than twice a day,
except under special circumstances. Dr. Parkes advocates rice as
a partial substitute for meat when the latter is found to disagree
with old persons. “Its starch-grains are very digestible, and it
supplies nitrogen in moderate amount, well fitted to the worn and
slowly repaired tissues of the aged.” Its bulk, however, is some-
times a disadvantage; in small quantities it is a valuable addition
to milk and to stewed fruits.

The amount of food taken should be divided between three or
. four meals at fairly regular intervals. A sense of fullness or op-
pression after eating ought not to be disregarded. It indicates —
that the food taken has been either too abundant or of improper
quality. For many elderly people the most suitable time for the
principal meal is between 1 and 2 P.m. As the day advances the ©
digestive powers become less, and even a moderately substantial
meal taken in the evening may seriously overtask them. Undi-
gested food is a potent cause of disturbed sleep, an evil often very
troublesome to old people, and one which ought to be carefully
guarded against. .

It is an easier task to lay down rules with regard to the use of —
alcoholic liquors by elderly people. The Collective Investigation —
Committee of the British Medical Association has lately issued a ~
“Report on the Connection of Disease with Habits of Intemper- —
ance,” and two at least of the conclusions arrived at are worth
quoting: “ Habitual indulgence in alcoholic liquors, beyond the
most moderate amount, has a distinct tendency to shorten life, the
average shortening being roughly proportional to the degree of in- —

dulgence. Total abstinence and habitual temperance augment

considerably the chance of death from old age or natural decay, —

without special pathological lesion.” Subject, however, toafew

exceptions, it is not advisable that a man sixty-five or seventy
years of age, who has taken alcohol in moderation all his life,

should suddenly become an abstainer. Old age can not readily q

accommodate itself to changes of any kind, and to many old peo- —
ple a little good wine with their meals is a source of great com-

fort. To quote again from Kcclesiasticus, “ Wine is as good as

life to a man, if it be drunk moderately, for it was made to make ~
men glad.” Elderly persons, particularly at the close of the day,
often find that their nervous energy is exhausted, and require a
little stimulant to induce them to take a necessary supply of

proper nourishment, and perhaps to aid the digestive powers to _

convert their food to a useful purpose. In the debility of old

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. Hg

age, and especially when sleeplessness is accompanied by slow and
imperfect digestion, a small quantity of a generous and potent
wine, containing much ether, often does good service. Even a lit-
tle beer improves digestion in some old people; others find that
spirits, largely diluted, fulfill the same purpose. Individual pecul-
iarities must be allowed for; the only general rule is that which
prescribes strict moderation.

It is not to be inferred from the hints given in the preceding
paragraphs that the preservation of health should be the predomi-
nant thought in the minds of elderly persons who desire that their
lives should be prolonged. To be always guarding against dis-
ease, and to live in a state of constant fear and watchfulness,
would make existence miserable and hasten the progress of decay.
Selfish and undue solicitude with regard to health not only fails
to attain its object, but is apt to induce that diseased condition of
mind known as hypochondriasis, the victims of which are always
a burden and a nuisance, if not to themselves, at least to all con-
nected with them. Addison, in the “Spectator,” after describing
the valetudinarian who constantly weighed himself and his food,
and yet became sick and languishing, aptly remarks, “ A continual
anxiety for life vitiates all the relishes of it, and casts a gloom over
the whole face of nature, as it is impossible that we should take de-
light in anything that we are every moment afraid of losing.”

Sleep is closely connected with the question of diet; “ good
sleeping” was a noticeable feature in the large majority of Dr.
Humphry’s cases. Sound, refreshing sleep is of the utmost conse-
quence to the health of the body, and no substitute can be found
for it as a restorer of vital energy. Sleeplessness is, however,
often a source of great trouble to elderly people, and one which is
not easily relieved. Narcotic remedies are generally mischievous ;
their first effects may be pleasant, but the habit of depending
upon them rapidly grows until they become indispensable. When
this stage has been reached, the sufferer is in a far worse plight
than before. In all cases the endeavor should be made to discover
whether the sleeplessness be due to any removable cause—such as
indigestion, cold, want of exercise, and the like. In regard to
sleeping in the daytime, there is something to be said both for
and against that practice. A nap of “forty winks” in the after-
noon enables many aged people to get through the rest of the day
in comfort, whereas they feel tired and weak when deprived of
this refreshment. If they rest well at night there can be no ob-
jection to the afternoon nap; but if sleeplessness be complained of,

_ the latter should be discontinued foratime. Most old people find
_ that a reclining posture, with the feet and legs raised, is better
than the horizontal position for the afternoon nap. Digestion
_ proceeds with more ease than when the body is recumbent.

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Warmth is very important for the aged; exposure to chills
should be scrupulously avoided. Bronchitis is the malady most
to be feared, and its attacks are very easily provoked. Many old
people suffer from more or less cough during the winter months,
and this symptom may recur year after year, and be almost un-
heeded. At last, perhaps a few minutes’ exposure to a cold wind
increases the irritation in the lungs, the cough becomes worse, and

the difficulty of breathing increases until suffocation terminates

in death. To obviate such risk the skin should be carefully pro-
tected by warm flannel clothes, the outdoor thermometer should
be noticed, and winter garments should always be at hand. In
cold weather the lungs should be protected by breathing through
the nose as much as possible, and by wearing a light woolen or
‘silken muffler over the mouth. The temperature of the sitting-
and bed-rooms is another point which requires attention. Some
old people pride themselves on never requiring a fire in their bed-
rooms. It is, however, a risky practice to exchange a tempera-
ture of 65° or 70° for one fifteen or twenty degrees lower. As a
general rule, for persons sixty-five years of age and upward, the
temperature of the bed-room should not be below 60°, and when
there are any symptoms of bronchitis it should be raised from five
to ten degrees higher.

Careful cleansing of the skin is the last point which needs to
be mentioned in an article like the present. Attention to cleanli-
ness is decidedly conducive to longevity, and we may congratulate
ourselves on the general improvement in our habits in this respect.
Frequent washing with warm water is very advantageous for old
people, in whom the skin is only too apt to become hard and dry;
and the benefit will be increased if the ablutions be succeeded by

friction with coarse flannel or linen gloves, or with a flesh-brush. —
Every part of the skin should be thus washed and rubbed daily. —

The friction removes worn-out particles of the skin, and the exer-
cise promotes warmth and excites perspiration. Too much atten-
tion can hardly be paid to the state of the skin; the comfort of
the aged is greatly dependent upon the proper discharge of its
functions.

Such, then, are the principal measures by which life may be
prolonged and health maintained down to the closing scene. It
remains to be seen whether, as a result of progress of knowledge
and civilization, life will ever be protracted beyond the limit as-
signed to it ina preceding paragraph. There is no doubt that the

average duration of human life is capable of very great extension,

and that the same causes which serve to prolong life materially
contribute toward the happiness of mankind. The experience of
the last few decades abundantly testifies to the marked improve-

ment which has taken place in the public health. Statistics show —

THE ART OF PROLONGING LIFE. 773

that at the end of the septennial period, 1881-87, 400,000 persons
. were alive in England and Wales whose death would have taken
place had the mortality been in the same proportion as during
the previous decade. It may be reasonably expected that as time
goes on there will be an increase in the proportion of centenarians
to the population as a whole.

The question whether long life is, after all, desirable does not
admit of any general answer. Much depends upon the previous
history of the individual, and his bodily and mental condition.
The last stages of a well-spent life may be the happiest, and while
sources of enjoyment exist, and pain is absent, the shuffling-off of
the mortal coil, though calmly expected, need not be wished for.
The picture afforded by cheerful and mellow old age is a lesson to
younger generations. Elderly people may, if they choose, become
centers of improving and refining influence. On the other hand,
old age can not be regarded as a blessing when it is accompanied
by profound decrepitude and disorder of mind and body. Senile
dementia, or second childishness, is, of all conditions, perhaps the
most miserable, though not so painful to the sufferer as to those
who surround him. Itsadvent may be accelerated by ignorance
and neglect, and almost assuredly retarded or prevented by such
simple measures as have been suggested. Noone who has had op-
portunities of studying old people can shut his eyes to the fact that
many of the incapabilities of age may be prevented by attention toa
few simple rules, the observance of which will not only prolong life
and make it happier and more comfortable, but will reduce to a
minimum the period of decrepitude. Old age may be an incurable
disease, admitting of but one termination, but the manner of that
end, and the condition which precedes it, are, though not alto-
gether, certainly to a very great extent, within our own power.—
Fortnightly Review.

Nore.—Since the above was sent to press, the civilized world has lost its most noted
centenarian in the person of M. Chevreul, the famous French chemist, who died on the 9th
of April, aged one hundred and two years and seven months. Only a few days before his
death he went in his carriage to see the Hiffel Tower, in which he took a lively interest.
Throughout his long life he had worked hard, sparing neither mind nor body, and it would
seem that his faculties were preserved with but slight impairment up to the time of
his death.

Ir is observed by Mr. Stanley, in one of his recent letters from Central Africa,
that Nejambi Rapids, about two hundred and fifty miles above the junction of the
Aruwimi and Congo Rivers, marks the division between two different kinds of
architecture and language. Below, the cone-huts are to be found; above the
rapids we have villages, long and straight, of detached square huts surrounded by
tall logs, which form separate courts, and add materially to the strength of the
village.

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDUCATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT.
By F. C. H. WENDEL, A.M., Pu. D.

Ape first state to recognize the necessity of education was an-

cient Egypt. The period referred to here is from 4000 B. ©.
to the time of Christ; but it is only of about fifteen hundred years
of this period—2530-1000 B. c.—that we know the educational con-
ditions. But education here was not popular education. The
ancient Egyptians had no care of the populace; they educated
only their officials. The government consisted of the departments

of state, treasury, and justice. Each of these departments had its _

own schools, in which young men were trained for the work of the
department; but it is only of the treasury schools that we know ~
anything, and of these we do not know any details. Besidesthese
department schools of the general government, there was a num-
ber of department schools in the various nomes into which
Egypt was divided.* These schools did not purpose to give their
pupils a liberal education, but merely to train up competent offi-

cials, and in this they succeeded admirably. The efficiency of the

various departments is traceable, to a great extent, to the excellent
training their officials received in these schools.

It is a significant fact that all boys, rich or poor, of lofty or _

humble birth, were received into these schools. In the earliest
times, boys born on the same day with the prince royal were edu-
cated together with him; but in later times this custom was
stopped, possibly because the prince royal attended the same de-
partment schools as those of humbler parentage. No distinction —

of castes existed, and no discrimination was made, either by the ~ s

teachers or the government, between scribes (i.e., students or offi-
cials) of lofty birth and those of humbler antecedents. Itistrue
that in ancient Egypt, as everywhere else, influence went a great
way after a young man had entered the actual service of the

government; but it is equally true that specially efficient officials

of lowly birth advanced step by step to the highest officesin the
gift of the government. All, the rich as well as the poor, ad-
vanced step by step from the lower offices to the higher, the prince
royal being compelled to go through the same course of training
and to advance through the same offices as the laborer’s son, —
though, of course, his progress was more rapid, and in the end he ©

* Egypt was not always what it appears in historic times, a political whole; on the

‘contrary, we have abundant proof that it was for a long while divided into two nations, the — %

north and south countries, which were by Mena, about 4000 B. ¢., united under one scepter, —
much as Sweden and Norway are to-day. Hach of these two countries, again, was a com- —
posite product, the resultant of the union of various small districts which we are accus-

tomed to call nomes. ‘These nomes retained all through antiquity a certain autonomy, hay-

ing their own governments modeled after the general government, and their hereditary ruiers. 7 &
2 3

EDUCATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT. 775

attained to higher offices than his humbler companions, there be-
ing certain offices open to him alone. But, with this single excep-
tion, the poor man’s son could by efficiency accomplish the same
results as the rich man’s and the prince’s son. The only test was
efficiency, and this test was applied most rigidly and in a thor-
oughly democratic manner, giving all an equal chance.

It was, furthermore, left entirely to the option of a young man
or his parents what occupation he should fit himself for. If the
father was a treasury official, a priest, or an officer, it did not
necessarily follow that the son should also be a treasury official, a
priest, or an officer; nor yet, if the father was a merchant, me- .
chanic, or farmer, did it necessarily follow that the son should
also be a merchant, mechanic, or farmer. In some families we
find several members in the government service; while others, hav-
ing no titles, were private citizens engaged in civic pursuits. As
a further confirmation of this fact, we have a didactic poem, writ-
ten by a certain Daauf, in which he advises his son Pepy to be-
come a scribe—i.e.,a government official. In this exceedingly
interesting poem he sketches the misery of all that are not in the
service. His sketches are of course prejudiced, as he seeks to in-
fluence his son to enter the government service; but, nevertheless,
the poem plainly shows that the choice of occupation was left to
the young man. The poem closes with a couplet that was often
quoted in later writings:

“Lo, there is no class that is not governed ;
Only the scribe; he is a governor! ” .

The Kgyptians were stern utilitarians, and thus they esteemed
learning, not for its own sake, but merely for the practical advan-
tages it conferred upon its happy possessor. They were not intel-
lectualists and idealists, like the ancient Greeks, nor yet were they
seekers after truth, like our modern scholars. They were practi-
cal men, and sought to attain learning for practical ends. They
devoted themselves to their studies in order to fit themselves for
the government service. They argued much in the line of Daauf’s
old poem. The burden of all they have written on the subject is
always the same: The scribe alone is free; he need do no manual
labor, but leads a pleasant and agreeable life; the government
provides for him. And, then, to think of all the honors he may
attain to! The diligent scribe is sure to rise, and may even gain
_ princely rank. But to attain this he must be diligent. “Work,
work, study, study, grind, grind,” is also a continuous burden of
this class of writings.

Boys intended for the government service entered the school
at a very early age. The course of instruction was very simple.
The first care of the teacher was to initiate the young scribe into
the mysteries of the art of writing. After he had mastered the

776 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

first difficulties, he was given older texts to copy. These texts
were moral treatises, older poems, fairy tales, religious and mythi-
cal writings, and letters. It is to this fact that we owe the preser-
vation of the greater part of the literary remains of ancient
Egypt. When one of these school-boys died, the copies he had
written, that could be of no earthly use to any one else, were
buried with him. From these old books that he copied he learned
to form his own style; he learned the grammar and syntax of his
beautiful language; he became acquainted with its vast stock of
moral precepts, religious and mythical traditions, and with the

‘unnumbered poems and tales that undoubtedly abounded, and of
which the merest fragments have come down to us. Two classes
of writings were preferred for this purpose, moral precepts and
letters. It was considered absolutely indispensable to inculcate on
the minds of the pupils vast numbers of moral precepts. Letter-
writing was considered a high and difficult art, and the pupils
needed very special preparation in it. Often these copies took the |
form of correspondence between master and pupil, the letters be-
ing sometimes copied from older ones, sometimes invented for the
purpose by the teacher. The pupil wrote three pages a day, and
the teacher examined his copy with great care, often writing for
him the correct form of the letters on the margin, and sometimes
expressing his approbation by writing under the copy the word
“néfer”—good. The boys wrote only on one side of the papyrus,
often using the other side for rough notes, for first draughts of let-
ters, for practicing more difficult forms of writing; or they drew
all sorts of pictures on it, as their fancy dictated.

School was out at noon, but the boy was not then free. He
had to assist in the department work all the afternoon, thus learn-
ing his duties practically, and being of real use to the government
while still a school-boy. The teachers were older officials of the
same department, under whose care and instruction the boys were
placed, and the same teacher conducted the entire education of a
young man, teaching him the first rudiments of writing, initiating
him into the practical work of the department, and, even after the
young man had become an official himself, remaining his coun-
selor and friend.

Discipline was very strictly maintained. The pupils, who seem ~
to have been entirely under the care of the department, were not
allowed to sleep long. Corporal punishment stood in great re-—
nown, and the fundamental principle of Egyptian pedagogics was, —
“The boy has a back; if you beat him on this he will hear.” But —
whipping was not the severest punishment. Specially refractory —
pupils were bound to the block, and we hear of a youth who suf- 4
fered this punishment for three months until he was subdued, —
This strictness is based on a rather curious theory. The argu- —

EDUCATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT. 777

ment is: All animals—horses, lions, dogs, hawks—can be tamed,
and a certain animal from Ethiopia can be taught to speak and
sing; why can not a young scribe be tamed in like manner ? But
since men and animals are not exactly one and the same thing,
the teachers also used “moral suasion,’ as we would say. The
pupil is constantly pursued with moral precepts and good advice.
He is continually admonished to be diligent and obedient. lest he
be beaten, for “a boy’s ears are situated on his back.” _

Another principle of Egyptian pedagogics was that the pupils
should be but scantily fed. Three rolls and two mugs of beer
must suffice for a day, and these the boy’s mother brings him
every day, and she certainly never forgot to add some slight gift
for the teacher. When in the times of the new empire (1530 to
1000 8B. c.) Egypt became a military nation, she needed trained
officers to lead her troops. These officers were looked upon as
officials, as scribes, and their official title was “army-scribes.”
They were educated in a special school attached to one of the de-
partments, which one we do not know, nor do we know what spe-
cial course of training they went through.

These schools were maintained by the government for its own
purposes; but there was also a large number of theological schools
connected with the various temples, and each temple trained up
its priests in its own peculiar doctrines. These temple schools
seem to have held in ancient Egypt much the same position that
the various theological seminaries hold here. There are cases on
record showing that young men first graduated from one of the
department schools before entering the temple school, and this may
have been the regular course.

The ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the sciences of
medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, and were good practical
engineers and miners. Medicine was, of course, in a very crude
and primitive state, though the “Papyrus Ebers” shows some
knowledge of anatomy and pathology. Astronomy had been some-
what further advanced. The ancient Egyptians had discovered
the zodiac, grouped the stars in constellations, and had devised a
means, although crude, of determining the position of the various
stars in the heavens; but they seem not to have distinguished the
stars from the planets. Their mathematical knowledge was ex-
tremely crude and primitive. They could add and subtract, but
multiplication and division were very cumbersome, owing to the
fact that they could multiply only by 2, and that division resolved
itself into the problem of finding by what number the divisor
must be multiplied in order to produce the dividend. Of frac-
tions they only knew those whose numerator is 1, except the frac-
tion 3. Geometry and mensuration were also practiced. In their
surveys they based their operations on the right-angled triangle.

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Of these sciences, medicine and astronomy were probably
taught in the temple schools—certainly the former, for all physi-
cians were priests. HKngineering and mining were, in all probabil-
ity, taught practically. Where or how mathematics was taught
we do not know. It is, however, a curious fact that while we
possess no other Egyptian text-books, we do possess text-books of
medicine and mathematics. The great medical “ Papyrus Ebers”
is a collection of diagnoses and prescriptions calculated to assist
the general practitioner as well as to instruct the student. A
mathematical text-book has been published by Eisenlohr.

Such is as complete a sketch as can be given of Egyptian edu-
cation. It is to be borne in mind that it was under control of the
government, that it was thoroughly democratic, and that its fun-
damental principle was utility and its purpose to train scribes,
priests, physicians, and officers for the state service, not to form
scholars. It is significant in this connection that no mention is
made of the education of girls. In the times of the new empire
(1530 B.c. and after) we meet with workingmen who are able to
read and write, and no doubt the merchants, mechanics, and
farmers that composed the wealthy middle class were educated.
It may be supposed that the government taught its master work-
men to read and write, two accomplishments they needed to prop-
erly fulfill their functions; but where and how the merchants,
mechanics, and farmers, if they were educated, got their educa-
tion, we can not even conjecture. The state certainly did not
educate them, since it could in its estimate derive no benefit from
them, and the idea of popular education never occurred to the
state.

THE BRONZE AGE IN SWEDEN.
By W. H. LARRABEE.

B* the Bronze age, Dr. Oscar Montelius* understands that
period in the earliest civilization of the Northern races
when they made their weapons, tools, etc., of bronze. Besides
that composition, they knew only of one metal, gold. The word
bronze includes all combinations of copper with tin or zinc, but
the usual composition of the articles of this age was ninety parts
of copper to ten of tin.

It would be a mistake, however, to refer all antiquities of
bronze to the Bronze age. Vessels, rings, buckles, needles, and
the like, were still made of bronze after the end of this period,
just as they are even in our own day, but generally of a somewhat

* “The Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times,” by Oscar Montelius, Ph. D., with

maps and 205 illustrations (New York and London: Macmillan & Co.), whence the mate- a

rials for this article are derived.

THE BRONZE AGE IN SWEDEN. 779

different composition from that which prevailed then. “To this
age belong only weapons and edge-tools made of bronze, and such
vessels and ornaments as are usually found with them.”

Different opinions have been put forward as to the manner in
which the Bronze age began in the North. “Some have supposed
that it was due to the immigration of a Celtic race, others to a
Teutonic immigration. Prof. Nilsson has endeavored to show
that the North is indebted to Phcenician colonists for the earliest
knowledge of metals; while Herr Wiberg, in Gefle, regarded the
Bronze age as having begun in the North through the influence
of the Ktruscans.” Prof. Lindenschmit, of Mainz, who has views
of his own respecting the reality of a Northern Bronze age, re-

gards most of the bronze works in question as Etruscan. Dr.
_ Montelius’s view is that the beginning of the Bronze age in Scan-
dinavia was not connected with any great immigration of a new
race, but that the people of the North learned
the art of working in bronze by intercourse
with other nations. The “ Bronze culture,” he
thinks, gradually spread itself over the con-
tinent of Europe in a northerly and north-
westerly direction, until at last it reached the
coasts of the Baltic. The end of the Bronze
age proper in Scandinavia, when it gave way
to the “ Iron age,” is fixed in the fifth century
before the Christian era, when it had lasted
about a thousand years. It has been divided
into six successive periods. Dr. Montelius does
not attempt to distinguish between and de-
scribe all of these, but simply makes two gen-
eral divisions—the earlier and the later Bronze
ages.

The works of the earlier age are decorated
with fine spiral ornaments and zigzag lines,
some of which are seen in the axe (Fig. 1), and
are associated with.the remains of unburned
bodies They are distinguished by artistic
forms, and point to a highly developed taste,
in which they generally surpass the relics of
the Bronze age found in other European coun-
tries. The works of the later age, of which an
illustration is given in the knife (Fig. 2), are
characterized by a very different taste and style Fi. 1.—Masstve Bronze

: 7 AXE, WITH Hart-Ho.e.
of ornamentation. Instead of spirals engraved
or stamped in the body of the implement, we find the ends of the
articles often rolled up in spiral volutes. During this period the
dead were always burned. The relative antiquity of burned and

780 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

unburned bodies is determined by their relative positions in bar-
rows in which both occur. The burned bodies are always above
the unburned ones, showing later deposition.

The large majority of the antiquities belonging to the Surediag
Bronze age were of native production. Nearly all the articles of
bronze are cast ; and traces of the use of the hammer do not ap-
pear till near the close of the period. Local styles are observable,
so that it is often possible to distinguish with considerable cer-

Fie. 2.—BronzE KNIFE.

tainty in what part of the North the article was made. Interest-
ing evidences of the home production of these things are often
found in the shape of the molds, of stone, in which they were cast,
that are occasionally found. A mold of this kind, for casting four
saws, is represented in Fig. 3. The presence of unfinished cast-
ings, defective specimens, and broken
molds, affords sure evidence that the
bronze-founding work was done in
the country. But “as there are no
tin mines in Scandinavia, and the
copper mines were probably not
worked till more than a thousand
years after the end of the Bronze
age, we must conclude that the
bronze used during this period was
imported from foreign countries.
Probably it was already mixed, either
in the form of works or in bars, be-
cause copper and tin in a pure state
very seldom occur in the North in
finds of this age.” Instances of the
high perfection which the art of
bronze casting had reached are seen
Bre. 3.—Stons Mou gon oasune For? in, certain large, thing bronze esas

cast over a clay core, and a pair of
bronze axes with wide-spreading blades consisting of plates of
bronze hardly more than the third part of a line in thickness, with
the clay core over which they were cast still existing. These axes

THE BRONZE AGE IN SWEDEN. 781

could not have been used as battle-axes, and were too frail to
stand the shaking of being carried ceremonially in processions.
It is therefore suggested that they were fixed somewhere as stand-
ing ornaments. The art of soldering being unknown, joining or
repairing was done by pinning the pieces together or by casting
bronze over the joint, often in a very clumsy way. Inlaying was
practiced, with amber, or with a dark-brown material like resin,
which must have produced an effective contrast with the yellow
bronze. The art of gilding was not known, but objects were some-
times overlaid with thin plates of gold.

No traces remain of Bronze-age houses, and no representa-
tions of them occur among the rock-carvings. The tools were
substantially the same as those known to the Stone age, but were
more usually—not always—made of bronze. The most common
tool was a kind of axe or chisel, known asa“ celt.” The celts
were originally copies of the stone axes, and were “socketed ” and
not socketed. The socketed celts had a handle inserted into a
socket, and were bound to it by a little loop that was provided in
the casting. The non-socketed celts were
fixed, like the flint axes, into one end of a
cloven haft. “Of sewing implements there
have been found especially needles, awls,
tweezers, and knives. They are almost al-
ways of bronze; but a few tweezers and one
awl of gold have been found in Sweden and
Denmark.” The awls were fixed in a haft,
of which specimens made of bronze, bone,
and amber are preserved. The needles were
used in making woolen clothes, and the other
implements for sewing leather or skins. Nar-
row strips or threads of skin were cut out
with the knife, holes were bored with the awl,
and the leather thread was drawn through
the holes with the tweezers. “These imple-
ments are much more frequent than the nee-
dles, which partially indicates that clothes of
skin were far more generally worn than those ?
of wool during this period.” Scissors were Fic. 4.—Precz or Wooten
unknown. STUFF OF THE BRONZE AGE.

The specimen of woolen cloth represented in Fig. 4 is part of a
piece, five feet long and two feet wide, which was found in a bar-
row at Démmestorp, in Holland, in 1869, and of which the larger
pieces are preserved in the National Museum. It is now brown,
and had a yellow border at the narrow ends. A coffin made
of a cloven and hollowed trunk of oak, found in the “Treen-
hoi” barrow at Havdrup, in Denmark, in 1861, contained the

SS

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

body of a warrior with his clothes well preserved. They consisted
of a high cap, a wide, roundly cut mantle, and a sort of tunic, all
of woven wool, and two small pieces of wool which are supposed
to have covered the legs. At the feet were seen some small re-
mains of leather, which possibly
were once shoes. The outside of
the cap was covered with pro-
jecting pieces of worsted, all
ending in a knot, and the in-
side of the mantle with pendent
worsted threads. The tunic was
kept together with a long wool-
en belt, which went twice round
in the middle, was knotted in
front, and had two long ends
hanging down and decorated
with fringes. There were also
found in the grave a second
woolen cap, and a woolen shawl
decorated with tassels.

A complete woman’s dress
(Fig. 5) was found in another
Danish barrow, Borum - Kshéi,
near Arhus, in Jutland, in 1871.
The body had been wrapped in
a large mantle, woven with a
mixture of wool and cow-hair.
The very long hair had proba-
bly been fastened up by a horn
comb, which was found in the
grave. Upon the head was a
well-knotted worsted net; and
remains of a second similar net
were found. The dress consist-
ed of jacket and sleeves, and a
long robe, both of woolen stuff,
woven in precisely the same
way as the clothes found in the
graves already described. The
jacket was sewed together un-
der the arms and upon the back,
and was open in front. The coarse seam on the back showed that
it used to be covered by the mantle. The robe was cinctured by
two woolen bands, one of coarser and the other of finer work.
The latter band, a belt, was of wool and cow-hair mixed, and
woven in three rows, of which the middle one seems to have been

vy) Vj
K
4

DTI ILE
ER

SSS

Fic. 5—Woman’s Dress From Borum-EsuH61,
JUTLAND.

THE BRONZE AGH IN SWEDEN. 783

of different color from those on the sides. It ended in thick orna-
mental tassels. A fibula, which may have fastened the jacket or
the mantle in front, a spiral finger-ring, two bracelets, a torque, and
three round decorated plates with points projecting in the middle,
ornaments of the belt, were found in the coffin, and a dagger, the
occurrence of which with a woman’s body gives the archeologists
something to speculate upon. These graves were of the early
Bronze age, and are therefore nearly three thousand years old.
Both this body and the one in the Treenhoi barrow were inclosed
in coffins made of the cloven and hollowed trunk of an oak, and
were wrapped in untanned hides.

The ornaments of this age were far more beautiful and varied
than those of the Stone age. They were made chiefly of gold and
bronze. Amber was more rare than in the Stone age; and silver
ornaments and glass do not seem to have yet been known. They
included ornaments for the neck and breast, belt ornaments,
bracelets, finger-rings, bronze buttons, combs, pendants, and pins.
The weapons consisted of daggers, axes, spears, bows and arrows,
probably clubs and slings, swords, helmets, and shields. The last
were usually of wood or leather, but some of them are very elab-
orate works of bronze. Representations of helmets appear in the
rock-carvings, but an actual specimen—a chin-piece, beautifully
decorated and overlaid with gold—of only one has been found.
The swords, of which, with daggers of bronze, large numbers have
been found in Sweden, were made for thrusting and not for cut-
ting, were short-hilted, and had two-edged and very pointed
blades ; their sheaths are sometimes unearthed in a more or less
complete state of preservation. One is made of wood overlaid with
well-tanned leather, and lined with fine skin; others are all wood-
en, without leather,
but sometimes deco-
rated with carved
ornaments. Not all
of their weapons
and tools were of
bronze. Flints still
continued to be &
used for the cheaper Fig. 6.—BRONZE SICKLE.
sorts, and for those
most liable to be lost; and- bronze seems to have been the mark of
a choicer tool, a more favorite weapon, and perhaps of more wealth
in the owner. f

Suggestions of agricultural and pastoral occupations appear in
the rock-carvings. One of these sculptures, at Tenegby, in Bohus-
lan, represents two animals harnessed to a plow and driven by a
workman who is walking behind. Another, on one of the re-

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. -

markable carved stones of a grave at Kivik, shows a two-wheeled
chariot, with two horses, and a driver standing upon it. Bits and
bridles of nearly the same kind as those used now have been

SN

Fig. 7.—RockK-CARVING IN LOKEBURG IN BoHUSLAN.

found ; and the bones of domestic animals and hides—both tanned

and untanned—of oxen and cows, are common.
Shapely bronze sickles (Fig. 6) and hand-mills attest to a sys-

Fie. 8.—SECTION oF A BARKOW AT DOmMMESTORP IN SouTH HOLLAND.

tematic cultivation of grain. “ Tillage,’ Prof. Montelius adds
“necessarily presupposes fixed dwelling-places ; that these existed

THE BRONZE AGH IN SWEDEN. 785

is further made probable by the fact that the barrows of the
period so often lie thick together.”

While writing was unknown during the Bronze age, a sort of
picture-writing existed which is preserved in the rock-carvings
found quite often in different parts of the country. There can
hardly be a question of the age of these works, for the representa-
tions of swords and other known objects correspond closely with
the objects themselves that remain; and the absence of Runic or
other inscriptions in connection with them forbids the presump-
tion of their belonging to a later age than that of bronze. The
pictures do not indicate much artistic power in the carvers, but
they furnish useful clews to the kind of life the people led and the
trend of their thoughts. Thus, besides illustrating the use of
horses and oxen, they tell us of the appearance and size of the
boats (Fig. 7), of which no actual specimens that can be certainly
assigned to the Bronze age have yet been found. These vessels
seem to have been usually, but not always, alike at the two ends.
“We often see the high and narrow stem terminating in an ani-
mal’s head; sometimes the stern also is similarly decorated.
As no indisputable traces of masts and sails have been found
on the rock-carvings, the boats of the Bronze age would seem to
have been exclusively designed for rowing. The same is also the
case... with the remarkable boat found in the bog at Nydam,
in Denmark, which belongs to an early part of the Iron age. We
often find sea-fights described on the rock-carvings. We have
also proofs of peaceful intercourse by sea with other peoples in the
many things imported from foreign lands which occur in the finds
from the Bronze age. Chief among imported goods we must
reckon all the bronze used in Sweden at this time regarded as raw
material. Probably also most of the gold used there during the
Bronze age was brought from other countries. Besides these, we
ought also to set down as imports certain bronze works which are
undoubtedly of foreign origin, because they are very rare in
Scandinavia but common in other countries.”

The dead were buried unburned in the earlier and burned in the
later part of the Bronze age. The unburned bodies were usually
laid in cists composed of flat stones placed edgewise, and covered
with similar stones. Coffins made of oak trunks split and hollowed
out are not uncommon. The stone cists, which contain several
skeletons, and are often very large, appear to be the oldest; others
are smaller, and contain a single extended skeleton. Sometimes
the bones do not lie immediately in the small stone cists, but in
an earthenware vessel, which may be closely surrounded by the
stones of the cist, or may be without a cist. Sometimes, again,
graves of the Bronze age are made up entirely of collections of
burned bones lying buried in the ground and only covered by a flat

L. xxxv.—50

786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

stone, as in Fig. 8.* The burial-places “thus form a gradual transi-
tion from the great grave chambers, and the stone cists with their
many skeletons, of the Stone age on the one side, to the insignifi-
cant grave with burned bones at the end of the Bronze age on the
other.” The graves were usually covered with a barrow, and this
often contained several stones. The barrows are generally situ-
ated upon some height which commands an unimpeded view over
the sea or some large lake. Weapons, ornaments, and vessels of
earthenware or wood are often found by the remains of the dead.

The author believes, from the evidence of the finds lately made
in that land, that the condition of Greece during its Bronze age was
in many ways like that of the North during the same stage of its
civilization ; and that probably Homer’s description of the heroic
age of Greece would in more than one respect apply to the south
of Scandinavia three thousand years ago—“ at least if we do not
allow our eyes to be dazzled by the poetic shimmer which hangs
around the heroes of the Trojan war.” But the Bronze age both
began and ended in Greece earlier than in the North. There are
also other countries in which the Bronze age ended later than in
Scandinavia. Of these was Mexico, when the Spaniards entered
upon the conquest of it. And yet in many respects, the author
remarks, the civilization of the Aztecs was “as high as that of
which Kurope could boast in the middle ages.” He expresses no
inference from this remark, but presumably expects us to draw
one that the Scandinavians of the Bronze age were possibly not so
barbarous as we assume that they were.

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON.
By Pror. J. HOWARD GORE.

a ie early voyagers to America, coming from the civilized
countries of Europe, were perhaps more surprised at the
native inhabitants whom they found than at the broad rivers,
boundless forests, or vast plains. The Indians, with their curious
customs and various costumes, produced dissimilar impressions
upon their different beholders. But all found that the most in-
teresting portions of the reports which they sent back to their
homes were the descriptions of the strange people whom they had
seen; the report being in some cases accompanied with specimens

* In the middle of the bottom of this barrow was a stone cist nearly seven feet long (a),
containing an unburned body and a bronze pin. Higher up were found three small stone
cists containing burned bones and antiquities of bronze. Close by the little cist at the top
of the barrow stood a vessel filled with burned bones, and near the cist, marked 8, lay a
heap of burned bones, covered only by a flat stone.

aad

a eg eat a a a te

Ae a,

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON. 787

of their handiwork, and in a few cases by living captives. The
stimulated curiosity regarding America, and the feeling that there
could be nothing too unusual to come from this almost fabulous
land, prompted men to weave a large amount of fiction into their
statements concerning the people of the New World, and by skill-
ful alterations to make the work of these savages appear more
startling or ingenious. Hence, many early books describing the
aborigines of America are of no value, and the illustrations of in-
dustrial arts are unreliable. The meeting with new customs did
not cease with the thorough acquaintance with the first tribe who
greeted the foreigners, nor was all of interest known at the time
when an independent government was established for the infant
colonies. Almost each day’s journey westward brought the ex-
plorer, if not into the center of a new tribe, at least into a new
community, whose customs differed from those of the people who
had surrounded him the day before. Should the wanderer be per-
mitted to return to the seat of his government, his tales of strange
scenes and adventures would be listened to with as much interest
as the Spanish or English reader had given to the written stories
a century previous. Thus, during the most advantageous period
for careful observation of the unaffected customs of the Indians,
the visitors were hunters or traders who used their opportunities
in collecting miraculous stories for the ears of those who awaited
their return, and the number of such stories required of each new
one, as the price of its acceptance, that it be more exciting than
its predecessors.

When an intelligent foresight suggested the systematic ex-
ploration of new territories, the first step was taken in the estab-
lishment of institutions which are now the pride of America.
Though it was the desire to know more of the mineral and agri-
cultural resources of the undiscovered portions of our country
that started the first expeditions westward, still the intelligent
men who were in charge brought back much of interest and value
to the ethnologist. These expeditions increased in number and
usefulness, and their reports are still sources of interesting infor-
mation. The objects which were brought back to serve as models
for the illustrations soon formed a nucleus for collections which
are now studied by anthropologists of all countries.

The wisdom of investigating the customs of the Indians of
North America, and of preserving specimens of their work, has
made itself so apparent that we have in the United States three
institutions doing more toward collecting information about its
native people than is or has been done by any other country of
the world. These are, the Smithsonian Institution and the allied
National Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology, and the Army Medi-
cal Museum.

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.
—The will of Smithson in founding this institution contained but
one proviso regarding its organization, that it was to be “ for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge.” The museum feature was
purely incidental: specimens were sent, accompanying questions
that were addressed to the institution; they were preserved, and
with the collection of birds brought by Baird from the Pacific
Railroad expedition formed the beginning of a museum. These
objects, growing rapidly in number at the return of each expedi-
tion, were taken care of in the Smithsonian building, until the
large gifts received from many foreign governments and private
exhibitors at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 made it necessary
to erect a separate building, which is now known as the National
Museum.

Prof. Goode, who was wisely placed in charge of the collection,
secured at once the assistance of volunteer curators to supplement
the museum staff, and with their co-operation elaborated and per-
fected a scheme which may be called, in its fruition, an Anthropo-
logical Kindergarten. Prof. Goode considers as the central point
Man, and aims to illustrate as far as possible the development of
everything that contributes to his welfare, comfort, or amuse-
ment, that is hurtful or beneficial to him, or that affects his moral |
or esthetic nature. No monstrosity finds a place, nor does any
object of sentimental association receive a welcome.

The first successful attempt to embrace the whole science of
anthropology under one systematic classification was made by
Prof. O. T. Mason. Its adoption as the basis for the Smithsonian
exhibit at the Centennial gave to it the importance it deserves. It
is, with such modifications as its practical application have sug-
gested, now followed in the National Museum, where Prof. Mason
has charge of the department of anthropology, and has given to
the Anthropological Society of Washington its principal divisions.

The science of anthropology is now divided between the Na-
tional Museum and the Army Medical Museum, in contiguous
buildings, as follows: All specimens belonging to the biological
side of the science, collected by the National Museum, are placed
in the Army Medical Museum. This includes anatomy, physi-
ology, embryology, anthropometry, and kindred topics.

On the other hand, all specimens illustrative of languages,
arts, sociology, customs, beliefs, etc., of man, gathered by the
army, are deposited in the National Museum. In this way, the
two institutions work in harmony, and do not duplicate each
other’s work.

The division of anthropology in the National Museum is
organized into departments of the ARTS AND INDUSTRIES OF MAN-
KIND, in which are included, in their several sections, medicinal

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON. 789

plants; foods and textiles; fisheries (Showing methods of taking
and utilizing marine animals) ; naval architecture (starting with
the bark boat, the skin boat, the raft, and the dug-out, and trac-
ing the evolution of naval architecture to the ocean steamer) ;
graphic arts; history and numismatics; and land transportation
(beginning with the simplest device for locomotion and trans-
portation, and ending with the railroad) ;—ETHNOLOGY, in which
is included the fullest collection of American pottery in the
world ;—and PREHISTORIC ARCHHOLOGY, in a magnificent collec-
tion, occupying the entire upper story of the Smithsonian build-
ing. The American portion was classified by the late Dr. Charles
Rau. The European collection, founded by Mr. Thomas Wilson,
is arranged according to the chart of De Mortillet.

As avenues of publication the Museum has the “ Reports,”
“ Miscellaneous Collections,” and “ Contributions” of the Smith-
sonian Institution, and its own “ Proceedings,” “ Bulletin,’ and
“ Transactions.”

For obtaining collections, it relies upon gifts and deposits,
which are often very liberal; the material collected by officers of
the army and navy, Hydrographic Bureau, Coast Survey, Geologi-
cal Survey, Bureau of Hthnology, consular service, etc., which
are given to it by law; gifts turned over by public expositions
and fairs at their close; and international exchanges. The ma-
terial thus accruing is received as fast as the staff of the Museum
can attend to it.

THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.—The bureau, as at present con-
stituted, was organized in 1879, when an appropriation of twenty-
five thousand dollars was made by Congress for “ the prosecution
of ethnologic researches among the North American Indians.”
During each of the succeeding years an equal or larger appropri-
ation has been made, the amount up to the present time aggregat-
ing three hundred thousand dollars. This amount has been ex-
pended for field and office work. The force officially connected
with the bureau, and constituting its staff of workers, consists of
specialists trained in the several lines of research, each working
independently in his own field, but each giving assistance, and
receiving assistance from every other, as the lines of investiga-
tion touch and overlap each other. The whole is under the direc-
tion of Major J. W. Powell. Results of great value are derived
by stimulating and guiding research on the part of collaborators
in different parts of the country who are not officially connected
with the bureau.

Of the researches at present conducted by the bureau, the
most important are probably those in linguistics. Owing to the
breaking up of the tribal system and the consolidation of the

smaller with the larger tribes, to the adoption by the Indians of

790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

civilized manners and pursuits, and to the extinction in some por-
tions of the country of the language with the Indians who spoke
them, the Indian languages are fast disappearing from the face
of the earth. Accordingly, a large share of the time and labor of
the bureau force has been, and will continue to be, devoted to the
record and preservation of aboriginal languages. Each year one or
more trained linguistic scholars are dispatched to remote parts of
the country, charged, as their prime duty, with the task of collect-
ing as much as possible of the speech of obscure tribes. To facili-
tate their work, and to aid and encourage linguistic students in
all portions of the country, a special work has been prepared by
the director, entitled “ Introduction to the Study of Indian Lan-
guages.”

Comparatively little time can be devoted at present to the
analysis and study of the languages collected. The pressing need
of the moment is their preservation for the use and study of fu-
ture scholars. Nevertheless, the study is by no means wholly neg-
lected, as will be apparent from the fact that monographs are now
being prepared upon the Dakota languages, by J. Owen Dorsey;
upon the Klamath language, by A. 8. Gatschett; upon the Tusca-
rora language, by J. N. B. Hewitt; and upon Cherokee, by James
Mooney.

Much has been accomplished in the direction of a comparison
of vocabularies and the classification of the tribes by language. A
book embodying the final results of this study, by Major Powell,
which has been many years in progress, will soon appear. The
number of distinct linguistic families occupying the territory
north of Mexico at the time of the discovery was, so far as known,
sixty, while the languages included in these probably numbered
not less than three hundred. A colored map has been completed,
and is now ready for publication, setting forth the areas occupied
by the linguistic families.

Another important work, now far advanced toward completion,
is a “ Dictionary of Tribal Names,” in charge of Mr. H. W. Hen-
shaw. In this will be assembled, under each of the linguistic
families, all the tribes composing it. Short, succinct historical
and descriptive accounts will appear under the head of each family
and tribe, while cross-references will refer to the proper names of
each tribe the vast body of synonyms which have crept into liter-
ature since the earliest published accounts. It is calculated that
the above material will fill a volume of about one thousand pages.

Movunps.—The important work of the exploration of the mounds
east of the Mississippi Valley is under the charge of Cyrus Thomas,
whose investigations cover a period of six years. The first of the
three volumes which will contain his final report is now ready
for the press. A very large number of mounds in several States

Si ita De NP NN ae teem Sipser. er au ihe

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON, 791

have been surveyed, photographed, and explored, with a view to
ascertain their nature, purposes, and contents, and a considerable
body of facts pertaining thereto has been gathered.

Rutns.—Aboriginal remains of this class are chiefly confined
to the Territories of Arizonaand New Mexico, Their examination
is in charge of Victor Mindeleff, who is now preparing an exten-
sively illustrated work upon them. Each visit to these regions
results in the discovery of hitherto unknown groups of these in-
teresting ruins. A large number have been photographed and
surveyed so carefully that models of many of them have been
made to a scale, and are now on exhibition in the National Mu-
seum. Careful examination of the methods of architecture of the
ruins connects them closely with the existing pueblos, among the
present inhabitants of which indeed have been found exact tradi-
tions of the former occupancy of these ruins by their ancestors,
while the causes that led to their abandonment are often known.

S1gn-LANGUAGE AND PicToGRAPHY.—The collection and study
of the material for a monograph on these subjects is in charge of
Colonel Garrick Mallery. Nowhere, perhaps—at least in modern
times—has the sign-language been so extensively used as in
America. The collection of the gestures employed in different
parts of the country, and their comparison with those used in
other parts of the world, have involved great labor, but are now
nearly completed. The study of pictographs is a natural correla-
tive to that of gesture-language, the latter being an earlier form
of the preceding. Various portions of the United States have
been visited, and a large number of pictographs have been photo-
graphed or sketched. These occur in the form of petroglyphs or
rock-carvings, of paintings on the hides of animals, and etchings
on birch-bark. Colonel Mallery’s final report upon the above sub-
ject may be looked for at no distant day.

MytHoLocy.—The number of myths current among any one
Indian tribe is surprising; and, as they differ to a greater or less
degree even among tribes of the same locality and are quite dis-
tinct in different regions, their total number in the country at
large is enormous. As ideas of a religious or superstitious char-
acter are known to be very enduring, it has been thought by
some that myths may prove an important adjunct in the work of
classifying tribes. They are also important as constituting the
philosophy of savagery and barbarism, and by their study we ar-
rive more closely than in any other way at primitive ideas of the
nature of things, of the forces of nature, and of primitive methods
of reasoning. No opportunity has been lost by the bureau assist-

ants to collect Indian myths in their purity, and a vast body of
them are now awaiting study.

PHOTOGRAPHY.— The director of the bureau has been fully

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

alive to the importance of recording the physical appearance,
features, and methods of dress of the Indian in his primitive con-
dition, and to this end full use has been made of the camera. The
collection of photographs of Indians from all parts of the country,
taken either in their homes or upon the occasion of their period-
ical visits to Washington, is now very large, and constitutes a body
of ethnologic material, the value of which it would be difficult to
overestimate.

ARTS AND Customs.—Although the rapid settlement of the
country, and the introduction of habits and implements of civili-
zation, have effected great change in the arts and customs of the
Indians, yet among many tribes the old ways of life have been by
no means abandoned, and primitive habits and modes of thought
still flourish. Investigators sent out by the bureau are required
to note the details of the every-day life of the Indians, and to de-
scribe such of their primitive arts as still survive as well as those
that are borrowed from civilization and modified in accordance
with the Indian ideas, Especial attention has been paid to their
mechanical operations and appliances, particularly to the making
of pottery and textile fabrics, to the ideas and methods of medici-
nal practice, etc. Here, again, photography has done good work
in retaining, uninfluenced by a writer’s subsequent imagination,
the exact method of using the different implements and materials.
Very large collections of pottery, clothing, and implements of
various sorts have been made and are deposited in the National
Museum.

Of the publications of the bureau the annual reports consist
of an account of the current year’s operations by the director,
together with papers upon a variety of topics by the bureau as-
sistants and by collaborators. These reports are usually liberally
illustrated, and are intended to include subjects of a popular char-
acter, or those which from their nature are likely to interest a
large class of readers. Up to the present time four volumes of
the reports have appeared, and the matter for Vol. V is ready.

The contributions to North American ethnology are quarto
volumes appearing at irregular intervals, and are in the nature
of monographs upon special subjects, to which many of the papers
in the annual reports are preliminary. They constitute the most
important series published by the bureau, and contain the ripened
studies of the scholars by whom they were written. Of these,
three volumes have appeared, and two are ready for the press. A
third class of publications embraces the bulletins which are in-
tended to be the vehicle of publication of short articles upon
various subjects, the speedy appearance of which is desired. So
far five such bulletins have been published.

During the progress of investigations, which are ultimately to

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON. 793

be published in the form of monographs, it is the custom to issue,
as widely as occasion requires, circulars intended to call attention
to special subjects being investigated, and to invite correspondence
and to elicit information from specialists and investigators in all
parts of the world. Occasionally the importance of the subject
has warranted the issuance of such documents in the form de-
signed for the finished work, with the view of setting forth the
facts gathered and the progress made in the study. The latter
publications, however, are looked upon only in the nature of
proof-sheets, being intended for the temporary use of collabora-
tors, and are to be recalled and destroyed when the final reports
are published.

THe Army Mepicat Musrum.—The anthropological investi-
gations which are fostered by this institution are on the biological
side. The large collections of skeletons, and especially of crania,
make it possible to secure valuable data in anthropometry. Drs.
Billings and Matthews have been alive to the richness of the ma-
terial at their disposal, and their studies in skull measurements
and composite photography of crania will be among the most
valuable contributions of the United States Government to an-
thropology.

It is not surprising that with the large number of anthropolo-
gists, together with such other students as the public and private
institutions at Washington contain, a prosperous Anthropological
Society should be in operation. This society, organized in 1879,
now has an active membership of sixteen hundred. Of the two
hundred and more papers that have been presented, more than
half were by persons who were in the institutions already de-
scribed. Four volumes of “Transactions” have been published,
and the society is now issuing a quarterly of ninety-six pages.

The following are the titles of the principal papers in the pub-
lications of the Bureau of Ethnology:

ANNUAL REPORTS.

Vol. I, Washington, 1881:

1. “On the Evolution of Language,” by J. W. Powell.

2. “Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians,” by J. W.
Powell.

8. “Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North Ameri-
can Indians,” by Dr. H. O. Yarrow.

4. “Studies in Central American Picture- Writing,” by E. S. Holden.

5. “Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States,” by OU. ©. Royce.

6. “Sign-Language among North American Indians compared with that among
other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,” by Garrick Mallery.

Vol. Il, 1883:

1. “ Zufii Fetiches,” by F. H. Cushing.

2. “Myths of the Iroquois,” by E. A. Smith.

794. THE POPULAR SOIENCE MONTHLY.

3. ‘Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley,” by H. W. Hen-
shaw.

4, ** Navajo Silversmiths,” by Dr. W. Matthews.

5. “ Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans,” by W. H. Holmes.

Vol. III, 1888 :
. “Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts,” by Cyrus Thomas.
. “Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs,” by W. H. Dall.
. “Omaha Sociology,” by J. O. Dorsey.
. “Navajo Weavers,” by Dr. W. Matthews.
. “Prehistoric Textile Fabrics of the United States derived from Impressions
on Pottery,” by W. H. Holmes.

Vol. IV, 1886:

1. “Pictographs of the North American Indians: a Preliminary Paper,” by
Garrick Mallery.

2. “Pottery of the Ancient Pueblos,” by W. H. Holmes.

3. ‘“ Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley,” by W. H. Holmes.

4, “Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art,” by W.
H. Holmes.

5. “A Study of Pueblo Pottery as illustrating Zufii Culture-Growth,” by F.
H. Cushing.

Vol. V, 1887:

1. ‘Burial Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States,” by Cyrus
Thomas.

2. **The Cherokee Nation of Indians,” by O. C. Royce.

3. “The Mountain Chant; a Navajo Ceremony,” by Dr. W. Matthews.

4. “The Seminole Indians of Florida,” by Clay Maccauley.

5. “The Religious Life of the Zufii Child,” by Mrs. T. E. Stevenson.

—

Ot HB oO bo

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.

Vol. I, Washington, 1877:

1. “‘ Tribes of the Extreme Northwest,” by W. H. Dall.

2. ‘Tribes of Western Washington Territory and Northwestern Oregon,” by
George Gibbs.

Vol. II. Not published.

Vol. III, 1877:

“Tribes of California,” by Stephen Powers, with an Appendix on Linguistics,
by J. W. Powell.

Vol. IV, pp. xi-281, Washington, 1881.

‘* Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines,” by Lewis Morgan.

Vol. V, 1882:

1. “Observations on Cup-shaped and other Lapidarian Sculpture in the Old
World and in America,” by CO. Rau.

2. “On Prehistoric Trephining and Cranial Amulets,” by Robert Fletcher.

8. “A Study of the Manuscript Troano,” by Cyrus Thomas.

BULLETINS.

1. ‘Ancient Inhabitants of Chiriqui, Isthmus of Darien,” by W. H. Holmes.
Pp. 27, 22 cuts. Washington, 1887.

2. ‘“ Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology,” by Cyrus
Thomas. Pp. 13. Washington, 1887. :

DIGESTION AND RELATED FUNCTIONS. 795

8. “ Perforated Stones from California,” by H. W. Henshaw. Pp. 34, 16 cuts.
Washington, 1887.

4, “ Bibliography of the Eskimo Language,” by J. C. Pilling. Pp. v—-115.
Washington, 1887.

5. “ Bibliography of the Siouan Language,” by J.C. Pilling. Pp. v-87. Wash-
ington, 1887.

6. ‘‘Indian Textile Fabrics of Ancient Peru,” by W. H. Holmes.

7. “Problems of the Ohio Mounds,” by Cyrus Thomas.

8. “ Bibliography of the Iroquoian Language,” by J. C. Pilling.

The three by J. C. Pilling are separate and extended parts of a work which
Mr. Pilling first published as proof-sheets of a “ Bibliography of the Languages of
the North American Indians.”

DIGESTION AND RELATED FUNCTIONS.*

By WESLEY MILLS, M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN MCGILL UNIVERSITY.

ty is a matter well recognized by those of much experience in
breeding and keeping animals with restricted freedom and
under other conditions differing widely from the natural ones—
i. e., those under which the animals exist in a wild state—that the
nature of the food must vary from that which the untamed ances-
tors of our domestic animals used. Food may often with advan-
tage be cooked for the tame and confined animal. The digestive
and the assimilative powers have varied with other changes in
the organism brought about by the new surroundings. So much
is this the case, that it is necessary to resort to common experi-
ence and to more exact experiments to ascertain the best methods
of feeding animals for fattening, for work, or for breeding. In-
ferences drawn from the feeding habits of wild animals allied to
the tame to be valuable must always, before being applied to the
latter, be subjected to correction by the results of experience.

To a still greater degree does this apply to man himself. The
greater his advances in civilization, the more he departs from
primitive habits in other respects, the more must he depart in his
feeding.: With the progressive development of man’s cerebrum,
the keener struggle for place and power, the more his nervous en-
ergies are diverted from the lower functions of digestion and as-
similation of food; hence the greater need that food shall be more
carefully selected and more thoroughly and scientifically pre-
pared. Not only so, but, with our increasing refinement, the prog-
ress of digestion to successful issues demands that the senses of
man be ministered to in order that there be no interferences in
the central nervous system, and every encouragement given to

* From advance sheets of a text-book on “ Animal Physiology” in press of D. Apple-
ton & Co,

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the latter to furnish the necessary nervous impulses to the digest-
ive organs and the tissues in every part of the organism: for it is
not enough that food be digested in the ordinary sense; it must
also be built up into the tissues, a process depending, as we shall
endeavor to show later, on the nervous system.

The “ gastronomic art ” has, therefore, become of great impor-
tance. It is as yet more of an art than a science; the cook has out-
stripped the physiologist, if not the chemist also, in this direction.

We can not explain fully why food prepared by certain meth-
ods and served in courses of a certain established order is so suited
to refined man. A part is known, but a great deal remains to be
discovered. We may, however, notice a few points of importance
in regard to the preparation of food.

It is now well established by experience that ‘animals kept in
confinement must have, in order to escape disease and attain the
best results on the whole, a diet which not only imitates that of
the corresponding wild forms generally, but even in details, it may
be, with altered proportions or added constituents, in consequence
of the difference in the environment. To illustrate: poultry can
not be kept healthy confined in a shed without sand, gravel, old
mortar, or some similar preparation; indeed, for the best results
they must have green food also, as lettuce, cabbage, chopped
green clover, grass, etc. They do not require as much food as if
they had the exercise afforded by running hither and thither over
a large field. We have chosen this example because it is not com-
monly recognized that our domesticated birds have been so modi-
fied that special study must be made of the environment in all
cases if they are not to degenerate. The facts in regard to horned
cattle, horses, and dogs are perhaps better known.

But all these instances are simple as compared with man.
The lower mammals can live and flourish with comparatively
_ little change of diet; not soman. He demands food not only dis-
similar in its actual grosser nature, but differently prepared. In
a word, for the efferent nervous impulses, on which the digestive
processes depend, to be properly supplied, it has become necessary
that a variety of afferent impulses (through eye, ear, nose, palate)
reach the nervous centers, attuning them to harmony, so that they
shall act, yet not interfere with one another.

Cooking greatly alters the chemical composition, the mechani-
cal condition, and, in consequence, the flavor, the digestibility, and

the nutritive value of foods. To illustrate: meat in its raw con- — :

dition would present mechanical difficulties, the digestive fluids —
permeating it less completely ; an obstacle, however, of far greater —
magnitude in the case of most vegetable foods. By cooking, cer- —
tain chemical compounds are replaced by others, while some may
be wholly removed. Asa rule, boiling is not a good form of pre-

DIGESTION AND RELATED FUNCTIONS. 797

paring meat, because it withdraws not only salts of importance,
but proteids and the extractives—nitrogenous and other. Beef-
tea is valuable chiefly because of these extractives, though it also
contains a little gelatin, albumin, and fats. Salt meat furnishes
less nutriment, a large part having been removed by the brine;
notwithstanding, all persons at times, and some frequently, find
such food highly beneficial, the effect being doubtless not confined
to the alimentary tract.

Meat, according to the heat employed, may be so cooked as to
retain the greater part of its juices within it or the reverse.
With a high temperature (65° to 70° C.) the outside in roasting
may be so quickly hardened as to retain the juices.

In feeding dogs it is both physiological and economical to give
the animal the broth as well as the meat itself. The poor man
may get excellent food cheaply by using not alone the meat of the
shank of beef, but the soup (extractives) derived from it. There
is much waste not only by the consumption of more food than is
necessary, but by. the purchase of kinds in which that important
class, the proteids, comes at too high a price.

It is remarkable in the highest degree that man’s appetite, or
the instinctive choice of food, has proved wiser than our science.
It would be impossible even yet to match, by calculations based
on any data we can obtain, a diet for each man equal upon the
whole to what his instincts prompt. With the lower mammals
we can prescribe with greater success. At the same time chemi-
eal and physiological science can lay down general principles
based on actual experience, which may serve to correct some arti-
ficialities acquired by perseverance in habits that were not based
on the true instincts of a sound body and a healthy mental and
moral nature; for the influence of the latter can not be safely
ignored even in such discussions as the present. These remarks,
however, are meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive.

We may with advantage inquire into the nature of hunger and
thirst. These, as we know, are safe guides usually in eating and
drinking.

After a long walk on a warm day one feels thirsty; the mouth
is usually dry; at all events, moistening the mouth, especially the
back of it (pharynx), will of itself partially relieve thirst. But if
we remain quiet for a little time the thirst grows less, even if no
fluid be taken. The dryness has been relieved by the natural se-
cretions. If, however, fluid be introduced into the blood either
directly or through the alimentary canal, the thirst is also relieved
speedily. The fact that we know when to stop drinking water
shows of itself that there must be local sensations that guide us,
for it is not possible to believe that the whole of the fluid taken
can at once have entered the blood.

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Again, in the case of hunger, the introduction of innutritious
matters, as earth or sawdust, will somewhat relieve the urgent
sensations in extreme cases, as will also the use of tobacco by
smokers, or much mental occupation, though this is rather illus-
trative of the lessening of the consciousness of the ingoing im-
pulses by diverting the attention from them. But hunger, like
thirst, may be mitigated by injections into the intestines or the
blood. It is, therefore, clear that, while in the case of hunger and
thirst there is a local expression of a need, a peculiar sensation,
more pronounced in certain parts (the fauces in the case of thirst,
the stomach in that of hunger), yet these may be appeased from
within through the medium of the blood, as well as from without
by the introduction of food or water, as the case may be.

Up to the present we have assumed that the changes wrought
in the food in the alimentary tract were identical with those pro-
duced by the digestive ferments as obtained by extracts of the
organs naturally furnishing them. But for many reasons it seems
probable that artificial digestion can not be regarded as parallel
with the natural processes except in a very general way. When
we take into account the absence of muscular movements, regu-
lated according to no rigid principles, but varying with innumer-
able circumstances in all probability, the absence of the influence
of the nervous system determining the variations in the quantity
and composition of the outflow of the secretions; the changes in
the rate of so-called absorption, which doubtless influences also
the act of the secretion of the juices—by these and a host of other
considerations we are led to hesitate before we commit ourselves
too unreservedly to the belief that the processes of natural diges-
tion can be exactly imitated in the laboratory.

What is it which enables one man to digest habitually what
may be almost a poison to another? How is it that each one can
dispose readily of a food at one time that at another is quite in-
digestible ? To reply that, in the one case, the digestive fluids are
poured out and in the other not, is to go little below the surface,
for one asks the reason of this, if it be a fact, as it no doubt is,
When we look further into the peculiarities of digestion, etc., we
recognize the influence of race as such, and in the race and the in-
dividual that obtrusive though ill-understood fact—the force of
habit, operative here as elsewhere. And there can be little doubt
that the habits of a people, as to food eaten and digestive pecul-
iarities established,'| become organized, fixed, and transmitted to
posterity.

It is probably in this way that, in the course of the evolution
of the various groups of animals, they have come to vary so much
in their choice of food and in their digestive processes, did we but
know them thoroughly as they are; for to assume that even the

DIGESTION AND RELATED FUNCTIONS. 799

digestion of mammals can be summed up in the simple way now
prevalent seems to us too broad an assumption. The field is very
wide, and as yet but little explored.

HuMAN PuysioLoGy.—The study of Alexis St. Martin has
furnished probably the best example of genuine human physi-
ology to be found, and has yielded a harvest rich in results,

We suggest to the student that self-observation, without in-
terfering with the natural processes, may lead to valuable knowl-
edge; for, though it may lack some of the precision of laboratory
experiments, it will prove in many respects more instructive, sug-
gestive, and impressive, and have a bearing on medical practice
that will make it telling. Not that we would be understood now
or at any time as depreciating laboratory experiments, but we wish
to point out from time to time how much may be learned in ways
that are simple, inexpensive, and consume but little time.

The law of rhythm is illustrated, both in health and disease, in
striking ways in the digestive tract. An individual long accus-
tomed to eat at a certain hour of the day will experience at that
time not only hunger, but other sensations, probably referable to
secretion of a certain quantity of the digestive juices and to the
movements that usually accompany the presence of food in the
alimentary tract. Some persons find their digestion disordered
by a change in the hours of meals.

It is well known that defecation at periods fixed, even within
a few minutes, has become an established habit with hosts of
people; and the same is to a degree true of dogs, etc., kept in
confinement, taught cleanly habits, and encouraged therein by
regular attention to their needs.

Now and then a case of what is very similar to regurgitation
of food in ruminants is to be found among human beings. This
is traceable to habit, which is bound up with the law of rhythm
or periodic increased and diminished activity.

Indeed, every one sufficiently observant may notice in himself
instances of the application of this law in the economy of his own
digestive organs.

This tendency is important in preserving energy for higher
ends, for such is the result of the operation of this law every-
where.

The law of correlation, or mutual dependence, is well illustrated
in the series of organs composing the alimentary tract.

The condition of the stomach has its counterpart in the rest
of the tract: thus, when St. Martin had a disordered stomach, the
epithelium of his tongue showed corresponding changes.

We have already referred to the fact that one part may do
extra work to make up for the deficiencies of another.

It is confidently asserted of late that, in the case of persons

800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

long unable to take food by the mouth, nutritive substances given
by enemata find their way up to the duodenum by antiperistalsis.
Here, then, is an example of an acquired adaptive arrangement
under the stress of circumstances. ,

It can not be too much impressed on the mind that in the com-
plicated body of the mammal the work of any one organ is con-
stantly varying with the changes elsewhere. It is this mutual
dependence and adaptation—an old doctrine, too much left out of
sight in modern physiology—which makes the attempt to com-
pletely unravel vital processes well-nigh hopeless, though each
accumulating true observation gives a better insight into this
kaleidoscopic mechanism.

We have not attempted to make any statements as to the
quantity of the various secretions discharged. This is large,
doubtless, but much is probably reabsorbed, either altered or
unaltered, and used over again. In the case of fistule the condi-
tions are so unnatural that any conclusions as to the normal quan-
tity from the data they afford must be highly unsatisfactory.
Moreover, the quantity must be very variable, according to the
law we are now considering. It is well known that dry food pro-
vokes a more abundant discharge of saliva, and this is doubtless
but one example of many other relations between the character
of the food and the quantity of secretion provided.

EVOLUTION.—We have from time to time either distinctly
pointed out or hinted at the evolutionary implications of the facts
of this department of physiology. The structure of the digestive
organs, plainly indicating a rising scale of complexity with greater
and greater differentiation of function, is, beyond question, an
evidence of evolution.

The law of natural selection and the law of adaptation, giving
rise to new forms, have both operated, we may believe, from what
can be observed going on around us and in ourselves. The oc-
currence of transitional forms, as in the epithelium of the digest-
ive tract of the frog, is also in harmony with the conception of a
progressive evolution of structure and function. But the limits
of space will not permit of the enumeration of details.

Summary.—A very brief réswmé of the subject of digestion
will probably suffice. ’

Food is either organic or inorganic, and comprises proteids,
fats, carbohydrates, salts, and water; and each of these must enter
into the diet of all known animals. They must also be in a form
that is digestible. Digestion is the reduction of food to a form
such that it may be further dealt with by the alimentary tract
prior to being introduced into the blood (absorption). This is
effected in different parts of the tract, the various constituents of
food being differently modified, according to the secretions there

THE CHEMIST AS A CONSTRUCTOR. 801

provided, etc. The digestive juices contain essentially ferments
which act only under definite conditions of chemical reaction,
temperature, etc.

The changes wrought in the food are the following: Starches
are converted into sugars, proteids into peptones, and fats into
fatty acids, soaps, and emulsion; which alterations are effected
by ptyalin and amylopsin, pepsin and trypsin, and bile and pan-
creatic steapsin, respectively.

Outside the mucous membrane containing the glands are mus-
cular coats, serving to bring about the movements of the food
along the digestive tract and to expel the feces, the circular fibers
being the more important. These movements and the processes
of secretion and so-called absorption are under the control of the
nervous system.

The preparation of the digestive secretions involves a series of
changes in the epithelial cells concerned, which can be distinctly
traced, and takes place in response to nervous stimulation.

These we regard as inseparably bound up with the healthy life
of the cell. To be natural, it must secrete.

The blood-vessels of the stomach and intestine and the villi of
the latter receive the digested food for further elaboration (absorp-
tion). The undigested remnant of food and the excretions of the
intestine make up the feces, the latter being expelled by a series
of co-ordinated muscular movements essentially reflex in origin.

ot

THE CHEMIST AS A CONSTRUCTOR.
By W. BERNHARDT.

NE of the most attractive branches of modern chemistry

comprises the artificial preparation of compounds existing
preformed in nature, or, in other words, the imitation of the
works of creative power. Synthesis, as this section of chemical
investigation is called, although it has already attained a consid-
erable degree of success, is of but recent origin compared with
analysis, or those researches by which we become acquainted with
the composition of the products of nature, and of what we derive
from them by industrial processes. It is an indispensable con-
dition, before learning how to compound a body, to know what
are its constituents, what their properties are, and by what agents
they are most liable to be brought into combination with each
other. Therefore, synthetical processes could only be founded
upon the results of analytical investigations, It is chiefly to the
thorough knowledge of the properties and affinities of the seventy
‘so-called elements that we owe the innumerable discoveries which

VOL. xxxv.—b5l

802 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have raised chemistry to its present important position, together
with the insight into the manifold changes and metamorphoses
which terrestrial matter has undergone in past times, and which
it still undergoes, and into the processes active in vegetable and
animal organisms.

The events preceding the discovery of the composition of water
afford a striking instance of how many difficulties had to be over-
come from the very first observations on the chemical nature of
this body—ubiquitous on the surface of the earth—to the ascer-
tainment of its composition, and to our ability voluntarily to pre-
pare it. In the middle ages the doctrine of Aristotle was pre-
dominant, that all matter consisted of four elements—air, fire,
earth, and water—difference in properties being ascribed only to
the varying proportions in which these elements were present.
Not much more was known of its physical and chemical characters,
but that it may be brought into a solid state by cold and volatil-
ized by heat, and that it offers a good solvent for many substances,
Paracelsus, a prominent physician and chemist of the sixteenth
century, found that, on treating iron with sulphuric acid, a gas is
given off. Boyle, in 1672, discovered this gas to be inflammable ;
thirty years later, its detonating properties in contact with air
became known; but not until Cavendish, in 1766, devoted himself
to the exact study of this gas was there any conjecture established
on the relations existing between it and water. In 1787 Cavendish
made the discovery that, by combustion of this gas in air, water is
generated ; but, prejudiced by the chemical theories then prevail-
ing, he failed to explain the process in the right way. We are
indebted to Lavoisier for a correct definition of the changes taking
place in the combustion of hydrogen, which name he gave to the
gas in question, signifying a body from which water may be gen-
erated by uniting it with oxygen. Thus Lavoisier, supported by
the discovery of oxygen by Priestley and Scheele in 1774, became
the originator of chemical synthesis. It is a trifling experiment
nowadays to demonstrate the formation of water by placing an
inverted glass over a jet of burning dry hydrogen, when a dew of
water will cover the sides of the vessel and gradually gather into
drops.

A rapid advance in synthetical knowledge took place during
the third and fourth decades of this century, the artificial prepa-
ration of a long series of organic compounds becoming known;
and it is a surprising fact, although the chemistry of the carbon
compounds, or organic chemistry, was in an infantile state at that
time, while most mineral bodies were pretty well known as to
their composition and character, that the manufacturing of the
former with all their physical and chemical properties was suc-
cessfully performed, while the imitation of minerals in their

THE CHEMIST AS A CONSTRUCTOR. 803

peculiar structure and appearance frequently met with unsur-
passable difficulties. Even our most modern expedients do not
enable us to imitate more than a few well characterized and crys-
tallized minerals regarding shape, luster, and other physical prop-
erties. We can build up the carbonates of calcium, iron, and man-
ganese from their elements, but we lack the means to give them
the rhombohedral form in which they are naturally found. It
was only in the course of the last year that Krontschuff made
known the first method of crystallizing silica in the hexagonal
form of quartz; and that Fremy and Meunier succeeded in gain-
ing real rubies and spinels by a melting process. It also required
long years of incessant experimenting to find out a way of manu-
facturing the splendid blue coloring matter, ultramarine, as an
approximative imitation of lapis lazuli. We should be at a loss,
if requested to prepare crystallized manganic binoxide, or cal-
cium triphosphate, or most other crystallized compounds spread
throughout the rocky schists of the earth.

Asking for the reason of this insufficiency of our chemical fae-
ulties, we find it to be the impossibility of providing, through a
sufficient length of time, those conditions of heat, pressure, and
other circumstances which prevailed and were of influence when
such compounds were separating from molten masses of mineral
matter, or from saturated solutions, the composition of which will
always remain concealed from us. Organic substances, on the
contrary, of the most various kinds, are continually formed and
decomposed in the bodies of plants and animals, very readily com-
bining and separating under conditions which exist everywhere,
or which may easily be induced. The extraordinary mutability
of the compounds of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen is a feat-
ure particular to this element, not equaled by those of any other.
Their liability to chemical changes enables us voluntarily to build
up and to reconstruct carbon compounds occurring in organisms
as well as those derived from them.

Alcohol, one of the best-known products of chemical industry,
may serve as evidence to what degree of perfection the composi-
tion and decomposition of chemical compounds has been brought,
As the chief constituent of intoxicating beverages, alcohol, to-
gether with carbonic acid, originates by fermentation from sugar;
but this is not the only possible way to produce it, The bright-
ness of electric lights, by which public places, roads, stores, etc., of
our cities now are illuminated at night, is emitted by an electric
current passing between two carbon points. When such a passage
of electricity takes place in a glass balloon filled with hydrogen,
the electric current causes this gas to unite with carbon, forming
acetylene, a gaseous compound, which in contact with more hydro-
gen readily takes it up, forming a second gaseous compound—

804 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ethylene—which is the chief light-giving constituent of illumi-
nating gas. Hthylene, when brought into contact with sulphuric
acid, forms a liquid combination, and this when treated with po-
tassium hydrate is converted into alcohol. Having thus built up
from its elements a substance formerly known only as a product
of fermentation, we may proceed at once to decompose it again
into its elements. We can easily regain the carbon which it con-
tains, by heating alcohol with sulphuric acid, which again con-
verts it into ethylene; and this gas, when mixed with chlorine gas
and lighted, burns away, leaving carbon, which as a dense black
smoke fills the vessel.

An event very encouraging and helpful to synthetical investi-
gations was the artificial preparation of urea, a product of secre-
tion in animal bodies, resulting from the decay of muscle, and one
of the most important substances in animal exchange of matter.
When Woehler, in 1828, found out that, by a chemical process, it
can be composed with all its physical and chemical properties, this
event gave a tremendous shock to the foundations of the doctrine
formerly believed, that a“ vital power” governed the functions of
the organs of living animals, independently of physical as well as
of chemical forces. The discovery of artificial urea was followed
by others in an uninterrupted series, which, besides the practical
interest they were entitled to claim, threw a new and clear light
upon many processes in organic life. In glancing at some of
them, we confine ourselves to cases of more general interest.

A conspicuous instance of the degree to which synthetical
chemistry has enabled us to imitate nature in some of the pro-
cesses going on in the bodies of plants and animals is represented
by the changes which salicin undergoes. It is to this white and
crystalline compound—belonging to the chemical group of gluco-
sides—that the leaves of willow and poplar trees owe their bitter
taste. Several species of Spirwa, while young, also contain salicin,
which, during growth, is converted into a volatile oil of reddish
color—salicylic aldehyde—an oil which, remarkably enough, is also
produced from salicin in the body of the larve of Chrysomela
populi, a beetle feeding on the leaves of poplar-trees. In Spirea,
as well as in other plants containing this oil, it is partly trans-
formed into salicylic acid, which in its turn in Gaultheria procum-
bens and Betula lenta combines with methyl to form a product
known as “ wintergreen-oil.” Now by synthesis we can artifi-
cially reproduce all these changes, though pursuing quite a differ-
ent way from that which Nature follows. We can convert salicin
into salicylic aldehyde; we can transform this into salicylic acid,
and we can produce wintergreen-oil by combining this acid with

methyl. We can even manage to prepare salicylic acid and win- 3 :

tergreen-oil from coal-tar, a substance which, as everybody may

ee, =

THE CHEMIST AS A CONSTRUCTOR. 805

judge by the way of its production, is not likely to contain any
ingredients found in living plants. The preparation of salicylic
acid from the products of coal-tar was discovered by Kolbe about
twenty years ago, inducing a more thorough study of the proper-
ties of this acid, from which it was found to be one of the most
valuable remedies for rheumatic complaints and for gout. Thus
one discovery often becomes the source of a whole series of new
ones, and may prove a blessing to mankind in the most unexpected
and various ways.

Few people know what xanthin is. The name, indeed, rep-

resents a body of neither commercial nor industrial significance.

Scarcely anybody else but chemists and physicians knows that it is
a substance which, in a small amount, is found in muscles, in the
liver, brain, and certain other organs of the animal body. But little,
therefore, does he who enjoys a cup of cocoa, coffee, or tea, fancy
that the beneficent, animating effect of these beverages is due to
the methyl compounds of xanthin, contained as theobromine in
cocoa-beans and as caffeine, in coffee-beans and in the leaves of tea
and several other plants. Both theobromine and caffeine can
readily be prepared from xanthin, the products having exactly the
same physiological effect as the natural compounds.

The line of products of organic life which have been built up
artificially from their constituents includes representatives of
many groups of compounds, although they are not equally numer-
ous in all of them. A large number of vegetable acids may be
synthetically prepared. The volatile oils of bitter almonds and
mustard, as well as the coloring matters indigo and alizarin, be-

' sides being prepared from plants, are obtained from other sources

by chemical processes; but, since their original production de-
pends on fermentative actions, to which the material is subject-
ed, they can not justly be classed among natural products. In
some groups of natural organic compounds our efforts to obtain
them by synthesis have hitherto almost utterly failed. Our
knowledge of alkaloids, many of which, by their great physio-
logical effects, are of prominent therapeutic importance, has ad-
vanced so far as to permit us to convert some of them into others—
for instance, to transform morphine into codeine; but, with the ex-
ception of conine, which Ladenburg claims to have synthetically
obtained, and conhydrine, prepared by Hoffmann, both of which
are contained in hemlock (Coniwm maculatum), no success of con-
sequence has been registered. Nevertheless, as the knowledge of
their chemical structure has been cleared up to a very considera-
ble degree, we may expect that, by continued researches, ways for
their artificial manufacture will be found out.

Many chemical discoveries were made by accident; com-
pounds of valuable properties were found by researches under-

806 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

taken for other purposes; the knowledge of the making of china
and of the separation of phosphorus resulted from experiments
intended for producing gold, But the principal successes of mod-
ern science in general, and of chemistry in particular, were ob-
tained in a speculative, inductive way, the only one to be consid-
ered as actually scientific. With positive surety the astronomer,
from the movements of the stars, and from the attracting forces
which they thereby manifest, can ascertain the presence of an-
other star which has never been observed before. He may
prophesy a solar eclipse to the accuracy of a minute, and many
years before predict the return of acomet. In a similar way exact
chemical knowledge often enables us to foretell the formation of
certain compounds hitherto unknown, and to define the properties
they may be expected to have. It was in this way that, the com-
position and chemical structure or arrangement of atoms in the
molecule of conine and conhydrine having been explored, their
preparation was likewise effected, the operators being guided by
logical inferences. This scientific way of proceeding proved suc-
cessful in numerous cases, and led to some surprising results in
the course of the last year.

Not many years ago what was known regarding the source
from which common plants draw their food consisted in the rec-
ognized fact that carbonic acid and water, both abundant in air
and fertile soil, are taken up by the roots, converted into sugar by
an unknown process, the sugar afterward being transformed into
cellulose, the matter chiefly constituting the body of the plant, and
into starch. It was also known that oxygen was set free in the
course of these changes. In 1870 Baeyer promulgated a theory,
explaining how assimilation of the mentioned substances might
be effected. He demonstrated the possibility of “ formaldehyde ”
being produced from carbonic acid and water, which is only pos-
sible, if—as is the case—oxygen is liberated. All plants in day-
light exhale oxygen and absorb carbonic acid. Formaldehyde, a
gaseous compound, is, as aldehydes in general are, very liable to
condense to solid compounds by accumulating a greater number
ef atoms into one molecule. Baeyer expressed his belief that
sugar, the composition of which agrees with that of formaldehyde
multiplied by six, is the product of such a condensation.*

The first signs that sugar might result from such a condensa-
tion, when conducted in the proper way, were observed by Butle-
row, but since he claimed to have prepared a sugar-like com-
pound from formaldehyde, all the experiments undertaken to the

* The chemical changes in question are represented by the equations :
Carbonic acid and water = formaldehyde and oxygen
CO, + ##H,0 = CH,0 + £0,
Six formaldehydes, 6CH,0 = C.H120., grape-sugar.

THE CHEMIST AS A CONSTRUCTOR. 807

like purpose had proved futile. It was Loew who in 1886 suc-
ceeded in preparing a more concentrated solution of formaldehyde
than could be made before. He found that the vapor of wood-
spirit in contact with heated oxide of copper furnishes formalde-
hyde in abundant quantities. Moreover, he found that condensa-
tion of this aldehyde to sugar is easily achieved by digesting a
solution of it with slaked lime. The product, to which he gave
the name of formose, has exactly the composition of grape-sugar ;
it has a sweet taste, and acts on Fehling’s solution as sugar does;
the resemblance extends to several further properties; but still
there are some slight points of difference, which have caused a
few chemists to raise objections as to its classification among
sugars. The question of the formation of sugar from aldehydes
would perhaps have remained undecided for the present, had
not recent experiments, made by Fischer and Tafel, confirmed the
statements before mentioned by giving evidence of the formation
of sugar by condensation from other aldehydes. Their state-
ments were supported by Grimaux, who, by subjecting glycerin
to the oxidizing influence of finely divided platinum, obtained a
substance resembling grape-sugar in all its properties, which in
contact with yeast even undergoes fermentation, producing alco-
hol and carbonic acid, and hereby manifesting the character of a
true sugar.

These results not only enable us to prepare by a chemical pro-
cess this substance, formerly only known to be produced by living
plants, but they also afford important facts and proofs which jus-
tify us in expecting the synthetical formation of other compounds
playing a part in the vegetation of plants, thereby acquiring an
insight into those complicated phenomena of organic life which
science hitherto has in vain tried to explain. By perfecting our
comprehension of natural processes we become more and more
enabled to utilize them for the advancement and the welfare of
mankind—an attainment which constitutes the chief aim and pur-
pose of natural science in general.

Tue experiments of E. H. S. Bailey and E. L. Nichols, upon the delicacy of the
sense of taste, indicate that_the impression derived from bitter substances far ex-
ceeds that arising from any other class. The order as to the substances experi-
mented upon is bitters, acids, saline substances, and sweets. The potency of qui-
nine is very remarkable, Men who tasted could detect on the average one part of
it in 390,000, and women one part in 456,000 parts of water; and to sugar it stood
in potency as very nearly 2,000:1. The range of individual sensitiveness is very
extensive. With all the substances tried, except salt, the taste of the women was
more delicate than that of the men. But while some of the persons experimented
with could detect with certainty one part of quinine in 5,120,000 of water, others
failed to notice one part in 160,000. The sense of taste does not appear to be
blunted for any substance by long-continued habitual use of it.

808 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

INDUSTRIAL FAMILY NAMES.

By Pror. D. R. McANALLY.

ape industrial history of the English-speaking peoples has

been faithfully written by able hands, and, until more mate-
rial accumulates by the growth of science and the progress of in-
dustry, little can be added to records already made. The study
of what may, for the lack of a better name, be called indus-
trial philology, has not, however, kept pace with the history of
industrial occupations. Much has been well done in this line, for
long ago students of language perceived that in the proper names
of men and places lingered unwritten histories, but all yet accom-
plished scarcely makes an impression on the huge heap of mate-
rial, since most proper names once had a significance which, in
many cases, has long ago been forgotten.

Even a casual examination of the family names of men dis:
closes the fact that many of the most common must have origi-
nated in the adoption, by an individual, of the name of his occu-
pation as a surname, to distinguish him from other men of the
same given name. Dr. Adam Clarke, in his “ Autobiography,”
has a learned and critical essay on his own name, and accounts for
its use by his family in the manner already indicated. There can
be no doubt that this is a typical illustration, nor that, during the
period when the English language was assuming its present form,
many trade-names became those of individuals, and frequently,
when men more than commonly distinguished themselves in a
calling, were assumed as distinctive surnames by their children,
and were thus continued when the propriety of the appellation
no longer existed. In this way multitudes of trade-names are per-
petuated, some in their original form, some so modified as to be
scarcely recognizable, and others, no doubt, which once were desig-
nations of trade, so changed as to bear not a trace of their origin,
Concerning the last named speculation is profitless, and even those
of the second class may be passed with little notice, since quite
enough material is found in family names which plainly proclaim
their own ancestry.

The food-providing occupations have always, of necessity, been
thronged, and from them come, in more or less altered form, many
of our family names. The Butchers and Slaughters tell their
own story, so also do Flesh and Flesher, since in Scotland and the
north of England the purveyor of fresh meat is even to-day
known as the “flesher.” But Fletcher and Flitcher need to be
introduced as the lineal descendants of Flesher, while Boucher
and Bouchelle would be unidentified were not the fact known that

INDUSTRIAL FAMILY NAMES. 809

our ancestors had much intercourse with the Normans, and, in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, French was daily spoken by the
better class in the British Isles. Our Bakers may be readily traced
back to their floury-handed ancestors, but the Baxters must be
followed for generations before we find that they were of the same
family, being the descendants of the Bagsters, who were the off-
spring of the Bagesters, who acknowledged that they were the
children of the Bakesters, who were feminine bakers. Of the
bread-making tribe were also the Breaders and the Whitbreads,
the latter perhaps once priding themselves on the color of their
stock in trade, while nearly related to them were the Mills, the
Millers, and the Mealers. The large and respectable family of the
Boulangers came from the French bakers who carried on their
trade in England during the ages when family names were grow-
ing, while Mr. Lowe suggests that the Bollingers and the Bulli-
ners are of the same origin.

Few points in Great Britain are more than a hundred miles
from the sea, and in all ages fish has formed one of the staple
articles of British diet. Catching the fish was therefore an im-
portant industry, and Fish, Fisher, and Fisherman doubtless had
their origin in the occupation of the men who first assumed these
names, of which fact there is abundant record. It is quite pos-
sible also, as Max Miller suggests, that men may have made a
specialty of taking or of selling a particular kind of fish, and thus
Salmon from Robert le Salmoner, Hering from John le Heringer,
and Trouter from Roger le Trowter, may have arisen without
violence to the laws of philology. Bardsley, in his book on Eng-
lish names, derives Possoner from le Poissonier, another relic of
the French occupation of England. The selling of fruit was, in
the three centuries after the Norman conquest, a special occupa-
tion, and mention of John le Fruiterer occurs in the Golden Roll,
the conclusion being drawn by philologists that Fruter, Frooter,
and several similar names thus had their origin. Cheese was fur-
nished by Roger le Cheseman in the twelfth century, whence our
Cheesemans and Chesmans, while condiments of various kinds
came from a special store where nothing else was kept and the
owner known as le Spicier, no doubt the ancestor of some of our
Spicers. Fowls were sold by the poulterer, from which word, it
is believed, Polter is derived; while Grocer, as a family name,
needs no explanation beyond the statement that in medieval Eng-
land his assortment of goods, while not so extensive, was quite as
varied as at present.

The preparation of food for immediate consumption gave rise
to another occupation and other names. The Cooks we still have
with us, also the Cokes, the latter being the more common spell-
ing of the word in the thirteenth century. From these, by natural

810 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

succession, come the Cooksons, the Cokesons, the Coksons, and,
one scholar suggests, the Cocks and the Cocksons—the last two,
however, appearing to be far-fetched. As drink was to our fore-
fathers quite as indispensable as meat, it also gave rise to family
names, being manufactured by Brewers, Maltsters, and Vintners
or Wintners, remaining as Winters, and dispensed by Tapsters
and Drawers. Nor should it be forgotten that receptacles for the
liquors were from the hands of the Barilers, Hoopers, Coopers,
and Cowpers; nor that the contents of the casks were carefully
ascertained by the Gaugers and Measurers. Bowlers and Bow-
lings, with Cuppers, made the drinking-vessels in use among the
common people, Horns and Horners those of a better class—all of
whom, with verbal changes, remain to attest the former popular-
ity of their respective callings,

Workers in wood have left their record among our proper
names to such an extent as to justify the conclusion, even if it
were not to be reached from other sources of information, that
this branch of industry was important during the ages when men
were assuming family names. Caring for the raw material in its
growing state gave us the Forrests and the Forresters, the Woods,
Wooders, Woodsons, and Woodmans. Cutting the timber into
proper lengths was the business of the Sawyers, perhaps also of the
Hewers, while dressing the lumber originated the Carpenters. The
Carvers did the ornamental work, so, according to Lowe, did the
Cutters and Cuttings, though about these names there is a differ-
ence of opinion, some assigning them to the leather trade and oth-
ers to the stone-cutting.

Akin to the lumber business is the Houser, who, according to
one authority, is of the same family as the Bilders and Bilder-
mans, which names, it is supposed, originated with master-work-
men who undertook the general contract of setting up a house.
Nearly related also are the Thatchers, the Thackers, the Thacker-
ers, and the Thackerays, who, always in the country, and fre-
quently in town, covered the house after it was erected. But
houses in Great Britain were more generally constructed of stone
or brick than of wood, and artisans in these materials must have
been numerous, as is evidenced by Stone, Stoner, Stonebreaker,
and Stoneman, the Masons, the Carvers, and, as already men-
tioned, the Cutters also. The Tylers made and placed in position
the tiles used for roofing, while the Painters, Paynters, and Pen-
ters made both exterior and interior of the building presentable.

The Tylers just mentioned were workers in clay, which sug-
gests another branch of industry, from which numerous family
names have sprung. Not to speak of Clay, Claye, Clayer, and
Clayman—the preparers of or dealers in the material—there are

Pott, Potts, Potter, Pottman, Crock, Crocker, Crockman, Jarman, — 1

-—=
-_—

faa
A),

INDUSTRIAL FAMILY NAMES. 811

Plater, Disher, and, according to Taylor, Turner also, though some
assign this name to the worker in wood. The burden of proof,
however, seems to make the original turner an artist in jugs, the
propriety of the name in this case being manifest.

From wood, stone, and clay the transition to the metals is easy
and natural, and of the skill of our Saxon forefathers in this di-
rection there are abundant records in the family names still re-
maining in common use. Iron, Ironer,and Ironman are common ;
Copper, Coper, Copperer, and Coperman equally so; while Leader,
Lederman, and Lederer come down almost unchanged from Roger
le Lederman, mentioned in a parliamentary writ of the thirteenth
century. Brasser and Brassy still exist, along with Tiner and
Tyner, to testify to the variety of metals used, while Silver is as
rare as Golden, though both exist in our directories, and doubtless
tell of the occupations of their originals.

When metal-working is considered, the family names indica-
tive of occupation are equally significant. Smith needs only a
mention as a sort of generic term; Coppersmith is often seen, to-
gether with Goldsmith. The manufacture of special articles of
metal gave rise to several family names—such as Spooner, Knifer,
and Nypher—Ralph le Spooner and John le Knyfere appearing in
the records of that period. The cutler then as now dealt in small
articles of hardware, and the Cutlers remain to bear witness to
the popularity of the business; while Armour speaks of the devel-
opment of the craft in another direction.

Leaving metal-working for the manufacture of textile fabrics,
Prof. Miller has some very interesting notes on the manufacture
of flax as connected with the growth of the English language.
From these it is evident that several family names originated with
the linen trade. There are Flax and Flaxman, Linn, Lynn, and
Lynnman, who doubtless provided the material, lin being a Saxon
name for Flax; and, with some probability, it has been suggested
that White, Whitener, Whitner, Bleach, Blake, Blaker, and Blake-
man had their origin in the process of bleaching the goods,
Leather, too, furnished names as well as occupation to those
who dealt in it or busied themselves in various branches of its
manufacture. The records of the twelfth century have preserved
for us the names of Ralph le Hyder, Roger le Skinnere, John le
Curier, Thomas le Tannere, whose philological descendants still
appear on the pages of our directories in varied spellings, while
the Shoemakers are almost as numerous as the Glovers. Sowter,
Sutter, and Soter are modifications of Souter, once a common name
for a shoemaker, while Clouter, Cloter, and Cloutman, together
with Cobbler, Cobler, and Cobbleman, are forms of a different
word of the same signification, and the Pattens, Pattons, Patten-
mans, Pattermans, and perhaps Pattersons, took their names from

812 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the patten, a sort of clog much worn during the twelfth, thirteenth,
and fourteenth centuries. Taylor finds Bark and Barker in the
old writs of that period, and suggests that the occupation of the
first owners of these names was to provide the tanners with the
material for converting the hides into leather. This may or may
not be the case, but it is reasonably certain, according to the best
authorities, that our Butlers were once the Botelers, bottles in that
day being frequently made of leather, and the name being applied
first to him who made the bottles and, after a time, to him who
looked after them and their contents.

Rope-making is not distantly related to the leather trade, and
of the manufacture of ropes relics are still seen in Roper, Corder,
Stringer, and Twyner.

One of the most curious pages of philological history is that
written by Bardsley in recounting the proper names which grew
out of the wool trade. For ages wool was the staple of England,
and thousands of busy operatives were employed in the various
processes necessary before the wool could be transferred from the
back of the sheep to the back of the man; before the raw product
could be converted into the finished manufacture. At every step,
proper names indicative of the calling of those who bore them
sprang up, so that, were we ignorant of the fact that the Saxons
dealt in wool and made cloth, we might draw perfectly correct
and legitimate conclusions as to the business, its extent and vari-
ous departments, from the family names still surviving. To fol-
low Bardsley in this quaint pilgrimage through the woolen-facto-
ries of Old England: the sheep were cared for by the Shepherd or
Sheepherd, a name which with variations of spelling is extremely
common. Shearing was the first operation requiring either deli-
cacy or skill, and Shearer, Shearman, Shurman, and similar names
bespeak their own ancestry. The wool was then placed in bags,
made by the Sackers or Canvassers, and was ready for the mer-
chant, an individual often known as Stapler, Wool, Wooler,
Woolman, or Woolsey, or in French as Lanier or Lanyer. He
consigned it to the care of persons who transported it from place
to place on the backs of pack-horses or in vehicles, and were thus
known as the Packers, the Carters, or the Carriers. The wool
was then handed over to the Carders and Combers, or Kempers
and Kempsters, as they were variously called, and passed from

their hands to those of the Spinners, who used implements made —

by the Spindlers and Slayers, afterward going on to the Weavers,
Weevers, Webbs, Webbers, or feminine Websters. The cloth
was next “teased” to bring out the nap,a process done by the
Teasers, Tosers, Tousers, Teazelers, or Taylors, when it was fin-
ished and ready for the Dyer, Litter, or Lister, or the Norman
Taintor or Taintur. Woad, the common dye-stuff, was provided ~

INDUSTRIAL FAMILY NAMES. 813

by the Woader or Woadman, while there is some indication of
another material in the names Madder, Madderer, and Madder-
man occurring in the Hundred Rolls. The Fullers, Fullertons,
Fullersons, and Fullmans undertook the process of whitening the
cloth, if it was to be white,in which they were assisted by the
Walkers, who trod it with their feet, accompanied by the Beaters,
Beatermans, Bates, Batts, and Battmans, who used sticks instead
of heels and toes.

The designation of the process is seen to give a name to all en-
gaged in a special work, just as at present, and further to be adopted
as a family name by some who perhaps attained notable excellence
over their fellows, or were led by chance or caprice to adopt the
title of their calling as their own surname. The list might be
indefinitely extended. Tuck and Tucker, Sticher, Seamer, Sower,
Braider, Wash and Washer, Lavender and Launder, terms for-
merly designating the cleansing of linen, are illustrations to the
point, and many others can easily be gathered by any one having
the time and patience for such research.

Particular articles of apparel, either in the course of manufact-
ure, or completed and in use, have left their imprint in several
family names. The hat gave us the Hatts and Hattars; also,
according to Taylor, the Blocks, Blockets, Blockers, and Block-
mans, the last four taking their names from the wooden instru-
ment on which the hats were shaped. Caps gave us the Cappers
and the Capers; smocks, a loose, shirt-like outer garment worn
by peasants and workingmen, the Smockers and Smookers; the
pilch, a fur cloak, the Pilchers, Pulchers, and Pitchers. The
manufacture of belts gave a name to the Girdles, Girdlers, and
Girdleys, while the wearing of laces originated Lacer, Lacy,
Pointer, and Poynter. The use of furs originated the Pelters and
the Furriers. The cowl, as an appendage to a great-coat, was much
in use when family names were growing, hence Cowler, Cowley,
Cowlet, and the like; while another name for the same article origi-
nated the Hoods and the Hoodmans. Fastening the clothing with
buttons originated the Buttons and Buttoners; with buckles, the
Buckles and Bucklars; while the use of pins, at first of great size,
gave names to Pinners, Pinnets, and Pinneys; and the manufact-
ture of a small bag for the safe keeping of money was the origi-
nal employment of our Pursers, Bursars, and Pouchers. A call
for precious stones was answered by the Jewells, Agates, Rubys,
and perhaps Crystalls, and the necessity for light in the houses
and streets was met by the Candlers, Lampers, Lighters, Links,
Linkers, and Torchers.

Mention of the last classes suggests the nature of the service
they rendered to our belated ancestors in the unlighted, muddy,
and otherwise dangerous streets of medizeval London, and this

814 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

calls to mind the fact that in personal service have originated a
number of family names. The old Saxon had his face scraped
by a barber, whence our swarm of Barbers, Barbars, Barbors,
Barbours, and Burbers ; while in those days the hair of the ladies
was artistically “ tired,’ whence the Tyers, Tyrers, and Tyermans
of the present day. When sick, or “ill,” as his descendants now
say, he sent for the leech, and this worthy has left a numerous
progeny among the Leeches, Leaches,and Leachers. His letters
were written by scriveners, who still remain among us as Scrib-
ners ; and, when he needed relaxation, he was entertained by Play-
ers, Dancers, Whistlers, and Singers.

THE HOME OF THE FERNS.
Br T. JOHNSTON EVANS.

fe the New World, as well as in the Old, there is many a charm-

ing spot, far away in the wild woodland or within the sunless
recesses of deep-furrowed mountain gorges, which might well
merit the designation by which this paper is prefixed. Indeed, for
a very long period the ferns of North and South America have
received considerable attention at the hands of botanists; nor must
it be forgotten that, centuries before the white man set his foot
upon the great continent of the West, several species of these
beautiful plants were much sought after by the aborigines. The
common polypody (Polypodium vulgare), which is one of the most
frequently met with ferns in the Eastern States, was highly valued
by the various Indian tribes for its medicinal properties, while
Kalm also relates that the red man seems to have universally used
the beautiful maiden-hair (Adiantum capillus Veneris) as an infal-
lible cure for cough and difficulty of breathing. Fascinating,
however, in the eyes of botanists, as are the various homes of these
beautiful plants in the Northern and Southern States, there is
beyond the Atlantic one spot above all others upon which Nature
has lavished her most glorious gifts, which, par excellence, may
well be termed “the home of the ferns.”

Justly celebrated for the wondrous beauty of its diversified
scenery of waterfalls and lakes and towering mountains, crimson
in their autumnal glory with the ripe berries of the arbutus, this
favored locality is also especially remarkable for the luxuriant
growth of the rarest and most highly prized by collectors of Euro-
_ pean ferns,

Accompanied by a few scientific friends, among whom were a
practical geologist and a skillful field botanist, I recently paid a

visit to this fascinating region. It was toward the close of Septem- ~

ah ol

THE HOME OF THE FERNS. 815

ber, the best period of the year to see Killarney in all its many-
hued glory. The morning after our arrival at the Lake Hotel
looked, indeed, most unpropitious for our proposed pedestrian
excursion around the upper and lower lakes. A dense mist en-
veloped everything in its vapory folds, preventing objects, even
within a few feet of us, from being distinctly visible. Our aneroids
were, however, rising rapidly, and we were assured by the weather-
wise folk that before midday the fog would be “ lifted” by a light
breeze, which would be sure to spring up. After having break-
fasted, we set out on our not particularly inviting tramp, selecting
the route in the direction of the lower lake. Along that exqui-
sitely beautiful and well-known path which, canopied by trees of
various foliage, winds close by the marge of this charming sheet
of water, we took our course, preceded by the inevitably loquacious
guide. As we pursued our beclouded way, the rush of the foam-
ing cataracts dashing madly from the hills, which rose to the
height of some three thousand feet above us, came upon our ears
from time to time, and splashed us with their spray, but yet were
completely invisible. Hven the water which rippled on the pebbly
beach at our feet was as much hidden from our view by that all-
enveloping mist as though Egyptian darkness surrounded us. As
may be imagined, our walk was not a very enjoyable one, but we
were soon destined to be amply recompensed for our pains. Two
hours had elapsed from the time of our setting out, and noon
found us sitting on the parapet of that romantic bridge which
spans the outlet between the upper and lower lake. While we
were deliberating whether to return or continue our walk, it sud-
denly became evident that the surface of both lakes was agitated
by a strong gust of wind, which, as we afterward learned, came
down through the celebrated Gap of Dunloe. The previously
motionless mist began immediately to wreath itself in upright
columns, to which the breeze gave a kind of rotatory motion as
they were suddenly lifted up from the surface of the water. Then
followed, with startling rapidity, one of the most wondrous natu-
ral transformation scenes it is possible to conceive. In less than
six minutes, not merely were the two lakes spread out before us,
from shore to shore, in all their beauty, but the thick masses of
vapor had rolled up the sides of those gigantic hills which over-
hung them, and the brilliant sun was shining merrily out of the
bluest of skies. I had previously witnessed similar cloud-phe-
nomenon amid the peaks of the higher Himalayas, but nothing
which for startling effect and scenic beauty could bear compari-
son with this.

It was the first acquaintance which every one present, myself
excepted, had made with Killarney, and it was scarcely to be
wondered at that from every lip burst an ejaculation of glad sur-

816 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

prise. In the splendid surroundings which, as if by the wave of
a magician’s wand, had been so suddenly unfolded to our view,
the mere worshiper of the beautiful in nature had sufficient to
demand his warmest devotion; but to the scientist the spot was
more especially holy ground. My friend the geologist beheld in
those great Kerry hills—the Magillicuddy Reeks, the Toomies
Mountain, and magnificent Mangerton—one of the oldest forma-
tions in Europe; while the botanist speculated upon the treasures
which lay scattered above and around him in the shape of ferns
and club-mosses and purple broom.

The following day we specially dedicated to the collecting of
those rare and delicate ferns which abound in mossy nooks and in
spots kept constantly moist by the spray of some foaming cascade
as it leaped from ledge to ledge in its impetuous course. One of
the ferns, specimens of which we were most desirous to obtain,
was the Trichomanes, or bristle fern. This exceedingly beautiful
plant, though plentiful in Madeira, is absolutely unknown in any
European country except Ireland, and even there is only now to
be found in certain districts of the extreme west. It may be de-
scribed as having fronds three or four times pinnatifid, segments
alternate, linear, entire or two-cleft, obtuse; involucres solitary in
the axils of the upper segments. The bristle fern delights in shade
and moisture, and our first find was in a rocky cleft in the immedi-
ate neighborhood of the Tork waterfall. Subsequently, within the
dim recesses of a cave, the mouth of which opened upon the upper
lake and could only be approached by a boat, we discovered sey-
eral splendid specimens, one of which, with a creeping rhizome,
some three feet long, contained no fewer than thirty perfect fronds.
Nothing that I have ever seen in my varied experience of fern-life
equaled the delicacy and pellucidness of these fronds, nurtured in
the darkness and the mist. The veins were so prominent, and the
green portion so like a membranous wing around the veins, that it
resembled more a beautiful sea-weed than a fern. In this natural
cave we also discovered some of our finest specimens of the Adi-
antum, or maiden-hair fern. This plant is called the true maiden-
hair, to distinguish it from some other ferns which share its famil-
iar name. The bright evergreen tint, the elegant form, and lightly
waving attitudes of this fern render it very attractive, and when
growing against the sides of the sea-washed rock, or any moist
place in any abundance, no fern exceeds it in beauty. It has not
been found in Scotland, and in but few districts in the south of
England; in the ravines and mountain gorges throughout the
west of Ireland, however, the collector is seldom permitted to go
unrewarded for his diligent search. Two other rare species we
also discovered in this “home of the ferns ”—that exquisite variety _
of the polypody denominated Hibernicum, and the beautiful beech

THE HOME OF THE FERNS. 817

fern, P. phegopteris. The latter plant is also called the sun fern;
it has a decided preference for mountainous districts, where it
often grows at a great elevation, though it may frequently be
found clinging to rocks in the recesses of dark woods, or, as in the
present instance, festooning the mouths of natural caverns. Sev-
eral little variations occur in the form of the common European
polypody, the lobes being more or less cleft, or acute, or serrated.
One of the most important is that termed Cambricum, the Welsh
polypody, in which the lobes become broader and are again irregu-
larly lobed and toothed. This is always barren. The variety
Hibernicum, or Irish polypody, has a broader, twice or thrice
pinnated frond, and is fertile. It is an exceedingly handsome
form of the fern. The French call this fern le polypode ; the
Germans, der Tipfelfarren. It is the boomvaren of the Dutch,
the polepodio of the Spaniard and Italian, and is known in Russia
by the name of osokor.

Having thoroughly explored the treasures of the cave, and
possessed ourselves of specimens of some twenty different species
of ferns which had made their home within its damp and sunless
interior, we once more set out for pastures new. Almost imme-
diately beneath the Gap of Dunloe a beautiful object met our
sight. In the midst of a group of immense gray bowlders, which
lay in wild confusion at the opening of a romantic gorge, grew in
luxurious abundance quite a large bed of the superb holly fern
(Polystichum lonchitis). How fresh and beautiful those evergreen
fronds looked in one of the wildest spots to be found in all Killar-
ney may well be imagined : higher up the “ Gap” we subsequently
discovered other and smaller beds, but, remembering how difficult
of cultivation the holly fern is, we refrained from taking more
than two or three specimens. The higher we ascended the mount-
ain the more stunted became this remarkable species, until at
length it grew only to the height of some six inches, still retain-
ing its marked characteristics. The stalk of the frond of this
fern is exceedingly short, and the dark, glossy green leafy part is
firm and rigid, and sufficiently prickly to remind us of the holly.
The young fronds appear early in spring, among the yet verdant
fronds of the previous year. They are pinnate, with short, crowded,
overlapping, twisted pinne, which are somewhat crescent-shaped ;
the upper side having at the base an ear-shaped projection, while
the lower side has the appearance of having had a piece cut out.
The veins are twice or thrice branched, reaching nearly to the .
margin without uniting with others. The indusium is a mem-
brane-like scale, and the clusters of fructification form a continu-
ous line on each side of the midrib, and even with it. They are
frequently very numerous on the upper pinne.

Our small party unanimously agreed that the fern which ©
VOL, xxxv.—52 3

818 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

formed the most prominent feature throughout the Killarney dis-
trict was the Osmunda regalis, or flowering fern. This stately
species is not unfrequently called the king fern, and certainly it
well deserves its regal name, which, however, appears to have
been bestowed upon it through other circumstances than its
crested form. Its name, Osmunda, is of Saxon origin, and per-
haps was given in honor of some chief who in olden time bore the
name of Osmund, that being one of the titles of Thor, the Celtic
Thunderer. This attractive plant is so different in its appearance
from other species that the botanist only would recognize it to be
a fern, unless the veining of its leafy frond were examined. It
generally rises to the height of five or six feet, and in congenial
situations not unfrequently attains the height of ten feet. The
young fronds of the Osmunda are usually about ten or twelve in
number. Their large leaf-sprays are thin and crisp, and of a
bright sea-green color, usually assuming a deeper green as the
plant grows older. The stalk, which is at first reddish brown,
afterward becomes green, and contrasts well with the rich rust-
brown spikes of fructification. Nothing could be more beautiful,
more in accordance with the surroundings, than the manner in
which a considerable portion of the two lakes were literally
fringed by the Osmunda, the long fronds of which arched grace-
fully over and dipped their masses of seed in the crystal water,
while beneath the canopy thus afforded them the saucy coots
flitted to and fro and gazed fearlessly upon the passing stranger.

Though some of the ferns I have mentioned may have superior
claims in the eyes of botanists and collectors of rare species, it
must be acknowledged that there is not one more universally popu-
lar than the graceful Athyrium filix femina, or lady fern. Indeed,
not a few botanists have pronounced it to be the loveliest of all
British ferns, possessing as well the great charm of commonness,
Walter Scott, alluding to this plant in “ Waverley,” mentions its
love for the moist, shady woodlands :

‘‘ Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountain glistens sheenest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
There the lady fern grows strongest.”

Undoubtedly, among the copsewood which covers a consider-
able portion of those grand hills which cast their shadows over
the upper and lower lakes of Killarney, the lady fern attains a
perfection not observable elsewhere, though the writer has gath-
_ ered a somewhat scarce variety (A. latifoliwm) near Keswick, in
Cumberland, and also a very peculiar species called crispum at
Braemar, in Scotland. The plant is doubtless too well known to
need description here, though it may be observed that its fecun-

ORIGIN OF SOME GENERAL ERRORS. 819

dity is such that a celebrated botanist has said of it that “if a
single plant were uninterrupted in its possible increase for twenty
years, within that time it would cover an extent equal to the
entire surface of the globe.”

Our botanizing excursion, so successful, so full of interest, and
so much enjoyed, having concluded, we bade adieu to matchless
Killarney, and will not soon have effaced from our memories “the
home of the ferns.”

———\_$2o——__——.

ORIGIN OF SOME GENERAL ERRORS.*
By Herr 8. EXNER. |

HILE we endeavor to distinguish between instinct and rea-

son, we are accustomed to speak of such skill and conform-
ity of actions to a given end as are exhibited by birds in building
their nests, or by societies of insects, as more resembling what we
call reason. We may mark the difference, however, by observing
that instinct develops its qualities only within a limited sphere
and in view of a limited end. Birds can weave filaments into
nests, attach them to branches, and adapt the forms of their work
to those of the tree and its limbs; but their talents in weaving
are of no use in helping them release themselves when caught in
a snare, and they will then struggle as wildly and vainly as an
animal that never built a nest. A hen will lay an egg every day
in the same place till the quota is completed, and will then sit
upon them; but many hens will sit all the same, and for the full
time, if the eggs are taken away as they are laid. These ex-
amples illustrate how instinctive processes are produced simply
as determined combinations—or work only in view of a special
end. The actions provoked by them will remain the same, even
when they have become purposeless. On the other hand, the as-
sociations of the processes can not be broken, and the skill which
the bird directs to building her nest is not capable of being em-
ployed for any other end.

The more developed the instinct, the more stable are the com-
binations of phenomena and nervous conditions under which it
works ; the weaker the combinations, the more nearly the animal’s
mode of action approaches what we call reason. We should judge
of the intelligence of an animal, not by single acts surprising to
human understanding, but according to the diversity of the situa-
tions in which that animal can use its faculties. The weakness of
reason in the animal always has the same character, and lies in the
impossibility or difficulty of breaking certain associations and the
incapacity to produce out of two combinations, by transferring a

* From a communication to the Sixty-first Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians,

820 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

number from one to the other, a third. Hunting-dogs show great — b |

skill in threading mountain-paths and overcoming or avoiding ob-
structions, but no dog will remove a branch interposed in his way.
When the associations by which instinct works come into play
outside of or against their ordinary end, we may speak of their
working as imperfect, and may say that the animal is mistaken.

We also have instincts that are characterized by the narrow-
ness of their end. Among them are the reflex actions. The eyes
wink when they are threatened with injury; but they also wink
when a beneficial operation is performed upon them, to which the
winking is an obstacle, the action going on all the same when it is
useless or injurious.

I believe it can be shown that this type of instinctive action is
also found in man, and that the origin of many types of errors
may be found in the application to particular cases, but excep-
tional, of what is generally right. This proposition is confirmed
by some errors of the senses. When a point on our retina is ex-
cited by an external pressure, we fancy we see something lumi-
nous in the ordinary field of vision of that point. Were it not for
the experience of previous observations of objects and their re-
flections, we should localize as things behind the glass the reflec-
tions which we see in mirrors. In this and most like cases, we are
acquainted with the mechanism of the phenomenon, and can dis-
tinguish between what is only the sensorial impression and what
we owe to memory. The separation vanishes in the higher regions
of psychic life. If we draw a line on a sheet of paper and cover
the end of it with another sheet, an observer not in the secret will
imagine it to be much longer than it is, because his conception is
based upon the fact that when one object lies upon another, it usu-
ally covers a considerable portion of it. "We are subject to a con-
siderable number of illusions of this kind. The prestidigitator
takes advantage of one form of them when, by a quick look to
one side, he turns the eyes of the audience away from his manipu-
lation and gains an opportunity to execute the trick without de-
tection, although every one of his spectators had determined not
to lose sight of hishands. He is aware that a glance and particu-
lar adjustments of the head and eyebrows and lids will usually
suggest to the looker-on that he will see at a particular point
something more interesting than anywhere else within his field
of vision. At the same time the audience will not know why

they looked in that direction, and may not even be conscious of —

having looked there.

‘We thus deal on this domain, remote from the physiology of
the senses, with functions of the nervous system similar to what —

we have seen in the hen and the winking. Thought follows its
course according to the usual process; with more or less of con-

q

ORIGIN OF SOME GENERAL ERRORS. 821

sciousness the ordinary train of associations is formed, and the
judgment corresponds with what is correct in most cases. There
is, therefore, no precise limit between instinctive actions and con-
scious thought; for every one can observe in his own mind that
thought rests considerably on phenomena of association. An ele-
vated intelligence is, however, distinguished from an inferior one
by its richness in associations. The faculty of transposing the
elements of one complexus of observations into another, the possi-
bility of making a new combination, and the wealth of associa-
tions, are prime factors in determining the degree of intelligence.
A large proportion of the mistakes to which we are liable origi-
nate in this kind of instinctive succession of associations usually
correct and effective, in which associations important to the par-
ticular case are wanting. In other words, they arise from the as-
sociation of the habitual with the omission of the special.

The thought can be illustrated by the citation of a few wide-
spread logical errors. Where lotteries are drawn, the lists of the
drawings are earnestly scrutinized by unsuccessful investors, who,
if asked why they do so, will reply that, as all the numbers must
eventually be drawn an equal number of times, those which have
not been drawn for a long time stand the best chance of coming
out soon. People often say, when it is raining hard, that it will
be made up for by fine weather afterward. A kind of belief ex-
ists in a compensating providence that will bring grief after a
long run of happiness; and it is illustrated in the legend of the
ring of Polycrates. The mental processes leading up to error in
these instances start from the premise that all the numbers have
the same chance of winning; with which is associated the anthro-
pomorphic idea of distributive justice, taking, in the legend of
Polycrates, the form of divine jealousy ; our recollections witness-
ing to a tendency to change; and past experience, teaching that,
among a given number of objects, the probability of a particular
one being found soon increases in proportion as the others are sort-
ed out and put away; or, as in the filing past of a regiment, our
expectation of finding our friend in the next rank grows as com-
panies pass in which he does not appear. All this is true in gen-
eral, The factor the omission of which in the particular case leads
to error is that in the lottery all the numbers are put back into
the urn before each drawing, and consequently what has been
done has no influence on the probabilities of the present case.

So, when a certain person is spoken of as having “luck” at
play; while he may have had unusual success—that is, a high
number of favorable chances among all the possible ones—for a
day or several days in succession, any association of his “luck”
with his personal qualities is mistaken. We usually reason cor-
rectly that men succeed in their lives and enterprises whose per-

822 THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sonal qualities contribute to their success; but in this case there
is no possible connection between the disposition of the cards and
the qualities of the player. These associations are generally based
upon supposed experiences, in which, besides the impossibility of
securing exact observations, we commit the mistake of confound-
ing coincidences with causal relations. We need not be surprised
at them. They are incident to the relations of men with one an-
other, and are confirmed by false observations and tradition, and
they are what give its special character to each epoch.

These typical errors are not only met in the domain of common
life; preserving their character, they possess the highest spheres
of our activity, art and science; and in those domains we can see
the fundamental difference between these two modes of the mind’s
action, While in science, the object of which is the truth, every
error involves mischievous consequences, in art, which looks to
the beautiful, illusion has full play, and in many instances even
forms the basis of the best conceptions. Thus, in architecture, a
balcony supported on slender bars of iron does not offer a pleasant
appearance to us, while we are ready to admire the same structure
if it rests upon shapely brackets of stone projecting to an equal
distance from the wall. The apparent disproportion between the
structure and the support in the former case is an artistic fault.
It does not lie, however, in the calculations of the architect, which
may be perfect, but in the “instinctive” judgment of the speaker,
The prejudice is so general that architects often dress slender sup-
ports of iron with false brackets of plaster that will convey a more
agreeable impression.

The psychological origin of this prejudice is found in our
familiarity, from experience, and from having seen it used in
buildings, with the solidity of stone, while we are not so well ac-
quainted with the equivalent strength of less massive iron. In
most cases the impression of solidity agrees with the sense of
beauty, while the apparent disproportion of iron supports grates
upon it. The balcony continues to look unwieldy even after we
have become assured that the iron bars are amply strong. Our
sense of beauty, therefore, rests upon an illusion in the presence
of which it can not adapt itself to the particular case; but it is an
illusion that every artist ought to regard. Such illusions are
common in all art.

The proposition, “ Style is the concordance of an artistic work
with the history of its development, with all the circumstances of
its production,” which is elucidated in Gottfried Semper’s work
on “Style,” defines the psychologic basis of every artistic produc-
tion. For a work can have style only as it is in harmony with
the mass of associations, mostly unconscious, which the spectator
forms on the subject of its composition. This is why a majolica

ORIGIN OF SOME GENERAL ERRORS. 823

cup should have a different shape from one of metal; why a
cup of hammered metal should be distinct from a molded one; |
and why vessels of other materials should have their specific
forms.

I have intimated that many of our most common associations
arise from impressions that have acted upon us from our youth.
The nature of these impressions is conditioned on the experiences
of the generations that have preceded us. In other words, these
traditions play an important part in our esthetic impressions.
The Greeks employed in their marble temples motives that dated
from a distant epoch when building was done with wood. A
diversion from these rules would have produced an unpleasant
impression on the Greeks, and would have been contrary to the
“style.” Our case is not different. All of our ornamental motives
are derived from time-honored traditions; and our esthetic sat-
isfaction in them continues unharmed by the reflection that in
many cases they are no longer adapted to present conditions,

We meet errors of a similar class on scientific ground. Take,
for example, the paradox of Zeno the Eleatic, concerning Achilles
and the tortoise. The swift Achilles, it supposes, can never over-
take the tortoise, because a distance intervenes between them,
and he will have to run for a certain time before the distance
is reduced by half, another length of time to reduce it to a
quarter, to an eighth, and so on to infinity. More time is re-
quired to reduce the rest of the distance by half, and the number
of these possible parcels is infinite; hence Achilles will never
catch up with the tortoise. Now, since we know that he will
overtake it, wherein is the sophism? It is not in any real con-

_tradiction between the laws of our thought and experience; but a
typical error is involved, in which thought, moving in a way that
generally leads to the truth, is at fault in the special case. It is
true, in ordinary cases, that when we continue adding indefinitely
new intervals to any interval of time, the sum of all will be infi-
nite. This fact, generally valid, in the particular case leads our
judgment to a false conclusion. The special feature in the prob-
lem is that if parcels of time, infinite in number, diminish accord-
ing to certain laws, their sum will not be infinite, but may be very
small. We do not have to be accomplished in mathematics to
comprehend the sophism and find its solution. Every one knows
that we can divide a length of one metre into a half metre plus a
quarter, plus an eighth, etc., of a metre, and thus obtain an infinite
number of factors, the sum of which, however, shall always be
within a metre. The general error involved in the discussions of
this sophism is also a typical one, for it originates in the predomi-
nance in our consciousness of the general law, with the non-
association of the particular case. The phenomenon is therefore

824 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

analogous to those which we have observed in animals, to errors
of the senses, and to other illusions of the reasoning faculty.
From the hen that sits on its empty nest to the problem of
Zeno the Hleatic, there runs through animals and men a continu-
ous series of errors, all of which have a common origin in the
working of the nervous system conformably to the majority of
cases without regarding any certain special and exceptional case,
The typical character of these errors is related to the phylogenic
development, and casts a degree of light on the unfolding of
thought.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the

Revue Scientifique.
+0

THE PLEASURE OF MOTION.
By M. P. SOURIAOU.

Bd beonentes gives both physical and moral pleasure. Physically,
it enables us to remove ourselves for the moment from
pain. Morally, it furnishes a satisfaction for our self-love, which
is remarked especially in play and in our struggles against the
forces of nature.
Before being a source of positive pleasure, our physical activ-
ity is stimulated by pain. Those movements, called spontaneous,
which are the first signs of vitality in the child or animal, are ex-
plained by supposing them to be the reflex of some indefinite dis-
comfort. Our organism is not a machine, as some say, in any of
its parts, but is living and animated throughout. Even the organs
that perform without the intervention of the will, and the play of
which seems to be mechanical because it is not accompanied with
a recognizable sensation, may have the rhythm of their move-
ments determined by some local sensibility.

When I feel any suffering, I have only to execute some motion,
to feel it less. Motion is the best of anesthetics. It disperses at
a stroke all the little uneasinesses that accompany even the nor-
mal working of our organs, and which we experience when we are
occupied only with feeling ourselves live. When we make an
energetic effort, we are nearly insensible to pain as long as it lasts.
When I am at rest, a blow on the shoulder will hurt me. In the
ardor of sport, in the excitement of a violent exercise, the rough-
est shock will hardly be felt. Every very intense sensation, we
also know, provokes convulsive movements, sudden and violent
muscular contractions. These movements are not mechanically
determined by the sensation; they are produced voluntarily, al-
though they will not remove the cause of the pain, at least to
mitigate its effect. The howling of the wounded dog, the squirm-
ing of the worm that is cut in two, are a voluntary effort to escape
suffering.

THH PLEASURE OF MOTION. 825

If the same pain recurs frequently, the animal soon remarks
that some among these vague movements will contribute more
directly than others to assuage it, and will give the preference to
them. The habit of resisting a particular suffering by a special
movement, becoming hereditary, forms a veritable instinct. In
conformity with the general laws of evolution, there is established
a selection between injurious and useful reflex actions, and the
latter will gradually predominate.

Even when we are not suffering from any accidental uneasi-
ness provocative of special muscular reaction, we are impelled to
move by the simple need of motion. Every animal has to expend
daily a more or less considerable sum of energy to procure food
for itself. The oyster, fixed on its rock, imbibes, without effort
and almost passively, the vegetable matter which the waves bring
to it. A snail, drawing itself slowly along on its belly, easily
reaches the leaves which are inits way. The ox marches, step by
step, in the field for hours, feeding upon the grass-leaves with
which its lips come in contact. A wolf has to make journeys
of leagues every day in search of its prey. The swallow has to
keep in incessant motion to procure enough insects to satisfy
its appetite. To the necessity for eating is added that of escap-
ing enemies, and this exacts an increase of activity from the
animal, Thus, each one, according to its kind, is obliged to be
in motion more or less every day, and is organized for it. If,
through accidental circumstances, its activity ceases to be useful,
it is nevertheless obligatory upon it, for its physical constitution,
having become adapted by heredity to the normal life of the spe-
cies, can not abruptly bend itself to other conditions of existence.
Its organism continues to furnish it the same quantity of energy,
which it has to expend in some way. Hence the movements
of the captive animals—of the lion which paces its cage, and of
the canary-bird that leaps from bar to bar. Hence the physi-
cal exercises with which persons whose occupation condemns
them to a too sedentary life relax themselves. This necessity
for motion is especially great in youth, because the young
animal must train itself in all the movements it will have to per-
form at a later age, and must also exercise its muscles and joints
to develop them. Thus every animal has a tendency daily to ex-
pend a certain quantity of force, which is determined, not by the
accidental wants of the individual, but by the general wants of
the species.

How is this expenditure regulated ? By what criterion do we
know when we need exercise? A matter so indispensable to the
good working of our organization can not be the product of reflex
action, It is evident that animals can not take exercise by rule,
after the manner of a gentleman who imposes upon himself the

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obligation of taking “a constitutional ” every evening. Even man
can do this only exceptionally. Our intelligence permits us to
satisfy these physiological exigencies in a more rational manner;
but it does not give us notice of them. What would become of
the most reasonable being in the world if he had to depend upon
his reason to tell him what he needed ? A real necessity exists for
us to be warned by special sensations.

We sometimes dispose of this explanation cheaply by speaking
as if we had direct knowledge of our strength. Nothing could be
more simple were this the case. Strength accumulates in us while
we are inactive, ending by giving us a painful sense of nervous
tension, which prompts us to expend our excessive energy in cer-
tain exercises. We go through these first as a relief; then, our

reserve force having been exhausted, we feel our strength failing,

and the need of repose comes upon us. There would be no con-
siderable objection to speaking in this way if our purpose was
simply to indicate a correspondence between our muscular sensa-
tions and the dynamical state of our muscles. But we must take
care not to believe that there is the shadow of an explanation
in it.

What is it that takes place in us during that period of repose
when we say that energy is accumulating in us? Our muscles
are undergoing restoration, are getting into a condition to form
new chemical combinations. But I have no knowledge how much
force they can expend at a given moment; it exists in them in a
purely virtual condition. I do not feel it any more than I feel the
expansive force of the powder contained in a certain flask, or the
heat that may be disengaged from a particular piece of charcoal.
We have not, therefore, any degree of consciousness of our dis-
posable energy. The anticipatory sensation which we feel just as
we are about to make a movement, and which we take for a con-
sciousness of the force we are going to expend, is only a precon-
ceived imagination of the sensation of effort that will accompany
the contraction. Even at the instant when the contraction is
effected our sensation of effort only indicates to us the extent of
the actual tension of our muscles. It answers so little to the real
expenditure of our energy, that it would be exactly the same if we
should stretch them in that way without performing any work.
We shall therefore have to give up these conventional explana-
tions and regard matters more closely.

When we have continued still for a long time, we feel, first, a
great desire to move. Like all our appetites, the inclination to
move is recognized, even before any sensation can give us cog-
nizance of it, by the effect which it produces on the imagination.
In unconscious hunger or thirst, we think, not precisely that it

would be agreeable to drink or eat, but that some broiled chicken

THE PLEASURE OF MOTION. 827

or a pot of beer would be very nice. So the young man who has
been confined too long dreams of canoeing and horseback-riding ;
before thinking that those exercises will do him good, he pleases
himself with representing them to himself. This desire, as it de-
fines itself, becomes more intense ; and, if it is opposed, intolerable.
At the same time physiological phenomena become apparent,
augmenting the uneasiness. A process of nutrition and reintegra-
tion is carried on in the muscle during rest. The products of
combustion, or the molecules that form stable compounds, are
eliminated and replaced by fresh combustible matter, or unstable
compounds. The muscle is then in what Rosenthal calls the sensi-
tive condition. The most minute spark will bring on an explo-
sion; the slightest impression will provoke violent reflexes, In
such a state we feel nervous, as it is called; or can not keep still.
The expression is exact. Our sensitive condition requires the
spontaneous movements which the mere idea of motion provokes,
A typical example of such suffering from forced rest is afforded
by the pupil waiting for school to be dismissed. He feels as if
his back was breaking and his legs were growing stiff. When
will the bell ring? He wishes with a frantic inclination that he
could jump from his seat, shout, and run. He wriggles and drags
his feet on the floor. A hard look from the teacher fastens him to
his place, and he quiets himself; but what a punishment it is to
endure it!

Motion also procures a positive physical pleasure for us.
When we give ourselves up to an exercise, or go at anything
with great energy, all the functions are accelerated, the heart
beats more rapidly, breathing becomes more frequent and deeper,
and we experience a general feeling of comfort, We live more,
and are happy in living. Rapid and boisterous movements pro-
duce also a kind of intoxication and giddiness that have a peculiar
charm.*

“ Let us imagine,” says M. Guyau, “ what are the feelings of a
bird as it opens its wings and glides through the air like an arrow;
let us recollect what we ourselves have experienced in being car-
ried by a horse at a gallop, or upon a boat dipping into the hol-
lows of the waves, or in the whirl of a waltz; all these motions
evoke in us the undefined idea of the infinite, of unbounded long-
ing, of superabundant and careless life, a vague rejection of in-
dividuality, a craving to go without restraint, to be lost in immen-
sity; and such vague ideas enter as an essential element in the
impression which a great number of movements cause us.” The
observation is correct; but I believe that this kind of pantheistic
intoxication is at bottom only a cerebral congestion. <A horse,

* The modern infatuation for round dances is chiefly explained by this intoxication of
dizziness. It is shown in children at a very early age.

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

plunging into a rapid gallop, and seeing a large void space open-
ing out in front of him, will never fail, as the saying is, “ to do
himself up.” The mere rapidity of his motions gives him vertigo;
he loses sight of danger; and when an obstacle suddenly rises
against him, if he does not jump over it, he breaks himself against
it. So, all rapid movements deprive us of complete possession of
ourselves; we go on, we follow our impulse. It may be a foolish
one; so much the better. Goon! up! quicker! What is such
behavior but sheer intoxication ?

To the physical pleasure of motion is added a moral and
emotional pleasure. In like manner as it helps us to escape from
physical suffering, muscular activity may serve as a remedy for
disappointments, for moral pains. We weep and struggle when
we have a great grief, as well as when we are suffering from a
physical wound. The most afflicted man forgets his trouble while
he is performing a vigorous exercise. Byron had his boxing-
gloves brought to him, and went through his accustomed practice
with a servant, while his mother was being buried; but the sery-
ant felt that his touch was stronger than usual, and all at once
he threw down his gloves and fled to his room. Who has not felt
the necessity of what is called throwing off his grief ? When we
remain quiet our mind is, as it were, bent back upon itself, and all
the pains that can affect us are augmented, as it were, by the very
attention which we give them. In action we forget ourselves,
directing our thought to the attainment of the purpose upon
which we are fixed.

Physical exercises also give us positive mental pleasures, the
chief among which is the satisfaction of our self-love. When I
execute any movement, or devote myself to an exercise, I try to
get as much as possible out of it. I want particularly to acquit
myself better than any one else, and have a feeling of pride when
I have succeeded. This leads to a real increase of ardor, and a
luxury of physical activity. Observe youth who are indulging
themselves in any sport together; is not emulation the essential
principle of their activity, which enables them to expend all they
have of available energy ? Tella child to run as long as he can;
he will stop in a short time, out of breath. Give him rivals, and
the fear of being left behind will prevent his feeling fatigue and
provide him with unaccustomed nervous resources, and he will
go till his strength is exhausted. It is a recognized rule with all
couriers, gymnasts, canoeists, etc., that one should not train him-
self alone in exercises of speed; there should be at least two, to
excite one another by competition. Some persons have tried to
show that the pleasure of play’is disinterested. .They are speak-
ing without knowledge. When we are playing, we are entirely
occupied with the result of our activity. We may not be very

THE PLEASURE OF MOTION. 829

particular in the choice of the end we shall seek; we may not
care whether that end is worth the trouble we are taking; but, for
all that, we may not be willing to have our faculties at work for
nothing. We fix upon some end that we shall reach. If I takea
walk, I say that Iam going here, or there, or will walk so many
miles, If I play a game of skill, I want to win, to make so many
points, to accomplish something; I am not, then, seeking merely
the pleasure of acting, but I try to reach a result agreeable in
itself. Games of chance have no attraction if one is not interested
in the play. Sometimes, this interest is conferred by the hope of
a material or pecuniary profit; most frequently in the pursuit of
the honor of having won. But, is working for glory disinter-
estedness ? Pascal’s analysis was more complete. The hunter
loves to hunt, not only for the pleasure of walking in the fields in
pursuit of a hare, not only for the pleasure of bringing his game
home, but chiefly for the proud joy of exhibiting it. It may be
said that this is all vanity; that the object is not worth the pains
it has cost. But that matters not to the argument. I do not say
that play is an affair of well-defined interest; but that we are ex-
cited in it by considerations of interest. At the moment when I
am striving to arrive at that end, I do not measure its importance,
I do not think of the reasons that first started me; there is the
goal I have proposed to myself, and I run for it. If the thought
occurred to me for an instant that this was all futile, only a pre-
text, my ardor would be cooled down at once. It is also easily
seen that, when we engage in any exercise or game, we by a men-
tal effort exaggerate the importance of the end sought. If we
play billiards with a strong adversary, we call it a match, and hire
a hall; and the players please themselves by imagining that they
are staking their reputation on each carom-shot. A game of chess
becomes very dramatic, and the player’s hand trembles when he
makes a decisive movement. When we start on a canoeing ex-
cursion, it pleases us to imagine for the moment that we are going
to travel into distant regions. Walking in the forest, we say that
we are exploring the country, and are going to make discoveries.
In this way we try to satisfy the spirit of adventure that the
usages of our too well regulated society have not wholly stifled.
It is, therefore, an essential quality of play that, to take pleasure
in it, we must mount the imagination, and fancy that what we are
doing on a small scale is done on a grand one; must substitute
mentally, for the futile activity in which we desire to be absorbed,
some mode of superior and more fascinating activity. Tell me
that I am willfully fooling myself, if you please. Tell me even
that I have a secret consciousness that it is an illusion, and that I
am more than half a dupe of the pretext that I have given my-
self. It is nevertheless true that the pleasure of action for the

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sake of action is not enough, and that I take interest in the game ©
only so far as my self-love is seriously interested init. It is still
necessary for me to have a difficulty to overcome, a rival to sur-
pass, an advance to make. In dismounting from a horse, in tak-
ing off our skates, in putting away our oars, we congratulate our-
selves that we have become stronger, and we feel an imperious ~
necessity for telling of our prowess. We should take less pleas- —
ure in a game of skill if we could not convince ourselves after
each essay, and convince some one else, that we had become more
adroit init. Every exercise in which one is decidedly a past master
inspires a vague distaste.

We are able also to determine, in every physical exercise, a
particular kind of pride. Very simple or childish, if you please,
but all the deeper and more instinctive—that which one feels in
conquering the forces of nature. We delight to refuse what they
solicit us to do, and to accomplish what they seem to forbid,
Hence the pleasure felt in climbing a hill, putting down an ob-
stacle, leaping a ditch, and walking against wind and rain. In
canoe-sailing we would rather stand close to the wind than be
carried with it, and prefer running over the waves to flying before
them. Of all these forces we struggle most earnestly against and
most delight to overcome that of gravitation. It binds us to the
earth by fetters which we are anxious to unloose, and inflicts dis-
abilities upon us and exposes us to dangers that we are glad to
escape. Motions of speedy transport are pleasant, because they re-
lieve us for the moment from the burden of the feeling of inertia,
Hence the agreeableness of riding, driving, cycling, spring-board
jumping, vaulting, and riding in an express train, There is a
charm in dreaming that we are leaping immense distances and
prolonging the bound by the force of the will alone. In the
struggle against height, falling is defeat; equilibrium is the de-
fensive; motion of simple translation is the beginning of enfran-
chisement; and movement upward is triumph.—Translated for
the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.

' Tue Niagara-studies of Prof. Julius Pohlmann have led him to predict that,
after the falls have receded one mile—or in two thousand years—there will be —
but one fall, the American fall having disappeared, and its islands will be repre- —
sented by low hill-tops on a peninsula projecting from the American shore; but
the fall will be nearly two hundred feet high. After a recession of three miles
more, there will be again two falls at the foot of Grand Island, the Canadian fall
being the larger. The height of the falls will thereafter diminish thirty-five feet for
every mile they travel south ; and long before they have receded twelve miles, or —

' to the southern end of Grand Island, they must disappear entirely as falls, and pre-

sent only a long series of rapids. The second American fall will recede more

slowly than the Canadian fall, but will ultimately be reduced to the same con- —

dition, forming a river with swift-flowing current and perhaps a few short rapids.

THE HISTORY OF THE FORK. 831

THE HISTORY OF THE FORK.
Br J. VON FALKE.

HE Duchess of Beaufort, dining once at Madame de Guise’s
with King Henri IV of France, extended one hand to receive
his Majesty’s salutation while she dipped the fingers of the other
hand into a dish to pick out what was to her taste. This incident
happened in the year 1598. It demonstrates that less than three
hundred years ago the fingers were still used to perform the office
now assigned to forks, in the highest and most refined circles of
society. At about this time, in fact, was the turning-point when
forks began to be used at table as they are now. When we reflect
how nice were the ideas of that refined age on all matters of outer
decency and behavior, and how strict was the etiquette of the
courts, we may well wonder that the fork was so late in coming
into use as a table-furnishing. The ladies of the middle ages and
the Renaissance were not less proud of a delicate, well-kept hand
than those of our own days, and yet they picked the meat from
the platter with their slender white fingers, and in them bore it
to their mouths. The fact is all the more remarkable, because the
form of the fork was familiar enough, and its application to other
uses was not uncommon. It was even used in cooking in the epic
period of the middle ages, as a spitting instrument, though rarely
as an aid in cutting. It appears with some regularity in the in-
ventories or treasure-lists of kings and noble houses after the four-
teenth century, but only in isolated or very few specimens as com-
pared with the large numbers of knives and spoons. In Clement
of Hungary’s list in the fourteenth century thirty spoons are men-
tioned, but only one fork, and that of gold. The proportion is
nearly the same in the Duke of Anjou’s inventory of 1360. King
Charles V of France in 1380 listed along with many other objects
two silver forks with crystal handles; and this monarch is said to
have had in all twelve forks in a million francs’ worth of silver-
ware. The Duchess of Touraine in 1389 had only two forks to
nine dozen spoons. The instrument was then called by the same
name it bears to-day in French—fourchette—and this was the di-
minutive of fowrche, pitchfork, with which all the farmers at
least were acquainted. Forks are not oftener mentioned, nor for
a different purpose, in the fifteenth century; but Duchess Char-
lotte of Savoy had, in 1483, two spoons and a fork, of silver, “ to
eat comfits with.”

These examples show that forks were known as rare and costly
articles, but were not used for the purposes they now are. Among
the miniature pictures on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts are represen-
tations of meals, but none in which a fork is shown lying on the

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

table or held in the hands of any of the guests—except that, in a
single picture in a manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (since de-
stroyed by fire), an instrument resembling a fork, but more like a
double-edged knife split in the direction of its length, was lying
on the table.

The fork is likewise not mentioned in any of the numerous de-
scriptions of feasts by the chroniclers of the middle ages; not in
Alienor de Poitiers’s account of the ceremonies and table usages of
the Burgundian court; nor in the account of the setting of the
table given in the “ Ménagier de Paris”; nor in that of the great
feast given by the Duke of Burgundy to the English ambassadors
in 1462. But it does appear from these stories that the guests took
the meat and other viands which the carver prepared for them,
and carried it to their mouths in their fingers. In some distin-
guished houses they took the pieces out of the common dish, or
cut them themselves to eat them by the aid of their fingers. The
guests did not even receive separate knives, and it was the custom
in England in the sixteenth century for each to bring his own knife
and sharpen it upon a common steel that hung upon the wall.

The absence of forks explains the careful attention that was
paid to washing the hands beforeand after meals. Servants were
all the time going around with basins and pitchers, and a towel
slung over their shoulders, and pouring water on the hands of the
guests, and the napkins were frequently changed. Sometimes the
water was perfumed ; and every pains was taken to remedy the
soiling of the fingers that inevitably took place, and make it as
little unpleasant as possible.

It seems clear enough, in the light of this negative evidence,
that the few forks included in the silver-ware of the middle ages
were not used as forks are used to-day. Since kitchen-forks
served as spits and for holding roasts, it is probable that the
high-born lords and ladies of those times, who only appear to have
possessed these implements, used their silver forks for toasting
their bread at the breakfast-room fire. There is some direct evi-
dence that they were employed to hold substances particularly dis-
agreeable or inconvenient to handle, as toasted cheese, which would
leave an unpleasant smell; or sticky sugared dainties; or soft
fruits, the juice of which would stain the fingers.

Only one incident is related of the use of the fork in the nine-
teenth-century fashion. This was by a noble lady of Byzantium
who had married a Doge of Venice, and continued in that city to
eat after her own custom, cutting her meat very finely up and con-
veying it to her mouth with a two-pronged fork. The act was re-
garded in Venice, according to Pietrus Damianus, as a sign of ex-

cessive luxury and extreme effeminacy. It suggests a probability —

that the fashion of eating with forks originated at the imperial

-

.

2

4 ¥ acuta

THE HISTORY OF THE FORK. 833

court of Byzantium and thence extended to the West. Some hun-
dreds of years had still to pass before it could be domiciliated in
Europe, for this Byzantine doge’s wife lived in the eleventh cent-
ury, while the fashion of eating with forks did not become gen-
eral till the seventeenth century.

It was the duty of the waiters to deposit the meats with large,
broad carving-knives upon the plate, from which the guest took
it and broke it up with his fingers, and with them conveyed it to
his mouth. The nails were also sometimes called into requisition,
if we may credit the verses which read—

““ Ongle, riche et précieux;
Ongle qui tranche, quand tu veux ;
Ongle qui en lieu de forcettes
A la belle sert de pincettes.”
[Nail, rich and precious ;
Nail, that cuts when you will;
Nail, which, in place of forks,
For the fair dame plays at tongs.]

Meat, when not cut with the carving-knife, was taken up in
the fingers. It was the rule with respect to other viands for which
the hand had to be put into the dish, to take them always from
the same side, so that each guest might have his particular spot
to pick from. A polite man should pick meat neatly with three
fingers, and should take care in conveying it to his mouth not to
touch his nose with it (“ Ne touche pas ton nez ci main nue, dont la
wiande est tenue”). Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was versed in
good manners, said in 1539: “ Take what is offered you in three
fingers, or present your plate to receive it. There are people who
can hardly wait till they have sat down before putting their hand
into the dish ; one must receive on his plate whatever he can not
take out with his fingers.” Monsignor della Casa, Bishop of Bene-
vento, wrote in 1544 a kind of manual of etiquette entitled “Ga-
latea,” which was published in a French translation by Jean de
Tournay in 1598. Among other things it directs: “One ought not
to wash his hands before everybody, but in his room, not in soci-
ety. Nevertheless, when one is sitting at table, he should wash
his hands in the presence of the others, even if it is not necessary,
so that those with whom he puts his hand into the dish may know
that it is clean. A well-bred man,” continues this author, “ will
avoid greasing his fingers, lest he soil the table-cloth, which would
be disagreeable to those who witnessed it. It is also not proper to
wipe the fingers with the bread which one is about to eat.” The
practice of some persons, of eating only with gloved hands, does
not seem strange in the light of these facts,

As has already been remarked, the change from fingers to forks
began to be made at about the end of the sixteenth and the begin-

VOL. XXXV.—538

834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ning of the seventeenth centuries. An evidence of it may perhaps
be found in the silver-list of Gabrielle d’Estrée in 1599, which in-
cluded twenty forks. There was a society of fops connected with
the court of King Henri III of France, who were distinguished
for their ultra-refined notions concerning manners and dress, and
were called Mignons. The king himself, who invented a new kind
of starch for his collars, was in sympathy with them. The ways
of this circle were ridiculed in a satirical pamphlet called the
“Tsland of the Hermaphrodites,’ which was published in the
earlier years of the seventeenth century. The custom of eating
with forks was held up to scorn in. this publication ; stress was
laid upon the accidents that it was presumed would happen to
those who had not become adepts in the use of the instrument ;
and it was thought funny that, when it came to washing the hands
after eating, they should be found not to have been soiled.

The custom seems to have extended by way of Italy to Ger-
many, France,and England. Coryate,an English traveler, relates
in his “ Crudities,” published in 1611, that he had thought it best
to follow the Italian fashion of cutting meat with the aid of the
fork, not only while he was in Italy, but also in Germany, and
even after he had returned to England. “The Italians and also
many foreigners residing in Italy,” he says, “use a little fork when
they cut meat at their meals. While they cut with the knife,
which they hold in one hand, they hold the meat firm in the dish
with the fork, which they hold in the other hand; and any one
who should unthoughtedly touch the dish from which they were
all eating, with his fingers, would give offense, and be accused of
violating good manners.”

The fork did not rapidly come into general use, even in the

higher ranks. An English writer, Heylin, mentioned it in 1652 -

as something that had been taken up by the elegants. It is re-
marked in a “ Nouveau traité de la civilité, qui se pratique en
France parmi les honnestes gens” (“ New Treatise on Civility as itis
practiced in France among Well-bred People”): “ When one takes

from the dish, he should wait till his superiors have been served; he —

should also select once for all what he is to take, for it is impolite

to put the hand into the dish twice, and still more so to move it 4

around seeking for piece after piece.” Louis XIII adopted the

fork, but his queen, Anne of Austria, who had been brought up —
at the Spanish court, never could accustom herself to it, and al- a
ways used her fingers, although she was very proud of her pretty —
hands. A verse is cited from the “ Muse historique” in 1651, —
_ which indicates that departures from the old fashion of eating were —
still exceptional at the French court; and a pair of verses, of about —

the same period, contrast the old way with the new.

One of the most active agents in introducing the fork to polite —

es me a ons

bh sy

tS ar ee ae

SKETCH OF CAROLUS LINNAZUS. 835

society was the Duke of Montausier, who was a constant visitor
at the Hotel Rambouillet, the seat of the most refined manners of
the day, and married the daughter of the marquise of that name,
Julie d’Augennes. This house was of Italian origin, and proba-
bly received the fork along with its other Italian heritages. The
duke, as the first chamberlain of King Louis XIV, had excellent
opportunities, which he improved, to introduce the fork among
the aristocracy and make its use common.

The history of the fork after the middle of. the seventeenth cent-
ury chiefly concerns the extension of its use and its spread from
the aristocracy to humble circles of society. Its form has also
been gradually improved, and changed from that of the straight,
two-pronged instrument of the olden time, of little use except as
a spit, to the gracefully and conveniently curved, broad, many-
pronged English fork of the present day, spoon-like in shape, and
precisely adapted to its purpose.—Translated for the Popular Sci-
ence Monthly from Ueber Land und Meer.

x
SKETCH OF CAROLUS LINN AUS (CARL VON LINN&).

HATEVER may be the future progress of the sciences of
botany and zoélogy, Prof. Flower has said, in the British
Association, “the numerous writings of Linneeus, and especially
the publication of the ‘Systema Nature,’ can never cease to be
looked upon as marking an era in their development.” In the
“Systema Nature,’ the speaker added, the accumulated knowl-
edge of all the workers at zodlogy, botany, and mineralogy, since
the world began, was collected by patient industry, and welded
into a complete and harmonious whole by penetrating genius.
CAROLUS LINN 2ZUS, afterward called Carl von Linné, was born
at Rashult, in the parish of Stenbrohult, in the province of Sma-
land, Sweden, May 13, 1707, and died at Upsala, January 10, 1778.
He was the eldest child of Nils or Nicolas Linnzeus, commissioner
and afterward pastor of the parish, and Christina, the daughter of
the previous incumbent. The father was versed in natural his-
tory; a well-stocked flower-garden was attached to the house;
and the child, hearing his father talking about the virtues of cer-
tain of the plants, at four years of age became interested in them,
and formed the habit of asking about the names and qualities of
all that he saw. The father, as a condition of further answering
his questions, insisted that he should remember all that he had
been told before. The child thus received a valuable mnemonic
discipline that served him through life, and was familiar from the °
start with the Latin and the vernacular names of plants. His

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

mother used to relate that he could always be soothed, when cry-
ing, by giving him a flower. When seven years old he was put
under the private tuition of Telander, a teacher of only the ordi-
nary stamp, and three years later was sent to Wexi6 to school, his
father wishing to prepare him for holy orders. The story was the
same at both places. He made no progress in the routine studies
of the course, except in mathematics and physics, but used every
opportunity to look after flowers and turn over books of botany.
With Gabriel H6k he did a little better, for that teacher allowed
him some liberty to gratify his tastes; but the people at the gym-
nasium were again troubled by his perversity. Finally, the father
and the teachers held a consultation, and it was decided that,
although his moral record was unexceptionable, he offered no
promise as a scholar, and must learn a trade. So he was, or was
about to be, apprenticed to a shoemaker, when the father, having
some bodily malady for which he had to visit Dr. Rothman, spoke

incidentally of the trouble Carolus was giving him. The doctor —

thought the boy might succeed in medicine and natural history,
and offered to take him to board, and help him in his studies. He
gave him private lessons in physiology, and introduced him to
Tournefort’s botanical system, by the aid of which Linnzeus con-
tinued to study the local plants. At the end of a year, Linnzus
was sent to the University of Lund, recommended as his private
pupil by H6ék, who, taking great liberties with the facts, sub-
stituted his own good opinion for the curious letter with which
the principal of the gymnasium had armed the candidate. This
letter was to the effect that pupils might be compared to young
trees in a nursery: there would sometimes be some that would
grow up wild in spite of all the care that might be spent upon
them, but which might still do well if transplanted to a different
soil, “It is with such a hope that I send this youth to your insti-
tution, where, perhaps, another atmosphere may favor his develop-
ment.” At Lund, Linneus found employment as a copyist with
Dr. Kilian Stobseus, Professor of Medicine and physician to the
king, who had a museum of minerals, shells, and dried plants.
The professor was not at first aware of the kind of treasure which
he had in his house; but Linnzus, having formed a friendship
with a fellow-student who had access to the doctor’s library, bor-
rowed books from it and sat up till late in the night reading them.
Mother Stobzeus observed the light in his room, and, being wor-
ried about danger from fire, warned her son of it. He detected
Linnzeus at his reading; but the explosion and subsequent expla-
nations resulted in a widening of the young man’s opportunities
for pursuing his favorite studies. On Rothman’s advice, Linneus
determined to go to Upsala, where the advantages seemed to be
better than at Lund. The three hundred francs that he was able

%

SKETCH OF CAROLUS LINNAZUS. 837

to take with him were soon exhausted, and he was reduced to
poverty, having, it is said, to wear other students’ cast-off shoes,
or mend his own with paper, when Olaf Celsius, Professor of
Theology, observed his attention to botany, looked at his collec-
tions, and concluded that he would make a good assistant on the
“ Hierobotanicon,” a treatise on the plants of the Bible, which he
was preparing. He took Linnzeus to board, gave him the free use
of his library, found him some private pupils, and recommended
him to Olaf Rudbeck, Professor of Botany. Linnzeus had in the
mean time had his attention directed to the sexuality of plants, by
reading a letter from Burckhart to Leibnitz, a review of an address
by Vaillant, and a work by Wallin, all bearing on the subject.
He himself wrote a treatise on the sexes of plants, and it was this
that Celsius made the occasion for the introduction. Rudbeck’s
advanced age did not permit him to attend personally to all his
lectures, and he made Linnzeus his deputy. The hand of the
struggling student, who now at last, in his twenty-fourth year,
saw his career taking an upward direction, was soon visible also
in the remodeling and restocking of the academic gardens—he
having become director in a place where his application to be em-
ployed as a subordinate had been refused’ a year before.

His equivocal position at the university having become unpleas-
ant by reason of the jealousy it excited among the professors,
Linnzeus accepted a proposition from the Academy of Sciences of
Upsala to make a scientific exploration of Lapland. He accom-
plished this task in the summer of 1732, depending mostly on his
own resources, and, in the face of great difficulties and with no
little danger, accomplishing a journey of forty-six hundred Eng-
lish statute miles, and brought home from it valuable fruit in
knowledge and specimens. In 1734, after having been defeated
by the hostility of one of the professors in an attempt to resume
his lectures at Upsala, he performed, attended by seven pupils, a
similar exploration of Dalecarlia. While on this journey, he lect-
ured at Fahlun, to large audiences, and determined, at the sugges-
tion of Chaplain (afterward Bishop) Browalius, to attend a for-
eign university for the degree of M.D. This would give hima
position in society and science.

Arriving at Hamburg, he exposed the spurious character of
a seven-headed hydra in a museum there which was composed of
weasels’ heads artfully sewn together, and so offended the propri-
etor of the establishment that he was obliged to leave the city at
once. At Hardewijck he passed his examination, defended a the-
sis on the cause of intermittent fevers, and received his degree
from the university. At Leyden he called upon Gronovius, who,
upon being shown the “Systema Nature,” was so delighted with it
that he undertook to publish it at his own expense. The great

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

physician Boerhaave, after some delay, gave him a cordial recep-
tion, and recommended him to Burman, at Amsterdam, with
whom he stayed a year. Here he accepted an invitation from the
wealthy banker Cliffort, who had a great garden and fine library
at Hartekamp, and stayed with him three years, living at ease,
working in the library and garden and at his studies and his books,
and sparing no pains, through the “ Hortus Cliffortianus,” and his
description of the banana, Musa Cliffortiana, to make the fame
of his patron lasting.

In 1736 Linnezeus visited England, bearing a letter of introduc-
tion from Boerhaave. He was received by the botanists there with
a reserve which soon thawed and gave place to warm apprecia-
tion. Returning to Holland, he completed the printing of his
“Genera Plantarum,” finished arranging and describing Cliffort’s
collection of plants, spent a year with Van Royen at Leyden, re-
arranging the garden, and in 1738 started for Sweden by way of
Belgium, Paris (where he formed a lasting friendship with Ber-
nard de Jussieu), and Rouen. Hence he sailed direct for Sweden,
intending to establish himself in the practice of medicine at Stock-
holm. Patients were slow in coming to him, and in his discour-
agement he said that “if he had not been in love he certainly
would have left his native country.” His fame, however, which
had become conspicuous abroad, had at last reached Sweden, and
he gradually obtained a practice, was appointed naval physician,
Professor in the School of Mines, etc., and was able to marry the
daughter of Dr. Morzeus, who had waited for him for several years.
He enjoyed the support of influential friends—Marshal the Baron
Charles de Geer and Count Tessin—and by their aid succeeded, in
1741, in reaching the summit of his ambition—a professorship in
the University of Upsala, which he occupied for thirty-seven
years. His fame grew rapidly. “ He was long a center to which
all important researches in natural history were reported. Nu-
merous disciples attended his lectures and propagated his doctrines

verbally, while his own works, scattered abroad, made his system

and his reforms popular. His correspondence was extensive, and
his letters, many of which have been preserved, exhibit his char-
acter in the most favorable light. On his recommendation, the
Swedish Government intrusted several young men with distant
scientific missions. Among the most distinguished of these trav-
elers were Ternstroem, who traversed the East Indies and died at
Poulo Condor, in the China Sea, in 1748; Kalm (whence the name
of our mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia), who explored North
America from 1747 to 1751; Hasselquist, who visited Smyrna,
Egypt, and Palestine, and died in Smyrna in 1752; Osbeck, who
explored China from 1750 to 1752; and Loeffling, who traveled in
Spain in 1751 and South America, where he died in 1756.”

SKETCH OF CAROLUS LINNAUS. 839

The numerous works of Linnzeus appeared now in rapid suc-
cession, and honors and invitations came to him, He declined a
liberal offer from the King of Spain to settle in that country;
purchased the estates of Sofja and Hammarby, at the latter of
which he built a museum of stone; was made a Knight of the
Polar Star, and in 1761 received a patent of nobility, antedated to
1757, in deference to which he Gallicized his Latin name, inserted
avon in it, and became Carl von Linné. The last reward was,
however, not for his scientific achievement, but was granted in
recognition of his having devised a way to improve the quality
of the pearls of the fresh-water mussels of Sweden. When sixty
years of age, Linnzeus’s memory began to fail; in 1774 he suffered
an apoplectic attack ; two years later he lost, by another stroke, the
use of his right side; and he died of a hydropsy in 1778. While
all the academies of Hurope made him their associate, and princes
gave him the most striking marks of their consideration, still “in
the simplicity of his life he was little accessible to the honors of
the world. Living with his pupils, whom he treated as if they
were his children, some singular plant, or some animal varying a
little from the ordinary form, would give him more joy than any-
thing else. He was never troubled by the attacks of his antago-
nists; and although he had some distinguished ones—Haller, Buf-
fon, and Adanson—and they frequently treated him unjustly, he
was never at the pains of replying to them. .. . His society was
charming, and all who came in contact with him conceived a ten-
der attachment to him. His only weakness seems to,have been
a too great fondness for praise. Strongly attached to religion,
he never spoke of the Deity but with respect, and embraced with
marked pleasure the numerous occasions which natural history
offered him to declare the wisdom of Providence.”

The publications of Linnzeus are described under more than
one hundred and eighty titles. The earliest in date was the
“Hortus Uplandicus,” or list of cultivated plants of Upsala, in
which he first outlined his plan for classifying plants according
to their organs of reproduction—stamens and pistils—which ap-
peared in 1731; and the last was his “ Plantze Surinamenses,” 1775.,
The period of his literary activity thus lasted forty-four years.
His great merits were the introduction of a system of botanical
classification which, though wholly artificial and unnatural,
served as an efficient tool till a philosophical system, based on
affinities, could be worked out, and the extension and general ap-
plication of an exact system of nomenclature. He sought to cover
the whole domain of nature, and therefore wrote on minerals,
animals, and plants. In mineralogy he paid particular attention
to the forms of crystals, and based his classification on them. In
zodlogy he looked to the organs of mastication and digestion,

840 THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

to the feeding, to the wings in birds, and to the presence or ab-
sence of elytre in insects. But his distinction rests pre-eminently
on his work in botany, and to this most of his publications relate.
He was not the originator either of the sexual system of classi-
fication or of the binary nomenclature; for the former, as we
have seen, was suggested by other students whose essays he read
and whose ideas he put in practice; and the latter was applied,
as has been shown in a sketch in a previous number of the

“ Monthly,” nearly two hundred years before him, by Pierre Bé-

lon. But Linnzus made it general and established it in science.
The formal introduction of his system of classification was made
in the “ Systema Nature,” which Gronovius published at Leyden
in 1735,in three sheets, according to one authority, or in eight
folio sheets, according to another. It was enlarged in successive
subsequent editions, of which the twelfth appeared during the
author’s lifetime. It was followed in 1736 by the “ Fundamenta
Botanica,” of twenty-six pages, which contained an exposition of
the author’s theory as worked out after seven years of study and
the examination of eight thousand plants. This work, amplified,

afterward developed into two—the “ Bibliotheca Botanica,’ Am-

sterdam, 1756; and the “Classes Plantarum” or “Systemata
Plantarum,” Leyden, 1738; while a more detailed explanation of
the system of nomenclature was given in the “ Critica Botanica,”
Leyden, 1737. These three works were the beginning of the
great reform in botany; but the doctrine of Linnzus on these
subjects, co-ordinated in its parts and illustrated by examples, was
reproduced as a whole in 1751 in the “ Philosophia Botanica,”
Stockholm—a work which served as the foundation for most of
the minor treatises till Linnzeus’s artificial system of classification
was supplemented by the natural system. The “Genera Plan- |
tarum,” 1737, gave full descriptions of the genera, “ according to
the number, shape, position, and proportion of all the parts of
fructification,” and is pronounced by Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, in
the “ Encyclopedia Britannica,” “a volume which must be con-
sidered the starting-point of modern systematic botany.” In the
“ Species Plantarum,” 1753, “the author’s most important contri-
bution to scientific literature,” the trivial names expressing some
obvious character to designate species are fully set forth.

The nomenclature introduced by Linnzeus has endured, and
the names he gave to species are still living; so that “in what-
ever part of the world one may be, if there are botanists or profes- —
sional gardeners, there it is enough to give the Linnean name of a
plant to have its identity understood at once.” His system of
classification has given way to the more philosophical natural
system by affinities based upon comparison of all the parts and
qualities of the plant. There is reason to believe that he foresaw

SKETCH OF CAROLUS LINN AUS. 841

this, and regarded his system as simply a stepping-stone to some-
thing better. He is quoted as having said that whoever should
found a natural system on a solid basis would be his great
Apollo. An account in the “Philosophia Botanica” of a series of
naturally allied families is prefaced by the words that “a natural
method is the first and last thing to be desired in botany ; Nature
does not make leaps. All plants show affinity on either side, like
the territory in a geographical map.” He and Bernard de Jus-
sieu corresponded on the subject, and the latter urged him to in-
stitute a natural system. Such a system, however, could not be
built at once, or by one man, and Linnezus had to content ‘him-
self with furnishing the staging by the aid of which others could
more slowly build up the permanent structure.

Linnzeus is described as having been a little above the medium
height, rather slight, but well shaped; with broad head and
frank and open physiognomy; lively and piercing eyes, with a
peculiarly refined expression. He was quick-tempered, but soon
recovered from his passion. “He lived simply, acted promptly,
and noted down his observations at the moment. ... He found
biology,” says Mr. Jackson, “a chaos; he left ita cosmos. When
he appeared upon the scene, new plants and animals were in the
course of daily discovery, in increasing numbers, due to the in-
crease of trading facilities; he devised schemes of arrangement by
which these acquisitions might be sorted provisionally, until their
natural affinities should have become clearer. He made many mis-
takes; but the honor due to him for having first enunciated the
true principles for defining genera and species, and his uniform
use of trivial names, will last so long as biology itself endures.”

Another biographer gives as the peculiar features in which he
surpassed, “the distinct study he made of each species, the regu-
larity and detail of the characteristics he gave of genera, the care
which he took to put in the background variable circumstances
like size and color, the energetic precision of his language, and
the convenience of his nomenclature.”

A scheme was started for erecting a monument to Linneeus in
connection with the centenary of his death. As is usual in such
affairs, the subscriptions were slower in coming in than was con-
templated by the promoters of the enterprise, and the completion
of the monument was delayed. The statue, by Prof. Kjelberg,
was unveiled on the 13th of May, 1885. It stands in the Humle-
garden in Stockholm, and represents the “ flower-king,” as he is
called in Sweden, at the age of sixty years, in a meditating atti-
tude, holding the “Systema Nature” and a bunch of flowers in
his right hand. It is surrounded by allegorical female figures
representing botany, zodlogy, medicine, and mineralogy.

842

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

THE DOMAIN OF SCIENCE.
FEW months ago one of our con-
tributors had occasion to notice
the attacks made upon the scientific
tendencies of the age by writers who
might have been supposed to be them-
selves highly qualified representatives
of the general scientific movement. In
these columns, too, we have ourselves
found it necessary, from time to time,
to maintain the position that, if all is
not well in the world to-day, it is not
because we are troubled with too much
science, but because we have as yet too
little. Science has reduced. to tolerable
order certain departments of thought
and knowledge; but there are whole
sections of life that as yet it has barely
touched. So long as this is the case,
-the social body must suffer. Until the
true laws of life are discovered, and set
in sueh a light as to command obedi-
ence, there must be more or less of con-
fusion, distress, and waste of effort. Itis
evident, therefore, that the duty which
lies at the door of every one capable of
grasping the situation is to do all in his
power to help science to have its perfect
work—its work of social reorganization
and regeneration.

Many persons, we are persuaded,
fail to understand that science has any
application outside of the investigation of
physical laws. They think of it as some-
thing that has to do with astronomy and
geology, with physiology and chemistry,
with steam-engines and telegraphs and
telephones. They do not think of it as
a method of research valid in every de-
partment of life, and coextensive with
the whole reach of human knowledge.
The time has come, however, when the
claims of science to be the supreme mis-
tress of thought and action can not be
too boldly or earnestly advocated. The
spirit of science is a spirit of order;

wherever, therefore, there is disorder,
science is lacking, or, at least, exercises
but imperfect control. We see the per-
fect control of science in the exactness
with which astronomical observations
and predictions are made; we see it in
the wonderfully accurate determinations
of the chemist; we see it in the formule
of the electrician. When we come to
the so-called science of medicine we see
real science struggling for the mastery
and too often overborne by ancient
prejudice and lazy empiricism. When
we come to education, we see an enor-
mous parade of technique, but, on the
whole, poor results in the way of disci-
plined intellects and harmonious char-
acters. When we ask how science is
applied to the government of individual
lives, we find that it is scarcely so ap-
plied at all. Some notions of physi-
cal hygiene are more or less diffused
throughout the community, at least
among the more intelligent classes; but
how rarely do we discover any clear
recognition of the fact that there is such
a thing as moral hygiene, the object of
which is happiness just as that of physi-
cal hygiene is health! To ‘‘ minister to
a mind diseased ” is now, as long ago, an
almost desperate task, but to prevent
the formation of morbid habits of body
or mind is, or should be, quite within
the scope of the science of to-day. Dr.
Maudsley, in bis very interesting work
on “ Body and Will,” gives copious illus-
trations of the gradual progress of moral
and intellectual decline through success-
ive generations. Inordinate vanity or
selfishness in one generation may mean
a decided development of mental or

moral insanity in the next. It is conse-

quently of the utmost importance to
watch and resist the very beginnings of
evil, seeing that it is impossible to say
what these may lead to if allowed to

My
i

\G

EDITOR’S TABLE.

gather force. Much may be done by
each individual to promote and strength-
en his own mental soundness by exer-
cising control over his casual thoughts.
“Were anybody,” says Dr. Maudsley,
“to observe carefully what goes on
in his mind during waking, he would
perceive that it was the theatre of as
many fantastic, grotesque, incoherent
thoughts as in dreams... . Obviously
it will depend much on the occupation
that each one gives his mind, and on
the habits of attention and thought that
he has trained it to, how large a part
these incoherent vagaries of thought
shall play in his waking mind, and in
some degree in his dreams also... .
Now, if it be thus possible by good and
regular exercise of the higher faculties
of mind to gain some mastery over
thonght in dreams, how much more is
it within our power, and shown to be
our duty, to obtain and exercise domin-
ion over the vain and evil thoughts, in-
clinations, and imaginings of the day,
and so hinder their luxuriant growth! ”

In the ordinary conduct of life much
that is harmful would disappear if life
were once regarded as something that
should and must be brought under sci-
entific rules. Feelings, opinions, ac-
tions may all be brought to a scientific
test—that is, to the test of outward real-
ity—or, in other words, of conformity
to our necessary environment. With
some people it is enough to say that
they feel so and so: their feelings are
assumed to be unalterable, and to carry
their own justification with them. Such
a temper is not far removed from the
hysterical, and, if it should assume that
unhappy character some day, the result
should not be considered surprising.
The human being who persistently
looks inward rather than outward for
guidance, and makes more of his or her
subjective impressions than of the
teaching of objective facts, is in an un-
stable and dangerous condition. Again,
in the matter of opinions, some persons
esteem it a precious privilege to be able

843

to think and believe, as they say, what-
ever they please. Their opinions they
regard as their property, which no one
must venture to trespass on. But the
true test of opinions, it is needless to
say, lies not in conformity to personal
inclination, but in their agreement with
some established order of things. It is
folly to talk of believing whatever we
please; if we are rational people at
all, we believe as we must. Reason
constrains us, and we have really no
choice. In regard to actions there is per-
haps a more general feeling of responsi-
bility ; and yet even here how much we
are inclined to trust to hap-hazard!
How little we keep before us a rational
scheme of life, or steady, uniform prin-
ciples of action! The very man who
would sink in his own estimation if he
played a card unscientifically in a game
of whist, will play many a card most
unscientifically in the much greater
game of life. Why? Because, while
he believes in a science of whist, he
does not believe in a science of life. He
studies the laws of whist, but does not
study the laws of life. Yet science
is prepared to step in and shed a clear
light upon every department of hu-
man duty. All that science needs as
a basis is a fixed order of things. Such
a fixed order is discoverable in human
nature and its environment. Here are
facts, and every fact yields its own les-
son. The time, we have no doubt, will
come when men will see that life is a
network of cause and effect, and that
trouble does not spring out of the
ground, nor promotion come at hap-
hazard from the east or the west, but
that whatever ‘“ happens,” as the ex-
pression is, has its own adequate ante-
cedent. But why should we not hasten
the coming of that time by proclaiming
—those of us who believe in it—the
efficacy of science for the direction of
individual and social life ?

That science lays claim to the region
of politics is evident from what has
been said, but that it is conspicuously

844

absent from that region is evident from
—the newspapers. So long as we un-
derstand by politics merely a scramble
for offiee, so long will there be a very
slight and indirect relation between po-
litical action and the general welfare; but
it rests with an intelligent community
to bring its politics up to a higher plane
of a constant striving after social and
economic harmonies and the realization
of justice in all human relations. We
are only able on this occasion to glance
at one or two points of our subject ; we
think, however, that the lesson we
would impress is sufficiently obvious.
Science is not merely a thing of ma-
chinery and apparatus; it is not con-
fined to the measurement of material
forces or the explanation of physical
phenomena. It is a method for the
observation and co-ordination of facts
and the forecasting of results; and
wherever facts are to be found there
Science is prepared to establish her
kingdom. The unwise flout her preten-
sions, preferring the worship of Chance
and Caprice; but the wise will range
themselves on her side and strive to set
up her peaceful reign, the benefits of
which they know will extend to all, and
increase from age to age.

THE TORONTO UEETING OF THE AMERT
CAN ASSOCIATION.

For the third time in its history the
American Association this year peace-
fully invaded Canada, with hearty repe-
tition of former hospitalities at the hands
of Northern friends—indeed, hospitali-
ties were so abounding as to encroach
a little upon the serious work of the
meeting. Receptions, official and social,
followed one another in quick succes-
sion, and excursions were organized to
Niagara Falls, Muskoka, and the Sud-
bury mines. The local committee is to

be congratulated on its appointment of |

Prof. Charles Carpmael as chairman ;
he is Director of the Toronto Observa-
tory, and the weather during the week

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was therefore delightful. Canada is
proving very attractive of late years as —
a meeting-place for American scientific
organizations; its latitudes are a guar-
antee for comfort in vacation months,
and its new railroads have developed
immense tracts of the highest scien-
tific, economic, and scenic interest.
It promotes international amity that
Americans and Canadians at work in
the same fields of research should gather
in the same rallying centers, and, as a
consequence, form the friendships of
men having aims in common. In cross-
ing the border an American finds him-
self amid differences, social and politi-
cal, sufficiently marked to make his visit
instructive — differences, nevertheless,
not so pronounced that he can persuade
himself to regard Oanadians as a foreign
people.

Prof. T. C. Mendenhall, Superintend-
ent of the United States Coast and Geo-
detic Survey, was the presiding officer at
the Toronto meeting. His ability and tact
won him golden opinions on all hands.
The addresses of the vice-presidents of
the Association to their various sections
were excellent—with one exception,
which does not call for more specific
mention. Prof. George L. Goodale, of
Harvard, chairman of the Biological
Section, delivered an address on proto-
plasm, treating his theme chiefly from
the standpoint of vegetable histology
and physiology—the field of science in
which he is the leading American au-
thority. General Garrick Mallery, of
the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington,
chairman of the Anthropological Sec- —
tion, made Israelite and Indian the sub- —
ject of his address. He showed their
parallelism in planes of culture, in meth-
ods of government, social observances,
and religious faith. General Mallery’s
address will be presented in “‘ The Popu- —

lar Science Monthly” at an early date. —

Prof. H. S. Carhart, of the University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as chairman —
of the Physical Section, gave a lucid —
presentation of theories of electricity.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

845

Describing the experiments of Prof. | of the University of Pennsylvania, re-

Hertz, of Carlsruhe, and other investi-
gators, he declared it certain that all
radiant energy is transmitted as electro-
magnetic waves in luminiferous ether.
In the Chemical Section, Prof. W. L.
Dudley, of Vanderbilt University, Nash-
ville, chose amalgams as his subject.
His treatment was clear and suggestive,
but of necessity technical. Mr. R. S.
Woodward, mathematician to the United
States Geological Survey, Washington,
presided over the section of Mathemat-
ics and Astronomy. His address on
mathematical theories of the earth was
a successful endeavor to make clear to
hearers, scientific and unscientific, the
history of a theme usually wrapped up
in the rigid mummy-cloths of mathe-
matical formule.

Among the more noteworthy con-
tributions to the various sections we
may mention, in Section A, the paper
of Prof. J. R. Eastman, of the Washing-
ton Observatory, on stellar distances.
He argued that no relation exists be-
tween the magnitudes, distances, and
proper motions of stars. Prof. Charles
Carpmael made a plea for numbering
the hours of the day from one to twen-
ty-four, abolishing the necessity for
writing 4. mM. and p.m. The plan has
been adopted by the Canadian Pacific
Railway on its Western and Pacific
divisions. In accordance with Prof.
Carpmael’s suggestion, the Association
memorialized the Governments of the
United States and Canada, of the vari-
ous States of the Union, and provinces
of the Dominion. Much interest was
developed in the exhibition of the Hast-
ings achromatic objective, one of the
notable gifts of mathematical and me-
chanical science to astronomy. It pro-
motes accuracy of definition twenty-
three per cent, and eliminates spherical
aberration. In Section B, Prof. Thomas
Gray, of the Rose Polytechnic Insti-
tute, Terre Haute, gave an experimental
demonstration of methods of electrical
measurement. Dr. George F. Barker,

viewed recent improvements in electri-
cal storage batteries. He showed the
immense advance in efficiency gained
in the newest batteries based on the
Planté model. In Section C, Mr.
Charles E. Monroe, of Newport, R. I.,
gave the results of investigation into
the explosiveness of celluloids. He had
found the opaque variety insensitive to
a shock of detonation at ordinary tem-
peratures, while translucent celluloids
were readily exploded by this means.
Mr. O. Chanute, of Chicago, who has
made the subject a specialty, gave an ac-
count of the best methods for preserving
timber. After discussing .the question of
weights and measures, Section C passed a
resolution urging colleges of pharmacy
and medicine to adopt the metric system.
Before Section E, the Society of Ameri-
can Geologists held a session, at which
Prof. James D. Dana, of Yale, took oc-
casion, in the light of new geological
discoveries, to revise certain of his
former teachings respecting areas of
continental progress. Among his sug-
gestions in nomenclature was that On-
tarian be substituted for Silurian in
local geological phraseology. In Section
E, Rev. H. C. Hovey, of Bridgeport,
Conn., described the newly explored
pits of remarkable depth in the Mam-
moth Cave of Kentucky; the whole
series of pits being connected by a mag-
nificent hall several hundred feet in
length. Mr. R. T. Hill, of the State
Geological Survey of Texas, read sey-
eral excellent papers on the general
features of Texan geology, on the Eagle
Flats of the mountainous region of
Texas, the ancient volcanoes and Staked
Plains of the State. In Section F a
good many papers of value were read
—all, however, technical in character.
Prof. OC. V. Riley, entomologist to the
United States Department of Agricult-
ure at Washington, contributed a paper
on the best methods of subduing injuri-
ous insects by intentional importation
of their natural enemies. Much interest

846

was developed in Toronto in entomology
through the large attendance of ento-
mologists from all sections of the coun-
try. AnEutomological Club was formed,
and Washington is to be its first meet-
ing-place, but no date for meeting was
named at Toronto. Mr. T. J. Burrill,
of Champaign, I]l., read an interesting
paper on the fermentation of ensilage.
Section H was more than usually strong
this year—the leading officers of the
Bureau of Ethnology being present in
force. The antiquity of man was dis-
cussed from opposed points of view by
Mr. W J McGee, of Washington, and
Dr. O. C. Abbott, of Trenton, N. J.
Mr. W. H. Holmes, of Washington, con-
tributed an interesting paper on the
evolution of ornament, as illustrated
in the ceramic and textile art of the
North American Indians. Mr. W. J.
Hoffman, also of Washington, described
the secret societies of the Ojibwas,
which enjoy as elaborate a ritual of
initiation, and as sharply defined grada-
tions of rank, as any modern order among
the pale-faces. Rev. Dr. Bryce, of Win-
nipeg, Manitoba, depicted the Winni-
peg mound region, the most northerly
district where mounds have been discov-
ered on the North American continent.

In Section I, Mrs. N. 8. Kedzie read
a sensible, thorough-going paper on
scientific cookery. Prof. A. G. War-
ner’s paper on luxury was an able and
discriminating discussion of the diffi-
cult question, How much of income
may be justly expended on luxuries?
Prof. B. E. Fernow, the chief of the
Forestry Division, United States De-
partment of Agriculture, Washington,
made a strong plea for the extension of
governmental control to forests, irriga-
tion, water-courses, and the like. His
ground was that in these matters indi-
vidual interests are often opposed to
the general good, and that the state
alone can represent national interests
with comprehensiveness and continuity.
At Prof. Fernow’s suggestion the Associ-
ation passed a resolution recommending

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to Congress an early and earnest con-
sideration of a sound forestry policy.

While the press and people of Toronto
promoted the success of the meeting by
hearty and intelligent co-operation in
its work, by cordial and multiplied hos-
pitalities, the question naturally occurs,
What did the Association do for Toronto
in presenting science in such wise as to
interest and instruct popular audiences?
The first public lecture was delivered by
Mr. C. K. Gilbert, Assistant Director
United States Geological Survey, on the
geology of Niagara River; it was both
appropriate and timely, coming as it did
on the eve of an excursion to the great
cataract. Dr. H. Carrington Bolton
gave the second lecture, an admirable
illustrated account of a recent visit to
Mount Sinai. Interest, however, was
of course centered in the address of the
retiring president, Major J. W. Powell,
chief of the United States Geological —
Survey. In his unavoidable absence,
the address was read for him. Its topic —
was the evolution of music, from dance
to symphony. We regret to say that it
disappointed the vast audience which
had assembled to hear it. Major Powell
has made important fields of exploration
and research his own; had he chosen a
theme which could have been illumi-
nated by his special knowledge, we feel
certain that he could not only have
interested but charmed the thousands
whom his fame drew together in To-—
ronto. Section I, the Section of Eco-
nomics and Statistics, affords, in a larger
measure than any other, an opportu-
nity for the presentation of questions
having popular interest, and eliciting
instructive discussion. An increased
recognition of this fact at the hands of
the Council of the Association seems to
be desirable.

The next meeting of the Association
is to be held in Indianapolis, and is to
commence August 20th. Its officers
will be Prof. George L. Goodale, Cam-
bridge, Mass., president. Its vice-presi-
dents: Section A, 8. C. Chandler, Cam-

LITERARY NOTICES. 847

bridge, Mass.; B, Oleveland Abbe,
Washington; O, R. B. Warder, Wash-
ington; D, James E. Denton, Hoboken,
N. J.; E, John C. Branner, Little Rock,
Ark.; F, 0.5. Minot, Boston, Mass. ;
H, Frank Baker, Washington; I, Rich-
ards Dodge, Washington.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Tur Puiosopny or Necessity; or, Law 1N
Minp asin Marrer. By Cuarues Bray.
Third edition. Longmans, Green & Co.
1 vol. 12mo. Pp. 407. Price, $1.75.

Tux readers of George Hliot’s “ Life,” as
related in her letters and journals, will re-
call her intimacy with the Bray family. In
Chapter II of that work Mr. Cross speaks
of her acquaintance with and admiration for
Charles Bray, mentions the book whose
title is given above (which was first pub-
lished in 1841), and adds that her associa-
tion with the author and his family “no
doubt hastened the change in her attitude
toward the dogmas of the old religion.”
With Mr. and Mrs. Bray, and the latter’s sis-
ter, there existed on the part of Miss
Evans “a beautiful and consistent friend-
ship, running like a thread through the woof
of ... thirty-eight years.”

It would be an excellent thing if the
reading public could be induced more often
to turn back to the works of those who
have carefully thought out the problems of
existence, rather than to demand new ex-
pressions which are apt to be more crude
and superficial. Did they but know it, they
would not seldom find a greater degree of
novelty in the old than in the recent. And
the republication of books which have com-
manded attention, but which, though excel-
lent, are in danger of being forgotten in the
multitude of novelties, is a highly commend-
able enterprise.

Among such works of a past generation
is “ The Philosophy of Necessity,” by Charles
Bray. It aims to justify the doctrine of the
uniformity of nature as construed by the
necessitarians and utilitarians, of whom the
Mills and Bentham are the type. The author
treats the subject first on the side of moral
and then of mental science. The best part
is the first division, wherein there is a very
able and valuable discussion of the origin,

objects, and advantages of evil, pain being
considered “as the necessary and most ef-
fectual guardian of that system of organiza-
tion upon which happiness depends.” Mr.
Bray is no pessimist. On the contrary, he
believes fully in the beneficial quality of
pain, that evil is only a means to.good, or
good in the making. The limitations of
human knowledge prevent us from seeing
this clearly, but an hypothesis to that effect
furnishes the only rational explanation of
the existence of suffering in the world. The
moral universe is governed by law, and its
laws “are as stable as those of the physical
world”; and, while “the causes of many
evils must still remain unexplained,” enough
is known to warrant the faith that “further
knowledge will make manifest the benevo-
lent tendency of all creation, and bring
home to every heart the all-cheering convic-
tion that ‘ whatever is, is right.’ ”

Tue GarpveEn’s Story; or, PLEASURES AND
TRIALS OF AN AMATEUR GARDENER. By
Grorce H. Erpwancer. New York: D.

Pp. 345. Price, $1.25.
Tue author of this work is an “ama-

teur” in the sense that he has a genuine

love for the gardener’s occupation; his
knowledge of the subject and familiarity
with plants and their relations with soil,
situation, weather, climate, and purpose, are
professional. His essay is practical in the
sense that one may learn from it well how
to manage a garden with the greatest suc-
cess, what plants to put in it, where to put
them, how to arrange them, and how to
treat them. It is to an equal extent
esthetical, for it is permeated with the
sense of the beautiful and of whatever is
pleasing to a refined taste, and draws freely
for illustration on the world’s stores of
poetry. Hence, whatever be the purpose of
the reader who takes it up, he will find
something respondent in it. The particular
design of the volume is to direct attention
to the importance of hardy flower-gardening

as a means of outward adornment and a

source of recreation; to present a simple

outline of the art rather than a formal trea-

tise or text-book of plants—“ to stimulate a

love for amateur gardening that may be car-

ried out by all who are willing to bestow
upon it that need of attention it so boun-

Appleton & Co.

848

tifully repays.” Having dwelt upon the
plans for the garden as revolved in antici-
pation during the storms of March, the au-
thor gives “ An Outline of the Garden,” ora
discussion of its general arrangement, the
selection of plants, and the provision of
stock. Among the first objects to be looked
after are “the spring wild flowers,” which
have been too much neglected heretofore,
but are beautiful, easily got, and (a great
many of them) easily cultivated. From the
attention given to the daffodil, we judge it
to be a decided favorite with the author.
In successive chapters are discussed “ The
Rock Garden,” the “Summer Flowers,”
“Two Garden Favorites” (the lily and the
rose), “Insect Visitors,” ‘‘ Hardy Shrubs
and Climbers,” flowers “In and Out of the
Garden,” “ The Hardy Fernery,” ‘ Midsum-
mer Flowers and Midsummer Voices,”
“Flowers and Fruits of Autumn,” and the
“ast Monk’s-hood Spire,” the variegated
colors and the poetry of the closing season.
Nearly all the plants referred to are such
ag may be successfully grown in the lower
lake region, and have for the most part
come under notice in the author’s garden.

History or HicHer Epvcation 1n SouTu
CaROLINA, WITH A SKETCH OF THE FREE
ScHoot System. By OGDEN MeRIweETHER.
Pp. 247.—Epucation In Georeia. By
CuHarLES EpGewortH Jones. Pp. 154.—
History or Epucation 1n Froria. By
Grorce Gary Buss. Pp. 54.—HicHER
Epvcation 1n Wisconsin. By Wittiam
F. ALLEN and Davin E. Spencer. Pp.
68. Washington: Government Printing-
Office.

THESE monographs constitute numbers
4, 5, 6, and 7 of the series of “ Contribu-
tions to American Educational History,”
which the United States Bureau of Educa-
tion is publishing, under the editorial super-
vision of Prof. Herbert B. Adams, in its
“Circulars of Information.” In the first
paper of the group, South Carolina is
shown to have been active at a very early
period in promoting the mental development
of its youth. Schools were founded and
maintained by the State government and by
private and charitable aid; and youth were
sent to England to school, who on their re-
turn gave new impetus to the movement.
The tardiness of the growth of colleges gave
occasion for the development of a good sys-

-THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tem of academies, and training schools were
brought within the reach of all. The first
college was founded in 1785. At present,
every religious denomination of any strength
in the State is represented by its college, and
attendance at most of the institutions is
gradually increasing. In the main, they
“follow the average college course, but,
owing to want of funds, they can not offer
many electives.” The strongest and most
famous institution is South Carolina College,
which had as its president for fourteen
years Thomas Cooper—a rash predecessor
of Huxley and the evolutionists in the
scientifico-religious discussion—and Francis
Lieber as a professor for twenty years.
Both of these eminent men were strong in
political science, and under their influence
the college gained a high reputation as a
center for the study of that and correlated
branches. The instruction of the negro
population was well attended to during the
earlier part of the history, and until, in
1834, an act was passed forbidding them to
be taught. An entire change has come
over the educational aspect since the war,
of which due notice is taken in the history.
Mr. Jones begins his sketch of “ Education
in Georgia ” with notices of the schools that
existed during the colonial epoch ; then tells
of the formation and conduct of academies
after the Revolutionary War ; and continues
with a review of the elementary education
afforded in the rural schools, an account of
the “ poor-school system,” its rise, develep-
ment, and decay; and a history of the be-
ginnings of the general system of schools
for whites, the application of which was in-
terrupted by the war. The thread of the
history is resumed after the war, and the
present condition of the schools and colleges
is described. Technological education has
been made prominent, with results that are
declared very satisfactory, at Emory Col-
lege; the industrial department at Clark
University is highly organized; and special
emphasis is laid on the industrial education
afforded at Atlanta University. Morris-
Brown College, with two hundred and eleven
pupils, is wholly under the charge of colored
people. Mr. Bush’s essay does not treat of
the higher education alone in Florida, but
sets forth in addition the growth and develop-
ment of the school system of the State. It

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

particularly emphasizes the rapid advance | tannins, and a chapter on dyes and coloring

made in all educational matters during the
last decade. Since 1880, “each year has
chronicled a steady advance, and the aggre-
gate results will bear favorable comparison
with the educational statistics of any other
State. The superintendent has been able to
report a gratifying progress in nearly every
particular: in the growth of the schools in
public favor; in the increased number of
schools and school children; in improved
buildings and enlarged funds; in a more
intelligent and better instructed body of
teachers; in a lengthened school year; and
in a ratio of attendance which, if correctly
reported, probably can not be surpassed in
any of the older States.” Messrs. Allen and
Spencer’s “ Higher Edueation in Wisconsin”
is the first of a series of monographs on the
group of Northwestern States in the angle
between the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers.
It gives only a general outline of the career
of each of the colleges, mostly compiled
from the sketches in their alumni records
and similar publications. The larger share
of space is given to the State University.
The five private colleges are described as to
the leading features and character of each
and the scope and tendency of their work ;
and brief notices of three others are given.
The execution of all these histories might be
improved upon. Mr. Meriwether’s on South
Carolina shows the most painstaking, but it
is considerably short of what such a work
ought to be.

Commerctat Or@anic ANALYSIS. By AL-
FRED H. Auten. Second edition, re-
vised and enlarged. Vol. III, Part I.
Aci Derivatives or PHenots, ARoMATIC
Acips, Tannins, Dyrs, AND CoLoRING
Marters. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston,
Son & Co. Pp. 481. Price, $4.50.
Anatysts will welcome the third install-

ment of this comprehensive and carefully

prepared work, which details the properties,
methods of proximate analytical examina-
tion, and assaying of the various organic
chemical substances employed in the arts,
manufactures, and medicine. The material
has so increased during revision that it will
occupy at least double the space of the
original two-volume edition. The part now
issued consists of a chapter on aromatic
acids, with an appendix descriptive of the
VOL, XXXy.—54

matters. The material relating to the latter
subject is almost all new, coloring matters
having been represented in the first edition
only by sections on picric acid and basic
anilin derivatives. In the present edition
these substances are treated under the fol-
lowing ten divisions ; nitro and nitroso color-
ing matters, aurin and its allies, phthaleins,
azo coloring matters, rosanilin and its allies,
safranines and indophenols, coloring mat-
ters from anthracene, sulphureted and un-
classified coal-tar dyes, and coloring matters
of natural origin. There remain to be
treated in the second part of Vol. III, which
will complete the work, organic bases, cyan-
ogen compounds, albuminoids, ete.

STELLAR HVoLUTION AND ITS RELATIONS TO
GroLtocicaL Time. By James Cno.t.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 118.
Price, $1.

Mr. Crott in this book presents what he
calls the “Impact Theory ” of stellar evolu-
tion—a theory which, as applied te our sun,
supposes that it was formed from a hot
gaseous nebula, produced by the colliding of
two dark stellar masses. The stars, being
suns like our own, in all likelihood had a
similar origin. He believes that this theory,
which was proposed as a hypothesis some
twenty years ago, has been strengthened by
the astronomical and physical facts that have
accumulated since that time. The hypothesis
does not exclude the nebular theory, but
rather includes it, and enlarges it by sup-
posing what was in the world previous to the
nebule. It assumes that previous to their .
formation there were stellar masses in mo-
tion; that the motion was in straight lines,
and, as to each mass, without reference to
the existence of any other; that two or more
of these masses would casually collide; and
that the collision would result in the break-
ing of them up, with the production of heat,
and the rebounding of the fragments upon
one another would end with the resolution of
the whole into a nebula of inconceivably high
temperature, whence the universe has been
evolved, as supposed by Laplace’s hypothesis,
Here is an unlimited source for the energy
possessed by the sun and solar system, to
which the only conceivable alternative is
gravitation. The latter is held to be inade-

850

quate to account for the amount and intensi-
ty of the energy. There are cited as sup-
porting the impact theory, or as illustrating
it, the meteorites, which may be residual por-
tions of some of the original solid bodies;
comets, for which a similar origin may be
supposed; the motions of the stars, which
are of greater velocity than can result from
gravitation; the facility with which the
theory will explain nearly every feature of
the nebule; and binary stars, sudden out-
bursts of stars, and star clusters. An argu-
ment is based on the insufficiency of the
gravitation theory to account for the heating
of the primary nebula, while the “ impact
theory” furnishes at once a sufficient origin
for it; and another, which is styled “a cru-
cial test,” on the requisitions of geological
time as dependent on the antiquity of the
sun’s heat. It is mathematically demon-
strable that, if gravitation be the only source
from which the sun derived its heat, life on
the globe can not date further back than
twenty million years; and attempts have
been macs to measure the geological ages by
this rule. Mr. Croll argues, from the evi-
dences afforded by the amount of denudation
that has occurred, and its calculated rate,
and by biological development, that the pro-
cesses which have taken place can not be
subjected to such limitations. Further light
is cast upon the theory by citations from the
views, or consideration of questions suggested
by them, of Prof. A. Winchell, Mr. Charles
Morris, Sir William R. Grove, Sir Benjamin
Brodie, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, Mr. William
Crookes, Prof. F. W. Clarke, and Dr. G.
Jobnstone Stoney, on the prenebular condi-
tion of matter.

Darwinism : AN EXPLANATION OF THE THEORY
or NATURAL SELECTION, WITH SOME OF ITS
AppiicaTions. By ALFrep Russet WAL-
LACE. London and New York: Macmillan
& Co. Pp. 494. Price, $1.75.

Tus work treats of the origin of species
on the same general lines as were adopted
by Darwin, but in the light of the discus-
sions, objections, theories, and new discov-
eries that have been brought forth in the
nearly thirty years which have elapsed since
Darwin promulgated his great principle.
The objections made to Darwin’s theory in its
earlier days were fundamental, and were di-
rected against the principle itself. But Dar-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

win “did his work so well that ‘descent with
modifications’ is now universally accepted as
the order of Nature in the organic world;
and the rising generation of naturalists can
hardly realize the novelty of this idea, or
that their fathers considered it a scientific
heresy to be condemned rather than serious-
ly discussed.” The objections now made to
the theory apply solely to the particular
means by which the change of species has
been brought about. The objectors seek to
minimize the agency of natural selection, and
to subordinate it to laws of variation, of use
and disuse, of intelligence and heredity. Mr.
Wallace maintains the overwhelming impor-
tance of natural selection over all other
agencies in the production of new species,
He begins with illustrating the struggle for
existence, which he considers one of the
most important and universal, and yet least
understood, forces of Nature. Next, varia-
bility is shown to be constant, universal, in-
cessant, and frequent. It was a weakness in
Mr. Darwin’s argument that he based it so
largely on the evidence of domesticated ani-
mals and plants. Mr. Wallace goes to Nature,
and finds variation just as much the rule
with species in the wild state, illustrating the
fact with numerous citations and diagrams;
and the objection that the preponderance of
chances is immensely against the right varia-
tion or combination of variations occurring
just when required, is blown away by show-
ing that all forms of variation are all the
time occurring. The argument is continued
as to the relations of crosses, color, mimicry,
heredity, and the geographical distribution
of organisms, The objection based upon the
failure to find evidences of the existence or
former existence of a great number of the
connecting links, which the theory of evolu-
tion supposes must have been developed, is
answered by showing that the geological
record of former forms is, and always will
be, very imperfect, particularly with reference
to animals and plants of the upland; and
good reasons are given to show why it must
be so. The views of Mr. Spencer, as set
forth in his “Factors of Organic Evolution,”
and of Prof. Cope, Dr. Karl Semper, Prof.
Geddes, and Prof. Weismann, are taken up,
and claimed not materially to diminish the
importance of natural selection, or to show
that any of the laws or forces to which they

LITERARY NOTICES.

appeal can act otherwise than in strict sub-
ordination to it. In application to man, Mr.
Wallace finds natural selection ample to the
development of his physical structure, but
failing to account for his moral and intel-
lectual faculties.

Tae Enerish Sparrow 1n NortH AMERICA,
ESPECIALLY IN ITS RELATIONS TO AGRI-
cuLTURE. Prepared under the Direction
of Dr. C. Hart Merriman, Ornithologist,
by Wattrr B. Barrows, Assistant Or-
nithologist. Washington: Government
Printing-Office. Pp. 405.

THIs monograph is published as “ Bul-
letin No. 1” of the “ Division of Economic
Ornithology and Mammalogy” of the De-
partment of Agriculture, and is designed to
communicate the evidence from first hands
respecting the character of the English
sparrow, and its desirability or otherwise as
a denizen of our own country. We have
persecuted the hawk and the owl and the
crow with guns and bounties and poison.
Farmers’ boys have lain in wait to shoot the
robins and cat-birds that came to their
cherry-trees. The ladies of the civilized
world have thousands of agents in all coun-
tries, the United States included, hunting
birds to obtain the wherewithal they may
decorate their hats. One of our choicest
amusements is to hunt for the mere sake of
killing ; and an amateur sportsman boasted
the other day in a newspaper of having
killed a thousand birds in a week, which,
having no use for them, he gave to the
farmers on whose land he poached. The
first impulse on seeing a strange bird is to
kill it. At last, after the birds had been
exterminated in our large cities and made
rare in the country at large, sparrows were
introduced as a partial but certainly in-
adequate and unsatisfactory remedy for
the mischief that had been done by rashly
disturbing the balance of nature. As soon
as they became numerous they were accused
of driving useful birds away. There are un-
questionably too many of them, and they
multiply too fast; they are quarrelsome
and tyrannical; and they are inefficient
insect-destroyers as compared with the spe-
cies we have allowed to be nearly extermi-
nated. Whether or not they assist man in
driving other birds away is a question of
fact. The present report contains answers

851

from thirty-three hundred persons in the
country at large respecting the character
and habits of the sparrow. The answers,
mostly dated in 1886, represent all sorts
of views, and are often contradictory. There
is no means of estimating the relative
value of the testimonies. The witnesses
against the sparrow preponderate in num-
bers; but among those in its favor many
are known to be accurate and intelligent
observers. Mr, Nicholas Pike, who intro-
duced them, an accomplished naturalist,
is sure that they exterminated the measur-
ing-worm from the trees of Brooklyn; and
his testimony will be corroborated by all
persons whose recollections run back far ,
enough to compare the summer appearance
of that city, with its trees bare as if a fire
had swept through them, before the spar-
rows came, with the luxuriant foliage they
obtained after the birds had worked a year
or two upon them. There are many other
testimonies to the destruction of insects by
sparrows; but other birds are better at the
business. Many equally intelligent and
trustworthy witnesses, while admitting their
quarrelsomeness, deny that the sparrows
drive other birds away. Some of the States
have recently passed laws to prevent the fur-
ther destruction of song and plumage birds.
Where these laws are enforced, the desir-
able birds are coming back, and the spar-
rows are not keeping them away. Man,
not sparrows, is the enemy they have the
most reason to dread.

Tue Journat or MorpHotogy. Edited by
C. O. Wurman, with the Co-operation of
Epwarp Puewrs Axis, Jr. Vol. II, No.
8, April, 1889. Boston: Ginn & Co.
Pp. 250, with many Plates,

Tar “ Journal” has fixed a high mark,
both in the quality of its articles and in the
style of setting them forth, and adheres to
it. The present number contains a study
of the ‘“‘ Uterus and Embryo of the Rabbit
and of Man,” by Charles Sedgwick Minot;
“The Anatomy and Development of the
Lateral Line System in Amia Calva,” by
Mr. Allis; ‘‘The Organization of Atoms and
Molecules,” by Prof. A. E. Dolbear; ‘‘Some
New Facts about the Hirudinea,” by Mr.
Whitman; and “Segmental Sense-Organs
of Arthropods,” by William Patten.

852.

Wuat Moses SAW AND HEARD; OR, THE
Ipza or Gop IN THE Oxp TESTAMENT.
By A. O. Butter. Chicago: R. R. Don-
nelley & Sons. Pp. 434.

In this book a study is made of the char-
acter of the material surroundings in which
the authors of the Old Testament were placed,
and the nature of the impressions upon
them which the Church regards as revela-
tions from Deity, and which they describe
as the voice of God speaking to them, or as
appearances in a vision or a dream. It in-
volves also an inquiry into their psychologi-
cal condition. In the chapters on ‘“ The
Bible as it is” and “The Publication of
the Pentateuch,” the author’s conclusions
“respecting the origin and dates of the books
agree in the main with those of the school
of criticism represented by Kuenen. The
inquiry is continued in chapters on ‘“ The
Idea of God in Creation,” ‘“ What Moses
saw and heard,” and “ The Spirit of Inspira-
tion.” It is held that Moses saw the pres-
ence of God in the lightning or the fire,
and heard his voice in the clouds; and the
agency of God in the work of creation was
the divine spiritual fire which the author of
Genesis saw flashing in the clouds. Those
who reject this construction may still find
the interpretation of his expressions in the
motion which God by his word, or by some
power in himself, in the first instance com-
municated to matter. This suggests to the
author the inquiry whether the writer of the
first chapter of Genesis and the twentieth
chapter of Exodus did not know that light
was only a mode of motion.

An Inrropuction to Taz Locan Constitv-
TIONAL History oF THE UNiTED SraTEs-
By Grorcr BE. Howarp. Vol. JI. Devel.
opment of the Township, Hundred, and
Shire. Baltimore: Publication Agency
of the Johns Hopkins University. Pp.
626.

Turs work forms an extra volume of the
“Johns Hopkins University Studies in His-
torical and Political Science.” In it a sub-
ject is treated which, although it has been a
very important feature in the development of
the American colonies and the organization
of our States, has received but little system-
atic attention. It is only recently, in fact,
that the matter of local governmental organ-
izations has been formally considered by his-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

torians and political students. But, since
Freeman began publishing his historical
studies, the theory of an English local con-
stitution, coeval in origin with that of the
race, has become familiar; and, as the in-
vestigation has been extended, such a con-
stitution has been found to have been a
characteristic feature of Aryan civilization.
Nowhere has local self-government played a
more important part than in the development
of our own American institutions, and it has
become common with publicists to assign to
it the origin of some of the most precious
features of our system of government. As
the author of this work remarks, in describ-
ing the New England town-meeting, “it is
difficult to see, without the township, how
the Englishman could have triumphed over
the Frenchman in the struggle for the con-
trol of the continent; it is no less difficult
to understand how, without it, the English
race in America could have grown into an
independent nation.” The development of
the various forms which local government
has assumed in the United States is traced
back to its beginning, and the modifications
they have undergone are followed. Their
origin lies far back in the history of the
race. In this light are described the evolu-
tion of the township, hundred, and shire or
county, with their various aspects, their di-
visions, and their combinations. The book
is intended simply as a general introduction
to the study of the subject, and leaves room
for special treatment in different localities.
But it points out “a rich field in which many
laborers may find profitable employment,”
and which it would be well to have carefully
cultivated.

Numbers Universalized, by David M.
Sensenig (Appletons’ Mathematical Series:
D. Appleton & Co.), is intended as an ad-
vanced elementary algebra, which will be
made part first of a higher algebra soon to
be completed. It is thus bound separately
in order to meet the wants of such schools
as have arranged a higher course in algebra
than is outlined and treatedin the author’s
first book, ‘‘ Numbers Symbolized,” and yet
have not time enough devoted to this branch
to complete a full course in higher algebra.
It is especially adapted to schools preparing
students for college, and to advanced classes

LITERARY NOTICES.

in high and normal schools. While too great
simplicity in treatment has been avoided,
care has been taken to preserve the logical
sequence of thought and to prevent the dis-
cussions from becoming unnecessarily ab-
struse and difficult. Examples have been
selected with special reference to variety in
combination and methods of reduction.

In his Graduated Course of Natural Sci-
ence (Macmillan) Mr. Benjamin Loewy en-
deavors to place the fundamental facts of
physics and chemistry upon a purely experi-
mental basis. The principal subjects usu-
ally embraced by a school course in these
branches are arranged in a progressive man-
ner, “so that the pupil may be able to pro-
ceed gradually from that which is known,
simple, and easy, to that which is unknown,
complex, and difficult; from that which is
near and within a young learner’s perception,
to what is more recondite.” It is also a part
of the plan to give no instruction but that
which is conveyed through experiments and
the immediate consequences of the phenom-
ena observed, as deduced by a chain of sim-
ple reasoning. The present volume (Part I)
of one hundred and fifty-one pages comprises
the first year’s course for elementary schools
and the junior classes of technical schools
and colleges.

The First Report of Mr. John C. Smock
(Charles Van Benthuysen & Sons, Albany), On
the Iron Mines and Iron-Ore Districts in the
State of New York, is based in part on the
answers by managers of mines to letters of
inquiry addressed to them, and partly on a
personal survey of the mining district.
Nearly all the mines were visited, and notes
of their geographical situation and geologi-
cal relations were obtained. The answers
to letters of inquiry furnished valuable data,
especially in the relations of the mines to
the iron-mining and iron-manufacturing in-
dustries of the country. Short notices of
the older mines and of some of the aban-
doned mine localities have been incorpo-
rated in the report. The paper is published
as “ Bulletin” No. 7 of the New York State
Museum of Natural History.

The Report, by Dr. George M. Dawson,
on an Exploration in the Yukon District,
Northwestern Territory, and adjacent North-
ern Portion of British Columbia, gives the
results of an expedition made in 1887, in

853

the vast and hitherto almost unknown re-
gion in the extreme Northwest of British
America. The tract in question is bounded
on the south by the sixtieth parallel, forming
the northern line of British Columbia, on the
west by Alaska, on the east by the Rocky
Mountains and the one hundred and thirty-
sixth meridian, and on the north by the
Arctic Ocean, It derives its name from its
lying within the drainage-basin of the Yukon
River. It has an area of about one hundred
and ninety-two thousand square miles, or
nearly equal to that of France, greater than
that of the United Kingdom by seventy-one
thousand square miles, ten times that of
Nova Scotia, and nearly three times that of
the New England States. The report is ac-
companied by a map of the district and
northern British Columbia, in three sheets.

Geonomy and Oosmonomia (J. B. Lip-
pincott Company) presents theories on the
origin of ocean currents and the growth of
worlds and cause of gravitation, by J. Stanley
Grimes, who is also the author of theories
in mental physiology that have been favora-
bly mentioned by such authorities as Dr.
McCosh, the Rey. Joseph Cook, and the late
Dr. G. M. Beard, and of a new view of the
nebular system. In Geonomy he sets forth
that the continents originated in the sink-
ing of the ocean basins beneath weights of
sediment, accompanied by compensatory up-
heavals, and were shaped by six pairs of
elliptical oceanic currents, the sedimentary
deposits of which caused the sinkings. In
Cosmonomia the condensation of ether is
presented as the cause of the growth of
worlds and of gravitation.

Mr. H. H. Johnston’s History of a Slave
presents a dark aspect of affairs in Arabo-
savage Africa. The author, who has ac-
quired fame as an explorer, and particularly
as the leader of an expedition for ascending
Mount Kilimanjaro, has attempted in it to
give a realistic sketch of life in the western
Soudan. The story is the outcome of some
of his own experiences, and is especially
based on what he has seen and heard when
traveling in North Africa, in the Niger
Delta, and on the Cross River. It does not
describe any particular series of events as
they actually occurred, but combines iso-
lated incidents such as are not unknown in
the country into a connected, consecutive

854 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. '

story—or, to use the words of the author, he
has pieced together the accounts given him
by negro slaves in the Barbary states and
in western equatorial Africa. Some of the
incidents have been actually witnessed by
him during some one of his journeys. The
persons and places named are of real exist-
ence, as are also the languages quoted. The
story is illustrated by forty-seven full-page
pictures, from original drawings by the au-
thor—true delineations of African life and
scenery, most of which have been done in
Africa from actuality. No concoctor of fic-
tion could invent a more tragic story than
this one of a real life which is still happen-
ing every day.

The eighth issue of the Annual Index to
Periodicals (W. M. Griswold, Bangor, Maine)
is brought down to July, 1889. It contains
the lists of titles of articles and authors, in
the notation peculiar to Mr. Griswold’s in-
dexes, for twenty-five American and foreign
periodicals.

Under the title of The Two Great Re-
treats of History, Ginn & Co. publish in a
single volume, where they can be read com-
paratively, Grote’s account of the Retreat
of the Ten Thousand Greeks, taken from his
history of Greece entire, except for a few
verbal changes; and an abridgment of Count
Ségur’s narrative of Napoleon’s retreat from
Russia. The book is designed for school
use, and is furnished with maps, an intro-
duction--to each section, and explanatory
notes vy “D. A. M.”

The Popilar History of California, by
Incia <orman, is published by the Bancroft
Company, San Francisco, in a revised and
enlarged second edition. The first edition,
published in 1873, was well received. The
“enlargements” bring the story down to the
present time. The history of this State pre-
sents a considerable variety of incident. It
includes periods of discovery and of coloni-
zation by the Spaniards; of the prominence
of the missions; of the Mexican War and the
conquest of the country by the United States;
of the discovery of gold and the gold-hunt-
ing excitement; of filibustering and vigi-
lance committees; and of agricultural and
horticultural development, in which, rather
than in gold, California seems destined to
find the true source of its wealth.

Three language-studies of different char-

acter, each having its peculiar value, are pub-
lished by Ginn & Co. The Practical Latin
Composition of Mr. William C. Collar sets
forth a method of teaching which has been
satisfactorily tried by the author after
breaking with the traditional method, and
which rests on the principle that the exer-
cise should be based upon the very words of
some Latin author. These words furnish
him a living model, in which he must find all
his material—order, words, idioms, and con-
structions—and in which he must observe all
the points wherein the structure varies from
that of his own tongue. He is expected to
familiarize himself first with the Latin pas-
sage and the details and peculiarities of its
construction, and then to execute his exer-
cise, reproducing the words and construc-
tions, but with many changes of form, and
in altered combinations ; and to refer to
the original only for correction and veri-
fication. |

Next in the group is the Pages chovsis
des Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon, in
preparing which Mr. 4. V. Van Daell has
been actuated by the belief that the study
of a foreign language ought to bring students

in contact with the master-minds of foreign —

nations. Too few of such works are ac-
cessible to ordinary students. Among the
desirable ones is that of Saint-Simon, which
“is one of the landmarks of French litera-
ture. ‘The selection of such a book as this
for class use presupposes a certain degree
of maturity on the part of the student.
The editor has taken no other liberties with
the text than to omit, ‘‘as the occasion re-
quired,” unsuitable expressions or sentences.
Notes—all in French—are furnished, ex-
plaining difficult expressions and making
yarious points more clear.

The third of Ginn & Co.’s linguistic
publications is the translation of the Anglo-
Saxon poems, Hlene, Judith, Athelstan, and
Byrhtnoth, by James M. Garnett. The trans-

‘lations were made in the course of class
1
work, are critical, and are based on carefully

revised editions. ‘‘Elene” relates to the

search for the true cross by the Empress —

Helena; “Judith” is a version of the Hebrew
legend; and “ Athelstan” and “ Byrhtnoth”
relate to battles in Anglo-Saxon history.

In Oceania; Linguistic and Anthropo-
logical (Melbourne and London), the Rev. D.

esa ee a Se nae eae

LITERARY NOTICES.

MacDonald, missionary at Havannah Har-
bor, New Hebrides, presents a study of Poly-
nesian languages and mythology. Though
such studies must be for the present chiefly
tentative, it is hardly possible to speak too
highly of their value as aids in the investi-
gation of the origins and migrations of the
human races. The author of this study
makes a critical and comparative analysis of
a number of Oceanic dialects, and deduces
the conclusion, from certain identities among
them, that they all sprang from one inflec-
tional mother-tongue, and this was a branch
of the Shemitic family.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Barnes, Mary Sheldon. General: History in the
High School. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co. Pp. 6.

Branner, John C., Ph. D. Annual Report of the
Geological Survey of Arkansas, for 1858. Vol. IL.
The Neozoic Geology of Southwestern Arkansas,
ete. Pp. 319, with Map.—Vol. ILI. The Geology
ofthe Coal Regions. Pp. 122, with Map.

Brown, Harold P. Electrical Distribution of
Heat, Light, and Power; and Mitchell, J.M. Legis-
lative Control of Dangerous Electrical Currents.
New York: J. W. Pratt & Son, Pp. 48.

Burgess, J. B., Newport, R. I. A Method of
teaching College Preparatory History. Boston:
D.C. Heath & Co. Pp. 15.

Cope, E. D. The Batrachia of North America.
Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp.
525.

Colman, Norman J. Report of the Comunis-
sioner of Agriculture, for 1888. Washington: Gov-
ernment Printing-Office. Pp. 708.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Bulletin No. 98. Home-mixed Fertilizers. Pp. 7.
—No. 99, Fertilizer Analysis. Pp. 5.

Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion Bulletin. On the Influence of Certain Condi-
tions on the Sprouting of Seeds. By L. H. Bailey.
Pp. 10.—Effect of Different Kations on fattening
Lambs. By J. P. Rogers and Henry H. Wing. Pp.
12,

Flagg, Isaac, Editor. Euripides. Iphigenia anong
oy Taurians. Boston; Ginn & Cu. E pando

1.50.

Foster, Michael, and Others. The “Journal of
Physiology.” Vol. X, No. 5. (July, 1839.) Cam-
bridge (England) Scientific Instrument Company.
Pp. 102. $35 a volume.

Ginn & Co,, Boston. How shall I teach History?
Pp. 60.

Gould, George M., M. D. The Modern Frank-
enstein. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Com-
pany. Pp. 25.

Great Words from Great Americans. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Pp. 207. 75 cents.

Hill, Robert T. Hieontolory of the Cretaceous
Formations of Texas. Part I. Austin. Three
Plates, with Text. 25 cents.

Hogue, Addison. The Irregular Verbs of Attic
Prose, ete. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 268. $1.60.

Hollander, Bernard, London. A Demonstration
of Centers of Ideation in the Brain from Observa-
tion and Experiment. Pp. 26.

Kent, Charles W., Editor. Cynewulf’s Elene.
An Old English Poem, with Notes, etc. Boston:
Ginn & Co. Pp. 149. 65 cents.

855

McGill University, Montreal. Faculty of Medi-
eine. Arnual Calendar, 1889-’90, Pp. 92.

MeLaury, William M.,M. D, The Senses, Five
or Seven. Pp. 12.

Mahaffy, John P., and Bernard. John H. Kant’s
Critical Philosophy for English Readers. Vol. LI.
The Prolegomena, Translated, with Notes, etc. Lon-
ci and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 239.

50.

Minor, Francis, St. Louis.
Suffrage. Pp. 8,

Moses, Bernard. The Federal Government of
Switzerland, Oakland, Cal.: Pacifie Press Publish-
ing Company. New York: 43 Bond Street. Pp.
256. $1.50.

Miller, F, Max. Natural Religion. London and
New. York; Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 608.
$5.

New England Meteorological Society. Bulletin.
July, 1889. Pp. 8.

Ott, Isaac’s, Private Laboratory, Haston, Pa.
Contributions to the Physiology and Pathology of
the Nervous System. Pp. about 40.

Peck, John Lord. The Kingdom of the Un-
selfish, or the Empire of the Wise. New York:
Empire Book Bureau. Pp. 486, $1.50.

Pennsylvania, University of. Handbook of In-
formation concerning the School of Biology. Pp.
125, with Plates.

Phyffe, W. H. P. Seven Thousand Words often
mispronounced, New York: G, P. Putnam’s Sons.
Pp. 491. $1.25.

Poor, H. VY. and H. W. Introduction to Poor's
Manual of the Railroads of the United States, 1889.

p. 38.

Richards, John. Manual of Machine Construc-
tion for Engineers, Draughtsmen, and Mechanics.
ea J.B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 154.

The Law of Federal

Ripley, Chauncey B. Biographical Sketch of.
New York: Tiffany & Co. Pp. 4, with Portrait.

Sampson, J. Sidney. Evolution of Theology.
ne New Ideal Publishing Company. Pp. 22.
cents.

Shufeldt, Dr. R. W. Observations upon the Os-
teology of Tubinaries and Steganopodes. Wash-
ington. Pp. 63.—Osteological Studies of the Sub-
family Ardeinez. Part I. Pp. 26.—Osteology of
Arctic and Sub-arctic Water-Birds. Pp. 22.

Skilton, James A. Evolution of Society. Bos-
ton: New Ideal Publishing Company. P+ 30. 10
cents.

Steinitz, W. The Modern Cicss Instructor.
New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Pp.
193. $1.50.

Storrs School Experiment Station Bulletin, July,
1889. Bacteria in Milk and its Products. P H.W.
Conn. Pp. 12.

Stowell, T. B., Cortland, N. Y. The Soft Palate
in the Domestic Cat. Pp. 19.—The Glosso-Pharyn-
geal, the Accessory, and Hypoglossal Nerves in the
Domestic Cat. Pp. 14, with Plates.

Symonds, Brandreth, M. D. A Manual of Chem-
istry for the Use of Medical Students. Philadel-
phia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp 154. $2.

Tillman, 8. E. Elementary Lessons in Heat.
Aiea J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 160.

True, Frederick W. Contributions to the Natu-
ral History of the Cetaceans. . A Review of the
Family Delphinide. Washington: Government
Printing-Office. Pp. 190, with Plates,

Verrazzano’s Voyage (1524). Boston: D. C.
Heath & Co. (Old South Leaflets.) Pp. 16. 5
cents.

Ward, Lester F. The Sociological Position of
Protection and Free Trado, Washington; Judd &
Detweiler. Pp. 10.

Yale University. Report of the Observatory for
1888-89, Pp. 18.

856

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Function of a University.—Presi-
dent D.S. Jordan has a warning in one of
his recent papers against attaching too much
significance to numbers in estimating the
usefulness of a university. The kind of
work that students are doing is the really
important consideration. One student in
quaternions, or in Germanic philology, or
trained to carry a scientific investigation to
an end, is worth more than a dozen in trigo-
nometry, or stumbling over the elements in
Whitney’s Grammar, or learning to analyze
flowers or identify the muscles of a cat.
Great numbers may mean crowded class-
rooms, overworked professors, and drudg-
ery, instead of investigation, and the univer-
sity a huge machine for lower education
rather than a center for the discovery and
dissemination of truth. ‘“ The highest func-
tion of the real university is that of instruc-
tion by investigation.”

Death of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley.—The
Rey. M. J. Berkeley, the distinguished Eng-
lish botanist, died July 30th, at Sibbertoft,
near Market Harborough, in his eighty-sev-
enth year. While his knowledge was very
general, he was most eminent in crypto-
gamic botany, and particularly in the prov-
ince of the fungi, in which he was a leading
authority. He was born near Oundle in
1808. Having been graduated from Christ’s
College, Cambridge, he took orders as a
clergyman, and occupied curacies in various
places, adding to his income at times by
taking pupils, and pursuing during his whole
life the scientific researches that have given
him fame. His earliest work was among
the mollusca, but he soon turned his atten-
tion to botany, particularly to the study and
classification of the cryptogams. Among his
earlier researches were those into the nature
of yeast and the vine mildew, the latter re-
sulting in the discovery of the sulphur rem-
edy. His descriptions of the British fungi
in Dr. Hooker’s “ British Flora,” published
in 1836, constituted for more than twenty-
five years the only text-book on the subject
possessing any degree of completeness. The
portions of Lindley’s “ Vegetable Kingdom ”
relating to fungi are also mainly Mr, Berke-
ley’s work, and much of the matter relating

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to other orders of cryptogams was contrib-
uted by him. A more important and com-
prehensive work was his “‘ Introduction to
Cryptogamic Botany,” published in 1857,
He was associated with Lindley from an
early period in the preparation of articles
for the “ Journal’? of the Royal Horticult-
ural Society relating to the influence of
parasitical plants on growing crops and the
application of vegetable physiology to pur-
poses of cultivation. He was a valued con-
tributor and kind of advisory editor to the
“‘Gardener’s Chronicle” from its establish-
ment in 1841 to within a few years of his
death; and in it he published a series of
articles on vegetable pathology, which have
not been collected. His researches on the
potato disease made clear that it was caused
by a fungus. Travelers became accustomed
to submit to him for examination the fungi
collected by them, and until within a year
or two of his death he continued to publish
descriptions of plants of this class from all
parts of the world. He is credited by the
“ Atheneum” with having been among the
first to recognize the necessity of studying
the whole life-history of the plants before
pronouncing a definite opinion as to their
place in a natural scheme of classification ;
and to advocate and practice the culture of
them for the observation of the transitions
of their forms.

The Yellowstone Park Country.—Ac-
cording to Mr. Arnold Hague, geologist, the
country across the Yellowstone Park plateau
and the Absaroka Range presents a contin-
uous mountain mass seventy-five miles in
width, with an average elevation unsur-
passed by any area of equal extent in the
northern Rocky Mountains. It is exception-
ally situated to collect the moisture-laden
clouds which, coming from the southwest,
precipitate immense quantities of snow and
rain upon the cool table-land and neighbor-
ing mountains. The climate, in many re-
spects, is quite unlike that of the adjacent
country, the amount of snow and rainfall
being higher, and the mean annual tempera-
ture lower. Rain-storms occur frequently
throughout the summer, while snow is likely
to fall at any time between September and
May. Protected by the forests, the deep
snows of winter lie upon the plateau well

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

into midsummer, while at still greater alti-
tudes, in sheltered places, it remains through-
out the year. By its topographical structure
the park is designed by nature as a reservoir
for receiving, storing, and distributing an
exceptional water-supply, unexcelled by any
area near the head-waters of the great rivers.
The continental divide, separating the waters
of the Atlantic from those of the Pacific,
crosses the plateau from southeast to north-
west. On both sides of this divide lie sev-
eral bodies of water, which form so marked
a feature in the scenery of the plateau that
the region has been designated the lake coun-
try of the park. Yellowstone Lake presents
a superficial area of 139 square miles, and a
shore-line of nearly 100 miles. The dis-
charge at the outlet was found in Septem-
ber, 1886, to be 1,525 cubic feet per second,
or about 35,000,000 imperial gallons per
hour. Dr. William Hallock estimates, from
measurements, that the amount of water
running into the park and leaving it by the
five main drainage channels would be equiv-
alent to a stream five feet deep, one hundred
and ninety feet wide, with a current of three
miles per hour, and that over an area of four
thousand square miles the minimum dis-
charge was equal to one cubic foot per sec-
ond per square mile. For the preservation
and regulation of this water-supply, the for-
est, which covers the mountains, valleys, and
table-lands, and everywhere borders upon
the lake-shores, is of inestimable value. Of
the present park area about eighty-four per
cent is forest-clad, mostly with coniferous
trees.

The Glacier of Mount Tacoma.—Relat-
ing, in the “School of Mines Quarterly,” an
excursion to the great glacier of Mount Ta-
coma, Mr. Baily Willis describes the glacier,
when the party came upon it from the bed
of Carbon River, as rising, like a wall of ice,
from thirty to fifty feet, across the path,
while the river tumbled in little cascades
from a low cave in the center. The upper
surface of the wall, all its sharp ends having
been melted off, was covered with a layer of
rock and earth. “I think,” says the author,

“there can be no better illustration of the

advance of a glacier to the point where the
melting at itsface balances the downward
progress, than this worn, shrunken extrem-

857

ity, pressed on as itis by a vast accumula-
tion of ice in the basin between Tacoma and
Crescent Mountain. It pushes no great ter-
minal moraine before it. It meets with no
obstruction save the narrowness of the cafion;
but here in the shadow of the cliffs the air-
currents from the west bid it halt.” The
Crescent Mountain glacial system is fed by
slopes which descend ten thousand feet in
five miles from the Liberty Cap, Tacoma’s
northern summit. “Much too steep for
snow to lie on, except on the highest shoul-
ders where it packs to a depth of several
hundred feet, the upper third of this tre-
mendous height is bare black rock, on which
the avalanches shatter into clouds of eddy-
ing smoke. The lower four miles are cov-
ered with a sheet of flashing ice, which push-
es downward over the uneven surface, here
carrying huge gleaming pinnacles aloft, there
flowing in graceful curves like a river’s cur-
rent. Its western portion comes onward to
the cliffs of Crescent Mountain, nearly three
thousand feet high, and turning from them
sweeps down into the gorge of Carbon River;
the eastern part extends a long tongue into
a meadow brilliant with flowers, whence
White River plunges into its unexplored
cafion, This meadow is but one end of a
green valley that nestles strangely in this
region of perpetual frost and sterile rocks,
bounded on three sides by ice and snow, and
on the fourth by forbidding precipices.”

Origin of New Forest Growths.—Obser-
vations on the “new growth” of trees that
appears after forest fires have been de-
scribed by Prof. W. J. Beal, of the Michigan
Forestry Commission. The stubs of most
deciduous trees sprout after a fire, and are
capable of preserving their vitality for a very
long time. Slender oaks, resembling young
sprouts, may be found in the forests attached
to clumped roots of “ grubs” of various
sizes, that will show that the present growth
is the first, second, third, or fourth sprout
that has apparently come in succession from
the same foundation. Of three little oals
which were found still having the remains of
the seedling acorns attached by the stems of
the cotyledons, one was five years old. Oth-
ers, some four inches high and less than an
eighth of an inch in diameter, were shown
by the remains of the bud-rings to be from

858

four to ten years old. “It is not difficult to
find white oaks under eighteen inches high
that are twenty or more years old, and then
this may be the second, third, or fourth
sprout that has followed in succession, so
that it is not improbable that in some of the
cases seen the parent root or grub was from
sixty to one hundred years old; and the
whole now not an inch in diameter anywhere
above the ground. Then what shall we say
of the age of some grubs that weigh from
thirty to fifty pounds each?” Pines and hem-
locks will not grow from stumps, but the
seeds have a vitality corresponding to that
of the deciduous “grubs.” In the cone they
may be preserved with hardly impaired in-
tegrity for five or six years; and cones of
Pinus Banksiana have been seen, unopened
and apparently perfect, that were ten or
fifteen years old. “I feel confident,” Prof.
Beal says, “that, in an hour or two spent in
a certain favorable place, I could fully satisfy
any intelligent person, unless he be unusu-
ally stubborn, that itis an easy matter to
prove that new forests spring from seeds or
the stumps of the old, and that, when the
second growth ig in some respects unlike
the first, the change is accounted for in a
rational manner.”

The Oyster-Garden of Arecachon.—The
great oyster-garden at Arcachon, France, is
a basin on the Bay of Biscay, connected with
the Atlantic only by a very narrow opening,
and is sixty-eight miles in circumference and
protected from winds by the pine-clad heights
that surround it. The waters are salt enough
and yet not too strong, the bottom is of
the gravelly sand favorable to oyster-breed-
ing, and the rise and fall of the tide are
such that the basin is completely covered at
high tide and the beds are largely uncovered
at low water. The oyster has always been
an inhabitant of this spot. The stock had
become nearly exhausted forty years ago,
but has been recruited by individual enter-

prise under the encouragement of the Gov-

ernment. There are now 12,500 acres of
oyster-beds in the basin. Several thousand
men and women are employed to attend
them, and the average annual sale of oysters
by the principal firm is over 200,000,000.
As the majority are not sold under two years
old, and these only for relaying, it is com-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

puted that there are usually 500,000,000
oysters of various ages upon these beds,
The beds having been artificially made, the
whole process of oyster-breeding can be wit-
nessed there. They are laid out in parks, each
park embracing twenty or more beds, and be-
tween the parks, as between the sections of
the beds, are water-ways for the passage of
boats. The beds are made of sand and
gravel, upon foundations of wooden piles,
and raised above the level of the basin bot-
tom, but not to such an extent as to expose
them at other than low tides. A barrier of
“ switches ” or nets protects the beds from
fishes. Sets of earthenware tiles are arranged
for the reception of the young oysters or
“spat,” coated with mortar, so that anything
fixing itself to them may be scraped off
easily. Sometimes each of these tiles will
be covered by five hundred or six hundred
young oysters. They develop rapidly, and
in about a month take the form of real min-
iature oysters. Then they need more room,
and are thinned by scraping, to be placed
wider apart on other tiles, or to be trans- —
ferred to their final beds, or to wire-bottomed
trays.

A Navajo Tanner.—Dr. Shufeldt has sue-
ceeded in witnessing the complete process of
tanning a buckskin by a Navajo Indian. He
had difficulty in inducing the tanner to bring
his work where it could all be performed
before his eyes, because of a superstition
that the hide must be removed on the spot
where the animal is slain, or the hunter will
lose his eye-sight before the next moon. The
present hunter, however, perhaps tried to
avoid this doom by beginning some of the
preliminaries of his work before removing
the animal. The skin was taken off with
great dexterity in manipulation, and laid in
a hole dug in the ground and filled with
spring-water till the next morning. It was
then taken out, washed, cleansed with a
knife, and dipped in clean water. The tools
for shaving off the hair were obtained from
the animal itself, being parts of the bones
of the fore-leg. The skull of the deer, which
had been kept through the night in the ashes
of a low camp-fire, was split, and the brains
were taken out. They were then manipu-
lated in a basin of tepid water for the re- —
moval of splinters of bone, and left to sim-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

mer for an hour. When the water, not so
hot but that the hand could be held comfort-
ably init, had become of a muddy color, the
tanner took out the brains and rubbed them
in the palms of his hands till they were dis-
solved into a pasty mass. The skin was
hung upon a tree and wrung and twisted
into a hard coil, and kept in that position
for nearly an hour. Ithad then apparently
shrunk to two thirds of its size, and had to
be pulled into shape again. This done, it
was spread out, hair side up, and thoroughly
rubbed with the brain solution. The effect
of this was to give it softness and pliancy.
The skin, folded into a kind of ball, was
wrapped in a buffalo-robe, and exposed for
a few minutes to the sun, for the purpose, as
the Indian said, of letting “the brains go
well into him.” It was then unwrapped
and spread outto dry. On the next morning
it had shrunken again to one third of its
original size, was hard, appeared almost
brittle, and was half-transparent. It was
then soaked in cold or tepid water, washed
and rinsed, wrung and “ twisted and retwist-
ed upon itself” ; again stretched and manipu-
lated into shape, pulled this way and pulled
that, worked at the edges to get them limp
and pliant, and at the ears and the skin of
the legs. “But during all this time an inter-
esting change was coming over it: the heat of
an August sun was rapidly drying it, it was
fast coming to be of a velvet-like softness
throughout, and, attaining its original size,
it was changing to a uniform pale clay-
color. The hair side was smooth, while the
inside was roughish. Indeed, in a few mo-
ments more it was buckskin.” Then, with
the aid of a wooden awl, the tanner stretched
the skin of the neck transversely with great
force, cut his mark on either side near the
ear, and the fabric was finished and spread
out for its final drying.

Architeeture.—Discussing the question,
What style of architecture should we follow?
Mr. William Simpson observes that we should
follow no style to copy it, or as the ultimate
object to be reached, but may use any style
with the intention of developing new forms
from it. A new style, if we want one—and
every people and every age should have its
own—can not be evolved out of the inner
consciousness of any man or any number of

859

men, but is possible only by practical work-
ing. It can only be produced by a course of
development requiring time, during which
the requirements of the period and the build-
ing materials should be the dominating fac-
tors. This will produce the constructive
forms by a natural process. Then follows
the esthetic or decorative function, in which
the artist should be a designer and not a
copier. Some style, however, should be taken
from which to start. All previous styles
have been developments from pre-existing
ones. Such has been the condition in the
past, and by accepting this we would not be
ignoring the experience of what has taken
place. The process of adaptation should be
begun by weeding out all shams. Let all
forms which are not suited to the present
wants and conditions be rejected. The same
should be done with all constructive forms
that are not natural, or which would be bad
building if produced with the material em-
ployed. No structural form should be added
to a building which is not required, and with
no other object than that of ‘architectural
effect.” This has been a prolific cause of
shams. Such things as pinnacles, turrets,
towers, and all sorts of useless excrescences
have come into existence under this supposed
necessity. All decoration which is founded
on, or the representation of, previous con-
structive forms, should be rigidly avoided;
and originality in desion should be uader-
stood as the aim of all decorators,

A Problem in Human Charaeter.— A
very paradoxical character is described in
the autobiography of Solom Maimon, “vaga-
bond Talmudist,” and one of the most
learned men and sharpest casuists of the
Hebrew race. He appears there, according
to the summary of a reviewer of the work,
as a “skeptical rabbi, a great Talmudist
who despised the Talmud, an omnivorous
reader of all such science as in the last cent-
ury a Polish Jew could get hold of, a genu-
ine idler in literature, who, although he
could dash off a considerable spell of work
in a short time, had no work in him, had no
method in him, and always preferred slip-
shod effort to steady industry ; a man whom
want and misery had reduced into spasmodic
fits of intemperance, which rather grew
upon him toward the end.” With all this

860

he spent a half-year of his life as a regular
professional beggar — adopting apparently
all the habits and feelings of a beggar.
“‘ None the less he was a man of remarkable
acquirements, being a learned Talmudist,
for those times at least a considerable
mathematician, and having in middle life
mastered Latin, German, French, and Eng-
lish, besides the various Eastern dialects
of which his Hebrew knowledge was the
foundation. He had evidently a very great
turn for physics as well as for mathematics,
and a wonderful capacity for the acquisition
of languages without the slightest communi-
cation with those who could speak them, so
that he knew a language fairly well of which
he could not properly pronounce a single
sentence.” He so criticised Kant’s greatest
work as to excite the admiration of the au-
thor. In character “he was candid, grate-
ful, generous, and full of kindly feelings.
But he was conceited, irreverent, passionate,
intolerant of the influence of others, and
never really at ease among the class for
which his knowledge fitted him. His study
of the Talmud . . . thoroughly unfitted him
for feeling the least respect for the element
of authority in religion.” The questions are
suggested whether Maimon’s vagabond tastes
stimulated his intellectual restlessness, or
his intellectual restlessness stimulated his
vagabond tastes; whether he would have
been as keen if he had been a home-stayer
and steady worker, or whether it was his
taste for wandering and his unsettled habits
that really made his intelligence so bright.
Much might be said on both sides of these
questions; but the probability is, that Mai-
mon would have been stronger and more
useful, though, perhaps, less diversified and
brilliant, if he had led a regular life.

An Anti-Lightning Cage.—Besides the
orthodox or “ gather-up-and-carry-away ” sys-
tem of protection against lightning there
is another system suggested by Clerk Max-
well—the “‘bird-cage” or ‘“‘ meat-safe” prin-
ciple. ‘In a banker’s strong room,” says
Prof. Lodge, ‘‘ you are absolutely safe. Even
if it were struck, nothing could get at you.
In a bird-cage, or in armor, you are moder-
ately safe... . A sufficiently strong and
closely meshed cage or netting all over a
house will undoubtedly make all inside per-

THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

fectly safe—only, if that is all the defense,
you must not step outside, or touch the net-
ting while outside, for fear of a shock. . . .
An earth-connection is necessary as well,”
A wire netting all over the house, a good
earth-connection at several points, and a
plentiful supply of barbed wire stuck all
over the roof, constitute an admirable system
of defense. Points to the sky are recog-
nized as correct; but there should be “ more
of them, any number of them, rows of them,
like barbed wire—not necessarily at all
prominent—along ridges and eaves. Fora
single point has not a very great discharg-
ing capacity; and, if you want to neutralize
a thunder-cloud, three points are not so ef-
fective as three thousand. No need, how-
ever, for great spikes and ugly tridents, so
painful to the architect. Let the lightning
come to you, do not go to meet it. Protect
all your ridges and pinnacles—not only the
highest—and you will be far safer than if
you built yourself a factory-chimney to sup-
port your conductor upon.”

A Giant Earthworm.—An earthworm
which, in some examples, reaches the length
of six feet, is described by Prof. Baldwin
Spencer, in the ‘Transactions of the Royal
Society of Victoria,” as existing in Gipps-
land, Australia. It is the Megascolides aus-
tralis, one of a group peculiar to Australia,
of which five species are known. When
found at all it is somewhat abundant, and
lives principally on the sloping sides of
creeks, At times it is found beneath fallen
logs, and may be turned out of the ground by
the plow. The worm itself does not appear
to leave a “casting” at the mouth of its
burrow, but often lives in ground riddled
by the holes of the land-crab, which forms
a “casting.” Hence, contradictory state-
ments have been made about the worm’s
having a “casting.” The presence of the
worm underground may be recognized by a
very distinct gurgling sound which is made—
by the animal retreating in its burrow when
the ground is stamped upon by the foot.
When once heard, this gurgling sound is un-
mistakable. By its rapid motion and its
power of distending any part of its body at
will, so as to make it fit very tightly in its
hole, the worm contrives to make itself very
hard to catch. It has a characteristic odor,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

somewhat resembling that of creosote, which
is very strong and unpleasant in the dead
animal. The body, in decaying, passes into
a fluid, which the natives of the district say
is good for rheumatism. Fowls refuse to
touch it, living or dead. When held in the
hand the worm, in contracting its body,
throws out jets of a milky fluid; and this
fluid seems to be the substance which it uses
for coating its burrows to make their walls
moist and slippery. The worm moves in its
burrow by swelling up one or the other end
and pulling or pushing itself along from
that. Outside of the burrow it does not at-
tempt to get along. The burrows of the
large worm measure from three quarters of
an inch to an inch in diameter. In disused
burrows are often found casts of the worms,
and, more rarely, cocoons containing a sin-
gle embryo. The cocoon is thin, and made
of a leathery, tough material, with a very
distinct stalk-like process at each end. It
contains a milky fluid like that found in the
body cavity of the worm.

Fishing in the Greek Islands.—Mr. J.
Theodore Bent has been struck, in his visits
among the islands of Greece, by the obser-
vation of many survivals of ancient ways
in the customs of the people, and this very
noticeably. in the fishing. In fishing for
“ shell-fish,” the fishermen use a long tri-
dent, with more prongs than Neptune’s
had, but otherwise like it, and which they
call by the old name rayat. The fishermen
of Hydra make bulwarks of netted osiers,
like those which Ulysses made for his two-
decked raft when he left Calypso’s charmed
island. The scaros is pursued in the way
that Oppian sings of in his poem on fishing.
Taking advantage of the affectionate charac-
ter of the scaros and of the male’s gallant
devotion to the female, the fisherman fast-
ens a female fish to his line. If the “bait”
is dead, he imitates life by bobbing it up
and down. The male scari rush up in
shoals to rescue their female fellow, and are
caught by a companion-fisher with a net.
For tunny, nets are used having large open-
ings and furnished with a thick string. A
bay is chosen with a convenient promon-
tory, from a post on which the nets are fast-
ened, while the fishermen row out to a rock
in the sea. Here they leave a man, and re-

861

turn to shore by a roundabout route, carry-
ing a string with them by which they can
pull in the net as soon as the man on the
rock announces the arrival of the fish. The
same method is described by Aristotle in his
book on animals. If the market is over-
stocked with tunny, the fish are driven into
a creek by throwing stones at them and the
entrance is fastened up with brambles. The
fishermen in Melos believe in an ogre
called Vanis, a being with goat’s feet and a
human body—a satyr, in short—who dwells
at the end of a promontory they have to
pass in going out of their harbor. They
always cast a bit of bread into the water as
they go by, that Vanis may eat it and send
them fish in return.

Studies at Wundt’s Psychological Lab-
oratory.x—Wundt’s psychological laboratory
at Leipsic occupies four rooms in the uni-
versity building. The number of students
has gradually increased, and in 1887 was
nineteen. The men work in groups, one act-
ing as subject in the experiments, and an-
other making observations. Wundt suggests
subjects for research at the beginning of
the semester, but he lets the students choose
the direction in which they prefer to work,
and encourages them to find independently
problems and the methods of solving them.
The experiments are classified by Dr. J. Mck.
Cattell under four heads: 1. The Analysis
and Measurement of Sensation. 2. The
Duration of Mental Processes. 3. The Time
Sense; and 4. Attention, Memory, and the
Association of Ideas. Under the first head
are included experiments in the least differ-
ences in weight, intensity, and tone of sound,
illumination, and color that can be perceived
—the whole being embraced under the term
psychophysics. Tn the subjects under the
second head, constituting psychometry—
“the facts obtained when we learn how
long it takes to perceive, to will, to remem-
ber, etc., are in themselves of the same in-
terest to the psychologist, as the distances
of the stars to the astronomer or atomic
weights to the chemist”; they help in the
analysis of complex mental phenomena, and
in studying the nature of attention, volition,
etc. Psychometrical experiment has brought
perhaps the strongest testimony we have to
the complete parallelism of physical and

862

mental phenomena; and “there is scarcely
any doubt but that our determinations meas-
ure at once the rate of change in the brain
and of change in consciousness.” There is
also a general interest in the study. ‘ Time,
like size, is relative. The time-sense, in-
volving the time-relations of perceptions and
our power of estimating intervals of time, is
to a considerable extent a physiological fact
due to inertia in the sense-organ. Stimuli
must be separated by a certain interval of
time in order that they may be recognized as
distinct. The experiments under this head
relate to the measurement of these intervals,
The experiments in attention, memory, and
the association of ideas are varied, and
cover some matters included under the
other heads. The highest degree of com-
plexity and the lowest degree of intensity
and interest which our consciousness can
grasp; the number of things—lines, letters,
etc.; the relative visibility of colors and
legibility of letters of the alphabet; the in-
tervals between maxima of intensity and
sensation, or rhythm of sensation; the time
it takes for an idea to suggest another; and
many similar studies—are related to it.

Inebriate Asylams and their Work.—
Dr. T. D. Crothers remarks, as a curious
fact, that inebriety was recognized as a dis-
ease long before insanity was thought to be
other than spiritual madness and a posses-
sion of the devil. The first inebriate asy-
lum was opened at Binghamton, N. Y., under
Dr. J. E. Turner, after eight years of effort.
Tt was conducted with much success for a
time, but went down in the hands of trustees.
The Washingtonian Home of Boston, opened
in 1857, is now treating about four hundred
cases every year. The Kings County Home,
of Brooklyn, was opened in 1867, and is
crowded with patients. The Chicago Wash-
ington Home, opened in 1867, and the
Franklin Home, Philadelphia, opened in 1872,
are in successful operation. The first two
institutions proceed on the theory of disease.
TheChicago Home and the PhiladelphiaHome
regard religion, education, and pledges as
sufficient to restore the patients, and con-
sider a short residence at the hospital better
than long treatment. More than fifty hos-
pitals for inebriates have been started in
America, over thirty of which are in success-

THH POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ful operation. The others have been changed
into insane asylums, water-cures, ete. About
twenty asylums for inebriates are open in
England and Scotland. Others exist in
Melbourne, New Zealand, Germany, and
Switzerland, and new ones are projected in
Norway, Sweden, and France. The value of
the results of the asylum treatment has been
estimated from the answers to letters of in-
quiry addressed to friends of patients sev-
eral years after dismissal. Of one thousand
patients at Binghamton, sixty-eight and a
half per cent continued temperate after five
years ; of two thousand at the Boston Wash-
ingtonian Home, thirty-four per cent after
from ten to eighteen years; of six hundred
at the Kings County Home, thirty-four per
cent after ten years. The most careful
authorities in the United States are agreed
that fully one third of all cases that come
under treatment are permanently cured,

The Gnawers of the Selkirk Mountains,
—The heaps of bowlders above the forest
region in the Selkirk Mountains of British
Columbia, says the Rev. W. 8. Green, “form
a refuge for a variety of mammals — the
hoary marmot, measuring about three feet
long, being the commonest and most useful
from a commissariat point of view. This
creature gives a loud, shrill whistle; so
weird does it sound in these solitudes that
it returns to one’s ears as an inseparable
memory of the Selkirk valleys. The ser-
rellel is a strange beast; it too lives beneath
the bowlder-heaps, and it has the most won-
derful fancy for collecting flowers. One
day, when we were ascending a glacier mo-
raine, my cousin said to me, ‘Some one has
been here before.’ I said, ‘Impossible!’
but was utterly puzzled by finding a bouquet
of flowers plucked, with their stems lying
neatly together, just as though some child had
laid them down. Soon afterward we found
similar bouquets at the burrows of these ani-
mals, What their particular object in col-
lecting flowers is, it is difficult to understand ;
making hay for winter use I have seen sug-
gested. Mountain rats, chipmunks, little
chief hares, and other creatures are also
common in these regions, rendering caches
of provisions useless, unless tinned meats
alone are hidden. My Alpine rope was nib-
bled into little bits in one night, and on

NOTES.

another occasion some beast gnawed a hole
through the tent while we were asleep, and
ate the bread which I was using for a pillow.
A skin I hung up to dry on the tent-rope
vanished, and the scampering of little feet
up and down the outside of the tent com-
menced every night the moment we retired
to rest.”

A Country of Salt.—EHverything in the
country of the river Chai, in Central Asia, is
described by Gabriel Bouvalot as covered with
salt. Itisseen in the walls of the houses and
on the banks of the rivers, and the water one
drinksisverysalt. Traveling saltpeter-makers
go in summer from place to place wherever
they can find materials to work upon. Their
mode of operation is a rough-and-ready one.
Holes in the earth serve as vats and boilers,
and below these are placed ovens, Abun-
dance of brushwood supplies material for the
fires. The workers collect from the surface
of the earth heaps of a compost of salt and
animal manure. This is soaked for twenty-
four hours in water, then filtered, and then
boiled for twenty-four hours, cleansed, and
placed in the sun, so that the water may
evaporate. An ordinary workman can make
about fifty pounds in a day, and this he sells
at the rate of a penny a pound. The work-
ers appear quite contented with their lot,
and the industry is preserved in their fami-
lies for generations.

NOTES.

Severat “effigy mounds” in the Rock
River Valley, Ill., have been described by
T. H. Lewis. The “Rockford Turtle” is
1843 feet long and from three to five and a
half feet high, and stands in the midst of the
best part of Rockford. It is associated
with a bird-mound, seven round mounds,
and two embankments. An animal mound
in Jo Daviess County is 216’ feet long, with
an average height of five and a half feet,
has its fore-feet resting on an embankment,
and is associated with twenty-three other
mounds and two embankments. A bird effig
on the east side of Rock River some five
miles below Rockford, and an animal 1164
feet long at Freeport, are described. Few of
the Illinois effigy mounds are in good preser-
vation.

A MaRKep difference is observed by Dr.
George M. Dawson, of the Geological Survey
of Canada, as between the maritime Indi-
ans of the coast and the Indian tribes

863

of southern British Columbia, While it is
largely one of habit and mode of life, it is
also almost everywhere coincident with radi-
cal differences in language. The natural
tendency to diversity as between coast-in-
habiting fishermen and roaming hunters is
intensified and perpetuated by the barrier
of the Coast Range. The diversity breaks
down to some extent only on certain routes
of trade between the coast and the interior.

Tue distinction of the Legion of Honor
has been conferred upon Prof. C. V. Riley
by the French Government. The Minister
of Agriculture, writing to Prof, Riley on the
subject, said that in awarding the honor the
Government had sought to reward the im-
portant services which he had rendered to
agriculture generally of all countries, and
particularly to France, by his labors and
discoveries.

A case of poisoning by mackerel was re-
cently established at a coroner’s inquest in
London. The deceased, who had eaten a
part of the fish adjacent to the head, was
attacked with gastritis and pneumonia, be-
came delirious, and died; while his wife,
who ate another part of the fish, suffered no
inconvenience. The gills of the mackerel
appearing to have undergone fermentation,
the victim’s illness was ascribed to his havy-
ing eaten decomposed fish. Cases of this
kind, which used to be regarded as unac-
countable, are now considered due to the
presence of ptomaines developed by decom-
position.

A PECULIAR tendency in idiots to imper-
fections and disease in the teeth has been
noticed by several physicians; and it has
been studied by Madame Sollier in a hun-
dred cases of idiots taken at random. The
multiplicity and variety of the dental lesions
were remarkable; and the conclusion has
been drawn that idiocy, with or without epi-
lepsy, predisposes to arrests of development
and to anomalies of dentition. The effect
rarely appears in the first teeth, however,
but almost wholly in the second.

Mr, Carrutuers, President of the Linnean
Society, has found that seven original and
authentic portraits of Linneus are in exist-
ence. The most widely known engravings
are from the originals by Inlander and Ros-
lin; and these give the most faithful repre-
sentations of the features of the great natu-
ralist.

AN instantaneous photographic appara-
tus is proposed to take the place of the judge

‘at the winning-post in race-courses. Its value

is seen in very close races, when the judges
can not decide accurately, and in what are
called “dead heats,” when two or three
horses appear to reach the winning-post at
exactly the same time. The photograph will
show one of the horses to be an inch or so
ahead, and decide in his favor.

864

Works have been erected in London by
Mr. William Webster for experiment upon
an electrical treatment of sewage that has
been devised by him. Hlectricity is to be
applied directly, to resolve the matter into
its chemical elements and secure a precipi-
tation in the form of sludge.

A arc exhibition of prehistoric objects,
representing public and private collections
in Austria, is to be given in connection with
the next Congress of German Anthropologi-
cal Societies, which is to meet this year in
Vienna.

Tue oldest man in Great Britainis Hugh
McLeod, crofter, of Ross-shire, Scotland, who
was born in 1783, and is consequently in
his one hundred and seventh year. He is
still straight and good for a full day of wake-
fulness, and cuts his own peat and carries
home his daily load of eighty-four pounds.
He eats porridge and milk, potatoes, fish,
and mutton when he can get it, has culti-
vated a fondness for tea, and is “ very heavy”
in chewing “‘thin twist.” His father was a
weaver, and he has been a carpenter and
joiner. There are three other centenarians
in the same parish.

Mr. Goscuen has traced a connection be-
tween the use of the cigarette after dinner
and a decline in the consumption of wine at
table. The friends of the cigarette claim
that it is convenient, is adapted to various
kinds of employments, is cheap as compared
with good cigars, and makes less demand
than a pipe upon the manly powers. Its
opponents hold that it is adulterated with
deleterious ingredients which provoke the
head and throat, and stimulate the desire to
drink; that it blunts the delicacy of the
taste and encourages promiscuous drinking ;
and that it leads to the spending of much
money—all in addition to the harm there
may be in smoking at all.

Tur Kina Balu, or “‘ Chinese Widow,” the
great mountain of Borneo, rises thirteen
thousand seven hundred feet from a low un-
dulating country, at about twenty-five miles
from the west coast of the island, and is re-
garded with a kind of religious awe by the
natives. Its slopes abound with pitcher-
plants and WVepenthes generally. It has been
partially ascended by the travelers Lobb,
Low, and St. John; and its real summit was
reached, according to Mr. R. T. Pritchett,
last year by Mr. Whitehead. This traveler
has spent several years of hard work in ex-
ploring, and has brought back many before
unknown vavieties of birds.

Five cases of ruptured tympanum, de-
scribed by Dr. W. R. H. Stewart, admonish
us to be careful how we treat the ear. One
was of a boy whose ear had been boxed by his
teacher; another, of a woman who had re-
ceived a blow in a scuffle with her husband ;
a third, of a man sixty years old, who had

s

THE POPULAR SCIENCH MONTHLY.

suffered from deafness and an offensive dis-
charge ever since having been struck when
a boy. In the fourth case, a laborer had
been made deaf and partly lost the sense of
taste in consequence of a blow on the side
of the head. The last case was that of a
woman who had accidentally perforated her
tympanum while picking her ear with a hair-
pin. Pains and deafness were common to
all these cases. All were improved, and
most of them were cured, by treatment.

Symptoms of poisoning were recently de-
veloped in the case of some persons in Berne,
Switzerland, who had eaten of the mushroom
Morchella esculenta. On investigation a high-
ly poisonous substance was found in the sam-
ple—identical with that which had been eat-
en—resembling the ptomaines, and like them,
probably, a result of partial decomposition.
The warning is against stale fungi.

Arsenic has been detected in a sample
of matches obtained in Jena, Germany, which
are characterized by the heads having a black
covering with a metallic luster, and contain-
ing much lead, partly present as red lead.
The quantity of arsenic was so small as to
be detected only by the most delicate tests,

OBITUARY NOTES.

Dr. C. JEssEN, naturalist, formerly pro-
fessor at Greifswald, and more recently at
Berlin, has lately died, in his sixty-ninth
year.

Pror. Eras Loomis, LL. D., of the Mun-
son chair of Natural Philosophy and Astron-
omy in Yale University, died August 15th,
in his seventy-ninth year. He was gradu-
ated from Yale College in 1830, and three
years later became a tutor there. He and
Prof. A. C. Twining, of West Point, together
began the first observations made in this
country to determine the altitude of shoot-
ing-stars. In 1835 he discovered Halley’s
comet on its return by means of his own
computations of the elements of its orbit.
He was the author of text-books covering
the whole range of mathematical subjects ; of
popular treatises on natural philosophy, as-
tronomy, and meteorology; and of many
contributions to scientific journals.

Dr. Joun Percy, a distinguished English
metallurgist, died June 20th, aged about sev-
enty-two years. He was appointed Professor
of Metallurgy in the School of Mines in 1851,
and held the office till 1879. He began his
great work on metallurgy in 1861, and con-
tinued it in 1864, 1870, and 1880. He re-
ceived the Bessemer medal of the Iron and
Steel Institute for his researches in metal-
lurgy, particularly in iron and steel, in 1877.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal So-
ciety in 1847, and President of the Iron and
Steel Institute in 1886. He was also distin-
guished for labors in practical ventilation.

Nr ives,

PAGE
Ackerman, Albert A. Arctic Ice and its Navigation...................0-- 677
Agnostic, The Position of the. R. Mathews. Cor...............eee ee eeee 269
PR OUMESTAGISUNS ELONTV: “WV AO Giz, 2) tbat et ic fah allah yada janrans! aia inant aint «jwh fn) hcaatens ele ay ats ons 64
Memosticism + ARejoinders. ol. H.. Huxley, . acu jonasnsies dayama0rcnge ie 163
Henosticism:. and Ohristianitiyiyy Toy E. Lumley ci). ie ie: sis.cs ete sos ole ay aine elas 447
Apnosticism./Ohristianity, ands) EH. W acer: xa « . + n,<18 ce. a.0.0/0. 0.0 dis) e101 ake: hers che aie 327
Agnosticism, Cowardly. A Word with Prof. Huxley. W.H. Mallock...... 225
PAGE GLa Mamimns.> Opes MISC. Se.) 5, cse.ayai00h 's,«/esauehe)eysik’ eee! ayy eiuicte Stee sees 42'7
Almy, A. H. Growth of the Beet-Sugar Industry.....................00- 85
Rheyeroductionyob, Beet=Sugar’ ..iciocts x e:s/sletaloraiaiais'w stele’ sfee ois 199
American Association. The Toronto Meeting of the. Editor’s Table....... 844
PAM Al Gretna AG Se) ELUCSONy, J OOLS 45.0% « + nielaiave dealers craievelels vieltetetaiti stolons 409
Animal Tite inthe, Gulf, Stream. (. S.. Tart... «2:0 «ealees tosien ome 5 enpsicis yee 649
Anthropology at. Washington. J. H., Gore)... 0 -cjesie v0 cejee ees ns acide asics 786
Antiseptics, Iniimence of,on' Foods. Pop, Mises: ....0)seejaielefelese ote «(es «sie ohn ois 142
apparatas, Homesmade, J. EH. Woodhull... 55556 selte ders sos es esis cass 519
EPR NIC COUTUE Ove MEO: (NUTS, 25), ainalein-ntnlocn © iarziai( 9°¢ aosancyava ebepeayaiaual ¥ asx Aialenednic arate cals 859
Arctic Ice and its Navigation. A. A. Ackerman........... oi cheba tin peeitlorarevee 677
Asphalt and Petroleum in Venezuela. Pop. Misc................eeeeeeee 142
ASLOnHOM Yee sOlOms:, J O;-HOUZSAU & iiisa:orsssveixaietale Mey oye a oiane.tccveteheeieias 194
PRDSHOMPNGTIG) Gi eSee Ops MAING sie a5, s,nyare os )e'vtoibieyohdibuaivig eid ar et lales ofa) cnsigeieals punto 714
Bailey, Joshua F. Is Christian Science a ‘Oraze”?........ cee eee eee 216
Barnard, President, The Work of., ) Editor's Table... osc. 5 0 06.05 dee aye ove 411
attak-Land: Whirtationcing SR Op, MASe:.. ix. cva:steis, oareseepare.als, apatdye ale (elec ciem eae 714
Beet-Sugar Industry, Growth of the. A. H. Almy................000e005 85
inopt-sagar, The Production of.) A. Hs Almy’....0.0..20 20 isi ma cara eltevee cerns 199
Berkeley, the Rev. M. J., Death of. Pop. Misc....... ....c0.ceeeceeeces 856
Bermbardt, W. ‘The Chemist ag a: Constructors... :isieesie as i0¢ 0 abarels, oc) ner ds 801
Blackfeet, The Sun-Dance of the. Pop. Mise...-........ccesssesaceeccees 569
Blood-Vengeance and Pardon in Albania. J. Okie...................005- 529
Books noticed :
Mppott, Charles.O:, Daysioutiet Doors... 5 <'.si<sveieisir< stein desis e's 3s 703
Allen, Alfred H. Commercial Organic Analysis, Vol. III, Part I....... 849
American Society for Psychical Research. Proceedings No. 4.:..... iO
Angerstein, E., and G. Eckler. Home Gymnastics for the Well and the
LORE? oo acca a hated MSRRED. pala cca ee Pa ER NPD oils spscxhn a5 6 707
Anener, Tt. A... The: Orusade. of, Richard) Ti)a2 2. serene ojo nidhce eis oes = 565
Argentine Republic. Observations of the National Argentine Observa-
OEY. ac: 2 oi ayeitareae op teaeoes oles hats SEM RON eae ealars sicher sFaraye @ « Gx ayardicie 709

VOL. XXxV.—55

866 INDEX,

Books noticed : See
Arkansas. Annual Report of the Geological Survey for 1888.......... 561
Austen, Peter ‘T... Chemical (ectare Notes: 29:0. 14.0akn seen 134
Barker, T.-Barwick Li), War with Orme... 2. 00.9).2cneneeee eee 705
Barrows, Walter B. The English Sparrow in North America.......... 851
Bartlett, John R., and others. Plans for furnishing an Abundant Sup-

ply of Water to the Oity of New York............c0cuececsccces 282
Bastin, Edson S;) (College ;Botamy. 4 22 asc. ccc cc 5 atest we enone 709
Bennett, Alfred W., and George Murray. A Hand- hale of Crypto-

ganic Botany. iii ec ssals See otee ok ieee acs ae ete 562
Bert, Paul. Primer of Scientific Knowledge...:.........00.-s.secen 563
Binet, Alfred. The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms................. 135
Boone, Richard G. Education in the United States................. 701
Bowditch, H. P. Hints for Teachers of Physiology................... 420
Boylston, Peter.” “John! Charfxes, > o.5. ak. cae ee sete ea ee 564
Bray, Oharles.. The) Philosophy of Necessity.se2 05... «cine eerie eee 847 |
Browning, Osear:) Aspects of Education 2.22) oe. 226 acne nee eee 420
Bruce, Philip A. The Plantation Negro as a Freeman................ 279
Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth...............c.eeeees 412
Buck, J. D. A Study of Man, and the Way to Health................ 133
Buller, Sir Walter L. A Classified List of Mr. S. William Silver’s Col-

léctionot ‘New Zealand Bide. tos 2) fm acu ce oe ee ee 133
Bunce, Oliver Bell. The Story of Happinolande..................... 418
Burroughs;'John. @lndoor Studiese. 24.5 .-.- nc) secs eee ee 701
Burt, Stephen Smith. Exploration of the Chest in Health and Disease... 706
Butler, A. O. * What Moses saw and heard.) 0.0... 2. oe. nn ee ene 852
Carpenter, William B. Nature and Man: Essays Scientific and Philo-

Sopliical ici io) AAR oes AS Re eter ac 277
Carrington, Hemry B. The Patriotic’ Reader...0...00...2. 0.2.5... o 134
Carus, Paul. Kundamental Problems... 1. asec doe acre eee nae 707
Case, Thomas,’ :. Physical Realism .icc. tcc. sebile client ache seen ene 703
Collar, William ©. Practical Latin Composition..............:...... 854
Conklin, Benjamin Y. English Grammar and Composition............ 421
Cram’s Standard American Atlas of the World.....................-. 419
Croll, James. Stellar Evolution and its Relations to Geological Time... 849
Darling, Charles W. Historical Notes concerning the City of New York. 282
Davis, Eben H. The Beginner’s Reading-Book...................... 564
Dawson, George M. Report on an Exploration in the Yukon Dis-

IGE, SHOP R SAM PAAR OY ew es we cee es Cee Sin ie ene ee ue ie een 853
Dexter, Seymour. A Treatise on Co-operative Savings and Loan Asso-

clations . 0:0 MAGE Date ike ee ee ee 561
Donnell, E. J. Outlines of a New Science...............-cce cee eenee 282
Doty, Alvah H. A Manual of Instruction in the Principles of Prompt

Aid to the Injured sy. oii isick mem eictas ects Ta eerste ae 279
Dunham, O. M:’" The American Workmant:))... 42-2. oem oene res eile 567
Dyer, T. F. ‘Thiselfon. “Lhe Folk-Uore of Plants... t.0-y.«e sss 127
Ellwanger, George H. The Garden’s Story..............20seceeeeees 847

. Fiske, John. The Critical Period of American History............... 276
Fletcher, Alfred E. Sonnenschein’s Cyclopedia of Education.......... 419
Galton,:Francis.” Natural Inheritanices cy... c.f een es 274

Garnett, James M. Elene, Judith, Athelstan, and Byrhtnoth.......... 854

INDEX. 867

Books noticed : PAGE
Gibson, R. J. Harvey. Elementary Biology...................22000. 418
Gilman, Nicholas P. Profit-Sharing between Employer and Employé... 416
Goode, George Brown. The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the

Wrnitiod), Stahesicid 2y: 4 chime. t eee. re eh orelam me emaeeete Pra, He ace de 560
Gosse, Edmund. A History of Eighteenth Century Literature......... 564
Grimes, J. Stanley. Geonomy and Cosmonomia...................4. 853
Griswold, W. M. Eighth Annual Index to Periodicals................ 854
Grossman, Louis. Some Ghapters on Judaism and the Science of Re-

NSOVOW Ge oo: 4152. o.zsevagaye legate Sralsl wim wirs ui cieten aah PO ot RM ORE CR aD 417
Harvard College Observatory. Annals No. V—VII, Vol. XVIII. Part

MP WRU PR 2 ao tidied one Pretest keletac bie neha U/ eens patella desta pe tea ae 709
Hazard. Rowland Gii)\\OempleteWorksss 22 hoes. kane 416
Howard, George E. An Introduction to the Local Constitutional His-

foryar thoxvUnited: Sates ire p Am sid. seateaaneie a «ae eeeanatas ge ee ee 852
Ives, Frederic E. A New Principle in Heliochromy.................. 281
Jacobi, Mary Putnam. Physiological Notes on Primary Education and

the: Study of Languamenx ton. oa.cs Atel, eee SOUR ee 565
Jolmeton;.H..H.) . HistoryiafvaiSlavies si.) weg itesiak. nts tt Ble epee heer 853
Journal, of/Morpholosyy Thess Vols Nos Ot ii. fe weet tale 851
Miein Hierinann!d.< Av Star Atlas... ..t Mao iee ee boa oe 134
Leffmann, Henry. Examination of Water for Sanitary and Technical

PFU PORES eee icc esa tcekdw als, «m: « ia Sy abbielor thelgenok manuel a One ite eee ove 709
Letchworth, William P. The Insane in Foreign Countries............ 280
Loewy, Benjamin. Graduated Course of Natural Science............. 853
MacDonald, D. Oceania: Linguistic and Anthropological............. 854
Moeliean Jobn,'s;Dhe: Indiarise: 6:2 kad Seale aes Raed SRG 417
Mahaffy, John P., and John H. Bernard. Kant’s Kritik of the Pure

Reasoncexplained and defended... 2 5.\.0ch sete wise oc aheiadeetentine e-cle 704
Maine, Henry Sumner. International Law...0...... cece nee ces 129
Maloneh eis) het Self =. Wihatrishiti? een aake ete. co cee ieee 281
Mamtepazza le aolo..'\, Testa ye aac ocs.n ile'n a1aisin a cus leds eel aw oe Sieteream ener thee 135
Massachusetts Society for promoting Good Citizenship. Works on Civil

CHOW CT MMICIG 552530 pajesireteieic chet Seltares crak ITS UMNNia | chee EN Ns een 420
Mayo, A. D. Industrial Education in the South..................0005 420
Merriam, Florence A. Birds through an Opera-Glass................. 702
Merriam, George 8. The Story of William and Lucy Smith........... 567
Mills, Charles De B. The Tree of Mythology, its Growth and Fruitage. 562
Mixter, William G. An Elementary Text-Book of Chemistry ......... 207
Modern: Science, Mesayist, Thee: 22.95 84.8 seed sedis Ree Lewes 708
Montgomery, D. H. The Leading Facts of French History............ 565
Moss, Oscar B. Beauty, Health, and Strength for every Woman....... 130
National Education Association. Proceedings of the Department of

SUP ELINLEMMen Ce: /-\ Alerts Astredsbala cle. a: «1a nc eyed mot aroMaMsuNen a SiR) Cen | 420
New Jersey, Geological Survey of. Final Report of the State Geologist.

U/C) Gol I ER OES POR Me oiriy Mei ree a rice Rees Acca ier 4 A aie seen na 280
New York. Forty-first Report on the State Museum of Natural History. 133

es Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the State Superintendent of

Publig: Instruction, QS8oicce!s mye Ce aks PR 707
ee Twenty-second Annual Report of the State Board of

Charivies,. LSSS ence Fe Riera cinerea is. sebtecdity le 8 tele a 705

"868 INDEX.

Books noticed: Pa Ge
Newell, Jane H. Outlines of Lessons in Botany..................05. 563
Norman, Lucia. Popular History of California:..................000- 854
O’Brine, David. A Laboratory Guide in Chemical Analysis........... 418
O’Rell, Max. Jonathan and his Continent................00000000008 134
Oswald, Felix L. Days and Nights in the Tropics.................... 131
Packard, A.S. The Cave Fauna of North America... .............. 566
Parker, Francis W. How to Study Geography.................0000 413
Perrin, By Homer's Odyssey ce. 22% soeeee WE Wine atelca eich eee 564
Platt, Jauies:, eBusiness: Meat sc nals nee ee 8 ine e/a he oe ee 283
Preyer, W. The Mind of the Child. Part II, The Development of the

Turtellect:. ..5\ ews. Ry, atten Samk Wiceieemie’ Ciaiceneren eels eee ae 414
Raue, G. ©. Psychology as a Natural Science applied to the Solution of
Occult Psychic Phenomena? ang koe ak. seca eee eee 704
Rogers, James E. Thorold. The Economic Interpretation of History.... 129
Romanes, George John. Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human
Fa Gilt yia’ a8. sit oid Gals ORGS oo RN IR oe ee oie ca ee 131
Sawyer, Leicester A. Introduction to Sawyer’s Bible................ 709
Sensenig, David M. Numbers Universalized........ ...... See .. 852
Smith, Charles Lee. A History of Education in North Carolina........ 419
Smith,’ O: J.: As -all Well with tist?...\... 22h... cee ansehen eee ee 566
Smithsonian Institution. Annual Report of the Board of Regents
FOL VOSS: sic, «nn! «pss ale aie deseo skeen vanelesehe (atorehehe sale een ee 708
Smithsonian Institution. Six Species of North American Fishes....... 565
Smock, John C. On the Iron Mines and Iron-Ore Districts in the State
of New Yorks 2 risk We ee acre ee Ie ole ee 853
Snyder, William L. The Geography of Marriage..................+4. 565
Society for Political Education. Electoral Reform—The Liquor Question
Ain POLE Bais «and aise che p ale ss SHOR IPA? eRe epee ores eee 281, 566
Stephens, ©. A... Living Matter tii) .ci 0 toilets Gert) simi eee 133
Stetefeldt, Carl A. The Lixiviation of Silver-Ores with Hyposulphite
rsIo} 1010) 1): es ae CMA te ete ROE I 418
Stock, St.George, Deductive Logics 4128s aie clemtetelels erence tne 419
Strauss, Charles T...\Speling 7.0.0 <a peer Se Aiule-dca toys AO EE 134
Taylor,.J..E... The Playtime Natoralist:591).0 ae celeron oe tee 277
Thompson, Daniel Greenleaf. Social Progress: an Essay........... .. 182
Thomson, Sir William. Popular Lectures and Addresses. Vol. I, Con-
stitution of: Matton’ tye o,cdiek La % sien) tetateve icles bicleiptene tayn ate ee oneee eee 415
Todd, W. G., Editor. The Teacher's Ontlook.. 05. ..02 20sec eee 567
Tuttle, Hudson. Studies in the Outlying Fields of Psychic Science..... 563
Two Great Retreats'of History, The.) 120. f84./.6 deka ne oleae 854
United States Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educa-
tional(History. -Nos%4,°5,6;iamd) Koei ae es eek cietaecestente he. etree 848
United States Geological Survey. Bulletins Nos. 40 to 47............. 419
‘ as Seventh Annual Report, 1885-’86... 415
United States War Department. Report of the Chief Signal-Officer for
1887... -Part IL, sthenc Hage eae es eee tle tte he elec ae 134

United States War Department. Report of the Chief Signal-Officer for 1888 706
Van Daell, A. N. Pages choisis des Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon.. 854
Wallace, Alfred RusseleaeDarwimsmpeneier cece ieee ier acer 850
Watson, John. The Philosophy of Kant.............0000e--eseeeees 704

INDEX. 869

Books noticed : PAGE
Wells, Benjamin W. Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans................. 564
Wentworth, G. A., and others. Algebraic Analysis............... 5 69 GAS)
White, Horatio Stevens. Lessing: Ausgewalte Prosa und Briefe....... 134
Wright, G. Frederick. The Ice Age in North America and its Bearing

upon the Antiquity of Manis 20.0.6). sess Macias + wicker clas 557
Wright, Julia McNair. Seaside and Wayside, No. 3.................. 420
Wyman, Hal'O... The Training: of Nutses: . .2ieey eh ae ee 420

parinicn Gardens, | Hr, Hofimanne, 27. ., i. 5. a 2 /dseyts vee omy alters ctere et aeote aera 105

Branner, John OC. The Convict-Island of Brazil—Fernando de Noronha.... 3838

Breidvot W ater-Lily Seeds, “Pop. Mist...)5 dss 02 oak ahaa oa aan actemiees 137

Bronze Age in Sweden, The: | W..H. Larrabee../:.........5.. i caine seme css 778

Brooks, W. K. The Artificial Propagation of Sea-Fishes............. .... 359

irano's Statue at'home.— Editor's Tables... i... i. es we sll s sare sees 556

Bnddus, che bronze, Of Nara.! “Pop. Mise...) <%)ietau wna s eles Yew eeeieere 572

Burt, Stephen S. Some of the Limitations of Medicine.................... 396

river, RAD. VETO. NEISG eisyers ears Sox cimess ooo eRe alee 's wage «acai vin) eleee eens ool 574

Gamoroons, Life at the.. Wh. Muller, shat. gir win cecete » ale sae tiel lectern soe 748

Oharacter, Humans, At Problem im.) Pop Mise: 04.0. sks ccereciveelo cae otlotes 859

harity, sudiciouss, . Paps Migciicde cc... so. tinea de abel saihetas, vacciters tet 429

SSO MAIALY SCIONUIUCs 1 Asks WWARTCE |." 5... lid Gilles msele oalerale oh alet henner mavens 488

@iomical Bibliographies. ~ Pops Mises... y.. . 2... vitesse d am eecriecls Gols Meteo sais 139

Chemist, The, as a Constructor. W. Bernhardt...............cccceeeeees 801

Ohne erotm- Titov AL, ME BTCldG 52/5 a diol Rania niipaieterele re crake teianeraie ce migtag 323

Chmiook Language or Jargon, The. E. H. Nicoll... ..5 20.00 a ocaes cae es 257

Ohristian Science, Is,‘a ““Oraze” ? J. F. Bailey i... lee ee aen d 216

“‘ Christian Science,” ‘‘ Koreshan Science,” etc. R. O. Spear, F. A. Fernald,
MMe CLs OILS 6 Su os, ial cu pais ay siclene cb eatin naeeeL : SaNiepe ers Meee aera baker hed 268

“ Christian Science,” The Claims of. Editor’s Table.................200-- 270

Olina ae HAO MO KOCH OF.) .!.p etic erelala cy. Sols scat ee ae ais a ates es, 5 oka IDiy¢

@oach of Civilization, The... Editor's: Table... 0.4 see cs scien av ho aiebvaeee nes 700

Convict-Island of Brazil, The—Fernando de Noronha. J.C. Branner...... 33

Corsets and Waist-Belts, The Philosophy of. Pop. Misc................... 138

Count, Do Cattle? SM. B. Staplins “Core. 25. cit iidaiecne ss sje «gad enews 409

Crmcism, An Uncandid., MditorsiRable. .)5 5. sid clske ne wins oe ote teovaisie 126

ewanwinism,’ Mr. Wallaceon. Editors Table...\. «5c aia2 «6 visi. oS aa ad 698

Devil-Theory, Dr. Abbott’s Defense of the. Editor’s Table............... 272

Piapolisn and Hysteria: A. Dis Whites 5.0. fs sis 2 visiele, cceveisra aid wale stale 1, 145

Dieestion and Related Functions. W. Mills... . 2))..005 2). li seid bene 795

Direction, Sense of, in Ants. E. F. Lyford. Cor................... Sree Oe:

Dyecavery by Observation.» Pop.) Mises. 2.) scsi 2b cteleias« Hajete Bees ldelele «ns 141

Marra Ohurch-going.* : Popz) MISC! ram) .)<. alerejeme tie, Ail adi otal dhe Wale atate « tebelte 427

Soriumorme A Giant, Pop. Misede.se tas as. sae salem cletoae phareuiainiles sralatsieds 860

East Indies, Dutch, A Corner of the. G. Langen..................00005- 685

Eeonomic Changes, Recent: Di Al Wellsvi?. of. 00 os ae 584

Huncstion-im Ancient: Heypt.* BLO. Wendelyiisln. woedaes ove yes 774

Eggs in Chemistry and Commerce. P. L. Simmonds..................... 92

Electrical Waves. S. Sheldon............... oe Ares Bae BF atavelieneiatetarbee acre 509

870 INDEX.

PAGE

Electro-Magnetic Action, The Medium of. Pop. Misc.................20:: 717
Errors, Origin of some General...) 'S, Eixmer..i: . anc 220. beens As ns eee 819
Eskimos, Art and Fun.of the: “Pop. Mise; .... .ln4.'s seisweth «eee ee 715
Etching on Glass, ;, Pop. Mas. si)... i.e) yeh cia «ese ee See ee 423
Evans, T. Johnston. The Home‘of the Ferns... 305.) ieh..24-8 «th eee 814
Evolution as taught in a Theological Seminary. Rollo Ogden.............. 754
Exner, 8. Origin of some General Errors. 94.<oihloe4- ace ee eo ee 819
Expression in Infants... Pop. Mis: ....... So.jpte meta ble eb > oe ee 429
Eye-sight, Modern Deterioration of. Pop. Misc...............-ceeeceeee 717
Falke, J. von... The History of the Work |. cet ogy, cna tie cu cee 831
Famines and Irrigation in. India, Pop: Mise... onc.jci.om nu a2 2 ee 1 = ae 428
Fernald, Frederik A. ‘Christian Science,” ‘‘Koreshan Science,” etc. Cor. 268
Ferns, The Home of the. TJ. Evans... sic onsets «1s op ptetetye © ols niet eee 814
Fielde, Adele M. Farm-Life in China......................- es 323
Kire-proof Houses‘in Buenos Ayres. Pop. Mise... . .: sigs. «<< sek ae eee 571
Fire-proof, What. is? Pop. Misc.......2..0c-ssesee es esse ese ke eee 187
Fires, Incendiary, Monthly Distribution of. Pop..Misc............-....---- 712
Fishing in the Greek Islands. Pop. Misc...... Pee a BER +2: 861
Blowers, Economical, Uses of. Pop. Mise... 62.5 /s <caupe sinine «sbi ee 286
Forest Growths, Origin of New.’ Pops Mise. 5 ac sani: ses os. - oe see ae 857
Forestry: in Spain. Pop. 7Miase. x... .t..ae oi 5 ts segue oie ee eae eee 286
Forestry in the Cape Colony. Pops Mist. cys) «om tae gee eee eo 573
Fork, The History of the. J. von Fallee.c ti. pis cam Gupte 6s Jae ee 831
Honerals, Alpine. Pop. Miset. ...:...95 Se ieee. ee as sae oe ae eee 713
Panpi,, -T, A, MeBrides . 2... -:ss5 2. eee eee eee eae a reg 187, 350
Geology, Some Modern Aspects of. G. H. Williams..... ...-............ 640
Glacier, The, of Mount Tacoma, Pop, Mise. 502220 tics sees oe ee ee 857
Glaciers on the Pacific Coast. G.¥. Wright... 2.2.2 0...-.s0een= cose meen 155
Glaciers, The Canadian Lakes and the. Pop. Misc............-s++0-- Pe
Glaciers, The Selkirk Mountains and their. Pop. Misc............eseeee0e 569
Glass-Blowing by Machinery. Pop. Mise... 00.22 <2. sce se see © «ta wees nee 571
Glass-Making, ©. H. Henderson. -0.0 eee vs nie + icles eile = 16
Gnawers, The, of the Selkirk Mountains. Pop. Mise.... ...........--..+. 862
Gobi, The Desert of, and the Himalayas. F. E. Younghusband............ 111
Goldie, John. Pop. Mise... 0.02) ae ce bee ep ae ie: ee ee 284
Gore, J. Howard. Anthropology at Washington...............-.0--+se8 786
Gorilla, A ‘Tame, ‘Pop, Mise... -.- 5.0... cec coe ne ee ot omen ee ete 718
Hammocks, Yucatan. Pop. Misc.............2ceeeeeeces iatetsel rere. 137
“Heaps of. Joy;” The, of Saint-Pilon. “Pop, Mise). oi. 2. 22-22 Ake eae 573
Henderson, ©. Hanford. The History of a Picture Window.............+: 16
ut The Spirit of Manual Training..............-... 433

Hoffmann, Friedrich. Botanical Gardens..............200 eee eeseeeeees 105
Household Products, Museums of. R. Virchow.............0eeeeeeeeeees 617
Houzean,J: ©.. Fabulous Astronomy:..i). <.20% jesneeni tke clean «pe eee 194
Hudson,..A..S. Animal Altruism: ‘Oorit, 8 i. ee seeeee een 409
Huxley, Thomas Henry. Agnosticism: a Rejoinder......... ats: de fee ott 163
¥ Agnosticism and Christianity...............+-.- 447

Y The Value of Witness to the Miraculous.......... 601

INDEX. 871

PAGE

Huxley and Pasteur on the Prevention of Hydrophobia................... 663
Enxley. prot. An Explanation to, WiC. McGee... .ciisaw ites steutee alien a2! 349
Hydrophobia, Huxley and Pasteur on the Prevention of................4.. 663
Identification by. Thumb-Marks. » Pop:;Mise.. i, 03%... 2 Bs Dede wes Sister s ss 498
Ineva-nubber, Americans, Pop, Mise, sj jibe! widreinle te aicheehe o[ocnetehe RI arere 6 140
Inebriate Asylums and their Work. Pop. Misc................ce ese eeeee 862
Insane, Criminal Responsibility of the. Pop. Misc................000 e000 425
Insensibility, The Advantages of. Pop. Mise. 0.2.00. 6. ncecie cee e tees oles 570
invellectual Integrity. Editor's Table... dose soi de ales | ofa eae:
Japanese Magic Mirrors. G..O. Rogers. Cor). (2.2 .. ncHe se ba idelaile nalts 123
Hounstown.Disaster,. Lhe: » Editor's) Table\...:.3..,...d0ie be old's oa 2. wept eeie's, Sats 554
Ranshipin, Polynesia. . ©... .Starckel.|e cia k. +n) stelole chalets sleleiavalela t- alates ety 392
Matchen-Garden WEhe Girliss) Pop. MUS: 6: oss ies ose ve sis inscialone sabe outs o abahease handel 713
Haponavary, Wancers. of the. , Pop. Mise: i550. vs. os ace less aly cte ee bless ete 426
Haices, Distribution of, on the Globe. Pop. Mise. 00.0. 7.5 .-0e.5.cees seis = 407
Takes; The Canadian, and the Glaciers. Pop, Misc. ...0..........0e0000. 422
Larrabee, William H. The Bronze Age in Sweden...................00- 778
The Stone Age in Heathen Sweden................ 504

& The Surface Tension of Liquids................... 591

Langen, G. A Corner of the Dutch East Indies.................. 2 cee eeee 685
Mavoisier,, Antome laurent, Sketch of. ii... 0.2 ofc ck pete es eeals eect clae ets 548
Nera a OLS OMAN TA ws FLOPS MAS CH so) 2's) co. /aleipaal cig ovene saad seman) eeueue lt aren eae De, ecb ayes 424
Le Bon, Gustave. The Influence of Race in History..................0.6. A95
Leigh, C. W. ‘Christian Science,” ‘‘ Koreshan Science,” etc. Cor........ 268
mesneur. We, Mar Mallock on Opumismi, 2. stcrcts as ce « oie byw sisiceigie ours 531
ome eoniy ©Abyvill. OKCTCH OL ae... 28 « selslonmacioe putes @mens: sieltew t aaucte core 401
Pieri Onvale, WW maG as\e WranGey OUMIMOR ; Grr. cols eins a lise wissc Suenas, sie rces ces acs 289
tito DhovArt of prolonging.) ReOOSe. «a. sins sas e-fecdee Cad Soonke nse 759
ite wine Interdependence Of; ~ POA MISC... a grasis «0 saccrcures cians alae Veleaelale « 716
frehimime, An Amti~ \Oare. i POm, Mist... icici wel ne 8 cae © a cue usies anes asta 860
MoUs: CATOIUS, SICCHCE. OL, a, adues fe sista: bs acaie dys)ioi 6) cual a ka aed cbse la. evsias deren aiatert ak 835
Tiguids, The Surface Tension of. W.H. Larrabee............00-0-+e0cere 591
MEIMCTAN OF OOD.) SKOOL 5:0. ziazerts sitive area cle cheers oid aveuee) wglo' sare. bl wpémeld able 690
Lyford, Edwin F. Sense of Direction in Ants. Cor.................000:- 123
MoAnally, D. BR. Industrial, Family, Namessjy .:,:.14j0 5iciaverfinioie apepatic 6 sye.n vo 0s 808
McBride, T. H. Fungi: I. Toadstools and Mushrooms................... 187
“ *. SUT. Microscopie ghonms: se) sheeted 30. aye nati 350

MeGee, W.0©. An Explanation to.Profy Huxley. .52). ccwciencecs tier ovens 849
Mallock, W. H. “Cowardly Agnosticism.” A Word with Prof. Huxley... 225
Manual Training, Mental Growth from. KEditor’s Table................... 555
Manual Training, The Spirit of. O. H. Henderson.................--s.0-- 433
Mars, The Strange Markings on. G. P. Serviss...........ccccucccsccceces 41
Mathews, Robert. The Position of the Agnostic. Cor.../............05. 269
Medicines, Old and New Fashioned Ideas in. Pop, Misc................-. 139

Medicine, Some of the Limitations of. S.S. Burt................... 0000s 396

872 INDEX.

PAGE
Mental Powers of Criminals.) Pop; Mise.) ss; /s0- pene einen ed eee eee 570
Mexican Porters.’ Pop; Mises. ;\s\e<.c2'toey tects ns) le ratte eee eee 712
Milk, Mischief-makers in. <A, B:Tweedy..). --)-0\G-) secu asi see 211
Miller, Olive Thorne.’ -A Study from) Life®... 955 cteeee ec ee re 577
Mills, Wesley. Digestion and Related Functions................0........ 795
Mind; Muscle and., F. EH, Whitte.....)2 0: tcsniaetaee isi ee aire eee 377
Miraculous, The Value of Witness to the. T. H. Huxley.................. 601
Motion, The Pleasure of. »P. Souriaou.).-h..).-12 mi ee ee oe ee 824
Mother, A.) Awakening Thought. , Cori. .<:3. -..ciee sictelelcioieiets ie ee 409
Miller, Robert. Life at:the Cameroons... ¢cci:cny s+ sicis ss «ss os eee ee 748
Names, Industrial Family. . D. 8. MeAmalliyc 3. 22. <i. koe ee 808
Navajo Tanner, A. Pop. Mise. 0:25.25 -seeeee eens sole. oil aen’ «Wire Siete et eee 858
Nicoll, Edward Holland. The Chinook Language or Jargon............... 257
Nile Floods, Proposed Storage of. Pop.) Mise... -).<-05--seest a oe 718
INOGCS ss 2 aime Se aise kts Sh oho kw ES Cake ree ee eRe 148, 287, 431, 575, 718, 868
Obituary Notesi: {:).034.2.54 a ee Oe aa Se ioe 144, 288, 432, 576, 720, 864
Ogden, Rollo. Evolution as taught in a Theological Seminary............. 754
Okie, J. Blood-Vengeance and Pardon in Albania....................... 529
Optimism, Mr. Mallock on. “W..D: LigiStenm. ; soe Nee ote ie ie ee 531
Orchids. “Pop. Mise 27.,2.2..5,.. {oc mn Sebe ave nes ese eee Ete tee ee 423
Oswald, Felix L. The Wastes of Modern Civilization................ 514, 621
Otter at Home} The. Pop. Mise... ioe seul ccieiel-\s « aicynisiem siete eee ee 715
Oyster Garden, The, of Arcachon, “Pop. Misc, . cm... «riits <i eee 858
Page, John. Savage’ Life in South Amoeries...o:...25...-s02. s+ ae ate eee 542.
Parks, ‘A. Practical V ew of. . “Pops Mise.2. > UP oeetec ns sera 3 nee eee 426
Partridge, The Buddhist Story of the. Pop. Misc.............cc20»sc0css 141
Pasteur, Huxley and, on the Prevention of Hydrophobia................-- 663
Pensions for All. M.°M. Trombully: 220 oes seeker cei cnet eerie ae eee 721
Phrenology, The Old and the New. Mi A; Starri-. 9.22.25 orice lel einne 730
Philpott, Henry J. Origin of the Rights of Property..................... 666
Picture-Window, The History of a. ©. H. Henderson.................... 16
Pilgrim, Charles W.. A:Study ‘of Suicide? (22% wcmclas a. ole eiscie sleet 303
Plants, The Defensive Armor of. H. de Varigny...........+.+..+-ssereee 522
Play’Possum? Do Squirrels.’ Pop) Mise! 02 22ee. sere oe eee oe eee 572
* Playing ’Possum.” Hs, Roberts.) U@oracmenens blocs eae ets es cee os 122
Poison, Arrow. Pop, Mises. .2 22.5242 chee sete i een eee 429
Preserving Timber from Moisture. ‘Pop; Mise. ej. seer i vp ree eer 136
Propagation, The Artificial, of Sea-Fishes. W. K. Brooks................. 859
Property, Origin of the Rights of. “H.'J. Philpott... i Js.te. s+ «2.0 nee 666
Protection, The Ethical View of, (HH. Smitha: os vs senses een 626
Psychological Laboratory, Wundt’s, Studies at. Pop. Misc..........-..... 861
Publications ireceived.: . 24.25 0a. eee eeeee eee 135, 283, 421, 567, 710, 855
Race, The Influence of, in History. G. Le Bon...........2.2..000ceeces 495
Railway, Maladjustments:.: , B. Reece..20. . 5 jc cstoeeiie = tells te eaten ete 367
Rattlesnake-Poison, Whisky no Antidote for. Pop. Misc.............+-.+- 140
Reece, Benjamin. Railway Maladjustments............0--0s.seenccseene 367

Roberts, -H. L., : “ Playing ‘Possim:? “Cork. tu. otice ee ete eee 122

INDEX. 873

PAGE

iogers, G.'O: Japanese Magic Mirrors)’ ©or. yo)... lee cde wees coe nels 123
oose, opson. “Lhe-Art of prolongingmhifier: 5 .76.:03 046 tae 425 wt 2s oie 759
Solna Country Of Pop. MIs ent. <r aie peices stlee « Jct geeerra terete) ale iaip sea! as 863
Sanitary Science and Children’s Health. Pop. Misc..................+.. . 140
Schools, Evening Continuation. Pop: Misc... .. 00.4. 6c.u saa ieaee ess 287
Schools, Practical and Moral Instruction in. Pop. Misc................... (acl
Science, Beginnings in, at Mugby School. J. E. Taylor................... 56
Seronce-Leaching in Schools. “Pop. Mise. 7.5 3.) j20 2s ote ee os tale wren tule 568
Boence. 1 he. Doman of. Editor's Tables ii)... ... secletie ea clave som wie ede ees 842
Seillyaislands, ‘The: Pop: Mis@io.i/ 0. 2585.46 bias oi aveye's ai. te he amet aac 138
Beeesatterilios, i Carl iy Ont raeroy ise as Siersceae Sele nics aves fx ciplnte chen ah Mels shed Oe 313
Selt-Poisoning, by Snakes, ~AsJ: Williams, “Oors. eg. F ine altace beh wens 123
Serviss, Garrett P. The Strange Markings on Mars................-202005 41
Sneldon. Samuel, « Blectrical Waves. Oi00¢ ic ccew ote ec it oes aa elena shes ante 509
Sign-talk in New Guineds. “Pops Misti. isl ek Men cece neat Velo wevemae 573
Simmonds, P. L. Eggs in Chemistry and Commerce.................. 00. 92
BISON IG tLlO GS FOr: iE OPpe MISO 32 otis Jrayqaieee Liaisfe niche asc. wiarale, Sens Ware ate reenan ats the 424
Smith, Huntington. The Ethical View of Protection..................... 626
nukes, Superstitions about. “Pop; Mise... .\.:. cs as Wh dian cavedapekinianes 426
Solomon Islands, Life in the. ©. M. Woodford... ..................008- 476
Soungow bP. The Pleasure of Motions)... 6. ia 26,2. 00 aee seins ow tein reo 824
SoushvAmoericn, savage Lifeim. di. Page... .../.. 42 css dees «0 Pete cee oe 542
Spear, R.O. “Christian Science,” ‘‘ Koreshan Science,” etc. Cor........ 268
Spider, Water, The Nest of the. Pop. Misc................... DecRoiateis tyres 430
Spuness@alfornia’s Thermal. Pop. Mise.).)..04:.4 tue g eon ov side dleieie cots 712
Stapliny cusan M. B.. Do Cattle count? . Cor..gt0 ce. eae}. he ee es 409
Siaccker@. N+ Kinshipiim Polymestat..oees . viewst uae ce a eed aaees an it BOD
Starr, M. Allen. The Old and the New Phrenology....................4: 730
Stone Age, The, in Heathen Sweden. W.H. Larrabee.................... 504
Busmuennom Lite wAed 2 OL. Mallets 24 ssc. as aac vai vende ae tice as des sieht ctocaply arate 577
ete AUSLUMY, Ole.) CoN W.. ealomnnnie iyi s1ae Wi Sra deere galas ices io meetteaicacd nar amie 303
Sumner, William Graham. What is Civil Taher? CORIIEN Sone aera ches CEL ET AOE 289
vt DKORChHOR saa tacpae ec aeateracoge ypeta «ceteris tha eas ae 261

Tarr, Ralph S... Animal Life in the Gulf Stream... .. 26.2 602..64 5. shea eee 649
Taylor, J. E. Beginnings in Science at Mugby School.................... 56
Piaksurce, Tho: Pop. MIsGr.).: jess scriaete.n ola Sieh e vateklre Sedat oe atures 141
ielesacpic Objectives, Polishing... Pop: Mise. 2s. dca aw. snye c's sae Saree Slat 574
Thought, Awakening. A Mother. Cor................... sb vavetia ana tata avanet a 409
Thought, The Stimulation of. Editor's Table. 2.2 ...00.... 0000200 e cnc c ns 410
Tondsrools and, Mushrooms. .T. HayMcBride..)....c.cness ein dee hne- cons 187
Pirate ODOT (ODS MISO? .. 08. toigscoe adres. etic oie porate ieage eka te ta venaiete tet atone: Rel aoete RG 285
iimeaspextation, Methods of.) Pop. Mises 4... su.acesw sets sivlalaet acne 711
ieeosemmiainrvings: Of. - Pop. Miseias 24.2 )iiw nats leveled as oe Sates Be ora 430
compa MeN.) Pensions for-Ad eis oi. ses Cian aes Bee see tiee ee fh 721
inics srabitsnol: Pop. Misty sis. coweles so Noes ae eee Nek eee eee 142
Tweedy, Alice B. Mischief-makers in Milk... 0.0.00... cc cede dees cnees 211

Umreusrty, che Kunction.of a:. Pop) Mise... vit os sake ee od... ot 856

874 INDEX,

: PAGE
Variation, The Value of Human. Pop: Mist: aajees oes ee eae ee eee 716
Varigny, Henry de. The Defensive Armor of Plants:.................. .. 522
Virchow, Rudolf. Museums of Household Products..................... Ole
Vogt, Oarl. Sea-Butterflies oi... 0)... -' satis tp aumaiete fe pateta = a ee 313
Volcanic Action, A Theory of. Pop. Misc............. d'e)- froin -rerehsish oes ». O71
Wace, .Henry.. Agmosticisnts). 956.20 denier Biwiatdle ohetay ah ode ots) «lade Eien ae 64
“ Christianity and Agnosticism... cia. oie eee eee 327
Warfare of Science, New Chapters in the. A. D. White................ 1, 145
Warner, A. G. “Scientific Charity”. . -.t.0f sc anhets). Se-mls see olen ee
Washing Men and Children by Machinery. Pop. Misc.................... TLE
Wastes, The, of Modern Civilization. F. L. Oswald.................. 514, 621
Weather Indicators,. Bells as. Pop: Mises: i) 92-4. 222. sete eek ae 1438
Well-Waters, The Animal World of. O. Zacharias....:.... 0.6. ccc. ecceus 251
Wells, David Ames. Recent Economic Changes..:./..02:....:2e00ee- ae 584
Wendel, F. C. H. Education in Ancient Egypt...........2.2.. 0..2..0. 4. 174
White, Andrew D. .Diabolism and) Hiysteriawct). «.u-)) re-send ane 1, 145
White, Frances Emily... Muscle and Mind)... ........ »-smlek 0) « «fit eee 377
Williams, A. J. Self-Poisoning) by Snakes... .Cons.1), 5 aa. . cee 123
Williams, George H. Some Modern Aspects of Geology... ........... .. 640
Wines, Roman. Pop.. Mise. . .. .:.\‘siiausiosts ph. ++ aE ate See een 424
Woodford, C. M. Life in the Solomon Islands...................... ee 476
Woodhull, John F.. Home-made Apparatus: 7. 0. 2c. oeietstmrs a eee 519 . |
Wreck, An Estray.- :Pop.,Mise.<:. .sesitia ates. steneiueres <p eteeeee eee cece 422 ©
Wright, G. Frederick. Glaciers on the Pacific Coast...................05 155
Yellowstone Park Country, The.. Bop: Misosnte j)fees a4). . As ae eee 856
Younghusband, F. E. The Desert of Gobi and the Himalayas.............. 111
Zacharias, Otto. The Animal World of Well-Waters......... Pee cor .. 251

END OF VOL. XXXV.

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